aifornia ;ional ility ^' . I * - SCHOENHOF4MOELLER t'UVifjll Hunk* 40 Winter Str. BOSTON. I GIFT OF SEELEY W. MUDD and GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER DR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLU JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI to the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SOUTHERN BRANCH JOHN FISKE **"***<** PEIZE ESSAY. CHRISTIANITY AND INFIDELITY: AN EXPOSITION OF THE ARGUMENTS ON BOTH SIDES ARRANGED ACCORDING TO A PLAN PROPOSED BY GEORGE BAILIIE, ESQ. S. S. HENNELL. LONDON : ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE, AND CO. 2o, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1857. PRIHTED BT EVAN C. LEWIS, EARL-STREET, COVENTRY. o The occasion of the present Work was the following Advertisement, which appeared in the " Glasgow Reformers' Gazette" of the 6th of May, 1854, and in other Journals^ English and Scotch : THIRD PRIZE ESSAY. INFIDELITY AGAINST CHRISTIANITY, AND CHRISTIANITY AGAINST INFIDELITY. THE PREMIUM for the LAYMAN'S best ESSAY against INFIDELITY, now in the London Press for publication, having been paid to Mr. David M'Burnie, 33, Hanover-Square, Bradford, Yorkshire, after a talented and interesting competition, and an un- promised Premium having also been paid for the Second Best Essay, to Mr. James Clark, 45, Taylor-Street, Glasgow, JUSTICE now dictates that an equal opportunity be afforded for the discussion of both sides of the subject; and as it seems desirable to obtain an able EXPOSITION of that nature from any quarter, the Subscriber will pay TWENTY SOVEREIGNS for what he shall deem the most logical and complete yet condensed EPITOME of all relevant facts, arguments, and objections urgeable : I. By INFIDELITY against CHRISTIANITY, with ANSWERS strictly relevant thereto. And, II. , By CHRISTIANITY against INFIDELITY, with ANSWERS strictly relevant thereto. But, / FIRST, Each Competitor will prefix to his EXPOSITION, as his accepted rule therein, ^ a copy of this Advertisement, and its Explanatory Notes. SECOND, Each Com- - < petitor must frame his EXPOSITION with a rigorous regard to relevancy, brevity, perspicuity, and good temper, in the form of separate PROPOSITIONS or OBJECTIONS, 3 on the left-hand pages of large folio paper, marking each objection with a running ^ number, and of ANSWERS strictly relevant thereto, on the opposite or ri^A^-hand r*. pages, each marked with a corresponding number, in order that every PROPOSITION or OBJECTION, with its ANSWER, may CONFRONT each other, and be thereby promptly appreciable. But, if any intending Competitor wishes more information hereon, his Epistle thereanent to the .Subscriber, shall be duly attended to, and a copy of the said explanatory Notes will be sent him gratis. Third, Each Com- petitor must, if possible, bring to the Work a zeal and research wholly unprejudiced, so as to present in a clear and impartial light the QUINTESSENCE of all important matter, which has been or might have been relevantly adduced by the ablest writers on both sides of the controversy ; and specifying, in foot Notes, the Title, Volume, Page, and Edition of each authority founded on. FOURTH, To obviate all undue reserve or restraint, and thereby to promote a frank and vigorous EXPOSITION, Competitors may, if inclined, state in a prefatory Note, that their Objections and Answers are to be viewed not as expressing wholly their own convictions, but rather as an Epitome of all that can best be urged on both sides of the discussion. IV ADVERTISEMENT. LASTLY, Each Competitor will annex his subscription and address to his EXPO- SITION, which must be lodged on or before the first day of January next, with the Subscriber, who shall, within four months thereafter, notify to the successful Competitor, his readiness to pay him the said PREMIUM. And for the farther encouragement of Competitors, the Subscriber, if requested, shall, as heretofore, surrender, upon the most liberal terms, his hereby reserved copyright to the Prize Essay ; and the other Essays shall be restored to the respective Essayists, if applied for, forthwith. GEOEGE BAILLIE. 37, Dalhousie-Street, Garnethill, Glasgow, 6th May, 1854. NOTES EXPLANATORY OF THE ABOVE ADVERTISEMENT. The adage "where there is a will there is a way" is so true, that were the Advertiser not now old and infirm, he would himself work out the proposed Exposition, with a pleasurable perseverance. The whole modus operandi is present to his mind, and, for the aid and satisfaction of Competitors, he will here state it frankly : 1st, No pains would be spared in collecting at least half-a-dozen of the most powerful works, foreign or otherwise, on each side of the discussion. 2d, With pencil in hand, he would carefully peruse the whole Infidel works ( and none else at this stage,) marking every notable clause with an " 0,' or an " A.," as it seemed fittest for an Objection or an Answer. 3d, The same operation would fall to be performed as to the Christian works, and thus all that would remain to be done would be, FIRST, to extract from the Infidel works all clauses marked " 0," and reduce them into the fewest possible words, in the shape of distinct Objections or Propositions. SECOND, To extract from the Christian works all clauses marked "A," and reduce them into the fewest possible words, in the shape of Answers to the said Objections ; and, THIRD, to repeat these two last operations, in the framing of Objections by Christianity against Infidelity, and of Answers thereto by Infidelity. Of course, whenever, on either side, an Objection was found to be wholly or partially nanswered or an Answer or Objection less relevant or vigorous than it might fairly be made, the Essayist should feel it his right and duty to supply these omissions and amend these defects to the best of his ability, but always with strict regard to relevancy and brevity so that the whole EXPOSITION might thus, with comparative ease, be rendered clear, consecutive, and condensed. The advantages of this mode of procedure are many. 1st, No relevantly important matter would be omitted. 2d, The mind of the Essayist would be spared the incessant conflict and perplexity incident to any attempt to ansu'er each Objection, unico contextu, with the framing of the Objection itself. 3d, Such an attempt would have the baneful effect of tempting the Essayist to mould the Objection so as to suit its coming Answer, instead of framing the Objection itself in its most invulnerable form, as is done by every skilful Debater. 4th, Any unfair tinkering of materials would be easily detected by one conversant with both sides of the discussion, as he should be, who undertakes to Adjudicate in the case. Lastly, By the said sequence of study on one side, before taking up the other side, the whole discussion would become more homogeneous, coherent, and convincing, than it could otherwise be. Moreover, the terms of the Advertisement necessarily require ADVERTISEMENT. V each Competitor to "bring to thb work, if possible, a zeal and research wholly unprejudiced;" and, indeed, any undue partiality on either side, would soon betray itself, by the very juxtaposition of each Objection and its Answer wherein consist3 the main excellence of the proposed Exposition. Here it may be proper to remark, as to the importance of brevity, that now-a- days, most men have so many pressing demands upon their time and attention, that a Big Book is a Big Bore in common parlance. Brevity once called the soul of wit, is now the soul of most mental productions. The multum in parvo alone pleases, especially in theological effusions, which otherwise are looked upon by many as mere lumber. And these considerations are here adduced, because the Advertiser knows how much easier it is to be diffuse than dense in style. We are told of a Lady, who excused herself to her Correspondent, for sending a long Epistle, as she had not time to write a short one. Men must now make Books as Bakers make Currant Bun in Scotland cram much fruit into small space. A French Cook is said to have concentrated the essence of a whole Ox into a single cup of soup, and however that may be, we all know that in dexterous hands, the literary pruning-knife can perform wonders. For instance, " The Statistical Account of Scotland" in 21 volumes, was compressed into One Volume, by Sir John Sinclair, Bart., and critics pronounced it "an accurate and valuable Epitome," as vras proved by its instantaneous popularity among all classes. The prefixed Advertisement may create some slight sensation, and at all events it is hoped it will induce not a few Christians and Infidels to stand forth and give battle to their most formidable antagonists in Theology, foreign and domestic. If well followed up it must conduce to bring our Grand Religious Controversy to a fair stand-up, face-to-face, foot-to-foot EXPOSITION, well suited to the uneducated mind spare time and sparer purse of the humble artizan especially if published in a brief, cheap, and popular shape. At all events, the SCHEME, whatever be its merits or demerits, originates with the Advertiser, and is believed to be quite new. He humbly thinks that if it be executed with thorough talent stern impartiality, and rigorous research, it must become both popular and profitable because it cannot fail to be a useful publication to the masses who have neither time to peruse nor money to purchase nor capacity to comprehend, the pondrous, expen- sive, and multifarious lucubrations over which the Controversy is at present scattered. Hence they have generally hitherto taken their Creeds, like their Clothes, upon credit, without being able to give a right reason for their Belief or Unbelief. But now this Blind-Buff Game is unfit for a Class no longer in nonage. To save Competitors unnecessary trouble, the Advertiser will dispense with much debate as to God's existence. What God is not that God is, seems almost all that is necessary to consider here, on that branch of the discussion because, it would imply insanity to affirm God's non-existence in every sense of the word " God." Pantheism, Materialism, and Spinosaism, are called, or rather miscalled Atheistical, though they recognise in God the "All-in-All," and are therefore Theistical in the most extensive sense. These Doctrines, however, involve the inquiry, " What God is ?" and of course they must take their fair share in the Exposition. Some years ago, the Advertiser endeavoured to refute Materialism,' syllogistically, and Mr. Holyoake in his " Reasoner, No. 118, 30th August, 1848," endeavoured to answer the Essay ; but it is believed that the Public, generally, VI ADVERTISEMENT. thought his Answer inefficient, and therefore, a Reply thereto, though written, was not published The subject is, however, so mysterious, that it is difficult to treat it satisfactorily ; and, as it is known, that Materialism is au fond, the Faith of many educated persons both at home and abroad, it will, perhaps, take some small share in the ensuing Exposition, although not a few deem it apart from Scripture a subject almost wholly beyond human logic, because, none but a God can ADEQUATELY comprehend a God. How strange and sorrowful it is, therefore, that our controversies, on a theme the most profound and sublime that Man can enter upon, have almost always been hitherto conducted in a way quite irrational, intemperate, and sectarian, or one- sided. Out comes a partizan who vamps up volumes of panegyric on his own pet convictions, and of contumely on all who dare to doubt his spiritual nostrums. The latter, thus exasperated, shower upon their assailant in turn, an equal pro- fusion of personal invective and idle declamation. All the while, neither party controvert explicitly the facts, arguments, and objections of their opponents ; and thus the theological conflict becomes more and more unsatisfactory and repulsive to all considerate men. It is, therefore, high time now, that the Examination and Exposition of true Keligion be rescued from treatment so disreputable and unconvincing. Fortunately, Courts of Judicature exhibit modes of investigation and decision, obviously as adequate to the solution of our Theological problem as they have ever been, in past ages, to the solution of questions the most momentous to Man's Life, Fortune, and Character here below. Our Tribunals of Justice very properly oblige parties to controvert explicitly, and in their order, each and every fact, argument, and objection, urged by their opponents, under pain of being held as confessing the truth of whatever they do not specially deny. It is with a view to that judicious mode of judicial expiscation, that the prefixed Advertisement is framed; and, if its Rules be but vigorously and honestly worked out, it seems likely to tend more than any course hitherto adopted, to strip the Religious Question of those interminable irrelevancies, evasions, and rhetorical ramblings, under which it has hitherto been hidden by a heartless and crafty casuistry. Thus, pure and undefiled Religion will be tested, and recognised by practical principles which our most eminent Jurists and Judges daily enforce and acknowledge as the best Explorers of Justice and Truth that truth which fears nothing scorns evasion repudiates artifice, and courts the closest scrutiny because, like Gold, its purity will prove itself the purer the more severely it is tested. Finally, This ardent effort to unveil truth, and unmask untruth, by placing them vis-d-vis, seems to have the high sanction of England's mightiest Minstrel, who thus quaintly expresses himself : " In logic, contraries laid togetlier more evidently appear : it follows, then, that all controversy being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth more true ; which must needs conduce to the confirmation of an implicit truth." MILTON. G.B. PREFACE. Throughout the following Epitome, the principle has been to adhere strictly to the idea of Revelation as a miraculous dispensation : i.e., a special interference, on the part of a personal Deity, with the general order of things, usually described as being subject to the Laws of Nature. Hence no notice is taken of those explanations of Christianity, forming, perhaps, the most generally attractive portion of the religious literature of the day, which, while retaining the terms of supranaturalism, explain it away into a simple accordance with natural reason and science ; either, plainly so discoverable to this cultivated age, or to be inferred as probably such in the plan of Omniscience, though at present concealed from our limited faculties : thus reducing Christianity in fact to the level of common events, and leaving no real ground of contention between the mere natural philosopher, as such, and the believer in Revelation. This principle has been the guide in the selection of the following course of Argument ; which, accordingly, represents, not a history of the con- troversy, but such a view of it as, in the judgment of the Compiler, gives a fair and consistent statement of the general question, without entering upon minor sectarian differences. The extracts selected are thus merely such as seemed the best procurable to set forth the point in hand, without regard being had to the great discrepancies of opinion amongst the various Authors ; some of whom are, consequently, not at all fairly represented as to their general opinions by these partial quotations. For their bearing upon the argument the Compiler is responsible ; but the real meaning of the Author, as far as each passage is concerned, has, nevertheless, been always endeavoured to be preserved. In many cases the language has been freely condensed, but it has never been altered ; not a single word of any differ- ent shade of meaning, has been substituted within a quotation ; and in VIH PREFACE. passages where the style was expressive of feeling, and in some measure itself an argument, every word has been scrupulously retained. In the attempt to fill up the scheme, imperfect as it is, the Compiler confesses to have been frustrated by the total inability to find Answers fairly corresponding to many of the Objections so much easier of state- ment. This has been felt especially under the head of the Internal Evi- dence of Christianity, where the so-called Answers are accordingly offered with reluctance, as, for the most part, neither meeting the question, nor affording parallel trains of thought. It is, indeed, in the light of parallel representations that this Com- pilation is wished to be regarded ; not at all as actuated by the spirit of controversy, but as a simple juxta-position of both sides of the question that may help towards a fair balance. Thus considered, it is hoped that the positive form of laying down opinions on subjects so important, will not be attributed to dogmatism or presumption. The cases are only pleaded ; preparatory to the judgment that is yet in abeyance, and has to be pronounced by the reader. Or rather, it is desired merely to furnish, in brief, suggestive specimens of a line of argument, which, ranging over so vast and various a field, can be but the slightest sketch, to be filled up and altered in the reader's own mind. Its deficiencies may thus have the truly best effect, of stimulating him to work out a more satisfactory train of reasoning for himself. CONTENTS. PART I. OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY AGAINST CHRISTIANITY. AGAINST REVELATION IN GENERAL : THAT IT IS DEROGATORY TO THE IDEA OP GOD. FACE. I. The idea of the God of Revelation is incongruous with that of the Author of Nature 2 II. The God of Revelation is not all- wise, or not omnipotent 2 III. He is partial in his benevolence 4 IV. Revelation bears marks of instability and caprice 4 THAT IT CANNOT BE INFERRED, A PRIORI, FROM OUR EXPE- RIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE, TO BE GOOD FOR MAN. V. Man learns best by experience 6 VL And should be supposed capable of learning all that is necessary for him 6 VIL The tendency of Revelation is to check human improvement ... 8 ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIFFICULTY OF ATTESTING IT. VIII. Miracles are necessary as evidence, but their value changes with the state of science 8 IX. Moral evidence is insufficient 10 X. Spiritual evidence cannot be imparted 10 ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIFFICULTY OF RECORDING IT. XL Record by tradition, is vague and perishing; and by writing, is exposed to human errors 10 AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION AS CONTAINED IN THE BIBLE : THAT ITS DIVINE CHARACTER IS NOT SUPPORTED BY EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. XIL The Bible is a heterogeneous compilation; 12 XIII. Subject to many critical alterations 12 XIV. The canon of the New Testament was long unsettled; contains disputed books ; the authenticity of the books in general is ill supported by early tradition 14 XV. The names of the authors of the Gospels are conjectural 16 XVI. Their dates are uncertain; and fixed by theological bias 18 XVII. No special care of Providence was manifested in the preservation of them 18 THAT ITS DIVINE CHARACTER IS NOT SUPPORTED BY INTERNAL EVIDENCE. XVIII. The Bible is difficult to understand; , 20 XIX. Requiring much learning 20 XX. The books of the New Testament are not uniform in doctrine... 22 XXI. They have the mythic legends common to old eastern religions... 24 FAOB. XXII. The accounts of Jesus are incomplete, and not like those of eye- witnesses 26 XXIII. There is artistic design apparent in the Evangelists 28 XXIV. Their relations of Miracles have not the air of trustworthiness .. 36 XXV. As is seen in their accounts of the Resurrection 38 XXVI. The Morality of the Gospels is not altogether philosophically true : trust in God ; prayer ; forgiveness of sins ; demand of inward purity (borrowed from the Essenes) 44 XXVIL The doctrine of Atonement is altogether contrary to natural mo- rality 50 XXVIII. The character of Christ is not a model for us 52 XXIX. Christianity is a revelation of Immortality only to rude minds... 54 XXX. Christianity was fitted for its own age, not for all ages : in its doctrines; in its miracles; and in its morality 56 XXXI. It is responsible for Judaism 60 XXXII. The true worth of Christianity is not known till it is recognized as natural 62 AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION, AS TO ITS POSITION IN HISTORY : THAT IT IS DEFICIENT IN TESTIMONY FROM JEWISH AND HEATHEN HISTORIANS. XXXIII. It made no peculiar impression upon the world at the time 64 THAT THE FACTS IN EARLY CHRISTIAN HISTORY CAN BE AC- COUNTED FOR IN A NATURAL WAY. XXXIV. Historical circumstances indicate a political as well as a religious movement on the part of Jesus ; 66 XXXV. Which was subsequently spiritualized, and adapted to the con- dition of the Gentiles 70 XXXVI. The course of other religions had prepared the way for Christianity ' 74 THAT ITS INFLUENCE ON THE SUBSEQUENT COURSE OF EVENTS HAS NOT BEEN OTHER THAN NATURAL. XXXVII. It has wrought no great and sudden changes on bodies of men 76 XXXVIII. It was itself subject to outward influences 76 XXXIX. It was propagated on a large scale by the sword 78 XL. It was not the influence that raised Woman 78 XLI. It has not been the means of abolishing slavery 80 XLII. It has encouraged coarse superstitions, and persecuting in- tolerance 82 THAT ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS AT THE PRESENT DAY, ARE IN- COMMENSURATE WITH ITS CLAIM. XLIII. The present age is notoriously accused of Infidelity 82 XLIV. Christianity lags behind the age, and is an obstruction to im- provement 84 XLV. Infidelity abounds especially amongst the working classes 86 XLVI. The divisions in the Churches are signs of their decay 88 XLVII. Christianity shows itself deficient in its moral condition, and in its practical influence 92 XLVIII. Summary 96 PART II. OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY AGAINST INFIDELITY. THAT IT IS INDUCED BY A SPIRIT OF PRIDE AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY. PACK. I. Difficulties are admitted by Christians, but accepted as a trial of humility 98 II. The Infidel resents them as an insult of his Reason 100 III. Pride of Reason is not far from Pride of one's Own Reason ... 104 IV. Otherwise Unbelief would content itself with Silence 106 THAT IT IS INDUCED BY THE DESIRE TO ESCAPE FROM MORAL RESTRAINT. V. It refuses an Authoritative Law of Morality 106 VL And much more the Christian Law, which demands subjugation of the entire nature 110 VII. Without religion man's sensual nature gains predominance 112 VIIL Hence lax notions about Marriage 114 IX. Infidelity leads to wild Social projects 114 X. It gives up all idea of Moral Responsibility 116 THAT THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS REJECTED, LEAVES NO SUFFICIENT GROUND FOR BELIEVING IN A MORAL GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD. XL The moral need of man demanded Revelation 118 XIL Moral difficulties in Nature are as great as in Revelation. The Christian and the Atheist are alone consistent 118 XIII. The principle of Justice is not apparent throughout the admi- nistration of the world 122 XIV. To believe in future compensation because necessary to Divine Goodness, is false ground 126 XV. From Nature Alone, God cannot be proved to be Good 128 XVI. The permission of evil is as inexplicable as the command of it 130 XVII. The doctrine of the " Fall of Man" is the best clue to the mystery 134 THAT THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS REJECTED, LEAVES NO SUFFICIENT GROUND FOR BELIEVING IN THE IMMORTALITY OF MAN, XVIII. There is not ground for supposing the present to be a scene of Probation ; 138 XIX. As an explanatory Hypothesis, a Future Life is not satisfactory enough to maintain itself 140 XX. There is no proof of Immortality in the material world, or in natural human experience 140 XXI. Nor in the nature of the Soul 142 XXII. Men's instincts upon it are too various to establish it 144 XXIII. The Ancients had a very vague notion of it 146 XXIV. Considered as a Reward of Virtue, it encourages interested mo- tives ; not when considered as a Gift of God ....: 148 XXV. It is the most animating of human motives 152 XII CONTENTS. THAT THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS REJECTED, LEAVES NO SUFFICIENT GROUND FOR BELIEVING IN THE EX- ISTENCE OF GOD. XXVI. A God not communicating himself, is no God to us 152 XXVII. Men have failed to discover him by Philosophy, or by Intuition, 154 XXVIII. Hia existence is not to be proved by the argument from Design. 156 XXIX. Modern Theism is but degenerate Christianity 160 XXX. Infidelity naturally leads to universal Scepticism: 162 XXXI. Or to positive Atheism 162 XXXII. Nature and Reason show us, that we ought to believe, as we act, on Probabilities 164 XXXIII. Without belief in God, man sinks towards a level with the con- dition of brutes 168 Note to the Reader. It is recommended to read first the Objections of an entire Section consecutively, and then refer to them separately in connection with the Answers. INFIDELITY AGAINST CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTIANITY AGAINST INFIDELITY. PART I. INFIDELITY AGAINST CHEISTIANITY. OBJECTIONS, ON THE PART OF INFIDELITY, AGAINST EEVELA- THAT IT IS DEROGATORY I. THE idea of Revelation necessarily presupposes a The idea of Deity, an intelligent Being, who has certain designs the God of Eeve- with regard to man. This Being also cannot be thought lation incongru- f separat ely from the Author of Nature. But all the ous with that of J the Author of Na- operations of .Nature are more and more discovered to tore. be in a regular series of sequences, which seem best described as fixed laws; whereas Revelation supposes an exceptional interference in human affairs on the part of God : and hence, at the outset, springs an inherent incongruity in the idea we can form of God, and his mode of working. II.- The study of Nature also more and more makes us it makes him associate the idea of wisdom and power with uniformity not all-wise, or of plan, producing effects infinitely varied in kind and not omnipotent. degree by one and the same mode of operation ; which is in contradiction with the notion that Divine personal intervention was necessary for man, though not required for the lower animals, with whom he is in close relationship as regards his physical constitution. But if we set aside this extreme view, and admit the opinion hitherto almost universally adopted, that God willed man to be of an essentially different nature from other creatures, still the need of a Revelation for him seems to imply some inefficiency in the act of his creation. If we suppose that man was endowed with an independent, godlike power of his own, in the place of those instinctive impulses which serve for the guidance of inferior animals, and that being thus capable of resisting God, he did actually rebel against bim, so that a Revelation became necessary to restore him : then it follows that God either did not fore- see, or was not willing, or not able to prevent man's rebellion. It may be said that the purpose of God to make man a free agent a bene- volent purpose, because productive of the greatest amount of good on the whole, involved the necessity for this rebellion, sin and misery : but it must be acknowledged that then God cannot carry on his designs as he would, but is thwarted by man ; and Revelation becomes a mere compulsory expedient to meet the exigencies of the case. PART I. INFIDELITY AGAINST CHEISTIANITY, ANSWERS, ON THE PART OF CHRISTIANITY. TION IN GENERAL: TO THE IDEA OF GOD. I. OUR faculties are too limited to judge respecting the Divine Being. What seems inconsistency to our narrow comprehension, would doubt- less resolve itself into perfect harmony if we knew the whole if we could see as God sees. What appear to us respectively as fixed law and per- sonal intervention of God, may in reality have no such distinction in their nature ; since the seeming mechanical course of nature must yet be under the constant sway of His arbitrary Will, and can be fixed only in so far as His pleasure remains fixed. "If we leave out the consideration of Religion, we are in such total darkness, upon what causes, occasions, reasons, or circumstances, the present course of nature depends ; that there does not appear any im- probability for or against supposing, that 5 or 6,000 years may have given scope for causes . . . from whence miraculous interpositions may have arisen . . . But, take in the consideration of Religion, or the moral system of the world, and then we see distinct particular reasons for miracles : to afford mankind instruction additional to that of nature, and to attest the truth of it. And this gives a real credibility to the supposition, that it might be part of the original plan of things, that there should be miraculous interpositions."* II. All the rest of creation belong to earth, and are doomed to perish ; man alone is made in the image of God, and destined for immortality : it is therefore natural that, while other beings are left to the mechanical agency of laws once set in action and then abandoned to work out their given ends, for man there should be reserved a more immediate com- munication with his Maker.t Every created being is necessarily imperfect and liable to go astray. * Butler's Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the constitution and course of Nature. Part ii., ch. ii. iii. Ed : 1839, p. 186. t " If the Supreme Being proposed only such ends as mechanism can produce, then he might have framed a machinery so perfect and sure as to need no sus- pension of its ordinary movements. But he has an incomparably nobler end. His great purpose is to educate, to rescue from evil, to carry forward for ever the free, rational mind or soul . . . the chief distinction of intelligent beings is Moral Freedom. This capacity, at once the most glorious and the most fearful which we can conceive, shows how the human race may have come into a condi- tion to which the illumination of nature was inadequate." Channing's Works, in one volume : 1840. p. 416. OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [REVELATION IN GENE- III. If it was the benevolence of God which induced Partial in his him to give the revelation that was indispensable for benevolence. the salvation of man : yet this benevolence is not such as would seem to befit the Father of all his creatures, when it is limited to a favoured few, as every Revelation must be in the first in- stance. That all mankind should be so framed as not to be able of themselves to accomplish their own well-being, and yet that the Divine aid of Revelation should be reserved only for a portion of them, seems irreconcilable with the moral attributes of Deity. IV. Revelation thus comes as an after-thought, to sup- Eeveiation bears P^7 some original deficiency in creation; as if some un- marks of instabi- foreseen difficulty had occurred which must be met lity and caprice. j>y extraordinary provision. It breaks in upon the grand simplicity of the organization of Nature, and seems to withdraw man from the dominion of everlasting and certain order which regulates the motions of the spheres, to a realm of caprice and instability. In the investigation of the Universe, here first reason finds itself in the pre- sence of an arbitrary Being, whose proceedings not merely transcend but contradict its own best apprehensions. ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 5 BAL. IDEA OP GOD.] This liability indeed implies some power antagonistic to good, i.e. to God, whether it be in the nature of matter, or in some spiritual principle of evil : and herein lies the dark mystery of the Origin of Evil, the "great and perplexing question" for which no solution has yet been found.* Lord Brougham says: "The whole argument respecting evil must, from the nature of the question, resolve itself into either a proof of some absolute or mathematical necessity not to be removed by infinite power, or the showing that some such proof may be possible, although we have not yet discovered it."t That God should give a Revelation because the stubbornness of man's nature made his salvation otherwise impossible, is all the more a proof of the greatness of the Divine love towards him. III. "Why it was that the Most High thought fit to make a reve- lation to one people, and not at once to all the world, we cannot ex- plain, and we mast not presume to decide : . . . nor yet why many nations, in various parts of the world, have been left, even to this day, in the darkness of idolatrous superstition ; or, indeed, why any such f thing as evil should exist at all. All this, we may conclude, would have been explained to us in Scripture, if it had been necessary for us to understand it. As it is, any attempt to explain these things is fruit- less and presumptuous."? IV. Though reason may satisfy itself with finding mere Power and Intelligence, an emotionless Lawgiver, in the Governor of the Universe, yet the heart will acknowledge its need of a Being capable of Love, which makes election, and is not bound by Law. A voice from the inner depths of man's nature will make itself heard, telling that a God, good and loving, cannot hold himself aloof from immediate personal com- munication with his creatures. A God apart from men, ruling only by fixed laws, is like the chilling Fate of heathen mythology, and not the God that the religious heart seeks after and feels with innate conviction to be the true object of its worship. "To the sceptic, no principle is so important as the uniformity of nature, the constancy of its laws. To me, there is a vastly higher truth, to which miracles bear witness, and to which I welcome their aid. What I wish chiefly to know is, that Mind is the supreme power in the uni- verse ; that matter is its instrument and slave ; that there is a Will to which nature can offer no obstruction ; that God is unshackled by the laws of the universe, and controls them at his pleasure. This absolute sovereignty of the Divine Mind over the universe, is the only foundation of hope for the triumph of the human mind over matter, over physical influences, over imperfection and death."$ * See Archbishop Wbately's Essays on some of the peculiarities of the Christian Edition. 5th Ed., 1846, pp. 68, 69. f Dissertations in Illustration of Palsy's Natural Theology. 1839. Vol. ii., p. 78. t Enciidopcedia Britannica. 8th Ed. Whately's Third Preliminary Disserta- tion, p. 468. See Butler's Analogy. Part ii., ch. vi. $ Channing's Works, p. 415. Evidences of Christianity. Part ii. 6 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY, AGAINST REVELA- THAT IT CANNOT BE INFERRED, A PRIORI, FROM OUR EX- V. Turning from consideration of the view of the Divine character as affected by Revelation, to observation of human nature, we find here also inherent objection against it. As it did not seem fitting for Deity to grant, so neither does it seem fitting for man to receive. We see that in all matters of worldly concern the Man learns best best knowledge he has is that gained by experience ; by experience. ^^ ^^ ^ e nag foum j out f or himself is of more value than all that is taught to him : and there is no natural reason why the attainment of religion should follow a different rule. On the contrary, it would seem especially that religion is a kind of learning that must grow out of the mind, and cannot be put into it; as we find that the higher is the knowledge we seek, the more it requires, even if not actually originated, but suggested by another, yet to be adopted and assimilated by spontaneous effort. A mere statement of facts, out- wardly impressed upon a man, is nothing to him till his nature is in- ternally stirred so as to be vitally acted upon by it, and all the pow- ers of his mind have had their share in the examination and reception of it ; and much more in what relates to morality, the learning of verbal precepts is nothing without the accompanying emotion of the heart and conscience. And the greater the authority with which outward instruc- tion either of the heart or mind is given, the less is the internal and only real vital action regarding it. So that, most of all, instruction direct from God, would have the effect of stopping the action of our own minds, and would therefore be least really beneficial to us. VI. Paley and most defenders of Revelation, begin by He should be assuming that it is good for man. But setting aside of^iearning^aii ^ theological prepossessions, the presumption is that that is necessary the knowledge man is fitted to attain is all that is ne- for nim - cessary for him. It is always some notion of the fallen state of man, and the Devil having spoilt the original work of God, that makes him supposed unable to do without it. On the simple ground of reason and experience it is to be inferred that the exertion of the powers with which he is furnished is sufficient to accomplish the end of his being. The prime doctrines that Revelation must be supposed to teach are, that there is a God, and a future life of retribution. But if these cannot be discovered by the natural faculties, the presumption is that they are not necessary to be known, or not until the faculties are so grown as to be able to discover them. And in fact the same facul- ties in kind though not in degree, are required to comprehend as to dis- cover ; so that, unless they already exist in the mind, waiting for growth and development, revelation is a nullity to it. "We can see how much ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 7 TION IN GENERAL: PERIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE, TO BE GOOD FOR MAN. V. Certainly learning by experience is the most effectual method in all worldly matters ; and it engenders that independence of spirit and manly energy, which fit him to contend with the difficulties of life, and the rivalship and opposing interests of his fellow-men. It makes a man feel his own strength. But this very tendency shows that it is not adapted to religion, which requires a quite opposite frame of mind. A lowly submission, a humble waiting for the Divine teaching, is the proper condition of the soul when it looks towards God. " For what end has God ordained, as the chief means of human improvement, the communication of light from superior to inferior minds ? It is rational to believe, that the Creator designs to bind his creatures to Himself as truly as to one another, and to awaken towards himself oven stronger gratitude, confidence, and love ; for these sentiments to- wards God are more happy and ennobling than towards any other being ; and it is plain that revelation, or immediate divine teaching, serves as effectually to establish these ties between God and man, aa human teaching to attach men to one another. We see, then, in revelation an end corresponding to what the Supreme Being adopts in his common providence. . . . There is plainly an expression of deeper concern, a more affectionate character, in this mode of instruction, than in teach- ing us by the fixed order of nature. Revelation is God speaking to us in our own language, in the accents which human friendship em- ploys. It shows a love, breaking through the reserve and distance, which we all feel to belong to the method of teaching us by his works alone. . . . Instruction in regard to Futurity is the great means of improvement. That God should give us light as to a Future state, if he design it for us, is what we should expect from his solicitude. Nature thirsts for, and analogy almost promises, some illumination on the subject of human destiny. . . . There are in the human soul wants, deep wants, which are not met by the influences and teachings^ which the ordinary course of things affords. ... in proportion as these convictions and wants become distinct, they break out in desires of illumination and aids from God not found in nature."* "Within the circle of our own being, our search after that meet pro- vision for the nourishment of man's religious powers and sensibilities which the general laws of the Divine economy warrant us in expecting, cannot terminate satisfactorily. To the intellect God has revealed him- self through the medium of Nature. . . . But those works of his in the physical universe do not satisfy all the deep yearnings of our nature. Our moral constitution craves a moral manifestation - of Deity, to know him in his relation to conscience. And this want of ours is his hand- writing on our nature, to the effect that such a revelation of himself may be looked for, and will be vouchsafed. "t * Channing's Evidences of Christianity. Part I. pp. 401, 402. t Bases of Belief. By Edward Miall. 1853. pp. 97, 100. 8 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [REVELATION IN GEHE- more healthful an exercise it is for the mind to ponder upon these subjects and work out its own results, and how much more genuine will be the faith which it thus attains, than if the doctrines were given as imperative dicta that admitted of nothing but a purely passive ac- ceptation. VII. Revealed truth requires a child-like mind for its The tendency reception, and the effect of Revelation is to keep man- of Reflation is ^^ ^ the condition of childhood : preventing them to check human * improvement. from ever learning for themselves those things which most of all concern them, and making them always contented with a mere external knowledge, or rather a flattering pretence of knowledge. All miraculous action is external. It would appear, therefore, a priori, that Revelation must have a tendency to hinder the progress of human improvement : By checking the exercise of man's own faculties upon the most important points ; By making him believe that he really knows what he merely echoes because it is told him ; By making him think that what his own faculties acquire for him, is something inferior, and to be despised ; And therefore by placing him in a false, unnatural state of mind, between the conflicting claims of what he is made to consider Divine, and what is merely human knowledge. AGAINST REVELA- ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIF- VIII. Revelation, which is essentially miraculous in its na- Miraciesarene- ture, must attest itself by miracle. If God holds a super- cessary as evi- natural communication with men, his direct presence must hw' bU chan manifest itself by supernatural tokens. It would be with the state of strange and unaccountable if such were wanting. Accord- science, ingly we find that every religion has rested its claim upon signs and wonders ; and the ruder the age, the more grossly phy- sical have been the marvels by which it has been accompanied. Moses received the Law on tables of stone direct from heaven, inscribed by the finger of God himself; as the image of Pallas, which was the symbol of salvation to Greece, came down from Jupiter ; and the very voice of God was heard at the baptism of Jesus, announcing his beloved Son. But the weight which is attached to physical miracles changes with the state of science. Those marvels which were easily believed in times of ignorance, can be received upon no amount of evidence in an en- lightened age ; and on the other hand, what seemed stupendous wonders then, are now seen to be mere natural events. In barbarous times a gunpowder explosion would seem better proof of the presence of Deity, than that the sun should stand still. Miracles which awe one genera- tion, are imitated by jugglers in another. Their value as evidence is fluctuating, and would base the faith of mankind upon a sliding scale. ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 9 BAL. NOT GOOD FOR MAN.] VI. The generality of Christian writers maintain that man is unable by his own unaided powers to attain to the knowledge of God and of a future life j* but all agree that these doctrines are essential elements of the education of the human race. Without a belief in these, man be- longs only to this lower world. He wants those spiritual and elevating tendencies which only can raise him above temporal and material things ; and to kindle these God has reserved to the immediate working of His own Spirit. By nature, man is fitted for earth ; here he is endowed with sufficient faculties to serve him, and he is under the injunction to use and to improve them : but to learn of heavenly things he must have a heavenly instructor. By the natural man the infinite importance of belief in these and concomitant . doctrines is not comprehended. He only considers their temporal effects, and summarily concludes that man can do very well without them, or wait for ages while generation after generation passes away till perchance they may be discovered ! It is well for man, that the mercies of God are more speedy to help, than his creatures to feel their need ! VII. To remain in a child-like frame towards the Heavenly Father, is the best possible condition for the spirit of man. No intellectual attain- ments, or growth of enlightenment, or even moral strength, can make p for the want of that temper most becoming to mortal men, a reli- gious docility. TION IN GENERAL : FICULTY OF ATTESTING IT. VIII. This is generally assented to. Paley says: "Now in what way can a revelation be made, but by miracles ? In none which we can conceive."t The advocates of Christianity undertake to prove that the miracles recorded as such in the New Testament, were really " out of the ordinary course of nature, beyond the unassisted power of man." It is true that some wonderful actions, which seemed miraculous at the time, may be afterwards discovered to be capable of performance in a natural manner in an advanced age of science ; but it still has claim, to be considered a miracle, that the original actor, who did them in ignorance of science, should have forestalled the discovery of after times, and performed those wonders, not by happy accident, but with full assurance and deliberate, expressed intention, and in repeated in- stances ; and that this power should be possessed not by one person only, but conveyed by him to many others. And the effect of such wonderful works, which are not properly part of the Revelation itself, but accompanying incidents, is to draw attention * See Part II. t Evidences of Christianity. Preparatory Considerations. See Whately's PrcH- minary Dissertation, in En. Britt., p. 499. t Whately's Introductory Lessons on Christian Evidences, Ed. 12, p. 31. 10 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [REVELATION IN GENERAL. IX. As men advance by the cultivation of science in Moral evidence their acquaintance with nature, and discover how har- is insufficient. monious and beneficent is the regularity of her working, physical miracles fall more and more into discredit ; and it becomes the ordinary course to attribute the miracles to the department of mind, which is not yet seen to be also subject to fixed laws. The miraculous attestation to revelation is now supposed to consist in (1st) the proclaim- ing of moral truths, either not discoverable by human faculties, or be- yond the present attainments of man : which, therefore, it must be objected, would be inappreciable by him, or premature to hia condition, and consequently harmful rather than beneficial ; and which would also, for that reason, seem to him untrue, and be necessarily unavailing to convince him of their divine origin. The efficiency of moral truth as a test of revelation depends upon the moral condition in which it is received, and is uncertain and fluctuating accordingly. X. Or (2d) the spiritual attestation may consist in a Spiritual evi- sudden and vivid religious impression, for which no dence cannot be natural cause is perceived ; which produces an instanta- imparted. neous and apparently irresistible conviction, and some- tunes throws the whole mind into a new state. The converted soul has found that which meets its secret, hitherto unsatisfied want, and it can only feel that it must be supplied immediately from the Father of spirits. But this internal conviction is one that can be only felt, not reasoned on : a man can never prove to himself, much less to others, that it does not proceed from an idiosyncracy of his own nature, or from an over-weening confidence in his own impressions. If this strong self-confidence is a test of Divine revelation, it is one that is always liable to be taken for self-delusion. AGAINST REVELA- ON ACCOUNT OF THE DIFFI- XI. Supposing that a Revelation has been proclaimed by the lips of men attesting their divine authority in a manner satisfactory to their present hearers : yet the difficulty of recording it for the benefit of dis- tant times and places, presents objections that appear insuperable. The memory of sacred events may be presented either by oral tra- dition, or in writing. Kcord by tra- ^ ne ^ rs * method is so loose and vague that nothing dition is vague but the most simple facts can be supposed to be faith- and perishing ; fully handed down by it ; and even these become quite ANSWEBS OF CHRISTIANITY. 11 DIFFICULTY OF ATTESTING IT.] to it in a striking manner. It may be represented thus : that the great miracle of Divine interference, of His peculiar Presence amongst men, exalts all their faculties, suddenly heightens them to an amazing degree, so that, as it were by involuntary, uncontrollable flashes, they are raised beyond themselves and beyond their age, and perform deeds which, though not properly miraculous, are the effect of miracle, and the immediate mode of manifesting it. IX. The proclaiming of moral truths is rather a corroboration than a direct proof of a Divine Revelation. If the promulgators of it are not only teachers of the strictest virtue, but are themselves patterns of the practice of it, certainly these are credentials to be expected in the mes- sengers of heaven, and inconsistent with the character of impostors. That men of extraordinary virtue should be the victims of self-delusion is not impossible, but in the highest degree improbable. To show a degree of moral insight more pure and enlightened than belongs to the age and nation, cannot be strictly taken as evidence of supernatural endowment ; but it affords a powerful inducement to believe in it. X. The conversion of the soul can be effected by the grace of God alone, and this is the true and proper evidence of Divine Revelation. Assent to outward facts is nothing ; the subjugation of the understand- ing by miraculous portents is in itself of no avail, but a mere prepara- tion for that vital belief which the Spirit of God only can inspire, and which once effected, all inferior proof is no longer needed. True, this blessed faith cannot be communicated : but the spectacle of the fruits of regeneration is the strongest testimony that can be afforded to the power of the living Word. And when this regeneration takes place not in one man, but in thousands, when whole bodies of men are moved simultaneously by the same holy influence, it is no longer possible to be referred to individual idiosyncracy, but must be recognised as the mighty working of God. TION IN GENERAL : CULTY OF RECORDING IT. XI. "If any should say, 'How great an advantage the people who lived in those days, and saw miracles performed before their eyes, must have had over us, who only read of them in ancient books ; and how can men in these days be expected to believe as firmly as they did ?' you may answer, that different men's trials and advantages are pretty nearly balanced. The people who lived in those times were not (any more than ourselves) forced into belief whether they would or no ; but were left to exercise candour in judging fairly from the evidence before them. Those of them who were resolved to yield to their prejudices against 12 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [REVELATION IN GENERAL.- unreliable as soon as the lapse of time has brought us out of reach of the original circumstances in which they sprung. Thus, respecting the early legend that Hercules destroyed monsters in Greece, we can only form conjecture as to whether it was a pure myth, or whether it had its rise in any historic fact. by writing, is ex- -^ n ^ ^ *^ e account be preserved in writing, it is ex- posed to human posed to human error at every step : to a want of errors - intellectual comprehension, or moral integrity, or lite- rary capacity, in the sacred penman ; to involuntary mistake, as well as intentional fraud, in them, or in any one of their transcribers, or translators ; to inherent impossibility of rendering perfectly one language into another, owing to defects in the power of words ; and finally, to a want of understanding on the part of the reader. Unless we suppose God to superintend every circumstance relating to it, extending in mi- nute ramifications farther than we can calculate or conceive, the divinity of the record is liable to be lost in an accumulation of inextricable human error. AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN EEVELA- THAT ITS DIVINE CHARACTER IS NOT To come now from the general to the special question of the Christian Revelation. To us it presents itself embodied in a volume, whose cre- dentials to be of Divine authority have first to be examined. XII. A book is before us professing to contain the record The Bible is a he- of two miraculous dispensations communicated by God terogeneous com- to his creatures ; the one between three and four thou- P ilation; sand years ago, the other nearly two thousand. When was it written, and who was its author ? It is a compilation of distinct works, in various styles of composi- tion, history, poetry, political laws, prophetic warnings, moral instruc- tion, and familiar epistles ; written by different authors, at various periods ; without direct recognition of one another, except, in general, that the old covenant is acknowledged by the writers of the new ; and without any express claim to Divine inspiration. XIII. The New Testament, though now we have it in a subject to many settled canon, and authorized version, " appointed to critical altera- be read in churches", has been subject to various tions< alterations, and to a critical sectarian warfare, from the ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 13 DIFFICULTY OP RECORDING IT.] Jesus and to reject Him, found a ready excuse (an excuse which would not be listened to now), by attributing his miracles to the magical arts which in those days were commonly believed in. And, again, though they saw many miracles which we only read of, they did not see that great miracle (as it may be called) which is before our eyes, in the ful- filment of prophecy since their time. They could see, indeed, many prophecies fulfilled in Jesus ; but we have an advantage over them in witnessing the more complete fulfilment of the prophecies respecting the wonderful spread of his religion."* If the transmission of Divine truth through human instrumentality presents difficulties in the way of our reception of it, they are such as it is healthful to overcome ; forcing us to a careful watchfulness of its progress, and a cultivation of all kinds of knowledge that relate to it. And this is not excluding the ignorant from the benefit of it. It is good for men to be able to rely on one another's word, not shutting their own eyes, but for report of what is beyond their sight. Is it on this subject that we must first begin to find all human testimony unre- liable, when almost the whole of our knowledge of the past and present is derived from it ! If we believe in profane history, as the general rule, notwithstanding some recognised mistakes, so may we also in sacred. Neither can we doubt that the Providence of God watches over His own work j and will not permit any human blundering to mar its efficacy. TION AS CONTAINED IN THE BIBLE : SUPPORTED BY EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. XII. The more various are the contents of the sacred volume, the more remarkable is it that they should have a common object and a com- mon spirit. "Is it not possible to pursue a leading idea from Genesis to Malachi, and would not any observant and reflecting man rise up from a study of the whole, with a strongly excited expectation that something still better was to come something towards which his attention has been repeatedly directed something to the success and glory of which all that he had been reading was, by its own account, preparatory P't XIII, "If any book were forged by some learned man in these days, and put forth as a translation from an ancient book, there are many other learned men, of this and various other countries, and of different religions, who would be eager to make an inquiry, and examine the question, and would be sure to detect any forgery, especially on an important subject. And it is the same with translators. Many of these * Whately'a Christian Evidences. Lesson V. 4. t Miall's Bases of Belief, p. 408. ir OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [CHRISTIAN REVELATION. time when Marcion the Gnostic heretic accepted only Matthew of the Gospels, and of Paul's Epistles only ten ; on to the time when the Vulgate, (Jerome's Latin translation, completed in A.D. 384,) pronounced authentic by the Council of Trent, and sanctioned by Popes to be used for ever, was decried by Protestants, who had their Luther's version, their Elzevir edition, their Beza's and Erasmus's, to set in opposition to it ; down to the present time, when not only Unitarians have their "Improved Version", but the most orthodox commentators are obliged to admit critical improvements into their received text. XIV. It is not certainly known when or by whom the canon of the New Testament was formed, but it is ge- The canon of the N. T. was nerally believed to have been settled by authority at long unsettled; the Council of Laodicea A.D. 363. Eusebius (A.D. 315) and contains dis- distinguished the undisputed books from the dis- puted (the latter being Hebrews, James, II. Peter, II. and III. John, Jude, and Revelations), showing that there was controversy as to which were genuine. But in that age, though it was virulent enough in party animosity,* there was little acquaintance with the true principles of criticism, and little means of exercising it after at least 200 years had buried in obscurity the real origin of the books. It is true there is a chain of tradition Toe authenticity of the books in respecting them, extending to nearly the apostolic age, general m sup- handed down to us in the writings of the early Chris- ported by early ^^ ;p a thers ; but it is of a very vague kind, consist- ing chiefly of repetitions of passages which are also found in our sacred books, and therefore supposed to be quotations from them, though, except in a few instances, they are not mentioned as such, and may just as well be an echo of traditional sayings, as extracts from writ- ten works. And even if they were quotations from books bearing the same name, and general form of ours ; because these isolated passages agree, it does not at all follow that the resemblance was complete in every part. The original works might have been altered and remodelled again and again before we have any distinct information about them. Some of the Epistles of Paul, as they were the earliest, appear also the most genuine of the sacred writings ; but every critical probability is that the historical books existed at first as mere fragments, until, perhaps gradually, they were compiled into their present form. * See for strong corroboration of the above, The Rise and Progress of Christianity, just published, [1854], by R. W. Mackay. Chapman's Quarterly Series, No. 7. ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 15 -EXTERNAL EVIDENCE.] are at variance with each other as to the precise sense of some particular passage ; and many of them are very much opposed to each other, as to the doctrines which they believe to be taught in Scripture. But all the different versions of the Bible agree as to the main outline of the his- tory, and of the discourses recorded : and therefore an unlearned Chris- tian may be as sure of the general sense of the original as if he under- stood the language of it, and could examine it for himself; because he is sure that unbelievers, who are opposed to all Christians, or different sects of Christians, who are opposed to each other, would not fail to point out any errors in the translations made by their opponents. Scho- lars have an opportunity to examine and inquire into the meaning of the original works ; and therefore the very bitterness with which they dispute against each other, proves that where they all agree they must be right. All these ancient books, in short, and all the translations of them, are in the condition of witnesses placed in a witness-box, in a court of justice; examined and cross-examined by_ friends and enemies, and brought face to face with each other, so as to make it certain that any falsehood or mistake will be brought to light."* XIV. " Christian writers and Churches appear to have soon arri- ved at a very general agreement upon the subject, (of the ascription of the gospels to their respective authors,) and that without the interposi- tion of any public authority. When the diversity of opinion, which prevailed and prevails among Christians in other points, is considered, their concurrence in the canon of scripture is remarkable, and of great weight, especially as it seems to have been the result of private and free inquiry. We have no knowledge of any interference of authority in the question before the council of Laodicea in the year 363."t "In the epistle of Barnabas, the companion of Paul (well authen- ticated) appears the following remarkable passage : ' Let us, therefore, beware lest it come upon us, as it is written, there are many called, few chosen.' From the expression, 'as it is written,' we infer with certainty, that, at the time when the author of this epistle lived, there was a book extant, well known to Christians, and of authority amongst them, containing these words, ' Many are called, few chosen.' Such a book is our present Gospel of St. Matthew, in which this text is twice found, and is found in no other book now known. The writer of the epistle was a Jew. The phrase, 'it is written,' was the very form in which the Jews quoted their scriptures. . . . The epistle was probably by very few years posterior to those of St. Paul."j Quota- tions from the Gospels, (without, however, being specified as quota- tions.) are found in epistles of Clement, bishop of Rome, and of Hennas, * Whately's Christian Evidences. Lesson III. p. 28. f Paley's Evidences. Part I. Chap. IX. Proposition VI. Paley's Evidences. Part I. chap. rx. I. 16 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [CHRISTIAN REVELATION, XV. It is especially necessary ' that the Gospels, which con- tain the history of Jesus Christ, should be well authen- The names of authors of Gos- ticated ; but the external attestation to them is very pels are conjee- meagre and unsatisfactory. The names of Matthew, tural - Mark, Luke, and John are first attributed to them, the two former by Papias, as quoted by Eusebius, (his own writings being lost,) in A.D. 116 ;* the two latter by Irenseus in A.D. 178t : and of the persons so named we know nothing certainly besides what is told in the books themselves. Matthew is supposed to be the apostle so called in the Gospel history ; Mark is reported, unanimously, to be the follower of Peter, and conjectured to be the same as the nephew of Barnabas alluded to Col. iv. 10; Luke is agreed to be a companion of Paul (lately suggested to be the same as Silasj) ; while the writer of the fourth Gospel differs from the rest by declaring himself to be "the disciple whom Jesus loved," a periphrases for the Apostle John, but has no external voucher for the fact till Irenseus confirms it nearly 100 years afterwards. The important point whether the Gospel historians had personal knowledge of what they relate, is thus supported by very slight external testimony. The second and third evangelists indeed are not thought to pretend to it, Mark being supposed to have gathered his information from Peter, and Luke saying expressly that he had collected his materials from others. The Gospel of Matthew is preeminent in im- portance for establishing the historical truth of Christianity ; but its origin is so obscure that we do not even know certainly in what lan- guage it was written. According to early tradition, Matthew wrote in Hebrew ; but whether our present Greek is a translation, or a duplicate original, written also by the Apostle, has been warmly contested, even amongst orthodox critics ; while it has been shewn probable by others, that the original sayings, Xoyta, of Matthew mentioned by Papias, were only fragments, subsequently worked up into a consecutive history. * Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History. Ed. 1755. Vol. I. p. 239. f Ibid, p. 344. J Inquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity, by C. C. Hennell. 2nd Ed; 1841. p. 152. Pictorial Family Bible. Introduction to Matthew. ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 17 -EXTERNAL EVIDENCE.] both mentioned by St. Paul ; of Ignatius, who became bishop of Antioch about 37 years after Christ's ascension, and therefore probably known to apostles, who also quotes from Paul's epistles, both by name and without ; and of Polycarp, (taught by apostles, as is testified by Irenseus, and by them appointed bishop of Smyrna,) in one short un- doubted epistle by whom, we have no less than 40 clear allusions to books of the New Testament, chiefly from St. Paul, but many from the gospels. They are quoted by Papias A.D. 116 ; by Justin Martyr about 140 ; and abundantly onwards, by writers of remote countries, as books well known and highly revered. No apocryphal writing has the same testimony. Quotations are so thickly sown in the works of Origen A.D. 230, that Dr. Mill says, "If we had all Ids works remaining, we should have before us almost the whole text of the Bible." Dr. Lardner says of Tertullian, "that there are more, and larger, quotations of the small volume of the New Testament in this one Christian author, than there are of all the works of Cicero in writers of all characters for several ages." XV. "Papias expressly ascribes the respective gospels to Matthew and Mark ; and in a manner which proves, that these gospels must have publicly borne the names of these authors at that time, and probably long before." Irenaeus, the disciple of Polycarp, who was the disciple of John, thus testifies the genuineness of the gospels within little more than a hundred years after they were published :* "We have not received the knowledge of the way of our salvation, by any others than those by whom the gospel has been brought to us. Which gospel they first preached, and afterwards, by the will of God, committed to writ- ing, that it might be for time to come the foundation and pillar of our faith. For after that our Lord rose from the dead, and they (the apostles) were endowed from above with the power of the Holy Ghost coming down upon them, they received a perfect knowledge of all things. They then went forth to all the ends of the earth, declaring to men the blessing of heavenly peace, having all of them, and every one alike, the gospel of God. Matthew there, among the Jews, writ a gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel at Rome, and founding a church there. And after their exit, Mark also, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, delivered to us in writing the things that had been preached by Peter. And Luke, the companion of Paul, put down in a book the gospel preached by him (Paul). Afterwards John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast, he likewise published a gospel while he dwelt at Ephe- sus in Asia." It is true that the precise date at which the gospels were written cannot now be fixed with certainty ; and it is also true that the indica- * Paley's Evidences, test. VI. and X. c 18 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [CHRISTIAN REVELATIOBT- XVI. The date at which they were written, has also been Dates uncertain matter of much difference of opinion, and has been fixed and fixed by theo- by theological bias. This is shown conspicuously with logical bias. regard to Matthew. Speaking of the time he wrote, Dr. Kitto says, " the various alternatives that have been suggested range over 27 years ; the earliest date advocated being A.D. 37, and the latest being 64." Now it is a point of peculiar importance to know the date of this Gospel, because its character is affected by ascertaining whether the clear and precise prophecies which it gives respecting the siege of Jerusalem were written or not before the event. The siege lasted from 66 70. Lardner, in considering the question of the date of the Gospel, sees reason to conclude that it was written not before 63 or 64 ; but he assumes that " the predictions must have been written before they were accomplished."* This is a specimen of the fairness of theological critics. The strong ground for believing the reverse, viz. : that the gospel was not written till near the end of the siege, when its catas- trophe might easily be foreseen, that is, between 68 70, is that down to that period the prophecy accurately corresponds with the historical facts, and no farther : for after the tribulation of those days, the sun was not darkened, neither did the Son of Man appear in the clouds of hdaven before that generation had passed away.t XVII. The date and authorship of the fourth Gospel have No special care also been subject to much controversy, chiefly on dog- of Providence was niatic grounds. But this cannot be entered on here, manifested in the i ., i, ., , preservation of where the design is not so much to argue the question them. of the authenticity of these books, which would re- quire a volume, as to show that it is very susceptible of argument ; that great doubt lies upon it ; that there is so much un- certainty about the composition, as well as the collection of the sacred writings, as is inconsistent with the idea of their being a special in- * History of Apostles, ch. v. sec. 3. Quoted by Hennell, p. 109 note, f- See Origin of Christianity, p. 97. et seq. ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 10 -EXTERNAL EVIDENCE.] tions respecting it gathered from internal evidence, will depend upon the judgment formed of the character of the contents. If the writers be found faithful historians in all other respects, their word is not to be doubted that what they represent as prophecy was really such. XVI. "The scriptures were in very early times collected into a distinct volume. Ignatius, who was bishop of Antioch within 40 years after the ascension, and who had lived and conversed with the apostles, speaks of the gospel and of the apostles in terms which render it very probable, that he meant by the gospel, the book or volumes of the Gospels, and by the apostles, the book or volume of their Epistles. . . . About 80 years after this we have direct proof, in the writings of Clement of Alexan- dria, that these two names, ' Gospel' and ' Apostles,' were the names by which the writings of the New Testament, and the division of these writings, were usually expressed."* Later testimonies to the same effect are abundant. They were called, beginning from Polycarp, "the holy scripture," "the divine oracles," "the divinely inspired scriptures," "the true evangelical canon. "t Commentaries were written upon them; harmonies formed out of them ; different copies carefully collated ; and versions of them made into different languages. "The fourth century supplies a catalogue of fourteen writers, who expended their labours upon the books of the New Testament, and whose works or names are come down to our times." Eusebius (A.D. 315) says, "that the writings of the apostles had obtained such an esteem as to be translated into every language both of Greeks and Barbarians, and to be diligently studied by all nations.":}: They were appealed to as of mutually recognised authority in the controversies amongst Christians of different sects, and attacked as such by enemies. A catalogue of the books of scripture is to be found in the works of Origeu (A.D. 230) containing all our present number ex- cept the epistles of James and Jude, and none that we have not. XVII. Paley sums up his chapter on the authenticity of the Historical Scriptures thus : "These are strong arguments to prove that the books ac- tually proceeded from the authors whose names they bear, (and have always borne, for there is not a particle of evidence to show that they ever went under any other) ; but the strict genuineness of the books is per- haps more than is necessary to the support of our proposition. For even supposing that, by reason of the silence of antiquity, or the loss of re- cords, we knew not who were the writers of the four Gospels, yet the fact, that they were received as authentic accounts of the transaction * Paley's Evidences. Part I. chap. ix. sec. ill. f Ibid. sec. IV. J Paley's Evidences. Part I. cbap. ix. sec. VI. Ibid. sec. vn. IX. x. 20 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [CHRISTIAN REVELATION.- strument in the hands of Providence for the salvation of the human race. If our faith in them is to be founded on a reasonable examina- tion of evidence, it is surely important for us to know when and by what description of persons they were written ; and to be sure that they have been preserved in all their integrity. But of this no means are left of satisfying ourselves. They do not emerge from their histo- rical obscurity till the religion has had time to establish itself in a worldly manner, and to provide for its literature a safe and honourable custody. AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN REVELA- THAT ITS DIVINE CHARACTER IS NOT XVIII. If we could suppose an intelligent person of our own It is difficult to day, otherwise well cultivated, but who had never heard understand, a W ord about Christianity, opening the New Testament for the first time, he may well be imagined to ask, with the eunuch in the Acts, "How can I understand, except some man should guide me?" Beyond some passages of simple narrative, attractive from their deep human feeling, but mixed up with marvellous legends that without re- ligious prepossessions he would at once set down as the childish fabri- cations of an ignorant age ; and except the moral precepts, whose excellence would arrest his attention ; if he went on to try and find the purport of the whole, and the cause of the solemn earnestness of its tone, he might read it over and over again, and yet puzzle himself in vain. " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" ; saved from what ? and how believe ? believe all that is here told of this mysterious personage ? What has this to do with us, except indeed as matter of historical curiosity, and moral interest 1 XIX. That the Christian Scriptures should be so entirely Bequiring much conceived in Jewish modes of thought, and that, with- leaming. ou ^ explanation of surrounding circumstances and opi- nions, they should merely speak their own words, without seeming care for their intelligibility to any but their cotemporary countrymen : is undoubtedly the strongest proof that could be given of their genuine antiquity ; but this is, regarding them as merely human documents. If we are to consider them as providentially designed for the enlightenment of all ages, it is hard to be accounted for. ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 21 EXTERNAL EVIDENCE.] upon which the religion rested, and were received as such by Christiana at or near the age of the apostles, by those whom the apostles had taught, and by societies which the apostles had founded ; this fact, I say, connected with the consideration, that they are corroborative of each other's testimony, and that they are further corroborated by another contemporary history, taking up the story where they had left it, ... and confirmed by letters written by the apostles themselves .... (the present, and no other story, being referred to by a series of Christian writers, down from their age to our own ; being likewise recognised in a variety of institutions, which prevailed, early and universally, amongst the dis- ciples of the religion) ; and that so great a change, as the oblivion of one story and the substitution of another, under such circumstances, could not have taken place ; this evidence would be deemed, I appre- hend, sufficient to prove concerning these books, that, whoever were the authors of them, they exhibit the story which the apostles told, and for which, consequently, they acted, and they suffered."* TION AS CONTAINED IN THE BIBLE : SUPPORTED BY INTERNAL EVIDENCE. XVIII. "In the life of Jesus Christ, as recorded by the evange- lists, we have a display of the moral aspects of the Divine character and will, adapted to the wants of our religious nature. That embodi- ment of truth after which human hearts, in all times, have instinctively craved, which brings God within range of our moral sympathies, and invites a trusting and affectionate response, is now before us, certified as such by the authority of reason. ' He that hath seen me,' said the Messiah, ' hath seen the Father.' The living book in which we are to read God's mind in relation to his creature man, lies open to the inspec- tion of our hearts, as the book of nature lies open to our eyes and intellects. . . . God is in the life of his Son in his discourses and his miracles in his labours and endurance in his daily tasks and in his nightly retreats in his sublime patience, his unwearied benevolence, his touching tenderness in his tears, his agony, his trial, his death in hia resurrection from the dead in his ascension from the Mount of Olives. This entire history, so strange, yet so human, so unlike all other history, yet so consistent with our highest conceptions of religious fitness, is a vivid adumbration to our hearts of the Great Unseen, "t XIX. "There is little or nothing in the sacred writings of Chris- tianity calling attention to the fact that it is making a discovery of truths which the human mind could never have reached. All the primary no- tions of divine things which it embodies, it rather takes for granted, * Paley's Evidences, chap. x. Recapitulation, t Miall'a Bases of Belief, pp. 3523. 22 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [CHRISTIAN REVELATIOX- Salvation from what 1 ? not from natural death, not from our sins, not from the punishment of them in this world. From the " wrath to come" ; but what is meant by this threatened peril, of which we know nothing save from this supposed revelation itself ? It needs a thorough acquaintance with Jewish history, not merely in our Old Testament, which would be quite insufficient to clear up the matter, but with the subtleties of rabbinical lore, and also with the Greek- Alexandrian philosophy which was now diffusing its influence over the Jewish mind, before we can know what the apostles meant by being saved by Christ. We must comprehend the notion with which they were imbued, derived from savage antiquity, that " without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins," before we can see how it was necessary that " Christ should die in order that all be made alive." We must know what the Hebrews looked for in their Messiah Prince, and what the Platonists understood by their Divine Logos, before we can comprehend the meaning of calling Jesus of Naza- reth, the Christ. We must know the ideas of both respecting the Divine essence, before we can conceive in 'what sense they called him the Son of God. We must know what they thought of the human soul, and its abode in Hades, before we can appreciate their doctrine of the resurrec- tion of the body, and rejoice in the deliverance they proclaim from the second death. Is this the manner in which God reveals himself? XX. From this book, which contains the doctrine of Chris- The books of tian salvation, have been derived innumerable varieties the N. T. are not o f belief ; sectarians of the most opposite creeds appeal- uniform in doc- . . , ,, .. , , , -_ ., ,. trine ing to its authority, and adducing from it a sanction for directly contrary opinions. Could this be, if it spoke clearly and intelligibly ? The fact is that the different writers of the New Testament do not agree with one another, but betray an inde- pendence of judgment on subjects commonly considered of vital import- ance.* And between the earlier and the latest writings, there is a perceptible growth of doctrine, natural and necessary in a human point of view, but irreconcileable with a supernatural one. The chief point in which this is conspicuous, is their estimation of the dignity of Christ, rising from " the man approved of God" (Acts H. 22) to " Him by whom all things were created," (Coloss. i. 16.) It is difficult to con- ceive how the carpenter's son, who trod the shores of Galilee and died on the cross at Jerusalem, should come to be regarded as the Lord from Heaven, the Son of the Most High : yet when we consider that a few years beyond the apostolic age, when the ink of the canonical scrip- tures was scarcely dry, he was already exalted into the Most High Him- self, to the scandal and horror of the simple Hebrew Christians, who, however, were soon silenced by the victorious party, and stigmatized with * E. g. between Paul and James, on faith and works. See Mackay'a Rise and Progress of Christianity. Part n. on the Pauline Controversy. ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 23 -INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] than announces as novelties. . . . But, undoubtedly, there is an aspect in which Christianity assumes an air of exclusive pretension. Taking it at its own word, its one purpose is to ' give LIFE' SPIRITUAL LIFE. Herein consists its originality it comes 'to save.' The knowledge it professes to communicate is appropriated by the affections rather than the under- standing. The religious ideas which it sets before man are ideas to be comprehended by the heart. The grand mystery which it unveils is the LOVE of God and this can only be recognised and appreciated by sym- pathetic emotions. Its object is not to increase knowledge, as such for according to its own declaration * knowledge puffeth up' but to beget and nourish love by that kind of knowledge which is laid hold of not by the head, but the heart."* "Take the fundamental religious ideas pervading the Scriptures the One God, eternal, immortal, invisible man, his creature, dependent on liim, and accountable to him universal guilt, capable, however, of being removed by forgiveness a future state of rewards and punishments the efficacy of prayer the principle of mediation : the claim of the Christian faith to be received as a revelation of God is not based upon its origi- nation of these ideas. . . . These constitute, as it were, but the raw material of the system the simple elements which enter into its composition and structure. It is the special form given to these which warrants us in regarding Christ's gospel as the spiritual tuitional agency which the state of mankind required. . . . Christianity does with these primary religious ideas, what the artistic mind does with its blocks of stone puts them together, shapes them, makes them exhibit an unity of meaning in one word, brings out to our spiritual faculties and emotions, a finished em- bodiment in human fact and history, of the divine character, relation- ship, and purpose and designates it ' The image of the invisible God."t XX. It has been a standing argument with Roman Catholics against laying open the Bible to the multitude, that undisciplined minds would find there a sanction for all kinds of doctrine ; whence, they say, has proceeded the infinite variety of sects into which the " right of private judgment" has divided Protestantism. But to this the Protestant replies, that the guidance he needs to keep him from making his own human ideas stand as the interpretation of the Scriptures, is not that of men, but of the Spirit of God ; in humble reliance upon which whoever has applied himself to the sacred volume, has surely found all that was need- ful for his salvation. Most of the differences between sects arise from undue dwelling upon points that are rather of speculative curiosity than of practical faith, and respecting which no explicit revelation has been given ;t but in all that is essential, it is generally allowed that all Chris- tians are agreed ; except indeed, perhaps, those who lie at the opposite * Bases of Belief, p. 78. t Ibid,' pp. 81, 82. I See Archbishop Whately's Essay on The practical charade*' of Revelation. 24 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [CHRISTIAN REVELATION- the brand of heresy, as the Arians, in a later day, when they made the same protest, were also put down by the finally triumphant Athanasians ; when we consider that the course of doctrine was set so decidedly in this di- rection, always advancing to this stupendous consummation, it presents itself to us as the natural order of things, that the change, gradual and urged on by strong and obvious motives, might have come from a very simple beginning. XXI. To the unsophisticated reader we have imagined, this They hare the would appear but like one of the Avatars of the Indian mythyic legends mythology, like an idea borrowed from old Grecian, or common to old older Egyptian fable. Certainly, he would infer, if his mind were stored with human learning instead of theo- logical prepossessions, the writers of these books were men unwilling that their Hebrew literature should be destitute of legends that might rival the rich poetic lore of other orientals. The mythic theory of Strauss would approve itself as offering an easy solution of the matter. Jesus was born of a Virgin : so were all the great demi-gods of antiquity. He holds the powers of nature subject to his command ; he is waited upon by angels ; he has a personal conflict with the Evil One ; suffers a tem- porary defeat, and offers himself a voluntary sacrifice, amidst thunderings and quakings of sympathetic Nature ; and is finally wafted bodily to Heaven : all these things are found under various forms, again and again, in the heroic legends of the east, as if they had been framed after one original type ; which has been ingeniously explained as a figura- tive representation of the astronomical changes in the heavens. Easily would this explanation be satisfactory of the miraculous conception, the temptation, the transfiguration, the angelic visitings, the ascension, and perhaps other parts : and that this sort of embellishment should have been added to the life of Jesus, will not seem incredible, when the state of civilization of the age is taken into account, and the absence of means of circulating intelligence of what was actually going on, and when it is remembered how little certainty there is as to the date and authorship of these writings. " There is nothing in the ancient testimonies to ex- clude the supposition, which all d priori considerations render probable, that our four Gospels only gradually received their present form after the materials of which they are composed had been long floating on the cur- rent of oral tradition. It is only necessary to form a just conception of the state of Palestine in order to understand how, even during the life- time of Jesus, legends respecting him might be current. The popular Jewish mind with its native love of the marvellous, stimulated by a new religious enthusiasm, with its stirring national traditions and Messianic expectations, was exactly the soil for the fertile production of myths. If it be admitted that the biblical history is less offensive to our concep- tion of Deity than the heathen mythology, it is not less at variance with ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 25 -INTERNAL EVIDENCE.] extremes of Christianity, those who lay reason entirely prostrate before the human authority of priests, and those who give it such a preponde- rance over faith as scarcely to suffer it to yield to the authority of God. As to a difference in the representation of the dignity of Christ, it is true that there are portions of the New Testament upon which the Unitarians rest their assertion of his simple humanity, while from others the body of Christians derive their belief of his divinity ; but this is ex- plained by the doctrine of the two-fold nature of Him who was the "Word made flesh." And it was natural that the human impressions of Jesus, which at first were necessarily the strongest in the minds of the disciples, should gradually be merged in the predominant sense of his divinity. XXI. "The Classical mythology, the Egyptian mythology, and the Hindoo mythology, (always restricted to the nations in whose remote barbarism they originated, and with whose immemorial traditions they were intertwined), may be studied long enough before they make a single proselyte among those different races and different nations who did re- ceive, who have received, and who persist in receiving, the myths of Christianity as historic verities. So that the very least that can be said is, that the compilers of the Gospel have, with an utterly incomprehen- sible ingenuity, infinitely transcended all other masters of fable and legend, and have succeeded in making dreams wilder than ever poet feigned, wear to minds of different ages and races (for here lies the stress of the argument) the aspect of genuine history."* "On the hypothesis that the miracles of the New Testament were either a congeries of deeply contrived fictions, or accidental myths, sub- sequently fabricated ; the infidel must believe, on the former supposition, that, though even transient success in literary forgery, when there are any prejudices to resist, is among the rarest of occurrences, yet that these forgeries, the hazardous work of many minds, making the most outra- geous pretensions, and necessarily challenging the opposition of Jew and Gentile, were successful, beyond all imagination, over the hearts of man- kind ; and have continued to impose, by an exquisite appearance of heartless truth, and a most elaborate mosaic of feigned events artfully cemented into the ground of true history, on the acutest minds of different races and different ages ; while, on the second supposition, he must be- lieve that accident and chance have given to these legends their requisite appearance of historic plausibility, and on either supposition, he must believe (what is infinitely more wonderful) that the world, while the fic- tions were being published, and in the known absence of the facts they asserted to be true, suffered itself to be befooled into the belief of their truth, and out of its belief of all the systems it did previously believe to * Reason and Faith- Appendix. Rogera's Essays from the Edinburgh Review. Vol. n., p. 348. 26 OBJECTIONS OF INFIDELITY. [CHRISTIAN REVELATION. the idea which is the very essence of modern culture, that, namely, of the invariability of cause and effect, or, to express it theologically, the conviction that * God acts upon the world as a whole immediately, but on each part only by means of His action on every other part, that is to say, by the laws of nature.' The true conception of the myth does away with the imputation of fraud or premeditated deception. A myth is the gradually wrought expression of popular ideas, which em- body themselves, not in the language of abstractions and generalities, but in imagined facts corresponding to the genius of the community. In the case of the early Jewish Christians the material for their myths was amply accumulated in the traditionary details concerning the Mes- siah, drawn by rabbinical interpretation from the Old Testament. These traditions they firmly believed ; but, on the other hand, they were equally convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. The natural result was the trans- ference and accommodation to the life of Jesus of all the Messianic cha- racteristics a blending together of what the Messiah was expected to be, with what Jesus actually was."* XXII. It is indeed not conceivable that this mythical colour- Accounts of ing should have been given by writers who were eye- Jesus are mcom- witnesses, and therefore it tends strongly to disprove plete, and not ,, . , . , , . .. .-, ., , . . like those of eje- their being such ; showing itself as it does, not only in witnesses. the peculiar legends,t but in the pervading tone, espe- cially in the manner of speaking of the exalted position of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, which is more as if it were a doctrine for which all were prepared, than a matter of their own personal know- ledge. And there are also many other indications of a deficiency in respect to the latter. It must strike every one how far these books are from giving us a com- plete account of the life of Jesus. With exception of the legendary notices of his birth, the entire period embraced by the narrative is on the largest computation, three years, but most probably only one year. And the information given relates solely to his public mission : we have none of those private details of family circumstances which it seems in- credible that intimate companions should not have afforded. It is not denied, indeed, that many life-like incidents are recorded, which strike with an air of reality. Such are to be found especially in Matthew, which may well have been written, or handed down traditionally from an eye-witness, who may have been the Apostle himself. "But that this eye-witness was the compiler of this whole gospel, would be very difficult to reconcile with the impression given by reading it. In addi- tion to (other points), the notices of time and place are in general far * Analysis of Strauses Life of Jesus, in Chapman's Analytical Catalogue. See also Life of Jesus, English Translation, 1846. Vol I. p. 86. f The account of the " Nativity" in Luke is a remarkable specimen of these. See Strauss's Life of Jcsua. Vol. i. p. 179, et seq. ANSWERS OF CHRISTIANITY. 27 -INTEBNAL EVIDENCE.] be true ; and that it acted thus notwithstanding persecution from with- out, as well as prejudice from within ; that, strange to say, the strictest historic investigations bring this compilation of fictions or myths even by the admission of Strauss himself within thirty or forty years of the very time in which all the alleged wonders they relate are said to have occurred ; wonders which the perverse world knew it had not seen, but which it was determined to believe, in spite of evidence, prejudice, and persecution ! In addition to all this, the infidel must believe that the men who were engaged in the compilation of these monstrous fictions, chose them as the vehicle of the purest morality ; and, though the most pernicious deceivers of mankind, were yet the most scrupulous preachers of veracity and benevolence ! Surely of him who can receive all these paradoxes and they form but a small part of what might be mentioned we may say, ' O infidel, great is thy Faith 1' "* "The worth of this very ingenious theory may be settled by a single question Does the supposed mythical crystallization, as we have it in the life of Christ, correspond with the Messianic ideas previously held in solution by the Jewish people ? "Would ininds full of Old Testament notions, or rather, of notions derived from a perverted interpretation of Old Testament history and prophecy, have ultimately deposited a mythical form resembling in any one of its aspects the life of Christ ? ... It is notorious that the Jews, reading their prophets by the interpretative light kindled by their own national pride, expected a Messiah the very opposite in all respects to the one described in the gospel narratives. They looked for a prince and a conqueror, armed with Divine power to smite, overthrow, and subjugate their foes. If their preconceptions had taken mythic form, and Old Testament ideas filtering through the na- tional mind had merely become concrete in the New if this alleged miracle is but a reproduction of one performed by Elisha, and that, of one performed on Elijah how comes it that Moses is consigned to such marked neglect, more especially as the^ tone of his supernatural works harmonized so completely with Jewish conceptions of what would be the Messiah's object ? Why have we not fire from heaven to consume oppo- nents, or plagues to worry them, or at least, legions of angels to terrify them ? Can any one really believe that national religious sentiment in the country and age of Jesus Christ, was such as, if left to express itself concerning the Messiah that was to come, would associate miraculous power exclusively with gentleness, and employ it in acts of goodness towards the ecclesiastically despised, and outcast and banned? The theory . . . clears a space for itself by showing that any naturalistic in- terpretation, once so fashionable in Germany, and still adopted by some sceptics in this country, is manifestly untenable and absurd. It admits, by implication, that the Jesus Christ of history so corresponds with the * Reason aiid Faith, Ed, Rev. October, 1849. Rogers's Essays, vol. II., p. 286. 28 OBJECTION'S OF INFIDELITY. [CHRISTIAH BEVELATION.' from being so complete as one would expect from an eye-witness. There are continual chasms in the itinerary of Jesus ; and notwithstanding the apparent endeavour to preserve the connexion of the story by joining the incidents together with such phrases as ' At that time' ' And when' 'Then' 'From that time forth,' responsibility. Inere is no ieeling now that man a obedience is due as a mark of gratitude to the Creator, who when he called him into being gave him an immortal soul, dear to Himself, in charge to keep unpolluted by the world until he shall be required to render up an account of it. The Infidel finds himself in existence, he knows not whence or wherefore ; accident, or, if he be a logical necessarian, the fixed law of Fate, gave him a place in the world. "His character is formed for him, not by him"* formed for him, not by God, but by circumstances. His crimes are the result of his organization, that being also the effect of circumstances before his birth. He is a mere machine, mechanically framed by the laws of Nature, mechanically acting himself. Merit or demerit are mere names applied to certain actions to denote their character, but without real meaning, since man is not properly the subject either of praise or blame, nor consequently of reward or punishment, otherwise than as these are the necessary consequence of his actions. Repentance and remorse are ideas utterly abjured and ignored. It is evident that these doctrines, however professed in words, and abstrusely argued, never have been, and never can be, practically acted on : but they can pervert the mind. At all events, it must be urged against this irreligious Necessarianism, that its outward, striking features are mani- festly at variance with morality ; it stands patent, at least to vulgar apprehension, as a bold excuse for sin : and as such is attractive to all those whose base inclinations shrink from the faithful castigation of con- science and religion. * See the works of Robert Owen, ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 117 FROM MOBAL RESTRAINT.] according to enlightened experience. But when the stamp of religion, or rather of the priesthood, is affixed to those human interpretations of tho law of marriage, they are sealed up against all amendment, and tho possibility of being brought into conformity with reason and nature ; and thus the legal enactment itself is made answerable for the crimes and sufferings attendant both upon the attempted obedience to it, and the open defiance of it. In both cases, the guilt of some, and the martyrdom of others, is the necessary consequence : martyrdom in the case of defiance, because public opinion has to be resisted until by this means it is brought to a better appreciation of the subject. Meantime, it is indeed true, that in this resistance, there is apt to be a reactionary relaxation of principle, that may be deplorably productive of immorality. IX. In like manner, the religious sanction given to politicaTprinciples has kept them back from the influence of progressive civilization. r Happily , the idea of the "divine right of kings" is fast becoming exploded; but much political superstition remains, which has to be violently broken away from. In the various social schemes which must then arise, the only danger to be feared, is from the sudden reaction after despotic oppression, and from the want of that discipline of mind and character that can result only from political independence and enlightened education. X. " Man is responsible in the only way in which responsibility could be of any use. The Creator has attached it in the shape of inevitable pain, moral or physical, to every breach of his laws, moral or physical. . . The expression of praise or blame is necessary and proper, although a man could in no case act otherwise than he did under the circumstances ; for approbation and disapproval act as motives. . If there were no necessary connection between motives and actions, if a man might refuse or not to be guided by the former, then, indeed, all praise and blame would be useless. "* It is undeniable that the Christian view of obedience as a debt to God, a mark of love to him, and an appointed condition of obtaining eternal happiness, furnishes peculiarly powerful motives, the loss of which natural religion appears at first inadequate to replace. But the motives of the latter, if they are less stimulating to the emotional nature and personal feelings of men, are more steady in their certain operation, and more disinterested in their principle. To believe that well-doing is really the best for man, to seek the truth, and to act up to the truth possessed, with faith in it, and for the love of it, this is a rule of life sufficient for a noble heart, without need- ing any external enforcement. It is to conscience that man is responsible ; conscience, which is the expression of his personal desire which demands it as a debt of satisfaction to his own nature to contribute to the action of that great principle of Justice and Right, which is the best thing he knows, the most beautiful and venerable, the only source of real good to man, and which therefore is to him Divine. * Philosophy of Necessity, Vol. I. pp. 177, 179, 180. 118 OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. THAT THE PRINCIPLE ON WHICH LEAVES NO SUFFICIENT GROUND FOR BELIEVING XI. The sense of the insufficiency of the means of know- The moral need ledge afforded by nature to satisfy the moral need of man, of man demanded was that which led the way for the reception of revela- rereiation. ^ Qn . an( | -^ wftg on j v wnen thus explained and vindicated that a true religion of nature, i. e. a moral religion and not a mere super- stitious wonder at physical phenomena, first became possible. But the opponents and defenders of Christianity alike have been apt to forget this true genesis of the religion that is now called natural ; and have taken as the assumed basis of their arguments, that which is in fact the result to be obtained by them, namely, the Moral Government of the World by God : which was no other than a vague conception, until Christianity gave it the strength of an assured belief. The difficulties of nature have driven men to revelation ; there they have been met, not by explanation, but by a demand on faith, by Divine Promises, above all, by the assertion, the proof, that God may be trusted. So far from clearing up all diffi- culties to reason, Christianity has similar ones of its own ; and those who, on account of them, reject its all-sufficient compensatory assurance, are thrown back upon the perplexities of Nature without hope of solution. XII. "The Christian speaks on this wise: 'I find, in Moral difficul- reference to Christianity as in reference to Theism, what ties in nature, are appears to me an immense preponderance of evidence of as great as in Re- Tar j ous ti n( j s j n f avO ur of its truth ; but both alike, I Telation. The . . ' Christian and the ftnd, involved in many difficulties which I acknowledge Atheist are alone to be insurmountable, and in many mysteries which I cannot fathom. I believe the conclusions in spite of them. As to the revelation, I see some of its discrepancies are the effect of transcription and corruption ; others are the result of omissions of one or more of the writers which, if supplied, would show that they are apparent only ; of others I can suggest no explanations at all ; and, over and above these, I see difficulties of doctrine which I can no more profess to solve than I can the parallel perplexities in Nature and Providence, and especially those involved in the permitted phenomenon of an infinity of physical and moral evil. As to these difficulties, I simply submit to them, because I think the rejection of the evidence for the truths which they embarrass would involve me in a much greater difficulty. With regard to many of the difficulties, in both cases, I see that the progress of knowledge and science is continually tending to dissipate some, and to diminish, if not remove, the weight of others : I see that a dawning light ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 119 CHRISTIANITY IS REJECTED, IN A MORAL GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD. XI. " Whilst nature was imperfectly understood, and the intellectual powers were but little cultivated, the many felt themselves incapable, by means of their own native powers, of drawing clearly from the universe around them the conclusions which occasionally seemed to break indistinctly upon them, but which their minds required in full assurance. Earth and skies continually suggested the idea of a First Cause, the knowledge of which seemed to be a natural want of the mind, and must influence mate- rially the conduct. But was this instinctive feeling to be taken as full evidence of the existence of that towards which it was directed ? and if not, how should minds oppressed with worldly oares, uneducated, or having but imperfect help from science, work out such a vast conclusion from their own resources ? A word from Heaven would aid their weakness, solve their doubts, and afford them the delight of faith, without the trouble of acquir- ing it. What wonder, then, that men professing to have received this message from heaven, or to be its interpreters, should find a ready submis- sion to their claims, succeed in having them admitted without a very rigid scrutiny, and continue to find docile recipients even long after they had begun, instead of bread, to give stones ? During the ages of mankind's moral and intellectual minority, it seems indeed natural that authority, derived from the ascendancy of some few superior individuals, should exer- cise guardianship over the human mind, and provide its necessary food, until full-grown reason should be able both to guide and nourish itself. Hence the philanthropist regards with complacency the various Revelations which have afforded to men spiritual supplies, although not of unmixed purity ; and hears, in the supposed direct voices from heaven, prelude- sounds of the voice which speaks through nature and reason, in a tone rising slowly into clearness in the lapse of ages."* But then, while the instinctive desire for knowledge respecting a First Cause, and the future destiny of mankind, thus satisfied itself in reve- lation, by giving to itself the hasty sanction of Divine certainty, it was making what in that early stage of intelligence men thought ought to be true, become a settled possession to the mind, which has, by those who have feelingly appropriated it, to be again painfully parted with. It is very true that this religious trust comes to us from Chris- tianity, because Christianity was the expression of the feeling as soon as it sprang up to definite form in the world's experience. The re- ligion of nature at that certain point, the highest yet attained, embodied itself in Christianity, and historically, actually, cannot quit the association. Hence it is still in a Christian spirit that many rejecters of Christianity appeal to Nature : and have to find her obdurate to that appeal until the state of feeling is again reduced to its proper channel. Meanwhile, this confidence of the soul in the fulfilment of its own desires, (the cause, and, in its exaggerated form the result, of Christianity,) itself affords, -when regarded as a natxiral product, the strongest argument to the advocate of * Christian Theism, by the Author of Origin of Christianity. 1839. pp. 19, 20. 120 OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. [NO GROUND FOR BELIEF IN THE now glimmers on many portions of the void where continuous darkness once reigned ; though that very light has also a tendency to disclose other difficulties ; for, as the sphere of knowledge increases, the outline of darkness beyond also increases, and increases even in a greater ratio. But I also find, I frankly admit, that on many of my difficulties, and especially that connected with the origin of evil,- and other precisely analogous difficulties of Scriptures, 710 light whatever is cast ; to the solution of them man has not made the slightest conceivable approximation. These things I submit to, as an exercise of my faith and a test of my docility.' Thus speaks the Christian ; and the Atheist and the Sceptic occupy ground as consistent. They say, ' We agree with Christians, that the Bible con- tains no greater difficulties than those involved in the inscrutable consti- tution and course of nature ; but on the very principles on which the nationalist, or Spiritualist, or Deist, or whatever he pleases to call him- self, rejects the Divine origin of the former, we are compelled to go a few steps further, and deny or doubt the divine origin of the latter. It is true that the Bible presents no greater difficulties than the external universe and its administration ; (it cannot involve greater ;) but if those difficulties are sufficient to justify the denial or doubt of the divine authorship of the one, they are sufficient to justify denial or doubt about the Divine origin of the other.' You ought, on the principle on which you reject so much of the Bible, namely, that it does not harmonize with the deductions of your intellect, the in- stincts of conscience, the intuitions of the ' spiritual faculty,' to become Manichseans at the least. . . Butler leaves two alternatives, and only two, in my judgment open ; leaves two parties untouched ; one is the Christian, and the other is the Atheist or the Sceptic ; but I am pro- foundly convinced he does not leave a consistent footing for anything between. To refute him, you have to show that this world does not exhibit the inequalities the miseries the apparent caprice in its administration the involuntary ignorance the enormous wrongs the wide- spread sorrow and death it does. . . If you can show to an unbeliever in Christianity, who is yet (as most are) a theist, that any objection derived from its apparent repugnance to wisdom or goodness applies equally to the ' con- stitution and course of nature', you do fairly compel him (as long as he remains a theist) to admit that that objection ought not to have weight with him. He has indeed an alternative ; that of Atheism or Scepticism j but it is clear that he must give up either his argument or his theism. It may be called, indeed, an argument ad hominem ; but as almost every unbeliever in Christianity is a man of the above stamp, it is of wide ap- plication. This is the fair issue to which Butler brings his argument ; and the collusiveness of his logic has been shown in this, that, how- ever easily ' analogies' may be ' retorted,' the parties affected by it have never answered it."* * Eclipse of Faith. 1852. pp. 408-412. ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 121 MORAL GOVERNMENT OP THE WORLD.] natural religion. For, " it has not unfrequently happened, that the untu- tored feelings of mankind have anticipated the results of philosophic inves- tigation. Nature (the instinct of feeling) has spoken first ; reasoning and science have followed slowly with a confirmation of her voice. . . Science and philosophy are, however, yet in their infancy, and especially as regards their application to subjects supposed to be connected with morality and religion. The belief that Revelation has assumed these subjects as her own peculiar ground, has hitherto impeded the growth of free inquiry upon them amongst nations most competent to the task. Released from this restraint, and having unbounded scope to traverse the creation in search of evidence, mankind may reach points in moral discovery which at present would be at once pronounced visionary. The achievements of mechanical and chemical science may be equalled or outdone by those of moral and intellectual re- search ; and a clearer confession be forced out of nature concerning the character of the Creator and the ultimate destination of man."* To those who thus truly face the perplexities of nature, the solution is, in- deed, not at hand. No matter : for the present, at least, faith or philosophy must serve them ; they must do without it. At all events, the only possi- bility of finding a real solution is by seeking it in the right direction ; and that is, by simply inquiring, what is : which may truly bo called Divine truth, as opposed to human theory. " In the attempts made by man to explain the varied phenomena of the universe, history reveals to us three distinct and characteristic stages, by Comte named the Theological (Supernatural), the Metaphysical, and the Positive. In the first, man explains phenomena by some fanciful concep- tion suggested in the analogies of his own consciousness ; in the second, by some a priori conception of inherent or superadded entities, suggested in the constancy observable in phenomena, which constancy leads him to sus- pect that they are not produced by any intervention on the part of an external being, but are owing to the nature of the things themselves ; in the third he explains phenomena by adhering solely to these constancies of suc- cession and co-existence ascertained inductively, and recognized as the laws of nature (or rather, to use a term less liable to objection and misapprehen- sion, the methods of naturet). In the theological stage, Nature is regarded as the theatre whereon the arbitrary wills of Superior Powers play their varying and variable parts. Men are startled at unusual occurrences, and explain them by fanciful conceptions. A solar eclipse is understood, and unerringly predicted to a moment, by Positive Science ; but in the theo- logical epoch it appeared that some dragon had swallowed the sun ! In the metaphysical stage the notion of capricious divinities is replaced by that of abstract entities, whose modes of action are, however, invariable ; and in this recognition of invariableness lies the germ of science. In this epoch, Nature has a " horror of a vacuum", organised beings have a " vital prin- ciple", and matter has a vis inertice. In the positive stage, the invariable- ness of phenomena under similar conditions is recognized as the sum total of human investigation, and beyond the laws which regulate phenomena, it is * Oriffin of Christianity, p. 486. t See Leader, May 8, 1852. 122 OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. [NO GROUND FOE BELIEF IJf THE XIII. Let then him who objects against Christianity that its The principle leading doctrines are opposed to the natural moral in- of Justice is not stincts of man, test his principle fairly by carrying it apparentthrough- ' \., .. out the adminis- m a scrutiny into the constitution and tration of the course of nature, without shrinking from the conse- world. quences to which it will lead him. Let him openly face the broad fact to him the fearful issue that NOWHERE will he meet with the full and entire gratification of that moral perception which he finds in himself, and which he sets up as the criterion of the abstract Just and Good. He must acknowledge that, judged in this manner, with the ex- clusion of all aid from Christianity, the moral order of the universe appears defective and inexplicable. He is offended at the arbitrary distinction made in the scheme of sal- vation between the elect and the reprobate : is then in nature one man not born to honour and another to dishonour ? or is it supposed to be from a prospective regard to the merits of individuals, that one comes into the world inheriting wealth and friends, bodily health and mental dispositions towards virtue, while another creeps into existence loathly with disease, prone to vice, surrounded by all kinds of adverse circum- stances, the consequences of which original condition attend him through- out his whole course here, and if he be destined to another life, will pur- sue him beyond the grave 1 It is shocking to Justice that the innocent should suffer for the sins of the guilty : but this is the ordinary, every-day course of things.* " The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge," is a proverb that tells a very old experience. It is as clear in natural philosophy as it is in Scripture, that the whole race pays the penalty for the transgressions of its first progenitors ; nay, that every human being is punished for all the wrong-doing that has been committed before and around' him. Thus only, indeed, is constituted the brotherhood of man- kind, who are knit together in common interests and mutual dependence, by the necessity of suffering, as well as enjoying, together ; so that man is compelled to desire the welfare and virtue of his neighbours, even for his own sake, a desire which, though it spring from selfishness, may be trained and purified into a spirit of disinterested love. From this ne- cessity of suffering for one another's faults, springs a capability of gene- rosity and heroism, which would never be called forth if literally every man must bear his own burden ; and a new power of winning over the sinner, hardened against every other impression, to repentance and a new life, by grateful admiration for the willing suffering that thus in a small temporal sense, shadowing forth the religious one, purchases his own salvation. And thus we have a glimpse of the mode of Divine working, bringing moral good out of moral evil, which would have been incon- ceivable to our faculties. But vicarious suffering, though it may be proved to produce these blessed fruits, is not according to Justice, which requires * Butler's Analogy, Part 11. ch. v. ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 123 MORAL GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD.] considered idle to penetrate."* **' It must not be supposed that each of the three periods had a separate and exclusive existence. On the contrary, they have always co-existed, but in the first the Theological, in the second the Metaphysical, in the third the Positive conception has predominated. The germ of Positivism will be found even in the Fetishistic period ; nor was man ever absolutely incapable of abstraction. On the other hand, the Positive period will not entirely exclude the initial and intermediate ten- dencies of the human mind."t " To prove that the theological stage is not thoroughly and universally passed, I need only refer to the monstrous illus- tration of our own days, when learned men, the Teachers of our people, gravely attributed the Cholera to God's anger at England's endowment of the Maynooth Colleges !"J XII. That the theological systems framed in an early age should pre- sent moral difficulties to believers of the present day, is a self-evident necessity. To call the mysteries of nature parallel difficulties is a perver- sion of analogy. We have a perfectly intelligible explanation of the former in their being the invention of men. How can we compare fiction with fact ? The assertions of revelation must be proved to be true before they can stand upon the same ground as what we know to be true. We infer, indeed, that the men who invented these fictions, and thought them worthy of being divine, had in their own minds immoral elements, which must have been derived from previous circumstances from nature : but to make any analogy between the Author of nature, and the authors of the Bible stories, we must know that nature does represent God's ideal. We see every evidence to the contrary. Nature everywhere shows repugnance to the evil in itself ; is continually fighting against it, and striving to rise out of it and above it. Whence the evil came we do not attempt to explain, for we do not know, and we see no means of knowing. To call it the work of the Devil, serves as a convenient allegory, so long as we remember that it is nothing more. As we doubt or deny the Divine authorship of Bible im- moralities, so also indeed must we doubt or deny the Divine authorship of natural evil in the sense that an Almighty Good Being can will and take pleasure in evil. But at the same time we know that this divine work of Nature, unlike the Bible, is not completed ; that but a small page is open to us ; and that, neither if the whole were read out to us, might the mystery be at all revealed to our incompetent faculties. Still what appears to us evil we cannot call good. To different minds different degrees of Faith or of' Infidelity will furnish a resting-place : but all degrees are well-based that are the unsophisticated deductions of each mind from real observation of Nature. If we are in earnest, what we have to do is not to make out our own theories, not to make theories at all upon the subject, but to find out what is the actual truth. * Comte's Positive Philosophy, by G. H. Lewes. Leader, April 24, 1852. See also Comte, Introduction, Chap. I. f Leader, May 8. Letter of correspondent " J/." J Ibid, April 24. 124 OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. [NO GROUND FOR BELIEF IN THE that retribution should be dealt to every one according to his own works. This principle indeed cannot be said to be carried out strictly and uniformly in any part of the administration of the world. It is true, in a general sense, that sin always draws its punishment after it ; but it does not always fall upon the head of the sinner. It is not only that his innocent family and connexions must suffer with him, but sometimes he appears not to suffer himself at all, or not in proportion to his guilt. Worldly pros- perity is notoriously incommensurate with men's deserts. It is felt, indeed, as a general rule, that success awaits good conduct, experience has established a prevailing confidence that the virtuous are more likely to get on well than the wicked ; but the rule has so many exceptions, and is liable to so many counteractions, unlooked-for and unaccountable, that no proverbial saying has been commoner in all ages than the caprice of fortune. And as honest labour aud industry do not ensure the acquisi- sition of wealth, nor prudence and worldly wisdom the retention of it ; so neither is fame, nor friendship, nor the attainment of learning, or of any of the good things of life, always adjusted according to merit ; so neither is virtue secure even of being its own reward, since bodily disease can produce morbid depression of mind, and prevent even the enjoyment of a good conscience, while vice is in its nature callous, and the deeper its dye is ordinarily the more insensible to the remorse that should be its punishment. If it be said that the suffering consequent upon all kinds of transgression, wilful or not, which alights sometimes upon the doer, sometimes on others, is not to be regarded as punishment, but as a lesson and a warning : this may be advantageous on the whole, but not to the sufferer who obtains no benefit from it. That one man's mortal sickness perhaps the result of his father's intemperance -should lead to the dis- covery of a remedy that will save the lives of those to come after him, is not justice ; that one man's folly or vice should teach others to avoid his example, is not justice ; in general, that one generation should reap the fruits of the labours of another, is not justice, for though they in turn labour for the next, there is none of that proportioning to the exact share of each individual which is necessary to answer the demand of strict Justice. There is a rude sort of "things turning out right in the main, if one be set against another" ; but not the dealing with every single creature which man would expect from a Just Creator. It is proverbial amongst natural philosophers that " Nature cares for the Whole, not for individuals". Does this inspire a satisfactory feeling for a hapless unit out of that mass of mortality to regard the God of Nature with ? To the religious mind the claim of Justice from God is an impious one ; the idea of human merit is abhorrent aud absurd. Justice is a matter between man and man, and has nothing to do with his relation to his Maker, in whose hands he is merely as the clay on the potter's wheel, to be born in what nature and condition He may please, to live and act, to suffer and enjoy, merely according to His sovereign will and pleasure. With this idea as the basis of all his reasoning, the Christian finds no insurmountable stumbling-block in the inequalities to which men ANSWERS OF INFIDELITY. 125 [ORAL QOVERNMEKT OF THE WORLD.] XIII. The result of the scientific observation of nature, is more and more to discover, that mind is as obedient to law as matter ; that the laws which govern mental phenomena, or rather, the methods according to which we find that mental phenomena are developed, are as strict and unvarying as the physical economy of the universe. The great moral law that virtue brings good consequences and vice evil, which is but another formulary for expressing the very definition of virtue and vice, acts as uninterruptedly and as irresistibly as the law of gravitation ; and if all the moral universe were in order, would doubtless act as perfectly for every individual as for the whole. But moral order is not accomplished ; although apparently tending to it as towards "God's ideal." There are a myriad conflicting impulses at work which miT and thwart one another at present. If adverse circumstances divert the course of retribution, and interfere with its legitimate sequences, a distortion of moral phenomena takes place. The law is not changed, cannot be changed ; but the reward or punishment falls on the wrong head. Events move on : the plane of individual action, which lay eccentric and unconfonnable, adjusts itself to parallelism with the general movement ; falls by degrees into its right place ; by the friction of the mighty whirl of life, obstructions are worn down, and the amorphous conglomerations of mental atoms sphere themselves into har- monious combination. True, in this whirl individual interests seem uncared for. But how shall we say so, when out of it there is evolving itself in our breasts this nice sense of Justice, which tells us what is due to ourselves, and by a farther, nobler stage, what is therefore due to every fellow-being ? Sere is God showing His will to do Justice to each one ; by this means where first He can, if we must speak of Him in human language.* In the heart of man He has made expression for this generous sentiment, which now first has means of uttering itself amidst this brute world. Man alone in the world is capable of the feeling of Justice ; and it is for Man to realize it. Let him see to it : it is his mission, his prerogative, to bring it about ; and if he fail he will have to perish, and God to make a better instrument ; for we see plainly that God has a will to have it done. By the indignation stirring in our breasts at the wrongs endured by our poor trampled brethren, he urges us to procure for them redress. Revenge, perhaps, by the same rule ? No : for we have a better teaching, from our Godlike reason, that revenge will fail to effect its purpose. This, we think, is the true lesson of Nature ; and we may call it true piety. In this way, we recognize a genuine command of God. But in the anthropomorphic idea of God and Providence, taught by Christianity, we find a great hindrance to the real duty of man. By leading him to look for the personal care of God, as of a Being who out of his human emotion * [The sense in which the name of "God" is used, figuratively, on this side of the Argument, (except in some of the extracts by theistic writers,) will be seen in a later section.] 126 OBJECTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. [NO GROUND FOR BELIEF IN TH are born. There is, besides, a sense in which he can traly say, as no others can, that all men are equal in the sight of God ; since the temporal differ- ences in their lot are nothing compared to the common boon of salvation that is offered to rich and poor alike by faith in Jesus Christ. In the light of this great proof of Divine love all petty difficulties vanish. And what if things go wrong in the lower world ? The trusting soul will find all made right in Eternity. XIV. The irregularity in the distribution of good and evil, To believe in an< ^ *^ e deficiency of retribution in this life, have forced future compensa- upon almost all thinkers the conviction of the necessity tion because ne- f or compensation in another world. " That which affords Goodness isfaise a siu