V) ri 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 UNBELIEF 
 
 IN THE 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY 
 
 AS CONTRASTED ^YITH ITS EAELIER 
 AND LATEE HISTOEY 
 
 Bring t!je (Cimnintjljam Urcturrs for tSSO 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN CAIKNS, D.D. 
 
 PRINCIPAL AND mOFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC TUEOLOGT AND APOLOGETICS 
 IN THE UNITED PUESBYTERIAN COLLEGE 
 
 EDIXBUEGII 
 
 ADAM AND CIIAELES BLACK 
 
 1881 
 
 All ri^hti rturvtJ
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh,
 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 The author has to express his best thanks to the 
 Trustees of the Cunningham Lecture for the great 
 honour they did him in associating his name with a 
 Lectureship which perpetuates one of the greatest 
 memories in the Free Church and in Scottish Theo- 
 logy, and whicli has gathered around it ah'cady so 
 many works of hasting interest and vakie. It was 
 from no hick or decay of ability, schohirship, and zeal, 
 wdthin her o'v\^l Ijorders, as every succeeding Lecture 
 shows, that the Free Church, in tliis case, went 
 beyond them, l)ut in the same enlarged and gener- 
 ous spirit which lias marked lier wliolc liistory. 
 May this sftirit be cherished and displayed <»ii ;ill 
 sides; and then the visible unity of llic branches of 
 the Christian Church — a unity which transcends all 
 remaining diflercnccH, however these may be sever- 
 ally regarded — will he one oi the best replies to 
 unbelief, anrl one of tlio. greatest helps to the edifica- 
 tion of the body of Christ. 
 
 \(
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTUEE I 
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 
 
 Contrast with Eighteenth Century — First Contrast — Christianity then 
 claimed the name of Religious Liberty ; now Unbelief — Second 
 Contrast — Unbelief then allied to Polytheism ; now separated 
 from all positive Religions — Third Contrast — Unbelief then 
 acknowledged Scripture books ; now denies them . Pages 1 to 30 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Causes of post-Reformation unbelief — Divisions of the Christian Church 
 — Religious wars — Falling away of culture from Cliristianity — 
 Seventeenth century Apologists — Grotius and Piu^cal — Schools of 
 unbelief — Rcser^'e in all — Doistic, Lord Herbert, Ilobbes ; 
 Pantheistic, Spinoza ; Sceptical, Baylc . . . 31 to CI 
 
 LECTURE in. 
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE EIQIITEENTU CENTURY — ENOLISII DEISM. 
 
 Causes of Deism — Inferiority of Deistical AVTitcrs — Blount, a forerunner 
 — Toland — His successive positions — Pantheisticou — Deism proper
 
 VIU CONTENTS. 
 
 — Collins and Pi'ophecy — Woolston and Miracles — Tindal and 
 Light of Nature — Chubb, and Christian morals — Morgan and 
 Old Testament — Sceptics : Dodwell, Bolingbroke, Hume, Gibbon 
 — Causes of failure of Deism . . . Pages 62 to 118 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 
 
 Causes of French unbelief — Persecution — Jansenism — Corruption in 
 Church and State — Voltaire — his connection with England — 
 Literary career — Frederick the Great — The Encylopddie — Jean 
 Calas and Toleration — Characteristics of Voltaire's attack on 
 Christianity — Ignorance of Scripture — Insufficient account of the 
 origin and success of Christianity — Doubtful Natural Religion — 
 Hypocrisy of his last confession — Rousseau — The Savoy vicar — 
 Character of Jesus Christ — Letters from the Mountain — Con- 
 cessions to Christianity — Atheism — La Mettrie — Helvetius — 
 Diderot — D'Holbach — Revolution — Causes of failure of Encylo- 
 pedism — Concordat — Chateaubriand's Genie du Christianisme 
 — Fruitless strife of Rome and unbelief — Service of French 
 unbelief to England 119 to 171 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY RATIONALISM. 
 
 Differences of Rationalism from English and French unbelief — Popular 
 Philosophy — Bahrdt ; Critical School — Decay of orthodoxy — 
 Semler — Eichhorn — Canon of the Old Testament — Origin of 
 the Gospels — Meagre doctrinal Creed — Paulus — Naturalist theory 
 — Reimarus — " Wolfenbiittel fragments " — " Plan of Jesus and liis 
 disciples " — Lessing : his religion a problem — Concealment of the 
 Fragmentist — His critical position — "Education of the Human 
 Race " — "Anti-Goetze" — "Nathan the Wise" — Alleged Pantheism 
 — Ethical School — Kant — Defects of his " Religion innerhalb 
 der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft " — Recovery of Germany from 
 Rationalism 172 to 233
 
 COXTENTS. 
 
 IX 
 
 LECTUEE VI. 
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 STRAUSS RENAN MILL. 
 
 Tendencies of nineteenth century — Deeper anti-supernaturalisra — 
 Natural explanation of Christ and Christianity — Strauss — First 
 "Leben Jesu " in 1835 — Mythical theory — Replies — Second 
 " Leben Jesu" in 1864 — Relation to Baur and Tubingen School 
 — Citicism of amended theory — Third and last period of 
 Strauss — Atheism — Renan — French unbelief from Revolutinary 
 period — " Vie de Jesus " and succeeding works — View of the 
 Gospels — Failure in estimating character and life of Christ — In- 
 adequate account of success of Christianity, and life of Apostle 
 Paul — Immoral attitude towards doubt within the Church — John 
 Stuart Mill — Views of Natural Theology — Possibility of a Reve- 
 lation — Sense of the worth of Cliristianity and greatness of Christ 
 — Lessons from these studies — Fluctuation of unbelief — Ad- 
 vance of Christianity — Necessity of maintaining its supernatural 
 character ...... Pages 234 to 281 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A. — Tlie Eighteenth Century a.s one of Progress 
 Note B. — Dutch Edition of (Jmtius's Do Veiitate 
 NoTK C. — llerbell'rt Nolitito (.'omiiiuiics . 
 Note I>. I>i'l Uaylf. fonnully reject ClniHliiiiiily ? . 
 Note E.- Wiinlldii's Iniprisnniiicnt and Dcilli 
 NoTio V. — Wiirbiirluii's " Diviut! JiCgatinn n[ Mo^ch 
 Note (I. licialion of lloiisseaii to Cyliristianily 
 Note II. — Doctrinal (Jn^tul of Kicliln'in . 
 Note I. — The alleged Panllxisni of Lewning . 
 Note K. — A Critical Thi-ory "f thf Gospels neccwisury to a \a\> 
 of Christ ...... 
 
 Note L. — The Quarrel of Straus.s with Rjitionaliftiu 
 
 Note M. — John Stuart MillV laflt word on the Chnrartcr of ChriHt 
 
 Note N. — Dr. liaur'a Sketch of Pauline Juntification 
 
 283 
 284 
 28(5 
 287 
 2HH 
 2!M 
 2l».'i 
 L'JIS 
 2'.M> 
 
 3(tl 
 303 
 3(14 
 3(1.')
 
 LECTUEE I. 
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 
 
 Contrast with Eighteenth Century — First Contrast : Christianity then 
 claimed the name of Religious Liberty ; now Unbelief — Second 
 Contrast : Unbelief then allied to Polytheism ; now separated 
 from all positive religions — Tliird Contrast: Unbelief tlien 
 acknowledged Scripture books ; now denies them. 
 
 The subject which I have chosen for these Lectures 
 is a part of the great history of the conflict between 
 Christianity and Unbelief. That history is to a harge 
 extent still unwritten ; and tliough some periods liave 
 received comjjaratively full Ircatment, others lie in 
 shadow, while inferences and generalisations from tlie 
 •whole arc as yet scanty and defective. It is with the 
 hope of adding something, liowever little, to this 
 literature, which, rightly considered, is the literature 
 of fiitli, ami a branch of Christian Apologetics, that 
 I have selected this t(jpic ; ami, iMiiiful as much that 
 arises in the study of it nnist be jo ( 'liiisti;in niin<ls, 
 it is not witliMiit that solid and enduring benefit 
 which the struggles and reactions of enur, liistmi- 
 callv ((jiisideied, sooner oi- lat» r bring to the side of 
 trull I. 
 
 1 have chosen as the main theme of tliscussiun I he 
 uTibelief nf the eighteenth century, because this period 
 
 H
 
 2 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 marks, in some sense, the culmination of unbelief in 
 tlie history of Christianity, for it was then more 
 widely diffused, and with less vigorous resistance, 
 than before or since ; it ^\■as more radical, in its an- 
 tagonism, at least than in any former century ; and 
 it enjoyed certain extraordinary advantages, both 
 of a social and political nature, which put all its 
 alleged powers of remoulding the world to the test 
 of a conspicuous and decisive experiment. AVhat the 
 first centuries are in the history of Christianity the 
 eighteenth is in the history of unbelief, and hence 
 its products and results are of the most typical and 
 suggestive character.^ 
 
 It would be impossible, however, within the limits 
 of this course, either to narrate the history or examine 
 the literary and other developments of eighteenth 
 century unbelief, when surveyed by itself, with any 
 measure of fulness. Hence I have sought to contract, 
 without obscuring, the field, by introducing the ele- 
 ment of relation to other periods. And as even this 
 is too large, and would demand a longer inquiry than 
 is possible into relations of connection and dependence 
 as subsisting between the unbelief of that century and 
 what preceded and followed, I have confined the point 
 of observation to contrast, including, of course, com- 
 parison, but laying stress upon differences, rather than 
 upon what belongs to unbelief in all places and in all 
 ages. We thus obtain a perfectly definite subject, 
 and one which, by presenting this important century 
 in the light of other marking periods, may cast 
 
 ^ See Appendix, Note A.
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 3 
 
 illustration on tlie wliole history and genius of un- 
 belief. 
 
 It needs only to be furtlier premised that by Un- 
 belief I mean unbelief in tbe divine origin and claims 
 of Christianity. It will be necessary to speak of un- 
 belief in God, in moral order, in future existence ; but 
 these are only considered as relative to and associated 
 with unbelief in the Christian revelation ; and the 
 developments of atheism, pantheism, or absolute 
 scepticism, that are to be taken account of, do not 
 enter merely or chiefly as chapters in the history of 
 speculation, but as bearing upon the resistance offered 
 to Christianity. 
 
 Thus considered, the unbelief of the eighteenth 
 century seems to me to require to be estimated in 
 the light of the period before itself, and of that which 
 comes after. We cannot suddenly descend upon it, 
 without considering tlie post-Reformation history and 
 tendencies, out of which it grew, which lie mainly in 
 the seventeenth century. And as little can we 
 abruj)tly leave it, without reviewing its fruits, conse- 
 quences, and real <jr supposed advances beyond itself, 
 in the century to which we ourselves belong. These 
 foregoing and succee(ling ])erio(lsReem thus indispens- 
 able U) a riglit ami cDiiiidcliciisive estimate. l'»nL as 
 there was an earlier unbelief in the world, largely 
 different from ;inv tli.it succeeded, and yet bound lo 
 all later periotls by the conniinn aflributcj of rejection 
 (»r C'liristianity — I mean the unbrlicr df the early 
 centuries — it seems desirable not to exclude this i'rom 
 view ; but as far as the great diversity of the grounds
 
 4 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 and principles of resistance allows, to exhibit this also in 
 the series, and thus to introduce the earliest protot3rpe 
 of the eighteenth century unbelief and of all besides. 
 
 Our plan then will be to sketch rapidly the un- 
 belief of the first Christian centuries, noting. especially 
 such features as contrast with later manifestations ; 
 then to trace the rise and growth of the post-Refor- 
 mation unbelief, especially in such forms as do not 
 yet reach the eighteenth century mark ; then more 
 fully to dwell on this central part of our subject in 
 its various national and other peculiarities ; and to 
 close by showing to what extent and in what fields of 
 conflict unbelief has altered its ground since its 
 eighteenth century utterances and conclusions. 
 
 Nothing in many respects can be less like the 
 position of eighteenth century writers — and we may 
 take in seventeenth century writers too — in opposing 
 Christianity, than that of its first antagonists. The 
 principal points of contrast, as it seems to me, are 
 these — First, that the deniers of Christianity in the 
 early ages were on the defensive, and were defending a 
 publicly held and settled religion, among other means, 
 by force ; whereas the unbelief of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury was aggressive, hostile to all existing religious in- 
 stitutions, and professedly based on reason. Secondly, 
 that the deniers of Christianity in the early ages made 
 common cause with polytheism, and thus admitted 
 the principle of a divine revelation, as well as the 
 legitimacy of all its supernatural evidence ; whereas 
 the unbelief of the eighteenth century rejected every
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIEST FOUR CENTURIES. 5 
 
 form of revealed religion, and made liglit of all super- 
 natural evidence. And, Tliirdhj, tliat the deniers of 
 Christianity in the early ages granted, wdth hardly an 
 exception, the genuineness and integrity of the Chris- 
 tian documents ; while these, in the eighteenth century, 
 were largely and strenuously disputed and denied. 
 To the proof and illustration of these points the re- 
 mainder of this Lecture shall be devoted. 
 
 I. OwxfiJ^st point of contrast then is, that the un- 
 belief of the first Christian centuries, unlike that of 
 the eighteenth century, defended an accepted and 
 publicly professed religion, and defended it among 
 other means by force. When the Christian Church 
 first came forth to secure by the struggle of nearly 
 three centuries the unhindered expression of its faith 
 and worshi}), it was not so murli by any abstract 
 theories of religious liberty, as l)y the living strength 
 of its conviction, wliicli refused to be supjiressed or 
 fal.sifi(.'d, tliat it overcame. But there naturally grew 
 up with a (hjctrine wliicli so exalted the worth of every 
 individual soul, and which demanded such stern resist- 
 ance to idolatry or defection, a new conception of the 
 rights of coiisciLiiec, an<l an engrafting upon (lie 
 literature of the world of new modes of expression 
 for this hitherto unclainii'd ]trivilege. The Christian 
 apologists, while ph-ading lor the truth of Christian- 
 ity, necessarily asserted the divinely-giviii ri^fht of 
 all truth to manifestation ; and evtii from th<' lower 
 level of its political innocence they contended for 
 its free eii<ulalioii and dill'usion. Hence such great
 
 G UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 utterances as those of Tertullian in liis appeal to 
 Scapula, the proconsul of Africa, " Humani juris et 
 naturalis potcstatis est unicuique, quod putaverit 
 colere; nee alii obest aut prodcst alterius religio. Sed 
 nee religionis est cogere religionem " (cap. ii.) ; and 
 also of Lactantius, " Quis enim tarn insolens, tarn 
 clatus est, qui me vetet oculos in caelum tollere 1 quis 
 imponat mihi necessitatem vel colendi quod nolim, 
 vel quod velim, non colendi." "Religio cogi non 
 potest ; verbis potius quam verberibus res agenda est, 
 ut sit voluntas."^ At length, as the result of in- 
 numerable appeals and incredible sufferings, this argu- 
 ment practically conquered, and in the Milan edict 
 of the emperors Constantine and Licinius in 313, the 
 principle of a toleration, professedly wider than was 
 needful for Christian uses, but really due to Christian 
 struggles, was enunciated : " Etiam aliis religionis 
 suae vel observantise potestatem similiter apertam et 
 liberam pro quiete temporis nostri, esse concessam, 
 ut . in colendo quod quisque delegerit, habeat liberam 
 facultatem."^ It is only too true that the early 
 church itself, lifted to a position of security and 
 even of ascendency, forgot its own lessons, as we 
 see in the case of a man like Eusebius, who, having 
 described so pathetically the persecutions of the 
 martyrs of Palestme, looks, ere his career ends, with 
 complacency on the repressive measures of his great 
 fnend Constantine towards pagans and heretics. It 
 is only when orthodox Christianity goes, as it were, 
 into opposition under the Arian emperors, as under 
 
 1 Div. Inst., V. 13, 19. 2 Lact., De Mort. Per., 48.
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIKST FOUR CENTURIES. 7 
 
 Juliau, that it recovers its native language ; and the 
 lofty utterances of Athanasius recall the true relation 
 of the gospel to liberty of conscience, though this is 
 too soon buried and lost in the advancing tide of 
 Cffisareo-papacy in the East, and of Roman absolutism 
 in the West. The place of Christianity, as the parent 
 of liberty of thought and the patron of individual 
 conscience, had almost been forgotten when the Re- 
 formation came in, with struggles only second to 
 those of the early church, and not without something 
 of the same inconsistencies and relapses, to reassert 
 not only Christian truth, but the inseparable connec- 
 tion Ijetween that truth and freedom. When this 
 movement had also spent its impulse, and Romanism, 
 on the one hand, had guarded its territory, so as to 
 retain it fenced round with its old spiritual and 
 secular terrors, and Protestantism, on tlie other, in- 
 heriting much of prescription, tradition, and vis 
 inerticB from the system it had dispossessed, was losing 
 its hold over its precious store of truth, and maintain- 
 ing it largely as an ancestral and si ate -defended in- 
 stitution, the unbelief that in these circumstances 
 arose, as if in ciilin! o])livi()ii of the earlier creative 
 work of Christianity in relation lo five IIkiul^IiI, look 
 this as its own watchword, ;ind claimed the honours 
 of unfettered inf[uiry, of emancipated reason, and, iis 
 far as il miglit l»e necnh^d, (•!" iiiartyrdom. We lind to 
 our surprise the language (;f Tertullian and Lactanlius 
 starting up from an entirely opposite (piarter, in the 
 form of invectiv(j against superstition, priestcraft, and 
 the brute and ()j)prcssive force of a relentless Christian
 
 8 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 despotism. This boast of mental liberty is common 
 to all the scliools of the eighteenth century, — to 
 Collins, with his "Discourse on Free-Thinking" in 1713, 
 near its beginning ; to Voltaire, in his last visit to Paris 
 in 1778, near its close, when he laid his hand on the 
 head of the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, and pro- 
 nounced over him the words, " God, Liberty, Tolera- 
 tion ;" and to Eeimarus in Germany, whose first 
 fragment, published by Lessing in 1774, had for its 
 thesis and title " On the Toleration of Deists." It 
 may be granted that the reaffirmation of the prin- 
 ciples of religious liberty, though without the sup- 
 port of religious faith, wrought in some degree for 
 good, and that once and again, as in the history of 
 Voltaire, the victims of intolerance, especially of 
 Eomish intolerance, were earnestly and successfully 
 befriended by the leaders and disciples of unbelief. 
 Only it must be held that the solidity and depth of 
 the appeal to the sacredness of truth and the rights of 
 conscience generally bore no proportion to the loud- 
 ness of the cry ; otherwise there would not have been 
 so widespread a disposition to assail Christianity in a 
 masked and disguised fashion, and to escape the con- 
 sequences of a frank confession of unbelief in reigning 
 ideas, in a way which contrasts unspeakably with the 
 openness and martyr- courage of the first Christian 
 centuries. But without dwelling on this fact, or 
 raising the question how far the watchword of liljerty 
 and independence of thought may have been genuine 
 and useful, the point here chiefly to be noticed is, 
 that the party of unbelief, throughout the early cen-
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 9 
 
 turies, does not raise that cry at all, but stands upon 
 tradition, upon established right, and, in the ultimate 
 issue, upon blind force. These statements hardly 
 need any formal proof, so much does the evidence of 
 them lie on the surface. Pliny, in his letter to Trajan, 
 does not doubt that in Christians, irrespective of any 
 argument upon the merits of their faith, inflexible 
 nonconformity to pagan worship was to be punished. 
 The Emperor Marcus Aurelius carries his recoil from 
 the obstinacy of the Christians to the length of more 
 violent persecution. Nor does one of the formal 
 WTiters against the Christian cause interpose any word 
 of protest, but all leave these appeals to liberty of 
 thought and rights of conscience entnely to Christian 
 apologists. Thus Celsus, towards the close of his 
 work against the Christians, as reported by Origen, in 
 urging his appeal to fall in witli pagan worsliip, 
 grounded on the Homeric line which made the king 
 the agent of Jupiter, thus argues : " If you l)re;ik t liis 
 precept, justly will tlic king punish you, for if all 
 .should follow you, nothing could save him fioin being 
 deserted and alone, and the world from being given u[) 
 to the most lawless and nide barbarians, with nothing 
 left of your own worship or true; wisdom among men." ' 
 So also Porphyry, who in his letter to his wife Mar- 
 cella insists much mon^ on the spirit uality of wor- 
 ship, (hj(.'S Jiot rise ;iljo\o the scntiinrnt that " it is the, 
 greatest fruit of piety to honour tiio (lisinity accord- 
 ing to th(i religion of the count r\'" (Kara ra irtiTpia).'- 
 
 It may seem that in the Emp('r(»i- .luban we nt lcnL!:(li 
 
 1 Contm CVlr*., Jiuok viii. 08. ■■■' Cai>. xviii.
 
 10 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 find one wlio is tolerant on philosophical principles, 
 or from general ideas of religious duty. But though 
 the claim to set aside persecution is undouljtcdly 
 made by him, it comes too late, and is one of the 
 things which, like his friend the philosopher Themis- 
 tius, he had learned from the Christians, and learned 
 without inwardly adopting. His whole career is an 
 eftort, not simply to persuade, but to bribe, and, where 
 it could be done without bloodshed, to coerce his sub- 
 jects back into paganism. His prohibition of Greek 
 literature to his Christian subjects, his severities in 
 exacting the rebuilding of pagan temples, his expul- 
 sion of Athanasius from Egypt, and his connivance at 
 acts of sanguinary violence, show how little his ex- 
 ample can do to redeem the contrast here with later 
 unbelief, and how much nearer his heart lay the 
 maxim which he expresses in one of his letters, that 
 " men might be cured against their will " (a/coz/ra? 
 laa-dai)} Gibbon here gives up Julian, and condemns 
 "the artful system by Avhich he proposed to obtain 
 the efifects, without incurring the guilt or reproach, 
 of persecution," ^ and in this he is for once in har- 
 mony with Gregory Nazianzen, who represents Julian 
 as so dividing the parts between himself and the 
 pagan mob, that he left to them the deeds of violence, 
 and took on himself the work of persuasion.^ 
 
 II. The next point of difference, and one still more 
 important, to which we now pass, which divides the 
 
 1 Ep. 42. 2 Vol. ii. p. 557, Bohn's edition. 
 
 ^ Greg. Naz., Op., vol. i. pp. 105-6, 1st o-TT^AireuTiKos Aoyos.
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 1 1 
 
 unbelief of the early Christian centuries by a great 
 gulf from that of the eighteenth century, is that in 
 rejecting Christianity it made common cause with 
 pol}i;heism, and thus admitted a professed revelation, 
 and the general validity of all the arguments by which 
 a revelation may be sustained ; whereas the eighteenth 
 century scouted all positive revelation, a polytheistic 
 one in some respects more than all others, and denied 
 all the evidence of every positive revelation whatever. 
 This state of the case makes it wholly impossible that 
 there should be any fundamental harmony between 
 Collins and Tindal, between Voltaire and Diderot, on 
 the one hand, and Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, on 
 the other. They are habitually ranked together on 
 the same roll of unbelief, but they differ almost as 
 much as to their ultimate creed as these philosophers 
 of the eighteenth century did from Hindoos or J3udd- 
 hists, or from disciples of Zoroaster. There is nothing 
 now extant in tlio world wliich represents that point 
 of view of those non-Christian tlieologians of the first 
 centuries, whifli T'lu-istianity has for ever sulwerted, 
 at least nothing but polytlieism a great deal more 
 rude and ])arljarous; Imt if it could h;ive l)een per- 
 petuated till last century, ami if Ihc Englisli Deists 
 and Frencli EncyclopcdiHts c«»ul<l have met its repre- 
 sentatives fresh from the temples of Apollo jdkI 
 Minerva, and from the mysteries of Ceres, they would 
 speedily liavc parted rf)ni])nny, after they liad dis- 
 covered that they hmi iiMlci*] ;i nnnibi'i- of objcclions 
 in common to Christianity ; but that in regard to their 
 ultimate conclusions as to worship, and their point of
 
 12 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 departure as to the admissibility of a revelation, tliey 
 were toto ccelo discordant. I liumLly tliink that this 
 is not sufficiently realised in our day either by Chris- 
 tians or by those who stand on the other side ; and 
 while I am far from wishing to deny unbelievers the 
 advantage of any coincidence they may have with 
 earlier witnesses to the negative side of their creed, I 
 shall endeavour to show here how limited, in the deep- 
 est sense, must be any concord that they can establish 
 with the polytheistic unbelievers of the first centuries. 
 Hence I sliall endeavour, in regard to the latter, by 
 testimonies of Christian writers, or quotations from 
 their own works, to show how genuinely polytheistic 
 these unbelievers were ; and also, as a special point, 
 how fully they conceded the admissibility of all Chris- 
 tian arguments for the supernatural, though of course 
 they denied that these were cogent for Christianity in 
 such a sense as to exclude paganism. It will be, 
 however, remembered that this proof does not hold 
 absolutely good of all antagonists of Christianity 
 whatever. There was a section of the philosophers, 
 always growing less and less influential, after the dawn 
 of Christianity — the Epicureans and the Sceptics — 
 who escaped polytheism by escaping all serious re- 
 ligion. But neither in numbers nor influence did they 
 rank among the more considerable opponents of the 
 gospel in its progress to victory, and hence they may 
 for present purposes be disregarded — Lucian being the 
 only one who might fall under this exception, while 
 Celsus, though ranked by some as an Epicurean, has 
 in him such Platonic affinities as to class him rather
 
 TrN"BELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 13 
 
 with Porphyry and Julian among the zealous upholders 
 of paganism. 
 
 It would be wrong to charge the philosophic an- 
 tagonists of Christianity with defending the vulgar 
 polytheism exactly as it stood, with all its abomina- 
 tions and atrocities. They so far tried to make an 
 approximation to the Christian apologists, who for 
 nearly three centuries, from Justin Martyr to Augus- 
 tine, assailed the popular system with such force alike 
 of reasoning and of eloquence. We see where the 
 more refined adherents of the pagan system took their 
 ground, since almost every apologist, after having 
 exposed the absurdities and horrors of the vulgar 
 belief and practice, goes on to deal with the improved 
 and extenuated forms of the same superstition, as 
 philosophy alone would be responsible for it. These 
 abatements, however, do not restore any harmony 
 between the philosophical unbelievers of the first 
 centuries and those of the eighteenth, as we see that 
 with every modification the polytheistic principle is 
 still retained ; that the attempts at improvement lead 
 to other collisions with the views of later unbelief; 
 and that in point of fact this later scheme has formally 
 dissented from and thrown over the earlier coml)alant 
 against Christianity. It is now time to make these 
 alle^jations fjood. 
 
 First, Tlie radical ])olyth('ism of ihr |iriii(ijial ciily 
 assailants of llie gospil caiiiiot be dciiiid. Tliiis, \\)v 
 example, Celsus lays down llie characteristic principle 
 of the existence of local gods, whom it was right for 
 those parts of the world that had been assigned to
 
 14 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 them to worship. " Eightly," he says, " would things 
 thus mauaged be done according to individual pleasure, 
 and it would not be consistent with sanctity to break 
 the usages thus fixed from the beginning by local 
 settlement."^ Thus Origen understands him, and 
 argues that this justifies the sacrifice of strangers 
 at the shrine of Diana in Tauris, and the Moloch- 
 worshi]) of Africa ; and comes back in religion, as 
 Celsus indeed admitted, to the maxim of Pindar, 
 that custom was the queen of the world. It is upon 
 the original appointment of the one Supreme God, 
 no doubt, that Celsus founds the worship of inferior 
 divinities or daemons, arguing, to use his own words, 
 that " the worshipper of more gods than one, in 
 worshipping some one of those that belong to the 
 Supreme, does in this what is pleasing to him ;" it 
 being understood " that it is not lawful to worship any 
 one to whom He does not give the honour." ^ But 
 Origen justly asks where this warrant is to be found ; 
 and Celsus, in applying his own rule, sinks to the 
 lowest level of vulgar superstition, giving as an ex- 
 ample of this distribution the assignment in Egypt 
 of the care of six-and-thirty or more separate parts 
 of the body to as many gods, whose names, as Celsus, 
 without any sense of the ludicrous, has reproduced 
 them in their Egyptian form, are, " Chnoumen, and 
 Chnachoumen, and Knat, and Sikat, and Biou, and 
 Erou, etc.," by the pronouncing of which the disorders 
 of the several bodily members were healed.^ 
 
 Similar evidence could be produced from the works 
 
 1 Orig. Cels., v. 25. 2 xbid., viii. 2. 3 ibid., viii. 58.
 
 UIS^ELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 15 
 
 of Porphpy, as preserved iu fragments in Eusebius's; 
 "Gospel. Preparation," and also in his o^^ti extant 
 treatise on "Abstinence from Animals," in which, 
 though there is a most laudable effort to separate the 
 rite of sacrifice from blood and cruelty, there is still 
 an acceptance of a polytheist basis for his own scheme 
 of faith. The closing sentence of his work on Absti- 
 nence sufliciently proves this, in which he speaks with 
 sympathy of the old law of Attica "to honour the 
 gods and national heroes by common worship, follow- 
 ing the ancestral statutes, as each was able, with praise 
 and gifts of fruit, and yearly meat-ofierings ;" nor is it 
 easy to describe how far in the same work, as in his 
 admirinir account of the fasts and observances of the 
 Egyptian priests, he descends to the grossest depths of 
 ritualism, and to an acceptance of the wliole Egyptian 
 theosophy, founding beast - worship on the universal 
 presence of God.^ 
 
 As to Julian, it would be easy to prove the same 
 points from his writings, l)uL it is enough to appeal to 
 bis public utterances and acts. According to Cyril of 
 Alexandri.-i, in almost tlic last sentoiioc of tliis Fntlicr's 
 long reply to him, he ascribed his elevation to llie 
 j)urplc to omens, such as the voices of magpies and 
 sparrows. Julian also livtd in ;t |»('r])e(ual lound (»!" 
 sacrificial worsliii), his favourite god Im in^ Apollo, or 
 the Sun. lie tempt(;d his Christian soldiers, as (Gregory 
 Naziaiizen declares in his first Oration, I»y niilitaiy and 
 pagan emblems skili'ully IJended, in adnrc tin- hitler 
 while reverencing the former, and made their donatives 
 
 1 Pnrpli., Dc AbHtincnti.'i, iv. (5-8.
 
 IG UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 conditional on tlieir casting a grain or two of incense 
 on the altar which they had to pass. He purified the 
 grove of Daphne because polluted by the bones of the 
 Christian martyr Babylas. And so expensive were his 
 animal oflferings at all times, that the jest respecting 
 Marcus Aurelius, as to the cattle praying him not to 
 extinguish their breed, was revived, and such an 
 extirpation was actually dreaded, should he have 
 returned victorious from the Persian war. 
 
 It is to be observed, secondly, that these grossly 
 pagan features were not brought round into greater 
 harmony with recent unbelief, by the changes then 
 entailed on paganism in conflict with Christianity. 
 An attempt had to be made to spiritualise and alle- 
 gorise paganism, which began so early that almost the 
 first Christian apologists notice it, but which reached 
 its consummation in the Neo-Platonic school of the 
 third century. Eusebius, in reply to the lost work of 
 Porphyry on " Images," has, in the third book of his 
 "Gospel Preparation," met the effort of this philo- 
 sopher to find everywhere some ground, in nature 
 and in the operation of an all-pervading principle, for 
 the most eccentric as well as repulsive literalities of 
 paganism, as in the rape of Proserpine the hiding of 
 the seed in winter; in the labours of Hercules the 
 passage of the sun through the signs of the zodiac ; 
 and even in the limp of Vulcan and the staff of Escu- 
 lapius, some edifying mystery. Eusebius justly asks 
 why these allegories should descend to the impure 
 and revolting, as a proper emblem of the divine 
 nature ; why so many names and fables should all
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 17 
 
 denote the same thing, as for example, Apollo, 
 Hercules, Bacchus, Esculapius, the healing powei's of 
 the sun ; and why in any case the unity of God should 
 be so lacerated ? Not the least aro-ument afyainst 
 this school is the example of Plato himself, who, if he 
 could thus have spiritualised Homer and Hesiod, would 
 not have excluded them from the " Eepublic." Nor did 
 this school rationalise more worthily by turning to 
 practical account, in order to meet the Christian claim 
 of direct communion with God, the pagan doctrine of 
 possible divine visions and ecstasies, with all the ap- 
 pliances of theurgy and magic. There was here a 
 true confession of want, but it could not possibly have 
 commended Neo-Platonism to the cold intellectualism 
 of the eighteenth century ; and nothing could be less 
 welcome to it in former antagonists of Christianity 
 than the statement of Porphyry in his Life of Plotinus, 
 tliat during his six ycai^' intercourse with that head 
 of the School in IJoine, the maslci- passed four times 
 into the state of direct inUiiLion of, and union with, 
 the universal soul l)y an energy altogether mysterious.^ 
 Nor could tlifir approximntiou to Clirisf innity on ilio 
 more HjK'culative side have abated tlie prejudice of later 
 ages. Thoy dr-vclopod tlie fainter outline of something 
 like a Trinity found in !*lal,o into a full syHtem ; in 
 which the original good or TO 'Aya^oi'; llic NoOvor mind; 
 and the ^^vx''} '»r soul, r<'[)r('Hentcd the corresponding 
 Christian persons. J»uttliis, wliicli did not recommend 
 them to the Christians, as Cyril of Alexandria' reminds 
 .Tuli.'in that their Trinity did not rise above Arianism, 
 
 ' Vita Plotini, 2.1. 2 Cyril adv. Jul., ].. 'J70. 
 
 C
 
 18 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 could not gain for tliem any sympatliy with later 
 unbelief, especially in a form so sternly hostile to all 
 mysticism as that of the eighteenth centm*y. 
 
 I now add, thirdly, that we have actual protests 
 of more recent unbelief against its former ally and 
 precursor. Gibbon has not mentioned Celsus, and 
 said but little of Porphyry ; but his picture of Julian 
 contains not a few sarcastic strokes, such as that his 
 " sleeping or waking visions, the ordinary effects of 
 abstinence or fanaticism, would almost degrade the 
 Emj)eror to the level of an Egyptian monk." ^ He says 
 of this philosophical school generally that " it may 
 appear a subject of surprise and scandal that the philo- 
 sophers themselves should have contributed to abuse 
 the superstitious credulity of mankind." " And again, 
 " The ancient sages had derided the popular supersti- 
 tion ; after disguising its extravagance, by the thin 
 pretence of allegory, the disciples of Plotinus and 
 Porphyry became its most zealous defenders . . . the 
 Neo-Platonists would scarcely deserve a place in the 
 history of science ; but in that of the Church the 
 mention of them will very frequently occur." ^ I 
 am not aware that Hume has passed any judgment 
 like this of Gibbon upon these writers, but his com- 
 plaint in regard to Plutarch, an earlier type of the 
 same school, indicates a similar recoil. " I must 
 confess that the discourse of Plutarch concernino; 
 the silence of the oracles is in general of so odd a 
 texture, and so unlike his other i:)roductions, that one 
 is at a loss what judgment to form of it. . . . The 
 
 1 Vol ii. p. 516. 2 Vol. ii. p. 514. •" yoi. i. pp. 468-9.
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. 19 
 
 personages lie introduces advance very wild, absurd, 
 and contradictory opinions, more like tlie visionary 
 systems or ravings of Plato than the plain sense of 
 Plutarch. There runs also through the whole an air of 
 superstition and credulity, which resembles very little 
 the spirit that appears in other philosophical composi- 
 tions of that author."^ Voltaire, in his Dictionary, 
 comes to speak of Julian ; and he too is perplexed by 
 the question how "a man of affairs like him, of such 
 genius, a true philosopher, could forsake the Christi- 
 anity in which he had been educated, for paganism of 
 which he might have been expected to feel the ridi- 
 culousness and the absurdity" (Article "Julien"). Vol- 
 taire, however, supposes that Julian was influenced in 
 his pagan observances more by accommodation to his 
 party than Ijy conviction. " The Sultan of the Turks," 
 he says, "must bless Omar ; the Shah (jf Persia must 
 bless Ali ; Marcus Aurclius himself was initiated in 
 the Eleusiniau mysteries." But here, as so often 
 elsewhere, Voltaire is less instructed than Cil^bon in 
 facts; and tlie fanatical zeal of .lulian cannot l)e dis- 
 puted. Hence Strauss gives np .lulian as a prototype 
 of unbelief, and tlirough his sides makes a satirical 
 attack on the Christian sujierstition of the late king 
 of Prussia. - 
 
 It is liardly necesHary by any separate evidence 
 now to show further that the o})i)onents of Cliri.'^l i.mily 
 
 ' Ilumo, EHsayfi, vol. i. note SS. 
 
 2 Tho work of StniuHH in wliich this in iloiic licairi llic tillr >>f 
 " I)«T Iloiiiaiitikcr uiif <l<'m Tliroiw; «lor C'liwircn," ixildiKlicl in 1847, in 
 which a i»arallel i» drawn between Julian and Kredcrick William IV.
 
 20 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 in tlic early ages, unlike those that followed, admitted 
 the principle of a divine revelation. We do not say, 
 indeed, that they admitted it in the strictly-defined 
 sense of the Christian apologists, as a remedy by 
 immediate divine communication for a moral and 
 spiritual fall ; as the doctrine of a fall and of a divine 
 remedy lay in such shade and obscurity in paganism. 
 Nor do we say that they marked off a strictly mira- 
 culous period, like the beginning of Christianity, or 
 even of Judaism, for these pagan writers supposed 
 revelation continuous, and hence their supernatural 
 appearances and oracles resembled the theology of 
 Eome more than of Protestantism. Still the entire 
 spirit of the early period, as we have seen, was out of 
 harmony with the jealousy and distrust of the super- 
 natural which came at length to prevail in the schools 
 of unbelief properly so called ; and no one then 
 doubted that a revelation could be introduced and 
 proved. To make this good it will simply be enough 
 to show that paganism was looked upon as itself a 
 revelation, and also that Christianity was admitted to 
 have some supernatural evidence. 
 
 That paganism was looked on as a revelation is 
 attested by Porphyry in his work on the " Philosophy 
 of Oracles."^ This has been denied to be his, but it 
 is accepted by Neander and the great weight of 
 authority. It consists of responses by the gods as to 
 the right mode of their worship; and Porphyry 
 speaks of the collection as meeting the want of repose 
 
 * The title of this work, as we learn from Eusebius (Proepar. Evang. , 
 iv. 6), was irepi ttJs Ik Xoymv ^iXoa-offiia'i.
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CENTUEIES. 21 
 
 in minds tliat struo-oled after the truth, as with a 
 birth-pang.^ The whole of worship is rested on divine 
 manifestation, as is thus asserted : " As to things to be 
 sacrificed, and days to be avoided, and the nature of 
 images, and the forms in which the gods appear and 
 the places which they haunt, this and everything else 
 relating to their worship men have learned from 
 themselves.- The w\ant of books authentic and sacredly 
 guarded comes strikingly to light in all such claims 
 to found the classical paganism upon revelation ; l)ut 
 the principle is distinctly conceded. 
 
 Hence even Christ might be allowed to be, in 
 a certain sense, above the ordinary laws of nature, 
 thoufrh the evidence of a universal and commandino- 
 mission was rejected. Celsus grants him magical 
 powers, which he learned in Egypt,^ and he matches 
 him, elsewhere, with some of tlic ])rodigies nTid 
 detached wonders of Grecian legendary history. 
 The very eHort in tlie next century, «•!" Ifierocles, 
 president of liitliyuia, at the time of the persecu- 
 tion of Diocletian, to exall Ajiollonius of Tyaii.i 
 above Christ as a wonder-worker contained a re- 
 cognition of mysterious jtowci-s, lliough tlie Chris- 
 tian wrilcrs Lactantiiis and Musebius, who i'e|ilie(l 
 to liini, vindicated for the Savioui- not only a JiiirJier 
 dominion but a pure moral purpose and an rHectual 
 redemption. The contnist hetwceu the lw(» ages of 
 unbebef apjtears in this, that wlien. in the eigliteentli 
 century, tlie ])ai'alh'l l)ctween Christ an<l A|n»nonius 
 
 • r^i' dk-qOdav ut&ivavrtH. EuHob., Pmi)., iv. 7. 
 ■^ I'rsup., V. 1 1. ^ Orig. Cck, i. 28.
 
 22 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 reappeared in English Deism, all that was to the 
 disaclvanta2:c of Christ was retained, but the whole 
 underlying conception of real spiritual powers, com- 
 mon to Christianity and to Paganism, was struck 
 away and discredited.^ 
 
 III. Our third main point of distinction still re- 
 mains, viz. the general acceptance of the Christian 
 books by the hostile writers of the first centuries, 
 as compared with the wide and resolute scepticism of 
 more recent times. It cannot be said that there is no 
 questioning, by unbelievers, of the genuineness and 
 integrity of any book of the Old or New Testament, 
 before the fall of paganism ; but there is certainly a 
 measure of acquiescence, Avliich, considering the doubts 
 in some cases of the orthodox, and of the heretics, is 
 a marked contrast to the adverse criticism begun as 
 early as the seventeenth century, and continued to 
 our own days. With what general truth, and yet 
 needful limitation, this holds good, I shall endeavour 
 to show in regard to the three leading representatives 
 of early unbelief, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian. 
 
 In Celsus we have the fullest reference to, and 
 quotation of. Scripture ; and as his date falls so much 
 earlier than that of the others, probably in the last 
 quarter of the second century, as early as Irenseus, or 
 Clement of Alexandria, or TertuUian, his recognition 
 of Scripture books, or even of facts, is confessedly of 
 great importance. He, no doubt, falls into a number 
 
 1 Blount's work on Apollonius appeared a little earlier than the 
 eighteenth century, viz. in 1680.
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIRST FOUR CEXTUllIES. 23 
 
 of mistakes ; but it is not so miicb as to the authority 
 of Scripture among the Christians, or as to its letter, 
 as in regard to its meaning, and its evidence for or 
 against the Christian cause. The most adverse thing 
 which he says as to the position of the Gospels (not 
 one author of which he names), is that some of the 
 believers, " as coming to themselves out of a debauch, 
 transform the gospel from its first shape into three or 
 four, or more, different ones, and alter it, that they 
 may have evasions at every point." ^ Origen supposes 
 here such a ftdsification to be charged as was only com- 
 mitted Ijy Marcion and other depravers of the Gospels, 
 and as did not affect the general Christian name. Ikit 
 even if we suppose, with Westcott, that Celsus in his 
 rude way was giving a theory of the origin of the Gos- 
 pels, as due to an apologetic purpose, and thus account- 
 ing for the variations and apparent contradictions (on 
 which he elsewhere lays hold) as due to deviation from 
 a .supposed common original, this will not affect Celsus's 
 concession to the Gospels as accepted Chri.stian docu- 
 ments, or the use he makes of them, as deriving from 
 them tlie received Christian history. Ileii('e,iii reference 
 to tln'ni, lie say.s at one jxiint of the argument, " These 
 things are from youi- own wiitings, as t<> wliidi we 
 need no other evidence, for you fiiJI by yoiii- own .iiilho- 
 rities." '"' Celsus showH l)y his cil;! I ions thai lir knows 
 all tlie fonr Gospels — Matthew ami Lnke by the gc^ne- 
 alogies,"' Mark by the reference to tlie earju-nler,"* and 
 John by the blood and \sater from the Saviour's side.'' 
 
 ' OriL'. feK, i. 27. '^ Ibiil., ii. 71. •• Il>i(l., ii. :32. 
 
 Il.irl., vi. 30. ■' Il.id., ii. yo.
 
 24 UNBELIEF IX THE EKiHTEENTJH CENTURY. 
 
 Tlie markiug iucidents of tlic Gospel Listory arc also 
 reproduced — the star and the Higlit into Egypt — the 
 connection with Nazareth — the baptism, the dove, the 
 voice — the itinerant life with publicans and mariners — 
 the record of miracles, healing, resurrection, feeding of 
 multitudes — the foretelling of one disciple's betrayal 
 and of another's denial, and of His own death and 
 resurrection — the struggle in the garden, with the cup 
 and the prayer — the purple robe, the crown of thorns, 
 the reed — the vinegar and gall — the expiring voice, 
 the earthquake, the darkness.^ These incidents can 
 only belong to the existing Gospels ; nor is anything 
 stated that requires us to bring in any apocryphal 
 source. So also, the evidence of the identity of the 
 sources of Celsus with our Gospels is greatly strength- 
 ened by the allusions to the record of the resurrection. 
 Jesus is reproached for needing to have the stone 
 rolled away by an angel. ^ The difficulty as to one angel 
 or two is noticed.^ Prominence is given to Mary 
 Magdalene, with allusion to her earlier mental trouble 
 (yvvr] TTcipoLarpo';,'^ a strange anticipation of Eenan's 
 fenwie hallucinee). Mention is made of Jesus showing 
 the marks of His punishment, and especially His 
 hands, as they had been pierced.^ Nor does the objec- 
 tion fail, that Jesus concealed Himself from His enemies 
 after His resurrection.*^ This is but a portion of the evi- 
 dence drawn from Celsus's own words, that however 
 
 ^ It is not judged necessary in a work like this to cite the evidence 
 for all these statements from the treatise of Origen. 
 
 2 Orig. Cels., v. 58. ^ Ibid., v. 56. 
 
 * Ibid., ii. 59. '•> Ibid., ii. 59. « Ibid., ii. G3.
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FTRST FOUR CENTURIES. 25 
 
 he derided and sought to confute the Gospel narratives 
 (and the same remark applies to other portions of Scrip- 
 ture), he did not question their position as the genuine 
 and accepted documents of the Christians, but rather 
 used them in that character to assail Christianity. His 
 testimony here is evidently of the greatest weight ; and 
 his position as at once an immediately succeeding writer 
 and an enemy gives the Gospels a recognition which 
 could have come from no other quarter, even from later 
 unbelief in the early centuries. It is impossible for 
 modern unbelief to shake this foundation, or to resolve 
 those materials which Celsus has attested as so solid 
 and documentary, into the mist and vapour of shifting- 
 tradition. What he assails is not a cloud, but a for- 
 tress well defined and the mark of studied attack and 
 siege, it is too late now to obliterate his lines and 
 parallels, which have even been added to the entrench- 
 ments against which they were directed. 
 
 Witli recrard to Porpliyry, as he falls a century 
 later, and as his principal work against the Christians, 
 filled with references to 8cni)ture, has perished, except 
 in fragments, he does not supply the same valuable 
 matter as Celsus. It may seem, indeed, that one 
 celebrated reference in that work is adverse, viz. 
 his denial of tlie genuineness of the Hook of Daniel, 
 and his inLcr]jreLation of it as a prupliecy written after 
 the event. This, liowcver, tliough an exception to 
 the general habit of tliesc writers in <lpalin^- witli tlic 
 Scripture canon, does nut mean so mueh us niiiy be 
 at first supposed. It was evidently the question of 
 interpretation that led Porphyiy astray. Had he been
 
 26 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 able to make light of the contents, and yet admit the 
 genuineness of the book, as Celsus so constantly did 
 in regard to the Gospels, he would not have rejected 
 a work for which the external evidence is so strong. 
 Besides, it is to be remembered that this denial stands 
 alone, for the Christian writers, Eusebius, Jerome, a.nd 
 others, who have written against Porphyry, have 
 noticed no other book, or part of a book, that he re- 
 jected. And once more, the authority of Porphyry is 
 of no weight whatever against a book so long before 
 his own age, as in comparison it is in favour of books 
 belonging to his own time or somewhat earlier, like 
 the writings of the New Testament. Here, though 
 less valuable than that of Celsus, his testimony is of 
 consequence. We find him by noticing a difficulty in 
 the genealogy in Matthew,^ viz. the repetition of the 
 name of Jechonias in each of two sets of fourteen gener- 
 ations, thus attesting its place and that of the genealogy 
 in the Gospel of Matthew. So with the call of Matthew,^ 
 in the ninth chapter of the same Gospel, which is ob- 
 jected to as making the assent of the disciple too easy. 
 And so with other points of criticism, like the argument 
 against Jesus being the Word, as alleged in the be- 
 ginning of the fourth Gospel, that He could neither be 
 the inward Word nor the outward, and therefore could 
 not be the Word in any sense.^ These exceptions stand 
 upon an entirely different footing from the objection 
 to the authorship of Daniel. They admit the date 
 and reception of the New Testament books, and only, 
 
 1 Hieron. on Dan. i. 1. - Hieron. on Matt. ix. 9. 
 
 2 Theophylact on John i. 2. Op., ]>. 507.
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIEST FOUR CENTURIES. 27 
 
 as was in place for an unbeliever, deny their teaching ; 
 or they at times admit it, as when the Epistle to the 
 Galatians seemed, in the case of Paul and Peter, to 
 record somethins; discreditable to the Christian cause. ^ 
 The references by Julian to Scripture are chiefly 
 of interest as affecting himself, for the question of the 
 canon is by that time decided. More of his references 
 almost are to the Old Testament than to the New. He 
 readily quotes it and relies on it, though he throws 
 out a rash assertion, which from him has no authority, 
 that Moses had been confused and interpolated by 
 Ezra "in a capricious manner."" He makes no 
 similar charge of corruption as applied to any part 
 of the New Testament, but maintains that the 
 writers disagree. Thus, in perhaps the most in- 
 teresting part oi his work against the Christians, 
 "You arc so unhappy as not to adhere to the things 
 d<*livcred to you by the Apostles ; but they have been 
 altered by you for the worse, and carried on to yet 
 grcati-T impiety; for neither Paul nor Matthew uor 
 Luke nor Mark have dared to call Jesus God. ]>ut 
 hone.st John, understanding that a great niultitudc of 
 men in the cities of Greece and ltal\- were seized with 
 this (listeniprr, and hearing likewise, 1 suppose, that 
 
 * Porphyry, ii« we Icam froin .leronif's letter to Auf,niHtine (Aug., 
 OfKjra II. p. 12!), Benedictine edition), wanted to make out that Paul 
 reproved Peter for hucIi conformity t<i the Gentiles a» he himself had 
 ]>ra<ti8fd. " Pauli ar;^uit proiaciUitcm quod primipem iipoHtoloriim 
 Petrum auHUH oxt reprehcndere, et arf^'uere in facicm et ratione con- 
 Htringere, quod male fecerit, id ewt in eo errore fuerit, in quo fuit ij^se, 
 qui alium arguit delinquentem." 
 
 ■^ fiTTo yvwiuji ISiaSi Cyril adv. Jul., \>. lOH, 
 
 / 
 
 W
 
 28 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 the tombs of Peter and i*aui were with reverence fre- 
 quented, though as yet privately only, however, having 
 heard of it, he then first presumed to give him that 
 title." ^ Without giving Cyril's refutation of the 
 alleged absence of the name of God from the earlier 
 Gospels that speak of Jesus, I shall rather add the 
 vigorous remarks of Dr. Lardner, which strike into 
 the heart of the still living controversy regarding the 
 fourth Gospel. "Julian here acknowledgeth many 
 things extremely prejudicial to his cause, and more so 
 than he was aware of. For he here acknowledgeth 
 the genuineness and authority of most of the books of 
 the New Testament, the writings of Paul, the Gospels 
 of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ; and that these 
 books contain the doctrine of Christ's Apostles, the 
 persons who accompanied Him, and were the witnesses 
 of His preaching, works, death, resurrection, and 
 taught in His name afterwards. He acknowledgeth 
 the early and wonderful progress of the Gospel, for he 
 supposeth that there were in many cities of Greece 
 and Italy multitudes of believers in Jesus before John 
 wrote his Gospel, which, as he computes, was published 
 soon after the death of Peter and Paul." ^ In addition 
 to other facts of the Gospel record, Julian alludes 
 to our Lord's virgin birth,'^ His enrolment under 
 Cyrenius, and the unbelief of His relatives ; "* and he 
 twice alludes to His miracles, saying that He " rebuked 
 
 ^ The edition of Cyril's reply to Julian, to which this reference 
 (p. 327), with others, is made, is that of Spanheim, printed along 
 with Julian's works. 
 
 '^ Works, iv. p. 33fJ. -^ Cyril, p. 262. ^ Ibid., p. 213.
 
 UNBELIEF OF THE FIEST FOUR CENTURIES. 29 
 
 the winds and walked on the seas/' ^ and that " He 
 healed lame and blind people, and exorcised demoniacs 
 in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany." ^ A peculiar 
 feature in Julian is his allusions to the Acts of the 
 Apostles, — the conversion of maidservants and slaves, 
 of Cornelius,^ with the vision of Peter on the house- 
 top,'' and of Sergius Paulus,^ the epistle of the Jeru- 
 salem Council to the Gentiles,'' and the reproving of 
 Peter at Antioch.^ The citations of Julian are thus 
 only second to those of Celsus, and, like them, they 
 supply no weapons of controversy to unbelievers, but 
 only strengthen the Christian argument. 
 
 It would be wrong, however, to leave the impres- 
 sion that while, in the three particulars referred to, 
 the unbelief of the first centuries deviates from that 
 of later days, there are not many points of contact 
 between them. This would be to break tli(^ continu- 
 ity of history, which in different forms repeats itself ; 
 and it would be to forget the eternal sameness of those 
 deep principles in human nature wliich make all 
 opponents of Christianity radically one. 'I'lir dilli- 
 culties and objections of later centuries arc largely 
 anticipated in the beginning, and with .1 Mtintncss, a 
 rudeness, a bitterness, that were not al'lf rw.inls ex- 
 ceeded. Tlie spirit of r'lirislianity was to<> unworldly, 
 and its elaims were too liigli to I'e eiulurcfj. W liat lind 
 this dead Cod done to merit homage, rising among a 
 people who liad always been slaves, bringing His 
 
 ' Cyril, p. 2]?.. 2 ii,i,i^ ,, ir,|. 
 
 ■ Ibiil., p. 200. ' Il.i.l., J.. :}1J. ■' Il)i.l., p. 2(if5. 
 
 •■■ Il,i.I., p. :}24. • Ih'ul, p. 32.'i.
 
 30 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 salvatioii so late aud to a corner of the world 'i Were 
 the great literature, the unconqiiered power, the 
 ancient laws of the foremost nations of the earth to 
 go down before a challenge like this ? It is the very 
 spirit of Bolingbroke, of Gibbon, and of Voltaire — 
 ashamed indeed of idolatry, but up in arms against 
 the humility and faith of Christ's kingdom. We can 
 thus measure what Christianity had to conquer, not 
 only then, but still ; not Celsus only or Porphyry, l)ut 
 Julian, the pagan heart beneath the once Christian 
 exterior — the Christian culture that has miscarried, 
 and ended for nations and individuals in a more sad, 
 pronounced, and even fanatical unbelief. To this con- 
 flict may the Christianity of our age still be equal, 
 meeting it with the faith and patience, the love and 
 prayer, by which alone in any age unbelief is over- 
 come !
 
 LECTURE 11. 
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Causes of post- Reformation unbelief — Divisions of the Christian 
 Church — Eeligious wars — Falling away of culture from Chris- 
 tianity — Seventeenth century Apologists — Grotius and Pascal — 
 Schools of unbelief — Reserve in all — Deistic, Lord Herbert, 
 Hobbes ; Pantheistic, Spinoza ; Sceptical, Bayle. 
 
 When we leave the unbelief of tlie first Christian 
 centuries, and descend to that of the period after the 
 Eeformation, we are conscious of a stu])endous change 
 in the aspect of the world. Tlie classical Paganism 
 is extinct, and only a kind of traditional shot has 
 been fired over its grave by the modianal tln^olorry, 
 wliich is itself ended. A more terrible and disastnnis 
 fiixht has Ijcen maintained with a new foe; and ai^ainst 
 it the Crusades, meeting the Saracen and Turkish in- 
 vasions of Moslem zeal, have l)een i lie chief — if not the 
 only — apologetics of many centuries ; losing to Cliris- 
 tendom the whole southern shore of the Meditei-ranean, 
 and leaving the lOasteiii Ciiurch and l-^iii|iire a slKidow 
 :in(l a. i-nin. In th" Western Church llie better 
 elements that iiad struggled throngh the .Mi(hMe Ages, 
 increased at length by the revival of the study of the 
 Scriptures, as well as l)y other learning, and l)y an 
 immense n(,'\v baptism of the S|mi( ul (Jod, .hhI 
 favoured by political necessities and tendencies that
 
 32 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 could no longer be resisted, have organised a mighty 
 Reformation, able to withstand every attack, and re- 
 sume the long-interrupted work of early Christianity. 
 It was natural that in the great conflict between 
 the Reformation and its opponents, which swayed 
 to and fro over Europe for more than a century, the 
 conflict of the Church of Christ at large with Unbelief 
 should be suspended, and for a time well nigh for- 
 gotten. Here both Rome and the Reformation were 
 outwardly agreed, the difl'erence being as to the in- 
 terpreter and the meaning of Scripture, and not as to 
 its authority. There had no doubt been much and 
 terrible unbelief in the heart of the Roman communion 
 in men like Pope Leo X. and Cardinal Bembo. But 
 the Reformation brought a reaction against this, which, 
 besides, had never been formally avowed ; and the 
 struggles of the early Jesuits, whatever deeper un- 
 belief ultimately rose out of them, recovered that 
 Church, with other influences, in a measure to its own 
 traditional faith. The Reformers were too seriously 
 occupied with their life-and-death battle against cor- 
 rupted Christianity to think much of unbelief in the 
 abstract; and their war with Rome, that took the 
 place of the earlier war with Paganism, did not afford 
 them the same opportunity to bring in as part of their 
 line of argument the apologetic view of Christianity. 
 A still nobler reason for their comparative silence on 
 this head was the strength of their own faith and that 
 of their adherents. It was not a faith nursed on 
 books of evidences, but on communion with a living 
 Christ, that carried the Reformation through the Diet
 
 UXBEHEF IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 33 
 
 of Worms, the Siege of Leyclen, tlie Mariau Persecu- 
 tion, and the Wars of the League. Hence the evi- 
 dences have almost no place in the Protestant Confes- 
 sions and in the Institutes of Calvin. This state of 
 things, however, was not destined to continue, and 
 the difference here is one which distinguishes the 
 seventeenth from the sixteenth century. The causes 
 of these changes, and of a demand for a special apolo- 
 getic literature ; the nature of the literature which 
 thus sprang u}» in the seventeenth century ; and, 
 chiefly, the features of that unbelief which gradually, 
 an<l in spite of such resistance, shaped itself more and 
 more towards the likeness of that of the eiijhteenth 
 century, foreshadowing, without fully reaching it, will 
 occupy this Lecture. 
 
 1. W c hii\c Jirst tlirii in loucli <iii tlic causi'S of 
 tliC decay of faitli in llic di\ iin- nri'^Mii ;iiMi jxtwcr of 
 Christianity wliidi .s]iiani;; u|i in liie cenluiy aflcr 
 the lv»'fonnati(»ii. < M' tliese, ^(jnic were imliitci |y (hie 
 to the Jltformation itself, and some were due In nmrc 
 independent influences. 
 
 Amontr tli(! causes of uiilielief iji<]irecll\' due lo 
 the Reformation a lar^^^e place is to be a.Msiijjned !(» the, 
 element rjf division, lioih ecclcsiaHtical and civil, wiiicli 
 it necessarily introducetl inln llie liisl(»ry of wlial |iii» 
 fcssed to br the ono Church of Clni^t. Tlic risl< had 
 to be run, but tlie evil Was not escaped, 'i'lieie wjis 
 a rent made permanent in the system of KurojH'an 
 Christianity; and the same weakness which hads]»rung 
 from the Arian division of the fourth century, and 
 
 I)
 
 34 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 witliout tlic same possibility of liealing the breach, 
 was renewed. This miglit have been far more than 
 compensated by the purity, energy, and devotion of 
 the younger representative of the Christian name, 
 which, disburdened of the errors and traditions of 
 centuries, so much more worthily bore it. But, un- 
 happily, the separation ere long, though not at all so 
 deeply, split up the Protestant cause itself; and the 
 experience and spectacle of discord gave the first chill 
 of depression to the hitherto onward movement. The 
 strife of Lutheran and Calvinist, of Eemonstrant and 
 Contra - Eemonstrant, of Conformist and Puritan, 
 shook the Reformation in many ways ; and, though it 
 was able to survive and flourish, the sense of power 
 and divine mission, which goes with unity, was abated. 
 Still more disastrous in their moral and spiritual 
 consequences were the religious wars, for which the 
 Reformation was less responsible, as they had in them 
 a national and a political element, and were, in the 
 main, wars of defence on the Protestant side, and not 
 of aggression. Still no religious cause can pass 
 through the ordeal of war, and especially of long- 
 continued war, even justly and successfully, without 
 great injury to its purity ; and the struggles of the 
 Huguenots, of the Dutch Republic, of the Thirty 
 Years' War, and even our own Civil Wars, were no 
 exception. The picture of AVallenstein's camp, as 
 drawn by Schiller, shows the temptation inevitable in 
 such scenes ; and though special circumstances may 
 have restrained the evil in certain cases, and notably 
 in the army of the English Commonwealth, the bar-
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 35 
 
 barising tendency of war could not be escaped, nor 
 the doubt thus cast on religion itself, when so lone 
 associated with transactions unlike the gospel of peace. 
 That crisis thus threatened to become chronic, which 
 in the early centuries had been mostly confined to the 
 reign of Constantine. Nor did Rome ever place her 
 rival in a more cruel dilemma than that of being sup- 
 pressed by violence, or of surviving, laden not only 
 with the reproaches of schism and heresy, but with 
 the calamities of divided allegiance and of civil war. 
 The peaceful and normal development of the Reforma- 
 tion was thus arrested, and treasures of evil laid up 
 for the generations that were to come. 
 
 These consequences were indirectly due to the 
 Reformation itself, or to ihc Reformation mainly as 
 provoking Romish assault and intolerance. But there 
 wa« anotlier set of infhiciifes more independent, and 
 which, through the spontaneous working of liuman 
 nature, especially where the llcforiiiation was cripjth'd 
 afl deHcri])ed, tended to the weakening of Cliristianity 
 and the creation of unlxlicf. 'I'his was tin- a('ti(»ii <»!" 
 liuinan <uhun' as < iiiaiicipatcd liy the Rcfonnation. 
 There is nothing in culture, ideally consith-red that 
 is, as tile j»ursuit of truth and heauly -but what is 
 favourable t<j L'liri.-^tianity, Dut if man caiiiiut, in his 
 fallen state, pursue culture ideally, if he can oidy 
 imprint on it — especially in the moral re;^M«in, with all 
 tlie trnth that Ix-longs even to natural ci^nsciencc and 
 which the first apologists so readily acknowledged — 
 deep marks of his own prejudices and errors, then it 
 follows that for Christian faith then; must always be
 
 36 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 an element of possible danger in philosophy, in science, 
 and in literature, where Christian influence is not 
 strong enough to lift them up to the ideal use of their 
 own methods, and accomplishment of their own ends. 
 The Eeformation, when true to its own theory, never 
 contemplated serving itself heir to the authority of 
 the mediaeval Church over all questions of human 
 speculation — in other words, to a dictatorship in philo- 
 sophy and literature. It was because it protested 
 against this on the field of religion, and was under- 
 stood to mean something like the same liberty on the 
 field of culture, that it had culture so largely for its 
 ally till the victory was won. But it was not to be 
 expected that this alliance between the Humanists 
 and the Reformers, an alliance where each sought his 
 own ends, should always continue. The Humanist 
 was not likely, as such, to accept always the doctrine, 
 that in the moral region revelation was absolutely 
 necessary to comj)lete the circle of his knowledge ; 
 and that, even in the proper domain of reason, the 
 elevating and purifying motives of Christianity were 
 required to lift philosophy, literature, and art to their 
 highest uses and ends. The wonderful coalition 
 between culture and revelation, which we see at the 
 Reformation period, was likely ere long to be impaired, 
 possibly not without some misunderstanding of the 
 provinces on either side; and independence would 
 beget isolation, and that, in turn, hostility. So it 
 happened ; and the Reformation, while never losing 
 its own favourable impulse to culture in every form, 
 lost the confidence, the sympathy, and the free allegi-
 
 HN'BELIEF IN" THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 37 
 
 ance of a niimher of gifted minds, sufficiently large 
 to originate movements and tendencies wliicli reacted 
 unfavourably on its future destinies. Sucli a believ- 
 ing spirit as we see in Germany, making literature, 
 after Lutber, run so mucb in one cbannel, and in 
 England, wbere, amidst a great creative period, a name 
 like tbat of Bacon stands conspicuous by homage to 
 the Bible, by and by gives place. A great thinker 
 like Descartes, though born on the soil of Rome, be- 
 longs rather to the Eeformation, and continues its 
 work of emancipating thought. But he is a child of 
 the Reformation intellectually rather than spiritually. 
 The earnestness of his philosophy is on the side of 
 natural religion rather than of Christianity in any 
 form ; and though some of the noblest Christians went 
 forth from liis school, it was too colourless lo be 
 al)solvod from all blame in ]iroduciug ISpinoza, and was 
 followed l>y other marks of uusettlemcnt. The rise 
 of a materialist philosophy, vastly inferior to that of 
 l^escartes, in the schemes of (lassendi and Jlobbes, 
 indi(tates, in spite of professed deference to the Chris- 
 tian faith, an alienation finm its sjtirit ; and it is from 
 elements like these, more .mkI nioii' iiuil(i]»l\iMg as 
 the scventeentli century advances, thai unbelief grows 
 Ui a liea<l ami bursts into self-manifestation. 
 
 II. < )!' the lileiaturi; ol uiihtliif ;is it now develope<l 
 itH<'lf, if might seem most uatur.il now to spenk ; and 
 then to ton<'h on tli'- r"|tli"'H niaih' lo it in that siiine. 
 c«'nturv. r»nt il .>o lia|i]>ens t!i:it iIm' most ini|iorlanl. 
 aj»oIogetie woiks of \]\r seventeenth century were not
 
 38 U.N BELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 of the nature of replies to particular works from the 
 other side, but rather of replies to the general under- 
 current of unbelief that had becjun to make itself felt. 
 I shall therefore speak first of this apologetic litera- 
 ture, and then of the particular works that expressed 
 the tone of unbelief more definitely ; as it is more 
 important for my purj)ose to show, as I shall before 
 closing do, how this diff"ered from the unbelief of the 
 next century, rather than how it was met, either 
 generally or specially, in its own day. 
 
 I can only glance at the apologetic literature of 
 the seventeenth century, which showed how deeply 
 alive the Christian Church was to the danger that was 
 at hand, even before it had fully broken forth. I 
 limit myself to two works, in which, however, the 
 apologetic literature of any century might well be 
 summed up — the Dc Veritate Religionis Christiance 
 of Grotius, and the Pensees of Pascal. 
 
 The merits and attractions of the work of Grotius 
 are still profoundly felt, though so much has changed. 
 It is impossible not to be moved by the earnestness 
 of spirit which made him find a solace for political 
 defeat and hard imprisonment in defending the truth 
 of Christianity first in Flemish verse and afterwards 
 in Latin prose. ^ His wish to give his sailor country- 
 men a manual from which to impress their faith on 
 Pagans and Turks, as well as Jews, connects apolo- 
 getics in a new way with missions. The old Patristic 
 idea that unbelief takes in all forms of false belief is 
 thus also maintained, as likewise by th arguments 
 
 * See Appendix, Note B.
 
 UNBELIEF IX THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 39 
 
 against atheists and deniers of Providence with wliich 
 the work opens. The proofs from miracles, from 
 prophecy, and from the moral characteristics of the 
 gospel, though they lack the depth of Origen and 
 Augustine, have the clearness and good sense peculiar 
 to their author, and are more systematically arranged. 
 The learning displayed in stating the genuineness of the 
 sacred books, and in illustrating the whole field from 
 ancient literature, could at the time have been sur- 
 passed by no living scholar. The work deserved its 
 immense success, and on the side of external evidence 
 struck into a path which will never be deserted. But 
 it was exactly at this point that its weakness arose, 
 for the spiritual history of its author did not enable 
 him t(j do (Mjual justice to the internal evidence of 
 Christianity. Tliough sincerely attached to Christian- 
 ity as a divine revelation, and in essential harmony 
 witli its capital doctrines, as appeared in his defence 
 of Christ's satisfaction, lie sliared in llic l)ias of the 
 Kf.'nionstrant Sehodl to a coldci' and more colourless 
 reflection of them than in tlic more fervent stage of 
 the Reformation, and the light of the supernatural 
 without was not ciiiially su})]»ortod by the kindling 
 seiis(j of the supernatural within. Ilciicc I lie charac- 
 ter of Christ, th<' a<laj)tation of Christianity, and the 
 witness of living Christian ex))erience — in short, what 
 the Refonnation meant, without I'lillv th-awing it out 
 into a ])roof, by the teMimonium Spit'itua Sancti — are 
 so fjiintly touched as to br |tiactieally exchuh'd. 
 
 It was at this point that the otlier and greater 
 woik of this century in some respects the greatest in
 
 40 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 the whole career of aj^ologetic literature — came in — the 
 Pensees of Pascal. Though growing up on the terri- 
 tory of Rome, and in connection with one of the most 
 remarkable passages in its history — the attempt to 
 unite Augustinian theology with Romish discipline — 
 the effort of Pascal was essentially in the spirit of the 
 Reformation, for it based faith not upon the testi- 
 mony of a Church, or a set of so-called evidences out- 
 side of Christianity itself, but upon the characteristic 
 nature and operation of Christianity. The greatness 
 and misery of man — the enigmas of his being which 
 nothing else can solve, its desiderata, which nothing 
 else can supply — the coming of Christ in His own order 
 of greatness — the highest of the three, physical, intel- 
 lectual, and spiritual, and as much requiring the seeing 
 eye to discern it as the others, while alone awakening 
 in the soul the thrill of deepest recognition — this 
 is the keynote of Pascal's apologetic, to which all 
 questions of books and history, all miracles, prophecy, 
 and propagation, are but subsidiary. If he can awake 
 the soul out of the slumber of indifference, make it 
 find its true self in genuine awe, fear, remorse, per- 
 plexity, and unsatisfied longing, then the condition is 
 found of finding God in Christ ; the Bible, with all 
 its wonders, predictions, prefigurations, leads up to 
 the Saviour ; and yet He is discerned not so much by 
 what these prove — though the proof is solid — as by 
 the light which streams from His own person and 
 work as the God Incarnate, the Redeemer of men — 
 their Redeemer and Last End in one. " Tliis religion, 
 so great in miracles, so great in knowledge, after
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 41 
 
 having exhausted all its miracles and all its wisdom, 
 rejects all, and says that it has neither signs nor 
 wisdom, but the cross and folly." ^ Pascal is thus 
 the most evangelical of apologists. It is with him 
 nothing to conquer atheism or Deism by other 
 weapons, if the spiritual glory of Christ has not sub- 
 dued the heart to living faith. He is rich in new 
 arguments on all the standard topics ; his fragments 
 more than the full thouG-hts of other men, his divina- 
 tions more than the results of all their learning. But 
 he never loses the central point of view — the dawn 
 of Christ's heavenly light upon the humble and loving 
 heart. This too, as he solemnly urges, may be de- 
 feated by pride and self-will, that love the darkness. 
 Hence the idcji which he is never wearied of repeating, 
 that Christ came not only to be revealed, but to be 
 concealed.^ 
 
 in. The illustration of this profound truth we 
 have in tlu^ dcclarcid uiil)e]ief of this seventeenth 
 century, to whicii we now turn. iL is impossible to 
 do more than select the leading instances ; and they 
 must be treated not in the way of full discussion, but 
 with reference to the more developed unbelief of next 
 century, to whidi they 1('<1 llu; way, ;iii(l of wliidi they 
 came short hy characteristic dillerences. The types 
 
 ' PcilHUCH, ii. i». .'Jot. 
 
 2 " II y a asHcz do liiniiurc pour ccux qui ne dt'sireiit que do voir, »t 
 asscz d'oV>scurite pour ceux (pii ont unc dispoHition contraire." (Faugijrc'a 
 edition, vol. ii. p. l.'il.) Pascal here, as not infrequently elBcwlierc, un- 
 cun.scioUHly repeatn Orv^fw. TIiuh, H])cakin^' of ("liriHl, lie sayH, " t7rt//,f//A/ 
 ydy) 01' jKivov i'lui. yiuxrOji, aAA' i'ln. K'/I XaH]]" C^'oiilru Cel^'., ii. 07).
 
 42 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 appear, and they arc also preparations ; but the com- 
 plete growth falls afterwards. This is not equally true 
 of all the schools of unhelief ; but it is sufficiently true 
 to warrant this rough generalisation that the unbelief of 
 the seventeenth century was more veiled and subdued, 
 and, so to speak, tempered by lingering reverence for 
 Christianity, while that of the eighteenth is more ])vo- 
 nounced and more antagonistic to every distinctively 
 Christian claim. This I shall now attempt to make 
 out in reo-ard to the schools into which the unbelief of 
 the seventeenth century may be divided. These are 
 three ; Jirst, the Deistic, with its two types, the one 
 more sj^iritualist, rejoresented by Lord Herbert of 
 Cherbury, the other more materialist, represented by 
 Hobbes ; secondly, the Pantheistic, represented by 
 Spinoza ; and thirdly, the Sceptical, represented by 
 Bayle. The veiled character of unbelief is most con- 
 spicuous in the earlier writers, Herbert and Hobbes ; 
 it is less seen, though still present, in Spinoza, who 
 otherwise stands so much apart amidst the thought of 
 his own century and of the next ; and it is least in 
 Bayle, who lives more on the confines of the century 
 of revolt and iconoclasm, though still a doubter as to 
 his own negations. 
 
 1. In taking u]) the first school, or Deistic, we 
 have to begin with the representative of Deism on its 
 most favourable side, the spiritualistic ; and here we 
 encounter one (Lord Herbert, 1581-1648), whose 
 ideas reappeared all through, and who, though not 
 a writer of the first mark, handled with no small
 
 UNBELIEF IX THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUEY. 43 
 
 ability, both metaphysical and historical, the nega- 
 tive argument, which, unhappily, unlike his brother, 
 the celebrated Christian poet, George Herbert, he 
 had espoused. Two radical ideas of Deism make 
 up the staple of Edward Herbert's writings, — that 
 Christianity as a revelation is not needed, and 
 that if it were, it could not be proved. The first 
 idea is worked out on its metaphysical side in his 
 book De Veritate (1624) his earliest writing, and 
 then on its historical in his last, a posthumous one, 
 De Religione Gentilium (1G63). The second idea 
 besides frequent repetition elsewhere, is taken up in 
 his intermediate tract, Religio Laid, appended to his 
 De Causis Errorum, His book De Veritate does not 
 broadly set forth that Christianity is superfluous, but 
 veils this result under a discussion on universal and 
 necessary knowledge, in which the Avritcr anticipates 
 some of tlie philosophical views of Kant as to a j^riori 
 trutli, and with application to religion, marks ofi" five 
 native tiiiths as thus the universal possession of the 
 human mind. These notitiw communea, as he calls 
 them, or whicli have been called by others the Deist's 
 Bible, are tliat there is a supremo God ; tliat He is to Ijc 
 worshipped ; that tlie prin('i|);il part of His woi'sliij) is 
 virtue; that men ought in repent of sin; ;iii(I lli.it 
 there are rewards and punisliments liere ;iii(l liere- 
 aftor.^ He leaves it to be inferred that tliese notions 
 make up ;i univers;il and sufficient creed, willi m* room 
 for revelation; tlion*!;]i licre he wavers ;iii(l cNfii at 
 times professes to tri.-at revelation as of gre;it iiiqxirl- 
 
 ' De Veritate, pp. 26rj-2()R ; De Rclig. aeiitil., cap, xv, p. 210,
 
 44 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 
 
 ancc. But if Herbert really meant practically to 
 supersede revelation, this by no means follows from 
 liis premises.^ For all these five truths are accepted 
 by Christianity, and yet there is nothing to hinder 
 Christianity from being a special help to God's wor- 
 ship, to virtue, to repentance, to blessed immortality 
 — indeed, the only one, for, as Lord Herbert is only 
 laying down a theory of knowledge, unless practice in 
 religion be equal to knowledge, his whole procedure is 
 a begging of the question. This is still more apparent 
 when, as he was bound to do, he goes in his other work 
 into history, and faces the actual religion of the Gentile 
 world. His work is here a starting-point, for modern 
 times, of the literature of comparative religion. But 
 it is in a high degree eccentric and unsatisfactory. 
 The boundless mass of the pagan religions, as it lay 
 in all sources — poetical, historical, philosophical — he 
 reproduces, with hardly any classification further than 
 that he divides the gods into the su]3reme ; the ele- 
 mental, that is, planets, stars, and sky, in which he 
 runs together the data of modern astronomy with the 
 old legends as to Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter ; and the 
 deified human ; adding to the whole the catalogue of 
 the Dii Majorum and Minorum gentium, and bringing 
 in elsewhere the deified virtues, Faith, Concord, etc. 
 He thus goes over the same ground with the Christian 
 apologists, but vnt\\ a prevailingly softening tendency, 
 so as to make paganism as rational and amiable as 
 possible, though the picture is still sufficiently dark. 
 He does not re2:)roduce the allegories dealt in by the 
 
 ^ See Appendix, Note C.
 
 UNBELIEF IX THE SE^T:XTEENTH CENTUHY. 45 
 
 pagan pliilosophers ; but sees little in principle to 
 object to in tbe adoration of the supreme God by a 
 symbolical worship of nature, and even of heroes, 
 thou2;li he cannot include the demons of Plotinus and 
 Por2ih}T}'; nor does it appear that he would have had 
 any difficulty in conforming in practice to the ritual of 
 paganism, while intent on spiritualising it. His most 
 eccentric theory is his deduction of all the darker parts 
 of polytheism, and of polytheism itself (considered as 
 other than the symbolic worship of one God), from 
 priest-craft. Unlike the great body of writers of his 
 school, who with Hume have traced polytheism by a 
 slow process up to monotheism, Herbert holds some- 
 thing like a golden age or primitive purity of natural 
 religion, though without anything in that stage like 
 revelation ; and the apostasy to elemental and other 
 worship is due to priests and ministers of religion 
 seeking to create new rites and iicw votaries for their 
 own advantage. This, however, cannot be carried out 
 without involving tlic human race so seriously in the 
 l)lame as to make the iiisufKcicncy of natural religion 
 manifest; nor lias Herljert witli any clearness displayed 
 the continued n^ception of liis five articles as an out- 
 standing fact, so as to h.n- the Chrisli.ni method of 
 recovering religion from this conrcsscd corruption and 
 de])ravation. 
 
 '\l\r spcniid Icadini^r i(h';i of llcrlxTt. is h'ss fully 
 Worked out l»y liini the iii;i(liiiissiliility of jji-odf in 
 the case of a revelation, liis objections as to that 
 j)roof not l)eing innate, or not acccssi])le univeisally, 
 are taken up and elaljoratcd Ijy succeeding writers — by
 
 4G UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 none more than by Rousseau in liis "Savoy Vicar;" but 
 on his own part there is some wavering between mere 
 difficulty and virtual impossibility of proof; and in 
 his own case, as has often been repeated, he incon- 
 sistently sought, and, as he believed, obtained, for the 
 publication of his De Veritate, a sign from heaven.^ 
 Herbert is thus restrained by not a few lingering 
 elements of reverence, from the unmeasured assaults 
 of next century ; and he even concedes that, as a 
 matter of fact, Christianity in the early ages extracted 
 all that was morally good in paganism, so that only 
 a caput mortuum remained.^ 
 
 The representative of materialistic unbelief, Hobbes 
 (1588-1679), though afar more vigorous thinker than 
 Herbert, and the master of an unsurpassed English 
 style, came forward less as a revolutionist in the 
 regions of Christian faith, than in those of ethics and 
 politics, and had smaller influence in the former than 
 in the latter. But necessarily faith in Christianity was 
 grievously prejudiced by his errors at earlier points, 
 as to the sensuous origin and nature of all ideas ; the 
 strictly self-regarding character of all virtuous motive ; 
 and the dependence of society for its existence and 
 well-being upon a central power, created as an escape 
 from mutual war, and wielding absolute despotic 
 authority. Any one of those principles of Hobbes, 
 rigidly carried out, would subvert religion from its 
 
 ^ The sign in question, which has often been cited, is first quoted 
 from the then unpuhlished Life of Lord Herbert, hj LeLind, in his 
 " Deistical Writers " (i. 24). The observations of Leland on the alleged 
 sign are very judicious. ^ Relig. Gentil., p. 230.
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 47 
 
 foundations ; for if everything cognisable be strictly 
 confined to sense, the idea of God becomes so degraded 
 and limited as to be really denied; if disinterested 
 affection do not exist in man, though unity and 
 physical power with intelligence might remain to God, 
 there would be in Him no moral attraction or great- 
 ness ; and if the will of a central human authority 
 became absolute law, though this law might in some 
 sense be held to be divine, and to carry with it a 
 divine revelation, yet religion, as relating the indi- 
 vidual by a personal conscience to a supreme Law- 
 giver, and resting on his ultimate authority, would be 
 abolished. 
 
 It is wholly needless to push farther the conse- 
 quences in the direction of materialism, fatalism, and 
 even atheism, which follow from Hobbes's denial of a 
 sjjiritual principle in man, and of disinterested virtue. 
 Jiut a few words are needed to lay open the singular 
 texture of his theory of government, and to show how, 
 in professing to receive Scripture, he really invalidates 
 its authority. The veiled nature of his unbelief will 
 thus ;i[»pear in full light, and ;it the same time its far- 
 reaching (.'Xtent. 
 
 Ilobbes, like lleilicrt, has a theory of religion, 
 deriving it from (or rather conncjcting it wilh) man's 
 ignorance of causes ; as also from fear |ii(iinpting the 
 worslii|i ol" the invisible inatle in man's image; and 
 from iirofnosties taken \'<>v revelations. I>ut these 
 and whatever workings of what we, may rail, on his 
 crude, selfish principle, moral hiw, do not yet create 
 oblio-ntion. There is only the right of every one to
 
 48 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 
 
 evciythiug, witli the right of defending it, and the 
 second right of renouncing this for the sake of peace, 
 and entering into the social state, whereby the Sove- 
 reign or Leviathan becomes the universal dictator, 
 and wields absolute power. So far as appears, Hobbes 
 does not bring in religion in connection with this 
 social comj^act, but derives justice from the will of 
 the sovereign body thus expressed, and from a third 
 natural right or law, viz. that contracts are to be 
 observed. In the other laws of nature, such as grati- 
 tude, sociability, forgiveness, etc., to the number of 
 nineteen, there is no mention of God, but only of 
 personal good to all the members of the body, these 
 laws being only obligatory on that condition. Indeed, 
 religion only brings us into contact with God, by 
 contact A\dth His vicegerent, the magistrate; and 
 though a revelation may be granted to individuals, it 
 can only influence themselves, but cannot convey 
 itself beyond, so that the magistrate is really in the 
 place of God. " The monarch, or the sovereign 
 assembly only hath immediate authority from God 
 to teach and instruct the people," ^ so that no revela- 
 tion can go higher. Hobbes indeed allows a " king- 
 dom of God in nature," but resolves His attributes into 
 power, and founds His worship on this; and then leaves 
 to the will of the magistrate " those attributes which 
 the sovereign ordaineth, in the worship of God, for 
 signs of honour." ^ Hobbes hardly acknowledges, in 
 so many words, that a professed revelation is to be 
 
 ^ Leviatlian, Works, vol. iii. p. 228. Molesworth's edition. 
 2 Ibid., iii. p. 356.
 
 UXBELIEF IX THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 49 
 
 received or rejected by the voice of the magistrate ; 
 but his system admits of uo other uexus, and he is 
 express as to the reception of the Canon of Scripture — 
 " Those books only are canonical, that is, law in every 
 nation, which are established for such by the sovereign 
 authority." ^ So also as to Scripture interpretation — 
 *' AVhen Christian men take not their Christian sove- 
 reign for God's prophet, they must either take their own 
 dreams, etc. . . . and by this means destroying all laws 
 human and divine, reduce all order, government, and 
 society to tlio first chaos of violence and civil war."' 
 Ilobbes might here have stopped, as tlic magistrate 
 thus armed did not need, and coukl even punisli, his 
 private interpretations. Hut in KUi)port of his theory 
 he gives a scheme (jf Bil>le doctrine and history whieh 
 is iLs paradijxical as ever arose in any school. Tliis is 
 to tlie effect tliat the ai)ostles liad no supreme power, 
 }K!caU8C tliey wanted civil authority; tliat their 
 decrees were ijuly advices, till the ci\il pout r (miuc 
 over to Chri.stianity ; and that even Christ will only 
 iM'gin to reign at His second eoming, His sway 
 throu'dj maj'i.strates in the meantime bein«; a merii 
 a<-cident of their natur.il oflice, lloltbes's wliole doc- 
 trine of Christ is low. Tlir Trinity .iinl aloneniiiit 
 arc held in word, and not in power. Tli' essenco 
 of Christianity is that Jesus is the MeHsiah, wilhojit, 
 fiu'tlx-r definition ; and the kin;^'doin destiiie<l jnr Hint 
 at the hist, is only a reHuni|ttion of the j»eiuliar .lewish 
 theocraey whicii ended \\h\i tin* election of S.uil, and 
 of wliiih this earth and not heaven is to he the Hcut, 
 
 ' I^v., vol. iii. p. 366, H'i'l., vol. iii. i». 427. 
 
 E
 
 50 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 very much as is held by so-called Christadelphians. 
 While the direct sway of Christ through His apostles 
 and their word is thus reduced, the Christian is 
 allowed by Hobbes to deny Christ at his sovereign's 
 bidding, where the act is not his, but his sovereign's ; 
 and though he says that a Christian among infidels 
 must be faithful, he limits the duty of martyrdom 
 to Christ's first witnesses, and he will not allow that 
 an obligation lies on a Mohammedan among Christians 
 to resist State-enforced conformity to Christianity.^ 
 He tries to show how safe in practical working his 
 rule is, for no Christian ruler would punish a man 
 who confessed that Jesus was the Christ ; and no non- 
 Christian ruler would punish a man who, besides 
 waiting only for a future kingdom, was known to be 
 willing at the bidding of that king to obey all his 
 laws. Such is the poor and servile end of Hobbes's 
 scheme, morally considered, which is also worked up 
 (as has been said) with whatever of Christianity it 
 professes to retain, in a very meagre and rationalised 
 shape. This is the distinctive character of his position 
 as contrasted with what followed. The direct author- 
 ity and self-evidencing witness of revelation he had 
 given up in favour of a State-popedom ; but he still 
 professed to follow Scripture, even when dragging it 
 at the wheels of despotism, and defacing its character- 
 istic features. 
 
 2. That the seventeenth century could only utter 
 its unbelief with reserve, or write it as in cypher under 
 
 ^ Lev., vol. iii. p. 494.
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 51 
 
 a professed faith in tlie biblical record, we see in the 
 greatest and, for future days, most influential of all 
 the non-Christian writers of that age, the representa- 
 tive of pantheism, Spinoza (1632-1677). Here we 
 still deal with a living name, and one whose place 
 and work are so weU known, that little requires to be 
 said, all the more that, as already hinted, Spinoza was 
 not one of the great moving forces of the special un- 
 belief that soon after him arose, but has only found 
 his widest echo in our own century. It is impossible 
 to deny the power of one who has influenced names 
 like Lessing and Goethe, like Schelling and Hegel, 
 and who, more especially in theology, besides leaving 
 his mark so much on Schleiermacher, has foreshadowed 
 the naturalistic rationalism of Semler, Eichhorn, and 
 Paulus, the mythical theory of Strauss, and the vision 
 hypothesis of J>aur, Scholtcn, aud Rcnan. But we are 
 here chiefly con(;erued to show that the antagonism of 
 Spinoza to Christianity, as in the proper sense a re- 
 velation, was, as in the case of Herbert and of }I()l»l)es, 
 disguised ; while it must be added that the child of the 
 synagogue rather approaelies to Christianity while they 
 retire, and that, in spite of the sad arrest which barred 
 hi.s conversion to distiuctivcly Cliristiaii faitli, ho. has 
 left testimonies to it, of wliidi, in the long history of 
 unb(;lieving opposition, then; are few cxamjiles. Tlie 
 degree of reserve and ([ualifieatiou wliieli marks the 
 hostile position of Spinoza towards Christianity will 
 be ])est appreciated by l)ringing out first the variation 
 between his two principal treatises, his Tractatus 
 Theologico-Politicus on the one side, and his posthum-
 
 52 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 ous £thica ou the other ; aud then the coucessions else- 
 where made by hun to Christianity, which, settle the 
 question between his two chief works as we will, 
 still remain. 
 
 The system contained in the Tractatus (1670) 
 is, roughly speaking, rationalistic, going higher than 
 Deism in its appreciation of the excellence of the 
 Old and New Testament Scriptures, yet excluding 
 everything properly speaking miraculous ; and though 
 with occasional pantheistic tendencies, still nowhere 
 revealing such pantheism as is found in the Ethica 
 (1G77). It is so far the rationalism of a Jew, more 
 occupied with the Old Testament than the New ; but 
 the principles laid down in one region necessarily 
 apply, and indeed are applied, in the other, though 
 Spinoza everywhere writes as one to whom Christ 
 is unspeakably more than Moses. 
 
 In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza 
 attempts to maintain a system of revelation, which 
 shall leave room for reason, whether in its natural 
 workings in the common mind, or as perfected by 
 philosophy. The Old Testament prophets in word 
 and writing were really oracles of divine communica- 
 tion, and by a marvellous gift of imagination taught 
 precious moral truth, though Spinoza will not call 
 it truth, but piety. They fall into many errors, and 
 God even accommodated Himself to their mistakes ; 
 yet they were vouched for by their signs and by 
 their life. Ordinary moral light, and prophecy too, 
 existed more or less outside of them, as in the case of 
 Balaam ; nor can Spinoza, with his lower estimate of
 
 UNBELIEF IX THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 53 
 
 history, and liis uon-aclmission of a Messianic future, 
 do justice to the grandeur of prophecy and its sublime 
 unity as pointing to a divine Incarnation and kingdom 
 of heaven. Miracles, in the proper sense, he denies, 
 as involving a change in God's immutable plan, 
 though it is not easy to reconcile this with the attest- 
 ing of prophets by signs, unless the key is to be found 
 in a note to the French edition, which compares the 
 prophets to giants, or other extraordinary but not 
 supernatural beings.^ Tt is probably in the same 
 sense tliat a remarkable tribute to Christ is to be 
 interpreted, who as a prophet is exalted far above 
 Moses, as one by whose mind God manifested Himself 
 to the apostles, while Moses was a voice in the air." 
 Spinoza speaks everywhere with respect of the apostles, 
 though they are more like doctors ; the afflatus in them 
 l)eing less startHiiij^ than in tho prophetR,and movo allied 
 to deduction and argument, With these concessions to 
 the substance of Script tire, tliere is a very free hand- 
 ling of the so-calli(l accidents ; and Spinoza carries 
 out thii distinction, which he is perhaps the first in 
 modern times to state, between the Bible and the 
 Word of (ioil. The I'entateuch, and all the later his- 
 torieal books to 'Jd Kings, he regards aswiilleii by 
 Ezra ; the ljo(jks of Chronicles perhaps not earlier than 
 the Maccabcan times ; while the first part oi" Daniel, 
 with Kzra, Neheniiah, and I'lslher, fall to one anthoi' 
 even after the Maccabcan period. These critical views, 
 
 ^ Tliis i.s reprinted in tlie Appemlix to the TractatUH in PauluH'a 
 edit ion (i. 4.30), from Avliicli the otlier quotationa are given. 
 2 Spinoza, Op., i. 168.
 
 54 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 whicli have foimd few supporters, and wliicli do not 
 bear out the admmng estimate sometimes given of his 
 critical sagacity, do not hinder Spinoza from regard- 
 ing the essence of Scripture history as intact, and 
 especially the history of our Saviour, so that, as far 
 as history is needed for moral and spiritual ends, it is 
 sufficiently recorded. In like manner, the moral and 
 spiritual parts themselves, according to him, suffer 
 nothing ; for the end of Scripture is not to make out 
 a philosophical system but a practical scheme of 
 justice and charity, apprehended by faith and reduced 
 to obedience, which is really the same thing ; and as 
 Eeason and Faith move in entirely different orbits, an 
 indefinite amount of error may consist with pious 
 sincerity. Spinoza, however, does not go the length 
 of allowing total error ; and, though, to him, the idea 
 of common notions ought rigorously to be an encroach- 
 ment on faith, his summary is not very different from 
 that of Herbert, admitting repentance, but excluding 
 belief in immortality. The following passage startles 
 us, as granting a deep and wide necessity for revela- 
 tion, and ending the whole discussion in a strain hardly 
 consistent with the other positions of Spinoza : " Be- 
 fore I proceed to other matters, [ wish it expressly 
 noted, though it has been said already, that with 
 regard to the necessity and use of holy Scripture or 
 revelation, I estimate it very highly. For since we 
 cannot perceive by the light of nature that simple 
 obedience Ls the way to salvation, and revelation 
 alone teaches us, beyond the scope of reason, that this 
 is the plan of God's singular grace, it follows that
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 55 
 
 Scripture has brought great comfort to mortals. For 
 all can obey absolutely, whilst there are very few, 
 when compared with the whole human race, who 
 acquire the habit of virtue by the sole guidance of 
 reason, and therefore, without this testimony of Scrip- 
 ture, we should doubt of the salvation of almost all." ^ 
 It is remarkable, and has often been noticed, how 
 much the political scheme of Spinoza, which comes at 
 the end of his theological, agrees with Hobbes. There 
 is the same original war, the same dependence of right 
 upon power, and the same founding of absolutism 
 upon contract, though Spinoza takes the republican 
 side rather than the monarchical. But he seizes 
 better than Hobbes the spirit of the Old Testament 
 as a theocracy, and draws from it lessons favourable 
 to his own views, remarking the advantage of having 
 the priestly power separated from the executive, and 
 only regi'ctting tlie confinement of the priesthood to 
 one trib(i ; thougli he fails to see that this was con- 
 nected with the typical design of sacrifice ; and 
 also l;imentiug tlic unstable equilibrium caused by 
 tlic fun(;tiuii of the ]>i()]»1iets, on which he founds an 
 argument for restraining tlie liberty of propliesying 
 in modern times. Ifow little Spinoza, in tliese servile 
 views, was in harmony with tlie alleged freedom of the 
 cighte(jntli century, must be apparent ; tliough candour 
 requires us to make the same remark in the case of a 
 great Christian advocate like Grotius. iJut hud Chris- 
 tianity acted with such deference to civil authority as 
 Spinoza lauds, it could not have moved a single step 
 
 ^ Spinoza, Op., i. 359.
 
 56 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 and tlie toleration for ^vliicli Spinoza— lierc more 
 elevated than Hobbcs— ends by pleading, and plead- 
 inf^ forcibly, rests only upon considerations of expedi- 
 ency, such as the necessary differences of opinion, and 
 the dangers to the commonwealth in suppressing them; 
 while his own professed readiness to submit his doc- 
 trines to the authorities in Holland is a great con- 
 trast to the sublime words in which Justin Martyr 
 calls the Eoman magistrates to repentance, in the 
 close of his second Apology/ 
 
 It must ever leave a shade on the memory of 
 Spinoza, that he should have sent out a work like 
 that thus described, adapted all through to the lan- 
 guage of ordinary Theism, and even so far of Christian 
 faith, while he had in reserve, and was circulating 
 among his friends, the mature treatise, which, pub- 
 lished after his death, by his own instructions, revealed 
 the pantheistic basis of his whole scheme of thought. 
 It has been held, indeed, by some, that even this pos- 
 thumous work, the Ethica, may, in spite of extreme 
 and overstrained utterances, be brought within the 
 limits of Theism. In this I can by no means concur ; 
 for, even if we grant that a sentence like this (one 
 of many), " Every idea of any body whatever, or 
 
 * ApoL ii. § 12. " In persuading men, as in this treatise we have 
 done, to shun these doctrines, and those who practise and follow them, 
 we encounter a manifold opposition ; but we heed it not, since we 
 know that God, the witness of all, is just. Would that some one 
 would mount a lofty tribimal, and with a tragic voice proclaim, Be 
 aehamed, be ashamed, ye who charge the innocent wdth what your- 
 selves openly do ; and who transfer crimes familiar to yourselves and 
 your gods to those who have not the least fellowship with them. 
 Eepent and return to wisdom !"
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 57 
 
 singular thing, actually existing, necessarily involves 
 tlie eternal and infinite essence of God,'' ^ may be 
 limited to connection of tliougbt, instead of pointing 
 to inclusion of being ; and if we give Spinoza every 
 credit for sincerity in bolding that be was more true 
 than otbers to the words of tbe apostle, " In Him we 
 Hve and move and have our being;" we yet cannot 
 but feel that tbe sea of infinitude wbicli, in bis system, 
 swims around tbe creature, really engulfs it ; and tbat 
 when be comes to tbe end of bis fiftb book, and to tbe 
 issue, for bim, of all speculation and all practice, tbe 
 intellectual love of God, be bas not only left out all 
 tbe usual landmarks of moral responsibility, but iden- 
 tified tbe object of love witb its subject, so as to make 
 God and tbe creature one. " Tbe intellectual love of 
 tbe mind to God is tbe very love of God wberewitb He 
 loves Himself, not in so far as He is infinite, but in so 
 far as He can be explained by tbe essence of tbe bunian 
 mind considered under tbe form of eternity ; tbat is, 
 tbe intellectual love of tbe mind to God is a part of 
 tbe infinit(; love wberewitb God loves Himself;" and 
 also, "Tbe love of God to men and tbe intellectual 
 love of tbe mind to God is one and tlie same ; " - 
 to wbif'b may l)e added, tbat all tbe modes of 
 tbougbt, of wbicli (li<' iiiiiid is f)ne, "taken togetber, 
 make u]) tbe eternal and inrniitc intcllert of God."' 
 I cannot, tliei't'lnrc, wilhliold I lie judgmcnl, tlial lliis 
 vast pile of tbougbt not only labours under incurable 
 defects of mctliod, in seeking to reacb facts by mallic- 
 
 1 Spinoza, Op., ii. p. W'X ^ ii,i,i_^ j,p_ 292-3. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 2!)7 ; prop. xl. Sdic.l.
 
 58 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 matical definitions, and tlicse often assumptions of tlie 
 tilings to be proved, as also in drawing out inaccu- 
 rately its chains of reasoning ; but that, however re- 
 deemed by intellectual strength and high purpose, it 
 leads the seeker after God mournfully astray, and sub- 
 stitutes a fusion with an unreal, however sublime idol, 
 for a genuine worship and a true redemption. 
 
 It is, however, due to Spinoza, and also to Chris- 
 tianity, to record the concessions which he has made 
 to the Gospel history, and to its great subject, as 
 full as, from his own point of view, were possible. 
 Not only is there the remarkable saying preserved by 
 Bayle, in his Dictionary, '* That if he could have per- 
 suaded himself of the resurrection of Lazarus, he 
 would have broken in pieces his whole system, and 
 embraced the ordinary faith of Christians ; " ^ there 
 is also, with a profession of inability to admit the 
 incarnation, the testimony, " It is not absolutely ne- 
 cessary to know Christ after the flesh, but we must 
 think very dififerently of that eternal Son of God, I 
 mean the eternal wisdom of God, which has mani- 
 fested itself in all things, and chiefly in the human 
 mind, and most of all in Jesus Christ. . . . Because, as I 
 have said, this wisdom has been most of all manifested 
 by Jesus Christ, therefore His disciples have proclaimed 
 it, so far as by Him revealed to them, and have shown 
 that, by that Spirit of Christ, they could glory above 
 the rest." ^ "The highest thing that Christ said of 
 Himself was, that He was the temple of God ; no 
 
 1 Art. "Spinoza," vol. v. p. 17. 
 2 Spinoza, Op., i. 510. Epistle to Oldenburg.
 
 UNBELIEF m THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 59 
 
 doubt, because, as I have already shown, God mani- 
 fested Himself in Christ most of all, whereof John, to 
 express it more effectually, said, 'the Word was made 
 flesh/ "^ But for the irpoirov -v/reOSo? of his system, and 
 the fatal entanglement of mere words, " unity," " sub- 
 stance," " infinity," and others, all turned into an abyss 
 of darkness by scholastic definition and mathematical 
 treatment, this great mind might, through the attract- 
 iveness of a living Christ, have exchanged the dreari- 
 ness of unbelief for Christianity. 
 
 3. Truly great is the contrast between a gigantic 
 system-builder like Spinoza, and a universal critic like 
 Bayle, the type of the third or sceptical school of un- 
 belief, to which we now turn. Bayle (1G47-170G) does 
 his work almost ere the century ends, for his Dictionary 
 is published in 1697. The son of a Huguenot minister 
 in the south of France, mixed up with their academic 
 teaching, and sharing Ijcfore the time, in Holland, the 
 disasters of their exile, Bayle represents a quite differ- 
 ent growtli of iiiibclicf, tliat of a worn-out Calvinist, 
 whose early conversion to lujmanism, and return from 
 it, had, as in tlie later case of Cib1)on, exhausted per- 
 manently the soil of faith ; and who then hung on, like 
 a withered leaf, to the Reformation, distrusting it, but 
 hating Romanism still more, and j»irseiitinL;- in his 
 wonderful le.'irning and aciitcnesH, but, total if not 
 mocking indifference, tin- spectacle of tlie liuinanist 
 who, at the beginning of tiic century, liad been so 
 friendly to Christianity, now soured and alien. The 
 
 ^ Spinoza, Oj)., i. pp. 015-0. EpiBtle to Oldenburg.
 
 60 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 only good things wliicli lie carries with liim outside 
 the Christian pale, are, his love of letters, his love of 
 hberty,— for more, perhaps, than any great literary 
 unbeUever, more certainly than Voltaire, he maintains 
 a death-war with Rome as the enemy of freedom, — and 
 also the perfect impartiality with which he criticises 
 every system, religious and philosophical, Arminian 
 as well as Calvinist, Spinozist as strictly as Cartesian, 
 and does not spare even the Manichsean in those cele- 
 brated articles on that school that have led to the 
 impression, which, however, he refused to accept, that 
 he was secretly inclined to that theory. We do not err, 
 therefore, in referring Bayle to the sceptical class, a 
 class in which Hume, and so far also Gibbon, were his 
 greatest successors. Like them he fights without a 
 camp and a country of his own to defend ; or his only 
 camp and country are the open wild of speculation ; 
 while his attacks are more covert than theirs, as marked 
 the age. These consist in dwelling on the dark mys- 
 teries of evil, which, however, he is candid enough to 
 show, press equally upon the theist of every school, and 
 upon the heretical Christian as much as the orthodox ; 
 in presenting the success and influence of Mohamme- 
 danism as a set-off to Christianity; and generally in 
 laying open the sores and infirmities of all Churches 
 as a bar to the higher claims of any ; while his assaults 
 upon strictly Christian mysteries, as the Trinity and 
 Incarnation, are more rare and more guarded.^ It is 
 certain that the influence of Bayle was great upon the 
 century that followed, in which, next to English 
 
 * See Appendix, Note D.
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 61 
 
 Deism, Lis writings furnislied the chief armoury of 
 French unbelief. Still his cold and negative spirit, 
 and the entire absence of that passion for revolution 
 by which the next century was so distinguished, must 
 have limited his effect; and the doom which is written 
 on all scepticism, and the more that it approaches to 
 pure scepticism, the more entirely, — " La Nature 
 confond les Pyrrhoniens "• — must have thrown him, 
 earlier than otherwise would have been possible for 
 so great a writer, into that dark background, where, 
 to use his own figure of himself, he sits only a cloud- 
 compeller, presiding over mists and shadows, but 
 creating no strong or fruitful empire. After all, the 
 pure sceptic proves in the end the least formidable 
 among the antagonists of Christianity. He cannot 
 have a zeal " according to knowledge," — for to him, 
 by his own confession, knowledge is hopeless, — and a 
 zeal without it is so inconsistent and so futile, that it 
 must ere long sink to the level of a philosophical or 
 literary curiosity, rather than go forth as a living and 
 world-subduing power.
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 Causes of Deism — Inferiority of Deistical writers — Blount, a fore- 
 runner — Toland — His successive positions — Pantheisticon — 
 Deism proper — Collins and Prophecy — Woolston and miracles — 
 Tindal and light of Nature — Chubb and Christian morals — 
 Morgan and Old Testament — Sceptics : DodweU, Bolingbroke, 
 Hume, Gibbon — Causes of failure of Deism. 
 
 In entering upon the history of Unbelief in the 
 eighteenth century, it seems best to pursue the sub- 
 ject according to its successive development in the 
 three great countries of Europe where it had the 
 largest career, — England, France, and Germany. At 
 this time, also, European literature parted, and the 
 features of nationality became more distinctive. We 
 have seen, in the works of Herbert and Hobbes, Eng- 
 land taking the lead in this direction ; and now, to a 
 large extent, the battle is fought out on this theatre. 
 It is impossible, of course, in this Lecture, to write the 
 History of English Deism ; but the main incidents and 
 features may be sketched, and the leading purpose of 
 these Lectures accomplished, which is to show how 
 these debates look in the light of more recent opinion 
 and controversy. 
 
 It is impossible here to go into an inquiry as to
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 6 
 
 o 
 
 the causes of English Deism. The great cause, as 
 always, was the decay of the Christian religion itself. 
 The fervent interest in spiritual things which had 
 marked the middle period of the seventeenth century, 
 and made it, with all its faults, the greatest hitherto 
 in English history, had, through manifold failure and 
 defeat, been followed by the reaction of the Restora- 
 tion ; and the visible and notorious denial of Chris- 
 tianity in life and practice prepared the way for its 
 denial in opinion and theory. There was also a 
 downward tendency in Christian doctrine, both in the 
 Church of England and among the Dissenters, so that 
 Latitudinarianism, Arianism, and Socinianism, when 
 carried a stage farther, broke out in Infidelity. YThe ^ 
 success of natural philosophy, through the impulse 
 given by Bacon and the Royal Society, probably con- 
 tributed, with other causes, to predispose the mind 
 against the suj)ernatural ; while the philosophy of 
 mind introduced with so much distinction by Locke, 
 liardly provided enough, tliough this was far from the 
 aim of its author, for truths of a region beyond ex- 
 pcriencc. / The great literary power which was about 
 to break out in the Queen Anne period, though not 
 of tlic highest creative order, ftivourcd agitation and 
 ci'itiri^m <if tilings established. Tlic ri_t:;ht of discus- 
 sion, conquered by the Revolution, nniintained by 
 political debate, ;ind tending more and more to rid 
 itself of the fetters of |)rc8s censorsliip, sujiplied here 
 the only arena in Europe open at that time to sueli a 
 controversy. AVe may say that even the institution 
 of an Established Church to some extent provoked it.
 
 64 UNBELIEF m THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 It was a mark of ambition to strike deeper than all 
 distinctions of Cavalier and Roundhead, of Juror and 
 Nonjuror, of Pa})ist and Protestant, which had 
 hitherto divided the national life ; the defiance of 
 great dio^nitaries was more an attraction than a 
 danger ; and though the law in one or two unhappy 
 cases broke the general spirit of toleration, this rather 
 shed around the asrsrressive side somethinoj of the halo 
 of martyrdom. 
 
 It was necessary that such a war should be fought. 
 Nothing else could have aroused the Christian Church 
 to a sense of its own life and duty. It was no doubt 
 sad that so many able and educated men — some 
 twelve or fifteen in all — should assail all the founda- 
 tions of Christian faith, and produce a commotion 
 lasting for half a century. But Christianity, though 
 in a very low and unheroic age, proved more than 
 equal to this debate. It was soon found that the 
 weight of learning, of argumentative power, and, with 
 some exceptions, of right temper, was on the de- 
 fensive side. The right of possession was vindicated ; 
 and the old gospel — in new forms like that of Method- 
 ism — began, throughout the English-speaking world, 
 a career of advance and conquest, of which the 
 Deistic failure may well be held to have been the 
 prelude. It is significant how complete the decay of 
 Deistic literature has been. It had its ingenuity, its 
 acuteness, its controversial skill. But it has wanted 
 the power of self-preservation. With the exception 
 of Hume and Gibbon, who come in when it is nearly 
 exhausted, no part of it is reprinted, and much ^is so
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 65 
 
 forgotten as only to be found in our great libraries.^ 
 Not to mention otber Christian apologists of this 
 period, each great in some special combat, the annals 
 of Dei.sm, })roperly so called, have nothing to show 
 comparable to the massive learning of Bentley, Lardner, 
 and Warburton ; the athletic vigour of Clarke ; the 
 grace, subtlety, and moral enthusiasm of Berkeley ; the 
 sagacity, breadth, and eternal freshness of Butler. 
 The Christian writers, no doubt, were more numerous, 
 for each leading work of the Deistic controversy called 
 forth fifty or more replies. But numbers were here 
 another sign of streno;th, and the Deistic writers were 
 numerous enough to have produced, which they did 
 not, some one acknowledged masterpiece. 
 
 I shall, in this Lecture, follow generally the order 
 of time, only I shall make no attempt to sketch the 
 life or notice the whole works of each writer, or 
 specify his opponents on the Christian side. It will 
 be enough to connect him with some leading i)oint or 
 points in the controversy, to estimate his position, and 
 to show how it has been affected by sul)se(pieiit dis- 
 cussion and criticism. 
 
 I have to bci^in then willi a, few words oii one less 
 considcraljle writer, wlio falls a lilllf l)cfoic llic cighl- 
 eenth century, but who hc.lougs to llu' Dcislical school, 
 and represents one side of it hardly Idouglit u[) other- 
 wise. This is Charles Blount, a L^ontlcnian of family, 
 who writes, in \niiA7ii7naMundi iu\<\ ol her works, in ihe 
 
 ^ I liuve to c-xprc88 my ^Tcat oMi^ations to J. 'I'. Clark, ]Cm|., 
 Keeper of the Advocates' Library, for the Hue of parts of tbia literature 
 not otherwise available. 
 
 F
 
 GO UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 same strain with Herbert on the heathen religions, but 
 wlio introduces the French style of light and piquant 
 remark, which becomes a fashion among his successors, 
 even on the gravest topics. His works published 
 during his lifetime are protected by saving clauses, 
 but after his death in 1693, which was self-inflicted, 
 and occasioned by the refusal of his deceased wife's 
 sister to marry him, his friend Mr. Charles Gildon 
 jmblished in 1695 a collection of Essays, which he 
 called " Oracles of Eeason," in which the real creed 
 of Blount becomes apparent. The name Deists is 
 in this collection applied to the body ; their tenets 
 are stated, very much in the fashion of Herbert, but 
 with more stress on what they rejected, such as media- 
 tion and sacrifice ; and a distinction is alluded to 
 between mortal and immortal Deists, Blount himself 
 belonging, though with some hesitation, to the latter. 
 It is not necessary to quote the free and irreverent 
 criticism on the Old Testament to show how far 
 already this party have advanced ; and the only other 
 point of interest in these " Oracles " is the way in which 
 the expectation of a worldly millennium, which has 
 been urged by Gibbon and Eenan as accounting for 
 the success of Christianity, is applied to the same 
 purpose. The most interesting thing, however, in 
 regard to Blount, is the style in which, beyond all who 
 followed him, he has tried to deal with the argument 
 drawn from the person and life of Jesus Christ. This 
 is a blank in the English eighteenth century litera- 
 ture of unbelief, but Blount had already, in 1680, pub- 
 lished a work indirectly designed to abate the singu-
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. C7 
 
 larity of Christ's history by comparing Him with the 
 magician or philosopher of the end of the first century, 
 Apollonius of Tyana. This had been done before, as 
 we have seen, to discredit Christ by the pagan governor 
 of Bithynia, Hierocles, in the age of the Emperor 
 Diocletian ; and Blount, like Hierocles, fell back on 
 the biography of Apollonius that had been wiitten a 
 century and a half after his death by the rhetorician 
 Philostratus of Lemnos. There is no evidence that 
 the original biographer had any intention to attack 
 Christianity, but whether or not, when his work was 
 so used by Hierocles, it called forth a complete expo- 
 sure by the Church historian, Eusebius, who showed 
 how fabulous and childish the wonders of Apollonius 
 were. Of this production of Eusebius we may sup- 
 pose Blount to have been entirely ignorant when he 
 sent out again the biography of Apollonius translated 
 — so far as the first two books went — witli notes, 
 designed to suggest the parallel which they durst not 
 proclaim. AVe thus see, in the very lu'ginning of 
 English Deism, how feeble and hesitating was its 
 attempt — and it never came to mucli more — to 
 grapple with the problem of llui alleged supernal uial 
 in Christ, which in our own day has beronie, with 
 however little of success, the miiin ellnif of every 
 theory of unbelief. 
 
 Our next writer, John Tolan<1, 1 hough his literary 
 career begins in IHOn, brings us within the cighlcenlli 
 century; and his troubh-d course, wliieh . n-Is in I 7i!l'. 
 embraces the first half of the Deistical jjcriod. lie; 
 passes through many phases, so that it is dillieult to
 
 68 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 rank liim under our threefold rubric, Deistic, Pan- 
 theistic, or Sceptical; Init, as he is the only one 
 of all the English writers we have to name, who in 
 any form professed pantheism, we may put him in 
 this list, which thus begins and ends. Those who 
 follow for a long time are Deists ; the Sceptics close 
 the scene. 
 
 I. Toland, who thus sums up English Pantheism, is 
 an Irish scholar of fortune, born near Derry in 1670-1, 
 and converted early from the Church of Rome, with 
 many of the elements of the thinker as well as of the 
 scholar in him. He studies in Glasgow, and receives 
 his degree in Edinburgh on the day before the battle 
 of the Boyne, mingling in his studies, perhaps, with 
 some of those Irishmen, like Francis Mackemie, who 
 were about to lay the foundations of a great Presby- 
 terian Church in the solitudes of a new world. He is 
 attracted rather to London, and then, under dissent- 
 ing patronage, studies two years more at Leyden, next 
 goes to Oxford, probably conforming to the Church 
 of England ; and, without having any fixed career 
 before him, startles the world in 1696 with an anony- 
 mous little treatise, "Christianity not Mysterious." 
 This is one of the writings which trembles on the verge 
 of paradox, capable of being defended, but unwise and 
 unsafe, and in an uneasy time certain to produce 
 heats and aj^itations. Toland shows with m:eat clear- 
 ness that, in so far as anything is Ijelieved, it must be 
 so far understood ; and also makes out that " mystery" 
 in the Bible sense is not truth incomprehensible, but
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 69 
 
 truth not yet revealed. He also grants an element of 
 incomprehensibility in Christianity, as in all know- 
 ledge, though he confuses this point by denying the 
 distinction between things level to reason and things 
 above reason. However, he is far from denying 
 either revelation or miracle, and his chief offence is 
 his paradoxical style, aggravated by the suspicion — 
 though he afterwards professed himself a believer in 
 the Trinity and promised in another part to explain 
 all the so-called gospel mysteries — that he made less of 
 them than the orthodox, and hence took so lightly 
 their difficulty. This treatise was opposed, among 
 others, by Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, who 
 charged Locke with having supplied Toland with his 
 doctrine of knowledge, and thus became involved in 
 his celebrated controversy witli that i)hilosopher as to 
 certaiuty. A more violent treatment was measured 
 out to it by the Irisli Parliament in 1797, for it was 
 burnt by tlie common hangman, and its author had 
 to escape from I)ul)liM. Five years afterwards, how- 
 ever, wlicii coiidciiiind |)y the Lower JEousc of Convo- 
 cation in London, we find that, through the intluence 
 of I'islio]) I'uniff, and men of larger toleration, wlio 
 di«l not ajutrovc ol" lliis styh) of defending Christianity, 
 the process was Kto]»[>e(l, lliongli Toland liad ineau- 
 wliilc raslily involved hiinself in another controversy. 
 Tliis arose out ol his Life of Alillon, in whieli, in pi'o- 
 clainiing tli(3 spuriousncss of Eikon Busillkc, he was 
 und(Tstood to level .-oiim; insinuations against tlic 
 genuineness of ])arts of tlie New Testaniejit, an*] he 
 with some dilliuulty eJeurcd himself in a work entillcd
 
 70 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 "Amyntor" {Defender). This was the start of an ever- 
 recurreut debate, all through the Deistical warfare, as 
 to the genuineness and integrity of books of the 
 Canon, till this was closed by the great work of Lard- 
 ner, finished in 1755, on the "Credibility of the 
 Gospel History." 
 
 The unquiet spirit of Toland led him to wander 
 over Europe seeking either a literary or political 
 career. A volume which he published in 1704 pro- 
 fesses to be mainly letters to Serena, a name for the 
 Queen of Prussia, Sophie Charlotte, a member of the 
 Hanoverian family, and the same for whom Leibnitz 
 wrote his Theodicee. Lechler doubts whether these 
 letters ever passed, or whether the whole account is 
 not due to Toland's vanity, as there are no German 
 vouchers.^ But be this as it may, they prove that 
 Toland was still comparatively orthodox, though his 
 Christian sympathies very little appear. The third 
 letter, on the origin of idolatry, is far from extenuat- 
 ing paganism in the strain of Herbert or Blount ; and 
 a fomth letter to a gentleman in Holland expressly 
 opposes the system of Spinoza, and acutely argues 
 that he had not provided for motion in his extended 
 substance, though, in a following letter, Toland him- 
 self arbitrarily solves the difiiculty by making motion 
 an essential property of matter. In a work published 
 in 1709, and dedicated to Anthony Collins, under the 
 
 1 Lecbler, " GeschicLte des Englischen Deismus," 1841, pp. 463-4 
 (Appenrlix), In quoting Lechler, it is impossible not to express ad- 
 miration of the research, impartiality, and general accuracy of this 
 work, which is still, after forty years, the best on the subject.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 71 
 
 title of Adeisidaemon (Non-Superstitious), Tolaud is 
 shown to have so far given up his faith in the Okl 
 Testament as to prefer the account of Strabo, that the 
 Israelites were Egyptians, to that commonly traced 
 to Moses, arguing that Moses was little better than 
 an Egyptian priest or king, in whose name, however, 
 later legislation found currency and acceptance. In 
 an equally eccentric work, entitled Nazarenus, and 
 published in 1718, an opposite view is maintained : 
 and it is held that not only was it the doctrine of the 
 Jewish Christians that their law was eternally bind- 
 ing, but that in this they were right, and that Paul 
 had secured a kind of dispensation to the Gentiles on 
 the easier terms of obeying the so-called Noachic pre- 
 cepts agreed upon in the Council of Jerusalem. Here 
 Toland, who professes his adherence to this original 
 Christianity, does not agree with the Tubingen school 
 of our own days, for he regards the Nazarenes as only 
 wishing to keep their law for themselves ; and hence 
 he does not expect, like Baur, to find, in a life-and- 
 death conflict of Jewish and Gentile Christians, the 
 key to the production of the Gospels, and to so nuidi 
 besides in early Christianity. 
 
 The last two works which Toland ])ul)lish('d r;ill 
 two years before his death (1720). It is not iM.ssiMc, 
 by any supposition, to rofoneilc them to each otiitr. 
 The one is a coUfction of four treatises, hence called 
 Tetrad i/riuis, the first of wlii.-li roiil;iins tho most 
 paradoxical of all lii^ o])inions, that the j.iliar of eIou<l 
 and (iiv w;is :in (.i<lin;iry walcli lire. iKtistcd up on 
 a pole, the angel who thus guided th<- Israelites a.
 
 72 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 inau, aud that man Hobab, tlie relative of Moscb. 
 Tliougrli Toland here sinks to the lowest naturalism, 
 he still, in the same volume, professes his belief in 
 miracles,^ and repels the charge of Socinianism,^ and 
 also uses the words in regard to Spinoza: ''I differ 
 from Spinoza in the very groundwork of his philo- 
 sophy." ^ Yet in the same year he sent out an anony- 
 mous work in Latin {Pantheisticon) , professing to be 
 an account of a pantheistic club or secret society 
 dispersed over Europe, with a description of their 
 opinions and symposial usages, and a formulary for the 
 latter, which is a kind of parody of Christian liturgies. 
 The work is not meant to be taken as a serious report 
 of an existing fraternity or ritual ; but it shows the 
 sympathies of its author, whose identity is also mani- 
 fested by the looseness of his philosophical ground- 
 work, which is not a coherent scheme, like that of 
 Spinoza, but a sketch of nature as a universal force or 
 principle in the style of the old cosmogonies, garnished 
 with extracts from ancient poets and moralists, and 
 with denunciations of priests and superstitions. It is 
 sad to see a writer of such capacity end so unhappily ; 
 and the utter contradiction between the two last 
 works is explained by the fact (justified it cannot be) 
 that in a formal essay in the earlier volume {Clido- 
 jphorus), and repeated utterances' in the Pantheisticon, 
 liberty is claimed to hold and teach opposite doc- 
 trines, " ut aliud sit in pectore et privato consessu, 
 aliud in foro et puhlica co?icione."^ "How hard it 
 
 1 Hodegus, p. 5. 2 Mangonentes, p. 190. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 185. 4 Pantheisticon, p. 80.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 73 
 
 is to come at truth yourself, and how dangerous a 
 thing to publish it to others ! " ^ 
 
 II.MVe now come to the group of Deists proper; 
 and though there is not a perfectly logical division 
 supplied by the order of time, it answers sufficiently 
 well, as Collins heads the argument against prophecy, 
 Woolston that against miracles, Tindal that against 
 the addition to the light of nature, Shaftesbury and 
 Chubb that against the Christian morality, and Morgan 
 that against the Old Testament. These writers do 
 not, indeed, keep closely to their text ; but the whole 
 controversy, in so far as it did not degenerate into 
 scepticism, is exhausted under these summaries.] 
 
 AVe begin then with Anthony Collins, and his 
 part in the argument concerning prophecy. Collins 
 (1676-1729), who was an Essex squire, and a friend 
 and disciple of Locke, is connected witli other contro- 
 versies on which we need not here touch, as opposing 
 Dr. Samuel Clarke, both on the immateriality of tlie 
 soul as an argument for its immoi'tality, and on liis 
 views of liberty of will. JIc liad also, in 1713, ac- 
 quired great notoriety l)y a "Discourse on IVee-iIiiiik- 
 ing, occasioned by the rise and gi-o\vlli of a sect e.illed 
 Free-thinkers," which was pul)lislie(l, like ;ill liis works, 
 anonymously, and designed to be a r.ili} iiig-cry or 
 manifesto of the party whose name it bore. Thin 
 work has no legitimate or seientifir method, a.s it 
 does not define the freedom of whieji il speaks, or 
 state who denies it, but is a eoiitiiiuid attack on rc- 
 
 ' TctradymuH, p. 100.
 
 74 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 ceived opinions as to Christianity, and especially as 
 by disagreements as to its doctrines and records 
 maldng such freedom of thinking necessary ; while, at 
 the same time, a miscellaneous list of authorities is 
 given — such as Socrates, Solomon, Epicurus, Hobbes, 
 and Tillotson — who had all recommended free-think- 
 ing by precept and example. This work, at best, has 
 the cleverness of a squib, and is now remembered 
 chiefly by the masterly reply of Bentley, in which 
 that great writer founds upon the loose reasoning and 
 inaccurate scholarship of Collins the most remarkable 
 and varied structure of argument and learning, re- 
 lieved by a wit — though dashed also with contro- 
 versial abuse — peculiarly his own.^ There is here a 
 penetrating insight into the superstition and bigotry 
 of the ancient world, passed off by Collins as free- 
 thinking ; and on all questions as to the state and 
 authority of the sacred books, the consummate know- 
 ledge of Bentley is apparent. Especially, in regard 
 to the alarm created by various readings, the admir- 
 
 ^ The work of Bentley appeared in 1713, under the pseudonym 
 of Phileleutherus Lii^siensis, the author wearing the mask of a Lutheran 
 clergyman, and is dedicated to Dr. Hare, afterwards Bishop of Chi- 
 chester, with whom Bentley was still on a friendly footing. It ap- 
 peared in three parts — the first extending to Eemark XXXIII. ; the 
 second to Remark LIII. ; and the third, which has no title-page, and 
 only a fly-leaf containing a list of Bentley's and other Latin works, 
 "printed f(;r and sold by Cornelius Crownfield, at the University Press 
 in Camhridge," has only Remark LIV., which, after sixteen pages, 
 breaks off in the middle. In my copy, which is of 1713, there ar6 
 inserted, by a hand unknown to me, these words, on the blank lea^ 
 after p. 16, "This is the whole of what Dr. Bentley order'd to be 
 printed, as Mr. Crownfield told me." A page or two more were 
 recovered and added by his nephew in 1743.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 75 
 
 able statements in No. xxxii., proving that the more 
 numerous the readings the purer is the text, have had 
 great effect in excluding this once common objection. 
 Collins looks less able and plausible after such a 
 handling than he really was ; and his more import- 
 ant attack on prophecy which followed, after eleven 
 years, in 1724, displays the resources of no common 
 controversiaUst. His book was entitled, " A Discourse 
 of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion," 
 and was professedly addressed to a divine of North 
 Britain, anxious, in his remote corner, to be informed 
 of the controversies which shook the metropolis. 
 This introduces the paradox of an eccentric theologian 
 of great notoriety in those days, the Rev. AVilliam 
 Whiston, of whose views in regard to prophecy 
 Collins takes very dexterous advantage. AVhiston 
 contended zealously thnt all prophecy was strictly 
 literal, but had also adopted a view which made its 
 fulfilment, as alleged in the New Testament, iucapal)lc 
 of proof, for he held tliat tlic Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures had been hopelessly corrupted by the .Jews. 
 Collins eagerly seizes this eccentricity of a weak- 
 minded tlieoloi^ian to start his own thesis, and, wliilo 
 he contends, against WliiHton, that the Old 'I'csta- 
 ment has never betn thus coijupli-d, or caiinut now 
 be restored, sim])ly tlial lie may preserve the. discoid 
 between it and tlir New, lie also denounces liis literal- 
 ism as a revolt rioiii tlie universal ('liunli, wlddi Imd 
 always held ]»roitliecy to be fulfilled oidy in a mys- 
 tical and allegorical sense. I'liis wholly inaccurate 
 account of Christian o|.inion he supjtorts by on(!-side<l
 
 7G UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 citatious ; and as examples of all prophecy he pro- 
 duces five texts, among others that of the Virgin 
 conceiving a son, and the words of Hosea, " I called 
 my Son out of Egypt" (xi. 1), Avhich he ought 
 to have acknowledged had been generally held by 
 Christian writers to be difficult of interpretation, and 
 explicable only by some hypothesis not usually em- 
 ployed in regard to prophecy. Collins, however, con- 
 ceals the fact that the great body of prophecies have 
 been urged as literal, or, if typical, still with a recog- 
 nisable fulfilment, and not with such mere accommoda- 
 tion as was no prophecy in the proper sense at all ; and 
 hence, though he does not expressly say so, he con- 
 stantly suggests it, that the whole argument from 
 prophecy, resting upon allegories that predict nothing, 
 falls to the ground. Of the many able replies to this 
 work I notice only the most distinguished, that of 
 Dr. Edward Chandler, afterwards Bishop of Durham, 
 whose "Defence of Christianity," published in 1725, 
 went over the whole ground with remarkable Biblical 
 and Rabbinical learning, and, leaving Whiston to the 
 neglect which he merited, combated the positions of 
 Collins. He began by establishing the universal ex- 
 pectation of a Messiah — for he limited the argument 
 to Messianic prediction — and then adduced twelve 
 Messianic prophecies, which, he contended, were 
 literal, e.r/. the riding of Christ into Jerusalem, His 
 birth at Bethlehem, and the fifty-third of Isaiah. He 
 then added four, as examples of typical prophecies, 
 such as of Christ under the figures of Solomon, of 
 David, of Joshua the high-priest, and of Zerubbabel.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 77 
 
 The five difficult passages, which alone Collins had 
 indicated, and in regard to some of which the bishop 
 held that there might be some latitude in regard to 
 the sense of the formula "It is fulfilled," close the 
 series. In his work the Bishop, who is strong in the 
 handling of general principles as well as questions of 
 scholarship, urges a point ably raised some half-cen- 
 tury before by Limborch, in his Arnica CoUatio with 
 the Jew Orobio, that a divine messenger, as in- 
 spired, was entitled to bring deeper senses out of pro- 
 jihecy than were at first visible in it, and that our 
 Saviour and His apostles, as accredited by miracle, 
 might thus, in addition to what was plain in the ful- 
 filment of prophecy to the unbeliever, also enlarge the 
 knowledore of the Christian. There must be enough 
 to accredit Jesus, as he himself and the whole Chris- 
 tian Church maintained, but everything called pro- 
 phecy did not need to be an undeniable credential, 
 and its parts might be of uncfpial clearness. 
 
 Of his numerous and al)le antagonists, some of 
 whom took up divergent [)Ositions, Chandler was the 
 only one to whom Collins replied ; and this In- (li«l in 
 a very elaborate work, published in 1 727, "Tlie Sclienin 
 of Literal Prophecy considered." Here, however, he 
 did not admit that the controversy as it stood was 
 very diff'erent from what he had represent «.l .it 
 tlie outset, but did liis best to fight ihrou-h the 
 hard battle that was before hini. H.- admits that " n 
 prophecy literally fulfilled is a real niinule, :m.l that 
 one such produced, to whi<li no exceptions could 
 justly be made, would go a great way in convincing
 
 78 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 all reasonable men."^ He fails, however, to see the 
 force of convergent evidence as to true fulfilment ; and 
 because he can ojipose something, from want of irre- 
 fragable proof, or of concurrence among Jews or Chris- 
 tians, to every separate text, the whole goes for nothing. 
 An interesting passage in this controversy is the 
 denial by Collins of the Book of Daniel and its alleged 
 Messianic prophecies, his arguments being a tolerably 
 full anticipation of the Maccabean theory in its pre- 
 sent form ; while Chandler's second work, "A Vindica- 
 tion of the Defence of Christianity" (1728), contains 
 a still abler reply. But by far the most remarkable 
 thing in this debate, and that which makes it a land- 
 mark in the history of unbelief, is the fate which has 
 overtaken Colhns's denial of the early and long-con- 
 tinued expectation of a Messiah by the Jews. This 
 point against Chandler he labours with the greatest 
 earnestness, contending that no trace of such expect- 
 ation is found till within a few vears before Jesus of 
 Nazareth ; and then only to a partial extent, and as 
 the result of Roman oppression, which reflected in the 
 longed-for Deliverer only the features of a victorious 
 monarch. This position is completely reversed by 
 Strauss, who does not name Collins, but can only 
 build his mythical theory on the ruins of this scheme. 
 Strauss requires for the currency of the mythical 
 theory, both as to what Jesus was and what Christian 
 portraiture made Him, a long and ancient career of 
 Jewish Messianic expectation, and expectation not of 
 a Conqueror only, but of a Teacher and Spiritual 
 
 ^ Scheme of Lit. Prophecy, p. 275.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 79 
 
 Head ; and lience, without granting prediction, lie 
 grants anticipation by Isaiah and later prophets, in 
 successive representations, more or less agreeing with 
 each other, and propagating themselves in that extra- 
 Scriptural Jewish literature, to which, as well as to 
 the Old Testament, Chandler appealed. Much of 
 Collins is thus by Strauss superseded ; and though 
 the non- Christian students of Old Testament pro- 
 phecy have thus greatly increased their o^\ti responsi- 
 bilities, they have only yielded to the stress of evi- 
 dence in consenting to think of Christianity and its 
 Author as so much more wonderful than the eighteenth 
 century allowed, and as preceded by such an aurora 
 of moral longing and anticipation as belongs to nothing 
 else in human history.^ 
 
 The discussion in regard to mii'aclcs, which im- 
 mediately followed that as to prophecy, and made, in 
 one sense, the most flagrant and noted passage of the 
 Deistical controversy, was iinliappily connected with 
 a leader who wanted every quality that could give it 
 a solid and a permanent interest, Ix'ing either so 
 blunted in his moral perceptions, or, wliat is more 
 probable, so near to madness in his mental coiidilion, 
 and in any case so destitute of judgment and learning, 
 that the deniers of Christianity in <mii- d.iy wmild as 
 little consent to be represented liy liini .is Ins ;in- 
 
 taf^onists. This was Thomas Woolst on ( I ('.(w-l 7HM), 
 o 
 
 ^ Strauss concedes early ami varioun antirijmtioim of a McuKiah 
 
 (Leben Jesu, p. 170; 1864 edition) ; aW that Jchuh ft.rm«d liiniM-if 
 
 after these modfln, nf)t as a conqtieror, but a teachtT ; and, in t<rniH 
 
 of Huch long-current oracles as Iwi. liii., anticipated Ilis own HuflTerings 
 
 and death, even as a ransom for sin (pp. 233-4).
 
 80 rXBELIEP IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 formerly a follow of Sidney College, Cambridge, who 
 liad published various writings in defence of the alle- 
 gorical sense of Scripture, after the style of Origen, 
 but who had alienated opinion from himself by his 
 bitter denunciations of the clergy as slaves of the 
 letter, and had at length, in 1721, been deprived of 
 his Fellowship for a eulogy on the Quakers, as nearer 
 the primitive Church than any body in England. 
 Woolston took up the controversy on prophecy as an 
 umpire between Collins and his opponents. His first 
 and most considerable work in it is entitled, " The 
 Moderator between an Infidel and an AjDOstate" 
 (1725), — the infidel being Collins, and the apostate 
 the modern Anglican clergy, who had fallen away 
 from the allegorical method of the fathers, and become 
 priests of the letter. The professed impartiality of 
 the moderatorship is ill maintained, as every word he 
 speaks in the controversy is on the side of Collins ; 
 and he only professes to differ from him by retaining 
 a faith in allegory, which made him see a merely 
 literal Christianity perish, not only with indifference 
 but with joy. As the debate in regard to prophecy 
 had become mixed up with that in regard to miracle, 
 so Woolston now formally raises this latter, and seeks 
 to preclude the orthodox from finding any refuge in 
 the one argument to help the other. This occasions 
 his six successive " Discourses on the Miracles of our 
 Saviour," puljlished from 1727 to 1729, with two 
 " Defences " in 1729 and 1730. In the first four dis- 
 courses our Lord's other miracles are considered; in 
 the fifth His three raisings ; in the sixth His own
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 81 
 
 resurrection. In all these the aim of the writer is, 
 without questioning the letter of the Gospels, to assail 
 the genuineness of the miracle as incredible and 
 absurd, and then to fall back on the mystical mean- 
 ing salving the whole, according to the principle laid 
 down in the words, "The history of Jesus's life, as 
 recorded in the Evangelists, is an emblematical re- 
 presentation of His spiritual life in the soul of 
 man, and His miracles are figures of His myster- 
 ious operations. The four GosjdcIs are in no part a 
 literal story, but a system of mystical philosophy or 
 theology." ^ Almost all writers have allowed the 
 wild and reckless manner in which Woolston has 
 criticised the letter of the miracles and the olijects 
 dearest to Christian faith, and especially his bringing 
 in of a Jewish ]Iab])i (as Cclsus liad done) to utter his 
 strongest suggestions of im])ostun' or folly, as in the 
 case of tlic miracle at Cana, the resurrection of 
 Lazanis, and r)ur Loid's own resurrection, when he 
 wa« restrained from speaking in his own person by 
 j)Opular reverence or frar of legal consequences. 
 8inij»ly as examples of this pe(.'uliar style, I may men- 
 tion that he Hjteaks of the story of .lairus's daughter, 
 and «»f the wi<low of Nain's son, as " ( iulli\ i rimi l.ilcs nf 
 persons and things;'"* of {\\r narrati\e oi' La/aiiis as so 
 ** brimful of absurdities thai if I h'' hlhr :\\<>\\r is lo he 
 rcganled, St. .Inhn. who was ihi'U ahoNc a. Iiuii<liti| 
 when Ik; wrote it, had lised Ixsond his reason and 
 senses;"^ and onec more, as a specimen of the llabbi'.s 
 style, that the three first Evangelists "confined iheir 
 
 ' First Discourse, !•. 65. ^ Kiflli DiHcourw, )>. 17. •"' Iliiil.,]). 38. 
 
 f}
 
 82 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 narratives to Jesus's less juggling tricks."^ It has been 
 made a question how far "VVoolston was serious in 
 holding by any allegorical residuum of the miraculous 
 history. So constantly and solemnly does he assert 
 his sincerity as a Christian on this ground, and so 
 bitterly does he complain of the bishops and others 
 for refusing him any credit, that I do not wonder that 
 Lechler, without arguing the question, has been dis- 
 posed to take him at his word. But, on the other 
 hand. Archbishop Trench and Strauss look on his 
 appeals to a deeper sj)irit in the Gospels as a mere 
 blind ; and I wish I could resist the tendency to agree 
 with them, when I think how he satirises in some 
 places that very allegorising strain of the Fathers of 
 which he professes to be the great restorer;^ how he 
 .leaves nothing in Christ's earthly history that can be 
 connected with His alleged future coming as the true 
 Messiah — that is, "the Logos of the law;"^ in other 
 words, the personified reason which is one day to 
 enlighten the world ; and how he separates Christ 
 altogether from any special mission in the world, since 
 all that he admits is that the doctrine He and His 
 disciples taught was, " for the most part of it, good, 
 useful, and popular, being no other than the law and 
 religion of nature."^ How little Woolston was entitled, 
 on such a ground, to resent the title of Christian being 
 denied him, or to profess respect for an allegorical 
 meaning in the record of Christ's life while exploding 
 and ridiculing its literal facts, I think must be appa- 
 
 ^ Fifth Discourse, p. 52. 2 Moderator, pp. 100, 132. 
 
 ' Supplement to Moderator, p. 54. ^ Sixth Discourse, p. 37.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 83 
 
 rent. Another cii-ciimstance, as has been agreed by all, 
 shows how little of allegory he could have retained, as 
 the one subject which he brings out of every miracle 
 is the Ufting up of the mere doctrine of natural religion, 
 from disease or death in the letter, to healing and 
 resurrection in the spirit. The wonder of these Dis- 
 courses is the union of so much rude and violent 
 criticism with so much strained and monotonous alle- 
 gory ; and another wonder is the immense sensation 
 they produced, though this is explicable by their rough 
 license, and the scandal of an attack upon the estab- 
 lished faith. Their rhapsodical character, however, 
 limited the value of the discussions on the Christian 
 side to whi(,'h they gave rise. Even a classic work 
 like Sherlock's "Trial of the AVitnesses" could hardly 
 live, with the monstrous legal case in the heart of it, 
 raised by AV(julstun, that the chief priests and the 
 disciples weru ])arties in a formal cuntriictto the sealing 
 up of the sepulchre, but that the latter broke the com- 
 pact and stole the ])ody. 
 
 It is much to be rcgrette<l tliat the autlioritics in 
 Church and State should have proceeded against 
 Woolston for l)lasph('niy. lie wius prosecuted in 1729 
 by tlic Attorncy-(iciicr;d before the King's Bench, and 
 con<h'nincd to a fine of £100 and a year's impiison- 
 ment ; and as Ik- could not p;i\' the line, lie wius allowed 
 apparently to purcjiase the liberty of the rules of the 
 King's Bench, \vh< ic he ninained till his death in 
 1733. It has Ijcen conuiion to s.iy that he died in 
 ])riHon. Voltaire, who was in iOni^dand shortly hrlure 
 his tri;d, says in the ;irti(|r " Miracles," in his Diction-
 
 84 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 aiy, that he died iu his own house. I have been led, 
 from incjiiiry into this point, to believe that each state- 
 ment is true. He was so far in restraint ; but the liber- ' 
 ties of the prison were very extensive, so that he had 
 a house of his own. Singularly enough, a point was 
 thus illustrated which, in regard to the facts of Scrip- 
 ture, he had been slow to accept : that discord in 
 narratives like that of the Eesurrection may look very 
 like contradiction, yet admit of reasonable harmony.^ 
 With its next act, the Deistic conflict returned to 
 a more quiet and steady movement ; and it probably 
 somewhat retrieved itself by the aspect of philosophical 
 discussion, though it failed to find an advocate w^ho 
 was in the public eye unexceptionable. Matthew 
 Tindal (1656-1733) had been a fellow of All-Souls, 
 Oxford, and had, in the reign of James II. in 1685, 
 gone over to Popery, which he had, however, renounced 
 before the Kevolution, his more recent antagonism to 
 Rome being proved by his work in 1706, " The Rights 
 of the Christian Church asserted against the Romish 
 and all other Priests." But the recoil, as in other cases, 
 had proceeded too far; and in 1730, in his seventy- 
 fourth year, his " Christianity as old as the Creation," 
 a work published without his name, and never finished, 
 revealed how deeply and long meditated had been this 
 protest against all positive religion. This book, to my 
 mind, has many and grievous faults. Being in the 
 form of a dialogue between A and B, it commits the 
 Christian cause to one of the orreatest weaklinf]fs known 
 in controversy. It is radically ambiguous. It has 
 
 ^ See Appendix, Note E.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 85 
 
 endless repetitions, is full of the fallacy of citation, 
 and is crowded with particular objections to the Old 
 Testament and New that do not belong to its main 
 arfrument, holdino; rio;ht on, as in the case of the various 
 readino;s, as if nothino; had ever been said on the other 
 side. But with all these drawbacks it compels the 
 breaking up of new ground bearing on the relation of 
 natural religion (so called) to revealed. Christianity is 
 as old as the creation only if it re-echoes Deism, but if 
 it add anything to natural religion it is an upstart and 
 impostor. Out of this challenge arose the most fruit- 
 ful debate of the Deistic period, bringing forth, with 
 others, the admirable works of Conybeare, Foster, and 
 Leland, and sup}>lying probably more matter to Butler 
 tlian any other of the unnamed sources of the " Ana- 
 logy." Tlie ground of Tindal was really the key of the 
 Dei.stic position ; and hence with his defeat the struggle 
 became h'ss close and stuljljorn. 
 
 Discounting the nunilx'ilfss jtarticular ol)jcctionsof 
 'I'indal to tlic evidence or substance of tlie Old and 
 New Testament, tlie great ]M»iiit, wliidi lie uigcs 
 witli something like novelty, is tlie inadmissibility of 
 revelation, on grounds whidi ;ill iiin up to two — that 
 thr L.iw or Li'jlit of Nature |»reelu(les its necessity, 
 and excludes its ja'oof. TIikI.iI argued against the 
 necessity or even admissibilily of icxcl.it ion, because 
 tlie law of ii.iture grounded iii llir Injuu^ of (iod 
 and His i-el.itiou to His creatures could not be su])er- 
 8e<le(l, but must, from the jierfeetion of (io(l .lud His 
 love to His creatures, l)e as jieifeet ;it one time as 
 at an}' other ; and he also argued against the pos-
 
 86 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 sibility of introducing any revelation save by building 
 all its truths on the self-evident principles of reason, 
 and making this agreement its evidence, in which case 
 it was no revelation in the proper sense of the term. 
 Nothing can be more admirable than the reasoning 
 of Dr. Conybeare in reply to Tindal.^ He shows that 
 he has confounded the law of nature, which is without 
 man, with the light of nature, which is within him, 
 and which alone can be called " natural religion ; " 
 that this being in man does not partake the immu- 
 tability which belongs to God, and can only be perfect 
 in a relative sense ; and that thus there is room for 
 addition to the clearness of our knowledge of the law 
 of nature ; as to its sanctions, e.g. , a future life ; as 
 to its extent ; and as to our means of keeping it, such 
 as assurance of pardon and aids of grace needed in a 
 state of fall. Thus, so far as the admissibility of new 
 light was concerned, there was a meeting of the posi- 
 tion of Tindal, who here from the opposite side ac- 
 cepted the transcendentalism of Spinoza, and exalted the 
 eternal and immutable at the expense of the temporal, 
 while, like a Deist who believed in creation, he ought 
 rather to have made room for history and progress. 
 Conybeare also showed that Tindal, while exalting in 
 every man the light of nature, and making duty dis- 
 coverable to every capacity, inconsistently admitted 
 something like a fall, but without making any pro- 
 
 ^ The title of the work of Conybeare (who afterwards became 
 Bishop of Bristol) was "A Defence of Revealed Reli<,'ion against 
 the Exceptions of a late Writer, in his book, intituled ' Christianity 
 as old as the Creation, &c.,' " by John Conybeare, D.D., Rector of 
 Exeter College in Oxford. London, mdccxxxii.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 87 
 
 vision for imperfection and temptation, and even 
 gave up his ease as to the sufficiency of nature 
 by inveighing against the darkness and superstition 
 in which Christianity and other traditional rehgions 
 had involved the world. 
 
 Nothing could be more complete in vindication 
 of the admissibility of revelation ; but as to its 
 proof, which was alleged entirely to depend on 
 natural religion, and thus destroy itself, the answer 
 was less full. Conybeare argued indeed that an in- 
 spiration might be conceived quite distinct from 
 Tindal's allcfred l)uil(linQ; on natural truths, and 
 that oven if an inspired person were shut up to 
 receive new trutli by proved agreement with old, 
 it could thus enter. But lie limited the evidence, 
 8o far as others iK-yond the range of the inspired 
 man were concerned, to miracle and outward sign, 
 whi<*.h came in and diil their work, sul)ject to tln^. 
 proviso that :ill lln- whilf n.ilni.il religion was not 
 contra<licted. The whole of this school of ajiologists, 
 including ('onyl)eare, thus built too much on ])ro- 
 babilitv; instcid of holding, in addition to miracle 
 and |»ro|.hccy, that mw nioial truth and light 
 embo(be(l in the ]i(rson and work of ('hi'ist, was a 
 separate. ;Mid ininKMliiitc cNidcnco, as ]*ascal li;id so 
 grand))- ni.iinl.iined, ; nd (-iiiicd th«' I'cvclaLion home 
 to all who did nol uid.iirly exclude it. 
 
 Anothei- jioint whece Tindal was eireet u.dly met, 
 was in urging tin; objection ih.it ('liii,>t i.inily had 
 been so une(|n;dly dillu-ed ; lor this ohjcction was 
 abundantly shown trt apply to ii.itni;d religion as
 
 88 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 well as rcYealcd. This is one of the points where 
 Butler, wi'iting in 1736, six years after Tindal, comes 
 into line with Conybeare, who of all the authors of 
 that time most recalls him, while other points of 
 contact between these waiters are the defence of 
 Positive Precepts, the plea for a Mediator, and the 
 stress laid on human iofnorance, thouixh all these and 
 similar topics are w^orked by Butler into an analogical 
 argument, such as w^as possible to him alone. In the 
 view of so earnest a debate we cannot but linger on 
 this period ; and though Tindal has been forsaken by 
 an atheism and a pantheism that proclaim as con- 
 fidently the clearness of nature in an entirely opposite 
 direction, and W'Ould be opposed by an agnosticism 
 that turns the twdlight of Butler's scheme into dark- 
 ness, we must remember that the issues then decided 
 are of lasting moment, and that, by the admission of 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill, the Theism that then triumphed 
 in the person of Butler and others was not the 
 Deistic but the Christian. " The argument of Butler's 
 * Analogy ' is, from its own point of view, conclusive ; 
 the Christian religion is open to no objections, either 
 moral or intellectual, which do not apply at least 
 equally to the common theory of Deism." ^ ^ 
 
 The discussions raised by Tindal fixed attention 
 
 1 Three Essays on Religion, p, 214. 
 
 2 Some years ago, in J^Iacmillan's Magazine (vol. xxiv. p. 1 4 7), Mr. 
 Huxley praised the Deistical writers as examples of the strength of English 
 reasoning ; and Mr. Matthew Arnold, in a lecture delivered in Edin- 
 burgh, spoke of them as unrefuted by Butler : but in this debate, ac- 
 cording to Mr. John S. Mill, they were completely overcome, bringing no 
 objections against Christianity which did not recoil on their own system.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 89 
 
 more strongly on the moral side of Christianity ; and 
 in addition to his own criticism, the work of carrpng 
 out and popularising the same ideas in this direction 
 was taken up by an author w^hose history was re- 
 markable, but whose permanent influence has been 
 much less than that of the leading -^Titers on the 
 different branches of this controversy. This was 
 Thomas Chubb, the self-taught glove-maker of Salis- 
 bury, whose accuteness of mind and force of style 
 raised him to a place of some note in this argument, 
 and who, though he handled other branches of the 
 question, may be best considered in relation to his 
 adverse criticism of the morality of the New Testa- 
 ment. Chubb was born in 1679, began to write in 
 1715, and died in 1747. He had been preceded by a 
 writer much higher in name. Lord Shaftesbury, the 
 author of the "Characteristics" — a work publisliod in 
 its collected foim in 1711, and wlio is commonly 
 ranked with the Deistical school ; although he cer- 
 tainly took no such part in attacking the recognised 
 views of Christianity as any of the writers whom 
 wc have considered. (Jn tlie contrary, his " Letters 
 to a Stu<lent" jirofess a zealous interest in true CHiris- 
 tianity ; and his strokes at tlie facts ov dod liiics of 
 the Bible elsewhere are too covert, and too niu( h 
 defcndr-d liy yirovniling latitude witliin the Church, 
 entirely to disprove his claim. His lial)itual tendency 
 to exalt moral prcce})ts, to the neglect of outw;ird ;ind 
 future sanctions, had its side nf trutli. His ajtplica- 
 tion of ridicule as a test of religious principles, though 
 irreverent, was not wli"lly absurd. His over-state-
 
 90 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 ment of the uncertainty attending the evidence and 
 meaning of the gospel coukl pk'ad the incautious 
 huiguagc of Jeremy Taylor and Tillotson. Still this 
 eminent moralist and fnie writer had undoubtedly 
 sinned against the religion which he professed to 
 reverence, and in nothino: more than in his accusations 
 of moral defects in it, as wanting in " private friend- 
 ship and in zeal for the public and our country." ^ 
 If Christianity purified every part of human nature, 
 even without teaching friendship Ijy precept or 
 example, it nursed that virtue ; and in like manner, 
 as it plainly recognised country and duties towards 
 it, there was no need specially to inculcate zeal, as 
 the Christian was to be "zealously affected always 
 in a good thing," A little less of paradox and a 
 little more of kindliness would have enabled Shaftes- 
 bury to see and to acknowledge this, and to let fall his 
 whole objections ; but now a writer appeared in whom 
 the paradox was greater and the kindliness less ; and 
 who in the more advanced, and in some respects ex- 
 asperated, stage of the controversy, though still pro- 
 fessing to be a Christian, allowed less to Christianity 
 on the side of moral excellence, than writers in every 
 sense alien to the Christian name have freely done. 
 
 Chubb indeed was long in reaching the point of 
 hostility to which he ultimately arrived. His first 
 tract, which in its manuscript state had secured for 
 him the favour of Whiston, and was published in 
 1715, in defence of that eccentric writer's doctrine of 
 the Trinity, was at least Arian, and the other tracts, 
 
 ^ Charact., vol. i. p. 77.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 91 
 
 to the number of more than thirty, which ran on till 
 1730, took Christian ground, though of a Pelagian 
 character. Some of these publications displayed no 
 small ability, as for example, a set of controversial 
 treatises against Barclay's " Apology for the Quakers," 
 and some pamphlets on Liberty and Necessity, in which 
 views adverse to the side taken by Hobbes and Collins 
 were maintained. The duty of prayer is well ex- 
 plained : "To address God for the obtaining a thing, 
 and yet not to propose the obtaining that thing as the 
 end of that address, is absurd." ^ Even Christ within 
 limits, is held to be the proper object of prayer ; and 
 all through these treatises He is recognised as a Saviour 
 in the Arian or high Unitarian sense. This is still 
 the case in a work pul)li,s]iod in 1738, " Tlio True 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ asserted." This gospel Chubb 
 sums up in teaching men to live according to the 
 reason of tilings, in affirming the efficacy of repentance, 
 and in proclaiming a day of judgment. Christ is 
 thus a lawgiver, but oiil\- in ](|)ul»lisliiiig the law of 
 nature, and in the s.'imc sense He will be a judge. 
 Chubb thus goes bi-yund Tindal in allowing an actual 
 revelation, wliich is 8U]»poH<(j by miracles, and a 
 correspon<]iii!i; cxnmjilc, aii»l is also lirlpcd in its nioi-al 
 influence bv the founding l)y Ciirist of societies, and 
 the institution of I)a|ttism and lln' i,oi<rs Sn]i|H r. In 
 canying out this ]»lan ('liiist has been ;i great Immic- 
 factor ; ])ut His gosjul has been hindered ehielly by 
 three great corruptions — tracing salvation to (lni.st's 
 imjuited righteousness, exalting faith at the expense of 
 
 ' Tracts, p. 181.
 
 92 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 works, and confounding tlic Christian with civil 
 society. Such is the scheme of Chubb in its Uni- 
 tarian shape ; but in its last phase as revealed in his 
 " Posthumous Works" (1748), it is covered with doubt 
 and shade. In the body of the work Christ's mission 
 is still defended as a revelation, but a postscript by the 
 publisher appends a long various reading in the 
 author's handwriting, given as prol)ably containing 
 his last sentiments, to the effect that Christ's mission 
 is only probably divine ; and with this agrees the 
 whole strain of the book. Christ's miracles are ex- 
 plained away, and some of them expressly objected to 
 as incredible ; the evidence of His resurrection is in- 
 sufficient ; the use of it, in attesting a general resurrec- 
 tion, denied ; and his doctrine generally left in ob- 
 scurity. In particular, the author has quite gone back 
 from his faith in prayer, doubts any natural evidence 
 for the capacity of the soul to exist apart from the 
 body, and though he still believes in retribution, limits 
 it apparently to the more important persons and events, 
 and thus cuts off many from a future life, and decides 
 its duration as to none. Hence, with regard to the 
 morality of the gospel, great changes not unnaturally 
 occur. In regard to Christ's own virtue, all that he 
 allows by His being without sin, is, " that it might 
 possibly be meant that no public or gross miscarriage 
 could be charged upon Him." ^ He stumbles at much 
 in the Sermon on the Mount, such as the precepts as 
 to non-resistance, forgiveness, and love of enemies, as 
 if the latter were the love of complacency ; takes what 
 
 ^ Post. Works, ii. p. 269.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 93 
 
 is said as to the laying U23 of treasure literally ; and 
 even speaks as if tlie taking of no thought for the 
 morrow amounted to " thoughtlessness and indolence." 
 It is needless to argue these points at the present day. 
 Even Renan and Strauss see evidence in these things 
 of the greatness of Jesus as a moralist, and Mr, Rath- 
 bone Greg is almost the only one who, in regard to 
 non-resistance and non-accumulation of treasure, has 
 raised again eighteenth century difficulties.^ 
 
 It is interesting: to find Chubb again and again 
 referring to Methodism, to which, as far as I can re- 
 member, he alone of all the Deists alludes. He argues 
 that miracles might not be needed in the primitive 
 age, as Methodism made converts without them. But 
 the argument for Christianity does not rest on miracles 
 only ; but on anything like them ; and the operation 
 of gi'ace will prove a revelation as much as the 
 presence of miracles. In this jioint of view there can- 
 not be a more comi)lete njily tliau Methodist ex- 
 perience gives to the whole question ])et\v(i'ii Cliul>l) 
 and his opponents. AVhat multitudes of persons — 
 most of them, like ('liul»b, of the working class — have 
 been recovered by Metliodism to natural religion ! 
 Wliat multitudes moi-c in tin' llli.-^sioIl field lia\e been 
 as it were created to it I Can these deny the sense of 
 a jiower more tli;m ]iinn;ni, wliieh h;is made them 
 what l)eism never did, oi- attempted to do, new 
 creatures? AVheic then are all the arguments against 
 the Bible from the inahility of history to rise to 
 the level of the light of nature, from critical diili- 
 
 ^ Greg's Creed of CliriHtendoiii (Introduction to flu tliinl (ditioii).
 
 94 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 ciilties as to readinojs and translations, and from ob- 
 jcctions to particular narratives or precepts ? The orb 
 of Scripture still enlightens the soul, and enlightens 
 the world, and the class that are most blessed, even 
 intellectually, are the very class, one of whose mis- 
 guided leaders would thus, in the name of reason, have 
 repelled reason's best helper and friend. 
 
 The last writer whom we have to notice on the 
 Deistic ground, properly so called, was one whose 
 literary activity coincided with the latest period of 
 Chubb — Thomas Morgan. The year of his birth is 
 not ascertained, but he died in 1743. He had been a 
 Dissenting minister, but, on becoming an Arian, was 
 dismissed. His name is connected with an anony- 
 mous work which came out in 1737, entitled, "The 
 Moral Philosopher," to which two volumes were added, 
 in reply to Leland, Chapman, and Lowman respect- 
 ively, in 1739 and 1740. This writer has originality 
 and controversial vigour ; but he is rash and extrava- 
 gant beyond example, and probably was less followed 
 than any of the leading Deists. It would hardly have 
 been necessary to have noticed him at length, but for 
 his peculiar position in relation to the Old Testament. 
 This involves two questions in respect of which he 
 stands out from the other Deists — the relation of our 
 Saviour and His apostles to the Old Testament, and 
 the value of the Old Testament itself. Morgan main- 
 tains, out and out, a separation of Christ and Paul 
 from the Old Testament, and defends them on this 
 ground, while he holds that the Jewish Christians and 
 Apostles wanted to bind down the Mosaic institute for
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 95 
 
 ever on the Jews, and, as far as tliey could, on the 
 Gentiles ; for he does not admit that Paul went into 
 any agreement with them at the Council of Jerusalem. 
 Morgan, in denouncing the Jewish Christians, thus 
 contradicts Toland, who, in his " Nazarenus," held that 
 they were in the right ; and in exalting Paul, as here 
 the great Free-thinker, he opposes Chubb, who held 
 that Paul's conduct in relation to circumcision and 
 ceremonies was one long act of hypocrisy and tergiver- 
 sation. The sharpness and clearness of Morgan's 
 outline is a distinct anticipation of the Tubingen 
 school ; for he appeals, as they do, to the Epistle to 
 the Galatians in proof of the rent between Paul on 
 the one side and all the earlier apostles on the other, 
 and also to the Apocalypse, which, like that school, 
 he holds to be a Johannine and anti-Paulino writing]: 
 of tlie age of Kero ; and the wonder is that, with 
 these views, he should have accepted the Acts of the 
 Apostles. A still greater wonder is that, unlike Baur, 
 Morgan should i)lacc Jesus Himself on as advanced a 
 stage of the Pauline Christianity as the Apostle. It 
 is a striking evidence of the subjective nature of such 
 criticism, that when so many leading (juantilics are 
 altered, the results arc still the sanic It is not less 
 remarkable that Morgan, to break Jesus oil" fi<»ni I lie 
 Old Tf'stnment, rosolntcly denies tliat Tfe evci- .icei-pted 
 the role of Messiah in any sense, whereas Strauss 
 makes the peculiarity of His career lie in acccjiting it, 
 and seeking to spiritualise it even by I lis death.' 
 
 ^ Strauss tliiis expresses tlie virw of Jisuh in ri^^'anl (u tlie douljt- 
 ful i^siie of His cloaiiif^ Jerusalem journey. " 'I'lic (■.uisc itself drove 
 Him forward ; not to advance was to lose all tluit liad lieeii already
 
 96 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Thus fill' Morgan, in regard to the New Testament, 
 takes up a position in advance of Tindal and Chubb, 
 a position of supernaturalism, holding, with reference 
 to Christ, miracle (though only to arouse, and not to 
 prove) ; sinlessness (" Christ who was not a sinner"^); 
 and a place " at the head of a new dispensation, under 
 which men should be justified and accepted." ^ It is 
 when he comes to speak of the Old Testament that he 
 goes quite beyond all the rest in the opposite direction 
 in the vehemence of his repudiation, so that he has 
 been justly called a Gnostic, and compared to Marcion. 
 He allows a covenant with Abraham, in whom all 
 nations might have been blessed : but from the 
 Egyptian period onward, everything is degraded to 
 the Egyptian level ; the law of Moses is purely 
 political, and the people prove a world's-wonder of 
 stupidity and sujDerstition, without any S23ecial cove- 
 nant relation to God ; their conquests are barbarities, 
 and their professed mission to root out idolatry a 
 delusion and a snare ; their ceremonies have no 
 tj'pical meaning, even human sacrifices being allowed, 
 w^hile their priests are corrupt and greedy ; their 
 prophetic order, though not without some higher aim, 
 falls into imposture ; and their monarchy ends in 
 misrule and captivity. The sympathies of the author 
 are with Solomon in his tolerant old age, as it is 
 represented, and with Jezebel, rather than with the 
 
 gained ; wliile, on the other hand, if He did not shrink from the last 
 step, then, even upon an adverse issue, the effect might be looked for 
 which has never failed when a martyr has died for a great idea." — 
 Leben Jesu, p. 252. 
 
 1 Moral Philosopher, vol. i. p. 225. 2 jbid., p. 227.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 97 
 
 zealots of the law ; and tlioiigli tlie people are held to 
 have been capable of learning in exile from the 
 Persians a purer Theism and the doctrine of immor- 
 tality, everything goes downward, through their in- 
 herent Pharisaism and narrowness, till they perish as 
 a nation, with the blind confidence that their national 
 God, who was never an}'i;liing better than a local idol, 
 would interfere for their rescue. It is not necessary 
 to report the answers of the other side to these extreme 
 positions, which were the scandal of this controversy, 
 as the style of Woolston was in regard to miracles ; 
 and certainl}', of all men, Morgan could least appeal 
 for support here to his favourite apostle Paul. Nor 
 need 1 indicate how much more just, after the large 
 and sym[)athetic strain of Ewald, who has done so 
 mu(-h to rescue the Old Testament characters that 
 have l)een most assaih^d, even the freer criticism 
 of tlic Old Testament has, in (uii- century, l)e- 
 come. Yet even the recklessness of ]\lorgan stirred 
 up iiKjuiry, and add<'(l to Biblical knowledge. One 
 gi-cat, but oil its own si<le, ]>ara<loxical work, it 
 lias been licld to iiavc call' <1 luilli — AVai billion's 
 "Divine T>«'^'atioii ol' Moses." This, liowcvci', is a mis- 
 take ; for \\';iibiM*ton'8 work was announced in I7.'5(), 
 a year Ix-fore Mo^f,^•ln's appeared, tlioir^li iiol piililislieil 
 till 17.'J8; and all tliroiiuli its voluminous extent it 
 contains oidy one or two .slighting allusions to " 'J'he 
 Moral riiilosoplier."' 
 
 The course of llie attack and defence of 
 
 * Sec Appt-ndix, Note F. 
 H
 
 98 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 
 
 Christianity lias now brought us to the last or Scepti- 
 cal period in the history of English Deism, though it 
 is easy to see that an element of Scepticism lay in it 
 all along, and, indeed, some of those whose names I 
 have to mention published some of their works before 
 this date. There was also, as may easily be supposed, 
 a tendency to atheism and laxity of practice, though 
 the Deists proper disowned this connection. The 
 Christian writers, however, while so far accepting this 
 disclaimer, urged home the tendency ; and this was 
 made the subject of that extraordinary work, "The 
 Minute Philosopher " of Bishop Berkeley, who borrowed 
 this title from an epithet of Cicero levelled against the 
 Epicureans, as reducing everything to littleness by 
 banishing God and moral government.^ Berkeley's 
 work, published in London in 1732, immediately on 
 his return from America, where it had been composed 
 in the alcove at Whitehall, near Newport, in Ehode 
 Island, being the only product of the Deistic contro- 
 versy born in the New World, goes far beyond its title, 
 discussing with inimitable freshness and spirit, in the 
 form of the Platonic dialogue, not only the questions 
 between Deists on the one hand, and atheists and 
 sceptics on the other, but almost all the points be- 
 tween the Deists and the Christians. It is certainly 
 one of the most lively and even solid works of the 
 controversy, containing also an application of his New 
 
 ^ The alternative title, " Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher," is 
 intended by the name " Alciphron," or Strong-Mind, applied to the 
 representative of Unbelief, to give another stroke to the party. 
 Berkeley's descriptions in this work are true to American scenery.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 99 
 
 Theory of Vision to tlie j)roof of the Being of God ; but it 
 is only referred to here, to show how the most generous 
 and candid minds of that day recognised the affinity 
 between the positions of Deism as defended against 
 Christianity, and more extreme tendencies, and gave 
 warning that the issues had already begun to be de- 
 veloped. 
 
 In now trpng to arrange the Sceptical writers that 
 come at the close of this period (for no avowed athe- 
 ists appeared), it is easily seen how different are the 
 positions of those that ftdl vaguely under this head. 
 The only thorough and philosophical sceptic is Hume, 
 followed by Gibbon into history, but without any philo- 
 soiihical basis ; wliile Hume is ju'eceded by two writers 
 who have not philosophy enough even to reach scei>ti- 
 cism — the ycjunger Dodwcll, whose premises lead to a 
 sceptical issue which he did not draw, and ]3c)lingi)rokc, 
 whose tendency is rather to a universal self-contradic- 
 tion and especially as to Tlieism, than to scepticism 
 as a philosophical ])riiici|)le. llciice our remarks on 
 I)od\vcll and BolingbrokL; need oiil\ to he l)riid"; and 
 Gibbon lies ton much outside the Deistic controversy 
 to call ff)r much aiiini.'idvcrsion. 
 
 Tlcmy |)i.(|\vc|| was ;i hMwycr — the son of (he 
 celebrated xSoMJiiroi- of the s;iii)c iijinic — .ind published 
 ill r>ondon in 1742 his work, in llie Iniin nf .1 letter 
 to ;iM Oxford student, which was entitlecl "Christi- 
 anity not found<'(l on Ar^aiment." This woik li.nl 110 
 small novelty, and it made a great sensation. Its 
 author writes as a zealous Christian, who dephjjc.s the 
 folly of trying to prove Christianity, and falls l)ack on
 
 100 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 the work and witness of the Holy Spirit, which is 
 described in the most exalted strain of mysticism as 
 " an irresistible light from heaven, that flashes con- 
 viction in a moment, so that this faith is completed 
 in an instant, and the most perfect and finished creed 
 produced at once."^ Henceforth "we are not left 
 liable one moment to a possibility of error and im- 
 posture."" Reason has nothing to do either in 
 furnishino: the evidence or examininc: the contents of 
 Scripture ; but its place is taken by a " constant 
 particular revelation imparted separately and super- 
 naturally to every individual."^ It might seem as if 
 the design of our author were thus to exalt the work 
 of the Spirit, and found on it, however extravagantly 
 stated, a genuine faith. But it is very diflferent, 
 seeking to try by such an extreme standard the faith of 
 the Christian as possibly justified also by reason ; and 
 then because reason necessarily cannot reach this, 
 and this is not seriously proposed, to represent faith 
 as mere delusion. It is exactly the same process as in 
 Collins. Prophecy, taken literally, fails ; and so also, 
 reason, as a ground of faith, ftiils. But there is still 
 an allegorical fulfilment, and there is still a mystical 
 faith ; while each is laughed at by its proposer rather 
 than seriously urged. Nothing can be more un- 
 reasonable than the way in which Dodwell excludes 
 reason from entering into faith. Reason, by demand- 
 ing suspense of judgment on the side of the young 
 would forbid education, would brand inquiry as dis- 
 behef, would fail to reach strength and unity of 
 
 1 P. 59. 2 p. 60. 3 p. 112.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 101 
 
 conviction, and so forth. It is all tlie while kept out 
 of sight that the agency of the Spirit of God includes 
 the use, not of new truth, but of the very truth of 
 Scripture, which, however, this Avritcr depreciates as 
 " the voice of God, which has long since dwindled to 
 human tradition,"^ so that, however Christians may 
 exalt, as they do, the inward working of the Holy 
 Ghost, they never shut out the reasonable action of 
 truth on the soul. When this was made clear, the 
 hollowness of this treatise became apparent, and a 
 revulsion was rather produced by the professedly 
 reverential, Ijut really irreverent, use of a Bible 
 doctrine to overthrow Bible Christianity ; for this 
 writer ridiculed the faith of a mother or sister thus 
 imjilanted, and having all the infalliltility of insjura- 
 tion.- I regret, therefore, that I cannot agree with 
 Lcchlcr, wciglity as his voice is, in supposing that 
 Dodwcll created any ei)och. Nor do I see that he 
 wa.s inwanlly and dccjily sc('])tical in lioldiug a 
 dualism of faitli and reason, ioi- wliik' he no doubt 
 struck out at Dr. Chirkc and the Boyle Lecture, and 
 his arf{umenta ajjainst reason i]i relation to Christi- 
 anity necessarily a<lmitt(Ml of extension to r(;ison in 
 relation to natural religion — an extension ('om]il;iine(l 
 
 of e\"en \>y Clinlib I (ln<l \\<> exidenee of ;in\' dec]) 
 
 seriousness on the j);iit of hodwill in this direction, 
 and his gi-eat aim seems to have been to ]>cr|)Ic.\ and 
 stagger tlu; orthodox, while he thought that the Free- 
 thinkers could tako care of t licniselves. Nor can 1 
 agree that l)od\vell was nuL lull)- answered. Not to 
 
 1 P. 52. 2 P. 111.
 
 102 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 
 
 speak of others, lie was admirably met by Doddridge, 
 whose faculties never appeared to greater advantage ; 
 and who, by setting forth the dortrine of the influence 
 of the Spirit with warmth as well as discrimination, not 
 ojly corrected Dodwell's exaggerations, but redressed 
 a frequent omission in the Christian argument/ 
 
 Among the sceptical writers of this period I have, 
 with some hesitation, ranked the celebrated Lord 
 Bolingbroke, in spite of his own constant profession 
 to rank as a Tlieist, To enter into the political or 
 general literary career of this statesman is not my 
 jDurpose. His life measures the whole Deistic contro- 
 versy, as he was born in 1678 and died in 1751. 
 Whatever greatness he had as a politician and an 
 orator has not been carried by him into this region 
 of argument ; as by universal consent his posthu- 
 mous "Philosophical Works," published in five volumes 
 in 1754, and mainly occupied with the relations of 
 Philosophy and Religion, and the claims of Natural 
 Religion and Revelation, fall below what was expected 
 of him, and have long since passed into oblivion. 
 His failure is due not so much to the want of 
 general intelligence and literary power, for these 
 volumes give token of a large, vigorous, and cul- 
 tured mind, as to the unhappy strength of prejudice, 
 and even antipathy, which break out in an unfairness 
 and violence to which hardly any other of the Deistic 
 writers attain, and which contrast singularly with 
 
 ^ Doddridge's answer to Dodwell is found in his collected Works 
 (vol. i. pp. 472-590). The three letters are dated Northampton, March 4, 
 1742-3.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 103 
 
 the sweep and grace of style which these mostly lack. 
 There is also an ambitions aim, which Bolingbroke 
 was not fitted, even had his conception of Christian- 
 ity been true, to realise. This was to illustrate the 
 influence of philosophy, especially the Platonic, in 
 producing or corrupting it, to disengage the primi- 
 tive Christianity from the alleged Pauline and Patris- 
 tic depravations which it underwent, and to trace the 
 career of spiritual tyranny by which it was moulded 
 into the Papacy and other usurpations. All this was 
 to furnish the means of estimating the comparatively 
 slender obligation of mankind to Christianity, and 
 especially to unmask the error, superstition, and 
 fanaticism of the Old Testament, for which Chris- 
 tianity had become responsible. Now, to all this 
 Bolingbroke was wdiolly unequal. He had filled 
 liis mind with that crude and uncritical knowledge, 
 to whose vision Hi-jdieus, Pythagoras, Plato, and 
 PlotiuuH stood all nn ihc same line lie was as much 
 at sea ill the Fathers, and tlues not seem to have read 
 the Old or New Testament in the original. Where 
 Ills slirewdnoss and his knowlofltre of historv come 
 to liis lielj) is ill his account of ihe ])olitic;il and 
 hierarchical conuj»tioiis of ^hiistianity ; but here as 
 clsewlien,' his work- is a very defective ;iiit icipation 
 of Gibbon, because without tlir Icirning .'ind I'liirncss, 
 after its kind, wlii<li (Jiblxm disjtlays. It is certainly 
 astonishing that any statesman should s])eak of the 
 majestic structure reared by Moses oid}' in terms 
 of contempt and vituperation. "lie ])ut this one 
 God to as many and as unwrirthy uses, in the service
 
 104 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 of man, as the heathens put their many gods." ^ He 
 grants, indeed, sublime ideas of God " in many pass- 
 ages in Job, in Isaiah, in the Psalms, and in other 
 parts of the Old Testament ; " but adds, " It will not 
 be hard to quote Mahometan and even Pagan writers, 
 who have spoken of Him with as much nobleness 
 of style," ^ and sums up the character of the Jews 
 " as the most illiterate, superstitious, and absurd race 
 of men who ever pretended to a system of things 
 divine or human." ^ These denunciations, however, 
 of a people who carried their God " before them in a 
 wooden trunk " ■* would not rank Bolingbroke among 
 sceptical unbelievers, for they are compatible with the 
 stronofest doo^matism. Nor do I fasten this charac- 
 ter on him simply from his contradictions as to 
 Christianity, as for example where he says of it, " The 
 gospel of Christ is one continued lesson of the strict- 
 est morality, of justice, of benevolence, and of uni- 
 versal charity ; " ^ and yet charges on our Saviour 
 that " He gave answers that were equivocal ; " ^ that 
 " He kept the Jews in error — at least did nothing to 
 draw them out of it ; " ^ and roundly declares, " On 
 the whole, the moral character imputed to the 
 Supreme Being by Christian theology differs little 
 from that imputed to Him by the Jewish ; the 
 difference being more apparent than real."^ Where 
 Bolingl)roke tends to scepticism, as contradistin- 
 guished from other Deists, is in his doctrine that 
 
 1 Philosopliical Works, vol. v. p. 371. ^ l^id., p. 371. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 1G2. 4 Vol. iv., p. 94. 5 Hjjfi.^ p. 144, 
 
 « Vol. iii. p. 212. ' Ibid., pp. 21, 211. « y^i^ ^ p 175^ -
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 105 
 
 only God's natural attributes, with His wisdom, are 
 cognisable by us, but that we dare not pronounce 
 on such so-called attributes as goodness and justice. 
 "Divines have distinguished in their bold analyses 
 between God's physical and moral attributes, for 
 which distinction, though I see several theological, 
 I do not see one religious purpose that it is neces- 
 sary to answer." ^ Hence he argues at great length 
 against this distinction, and even seeks in connection 
 with the rejection of it to vindicate the government 
 of God in the unequal distriljutions of the present 
 life. There is nothing in God, as in us, requiring 
 any day of judgment to clear up these difficulties ; 
 and hence this argument for a future life has no 
 soUdity, and the doctrine of such attributes imitable 
 by man, is only a playing by Christian divines into 
 the hands of the atheists. Now, assuredly, if Boling- 
 l)rokc liad stuck to tliis, we should liave a sceptical 
 I)rincii)le ; and God would Ijc no God if He might, for 
 aught we knew, bf morally unlike us, and — abating 
 certain excepted cases — wholly incaj)able of imitation 
 by us. Hut lien* a^^aiii, with his fi'('(picnt incoher- 
 ence, this is recallf*], awd language like this is held : 
 " It is not possiiih". for me to conceive any attribute 
 standin"" on the other side of God's justice. No 
 attribute can huM lh.it place, except cruelty be ;i 
 divine attribute, wIikIi it woiiM be lilasphenions to 
 suppose, thou<rli the Jews and some other baibar- 
 ous people have sui>})0scd it to be so."' This is 
 eminently characteristic of Bolingbroke's whole juo- 
 
 1 Vol. iii. }). 411. 2 Vol. V. i>. 144.
 
 106 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 cedure. God is to be lifted, even by ca departure 
 from the creed of Deism, above our liuman ideas of 
 justice or goodness, that there may be no need of 
 future judgment ; and yet these ideas are to be 
 retained, when the morality of the Old Testament or 
 of Christianity, which is declared little different, is 
 to be weighed and found wanting. This element of 
 inconsistency and prejudice no doubt greatly limited 
 Bolingbroke's authority in England; but unhappily 
 it reappeared in Voltaire, who, influenced by him per- 
 haps more than by any other, took up the same con- 
 flict in France. 
 
 "When we come now to the name which alone 
 
 represents philosophical scepticism in the world of 
 
 English unbelief— that of David Hume (1711-1776) 
 
 — it must be evident that some deeply interesting 
 
 questions, bearing on Hume's position in relation to 
 
 l)hilosophy and religion, need not be here raised. 
 
 Granting that Hume wished to rank as a sceptic, in 
 
 the broad sense of that term, we need not inquire 
 
 here, whether he merely wished to reduce to a 
 
 sceptical or contradictory issue the premises of other 
 
 philosophers, or whether he struck more deeply at 
 
 any possible harmony of the data of reason. We 
 
 need not inquire whether his "Treatise of Human 
 
 Nature " or his later works, or some deeper element 
 
 common to both, is to be accepted as the last word 
 
 of his speculation. We need not inquire what the 
 
 value is as knowledge of all that can be reduced to 
 
 impressions and ideas, and how far Hume proceeded 
 
 as a dogmatist in doubting of all that lay beyond,
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 107 
 
 whether as to self or God. Nor need we inquire how 
 far his procedure in dealing with higher truths than 
 those of experience was always strictly on the basis 
 of his owTi system, if system it could be called, and 
 not of other princij)les of criticism. It is enough for 
 our purpose that, in all his works alike, the result is 
 reached, that l)eyond the uniform succession of sen- 
 sible jDhenomena there is nothing proved of self, or 
 God, or moral government, and apparently nothing 
 provable if his inlets of knowledge are alone allowed. 
 Hume secures a kind of provisional substitute for 
 mental unity and identity in his succession of pheno- 
 mena, where uniformity takes the place of causation ; 
 and he builds up on the sense of pleasure and the 
 law of association a scheme of utility which comes 
 iiit(j tlie place of moral order. But for God, and all 
 tliat is connected witli His diaracter and attributes, 
 liis tlieory of knowledge has no door of entrance, and 
 h«'nce, except in so far as his procedure is criticism of 
 tlu' tlieories of otliers, it ends in negative dogmatism. 
 Ib-ncf his writiiiL'^s on Natural Religion are not to my 
 mind siiflii-irntly ];iir, i\a- th<)- suggest that the l>elief 
 ill (lod is a rationally provable thesis, only not 
 ]>rovc(| ; w Iicreas, on llunii''s ])nnci])lcs, it is, ah initio, 
 beyond llir rcLnon of pi-ol»;il ion. His "Natural 
 History of lldiL'ion, ' wliidi dciixcs llicisin fi-oni 
 jiolytlioisni, ;iiiil rontrasts tin- one willi llic oilier as 
 to cfrcfts ami cons<'i|Ui'ii<'cs. not oiil\' flcii.irts liwdn 
 the whole scli(»o] of Deists, but leaves out of sight on 
 his grouml I lie essenti.il <l;iikiiess of the subject, 
 except as between two different forms of ;iii illusion.
 
 108 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 In like manner, his " Dialogues on Natural Religion " 
 often wander from this fundamental point, for moral 
 difficulties have here no place, and the case would be 
 as hopeless, though these did not press on theism or 
 Christianity ; and such difficulties as that the world 
 is a singular effect are equally irrelevant, except as a 
 mere argumentum ad hominem; for even if worlds 
 were created, one after another, in our view, it would 
 come to the same issue ; and we could not connect 
 any or all with an utterly incognisahle Author. The 
 same remark applies, I think, to his celebrated argu- 
 ment against miracles. It professes to be a new 
 argument, which the author flattered himself he had 
 discovered, and an argument resting on the relation 
 of testimony to experience. Our faith in the uni- 
 formity of nature, and our faith in the reliableness of 
 testimony, is each due to experience. Hence the one 
 at highest can only balance the other ; and we never 
 can believe a miracle. Now, not to mention that 
 there is nothing here peculiar to testimony, and we 
 could not be kept from believing testimony if we 
 could only believe sense ; the root of the difficulty 
 lies in the idea of a uniformity of nature without a 
 God behind it; for if God be once believed in, a 
 miracle becomes credible, either as a matter of sense 
 or of testimony ; and there is no special difficulty in 
 testimony such as Hume urged. This is admitted by 
 ]\Ir, John Stuart IMill in these words : " Once admit a 
 God, and the production by His direct volition of an 
 effect which in any case owed its origin to His 
 creative will, is no longer a purely arbitrary hypo-
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 109 
 
 thesis to account for the fact, hut must he reckoned 
 with as a serious possihility."^ It is true that Mr. 
 Mill, when weighing the evidence, chiefly on grounds 
 whicli have emerged since Hume's days as to the 
 growing rigour of scientific induction, comes to the 
 conclusion that " miracles have no claim whatever to 
 the character of historical facts ;" but at any rate, the 
 strength of Hume's argument is by him abandoned, 
 and its apparent force is said to He in the exclusion of 
 God, just as the admission of God, even in idea, 
 requires j\Ir. Mill to find a still newer exception to 
 miracles ; and we learn that what may have been 
 credible in Hume's days is so no longer, as our 
 century is so much more scioutific than his. 
 
 In truth, Hume had little in common with ordinary 
 Deism. Not only did he write to Dr. Blair in refer- 
 ence to Campbell, when the latter sent him his 
 " Dissertation on ^Miracles," " 1 cMuld wish your friend 
 liad not denominated me an infidel writer;"- but 
 wlwn Mrs. Mallet, wife of the editor of Bolingbroke, 
 acco.ste(l him with \\\r woi-ds, "We Deists ow^ht to 
 know one another," he tuiiieil away with the ilis- 
 clainii-r, "Madam, I am no Deist; \ do not style 
 ni}'self so ; neit lifi- do 1 (h'sirr to lie known b\' that 
 a|>j)ellation." ' llnmewius too acute t(j have adi)]tte(l 
 many of their reasonings ; for example, flial oflMiling- 
 broke, who argued fi-om e;eneral tiadition I hat the. 
 world li.id a lirMinnini:; ;' I'H' I Ids, by bivakini;- the 
 unifoi-mity of nature, at once led \<> miracle; nor 
 
 1 Three EHsayn, p. 2.32. ^ I'.nrtfm's Life of Iliiino, ii. 11(5. 
 
 3 Burton, ii. p. 141. ' I'hiloauphical Works, vol. v. p. 23U.
 
 110 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 could he have held for a moment, witli Tindal, the 
 clearness of the Hght of nature. He lies outside of 
 the Deistical controversy in time not less than in 
 spirit. He had indeed fallen upon his view as to 
 miracles when still in the Jesuit College at La Fl^che, 
 and meant to include it in his Treatise in 1739 ; 
 but it did not come out till his " Philosophical 
 Essays concerning the Understanding," in 1748. Nor 
 was this essay to all appearance connected with 
 the very interesting revival of the controversy 
 on miracles which began with the first answer (in 
 1744), fifteen years after its publication, to Sher- 
 lock's " Trial of the Witnesses," and ran on till 
 West "On the Eesurrection," in 1747. There is no 
 trace of connection between this very late passage of 
 the struggle, to which also Lyttleton on the " Conver- 
 sion of St. Paul " belonged, and Hume's disquisition, 
 though the latter became immediately a mark for criti- 
 cism on its own ground, of which by far the ablest speci- 
 men was that of Campbell in 1762. The later years 
 of Hume are marked by reticence as to his religious 
 position. He is even pleased with any relenting on 
 the part of the orthodox towards him, and speaks of 
 his employment in the French embassy under one of 
 religious profession like Lord Hertford as working for 
 him " a kind of regeneration." ^ It was certainly to 
 his credit that when Voltaire and others were eroins: 
 back from natural religion, Hume, who had never pro- 
 fessed it like them, should have stood out against the 
 atheism of Parisian circles at the expense of raillery 
 
 1 Burton, ii. 183.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. Ill 
 
 for his " prejudices." There does not seem, however, 
 any ground for connecting the name of Hume with 
 any such victory of faith, even in its philosophical 
 sense, by a kind of salto mortale, over scepticism, 
 as Jacohi, for example, might have connected with his 
 system ; least of all, however gladly we would believe 
 it, in its highest meaning. In the face of any such 
 supposition, the posthumous publication of the " Dia- 
 logues on Natural Eeligion," against the strongest 
 advice of Adam Smith and other friends, would 
 become a deeper mystery. But while so much of 
 the career of this great thinker, in thought so clear, 
 in heart so kindly, is on its spiritual side a darkness 
 and a crief to Christian minds, let us remember the 
 undoubted evidence of reaction and recoil from the 
 gloom of doubt wliich no one has more clo(]n(^iitly 
 expressed, and let us give as much acce})tancc as wc 
 can to the words uttered amidst the shock' of his 
 mother's death, and iittovd as a rcjily (o t lit- charge 
 of having l)roken with all C'lirisli.m liope — "Though I 
 tlirow out my speculations to entertain the learned 
 aii<l nu'ta])livsical world, yet in oIImt tliiii'js I do not 
 think HO dilicrcnlly from the rest of the world as }ou 
 imagine." ' 
 
 I'lif only oilier name on wlii<li wc need to toucli, 
 that of (iilil>oii, less as a lliinker lli.iii lliiiiie, Imt 
 greater as an liistori;in, lias Iclt a mark in lilcial iire, 
 which makes us ficj how much snialh'r lh;in these 
 writers were the foremost we have in this Lecture 
 considered. Gibbon, loo, lies outside their track, for 
 
 ' I'.iirtnn, i. p. 294.
 
 112 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 lie was born in 1737, when the stress of the contro- 
 versy was past, and he died in 1794, when quite other 
 thoughts were agitating the world, and driving men, 
 himself included, back from negation to any possible 
 hold of belief. He is here ranked with the sceptical 
 rather than wdth any other school, not, as in the case 
 of Hume, from any philosophical theory, but from a 
 habit of mind. His conversion in his seventeenth 
 year, and in the midst of his Oxford course, to 
 Eomanism casts a sad light ujDon the state of that 
 University, and, indeed, of the Christianity of Eng- 
 land, which had so little inspiration of faith, or even 
 of learning, to preoccupy such a nature. Here, as 
 always, scepticism, with or without a passage through 
 credulity, is more or less the penalty and the fruit of 
 foregoing unfaithfulness in the Church of Christ. Nor 
 was there anything in the pale and waning moon of 
 Continental Protestantism, by whose glimmering ray 
 he returned from the maze, to enkindle and guide th 
 recovered prosel}i;e, whose career is henceforth liker 
 that of Bayle than of Chillingw^orth, alive to the 
 boundless interest of knowledo-e, but dead to all 
 
 CD ' 
 
 higher impulse. The world is to Gibbon, in the 
 deepest sense, without a centre and without a plan ; 
 but its changing and chequered course has for him an 
 unfathomable attraction ; and by his power to reflect 
 this, through multiplicity in unity, his knowledge and 
 historical imagination enable him probably to surpass 
 all historians. His unity is given him by the vastness 
 of Eome and a certain tragic loftiness by its decay ; 
 and the immense procession sweeps through centuries,
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 113 
 
 involving almost all mankind, of all races, faiths, and 
 stages of civilisation, mtbout exhausting his interest 
 or his sense of grandeur. It is here that Gibbon 
 comes into contact with Christianity, furnishing in his 
 " Decline and Fall," as it were, a negative of Church 
 history, exhibitmg the wel) on its reverse side, but 
 faithful still to his duty towards it, so ftir at least as 
 one of the great forces that have moved the world. 
 This is not only true when he is dealing out justice 
 to names like Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, and 
 Cliiysostom ; but even where his aim is less friendly, 
 and his colour even malign, the impression of force 
 and life in the C^hristinn movement is given back ; and 
 there is no more etfectiia], though reluctant, witness 
 of its world -shaking, world -sul)duing power than 
 (Jibl)()n. X(j Christian, therefore, Imt will rejoice 
 tliat, with its great faults on this side, a iiistory like 
 tliat of (Jiblion ha.s l)een written; and Cliristianity 
 m-edH too much to have its infirmities, as a hninaii 
 j»ro(lu<-t, displayed for its ouii coii'eetion, to t|iiaritj 
 even witli its Hovcrest censor uho rh;illen^es liistoiieal 
 evidence for his accuHations. Ip jiarticnlar allega- 
 tions Gibbon inav liave failed, luit many of liis 
 cliarges hit some weak ]H)int, uheiv ( 'hiist ianity is 
 the l)etter for the entieism ; and il his general sjtiiif be 
 complainefl of, as, for exanijile, in his symjiathy with 
 \b>haniniedaniHTn ratln-r tlian with so nm. h higher 
 a faitli, this teaelies the Chnnh of Clirist to n'meniber 
 its own coniiption as the preeiirsor of its defeat, while 
 there is no more Htriking moral which (Jiblmn has 
 unconacioubly helped to ]ioint than the <iivine vitahty,
 
 114 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 as since tested, of tlic one religion, while tlie other 
 has been sinking into senility and exhaustion. In 
 this point of view, or as a permanent measure of 
 the strength and enduring resource of Christianity, 
 the celebrated inquiry of Gibbon as to Secondary 
 Causes of the success of Christianity has a special 
 interest. Gibbon is illogical here, for the most of 
 these causes — the monotheistic zeal, the faith in 
 immortality, the virtue, the unity — were parts of 
 Christianity needing themselves to be accounted for, 
 while the miracles were, according to him, a spurious 
 appendage, and thus could not long have wielded in- 
 fluence. But the starting and prosecuting of such an 
 investigation raised Gibbon far above the Deistical 
 school, who treated the whole phenomenon as beneath 
 them, or summarily ascribed it to imbecility and 
 imposture. In this respect Gibbon is the most 
 modern of historians, as he had most of the historical 
 sense ; and the question which he raised is still pur- 
 sued with the most eager efforts by those who endea- 
 vour to account for Christianity itself, and for its 
 success, without affecting to believe, with Gibbon, 
 " that it was owing to the convincing evidence of 
 the doctrine itself, and to the ruling providence of 
 its great Author." ^ 
 
 It is worthy of notice that Gibbon in his later 
 years, like Hume, rather returns upon his own foot- 
 steps as a leader in the movement party throughout 
 Europe. The pohtical tendencies which had made 
 him displeased with Christianity as an innovation on 
 
 ^ Chap. XV., vol. ii. 2. Bolm's Edition.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 115 
 
 pol}i:lieism, filled him with alarm when the fruits of 
 imsettlemeut appeared in the French Revolution. 
 The freedom of thought which had looked so attractive 
 in the gay salons of Paris wore a different aspect as 
 it came near his Lausanne retreat in the shape of pro- 
 pagandist legions spreading like Huns and Vandals 
 over Europe, and able too, like them, to beat the 
 standing armies of order and civilisation in pieces. 
 The misgivings which he expresses in his letters to 
 Lord and Lady Sheffield — his friendship with whom 
 forms so interesting a feature in his biography — are 
 significant of the yet deeper change which was soon to 
 set in amidst wide circles, and to ally itself, too often 
 to its own sad disadvantage, with reaction. Mean- 
 while it is a striking proof of the sagacity of Gibbon, 
 a.s of Hume, that they early foresaw, and from the 
 opposite region of political s^Tupathy, the invincibility 
 of the great Commonwealth of the West, which was 
 rising, not without its own earlier elements of unbelief 
 and disorganisation, to j)rov(', ami in so injiny and 
 such unexpected ways, a bulwaik of liberty and of 
 Ciiristian faith thrMiinlK.iit tlir wniM. 
 
 It has lu'en snjiposeil llial the Deistic movement, 
 tlie history of which we have thus endeavoured to 
 trace, failerl UA an infelleetnnl pro('('ss bv tlie (h\ dop- 
 ment of s<'ej)t ieisni, winch tiius t iiriicd ji loiind a<^ainst 
 itself.' l>nt this development was ncith(r so eon- 
 
 ' TIiIm i.M tlip BiijipfiHifioTi (if I/orlilcr, wlinwc valimlilf work is 
 nrmnp'fl on tliis ])rinrij)I(', Ijiit wlio faiJH, I tliink, in Imh itiHUinrcH, nfl 
 Doilwc'U cannot lie jsT»iit<'<l t/> liini, nor tin- iiiMiicnn- of IlMnjc alIow(>(l 
 to liavo art«'(l no wi<ii-]y in lliin ilin'<tion. I'olin^'lirokc in not 
 arranged l>y Lechlcr among the Sceptics, and Uibbou is not noticed.
 
 1 1 G UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 siderable nor so manifest as thus to operate. The 
 movement failed intellectually through exhaustion. 
 The assaults had been repelled, and the ammunition 
 shot away ; and nothing remained but to raise the 
 siege. The Church of. England, though sadly feeble 
 and worldly, proved stronger than had been antici- 
 pated. She rose above her disputes, Arian and Ban- 
 gorian, and presented a united front to the enemy, 
 from Leslie on the extreme right, himself a Nonjuror, 
 to Middleton on the extreme left, almost excommuni- 
 cated as a Free-thinker. Her greatest names on this 
 field equalled themselves on every other, and one on 
 this alone added a name to the greatest in her history. 
 Nor were the Dissenters less united with the Church 
 and with themselves ; and though suffering from 
 spiritual blight and doctrinal coldness, men among 
 them like Leland and Samuel Chandler and Doddridge, 
 maintained a not unequal competition with all but the 
 greatest in the Anglican pale, while, from the more un- 
 certain verge of Nonconformity, Hallet and Foster 
 displayed their vigour of argument, and Lardner rose 
 to an uncontested pre-eminence in learning. The best 
 works of their antagonists, after the replies made to 
 them, look poor and shallow, and hardly anything 
 remains in Christianity to be struck at but the eternal 
 difficulties of reason and of theology. Nor did the 
 Deists fail through intellectual weakness alone. They 
 wanted the elements of moral victory. They wanted 
 a creed, a worship, a polity, a tradition. They wanted 
 that without w^hich success is nowhere possible in the 
 moral field, and least of all in England — enthusiasm.
 
 ENGLISH DEISM. 117 
 
 The Reformation was not carried without men that 
 would go to the stake, nor civil liberty without men 
 that would rush to the field. No mere simplification 
 of a belief has ever conquered, unless the half has 
 burned more brightly tlian the whole. The Deists 
 professed to improve religion, but they w^ere without 
 visible religion, without contagion, without courage. 
 They sufi"ered some unjust and unhappy persecution ; 
 but in comparison of what Puritans, Covenanters, 
 Quakers, and even Romanists had braved, it was the 
 fulness of religious liberty. They dared to put the 
 watchwords of Tertullian and Lactantius on their title- 
 pages, but within were too often inuendoes niid 
 salvoes, and dexterous conformities to the fnitli wliicli 
 they denied. Hence, wliatever may have been the 
 sincerity with which they pleaded, and with which one 
 or two of them (to the regret of many Christians then, 
 and of all now) sutt'ered, they did not make on the 
 jiublie min<l tlie inijM-eHsion of oarnestncss and resolve, 
 and tiierefore they lost wlialevcr ;i(l vantage belonged 
 to agj^ression and novelty. But the deepest cause of 
 tlieir fMi'lnre w;is tli.'it they li;i(l not fiitli in a divine. 
 
 niinsion, sueli as wa.s still louiid on ll iIkt side. 
 
 'I'lii.H waft a HU])('rHtition wlii<li, with ulhei' reinnnnts dl" 
 traditional religion, they exelmleil. Iliil it w.is the 
 dcope.st element of strength in the npholders of revela- 
 tion. Some, of them ni.iy have ()|ipose<l \\\r Deists 
 from love to an establishe*! religion ; some froni ad- 
 hfi'i'iiec to tlif j>ast; some from nirTe cuiili iii|ii n\' 
 intelleetual inferiority. Hut that which was mightier 
 than all, and kept the field, even amidst the decay of
 
 118 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 faith, was this lingering presence of it, which had 
 power with God, and, by a law of His making, with 
 man also. Thus it was that what had honoured God, 
 amidst depression and darkness, was crowned with 
 more than victory. Not only was the Deistic wave 
 rolled back by the dykes opposed to it, but by a higher 
 influence was made to fertihse the recovered soil. 
 The beleaguered fortress was not only set free, but in 
 its lowest depths was opened a spring of living water. 
 In the rise of Methodism and other great impulses, it 
 was found that one of the most derided of the 
 evangelic miracles, the descent of the angel to heal 
 stagnation by commotion and trouble, had been 
 repeated, though not always owned by those who had 
 waited for it ; and in the brightening energy and hope- 
 fulness ere long sent forth by the living Spirit of 
 God, from a country which had thus preserved the 
 continuity of its religious history, over every branch 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race and into aU the world, it was 
 felt that the weakness of Christianity had departed, 
 and that a more heroic age had begun.
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 
 
 Causes of French, unbelief — Persecution — Jansenism — Corruption in 
 Church and State — Voltaire : his connection with England ; 
 Literary career — Frederick the Great — The Encyclopedie — Jean 
 Calas and Toleration — Characteristics of Voltaire's attack on 
 Christianity — Ignorance of Scripture — Insufficient account of the 
 origin and success of Christianity — Doubtful Natural Religion — 
 Hj-pocrisy of his last confession — Rousseau — The Savoy vicar — 
 Character of Jesus Christ — Letters from the Mountain — Conces- 
 sions to Christianity — Atheism — La Mettrie — Helvetius — Diderot 
 — D'IIoll)ach — Revolution — Causes of failure of Encyclojiedism 
 — Concordat — Chatcauljriand's Guuie du Chri.stianisme — Fruitless 
 Btrife of Rome and unbelief — Service of French unbelief to 
 England. 
 
 The uiilK-lief wliicli luid fail'<l in En<rlan(l passed over 
 into France, tlierc to work other results, and to open 
 a career wliielj is not yet exhausteil. There was the 
 most direct connection, as we sliall see, l)etween the 
 movement in the; one country a in 1 in 1 he other, and 
 tlie ]»rineij)al instrument of the sueecss drnicd in En<^- 
 land had found tlien- liis trainini^ and liis materials. 
 But liad not the condition of tilings in I' ranee, holh in 
 the State and in the Cliureh,l)een very different, neither 
 tlie nhilifies of Voltaire and his associates, nor the 
 weapons drawn li\' tlieiii from llnir I'n^^dish annouiy, 
 could have dealt sueh a Mow to i li<' ( 'liiisi i.in faith.
 
 120 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 and accompanied it with so great a political revolution. 
 Important as the moral elements were in the English 
 struggle, in the French they were far more decisive ; 
 and to look upon this great passage in history chiefly 
 as a thcolomcal debate between the assailants of 
 Christianit}' and its defenders, is to miss its spirit and 
 all its most serious lessons. 
 
 While England was struggling through the seven- 
 teenth century to retain and develop its political 
 liberty, France was sinking deeper and deeper in per- 
 sonal despotism; and when, at length, crushing disasters 
 overwhelmed the proud fabric which Louis XIV. had 
 reared, the general incompetency and misgovernment 
 of those who succeeded him dispelled the last illusions 
 which had surrounded arbitrary power, and not only 
 took away the prop which a strong government may 
 prove to a national faith, but involved that faith in aU 
 the unpopularity of the weak and miserable rulers who 
 represented it. It was as if the Deistical controversy 
 had come in England in the reign of the Stuarts, and 
 not in the happier days of Anne and of the Georges. 
 Still more ominous of evil were the influences that had 
 presided in France over the history of the Church. 
 The long struggle of the Eeformation, ended by the 
 Bartholomew massacre and the conversion of Henry 
 IV., had left France prevailingly Eomish ; and in the 
 Kevocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, the most 
 tremendous blow ever dealt to a nation's spiritual life 
 had been inflicted, driving out the elite of the Protest- 
 ant middle class, and reacting upon the Church of Rome 
 itself, so as to imprint upon it a character of narrow-
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 121 
 
 ness and intolerance odious to many within its pale 
 who were held responsible for that outrage. Not only 
 was the Protestant part of the population, the most 
 intelligently Christian, sadly diminished when the 
 attack on Christianity began, but the Eomish com- 
 munion was ill at ease, and charged wdth the grave 
 scandal, of wliieh Christianity had to bear the burden. 
 Another trouble had arisen, for the long dispute as to 
 Grace, which, in the days of Pascal, had sought to make 
 the French Church a home for the doctrine of Augus- 
 tine and of Luther, had been by the Papal chair 
 decided against the Jansenists ; and the portion of the 
 Pomish body purest in life and doctrine weakened 
 itself by cmi)ty protests wliieh could avail nothing, 
 and still more by the attempt in 1732 to work miracles 
 at the church of St. IMedard in Paris, an attempt which 
 revoltod the sense of truth, threw the educatcMl mind 
 over into sci'jiticism, .mikI broke u}) .ilso the Jansenist 
 party itself There had, no dniilil, Ix'cn in \]\o Roniisli 
 (•oniinunion in tli(t seventeenth i(iitiii\- ;iii ;ini<)iiiit of 
 indepeiidenee, of learning, and of piety, neverwitnessed 
 before or since. Its greatest jireaehers and controver- 
 sialists then a|)pear('d ; and in llieir sermons, tlieir 
 treatises, ;in<l I lieir contests wit li I lie Ifdurmcd. or cxcn 
 wilii tlie .Je.suit |i,'iil\- in llnii' own ('linicli, dispLiNcd 
 a vigour that nin>t li;ive lillc(l the n;ition willi interest 
 and adininition. Hut Ani.iud, l^'enclon, ijossuct, and 
 Massill'in wen; gone, and had hit no successors, as 
 indeed I'rotestant ojiposifion was now sih'iit, if not 
 dea<l ; and how jioor the resoui'ces ol" the lloniish 
 Church were, soon appeared m iIp replies made to the
 
 122 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 leaders of unbelief, wliicli, with liardly an exception, 
 wanted everything of the logical power, the Biblical 
 and classical knowledge, and even the wit and raillery, 
 which shone in the combat against English Deism. 
 Intellectual poverty, however, was the least fault of 
 this hierarchy. It was corrupt to the core, the clergy 
 in many cases belonging openly to the gay world. 
 The evils of the monastic system were flagrant. The 
 Church lands w^ere oj)pressed by a worse serfdom than 
 those of the feudal nobles ; the tyranny in the State 
 found in that of the Church its best support. Every 
 proposal for reform was met by the sternest censorship, 
 or by a lettre de cachet consigning to the Bastille. It 
 was, indeed, quite natural that, among the clergy, many 
 who had at first belonged to the party of repression 
 should, with the progress of unbelief, be led over to 
 adopt its liberal creed ; but then, instead of, like the 
 English Deists who had belonged to the sacred order, 
 stepping outside, they allowed themselves to maintain 
 a secret, and in some cases open corresj)ondence with 
 the Sceptics, and to undermine the faith by which they 
 were still sujiported. It was impossible to save from 
 great and terrible convulsions a Church and a people 
 which had retained so little of the preserving salt of 
 Christian faith and purity. The assailants of the 
 gospel assailed it laden with a dead weight of error, of 
 superstition, of tjranny, and of worldliness, which it 
 could not long bear up under ; and as the people before 
 whom they pleaded — with a mastery in literature and 
 a daring vigour of reforming enterprise, to which Eng- 
 lish Deism had nothing parallel — had no Bible in their
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 123 
 
 hands, or Christian examples in any number before 
 their eyes, or effectual counter-pleading sounded in 
 their ears, it is not wonderful that they should at last 
 have violently broken away from a Christianity which 
 they could neither believe nor love, and have wandered 
 so long afterw\ards in the very shadow of death, from 
 which it cannot be said that they have yet emerged. 
 This sad and monitory liistory is what we have now 
 rapidly to consider, while we also keep in view the 
 points of contrast between what was prominent in the 
 stiiiggle of the eighteenth century and what in France 
 now meets the eye in our own. 
 
 Wc have to begin then with the name of Voltaire, 
 who overtops every one besides in this revolution, 
 and is in some respects the most remarkable figure in 
 the history of unbelief AVo must liere abandon our 
 threefold classification, striking out the division of 
 Pantheists, as none such ai)peared in the Freiicli 
 histoiy, and :id(bng to Deists and Sceptics the name 
 of Atheists, wliicli alone was avowed in this region. 
 The stress of the battle, however, is here as elsewhere 
 ])ornc by Deists or Sceptics ; for the Atheists even here 
 shun tlie light. 
 
 I. At I he \u-,u\ of thi' Deists, or i.itlicr as uniting 
 ill hiiii,-<ir the Deist ;ill(l the Sceptic, is \'olt;iil'c. In 
 these limits, only the briefest notice of his long and 
 various life is to be expected, .unl ex<-luHiv<'ly in rela- 
 tion to this subj«'ct. Already more than a third pait. 
 of his life, which extended from I GDI to 1778 lii.d 
 passed when, in l7-(), i)eing tlien in his thirty-sec(tnd
 
 124 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 year, lie came as an involuntary exile to England. 
 His character was already formed, and his talents 
 were recognised. Educated at the Jesuit college in 
 Paris, he had deserted law for literature, and had 
 written tragedies and other poems, among them the 
 epic on the AVars of the League, which he had begun 
 in the Bastille, whither, in mistaken punishment of a 
 supposed libel on the Regent, he had been sent. In 
 the fashionable world he was as much at home, and 
 had, amongst many other high personages, become 
 acquainted with Lord Bolingbroke, who then passed 
 an interval of his troubled life on his estates in Tour- 
 aine, and had, in 1722, nursed Voltaire during an 
 attack of smallpox.^ Thus introduced into England, 
 Voltaire knew all that was foremost in literature. He 
 met Pope, Congreve, and Gay, and corresponded with 
 Swift. He conversed with Clarke and Berkeley. He 
 mastered the Newtonian astronomy and the philosophy 
 of Locke ; and studied the English poets from Shake- 
 speare downwards. He actually comjDosed in English 
 prose a portion of his own tragedy of " Brutus," and 
 for more than two years studied the language so 
 incessantly, that, as he says, he forgot to think in 
 his own.^ The result was highly favourable to his 
 mental culture and enlargement ; but unhappily the 
 
 ^ Metrical Epistle to De Gervasy, the physician who had treated 
 him for smallpox in 1722. Voltaire knew Bolingbroke at least by 
 this time. — CEuvres de Voltaire ; Amsterdam, 1752, vol. vi. p. 
 196. 
 
 2 The authority for these statements is in the " Discourse on 
 Tragedy" prefixed to "Brutus" and dedicated to Bolingbroke. — 
 (Eu\Tes de Voltaire; Amsterdam, 1738, voL ii. 234.
 
 UNBELIEF IX FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 125 
 
 influence of Bolinobroke made it disastrous in its 
 bearing on religious opinion and conviction. There 
 is the clearest evidence that lono- before this Voltaire 
 had sunk into all the moral dissoluteness of the 
 period of the Kegency ; but there is no evidence of 
 formed sceptical opinions. These, however, his visit 
 to England brouQ-ht him : and instead of the best 
 thing in the country he took the worst. The debate 
 on prophecy raised by Collins was in full career ; that 
 on miracles by Woolston was soon to begin. These 
 were matter of universal talk ; and Bolingbroke, who 
 was then in England, would douljtless give him his 
 own imj)ressions of all that was taking place. Tliis 
 must also have been the case with English liberty ; for 
 though Voltaire admired this, and in regard to tolera- 
 tion as much as civil rights, in contrast with the politi- 
 cal By.stem of France, he received no idea of its con- 
 nection with Puritanism ;iii(] with moral forces. The 
 letters wliicli lie soon after })ubli,slie(l on England, while 
 lian<IIing the subject of religion, are fresh ;iii(l impar- 
 tial between sect and sect; but there is already a tone 
 not only of coldness l)ut of riilienle, which shows the 
 malignant inlliience of inthnircncc ;iiitl |ii»jii(lice. 
 The Deists are not indee<l mentioned in that wmk ; 
 but they are. aftenvards, Toland. ("ollins, ('hiihb, and 
 others; above all iMiiingbroke ; and tliiir works are 
 ransacked for arguments against revrlalidii, while not 
 one of the niunlxrless replies to tlion is ever noticed. 
 This is quite' in keeping with Voltaire's character. It 
 may not have been ddilMiale su]>]»i'esHi<Hi ; but his 
 controversial life was too rarely and only as by acci-
 
 126 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 dent in harmony witli the rule, " Audi alteram par- 
 tem." It was not till he was turned of seventy that 
 in a letter to D'Alembcrt he" mentions that he had 
 just read Grotius.^ 
 
 Much of the succeeding history of Voltaire must 
 be passed over, such as his connection with Madame 
 Du Chatelet, which, though a scandal, was in other 
 respects a recovery ; and his intercourse with Fred- 
 crick the Great, in which, perhaps, he sinks to the 
 lowest depth in his whole career, ending his residence 
 at Berlin in a violent quarrel, followed by some- 
 thing like reconciliation, and renewed correspondence 
 full of exalted professions, while all the while he kept 
 in his desk a monstrous libel against the king, full of 
 such insults as, had it been then published, must have 
 swept away every trace of friendship. To this want 
 of solid and trustworthy qualities he owed in part his 
 exclusion from the circles where his commanding 
 abilities still gave him influence, and his isolation 
 during the last twenty years of his life. This was 
 the shade upon his retreat at Ferney, on the con- 
 fines of France and Switzerland, whence he exerted 
 a kind of hterary dictatorship in Europe. 
 
 His earlier works had mostly ranked under the 
 head of poetry, epic and dramatic ; histor}^, such as 
 his greatest, " The Age of Louis XIV.," and his more 
 extensive " General History from Charlemagne ; " with 
 
 ^ Corresponflence with D'Alembert, date 5th April 17(55. "I 
 must tell you I have just read Grotius's De Veritate. I am aston- 
 ished at the reputation of that man. I hardly know a more foolish 
 book." — CEuvres de Voltaire. Geneva edition, vol. xlii. p. 204.
 
 ■UNBELIEF IX FEAXCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 127 
 
 numberless smaller pieces, belonging chiefly to the 
 department of criticism. In these we may say that 
 the distinctive stamp of Voltaire is not found, save 
 in the range of knowledge and felicity of expression 
 which have been acknowledged by all. But the pecu- 
 liar features of his thinking and style come out most 
 strikingly in the works of his last thirty years, roused 
 up in the acts of his avowed conflict with Christianity, 
 but also tinging largely the fiction, and the corre- 
 spondence drawn into this more serious enterprise. 
 Painful as this region is to a Christian, and often also 
 to a moralist, the literary power is at its highest. 
 Here are mingled exposition, reasoning, sarcasm, 
 ancedote, exhaustless faculty of invention, exaggera- 
 tion, and mocking ridiculo, all kept within classic rule 
 and winged with a classic art, though indeed of a 
 French type, which has never been surpassed. The 
 one element wanting is truth, tliough there is as iiiii»]i 
 of the h)()k of it as arose from genuine hatred of liome, 
 and alas! also dislike of real Christianity. But the 
 8imj)licitv which dwells only with nature is wanting ; 
 and tii(! (!(•(•]) humour ul Liitlur nwi] transcciulcnt 
 pathos of I'ascal are denied. Thf p.ithosof Voltaire 
 is mostly in his tragedies. Tlic soiiows of hinnnnity, 
 tliough they have somh' pl.nc, liave, with one oi' two 
 hoii(iur;ibl(' exceptions, a sulmidin.-ilc dnc, m lliis 
 crusa(h'. Of this vast and rcstlesH activity, the cliicr 
 centre was the " Encylojjcdie," which niaikcd ;iii era 
 in French literature. This work was not licn;uii as a 
 mere pro] »n£jnn (list or!:f;in, luit, as a bona fide re])ository 
 of universal knowledge. But as nuiuy, if not most, of
 
 128 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 the contributors belonged to the school of which 
 Voltaire was rising to be the recognised head, it 
 natuiall)- became more and more the vehicle of their 
 opinions. It was started in 1751, when Voltaire 
 was in Berlin ; and its two editors were Diderot and 
 D'Alembert, the former, who held on to the end, 
 having charge of literature and art, and the latter 
 of science and philosophy, while many articles on 
 theology and morals were contributed by learned 
 abbes and professors belonging to the more advanced 
 schools, such as the Abbe Mallet, the Abbe Morellet, 
 the Abbe Yvon, and others. It would be a mistake 
 to suppose that the "Encylopddie" preached atheism, 
 or even open disloyalty to Christ. On the contrary, 
 the article " Athee " furnished by M. Formey of the 
 Eoyal Academy of Prussia, holds atheism to be a State 
 crime punishable with death ; while that on " Jesus 
 Christ" declares "that to sj^eak rigorously, Jesus 
 Clirist was not a philosopher : he was a God." These 
 and many similar passages are but the " tares among 
 the wheat," of which Voltaire sometimes in his letters 
 to D'Alembert complains, exhorting him "to cultivate 
 the vineyard of the Lord ; " and we can see how effect- 
 ually it is cultivated, by dwelling on the difficulties 
 of Christianity, insinuating doubts not only of Eomisli 
 but of all Christian doctrine, putting forward the 
 scandals and controversies of the Christian Church, 
 and exalting the light, clearness, and opening millen- 
 nium of reason. Much of this great work was, no 
 doubt, unaffected by special unbelief; but its purely 
 scientific articles were like solid walls that received 
 
 /
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 129 
 
 the inscrij^tions uf uubolief, or gave back its mocking 
 voice within. The publication of the " Encylopedie " 
 fell into two periods. Of its seventeen volumes 
 the first seven, from 1751 to 1757, ran on under 
 privilege of the King in Paris ; but offence having 
 been taken, the remaining ten volumes were prepared 
 and i)uljlished in one issue, professedly at Neufchatel, 
 Ijut really in Paris, in 1705, and without any edi- 
 tor's name, save in asterisks — those of Diderot and 
 D'Alembert, which had stood upon the first issue, being 
 concealed.^ Before this second part of the work had 
 been undertaken Voltaire had become a \uluininous 
 contributor to it, but chiefiy on questions of litera- 
 ture and taste. He lind also, in 1752, while still 
 at Potsdam, begun a Dictionary of liis own, more 
 free; and added in 1770 "(Questions on the Encylo- 
 ]>edie," filling u\> gaps in tli;it ])ublication. These, 
 with liis actual contriljutions, make the work known 
 a.s his " Pliilosopliical Dictionary." In (licsc pa})ers 
 his most unn-st rained liostility to ('hristianity comes 
 out, thou^^di it must l^' .illnwid tli.it. i>\\ |iiuvly 
 littirary and iiistori«;iI sulijccts, his leniaiks are nflm 
 just an<l iuHtructive. To tlie same jMiiod lidong 
 luH " I'liilosojihieal I )ialogU('8," and mo<t of liis jiliilo- 
 Hoiihieal roni;inees, HUeli as " Cainiide," I lie nmst liscly 
 and oU'ensive of llnin all. wiitteii to ridicule the 
 thesis of Leibnitz, that tliis is llie Insl of all possible 
 
 ^ Tlu'«« Htntomcnf« I rnakc from n pornonnl oxninitmtinn of tlif 
 ori^'iniil <flitif»n in tlic National Lilirary at I'arJM. Fur the niiMlcadin^; 
 »tj»t«-nicnt OH to till- jiuMirjition at Ni-ufchotcl, 1 rest on tlio aiilliority 
 of Mr. Morlcy in lii» Life of iJidfrot. 
 
 K
 
 130 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 worlds. To the same period is to be referred the 
 saying, which both Condorcet and Strauss accept as 
 genuine, " Je suis las de leur entendre rdp^ter que 
 douzc hommes ont suffit pour etablir le christianisme, 
 et j'ai envie de leur prouver quil n'en faut q'un pour le 
 ddtruire." ^ In a letter to D'Alembert he starts the 
 same idea, only asking a confederacy of five or six 
 to prevail at successive points in the contest.^ These 
 boasts only prove now the vitality of that religion, 
 whose weakness is stronger than men. 
 
 It would have been impossible, however, for 
 Voltaire to have wielded the mighty influence 
 which gathered around his name, had there not 
 been in him elements of earnestness capable of being 
 roused up into strong action, and which visibly 
 connected themselves with human well-being. In 
 this he had a career which the English Deists wanted, 
 and which, to his honour, he embraced, in making 
 himself the reformer of the civil law, and the an- 
 tagonist of intolerance and cruelty under the name 
 of religion. There were three remarkable cases in 
 which, by courageous and sustained efforts, he stirred 
 up and led the public feeling of France and of Europe 
 so as to gain his cause. The first was that of Jean 
 
 ^ " I am weary of hearing them repeat that twelve men were 
 enough to establish Christianity, and I long to prove to them that it 
 needs but one to destroy it." — Condorcet's Vie de Voltaire — CEuvres ; 
 Geneva edition, vol. xx.viv. p. 169. Strauss, "Voltaire," Third edition, 
 p. 282. 
 
 2 The idea is thrown out in regard to the election of Diderot to 
 the Academy ; but that is only a means to the greater end. Corre- 
 spondance, July 24, 1760, vol. xlii. p. 78.
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANX'E THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 131 
 
 Calas in Toulouse, in 1762, a Protestant mercliant, 
 who, for the supposed murder of a son to hinder him 
 from going over to Rome — though entirely innocent — 
 had, with his whole family, shared the tortures of the 
 rack, and had then himself been broken on the wheel 
 and burnt to ashes. His widow interested Voltaire 
 in the case, and after a three years' struggle he pre- 
 vailed over fanaticism, so that the authorities of 
 Toulouse were visited T\^th the royal displeasure. 
 The second case — that of a family of the name of 
 Sirven, in the same neighbourhood — so greatly re- 
 sembled that of Calas, as to require no further notice ; 
 and the third was that of two young gentlemen of 
 family in Abbeville, in the north of France, who for 
 an allcgt'd insult to a crucifix, and to a r(.'li_u;i<)iis pro- 
 cession, an<l other marks of irreverence, had been 
 sentenced to torture and dialh, tli(jugh unc escaped 
 by flight, and the otln-r oiilv was executed. This 
 barbarous vcngeaufo for juuvly religious oli'ences 
 Voltaire «l«'noune<(l with his utmost energy, but 
 only succeeded in in<i\ing jniMir ()|iininii, witliout 
 clian<Mn<' in tliis ciisti the sentence. 'I'luse acts of 
 \ oltuin-'s lifi- prov(»I<e the exclamation. " (> si sic 
 omnia!" Thry teach us also tf) make just allowanci* 
 even for his mournful recoil from a ( 'hiistianity 
 associated with such horrors, and had ns to see what 
 so impure a ("hristianity had to sulier in the lires of 
 revolution, ])efore dross like; this couM have even 
 a cliaiiee of beini,'' jturLTed away. It is interesting to 
 see h<»w \'ultaire, as the apostle of toleration, makes 
 out in his plea<ling a lietter case l<»r Christianity
 
 132 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 than at any other time. The Old and New Testa- 
 ment become suddenly replete, as he cites them, with 
 mildness and mercy ; and even Athanasius and Ber- 
 nard preach lessons of good-will and brotherhood. 
 
 It is necessary here to take some account of the 
 Propagandist literature, which, with many repetitions 
 and not a few contradictions, marks the final period 
 of Voltaire's life. We shall separate all that is purely 
 anti-Eomish, or directed against abuses of Romanism, 
 and shall limit our view to what is hostile to Chris- 
 tianity in general, or even to natural religion. The 
 exceptions which may be taken to Voltaire's judgment 
 of Christianity I endeavour to put into the most 
 moderate form consistent with truth. 
 
 1. There is then, first of all, in this literature an 
 unaccountable ignorance of the literary history and 
 contents of the Bible, and unfairness in dealing with 
 it. In his article " Evangile " in his Dictionnaire, he 
 says : " It is a constant truth, whatever Abbadie may 
 say, that none of the first Fathers of the Church, to 
 Irenseus inclusive, cites a single passage of the four 
 Gospels which we know." Now, without arguing the 
 point as to earlier Fathers, the citations of Irenseus 
 are universally acknowledged ; and even his reasons, 
 fanciful enough, why there could only be four Gospels, 
 were a commonplace of Church history. He also 
 gives as an example of the Fathers quoting apocryphal 
 Gospels, while neglecting the true, a saying of our 
 Lord cited by Clement, which we know was in the 
 Gospel according to the Egyptians. Voltaire does
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 133 
 
 not distingiiisli which Clement he means, of Eome, 
 or of Alexandria. Had Voltaire studied the subject 
 at all, he would have found that the second epistle 
 ascribed to Clement of Eome was rejected by all the 
 best scholars, and that Clement of Alexandria expressly 
 distinguishes the sapng as not in the four Gospels.^ 
 Wholly ignorant of Celsus, he speaks as if the 
 Gospels were hardly known to the Pagans till the 
 times of Diocletian. Again, in his Dialogues^ he 
 speaks of " the fanatic who redacted the Epistles of 
 Paul," quoting a passage from 2 Thessalonians ; but 
 he might have knowTi that Paul's Epistles were not 
 tlius to be summarily disposed of, since even the 
 Tubingen School in our days (and the evidence was a 
 century ago the same) admit the first four from the 
 Romans onward, and Renan grants that the Epistles 
 to the Thessalonians are unjustly, and on slio;ht 
 grounds, denied to Paul. Along \vit1i this scepticism 
 a.s to the BiM<\ \'(»ltairc accepts other ancient Ixxiks 
 with little ineredulity. "Sanehoniathoii lived certainly 
 before the time when we ]tl;ice Moses."'' So also 
 he accepts the Zend-avosfa, as ])roving lli.it the 
 Jews derived tlifir dditniie (if angels from I lie 
 Persians, in tlie days of" tlic ( ';i])t i\it \-, iIkhil;!! lie says 
 of this very book, tiiat. one "e.innot i-ead two [)agC3 
 of the .Mbominable tra,sh a,scribe<l lo this Zoroaster, 
 without h;ivinii; eomp.'ission on hnni.in n;itiii<'."' There 
 is also won<lerful ignoran(;e of iiilih- faets. Jle goes so 
 far in one of his Dialogues'^ .18 to say th.il desus "eoidd 
 
 1 Clem. Alex. Strom., iii. § 0.3. '' I i. \k \U. 3 Article " Aclain." 
 
 * Articles " Ange " and " Zoroastrc." '" II. p. 102.
 
 134 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 neither read nor write ;" tlioiigli, if the history be 
 worth anything, the appeals of Jesus to the Old Testa- 
 ment set aside the allegation. In his "Pierre " he makes 
 Peter defend himself before Paul against the charge, 
 not of withdrawing from the Gentiles, but of eating 
 with them ; and he brings in Peter's vision of the 
 sheet as a part of his defence, then and there, in 
 Antioch, whereas it had been adduced long before, 
 and to a different audience, in Jerusalem. Again, he 
 blames " Paul " for circumcising Timothy, after he had 
 written to the Galatians, " If ye be circumcised, Christ 
 shall profit you nothing," whereas Timothy was circum- 
 cised some time before the Epistle was written. Who- 
 ever will foUow Voltaire in matters of Scripture fact, 
 and correct him, has work on hand. He should have 
 remembered that higher interests were here at stake 
 than in the process of Jean Galas, where the necessity 
 of proof kept him accurate. Who can calculate the 
 effect of such recklessness in a country where the 
 Bible is a rare book, and where such a writer can 
 make any assertion current ? 
 
 2. It is to be said, secondly, that Voltaire's scheme 
 of Christianity, including his theory of its success and 
 influence, is incoherent. It is hard indeed to keep 
 him to any one line ; but perhaps the most elaborate 
 of his attempts is in the long essay, " Dieu et les 
 Hommes."^ Here he teaches that Jesus was a Jewish 
 moralist, a "rustic Socrates," "a well-meaning en- 
 thusiast, a good man, who had the weakness to 
 
 ^ Dieu et les Hommes, vol. xx. pp. 1-154, Geneva edition.
 
 UNBELIEF IX FRANCE THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 135 
 
 "^^sli to be spoken of, and who did not love the 
 priests of his day."^ He never thought of found- 
 ing the Christian sect, but lived and died an 
 orthodox Jew, preaching only love to God and men. 
 Who then founded it ? None of his disciples, for they 
 too, even Paul, save where he contradicts himself, 
 keep ^-ithin the limits of the Old Testament, and the 
 fourth Gospel is not an early Christian writing. 
 Where then did tliis foundling religion, cast adrift 
 by its author, find a home, an education, and a second 
 and worse birth ? In Alexandria ; but when, or by 
 what new apostles transformed, Voltaire does not 
 show. This theory, running down from Bolingbrokc 
 to Strauss, though disagreeing with them both as to 
 Paul — a theory whicli makes Plato the real father of 
 Christianity and Philo its unconscious god -father — 
 is contradicted at every |M>iiit — by the absence of 
 sufficiently evangelic elements in Plato ; l)y tlu; 
 presence of alleged Platonic elements from the begin- 
 ning in Cliristianity as reHe(ttc(l in the. Synoptic 
 Gospels; by the existence of an early Cliiisli.in tlicology 
 in declared sfparation from IMatonism as in .Instin 
 Mailyr; and Ity tlic ant iji.-it li)- of ilie New I'lalonisls 
 to distinctive Christianity. How I'l.itonism .slmiild 
 coiuh'Hcend to tlu' name ol" ;i ic)((t(<l .mkI crnciiiiMl 
 Jewish Rabbi, or liou his (liscijijcs, keeping loi- ;i 
 generation to strictly .Jewisli |i;illis, slmnlil tliin tr.in.s- 
 fonn liis doctrine into its opposite, is left uli<illy 
 unex])l;iinei|, ;nnl still less is tli<! success of \\\r .itliiiijit 
 accounted lor. Voltaire irnl«(i| l.rings in, like (iibbon 
 
 ' Vol. XX. I.. 1 jc, |,. 102.
 
 136 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 and Renan, tlic belief in a millennium ; hut this had 
 nothing specially Platonic, as the most Platonising 
 minds in the Church were most averse to it ; and hence 
 Voltaire, almost laying this aside, grants that the 
 belief of a resurrection connected with it is revolting. \ 
 There really then remains nothing ; and Voltaire, who 
 knew enough of crowned heads to understand that 
 Constantine did not profess the faith of Christ through 
 Platonism, or sense of the apparent end of the world, 
 can only say that he was bought over, and that 
 "the money of the Christians made him Emperor."^ 
 The success of Christianity is thus for no one a 
 harder problem than for Voltaire. The doctrine is 
 odious, and the morality commonplace, since every 
 lawgiver must enjoin virtue, " every religion," says 
 he, "has said as much about it as Jesus." ^ This 
 falls below Gibbon, who makes Christian morality 
 a cause of success ; and the c[uestion recurs, how a 
 religion, with so little pith and substance, made 
 its way. This shows how little, in the deepest sense, 
 Voltaire was a great historian. He is dazzled by the 
 grand empires of China, India, and Western Asia ; 
 and the Jews are in comparison a race of brigands 
 and slaves. Jesus comes and is equally weak. " Do 
 you charge God with being made man in vain, with 
 having raised the dead, only to be hanged (pendu) V* 
 Voltaire has thus no eye for Pascal's greatness of the 
 third order, for Milton's " unresistible might of weak- 
 ness," for " the corn of wheat that falls into the ground 
 and dies so as to bring forth much fruit." And yet, 
 
 1 Vol. XX. p. 123. 2 Ibid., p. 123. 3 Dialogues, II. 65. "Ibid. II. p. 21.
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 137 
 
 while reducing Christ to a pale and ineffectual moralist, 
 let us do Voltaire the justice of acknowledging that he 
 thus liberates himself from the charge of personal 
 rancour against Him. As Christ is not the author of 
 Christianity, Voltaire, though sometimes permitting 
 himself to depreciate Him as fanatically expecting to 
 come in the clouds, or weakly sweating blood, still 
 absolves Him from the crimes done in His name. 
 This is one of the reasons why I agree with Strauss, 
 that the well-knowm watchword, " Ecrasez VInfdme" 
 which also is connected with feminine pronouns, does 
 not refer to Jesus personally, but to superstition, or 
 to the Christian Church as an embodiment of it. 
 There is enough, that is violent and even virulent, to 
 make us thankful to be able, conscientiously, to grant 
 such an abatement; though, no doubt, Voltaire in- 
 cluded in his "Infame" much that belonged to the 
 Saviour, all)eit darkened in his followers by human evil. 
 Even against the Christian Church Voltaire sinned ; 
 for, with ;ill ln-r faults, as every negative tliiiikcr of 
 the ])resent day that is wortli arguing with will 
 own, tin' Clii'istian (liiiirli has familiarised society 
 with ideas of jturitv, teinliTness, ami self-sacrifiee, 
 before absent, nml diffused a sense of trutii and rigiit, 
 such as Volfaii'e himself could apjieal to aijfainst her, 
 unknown in aiiciint (Ii'eoec an<l b'^un'.' 
 
 3. As a. iliird .md last except i'»n to A'olt aire's 
 
 ^ For tlio j)hra.'<o Emun VIvfdmr, bpo the corrofipondf'ncc with 
 D'Alf>niV)frt, pasgim. The rca«oiiiiig of Strauss is in his " Voltaire," 
 p, 280- L Strauss is not here original. 
 
 f
 
 138 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 scheme, as opposed to Christianity, I mention his 
 scanty and doubtful recognition of natural reli- 
 gion. The question here comes up, and one which 
 it is not easy to decide, whether Voltaire in his deep- 
 est sense is a Theist or a sceptic. A Theist of the 
 style of Lord Herbert he certainly is not, as the 
 question of worship would never have been made a 
 separate point by him, but set forth as conformity with 
 existing rites, or more probably be resolved into the 
 practice of virtue ; and, further, the question of repent- 
 ance being a satisfaction for sin, is hardly, if at all, 
 raised, as sin against God and repentance have hardly 
 a place in Voltaire's voluminous writings. We come 
 then to the Kantian triad — God, Virtue, and Immor- 
 tality. Certainly, if Voltaire holds any one of those 
 firmly, it is the first ; and yet here there are difficul- 
 ties. In spite of his sounding line, 
 
 " Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait I'inventer," 
 
 and many earnest and eloquent pleadings for a 
 Designing Mind against those who denied final causes, 
 there are shades of uncertainty that trouble the 
 horizon. All along he seems to have held the view 
 of BoHngbroke that we cannot rise to the attributes 
 of God from His works. This apj)ears in his first 
 " Traits de Metaphysique," written for the instruc- 
 tion of Madame du Chatelet, where he gets rid of 
 objections to the existence of God by j)lcading this 
 ignorance of His character ; ^ and in one of his 
 later works (Article " Dieu " in his Dictionnaire) 
 he almost seems to carry this so far as to afiect the 
 
 1 Vol. xxxii. p. 499.
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 139 
 
 argument from design itself, ridiculing the idea by 
 supposing that a mole, seeing a garden-house, might 
 thus conclude that it was put up by an immense mole, 
 or a mayfly infer, in like manner, a gifted mayHy. 
 He elsewhere carries this furtlier by imagining that 
 rats, finding a lodgment in the timbers of a ship, 
 might be equally warranted to conclude that it was 
 built and sent to sea for their benefit/ This may be 
 only one of the extravagances of his ridicule, but any 
 theism that rejected the analogy between man's high- 
 est nature and God, necessarily reposed on unsafe 
 foundations. AVith regard to virtue, the downward 
 tendency is still more visible. Eejecting the view of 
 liberty which he had defended in his earlier cor- 
 respondence with Frederick the Great, he adopts not 
 philosophical necessity, as it has been held by many 
 great philosophers and th(>ologians, but somcthiniT 
 like fatalism, as is plain from these words in liis 
 article " Destin : " "We know well that it d('i)ends 
 no more on us to have much merit niid great talents 
 than to have; well-set hair and iiiir IimikIh." " I 
 have necessarily the ])assion to wiitc tliis, you, tlie 
 pjission to cond<'mii it; W(! arc: Ijoth (■(jiially fools, 
 equally the ]il;i\ t liiiigs of dcsl iiiN." Voltaire would 
 thus unsay all liis own n'|iro;icli('s a^.-iinst llic liiMc, 
 as having ;iii\' absolute worlli. In I If Jirtide 
 " blcntito," ln' t lirows donl)f on wlirllin- ni.in ciiii Im*. 
 punished hcreailer for wli.il lie li;i.s I'oi-^^ol ti ii ; lliiis 
 excluding tlie ide.i of i<-s]»(»nHil)ility as cleavinn; lo the 
 
 * I regret that I have lost the reference to thin passage, ami in the 
 voluminous writings of Voltaire cannot recover it.
 
 140 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 agent not only here (wliich lie grants under human 
 government), but hereafter (under divine), which he 
 doubts or denies. This leads us to the third point — 
 Immortality, where he is, if possible, still more un- 
 satisfactory. Though he nowhere pleads strongly for 
 it, he reoards it as a sublime thing for the soul of 
 man to hope for conjunction with the Eternal Being ; 
 but elsewhere he almost scouts the idea of it surviv- 
 ing the body. " When I am asked if after death 
 these faculties subsist, I am almost tempted to ask in 
 turn, if the song of the nightingale subsists when the 
 bird has been devoured by an eagle." ^ These doubts 
 as to immortality, Condorcet, his first biographer, 
 admits in almost the closing passage of his Memoir ; ^ 
 and Strauss, wdio has admitted also the darkness that 
 is left by him on the moral character of God, and the 
 tendency of his system to fatahsm, sees in a letter to 
 Madame du Defiand, six years before his death, which 
 touches on immortality, " that mixture of pessimism, 
 scepticism, and irony, that marks the peculiar stamp of 
 his mind and character." 1^ 
 
 It is with profound regret that one sees Voltaire 
 thus relaxing his hold on those truths which lie at the 
 foundation of all religion, and to which, had his 
 
 1 Dialogues, II. 97. 
 
 2 The words of Condorcet are these : " He remained in an almost 
 absolute uncertainty as to the spirituality of the soul, and even its 
 permanence after the body ; but as he believed this last opinion use- 
 ful, like that of the existence of God, he rarely allowed himself to 
 show his doubts, and almost always insisted more on the proofs than 
 the objections." — Vol. xxxiv. p. 206. 
 
 3 Strauss's Voltaire, p. 253.
 
 UXBELIEF IN FEANCE — THE E^X'YCLOPEDISTS. 141 
 
 testimony been continued, it might, in the country 
 where his influence was greatest, have assisted escape 
 from his other fatal errors. How little he himself was 
 contented with his own results appears in the gloom 
 shed over his later wTitings, It is not in " Candide " 
 alone, but in others of them, that this sadness comes to 
 light. Thus, in his Dialogue " Les Louanges de Dieu," 
 the doubter almost carries it over the adorer — " Strike 
 out a few sages, and the crowd of human beings is 
 nothino^ but a horrible assemblao;e of unfortunate 
 criminals, and the globe contains nothing but corpses. 
 I tremble to have to complain once more of the Being 
 of beings in casting an attentive eye over this terrible 
 picture. I wish I had never been born." ^ The other 
 ends the dialogue in a hardly more reassuring strnin : 
 " I have never denied that there are great evils on our 
 globe ; there are, doubtless : we are in a storm, save 
 himself who can, but still let us hope for l)etter days ! 
 Where or when ? I know not, Imt if everytliiiig is 
 necessary, it is so that the great Being is jjossessed of 
 goodness. The box of ]*andoi;i is tlic most Ixaiil iful 
 fal>l(Mj{" aiiliijuit \ . iropnwnsal the l»olloiii.'" " Tims 
 the last utterance (ji \ oliaire's system is a, L;roan. 
 "The <'ii(l of tlint mirtli is heaviness." Tlir self'coin- 
 placent dream of Immiin ]Mi(((t iliilil \- wliidi lia<l led 
 him so many years Ix'tore so rudely to irjcci rascal's 
 reduetioii oflmmaii iialiin' fo two rliinfiits^ greatness 
 and misery — has vaiiislied. Tlie gicatness iH gone, the 
 misery alone remains. 
 
 It is a necessary, however unwelronie, task to 
 
 ' Dialogues, II. I'Jl. "■' IMfl., 200.
 
 142 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUllY. 
 
 recall oue of the incidents of Voltaire's last days. 
 He had returned to Paris in 1778, at the age of 
 \/ eighty -four, only to die. The immense outburst 
 of enthusiasm, overtasking his feeljle strength, with 
 innumerable demands of labour, brought the last 
 shadow over all this splendour. At other times the 
 idol has crushed the worshippers, but here the 
 worshippers crushed the idol. He had to face the 
 question whether he would renounce the funeral 
 honours which a straightforward adherence to con- 
 viction and profession would forfeit, or whether he 
 would renew those compliances which he had made 
 when he sought by favour of the Jesuits to enter the 
 Academy, w^hen he built a Church at Ferney with the 
 inscription " Deo erexit Voltaire," and when repeatedly 
 he partook of the Communion, and even, after a 
 struggle upon the question of legal right, forced the 
 parish priest to yield the point of admission to it. 
 Now he had not the moral courage to avoid a dupli- 
 city which in this matter he had himself condemned, 
 and hence the miserable scenes which followed ; the 
 first confession, stiU extant, in which he professed to 
 die in the faith of the Church in which he had been 
 bom, and asked pardon of God and her for any 
 scandal he had ever given ; the attempted second con- 
 fession, interrupted by the attempt of the priest to 
 secure a testimony to Christ's divinity, which Voltaire 
 repelled with the sad last words, " In the name of 
 God, sir, speak to me no more of that man, and suffer 
 me to die in peace ;" and the struggle over the mortal 
 remains to achieve or hinder their interment, ended
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 143 
 
 by the liasty retreat to Scelliercs, where the coveted 
 rites, all but too late, were secured. AVhat impartial 
 man will say that acts like these, any more than the 
 funeral mass which was dictated for him by Frederick 
 in Berhn, where he was suj^reme, were worthy of a 
 leader of human thought, a teacher of the world in 
 truth and righteousness ? Let superstition bear the 
 blame of surrounding the last rites, on their spiritual 
 side, with an unreal and mischievous importance. Let 
 intolerance incur the odium of making them, on their 
 civil side, depend on any restriction of sect, confession, 
 or opinion. Whatever of this kind can be said in ex- 
 culpation of Voltaire (and it does not appear that 
 much can 1)C said), let it be weighed. But on the 
 whole case, no leader of belief or unbelief ever inflicted 
 on it a worse stigma, or did anything which tended 
 more to efface those clcir lionndaries l)etwoen truth 
 and hypocrisy wlii<]i ftithodox and heterodox must 
 alike rcgai'd. I'lie conscience of the woild will not 
 absolv^c the recreant Cliristian confessor ; and not k'ss 
 the clianipion of cniancijjation, w ho slninks in llir last 
 cri.sia from the testimony of a lilctinic, writes on liis 
 name reprobation ami failun 
 
 ^ 
 
 re' 
 
 II. It would be easy to give a lisl of I'lvncli writers 
 wlio occnpy nearly tin* K;iin<' iiosilion in ic^.inl to 
 
 ' The (idcmiiciits connected with Vultuirc'H cdnfcssions and 
 funeral are f^ivcn in the Appendix to CondnrretV Vie de Vftltjiire ; 
 Beuchot'H edition, I'ariH, Dirlot, IH.'M. 'Jlir liif-t ;m<l only ((Uiiiilctcd 
 confcMHion lias been given an trauHlated above. The ori^,'iiial in dated 
 2<1 March, and is in tliese wordn, " Jc nieurs dans la Hainte religion 
 cathojimie ah je huIh ne, expi'rant de la iniHericorde divine, r|iielle dai^Mi- 
 era j»ardonner toute.i ines faiites ; et si j'avais jamais Bcauduli.'ju leyliae,
 
 144 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 
 
 Theism, and hence to Christianity, with Voltaire. But it 
 is more necessary to sketch the character and opinions 
 of those who differ, while still rejecting Christianity, and 
 it will be universally acknowledged that of these the 
 most influential is Eousseau. He is in some respects 
 much nearer Christianity ; but as he also distinctly re- 
 jects it as commonly held, and on the other side 
 atheism, and even scepticism or imperfect Theism 
 like that of Voltaire, it only remains to j)ut him 
 among the Theists, or if we will Deists, though 
 Eousseau gives no evidence of familiarity with 
 English Deism, and would probably have refused the 
 name. He is as original in his religious opinions as 
 in the rest of his history ; and while exerting by these 
 opinions a disastrous influence, which has not ceased, 
 it is separate from the crusade-like movement of which 
 Voltaire is the centre. In truth, Voltaire and Eousseau 
 are as difierent as two great literary men of the same 
 age and language, and general accord in what of 
 religion they rejected, could well be. Voltaire is a 
 philoso'j)he ; Eousseau is an enthusiast. Voltaire sees 
 men as figures in a drama, or in the light of some 
 theory, with little sense of outward nature ; Eousseau 
 opens up new interest in men as men, and has almost 
 created the sense of nature in French literature. 
 Voltaire, as a political reformer, is more a destroyer of 
 
 j'en demande pardon k Dieu et k elle," p. 431. The confession of an 
 opposite tenor, "svliich Strauss prints (Voltaire, p. 341), and which he 
 says was designed to satisfy his attendant Wagniere, who was startled 
 by his master's recantation, does not relieve matters, as Strauss admits 
 the genuineness of the ecclesiastical document. Besides the Deistic 
 one is the first in date, 28th February 1778.
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 145 
 
 abuses ; Rousseau as exalting the equality of man wdth 
 man, while indirectly ministering to socialism, has given 
 a positive impulse to human liberty. Voltaire, in deal- 
 ing with Christianity, has proceeded against it more 
 in the way of criticism and sarcasm ; Rousseau, led 
 mainly by sentiment, has done it so far homage, but 
 by the same sentiment exaggerated, has shut out its 
 usual evidence. Both unhappily have grievous vices, 
 with which living Christianity was incompatible ; and 
 in Rousseau there is morbid self- revelation almost akin, 
 as other parts of his career, to madness. But there is 
 in him, with all his sad faults, no mockery of things 
 sacred, and the iucrediljlc ignorance of Voltaire has 
 in Rousseau, as naturally in an educated Protestant, 
 no place. T.ct it be added tliat much in Rousseau 
 leads l)a<-k to ( 'liristianity, and much can be said to 
 show tliat he wished anytliing ratlK-r tluin to reject it. 
 After tlie full account of Voltaire given, the notice of 
 iiouHHcau may l)e iiioie brief 
 
 Rous.seau (171 '2-1 778) Kjieaks wai inly of his Chris- 
 tian education; but there is little trace of positive 
 diristian <loctrine in what he tells ns of his father 
 and (if his aunts; and we mav fear that alrea(]\- bv his 
 day the old Genevan thetjjo^ry had ^mvcji jijace to a 
 coldly moral diseipline. His 8ud(hii cliaiie^e fdi- the 
 worse as an apj>rentice. his nn'sadventnres, anil his 
 fiifdit into Savov, wliere lie falls into the haiiils of 
 Rome, open the tragedy of his life. J lis eon version 
 to Ivrtmanism at Turin, in his sixteenth year, is not to 
 be ranked with that of I'avh- or(Jibbon. It is only 
 one adventure more in his erratic and aimless career ; 
 
 L
 
 146 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 and his return to Protestantism, a quarter of a century 
 afterwards (1754), is marked by the same sangfroid, 
 and is ascribed by its author to a desire to rehabilitate 
 himself in his rights as a Swiss Protestant, and to a 
 belief that the relio;ion of the citizen should follow 
 that of the country. Whatever liberty may be asso- 
 ciated with liis name, religious liberty is not of the 
 species, unless it be the liberty of indifference in 
 regard to any very dogmatic view of Christianity. 
 There is nothing steadfast even in the warmest of his 
 irregular connections ; and the sending of his children 
 to the Foundling Hospital, even though justified by 
 the alleged parallel of Plato's ideal commonwealth, 
 has not by any of his critics been approved. Almost 
 every literary association formed by him is sooner or 
 later broken up ; and without wading through these 
 voluminous quarrels with Voltaire, with Diderot, with 
 Hume, and with most of his high -placed protectors, 
 male and female, there is evidence enough of irrita- 
 bility and changefulness to make the exalted strain of 
 every opening friendship, as contrasted with the closing 
 tone — in which the whole world is represented as 
 conspiring against the unhappy solitary, and tempting 
 him into evil communications to his ruin — sad and 
 humljling. Yet, so great is the genius of Kousseau, 
 and such his mastery of all the resources of the French 
 language, that, notwithstanding all that is mean and 
 repulsive in the self-drawn picture of a life of impulse 
 and passion, without victorious princijjle — notwith- 
 standing the wild preference of the state of nature to 
 that of civilisation, and other paradoxes of his political
 
 UNBELIEF IX FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 147 
 
 wi-itings, redeemed though these are by the measure 
 of truth in liis "Contrat Social," — and notwithstanding 
 the boundless mirage of unreality which floats around 
 and seems to take up into itself the portion of fresh 
 and living water found in the "Heloise" and the 
 " Emile," his works live as those of Voltaire do not, 
 nor even in the time of his greatest popularity seem 
 to have done. It is the testimony of David Hume, 
 speaking of the time when his own ill-advised con- 
 nection with Rousseau began in 1766, "Voltaire and 
 everj'body else are quite eclipsed by him." ^ And yet 
 by this time all the scandal that was possible had 
 been given, both l»y his democratic and religious 
 opinions, which led to his expulsion from France after 
 the publication of his " lilmilr," in 1762, and from 
 Switzerland in 1765. His later years, after his return 
 in 1767 from I'^ngland, wljcrc he wrote his " C*onfes- 
 sions," an- for a time as uncjuict and wandering as 
 ever; and wlien at la«t he settiis down in Paris for 
 the la.st periled of liis life, from 1770 to 1778, there is 
 a deepening of his sechision, a gradual ]»rogresH, in 
 spite of oeeasirfual literary prodnetion, df his iii< ni.il 
 eccentricity, and at lin;_Mli, litljr nioie than a niontli 
 after Voltaire, and at an age younger by eighteen 
 years, an entranee into the same shadow of deatli. 
 Madame du I)etrand, (he life-long friend of N'oltairc 
 (though no friend of Kousseau), conjoins tlieni in a 
 letter writt«'n four days before Uousseau's deeeaHc, in 
 a style which shows how little of nal heart there was 
 in that brilliant cinlr in which Voltaire had been so 
 ' Burton's Life of Hume, vol ii. p. 221).
 
 148 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 lately all but deified, and the " Confessions " of Eous- 
 seau were " the rage of the world." " There is no 
 longer any question of J. Jacques or of his ' Memoirs ;' 
 nobody knows where all that is gone to. Voltaire is 
 as much forgotten as if he had never appeared ; the 
 Encyclopedists would have liked him to live at least 
 some months longer ; he had a scheme for making the 
 Academy more useful ; he was the leader for all the 
 pretended heaiix esprits, whose design is to become 
 a corporate body, like the noblesse, the clergy, the 
 gown, etc."^ The Christian Church will not thus 
 treat men of such intellectual magnitude, and, while 
 deploring and opposing their errors, will do justice to 
 their powers, and to whatever services they have ren- 
 dered to mankind. 
 
 The vehicle which Eousseau has chosen for the 
 fullest utterance of his creed- is the " Profession de 
 Foi du Vicaire Savoyard," which he has wrought into 
 the treatise or romance on education called " Emile." 
 It is not the less characteristic of him that this pro- 
 fession of exalted faith and virtue is put into the 
 mouth of a character made up, by his own acknow- 
 ledgment, of the lineaments of two priests kno-vm by 
 him in his Turin and Savoy adventures, one of whom 
 was degraded for immoraUty, w^hile the other, who 
 speaks as vicar, professes only to conform to the 
 Catholic Church, and to administer its sacraments, in 
 the sense of natural religion." With these grave 
 
 ^ Letters to Horace Walpole, vol. iii. p. 365. 
 
 2 The names of these two priests — Gaime and Gatier — are thus 
 vouched for by Rousseau on the same page of his Confessions where
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 149 
 
 abatements, the defence of natural religion in the 
 beginning of the fourth book of the "Emile" is 
 not only eloquent but solid. The protests against 
 atheism, against materialism and the mortality of 
 the soul, and against a life given up to impulse and 
 selfishness, without conscience here and retribution 
 hereafter, have rarely been more strongly stated. 
 There is one passage on the being of God which 
 deserves special notice. " The first and the most 
 common view is the most simple and reasonable, and 
 to unite all suffrages needed only to be proposed last. 
 Imagine all your philosophers, ancient and modern, 
 to have first exhausted their eccentric systems of 
 forces, of chance, of fatality, of necessity, of atoms, of 
 an animated world, of a living matter, of materialism 
 of every kind ; and that, after them ;ill, the illustrious 
 Clarke enliglitens tin' world by announcing finally the 
 Bf'ing of l)eings and the disposer of events ; with 
 what universal adniinitioii, with what unanimous 
 applause, would not this new system have liccn 
 received, — so grand, so consoling, so sul)lini(', so 
 fitted to exalt the soul, to give a basis to virtue, and 
 at the sanu- timo so striking, so luminous, so siiu|tl(', 
 and, as it seems to nie, oflriing lewei- thiuL^^s incom- 
 prehensible to the human mind, than one finds of 
 absurdities in every other system. 1 sai<l to niNsclf, 
 'The insoluble objections are common to ;ill. hccause 
 the human mind is too limited to explain them ; they 
 
 M.inds tlio rcconl of the offence of one of tht-m — " ItfuniHsant M. CJaticr 
 avec ^f. Oaime, j** fis dc cca deux di^jncfl pn'troB rnri^^'imil du virniire 
 Savoyard." — OEuvre* do Rntis'.rdu; vol. i. p. 2(i.'). I'flriB edition, 1822.
 
 150 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 prove nothing against any one in particular ; but what 
 a difference in the direct proofs ! ' Ought not, there- 
 fore, that scheme alone to be preferred, which explains 
 everything, and has no more difficulty than the rest?"^ 
 
 Thus far Eousseau, in this work, argues powerfully 
 for the general foundation of theism, pleading also for 
 moral government, though not professing, by the 
 light of nature, to settle all questions regarding 
 penalty in a future life, and only coming short by 
 speaking doubtfully of the need of prayer. In the 
 same spirit he protests energetically in a letter to 
 Voltaire, called forth by his poem on the Lisbon 
 earthquake, against the scepticism founded by him on 
 the presence of evil in the present world. ^ But when 
 we come back in the " !fimile," which has defended so 
 ably natural religion, to Rousseau's examination of 
 the claims of revelation, the eloquence remains, but 
 the reasoning is gone. His principal difficulties are 
 two — the non-universality of revelation, and the im- 
 possibility of conveying it by the medium of a book 
 with clearness and certainty. Here we are back to 
 Tindal, but to Tindal in a manner exalted and made 
 passionate beyond himself Yet Rousseau really adds 
 nothing to what was so well met on the English soil. 
 
 With regard to the non-universality of revelation, 
 Rousseau always argues as if those who wanted it 
 would be judged like those who have it. He admits 
 the inequalities in Providence ; few had felt them 
 
 ^ (Euvres, fimile, vol. ix. p. 20. 
 
 2 a:!uvres. Coirespondance, 18th August 1756, voL xvii. pp. 250- 
 27R. This is one of the most interesting letters in the collection.
 
 UNBELIEF IX FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 151 
 
 more : but why may not this one be added, even 
 under the government of God, that some have not 
 His most precious gift, or have it not yet ? and 
 would there be any other way to redress this in- 
 equality but to clear all sin instantly out of this 
 world, or bring all others down to its level ? If there 
 be mystery in the disease, why not in the application 
 and success of the remedy ? and may there not be in 
 this arrano-ement a hidden o-oodness e^reater than the 
 apparent restraint ? These are the chief difficulties, 
 as relative to God ; and then, with regard to the non- 
 transmissibility of revelation, as relative to man, 
 Kousseau is equally inconclusive. His argument 
 really comes to this, that revelation is not possible, 
 even though God shoidd wdsh it ; for as the first truths 
 are cognisaljle to all iiitiiitivcly, no other truths, as 
 truths of religion, can rise to the same rank. But why 
 need they rise to the same rank in order to be 
 effectual? A fact of history docs not need lo l)e a 
 fact of consciousness in order to be believed, and to 
 be mightily influential. i\Iiracles and prophecy arc 
 credible, even to the vulgar, ])y the moral greatness 
 of the matter in wliidi they are ciiiltcdded, and which 
 at once gives support to them and receives it from 
 them ; not to sny tlmt tlic stn])('ii(h)ns cffcrfs of 
 Christianity itself are a kin* I <•!' iiiii;ic|c,s visiMc In tin; 
 most igii'ii;iiii. ir Uousscaii a|i|)('als to facts of 
 nature, tlnii ( 'hristians apjx'al to ('acts df grace — facts 
 of a second and Ix-tter nature ; ami iIi(iul;1i tlie.se facts 
 are not equal cvi'l'mc to all. llicy are enough to 
 those into whose experience they enter, while they
 
 152 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 have also a voice to others. Nor is it worthy of a 
 great writer to object to revelation because lodged 
 ultimately in a book ; for this is to repeat the error 
 of rejecting God in civilisation, because He is also 
 primarily manifested in nature, and to deny to Him 
 that organ of literature which is the most powerful 
 amoncr men. The difficulties of translations, various 
 readings, diversities among the authors themselves, 
 do not forbid the idea of revelation. Eousseau here 
 acts like a sophist of his old communion, who, to 
 frighten the simple Protestant, descants on dark 
 figures, mutilated books of Scripture, and lost writ- 
 ings that may possibly have contradicted those we 
 still have ; as if the vast multitude of Christians who 
 really use it did not believe in a Bible, which in its 
 parts is vital and saving as well as in the whole, 
 which is superior in its central lessons to all the 
 errors of editors and translators, and which can even 
 convey eternal life by its reproduction in sermons, 
 however weak, that are faithful to its spirit, though 
 they do not literally give back one of its sentences. 
 Eousseau would not have required to read all the 
 "Encyclopedic" before he caught its general diift ; 
 nor did that work lose its unity to those who were 
 ignorant of its detailed authorship. He says in one 
 of his letters in regard to the Bible, " I have told you 
 many times over, nobody in the world respects the 
 Gospel more than I ; it is, to my taste, the most 
 sublime of all books ; when all others tire me, I take 
 it up again wdth always new pleasure ; and when all 
 human consolations have failed me, I have never
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 153 
 
 sought those which it gives in vain."^ Suppose then 
 that this had gone farther, and that as an ordinary 
 Christian, Rousseau had found in this book all that a 
 Christian finds in it, where would have been his own 
 assertion, in regard to a book so exceptional and 
 transcendent, that its origin w^as a matter of obscure 
 criticism, sufficient to occupy a whole lifetime, and 
 requiring us to go to Jerusalem, and to Mecca, and 
 the ends of the earth, to compare it minutely with all 
 other professed revelations, so that, in his own words, 
 " it would be muck for us, if before death came we 
 had learned in what faith we ought to have lived." ^ 
 
 But Rousseau does not stop with his formidable 
 enumeration of difficulties. That unreserve which, 
 with .'ill liis depravation and moral weakness, also 
 belonged to liis nature, leads him honestly to state 
 the internal evidence of the Gosi)el as it impressed 
 him ; and hence that wonderful passage, which is the 
 most striking tribute in tlie history of unbelief, or 
 half-belief, to Cliristianity. " 1 avow to you also that 
 the holiness of the Gospel is an argument that speaks 
 to my heart, and to wliiV-li T sliould even rou^i-ct to 
 find any good i'<'])l\-. S(H' llic liooks of |iIiiIoso[)1i(M*s 
 with ;dl tln'ir |toiii]»; Imw liltic they are Ix'side 
 this! (';iii ;i hook a( oii(;e so siiltliim' ;iiid so 
 simple be tlic woik of hkh ? Is it possible lliat 
 he, wliosc history it is, (•;iii be ;i iii;iii hiiiisdr? 
 Is this tlic tone of ;iii cjitliusiast, oi- ol' an aiubi- 
 
 1 This letter is to M. Vemes of Geneva, of date March 25, 1758, 
 vnl. xvii. p. .383. 
 
 2 Emile, Book IV. CEnvre.;*, vol. ix. p. 112.
 
 154 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 tioiis sectary ? What sweetness, what jnirity, in his 
 manners ; what touching grace in his instructions ; 
 what elevation in his maxims ; what profound wisdom 
 in his discourses ; what presence of mind ; what delicacy 
 and what justness in his replies ; what empire over his 
 passions ! Where is the man, where is the sage, who 
 knows to act, to suffer, and to die, without weakness 
 and without ostentation ? When Plato paints his 
 ideal man covered with every reproach of crime, and 
 worthy of all the rewards of virtue, he paints, feature 
 after feature, Jesus Christ : the resemblance is so strik- 
 ing, that all the Fathers have felt it, and it is not 
 possible for any one to mistake it. What prejudices, 
 what blindness, are not required to make any one 
 venture to compare the son of Sophroniscus with the 
 Son of Mary ? What a distance between the one and 
 the other ! Socrates, dying without pain, without 
 ignominy, easily sustains to the end his character ; and 
 if that gentler death had not honoured his life, one 
 doubts if Socrates, with all his genius, would have been 
 other than a sophist. He discovered, it is said, morality; 
 others before him had put it in practice. He did 
 nothing more than say what they had done ; he but 
 reduced their examples to the form of lessons. Aristides 
 had been just before Socrates had said what justice 
 was. Leonidas had died for his country before Socrates 
 had made the love of country a duty. Sparta was 
 sober before Socrates had praised sobriety ; before he 
 had defined virtue, Greece abounded in virtuous men. 
 But where had Jesus found, among his countrymen, 
 that pure and exalted morality of which he alone has
 
 UNBELIEF IX FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 155 
 
 hold forth the lessons and the example ? In the bosom 
 of the most violent fanaticism the loftiest wisdom made 
 itself heard, and the simplicity of the most heroic 
 virtues honoured the meanest of all peoples. The 
 death of Socrates, philosophising tranquilly among his 
 friends, is the gentlest that one could desire ; that of 
 Jesus, expiring amidst tortures, injured, reviled, accursed 
 by a whole people, is the most horrible that one could 
 fear, Socrates, taking the jDoisoned cup, blesses him 
 who presents it, and who laments him ; Jesus, in the 
 midst of a frightful j)unishment, prays for his infuri- 
 ated executioners. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates 
 are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are 
 those of a God. Shall we say that the gospel history 
 is a fiction ? {inventee ci ijlaisir). My friend, it is not 
 thus that fiction works ; and the deeds of Socrates, 
 which no one doulits, are less attested than those of 
 Jesus Clirist. At l^ottom, this is only to push back, 
 without removing, the difficulty. It would be more 
 inconceival^le that several men had, in harmony with 
 each otlicr, fa1)ricat('d tins book, than that one should 
 have furnished the sul)jcct of it. Never would Jewish 
 authors have cither caught this tone, or aliglifcil on this 
 morality; .niid tlif rjf)S})('l lias mnrks of tnilli so great, 
 80 striking, so })('rfectly illimitable, that the inventor 
 of it would bn more a.stonishing tlian llir Ikio,"' So 
 muf'h was Voltaii'' imntificd by this i)assage, that he 
 
 ^ Tin's rc"iniirkjil)le passage — tlie most remarkable in Rousseau's 
 writinga — is rarely quotcfl in its fulness. It is in the ^fiinile, Book 
 iv., and is part of the Savoy vicar's "Profession dc Foi." — Vol. iv. pp. 
 115-117.
 
 156 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 publicly complained, in one of his writings, of the 
 expression that Jesus had " died like a God." He 
 speaks of its author as a writer of " extravagant ideas 
 and contradictory paradoxes." " Has he seen Gods 
 die ?" he asks. " Do they die ? I do not believe that 
 the author of so much trash has ever written anything 
 so absurd."^ But Rousseau could not be thus put 
 down, any more than the confession that Jesus was the 
 " Son of God" coming involuntarily from lips con- 
 strained by His presence could be repressed by mur- 
 murs of others that resented the exclamation. 
 
 With this we might leave Rousseau, breathing the 
 wdsh (alas ! ineffectual) that his life, his writings, and 
 his lasting influence had been in the line of such a 
 testimony. But there is a farther light cast on what 
 seems favourable to Christianity in this memorable 
 profession, and what adverse, here or elsewhere, by the 
 controversy which it called forth. Rousseau's "Emile" 
 had been condemned by the Parliament of Paris, and 
 also by the theologians of Geneva, and he therefore 
 wrote, to clear his position, his letter to M. Beaumont, 
 Archbishop of Paris, and also his " Lettres de la Mon- 
 tague." In the former of these works he distinctly 
 recognises the immediate witness of the Spirit in dealing 
 with the Gospel narrative, and the superiority of this 
 to all literary controversy ; and in the latter, he explains 
 that his difficulties in regard to the transmission of the 
 Scripture, as stated by the Savoy vicar, were urged 
 
 1 This extract is from the treatise of Voltaire already quoted, Dieu 
 et les Hommes, chap. xxxv. — CEuwes de Voltaire ; Geneva edition, 
 voL XX. p. 110.
 
 UNBELIEF IX FRANCE THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 157 
 
 more in the character of a Romish priest than in his 
 own. In both these waitings he earnestly claims to be 
 regarded as a Christian, and warmly complains of the 
 injustice done him in denpng him this title. At the 
 same time, he enters fully in the second work — his 
 *' Lettres de la Montague" — into the question of 
 miracles, not disputing their possibility, but rather 
 their utility ; and he leaves the fact of their occurrence 
 undecided, while greatly exalting in comparison the 
 internal evidence of Christianity, which again he finds 
 in the moral greatness and absolutely perfect morality 
 of Jesus, apart from doubtful dogmatic speculations.^ 
 The only ofi'ensive part of the Savoy vicar's Profession, 
 which he does not recall or explain, is the objection to 
 revelation on the ground of its want of universality. 
 Though no one coul<l linve divined that this important 
 supplement represented the author's point of view as 
 set forth in his " Emile," it is obvious that, however 
 far the entire explanation, even at the best, is from 
 ranking him with tlie orthodox, it at least separates 
 him by a wide int(>rval from ilic rest of llic Encyclo- 
 pedists ; and in regard to the position and claims of 
 Jesus and His transcendent greatness, places him far 
 above even T'rnnn nufl others of tlint modern school, 
 
 ^ Tlie piiHsaRO in wliich RoUHHonu nlTimiH tlic alisdlutc r()in]il('l(Mie88 
 of the Go.ipel iiioralily m in Lettres ile hi Monta},'nc, I'artii! i. Lcttre 
 iii. "The prcceptH of Phito are often very fluhlinie ; Imt liow greutly 
 does he not aornetimes err, and how far ilo his errors reacli ! As for 
 Cicero, can we helieve that without Plato lliis orator would have 
 attained to his ' Offires' ? The Gospel alone is, as to morality, always 
 sure, always true, always unique, and always like itself." — Q'^uvres, 
 vol. X. p. 249, note.
 
 158 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 who have bceu supposed most entirely to have dis- 
 owned the rude and remorseless unbelief of last cen- 
 tury. It is perhaps not going too far to say that, in 
 a large view, Rousseau (so far as his ultimate creed 
 goes) is a Christian of the school of Channing rather 
 than an Encyclopedist.^ 
 
 III. Only a few words need to be added in regard 
 to the third or last form of unbelief in this period of 
 French history, the Atheistical. This seems in every 
 case to have been connected with materialism, and 
 with fatalism, which have always been the twin 
 sisters of atheism, if not its parents or its children. 
 This is visibly so, in the case of La Mettrie, the very 
 title of whose book, " L'Homme Machine," prepares 
 us for its negative inference as to the being of God. 
 In the case of Helvetius, who may claim a word 
 of notice, though he entitles his work " De rEs2:)rit," 
 or " Mind," yet the whole drift of it is to make mind 
 exclusively the development of matter, and to treat 
 all theology as delusion and superstition. As a work of 
 morals, which it mainly is, nothing can be more gross 
 than its selfishness, though it pretends, in a certain 
 way, to seek the public good. This, however, is no 
 better than the contentment of universal selfishness ; 
 and its strain of virtue is so low that it even appeals 
 to government to promote luxury, and, through 
 luxury, public good, by abolishing all those laws 
 that cherish a false modesty and restrain libertinage. 
 When Helvetius has dismissed God, government is, 
 
 1 See Appendix, Note G.
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 159 
 
 according to liis scheme, the all-creating power that 
 is to take His place, and make the world new. What 
 an idea must a philosophe have had of human 
 nature, who could -vsTite sentences like these : — " The 
 art of the legislator consists in forcing men, by the 
 sentiment of self-love, to be always just to each 
 other." " The legislator is to discover the means of 
 necessitating men to probity, by forcing the passions to 
 bear no other fruits than those of virtue and wisdom."^ 
 This virtue, however, cannot have any respect to 
 the welfare of humanity. That is too w4de and 
 Platonic (respect for convention does not allow 
 Helvetius to say too Christian) a sentiment. The 
 utmost practical reach of man's motives in action is 
 his country ; it is only genius that has to do with 
 all mankind. Thus atheism disowns even humanity ; 
 and in Helvetius the spring is too low to send its 
 waters far al>road. 
 
 Another writer, wliom unha})pily we must rank 
 with the Atheistic party, is Diderot, the joint editor 
 with D'Alembert, in its first period, of the " Encyclo- 
 pedic," and for its last six years (1750-1 7(55) its sole 
 editor. Whether D'Alembert shared this deeper un- 
 belief witli l)ii]<iT)t, as lie (lid to the full Iiis Anli- 
 christian zeiil with Voltaiie, is not certain ; 1ml tlie 
 evidence liardly seems to jtoint to nioiv th.in somc- 
 thinir resembliii"" Voltaire's later indecision and 
 incoherence. As for J)iderot, there is no donbt 
 whatever; and one sees with the (hcpest sorrow, 
 
 ' HflvctiuH, De rEnprit, p. 238. The firxt cclition of Helvetius 
 came out in 1758. The work of La Mettrie had appeared in 1718.
 
 IGO UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 SO strong and vigorous a mind, and one so full and 
 encyclopedic, not only dead, but even hostile, to the 
 highest and most ennobling of all convictions. The 
 moral irregularity of his life — however passionately, 
 by some in our day, the connection between the 
 moral state and the opinions be denied — may have 
 so far tended to this issue ; but when we remember in 
 what a direful element of evil, not only professed 
 Theists, but professed Christians then lived, we may 
 ascribe it rather to a certain consistency of thought, 
 and fearlessness of consequences, that Diderot pursued 
 materialism to its last and deepest landing-place. 
 Yet this solution is also difficult, as Diderot is con- 
 fessed to have shrunk from disclosure, at least in 
 the " Encyclopedic," and to have written for it 
 articles on religion that were accommodated to more 
 orthodox conclusions. However, there is not the 
 least doubt as to the fact of his entirely denying 
 and opposing theistic views, where he thought him- 
 self more free ; and in particular, he is the reviver 
 in more recent times of the argument, as old as 
 Lucretius, that the order of the universe may be 
 accounted for by the innumerable chances arising 
 out of the manifold motions of its parts from all 
 eternity having led at length to the present com- 
 bination, which has proved permanent. This, however, 
 is a mere assertion, which cannot be carried out in 
 thought, by separating the alleged elements of the 
 universe, and then following their motions. It as- 
 sumes the eternity of motion as essential to matter ; 
 and it overlooks the innumerable cases where the
 
 UNBELIEF IX FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 161 
 
 disposition of matter seems the result of will aud 
 
 not of law. To suppose a universe made without 
 
 mind is as reasonable as to suppose an " Encyclo- 
 
 pedie " ^-ithout an editor ; and it might have occurred 
 
 to Diderot, as it did to Cicero, that those works of 
 
 nature, which required the minds of so many savans 
 
 then and since to explore them, could not have existed 
 
 without some greater mind at the bottom : " Quis 
 
 enim hunc hominem dixerit, . . . qui ea casu fieri 
 
 dicat, quae, quanto consilio gerantur, nullo consilio 
 
 assequi possumus ? " ^ 
 
 The only other member of the atheistic group, 
 
 whom we shall mention, is the one who has been 
 
 most influential, though not under his own name. 
 
 This is Baron D'Holljach, familiar to all readers of the 
 
 works of Voltaire, Rousseau, and others of that circle, 
 
 but still more intimate witli Diderot and the section 
 
 of the Ency('lopedists tliat went on to atheism. Any 
 
 mcmbtT of the original company could say of hiiu, 
 
 "(Jaius mine host, and of the whuh; Ecclcsia ; " 
 
 th(^ugli lious.scau breaks away al)out 1757, as he 
 
 says, from the whole ** D'llolbachians." D'Holl)ach 
 
 and Grimm arc the twf) Cormans associntrul with tliis 
 
 cAteric, thouf^ii they are (jermans as nnicli (jlalliciscd 
 
 ill literary tast*; ius PVederick the Great. It was at 
 
 l)'II(»Il»;i(h's tal)lc that David Ifimic, j»r(jfcKsing that 
 
 he had never met an atheist, was told th.it for thr first 
 
 time hi- WHS ill the eonijiany of seventeen.'* The 
 
 work of D'llolbaeh, which preserves his memory more 
 
 than any memoirs or literary correspondence, is his 
 
 ' Df Natura Deoniiii, ii. 38. '*•' Burtau'H Lifu of Iliinie, ii. 220. 
 
 M
 
 1G2 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 systematic exposition of atheism, wliicli appeared in 
 1770, under the title " Syst^me de hi Nature," and 
 with the assumed name of Mirabaud, who had died ten 
 years before, Secretary to the Academy. Of this 
 work it is not necessary to give any special outline 
 or criticism. It is the usual anti-theistic panorama — 
 matter, motion, sensationalism, necessity, extinction of 
 the world hereafter, and sudden appearance of a new 
 world here, born of enlightened education and legisla- 
 tion, ^-ithout priests or tyrants. The force of such 
 a work lies in the ecclesiastical and political rotten- 
 ness of the times. Faith in God was not easy when 
 Louis XV. was his vicegerent, and a hierarchy 
 pandering to court vice and corruption, his oracles ; 
 and as D'Holbach had sanguine confidence, like all the 
 rest, in his own scheme, it is not wonderful that 
 many were impressed even by his cold negations. 
 " There is," says Hume, then in Paris, " a book pub- 
 lished in Holland in two volumes, octavo, called ' De 
 la Nature.' It is prolix, and in many parts whim- 
 sical ; but contains some of the boldest reasonings to 
 be found in print." ^ 
 
 While all this incessant, various, impetuous attack 
 on Christianity and Theism by the highest literary 
 and social powers was going on in France, we look in 
 vain for any such reply l)y the existing Church as 
 came, and so effectually, in England. Never did any 
 great corporate body exhibit such a testimonium 
 paupertatis as the Romish hierarchy at this crisis. 
 I hardly know any book that has preserved any 
 
 1 Burton's Life of Hume, ii. 196.
 
 UXBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS, 1G3 
 
 shadow of reputation, but the Abbe Gucnee's " Letters 
 of Certain Jews " to Voltaire ; ^ and from the Protest- 
 ant Church of that day I do not know of any reply 
 at all. Christianity, as it then was, could not be 
 defended. It would have been a miracle of the 
 WTong kind, had any addition been made to Apo- 
 logetics that would have sheltered the oppressive 
 superstition of the one Church and the meagre 
 rationalism of the other from the blasts of judg- 
 ment. 
 
 It may be questioned, however, whether the teach- 
 ings of the Encyclopedists, in their vast work and 
 out of it, would have been wide and lasting enough 
 to liave produced, at least speedily, a great national 
 revolution, but for another cause. Thr lielp lent to 
 the American peojjle in their War of lnde2)endence at 
 once exhausted the finances of the French nation and 
 created a symj)atliy with lilxrty in a [)ractical form; 
 and th('H(! influences toiiethij- foiccd on a crisis \vlii<li 
 could not hut shatter the whole existing fabric in 
 Church and State. How diflereiitly tlie great Ameri- 
 cnn nation omerircd from thiir tiial ! 'I'hev, too, h.id 
 their nnbeli('f, fostercil and spread l)y French co-opera- 
 tion and Hynijtatliy, and gi'owing also for years out of 
 those J'elai^ian ;in<l rationalisinjj; ttiMlnicics wliiih h;i(l 
 HaddeiH'd thi- last <l;i\'s iif .Idii.ii h;iii Mdw ;i rd-;. I'.iil in 
 the terrible struggle, the rising nation, in its deepest 
 lieurt, fell back upon (lod ; the spirit ol" the Turitans 
 
 ' Tlic " LcftrcH rlt! fnu'lrjucH Juifn " was ono of tin- few workH on the 
 evidences of the Bil»lc, written against him, wliiili Voltaire eonde- 
 Bcendcd to notice.
 
 164 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 prevailed over the spirit of the doubters and iudifFer- 
 entists ; and when peace came, a mighty Christian 
 Church in embryo stood ready to be baptized with 
 the breath of fresh revival, and to spread itself with a 
 growth equal to that of the new-born commonwealth, 
 amidst the rising cities and over the vast solitudes 
 of a continent. Alas for France, that no such pre- 
 serving salt was found in her, no possibility of such 
 an alliance between Christianity and Democracy, as 
 would have met the wants of the new time, and 
 averted the long horrors and agonies of a periodic 
 revolution that doomed France herself as the worst 
 sufferer to endless civil strife and foreign war, and 
 inflicted upon the European equilibrium a shock, 
 which, after well-nigh a century, it has hardly re- 
 covered ! The evil inheritance of St. Bartholomew 
 and the Revocation had to be accepted ; and it 
 was seen how much more deep was the lesson of 
 blood and proscription, than of tolerance which 
 philosophy had preached — a tolerance blended with 
 contempt and scorn, and preached in accents of 
 bitterness rather than of love. It was seen how 
 strangely untrue was the prediction of Voltaire, 
 that when dogmas were removed — the dogmas of 
 religion — morality would be found easy and har- 
 monious ; for new dogmas arose — those of morality, 
 social and political — and the worst deeds were done 
 under the formulas of Liberty, Equality, and Frater- 
 nity. The loose teaching in regard to marriage, and 
 looser practice, bore fruit in relentless cruelty ; and 
 the alliance which was remarked by Dugald Stewart
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 165 
 
 and Sir James Mackintosli, as it had been before set 
 forth by Milton, was blazoned in letters of fire, " Lust 
 hard by Hate." The defence of suicide also made life 
 cheap, not only in the case of those who so numer- 
 ously acted on it, but of society at large. Eousseau 
 had wTittcn the aw^ul sentence in regard to atheism, 
 " Its principles do not kill men, but they hinder them 
 from being born, in destroying the manners which 
 multiply them, in detaching them from their species, 
 in reducing all their affections to a secret egoism, as 
 fatal to population as to virtue." ^ Now it was seen 
 how greatly he had understated the truth, and how 
 surely atheism, and not less the liare theism that 
 detaches God from human symi)athies, is fraught with 
 violence ; for it was under the banner of one or other 
 that in the four hundred and twenty days of Terror 
 the guillotine destroyed four thousand victims. Vol- 
 taire and his associates would doubtless have dis- 
 claimed these atrocities ; but what did their principles 
 do to hinder them ? These things were done in the 
 name of lioason, — first, when, in November 17i)3, the 
 8o-call('(l (joddess of ileason was installccl in Notre 
 Dame; and again, when, in June 171)1, llic feast of 
 the Supreme Being was pre«idc(l over by Robcsjticrre 
 in the Oardrn of the Tnillcrics. 'I'Ik; boundless scorn 
 and disgust with wliicli absurd rites like these, cele- 
 brated in till- midst of inllianism and sl;iugliter, arc 
 handlcfl by Carl) le, might even so far icprcsent the 
 better feelings of the Encyclopedists, who desired no 
 such caricature of their system. But how powerless 
 
 ' fimilc, Book iv. CEuvrcH dc RousHejiu, vol. ix. j>. 12b.
 
 1G6 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 had their system been to prevent such horrors, even 
 should we absolve it from all tendency to produce 
 them ! Nor can we fail to see in these very excesses 
 a demand for a visible and embodied religion, such as 
 the philosoi)hers were wholly unable to sup]3ly. The 
 last thing that they would have expected was a new 
 ritual of the God of Nature decreed amidst barbarities. 
 They looked rather to a mild decay of Christianity 
 under the autumn sun of Reason, till, without pluck- 
 ing off the leaves of its old worship, they might see 
 these cover only the philosophic fruits. " We have 
 never pretended," says Voltaire to D'Alembert, " to 
 enlighten the cobblers and the maid - servants ; we 
 leave that to the apostles." ^ But now had come a 
 universal dispensation of reason, not only to fill, but 
 to shake the whole house, and leave nothing standing 
 that did not own reason for its source. The Pentecost 
 of unbelief had come ; and what were its creations ? 
 The failure is decisive in the history of the world ; for 
 there never can be a better moment to inaugurate a 
 new creed, a new ritual, even a new and revolutionary 
 calendar ; and if these were all dead-born, or born to 
 die, does not Deism as a final world-worship resign 
 the field ? A still deeper cause for this miscarriage 
 was indicated when, after the Eeign of Terror, the 
 first man of the Directory, La R^veillere-Lepeaux, 
 attempted in 1797 to establish the higher Deism, 
 called Theophilanthropie. He had read a paper on 
 the subject before the Institute, and asked the opinion 
 of Talle}'Tand upon it. "I have but one observation 
 
 ^ Correppondance, 2d September (vol. xliii. 294).
 
 UNBELIEF IN FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 167 
 
 to make," said the critic. " In order to found His 
 religion, Jesus Christ was crucified and raised again ; 
 you ought to attempt as much."^ This was the incur- 
 able weakness. Theophilanthropists, Deists, Atheists, 
 as they did not beheve in miracles, so they did not 
 beheve in martyrdom. They could die for liberty, 
 but not for religion. That was still left to Christians. 
 When it came to the cross, they were ready to exclaim, 
 as Voltaire of the crucifix, " Take away that gibbet ! " 
 After these thirteen years of storm and tempest, 
 " blood and fire and vapour of smoke," all illustrating 
 the new Age of Reason, nothing remains but a mili- 
 tary dictatorship ; the old " Louis Quatorze " days 
 returned, with as strong a reading of the words, 
 " L'etat c'est moi ! " ; victories consoling for liberties ; 
 and the Revolution with the E najcloj^edie brouglit 
 under the triple crown, only depressed so fiir as not to 
 overtop the soldier's helmet. Could the licroes of 
 emancipation liavc welcomed tin's, unless, like Vol- 
 taire, at the last extremity, they were prepared to lie 
 down on the ])osom of tlie Church, and ask pardon for 
 h.'iving scandaliseil In r'? Rnf there is evidenec that 
 much pojiular feeling welcomed the retuiii ; and llic 
 "Genie du Christianisme" of ('hate;mliri;ind, wliieh 
 came with the year of the Concordat (1802), gave it 
 ekupient (ixpressidn. FiCt us acknowledge the power 
 of this book, which, with the force of (niginal genius, 
 brought new anns into the field, enlarging the argu- 
 ments for theism by the scenes ;iiid wonder.s of the 
 
 ' Tlie anecdote m t<jM by CJuizot in his " Medifations sur lYtal 
 actuel (le la Religion Chrt-tiennc." Paris, 18GC. Pages 1, 2.
 
 1G8 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 western world — savannahs, forests, starry solitudes — 
 where the sense of God overpowers the soul ; following 
 the track of Christianity through ages as the mother 
 of arts, of laws, and of civilisation ; and showing how 
 its doctrines and hopes meet and nourish the deepest 
 wants and longings of the heart. Yet, while re-allying 
 genius to faith, and turning the flank of unbelief at 
 an unexpected point, we cannot pronounce this a 
 satisfactory apologetic for Christianity. It is too 
 mediseval and sacerdotal. Its romanticism runs into 
 a glorification of what cannot be excused, and a 
 defence of what cannot be retained. Its helps from 
 the New World are too traditional and fanciful, for 
 the Jesuit labours among the Indians have hardly 
 stood the test of time ; and it has missed the best 
 lesson of all, and the most hopeful for France and 
 mankind, the spectacle of a Christian people free and 
 yet loyal, with the Bible for the bond of the family 
 and the strength of the State — breaking up the wild- 
 erness, yet retaining the records of all progress, and 
 dwelling in tents with the fathers of the world. 
 
 Thus we have in this revived spirit of belief, 
 always running into sad reaction, and in the per- 
 sistent spirit of unbelief, which all the failures and 
 abortions of the Revolution and successive eras have 
 not tamed and beaten down, the two forces, delivered 
 over into this century, whose life-and-death wrestle 
 with each other has marked the history of France 
 through all its fourscore years. Do we see any 
 prospect of decisive victory or conciliation ? I dare 
 not say it ; nor, terrible and humbling as their
 
 UNBELIEF IN FEANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 1G9 
 
 struggle is, with its action ou the whole religious, 
 political, and social life of the world, do I desire its 
 cessation, save in one way. A France victoriously 
 unbelieving ; a France victoriously Eomanist ; who 
 dares face either alternative ? Must the extremes not 
 almost by this time despair of success ? Is not their 
 meeting -point prepared in that evangelical Protest- 
 antism, which, alas ! they alike despise ? Here the 
 Romanist would find reason without giving up faith, 
 and the Encyclopedist faith without gi^^ng up reason. 
 Here the Romanist would satisfy his love of authority 
 in a living tradition, and the Encyclopedist his love 
 of criticism in an ever -fresh inquiry. Here the 
 Romanist would find a corporate body that met his 
 sense of unity, and the Encyclopedist an individual 
 development that met his craving for variety. The 
 divine principle which the one exalts would not 
 absorb the human which the other cherishes, and the 
 eternity of truth would be reconcOed with the march 
 of freedom. Is this a vision oi- a prophecy? And 
 ought not the Protestant Church to open its heart 
 and its gates as wide as the gospel itself will sniictlun, 
 to receive guests from sudi oj»posite (juarters to its 
 sanctuary of peace? Then tlir nalioti of Europe; that 
 wants oneness most wmiM have it most fully, and 
 the schism of the sixteenth rcntury woiihl be the 
 healing of our own. 
 
 Let us not forget our obliirations as a nation to 
 God in conncf'tion with the rise ami [iicvaK'nce of 
 uiibeliif" in I'Vanrc, and the nsolutionary inovcnienL 
 to which it tended. Wc no doubt suffered much
 
 170 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 tliroiigli tlie contagion of evil principles, and the 
 troubles and wars in which, not without our own 
 fault, we were involved. Yet the measure of truth, 
 of a political kind, however mixed up with errors, 
 quickened our national life, and arrested a tendency 
 to reaction and tyranny ; and we have reason to be 
 thankful if we were able to choose the good and 
 refuse the evil. Above all, in the wild tumult of 
 unbelief and license which marked the later passages 
 of the Eevolution, a counteractive was found to 
 kindred proj)ensities in our own country ; and what 
 the controversy with Deism had failed to do was 
 now accomplished. A sensible change took place in 
 the current of public opinion, and the revival which 
 Methodism had so auspiciously begun was helped 
 forward in many directions. In reply to the defiant 
 blasts of ungodliness and atheism, proclaiming their 
 reign as from the summit of the world, our great 
 missionary societies were instituted, and sent forth 
 their messengers to its extremities. An electric im- 
 pulse shot through the English-speaking Church in 
 every land, and soon extended to other Protestants. 
 Faith wrought by love in the abolition of the slave- 
 trade, in prison philanthropy, and in similar move- 
 ments. As if the shock had awakened the deepest 
 genius of our nation, our very literature started on a 
 new career, with the Bible at its head, of which our 
 greatest writers were not ashamed. The pulpit rose 
 to a new elevation, and Christianity recovered its 
 social influence in the home, the school, and the 
 commerce of life. Our giant wars did not stay the
 
 UNBELIEF IX FRANCE — THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 1*71 
 
 movement ; and though peace brought its troubles, 
 Christian plans and labours went still forward. Thus 
 did God make " a decree for the rain and a way for 
 the lio^htnins of the thunder," and the volcanic fires 
 in France guided us back into the way of peace. 
 Nor did the revival fail to revisit the land whence in 
 such guise it had come, and what reached us as a 
 menace and a danger returned as a safeguard and a 
 blessing. Thus may the sufferings of nations be 
 redeemed ; and that which is paid at the longest date 
 may bear the largest interest.
 
 LECTUKE V. 
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 
 
 Differences of Rationalism from English and French unbelief — 
 Popular philosophy — Bahrdt ; Critical School — Decay of ortho- 
 doxy — Semler — Eichhorn — Canon of the Old Testament — 
 Origin of the Gospels — Meagre doctrinal creed — Paulus — 
 Naturalist theory — Reimarus — " Wolfenbiittel fragments " — Plan 
 of Jesus and his disciples — Lessing : his religion a problem — 
 Concealment of the Fragmentist — His critical position — "Edu- 
 cation of the Human Race" — " Anti-Goetze " — "Nathan the 
 Wise " — Alleged Pantheism ; Ethical School — Kant : defects of 
 his " Religion innerhalb dor Grenzen der blossen Vemunft " — 
 Recovery of Germany from Rationalism. 
 
 Though the history of unbelief in Germany during 
 last century is connected with the histories of un- 
 belief in England and in France, it is as unlike them 
 in some important respects as they are unlike each 
 other. There cannot be a doubt as to the connection 
 of German unbelief with its two earlier forms. Lechler, 
 in his " History of English Deism," has given a long 
 list of the Deistical works that were translated into 
 German, with the English replies to them, before 
 1760. As Voltaire was a link of connection with 
 England, so he was with Germany, through his 
 friendship with Frederick the Great, and his resi- 
 dence at his court from 1750 to 1753. The issue of
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 173 
 
 this indeed was an}i:hing but brilliant for Voltaire, 
 but tlie declared free-thinking of Frederick cannot 
 but have acted adversely on the faith of his people ; 
 and, accordingly, Lechler gives the testimony of an 
 eyewitness, who, in the Seven Years' War, had seen 
 highly-placed officers in the Prussian camp diligently 
 reading Collins and Tindal.^ There were other 
 features of resemblance which have been noticed. 
 As there had been a reaction in England against 
 Puritanism, so there was a reaction in Germany 
 against the Pietism of Spener and Francke ; and as 
 there had been a philosophy which had been used, 
 though unfairly, to help on free-thinking — that of 
 Locke in England, and afterwards, with less misappli- 
 cation, that of Condillac in France, — so the philosophy 
 of Wolff, though not l)y any materialistic bearing, yet 
 by its tendency to exalt the power of reason, and 
 also l)y tin; stress it laid on natural religion, had 
 helped to l)cget rationalism in Germany. All this 
 may have in it some truth ; l»ut 1 am struck with 
 the unlikeness of the German to the English and 
 French niovrmfnts — thmic^di certninly they are of the 
 Bame fwmiiy — rather than with the likeness. In tlic 
 Jirst place, the German movem<'nt does not rise out of 
 grievances. Il mii-t li;i\f ;iiiscii out (tt tlic w.iiit ot 
 faith; ])ut this Im'l not associiitcd willi it any sense 
 of restraint or oppression. I n England, the existence 
 
 ^ This eyewitncsH M-as Thorsclmiiil, fdilur nf tlio QtTniaii Frei- 
 (lenkcr Bililiotliok, wliich contained IniiisliitionH jukI rcfiitntionH of the 
 Eni^li.sli Frce-tliinkera, and cuiie rnit from 1705 lu 17G7. — Luchlcr 
 p. 451.
 
 174: UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 of a body of privileged ecclesiastics was assailed as 
 an exception to general freedom ; and in France, the 
 name of the Church was the synonym of all social 
 tyranny and injustice. But in Germany no complaint 
 of this kind was heard among the abettors of ration- 
 alism ; and they sought no redress of a political 
 nature, with the threatened alternative of revolution. 
 Secondly, the controversy was not conducted by men 
 outside the Christian body protesting vehemently 
 against its corruptions, and pleading for its dissolu- 
 tion as a religious institute, or its radical transforma- 
 tion. There was nothing of the character of an 
 invasion or onset upon a book, or system, or entire 
 order of men ; at least this was not at all the pre- 
 vailing character, as in England and France. The 
 changes were made by men still professing to retain 
 the Bible, and to treat it with great respect ; who 
 belonged as much to the Church and to Christianity, 
 according to their own representations, as before ; and 
 who, with very few exceptions, were of that clerical 
 order, which in England, and not less in France, 
 was the mark of endless denunciations and sarcasms, 
 as the home of priestcraft and spiritual jugglery and 
 tyranny. Hence a third difference between the 
 German movement and the foregoing ones, viz. 
 that the results were far more of the nature of a 
 compromise. In England the Deistical modifications 
 were wholly rejected, and the Christian Church 
 emerged stronger in faith at every point. In France 
 the creed of both Romanist and Protestant remained 
 unafi"ected, and the chief visible result was a political
 
 ■ UNBELIEF IN GERMANY RATIONALISM. 175 
 
 convulsion. In Germany, on the other hand, while 
 the form of Christianity was retained, and its general 
 historical basis and institutions adhered to, the move- 
 ment mainly issued in lowering the tone of faith in 
 wide circles within the Church, and in leading to 
 the denial of those articles which seemed contrary to 
 reason. Hence this result has been called Naturalism 
 or Rationalism rather than Deism ; for so much of 
 Christianity was conserved, that the clergy and others 
 who went through the change never thought of 
 rejecting the name of Christ, and they even found 
 it convenient to retain the old confessions and hymn- 
 books (with some dilution of the latter), though all 
 the while the position of most of them agreed better 
 with the views of the English Deists than with those 
 of the Augsl)urg Confession or Heidelberg Catechism. 
 German Rationalism was in this respect a phenomenon 
 similar to the Unitarianism of the New England 
 States, as that grew l)y an internal process of decay 
 out of the Puritanism of the seventeenth century ; or 
 lik(; the Broad Churcliism of more recent times, which 
 denies or abates the .su[>friiatura], and yet professes, 
 even to its extreme verge, a faith of soim; kind or 
 other in Cliristianity. 
 
 Tln'K(; an; tli<' ])riii('i]»al (lillrroncos, l>iit oilier 
 subordinate ones may Itc, noticed. TIm' (Jcnnau 
 movem(;nt towards unbelief is nnieli nmre learned 
 than cither the Kni^lish or Frencli. it was conducted 
 by tlieologians fully ti-aincd, ami not as in I'jigland 
 by men \\ii<t liail lnoken flow ii, oi' were amateurs, or as 
 in France by great, but in (his department unskilled,
 
 176 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 popular writers. Hence, while there has been much 
 haste and prejudice, there has not been, or not often, 
 the same lamentable ignorance ; and there is also, on 
 the whole, a more reverent spirit, and comparatively 
 little of that impurity by which French literature, 
 even in its highest representatives, is here disgraced. 
 Naturally too, as the Deist without makes the worst 
 case he can against the Bible, the Kationalist 
 within says the most he can in its favour. It is also 
 to be noticed that Atheism and Pantheism do not 
 appear on the roll of eighteenth-century unbelief in 
 Germany. It is only with the doubtful exception 
 of Lessing, that Pantheism asserts itself ere the 
 century has run out ; nor has Atheism become a 
 professed creed till our own days. How this is to 
 be accounted for does not belong to this inquiry. It 
 was natural for Rationalism first to take the field, and 
 try its strength. When this failed, other and more 
 desperate counsels obtained a hearing. We are there- 
 fore here concerned with Rationalism, or with the 
 Deism that underlies it, or falls below it, and with 
 this alone. 
 
 It is not easy to make any classification of the 
 Rationalism of Germany, as it developed itself from 
 about the year 1750 to the close of the century within 
 which our vision is confined. Many names of course 
 must be omitted, and only types can be selected. 
 This being understood, perhaps we may reduce the 
 various and sometimes complicated phenomena to three 
 heads — viz., first, Popular Rationalism, sometimes 
 called popular philosophy ; secondly, Critical Ration-
 
 UNBELIEF IN GEKMANY — EATIONALISM. 177 
 
 alism ; aud thirdhj, ctliical rationalism. Under the 
 Jirst class, fall men like Dr. Carl F. Bahrdt ; under 
 the second, names like Semler, Eichhorn, and Paulus, 
 to whom we may add Lessing, and as a cross between 
 the two, and as associated with Lessing, Keimarus, 
 the Wolienbiittel Fragmentist ; while under the third 
 stand Kant and those of his school. It is but a 
 rough division ; but it may serve to give some order 
 to our discussions ; and it follows generally the track 
 of development. 
 
 I. Of the men of the popular philosophy, a 
 school of which Dr. Carl F. Bahrdt is the latest and 
 most notorious product, it is not necessary to say 
 mucli. 'fhey claimed to take the place of Wolf and 
 hi.s disciples, eliminating the more abstruse and specu- 
 lative element derived from T^cibnitz, ;iii(] also the 
 lii<fht'r Clui.stiaii (•li.'UH'iil, wlmli \\ oU' li.id retained. 
 Their tendency in philosophy is to cinpiricisiii ; in 
 ethics to utilitari;inism ; ;ind in rcli^iou to Deism. 
 Their headquarters was Bciliii, wlnrc, in 1705, tlie 
 Ixtokscllcr Nicolai estabHsheil his magazini', sup})orted 
 liy till- th('olon;i;iii I''bcrh;i nil . the ;iuthoi- of the "New 
 Apology for Socrates," hy Moses MciKhlssohn, the 
 Jewisii re})resentative "( I lliiiiiiniii ion, ;iiiil lixoMicis. 
 Tills school ( iiiiM' nearest iIm' l"n ndi, in its so-called 
 y1 '//'/:/a/'"//7. its exaltal ion (if cull iiic, mid itss.-inguine 
 confidi'iice in ni;iii's perject ibilily by edncil kui, ;inil l»\' 
 a rational regar<l to his own lia[tpiness, Ui this sjtiiit 
 Bahrdt is to be taken as the exaggeration. Boin in 
 1711, in Saxony, In' liad been ])astor and ]>rofess<ii' in 
 
 N
 
 178 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Leipzig, till liis irregularity of life drove him away ; 
 after which, wandering from place to place, he found 
 for ten years a refuge in Halle, where he at once 
 delivered lectures, and kept a coffee-house ; till, after 
 other adventures in Prussia, including an imprison- 
 ment, he died in 1792. His work, which bears the 
 lofty title, " System of Moral Eeligion for the final 
 tranquillising of Doubters and Thinkers, to be read by 
 all Christians and non-Christians," was published in 
 1787, at Berlin, with a dedication (to the King of 
 Prussia) as grandiose as its title. But this book, 
 which doubtless contains the substance of its author's 
 lectures at HaUe and elsewhere, is really more rational 
 than his career and style might have led one to 
 anticipate. It is a system of Utilitarianism or Search 
 after Happiness. But it makes happiness depend on 
 God, and it argues well for His existence in the usual 
 way, and also for the immortality of the soul, and a 
 moral life in preparation for the future. Where it 
 totally fails is in reducing sin to a minimum, curable 
 by suffering and by rejDentance, and in excluding the 
 whole Bible doctrine of redemption. Duty sinks also 
 low, and prayer is merely subjective in its effects. 
 Christ is only the greatest of teachers and martyrs ; 
 though Bahrdt departs from the French unbelievers 
 in asserting so much as this, and in closing his account 
 of him with an apostrophe which so far agrees with 
 that of Rousseau : "0 thou great godlike soul ; no 
 mortal can name thy name without bending the knee, 
 and in reverence and admiration feeling thy un- 
 approachable greatness ! Where is the people among
 
 [JXBELIEF IN GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 179 
 
 whom a man of this stamp has ever been born ? How 
 I enxj you, ye descendants of Israel ! Alas that you 
 do not feel the pride which we who call ourselves 
 Christians feel, on account of one so incomparable 
 being sprung of your race ! . . . That soul is most 
 depraved that knows Jesus, and does not love him." ^ 
 It is something to hear as much as this even from the 
 mouth of an erratic German rationalist ; and to the 
 credit of Germany, it must be said, that even its 
 rationalism — as distinct from scepticism — has not 
 often sunk below this strain ! 
 
 II. The critical school had a far greater influence 
 in forminff the German nation to rationalism than the 
 ])opular philosophy, or the general spirit of literature. 
 It was in the German Universities, where the future 
 occu]naits of the ])ul])it were traiiR'(l, that the deepest 
 fountaiuhead of rationalism was to be souglit. At 
 tlic Reformation a mighty influence went forth from 
 tin; ITnivcrsities ; and tliis lins continued down to our 
 own times, tlioui/li it is imw limit id liy the creation 
 of a new force in an ind('[»('ndent career in jtolitical 
 life. At tlie time wlnii \\\r rationalistic, movement, 
 fed by diflerent sources, W{i8 in its commencement, it 
 was unfortunatf! for the iniuic welfare of the Vvo- 
 testant Cliuieh, that the ablest scholars and men most 
 fitted in oiIkt respects to form the Jiatioii.il niiiid, 
 were, if not alienated from i)ositive Christianity, not 
 warmly, much less enthusiastically, devoted to it. 
 There were great scholars, but nowhere a great 
 
 ^ Moralieche Rclipon, vol. i. p. 71.
 
 180 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Christian leader among the theological professors ; 
 and ere long the scholars who were in the front rank 
 either became silent or avowedly hostile. A great 
 scholar like Bengel at this crisis, a great character 
 like Spener, with even less of scholarship, restored to 
 life, especially if assisted by master-spirits among the 
 younger men, might have retrieved the battle. But, 
 as it was, the weight of older scholarship was void of 
 earnestness, and that of the rising genius and learn- 
 ing, inclined, by false principles, critical or philosoj^hi- 
 cal, the wrong way, so that a career was entered upon 
 which could not stop till it reached the bottom. It 
 would be wrong to say of such elder scholars as 
 Baumgarten in Halle, Ernesti in Leipzig, or John 
 David Michaelis in Gottingen, that they were ration- 
 alists. They resembled very much the theologians of 
 the Church of England who repelled Deism ; and in 
 the same place would probal)ly have acted the same 
 part. But they had lost somewhat of faith in the Bible 
 as a supernatural product ; and it had become to them 
 more a great and transcendent classic than a living 
 revelation. They were so familiar with the historico- 
 grammatical interpretation of it, justly urged by 
 Ernesti within its own limits, that they tended to 
 forget that there was more than history and grammar 
 in the case, and that a higher kingdom was entered 
 by this gateway. In a younger mind, not without its 
 serious feeling and sympathy, but still more blind to 
 the Divine side of the Bible and more keenly alive to 
 the human, relpng still more upon philology and 
 history, and more averse to any recognition of spiritual
 
 UNBELIEF IX GERMANY RATIONALISM. 181 
 
 help, such as had been contended for by the school of 
 Spener, this tendency became decisive, and in the 
 career of Semler marks an epoch. This theologian, 
 brought up in Halle amidst pious influences, gradually 
 goes over to what may be called the theology of the 
 letter, and from the commencement of his professor- 
 ship in this University, in 1752, becomes, as he would 
 have said himself, more and more free from traditional 
 influences. It is impossible to notice or even simply 
 to mention his various works ; but one of them, his 
 treatise ou the "Furnishing of a Theologian " ^ casts 
 much light, not only on his own position, but that of 
 others in the German Church, when it was published 
 in 17G5-G. Tlicre is an extreme over-valuing of 
 jdiilological a]»paratus, and of wide-extended church- 
 historical details, especially drawn from the first 
 Christian ci-nturies, such as the author pours out 
 from his Ixnindh-ss memory. The Bil)le seems to 
 Hf»at amiflst tliis mass of critical and historical matter, 
 and to be almost sul)merg('(l l)y it. Thr princi])l(' is 
 jmshed greatly too far, of" juflgiii^:: rvciy ]);iit of 
 Scripture by its own context, so tlial tlif Old Testa- 
 ment ])eeomes little better than a book for the Jews ; 
 and the umlerlying unity of the New Testnnient also 
 suffers, ('lassie usage is made to dominate Seiiptuie 
 teacliinf: and thus the Bible is reduced to the |r\( I of 
 nature. In haiTiiony with this tendency, all tlii<»UL,^h 
 the innumerable ("hureh histoiy references, the liber- 
 ality of culture seems to consist in In iiiir receptive 
 of eveiy fashion of doctrine regarding the Tiinity, or 
 1 Institutio Brevior ad Libcralcm Erutlitioncm Theologicnm.
 
 182 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Grace, witli ci leaning, however, ratlier to Ariiis than 
 to Athanasius, and to Pelagius than to Augustine. 
 Yet Semler has also his connections with orthodoxy. 
 He speaks affectionately of Luther, Melanchthon, and 
 Camerarius, as his masters. When he brings in the 
 Socinians, and acknowledges their merits in interpret- 
 ation, it is not, as an English Deist would infallibly 
 have done, to make a side stroke at their opponents, 
 for he faithfully criticises Socinus's book " De Serva- 
 tore," and charges it with one-sidedness and prejudice, 
 and he calls attention to the disao-reements in inter- 
 pretation among the Socinians themselves.^ We thus 
 see how Semler had not worked out his own scheme 
 to its consequences ; and the same thing appears in 
 his treatment of Dr. Bahrdt, when the latter attempted 
 to enter the University of Halle as a divinity pro- 
 fessor ; for it was by Semler's influence with the 
 Faculty, in a great measure, that this proposal was 
 defeated, and the example w^as thus given that ration- 
 alism did not regard toleration as unlimited. 
 
 The work of Semler was carried forward by others, 
 but by none of so much learning and ability as Johann 
 Gottfried Eichhorn (1752-1827), who, from 1774 pro- 
 fessor in Jena, and then from 1788 in Gottingen, 
 marks in the latter place the lowest point of depres- 
 sion between Michaelis and Ewald. And yet Eichhorn 
 was by no means a vulgar rationalist, but one filled 
 with the highest admiration of the literary qualities of 
 the Old Testament, and resolute in defending it as a 
 rehgious document unrivalled in its time as a vehicle 
 
 Semler's Brevior Institutio, ii. § 26.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY RATIONALISM. 183 
 
 of trutli and goodness. Unhappily, in Eicliliorn the 
 idea of inspiration is entirely wanting. Of the super- 
 natural in Old Testament history there is the faintest 
 lingering trace. ]\iiracles have no existence, and are 
 exaggerations of natural phenomena ; as, for example, 
 the falling of the walls of Jericho represents the effect 
 of a sudden assault, along with a shout, when the 
 marching round six times had put the garrison off their 
 guard ;^ and the escape of Jonah is possibly the result 
 of his ali2;htino; on the back of a sea-monster that 
 carried him to the shore. ^ Eichhorn, however, holds 
 as much as can be reconciled wdth a merely natural 
 theory of the origin of religion. Moses having attained 
 (he does not explain how) to the conviction of the 
 divine unity, becomes the missionary of that idea, and 
 the leader of the nation that had grown in Eg}q')t. 
 The divine communications that have not reality for 
 us, or reality only as natural discoveries of truth, had 
 a higher reality for them. They acquired Canaan by 
 natural means, but }-('t their conquest, like every 
 advance in civilisation, was justified ])y history, and, 
 in that sense, divine I'lophccy, in the supernatural 
 sense, did not exist among them ; l)ut, accoi-ding <<> the 
 general law of icligions, th(!y had their oracles, purer 
 and nol)l(r tli;in those of any dassir-al peo])lo. The 
 propliets were tli<ir iiionil i-croiiucrs, strong in the 
 moral ideas of rrtiibnt ioti as a]»]»li(;ibl(' fo nalions, and 
 henee divining the history of otlici- iicopjcs and tlnir 
 
 ^ Eiclihoni, ?]iiiloitung in daa Altc ToHtntnon), vol. iii. p. 402. 
 Fourth oditifm. GottinKcn, 1823. 
 
 ^ Eicliliom allowH Iktc ji fcubwcjuent legcmlary flrcHsini^ nf llic 
 naked fact. — Vol. iv. p. 3-jy.
 
 184 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 own witli something like preternatural sagacity, and 
 continually enlarging their religious horizon till they 
 look forward to something like a golden age, in which, 
 in connection with a descendant of their kings, the evils 
 of the present arc to be redressed, and a better age 
 ushered in. In all this, as will be seen, there is no 
 doctrine of redemption in the orthodox sense, and 
 Eichhorn entirely misses the character of the Jewish 
 dispensation as a preparatory, a typical, and a develop- 
 ing economy, designed to awake the sense of sin, and 
 to satisfy it by salvation. In this respect he falls far 
 even below Ewald, who, however vague his doctrine of 
 the supernatural and of redemption, has penetrated to 
 the idea of the Mosaic economy as one of grace, and 
 to the view of the Messiah as a perfect Being, and a 
 divinely-sent Deliverer. 
 
 AVhile Eichhorn is thus low and even dreary as to 
 the central parts of his scheme, it is wonderful how 
 often he stops short in his criticism of those results, 
 which some who have followed him have pronounced 
 imperative. He contests the later chapters, and indeed 
 some others, of Isaiah,^ and places the last shape of 
 Daniel in the Maccabean period, though he allows an 
 earlier authorship for the first six chapters, and, curi- 
 ously enough, ascribes the last not to any patriotic 
 zeal against Antiochus, but to mere (though innocent) 
 fiction, or history assuming the form of prophecy.^ 
 But he stoutly contends for the historic character of 
 the Pentateuch, while prosecuting large researches into 
 Elohistic and Jehovistic parts of Genesis ; and he main- 
 
 1 Einleitung, voL iv. pp. 82-90. 2 ibic[,^ {y^ 508-512.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY RATIONALISM. 185 
 
 tains that the last four books contain nothing, roundly 
 speaking, that may not have been written by Moses, 
 or some of those about him, and under his eye ; wliile 
 the whole Pentateuch, with some less important later 
 insertions, was finally combined out of these earlier 
 materials after the conquest of Canaan and before 
 Samuel/ So also he does not allow nearly so much as 
 De Wette and others contend for of difference between 
 the Books of Samuel and Kings, on the one hand, and 
 of Chronicles on the other. ^ He is willing to grant a 
 multitude more of Psalms to David than is admitted 
 by Ewald ; and even the Book of Job, due to some 
 extra- Israelite source, or some Israelite in Idumean 
 regions, he prefers, in spite of every difiiculty, to carry 
 up to an age before Moses, so as to account for its non- 
 Mosaic colour, nud want of allusion to Ins history.^ 
 There is thus an honesty in Eichhorn wliicli one must 
 respect ; and as his critical work ran through forty-four 
 years (1780-1824), it met a returning spirit of faith ; 
 and it still lian<x« with a kind of nidonlike clearness 
 and roundness of outline in a. wai'mer sky. 
 
 His results in llif field of New Testament criticism 
 arc also of interest, though proluihl) liioic destructive. 
 
 ' The whole flificuHsion of Eiilihoni on llic Pi-iitateucli, in liis tliinl 
 voliinip, is nimli likir that of Ilen^'Htonhcrf^ or Hiivcrnick tlian of 
 EwaM. HIh Humniinj^ nj* in fournl in vol. iii. pp. 322-3()8. 
 
 2 See his protcHt aKfii'iHt the deprcHHion of Clironick-H, in onlrr lo 
 favour tlie late entrance of the Levitical system, — KinlcituHj,', vol. iii. 
 p. 604. 
 
 ^ " Tlic oldc.Mt ])Octical work of ,iiitii|uily is tin; JJonk of .lull, a 
 Theorlicee which has been admin li for four thousand years, and will 
 be to the end of time." — Ibid., v. 1 14.
 
 ISO UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 He is the author of the famous document-hypothesis 
 in recrard to the orioin and mutual rchations of the 
 Synoptical Gospels, tracing them up to an Aramaic 
 original in its successive formations and combinations. 
 Two shapes of this original, one with additions such as 
 now appear in Matthew, and another with additions 
 such as now appear in Luke, are run together by a 
 process of selection and fresh construction by Mark 
 into his canonical Gospel ; another, or third, shape of 
 the original, embracing additional matter peculiar to 
 Luke, is run together with the first document used by 
 ]\Iark to form our present canonical Matthew ; and 
 with the second document used by Mark is run 
 together by Luke to form our present canonical Luke. 
 The common original supplies the matter in which 
 the three Evangelists agree ; its modifications towards 
 Matthew and towards Luke supply the parts where 
 two Evangelists out of three agree by following the 
 modified originals, as supposed ; while the wonderful 
 verbal harmonies in the present Greek are explained 
 by a pre-existing Greek translation of the first and 
 third documents, so that here there is accordance ; 
 while the second also, as used by Mark and Luke, 
 had to be translated by them independently for the 
 first time, so that the result there disagrees.^ Such is 
 the complicated scheme, devised to meet, as all admit, 
 complicated facts, which the wonderful ingenuity of 
 Eichhorn has worked out ; nor is there anything at 
 
 1 The dociiment-h}'pothe.eis occupies nearly the first half of the 1st 
 vol. (pp. 161-454) of the Einleituny in das Neue Testament. The 
 summing up is in pp. 372-375.
 
 UNBELIEF IX GERMANY RATIONALISM. 187 
 
 all rationalistic in the conception of such a theory. 
 Some such h}']^iothesis, or something equivalent, must 
 be brought in to account for the astonishing compound 
 of harmony and difference which the Synoptical 
 Gospels present ; and hence the other hypotheses 
 before or after the days of Eichhorn, such as the 
 copying hj'pothesis, the fragment hypothesis, and the 
 oral gospel li}^othesis, with modifications of Eich- 
 horn's one, as by Weiss in our own times, do not 
 argue anything for the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of 
 their authors. But Eichhorn uses his theory rational- 
 istically, turning the so-called discovery of the original 
 Gospel into an argument against the historical reality 
 of the miraculous conception and other facts, which 
 that Gospel is alleged to want, and even denpng to 
 the Apostle Matthew sufficient authority for whatever 
 is not found in the other Gospels ; so that the death of 
 Judas and the casting of lots would fall out, and even 
 the watch at the sepulchre, on \\]ii<li Woolston built 
 his denial of the resurrection, would be itself denicil.' 
 The disentanglement of the Ur-Evauffelium, it will 
 thus be seen, is sulHii»jiitly diiliciilt. and indeed has 
 not been generally accepted as linal ; hut the |)re- 
 jndiec against this method is immensely inereasf^l by 
 the wholly aibitrai-y way in wliiih the reniainino^ 
 portions — connected witli tlu' names (»l Matthew or 
 either of tlie other Synojitisls — are accepted or denied, 
 as suits the author, 
 
 A\'itli i-e<r;ird to the writin'os of .I(»hn, on the other 
 ha ml, it is remarkaltje how conservative Eichhorn 
 ' Einleitung in das Neue Testament, i. jip. 48(;-490.
 
 188 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 proves to be, steering clear, as he does, without of 
 course foreseeing one of them, of all the conclusions 
 of the Tul)ingen school, which has claimed for itself 
 somethino- like critical omniscience. He unhesitat- 
 ingly accepts the fourth Gospel, not so much on the 
 ground of external testimony, as from the confirma- 
 tion of this by the internal character of the work as 
 suitable to the age and to John the Apostle. His view 
 of the personality of the Saviour is low enough ; and 
 his explanation of the Logos doctrine, as an attempt 
 which the times demanded to clothe the older Messi- 
 anic teaching in forms suitable to the Alexandrian and 
 Hellenistic mind, cannot be sustained ; but he rightly 
 contends that the peculiarities of the Gospel are only 
 met by the union, in its author, of Palestinian birth 
 and training with Hellenistic culture ; and hence he 
 upholds the tradition as to John's Asia Minor residence. 
 Even before the new debate begun by Bretschneider, 
 in 1820, there were German theologians inclined to 
 the negative side : but Eichhorn thus refuses them a 
 hearing : " The case, in my opinion, is so completely 
 settled in favour of the Gospel, that to refute at length 
 the difficulties started is superfluous."^ With equal 
 readiness he accepts the three epistles,^ and even the 
 Apocalypse is defended as the work of the Apostle — 
 and that not at all in the Till)ingcn sense, as breathing 
 a Jewish rather than Pauline spirit ; but as in full 
 harmony with the fourth Gospel, diff^ering only as 
 poetry from prose. ^ In this acceptance of the Apoca- 
 
 ^ Einleitung in das Neue Testament, ii. p. 240. note. 
 2 Ibid., ii. pp. 320-330. ^ ibjd., ii. pp. 375-388.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 189 
 
 l}'pse Eichhorn even opposes Micliaelis and Semler ; and 
 hardly anything has been better said by the orthodox, 
 though he does not regard its sjinbolisni as pointing 
 to more than the downfoU of Judaism and Paganism, 
 and to the final blessedness.^ In equally striking 
 conflict with the future Tubingen school is his view of 
 the integrity and genuineness of the Acts of the 
 Apostles ; and the current is now really going back, 
 from Baur and Schwegler, to this leader of rationalism, 
 whu here represents so ably the traditional position.^ 
 It would be too much to expect further concurrence ; 
 and hence Eichhorn accepts only ten of Paul's Ej)istles, 
 denying him the Pastoral ones and that to the 
 Hebrews, though the former have much that is 
 Pauline and may be from the Apostle's scholars, while 
 the latter is in every way reni;nk;il)le as a Christian in- 
 terpretation of Judaism — to which, however, Eichhorn 
 does n(jt commit himself — and probably from some 
 Christian of the Alexandrine School, (he dale l)ein''- l)e- 
 fore the fall of. Jerusalem, .lames, however, h(^ accepts, 
 j)ronnnncinir its doctrine in hai-monv witli l*aul,asalso 
 1 Pelei-, ascriljijig its Panlinisiii:^- rc;ilui'es to llie pi-o- 
 
 ^ f]iiilcitiin^' in (lii« Ncuf TestAmcnt, ii. ])p. 3;)1-1!).'3. 
 
 2 Iliid. TIiiTc is HoiiK'fliing almost toiicliii)},' in tlu; Imni'st, simiilr- 
 hcart«(l ignorance with which Eichhorn pju-uks, witli the Tubingen 
 mines beneath his feet: "These cxiimjdeH will snflice to prove the 
 age and cretlihility of the Acts from the connection of their contents 
 ■willi the state f)f the worl<l in the ])erif)il a.d. 32 to 65 ; if lliis 
 shouM ever lie doubted {(U, so far as I know, il never yd has been), the 
 insttinces could be greatly increased," — Einleitung in das Neue Testa- 
 ment, ii. jiji. r..")-7 1. 
 
 3 The references in the Einleilung are, to the Pastoral Ejiistles, 
 vol. iii. pp. 385-410 ; to Hebrews, iii. pp. 506-7.
 
 190 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 bable influence of Mark ; while even the Second Epistle 
 of Peter and Jude are set aside with no small forbear- 
 ance and allowance in their favour ; for 2 Peter may 
 have been wTitten by a scholar of Peter after his death, 
 and Jude, probably, falls before the destruction of 
 Jerusalem, and might thus have been used, as Eichhorn 
 believes, by the author of 2 Peter. ^ 
 
 I have gone into these details, once for all, to 
 show that it was not merely by its free handling of 
 the canon of Scripture that the rationalism of this 
 school led to such fatal results. However important 
 the canon, and injurious its mutilation, the question of 
 faith in a true revelation, and the submission of reason 
 to it, is still more important. This Eichhorn and his 
 contemporaries wanted, in regard even to the admitted 
 doctrines of Paul and the other apostles. Even their 
 conception of these doctrines is very low ; and the 
 summaries, for examj^le, which Eichhorn gives of 
 Paul's Epistles, represent him as only a gifted human 
 teacher, continuing after his conversion, due partly to 
 a flash of lightning, the work of one still more gifted, 
 w^ho had left the doctrines of God, Providence, and 
 Immortality, in such a state as to need farther 
 explanation and development.^ But, however highly 
 Christ may be exalted as a teacher, as, for ex- 
 ample, in speaking of the Epistle to the Colossians, 
 there is no sympathy with wdiat follows from this 
 admission in the way of accepting his doctrine of 
 
 ^ For James, see Einleitung in das Neue Testament, iii. 575-581 ; 
 for I Peter, iii. 614 ; for 2 Peter, iii. 630-6 ; for Jude, iii, G55-6. 
 2 Einleitung in das Neue Testament, iii. pp. 1-12.
 
 UXBELIEF IN GERMANY RATIONALISM. 191 
 
 salvation ; and thus, by a low interpretation, the results 
 of a so far sound and tolerable canon are brought to 
 nothing. The question of the canon, or even of 
 exegesis in detail, is thus not the vital one, however 
 grave each is, for Christianity. It is the presence or 
 absence of s}Tnpathy with those radical ideas of 
 revelation — sin, redemption, grace — which the worst 
 canon and the worst interpretation (if it have any 
 honesty at all) cannot but supply. The canon of 
 Eichhorn was even larger than that of Schleier- 
 macher ; but who will compare them, grievously de- 
 fective as Schleiermacher here is, in point of s}Tiipathy 
 with radical Christian truth and sentiment ? ^ 
 
 Of the many representatives of the critical school 
 who succeeded Eichhorn, it is only necessary to men- 
 tion Dr. H. E. G. Paulus {17G1-1851), for many years 
 Professor of Theology at Ifrid('l])erg. His most im- 
 portant works are those which bear u})on llic life of 
 our Saviour ; and he has the merit of having shown 
 in his " rhilologisch-Kritischer Commentar liber das 
 Neue Testament, 1800," linw uttiwly uiitciiaMc the 
 rationalistic principle of reducing all the sujicniatural 
 faxsts of our Lord's life to ]>nr('ly nntui'al ciuscs is, 
 when consistt-ntly apjilicc]. As Tdl.nid icn.irdfl the 
 ])illar of cloud :iii<l lire as an oidiiiary signal, ;iii(l as 
 Eichhorn held sometliing of the Hanic kiiid,^ so Taulus 
 perj)etually labours to clear ii|i I lie mistakes of those 
 who (|iiiti' innocently cxaltcfl, in their nairatives, to 
 miracle, what was only natural fact, 'i'hus Zacharias 
 
 1 Sec Appciiilix, Niitt; If. 
 ^ Eiuleitung in das Alte Testament, iii. 203.
 
 192 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 in the Temple fancied that the cloud of incense was an 
 angel ; the wise men, who had lost sight of the star 
 in tlio Yalley, found it again from a height, and, as 
 they supposed, shining from the sky over the place 
 where Jesus was ; and the dove, at the Baptism, only 
 happened to alight on the Saviour's head. 
 
 This theory, involving so much violence and ab- 
 surdity, was finally exf)loded by Strauss in the first 
 cast of his "Leben Jesu," in 1835. But Paulus was 
 perfectly sincere in holding it ; and more than a 
 quarter of a century afterwards he said that it was 
 not so much to remove the stumbling-block of miracle 
 that the work was written, as to bring out the true 
 character of Jesus in harmony with Christian ration- 
 alism. He held that the character of Jesus was 
 perfect, and that this alone was meant by his being 
 the Messiah and the Son of God. It is to the credit 
 of Paulus that he believed so much ; but even a 
 perfect humanity goes beyond the limits of experience ; 
 nor is a solution given by the striking figure employed 
 by him in his old age in a conversation with a younger 
 theologian, that Jesus was a wonder, though not a 
 miracle, like a meteoric stone, coming from a higher 
 world, and leaving its mark in this.^ Possibly the 
 views of Paulus advanced, as in his later years he 
 found himself surrounded by a returning tide of faith. 
 In a very interesting work pul)lislied by him in 1830, 
 and containing a collection of his reviews, among 
 
 ^ This remarkaljle comparison I remember to have read — I believe 
 in the Studien und Kritiken, after the death of Dr. Paulus ; but I can- 
 not recover the passage.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GEKiL\XY — RATIONALISM. 193 
 
 others that which dealt with the celebrated disserta- 
 tion of Dr. Hahn of Leipzig, proposing to turn 
 rationalists out of the Church, he goes much farther 
 than Eichhorn in accepting the testimony of Scripture ; 
 contends earnestly that his own negative conclusions 
 as to the Trinity, Original Sin, and the Atonement, are 
 supported by the sacred writers — as earnestly as any 
 of the orthodox could assert the opposite — and while 
 holding the necessity of going aside from Scripture on 
 a limited number of points, such as demoniacal posses- 
 sion, still appeals to it, with confidence, as a rational- 
 istic book, wdiich the scholasticism of later creeds has 
 corrupted. No doubt the words of Augustine stand- 
 ing on Dr. Hahn's title-page as a motto against 
 rationalism still a2)ply to Paulus : " Qui in Evangelio 
 quod vultis crcditis, quod non vultis non creditis, 
 vobis potius quam Evangelio creditis;"^ but as it has 
 been common to say that the rationalists of that day 
 admitted that Scripture was against them, it was only 
 fair to Dr. Paulus to show how far, at least in his 
 case, such an allegation would be beside the truth." 
 
 Thus the great stream of theology in the Uni- 
 versities had descended, not without many i)rotests 
 and some inconsistencies fiuni the siiperiiaturalism of 
 Ernesti and Michaelis, till it had reached, in iIk; end 
 of the century', the naturalism of I'aidiis. But wc 
 must now tuni to a movement, \vlii<li iii;i\- ;ilso be 
 
 ' Contra FauHtuni, xvii, .3 ; OpiTa, viii. 219. 
 
 ' The title of Dr. PuuIuh'h work is a followH — Bcriclitigcndc Kosul- 
 tate au8 clem ncucstcn Vcrsucli dcs Snpranaturalismus gegeu dcii hili- 
 lisch-cbristlichcn RationaliBmiis. Wiwbadeji, 1830. 
 
 O
 
 194 UNBELIEF IX THE P]IGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 called critical, tlioiigli arising in another field, and 
 wliicli has so far unhappily compromised the great 
 name of Lessing, through his connection with the work 
 of Reimarus, the Wolfenbiittcl Fragmentist. It is 
 necessary to narrate the incidents affecting both to- 
 gether, and under the name of Lessing, whose posi- 
 tion is the more important. 
 
 I take the principal facts in Lessing's life for 
 granted — his birth, as the eldest son of a Lutheran 
 j)astor at Camenz in Upper Lusatia, in 1729; his 
 great mastery in classical literature acquired at school 
 and at LeijDzig in connection with his destination to 
 the ministry ; his preference of a literary life ; his 
 starting with Moses Mendelssohn and Nicolai the 
 periodical, Briefe die neueste Literatur hetreffend in 
 1759 ; his sudden departure and residence as secre- 
 tary with General Tauentzien at Breslau till 1765 ; 
 his equally sudden return to literature, and his 
 struggles in Berlin and Hamburg, till his appoint- 
 ment by the Grand Duke of Brunswick as keeper of 
 the Wolfenbiittel Library, an office which he held 
 from 1769 till his death in 1781. 
 
 The vigour and originality of Lessing as a 
 dramatic writer, and not less as a critic in literature 
 and art, are universally acknowledged ; but, great as 
 his influence was, he can hardly be held to have made 
 the same mark in theology. Probably the rational- 
 istic movement would have reached the same issues 
 without him, though his acuteness, learning, and 
 power undoubtedly contributed much to its develop- 
 ment. But he had too many sympathies in his nature
 
 UNBELIEF IX GERMAN Y — RATIOXALISM. 195 
 
 to act fully in any one dii-ection. The poj)iilar philo- 
 sophy found him so far an associate of Nicolai and 
 Mendelsshon, and an editor of Reimarus ; the critical, 
 an ally of Eichhorn and Panlus in assailing the letter 
 of the Bible in his discussions on the Resurrection, 
 and yet striving, and in a deeper sense than they, to 
 preserve its spirit in his " Education of the Human 
 Race ; " while the mysterious charge of pantheism, 
 brought out in the well-known disclosures of Jacobi, 
 shows that there was in him enoudi of bent in that 
 direction to sympathise with the tendencies that were 
 soon to find utterance in SchcUing. Anyhow regarded, 
 the religious side of Lessing is a problem, and some 
 parts of his conduct are as unjustifiable as they are 
 unaccountaljle ; l)ut the whole facts seem better 
 explained by ascribing to him such a various sjnn- 
 pathy, and with this a cortniii indecision and scep- 
 ticism, than by any otln r theory. 
 
 Lessing had l)een some years in Wolfenl)uttcl, and 
 liad iiul)lished two selections of works found in its 
 ni)rary. Among tlie first of these was, curiously 
 cnougli, a tract of Lcilniitz defending the received 
 doetrine as to the dur;iti(jn of" fiituic. jtunishments, 
 which Ijc.s.sing ;ilso so far suppcjiled against Eber- 
 liardt's "New Ap(jh)gy for Socrates," by sliowing that 
 Ebei'h;ir(lt lier(Mn;ide Soeriites eontriidict I'l.ito. '|'h(i 
 second embraced a little treatise on ;i (juestioii of ;irl. 
 'JMk'U came out under his editorslnp a, series of frag- 
 ments of an entirely different description, wliich 
 excited the widest sensation. Of tliis scries, known 
 as the " Wolfcnbiittel Fragments," and ol ihe author
 
 19G UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 of the work, Hermann Samuel Reimarus, we have 
 now to speak. 
 
 Reimarus was born in the same year with Voltaire, 
 1694, in Hamburg, where his father was one of the 
 masters in the Johanneum, and his future father-in- 
 law Fabricius, so well known by his descriptive cata- 
 logues of Greek and Latin writers, was another ; and 
 he himself, after being trained under these scholars, 
 and afterwards in Jena, abandoning the ministry, 
 became ultimately teacher in the Gymnasium of his 
 native city, an office which he held for forty years, 
 till his death in 1768.^ It was his work to teach 
 Hebrew and Oriental languages ; he was an admirable 
 classical scholar, as appears by an edition of Dio 
 Cassius ; and he wrote several treatises on Natural 
 Religion, evincing a great knowledge of natural 
 science. The best -known of these is entitled, "The 
 Principal Truths of Natural Religion defended and 
 illustrated." It was published in 1755, and may be 
 read in an old English translation of date 1766, which 
 conveys a favourable idea of the vigour with which, 
 against Lucretius, La Mettrie, and other disciples of 
 Epicurus, he upholds the argument from design, the 
 wisdom and goodness of Providence, and the doctrine 
 of Immortality, There is here a trace of Wolf, but 
 none of the poj)ular philosophy with which his name 
 has been connected ; and it could never have been sus- 
 pected that he had any quarrel with Christianity ; for 
 he speaks respectfully of Moses, and his life as a teacher 
 must have involved compliances which suggested a 
 
 ^ Strauss's Reimaruf?. Leipzig, 1862. Pp. 5-7.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 197 
 
 full belief ill the gospel. Yet it is sad to think that 
 for at least the last thirty years of his life he was an 
 unbeliever, and was preparing one of the most hostile 
 works against the Bible in its w^hole history. This 
 work, which was only finished shortly before his death, 
 bore the title, " Apologie oder Schutzschrift fiir die 
 verniinftigen Verehrer Gottes."^ It is still to some 
 extent unpublished. Fragments of it were edited by 
 Lessing in the way I shall afterwards exjDlain ; some 
 other jDortions have appeared in German periodicals or 
 separately ; Ijut the only account of the whole is in 
 the summaries and large extracts published in the 
 work of Strauss upon Keimarus in 1862. With the 
 help of this, T shall speak of the general views of 
 Reimarus, and then, from his own works, state the 
 connection of Lessing ^^'ith this sul)ject. 
 
 From the data l)efore us, it appears that Eeimarus 
 is almost the only one of his countrymen who brings 
 the severe charges of the extreme English Deists 
 against the Old and New Testament, and who trans- 
 plants the style of Voltaire to Germany. His attacks 
 upon the Old Testament T shall mostly pass over, as 
 they largely rej)eat Bayle, V^jltaire, and others, in 
 ascril)ing to Al)raham, Moses, Samuel, and David, the 
 lowest principles of action. 'I'liere is one view wliich, 
 80 far a.s I know, is original — that Aaron and IMiriam 
 set up the gf)lden calf in the hope to l)e tlius rid of 
 Moses, and that he, suspecting some evil, and return- 
 ing from the Mount, .secured himself and piojuLiuLi'd 
 
 ^ " Apology or Defence of the Rational Worshippers of God." 
 Strau33'.s Reimani", p. 20.
 
 198 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 tliem by arranging the sacrificial system, with all its 
 perquisites, in his brother's favour/ In the other 
 writings of the Old Testament, Eeimarus finds no 
 compensation for the failure of its histories. The 
 Psalms reveal only the character of persons who sing 
 and pray, while, like David, they are full of revenge 
 and selfishness ; the Proverbs, though containing: S^ood 
 maxims, such as natural reason suggests, have nothing 
 worthy of a religion specially revealed ; and the Pro- 
 phets merely uphold the worship of Jehovah, which 
 has already proved so ineffectual.^ He grants, indeed, 
 as taught in them, the doctrine of a Messiah, and of 
 the line of David, pious and righteous, who should be 
 a Deliverer, and who was accordingly expected in that 
 sense (and here, like Strauss, he overturns Collins) ; 
 but he wholly denies that the Messiah is set forth in 
 a suflfering character, or in any higher light than a 
 great earthly monarch ; and he goes through the whole 
 of what has been called the Christology of the Old 
 Testament to refute such an interpretation.^ 
 
 When we come to the New Testament we find that 
 Jesus is the only one of the Biblical characters of 
 whom Eeimarus has a good word to say. He grants 
 him a high and pure morality. Of his summation of 
 law and prophets in love to God and man he re- 
 marks : " How could the essence of true worship and 
 of man's chief duties to himself and others be more 
 shortly or better expressed ? " That God is perfect is 
 the true practical idea. The Lord's Prayer is a model 
 
 1 Strauss's Eeimarus, pp. 108-110. 2 ibjj^ pp_ jgg^ 155-6. 
 3 Ibid., pj). 1.56-158.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — KATIONALISM. 199 
 
 prayer ; and tlie golden rule is just, when understood 
 to prescribe not what we should avoid, but actually 
 do. " Such doctrines are great, noble, nay divine, 
 and we shall rarely or almost never find them among 
 heathen moralists, at least as based on so universal a 
 philanthropy." ^ But while Jesus thus advanced so far 
 by his preaching of repentance, including this moral- 
 ity, all was ruined by the addition, " for the kingdom 
 of heaven is at hand." He supposed himself to be 
 the Jewish Messiah, taking up into this idea worldly 
 rule, extended to the heathen ; and his disciples fully 
 shared his expectations. There is no evidence that 
 he had any more spiritual view, and all that seems to 
 favour this in the Gospels — as, for example, his predic- 
 tion of his owm sufferings and death — is unhistorical. 
 The character of Jesus thus suffers at the hands of 
 Reimarus, not so much in his misquoting Old Testa- 
 ment texts in application to himself, as in giving 
 himself false credit ])y a scene between himself and 
 tlie ]>aptist, where an affected ignorance is brouglit in 
 to add weight to testimony, and l)y miracles whicli 
 lie did not care to have investigated, as well as by 
 shrinking from collision witli liis enomios, whidi a 
 suffering Messiah could not have done. As a ])ro()f 
 of liis worldly views, Reimarus refers to his cry of 
 desertion on the cross, which, if iiltovd, was a con- 
 fession of failure.^ Such a failure took place when 
 
 ^ Strauss's Eeimarufl, pp. 183-4. 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 187-8. liciiJiaruH here, prolialjly vithout remember- 
 ing it, repeats the accusation of Celsus (Origen againut Cels., § ii 24) : 
 " Wliy does he entreat, lament, and pray to escape the fear of death ? "
 
 200 UXBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 he attcmjotcd l)y his triumiDhal entry to set up his 
 kiiigclom ; for not only had he miscalcuLated, but by 
 his clearing of the temple he broke the peace, and also 
 by his invectives gave the authorities — though "he 
 taught an infinitely better morality and religion than 
 the Scribes and Pharisees" — a good cause against 
 Him, so that "the Sanhedrim could not act other- 
 wise than it did, and Jesus is not innocent, but died 
 for his own crime." ^ Such is the sad incoherence of 
 Eeimarus's scheme, and he can only lament "that 
 Jesus, by his aim to be the Messiah, and the doubtful 
 and disorderly means taken by him to gain his point, 
 has so stained and obscured the memory of his ser- 
 vices to practical religion." " Still," he adds, " we 
 must not cease to value as they deserve, and to apply 
 to our good, his lessons of piety, philanthroiDy, and 
 inward reformation." ^ 
 
 The disciples now adjusted the plan to altered cir- 
 cumstances. Knowing that a minority of the people 
 expected a suffering Messiah, they gave out that 
 Jesus was that Messiah ; and that he had foretold his 
 own sufferings and death and resurrection, and in 
 connection with these, the redemption of the world 
 and the extension of his kingdom to the Gentiles. 
 They invented the story of the resurrection and of 
 the different appearances of their Master, and, to give 
 all credit, stole away the body, which they could 
 
 1 " Konnte der holie Bath nicht anders liandeln als er gehandelt 
 hat, und ist demnach Jesus nicht unschiiklig, sondern um seines 
 eigenen Verbrechens willen gestorhen." — Reimanis, p. 198. 
 
 2 Straus.s's Eeimarus, p. 198.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 201 
 
 easily do, as the garden was in their own hands, and 
 the Eoman guard was a later addition to the story ; 
 and then, having added the tale of the ascension, 
 appeared in Jerusalem to found a kingdom different 
 from that of Jesus, but with the same worklly 
 motives.^ Such is the substance of the celebrated 
 discussion on "The Plan of Jesus and His Disciples." 
 It would be a waste of words to refute such a 
 monstrosity, intellectual and moral. It can only be 
 refuted as Eusebius has done, long before it appeared, 
 by putting a speech into the mouth of the leader of 
 the Apostles, laying out the plan, and exhorting his 
 brethren to go out and preach truth by falsehood, 
 and gain worldly ends by torture and death. - 
 Gijzantic indeed must have been the counter-stroke 
 tliat eualjled the Apostles, when crushed down by 
 the crucifixion, in so short a time to invent a new 
 system of doctrine, including the Trinity, Incarna- 
 tion, Atonement, and universal kingdom of Jesus, 
 and to adapt all this to tlieir new circumstances. 
 They liad also to arrange and mutually rehearse the 
 narratives of various apparitions, which, however, was 
 not so consistent but tliat Keimarus discovers in it 
 flagrant contradictions. And last of all, tlicj-e was 
 before tliem the equal difficulty of achieving success. 
 This success Jleimarus accounts for by saying that 
 they stilled their own remorse of conscience, like 
 ancient lawgivers in general, by persuading them- 
 
 1 StraiWs Reimanis, pp. 2 10-2 IT). 
 
 '^ This remurkable speech i'h to be found in " DemonHtratio Evan- 
 pelica," book iil l^t^ 11 3- J, ]>. 203-7. Mignc'rt edition.
 
 202 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUllY. 
 
 selves that the good of the world required such 
 measures, and then rose to a boundless enthusiasm — 
 an enthusiasm which led to the scene of Pentecost ; 
 that they originated a community of goods, which was 
 a powerful though a soon- exhausted means of prose - 
 lytism ; that they kindled hopes of an immediate 
 return of Jesus and of a share in his kingdom, which 
 men eagerly took up in spite of his rejection and 
 death ; and also that they made way by the report 
 and appearance of continued miracles, not one of 
 which, however, was true. It is rather wonderful, 
 after all this, that Keimarus adds as a fifth attraction 
 the pious walk of the early Christians according to 
 Christ's exalted rules, making this remark : " As to 
 opinions there may be difference, when their objects 
 are remote or rest on foreign testimony ; but virtue 
 is a thing that all feel and respect." ^ What room 
 there was for virtue in such a society he has himself 
 shown ; and in his character of the Apostle Paul he 
 annihilates every feature of excellence, bringing him 
 down to the level of j)nde, jealousy, and hypocrisy, on 
 which stood the so-called heroes of the Old Testa- 
 ment. AVhere, then, was the lever by which the 
 Apostles moved the world ? When the common purse 
 was empty and the thousand years' kingdom still 
 hopelessly distant — as Eeimarus confesses it could 
 not long be expected — could enthusiasm and false 
 miracles and doubtful morals still prevail ? To 
 questions like these Eeimarus has given no answer, 
 and could give none. Indeed, what hope could 
 
 1 StraiLSs's Eeimarus, pp. 233-244.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 203 
 
 one have for the liuman race, what respect for him- 
 self as a member of it, if the greatest religion the 
 world has ever known could thus arise and fill the 
 earth ? 
 
 We are wholly unable to see what fascination a 
 scheme like this could have for Lessing, or how he 
 could so earnestly desire to make it known after its 
 author's death. His acquaintance with Eeimarus 
 was only imperfect, and acquired during the last year 
 of his life ; though during the two following years, 
 ere leaving Hamburg, he came to know his son and 
 daughter intimately, and maintained with them a 
 close correspondence. As the father did not judge 
 that the time had come for the publication of his 
 work, his children resisted the importunities of Less- 
 ing ; and only yielded on his promise to keep the 
 authorship an entire secret. It is not absolutely 
 certain that Lessing had seen the wliol(3 work; 1)iit 
 Strauss regards this as having all 23robal)ility in its 
 favour ; and as tlie family had allowed him to see 
 in their home a iirst draft, so they also st'ut at 
 liis request copies of any amended portions that he 
 might require, as tlu' work- Imd boon constnntly re- 
 touched, almost till the (late of ils .mthoi's death. ^ 
 Lessing then adojjted the uiih;q»py cxju'dicnt of giving 
 out that 1p' h;iil IhiiimI \\\r work in \\\r I )iical library, 
 and aecordingly edited it uiidei- that representation. 
 The first fi-agment came out in 1774, aii«l l»<»i'e Ihe 
 title "On the Toleration <»!' Deists," ihal Ining siij»- 
 posed to be the least ofiensive to begin with. What 
 1 Strauss's Reiniarus, ji]). 13-10.
 
 204 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 
 
 liberties Lessing allowed himself may be seen from 
 these words of the jDreface, which, with some notes, 
 accompanied the publication : " They are, as I say, 
 fragments of a work, but I cannot decide whether of 
 a work actually finished and destroyed, or of one never 
 completed. For they have no universal title ; their 
 author is nowhere given ; and I have by no means 
 been able to discover how and when they came into 
 our library. Nay, I am not certain that they are 
 fragments of one work, but I conclude as much from 
 this, that they have all one object, and all bear upon 
 revealed religion, and more especially the criticism of 
 Bible history." Lessing goes even so far as to 
 suggest decejDtively a false author for the book, 
 naming a well-known Deist, John Lorenz Schmidt, 
 who had not only translated the Bible, but Tindal's 
 "Christianity, as old as the Creation." "Since, to judge 
 by the handwriting and the external appearance of 
 his papers, they may be about seventy years old ; 
 since, from many passages there reveals itself an 
 unusual acquaintance with the Hebrew language, and 
 the author reasons throughout on the principles of the 
 Wolfian philosophy, — all these circumstances together 
 have suggested to me a man who lived about the 
 aforesaid time here in Wolfenbiittel, and under the 
 protection of a wise and kind ruler found the tolera- 
 tion which the wdld orthodoxy of the times would 
 have denied him in the rest of EurojDe, I mean 
 Schmidt, the Wertheim translator of the Bible." ^ ^ 
 
 ^ Correspondance. K. G. Lessing, Feb. 2, 1774. 
 
 2 Strauss, who justifies and even admires the life-long silence of
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — EATIOXALISM. 205 
 
 It is impossible to suppose that Lessing liad any- 
 prevailing sympathy with the Fragmentist, and yet 
 we find him restlessly active to bring his work to the 
 light. In the end of 1774 he is engaged in negotia- 
 tions wdth Voss, the Berlin bookseller, with a view to 
 its pubUcation with his own name on the title-page 
 as editor, though his friends Nieolai and Mendelssohn 
 most strongly dissuaded him from this step. He 
 writes to his own brother of his intention to " play 
 the theologians a little comedy " by this publication, 
 which, in allusion to a recent work of Semler," A Free 
 Examination of the Canon," he proposes to call " A 
 still Freer Examination of the Canon of the Old and 
 New Testament." The theologians in c]uestion were 
 those of Semler's school, for whom he had less respect 
 than for the orthodox, believing that their attempts 
 to explain away miracles only weakened then- cause, 
 and that, in seeking to make men rational Christians, 
 they made them highly irrational philosophers.^ Jt 
 is probable, therefore, that his wish to expose the 
 half-HTid-lialf position of the newer theologians was 
 one motive for his action. However, difficulties arose, 
 and among others those connected with the censor- 
 slii}) ; and then, as from liis })ositioii in AVoIf('n])iittel 
 
 Reimanis in re;,'anl to liiw Deism, while condvictiiif,' all tliu while llie 
 work of u Christian teacher, Bees apparently nothin;,' wron^ in the 
 Preface ahove quoted, and in other liherties of Lessing ; for he speaks 
 approvin<,'ly of the " false scent on which he led the curiosity of the 
 public and the hatred of theologians" (p. 17); hut he does not venture 
 to rjuote the jiassages in the text, wliidi an- translated from Lcssing's 
 Werke, p. 822, 1 vol. edition. Goscheii, Leipzig, 1841. 
 
 ^Letters to his brother, Feb. 2. and Nov. 11, 1774. Lessing's 
 Werke, pp. 998-1000.
 
 206 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 he was free from this hindrance, he at length, in 1777, 
 edited other five fragments (so-called), covering the 
 origin of the work with another set of mystifications : 
 " I could hardly furnish at once the strongest and 
 boldest parts ; the papers are still in too great con- 
 fusion ; and the thread often breaks ofi" where one 
 would least expect it, so that, till I am better 
 acquainted with them, I content myself with the 
 following fragments, which I submit without further 
 introduction." ^ The fragments were five in num- 
 ber — the first "On the Decrying of Reason from 
 the Pulpits ;" the second " On the Impossibility of a 
 Revelation which all men could be reasonably called 
 upon to believe ;" the third " On the Passage of the 
 Israelites through the Red Sea," heaping up the difii- 
 cidties since repeated by Dr. Colenso ; the fourth 
 went to show that the books of the Old Testament 
 were not TVTitten to reveal a religion ; and the fifth 
 and last, which was the most important, opened up 
 ten contradictions in the Gospel narratives of the 
 Resurrection. These fragments Lessing followed by 
 a set of short essays, in which, while desiring to see 
 them fully replied to by the orthodox, he disclaimed 
 agreement with the author's position. He urged that 
 it was unreasonable to deny the possibility of a reve- 
 lation and of miracles ; that the passage through the 
 Red Sea being a miracle, the natural difficulties which 
 Reimarus started were not conclusive ; and in par- 
 ticular, in regard to the Resurrection, it was one 
 thing for contradiction to have been found between 
 
 ' Lessing's Werke, p. 824.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY RATIONALISM. 207 
 
 the original apostolic witnesses, and anotlier thing 
 between subsequent recorders of their testimony, like 
 the Evangelists ; and that, as there was no evidence of 
 such fatal contradiction of the first sort, and as the 
 cause had been long won, its success was now a pre- 
 sumption of credibility, and the case could not be 
 fairly re-o^Dcned. 
 
 At the end of these notes Lessing published more 
 than the half of an essay, which he afterwards issued 
 in full in 1780, on "The Education of the Human 
 Kace." The design of this was to separate his posi- 
 tion more clearly from that of Keimarus, because, in 
 the paper in question, he professes his belief in reve- 
 lation. What education is to the individual, revela- 
 tion is to the species ; and though Lessing does not 
 hold that anything is revealed, which the human race 
 might not ultimately have reached by its own powers, 
 yet, as in the parallel case of education, there is a 
 more early, rapid, and certain development, than 
 would otherwise have been possible. The Jewish and 
 Christian dispensations are such stages in the educa- 
 tion of tlie world, from wliifh miracles and prophecies 
 are not excludeil. The Scriptui'es of the ( >M Tcsl.i- 
 ment and of tlie iScw were the lesson-books (J^Jle- 
 mentar-hiir/ier) of lliis ]>rocess ; .nid Ikimc Lessing 
 judges very diflerently of their woitli Irdiii (he 
 Fragmentist. 'I'lie .lews tiius hnnied the (ineiiesa 
 of God, whieh was Further (h'Veloped, th<iU!4li re.'illy 
 lying in their own Seii[»tures, hy their contact with 
 the old Persian religion during the Ca^Dtivity. Room 
 was left for immortality, whieh, initieipnted so f;ir by
 
 208 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 the best of the people, was first clearly taught by 
 Christ in connection with inward purity as a pre- 
 paration for it ; and to all this Lessing adds, that 
 in the Scriptures of the New Testament there are 
 hints and indications of such mysteries as the 
 Trinity, the Incarnation, Original Sin, and the Atone- 
 ment, which serve a useful purpose. Thus far, the 
 race has been helped on by revelation mtli its school- 
 books ; but in the New Testament there is a fore- 
 shadowing of a third stage beyond alike Old Testa- 
 ment and New, when goodness shall be loved for its 
 own sake, and the human race shall reach its man- 
 hood.^ 
 
 These fragments, and the conduct of Lessing in 
 pubhshing them, produced a wide commotion, which 
 his notes and elucidations tended but little to allay. 
 Of the assaults which came from various quarters the 
 principal was that by Pastor Goetze in Hamburg, 
 who was hardly qualified to grapple with Lessing, 
 and whom the latter supposed to have attacked him 
 as the result of a personal quarrel. It is only to be 
 remarked on Goetze's side, that he did not deny the 
 distinction which Lessing drew between a revelation 
 and the record of it (a distinction to which hardly 
 any apologist of Christianity can be insensible), but 
 only urged that Lessing had pushed this too far, so 
 as to throw over the Bible in order to save Christi- 
 anity in a Komish sense. Lessing, on the other 
 
 * Lessing's Werke, pp. 939-946. The outline of the " Erziehurig 
 des Menschengeschlechts " is given above once for all, though pub- 
 M.shecl in two parts.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY RATIONALISM. 209 
 
 hand, always writes as a Cliristian, and a better 
 defender of Christianity than its own advocates ; and 
 his polemic, which runs through many pamphlets, 
 among them a whole series called " Anti-Goetze," is 
 designed, abating the wdt and sarcasm with which he 
 treats his antagonist, to show how needful it was, in 
 the face of contradictions which could not easily be 
 harmonised, and other imperfections in the narrative, 
 to lay stress on the difference between the substance 
 of Christianity and its Biblical records, and to prove 
 how well this could be done wdthout injuring revela- 
 tion. It is well known that here Coleridge, in his 
 " Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit," has taken sub- 
 stantially the same ground with Lessing. This no 
 doul)t may be done in arguing for the general truth 
 of Christianity against unbeUevers ; but the question 
 of inspiration is not thereby reduced to unimportance ; 
 and we ouglit, I think, in the widest view of tlic 
 facts, to go beyond Lessing ;ni(l ('ok'ridgc in contend- 
 ing for the full ins])iration <»!' I he Scripture record. 
 
 The most d('('])lN' |i.iinfiil tliini;- in this controversy, 
 in comparison <jf wliirli Llie unmeasured seveiity of 
 his satire is a sligliL oifencc, is the length to which 
 Lessinf allowed liimself to ^o \u defendimj; tlie, in- 
 co^niio of Keimarus. lie iillinneil tli.il lie li;i(| come 
 to know that the work, of the existence of which he 
 was till now ;iw;iie onl\- in fnigments, was found in a 
 complete<l form elsewhere, and th;it niamiHcri[)t co])ies 
 of it were in cireulation. lie denouneed as ;i, lie the 
 report tluit Reimarus was the. jiuthor — a, report whicji 
 
 had soon became current; and he even comphiined of 
 
 p
 
 210 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 the contradiction wliicli the orthodox in Hambnrg 
 gave to this report, as the indirect spreading of a 
 calumny.^ The necessities of the controversy re- 
 quired him to publish sooner than he had intended, 
 and not in the same series with the rest, but in a 
 separate form, the last and worst fragment, which 
 bore the title, " On the Plan of Jesus and his 
 Discijjles," and which, as will be remembered, charged 
 the Saviour with worldly ambition, and the disciples 
 with fraud. It came out in 1778, and with the same 
 alleged ignorance of its authorship ; and thus, by a 
 remarkable conjuncture of circumstances, a work in- 
 tended to convict the Christian religion of originating 
 in fraud was itself published in connection with a 
 series of deviations from truth. 
 
 The appearance of this last fragment, with the 
 promise or threatening of more, brought matters to a 
 crisis. The Brunswick Government, at the instance 
 of the Consistory, confiscated this fragment, and for- 
 bade the publication of more, as also the continuation of 
 the Goetze controversy. The Corpus Evangelicorum, 
 or Commission appointed to watch over the interests 
 of Protestantism in the German Empire, was urged 
 to obtain from the Imperial Council a condemnation 
 of Lessing's procedure. It is impossible to excuse 
 this prosecution, save on the ground that the Church- 
 system of Germany was then regarded as bound up 
 with the interests of the empire. But Lessing here 
 acted with the same dexterity which, in the conceal- 
 
 ^ Werke, Anti-Goetze, No. 1 (p. 897), compared witli preface to 
 "Zweck Jesu," etc. (p. 919) ; and Anti-Goetze, No. 10 (p. 915).
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 211 
 
 ment of the authorsliip, lie had carried so far. He 
 boasted to his friends that he would divide the 
 Imperial Council against itself, and gain the votes of 
 the Catholic portion of it by representing the prosecu- 
 tion as an attempt to enforce an extreme Lutheran 
 view of the Scriptures at the expense of that of Kome. 
 This accordingly he did in various publications, main- 
 taining that he upheld a view of tradition akin to the 
 Eomish, which made Scripture less necessary than 
 tradition to the transmission of the Christian faith. ^ 
 Lessing here pleaded the conduct of the Apostle Paul 
 in dividing the Sanhedrim ; but the analogy will 
 scarcely hold, as Paul fully agreed with the Pharisees 
 as to the doctrine of the Resurrection, whereas Lessing 
 differed from the Romanists on the vital point, that 
 he did not put Church authority in the place of 
 Scripture, but left the supposed tradition to individual 
 conscience. How far tliis expedient of Lessing might 
 have succeeded it is impossible to tell, as the Grand- 
 Duke of Brunswick exerted his influence on the side 
 of forbearance, and the prosecution came to an cud. 
 
 Lessing was not unwilling to be delivered from a 
 controversy, wlnV-h, ]);irtly from his own f;ilsc position, 
 had caused liiin unspcakaMc aniioyant'C ; Imt he could 
 not rest witliout making a movement by wlii<li. :is lie 
 said, his o])pon('nts wouM Kc taken in flank, and 
 would find themselves unable to meet liim with his 
 own weapons. This was the publication of a play, 
 
 ' Lcssing's Wcrkc. Lt-ttcr to his brotlicr, July 2.3, 1778, and to 
 Elisc RcimaniH, Aiirpist 9, 1778 (pp. 1008-9). See also his last answers 
 to Goetze (pp. 920-924).
 
 212 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 which tiirued out to be his last, and which he had 
 meditated for three years — " Nathan the Wise." The 
 scene is laid in Jerusalem ; and the design of the 
 piece is to teach the superiority of natural piety and 
 virtue to revealed religion. Nathan is a wealthy 
 merchant, who has ado^Dted the daughter of a Christian 
 kniglit, Recha, keeping also in his house, as her com- 
 panion, a Christian gii'l, Daja ; and the scene opens 
 with the return of Nathan from a journey, who finds 
 that his house has been in flames, and his daughter 
 rescued by a Templar. This Templar had been taken 
 prisoner by Saladin, and pardoned by him from a 
 supposed resemblance to a brother. The attachment 
 of Recha and the Templar is the moving principle of 
 the plot, which exhibits Nathan and Saladin in situa- 
 tions where they display great generosity and mag- 
 nanimity ; while the Patriarch of Jerusalem only 
 comes on the scene to tempt the Templar to betray 
 Saladin, and at length brings on a crisis by demanding 
 Eecha from Nathan, on the ground of her Christian 
 baptism, which he had discovered. The lay brother, 
 however, whom he sends to Nathan on this errand, 
 rises aljove the narrowness of proselytism, and also 
 gives him information as to the parentage of Recha 
 and the Templar. This evidence in a closing scene is 
 produced, showing them to be sister and brother, 
 and the children of the lost brother of Saladin by a 
 Christian mother — a result which, if it frustrates the 
 romance of the piece, is meant to rise into the higher 
 region of universal brotherhood. It is easy to see 
 that Lessing had here got beyond not only the reply
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY RATIONALISM. 213 
 
 of his old antagonists, but of any others. A play is 
 no aromment : as he had the niakino; of the characters 
 in his own hand ; and he has not given one on the 
 Christian side the commanding position of Saladin 
 or Nathan ; as the Temphir, and lay brother do not 
 bahince either of these, while Daja is only an amiable 
 enthusiast bent on propagandism, and the Patriarch is 
 a monster of hypocrisy and cruelty. These objections, 
 to say nothing of the liberty taken with Saladin, 
 who was far from being the apostle of tolerance which 
 Lessing makes him, apply equally to the celebrated 
 apologue of the three rings in the speech of Nathan 
 to Saladin, which has been held up as the gem of 
 the piece. An eastern ruler had a precious opal ring, 
 which possessed the power, when rightly used, of 
 makinff the wearer beloved of God and man. As he 
 wished it to remain for ever in his house, he gave it 
 to the son whom Ik- loved lu-st, with the clinrge to 
 him thus to hand it down, and with it the rule uf the 
 family. After long generations it came into the hands 
 of a fatlu'r wlio lovod liis tliroo sons oqunlly well, and 
 promised each of tlicin ;ipart the coveted treasure. 
 As he could not keep his word to ;ill tlie three, he 
 had two otlior rings ih.kIi' so like that he himself 
 could not distinguish Hmim, ;iii«1 liaving privately 
 given one to eaeh of hi,^ three sons, died. Each 
 m;ikes, nnd stands to, liis claim ; but the judge Ix-fore 
 wliom tlicy appciir jnonounces them nil deceived and 
 deceivers, inasmuch .-is the rings had not exerted 
 their power of making them love each other. He 
 therefore supposes thnt tho oHninnl ring had somehow
 
 214 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 been lost, and that the father had made three ficti- 
 tious ones in its place. Probably, also, adds the judge, 
 the father had wished to end a system of preference 
 undesirable among his children ; but if they still 
 stood to their exclusive claims, let each prove these by 
 piety, self-denial, and charity ; then, after thousands 
 of years, a wiser man than he would fill his place and 
 judge between them. It is impossible not to admire 
 the beauty of this, as of other j)arts of Lessing's 
 poem ; and though it may owe less to his invention, 
 if it be true, as Voltaire has asserted, that the fable 
 of three rings had long been in use in the East, as 
 applied to the Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan 
 religions, still, the skill with which the moral is 
 brought out is great and seductive.^ It is therefore 
 the more necessary to touch on the fallacy here 
 concealed, as it runs through the whole play. If 
 indifferentism is to be the rule, then it must be 
 carried out in regard to all religions, even the most 
 debasing ; and not limited to the mutual exclusive- 
 ness of three that adhere to the unity of God. 
 Further, this equality of these three religions cannot 
 be admitted ; and there will be in our days im- 
 
 ' This is stated by Voltaire in Ms Letters on Rabelais and other 
 authors accused of speaking ill of the Christian religion. The refer- 
 ence to the Three Rings occurs in the letter on Swift, who is said by 
 Voltaire to have borrowed from this parable the three coats of Peter, 
 Martin, and Jack, in his " Tale of a Tub." The langiiage of Voltaire 
 is express as to the antiquity of the parable : " The fable of the three 
 rings is very ancient ; it is of the age of the Crusades." Then, after 
 stating it, not quite like Lessing, he adds, " The good old man is 
 Theism ; the three children, the Jewish, Christian, and Mussulman 
 religions." — CEu\Tes, voL xviL p. 313.
 
 UNBELIEF IX GERMANY RATIONALISM. 215 
 
 mensely fewer, who ^\t.11 concede this, at least to 
 the Mohammedan. Again, is it not the fact that indif- 
 ferentism to doctrinal oj)inions has never been the soil 
 in which the warmest philanthropy has flourished, and 
 that those who have been the most capable of practi- 
 cally extending their sympathies beyond their own 
 pale — as for example, Christian missionaries — have 
 prized most highly the deposit ol their own faith ? 
 Theo-philanthropy, contrary to what Lessing teaches, 
 has done Httle for the world. It has been the earnest 
 faith, not of mere bigots or hypocrites, like the Patri- 
 arch of Jerusalem, but of zealous Christians, that has 
 made Christianity fruitful of good works, and given 
 it, though it is neither the first nor the last of Lessing's 
 three in history, the hold of the world. 
 
 Our estimate of the actual creed of Lessing, now 
 that all the materials are before us, is very difficult to 
 fix. I have not touched on the discovery alleged to 
 have l^ecn m.-idc by the philo,so])lior F. H. Jacold, who, 
 as the result of conversations held with Lessing at 
 AVolf('nl)iittcl .'iiid elsewhere, in July 1780, gave out 
 that Lessing lunl ronfossod to him tlint ho was a 
 Pantheist. The evidence of this was given after 
 Lessing's death, wliich took place in I7SI ; 1)iit as it 
 was discrfflitrd li\- .Mcndclssoliii ami liOssing's other 
 friends, I won l( I not biiiM on it willi tlic same con- 
 fidence, as if Lessing had conrii-nicd it by any inde- 
 pendent jtublislicd testimony.^ The discord in Lessing 
 is suflicient without adding this fresh element of eon- 
 fusion. On the one side is the fact of pul)li.shiiig the 
 
 ' See Appendix, Note L
 
 216 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Fragments, and the imdoubted sympathy, so far, with 
 their results as fatal to a particular orthodoxy ; and 
 there is also the avowed design of the " Nathan," and 
 its author's utterances in regard to it. " The theo- 
 logians of all revealed religions will inwardly rail at 
 it." " Enough, if it be only read with interest ; and 
 if, among a thousand readers, only one learns from it 
 to doubt the evidence and the universality of his 
 religion." ^ On the other side are the strain of earnest 
 protest against identification with the Fragmentist, 
 the claim in many ways put forward to be a defender 
 of Christianity, and the " Education of the Human 
 Eace." " I have never written," says he, " till the 
 editing of the Fragments, nor have I publicly main- 
 tained an}i;hing that could expose me to the suspicion 
 of being a secret enemy of the Christian religion. I 
 have written more than one trifle in which I have not 
 only put the Christian religion in the best light I 
 could, according to its doctrines and teachers, but 
 have, in particular, defended the Lutheran orthodox 
 religion against Catholics, Socinians, and Neologists 
 (Neuhnge). . . . Shall I then now make shipwreck, 
 through my carelessness, on the rock which I have 
 escaped in the stormy period of violent passions, now 
 when softer winds are blowing me towards the same 
 haven in which I hope to land as gladly as my 
 opponent ? " ^ It is impossible to harmonise these 
 extremes ; nor are they met by the explanation of 
 
 1 Letters to his brother, November 7, 1778, and April 18, 1779. 
 Lessing's Werke, pp. 1011, 1015. 
 
 2 Anti-Goetze, No. 7 (Lessing's Werke, p. 909. 1778).
 
 UNBELIEF IX GERMANY RATIONALISM. 217 
 
 Lessing to the younger Eeimarus on his publication 
 of the first part of the "Education of the Human 
 Race," in 1777 : "The 'Education' is the work of a 
 good friend, who willingly makes to himself all kinds 
 of h}'potheses and systems, to have the pleasure of again 
 tearing them in pieces. His h}^othesis would throw 
 a long way back the point aimed at by my Unknown. 
 But what matter? Let every one say what he 
 thinks the truth ; and let the truth be left with God." ^ 
 As we began, we must end by saying that on his 
 religious side Lessing is a problem — perhaps the 
 greatest in the history embraced in these inquiries ; 
 and among other sad thoughts suggested by the 
 spectacle of so great a genius divided against itself, 
 the saddest is, that a life so full of struggle — and on 
 its literar}^ side of straggle not endured in vain — 
 should have wanted the unity, the brightness, and the 
 peace, which the full acceptance of Christianity would 
 have brought to such a nature. 
 
 \]\. We come now to our third form of ration- 
 alism, the ethical, in connection with whi<]i it is 
 necessary only to mention tlip nnmo of K;nit. This is 
 not the place to give any biography of tliis great phih)- 
 soplier, the facts of whose life are so widely known. 
 Only one or two rircumstances may Ix' liinted at as 
 bearing on the prevaibngly ctliicnl eliaractei- of liis 
 philosoj)]iy and religion. l[is Scottish extraction, as 
 the grandson of a settler on the Baltic coast in the end 
 
 ^ Letter to J. A. II. ReimaruH, the son of the Fra^nieiiti.st, April 
 6, 1778 (Werke, p. 1008).
 
 218 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 of the seventeenth century, together with the simplicity 
 and piety of his father and German mother, who pre- 
 served this tradition, will account so far for this 
 feature. Further, his own blameless and earnest life, 
 all through his early struggles, and till in 1770 he 
 obtained the place of Professor of Logic and Meta- 
 physics in Konigsberg, in his forty-sixth year, along 
 with his destination for the Church, must have con- 
 tributed to the same result. He jdelded, indeed, so far 
 to the rationalising tendencies of the period in respect 
 of doctrine ; but his high and austere morality could 
 only spring from an uncorrupted life. Still further, 
 we see that the rest of his philosophy all tends to an 
 ethical solution and consummation. His mind ripened 
 fastest on the side of physical science, and he was 
 able in his w^ork on " The Theory of the Heavens," 
 dedicated in 1755 to Frederick the Great, to antici- 
 pate the discovery of outlying planets like Uranus and 
 Neptune ; but this was not the deepest tendency of 
 his nature. Even his immortal " Critik der reinen 
 Vernunft," published in 1781, could not stand alone, 
 with its annihilating criticism and rejection of all 
 other than regulative ideas of reason ; and hence, in 
 his " Critique of Practical Keason," published in 1788, 
 with other ethical works, he had to find in conscience 
 what he could not find in speculative intelligence — a 
 contact with the world of absolute reality, and a 
 hold for the beliefs of God, Virtue, and Immortality. 
 His system was thus rounded off by ethics ; and 
 therefore it was to be expected that if, in religion, his 
 views should not rise above what might require to be
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 219 
 
 called rationalism, it would not be distinctively a 
 critical rationalism, like that of scholars like Eichhorn 
 or even Lessing, but would have, from first to last, a 
 prevailingly ethical character. 
 
 Kant might have completed his metaphysical and 
 ethical systems as they stand, and yet have main- 
 tained silence as to their relation to Christianity. But 
 this he would not do ; and as he had been in the 
 habit of stating this relation in his Lectures under 
 the head of Philosophy of Eeligion, so he resolved 
 to make it known through the press. Hence he 
 published the work which bears the title, " Eeligion 
 innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft" 
 (Religion within the Limits of mere Keason). The 
 work consists of four books, of which Kant inserted 
 the first in the Berlin Monatsckrift in 1792. Liberty 
 was denied by the Government of the day to proceed 
 farther in this way, jiikI he could only overcome the 
 obstacle by oljtaining a license from his own University 
 to ])niit the work in Koiiigsl)erg. This was in 1793 ; 
 1)UL ininicdiatcly alLciu.nds lie was censured by a 
 Cabinet order, and forl^iihicn to lecture on any sub- 
 ject })oaring on rflifrion. This w;is in tlio d;iys of the 
 French Revolution, whrn the lihcity (.f lhe2)ress was 
 iniicli rcstricfcfl ; but with tlie accession of thr iksw 
 king, Frederick W'illi.nn III., in I7'.»7, the ivst r.iint. 
 was removed, seven years before Kant's death, which 
 took place in 1804. These details arc not un- 
 important, as showing the contrast between the 
 days of Frederick the Groat and ol" his ncjilicw ;uid 
 successor, Frederick William 11., when the scenes
 
 220 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 in France produced everywhere a reaction in favour 
 of orthodoxy. But Kant suffered unjustly, being no 
 revolutionist, and his rationalism, however much to 
 be regretted, being couched in the language not of 
 propagandism, but of abstruse philosophy. What 
 this amounts to we have now to inquire ; and 
 happily, however obscure in some parts, his book on 
 Eeligion can be understood by itself, without drawing 
 much upon his still more recondite treatises. Let 
 it only be premised — and this is the radical defect 
 of Kant's religious scheme — that religion is by him 
 sul)ordinated to morality, as God is only required as 
 an uj)holder of the connection between the moral law 
 and happiness, and is not directly revealed as a 
 Lawgiver. 
 
 It is remarkable that Kant begins his work with 
 a recognition of evil in man — the first book being 
 occupied with the " Conjunction of Good and Evil 
 in Human Nature." He preaches a much more 
 Scriptural doctrine of human depravity than almost 
 any philosopher. He wholly rejects the idea that 
 evil arises only from sense ; nor is he more favourable 
 to the view that it is mere privation or metaphysical 
 imperfection. His enlarged knowledge of physical 
 geography, as of human nature — though he had never 
 been fifty miles from home — makes him set aside with 
 quiet irony Eousseau's picture of an innocent savage 
 state ; nor does he, like Bahrdt, Basedow, and all the 
 popular philosophy school, look for a millennium 
 brought in by the schoolmaster. He sees in the 
 Bible story of the fall the image of a wilful and
 
 UXEELIEF IX GERMANY EATIOXALISM. 221 
 
 perpetual apostasy ; and he confirms the doctrine of 
 the third chapter of John (expressly aUuding to it), 
 that virtue cannot return by a reform, but must by 
 a revolution.^ This deeper view in Kant, as Julius 
 Miiller has said, has given great offence to the 
 defenders of human goodness, as a kind of apostasy 
 of the philosopher from himself.^ But there is still 
 in this otherwise striking chapter of philosophical 
 theolog}^ a shortcoming from the Bible doctrine. 
 This doctrine harmonises the absolute imperative of 
 the moral law with grace ; but Kant cannot go so 
 far, without, as he thinks, surrendering liberty. The 
 one half of the Apostle's exhortation is taken — " Work 
 out your own salvation with fear and trembling ; " 
 the other is left — " For it is God that worketh in you 
 both to will and to do of his good pleasure." 
 
 In his second book, which is on " The Struggle 
 between the Good Principle and the Evil," Kant 
 departs more and more widely from Christian 
 ground. Too much of what he retains is Christian 
 phrases and allegories, though lie also makes im- 
 portant concessions to historical Christianity. The 
 mnnil idonl of oxcellcnfc, whidi every man ouglit 
 to strive to recover, may he cillcd tlic ('Irnwil nnd 
 well-l)eloved Son of God; and this is the most of 
 what Kant allows of the Incarnation ; though lif does 
 not in eveiy sense deny such an historical Incarnation 
 as the Church teaches. It is, however, the morally 
 good man in us — the man made new — that Kant 
 
 ' Kant's Workc, Leipzij^', 1838. RoHcnkranzV edition, vol. x. ]•. 54. 
 2 MuUer, Lolire von der Sundc, vol. i. pp. 405-0.
 
 222 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 chiefly regards, and on this new man he lays the 
 burden of the work assigned, by Scripture literally 
 interpreted, to Christ. First, God, seeing the new 
 will to obey, may take the will for the deed, which 
 is a kind of imputed righteousness or justification by 
 faith ; secondly, the sense of begun goodness may 
 give encouragement to persevere, which is the pre- 
 sence of the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete ; and thirdly, 
 the pains and sufferings of repentance, in passing 
 from the old state to the new, may make up a death 
 and a satisfaction, which can be spoken of as the 
 Atonement of the Son of God, adequate to wipe out 
 sin, though Kant apparently does not see that the 
 merit of the penitent is here greater than that of the 
 innocent.^ In these allegories Kant is weak as any 
 other man ; and all that his elaborate ethical inter- 
 pretation does, is to show that the ordinary orthodoxy 
 meets real necessities, which philosophy itself recog- 
 nises. Why there should be not only a right but 
 a duty thus morally to allegorise Scripture more than 
 any other book, Kant does not explain ; though he 
 does here unconscious homage to Him of whose life it 
 is the record, but whose supernatural birth, miracles, 
 and work generally, he, with his generation, had in 
 the ordinary sense ceased to accept. He does not 
 deny the possibility of the miraculous, however hard 
 to distinguish between miracle and law ; and he 
 draws a striking picture of the life of Christ, as ex- 
 hausting the moral law and serving for our example.^ 
 
 ' Kant's Werke, vol. x. pp. 76-92. 
 2 Ibid., vol. X. pp. 93-96.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY— RATIONALISM. 223 
 
 But the wonder was, that, conceding as he did moral 
 perfection to the historical Christ, he should not 
 have seen in him more than an example — a solitary 
 character which furnished the material of moral alle- 
 gories, and rather have risen to welcome him in distinct 
 homage as a miraculous exception to a sinful history, 
 and the herald of dehverance to others. ^ 
 
 In his third book, which is entitled, " The Victory 
 of the Good Principle over the Evil," Kant brings for- 
 ward as belonijino; to natural relio-ion a desideratum 
 which has never existed apart from revelation. This 
 is the idea of a Church or universal moral society, in 
 which alone he holds that the triumph of moral good 
 can be achieved. Such is the dependence of human 
 nature on what is outward, that a moral society or 
 kingdom cannot be realised without the acceptance of 
 something like a revelation, witli an historical basis, 
 and even a divinely given book, as the bond of union 
 among its members. This is one of the darkest parts of 
 the Kantian system ; for it is hard to see why union, 
 in recognising the same moral standard, shouhl not 
 bind men together, instead of their needing some 
 moral leader, whose supposed histijry, or institutions, 
 or written words, add a positive and non-moral element 
 to the constitution. It is, liowovor, according to him, 
 a fortunate tiling tliat su('li a conjunction of the moral 
 witli tlie historical and i)0sitivc exists in Cluistianity, 
 
 ^ Kant fxprcBfily rejects the theory of the FrngmentiHt in rcgiinl to 
 Christ's death a.s a political ventun; ; ,'i.m iIiIh was inconHiatent with a 
 memorial like the Lord's Supjjfr, wliich would have Ix'cn, oh the record 
 of failure, a morbid and self-contradictory iuKtitution. — Wcrke, vol. x. 
 95, note.
 
 224 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 and can be so tliaiikfully accepted, while its docu- 
 ments all admit, even by straining, of a moral inter- 
 pretation.^ It will be seen that Kant here takes 
 practically a very different ground from Tindal, and 
 the Deists, who not only denied that the positive could 
 be revealed, but even that it could be submitted to. 
 Kant, however, so far agrees with them, that the moral 
 is immeasurably the higher element of the two, and 
 sees the progress of the kingdom of God in a kind of 
 euthanasia and ultimate disappearance of historical 
 religion. This process began with Christianity ; for 
 Kant has an unjust idea of Judaism as being little 
 more than a national and political system, while 
 Christianity first rose to the conception of a moral 
 kingdom of God. Something then in the same way 
 with Lessing, though difiering as to Judaism, Kant, 
 as the prophet of rationalism, looks forth to the greater 
 age, of which he seemed already to see the dawn, when 
 the Church as triumphant should dispense with its own 
 existence, and the moral part of religion, as the bond 
 of union, be all in all. ^ 
 
 In his fourth and last book, which is entitled " On 
 Worship and Superstition under the sway of the Good 
 Princijjle," the inherent conflict in his system between 
 
 ^ " Happy case ! if such a book, that has come into human hands, 
 with its statutes as articles of faith, contains at the same time, in its 
 completeness, the purest moral religion, which can then be brought 
 into the best harmony with these statutes as the vehicles of its intro- 
 duction ! On such a supposition, both on account of the end it has to 
 serve, and the difficulty of tracing back to natural laws the origin of 
 such an enlightenment of mankind as is due to its operation, it can 
 maintain its credit as a revelation." — Kant's Werke, vol. x. p. 127. 
 2 Kant's Werke, vol. x. pp. 137-147.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — EATIONALISM. 225 
 
 the moral and historical elements comes more strik- 
 ingly, and even toucliingiy, to light. It is impossible 
 not to recognise his profound honesty and the immense 
 impression which the life and character of Christ had 
 made upon him. He refuses to decide the cj[uestion 
 whether Christianity may or may not be a revelation 
 in the technical sense, but speaks thus of Christ's moral 
 teaching, taken as an actual fact and as shining in its 
 own light : " Here is now a perfect religion, which can 
 be set, in an intelligible and convincing manner, before 
 all men l)y their own reason, and which, besides, has 
 Ijeen illuminated Ijy an example, the possibility and 
 necessity of which as our rule, so far as we are cajDable 
 of following it, all may see, without making the truth 
 of these doctrines or the dignity and authority of their 
 teacher to stand in need of any other attestation, such 
 as miracles or scholarship, which belong not to all,"^ 
 It is truly wonderful that Kant should make so little 
 of the historical side of a religion founded l)y such 
 a Person, who, according to his repeated statements, 
 has alone, among teachers, exhausted the moral law, 
 and the narrative of whose life In- .idmits to ])roduce 
 ill mankind generally a deep belief in itstrutli, .iiid to 
 have an adaptation to the meanest capacities.'^ For 
 want of the universality and necessity which he con- 
 tends for as necessary to a religion in the highest 
 
 ' Kant's Wcrke, vol, x. ].. lOr). 
 - " IIow easily cIoch such u iiarralivo, fsjiccially nudcr the promise 
 of a great interest, find universjil atlniisHion, an<l how tleejily rooted is 
 the faith in its truth, especially as that truth is founded on a document 
 long accepted as authentic, and the faitli in fjuestion is adapted to the 
 most common human capacities !" — Kant's Werkc, vol. x. p. 219. 
 
 Q
 
 -^r> 
 
 226 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 sense, even a revelation from God in the form of 
 history is rej^elled, or reduced to the mere surrogate 
 of a moral religion. Not only does he thus misunder- 
 stand the astonishing harmony in Christianity of the 
 historical element and the ethical, but his appeal to 
 Christian history to help him to realise a visible 
 church becomes a nullity ; because, as he himself 
 justly says, a kingdom of God needs God for its 
 builder. There never was, or will be, a church such as 
 Kant suj^poses. By weakening faith (if not excluding 
 it) in operations of grace, and in means of grace, save 
 only as the habitual contemplation of all moral duties 
 as Divine commandments, he takes away the motive to 
 worship. Private prayer he allows, but only as medi- 
 tation ; church attendance, but only for the recitation 
 of moral hymns or hearing of moral discourses ; some- 
 thing like Baptism and the Lord's Supper, but only 
 as admission into a Tugeiidhund, or the anniversary of 
 its founder.^ A more stern interdiction of direct 
 communion with the living God was never written, 
 and that too in the supposed interests of virtue. 
 Kant was consistent in almost never going to church ; 
 but how then could he represent his own moral society 
 as capable of cohesion, nay, as indispensable to the 
 fulfilment of human destiny ? A sad experience has 
 shown in Germany, as elsewhere, that when Gospel 
 history, with the preaching of the Incarnation, Atone- 
 ment, and kingdom of a living Christ through whom 
 God hears prayer and dispenses grace, is discarded, 
 morality ceases to be a principle of association, and 
 
 * Kant's Werke, vol. x. pp. 235-242.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY RATIONALISM. 227 
 
 the rationalist anticipates Kant's Cliurcli triumpliant 
 by leaving the militant to its own fortunes. The only 
 value of the rigorous criticism to which Kant subjects 
 all Church ordinances is to discourage a mere super- 
 stitious and sentimental pietism, and to enforce that 
 great principle to which even such exaggeration does 
 homage, " By their fruits ye shall know them !"^ In 
 the contrast of living Christianity, as uniting in the 
 closest emljrace devotion and virtue, with this one- 
 sidedness of Kant, we have another proof of the 
 Divine mission of Christ ; for how should otherwise the 
 unlettered Galilean teacher have surpassed one of the 
 very greatest of moral philosophers ? how should even 
 his forerunner have connected repentance with faith 
 in the making of atonement for sins *? Happy, if the 
 stem preacher of the " categorical imperative " in the 
 German wilderness had enforced his testimony like the 
 Baptist, by a voice from heaven — a voice disclosing a 
 deeper and more subduing mystery of love than reason 
 can utter! — Ha]»j)y if ln' liad repeated, not as a moral 
 allegory — but as a liteial tiiilh — tlic tiulli of :ill 
 history, the words, ''Behold tlie Lamb of God that 
 takcth away the sin of the world !" 
 
 Thus ai'c we Ijrought to the end of the century, and 
 
 1 To thi.H text (Mutt, vii. 20) Kant, alinrtst in the end of hi.s work, 
 appcalH ; tliou^'li he niUHt have been unfortunate in lii.s experience, if 
 those who laid Btress on hiKtorical roli^ion in liis day couM leKH abide 
 this moral tcHt than oHhth. IIIh cloHinj,' Hontence rocallH tlic full 
 descent from tin; days of LuIIkt. " The rij^lit way is not to proceed from 
 grace to virtue, but from virtue to grace" (nichtder rechte WegHey, von 
 dcr Begnadigung zur Tiigend, sondeni vielmehr von dcr Tugend zur 
 Begnadigung fortzuschreiten.) — Werkc, vol. x. pp. 243-4.
 
 228 Uif BELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 to the development which rationalism found in it, so 
 long as it streamed on with prevailing tide. How 
 a reaction began and gradually increased, even in the 
 face of the same spirit and of its later manifestations, 
 till the old rationalism could be said to have passed 
 away, it is hardly the place here to consider. A few 
 indications, however, may close this Lecture. It was 
 not anything human, but the return of Christianity, 
 as a living power from God, that wrought deliver- 
 ance. Christ was recovered, and the Scripture re- 
 asserted, from the starting-point of a living experience 
 in the Church, which led back to both. This, by 
 universal consent, was the place of Schleiermacher in 
 German Church history. The grave defects of his 
 doctrinal system, and the failure of his Scripture criti- 
 cism, few will now deny. But the living power of 
 faith in a personal Christ, a faith kindled by experi- 
 ence among the Moravians in Niesky, and which all 
 the influences of Plato and S]3inoza, of Jacobi, Fichte, 
 Schelling, and also of the Schlegels, might variously 
 colour or impair, but could not destroy, was again 
 felt. In comparison of this, the moral idealism of 
 Kant wanted the soul of worship ; and the gigantic 
 systems of speculative philosophy which followed, 
 though they recalled the grandeur and vagueness of 
 the Infinite, could not give a personal Saviour and 
 Friend. Here was the starting-point of a career full 
 of speculation, but rich also in practical fruit in all 
 directions, and which, alike in the pulpit and in the 
 university, set out from the discord of sin to lead up 
 to the harmony of grace. The deepest wound was
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 229 
 
 thus given to rationalism by reviving the sense of 
 guilt and misery ; and a theology of the heart took 
 the place of one of mere reason and criticism. The in- 
 fluence thus exerted, more especially through the long 
 university career of Schleiermacher in Halle and Ber- 
 lin from 1804 to 1834, was unbounded; and, among 
 his disciples, one is to be named as so far dividing 
 with him, from an early date, the place of honour 
 in recovering Germany to a believing theology. This 
 was the son of a humble Gottingen Jew, wdio, trained 
 in Hamburg in the very G}Tiinasium in which Eei- 
 marus had so long taught, was then baptized at the age 
 of seventeen by the name Neander, and two years after- 
 wards, by a deeper baptism, which made it fully true ; 
 and having been brought nearer to Christ by Plato 
 and Plutarch, nearer still V)y the lectures of Schleier- 
 macher in Halle, and nearest of ;il1 l)y the deep and 
 anxious study of the New Testament, went fortli 
 to make the history of Christianity his theme, and, 
 teaching it to ever-increasing crowds in Heidelberg 
 and Berlin till 1850, to recall to the Church its long- 
 departed heroes, and to ditruse their spirit and his 
 own to the very ends of the earth. How great the 
 recoil from rationalism in these words of the openini:^ 
 volume of his Chunli iii.story ! " We look u])on 
 Christianity not as a powei- that has s})rung u^) out of 
 the hidden depths of man's nature, but as one which 
 descended from above, when heaven o])ene(l itself 
 anew to man's long-alienat<'d race, a, j)ower whieh as, 
 both in its origin and its essence, it is exalted idxive 
 all that human nature e;in create out uf its own
 
 230 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 resources, was designed to impart to that nature a 
 new life, and to change it in its inmost principles." ^ 
 The impulse which went forth from these men ere 
 long changed the character of the Universities ; and 
 a host of theologians arose — Nitzsch, Twestcn, 
 Liicke, Ullmann, Tholuck, Olshausen, Julius Mliller, 
 Dorner, and many others, all marked, more or less, 
 with the same impress, or yet more close in adher- 
 ence to views which rationalism had set aside ; while 
 a theology nearer still to the old Biblical and con- 
 fessional models, which had never died out, was 
 represented, not without many features of independ- 
 ence, in men like Hengstenberg, Ebrard, and De- 
 litsch ; and even from another side a great scholar 
 like Ewald redressed the unfairness of Schleiermacher 
 to the Old Testament, and, with many and great 
 drawbacks of his own, asserted in his own way the 
 historical greatness and necessity of the Bible revela- 
 tion. Through the solid and earnest teaching of 
 these men and others whom they raised up around 
 them, the German Church passed not only unharmed 
 but benefited throuf»;li the crisis connected with the 
 publication of the " Leben Jesu" by Strauss in 1835 ; 
 and the advantage thus gained, notwithstanding some 
 reactions, more especially those connected with the 
 so-called "Tubingen School" and its branches, has 
 not been lost in the Universities to this day. The 
 public history of the German people has also, on the 
 whole, been favourable to this religious revival. The 
 outburst of modern literature cannot be said to have 
 
 ^ Neander's Church History, vol. i. p. 2. Bohn's edition.
 
 UNBELIEF IN GERMANY — EATIONALISM. 231 
 
 been so conducive to Christian results as in England, 
 for its greatest names have unhappily stood more 
 apart from distinctively Christian faith. But the 
 march of history otherwise has not been adverse. 
 The Liberation War of 1813-14 produced a renewal 
 not only of patriotic but of religious feeling, and this 
 was deepened by the celebration of the Eeformation 
 Tercentenary in 1817. The long period of uneasi- 
 ness and repression, which at length culminated in 
 the storms and troubles of 1848, yielded in the 
 end a great extension of religious liberty ; and the 
 Church, amidst the confusion of that epoch, created 
 the Kirchentacj and the Inner Mission, and broke up 
 much fallow ground by Christian enterprise. The 
 suljsequcnt revolutions of political history in l)ringiug 
 a Protestant power to the front, and in cxhil^iting the 
 spectacle of German unity — a unity which needs to 
 be maintained against Rome — have not only repaired 
 the losses of the Reformation in the Thirty Years' 
 War, but recalled the image and the work of Luther 
 as the greatest memory of the German people. It 
 cannot be denied that the victory of Jiible Christian- 
 ity is veiy incom})lcte, and tliat dark cloud^s are in 
 the religious future of Gcnnany. There is tlie want 
 of si)iritual iiidei)endeuce and self-government of the 
 Church, witli the wide, - spread litl);iro;y wliicli it 
 creates. Tliere is tlie lieritnge of uiil)elief and in- 
 diiference sent down fioni the rationalism of tlie past, 
 and which rests upon llie great cities and whole 
 classes of the population. There is the Materialism 
 which, assisted 1>y tlio failure and downfall of idealist
 
 232 UNBELIEF IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 systems of pliiloso2)hy, jDcrverts physical science in 
 Germany, as elsewhere, into the prophet of annihi- 
 lation. There is the Pessimism which even courts 
 annihilation rather than Christian regeneration and 
 activity. And there are Socialism and Nihilism, be- 
 gotten of heavy military burdens and poverty, which 
 grasp with blind violence at a transient Paradise on 
 earth, and refuse to seek a better at the call of the 
 Church, because she has been too often on the side 
 of obstruction and despotism. Still, notwithstanding 
 all these grim and threatening shadows, the gospel 
 advances ; and the best authorities are agreed that, 
 great as the resistent mass is, the number of living 
 and earnest Christians is larger than at any former 
 day. Who can doubt that it is so ? and still more, if 
 this century be contrasted with the last ; since, for 
 one earnest and qualified defender of the faith at the 
 date of the Wolfenbilttel Fragments, there are now 
 ten or twenty. May, then, this great sister-people, 
 cheered by the memories of the past, and by the 
 co-operation and sympathy of other countries and our 
 own, rightly address itself to a task perhaps as high 
 and difiicult as lies in the path of any Christian 
 nation 1 AVhatever of rationalism may remain amongst 
 them, whatever may he still originated, may they, in 
 the exercise of a wise and just criticism, be led to 
 eliminate and even to turn to good as brightening 
 the records which for a time may seem to be obscured. 
 And for ourselves, while watchful, as we pray that 
 our brethren may be, against all that is evil or doubt- 
 ful, let us still profit, as we have done, ])y those great
 
 UNBELIEF m GERMANY — RATIONALISM. 233 
 
 gifts of learniug, of speculation, and of profound 
 inward meditation upon the inexhaustible truth of 
 God, rejDeated in every note from science to sacred 
 song, by which, not less than by the heroic deeds of 
 the Eeformation, they have enriched our common 
 inheritance ; and may the day come, when, in the 
 growing clearness of a faith which has absorbed 
 the mists and clouds of reason, their rationalism and 
 our own shall be looked back upon as only an episode 
 of the past, and as the wandering of a stream which 
 has returned upon its source, henceforth to be like 
 " Sdoa's brook, which flowed fast by the oracle of 
 God."
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY-^ 
 STRAUSS, R^NAN, MILL. 
 
 Tendencies of nineteenth century — Deeper anti-supematuralisni — 
 Natural explanation of Christ and Christianity — Strauss ; first 
 " Leben Jesu," in 1835 — Mythical tlieory — Replies — Second 
 " Lehen Jesu" in 1864 — Relation to Baur and Tubingen 
 School — Criticism of amended theory — Third and last period 
 of Strauss — Atheism — Renan — French unbelief from Revolu- 
 tionary period ; " Vie de Jesus," and succeeding works — View 
 of the Gospels — Failure in estimating character and life of 
 Christ — Inadequate account of success of Christianity, and life 
 of Apostle Paul — Immoral attitude towards doubt within the 
 Church — John Stuart Mill ; Views of Natural Theology — Pos- 
 sibility of a Revelation — Sense of the worth of Christianity and 
 greatness of Christ — Lessons from these Studies — Fluctuation of 
 unbelief — Advance of Christianity — Necessity of maintaining its 
 supernatural character. 
 
 Our task in the exhibition of eighteenth century- 
 unbelief and in the setting forth of the contrasts 
 which it presented with the past, or its own internal 
 differences, is now, so far as could be attempted within 
 the required limits, accomplished. But it seems very 
 desirable to make the further development of history 
 the interpreter, and where needful, corrector of the 
 past century ; and therefore, in this closing Lecture, 
 I shall endeavour, more expressly than has hitherto 
 been done, to cast back the light of more recent times
 
 STRAUSS — RENAN — MILL. 235 
 
 upon the foregoing, and to show to what extent the 
 alleged results of last century have been acquiesced 
 in, or with what new phases of objection or doubt the 
 minds of men have been occupied. 
 
 There are, I think, in all, tivo tendencies in the 
 nineteenth century, which mark unbelief, as con- 
 trasted with the eighteenth. There is,Jirst, a tend- 
 ency to give the anti-supernatural a deeper, a more 
 thorough, and a more radical character. And, secondly, 
 there is a tendency, in harmony with this negation, 
 to strive more earnestly to account for Christianity 
 as a phenomenon, and, if possible, ^vdtli a favourable 
 rather than an unfavourable estimate of its claims, 
 provided only these are denied a suj)ernatural origin. 
 In regard to the first, it is easy to see from how 
 many quarters it has l3een strengthened. Philosophy 
 lias contriljuted to tliis development. So long as 
 philosoph}' ended in Theism, as in the eighteenth 
 century was generally the case, there was practically 
 room for the Christian boliof in tlic supernaturnl. 
 But in the great Continental |)liiI(),so])lii(',s of the 
 beginning of the century, in which idealism was 
 pushed on to Pantheism, tliis l^ecame impossible ; 
 and then, after 1848 in Germany, and even l)ey()iiil 
 it, materialism went on to atheism, so th;it a revela- 
 tion ceased to be admissible. Science also had its 
 share in this denial ; for th'jiigli line science, like 
 true history, will accept any facts that arc such, the 
 uniformity of n.itnre was n])pealed to, I)oili in tlic 
 name of science aixl of history, to exclude everything 
 transcending nature, as a revelation necessarily does ;
 
 236 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 and hence the system known as Positivism could not 
 but be sternly anti-supernaturalist, while Agnosticism 
 and Scepticism equally covered any transcendent 
 region with darkness. Nothing then remained but 
 Theism, generally though not necessarily in alliance 
 with a spiritualistic philosophy, to form a basis for 
 Christianity ; and even this inference, so far as it 
 was a supernaturalist one, might be cut off by 
 Kationalism, bringing down Christianity to ordinary 
 dimensions, and thus uniting its disciples with the 
 pantheist, the positivist, and atheist, to swell the 
 chorus of assent to the uniformity of law. Nothing 
 but the renewed visibility of Christianity in connec- 
 tion with greatness and progress — a greatness and 
 a progress far beyond the example of the eighteenth 
 century, and such as made it impossible to ignore 
 or to despise it — could have resisted these combined 
 tendencies to anti-supernaturalism, which would 
 otherwise have thrust its dead body aside or quietly 
 walked over it. Hence, as Christianity was still 
 alive and active, there was a necessity — and this is 
 the second feature of our century — of accounting for 
 it on natural principles, and while yielding to its 
 felt power and influence for good, and doing it as 
 much justice as possible consistently with a natural 
 orir/in, to make that natural oriojiu credible. This 
 problem was also in harmony with the scientific and 
 historic tendency of the age, which would gain a 
 fresh victory if it could succeed in showing that 
 Christianity was one, and it might be the highest, 
 of those religious products whiV-h had sprung from
 
 STRAUSS — EEXAN — MILL. 237 
 
 liumau nature, and were due to its mysterious powers 
 alone. This is the religious programme of the nine- 
 teenth century as contradistinguished from the 
 eighteenth — a work of which we see little trace in 
 English Deism or in French Illuminism, and only 
 the beginnings in Eichhorn, in Lessing, and, in some 
 grotesque form, in Paulus. Of this labour of unljclief, 
 the life of Christ is the central field, and the origin of 
 Christianity as connected with it ; and hence I shall 
 pass in review, as distinctive of the nineteenth 
 century, and as illustrating by contrast the fore- 
 going period, the handling of this problem by repre- 
 sentative men in cacli of the countries hitherto 
 reviewed — Strauss, Kenan, and John Stuart ]\lil]. 
 The new relations of philosophy and science to the 
 problem — the fundamental one of alleged Revelation 
 — will come out of themselves. 
 
 Strauss may l)o taken as the fullest representative 
 for Germany of the non-believing attempts, in tin's 
 century, to solve the jiroblem of the life of Christ and 
 the origin of Christianity. Jii tlic liistory of Strauss 
 we discern three periods, .nul llic attitude to (1iris- 
 tianity is, in cacli, different. There is tli.it repre- 
 sented l)y the first " Leben Jesu " in 1835 ; there is 
 that re})rcsented by tlie second " Jie])en Jesu" in 
 18G4 ; and !li;il i( presented by "Dei- ;ille und >]rv 
 neue Olaube " of 1873. In iIh' first, Clii'isI i.inity is 
 explained flii-ou;^li the piiilosojijiy of |i,inl lnisni ; in 
 the second, on the ground of a naturalistic. Theism ; 
 and in th(^ third, it is li;irdly tre.ited as worthy of 
 explanation, but buried in I lie wreck of a materialistic
 
 238 Ui^BELlEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 atheism. The criticism of Strauss, tlivis, in its suc- 
 cessive periods, refutes itself, and ends by pulling 
 down the whole temple of religion on its head. 
 
 The first issue of the " Leben Jesu," which bore 
 the name, afterwards to be so well known, David 
 Friedrich Strauss, was publislied in Tiibingen in 
 1835, when its author, then twenty-seven years of 
 age, was only a repetent in the University. A native 
 of Ludwigsburg, half-way between Heilbronn and 
 Stuttgart, he had brought to the University of Tubin- 
 gen a keen and penetrating intellect, and a vast 
 capacity both of learning and of criticism, together 
 with a temperament melancholic and even poetic, 
 which, if cheered and exalted by Christian faith, and 
 regulated by sober judgment, might have made him a 
 great Christian scholar, or even preacher of the gospel, 
 for which his eminent clearness of style and thorough- 
 going outspokenness of utterance might also have 
 furnished essential help. Unhappily the faith — if 
 there had been some earlier appearances of it — failed ; 
 the balance of judgment was overset ; and the clear 
 and trenchant style, bright with so much knowledge 
 and critical vigour, became only the vehicle of ex- 
 treme theory and destructive paradox. Schleier- 
 macher and Hegel had but lately disappeared ; but 
 Strauss had chosen the philosophy of thought rather 
 than the theology of feeling, and had warmly attached 
 himself to that great system of would-be-omniscience, 
 which, wdth all its efforts and promises, and its un- 
 doubted impulse to historical research, never could 
 reconcile itself to history. It would be wrong, how-
 
 STRAUSS — RENAN — MILL. 239 
 
 ever, to charge Hegel with the excesses of Strauss, as 
 the latter belonged to the so-called left school of that 
 variously interpreted philosophy, and as Hegel, what- 
 ever the tendency of his system to pantheism, un- 
 doubtedly protested against rationalism, and declared 
 that philosophy and supernaturalism agreed in sub- 
 stance, and were only different in form/ In truth, 
 there was nothing in the mythical theory, as Strauss 
 started it, sjjecially akin to the Hegelian philosophy ; 
 and it was only the use to which the philosophy was 
 put to repair the ravages of criticism, that established 
 any close connection. The introduction j)refixed by 
 Strauss to his earliest work shows how much more his 
 view was a development of the preceding rationalism, 
 and how possible it was for it to have come long 
 Ijefore, as it lay in the germ in Eichhorn, Galjlcr, and 
 others. In fact, it did not differ so much from Paulus, 
 as Strauss was eager to show. Paulus, by his natural- 
 istic explanations, reduced the sacred history to ordi- 
 nary facts ; and Strauss, by his mythical theory, showed 
 how ordinary facts had been exalted into a miraculous 
 histor}'. The ])eenliarity of his scheme lay in a])[)ly- 
 ing the princijdes of mythology to account for the 
 
 ' Hegel, GcKchichte (ler Philosophic. " RjitioimliHia is npposfd to 
 philosophy, both an to mutter and Iniiii ; it Ims made matter, it haa 
 made heaven, cnijily, reduced all to Unite relations ; and as \n ruriii, 
 it is opposed to philosophy, for it« fnrnj is reiwoninf,', unfree reiisoninj^', 
 not cftnception (I'e^Teifen). Su])eriiatiiraliHni is in relij^ion o])p(ised to 
 Rationalism, hut it is allied to philosoidiy in respect of the true matter ; 
 hut in form is different; for it is heconie quite spiritless, wooden, and 
 takes outward authority for its justification. The SclKdasticii were not 
 Supcmaturalists of this type ; they knew the do^^'ma of the Church in the 
 way of thouj,'ht, ami of contei)tion." — Hegel's Werke, vol. xiii.pp. 96-7.
 
 240 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 creation of the Gospel narratives. There were the two 
 elements, which he allowed, the Mythus proper, where 
 history is created purely from an idea, or, if there be a 
 basis of fact, is, by the idea, glorified ; and there was 
 the Sage or legend, where, with less influence of the 
 idea, the truth is fantastically distorted or coloured. 
 Out of these elements of historical deviation, each of 
 which, however, is j)erfectly honest in giving itself out 
 as truth (and Strauss even adds a minor contribution 
 of conscious interpolation on the part of the Evan- 
 gelists, which, however, is not mendacious), he under- 
 takes to build up the existing Gospels, starting from 
 the limited amount of literal history which they con- 
 \ tain, or, what is the same thing, to reduce the cloud- 
 
 capped fabric to its true dimensions.^ His rules are 
 chiefly two : to eliminate all that is miraculous or akin 
 to miracle, since he takes for granted that miracle is 
 imjDossible ; and to set aside all that is discordantly re- 
 lated by the Evangelists — a task which is all the easier 
 that he denies the authority of the Synoptists, whom 
 he puts down into the second century, and rejects the 
 Johannine origin of the fourth Gospel. Hence his 
 work is not so much a " Life of Jesus " as a criticism 
 of the Gospel narratives, which he goes through from 
 beginning to end, examining first, under every head, 
 the naturalistic commentary of Paulus, of which the ex- 
 planations are summarily set aside ; and secondly, the 
 supernaturalist commentary on the Gospels by Olshau- 
 sen, which had begun to appear in 1830, and in regard 
 
 ^ The rules and canons of this procedure are stated in the Intro- 
 duction to the first Leben Jesu, pp. 113-124. Third edition.
 
 STRAUSS — RENAN — MILL. 241 
 
 to which work, the defence of miracles, and the solu- 
 tion of discords undertaken in it, are pronounced 
 equally unsatisfactory. The result is that there re- 
 mains either no basis of truth, or only a modicum of 
 it, and the procedure of the Evangelists in honestly 
 wTitins: such an unhistorical narrative has to be 
 accounted for. This is done by bringing in the idea 
 of the Old Testament Messiah, which for many 
 centuries had been current, and which filled their 
 minds and hearts. Since this represented him not 
 only as the prophet like Moses, as the son of David, 
 and as the successor of the prophets in sufi"erings, but 
 also as the worker of signs and wonders, here was the 
 model after which they unconsciously depicted him, 
 while, at the same time, his actual greatness (which 
 Strauss, within limits, admits) was sufficient to ex- 
 })lain, and in some sense to necessitate, the exaggera- 
 tion. Such is the " Leben Jesu," as it first appeared ; 
 and now, wlien Strauss has wrecked the whole Chris- 
 tian edifice, has preserved neither virgin birth nor bap- 
 tism, nor transfiguration, nor miracle, nor prophecy of 
 any kind, not even of denth nnrl rising, and has left 
 Jesus a great moralist and reformer, lying in the 
 grave without hope of coming in the clouds of heaven, 
 he consoles hiniHcIf nml liis licarcrs l)y falling back 
 on the Ilcgf'lian philosophy, .iiid iiili'i|tn'ling it so as 
 to see at the bottom of tins life of Jesus the idea of 
 the identity of (lod and m.in, ;iiid nl' ilic im^-^idii of 
 liunianil)', not in miy nidi\idiial. but in llic ,s|icci('Sj 
 to be the Messiah, to woik iiiir;Hlrs, ((» die, ri.sc, and 
 ascend to hcaviMi ; wliilc tlir un|);ii;dlcl('d greatness
 
 242 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 of Jesus as an individual lies in his having seen and 
 taught all this, and having, in his all but perfect life, 
 stood alone and unapproached in history (" der einzig 
 U7id unerreicht in der Weltgeschichte steht."y 
 
 This work of Strauss produced unbounded sensa- 
 tion in Germany, not without alarm ; although, to 
 use a fine figure of Lessing, instead of the Temple 
 being in flames, it w^as only the play of an aurora 
 horealis. The ablest theologians in Germany hast- 
 ened to answer — Neander, Ullmann, Julius Miiller, 
 Tholuck, and many more ; and for two or three years 
 this controversy absorbed all others. It was shown 
 that, discounting the prejudice against miracles and 
 the abuse of divergencies in the Gospels, the objec- 
 tions were reduced to small dimensions ; also, that 
 the dates of the Gospels could not be brought so low 
 as to permit the growth of myth, which, in an histori- 
 cal age, was still more anomalous ; and not least, that 
 enough of greatness was not left, in the residual 
 Christ of the Straussian scheme, to have given such 
 an impulse to myth-creation. Strauss defended him- 
 self with great alertness and vigour in a series of 
 Streitschriften ; and it was so far to his credit that, 
 in his second edition in 1836, overcome by the argu- 
 ments of Neander in favour of the fourth Gospel, he 
 left its Johannine authorship neutral ; though, in the 
 third edition in 1838, he returned to his scepticism. 
 Ere long he failed in an attempt to obtain in the 
 University of Zurich a theological professorship, being 
 resisted by the voice of the people ; and having pub- 
 
 ^ Leben Jesu, vol. ii. p. 779.
 
 STRAUSS KENAN — MILL. 243 
 
 lished a " Dogmatik," in wliicli, by the Hegelian 
 method, he brought out of the cardinal doctrines 
 of the gospel nothing more than the barren results 
 of philosophy, he quitted for twenty years the field 
 of theology proper, and gave himself up to study 
 and writing in connection with the German litera- 
 ture of the Eeformation period, of which one fruit 
 appeared in a work on Ulrich von Hutten. In 1862 
 he surprised the world by a work, in which he 
 appeared as the exjDositor and apologist of Reimarus, 
 though disclaiming his theory of fraud and holding 
 by that of enthusiasm ; and in 1864, after Rdnan 
 had attracted such wide notice in the foregoing year 
 by his " Vie de Jesus," Strauss came out with a 
 popular work, which he had for some time before 
 been laboriously preparing, and which was a com- 
 plete recast of liis old treatise, w illi the title, " The 
 Life of Jesus remodelled for the German People." ^ 
 This work is extremely instructive ; but our remarks 
 on it need iK»t bo IcnfTtliciicd. 
 
 111 ivtuniiiig to the field of criticism, Strauss liad 
 to adjust liis rehitions fo the in,iii\- l.didurcrs wlio 
 bad gone forward in his absence, .md cliicfly to the 
 'J'iibingcn scliool, whicli was commonly sujiposcd lo 
 have been »»riginatc(l by liis cfloit. I >r. r.;iiir liad 
 disclaimed, as lie unirormly did, tliis icl.ition of 
 dependenee ; and Strauss, while adiiniliiMf the ureat 
 value and oii;_;iii;dity of iJaur's Hubsetpient researches, 
 rather conipl.niis th;il his own part had beeii under- 
 
 ' The German title i9 " D.is Leben Jbhii fur das deutsche Volk 
 bearbeitet." Leipzig : BrockliaUH, 1804.
 
 244 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 rated. ^ However, he addresses himself to repair the 
 omission which Baur had charged upon his earlier 
 work in its successive editions, viz. that he had criti- 
 cised the gospel history, but neglected to give a criti- 
 cal account of the Gospels.^ Accordingly, about a 
 hundi-ed -pages in his work are devoted to this sub- 
 ject ; and in these the views of Baur and his succes- 
 sors are substantially adopted. Baur, as is well 
 known, did not construct his scheme of the origin 
 of the Gosj)els upon a mythical principle, but upon 
 what has been called one of tendency (Tendenz). 
 To him, the key to the apostolic and post-apostolic 
 age is the conflict between two parties in the early 
 Church, the Petrine or Jewish, and the Pauline or 
 Gentile. He has here a vera causa, or element of 
 undoubted fact, which Strauss cannot be said to 
 have had in his mythical impulse ; but Baur has 
 enormously exaggerated both it and its influence ; 
 and as this appears elsewhere, so here ; for, according 
 to him, whatever oral and earlier written gospels may 
 have existed, the Gospels in their present shape were 
 not produced till the conflict between the two great 
 parties was cooled down, and we have, even after 
 their origin, the marks of still further retouching 
 and adjustment from time to time, under the influ- 
 ence of one or other of these tendencies. It is not 
 necessary to state further Baur's general position, 
 which throws all the Gospels and the Acts into the 
 second century. Strauss not only accepts this view, 
 but carries it as far as Schwegler had done, whom 
 
 ^ Second Leben Jesu, p. 97. ^ Ibid., p. 98, See also Appendix, Note K.
 
 STKAUSS REX AX — MILL. 245 
 
 he thus quotes : "At every step," says Schwegler 
 strikingly, " that theological consciousness took in 
 advance, there was a fresh correction of the Gospels : 
 what was antiquated and objectionable was expunged ; 
 what was suitable to the age was introduced ; withal, 
 many a watchword of progress was interpolated ; and 
 thus we see the Church engaged in a constant pro- 
 duction of gospel discourses and sayings, till this 
 gospel reform reached a period with the exclusive 
 recognition of our Synoptists and the fixation of the 
 Catholic Church." ^ However, Strauss, in his anxiety 
 to find time for his mythical development, both in its 
 first and second form, has sinned against history. 
 The late date of the Gospels is more and more 
 abandonetl, even Ijy adherents of the Tuliingen 
 school ; and it cannot be understood how, if docu- 
 ments were publicly recognised and used, they could 
 ever have been thus changed, ;iiiy more tlian the 
 prayer-books or hymn-books of a modern c;liurch ; 
 nor, on the other hand, how, if they were only 
 private, they could ever, all at once, have burst u])on 
 us in full ])ublic use and recognition. Another fatal 
 result of" this more detail'tl theory of the Gospels is 
 the exclusion of the mythical jirinciplc. There is no 
 loncrer unconsciousness, to the extent at first cliiiiiicd. 
 If [vuke cniild leave out tlic iiriiedictioii of IN'tcr as 
 tlic \ltu\< ill mdrr not to ofi'end the Gentiles, and if 
 M;irk coidd ;dli»\v tlic Gentiles ;is dogs to lir (cd, Imi(, 
 only after the Jews, so as U> please both, we have; a 
 mortal strd) rri'^'^Ti not only to the ordin.'iry view of 
 1 Second Lcbcn Jesu, p. 118.
 
 246 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 their inspiration, but to the mythical theory of their 
 unconsciousness. AVe are dragged down into a region 
 which is nearer fabrication than colourless fiction ; 
 and if we could believe this, the problem of the 
 Gospels would soon be dismissed.^ 
 
 In his recast, Strauss endeavours to meet another 
 long-standing objection, that he had not separated 
 the historical from the mythical elements in the life of 
 Jesus ; and hence one part of his work gives the real 
 history, the other the adventitious. He complains 
 much of the darkness of this topic ; and represents 
 Christ as so much less known than Socrates, and so 
 disguised by his own followers, that, had he returned, 
 by the fall of Jerusalem, he would not have known 
 his own image. ^ He thinks himself, however, war- 
 ranted to say, that Jesus was a greater than Socrates, 
 a pre-eminent moralist and reformer, who united 
 Hebrew sanctity with Greek geniality, realised with 
 original force the fatherhood of God, and founded 
 human virtue on this model, thus giving to mercy, 
 tenderness, and self-sacrifice, their long -neglected 
 place and ascendency. Strauss does not allow that 
 there was any defect in Christ's moral teaching (in 
 regard to w^hich he accepts the Sermon on the Mount 
 and some of the parables), so far as the individual is 
 concerned ; ^ but sees a deficiency in regard to the 
 
 ^ These liberties of Luke and Mark, according to Strauss, which, 
 however, are only specimens of others, are stated in Second Leben 
 Jesu, p. 122 and p. 1.34. 
 
 2 Second Leben Jesu, p. 623. 
 
 3 " Everything is fully developed that relates to the love of God 
 and our neighbour, to purity of heart and life in the individual." — 
 Second Leben Jesu, p. 626.
 
 STRAUSS RENAN MILL. 247 
 
 state, and in regard to industry and art, and some- 
 thing of too ascetic a cliaracter. There has dropped 
 away the whole Hegelianism of his earlier work ; and 
 he speaks almost as if himself a theist ; for he judges 
 the morality of Jesus as drawing its excellence from 
 being based on the fatherhood of God ; ^ though he 
 no longer holds that Jesus stands alone amidst the 
 possibilities of the future.^ As to the public career of 
 Jesus, he grants that he believed the Jewish Scriptures 
 to predict the founder of a universal rehgion of 
 spiritual worship and charity, under the name of 
 Messiah ; applied that character to himself ; formed 
 himself on such delineations of it as brought out suf- 
 fering and sacrifice, e.g., the 53d of Isaiah ; predicted 
 his own death, and may have taught it to be a ransom 
 for many, in harmony with wliich he may have in- 
 stituted the Last Supper.^ In the work of thus spirit- 
 ualising the Jewish ideas of a Messiah, and abolishing 
 the Jewish national religion and ceremonial law, he 
 mot his end, little being known of it save lluit lie was 
 Ijctrayed by a disciple, crucilicd by the Komau power 
 at the instance of the Jews (being at Jerusalem for 
 the first timo), .-itkI flicfl, expecting through en- 
 thusiasm to come again with the clouds of Iicaven, 
 to set lip .'I kingdom, ;in<1 jiid'jc tlif (|nlck ;iii(l dcid.' 
 
 ' Second Lehen Jcsn, pp. 206-7. ''' Il)i<l., p. 027. 
 
 ^ Second Lubcn Jesu. " Deeply modituting upon his aiqiroaching 
 death, lie niiglit at the wime time, from the pdint of view of a pacrificc, 
 regard hi.s blood a.s the seal of a new rovenant lietwccn Ood and ni.in, 
 and in order to give the Hociety he ])roj>o.sed to found a living centre, 
 he might have ordained this giving out of bread and wine as a festival 
 to be repeated." — P. 282. 
 
 ■* Strauss does not ascribe tliin dduHion to Jchuh with absolute
 
 248 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 The resurrection, and all the miracles, are, as before, 
 rejected as unhistorical. 
 
 Out of these historic materials, with the added help 
 of Messianic prophecy. Old Testament type, and cur- 
 rent tradition, Strauss, in much the largest part of his 
 work, gives the genesis of the mythical portion of the 
 life of Jesus. It is weary labour, but he holds on to 
 it, all through the host of myths that gather around 
 the childhood, ministry, and last scenes. As David, 
 whom the Messiah was bound to resemble, was 
 anointed by Samuel, so Jesus was baptized by John, 
 thougli a large part of his connection with the 
 Baptist is mythical.^ As Moses fed the people with 
 manna, so Jesus had to feed them in the wilderness.^ 
 As the Messiah was not to be left, according to Psalm 
 xvi. 10, in Sheol, so Jesus must rise from the dead.^ 
 These are examples of nearly three hundred pages of 
 mythical construction, till the mind is overpowered 
 Tvdth wonder, and led to ask. What great reality created 
 all this ? Is the Jesus of Strauss so stupendous a 
 personality as to have cast so much vaster a radiance 
 far and wide than Socrates ? Was the climate so 
 
 certainty ; but is moved to regard it from the consent of the Evangel- 
 ists, and other circumstances, as highly probable ; and he says, " To 
 pee exalted gifts of mind and heart blended with a dash (dosis) of 
 enthusiasm, is no uncommon phenomenon : and of the great men of 
 history it may be roundly affirmed, that none of them has been 
 quite free from enthusiasm" (Schwarmerei). — Second Leben Jesu, 
 p. 237. 
 
 ^ Ibid., pp. 340-347. 
 
 2 Strauss also mingles here, with the imitation of Moses, a reference 
 to the Lord's Supper. — Ibid., pp. 496-506. 
 
 3 Ibid., pp. 305, 306.
 
 STRAUSS — RENAN — MILL. 249 
 
 intensely hot, and the soil so rich, as to have forced 
 on all this tropical vegetation, where the graft or the 
 parasite is so much more than the tree ? 
 
 " Nee longiini tempus et ingens 
 ExLit ad eoelum ramis felieibus arbos 
 Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma." ' 
 
 To these questions, on the doctrine of the uniformity 
 of nature, there can be no reply. The believers in 
 Jesus, who believed so excessively beyond facts, do 
 not belong to the ordinary or even extraordinary 
 course of experience. If the miracles are myths, the 
 myths are miracles ; and thus the supernatural, or 
 suhter-natural , returns upon us ; and another theory, 
 mythical or other, will be requu-ed to reduce this 
 phenomenon in the Christian Church to the sobriety 
 of history. Besides, why was so unexampled an 
 impression so transient ? The greatest of moralists 
 compels falsification, conscious or unconscious. The 
 followers of Jesus walk most of all in darkness. The 
 incredi})l(' element of the fourth Gospel — which Strauss 
 had exclaimed against, in I In- case of the worst of 
 scholars, is here true also of (lie best: " Tlie light 
 shinctli in d.-irkiifss, .'md tlic d;nkii(>ss romprcliciidcd 
 it not." ^I'ay, the stiinii)liiig-l)l(jck of Deism rcluriis 
 in tliis vcr}' theory upon itself; "Cod has spoken; 
 why is not the world convinced ? " 
 
 There is, let it be added, a tone of saibiess and 
 disnpjtointnient in Strauss's second jxTiod Jiis work 
 is an appeal from theologians — not only orthodox, but 
 
 ' Virgil, Gcorg. II., 80-82.
 
 \ 
 
 250 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 less orthodox, like Ewald and Schenkel, to the German 
 people. It has, however, made small impression. The 
 Gorman people may be still in large masses ration- 
 alised ; but they will never accept a theory like the 
 mythical.^ 
 
 The third and last period of Strauss is marked 
 by the publication of his " Old and New Faith " 
 in 1873.^ This is an energetic denial, first, that 
 it is possible now to be Christians ; and secondly, 
 that it is possible to have any religion whatever. 
 Under the first head, very little is said that is new — 
 but what is said only marks a further degradation in 
 the view of Christ. He is still allowed to be a great 
 V teacher ; but there is a prevailing tendency to abate 
 
 his praise. The defects charged against his morality 
 are multiplied and exaggerated ; the virtues, formerly 
 allowed to have been peculiar, are distributed also 
 among Talmudists, Stoics, and Buddhists. His ex- 
 ample is less exalted. He may have been surprised 
 by his own death ; and his exclamation on the cross 
 may have been one of despair ; at least, a being 
 whose history is so doubtful, and whose exaggerated 
 view of the future so distorts the present, cannot 
 properly be an example.^ The cross is an emblem of 
 humanity in its weakness, " the most one-sided and 
 rude embodiment of Christian world-renunciation and 
 
 ^ See Appendix, note L. 
 
 2 The title in German is " Der alte und der neue Glaube ; ein 
 Bekenntniss von David F. Strauss." 
 
 ^ Ibid., pp. 77-78. Strauss here comes over to Celsus and 
 Reimarus ; but he does the orthodox the justice to admit that their 
 doctrine of Christ's humiliation here saves His character.
 
 STRAUSS — EEXAX — MILL. 251 
 
 passivity." ^ Strauss even lowers himself so far as to 
 speak of the success of a doctrine of the resurrection, 
 due to a groundless enthusiasm, as " world-historical 
 humlDUg " — (ein welt-historischer Hunibug)} To this 
 Christianity has little to reply. If so degrading a 
 word fitly marks a power of credulity that has over- 
 come in the past centuries such a strength of critical 
 reason as Strauss is an example of, magna est Veritas 
 is hardly a motto for the future, and the stone is 
 not only on the grave of Christ, but of humanity. 
 
 Under the second head, he passes in review the 
 arguments for the Being of God and for Immortality, 
 and finds them insufiicient. Little is here original ; 
 and not a little is visibly weak. That a personal God 
 cannot Ije absolute is mere assertion ; and to appeal 
 to the instinctive acts of the lower animals, as a con- 
 clusive argument acfainst design, which is almost all 
 that he docs in regard tu lJi«j design argument, is not 
 worthy of an admirer of Kant. But with all, reason 
 and goodness arc not brinished out of the universe, for 
 they are allowed to shine tlinnigh its laws ; and yd 
 there can be no God and no religion."' In regard to 
 immortality he has always held tlie same dreary 
 language ; but it is put more rudely. 'I'Ik; hope of 
 it is men; grossprecherei (boastfulness). The greatest 
 genius (even a Goethe) iw used up .it luurscore; and 
 liis desire of life to rouie was (iul\' the weakness ol" 
 age. Besides, the matei-iaJi.-ni to wliieh Strauss at. 
 length accedes, forbids it, and astronomy has cut off 
 
 ' Dcr altc imrl dcr neuc Olaiibc, p. 9.3. - lliid., p. 73. 
 
 3 Itjifl., p. 143.
 
 './ 
 
 252 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 any separate state, where man, along with God and 
 angels, may renew his existence. ^ 
 
 It is a novelty that Strauss, in this work, connects 
 his negative theology with recent science. In a long 
 discussion he explains and adopts the views of Lamarck 
 and Darwin and their German followers, and connects 
 them with parallel astronomical and geological theories. 
 But whatever the bearing of these positions on Christian 
 Theism (and of that this is not the place to speak), 
 Strauss seems evidently mistaken in supposing them 
 necessarily destructive of universal Theism, for that 
 might conceivably work by the path of evolution, as 
 well as of specific creation. Here, also, he is betrayed 
 into great rashness ; for the Baihyhius to which he 
 apjoeals as marking the transition from the inorganic 
 to the organic world, has already disappeared ; and 
 Virchow, one of his authorities, has pronounced against 
 the ape-descent theor}^ ^ 
 
 In conclusion, he tries to provide a kind of moral 
 rule for humanity thus left without God and without 
 hope of the future. This he finds, somewhat like the 
 Stoics, in living according to nature, which defines 
 both our duty to ourselves and to others. How little 
 way, however, this generality would lead, Strauss has 
 showTi by conceding the perpetuity of war, by loosening 
 the Christian doctrine of divorce, and by needing, in a 
 conservative sense, to protest against socialism and wild 
 democracy, which, founding on alleged conformity to 
 nature, reach destructive results.^ With the Christian 
 
 ^ Der alte und der neue Glaube, p. 129-134. ^ Ibid., pp. 174-209. 
 3 Ibid., pp. 252-271.
 
 STRAUSS — RENAN — MILL. 253 
 
 light and influence withdrawn, humanity would soon 
 receive a narrower acceptation ; and a philanthropy 
 which is not even theophilanthropy, would wTite small 
 the only half of the Decalogue which it retained. It 
 is a far from unclouded prospect that is before the 
 human race ; for Strauss frankly admits that, as a 
 consequence of changes in the eternal and infinite All, 
 this planet, with all its works and all its inhabitants, 
 even though these should be developed for a time into 
 beings higher than human, must one day utterly vanish, 
 and leave no trace for succeeding memory. But still 
 he holds that it will have served its purpose ; and the 
 universe, by development on some other side, be as 
 rich as ever. With these views, and in the j^ractical 
 ordering of our brief existence, according to the rule 
 already given, he holds that we may console ourselves 
 in the use of poetry and music, of the authors of which 
 he gives sketches, written expressly for tliis work 
 (Lessinf,^ Ooetlie, Schiller, Bacli, Handel, Gllick, 
 Ilaydn, Mozart, Beethoven), .iiid iiiii}' dispense, liow- 
 ever, in some respects, sorrowfully, willi l.lic Christian 
 consolations of Atonement, Providence^ ;ind Immor- 
 tality. 
 
 Such is the inonrndil end of a nioiii-nru! caiT'cr, not 
 possiniisni avowedly, Iwr Strauss argues against Scho- 
 penhauer and his followers, but pessimism striving to 
 speak like o|)tiniisni, and yet sad at le .ni. AVe cin 
 measure here ihc whole steej* that sinks down fit mi 
 llcibert's Five I'rini ipl's lo \\\f n<M;iiMiii of Muni 
 all, save onl\' the wreck of" a \iilii(' ihat has ceased to 
 be wor.shijt ; and we learn (alas! that it should have 
 
 /
 
 254 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 been in a man so gifted !) that with the denial of 
 Jesus and the Ecsurrection, God 7iot only remains 
 unknown, hut the very altar that preserves Ilis name 
 is overturned ! 
 
 In passing from Strauss to E,enan, and in en- 
 deavouring to estimate the position of the latter, it is 
 not necessary to go into lengthened discussion, as 
 Eenan, after Strauss, is comparatively easy to under- 
 stand ; and as he does not occupy nearly so consider- 
 able a place of history. He is a follower of Strauss ; 
 with differences, partly due to nationality and partly 
 to personal character ; but neither will he, in turn, 
 found any school or give impulsion of a lasting nature. 
 
 When we think of Ernest Kenan as born in 1823 
 in Brittany, one of the most Romish parts of France, 
 and as a candidate for the Catholic ministry studying 
 in connection with the Seminary of St. Sulpice in 
 Paris for five years, till, a year or two before the fall 
 of the Orleans dynasty, he estranged himself from the 
 Church and gave himself up to Oriental languages, we 
 have something like a repetition of the career of 
 Strauss, who was about fifteen years older. What 
 immense experiences had France passed through since 
 the establishment of the Concordat in 1802 ! Not to 
 mention the downfall of Napoleon and the expulsion 
 of the elder Bourbons, the continued march of science, 
 and the career of the Scoto- Galilean school of philo- 
 sophy, founded by Royer-Collard, and adorned by 
 Cousin and Jouffroy, there was in the world of 
 religion, the revival of Catholicism, with its more 
 ultramontane type including the majority, and its
 
 STRAUSS EENAX MILL. 255 
 
 more liberal minority headed by men like Lacordaire 
 and Dupanloup ; and on the Protestant side, a more 
 evangelical party, connected largely with Switzerland, 
 and led by the noble Alexandre Vinet, and a more 
 rationalistic, looking more to Germany and influenced 
 from Strasburg by Reuss, Colani, and others. In his 
 owTi Church, Renan, having rejected its doctrines, 
 could find no career ; and though among the ration- 
 alised Protestants he might have been at home, there 
 is no evidence of his having ever thought of such a 
 position. Some time afterwards a well-known Pro- 
 testant, Scherer, threw himself out of aU Church con- 
 nection into literature ; and this was the course of 
 Rdnan, who, ere long, became distinguished hj his 
 Shemitic studies, which followed German models, and 
 in 1856 was made a member of the Institute. Sent 
 in 1859 to conduct Phoenician researches, his explora- 
 tion of the Holy Land became to him, as he afterwards 
 said, a fifth gospel, and he returned to write the 
 "Vie de Jdsus," which was pul)lish('(l in 18G3, and to 
 follow it ii[» with tlie five volumes more, under the 
 general title " Ilistoirc dcs (Jrigines du Cluistianisme." 
 Tlif'se last volume's bf-ar on the period after the Resur- 
 rection — on St. Paul — on the Neroninn ]H')-s((iitioii — 
 on the formation of tlie Go8j)els by the end of i In- first 
 century — and ow thr ( 'Imi-cli In iIh- first |i;irl of tlic 
 second. Tin- wliolt- work is to conic down to aljout 
 1 GO, wlnii < 'Iiristianity is f'nlly dcvclojird .hkI csl.ib- 
 lished. ■ This treatise is for llenan a substitute for 
 lectures in the chair oj I [cbrew in the College of France, 
 to wliicli he was appointed after his return from
 
 25 G UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUllY. 
 
 Palestine ; but in entering upon which his first 
 utterances were so ofi'ensive that he was immediately 
 condemned to silence. Of this series the "Vie de 
 Jdsus " is by much the most rhetorical and paradoxical ; 
 the rest, though not without the same faults, fall more 
 into the track of ordinary Church history. The " Vie 
 de Jesus," which came out in 1863, made an unex- 
 ampled sensation ; ran in some twelve months to 
 thirteen editions, and was circulated, it is believed, to 
 the number of more than 50.,000 copies. It has now 
 subsided into less importance than the " Leben Jesu " 
 of Strauss, and of the succeeding volumes I am not 
 aware that one has reached a second edition,^ Still, 
 as the representative of a leading school on the Con- 
 tinent, this writer deserves notice ; and I shall endea- 
 vour briefly to estimate his position, under these 
 heads — his view of the Gospels and other New Testa- 
 ment writings ; his estimate of the Saviour's character 
 and life ; his conception of the success of Christianity, 
 and specially of the labours of the Apostle Paul ; and 
 his idea of the duty of modern unbelief in relation to 
 the Christian Church. 
 
 1. The view of Eenan in regard to the Gospels and 
 New Testament generally is greatly more conservative 
 than that of Strauss, and falls in with the general 
 tendency even of recent negative critics, to carry up 
 the date of New Testament writings. In the intro- 
 
 ^ These facts in regard to M. Renan are derived from so many 
 sources, that they can hardly be enumerated. Some of them are from 
 information personally obtained in France and elsewhere.
 
 STRAUSS KENAN MILL. 257 
 
 ductions to his successive volumes these questions are 
 handled, and in his last but one, which came out in 
 1877, the origin of the Gospels is specially considered. 
 There was an Aramaic Gospel, which we only very 
 imperfectly know, drawn up among the Jerusalem 
 Christians that had escaped beyond Jordan, some time 
 about the year 75. Then, not long after, follows Mark 
 (in Greek), l)y the author to whom the Church has 
 usually ascribed it, the nephew and interpreter of Peter, 
 whose apostolic testimony is preserved in it. Then 
 comes, as a recast of Mark, the Gospel commonly called 
 of Matthew (to whom, however, for slight reasons, 
 Rdnan denies it), adding to Mark the discourses and 
 other materials, and wTitten some time before 95. 
 Luke is next, by one whom nothing forbids us to 
 regard as the companion of Paul, and author of the 
 Acts, who writes somewhere about 95.^ In reo-ard to 
 the fourth Gospel IJenan has wavered, believing it to 
 be from the school, if not from the hand of the Apostle, 
 and drawing I'roni il in his first work decisive indica- 
 tions as to fact, though <listrusting its discourses; then, 
 in deference to tlie severe reproaches of Strauss, in 
 the thirteentli edition of liis " Vie de Jesus" formally 
 valuing it less; but in his "Evangiles" refusing to 
 give in \<> \\\r extreme- scepticism of Sdiolten ;mmI 
 Keim, who deny the A])ostlc'H residence in Asia Minor, 
 
 * For an Animaic OoHpel with its date, sec Lc.s Evanp^ileH, p. 07 ; 
 for Mark, hcc pp. 1 13-125 ; for the canonical Matthew, pp. 214-5. In 
 rcf,'aril to tliis Oo.ipcl, U<'imn in(lul).;c.H in IiIh uHual coloiiriii;^. " It 
 is the most iin))orUint book rif ChrlHlianity, the moHt inii)ortiiit book 
 that over wius written," pp. 212-3. For Luke, hoc p]). 251-4. 
 
 S
 
 258 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 and estimating it, though not as highly as before, still 
 as preserving important traditions peculiar to itself.^ 
 These sources, which he himself admits, cut away the 
 ground of Kenan's first work — his " Vie de Jesus." 
 If two companions of Peter and Paul wrote the life of 
 Jesus — Mark, a Jerusalem Christian, and Luke, who 
 was with Paul for two years at Csesarea, a quarter of 
 a century after the crucifixion — it can only be the 
 recoil from the miraculous that refuses their testimony. 
 So of the Acts, in regard to which Kdnan speaks of 
 the last half, as giving us, with the uncontested 
 Epistles of Paul, the only real history in the whole 
 period.^ What, then, but aversion to the super- 
 natural makes him complain of the darkness of the 
 first half of the Acts, since a good eyewitness cannot 
 be a bad collector of testimonies ? Of Paul, Kenan 
 accepts, with the most extreme sceptics, Komans, First 
 and Second Corinthians, and Galatians ; then, with 
 
 ^ This is Renan's last utterance on the question (Les Evangiles, 
 pp. 428-9). "We now think it more probable that no part of the Gospel 
 which bears the name of John was written either by him or by any of 
 his disciples in his lifetime. But we persist in believing that John 
 had a manner of his o\ni of repeating to himself the life of Jesus, a 
 manner very different from that of the original narratives of Batanea, — 
 in some respects superior, — and where, in particular, the parts of the life 
 of Jesus that were passed in Jerusalem were given with most detail." 
 For the rejection by Renan of the scepticism of those who deny the 
 Apostle's residence in Asia Minor, he falls back on the testimony of 
 Ircnteus, who would otherwise be made a liar (P. 425, note 2). 
 
 2 " The last pages of the Acts are the only completely historical 
 pages we have on the origin of Christianity " (Apotres, Introduction, p. 
 xxvii.) " It is clear that where the Acts and the Epistles are in dis- 
 cord, the preference is always to be given to the Epistles, texts of an 
 absolute authenticity, older, of complete sincerity and without legends " 
 (Apotres, Introduction, p. xxix.)
 
 STRAUSS — RENAN — MILL. 259 
 
 confidence, Fii-st and Second Thessalonians and Pliilip- 
 pians ; with hesitation, Colossians and Philemon ; with 
 more hesitation, Ephesians ; and only denies to Paul 
 the Pastoral Epistles ; Hebrews being probably the 
 work of Barnabas, and written before the fall of Jeru- 
 salem.^ Of the Catholic Epistles, he only distinctly 
 sets aside one, Second Peter ; holding that First, 
 Second, and Third John proceed from the disciples of 
 the Apostle, and reflect his ideas, and conceding with 
 the Tubingen School, though not certainly, the Apo- 
 calypse to John, as a representative of extreme Juda- 
 ism, but also of antagonism to Heathenism, as incar- 
 nated in the person of Nero, the Antichrist, after whose 
 downfall it was written, in G9.- Without opposing, 
 which is here needless, any of these data of Renan, it 
 is easy to see that, taken as a whole, they give us all 
 that is most formidaljle in criticism, strictly so called, 
 as bearing against the trutli and divine substance of 
 the New Testament, and reduce the essential contro- 
 versy to a question not as to uncertain age, but at 
 most unc'f'rtain intorprotatiou. How vast tlic diflfor- 
 encc from tiie position of Strauss ! " Sure traces that 
 our first tliivc rJospcLs existed in tlicir present form, 
 meet us foi- tlic first time alxnil the middh' of the 
 second century."'' 
 
 ' For Hdirf'Wfl hoc L'Aiitprlirist, Inlrodiiction, pp. xiii.-xvii. 
 
 2 Yor Fimt I'cUt, Juimch ami Judc, w-c, L'Aiiticliri.Ht, IntnMluclidH, 
 pp. vi.-xiii. For Firxt, Secoml, an<l Thinl John, m bciiiR fmiii (Ik; panic 
 author witli the Fourth OoHpcl, hoc L'E^liHC Chri'ticnne, pji. 47-02. 
 For the Apocalypse, an probahly Jolianuim', and certainly of «o early 
 a date, ace UAntechriwl, Introduction, ]>]>. xxi.-xlii. 
 
 ^ Strau9.s, Second Leben Jchu, p. CI.
 
 2G0 UNBETJEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 2. Wc have now to speuk of Rdnan's estimate of 
 the character and life of Jesus ; and this is the point 
 where, by general consent, he has made the greatest 
 failure. On the one hand, his praises of Jesus as an 
 incomparable teacher and example are pitched in a 
 higher key than those of Strauss, even in his Hegelian 
 period ; but motives and actions are ascribed to him, 
 which Strauss constantly holds him incapable of, and 
 which destroy all moral unity. " Jesus is the indi- 
 vidual who has made his species take the greatest step 
 towards the Divine."^ Yet he is supposed capable of 
 conspiring, with Lazarus and his sisters, to work the 
 collusive miracle of a resurrection ; and though this 
 needed to be withdrawn, enough was retained in later 
 editions to incriminate these friends ; and Jesus him- 
 self having left the charming scenes of Galilee, where 
 already he had tended to become an excited millennary 
 enthusiast, at length in Jerusalem " loses the limpidity 
 of his conscience," and having committed himself to 
 a life-and-death conflict with the authorities, in which 
 he would have been compelled to meet them with 
 questionable miracles as his weapons, is only extricated 
 from his false position by death. ^ There is here a 
 deep and radical contradiction ; and Rdnan sinks all 
 the lower, by sujiposing this to be the divine plan 
 of the universe, that great spirits, by partaking the 
 
 * Vie de Jesus, p. 457. Eleventh edition, 
 2 " Sa conscience par faute des liomnies, et non par la sienne, avait 
 perdu quelque chose de sa limpidite primordiale " (Vie de Jesus, p. 
 3G0 ; see also p. 363). I cannot give the terms in which, in the first 
 edition, Jesus was charged with collusion in the professed raising of 
 Lazarus, as the passage was immediately suppressed.
 
 STRAUSS RENAN MILL. 261 
 
 world's evil, help on its redemption. " When we 
 have done as much with our scruples as they by their 
 lies [mensonges), we shall have the right to be hard 
 upon them." ^ This sad mixture passes over to the 
 disciples, for the female friends of Jesus may have 
 removed the body, and yet, through the enthusiasm 
 of love, have believed in the resurrection. Kenan 
 refers with approval to the " excellent critical obser- 
 vations" of Celsus on the hallucination of Mary 
 Magdalene, and similar self-deceivers ; and thus the 
 unbelief of the nineteenth century joins hands with 
 that of the second. - 
 
 3, When we come to the success of Christianity, 
 and especially in connection with the laljours of the 
 Apostle Paul, we find, notwithstanding interesting re- 
 searches and elucidations in regard to his external 
 history, the same darkness and chaos of n moi;d and 
 spiritual nature. For his conversion there is needed, 
 with inward remorse, a liglitning fljish, or a sun-stroke, 
 oplitliiilmia, and a supposed vision of Jesus.^ But let 
 
 J Vie <le Jusus, p. 253. 
 
 - For the complicity of Mary Mn;j;(la]c'n(i or other female, friends in 
 the removal of the liody, Kee Apotres, pp. 42-43. The "excellent eriti- / 
 cal ohsorvationH " of Celsus (Ori^'., ii. 65.) conHist of an appeal to the ^ 
 pious frauds of Pythagoras, Orj)licus, and Hercules, and of (picstions 
 like these — "Can it be creditcil that he who did not keep himself alive, 
 rose from the dead, and showed the marks of his i)unishment and 
 pierced hancls ? Whr> said this ? An excited woman, as you say, or 
 some one else of the same tribe of maj^icians, either dreaming, accord- 
 ing to their wont, or misled, through inclination, as has happened to 
 myriads, by a disordere<l fancy ; or, what is more likely, wishing to 
 impress others by such prodigies, and by a falsehood of this kind give 
 a handle to other strollers." '* Les Apotres, pp. 181-2.
 
 262 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 all be granted, and let the Apostle be started in full 
 career, liow was lie to convert the world ? Rdnan calls 
 special attention, in his " Vie de Jesus," to the mil- 
 lennary expectations of Jesus, which Paul inherits. 
 How were these to be received by men beyond the 
 Jewish circle, who had no faith in a Messiah, or divine 
 kingdom, and who would hardly take the word of a 
 wandering Jewish missionary for expectations which 
 required the sacrifice of every earthly hope? Paul, 
 also, according to Kenan, believed that he wrought 
 miracles — for this is attested by 2 Cor, xii. 12 ; but 
 these had no reality, and hence would have been a 
 two-edged weapon to play with. There could hardly 
 be a converting power in his eloquence ; for Renan 
 says, that without the Gospels, " the Epistles of Paul 
 alone would never have acquired a hundred converts 
 for Jesus." ^ The Gospels did not then exist ; and 
 besides, Paul's Epistles were by some at least judged 
 more weighty than his spoken words. Renan speaks 
 of Paul at Athens as an iconoclastic Jew, who " took 
 these incomparable images for idols ;• " but where was 
 the hammer to be found by which an enthusiast thus 
 blind to ancient and modern art, "an ugly little 
 Jew," was to shatter all in pieces ? The victory of 
 Christianity hangs in the air. There is nothing 
 divine, and nothing, visibly human, to produce it. 
 The answer of Lessing, in his best mood, is here the 
 only rational one, that the men who thus prevailed 
 must have had a true resurrection behind them. The 
 fall of Paganism, without it, is the greater miracle. 
 
 ^ Les ;6vangiles, p. 100.
 
 STRAUSS — KENAN — MILL. 263 
 
 Eenan, tliougii otherwise emancipated from the 
 Tiibiugeii formalism, here greatly aggravates his own 
 difticulties by introducing a radical schism into the 
 growing church, and tying up the hands of Paul, l)y 
 discord not only with Judaisers, but with the greatest 
 Jewish apostles. There is nothing more incredible in 
 all history^ than that the churches in Asia Minor, wiiich 
 Paul had founded, should have speedily lost sight of 
 his name, under the dominant influence of John ; and 
 that, indeed in the second century, he should have been 
 almost forgotten ; for then his resurrection in the 
 third, fourth, and fifth, as the founder of Christian 
 theology would be a marvel sui generis.^ Penan is 
 right in censuring those extreme theorists abroad and 
 at home, who rank Paul as the true founder of 
 Christianity ; but how, with such data as are alone 
 allowed, not to speak of the sinister features which 
 arc inserted into the moral portrait, the Apostle 
 could play the great and decisive part, wliidi lie was 
 called on to do in the victory of the gospel, is iiicou- 
 ceivable. 
 
 4. It only remains to say a word on Kenan's 
 attitude towards the Christian Cliurfli as a public 
 institution. Hf is t.ir indeed from wishing to play 
 over again the ]»ai't of \ Oltairc, or, like Strauss, to 
 wash his hands of all Christian profession and organi- 
 sation. On the contrary, lie cvc^rj^where proclaims 
 religion to l>r necessary; ;ind, \vhil(3 asking room for 
 such a career of anti-dogmatif criticism as his own, 
 
 » St. Paul, p. 565.
 
 264 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH- CENTURY. 
 
 declares that, " let rationalism wish as it may to 
 govern the world without regard to the religious 
 wants of the soul, the experience of the French 
 Kevolution is at hand to teach the consequences of, 
 such an error." ^ He even goes so far as to exhort 
 the French clergy who may be troubled with sceptical 
 doubts, still to remain in the bosom of the Church, 
 and apostrophises the tombs of such clerical doubters 
 around their village churches that now conceal such 
 "poetic reserves and angelic silences."^ The true 
 Cliristian conscience will here dictate a very different 
 lesson, and will lament to add another name to the 
 long history of " accommodation," by which unbelief 
 has been marked. The more decisive spirit of Strauss 
 in his " Halben und Ganzen " ("Half -Men and 
 Whole "), and in his later career, must here commend 
 itself to the unsophisticated mind of every creed ; and 
 it is to be hoped, for every interest, that it will rule 
 the relations of the future. 
 
 When we return to England, where our review of 
 the eighteenth century began, we find no one who 
 corresponds, as a representative of the present cen- 
 tury, to Strauss and Kenan. We have no name, 
 associated with the side of negation, holding so 
 prominent a place, and exerting so much of a leading 
 influence. We have none, especially, who has taken 
 up with so much earnestness the criticism of the life 
 of Jesus, or who has attempted to solve, on natural 
 principles, the origin of Christianity. But as it is 
 
 ^ Les Apotres, p. lxi\-. ^ Ibid., p. xlii.
 
 STRAUSS — REN AN — MILL. 265 
 
 desirable to measure English results, as far as prac- 
 ticable, against those of the Continent, and to esti- 
 mate the light which is thus cast upon the past, I 
 have selected Mr. John Stuart Mill as the wTiter 
 who will 1)6 generally allowed to have come nearest 
 being a typical instance, and who, if differing not a 
 little from both Strauss and Renan, yet so far sums 
 up for England the parallel development of thought, 
 and gives it deliberate expression. This can only be 
 said of Mr. Mill's posthumous works, and especially of 
 his three essays, " Nature," " Utility of Religion," and 
 " Theism," which, however, do not quite agree among 
 themselves, while the last and most important was 
 not prepared for publication like the others. How- 
 ever, a.s Mr, j\Iill seems to have regarded these essays 
 as fundamentally consistent; and as that on Theism, 
 more distinctly than any other, strikes into the line 
 of (jm-stions discussed by Strauss and Renan. and on 
 which Mr. Mill's readers, niort- tiian on any other, 
 had long desired from liim some definite utterance, I 
 shall niakr no ;i|M»|(tL^y lor <'onsi(h'riiiuj it witli the 
 otliers, aii<l xhitive passages in Mr. Mill's other 
 jiublications, tus furnishing, houcxcr iinpi rfcctly, an 
 Englisli ('(luivah'ul to these Continental testimonies. 
 I shall notice Mr. Mill's positinn iiii(hr lh(>c heads — 
 his Natural Iieli^non ; his view (if the r<)ssil»ility of 
 Rtvelation ; iind his estimate of the eliai'aeter of 
 Christ, and oi the ()ii;;iii ;iii<l W'lnlh of ( "hristianity. 
 On these subjects it may be remarked that Mr. Mill's 
 relation to Comte hardly interferes with his ejaiiii to 
 be considere<l .m English representative — a iMiik more
 
 266 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 seriously interfered with by the abatement of in- 
 fluence, by which Mr. Mill's writings are already 
 beginning to be affected. 
 
 1. Mr. Mill's views of Natural Theology are of so 
 peculiar a type, that they hardly find any example in 
 history. Bayle might be regarded as the likest ; but 
 Mr. Mill disclaims Manichseanism, holding that the 
 marks of evil design are limited and obscure, and that 
 evil appears more as a fetter and a limitation. His 
 essay on " Nature " strongly brings out the evil in the 
 form of suffering, which Nature, as apart from man, 
 inflicts, and also in man the defect or worse in moral 
 tendency, which man himself has to overcome. This 
 picture is so dark that it might almost be regarded as 
 an abandonment of any wreck of Theism. The exagge- 
 ration of evil in nature is carried beyond the non- 
 theistic position of Strauss, who regards the universe 
 as still somehow rational and good. Mr. Mill even 
 leaves out of account, as due to this higher Power, the 
 tendencies in man to rise above the sensuous and non- 
 moral dispositions with which alone, as from a supposed 
 author, he is credited, and to work under a system of 
 moral government such as theists connect with a 
 Creator, and regard, with all its present defects, as the 
 reflection of His moral image. It might seem, there- 
 fore, as if Mr. IMill, in the essay on " Nature," and in 
 that on the " Utility of Eeligion," had finally l)roken 
 with Theism ; more especially as in the latter essay he 
 gives up the doctrine of immortality as shadowy in its 
 evidence and needless in its influence, it l)eing " not
 
 STRAUSS — KENAN — MILL. 267 
 
 only possible but probable, that in a higher, and above 
 all a happier condition of human life not annihilation 
 but immortahty may be the burdensome idea, and that 
 human nature, though pleased with the present, and 
 by no means impatient to quit it, would find comfort 
 and not sadness in the thouoht that it is not chained 
 through eternity to a conscious existence, which it can- 
 not be assured that it will always wish to preserve."^ 
 It might, therefore, almost have seemed as if Mr. Mill, 
 in these two Essays, regarded his last word as spoken, 
 and was only anxious to provide in what he calls the 
 " Keligion of Humanity," a substitute for a time-hon- 
 oured belief that had turned out to be neither true nor 
 useful. It is truly wonderful how such a mind could 
 ever have regarded that idealised view of the welfare 
 of mankind as a whole, which he calls the Religion of 
 lUimanity, as adequate to take the place and do the 
 work of religion. He does not, indeed, run into the 
 puerilities and extravagances of Comte himself, and of 
 a portion of liis En.!:i;lish followers, in ])roviding a ritnnl 
 or calen<lai-, and other commemorations of humanity, 
 which are henceforth to take; the place of (li\ine wor- 
 ship ; but that Mr. Mill should have hoped to clothe 
 a moral or philosophical Utilitarianism — or universal 
 sympathetic benevolence — with the authority of a reli- 
 gion, as he professes to be able to do; to give it an 
 equal sway over public o|)inioM ; above all, to introduce 
 it into etlucation, where, unlike the idea of a Father in 
 heaven, of heaven itself, ainl of a Saviour who has come 
 down from heaven, aii'l who loves ami blesses children, 
 
 ' Thifo Enoay.", p. 1 22.
 
 2G8 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 the conception of humanity in the abstract could not, 
 till late, be grasped, and could never be made to appeal 
 by allegory or parable to the feelings — is one of the 
 most remarkable facts in the history of speculation. 
 
 As if, however, Mr, Mill desired to relieve some- 
 what the helplessness of this scheme, and to borrow 
 more largely from religious hoj)e, we find that in his 
 essay on " Theism," written ten or twelve years after 
 the foregoing, and finished not long before his death, 
 he makes considerable concessions in the direction of 
 ordinary views. He does not grant, indeed, the scien- 
 tific validity of any Theistic argument but that from 
 design ; but allows that " in the present state of our 
 knowledge the adaptations in nature afford a large 
 balance of probability in favour of creation by intelli- 
 gence."^ He considers, also, "that the power, if not 
 the intelligence, must be so far superior to that of man 
 as to surpass all human estimate."^ The attributes of 
 God in any sense rising to infinity he rejects ; but 
 still he claims to hold as much as Leibnitz, or many 
 believers in God, who, if they only knew their own 
 nunds, have virtually held him to be limited ; and he 
 distinctly excludes the Manichsean idea. He goes 
 farther, also, towards immortality, not allowing a single 
 natural argument in its favour, but equally excluding 
 every argument against it ; and especially that of the 
 materialist from the association of thought with what 
 is called matter. There is thus a larger residuum of 
 Natural Theology, and of hope, if not of knowledge, in 
 connection with it in Mill than in Strauss, or, for aught 
 
 ^ Tliree Essays, p. 174. ^ iijij,^ p. jyg.
 
 STRAUSS — R^NAX — MILL. 269 
 
 that appears, in Kenan ; and it is so far satisfactory to 
 find in England so much of the old recoil from specu- 
 lative atheism. 
 
 2. We have now to look at Mr. Mill's views as to the 
 Possibility of Revelation. This Mr. Mill fully grants, 
 as far as the existence of a Being capable of making a 
 revelation is concerned. He is beyond the atheist or 
 pantheist error, which rigidly excludes it. He even 
 regards his position as more favourable than that of 
 Butler, who, as we have seen, though victorious over 
 the Deists, still allowed himself, according to Mr. Mill, 
 to be involved in the same error with them in holding 
 an all-perfect Creator and Ruler. Mr. Mill looks on 
 himself as cutting away the whole of the Deistic diffi- 
 culties — as to a revelation l)eing useless, or as to it 
 accomj)lisliing less than it might have Ijeen exjjccted 
 to do.^ The whole question to him is simply one of 
 evidence ; and to this lie proceeds. Internal evidence 
 he regards as only negative^ ; that is, its l)adness can 
 exclude a false revelation, but its goodness cannot 
 authenticate a true, mnl (bi- I his reason, tlmt there is 
 no truth that the liuiii.iii iniiid cmii ;i])j)re(-iate l)ut it 
 could als(^ h;ive originated." But. surely this, though 
 a common, is a li.iril saying; Inr in;i\ imt I he (r.iii- 
 8cendent morality of Jesus, taken in i nniiec^tion with 
 his outward circumstances, be ;iii .ippreciable m;irk of 
 the supernatural — not to mention the whole pLiii of the 
 Bible as bearing on k 'hinpt ion- in its unity, granih;ur 
 of style, an<l other (ju.ilities if \\ C are then thrown 
 
 ' Tlim- K-xs^iyn, ]•).. iil4-:». '^ ll.i-I., ]>. 21(1.
 
 270 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 back on external fficts ; and it is something to find that 
 Mr. Mill reo^ards these as available evidence of a reve- 
 lation. He also admits that a miracle may be dis- 
 cernible by the human faculties, as, for example, an act 
 of creation.^ He then, however, proceeds to perplex 
 himself by the difficulty of Hume as to testimony; and 
 here he also tries to make the point good, that the 
 Bible miracles are not of the flagrant character suffi- 
 cient to convince eyewitnesses, but may be explicable 
 by natural law yet undiscovered. But, first, with 
 regard to testimony, Mr. Mill, like Hume himself, 
 seems to err in bringing in testimony, while granting 
 the validity of a miracle at first hand. There is nothing 
 believable on sense which is not believable on testi- 
 mony ; and the discernibleness of a miracle is the same 
 in both cases, the objection of some possible undis- 
 covered law ajoplying to both. Mr. Mill therefore cuts 
 away his own ground in appealing to recent science as 
 establishing the uniformity of law ; for this should have 
 excluded the concession he makes as to the discernible- 
 ness of creation. And, secondly, with regard to the 
 Bible miracles, as rej)orted, being oliscure and not 
 flagrant, this surely is untrue ; for many of them, if 
 the appearances actually happened, as Strauss has felt, 
 set at defiance every naturalist explanation. He then 
 inquires whether unbelief in God makes any difi'erence 
 as to the crcdilnlity of miracles, and holds (as we saw 
 in a former Lecture) that it does ; though here we may 
 remark, as is acutely urged l^y Mr. Mozley as a reduc- 
 tio ad ahsu7^dwn of Hume's objection to testimony, 
 
 ' Three Essays, pp. 217-8.
 
 STRAUSS — REX AX — MILL. 271 
 
 that if admitted at all, it excludes faith on the part of 
 a Theist as much as of any other hearer. Mr. Mill, 
 then, would grant more faith to a Theist in the ab- 
 stract ; but, considering that the uniform course of 
 nature is God's will, he thus comes back to the same 
 neorativc result as from the teachino-s of science.^ But 
 really it is not science that shuts the door, but pre- 
 supposition ; nor is it fair, in this case, to complain of 
 imperfect testimony; for had it been any better, it does 
 not seem that it could have logically prevailed against 
 such strong assertion as to science ; and besides, better 
 testimony could nut have Ijeen had than that of the 
 Apostle Paul, not merely to other miracles, but to his 
 own, as in 2 Cor. xii. 12, a passage which Mr. Mill has 
 hardly attended to in denying that the Apostle directly 
 attested any miracle l)ut that of his owti conversion.- 
 Still, though ]\li-. ^lill does not allow the Scripture 
 miracles to l)e sutHciently attested, and refuses even 
 the claim of the Saviour, on his own testimony, to ho. 
 supeniaturally sealed l>y his works, he leaves this (>|)('ii 
 as something which, tliougli not jirovcd, may still \)v 
 hoped for, especially when we think oi" the gill, " ex- 
 trfmr-ly ]»rncious," which has come to us thrnuuh him; 
 ;ind thus iiis nltimate scImidc 1i;is not the doscd-up 
 and rigorously anti-siipcrnaturalist asjMct whidi \vc 
 liave found in the Contnicnlal theories. 
 
 ' Time; Efwnyp, pp. 232-4. 
 2 Ibid,, p. 239, note. "St. Pn>il, the only known exception to Ihc 
 ignorance and want of education of the firHt generation of CliriHtiaiiB, 
 attenta no miracle Init that of hiw own ronversinn, wliidi, of uU the 
 iiiinicleH of the New TeMt.iment, iw the one which admits of the easient 
 explanation from natural c.nm. «."
 
 272 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 3. We have, lastly, to look at Mr. Mill's estimate of 
 the origin of Christianity, of its worth, and especially 
 of the character of Christ. 'Phis field is much less 
 gone into than by Strauss and Kdnan ; but Mr. Mill 
 also travels in it ; and though there be much that to 
 Christian minds is not only unsatisfactory but pain- 
 ful, there is also much that is striking and interest- 
 ing. As already seen, it can only be hoped, not 
 scientifically lielieved, that Jesus is a divine mes- 
 senger, that the government of God is what he pro- 
 claims it to be, and that the immortality held out 
 in his teaching is really a divine promise. So far as 
 strict reasoning goes, we know nothing more of the 
 origin of Christianity than that God " made provision 
 in the scheme of creation for its arising at the ap- 
 pointed time by natural development ; " ^ but it is our 
 wisdom so to cultivate the faculties of hope and imagi- 
 nation in harmony with exact evidence, as to cherish 
 the idea that there may be truth in the supernatural 
 elements of its history. Mr. Mill, in detail, applies 
 his general principle, so as to bring out the worth 
 of Christianity as a sujyplement to Natural Religion, 
 even as there is an element of hope in Natural Keli- 
 gion beyond knowledge, " The indulgence of hope 
 with regard to the government of the universe, and 
 the destiny of man after death, while we recognise as 
 a clear truth that we have no ground for more than 
 hope, is legitimate, and philosophically defensible. 
 The beneficial efi'ect of such a hope is far from trif- 
 ling. It makes life and human nature a far greater 
 
 ' Tliree Essays, p. 2,36.
 
 STRAUSS REXAX^MILL. 273 
 
 thing to the feelings, and gives greater strength, as 
 well as greater solemnity to all the sentiments which 
 are awakened in us by our fellow-creatures and by 
 mankind at lar^e." ^ These and similar sentiments 
 are a great contrast to the almost relentless tone with 
 which, in some c|uarters, the hope of immortality is 
 abandoned. Another benefit, " infinitely precious to 
 mankind," " consists of the familiarity of the imagina- 
 tion icith the conception of a 'morally perfect Being, 
 and the habit of taking the approbation of such a 
 Being as the norma or standard to which to refer, 
 and by which to regulate our own characters and 
 lives." " This, i\Ii-. ^lill holds, may be competent even 
 to one who regards such a person as imaginary ; but 
 " religion, since tlie l)irtli of Christianity, has incul- 
 cated the Ijelief that our highest conceptions of com- 
 ])ined wisd(jm and goodness exist in tlie concrete in a 
 living BciuLj^, wlio luis liis eyes on us, and (■iics for (»ui- 
 good."' 'i'liis bcnclit has been and will be ilcrived, 
 though tlie disciples of Christ have over-estimated 
 the absobitc ])crf('ffion nf tlic (Jovcrnor of the uni- 
 verse ; and tliosc who hold a mysterious limit to His 
 power will br left :ill the morc! to indulge the su])- 
 position, which there is nothin;^^ |,, disjirovc;, "that 
 his goo(hieHS is conijilete, ;iiid lli.it the idcilK iicifcct. 
 (•li;ir;ieter in whose likeness we should wish lo foi'in 
 ourselves, ;iMd to whose HU])poHed ;i|i| n'oliat ion we. 
 refer our ;Mtions, in.iv ha\c .'i le.d existence in ;i 
 Being to whom wi; owe uJl sucii go(Kl as we enjoy." * 
 
 • Tliree EsMnyM, p. 249. 2 \\,\^\^ j,_ 250. 
 
 •'' Il.i-1., jip. 2.'j(M. ■• Ilii.l., j.p. 2ri2-3. 
 
 T
 
 274 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Christians will be thankful to Mr. Mill for recognising 
 so far this benefit of Christianity, though they will 
 hold that there is no inconsistency, while keeping 
 fast to the absolute perfection, not of a problematical, 
 but of a real God, in bringing in a limit to account 
 for difficulties, through one attribute of God limiting 
 another, or through God limiting himself by a self- 
 assumed relation to creatures, or through limitation 
 in a certain sense being connected with evil. Last 
 of all, Mr. Mill finds the worth of Christianity in the 
 character of Christ, which, though, as drawn by him, 
 it contains statements to which all believers in 
 Christ's divine dignity and highest mission must ear- 
 nestly except, rises to a much higher strain than 
 anything he has written before, virtually wiping out 
 his own earlier criticisms in his Essay on " Liberty," 
 and his Essay on " The Utility of Keligion," and 
 even recalling the celebrated portrait of Rousseau. 
 " Above all, the most valual:>le part of the effect on 
 the character, which Christianity has produced, by 
 holding up in a divine person a standard of excel- 
 lence and a model for imitation, is available even to 
 the absolute unbeliever, and can never more be lost 
 to humanity. For it is Christ, rather than God, 
 whom Christianity has held up to believers as the 
 pattern of perfection for humanity. It is the God 
 incarnate, more than the God of the Jews or of 
 Nature, wdio, being idealised, has taken so great and 
 salutary a hold on the modern mind ; and whatever 
 else is taken away from us by rational criticism, 
 Christ is still left ; a unique figure, not more unlike all
 
 STRAUSS — REX AX — MILL. 275 
 
 his precursors than all his followers, even those who 
 had the direct benefit of his personal teaching. It 
 is of no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the 
 Gospels, is not historical, and that we know not how 
 much of what is admirable has been superadded by 
 the tradition of his followers. The tradition of 
 followers suffices to insert any number of marvels, 
 and may have inserted all the miracles which he is 
 reputed to have wrought. But who among the 
 disciples of Jesus, or among their proselytes, was cap- 
 able of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus or of 
 imaorininoc the life and character revealed in the 
 Gospels ? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee ; 
 as certainly not St. Paul, whose character and idio- 
 syncrasies were of a totally different sort ; still less 
 the early Christian wiiters, in whom nothing is more 
 evident than that the good which was in them was 
 nil derived, as they always ])rofessed that it was 
 derived, from this higher source. What could he 
 added and interpolated by a disci})le, we may see in 
 the mystical ])arts of the Gospel of St. Jolin, matter 
 im})()rt<'<l fioiii I'liilo .iml tlic Alexandi-iaii I*latonists, 
 .Mill put into tlu! mouti) of tlie Saviour in long 
 speeches about himself, such as tin; otlicr GosjxjIs 
 contain n(»t tlic sliglitcst vestige of", 1Ii<»ul,^1i ])retended 
 to have liccn dclivcrfil on occasions of Llic dee]>ost 
 interest, and when his )iiin(i|i;il folNnvers were all 
 present; most ]ironiin(iitl\' .it tlir L;ist Sujijicr. The 
 East was full of uh n ulioroulil have stolen any (juan- 
 tity of this jmor stnll", as the mult it ii<liiiMns Oriental 
 sects of Gnostics afterwards did. J>ut about the life
 
 27G UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal 
 originality, combined with profundity of insight, 
 which, if we abandon the idle expectation of finding 
 scientific precision where something very different 
 was aimed at, must place the Proj^het of Nazareth, 
 even in the estimation of those who have no belief 
 in his inspiration, in the very first rank of the men 
 of sublime genius of whom our species can boast. 
 When this pre-eminent genius is combined with the 
 qualities of probably the greatest moral reformer and 
 martyr to that mission who ever existed upon the 
 earth, religion cannot be said to have made a bad 
 choice in pitching on this man as the ideal repre- 
 sentative and guide of humanity ; nor even now 
 would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find 
 a better translation of the rule of virtue from the 
 abstract into the concrete, than to endeavour so to 
 live that Christ would approve our life. When to 
 this we add that, to the conception of the rational 
 sceptic, it remains a possibility that Christ actually 
 was what he supposed himself to be — not God, for 
 he never made the smallest pretension to that charac- 
 ter, and would probably have thought such a preten- 
 sion as blasphemous as it seemed to the men who 
 condemned him — but a man charged with a special, 
 express, and unique commission from God to lead 
 mankind to truth and virtue ; we may well con- 
 clude that the influences of religion on the character 
 which will remain after rational criticism has done its 
 utmost against the evidences of religion, are well 
 worth preserving, and that what they lack in direct
 
 STRAUSS — RENAN — MILL. 277 
 
 strength, as compared with those of a firmer belief, 
 is more than compensated by the greater truth and 
 rectitude of the morahty they sanction." ^ These 
 approximations of Mr. Mill to Christianity are also 
 the more remarkable, that they come from one who 
 had not, like Strauss and Renan, any Christian train- 
 ing ; and while Mr. ^lill has not, any more than they, 
 solved the problem of the origin of Christianity, his 
 ^ilHngness to accept a supernatural theory, if it 
 could be found, is also to be noted as what, after 
 so long a period, shows a gleam of Butler more than 
 a reflection of English Deism. 
 
 This lengthened review may now end in one or 
 two reflections, which hardly require to be more than 
 stated. 
 
 I. The firfit is, tlie changeful and fluctuating 
 cliaiactiT of (lou])t and denial in regard to Chris- 
 tianity. To say nothing of eai'bcr ])ci'io(ls, wliat a 
 various front lias unbelief woiii since the days of 
 Tiriffl IliTbcrt ! Almost nf)tliing lias been comuioTi 
 bnt tln' rejection of the sujiernat ural. I)eisin, pan- 
 theism, scepticism, atheism, have all appeared by 
 turns. If there has been a progress, it Ikih been IVoni 
 ne<ration to iicijation more extreme; llobbes leadinir 
 on to Hume, N'oltaire to Ifelvctius, Semler to Strauss. 
 The. assailants of Christianity liave. reversed each 
 other's procedure, making each nlhci's denials ihiir 
 own piiniises. The most oppositr views iiavi- been 
 ' Three Essays, pp. 253-256. Sec uLho Aj)pcn<]ix, Notes M and N.
 
 278 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 taken as to the validity of metaphysical principles, as 
 to the authorship of sacred books, as to the meaning 
 of Christianity, and the value of its separate parts. 
 The most different moods of rejection have been ex- 
 hibited, from superficial contempt, to respectful, almost 
 reverential, sadness. A whole generation, a whole 
 century, disowns the spirit of its precursor, which, 
 however, returns, if not in the mass, in solitary 
 instances. Hence the oblivion into which so much 
 of this literature has passed. There is no handing 
 down here of the torch, for each period is strange to 
 the other, and the last thing which it will do for it, 
 is to reprint its documents. Writers of this school 
 have, as a rule, therefore, to dispense with the im- 
 mortality, even in time, which they so often renounce 
 beyond it. It is not true of them that in losing their 
 life they find it. 
 
 2. The second reflection is, that Christianity has 
 advanced in spite of all adverse argument. It was a 
 great saying of Origen, in opening his reply to Celsus, 
 that Paul, in speaking of separation from Christ, did 
 not mention arguments among its causes. However 
 lamentable in their own case, and injurious to others, 
 the reasonings of unbelievers have not hindered, on a 
 large scale, the progress of Christianity. They have 
 often been the means of arousing zeal and of arresting 
 declension. They have shamed into repentance by 
 their exposures, corruptions that needed such rough 
 surgery ; and the wound which has cleared the 
 system has been turned into a blessing. Always,
 
 STRAUSS — REX AN — MILL. 279 
 
 the Churcli has suffered more from the inconsistencies 
 of its friends than the menaces and violences of its 
 enemies ; and the apologist has been less needed than 
 the preacher of righteousness. Christianity has not 
 been saved to us in Britain mainly by the arguments 
 of Butler and Sherlock ; but by the slow yet sure 
 revival that began to spread over the whole English- 
 speaking world ; nor was Germany rescued from 
 rationalism, in so far as it has been, merely by pro- 
 fessors and theologians meeting negative criticism, 
 but by the return of visible Christianity, and by the 
 calling forth of prayer which has powder with God. 
 Here, as everywhere, faith has brought victory ; and 
 who that contrasts the fortunes and prospects of 
 Christianity almost anj^^here, in the last quarter of 
 the nineteenth century, with what they were in the 
 last quarter of the eighteenth, can deny that Chris- 
 tianity has not only survived but overcome ? 
 
 3. 'I'he third and closing reflection is that Chris- 
 tianity is not promoted l)y clianging cither its type of 
 doctrine or its style of evidences. Wherever it has 
 survived the flood of sce])ticism, and lloiiiislied 
 anew, its progress has been in dii-eet jiroport ion to 
 its clear reassertion (jf its snjx-rnatnral character. 
 It was eminently so in connection with thi' Mclhod- 
 ist revival in Kn^flaml, which sooner ni- Liter 
 Htamy)ed on the wlude, of Anglo- S.-ixon Christianity 
 the ini|>ress of such doctrines, centivd in the New 
 Birth, as were more faintly liclil iHlnrc its .nUciit ; 
 and m like manner, on the Continent, wherever
 
 280 UNBELIEF IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Cliristiaiiity lias come with greatest power, it lias 
 not been in proportion as it has made a compromise 
 with lingering elements of unbelief, but as it has cast 
 them out. The very experience of Romanism and 
 Tractarianism has been in the same direction ; for 
 it has been not merely their hierarchical or ritualist 
 side that has given them strength against unbelief, 
 but their meeting so far those wants of the soul 
 which are rooted in the relation of man to the super- 
 natural, and which only the supernatural can supply. 
 It is equally the dictate of loyalty to Christianity and 
 of faith in its destinies to hold fast to this super- 
 natural point of view in the statement of its evidences. 
 This does not involve the neglect of any historical 
 lesson or experienced fitness, or any one-sided treat- 
 ment of external or internal arguments. In the 
 handling and proportioning of these, much Christian 
 wisdom mil still be needful ; and the lesson will 
 constantly require to be remembered that Christianity 
 is ever its own best witness. But this very considera- 
 tion will rebuke any attempt to exclude any element 
 of a sound aj)ologetics, because it may happen for the 
 time to be in disfavour. It is vain to get rid of 
 miracles when the whole substance of objective 
 Christianity, as based on the Incarnation, is miracle, 
 and of subjective Christianity too, as resting on the 
 mission of the Holy Ghost. It is vain to get rid 
 of prophecies, when the whole of Christianity folds 
 up in its bosom the greatest of all prophecies — its 
 own final victory, with its glories and mysteries of 
 heaven and hell. So it is vain to extenuate in-
 
 STRAUSS KENAN — MILL. 281 
 
 spiration ; for though inspiration is not the same witli 
 revelation, it must be so at least to the extent of 
 conveying all its treasures. Wherever we can, by 
 fair and legitimate interpretation, harmonise Scrip- 
 ture with history, witli philosophy, with science, we 
 are not only warranted but bound to do so, since 
 all tnith is one, and God requires us to display it 
 unbroken. But we shall not succeed in this, or in 
 overcoming the world, by a timid, deferential, and 
 alarmist spirit, as if, in the face of alleged advances of 
 human knowledge, the revelations of Scripture were 
 waning in their light, and could not be too soon re- 
 vised and conformed to other authorities. Here we may 
 well T)on-ow the manly and C'liristian confidence of 
 
 Luther — 
 
 " Das Wort sie solUm lasscn stalin 
 Und keiii'n Dank dazu habeii," 
 
 and strong in our faitli in Tlim whose name is tlie 
 " Word of God," and whose oracles of trutli outrun 
 the light and discovery of all ages, ;iii(l liavc already 
 put HO many predictions of faihirc to shame, go oii to 
 meet tlie ever-cx})anding futinc with the undis- 
 mayed assurance tliat it will luit luHil those "ex- 
 ceeding great and precious promises," wJiicli convey 
 in their sublimity the evidence of tlieir eteni;il lintli 
 and fiithfulness : " Lift n|t yo\ir eyes to the lie.ivens, 
 and look ujton the (•.nih biin'.ith: fm- the heavens 
 shall vanish away like smoke, ami the earth ^h.ill wax 
 old like a garment, ;inil fhiy tlml ilwcll ther«'in shall 
 di(! in like manner : l.nt my salvation shall be for 
 ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished."
 
 ll
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A. Page 2. 
 
 THE EIOnTEEXXn CENTURY AS ONE OF PROGRESS. 
 
 There is an impression in many quarters that the eiglitcentli 
 century was barren and exhausted. This is the view of Mr. 
 Carlyle, often stated by him with something like denunciation. 
 Much as I value the opinion of this great writer, I cannot follow 
 him liere. There was, no doubt, mucli that was shallow and arti- 
 ficial, doomed to a just end, and mui'li of what was professedly 
 new was like ohl poison with a new hibel. ]5ut tlie century was 
 also in many directions one of new beginnings. Not to speak of 
 Bcienco, with the creation of modem chemistry and electricity, or 
 of literature, where we see in P-ritain a simpler and inner succeed the 
 Queen Anne period, from Cowper onward, and where in Germany, 
 the great names f)f Lessing, Hchiller, and Goethe originate the 
 modem age, or of pliiloHopliy, where Jieid and tlu; Scoltisli Sihool 
 rise to meet IIuiiu', and Kant begins recent jiliilosophy, — even in 
 the politieal field, to which Mr. (,'arlylo probably nderred, there is 
 a great start; for in hulia the Pritish Kmpiro is foutuled ; tlio 
 conquest of Canada makcH the New W'oiM Anglo-Saxon, and not 
 French ; the wars of Frederick forecast thci history of modern 
 Germany ; and the American Declaration ol Imlepeiidenco cornea 
 forth with all its rpnch-making influences, in the train of which, 
 in part at lea'<t, sUinds the French lievolution. In religion, the 
 great Methodist revival must be romnieinorated, afTeeling through 
 Wesley and Whitfield both the Old Worhl and the New, attended 
 with kindred movements, HUch na the Secession and Pclief in 
 Scotland, and followed, ero the century ends, by the formation of
 
 284 APPENDIX. 
 
 the oldest of the great Missionary Societies. There is much 
 besides in tlie eighteenth century ; but these features are enough 
 to redeem it from barrenness. 
 
 Note B. Pago 38. 
 
 DUTCH EDITION OF GROTIUs's " DE VERITATE." 
 
 I HAD long been convinced that there must exist somewhere a 
 Flemish or Dutch Edition of Grotius's " De Veritate," earlier than 
 the Latin. In the first sentence of his Latin Avork he speaks of the 
 argument of the books, "quos pro religione Christiana patriae mese ser- 
 mone scripsi." He also says that the work was in verse, " Versibus 
 inclusi, quo rectius memoriae niandarentur." Impelled by this dis- 
 tinct assertion, I sought, year after year, to find some trace of this 
 work in all the libraries I had access to, but in vain. I only learned, 
 that it was likely to exist, if anywhere, in Holland. About five 
 years ago, having a correspondence with the late M. Groen Van 
 Prinsterer, I asked him if he could furnish any clue to this inquiry. 
 He kindly sent me a copy of the work of his countryman. Dr. 
 AVijnmalen of Leyden, " Hugo de Groot ah Verdediger des Christen- 
 doms" [Grotius as an apologist], Utrecht, 1869 ; in the Appendix 
 to which [I. and II.] there is a full account of the Dutch original 
 of the " De Veritate," as in [III., IV., and V.] there are notices of 
 the Latin and other translations. It here appears that from 1622 
 to 1728 no fewer than five editions of the Dutch work came out, 
 and a new one so late as 1844. Wijnmalen also corrects some 
 mistakes current as to the Latin editions, and shows that the first 
 was issued in 1627 in Leyden, and the same year in Paris. With 
 reference to the Dutch editions, with which we are here concerned, 
 and limiting ourselves to the earliest, the notices are of extra- 
 ordinary bibliographical interest. Of the first in 1622, published 
 soon after Grotius's liberation from prison, only two copies are 
 known to exist — one in the possession of Dr. Wijnmalen, and one 
 in the Eoyal Library at the Hague. In the same year two reprints 
 (they can hardly be called editions) of the work appeared. These 
 also are of singular rarity, and vary very little from the first, or 
 from each other. One of these, which agrees with Dr. Wijumalen's 
 description, is in the library of the New College, Edinburgh. It
 
 APPENDIX. 285 
 
 is a small quarto, nearly all in black-letter, and Lears the title, 
 "Bewys van den waren Godsdienst in ses Boecken ghestelt, bj"- 
 Hugo de Groot. Ghedruckt in't Jaer onses Heeren Duysent ses 
 hondert, xxii." (Proof of the true Religion in six books, set forth 
 by Hugo de Groot. Printed in the year of our Lord 1622.) 
 
 On the other side of the title-page is the division of the Books, 
 •which is the same as in the Latin editions — the fii-st, of God and 
 Religion ; the second, of the Truth and Excellency of the Christian 
 Religion ; the third, of the Credibility of the Holy Scriptures ; 
 and the last three against Heathenism, Judaism, and Mabometanism. 
 Then follows in Alexandrine rhyme an " Exhortation to Peace to 
 all Christians," covering two pages ; and the Avork itself, which is 
 entirely in black-letter (with the exception of the summaries on 
 the margin), follows, extending to 111 pages. The treatise is thus 
 of considerable compass, since eacli page, as a rule, has 44 lines, 
 the verses being also Alexandrine, but so arranged that the first 
 pair of rhymes have thirteen syllables, and the next pair twelve, 
 all through. The verse is flowing, and, considering the difficulty 
 of the subject, wonderfully sustained. I only notice tliat Grotius, 
 in his fifth book against the Jews, applies in a lengthened metrical 
 paraphrase, the 53d of Isaiah to the Messiah, as lie does in all the 
 Latin editions, and in his " De Satisfactione " to the end, — the only 
 work in which tliere is any reference of Isaiah liii. to Jeremiah, 
 and that with an ultimate reference to the ^lessiah, being his 
 Commentary publislied after liis death. It may bo added, as 
 stated by Wijnmalen, that tlu! Dutch edition was translated 
 both into German vorso an<l into English. The German translator 
 was the iSileaian ]ifK;t, Martin Opitz, wliose work appeared at 
 lircslau in ICJI. 'I'he KngH.sh translator, whose work appeared in 
 I>ondon, ICHO, under the title, " Hugo Grotius on the Trulli of (ho 
 (Jhristian Religion, in Kiiglish Verso," i.s unknown. The rare copy 
 in tho New College Library, after the work thus dcHcribed, con- 
 tain.s also in Dutch three other trnatiHcs by Grotius — one a collec- 
 tion of metrical paraphrases of the Ten CommandnientH, and other 
 parts of Scripture, with jtrayore ; another, a Dialogue between a 
 Father on tlio Duty of Sp«*aking little ; and the? third, another 
 Dialogue l)ctweon Grotius and his daught^T C!ornelia on I'aptism. 
 Tln'se poems are, uidike the work on evidences, connected witii a 
 place of publication, "Dolfj" and ar« earlier in date, the firbt
 
 286 ArrENDix. 
 
 being in 1G21, and the two last in 1619. In conclusion, I have, 
 for assistance obtained in consulting this volume, and ascertaining 
 these facts, to thunk the Eev. James Kennedy, B.D., Librarian of 
 the New College. 
 
 I have to add, that through the courtesy of George Bullen, 
 Esq., Keeper of the British Museum, I am permitted to say, that, 
 according to a careful examination by him, the oldest copy of the 
 Dutch poem on the Evidences in the Museum is of the same date 
 (1622) with that in the New College, and otherwise exactly 
 resembles it, wanting, however, the other poems, which in the 
 New College copy have "Delf" on the title-page. These, how- 
 ever, with others, are found in two later editions of 1648 and 
 1652 respectively, also in the Museum, and which only differ, as 
 to the " Bewys " of 1622, in having each a new and distinct title- 
 page. Mr. Bullen has discovered that Dr. Wijnmalen's idea, that 
 the English version of 1686 was made from the Dutch poem, is 
 unsupported It is in the Museum ; and is dedicated to the 
 Honourable Robert Boyle, the versifier being unknown ; but he 
 founds on the Latin, and professes his ignorance of Dutch. The 
 exact title of the work is " Grotms, his ArgiLments for the Truth of 
 Christian Religion, rendered into plain English Verse. London, 
 1686." Of himself the translator thus speaks, "If this version 
 appear dull and flat I hope it will be considered, that it is but a 
 copy of a copy ; and if I had understood the original Dutch poem, 
 as I should have had more assistance to fancy, I know not but I 
 might have off"ered here sometliing more poetical" 
 
 Note C. Page 44. 
 
 Herbert's notiti.e communes. 
 
 It is not possible here to go into a criticism of Lord Herbert's theory 
 of knowledge in his " De Veritate," considered as a foundation of 
 his Common Notions. It is enough to say that while he here and 
 there anticipates on general metaphysical ground the conclusions 
 of Kant, as also of the Scottish School, as has been recognised by 
 Sir "VV. Hamilton, as to an ci priori knowledge being the condition 
 of experience, and as to universality and necessity being the marks, 
 though, according to him, by no means the sole ones, of this h priori
 
 APPENDIX. 287 
 
 knowledge, his investigatious in detail are incoherent and arbitrary 
 in their results. He makes no attempt at all, in his " De Veritate," 
 to estabhsh his so-called Notitice Communes in religion by any 
 critical process, in the least resembling Kant's, or indeed by any 
 other, but simply assumes and re-asserts them, as having, and as 
 alone having, absolute and primary truth. As they are thus not 
 built upon any theory of pure reason, except by assertion ; so are 
 they equally (to use the language of Kant) removed from any 
 postulation or deduction of practical reason ; and thus, as left by 
 Herbert, these notions are wholly unfitted, as a complete and 
 closed group, to exclude the addenda (if needed) of revelation. 
 
 Note D. Page GO. 
 
 DID BATLE FORMALLY REJECT CHRISTIANITY ? 
 
 Ik his article, " Pyrrhon," Bayle perhaps comes nearer than 
 anywhere else to a formal rejection of Christianity. He says in 
 the text : " It is with reason that Pyrrhonism is detested in the 
 Schools of Theology;" and then, in Note B, he lays open, as ho 
 imagines, the inherent contradictions of the Christian system. It 
 is true that he i)uts his objections into the mouth of one Abbe, who 
 is a philosopher, reasoning with another who is a simple Iwlicver ; 
 but there is a sympathy with the negative side which it is dillicult 
 to disguise. He arranges the difliculties first under the head (»f 
 doctrine and tlien of morals. The first contradiction i.s in tlm 
 Trinity: " It is evident that things wliich are not diifurcnt from 
 a third do not differ from each other. This is the basis of all our 
 reasonings, and on it wo found all our syllogismH ; and yet tho 
 revelation of the mystery of the Trinity assures uh that this maxim 
 is false. Invent as many diMtinrtions ilh you pleiisc!, you will iKiver 
 show tliat this maxim is not falsificid by this great mystery." This 
 strain is pursued in tho second oxceptinn : " It is evident that 
 there is no difTerence between imlividual, natun-, perHon ; yd tho 
 same mystery has convinced \\n thot persons may \w multiplied, 
 without tlic individuals and natures ceasing l^) be unicpie." 'J'lio 
 third shaft is levelled at the Incarnation: " It is evident th;it to 
 makf a man who is really ami iifrfectly a pt-rson, it is enough to 
 unite a human body and a reasonable soul. But the mystery of
 
 288 ArrENDix. 
 
 the Incarnation has taught us that this is not sufficient. Whence 
 it follows that neither you nor I could be certain that we are 
 persons ; for if it were essential to a human body and a reasonable 
 soul, united, to constitute a person, God could never make them 
 not to constitute it ; whence it follows that to them personality is 
 purely accidental. Now every accident is separable from its sub- 
 ject in divers ways ; it is therefore possible for God to hinder us 
 from being persons by these divers means, though we are composed 
 of bodies and souls ; and who will assure us that He does not make 
 use of some one of these means to despoil us of personality ? Is 
 He obliged to reveal to us all the ways in which He disposes of us 1" 
 These attacks show Bayle's usual acuteness, though his last instance 
 is hardly based on the law of contradiction, as his other two profess 
 to be, and begs the question as to whether a personality of one 
 kind may not, as a matter of fact, be conserved in a higher. The 
 recoil from Christianity, however, is evident ; and not, as in the 
 two next particulars, which deal with the Eucharist and Transub- 
 stantiation, solely from Romanism. Nor is it necessary to follow 
 him into his moral difficulties, which simply reiterate the inadmis- 
 sibility of belief in a God who is so unlike a good man as to suffer 
 evil when He could hinder it ; though he also goes on to reject 
 the Christian doctrine of original sin. Other Christian mysteries, 
 such as the Atonement, Bayle does not here touch upon. 
 
 Note E. Page 84. 
 
 woolston's imprisonment and death 
 
 The place where Voltaire touches on Woolston is in his article 
 on " Miracles," in his Philosophical Dictionary, vol. viL Having 
 given an account of Woolston's views, and quoted some of his 
 strongest language, he goes on to speak of his trial before Lord 
 Chief Justice Raymond in 1729, and its results: "Woolston was 
 put in prison and sentenced to a fine, and to give security for £150 
 sterling. His friends furnished the security, and he did not die 
 in prison, as it is said in some of our dictionaries that are written 
 at hazard [fails au hazard]. He died in his own house [chez lui] 
 in London, after having pronounced these words : ' This is a pass 
 that every man must come to,' [c'est un pas que tout homme doit
 
 APPENDIX. 289 
 
 faire]," vol. vii. pp. 113-14. There are differences here between 
 Voltaire and Lechler, the latter of whom, " Gesehichte des Englischen 
 Deismus, pp. 294-5," makes the fine £150, while the security was 
 as high as £2000, viz. for two securities, £1000 each, or for four, 
 £500 each ; and as "Woolston could not procure this, he remained 
 and died in prison. It was not the discord as to the fine or security 
 that struck me, but as to the liberation or death in prison ; and I 
 was convinced that Voltaire must have had some ground for his 
 confident assertion, as he was in England when "Woolston's writings 
 excited universal attention. Accordingly, in 1872, I made re- 
 searches in the British Museum, and found the following notice of 
 AVoolston's death in the Daili/ Courant, Monday, Jan. 29, 1732-3, 
 No. 5244 : " On Saturday night, about nine o'clock, died Mr. 
 Woolston, author of the 'Discourses on our Saviour's Miracles,' in 
 the sixty-sixth year of his age. About five minutes before he died 
 he uttered these words : ' This is a struggle which all men must 
 go through, and which I bear not only with patience, but willing- 
 ness.' Upon which he closed his eyes, and shut his lips, witli a 
 seeming design to compose his face witli decency, without the help 
 of a friend's hand, and then he expired." Here nothing is said of 
 the place of Woolston's death, but the expression quoted shows the 
 accuracy of Voltaire's knowledge. I found also in tlie Britisli 
 Museum a short life of Woolston, evidently prepared by a friend, 
 and bearing this title, "The Life of Mr. Woolston, with .m Ini- 
 ])artial Account of his Writings. London : jtrinted fnr J. liuherts 
 at the Oxford Arms, in Warwick Lane, 17.'{3." It Immis the namo 
 of no author ; but it connects its«'lf with tli<' ol)ituary in the Daili/ 
 Courant by giving Wocjl.ston's last utterance in the very same words, 
 80 that it is evidently from one of his friends, 'i'hi.s jianiplilet 
 seems to fiirni.sh the mcians of reconciling the otherwise conllicting 
 statements. " .Mi. Woolston waa sentenced to a year's imprison- 
 ment, and to ])ay a fine of one hundred jionnds. lb; jturchascd 
 tlie liberty of the Kules of tlio King's iJcncli, where ho continued 
 after the cxpinitinn of the year, through an inaldlity of J'aying tho 
 fine." — Life, jip. 15-lfi. I5ut that thin re.sfraint Wiw very nioderato 
 is .shown by another jiiuwage, where "his own door" is spoken of, 
 and a liberty of movement afiirnied of others, not likely to have 
 been in severe durance. " While lie was in the ruh-s of tho King's 
 Bench he met with several insults from ignorant and wicked zealots. 
 
 U
 
 290 APPENDIX. 
 
 He was twice attacl^ed before his own door by a fellow who struck 
 liim several times in his second assault, telling him that he had 
 writ against his Saviour, and that he deserved such usage ; but Mr. 
 "Woolston was rescued from him by a gentleman who chastised the 
 man with a good beating " (p. 26). Again, that Mr. Woolston had 
 a house, or at least something very different from a cell, is evident 
 from this extract : " About half an hour before he died, he was 
 sitting by the fire in the bed-chamber, when he asked his nurse to 
 help him to bed" (p. 29). 
 
 In harmony with the inference suggested by these extracts, I 
 learned, on visiting the Old King's Bench Prison in Southwark, 
 now converted into a prison for convicts, that there had been, in 
 the days when it was used in part for the detention of debtors, a 
 portion of the building called the State-house, where they lived at 
 their own expense, and enjoyed a considerable amount of liberty ; 
 and similar recollections of what the so-called "liberty of the 
 King's Bench" allowed, existed in the neighbourhood, and on tlie 
 part of others who could recall the state of the metropolis before 
 later changes in our prison system. While, therefore, it is much 
 to be regretted that Woolston should have suffered at all, there is, 
 beyond the interest of these results as clearing up an apparently 
 insuperable historical discord, the consolation of seeing that Chris- 
 tianity was not burdened in his case with any aggravated severity; 
 and the Life to which I have referred bears honourable testimony . 
 to the exertions of those who lamented this prosecution, and 
 sought to abridge its penalty. This is especially related of Dr. 
 Samuel Clarke. "Dr. Clarke, a short time before his death, began 
 his solicitations at Court for the releasement of Mr. Woolston, 
 declaring that he did not undertake it as an approver of his 
 doctrine, but as an advocate of that liberty which he had through 
 bis life defended. He looked on Mr. Woolston as one under 
 persecution for religion, which he thought inconsistent with the 
 liberties of England and with the doctrines of Christianity, and 
 on tliis laudable principle he solicited the relief of the op- 
 pressed, but was hindered from proceeding in his virtuous design 
 by death soon after Mr. Woolston's commitment." — (Life of 
 Woolston, p. 17.)
 
 APPENDIX. 291 
 
 K'oTE F. Page 97. 
 
 WARBURTOn's " DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES." 
 
 Though Warburton cannot come in as a special answerer of 
 Morgan — for, as has been said, the chronology is against this, and 
 he has answered at far greater length Shaftesbury, Collins, Tindal, 
 and Bolingbroke — yet a work so celebrated as his " Divine Lega- 
 tion" may well receive a brief notice, all the more that he is one 
 of those writers, over-estimated in his own age, and under-estimated 
 in ours, who belong to the permanent literature of this question, 
 and who serve as landmarks of its variation and progress. Largely 
 as his adventurous thought and vast reading were neutralised by 
 paradox, he belongs still to the rare family of thinkers and critics 
 who leave no question as they found it, and whose very errors 
 provoke an agitation thnt extends the range of truth. Thougli he 
 des[)ised and even trampled on his opponents, it was more from 
 controversial liabit than from malignity, and the regret with wliich 
 he often finds himself alone among the defenders of Christianity is 
 a proof of liis sincerity. He has failed in discovering a new proof 
 of the divine mission of Moses, if he lias not even endangered the 
 common argument ; but in the course of his long and various 
 treatise lie has suggested not a few traces of thouglit for wbich 
 apologetics .ire richer and stronger. 
 
 The "Divine Legation of Moses" began tf> be pulilislied in 
 1738, and the second part came out in 1741. Tliia comi)ri8ed 
 tlie first six books — all that ever appeared in successive enlarged 
 editions in the author's time — tlic ninth book lu-ing insertnl in bis 
 works by Dr. Hunl after liis death. It provoked, as was inevit- 
 able, endles-s controversy, and a full Hamining-up of its nmults is 
 perhaps a dfHideratum in our litertttun*. The following notieos 
 are all that can be liere afforded. 
 
 The method of Warlnirton is complicated l)y dilferent syllogipras 
 working into each other. But, as an argument, its force is reduc- 
 ible to one principle, that where n lawgiver does not use, or is not 
 supported by, a belief in future rewards and iiunishnicnts, their place 
 must be supplied by an extraordinary Providence dispcDHing these 
 sanctions in this life. Tlie fact which he connects with this prin-
 
 292 AITENDIX. 
 
 cii)lo is that Moses made no use of a future state in his legislation ; 
 whence the conclusion is drawn that ho was divinely supported, 
 i.e. had his mission attested by a present supernatural Providence. 
 Only a bold and daring mind could have seized on such a position, 
 equally questionable in both its parts ; but it is exactly here that 
 the resources of Warburton's argumentation come to light ; and 
 while a common reasoner would soon have been driven to the wall, 
 he prolongs a very copious and plausible argument, where the very 
 involutions of the chain hide its weakness. 
 
 Nothing can be more interesting than the survey of the ancient 
 religious history of the world, which is undertaken to show the 
 extreme anxiety of lawgivers to impress truth in the form of 
 national belief on their people's minds. But Warburton has failed 
 to show that this Avent so prevailingly into the future as to make 
 out the difference between Moses and other lawgivers. They used 
 to a vast extent the present sanctions of religion as instruments of 
 government ; and much more of the life of the nation was appa- 
 rently bestowed upon gaining the favour of the gods for its collective 
 Avelfare in time than in inculcating truths as to the retributions of 
 individuals in an after state. Hence the whole of Warburton's 
 interesting discussions as to the Mysteries, to say nothing of such 
 private opinions as that these were reflected in the sixth Book of 
 Virgil or the Metamorphosis of Apuleius, come short of the mark. 
 This failure is aggravated by what he says of the philosophers ; 
 for though, according to him, they all professed faith in future re- 
 wards and punishments, they all privately disbelieved this; so that 
 it is not easy to see how in this case either they or the lawgivers 
 found so much heart to profess or propagate it, or how, with so 
 many influential elements of scepticism abroad, they could have been 
 so well rewarded by popular credulity, lliis makes it hard to create 
 a precedent in the matter, which Moses was bound on ordinary 
 principles to follow ; and then, even had all the other lawgivers 
 been united in using the sanctions of the future, Warburton is 
 hardly able, even granting that Moses saw all this kind of state- 
 craft in Egypt, to shut up Moses, as a reason for neglecting it, to 
 tlie one alternative, that he had a miraculous Providence ready 
 at hand ; for Moses might simply mistake, thinking that he could 
 govern without either future sanctions or a present extraordinary 
 Providence ; or some other reason, in the unknown possibilities of
 
 APPENDIX. 293 
 
 human motive, might have accounted for his course. Therefore, 
 even if the other lawgivers here left Moses so relatively weak, 
 it would only be a hypothesis that he had a better strength at his 
 disposal ; it could not be a proved conclusion. 
 
 Tlie other premiss of Warburton's main argument, the minor, 
 is left by him in an equally unsatisfactory state of proof Mucli, 
 no doubt, looks at first sight in AVarburton's favour. The future 
 in the Jewish horizon shows a blank, so far as legislation is con- 
 cerned. But AVarburton hardly seems to have considered how far 
 such a belief, as he grants Moses personally had, in a life to come, 
 needed to come in as the sanction of laws ; for, in avowedly 
 Christian governments (whatever may be made of ancient law- 
 givers) it does not, and a theocracy had so far to govern upon 
 temporal principles. And he seems equally to have underrated 
 the belief, unexpressed and inexpressible in legislation, which so 
 far co-existed with it from the beginning, and, as Warburton him- 
 self grants, came out in the projjhets and later Jewish literature. 
 Such admissions as he makes ("Divine Legation," v. p. 4L'3, 
 " "What will follow ? that Moses taught a future state — the pro- 
 position I oppose 1 No ; but that from Moses and tlie ])rojiluis 
 togetlier a future state might be collected — a proposition I have no 
 occasion to oppose") might have led him to estimate more favour- 
 ably the later dawn, w]icrea.s the negative spirit of his criticism 
 pursues liim even here. All the later notices of immortality in 
 the Old TesUiment are reduced to a minimum. The very prophets 
 have hardly one clear utterance quoted ; the Psalms, which have 
 8o wonderfully stretched out, so as to adapt themselves to Ihe 
 fullest Cliri.stian hopes of the vision of Clod, lie draws back lo 
 mere earthly communion ; and his istrango theory of Jult, that it 
 KC'tH forth th(! advcrsitieH of the Jt!wish pi:()i)li! on their nMurn from 
 the Cajitivity, naturally only cndH in his intiTjJrcting the wtmlM, 
 "I know that my lC(<leeni<!r livclh" (words which even I'-wald 
 connects with iminortal liope), in the i-xcluHive svufH' of national 
 deliverance. It rmly remained to liavc stnuk away the New 
 Testamoit assertions ns to earlier knowlcclgc of a fnturo life, sucli 
 a.s our Ixjrd's argument with ihr- I'liarixei'M, " ( lod is not the God 
 of the dciul," etc., and His panihle of th<; rich man and L'l/anis 
 possessing in the writings of Moses and the projihelH somelhing 
 equal to a voice from tlio dead ; and, if ])OH8ible, more decisive, the
 
 294 APPENDIX. 
 
 1 1th of the Hebrews. But "Warburton will not deny tliis evidence, 
 though he limits the hope of a better country to the " patriarchs and 
 leaders of the Jewish people" (v. p. 432). But when so much is 
 granted, the resid\ie becomes a vanishing quantity, and the logical 
 support of an extraordinary Providence is indefinitely weakened. 
 So much of hope in the older Jewish mind as was sufficient to 
 generate, or to harmonise with, that later expectation (before Christ) 
 which Warburton grants, is too much for his scheme ; and hence he 
 instinctively evacuates every brightening promise, and, against his 
 own better nature, verges here to rationalism in order to support 
 Christianity. 
 
 It has often seemed to me, however, that this great writer could 
 not be altogether mistaken, and that there is an element of truth 
 in this remarkable treatise. There is a common principle in a 
 present extraordinary or miraculous Providence, and in a future 
 life. Each is a form of the supernatural ; and hence the one 
 can do the work of the other. The one can even be a revelation 
 of the other, suggesting it, and rousing up the latent idea of it 
 that is in the mind. Our Saviour has taught us that the presence 
 of the living God is the suggestion of immortality. The soul in 
 that atmosphere cannot shake off the idea, if God be friendly, 
 nor even if He be hostile. And what is true of the realisation 
 of God, as bringing with it the sense of immortality to his moral 
 creatures, is still more manifest of God, acting in a miraculous 
 way, and as it were coming nearer than before. Hence the 
 Israelites did not need the verbal revelation of immortality, as 
 it might otherwise have been granted ; for it was given in His 
 awful nearness and mighty as well as gracious works. Whatever 
 dimmer truth they may have otherwise had was thus vitalised. 
 This seems the permanent element in Warburton's speculations ; 
 but the extraordinary Providence was not so much the sub- 
 stitute of a future life, as its vehicle and its illumination. Nor 
 could the presence of the one be argued from the absence of 
 the other ; but from the presence of the one a virtual con- 
 junction of both.
 
 APPENDIX. 295 
 
 Note G. Tage 158. 
 
 RELATION OF ROUSSEAU TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The question has not been very fully discussed, what was 
 Eousseau's true relation in point of belief (conduct is not in 
 question) towards Christianity. This is by no means without 
 its difficulties. lie loudly complained of the injustice of tho 
 semi -rationalist clergy of Geneva, who could not tell whether 
 they themselves were Arians or Socinians, in denying him the 
 Christian name. But for this he was largely himself to blame. 
 Whatever saving clauses he had inserted in connection with tho 
 creed of the Savoy vicar, thisc ould notabate tho impression 
 made by the fact, that he liad chosen such a person for his 
 spokesman on religion, and still more, that after the sublime 
 passage on the character of Jesus, he had brought in the disap- 
 pointing .sentences : " "With all this the same Gospel is full of 
 things incredible, of things repugnant to reason, and which it is 
 impossible for any man of sense to conceive or admit. "What arc 
 we to do in tiie mid.st of all these contradictions ? It is your 
 duty, my cliihl, to be always modest and circumspect ; to respect 
 in silence that which we can neither reject nor compreliend, and 
 to humble ourselves before the great Being who alone knows 
 the truth."— fp:uv res, i.v. 117-18. 
 
 It was unfair, therefore, in Rousseau to expect that passages 
 like thi.s, and the others in which the vicar dis.sect.s tho external 
 evidences of Christianity, would l)o set down to the more 7nke 
 en sc^HP. of an orthmhjx priest, depressing other nrgumiMits to 
 exalt tho final t<'-8tiniony of tho Church ; for it raihcr looked 
 like tho creed of a doubter among tho clergy, such as was then 
 too common. 
 
 It nmst bo confessed, liowtfVfT, that the? letter to tho Arch- 
 bi.shop, and still ninro tljn LetU-rs from tho Mituiilain, rctriovo 
 IiousHfau's positir)!!, and diHtingui.sh him very gn-atly fmrn tho 
 school of Voltaire. It is true there is much tliut is sadly dis- 
 appointing still. lie has no just conception of the stupendous 
 importance of tho doctrinal side of Christianit}', as ho sees in tho 
 Reformation in Geneva and el.HOwhere no Ixnly of vital truth, but
 
 296 APPENDIX. 
 
 only a riglit of every man against Rome to assert his private 
 jndgnient. The argument from miracles lie wlidlly sets aside ; 
 for while he does not deny that our Lord and others may have 
 wrought them, he cannot lind criteria by Avhicli to distinguish 
 them from extraordinary works of nature, or even of evil beings, 
 so that they are not helps but obstacles of faith. No one, perhaps, 
 has stated these objections with more force or acuteness ; but he 
 is the victim here of his own ingenuity ; for the Bible miracles 
 do not, by any progress of research, tend more to be reduced to 
 natural plienomena, and the cures, for example, of Jesus — after a 
 hundred years of wonderful medical discovery — do not in the least 
 admit, more than in Rousseau's days, of scientific explanation. 
 But abating this" grave defect, and the necessary lowering Avhich it 
 involved of Christ's supernatural mission and character, there is in 
 Rousseau a strenuous assertion of faith in the moral character and 
 claims of Jesus as sui generis, and in the self-evidencing power of 
 the Bible to convey itself as a revelation, without extraneous argu- 
 ments. The following extracts will make these points clear. 
 First, Rousseau appeals to what he had said in his " ifimile," and 
 said, doubtless sincerely, regarding the character of Jesus Christ, as 
 retaining its force, in spite of his inability to use the argument from 
 miracles. " I declare myself a Christian ; my persecutors say that 
 I am not. They prove that I am not a Christian, because I reject 
 revelation ; and they prove that I reject revelation, because I do 
 not believe in miracles. But, to make this consequence just, one 
 of two things would be requisite : either that miracles were the 
 only proof of revelation, or that I rejected the other proofs equally. 
 H'ow it is not true that miracles are the only proof of revelation ; 
 and it is not true that I reject the other proofs, since, on the 
 contrary, they are found established in the very work in which 
 they accuse me of destroying revelation." — Letters from the Moun- 
 tain, vol. X. p. 252. 
 
 Second, He re-affirms the self- evidencing power of the 
 Christian morality. "The first, the most important, the most 
 certain of these characters, is derived from the nature of the 
 doctrine, that is to say, from its utility, its beauty, its holiness, its 
 truth, its profundity, and all the other qualities that can announce 
 to man the instructions of the supreme wisdom and the precepts 
 of the supreme goodness. This character, as I have said, is the 
 
 I
 
 APPENDIX. 297 
 
 most sure, the most infallible ; it carries in itself a proof that dis- 
 penses ■with ever}' other ; but it is less easy to verify (coTistater) ; 
 it demands, to make it felt, study, reflection, knowledge, discus- 
 sions Avhich only pertain to wise men (hommes sages) who are in- 
 structed and know how to reason." — Letters from the Mountain, 
 vol. X. pp. 248-9. 
 
 Thirdli/, He states fully tlie immediate testimony of tlio l]il)le 
 to its own divinity. Tliis is in the Letter to Archbishop De 
 Beaumont, who had in his Pastoral used expressions against 
 which Eousseau protests. These are given in italics. ^'Never- 
 theless the author does not believe, hut as the result of human 
 testimonies. Monseigneur, you are deceived. I recognise [the 
 autlienticity] as the result of the gospel itself and. the sublimity 
 which I see in it without any attestation. I have no need for 
 any one to affirm the existence of the gospel, when I liold it in 
 my hands. It is always men who report to him ichat otlier men have 
 repf/rted. Not at all ; they do not report to me that the gospel 
 exists ; I see it with my own eyes ; and if all tlic world Avas to 
 maintain that it did not, I should know well enough that the 
 whole world lied or was deceived. Men beticecu God and him ! 
 Not even one. The; gospel is the piece that decides ; and tliat 
 j)iece is in my hands. However it lias come there, and whoever 
 its writer, I recognise in it tlie Divine Spirit ; tliat is as immediate 
 as it can be ; there are no men between that proof and me ; and in 
 the sense in wliicli tliere would be, tlie historic side of this lioly 
 book, of its authors, the time when it was composed, etc., belongs 
 to the di8CU8.sion8 of criticism, where tlie moral juoof is a<liiiittcd. 
 Such i.s tlio answer of the Savoy vicar ! — " Letter In M. l>i' llt-au- 
 mont" ((Kuvres, vol. x. p. 11 Ti). 
 
 'Iliese ])a.HHag(!8 ])f'ihapH exhibit iht; character of lioii.sseau's 
 creed tus stn^nger than Ikw been generally admitted ; and with 
 another cxtnict from his letter to M. l'^ Beaumont, in which ho 
 explains tlie unhappy uddendum to the elofpient pa.sHagcj on the 
 character of ChriHt (given in the l)Oginning of tliiH note), the dis- 
 cussion may be ended. " On the feeble authorities given for tho 
 gospel, he would reject it for tho reasons abtive indiealed, if the 
 Divint! Spirit whieh sliines in tlie morality, and in the doctrine of 
 the book, did not rexton^ it all the force which human testimony 
 \\A\\\^ on siK li a point. He admits then this aacrcil book, with all
 
 298 APPENDIX. 
 
 the admirable things which it contains, and which the human 
 mind can understand ; but as for the things incredible which he 
 finds there, ' things repugnant to reason, and which it is impossible 
 for any man of sense either to conceive or admit, he respects them in 
 silence, and humbles himself before the great Being who alone knows 
 the truth.' Such is his scepticism, and it is involuntary, being 
 founded on reasons, invincible on one side and other, and which 
 force the reason to be in suspense. This scepticism is that of 
 every Christian, reasonable and of good faith, who does not wish to 
 know things of heaven, other than he can comprehend, other than 
 bear on his conduct, and who with the Apostle, rejects foolish and 
 unlearned questions, and those that gender strifes." — Letter, etc. 
 (CEuvres, vol. x. p. 117-118). 
 
 Note H. Page 191. 
 
 DOCTRINAL CREED OF EICHHORN. 
 
 No words can, so well as their own, give my readers an ade- 
 quate idea of the extent to which, in the case of men like Eich- 
 horn, the tone of Christianity had been lowered. Hence I shall 
 translate the passage, with which his third and last volume of the 
 " Introduction to the New Testament " begins in speaking of 
 Jesus and his Apostles. 
 
 " When Jesus parted from his disciples, his doctrinal system was 
 only present in faint outlines. He had taken for granted the 
 doctrines of God, Providence, and Immortality, simply as general 
 principles, without proving them, or showing their connection 
 with the universal sense of truth. He had exhibited God as the 
 ideal of Holiness, and as the model after which men were inces- 
 santly to strive, and the moral law as a divine precept, in the 
 following of which the condition of divine favour, and of happiness, 
 was to be fulfilled. With the credit of a divinely commissioned 
 teacher, he presented only results, without, at the same time, laying 
 open what followed for individual faith and practice. Neither 
 the nature of the human mind, nor the capacities of his first 
 scholars, nor the duration of his ministry, allowed Jesus to exhaust 
 everything. The weak eye must be accustomed gradually by single
 
 ArPEXDix. 299 
 
 rays to the light ; the uneducated must by tedious and partial 
 communication of the first elements of better knowledge be made 
 capable of it ; and in the illumination of the mind, the spirit of the 
 age must be taken into account. "What Jesus could not himself 
 perform, qualified men, his scholars, must, after his example, take 
 in charge. What was given by him at first in individual instances 
 they needed to reduce to general principles, and bring to light the 
 inward and spiritual wealtli therein concealed; they must accompany 
 with proofs the leading doctrines of Christianity as its founder 
 took them into his system ; and when to give these proofs sur- 
 passed the powers of men, to represent the doctrines as a piece of 
 rational faith ; what Jesus had left dark, that they were to make 
 clear ; what he had left indefinite, that they were to define ; the 
 blanks left by him to fill according to the spirit of his teaching ; 
 and thus they were to bring out of concealment the full light 
 which Jesus had made only faintly to glimmer in his discourses; and 
 to teach without disguise that the spirit of Christianity was quite 
 irreconcilable with that of Judaism, and that the one must entirely 
 separate itself from the other. Christianity thus needed for the 
 development of the great principles that lay in it, and for their 
 a<lequato working out, men of talents, of ncutencss and inventive 
 power, of independence and mental boldness. Among the first 
 advocates of Christianity, whose writings wo possess, John and 
 Paul were, in these respects, the most distinguished." — Eiuloitung 
 in das Neue Testament, vol. iii. pp. 1, 1'. 
 
 Note 1. I'ago 215. 
 
 TFii: Ai,i,t:f;r.n pa.ntuf.i.sm <>k i.kshi.vo. 
 
 Our cliiff if not solo authority for the conversion of Lossing to 
 Pantheism is the well-known jthiloKophcr F. II. .T;i<(ibi, who nftrr- 
 wards rose to huch diHtinrtion as tho o])pon<'iit of th»! AbsohitiHt 
 systems of Srlu'lling and Hfgnl, and as tin- dtfi'ndcr of vIcwh nioro 
 akin to the natural realJHni of the S< ottish philonophy. 'J'lii' facts as 
 to Lfssing occur iu tho wdrk of Jacobi, on the doctrine of Spinoza 
 (Ucbcr die I^hro dea Spinoza: Urcslau, 1789). They amount 
 to this, that wlicn Leasing died, Mmdeissohn naturally thouglit of
 
 300 ArrENDix. 
 
 "writing his life. Jacobi, fearing that the intended biographer might 
 not be aware of the change wliich, as he liimself judged, had passed 
 upon the views of Lessing, briefly communicated to him tlie con- 
 viction which he had reached. Mendelssohn received the tidings 
 with incredulity, and gave some hint that he regarded the impres- 
 sion, which Jacobi had founded on personal intercourse with Lessing, 
 as due only to the extraordinary power oi. persiflage which the latter 
 possessed. Jacobi, roused by this challenge, entered into a long 
 statement and criticism of the doctrine of Spinoza, to show that he 
 was a competent witness on such a point, and also detailed the 
 evidence on which he credited Lessing with adopting such a scheme. 
 This rested on conversations with Lessing, held in the year 1780, 
 when Jacobi had come to Wolfenbiittel to meet him. On the 
 morning after Jacobi's arrival, he had given Lessing to read an early 
 poem of Goethe, " Prometheus," in which Jupiter is defied, worship 
 of him renounced, and faith only left in an Almighty Time and 
 Eternal Fate, which had made all things. Jacobi, expecting to 
 find Lessing dissatisfied, was surprised to hear him say — " It is 
 my own point of view. The orthodox ideas of the Deity are no 
 longer for me ; I cannot enjoy them, "Ev koI irav. I know nothing 
 else. That is the upshot of the poem, and I must confess I like it 
 very well. Jacobi. Then you will be tolerably agreed with 
 Spinoza 1 Lessing. "Were I to take any name, it would hardly 
 be any other. Jacobi. Spinoza is for me good in his way ; but it 
 is a poor salvation that we find in his name. Lessing. Yes, if 
 you will have it so. . . . And yet . . . Do you know anything 
 better ? " — Ueber die Lehre, etc., p. 22. Next day, and several days 
 afterwards, the conversation was renewed, Jacobi, among other 
 things, telling Lessing that he had come to seek help from him 
 against Spinoza, and the latter replying that there was no other 
 philosophy worthy of the name ; while Jacobi still maintained that, 
 however much he had learned from him, especially as to the inad- 
 missibility of reasoning and logical deduction when applied to 
 ultimate beliefs, he found it necessary to escape from him, and 
 reach the " world of faith by a kind of salto mortale, so as to rest 
 in final causes and free will." The end of a conversation is all 
 that needs to be farther here quoted : — " Lessing. Well, very 
 well ; I can turn to good account all that you say ; but I cannot 
 go along with you in reaching your result. I like your salto mor-
 
 APPENDIX. 301 
 
 tale not amiss ; and I understand how a man with a head may prefer 
 this head-over-heels leap to get out of a fix. Take me along with 
 you, if it be possible. Jacobi. If you will only mount the elastic 
 springboard that drives me on, the tiling is done without more 
 difficulty. Lessikg. Yes, but even then the leap in the air Avould 
 be required ; and for this I can no longer trust my aged limbs and 
 my heavy bead." — Ueber die Lehre, etc., p. 44. Such is this curious 
 revelation ; and it may be added that, while subsequent re- 
 search and criticism have hardly assigned to it the decisive 
 weight which Jacobi ascribes, it confirms the impression other- 
 wise gained of Lessing's inward unsettlement, and of his ten- 
 dency, in his own language, to put systems together only to tear 
 them in pieces. This question is discussed in Mr. Sime's able 
 work on Lessing, vol. ii. p. 303. 
 
 Note K. Page 244. 
 
 A CRITICAL THEORY OF THE GOSPELS NECESSARY TO A 
 LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 The demand made by Baur upon Strauss, and referred to in tlm 
 text, that a profes.sed Life of Christ, mythical or historical, must 
 be accompanied by a llieory of th(! Gospels, seems so rca-tonablo, 
 and has been .so generally aocc^pted by .scholars of all cla-s.scs, Strauss 
 inclutled, that it is rather 8urj)ri»ing to find it evaded in the well- 
 known and able work, " I'xce Homo." This volume, while opening 
 out frcHli and interesting pointH of view, and Hcjtarating iLself by a 
 wide interval by an avowed belief in the miracles of ('lirist from 
 tlic French ami (jcrman authorH that nuppnrt the sUindard of 
 rationalism, hiw generally been held to fail in maintaining silence 
 m to thr; true rank of (JliriHt's pcrHon ; nor do the author's cxplana- 
 tioiiH in juHtidcntion of hJH reserve, afl given in the I'reface to liiH 
 Fifth Ivlition (London, 18G8), appear to remove the dillieulty. 
 But it 18, if possiblo, nioro r«'niarkal»le that he should discuss lii.s 
 topic without stating any theory an to the age or genuineness of 
 the ClospelB, tlieir relation to each otjuir, and their historical autho- 
 rity. On this subject, aUo, in tlio same Preface, ho luw offered an 
 explanation which will probably be iw little accepted ; it iH to the 
 effect that his book contains no "criticism of document.'*," because
 
 302 APPENDIX. 
 
 the author finds a " rudiment of certainty " " in the consent of all 
 the witnesses ;" and accordingly he takes the Gospel of Mark as 
 the basis of certain propositions which, " unanimously attested," are 
 numerous enough to afford an outline of Christ's life sufficient for 
 his purpose. 
 
 Now it will probably be felt, even should the induction from 
 IMark be accurate, and the eA'^angelic agreement so far allowed, that 
 this procedure is too slight and summary in a case where the 
 author himself admits that the veracity of his Avitnesses "has been 
 strongly impeached by critics, both on the ground of internal dis- 
 crepancies and of the intrinsic improbability of their story." It 
 does not seem possible, without more inquiry, " to form a rudiment- 
 ary conception of his [Christ's] general character and objects " 
 " while the vexed critical questions remain in abeyance." The 
 mere agreement of four professed historians, up to a certain limit, 
 is no certain basis of history, as all now admit in regard to the 
 consent of writers as to the early years of Eome. Hence our 
 author fortifies his position in the outset by simply assuming of 
 the four Evangelists that they, " in probable nearness to the events 
 they record, and means of acquiring information, belong to the 
 better class of historical Avitnesses." This will be readily admitted 
 by those who believe already the minimum extracted from the four 
 Gospels ; but only on the ground of critical inquiries such as the 
 author has not entered into. By others, till the evidence of age, 
 genuineness, and early reception in the case of the Gospels, and 
 especially of competency on the part of their authors, has been made 
 out, the mere agreement as to Christ will have no weight whatever 
 — unless as derived from the wonderfulness of the character — or at 
 best, only as presumption of truth. The work, therefore, of the 
 author of " Ecce Homo " hangs in the air, or rests on an assump- 
 tion which in this critical age is hardly safe or desirable. 
 
 Besides, while it may be granted that with approved historians 
 a certain minimum is established by their consent, it is not con- 
 sidered true to history, or the best way of gaining real insight, to 
 leave out all that is not common to all narrators. Socrates could 
 not be thus understood, nor Luther, nor Samuel Johnson. Even 
 Kenan cannot write the Life of Christ without drawing on the 
 fourth Gospel, and justifying it by critical researches. The facts 
 would become, on this principle of unanimous agreement, well or
 
 APPEm)ix. 303 
 
 ill attested, as the historians diminished or multiplied ; for the 
 minimum of asrreement would he less with eicrht than with four. 
 This is therefore an uncritical principle ; and though it may seem 
 to open an easy escape, cannot warrant us to dispense with a 
 critical theory of the Gospels, and an effort, not to sink the 
 differences of the Evangelists, but to harmonise them and to 
 incorporate them into one history. 
 
 Js^oTE L. Page 250. 
 
 THE QUARREL OF STRAUSS WITH RATIONALISM. 
 
 It cannot be denied that Strauss has done service in illustrat- 
 ing, both by argument and example, the ultimate tendencies of 
 rationalism. His complaints against its prevailing indecision and 
 halting between opinions are one of the most characteristic features 
 of his style. The only great exception is his justification of the 
 compliances of Reimarus with all the Christian professions and 
 usages which his Deistic creed excluded. I'ut, ordinarily, Strauss 
 strikes a bolder note of rebellion against conventionalism and com- 
 promise, sounding through tlie ranks of doubt and negation, " To 
 your tents, Israel!" This is tlie spirit in which ho condemns 
 Ewald, Hase, and even Baur (the stroke would also have fallen on 
 Keim), for their amljiguitios in regard to the resurrection of Christ ; 
 and in the same strain ho denounces all the practical efforts of 
 German Liberals to found a churrli, in which Christ shall have still 
 a name, but liea-son be the pontiff and dictator. " From this pre- 
 judice [tliat a visible religion is still needed] comes all our Itungling 
 with the Old Cliurcli, all the sewings and stitchings of our mediat- 
 ing theology. In Ixfssing's day«, it wa.s Itcrvelation and Kcason 
 that needed to be harmonisfid ; now uh ii prati- of (lir iiiodrm 
 prol)lem "of reconciling liljcral culture with Chri.stiun ]ti<'ty." Tlie 
 attempt is not in the least more rational or prnctirablo than in tln^ 
 time of Leasing. We como to tliis at last; if the old faith was 
 absurd, so is the modornised, that of the ProtcxfimlniVrrrln, and 
 of the Jena DeclarationiHta, and that in a twofold and thn'ef(»ld 
 degree. The old Ilihle faith only contradicted rea.son, l)ut not itself ; 
 the new contradicta itself in all its parts ; liow then can reason bo
 
 ^ 
 
 304 APPENDIX. 
 
 on its side ? The most consistent procedure is that of the Free 
 Congregations — so called — that stand quite outside of dogmatic 
 tradition^ on the ground of rational thought, natural science, and 
 history. That is no doubt firm groun<l, but no ground for a religious 
 societ)' . I have repeatedly attended the service of the Free Con- 
 gregation in Berlin, and have found it terribly dry and uncdifying. 
 I sighed usually for some allusion to the Bible legend or the Christian 
 year, to gain something for fancy or heart, but the refreshment was 
 denied. No. This will not do. After one has carried off bodily 
 the church building, to hold upon the bare and naked site an open- 
 air conference, is mournful to ghastliness. Either all or nothing. 
 As a rule, the founding of such societies is more the work of 
 ministers, who, having broken with the Churches, Avant to keep up 
 some semblance of spiritual function, than due to any need of lay- 
 men, who, when estranged from the Church, rather give up religious 
 service altogether. — Der alte und der neue Glaube, pp. 297-8. 
 
 Note M. Page 277. 
 
 JOHN STUART MILL's LAST WORD ON THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 There is an undoubted progress in l\Ir. 'MiWs views of the 
 character of Christ, at least as summed up in accepting Christian 
 morality, beyond what appeared in his essay on " Liberty." There, 
 no doubt, he was careful to guard himself by distinguishing be- 
 tween the morality of the Church and that of its Founder. The 
 charges of passivity, ascetism, and other evil tendencies, he directed 
 rather against what Christianity became than against what it was 
 meant to be. Still, he held strong language in regard to the 
 defectiveness of " recorded deliverances" of Christ as summing up 
 morality, though he granted (however mistakenly) that Christ 
 meant these to be supplied from other quarters. ]Ie even goes so 
 far as to charge on the Bible the absence of any rule as to public 
 life comparable to the precept in the Koran, " A ruler who appoints 
 any man to an office, when there is in his dominions another man 
 better qualified for it, sins against God and against the State;" 
 forgetful that this was included in Christ's golden rule, to say 
 nothing of Paul's doctrine of magistrates being a terror to tlie evil
 
 APPENDIX. 305 
 
 and a praise to the good. Nor does lie, in his estimate even of the 
 moral teaching of Christ in its parts, rise to any of those warm 
 utterances, in his essay on " Liberty," which break out even from 
 Strauss, or go beyond general admiration. It is, therefore, all the 
 more welcome to find in his last essay so strong and unqualified a 
 recognition, which surely carries with it the sufticiency of Christ's 
 " recorded deliverances" taken in connection with His life, and 
 retracts Avhat Mr. Mill had said, " that many essential elements of 
 the highest morality are not provided for," and that other ethics 
 " than any which can be evolved from exclusively Christian sources 
 must exist side by side Avith Christian ethics to produce the 
 moral regeneration of mankind." — Essay on Liberty, pp. 19, 20, 
 People's edition. 
 
 Few tlnngs are more striking than this tendency of the most 
 competent minds in every age to unite, in spite of every other 
 shortcoming, in rcndermg homage to the moral greatness and even 
 completeness of the character of Christ; and here, though Mr. 
 Mill has not reached, he has approached the unequalled tribute of 
 Kant, wlio, Avlien his own name was indiscreetly placed by his 
 admirer and future biographer Lorow.ski in too near conjunction 
 with that of Christ, rebuked the act ; and, speaking of the two 
 names, said, "The one is holy ; the other is that i>f a poor bungler 
 doing his best to interpret Ilim" (Namen, davon dcr ciue geheiligt, 
 der anderc aVjcr eines arraen ihn nach Vermcigen auslogenden 
 Htiimpers ist). — An den Kirchenralh Borowski. 1792. Vol. xi. 
 p. l.'H. Kosenkranz. 
 
 Note N. Pago 277. 
 
 DR. BAUn's SKKTCTI OF PAULINK JUSTIFICATION. 
 
 How near the rationalist intf^rpretation, when fair, may again ap- 
 proach the orthodox, is seen in this striking passage, which contra-sts 
 strongly with the moral allegories of Kant and "virtue" of I\lill. 
 "What the 'works of the law' ought to havo accompli.shed, but 
 what ' our own righteousness ' failetl to achieve, must now, as the 
 * righteou.sness of God,' 1x5 worked by faith; hcnco what workn 
 wanted, faith must possess; but even faith by itself has not this 
 
 X
 
 300 APPENDIX. 
 
 reconciling power in itself; it is all that it is, only through the object 
 to ■\vhicli it turns, and hence there must lie in the death of Christ that 
 which makes it able to I'ulfd the end Avhich tho law with its works 
 failed to accomplish. The Apostle exj)resses most directly the re- 
 lation of the death of Christ to the law in Gal. iii. 1 3 — ' Christ has 
 redeemed us from the curse of the law,' " etc. ..." This curse Christ 
 has taken on Himself, since He suffered death, the penalty imposed 
 by law on the sins of men. . . . Man is thus free from the curse of 
 the law, . . . This freedom is enjoyed by men, only in so far as 
 Christ has died for them ; but if He be thus dead, the reciprocal 
 relation between Him and them must come into consciousness and 
 be recognised by them ; they must, in order to ajjiiropriate what He 
 has done, be able to know themselves one with Him. This rela- 
 tion is faith ; only through faith in Him and His death on the cross 
 for them, are they free from the curse of the law ; faith is thus the 
 union of men with Christ, whereby the redemption from law l)y 
 the death of Christ becomes individualised. . . . What the law 
 could, through its constant non-fulfilment, not effect, the death of 
 Christ effects by the setting aside of the law — that is, without the 
 law, but only in so far as that death is the object of faith. . . . 
 The chief text in which this is more fully set forth by the Apostle 
 is Eom. iii. 21-26. Men ' are justified freely by the redemption that 
 is in Christ Jesus,' etc. Two points are here to be distinguished, 
 which the Apostle, in his view of the death of Christ, considered as 
 the object of faith, keeps distinct and illustrates by contrast. An 
 act of redemption resting on the death of Christ, is an act of the 
 free grace of God, since men as sinners can only be justified by the 
 grace of God ; but in the death of Christ the righteousness of God 
 has also revealed itself, which must make the guilt of sin be followed 
 by its penalty. The righteousness of God must be satisfied in this 
 way, that the penalty of sin is also really borne. Here, as De 
 "VVette justly observes, is a point of support for Anselm's theory of 
 satisfaction ; but it is not necessary to go beyond the idea of ' de- 
 claring ' righteousness (tVSei^ts) wherein there only lies, that God 
 did not in Himself and for the sake of satisfying His righteousness 
 demand such a sacrifice for the actual payment of the penalty of 
 sin, but only to show His righteousness to men ; but this distinc- 
 tion in the last resort is unimportant ; since what God does, is not 
 done for the outward end of a mere eVoet^ts, but must have its
 
 APPENDIX. 307 
 
 objective ground iu His nature. Since it was irreconcilable with the 
 idea of Divine justice to leave past sins unpunished, Christ needed 
 to die penally for the sins of men. It is not meant to be said that, 
 in the nature of God, His judicial righteousness, His wrath against 
 men, an obstacle opposed to the forgiveness of sin needed to be re- 
 moved by Christ's death. God Himself did not need to be first recon- 
 ciled, and when the Apostle spealis of a K-aTaAAayv;, KaraXXaTTea-Oai, 
 he at least does not mean such a reconciliation as would amount 
 to a change of feeling towards men. . . , All that the righteous- 
 ness of God demands in the death of Jesus, can itself only be re- 
 garded as the efflux of Divine grace. The declaring of righteous- 
 ness in the death of Jesus could not have come to pass, if God, 
 before He showed himself the Eighteous one, had not been the 
 Gracious one, who gave the greatest proof of His grace in this, 
 that He inllicted the penalty of sin, so far as for righteousness' sake 
 it could not be spared, not on man himself, but on another in 
 his room. This leads us from the idea of satisfaction to that 
 which is most intimately connected with it, substitution. . . . 
 This is most distinctly brought out in '2 Cur. v. 1 1, where the 
 Apostle, out of the statement ' One died for all,' draws the imme- 
 diate conclusion, ' apa. ol ttui'tcs d-n-Wavov.' We must not hero 
 think of spiritual death, as in Kom. vi. 2, or of an obligation to die 
 literally ; but it is said absolutely, that what holds of one holds of 
 all, and for this reason, as the article shows, that these are the 
 definite Trurrcs- ; that is, those whose place the One assumes. Only 
 as He dies in tlieir stead and for them, are they also dead ; that is, 
 so far as only the One is actually dead ; but they all are in Him 
 ideally contained ; can they, if not actually, yet really, because on 
 account of Him who is, in their room and for them, dead, bo them- 
 Bclves regarded as dead. From the idea of substitution flows the 
 double conKcquence, on the one hand, that the Oiw, who must take 
 the ])lace of many others to act for them, is the same in nature with 
 them ; an<l, on the other hand, that lie excels thcni in having that 
 which they want, and the want of whicli makes it necessary that 
 He take their place. W Christ liave died for the sins of u\c\\, He 
 must Himself have been without sin, tlmt His deatli, whitli could 
 have been no sacrifice for Himself, might stand as the penalty of 
 the sin of many. Hence it is only the development of tiie idea of 
 substitution iu 2 Cor. v. 1 I, wlien in vcr.se 21 the Apostle says —
 
 308 APPENDIX. 
 
 ' God hath made Him who knew no sin,' etc. . . . God made 
 Him afiapTM, that wc might be SiKaioa-vvr] Geor fV ai'iry — miglit 
 be what we ought to be, in order to stand to God in the rehation 
 adequate to His idea. . . . This leads us back to faith. Faith is 
 the subjective condition on which alone man can enter into the 
 relation so expressed. . . . The Pauline doctrine must suppose as 
 actual wliat in itself does not exist. Its SiKaiovcrOaL is no actual 
 righteous-being, but a mere righteous-liolding, or declaring, and 
 faith, as the principle of this SiKaLova-dai is merely the firm appre- 
 hension, in view of Christ, that what exists not in itself neverthe- 
 less is. Not only has man most certainly, in 'justification by 
 faith,' no cause of 'boasting,' as in 'justification by works' (Rom. 
 iv. 1), but he has at the same time nothing in himself that could 
 put him in the adequate relation to God demanded by SiKaiova-dai ; 
 for how could faith, as the mere opinion that something is as it 
 ought to be, when the exact opposite is the case, have any instru- 
 mental power to bring about such a relation 1 This is the extreme 
 point where faith, in the merely putative sense, as something with- 
 out contents, seems to lose all reality ; and yet the necessity lies 
 clearly before us that faith, if it is to be the principle of SiKaLovo-dai, 
 must have the contents which shall first give it reality. Whence, 
 then, shall faith get these contents 1 Vfhen the Apostle (Eom. iv, 
 5) says that ' to him that believeth on Him that justifieth the un- 
 godly, his faith is counted for righteousness,' he regards the faith 
 that is so counted as ' righteousness,' as itself ' righteousness,' as 
 the subjective condition of SiKaLova-dai : faith is as ' righteousness,' 
 the moral quality under condition of which man can come into that 
 adequate relation towards God which belongs to the idea of SiKat- 
 ovcrdat. The moral element of faith can only lie in this point, that 
 the believer, not according to RUckert on Rom. iv. 5, has the wish, 
 tliough not ' righteous,' to become so, for that does not belong to 
 this passage, but trusts in Him that 'justifies the ungodly,' that 
 the 'ungodly' is no longer such but 'righteous;' yet how can he 
 believe this without knowing the ground on which this faith rests ? 
 The ground on which this faith rests can only be Christ ; but since 
 the behever makes Christ the contents of his faith, that faith 
 ' reckoned ' as ' righteousness,' or the ' righteousness ' existing in 
 mere ' faith,' in it merely supposed or conceived, becomes a reality. 
 One cannot believe in Christ without knowing himself one with
 
 APPENDIX. 309 
 
 Him, and in this sense of oneness he is conscious of that as imma- 
 nent in his own consciousness, which forms the proper object of his 
 faith in Christ. . . . His death is the reason why we, since we are 
 now free from all the guilt of sin, can be the same as He is — with- 
 out sin ; and can, as righteous, stand in the same adequate relation 
 to God in Avhich lie does." — Der Apostel Paulus, pp. 537-547. 
 Stuttgart, 1845. Though this extract from the leader of the 
 Tiibingen theology is not a model of clearness, it sufficiently 
 recalls Luther to excite the hope that Christianity may be again 
 revealed " «'/< -tb-rews ei's tt'uttlv" and not as a system of morality, 
 but of salvation. 
 
 rriulol hy K. & K. Ci.AkK, /-:<finl>urt;/i.
 
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