THE SUPERHUMAN ORIGIN OF
THE BIBLE.
THE SUPERHUMAN
ORIGIN OF THE BIBLE
INFERRED FROM ITSELF.
THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION LECTURE FOR 1873.
BY
HENRY ROGERS.
M ;
SECOND EDITION.
WiTh DRAWN FROM
UNIVERSITY OF REDLANDS LIBRARY
Hontion:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
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ADVERTISEMENT
BY THE COMMITTEE OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION
OF ENGLAND AND WALES.
THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION LECTURE has been
established with a view to the promotion of
Biblical Science, and Theological and Ecclesiastical
Literature.
It is intended that each Lecture shall consist of
a course of Prelections, delivered at the Memorial
Hall, but when the convenience of the Lecturer shall
so require, the oral delivery will be dispensed with.
The Committee hope that the Lecture will be main-
tained in an unbroken Annual Series ; but they promise
to continue it only so long as it seems to be efficiently
serving the end for which it has been established, or as
they may have the necessary funds at their disposal.
For the opinions advanced in any of the Lectures,
the Lecturer alone will be responsible.
1 8, SOUTH STREET, FINSBURY,
January, 1874.
PREFACE.
T REGRET that so long an interval should have
elapsed between the first announcement of these
Lectures, and their publication ; and I owe my thanks
to the Committee of the Union for their patience in
waiting for them. But I can hardly charge myself
with any fault. The results of a very serious accident,
and frequent and prolonged interruptions to health,
prevented my touching my task for nearly two years
after it was first proposed to me.
These things, together with a feebleness of voice,
which made me doubt whether it would not be scant
courtesy to the public to allow an audience to be in-
vited to hear what might, in great part, be inaudible,
led me to shrink from all thought of oral delivery.
This deviation from the usual course, however, is
perhaps greater in appearance than reality ; since it
rarely happens that more than portions of a series
of Lectures of this kind can be given in the time to
which the speaker must necessarily restrict himself.
They are in general largely supplemented and ex-
panded before publication.
viii Preface.
As the Lectures were not to be delivered, I naturally
paid less attention than I should have done to those
minute proprieties which, I am well aware, ordinarily
distinguish spoken from written composition. I have
also taken advantage of the same circumstance, to
determine the length of each Lecture, rather by the
nature of the subject than by the Lecturer's hour-
glass.
It is often a valuable and interesting feature of
volumes of this class (at least it is so in my estima-
tion), that they contain a large supplement of refer-
ences and citations, for the illustration or corroboration
of the Lecturer's positions. In conformity with this
time-honoured practice, I also had designed a com-
pilation of passages for the same purpose ; but I soon
found that the extent of my subject would leave me
little space for them, and I have contented myself
with throwing a few of my materials into the form
of foot-notes. The Appendix to the present volume
is simply intended to elucidate some of the points
which I could not fully treat in the Lectures them-
selves.
It may be proper to inform the reader that, in some
few places, I have extracted two or three sentences,
and in one case several paragraphs, from anonymous
and fugitive articles which I wrote some years ago,
and which I have no intention to republish. Should
Preface. ix
the reader recognise any such passages, he will be
kind enough to absolve me from the charge of pla-
giarism.
In the seventh Lecture there are one or two thoughts
so like one or two in Professor Leathes' little
volume "On the Structure of the Old Testament,"
that if his book had been published some years ago,
and I had read it then, I should surmise that in
these cases my memory had unconsciously suggested
what it could no longer trace to its source. But as
my manuscript was finished many months before the
publication of his volume, and was even in the
printer's hands before I saw it, I hope that any
coincidence (which is purely accidental) may be re-
garded as some presumption that our views, so far
as they agree, are founded on truth.
PENNAL TOWER, MACHYNLLETH,
December %th, 1873.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND
EDITION.
IN this edition, some few verbal errors which had escaped
my pen have been carefully corrected. I may also take
the opportunity of saying that an intelligent and courteous
correspondent, who conceals his name, reminds me that the
passage attributed to Sir Thomas Browne (p. 311 ), though ex-
tracted from Wilkin's accurate edition of his Works (vol. iv.
p. 276), where it is given as part of an " unpublished paper"
found in the British Museum, is not genuine : the " fragment"
being composed by a very skilful mimic of Sir Thomas
Browne's style and manner. The imitation is, indeed, so
perfect, that except for the confession of its author it would
have continued to impose, as it has often imposed, on the
most discerning readers. If not Sir Thomas Browne's, all
who are familiar with his writings would say it deserves to be.
I see that one of my friendly critics has expressed surprise
that greater prominence has not been given to the argument
derived from the spiritual and moral influence the Scriptures
exert, and which, to Christians in general, is so principal a
reason for believing them to be of superhuman origin. I do
indeed believe with him, that to Christians this is, as I have said
in the book itself, " the evidence of evidences." But it implies,
if admitted, that he who admits it already concedes the con-
clusion which these Lectures are designed to establish; while
to those who do not, it can only partially, and within certain
limits, be insisted on. But in Appendix No. VII. (which may
possibly have escaped the notice of my critic) I have touched
on the argument itself, its value to those who accept the Bible
as of superhuman origin, and the mode and degree in which
alone it can be logically valid with those who doubt or deny it
For the reasons just stated, I have purposely treated this
matter briefly, and thrown it into the Appendix.
May -L^th, 1874.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGB
ON SOME TRAITS OF THE BIBLE WHICH SEEM AT
VARIANCE WITH CERTAIN PRINCIPLES AND TEN-
DENCIES OF HUMAN NATURE 2
LECTURE II.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED . . . 57
LECTURE III.
ANCILLARY ARGUMENTS, DRAWN FROM CERTAIN
TRAITS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, AS CON-
TRASTED WITH WHAT MIGHT BE EXPECTED FROM
THE ANTECEDENTS OF THE WRITERS. . . 107'
LECTURE IV.
ARGUMENTS DERIVED FROM (/. ) "COINCIDENCES"
BETWEEN CERTAIN STATEMENTS OF SCRIPTURE
AND CERTAIN FACTS OF HlSTORY. (//. ) INDI-
CATIONS OF THE UNITY OF THE BIBLE . .141
LECTURE V.
A REPLY TO OBJECTIONS FOUNDED ON CERTAIN PE-
CULIARITIES OF FORM AND STRUCTURE EXHI-
BITED IN THE BIBLE 185
xii Contents.
LECTURE VI.
ON CERTAIN PECULIARITIES OF STYLE IN THE SCRIP-
TURAL WRITERS 211
LECTURE VII.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED . . ; .251
LECTURE VIII.
ON THE EXCEPTIONAL POSITION OF THE BIBLE IN
THE WORLD 309
LECTURE IX.
ON CERTAIN ANALOGIES BETWEEN THE BIBLE AND
" THE CONSTITUTION AND COURSE OF NATURE" . 369
APPENDIX , ; . 427
LECTURE I.
CERTAIN TRAITS OF THE BIBLE VIEWED IN
RELATION TO HUMAN NATURE.
LECTURE I.
ON SOME TRAITS OF THE BIBLE WHICH SEEM AT
VARIANCE WITH CERTAIN PRINCIPLES AND TEN-
DENCIES OF HUMAN NATURE
AN argument, of no mean force, for the super-
human origin of 'the Bible, may, I conceive, be
fairly founded on the difficulty of accounting for such
a phenomenon by referring it to % purely human forces.
Human nature in general, as exhibited in the course
of the world's religious history, or again, as specially
conditioned in that people who composed the Bible
and transmitted it to us, seems to me, in many re-
spects, equally incapable of producing such a book,
and unlikely to attempt it.
There will of course be certain generic resemblances
among the professed Revelations which have met with
any notable acceptance among mankind, and for this
it is not difficult to account. They must appeal with
more or less pt^isjoji^Jo.lhp^sej^li^iiHJ^p-rinciples and
instincts which_an ._experiencejL .far _too .uniform, to be the
result of accident, proves to be ineradicably implanted
in human nature. That uniformity has prevailed long
and far enough to show, if there be any force in in-
duction at all, that even if there be no God, men will
2 *
4 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
yet have One, or even many rather than be destitute
of a God altogether. If, therefore, professed Revelations
successfully appeal to men's religious nature, it may be
expected that there will be points in which they will
osculate. Otherwise, it is hard to see how any one of
them, wholly destitute of such points, should have any
chance of success at all. The counterfeit must have
some resemblance to the genuine, else it would impose
on nobody : it is precisely this element which makes it
dangerous, and it is dangerous in proportion as it pos-
sesses it. As Bishop Hampden well observes in his
"Essay on the Philosophical Evidence of Christianity :"
"Without some conformity with experience, it seems
impossible that any religion could obtain even a tem-
porary currency in the world. A system of unmixed
absurdity, which recoiled from all contact with the
reality of human life, would carry too palpable a refu-
tation of itself on its own front, to be received and
embraced to any extent among mankind. . . Thus
we find, even in those superstitions which are most
revolting to common sense, some countervailing truths
which have both softened and recommended the asso-
ciated mass of error, otherwise too grossly repulsive
for the heart of man ever to have admitted." 1
Whatever analogies, therefore, may be detected in
diverse systems of professed Revelation, we cannot from
these alone justly determine the pretensions of any ;
for the true, granting for argument's sake one of them
to be so, will have analogies with the false, and
1 Pp. 132, 133. London, 1827.
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 5
the false with it. As little can it be hence inferred
(though it too often has been) that* all Revelations /
having such analogies are equal, or nearly equal, in/
their claims on human adoption and respect. To__
determine this, it js necessary, not only to examine / LD
the points of analogy _ bMw^jejLjdiffbrejat Revelations, /
but to note the points of _ contrastj^the^Bpints which /
are exclusively characteristic of each.
Reading the Bible with this view, I seem to see,
unless it be a strange delusion, a multitude of traits,
which prevent my accounting for it, as I can for other
professed sacred books, by a reference to the known pro-
perties and forces which exist in our nature. There are
many points in which it seems altogether out of analogy
with that nature in general, and contradictory to- all its
prevailing tendencies as exhibited in human history; and v
many other traits which could never have been antici-
pated from the condition of those who composed the
book. On the other hand, if in nmnyj^jiitsjt^ appears
at variance with what man would or could have pro-
jected, it seems, in many of these very points, in unison
with the works and ways of God, as disclosed in " the
constitution and course of nature." Again ; if the
indications of unity about the book, in spite of its being
the work of so many writers, separated by such wide
intervals of time and space, be not mere fancy, it is
impossible to refer them to human contrivance, and
almost as impossible to refer them to chance. Further,
the manifold unique peculiarities of structure, matter,
and style, which, whatever its general resemblance to
6 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
other books, palpably discriminate the Bible from them
all, and the altogether exceptional position and influence
which these peculiarities have given it, and still give
it in the woild, make one suspect at least that more
than the hand of man has had to do with its origina-
tion. These and many other arguments, the force of
which must, of course, depend on the details and
illustrations given in the subsequent lectures, have long
compelled me to feel the truth of both parts of the
following thesis : That the Bible is not such a book as
\ man woula have made, if he could ; or could have made,
\ if he would.
Nor would it be a sufficient reply, that there may be
isolated facts in the doctrine or history of other religious
systems, which seem eccentric deviations from the ordi-
nary course of human experience, though not absolutely
incompatible with it. This is doubtless true ; but it
is on the degree, the startling character, and the num-
ber of such deviations, that the present argument is
founded. It is on the tout ensemble, rather than any one
or even several of its elements, that its force depends.
One thing more in justice to my theme. I do not
pretend to have exhausted it ; I have but touched a few
topics under each head, and have no doubt that minds
of greater compass and knowledge than mine may
indefinitely enlarge them. Nor, whether the argument
is strong or otherwise, does it in any way interfere with
those other, and doubtless more weighty and direct
arguments, on which the claims of the Bible have been
usually vindicated.
i.] Viewed in relation to Human N attire. j
This, in justice to my theme. In justice to myself,
I would say that these lectures are not controversial.
I simply speak of the impression which certain features
of the Bible have made upon me, and state the reasons
of it. If any think it a delusion, I have no right to
complain that he does not see with my eyes ; but I
shall feel amply rewarded for any trouble in writing
these lectures, if they should originate or confirm a
similar impression in any who may peruse them.
Without further preface, I proceed to enumerate
some few of the many traits of Scripture which human
nature in general, as known to us by consciousness
and experience, would hardly warrant us in expecting, j
if it _be a book of purely human authorship.
i. The inveterate proneness of mankind to idolatry
is attested by the nearly universal condition of the
world at the earliest dawn of authentic history, through
all ages since, and even to 'the present day. The
founders and progenitors of the Jewish nation origi-
nally practised it, like the rest of mankind, as might
have been anticipated, even if their history had said
nothing about it. The facility and obstinacy with
which this nation relapsed into it, age after age, in
spite of instruction and chastisement, bear witness in
like manner to the same proclivity of human nature ;
while that sure, though gradual process, by which
Christianity was at length transformed into something
very like the paganism it had supplanted, tells the same
tale. One wonders, therefore, by what strange fortuity
8 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
it is that the Bible, though more varied in its contents
than any other book, composed by different writer?,
who lived in far distant ages, utters from beginning to
end a solitary, but persistent and clamorous protest,
against this practice.,, and -everywhere maintains the
doctrine of a sublime, elevated, uncompromising mono-
theism. Nor is it an insignificant proof of the tenden-
cies which it opposes, that even these writers for many
ages iterated warning and instruction on "ears that
would not hear," and " hearts that would not under-
stand."
It is not easy to see how all this came to pass. The
tendencies of human nature would seem to be all on
one side ; the decisive voice of the book, and of this
book alone, on the other. 1
Of the lofty character of this monotheism, and the
magnificent language and imagery in which the attri-
butes of the One God are expressed, I need say little,
because to transcribe the passages which proclaim
them, would be to copy many pages of the Bible.
The substance of a few will suffice: "He is God in
heaven above, and in earth beneath, there is none else."
" His is the greatness, and the power, and the glory,
and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in
1 It is not necessary to advert to the case of Mahomet. He
comes too late. He did not originate monotheism. His was
avowedly an attempt to recall his countrymen to that monotheism
of their ancestors from which they had apostatized. That the
nation once enlightened in this doctrine had lapsed into idolatry,
is (like the similar lapses of the Israelites) a stronger indication of
the genuine tendencies of human nature than Mahomet's solitary
recovery of the forgotten truth can be of the contrary.
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. g
the heaven and in the earth is His ; and He reigneth
over all." " He is the high and lofty One, inhabiting
eternity, whose name is holy." " Heaven is His
'throne and earth is His footstool ; where is the
house" that man "will build for Him, and where the
place of His rest ? " " The heaven and the heaven of
heavens cannot circumscribe Him." " Whither can I
go from Thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy
presence ? If I ascend up to heaven, Thou art there ;
if I descend to hades, Thou art there ; if I take the
wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts
of the sea, there also Thy hand shall lead me and Thy
right hand shall hold me." " The darkness and the
light are both alike to Thee." " The heavens shall
perish, but Thou shalt endure ; they all shall wax old
like a garment ; as a vesture shalt Thou change them,
and they shall be changed ; but Thou art the same, and
Thy years shall not fail." He is "the King eternal,
immortal, invisible, the only wise." He is " infinite in
understanding;" He is "able to do all things;" He
knows all things ; He foresees all things, " even the
end from the beginning;" He "is righteous in all
His ways and holy in all His doings." Though He
exercises a dominion absolute and universal, still it
is in consonance with infinite beneficence, for " His
tender mercies are over all His works ; " and though
most holy and just, He is " merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, and abundant in goodness and truth."
Finally, all the manifestations of Him in His works
are yet but inexpressive images of His essential
io Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
excellence. However luminous with His glory, they
are still but a faint reflection of Himself. They are
but a " whisper of Him," according to the strong
figure of Job; 1 "but the thunder of His might, who
can comprehend ?"
Many pages might be filled with a mere enumeration
of the passages in which the essential unity and the
.unlimited perfections of Deity are described with similar
unexampled force. Taking them together, there is no-
thing in the same line with them in the whole range
of human literature ; nothing as regards grandeur of
thought or power of imagery that can be compared
with them in any of the casual expressions found in
the greatest of heathen poets or philosophers, when they
caught momentary glimpses, through the haze of the
polytheistic atmosphere about them, of some supreme
power which presided over the universe. We shall in
vain search even Homer or Plato for expressions of this
nature which will vie in force and sublimity, far less in
frequency, copiousness, and consistency, with the Scrip-
ture representations. They stand alone. 2
1 Inadequately translated in our version "These are parts of
His ways, but how little a portion is heard of him ? "
2 The contrast between the manner of ancient philosophy when
it lights on anything approaching just conceptions of the Deity,
and that of the Scriptures, is as striking as the usual contrast in
matter. In the one case, language is cold as philosophic abstrac-
tion can make it ; that of the Bible is steeped in emotion. As if to
SDften and temper that oppressive awe which the needful assertion
of the Infinite Majesty must create in us, it everywhere represents
Him in vivid sympathy with us, and to enforce this conviction,
resorts without scruple to the most familiar images drawn from
whatever is touching and winning in our own nature. It feels
secure (as, I think, Coleridge somewhere expresses it), that though
i.] Viewed in relation to Human N attire. TI
Now, considering what human nature had always
been, and is still, and not least that Jewish human
nature which showed so intense a sympathy with the
general tendency to idolatry, as to cast a liquorish eye
on every wandering form of it that came near them,
it is hard to understand how the Jews came by this
curious monopoly of unadulterated monotheism ; con-
served indeed, not by them, but in spite of them, by an
uninterrupted succession of writers, living in distant
ages, one of whose chief functions was perpetually to
remind them of what they were perpetually willing
to forget !
2. One of the most characteristic and prominent
features of the Bible, considered as a whole, that
which runs through it from beginning to end, and which
distinguishes it at once from all other books, is that it
subor4in.a.te^_very thing to the idea of GOD. It is
not without reason called the Book of God ; and would
be so, in a very intelligible 'sense, even if it were
wholly false, or if there were no God at all. From the
first sentence {^jthe last He is the great theme of it, the
Alpha and Omega. Infinitely various as are its con-
tents, this is the keynote which runs through the whole.
This, considering that it is a book of fragments, writ-
ten by many different authors in far distant ages, could
the character and attributes of God are often depicted in Scripture
not merely in the sublimest, but the most anthropopathic imagery,
the expressions of the spirituality of God are so numerous, per-
spicuous, and emphatic, that no mind of any candour can for a
moment doubt about their meaning. But this is a subject to which
I shall return when I come to speak of certain peculiarities of
Scripture style.
12 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
hardly be expected from human nature, whether mono-
theistic or not. It was not to be expected from human
nature, whether the appeal be made to the conscious-
ness of individual man, or to the facts of the religious
history of the world. God is here exhibited as
exercising an all-pervading moral government over the
universe over the invisible thoughts as well as over
the actions of men and directing the whole course of
events to the manifestation of His glory and that which
is inseparable from it (or, rather, which is identical
with it), the felicity of His creatures as involved in
the ultimate triumph of a purely moral and spiritual
empire. Is man in such sympathy with such objects,
judging from human consciousness or from history,
as to make this uniform assertion of the paramount
claims of God other than a paradox ?
We find this<ejLclusive reference to God in the series
of Biblical writers^; and it is not found elsewhere, not
only not among other nations, but not even among the
Jews themselves apart from their writers. The Jews,
like the rest of the world, had little sympathy with such
views, and the iteration of them from age to age in
so long a succession of documents was no more than
necessary to preserve them from oblivion. The per-
petual relapses of the children of Abraham into idola-
try, and rebellion against the One God they confessed,
show that this tone was no more natural to them than
to the rest of the world. They were like the kine that
bore back the " Ark " from the land of the Philistines,
and who went against their instincts and their inclina-
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 13
tions up to Bethshemesh, " lowing as they went," after
their calves that had been shut up at home. 1
A peculiarity of this book, consequent on its thus
subordinating everything, whether in the history of the
Jews or of other nations, to this dominant idea of
God, and the claims of His universal and spjritual
government, deserves to be mentioned here. There is
not only an unique, but (looking upon it as the work
of men) an unnatural sublimity about it. TFe relative
importance of events seems often inverted. The book
1 This peculiarity of Scripture seems to have particularly
struck the mind of the earliest modern Apologist for Christianity,
Philip de Mornay, whose work was partly translated into English
by Sir Philip Sydney, and at his request completed by 'Arthur
Golding. (London, 1604.) The author has a long and striking
section (pp. 393-7) entitled, " The Bible tendeth altogether to the
glory of God." It is unique among books in this respect, "that it
aims at none other mark than the honour of God, contrary to
man's nature." And so impressed was Werenfels with this charac-
teristic of Scripture, and so little able to imagine it the product of
human nature, that in his " Meditatio de zelo in Sacra Scriptura
ubique conspicuo pro una Dei gloria," he avows that if there were no
other proof of the superhuman origin of the Bible, this would convince
him. " Subsiste hie, lector, et considera num hasc doctrina quam hie
liber ubique urget, quse animum tuum ab omnibus creaturis abstrac-
tum ad Deum dirigit, a creatura sit, an a creatore tuo ? Illud si
credere potes, monstra si potes, in toto hoc universo, unum tantum
ex omnibus omnium gentium et seculorum libris, huic similem: mon-
stra librum cujus unicus ubique scopus sit, tibi ostendere, Deum
solum summum esse tuum bonum : de quo tot sapientissimi homi-
nes, qui tain multa de hoc argumento scripserunt, vix unquam
cogitarunt: neque tantum intellectui tuo hoc ostendere, sed omni nisu
cor tuum ad hoc bonum unice quasrendum impellere." (Opuscula.
4to, torn. i. p. 107.) In contrasting the manner of the Bible
with that of all other books, and the tone of its writers with that
of all other writers, he has some admirable remarks. Though there
is no proof that he had seen De Mornay's work, he probably
had done so. At all events, the thoughts are often singularly
coincident.
14 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
passes by, or casually notices, most of the things
which men regard as supremely momentous the rise
and fall of empires, the changes and revolutions which
fill great nations with terror or triumph. These events,
which fill the page of ordinary history, it leaves to be
chronicled in other books, or to drop into oblivion.
Touching on an infinity of subjects, dealing with the
minutest as well as most important facts, with the
smallest details of private life, with the fortunes of
vast communities; everything, great or little, is viewed
in relation to the government of the Supreme Ruler,
or rather is great or little only as it has a bear-
ing on the development and issues of that invisible
spiritual empire which He is intent on founding and
rearing in the world. In all this there is something most
strange, and, looking at what might be expected from
man, unnatural. The way in which the Bible treats
those themes of history which, in man's estimate, are
of such infinite importance (at least, each generation
that witnesses them, thinks so ; for though the " ruins
of empires" in a measure correct the illusion with
respect to the remote past, they cannot disenchant us
of the like illusion in relation to our own time), is
not indeed inhuman, but ..assuredly. wwhuman. Of the
great political changes which passed over the ancient
world, the Bible is almost as silent and unconcerned
as sun and stars when they look down upon the
tumult and noise of man's battle-fields. We hear
as it were the sound, but it is as the ocean on a dis-
tant shore. The intrigues of courts, the career and
L] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 15
achievements of great conquerors, the thrilling events
which marked the extinction or transfer of political
power and civilization, the great battles which shook
the world; in a word, all those things over which the
imagination of the ordinary historian lingers with such
intense emotion, are touched only as they happen to
traverse the religious history of the strange com-
munity whose destinies the Bible is tracing, or those
ulterior designs of which this people were to be the
unconscious instruments to the world. In brief, all
is viewed in relation and subordination to the religious
ideas which permeate the book. The fortunes of the
nations which surrounded Judsea, as well as those of
the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, are cursorily
referred to just so far as this ; otherwise the Bible
does not deign to notice them at all. Though the
world might be ringing with the achievements of their
great captains, and the ground shaking under the
tread of their innumerable legions, the writers of
this strange book are deaf to it all all passes before
them "silent as a picture;" or if the Bible con-
descends to give a transient glance at such things
(as it sometimes does, and often with touches of
surpassing sublimity), it is still only within the limits
above mentioned. As Butler says, " the common
affairs of the world, and what is going on in it,"
are in the estimate of Scripture " a mere scene of
distraction."
There are two ways in which an objector might
attempt to account for this singular elevation of tone,
1 6 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
or this stolid incuriosity, whichever the reader may be
pleased to consider it. A very few words will suffice
for each.
It has sometimes been said that those who wrote
thus, regarded the Jehovah of the Hebrews as one
who did not concern Himself with the fortunes of the
world. The answer is, that they have a thousand
times asserted the contrary, in the most vivid and
emphatic terms. It can be from no thought of limiting
His prerogatives that they have thus spoken. He is,
they tell us, " the Judge of all the earth;" that " He
removeth kings and setteth up kings;" that " His is
the greatness, and the power and the glory, and the
victory and the majesty;" and that "His dominion
is over all things." The language they put into His
mouth, when the course of Bible narrative brings it into
contact with pagan nations, is in harmony with all this.
He is made to say to Pharaoh, " In very deed, for this
cause I have set thee up, to show in thee My power,
and that My name may be declared through all the
earth." "I know," He says to Sennacherib, "thy
abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy
rage against Me. I will put My hook in thy nose, and
My bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the
way by which thou earnest." He says to Cyrus,
" I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known
Me;" and to Nebuchadnezzar, that he is to be chas-
tised till he shall know "that the Most High ruleth in
the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He
will." If any one say, " We do not believe such words
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 17
were ever thus actually applied, they are fragments
of 'myths,' " be it so: it does not concern my present
argument to show the contrary. They prove at all
events incontestably what were the sentiments of those
who wrote them, and that it was not because they
thought that Jehovah had abdicated the throne of uni-
versal dominion, that they were so incurious about
those events which in general stir the hearts of men
to their very depths, or that they are so frigid where
others are all animation.
Others may perhaps suspect that Jewish vanity led
the writers thus to ignore or treat lightly the affairs
of all nations except their own. The answer is concise,
but conclusive. Let Jewish vanity in general be what
the reader pleases, these writers would seem to have
had none of it. If they have passed by the glorious
achievements of secular history, they have recorded all
the infamies of their own nation ; and, indeed, their
principal references to oilier nations are as " scourges "
of their own scourges justly sent, they confess and
aver, for apostacies which had wearied out the patience
of heaven ! But the same egregious incuriosity or
sublime indifference about the gyeat events of the
world (except in the one point of view already referred
to) characterises the writers of the New Testament
just as much as those of the Old. They have frequent
occasion in the Gospels and the Acts to refer to such
events, as traversing or intersecting the plane of their
record; but their allusions are all similarly incidental,
and the events of the Roman empire seem to interest
1 8 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
them no more than those of Assyria or Babylon did
their predecessors.
In point of philosophy, indeed, the Scripture writers,
however unnatural their seeming lack of sympathy
with what the world thinks so supremely important,
might plead some apology for their reticence. For
the greater part of these " great events " are at last
covered, in spite of either secular or sacred chronicle,
with ignominious oblivion. As we wander among the
" ruins of empires," and in the " desolate places " of
history, we are compelled to feel for the most part how
evanescent is what is called " immortal glory," and
how little worthy or capable of a durable record. As
we look on the mounds of mouldering rubbish which
were once mighty cities, and see how soon kindly
mother earth covers the red battle-fields of her foolish
children with her gre n mantle, we feel that the Bible
may be excused for telling us so little (even if it had not
other and far higher objects to attend to) about these
problematical glories. Yet we must not be ungrateful
to the Bible even in this point. Little as it tells us of
that more ancient world which preceded Greece and
Rome/ that little is at present almost all we know
about it. Some nations and empires are only not
forgotten because it has occasion to mention them.
Thus, in truth, everything is paradoxical about this
singular book. It omits much which human historians
could not but have dilated upon ; but what it has said
is immortal, and has outlived more voluminous records.
Of many of the nations the Moabites and Ammonites,
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature, 19
for example which were in contact with the Jews,
we know almost nothing, except as their fortunes were
involved with those of the Jews ; and of even Nineveh
and Babylon, almost all that was known for many ages
was from the same Jewish source. So completely had
" their memorials perished with them," that it is only
now we are just beginning to reclaim and decipher
them. For centuries they were chiefly remembered
by the scanty notices in the book which inscribed their
epitaph, and which has preserved their name better ^/
than their own annals ; though its declaration was_ya
also true, that they should lie in " utter and perpetual
desolation;" that the "wild beast of the desert" and
every " doleful creature " should make his abode there ;
" the cormorant and the bittern lodge in the lintels,
and their voice cry in the windows ;" that " dragons
and owls should dwell in their pleasant palaces," and
their very site be a controversy for ages.
On the whole, this peculiar reserve or indiffer-
ence of the 1 Bible respecting events in the world's
history to which man inevitably attaches such mo-
ment, is well worthy of note. It is natural to us to
exaggerate their importance ; to think that revolu-
tions which have shaken the world, the_ns^and_foll of
empires, are things on which the eyes of the universe
ought to be fixed. So notorious is this tendency, that
even those who might have learned better from this
very book, and from the tone it has everywhere main-
tained, will often dream that each stirring event which
happens in their own time is of sufficient importance
3*
20 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
to be chronicled in the volume of its prophecies;
and all of us are apt to attach to them a permanent
importance, altogether disproportionate to what we see
to be, for the most part, their effect upon the world,
or even on a small part of it. A few years, and men
are compelled to say of the contests of men as of the
contests of bees :
" Hi motus animorum, atque hc^c ccrtamina tanta,
Pulveris exigui jactu, compressa quiescent."
But the Bible writers and these alone seem to have
purged their minds from all such sympathies or pre-
judices: they view the history of the world, so to
speak, from a heliocentric position. They hardly
speak "as men;" they are either above us or below
us. To them, the greatest events events which thrill
ordinary humanity with hopes and fears seem, in
the presence of the yet greater things with which
they are concerned, as little worthy of exciting vivid
emotion as the ordinary pomps and grandeur of this
world will be thought in that day, when, to use the
language of a great divine, " crowns and sceptres shall
lie about, as neglected things." l
3. Another peculiajrity in the Bible, which makes
the system of .religion it propounds, unique among
the many propounded by men, is the strict subordi-
nation of ethics to theology. Its foundations are laid
in the idea of God and our relations to Him ; its
sanctions are derived from His will. This is a pecu-
Howe's " Vanity of man, as mortal.'*
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 21
liarity of the Hebrew system long ago observed by
Josephus in his treatise against Apion.
The great commands of the " Second Table," the
duties we owe to ourselves or our fellow-men, are here
ultimately based on the relations in which all creatures
stand to Him who demands our homage in the " First
Table." Not that they are represented as the mere
expression of arbitrary Will ; on the contrary, they
are represented as emanating from a Will itself deter-
mined by supreme rectitude, wisdom, and goodness ;
which knows what is " go'od" and enjoins what it
enjoins, from a perfect knowledge of our nature, and
the necessary conditions of our well-being. How
much this draft of_ morality, consistently articulated
as it is with the idea of God, differs from that of the
heathen nations in general, is obvious enough to any
one who has attentively considered their history. x
That this ought to be the relation of morality and I
religion, if there be indeed such a God as the Scrip-
ture affirms, probably no rational creature would deny.
If there be a God who exercises absolute dominion, t
but with perfect rectitude and goodness who is
cognizant of thoughts as well as actions who will
make equitable allowance for all infirmity, and whom
no cunning can blind and no power can resist, it is
fit that all morality should be thus jra*L4o man's
relations to Him. If there be no such Being in the
universe, even an intelligent atheist might well say, so
much the worse for the universe: if there be, then
the supremacy assigned to Him is His right. Every
22 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
loyal subject of such a King will offer implicit homage
to Him; and to every dutiful child of such a Father,
every thought of Him will be welcome as a sunbeam
to the soul.
It is on this principle that the whole code of Biblical
ethics is constructed. On the other hand, that nothing
like the strict conjunction and articulation of morality
with religion which is found in the sacred volume, is
to be found in any other ancient book, much less in
a long succession of books of one and the same nation,
will hardly be denied. Among the most advanced and
polished nations of antiquity, we see not merely
defective views of the principles and obligations of
morality, but, w^hatj^ jworse,_the almost entire isola-
tion of religion from _jL;^aot Jo say that the very
religion itself was too often the grand obstacle to all
morality ! If we look into the most systematic treatises
on ethics bequeathed to us by ancient philosophy, those
of Aristotle, we find this great genius taking man to
pieces, anatomizing his moral nature and principles of
action, with the hope thence to find out what course
of conduct will best promote his " happiness," secure
the " summum bonum," that evSa^ovia which, truly
understood, is indeed the end of life, and yet forgetting
to take God into account at all ! On the other hand,
the religion of the Greeks and Romans had a very
precarious connection with morals, if indeed it can be
said in strictness to have had any. The priest who
stood at the altar, and the augur who interpreted omens,
addressed themselves almost exclusively to the ear
i.] Vieived in relation to Human Nature. 23
and eye of superstition, to the credulity of a weak,
and the terrors of a guilty being. They prophesied
good or evil, after groping in the entrails of the sacri-
fices, or watching the flight of birds, or the direction
of the thunder; they instructed their votaries how they
might avert the Nemesis of offended invisible powers,
or cleanse the conscience of guilt, by sacrificial offerings
or ceremonial lustrations ; but they did little more.
They forgot the indissoluble connection between re-
ligion ai.d morality that complete subordination^ of
the one to the other, of which Josephus justly boasts'")
as found in the code of his own nation. It has been
truly said that with Greeks and Romans religion and
morality formed two different spheres of duty, and were
taught by totally different masters ; the latter by philo-
sophers, who for the most part did not care to radicate
it in religion ; the former by the priests, who did not
care to connect it with morality. In the one case, the
tree was severed from its principal root, and no wonder
that leaves and blossoms alike languished ; in the other,
the root itself was rotten, and no wonder that it yielded
no fruit at all.
The contrast, then, between the views of the world
in general and those of the Bible, in relation to this
subject, as seen in this and the last section, being so
palpable and undeniable, to what shall we attribute the
all-pervading characteristic of the latter, as compared
with other books and other systems ? I imagine, if we
look into ourselves into human nature, and the current
of the world's history as illustrating it we should not
24 Certain Traits of tJie Bible [LECT.
expect to find, in any human system, such exclusive and
paramount deference to the claims of. God, or any
similar strait alliance, or rather incorporation, of re-
ligion and morality. Whatever modified views may
be taken of human depravity, however the graver
facts which Scripture seems to affirm may be denied,
or whatever abatement may be made from them, yet
the general facts of the world's history show that the
whole tendency of mankind (that of the Jews them-
selves quite as much as of the rest of the race) is
in revolt against that view of God's supreme and
all-controlling authority, and that perpetual obtrusion
of His claims, which characterise the Bible. If the
conscience of the natural man speak sincerely, I fancy
it will echo this ; and if it remain dumb, the history
of mankind will speak only too eloquently to the same
effect. The actions of men, and the general trans-
actions of the world, show that the Bible says truly
that man " does not like to retain God in his
thoughts;" much less to give Him the supreme
. place which the Bible assigns Him.
Some in these days may say, perhaps, that it is
fanaticism to do so. Be it even so ; the fact is all I
am now intent upon. I still ask, how is it that we find
it the perpetual characteristic of this book alone, to
inculcate doctrines universally distasteful to mankind ?
We cannot say that the Jews, of themselves, had any
more proclivity to this unwelcome fanaticism than
any other people. This their history proves but too
plainly. Their perverse indocility, and proneness to
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 25
every form of revolt ; their constant apostacies from
that very God whose claims and authority they
acknowledged to be paramount, seem to demonstrate
that, had only human nature spoken in them, it would
have spoken to the same effect as human nature
everywhere else in the world. The features of the
book in this respect are not in analogy with human
systems, nor with the human nature which dictated
them.
4. There are, as appears to me, certain characteristics
in the morality of the New Testament in violent con-
trast with what might be expected from human nature,
whether we judge by the systems which are its^^m-
doubted product, or, which is perhaps still more * QJ
significant of its tendencies, by the nature and di-
rbction of the innovations by which it has, from time
to time, corrupted the Christian code of morals. The
deflection, purely the effect of human nature, shows
how little likely was that nature to construct such a
morality.
That the morality of the Scriptures generally, but
especially of the New Testament, will bear comparison
with that of any other moral system ever propounded,
probably few will deny. In the truth, justness, and
comprehensiveness of its moral principles and precepts,
it is at least equal to any other. In one point it is far
superior, if, as I have contended, morality ought to
be strictly co-ordinated with religion. In the variety
and perspicuity of its moral statements ; in the weight
and compactness with which moral maxims are ex-
ffffo t: \
{)
26 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
pressed; in the earnestness and impressiveness with
which they are enforced ; in the examples and apoph-
thegms by which they are illustrated ; above all, in the
vivid, emotional character which pervades it, as con-
trasted with the cold abstractions of mere philosophy,
the New Testament will certainly suffer nothing if
compared with the best ethical treatises of pagan
antiquity.
But it is not my intention to insist upon this, how-
ever strange it may seem that Jews should have at
least rivalled, not to say outdone, the wisest sages and
philosophers of Greece and Rome ; nor even to inquire
how it is that these same Jews, in the New Testament,
should have risen above all their national prepossessions,
and revised and transcended the ethical spirit of the
Old Testament. Both facts might be added to the
paradoxes of the Bible I am now considering ; but I
pass to a greater.
There are some features of that morality, not only
"original," as Soame Jenyns and Paley observe, but
so palpably in the face of human nature, as to make
it difficult to believe (if we appeal to our own con-
sciousness or the testimony of history) that they were
the native utterances of human nature at all. This,
not the " originality " of these features of New Testa-
ment morality ("original," though I think them to be),
is the point I would now lay stress upon. " Origin-
ality " may, or may not, reflect glory on the authors, or
convict them of folly or absurdity ; their system may
be better or worse than other systems, in the points on
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 27
which it differs from them. This it is not necessary
to my argument to decide, though I have no doubt
about it. But I am considering whether man such
a creature as we know him to be generally, or that
variety of the species known as the Jew would ever
have propounded a moral system containing such
features at all. The points more particularly referred
to are those which Soame Jenyns, in his little book on
the " Internal Evidences of Christianity," first clearly
and comprehensively stated, though, of course, some
of them had often attracted notice before. Paley has
given due prominence to them in his work on " The
Evidences;" and by his quoting them in extcnso, and
with such emphasis, shows how deeply his acute mind
was impressed with them. They are in brief these :
that Christianity canonizes, and takes und_its special
patronage, some reputed virtues, of which a heathen
moralist, and perhaps many a modern one, would doubt
whether they are virtues at allj or, if virtues, whether,
as practised to the extent and in the spirit which
Christianity enjoins, they would not cease to be such,
or even be transformed into vices such, for example,
as humility, and the patient endurance and unlimited
forgiveness of injuries. On these, and kindred moral
qualities, which the world never either admired or
practised, it bestows its special benediction.
As little can the world in general sympathise with
the stemness_ with which the Gospel so absolutely
gauges and determines moral turpitude by thought
and feeling. It pronounces unresisted evil inclinations
28 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
to be equally guilty with evil actions ; not so perni-
cious in their influence on moral habit, it may be ; not
so pernicious to others, certainly ; nor so deplorable
in their effects on society ; but as equally constituting
moral guilt: consequently, that covetousness indulged
is " theft ;" lascivious looks, with no attempt to repress
them, "adultery;" malignant hatred, which would
fain go forth in act, " murder." I specify tfre limit-
ations, because the context in which they occur -
"out of the heart proceed evil thoughts" requires
them ; and because, if the incursion of such thoughts
and feelings be met by a resisting will, their moral
quality is visibly changed, and the turpitude of the
agent with it.
That, in the first of these views, there is much
" originality," if we compare the Gospel morality with
the systems of the generality of ethical speculators, is
pretty plain ; and probably few will deny that, in the
second, the extent and uncompromising thoroughness
with which the principle is asserted and the conse-
quences accepted, also constitute originality. But, as
already said, this is not the point I wish at present to
press ; but rather, are these (" original," or not) the
principles and maxims which human nature, whether
Jewish or pagan, would have~~chosen to consecrate?
Are the virtues which Christianity specially regards as
worthy of all veneration and imitation ; are the passive
virtues those of patience, humility, meekness, for-
giveness of injuries the moral excellencies-which have
secured the admiration of the world ? Setting aside
i/| Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 29
those virtues in the inculcation of which all systems
of ethics, Christian or otherwise, coincide such as
truthfulness and honesty and to which, however base
to be without them, no great merit for that very reason
is attached, is it not true (as Paley says) that the more
brilliant and enterprising qualities an emulous love
of distinction, a quick sense of honour, dauntless
courage, promptness to assert our rights and to resent
or repel injuries are not these, and such as are con-
genial with these generosity, public spirit, patriotism
the qualities of human nature, which in the world's
estimate are the most worthy of applause, and the
constituents of that " heroic character" for which it
reserves its highest homage ? And are not the quali-
ties which Christianity fondly takes under its wing,
pitiful or ignoble things fit only for a man who has
" no spirit "? the attributes of the worm that crawls,
not of the soaring eagle ? Whether human nature left
to itself, whether any individual man left to himself,
would ever have propounded such features of a moral
system, far less given them such prominence, the pages
of moralists and the facts of history must decide. The
model heroes of antiquity those who got statues in
the Pantheon, and inspired eloquence and poetry to
celebrate them were of very different clay ; they were
of such material as constitutes the /meja^o-^v-^la, the
" magnanimity," of Aristotle, and breathed the spirit
and maxims which animate the world's " codes of
honour."
Probably it will be said, " Well ; and has it not
30 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
often been contended that the degree in which the
maxims concerning humility and meekness are pressed
in the New Testament is excessive ; that even if de-
ductions be made for the rhetorical language in which
they are clothed, they still seem extravagant ; that
they have frequently been condemned on that very
ground, as inconsistent with the principles of human
nature, and therefore impracticable ? " If this be said,
it is the very thing on which I am insisting as certain
to be instinctively felt by human nature; and I therefore
wonder, that if the system be of human parentage,
humanity should thus have belied itself.
" To turn the left cheek to him who hath smitten
us on the right, and to let him who hath taken our
coat take our cloak also," even when not interpreted
with strict literality, but understood to mean that we
are to cherish an unresentful spirit even towards those
who have most egregiously injured us, are yet ex-
pressions so unnaturally rhetorical, that it is a puzzle
to me that mere human nature should have ever so
expressed itself; or, if it did, how it could hope to
be attended to.
Similarly, the degree in which moral conduct is
determined from the motive, so as to make the guilt
complete, though the corresponding action be not
performed, is not " after the manner of men " in
general. People very properly make a great difference
in social morality between a criminal purpose and its
execution, even though no internal arrest of conscience,
but merely an outward barrier, has prevented it. But,
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature 31
in foro comcientice, and in respect of the actual moral
condition of the man himself (supposing nothing but
an external obstacle has interposed between his pur-
pose and the action), no doubt the principle laid down
in Scripture is unassailable. It is not a principle,
however, which human nature would be likely to
propound so absolutely or in so marked a form. It
would not be natural, considering how generally men
have been content to speculate on morals in isolation
from religion, which alone can take adequate cognisance
of the interior life of man. Tr^y have been busied in
constructing a social morality, such as society may be
contented with, and which will work. Man cannot go
beyond the outside of his fellow-man ; and as he nmst
leave, so he is willing to leave, the domain of invisible
thought and feeling uninvaded. The principle in ques-
tion would be likely to be uncompromisingly stated
and enforced, only in a system propounded under an
engrossing sense of the claims of God ; as a Judge
cognisant not only of the visible, but of the invisible
actions of His moral and accountable creatures, and
determining the true position of man to be virtuous
or vicious, not as he appears, but as he is. To that
Judge " the darkness and the light are both alike."
He sees all that transpires behind the curtain which
conceals each man's interior life, as well as the actions
which faintly express it to his fellows. This charac-
teristic of Christian morality is therefore in harmony
with what has been already said of the Bible, as alone
everywhere asserting the pre-eminent claims of God,
32 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
and of that spiritual empire which He is represented
as administering amidst all the apparent confusion and
discordance of the moral world. It is in harmony also
with such a morality, that Christ lays such infinite
stress on the regulation of the thoughts, and enjoins,
consequently, a jealous, watchful inspection of the
heart. There, on that invisible stage, the moral life
of the man is really transacted. If the thoughts and
emotions which well up from that hidden fountain
be not pure, exact outward rectitude is impossible ;
and if it were possible, being only outward, would be
of no worth.
As men in general, if we may judge by their ordinary
sentiments, or by the treatises of morality which have
given expression to them, w r ould not have propounded
a system of ethics marked by the peculiar features
of the morality of the Gospel, so certainly the Jews,
but especially the Jews at that epoch, were as little
likely to propound it as any. They showed, indeed,
distinctly throughout their whole history that they
chafed even under the less spiritual yoke of the Mosaic
code, and, as time went on, continually corrupted it ;
till, when the Gospel morality was proclaimed, they
are declared to have made the " law of God of none
effect by their traditions." Thus they exaggerated
what was ceremonial at the expense of what was
moral, or rather substituted the one for the other.
So far from dreaming of such a spirit of boundless
forgiveness as that inculcated by Christ, they added
a gloss to the words, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour,"
L] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 33
in a clause, unknown to the Pentateuch, " Thou shalt
hate thine enemy." They even, in some cases, made
the pretended service of God a reason for evading the
most sacred obligations as, for example, of filial
piety. They reduced the standard of virtue by measur-
ing it too often by external actions ; sometimes went
further still, and commuted its appropriate acts for
ceremonial observances. All this they did according to
the tendencies of human nature, which spoke unequivo-
cally in them, and which so little accounts for such a
system of morals as that which the Scripture presents,
whether in the Old Testament or the New, that when
it had got it, it immediately proceeded to adulterate it.
Precisely the same thing was done by the Christian
world with the New Testament morality. When
Christianity was corrupted, human nature proceeded to
mould it into the forms most congenial with itself. All
the alterations effected in it were accommodations in
one and the same direction, and gradually assimilated
it to the more compliant schemes of this world's
morality. By so acting, by so uniformly acting,
human nature testifies how little likely it was to
originate a system of ethics so much against the
grain as that of the Gospel. The current of resisting
tendencies was so strong, it seems, that so far from
being likely to propound such a system, man could
only corrupt it. And the cycle of change was ever
the same. Christians, like the Jews, relaxed the
claims of conscience ; abated the supremacy of motive ;
thought more of material acts than of the springs
4
34 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
of action ; too often commuted moral duties for ritual
observances or penances of no moral value at all ;
at last discovered strange methods, not only of ab-
solving from guilt, but of creating merit, if men could
but pay for it ; leased " sin " out to the wealthy bidder,
and sold virtue and heaven by the penny-weight ! x
5. When we consider the entire character of Christ,
as the Founder and Exemplar of this peculiar system
of morality so foreign from what had issued, or was
likely to issue from man we perceive that the diffi-
culty just touched is only one of a knot of difficulties
of the same kind. What was a single paradox, in
contemplating the morality alone, becomes, as we
contemplate the history and character of Him who
propounded it, a bundle of paradoxes. The problem
is a very complex one, moral, intellectual, and literary
all at once; and I, for one, look in vain for the pro-
perties of human nature in any class of mortals which
will enable us to solve it.
Taking the ensemble of qualities which make up the
character of Christ, together with the originality and
wonderful peculiarities of the form in which it is
presented, the entire phenomenon would seem out of
the plane of human nature. Neither in Greek, nor
Roman, nor Jewish human nature, can we discover the
elements which could have evolved so peculiar a crea-
tion, whether supposed to be real or fictitious ; and in
the Jews, to which the problem historically limits us,
as little as anywhere. These had none of the con-
1 See Appendix No. I.
i] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 35
ditions under which such a character, if real, could
have spontaneously risen among them as a simple
growth of the national genius, culture, or institutions,
or been ideally conceived as a deliberate fiction, or de-
veloped as a gradual aggregation of myth or legend.
The first is clearly proved by the shock which such a
Messiah gave to all their prejudices, and the vivid in-
dignation He evoked ; by their persecution and cruci-
fixion of Him ; by their incessant hostility to those who
espoused His cause; and by their bitter and immovable
hatred of Him from that day to this ! Eighteen hun-
dred years have not exhausted, or even sensibly abated
their prejudice ; and its inveteracy and constancy bear
evidence how little such a character was likely to be
generated as an actual phenomenon, or conceived as
an ideal creation, in a nation thus conditioned.
On the latter hypothesis, that is, that Christ Him-
self is a mere fiction or myth, the argument is rather
strengthened than otherwise. For how should Jews
be either able or willing to paint such a portrait,
or embody such a myth, the mere exhibition of which
has roused the undying animosity of their nation for
eighteen hundred years ?
Whether the Gospels present to us a real or imagi-"
nary portrait of Christ (and one of the two suppositions
must be true), it seems to me, I confess if regarded
simply as a phenomenon which human nature might
have produced or human nature could have invented
crowded with the most startling incongruities.^
On the first supposition that Jesus Christ was a
4*
36 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
real personage, but simply a man not a man in the
Unitarian sense, preternaturally endowed with Divine
gifts, such as made Him a unique ambassador of God
to us, and indefinitely higher than any who had exer-
cised any similar function but a man in the sense
which the theory of a purely human origin of Chris-
tianity requires ; born under those ordinary conditions
of humanity which might have given the world many
Christs before Him, or may give us many after Him
a man who, whatever His natural endowments (which
must, at any rate, have been great, if we only look
at the effects He has produced in the world), was still
no more ; let us examine how, on that hypothesis,
such a personage is conceivable, or whether the attri-
butes hang together.
But the reader perhaps will say, " How about the
miracles imputed to Him?" I presume, of course, if
He was a mere man, that they were never wrought.
On the principles on which I am now arguing, as to
whether the Bible can be accounted for by simple
human forces, I, for argument's sake, reject them. The
theory which attempts to account for their belief on
mythical principles, will be briefly considered when we
come to look at this wonderful character as a fancy
portrait. At present, I will suppose the miracles as
unreal as any rationalist can desire. 1
1 At the same time, if we suppose the miracles imputed to the
historic Christ, and with His acquiescence, as M. Renan and many
others imagine, and as seems most certain to have been the case,
some additional and very difficult paradoxes disclose themselves.
For a few observations on this subject, see Appendix No. II.
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 37
Let us then, for a moment, put the question of the
miracles aside, and confine ourselves to the traits in
Christ's character whicMn_^ertain_d.egree, and taken
separately, might be purely human. But then, as a
question of human nature, what shall we say of their
heterogeneousness ; and that, heterogeneous as they
are, they exist in Him without limit ? It is impossible
not to see that in this light, and viewed as a mere man,
instead of deserving the homage generally accorded
to Him, the character of Christ is a mere bundle of
inconsistencies, and tumbles to pieces the moment we
analyse it, by the mere force of incongruity. How
shall we reconcile the humility, the modesty, the self-
denial, the gentleness, the unresisting submission to
wrong, which are so liberally ascribed to Him, or the
prudence, no less than humility, which made Him
decline all opportunities of aggrandisement and all
proffers of greatness, with that impious ambition or
more than midsummer madness (in either case insup-
portable arrogance) which made Him claim to be the
vicegerent of God, the arbiter of human destinies, the
"Judge of quick and dead;" to be "invested with all
power in heaven and upon earth," and entitled to the
absolute homage and implicit obedience of every human
creature ? How shall we reconcile that beautiful
humility which pointed to a "little child" as the
symbol of the simplicity and docility demanded of all
who would " enter the kingdom of heaven," and took
occasion thence to administer a severe rebuke to the
disciples for contending " which should be the greatest;"
38 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT
how shall we reconcile it, I say, with that enormous
egotism which in the very same breath arrogated an
immeasurable superiority over them ? which made
Him forbid them to call any man " Master," but only
because He was their Master, and all His followers
brethren ? which thus told them that though there
might be differences between them some teachers and
others scholars yet all these differences were of no
account, and vanished in comparison with that exclu-
sive superiority which He claimed ? Again ; what
mere man can be imagined perfectly to exemplify (as
He is represented to have done) his own system of
morals, and that, too, a system so peculiar ? Or what
man could challenge exemption from all infirmity,
and ask, "which of you convinceth me of sin?" or
rather, what other man would not have " sinned "
by his presumption in imagining that he could right-
fully challenge such immunity ? How, if He were a
mere man, shall we reconcile such traits as these
with the moral rectitude, the practical wisdom, the
self-abnegation, the intellectual greatness, which have
fixed the admiring gaze of mankind for near two
thousand years ?
M. Renan, indeed, observes that we must not judge
of Christ as of other men ; " that what would be an
insufferable pride in others, ought not in His case
to surprise us." But, as I have elsewhere said, " If
Christ be n thing more than a man, we must try Him
by the rules of men. If He indulged in these fantas-
tical claims to universal power, and fantastical demands
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 39
of unlimited love and self-sacrifice on the part of the
whole species ; if He insisted on all the world's bowing
down to Him in absolute self-abnegation, and all only
in virtue of a ' reve sublime,' I think there would be
very good reason for not only demurring to His claims,
but for treating His pretensions with as sovereign scorn
or indifference as we should the pretensions of any
straw-crowned monarch of Bedlam." x
Perhaps it will be said, " True ; no such incon-
gruities as these could exist in human nature, least
of all in such various combination and such sharp
contrasts as we find them in Christ ; therefore it must
be inferred that no such personage ever existed." If
He is to be regarded simply as a man, like other men,
I concede it. This is precisely what I am contending
for. His character is, on such conditions, opposed to
all the principles of human nature an ensemble of
heterogeneous and impossible attributes.
Let us, then, look at the other alternative. Whether
Christ ever existed or not, His professed portrait exists;
there can be no doubt about that. Now, if not a por-
trait, it is, in the first place, a curious paradox, that
a painting has to a large extent changed the great
facts of the world's history; or (which comes to the
same thing, only more difficult to be believed), if it be
the embodiment of myth, then the casual illusions of
1 Critique on Kenan's "Vie de Je'sus." "Reason and Faith," with
other Essays, p. 236. The language is no doubt strong, but I use
it deliberately. The same alternatives were subsequently put with
admirable power in Dr. Liddon's Bampton Lectures. See Lectures
III. and IV. (1867.)
40 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
a multitude of imaginations have issued in a painting
of such exquisite skill as to produce the same effects.
We are told of an ancient painter, who, finding that
he could not depict to his mind the foam about a fiery
steed's mouth, dashed his brush against the canvas in
a paroxysm of despair; and lo! what skill could not do,
chance did for him. It is much the same with the
mythical hypothesis, as applied to account for such
a transcendent creation as that of Christ.
On the supposition that it is an ideal creation, we
are no longer met, it is true, by the conflict of hete-
rogeneous qualities, such as would make the reality,
if a mere man, simply a monster; for, on this sup-
position, the incongruous attributes must be supposed
to form part of the ideal, and we are left only to
wonder at the marvellous art which has blended
them, however incongruous, in such exquisite union
and harmony, that the most heterogeneous qualities
do not instantly give the impression of incongruity.
But we are still met with an equal paradox in human
nature ; namely, that the very qualities which should
have warned the world that it was a mere ideal on
which it was gazing, have not prevented its mistaking
it for a reality; the painter has so overdone his part,
that the stupid world has vehemently contended and
generally believed that the painting is no painting at
all; nay, rather than believe it such, has been willing
to receive all those supernatural traits with which it
is fraught, as also copied from reality !
But this is not the only or chief thing which runs
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 41
counter to all probability. It is a still greater paradox
in human nature that the artists to whom this painting
must be ascribed, who actually painted it, whatever
rude materials fancy or myth may have supplied,
were, so far as we can judge, as utterly incapable of
imagining or executing such a portrait, as the merest
dauber of emulating the divinest performances of a
Raphael or a Michael Angelo. In the ordinary Jew
of those days, in the class of men to which this problem
limits us, there was not one single attribute, moral or
intellectual, to account for this chef-d'oeuvre. It is often
and justly said, that it is impossible for men to rise
far above the spirit and prejudices of their age. It is
so favourite a maxim in modern times, that it is some-
times unreasonably strained into an apology for the
most egregious follies or the most atrocious crimes.
But it is at least equally true in relation to extra-
ordinary excellence. Now in contemplating the Jews
of that age, it is impossible to imagine men more 7
destitute, whether of the moral or the intellectual /
elements, essential to equip them for the creation of
such an ideal as Christ. The whole stress of their
national predilections, which had been fondly cherished
for ages, tended in a totally different direction. How
came the men who wrote the Gospels to emancipate
themselves from the prejudices of their nation, which
gloried in exclusive privileges, was steeped in reli-
gious bigotry, and consoled itself amidst its calamities
with the dream of a conquering Messiah, who should
restore and augment the glories of ancient Israel ?
42 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
How came any of them to unswathe themselves from
all these lifelong notions, and conceive a Messiah
whose whole life is depicted as one series of humilia-
tion and ignominy, whose glories were all to be in
the future and invisible world, who shrank from every
attempt to coax or force Him to a practical assertion
of His sovereignty, and who at last died the death
of a common malefactor ? His career of obloquy and
suffering is only relieved by glimpses of a species
of moral greatness, which their education and associa-
tions disqualified them from fully appreciating, and
they themselves, so far from being able to invent it,
confess their "slowness of heart" to perceive and
apprehend it ? How came they to originate a "Messiah "
who, in direct opposition to their national narrowness
and intense bigotry, inculcated universal brotherhood
and a world-wide charity; who proclaimed the approach-
ing abolition of all those darling privileges on which
a Jew prided himself, in favour of a religion which
should no longer know the badge of Jew or Gentile ?
How was it possible for human nature, conditioned
as were the Jews of that age, to rise to a conception
like this? 1
But the moral transformation thus implied in some
plebeian Jews of that age, involves no greater anomaly
in human nature than to suppose them endowed with
the extraordinary intellectual qualities which so unique
1 It has been well observed that in the character of Christ, we
not only do not see the generic qualities of the Jew, but not a trace
of any of the prevailing sects, of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the
Essenes.
i.] Viewed in relation to Human -Nature. 43
and so wonderful a portrait demands ; a portrait which
it is inconceivable that even one should successfully
execute, and yet which no less than four have dared
to essay, and with similar success ; a portrait in which
even the combination of the human elements, and their
mode of presentation, are of the most singular origi-
nality ; in which obscurity, poverty, and suffering are
covered with a halo of glory which belongs to no hero
of history or romance ; in which a boundless sympathy
with human frailty is conciliated with a holiness which
knows no frailty ; in which virtue, perfect as it is, is
untinctured with that austerity which is almost always
its shadow, and which so often detracts from its loveli-
ness ; in which patience. and meekness which can bear
all wrongs and forgive them, are united with a courage
on behalf of truth which the frowns of an opposing
world cannot daunt; a gentleness which will not "break
the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax," with
an indignation which launched at' incurable hypocrisy
more bitter and burning invectives than ever before
fell from human lips. All these, and many traits more,
equally unlikely to be combined in human nature, are
conjoined with supernatural qualities which, far from
betraying discordance with the human elements, are
so artfully wrought into the picture, that, as already
said, instead of at once convincing the world (as
they should have done) that Christ was a mere
ideal, have beguiled it into accepting Him as an
historic reality ! Whence came these four obscure
painters to possess this power ? to dip their pencils
44 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
in " colours of the rainbow/' and handle them with
such skill as to cheat the world into the notion that
incredibilities were true, and chimeras realities ?
But the marvels of this unnatural achievement do
not end here. Not only did this wonderful creation
proceed from men whose whole moral and intellectual
characteristics would seem to have made it impossible ;
not only was the task successfully essayed four several
times, with variations of incident indeed, yet all in the
same unique style; but one and all dared it in the same
most difficult of all forms, that of dramatic exhibition.
They undertook to make this ideal personage, whose
mere human qualities exist in a combination which
would seem to lift it out of the sphere of our sym-
pathy, and are conjoined with preternatural attributes,
which would seem to do this yet more effectually, speak
and act and live before us ! Utterly hopeless task, one
would say. Yet they have done it, and with such suc-
cess that the majority of readers not only believe the
character natural, but believe it historic, and have had
their sympathies far more deeply moved by it than by
all other dramatic personations put together 1
Of their own peculiarities, we know next to nothing.
They are lost in their subject. But of this trait, as
forming an unnatural feature, not of them only, but
of the sacred writers in general, I shall take a future
opportunity of speaking.
Nothing of a literary character that the contempo-
raries of their nation, or those who succeeded them,
have left, affords the faintest indication that any of
i.] Viewed in relation to Hitman Nature. 45
them could have originated such a character, or so
exhibited it. 1 Their moral, and for the most part also
their intellectual qualifications for such a task, may be
measured by the Talmud ; and the " Talmudic " tone
and spirit are, in general, perfectly true to that form of
human nature which, as I have said, might be expected
under the given conditions.
And that the Christians were as little capable as the
Jews of originating such books as the Gospels, or rather
such pamphlets for all, put together, make less than
one hundred quarto pages, though they have made such
a prodigious noise in the world is very distinctly seen
in the Apocryphal Gospels. All that the Christians
of after time could do with the original delineation
of Christ was to spoil it.
The authors of these seem to have had the original
Gospels before them as a model, and yet, in the second
and third century, could do no better! The bulk of
these apocryphal writings seem to have been composed
with no ill design, though with execrable want of taste
and judgment; but they are things which the world
can hardly be prevailed upon to look into. It has been , 7
well said : " What strikes every one, whatever be his /
opinion of the origin and merits of these writings, is I
their immeasurable inferiority to the Canonical Gospels.
Immeasurable, indeed, is a word which faintly expresses
the extent of the difference between them. They belong-
to another sphere. It was short-sighted policy in the
1 This point is well argued in the " Essay on Mythical Theories
of Christianity/' by Rev. Chas. Row, M.A., inserted in the course
of lectures against " Modern Scepticism," pp. 305-360.
46 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
scoffing unbelievers of Voltaire's school to bring the
two things into contact, in the hope of discrediting the
Gospel. And the somewhat similar attempt of Strauss
suggests the best refutation of his own theory. No
more striking proof could be desired by Christians
of the unique character of the Evangelic narrative,
nor can any fair-minded sceptic fail to perceive the
force of it. An impassable line separates the simple
majesty, the lofty moral tone, the profound wisdom
and significance of the Canonical Gospels from the
qualities which we forbear further to particularise in
the writings that claim to be their complement. We
feel, as we turn from one region to the other, that the
difference must be due to something more than lapse
of years, or defect of reliable information. If the con-
trast between the writings of the Epistles and the
apostolic fathers is so great that we are reminded
perforce of the doctrine of inspiration, how much
more when we turn from the sacred volume to the
best of the writings before us ? . . In a word, if these
are the legendary records preserved by the simple faith
and unassisted powers of early Christian disciples, to
what power are we to ascribe the authorship of the
New Testament?" x
The sentiment, therefore, which Rousseau has put
into the mouth of his Savoyard apologist, 2 and which
T "Edinburgh Review," July, 1868, pp. 105-109.
2 ' r lt seroit~plus mcbncevable que plusieurs hommes d' accord
eussent fabrique ce livre qu'il ne 1'est qu' un seul en ait fourni
le sujet." Rousseau. "Emile." Liv. IV. Tom. iii. pp. 128, 129.
Geneve, 1784.
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 47
seems to have been his own, at least for the moment,
is profoundly true.
On the whole, the ideal origination of the character
of Christ, and the world's stolid reception of it, not-
withstanding, as historic, would seem one continued
violation of all laws of human probability; whether
we consider the antecedents, moral, intellectual, and
literary, of those who produced it, or compare it with
any contemporary relics of Jewish, or any subsequent
performances of Christian minds ; or reflect that this
shadow has clothed itself with substance, and made the
world think that a painting lives ! As it gazes trans-
fixed, it exclaims, like the rapt Leontes before the
supposed statue of Hermione, when Pauline proposes
to draw the curtain,
" Let be, let be :
What was he that did make it? See, my lord,
Would you not dream it breathed, and that those veins
Did verily bear blood ? "
That we cannot well exaggerate the wonders of this
unique creation, whether substance or shadow, real or
mythical, is proved alike by the intense veneration
and the intense opposition it has evoked. Indeed,
it is hard to say whether the boundless admiration,
or the vehement hostility to the name and claims of
Christ, be the more signal tribute to His power. Is it
conceivable that a bundle of myths or fictions should
thus permanently stir the heart of humanity ? We
shovel out of the way, age after age, whole cart-
loads of this traditional lumber, in every other case
48 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
but this one ! No man, especially in enlightened and
civilized ages like ours, ever thinks of standing up
for any forms of mythology, least of all if they be
of foreign growth and origin. If there be any-
thing striking in them, we read about them with
otiose curiosity, just as we should a nursery tale or
a romance. But we should as soon think of be-
lieving that the lions and asses in ^Esop's fables
really talked, as attach the smallest serious value to
any mythology, Greek or Roman, Egyptian or Hin-
doo, ancient or modern. Jupiter in this respect is as
Brahma, and Serapis as Vishnu. All are consigned to
universal contempt or oblivion ; and if any man were
to undertake either to claim for them any religious
significance to us, or elaborately maintain they had
none, he would equally be regarded as out of his senses.
But while all cultivated and civilized nations survey
all mythologies with the same contempt, and even all
superstitious nations look scornfully askance on all
mythologies except their own, this Christian mythology
(if it be mythology), and this alone, is inexhaustibly
fascinating. Amidst the greatest diversities of race,
nationality, tradition, culture, in modern as in more
ancient times, in regions far remote from its native
seat, and ages far distant from the epoch of its birth,
it is still capable of exerting such an influence, that
the loftiest minds, endowed with all that nature and all
that culture can bestow, are not ashamed, in never-
ceasing and most animated controversy, to engage in
impugning or defending it. Its truth or falsehood, its
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 49
historical or mythological origin, is the perpetual battle-
field from age to age. Those who challenge it are as
eager as its champions. Yet if the former really
believe it what they profess to believe it, they would
(one would imagine) be as reluctant to submit to such
lifelong labour to prove it vanity and delusion, as to
prove the like of the many other systems, in refuta-
tion of which not a soul of them could prevail upon
himself to waste a syllable ; they would be as languid
about it as about the Mahometan or Hindoo super-
stition. But with regard to Christ and His claims, the
conflict even becomes more keen in that very region of
light which kills all ordinary superstitions. Strauss,
Renan, Neander, Pressense, and scores of doughty
champions more, are in our day straining every nerve
to prove Christianity either true or false, amidst the
universal contempt or neglect of so many other systems. 1
At all events, it is a significant proof that, be the
1 The " Lives " of Christ which this generation alone has pro-
duced would make a hundred times the amount of all the original
" Memoirs " put together. If it be said that all this controversy
shows the difficulty of establishing the claims of Christianity to all
the world, it certainly does so ; but, first, that may be owing to
other causes than the difficulties of its evidence ; secondly, the strife
shows most conclusively the perpetual interest it inspires. That
all this trouble should be necessary to confute it, if false (just like
other systems about which unbelief does not trouble itself at all), is
the really wonderful thing ; that it should excite much controversy
is not wonderful, for, as Christianity declared from the beginning,
that it would be " everywhere spoken against " (and time has veri-
fied at least that much truth concerning it), so I only wonder,
considering what its doctrines are, and what human nature is, that
it has not " been spoken against " still more. But that, if it be
no more than a contrivance of fiction, or a fardel of myths, it
should not have been long since confuted and done with, is, as
Bishop Butler says, marvellous indeed.
5
50 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
character of Christ real or imaginary, history or myth,
it is a wonderful phenomenon. But if it be the latter,
its fabrication by the Jewish mind, and its reception
by the world as history, are equally paradoxical, and
in defiance of human nature.
6. Another paradox strikes me, I confess, in the
desperate tenacity and boundless veneration with which
the Jews have ever clung to their Scriptures. I feel
this, let them be ever so ancient ; but far more, if they
$Uvvtf are, as so many modern critics affirm, of comparatively
^ .wkj , recent date, and in great part of fictitious origin; facts
^ which it was far more the interest of the Jew to find
out than that of any of the modern critics, who have
kindly made the discovery for him, and yet cannot
convince him of it. If fabulous (wicked forgeries or
ingenious fictions), it is difficult to imagine they could
have been palmed on the nation as their genuine his-
tory at either an earlier or later date; but certainly at
neither, without exciting vehement suspicion and protest.
Yet this is supposed to have been managed without
one syllable or one murmur coming down to us ! Now,
when we reflect on their contents, that they constitute
(if false) one long libel on the Jewish nation, is it cre-
dible they should have been received with one voice,
not only as true, but as no less than " sacred and
inspired," treasured as the most precious deposit,
and transmitted to posterity with the most solicitous
care ? One can understand how fables tending simply
to glorify a nation, may be willingly accepted, be
they ever so foolish, though we do not find nations
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 51
thus cheating themselves at late periods of their history.
But when the pretended records bear witness to little
but their shame, are rilled with reproaches and de-
nunciations, tax them with the most tremendous
guilt, and menace them with terrible punishment ;
upbraid them with the most egregious folly and the
most odious ingratitude ; remind them that their
fathers had a glorious heritage, and had forfeited
it ; a noble lineage, and disgraced it ; a Divine King,
against whom they had been perpetually plotting
treason ; when this is the constant burden of these
documents, is it conceivable that, if they be in a great
measure fictitious, every nerve should not have been
strained to prove it ; that they should have been re-
ceived as authentic history, nay, as inspired truth,
without one effort such as a score of disinterested
critics in our day have gratuitously made on the
Jews' behalf to prove the contrary ? If so, it is cer-
tainly not after the " manner of men." Age after age,
and with one voice, they confess the heavy indictment
against them to be just; yea, though these books not
only told them that they had been a " perverse and
stiff-necked generation," but predict that they would
continue so, would refuse to be warned or reformed,
and at last become a "hissing and a by -word among
the nations! " x
If not true, these documents are little better than
what they have been well called, "archives of libel," so
dark are the colours in which they paint the nation,
1 Appendix. No. III.
5*
52 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
and so incessant and vehement the reproaches which
they shower upon it. Instead of guarding and trans-
mitting them with such profound veneration, instead
of jealously counting each word and syllable, as if loth
to be robbed of one iota of their shame, one would have
imagined that patriotic Jews would have hunted down
these documents for destruction, since, in fact, they are
but an enlarged commentary on that pregnant text of
Stephen, which he declares to be an epitome of their
history " Ye uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do
always resist the Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do
ye." If it be said that the record flatters them with
being the chosen people of God, it as constantly taxes
them with a forfeiture of this privilege ; and threatens,
and at length pronounces, their rejection, for their
unutterable apostacies, perverseness, and ingratitude.
Were these the documents which national vanity would
so eagerly fasten upon, and transmit with scrupulous
ridelity to posterity ? No ; had they been untrue, the
mood of the profane Jehoiakim, sitting by his winter
fire, cutting to pieces with his penknife the ominous
roll of the prophet, and tossing the fragments into
the flames, would have been natural enough, and as
naturally imitated by the whole Jewish nation. Each
man would have emulously sought out these infamous
libels with more than the zeal of a Diocletian in his
crusade against the copies of the New Testament. 1
1 If it be thought that some of the above remarks bear hard on
the Jews, I can only reply that I simply take the statements of
their own Scriptures, which themselves account inspired ; but
their case would certainly 1& little improved by supposing that
i.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 53
they tamely acquiesced in such severe condemnation, though un-
just. Lest it should seem, however, that I think their case worse
than that of mankind at large, I have no hesitation in saying that
such is my conviction of the indocility of man in relation to God's
teaching, so slow to learn, and so apt to forget, His lessons, that I
heartily subscribe the declaration of Paul, " What then ? Are we
better than they? No ; in no wise." Nor can we forget that the Jews
have given unexampled proofs of heroic constancy and sincerity in
their veneration for books which so reproach them. " Cependant,"
says Pascal, " ce livre qui les de'shonore en tant de famous, ils le
conservent aux ddpens de leur vie. C'est une sinceritd qui n'a
point d'exemple dans le monde, ni sa ratine dans la nature"
(Pascal. Pensees. Tom. II. p. 189. Ed. Faugere.)
LECTURE II.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
LECTURE II.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
T N the present lecture, I propose to resume the
J- subject of the last. Without further preface, I
remark :
7. That it has always seemed to me an incom-
prehensible anomaly that Jews should by any natural
process have originated such a book as the New
Testament, and such a religion as it contains. If
they originated it (as they certainly did), it would
seem to be in diametrical contradiction to all the
principles and tendencies of their nature, as well as of
human nature in general. The point has been partly
anticipated in discussing the difficulty of accounting
for such a " Messiah " as Jewish evangelists have
painted ; but the reasoning equally applies to all the
writers of the New Testament, and to the origin of
Christianity in general. There is hardly a feature of
the religion which the Jew might not naturally be
supposed the last man in the world to tolerate. The
entire system of institutions under which his cha-
racter had been formed made him recoil from it, and
especially from its cosmopolitan character. That the
Jewish nation was the chosen of Heaven ; that to
58 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
them "were committed the oracles of God," and that
they had a monopoly of them these were first prin-
ciples to the Jew ; and everything in his education,
habits, prepossessions, made him clutch them pas-
sionately to his heart. The Gospel abruptly broke
in upon these, and, as with volcanic force, fractured
and upturned these solid strata of his belief. It
went avowedly on the principle that all the Jew's
privileges were transient, and subordinate to higher
ends than his glory or welfare ; that they were abro-
gated by the Gospel; that under it there was to be
"neither Jew nor Greek;" that Christ came to throw
down the " middle wall of partition " between them.
One of the first lessons taught to Peter when he
entered on his apostolic mission (and, like every Jew,
he was astonished at it), was that God had abolished
this distinction, and that he was henceforth to regard
the Gentiles as on a level with himself. That all this
should be most repugnant to the ordinary Jew, was
natural, and the inevitable effect of the abuse of those
privileges on which he had plumed himself for ages.
He was of the highest caste, and the Jewish Brahmin
looked down on the Gentile Pariah with all the contempt
with which the Pharisee regarded the publican. We
are not left to conjecture as to the degree of revulsion
which his mind experienced ; we see how it manifested
itself, and may thence exactly measure the impro-
bability of any such religion as that of the Gospel
having naturally originated with him. It was his grand
quarrel with Christ and His apostles that they pro-
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 59
posed to ignore the religious prerogatives of the Jews,
and their exceptional religious position among the
nations of the earth. So slow, indeed, were even the
immediate disciples of Christ to entertain any such
notion, that the expectation that their Messiah would
found a temporal kingdom, of which the Jews should
form as it were the aristocracy, and in which they were
to cast off the Roman yoke, was a besetting halluci-
nation. We see, again, the same principle at work in
the natural reluctance even of many of those Jews who
did become converts, to part with any tatters of their
ancient law that they could retain, and in the infinite
trouble which their " Judaising " tendencies gave to the
Apostle Paul and the Churches which he had founded.
We see it still more strongly in the national hostility
to Christ Himself; in the persecutions, which in the
first age of the Gospel the Jews almost always origi-
nated, and always fomented, against the hated sect
of the Nazarenes; and in the persistent abhorrence
with which they have recoiled from this religion for
near nineteen centuries. How came Jews, then, to
fabricate a religion so diametrically opposed to all their
native prejudices? How came they to rise to this
grand conception of a universal religion, in which all
mankind were to be of equal value in the eyes of God,
and equally entitled to a participation in His favour ?
How came incarnate bigotry to go forth as the spon-
taneous apostle and herald of universal love ? The
narrowness of the Jew had been a proverb among the
nations ; he is here, all at once, and of his own accord,
60 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT-
the champion of all mankind against himself; strips
himself of all in which he had gloried, as the special
donative of God; renounces his own heritage, and gives
it to strangers ! It is this Jew, exclusive par excellence,
who conceives the thought, of which far less bigoted
nations had never dared to dream, of a universal
religion and an unlimited charity. " He who had no
dealings with the Samaritans " preaches a religion
which not only permits, but commands him, to ac-
count " all men his brethren."
Another principle, equally unaccountable, if Jewish
human nature alone prompted it, is that intense
spirit of proselytism to the new religion by which
its founders were from the first animated. It is in
violent contrast with all the previous habits of the
Jews. Their sullen isolation, their exclusive pecu-
liarities, were notorious. They were not, indeed, for-
bidden to receive proselytes; and in truth, their Law
enjoined a spirit of frank kindness to the " stranger,"
which, had it been complied with, might have made
many more proselytes; but which their exaggeration
of their exceptional privileges too often led them to
disregard. But if they unreluctantly received such
as spontaneously sought their communion, they were
certainly animated in general by no active spirit of
proselytism : whereas the " missionary spirit " is the
spirit of the early Church, and of Christianity every-
where; it is the reflex of that universality of do-
minion to which it aspires, and that universality of
privilege which it concedes ; just as the comparative
IT.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 61
inertness of the Jew was the reflex of his religious
monopoly, and consequent isolation. But how came
the Jew, self-prompted, to " cast his skin " ? to throw
off all the ingrained habits of his nature, and to become
cosmopolitan ?
But the strongest proof of the point now argued
has been already alluded to. The very conception of
such a Messiah as Christ, implies in itself a bouleverse-
nient of the deepest principles of the Jewish mind. The
idea of a "triumphant" Messiah, who, while swaying
His sceptre over the subject nations, should confirm
and enhance the privileges of the favoured people,
and reflect upon them the lustre of His reign, had
been their daydream for centuries ; and so strong had
been the illusion, as to blind them to the many pro-
fessedly prophetic passages of their ancient books,
which spake as plainly of the sufferings and humilia-
tion of their promised Deliverer, as of his ultimate
victory and glory. In this respect as in others, but
in this emphatically, they fulfilled the ancient declara-
tion : "They had eyes but saw not," and "ears but
heard not." Yet by them, and against the whole
stream of their convictions, interests, and passions,
was proclaimed a Messiah, whose humble origin and
condition, whose character and teaching, and whose
ignominious death, made Him the object of the most
intense aversion to the bulk of the nation, and has
made Him so from that day to this. That repugnance
is not sensibly abated even yet; and as Christ Himself
said that the "publicans and harlots" would enter
63 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
"the kingdom of heaven" before the "Scribes and
Pharisees," so, for similar reasons, it would seem that
every nation of the world, civilised or savage, Greek
or Roman, "barbarian, Scythian, bond or free," Gaul,
Saxon, Indian, Hottentot, Otaheitan, Malagasy, in
spite of infinite prejudices and immemorial super-
stitions, is more easily persuaded to listen to the
Gospel, and with less difficulty proselyted to it, than
the " children of Abraham." This, of itself, gives us a
measure of the improbability of their having spontane-
ously projected such a Messiah as Christ ; and, justly
viewed, subverts the foundation of the theory of Strauss,
who endeavours to show how such a " myth " as Christ
might have grown out of the Jewish interpretations of
Messianic prophecy. The intense opposition of the Jew
to the Gospel is itself a proof that there was nothing
in his preconceptions, his habits, his institutions, which
could have led him to such a conception, or to tolerate
it, had it been presented to him. The very moment it
was presented, he averted his eyes from it, as from a
spectacle that filled him with mingled shame, anger,
and horror, which he has retained to this day.
Another anomaly in connection with this last topic
deserves notice. If it is wonderful that such a religion
as that of the New Testament should have come from a
Jewish source, it is not less wonderful that, being from
such a source, its authors should have prognosticated
its rejection by the Jews, and its acceptance, though not
without vehement opposition, by the Gentiles, among
whom the New Testament proceeds to narrate its
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 63
rapid progress. For the former allegation, if such a
religion could naturally spring up in the mind of Jews
at all, there would be plausible ground ; for assuredly
it was more likely that Jews would reject it than that
Jews should invent it. It was also plausible to suspect
that such a religion considering how distasteful are
many of its doctrines would meet with opposition
from the heathen world ; but what reason its authors
could have if the religion was a purely human pro-
jection of Jewish minds, and its authors spoke from
conjecture so confidently to affirm that it would
prosper in spite of that opposition, it is hard to say.
True though it turned out to be, it was a most un-
Lkely thing for any men, but especially Jews, to reckon
It might have been supposed that, looking to the
condition of the Jews, their relations to other nations,
1 I do not farther prosecute this subject, because its full illustra-
tion would require me to go beyond Stripture (to which I restrict
myself), and enter on the history of the propagation of Christianity
in the face of all the obstacles opposed to it. The argument derived
from this topic has always been insisted upon as of great force by
Christian apologists ; and, I think, most justly. That the religion
was vehemently and everywhere opposed is a fact abundantly
proved by the history of the first three centuries ; the storm of
obloquy and persecution beat upon it incessantly, during which
its votaries were a " sect everywhere spoken against " and every-
where defenceless, though everywhere growing. As we might
conjecture from its character, that this religion would excite, so
historic fact shows that it did excite, the vehement enmity of men
when first propounded of the vulgar and the learned, of rulers
and the populace, of priests and philosophers. And it may be
argued, as it often has been ably argued, that its propagation
and reception, in spite of all that was arrayed against it, and in
utter destitution of all that could make for it, is (if it was a purely
human phenomenon) not easily accounted for.
64 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
their unsocial isolation, and the contemptuous esti-
mate formed of them, that as the Pharisees thought
no " good thing could come out of Nazareth," so the
Gentile would think "that nothing good could come
out of Judea," and that the antipathy to any religion
emanating thence would be invincible. As there was
no element in Judaism, especially as moulded by its
misinterpreted prophecies and corrupt traditions, that
would be likely to originate Christianity, so when
it was originated, the very fact that its cradle was
Judea could not but operate as an immense obstacle
to its reception beyond the pale. If the Jew (as the
facts show) was intensely opposed to any such Messiah
as the New Testament exhibits, the Gentiles were
intensely opposed to any Jewish Messiah whatsoever.
And in this point of view, again, Strauss' theory com-
pletely breaks down ; it utterly fails to account for the
success of the Gospel, even if it accounted at all for its
origination. For even if it were conceded that Jewish
prepossessions were in favour (as all facts prove they
could not be) of any such conception as that of the
Messiah of the New Testament, there was not a
thought, a sentiment, a prejudice of the Gentiles,
which could recommend it. 1
1 " Consider," says Davison, " the difference in aptitude and
qualification for spreading any system of doctrine, between Jewish
and some other teachers. Had it been foretold, for instance, that a
novel and prevalent religion should one day appear and take a lasting
possession of a considerable part of the civilised world, emanating
from Athens or from Rome, the popular philosophy and literature
of the one, which had a certain freedom of access to the world at
large, or the growing empire of the other, might have furnished
some pledge for the accomplishment of the prediction. But Jewish
ii. Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 65
In truth, the origin and reception of Christianity in
the world bristle with paradoxes. The Jews, though
most unlikely to originate that religion which the
bulk of them constantly rejected, and still reject, did
originate it; and that heathen world, which any one
would have thought would certainly reject it, did in
vast numbers receive it. These are curious facts,
which, like so many more on which I am insisting in
these pages, it is not easy to account for on any
principle of human nature or historic probability.
8. Another paradox or rather a double paradox
I find in this : that the New Testament dares to pro-
pound a religion which aspires to universal dominion, and
that too to be achieved without violence, and by moral
force alone. I am now speaking simply of what the
New Testament says. I know full well that men have
in many cases been so little capable of comprehending
it, that they have unwisely and wickedly departed from
its programme, and attempted the propagation of this
religion by resorting to methods which itself sternly
condemns. This is notorious ; but what the book
propounds is plain enough, and absolves it from all
participation in the crime. No system of morals is
ever made responsible for the violation of its precepts,
and no code of laws for the crimes it expressly pro-
doctrine could look to no such auxiliaries in civil or intellectual
empire to favour its introduction, or recommend its pretensions.
Prophecy, therefore, we may say, when it predicted the reception
of a Law of Religion, which was to have Jews for its teachers, and
kings and nations for its converts, had nothing to build upon,
nothing either in present appearances, or the ordinary calculation
of things." Davison on Prophecy, p. 282.
6
66 Certain Traits of tlie Bible [LECT.
hibits. The command of the Founder of Christianity
was " to preach the Gospel to every creature," to pro-
claim it " to all nations under heaven ; " but it is
equally incontrovertible, that He renounced for Him-
self, and that His apostles renounced for Him, all
employment of force in the establishment of His novel
kingdom. The same thing necessarily follows from
the very nature of that kingdom. Its sovereign did
not content Himself, as other monarchs, with demand-
ing the homage of lip and knee, which a man
may pay and still be a rebel in heart ; but an inward
homage which, unless sincere, would make all outward
service perfectly worthless. His was an empire over
Mind and Will. The only allegiance this strange King
would condescend to accept, was a voluntary allegiance,
founded on the love of TRUTH, and itself the symbol of
submission to it. If the whole world bent the knee and
cried "Hosanna!" Christ would regard it as empty
form, or rather as hypocrisy added to disloyalty, unless
the heart went with it. It is a glorious characteristic
of that only true royalty which is ascribed to Him, and
"worthy of the King of kings and Lord of lords."
Though 'the symbols of all-various dominion be ex-
pressed in the diadem " of many crowns," with which
the apocalyptic vision invests Him, no jewel in it
sparkles more resplendently than this. The very
nature, therefore, of this empire made all force nuga-
tory, and a contradiction in terms. It was not like
"the kingdoms of this world;" if it had been, as Christ
Himself said, " then would His servants have fought."
IL] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 67
Now, this ambitious dream of universal dominion,
especially when conjoined with renunciation of all
violence as a means to the end, presents us with a
prodigious anomaly, as contrasted with all previous
history and experience.
I think I might insist upon either of these circum-
stances as in itself a paradox, but both together cer-
tainly constitute a very startling one. The audacity
of the project itself takes away one's breath ; it is
about the last which, looking at the infinite and im-
memorial religious differences of mankind, hallowed
and strengthened by time, custom, and tradition, human
nature would be likely to entertain. It would be re-
garded as indeed it still is by the bulk of mankind
as the most chimerical of enterprises. Nor do I know
of any other well-attested instance of such a dream
having ever entered the imagination of man, if we
except the case of Mahomet, and Mahometanism
may be summarily dismissed as no parallel at all :
first, because it came after Christianity, and was in
this, as in several other respects, a plagiarism from it ;
and secondly, because the means by which it proposed
to attain its object, and which it so ruthlessly employed,
was force, in its coarsest and most vulgar form.
Nor is it easy to conceive how, in the face of the
universal religious condition of the nations at the time
Christianity appeared, and the apathy with which the
world acquiesced in it, a thought so presumptuous,
however sublime, should be suggested. As one looked
abroad upon the many-coloured panorama of the
6 *
68 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
religions of the world, with their "gods many and lords
many ; " saw the neighbourly terms on which these
for the most part dwelt together; how contentedly
they "cantoned" out the world amongst them, and
conceded to each other the limited dominion and the
limited prerogatives they severally claimed in all
which their worshippers cordially acquiesced he would
assuredly say that the dream of the universality and
supremacy of one religion was of all things the most
visionary. Indeed it looked so hopeless, that the world
seems to have quietly assumed its impossibility, the
compression or extension of each area of belief seldom
depending on any instinct or effort of religious pro-
pagandism, but on political revolutions or military
violence. This last, indeed, did effect considerable
changes ; sometimes destroyed a nation and its gods
too ; sometimes drove both, equally forlorn and help-
less, from their native seats. Colonisation, again, some-
times effected the same thing. The emigrants carried
their gods to a new locality, by the same means and
on the same terms that they took their other " goods
and chattels." In these changes the gods and their
worshippers acted characteristically ; the last were
active and the first passive. The gods did not " move ;"
they "were moved" as Isaiah says in his graphic
picture of the huge images of Bel and Nebo "nodding"
on the groaning wains that bore them into captivity
"a heavy burden to the weary beasts!" But
there was no display of active propagandism, or any
serious attempts to overcome the vis inertia of tra-
IL] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 69
ditional and local beliefs, far less any dream of the
universal supremacy of any one religion.
Yet the paradox does not end here, for we must sup-
pose this audacious speculation to have first entered
the head, not of sages and philosophers, not of great
legislators and conquerors, but of a Jew; who, if no
more than a Jew, was one of a community who, as we
have seen, doted on their exclusive privileges, and jea-
lously guarded the mountain-passes which shut them
out in religious isolation from the rest of the world ;
who, if their ancient wiitings intimated that " from the
midst of them " a religion would arise which should
spread beyond Judea, and in which their own exclusive
privileges should expire, had grossly misinterpreted
these records, and would not hear of a religion that was
to be universal, in any sense that would not still admit
of the supremacy of that of Moses. Like the rest of
the nations, they assuredly made no active efforts to
realise any such dream.
An objector will probably say, "And is it not, in
spite of the progress of Christianity, still a dream ?
Would any one, looking on the infinite religious dis-
cords and controversies of the world, venture to say,
without superhuman illumination, that these discords
would one day be hushed, and one religion prevail ?"
I answer, this is precisely what I am saying; this
objection is my present argument. I do not think any
human being, left to his own intelligence, would have
indulged any such dream.
But it is the combination of the two features I have
70 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
mentioned the predicted universality of the religion
with the renunciation of all violence in attaining it
which constitutes the great peculiarity on which I am
now insisting, and which makes it deservedly rank as one
of the many paradoxes which require to be accounted
for, if the New Testament was the work of unaided
men. Nor is it, as I have hinted, any answer to say
that the religion of the New Testament has not always
been propagated by merely moral forces, or rather it is
an objection which much strengthens the argument,
as we shall presently see. It did restrict itself to such
means in the days of its signal and most rapid triumphs,
namely, for the first three centuries ; and has done so
since in all its most worthy and durable conquests.
Nor, perhaps, can a single instance be pointed out in
which it has not received more damage than benefit by
the ill-judged and ignorant resort to other than its own
weapons. Beyond question, if its nominal sphere has
been sometimes enlarged by such methods of propa-
gandism, the violence done to the genius of the religion
has generated evils which, for ages, have obscured its
lustre, and impeded its real progress and legitimate
influence. But this is not the only, nor the chief reply
to the objection. The objection, in fact, answers itself.
My argument is based upon the paradoxical character
of the original conception ; of a universal religion, in
the establishment of which all coercion was to be
abjured. Nothing depends on whether men have acted
up to this conception or not. But that they notoriously
have not, is of itself an argument for the wwhuman
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 71
character of the project itself. For it could only be
because they despaired of the possibility of realising
it in the prescribed methods, that they deviated from
them, and violated the express letter of the Scripture
rule. They have thereby simply borne witness to the
genuine tendency of human nature ; demonstrated how
little likely men were to originate, how difficult for
them even to entertain, such a conception. They have
thus shown that it was foreign to all their ideas and
repugnant to their passions and their impatience. They
found it impossible to adhere to such a conception,
though it had been clearly sketched out before their
eyes. The veil of our common nature was upon their
hearts, as the veil of old prejudices was upon the
hearts of the Jews when the Scripture was read in
their hearing : "seeing, they saw not," and "hearing,
they heard not, neither did they understand."
g. It is another paradox, though only a corollary
from the preceding, that the New Testament, in thus
peremptorily prohibiting all attempts to protect or
propagate Christianity by coercion and penalties, recog-
nises the rights of conscience in general as sacred,
and consecrates the principle of toleration. It recog-
nises at once what Christians themselves, with the
book before them, too soon unlearnt, and were slow
to learn again, that religion, by its very nature,
can be propagated by nothing but argument and
persuasion.
Now, however various and multiform the religions
of the ancient world, we look in vain for such a prin-
73 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
ciple of toleration as this. Gibbon eulogises, and with
some show of justice, the tolerance of the imperial
government of Rome; but it is easy to see that the
praise, for anything more than political wisdom, does
not belong to it. It never recognised, it never dreamt of
recognising, the true nature and claims of conscience
or religious liberty. Nor is it even true, that the kind
of toleration it at last practised, was known to it when
Rome was a homogeneous state and had a homogeneous
religion. Then, like all the rest of the world, it could
persecute with rigour ; it could banish from the state,
under severest penalties, those who presumed to inno-
vate in religion, and essayed to be " the setters forth
of strange gods ; " who either introduced new rites
into the old worship, or alien divinities for a new
worship. 1 It was not till after the Roman power had
absorbed into itself many nations of heterogeneous
race and creed, that the problem was forced upon
it as to how the various religions were to be treated.
Without attempting to solve it on any religious or
philosophical principles, without having any just no-
tions of religious liberty at all, the political instincts
of that great people, and the consummate administra-
tive sagacity which so distinguished them and so fitted
them for empire, suggested that the nations should
be left to the undisturbed enjoyment of their various
religious systems, and the Pantheon be open to all
the divinities of the earth; provided always the gods
1 See passages proving this, from Cicero, Livy, and other writers,
cited in Waddington's " Church History." Vol. I. pp. 110-112.
ii.] Viewed in relation to Hitman Nature. 73
would live on terms of peace with one another, and
engage that their votaries would be as quiet as their
statues ! So long as the gods were contented, each
with his own belt of territory and his own peculium of
incense and sacrifice, and their votaries refrained from
troubling the imperial government, Rome was content
to tolerate them all. Nor is there, in all the history of
Rome, any greater proof of political genius than the
instinctive wisdom with which, abandoning early predi-
lections (in which she shared with all the rest of the
world) for religious uniformity, she restricted her aims
to what alone was possible ; and exacting, with all the
sternness of her iron rule, absolute obedience to the
civil government, left the many-coloured religious
panorama of the world just as she found it. Rome,
doubtless, felt that not even Rome could rule the na-
tions, if she attempted to reduce the religious opinions
of men to one, and that a foreign, standard. Nothing
but persuasion can change these ; and indeed it is one
of the proofs of the indestructible religious nature of
man the deep foundations in which religious senti-
ment is laid that it is easier to rob him of his
liberty than of his conscience, even though it be a
superstitious one; easier to despoil him of his goods
than of his gods, though he would so often gain by
the loss ; easier to enslave his body than coerce his
mind. In the knowledge of this, the Romans were
assuredly wiser than many a Christian ruler. For
though their toleration was only a political compromise,
and no true concession to the sacred claims of con-
74 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECI.
science, it was a discreet expedient in the absence
of a toleration founded on better principles. They
and their subjects had at least peace, though it was
founded only on a truce between truth and error,
- both of which the theory held equally sacred.
But at all events they did not stultify themselves
(as many Christian rulers, that ought to have known
better, have done) in the attempt to propagate truth or
suppress error by force. But that Rome had no true
idea of religious liberty, or genuine toleration, such as
is claimed for it by Gibbon, appears from these {wo
simple facts : first, that all the gods and goddesses
were regarded as equally eligible to a place in the
Pantheon, showing that indifferentism to all religions
was Rome's conception of reverence for conscience,
and a courteous bow to every idol ex quovis ligno fit
Mercurius the true sign of an enlightened statesman ;
secondly (and it proves the point more conclusively),
that no sooner did the haughty mistress of the world
apprehend that Christianity aspired (even though with-
out violence) to universal dominion, would make no
compromise of equality, nor accept a place with the
rabble of the heathen deities, nor sit cheek by jowl
with Osiris and Jupiter in the Pantheon, than she
instantly began to persecute it with a zeal and vigour
which showed but too plainly what her notions of
religious liberty really were, and within what narrow
limits she practised it. She was prompted, in part,
probably, by some misconception of the nature of that
" universal dominion " which Christianity challenged,
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 75
or jealous that if it was obtained, whatever its nature,
it might endanger her own political supremacy. The
notion of toleration, as entertained by heathen states-
men, is excellently well implied in the epigrammatic
sentence of Gibbon, " that in the estimate of the
vulgar, every religion was equally true ; in that of the
philosopher, equally false ; in that of the statesman,
equally expedient; " and, therefore, as equally expedient,
equally worthy of being cherished, and, as far as pos-
sible, protected from the proselytising zeal of every
other.
When we reflect on the proneness of men to persecu-
tion, how almost universally it has been practised, how
late, in point of fact, men have come to the discovery
of its enormity, or anything approaching true liberty
of conscience, the peculiarity of the New Testament on
which I am now insisting would seem very remarkable.
That it does prohibit all persecution, is beyond ques-
tion. No one with the least particle of intelligence
or candour will deny that, both by precept and ex-
ample, by direct statement and oblique implication,
everything in the form of force and violence is for-
bidden to every disciple of Christianity in terms per-
fectly decisive and perspicuous. This has never been
disputed; and if it be rejoined that Christianity has
paid but little regard to the will of its Founder, and
has persecuted as largely as any other religion in the
world, I reply, as I have already done, that the more
true the charge, the better for the present argument.
It proves most conclusively that the peculiarity of the
76 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
New Testament is not the natural expression of the
tendencies of man. It proves that so strong are his
impulses in the contrary direction, that in this, as in
many other cases, they have led him, even when he
has accepted Christianity, to violate the plainest laws
and principles of its statute book, and to act in direct
opposition, both to the precept and example of the ac-
knowledged lawgiver. Nor is it without significance
that when Christians in general, in blindly following
that nature which the New Testament contradicts,
had forgotten their Master's maxims on this subject,
the true principles of religious liberty were recovered
by renewed appeal to the neglected book. We stand
indebted for the discovery of toleration, not to philoso-
phers (who in general troubled themselves but little
about religious liberty), but to the religious men who
found it two centuries ago in the New Testament.
It was hence they drew the obsolete maxims the world
had forgotten.
That the New Testament should have contained
these maxims, is the more wonderful when we reflect
that it was Jews who consigned these principles to
us. Their own religion was severe towards all wilful
deviations from it ; and reasonably, if their govern-
ment was (as they thought, and as the Old Testament
professes it was) a true theocracy administered by
God Himself; for every deviation from it was also,
ipso facto, an act of high treason against their Divine
King. And if it did not enjoin proselytism by vio-
lence (as it certainly did not), yet considering the
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 77
rigorous laws against religious error among them-
selves, it was not very likely they would discover
what they would naturally have no conception of,
the true principles of religious liberty as applied to
the world outside them, and under conditions wholly
different from those of their own institutions. Those
principles are found in the books of the New Tes-
tament ; and I venture to think constitute another
anomaly in the structure and contents of that book,
viewed in reference both to the tendencies and practices
of human nature.
10. As regards the relations between Religion and
Political Government, I cannot help thinking there is
an observable contrast between the tone of the Bible
(different as are the Old and New Testaments in this
respect), and that which the founders of human systems
of religion have almost universally advocated.
Though the position of the Old Testament in this
matter would seem the very reverse of that of the New,
the position of both is equally opposed to that which
has approved itself to human judgment and practice.
In the Jewish dispensation, " Church and State "
were not merely allied, but incorporated ; not united,
but identified. I am not now arguing that it was a
Divine institution ; rather, as usual, I am arguing on
the supposition of its human origin, and considering
how far it bears the traces of this, as compared with
undoubted fabrications of man's religious handicraft.
The Jewish system of government was a genuine
theocracy. God was presumed to have constituted
78 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
Himself monarch of the State, and hence its contrast
with every other form of government in the ancient
world. It was an anomaly. Politics were identified
with religion, the sacred and civil codes were essen-
tially one, and the priestly functions assumed a para-
mount importance. God was the invisible, but real
Sovereign. Moses himself was merely His " servant "
and administrator; he did not affect to be, like the
Grand Lama, or even the Pope, the visible repre-
sentative and vicegerent of God. So emphatically,
according to the original draft of the Jewish consti-
tution, was Jehovah the Monarch, that when they
demanded to have a "mortal" and visible king, " like
the nations around them," His controversy with them
was that they had " rejected Him from being king
over them ; " deposed Him, and placed an usurper on
His throne. " They have not," He is represented as
saying to the great prophet, who then administered
His kingdom, "rejected thee, but ME, from being their
king."
On the other hand, the New Testament seems to
assume an exactly opposite position. Not a syllable
is said on the subject ; not a hint is given of any
contemplated alliance or connection of Christianity
with any form of political government. On the con-
trary, the line of demarcation between the "kingdoms
of this world " and itself, as " not a kingdom of this
world," is seemingly most sharp and trenchant.
In saying this, I do not mean to prejudge the ques-
tion of the lawfulness or expediency of the union of
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 79
Christianity with the State, though I have strong
opinions on the subject. But to the present argument
it is indifferent how the question shall be decided. The
very long and protracted controversy on the subject
may perhaps be admitted to prove that the silence of
the New Testament does not altogether preclude doubt
upon it. But the silence, and apparent indifference, are
the features on which I lay stress, be they inter-
preted as they may; for we do not find them in the
other drafts of religion which man's ingenuity has
framed ; and certainly not in the Jewish, out of the
bosom of which Christianity immediately sprang. This
very fact, indeed, has had no small influence in in-
ducing men to argue that it must have been the design
of Christianity to maintain close relations with civil
governments. So intimate was the union in the Jewish
economy; so customary the alliance in o^r cases; so
often had the " kingly and the priestly functions " in
ancient times been combined in the same person; and,
even when those functions were severed, so general had
been the conviction that the alliance between them
ought to be of the strictest kind, that people were
slow to believe that anything else was possible ; or
that the office of legislator and magistrate could be
fitly exercised, unless consecrated by formal connec-
tion with religion. It was urged, therefore, that
though the New Testament was silent on the subject,
its silence must be supposed to " give consent" to
an arrangement so apparently natural, and all but
universal.
80 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
This (as is now evinced by the general current of
modern speculation and policy) was a hasty inference.
However reasonable it may be, if God by express
revelation assumes the immediate government of a
people (as was supposed in the Jewish theocracy),
that " Church and State " should be incorporated,
it would certainly be rash to conclude, without any
such warrant, that it is lawful for every casual form
of government and polity which man's caprice or
ingenuity may set up, to enter into alliances equally
variable with those religious systems which happen
to have the suffrage of the government. This, the
theory necessarily comes to; for as each government
is left to choose what religion it will establish, it as
necessarily chooses that which it deems true ; and with
what results we see. If there were no other argument
against such a course, it would be a strong one, that
it must be obviously inexpedient for the interests of
Truth ; for as false religions are many, while the true
can be but one, it throws the whole weight of political
power and patronage into the scale of error, in the
ratio in which false religions are a multiple of the
true, which has always been, is still, and must be
the case.
It has, accordingly, come to be felt that the remark-
able silence of the New Testament, in relation to this
subject, is susceptible of a different interpretation ; that
so momentous an inference as that just mentioned
required a positive sanction, and that " silence " rather
forbade than authorised it. It also came to be felt,
IT.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. SL
that as the old dispensation was generally abrogated,
it is but natural to infer that this feature of it, in
the absence of all provision for its continuance, and
of all sanction for any attempts to renew it, was abro-
gated too. Accordingly, after many ages of a con-
trary opinion, during which it was taken for granted
that the practice of the ancient world generally, and
the example of the Jewish polity in particular, were to
be imitated by the nations which embraced Christianity,
we see that a more cautious study of the New Testa-
ment, and more profound meditation on the genius
of the Gospel, have gradually generated a conviction,
which is becoming more and more widely diffused,
that the older theory was erroneous ; that Christianity
was not designed to be formally taken under State
patronage, or implicated with the fortunes of any
earthly polity ; that its sublime function was to make
both kings and subjects Christians, and therefore the
better kings and subjects, by moulding their opinions
and characters. So far as it did this (and it must, so far
as it is embraced and loved), it would be the inspiring
genius of a nation, without being trammelled or shamed
by the equivocal support of statesmen and politicians,
often too ignorant of its nature or too often indifferent
to its claims ; who, applying their maxims to a purely
spiritual institution, have been too apt to subordinate it
to their ends, or to intrigue, bribe, and even persecute
on its behalf. It asks no such equivocal patronage.
Like some subtile, but potent elements, which,
though invisible and imponderable, freely enter into
7
-
82 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
combination with all bodies without being identified
with them, Christianity aspires to permeate every
form of human polity without being enthralled to any.
This leaves her free and unshackled to pursue her work
of supreme beneficence, for the spiritual and immortal
welfare of man, in her own way and at her own
charges, as becomes her; depending not on revenues
extorted from reluctant hands, by tax or bribe or
menace, but on the gifts of love freely cast into her
treasury; in happy immunity from the bitter taunts to
which man's folly has so sorely exposed her that she
preached love, but practised theft ; laid unwilling obla-
tions on her altars, and counted "robbery a burnt
offering;" did not "take of the things of Christ and
give them to man," but took of the things of man and
gave them to Christ. As to those temporal benefits
which she confers, which are but the " bye-work "
of her beneficence, the fruits and flowers which "drop
from her piled-up horn of plenty," as she passes along;
for these, priceless as they are, she counts herself
sufficiently requited, if governments are wise enough
thankfully to accept them, and leave her alone ; dread-
ing nothing so much as that they should seek to make
that fatal return of aiding her by incongruous methods,
and blindly essaying to coax or cozen or force men into
the affectation of yielding her that merely nominal
homage, which to her is not only nothing worth, but
an insult and a wrong.
Thus do men now reason. And so extensively have
these and such like views prevailed, partly as I have
IL] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 83
said from pondering the nature and genius of Chris-
tianity, and partly from a more thoughtful weighing
of the significance of that silence which the New Testa-
ment maintains on this subject, that the tendency of
modern thought cannot be mistaken. Everywhere a re-
construction of the world's old theories about " Church
and State " is going on. New States will not accept
" establishments;" young States that had, in a certain
degree, adopted them, are shaking them off; old States
are beginning to feel that they had better have been
without them, and that it will be wise to consider
how they may be got rid of; while there is hardly
one thoughtful man out of a thousand who can be got
to say more for them than this : that, as they exist,
it is not desirable to abolish them ; though he is often
ready to add, that if a man were laying the foundations
of a new State, he would be wise to have nothing to
do with them.
Now, though my sympathies are, and ever have
been, with modern views on this subject, it is not
necessary lor the present argument to express any
decided opinion upon it. The singularity of the New
Testament " silence" on the point, let the ques-
tion be settled how it will, remains. The mere fact,
visible to anybody who will read the book, is that there
is not one syllable on the subject ; and it is in palpable
contrast with all that one would have expected from
previous experience. The universal adoption of some
"Church and State" theory in ancient times; the ex-
ample of the Jewish polity itself, from which the new
7*
84 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
religion sprang ; the quiet acquiescence in the time-
honoured principle, when Christianity became a great
power in the world, and kings were enrolled amongst
her converts, clearly show what is the general tendency
of human thought and opinion, and how little likely
it was to leave no trace of itself in the New Testament,
if human thought and opinion alone had to do with
its fabrication.
But even if it be contended, as many still contend,
that the New Testament by its silence only indicates
that the position of Christianity is designedly neutral
in this matter, and leaves the nations freely to adopt
or reject the practices of their ancestors as may seem
expedient; yet, even so, its very abstinence from any
utterance on the subject, considering what was the
constitution of the Jewish polity, what the habit of
the old world, as well as that of the nations who em-
braced Christianity, is remarkable, and is at variance
with the general stream of human speculation and
practice.
ii. Another paradoxical feature of the Scriptures,
of the Old Testament and the New alike, and not to
be expected in any religion devised by man, whether
we judge by the actual specimens he has left us of
his religious manufacture, or from the abstract prin-
ciples of human nature, has often been insisted upon.
I refer to their reticence in relation to the future and
invisible world. Here the Bible confines itself to the
vaguest and most general statements that are con-
sistent with its moral aims. It tells us little more
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 85
than that there will be "joy and sorrow" in that in-
visible world ; that such joy and sorrow will be the
fruit and consequence of our conduct in this, as deter-
mined according to the rules of that moral government
it discloses to us. But there are no details ; nothing
but what just suffices for our guidance and duty. Now
this abstinence is " not after the manner of men ; " for
the human mind instinctively yearns for light on the
darkness of the future world, and this yearning is
amply and constantly met in the religions which are
of undoubted human origin. Every man, indeed, on
reflection, can see how much more worthy of a true
revelation is this reticence ; how much more befitting
the majesty of Him " to whom secret things belong "
and whose " glory it is to conceal them," not to tell
us what is merely calculated to gratify an idle curiosity,
but those things only which " belong to us and to our
children," as' necessary for our guidance and safety.
But it is not a reserve to which human nature easily
reconciles itself. To show this, we have but to look
into the fables of the Greek and Roman mythologies,
or those of oriental nations, or of our Gothic ancestors.
Similarly, the pages of the Koran only too copiously
illustrate the same fact. But a still stronger proof
of this inordinate tendency of human nature, and con-
sequently of the contrariety of that tendency to the
tone of the Bible, is to be found in the additions which,
as human nature proceeded to corrupt Christianity, it
made to the disclosures of the New Testament. So
strong was the impulse of nature to break bounds
86 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
in this matter, that the book could not keep men
within its own limits ; and those who professed to
take it as a guide, supplemented it with all sorts of
unauthorised revelations. In the multitudinous fables
of monkish superstition ; in the dreams of the school-
men, who with their strange faculty of reasoning with-
out premises, undertook to map out heaven and hell,
and even to describe a new province on the confines
of both, of which the New Testament says nothing ;
who adventured to give us exact descriptions of the
felicities of the redeemed, of the torments of the lost,
and of those penal fires which were to purify the
souls that hovered in suspense between them ; nay,
even in the comments of more sober and temperate
theologians, we see how greedily the human mind
revels in these speculations, and what violence the
writers of the New Testament (if they were, indeed,
simply human) must have done to its native tendencies,
in abstaining from \hern. Nor is it without instruction
to mark what is the character of these superstitious
additions. They consist for the most part of pretended
discoveries as to the physical conditions of that future
life; its modes and degrees of enjoyment or suffering;
detailed descriptions of all that can appeal to the senses
or the sensuous imagination. They do not tell us any-
thing of moral significance. In this respect, indeed,
they could add nothing to the disclosures of the New
Testament ; for these, scanty as they are on all else
touching the future life, are full and express on the
moral aspects of the subject. They tell us not only all
IT.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 87
that is needful, but perhaps also all that it is possible
for us to know.
And this leads me to remark that, however just the
stress so often laid on the reticence of the New Testa-
ment in relation to a future state, it sheds on one spot
so intense an illumination, amidst the surrounding
darkness, as to constitute another anomaly of Chris-
tianity as compared with religions of confessedly human
origin. They are copious on the physical accessories
of a future life ; on these the New Testament is silent,
but it points, as with a sunbeam, to that which con-
stitutes the characteristic and essential felicity of that
life ; and in this is perfectly consistent with the reign-
ing feature which from first to last distinguishes this
book from every other that it subordinates every-
thing to the claims of God, of religion, and morality.
It accordingly declares that the future state, to which
it tells us to aspire, will consist of " new heavens
and a new earth," the characteristic of which is, that
" therein dwelleth righteousness." It leaves us to
conjecture, indeed, what are the secondary sources
of that felicity which belongs to such a world ; though
we may safely augur that they will be ample enough,
both from the instincts of our moral nature, which
associate virtue with well being, and the tendency
of virtue itself (confirmed, even by present experience)
to draw after her, as part of her train and retinue, the
best kinds of all inferior good. The metaphors, also,
which the New Testament employs (though, doubt-
less, only metaphors), and which are derived from our
88 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
sources of enjoyment here, seem to foreshadow the
same thing. In the songs, sung to harp and lute,
of the celestial choirs ; in the ever-verdant trees of
immortal fruit (the aliment of perpetual youth), which
overhang "the river of life; " in the enamelled meadows
of perennial green, through which the ever-brimming
stream rolls its translucent waters ; in the paeans of
victory and the ideas suggested by crowns of gold and
wreaths of unfading amaranth, faint images are sug-
gested of some of the adjuncts of the felicities of the
celestial life of the delights which salute and wait upon
" the spirits of the just made perfect." But still the
book makes no precise promise beyond the fact that
man shall be immortally happy, because immutably
holy, there. More it may have been as impossible to
tell us, as to give us a conception of a sixth sense,
or enable us to comprehend modes of existence and
capacities of enjoyment absolutely transcendental to
all our present experience. But as to the essential
characteristics of all happiness that which makes the
" mind its own place," and enspheres heaven within
it, the New Testament casts on this point an intense
light. The felicity of that world will principally consist
in perfect rectitude of soul towards God and all His
creatures; and in that favour of the Infinite Beneficence
" which is life for evermore." Add that that world will
contain only such as are made worthy of it ; that all
sin, and error, and sorrow are banished thence, and
who would not call it heaven, even though, physically,
no better than earth ?
IL] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 89
Let any one compare the pictures of a future life
given in the Koran, and he will see how prodigious
is the difference. Though it is admitted there, too,
that only virtue, such as the Koran defines it, shall
be admitted to heaven, it has provided such a species
of happiness, so voluptuous, so fondly tricked out
v/ith sensual delight, that it is hard to imagine that
virtue can mean anything very different from vice.
True virtue, to enjoy it, must be corrupted before it
enters paradise, or in some peril of being so afterwards.
The pleasures, most gloatingly described, are merely
Epicurean delights of this world intensified and multi-
plied. The unlimited command there of all the con-
comitants of an Oriental harem and banquet, make up
almost the sum of the heaven promised to a devout
follower of the Prophet. And in offering this sort of
heaven, as Bishop Hampden justly observes, the Koran
so contradicts that preliminary moral judgment by
which we must determine whether or not a professed
revelation is worthy of coming from God, that it alone
refutes Mahomet's claims. In a draft of a future world
drawn by man's pencil, the importance attached to con-
ditions of physical enjoyment or suffering analogous
to those which are found on earth, is natural ; but it
strongly contrasts with the supremacy given to moral
elements in the New Testament.
The stress laid on moral pre-requisites, not only as
the conditions but the chief essence of all true felicity,
pervades the Scriptures, and is in harmony with its
characteristic subordination of every thing to the
90 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
claims of God and religion. It assumes that God is
carrying on a Moral Government of the world, pre-
paratory to a more perfect dispensation, wherein its
principles will be fully vindicated and brought to their
true issues. This world, therefore, is but the school
in which man is educating for another and a better,
the quarry whence the "precious stones" which
are to " adorn the spiritual temple " are hewn, the
mines whence the diamonds which are polishing for
the coronets worn above, are dug. We need not
wonder, therefore, at the emphasis which the New
Testament lays on this aspect of a future state, or
that it is almost silent on every other. Many portions
of our very nature, many of our appetites and passions,
would seem merely provisional, the transient means
and appliances for the formation of habits which are
to last for ever, and which, when they have answered
their purpose, perish, like the envelope which protects
the chrysalis or the shell of the young bird ; or if
they survive at all, may probably reappear in forms
and under conditions analogous, indeed, to the present,
yet so different, that we can have no present conception
of them. If so, it is no wonder that Scripture says
little or nothing of the physical accessories of a future
state. But if the character now formed is to be the
chief instrument and condition of happiness ; " if
heaven be now," to employ the fine image of Robert
Hall, " attracting to itself whatever is congenial to
its nature, and enriching itself with the spoils of
earth;" if, as Butler conjectures, it be not God's pur-
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. gi
pose to make His creatures happy, simply as creatures,
but only in harmony with the laws of the-ir moral
being, and that it is a fond imagination of ours that
Beneficent Omnipotence has the former for its sole
object; if (to use his words) it "be His design only to
make the virtuous man happy" and, indeed, it seems
something like a contradiction in terms to suppose
that even God Himself can make any other man so
then the supreme importance which the New Testa-
ment attaches to this subject, the intense light which
it throws on this central point of its disclosures with
regard to a future state, while it leaves the surround-
ing topics and the whole scenery of the heavenly
world in darkness, is intelligible, and worthy of a true
revelation. But it is not " after the manner of men ;"
and this peculiarity of the New Testament, as com-
pared with drafts of the future state given by religious
systems of human origin, needs and demands an ex-
planation.
12. The last point I would urge is the difficulty
of imagining how human nature should spontaneously
have given such a picture of itself as we find in the
dogmatic statements of the Bible. There every soul
of man is charged with a total failure in the primary
and cardinal obligations of a rational and moral nature,
those we owe to GOD ; as also, though not to the
same extent nor in equal degree in all cases, with a
failure in the duties we owe to one another. The
indictment in the former case is of the most abso-
lute and comprehensive character. "God looked down
g 2 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
from heaven upon the children of men, to see if any
did understand and seek God. They are altogether
gone astray ; they are altogether become polluted ;
there is none that doeth good, no, not one." They
are described as universally and by nature opposed to
God, and alienated from Him, and therefore also as
exposed "to His wrath." These are not the colours,
I think, which human nature would spontaneously
employ in painting itself; still less could we reason-
ably expect such a picture from many different authors
in the same book.
It may be very true that interpreters have erred
in supposing that the language of Scripture which
asserts the " depravity of human nature " in rela-
tion to God, is equally applicable to man in his entire
moral and social capacity, as if no good of any
kind remained in him, or was to be expected from
him. This extreme view appears sufficiently refuted
(if there were no other argument) by the words of
Christ, in which, while declaring our nature to be
" evil," He still implies that man knows very well
how to do some things " that are good." "If ye
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto
your children, how much more shall your heavenly
Father give good things to them that ask Him ? "
There are actions of human nature which we cannot,
without absurdity, deny to be "good;"- - actions
prompted by benevolence and compassion; by generous
and self-sacrificing patriotism ; by the self-forgetting
abandon of parental or filial love ; by incorruptible
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 93
honesty and truthfulness in the dealings between man
and man. It is true, indeed, that these will want that
quality which can alone crown them, if not radicated
in religious principle, or if performed without a thought
of God, and must assuredly be utterly without avail
as a compensation for failure in the yet higher moral
claims which the Creator rightfully makes upon us.
Still they are beautiful, and claim our admiration
accordingly ; nor is there any ground for the exag-
gerations of theologians on this subject. The Scripture
representations of man in his ordinary moral relations
with his fellow-men are, soberly interpreted, dark
enough, and only too well justified by the history
of the world. Its crimes, and consequent miseries ;
its wars and oppressions ; its vices and selfishness,
too surely show that there is something very wrong
in human nature. But, in truth, the better a man is
affirmed to be in his social capacity, the better he
knows what is morally right and fair, and the better
he acts it in his relations to his fellow-men, the heavier
is that indictment which the Bible brings against him
of being disloyal to God. For would it not aggravate
that charge, if God could say with truth to any one
of us, " You have known how to fulfil every relation
in life, except to Me. You were a good son you
knew how to ' reverence and obey ' your parents ; you
were a good father you knew ' how to give good gifts
unto your children ; ' you were a good neighbour, and
shared your bread with the hungry ; you were a just
master, and ' never robbed the hireling of his wages ;'
94 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECF.
you were just, 'and coveted no man's silver and gold;'
but ME, the Author of your being, who ' breathed into
you the breath of life,' who bestowed upon you all the
faculties you possess and all the blessings you enjoy,
by whose bounty you have been fed, by whose mercy
you have been spared, ME you have not thought of;
or if a thought has obtruded itself, it has been un-
welcome to you; you have offered Me neither gratitude
nor obedience ; you have not sought to please Me, or
shrunk from offending Me ; never asked My counsel
or sanction in any plan of yours, and have' lived as
though I were not." Would it be any extenuation of
man's guilt that he knew so exactly how to comply
with the requisitions of the Second Table, while he
so egregiously failed in those of the First ? Now
this great and universal apostacy the Bible charges,
in the most direct and unsparing manner, on the
whole human race.
If the charge be true, if the " natural man " be thus
universally oblivious of God, if he does " not like to
retain " his Creator and Benefactor " in his thoughts,"
it is a charge against him of a far baser ingratitude
than he could possibly be guilty of towards his neigh-
bour, and a far more insolent disobedience than he
could ever display towards any earthly superior. Now,
considering how unwilling human nature is to suspect,
and much more proclaim, its own baseness; how easily
it deceives itself into a good opinion of itself; above all,
how quietly it takes the thought of this very indictment,
and how much more loudly it resents any charge of
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nat^ire. 95
baseness towards man than of any amount of delin-
quency towards .God, I doubt whether it would spon-
taneously paint itself in the dark colours of the Bible.
If it could not " wash the Ethiop white," it would at
least not intensify the dye.
If it be said as indeed the very repulsiveness of the
Bible declarations has made many say that the pic-
ture seems grossly overcharged ; that the estimate of
man's moral delinquency is exaggerated; I must leave
it to each man, looking at the history of the world in
relation to God, and the voice of his own conscious-
ness, to judge of that. But if the Bible thus appears
to be a libel on human nature, it strengthens my
present argument. It certainly is a paradox that a
draft of human nature, which seems greatly to wrong
itself, should be persistently given in a book written
by so many different men, in such distant ages, and
in the teeth of all natural prepossessions of egotism
and vanity.
Similar remarks apply to the doctrines by which the
Bible proposes to remedy the evils under which our
nature labours. The whole process by which man is
to obtain forgiveness and restoration is a process
of humiliation. He is to cast himself, without one
attempt at justification or extenuation, upon " the
mercy of God in Christ Jesus ; " assured, that if he
does so, he will be accepted ; and from that lowest,
but needful stage of " self-abasement," be enabled
to climb the whole arduous ascent between sin and
holiness, earth and heaven. I doubt much whether
g6 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
a plan so unflattering to man's self-righteousness, and
so deeply offensive to his pride and vanity, would
have been devised by himself.
In truth, I believe there never was a religious sys-
tem, especially when conjoined with the self-denial
it exacts and the austere heaven it promises, which
has been on the whole more distasteful to the intellect
and heart of man ; and accordingly it has met with
a more general and bitter opposition among men than
any other.
If it be affirmed, as sometimes it has been, that
Christianity must have a subtle adaptation to the
condition of human nature, to account even for that
degree of welcome and that emphatic admiration it
has met with, so that its main peculiarities of doc-
trine have been mentioned as indicative of a deep
knowledge of that nature, of its moral necessities
and remedies, in those who proclaimed them, all this
is quite true too. It is adapted to human nature,
as a bitter medicine may be to a patient ; and the
question is, would human nature have prescribed it ?
Those who have taken it, tried its efficacy, and re-
covered spiritual health, gladly proclaim its value.
But to those who have not, and who will not try it, it
is an unpalatable potion still. Moreover, the myriads
who have experimented upon it, and now see its adap-
tation to the moral wants, guilt, and weaknesses of
human nature, have with one voice proclaimed that,
before taey tried it, it was to them, as to the rest of
the world, an " offence " alike to intellect and heart,
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 97
as also the book itself expressly declares it would be.
"The gospel," said Paul, " is to the Jews a stumbling-
block, and to the Greeks foolishness."
The mere character of the doctrines of the Gospel
so remote on the whole from the ordinary track of
human speculation (whatever faint analogies may be
found with other systems), forms no slight argument
that man would not have been likely to conceive them ;
and the Jew, to whom they have ever been as gall
and wormwood, as little as any. But the indictment
against human nature, the unflattering portrait that
is everywhere given of it, it is still more difficult to
ascribe to human nature itself. Nay, more; if the
Bible be of purely human origin, we must not only
imagine men spontaneously giving expression to a
religious system in which themselves and all mankind
are painted in the most odious colours, but telling
the world at the same time that they know the
portrait will be an " offence " and a " scandal " tc
it, and encouraging all who receive it to expect
" tribulation " for so doing ! Is this " after the manner
of men " ?
Quite as extraordinary is the tone in which the
" depravity" of man in his relation to God is asserted.
It is in no cynical, no satirical spirit ; there is nothing
akin to misanthropy in it. This last is always bitter
enough ; for it is itself the mere expression of a vin-
dictive memory of the real or presumed injuries by
which wounded vanity or self-esteem, or perhaps some
better qualities, have been shocked ; and hence its
8
98 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
morbid view of human nature in general. Misanthropy
thinks simply of man, and his relation to his fellows.
Of that great moral lesion of his nature with which
the Bible deals of God's controversy with him it has
not a word to say. It is too human for that. In all
philosophy and fiction, in the maxims of a Roche-
foucauld, in the speeches of a Timon, there is not a
word that indicates the faintest conception that it is
man's relation to God that chiefly determines the
question of his moral worthlessness or worth.
On the other hand, the writers of the Bible, in
their tremendous impeachment of human nature,
seem not to think as men at all. They speak in
accordance with what I have represented as the
character of the Bible, on behalf of God. They are
simply witnesses for Him. There is not a shadow
of petulance or malice or resentment in their utter-
ances ; and yet if any men ever had cause for resent-
ment, surely they had. The most uncompromising
charges of man's religious apostacy are made with
judicial calmness and composure, mingled, indeed,
with a deep compassion for those whom they thus
arraign, and with urgent entreaties to "flee from
the wrath to come ; " but there is nothing of human
passion, or pique, or waywardness, or moroseness,
discernible about it. On the contrary, it is most
evident that they thus arraign human nature, and
point out the evils under which it groans, only with
the conviction that the detection of the malady is
essential to the cure, and with the hope of effecting
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 99
it. The matter and the tone of the sacred writers on
these subjects are unparalleled in all other litera-
ture. 1
Lastly, a general presumption that the religion of
the Bible sprang from some other source than that
which gave birth to the religions which are incon-
trovertibly of human growth, may be further gathered
from this, that when man proceeded, as he has so
often done, to modify or corrupt that religion, it has
always been in the direction, and " after the simili-
tude," of those religious systems which have his own
signature upon them; till at last Judaism under the
Jews, and Christianity under the Christians, were so
far assimilated to the religions man had incontestably
invented, that it has not always been easy to discern
the difference. Thus human nature has borne signi-
ficant testimony, both to the alien nature of that which
it has so obstinately bent to its purpose, and to its
own original and native propensions.
The process by which the Jews reduced the religion
of the Old Testament to that condition in which
Christ Himself declared that they had " made the
law of God of none effect by their traditions," was
much the same with the process by which Christians
slowly, but surely, engrafted upon Christianity abuses
which at last offended men like Erasmus almost as
1 Chalmers has well illustrated this peculiar tone of the sacred
writers in his work on the "Evidences." Collected works. Vol. II.
Book III. chap. ii. pp. 118-120.
8*
VYI I nurvnivn i
UNIVERSITY OF REDLANDS LIBRARY
100 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
much as men like Luther ; and in either case the
deflection was in the same direction, for human nature
was true to itself. Whately, in his admirable work on
the " Errors of Romanism," justly objects to speak of
them as if they were exclusively those of the Church
of Rome. For similar reasons, I would not speak
either of Jewish or Romanist errors, as if they were
exclusively chargeable on some particular races or
classes of men. It is not so ; they are the errors of
human nature, and might be reproduced, in various
forms and degrees, in any age and by any men. From
tendencies characteristic of that nature, have all the
evils in question come.
That the corruptions and abuses, of which no
candid Jew or Romanist will deny their fathers to
have been guilty, were of a nature which tended to
assimilate Judaism and Christianity more and more
to the current religions which had extensively pre-
vailed in the world, and whose origin was distinctly
human, is evident on the slightest inspection. The
Jews for ages, even down to the Captivity, were per-
petually falling into the idolatries of the surrounding
nations, though they were so severely scourged for it ;
and that great lapse was accompanied, as might be
expected, with manifold corresponding corruptions in
their entire institute. As for the New Testament, it
might at first sight seem, to a candid and intelligent
reader, incredible that any similar degradation could
take place in the religion it taught ; a religion marked
by the purest morality, by the most simple ritual; a
V , ,
ii.] Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 101
religion which seemed to give so little handle by which
corruption could lay hold of it ; which made so little
appeal to the senses, had no esoteric mysteries, came
out into the light, disclaimed all force, exulted in
spiritual freedom. Any man might rationally have
doubted whether it could have been converted into
that system which immediately preceded the Refor-
mation, and in which all these characteristics were
reversed; in which hierarchical pomp, sacerdotal pre-
tensions, a meretricious splendour of worship, were
prominent characteristics ; in which a huge wild
growth of superstition had overshadowed and blighted
alike simple doctrine and pure morality ; in which
the moral code was so relaxed that its proper claims
were too often commuted for penance, or even pence;
in which (as if to hide the transformation) the very
statute book of the religion was, in a great degree,
suppressed, or kept in the hands of the priesthood; the
service mumbled in an unknown tongue ; ignorance
hailed as the " mother of devotion;" and all resistance
to the spiritual tyranny thus erected, met through-
out Europe with the most ruthless resort to fire and
steel ! Was it possible, one is ready to ask, that
human nature could transform primitive Christianity
into that ? The thing was possible, for it was done ;
but it could have been done only because the tenden-
cies of human nature, so far from being likely to
originate the religion of the New Testament, vehe-
mently reacted against it. All that man did, when
he took it in hand, was to spoil it. Illustrations of
IO2 Certain Traits of the Bible [LECT.
this have been given in this and the preceding lec-
ture, when dealing with special instances of apparent
contrariety between the Bible and human nature ;
as for example, when speaking of its morality, which
man has ever made more accommodating ; and its
scanty revelations of a future state, which he has so
voluminously supplemented. But in point of fact
the same spirit is seen through the whole series of
changes. All are in one direction. Man loved a
gorgeous ritual, and the simplicity of the Christian
worship was soon enveloped in a glittering cloud of
ceremonies. He was addicted to idolatry, and he was
taught that there were a thousand tutelary saints and
angels to whom he might legitimately offer various
species of adoration. He was prone to "self-righteous-
ness," and he was told that austerities and penances,
and even money, were efficacious supplements of a
defective repentance and obedience. His pride often
aspired to superhuman merit rather than content
itself with plain Christian obedience, and he learned
to attach an artificial sanctity to celibacy, to mo-
nastic seclusion, and to the cell and roots of the
anchorite, Christianity had no priest except the one
invisible High Priest, " passed into the heavens ; "
but man's weak heart had been accustomed to the
solace of many, and he soon inaugurated an order of
priests with more than the prerogatives of the heathen
priesthood, and more than its sacerdotal pretensions.
Christianity had no " sacrifices," except the " one
offering " of the invisible High Priest ; but as man had
ii. J Viewed in relation to Human Nature. 103
made "priests," so they must "needs have somewhat to
offer," and that somewhat was no less than a sacrifice
perpetually renewed by a stupendous miracle. And,
finally, to all this, human nature gave its consent, for
it loves to lay responsibility on other shoulders than
its own; and leaning credulously on the priest, fully
divided with him the infamy and guilt of "priestcraft."
" Populus vult decipi" is but a prelude and invitation
to the priest's "decipictur" and to a great extent an
apology for it. 1
In conclusion, if human nature gradually constructed
the system of religion which overshadowed Europe
just before the Reformation, out of the New Testa-
ment (as it undoubtedly did), it is to me a strong
presumption that that same human nature, which
showed its genuine proclivities in so long a course
and on so great a scale, was not the sole or legitimate
author of the New Testament itself.
* Whately, in his " Errors of Romanism," makes candid, but
just admission of this. Pp. 89-95. London, 1845.
LECTURE III.
ARGUMENTS ANCILLARY TO THE SAME
CONCLUSION.
LECTURE III.
ANCILLARY ARGUMENTS, DRAWN FROM CERTAIN TRAITS
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, AS CONTRASTED WITH
WHAT MIGHT BE EXPECTED FROM THE ANTE-
CEDENTS OF THE WRITERS.
are certain peculiarities in the teaching
* and conduct of the writers of the New Testa-
ment (and it would be easy to select like topics from
the Old) which are ancillary to the same conclusion.
Considering the condition and antecedents of the
founders of Christianity, and that, on the points to
which I am about to refer, philosophers and religionists,
in their attempt to reform human error, have very
generally gone astray ; it is not easy to see how the
suggestions of mere human sagacity kept ignorant men
like the apostles in the right path, when it is so
difficult even for the wise to find it.
The first point I would mention is the decision with
which the principle is asserted, that conscientiously
to reduce to practice what we already know, and so far
as we know it, is the surest method of advancing in
the knowledge of Divine truth. " To do the will of
God," is in the New Testament the great source of
further illumination. It rests indeed on a very general
io8 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
principle of our nature which applies to all things
that are practical ; and therefore to religion which, if
not practical, is nothing.
It did not escape the penetration of Aristotle any
more than that of Butler, 1 that we are so constituted,
that the only effectual way of learning things of a
practical nature, is to work them into the soul by habit,
and to give them expression in the life. The great
exponent of this principle, as applied to religion, is our
Lord Himself, who expressly proclaims it in the words,
" He that doeth the will of God shall know of the
doctrine whether it be of God." This is the true " Via
Intelligentiae," "The way of understanding," as Jeremy
Taylor calls it in his celebrated sermon on the text.
That text, indeed, does not mean, " Blindly accept
whatever you are told, on human authority, is the
1 " It is well said, therefore, that the just man becomes so by
doing what is just, and the temperate by doing what is temperate.
But many there are who do not practise these things, but betaking
themselves to talking about them (STTI & rbv Xdyov /cara^ei/yovree),
imagine they are philosophizing, and that in that way they will
be duly affected by them (KUI OVTUQ taeaOai aTrovcaioi) ; doing some-
thing like what the sick do when they listen diligently to their
physicians and follow none of their prescriptions. As therefore
these do not get health of body by that sort of therapeutics,
neither do those health of soul by such sort of philosophy."
Aristotle, Eth. II. iv.
Butler, with yet deeper philosophy, proceeds one step further.
" Going over the theory of virtue," says he, " in one's thoughts,
talking well, and drawing fine pictures of it ; this is so far from
necessarily or certainly conducing to form a habit of it in him
who thus employs himself, that it may harden the mind in a
contrary course, and render it gradually more insensible ; that is,
form a habit of insensibility to all moral considerations. For, from
our very faculty of habits, passive impressions by being repeated
grow weaker." Analogy. Part I. chap. v.
in. to the same Conclusion. 109
will of God, and act upon it." Neither does it say,
" If you are doubtful whether or not a doctrine is of
God, nevertheless act upon it ; that is the way to
know of the doctrine whether it be of God:" for that
would imply a contradiction, telling us to do the will
of God without any presumed knowledge of that will.
But it plainly means what it says that if we do what
is the will of God, we shall in that way best learn
the doctrine whether it be of God ; that is, come to
a clear perception and plenary conviction of its Divine
origin. 1
Religious knowledge, then, being practical, can be
made effectual by no mere intellectual assent or con-
viction, but must be wrought into the very tissues
of our moral and spiritual life ; just as food can
nourish us only as it is actually assimilated into our
flesh and blood. Practical truth thus becomes our
own in a sense in which no mere theoretical truth
ever can be ; and a soul, thus cognisant of it, is in a
position to attain higher and higher degrees of it.
Nor is it difficult to see that the prescribed method
naturally tends to produce .this result. It does for the
soul what the " rectification " of his instruments does
1 It is true that the rule to each individual man must be his own
conscientious conviction, after diligent use of such means of illumi-
nation as are in his power, as to what is the will of God. But even
so, it is the right rule. For this faithful listening to conscience,
after diligent examination, is at any rate the will of God ; and if
conscience be sincere and diligent, will rarely lead men astray.
At all events, it is the only possible rule, and for the reasons
assigned in the context, the one best calculated to clarify the mind
and prepare it for further truth.
no Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
for the astronomer. As that is necessary for the just
observation of sun or star, so is this docile disposition
necessary to place the soul in a right posture in re-
ference to the great source of spiritual illumination.
It lays the axe at the root of all prejudices and sinister
aims, and necessarily implies that simplicity and can-
dour, the lack of which it is that chiefly obstructs our
mental vision.
I know that Christianity tells us (and I believe with
perfect truth) that He who made this docility the con-
dition of our progress, directly rewards it by express
donation of increased light from Himself. But I do
not, of course, urge this, because it would be to assume
the truth of the claims of the New Testament. I
simply remark that it was in a spirit of deep knowledge
of the necessary conditions of spiritual and moral illu-
mination, that it thus insists on the diligent " doing
of the will of God," as the condition of all advance in
the knowledge of Divine truth; just as he alone can
truly discern the excellence and beauty of integrity and
virtue who becomes acquainted with them by practice.
Nor, even if it be supposed that the initial knowledge
of the will of God, on the part of a genuinely sincere
disciple, is still mixed with remaining error, is the rule
less philosophically just. For the dispositions it enjoins
and cherishes put us in the most likely way to defecate
the mind from mistake and illusion; just as in ordinary
practical matters, candour and docility, when we come
to test knowledge by experience, will usually soon show
where a misleading fallacy lies.
in.] to the same Conclusion. in
2. A second point, in which the teaching of the
New Testament alike transcends the antecedents of
the writers, and the then prevailing impressions of the
value of orthodoxy per se and the efficacy of rite and
ceremony, is akin to the preceding : I mean the decision
with which the writers insist that no religious know-
ledge is worth anything at all if it be not reduced to
practice. If they insist on the vital importance ofr-v
faith, it is impossible not to see that it is as a " motive
power," as the informing spirit of action, that they
so commend it.
" Faith without works is dead," says St. James.
It is, says St. Paul: for "though I had all faith so
that I could remove mountains, without charity I am
as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." " Can faith
save ? " says St. James. Yes, says St. Paul, but it
must be a " faith working by love," unfeigned Jove
to God and man. And all this is but the echo of the
same doctrine which is found in the Old Testament.
" To man, God saith, The fear of the Lord, that is
wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding ; "
to which it were easy to add a score of like passages.
Now when we consider how very generally this great
truth is forgotten by men of all religions, and too often
by Christians themselves, who have been often taunted
(and have not seldom given just grounds for the taunt)
that they pay more attention to " faith " than to
"works," to a creed than a life, and plume themselves
on that dead orthodoxy which resembles true faith
about as much as a mummy a living man ; it is not
112 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
a little remarkable that the New Testament should
have been so perspicuous and decisive on a point on
which Jew and Gentile generally went astray, and in
which Christians themselves, yielding to those ten-
dencies of human nature by which they at last as-
similated their religion to that of the heathen, too
often followed their example. The heathen priesthood
(as elsewhere said 1 ) were generally contented to aban-
don the field of practical morality altogether ; and
without much caring even about an orthodox faith,
reduced religion to a thing of rite and ceremonial, in
which the Christian Church, in a few centuries, too
faithfully imitated them.
3. A third point, I think, worthy of attention, is the
noble freedom from minute casuistry which charac-
terises the writings of the New Testament, and the
astonishing wisdom and moderation with which such
questions, when they must be confronted, are discussed.
Of the first, there is not only abundant proof in the very
general form in which the moral precepts of the New
Testament are given, frankly relying on the common
sense and candour of the reader to interpret and apply
them aright; but it is conceded even in the objections
which adverse critics have made to that very generality.
i Ante. Pp. 22, 23.
" But the religion of the heathen, as was before observed, little
concerned itself in their morals. The priests that delivered the
oracles of heaven, and pretended to speak from the gods, spoke
little of virtue and a good life. And, on the other side, the philo-
sophers, who spoke from reason, made not much mention of the
Deity in their ethics." Locke's " Reasonableness of Christianity."
Works. Vol. VI., p. 144. London, 1824.
in.] to the same Conclusion. 113
The New Testament, it has been affirmed, often lays
down rules so vague as to be practically no rules at
all. Few, I think, will acquiesce in this judgment.
On the other hand, the objection is fairly met by a
reductio ad absurdum; for to specify all the specialities
of circumstance which must modify and limit any
moral precept, would be to ask a moral teacher to per-
form an impossibility, and has never been exacted of
any. Even the precepts, " Love your enemies," "Love
all men" "Do to others as ye would that others
should do to you," may be met by many seeming and
some real limitations. But they are safe rules enough
for any honest man who sincerely wishes to act upon
them ; and so in other cases. The precepts of Christ
and His apostles are all of this general nature embody-
ing principles of which common sense, if it be but
conjoined with candour, can easily see the propriety,
and leaving it to that same common sense and right
feeling to determine the application. Sometimes, in-
deed, Christ does not hesitate, in order to give greater
point and force to His maxims, to embody them in
forms which look paradoxical ; as where He enjoins
us, when " smitten on the one cheek, to turn the other
also ; " or to " pluck out even a right eye," if it is
the cause of " offence " to us. The former command,
a captious critic would tell us, is a little too much for
the world, or even for the Christian. But until he
consistently interprets the latter, and many other such
expressions, with the same extravagant literality, it
would be but fair to apply the more rational interpre-
ts
114 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
tation to both ; and to say that we have in the first a
rhetorical expression of the spirit which Christ would
inculcate on His disciples, and which ought to animate
them, even when suffering most wrongfully.
But, at all events, the moral elements of the New
Testament are notably free from those minute, no doubt
often difficult, but as often frivolous discussions, which
so many casuists have taxed all their ingenuity to
multiply, and by which they have made their books
as much the laughing-stock, as the oracles, of the
world. Anxious to anticipate every conceivable assem-
blage of circumstances which may modify moral
precepts, casuistry aims at a scientific completeness
which is unattainable, for a thousand folios would not
be sufficient for it. And, in general, it may be said
that the more minute it is, the more pretentiously
exhaustive, so much the more thorny, litigious, frivo-
lous, and, in a moral sense, pernicious, it becomes. All
this is but too notoriously exemplified in the volumi-
nous collections of "cases" and " judgments" which
make up the more ponderous systems of Christian
casuistry ; the questions, in the immense preponder-
ance of instances, being either such as an upright
heart and an honest conscience will intuitively decide
from the general precepts ; or such as, if they really
justify doubt and involve difficulty, had far better be
left to be argued and determined as the exigencies of
practical life give rise to them, than formed into
a system; which, in order to make it complete, tempts
men to raise ten thousand imaginary questions that
in.] to the same Conclusion. 115
would never require to be decided in practice, and
which only tend to wiredraw the judgment, and not
seldom ensnare, or even pollute, the conscience both
of those who ask and of those who decide them.
But while there is in the New Testament a remark-
able freedom from all those minute and supersubtile
questions which make the staple of casuistry, yet when
such questions (for, as just intimated, they will occur
in actual life) incidentally present themselves, it is
impossible not to be struck with the singular prudence
and moderation with which they are treated. We
have several examples in the Gospels, and others in
the Epistles. The Jews, indeed, like all who have
perverted a moral institute into a copious system of
casuistry, had well-nigh evacuated the moral element
of their law altogether ; and Christ in the most tren-
chant manner explodes and ridicules that sophistry,
equally captious and wicked, which had led to this
result. Under pretence of giving to the " treasury of
God," some of them would fain, in certain cases,
evade the obligations of filial affection; by the frivo-
lous distinction between the " temple and the altar,"
or 1 " between the altar and the oblation laid upon it,"
they would absolve themselves from the obligations of
an oath ; and by straining the law of the Sabbath in a
thousand absurd ways, they converted into an intoler-
able yoke what was intended to be a merciful rest and
solace to the "weary and heavy laden." He might
well say of the first, " Ye make the law of God of
none effect by your traditions ; " of the second, " Ye
9 *
n6 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
fools and blind, for whether is greater, the altar or
the temple? the altar or the oblation?" and of the
third, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man
for the Sabbath;" " God will have mercy and not sacri-
fice ; " and, " Had ye known what this meaneth, ye
would not have condemned the guiltless." Again, His
answer to those who sought to inveigle Him into
dangerous collision with the civil government, by
asking, "Whether it was lawful to give tribute to
Cajsar or not" (though blamed by some critics for
reasons to me utterly incomprehensible), has been
generally considered, as it seems to have been by
those who put the invidious question, a masterpiece
of that prudence which combines the " wisdom of
the serpent with the innocence of the dove."
All these matters are decided on the broadest prin-
ciples, in marked contrast with the mode of casuists
in general, and especially of the Jewish casuists of
that age. 1
The same spirit rules in the Acts and Epistles. In
1 It is the same with the Old Testament. "What doth God
require of thee," says the prophet, " but to do justly, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God ? " Throughout the book there
is no countenance given to those refinements of casuistry which
ever mark the decadence of a moral system. Nay, it is curious
to see that while the Jews were continually degrading their own
institute, and gradually piling up those traditions by which Christ
expressly says " they had made void the law of God," the succes-
sive prophets not only show no sympathy with them (or rather
the most marked antipathy), and not only perpetually recal them
to that spirit of the law which they were sacrificing to the letter,
but continually give their code a higher and higher spirituality,
and make the claims of the moral over the ceremonial law more
and more emphatic.
in.] to the same Conclusion. 117
these are discussed some questions of great difficulty,
which would have provoked whole chapters of ingenious
wiredrawing in the tomes of the Escobars and Baunys
of a later age ; questions which arose out of the novel
circumstances in which Christian maxims and institu-
tions had placed the world. In the treatment of these
questions it is impossible, I think, to deny the just-
ness of thinking and consummate prudence which the
Christian teachers evince.
We see this conspicuously in the management of
that vehement dispute which arose so early at Antioch
between the Jewish converts who were still attached
to Judaism, and could not reconcile themselves to its
summary abolition, and the Gentile converts, who
could not consent " to bind that heavy yoke " on
their shoulders. The question was referred to a coun-
cil of the Apostles, Elders, and Church generally, at
Jerusalem. Though almost all the members, certainly
all the principal, were Jewish Christians, yet in what
a modest and gentle temper, in how conciliatory a
spirit, on what reasonable terms, is the question dis-
cussed and decided! One cannot find a trace in this
Council of that blind bigotry which has so often
made subsequent ecclesiastical assemblies, and pro-
fessedly Christian Governments, when dealing with
ecclesiastical matters, so obstinate and intractable. If
it be reckoned (though with some latitude) the first of
the long series of " Ecclesiastical Councils," there is
hardly one in all Labbe's huge folios of subsequent
" Concilia " on which a Christian can look with such
n8 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
unmingled satisfaction. Whence came these rude
men, in the starkness of their ignorance and inex-
perience, in the infancy of their institutions, them-
selves only just escaped from life-long bondage to a
system of most opposite characteristics, to be thus
superior to prejudice, and so prudent in their conduct
as compared with all their successors, who yet had
their light to walk by, and shut their eyes to it ?
Similar observations apply to the several cases of
casuistry which Paul had to decide. His judgments
are singularly marked by robust good sense, modera-
tion, and charity. Take the case of the convert, for
example, whose lapse from Christian morality had
brought scandal on the Church of Corinth. While the
apostle uncompromisingly demands his expulsion,
he none the less welcomes him back the moment he
exhibits genuine repentance ; and with exquisite pathos
enjoins his fellow-Christians to assure the returning
wanderer of their forgiveness, and to " comfort him,
lest he be swallowed up of over-much sorrow." J What
1 Most exquisitely has Milton touched this trait of the evangelical
discipline in the wonderful descriptions of the true office of ex-
communication, given in his " Tracts on Church Government "
and "On Reformation :"
"It may be truly said, that as the mercies of wicked men are
cruelties, so the cruelties of the Church are mercies. For if re-
pentance sent from heaven meet this lost wanderer, and draw him
out of that steep journey, wherein he was hasting towards destruc-
tion, to come and reconcile himself to the Church ; if he bring
with him his bill of health, and that he is now clear of infec-
tion, and of no danger to the other sheep ; then with incredible
expressions of joy all his brethren receive him, and set before him
those perfumed banquets of Christian consolation, with precious
ointments bathing and fomenting the old, and now to be forgotten
in.] to the same Conclusion. ng
an entire absence is here of that austerity and spiritual
prudery which soon after characterized Christian
Fathers and Churches, and which proclaimed that one
lapse into flagrant sin was an irrecoverable error, and
must operate as an eternal bar to renewed commu-
nion ! How superior is Paul's decision both to that
fanaticism and that laxity which on this subject and
so many others alternately infested the Church, when
man undertook to remodel the Gospel ! So little was
that Gospel likely to come from him, that the moment
he takes it in hand, he bends its rules to one extreme
or other; now to the side of extreme rigour, and now
of scandalous laxity.
Another instance of a decision, equally marked by
moderation and good sense, is the one respecting the
propriety of " abstaining from meat offered to idols,"
as also that respecting the observance of " certain
days ; " on both which points divisions of opinion had
arisen in the Church, aggravated, as usual, by the
strong prejudices of those who still clung with the
customary pertinacity of human nature to tradition
and antiquity. Paul decides that these things, in them-
selves, are neither good nor bad: "that an idol is
nothing in the world ; " that he who eats of meat
offered to it, is " neither the better nor the worse " for
it ; that he " who observes " certain days, and " he
who does not observe them," may offer an equally
acceptable service to God, provided " their conscience
stripes, which terror and shame had inflicted ; and thus with
heavenly solaces they cheer up his humble remorse, till he regain
his first health and felicity."
I2O Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
condemn them not in the things they allow ; " and that
there is nothing in such variety of opinion and usage
that should break the "perfect bond of charity." At
the same time he affirms that though every man had
a right to perfect liberty of judgment and practice in
such matters, yet that a true Christian will in some
cases impose a voluntary law upon himself, if his
innocent liberty is likely to lead others into sin,
" through their weak conscience." He will avoid that
which may be " a stumbling-block in his brother's
way;" and Paul nobly declares, "If meat make my
brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world
standeth."
And this "counsel of perfection" is based on the
only true principle; not on the "weak brother's"
rights, but on our own charity towards him, lest we
be to him the accidental cause of sin. This we may
be by inadvertence ; for with true philosophic discri-
mination the apostle asserts that even an " erroneous
conscience " still binds ; and that if, therefore, the
"weak brother" imitates us, on our authority or by
our example, in an action of the innocence of which
we may be convinced, while he himself still doubts, he
is not free from sin ; since he " who doubts," is self-
condemned, if he performs any action while in that
state of doubt about its lawfulness ; and that he only
is " happy, who condemneth not himself in the thing
that he alloweth." Well had it been for the work 1 ,
if principles so plain and comprehensive had guided
the decisions of those who have treated of such matters
in.] to the same Conclusion. 12 1
in their books of casuistry. The famous doctrine of the
"probable," and the rules for directing the "intention,"
with which Pascal makes himself and the world so
merry, would never have been heard of.
But that the concession to a "weak brother" was
merely a voluntary concession to his " weakness," and
not to be construed to the prejudice of Christian
liberty, is plain, both from Paul's founding it wholly
on charity, and from his own conduct ; for while
he enjoins this magnanimity on proper occasions,
he firmly rebukes Peter's equivocal compliance with
Jewish prejudice at Antioch. That, too, was a com-
pliance in things, in themselves, indifferent, and a hasty
reasoner might have imagined that Peter was only
doing what Paul avowedly did on some occasions,
" becoming all things to all men." But he was far
too perspicacious to be imposed upon by any such
false analogy, or to confound treachery to confessed
truth and mean truckling to 'ignorance and bigotry,
with an indulgent charity ! He felt that the question
was, whether liberty should be, not voluntarily fore-
gone, but unworthily sacrificed : he therefore says,
" To whom we gave place, no, not for an hour." x
And on the same principle, had it been demanded of
him, as a moral obligation, that he should surrender
his liberty of " eating meat offered to idols," or abstain-
1 The full import, and therefore rational vehemence, of Paul's
protest on this occasion, is admirably drawn out in a remarkable
Sermon (or rather Dissertation) by the Rev. Thos. Binney, entitled
"The Law our Schoolmaster." Sermons preached in the King's
Weigh-house Chapel. (1826-1866.) 8vo. London. Pp. 276-284.
122 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
ing, as he pleased ; had he been told that he must
look at the thing as morally wrong ; we cannot have a
doubt that he would have eaten the obnoxious viands,
in the very face of his censors, on the first opportunity.
To do or not to do a thing that we admit to be in-
different, is Christian prudence or imprudence according
to circumstances ; it may be Christian charity, it may
be Christian folly. A magnanimous desire not to " give
offence to weak consciences " is one thing ; to be told
that though a thing be indifferent, we must practise it ;
or that, though we think it indifferent, we are to regard
it as morally right or wrong, is quite another.
Now where did this Jew, a " Hebrew of the Hebrews,
and as touching the law a Pharisee," who had been
brought up after "the straitest of that sect/' and sat
at the feet of Gamaliel, come by his discriminating and
elevated casuistry ? Not, we may be sure, from the
Jews, who were so tenacious, not only of their ancient
law, but of their most frivolous glosses upon it; whose
whole soul was immersed in ceremonial, and who had
made void even the " weightier matters of the law"
by their punctilious scrupulosity.
Nay, how superior is the apostle's whole mode of
looking at such questions to that in which the Chris-
tian Church afterwards, and for many ages, looked,
and to a considerable extent still looks, at them. How
many "Churches" and "Councils" have contended
to the death, not only for the exact observance of
a given ceremonial, but even for the mode of that
ceremonial, even for the shadow of that mode ; con-
in.] to the same Conclusion. 123
tended for it as for the most vital truth, and sacrificed
not only charity, but liberty, to their crotchet. Nay,
how often for the sake of their senseless idol of
" Uniformity " (which, in such matters at least, the
apostle's whole reasoning shows to be of no con-
sequence of no more than those other " Mumbo
Jumbos" which he reduces to the same category of
" nothing in the world"), have men imprisoned and
scourged and slain their fellow - Christians ; not
" weaker brethren," indeed, but men a great deal
stronger in every respect, except in the pernicious
prerogative of persecution. How came Paul and the
other writers of the New Testament to be so much
wiser than the millions of their successors, who had
their precepts and example before them, and set them
both at naught ?
Similar commendation, in my opinion, is due to the
apostle's decisions in reference to another question on
which the Corinthians consulted him ; I mean, mar-
riage. But on this I will not lay any special stress,
inasmuch as many demur to the accuracy of the
apostle's judgment ; and deem that, though confessing
marriage not only " lawful," but " honourable in all,"
and to men in general, expedient, he has too much
admiration for celibacy, and in some degree sanctions
the extravagant views on that subject afterwards de-
veloped in the Church. I shall content myself, there-
fore, with simply expressing my conviction that those
who thus argue do less than justice to his views, and
with giving, in a few words, my reasons for so thinking.
124 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
The error of their interpretation seems to me to con-
sist in supposing that the apostle, in the phrases they
censure, is speaking of the expediency, or otherwise,
of marriage in general marriage in all ages, and in
reference to all men. Now if this be inferred, it seems
contradicted by what the apostle expressly says in
other places. He says, showing what his opinion of
marriage generally is : " It is good for every man to
have his own wife, and every woman her own husband."
It seems more reasonable, therefore, to suppose that
he is speaking with special reference to the circum-
stances of the Corinthians, who had consulted him.
Some may ha.ve asked him whether marriage, however
desirable, was expedient in times of persecution and
" present distress " like theirs ; whether it was wise
"to give" (as Bacon phrases it) " such hostages to
fortune, as wife and children." He decides that, in
such circumstances, such as could receive the doctrine,
would be wiser to abstain from such bonds than to
entangle themselves with them. In similar circum-
stances (whether in that age or any other) he would
also seem, by implication, to say, that such as could
be celibates, and yet chaste ; pure, yet without a daily
warfare with impulse and passion, would in his judg-
ment be better if they remained celibates; but he
acknowledges, that as a general principle, " every man
should have his own wife;" that only some men
can receive the above counsel; and therefore concludes
that it is " better to marry than to burn ;" better to
face the inconveniences of marriage even in times of
in.] to the same Conclusion. 125
persecution, than to live in perpetual conflict with
passion.
The apostle has also been charged, and that in
somewhat coarse terms, with treating this subject too
exclusively in its lower and more animal aspects. The
answer is, first, that even in these aspects, marriage
has such momentous bearings on human welfare,
on virtue and vice as to make it necessary that the
moralist should not overlook them ; and secondly, that
the passages in question are not the only passages in
which the apostle lets us see what are his sentiments
on this subject. It is impossible to imagine a loftier
ideal of the purity, the tenderness, the forbearance,
the devotion which ought ever to characterise con-
nubial love, than he has given us in various parts
of his epistles, and especially w r here he tells us that
it ought to emulate the self-sacrificing love of Christ
Himself. In truth, the sentiments of the New Testa-
ment in relation to women are so vividly contrasted
with those of the ancient world in general, that they
may be fairly adduced, not merely as an illustration
of the argument of the present lecture; namely, the
superiority in many points of the teaching of the New
Testament to what might be expected from the ante-
cedents and condition of the teachers, but of its
superiority to the teaching of the greatest sages of
antiquity.
On another related matter there can be no doubt
that Paul's decision is eminently that of common sense.
I mean that in which he decides that, if a Christian
126 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
husband has an unbelieving wife, or a Christian wife
an unbelieving husband, the marriage shall not be
dissolved on that account ; and for this reason, if for
no other, that it was possible continued intercourse
might issue in the conversion and salvation of the
unbelieving party. It had been well if all who have
treated cases somewhat akin to this, had imitated his
tact and good sense.
4. Another point, worthy of being noted here, is the
place assigned to Charity in the New Testament. It
is represented as the crown and glory of all religion.
That eminence is not given to correct belief, to that
faith which is yet so highly exalted, and which so many
in after ages would fain honour more than charity.
Faith, though of paramount importance, is so only
relatively, as the necessary condition of charity and
every other excellence. It is the root, as some other
graces are the leaf and stem ; but Charity is repre-
sented as the flower and fruit. It is the immortal
product of them all, and still " abides," when " hope "
vanishes in fruition, and " faith" is lost in " sight." It
is the fulfilling of the law ; it is that which faith must
produce, or faith itself exists not. In the glowing
eulogy of it in I Cor. xiii., we see that Paul extols it
ab'ove every other Christian grace, above all intellec-
tual orthodoxy, above all " revelations," "visions," and
" miracles ;" above the " eloquence of men and of
angels," above the self-devotion of martyrdom itself.
Well might Lord Lyttelton ask whether this was like
the language of ordinary fanaticism ? How seldom has
in.] to the same Conclusion. 127
the Christian Church how seldom has the individual
Christian risen to the elevation of this thought !
How often has higotry contemned it as a test of
Christian character altogether, and indeed rather
thought its opposite, if it but masked itself under zeal
for orthodoxy, a surer proof of heing sound in the
faith !
And this glowing eulogy of Charity of " love un-
feigned " is in harmony with another reigning pecu-
liarity of the Christian religion, and which is charac-
teristic of no other ; namely, that it makes benevolence
and philanthropy, practical philanthropy, the genuine
fruit of this charity, the absolute proof and criterion
of a sincere profession. However important its dog-
mas, even in relation to this very thing, the test
by which it is determined whether or not they have
been loved and embraced, is this. 1 The characteristic
of Him who founded the religion, is that " He went
about doing good; " and He not only demands that all
His disciples should imitate His example, but declares
that the single trait by which He will determine
whether they are such, is their conformity to Him in
this point ; that like Him, they have ministered to
the necessities and mitigated the sorrows of mankind.
This is plain from the instances He gives in His own
1 The language of the Old Testament is almost equally strong
in the inculcation of this duty of practical benevolence, as in-
separable from all true religion. " Blessed is he that considereth
the poor " (or the sick), " the Lord will deliver him in the time of
trouble." "He that giveth to the poor lendeth unto the Lord."
See also Isaiah Iviii. 6-n; Jer. xxii. 16; Job xxix. 11-16; and
many other passages.
128 Arguments Ancillary [LECT-
exposition of His rule of judgment. (Matthew xxv.
34-45.) However orthodox the faith, however ap-
parently devout the life, it is adjudged that there
cannot be either genuine faith or genuine devotion
without this active benevolence. The language of the
apostles is to the same eftect. 1
And as no religion but Christianity has ever made
benevolence so exclusively a test of the sincerity of
profession, so none has ever practised it to the same
extent. However short her disciples may have come
of her requirements and they have come very short
indeed we shall look in vain in any other than Chris-
tian lands for such efforts to succour sickness and
poverty, ignorance and destitution, as she has made ;
such funds for the maimed, the halt, the blind, the
orphan, and the widow, as the treasury of Christ has
supplied. Hospitals and asylums were unknown in
the ancient world. They were created by the Gospel.
Now I cannot but doubt whether men, such as the
apostles, or, indeed, any zealots such as religious
history generally celebrates, men intent on the pro-
clamation of certain doctrines, and convinced of their
momentous importance, would have suspended the
whole value of their darling orthodoxy on a practical
issue, which (however vitally connected with it and
necessarily flowing out of it), seemed, in the sole test
given of it, to keep it out of sight altogether !
5. There is yet another point on which, as it appears
to me, the writers of the New Testament exhibit a
1 James i. 27 ; i Tim. vi. 17-19 ; Eph. iv. 28.
in.] to the same Conclusion. 129
practical wisdom which from their antecedents and cir-
cumstances we could scarcely expect, and which, in like
circumstances, has been rarely, if ever, manifested in
the world's history. I allude to the singular tact with
which the apostles managed to steer clear, enthu-
siastic and zealous though they were in their new
enterprise, of those social and political rocks on which
their bark might have been so easily wrecked. All
history shows how easy it is for religious to pass into
political zeal, or coalesce with it, especially where men
are suffering under oppression and persecution. The
Jews in particular, from both sorts of zeal, from fervid
attachment to their laws, and hatred of that ignomi-
nious yoke against which they were always chafing,
were inflammable as tinder. They were perpetually
breaking out into insurrection, till, at last, resistance
ended in their utter ruin. Hardly had Luther entered
on his career than he was troubled with the fanaticism
of Carlstadt, and soon after by far worse fanatics, who
would have turned the Reformation into an instrument
of political revolution, and thereby gravely imperilled
his enterprise. In our own country, during the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, how often did the
movements which took their rise in religious zeal
(sometimes an auxiliary, sometimes an incentive, to
political discontent) flame out into resistance against
the persecutions that would suppress it !
Now, when we consider that from the first the
Christians were a sect not only " everywhere spoken
against," but cruelly maltreated, it does appear mar-
10
130 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
vellous that its leaders could escape all the mischiefs
and scandals which might TO easily have sprung from
this source. It is attributable, no doubt, to their in-
flexible adherence to the course the New Testament
ascribes to them. They were exclusively intent on a
single object, the propagation of the Gospel ; and
though not insensible to the evils of their time, and
quietly depositing principles in the world, which if
received, and so far as received, would infallibly cor-
rect them, they seem to have instinctively felt that
to enter upon a crusade for this object, would be to
imperil their religious mission, and retard that miti-
gation of political and social evils which its success
would bring with it. None can accuse them of time-
serving and subservience. They openly professed their
resolution to prosecute their proper enterprise in spite
of all the powers of the world, and they kept their
word. They accordingly denounced with unflinching
decision whatever was inconsistent with it; whatever
stood between man and God's favour, between man's
soul and its salvation ; all idolatry, all impurity, all
sensuality, all covetousness and dishonesty, all malice
and uncharitableness, and these, of course, none the
less, when they flowed from vicious social customs
and political institutions.
But while inculcating principles, which if accepted
and acted upon would have destroyed the essence of
despotism and slavery, transformed every despot, in
fact, into a just and beneficent sovereign, every slave-
owner into a kind master, like Philemon, and every
in.] to the same Conclusion. 131
slave into a freeman in all but the name, like Onesi-
mus, nay, into a " brother beloved," they refrained
from a crusade against despotism and slavery as politi-
cal institutions. Both had so long and extensively pre-
vailed, and the last was so universally sanctioned, the
roots of both were so entwined with the framework
of society, that they could not be extirpated by any
summary process, nor denounced and resisted, except
at the risk of transforming the religious into a political
revolution. The apostles seem to have been con-
tented, therefore, to wait, and while plainly proposing
principles which must, if acted upon, secure liberty
and extinguish slavery, left the seed to germinate
in the soil. Such, at all events, appears to be the
posture of the writers of the New Testament in re-
ference to these evils ; nor can we do them justice
except by recollecting that Christianity was a system
suddenly inserted into the framework of ancient
society, and that it was impossible, without certain
ruin to its main enterprise, and infinite hazard even
to its secondary objects, directly to encounter some
of the political and social enormities of the time. It
was the case of the "wheat and the tares" in the pa-
rable; they must for a while grow together. The evils
of a corrupt social or political system, indeed, would
certainly be corrected in each individual by the moral
reformation which Christianity, if sincerely received,
would effect ; but the correction of the system itself,
the assertion and vindication of men's social rights,
and the limitations of exorbitant political power, could
10
132 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
only be effected in two ways; by the gradual for-
mation of enlightened opinion, which was the work
of time; or by violence and revolution, which cer-
tainly was not the work of apostles. They wisely
chose the former; and, dropping the seed into the
ground, waited for the harvest.
Thus we see a reason for what to some seems a
paradox, namely, that the New Testament does not
explicitly forbid slavery, nor command the converts
to Christianity instantly to manumit their slaves. This
fact, I think, every candid reader of the New Tes-
tament must concede. Nor is it wonderful; for slavery
was a thing to which the world was so accustomed,
that it would require time, and familiarity with the
consequences of the social principles which Christianity
inculcates, to educate men even to apprehend that it
was an evil at all. Neither philosophers, nor the
vulgar, seem to have had the slightest conception of
there being anything wrong in it. Plato and Aristotle,
the greatest ethical authorities of antiquity, appear
to regard it quite as a natural and proper institution.
Nor can we estimate the social confusion which might
have resulted from the sudden adoption of a contrary
principle, before either master or slave was in any
degree prepared for it. But a general servile war
would have been a natural, if not an inevitable con-
sequence.
On the other hand, that the New Testament pro-
pounds principles which, if they be acted upon, must
necessarily put an end to slavery, is not only obvious,
in.] to the same Conclusion. 133
but is abundantly proved by experience. As antiquity
had no conception of the enormity of slavery till Chris-
tianity appeared, so no modern nations, ignorant of
Christianity, have any such notion to this day. But
wherever it is known, there the contest between itself
and slavery is sure soon to begin ; and the most signal
triumphs over both the slave trade and slavery, which
have ever been achieved, have been the distinct result
of the influence it has exerted and the public opinion
it has formed.
Similar remarks apply to the tone the founders of
Christianity adopted in reference to the despotic go-
vernments of the day. While initiating principles
which, if they be accepted, must extinguish all ty-
ranny, and eventually establish all political rights, the
apostles did not attempt that premature realisation of
such objects which would but too well have justified the
calumny so often falsely cast upon them, " of turning
the world upside down." They enjoin, therefore, in
the most general terms, submission to " rulers and
governors " de facto, as the duty of the Christian, and
forbid him to resist them by violence, on any pretence
that in his judgment governments might be much
better constituted ; least of all, to resist on account of
the oppressions and wrongs inflicted on Christians as
such. This last prohibition is, no doubt, absolute ; the
wrongs of persecution are to be submitted to ; the
martyr must not turn soldier, nor fight the battles of
the faith with fire and sword. This would be incom-
patible with, the very essence of the Gospel itself, at
X 34 Arguments Ancillary [LECT.
once destroying its object, and transforming that " king-
dom " which is not of this world into one directly
resembling those that " are of this world," in the most
vital point. Beyond this the New Testament does
not go ; it neither invites nor forbids discussion as to
whether there may not be extreme cases which, on
political grounds, will justify men in open insurrection
against an unjust and cruel government.
Paul, in the thirteenth chapter of the Epistle to
the Romans, is by many supposed to have determined
the question in the negative, and to have enjoined un-
qualified " passive obedience " and " non-resistance ; "
and there was a time in the history of our own country
when these doctrines, in their most slavish form, were
as slavishly preached from that chapter. But we all
know that the fanatical champions of such a per-
verted loyalty were themselves effectually confuted by
James II., and at last admitted there might be limits
to the submission even of the most servile. Nor will
a candid reader of the New Testament hesitate to say
that this amended interpretation is very rational. The
apostle, prescribing general rules, rules applicable
even to governments very far from theoretical perfec-
tion, merely says what all sensible men, what every
sound politician, every upright citizen, would say in
every age, that it is the duty of a loyal subject to obey
the edicts of government, without prejudging the ques-
tion whether there may not be cases in which insurrec-
tion may be justifiable, or even imperative; just as they
would lay down the duty of obedience to parents as the
in.] to the same Conclusion. 135
general rule, without pretending that there could be
no cases in which children would be released even
from that obligation. As a general rule, all wise men
assert these maxims as strenuously as the apostle did ;
and, considering the infinite suffering which usually
results from any rash attempt at innovation by vio-
lence, and the terrible responsibility incurred by every
self-constituted authority that proposes it, it is the only
safe general rule. But while all wise teachers, no less
than the apostle, agree in this, no one would imagine
them to be pronouncing upon, or even thinking of, the
lawfulness of resistance in those extreme cases which
alone, with any sane man, will justify revolution; in
those extreme cases, for example, where a king tramples
on the charters to which he has sworn, and violates the
articles and conditions which notoriously limit his pre-
rogative; or again, where an absolute monarch, who has
no well-defined limits to his power, abuses it to resist
every limitation which the rising intelligence of his
subjects demands, and will give no security against
the most intolerable oppression. The New Testament
does not decide upon any such extreme cases, and it
would be strange if any manual of general duty did :
they are best decided when the terrible emergency
occurs. It would be of ill omen for the world if
religious systems, or even manuals of morality and
politics, instead of laying down the general rules of
duty, entered into a nice discussion of all the cases in
which they ceased to be obligatory, and to canvass all
the possible justifications of resistance to authority.
136 Arguments Ancillary [LECI.
That the writers of the New Testament were not
thinking of any such cases, is sufficiently clear from
their description of those governments to which their
principle applies. They must (whatever their defects)
still be such as, on the whole, to be " a terror to
evil doers, and a praise to them that do well."
Now suppose, if you will, that the New Tes-
tament is very defective as a manual of political
rights (as I confess I think it is for it has nothing
directly to do with politics) ; say, if you will, that the
apostles were timid and pusillanimous (though, I fancy,
few who consider their history will say that) ; still,
considering how easy it is for religious zeal to become
factious, how often the attempt to innovate in religion
has proceeded to political violence, especially under
persecution ; how pertinacious and exasperating the
persecution directed against the founders of Chris-
tianity was, and how incessant the insurrections
among their turbulent countrymen, the Jews, I can-
not help thinking it a very extraordinary thing that
the apostles should have been such wary pilots,
and steered their bark in safety amidst shoals and
breakers where so many other mariners have suffered
shipwreck.
May we not ask, as the Jews did, concerning their
Master Himself, "Whence had these men this wis-
dom ? " How is it that while they introduced a system
which operated a greater revolution in the world than
had ever before been effected, they yet avoided those
excesses into which the passions of men in general,
in.] to the same Conclusion. . 137
with far less enthusiasm than theirs, and under far
less wrongs and oppressions, are so easily provoked ?
How is it, that while they made greater progress than
Puritans or Huguenots, the apostles exercised a self-
control, a sobriety, a moderation, which the most
ardent admirers of those reformers and confessors of
subsequent times will hardly claim for them ?
I will not say that the wisdom and prudence implied
in the various particulars enumerated in this lecture
could not have been manifested by other men. I do
not place these things precisely on a level as argu-
ments, with some of those other traits of the Bible
already mentioned, which seem to me absolutely
against the grain of human nature. But I think
that, taken altogether, the conduct of the apostles,
as contrasted with that of the generality of those who
have propounded systems of religion to the world, and
as contrasted also with what might have been rea-
sonably expected from such men, from their origin
and their antecedents, does exhibit a considerable
paradox, to be added to the many others I have
dwelt upon, and which justify the presumption that
the New Testament is not simply a book of man's
origination.
LECTURE IV.,
SINGULAR COINCIDENCES BETWEEN SCRIPTURE
AND HISTORY.
INDICATIONS OF UNITY IN THE BIBLE.
LECTURE* IV.
ARGUMENTS DERIVED FROM (l.)
TWEEN CERTAIN STATEMENTS OF SCRIPTURE AND
CERTAIN FACTS OF HISTORY. (ll.) INDICATIONS
OF THE UNITY OF THE BIBLE.
the argument from "prophecy" is
beyond the scope of these lectures, yet those
strange "coincidences" between certain ancient Bib-
lical statements and historic fact (on which the argu-
ment of prophecy is founded) are fairly within it, and
are among the many things this volume presents us
with that seem difficult to account for. These " coinci-
dences " must, at all events, have been very striking,
to lead so many millions of intelligent men, and among
them so many possessed of the greatest acuteness and
learning, to acquiesce in them as nothing less than
veritable instances of inspired prediction.
Bishop Butler lays great stress on the general
harmony between the statements of Scripture and
historic facts, not only in the " prophetical " portions,
but in the "ordinary" narrative; and contends that
its general correspondence with the world's civil and
religious history, as gathered from extraneous sources,
142 Singular Coincidences [LECT.
is a strong argument for its veracity. He says that
if a person, previously quite ignorant of the Bible, and
uncertain, after perusing it, whether it purported to
be fact or fiction, were told of the entire series of
harmonies between it and history, he could not but
be much impressed with their variety and extent.
It is but a very limited portion of this large field
that I have space to touch ; and even of the so-called
prophetic conformities between Scripture and history,
but which I simply call " coincidences," I shall con-
tent myself with selecting a few of the more prominent
by way of specimen. Nor as regards the greater part
of them, will there be the slightest room for that
favourite subterfuge, that the " sayings " of the book,
instead of being long anterior to the events to which
they seemingly point, were in fact written long after
them, and are, therefore, not only not prophecies, but
not even coincidences. The events to which I shall
principally refer, confessedly transpired long since the
books were written. If not, some of these documents
must have been written very recently; at a date,
indeed, to which no sceptical imagination, however
daring, has yet ventured to assign them.
Instead of taking a man ignorant of the Bible, I will
modify Butler's supposition, and suppose him alike
ignorant of history and the Bible. I will further sup-
pose him indoctrinated in the former by a candid
instructor who did not believe in the latter, and sedu-
lously kept it out of sight ; and that he is afterwards
informed of the coincidences between what he has
iv.] between Scripture and History. 143
learnt even from such a mentor, and the undoubted
utterances of the Bible.
Let us suppose him then taken through a brief
course of Ancient History, and that the outline of the
Jewish annals is given (traditionally) thus. He is told
by his guide that in the times immediately preceding
authentic history, the nations of the earth, so far as
could be ascertained, savage and civilised, were alike
sunk in the profoundest religious degradation, having
"gods many and lords many," gods of all sorts and
sizes, of all form and feature, of wood and stone, brass
and iron, gold and silver, malign and benevolent ; but
that from the earliest times of which we have any
genuine records, there was one people, the Jews, who
professed the most decided monotheism, and alone (as far
as reliable history made known to us) preserved that
doctrine in the world ; that, nevertheless, they shared
so fully in the general proclivities of mankind to idol-
atry, that they did their very utmost from time to
time to extinguish their better light, and again and
again fell into all the grossness of the worship of the
nations that surrounded them : though they still
clung obstinately to the theory of monotheism, always
returned to it, and confessed its truth, even while they
failed to practise it. Our neophyte will be told that in
the course of their history they were often reduced to
great straits, and more than once led into cruel cap-
tivity by other nations, events which they foolishly
and superstitiously attributed to their forgetfulness and
neglect of the doctrines and duties of their religion ;
144 Singular Coincidences [LECT.
that though they were doubtless mistaken in that, yet
it was a curious fact that, though they were frequently
conquered, and, as was the case with so many other
ancient nations, torn away from their native soil, and
subjected in foreign lands to the influences which had
so often broken up and at last absorbed other com-
munities, this singular people did not share in the
same fate of disintegration ; that though mixed up
with other nations, they were not incorporated with
them ; remained a foreign element interfused through
the communities in which they existed ; and that that
has been in effect their condition, through every
variety of their fortunes, since their final conquest and
dispersion, about 1800 years ago; still wandering
everywhere, but having a country nowhere. He will
be told that their entire system of laws, though its
moral elements were perhaps superior to those of any
other ancient codes, was on the whole so peculiar
and so burdensome, that they continually broke away
from it ; that some of them acknowledged that it
"imposed a yoke which neither they nor their fathers
were able to bear;" and yet that they have obstinately
clung to it notwithstanding. He will be told that
small and insignificant as they always were, and
weakened and dispersed as they have been through a
great part of their history, they had cherished from
remote ages a foolish delusion that from among them
should arise an eminent Personage, who should not
only reign over them, but over all nations ; that His
kingdom should never be destroyed : that some among
iv.] between Scripture and History. 14^
them had ventured to speculate as to His charac-
teristics and fortunes ; that some said He was to be
from the first a triumphant king; others, that He was
to reign only after dire defeats and sore troubles ;
others, that He was to combine the character of priest
with that of king ; while it was also insinuated by
some sour and unpatriotic spirits that, considering
how obstinate the nation had ever been, how slow to
learn and how apt to forget the lessons of heaven, it
would proceed to reject the claims even of this illus-
trious Personage ; but that if it did, it would be " pro-
voked to jealousy " by seeing Him accepted by other
nations. All these things, the pupil will be told, may
be supposed the illusions of diseased fancy ; though
(curiously enough, and by a very odd coincidence)
about the time and at the place which certain dreamers
among them had fixed upon as the date and spot at
which this personage should appear, a most remarkable
Man did really claim to be the king in question; that
He was rejected by the Jews in general, and, what
is still more odd, after being crucified by the Gen-
tiles (though at Jewish instigation) as a malefactor,
was eagerly accepted by immense numbers of widely
diverse nations among these Gentiles; invested by
them with attributes of royalty greater than ever
belonged to royalty before, and voluntarily honoured
with a homage such as king had never received. He
will be told, further, that though the Jews were
upbraided (no doubt, very unreasonably) with the
rejection of their fabulous king, and nothing but
ii
140 Singular Coincidences [LECT.
superstition suggested that they would be punished
for it, yet curiously enough, and by another odd
coincidence, their capital very shortly after was
burnt, their polity destroyed, and their nation finally
dispersed.
If our professor of history maintains his candour,
he will inform his pupil, that though the strange
empire erected by this pretended Monarch, and
founded on Religion, gathered strength from day to
day, till the temples and shrines of the Roman empire
fell before it, and has since successively received the
allegiance of many nations of the most diverse cha-
racter and condition ; yet the foundations of this
new Power in the world were laid without any resort
to force on its own part, and in spite of the most
violent resistance on the part of the world at
large ; that it was scorned by philosophers, hated by
priests, and opposed by tyrants. It will be added that
to account for its success would be to account for
the infinite caprices of mankind ; but that the mystery
may, perhaps, in part be solved, by candidly admitting
that its first votaries and emissaries were singularly
upright and virtuous men, and that their impulse was
for a long time felt in the religious empire they set
up. Our pupil will be told further that the ancient
empire which had most vigorously opposed this re-
ligious empire was at length destroyed, while this
last gradually usurped its seat, and succeeded to the
power it wielded, in the same spot, though in another
form ; that after many vicissitudes of fortune, this
iv.] between Scripture and History. 147
power, too, had waxed very corrupt, seemed to be
growing decrepid in consequence, and would doubt-
less soon " vanish away." But if our professor be
cautious, he will perhaps add, that after so eventful
a history, it is not possible to speculate very con-
fidently on the future ; that the " superstition " on
which this empire was founded had a curious pro-
perty of revivescence ; that, as Tacitus said of it in
its early days, it was an " obstinate " superstition,
tenacious of life, and apt " to break out again ;" that
it had hitherto been proof both against murder and
suicide ; that accordingly its emissaries, apparently
without any ordinary human motive, might be seen
still doing what no other religionists, Jewish or Gen-
tile, had ever been foolish enough to do, busying
themselves in every corner and region of the earth,
savage and civilised, in proselyting the world to their
belief; to which end they had actually given some
ancient voluminous documents in Hebrew and Greek,
on which they professed to found it, a voice in two
hundred languages ; more, by many scores, than any
other of the professedly sacred books in the world
had ever spoken in !
If now our historic student begged to have a sight
of those same documents, and on inquiry about their
date, were told that though there was some doubt
about some of them, it was absolutely certain that
they were all in existence nearly 2000 years ago, and
the most ancient certainly more than 2500 years ago,
would he not be surprised to find so many " coinci-
n *
148 Singular Coincidences [LECT.
dences " between them and " history," legibly inscribed
there ? that all the facts, so cautiously narrated to
him, were there described, as what was to be ; that
even those parts of the books which are most ancient
(or if the rationalist will, the least modern, for they are
still ancient enough for my purpose), palpably contain
such " coincidences ;" that, for example, the Penta-
teuch speaks of the captivity and dispersion of the
Jews as their characteristic doom, while it expressly
stipulates for their continued national "life" notwith-
standing; and that their final dispersion did not occur
till they had rejected the proffered Messiah, many
centuries after the last of the Hebrew documents had
been written ? Would he not be struck on finding, that
if they frequently apostatised from their religion, it
was said they would do so, and be punished by repeated
captivity and dispersion for it ; as also that if they
repented they would be restored, and that this change
of their fortunes was repeatedly exemplified in their
history before their last dispersion ? Would he not be
more struck still, to find that, if in spite of their
dispersion, they have been still preserved, it was ex-
pressly said that they should be so ; and no less, that
the characteristics of their promised king which our
neophyte had been taught to regard as the fond illu-
sions of national vanity were copiously described,
conjoined with others which no national vanity would
ever have suggested, and which national vanity, there-
fore, not unnaturally misinterpreted ? Would he not
be surprised to find that if, at the very time and
iv.] between Scripture and History. 149
place, when and where the Jews expected this great
personage, one appeared claiming to be such, and
who seemed to unite the contradictory attributes
of greatness and lowliness, these documents, many
hundred years before, had made statements which
tallied with the expectation ; that, if the Jews re-
jected Him, it was hinted they would ; that if the
nation was conquered, their temple and polity de-
stroyed, and their old doom of dispersion, but with-
out extinction, finally inflicted, it was in conformity
with declarations that all this would be so ; that if
the Messiah proffered to them, but rejected by them,
was accepted by the Gentiles as the founder of a new
religion, it was implied that He would be ? Would
he not be astonished to find that if that new religion
succeeded against the combined power, philosophy, and
superstition of the ancient world, and destroyed the
ancient paganism, it was " coincident " with declara-
tions to that effect ? that if it became corrupt as it
became prosperous, and arrogated in a new form, the
power, as well as the pomp, of the great empire on
whose ruins it had risen, it is " coincident " with state-
ments that it would ? that if, notwithstanding, this
religion not only exhibits signal recuperative power,
but (unlike other religions) is irrepressibly aggressive,
and bent on preaching its " gospel " to " the ends of
the earth/' it is expressly declared that it would be
so? What would our tyro say on discovering these
things ? I fancy he would say what I am now saying,
that whether these things be prophecies or not, this
150 Singular Coincidences [LECT.
book is full of the strangest, most mysterious, most
unaccountable "coincidences."
Nor, as already said, is it possible to get quit of
these " coincidences " by the method which has been
applied to certain parts of Daniel's prophecies and
some other portions of the Old Testament by saying
that the documents were written after the facts, and are
therefore history and not prophecy. For the greater
part of the " coincidences " to which I have referred
are between documents and facts, as to which it is
uncontested that the former were prior to the latter
by many centuries. What shall we say then ? A man
may affirm, as Butler says, that the "conformity"
between the documents and the events " is by ac-
cident ; but there are many instances in which the
conformity itself cannot be denied."
We can scarcely imagine the conformities in question
to be the result of accident, as little as in the case of
Daniel's prophecies. But then we cannot, as in that
case, dispute about the date of the documents. Nor can
it be pretended, any more than in that case, that they
are due to political sagacity. Indeed, it is more easy to
imagine that the seer of Babylon might conjecture the
(comparatively) imminent, and far less complex events
of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes (though most
people will agree with Porphyry that it was impossible
he should do so), than that any man should have
sagacity enough to anticipate events in the world's
history, so distant in time, so peculiar in character,
so complicated in their relations, and involving the
iv.] between Scripture and History. 151
fortunes of so many different nations, as those just
referred to ; a notion which reaches the ne plus ultra
of incredibility when it is remembered that the docu-
ments proceeded from different hands and were written
at widely remote eras. Several of the authors, on this
hypothesis, must have been gifted with a sagacity which
it is utterly incredible should have belonged even to
any one. What, then, is a man to do in this case ?
Is he determined to adopt the argument of Porphyry
in relation to Daniel ? If so, I see but one course for
him. He must take the same line as Porphyry, and say
that the documents were posterior to the facts. He
must affirm that the writings of the Old and New
Testaments were compiled not only as late as many
renowned critics of the present day maintain, but much
later ; not only that the books of the Pentateuch, and
the greater part of the prophets, were written after
the Babylonish captivity, and t,he gospels somewhere
about the end of the second century ; but that none,
whether of the Old or New Testament, were com-
posed till a few hundred years ago ; if even they can
be supposed to be composed yet ! If, with the very
books in his hands, he finds it hard, however scep-
tical he may be, to come to this last conclusion, he
must at least emulate the courage of Pere Hardouin,
who professed to believe that the whole series of Greek
and Roman classics was the work of the monks of the
middle ages! If Porphyry's argument be sound, if
veritable prophecy be an impossibility or incredibility,
and if it is equally impossible to ascribe the " coinci-
152 Singular Coincidences [LECT.
dences " in question, between the various statements
of the Bible and the course of the world's history, to
either accident or sagacity, there remains nothing for
it but to believe that the documents were compiled
long after the Christian era commenced, and perhaps
within the last few hundred years. The sceptic must
find their cradle where the eccentric Jesuit found the
cradle of all the classics, in the monk's cell; and with
about as much reason. Nor is it impossible that if the
course of the world goes on so perversely to multiply
"coincidences" with the Bible, as it has done in the
past, and as it is still doing, a sceptic 2500 years
hence may believe that our modern Hardouin, in as-
signing its documents to the middle ages, has made
them too ancient after all, and prove that they are not
even composed in our day ; just as Porphyry proved
the prophecies of Daniel to be subsequent to the
days of Antiochus Epiphanes. He may prove 2500
years hence that the books, in spite of our having
them under our very eyes, could not have been com-
piled before A.D. 2000.
If, on the other hand, there be no doubt that the
books are of the date generally attributed to them,
all the Old Testament composed many centuries before
the Christian era, and the New within a century after
it, it is impossible to say why the critic should find any
great difficulty, in the face of the " coincidences " on
which I have insisted, in admitting that the writings
of Daniel may have contained equally curious "coinci-
dences," without supposing them copied from history.
iv.] between Scripture and History. 153
In accounting for the conformity between certain
complex movements in the moral history of the world,
and the anticipations of the Bible, it is impossible
to take refuge in an argument often resorted to in
relation to some special " coincidences " between its
language and the subversion of this or that nation or
empire ; namely, that such an issue, some time or
other, is so probable, from the general analogies of
human history, that it may be expected, and there-
fore predicted. The events to which the present
lecture refers are too peculiar in their tout-ensemble,
too unique and strange, and in many points too con-
tradictory to the natural and ordinary speculations of
men, to allow of such an hypothesis being applied to
them.
The argument just adverted to, and which was a
favourite argument with Bolingbroke and many who
followed him, is of no real force even against the
order of " coincidences "now referred to. It does not
account for the conformity between the documents
and the facts. As Davison has well shown in his
lectures, the specific characteristics of national catas-
trophes threatened in Scripture, have nothing in
common with the vague anticipation that at some
time or other, in some way or other, the most flourish-
ing nations will decay and fall. This is presumed
to be their lot, by a universal natural law, which
a considerable induction of facts makes plausible
enough ; though many distinguished historic critics,
and Lord Macaulay among them, doubt whether it
154 Singular Coincidences [LECT.
be founded on anything better than fallacious analo-
gies in the natural world, forming a precarious basis
for any such sinister vaticination. But whether there
be any such law or not, the Scripture " coincidences "
in this kind have nothing to do with it. They are
not founded on any historic " parallelisms " which,
according to the remark of the philosophic Thucydides,
may, " while human nature remains the same," be
assuredly anticipated. Davison shows that in many
of these cases the language, so far from being equally
applicable, as Bblingbroke affirms, to any nation of
the world, is strictly limited to one ; so that it is
impossible, in interpreting it (though it ought to be
possible, if this theory be correct), to ''shuffle the
cards," transpose the subjects of prediction, and apply
the descriptions of the doom menaced against different
nations indiscriminately. Repeated captivity and dis-
persion, with all their attendant miseries, were to be
the lot of Israel, but their national life was to be a
" charmed life" notwithstanding. Nineveh and Baby-
lon were to be absolutely destroyed, and to become
a by-word for " desolation," and a " habitation " of
"doleful "creatures," in perpetuity; and they have
been. Egypt was not to be destroyed, but to be
what she has been, " a base nation." The sons of
Ishmael were to be restless wanderers in their own
land, as the Israelites were to be in every land but
their own ; and so it has come to pass. 1 The only
way of neutralizing the "coincidences" in these cases
1 See Appendix, No. IV.
iv.] between Scripture and History. 155
is to contend, as Porphyry does with regard to Daniel,
that the documents were antedated.
But this, I submit, is impossible in the case of
the chief " coincidences " adduced in the present
lecture, not only from their nature, but because the
priority of the several documents to the principal
facts is uncontested.
I now pass to the second subject of the present
lecture.
If there be any unity in the Bible, if the appear-
ances of coherence, and of reciprocal adaptation, in
its several parts, be not a dream of fancy, or some
unimaginable result of chance, then one part of my
thesis, that the Bible is not such a book as man "could
have constructed, if he would," is beyond all contra-
diction ; for that condition, on which alone the con-
clusion could be denied, namely, that its unity might
possibly be the effect of collusion amongst its authors,
is absolutely precluded. The volume is the product
of about forty different authors, writing under every
conceivable diversity of circumstances, at far distant
dates ; and who were therefore unconscious of each
other's purpose, and incapable of acting in concert.
The earliest of these writers is separated from the
latest by an interval of at least a thousand years,
to content myself with a very modest limit, which even
the most courageous rationalist will hardly dispute. 1
1 In spite of the infinite discordance of rationalist criticism, as to
the dates of the Hebrew sacred writings, the earliest of which it
refers to all periods between Samuel and the return from Babylon,
156 Indications of Unity [LECT.
Before proceeding further, however, it may be as well
to say that this phenomenon of a quasi-sacred book so
composed, of such miscellaneous contents and various
authorship, and that took a thousand years to finish
it, is itself anomalous, and must be ranked with the
many other anomalies which discriminate the Bible
from all other so-called sacred books. None of them
can be ascribed to a series of writers extending in long
procession to a thousand years ; and whose writings,
moreover, traverse large portions of secular history,
are imbedded in it, and run parallel with it. This
sharply discriminates the Scriptures from the books
of Confucius, and many others. The Koran was the
work of Mahomet alone. The striking difference in
this respect between Mahommedanism on the one
hand, and Judaism and Christianity on the other, is
well put by an able writer, who certainly cannot be
accused of understating the claims of Mahomet, and
who, if he has erred at all in appraising them, has
erred on the side of candour and charity. 1
comparatively few would deny that some of the more important
were in existence long before the former epoch. Nor does it much
matter to my present argument if it be denied ; for as the more
sceptical of these critics postdate the books of the New Testa-
ment in the same manner, to the middle or close of the second
century, there will still be an interval of nine or ten centuries
between the earliest portions of the Bible and the latest.
1 " Each again of these three great monotheistic religions has its
written revelation. Herein comes one of the most marked distinc-
tions between the three, and a specially marked distinction between
Christianity and Islam. The book which contains the revelation
of Islam is the work of the founder of Islam. It proclaims itself
as the word of God, not indeed written by the hand of the prophet,
but taken down from His mouth, and spoken in His person. It is a
iv.] in the Bible. 157
This then is itself a unique feature of the Bible,
which must be added to the many other paradoxes of
this strange book. It is not easy to account for it,
and it is plainly out of analogy with religious history
in general.
But to resume the more important subject of this
lecture, which is to point out certain indications of
unity in the Bible.
As a matter of fact, and about which there is no
doubt, immense multitudes of the human race, of the
most diverse nations, nations differing by every con-
ceivable variety of custom, history, and culture, but
including amongst them all the most pre-eminent in
modern science and civilization, have somehow come
revelation which began and ended in the person of its first teacher,
which none of his successors dare add to or take away from. But,
as that revelation does not take the form of an autobiography, it
follows that there is no narrative of the acts of the prophet which
can claim Divine authority. But the sacred books of the Christian
revelation are biographical ; they are not the writings of the founder
of Christianity, but records of His life, in which His discourses are
recorded among His other actions. Certain other of the writings
of His earliest followers are also held to be of equal authority with
the records of His own life. The Jewish law comes to us in a
third shape : it is a code incorporated in a history, a history
which orthodox belief looks on as an autobiography. But in
this case the revelation is not confined to the first lawgiver him-
self, or to his immediate followers : an equal authority, a like
Divine origin, is held to belong to a mass of later writings of
various ages, which are joined with those of the original lawgiver,
to form the sacred books of the first dispensation. In short, the
Mahommedan accepts nothing as of Divine authority, except the
personal utterances of his prophet, taken down in his lifetime.
With the Jew and the Christian the actual discourses of Moses
and of Christ form only a portion of the writings which he ac-
cepts as the sacred books of his faith." " British Quarterly
Review," Jan. i, 1872. Pp. in, 112.
158 Indications of Unity [LECT.
to regard the Bible as intelligibly one ; as possessing
unique and pervading characteristics of sentiment
and doctrine, structure and style ; a coherence of pur-
pose and design, which both discriminate it from all
other books and proclaim its own identity : all this
in spite of that wonderful composite authorship, and
very gradual formation, just referred to. In this delu-
sion, if it be one, many of the greatest names in all
these communities, names illustrious in every sense,
for genius, for learning, for intellectual power, for
moral worth, have deliberately, and after prolonged
study, shared. It is true that the bulk of those who
have believed this have also regarded the book as con-
taining, in some sense, a " Divine Revelation," and
therefore as being divinely inspired, either in whole or
in part. But it is not necessary here to canvass the
justice of this conclusion. Whether such a view be
true or false, is here irrelevant ; I am simply consider-
ing whether there are solid grounds for this so general
impression of the unity of the book. A priori, indeed,
we may be almost sure there must be some plausible
reasons for it, otherwise it would be difficult to imagine
either how the idea of a " Divine Revelation " should
have clung to this fabric of fragments, or if such a
crude notion had been adopted in ages of ignorance
and superstition, why it should not long since have
vanished away in that searching scrutiny to which it
has been subjected. One would expect that the folly
of any such view would have been proved a thousand
times over out of the book itself, which, if it be a
iv.] in the Bible. 159
fortuitous aggregate of heterogeneous writings, must,
from its very mode of formation, give such infinite
advantages to its assailants.
Whether the Hebrew literature, for example, as some
have supposed, was much more voluminous than its
extant fragments, or really consisted of very little that
is not incorporated in the books of the Old Testament
itself, 1 there would seem no reason, if it was the product
of simple natural causes (like those which developed
the Greek, Roman, and other literatures), why the idea
of unity should have so obstinately attached to a certain
number of its fragments, of widely different contents
and of far distant dates.
The Greek or Roman literature probably contains
a hundred times the mass of all that is extant in the
ancient Hebrew. Yet it is not within the compass of
the human imagination to conceive, that if only a
portion of either literature, equal to the Bible, had
survived, but containing fragments by as many different
authors as have composed that, such a volume could
have been supposed to be one. By no process, let us
shuffle the more copious existing materials as we may,
or exercise the most discriminating arts of selection,
could we compile a melange equal in bulk to the Bible,
that could for a moment cheat any ordinary mind into
the belief that it formed an organic whole ; much less
impose on many millions of mankind of different races
1 A few works of Hebrew authorship, as for example, certain
historic, poetic, and didactic compositions (more especially those
ascribed to Solomon), are no longer extant ; but there is no reason
to suppose they were very numerous.
160 Indications of Unity [LECT.
and epochs, including among them thousands of the
most illustrious for genius and learning. By no mani-
pulation, by choosing a poem here and an oration there,
a piece of history as one element in the fabric, and a
play as another, so as to give, on the whole, some-
thing like the same variety of form, matter, and
authorship which we find in the Bible, and as far as
possible a similar diversity of dates, could we effect
even the faintest approach to that semblance of unity
which such vast multitudes have' found in the Scrip-
tures.
Nor is the wonder at all diminished if we suppose
that the Hebrew literature contained little but what
has been incorporated in this one book. If that was all
their literature, and the effect of purely human causes,
it would show, indeed, that the Hebrew pen was not
very fertile ; but there would be no more reason than
before why the Jewish people, and still less so many
other people, should fancy that nearly all that scanty
literature (though on widely different subjects, and by
authors living centuries apart) was linked together
by a common object and pervaded by an essential
unity.
Should it be supposed that the Hebrews regarded
nearly all their literature as sacred, and so conceived
it to have unity ; this is contradicted by fact, for they
certainly did not incorporate in the book all else they
wrote, whether much or little. Moreover, the books
that have been selected for this honour (as I have
had occasion to notice more fully in a preceding
iv.] in the Bible. 161
lecture), are full of matter which national vanity must
vehemently resent, and, if it could, would willingly
forget. This is notoriously the case with the largest
and most important of them, with the Pentateuch,
books of Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, the
prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. If the
facts they record be not true, they are the most cruel
collection of libels with which any people was ever
branded ; and if not history, but romance, if merely
the natural, and yet most unnatural product of certain
perverse minds among them, one can hardly imagine
the patriotism of their countrymen excessively solicitous
to find either "sacredness" or "unity" about these
books, much less jealously to watch over their inviolate
preservation, and least of all to revere them as origi-
nating in nothing less than Divine inspiration !
However, even if the Jewish ascription of unity to
these writings could be solved by any such theory,
it would not account for the equally obstinate belief
which has led so many other nations, utterly without
sympathy with them, nay, by original traditions and
associations, in intense antipathy to them, to imitate
their fatuity, and cherish the same delusion.
Somewhat similar observations will apply to the
multifarious contents of the New Testament, and still
more to the Old and New Testaments together.
It is then, I think, a natural presumption that there
must be some very plausible reasons which, under the
most diverse circumstances, have led such multitudes
(including among them so many of the greatest minds,
12
1 62 Indications of Unity [LECT.
exercising the most deliberate judgment) to see a pre-
vailing unity in this series of fragments. Unless this
had been the case, that obstinacy of belief which
attaches to the supposed unity of these writings could
hardly have been proof against the rigorous criticism
which has subjected them to an infinitely more severe
ordeal than any other writings in the world. The
works alone that have been written against them
would make a library far greater than all the literature
of Greece and Rome, taken many times over.
No such unity as is justly attributed to the writings
of such men as Confucius or Mahomet, furnishes any
parallel. The cases differ toto ccelo. The Mahometans,
for example, very rightly regard the Koran as one, for
it is so : let the discrepancies, or contradictions, or
extravagancies be what they may, it was the work,
though composed and given to the world in fragments,
of one mind. The world did not make the unity,
it simply acknowledged it. But if the Bible be not
one, those who believe it to be so have made it so ; and
if they made it so without reason, we ought to be able
to assign some sufficient cause for this singular con-
sentaneousness of hallucination. If the Bible is a
mere collection of " shreds and patches; " if its books
really originated in purely natural causes, and have
no internal cohesion, other than belongs to human
writings produced in the course of many centuries
by the same nation ; there would seem no more reason
why the book of Deuteronomy, the prophecies of
Isaiah, the Gospel of Mark, and the Epistle to the
iv.] in the Bible. 163
Romans should have been imagined to form parts of
one book, than why a collection of a score or two of
fragments from any other literature should be so
considered. The Bible, in fact, is a "Miscellany"
a very various one. The question is, why, with so
wide a consensus, it should ever have been supposed
to be anything else ?
Among the indications, then, of this unity, must be
reckoned, though it is only a presumption, the general
and obstinate persuasion that it exists.
But whatever presumption of unity may be inferred
from this singular concurrence, it can be of little avail
unless confirmed by indications in the contents of the
book itself. A few, and only a few of these, I will now
enumerate. Some of them I have had occasion to
advert to under another aspect and for another pur-
pose, namely, when endeavouring to show that the
Bible is distinguished by certain uniform character-
istics, which could not be expected, a priori, in any
book of man's making. Now, some of these, not
simply as unique, viewed relatively to human nature,
but as pervading the book, also suggest its unity. I
shall simply remind the reader of some of them with-
out dwelling on them. For example : I. The fact that
the Bible is, as Butler says emphatically, "the book
of God," in the sense of being exclusively dedicated to
Him and His claims. 2. The subordination of its
contents to this conception. 3. The indissoluble con-
nection everywhere maintained between religion and
morals. 4. The uniform reticence of Scripture on
12 *
164 Indications of Unity [LECT.
topics which merely tend to gratify curiosity, and
on which other books of professed revelation have
been singularly copious. Some other particulars in
the first two lectures, considered as uniform traits of
the book, in the same manner suggest its unity.
A trait closely related to the first three of these
peculiarities, and in like manner pervading the book,
argues the same thing. It is this : that God is there
represented as establishing a great spiritual kingdom,
an " imperium in imperio," separate from, but also
existing in the midst of, His universal providential
empire, in which are enrolled, without any restriction
of political or social or intellectual differences among
men, or rather in contempt of these, as well as of all
conventional distinctions, all who from the heart un-
feignedly recognise, in proportion to their light, the
principles of that spiritual government, and act upon
them. Those who, wherever they are found, 1 un-
feignedly love and obey God, and give Him, in
thought and act, the supremacy He claims, are re-
presented as the true aristocracy of this world, the
elite of humanity. He is represented as gathering all
1 " Of a truth I perceive God is no respecter of persons ; but in
every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is
accepted with Him." Acts x. 34, 35. This, and other texts, con-
clusively and delightfully prove to me that there are those who will
be saved by the Gospel who yet never heard of it by means of that
sincere, conscientious use of the modicum of light afforded to them,
which is the germ of all " faith " and goodness. The helianthus is
said to turn towards the sun, though clouds may partially veil him ;
and the sincere soul, like the plant shut up in darkness, will struggle
towards the light, even though it stream only through hole or
cranny ; and that determines it to be " a child of light," though it
can only attain its maturity under other conditions.
iv.] in the Bible. 165
such into one community ; " enriching heaven from the
spoils of earth," and constituting a "kingdom" which,
as " it cannot be moved," so is it worthy of being
" immovable." For it is to be composed exclusively
of those who, trained for self-government by inflexible
rectitude of will and habitual subjection to an en-
lightened intellect and conscience, can dispense with
the mechanical bonds and ligaments of this world's
governments, and those irksome restraints and dis-
cipline which imply a remaining reluctance to duty,
an imperfect virtue which needs to be still artificially
guarded. This kingdom, being spiritual, is therefore
a true and genuine dominion, where loyalty is the
loyalty of the heart, and obedience the obedience of
the will.
Now I am not arguing that this is a conception
that will be actually realised, though I believe it will.
But that it is a very sublime one, looking on all
other kingdoms as but the shadow of the true, the
field of the world as but the nursery of a paradise
better than Eden, few will deny. I might have ad-
verted to it in the earlier lectures as a trait which,
considering man's religious history in general, he was
not likely to exhibit in any system of religion conceived
by him. But not wishing to press any topic too much,
I refrained from looking at it in that light, nor will
I now insist that the conception is beyond what the
human mind might have originated. Nay, for aught I
am at present concerned, it is quite open for people
to say, though I think few but Plato's Thrasymachus
1 66 Indications of Unity [LECT.
would say it, that there is nothing sublime about it ;
that physical power is as good as moral; that they
would as soon reign over a kingdom of slaves as of free-
men, or of men who obeyed reluctantly as of those who
obeyed from love. All I am now arguing for is that
such a peculiar conception pervading the Bible, though
it be made up of fragments by different writers, with
chasms of centuries between them, may be urged as an
argument for its unity. And it is further strengthened
if we consider, not only that the conception pervades
the successive fragments of the book, but that it
is developed very gradually, and grows with the book
itself. Such a conception, had it been equally pro-
minent from the beginning, might not have been less
unique, contrasting the Bible with other books ; but
it would hardly have been so strong an argument for
its unity, for the several writers mi^ht be thought to
have derived their conception from one another. But
the very mode in which the idea is developed precludes
this. It is by many gradual steps. The light " shining
more and more to the perfect day," and passing from
twilight to dawn, and from dawn to noon, is the fitting
image of its growth.
The general results which the multitudes who have
studied the book with the most diligent and persevering
efforts to comprehend its meaning, pretty generally
coincide in, are these: that man, reduced to a con-
dition of guilt and misery which estranged him from
God, received a promise coeval with the calamity itself
that some Deliverer bearing the nature of man, and of
IV .] in the Bible. 167
" woman born," should be sent into the world, charged
with the functions of rescuing him from the con-
sequences of his apostacy. Nothing more is said ; the
oracle is silent for a long time. The promise, indeed,
is not vague ; it is clear as far as it goes : the subse-
quent announcements are like it ; clear, but imperfect,
marked by very gradual augmentations of light. A
particular race, we are told, is selected to be the de-
positary of the great fact, and of the elements of all
true religion, while the world in general is sunk in the
darkest and most hideous idolatries. That such a
temporary ark for the great truths of religion was
absolutely necessary, would appear, not only from the
fact that the rest of the world was involved in religious
delusions, but that man universally was so prone to
them, that even the " chosen nation " itself, in spite
of all its peculiar safeguards, again and again obsti-
nately relapsed into idolatry.
Centuries after the first promise was given, a voice
was heard declaring that the promised Deliverer was to
be of the lineage of Abraham, but with no restriction
of benefit to his race : on the contrary, it is said that
in " him shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
Long after, another oracle declared that He was to be
in the line of Jacob. At this patriarch's death, it
seems obscurely intimated that amongst his many sons
Judah is the one in whose line the promised Messiah
is to appear. The oracle is again silent for long ; but
in due time further intimations are given which succes-
sively limit ths meaning of the promise, and the light
i68 Indications of Unity [LECT.
converges to a focus. We are told that the Deliverer
is to come in the line of David ; the place of His birth
is also intimated, and writers, one after another, gra-
dually disclose many other circumstances concerning
his character and history; that He is to be a lawgiver,
as was Moses ; that He is to be a priest, not of the
lineage of Aaron, but of the tribe of Judah, and with
some undisclosed attributes which are to assimilate his
priesthood to that of Melchizedek. They also gradually
give hints as to the nature of His kingdom ; that,
though springing out of the Jewish dispensation, and
grafted upon it, it was to be by no means conterminous
with it or limited by it ; that, on the contrary, it was
to be cosmopolitan, throw down the invidious " par-
tition " walls between Jew and Gentile, and open the
privileges of God's people to all nations. They also
intimate with increasing clearness the spiritual and
moral characteristics of this kingdom; that, founded on
truth, it would aspire to exercise dominion over the
hearts and consciences of men ; that literal compliance
or reluctant obedience had no moral significance, much
less mere outward rite and ceremony ; that these last
could be of no value except as really expressive of
devotion to the moral truths they symbolized ; and
that this spiritual economy would have the reality and
substance of what had before existed only in "type"
and " shadow."
After the last of the writers of the Old Testament
had spoken, there was a silence again for no less than
four centuries, and when the New Testament opens, it
iv.] in the Bible. 169
is to tell us that the great Deliverer was come ; that
in Him the various tokens, which had been predicted
of Him in the course of so many ages, met. In confir-
mation of this it proceeds to give the history of His life,
death, character, and many details of His teaching and
doctrine. He assumes the character assigned Him,
and declares He is come to set up that spiritual king-
dom of which so many seeming prognostications had
been given, the " kingdom not of this world." Un-
like other monarchs, He claims nothing less than
the obedience of love ; and, in fact, His true dominion
begins where all others end in that interior realm of
thought and feeling which earthly potentates cannot
reach.
The New Testament goes on to give us the history
of the commencement of this kingdom in the world ;
attracting to itself, and incorporating with itself, all
such as spontaneously accepted this new allegiance,
and were willing to live in accordance with the laws
its great Spiritual Potentate prescribed. It tells us
that these, continually increasing in number, are to
form a kingdom which shall silently subsist among all
other kingdoms, and be unshaken by the causes which
ruin them ; that it shall survive them ; and that, at
last, all its subjects, gathered from the heterogeneous
kingdoms of this world, and invested with immortality,
shall be translated into a world that shall be meet for
such occupants, " a new heaven and a new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness."
That the idea of such a kingdom, however chime-
170 Indications of Unity [LECT,
rical it may be deemed, is a very sublime conception,
few, I think, will dispute : that even now, as a m itter
of fact, Christ exercises a more various dominion, and
attracts more love, than any monarch of history ; has
more subjects that are willing to signalise their loyalty,
if need be, by dying for Him ; is, I think, as little
liable to dispute. 1 But it is not on the truth of any
such conception that I am now insisting : let it, if
the reader will, be a dream. I am merely pointing
it out, as one of the singularities of the book, that
this conception is found there ; and that being
gradually developed by a number of authors, writing
at far distant times and places, and without any
possibility of concert, it confirms the argument for
its unity.
That this representation of the contents of the book,
so far as I have gone, coincides with what the great bulk
of those who have most sedulously studied it imagine
to be its significance, will be admitted ; that in most
men's judgment it clearly declares more than all this,
and tells us much as to the means by which the Founder
of this spiritual kingdom proposes to work out His
design, and give efficacy to His doctrines, will also
be generally granted. But I have confined myself to
the conclusion which the vast majority, who profess
to interpret the book as a whole, concur in finding
there.
1 The reported sentiments of Napoleon I. in reference to the
grandeur and solidity of Christ's empire and he had well learnt by
experience its contrasts with his own are admirably commented on
by Liddon in his Bampton Lectures. Pp. 222-225. 8vo. Ed. 1867.
iv.] in the Bible. 171
Shall we say that it is all a dream, that the book
contains nothing of the kind, or that all who have
thought so have gone mad together ? If this be
thought incredible, then how shall we account for the
delusion ? By chance ? Who can compute the chances
against it ? By concert of the writers ? The mode
in which the book has been constructed, its gradual
composition, makes this impossible.
I do not here enter on the question, whether the
facts of history have at all corresponded with the
representations of the book. I have briefly touched
on the subject in the previous part of this lecture,
and content myself with saying that the degree in
which that conformity may be truly affirmed is one
of the singularities with which the book is encom-
passed, and of which the philosopher may be asked
to give some account. At present, for anything my
argument requires, Christianity may be a failure in
the world ; the " spiritual kingdom," of which the
book is supposed to speak, hardly commenced, or
regarded as an absolute delusion.
But in proportion as it may be deemed chimerical, let
us recollect in that proportion is the incredibility of
such a chimera entering any head, much less the heads
of a succession of men, whose writings must be sup-
posed to have only an arbitrary connection, and who
lived centuries apart from one another.
I turn to another topic. On the supposition that
the Bible is an accretion of casual writings, arbitrarily
linked together, and without any pervading unity, it
172 Indications of Unity [LECT.
would not appear easy to account for the many latent
" correspondencies " (as they may be called) between
statements which occur in very different portions, and
often at wide intervals, in the sacred books, anymore
than for the " undesigned coincidences " in the historic
portions, which also tend to prove the same thing.
These " correspondencies " seem too remote in place
or time, or too oblique in their reciprocal reference,
to be the result of human art, and yet are connected
by such refined links that we cannot regard them as
accidental or arbitrary insertions. I will content my-
self with taking two or three instances, just as spe-
cimens, though I might give as many scores.
The expression, " And the veil of the temple was
rent," is dropped in the most casual manner. And
where ? It occurs in the midst of the most intensely
interesting narrative, that of the crucifixion and
death of Christ, which it suddenly arrests. Apart
from the reality of such an occurrence, and a con-
viction of its significance (this last only to be cleared
up to the reader, however, by subsequent disclosures
of the bearing of Christianity on Judaism), it seems
inconceivable how a writer, whether of fiction or of
history, should have paused at such a moment, and
without any comment, to insert this parenthetical
irrelevance; or if he invented the incident as a deep
stroke of art, that he should not have paused to connect
it with the narrative which it so abruptly interrupts.
Yet when we consider -the symbolic significance
of that "veil," how it was designed to seclude the
iv.] in the Bible. 173
" Shechinah " from the gaze of all but the high priest,
and from him in every hour of the year but one;
that it indicated that restricted access to God which
the new dispensation was designed to abolish for ever ;
that its characteristic function ceased at the death of
Christ, and contemporaneously with the cry, " It is
finished ; " that the rending of it proclaimed that
henceforth the way to the " Holy of Holies " was
laid open, and every one, " worshipping God in spirit
and in truth," was welcome to the " throne of grace ; "
we see that the incident becomes profoundly significant.
It quadrates with the intimations given in the Old
Testament of the symbolism of the " Holy of Holies,"
and with the reasoning of the author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, who without mentioning on his part the
incident of the Gospels, shows us what the veil was
designed to typify. But it is the isolation of the in-
cident, in itself considered, the perfectly unnatural
manner (supposing it either not true, or the writer
not aware of its significance) in which it is intruded
in a narration of such transcendent interest, without
preparation and without comment, that suggests the
idea of "undesigned correspondence" with those other
statements of Scripture with which it is so consen-
taneous.
Another correspondence, or rather series of corre-
spondencies, is found in the mode in which Melchizedek
is connected with Christ. I may remark in passing
that the original abruptness with which that " priest
of the most High God" is introduced to us, the equally
174 Indications of Unity LECT.
sudden manner in which he is dismissed, all that we
know of him being confined to that one incident in
Genesis ; is (as may be said of so many other inci-
dental passages of the Biblical narrative) an argument
for historic reality ; it being, apart from that reality, a
thing perfectly unimaginable that a writer would have
thought of thrusting into the narrative an invention so
utterly irrelevant ; and, moreover (as regarded by a
Jew), not very flattering, since, as the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews shows, Melchizedek is re-
presented as receiving the homage of the great pro-
genitor of the race. However, the name of Melchi-
zedek emerges but a moment from deep obscurity, and
night falls upon it again. It is as a shadow passing
for a moment along an illuminated portion of a wall
on a dark night : the outline of some figure silently
steals out of the gloom into the line of illumination,
and vanishes into the darkness again. The eclipse
here is long indeed ; for we hear no more of Melchize-
dek for many hundred years, and then once, and once
only, till after the close of the Old Testament canon.
In the second verse of Psalm ex., generally regarded
and even by many critics slow to trace Messianic
vestiges as a prophecy of the Messiah, a solitary
voice proclaims, " I have made thee a priest for ever
after the order of Melchizedek." The oracle is again
silent for about another five hundred years ; and then
Christ once more recals it, by asking the Pharisees
the meaning of it, and not obscurely indicating that
the reference is to the Messiah, though without
iv.] in the Bible. 175
saying who that Messiah is. Some thirty or forty
more years pass after Christ's death, and then for the
first time an ingenious interpretation of this obscure
phrase, and of the allusions to Melchizedek generally,
a raison d'etre of the.ir place in the Jewish history, is
given to the reader. Whether it is the true interpreta-
tion or not, I am not now discussing; but I think it is
impossible even for a sceptic not to admit that it very
ingeniously draws the parallel between Melchizedek
and Christ. The points of resemblance are various,
and suggest an account of the obscure and detached
allusions found so far apart, which, if not true, does
credit to the writer's powers of invention. The history
makes Melchizedek superior to Abraham (who was the
head of the Jewish race, and from whom the Aaronic
priesthood was to descend), in representing him as
receiving " tithes " of the "father of the faithful."
From the abrupt manner in which he is ushered into
the history and vanishes from it, from no mention being
made of his lineage or posterity, he serves to adum-
brate the mysterious origin of Christ, and His mys-
terious future when He left the world. No mention
being made " of father or mother," his priesthood did
not depend on lineage, whereas it was essential to
the validity of the order of the Jewish priest that
he should be able to trace his pedigree to Aaron.
Further, as Melchizedek (so far as appears) derived
his priesthood from no predecessor and bequeathed
it to no successor, he, unlike the Jewish priests, ex-
ercised it for an indeterminate period. In all this he
176 Indications of Unity [LECT.
is a shadow of Christ, who was not in the line of
Aaron, and fulfils His functions without restriction of
time.
I am not attempting to prove that the reasoning of
the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is correct,
though I fully believe it is. I am simply solicitous
to point out the singular " correspondencies " which are
here found between hints so obscure and so various,
given at such distant intervals and by such widely
different writers, and which it is hardly imaginable
that any fortuity (contrivance is out of the question)
should have brought together. Who will compute the
chances against all these notices, fragmentary and
unconnected as they are, in the different documents,
being thus ingeniously combined ? x
To take one other instance. Let us consider the
account in Matthew and Luke of the Temptation of
Christ. It is an isolated narrative. Nothing seems
founded upon it in other parts of Scripture, nor is
any distinct reference made to it. His whole life,
indeed, considering how it was spent, might be called
one long temptation; to anger, scorn, impatience,
repining ; temptation such as none can conceive, if
He could indeed penetrate all the depths of evil in
the hearts of men, and shudderingly recoiled from all
contact with it. There does not, therefore, seem
anything that would naturally suggest this peculiar
scene. But when it is recollected, on the other hand,
that it is elsewhere declared to be absolutely neces-
1 Appendix, No. V.
iv.j in the Bible. 177
sary, and part of Christ's function, that He should
endure, in all their variety and extremity, the tempta-
tions to which we are subject ; that, having been thus
tried, He might sympathise with us, be " able to
succour them that are tempted," to "have compassion
on the ignorant and them that are out of the way,"
be capable of being "touched with the feeling of
our infirmities, having been in all points tempted
like as we are, though without sin ; " and when we
recollect, on the other hand, that if we, like Him,
would be victorious over temptation, we are told
we must take into our hands the " sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God," recalling and
applying in the hour of conflict all the motives which
it presents ; it is impossible not to feel how congruous,
at least, all this is with that brief scene in which all
the keenest bolts from the quiver of the Evil One,
those aimed at the chiefly vulnerable parts of our
nature at appetite, cupidity, vain-glory, ambition, and
presumption, are said to be launched against Christ ;
and where in every case the victory is represented as
won by the same weapon, the appeal to the word of
God : " It is written it is written it is written."
I am not now arguing for the reality of the narrative,
nor pretending to solve any of the difficulties which,
at first sight, would seem to preclude the possibility
of Christ's being the subject of temptation. Suffice it
to say that He is represented as being truly man ; and
therefore whosoever receives that fact, whatever else
he may believe Him to be, must acknowledge that
13
178 Indications of Unity [LECT.
He was liable to temptation. Nor is it difficult to
show that, however impeccable, He might at least
receive from the presentation of temptation under the
pressure of those sufferings and privations which so
generally give it its power over us that vivid sense
of our temptations, and of the conflict they necessitate,
which only experience can impart. 1
But I am here merely pointing out how this sin-
gular episode, standing out as it does in bold relief,
with no key to its bearing on any other transactions
of Christ's life, harmonises with the representations
of subsequent pages of the New Testament and its
development of the entire doctrines of Christianity.
It seems not difficult to perceive a keeping in the whole,
for which neither fiction nor fortuity will account.
Of course, the argument I am now pressing is not
founded on the singularity of any one instance of
" correspondence," but on the aggregate of them.
They abound in almost every part of the book, and
would easily fill a volume.
To the same effect I might, perhaps, adduce the
1 We see this illustrated in some degree, and in one point or
other, even in our ordinary humanity. There is many a poor but
virtuous man, who would sooner face starvation than rob ; but if he
has been, on some dire occasion, compelled to make the election,
he will ever after have a very different measure of thai temptation
though he was incapable of being conquered by it from that of
him who, also honest, has never known anything but ease and
plenty. And there is many an honourable merchant, who would
sooner be a martyr than a forger ; but if solicited, in an hour of
impending ruin, to save himself or family by some act of dishonour
though he might be in no danger of succumbing to the tempta-
tion he would know how to appraise it as he never did before.
iv.] in the Bible. 179
great number of instances in which what are called
"types and shadows" in the Old Testament are
interpreted, and apparently without violence, to point
to certain facts and doctrines of the New as their
" reality " and " substance." Large parts of the
complex machinery of Jewish institutions have, at all
events, seemed to immense numbers of the wise and
learned to be too curiously and artificially " analogous "
with the chief facts of Christianity to have too much
of a " mortise and tenon " relation about them to be
accounted for by accident or by a besotted exegesis 1 .
" This," says Davison, 1 " is the virtue and striking pro-
perty of the Mosaic types, especially that principal one
of sacrifice, that they do reflect so clear and unequi-
vocal an image of the Gospel system, when once they
are confronted with it. Their cryptic characters are
illuminated, and their latent import is called forth." 2
Still as it is probable, on the one hand, that few would
attach the due value to this argument for the unity of
Scripture, until they had already admitted arguments
more direct and obvious ; and as, on the other, it
is a topic which the extravagance of allegorical inter-
preters in all ages has only been too prone to abuse,
I will not dwell on it further.
I might also mention, in this place, as confirmatory
of my present argument, the general effect of those
undesigned "coincidences" of statement, which have
1 Lectures on Prophecy, p. 100.
2 This subject is beautifully illustrated in the sermon of the
Rev. Thomas Binney, to which I have already made a reference,
"The Law our Schoolmaster." (See particularly pp. 295-300.)
13*
180 Indications of Unity [LECT.
been traced between different portions of Scripture ; in-
ferring not only the credibility of these separate portions,
but, if that be admitted, a consequent reciprocal con-
nection between the books in which they are found.
These coincidences have been elaborately traced in
the Evangelists as compared with one another, in the
Acts as compared with Paul's epistles, and in the
several books of the Pentateuch. There is no reason
to suppose that they are yet exhausted, and they
may hereafter disclose relations of similar signifi-
cance between other parts of the Bible. This mine,
which has yielded so many contributions to the
evidence, was only opened by Paley, in his " Horse
Paulinae," about eighty years ago ; and the copious
and important additions which have been made by
Blunt and others, give us ground to think that the
vein is by no means worked out.
I might further argue the "unity" of the Bible
from a certain tone and manner which generally per-
vade these writers, and which are not found in the
same degree in any other ; as also from a certain
resemblance of style, which, however undeniable the
differences that discriminate the various authors
and attest their individuality, is perceptible in the
compositions of Scripture in general; a diapason
which runs through all its complex strain of har-
mony. It is heard, as the surge of ocean is heard
above the many-voiced winds which sweep over its
surface. It is not without reason that critics have
spoken of the " Bible style."
iv.] in the Bible. 181
But as this lecture is already sufficiently long, and
as the two last topics, however they may suggest
some arguments for the " unity of the Bible," are
more naturally connected with its peculiarities of
structure and of style, I reserve what I have to say
upon them to subsequent lectures.
Meantime, if there be unity in the Bible, then,
from the mode of its composition, it is not a book
that man could have made, if he would. 1
1 Appendix, No. VI.
LECTURE V.
REPLY TO SOME OBJECTIONS FOUNDED' ON THE
FORM AND STRUCTURE OF THE BIBLE.
LECTURE V.
A REPLY TO OBJECTIONS FOUNDED ON CERTAIN PECU-
LIARITIES OF FORM AND STRUCTURE EXHIBITED
IN THE BIBLE.
THOUGH my principal object in the present
lecture is to obviate certain objections, I hope
it will not be entirely without matter which may
contribute to the main purpose of my present line
of argument.
It is impossible to open the Bible without being
struck with the variety of its form and contents. It
was composed by manifold authors, writing at far dis-
tant dates, in different languages, in the most diverse
circumstances, and with the usual peculiarities of in-
dividual genius. Though there is, as I have said in
the last lecture, a general resemblance of style which
pervades the Scriptures, there is also the distinct
idiosyncratic impress of many minds. If there be
harmony, it is the harmony of a large orchestra"!
where the instruments, however in unison, are yet /
plainly distinguishable from one another. Further,
these authors write on an immense variety of subjects,
and the form of their compositions is as various as
1 86 Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
their matter. Narrative and poetry of various kinds,
history and biography, odes and hymns, writings
devoted to simply didactic purposes, familiar letters
all are there ; in short, nearly all the compositions
which, as addressed to the several faculties of the
human mind, and evoked by them, naturally distin-
guish every national literature ; but marked in this
case, as we shall presently see, by peculiarities
which do not belong to ordinary compositions of
(loosely speaking) the same genus in other literatures.
In truth, the Bible is so multifarious that, as has been
well said, it is rather a " library " than a " book.'*
If there be that unity about so multiform a thing,
for which I have argued, the inference from such
unity is strengthened in proportion to this variety for
it is in that proportion incredible that man produced
it. If there be unity at all, it exists in spite of this
variety. It is a unity, like that of some natural
system, that of the human body, for example, where
elements the most dissimilar in form, property, and
function, are found in juxta-position, and order reigns
amidst seeming confusion. If any such unity be de-
nied, and the book be supposed a mere conglomerate
of heterogeneous things, this makes it all the more un-
accountable that so many millions of intelligent men
should have been deluded into the belief of its unity.
But this very variety of authorship, form, and matter,
has often been urged as an objection to its supposed
Divine origin. "Can we imagine it worthy of Deity,"
it is said, " to give a revelation in scraps and frag-
v.] on the Form and Structure of the Bible. 187
ments, ' here a little and there a little,' through suc-
cessive ages and in the most dissimilar forms?"
Though I think, with Butler, that we are not very
competent, except in a few points (as regards morality,
for example), to judge a priori of what a revelation is
likely to consist, still less of the forms which it may
possibly assume, I conceive it is not difficult to repel,
or at least neutralize such an objection, by the follow-
ing considerations.
If it be supposed incredible that God should re-
veal Himself by so complex an instrument, then the
best way is to test the objection by an appeal to
"analogy." The prodigious variety and consequent
seeming confusion of Scripture are certainly in con-
formity with the corresponding variety and consequent
seeming confusion in which the phenomena of nature
are submitted to man's study and contemplation. Nor
are the conditions on which he .has to perform his
office of " minister and interpreter " in either case very
dissimilar. 1
But I am not sure that the objection, if it be
really the most natural conclusion human reason
could arrive at, might not be pressed into the service
of the line of argument adopted in these lectures.
For it at least bears witness that man would not have
chosen so elaborate and complicated an instrument of
a professed revelation. 3
1 In a future lecture, this, as appears tome, instructive "analogy,"
will be more fully illustrated.
2 A similar objection has been founded on what is for the most
part a necessary consequence of the complexity and variety of the
i88 Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
But, in truth, I doubt whether deliberate judgment
would attach any force to such an objection at all.
Bible, the unsystematic distribution of its contents. On the other
hand, this very quality has seemed to others a mark of superhuman
wisdom. Boyle has thought it worth while to reply at some length
to the objection ; Whately and many others have largely vin-
dicated the peculiarity itself. Perhaps, as the quality is the
natural consequence of the structure of the Bible, and its gradual
growth, and as, on the other hand, it is often found in other pro-
fessed revelations, more stress has been laid on this topic than, per
se, it deserves. The trait in question is not in itself a perfection ;
it may consist, like the phenomena of the universe, " with order,"
but " ill understood ;" or it may imply real confusion; it may be
the effect of comprehensiveness and variety of purpose, or of
ignorance and an inconsequent logic.
But if it be made an objection that it is incredible that God could
have chosen such a method, then I conceive that the reasoning of
Boyle, in his reply to the fourth and seventh Objections to the style
of Scripture, and that of Whately, founded on the ends that may
be palpably answered by such an arrangement, is amply sufficient.
The principal answer, indeed, as before, is derived from " analogy."
We see in what way God does school us in the world He has
made ; how seemingly unsystematic the distribution of the phe-
nomena man is called to study ; and how seemingly slow and
desultory the lessons he is taught to learn.
But the ends to be answered by such a method are various and
important enough to make the objection sufficiently precarious apart
from this. It is quite true that the doctrines and precepts of Scrip-
ture are scattered up and down as different occasions call for them,
or suggest them; that sometimes they are conjoined, sometimes
detached ; doctrine without the practical inferences to which it
leads, precepts without the doctrinal truths from which they
flow ; sometimes they lie latent in the bare facts of the narrative,
and are to be deduced by our own sagacity, or by comparison
with other passages ; sometimes they are taught or confirmed by
oblique allusion, and seem all the more impressive for so incidental
a reference to them ; sometimes, as they represent progressive
truth, they are necessarily developed in fragments, and thus
the more important dogmas of the Gospel pass through all
stages of illumination, between twilight obscurity and the bright
noonday. But then, on the other hand, this method impresses
truth more deeply on the mind by the varied forms and constant
iteration with which it is presented ; it gives "line upon line and
v.] on the Form and Structure of the Bible. 189
If a man of large and cautious mind permitted
himself to speculate on what form a Revelation might
precept upon precept ;" it imposes on the reader the duty of
diligently exploring and collating the different portions of Scripture,
if he would rightly comprehend its contents ; it involves a
perpetual discipline of the intellect, and the exercise of caution,
patience, and humility. It prevents the mind from stagnating,
through too constant familiarity with, or parrot-like repetition of,
one unvaried, however accurate and logical, compend or syllabus
of religious truth. "God's wisdom," says Whately ("Errors of
Romanism," Essay iv. Sect. 6), "doubtless designed to guard us
against a danger which I think no human wisdom would have
foreseen the danger of indolently assenting to and committing
to memory * a form of sound words/ which would in a short time
have become no more than a form of words received with passive
reverence, and scrupulously retained in the mind leaving no room
for doubt, furnishing no call for vigilant investigation, affording no
stimulus to the attention, and making no vivid impression on the
heart. It is only when the understanding is kept on the stretch by
the diligent search the watchful observation the careful deduc-
tionwhich the Christian Scriptures call forth by their oblique,
incidental, and irregular mode of conveying the knowledge of
Christian doctrines it is then only that the feelings, and the moral
portion of our nature, are kept so awake as to receive the requi-
site impression." He elsewhere illustrates the same subject by
a very striking image. On the supposition that theology had been
taught in Scripture in the form of a logically-arranged compen-
dium, he observes that, "The compendium itself, being not like
the existing Scriptures, that from which the faith is to be learned,
but the very thing to be learned, would have come to be regarded
by most with an indolent, unthinking veneration, which would
have exercised little or no influence on the character. Their
orthodoxy would have been, as it were, petrified, like the bodies
of those animals we read of incrusted in the ice of the polar re-
gions ; firm-fixed, indeed, and preserved unchanged, but cold,
motionless, lifeless. It is only when our energies are roused, and
our faculties exercised, and our attention kept awake by an ardent
pursuit of truth, and anxious watchfulness against error when,
in short, we feel ourselves to be doing something towards acquir-
ing, or retaining, or improving our knowledge, it is then only that
that knowledge makes the requisite practical impression on the
heart and on the conduct." Peculiarities in the Christian Reli-
gion. Essay vi. p. 361.
I go Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
not unnaturally assume, I am by no means sure that
he would not anticipate, on a survey of all its require-
ments, a very great complexity of structure and variety
of form. He might conjecture that, to answer so
many diverse and complicated ends, it must be not
simply a perspicuous, logical abstract of the great
truths which constitute its essential value as a Revela-
tion, but an exhibition of those truths in the most ver-
satile and flexible forms, adapted to minister to the
spiritual wants and aspirations of universal humanity ;
that being the book of all time and of " every land," it
would be suited to all the faculties of human nature,
and all the intellectual and moral varieties in indi-
vidual men; capable of arresting not the intellect
alone, but the memory, the imagination, the affections,
and the heart ; that it would contain spiritual aliment
for the wisest and the weakest among us, wisdom
here, so profound, that the deepest intellects cannot
exhaust it; there, so easy, that the child cannot miss
it ; aphorisms which may well employ the meditative
powers of a Bacon or a Pascal, poetry worthy of
kindling the congenial fancy of a Milton, and parables
which even Bunyan's allegories cannot equal ; that its
narratives would form such a picture of human life,
that the learned and the ignorant, the rude and po-
lished, age and childhood, the happy and the sorrow-
ful, would hang over them with equal delight, as they
saw reflected in that mirror the image of their own
various nature, and the methods of Divine providence
in dealing with it. He might conjecture that it would
v.] on the Form and Structure of the Bible. 191
be a book which should exhibit the most various truths
in the most various forms "line upon line and precept
upon precept" so as both to be its own best com-
mentary, and bid defiance to any successful tampering
with its text; a book which, in addition to all this,
should contain within itself in its very structure in
its undesigned harmonies of part with part, and in
remote coincidences with the history of that world
with which its own is implicated, some of the very
chief proofs of its own superhuman origin; and, lastly,
that it would be composed in such a style (everywhere
generically the same, while yet bearing the specific
imprint of the different minds that were employed
upon it) as to adapt itself, with flexible ease, for
transfusion into every dialect of man.
If really fitted to answer all this variety of ends, it
must, like the outward universe, be exceedingly complex
in its structure and various in its contents ; nor need it
surprise us that these last, like those of the material
world, should exist in seeming glorious confusion ;
but in confusion like that of Eden, where was every
tree that was good for food, or that could minister to
beauty and delight not planted with the stiff formality
of a little Dutch garden, but as described in the vivid
words of him who sang it as if he had seen it :
" Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
Poured forth profuse on hill and dale and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open fields, and where the unpierced shade
Imbrowned the noontide hours."
192 Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
Now assuming, for argument's sake, the Bible to be
a Revelation, I apprehend that our supposed critic,
on inspection of the principal elements of which it
consists, their proportions, and the different purposes
they seem adapted to answer, would say that it met
in a high degree the conditions of his speculation.
I have no space to enter into such extended investi-
gation here ; but I am tempted to take a single illus-
tration from the manifold adaptations to the surmised
ends of such a Revelation, presented in that element
of the Bible which is by far the largest and the most
important, I mean, narrative.
The staple of the book is history and biography,
which in fact make up about four-fifths of the whole.
This alone sharply discriminates it from all other so-
called sacred books, from which the historic element
is almost wholly absent. The Bible, on the other
hand, is professedly imbedded in human history, runs
parallel with it, and if true, forms the most important
part of it ; for all the principal dogmas themselves
purport to be/flc/s, and make the most significant part
of the history it records.
Now, in the first place, this form of composition
is one of the most easy and impressive vehicles of
conveying moral instruction ; it illustrates precept by
example, and appeals to the imagination as well as
the reason. It makes good the maxim, old as Aris-
totle and no doubt much older, that the things most
effectually and quickly learnt are those which are
"learned with delight." It is capable of being at
v -] on the Form and Structure of the Bible. 193
once understood and relished by the young and old,
the learned and the ignorant, and in some measure
equalises the condition and capacities of those who
read it. We all know that history has been called
" philosophy teaching by example : " in the case of
the Bible it may be truly called " theology teaching
by example ; " for everything is regarded in the light
of those great principles which characterise the entire
book, and which subordinate everything to the claims
of God, as the Creator and Sovereign of the universe.
It constitutes, therefore, a perpetual commentary on
God's providential government, and shows us, by in-
numerable examples, how to interpret those lessons
which the varying events of life, its joys and sorrows,
its temptations and trials, are calculated to teach us.
There is hardly an event, hardly a character that has
not its parallel in that immense picture gallery of
historic and biographic sketches which the Scripture
opens to us. The whole of life seems mirrored
there; nor can the attentive and candid reader fail
to be struck with the fact that such a panorama, in
which all the conditions of human life seem exhibited,
should be painted in so small a compass. The examples
range through all the ranks of social life, embrace all
varieties of character, and illustrate, by analogous
cases, almost every conceivable combination of cir-
cumstances in which man can be placed. It is
hardly possible to imagine ourselves in any situation,
in which that immense repertory and storehouse
of monitory or touching examples will not furnish
194 Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
a precedent either for our warning, consolation, or
guidance.
I shall presently have to notice a prevailing feature
of this history, which greatly augments its usefulness,
as an exercise and study : I mean its essentially
dramatic character, by which bare historic facts,
usually without a w r ord of comment or reflection,
are given, leaving us to draw the inference from the
general principles elsewhere developed, or by refer-
ence to similar cases. It is easy to see that this
character of the history increases its value as a source
of instruction ; and the mode of teaching is in this, as
in many other respects, in analogy with that of nature.
It solicits the mind to exert its own intelligence, in-
stead of making everything quite plain, and leaving us
to be the mere passive recipients of knowledge. It
is hard to say whether the common mind is better
pleased with inferring a general conclusion from a
particular example, or referring a particular example
to a general principle : in both ways the book ministers
to a concurrent activity of mind in the student of it.
This feature of the Bible also affords an inexhaustible
fund of apt illustration to those whose function it is
to interpret the book to the ignorant. Probably it
would not be difficult to illustrate the whole gnomic
wisdom of the Book of Proverbs by quoting parallel
examples from the historic books of the Bible. In
this way, the Bible is not only adapted to be a text-
book of morals and theology, but is its own best
interpreter ; nor is there perhaps any commentary
v.] on the Form and Structure of the Bible. 195
more useful than one made out of the Bible itself, by
a careful collation of all parallel passages.
Other reasons for the prevalence of the historic form
will readily suggest themselves. It plays a most
important part in relation to the " evidences " of the
truth of the Bible. It yields the far greater part of
those " undesigned coincidences " which constitute so
important a portion of apologetics. Of this species
of evidence, lying enfolded in the leaves of the Scrip-
ture history and lying unnoticed for near eighteen
centuries, the most brilliant example is still the
" Horse Paulinas" But though the collation of Paul's
" Epistles" with the "Acts" gives the most striking
specimen of this argument, it is one that may be
gathered from many other books of Scripture, as
many works, similarly constructed with that of Paley,
show. The wonder is that no one lighted on the
entrance to this subterranean gallery before. Pascal,
indeed, makes a casual remark that some such evidence
might be extracted from a comparison of the inci-
dents of the Gospels ; and Doddridge has an acute
observation, which contains, in fact, an anticipation
of Paley's argument. But the idea was certainly not
wrought out till .Paley's admirable work appeared. x
1 Professor Leathes, in his able "Lectures on St. Paul" (p. 64),
has justly remarked that it is a curious instance of the fluctua-
tions of controversy, that an attempt is now often made to "turn
the tables " on Paley, by alleging minute historic discrepancies
between the " Epistles " and the "Acts " as a set-off against the
"undesigned coincidences." It is true ; but surely it is not difficult
to see the futile character of the "set-off." To suppose it can be
such, is to show an incompetence to discern the nature of the
I 4 *
ig6 Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
In a similar way, many of the driest portions of the
historic books, the genealogies for example, minister
to the same end. The mere frequency and copiousness
of such matter, untinctured with the smallest trace of
mythological influences, and attended, as it often is,
with a break in the continuity and interest of the
narrative, is, pro tanto, a voucher that the writings
in which they occur are neither fiction nor myth. A
writer of fiction would never dream of introducing
argument from " undesigned coincidences." Of the alleged historic
discrepancies, some may be due to corruptions of the text ; many
have been satisfactorily solved ; others are in course of solution,
and we cannot tell how far the solutions will ultimately go. Of
many others, we have reason to believe that they exist only in the
objector's imagination, and are due to the omission of some
facts which, if known, would clear them up ; and, supposing, in
some few insignificant cases, that they are the result of mistake,
ignorance, error on the part of the writers, even this will not
affect the substantial truth of the history. But an argument for
the " undesigned coincidences," once established, admits of no
such abatements : they are not a variable quantity ; they are
too numerous and exquisite to be referred to accident, and
lie too deep for fraud, unless fraud intended to defeat itself,
for they were never discovered for eighteen centuries. The argu-
ment, indeed, from historic discrepancies is in one respect like that
from the " undesigned coincidences ; " for they both suggest that
the writers could not be in collusion ; but even this is proved
far more effectually by the latter. In a word, they are of a totally
different argumentative nature and value from the mere discre-
pancies, and tell far more powerfully for the historic validity of a
document than mere discrepancies can tell against it.
It is as if a man thought to prove that a child's puzzle map was
no such thing, though the " cloven tallies " fell so exactly into their
places, because one of the pieces was chipped, another missing, a
third had a misprint of a place on it, and so on. These " dis-
crepancies" may be accounted for ; but nothing can account for
the " coincidences " except that they belong to the map, " un-
designed " indeed by the child who puts it together, just as the
oblique "coincidences " in Paul and Luke are evidently undesigned
by them ; but not by the maker of the map.
v.] on the Form and Structure of the Bible. 197
so large an amount of this unattractive matter, with-
out one picturesque or poetical detail to relieve it ;
far less obstruct the narrative for the purpose. We
can understand the moderate use which Homer or
De Foe may have made of such matter : that is, just so
far as to impart a general air of verisimilitude. But
whole pages together of nothing but names are so
preposterously beyond all imaginable necessities of illu-
sion, and so destructive of all interest in the reader,
that we may safely infer that the introduction of such
matter, to the extent we find it in the Bible, will
admit of no such solution. As little will it admit
of a mythical origin ; for though myths may be a
gradual and insensible growth of the popular ima-
gination, they are yet true to the principles on
which they have been constructed and embellished
- to amuse or instruct ; and neither the one pur-
pose nor the other can be answered by whole
chapters containing nothing but long catalogues of
names. I
On the other hand, many of these portions of Scrip-
ture, regarded as history, have another important
bearing on the evidences. The genealogies, however
dry they may be, often throw light on some obscure
passage in a remote part of Scripture ; or clear up
1 " It is to be added, also, that mere genealogies, bare narratives
of the number of years which persons, called by such and such
names, lived, do not carry the air of fiction ; perhaps do carry
some presumption of veracity ; and all unadorned narratives, which
have nothing to surprise, may be thought to carry somewhat of the
like presumption too.' ; Butler's Analogy. Part ii. ch. 7.
198 Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
some difficulty 'in a totally different book by a totally
different writer, and of a far distant age. 1
Another point in which the historic form con-
duces to the " evidences," consists in the challenge
which it offers to criticism, by so often intersecting
secular history. It is assuredly most extraordinary
that the sacred history, supposing it other than it
purports to be, that is, fiction, or myth, or both,
should so boldly have defied the scrutiny of the
world by deliberately traversing profane history, and
yet have emerged from the most " fiery ordeal " of
criticism ever applied to ancient documents, with
scarcely the " smell of fire " upon it. It comes into
constant contact with profane history, both in the Old
Testament and the New, but especially in the last. It
everywhere inserts its alleged facts into the plane of
contemporaneous or nearly contemporaneous events,
without the smallest hesitation, or preparation, or
apology, or timidity, as though it was quite certain
that none would or could challenge the accuracy of
its representations. Yet one would imagine that the
immense difficulty of preserving consistency, or any
approach to it, in such attempts to say nothing of the
greater difficulty of inducing those who must have
known the true history, to acquiesce without protest
in the feigned incidents mixed with it, as history too
would deter the most audacious impostor. In fact,
far more limited attempts of this nature have been
1 See Boyle. Style of the Holy Scriptures : Answer to Objec-
' tion IV.
v.] on the Form and Structure of the Bible. 199
unmasked by less than a hundredth part of the un-
relenting rigour of criticism to which the history of
the Scriptures generally, but especially that of the
New Testament, has been subjected. In this last
case, though every advantage is given to the sceptic
from the large remains of profane history with which
the sacred history may be compared, and though the
most acute minds, animated by the keenest desire to
find flaws, have exhausted their skill in endeavouring
to find them, the effect is absolutely inappreciable.
On the other hand, unexpected confirmations of its
accuracy are frequently found in the discovery from
time to time of documents, medals, and other relics
of antiquity, in which fresh light is cast on the
harmony, even in minute points, between the Scrip-
tural representations of profane history and those of
secular writers. Now if Scripture history be either
fiction or legend, or aught else but history, this
"reckless scattering of names and dates," this profuse
introduction of historic persons and actions ("where
nothing," as Paley says, "but truth can produce
consistency"), ought to be fatal to it. It ought to
be as easy to tear this artificial web to tatters as
so many other flimsy fabrics which have been sub-
jected to the ordeal of criticism.
The immense importance of the historical form of
the Scriptures to the evidence is obvious, if we allow
(what few deny) that the facts of profane history, im-
plicated with the New Testament, are true. Is it
possible to conceive that those who then lived or
200 Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
those of the next generation, with every disposition
and motive to reject the impostures or legends with
which those facts are so impudently connected, would
have acquiesced in them if not true ? Is it possible,
for example, if the history of Paul in the "Acts" be
not true, that it could have been affirmed that he
had been brought before Agrippa, had appealed to
the facts of the evangelical history, and to Agrippa's
own knowledge of them as " not done in a corner,"
without provoking vehement reclamations ? Would it
not have been said that these things had not been
done, either " in a corner" or anywhere else ? Would
those who could so easily have shown the effrontery
of this cheat, and who had every reason to do so, have
been silent ? And so of numberless other things,
which it is certain that the contemporaries of the
apostles, or the men of the next generation, would have
instantly contradicted, instead of accepting them as
history. It is inconceivable that events, professedly
of a public character, can be thus closely implicated
with persons and transactions occupying a large space
on the theatre of the world, without being either in-
stantly contradicted, or beyond contradiction.
The prevailing historic form is attended with yet
another advantage as regards the evidence. If it
gives every facility to its adversaries for proving it
false, the artlessness of the narrative, its vivid air
of reality, its simplicity and apparent honesty, im-
press ninety-nine readers out of every hundred with
a conviction that the writer is speaking truth. The
v.] <w #*0 jporm 0^ Structure of the Bible. 201
natural air of unsophisticated testimony is often
irresistible, and it certainly belongs as conspicuously
to the Bible narratives as to any.
There is, if I mistake not, another prevailing pecu-
liarity about the history of Scripture, which it is worth
while to note, as it is a symptom of reality, and is in
analogy, at any rate, with the actual history of men,
whether they be conceived as communities or indi-
viduals. I refer to the general disregard of what art
exacts in fiction, and instinct so often suggests in
myth, as essential to its appropriate interest ; namely,
a well-rounded narrative, in which, even if there be
some want of skill in the management of the inter-
mediate incidents, or ill-judged digressions, or too
long a suspension of the catastrophe, there is, as there
should be, a well-defined beginning, and, above all,
a well-defined end, a denouement such as shall satisfy
the imagination. Now, Scripture history is generally
little solicitous about this, and is thereby in accord-
ance with human life.
The history of individuals and communities as
given in the Bible, and as transacted in the world, is
something like the last voyage of Paul, in the Acts.
The ship moves, indeed, but is driven hither and
thither by baffling winds, and meets with strange
variety of fortunes and disasters ; an image of that
devious course which, under the providential govern-
ment of God, marks the general history of human
life. As there is nothing " so unlike a battle as a
review," so there is nothing so unlike real history as
202 Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
the plot of a skilfully constructed novel, or a well-ad-
justed drama, where the unities are fairly preserved, and
the catastrophe unexceptionable. In each man's life,
and in that of each nation, we find "passages which
seemingly "lead to nothing;" though we are sure it
is not so, inasmuch as they are part of the discipline
and schooling of men part of the "plan de Dieu"
however we may fail to see the connection between
the means and the end. We often see incidents of
apparently the most trivial character leading to the
most momentous issues, and events which thrilled
the contemporary world with awe or admiration, as
often collapsing to nothing; profound sagacity stum-
bling over some simple obstacle, and projects long
cherished in vain, and at last given up in despair, made,
by a sudden turn of events, unexpectedly feasible.
Civil and political history, which records these things,
is of a corresponding complexion. In reading it, we
encounter numberless digressions and episodes, which
seemingly interrupt the course of it, and which are
inserted, not because they have any vital, or, indeed,
any visible connection at all with the main purpose of
the story, but because the historian is bound to record
what did happen, whether it always conduces to its
interest or not. In fact, in human life and human
history, we see but fragments of the " acts " and
" scenes" of that vast drama which every rational theist
believes to be transacting on the theatre of the world.
Now it is of just such fragments that the historic
portions of Scripture, for the most part, consist ;
v.] on the Form and Structure of the Bible. 203
connected, indeed, but just as the incidents of
human life and of political and civil history are con-
nected, by relations of cause and effect, of proximity
of time or place, or contemporaneousness ; but not
by the laws of unity which imagination prescribes
in her works.
There are comparatively few narratives in the his-
tory of the Bible to which these remarks do not apply.
In reading them, therefore, we are continually struck
with abrupt terminations of the story, with seemingly
isolated facts or passages, which end in a cul de sac.
We find ourselves continually putting questions which
our unsatisfied curiosity asks in vain. We wonder what
was the history of Jacob and his sons, and what their
relations, during the twenty years of Joseph's exile ?
what the degree and effect of those suspicions which,
from that explosion of feeling which took place when
Simeon was missed and Benjamin seemed in peril,
had, it would seem, been smouldering so long in the
patriarch's bosom? what became of Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and so many other prime actors in the history
of the Jews ? how the Acts came to break off with
such provoking abruptness in the very crisis of Paul's
fate, leaving him a captive at Rome between life and
death, without a word to indicate the catastrophe ?
These are specimens of a thousand questions which
we ask in Biblical and ordinary history alike.
If there are any notable exceptions, the histories of
Joseph and David may be deemed such. Yet even
in these, though they are marked, perhaps (especially
204 Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
the former), by a greater completeness and more
copious details than any of the rest, how many digres-
sions and irrelevancies are there, which would never
have been admitted by writers solely intent on the
interest of their story; and how many vicissitudes
and complications which seem to obstruct it. These
things, however, are reflected in real life and real
history. These circuitous methods, these long delays
and slow preparations, this flux and reflux of fortune,
are constantly seen in the biographies of those whom
God has conducted from obscurity to greatness. 1
1 Davison, in his "Lectures on Prophecy," remarks that the
history of David is particularly worthy of study, as an example
of fulfilment of a prophecy, the predicted elevation of David
from a shepherd's hut to the throne, by the interposition of a
long, intricate, and most diversified series of incidents, without
a miracle ; by a series of events in themselves perfectly natural,
and not out of the ordinary path of Providence. As I am not now
arguing on the supposition of either prophecy or miracle, I here
refer to this portion of Scripture history, simply as an image of
the complex play of human passions and interests the slow pro-
cesses, the abrupt transitions, the sudden metatheses, which true
history has so often exemplified ; as, for example, in the fortunes
of Masaniello or Cromwell. The results are wrought out, as it
were, dramatically, but with an intricacy of incident, a going back-
ward and forward, a variety of vicissitudes and oscillations, on
which the dramatist does not venture, for fear of too long sus-
pending the action or marring its unity.
One remark seems necessary to qualify Davison's observation.
When he says that the history of David is developed without the
intervention of a miracle, he probably means what we commonly
call such, not the entire absence of the supernatural ; for that is
not absolutely excluded. Prophecy, prophetic vision, and appeals
to the oracles of professed Divine appointment among the Jews,
form an appreciable, though a small part of the history of David.
Understanding him in this sense, he might, with equal justice, have
adduced the history of Joseph, as carried on from first to last,
without miracle, and as an equally striking illustration of the slow
and intricate, yet certain, methods of providence.
v.] on the Form and Structure of the Bible. 205
But though these are very beautiful episodes in
Scripture history, and exhibit more of dramatic com-
pleteness than almost anything else in its pages, they
are sufficiently assimilated to the ordinary history of
Scripture, and to that of life, to bring them under
the criterion in question. If they be not history,
one is lost in wonder at the contrast between the
prodigal invention which has feigned such an in-
finitude of incidents, and so naturally interwoven
and expressed them in so small a compass, and yet
has introduced so much digressive, and, so far as the
main story is concerned, irrelevant matter. As history,
indeed, we can understand it ; but if the authors were
composing fiction or embellishing myth, one does
not comprehend how writers should have been both
so exquisitely skilled, and such utter bunglers in the
same art. What, for example, can be more incon-
gruous than the intrusion, into the history of Joseph,
of the fragment of Judah's story in chap, xxxviii.
of Genesis; or than many of the interludes, and
especially the insertion of genealogies, which break
the continuity of that of David ? All natural enough
if these things belong to the domain of fact, but not
very intelligible on the other hypothesis.
Assuming then, for a moment, and for argument's
sake, as I have here done, the truth of the Bible,
and seeing how many ends, principal and subordinate,
may possibly be contemplated and attained by the
very same instrumentality, objections from the arti-
ficiality of its structure, or the multifarious character of
206 Reply to some Objections founded [LECT.
its contents, need not trouble us. But though I have rea-
soned only hypothetically, I think it is scarcely possible
for a candid mind to consider the apparent convergence
to many related ends which is found in so complex
a structure how naturally the various parts seem to
argue mutual dependence and support, as seen in
the many volumes which have been written on its
self-derived evidences without having some suspicion
at least excited that all this is not a result of accident ;
and, if so, that some wisdom greater than that of the
several authors and compilers must have presided over
the whole, determined the relation of the parts, and
directed them to their end.
// Scripture be a revelation of God's will, the sub-
stance of its contents, no doubt, will have quite another
and far higher object than to give incidental proofs
of its truth. Its design will be "to make men wise
unto salvation." Yet in conformity with so many
analogies in the works of God, where we see manifold
purposes often attained by one and the same set of
organs and instruments, it may engraft on its primary
purpose many subordinate purposes, and attain the
latter in attaining the former. Accordingly we see, in
point of fact, how large a portion of the arguments
in defence of the Bible are derived from itself. Nor
to the cumulative power of that argument is it easy
to set any limit, as the contexture, peculiarities, and
relations of the several books come to be more search-
ingly investigated. If these views be correct, the
book may be compared to some ancient temple, the
v.] on the Form and Structure of the Bible. 207
elaborate ornaments of which, though the temple
itself be designed for a higher purpose than to evince
the skill of the architect, yet do bear witness to
it. The shield of Achilles, though chiefly intended
to protect the hero's life in battle, and to turn every
weapon by its adamantine temper, yet proclaimed, in
the pictured wonders which encircled its margin and
covered its ample field, the skill of the divine artificer
who had forged it.
But whether these considerations have any force
besides answering an objection or not, there are two
or three prevailing peculiarities about the writers of
Scripture history, and especially the evangelists,
which have always appeared to me perfectly unintel-
ligible, except on the supposition that they are not to
be placed in the category of merely human authors.
Of these peculiarities I shall treat in the next lecture.
LECTURE VI.
ON CERTAIN PECULIARITIES OF SCRIPTURE
STYLE.
LECTURE VI.
ON CERTAIN PECULIARITIES OF STYLE IN THE
SCRIPTURAL WRITERS.
r | ^HE first of the peculiarities to which reference
-* was made at the close of the last lecture is one
which characterises the Bible generally, not only far
more than any other book, but to such an extent as
can hardly be imagined by any one who has not
made the subject his express study. The quality I
refer to is that of exhibiting character in a purely
dramatic form ; by simply relating naked facts and
incidents without comment, without criticism, with-
out description of character, without enumeration of
qualities ; in a word, to the utter exclusion of that
analysis which is so favourite an exercise of the human
mind, and without which, not once in ten times, can it
prevail on itself to let facts speak nakedly for them-
selves, or give the reader credit for sagacity enough to
draw his own conclusions. As it is a very unusual
way of writing, so it is incomparably the most difficult.
Genius of high dramatic order is of very rare occur-
rence; and it is certainly not among Jews, whether in
ancient or modern times, that we should expect the
most profuse exhibition of it. To portray character by
15*
212 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
simply exhibiting it in action, by its own sayings and
doings, is very rare even in the most famous novelists.
Even by the greatest masters of the art Walter Scott,
for instance characters are often introduced by a
long and sometimes wearisome preparation of analytic
description ; ticketed and labelled with such and such
properties, as if the author wished to engrave more
deeply on his own mind the lines of the character he
had conceived, or to frame a sort of model to work by,
before dramatically exhibiting it ; or as conscious that
his actual exhibition would inadequately convey to the
reader the ideal he would paint. Even Shakespeare
himself that Prince of Dramatists, of whom one is
accustomed to think (as a friend once expressed it)
not so much as a " sublimation of what other men may
feel in a weaker degree in themselves, but as something
of another order " even Shakespeare, not seldom, puts
into the mouth of an interlocutor a vivid picture of the
character he is about to exhibit, or gives it in the
course of the drama, as though for the purpose of aid-
ing the reader's conception. As to history, we know
that elaborate portraits of the principal characters have
exercised the utmost skill of great masters in this
department of literature, from Thucydides and Tacitus
to Clarendon and Macaulay. They would have
thought themselves strangely wanting to their sub-
ject, and to themselves as philosophers, if they had
not given us such " characters," and also essayed
to analyse the motives by which their actions were
determined. All this is natural, and we expect it ; and,
vi.] of Scripture Style. 213
in truth, the element is found rather in excess than
in defect in all the principal histories. It is only too
copious, misleading the reader and prejudicing him
for or against the characters, beyond what the facts,
impartially judged, would justify; and he is thus led
astray by false lights into erring estimates. With the
biographer this fault is proverbial. In many " Lives "
the reader can hardly get an opportunity of fairly
observing the professed subject of the biography for
two pages together. The author stands between them
with perpetual comment and reflection, stricture and
admiration, so that, as people say, " we cannot see
the ground for the flowers'* or "the wood for the
trees." To novelists, the extreme difficulty of repre-
senting character dramatically is some excuse for
dropping so often into dissertation and reflection.
The historian and biographer are not, indeed, under pre-
cisely the same temptation, for the facts are made for
them. Yet practically it comes to the same thing ;
partly from the intrinsic difficulty of presenting mere
facts without becoming dry and dull, partly from the
strong temptation to play the philosopher to excess.
The historian is anxious to show that he can penetrate
into the causes of events, as well as narrate the events
themselves. But whatever be the temptation to de-
part from a severely dramatic exhibition of characters
and in some degree it is necessary, the writers of
the Bible seldom do. The greater part of the book is
history ; and yet, in the vast majority of instances, the
characters are brought out by simple speech and act,
214 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
and not at all by description. They are not, like many
portraits, half idealised by the artists ; they are photo-
graphs, and photographed in the moment of action.
A few instances of this quality must suffice here ;
but they might be given ad libitum, and would amply
justify my assertion of the enormous extent to which
this element is a characteristic of the Bible.
Take, for example, the character of Peter. When
he is " called to be an apostle," nothing is said of him,
either good or bad ; nothing either of his intellectual
or moral qualities. Neither is any comment of this
kind made in narrating the actions by which his
whole natural character comes out. It comes out
nevertheless in the clearest possible light, and as dis-
tinctly as if there had been a whole dissertation upon
it. He was evidently of that order of men whose
strong, impulsive nature does not wait to consider
the prudence, and is apt to forget even the rectitude,
of an action, in the presence of any sudden appeal to
feeling of whatever kind, and who may be heroes
or cowards, impelled to generous and magnanimous
conduct, or hurried into foolish blunders, or even
crimes, as external circumstances prompt them ; and
both the one and the other, because they want self-pos-
session to pause for the decisions of deliberate judg-
ment. The instant view which such a mind takes
of the circumstances which invite and provoke pre-
cipitate action determines it, and leads now to rash
confidence, now to panic terror. This lack of retenue
and self-possession, this emotional susceptibility, which
vi.] f Scripture Style. 215
dwells on the border-land of virtue and vice, and may
easily pass from one to the other, was the natural
characteristic of the apostle ; and all his actions,
though the Evangelists say not one word about the
trait, are dramatically true to it. While his fellow-dis-
ciples, perplexed with the incomprehensible character
of Christ, doubted whether He was the Messiah or
not, and, wavering in their opinions like their fellow-
countrymen, were dumb to the question, "But whom
say ye that I am ? " Peter gave expression to the
conclusion which his impulsive nature had prompted
him to form, and exclaimed, " Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God." His bold confession is
rewarded by an emphatic commendation of his faith.
But the instant after he blunders into an error, which
calls down upon him rebuke as strong as the eulogy
that had just preceded it. Sharing in all the convictions
of his countrymen, that the expected Messiah would
come as a mighty king and conqueror, and that there-
fore He whom he had recognised as Christ, however
disguised for the moment, would soon break forth from
the cloud and shine in the full blaze of His glory, he
could not brook the idea of the humiliation and ignominy
which his Master deliberately said awaited Him, and
exclaimed, "That be far from Thee, Lord: this shall
not be unto Thee." He is rebuked with, " Get thee
behind Me, Satan ; " and is told, in spite of the boldness
and decision of his recent confession, that he had no
apprehension of the Divine purposes, and that he
judged of them by a merely human standard. When
216 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
Christ was seen at midnight walking on the stormy
waters, Peter, hearing His reassuring voice, passed at
once from the state of superstitious dread in which
"they had all cried out, thinking that they had seen
a spirit," into a transport of love and faith, and
exclaimed, " If indeed it be Thou, bid me to come
unto Thee on the water ; " strong in his conviction
that He who had performed, and was now exhibiting
such miracles, could sustain him there. But with that
same facility of receiving impressions from every new
occurrent, no sooner does he find himself exposed to the
boisterous winds around him and the unstable element
beneath him, than he feels all his courage and faith
ooze away, and cries, " Save, Lord, I perish ! " It is a
scene which is really the very counterpart one might
almost call it symbolic prefiguration of the similar,
but more signal exhibition of mingled presumption and
weakness on that memorable night on which he de-
clared, "Though all should forsake Thee, yet will
not I;" and before daybreak had "denied Him with
oaths and curses." " Though I die with Thee, yet will
I not deny Thee," said he, with full honesty of purpose,
but in profound self-ignorance. " Before the cock
crow thou shalt deny Me thrice," were the monitory
words with which his Master received the declaration.
When Christ was apprehended, Peter it was who
hurries into rash resistance and "draws the sword."
But in spite of this show of resolution, in spite of
all his protests, and with that warning voice as it were
still ringing in his ears, such was the power of
vi.] of Scripture Style. 217
sudden terror and danger to cow his spirit, that he
forgot alike all that he had said to his Master, and
all that his Master had said to him. Though he
yields to his abject panic, no sooner does he hear " the
cock crow " than another revulsion of feeling takes
place, and horrified with the thought of what he had
done, he passes at once into the most violent paroxysm
of remorse, and " going out, wept bitterly." When
Mary Magdalene announces to Peter and John that
she had found the sepulchre empty, they both instantly
ran thither. John, more fleet of foot, gets there first,
but stands outside irresolute, apparently arrested by
awe and wonder : the ardent Peter rushes at once into
the sepulchre.
At the Sea of Tiberias, after the miraculous draught
of fish, no sooner does John whisper to Peter that
the seeming stranger who had spoken to them from
the shore must be " the Lord," than the impetuous
disciple girt his fisher's coat about him, and without
waiting till the bark had drawn its freight to land,
casts himself headlong into the sea. When at the
ensuing meal, his Master so tenderly, yet so deeply
probed (and probed that He might heal), that wound
which Peter's lapse had inflicted and which still bled
inwardly, by the thrice repeated question, " Simon,
son of Jonas, lovest thou Me ? " Peter, though grieved
at the repetition of the question, is no less impul-
sive than of old : strong in the consciousness of the
sincerity of his love in spite of all his failures, and
proof against that self-distrust which, after such a
2i8 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
fall and such an exposure, would have kept many
a man dumb, he confidently appealed to the om-
niscience of his Lord "Thou knowest all things,
Thou knowest that I love Thee." And here, by the
way, in this very scene of surpassing pathos, besides
the characteristic trait of Peter, we see other in-
dications of that quality of the Scriptures of which
I am now speaking. The exquisite delicacy of the
reproof to Peter, without one word of upbraiding or
unkindness, is in dramatic keeping with the whole
character of Christ ; and so also is the reticence of the
historian as to the significance of the incidents them-
selves. There is not a syllable about the occasion
which led our Lord thus to question Peter, no direct
allusion to the circumstances which would seem to have
led to such questioning ; yet doubtless in the mind
of Peter and of the disciples then (as of every intel-
ligent reader now), one thought was present that has
no mention in the narrative. It is impossible not to
interpret the whole scene by the light of the preceding
history, though not a word is dropped by which the
connection might be indicated. Are there any other
historians in the world who would have exercised
this abstinence ? Would it be possible for one who
was fond of tracing "causes to their effects,' 1 and making
all plain to the reader, or who was intent on eulogising
the subject of his biography, to miss so fair an oppor-
tunity ? As Tholuck in his commentary on John very
justly observes: " The reproving look which Christ had
cast on Peter after his denial (Luke xxii. 61) was still
vi.] . of Scripture Style. 219
burning in his soul : he was deposed, as it were, from
his earlier official dignity, and must be restored to it
again. The mode in which this is done is one so full
of spirit, so far beyond the reach of invention, that any
presumption of a mere fiction in the case is put to the
blush." 1
But to resume the traits which are characteristic
of Peter. No sooner is he reinstated in the "Master's
good opinion, and has heard that affecting prediction
of the " death by which he was to glorify God,"
than with the same impulsive eagerness which had
so often brought him under reproof, he asks, looking
to John, "And what shall this man do?" His
curiosity receives for reply, "What is that to thee ?
follow thou Me."
After the resurrection, the apostles are represented
as suddenly recovering from the profound dejection into
which the shipwreck of all their hopes had cast them,
and assuming an air of indomitable confidence and
dauntless courage, a change, the unaccountable
abruptness of which has compelled even sceptics like
Strauss to acknowledge that "something remarkable' 1 ''
must have occurred thus to transform them. Peter,
as might be expected from his character, comes to
the front among them, boldly avows before the San-
hedrim his Master's resurrection, denounces the guilt
of the Jews who had crucified Him, proclaims his
purpose of fulfilling his Master's commission, and to
all menaces of punishment for so doing, makes the
1 Clark's edition, pp. 423, 424.
22O On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
noble declaration, " Whether it be right to hearken
unto you more than unto God, judge ye."
That the Gospel was intended not for the Jews
alone, but for all nations, and that the exclusive privi-
leges of the " house of Israel " were to cease, was first
communicated in vision to Peter, and he proceeded
to proclaim it to Cornelius. Astonished as he was, he
did not parley with his prejudices, nor recoil from
the summons to abandon them. Yet in connection
with this very subject, he later on gives one little
last indication that the old infirmity of his nature
was not quite cured, the " old man " not yet " cruci-
fied." Though he had declared at the " council " at
Jerusalem, as absolutely as Paul himself, that the
Gentiles were not to be trammelled with Judaical
restrictions, yet that same disposition, which was the
source of so much that was laudable and so much
that was blamable in him, once more, and for the
last time, made him stumble. He was betrayed, it
seems, at Antioch, into a cowardly surrender of his
convictions and judgment, through fear of certain Ju-
daising brethren who had come down from Jerusalem,
and who perhaps were watching him with jealous eyes.
The apostle (as Paul tells us) had freely " eaten and
drunk, and kept company with Gentiles," till these
precise brethren, who could not go that length of
latitudinarianism, came ; and then Peter, with that
same faintheartedness which had so often made him
flinch in sudden temptation, " withdrew himself," and
slunk out of his Gentile company, afraid of shame
vi.] of Scripture Style. 221
and reproach at the hands of the Jewish zealots.
How natural is the picture, when we consider his
antecedents, and especially his " denial ! " On this
occasion he received the open rebuke of Paul, who
on his part consistently displays that adamantine
firmness of temper which his whole life illustrates.
His character, too, is dramatically presented to us,
and if there were space for it, it might be instruc-
tive to trace it as minutely as that of Peter. He
never " conferred with flesh and blood " in face of
a present temptation.
Peter's vacillation on this occasion was just the
remains of that same weakness which made him
bluster, and stammer, and grow pale, and lie, when
suddenly and publicly charged by the "maid" in
the hall of the high priest's palace. True religion
will gradually subdue the original tendencies, but it
rarely quite extinguishes all traces of them.
Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.
But consistent with nature as Peter's character is
throughout, it is still only by his actions, nakedly
set forth without criticism or comment, that we
know it.
Here be it recollected that I am not arguing that
the naturalness of the narrative gives us reason to
think that we are reading history, and not fiction or
myth. All the Bible history does that. Far less am
I assuming that the facts were as they are related,
and the Gospel therefore true. I am simply pointing
222 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
out a very constant trait in the manner of the Bib-
lical writers, the all-prevailing dramatic form, and
the almost entire absence of reflection or comment,
by which they are marked. They state bare facts,
and let these speak for themselves.
Another slight, yet striking instance may be pointed
out from the Old Testament. I refer to the history
of Laban. He is most incidentally introduced, and,
as usual, not a word is uttered by way of advertising
us what we are to expect of him. He turns out to
be a mere muckworm, sordid and rapacious in the
extreme. The very first trait we have of him is in his
interview with Abraham's steward, after the first brief
interview with Rebecca, his young sister. What-
ever might be Eliezer's business, a single glance is
sufficient to win Laban's favourable attention. We
are told that " when he saw the earring, and the
bracelets on his sister's hands, and when he heard
the words of Rebecca, saying, Thus spake the man
unto me ; than he ran unto the man, and said, Come
'in, thou blessed of the Lord, wherefore standest thou
without?" Though Laban, no doubt, like the rest of
the patriarchs, was "given to hospitality," it is impos-
sible not to surmise that the vision of the earring
and the bracelets reinforced and gave cmpressement to
it. But if the historian meant to intimate it by this
little trait, nothing, as usual, is said. At all events,
no injustice is done to Laban in surmising it, for
almost every incident every act and speech in
which he is concerned through the after history
vi.J of Scripture Style. 223
(though the historian himself bestows not a single
epithet upon him), is of a piece with the beginning :
he is dramatically represented throughout.
Another trivial instance, trivial in itself, but worth
noticing from the very obliquity of the incident, is
found in the letter with which Lysias, the captain of
the Roman forces in Jerusalem, dispatches Paul to the
governor Felix. Lysias seems, on the whole, to have
been a very fair specimen of the Roman official, and
anxious to do his duty. He very promptly rescued
Paul from the tumult which the exasperated Jews had
raised against him, and took every precaution for his
safety. Of course it was hardly in the nature of a
Roman subaltern, or indeed of any official in any age,
not to give as favourable a report as possible to his
superiors of the manner in which he had discharged
his trust. Nor is the statement of Lysias absolutely
untrue in any particular ; but there is a most natural
and politic turn given to one part of the transaction,
on which his conduct, if exactly reported, might have
brought him into trouble. We know how jealous was
the Roman government for the maintenance, in all
its vast dependencies, of the privileges of the Roman
citizen, the violation of which was regarded as an
atrocious crime, a crime which Lysias, it seems, was
very near committing. " This man," says he, "was
taken of the Jews, and would have been killed of
them ; then came / with an army and rescued him,
having understood that lie was a Roman.''' x But Lysias
1 Acts xxiii. 28.
224 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
does not say that when he first rescued Paul he did not
know that he was a Roman, and that he acted merely
from the ordinary and proper motive of maintaining
the peace of the city. Far less does he say that he
did not know .that Paul was a Roman citizen until,
having decided, without any inquiry at all into the
matter, to scourge him, he accidentally hears from the
centurion the quality of the man he was about to subject
to such ignominy, and " that he must take heed " to
what he was about. Then, being evidently frightened,
he sees Paul in a new light, and treats him with much
consideration. But in the letter to Felix, not a word
of this interlude in the transaction appears. His
whole conduct seems to turn on his patriotic zeal, and
solicitous regard to those inviolable privileges of a
Roman citizen, which he had so nearly violated him-
self. He may also have thought that any possible
reference on the part of Paul to the peril he had been
in, might as well be anticipated by his own politic
version of the affair.
Instances of this kind, from the Old as well as the
New Testament, might be multiplied by the score.
How shall we account for this method of composition
in the Scripture history, that of exhibiting character
and conduct so almost exclusively by dramatic traits ?
I have said (what all literature shows) that it is a
talent very rarely possessed in its highest form,
and that in the case even of the highest dramatic
genius it is seldom that there is such absolute absti-
nence from the by-play of comment, reflection, and
vi.] of Scripture Style. 225
description, as we find in the great bulk of the Bible
narratives.
I fancy I hear some one say : " There is no great
mystery in the matter; the authors were describing
bare facts; they were neither fictitious writers possessed
of wonderful fertility of invention (which, if they were
fictitious writers, they must have been, since they have
compressed in the moderate compass of the Bible such
an infinity of matter so strongly marked by the cha-
racteristics in question); nor were they philosophical
historians, intent not only on setting forth facts, but
anxious also to set forth their own sagacity in pene-
trating causes, and their skill in portraying human
character. They were simply annalists, who set down
such facts as came under their observation; and this
mere copying of nature, this simple photographing of
facts, does not imply that they were great artists for
the sun can do as much but simply people who kept
their eyes open. Any real account, however simple, of
the actions of a man, will give the same dramatic effect,
because it is the man in action, and he will be sure to
be true to himself." Very well; I should be quite con-
tent with that answer. I have no doubt it is, in the
main, a correct one; but it concedes at once the truth of
the sacred history in by far the greater part of it. Not
only so, but it rids us in some measure of another
difficulty by which these histories are embarrassed;
namely, how it is that obscure men of such mediocrity
of mind and deficiency of culture as those to whom the
conditions of the problem restrict us, were able to write
16
226 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
these wonderful histories. If they were merely copy-
ing what was under their eyes, making a .transcript of
facts which had fallen under their personal scrutiny,
a great part of the difficulty would be removed. But
while perfectly content to accept this solution, and
to let the argument rest there, I must say, in the in-
terests of truth, that it does not fully account for the
phenomenon now before us, whether we look at the
narratives of the Old or the New Testament. Mere
chroniclers have not had the same good fortune to
seize upon the admiration of the world in the way
the sacred writers have done. They are not equally
expert at photography. Somehow, neither in the selec-
tion, nor the grouping, nor the description of their
facts, nor in exquisite simplicity of style, can they
come into comparison. Nor have they in general been
able to infuse into their composition the charm or
grace attained by many writers of ordinary poetic or
prose fiction. 1
1 It is curious to see how little the exquisite simplicity of Scrip-
ture narrative has been appreciated by many critics of past ages,
whose literary vanity has employed strange arts to transform and
elevate it ! Few have outdone in this respect the Jewish historian
Josephus, whose affected imitation of his classical models has often
led him completely to spoil the Scripture story. If any one wishes
to see a specimen, he may consult his preposterous version of the
pathetic speech of Judah to Joseph. Campbell justly says: " It is
impossible for any one whose taste can relish genuine, simple nature,
not to be deeply affected with the speech of Judah, as it is given in
the Pentateuch. On reading it, we are perfectly prepared for the
effect which it produced on his unknown brother. We see, we feel,
that it was impossible for humanity, for natural affection, to hold out
longer. In Josephus it is a very different kind of performance ;
something so cold, so far-fetched, both in sentiment and in language,
that it savours more of one who had been educated in the schools
vi.] of Scripture Style. 227
But the fact remains, that the dramatic exhibition
of character, character walking out of the historic
of the Greek sophists, than of the plain and artless patriarchal
shepherds." Many like attempts to make the Scripture looky?^
have been made since. One of the most imposing is that of Pere
Berruyer, who essayed to recompose the " Histoire du Peuple de
Dieu " in a more florid style than that of the Bible ; in the style,
in short, of Clelia or the Great Cyrus ! A single sentence given
in the "Curiosities of Literature" will be enough for the reader :
"Joseph combined with a regularity of features, and a brilliant
complexion, an air of the noblest dignity ; all which contributed
to render him one of the most amiable men in Egypt." Moses
is too "common-place" and "barren," thought the good father : and
it is in this style he supplies his deficiencies.
But of all the methods of spoiling Scripture which Christian
ingenuity has invented, that of " Paraphrase " has been the most
common, and one of the worst. All books suffer indeed from this
device of dilution; and as every "abridgment" of a book has
been called a " foolish abridgment," so may every paraphrase be
called a foolish paraphrase. Most books need comment, explana-
tion, illustration ; but if that be the object, paraphrase is the worst
way of effecting it, since it treats what is difficult and what is
perspicuous in the same way, and reduces the whole to the same
marsh level. But while it would be difficult to name any book
which is the better for a paraphrase, the Bible suffers most of all
in virtue of its general brevity, simplicity, and weight of expression.
Plenty of scope for legitimate comment and exegesis there un-
doubtedly is, in its more difficult portions ; as in Job or Hosea, where
the language is elliptical and sententious, and the transitions of
thought obscure ; or in the Epistles of Paul, where the reasoning
is close and compressed ; but it is not easy to imagine them im-
proved by mere paraphrase. When they are clear, they are simply
marred by dilution ; when they are obscure, they are better treated
by ordinary exegesis. Yet, strange to say, this weak device has
been rather a favourite with many excellent expositors ; and, worst
of all, they have been especially fond of practising it on the pellucid
narrative of Scripture, which, of all compositions, least needed
it, and is most injured by it. That men of so much good sense
as Patrick and Doddridge should have given in to it is surprising.
The prolixity of the former is amusingly commented on by Macaulay
in his History, when speaking of the project for " shortening the
collects." " If," says the historian, " the object had been to lengthen
them, no man could have been better fitted than Patrick." He
16 *
228 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
picture - frames, and speaking and living before our
eyes, is a strongly prevalent characteristic of the
Biblical history ; to an extent, indeed, constituting an
unique feature of it. That the quality should be
found, not only in one writing, but in the historic
writings of Scripture generally (of widely different
dates, and composed by minds so variously constituted
and educated), augments the singularity.
There is another characteristic of the Biblical
writers in general, so completely alien from " the
manner of men," that it might almost as well have
been discussed in the lectures on the " anomalies "
which the book presents in relation to human nature,
as here. But perhaps it is as well to take it in con-
nection with the present subject. I allude to their
freedom from vanity, egotism, and ambition, foibles to
which that class of mortals called authors are supposed
to be addicted as much as most men, and by many a
little more. But in the Scripture writers generally
then gives a brief specimen or two of the good bishop's apti-
tudes for paraphrastic dilation. " He maketh me," says David,
" to lie down in green pastures : He leadeth me beside the still
waters." Patrick's version is as follows : " For as a good shepherd
leads his sheep, in the violent heat, to shady places, where they may
lie down and feed (not in parched but) in fresh and green pastures,
and in the evening leads them (not to muddy and troubled waters,
but) to pure and quiet streams ; so hath He already made a fair
and plentiful provision for me, which I enjoy in peace, without any
disturbance."
Campbell, in his lectures on " Systematic Theology," says :
" I own, that of all the kinds of expositors I like least the para-
phrast. ... In the very best compositions of this kind that can
be expected, the Gospel may be compared to a rich wine of high
flavour diluted in such a quantity of water as renders it extremely
vapid."
vi.] vf Scripture Style. 229
there is not only an exemption from such foibles, but
for the most part an absolute suppression of feelings
that would have been most natural to them. Though
we see intellectual and other differences among them,
which prove that they were not mere automata (accord- ^ *.
ing to one not very rational theory of inspiration),
they might very well have been such, looked at only in
this one aspect.
Though these traits are particularly observable in the
"Evangelists," they are also discernible in the writers
of the Old Testament generally, and especially in the
case of Moses. If the books ascribed to him were not
his, the wonder is increased a hundredfold, and consti-
tutes in itself a strong plea for their general veracity.
It is possible, indeed, that supposing Moses the writer,
we may impute to a very exalted virtue the perfect
frankness with which he recounts all his failings, his
reluctance to enter upon his great work, the various
instances of his impatience and the penalty which
chastised it, as well as his self-suppression; though,
considering his wonderful achievements (which writers
like Ewald eulogise as much as any of the orthodox), it
is perhaps not easy to imagine such self-obliteration in a
merely mortal virtue. But what are we to think if other
men composed the writings ? That the great founder
of the Jewish nation and polity should not have been
the theme of unbounded panegyric by those who wrote
of his achievements is inconceivable, unless the writers
were either different from all other writers, or utterly
destitute of every sentiment of admiration, gratitude,
230 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
and patriotism. Never has Jewish patriotism, out of
the Bible, so treated this great leader. The Jewish
writers beyond that circle, as is customary with those
in all nations who record the achievements of illustrious
ancestors, know how to use the loftiest hyperboles of
panegyric and to embellish their narrative with all sorts
of traditional glories. It is well said in the Speaker's
Commentary (Introduction to Exodus. Vol. I. part i.
p. 240): " Such a representation of Moses is perfectly
intelligible as proceeding from Moses himself; but what
in him was humility would have been obtuseness in an
annalist, such as is not found in the accounts of other
great men, nor in the notices of Moses in other books."
It is also well remarked by Isaac Taylor, in his "Lec-
tures on Hebrew Poetry," that the Hebrew poets never
seem to dream of winning admiration by the opulence
of their imagination, nor of charming by their sub-
limity : they have no descriptive Poetry like that of
modern poets, where description is the very object ; no
heroes celebrated, no national ideas set forth, in epic
or dramatic fiction." 1
But the traits in question are most conspicuous in the
Evangelists. Never did men write on such exciting
topics, on topics of such transcendent interest too
(as subsequent facts prove them to be, for the world
has never been at rest since), with such wonderful
suppression of all personal animus, or apparent care-
lessness as to whether they were believed or not. The
bird that deposits its egg in the sand, and leaves
1 Pp. 57-60.
vi.j of Scripture Style. 231
the hot soil to cherish it or the foot of the wayfarer to
crush it, as may happen, might be their emblem. The
ostrich is not "more hardened against her young ones,"
to use the expression in Job, than these writers seem
towards their intellectual offspring. A few incontro-
vertible traits will illustrate this peculiar character, or
rather want of character, the "neutral tint," that
belongs to them.
They simply retail facts, or what, at all events, they
declare to be facts ; facts, too, which were certain to
produce, as they ever have done, and do still, the
most vehement ferment in the world, whether they be
believed or denied. Yet the authors say nothing byway
of preparation or apology; stoop to none of the rhetorical
arts usually employed to conciliate attention, to soften
hostility, to obviate prejudice. The writers have to
deliver certain facts, and whether men will receive
them or not, is not their business, but theirs whom
they address. This more than judicial imperturbability,
this want of susceptibility (as we should naturally call
it), would surprise us in any writers ; but in men who
had devoted themselves to the maintenance of a great
cause, a cause, if we may believe them, of transcen-
dent importance, and under circumstances which, in
all other cases, inevitably kindle enthusiasm and make
men fanatics even in spite of themselves, it is incompre-
hensible. Yet these men seemingly maintain an air
perfectly stolid ; and we should even call it stupid, if we
did not know the character of their compositions, and
the effect which these have had on the world. They
232 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
content themselves with the most colourless and pas-
sionless statement of what purport to be facts. They
might be mere machines, for anything that appears in
their manner to the contrary.
Not only does this unnatural calm singularly contrast
with the wonderful facts they relate, and their own
estimate of them, but not even opposition and per-
secution can provoke them out of it; no, nor even
the cruel wrongs done to Him whom they called their
"Master" in a far higher sense than any party or
sect ever called its Founder such. Not even His
sufferings not even His death could inoculate
them with the spirit which is universal in the world ;
and which, where innocence has to be vindicated,
and great iniquities denounced, is invariably regarded
not simply as excusable, but meritorious. As Pascal
says, they have scarcely a word of passion or resent-
ment even for Christ's worst enemies. 1 The facts,
indeed, which they profess to relate (dramatically
exhibited, after the usual manner of Scripture) deter-
mine the moral character of those they describe as
1 " Le style de 1'Evangile est admirable en tant de manures, et
entre autres, en ne mettant jamais aucune invective centre les
bourreaux et ennemis de Jesus Christ. Car il n'y en a aucune
des historiens centre Judas, Pilate, ni aucun des Juifs.
" Si cette modestie des historiens evange'liques avait e'te affecte'e,
aussi bien que tant d'autres traits d'un si beau caractere, et qu'ils
ne Teussent affecte*, que pour le faire remarquer ; s'ils n'avaient ose"
le remarquer eux-memes, ils n'auraient pas manque de se procurer
des amis qui eussent fait ces remarques a leur avantage. Mais
comme ils ont agi de la sorte sans affectation, et par un mouve-
ment tout desinterresse', ils ne Font fait remarquer a personne."
Pensecs de Pascal. Ed. Faugere. Vol. II. p. 370.
vi.] of Scripture Style. 233
agents ; but there is no word of indignation or in-
vective, such as is the infallible resort of parties in
conflict. They call no names, make no clamorous
reproaches; indulge neither in curses nor querulous
objurgation. Pilate, for example, is represented as
afraid of the people; and it is about the worst they
have to say of him.
When, in the "Acts/' the apostles of Christ are
represented as beaten and scourged, the historian
might well have been excused if he had broken out
into vehement invective against the cruelty of their
persecutors. "He has nothing to say, but that they
went to another city." 1 Though the Evangelists
represent Christ Himself, seemingly wearied out at
last with the wickedness of those Scribes and Phari-
sees who dogged His steps and scanned His words
with unsleeping malignity ; who accused Him of work-
ing His miracles by " Beelzebub," and tried to extract
even from His deeds of compassion matter for cavil,
and to turn them into instruments of His destruction ;
though they represent Christ Himself, I say (wearied
out at last), launching at these hypocrites bolts of
blasting, scathing invective, such as never before fell
from human lips ; denouncing them as those who took
away the "key of knowledge," and would neither enter
in themselves nor "suffer others to enter;" "who
devoured widows' houses," and " for a pretence made
long prayers ; " who " compassed sea and land to
make one proselyte, and after they had got him,
1 See Paley.
234 O H Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
made him tenfold more the child of hell than them-
selves ; " though they describe Christ once thus
transported as never before, yet they themselves, who
must have deeply felt His wrongs and sympathized
with His resentment, have nothing to say even against
the Scribes and Pharisees ! If they are not relating
facts, but inventing them, or selecting or adorning
legends ; if Christ never used the words above referred
to, but these writers have put them into His lips,
it is clear that it was no want of the power of vehement
invective that kept them mute no lack of eloquence
which imposed this restraint. This manner, w;jhuman,
not to say ^human, if they "spoke as men," by
which they confine themselves to bare facts, and do
not tinge them, as human nature usually does and
cannot help doing, with personal feeling, is certainly
a paradox of peculiar significance. Even the calmest
historian, much more he who has suffered in civil
or religious strife, cannot thus school his tongue ;
and would not, if he could.
As these writers seem above resentment for their
own wrongs or the wrongs of their fellow-disciples, or
even of Him whom " they called Lord and Master,"
whose sufferings they have yet described with such
inimitable touches of pathos, so they seem to be
equally free from all else that we should include in
" party spirit." They show, indeed, plainly enough,
in the course of their narrative, whom they think
in the right and whom in the wrong; with whom
they sympathise and with whom they do not : but
vi.] of Scripture Style. 235
for anything that appears in the way of comment,
from the absence of the usual modes of expressing
personal bias, of softening or concealing the faults
or consulting the interests of their own party, they
might have no more feeling for their friends than for
their enemies. They record with the same wonderful
phlegm the errors and failings of their colleagues
and partisans as the cruelty and malignity of their
adversaries, and make no more apologies for the former
than for the latter ; a thing which to him who has
the slightest tincture of "party spirit" is incompre-
hensible.
When two of the disciples, provoked at the in-
hospitality of some Samaritan village to their Master,
not only broke into strong language, but wanted to
back it by stronger deeds, the writers tell us that
they received a severe rebuke for it, and have left
it on record to their shame ; he who records it being
generally regarded as one of the guilty parties.
If Peter falls shamefully, they do not even suggest
what his compassionate Master said for them all,
" The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."
With like frankness of spirit, they acknowledge the
pusillanimity they all displayed when they " forsook
their Master and fled ; " the denial of one, the
treachery of another, and the cowardice of all : they
confess the stupidity which so long made them " slow
of heart " to believe in His claims or to understand
His doctrines, and commemorate with impartiality
His chidings at their unbelief.
236 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
Now many of these traits may be said to be without
parallel in the history of faction. The excesses of
the tongue, in all religious or political parties, are
notorious. The bitterness of ecclesiastical and theolo-
gical strife has even passed into a proverb, and has
been branded by the name of the " Odium Theolo-
gicum ; " and it makes it the more wonderful that
the authors of the gospels are free from it. It cannot
be pretended that human nature was more exempt
from it then than now ; for no sooner do we get away
from these writers, than we have it in abundance
in the early Church. When Paul, after his signal
success at Corinth, left that Church awhile to itself,
he soon found human nature asserting itself, as it
has always done, and as it does still. The Church
was broken up into violent factions. Some were
"for Paul," and some ''for Cephas," and some "for
Apollos," and some "for Christ;" and in the usual
unamiable fashion of party spirit, they proceeded to
considerable lengths in abuse of one another. The
apostle, just like the writers of the gospels, is above
everything of the kind. With that absolute loyalty
of surrender to Christ which characterises his whole
history, he contents himself with saying, " And who
is Apollos, and who is Cephas, or who is Paul, but
ministers by whom ye believed ?" and recommends, as
the cure of all faction, that self-oblivion in Christ
which he himself so remarkably exemplified. Like
the Evangelists, he is willing to be "nothing," that
Christ may be " all in all."
vi.] of Scripture Style. 237
Again, the Evangelists make no attempt to remove
what writers of a hundredth part of their power of
delineation might have seen would be likely to occasion
difficulty to their readers. They do not attempt to
explain or get rid of any apparent discrepancy, either
in their own statements or (if they knew them) in the
statements of one another. They tell the most won-
derful things with the same composed air as the most
trivial incidents ; nor, as has been well remarked, does
one kind of miracle surprise them as more stupendous
than another. They bespeak no indulgence^ as is the
usual way of narrators of the marvellous, for the degree
in which they tax the credulity of the world ; nor deign
to give any reason why the things which they narrate,
however improbable, should be received. In a word,
remembering the thrilling things they relate, the whole
manner of these writers is full of paradox.
But this is not all, nor perhaps even the most won-
derful feature in the Evangelists. I have spoken of
the dramatic way in which narratives of the Bible
are conveyed, as a very general characteristic of the
book; it is attended, as usual, by a proportionate self-
oblivion, or, at all events, self-repression of the writers.
But what shall we say of that more than dramatic skill
by which the Evangelists have not only lost themselves
in their subject, but have managed to make mankind
equally lose sight of them ? I They are, one may say,
1 " There is another species of simplicity, besides the simplicity
of structure and the simplicity of sentiment above mentioned, for
which, beyond all the compositions I know in any language
Scripture history is remarkable. This may be called simplicity
238 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
never thought of. One does not realise their greatness
as masters of description. They have so hidden them-
selves in their theme, that they leave us neither the
power nor the inclination to trouble ourselves about
them. Yet as mere portrait-painters, far more if
they were, as some say, really the creators of Christ,
whether by sheer invention, or by the skill with which
they selected and laid on the colours which vague
and fleeting myth supplied, one would think that
they must have arrested more of the attention of the
world. On the supposition just mentioned, indeed,
they ought to be regarded as little less than demigods.
If Christ be but a phantom, to which they have
given greater substance than belongs to any cha-
racter in history ; whose imaginary career (more
romantic than romance itself) they have made so
many myriads accept as historic verity; for whom
they have created an empire over the minds of men
mightier and more durable than king or conqueror
ever established before; to whom homage is given
by far more various races than were ever combined
under one sceptre ; and who exacts more from the
willing love of His subjects than all the tortures of
tyranny ever exacted from their fear ; if that " phan-
tom " Christ was really the handiwork of the Evan-
of design. The subject of the narrative so engrosses the attention
of the writer, that he is himself as nobody, and is quite forgotten
by* the reader, who is never led by the tenour of the narration
so much as to think of him. He introduces nothing as from him-
self. We have no opinions of his; no remarks, conjectures, doubts,
inferences ; no reasonings about the causes or the effects of what
is related." Campbell on the Gospels. Vol. i. p. 67. London, 1825.
vi.] of Scripture Style. 239
gelists, the men who achieved that unparalleled feat
ought certainly to be the wonder of mankind. If it
be said : " No, these did not create Christ. He is
indeed a phantom, or little more ; but it proceeded
out of the mist of myth, and is the product of some
utterly nameless and forgotten obscurities, after whom
the Evangelists wrought ; they merely copied from
their designs:" if this be said, it may be an-
swered, first, that the wonder is rather increased
than diminished. For we have at least the names
though little else of those who composed the
Gospels ; a few, though very few, particulars of their
history. But according to this theory, those who
really founded the solid empire of a visionary Christ
have hidden themselves more effectually than even
the authors of the gospels have done ! Secondly, it
must still be said on this theory, that if the authors
of the gospels be no more than portrait-painters,
it is the portrait they have left us of Christ
that has chiefly secured Him the homage of the
world. The hints and whispers of myth on which
the evangelists worked (if they really wrought from
such things) would soon have been buried in oblivion
had they not so preserved them. Of the many at-
tempts which have been made, even by His own most
devoted followers, to paint Him, none but the "four"
have been able to win a thousandth part of the same
admiration for Him.
Now, I repeat that, on any such theory, the world
ought to be struck dumb with admiration at the
240 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
perfection of dramatic representation which must have
been possessed by these writers of whom yet we
never think at all as the wonderful geniuses they
must have been if they either created or merely
painted such a character as Christ. They have so
completely buried themselves in their subject, that
even by a reflex act we find it difficult to speculate
on the endowments which, on any such theory,
they must have possessed. It is not so in any other
case. Of all human writers, Shakespeare is the one
who (next to the Evangelists) exhibits in greatest
perfection this power of forgetting himself in his
characters ; or rather, of so transfiguring himself, as to
lose in them, for a time, his own individuality. And
while his spell is on his readers, he is equally lost to
them also. Still, it is only for a short time that he is
under such eclipse. Genius exacts its own. He does
not wrong himself. His superlative dramatic skill
is not defrauded of the admiration and homage' due to
it. Once remitted to ourselves, we see that Shakes-
peare is on every page ; and, transferring to him the
interest we felt in his works, ask ten thousand ques-
tions about him which we would fain have answered.
We stand for awhile absorbed in the characters of
Macbeth and Othello ; forget Shakespeare and our-
selves in the sorrows of Ophelia and Desdemona ; yield
to every varying emotion which the great enchanter
conjures up; and then, when his phantoms have
stalked across the stage, cease to think of them, and
concentre our thoughts on the enchanter himself. In
vi.] of Scripture Style. 241
closing his plays we say what, probably, no man ever
said of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John : " What a
prodigy of intellectual power is this man ! What
knowledge of human nature ! What affluence of
genius ! What imperial command of language ! Surely
he is the leviathan among mortal intellects on earth
there is not his like." If it be said his work is
greater than that of the Evangelists, we must deny
it ; and on the supposition that the gospels are
not history, point to the effects of the writings of
their authors for proof. Though all they wrote, put
together, would not make more than a couple of
Shakespeare's plays, yet how much greater the
effect ! Shakespeare's delineations terminate in the
ideal; the Evangelists, on this theory, have trans-
formed the ideal into the real, and made the world
mistake it for history ! If they created the cha-
racter of Christ, or even painted it from floating
mythical materials, as Shakespeare did that of Mac-
beth, they far outdid him. Why does no man break
out into raptures of admiration about them ? I appre-
hend the reason must be, that if they are but painters,
they have given such a life-like representation, that the
generality of people cannot help thinking the illusion
real. The mirror is so perfect, that the image is no
longer discerned to be such ; the medium so trans-
lucent, that it eludes the sense.
But on the ordinary hypothesis even that of their
being simple historians, the trait I am now par-
ticularly insisting on still comes out with transparent
17
243 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
vividness. They are not only self-oblivious, but we
forget them too. Even on this generally received, and,
as I believe, true hypothesis, that they are tran-
scribing from the life, and not inventing or adorning
an ideal at all, this feature is very wonderful. 1
Somewhat similar observations might be made on
the Apostle Paul; not, indeed, that there is self-
repression in his writings (for that was impossible in
compositions of such a nature), but in his mode of
self-exhibition. In his epistles we naturally find his
personal peculiarities his modes of thought and feel-
ing laid bare before us. Yet, in one respect, he is just
like the other writers of the New Testament. He
loses himself, as the Evangelists do, in that great
Personage, that reality or that shadow, by which
the world has been saved or beguiled ! Nor is there
anything more wonderful, considering Paul's antece-
1 It is said of Robinson, of Cambridge (Robert Hall's pre-
decessor, and himself a man of remarkable genius), that being
asked to take part in the ordination of some young minister, he
thought he saw (as will be the case sometimes, even in young-
ministers) certain tendencies to foppery ; and among other indi-
cations of it he observed a disposition to exhibit a rather brilliant
ring on the little finger of the candidate's right hand. In the
course of his charge he took an opportunity, as he well knew
how, to give him a hint which he would not forget, but which
no person in the audience but himself would understand. " My
young friend," he said, "as a Christian minister, you must con-
sider yourself as a mere servant, occupied in holding up to the
gaze of visitors some master-piece of portrait-painting. All that
you should desire to do is to exhibit it in the best light, and with
as little intrusion of yourself as possible. You will be anxious to
be entirely hidden behind the picture-frame. As you hold it up,
you will not, if it be possible, allow even a little finger to be seen.''
The Evangelists have certainly acted on this principle to the utter-
most, and have not even allowed "a little finger" to be seen.
\ri.] of Scripture Style. 243
dents his early history, his education at the feet of
Gamaliel, his burning zeal for the law, his ambitious
hopes, his brilliant prospects than his sudden, abso-
lute surrender to Him whom, but the day before, he
had esteemed as a justly-crucified malefactor, the very
thought of whom naturally stirred all the gorge of
this Pharisee of the Pharisees. Yet so entire is
the apostle's absorption in Christ, that his whole life
is henceforth without a thought but for Him. It is
bound up in Him. For Christ he cheerfully endures
"the loss of all things;" for Him he casts all the
hopes of his life away, and counts them " but dross
that he may win Him ; " exposes himself to every
kind of suffering, to bonds, scourges, imprisonment,
to a vagabond life of toils and privation, and to a death
of agony and shame, for the love of Him. According to
his own strong saying, "To him to live was Christ." If
he ever becomes assertive, urgent, indignant, vehement,
it is for Christ, not for himself. There is not a particle
of egotism about him. He is willing to be forgotten
by the world, or to be remembered only as the butt
of its scorn and anger; to have his labours depre-
ciated, his achievements questioned or appropriated by
others ; and his dearest recompense, the affection of
those for whom he yearned and laboured,- snatched
away ; all is alike to him if Christ may be but
honoured, whether it be " by his death or his life,"
and if His Gospel may be " by any means " preached,
even though by his enemies, and " out of envy and
strife." He resembles that planet which revolves
17*
244 O H Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
nearest the sun, which makes only very moderate
excursions from the luminary round which it rolls,
and is generally lost in his beams.
It is not surprising that from the strange history
of Paul, from the impossibility of accounting for his
conduct by any ordinary motives of reducing it either
to enthusiam or imposture, or any modification of the
two, many should have thought that his character
and achievements, even if there were no other evidence
of the truth of Christianity, would afford irrefragable
proof. So thought Lord Lyttelton in his well-known
essay.
Before concluding this lecture, I would reply to an
objection sometimes brought against some of the scrip-
ture narratives, which, when the subject is fairly con-
sidered, seems to me rather to tell the other way.
The objection is, that whatever beauties of narrative
and poetry the Bible may contain, whatever treasures
of spiritual and moral wisdom, it also contains much
which is repulsive to taste, and which cannot be read
without pain. But if it be a " Revelation " in very
deed, it could not but be so. If it addresses itself to all
men, even the most abandoned, it ought not (and it
does not) scruple to lay bare the secret pollutions, to
probe the worst ulcers, of our moral nature. It pro-
fessedly carries the " candle of the Lord " into the
deepest and most tortuous recesses of the human
heart. In performing this necessary office of "holding
the mirror up to nature," there is, no doubt, much in
its history and biography, in its descriptions of human
vi.] of Scripture Style. 245
life, in its anatomy of character, in its exposure of sin
and vice, which not merely grates on the ear, but
is positively painful and repulsive. The only ques-
tion is, in what spirit and for what purpose is such
matter introduced. For the matter itself, it makes
no apology; it is discharging an obligation which,
however unwelcome, is imperious ; one which even
specially belongs to it as designed to reach the very
lowest outcasts of human kind, in the uttermost
depths of pollution and misery, and exhibit to them
a clear image of the moral evil from which it would
rescue them. But the mode in which, with all plain-
spoken simplicity, it does this, deserves to be men-
tioned as one of the most striking peculiarities of
the Bible, and which alone would contrast it with all
human literature. Treatises of morality hardly dare
to approach those dark spots of human nature which
Scripture so fearlessly exposes, and still less to illus-
trate them by such appalling accuracy of moral
anatomy. Satire, indeed (as that of Juvenal), is often
as plain-spoken, and far coarser ; but it is easy to see,
in general, that indignation and contempt are the pre-
dominant emotions expressed and awakened ; some-
times it is but the vehicle of misanthropic cynicism.
As for all lesser forms of human infirmity, and many
which are by no means to be counted such, comedy
eagerly seizes on them as the legitimate food for mirth
and laughter. Infinitely different is the tone of the
Bible ! In consistency with that universal aim which
characterises it throughout, as asserting everywhere
246 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
the paramount claims of religion and virtue, it
never approaches guilty man with less than the gravity
and compassion with which a humane judge looks
upon the criminal. It acts up to its maxim, that it
is " fools " alone who " make a mock at sin," for sin
is not a thing for mockery. It exposes it, indeed,
unsparingly; but the light it sheds on it is as little
contaminated by it, as the sun by the material pollu-
tions it discovers to us. It denounces it also, but still
with a yearning pity to the victims of it ; to warn
them by the " terrors of the Lord," to " flee from it
as from the face of a serpent ;" and to " beseech them
by the mercies of God " to " repent and live." So
clear is all this, that of all those who have complained
of the plain-dealing of the Bible in this matter, the
repulsive and distressing details into which it some-
times enters, probably no one ever taxed it with
gloating on such things either with cynical malevolence
or cynical levity, far less with that pruriency which
must so often be charged on satirists and comedians. 1
1 In mitigation of an objection sometimes made, that the public
reading of some of the chapters of the Bible is a painful ordeal
to a promiscuous audience, it may be allowed to ask, "Whose
fault is that ? " It may well be a question, whether every part of
the Bible is intended for "public" perusal in "a promiscuous
audience," any more than the genealogies and lists of mere
names, which are also found there, but are never so read.
As to some gross vulgarisms in our English version (the ori-
ginal equivalents of which passed without notice in countries
and ages less artificially refined than ours), they are the result of
translating idioms literally, instead of into corresponding idioms ;
and the same folly would make many phrases in our own or
any other language sound almost equally uncouth to the ear of
a foreigner. They will doubtless disappear from that "revised
vi.] of Scripture Style. 247
It may be remarked, as another peculiarity in the
manner of Scripture in general, that, so far from being
chargeable with this fault, it never seems even to
glance at the comic side of life and the world at all,
as little as though, in its apprehension, there were no
such thing. It cannot be that those who wrote the
book did not feel there was plenty of scope for ridicule.
No satire was ever more powerful than that in which
Isaiah denounces the folly of the idolater ; never sar-
casm more bitter than that with which Elijah taunts
the worshippers of Baal ; nor invective so withering as
that with which the Saviour unmasks the hypocrisy of
the scribes and Pharisees. The Christian, of course,
version" which, considering what immense accumulations have
been made in every department of Biblical study since the au-
thorized version was made, cannot but be of immense value.
Let the learned "revisers" only guard against spoiling the racy
English of that version, and for the rest they cannot but earn
our thanks.
But the topics of the Bible, however painful occasionally, require
no apology, if they are not wantonly intruded on " a promiscuous
audience/' If the book indeed speaks to every man, as well as to
all men ; if it says what is strictly appropriate to the individual as
well as to the species ; if the reader, whoever he be, is to feel,
as Robert Hall says, " that it is impossible for him to escape by
losing himself in the crowd," it must sometimes talk with us as
a parent with a child, as a guardian with his ward, as a friend with
an erring brother, as a clergyman with a condemned criminal, as
a kind physician with his patient ; that is, in confidential secrecy.
As we are commanded to "enter into our chamber" for private
prayer, and not " stand at the corners of the streets," so the Bible,
which is to be the " man of our counsel," will have some things
for our ear alone. If it has given needless offence in this matter
to modesty, it is not because it has spoken plainly (for while human
nature is capable of the evils it condemns, these must be exposed
and denounced) ; but because men have unwisely proclaimed that
which is intended "for the ear and the secret chamber" in "the
market-place " and " from the house-tops."
248 On Certain Peculiarities of Scripture Style.
will be disposed to think that this trait arises from the
very function which the Bible everywhere assumes; that
its object being so transcendently grave and solemn, to
assert the claims of God, and to reclaim " a lost world
to Him," mirth, in the ordinary sense, however inno-
cent, would have been as unnatural in these writers
as laughter, though equally innocent, in the " Man
of sorrows ; " and that as He, though the most perfect
type of human nature, felt (under the perpetual weight
of that burden which oppressed Him), no temptation
to exhibit this phase of it, so for similar reasons the airy
tones of wit and humour in the pages of the Bible would
be as unnatural as a jocular vein in a judge on the bench
of criminal justice, or a physician by the bedside of
patients in their mortal agony. Doubtless this is
sufficient reason for the peculiarity; but still, it is a
peculiarity, which distinguishes the Bible from every
other growth of human literature. If it had been the
product of mere human genius, it might not have been
very easy to account, among so many different writers,
for the absence of what is so large an element in other
literature ; and in this point of view, perhaps the feature
in question might have been added to those in which it
is argued that the Bible is not a book that man would
have produced. But it is more natural to mention it
here, as one of the characteristic trails in the structure
of the Bible, and which discriminate it from human
literature in general.
LECTURE VII.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
LECTURE VII.
THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
AT the revival of letters, keen controversies arose,
and long raged, with regard to the literary ca-
pabilities of the languages in which the Bible was
written, and its consequent qualities of style. There
were not wanting those, of more piety than wisdom,
who contended for perfections of diction and of elo-
quence, which the sacred writers themselves resolutely
disown. They declared that the Hebrew, being the
original language (which they took for granted), must
be as copious and expressive rs any of later derivation ;
and that the New Testament, in spite of its being
in that "common Greek" which was formed after the
Macedonian conquests, and in the formation of which,
as is usual in such cases, the language had undergone
great changes of structure ; in spite of its being full
of grammatical idioms which would have shocked an
Attic ear, and in spite of Syriac, Hebrew, and Chaldee
barbarisms, which would have shocked it still more,
wanted little of Attic purity, and could match in
force and grace the periods of Demosthenes or Plato. 1
1 There is an excellent dissertation of Werenfels, entitled De
Stylo Scriptorum Novi Testamenti, in which many of these follies
are exposed and rebuked in a spirit of criticism far in advance of
the time.
252 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
They much mistook the matter. While contending
that the Bible had a force and grace of its own, which
would more than justify comparison with the classic
writers, they should have owned that it is palpably
destitute, and proclaims its destitution, of the elaborate
polish and artificial beauty of the eloquence which
" man's wisdom teacheth." As truth and candour
should have compelled them to acknowledge so much,
so they should have gladly accepted the position, and
made their argumentative gain of it. They should
have shown, in the first place, as Michaelis does, that
the very style of the New Testament, with its strong
tincture of Hebrew and oriental thought and idiom, is
itself a voucher for its antiquity and genuineness ; that
none but Jewish Christians could have written it ; that
after the destruction of Jerusalem it was as incredible
that impostors could have written in so peculiar a
dialect, as that they should have been able to weave
a contexture of narrative which, like that of the
New Testament, is so minutely in harmony with the
events and customs of the preceding period as known
from profane history. Next, they should have argued
that, willingly admitting the imperfections of the
vehicle which the writers of the Bible employed,
the ruggedness and restricted compass of the He-
brew, the barbarisms, the solecisms, uncouthness,
and deformity of the Greek, it is all the more won-
derful that, in spite of all this, the writings of the
Bible have somehow been imbued with a force, gran-
deur, and beauty of their own, which have procured
vii.] of Scripture Style. 253
for them a name and place in the forefront even of the
world's literature, and extorted the highest admiration
even of those who denied them all other than a literary
claim to it.
That the Bible possesses many qualities of style,
which, like so many other things touched in this volume,
make it unique among books, and fit it for being
cosmopolitan, is what I am about to endeavour to
show. It is only a few of these properties that I have
space to touch ; but they will be sufficient, I think,
to prove what has been just said. Of course, though
I have said the Bible is generally characterised by
its own peculiarities, there are large portions of it
consisting of dry statements of the barest fact,
genealogical catalogues, juridical matter which,
however conducive to some of the many ends enu-
merated in the preceding lecture, do not admit of
any beauty or grace of composition ; or any excellence,
indeed, beyond that (not a very common one) of
saying the thing that is meant to be said in the
plainest way and in the simplest words. But large
as is the amount of matter to be deducted on this
account, even in the residuum there is more than
enough to test the justice of what I have said,
or to confute it.
Speaking generally, I venture to say that the style
of the Bible is very distinguishable from that of all
other literature. It is neither oriental nor occidental ;
its writers were, indeed, of the East, and as they speak
naturally, they have a tinge of oriental thought and
254 O H Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
imagery sufficient to remind us perpetually of their
origin ; but it is not such as to prevent their readily
making themselves denizens among any people, and
being heartily appreciated by the western world, a
privilege which Asiatic writers in general, Hindoo,
Chinese, Arabic, Persian, scarcely ever attain.
Into some of the causes of this curious phenomenon
I shall briefly enter by-and-by, when I come to speak
of the facility with which the Bible can be translated
as compared with books in general. Here it is suf-
ficient to point out that, tested by the fact of general
appreciation, its position is unique. One has but to
compare it with ninety-nine out of every hundred
oriental books, translated into the western languages,
to see how widely different it is ; how free from the '
peculiarities that disgust us with them the excess
and extravagance of imagery, the meretricious and
florid ornament, the diffuseness, the bombast and
fustian, which are so repulsive to western taste
and intellect. It may be said, and justly, that only
a thorough knowledge of oriental languages, manners,
and customs, can enable a critic to see how far a work
has been adequately translated. I admit it, and the
more willingly, as it makes for my argument. Doubtless
only a competent knowledge of the original language
will enable us to judge of the merits of any translation.
But here is the remarkable difference between the Bible
and other oriental books ; that while the oriental style
in general cannot be so translated as to overcome the
disgust of the western nations, the Bible is everywhere
vii.] of Scripture Style. 255
capable of it. My point is, that whereas they cannot
be naturalized, the Bible can. Nay, the more literally
they are translated, they become (like the translations
of the classics) less attractive ; the more literally the
Bible is translated, the better, for the most part, it
appears. Oriental compositions in general, like many
imported articles, require to be adapted to the European
market. There are comparatively few books of the
East that can vie in popularity with the " Arabian
Nights ; " and yet it may be questioned whether the
literal translation of Mr. Lane, generally acknowledged
by competent judges to be excellent, is, after all,
so much relished by the English reader in general
as the " translation of a translation " with which we
were long contented in the Version from the French
of M. Galland ; and that precisely because the trans-
lation of Mr. Lane is more literal. 1
Few men have been of more catholic taste in lite-
rature than Sir W. Jones, and certainly as few whose
familiarity with oriental literature could better enable
them to appreciate its merits; merits which he sets
forth with no stint or grudging in those " Commentaries
on Eastern Poetry" which he wrote in imitation of
Lowth's Prelections. But though, as an excellent
critic has said, he had " an exceptional power of
assimilating the exotic beauty of Eastern poetry," he
everywhere admits the superiority of the Hebrew bards,
1 Sir W. Jones, in his translations from the Persian and Arabian
poets, freely admits the necessity of adapting them to western
taste. Where he has given us a literal version, he rarely succeeds
in abating their repulsiveness.
256 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
and of the Scriptures generally, as compared with all
other literature. He has left an emphatic eulogium
of them in his Eighth Discourse : " Theological in-
quiries are no part of my present subject; but I
cannot refrain from adding that the collection of
tracts, which we call from their excellence the Scrip-
tures, contain (independently of a Divine origin) more
true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality,
more important history, and finer strains both of poetry
and eloquence, than could be collected within the same
compass from all other books that were ever composed
in any age or in any idiom. The two parts of which
the Scriptures consist are connected by a chain of
compositions which bear no resemblance in form or
style to any that can be produced from the stores of
Grecian, Indian, Persian, or even Arabian learning." 1
The Bible, in general, belongs to no school of litera-
ture. A similar remark may be made on the peculi-
arities which characterise its several compositions as
compared with their analogues in other literatures.
As literature has various species of composition ad-
dressed to those principles of human nature which
inspired them, so the Bible has compositions in ana-
logy with these, yet specifically different. They bear
but a very general resemblance to similar productions
in other literatures. Nor can one now read with
patience many of the pedantic disquisitions of our
elder critics (and even of some of more recent date),
who, borrowing all their measuring-lines from classical
1 Sir W. Jones' Works. Eighth Discourse. Vol. iii. p. 183. Ed. 1807.
vii.] of Scripture Style. 257
standards, disputed whether any creations of the
Hebrew poets comply with the conditions of the true
epic or the genuine drama. Even Lowth has a long
discussion (Prelect, xxxiii.) as to whether the book
of Job be or be not a regular drama whether it
complies with the rules laid down by the Father of
Criticism ; and he justly decides that it does not. But
the discussion is about as much to the purpose as
those older disputes as to whether the New Testament
Greek was such as Attic taste would have approved.
The true answer is that, though the Bible has com-
positions which approximate to various species of
composition in other literatures, * didactic, narrative,
poetical, they refuse to come under any strict canons
of criticism, and differ from other compositions of
the same name, almost as much in form as in sub-
stance.
A marked peculiarity in the style of Scripture, as
compared with other books, is the prodigious extent to
which what is called parallelism prevails in it; that is, a
mode of speech by which similar or contrasted ideas,
and, indeed, ideas related in many other ways, are
expressed in various forms of antithesis. Though not
exclusively found in the Bible (in fact, it is a favourite
form of speech in oriental style generally), it may be
justly said that the degree in which it prevails there, is
so enormous, and the functions it performs so important,
as to constitute it a distinguishing feature. The "paral-
lelism" has been copiously treated by Lowth in his
Introduction to his Translation of Isaiah, and in his
18
258 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
Lectures on Hebrew Poetry; as also by Herder, by
Jebb, by Ewald, and numberless other writers. They
have treated it chiefly in relation to the poetry of the
Hebrews, in the form and expression of which it is
an essential element ; in fact seems to be the sole
substitute for the metres which are such essential
adjuncts of poetry in general. But though chiefly of
importance in poetry, it is in fact a prevalent character-
istic of the Scriptures throughout, of the New Testa-
ment in a considerable degree, as well as of the Old.
Of the various species of the parallelism, critics have
endeavoured to give an exhaustive analysis ; but re-
fined, and often over-refined, as their classifications
have been, they have not succeeded in reducing them
all within the circle of formal definition. As the com-
positions of Scripture are sui generis, and have only
a general analogy with those of similar character
in ordinary literatures, so it may be said of this
prevalent modus loquendi, that it does not submit to
the artificial classifications of rhetorical criticism. So
ample is the range, so elastic is the nature of this
one expedient of expression, that though it might be
imagined that nothing but monotony could ensue from
its predominant use, it is far otherwise; and not even
the most copious analysis suffices to exhaust all its
varieties. The believer in the Bible can hardly help
suspecting that that same wisdom which knows how to
give infinite variety to the few features of the " human
face divine," has so subordinated the language to the
thought, the instrument to its end, as to secure bound-
vii ] of Scripture Style. 259
less diversity in the modifications of this one form. No
doubt its principal varieties, as Lowth states, may in
gross be ranged under " synonymous," " antithetic,"
"constructive," and so on; but there are manifold
modifications either of idea or form which cannot be
reduced to such Procrustean tests. It has been well
said that " there is rhythm in all poetry, and in that of
the Hebrew it is prominent enough." But it cannot
be fettered by artificial rules ; it is free, untrammelled,
as the spirit which moulds it ; no more capable of
being reduced to precise scale and measure than the
music of the ^Eolian harp to the laws of artificial
melody.
By this one generic form, infinitely varied in its
applications, the Hebrew poets, though destitute of
those regular metres which so many critics, with
such waste of subtilty, have endeavoured to discover
in their compositions, 1 have given expression to what
the whole world recognises and confesses to be poetry
of the very highest order, and in a form worthy
of the substance ; poetry exhibiting wonderful rhythm
and music, though not metrical in the ordinary sense
1 After finding all sorts of classic metres in the Hebrew poetry
hexameters, pentameters, trimeters, and many more, critics by
general consent are agreed that there are none. An amusing sum-
mary of the controversy, from Jerome to Jebb, may be seen in
Smith's " Dictionary o* the Bible," under the article Poetry.
Marcus Meibomius, in the seventeenth century, professed to have
discovered, by aid of Divine revelation, the true metrical system
of the Hebrews ; but he was prudent, and proposed to let the
world have the secret for thirty thousand pounds ! It was a high
price to pay for nothing ; for such his scheme was found to be
when, in compassion to mankind, he gave some glimpses of the
secret gratis.
t8 *
260 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
of the term ; in fact, poetry that in its form is more
nearly allied to prose than verse.
Here, then, is another striking anomaly in the
style of Scripture; that whereas in other literature
there is nothing so intolerable, so offensive to a
pure taste, as those hybrid compositions which at-
tempt to express poetry in the forms of prose, the
Bible, by a strange felicity, seems to have conciliated
the seemingly incompatible claims of both.
A form so very prevalent as the parallelism sug-
gests that there may have been other reasons for
so generally resorting to it. At all events, we see
that it is conducive to other ends, which, if the
Bible be what it professes to be, are of great impor-
tance. No doubt its principal use may be found in
the various functions it performs in relation to Hebrew
poetry. But it is not difficult to see that if the
Bible was designed for the use of all mankind, faci-
lities must be given for perpetual transmission and
universal translation ; and this peculiarity of style
is of great importance in relation to both objects.
As to the first ; it conduces in a variety of ways
to preserve the text incorrupt, as well as to assist
the critic in the attempt to restore it where it has
been accidentally vitiated. It is true that neither this,
nor any other expedient of composition, can perfectly
exempt the Bible, any more than other books, from
the influence of those innumerable causes of minute
error which subjection to the ordinary laws of trans-
mission implies, and which must produce, in the
VIL] of Scripture Style. 261
course of successive transcription from age to age,
appreciable results : but there can be little doubt
that the integrity of the text of the Bible is in
part to be attributed to that form of parallelism
which so generally characterises it. The way in
which it operates as a check on the corruption
of the text is obvious. The duplicate expression
of thought makes each member of the parallelism
a guard and key to the other. It acts as a per-
petual admonition to the transcriber, forewarning
him by the form of expression when he has gone
or is going wrong, and recalling him, in the re-
vision of his copy, to any erroneous substitute of
one word for another ; or, if it has not prevented
his going astray, it has in many cases assisted the
critics of after times in the recovery of the text, or,
at all events, of the meaning. Too great caution
cannot be exercised before actually admitting into
the text of any author emendations opposed to the
weight of manuscript authority; still, in the case
of not a few " parallelisms " of the Bible (even
though the critic may not feel justified in substi-
tuting his conjecture for the text), we are enabled
to see there has been error, and to feel morally
certain in what sense, if not by what word, the
true text is to be recovered. Thus, though every
sober critic must condemn that license of conjec-
tural criticism in which Bishop Lowth was wont
to indulge, it must be allowed that he has given
some felicitous examples of corrections suggested
262 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
by the parallelism, and the same may be said of
many other critics. 1
Some critics have compared the "parallelisms"
of Scripture in this respect with the beneficent
arrangement by which (as the wise man says) God
has made many " things double ; " thus giving us a
twofold security for our senses of sight and hearing,
and many other important organs and functions of
our physical nature.
The parallelism also facilitates the translation of
the Bible into other languages; especially its poetry.
This one simple, though flexible form, being the
chief vehicle of it, it is released from all bondage
to the highly complex and artificial metres in which
poetry is usually expressed ; and is assimilated, though
without losing its rhythm, to the character of prose.
The comparative ease with which the Scripture is
transfused, with the least possible sacrifice of grace
1 " Ihr Parallel! smus/' says Herder's imaginary objector, " ist
eintonig ; eine ewige tautologie, dazu ohne Mass der Worte und
Sylben, das sich nur einigermassen dem Ohr empfohle. ' Aures
perpetuis tautologiis Isedunt' sagt einer der grossten Kenner der-
selben, 'Orienti jucundis, Europoe invisis, prudentioribus stoma-
chaturis, dormitaturis reliquis,' und das ist Wahr." Whether the
Latinist might not have improved his own style in the two last
uncouth natitheses, by imitating the " parallelism " a little better,
I will not stay to ask ; but, however " hateful to Europe " the
oriental form in general may be, the mystery is (as I have already
urged) that in the exceptional case of the Bible it has not proved
hateful. The Bible has been a greater " success, " as Carlyle says,
" than any Paternoster Row in the world ever heard of."
The squeamishness of the above critic reminds one of the
Ciceronian cardinal, who said he had once read the Bible (in
the Vulgate, of course), but that he should never read it again, lest
it should ruin his Latinity !
VIL] of Scripture Style. 263
or strength, into other languages, is in a considerable
degree due to this.
But it is only one of many causes which conduce
to that facility of translation which characterises the
Bible, and which forms, as I think, another unique
peculiarity of it. This, of course, is not proved by
the unprecedented number of languages into which
it has been actually translated; for though that fact
gives it a solitary pre-eminence over all other books,
sacred or profane, it may be accounted for by the pro-
found conviction the book has somehow wrought in
so many different communities, during so many ages,
that it is the duty of those who receive it to make its
contents known to all mankind, and therefore to give
it a voice in every language. This conviction, indeed
(as I have elsewhere said), is a curious phenomenon,
which itself requires to be accounted for; but it will
not account for the fact I am now considering
namely, that the book has not only inspired men with
an intense desire to give it a diffusion commensurate
with human speech, but has itself, by peculiarities of
structure, diction, and style, given peculiar facilities
for the task it has imposed.
Of course, every book must in some degree suffer
from translation, and therefore the Bible. No one
can compare even the best translations of the great
works of human genius with the originals of Homer,
for example, or Virgil, or Milton, or Dante, or Goethe,
and, above all, Shakespeare without feeling that the
sacrifice is grsat, and that to give anything approaching
264 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
a perfect translation is (what it has been represented)
an insoluble problem. To turn to a translation
after perusing the original has been well compared
to looking on the wrong side of a piece of tapestry,
from which the brightness of the colouring and the
sharpness of the figures are gone ; or looking at a scene
by moonlight after gazing on it by the sunlight. Some-
how the energy of the diction is weakened, the imagery
paled, the grace of manner, the "curiosa felicitas," to
a great extent vanished. The connection between the
thoughts and words was so vital, that to tear them
asunder was to touch the life.
Now, it is a great merit in the works of human
genius when the divorce of thought from language is
thus nearly fatal ; it is a test of excellence ; so much
so, that it is no paradox to say that the more perfect
a work of genius, the less capable it is of adequate
translation. But this cannot be said of the Scriptures.
It may be urged, perhaps, that if the Bible be more
easily translated than other books, then the application
of the preceding canon may account for it ; and that
since a book, the more perfect it is, is less transfusible
into other languages, the Bible, if it indeed possesses
this unrivalled quality of assuming a multiform garb,
must possess it from its having less literary merit
than any other ! But this, I fancy, will be said by
few who recall the homage it has exacted from so
many of the greatest of the sons of men, by the
eulogiums pronounced upon it by such an array of
genius and intellect, and the qualities conceded to it
VIL] of Scripture, Style. 265
by so many to whom it has no special merit beyond
its literary excellence. Moreover, the argument is
met by this simple reductio ad absurdnm : that even if
it were true that a book is more easily translated in
proportion as it has little merit (which, however, is
far enough from being' without exceptions), it would
be, in the same proportion, less likely to get itself
translated. Now as the Bible is found in two hundred
languages, it can hardly be its inferiority to all other
books which has given it so many voices.
However, let the fact be accounted for as we will,
I believe none ever inspected a number of translations
of the Bible, of even tolerable execution, without feel-
ing that though they no doubt differ in merit, yet that
in all the elevated passages, where there is no doubt
about the meaning, the rendering in one and all is
closer, and sounds more idiomatic, than translations
of equally lucid passages of other books into the same
languages. I say, " where there is no doubt about
the meaning," because this is essential to the com-
parison. No doubt there are passages in the Bible
(as there are in Plato and Pindar) which are difficult
enough ; in the prophets for example. They are diffi-
cult partly from their intrinsic, perhaps sometimes,
designed obscurity; partly from their lyric character,
and the consequent brevity, elliptical constructions,
and rapid transitions of thought proper to that species
of poetry. 1 Such passages, whether in the Bible or pro-
1 The number of these passages will no doubt be much diminished
in the " Revised Version." The learned investigations of nearly
266 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
fane authors, are obscure in the translation, rather from
inadequate comprehension of the sense, or insufficient
means of ascertaining the true text, than from any
difficulties proper to translation ; that is, of conveying
the meaning when once ascertained. The real com-
parison, of course, must be between passages well
understood of the one, and passages well understood of
the other; between, for example, Isaiah's magnificent
apostrophe to the crowned phantom of Babylon, when
all Hades is moved at his coming, and Homer's sub-
lime description of Apollo's descent on Mount Ida.
The difficulty of adequately translating an ode of Pindar,
or a chorus in ^Eschylus, is all but insuperable, though
a translator may understand the meaning perfectly ;
while, on the other hand, the Bible where there is
no difficulty in ascertaining its meaning may in
general be translated almost without the loss of either
energy or beauty ; and viewed in almost any trans-
lation, seems to do little violence to the foreign
idiom.
The causes of this are partly disclosed in some of
those peculiarities of style to which reference has been
three centuries cannot be without effect. Admirable as our au-
thorized version is, there are many passages of Job and the
prophets, in which the worthy translators, perplexed to find the
meaning, have been content to put down words without any.
Such has always seemed to me the last verse in Job xxxvi., on
which the previous verse, in spite of the liberal use of interpolated
italics, sheds no light.
32 With clouds He covereth the light ; and commandeth it
not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt :
33 The noise thereof showeth concerning it, the cattle also con-
cerning the vapour.
vii.] of Scripture Style. 267
already made. Among the chief is the parallelism ; to
which may be added the great simplicity of construc-
tion which ordinarily obtains, the character of the
metaphors, and not least, the specific character of its
language a quality which distinguishes the Bible
more than any other book equally occupied with moral
subjects and abstract thought, and which is itself
more conducive to perspicuity and force than any
other quality whatsoever. 1 In numberless passages,
again, of great energy, the effect is due in the smallest
possible degree to the felicities of language; it is due
to the majesty of the thought, and hence is equally
preserved in any language. The terms in many of
1 " The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib, but
Israel doth not know My people doth not consider." Let this be
translated into its philosophic equivalent : " The lower animals
recognise and are grateful for kind treatment, but My rational
creatures are insensible to it ;" and it is easy to see that the
pathos and energy are gone. Campbell has admirably illustrated
this subject in his Philosophy of Rhetoric, in which he applies the
same refrigerating process to a part of the Sermon on the Mount.
There is a little gentle satire, I fancy, directed against Doddridge's
paraphrase, which on the same portion of the New Testament
is hardly less preposterous than Campbell's caricature. Campbell,
as we have seen, abhorred paraphrase, one of the most insipid ex-
pedients of which is the translation of the specific into the general
of the picturesque into the soi-disant philosophical. The depen-
dence of definiteness and vividness of conception on the speciality
of language has been copiously and admirably illustrated both
by Campbell and Whately. Individuals alone have an objective
existence ; species and genus are intellectual creations. The
former are the source of our most vivid states of mind of our
perceptions ; and our conceptions being definite and vivid in pro-
portion as they approach these, and hazy in proportion as they
recede from them, expression will follow the same law, and the
energy of terms be in inverse ratio to their generality. " The more
general the terms are," says Campbell, " the picture is the fainter ;
the more special they are, the brighter."
268 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
these passages, wonderful for compressed force and
strong imagery are often of the most common,
homely, and even trivial character. It is the ideas
suggested and placed in juxta-position by them, not
any rare excellence of diction or construction, that
produces the effect. To take two or three brief illus-
trations. Isaiah asks, in his magnificent challenge to
find the "equal" of Jehovah, " Who hath measured
the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out
heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of
the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains
in scales, and the hills in a balance ? " z
Jeremiah promises the easy conquest of Egypt to
the King of Babylon in these terms "He shall
burn their gods with fire, and shall carry them away
captives ; and he shall array himself with the land of
Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment, and he
shall go forth from thence in peace." 2
The utter overthrow of Jerusalem is predicted to
Manasseh in that contemptuous image " And I will
wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping
it, and turning it upside down." 3
Such passages as these, energetic though they be,
produce their effect by means of metaphors borrowed
from the most common objects, expressed in the most
undisguised literality. No language, however meagre,
in which such vulgar things as scales, weights,
dishes, and shepherds' plaids are to be found, can
fail to render them perfectly ; nothing depends on
i Isaiah xl. 12. 2 Jer. xliii. 12. 32 Kings xxi. 13.
vii.] of Scripture Style. 269
felicity of language or construction. Whether, there-
fore, we compare the translation of such passages
in the Septuagint, Vulgate, French, German, or
English, every reader feels that there is hardly
any difference worth noting ; in one and all, the
rendering assumes a most natural and idiomatic
dress. By these and other artifices (Divine arti-
fices, the Christian will say; unaccountable freaks
of accident, the unbeliever will call them, as he
well may if the Bible be purely of human origin),
this book is capable of being more perfectly trans-
lated into every human language than any other.
I believe the former theory to be the true one ; and
that hence the difficulties of a problem which human
genius cannot solve, that of combining the highest
literary excellencies, with aptitude for transfusion
into all languages has been solved in the construc-
tion of the Bible; and that the old saying is true
in another sense than the one originally meant by it,
. that while " Mortals speak many tongues, the Im-
mortals have but one."
TroXXat fJLev Qvrjrois <y\a)TTai, pia RaOavaroLcnv.
Another peculiarity in connection with Scripture style
is this; that while, for the reasons just stated, the
Bible, on the whole, is more easy to translate than any
other book, and suffers less injury in the process, it is
perhaps more than any other susceptible of injury if it
be cast in any mould but its own. It will submit to
no fetters of metre or rhyme ; it is impatient of the
yoke, and rebels against it. Take the very best me-
270 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
trical versions of the Psalms, for example. There is
hardly one of them I know of none that does not
palpably fall below the level, both of the original and
of any simple prose translation in which the original
may be rendered. This is another of the paradoxes of
the Bible. It easily accommodates itself to a dress
like its own in any language, but will not submit to
foreign costume. The Hebrew, in the strict sense, has
no metres; at least in the modern sense, as the infinite
controversies on the subject suffice to show. Yet the
rhythm, the music, of these compositions is generally
far beyond that of the metrical and rhymed translations
of them, whether in Greek, Latin, or English. It is
just the contrary with renderings from Greek, Latin, or
any other poetry, of which no prose version can be
endured. It cannot be said that it is because none
but inferior men have set themselves to the task. They
have not always been Sternholds and Hopldnses,
Bradys and Tates. No less men than Bacon, Milton,
Barrow, Buchanan, Parnell, Cowper, Sandys, Herrick,
Davies, Heber, Milman, Watts, Keble, have tried their
hands at it. Dryden asked Milton's leave to turn his
majestic blank verse into rhyme. The poet replied
that he was welcome to " tag " them if he liked. It
was a thankless task; but the attempt is still more
hopeless to improve the poetry of Scripture by running
it in any mould but its own. To a man of any taste
and sensibility, with an ear for the true music of
language, and a soul capable of feeling the majesty and
sublimity of the Hebrew poetry when reproduced in its
vii.] of Scripture Style. 271
own simple forms, the difference is hardly to be ex-
pressed. Whatever the powers of the imitator, and
however qualified by sympathy of spirit with the sacred
writers to express religious sentiment and devotional
feeling, it is impossible, I think, not to feel that a
simple prose translation is better. 1
I had hoped to illustrate this at some length, and
had collected a variety of examples for the purpose.
1 The following observations of Lowth illustrate this point :
" Duo hie occurrunt adnotanda, quae ex jam dictis quasi con-
sectaria quaedam enascuntur. Primo quidem, Poema ex Hebrasa
in aliam linguam conversum, et oratione soluta ad verbum ex-
pressum, cum sententiarum formse eaedem permaneant, multum
adhuc, etiam quod ad numeros attinet, pristinaa dignitatis retinebit,
et adumbratam quandam carminis imaginem. Hoc itaque in ver-
nacula sacrorum poematum interpretatione cernitur, ubi plerumque
' Invenias etiam disjecti membra poetae : '
quod in Graecis aut Latinis eodem modo conversis longe aliter
eveniret. Alterum est, quod poema Hebrasum Graecis aut Latinis
versibus redditum, sententiarum formis ad peregrini sermonis in-
dolem jam accommodatis, id est, confusis, perditisque, nativi orna-
tus et proprias venustatis non exiguam faciet jacturam. Nam in
exprimendis alia lingua egregiorum poetarum operibus, multum
in eo positum est, ut non tantum iidem sint intimi sensus, par
in sensibus explicandis vis et venustas, sed ut quantum fieri potest
externa etiam oris lineamenta effingantur, ut suus cuique color
atque habitus, suus etiam motus et incessus tribuatur. Qui itaque
sacros vates Grasco vel Latino carmine exprimere, adeoque eorum
veluti personam sustinere conati sunt, fieri non potuit quin toto
genere et forma, si non inferiores, multum certe, ab iis dissimiles
essent : an ex altera parte ad eorum vim, majestatem, spiritum
propius accesserint, non est hujus loci quaerere." Praelect. iii.
Lowth cites a single sentence from Rabbi Azarias to the same
effect. "Is it not plain that if you translate the Hebrew poems
into another language, they retain their own rhythmical construc-
tion, if not wholly, yet in a great degree ; which cannot be the case
with those pcems whose measure consists of a certain number
and quantity of syllables/' See also Pareau's Principles of Inter-
pretation. Vol. i. p. 241. Vol. ii. p. 185 (Clark's Biblical Cabinet),
for some judicious remarks on the points here touched.
272 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
But my space fails me, and I must be content with
two or three brief illustrations. Let us take the
simple, yet exquisite image in the very first Psalm,
which describes the happy condition of him who " me-
ditates in the law of the Lord day and night."
" And he shall be like a tree,
Planted by the rivers of water ;
That bringeth forth his fruit in his season ;
His leaf also shall not wither ;
And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."
It is surprising to see that Bacon, whose genius
may perhaps be said to have rivalled Shakespeare's,
and who "took all knowledge for his patrimony,"
could have been content with a version not much
better than that of Sternhold and Hopkins. But it
is the exigencies of artificial metre and rhyme that
plainly baffled him.
" He shall be like a fruitful tree
Planted along a running spring,
Which in due season constantly
A goodly yield of fruit doth bring ;
Whose leaves continue always green,
And are no prey to winter's power ;
So shall that man not once be seen
Surprised in an evil hour."
But if it be said that Bacon was a philosopher
and no poet (though he certainly had imagination
enough to make a score of ordinary poets), let us see
how it fares with Milton. It is no better with him,
and for the same reason. He has kept almost the
very terms of the simple prose translation ; but he has
so shuffled and transposed them, to meet the exigencies
of his metre, that we hardly recognise them again.
VIL] of Scripture Style. 273
* He shall be as a tree which planted grows
By watery streams, and in his season knows
To yield his fruit : and his leaf shall not fall,
And what he takes in hand shall prosper all."
Buchanan's Latin is no real version at all, but
a free paraphrase : the secondary images with which
he has adorned it are wholly unauthorised by the
original, and " Sirius " jars upon the ear almost as
much as Phoebus Apollo would do.
" Ille, velut riguas quae margine consita ripae est
Arbor, erit : quam non violento Sirius asstu
Exurit, non torret hiems, sed prodiga laeto
Proventu beat agricolam : nee flore caduco
Arridens, blanda dominum spe lactat inanem."
Watts, who in spite of all his defects, is one of our
greatest hymn writers, is as bald as any :
' He like a plant of generous kind,
By living waters set,
Safe from the storms and blasting wind.
Enjoys a peaceful state.
" Green as the leaf, and ever fair
Shall his profession shine,
While fruits of holiness appear
Like clusters on the vine." z
1 Watts's translation of the seventy-second Psalm is one of his
most beautiful effusions. But on inspection it confirms what I am
saying. It is no translation at all, or even a. paraphrase : it is an
independent poem, in which in fact he declines the task of rendering
the Psalm, and contents himself with applying its general spirit,
and retaining two or three of its images. For like reasons it is
that so many sacred poems, founded on passages of Scripture
some of those of George Herbert, Habingdon, Cowper, and Keble,
for example are so much better than any metrical versions.
Buchanan has successfully imitated the various Horatian metres.
But he necessarily reminds one of Horace as much as of David ;
or rather he is like Horace turned Christian, with the Geneva
bands and gown on, and his Latin a little rusty with time.
19
274 n Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
Take again the forty-sixth Psalm :
" God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Therefore will not we fear,
Though the earth be removed,
And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea ;
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,
And the mountains shake with the swelling thereof."
Here it is impossible not to feel that the grand
march and rhythm of this poetical prose is infinitely
better than anything that exact metrical arrangement
could give us. It is impossible to imagine anything
much tamer than Watts's version :
" God is the refuge of His saints,
When storms of sharp distress invade,
Ere we can offer our complaints,
Behold Him present with His aid.
** Let mountains from their seats be hurled
Down to the deep, and buried there ;
Convulsions shake the solid world,
Our faith shall never yield to fear."
His failure is equally conspicuous in the close of the
Psalm. The English version is as follows :
" He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the earth,
He breaketh the bow,
And cutteth the spear in sunder ;
He burneth the chariot in the fire.
Be still, and know that I am God ;
I will be exalted among the heathen,
I will be exalted in the earth.
The Lord of hosts is with us,
The God of Jacob is our refuge."
Watts's version reads thus :
" He breaks the bow, He cuts the spear,
Chariots He burns with heavenly flame
Keep silence all the earth, and hear
The sound and glory of His name.
VIL] of Scripture Style. 275
" Be still and know that I am God,
I'll be exalted o'er the lands ;
I will be known and feared abroad,
But still My throne in Sion stands ! " r
He has done better in one of his three versions of the
ninetieth Psalm, the others have the usual faults of
the metrical translators :
" Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
" Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure ;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defence is sure.
" Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
" Thy word commands our flesh to dust,
' Return, ye sons of men ; '
All nations rose from earth at first,
And turn to earth again.
u A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone ;
Short as the watch that ends the night,
Before the rising sun."
Still, compared with the original, it is as the tinkling
of a lute to the majestic roll of an organ, or (to use
a grand Scripture image) the " voice of many waters."
" Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
1 Even Luther's celebrated metrical rendering of this psalm will
not bear comparison with the poetic prose in his own admirable
version.
19*
276 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
Or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God.
Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return, ye children
of men ;
For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when
it is past,
And as a watch in the night."
Here any one who has the slightest tincture of
taste, or any ear for the music of language, will see
the immense interval between the simple prose trans-
lation and the metrical imitation ; in simplicity, in
condensation, in the solemn march and cadence of
the rhythm. 1
1 D'Alembert, whose exquisite simplicity of taste, like that of
Pascal, seems to have derived additional severity from his geo-
metry, has some remarks in his " Reflexions sur 1'Elocution oratoire
et sur le Style en general," which show that he felt, sceptic as he
was, the vast superiority of the Scripture poetic prose to the best
metrical versions of his countrymen. The constraint, the feeble
expletives, the redundant phrases, the stuck-on ornaments of these,
justly offended him. He says : " L'eloquence ne consiste done
point, comme quelques anciens 1'ont dit> et comme tant d'dchos
1'ont re'pe'tes, a dire les grands choses d'un style sublime, mais d'un
style simple. C'est affaiblir une grande idde que de chercher a la
relever par la pompe des paroles. Le Psalmiste a dit, ' Les cieux
racontent la gloire de Dieu, et le firmament annonce 1'ouvrage
de ses mains :' voyez comment un de nos plus grands poetes
a de'figurd cette pensde sublime, en voulant l'e"tendre et Torner.
Les cieux instruisent la terre
A reVerer leur Auteur ;
Tout ce que leur globe enserre
Celebre un Dieu Createur.
Quel plus sublime cantique
Que ce concert magnifique
De tous les celestes corps ?
Quelle grandeur infinie,
Quelle divine harmonie
Requite de leurs accords ?
L'exemple, dira-t-on peut-etre, est mal choisi ; cette strophe
presque toute entiere est mauvaise en elle meme, et indigne d'etre
VIL] of Scripture Style. 277
One of the most successful of close metrical trans-
lations of Scripture is that of the passage in the last
chapter of Habbakuk, by Cowper. It is elegant
(as Cowper ever is, no matter what he touches), but
there are few who will not prefer the original.
" Though vine nor fig-tree neither,
Their wonted fruit shall bear ;
Though all the field should wither,
Nor flocks nor herds be there ;
Yet, God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice ;
For, while in Him confiding ;
I cannot but rejoice."
* Although the fig-tree shall not blossom,
Neither shall fruit be in the vine ;
The labour of the olive shall fail,
And the fields shall yield no food ;
compare'e a son modele. Prenons-en done une autre dont on ne
puisse contester la beautd, la premiere du Cantique d'Ezechias,
traduit par la meme poete, et rapprochons-la de rorigjnal.
J'ai vu mes tristes journe'es
De'cliner vers leur penchant ;
Au midi de mes anne*es
Je touchais a mon couchant;
La mort ddployant ses ailes,
Couvrait d'ombres dternelles
La clarte" dont je join's,
Et dans cette nuit funeste
Je cherchais en vain le reste
De mes jours eVanouis.
Quelqu' admirables que soient ces vers, on y reconnait encore
le Poete : ' Le midi et le couchant des annees, les journe'es qui
de'clinent vers leur penchant, les ailes de la mort de"ployees. J Ces
images, belles a la verite, mais Fouvrage de 1'esprit qui cherche
cipeindre, et non du sentiment qui ne veut qu'exprimer, peuvent-
elles etre comparees a la simplicitd touchante de 1'Ecriture, a la
tristesse profonde et vraie avec laquelle le prince, jeune et mourant,
se repre'sente aux portes de la mort? 'J'ais dit au milieu de mes
jours, je vais mourir: et j'ais cherche' le reste de mes ans.'"
Melanges. Tom. ii. pp. 326-8.
278 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
The flock shall be cut off from the fold,
And there shall be no herd in the stalls :
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation."
Another peculiarity of the style of Scripture worthy
of notice a peculiarity which has arrested the attention
of many who doubt its Divine claims is its unique
power of adequately expressing devotional sentiment
and emotion. 1 It not only gives us the most copious,
but by far the noblest, specimens of this language
that can be found in all extant literature ; and so
uncontested is its superiority in this respect, that the
most celebrated compositions of the kind, the liturgies
by which the Jewish and the Christian Church have
endeavoured to kindle or sustain the flame of devotion
in their public assemblies, are close imitations of
the models which the Bible furnishes ; and, indeed,
their most effective portions are little else than appro-
priations from this treasury of devotion, tesselations
of the Scripture phraseology itself. 2
Take, for example, the English liturgy. Most justly
admired it is, no doubt, for the propriety and fulness
of its matter, and for the majesty and rhythm of its
style. And it may well be ; for not only has it incor-
porated many of the best specimens of liturgical com-
position which the ancient Church has handed down to
* See Appendix No. VII.
2 "It is but feebly, and as afar off, that the ancient liturgies
(except so far as they merely copied their originals) come up to the
majesty and the wide compass of the Hebrew worship ; such as is
indicated in Psalm cxlviii. Neither Ambrose, nor Gregory, nor
the Greeks, have reached or approached this level." Isaac Taylor
On the Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry^ p. 157.
vii.] of Scripture Style. 279
us, and wisely enriched itself with the spoils of ages,
but its most impressive and beautiful portions (as was
the case also with the ancient liturgies it has laid
under tribute) are derived directly from Scripture itself.
This is its chief excellence, as it was theirs. If any
one will analyse the contents of the Book of Common
Prayer, and deduct, not only the larger portions of Scrip-
ture, but all the minute scripture phrases and clauses
which it has most judiciously interwoven, he will find
that at least five-sixths of the whole book is simply
extracted from the Bible. I am far from saying this
in derogation ; rather it is, in my view, the highest
eulogium that can be pronounced upon it.
From the extreme rarity of the choicer specimens of
this species of composition, we may infer its immense
difficulty. How is it then that the Bible has almost a
monopoly of it ? How is it that there, and there alone,
we find language so expressive of the loftier and deeper
moods of devotion, that we are continually tempted,
not to say compelled, to borrow from Scripture, and
uniformly fail when we attempt to do long without it ?
How is it that so few attempts are made to compete
with it in original compositions of the same kind, or the
results so poor when they are made ? Of course if the
Bible be a book of Divine origin, if it be a manual
designed by celestial wisdom to instruct men in the
offices of religion, to inspire and express devotional
thought and feeling, we need not wonder that it should
so immeasurably outstrip mere human compositions of
the same class. If not, this is one more paradoxical
280 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
feature of the Bible, for which it is difficult to account,
and which compels us to ask whence came it ?
The chief object of the present lecture is to point out
certain peculiarities of style which discriminate Scrip-
ture from other books. I shall therefore say but little
on the degree in which it possesses those qualities
which, if it is to answer the purpose of books in general,
it must have in common with them. But there are
three of chief importance for all purposes of impression
energy, sublimity, and pathos, which it possesses in
so pre-eminent a degree, that it may well make us
wonder how the Jews, who did so little, except in this
one book, to distinguish themselves in literature, thus
immeasurably surpassed themselves. As it has been
asked how they came "to be men in religion, and
children in everything else ? " so it may be asked how it
is that their almost solitary literary relic should be
marked by t such prodigious excellence in the three
most important qualities of all composition ?
I have already said that there are huge portions of
the volume which (however rendered necessary by its
complexity of design and purpose) do not admit either
of much force or of any ornament of style ; portions
in which the highest merit is a natural and unadorned
simplicity. Nor does it, in any part, affect that uni-
form elegance or fastidious refinement which may be
looked for in more homogeneous writings, still less
those elaborate artifices of human rhetoric which itself
most vehemently disclaims. Yet in those parts of
VIL] of Scripture Style. 281
Scripture in which alone the above three qualities can
be rationally looked for, I think it may be safely said
that they exist in greater copiousness than in any equal
amount of written matter in the world.
Of all the qualities of style on which the effect of
writing principally turns, that which rhetoricians in-
differently call energy or vivacity is the most im-
portant ; and of its chief elements, philosophical writers
on rhetoric, like Campbell and Whately, have given a
careful enumeration. It principally depends on what
I have already mentioned as a perpetual quality of
Scripture, the suppression, as far as possible, of all
general and abstract, and the use of the most specific,
terms ; on the selection of characteristic incidents or
objects in narrative or description, rather than on full
enumeration of them, or of one or two salient points
as representative of a whole group of associated cir-
cumstances ; on metaphors marked rather by strength
than beauty ; and sometimes on the iteration of the
same idea under various forms, though more frequently
on brevity and condensation of expression.
A very general characteristic of Scripture style is
undoubtedly a pregnant brevity in its separate utter-
ances : in no book can we find so many weighty
sentences expressed in fewer words. Yet in many
parts (in Deuteronomy and Ezekiel, for example) we
see, however brief each single expression, an amount
of repetition which has often been taxed with diffuse-
ness. How then shall we reconcile the conflicting
claims of energy as usually dependent on paucity of
283 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
words, and yet as sometimes demanding iteration of
statement ? In the way that nature and the critics
teach us to reconcile them. 1 The true remedy for a
too stringent brevity, which proverbially becomes
" obscure," is not a diffuse copiousness, but a varied
exhibition of the same thought. 2 Sometimes this
is absolutely necessary to produce the due effect, for
the mind must be detained on the same thought for a
certain time to insure its impression ; the work cannot
be done by a simple stroke, but by a number of them,
as by the repeated touches of the sculptor's mallet.
We see this continually exemplified in Shakespeare.
Now Scripture, full (so to speak) of negligent and
scattered graces, but never fastidious about continuous
beauty or elegance, nor solicitous about them at
all in comparison with strength of expression, pro-
fusely exemplifies all the above characteristics of
energy. Its narrative style, as I have already had
occasion to remark, is exquisitely dramatic, but as
bare as possible, not only of all general reflections,
1 Lowth has beautifully described both these characteristics
of energy in the Hebrew poetry. Speaking of the song of triumph
at the Red Sea, he says : " Unum tantum adnotabo, quod et in
unm ersa Hebrceorum Poesi locum habet, et in hoc poemate
praecipua cernitur : nimirum dictionis brevitatem unum esse
maximum subsidium sublimitatis. Rerum ponderi plerumque
officit diffusa et exuberans oratio : quantum sano corpori carnium
et obesitatis addideris, tantum detraxeris de vigore et viribus.
Hebraei, si universa species, sunt largi, copiosi, uberes ; si singula,
parci, restricti, pressique : variando, repetendo, subinde addendo
amplificant : tota quidem res fuse interdum tractatur, sed iteratis
crebrisque, et per omnia brevibus et nervosis sententiis ; ita ut
nee copia, nee vis desit." Prselect. xxvii. p. 362. Ed. Oxon. 1810.
a Whately's Rhetoric. Part iii. ch. 2.
vii.] of Scripture Style. 283
but of all words of general and abstract import. It is
for the most part the naked presentation of individual
facts in the most appropriate and most specific terms
by which they can be expressed. Agents and actions
are there, but the reader himself must fully interpret
them. The representation is like that of sculpture
or painting, where the mute action, the pose of a
figure, a gesture, an incidental adjunct, is the symbol
of a whole group of associated ideas. The eyes look
on it, but intuition is the commentator. Thus the
effect of the whole preceding train of incident, and
all the variety of emotion which it inspired in the
actors, is conveyed in that simple passage in which
Joseph, overmastered by the pathetic speech of
Judah, and surprised out of his mask of assumed
austerity, makes himself known to his brethren.
Even the apparently irrelevant question about his
father, " Is he yet alive ? " of which his previous
inquiries had left him without a doubt, is a natural
expression of that tumult of joy and grief in which
the perturbed soul hardly knows what it says, and
yet, in its confusion, instinctively turns to the object
nearest the heart, and therefore nearest the lips.
Everywhere we see indications of the graphic suppres-
sion of all needless generality. A feature which to some
extent may be natural (for it is found more or less in
the laws of many ancient nations) is wonderfully cha-
racteristic of the laws of Moses. A great part, even
where we cannot doubt that general principles of duty
and humanity are inculcated, are expressed by individual
284 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
specifications : " Thou shall not curse the deaf ; "
"Thou shalt not lay a stumbling-block before the
blind; " " Thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy
land ; thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt
thou gather every grape of thy vineyard ; thou shalt leave
them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord your
God." "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth
out the corn," where the comment of Paul shows
that the precept is not intended for the benefit of
" oxen " alone, or chiefly. Similarly, a great part of
the gnomic wisdom of Scripture is expressed (as is
usual indeed with proverbs) by the specification of a
particular case.
Examples, again, in which some specific circum-
stance is selected as the representative of a whole class
of associated ideas, and the picture is completed at a
stroke, might be cited by hundreds. The utter panic
of soul which makes a man start at everything, and (as
Scripture has it) " flee when none pursueth," is won-
derfully expressed in that image, " The sound of a
shaken leaf shall chase them; " as is also that contrasted
spirit of heroic daring which a good conscience and a
sense of Divine protection can inspire "And five
of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred put ten
thousand to flight." 1 That utter weariness of heart,
which vainly seeks relief (like the fever-stricken patient)
in mere change and tossing to and fro, is compre-
hensively depicted in the single trait, " In the evening
thou shalt say, Would God it were morning ; and in
1 Levit. xxvi. 8. The hyperbole is varied in Deut. xxxii. 30.
vii.] of Scripture Style. 285
the morning, Would God it were evening." Nor can
anything better express the helplessness of a mind
dazed and stunned by overwhelming calamity, than
the words, " Thou shalt grope for the door as the
blind." No length of description could possibly con-
vey a more forcible picture of the utter degradation
that was to overtake the Israelites after the doom of
their dispersion, than the threat that they should be
exposed in " the slave mart," and even then be re-
garded with such contempt " that no man should buy
them." Devastation, whether of war or of locusts,
was never more vividly suggested by any amount of
details than by the simple expression, "The land
is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind
them a desolate wilderness ;" 'nor benevolence more
graphically painted than in the words, "I was eyes
to the blind, and feet was I to the lame; the bless-
ing of him that was ready to perish came upon me,
and I caused the widow's heart ta sing for joy.'"
In conformity with the same preference for energy
as the great instrument of impression, most of the tro-
pical terms of Scripture are chiefly characterized by
force. Where beauty is not incompatible with it,, they
are often exquisitely poetical and elegant, as in those
plaintive expressions of Job, when thinking of his past
prosperity, " When the ear heard me, then it blessed
me ; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness unto
me : my root was spread out by the waters, and the dew
lay all night upon my branch." But as a rule, the
metaphors and other figures are principally marked by
286 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
the quality on which I am insisting; often homely,
sometimes even to coarseness; but in admirable con-
formity with the true canons of criticism adopted by
the earnest writer, whose object is not elegance, but
strength; and whose end is not to charm, but to con-
vince and to persuade.
How contemptuous but expressive is that image in
which God threatens the great Behemoth of despo-
tism, Sennacherib, " I will put my hook in thy nose
and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back
by the way by which thou earnest." Is it possible to
imagine the condition of the " wicked," torn and dis-
tracted by their own passions, and the tumults and
terrors of an evil conscience, more aptly described than
by comparing them with the "troubled sea, when it
cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt " ?
or can the condition of a conscience which has at
last lost all sensitiveness to sin, be more terribly de-
noted than by saying that it is " seared as with a
hot iron ; " implying that, as in the eschar pro-
duced by actual cautery, no nerve thrills and no
life-blood circulates there ? But examples of this
prevailing quality of its metaphors abound in every
part of Scripture.
The energy of our Lord's language is usually very
remarkable, especially from its condensed brevity.
Never was more meaning expressed in fewer words
than in many parts of the Sermon on the Mount ; in
many of His parables, as in those of the Prodigal Son
and the Good Samaritan; and in that wonderful de-
vii.] of Scripture Style. 287
scription of the Last Judgment in Matt, xxv., where He
expounds the principles on which the decisions of that
day will be based. The energy of the passage is
gradually enhanced, as it proceeds, by the perpetual
condensation of the expression. There is, in truth,
everything even to the adjuncts of cadence and rhythm
to give solemnity and impressiveness to the descrip-
tion. In whatever language translated, Greek, Latin,
German, English, it reads with nearly equal force. In
brief, I have no scruple in saying that neither in
Demosthenes nor in Shakespeare (and if not in them,
certainly in no other author) is this cardinal property
of style more prodigally exemplified than in many
parts of the Pentateuch (especially Deuteronomy) and
of the Prophets 1 in the parables and discourses of
1 The bitter taunts of Elijah, addressed to the prophets of Baal,
and the still more wonderful passages of Isaiah xliv. 9-20, are
fair specimens. The folly of idolatry was surely never more
vividly expressed than in this passage. After describing the devotee
as warily choosing a tree worthy of becoming a god, the main
desideratum of which (as expressed in another passage) is that it
shall not soon "rot," the prophet represents him as economically
using the superfluous wood his axe has lopped from the embryo
Divinity, to kindle his fire and to cook his food ; and then proceed-
ing with strenuous toil and infinite cost of thirst and " sweat," and
lavish skill of all that art of carver and gilder can do, to make the
residue of his "log" into "a god, that it may remain in the house. "
' And the residue he maketh a god, his graven image ; he falleth
down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith,
Deliver me, for thou art my God ! . . . . And none considereth
in his heart, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, I
have burnt part of it in the fire ; yea, also I have baked bread upon
the coals thereof ; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it ; and shall I
make the residue thereof an idol ? Shall I fall down to the stock of
a tree ? He feedeth on ashes : a deceived heart hath perverted
him, that he cannot deliver his own soul nor say, Is there not a lie
in my right hand ? "
288 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
Christ, and in the more impassioned parts of Paul's
Epistles.
Of the sublimity of Scripture, I need say nothing ; for
it is universally admitted to possess this quality in at
least as large a measure as any equal portion of written
matter in the world, and, as critics in general agree,
sublimity of a far higher order. Few, I think, will
doubt it who will duly examine the volume itself, or the
copious proofs and illustrations given in the Lectures
of Lowth, or the Dialogues of Herder on Hebrew
Poetry. In Deuteronomy, 1 in Job, in the Psalms, in
the Prophets, in almost every part, we are struck with
this characteristic. From that utterance in the com-
mencement of Genesis " Let there be light, and there
was light " which evoked the admiration of the heathen
Longinus, to that "sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and
harping symphonies " in the Apocalypse, which moved
the congenial soul of Milton, examples of the " true
sublime " meet us at every step. But when we reflect
on all else the Jews have done in literature, can we fail
to ask whence had this one book of theirs such an
exceptional majesty of thought and diction ?
But the third quality, pathos> exists in so large
a measure in the Bible, and fulfils such important
functions, that it requires somewhat more to be said of
it. Deducting that large portion of Scripture in which
this quality could not be expected, a candid inquirer
1 It is not without reason that Dean Milman says of the latter
portions of Deuteronomy : " The sublimity " (and assuredly the
energy) '' of the denunciation surpasses anything in the oratory
or poetry of the whole world." History of Jews. Vol. i. p. 211.
Ed. 1866.
VIL] of Scripture Style. 289
will be astonished at the excess of this element in
the remainder, as compared with what is found else-
where, in an equal compass, and especially in any
so-called " sacred " books. It is a remark (if I do not
mistake of Principal Campbell) no less ingenious than
just, that there is perhaps not a single passage of
genuine pathos in the whole Koran ; scarcely one
which can he imagined to extort a tear even from a
Moslem himself, notwithstanding all his associations
in its favour !
Now, pathos of the highest character is perhaps the
rarest of all the excellencies of composition ; the most
potent spell by which great historic or poetic imagina-
tions hold the human mind in thraldom. It is one to
which all yield. Profound reasoning is for the few;
didactic wisdom raises no emotion ; even beautiful and
sublime fancies require a correspondent sensibility and
culture to appreciate them; but " one touch of nature
makes the whole world kin." 1
It is also the most powerful vehicle in which moral
wisdom can convey its lessons; and hence, as Aristotle
remarked, the force with which these may be embodied
in tragedy. Moral truth is there steeped in human
emotion, and "the heart," as he expresses it, "is
purified by pity and terror."
1 " La raison/' says Pascal, " agit avec lenteur, et avec tant de
vues sur tant de principes lesquels 11 faut qu'ils soi-ent toujours
presents, qu'a toute heure elle s'assoupit et s'egare, manque
d'avoir tous ses principes presents. Le sentiment n j agit pas ainsi ;
il agit en un instant, et toujours est pret k agir. II faut done mettre
notre foi dans le sentiment: autrement elle sera toujours vacil-
lante." Pensees de Pascal. Faugere. Vol. ii. p. 176.
20
2go On Certain Peculiarities [LECT
Now of this most insinuating and persuasive ele-
ment, this chief instrument of touching the soul, the
Bible (in proportion to the matter in which this
quality is possible) not only avails itself more fre-
quently, but more powerfully, than any other single
volume in the world. It abounds in pathetic incidents
and passages which do not become stale, though so
often read; which make the eye glisten and the heart
throb even on the hundredth perusal.
I am now only speaking of the higher exhibitions
of this quality, and these in literature generally
have ever been rare. If any one, whose reading is
tolerably extensive, were called upon to name those
examples of pathos which he would consider worthy
to rank in the very first order of excellence, for
example, with the parting of Hector and Andromache,
the meeting of Priam and Achilles, the farewell of
Medea to her children, the description of the death
of Desdemona, or of the sorrows of Ophelia, he
would, I think, be surprised to find how slender the
catalogue with which all his reading could furnish
him. Plenty of touches of pathos of a slighter kind,
and plenty more spoiled by overdoing and affectation,
he could no doubt recall; but those in the very first
rank those which are read again and again with
unabated feeling, exact our tears for the fiftieth
time, and defy familiarity to deaden their charm, are
comparatively few. 1
1 It may be remarked that many of the most touching specimens
of pathos in modern literature derive their chief effect from the
Bible sentiments and associations which suggested them, often even
vii.] of Scripture Style. 291
And this element in Scripture, frequent as it is, and
whether of a higher or lower intensity, is expressed with
from the Scriptural incidents and phraseology by which they are
illustrated and expressed. This is not seldom the case with Shakes-
peare, and far more frequently with Walter Scott. Many of the
more affecting examples of pathos in his masterpieces, the "Anti-
quary," " Guy Mannering," the " Heart ot Midlothian," the " Bride
of Lammermuir," owe the greater part of their power to the
consummate way in which he conjures with the incidents and
phraseology of Scripture, and applies them to his purpose. Thus
the sc-ni in which the faithful Dominie Sampson devotes his
life to the orphan child of his old patron, derives its chief charm
from the "affectionate creature's" beautiful application of the
language ot Ruth to Naomi. "The Dominie laid the money on
the table. ' It is certainly inadequate/ said McMorlan, mistaking
his meaning, 'but the circumstances ' Mr. Sampson waved
his hand impatiently. ' It is not the lucre it is not the lucre
but that I, that have ate of her father's loaf, and drank of his
cup, for twenty years and more, to think that I am going to leave
her and to leave her in distress and dolour. No, Miss Lucy,
you need never think it ! You would not consent to put forth
your father's poor dog, and would you use me waur than a messan ?
No, Miss Lucy Bertram, while I live, I will not separate from
you. I'll be no burden to you. I have thought how to prevent
that. But, as Ruth said unto Naomi, Entreat me not to leave
thee, nor to depart from thee ; for whither thou goest I will go,
and where thou dwellest I will dwell ; thy people shall be my
people, and thy God shall be my God. Where thou diest will
I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more
also, if aught but death do part thee and me.' "
The same observation applies still more strongly to the " Heart
of Midlothian." In numberless instances the intense pathos of
that incomparalb novel is derived from Scripture allusions; as
for example in the last dying prayer of Douce Davie Deans for
his " puir lost Effie." " He prayed in the most affecting manner
for Jeanie, her husband, and her family, and that her affectionate
duty to the ' puir auld man,' might purchase her length of days
here, and happiness hereafter. Then, in a pathetic petition, too
well understood by those who knew his family circumstances, he
besought the Shepherd of souls, while gathering His flock, not
to forget the little one that had strayed from the fold, and even
then might be in the paw of the ravening wolf."
In a word, the higher examples of Scott's parties are felt to be so,
20 *
293 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
the most inimitable simplicity. It is nature herself
speaking to us, in that severely simple style in which
the narrative of Scripture is generally clothed. Pathos
there, is equally free from that exaggeration which too
often spoils it in the hands of inferior writers, and of
that highly-coloured poetic imagery in which even
genius sometimes mistakenly arrays it ; and which,
though we may pardon it for the sake of that light of
genius that plays about it, we feel to be after all a
trespass on nature; a language in which the soul of
grief, under the given conditions, never would or could
have expressed itself.
This element in Scripture (and that too of the highest
order) is so profuse, that it would not be easy to exhaust
the catalogue of examples. It will suffice to remind the
reader of such scenes as that between Abraham and
Isaac on the mournful journey to Moriah, and especially
the question with which the unconscious Isaac rends
his father's heart : " My father, here is the fire and
the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering ? "
of the scenes between Joseph and his brethren in
Egypt, and especially the passionate intercession of
Judah, to be allowed to take the place of Benjamin ;
of the lament of Jacob over Joseph, when he refused
" to be comforted " by his sons, and suppressed the sus-
picions which had evidently made his anguish so much
more bitter ; his equally passionate refusal to let Ben-
not only because they are so true to nature, but because they are
so bound up with the incidents, sentiments, and emotions with
which the Bible had made him familiar, and are so deeply tinc-
tured even by its phraseology.
vii.] of Scripture Style. 233
jamin " go down with his brethren," and that heart-
rending explosion of his long pent-up thoughts " Me
ye have bereaved of my children;" 1 of the meeting
between the patriarch and his long-lost son ; the plead-
ing of Joseph's brethren in deprecation of his anger
after Jacob's death, and that touching argument of their
father's last wish, the very appeal to which dissolved him
in tears ; of the scene in which Pharaoh's daughter
discovers the ark among the bulrushes, and is melted
into compassion by the infant wail of Moses ; the inter-
view of Ruth and Naomi ; the parting of David and
Jonathan ; David's lament over his friend ; the death
of the Shunammite's child, and her passionate expos-
tulation with the prophet ; of the tragic scenes at the
1 The spark which kindled that explosion was evidently the
ominous discovery of the money (which his sons had taken to
Egypt to pay for their corn) which was found in their sacks, when
they came to unload. This, coupled with the absence of their
brother Simeon, seems to have reawakened suspicions which had
no doubt often perplexed Jacob about Joseph's fate, and to have
suggested that Simeon might have been similarly made away with.
This would readily account both for their bringing back the corn
without payment for it, and for Simeon's mysterious abduction ;
and seemed to point to a like fate for Benjamin, if he should leave
his fond father's side. The whole transaction, exquisitely natural,
affords, on analysis, an instance of two things of which, as I have
said, Scripture is full : undesigned coincidences recondite corre-
spondencies between different statements, which it is left to the
sagacity of the reader to detect ; and that purely dramatic style in
which the history of Scripture Is told ; bare incidents being given,
most graphic, indeed, but without comment on the causes which
connect them. Nothing is here said to account for the sudden
transport of suspicion into which Jacob was surprised, and which
for so many years he must have suppressed. But the facts of the
narrative show how natural that suspicion was, how deeply it had
rankled, and how poignantly it had been felt.
2 g4 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT,
siege of Samaria ; of the Judgment of Solomon, with its
thrilling revelation of the unfathomable depths of a
mother's love ; of David's lamentation over Absalom,
in which nature herself speaks to us in the accents
of that desperate sorrow which can do little but iterate
in varied tones the name of the lost object of its love :
these and many other passages in the Old Testament
are full of pathos. 1 It equally pervades the New.
The parable of the Prodigal Son ; the incident at the
gate of Nain ; the scenes connected with the resurrec-
tion of Lazarus ; the fall and repentance of Peter; the
1 Numberless brief passages might easily be added, which irre-
sistibly awaken sympathy, both as appealing immediately to the
heart, and as representative of ten thousand analogous scenes in
human life. They are often compressed into a verse or two some-
times into a sentence ; and are as often, like some intaglios and medal-
lions, masterpieces of artistic skill on a field of microscopic dimen-
sions. Such is the description of the dying patriarch in Egypt (an
exile in a strange land), yearning " for the sepulchre of his fathers :"
" There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife ; there they
buried Isaac and Rebecca his wife ; and there I buried Leah."
There he desired his own dust to be laid, not without a pang,
probably, to think that the best beloved of all lay in her lonely tomb
"on the way to Ephrath.''-' Such is the description of Rachel's
death, when her " departing soul " called the name of the " child
of her sorrow," Benoni, but which he who had loved her so fondly,
and for whom seven years' servitude appeared but as a day, ex-
changed for a name of happier omen. Such is the scene between
Jacob and Joseph, in which the dying patriarch adopts, as his very
own, Manasseh and Ephraim (born in Joseph's exile, and named in
allusion to it), and blessed them, saying, " The angel that redeemed
me from all evil, bless the lads." The whole scene, indeed, includ-
ing the little contest between Jacob and his son in reference to the
privileges of the firstborn, and that touching last memorial of the
patriarch's affection for him whom he had loved so much and lost
so long, " Moreover, I have given to thee one portion above thy
brethren, which I took out of the hands of the Amo;ite with my
sword and my bow," is one of the most graphic, as well as most
affecting, in Genesis.
VIL] of Scripture Style. 295
institution of the Last Supper ; the entire history of the
crucifixion ; the scene at the cross between Christ and
the "beloved disciple ; " that between Christ and Mary
Magdalene at the sepulchre ; Christ's prayer for His
persecutors ; His compassion to the dying malefactor ;
His last tender reproof of Peter ; many passages of
Paul's Epistles, especially to the Corinthians, to
Timothy, and Philemon ; suffice to show the frequency
and intensity with which this element enters into the
composition of the New Testament.
And human genius has shown its appreciation of
this quality in the Scriptures by the enormous extent
to which poetry, painting, and sculpture have resorted
to this class of Biblical incidents and descriptions as
subjects for art.
But the book is not only marked by its large infusion
of the pathetic element in its ordinary narrative, in
scenes which correspond to analogous scenes in ordi-
nary life : it has a yet higher excellence. It has invested
with the deepest pathos subjects to which that quality
never belonged before, in those numberless pictures
in which Deity, with infinite condescension, and infinite
knowledge of the fountains of human feeling, is repre-
sented as pleading with His wayward creatures and
soliciting their love.
Voltaire said that Pascal had illustrated the supre-
macy of his genius in his " Provincial Letters,"
by theologizing two things that seemed not made for
theology wit and pleasantry. It may be said of the
Bible that it has made susceptible of pathos, and
On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
brought within the range of human emotion, subjects
which had hitherto dwelt in the region of remote
abstractions, or, if they ever came nearer, came in
forms which awakened only awe or terror. To
familiarise, to endear, the thought of God, without
degrading the conception ; to bring Him within the
sphere of human affections, without impairing His
majesty, is the triumph of the Bible.
Viewed in this light, the scriptural representations
of God, appealing as they do to all the deepest
analogies of our own nature, far transcend those
given by the most enlightened theism as elsewhere
expounded. They are not only in the plane of human
thought ; what is far more important to give them
force, they are in the plane of human affection. This
may be illustrated more particularly by the mode and
degree in which Scripture dwells on the paternal cha-
racter of God. Vivid indeed is the contrast in this
respect between its tone and that which generally
prevails, whether in the current religions or the current
philosophies of the world. And no wonder; for, on the
one hand, superstition has troubled and deformed men's
conceptions of God, and invested Him with terrors,
naturally ascribed, indeed, by a heart that is more prompt
to dread Him as the Governor, than to love Him as the
Father of His creatures, but which, so far as they
prevail, naturally repel and alienate affection. On
the other hand, philosophic theism has almost exclu-
sively dwelt on His abstract perfections, and placed
Him in inaccessible remoteness from human sym-
VIL] of Scripture Style. 297
pathies; He is not only incapable of being adequately
conceived, which must be always true, but so secluded
and shrouded in the mysteries of His own nature,
that all that can kindle the emotions of childlike love
and trust is obliterated from His character. We
" stand afar off," and gaze in silent awe ; paying mute
homage, indeed, to such Infinite Perfections, but feel-
ing that if any Being possesses them, He is so com-
pletely beyond the sphere of our affections, that all
emotion must be faint, and at best more akin to fear
than to love. In the contemplation of such a Being, we
feel utterly unable to echo the words of the Psalmist,
" As the hart panteth arter the water brooks, so
panteth my soul after Thee, O God : " " This God is
our God for ever and ever ; He will be our guide even
unto death." x
1 The following eloquent remarks of Dr. Mozley I believe to
be profoundly just : " The vulgar believed in many gods, the
philosopher believed in a Universal Cause ; but neither believed
in God. The philosopher only regarded the Universal Cause
as the spring of the universal machine, which was necessary
to the working of all the parts, but was not thereby raised to
a separate order of being from them. Theism was discussed
as a philosophical, not as a religious question; as one rationale
among others of the origin of the material universe, but as no
more affecting practice than any great scientific hypothesis does
now. Theism was not a test which separated the orthodox phi-
losopher from the heterodox, which distinguished belief from
disbelief; it established no breach between the two opposing
theorists ; it was discussed amicably as an open question ; and well
it might be, for of all questions there was not one which could make
less practical difference to the philosopher, or, upon his view, to
anybody, than whether there was, or was not, a God. Nothing
would have astonished him more than, when he had proved in the
lecture-hall the existence of a God, to have been told to worship Him.
'Worship whom?' he would have exclaimed. 'Worship what?'
On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
Even the Israelites, in spite of the more benignant
aspects under which God had already revealed, and was
even then revealing Himself, are represented as palsied
with terror in front of the burning mount, at the
momentary manifestation of those austerer aspects of
the Divine character which it was important for them,
as it is for us, not to forget. In vain did He proclaim
that He was " The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and
gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and
trut'i, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." That
He also proclaimed Himself, amidst such awful scenes,
Worship how ?' Would you picture him indignant at the poly-
theistic superstition of the crowd, and manifesting some spark oi the
fire of St. Paul, ' when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry/ you
could not be more mistaken. He would have said that you did not
see a plain distinction ; that the crowd was right on the religious
question, and the philosopher right on the philosophical ; that how-
ever men might uphold in argument an infinite abstraction, they
could not worship it ; and that the hero was much better fitted
for worship than the Universal Cause ; fitted for it, not in spite
of, but in consequence of his want of true divinity. The same
question was decided in the same way in the speculations of the
Brahmans. There the Supreme Being figures as a characterless,
impersonal essence; the mere residuum of intellectual analysis,
pure unity, pure simplicity. No temple is raised to Him, no knee
is bended to Him. Without action, without will, without affection,
without thought, He is the substratum of everything, Himself
a nothing. . . Thus the idea of God, so far from calling forth
in the ancient world the idea of worship, ever stood in antagonism
with it. The idol was worshipped because he was not God ; God
was not worshipped because He was. One small nation alone of
all antiquity worshipped God, believed the Universal Being to be
a Personal Being. That nation was looked upon as a most eccen-
tric and unintelligible specimen of humanity for doing so ; but
this whimsical fancy, as it appeared in the eyes of the rest, was
cherished by it as the most sacred deposit ; it was the foundation
of its laws and polity ; and from this narrow stock this conception
was engrafted upon the human race/' Mozlefs Hampton Lectures.
Miracles. Pp. 76-78.
VIL] of Scripture Style. 299
to be the righteous Governor of the world, who would
not suffer His laws to be broken with impunity, and
who, therefore, would "not clear the guilty," was too
much for them. They naturally " stood afar off," and
found no heart within them to approach a Being who
made " the thick darkness His pavilion," and revealed
Himself in " earthquake, tempest, and fire." " Let not
God speak to us any more, lest we die," was their
cry; and God Himself bore witness both to the
naturalness and reasonableness of their emotion in
contemplating swc/t aspects of Himself; "They have
well said all that they have spoken."
And if the philosophic representation of the Deity as
an infinite abstraction creates, from its very remoteness
from all our sympathies, no terrors, it kindles as little
love, and exerts no attractive force. If not from con-
scious moral alienation, yet from intellectual apathy,
arising from the impossibility of being en rapport with
such a Being, man, in his impotence and ignorance,
is apt to say to this God also, " Depart from us, for
we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways."
The Bible takes a different and more effectual way.
In the frequent assertion and iteration of those as-
pects of the Divine character which are most likely
to allure us, it constantly and unfalteringly appeals to
the analogy of the deepest and most familiar emotions
of our own nature. It does not scruple to resort to the
most naked anthropopathic images and expressions ;
either secure, according to the already quoted saying
of Coleridge, that it could not be misconstrued, amidst
300 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
such clear and copious assertions of the Divine spiritu-
ality; or else as careless, even though it were, in some
degree, misunderstood, if it could but win us from our
fears and our distrust. 1
It may be said without hesitation, that in this point of
view, no religious book ever written, no professed reve-
lation ever propounded, comes within appreciable dis-
1 It is impossible, I think, to imagine anything more intensely
pathetic than the daring anthropopathic imagery by which the
prophets often represent God as chiding, upbraiding, threatening,
and, anon, relentingly beseeching His perverse and ungrateful crea-
tures. There is a free assumption of all the passions, and, if the
reader will, even some of the infirmities of our nature : all that
tumult and conflict of contradictory and tempestuous passions
indignation, anger, sorrow love by which a father's heart is
torn as he sees some unthanklul and rebellious child proof against
all reproof, chastisement, and affection. See particularly Isaiah
i. 2, 3, 18 ; Jeremiah xxxi. 18-21 ; xxxii. 36-40; Ezekiel xvi. 3 ; Hosea
vi. 4; vii. 13-16; xi. 7, 8 ; xiii. 4-10, and a host of other passages.
The symbolic lesson which God instructs Jeremiah to read to the
Israelites from the conduct of the Rechabites, whom no temptations
no presentation of "wine cup and flagon" could induce to swerve
from their " father's commandment," while Israel so easily forgot
and trampled upon His, is wonderfully touching : " Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabit-
ants of Jerusalem, Will ye not receive instruction to hearken unto
my words ? saith the Lord. The words of Jonadab the son of
Rechab, that he commanded his sons not to drink wine, are per-
formed ; for unto this day they drink no wine, but obey their father's
commandment : yet I have spoken unto you, but ye hearkened not
unto Me. I have also sent unto you all My servants the prophets,
rising up early and sending them, saying, Return ye now every
man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and go not after
other gods to serve them, and ye shall dwell in the land which
I have given to you and to your fathers : but ye have not inclined
your ear, nor hearkened unto Me." Nor is it the least instruc-
tive part of the lesson, that though "the children" He had "nou-
rished and brought up had rebelled" against Him, He declares He
would signally honour and reward the filial obedience even of the
inferior type ; and commissions Jeremiah to assure the Rechabites
of it.
,*r'<ty ol
vii.] o/ Scripture Style. 301
tance of the Bible, and especially 'the New Testament;
above all, in the teaching of Him who expressly "came
to reveal to us the Father." Nothing in the mytholo-
gies of Greece or Rome ever reminds us of the tone of
the Scriptures in this respect; none of the religious
systems formed in the absence of the Bible (and these,
after all, are the true tests of what man's unaided
powers can do), no, nor any of the religious theories
which philosophic theism has propounded, even when
aided by the Bible, approach the Bible in the purely
human interest, the intense pathos which it has
infused into its modes of exhibiting the relations be-
tween man and his Maker. As to the few and cold
expressions which are met with in heathen poets, it
is perfectly ludicrous to compare them with those
constantly recurring passages of Scripture in which
God speaks to the heart of man in the language o.
its own emotions.
The purest and best instincts of our nature are
freely resorted to for illustration. That parental com-
passion, to which the spectacle of helpless weaknesr,
cast on its protection, gives such tenderness, such as is
felt by a mother for the infant hushed on her bosom, or a
father for the child whose tiny fingers confidingly clasp
him by the hand ; that yearning of soul which views
with indulgence every error and failing in the objects
of its inextinguishable love ; which inflicts chastisement
with more sorrow than the culprit suffers it ; which
thinks of the pang it has inflicted almost with self-
reproach; which asks for reconciliation with a pas-
32 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
sionate desire, which no sullenness and no obstinacy
can overcome; which not only smiles with benignant
complacency upon every effort to obey, but exaggerates
every symptom of affection which it fancies it still sees
in the ungrateful child who has cast off the yoke of
authority, and wandered forth from his father's house;
which cannot cast him off when the world, wearied out
at last with his falsehood and his vices, has closed
every door to him ; which, on the slightest symptom of
returning sense of duty and affection, impatiently rushes
to meet him, and will not hear those sobs of a broken
heart which it breaks a father's heart to listen to ; which
cuts short even the short confession of error and guilt
that sincere penitence longs to utter, and seals the lips
that would make it with a kiss of all-forgetting love :
such traits as these are freely attributed to God, " the
Father of our spirits," in delineations of Him drawn from
the depths of the purest, profoundest, sincerest, least
corrupted font of human emotion. In vain shall we
search for them, or anything approaching them, in the
Vedas or Koran, in the poetry or philosophy of ancient
Greece or Rome. In vain shall we search for such
texts as these : " Like as a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." " He knoweth
our frame ; He remembereth that we are dust." " Is
Ephraim My dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since
I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him
still." " Thou hast had compassion on the gourd for
which thou didst not labour, neither madest it grow ;
and should not I have compassion on this great city, in
vii.] of Scripture Style. 303
which are more than three-score thousand persons who
know not their right hand from their left ? " " Can a
woman forget her sucking child, that she should not
have compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, she
may forget: yet will not I forget thee." " And while
he was yet a great way off, his father saw him,
and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck
and kissed him ; " and said, " Bring forth the best
robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his
hand and shoes on his feet ; and kill the fatted calf,
and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead,
but is alive again ; he was lost, and is found." " Son,
thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It
was meet that we should make merry and be glad, for
this thy brother was dead and is alive again ; he was
lost and is found." Such are a very few of the ex-
pressions which may serve to illustrate this point.
In our Lord's teaching, who came to make known
to us the " Father," this free use of analogies is appro-
priately emphatic. As it was said of Socrates that he
brought down philosophy from the skies, to dwell
with men, it may be said with yet greater truth of
Christ, that He brought God Himself down from
cloudy abstractions into the sphere of human appre-
hension and human affection.
If He would have us trust in Divine Providence
for the supply of our wants, it is because our heavenly
Father " knoweth that we have need of such things ;"
if He would have us confide in that minute care which,
like that of the human parent, thinks nothing little that
304 On Certain Peculiarities [LECT.
affects the welfare of those who are its objects, He
tells us that " the hairs of our heads are all numbered,
and that not even " a sparrow can fall to the ground "
without the cognizance and permission of our heavenly
Father. If He would have us forgiving and forbearing,
it is because our Father has compassion on the ungrate-
ful and disobedient, for He " makes His sun to shine
on the evil and the good, and sends His rain upon the
just and the unjust." If He would encourage us to ask
boldly what we need from the all-bestowing bounty, He
tells us that, " evil " as we are, we know by an unerring
instinct how to "give good gifts to our children; " and
how much more will our heavenly Father give them
to His ? " If the son of any of you that is a father,
ask bread, will he give him a stone ? or if he ask a
fish, will he give him a scorpion ? If ye then, being
evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give good
gifts to them that ask Him ? " In His comprehensive
model of all prayer, the invocation is not to the Infinite,
the Holy, the Just, the Wise, but to " our Father in
heaven." When He rose from the dead, His first
announcement to the disciples was the renewed recog-
nition of the same relation : " I ascend to my Father
and to your Father; to my God and to your God."
In brief, no small portion of that pathos in which, as
I have said, the Bible abounds above all other books,
is found in the various manifestations of the paternal
character of God, by which He would seem intent
on subduing both that dread which results from our
VIL] of Scripture Style. 305
sense of guilt, and that intellectual apathy which is
the equally certain effect of the bare contemplation of
His abstract perfections. All these illustrations are
drawn so freely from the depths of our own nature
from that parental heart which He Himself inspired
with its passionate and unquenchable love, that no
self-despairing, forlorn child of pollution and misery,
is without ample warrant to come in his rags and deep
poverty the effect and sign of his transgression
and, breaking through the cloud of doubt and dis-
trust which the sense of infinite purity and the awe
of illimitable power and wisdom might interpose, to
cast himself, though it be with burning shame and
blinding tears, into those loving arms, which he is
assured, in accents and by arguments so infinitely
touching, are ever open to receive him.
21
LECTURE VIII.
ON THE EXCEPTIONAL POSITION OF THE BIBLE
IN THE WORLD.
LECTURE VIII.
ON THE EXCEPTIONAL POSITION OF THE BIBLE IN THE
WORLD.
[~ T is not a little paradoxical that amidst the wreck
*- of the many nations by which the Jews were
surrounded some of them incomparably mightier than
themselves they, and they alone, should have suc-
ceeded in preserving copious and continuous written
memorials of themselves. The passion for durable
monuments was certainly strong enough in Egypt and
Assyria, as the pyramids and gigantic wrecks of
architecture prove ; and not less perhaps those mum-
mies of the former country, by which it was sought
to make even " evanescence immortal.'* But the
Hebrews, and they alone, seem to have learned the
higher art of " embalming " the spirit, the thought,
the laws, in a word, all that constitutes the life of
a nation. While the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Baby-
lonian monarchies have perished, so that their "me-
morials " for the most part have perished too, or are
being reclaimed in tattered fragments, as the " huge
drag" of the antiquary (casually, and at intervals of
centuries,) brings them up; while the hieroglyphics
of Egypt, and the inscriptions of Nineveh and Per-
3io On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
sepolis, still provoke, and, for the most part, still baffle
the sagacity of the most accomplished scholarship,
which, with all its efforts, can but imperfectly explore
the mystic characters, and often fails to convince the
world that it has truly deciphered them ; the Jews,
an utterly insignificant nation compared with those
just named insignificant in arts and arms, in wealth
and population, in civilisation and refinement have
handed down a record of the history and fortunes of
their race from remote ages ; not in vague symbols,
but by means of an alphabetic notation ; in charac-
ters clearly decipherable, and in a language, the
grammar and syntax of which are as regular and
intelligible as those of Greek and Latin. Whether
their annals contain truth or fable, or how much of
either, is not now the question. I am speaking
merely of the fact, that they alone have consigned
to us (what the far greater surrounding nations, nay,
that whole ancient world with which their elder history
is involved, either never had, or were never able to
keep) their annals and their language.
It is certainly no abatement of the mystery that this
nation would appear to have had very little literature,
and has seemingly conserved nearly all that it had ;
while the written records possessed by the other na-
tions connected with their fortunes (and they certainly
inscribed much on stone and metal, whether they had
books or not) have as hopelessly gone into oblivion as
the score of Roman authors who lived between Cato the
Censor and Augustus, or even as the still earlier utterly
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 311
unknown annalists, in whom the later Roman his-
torians groped for the materials of their narrative.
If a fragment like that of the " Moabite Stone " comes
to light once in a thousand years, it awakens the as-
tonishment of the learned world. Even this, however,
is clearly read only by the light of the chronicles of the
Jews, to the antiquity of whose language it bears
witness, and the credibility of whose history it in some
measure confirms. But it exhibits still more conspi-
cuously, by contrast, the difference between the copious
and well-preserved records of which the Jews can boast
and the scanty relics of the surrounding nations. The
little ark of the Jewish literature still floats above the
surges of time, while mere fragments of the wrecked
archives of the huge Oriental empires, as well as of the
lesser kingdoms that surrounded Judea mere " flotsam
and jetsam " are now and then cast on our distant
shores. " Time sadly overcometh all things," says Sir
Thomas Brown, " and is now dominant, and sitteth
upon a sphinx, and looketh unto Memphis and old
Thebes ; while his sister Oblivion reclineth semi-
somnous on a pyramid, gloriously triumphing, making
puzzles of Titanian inscriptions, and turning old glories
into dreams. History sinketh beneath her cloud. The
traveller, as he paceth amazedly through those deserts,
asketh of her who builded them, and she mumbleth
something, but what it is he heareth not."
This paradox of the exceptional superiority of the
Jews in this matter, is certainly not diminished by their
alleged insignificance and comparative obscurity. It is
312 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
a theme on which their enemies have been fond of
dilating, though surely not wisely ; for the greater their
obscurity and insignificance, the more difficult is it to
account for the role they have played in the world. It
would seem that they have done, and done effectually,
what their far greater neighbours, more enterprising,
more populous, more civilized, either never attempted
or could not achieve, that of inscribing, on more
durable forms than brass or marble, a continuous
narrative of their history and fortunes, which " Time
and Oblivion " should not be able to " overcome.'*
If these records really contain a contemporary or
nearly contemporary account of the events they describe,
this singular nation has anticipated, without knowing
it, that canon which modern criticism has established
as the true condition of all reliable history. Niebuhr,
indeed, while contending for the fabulous quality of
so much ancient history, and perhaps in his icono-
clastic zeal using the sponge too freely, flattered himself
that it was possible for critical sagacity to divine to a
great extent what the past has been, and, by cautiously
treading in the footsteps of tradition, to ascertain what
no contemporary documents vouch for. Too many of
his countrymen have essayed this perilous task of
manufacturing history, or interpreting what ancient
tradition " drowsily mumbles; " but one cannot but feel
with Dean Milman in this matter. Speaking of the
too common modern fashion of making history without
historic materials, he says : " I confess that I have not
much sympathy for this not making bricks without
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 313
straw but making bricks entirely of straw, and offering
them as solid materials." 1 That accomplished scholar,
Sir George Cornewall Lewis, in his great work on the
credibility of the early Roman history, has sufficiently
confuted this error, and shown that for distant periods
there can be no authentic history without written
documents. The Jews would seem to have acted
(ignorant as they were) on that condition ; and whether
their books be proved ancient and authentic, or com-
paratively modern, they at least come before the bar of
criticism with books of their own. They have com-
posed and preserved records which time could not
destroy, and which the whole world is now resolved
"not willingly to let die."
What still adds to the singularity of the case is, that
if the Jews can thus point to their written treasures,
while time has confiscated those of contemporary
antiquity, those records also contain express declara-
tions that the great nations immediately surrounding
them should thus be " overcome of time and oblivion,"
and pass away without a history. Of the great
monarchies whose history is more or less connected
with that of the Jews, it is declared that they should
be destroyed, and their memorials and monuments
perish. A few passages to this effect have been
already alluded to in a previous lecture for another
purpose, and it is not necessary to repeat them, or to
add to them, for they are familiar to all. I do not
1 " History of the Jews." Preface to New Edition. 1866. p. 25.
See also p. 23.
314 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
appeal to these declarations as prophecy, for that would
depend on when they were written ; but few critics
would deny that they were written some time before
the final desolation of the countries and cities to
which they apply. They are here mentioned merely
as illustrating the exceptional destiny of the Jewish
people; that they not only had memorials which the
above-named nations had not, but ventured to declare
that these other and often greater nations should have
none !
On the hypothesis that the Hebrew records had
more than a human origin ; that they were designed
to embody, in gradual and successive disclosures,
a Divine revelation to the world, accommodated to
the various stages of its history, and illustrative
of the great principles of God's moral government ;
that the Jews were to be the depositaries of the
elementary truths and principles which were else-
where and everywhere buried under superstition and
idolatry; it is not of course surprising that this nation
should thus possess, and so wonderfully preserve, their
national history and its written records ; or that Scrip-
ture has conformed, without its authors being aware
of it, to the conditions on which, by a law of necessity
(as modern criticism declares), the safe transmission
of facts to distant epochs is suspended. This would
account, indeed, for the anomalous fact on which I am
commenting; but I must not take such solution for
granted. Let the fact then simply pass for one of
the many curious facts on which I am insisting
vin.] of the Bible in the World. 315
one of the innumerable proofs of the unique character
and position of the Bible.
It does not diminish the singularity of which I am
here speaking it merely shifts it to suppose, after
the favourite method of modern rationalism, that the
historic records of the Jews were not contemporary
with the events described, nor compiled from trust-
worthy annals that were so ; but late compilations
of unknown authors. It has been not unreasonably
surmised that this theory would not have been sug-
gested, except by considerations altogether foreign to
the evidence, whether external or internal ; for the
stress of both is the other way. But it does not
abate the singularity of the fact now insisted on,
though it transfers the paradox to another point.
For (as already insisted on) is it credible that a
bundle of fictions thrust wholesale into the middle of
the history of a nation, could or would be accepted
by that nation as its true history ? Could it re-
ceive a rationale of its national existence of its
laws and institutions of which their fathers had
no consciousness and left no record ; and all, too,
without a murmur, denial, or remonstrance ? Could
a series of romances pass into the most intense
historic belief, and the whole nation be so pro-
foundly ignorant or so unanimous in fraud as not to
mutter a word of doubt or suspicion ? And, lastly,
would it so act in favour of fictions, which so far
from flattering the humour or exalting the character
of the nation, are, if fictions, terrible libels upon
316 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
it ? But on this I have said enough in a previous
lecture. 1
Thus this theory is beset with difficulties ; but even
if it were true, it admits that paradoxical position
of the Jewish records of which I am here speaking.
For even supposing the earliest of these records was
unknown till the days of Solomon (and few ration-
alists would go so far down), and the latest extant four
hundred years before the Christian era, the Jews would
still have had a series of national memoirs and a
national literature which the other countries about
them Moab and Edom, Assyria and Babylon never
had or always lost.
We are struck with another anomaly, or rather a
knot of anomalies, when we come to consider the
various modes and the extraordinary degree in
which the Bible, as compared with any other book
sacred or profane, has stimulated the intellect and
energy, and attracted the love and veneration of men.
It will be seen, I think, as we follow the argument into
its details, that on the supposition that this book is a
fortuitous collection of tracts, composed by men who
belonged to a nation in many respects among the most
insignificant, and certainly among the most despised,
on the face of the earth a nation that is chiefly
distinguished by the degree in which these writings
have extorted the homage of mankind their pro-
digious influence is not a little curious. It adds to
1 See ante, pp. 50-53.
VIIL] of the Bible in the World. 317
the difficulty, that all subsequent literary productions
of this nation have been characterised by no special
excellence ; in fact, are rather below than above the
average merit of other literatures. Indeed, the pro-
ductions of Jewish Rabbis are generally such as to
engender a natural suspicion that, since they did no
better, even with such models for imitation before
them, no such powers as theirs unaided could have
produced books which have so arrested the attention
of an alien world. Nearly all else that the Jews
have written men willingly leave in obscurity. On
these books alone they concentrate their regards.
These books make a volume of no very great size.
In hundreds of cases the " Opera Omnia" of single
authors have contained many tirries the bulk of all the
tractates of this book put together, and have not
seldom included among them works which rank among
the choicest productions of human genius genius
that had deserved and secured the applause of man-
kind. But in no one of these cases can the in-
fluence exerted on the world be for a moment com-
pared with that of this volume, as measured by the
facts to which I am about to refer.
Among these facts, I will not insist on the ab-
solute self-surrender, the passionate love, this book
has inspired in' the thousands and tens of thousands
who have laid down their lives, or been ready to lay
them down, rather than consent to renounce it, or ab-
jure the faith it has taught them. I will not insist on
the long array of martyrs who have sealed their testi-
318 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
mony to their vehement zeal for it, and intense belief
in it, with their blood. I am persuaded, indeed,
that the influence of the Bible (or, which comes to
much the same thing), of the religion it teaches and
enjoins, is, even in this point of view, unique, whether
we consider among how many different nations and
communities, and through what a long succession of
ages, this self-sacrifice has been demanded and re-
peated, or contemplate the character of the martyrs
themselves. The phenomenon is quite independent
of race, culture, tradition, national characteristics;
while the character of the martyrs the Bible has
so often inspired, has been the same, of a type
wholly different from that of the devotees of other
religions. To suffer in majestic patience, in silent
meekness, with forgiveness on their lips, and, as far
as can be discerned, in their hearts, has been the
characteristic of thousands of Christian martyrs since
that hour in which their Great Exemplar prayed
on the cross for His murderers. The style of such a
martyr differs from that of the soldier-martyr of Islam,
who died for his prophet with all those impetuous
passions which, in the fierce eagerness of battle,
quench fear and dull pain, as much as " the lamb led
to the slaughter " differs from the lion who casts himself
in rage on the spear of the hunter. Polycarp and
Huss, the martyrs of Lyons, of the Vaudois, of the
Malagasy in our own day, are no more like the Fakirs
of India swinging on their hook, or devotees casting
themselves under the wheels of Juggernaut, than
VIIL] of the Bible in the World. 319
Howard dying of prison fever resembles the vulgar
suicide.
But I will not insist on this. Such is undoubtedly
the strength even of the perverted spirit of religion in
human nature, and such also the power of human pas-
sion, that it is too. possible even for the most degrading
superstitions to point to those who have been willing
martyrs for them. And in this respect, the worst, as
well as the best of religions, bear witness to the depth
and indomitable energy of those principles of our nature
on which religion is founded ; principles far mightier
than any which usually prompt men to attach them-
selves to any schools of politics or philosophy. This is
a fact which, if duly dwelt upon, would make men
despair of uprooting these principles of our nature, and,
instead of attempting it, render them solely intent on
discovering what religion is the true. There is scarcely
a religion, however " beggarly " its " elements," that
cannot point to more willing martyrs for it, simply
because it is a religion, than philosophy or science
could ever boast.
Without, therefore, conceding that the various mani-
festations and characteristics of the martyr-spirit the
Bible has inspired, furnish no argument in favour of the
perfectly unique influence it has exerted, or might not
be enumerated among the many paradoxes involved in
the theory of its purely human origin, I waive it. For
the same reason, I as little insist upon the mere numbers
it has succeeded in persuading of its Divine claims to
attention. It cannot be doubted that the adherents
320 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
of other religions, those who have sworn by the Vedas
or the Koran, may have been equally or more numerous;
mere nominal suffrages are of no avail for any system.
Let this argument, therefore, be also waived as preca-
rious; though here, too, I am persuaded that there is
no other "sacred book" in the world that can pretend
to the suffrages of so many men of great genius,
of so many intelligent and educated adherents, from
so many different races and nationalities, as those
which the Bible has extorted ; that, too, in spite of
previous prejudices, and after prolonged and patient
examination. In truth, the difficulty is to find, in the
otiose reception or rejection of other sacred books, the
traces of any severe criticism or examination at all.
But the following facts, which show the peculiar po-
sition the Bible occupies among books, and the para-
mount influence it has exerted, cannot be disputed.
i. It is curious to see how wonderfully independent
of race has been the welcome given to this book. It
has been spontaneously received (by spontaneously, I
mean as the fruit of persuasion only, and to the exclu-
sion of all political influence or military violence) by men
of far more various races and nations than any other
religious books ever have been. I have already con-
ceded that, unhappily for the Bible, those who have mis-
understood it, and therefore wronged it, have not always
refrained from the above methods (though prohibited
by itself) of extending its influence, 1 But still, during
1 It must be added that the Bible, so far from authorising these
proceedings, has itself too often been the victim of them, and
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 321
the three first centuries, the religion it teaches and the
book which embodies it made their way, without any
such questionable allies, into almost every part of the
" Orbis Romanus;" and since that time, with similar
independence of all such aid, have made similar
impressions on various heathen communities in all
quarters of the world, from Greenland to the Cape of
Good Hope, and from Otaheite to Madagascar.
Now history shows us that the progress of a religion,
apart from the fanaticism or ambition which leads men
to fight for its diffusion, is almost uniformly circum-
scribed by race and nationality; and how impassable
the barrier which these fortified by old superstitions
and the customs w r hich they consecrate oppose to
it. It is almost impossible, in ordinary cases, to get
people to pay any attention at all to an alien reli-
gion, except as a subject of curious or learned investi-
gation ; and we should be as much astonished at any
European becoming a worshipper of Brahma by poring
over the Hindoo mythology, as at a student of Homer
becoming a devotee of Jupiter.
How is it, then, that the Bible has had so little
difficulty in transcending the bounds of race and nation-
ality? By what gift has it been capable of breaking
has been imprisoned, exiled, burnt, like its own confessors and
martyrs. Not the heathen Diocletian alone hunted down for
destruction the copies of the Scriptures. In the worst times of-
Christian, or rather Antichristian persecution, the Bible has had
to suffer its full share : whoever might be chargeable with heresy,
that was still the heretic of heretics ; and this fact is a sufficient
compurgation from the charge, sometimes made, of being an ac-
complice with the Alvas and the Bonners.
22
322 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
through the barriers which, in general, so obstinately
enclose each variety of religious belief ? An objector
may, perhaps, say it was not so with the Hebrew
Scriptures the greater half of the volume. Why, no ;
but that rather increases the wonder. The addition of
the lesser half altered the complexion and the properties
of the whole. That is so buoyant, that it bears up itself
and the mass which is attached to it, and which had
been almost as little known to the world in general as
the contents of other sacred books usually are. Those
who received the Old Testament, and accounted it to be
the inspiration of the Most High, yet followed the law
of other religionists, or nearly so ; and, for the most
part, kept their oracles to themselves. The rest of the
world followed their own law, in caring nothing about
alien oracles at all. I have had occasion to observe in
a previous lecture that the Jews, though not required to
reject proselytes far from it yet in general did little
to make them : they seem to have been only too well
pleased to think themselves the exclusive possessors
of a Divine revelation, and to hug themselves on that
superiority. If they received proselytes from among
the heathen, it was with no very genial welcome ; they
acquiesced in their occupying an inferior place in the
" Court of the Gentiles," but would have vehemently
protested against the " middle wall of partition," which
shut them off from the more sacred enclosure, being
broken down. 1 On the other hand, the Gentiles recoiled
as strongly from the Jews as the Jews from them.
1 See " Davison on Prophecy," pp. 280-82.
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 323
Both mutually repelled, instead of attracting one an-
other.
It is, therefore, not a little wonderful that the Bible,
though with its larger half in this sense a dead weight
upon it, and as little likely to pass, by spontaneous
reception, from race to race and from people to people,
as any other collection of so-called sacred books, has
found it comparatively easy to break through the bar-
riers ; and, as the ages have rolled on,, to migrate with-
out violence into new regions, and find a home among
tribes, separated by every conceivable difference of
climate, government, customs, culture, and religion,
from those which had previously accepted it ; among
the various nationalities which acknowledged the
Roman sway, and among various modern nationalities
which succeeded it ; among the conquering Goths and
other barbarians of the early centuries, and in the South
Seas, in Africa, and in Madagascar, in our own time.
Will it be said that it is because this book, alone
among sacred books, teaches a religion which is worthy
of universal reception, enjoins its universal diffusion,
and is alone capable of forming a succession of men
heroically bent on making it universal ? Doubtless, if
this be granted, the mystery is solved. This concedes
the special characteristics of the book, for which I am
contending. It is indeed unlike all other sacred books,
if so much can be said for it !
It is true, however, that this strange volume has
the power, wheresoever it got it, of prompting men to
proclaim and to propagate its contents. Whether we
22*
324 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
look at the ancient or the modern converts to it, they
are somehow instantly bent on proselytism.
2. Among other singularities of this book, if it be a
mere production of human genius, like any other book
or collection of books of the same size, may be mentioned
the prodigious literature which it has evoked. Either
it must have claims to attention altogether transcendent
to those of any other, even the greatest compositions
of human genius, in order to account for men's cease-
less activity in translating, illustrating, explaining, in-
terpreting, propagating, impugning, and defending it ;
or we must conclude that, on this one subject, no
inconsiderable portion of mankind has virtually gone
mad ; or, rather, that each successive portion of the
race, each new community or nation, that comes under
the fascination of this book, is smitten with this same
incurable bibliomania, and proceeds to do in behalf of
it, or against it, what it would never dream of doing for
or against any other books in the world, sacred or pro-
fane ! This mysterious book (the whole or parts of it)
speaks no less than two hundred languages, and is
daily learning to speak more ; that is, probably speaks
as many as any ten of the very chiefest classics of
human genius, however widely translated, put together ;
more than Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton,
Goethe, Walter Scott, put together ; far more than
the Vedas and Koran put together. In numberless
cases, again, it has allured men to do what, so far
as we know, was never done on behalf of any other
book, howsoever counted " sacred," before. It has
VHI. of the Bible in the World. 325
induced them, not only to encounter every form of peril
and the most enormous self-sacrifices, to get the mere
chance of proclaiming the substance of its contents,
but to undergo the most gigantic labours, in order to
translate it into barbarous and uncouth languages.
Nay, more ; in a score of cases it has impelled them to
submit to the more arduous preliminary drudgery of
giving a notation and visible shape to languages which
were previously but a "wandering voice," and nothing
else. This book it is that first conferred on many a
barbarous nation the wondrous art of condensing the
volatile vapour of human thought into a visible form,
taught them the first elements of those arts which are
the necessary condition of all progress and civilisation,
and opened to them the road which leads on to all the
triumphs of human intellect and national greatness.
Many such nations perhaps hereafter to be graced
by a muster-roll of names as illustrious, and achieve-
ments as great as adorn the history of our own country
may say, as she in great part must say also : " These
things we owe to some obscure missionaries, who, like
the birds that carry the seeds of forests to desert
islands, brought us the germs of all these blessings in
giving us the Bible. They first made language visible
to us ; they analysed the sounds which it represents,
expressed them in an alphabet, reduced them to gram-
matical forms, compiled a lexicon for us, opened to us
the intellectual treasures of all literature and science,
and made it possible to have a literature and science of
326 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
Meantime its translators wrought, not for the sake of
these vast collateral and adventitious benefits (however
much they may have rejoiced in them), but simply for
the book's sake itself; and would have done the work,
all the same, if they had been sure that no literature
but that one book would ever be known to the people
for whom it was translated. Such is the strange en-
thusiasm it is capable of inspiring !
Similarly, this book has probably done more to fix
and preserve the languages into which it has been
translated, to retard the progress of change and cor-
ruption, than any other single cause whatever. This
has been conspicuously a result of our own English
version.
And it is only just to remember that many languages,
which already had a written character indeed, but
were still so incrusted with barbarism as to make them
wholly unfit for the purposes of literature, have been
largely indebted to the toil of those who sought to
transfuse the contents of this book into these uncouth
vehicles for it. This has often done more to purify and
polish them, to mould them into forms which science
and poetry could deign to use, than any other single
cause. This was to a good extent the case with the
early translations into our own language and the
German. The " Kornige Sprache " of Luther's trans-
lation, as a German critic calls it, played no mean
part in the development of that language.
The passion for translating the Bible into other
tongues has been intense from the very commencement
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 327
of the Christian era, and may probably be said to have
created the taste for translation in general. The
ancients seem to have had little that was worthy of
the name. Cicero and Quintilian, indeed, speak of the
signal benefits the rhetorical student and youthful
orator may derive from frequent translation of fine
passages from the Greek into their own tongue, just
as Lord Chatham commends the same exercise to
his son, William Pitt. But the practice of syste-
matically endeavouring to import the masterpieces of
Greek literature into the Latin, or vice versa, seems
not to have been adopted in the ancient world. Nor, in
days when printing was unknown, and there was such
infinite toil and cost in making even original manu-
scripts public, is it any wonder that this sort of literary
labour was generally declined. But no such difficulties
depressed the energies of men where the Bible was
concerned. By about the middle of the second century,
there were no less than three Greek versions of the
Old Testament, in addition to the Septuagint, those
of Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus. Still earlier,
the Peshito-Syriac version, including Old and New
Testaments, was completed. About the same time it
appeared in Latin (the old Italic). It was translated
again into that language by Jerome. By the end of
the fourth century, the Scriptures were translated in
whole or in part, but certainly nearly the whole of
the New Testament, into Coptic, Sahidic, Armenian,
Ethiopic, and Gothic. Nor were the darker ages with-
out their like triumphs. In the sixth century it was
328 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
translated into Georgian ; in the ninth into the Scla-
vonic; and various translations of the Gospels and other
parts of Scripture into Anglo-Saxon, and several other
Teutonic languages, were executed at intermediate
dates. If it be said that reverence for a supposed
" sacred " book will account for all this, we must
reply ; first, reverence for other supposed " sacred "
books has never produced anything like it ; and secondly,
that if, in this case, reverence was so exceptionally
powerful, what inspired it ?
One of the most interesting books in the world to
look at, few, perhaps, except Professor Max Miiller,
and two or three other accomplished linguists like him,
can read more than a few pages of it, is the hand-
some quarto volume entitled "The Bible of every
Land;" in which beautifully printed typographical
specimens are given of the multitudinous versions of
the Bible in all their variety of alphabetic characters.
It is impossible to inspect it without feeling what
stupendous (and if the Bible be not more to the world
than the Koran or the Vedas, Homer or Plato), what
utterly disproportionate and wasteful toil man has
foolishly expended on this one volume !
How much more must we feel this in contemplating
the enormous masses of literature to which it has given
birth ! This one book, not more than the three-hundreth
part of the extant Greek and Roman literature, has
probably attracted to it, and concentrated upon it,
more thought, and probably produced more works,
explanatory, illustrative, apologetic, upon its text,
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 329
its exegesis, its doctrines, its history, its geography,
ethnology, chronology, and evidences, than all the
Greek and Roman literature put together. There is
scarcely a tractate in it, however short, that has not
had more pains expended upon it than many even of
the mere voluminous ancient writers. In walking
through any great library, in inspecting any large
catalogue (as that of the British Museum, or the
Bodleian), one is astonished at the immense bulk of
literature which, either directly or indirectly, owes
its origin to this one book. It is surprising to see
how large a portion of the huge London Catalogue
is made up of books which, had it not been for this
one, would never have had an existence !
And now, endeavouring for a moment to place my-
self in the point of view of those who regard this book
as a simple collection of tractates, written by a number
of obscure men, of no greater actual endowments than
those possessed by many others (often their equals,
sometimes their superiors), and all of them, with
perhaps one exception, 1 belonging to one of the most
despised of human communities, I am lost in amaze-
ment at that insanity (I can call it, on that hypothesis,
by no other name) which has kept the most diverse
nations, but always those in the very van of all science,
learning, and civilisation, thus everlastingly poring
over this book; illustrating, interpreting, attacking,
defending it ; thinking no pains too great to be be-
stowed even on its least significant parts, and deeming
1 1 refer to Luke ; but even that is doubtful.
33 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
it of more importance to prosecute this task than to
give themselves to the like labours on the very chef-
d'ceuvres of human genius.
The " Propaganda" for this book is a phenomenon
we should in vain seek in the case of any other
books, sacred or profane. The Bible Society, for ex-
ample, may be a fanatical organisation ; but fanaticism
never evoked anything like it in behalf of any other
book, however revered as presumed to be inspired, or
admired as pre-eminently instinct with human genius.
I observe that during the year 1872-73 no less than
2,592,936 copies of the whole Bible, or large portions of
it, were issued by the Society. Now, the " Publishers'
Circular" tells us that last year (1872) 4814 works
of all kinds, including pamphlets (not sermons), and
reprints, were published in London ; and if we sup-
pose each impression to average 1000 copies (rather
a liberal allowance, and perhaps only too flattering to
most authors), then the copies of this one old book
issued in London, exceeded the half of all the copies
of the new and old books of the year put together ! z
A library made up of all the books which have been
written solely in defence of the Bible, would be an im-
posing spectacle. About a century and a half ago the
1 One does not readily imagine Euclid to be, in any sense, more
popular than Homer or Virgil ; or that his Geometry has had a
larger circulation than the Iliad or ^Eneid. Yet it was certainly the
fact for some generations after the revival of letters. So De Morgan
assures us in his admirable Life of the Old Greek Geometer, in-
serted in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography. But as
he truly says, if all other books may be challenged to rival Euclid
in circulation, the Bible must still be excepted.
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 331
great Fabricius gave a Catalogue Raisonne of all the
books that had been, directly or indirectly, evoked in
defence of Christianity down to his time. Though not
exhaustive (some pages, however, are occupied with
other subjects), it forms a quarto of more than seven
hundred pages. I apprehend that, by this time, a simi-
lar work would extend to at least three times the bulk. 1
Equally striking, in some respects, would be the
spectacle of all those works which have been written,
more or less, against the book; in general confutation
of its claims, or against some of its principal facts and
evidences. The volumes thus written for the purpose
of correcting men's eccentric love and veneration for it
(eccentric on the hypothesis of its merely human origin),
showing either that it is substantially incredible, or,
like other books, a mixture of wisdom and folly, would
form a library of no inconsiderable bulk. If collected
from the earliest times (beginning with the fragments
of Celsus and Porphyry) to the present day, they would
occupy far more than a thousand times the space of the
one volume against which they are directed ; and would
certainly be much more numerous than all the works
that all other " sacred " books ever had the honour of
provoking either for or against them.
If all these books were placed in one library, and this
single one set on a table in the middle of it, and a
stranger were told that this book, affirmed to be, for
1 "Jo. Albert! Fabricii Delectus Argumentorum et Syllabus Scrip-
torum Veterum Recentiumque qui Veritatem Religionis Christiana
asseruerunt." 4to. Hamburg. 1725.
332 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
the most part, the work of a number of unlearned
and obscure men belonging to a despised nation called
the Jews, had drawn upon itself, for its exposure, con-
futation, and destruction, this multitude of volumes, I
imagine he would be inclined to say: " Then, I pre-
sume this little book was annihilated long ago ; though
how it could be needful to write a thousandth part so
much, for any such purpose, I cannot comprehend. For
if the book be what these authors say, surely it should
not be very difficult to show it to be so ; and if so,
what wonderful madness to write all these volumes ! " x
How surprised would he then be to learn that they were
felt not to be enough; that similar works were being
multiplied every day, and never more actively than at
the present time ; and still to no purpose in disabusing
mankind of this same phrenzy ! He would learn,
indeed, that so far from accomplishing the object, the
new volumes are little more than necessary to replace
those of this fruitful, yet fruitless literature, which are
continually sinking into oblivion ; 2 a fate which may
1 If he were asked, " Do you find, then, that error and prejudice
are so easily dispelled ? Do not men cling with inexpressible
tenacity to any system consecrated by custom ? " He would pro-
bably say, " Yes ; but then such systems have never had a
thousandth part of the same energies directed against them which
this prodigious array of controversial volumes implies. Usually
we have otiose assent on one side, and laws prohibiting all .dis-
cussion on the other ! "
2 "Who," said Burke, nearly a century ago, of a whole library
of this literature, " who, born within the last forty years, has read
one word of Collins, and Toland, and Tindal, and Chubb, and
Morgan, and that whole race who called themselves Freethinkers ?
Who now reads Bolingbroke? Who ever read him through ? Ask
the booksellers of London what has become of all these lights
of the world." Burke's Reflections. Works. Vol. v. p. 172.
vjti.] of the Bible in the World. 333
be said, perhaps, with almost equal truth, to await
the new works written in its defence. A large mass of
these, too, pass every age out of sight, or are known
only to the literary student.
But the volume itself survives both friends and
foes. Without being able to speak one word on its
own behalf, but what it has already said ; without any
power of explanation or rejoinder, in deprecation of the
attacks made upon it, or to assist those who defend it ;
it passes along the ages in majestic silence. Impassive
amidst all this tumult of controversy, in which it takes
no part, it might be likened to some great ship floating
down a mighty river like the Amazon or Orinoco,
the shores of which are inhabited by various savage
tribes. From every little creek -or inlet, from every
petty port or bay, sally flotillas of canoes, some seem-
ingly friendly and some seemingly hostile, filled with
warriors in all the terrors of war paint, and their
artillery of bows and arrows. They are hostile tribes,
and soon turning their weapons against one another,
assail each other with great fury and mutual loss.
Meantime the noble vessel silently moves on through
the scene of confusion, without deigning to alter its
course or to fire a shot : perhaps here and there a
seaman casts a compassionate glance from the lofty
bulwarks, and wonders at the hardihood of those who
come to assail his leviathan.
In spite, and perhaps, indeed, in consequence of
these attacks (M. Kenan's " Vie de Jesus " in particular
is said to have had this effect in France), the book is
334 n the Exceptional Position [LECT.
more and more widely diffused, every year multiplies
its copies, and every year speaks some new language.
3. It may be said, further, that there is no other book,
and I think I might say no other ten books, that have
left so many or so deep traces on human literature ;
none that are so often cited or alluded to ; none which
have supplied so much matter for apt illustration, or
been so often resorted to for its vivid imagery and
energetic diction. It has lived on the page, not merely
of great divines such as Barrow or Jeremy Taylor ; in
such cases, though genius might be stimulated by the
literary beauties of the book, reverence for it, and
familiarity with it, might be thought to account for so
frequent and spontaneous a use of it. But the remark
is applicable to modern literature generally, on which
the traces of the influence of this book are incompar-
ably deeper and more legible than those left by any
other single volume.
None but those who have been in the habit of
inspecting the best portions of modern literature, with
the express view of tracing the influence of the Bible
upon it, can have any adequate idea of the extent to
which it has moulded thought and sentiment, or given
strength or grace to expression. Its literary excellencies
in general have insensibly extorted the homage and
tinged the style of the greatest masters of eloquence
and poetry, with little reference to the degree in which
they yielded to its claims on their reveres^, and in
many cases though they rejected ;:iose claims alto-
VIIL] of the Bible in the World. 335
gether. Its apophthegms, its examples, its historic
illustrations of human life and character, its moral
maxims, its lessons of conduct, its vivid and intense
imagery, come spontaneously to the lips, as more
exactly or forcibly expressing thought and feeling than
anything found elsewhere. x
In reperusing lately some of the greatest masters of
prose, Bacon, Milton, Cowper, Macaulay, expressly
with a view to this subject, I have been surprised to
note how often, when struggling to give emphasis to
their thought, or to intensify a feebler expression of it,
they have laid hold unconsciously, as it were, of Scrip-
ture phrase or metaphor.
In Bacon's Essays, in his " Novum Organum " and
his " De Augmentis," one is perpetually struck with
the felicity with which passages of Scripture are intro-
duced, and, in the two last works, where one would
little expect them. As to Shakespeare, no less than
three works have been expressly written to trace the
1 Such, indeed, is its comprehensiveness of meaning, and so
various its susceptibility of application, that it perpetually
tempts wit and humour (by no means always or generally with
a profane intent) to resort to it for illustration, albeit the occasions
on which its language comes so pat to the lips may often seem
light and trivial. The religious mind, which regards the book as
the book of God, may be somewhat scandalised (not without reason)
by this too familiar use of it ; but it at all events bears testimony to
the force, aptness, and plasticity of the language of Scripture. In
reading some of our principal daily papers, during my preparation
of these lectures, I have been much struck with the frequency with
which the writers have quoted clauses or sentences of the Bible
its historic parallels or its proverbial wisdom not lightly or
irreverently or in mockery, but evidently as the most apt and ex-
pressive for the purpose.
33 6 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
influence of the Bible on his genius and writings.
The matchless energy x of Milton's diction in many
parts of his prose writings is in no slight degree due
to the use he has made of Scripture. In that lofty
passage in the "Animadversions on the Remonstrant's
Defence," conceived in the very spirit of the Hebrew
poetry, in which, pledging himself for his immortal
poem, he says, "And he that now for haste snatches
up a plain ungarnished present as a thank-offering
to Thee, may then perhaps take up a harp and sing
Thee an elaborate song to generations," -in that
most splendid passage, some phrase or clause of the
Scripture adds energy to almost every line. It is a
wonderful mosaic indeed, but a mosaic still.
Carlyle's book on the French Revolution even were
its defects as a history all that the most unfriendly critic
would make them out to be will be confessed by all to
be one of the most graphic in our own or any other lan-
guage. Now it is curious to see how often, in describing
1 In this quality of style, many single passages of Milton's prose
writings are unmatched in English literature. In spite of his long
involved periods, which, though Coleridge might admire them for
their " majestic march and complex harmony," are certainly a sole-
cism in our language, and ' in spite of his pedantic coinage of
Latinized words, which made Hobbes profanely call his style
" a Babylonish jargon," he has often risen to an energy which is
only to be paralleled in Demosthenes or the Bible. Redundant
as are his Latinisms, he had an absolute mastery of the raciest
and most sinewy Saxon English. It has been said of Shakespeare
that had he not been the Prince of Dramatists, he might have
been the Prince of Orators. Perhaps it might be said of Milton
with equal justice, that if he had not rivalled Homer, he might,
if he had cultivated his oratorical powers, not fallen far short of
Demosthenes ; at all events, in energy.
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 337
the scenes of his tremendous "Trilogy of Tragedies,"
fragments of Scripture language come unbidden to his
pen, as the best and most forcible he can employ.
In reperusing the work recently, for the very pur-
pose of ascertaining the degree in which phrases are
interwoven, and examples and illustrations cited, from
the Bible, I could not help being struck with their
frequency. In truth, however, it is no wonder; for it
is not possible to imagine any phraseology more exactly
adapted to express the lurid sublimity, or point the
terrible moral, of the scenes he describes, than that
which the "Law and the Prophets" often launch
against communities that have " sown the wind, and
shall reap the whirlwind ; " that, being incurably cor-
rupt, are threatened with being "swept away with the
besom of destruction ; " and yet, deaf to warning and
chastisement, persist in "treasuring up wrath against
the day of wrath." There is no book in the world in
which the inevitable doom which waits on guilt, let
its seeming security be what it may, is so vividly set
forth as in the Bible ; none that so energetically pro-
claims that " thrones are established only in righteous-
ness," and that nothing else can permanently " exalt
a nation."
"There never was," says Carlyle somewhere, or
to this effect, for I quote from memory, " any book
like the Bible, and there never will be such another."
"Read to me," said the dying Scott to his son-in-law.
"What book shall I read to you?" said Lockhart.
"Can you ask me?" was the reply. "There is but
23
338 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
one;" and bade him read a chapter in the Gospel
of John. "This collection of books," says Theodore
Parker, in a passage of great eloquence, " has taken
such hold of the world as no other. The literature
of Greece, which goes up like incense from that
land of temples and heroic deeds, has not half the
influence of this book from a nation despised alike
in ancient and in modern times. ... It goes
equally to the cottage of the plain man and the
palace of the king. It is woven into the literature of
the scholar, and colours the talk of the streets. It
enters men's closets, mingles in all the grief and
cheerfulness of life. The Bible attends men in sick-
ness, when the fever of the world is on them. . . .
It is the better part of our sermons ; it lifts man above
himself. Our best of uttered prayers are in its storied
speech, wherewith our fathers and the patriarchs
prayed. The timid man, about to wake from his dream
of life, looks through the glass of Scripture, and his
eye grows bright ; he does not fear to stand alone,
to tread the way unknown and distant, to take the
death angel by the hand, and bid farewell to wife and
babes and home. . . . Some thousand famous
writers come up in this century to be forgotten in the
next. But the silver cord of the Bible is not loosed,
nor its golden bowl broken, as Time chronicles his
tens of centuries passed by." 1
1 The following striking admissions of Professor Huxley, which
[ read with equal surprise and pleasure, as to the marvellous
qualities of the Bible, show what impressions it is capable of
making on a candid mind, however sceptical of its Divine origin ;
vui.] of the Bible in the World. 339
To these testimonies it were easy to add many more
some of them from men wholly sceptical as to any
and many similar testimonies might be added to his. But surely all
who think with him ought to enter deeply into the question Whence
has this one volume this singular, and altogether exceptional
ascendency, over the human mind ? "I have always," says Pro-
fessor Huxley, "been strongly in favour of secular education,
in the sense of education without theology; but I must con-
fess I have been no less seriously perplexed to know by what
practical measures the religious feeling, which is the essential
basis of conduct, was to be kept up, in the present utterly chaotic
state of opinion on these matters, without the use of the Bible.
The pagan moralists lack life and colour, and even the noble Stoic,
Marcus Antoninus, is too high and refined for an ordinary child.
Take the Bible as a whole ; make the severest deductions which
fair criticism can dictate for shortcomings and positive errors ;
eliminate, as a sensible lay teacher would do, if left to himself,
all that it is not desirable for children to occupy themselves with ;
and there still remains in this old literature a vast residuum of
moral beauty and grandeur. And then consider the great his-
torical fact that, for three centuries, this book has been woven into
the life of all that is best and noblest in English history ; that it
has become the national epic of Britain, and is familiar to noble
and simple, from John o' Groat's house to Land's End, as Dante
and Tasso were once to the Italians ; that it is written in the
noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties
of a merely literary form ; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind
who never left his village to be ignorant of the existence of other
countries and other civilizations, and of a great past, stretching
back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations in the world. By
the study of what other book could children be so much humanized,
and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession
fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between
two eternities ; and earns the blessings or the curses of all time,
according to its effort to do good and hate evil, even as they also
are earning their payment for their work ?
" And if Bible reading is not accompanied by constraint and
solemnity, as if it were a sacramental operation, I do not believe
there is anything in which children take more pleasure. At least
I know that some of the pleasantest recollections of my childhood
are connected with the voluntary study of an ancient Bible which
belonged to my grandmother. There were splendid pictures in it,
to be sure ; but I recollect little or nothing about them, save
23 *
34-O On the Exceptional Position
superhuman claims of the Bible on our reverence or
belief. I am far from charging them with any in-
sincerity, either in what they admit or in what they
deny ; but I would fain ask, What must be the qualities
of the Bible, coming " from a nation alike despised in
ancient and modern times," and whence did it get
them, that could prevail on men like these, men of
capacious minds, the acutest reason, adorned with all
that culture and taste could bestow, to speak of the
Bible in terms they never would dream of applying to
any other book or books whatsoever?
I would not be misunderstood. I can easily fancy
the derisive smile with which those who will not be
at the trouble of considering what degree of impor-
tance is attributed to each variable element in a com-
plex argument like the present, may say : " This writer
seems to think that because great authors have used the
Bible for purposes of illustration more frequently than
other books ; because it has, no doubt, deeply tinctured
the literature of the ages and nations familiar with it,
a portrait of the high priest in his vestments. What comes vividly
back on my mind are remembrances of my delight in the histories
of Joseph and of David; and of my keen appreciation of the
chivalrous kindness of Abraham in his dealings with Lot. Like
a sudden flash there returns back upon me my utter scorn of the
pettifogging meanness of Jacob, and my sympathetic grief over the
heartbreaking lamentation of the cheated Esau, ' Hast thou not
a blessing for me also, O my father ? ' And I see, as in a cloud,
pictures of the grand phantasmagoria of the book of Revelations.
" I enumerate, as they issue, the childish impressions which come
crowding out of the pigeon-holes in my brain, in which they have
lain almost undisturbed for forty years. I prize them as an evidence
that a child of five or six years old, left to his own devices, may be
deeply interested in the Bible, and draw sound moral sustenance
from it." Contemporary Review, Dec. 1870 (pp. 14, 15).
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 341
that therefore it must be inspired, and of supernatural
origin ! " Not so. I mention the fact merely as one
of the "thousand and one" paradoxical facts insisted
upon in these lectures. It is, I think, a strange thing,
that one moderately-sized book (if it be no more than
the hypothesis of a purely human, and that a Jewish,
origin assumes it to be) should have left wider and
deeper traces of itself on modern literature than any
dozen of the chef-d'ceuvres of human genius which
grace fhat literature, and pre-eminently on many of
those chef-d'&uvres themselves. Surely it is a curious
phenomenon; but it is only one of many which beset
us in considering the peculiarities and the exceptional
character and fortunes of this singular volume.
Should it be said again, " All this is accounted for by
the reverence which it has somehow inspired ; " in part, I
grant it. But on the hypothesis I am proceeding upon,
the purely human, and that, too, the Jewish-human,
origin of the book, whence this profound reverence ?
How should the book have inspired it, and why should
the world feel it? Either the Bible is invested with
the properties which give it this pre-eminence, or it is
not. If it is, whence, considering its source, did it get
them ? If not, how came the world to invest it with
them?
I say then it is curious that, supposing the book to
be the unaided product of men, far less endowed by
nature than many writers of Greece, Rome, France,
England, or Germany, and inferior in culture and
education, it should have exerted greater influence,
343 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
and left deeper traces on literature than any one, or
any five, or any ten writers of all these countries put
together. It is a curious phenomenon ; curious, I say;
not a proof that the Bible may not be merely
human, but one of the many paradoxes which, on
that hypothesis, compel us to ask, as the Jews
concerning Christ, " Whence hath this book all this
wisdom ?"
4. Similar observations, with similar cautions as to
the precise argumentative value attached to it, will
apply to the inordinate influence of this book, as
compared with any other, on the imaginations of men,
especially as seen in poetry, sculpture, painting,
and music. Though genius has had all the resources
of Greek and Roman story to resort to (and has pro-
fusely used them), to say nothing of that far ampler
field which the annals of the last eighteen centuries
have opened to it, no cycle of incidents and events,
equally limited with that of the Bible, has stimu-
lated genius in anything approaching the degree in
which the scenes of the Bible have stimulated it.
Every event of any importance in its records has
been again and again the theme of painting or music.
The greatest masters in each of these arts seem
never weary of embodying ideas which have been
thus suggested to them. The inimitable word-paint-
ing of Scripture, its graphic narratives, its poetry
and pathos, seem an inexhaustible fount of inspira-
tion to the painter; while every group of events of
importance has been made the subject of some great
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 343
oratorio, on which Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven,
and Mendelsshon have lavished all the gifts of their
genius. Not only has this book been resorted to more
frequently than any other book, as furnishing themes to
pictorial, poetical, and musical genius ; but, in general,
the chef-d'czuvres of modern art are those which this book
has inspired. The greatest paintings of Raphael and
Michael Angelo are to be traced to it ; the greatest
modern epic, the only one that is worthy to be com-
pared with those of Homer and Virgil, and the greatest
musical creation by many degrees the " Messiah"
both have for their theme the great theme of the Bible.
Which work is the greater effort of genius it is hard
to say. They are so akin, that whether Milton be
called the Handel of poetry, or Handel the Milton of
music, little matters. But each, supreme in his own
art, has identified his genius with the Bible, and
drawn his inspiration from it.
Now, this class of facts again constitutes a curious
phenomenon (I mention it as no more), one of the
many which swarm about the Bible'; which either
must have properties which will account for them all,
and if so, suggests the question how it came by them ?
or if it have them not suggests another, why mankind
should have been so infatuated as to surround it with
this halo of glory, and allow it thus " in all things
to have the pre-eminence ? "
5. Proceeding on the same supposition of the purely
human origin of the Scriptures, I think it might fairly
have been anticipated that in some ages of the world,
344 O H ^ ie Exceptional Position [LECT.
and especially within the last eighteen hundred years
(during which the human mind has made such pro-
digious progress and exhibited such intense activity),
some qu&si-sacred books, or other works of human genius,
would have been produced, which might in general
estimate have vied with the Bible, if not supplanted
it ; and which, in the various influence they exerted,
and the enthusiasm for their diffusion which they
evoked, might have had a history in some faint
degree like that of the Bible, as proved in the facts
already pointed out. Yet nothing of the kind is seen ;
the Bible still has an exceptional destiny. Its superiority
to other quasi-sacred books is universally admitted by
those who can make the comparison, even though they
reject its peculiar claims. Nor are there, among the
immense variety of theological works which itself has
created (hundreds of them the fruit of the richest genius
and the most various learning), any that have concen-
trated upon themselves a tithe of the interest which
mankind (with strange servility, if all stand on the
same level of a purely human origin) have attached to
this one volume. Amidst all the schools of religious
thought, and the manifold types of religious character
it has itself originated, we search in vain for any author,
though it be a Luther or a Bossuet, a Pascal or a
Butler, whose pretensions (and least of all in the esti-
mate of the authors themselves) can be placed on a
par with those of the Bible, or whose works have
provoked anything like the same interest or a similar
solicitude for their preservation and diffusion. To
VIIL] of the Bible in the World. 345
the illustration of this subject, and some others related
to it, I propose to devote a page or two.
As to the superiority of the Bible to all the so-called
sacred books, I need not insist ; all with whom I am
arguing would at once grant their intrinsic inferiority.
They would admit that the Bible, in its views of the
Deity, in its spiritual elevation, in its moral wisdom,
in the grace of its narrative, in sublimity and force of
imagery, diction, and style, transcends them all. But
there is one of them, perhaps, which may be supposed
to demand a few words more : I mean the Koran. It
is the most celebrated, and perhaps the most widely
diffused among the nations, of these so-called sacred
books. Its author had all the advantages of some
acquaintance with the Bible, which he assumed to
contain a true revelation. He freely borrowed from
its matter, and seems to have closely imitated its
style. Yet the difference is immense. It is not,
perhaps, easy, and certainly not necessary, to deter-
mine the character of the Arabian prophet ; whether
he was a fanatic or an impostor, or first one and then
the other, or even at times both together. This is of
no consequence to the argument ; of his great powers
none can doubt.
Now one would imagine there ought not to be so
great a contrast between the Bible and the Koran, if
each was the mere composition of unassisted human
genius, Nay, one would even think that the advantage
would have been, in some signal respects, on the side
of the later work. If the one was the production
346 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
of many minds, of very unequal power, writing with-
out concert (as they must, for ages separate them),
one would suppose the advantage, in point of unity of
character and continuous elevation, would be with that
book which was the effusion of one master mind. As
such, it might have been expected to be marked by
many qualities which could not belong to the varying
and casual productions of the authors of the Bible.
Yet, though Mahomet had this model to work by, was
able to borrow its light and avoid its presumed errors,
this new product of religious genius is immeasurably
below the old. The doctrines, indeed, so far as they
are coincident with those of the Bible, the doctrines
which declare the unity and attributes of the Supreme
Being, and affirm His universal government of the
world, are excellent. But then, if they be not
plagiarisms from the Bible, the Bible, ex confesso, had
preoccupied the ground, and expressed the same
thoughts incomparably better ; and where the imita-
tion of the Bible is palpable, the inferiority is equally
so. A candid reader can in some measure put the
matter to the test by comparing the sublimest passages
from the best translation of the Koran with corre-
sponding passages I will not say from the best but
from any translation of the Bible.
If there be anything in the Koran capable of being
confronted with what may be found in the Bible,
one would imagine, from the frequency and applause
with which it has been cited, it would be the follow-
ing: "God! there is no God but He; the living, the
VIIL] of the Bible in the World. 347
self-subsisting; neither slumber nor sleep seizeth Him;
to Him belong all, whatsoever is in heaven and on
the earth. Who is he that can intercede with Him,
but through His good pleasure ? He knoweth that
which is past, and that which is to come. His throne
is extended over heaven and earth, and the preserva-
tion of both is to Him no burden. He is the high,
the mighty." Yet any one can see that this is little
more than a cento of Scripture phrases 1 strung together,
and that not very coherently ; for it is not easy to per-
ceive the relevancy of the question in the fifth clause
to the rest, while the whole falls far below many
passages of Scripture in energy and majesty of ex-
pression. It has been so often cited, however, that
one cannot help feeling that such passages in the
Koran must be rather rare, as indeed they are. It
figures in White's Bampton Lectures, is repeated in
Mohler, is cited from him by Castenove in his article
on Mahomedanism, 2 and is one of the three passages
of the Koran which Gibbon has thought it worth while
to signalise by his encomium.
But it would be futile to dwell longer on this subject.
Probably none but a Mahometan would challenge any
comparison of merit between the Koran and the Bible,
in respect of either matter or manner. Even those who
1 Compare Isaiah xliii. 10 ; xliv. 6 ; xlv. 5-12 ; Psalm cxxi.
2 "We feel the justice," says Castenove, "of Mohler's dictum,
'That without Moses, and the prophets, and Christ, Mahomet
is simply inconceivable for the essential purport of the Koran
is derived from the Old and New Testaments.'" Encyclopaedia
Britannica. Art. on Mahomedanism.
348 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
think both to be equally the product of human genius,
would as little hesitate to affirm the superiority of the
latter as the most devout Christian ; and in manner
no less than matter. Every one knows, of course, that
the plenary proof of the inspiration of the Koran, a
proof to which Mahomet himself appealed, is said
to be its incomparable style ; in fact, in the lack of
all other miracles, and in reply to the demand for them
on the part of the "faithless" among the "faithful,"
Mahomet affirmed that this was in itself a " miracle."
"This argument," says Gibbon, with eloquent irony,
" is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian,
whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture, whose ear
is delighted by the music of sounds, and whose igno-
rance is incapable of comparing the productions of
human genius. The harmony and copiousness of style
will not reach, in a version, the European infidel : he
will peruse with impatience the endless incoherent
rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which
seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, which some-
times crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the
clouds. The Divine attributes exalt the fancy of the
Arabian missionary, but his loftiest strains must yield
to the sublime simplicity of the book of Job, composed
in a remote age, in the same country, and in the same
language. If the composition of the Koran exceed the
faculties of a man, to what superior intelligence should
we ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or the Philippics of
Demosthenes?" 1
1 Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Chap. 50.
VI:L] of the Bible in the World. 349
If Mahomet had reflected how very questionable that
test of a universal revelation must be, which only an
Arabian can fully understand and appreciate, he would,
perhaps, have laid less stress upon it. Surely it were
better that the subject-matter and contents of the
volume should attest its Divinity, than the language
in which these are expressed. It must be one of the
disadvantages of a universal revelation, to have the
thought so tied to the words, that the very test of its
Divine origin, the celestial aroma of its force and
beauty, must exhale and vanish when it is translated
into another tongue. Its chief excellencies, in that
case, are intransferrible. It is certainly a much more
rational ground which the apologist for Scripture takes,
when he endeavours to show that,^ though its language
is admirably adapted to the subject-matter, yet it is
so subordinated to it, that its merit is as nothing in
the comparison ; and that, therefore, the book is
eminently fitted for transfusion into every language
with the smallest possible diminution of energy or
grace. While the Mahometan affirms that none but
an accomplished Arabic scholar, or rather none but
a born Arab (for he alone is fully competent), can
judge of those intransmissible felicities of style, which,
to tho^e who can discern them, are, it seems, the
best proofs of the inspiration of the Koran, no Christian
contends that the Hebrew is essential to the force or
beauty of the Old Testament (though some minor
graces may be better seen by those who are ac-
quainted with the original language), or that the
350 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
Greek of the New Testament, its enemies themselves
being judges, at all approximates to the classic
elegancies of Sophocles or Plato. As a universal
revelation, the Koran would have more to say for its
pretensions, if it readily fell into the idiomatic forms
of any language whatsoever ; it would be the better in
proportion as it lost little, not much, of its force or
beauty in the process. As the matter stands, the
evidence, par excellence, which is to prove its Divine
origin, which is even to take the place of all
" miracles," is that very incommunicable excellence
of which a foreigner cannot judge ; and the want of
which therefore must, ipso facto, prevent the great
bulk of those for whom it was designed from com-
prehending its chief claim to inspiration !
But let the mysterious merit of the Arabic be what
it may, the world in general is obliged to submit Koran
and Bible to the equal test of translation ; and judged
by that, the interval is seen to be enormous, even if we
take the worst English translation of the Bible and the
best English translation of the Koran.
But I repeat that, on the supposition that both are on
the same level, as products of mere human intelligence,
it is hard to say why there should have been either
so great an intrinsic difference, or that it should ap-
pear so great in the translation.
The facts of the history of both correspond. The
Koran has not, like the Bible, been spontaneously sent
to the most various races and nationalities, differing
by every conceivable diversity of religion, customs,
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 351
laws, and language, or been spontaneously received by
them. It has, indeed, gone wherever the sword went
before it ; and any book would go where so potent a
missionary led the way. It has not, like the Bible,
prompted to ceaseless efforts to translate, to multiply,
to diffuse it. Some of the principal translations of it
have been made by Christian scholars ; and even in-
cluding these, it probably does not speak a tenth part
of the languages in which the Bible speaks.
There is one point, indeed, in which there can be no
comparison between them, but it serves to make the
position of the Bible more singular. The Koran has
never been subjected to the ordeal of hostile criticism
among its own votaries to which the Bible has been
subjected, nor seen growing up about it that enormous
harvest of general literature which can only be produced
on the soil of freedom. We cannot, therefore, judge
how it would have fared under such conditions;
whether something might not have appeared to rival,
supplant, or destroy it. The Bible has stood this
test. It may be said indeed of both, that the reputa-
tion of quasi-sacred books has been their protection.
This may in part be true ; but if the Bible be a book
only quasi-sacred, if it be really only human, it would
not seem unlikely that, amidst the freest examination
of its claims, and full liberty to accept or reject it,
something might have appeared in the immense and
varied literature of so many centuries which would, by
self-evident equality or superiority, have tended to
352 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
dissipate this illusion, especially when aided by the
multitudinous books which, during so many ages, and
in the very communities among which it has been
received, have been written expressly to show the
world that this exceptional reverence for the Bible is an
illusion. The thing is still more remarkable when we
consider how various are the schools of thought and
types of religious character reflected in the literature
produced by it ; showing us that, whatever the rever-
ence for the Bible, it has not destroyed the independence
of the human mind, nor prevented the natural growth
and expression of the most diversified modes of thought.
6. Nevertheless, in all this immense succession and
variety of literature, we cannot find any books which,
in the estimate of men in general, or perhaps in the
estimate of the fondest admirers of the authors them-
selves, will admit of comparison with the Bible.
As to the Hebrew Scriptures, no other writings of
Jews, ancient or modern, come near them. That is
equally affirmed by Jew and Gentile. As I have al-
ready remarked, it is curious that a single volume
should contain almost all the extant ancient literature
of the Jewish nation ; and that so exceptionally su-
perior to all their other productions, whether ancient
or modern, that the nation not only acquiesces in its
superiority, but venerates it as sacred and inspired.
It does not diminish the singularity that the popular
tendencies of the nation were in perpetual revolt
against the doctrines and institutions which it was
the chief object of this book to maintain. Thus the
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 353
chief literature they possess, instead of reflecting (as
is usually the case) the spirit of the people, was for
the most part diametrically opposed to it. When that
spirit (which had warped the Old Testament, just as
Christians afterwards warped the New) embodied itself
in a literature of its own, we see what it produced :
wide indeed is the interval between the Scriptures and
the Talmud. A strenuous attempt, it is true, has been
made in recent times to rescue the Talmud from neg-
lect and contempt. But it is in vain. That a work
of so many folios (even if it were put together by the
dullest compilers) must contain many passages of force
and beauty, may be admitted. A few of those passages
are so similar to parallel passages of the Gospels, as
to suggest the idea of being plagiarisms, or, at all
events, imitations, though of inferior workmanship.
It has been pretty well proved that the date of the
Gospels must have been prior to the compilation of
the traditions of the Talmud ; but even if this were
more doubtful than it is, one has but to compare
the rare flowrets in question with the general pro-
ducts of the soil, to feel that they are not indigenous;
that foreign as they are to the whole tone and spirit
of the genuine genius of Rabbinism, they are either
the reflection of some parallel passages from the Old
Testament, or borrowed from the New. If such
passages be abstracted, it is impossible to imagine
a more arid desert of words than the bulk of the
Talmud ; and even if they be admitted to be genuine,
they are in such infinitesimal ratio to the mountain-
24
354 O n tht Exceptional Position [LECT.
loads of superstitious folly and fable, that it is still
impossible to imagine how people that could only com-
pile Talmuds could ever have composed the Old Tes-
tament. But at all events, even the Jews themselves
loudly proclaim the immense chasm between them.
If, again, we take any of the genuine and undoubted
remains of the Apostolic Fathers, one is absolutely
struck dumb with the difference between them and
the New Testament. As immediate disciples of the
apostles, we might have expected that they would
in some degree have approached the level of their
teachers ; and in their moral excellencies they seem
no unworthy disciples. The remains of Clement
and Polycarp, and such fragments of Ignatius as
criticism pronounces to be undoubtedly genuine, ex-
hibit traits of Christian piety, simplicity, and sincerity,
which reflect no dishonour on the religion the authors
had embraced. But in everything else, in force and
weight of thought, sentiment, and diction, infinite is
the difference if we compare even these, the best of the
Apostolic Fathers, with the writers of the New Testa-
ment. As I have elsewhere expressed it, "the Alps
amidst the flats of Holland could not exhibit a greater
contrast than we find between the writers of the New
Testament and these Fathers."
Observations to the like purport, though for different
reasons, apply to the Fathers of the second, third, and
fourth centuries. It is no slight portion of their re-
mains which has come down to us, though probably
as much more has perished. More than a hundred
vni.J of the Bible in the World. 355
times the bulk of the entire Bible itself has been saved
from the wreck. Many of these Fathers were very ex-
traordinary men ; masters of all the erudition of their
age, and gifted with great natural genius. Chrysostom,
Augustine, Origen, Tertullian, and Jerome, will bear
comparison, in natural and acquired endowments, with
any men of their time, and with most men of any time.
Their intellectual character, especially of these five
(though, as usual, very various if we compare them with
one another), is favourably contrasted with the medio-
crity of mental power which is found in the Apostolic
Fathers. Yet no reader of any discernment will affirm
that there is any fear of their rivalling, much more
eclipsing, the Bible. They are not to be compared
either in the force or accuracy with which they express
religious truth. Their eloquence indeed is often great,
but their style is as distinct as possible from that of the
Bible, and as plainly inferior to it. It is of a cast far
removed from the severe simplicity, the force, the com-
pression and brevity, which so largely characterise the
Scriptures. The style is sometimes dry and barren as a
profitless dialectic subtilty can make it, and, more often,
ornate and florid as can be found in the worst speci-
mens of Oriental rhetoric. But if they are inferior
to the Scriptures in expression, they are still more so
in matter. In the third century, that transforming
power of human nature on primitive Christianity, of
which I have already spoken, had plainly manifested
itself. Christianity, brought into contact with human
preconceptions and tendencies, was moulded and
24*
356 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
warped by them in various ways, and showed in
this transfiguration what is the natural bent and
ply of man's nature ; for he therein followed the law
which had ruled in the formation of religions which
undoubtedly bear his " image and superscription." In
reading the later Fathers, in spite of all their excel-
lencies, we cannot help feeling that we have got into
a different atmosphere of religious thought and feeling
from that of the Bible; breathe, as it were, the air of a
hot-house, and gaze on exotic productions. In the ex-
aggeration or mutilation of some Scripture doctrines,
in the suppression or neglect of others, in the fanatical
thirst for martyrdom, in the superstitious honours given
to celibacy, in the excessive value attached to austerities
and ceremonial, in the passion for allegorical interpre-
tation, in the childish multiplication of grotesque
marvels and the enormous credulity with which they
were received, in the doting homage paid to shrines and
relics; in one or other of these ways the Fathers of
the third century, and still more those of the fourth,
show us how materially they had deranged the system
which the New Testament delivers to us, and innovated
on its spirit and doctrines.
To those who believe that the Bible is a divinely
inspired volume, there is of course no difficulty in
accounting for all this. They would naturally expect,
on the one hand, that it would exhibit a perpetual
superiority in its form and contents to those of mere
human productions ; on the other (in conformity,
as they would say, with its own express predictions).
VIIL] of the Bible in the World. 357
that its system would probably be deteriorated, like
so many other excellent gifts of God, when it came
into contact with human nature, and was interpreted
by its prejudices and passions. As the light of heaven
is refracted and obscured when it enters into the at-
mosphere of earth, so (they would say) were the rays
of celestial truth distorted and dimmed when they
came into the sphere of the human intellect. Raw
converts from gross superstitions or false philosophies
would attempt, as they naturally did, to reconcile Chris-
tian truth with antecedent theories or inveterate pre-
judices, rather than simply abandon them. It was
this very thing that led even to the extremest forms
of Gnostic error ; they were but attempts to adjust the
Gospel to those dreams of Alexandrine metaphysics or
oriental theosophy in which some of the early con-
verts to Christianity had been nurtured, and to which
they clung with perverse tenacity. In various degrees,
and in infinite ways, the old entered into affinity with
the new, and modified it accordingly. If any think
this strange, the answer of the Christian apologist
would be that it was inevitable, unless the laws of
human nature had been themselves subverted by some
inconceivable miracle, a miracle multiplied, too, in-
definitely, for it must have been as manifold as the
erratic tendencies of the human mind itself. Further,
these apologists would perhaps say that the pheno-
menon has been often repeated, and that two instruc-
tive reflections are suggested by it; first, that it is
curious that the Scripture maintains its superiority
On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
to the various systems of religious belief which different
schools of thought have founded on it, so that none
rival and none supplant it ; and, secondly, that their
perpetual divergencies from Scripture show how little
likely human nature was to frame such a book, and
in what directions it naturally gravitates.
This representation of the apologists of Scripture
may be just ; I believe, indeed, that it is so ; but
into that I do not enter. I merely note the fact
(universally admitted, and by the Fathers themselves
as readily as by any), that the Bible far transcends
them, both in matter and manner ; a conclusion which
even those who think they have only developed, and
not depraved, the Scriptures, also affirm with one voice.
They say, with the rest of the world, that the Fathers
have left nothing which can be put on a par with it.
It may not be so easy to say, on the hypothesis that
they and the Biblical writers are simply and equally
human, why they should not.
But the practice of the world is in harmony with
its judgment. Of the hundred tomes of which patris-
tic literature consists (all evoked by the Bible), only
a small portion is ever read, and that chiefly by those
who have a professional interest in it. The greater
part is consigned to oblivion ; not the hundreth part
has had even a thousandth part of the readers of
the Bible. The books take their chance with all
other literature ; if they perish, they perish, and no
man seeks to lay an arrest on the judgment ; there
is no furore to guard, to diffuse, to propagate them ;
VITI.] of the Bible in the World. 359
though, on account of their connection with the Bible,
there has perhaps been more solicitude to preserve
them than has been displayed about the generality
of ordinary authors.
The accuracy of the judgment is confirmed by the
testimony of many who do not receive the Bible as
other than a purely human production, for they would
be very slow to bestow on the Fathers the eulogiums
they have not hesitated to lavish on the Bible.
Similar observations may be made on the incon-
testable supremacy conceded to the Bible over those
modern schools of theological writers, with their
many forms of religious thought, to which it has given
birth. Whatever eccentricities the human intellect
may exhibit in dealing with it (in virtue of the ten-
dencies of human nature to which I have so often ad-
verted), or whatever divergencies it may wander into,
the pre-eminence of the Bible is still granted. If we
take the period of the Reformation, or that which
immediately followed it, we see illustrations of this.
These periods are all the more striking, as there was
an unusual amount of newly-awakened intellectual
activity exerted in the direction of theology ; and
never, probably, since the times of the apostles, has
there been a more profound and earnest spirit of reli-
gion than was then awakened. One might have ex-
pected, in this disentombment of the human mind, that
men, in studying the Bible, would have been disen-
chanted of their mere prejudices (for such they were, on
the hypothesis on which I am now arguing) in its favour;
360 On the Exceptional Position JLECT.
that, reading it with fresh eyes, they would have de-
tected, among so many other ancient illusions then laid
bare, this illusion among the rest; and justified the judg-
ment by giving the world works which, if they could
not supplant, might at least rival the Bible. Yet it
is impossible to consider the characteristics of even
Luther and his contemporaries, or the schools of reli-
gious thought to which they gave rise, without feeling
what Luther and his contemporaries unanimously
affirmed, the superiority of the Bible to them all.
Take, again, the Puritan writers. All candid minds
will be impressed with the profound religious character
of the more eminent among these men ; none ever
studied the Bible more intensely, or made it more per-
petually their model. Yet it is impossible to read even
the best and greatest of them without feeling, as in
the case of the Fathers, that they have fallen infinitely
below that model, both in matter and in manner ; in
the ideal of religious character they deduced from
it, and the style in which they expressed religious
truth. And, therefore, however impressed with the
religious elevation and the wonderful fertility of
thought which distinguished many of the greatest of
these men, we cannot turn from the Bible to them
without feeling that we are descending to a
lower plane. Some of its doctrines they distort or
exaggerate, and hence their unsym metrical theology
a theology here stunted, there unnaturally developed.
Large classes of them cherished disproportionate
zeal for the Old Testament, without sufficiently con-
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 361
sidering how far the New Testament had avowedly
abrogated it. This and other causes (among which,
doubtless, must be reckoned the sombre circumstances
of their own life, and the shadow which persecution
threw upon it) generated a cast of religion which,
however sincere and devout, was marked by a gloom
and austerity, not to say grimace, which have no
counterpart in the serene and cheerful spirit of apostolic
Christianity, even when, as in the case of Paul, men
were exposed to the most depressing influences, and
might be said, like him, to " die daily."
But what can adequately express the difference
between their style and that of the Bible ? Homely as
the latter often is, as it must be, if it be the book for all
men and for all time, yet how free from the vulgarity
of conception and expression, the wearisome prolixity,
the metaphysical subtlety, the pedantic quaintness, the
endless divisions, the word-splitting and common-place
too often chargeable on these excellent men. In
the gross familiarity, again, with which they too
often treat the most solemn themes, one is astounded
that they have not more successfully learned the
lessons of the book which they so devoutly studied.
It is a manner often grotesquely contrasted both
with the austerity of their outward life and the
severity of their theology. Not rarely, quips and
puns, and every kind of quaintness and unseemly
paronomasia, light up their sombre page, like a
ghastly smile. In these and various other points
we see at how great a distance these writers stand
362 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
from their model. Yet many of them were men of
the amplest powers, with a fertility of imagination and
extent of learning very far beyond anything the gene-
rality of the writers of the Bible (according to the
hypothesis I am combating) could make the smallest
pretensions to. In the writings of men like Fuller,
Bishop Hall, Adams, or Trail (and many more might
be added), eccentric as is their manner, intolerable
as is their quaintness, there is more of original illus-
tration, more new thoughts, more novel applications
of old thoughts, more sudden turns of fancy and un-
expected applications of learning, than can be found
in hundreds of volumes written by ordinary men. 1
Similar remarks apply to the greatest names of that
or of the next age to the " Dii majores " of English
theology to such men as Barrow, Jeremy Taylor,
Howe, Leighton. Though distinguished by great
genius and erudition, they still none of them originate
anything which leaves the superiority of the Bible (to
which they all pay homage) in peril. They are con-
tent to sit at its feet, and learn, but declare that they
cannot approach it. This is the fountain-head that
supplies all these conduits, and the water in them
cannot rise above its level. If it be asked : " Who
affirm this ? " I answer, men in general, but chiefly the
1 Of Fuller, Coleridge was wont to say, that next to Shakespeare,
he was not quite sure that Fuller did not most impress him with
wonder and admiration at the perfection in which certain faculties
were possessed in comparison with the like qualities in other men.
Nothing ever seemed to enter the mind of Fuller that he could
not immediately digest into aliment of the imagination.
viii.] of the Bible in the World. 363
men themselves; for thus they speak both of themselves
and of one another. They, with one voice, proclaim
the justness of the world's verdict. As it was said of
Christ, " Never man spake like this man ;" so they say
of this book, that never book was written like it. But
why this should be so, considering the lofty endow-
ments of so many of these sons of genius; why the
world in general should acquiesce in such a judgment,
and why these men should, with such humility, not
only admit, but loudly affirm its justice, is, I confess,
to me a puzzle, on the supposition I am now arguing
upon, namely, that the writers of the Bible had no
more than the ordinary endowments of men, and less,
certainly, than those of many of these men.
Take, again, the best of the imaginative works which
have been founded on the Bible ; t for example, Bunyan's
" Pilgrim's Progress," and which I the rather name,
because in all probability the original position of its
author was not very much below that of some of the
men who record the life of Christ. Born in humble
life, with little education beyond what he bestowed on
himself, with abundance of mother wit, but with little
culture of intellect, Bunyan may bear some comparison
with those humble Jews whose Memoirs of Christ
have from that time to this kept the world in per-
petual wonder ; who in a few brief pages (all of them
together not half the bulk of the " Pilgrim's Progress ")
have been able to fix on themselves, or rather upon
their Master, the continued gaze of the world.
No one can more ardently admire than I do that
364 On the Exceptional Position [LECT.
work of the inspired tinker, which makes an equal
impression on age and childhood, on the learned and
the unlearned; that book, ignorance of which, in
Bishop Percy's little child, made Dr. Johnson put
her from off his knee in splenetic contempt for her
stupidity or incuriosity. 1 Its merits must indeed
be great, when such different men as Macaulay and
Southey each with strong, though different reasons for
being prejudiced against Bunyan, if his genius had not
vanquished them all vie with each other in the
language of eulogium. But if we compare even this
book with any one of the Gospels, everybody will
justify the world in the very different place it assigns
them. Transcendent as was the imagination which gave
birth to many portions of Bunyan's allegory ; full as it
is, in parts, of sublimity and pathos, and especially in
those concluding pages which Dr. Arnold said he could
never read without tears ; yet, in the first place, there
is not an idea, not a sentiment of more than common
interest in it, that is not, directly or indirectly, derived
from the Bible. That book made Bunyan ; first evoked,
then perpetually nourished his genius ; supplied the
continual aliment of his thoughts, and entered both into
the "web and woof," the entire tissue, of his immortal
allegory. Yet none will challenge equality with those
gospels which have given him nearly all his materials.
1 " Not read the ' Pilgrim's Progress ! ' then I would not give
a farthing for you." BoswelVs Johnson. A summary conviction,
no doubt, of the surly old critic ; but marking his sense, at all
events (however unamiable his mode of showing it), of the wonder-
ful attractions of the book.
VIIL] of the Bible in the World. 365
And then how superior are they to his defects ! With
all his wonderful merits, how often does he drop
plumb down into the merest vulgarity and common-
place ! Quaint and ingenious as some of his coarser
scenes may be, we cannot imagine them forming a part
of any one of the gospels, without the strongest sense
of incongruity. The effect would be as grotesque as a
Dutch painter's essay to remodel a painting of Raphael.
In brief, the position the Bible has occupied, and still
occupies, amidst such various circumstances and
through such distant ages, amidst such fluctuations of
taste and revolutions of literature, is a unique pheno-
menon.
It is not unworthy of remark that while the Bible
thus retains its pre-eminent position in successive cycles
of literature, multitudes of works of high merit, to
which itself has directly given birth, often pass into
comparative oblivion in a few generations. The world,
perhaps, would not " willingly let them die, " if the
ceaseless flood of new and equally excellent literature
did not overwhelm them. No zealous efforts, however,
are made to perpetuate their memory, to multiply, to
translate, to diffuse them. With all their merits, they
are left to the usual fortune of all other literature; to
keep afloat on the waters if they can, and to sink be-
neath them if they cannot.
The book which has given them all their ephemeral
renown seems alone untouched by time. It is like
some old oak which has seen the harvest of a thousand
years spring, ripen, and fall beneath the sickle.
366 On the Exceptional Position of the Bible.
It is in vain to say, " We have many instances of so-
called ' sacred books ' regarded with extravagant ad-
miration and reverence by this or that particular
nation in a low stage of civilisation, or by -the mass of
ignorant people among them." I have already replied
in brief to this evasion. But, to anticipate once for
all any such mock analogies, I would remark that,
to find a parallel to the case of the Bible, we must see
a collection of many writings all written by one of
the most obscure and despised nations spontaneously
accepted as a unique repository of Divine and moral
wisdom, not by one tribe or nation only, but among
many, and these of the most diverse races, of every
conceivable variety in local position, historic origin,
religious belief, tradition and language; not during
a period of barbarism only, but in ages of the greatest
knowledge, learning, and refinement ; not by the vul-
gar and ignorant only among these various nations and
races, but by multitudes of the loftiest and most accom-
plished minds; not by such as are led by tradition
merely, and who give an otiose assent accordingly, but
by men who have come to their convictions after the
most sifting scrutiny as to the evidence of that which
has thus enthralled them ; not where error is so con-
secrated by law, and so fenced from all opposition, that
nothing can be said against it, but where hostile criti-
cism has had full liberty to do its worst.
When I find other sacred books, of which the same
can be truly said, I shall admit the force of the above
objection, and withdraw this item of my argument.
LECTURE IX.
ON CERTAIN ANALOGIES BETWEEN THE BIBLH
AND " THE CONSTITUTION AND COURSE
OF NATURE?
LECTURE IX.
ON CERTAIN ANALOGIES BETWEEN THE BIBLE AND
"THE CONSTITUTION AND COURSE OF NATURE."
I" F there are many peculiarities in the Bible which
^ seem in contrariety to what might be naturally
expected of man, there are also many peculiarities
which seem in analogy with the " works and ways of
God ;" and the concurrence of such contrariety and
analogy is not insignificant in this argument.
It has been generally and justly asserted that the
chief use of Analogy, and especially in relation to theo-
logy, is in the refutation of objections ; and Butler's
book shows what a powerful solvent it is. But it is
not without force on the positive side, in proportion to
the number, closeness, and subtlety of the observed
analogies. 1
At first sight it may seem strange that an argument,
1 In a passage, justly commended by Bishop Hampden, Dugald
Stewart observes : " I may be permitted to express my doubts
whether both of these ingenious writers (Reid and Campbell) have
not somewhat underrated the importance of analogy as a medium
of proof and as a source of new information. I acknowledge, at the
same time, that between the positive and negative applications of
this species of evidence there is an essential difference In
some instances, however, the probability resulting from a concur-
rence of different analogies may rise so high, as to produce an
effect on the belief scarcely distinguishable from moral certainty."
25
370 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
the very same in substance and direction, should ap-
pear to be so cogent in one aspect, and so much less
cogent, or even feeble, in another. The reason is
that, though the argument is the same in itself in
either case, it derives its principal force, as an answer
to objections, precisely from the objector's own state of
mind. So employed, it is strictly an argumentum ad
hominem. An illustration or two will make this plain.
If it were contended that a man could not have
written a certain letter, on account of some supposed
incompatibility between its sentiment or expression, and
some indications of the character of the writer other-
wise known, then it would demonstrate the absolute
futility of this conclusion if we could produce an
undoubted letter of the same man, in which similar
sentiments had been expressed, and in identical terms.
On the other hand, if it were contended that the man
did write the letter, merely because it was marked by
modes of thought and expression which harmonised
with what he was known to have thought and said,
then the conclusion would at best be but probable,
and in many cases precarious.
Similarly, if it were contended that a certain paint-
ing could not be by Raphael, from some supposed
enormous incongruity of subject, or from the mode
of treatment, then it would be sufficient to annul that
objection, if we could produce a genuine work of that
same artist to which the same objections might be
made. But if it were argued that the work was a
genuine painting of Raphael, because it had many
ix,] " the Constitution and Course of Nature" 371
characteristics of his style, then it would be but a
probable conclusion, and in many cases open to much
doubt.
Once more : if a being, happily ignorant of our
own planet, and familiar only with worlds on which
sin and sorrow had never cast their shadow, were
to urge that a world could not be otherwise con-
stituted under the government of omnipotent wis-
dom and love, he would be sadly, but irresistibly,
refuted by visiting the earth, or receiving authentic
accounts of its condition. He could not deny the fact,
though it might be (as it undoubtedly is) an inexplic-
able difficulty that there should be such a world. On
the other hand, if a philosopher were to argue (as many
a philosopher has done), from the analogies among the
members of our planetary system, the physical re-
semblances observable amongst them, that, since the
earth is inhabited, those other orbs, which roll round
the same centre of light and heat, must be inhabited
also, the conclusion would be but probable and pre-
carious; and, in fact, has been eagerly disputed in
one of the most ingeniously sustained and instruc-
tive controversies of our day.
Nevertheless, in this last case, could it be shown
that a second, a third, a fourth planet and so of
the rest, in proportion as they became known were
characterised by more and more of the physical con-
ditions which accompany life in our world, then the
argument, though still only founded on probabilities,
would be strengthened at each step ; and, at last, in
25*
372 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
spite of the great diversity of circumstances still sub-
sisting among the different orbs compared, might pro-
duce nearly the conviction of a complete induction.
The argument, therefore, would not be of little weight,
though it could not possibly have the absolute validity
of Butler's " Analogy." That, like the first, third, and
fifth cases given above by way of illustration, is abso-
lutely irrefragable. It says in effect : " You deny that
a revelation can be true, because it contains such and
such things that could not be found in a book coming
from God. Survey the world, which we both admit
comes from Him. See if the same objections do not
apply there, and whether God has not done, or per-
mitted to be done, the very things which you say it is
incredible that He should do or permit to be done, and
for which you reject this revelation." He therefore
shuts up his opponents, so long as, like himself, they
are theists to one of two courses either to give up
their theism, or to give up these specific objections
to Christianity ; and, therefore, as Butler truly says
" Objections, which are equally applicable to both
natural and revealed religion, are, properly speaking,
answered by its being shown that they are so, provided
the former be admitted to be true."
But now let us suppose that Butler has succeeded
in showing a man (as he happily has many) the
futility of the objections against which his argument
is directed, does it follow that the man must admit
that Christianity is true ? By no means, unless those
objections be his sole objections. In that case, indeed,
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature.' 19 373
he has absolutely no logical alternative but to embrace
Christianity or abandon his theism. And as, in thou-
sands of cases, these are the main objections which
stagger faith, so their removal has often happily issued
in a surrender of the rest. But the chief force of
the argument was no doubt spent in repelling the
objections. The wind which may be irresistible, while
the ship meets it, may be hardly felt when she goes
before it.
But is the argument of no force then ? This is not
true either. The points of analogy between nature and
a presumed revelation, between the professed word and
the acknowledged works of God, may be numerous,
varied, and subtle enough, to leave a very consider-
able impression on any candid mind, though no longer
possessing that demonstrative force with which they
may be used as an argumentum ad hominem. To this
purpose establishing a general similarity between
nature and revelation, and a presumption of the
identity of their origin all the analogies on which
Butler has insisted contribute their quota and have
a legitimate influence. The resemblance in the cha-
racteristics of the Divine government, whether as
exercised in relation to man's temporal interests or in
relation to his moral probation ; the seeming circuit-
ousness of method by which the Divine wisdom at-
tains its ends; the seeming inadequacy, or a priori
unlikelihood, of the means employed ; the sort of
evidence on which man is called upon to act, whether
as an inhabitant of this world or as a probationer for
374 n certain Analogies between tlie Bible and [LECT.
another ; the obscurity or imperfection of that evidence
in either case ; the apparent inequality or partiality of
the Divine administration ; these, and many other
considerations which suggest analogies between the
''Constitution and Course of Nature" and "Divine
Revelation," avail pro tanto on the positive side, as
establishing resemblance between the two, though
chiefly potent in refuting objections.
But as the force of the argument on this positive side
depends on the number, variety, and concurrence of
the " analogies," there are many others besides those
insisted on by Butler, which, though it would have been
irrelevant to dwell upon them in a work expressly con-
structed to neutralize objections, might be very pro-
perly added in any attempt fully to exhibit the positive
side of the argument. 1 On a few of these, I would
now say a little. It will, of course, be seen that I as-
sume nothing as to the actual truth of the revelation.
I here reason only hypothetically.
I. // the Bible be what I have presumed to argue
it, if it be characterised by the unity which has been
so generally ascribed to it, then, in strong contrast
with all the works of man, but in strong conformity
with those of God, it is a very gradual development.
Man's plans are like himself; they must be circum-
scribed within very narrow limits, or they cannot be
executed at all. He must not count on distant ages,
1 Hampden, in his " Essay on the Philosophical Evidence of
Christianity ; or, the Credibility obtained to a Scriptural Revela-
tion, from its coincidence with the facts of Nature," has successfully
prosecuted a portion of this argument.
ix.] "the Constitution and Course of Nature.' 9 375
for he is an ephemeron. To construct a machine,
to excogitate a theory, to write half-a-dozen books,
to fight twice as many battles, to found an empire
or (which is more easy) to destroy one, is all that
he can achieve. His life in general is all too short
even for his plans, and, limited as they may be, he
cannot stay to finish them. But if it be true, as it
has been here argued, that this book is one, and yet
the slow product of many and far distant ages ; com-
posed by writers neither conscious that they were
co-operating, nor capable of it (which at all events
is true, for centuries separated them) ; if it is em-
bedded in the world's history, and forms part of it ; if
its disclosures are made piecemeal, a fragment now
and a fragment then, and yet these constitute one
whole, and are adjusted to one end; then, though it
neither is, nor conceivably could be, the work of man,
it does strikingly resemble the general manner of the
works of God, in which we see results attained by
slow evolution from the minutest beginnings, and by
a prolonged application as well as stupendous com-
plexity of means and instruments.
I shall not here insist on the proof that the supposed
revelation is characterised by the features above men-
tioned, because that would be but to repeat the various
arguments by which it has been attempted to establish
the unity of the Bible. Whatever proves that, what-
ever tends to show that, though the writers be so
various, and the times in which they lived so distant,
yet that there is unity in the result ; that the book
376 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
possesses peculiarities of a unique character, which
discriminate it from all human books ; that it sub-
ordinates, in a way no other book ever did, everything
to the claims of God, in relation to man and to the
universe He has made and governs ; that it develops
from the beginning a plan for vindicating the Divine
government and securing man's felicity ; that it dis-
closes this plan in minute fragments, in such a leisurely
way, and by such gradual accessions of light, as to
remind us of the process by which the day dawns or
the bud opens; in a word, whatever considerations
(these and the many others before insisted upon) in-
dicate the unity of the Bible, also show, ipso facto, that
it has been, like the strata of the earth and the oak of
the forest, marked by that slow continuous growth
which is one of the signatures of the works of God.
His methods of procedure in general are notably
impressed with the same characteristic. His plans
work themselves out by the most deliberate processes,
and long periods are required for tracing even a small
segment of them. The index on the dial plate seems
not to move at all, so slow and continuous is the
motion. All this seems worthy of Him to whom a
" thousand years are as one day, and one day as a
thousand years ;" to whom Time, as we measure it, is
nothing ; who sees the future, present ; and the distant,
near.
In every department of nature we see this note of
the Divine workmanship. Geologists tell us, and tell
us with truth (however they may lose themselves
ix.] "the Constitution and Course of Nature." 377
in speculations as to the conjectural dates of their
phenomena), of the enormous lapse of time during
which the earth has been slowly progressing to its
present state ; of the immense periods required to
condense it from the condition of a fiery vapour into
a solid sphere, to cool the still glowing mass, and to
give it, by revolution on its axis, like a vessel on the
potter's wheel, its present elliptical form; of the un-
known ages, again, that passed before it assumed the
condition which fitted it to be the abode of life, and
during which land and water seem often to have
changed their seats; and of those other ages, equally
unknown, during which it was preparing, by successive
forms of vegetable and animal life, for the habitation
of man.
But though it is in the phenomena of geology that
we are most forcibly struck 'with the inconceivably
deliberate methods by which the Divine Agent pro-
ceeds, we have but to open our eyes to see that
it is a general characteristic of all His workman-
ship and operations. He often destroys, indeed, in a
moment. The fierce fires of fever shall dissolve in
a day the wonderful fabric that has been slowly com-
pacting for thirty years, or a stroke of palsy shatter
in a moment all the energies, and with them all the
schemes and activity, of the greatest of human in-
tellects ; the bolt of heaven shall shiver, in the twinkling
of an eye, the oak that has been growing for hundreds
of years, and an earthquake instantaneously reduce
to ruin cities that have outlived a millennium. But
378 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
He brings things into existence, and develops their
powers and perfections after a different method. The
gradual continuous movement by which the seasons
change ; by which flowers and trees put forth leaf
and blossom; by which the grain and fruit rip^n; by
which animals grow, from the minutest germs, to the
perfection of their form, strength, and beauty ; all these
are but familiar examples of the same great law w T hich
pervades the universe of God. The changes, however
stupendous, are effected by such imperceptible steps
that they elude our observation. The oak is millions
of times the bulk of the acorn, yet has it arrived at
its majestic growth of many centuries by such infini-
tesimal increments, and by a law so strictly continuous,
that no eye is keen enough to detect the advance from
one stage to another.
It is by reference to this law of vegetable growth
that our Lord illustrates the parallel law in the spiri-
tual economy, and tells us that "the kingdom of God
cometh not by observation," whether in the individual
soul or in the history of mankind.
Similarly slow is the development of God's design in
the government of the universe ; of that final purpose
of His providential administration which every devout
theist must believe to be contemplated amidst all
the fluctuations and apparent retrogradations of the
world; and not only in spite of present distractions
and confusion, but by means of them. All political
changes, the rise and fall of races and empires, in
a word, all events, each rational theist must believe
ix] "the Constitution and Course of Nature" 379
are tending to some unknown result, some issue un-
speakably glorious, though beyond our present com-
prehension. But if so, the movement is immeasurably
slow. Man himself is " but of yesterday," though
his race has existed for thousands of years ; and
probably only a small portion of his histoiy, and
that seemingly strangely blurred and blotted,
has been yet written. For the denouement we
must wait. God's plan is so incomprehensibly vast,
that partly from the contracted view which each
generation, or even many generations, can take, and
partly from the intricacy and complexity of the
machinery by which the results are being w T rought
out, we can discern little or nothing of it as a
whole. We must gain a knowledge of the- designs
of God (which, we are compelled to believe, must
embrace the whole world He is governing) in the
same way in which a great philosopher of a former age
said we must gain a knowledge of His works. These,
as they present themselves to our investigation, he
compares to a huge piece of " rolled-up tapestry,"
or "scroll of writing," the significance of which can
only be gathered as the cylinder which contains the
figures or the characters is " slowly opened to our
gaze."
Now it is certainly in conformity with this that the
Bible, supposing it to be a revelation, is constructed.
It is a very gradual development of Divine truth. Its
disclosures, designed in part to illustrate the provi-
dential history of the world, run parallel with it, and,
380 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
indeed, form part of it. And for the very same reason
however adapted to illumine some of that dark-
ness which otherwise rests on the designs of God
in the moral government of the world, and probably
with increasing brightness as its pages " unroll,"
itself necessarily partakes in that obscurity which the
gradual evolution of the Divine plan involves. That
there is such a plan, some devout and thoughtful specu-
lators among the heathen themselves seem to have
guessed ; but in the present scene of confusion it de-
manded something more than philosophical specula-
tion to determine it. For though, as Butler shows,
many things argue God's moral government of the
world, not only are His designs very gradually un-
folded, but His dispensations are often so inexplicably
mysterious, and the events He permits so often in
seeming conflict with equity and benevolence, that it
requires the distinct and explicit assurance of Revelation
to make us believe that the issues will be ultimately
worthy of supreme power, wisdom, and goodness.
Much, therefore, of the " cylinder " of the world's
history as it is " unrolled " is found inscribed in hiero-
glyphics, on which speculation and conjecture exhaust
themselves in vain ; and the Bible, which without en-
abling us adequately to decipher them, gives, if it be
true, a significance to some of these enigmatical cha-
racters, is involved in corresponding shadow. I say,
if it be true, for I am not assuming its truth, but merely
suggesting to the reader what are certain palpable
features of it. Whether Scripture casts much or little
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature" 381
light upon the darkness of the past, or projects strong
or faint illumination on the future, its structure is in
analogy with the general procedure of God in the slow
development of all His purposes, and with the obscurity
necessarily implied in a process so gradual ; with that
long array and succession of means by which He
attains His ends and " perfects His work."
II. And this suggests a second analogy between
the structure of the Bible, as contrasted with other
professed revelations, and " the constitution and
course of nature." The Divine plans, whatever they
be, are being wrought out by the actions of moral
agents, the sum of which constitutes human history;
so that, when completed, the history of the world will
also be the history of the Divine plan. It is simply
in analogy with this, that if the Bible be a genuine
revelation, whatever light it ma'y cast from time to
time on the Divine purposes, and however it may
sustain faith by partially illumining what would be
otherwise continuous darkness, it is (and it cannot
be said of any other professed revelation) thrown into
an historic form, has an historic development, runs
parallel, in its successive communications, with the
great epochs of the world's history; and, as I have
said elsewhere, is let into it.
Of the various ends to be answered by this form, I
have already said something in the filch lecture ; more
especially on the corroborations of the truth of the
Bible, which this form insures, and which could belong
to no other ; the challenge which the book thus
382 On certain Analogies between the BiUe and [LECT.
gives to detection, if it be false ; the hostages which
it gives to truth, if it be true ; the impossibility
that its unity, if there be unity, could be the result
either of human contrivance or of any conceivable
casualty. But I am not here arguing its truth;
I am merely pointing out that, supposing it a Revela-
tion, it is in analogy with the mode in which God
is fulfilling His designs (to use the expression of
Bunsen) as " God in history." This Revelation is
imbedded in history. It resembles the temple at
Jerusalem, in which the masonry of the foundations
not only rested on the natural rock, but in many
places followed the line of it, and was let into it.
III. // the Bible be a Revelation, the mode of
giving it falls in with the method by which God
usually operates on human destinies. The progress
of men, their advancement in knowledge, science,
and civilisation, is brought about for the most part
by His sending forth into the world from time to time,
with special equipments for their task, certain trans-
cendent geniuses, the Bacons, the Newtons, the
Shakespeares, the Miltons of our race, who are the
levers that move the world ; who give a new stimulus
and impulse to the human mind, and whose appear-
ance constitutes the world's true epochs ; who, be-
queathing great discoveries or signal inventions, lift
the intellect and imagination of man to a higher
level, and become guiding lights of their species for
many generations, or some of them even as long
as the world shall last. It is in analogy with this
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature." 383
that God is represented in the Bible as raising up,
from time to time, men who should impart con-
tinual accessions of spiritual light to the world ;
" speaking at sundry times and in divers manners
by the prophets," till He at last consummated His
Revelation " by speaking to us by His Son."
IV. There is an analogy also in the material in-
struments by which the progress of man is in each
case secured. The development of the race, its ad-
vance in knowledge and civilisation, depends on
garnering up the experience of the past and making
it available for the future. Without that, each man,
each generation, is but a disjointed link. Apart from
some methods of conserving experience, there can be,
in fact, no history ; and accordingly of many ages and
nations there is none. Until, therefore, men can
secure and hand down the treasures of knowledge,
fix volatile thought, and make it visible and per-
manent, there is, and can be, no progress. Till that
be done, the world must be in perpetual nonage. Con-
sequently all advance, all civilisation, waits on the
discovery and application of an alphabet. Mechanical
as it seems, pen and ink, or some equivalent, is the
moving power of the world ; the sine qua non, without
which it would be at an eternal standstill, or rather
would be " ever learning," and never coming to a
stable " knowledge " of any " truth." All the ac-
quisitions of each generation would be but as "water
spilt on the ground," or poured into a sieve. It
is therefore in precise analogy that this Revelation
384 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
if it be a Revelation indeed has taken the form
for which so many have presumed to deride it, the
form of a " book," where all the successive com-
munications it makes are durably registered. Ridi-
cule the thing as we may, it is absolutely necessary
in the very nature of things each generation being
ephemeral that man's progress, whether in religion
or philosophy or anything else, should be effected in
this precise way. Nor is it a little curious (as I have
remarked in a previous lecture) that the Bible would
seem to have anticipated the conclusion to which just
historic criticism leads us, and to have recognised
most strongly the supreme importance of this con-
dition of human progress. It alone gives us, in a
plain written form and in intelligible language, any
memorials at all of ages from which all other me-
morials have vanished
Here, again, I am not assuming the truth of the
book; I am merely contending that the form in
which it is addressed to us, and the continued aug-
mentation and preservation of its successive commu-
nications by the pen, are in conformity with the laws
and conditions on which alone all human progress
is secured or rather, on which alone it is possible.
V. If this be a Revelation, it is submitted to us under
conditions similar to those on which the works of God
and His providential government of the world are sub-
mitted to us, exacting profound study, investigation,
and reflection. Man, in the physical world, is to be,
as Bacon says, " the minister and interpreter of
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature." 385
nature." If the Bible be from the same source, it is
in analogy with this that he is summoned to similar
functions here. The Bible has its difficulties and
mysteries, as nature has ; and it requires, just as
nature does, prolonged thought and effort to pene-
trate or decipher them. Both have their level plains,
where the eye sees far and the feet travel softly ; but
both also have lofty summits, which only persevering
toil can scale, and deep abysses, which keen eyes
and adventurous feet can alone explore. And such
things are probably found in both for the same reason,
to make ample provision for the moral and intel-
lectual discipline of man. Some have said that if
a revelation were to be given at all, it would be
"written in the skies," and flash instantaneous and
universal conviction. No doubt, if man constructed
one, he would endeavour at least to imitate such a
" flash." But on this point, all that need be said is,
that if such a revelation were given, it would be in
glaring contradiction to all the analogies of that natural
revelation which God has given us in His works. There,
as in relation to the Scripture, man is equipped, as
Butler says, with apparently very inadequate instru-
ments of investigation, to plod on his path to know-
ledge; and in each case his experience is analogous.
He has all along to wrestle with innumerable difficult
problems, and in every direction finds that research
terminates at last in insurmountable mysteries. He is
often the victim of his own prejudices, and the dupe of
his own imagination. In both fields he is fond of
26
386 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
generalising faster than his facts warrant, and is con-
tinually the slave of one or other of those seductive
idola of the human mind which Bacon has so com-
prehensively sketched. From the comparative rapidity
with which, during the last few lustres, man has ad-
vanced the frontier of physical science, he is apt in the
present day to forget what the real history of all science
has been, and to become, from his very triumphs, the
victim of one of the above illusions. We are prone to
fancy that, at least in this domain of science, we march
on adamant, and along a plain and straight viaduct,
reared on lofty and stately arches, far above the jungle
and morass through which the pioneers of other truth
have to toil their weary way. No doubt a conclusion in
this department, once established, is, from its peculiar
nature, established for ever. But it is forgotten
through how many errors it has been attained, how
many lath and plaster tenements have usurped the site
on which the solid edifice at last stands. The structure,
once reared, not only sweeps them away, but con-
ceals and soon extinguishes the very memory of the
numberless and often obstinate errors which preceded
it. The false views, the utterly inadequate and ab-
surd theories which science once accepted, men are
only too glad to cover with oblivion. And thus
the instructive, though humiliating history of man's
past ignorance, and of his futile attempts to remedy
it, is more apt to escape us in this department of
science than in those in which, from the nature of the
evidence and the complexity of the phenomena, the ulti-
ix.J " the Constitution and Course of Nature." 387
mate truth is established with less convincing certainty.
But we have only to explore the huge records (willingly
thrown aside as so much lumber, or hidden away as
with shame) of erroneous or imperfect science to see
that here, too, as elsewhere, the path of knowledge is
strewn with the wreck of vain speculations; with hypo-
theses now utterly forgotten, or only recalled with
wonder and derision that they could so long prevail,
and so extensively impose on the human mind. To
these, not a few modern theories will, doubtless, here-
after be added, which now stand in imposing semblance
of truth, or are even paraded as proofs of the accuracy
and unfaltering course of human science ; but which
will be quoted hereafter as ignominious examples of
man's proneness to hasty generalisation and overween-
ing self-confidence.
And when truth, even in this department, is in part
established, how slow is the advance to anything like a
complete solution of all the phenomena it involves !
How many are the steps, and how gradual the process
by which certain seemingly refractory facts, which a
theory, true in the main, has not perfectly explained,
are ultimately adjusted to it. Of this, the enlargement
and rectification of the Newtonian system by mo-
dern science, affords a conspicuous example. But even
the more fundamental truths of a correct theory, in
any branch of physical science, are in general slowly
verified, and through a succession of blunders. As
Butler truly remarks, the great objects and phenomena
of the universe had been exposed to the gaze of men,
26*
388 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
and importunately invited the exercise of the human
intellect, thousands of years before the true theory of
the sublimest of the sciences presented itself. The
heavens were as bright and the intellect of men as
vigorous, three thousand years ago, as now. Yet a true
astronomy is but of yesterday. Till within the last
three hundred years, men in general, and philosophers
among them, believed that the earth was stationary,
and that the sun and stars revolved around it. Even
when the Copernican theory was at last discovered,
how slow were men to believe in it, and how tenacious
of ancient error. Harvey's \vell- known saying, that
" he could not get any man above forty to believe in
the circulation of the blood," is instructive: it is a
specimen of the difficulty with which even scientific
truth breaks through the obstructions of ignorance
and prejudice.
But this, as might be expected, is seen still more
conspicuously in the history of all those sciences which
are founded on moral evidence ; a result both of the
greater obscurity of the evidence itself, and the more
bewildering entanglement of the phenomena. But no
matter what the department of study, in all alike,
though not in the same degree man is so organised,
and his condition such, that he can gain knowledge
only by a tedious process, and through a labyrinth of
errors and misconceptions.
If, therefore, the Bible has been constructed (as it
certainly has been) in such way as to necessitate the
perpetual activity of man's intellect, and to exercise
ix.] " Hie Constitution and Course of Nature." 389
dustry, perseverance, and humility, in other words,
to constitute a perpetual discipline for him ; it
is in palpable analogy with his condition as a
"minister" of the mysteries, and "interpreter"
of the works, of nature. The rational, and, indeed,
perhaps sufficient account of the fact in both
cases, is suggested in the great truth that man
is a creature who, to a great degree, must have
"the making of himself;" and that, presupposing
such modicum of knowledge (whether of physical
facts or of religious truth) as may be essential to
him, placed within his reach, the strenuous exercise
of all his powers, and its result in the forma-
tion of character, are of yet more importance to
him than the absolute amount of knowledge he may
acquire ; in a word, that the , chase is to him of as
much moment as the quarry.
No doubt it would be a serious objection to this
view, if the things absolutely necessary to his being, or
even to his zeW/-being, were as difficult to attain as
those which chiefly stimulate his curiosity, impel him
to mental activity, or provide a discipline for patience
and humility. But this is not so. The facts of the
outward world, on which man's existence and suste-
nance depend, and on which the common arts of life
are founded, are obvious to all. And so, in the study
of Scripture, are the truths that " belong to life and
godliness." But of the profounder " arcana," whether
of nature or of Scripture, the same general analogy
holds, that they necessitate and provoke the same
3QO On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LTEC.
diligent and persevering use of all the faculties of
our nature.
Nor, in connection with this subject, ought the
sagacious inference which Butler draws from the
remark, last quoted from him, to be omitted ; that if
the true science of astronomy tarried so long and
came so late, though the heavens had been ablaze
for so many centuries with the bright hieroglyphics
man was asked to decipher, there is no absurdity
in supposing that the Bible may still contain un-
discovered truths, which await the continued appli-
cation of the human intellect to elicit them. The
remark has been verified by the progress made, since
his time, in the interpretation and elucidation of
Scripture, and especially in the construction of works
founded on the evidence which the Scripture itself
yields to the diligent investigation and collation of
its own contents. Several volumes have been written,
for example, on the evidence supplied by " undesigned
coincidences " which it " had not entered into the
heart of man to conceive," though, like the phenomena
of astronomy, they had been perpetually under man's
eye for so many ages.
VI. There is another point, intimately connected
with, and indeed but a corollary from, the preceding,
which suggests another analogy between the Bible (ij
it be indeed from God) and the Universe, which is
incontestably His work. I mean that each seemingly
affords, from its variety, ample scope for that study
and reflection which each exacts. Not that the one
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature" 391
can, in the same sense or to the same extent, afford
such a field for investigation as the other. All I mean
is, that, like the world, or even some very limited portion
of it (as, for example, man), the book is apparently
a theme of inexhaustible study and contemplation.
I found this observation, not exclusively, or even
principally, on the qualities on which I have insisted
in previous pages, the artificiality of its structure,
or the varied character or complex relations of its
contents, or the versatility of form in which these
are presented to us, though it is, in fact, by far the
most varied book, both in contents and form, ever
given to the world : I found it on that fact to which
I have already adverted in a previous lecture and
for another purpose, namely, that though so many
thousands of volumes have been written on this one,
though it has been so familiarly known for so many ages,
among widely different races, among nations speaking
different languages, and differing also by every variety
and degree of culture, men do not seem to come to
a term of their curiosity or admiration or hostility ;
for their ceaseless efforts to refute its claims, as well
as those to establish them, prove how profound
and how constant is the impression it produces. And
now, at the end of so many ages of unremitted study,
the world still sees a never-ceasing flood of litera-
ture evoked by it, and the most gigantic efforts made
for its elucidation, translation, and diffusion ! It
is hardly possible, after such experience of unslaked
interest in it, to avoid the conclusion that, in con-
392 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
templating it, as in contemplating the works of God,
the time will not soon come when the " eye will be
satisfied with seeing," or the " ear with hearing."
If, for extent and complexity, the book cannot
as all will confess be compared with these
last, it may at least be compared with many of the
single objects which they present to us, and which,
though small in compass, exhibit such marvels of
design and structure, as to afford unbounded exercise
for man's research and investigation. Like man, the
Bible is a "microcosm" of itself; and, as shown
in a previous lecture, seems to have as great com-
plexity of structure, and as great variety of con-
tents commensurate, however, with the variety of
purposes it is designed to serve as can possibly
belong to a book ; and which make it, as a book, as
much sui generis as any of the works of God com-
pared with the imitations of men.
VII. Another analogy suggested by the last topic
(for it is one cause of that inexhaustible interest which
both Nature and the Bible would seem capable of in-
spiring) is not unworthy of mention. I allude to the
seemingly unsystematic form in which the multifarious
contents of the Bible are exhibited to us, and which,
though in part a necessary consequence of its gradual
formation, its complexity of structure, and its various
matter, reminds us of the similar presentation of the
phenomena of the universe, and involves similar effects
on us.
Some, as we have seen in a previous lecture, have
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature" 393
made this very characteristic a grave objection to it.
They have complained that its contents are delivered
in so unsystematic a form, and have demanded that
a true revelation should be marked by that orderly
arrangement and classification of results which their
logical propensities and habits of analysis best love.
In so doing, they bear witness to a certain tendency of
human nature, at least of philosophical human nature;
in truth, one would expect that if man constructed the
book, it would have been marked by less variety of form
and complexity of structure, and far less apparent
irregularity in the distribution of its contents; in a
word, by more seeming method. In the mean time,
however incompetent we are (as must be admitted)
to say in what form a Divine revelation would be best
given, it is incontestable that if the Bible be one, the
mode in which its contents are presented is in palpable
analogy with the mode in which the phenomena of
nature are presented to us; that is, in glorious and
seemingly bewildering confusion. In either case they
are flung down, so to speak, before man, and invite
him to employ his intellect upon them ; to spell out
the alphabet of that highly complex language in which
the " manifold wisdom " of God speaks to us. Though
science may be made out of the phenomena of nature
thus submitted to us, they were not primarily made for
science, but for immediately practical ends. The entire
phenomena, indeed, constitute a system though a sys-
tem, as Butler says, so far beyond our comprehension,
that " he must literally know nothing who does not con-
394 n certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
fess his ignorance of it." We perceive also, for that is a
visible fact, that the adjustments in this vast machinery,
and the reciprocal influences at work in it, maintain a
stable system a system in which even we may trace
some of the relations which subsist between its most dis-
tant parts, and which connect by insensible gradations
the sublimest phenomena of astronomy with the meanest
phenomena of animated nature. I The more we study
the phenomena, the more we perceive this mutual
interdependence. But the aggregate of the phenomena
are nevertheless in seeming utter confusion, and with an
aspect the very reverse of that of a well-arranged mu-
seum. Sun, moon, and planets ; earth, air, and water ;
electricity and magnetism ; inorganic and organic struc-
tures; countless tribes of vegetable and animal existence,
are linked together by ten thousand relations of adapta-
tion, and constitute a system only while they are so. All
1 Exquisitely has Paley illustrated this in his " Natural Theology."
" If," says he, " the relation of sleep to night, and, in some instances,
its converse, be real, we cannot reflect without amazement upon
the extent to which it carries us. Day and night are things close
to us ; the change applies immediately to our sensations. Of all
the phenomena of nature, it is the most obvious and the most
familiar to our experience ; but in its cause, it belongs to the great
motions which are passing in the heavens. Whilst the earth glides
round her axis, she ministers to the alternate necessities of the
animals dwelling upon her surface, at the same time that she obeys
the influence of those attractions which regulate the order of many
thousand worlds. The relation, therefore, of sleep to night, is the
relation of the inhabitants of the earth to the rotation of their
globe. Probably it is more : it is a relation of the system of which
that globe is a part, and still further to the congregation of systems
of which theirs is only one. If this account be true, it connects
the meanest individual with the universe itself a chicken roosting
upon its perch with the spheres revolving in the firmament. "-
Paley's " Natural Theology," vol. i. p. 363
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature." 395
the laws of all the natural sciences, of astronomy,
chemistry, anatomy, and a score more, are at work at
once, and in infinite entanglement. To exhibit its ele-
ments apart, would be to take the universe to pieces,
and destroy it by doing so. It would be to turn it into a
collection of curiosities the garden of Eden into a hortus
siccus. It would be no more the universe, but the la-
mentable debris of a post-mortem dissection ; not a
watch, but its various parts spread out on the watch-
maker's board ; the elements of a system, but a system
no longer. Meantime it is given to man to exercise
himself for ever about these objects to take a survey
of them, to trace their relations, analyse and classify
them. To do this perfectly in any case, he must
at least imagine the object on which his scientific
curiosity is exercised no longer existing in reality, but
reduced to its elements ; and . in many cases (for
example, the system of a living organism) he must
actually destroy it before he can attempt the work of
analysis. That most marvellous of all, the human
body, must cease to have that life, which alone
makes it worth anything, before the scientific man can
even lay the foundation of its anatomy and physiology.
Man must cease to breathe before he can exist for the
philosopher. He must die, that science may live.
But though the philosopher has plenty to do in his
" interpretation " of the complex phenomena of nature,
they are thus unsystematically exhibited because far
other ends are contemplated than his convenience ; and
i/ the Bible be a revelation, it is even so with that.
396 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
VIII. I may here note another analogy of a similar
practical character, between the Word (if the Bible
be such) and the Works of God. For as the philo-
sopher is apt to complain that the Bible is not sys-
tematic enough for him, so the man of imagination
is sometimes repelled by its frequent homeliness,
its unpoetic realism, and complains that it is not
all so " perfect in beauty " as the human mind might
conceive it would have been. The useful, and there-
fore the homely, is no doubt there in close rela-
tions with the beautiful, and often mars or impairs
the effect of it. But so it is in Nature, and with
the same result. In either case it is what the poetical
mind naturally resents, and in the products of art
laudably endeavours to prevent. It is the function of
that wonderful faculty of imagination which God has
given us, to idealise Nature, and give it a homo-
geneity, a symmetry, an etherial grace, which Nature
never has. It is the province of poetry, as Bacon says,
" to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of
man in those points wherein the nature of things doth
deny it the world being in proportion inferior to the
soul ; by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit
of man, a more ample greatness, a more exact good-
ness, and a more absolute variety than can be found in
the nature of things." 1
Poetry, therefore, in consistency with this partial
design of art, eliminates from its pictures of reality all
that is mean, vulgar, homely, and presents to us objects
1 Advancement of Learning. Book 2.
ix.] "the Constitution and Course of Nature" 397
not as they are, but as they may be conceived to be in
unsullied beauty ; just as the painter refuses to put into
his scenes anything that merely suggests the idea of
what is simply repulsive, and incapable of being ex-
hibited with a picturesque effect. The poet's aim, in
like manner, is to select such objects, images, and
expressions as shall be pleasing, or at all events give
an excess of pleasurable over painful emotions. He is
as sedulous to clear everything that is disgusting from
his description as the painter from his canvas. This is
his design, and his efforts terminate there ; but far
different is it in that world of realities from which, by
selection and elimination, his beautiful, but ideal scenes
are drawn. There the production of the beautiful is
but one of the many indissolubly connected designs
which Nature has in view. We feel offended with the
poet Cowper for even introducing into his beautiful de-
scription of a " garden " the mention of the " dunghill,'*
though without it the garden would lose its charms ; and
are still more displeased by his attempting to give an
affected disguise to it, but really a double emphasis,
by the unpoetic periphrasis of the " stercoraceous
heap." But Nature is not, and cannot afford to
be so squeamish. She is intent upon more serious
things than poetry and painting; she is profuse in
giving us the beautiful, so long and so far as it may
be compatible with all the objects of her vast system,
but will not postpone the useful to it. Adorning the
world with as much beauty as is compatible with other
and more practical good, she has no horror of " ster-
398 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
coraceous heaps,*' or anything else that is conducive to
her manifold ends. The purposes of benevolence and
manifest utility come first, however they may mar a
picture or cloud the ideal. And therefore it is that we
so seldom see landscapes to which the artist cannot
take exceptions, and which he could not in fact im-
prove, if the mere purpose were to produce a scene of
faultless beauty. True it is that there are thousands
of scenes in Nature infinitely more replete with grandeur
and loveliness than any that the artist can at all
adequately represent on his canvas ; but few in which,
looking at the beautiful and picturesque alone, he
could not suggest something superfluous or defective.
He will exclude objects which simply suggest the idea
of what disgusts us, however really there ; and if he
paints the scene, will annihilate or transmute them.
The peculiarities referred to in these two last sec-
tions, apparent defects of method and apparent
violations of taste, must characterise the Scrip-
ture (or any true revelation), if it is to answer
the manifold and diverse purposes of such a book
to the entire race of man ; to be the universal
counsellor of all ages, of every land, of every race ; of
men of all conditions, old and young, prince and
peasant, the learned and the ignorant, and these in
every degree of moral excellence or moral degradation ;
\ to say nothing of being its own interpreter, com-
x mentatory, and evidence. Like the universe, it is a
system indeed, but a system too vast, too complex,
prosecuting too many ends simultaneously, to be
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature." 399
amenable to the philosopher's trim analyses or the
poet's idea of beauty. Though it may contain, in
many parts, wisdom, sublimity, beauty, eloquence, and
pathos, which will more than compare with anything
of the kind in merely human literature, it has too many
purposes to serve, is too deeply steeped in the real and
the actual, too intent on practical utility, to permit of
its pursuing exclusively or pervadingly any such logical
or poetic ideal. The sick, the poor, the ignorant, the
vicious, the miserable, will claim its care as much as
philosophers and poets ; and more, since they are more
numerous. For these reasons (to say nothing further
of the scope which such a various structure affords to
the intellectual activity of men, in exploring its charac-
teristics and analysing its contents), that unsystematic
form given to a revelation may well be justified. At
any rate, the traits in question are in analogy with
the mode in which, for apparently similar reasons,
the natural phenomena of the universe are presented
to us.
IX. If the contents of the Bible are exhibited
unsystematically, like the objects and phenomena of
the natural world, the proportions in which the dif-
ferent elements in each exist for us, present another
analogy. As what is essential to life is cheap and
common, like the air and sunshine, and what is neces-
sary for subsistence is for the most part easy of
acquisition ; so it has often been remarked that in
the Scripture, what is of primary moment, is insisted
on and illustrated with proportionate fulness and
400 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
iteration, and is equally accessible to the learned and
the ignorant.
Things that are of chief importance are made plain,
and exhibited in every diversity of light. It is for the
most part only things that are of little practical
moment, of curiosity rather than utility, or which
seem designed to exercise our modesty and humility,
or to stimulate our curiosity or industry, that are left
obscure. Their rationale, the complete solution of
the mysteries which environ them, are not essential to
salvation
X. In a previous lecture I said a few words on
the probable complexity which would characterise any
volume, designed to be a guide and light to all men
in every condition of life, and for all purposes of
moral instruction and education, if it be indeed a
revelation. That complexity, seemingly inevitable on
any hypothesis, would seem still further increased in
the case of the Bible by expedients to attain at once
these manifold primary ends, and certain secondary ends
simultaneously with them. I illustrated this by re-
ferring to the historic form which it has assumed,
and which, in addition to manifold advantages as a
vehicle for instruction, secures important contributions
to the internal evidence. Similar remarks apply to cer-
tain expedients and peculiarities of language and style
adapted to secure the integrity of its text ; to aid its
interpretation; and, not least, to impress upon it a
character which facilitates its easy translation. This
complexity is still further increased by the interfusion,
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature." 401
with all its elements, of various marks and evidences
of its truth ; a Trdpepyov, or " byework," indeed, but
apparently more or less contemplated in the entire
fabric of Scripture. Let it have, then, as much sim-
plicity as is consistent with these multifarious ends,
as much beauty as is consistent with the higher pur-
poses of perspicuity and utility, such a structure is
yet necessarily very complex. Now this is just what
so often strikes us in the analogies of nature ; where
we are filled with wonder that so many ends should
all be attained by the same set of instruments, with
so little sacrifice and with such approximate perfection. 1
Every species of creature affords illustration of it. But
1 There are few things that strike a reflecting mind as more
wonderful than that set of operations, all of them of primary im-
portance in the vital economy, which are performed by the conjoint
action of the tongue, mouth, palate, and throat. Functions essen-
tial to the life of the body, and by which that of the soul is
expressed, are performed by these few organs, the organs them-
selves in such close proximity, and working in and by each other
with such marvellous intricacy, that the wonder is that they should
be performed at all, much more with such ease. It is true, indeed,
that we cannot perform them all quite simultaneously; but with
how inconceivable facility do the organs by which these all-im-
portant processes of respiration, mastication, deglutition, articula-
tion, are effected, by which tastes are perceived, sounds produced,
thought expressed, I say with how inconceivable facility do these
organs commence and cease, alternate, modify, suspend, resume
their various functions ! " In a city feast, for example," says Paley,
in his lively style of illustration, "what deglutition, what anhela-
tion ! yet does this little cartilage, the epiglottis, so effectually
interpose its office, so securely guard the entrance of the windpipe,
that whilst morsel after morsel, draught after draught, are coursing
one another over it, an accident of a crumb or a drop slipping into
this passage (which, nevertheless, must be opened for the breath
every second of time) excites in the company, not only alarm by
its danger, but surprise by its novelty. Not two guests are choked
in a century."
27
402 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
perhaps it is seen most conspicuously in man him-
self; on the wonders of whose organisation, material
and mental, on the mechanism, anatomy, physiology,
chemistry of whose body, on the nature and faculties
of whose mind, and on the laws of reciprocal inter-
action between them, a thousand volumes have
been written, and a thousand more will not exhaust
the theme. In the entire phenomena of this " abridg-
ment of the universe " (as he has been called), we
have an object of the greatest conceivable, or rather
of utterly inconceivable complexity (corresponding to
the variety of purposes which are all to be fulfilled),
in the small compass of a few solid feet, and with
the least possible sacrifice of higher to lower ends.
We are filled with amazement that such diversified
and important purposes should be conjointly attained.
XI. When that genuine Christian philosopher, Robert
Boyle, composed his admirable essay on the " Style
of the Holy Scriptures," he replied at length to some
a priori objections which would scarcely be insisted upon
now even by the sceptic, at least since the appearance
of Butler's Analogy ; as, for example, that the Bible
left many " mysteries and difficulties " unsolved on
its pages, and that many parts demand deep study
and prolonged investigation to master them, even
when they do at length yield to persevering effort.
Such traits, it must be conceded, are not evidences
for the truth of any revelation ; but, so far from
being objections, they are rather of the nature of
necessary conditions of it. Though they would prove
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature." 403
the truth of no professed revelation, their absence
would be a great presumption against the claims of
any. For :
i. A revelation without mystery is not even con-
ceivable. A revelation, if it deserves the name, must
make known some new truths ; and every augmentation
of knowledge, even of a lower kind, is attended, not
accidentally, but necessarily, with the revelation also
of our ignorance. The horizon widens, but the indis-
tinctness is still upon it; and the larger that horizon
is, the larger becomes the periphery of haze that
surrounds it. Thus it is in natural science, and must
be as long as man is a progressive being; that is,
until (if that be conceivable, which to men in general
it certainly is not) "he shall know all mysteries and
all knowledge." If that ever come to pass, then,
constituted as man is, he will probably have con-
summated his misery just as he has arrived at
perfection ! For he will still have as strong appetite
for knowledge as ever, but nothing wherewith to
satisfy it.
But this is not likely to be the case ; and until it
is, every new truth he learns reveals to him his igno-
rance, and he seeks to know more. Thus, when the
law of gravitation was discovered, and explained so
many phenomena, men asked (as they do still),
" What is this property with which all matter is
endowed ? What is the rationale of it ? What is the
Maw' of this 'law'? How is it inherent in matter?
Is it inseparable from its very nature ? " And hitherto
27 *
404 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
all speculation on this subject has been in vain, and
probably will ever be. It is the same with the law of
chemical affinities ; it explains some mysteries and dis-
closes others. It is thus with every new law, which is
either but the ultimate fact of the moment, and ceases
to be so the next year or the next generation ; or, if it
be absolutely immovable, is so, not because there is
nothing more to know, but because we have reached in
that direction the limit of our faculties, a limit as
insurmountable as the barrier which separates us from
the planetary worlds. We have sufficient proof, in-
deed, that such limit is not soon attained, and may
often fancy we have reached it when we have not.
Still, whether attained or not, there is always the
horizon of mist, sometimes immovable, sometimes
capable of being rolled back. Only a few years ago
almost everybody believed the ocean depths to be
devoid of life : we are now led to see that a whole
world of future science has been concealed from our
ignorance, and we wait for further exploration. Only
a century ago, geology opened a new hunting-field
for the intellect of man, and it is hard to say how far
our adventurous Nimrod will be carried. A few years
ago he was hunting the megatherium and ichthyo-
saurus: he has disposed of that small game, and,
mounted on his hippogriff, is pushing his incursions
into the uttermost deserts of time and space. But with
every excursion he finds, if not clear knowledge, most
absolute proof of an ever-widening frontier of dark-
ness. A few years ago men seldom made expeditions
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature." 405
much beyond the planetary system ; now they are busy
with the problems of sidereal astronomy, and every
new fact discloses that " man is but of yesterday and
knows nothing."
Now if this be so when men tell us of " earthly
things," can it be otherwise if God tell us of " heavenly
things " ? These, too, must have their relations and
connections with other and unknown truths, truths
at least as deeply veiled from us as the ultimate truths
of secular science. And especially may we expect such
mystery, if the revelation not only refuses, as Scripture
does, to tell us anything that merely tends to gratify
curiosity, but seems to give us glimpses of some
truths, simply as involved in the course of revealing
to us other truths of more immediate importance to us;
so that we only see them by gleams and sidelights,
as we might catch a glimpse of an object behind a
curtain, as it fluttered in the wind.
2. But, again; if a professed revelation were given
without mystery and difficulty, it would be in such
startling contrast with all the analogies of the previous
revelation in nature, that it would rather be an obstacle
to receiving it than not. Here, as just shown, we
cannot move in any direction without soon finding
that we are stopped by a present limit, and, if we go
far enough, by a permanent one ; one that we cannot
hope to surmount, because our very faculties fail us.
This is notoriously the case with certain great mys-
teries, as, for example, the essence of matter or of
mind, the laws of their union or interaction, the origin
406 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
of evil, and the problem of the consistency of the
Divine government with freedom of the human will,
on all which men have been guessing, speculating,
and reasoning, from time immemorial, without coming
to any satisfactory solution.
If there were no difficulties or mysteries in a pro-
fessed revelation, parallel with those which are so
abundant in the world, the contrast would probably
rather startle than conciliate .us.
XII. Though I do not here contend for the actual
occurrence of miracles or prophecy, I think it may be
said, not only that they form a species of evidence,
which, if there be a revelation at all, is in conformity
with the only conditions on which man, from the
constitution of his intellect, could be rationally ex-
pected to receive it, but is also in analogy with the
tendencies of his nature in general. A sense of the
supernatural, an expectation of its manifestation,
somehow and at some time, would seem among
the most characteristic phenomena of human nature,
and has been attested generally by the facts of
man's history ; and, not least, by the eager credulity
with which he has listened even to the most idle
legends which have been invented to gratify it. In
short, it would seem that a belief in the supernatural is
founded in some of the deepest and most ineradicable
instincts. " This love and belief of the supernatural,"
says Dr. Mozley, " has flourished successively upon
heathen, upon Christian, and upon scientific material ;
because in truth it is neither heathen, nor Christian,
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature" 407
nor scientific, but human. Springing out of the com-
mon stock of humanity, which is the same in all ages,
it adapts itself to the belief, the speculations, and the
knowledge of its own day." 1
Somewhat similar remarks apply to prophecy. The
yearning of the heart of man for some glimpses into
futurity is so natural, that it has ever prompted him
to practise, in all ages and countries, a hundred arts
of divination. It would seem a tendency of our nature,
which, like the belief in the supernatural, is ineradic-
able. 2
The unequivocal tendency to believe in miraculous
interposition, and the equally unequivocal desire to
penetrate the future, would seem to indicate an origin
in the principles of our nature ; and if so, the provision
for them in the alleged phenomena of the Bible is in
" analogy " with that nature.
I do not enter now into the question whether the
miracles recorded in Scripture are facts; if not, the
Bible is false by its own verdict, for it appeals to
them : but appeal it must, if its evidence is to be
in unison with the constitution of human nature.
Every revelation made to one man, or to a few men
in order to be communicated to the world at large,
containing things confessedly undiscoverable by human
reason, and demanding to be received on the testimony
of the first witnesses, must thus appeal. If a professed
1 Miracles, p. 163. Third Edition.
2 See some pertinent observations on this subject in Davison
on Prophecy, pp. 213, 214. Sixth Edition.
408 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
emissary from the skies tells me only what my own
instinct or reason had anticipated, I tell him I do not
need him, and that he may go. If again he tells me
only things which, indeed, I had not suspected, but
which when known are seen to be involved in the pre-
mises which nature has furnished (though I had not
discovered them), I tell him that his professed revela-
tions may have been discoveries made by himself, or
by others ; and that for such truths no revelation is
necessary. But if he demands my assent to propo-
sitions, which by the very terms of them are palpably
beyond all human discovery, for which neither he nor
I have any natural data, as, for example, the resur-
rection of the body, the certainty of the soul's im-
mortality, the incarnation of Christ, His atonement
for the sins of men, then he is bound to make good
his claims on my faith by evidence as preternatural
as his communications. I ask him, "Who told you all
this ? Why am I to believe you ? " It is in vain to
say, " I had it in a dream of the night, or in a vision
by day." " Dreams and visions, they must remain,"
I reply : " to you they may be, to me they can be,
nothing more. You must give me evidence miraculous
as your message." So reasonable, so natural is this
course, that even a man utterly sceptical as to the
possibility of miracle and prophecy, would have little
difficulty in assenting to its hypothetical propriety.
He would reasonably argue, that if a revelation of
the nature described was to be given at all, it must
be thus corroborated.
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Naturt,' 409
It was in analogy with nature, therefore, that the
Jews asked of Christ " What dost thou work?" and
He, by working miracles, admitted their claim ; and
more expressly still when He said, " If I had not done
among them miracles which none other man did, they
had not had sin," that is, in rejecting His message.
It was natural, in like manner, for the followers of
Mahomet to ask him for miracles ; and if nothing else
had stamped his professed revelation as destitute of
trustworthy evidence of its celestial origin, it would
be sufficient to point to the fact that he evaded this
only sufficient test.
It is accordingly in analogy with this that men
proceed in analogous circumstances of ordinary life.
When their belief or action is demanded by unknown
pei so is, and on momentous matters, the intrinsic truth
of which is not evident, and may seem a priori incre-
dible, no reasoning nor seeming honesty nor vehe-
mence of asseveration on the part of the messengers,
can or ought to satisfy. Men ask and must have the
indubitable cr^fjueia of a right to demand their cre-
dence ; the letters, the sign-manual, or other accre-
dited proofs that the messengers speak with authority.
Such peculiar " signs " alone will suffice ; and these,
in the supposed case of a Revelation, can be nothing
less than miracle and prophecy.
To any one, therefore, who demands implicit assent
and obedience to things absolutely undiscoverable to
human reason, man, if he be reasonable, will say,
" Show me that you have the authority of Him whose
4io On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
emissary you say you are." When the Lord of Nature
and of Time, He who can control causes and pre-
dict the future, confirms your message, I shall believe
you, and not till then."
I have said that I am not now arguing for the truth
either of miracles or prophecy, but merely that the
appeal to them is in analogy with the constitution of
human nature. The claim to have furnished such
evidence, no more proves a revelation to be true, than
the existence of mysteries does, for they may both
characterise a false revelation ; but the absence of
such claims would be a presumption against a revela-
tion, and out of analogy with the constitution of that
human mind which is summoned to submit to them.
My space forbids me to pursue this topic of
" Analogy" further. I must content myself with refer-
ring the reader to some further examples in Bishop
Hampden's admirable work on the "Philosophical
Evidence of Christianity," and begging him to bear in
mind that all the analogies insisted on by Butler are
also to be taken into the account; for they are available
on this, the positive side of the argument, though they
derive their chief force from being a reply to specific
objections.
This lecture may be considered as complementary
of the two first. If these show that the Bible is not
in conformity with what might have been expected to
proceed from man, analogy shows that it has, at all
events, certain conformities with what has incontest-
ably proceeded from God.
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature." 411
It will be seen, from the train of reasoning generally
pursued in these lectures, that I infer no more than
that the Bible, in its substance, had a superhuman
origin.
It is possible to contend that this does not show
it to be Divine ; nay, it is possible to imagine some
sceptical Quixote suggesting that even if it had a
preternatural origin, it may have been a malevolent
one. But as such an objector is hardly conceivable,
we may wait till he appears before indulging in the
equal Quixotry of confuting him. Unless one of those
old Pharisees, who imputed the miracles of Incarnate
Benevolence and Mercy to the agency of Beelzebub,
could rise from the dead, I do not know that such an
objector could be found ; and even then he would be
answered by our Lord's own argument, " That a king-
dom divided against itself is brought to desolation
and that -a house divided against itself cannot stand."
If it be once granted that the Bible, on the whole,
is not the work of man, few will hesitate to whom to
assign it.
At the same time, it is incumbent on me to mark
distinctly the limits of the thesis I contend for.
It is not necessary for me to affirm that the Bible,
as we have it, or even if we had it (as we cannot have
it) in the very autographs of its original writers, is
absolutely free from errors. To show that these ques-
tions do not affect the conclusions I am concerned
with, I would offer a few brief observations.
As apologists for Christianity justly affirm that the
413 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
sum of the general evidence for it cannot be neutralized
by minute errors, referrible either to accidental cor-
ruptions of the text, or even to less than infallible
accuracy in the writers, so I may say the same of the
reasoning I have endeavoured to develop. No diffi-
culties in minute points of chronology or history, no
various readings, no mistakes as to numbers, nay, nor
even such errors of detail (if they can be proved such)
as have been charged on the original writers, will in-
validate the conclusions for which I contend. All the
facts I have dwelt upon remain, and point still in one
direction.
The evidence for the general conclusion cannot be
equated with these specific objections. They may
require, more or less, a limitation of our faith ; they
may affect in a certain degree the sum of our deduc-
tions from the book or our theories of its inspiration;
whether that was plenary or partial, continuous or
intermittent. But they will still leave its substance
untouched, and the great doctrines it unfolds and the
great duties it enjoins, just as they were.
If, for example, all the alleged historic contradictions
which, with any tolerable plausibility of argument, have
been charged upon the Bible, were admitted to be such,
and withdrawn from its pages as errors which had
got there we knew not how, none of the paradoxes
which the supposition of the human origin of the Bible
involves would be at all diminished, nor any argument
founded on them refuted. Similarly, if all the pas-
sages in which it is contended that fact or doctrine
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature" 413
is affected by corruptions of the text or discrepancies
in the manuscripts, 1 were given up on all sides, so
various and copious are the statements of Scripture,
that their surrender would make scarcely any appre-
ciable difference in the determination of the points for
or against which they may have been cited.
These things cannot affect any of the facts on
which I have argued that the Bible, as a whole, is not
such a book as man would have compiled if he could,
or could if he would.
Now, let a man only grant that the Bible is really
such a book, and it is certain that he will not lightly
tamper with its contents; his veneration will make
him very careful how he rejects any portion of it ;
he will exact the severest proois that what he is sum-
moned to reject is demonstrable error, before he casts
it away. The excrescences which the accidents of
time may have produced, he will remove with a
cautious hand, lest his critical scalpel should go too
deep. Alleged errors of the original writers them-
selves he will approach (to use the language of
Burke on another subject) as he would " the wounds
of a father," with " awful reverence and filial tender-
ness ; " but if they can be proved, he will, as an
1 " Make your thirty thousand various readings as many more,"
says Bentley, "if numbers of copies can ever reach that sum : all
the better to a knowing and considerate reader, who is thereby
more richly furnished to select what he sees genuine. But even
put them into the hands of a knave or a fool, and yet with the most
sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of
any one chapter, nor so disguise Christianity but that every feature
of it will be still the same." Remarks on Free-thinking, 31.
414 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
honest man, feel no temptation to harbour them. He
will be simply careful to ascertain that they are errors
which are charged upon the writers ; and, except for
the most coercive reasons, will rather modestly dis-
trust his own wisdom than theirs.
Nor need we hesitate to affirm that whoever acts
with this reverential caution, and rejects only what
has been demonstrated to be contradiction or error, will
find, when he has subtracted every iota to which he
can attach that character, that his Bible is much the
same, both in bulk and weight, that it was before.
But it can no more be his duty to reject the whole,
on account of such errors, than of the theist to reject
the conclusion that there is a Divine artificer of the
world, because there are many things in it he cannot
comprehend, and some phenomena which seem even
at variance both with wisdom and goodness. The
theist leaves these, and, notably, all the phenomena
of evil, in all their insolubility. Feeling, as Butler
puts it, that the whole system of things, though
plainly a system, is utterly beyond his comprehension,
he waits f jr further light and the slow evolution of the
vast plan de Dieu. As I have elsewhere said, " his
faith is exercised indeed; but he feels that to ignore the
evidence of his reason for his general conclusion, would
be to sacrifice faith and reason too ; to make his
ignorance the rule and measure of his knowledge,
or, rather, to abandon what he knows, because there
are other things which he knows not."
That there are errors in the Bible, as we have it,
ix.] '* the Constitution and Course of Nature" 415
I
is incontrovertible. Not only are there errors, but
there must have been, even on the principles of those
Who hold the most rigid theories of inspiration. For
even they do not deny that the book of God was, like
every book of man, committed to human custody under
all the ordinary laws on which the preservation or
corruption both of the one and the other must depend.
To all the casualties which can affect the integrity of
the latter, the former is equally liable; qualified only by
that exceptional reverence which it has in fact inspired
in those who transcribed and transmitted it ; by the
facilities for revising the text which the greater number
of copies (produced by the same exceptional estimate
of its value) would supply, and by certain artifices in
its construction, which, as pointed out in a former
part of these lectures, subserve, and seem intended
to subserve, a like purpose. But, apart from such
deductions, whatever imperfections, arising from the
causes above referred to, are found in any human
author whatever, may, nay, must be found in the
Bible. Every species of error that could flow from
inadvertence or negligence of the transcribers, from
ignorance or presumption in editors, from lapse of
memory or illusion of eyesight, and which so largely
deform profane literature substitutions of one word
for another, slight omissions, lacuna, mistakes in
numbers, and so on may be equally expected here.
Whatever difficulties from these causes may perplex
the critic who edits or interprets Plato's dialogues
or Livy's history (and none need be tolcl how manifold
4i 6 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
and often baffling they are), must also be found in
the Bible, aggravated in some degree by the far
greater antiquity of a large portion of the book, and
by the greater number of various readings which
the incomparably more frequent transcription has
occasioned. 1 If we find in these authors, as we do
find, passages which, from such causes, are obscure,
or ambiguous, or palpably corrupt, or unintelligible,
or contradictory passages on which infinite ingenuity
of conjecture, and all the resources of learning, often
exhaust themselves in vain we must expect to find
the same or similar passages in the Scriptures.
That these difficulties must be very considerable in
number, if not in weight, considering that the book
has been transmitted through such long periods, and
so often transcribed by ignorant or incompetent
copyists, can hardly be doubted. If it be asked,
" Then what trust can we have that the very sub-
stance may not be touched by this class of error?"
the answer is, " The same warranty that we have in
the case of any other book, and no more." The
1 This last source of difficulty is, however, probably more than
compensated by the aid which the various readings afford in the
revision and recovery of the text. The manuscripts which exist
in whole or in part of the New Testament are so much more
numerous than those of any other ancient book, even the most
popular, that that circumstance would lead one to conjecture that
the preponderance of the impressions of the printed volume
over every other printed book (to which reference has been made
in a previous page), was as great, \T\ proportion^ in the manuscript
copies. The immense efforts made, and yet in vain, to destroy the
copies of the New Testament during the fierce persecution under
Diocletian, confirms the suspicion of an exceptional activity of
transcription, as afterwards of the press.
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature " 417
laws on which the transmission of the Bible depend
are at least as certain as those on which the trans-
mission of any other book depends. Now we find,
in point of fact, that the limits of error are always
very moderate, and leave the essence, even of
writings far less carefully guarded than those of the
Scriptures, untouched. All the reasons therefore
which satisfy us that we have the substance of
Plato's or Livy's genuine thoughts (let what deduc-
tions we will be made for the injuries of time and
negligence), may satisfy us (and much more fully, if
we weigh and number the passages which are in-
curably corrupt, doubtful, or contradictory in the
several cases) that we possess the genuine substance
of the Bible ; that the life is untouched, though the
skin be razed here and there ; that the tree is
sound, though some twigs and leaves may have been
carried away in the storm.
I have sometimes thought that the amount of error
in the Bible, from these causes, may be somewhat
greater than the comparison of manuscripts will dis-
close, and may even embrace some of those cases
for which it is supposed nothing but ignorance or
mistake, on the part of the original writers, will ac-
count. It may be suspected that in some, at least,
of the difficulties which exercise and baffle our in-
genuity or provoke injurious surmises, our embar-
rassment may originate in the unguarded substitution
or omission of a word or clause. Considering what
errors have thus crept into the text, we can hardly
28
41 8 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
be quite sure that, though the testimony of the manu-
scripts is of course our best, and indeed our only safe
guide in ascertaining it, many minute errors do not
still exist, of which the manuscripts give us no suffi-
cient indication, or in some cases none at all.
Such a suspicion is sometimes forced upon one in
the examination of those parallelisms which, as said
elsewhere, seem to have been, in part, intended as
a device for conserving the text. In some of them,
we see that the alteration of a syllable or even a letter
will at once restore the parallelism which the received
reading obviously violates. I would be the last, indeed,
to plead for any other emendations of the text than
those which manuscript authority justifies ; for it would
be better to let intractable passages remain so, than
sanction the freaks of conjectural criticism at one
time so liberally indulged in. Still it is impossible
not to suspect that in many cases, where the sub-
stitution of a single resembling word, or even the;
insertion of a single resembling letter, will remove all
obscurity or solve a difficulty, that the copyist, not
indeed intentionally, but from inadvertence, has been
unfaithful to his text.
I think it is perfectly competent to the Christian
apologist to proceed one step further. Supposing there
are some difficulties or discrepancies incapable of being
solved by the theory of some casual corruption of the
text, difficulties which would be found on the face
of the autographs themselves, if we could inspect
them, and finally shown to be insoluble, it is im-
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature" 419
possible that even that can neutralize the positive
evidence of so many kinds for the substantial truth
of the Bible. In all argumentative fairness we should
merely have to surrender so much proven error, no
matter how it originated. It is accordingly asked by
many in the present day, " What would it matter if
the sacred writers, on immaterial points, and wholly
foreign to their functions as religious teachers,
now and then spoke in ignorance or forgetfulness,
or in compliance with the current notions of their
times, or under natural prejudices of education?
What would it matter if it were proved, as it has
been surmised, that Stephen by a lapsus lingua said
' Sychem,' when he was thinking of another place,
and that the New Testament has truthfully recorded
his blunder ? "
This theory is altogether consistent with the admis-
sion of the substantial truth of the Bible, and is in
fact untenable by none, but such as claim for it
that it is absolutely " perfect chrysolite," inspired
in every particle, if not verbally, yet plenarily, from
the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of the
Apocalypse.
Without professing or pretending that this is de-
monstrated to be the true explanation of the difficulties
in question, I know of no reasons why the theory
should invalidate, in any degree, the evidence on which
the claims of the Bible to our belief, reverence, and
obedience, essentially depends. It could make no dif-
ference to the honest mind. It would eliminate only
28*
420 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
those errors that are demonstrated to be such, and which
must therefore be rejected, however we may account
for them. But it could no more destroy the huge
accumulation of proof for the Bible in general, than
some minute errors detected in any memoir or history
could destroy the evidence on which its general trust-
worthiness is affirmed. And in the case of the Bible,
if the whole of those passages in which it can be at
all pretended that error has been demonstrated, were
subducted from it, the sum of all its more important
contents would remain just what it was.
Without affirming or denying this theory, it must
be admitted that, if true, it is by no means without
analogy in the constitution of nature and the dispen-
sations of Providence. How often does God permit
His most excellent gifts to be in some degree marred
by the hands through which they are administered!
How often does He allow the slips and weaknesses of
the wisest and best to tarnish their worth .or diminish
their usefulness; not indeed to the frustration of the
great objects for which they are equipped and sent
into the world, or of the benefits they were destined
to confer upon it ; but so far as to evince that there
is a baser element in even the most precious things
of earth, of ignorance and infirmity even in the noblest
forms of humanity. It is thus conceivable that, as
the sun has its macula, so may even inspired genius ;
that even " the water of life " may have some tang
of the conduit through which it reaches us ; and the
"heavenly treasures" bear marks of the "earthen
ix.] " the Constitution and Course of Nature" 421
vessels " in which they have been deposited. If it be
so, it is no more than in analogy with nature, while
it would be by no means inconsistent with some of
the purposes of revelation. To ascertain the limits
of our ignorance and knowledge, of error and truth,
would impose a perpetual exercise of caution and
candour, patience and docility ; and if the trait in
question answered no other purpose, it would at
least (as Bishop Butler says of the designed obscurity
which rests on the evidence of religion in general)
admirably serve as an instrument of " probation," and
in some respects would be better than if there were
no such difficulties at all.
To him, then, who admits the substantive truth of
the Bible, founded on the aggregate of all its evidences
the amount of demonstrable error in it, measured by
the contradictions and discrepancies actually proven,
will give little difficulty. It little matters to him what
theory may be formed as to their origin ; he will simply
ignore them. They will be as if obliterated from the
book; but they will not disturb the general con-
clusions, any more than some minute discrepancies
among witnesses, of which neither bench nor bar can
suggest any explanation, will arrest the verdict of a
jury founded on the convergence of all the principal
lines of evidence.
But before surrendering any such fragments, such a
man will justly demand rigorous proof that they are to
be surrendered. He will not hastily reckon that all
the passages on which error is confidently charged,
422 On certain Analogies between the Bible and [LECT.
especially some of those relating to primeval history,
and involving most dark and difficult problems of a
cosmical, ethnological, and chronological nature, and
which science too often proclaims to be utterly incre-
dible, are of this description. They may often be left
sub lite till both the interpretation of Scripture and the
discoveries of science shall have advanced much nearer
to incontrovertible conclusions. The theologian, on his
side, has still a good deal to do for the full elucidation
of the Bible ; and science on hers must not only pro-
ceed much farther than she has done, but hush her
own clamorous discordances, and be quite sure that
her theories of to-day will not (as often in the past)
be corrected or even exploded by the theories of to-
morrow. Till then she cannot be allowed that ma-
gisterial tone which, in spite of her very self, of all
the prophetic warnings of her great prophet in the
" Novum Organum," and the still visible ruins of so
many futile theories, she is so fond of employing ; till
then, she cannot be allowed to speak ex cathedra.
As to those more extenive excisions which demand
the surrender of all that is supernatural in the Bible
(however interfused with all its elements, and as
incapable of being rent from it without destroying it,
as the system of bones or arteries from the human
body without destroying thaf) t the advocate of the
Bible will justly require, before even listening to such a
demand, that science shall not affirm, but demonstrate,
the impossibility or incredibility of miracles. When she,
has done that, I for one acknowledge that it will be
ix.] "the Constitution and Course of Nature." 423
time to shut the book as a hopeless riddle of fable
or falsehood, or both, which it will be hardly worth
while to open again.
Mean time he who admits, in any degree, the reason-
ing in these lectures namely, that the Bible is not
to be accounted for by merely human forces, ought not
to feel much difficulty in this last matter; for if he
concedes a revelation at all, in which are discovered
truths and facts undiscoverable by human faculties,
and conveyed in modes and forms for which human
nature will not account he has already admitted a
miracle a fact as much in the face of that " invariable
order" of nature, and those "immutable series of an-
tecedents and consequents " on which the objector to
miracles insists, as any that can be conceived. The
only difference is that the miracle here has been wrought
in the sphere of mind, and not in that of matter, a dif-
ference which, to a man who knows what the objection
to all miracles logically involves, will not affect the
question. 1
1 On some of the difficulties referred to above, a few pages will
he found in the Appendix, No. VIII.
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
No. I., p. 34.
WHILE the morality of the Old Testament is substantially the
same with that of the New, both being summed up in those
"two commandments" which, as Christ says, embody all that
"Moses and the prophets" taught, and which contain, by impli-
cation, all the principal developments of the Gospel, it cannot be
denied that the ethics of the New Testament modify in certain
points the code of the Old ; not, indeed, by relaxing any moral
precepts, but by enlarging them beyond the scope of what equity
strictly demands, and making that a part of Christian morality which
nature had not made so. This, it seems to me, is implied in that
"new commandment" which Christ gave to His disciples. He
forbade to Christians much which Jew or Gentile might blame-
lessly have felt and done ; for neither would have done what
was wrong in exacting, within the limits of equity, retribution for
injuries, provided the claim was urged strictly within those limits,
and without malignity of feeling. Exact reparation for injuries
wantonly inflicted, when enforced only on these conditions, cannot
be censured as injustice. But the Gospel code takes man out of
himself ; lifts him into a loftier plane of morals ; tells him to refrain
from much which it would be natural, and, by other codes, not
wrong to do : in many cases, to waive the rights he might press,
and endure wrong, rather than requite or resent it.
And this is what our Saviour plainly means when He says, " It
has been said by them of old time, An eye for an eye, a tooth for
a tooth" (this is truly part of the Mosaic law, and TLQ gloss). But
/ say unto you, Love your enemies Do good to them that hate
you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute
you." It is as though He had said, " I abolish the lex talionis,
though it is a part of your law, and is in itself bare justice ; but I
show you a more excellent way."
428 Appendix.
I confess I am very much perplexed to know how this more
elevated morality, not only above nature, but against it, should
have proceeded from the heart of man ; and as little can I con-
ceive it coming from the Jews as from any body, since it was in
contradiction to a law they deemed to be Divine, and which
sanctioned, as they thought, a very different practice. I
To the observation that the moral precepts of Christianity seem
against the grain of human nature, it may be thought, on a super-
1 It seems to me that in the distinctions here suggested, we must find the
answer to many of the difficulties in what are called the "imprecatory " Psalms.
1 am aware that some of these difficulties admit of grammatical answers, and
are solved by a more just translation ; but not all. Of these, it is often said,
"What an unchristian spirit they display ! " forgetting that David was not a
Christian. A Christian would be wrong in cherishing a desire for even just
retribution on those who had most deeply wronged him. Whether David
was so, would depend on whether malignity prompted his feelings and language.
But we must put ourselves in his situation, before we can justly weigh, far less
harshly press, his expressions. They were wrung from one who had been
driven from home and friends, and the "house of God ;" chased "like a par-
tridge on the mountains ; " his life sought, his blood thirsted for, by those to
whom he had been a signal benefactor. Even so, they would still be incon-
sistent with the code of the Gospel, though (Christians as we profess to be)
it is impossible not to recognise the same spirit in the satisfaction often ex-
pressed at the condign punishment of some abnormal iniquity. To understand
David aright, we must remember how Englishmen feel and speak during the
agony of an Indian mutiny, or when they are stung by some atrocity of Greek
brigandage. The feelings are felt to be natural and -just ; so David's were ;
but they are not the Gospel. On this point there are some admirable remarks,
full of philosophic discrimination, in Isaac- Taylor's Lectures on Hebrew
Poetry. "We fail to realise circumstances and states of mind such as are here "
(in some of the Psalms) "brought into view. To do so, we, in these easy times,
must travel far away from the secure and tranquil meadow-lands of ordinary life
But there have been tens of thousands in ages past, who have trodden the
rugged heavenward road, and found it to be a way, not only very thorny and
flinty to the feet, but beset with terrors ; for spiteful and remorseless men have
couched beside this narrow way, and have rendered it terrible to the pilgrims.
A path of anguish and of many fears it has been. In our drowsy repetition
of these Psalms, cushioned as we are upon the soft luxuries of modern life, we
fail to understand these outcries from the martyrs' field,
' Arise, thou Judge of the earth,
Recompense a reward to the proud.'
Let .only .such times return upon us as have been of more frequency than these
times of ease in the history of the Church, and we should quickly know how
to understand a Psalm such as the 94th. Christian men and women, when they
are called in like manner to suffer, are required to pay respect to a rule of
suffering which is many centuries later than the times of David ; but which,
although it is a higher rule, does not bring under blame the natural and the
religious emotions that were proper to the earlier dispensation."
Appendix. 429
ficial glance, sufficient reply to ay that the practices adopted under
many systems of false religion, for example, the frightful self-
torture and austerities so often enjoined and submitted to, are
as much against it. The brief but conclusive answer is, that the
facts in question are not contrary to human nature, but as abundant
experience shows, quite in analogy with it. Fanaticism will submit
to any course of discipline and suffering that promises to realise the
dreams of spiritual ambition, or lay the spectres of a guilty con-
science ; but it is a selfish impulse that exacts obedience, whether
it be the expiation of guilt, or the attainment of superhuman sanc-
tity, or the hope of reabsorption into the Deity. But though it
is easy to account for such cases, I know not how to account, on
the mere principles of human nature, for such a general principle
as this "Love your enemies ; do good to them that hate you,
arid pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you."
This fruit is not grown on the crabbed stock of a selfish superstition.
APPENDIX.
No. II., pp. 36, 37.
IF the miracles were falsely imputed to the historic Christ with
His acquiescence, it occurs to ask the following questions:
I. Did He pretend to work them, though He never did?
If so, then in spite of all M. Rdnan's sophistical attempts to
justify Him in such tracasserie, His conduct is at utter variance
with the impressions of that intellectual and moral greatness the
world has ever accorded to Him. He was equally weak and wicked.
He was weak, because, though plenty of miracles can be palmed
on credulous ignorance in behalf of systems already firmly es-
tablished, to appeal to them in order to establish a new religion,
and in the face of inveterate prejudice guarding an ancient re-
ligion, is so far from being a likely thing for a wise man to attempt,
that as Davison x justly says, there are but two religions in which
the attempt would seem ever to have been made; that is, the
Jewish and the Christian!
Mahomet, it is well known, declined this test, which his astute-
ness doubtless saw would be fatal (as it has often been found to
be) when a hostile and therefore vigilant world is to be the judge.
Accordingly we find that Mahomet tells us of many wondrous things
acted behind the scenes, as of his monstrous night journey on
horseback, from Mecca to the seventh heaven, but he does not
bring such things on the public stage.
But the above supposition reflects still more on the goodness than
on the wisdom of Christ. If He attempted this cheat, it is impossible
1 Lectures on Prophecy. Paley also well says : "To hear some men talk, one
would suppose the setting up of a religion by miracles to be a thing of every
day's experience ; whereas the whole current of history is against it. Hath any
founder of a new sect amongst Christians pretended to miraculous powers,
and succeeded by his pretensions ? . . . The French prophets, in the be-
ginning of the present (i8th) century, ventured to allege miraculous evidence,
and immediately ruined their cause by their temerity." Evidences, p. 133.
Appendix. 431
that He can have been possessed of those qualities which have
ravished the world's admiration, and which seem to beam out upon
us from His whole history. To invest Him with such contradictory
attributes, is indeed to make Him a paradox in human nature!
It is hardly worth while to ask how it came to pass that He
cheated prejudiced and hostile multitudes into a belief that He had
performed miracles when He had not. If He did, their character
as human beings is almost as inexplicable as His own. I am con-
tent to say, that if Christ pretended to work miracles, and did nof,
His conduct is wholly inexplicable on the principles of human
nature, supposing the portrait to be that of a real personage ; for
he has undoubtedly impressed the world, even those who have
been most hostile to His higher claims, with strong convictions
both of His intellectual and moral greatness. But I need say
the less on this point, as it is now almost universally conceded
that Jesus Christ was wholly incapable of any such conduct ;
and, indeed, not a few writers against Christianity taunt its ad-
vocates with perpetually trying to prove what they now say
nobody denies that it is not a forgery, and that Christ is no im-
postor ; though, in fact, this was long the favourite theory of
scepticism, and is even now partially resorted to by Re'nan and
Strauss, who, in the difficult task of accounting for everything by
myth, feel that it may be as well not wholly to reject it. They forget
that, if it be not rejected wholly, it may as well be accepted alto-
gether ; for as the subject of the great controversy says, " He who
is unfaithful in the least, is unfaithful also in much ; " and if Christ
cheated the world at all, it is impossible to say how far.
2. Shall we next, then, suppose that the miracles were never
wrought by Christ, and that He never falsely pretended to work
them, but that He fancied He had wrought them before the gaze
of the world, and that the world fancied it too ? How shall we
reconcile this weakness, or rather madness, of fanaticism, with the
qualities which belong to the historic Personage described to us ?
with His self-possession, His calmness, His singular prudence, His
entire freedom through all His discourses and conduct from every
trait of an ill-balanced mind? And, further, how shall we account
for multitudes of men simultaneously fancying the same thing ?
Surely, it is to suppose an inconceivable subversion of human
nature, not only in Christ Himself, but in all that came in contact
432 Appendix.
with Him ! But on this point, again, it is not necessary to say
more. The naturalism (one would imagine the name was given
in irony) which once conjectured that the miraculous phenomena
of the Gospel might be resolved into misunderstood natural phe-
nomena, and that a number of people simultaneously mistook
lanterns for stars, thunder for articulate speech, women in white,
or even men in armour, for angels, is not the naturalism of human
nature.
The author of " Ecce Homo " regards it as indubitable that
Christ must have been accredited vi\\h the performance of miracles;
and if that able writer has not made it so clear as could be wished
whether, in his opinion, those miracles were real or not, logically
his argument can lead to no other conclusion than that they were
real. He believes that Christ's disciples and followers fully ac-
quiesced in thus accrediting Him; and that nothing less than their
plenary honesty in this, will account for all that influence He
exerted over them. If so, and their belief was the effect of decep-
tion or delusion on His part, all the anomalies in His character
reappear ; His fraud or His fanaticism stands out in glaring con-
trast with all those traits of intellectual and moral greatness which
the world has attributed to Him, and which even the majority of
those who reject His claims have not been slow to concede. Such
are some of the paradoxes in which the mere ascription of the
miracles to Christ, if He was a real personage, and knew anything
about it, involves us.
APPENDIX.
No. III., pp. 51-55.
THE paradox in the text is not at all diminished, rather in many
respects increased, by the fond theories adopted by many critics of
modern times, who assure the Jews of what their halting patriotism
failed to find out for themselves, that their annals are fabulous,
the inventions of a late age, and successfully palmed on the nation
as their true history !
Every one can see, indeed, what it is that has led to the projec-
tion of these theories ; namely, the necessity (as the rationalist
supposes) of getting quit, at any cost of contradiction or absurdity,
of the preternatural events in the history of miracles and pro-
phecy. Apart from such exigency, which demands a later and
fabulous origin of the documents which ,record them, there is not
one in ten thousand who would not feel that there was abundantly
greater reason to acquiesce in their authenticity and genuineness
than to accept any such hypothesis ; for the obstacles are enormous.
Its advocates are at infinite variance among themselves ; the
periods they assign for the imagined origin of the books differ by
many centuries, and are in any case determined by the merest con-
jecture, which wanders through all epochs, from the time of the
Judges to that of Malachi, " seeking rest and finding none." On
the other hand, every such hypothesis is in defiance of the vehe-
ment and consentient testimony of the Jewish nation in every age ;
of the astonishing proofs they have given of the care and honesty
with which they have preserved what they so revere ; and in the
absence of any, the faintest, indication that their nation possessed
any tradition of the persons by whom, or the time when, these
libellous annals were substituted for the true, and, disgraceful as
they are, adopted without a protest or a suspicion by the people !
The very names of those who operated so gigantic a fraud, and
inflicted at the same time such a stab on national vanity, have
29
434 Appendix.
been suffered to drop into oblivion ; while the victims, who could
not but be aware when these pretended chronicles of an older time
wereyfrj/ attempted to be palmed upon them, clutched the ignomi-
nious records to their hearts, affirmed that they contained God's
own account of their nation ; and not only clung to their shame,
but lied, and lied universally, that the stigma might abide for
ever !
If the Bible be not what it professes to be, the conduct of the
Jews abounds with paradoxes. On the other hand, supposing it to
relate a true history of the Jewish people, they vanish. It is pos-
sible to conceive that the successive generations of Israelites,
being conscious that the conduct charged upon their ancestors and
themselves was truly charged, would accept the recital, and submit
in silence to the unmeasured reproaches cast upon them, though
even this would demand the indisputable notoriety of the facts.
It is impossible, indeed, to point out any entire community, which
at a late period of its existence has accepted mythical fabrications
as its genuine history ; certainly it would never do so unless
they enormously nattered its vanity, nor even then without pro-
voking suspicion and protest in many quarters. But is it imagin-
able that it would do this, with absolute unanimity and in absolute
silence, when stigma and invective marked every page ? Only
those who have carefully read the Pentateuch, the Historical books,
and the Prophets, with express view of ascertaining the extent of
this element, can have any adequate idea of the space occupied
by invective, rebuke, and reproaches addressed to the nation,
though mingled, it is true, with the most inimitable touches of
pathetic remonstrance on their wilfulness, wickedness, and folly.
APPENDIX.
No. IV., p. 154.
THE impossibility of prophecy (as of miracles) is a pure dogma,
or prejudice rather, of pseudo-science, unworthy of trtie science,
and as much a generalisation beyond the data, as much a preci-
pitate "anticipation" of facts, as any that Bacon has exposed and
denounced in his " Novum Organum." It is a position which a
theist, in any proper sense, can hardly be imagined to maintain ;
nor probably has there ever been one who would venture thus to
limit the Divine omnipotence and omniscience. There would be
this additional absurdity in it, that it would deny to God what
many modern savans believe will one day be possible to man.
We are assured that, in virtue of advancing science, man is at
length to endue himself with the power of pre-vision, whether
God ever gives it to him or not. To say, then, that God cannot
speak to us by prophecy, is to say, either that He is not so well
acquainted with the relations of all possible events, with the whole
chain of antecedents and consequents, as man will one day be ;
or, that having that knowledge, He cannot impart it, though man
(when he has thus equipped himself) certainly can !
On the other hand, to say that prophecy is absolutely incredible,
not because God cannot, but because He certainly will not give it,
is little better ; for in the first place it is impossible to imagine how
we are to ascertain this ; and secondly, it is not very compatible with
the above speculation of man's possibly becoming a seer himself.
For if that shall ever be the case, it must still be because God, who
gifted him with such powers, wills it ; and if so, one would surmise
it to be not improbable that God might, in some cases, anticipate
a gift which it seems He wills man should one day possess ; and
confer, for special purposes, on some favoured persons, what He
designs that certain sages and savans, with more liberal hands,
shall hereafter bestow on the world at large!
29 *
43 6 Appendix.
It must be admitted that the argument from prophecy may,
by a little stratagem, be often plausibly eluded. Prophecy may
always be alleged to be too plain or too obscure : if too plain, it
was written after the event, and is history and not prophecy ; if
obscure, its reference is uncertain, and we cannot be sure that it is
prophecy.
This solvent immediately discharges all colour from much of the
prophetical matter to which it is applied. Is there any obscurity
about the prophecy ? Then it is not clear that it refers to the events
of which it is interpreted. Is it perfectly clear, so that no one has
any doubt that it does refer to them ? Then, ipso facto, it is proved
to be no prophecy at aH, but history. So that, in short, we may say
the ingenuity of man infallibly arms him against almost any im-
pressions that prophecy, let it be ever so true, can make upon him,
if he but act courageously on these principles.
It might, indeed, appear reasonable to say, that if the world is to
be governed on the ordinary principles on which God at present
governs it ; if events are to be brought about by moral agencies
and moral forces, that is, by rational creatures acting upon motives ;
then, unless men are to be tempted to tamper with the Divine
plans, to accelerate or retard (as they imagine) the events they
deem predicted, it is hardly conceivable that prophecy should not
have such a degree of obscurity resting upon it, be here enveloped
in such twilight, lie there so deep in shadow, that it shall be
always possible to feel, or to affect, doubts about its application,
till the events which fulfil it make it plain.
I see not, however, how either of the principles above-men-
tioned, one depending on the allegation that documents are later
than the facts they record, the other on the allegation that they
are not decipherable, will suffice to explain those " coincidences "
between Scripture and the world's history to which reference has
been made in the text, and to many others like them, in which
none can pretend that the facts preceded the documents, or that
their interpretation is ambiguous. I only mentioned them in that
place, as amongst the many eccentric traits, rd 7rapadoa, of the
Bible ; for that is all my present theme required. But I appre-
hend it will be difficult to give any explanation of them which
will not involve true prophecy.
It may be as well to remark that difficulties in relation to
Appendix. 437
some portions of prophecy must result from the historic form of
any such revelation as the Bible professes to be. Slowly developing
through many ages, the earliest utterances will be covered with the
" hoar of antiquity " before the last are spoken. Of many historic
facts, therefore, cursorily related, it may be difficult to recover the
true account. Nay, it is conceivable that the prophecies (sup-
posing them, for argument's sake, to be such) of the decay and
extinction of some kingdoms, for example, of Edom and Moab,
may be so true, that there are no longer adequate relics to verify
them ; and that though (as Davison says) they may have done
their work at the time they were fulfilled, and inspired confidence
in other prophecies then unfulfilled, may, so far from being evi-
dence to us, be simply problems for our diligence and research ;
perhaps even difficulties to our faith, and tending, amongst other
things, to make the conditions of that faith much more nearly
equal in different ages than is often imagined.
APPENDIX.
No. V., p. 176.
THE wildest hypotheses have been formed as to the character
and history of Melchizedek, founded on the expression, " Without
father, without mother, without beginning of days, or end of life."
They have arisen, as it seems to me, simply from forgetting that in
any " type " it is only analogical resemblance that is pretended.
Indeed, anything more would destroy the type. If the "type"
and the " antitype " had not only similarity of attributes, but iden-
tity, there would no longer be between them mere resemblance,
and the image would vanish. From the words quoted above, it
has been imagined that Melchizedek must have been literally
" without father and without mother ; " whence it has been argued,
though there is not a syllable in the brief record to favour so
strange an hypothesis, that he must have been a superhuman
or celestial personage ; or the Messiah Himself, anticipating His
own incarnation ; one of those transient manifestations which
are much more rationally associated with the character and attri-
butes of that "Angel of the Covenant "who plays so conspicuous
a part in the transactions of the Pentateuch.
The theories in question are as superfluous as irrational, if we
duly consider what a type not only is, but to be truly such, must be :
always founded on partial and often remote and accidental resem-
blances, though still sufficient to suggest the relation between the
type and the thing typified.
Not only is this the case with the typ^s of Scripture, but, in
fact, every poetical comparison between objects which have a
certain "analogical resemblance" (though they may differ by a
thousand contrasts) demonstrates the same thing. Whether
the analogy be between animate and inanimate objects, or
between animals and men, or between material objects and
Appendix. 439
abstract qualities ; in all, it is very partial and often very fan-
ciful. Thus the observation, so far from applying to Scripture
magery alone, is equally applicable to poetry generally; and
whatever peculiarities may be technically predicated of a "type "
of Scripture beyond a mere image, its fundamental principle is
illustrated by a universal law of human thought and language.
When a hero is compared to a " lion," or a " ship ." to a " bird,"
or a "nest" to a "house," everybody perfectly understands in
how infinite ways these conceptions differ from one another
how shadowy is the resemblance between them ; and, moreover,
that that resemblance is not founded on any essential identity,
even of the qualities in which they are compared, but on the
analogical resemblance of those qualities, on the \6ywv o/zoiorTjc,
the " equality of ratios," as Aristotle aptly expresses it ; and ac-
cordingly every metaphor, founded on analogical resemblance,
can always be expanded in the terms of a geometrical proportion.
Thus, when we call "youth the morning of life," or "virtue the
enamel of the soul," we mean that what the morning is to the day
so is youth to life ; or that as enamel is to that which it encases and
preserves, so is virtue to the soul. The courage of the hero, con-
scious of danger, and " looking before and after " while he braves
it, is no more the courage of the lion, than the innocence of Christ
is the innocence of the "lamb;" though superficial appearances, as
in other cases of resemblance, justify the simile, and give vividness
to the correspondent conception. If these obvious facts with
regard to the nature of " types," and indeed of poetical imagery in
general, had been remembered by those who commented on the
seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, it would have
spared the world much strange speculation. It would have been
seen that the manner in which Melchizedek appears on the stage
of history, emerging like a phantom out of darkness for a moment,
and vanishing into darkness again ; springing from no known
progenitors, and having no known relation to posterity ; indepen-
dent in his priesthood of any priestly lineage ; deriving his func-
tions from no predecessor, and consigning them to no successor;
were sufficiently striking, though only analogical resemblances, to
constitute him a type of the great High Priest with whom he is
compared. They are as intelligible as a thousand other resem-
blances on which similar imagery, both in ordinary allegory and
44 Appendix.
in the types of Scripture, is rationally founded. This is said in
explanation of what appears to me the natural exegesis of the
apostle's language. The fact of the singular correspondence among
the scattered allusions to Melchizedek, which occur between the
book of Genesis and the Epistle to the Hebrews, is quite inde-
pendent of it, and is the point on which I have insisted in the
text.
APPENDIX.
No. VI., p. 181.
I MUCH regret that my limited space did not permit me to treat
the " Unity " of the Bible at greater length. Those who wish for
further information may consult the excellent lectures of Dr. W. L.
Alexander, " On the Connection and Harmony of the Old and New
Testaments," and the works to which he has made reference. The
little book of Lord Hatherley on the "Continuity" of the Bible con-
tains some excellent observations on the same subject; and the
like may be said of a section in a little tractate entitled " Divine
Footprints in the Bible." The book is designed, the author mo-
destly tells us, for " youth ; " and it needs only a more cautious
statement of some points, and greater expansion and illustration
in others, to make it a valuable " manual " for those for whom it
is designed.
Many in our day, as well as some in former times, would
endeavour to extricate Christianity from certain difficulties by
cutting the ligaments between it and Judaism. They would dis-
place it from what they regard its precarious foundations in the Old
Testament. I am profoundly convinced that this cannot be done
without leaving both in ruins. Much stress has been laid on an
admission of Paley, which is in itself a very reasonable one, but
which has been pressed in a way which, liberal as he was in his
theology, he would have been far from approving. He states, with
his usual admirable succinctness and precision, his main reasons
for his belief in the superhuman origin of the Jewish dispensation.
" I conceive it," he says, " to be very difficult to assign any other
cause for the commencement or existence of that institution :
especially for the singular circumstance of the Jews adhering to the
unity of God, when every other people slid into polytheism ; for
their being men in religion, children in everything else ; behind
other nations in the arts of peace and war, superior to the most
442 Appendix.
improved in their sentiments and doctrines relating to the Deity.
Undoubtedly, also, our Saviour recognises the prophetic character
of many of their ancient writings. So far, therefore, we are bound,
as Christians, to go." He then proceeds to say : " But to make
Christianity answerable with its life for the circumstantial truth of
each passage of the Old Testament, the genuineness of every book,
the information, fidelity, and judgment of every writer in it, is to
bring, I will not say great, but unnecessary difficulties, into the
whole system." I conceive every rational man would concede as
much as this, and even more ; for he would not " make Christianity
answer with its life for the circumstantial truth of each passage " in
the New Testament, any more than for each passage in the Old.
But this is very different from fancying that the Old Testament
generally may be given up without affecting the position of the
New. It were well if youthful theologians would ponder the
following words (expressly intended for them) of Herder. In spite
of his free spirit of criticism, he writes of the Old Testament thus :
" Der Grund der Theologie ist die Bibel, und der Grund des N. T.
ist das alte. Unmoglich verstehn wir jenes recht, wenn wir dieses
nicht verstehen : denn Christenthum ist aus dem Judenthum
hervorgegangen, der Genius der Sprache ist in beiderlei Buchern
derselbe ; und den Genius der Sprache konnen wir nie besser, d.i,
nie wahrer, tiefer, vielseitiger, angenehmer studiren, als in Poesie,
und zwar so viel moglich in den altesten Poesien derselben. Es
ist falsch und verfiihrend, wenn man jungen Theologen das N. T.
mit Ausschliessung des alten anpreiset ; ohne dieses ist jenes auf
cine gelehrte Weise nicht einmal verstandlich. Dazu ist in ihm,
dem A. T., eine so reiche Abwechslung von Geschichten, Bildern,
Charakteren, Scenen : in ihm sehen wir die vielfarbige Dammerung,
der schonen Sonne aufgang ; im N. T. steht sie am hochsten
Himmel, und jederman weiss, welche Tageszeit dem sinnlichen
auge die erquickendste, die starkendste ist Studire man also
das A. T. auch nur als ein menschliches Buch voll alter Poesien,
mit Lust und Liebe, so wird uns das Neue in seiner Reinheit,
seinem hohen Glanz, seiner iiberirdischen schonheit von selbst
aufgehn. Sammle man den Reichthum jenes in sich und man
wird auch in diesem kein leerer geschmakloser oder gar entweih-
ender Schwasser worden." Herder. Preface to his Geist der
Ebraischen Poesie.
APPENDIX.
No. VII., p. 278.
IT is no slight testimony to the adaptation and comprehensiveness
of the religious contents of the Bible, that so many millions
have declared that all the moods and necessities of their moral
and spiritual life are exhaustively expressed there. As there is
scarcely any condition in human life but may find its parallel in
the scenes of the Scripture history, so may it be truly said
that all the phenomena of religious experience are there de-
scribed with incomparable force. The devout mind finds every
shade of emotion, of penitence, faith, hope, devout aspira-
tion, and every variation of spiritual consciousness, already
expressed to his hand, in words better than his own, and as if by
one who knew man better than man knows himself. His whole
nature is reflected, as it were, in that faithful mirror. This is
especially the case in the Psalms, Gospels, and Epistles, which
have made' so many say that they found in the Bible the vivid
expression of what, till they read it there, was hardly known to
themselves, or could be uttered only in faltering accents and
with a stammering tongue.
Accordingly, they have felt that the strongest evidence of the
truth of the Bible is to be found in its own pages, and that its moral
and religious elements are to them no less than demonstration.
The consciousness that its representations find an echo in their
own hearts ; that the doctrines it propounds are exquisitely adapted
to meet the conditions of that nature which it thus reveals, and yet
so out of the range of all ordinary human speculation, and so
little likely to suggest themselves ; that, above all, an unfeigned
faith in those doctrines has transformed their whole life, made
them emulous of all goodness, and filled their hearts with joy and
peace ; the consciousness, I say, of all this, has been to them the
444 Appendix.
" evidence of evidences." To such men, it seems the climax of
absurdity that the Scriptures should be false. 1
1 This subject has been very powerfully dealt with by Dr. Chalmers in his
"Evidences." Vol. II. bk. iii. ch. 3, pp. 99-169. Experimental Evidence. It is
true that this evidence cannot be directly appealed to in arguing with a man who
rejects Christianity. The argument, while he is in such a condition, must take
lower ground. Yet even /fomay be reasonably asked to attach some weight to
the immense "cloud of witnesses" that depose on its behalf ; the multitudinous
examples of a transformed life it has furnished; and the moral changes, the
revolutions in sentiment and practice, which, after making all deductions, it has
wrought in modern as compared with ancient civilisation. Some exceedingly
powerful remarks will be found on this point in Mozley's " Bampton Lectures."
Lecture 7.
And though the argument from experimental evidence cannot in strictness
be used with a man who rejects the Bible altogether, for the controversy would
be, as Frederick the Great said of a war between Prussia and England, like ' ' a
fight between a dog and a fish," yet even one who rejects the Bible may, if
he faithfully consult his own consciousness, at least judge of the fidelity or
falsehood of its own draft of our moral nature. On the other hand, the im-
possibility of giving the full impression of this species of evidence to him who
lacks it, is no argument against Christianity, because its own express test of its
truth is that man shall make a practical trial of it. Those who will not, can as
little disprove the testimony of those who will, as he who will not use a physician's
prescription can disprove the allegations of its efficacy on the part of those
who do.
APPENDIX.
No. VI 1 1., p. 423.
1. PERHAPS the difficulty which in this age has been as much
insisted on as any, is the Scriptural account of " Creation " in the
first chapter of Genesis. Some indeed maintain that the phe-
nomena with which geology chiefly has to do, are not involved with
the first chapter of Genesis ; that the first verse simply ascribes
the original of all things to the will of God ; and then passing by
(with characteristic silence about all subjects of mere curiosity,
whether connected with distant worlds or primeval time) the
immense interval occupied by those changes which chiefly chal-
lenge the study of geologistSj proceeds to describe the phenomena
which were immediately antecedent to the appearance of man, and
preparatory to it. According to these commentators, the account
of Moses does not properly come into collision with geology. The
unnumbered centuries which the geologist demands for the processes
by which he contends the world was constituted, are given him ad
libitum. On the other hand, it is fair to say that many geologists
maintain that if this theory were adopted, similar difficulties
would still encounter us in the interpretation of this chapter.
Now without venturing into this controversy, or pretending
to say whether the chapter professes to relate only the changes
wrought at one epoch of the world's history, and introductory to
the creation of man, or embraces phenomena far anterior to it,
may it not be possible to say something for the chapter indepen-
dently of either hypothesis? Is it not possible that both those
who contend for the literal accuracy of the description, and those
who would gauge that accuracy by the standard of geological
research, may be in the wrong ? Is it not conceivable that any
statement whatever on such a subject, under similar circumstances,
would be liable to similar criticism ?
I would illustrate my meaning thus. There has been much
446 Appendix.
controversy as to whether this chapter is poetry or history, and
champions have appeared for either opinion. That it is very
little like ordinary poetry in manner, and as little like ordinary
history in its matter, is obvious. But is it not conceivable that it
may, in any ordinary sense, be neither the one nor the other?
May there not be another art, which may give juster conceptions
of the possible significance of the chapter than either history or
poetry ? I mean the art of painting, in which objects are re-
presented, not indeed according to their real dimensions or in
their true relative positions, and yet not untruthfully ; in which
they are delineated in the same plane, though they are not in it,
and in which foreshortening and perspective make strange work
with the actual proportions and appearances of objects ? This
necessarily follows from the very attempt to give us any idea
of a landscape on the same plane. Yet none call the repre-
sentation false. On the contrary, we say it is sufficiently true, to
convey to us a very vivid conception of the real scene. A still
better illustration, perhaps, might be taken from the same art, in
those panoramas which are sometimes exhibited, in which some
hundreds of miles of scenery are represented in as many feet of
canvas, with the unrolling of which the spectator seems to traverse
many degrees of latitude and longitude, and sees all their scenery
in an hour or two. It is not a false representation which thus
cheats the eye of the spectator. It is simply an inadequate one ;
quite inadequate, no doubt, but such as is alone possible for the
spectator to receive ; a view adjusted ad moduin recipients. But
it gives a true approximate conception. That it can go no further,
results from the nature of things, and the limitations under which
the communication is made.
Now let us suppose, for the sake of argument (and it will hardly
be thought a very extravagant postulate), that, by way of preface to
a volume of Revelation, it was desirable not only to inform man that
all things originated in God's will, that all in heaven and on earth
was the effect of His creative energy and wisdom, but to give him
some general conception such as it was possible for him to re-
ceive of the gradual development and succession of the principal
phenomena by which this mundane system arose. What but such
description as would be analogous to a pictorial delineation, with all
its dislocation of real relations, would be possible to such a creature
Appendix. 447
as man, and within the limits of a mere superscription to the book
which was of course to consist mainly of widely different matter ?
All the phenomena, in the nature of things, are supposed to have
preceded the appearance of man ; he could not be a spectator of
them; he could only be addressed through the medium of his
imagination by the presentation of some mental picture of what
"eye had never seen." If the true processes, which all reasoning
shows to have* been carried on by a very gradual development, and,
according to many geologists, during thousands or millions of
years, had been fully described, the " records of creation," instead
of forming a brief preface to the book, would have been as long in
the telling as in the doing ; the compilation would have been as
slow as the earth's stratification ; so voluminous, that the " world
itself could hardly contain the books that would have been written."
Or if the story did not proceed as leisurely as the processes it de-
scribed, it must, at least, have been as voluminous as the books by
which science (though indeed it has hardly yet mastered the alpha-
bet of Nature's mysteries) has so slowly spelt out the hieroglyphics
of creation ; or rather, as voluminous as the records of science
will be when it has finally deciphered them. But, in that case, the
" Preface " to the book of Revelation would have been a thousand
times as big as the Revelation itself ; if, indeed, the volumes of the
" Transactions" of Science shall ever terminate, and the world last
long enough to bring its researches to a close.
In the mean time, such a commentary, voluminous as it would
be, would have been of no conceivable use. It would have been
quite unintelligible for many successive generations of men, and
even then Methusaleh's life would not have been long enough to
master it.
What imaginable course, then, could be taken but that of giving
man a brief and general, though most imperfect, conception of the
apparent procession of phenomena ; to exhibit the wondrous scene
as in a picture, in which objects are necessarily distorted, and their
real distances and dimensions disguised. In whatever way we
imagine a representation given to man, of phenomena which he
never saw nor could have seen, whether in mental vision or
graphic language, it is impossible to conceive it given otherwise
than with these limitations.
Of the Mosaic cosmogony, these two facts may, at all events, be
448 Appendix.
without hesitation affirmed. First, that it deviates far less from the
conclusions approximately reached by the most careful inductions
of modern geology, than any other ancient cosmogony ; so that,
comparing it with them, and supposing it only one of the guesses
of a rude primeval philosophy, it is difficult to understand how the
writer of Genesis should have been so superior to all other ancient
speculators. Secondly, that there is not one of these cosmogonies
that approaches it in the combined simplicity and sublimity of
description, and unexampled compression of style, found in the
first chapter of Genesis.
One cannot but lay great stress on the former point. The an-
cient cosmogonies, Egyptian, Greek, Hindoo, Chinese, commit
themselves so hopelessly by outrages on all physical science, and
abound in such monstrous fables, that they are the subject of
universal derision. How is it that in the Hebrew cosmogony
(without pretending to conceal the difficulties of a literal interpreta-
tion) the reader is struck both with its approximation to many of the
results of modern science, and its utter divergence from all ancient
speculation ? If Moses did not know as much as modern world-
builders, still, how is it that he is so superior to all the ancient ?
Nor is it a point unworthy of remark, that the Bible has very
little that can come into coniiict with modern science. This is the
effect of its characteristic abstinence from what is not closely con-
nected with its great object. The point has been well argued by
Dr. J. H. Gladstone, in his recent lecture, entitled " Points of Sup-
posed Collision between Scripture and Natural Science." He shows
that in the ordinary systems propounded in quasi-sacred records
(whether independent of the Bible or grafted on it), the tendency
to play the philosopher always so pleasant to human nature
has tempted the authors to betray themselves by their egregious
attempts at explaining physical phenomena. " It seems to me,"
says he, " a question worthy of consideration, How did it come
to pass that these (the Jewish) writers did not profess to explain the
phenomena of the universe ? So completely is this the case, that
it is rarely possible to ascertain their own views But
in order fairly to understand the significance of the fact that these
writers avoid scientific explanations, it is necessary to turn to other
professed revelations, or to the commentators on the Bible itself.
It is well known that the Phoenicians, Babylonians, Persians,
Appendix. 449
Indians, Greeks, Chinese, and other nations, had wonderful cosmo-
gonies, in which a mundane egg generally appears ; and that the
Puranas give a large amount of such information, as that India is
surrounded by seven oceans, composed respectively of salt water,
sugar-cane juice, wine, clarified butter, curds, milk, and fresh water.
The books that grew up alongside the sacred Scriptures are still
more to the point." l
2. The few statements that the Pentateuch makes on ethno-
logical and some related subjects, are of strikingly different cha-
racter from those which we find usually put forth by nations in
their cradle. There is nothing in them that savours of the pride of
race ; they are singularly cosmopolitan. Moses does not pretend
that the Hebrews, like the Greeks, were Autochthones, or that
their race, like the Hindoo or Egyptian, flourished some millions
of years before other nations began. He affirms that " all men
are of one blood," and that their " speech " was originally one
very singular declarations to make in the face of so many appa-
rently conflicting facts. They have been accepted, however, to a
great extent, by modern science, though just now again questioned ;
perhaps, after further research, to be accepted again. But how-
ever this may be, one cannot but wonder how Moses came to
think so differently from all the rest of the ancient world. 2
It similarly surprises us, that if he spoke from conjecture in that
early age, in ignorance of the extent of the world, and of the
species of creatures it might contain, he should so confidently have
promised man the dominion of the earth that he should people
and subdue it; 3 and that no great physical disturbance should ever
interfere with that " law " (of the stability of which he seems to
have had as clear an idea as any modern could desire) which
guaranteed the perpetual recurrence " of day and night, summer
and winter, seed-time and harvest." Experience has confirmed
these things, but at that early date they were somewhat bold
speculations.
Whether some points in dispute between the Bible and science,
and still sub lite, are to be added to or subtracted from the difficulties
1 Lectures on ' ' Faith and Free Thought, " p. 165.
2 This is well illustrated in "Aids to Faith," Essay 6 ; in Birk's "Bible and
Modern Thought," ch. 14; and by Dr. Gladstone in the lecture just cited
3 This point is well put in Dr. Redford's Lectures, entitled, " Holy Scriptures
Verified," pp. 66-85, 140-146.
30
45 o Appendix.
of the Scriptures ; whether they are to be accounted errors which
require to be met by one or other of the theories referred to in the
text, or, by being shown to be in harmony with more advanced
knowledge, shall be transferred to the side of proofs, must be left
at present to conjecture. Such are some of the questions connected
with those prehistoric problems which the present generation is so
eagerly discussing ; for example, as to the primeval condition of
the human species ; its antiquity ; the ethnological relation of its
various races ; the order and date of their diffusion ; the origin of
language ; and whether all languages are related to one another
by radical affinities, and spring from one source. On some of
these questions, perhaps, we shall never get much light ; on others
we require far more than we have (both from Scripture and
science) to justify a definite conclusion. Nor is it unreasonable
to ask, both of the believer in the Bible and its opponents, to
exercise patience, for it is quite as necessary to the one as to the
other. For if the first, in his unwise presumption, and haste to
defend himself, has often snatched up a weapon which has broken
in his hand, the last has quite as often greedily listened to any
whisper of a discovery which promised discomfiture to the Bible,
even though in a few brief years it has been dismissed, by science
itself, with contempt. He has waited for no rigorous verification,
but caught at the too welcome conclusion at once. Both parties,
in truth, have reason to exercise much indulgence towards one
another; for, as the history of science and of theology shows,
both, though for different reasons, one from love of tradition and
the other from love of novelty, have anticipated the conclusions
which should have waited for a calm and patient weighing of
evidence.
Perhaps those who read these admonitions to patience may smile
at the possible alternative above stated ; namely, that some of
those difficulties of science which are still sub judice may be solved
in a manner which, instead of adding to the difficulties of Scripture,
will prove strong confirmations of its truth. I grant this is conjecture :
nevertheless it is founded on many analogies in the past history of
science. The first immature speculations in almost every branch
ot modern science have been presumed to be of ominous aspect on
the Bible. But many of the objections science has raised, science
itself has in a few years dispelled.
Appendix. 451
3. There are those who find great moral difficulties in the Bible,
and it may be deemed uncandid not to say at least a few words
about them. The whole book, in accordance with what I have
represented as one of its pervading characteristics to vindicate the
claims of God and His moral government over us is so perspi-
cuous and so earnest in its assertion of all duty, and its protests
against all "ungodliness and unrighteousness of men," it is
throughout so irradiated by the light of the Divine purity, that it
is impossible any doubt can exist as to its general tendency.
Accordingly, the objections are to certain special portions or
details, which, if they be demonstrably of immoral character or
tendency, are ipso facto condemned by the whole tenour and sub-
stance of the book : if they are not, their purport ought to be
determined by its universal spirit. Nevertheless, it is not difficult
to give a specific reply to the greater number. I have only space
for a few.
Sometimes it is inferred that, because the Bible relates evil deeds
without express condemnation, it must sanction them, or at least
deem them venial. To this it is sufficient to reply that, as on the
one hand it is one of the most marked characteristics of Scripture
to state bare facts dramatically, without comment and without
reflection, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusion, so its
perpetual and emphatic assertion of the claims of the Divine law
and of human duty leaves him in no doubt as to the inference
which, in such cases, he ought to draw.
In some cases, actions in the Old Testament are, no doubt,
represented as pardonable or justifiable, which, judged by the
Christian standard, would not be so. But they are unfairly mea-
sured by that standard, which to a certain extent is an innovation
on all moral codes, and condemns many acts of strictly retributive
justice which the instinct of a natural sense of equity would not.
But to this I ha\e already referred in a previous article.
Sometimes objection is taken to what is .called God's "partiality"
towards certain " favourites," in spite of enormous delinquencies,
and criticism has especially fastened on Jacob and David as ex-
amples. This accusation, again, might be left to be answered by the
general character of the book, which perpetually assures us that,
whatever appearances there may be to the contrary, " God is no
respecter of persons," and that He will, in due time, prove it
45 2 Appendix.
Mean time I cannot but express my astonishment that these two
instances should ever have been pleaded as affording even prima
facie evidence to the contrary. For if ever sin was seen to be a
"hard bargain," if ever it was seen in its punishment, it is in the
history of those two men. The whole sequel of their lives was
tinged, and in a great degree embittered, by it. Rebecca never
saw again that darling son for whom she had brought the guilt of
perjury on her soul and his : Jacob himself was driven into exile
from his father's house for twenty years ; and during nearly all that
time he was the hireling and the victim of his rapacious kinsman,
who " deceived " him by just such trickery as he himself had prac-
tised on his father; palming upon him Leah for Rachel, and
" changing his wages ten times." After twenty years he returned,
but in abject dread of his injured brother, at whose approach he
was thrown into that ecstasy of sorrow and terror which ushered in
his solitary night-vigil by the brook Jabbok. To this add all the
mournful episode of Joseph's exile, Dinah's dishonour, and his
other domestic trials, and who can think his sin " unvisited " ?
As to David, it was declared to him, at the very moment he
was told that his repentance was accepted, that his iniquity was
marked, and would be remembered before God ; that though he
thought he had wrapt his crime in secrecy, it should be blazoned to
the world with every note of shame and ignominy. So the oracle ran ;
and left David for long years to expect when and how this dreaded
bolt would fall, perhaps not the least part of his punishment.
At last it fell, and hardly could he have imagined how dreadful the
stroke would be. His favourite son Absalom rises in rebellion
against him, drives him from his throne and capital, involves his
people in the horrors of civil war ; and, in pursuit of his detest-
able policy, visits on his father, and " in the face of the sun," the
dishonour, and worse than the dishonour, which David had
brought into the house of Uriah. If such chastisement in the case
of Jacob and David be instances of the Divine partiality and
favouritism, who of us but must pray, " Oh, God, in Thy great
mercy, deliver us from being at last accounted among Thine
enemies " ?
It is true that on deep repentance and forsaking of their sin, God
did forgive even such transgressors. But is there any heart so
hard as to wish it otherwise ? Shall our " eye be evil," because
Appendix. 453
God " is good " ? Is it not just what the book says God will
do, and is "delighted" in every such case to do? Is it not our
felicity to know it ? If any one says, " No ; such man ought
never to have been forgiven, nor received into favour more ; "
but no, I cannot suppose any that is but a man will say that.
Another difficulty has been found in the slaughter of the
Canaanites. Appalling as such a fact is, and incomprehensible as
it must a priori be, yet, so far as the moral government of God is
concerned, it is no more appalling in the effects, nor quite so incom-
prehensible in character, as those things which we are compelled to
say He does or permits to be done in His ordinary administration
of the world. The devastations of pestilence, earthquake, famine,
involving guilt and innocence, age and infancy, in the same
indiscriminate ruin, are just as awful, and equally mysterious,
however firmly we may believe that God will at length vindicate all
His proceedings : while they are hardly so incomprehensible,
because we are assured that in the case of the Canaanites the
visitation was judicial; that their iniquity had been long borne
with, and that "its measure was now full ;" that such was the
grossness of all unutterable crimes with which they were tainted,
that, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, something little
short of extirpation was the only remedy.
The reader may doubt, if he will, whether this be the true
history of the transaction; but in founding a moral objection
on the Bible account of it, it is utterly unreasonable to forget
that this is the scriptural account, and, as far as the book is
concerned, the one cannot be separated from the other. Nor
must we forget, as a confirmation, that the Israelites were for-
bidden to carry on ordinary war in the same ruthless fashion :
in other cases they were enjoined to resort to the usual ex-
pedients which temper its inevitable horrors. In this case alone
they were to recollect they were not so much warriors as exe-
cutioners.
But though we cannot deny, if we open our eyes to the facts of
God's administration of the world, that the destruction of these
doomed nations is parallel to many of the appalling calamities with
which, in His providence, He visits it; it may be thought that
though God may be competent to do such things, it cannot be
competent to Him to commission men to do them. But if it be
454 Appendix.
competent to Him to do them ; if He can do them, and rightly
do them, and vindicate His doing of them, is it quite so certain
that in no case will He make men His agents ? Or how is it
more incomprehensible than His employing (as He perpetually
does, though without any expres.s commission) one nation to be the
scourge of another ? The difficulty, therefore, in this and every
like case, is not so much a difficulty of Scripture, as a difficulty of
the Divine Government in general ; and we shall be able fully to
solve the one when we have solved the other, but not till then. So
long as a man believes in a God at all, the objection is fully met
by the " analogies in the constitution and course of nature ; " and
if he will be consistent in urging it, he must abandon not only
the Bible, but his theism.
A difficulty again has been found in the enjoined sacrifice of
Isaac as "a test of faith." In my judgment, infinitely greater
difficulties have been made in attempts to get rid of it by some of
the utterly incredible versions of the history suggested by modern
criticism ; one of which is, that so far from Abraham's " faith "
being " staggered," or there being any occasion for " staggering,"
he acted in blind but willing obedience to it ; only it was a pagan
"faith," from which ("friend of God" though he was) he had
never been redeemed ; the faith in the acceptableness to God
of human sacrifices ! I must say that to me this interpretation
of the history is abundantly more difficult to digest than the
ordinary one, even when taken in all its literality.
If it be said to be morally impossible that God should have
exacted this proof of the patriarch's faith ; that though God could ,
blamelessly (as no doubt He can, for He does it continually) have
taken away an only and darling son " at a stroke," yet He could not
command a parent to take that life away as a test of obedience, even
though he never intended fat sacrifice to be made, one cannot help
asking on what principle this is affirmed? If God can right-
fully do such a thing, and does it continually for reasons unknown
to us, are we certain that He could not, for like unknown reasons,
enjoin Abraham to be the agent, although He never intended the
command to be acted upon ? If it be said that God had given
Abraham a certain moral nature, which made it impossible that
he should do (even though God enjoined it) what God might blame-
lessly do ; we must take heed lest we stultify the argument which
Appendix. 455
argues the character of God from the analogous moral qualities
found in ourselves. If there be those analogies, then, though we
may justly believe that there are still many things which, not having
God's unlimited wisdom and authority, we may not do, vhile He
may, it will not be so easy to believe that, in spite of these moral
analogies, there are many things which, while God can blamelessly
do them, man may <?/, even when God commands them !
Mean time, we must not forget that not only did God never
intend the sacrifice to be made, but the Scripture shows that
Abraham himself was convinced that, even if he obeyed the com-
mand to the letter, his Isaac would still be restored to him. He
believed that even in that case God in some strange way would
restore him from the grave. This is represented as the very
triumph of his faith, and a mighty faith undoubtedly it was. " By
faith Abraham " (says the Epistle to the Hebrews), u when he was
tried, offered up Isaac ; accounting that God was able to raise him
up, even from the dead ; from whence also he had received him in
a figure ; " that is, as the child of miracle and " of promise," both
of which confirmed his faith that (whatever might be present
appearances) " in Isaac" still would all the Divine pledges given to
him be fulfilled.
Some have said, "Well, human nature will not and cannot
believe in the reality of this history, on account of the moral
paradox it involves." But then the question must be asked What
human nature ? Is it human nature, born only yesterday, and still
developed only in a few individuals ? for until quite recently the
generality of readers, and the generality of them even now, have felt
no difficulty in receiving the history. If it be said they must all
be supposed to be morally obtuse, can we believe the great majority
of mankind to have been so in reference to so fundamental a prin-
ciple of morality? Have myriads of the most enlightened and
virtuous minds in successive generations, and among them, the
Apostles James and Paul, both of whom applaud the act of the
patriarch as an act of heroic virtue, been utterly in the dark ?
Until the modern objectors can prove that their moral instincts,
and not those of the founders of Christianity and the generality of
mankind, are right in this matter, it is a simple begging of the
question to say, as has been so often done of late, that this portion
of the Bible presents an insuperable moral difficulty.
456 Appendix.
4. A well-known sceptic as to miracles, but a truly candid man,
and of first-rate scientific reputation, confessed to a friend of mine
that he saw no reason in the nature of things, none in our in-
tuitions or in our deductions from them, why miracles should be
regarded as either impossible or incredible. He said he imagined
that the physicist was prone to think so, because from the habit
of contemplating phenomena in which uniformity of antecedents
and consequents obtained, he could not refrain from coming to
the assumption that nothing that was at variance with that limited,
though constant experience, was possible. This frank confession,
I apprehend, exactly represents the truth of the case. The dogma
in question is a hasty generalisation from very partial data ; nay,
in the last resort, from the data of individual experience ; for, if
a miracle be incredible except verified by experience, each man
would be justified in disbelieving them unless his experience had
also verified them. But though this candid opponent gave a true
account of the matter, the " prejudication" and "anticipation" of the
"possible" or "credible" from so inadequate data, is no less a viola-
tion of true science than any of those which Bacon has so severely
judged as amongst the errors of the vulgar philosophy. The impos-
sibility or incredibility of miracles is one thing ; their impossibility
or incredibility to minds that have superinduced that belief on
themselves by certain habits of thought, is quite another.
The impugners of miracles will never be able to do justice
either to their adversaries or themselves until they bear in mind :
First, That what is required to prove their point is, not a precarious
generalisation from a limited experience, but a demonstration of
the impossibility or incredibility of miracles, founded either on
such intuitions as all universal or necessary truth is based upon,
or on logical deductions from them. This is constantly asked
for, but as constantly declined ; and consequently the debate
goes on. Secondly, That the question really is not, as they are too
apt to represent it to themselves, whether it is more probable and
credible that the ordinary sequences of phenomena should take place
or be broken, whether, for example, it is more probable or credible
that a dead man should remain in his grave, or return to life ? for
there is no question about this ; but whether, if the exceptional
events called miracles be not impossible or incredible, sufficient
reasons may not be assigned (in the communication and authentica-
Appendix. 457
tion of a Divine revelation) which fairly meet their antecedent impro-
bability? Admitting that miracles are not impossible or incredible,
then, as Paley has admirably shown, the improbability of their
occurrence is no greater than that of God's vouchsafing to give us
a revelation. Whatever reasons make the last credible, will make
the other credible also. Admirably has Paley argued this point in
the Introduction to his " Evidences." z Thirdly, The opponents of
miracles must also bear in mind, that if a revelation be given at
all, then, unless it be made known specifically to each individual
mind, which, however, since a revelation is itself miraculous,
would be but the multiplication, and not the suppression of miracles,
it passes the wit of man to imagine how it could be unexception-
ably made known to those who had not personally received it,
except by such means as miracles. But on this I have briefly
spoken in the text.
The credibility of " miracles " has no doubt been much debated
in the present day, and perhaps a larger number of persons than at
any former period have been disposed to adopt the negative side
of the question. Yet I must profess my conviction that their
scepticism is not due to the force of any novel arguments. When
thoroughly examined, the general objections are found to be
identical with those which were currently used long ago. Nor is
there anything in the discoveries of modern science which really
affects the ancient conditions of the controversy ; perhaps it may
be even said that much which is held as unquestionably true by a
certain school of savans should in candour lead them (whether they
admit the possibility of miracles or not) to concede that the chief
1 "Mr. Hume states the case of miracles to be a contest of opposite proba-
bilities, that is to say, a question whether it be more improbable that the miracle
should be true or the testimony false: and this, I think, a fair account of the
controversy. But herein I remark a want of argumentative justice, that, in
describing the improbability of miracles, he suppresses all those circumstances
of extenuation which result from our knowledge of the existence, power, and
disposition of the Deity ; His concern in the creation ; the end answered by
the miracle, the importance of that end, and its subserviency to the plan pur-
sued in the work of nature. As Mr. Hume has represented the question,
miracles are alike incredible to him who is previously assured of the constant
agency of a Divine Being, and to him who believes that no such Being exists in
the universe. They are equally incredible, whether related to have been wrought
upon occasions the most deserving, and for purposes the most beneficial, or for
no assignable end whatever, or for an end confessedly trifling or pernicious.
This surely cannot be a correct statement. " Paley's Evidences, p. 5.
458 Appendix.
argument usually urged against miracles ought not to be listened
to, simply because it is abundantly contradicted by their own
scientific hypotheses. For what, after all, is the palmary argument
(now as of old) against miracles ? Is it not that they are incon-
sistent with that experience which teaches us to expect similarity of
antecedents and consequents in the phenomena of nature, within
the limits of variation authentically made known by that same
experience ? and that no such variation as would be transcendental
to such experience is to be admitted ? Now, this is to be taken as
universally and immutably true, or it is not. If it is, then there is
really nothing for it but to adopt some theory similar to some of
the exploded dreams of ancient Atheism ; and to hold not only that
all idea of creation is chimerical, but that of a gradual develop-
ment of the universe, such as modern science contends for ; that
is, of organic and inorganic natures, under conditions and by a
series of metamorphoses altogether transcendental to experience.
Nevertheless, this is a favourite speculation, in the hasty prosecu-
tion of which science has often been betrayed into oblivion alike
of the maxims of Bacon and the practice of Newton. But if
we are to go strictly by experience, we can admit nothing but a
constant succession of phenomena, such as we now see, within
those limits of variation of which that same experience can take
cognizance.
If the above axiom is not to be taken absolutely : if we are to
believe, either in any origin of things at all, or in a series of trans-
formations of which a tadpole may have been one term and man
another ; then there have been immense periods of the unknown
past in which phenomena were occurring which utterly elude our
conception ; of which we have, and can have, no historic trace ; and
which are beyond and beside all our experience. If so, then let men
dispute as they will, they without doubt concede that which carries
with it the refutation of that cardinal maxim on which the possi-
bility of miracles is usually denied, or the probability of their occur-
rence asserted to be incredible. For, let it ever be remembered that
the validity of the above argument against miracles really depends
on the unlimited application of the principle it involves, and has
nothing to do with the question of time. If a man were raised
from the dead, even though a thousand years be supposed to be oc-
cupied in the process, it would be no less a miracle than if he had
Appendix. 459
been raised in a moment, because \hzfact would contravene all our
experience. Similarly, the wondrous metamorphoses asserted to
have taken place by processes which transcend the sphere of all
experience, are by that very fact incredible, if miracles on the like
account be so. They are not less miracles in the sense of contra-
dicting the axiom in question, than a miracle technically so called.
It is granted that such phenomena as are implied in the conception
either of " creation," or of a gradual " evolution " of the universe
from two or three " primordial germs " (though how these are got
without " creation," no man can say), differ from what are tech-
nically called miracles ; but not in that one point which makes
them all alike incredible, if miracles be so. An event, contradictory
of all present experience, which demands a thousand or a million
years to bring it about, may be different from an event equally con-
tradictory of present experience, which is instantaneously wrought ;
but they differ not at all in this, that if either has occurred, it
refutes the fallacious criterion on which the impossibility of all
miracles is made to depend. As far as that goes, both stand on
the same level, and if the one be incredible, so will the other be.
If the possibility of miracles is to be disproved, it must be by some
other principle than one which will serve equally to show that the
process by which the world was either v created " or " developed,"
or originated in what way soever (for all the modes contravene all
our experience), is incredible likewise. The only escape from the
rigorous application of experience, within the limits of variation itself
prescribes, will be one of those rejected theories which once main-
tained that day and night have eternally succeeded one another ;
that generations of men have been infinite, and that neither the
dead nor the living came first ; and that that ancient problem,
u which was first, the hen or the egg ? " has no meaning, for that
neither was before the other, and both from everlasting !
Neither will that principle of the mind, on which all the obstinate
prejudice against miracles is supposed to be justified, bear the
weight attached to it, I mean the expectation (as Butler calls it)
"that things will continue as they have been, unless we have
reason to conclude that they will be otherwise." That such a " law
of expectation " does operate upon us, must be conceded ; and,
indeed, unless some such law had been impressed on the human
mind, it is impossible that such a creature as man, in such a world
460 Appendix.
as this, could have existed to any purpose at all. We could not
have anticipated that even the near events of the future would
be like the past ; and memory, and the experience it garners for
us, would have been of no use. But what this law is, whence it
springs, and how far it rightfully extends in its anticipations of the
future, it has infinitely perplexed metaphysicians to explain. Some
say it is itself the result of experience. If so, it palpably cannot
transcend experience; it can neither guess at the unlimited past
nor anticipate the unlimited future. And, indeed, that its limits
are very restricted, whatever its origin, seems sufficiently proved by
the caution with which men in general apply it. " The morrow,"
say they, " will be as this day." Yes ; but you cannot get one in
a million (who yet, if the principle as urged against miracles were
correct, ought to affirm it with undoubting dogmatism) to affirm
that the experience of the morrow will be that of an eternal succes-
sion of to-morrows, or that the experience of yesterday was that of
an eternal precession of yesterdays ; that the sun, for example,
which set last night, has so set from everlasting ; or that, as he
will rise to-morrow, so he will rise in secula seculontm.
Others affirm that the said principle is not a result of experience,
but an anticipation of it. Even so, it seems to be of limited appli-
cation. It is not of the nature of the intuitions on which we base
the knowledge of what is called necessary truths ; for that would be
inconsistent with the ready way in which the mind strengthens or
relaxes its hold on the principle, according as the future is near or
remote. No man believes that two parallel lines, if they be but
produced far enough, will meet ; nor that there is probably some
world in which two intersecting right lines will, if produced far
enough, intersect again, or in which the three angles of a triangle
are greater or less than two right angles. Some, therefore, are
disposed to think that this general tendency to anticipate that the
future will resemble the past, is arbitrarily inserted in our mental
constitution as a necessary condition of our activity (since with-
out it all experience would be in vain), but requiring to be itself
corrected and limited by experience. If so, we need not wonder
that though in general a safe and true guide, in relation to the near
and constantly-recurring phenomena of daily life, it hesitates to
extend its inference either to the unlimited future or the unlimited
past. Anyhow, it has no such predominance as either to prevent
Appendix. 461
the ready belief of supernatural events by the great bulk of man-
kind, or to induce them to apply the principle in question without
limit to the past or the future. 1
It is in vain to say, as has sometimes been said, that in whatever
direction, in whatever department of nature, the scientific eye now
glances, it sees no miracle, and that all is subordinated to " law."
This is no refutation of the assertion that there have been miracles,
which, having fulfilled their object, have ceased and will not recur.
To argue against miracles from their cessation, is like arguing that
volcanoes, long extinct, were never active. No one contends that
the miraculous is now to be expected, any more than the repeti-
tion of those primeval processes which (whether people contend
for the hypothesis of "creation" or of "development") must have
taken place at some time, however unknown to experience now.
The usual uniformity of antecedents and consequents in natural
1 This principle, the nature, origin, and legitimate operation of which, are
metaphysically so obscure, which looks at all events so much like an instinct
arbitrarily inserted for a special purpose, and which men dare not apply with-
out limit to past or future, resembles an intuition of a necessary truth as little
as can well be imagined ; and certainly seems an unstable foundation for the
weighty inferences suspended upon it. The characteristics of this tendency
of our nature, and the insecurity of the reasoning founded upon it in dis-
proof of miracles, have been admirably treated by Dr. Mozleyin his " Bamp-
ton Lectures."
On one point, by-the-bye, he seems to me to have conceded too much to his
opponents. While contending, and justly, that the idea of successive "crea-
tions," or the introduction per saltum of new species, involves similar concep-
tions with miracles, he seems to concede that if a savant adopts that flunet
theory of unlimited transformation, by which (for aught we know) anything
may by gradual change be evolved out of anything ; by which antecedents
lead, by absolutely continuous steps, to utterly unknown and indeed un-
imaginable consequents, he escapes the above difficulty. On the contrary,
it seems to me that our author might have said that the difficulty is then at its
maximum; that if a miracle be that which contradicts our experience, the world
of perpetual flux is the world of " miracles " par excellence. Dr. Mozley, in-
deed, justly argues, that on that theory, the fixity of the present (and of all
historical ages) must be accounted "miraculous," if the theory of universal
flux (resembling that of Heraclitus, with which Socrates and Theodorus make
themselves so merry in the Thaetetus) be the rule. For, surely, if the criterion
of the incredibility of miracle be founded on the unchangeable relations of
antecedents and consequents, that ductile state of the world which such a
theory involves must be conceived as a perpetual miracle. None can tell
what consequents will follow from what antecedents : so far from the "law of
expectation " being in operation, no one can say what we may expect, or rather
what we may not expect ; the experience of the moment could only justify us
in saying that nothing is, but everything is becoming something else.
462 Appendix.
phenomena is freely conceded ; and, indeed, always has been
felt to be the general " law," even in ages, and among nations, in
which the belief in the miraculous has been most excessive and
irrational. Uniformity, as the law, has been the universal belief;
the " miraculous " having been held to be the exception to the rule,
occasional and temporary deviation from the law. I am aware, of
course, that the contrary has been sedulously inculcated by many
modern sceptics, who would fain persuade us that it is only within
the last few generations that any just conception of " law," as pre-
siding over the phenomena of nature, has been attained by the
human intellect ; that, till our modern savans taught them better,
men's general belief was that every effect depended on a variable
and capricious will. " It is necessary to bear in mind," says
M. Rdnan, " that all antiquity, except the great scientific schools of
Greece, and their Roman pupils, believed in miracles ; that Jesus
not only believed in them, but had not the least idea of a natural
order regulated by laws" I
It is, of course, just to point the argument against Judaism and
Christianity, that he admits that some approximation to the idea of
" law " was found in the philosophic schools of Greece and Rome,
though Christ and the Jews had no notion of it ! Now to say
nothing of the fact that belief in miraculous phenomena, of their
occasional intrusion into the sphere of ordinary experience, was
equally shared by Greeks, Romans, and Jews, it may be easily
shown that among none of them was such belief inconsistent
with a clear recognition of prevailing " law," a conviction that
the "miraculous " has been the exception in every age and nation
of the world. This is equally proved, whether we look at the matter
a priori, or by the light of history ; whether we reason from that
very principle by which the existence of the preternatural is denied,
or from the history, philosophy, proverbs, of any nation, ancient
or modern.
For, first, If that principle on which the impugner of miracles
relies, be true ; if, by the very constitution of the human intellect, it
is impelled to believe that nature is uniform in her operations, and
that what we have seen to-day we may expect to-morrow and
always, it could not but be that the general idea of " law " would
be developed in all men, however it might be (as it doubtless has
1 " Vie de Jesus," p. 257.
Appendix. 463
been) qualified by the belief of the exceptional " miraculous." If
it be said this is doubtless true, but that this is not the idea of
" law " contended for ; that what is meant is such a " law" as never
has been or will be departed from, that is, a law which is exclusive
01 all " miracles," then, whether such a " law '' is to be predicated
or not, is still the very question, and to assert it is simply to beg
that question. But that the bulk of men have arrived at the
idea and conviction of the general law of uniformity, is beyond a
doubt ; and, indeed, if it were not so, we must admit that the
asserted necessary "law" of the human mind, which uniformly
prompts to this belief, has failed, which would be something as
unaccountable as a miracle itself ! It is as though it was contended
that the faculty of vision or the appetite of hunger was a principb
of human nature in general, and yet that whole communities of
men for many ages showed no trace of either, and that it is vain to
look for more than partial traces of them before these last ages.
Secondly. If we look at history, the proverbs, the maxims, the
conduct of mankind, we see the same thing, as we might well ex-
pect to do ; for except for the general operation of that same principle
which leads to the conception of this " law," there could have been
no calculation of the future and no rule of action at all ; there
could have been no assurance that the events of the morrow would
resemble those of to-day. It would be easy to adduce a thousand
citations from ancient writers of Greece and Rome, to show that
their general idea of the stability of nature, in spite of the influence
of their superstitions superstitions quite as rife as were ever im-
puted to the ancient Hebrews or to mediaeval Christianity was
as decided as our own. That the writers of the Old and New
Testaments very distinctly participated in the same conviction, is
plain from numberless passages, of which it will suffice to cite
two or three : " As long as the earth endureth, seed-time and
harvest, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease;" " He
appointeth the moon for seasons, and the sun knoweth his going
down ;" "Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? a
good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit, neither doth a corrupt tree
bring forth good fruit; " "Thou hast established the earth, and it
abideth ; " " They continue for ever according to Thine ordinances,
for all are Thy servants."
In short, man's asserted ignorance of " law " in past ages would
464 Appendix.
have been utterly inconsistent with that "law" in himself, the
tendency to believe in the uniformity of nature, which is yet sup-
posed so strong as to teach him that miracles are even impossible !
But if the world in all ages has admitted the fact of nature's
general uniformity, it has not believed in it so as to exclude the
"preternatural," though contending that it is exceptional. It
has known nothing, on the one hand, of universal caprice in the
phenomena of nature, as some modern speculators affirm ; and
as little, on the other, of absolute scepticism about miracles.
Whether those who utterly exclude the preternatural be not as
unreasonable as those who too readily admit it, whether there may
not be a juste milieu in this matter, evidence must determine.
The fact of men's undoubting assent to the general law of uni-
formity, combined with the facility with which they have also given
assent to the occasional " miraculous " and the impossibility of
getting them to assert that the uniformity of phenomena has been
or will be an eternal uniformity, indicate that there is such a
moderate position, and form a presumption that it is the true one.
It may be worth while to notice a certain modern objection to
miracles, plausible, but assuredly shallow, since it subsists only
by abuse of terms. By a studied, but most arbitrary, antinomy
of "law and will," some sceptics urge, that to suppose God
working miracles, is to suppose that He acts by a "will" that
is opposed to "law;" in other words, that His will, as ours
is apt to be, is arbitrary and capricious. But this, in truth, is
a most whimsical restriction, resulting from the most gross
anthropormorphism. No such antinomy betweeen " law " and
" will " is imaginable by him who has worthy conceptions of the
Deity. In the first place, if the universe be under the dominion
of perfect wisdom, it is quite consistent with that, to suppose
general uniformity of administration to be the law ; but not so,
to suppose that that administration can never vary, no matter
what changes be supposed in the system administered. To illus-
trate by a familiar example: God has given "will" to us His
creatures ; and the very action of that, if abnormal, may involve
variations from what would have been the normal rule of His
administration, had our will been obedient to His. If "law"
that ought to have prevailed, has by truly capricious " wills like
ours " been infringed, it may be the part of a wise and benevo-
Appendix. 465
lent Governor to adjust His administration to that fact ; to vindi-
cate the laws thus broken, and correct the evils thus introduced
into the universe ; and, for aught we know, Revelation and Miracle
may be instruments to that end. There is no caprice in "will"
thus exercised ; the caprice would rather be, if it did not so act.
A "capricious" governor would be one who did not vary his
administration as circumstances required, however true it may
be (as it will always be) that a wise government will be administered
in a course of general law. But, secondly, there is another fallacy
involved in this objection. It loses sight of the fact that to infinite
wisdom there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as " law" and
"exception" to it. These are relative to our conceptions. To
infinite wisdom the same perfection of reason reigns in the mi-
nutest details, in apparent deviations from general law as in the
most conspicuous uniformities. Everything ordinary, or as to us
it may seem exceptional, will, as Butler says, be administered
according to " general rules of wisdom," and will be equally com-
prehended in the Divine plan.
To affirm that " will" and " caprice" are inseparable, is futile.
Will, founded on the perfection of knowledge, wisdom, and power,
is the most stable thing in the universe ; and what the author just
quoted says of " Goodness," may well be said also of that. 1
1 A sufficient justification of miracles is found in the authentication of a
Divine revelation ; but even independently of that, a man must be very con-
fident to affirm that they might not be at some times desirable and expedient,
if God is not to be absolutely forgotten by His creatures. The principle which
enjoins us to believe in the absolute and immutable uniformity of the material
machinery of the universe, is not, it is true, inconsistent with theism. But it
has an unquestionable power of concealing God from us, or inducing the belief
that He, too, is in bondage to Fate. Man, indeed, is a creature whom it is
hard to satisfy. If all things "continue as they were," he is apt to say that
God exists not at all, or, if He does, takes no interest in the universe. It
miracles were frequent, and the stable order of things often interrupted, it is
all but certain he would soon say that " chance" alone governs it.
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