\f-UNIVER?/A 
 
 /- -N. 
 
 > # 
 
 '^0
 
 n^"^ %ii3AiNn3WV^ ^<?Aav!iaii-#^ ^^Aavaan-i^ 
 
 •^^z. 
 ^ ^ 
 
 ^^llIBRARYQr 
 
 ^W^UNIVER% 
 
 ^lOSANCElfj> 
 
 ^1 ^_ _. ^ 
 
 JO^ '^.l/OJnVJ-JO"^ ^l^DNYSOl^"^" '^/^a3AINn-3WV^ 
 
 ^;OfCALIFO% 
 
 ■^^?^ "^^AavaaiH^ 
 
 >- 
 
 
 
 ;^10SANCEI^ 
 
 % ^vWSANCElfJV. 
 
 
 11^ "^/^aHAJNa-awv^ 
 
 ) 
 
 ^UIBRAR" 
 
 X^ 
 
 ? i 
 
 
 s>:lOSANCELfj> ^^,OFCAIIF0% X;OF-CAIIFO% 
 
 Is 
 
 5^ 
 
 Y J tr—^I 
 
 ^ ~ 
 
 ii^"^ "^/^aHAiNa-awv^ "^(^Aavaaii-^' ''•><?Aavaaii-i^' 
 
 i^' 
 
 Wa. ^lllBRARYOc. 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 % ^OFCAIIFOP^ 
 
 aWEUNIVERS//) 
 
 
 <rii30Nvsoi^ "^aaAiNa-awv- 
 
 AWEUNIVERi-ZA ^lOSANCEtfj>
 
 faith and free thought.
 
 ^aith and Free Thought. 
 
 A 
 
 SECOND COURSE OF LECTURES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE REQUEST OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETY. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 , THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 SAMUEL WILBERFORCE, D. D., 
 
 LORD lilSKOP OF WINCHESTER. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 % n b n : 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 
 
 27, Paternoster Row. 
 
 1876. 
 
 ' \AU Rights reserz'ed.^
 
 I i O i 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I 
 
 t^ , T is but little that need be said to introduce a 
 
 ^ '^ Second Series of the Lectures which have been 
 
 <: 
 
 oa delivered in connection with the Christian Evidence 
 — i 
 
 Society. The acceptance of the First Series is proof 
 
 enough that in many quarters, at least, the existence 
 
 of the evil they are intended to meet is acknowledged, 
 
 S and that this mode of meeting it has been approved. 
 
 'i® It would, indeed, be difficult to deny the existence 
 
 uj of the evil. 
 
 C! 
 
 The literature of the day, which, like the straw 
 
 borne aloft by the currents of the air, the more 
 
 ephemeral it is, only the better marks the direction of 
 
 the flow of common opinion, bears undoubted marks 
 
 ^ of its presence. 
 
 Doubt is everywhere. Sceptical suggestions are 
 wrapped up in narrative ; they bristle in short,.
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 shallow, self-asserting essays, in which men who really 
 show their ignorance, think they show their depth ; 
 they colour our physical philosophy ; they mingle 
 themselves with our commonplace theology itself. 
 
 All this system of doubt has, too, a character 
 specifically its own. 
 
 The present assault upon Christianity is altogether 
 different from that of the Deists of the last century, 
 or of the Atheists of the revolutionary aera. There 
 is very little open assault upon the first principles of 
 Theism. The attack is all the more dangerous because 
 its real purpose is so far concealed, because it proceeds 
 by sap and mine, rather than by open assault. For 
 many a soul which would be on its guard if called 
 upon at once to surrender its faith in a God, is 
 led unsuspiciously to parley with the enemy when 
 with fair speeches and professions of respect for that 
 which is most highly prized he proposes only to 
 examine some untenable propositions which have 
 been too long admitted without question, and to clear 
 Faith, not to impair it, by bringing Reason to its aid. 
 
 Thus the need man has of religion is admitted ; 
 the existence of some all-pervading spiritual power
 
 FRE1<ACE. vii 
 
 is not denied. There is an attempt to keep the 
 glow of religion even when the great objective light 
 of which it is an emanation has been withdrawn 
 from the heavens. 
 
 Such tendencies are perhaps inseparable from 
 the mental and spiritual constitution of an age 
 like our own. The vast increase of wealth amongst 
 us ; the manifold discoveries of science, and through 
 them the subjection of the material world to the 
 will of man ; the greater easiness which these vic- 
 tories of scientific research have imparted to life 
 in almost every rank of society, with the softness 
 and impatience of trouble which this breeds, — all 
 this must have its effect upon the religious tone and 
 upon the tendency to religious belief of a people. 
 Such a temper of mind soon passes into a fretful dis- 
 like to all authority. It may not take the trouble to 
 rebel or disbelieve ; but neither can it take the 
 trouble to examine and to submit. It is so much 
 easier to be in a quiescent state as to such 
 troublesome claims. And so a state of suspended 
 belief is reached ; and in that state doubts sprmg 
 up and multiply spontaneously.
 
 v-ii PREFACE. 
 
 Then, too, the new discoveries which account for 
 so much that seemed unaccountable ; which over- 
 turn so many baseless theories ; which question so 
 rudely, and often so unanswerably, so many old 
 admitted theories ; and whi ;h appear to be always 
 advancing, and as they advance promising almost 
 unlimited increase of knowledge ; — all this by neces- 
 sary consequence shakes everywhere the rule of 
 authority ; of authority in everything which has 
 been heretofore received. So many false theories 
 have been subverted, so many shams exposed, 
 so many figures of terror before which our fathers 
 shivered resolved into the mere creatures of an 
 utterly ignorant and therefore credulous timidity, 
 that nothing seems left which may not in its turn 
 fall before a bolder assault or a more practised aim. 
 
 And for many reasons all this applies especially 
 to authority in matters of religion and faith. 
 Unhappily, there have been so many false defences 
 of the true, that it is hard for the truth not to suffer 
 in the downfall of the falsehoods or errors to which 
 she has been so unrighteously wedded. 
 
 Elaborate defences of Theism and of Christip'^ity
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 have been rested upon what now prove to have been 
 utterly misapprehended scientific facts. In many 
 of these cases there has been no intentional direct 
 falsehood. It has not, for the most part, been that 
 the writers of these evidential works have believed 
 that God could not govern the world without the 
 devil's aid ; that truth could be helped by a little 
 falsehood (though, alas, there have been such pious 
 frauds even as these) ; but it has been, for the most 
 part, the fault oi moral cowardice ; the not daring 
 to admit that there were apparent contradictions 
 between God's voice in Nature and God's voice in 
 Scripture, which as yet believers knew not how to 
 reconcile ; but which they had faith enough to know 
 could be reconciled, and would be reconciled when 
 God saw fit : and so arose the restless, feverish, 
 sad effort to invent a theory of reconciliation, and 
 so a resting the truth of Scripture on the recon- 
 ciling theory, and therefore a great shock and 
 violence to its true claims when the whole theory 
 came to be swept away like an ancient cobweb 
 by the besom of destruction in the strong hand of 
 advancingr science.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Like evils, too, have arisen from the tearing to 
 pieces by the sharp tooth of recent, more severe, and 
 more exact criticism of finely-developed theories as 
 to inspiration, the text of Scripture, and cognate 
 matters. 
 
 All of these assaults on old authority have arisen 
 as out of the ground sown with dragons' teeth, and 
 have given forth a harvest of death. It is against 
 such evils as these that the lectures of the first and 
 second series of the Christian Evidence Society have 
 been directed. 
 
 We claim for them, that they are calm, sober, 
 earnest, honest dealings with the several subjects they 
 handle. They exhibit the evidence which the order 
 and adaptations in nature around us aff"ord of the 
 existence of a God. They do this from the pen 
 of one who from full acquaintance with all the 
 last discoveries of the branch of science with which 
 he has to deal, and from a manifested readiness 
 to advance wherever true science leads, is an 
 able and ought to be an unsuspected advocate for 
 God. 
 
 Metaphysical argument of the highest quality
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 exhibits in them the true philosophy of human 
 responsibility. 
 
 The supposed collision between the Scriptures and 
 Natural Science, is examined with an unfaltering^' 
 clearness of investigation which can hardly fail to 
 carry conviction with it. The great sore of alleged 
 moral difficulties in the Old Testament is probed to 
 the very quick. 
 
 The principle of Causation, as it is opposed to 
 atheistic theories, is examined and exhibited with 
 a metaphysical subtlety and a firm grasp on truth 
 which cannot easily be surpassed ; whilst another 
 essay draws out the positive argument for the truth 
 of Christianity which is based on the convergence to a 
 common centre of a number of distinct lines of proof. 
 
 Moral arguments in the same direction of the 
 greatest force are drawn from the suitableness 
 of Christianity to all forms of civilization, from 
 its actual existence in them all, and its achieve- 
 ments in every phase of society ; a subject drawn 
 out from another point of view in another essay 
 by a masterly contrast between society under Pagan 
 and under Christian influences.
 
 xu PREFACE. 
 
 These subjects cover the whole field of sceptical 
 attack. We trust they will be found in the follow- 
 ing pages to have been calmly, truthfully, and con- 
 vincingly handled by men worthy by intellectual 
 might, by knowledge of the times, and by their being 
 thoroughly possessed with the truth of Christ, of 
 dealing with such high -arguments. 
 
 May God be graciously pleased to give to "this 
 effort to maintain His truth His heavenly blessinsf. 
 
 S. WINTON. 
 
 Winchester, 
 
 September, 1872.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED IN 
 
 OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES . . I 
 
 By the Rev. J. B. Mozley, D.D., Canon of Christ- 
 church, and Regius Professor of Divinity, University of 
 Oxford. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE AFFORDED BY THE ORDER AND 
 ADAPTATIONS IN NATURE TO THE EXISTENCE 
 OF A GOD 49 
 
 By Charles Brooke, Esq., M.A., F.R. S. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY . . 87 
 
 By the Rev. Canon Birks, M.A., Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy in the University of Cambridge. 
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION BETWEEN THE SCRIP- 
 TURES AND NATURAL SCIENCE . . • I3I 
 
 By J. II. Gladstone, Ph.D., F.R.S.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TH^ ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE OLD 
 
 TESTAMENT 1 73 
 
 By the Rev. Thomas Pownall Boultbee, LL.D., 
 Principal of the London Divinity College, St. John's Hall, 
 Highbury. 
 
 ON THE CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF OLD TESTA- 
 MENT HISTORY FROM THE EGYPTIAN AND 
 ASSYRIAN MONUMENTS 213 
 
 By W. R. Cooper, Esq., Secretary of the Society of 
 Biblical Archaeology. 
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER 
 OF CHRISTIANITY, FROM ITS EXISTENCE AND 
 ACHIEVEMENTS 247 
 
 By the Rev. Henry Allon, D.D. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION 29 1 
 By Sir Bartle Frere, G.C.S.I., K.C.B., D.C.L. 
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN 
 
 SOCIETY 341 
 
 By the Very Rev. Charles Merivale, D.D., Dean 
 of Ely.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 THE FORCE IMPARTED TO THE EVIDENCE OF CHRIS- 
 TIANITY FROM THE MANNER IN WHICH A 
 NUMBER OF DISTINCT LINES OF PROOF CON- 
 VERGE IN A COMMON CENTRE . . . 389 
 
 By Benjamin Shaw, Esq., M.A., late Fellow of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge. 
 
 MAN A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY . , - » 437 
 
 Py the Rev. Joseph Angus, M.A., D.D,
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION 
 
 CONSIDERED IN 
 
 OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES, 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 J. B. MOZLEY, D.D., 
 
 CANON OF CHRISTCHURCH, 
 AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION 
 
 CONSIDERED IN 
 
 OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 "DEFORE I go to my subject I will make some 
 general remarks on metaphysics, regarded as 
 adapted for popular thought. When people in general 
 regard metaphysics, as they appear to do, as a curious 
 puzzle, in which arguers give reasons for things which 
 have nothing to do with nature or common sense, but 
 entirely belong to an artificial speciahty created by 
 an understanding among themselves, they should be 
 reminded sometimes of the fact that everybody is a 
 metaphysician, and cannot help being one. Meta- 
 physics could not possibly have had any existence 
 except there had been some great leading ideas in 
 man's mind upon the foundation of which they had 
 arisen. These elementary metaphysical ideas, then, 
 belong to everybody ; nay, and they are evidently so 
 simple a part of our natural reason, that we do not 
 look upon them as metaphysical at all. We are aware 
 of a certain profoundness and grandeur that belong to 
 
 3
 
 THE PKIKCirLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 them, which distinguishes them from other ideas ; but 
 they are as perfect reahties to us, at the same time, as 
 truths of ordinary common sense. They do not be- 
 long to any fictitious world, though they raise us to 
 another type of truths, other modes of existence in 
 this. They are actualities of a most stupendous kind. 
 Thus, take the first idea of this class that occurs to 
 one — the idea of Infinity. This is a metaphysical 
 idea ; it arises out of our own minds, it is not a copy 
 from nature, as many images in our minds are. I need 
 not say that we never saw any object or extent that 
 was infinite ; it would be a contradiction to say that we 
 had. But there is something in me by which I know 
 antecedently that space is going on all the same as 
 space, however differently it may be occupied, beyond 
 my sight as within it. Having raised in my mind 
 the largest portion of space I can, so that if I try to 
 increase, I simply repeat it, I have still a sense of 
 limitation. There is at the furthest line of the 
 horizon an excess which baffles me ; which is not 
 included in the imagined space, or it would not be 
 an excess, and which yet belongs and is attached 
 to it and cannot be removed ; an incipient beyond, 
 which must be endless for the very reason that it 
 begins ; because this indefinable excess, for the very 
 reason that it exists itself, must be succeeded 
 by the like. Infinity, then, is a metaphysical idea ; 
 but is it an idea without reality, without interest, 
 without popular attractions .■* On the contrary, it is 
 
 4
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 an idea which appeals vividly to our imagination, 
 which is impelled to efforts at the pursuit of it, vain 
 indeed, but which exalt the intelligent spirit in the 
 very act of overpowering it. And so far from being 
 fictitious and illusive, it is an actual attribute of 
 this material world ; it belongs to the actual space 
 around us in such a way that we cannot by any 
 mental effort remove it ; we cannot prevent this out- 
 ward material portion of space in which we are 
 from going off into an incomprehensible mystery. 
 Give me a fragment of space, and I can under- 
 stand it ; but carry this fragment itself onward, and 
 by simply extending, simply going on, it becomes 
 as absolute a mystery as has ever been contained in 
 a creed. The idea of infinity has within it, as soon 
 as men enter into it at all, a perfect romance which 
 all the flights of human fancy cannot overtake ; the 
 strange and insoluble enigmas of reason which come 
 out of it act as a spell upon the imaginative curiosity 
 of the human mind. It is thus that the ideas of meta- 
 physicians, so far from being unreal, are bound up 
 with this very field of vision in which we are ; and so 
 far from being artificial, dry, and technical, belong to 
 the very mystery and romance of nature. Infinity is a 
 fact, and at the same time a mystery. We can no more 
 deny that there is Infinity on all sides of us, wherever 
 we point a finger, than we can deny our eyesight. 
 And yet what is material Infinity, sidereal space.-* end- 
 less everywhere ? It is as mysterious as a spectre. 
 
 5
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 Everybody, then, is a metaphysician, just as every- 
 body is a poet. Just as everybody is endowed with 
 'those elementary sentiments and affections, and is 
 influenced by those associations, which, taken up by 
 language, become poetry ; so everybody has the 
 primary ideas and maxims of metaphysics. Even the 
 Bible can no more be understood without the aid of 
 these great metaphysical ideas than it can be without 
 grammar. 
 
 So, when we take up the idea of Cause, which is 
 the foundation of so large a branch of metaphysical 
 argument, we go at once to an idea which is one of 
 the most obvious of all our principles of thought, 
 and which appeals to us as most simple and rudi- 
 mental truth. It is a self-evident maxim that every 
 event must have a cause. After contemplating 
 any event in life or nature, I find myself going in 
 thought beyond it, to consider how it came to pass ; 
 by some instinctive law, some constitutional motion 
 inherent in my mind, I go in the direction of a cause, 
 of that event ; something not merely antecedent to it 
 but which stands in such a relation to it as that, in 
 consequence of it, that event or thing exists. The 
 intellect pushes on to this resting-place, as a satis- 
 faction of its own indegenous want and desire. It 
 is evidently upon this principle that we entirely 
 depend for the slightest real connexion between 
 the present, the past, and the future ; otherwise, 
 and but for this principle, this whole connexion is 
 
 6
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 annihilated. Is it, can we imagine it to be indeed 
 the case, that anything can in a moment begin to 
 exist without there being any cause for it ? Then no 
 link whatever exists between one event in the universe 
 and another ; the whole concatenation of things falls 
 to pieces, and the whole fabric of the world is dis- 
 solved, other than as a mere spectacle to the eye. 
 Everything is perfectly independent, has nothing to 
 do with anything else, begins of itself .nd ends of 
 itself. 
 
 But when we look into the idea of Cause, we find 
 immediately that it involves the most astonishing 
 thoughts and conceptions. We cannot help ourselves 
 having it, we cannot help ourselves being bound by 
 the necessity of it, we cannot release ourselves from 
 its grasp; but it is at the same time such an unfathom- 
 able idea that we pause under the impress of it, and 
 feel ourselves under some great solemnizing shadow as 
 soon as we enter into this region of thought. As soon 
 as the gates of the awful kingdom of Causation have 
 unclosed, we are instantly upon, I will not say magic 
 ground, for that is to convey a sense of illusion and 
 unreality, but upon mysterious ground ; and we are 
 in company with majestic, inconceivable ideas, which 
 we cannot grasp, and yet cannot do else than accept. 
 For while the movement towards a cause is part of 
 my rational nature, I find on reflection that I can 
 form no distinct conception of what a cause is. What 
 is that of which existence is the necessary fruit and 
 
 7
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 result ? We can form no idea of what goes on 
 previous to, and with infallible cogency and force for 
 producing existence. All this preliminary agency is 
 entirely hid from us, and our faculties completely stop 
 short of it. The order of nature puts before us an 
 endless succession of antecedents, but in no one 
 instance can we see any necessary connexion between 
 the antecedent and its consequent. But though we 
 cannot raise the distinctive conception of what a cause 
 is, we are not the less absolutely certain that there 
 must be a cause, and that nothing can take place 
 without one. 
 
 Again, the very first consequence of this idea of 
 cause, and one which is implied necessarily in the very 
 conception of a cause, is a result which appals us by 
 its tremendous inconceivability : and yet it is a truth 
 of the most absolute and obvious necessity ; nay, it is 
 an absolute and certain fact,- which every single 
 rational being, whether he is a believer in religion or 
 not, must accept as simply and unreservedly as he does 
 the evidence of his senses ; and that is, that from all 
 eternity something has existed. " This is so evident 
 and undeniable a proposition," says Samuel Clarke, 
 " that no Atheist in any age has ever presumed to 
 assert the contrary. For since something now is, it is 
 manifest that something always was. For whatever 
 now is has a cause, a reason, a ground of its existence 
 — a foundation on which its existence relies, a ground 
 or reason why it doth exist, rather than not exist,
 
 Lv pro Sir ION to atheistic theories. 
 
 and this foundation [of a thing which has come into 
 existence] must have existed before it. That some- 
 thing, therefore, has really existed from all eternity is 
 one of the certainest and most evident truths in the 
 world, acknowledged by all men and disputed by 
 none. Yet as to the manner how it can be, there is 
 nothing in nature more difficult for the mind of man 
 to conceive than this very first plain and self-evident 
 truth. For how anything can have existed eternally, 
 that is, how an eternal duration can be now actually 
 past, is a thing utterly as impossible for our narrow 
 understandings to comprehend as anything that is 
 not an express contradiction can be imagined to be. 
 And yet to deny the truth of the proposition, that an 
 eternal duration is now actually past, would be to 
 assert something far more unintelligible, even an 
 express and real contradiction." 
 
 The idea of cause is thus the key to an eternal past, 
 which has contained being of some kind or another. 
 By means of that necessary regress which exists in the 
 idea, this mental principle holds the entrance into that 
 interminable and infinite retrospect, which in meta- 
 physical terms is called the ex parte ante-eternity. 
 There the vista is ; and so long that it is true that every 
 event must have a cause, it must exist — this unceasing 
 past duration, going back endlessly and for ever. An 
 Atheist and a Materialist has this endless past that he 
 must look back upon, just as much as a believer in a 
 God has. In his view the action of matter goes 
 
 9
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 back in successive steps, each leaning upon one still 
 further back than itself, and the retrospective chain of 
 operations never stops, but goes back for ever. This 
 is indeed an absolutely inconceivable idea — the actual 
 pastness, if I may use the term, of an eternal duration 
 of time : that an eternity is now over. And yet an 
 Atheist must believe this, simply because it is a fact. 
 It is just as much a fact as yesterday. Yesterday 
 existed yesterday : that is certain enough. The day 
 before existed next. And so every portion of time 
 goes back to a prior portion, and in the eye of the 
 Materialist each has its material contents just as solid 
 and actual as those of yesterda)'' : this visible world 
 goes back for ever. This is not a mere idea. A past 
 eternity of material operations is an actual fact to an 
 Atheist, though a past eternity is utterly incompre- 
 hensible ; but a God, because He is incomprehensible, 
 is not even an object of faith. Such a mistake would 
 it be for the Materialist to assume that because he 
 believed only matter, he had therefore escaped from 
 the yoke of mystery. That ghostly power waits like 
 a giant, ready to pull him back as soon as ever he 
 thinks he is out of his reach, and throws him into the 
 coils of the very enigma which he had run away from. 
 Space and time introduce to consequences which are 
 as inconceivable as articles of faith ; and yet these 
 consequences are actual facts ; just as much so as 
 the experience of our senses. 
 
 We have now got as far as the idea of cause, or the 
 
 10
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 instinctive maxim of our nature that every event must 
 have a cause. And here I pause to make two obser- 
 vations. One is, that it is most important to distin- 
 guish between the philosophical idea of the necessity 
 of a cause and any perception of the necessary character 
 of physical causes — those phenomenal causes which 
 precede events in nature ; which precede them uni- 
 formly and invariably, and therefore obtain the name 
 of physical causes, but which do not in the slightest 
 degree reveal their own nature as causes, and there- 
 fore do not reveal their own ' necessity. To say 
 in general that a cause is necessary, is not to say 
 that we see causes in such and such phenomena. The 
 one is a maxim of our intellectual nature, the other 
 would be a judgment upon a fact, which we are unable 
 to pronounce. But though the operation of real 
 causes nowhere comes under our cognizance, but only 
 a chain of antecedents, Ave have not the less still in- 
 herent in our minds the idea of cause, and the certainty 
 that every event must have a cause. 
 
 The other observation is, that so long as we 
 put the maxim that every event must have a 
 cause in such a way to ourselves as recognizes the 
 necessary character of it, it is not of much im- 
 portance what special philosophical explanation we 
 adopt of it ; whether we regard it as an ultimate 
 and primary law of the reason, or as a derivation 
 from some prior and more general law. Hume 
 denied indeed the necessary character of the maxim
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 that every event must have a cause. " The separation," 
 he says, "of the idea of a cause from that of the begin- 
 ningof existence is plainly possible for the imagination; 
 and consequently the actual separation of these objects 
 is so far possible that it implies no contradiction or 
 absurdity; and is, therefore, incapable of being refuted 
 ^by any reasoning from mere ideas, without which it is 
 impossible to demonstrate the necessity of a cause."* 
 Hume accounted for the idea of the necessity of a 
 cause by custom — the impression which the constant 
 sight of uniform antecedence made upon the mind 
 which was the same as if they were necessary, or real 
 causes. To which Sir. W. Hamilton replies, that this 
 could not create in the mind that idea of necessity 
 which we actually find there, and concludes : — " The 
 alternative is plain : either the doctrine of sensualism 
 (j.e.y accounting for the idea of cause from mere sensi- 
 ble experience) is false, or our nature is a delusion. 
 . . . It is manifest that the observation of certain 
 phenomena succeeding certain other phenomena. . . 
 could never have engendered not only the strong but 
 irresistible conviction that every event must have its 
 cause.""!* But though the denial of all reality in the 
 necessity of a cause of events, or the assertion that 
 events can take place without anything really to 
 cause them, must be rejected as a paradox, there is no 
 reason why room may not be allowed for different 
 
 * "Of the Understanding." Sect. iii. 
 f Ibid. Appendix I. 
 12
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 philosophical explanations of the origin of the casual 
 judgment. The more ordinary course has been to 
 refer this to a special idea inherent in the human 
 mind, to maintain it as a " primary datum, a positive 
 revelation of intelligence ; " and Sir. W. Hamilton 
 reckons Leibnitz, Kant, and Cousin, as holding this 
 position. He himself, however, is opposed, as he 
 expresses it, "to the assumption of a special principle," 
 and maintains that the idea of causation comes under 
 a larger law, and is only one of the operations of that 
 law. " The law of parsimony, which he regards as 
 nature's general rule," he observes, " prohibits the 
 multiplication of entities, powers, principles and causes 
 above all the postulation of an unknown force, where 
 a known impotence can account for the phenomenon. 
 We are, therefore, entitled to apply ' Occam's razor ' 
 to this theory of causality, unless it be proved impos- 
 sible to explain the causal judgment at a cheaper rate, 
 by deriving it from a common, and that a negative, 
 principle." His theory reduces the judgment of 
 causality "into a form of the mental law of the Con- 
 ditional. . . . The mind is astricted to think in 
 certain forms. . . . we must think underthe condition 
 of existence — existence relative — and existence re- 
 lative in time. But what does existence relative in time 
 imply .-* It implies that we are unable to realize in 
 thought either an absolute commencement or an ab- 
 solute termination of time. . . . We cannot know or 
 think a thing to exist except as in time; and we can- 
 
 13
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 not know or think a thing to exist in time, and think 
 it absolutely to commence. Now this at once imposes 
 on us the condition of causality."* Sir. W. Hamilton's 
 theory, then, seems to be, that as we cannot conceive 
 any real commencement, while at the same time there 
 is phenomenal commencement, the cause is only the 
 shape in which a thing exists, before its present shape 
 — a rationale of causation which is substantially the 
 same as Mr. Baines's, but which the latter extracts 
 not out of metaphysics, like Sir. W. Hamilton, but 
 from physical science. "A great advance," he says, 
 " in the mode of viewing causation is made by the 
 discovery of the law named conservation of force. 
 The great generalization of recent times, variously 
 designated the conservation, correlation, convertibility, 
 equivalence, indestructibility, of force, is the highest 
 expression of cause and efifect.""f- Dean Mansel, 
 however, does not accept Sir. W. Hamilton's explan- 
 ation of causation. " His statement of the causal judg- 
 ment, as an inability to think that the complement of 
 existence has been either increased or diminished, is 
 open to various objections. In the first place, I am not 
 conscious of any such inability. ... I have no 
 difficulty in conceiving that the amount of existence 
 in the universe may at one time be represented by A, 
 and at another by A and B. . . . In the second 
 place, whether we represent the new appearance as a 
 
 * " Discussions on Philosophy." Appendix I. 
 f " Logic," iii., iv., 8. 
 14
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 change or as a creatmt, we are equally compelled to 
 suppose a cause of its taking place. To say that B 
 previously existed under the form of A, is not to explain 
 the casual judgment ; for we have still to ask why A 
 became B. In the third place, the theory fails to 
 account for the origin of the idea of power, which, 
 whether rightly or wrongly, all men instinctively at- 
 tribute to the supposed cause. To represent it as a 
 delusion is not sufficient ; unless it can be shown 
 how, consistently with the limits of thought, such a 
 delusion could have originated."* 
 
 But while new explanations have recently been given 
 of the causal judgment, or the maxim that every event 
 must have a cause, our older metaphysicians, Locke 
 and Clarke, were satisfied with the evident necessity 
 which upon common principles of reason attached to 
 the truth, and they treated it virtually as an axiom, the 
 contrary of which was a plain absurdity, and involved 
 an absolute contradiction. They regarded the reason- 
 ing that necessarily flowed from this metaphysical 
 axiom as demonstrative reasoning. Nor, indeed, is it 
 easy to see, if we treat this maxim as a necessary one, 
 and consider it possesses self-evident force, how we 
 can avoid the demonstrative nature of the truth. It 
 would be a lame and impotent decision, such as could 
 satisfy no rational person, to say that it was pro- 
 bable that every event had a cause ; but if we say 
 
 * Metaphysics, p. 271. 
 IS
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 this maxim is necessary, then we must admit that it 
 is of the nature of metaphysical mathematics. Not- 
 withstanding, then, the modern ingenious rationales 
 of this maxim which have been offered to us, 
 I must confess myself disposed to fall back upon 
 the judgment of our older metaphysicians upon 
 this point. 
 
 If we apply this maxim then to actions and 
 determinations of the will, all that every event 
 having a cause can mean is that every action has 
 an agent. The agent is the cause of the action 
 in the sense of doing it, and it depends upon our 
 theory of the will whether he is a necessary or a free 
 cause of it. If he is a necessary cause, this is the 
 doctrine of necessity in human actions ; if he is a free 
 cause, this is the doctrine of free-will, or that the will 
 determines its own acts, and is a self-moving substance. 
 But this maxim, as used in the metaphysical argu- 
 ment for the existence of a God, has only an applica- 
 tion to events which happen in the sphere of substance 
 which is not self-moving, but the characteristic of 
 which is that it is moved from without. If we except 
 the invisible wills of moral beings, the whole world we 
 are in belongs to this mechanical nature ; not only 
 tiie whole order of physical nature, but the whole 
 of history and the whole course of human action, so 
 far as it is visible and comes under the cognizance of 
 our senses. War, trade, government and administra- 
 ion, manufacture, art, language or speech, everything 
 
 1 6
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 that we do, so far as it is visible and tangible, consists 
 of a number of material and mechanical movements 
 which are all caused by prior material and mechanical 
 movements, and these again by others as far as we can 
 trace. Spiritually we are conscious of what we call 
 free-will, or of a nature which determines its own acts, 
 i.e., moves itself; but outwardly and visibly all nature 
 is moved from without, and does not move itself. In 
 every action we perform, all that is seen is the motion 
 of matter, the same in speaking, the same in our looks 
 and expressions. Certain muscles are put in motion, 
 which produce certain effects on the body itself, which 
 in some cases stop there, and in other cases go beyond 
 the body, to surrounding objects. Such is all visible 
 nature : either it is what we call the order of nature, 
 or it is action of man : under either head, it consists o. 
 the motions of matter, and of matter alone, which is 
 not self-moving, but is moved from without. 
 
 But with this application it is difficult to say that the 
 maxim that an event must have a cause is not mathe- 
 matical in its nature. We apply it to motions of such 
 things and «uDstances as do not move themselves. 
 But if these motions do not proceed from the sub- 
 stances themselves, whence can they proceed from but 
 fron- without them } But in that case, whatever it is 
 without them which makes them move is the cause of 
 that motion. 
 
 The maxim, then, that every event must have 
 a cause, or that what cannot move itself must be 
 
 17 2
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CA USA TION CONSIDERED 
 
 moved from without, differs from mathematical axioms 
 in this, that whereas mathematical axioms stop with 
 themselves, and we do not apply them to actual 
 things, this maxim we apply to the actual material of 
 this world. Did we apply, e.g., the axiom that things 
 which are equal to the same are equal to one another 
 to actual things, we should first have to ascertain the 
 fact that the two things were exactly equal, which we 
 could not demonstratively do. But we do not give 
 the axiom an application to actual facts, but leave it 
 resting upon an assumption or definition of two things 
 as equal ; which being the case, it continues a pure 
 mathematical truth. In the same way, if we simply 
 said that what could not move itself must be moved 
 from without, or, which would be the same thing, if 
 we made it enter into our definition of matter, that 
 it could not move itself, and upon this definition 
 asserted that matter must be moved from without, 
 this maxim, that every material movement must have 
 a cause, would be a mathematical one. But we do 
 not let this maxim stay in this mathematical stage ; 
 we apply this definition of matter to the whole actual 
 material of this world, and we say that this actual 
 material cannot move itself, but must have been 
 moved from without. Here, then, we no longer rest 
 upon a definition, but we assert a fact; and we cannot 
 prove this fact mathematically, but only take it as a 
 moral certainty, which is evident to common sense. 
 If matter possesses an original power of motion, or 
 
 i8
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 has will, all we can say is that we have made a great 
 mistake ; but appearances are universally against such 
 a supposition. The maxim, then, that every event 
 must have a cause is the axiom of mathematical 
 metaphysics, that what cannot move itself must be 
 moved from without, operating upon a supposition of 
 fact, viz., that all actual matter comes under the head 
 of this category, of what cannot move itself. 
 
 We have now got the idea of cause, with the pre- 
 liminary considerations attaching to it. But now that 
 we have got the idea of cause, or the principle of 
 causation, comes the great distinction in the interpre- 
 tation of the idea, upon which depends the issue 
 whether we can apply it to constituting the proof of a 
 God or not ; whether we can raise a religious conclu- 
 sion upon it or not ; whether we can use it as the 
 foundation upon which an Eternal and Supreme Moral 
 Being can be shown to exist, or whether it is reducible 
 to a barren and fruitless succession which ends in 
 nothing. It is upon this question that the whole of 
 the great metaphysical argument for the existence of 
 a God from causation depends. We assert that the 
 whole of this argument is strictly extracted and evolved 
 from the idea of a cause, as it is naturally conceived 
 and entertained in our minds ; that it is simply the 
 contents of that idea brought out, when by an act of 
 the attention we have entered into the idea, and seen 
 how it is constituted and what there is in it. On the 
 other hand, this constitution of the idea is denied by 
 
 19
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 the Atheist ; and he claims to hold the idea in such 
 a sense as leads to no such conclusion. 
 
 When we speak of a cause then, and of the idea ot 
 a cause which we have in our minds, the question to 
 be decided is, does this idea demand finality, or is it 
 satisfied by an infinite chain and series of causes ? 
 We assert, then, that this idea demands finality ; and 
 adopting the maxim, " Causa causes, causa causati," we 
 say that if a cause goes back to a further cause, then 
 the first of these two causes is not a true and real 
 cause, and does not satisfy the idea of a cause in our 
 minds ; and so on through ever so long a chain, until 
 we come to a cause which has no further cause to which 
 it goes back. That is our interpretation of the idea 
 of cause, and we say that any other interpretation of 
 the idea is a false one, and sets up a counterfeit cause 
 instead of a real and true one. Let us examine what 
 we do in our minds, in conceiving the idea of cause. 
 First we go back for a cause ; the natural want and 
 opei'5 is a retrogressive motion of the mind. But just 
 as the first part of the idea of cause is motion, so 
 the last is a rest ; and both of these are equally neces- 
 sary to the idea of cause. And unless both of these 
 are fulfilled in the ultimate position of our minds, we 
 have not the proper idea of causation represented in 
 our minds ; but a law of thought is violated, that law 
 which we obey in submitting to the relation of cause 
 at all. In other words, a cause, exactly by the same 
 
 necessity of thought by which on the one side it causes, 
 
 20
 
 AV OPPOSniON TO A TIIEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 on the other side must be uncaused ; as it is the cause 
 of its own effect, so it must itself be the effect of 
 nothing. That is what I call the rest, which the idea 
 of a cause demands. There is an end implied in the 
 idea : as things move up to a cause, so at the cause 
 there is an absolute stop ; and itself does not move 
 back at all. It is not a whit more necessary to a real 
 cause that it should be the cause of something else, 
 than that it should be uncaused itself : and without 
 both of these elements alike represented in our idea 
 we have not the true idea of a cause in our minds. 
 And the alternative is either to decide upon rejecting 
 the idea o{ cause, and ridding metaphysical nature and 
 the world of mind altogether of it, or taking this idea 
 of cause. 
 
 But thus understood, the idea of cause has only to 
 , be applied to this universe, and it becomes the proof 
 ' immediately of the existence of an Eternal Original 
 Self-existent Being. P'or what are we to call that 
 Cause of the universe, beyond which there is no 
 further cause — the uncaused cause of the world — but 
 this 1 The attributes of this First Cause of the 
 universe, indeed, must depend upon what the universe 
 is ; the Cause must take its character and rank from 
 what it causes. But that there must be an Eternal 
 Self-existent Unchangeable Being is certain. 
 
 But while this is the necessary result of the idea of 
 cause understood as we have understood it, let us take 
 ♦■he idea of cause as fulfilled and satisfied by another
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CA USA TION CONSIDERED 
 
 interpretation ; and no such conclusion as this will fol- 
 low. There is such a thing as a proximate or secon- 
 dary cause, which goes back for its own causal 
 efficiency to a prior cause ; and we may make the 
 supposition of this dependence of one cause upon 
 another going on indefinitely. We are familiar indeed 
 with this notion, and we speak of a chain of causes, a 
 series, a succession of causes. But it must be remem- 
 bered that when we apply the term cause to a chain 
 or succession, i.e., to causes which are caused, we 
 apply the term in a secondary sense, and a sense 
 which does not correspond to the true idea of a cause, 
 as our minds possess that idea. The Atheist then 
 falls back upon this notion of a cause : he hangs the 
 world up upon an infinite chain and succession of 
 causes ; and thus he satisfies himself upon the subject 
 of causation, and at the same time avoids the admis- 
 sion of an Eternal Supreme Being. But the answer 
 to such an arrangement is, that it docs not satisfy the 
 idea of cause which we have in our minds. Causa 
 causa;, causa cav.sati : if from one cause we have to go 
 back to another, that which we go back from is not 
 the cause, but that which we go back to is. The very 
 idea of cause, as I have said, implies a stop ; and 
 wherever we stop is the cause. If we stop provision- 
 ally at any stage of this backward journey, we have a 
 cause provisionally : but as soon as we go on to another 
 the provisional cause vanishes and surrenders its cha- 
 racter as a true cause. And so on until we come to 
 
 22
 
 AV OPPOSFTTOy TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 an Universal Cause, i.e., a First Cause. A true cause 
 is a First Cause. When, then, the Atheist throws the 
 universe back upon an infinite series of mechanical 
 causes he must be told that an infinite chain does not 
 represent the idea of cause ; that it is a false concep- 
 tion, and a departure from the genuine principle of 
 reason. An end is included in the very idea — ^^a final 
 rest and repose beyond which there is no advance ; 
 an appetency for a cause precedes in the idea, but 
 rest in a cause concludes it. 
 
 Wollaston's illustration, with which we are so familiar, 
 of the chain with an infinite number of links, suspended 
 from the sky, of which he asks the question, what holds 
 it up ? one link holds up the one below it, but what 
 holds up the whole i* — this metaphor of a suspended 
 chain simply illustrates, by a contrast, the actual idea 
 of causation as we have it in our minds. It illus- 
 trates the requirements of the rational mind which 
 that idea creates, and its corresponding dissatisfac- 
 tion and sense of void when those wants are not 
 satisfied. It is in form an argument with steps in 
 it, but at the bottom it only states what the idea 
 of causation in man's mind is. The Atheist says, 
 *' I hold to causation, I believe in cause, but why am 
 I obliged to believe in a First Cause .■* What greater 
 difficulties are there in an infinite succession of causes 
 than in an original and self-existent one .'' I cannot 
 in the least comprehend an infinite chain of causes ; 
 but neither can I comprehend an original unchange- 
 
 ^3
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CA USA TION CONSIDERED 
 
 VdIc being, which goes back to all eternity. Both are 
 'ibsolutely beyond my conception, and both raise dirii- 
 2ulties which I cannot solve, both issue in dilemmas 
 out of which I cannot find my way. But if both are 
 incomprehensible, why should I be compelled to choose 
 one of them, and adopt the hypothesis of a First 
 Cause instead of an infinite series ? " The answer is — 
 because an infinite series of causes does not make a 
 cause, and your reason demands a cause. It is a false 
 criterion of truth and falsehood, to judge simply by 
 difficulties in the way of conception; there are unde- 
 niable difficulties, and insuperable ones, which result 
 from truths which are certain, such as Infinity and 
 Eternity; but we hold those truths because they are 
 ideas which are part of our reason, and which we 
 cannot throw off. And so with respect to causation. 
 The question is, what is the idea of a cause that you 
 have in your rational mind .'' And to that the answer 
 is, that it is the idea which has been stated : viz., a 
 cause which stops. But this idea of cause is not ful- 
 filled in an infinite series. There is by the supposi- 
 tion no finality here ; but a final standing-ground is 
 demanded by the very idea, as my reason presents it 
 to me. An infinite succession of causes rests by the 
 very hypothesis upon no cause ; each particular one 
 rests upon the one which follows it, but the whole rests 
 upon nothing. 
 
 The Atheistic idea thus does not correspond to the 
 idea of reason. The Atheist appears to acknowledge 
 
 24
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO ATHEIS'lIC THEORIES. 
 
 the necessity of a cause, and appears to provide for 
 it; but when we come to his scheme it fails exactly in 
 that part of the idea which clenches it, and which is 
 essential to its integrity ; it fails in providing a step. 
 His scheme represents solely the appetency for a 
 cause, but not the rest in one ; it represents only half 
 of reason ; it breaks down midway. One might say 
 to him. Why do you give yourself the trouble to 
 supply causation at all ? You do it because you con- 
 sider yourself obliged in reason to do it ; but if you 
 supply causation at all, why not furnish such a cause 
 as reason has impressed upon you, and which is in- 
 herent in your mind — a cause which stands still, an 
 ojiginal cause ? If you never intended to supply this 
 it must have been because you thought a real cause 
 was not wanted ; but if you thought a cause not 
 v/anted, why not have said from the first that causes 
 were not wanted, and said from the first that events 
 could take place without causes ? 
 
 It is this in substance which Clarke docs in his 
 celebrated work, " The Demonstration of the Being of 
 a God." He brings out simply at bottom the mean- 
 ing and signification of an idea in the human mind ; 
 that there is implied in the very idea itself of a 
 cause, firstly, that it causes something else ; and 
 secondly, that it is uncaused itself. He thus extri- 
 cates the true and genuine cause from all confusion 
 and mixture with secondary causes ; and he brings 
 che Atheistic infinite chain to the test of simple 
 
 25
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CA USA TION CONSIDERED 
 
 juxtaposition, putting it side by side with the 
 true idea. Ke virtually says to the Atheist, this is 
 the true idea, yours is a false one ; and the false 
 one is detected by being put by the sid«. of the 
 true ; human reason recognises its own idea. The 
 fault of Clarke is that he clogs his argument with 
 jiuperfluous positions, which he puts forward as dif- 
 ferent arguments, while they only are one and the 
 same argument differently stated. But it would be 
 the greatest mistake to say, as some do, that Clarke's 
 argument is a mere train of technical subtleties and 
 dry abstractions. This is what those say who acknow- 
 ledge no reality in metaphysical ideas ; all reasonings 
 in this sphere are to them jejune and arid inanities, 
 because the sphere itself is a vacuum to them. How 
 can the evidence of the existence of God, they say, be 
 contained in such hard abstruse forms of abstract logic 
 as these, which it is difficult to endow with any life 
 or force whatever appealing to our nature t But 
 Clarke's chain of reasoning, when we examine it, is 
 the bringing out of a fact of our nature, for an idea of 
 our nature is a fact of our nature ; it is tlic bringing 
 out of the idea of Cause. Is there no reality, nothing 
 vital, nothing solid in that which belongs to our nature, 
 which is part of us, which influences our whole view of 
 things .'' These ideas of our minds are as much facts as 
 history is, and as our emotions, affections, and feelings 
 are. These dry sticks of formula?, which they are set 
 down as being, ha\'e sap in th^m, sap which is derived 
 
 26
 
 LV OPPOSITION TO ATIIlZrSTIC THEORIES. 
 
 from the trunk of nature. There is a kind of injustice 
 done to arguments of this class, although the term is 
 proper as distinguishing a class, by calling them ante- 
 cedent arguments ; an injustice in a popular aspect ; 
 for it gives an impression as if they Avere prior to any- 
 thing actual, belonging to a region of emptiness before 
 fact existed. Whereas this particular argument for a 
 First Cause is as much founded on a fact as any other 
 argument can be ; it is founded on a fact of our 
 nature, the sense of and appetency for a cause of 
 things. 
 
 The use of such arguments as Clarke's is not, how- 
 ever, all shown by the mere logical aspect of the case. 
 We have, as I have been saying all along, the sense of 
 causation, the want of a cause in our nature ; but it 
 is astonishing how idle, how sleepy, how stagnant, and 
 how comparatively dormant this lies in us, until some 
 great appeal is made to it, or until some great argu- 
 ment awakens it. It is astonishing what an indisposi- 
 tion the mind has for thinking of a cause and realizing 
 a cause, even when we know perfectly that there 
 must be a cause. With what effort do we pursue any- 
 thing that we have, any work of construction — the 
 watch in our pocket, our clothes, our furniture, our 
 books — to their causes. We know, of course, they all 
 go back to their rudimental state and birth, and that 
 they have all very definite retrospects, which end in 
 special arts of workmanship. But it is a decided 
 effort of imagination to us. So it is to go back with any 
 
 2)
 
 HIE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 reality to early ages, to remote conditions of the world, 
 to say to ourselves this really took place at such a 
 time — the earth was once in such a geological stage — 
 all this once happened — it only requires a miracle of 
 anachronism and I should have seen it; — all retrospects 
 to be real require imagination. I have been struck often 
 with the thought in Wordsworth's celebrated sonnet, 
 one of those on the River Duddon : — 
 
 " What aspect bore the Man who roved or fled, 
 First of his tribe, to this dark dell — who first 
 In this pellucid current slaked his thirst ? 
 What hopes came with him ? What designs were spread 
 Along his path ? His unprotected bed 
 What dreams encompassed ? Was the intruder nursed 
 In hideous usages and rites accursed, 
 That thinned the living, and disturbed the dead ? 
 No voice replies ;■ — both earth and air are mute ; 
 And thou, blue streamlet, murmuring, yield'st no more 
 Than a soft record, that whatever fruit 
 Of Ignorance thou mightest witness heretofore, 
 Thy function was to heal and to restore, 
 To soothe and cleanse, not madden or pollute." 
 
 Here is a call to a remote past. There must have 
 been some man who saw the River Duddon first — be- 
 fore any other human eye rested on it. What kind of 
 a man was he .'' What was he thinking of at the time.'' 
 What was he hoping for .'' Of what nature was his 
 faith } The first seer of the River Duddon had all 
 this attaching to him — he was a real man, with his 
 own past and future, thoughts and hopes. But to go 
 
 23
 
 LV OPrOSITIUN TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 back in this way is an exercise of the imagination. 
 And so even in the logical process of going back to a 
 cause — reasoning here cannot do much without some 
 imagination ; it must be stirred and enlivened by it_ 
 Metaphysics and other sciences as well summon one 
 to entertain vast periods, remote regions, immeasurable 
 vistas, and the dim contents of time's infancy, before 
 it can be thought of almost as being time at all. Here 
 is the region of cause. Can we enter into it, or is it 
 all delusion to us } The average human mind tends 
 to a deep torpid stagnation in present fact, not wanting 
 more ; remoteness is inanity to it ; origin or cause fic- 
 tion ; the lethargy of the hour hides distance from it, 
 and the distant realm of reason among the rest. It is 
 all unreal, all false to it. Now, here such a book as 
 Clarke's comes in as a person determined to wake a 
 man out of sleep ; it forces him to reason, it says to 
 him — You must, you shall believe that something 
 existed before you ; that there were causes of what is 
 now present fact ; that these stretch into eternity, and 
 that there was being in that eternity. The hard for- 
 mulae are vices into which the torpid reason of man is 
 put till it is constrained to exert itself; the logical 
 apparatus acts really as a stimulus to the imagination, 
 forcing the mind to acts of conception. 
 
 The idea of causation applied to this Universe, then, 
 as has been said, takes us up to an Eternal, Original, 
 Self-existing Being. For " how much thought soever," 
 
 says Clarke, "it may require to demonstrate the 
 
 29
 
 T^IIE PRIXCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 other attributes of such a Being, .... yet as to its 
 existence, that there is somewhat eternal, infinite, and 
 self-existing, which must be the cause and original of 
 all other things; this is one of the first and most natural 
 conclusions that any man who thinks at all can form in 
 
 his mind All things cannot possibly have 
 
 arisen out of nothing, nor can they have depended on 
 
 one another in an endless succession We 
 
 are certain, therefore, of the being of a Supreme In- 
 dependent Cause ; . . . . that there is something 
 in the Universe, actually existing without, the sup- 
 position of whose not-existing plainly implies a con- 
 tradiction." 
 
 Kant agrees with Clarke up to this point in the 
 argument. He coincides with him in the necessity of 
 an ultimate or a First Cause, as distinguished from an 
 infinite chain of causes. " The reason," he says, " is 
 forced to seek somewhere its resting point in the 
 
 regressns of the conditional If something, 
 
 whatever it may be, exists, it must then be admitted 
 that something exists necessarily. For the contingent 
 exists only under the condition of another thing, as 
 its cause, up to a cause which exists not contingently, 
 and, precisely on this account, without condition, 
 necessarily. This is the argument whereon reason 
 
 founds its progression to the original Being 
 
 I can never complete the regression to the conditions 
 of the existing, without admitting a necessary being. 
 . . . . This argument, though certainly it is trans- 
 
 30
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO A TIIEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 cendental, since it rests upon the internal insufficiency 
 of the contingent, is still so simple and natural, that 
 it is adapted to the commonest intelligence."* Kant 
 differs from Clarke, indeed, in a point which concerns 
 rather the abstract subtlety of metaphysics than the 
 actual strength of the conviction which the reason 
 ing produces ; he does not allow absolutely the 
 necessity of a being as an " objective reality," from 
 afiy train of reasoning, except that which is founded 
 upon the very coneeption of the being itself In this 
 case " the non-being of a thing is absolutely incon- 
 ceivable ;" but if the existence of a being is founded 
 upon reasoning from a mere fact, then, however 
 necessary the existence of the being would be if the 
 fact from which we argued was necessary, if this foun- 
 dation fact is not necessary, the being — which is the 
 conclusion from the reasoning from it — is not absolutely 
 necessary either. But in the present case, as he ob- 
 serves, " the proof begins properly from experience ;" 
 it begins from the fact of this world, and thence by 
 causes it ascends to a necessary being ; but this world, 
 as an object of sensible experience, is not a neces- 
 sarily existing thing. "The proof a contingentia 
 mundi, the proof of a necessary being which begins 
 from experience, and is not deduced wholly h, priori 
 or ontologically," is therefore not with him a demon- 
 strative proof of a necessarily existing being. But 
 with this distinction Kant and Clarke agree in the 
 
 * Kant, Critick of Pure Reason, pp. 406, 407, 42S. 
 31
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CA USA TION CONSIDERED 
 
 proof from causation of an original and self-existing 
 being. The English school of metaphysics was satisfied 
 with the certainty of the existence of this visible 
 world as a ground of reasoning ; and when a train of 
 reasoning was conducted with rigid accuracy from this 
 starting point, it wa sregarded as necessary reasoning. 
 
 This is the first stage of the argument for the 
 existence of a God derived from causation. But 
 now we come to the main part of the argument, 
 that, viz., which decides the attributes of this Self- 
 existent Being. " This is the question," says Clarke, 
 " between us and the Atheists. For that something 
 must be self-existent, and the original cause of all 
 things, will not bear much dispute." But can this 
 self-existent being be called God .? That must depend 
 upon His characteristics and qualities ; and the 
 characteristics and qualities of the First Cause can 
 only be gathered from the character of that universe 
 which He has caused — its arrangement and disposi- 
 tion, and the order and rank of the existence which 
 has been produced in it. Here then we take leave 
 of demonstrative argument, and we depend on the 
 evidence of fact, and upon the natural conclusion 
 which is to be formed from it. 
 
 We sec, then, that what has ultimately come from 
 the First Cause and Original Being is not only a 
 material and corporeal world, but that world as con- 
 nected with moral and spiritual being. Whatever 
 criticism the ordinary and popular distinction between 
 
 32
 
 IX OPPOSITION TO A THEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 matter and spirit may be subjected to — that there is 
 something which we call spirit, which is different from 
 something that we call matter, is a simple fact of our 
 consciousness, which can no more be got rid of than 
 our very selves can — we are conscious that we are 
 intelligent, moral beings. But if this is the case, this 
 intelligent and moral existence must, like all other 
 existences, be traced back to the original Self-existent 
 Being ; and if it is traced back to that Being, how can 
 it possibly not affect the character and nature of that 
 Being ? The argument of Clarke, Cudworth, and all 
 our religious metaphysicians was the argument of an 
 adequate cause — that there must be a proportion be- 
 tween the Cause and the Effect ; and this is no more 
 than a necessary and consistent carrying out of the 
 principle of a cause. For what can be the meaning 
 of acknowledging a cause at all, if anything is able to 
 cause anything — the meanest material existence 
 the highest moral existence } It is evident that we 
 must combine adequacy and sufficiency with our idea 
 of causes, or that the whole doctrine of causation will 
 go to the winds. Can the motion of a stone cause a 
 man, or friction produce mind, or the nebular 
 theory account for the moral sense } There must 
 then be a natural relation between the cause and the 
 effect, and if causation is true at all it must be propor- 
 tionate. It may be said, how are we judges of pro- 
 portion and sufficiency in causes ? but reason does not 
 allow its voice to be stifled by mere difficulties which 
 
 Zl 3
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CA USA TION CONSIDERED 
 
 perplex us, but which do not prevent us from seeing 
 the plain and downright wants of reason. If there is 
 such a thing as mind, will, personality, which has had 
 a beginning and' come into existence in the world; 
 and if these are thrown back, through secondary and 
 vanishing being upon the original Eternal Being, 
 that Being cannot be matter. What we call matter 
 is obviously insufficient to cause mind. Human per- 
 sonality cannot be accounted for by mechanical causes. 
 The cause of intelligence must be intelligent. 
 
 The materialists of the last century then denied the 
 position that the cause of intelligence must be intelli- 
 gent upon the general ground, which they asserted to 
 be true in physics, that a cause need not be like its 
 effect. And it need not be said that the materialists of 
 this century have wielded the same arguments, with 
 all the advantage of that growth of physical knowledge 
 which has been the special boast of this age. They 
 have multiplied physical rationales of mind, and they 
 have diversified this species of reasoning with the 
 utmost ingenuity and power, and carried it into all 
 those subtler and finer forms, which a profounder ac- 
 quaintance with material causes has enabled them to 
 dii,x;over. Thus it has been announced by a scientific 
 man of this day, that thought is a secretion of the brain. 
 And we have been told that, "Many who hold the evo- 
 lution hypothesis would probably assent to the position 
 that at the present moment all our philosophy, all our 
 poetry, all our science, ail our art — Plato, Shakespeare 
 
 34
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 Newton, and Raphael — are potential in the fires of the 
 sun."* Undoubtedly" then we see as a matter of obser • 
 vation physical causes wholly changing phenomenally 
 in the effect, and the composition and combination of 
 particles producing a totally different substance to the 
 eye, taste, and touch from any or all of the ingredients 
 separately ; nor only do we see the greatest and most 
 entire metamorphoses in chemistry; but even the very 
 doctrine of causation itself requires a difference between 
 causes and effects. Causes do not produce causes — 
 they do not simply repeat themselves ; they produce 
 effects, which effects are different from what produced 
 them. But though a cause need not be similar to its 
 effect, it must be sufficient for its effect. A sufficient 
 cause, as has been said, must be combined with cause; 
 otherwise if anything can produce anything, the whole 
 doctrine of causation goes to pieces. It is the only 
 mode of carrying out the doctrine. What difference is 
 there in saying that there is no cause of a thing, and 
 that it need not have any ; and giving an insufficient 
 cause.'' If you say human intelligence need have no 
 cause at all — it came into existence of itself: that is, 
 according to the doctrine of causation, absurd and ridic- 
 ulous ; but if you say it came out of a metal, it issued 
 out of volcanic smoke, it flashed out of an Aurora 
 Borealis — that is just rt:i" absurd. Our reason does not 
 see the slightest distinction between saying that intel- 
 ligence has no cause, and giving it an inadequate one. 
 
 •Tyndall's Discourse on the Scientific Use of the Imagination. 
 
 35
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 One is just as much no cause at all as the other. A 
 sufficient cause, then, is only the consistent carrying 
 out of cause ; and if you admit the principle of cause 
 at all, you cannot say that matter was the cause of 
 intellect ; or, therefore, that the Original Self-existent 
 Being need not be intelligent. 
 
 It is true that matter has lately been set before us 
 as claiming more vicinity to mind than it has been 
 usual to assign it ; and a scientific man^ of the highest 
 genius, has regretted that "mind and matter have ever 
 been presented to us in the rudest contrast — the one as 
 all noble, the other as all vile." I am not aware that 
 people now, or for many centuries, whatever the Gnos- 
 tics and Manicheeans may have done, have spoken 
 more slightingly and depreciatingly of matter, than to 
 say that matter cannot move itself That is all. It is 
 charged with inertia. Therefore, if Professor Tyndall 
 wants an alteration in the ordinary language of man- 
 kind respecting matter, I know of no other alteration 
 that can be made in it, except that matter can move 
 itself. This is the only new rationale which is open, 
 because the contrary of this is all that has been said. 
 Hobbes, in the 17th century, anticipated this claim, 
 and laid down " that all matter as matter is endued not 
 only with figure and a capacity of motion, but also 
 with an actual sense and perception, and wants only 
 the organs and memory of animals to express its 
 sensations."* 
 
 * Quoted in Clarke's Demonstration. 
 36
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO A TIIEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 But were such a theory of matter revived, and re- 
 vived with new gifts and attributes with which to 
 awaken the inert substance, I know not what the 
 whole metamorphose would have to do with the posi- 
 tion that matter cannot be the cause of mind. You 
 elevate matter into a higher rank, and you raise its 
 pretensions to be the cause of mind. But then, 
 in proportion as you have done this, matter has 
 ceased to be matter, and become mind. The chasm 
 then is as wide as ever between mind and matter in 
 the ordinary sense ; and the obstruction as strong as 
 ever to matter in the ordinary sense producing mind. 
 What ordinary people mean by matter is substance 
 which is without mind, or any element of it. I assume 
 this description of it, this is my definition of it, when 
 I argue about matter ; if the definition is wrong, the 
 argument as such is not affected ; for the argument 
 assumes the definition, and is right upon that 
 assumption. 
 
 What such a view amounts to is that intelligence in 
 the world is a growth ; and that it began in a very 
 small way as a blind unconscious action of matter, 
 from which it gradually ascended to its present height 
 and greatness. And taking this as the position as- 
 serted, we may drop the term matter, which is wholly 
 irrelevant to it, and represent it as being the assertion 
 that the highest intelligent existence may have been 
 caused by the lowest intelligent existence (if we may 
 call blind instinct such) through the medium of a siic- 
 
 37
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 cession of steps. But the lowest intelligence could not 
 cause the highest ; it is as obviously insufficient a cause 
 as brute matter. If we suppose an original plan, upon 
 which mind ascends from that of an oyster to that of 
 Plato, there is no intrinsic objection to such a suppo- 
 sition : but in that case it is not the oyster which 
 causes Plato, but the Intelligence to whom the plan 
 is due, upon which the ascent from the oyster to 
 Plato is made. 
 
 The attribute of intelligence, then, and the moral 
 nature of the Self-existing Being, are shown by the 
 beings whom He has caused, possessing those qualities. 
 Another great evidence of the intelligence of the Self- 
 existing Being lies in the works of nature ; and at 
 this point the argument of causation for the existence 
 of a God joins on to the argument of design ; and 
 one argument cannot be separated from the other. 
 The contrivances of nature require a cause, and a 
 sufficient cause ; the properties of matter are not a 
 sufficient cause. Another lecturer, however, has 
 handled this subject, and done it with great ability, 
 and I will only make one or two observations in 
 connexion with it. 
 
 We have a right, I think, to complain of the atti- 
 tude of scientific men — a considerable section of them 
 — in one respect ; and that is, that they will 
 neither say that the world was formed by chance, 
 nor that it was formed by design ; and yet one or the 
 other it must be. What they say is, that it was formed 
 
 38
 
 7A OPPOSITION TO A THEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 by Law : but this is saying nothing ; Law is quite 
 consistent with either of these, either with chance or 
 design. Laws are simply uniformly recurrent facts ; 
 if then these lines of facts are in disorder and con- 
 fusion ; if they are unmeaning, if they conspire toward 
 no end, and make up no structure, then these laws 
 are by chance. If they make up, on the other hand, 
 an elaborate and useful apparatus ; then, we say, they 
 are by design. But the scientific men I refer to will 
 say neither the one nor other ; they stay at law, 
 and rest in law as an intermediate verdict between 
 chance and design, which saves them the absurdity of 
 chance, and the mystery of design. This is not a con- 
 sistent position. Laws must be just as much either 
 by chance or design, as facts must be ; and it is just 
 as untenable that men should stop at laws as an 
 ultimate rationale of the world, as that they should 
 stop at facts. 
 
 And yet there is a great deal said now about Mind in 
 Nature, and scientific men talk enthusiastically about 
 Mind; the old notion of chance is obsolete, and in spite of 
 the strength of a materialist school, there is a tendency 
 to a consensus of scientific men that there is Mind 
 in the universe. Would any one in any public meet- 
 ing of scientific men dare to stand up and deny that 
 there was Mind in Nature .-' It would be thought 
 monstrous. It would be set down as the revival of 
 an old stupidity. It is the only form in which they 
 find they can speak of nature which at all ennobles it 
 
 39
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 or which satisfies their own idea of the sublimity of 
 nature. 
 
 But if a Mind is admitted in nature, how can that 
 Mind be exckided from design in nature ? The 
 state of the case is this : Nature has all the look 
 of design, and is full of contrivance and con- 
 struction, which force the idea of an intention upon 
 us ; and with this aspect of nature, we also, and at 
 the same time, say there is Mind in nature. Why 
 then should not that Mind have something to do with 
 that look of design .-^ If both exist, to make one have 
 nothing to do with the other is indeed an extraor- 
 dinary arrangement. If there is Mind, why should 
 the construction of the world be singled out as the 
 special subject of prohibition to it, from which its ex- 
 clusion is necessary, and with which no interference 
 on its part can possibly be allowed ? There is at 
 first sight a singular appearance of adaptation in 
 the power to the work ; if such care is to be taken to 
 shut it out, and resist its intrusion, the reason must be 
 an unusually recondite one. But this is the course 
 taken by the scrupulous physical philosopher. He 
 seems to have a conscience upon the subject. This 
 Mind in nature must do anything but design. You 
 are permitted to contemplate its majesty ; but if you 
 hint about intention on its part, it is quite out of 
 order. If you whisper about construction belonging 
 at all to it, — it is, hush ! speak reverently about the 
 Universal Mind. 
 
 40
 
 AV OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 Again, if there is a Mind in nature, and that Mind 
 has anything to do with nature, that Mind must be in 
 harmony with our own personal mind. It provides a 
 frame for it. What is that but a connexion with it, as 
 a scope and object ? And it must be a Personal 
 Being, who thus provides for and understands a per- 
 sonal being. Creation has evidently man in its view ; 
 it shows its comprehension of, its insight into, what 
 man is. That insight must belong to a Personal Mind 
 in nature. The intelligence which is at the bottom of 
 an elaborate contrivance yi?^ a person declares in that 
 very act something respecting itself, and discloses a 
 secret affecting its own nature. Whether the apparatus 
 might of itself reveal the truth or not, its application 
 does; the application of it to the support of a personal 
 being, discloses a recognition and cognizance of — if 
 we may say so — a sympathy with, a consultation for 
 personal existence, which is inexplicable, unless there 
 is something in that Mind which, for lack of adequate 
 language, we must call Personality ; unless the mystery 
 of that individuality which x"-, provided for, resides also, 
 in some sense, in the Universal Mind which provides 
 for it. The personality which is at one end is reflected 
 upon the other. The Divine nature is not all cloud, 
 with no light breaking through. Here is a gleam of 
 light. The contrivance in behalf of, with a view to, 
 the life of a personal being, involves in the very act an 
 idea of that personal mode of existing, a knowledge of 
 it, and entering into it. And what mind could enter into 
 
 41
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 personal existence, but one which had in some sense 
 personal existence itself? "* 
 
 Professor Tyndall's conclusion then may well be 
 embraced for our own: — "Be careful that your 
 conception of the Builder of the Universe is not 
 an unworthy conception. Invest that conception 
 with your grandest and highest and holiest thoughts ; 
 but be careful of pretending to know more than 
 is given you to know." We arc careful for our con- 
 ception of the Builder of the Universe, and for that 
 reason we attribute to Him design and personality. 
 In what possible way can we human beings, think 
 of the Builder of the Universe really as such, 
 except in this way } Of course we do not know 
 what design in the Deity is ; we do not know 
 what personality in the Deity is — not, i.e., as they 
 
 * " The Cosmos without us displays an intelligence far reaching as 
 the farthest fixed star, but this infinite power the physicist hesitates to 
 pronounce a personality. That microcosmos, our moral nature, dis- 
 plays undoubted personality : and unless the intelligence which forms 
 and transforms the whole universe is somewhat infinitely less than man, 
 
 we have found the true God Why unsatisfied by long chains 
 
 of sequency, by a world pendant upon nothing, moving no-whence, 
 no-whither, and for no reason, do we, incredulous as to these airy 
 nothings, seek after a First Cause, an Author, a Creator, and refuse to 
 relinquish our quest? It is because we find the facts of Causation 
 within our minds. Will is the cause, and we are directly conscious of 
 our own will. . . . Thus where the physicist hesitates the psychol- 
 ogist steps in. Our moral nature utters what is voiceless in irrational 
 nature, and pronounces that will sovereign over all it creates is the one 
 kno^vn, the only conceivable First ground." — " Eight atid Wrong,'^ a 
 Sermon by the Rev. William Jackson. 
 
 42
 
 LV OPPOSITION TO A THEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 are in themselves; but that is granted and allowed for 
 in all our thoughts and reflections and considerations 
 as to the Deity. This ignorance has its own effect 
 proper to it ; but this effect cannot be to prevent us 
 from representing the Deity with practical truth 
 relatively to ourselves : this practical truth then 
 must not be undone by harking back again to our 
 ignorance. This has already been taken into the 
 calculation ; it must not be taken in again and afresh, 
 after all the proper reduction has once been allowed 
 for it. Therefore His personality stands, His design 
 stands, because this is the only way in which we can 
 conceive a Deity being or causing. 
 
 It is untenable, indeed, to tie us up completely with 
 ignorance, when you give something to do which wants 
 knowledge. Whatever be the speculative defence of 
 this method, it is practically untrue, because it is unfair 
 — first, to make our ignorance an insuperable impedi- 
 ment to conception, and then tell us to conceive. Do not 
 impose this on us, and ignorance is fair ; but if it is 
 assumed that we must think, conceive something about 
 God — " if we are to take care that our conception of 
 Him must not be an unv/orthy one ;" then, however we 
 may keep the fact of our ignorance as a truth in the 
 background, we must practically assume some know- 
 ledge. God must be to us as God. How can He be 
 without personality and intelligence .-* 
 
 But in the argument from causation for the existence 
 of a God, there is yet a gap, which must be bridged 
 
 43
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 over, before we can arrive at the religious conclusion, 
 viz., the interval between even a moral and intelligent 
 Self-existent Being, and a God. The argument from 
 causation is essentially an argument from fact; we begin 
 from the fact that we exist, and that runs up through 
 causes to a Self-existent Being : we see the fact of a 
 moral as well as a material world, and that runs up to a 
 moral Self-existent Being. But God is an Ideal, an 
 Infinitely Perfect Being, and how do we get an ideal out 
 of facts .'* We have only in the world a sphere of actual 
 feet ; in mind, in will, in character, all ie limitation ; and 
 we see no perfection. If the attributes of the First Cause 
 then are to be gathered from the qualities of creation, 
 how can we upon simple experience erect the exist- 
 ence of a moral Ideal, an Infinitely Perfect Being, of 
 boundless intelligence and goodness .-' And yet unless 
 we have argumentatively reached this Ideal, we have 
 not reached the truth of the existence of a God, for 
 God essentially means all this. 
 
 The older metaphysicians then made this gap in 
 the argument less of a difficulty than the later school. 
 Clarke extracts the ideal character of the Self-existent 
 Original Being out of the simple pre-eminence and 
 excellence of a cause as compared with an effect. 
 " Since in general," he says, " there are manifestly in 
 things various kinds of powers, and very different 
 excellencies and degrees of perfection, it must needs 
 be that in the order of causes and effects, the cause 
 must always be more excellent than the effect ; and 
 
 44
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO A THEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 the Self-existent Being, whatever that be supposed to 
 be, must of necessity, being the original of all things, 
 contain in itself the sum and highest degree of all the 
 perfections of all things." With the older metaphy- 
 sicians the effort of the argument lay in the proof of a 
 Moral Self-existent Being ; and that gained, they con- 
 sidered the infinity and perfection to follow as a matter 
 of course ; and certainly if one thinks of the mysterious 
 nature of a cause, it leads us unavoidably to such a 
 transcendental estimate of the First Cause of all 
 things, as cannot naturally stop short of an Ideal. 
 But Kant, on the other hand, fixes the great difficulty 
 of the argument after a Moral Self-existent Being 
 has been proved, viz., between a Moral Self-existent 
 Being, and a God : he announces his utter perplexity 
 how upon a simple ground of experience or the basis 
 of causation — he is to erect a proof of the ideal. " For 
 can ever experience be given," he says, " which should 
 be conformable to an idea ? That which is peculiar to 
 this last consists precisely in this, that an experience 
 can never be congruous to it. The transcendental 
 idea of a necessary, all-sufficient, original Being is so 
 immensely great, so raised above all that is empirical, 
 which is always conditional, that we can never collect 
 matter enough or experience in order to fill such a con- 
 ception." But when we examine Kant's attitude as a 
 reasoner to the ideal, it does not substantially differ 
 from Clarke's ; Clarke gives up " demonstration strictly 
 and properly;" and Kant allows a natural strong 
 
 45
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATION CONSIDERED 
 
 ground of conviction. He considers that the chasm 
 which presents itself to the passive and composed 
 intellect between the actual and the ideal is arched 
 over by an intuitive impulse, which springs from the 
 whole view of the Creation, and carries the mind by a 
 quick movement of thought, which it cannot resist, 
 to the transcendental conclusion of an Infinite, Perfect 
 Being. " The present world," he says, " opens to us 
 so immense a theatre of diversity, order, fitness, and 
 beauty, whether we seek after these in the infinity 
 of space, or in its unbounded division ; that even 
 according to the knowledge which our weak reason 
 has been enabled to acquire of the same, all language 
 lacks its expression as to so many and undiscernibly 
 great wonders — so that our judgment of the whole 
 must terminate in a speechless, but so much the more 
 eloquent, astonishment. Everywhere we see a chain 
 of effects and causes, of ends and means, regularity in 
 beginning and ending : and since nothing has come of 
 itself into the state in which it is, it always thus indi- 
 cates further back another thing, as its cause, which 
 renders exactly the same further inquiry necessary ; 
 so that the great Whole must sink into the 
 abyss of nothing, if we did not admit something ex- 
 isting of itself originally and independently, external 
 to this Infinite Contingent, and as the cause of its 
 origin. This highest cause, in respect of all things in 
 the world, how great are we to think it ? The world 
 we are not acquainted with ii<^cording to its whole 
 
 46
 
 IN OPPOSITION TO ATHEISTIC THEORIES. 
 
 extent : still less do we know how to appreciate its 
 magnitude by comparison with all that is possible. 
 But what prevents us, that, since we require in respect 
 of causality an external and supreme Being, we should 
 not at the same time, in respect of the degree of perfec- 
 tion, place it rt(5't^t'^ ^■<yt7j/'/^///^^ ^'/^^ /ijj'J'zW^ f ... It 
 would consequently not only be comfortless, but also 
 quite vain, to wish to take away something from the 
 authority of this proof Reason, which is unceasingly 
 elevated by means of arguments so powerful, and 
 always increasing under its hands, although only 
 empirical ones, cannot, through any doubts of subtly- 
 deduced speculation, be so pressed down that it must 
 not be roused as it were out of a dream, from any 
 meditative irresolution, by a glance which it casts on 
 the wonders and majesty of the Universe; in order to 
 raise itself from greatness to greatness up to the 
 highest of all — from the conditional to the condition 
 — up to the supreme and unconditional Creator."* 
 
 I would only add to this argument that it must be 
 considered that an ideal is contained in the moral 
 nature of man ; and that we have to account 
 for its being there. It is evident that the peculiar 
 character or construction, as we may call it, of the 
 conscience and the moral sense is such, that the 
 very instrument it works by is a kind of restlessness 
 and discontent with all fact in us, and a desire to be 
 something which we are not. The condition of good- 
 
 * "Critique of Pure Reason." Book 2, c. I., div. iii. s. 6. 
 47
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATIOX. 
 
 ness is not that of attaining a defined sufficient end : 
 it is not that of reaching a resting place. Tiiat is 
 counter to the law of our being. St. Paul has given 
 an exposition of conscience, which plainly and vividly 
 describes it as insatiable, swallowing, like some un- 
 fathomable abyss, all the duty, sacrifice, and effort 
 that is thrown into it, and still demanding more. And 
 though in the Christian dispensation the sense of a 
 Divine justification is the remedial and appointed 
 relief for the natural insatiableness of conscience, 
 there remains a sense of short-coming which is inefface- 
 able, and is inherent and rooted in the man. What 
 can this be the effect of but the existence of an ideal 
 in man, the spontaneous erection of his own heart, 
 which dwarfs every act of his, and reduces his whole 
 life to failure and imperfection .-^ Moral beauty, good- 
 ness, rises up before him in his conscience in a form 
 and height which has no embodiment in fact ; he 
 sees there a whole, while all experience only shows 
 what is fragmentary. How has he got in his nature 
 a type, of which he has no representative in actual 
 existence .-* The only answer can be, if we acknow- 
 ledge causation, that whence he has the moral nature 
 which he has, thence he has this peculiarity and 
 manner of that nature : viz., from the original Self- 
 existing Being. This ideal is implanted in him ; but 
 if so, how can that Being, who has implanted an 
 ideal, be other than Himself, the fulfilment of it ? 
 
 48
 
 THE EVIDENCE 
 
 AFFORDED BY THE 
 
 ORDER AND ADAPTATIONS OF NATURE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 
 
 CHARLES BROOKE, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., 
 
 CONSULTING SURGEON OF THE WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL.
 
 The Evidence Afforded by the Order 
 and Adaptations hi Nature to the 
 Existence of a God. 
 
 THE writer having undertaken the elucidation of 
 this comprehensive and important subject, in 
 consequence of the inabihty from indisposition of the 
 Rev. Charles Pritchard to fulfil that duty, he can- 
 not but express his regret that the mantle of so distin- 
 guished a divine and philosopher should not have 
 fallen on worthier shoulders than his own. 
 
 In the consideration of this subject it is not proposed 
 to enter into any metaphysical disquisitions, since the 
 " order and adaptations in nature " are physical ques- 
 tions ; and in the metaphysical treatment of such 
 questions the writer has not much confidence. It has 
 been stated* that there are metaphysical difficulties in 
 the summation of infinite series, and in the theories of 
 ultimate ratios, and of impossible quantities : if so, the 
 difficulties must lie, not in the principles themselves 
 
 * Transactions of the Victoria Institute. 
 5'
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 but in their metaphysical treatment, because on the 
 vaHdity of these principles rests our knowledge of the 
 grandest cosmical phenomena ; such for example as 
 the accurate prediction of eclipses, and the approxi- 
 mate determination of the place and magnitude of a 
 large but hitherto unknown planet, from the observed 
 disturbance of the remotest previously known member 
 of the solar system. It is proposed rather to illustrate 
 the subject by a careful observation of facts, and by 
 the obvious inferences that may be drawn from 
 them. 
 
 The subject naturally branches off in two directions , 
 first, the order, and secondly, the adaptations in nature, 
 both of which may be pursued far beyond the possi- 
 ble limits of this address. As illustrations of infinite 
 wisdom may be taken, firstly, the gradual and pro- 
 gressive development of the earth, and the adaptation 
 of its successive denizens to the circumstances under 
 which they existed ; secondly, the correlation of the 
 materials ; and thirdl}-, the correlation of the powers 
 of nature. 
 
 I. When w'e contemplate a fossil bone or shell, 
 which has lain buried it may be some thousands of 
 feet below the earth's surface, or embedded in the solid 
 rock that may ha\ e been by some vast convulsion 
 heaved up to a similar height above it, we are led 
 irresistibly to one of two conclusions : either that there 
 has been (not to speak it disrespectfully) a sportive 
 exercise of creative power, and that these portions o'"
 
 EVIDEXCE OF DESIGAT. 
 
 matter, bearing all the physical characters of what they 
 represent, were never really associated with animal 
 life ; or otherwise, that they must be received as evi- 
 dences of animal existence at very remote periods of 
 time ; and if the teachings of Geology and Palaeon- 
 tology be admitted, it must likewise be admitted that 
 the Mosaic account of the creation is not susceptible 
 of a literal interpretation. 
 
 Let us take a single illustration : on some elevated 
 mountain range we meet with a bed of conglomerate, 
 consisting of water-rolled stones cemented together ; 
 on breaking out one of these, it is found to contain 
 organic remains, the shells of marine mollusca. Now 
 what a vast series of cosmical changes does this repre- 
 sent ! This shell must have been deposited in an 
 ocean bed, which after an unknown period of time 
 became consolidated into a rock ; this by some subse- 
 quent great convulsion must have been broken up into 
 fragments, and these fragments subsequently rounded 
 by long-continued attrition, probably by tidal action 
 on the sea-shore. These rounded stones, again, must 
 have been cemented together by processes which, so 
 far as can be judged from existing known facts, must 
 have occupied vast periods of time, and the stratum 
 thus formed must have been, by another violent con- 
 vulsion of nature, upheaved into the position in which 
 we met with it, or left exposed by denudation and the 
 wearing away resulting from long-continued glacial or 
 aqueous action. 
 
 F3
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 It would appear then that the surface of our globe 
 has been adapted to the exigencies of its present 
 inhabitants not by any sudden act of creation, but by a 
 gradual and progressive development, requiring count- 
 less ages for its accomplishment ; and that as we 
 descend in the order of strata that have successively 
 formed a part of the earth's surface, the type of organi- 
 zation is generally successively lower, and also gene- 
 rally more and more remote from existing or more 
 recent types : from these facts it may not unreason- 
 ably be inferred that the beneficence of the Creator 
 has ever been exemplified in adapting the organization 
 of His creatures to the conditions and circumstances 
 under which they existed. 
 
 But a new theory of successive development has re- 
 cently been promulgated, the obvious tendency of which 
 is to supersede the necessity of creative intelligence; al- 
 though, perhaps, the author of the theory of " Natural 
 Selection," and probably some of his followers, may not 
 be disposed to admit the validity of this inference. 
 The theory of natural selection assumes that advances 
 in development have taken place not by design, but 
 by accident, or the force of circumstances, and that in 
 the struggle for existence the individuals evincing an 
 imperfect development have been annihilated ; and 
 thus that advanced development has ever held its own 
 against inferiority, until existing perfection was at- 
 tained ; and as a crowning point, the theory does 
 ot exclude the development of man from the lower 
 
 54
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 animals. If then man has been " developed " from a 
 jelly-fish, or some other equally low type of organiza- 
 tion, this theory needs only to be coupled with that 
 of spontaneous generation (which assumes that some 
 of the lowest types of organic life may be spontane- 
 ously developed from inorganic matter), and the neces- 
 sity of an omnipotent Creator is altogether superseded! 
 These theories have, however, one important point in 
 common, namely, that they are alike destitute of any 
 substantial foundation in fact : if only sufficient care 
 be taken to exclude the invisible germs of organiza- 
 tion with which the atmosphere is unquestionably 
 loaded, no organisms are developed from the admix- 
 ture of the most suitable materials ; and on the other 
 hand, of the countless missing links of imperfect 
 development not a trace has ever been found. The 
 very term " Natural Selection," by which is meant 
 selection without volition^ is self-contradictory, for the 
 term " Selection " not only "seems to imply" (as Mr. 
 Darwin admits), but actually does imply " conscious 
 choice," and can imply nothing else. 
 
 In order to bridge over this admitted preliminary 
 difficulty, Mr. Darwin quotes the intended explanatory 
 remark of Professor Huxley, that " when the wind 
 heaps up sand-dunes, it sifts and unconsciously selects 
 from the gravel on the beach grains of sand of equal 
 size." 
 
 Now this from so professedly close a reasoner as 
 Mr. Huxley is rather surprising. What is the fact ? 
 
 55
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 Both masses and particles, stones and grains of sand, 
 that the retiring waves chance to have left at the sur- 
 face, are alike acted upon by gravitation and by wind- 
 pressure. But the amount of gravitation or Aveight- 
 pressure depends upon mass, while the amount of 
 wind-pressure depends upon surface ; and the amount 
 of surface is increased by subdivision or extension, 
 without any increase of mass, as for example the sur- 
 face of an apple is increased by slicing, or that of a 
 sovereign by beating it into gold-leaf. But it hap- 
 pens that in the stones vertical gravitation beats hori- 
 zontal wind-pressure, and they remain behind, while in 
 the grains of sand wind- pressure beats gravitation, and 
 they are carried away, as the gold-leaf would be if scat- 
 tered amongst a heap of sovereigns ; there is, therefore, 
 no more sense in imputing "selection" to the wind, than 
 to gravitation; none in fact in imputing it to either. 
 If, moreover, the scraps of a torn-up love-letter hap- 
 pened to have been scattered on the beach, the wind 
 would have probably made a further " selection," and 
 instead of leaving them exposed on the dune, would 
 most considerately have wafted them to some more 
 secluded spot. Mr. Huxley might with perfect pro- 
 priety have written, " The wind unconsciously separates 
 from the gravel on the beach grains of sand," etc., but 
 that expression would not have answered his pur- 
 pose. 
 
 When Mr. Darwin proceeds to remark, "For brevity's 
 sake I sometimes speak of natural selection as an in- 
 
 56
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 telligent power, in the same way as astronomers speak 
 of the attraction of gravity ruh'ng the movements of 
 the planets," he cannot for a moment imagine that any 
 one, astronomer or otherwise, imputes intelHgence to 
 gravitation. Mr. Darwin should remember that 
 
 . . Brevis esse laboro 
 Obscunis fio ; 
 
 and if he had written, " for obscuration's sake," he 
 would probably have been much nearer the mark. 
 
 The crowning triumph of " natural selection," in 
 which the immeasurable chasm existing between the 
 monkey and the man is assumed to be bridged over 
 by accident and chance-medley, is the only point of 
 that theory that need be further noticed. A belief in 
 the progressive development of man from any infe- 
 rior animal whatever is absolutely incompatible with 
 a belief of the existence in man of an immortal spirit, 
 for by no conceivable process can that which is essen- 
 tially not material be developed from any combination 
 of mere material elements. It is nowhere stated of any 
 inferior animal that " God breathed into his nostrils 
 the breath of lives" (not life, as in the authorized 
 version ; the revisers will, it is hoped, notice this); 
 and it may not unreasonably be assumed that the 
 plural noun chayim* stands in the same relation to 
 man's tripartite nature, that elohim does to the tri- 
 partite existence of the Godhead. 
 
 * It might seem pedantic to insert the Hebrew characters, 
 SI
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGiV. 
 
 That the various orders of animal and vegetable 
 existence in an ascending scale of organization might 
 have been formed by a countless succession of almost 
 imperceptible changes, if such had been the will of the 
 Almighty, cannot for a moment be denied ; but that 
 any such course of events could have happened inde- 
 pendeiitly of that %vill, appears to be inconceivable. 
 Nor is there any satisfactory evidence that such has 
 actually been the course of nature ; for admirably 
 adapted as is the organization of the various orders 
 and genera to the conditions and circumstances of their 
 individual existence, no examples have ever been met 
 with intermediate between two genera, and imper- 
 fectly adapted to fulfil the conditions of either; and 
 even in the few instances in Avhich individuals have 
 been obtained by cross-breeding which exhibit the 
 mixed characteristics of two species of the same 
 genus, they have invariably been found to be infertile, 
 and incapable of originating a progeny exhibiting 
 their own intermediate character. The only known 
 facts that give the slightest countenance to the theory 
 of natural or unintentioned selection are the results of 
 intentional selection in varying to a certain extent the 
 peculiar characteristics of different varieties of the 
 same species, notably for example in the varieties of 
 the pigeon tribe ; but how slender and insecure a 
 foundation is this for the huge superstructure of 
 groundless hypothesis that has been raised upon it ! 
 
 A valid argument against the supposed progressive 
 58
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGX. 
 
 change of organisation may be found in the per- 
 sistence of some of the lowest types through count- 
 less ages of pre-historic time. For example, the 
 white calcareous mud that forms the bed of the 
 greatest ocean-depths is found to consist almost en- 
 tirely of the shells of minute foraminifera ; and little 
 doubt can exist that this mud constitutes, by slow and 
 gradual consolidation, a progressive chalk formation ; 
 for if a small portion be taken from any chalk stratum, 
 and carefully brushed asunder under water, it is found 
 to consist of exactly the same organic elements as the 
 ocean mud in question. 
 
 II. The extreme simplicity of the ultimate elements 
 which constitute all organized beings, and the endless 
 variety of the proximate elements, arising from dif- 
 ferent combinations of the former, which serve to 
 build up the animal and vegetable tissues, may well 
 be cited as an illustration of the infinite wisdom by 
 which such arrangements were established. The four 
 elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, 
 constitute the bulk of organization. The chief con- 
 stituents of vegetable tissue are oxygen, hydrogen, 
 and carbon, or, it may be said, water and carbon, as 
 the oxygen and hydrogen exist in the same propor- 
 tion as in water ; and various proportions of these 
 constitute the proximate elements of vegetable tissue, 
 such as starch, gum, sugar, glucose, and lignine, or 
 woody-fibre, as may be shown by pouring a little 
 strong sulphuric acid on a small portion of sugar : the 
 
 59
 
 EVIDEXCE OF DESIGX. 
 
 acid will, by its stronger affinity, abstract the water, 
 and leave a black spongy mass of carbon behind. 
 Nitrogen enters sparingly into the constitution of the 
 vegetable tissues, but almost universally into that of 
 the animal tissues. The power of vegetable life in 
 combining the inorganic elements, and thus preparing 
 them for a higher state of organization in animal de- 
 velopment, may likewise be noticed ; but this power is 
 wholly wanting in animals. Thus an important func- 
 tion may perhaps be ascribed to some of the humblest 
 members of the animal economy ; the despised earth- 
 worm, for example, is employed in continually re- 
 claiming to a higher state of organization the effete 
 vegetable matters on which it feeds, that are fast re- 
 lapsing to the inorganic world. 
 
 One cannot but be struck by the simplicity of the 
 arrangement by which carbon and water, elements 
 of both earth and air, are combined into the various 
 materials of vegetable tissue; and, moreover, that 
 these proximate elements are so readily interchange- 
 able by merely slight variations in the relative pro- 
 portions of carbon and water, as, for example, the 
 conversion of starch into sugar by the agency of 
 warmth and moisture only, in the process of con- 
 verting barley into malt, and of acid into sugar in 
 the ripening of fruit. It may also be stated that, 
 while animals are incapable of combining for their 
 own nutrition the inorganic elements, they are capable 
 of assimilating and drawing nutriment from those 
 
 60
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 elements when already combined in the formation of 
 vegetable tissues. And the same simplicity of con- 
 struction, but variety in design, marks the building 
 up of animal tissues ; they are mostly slight modifi- 
 cations of a basis called protein, which is composed 
 of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon in certain 
 definite proportions. 
 
 As remarkable compensatory actions, it may be 
 stated that the combustion of carbon, or, in other words, 
 its conversion into carbonic acid by combination with 
 oxygen, is the chief source of that heat which is 
 essential to the due discharge of the functions of the 
 higher animals ; while, on the other hand, the reduc- 
 tion of carbonic acid, and the corresponding evolution 
 of oxygen, is constantly going on in the development 
 of the vegetable kingdom. 
 
 III. Recent scientific research has pointed out the 
 harmonious correlation and mutual convertibility of 
 the various powers or energies of nature, such as 
 light, heat, electricity, and magnetism ; and likewise 
 the definite convertibility of heat and mechanical 
 work : and these views have rendered much more 
 intelligible the mode in which these several agents 
 become subservient to the exigencies of organic 
 development 
 
 Thus, for example, while the combustion, or, in 
 other words, oxidation of the farinaceous and fatty 
 elements of food continuously supplies the animal 
 economy with the amount of heat \\^hich is necessary 
 
 6i
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 for the due maintenance of all its varied functions, 
 a portion of this heat is transformed into dynamic 
 energy in the muscles, and a further portion probably 
 into electricity in the nervous system ; for the mutual 
 convertibility of heat and electricity is a well-ascer- 
 tained fact. Moreover, the proceeds of combustion, 
 the same as in our fire, candle, or gas-burner, namely, 
 water and carbonic acid, are continually eliminated 
 from the system, and restored to the inorganic world 
 by the agency of the skin and lungs, to be again 
 deoxidized in the development of the vegetable eco- 
 nomy. It appears to be far from improbable that 
 the energy which reaches the eye as light paints its 
 photographic impression on the retina as chemical 
 action, and then travels to the brain in the form of 
 electricity. Again, the influences of light and heat 
 in promoting, and of their absence in restraining 
 animal development are too notorious to require any 
 specific illustration ; but do not these considerations 
 lead irresistibly any unprejudiced mind to the con- 
 clusion that indeed we are fearfully and wonderfully 
 made } and it is much to be regretted that the great 
 principle of the Conservation of Energy should ever 
 have been held to countenance the views of those 
 who would supersede the necessity of creative intel- 
 ligence, instead of perceiving in that theory only 
 additional evidence of the infinite wisdom of the 
 Creator, 
 
 As one of the leading objects of the Society at 
 
 62
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN, 
 
 whose instance this address is made is to counteract 
 any apparently irreligious tendency in the teachings 
 of modern science, the writer feels bound to notice 
 some passages in a recent work by Professor Tyndall, 
 entitled " Fragments of Science for Unscientific Peo- 
 ple," as being eminently likely to mislead some of 
 those for whose edification it is especially designed. 
 A grievous error appears to underlie two of the 
 essays in this work, those on "Matter and Force" 
 and on "Scientific Materialism," in the tacit admis- 
 sion of an identity of causation in the structural 
 development of inorganic formations, and of organised 
 beings. In the former of these essays, the substance 
 of a lecture addressed to the working men of Dundee, 
 during the meeting of the British Association in 
 September, 1867, after showing the quasi-structural 
 arrangement of iron filings scattered on a plate of 
 glass placed over the poles of a magnet, and the 
 laminated leaf-like crystals of silver and lead formed 
 by gradual deposition from solutions of their re- 
 spective salts, and after pointing out the arborescent 
 forms of crystals formed by the evaporation of their 
 solutions thinly spread on a plate of glass, and of the 
 ice-crystals formed on our window-panes in the winter, 
 the author asks (p. 86), " What is the vegetable world 
 itself, but the result of the complex play of these 
 molecular forces ?" But he suggests no reply. Again, 
 after alluding to the formation of vegetable tissues by 
 the decomposition of carbonic acid, the union of the
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 carbon with the elements of water, and the evolution 
 of the oxygen, under the influence of solar radiation, 
 he proceeds to state (p. Z"]), "Just as the molecular 
 attractions of the silver and the lead found expression 
 in the production of those branching forms seen in 
 our experiments, so do the molecular attractions of 
 liberated carbon and hydrogen find expression in the 
 architecture of grasses, plants, and trees." This is 
 undoubtedly true, but it is not the zvholc truth; and 
 the author surely ought to remember that the " sup- 
 pressio veri " is sometimes equivalent to the " sug- 
 gestio falsi." 
 
 The error above alluded to consists in ignoring 
 throughout these essays the indispensable influence 
 of a germ derived from a precisely similar organism 
 in determining the organisation of any individual 
 plant or animal. While the atoms of lead or silver, 
 from whatever comjDound they may be gradually dis- 
 engaged, will in obedience to their inherent polar 
 forces respectively form laminae, the edges of which 
 are inclined to each other at invariable angles, the 
 same elements derived from the same earth, air, and 
 water, as for example in a field or garden, will con- 
 stitute an indefinite number of different vegetable 
 organisms, the formation of each individual kind 
 being determined solely by the influence of a pre- 
 existing germ derived from the same kind : and thus 
 while mere molecular forces may be considered as 
 alike the immediate cause of the formation of the 
 
 f4
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 metallic crystals, and of the proximate elements of 
 vegetable tissue, those forces are not the immediate 
 cause of the formation of any particular organism. 
 
 Again, in p. 91, the author writes: "Trees grow, 
 and so do men and horses ; and here we have new 
 power incessantly introduced upon the earth. But its 
 source, as I have already stated, is the sun ; for he it 
 is who separates the carbon from the oxygen of the 
 carbonic acid, and thus enables them to recombine." 
 Now this is not strictly true ; for if a stoppered bottle 
 be filled with carbonic acid, probably no amount of 
 exposure to solar rays would have any effect in pro- 
 ducing decomposition ; all that the solar rays can do 
 is, to impart to the molecules of carbonic acid such an 
 amount of vibratory motion as enables the vital energy 
 of the leaf-cell more readily to tear the atoms asunder, 
 appropriating the carbon to its own nutrition, and 
 rejecting the oxygen ; — here again the influence of 
 vitality is ignored. 
 
 No formation of the proximate elements of vege- 
 table tissue is known to take place independently 
 of the influence of previous organisation ; while, on 
 the other hand, the development of plant-life, im- 
 perfect and abnormal though it may be in some cases, 
 is met with when solar radiation is excluded ; it 
 therefore seems to be altogether illogical to put 
 forward solar radiation as the sole, or even the main, 
 antecedent of vital development. 
 
 The author subsequently proceeds to observe : 
 
 65 5
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 " Some estimable persons very possibly shrink from 
 accepting these statements ; they may be frightened 
 by their apparent tendency towards what is called 
 materialism — a word which to many minds expresses 
 something very dreadful. But it ought to be known 
 and avowed that the physical philosopher, as such, 
 must be a pure materialist." 
 
 If by materialism is meant the investigation of the 
 laws of matter, as magnetism (as a science) is the 
 investigation of the laws of magnetic force, it may 
 safely be conceded as a truism that the physicist, as 
 such, must be a pure materialist ; but if materialism be 
 taken in its ordinary acceptation to mean a denial of 
 the exercise of either creative power or superintend- 
 ing intelligence in the formation and development of 
 the universe, then it is most emphatically denied that 
 " the physical philosopher, as such, must be a pure 
 materialist ;" and if the author persists in the use of 
 a common phrase in a very uncommon sense, he must 
 not be surprised if his motive is sometimes misunder- 
 stood. 
 
 A little further on the author states : " Depend 
 upon it, if a chemist, by bringing the proper materials 
 together, in a retort or crucible, could make a baby, 
 he would do it." — No doubt he would ; and if you 
 or I could jump over the moon, we should be proud 
 of showing our agility in so doing ; but the fact is, 
 we cannot — the principle of the conservation of 
 energy forbids it : for if all the combustible material 
 
 66
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 in our frame were instantly burnt up, and the heat 
 produced converted into energy, the resulting amount 
 would be wholly insufificient for the purpose ; . and 
 the author's hypothetical baby-making is not less 
 antagonistic to the universal law — 
 
 " Omne vivum ex ovo," 
 
 The germ is as indispensable as the constituent 
 material atoms in the development of a living 
 organism. 
 
 To identify as much as possible the forces con- 
 ducing to the development of organic and of inorganic 
 structures, may be presumed to be an object of 
 " Scientific Materialism ; " but the Author has, in p. 
 1 1 6, endeavoured to support this conclusion by an 
 erroneous analogy, namely, that the phenomena ob- 
 served on transmitting polarized light through starch 
 grains are " similar to those noticed in crystals." 
 In the crystals, undoubtedly, the molecules are 
 " self-posited " in obedience to definite polar forces ; 
 and in order that they may influence a beam of 
 polarized light, it is necessary that these forces be 
 unequal in at least two of three perpendicular direc- 
 tions in each molecule, and if the crystal be regularly 
 formed, the disturbance of polarized light is the 
 same in all parts of the same slice ; but in starch 
 grains, as in quill, horn, hoof, and all other organic 
 substances, that disturbance is due to molecular strain 
 consequent on desiccation, and not to definite aggre- 
 
 67
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 gation, just as is in unannealed glass it is due to 
 the molecular strain consequent on suddeii cooling ; 
 in fact, it is well known that any molecular strain upon 
 a plate of glass, such as that produced by bending 
 or compressing it, or throwing it into a state of sonorous 
 vibration, will confer upon it the power of de-polar- 
 ization. That the de-polarizing power of a plate of 
 unannealed glass is not due to a polar aggregation 
 of its molecules, as in a cr)'stal, is further evident 
 from this, that if a square plate be ground into a 
 nound one, and then the circumference of that into 
 a scolloped outline, the visible influence of the plate 
 on a polarized beam will in the three cases be very 
 different, and not as in the crystal, uniform. 
 
 On the slender analogy just alluded to the author, in 
 p. 1 1 6, bases this dogma of "Scientific Materialism": — 
 " But if in the case of crystals you have rejected 
 this notion of our external architect, I think you are 
 bound to reject it now, and to conclude that the 
 molecules of corn are self-posited by the forces with 
 which they act upon each other. It would be poor 
 philosophy to invoke an external agent in the one 
 case and to reject it in the other." 
 
 The author's inference is plainly this, that the for- 
 mation of the crystal and oi the starch-granule is 
 solely due to the action of atomic force. But if 
 this be so, how happens it that while crystals of the 
 same substance, from whatever source derived, pre- 
 sent the same characteristics of external form and 
 
 68
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 internal structure, the starch-granules of wheat, of 
 tous-les-mois, and of cassava, exhibit marked but 
 invariable differences of structure, as shown by their 
 optical characters, although composed of the same 
 atoms, combined in the same proportions ? Just 
 for the same reason that the plants in which they 
 were formed derive their respective characteristics, 
 r ot from the inorganic forces of the atoms of which 
 they are composed, but from the organic power of the 
 germ derived from a precisely similar organism, which, 
 while it calls into play the inorganic atomic forces, 
 at the same time determines the whole course of sub- 
 sequent structural development; as the tiny electric 
 spark actuates those atomic attractions by means of 
 which the resistless force of the mine or the torpedo 
 is developed. How mysterious is it that the vital 
 power determining the reproduction of parental 
 characteristics of form and feature should once have 
 been locked up in a vesicle of microscopic dimen- 
 sions ! 
 
 But if the influence of a germ be indispensable 
 in the organisation of life, whence came the first 
 germs, or the first germ-producing organism ? While 
 materialism will answer, " I cannot tell," it is to be 
 hoped that the unbiassed convictions of reason, and 
 the promptings of our moral sense, will ever point 
 to the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of the 
 Creator. Thus it appears that " Scientific Material- 
 ism " is not more scientific, because not more logical, 
 
 ^9
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 than other forms of materiahsm with which we were 
 previously acquainted. 
 
 The author may perhaps, with some show of reason, 
 demur to this criticism on the actions of polarized 
 light, on the ground that as he is avowedly address- 
 ing his arguments to " unscientific people " it would 
 have been futile to enter into the differences between 
 the black cross as seen in a starch granule and in a 
 slice of calcite : very good, but if analogy of structure 
 be made use of as an argument in favour of identity 
 of causation, then the strength of the argument de- 
 pends on the strength of the analogy, and in that case 
 ^^•e are bound to look into it, and to see how much it 
 is really worth. 
 
 Having now cursorily considered some of the more 
 striking indications of infinite wisdom as manifested in 
 the order of nature, it remains to illustrate the same 
 attribute of the Creator by the obvious adaptation of 
 things created to the functions they are designed to 
 fulfil. The careful observer cannot but perceive that 
 throughout the whole range of natural objects the 
 admirable adaptations of means to ends are unlimited 
 alike in their number and variety ; but it has appeared 
 to the writer that some of the more special and re- 
 condite examples of adaptation are the farthest 
 removed from the possibility of accidental formation, 
 and therefore afford the most conclusive evidence of 
 beneficent design. And in order to bring the subject 
 within the reasonable limits of an address, it is pro-
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 posed to confine attention to three points in the 
 economy of man, the mechanism of the absorbent 
 system, and of the organs of sight and hearing. 
 
 TJie Mechanism of the absorbent system. — In order 
 to render this subject inteUigible to a general audience 
 it may be observed that whenever any organ of the 
 body exercises its pecuhar function, as, for example, 
 a muscle in contracting, or the brain in thinking, a 
 certain portion of the organ itself is used up by a 
 process analogous to combustion, by which the amount 
 of heat is generated that is equivalent to the work 
 done by the muscle, and probably also to the amount 
 of electrical action that takes place in the brain. This 
 used material and all other kinds of effete matter re- 
 quire to be constantly removed from the animal 
 economy, and for this purpose they are collected from 
 every part by a system of vessels called absorbents. 
 Moreover, the waste of the system demands constant 
 renewal, and to effect this, nutriment is collected by 
 absorbents from the inner surface of the alimentary 
 canal. Both the materials for the repair of the 
 system, and those requiring removal, are conveyed b}- 
 these vessels into a common receptacle, whence the 
 contents are emptied into the veins by a very peculiar 
 mechanism, and carried into the general circulation of 
 the blood. The mechanism of the absorbent vessels 
 themselves is remarkable, and entirely different from 
 that of any other system of vessels. The venous 
 system commences from the union of the smallest or 
 
 71
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 capillary vessels, into which the blood is constantly 
 urged from the arterial system ; and it is a note- 
 worthy fact that in all classes of the animal kingdom 
 the capillaries are of such diameter as just to allow 
 the blood-particles to pass through them in single 
 file, the blood-discs themselves varying very greatly 
 in size in different tribes of animals. The smaller veins 
 are formed by the coalition of capillaries, and the 
 larger are continually formed by the coalition of the 
 smaller, but it is only in the large venous trunks that 
 any special valvular arrangement exists to prevent 
 regurgitation of the blood ; and as man was designed 
 for the erect posture, as might be expected, the valves 
 occur at shorter intervals in the lower extremities, in 
 which the return of the blood to the heart is opposed, 
 than in the upper portion of the frame, in which that 
 return is assisted, by gravitation. 
 
 But the conditions of fluid-movement in the absorb- 
 ent vessels are totally different ; there is no vis a tcrgo 
 to urge onward their contents, and their action, instead 
 of being continuous, is intermittent, depending on the 
 amount of fluid matter to be absorbed. Moreover, the 
 absorbents are mainly dependent on the movements 
 of the body for urging on their contents, and their 
 structure is in complete accordance with their require- 
 ments. This structure may be roughly described as 
 consisting of a succession of pear-shaped funnels, the 
 nozzle of each being inserted into the wider end of 
 the next, and these act as a continual succession of 
 
 72
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 valves, by means of which all regurgitation of the 
 fluid contents is prevented. A, in the following figure, 
 
 represents a portion of one of these vessels, and B the 
 
 Ml 
 
 sm 
 
 same laid open to show the valves. 
 The most signal instance of design 
 is met with in the means by which 
 the main absorbent trunk dis- 
 charges its contents into the venous 
 system. The absDrbents from the 
 greater portion of the frame pour 
 their contents into the common 
 receptacle a, and hence the duct, 
 b b, mounts upwards towards the 
 neck, and pours its contents into 
 the venous system at c, the angle 
 of juncture of two large veins, the 
 jugular, d, and subclavian, e. Now 
 if the communication between the 
 chyle-receptacle and the adjacent 
 venous trunk / had been first 
 formed by any imaginary process 
 of " natural selection," by any con- 
 ceivable attraction or affinity between the fluid con- 
 tents of the two vessels, they might have been ex- 
 pected to form their junction at the point of nearest 
 proximity : but no ; — the chyle-duct is found to pursue 
 
 73 
 
 ^//X-'^\^''
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 for some distance a nearly parallel course with the 
 great vein, and then to mount upwards in order to 
 reach the point at which it can empty itself into the 
 venous system at the greatest mechanical advantage. 
 
 It was first shown experimentally by Bernouilli, and 
 by the writer demonstrated geometrically,* that if a 
 current of fluid be driven through a diverging tube, 
 into which a smaller branch enters laterall}-, there is 
 not only no tendency of the current to flow out through 
 the lateral branch, but on the contrary, if its orifice be 
 immersed in another fluid, a portion of the latter will 
 actually be drawn in by the current in the larger 
 tube; this fact maybe demonstrated with very simple 
 apparatus. And this effect takes place more energeti- 
 cally at the point of convergence of two tubes, as at 
 c in the figure : this may be readily shown by a model 
 in metallic pipes of the arrangement, through which a 
 column of water may be urged with sufficient energy. 
 
 The Mechanism of the Eye next comes under our 
 notice, and without attempting to enter into all the 
 details of its wonderful and beautiful mechanism, which 
 time forbids, it is desired specially to draw attention 
 to the means by which the eye is adapted to the dis- 
 tinct vision of objects at different distances. In the 
 interior of the eye a lens, analogous in its properties 
 to an ordinary lens or magnifying glass, is placed be- 
 tween two chambers, the anterior of which is filled 
 with a limpid fluid, the posterior with a somewhat 
 
 * Elements of Natural Philosophy, Ed. 1867, p. 239. 
 74
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 denser substance, the vitreous body. At the back of 
 this is stretched a nervous membrane of exceedingly 
 compHcated structure, the retina, on which the impres- 
 sions of all luminiferous vibratory motions are made. 
 
 It is the ordinary property of a lens that the rays 
 falling upon it from any given point of an object are 
 refracted in passing through the lens, and converge 
 more or less accurately to some point on the opposite 
 side of the lens ; and these corresponding points are 
 called conjugate foci : and it is further found, both 
 practically and theoretically, that as the focus of the 
 incident rays approaches the lens, that of the refracted 
 rays recedes from it, and vice versa. The normal con- 
 dition of the eye is that when parallel rays, i.e., rays 
 proceeding from objects at indefinite distances, enter 
 the eye, they are brought to a focus on the retina, and 
 as the rays from each point of an object are collected on 
 a corresponding point of the retina, it follows that a 
 perfect image or picture of the object is traced upon the 
 retina. If now the eye be directed to a near object, 
 and there be no change in its internal arrangements, it 
 is evident from what has preceded that the focal point 
 of each cone of refracted rays from each point of the 
 object will now fall behind the retina, and the image 
 of each point of the object on the retina will no longer 
 be a point, but a patch, and the perpetual overlapping 
 of these patches is the source of all indistinct vision, 
 not depending on any optical imperfection of the organ. 
 How then is the distinct vision of near objects to be 
 
 75
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 accomplished ? By some internal change in the eye 
 itself, by which the focus of each pencil of rays inci- 
 dent from a near object is brought forward, so as to 
 fall exactly on the surface of the retina, and so form 
 a distinct image of the object ; this is termed the 
 accommodation of the eye. But how is this effected ? 
 It may be effected either by increased convexity of 
 the lens, arising either from internal action of its fibres, 
 or from equatorial pressure, by which its focal length 
 is shortened ; or it may be effected by bringing the 
 lens forward without any change in its focal length. 
 
 Now this is clearly not a voluntary action ; so far 
 from it, that the most eminent physiological authors 
 are by no means agreed as to how it is accomplished. 
 The writer believes himself to be in the minority in 
 thinking that accommodation is effected by bringing 
 the lens forward ; and to explain how this may be 
 effected in the human eye would require a more pro- 
 found discussion of minute anatomical details than 
 is consistent in a lecture addressed to a general 
 audience ; but examples of a much more readily 
 intelligible action may be met with in the lower 
 animals. The figure* represents half of an antcro-pos- 
 terior section of the eye of an eagle-owl, in which a is 
 the transparent cornea, b the lens, c c the choroid 
 membrane, d the retina, and / the iris. The lens is 
 pretty firmly attached to the choroid : <? is a section of 
 the ring of osseous plates that surrounds the eye ; 
 
 * Drawn ad nat. by Dr. R, J. Lee. 
 76
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 from the anterior edge of this ring of bone arises a 
 funnel-shaped muscle f, which is inserted all round 
 into the choroid at g; and from the same point, g, 
 there passes down to the posterior margin of the ring 
 of bone an elastic ligament, g h. It must be observ^ed 
 that the parts are here repre- 
 sented somewhat strained out 
 of their natural position, in order 
 that they may be distinctly seen : 
 in the natural position the cho- 
 roid, c c, lies close to the ring of 
 bone e, separated from it only 
 by the muscle, its tendon, and 
 the elastic ligament. The func 
 tion of this annular muscle, /, 
 is clearly to bring forward the 
 choroid, and with it the lens to which it is at- 
 tached, and it is equally obvious that the function 
 of the elastic ligament is to pull the lens back 
 again into its normal position, when the muscle 
 has ceased to act. The eagle-owl is a nocturnal as 
 well as a carnivorous bird, and in order to fulfil its 
 functions in securing its prey, requires rapid and 
 accurate accommodation of the eye, for accomplishing 
 which the eye is provided with an unusually powerful 
 muscle. Can any one seriously maintain that these 
 perfect adaptations of means to an end formed them- 
 selves, or resulted from the blind action of atomic 
 force } 
 
 11
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 The Jlleckanisui of the Ear. — In order to render in- 
 telligible some of the more recondite adaptations of 
 this organ, the accidental formation of which is the 
 most inconceivable, it is necessary briefly to premise 
 the general mechanism. Sonorous vibrations impinge 
 on the tympanum or drum of the ear, hence they 
 are conveyed by a curious chain of minute bones to 
 another membrane which closes a cavity filled w-ith 
 fluid, which constitutes the vestibule (as it is called) 
 leading to two special receptive apparatus abun- 
 dantly supplied with nerve-filaments, the cochlea and 
 
 9. The tympanum. 
 
 10. The ossicles. 
 
 14. The vestibule, 
 leading to 
 
 15. The three semi- 
 ' circular canals. 
 
 17. The cochlea. 
 
 the semicircular canals. These several parts will be 
 seen in the diagram.* 
 
 ♦ This figure is from Wilson's " Anatomist's Vade Mecum."
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 The cochlea in form resembles a snail-shell, the spiral 
 chamber being divided into two parts by a membrane 
 stretched across it, the transverse fibres of which are 
 capable of being rendered more or less tense by a 
 muscle extending throughout the length of the cham- 
 ber. As the diameter of this spiral chamber decreases 
 gradually from the base to the apex, it is obvious that 
 the transverse fibres of the spiral lamina must also 
 gradually decrease in length. On this membrane rest 
 the free ends of a series of remarkable organs called 
 the rods of Corti, placed parallel to each other like 
 the keys of a manual, and their attached ends are 
 embedded in nerve cells. There is little room for 
 doubt that sounds of a given pitch, or frequency of 
 vibration, specially afiect a corresponding fibre of this 
 membrane, (just as the shorter strings of a harp or 
 piano correspond respectively to higher tones,) and that 
 the nerve-tissue adjacent to the rod resting on this 
 fibre feds the sonorous vibration, and transmits to the 
 brain its perception of it : and thus that the special 
 function of the cochlea is to appreciate the frequency 
 of the vibrations, that is to say, the pitch of musical 
 sounds, and also probably their timbre or quality. 
 The mechanical means by which vibrations of given 
 period are specially transmitted to the corresponding 
 portion of the spiral lamina, have not yet been ex- 
 plained, but the writer is not without hope of being 
 able to unravel this intricate question. 
 
 The three semicircular canals (each of which, how- 
 79
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 ever, comprises more than a semicircle) are cbiefly 
 remarkable for their invariable relative position ; they 
 are, without exception, found to lie in three planes, 
 each of which is perpendicular to the other two ; or in 
 the language of geometry, in three rectangular co-ordi- 
 nate planes. From the simplest geometrical con- 
 siderations it follows, that if an impulse travel in the 
 direction D O, the portions of that impulse which are 
 
 effective in the directions 
 of three co-ordinate planes 
 O A, OB, O C, will be 
 proportional to a O, b O, 
 c O respectively, the cosines 
 of the angles which the 
 direction of the impulse 
 makes with the three 
 planes. Moreover, it is a 
 d\'namical law that waves 
 will retain their original direction, unless that di- 
 rection be changed by reflection or refraction ; conse- 
 quently, if the nervous apparatus of the semicircular 
 canals be capable of appreciating the relative inten- 
 sities of the impulses communicated to each, which 
 is without doubt the case, it is obvious that, by means 
 of these canals, the ear can appreciate the direction 
 from which sound proceeds. 
 
 The faculty of pcrccix'ing the direction of a sound, 
 and hence the direction whence danger may be appre- 
 hended, must obviously be a much more wide-spread
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 necessity in the animal economy than the faculty of 
 discriminating tone and quality of sound ; accordingly, 
 the perfect development of the semicircular canals is 
 met with as low in the scale of organisation as the 
 cartilaginous fishes, while in the cochlea and the 
 ossicles we meet with various stages of progressive 
 development, each obviously adapted to the exigences 
 of the individual organism ; and especially in the fish 
 and reptile tribes that do not emit vocal sounds, the 
 construction of the auditory apparatus, apart from the 
 semicircular canals, is exceedingly simple. Can any 
 one really believe that all these admirable adaptations 
 resulted from blind chance, or from the necessity of 
 the case, unintentioned and undesigned ? 
 
 But the evidence of design in the ear does not end 
 here ; and in order to render the sequel intelligible to 
 those who are unacquainted with physiological details, 
 it becomes necessary to briefly indicate the general 
 relations of the nervous system. This consists of two 
 distinct parts ; one, the cerebro-spinal system, com- 
 prising all nerves that terminate in the brain and 
 spinal cord, which fulfils all the functions of percep- 
 tion and volition ; this system exists in all vertebrate 
 animals, in an ascending scale of development up to 
 man. The other, the ganglionic system, consisting of 
 fibres terminating in nerve centres, or ganglia, dis- 
 tributed over various parts of the frame, but chiefly in 
 two parallel rows arranged on either side of the central 
 
 axis, or the vertebral column ; theofiice of this system 
 
 8i 6
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 is to fulfil the involuntary functions essential to 
 the development and maintenance of animal life ; 
 this system is common to men and all kinds of 
 animals, down to the slug, the worm, and the cater- 
 pillar. 
 
 It is an obvious necessity that the ear should possess 
 some means of adaptation to the intensity of the vibra- 
 tions reaching it, in order that while the feeblest sounds 
 may be appreciated, its delicate mechanism may not be 
 deranged by the most powerful ones ; just as the eye 
 is adapted to the intensity of incident light by the 
 contraction and dilatation of the iris. For this purpose 
 there is a little muscle by which the tympanic mem- 
 brane can be tightened ; a second by which is regu- 
 lated the tension of the membrane which connects 
 the base of the stapes, the innermost of the ossicles (so 
 called from its stirrup-like shape), with the margin of 
 the oval aperture in the wall of the vestibule ; and a 
 third muscle, or rather series of muscles, by which the 
 tension of the spiral lamina of the cochlea is regulated. 
 But how is this exquisite mechanism brought into 
 play .'' how, in fact, is the ear itself informed of the 
 adjustment required .■* The foremost member of the 
 chain of ossicles is firmly attached to the tym- 
 panum, and is carried to and fro by its vibrations : 
 proceeding laterally from this bone, and in a direction 
 nearly parallel to the plane of the adjacent portion of 
 the tympanum is a slender and taper bony filament, 
 in its relative proportions resembling a lady's riding 
 
 S2
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 whip ; and immediately behind this slender process 
 lies the tympanic nerve, a branch of the ganglionic 
 system, which pursues a very tortuous course, for no 
 other assignable reason than that of coming into rela- 
 tion with the filament of bone just mentioned. What 
 happens then ? The very first sound-wave that strikes 
 on the tympanum makes, by means of this tiny bone, 
 an impression of corresponding intensity on the nerve, 
 which is flashed to an adjacent centre of nerve power, 
 and the mandate to " make taut " or " let go," as the 
 case may be, is returned and acted on, ere a second 
 wave can impinge upon the tympanum. 
 
 The train of actions just described is altogether 
 removed from the domain of the will ; it is, more- 
 over, so far from being obvious, that it is believed to 
 have escaped the notice of every writer on physiology. 
 If, then, the mere explanation so far taxes the powers 
 of the human mind, what shall be said of the infinite 
 wisdom by which the whole was designed } Well 
 indeed may we be prompted to declare with the 
 sacred Psalmist, " He that planted the ear, shall He 
 not hear .'' or He that made the eye, .shall He not see ?" 
 It would be far more unreasoning to believe that that 
 unrivalled mechanism, the human frame, was self- 
 developed, than to believe that if a " fortuitous con- 
 course of atoms " of brass and steel, swept up from a 
 workman's floor, were put into a bag and thoroughly 
 well shaken, they would spontaneously evolve a first- 
 rate chronometer, 
 
 83
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 If this experiment were made, and, as is highly pro- 
 bable, attended by failure, the advocate of undesigned 
 evolution would probably exclaim, " Aye, but you 
 have not shaken the bag long enough ; if you will 
 only shake on for countless aeons, no reasonable doubt 
 can be entertained that your efforts will ultimately be 
 crowned with the happiest results. The course of 
 development, you may reasonably anticipate, would 
 probably be something of this kind : the atoms of 
 brass and steel would respectively aggregate them- 
 selves into rounded masses, and these, when old 
 enough to cut their teeth, would become wheels and 
 pinions. As time rolls on, you must expect some 
 examples of imperfect development ; one, for example, 
 without a main-spring, another without a balance, and 
 a third without face and hands; but, never mind, 
 pitch them back again into the bag, where they will, 
 no doubt, ' perish in the struggle for existence,' 
 and be shaken to pieces again, that their disjecta 
 membra may re-form themselves more successfully. 
 Moreover, if you want your chronometer to go on a 
 diamond, and to be jewelled in eight or ten liolcs, 
 you must put into the bag a little soot and a little 
 pipe-clay." — Soot and pipe-clay, what good can they 
 do i* — " All the good in the world ; we only want the 
 material atoms, you know, and chance and plenty of 
 time will enable their inherent powers to accomplish 
 lill the rest. The diamond, as you are aware, is only 
 : M'bon, and in due course of time the carbon-atoms 
 
 84
 
 EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. 
 
 will rush into each other's embrace, and constitute 
 Httle diamonds, which will grow bigger by accretion. 
 I know that these carbon-atoms are very coy ; no 
 one has ever yet induced them to take the final step, 
 but time, my friend, — time will work wonders. Again, 
 the rubies for the holes are nothing more than alumina, 
 with a small quantity of iron, and a trace of lime, 
 which they can easily pick up ; and pipe-clay is the 
 handiest source of pure alumina that I can suggest to 
 you." — Is not the unintentioned evolution of organised 
 beings indefinitely more absurd, d fortiori, than this ? 
 If any hearer or reader of this address should think 
 that a little banter is out of place in so serious a 
 subject, he may, with all due respect, be reminded of 
 the opinion of a profound thinker of the olden time, 
 that 
 
 " Ridiculum acri 
 Secius ac melius magnas plerumque secat res." 
 
 In conclusion, as the adaptation of means to benefi- 
 cent ends, such as those which have been imperfectly 
 described, are the more special and recondite, it may 
 fairly be assumed that in the same proportion they 
 bear the stronger evidence of the boundless wisdon: 
 and goodness of the Creator ; well indeed may the 
 devout believer exclaim with heartfelt gratitude, 
 
 " When all Thy mercies, O my God, 
 My raptured soul surveys. 
 Transported with the view, I'm lost 
 In wonder, love, and praise." 
 
 S5
 
 THE 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 REV. CANON BIRKS, MA., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN 
 RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 IS Man responsible at all for his conduct ? On what 
 fact or principle in his nature does this responsi- 
 bility rest ? Why must he make answer for himself, 
 and to whom ? Is there any ground in the reason ol 
 things to confirm the sayings of Scripture : " It is 
 appointed unto men once to die, but after this the 
 judgment;" "So then every one of us shall give 
 account of himself to God" ? These are the questions 
 now before us. They call for a grave examination, 
 and, if possible, a clear reply ; for they plainly involve 
 an issue of immense importance to ourselves and to 
 all mankind. 
 
 There is in these days, you are aware, a so-called 
 philosophy, which denies" that man is a responsible 
 being. He is, in its view, a certain amount of deve- 
 loped protoplasm, or of transformed solar force, which 
 has some strange dreams it mistakes for realities, and 
 thus fancies itself to be an individual being, a respon- 
 
 89
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 sible agent. But these delusions, with the parcels 
 of matter to which they adhere, were all once 
 potentially in some wide ocean of cosmic vapour. 
 From the forces then at work in that wonderful 
 matrix, a sufficient intelligence, it is thought, could 
 have predicted, among other changes, these day-dreams 
 of the human portion of the earth's Fauna, " with as 
 much certainty as one can say what will happen to the 
 vapour of the breath on a winter's day." If so, all con- 
 science of right and wrong must be a delusion, 
 judgment to come a mere fable, and immortality a 
 dream. In the name of natural science, the common 
 foundations of morality and religion are assailed. It 
 is needful, then, to examine them once more. 
 
 The negative philosophy professes to trace three 
 steps in the history cf every science, the childish or 
 theological, the youthful or metaphysical, and the posi- 
 tive or perfect stage, in which religion and metaphysics 
 have been completely cast aside. A counter law may 
 be laid down, far nearer to the truth, which distinguishes 
 a low starting point, and three successive stages in the 
 ascent to perfect wisdom. The starting point is simple 
 ignorance, or natural and moral nescience. The first 
 stage is that of Natural Science and Moral Nescience. 
 The second is that of Natural and Moral Science, but 
 Spiritual Nescience. The last and highest is that of 
 Natural, Moral, and Spiritual Science, when the awak- 
 ened conscience finds rest and peace in a still higher 
 truth, revealed to it from above. It then begins to see 
 
 90
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 all nature, and all the complex varieties of human life, 
 in the light that streams down from His presence, all 
 whose ways are judgment, and whose name is Love ! 
 
 First, then, we live in a world of perpetual change. 
 Every child of man has his lot cast amidst a sea of 
 countless phenomena, varying every moment. In 
 this first stage of thought he sees them, and watches 
 them with curious, wondering eyes, but looks no 
 farther. Every thing merely happens. Countless 
 changes are happening daily. But why they happen, 
 whence they come, and whither they go, he makes no 
 inquiry. The kaleidoscope has been shaken, and 
 another image succeeds the one which fades away. 
 Chance reigns without, and this is merely another 
 name for ignorance within. All is appearance only, and 
 nature is nothing more than a restless phantasmagoria 
 of worthless dreams. 
 
 Now Positive Science, as defined by its own promul- 
 gator, really answers to this first and infant stage of 
 thought, where ignorance reigns and science is unborn. 
 Theology has been shut out, and with it the Great 
 First Cause, on whom all science depends. Meta- 
 physics are shut out also, and with these all second 
 causes, and those metaphysical ideas. Being, Force, 
 and Substance. Phenomena are to be simply regis- 
 tered, and their laws ascertained. But those laws are 
 laws of force, laws for things and persons, material and 
 spiritual substances. Exclude all force, and we have 
 countless phenomena, perpetually changing, but no- 
 
 91
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 thing beside. There is no person to observe and 
 register them, no object whose changes are to be noted 
 and observed. Our beads have no string on which they 
 can hang together. The ears lie scattered on the wide 
 harvest-field, and there is no reaper, and no swathing- 
 band, to bind them into sheaves. Without a person, 
 and without a thing, those metaphysical conceptions ; 
 without forces, which are causes of motion, and 
 therefore metaphysical ; there can be only a chaos of 
 phenomena, fleeting, momentary, causeless, uncon- 
 nected, inexplicable, and unexplained. Science is 
 bound hand and foot with the ropes of the theory, 
 like Samson by the Philistines, and cannot stir. For 
 what can be more inconceivable than for a bundle of 
 phenomena, with nothing to bind them, to call itself a 
 person, and singling out a few other phenomena^ to 
 use these for bands to tie together a third set of 
 phenomena, and then call them a thing .^ Thus the 
 logical result of Comte's definition of this perfect stage 
 of science is precisely what he assigns to the theo- 
 logical stage. It is "second childishness and mere 
 oblivion ; " a registration office for countless pheno- 
 mena, with no person to register them, and no materials, 
 no paper on which to record them, not even red tape 
 wherewith to tie them together. Our Samson must 
 burst asunder these new ropes of Positivism, before he 
 can use his mighty strength, or make one step to- 
 wards dominion over the secrets of the natural world. 
 The first stage in the ascent of science is the recog- 
 
 P2
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 nition of causes, of persons who think and perceive, and 
 of objects endued with force, the secret cause of their 
 motions and changes. " I think, therefore I am." This 
 maxim of Descartes is no demonstration, but simply 
 the analysis of a • compound intuition. I not only 
 think, but I act. I lift a weight. I grasp a ball with 
 my hand. I thrust a door, and it opens. I look on 
 the face, I clasp the hand, of a friend. I am conscious 
 of exerting power, and an effect follows. I repeat the 
 exertion of force, and the effect is repeated. I vary 
 the effort, and the effect is varied. I forbear to lift, and 
 the weight falls to the ground. I cease to grasp the 
 ball, and it descends or rolls away. I pull what I 
 pushed, and a reverse motion follows. Thus I gain the 
 consciousness of force in myself. And I learn, also, 
 the presence of force in things around me. For the 
 weight presses on my hand that raises it, and needs an 
 effort to overcome the pressure. The ball resists 
 the hand that grasps it, and forbids it to close. The 
 eye of the friend returns my own glance of affection,' 
 his hand returns my own greeting with a friendly 
 pressure. I am conscious of force and power in 
 myself. But I learn that there are powers and forces 
 around me, everywhere present, and constantly at work. 
 In every phenomenon I act as a sentient being, and I 
 am acted upon in return by persons and by things 
 on every side. 
 
 Natural Science deals, then, not with mere phe- 
 nomena, as Positivism affirms, but with forces, the secret 
 
 93
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 cause on which these shifting appearances depend. 
 This one key serves to unlock the wonders of the natural 
 universe. The chaos of mere phenomena is replaced 
 by a Cosmos of persons, living creatures, and lifeless 
 things, each endued with forces that act by laws, partly 
 discovered, partly unknown, on which those transient 
 appearances depend. And hence one of our ablest 
 physicists, of the school most akin to the Positive 
 Philosophy, exactly reverses the fundamental exclu- 
 sion of causes and forces on which Positivism is based. 
 " The scientific mind," he says, " can find no repose in 
 the mere registration of sequence in nature. The ques- 
 tion intrudes with resistless weight — whence comes 
 the sequence .-' What binds the consequent with its 
 antecedent in nature ? The truly scientific intellect 
 never can attain rest, until it reaches the forces by 
 which the observed succession is produced. It was 
 thus with Torricelli ; it was thus with Newton ; it is 
 thus pre-eminently with the real scientific man of the 
 present day." 
 
 The conquests of natural science, from the days of 
 Newton onward, have been great and wonderful in its 
 own domain. It has measured the earth, and scaled 
 the heaven. It has swept away the vortices of Des- 
 cartes and the spheres of Ptolemy, and has determined 
 the orbits of the planets and comets by the law of 
 universal gravitation. It has measured the speed of 
 light, detected the unseen ether spread through all 
 space, and measured the subtle vibrations on which 
 
 94
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 colour and sight depend. It has analyzed the air, 
 decomposed the earth and the water, detected fifty 
 unknown elements, and created whole sciences of 
 chemistry, mineralogy, electricity, galvanism, unknown 
 in former days. It has weighed, not only mountains, 
 but the earth, the sun, and the planets, in its balance. 
 Chance, that shadow of human ignorance, has fled 
 before it. The reign of law has been established to 
 the farthest bound of the visible universe. And it 
 marches on still to fresh conquests, forgets, like the 
 Apostle, the things behind, and seeks to add new and 
 rich provinces to the vast dominions it has already 
 won. 
 
 After such successes in their own field, it is not 
 surprising that some natural philosophers, with their 
 strong phalanx of physical laws, should dream of uni- 
 versal empire, and seek to carry their arms into the 
 region of moral and spiritual truth. That force, which 
 the founder of Positivism would proscribe and banish 
 as a youthful dream, his English disciples would exalt 
 into a divinity, and seat on the throne of the universe. 
 The scientific mind, they affirm, knows that the 
 sequence he sees is necessary, and this knowledge is 
 essential to his repose. " Not till then is the law of 
 reason rendered concentric with the law of nature, 
 nor can the philosopher rest in peace." The perma- 
 nence of Force is the fulcrum with which he can 
 uproot miracles, and move or build the universe. 
 Nothing, he thinks, has occurred to indicate that the 
 
 95
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 operation of law has been for one moment suspended. 
 " Nothing has ever intimated that nature has ever been 
 crossed by spontaneous action, or that a state of 
 things at any time existed which could not be 
 rigorously deduced from the preceding state. Given 
 the distribution of matter, and the forces, in the time 
 of Galileo, the competent mathematician of that day 
 could predict what is now occurring in our own." Our 
 Miltons and Shakspeares, our Newtons and Herschels, 
 all were potentially in some cosmic vapour millions 
 of years ago ; so that a competent analyst, by some 
 formula of due complexity, might have worked out 
 accurately the Principia and the Paradise Lost, as 
 singular points in his vast curve of universal being. 
 
 These are stupendous assertions of the natural philo- 
 sopher. We are bound to examine them rigorously, 
 before we sacrifice to them the solemn voices of con- 
 science, the deepest instincts of the human heart, and 
 the hopes and promises of the Gospel of Christ. Is 
 the conclusion contained in the premises, or does it 
 go immensely beyond them .-* " There is no God but 
 physical force, and natural philosophers are its pro- 
 phets." Does this new Islam, preached by some 
 almost with the fanatic zeal of the first Saracens, 
 really possess any reasonable claim to the faith of 
 mankind } 
 
 What, then, is this Force, this "new god, newly come 
 up," which we Christian believers are summoned to 
 adore } It is a slippery and changeful Proteus, im- 
 
 96
 
 HUM AX RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 possible to define. Now it is accelerating force , now 
 acquired momentum ; now a potency, and now actual 
 motion. It glows in the stars. It blossoms in the trees. 
 It spreads itself out in a cosmic sea of mist. It con- 
 denses itself into suns and planets. It flashes through 
 the universe in sunshine. It forms animals that fancy 
 themselves to be alive, and men that dream themselves 
 immortal, and then scatters them into worms and cor- 
 ruption again. But whence came it, and whither does 
 it go ? Its amount, some tell us, is always the same ; 
 its increase or decrease is " unthinkable," though its 
 forms are ever changing. Who, then, fixed for it this 
 total amount .'' and what power or force, higher than 
 itself, impels it to these ceaseless transmutations .-* It is 
 like the Genie of the Arabian tale. Now it buries itself, 
 as highly condensed sun-force, in the depths of the 
 ocean or of the coal measures. Anon some fisher- 
 man or miner drags it forth to light, and unseals its 
 dark prison-house ; and, lo ! it shoots upward in clouds 
 of steam, or exhales in " thousand wreaths of dangling 
 water-smoke." It shrieks its wild cry of escape and 
 liberty on all our railways from the lips of ten thousand 
 engines, and then vanishes into the depths of space 
 again. It is a mighty slave of the lamp and the ring, 
 well suited for the control and guidance of divine or 
 even of human wisdom ; a most useful drudge, that can 
 work marvels at the bidding of a higher reason ; but, 
 after all, a sorry and shameful divinity. Set up by 
 philosophy for the true King and Lord of the universe, 
 
 97 7
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 it explains nothing, and needs itself to be explained. 
 It is the shifting Proteus and eyeless Polyphemus of 
 Homer, both alike stripped of thought and reason, 
 and then rolled together in one \ — 
 
 Monstrum hoiiendura, infoime, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. 
 
 It has no mind, no heart, no choice, no reason, and 
 no will. Its changes have no purpose. It begins 
 with chaos and darkness, and ends in utter darkness 
 and chaos again. 
 
 Let us turn from this abortive philosophy, which 
 sets up physical force for its idol, and catechize the 
 facts once more. We are conscious of power in our- 
 selves. This consciousness, reflected on things around 
 us, which plainly act on us as we act on them, reveals 
 one great law of being, common alike to lifeless and 
 living things. The chaos of phenomena now resolves 
 itself into a Cosmos, or at least becomes its pledge and 
 earnest. We are conscious of our own sentient mind, 
 and perceive and know countless objects, endued with 
 force like ourselves. 
 
 But we are conscious of sensations, as well as of power 
 to act. And in things around us we learn soon to distin- 
 guish that some have power to resist, or act upon our 
 senses, but nothing higher ; while others live, or seem 
 to possess a power of voluntary motion, and sensations 
 of pain and pleasure, like our own. The doctrine, 
 then, that nature "has never been crossed by 
 spontaneous action " sounds very strange on the
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY \ 
 
 lips of a philosopher. He must invent an esoteric sense 
 for a famih'ar term. For spontaneous action, in con- 
 trast to mechanical impulse, is the term which, in 
 popular apprehension, from the highest forms of life 
 down to the lowest, severs living things from lifeless 
 matter. Even in the Amoeba, almost the lowest type 
 of life, an able microscopist can describe that pheno- 
 mena in no other way ; and speaks of "that marvellous 
 power which one portion of the living mass possesses, 
 to move in advance of another portion of the same."* 
 It is needless, and time will not allow, to dwell on 
 the lower forms of life ; or to discuss the Cartesian 
 theory, that instinct is mere mechanical force, and that 
 all animals are simply machines of complex mechanism. 
 The common sense of mankind rebels against it. But 
 here no consciousness can assist our inquiries. The 
 faculties of mere animal life are limited, and the contrast 
 with lifeless matter is less complete. But for ourselves, 
 we are conscious of somethingbeyond mechanical force, 
 and higher than mere sensation, with its aversion from 
 pain, and appulse to pleasure. We can reflect on our- 
 selves, on our sensations, and the objects around us. 
 We can act, and refrain from acting. We can choose 
 and refuse. We can reason on the desirableness of 
 things within our power, and open to our choice. We 
 can compare higher and lower objects of desire, nobler 
 and less worthy motives of action, the more immediate 
 and the more remote, and decide between them. 
 * Beale, Protoplasm, p. 39. 
 99
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 rrom a long induction, even in childhood, we can dis- 
 cern powers of sensation and self-motion in annuals, 
 determined by no compulsion, but by some form 
 of spontaneous choice, which lifeless matter does not 
 share. And a like experience teaches us that tiieir 
 range of thought, feeling, and choice, has limits which 
 do not apply to ourselves. Their instinct, even in its 
 highest forms, does not rise to the level of our human 
 reason. Their choice seems to have very narrow 
 limits, however perfect within these limits it may seem 
 to be. Ours includes wider and nobler elements, the 
 past and the future, as well as the present, — not 
 sensible objects only, but the thoughts and feelings of 
 reasoning minds like our own, the joys of benevolent 
 desire and action, and real and deep longings, however 
 dim and vague they may be, after things unseen and 
 eternal. 
 
 These powers of reason, choice, and will, are revealed 
 to us by our consciousness just as clearly as the power 
 to push and pull, and thus to act on matter around us. 
 The lower consciousness gives birth to Natural Science, 
 and replaces dreamy, transient phenomena by sub- 
 stances endued with force, or permanent subjects and 
 objects of human thought. The higher gives birth to 
 Moral Science, and involves issues no less wide, and 
 still more important. To such a power of internal 
 reasonable choice, the " must " of purely mechanical 
 forces can never apply. 
 
 Is man only like a jjicce of sea-weed, driven a'^d 
 
 TOO
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 drifted to and fro blindly, and without choice, by the 
 force of circumstances, by some " environment " of 
 things without and around him ? Then reason would 
 be dethroned, and all ideas of right and wrong be an 
 illusive dream. He would be no person, but only a 
 thing. Against such a false view of his nature, the 
 spirit of man within him bears perpetual witness. 
 Various objects of choice, good for food, and pleasant 
 to the mental vision, are spread around him like the 
 trees in Paradise. But another grows continually, 
 closely planted by their side, the tree of knowledge of 
 good and evil. Man's consciousness of reason, and 
 of the power of inward choice, forbids him to believe 
 that he is chained by any physical laws or fatal 
 necessity. But because his powers are nobler and 
 higher than mechanical forces can define, is he there- 
 fore wholly lawless .'* To such a conclusion his own 
 reason is no less opposed. Chance is only the reflec- 
 tion on the outer world of that ignorance, which stifles 
 the instinct that points ever to causes, force and 
 substance, and is content to gaze idly on appear- 
 ances alone. Fate, with its series of physical and 
 necessary laws that admit no choice, and are blindly 
 obeyed, is the enlarged reflection of that stag.e of 
 inward thought, wherein men are conscious of power, 
 and trace out its cosmical results, but forget or deny 
 their own higher consciousness of reason and will. 
 Yet this consciousness is just as clear and simple as 
 the other. When once awake, and simply obe}-ed in
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 its teaching, it reveals a vision higher than all physical 
 law, of Right, Duty, and Goodness, of moral laws 
 ^\hich ought to be observed, and still may be per- 
 versely disobeyed. Man's internal consciousness then 
 rises to a higher stage, and becomes a conscience. He 
 feels himself to be parted by a wide chasm, which 
 no subtle reasonings of comparative anatomy can 
 bridge over, from the beasts of the field. He recog- 
 nizes in himself powers and answering obligations of a 
 higher kind, 
 
 " God's image, not imparted to the brute." 
 
 " Must " and " ought " are Hke watchwords and 
 inscriptions on the standards of two vast and mighty 
 empires. The first includes under its sway the count- 
 less range of material and lifeless things ; the second 
 and higher, all the actions and mutual relations of 
 men, or of beings endued, like men, with choice and 
 reason. The two are equal in breadth, for all out- 
 ward things are objects of human thought, and the 
 higher law extends to all the thoughts as well as 
 actions of men. But the moral empire is nobler 
 than the physical, and contains more complex and 
 more weighty truths. The intuition "I ought," or "I 
 ought not," follows as immediately on the conscious- 
 ness of our own powers of reflection and choice, as 
 the intuition of persons and of things endued with 
 force on our consciousness of power and muscular 
 action.
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 The general sense of Duty, as distinct from the clear 
 discernment of what is right to be done, is thus a 
 fundamental instinct of human thought. Even 
 those who tell us that we ought not to recognize it, 
 recognize it themselves in that denial. No sooner 
 do they strive to displace it, than it reappears. If 
 they resolve morals into a sum of arithmetic, a calcu- 
 lation of pleasures, the accountant may do his work, 
 and add up his imaginary total, but where is the obli- 
 gation, the mainspring of action .-' We must fall back 
 on some intuition of right and wrong. Conditions are 
 assigned that " utility may gain the efificacy it ought to 
 have." " Those eternal and irresistible sentiments, to 
 seek pleasure and avoid pain, ought to be the great 
 study of the moralist." " We ought not to hold utility 
 responsible for mistakes contrary to its nature." "Every 
 one must judge for himself; such is the fact, and such 
 it ought to be." "A man is bound by the general 
 utility of engagements." {BcntJiam s Theory, etc.) 
 Those who erect the calculation of results, in pleasure 
 and pain, into the sole test of morality, are thus com- 
 pelled silently to own a fundamental conception of 
 right and wrong, the " ought " and " ought not " of 
 man's conscience. Without this their principle cannot 
 work, and all their calculations are thrown away. 
 
 On this grand intuition of the heart and conscience, 
 the doctrine of man's responsibility rests as its sure 
 foundation. But three different causes have some- 
 times clouded the perception of its unassailable truth. 
 
 103
 
 rim PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 The first of these is the dispute on Liberty and 
 necessity, the connection between choice or volition, 
 and the motives by which that choice is deter- 
 mined. It is urged by one class of reasoners, that 
 pure indifference, in which some place the freedom of 
 the will, is inconceivable and impossible ; that every 
 event must have a sufficient reason, that motives enter 
 into every act of judgment, and some act of judgment 
 must precede and determine every act of the will. They 
 ridicule the idea that a power of acting from pure 
 caprice, with no reason at all, can be the grand privi- 
 lege of a moral agent, without which he becomes a 
 machine. Such a doctrine, they hold, makes fore- 
 sight of human actions inconceivable. After chance 
 has been banished from physics by the growth of 
 science, it would set up its throne once more in the 
 higher field of morals, and thus consign the whole world 
 of human action and thought to chaos and darkness. 
 
 This reasoning of necessitarians against a liberty of 
 pure caprice and indifference is just and decisive. But 
 when some of them would infer that the will of 
 man is determined wholly by outward circumstances, 
 and thus bind down all human life in a chain of 
 physical constraint and co-action, they enthrone blind 
 Fate instead of Chance, and err equally on the other 
 side. There is a path of truth, in harmony with con- 
 science and experience, which lies evenly between 
 these extremes. The will is determined by motive?, 
 it is true. But these motives are not like weights in 
 
 104
 
 HUM A y REsroxsiBiLir ) •; 
 
 the market, or coins on the merchant's counter, fixed 
 and constant in their relative force and weight, in all 
 circumstances, and for men and characters of every 
 kind. They decide the acts of the will ; but their re- 
 lative force depends on something deeper than the 
 will, the moral state, the disposition and character, of 
 the agent to whom they appeal. Men are sensual, 
 prudent, honourable, or holy, as the motives which 
 chiefly prevail with them are momentary pleasure, re- 
 mote prospects of worldly gain, the highest principles of 
 conduct habitually recognized among their fellows, or 
 love of moral good and hatred of moral evil, quickened 
 by meditation on eternal things. This dependence 
 of motives for their practical force on the moral 
 character, on the state of the heart, is taught alike 
 by heathen moralists and the word of God. The. 
 maxim — " Trahit sua quemque voluptas," has its 
 counterpart in the weighty text : "All we like sheep 
 have gone astray ; we have turned every one to his 
 ozvn zvayT Man's choice of his own path determines, 
 to a great extent, the class of motives which have the 
 nearest access, hour by hour, to guide and determine 
 the separate acts of his will. The temptations and 
 urgencies of evil thicken and crowd around him in a 
 downward path, till they hold him in a bondage like the 
 chains of fate. The beauties and the joys of virtue, the 
 good land of hope and heavenly blessing, open around 
 him, in brighter and brighter vision, in that "way of 
 life" which is "above to the wise." And they issue in 
 
 1-5
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 that service which is perfect freedom, and in the liberty 
 of that perfect law of moral goodness, whose seat, 
 in the words of Hooker, is the bosom of God, and her 
 voice the harmony of the world. 
 
 A second cause which has obscured the certainty of 
 the ground of morals, and therefore the fact of man's 
 responsibility, is the disputes of moralists themselves 
 on the exact nature and definition of moral right and 
 wrong. Some make the moral rightncss of actions 
 depend wholly on beneficial consequences without, 
 others on conformity to a sense, an instinct, or a na- 
 tural pre-eminence of conscience, within; others, again, 
 on obedience to the will of a Supreme and Absolute 
 Lawgiver. If moral distinctions, it may be asked, are 
 a self-evident and fundamental fact, how can there 
 have been such persistent debates on their grounds 
 and true nature for two thousand years .-' 
 
 To this objection, without plunging into the thick 
 of those controversies which have raged so long 
 and so fiercely, there is a simple reply. For let us 
 assume the truth of moral distinctions, of moral good 
 and evil in human actions, and three results must 
 surely follow. Actions good and right must be best 
 suited to man's own nature and constitution ; they 
 must tend, in their result, to the general happiness 
 and welfare ; and if there be, as all but atheists believe, 
 a Being supremely good, on whom all created good- 
 ness depends, they must be in agreement with His 
 good and acceptable and perfect will. Their fibres 
 
 lOj . \
 
 //C'A/AA' liESPOiVSlBILIl V. 
 
 and rootlets may be manifold, but these are the three 
 main taproots by which they fix themselves deep in 
 the whole system of actual things. 
 
 Now since, on every sensible view, these three 
 main attributes of all right action must co-exist, is it 
 surprising that there should be diverse views of 
 their priority and dependence, and their exact rela- 
 tion to each other ? Such discords are like those of 
 political schools, whether King, Lords, and Com- 
 mons, — Lords, King, and Commons, — or Commons, 
 Lords, and King, is the truest and soundest form of 
 expression, and order of precedence, in a constitutional 
 monarchy. Each view, when urged to the exclusion of 
 the rest, tends to a fatal issue. One would blot out the 
 conscience, and degrade men into slaves of an immoral 
 superstition ; another would puff them up with self-con- 
 ceited and vain-glorious pride ; another tends rapidly to 
 a democratic tyranny of sensual pleasures. But when 
 these extremes are set aside, even should we fail to see 
 clearly and define exactly the order and dependence 
 of the three truths, they will still conspire and agree 
 together in their main lesson. They form a threefold 
 cord, which cannot be broken, to confirm the moral 
 responsibility of man, and the reality of the eternal 
 contrast between moral good and moral evil. 
 
 Another source of moral scepticism has been the 
 immense diversity on particular questions of right and 
 wrong, among different classes, in various countries, 
 and in different ages of the world. Such facts have 
 
 1C7
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 been urged by Locke against innate ideas, and Hume 
 and others have carried the argument still further. 
 But a full reply may be drawn from the parallel case 
 of bodily vision. Take the case of some building or 
 landscape. In spite of Berkeley's inferences from a 
 theory of vision, now abandoned, no one seriously 
 doubts the existence of such objects, and our power 
 of actually seeing them and tracing their real outlines. 
 Yet on how many varying elements does this vision 
 depend ! To what a number of mischances or 
 hindrances it is exposed ! We see the building in 
 clear daylight, but at midnight we cannot see it. In 
 twilight, and at a distance, its outlines are dim and 
 faint, and almost disappear. Its appearance varies 
 with the point of sight, the direction and level, of 
 each observer. We fail to see it, even in the daytime, 
 in thick fog and mist. The blind cannot see it at all, 
 the short-sighted, the blear-eyed, see it confusedly. 
 It is hard to see it plainly when the eyes are weak, or 
 dazzled with excessive sunlight, or even when some 
 deep emotion has filled them with tears. Yet amidst 
 all these casualties and disturbances, and partly by 
 means of them, we believe without doubt in the 
 reality of the fields or the building on which we gaze. 
 The same explanation will apply to seeming con- 
 trasts and incongruities in the diversities of moral 
 judgment. More is needed than a real object 
 alone, to secure harmony of view, and perfect vision. 
 The eye must be single, that the body, the whole moral 
 
 io8
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIblLITY. 
 
 being, may be full of light. The atmosphere must be 
 so clear as not to hinder a healthy eye from discover- 
 ing the real features of the object. And even when 
 the means of vision are perfect, the same object may be 
 seen in different aspects ; and the elements that com- 
 pose it, and form its moral features, will thus be 
 grouped in varying proportion and perspective to 
 different minds. 
 
 The perceptions, then, of conscience are no less 
 real than those of sense and outward vision. There is 
 a right and wrong in actions, no less than a contrast of 
 straight, and curved or crooked lines. The laws of 
 moral duty, which men endowed with choice and reason 
 ought to obey, are higher in kind, but not less real, 
 than the law of gravitation which guides each planet 
 in its orbit, and which it cannot choose but obey. 
 The world of moral thought and action, based on these 
 higher truths, is not less wide, and still nobler and 
 worthier of our research, than that world of space and 
 mechanical force in which geometry makes its dis- 
 coveries, and where physical laws of attraction and 
 repulsion bear rule. 
 
 Man, then, is responsible, but to whom .? First of 
 all, to his fellow-men. This is a truth confirmed by 
 the whole structure of society, and the enactment of 
 public laws both in ancient and modern times. Man, 
 by his actions, can benefit or injure his fellow-men. 
 In one case there is a wrong and offence that demands 
 reparation ; in the other a benefit, to which, except 
 
 IC9
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 in special cases, the recipient has no claim. But out- 
 ward law can act decisively in the former case alone. 
 It can forbid injuries, as a direct wrong. But the 
 obligation of direct well-doing it can ratify in the case 
 of contracts and promises or definite family relation- 
 ships alone. Man cannot read the heart. And hence 
 responsibility to our fellow-men, that of which they 
 have right to take cognizance for themselves, does not 
 extend to the secret thoughts, but only to the words 
 and actions, by which we affect their state for good 
 or evil. All the complex literature of jurisprudence, 
 the codes of Roman and modern law, the acts of 
 senates and parliaments, the byelaws of countless 
 associations, bear witness in a thousand ways to the 
 same doctrine, that man, as a social being, is and 
 must be responsible to his fellow-men. 
 
 But the law of duty has a wider range, and a further 
 claim. Each man can know for himself what his 
 fellows cannot know, the secret thoughts and desires 
 of his own heart. The obligation which lies on his 
 conscience, and to which it responds, whenever it is 
 not sunk in the stupor of vice and sin, is to seek for 
 himself the highest attainable good, or the moral per- 
 fection of his whole being. Now this must include 
 the cleansing and maintaining in purity all the hidden 
 springs of thought and feeling within. For this, and 
 nothing less, he must be responsible to his own con- 
 science. The voice which speaks to him dimly from 
 his own heart, more clearly in a divine message, is 
 
 no
 
 HUMAN RESFOXSIBILnV. 
 
 this': "Whatsoever things arc true, whatsoever things 
 are honest, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever 
 things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, 
 if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think 
 on these things." This grand, unalterable law of duty 
 bends down over his spirit wherever he goes, like the 
 blue firmament, and shuts him in on every side. He 
 makes answer, and cannot help making answer, to 
 himself. Remorse for dark and evil deeds awakens 
 a bitterness of anguish beyond the worst torture of 
 physical suffering, 
 
 '* Infected minds 
 To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets, " 
 
 and desperate suicide seems often too weak a form of 
 self-punishmentforhideous murders. On the other hand, 
 the graceful Epicurean poet of Rome rises beyond his 
 own level to the stern dignity of the Hebrew prophet, 
 when he describes the calm, firm dignity of conscious 
 uprightness in the midst of thickening dangers. 
 
 Justum et tenacem propositi vimm 
 Non civium ardor, pravajubentiuui, 
 Non vultus instantis tyranni, 
 
 Mente quatit solida . . . 
 Si fractus illabatur orbis, 
 Impavidum ferient ruinae. 
 
 Man is responsible to himself for what he has thought 
 and done, whether of good or evil. A still small voice 
 from his own conscience speaks to him in solitude, and 
 sometimes, in slumberings on his bed, visits him even
 
 THE nilLOSOPHY OF 
 
 in his dreams. It speaks to him in silent, lonely 
 hours of night, whether in the cottage homes of the 
 poor, or in halls of courtly pomp and luxury ; — 
 
 In watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks 
 Throb thunder through the palace floors, and cry 
 On flying Time with all their silver tongues. 
 
 That voice tells him of duties neglected, of ill words 
 spoken, and ill deeds done. It brings in review 
 before him the follies of childhood, the vices or crimes 
 of later years, and passes sentence upon them. It 
 reminds him, like a judge, of golden hours misspent, 
 and noble opportunities wasted and misimproved. 
 And whenever the misdoing has been gross and 
 flagrant, the guilty past pursues the soul with its 
 warning and condemning voice, like the avenger of 
 blood, till it cries out in the bitterness of its anguish, 
 and looks round in vain for some city of refuge. 
 
 Man, then, is responsible for his actions to societ}-, 
 and both for thoughts and actions to his own con- 
 science. But is he responsible to himself alone } 
 Have we reached the limit in our upward ascent ; 
 when man, being lord of nature, sees above him a 
 firm and sure law of the good and right, a "categorical 
 imperative'' which he may transgress, but still is bound 
 to obey .-' Is it or is it not a truth of reason as well 
 as revelation, that there is a Moral Governor, "who 
 sitteth in the heavens over all from the beginning," so 
 that " every one of us shall give account of himself to 
 God"? 
 
 112
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 The starting-point of all science is that absolute 
 ignorance to which the Positive Philosophy, as defined 
 by its founder, would condemn us, when it excludes 
 cause, force, and substance, as metaphysical ideas, 
 and would confine us to note and register phenomena 
 alone. This is the stage of infancy or idiot dreami- 
 ness, when Chance reigns without, and ignorance and 
 utter nescience within. The first stage of ascent is 
 reached by its wiser English disciples, when one for- 
 bidden idea, that of physical force, the cause o. 
 motion, and perhaps a second, that of substance, 
 has been welcomed back with honour. The research 
 after forces is no longer proscribed, but made the 
 very definition and key of true philosophy. This is 
 the stage of Physical Science. But when attrac- 
 tive and repulsive force, performi. g a masquerade 
 of ceaseless transformation, is made the key to vital 
 action, and even to human reason and intelligence, 
 this Science turns to foolishness, and is found in 
 league and partnership with Moral Nescience. 
 
 We rise higher, and enter the field of Moral 
 Science. The " must " of natural compulsion is re- 
 placed by the "ought," "thou shalt," and "thou shalt 
 not," of moral duty. We escape from a tyranny of 
 force and blind fate into a higher realm of moral 
 freedom, where pure affections, virtuous deeds, high 
 imaginings of hope, and free actings of love, are at- 
 tainable if not attained, and have their proper home. 
 The dreary wilderness is passed, where mere THINGS 
 
 113 8
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 are whirled about, like the sand-drit'ts of Arabia, by 
 to.rces as bhnd as themselves, and we seem to gaze on 
 a better land, 
 
 Where bright aerial spirits live insphered 
 In regions calm of mild and serene air. 
 Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, 
 Which men call earth. 
 
 But our upward journey is not ended. We must reach 
 the third and last stage of Spiritual or Theological 
 Science, before the doctrine of man's responsibility can 
 be seen in all its solemn grandeur, or the deeper in- 
 stincts of the conscience can be fulfilled, and the long- 
 ing of man's spirit for light and truth can obtain a 
 haven of intellectual repose. 
 
 And first, all Physical Science is founded on the con- 
 ception of force or power, the cause of motion and 
 physical change, which we are conscious of in our- 
 selves, and perceive in persons and things around us. 
 But the force of which we are conscious, and the other 
 forces we observe in all nature, are limited, local, 
 variable. The persons and things which have force 
 not only act, but are acted upon ; they are passive 
 and dependent. The same law of reason, which carries 
 us on from phenomena to causes of motion, that is, 
 forces, carries us on from these limited causes or forces, 
 these mutable, passive things around us, and from 
 ourselves, who are feeble and passive also, to a great 
 First Cause, the Fountain of all power, the Almighty, 
 on whom these finite forces and causes depend. 
 
 114
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 Again, we are conscious, not only of force or powe: 
 to act, but of reason and will. By this we feel 
 raised to a higher level of being than the lifeless 
 things which move and are moved without choice, or 
 even than those lower forms of animated life, where acts 
 of choice seem due, not to reflection, but to sensation 
 and instinct alone. But our reason is imperfect, our 
 wisdom like a mote in a great world of truth that 
 lies undiscovered around us. Our weakness and our 
 ignorance force on us the conception of a higher 
 wisdom than our own, of a Being All-wise, on whom 
 all the streamlets of human wisdom depend. 
 
 In the third place, we are conscious in ourselves 
 that the actings of our power are guided and controlled 
 by thought, reflection, and knowledge, by motives and 
 aims that have gone before the decision. The most 
 natural form of action, to our judgment, is not blind, 
 capricious, and without motive, but such as know- 
 ledge and wisdom are guiding to some chosen and 
 worthy aim. Now the things around us contain in them- 
 selves no signs of choice or final causes, and the choice 
 in the actions of animals has limits far narrower than in 
 human agents. Yet how small a part of the universe, 
 in point of physical force, are all mankind ! It has 
 been said, perhaps truly, that the electric forces con- 
 cealed and balanced in a drop of water, are enough 
 to create a terrible thunderstorm. Now take our 
 planet, and divide it into a thousand parts. Take one 
 of these, and divide it a second time. Take one of
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 these and divide it a third time. Do the same a fourth 
 time. Take this homoeopathic fragment and divide it a 
 fifth time. Then at last we have come down to the 
 quantum of matter which makes up the whole race of 
 mankind. Divide this cosmical speck into a thousand 
 parts. Do this a second time, and do it a third time. 
 Then only we have reached the amount of the corporeal 
 organism of a Bacon, or a Newton, or a Herschel, who 
 can weigh the earth and measure the sun, probe the 
 depths of the starry spaces, and unlock the secrets of 
 the universe. In this little speck of matter force is 
 united with and guided by thought, and we feel how 
 it towers immensely in dignity over whole worlds of 
 matter alone. 
 
 Mind, mind alone, bear witness, heaven and earth, 
 The living fountains in itself contains 
 Of beauteous and sublime . 
 
 But shall we associate force with mind and rea- 
 son in ourselves, and leave it blind and reasonless in 
 its whole range, except this infinitesimal point of 
 matter which belongs to mankind .'' Sound reason, 
 true philosophy, repels the fancy with disdain. It 
 sees a beauty and wisdom in the universe, which it 
 denies to the material, chemical elements themselves. 
 It speaks by the lips of its greatest discoverer : " This 
 most beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets, 
 could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of 
 an intelligent and powerful being." And thus we have 
 a third line of light, which leads direct to the throne 
 
 ii6
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 of an All-wise God. The vast forces and powers of 
 the material universe cannot be separated in thought 
 from all design and reason, without violating and 
 reversing the lesson of our own consciousness within. 
 But the wisdom is not in the material elements, which 
 we feel to be lifeless and unintelligent. It must then 
 be above them and beyond them, the mind of an 
 Almighty Creator, who is " wonderful in counsel and 
 excellent in wisdom." 
 
 We pass on still higher. Conscience, like sense, by 
 a clear intuition, reveals a moral law, which pre- 
 scribes what, in the exercise of choice and reason, we 
 ought to do. Man is conscious to himself that he is 
 higher and nobler than all the visible objects around 
 him, than animals, and still more than lifeless matter. 
 He feels that the power of reasonable choice is the 
 highest within him, and elevates him above a whole 
 world of passive motion or mere instinct. But the law 
 of right, the original incentive of duty, is still higher 
 than what he feels highest within him, and claims over it 
 a kingly authority, which he finds it vain to dispute. Is 
 this, then, the true Highest in the universe, an imper- 
 sonal, abstract law of duty, possibly never realized by 
 one child of man; lofty and pure as the blue firmament, 
 but, like that, vague, diffused, impersonal, undefined } 
 The conscience and heart of man protest against such 
 a view. The consciousness of force and causation 
 leads up to a First Cause, which is Almighty. The 
 consciousness of reason within us, and our convic- 
 
 117
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 tion of the absence of reason in the beautiful world 
 around us, point doubly to One All-wise, from whom 
 our own reason is derived, and on whose wisdom the 
 mighty Cosmos depends. And now the sense of a 
 moral law above us, overshadowing and encompassing 
 all moral agents, like the blue vault of heaven, leads 
 our thoughts, with resistless force, to the vision of One 
 All-good, as well as All-wise, in whom that law abides 
 as the uncreated light of perfect, essential goodness ; 
 and from whom it diffuses itself, in its application to 
 created moral agents, with all the rich and varied 
 hues of light in the bow of heaven. 
 
 Still further, the Moral Law, in its very nature, 
 speaks of something unfinished and imperfect, and 
 leads the thoughts, if intelligent, to some further truth 
 which lies beyond. For physical laws and forces 
 must be obeyed. The Moral Law is one which ongJit 
 to be obeyed. This is its higher dignity, as referring 
 to higher and nobler beings, who may be persuaded 
 or commanded, but not compelled. It ought to be 
 obeyed, but then it may be disobeyed. In this it falls 
 below the level of physical laws, just as in its own 
 nature it rises high above them. It is " weak through 
 the flesh." Perfect m one sense, as a standard, it is 
 most imperfect in another. It has no power, like a 
 physical law, to insure its own fulfilment. It reveals 
 duties, and not facts or results. And thus it leaves a 
 most weighty question behind. Is the law of perfect 
 right, in this our world, always obeyed } or is it, in part 
 
 ii8 ■
 
 HUM. IN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 or altogether, broken and disobeyed. Moral Science, 
 when joined with Spiritual Nescience, recognizes the 
 Law, but denies or evades the fact of its constant 
 breach, so as to escape from the conclusion that this 
 is a sinful world, which needs some remedy for sore 
 and wide-spread moral disease. And thJ-s it may do 
 in two different ways. If sky and ear^n are to meet, 
 there must either be a thick mist to bring down the 
 sky to the earth's level, or some illusive mirage, which 
 translates earthly objects into the sky. Thus men 
 may conceal and blot out the contrast between human 
 practice and the law of eternal Right, either by 
 lowering the standard into some shifting, misty substi- 
 tute of worldly expediency, or by yielding themselves 
 to the self-delusion of the Pharisee or the flattering 
 voices of Stoical pride. 
 
 But when the contrast between what is and what 
 ought to be is clearly felt and fully owned, this wicket 
 gate of humility opens before us the wide field of 
 spiritual science; a field higher than even that moral 
 science which simply tells of duty, but can provide no 
 security for duties being fulfilled, no remedy for 
 long and repeated moral failures. The famous couplet 
 of Pope is a curious example of the self-contradiction 
 whereby fatalism sometimes attempts to conceal un- 
 welcome truth : — 
 
 And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, 
 One truth is clear, whatever is is right. 
 
 In other words, in spite of two enormous evils — pride, 
 H9
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 the worst of wrongs in the heart of man, — and error, the 
 fountain of all wrong in his understanding, it is per- 
 fectly plain that no evil or wrongexists! But when we see 
 that the moral law of right is and has been continually 
 broken, and the world has thus been filled with evils 
 and miseries, a further conclusion must follow. Either 
 the moral world must lapse below the physical into 
 chance, chaos, anarchy, and darkness; or else there must 
 be, above and beyond the moral law, a still higher and 
 more wonderful law of Divine foresight, of righteous 
 control of all evil, overruling all things by some 
 secret counsel of goodness and love. As far as crea- 
 tures, imperfect, sinful, or perverse, have come to fall 
 below the standard of right, so far the goodness of 
 the All-perfect Being, in whom that standard is en- 
 shrined, must exceed the perfection of the mere law- 
 giver ; and include higher elements, the justice that 
 executes righteous judgment, and the mercy that pours 
 upon the sin-laden and the weary its floods of heavenly 
 grace. 
 
 True philosophy, then, rises from phenomena to 
 physical force, the key of all natural science, and 
 thence to reason, choice, will, and duty, the ground 
 and firm basis of moral science. It then discovers /the 
 humbling fact that duty has been transgressed, and its 
 laws forgotten, despised, or widely reversed, by the' Po- 
 sitive philosopher's " new Supreme Being," the highly 
 gifted, but erring and guilty children of men. Th us it 
 reveals three great wants, that must be felt by ^vtxy 
 
 1 20
 
 HUMAN RESPOXSIBILITY. 
 
 thoughtful mind, dwelling in such a world of moral 
 disorder and confusion, and which need to be supplied 
 from a higher source. These are, a scheme of Divine 
 Providence, by which all the moral disorder of a sinful 
 world may be controlled; a Righteous Judgment, by 
 which the law of right may be enforced with effectual 
 sanctions ; and some full display of Divine Grace, or of 
 that goodness which delights to overcome evil with 
 good, and that mercy which rejoices against judgment. 
 
 Human philosophy, if left to its own resources on 
 these mountain heights, must soon grow weary, and 
 be ready to faint and expire. Such knowledge is too 
 wonderful and excellent for it to attain securely by 
 its own efforts. The ascent is steep and hard, which 
 brings it so near to the Divine footstool. Its limbs 
 are feeble, and its eyes are dim, through its own share 
 in the world's moral disease. And hence many of its 
 sons may turn back, and dwell only on the fields of 
 natural science which lie beneath them. It is easier 
 for pride to look downward than upward, and to 
 count up exultingly its triumphs over the secrets of 
 nature, rather than to sum up its own debts against 
 this law of perfect love. But if Philosophy in this 
 stage of her ascent be still willing to look upward, 
 " One like the similitude of the sons of men" touches 
 her with his finger,, sets her on her feet once more, 
 and then leads her gently by the hand. 
 
 Divine Revelation, in the Old and New Testaments, 
 supplies at once to the simplest reader those three
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 great wants, which he beyond the range of mere 
 human science. It sets forth clearly three main facts : 
 a Sacred History reaching through all ages ; a Law ot 
 moral duty confirmed by the sanction of judgment to 
 come; and a Gospel of mercy and divine love. Out 
 of these facts flow at once three great aphorisms of 
 spiritual wisdom. All evil, while it lasts and seems 
 to prevail, is controlled by the counsel of One who is 
 perfect in wisdom. Evil too strong, and too stub- 
 bornly evil, to listen to the authority of holiness and 
 the persuasions of heavenly grace, will be judged and 
 sentenced by One who is perfect in righteousness. 
 All evil that owns its shame, and looks up for Divine 
 help in its weakness, danger, or misery, shall be lost 
 and swallowed up in a vast flood of Divine goodness 
 and heavenly blessing. 
 
 We have now reached those highlands of thought, 
 that land of Beulah, where human philosophy is 
 married to heavenly wisdom, yields its hand to a 
 higher guidance, and fears while it enters into the 
 cloud, and stands on the holy mount of God. The 
 doctrincof man'sresponsibility is now transfigured from 
 a lesson of conscience into a direct message from 
 heaven, and appears in its most august and solemn 
 form. For here the Moral Law, proclaimed by the 
 great Lawgiver with new sanctions, claims from 
 every child of man a perfect and sinless obedience. 
 Death, such as experience has made it known 
 for ages, is the sentence for tlie breach of that
 
 HUMAN RESPONSiniLITY. 
 
 law, and visits all men, for all have sinned. But 
 for this death, so incurred, a full release and remedy 
 is provided in One who is the Seed of the woman, the 
 Conqueror of death and the grave. The sentence due 
 to moral evil, simply as coming short of the perfect 
 standard of right, is thus, by an act of Divine mercy, 
 reversed and put away. "As in Adam all die, even 
 so in Christ shall all be made alive." But the moral 
 contrast remains between the upward path, in which 
 Man owns the authority of God's law, laments his 
 own departure, and seeks Divine help to regain God's 
 image once more ; and the downward course, when 
 Man rejects the offered aid, and abandons himself either 
 to sensual vice, or to self-righteous and unbelieving 
 pride. On the choice of one or other of these two path- 
 ways his accountableness, under the present economy 
 of Divine Providence, mainly depends. It stands out 
 in full relief in all the promises and threatenings, con- 
 nected with the revealed doctrine of judgment to 
 come. 
 
 "God hath appointed a day, in which He will judge 
 the world in righteousness." From the days of Enoch, 
 when it was first proclaimed, to those of St. Paul, and 
 onward to our own age, this great truth, in which 
 natural conscience and supernatural revelation both 
 agree, has been exposed to the "hard speeches " and 
 frequent mockeries of the unbelieving and the profane. 
 Doubts and perplexities of all kinds may be started 
 to obscure its evidence. But the laws and juris- 
 
 123
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 prudence of all nations, and the voices of deepest 
 poetry in every land, while they recognize the moral con- 
 trast of right and wrong, the need of social justice to 
 keep nations from ruin, and the depths of remorse and 
 fear in the hearts of guilty men, re-echo and confirm 
 in a thousand ways this firm and irrevocable message 
 of judgment to come. The conclusion of the Apostle 
 is drawn from a thousand converging premises, in the 
 facts of social history and the voices of the human 
 heart: — "So then every one of us shall give an account 
 of himself to God." 
 
 But how far does this account extend ? Scripture 
 includes in it the thoughts and intents of the heart. 
 Does philosophy make a different and opposite answer .-' 
 With this inquiry I will bring this very brief and 
 summary treatment of a vast subject to a needful 
 close. 
 
 There is a well-known saying of a great departed 
 statesman, some forty years ago : — " The doctrine has 
 gone forth, that man is not responsible to man for 
 his belief, over which he has no more control than 
 over the height of his stature, or the colour of his 
 skin." Is this doctrine true or false ? If true, we 
 must reverse nearly all our reasoning, and convict 
 Christ and his Apostles of mischievous ignorance of 
 the laws on which man's responsibility depends. 
 
 Man, it is true, is not responsible to his fellow-man 
 
 for his thoughts, but for a wholly different reason. 
 
 God alone can search the heart. Men may take cog- 
 
 124
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 nizance, by laws, of the words and actions of their 
 fellows ; though even in these they do wisely, from 
 the knowledge of their own faultiness, to limit their 
 criminal code to definite cases of social misdoing. 
 They need to make a clear distinction between sins 
 against God, vices to be condemned with moral cen- 
 sure, and crimes to be repressed by the stern hand of 
 human law. Many speeches and many actions may 
 be morally wrong, which it would be most unwise 
 to make the objects of penal legislation. But the 
 inquisition which forces its way into the human heart, 
 and strives to force hidden feelings and beliefs into 
 daylight, in order to visit them with the penalties of 
 eclesiastical or civil law, is an odious tyranny. It 
 usurps a Divine prerogative, breeds hypocrisy in its 
 victims, and cruelty in magistrates and inquisitors. 
 Thus it turns judgment into wormwood, and tends to 
 bury social confidence, intellectual life, moral freedom, 
 and Divine truth, in one common grave. 
 
 But the maxim just quoted goes much farther. Man 
 is responsible neither to God nor man for things 
 wholly out of his control, the height of his stature, or 
 the colour of his skin.' If the maxim, then, be right, 
 the moral teaching of the New Testament on faith 
 and unbelief must be wholly wrong. The actions of 
 men, it is further plain, flow from their convictions of 
 what is desirable, and are determined by them. If 
 they are not responsible for their convictions, then 
 they are not responsible for their acts, and must be 
 
 125
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 wholly free from real obligation to every law, wiiethei 
 human or Divine. 
 
 How false the doctrine is, however, must be plain 
 on the least reflection to honest minds. It is true 
 that men cannot fix their belief, suddenly and 
 directly, by an effort of will, so as not to believe 
 whatever they disUke, or to believe whatever they 
 wish to be true. But it is no less plain that a 
 moral bias within has the greatest influence on the de- 
 cisions of the understanding. The two powers, though 
 distinct, are closely united, and react on each other. 
 
 Men can choose or refuse to hsten to evidence. 
 They can stop their ears, and refuse to hear. Tliey 
 can shut their eyes, and refuse to see. In the court 
 of the soul, as in those of justice, they can play the 
 part of the advocate, and not the judge; can bully and 
 browbeat witnesses whose evidence they dislike, and 
 swallow blindly, unsifted, all that favours the issue 
 they desire to establish. In their array of cavils and 
 objections to unwelcome truth, sceptical minds can swell 
 mole-hills into mountains, and vault with ease over 
 mountains of evidence that stand in their way. Their 
 heart brings a large bribe to their understanding; and, 
 even in the court of the soul, " a gift blindeth the eyes, 
 and pervertcth the words of the righteous." When the 
 telescope is put to the blind eye of the spirit, nothing 
 can be seen, no flag at the masthead, and no sun in 
 the heavens. 
 
 The maxim, then, is foolish and false. One higher 
 126
 
 HUMAN RESFONSlBILirV. 
 
 than all modern schoolmasters, He who is the 
 Truth, has proclaimed its falsehood. Light is come 
 into the world, and men are guilty. He tells us, who 
 shut their eyes against it. Whenever they " love dark- 
 ness rather than light," it is " because their deeds 
 are evil." The darkened understanding obeys the 
 secret bias of sinful desires in the heart. 
 
 Man is responsible to his Maker for the whole state 
 of his moral being, his beliefs, his habits, his desires, his 
 words, and his actions. A moral unity runs through 
 the whole. The understanding guides the volition, and 
 the bias of the will reacts on the understanding. The 
 disposition leads to the act. Acts form habits of action, 
 and these habits strengthen and confirm the disposition. 
 And the future account, revealed in Scripture, an- 
 swers to this voice of sound philosophy. The process 
 is not maimed and partial, but entire. The word, by 
 which man is judged, pierces " even to the dividing of 
 soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow " of man's 
 inward life, and is a critical discerner of the thoughts 
 and intents of the heart. All things alike, the actions, 
 the words, the secret springs on which both depend, are 
 open to the eyes of the Righteous Judge with whom 
 we have to do. 
 
 Man, we thus conclude finally, is responsible, not 
 only to his own conscience, but to the Most High 
 God, the Supreme Creator, from whom all his high 
 and noble gifts were at first received. It is the 
 parting voice of the wisest of men — " God will bring 
 
 127
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 
 every work into judgment, with every secret thing, 
 whether it be good or evil," This great truth has, 
 doubtless, its solemn side, on which it has been assailed 
 with many doubts and strong aversion, and on which 
 the space and object of this lecture forbid me to 
 dwell. But, seen from a truer and higher point of 
 view, it is cheering, blessed, and glorious. Man is 
 not the sport of Chance, the slave of some blind 
 and heartless Fate. The world is not abandoned to 
 the hopeless anarchy of human passions, to the des- 
 potism of selfish and brutal tyrants, or the clamo- 
 rous and suicidal follies of ungodly multitudes, who 
 despise all authority, and scoff at laws both human 
 and divine. One who is perfect in wisdom and good- 
 ness, One who is supreme in might, sitteth upon these 
 water floods, and remaineth a King for ever. He is 
 Judge of all the earth, and He will do right. The 
 dark shadows, that veil His uprightness from sinful 
 eyes, will be cleared away. Man, by the fact that he is 
 called to stand in judgment, will assume the dignity 
 which a false philosophy obscures, of a being made in 
 the likeness of his God. The mystery of the long-en- 
 durance of evil will then be explained. The fragments 
 of Providence, that seemed trivial and worthless, will 
 be gathered up, and none be lost. No tear of repentant 
 sorrow, no breathing of desire after the good and right, 
 will be forgotten. No cup of cold water, given in 
 genuine charity, shall lose its due notice and reward. 
 The moral gems that were hidden in darkness will be 
 
 12S
 
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 brought to light, and help to form a royal diadem for 
 the King of kings. The flowers of tender affection and 
 loving thoughtfulness, the gentle charities of domestic 
 life, with every variety of the delicate fragrance of Chris- 
 tian love, shall blush unseen no longer, nor be buried in 
 the darkness of the grave ; but will shine in garlands 
 of immortal beauty, transplanted to the Paradise of 
 God. The light that has been sown for the righteous 
 in the painful discipline of this mortal life, and 
 watered so often with tears of bitter sorrow, shall then 
 yield its full harvest of blessing. That solemn account 
 must be to every child of man most deeply humbling ; 
 to the sinful and unholy it may be solemnly severe. 
 But it will be, and must be, worthy of Him who is 
 wonderful in counsel, spotless in holiness, and perfect in 
 love. From the thick clouds and darkness which now 
 surround His throne, a light surpassingly wonderful will 
 break forth on an admiring universe. Then will be seen 
 inscribed on the arch of this world's dark history, as in 
 letters of celestial fire, a glorious inscription, to be 
 repeated with wonder and admiration by all the moral 
 and intelligent universe — " He is the Rock, His work 
 is perfect, all His ways are judgment — a God of truth, 
 and without iniquity, just and right is He ! " 
 
 iz^
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 SCRIPTURES AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 J. H. GLADSTONE, Ph.D., F.R.S.
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 SCRIPTURES AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 BEFORE depicting a battle, it is well for the his- 
 torian to describe the combatants as faithfully 
 as he can, and to point out their relative positions. 
 This holds good of intellectual as well as martial 
 conflicts. 
 
 The Scriptures consist of a collection of writings 
 by about forty different authors. They fall into two 
 series : the one carefully preserved by the Jewish 
 people as containing their history from the earliest 
 times, their code of laws, collections of their poetry 
 and proverbs, and the utterances of their religious 
 teachers ; the other and later series containing the 
 memoirs of Jesus of Nazareth, and the writings, his- 
 torical and epistolary, of some of His first disciples. 
 The first series is almost wholly in Hebrew, the 
 second in Greek. Each possesses remarkable literary 
 value, and throws much light on the history, customs, 
 and mode of thinking of ancient times ; but the 
 
 ^33
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 interest attaching to these books arises mainly from 
 the feet that they profess to be the repository of a 
 revelation from God to man, and that they unques- 
 tionably are the text-book of the most powerful 
 religion of the civilized world. 
 
 Natural science is the sum of our knowledge of the 
 physical universe. The impressions made on our 
 senses are compared, corrected, and classified, and the 
 conclusions arrived at are more and more generalized 
 This science was very imperfect at the time when the 
 Scriptures were completed, but during the last three 
 centuries it has advanced at a wonderful and ever- 
 accelerating speed. 
 
 No writer in the sacred Scriptures ever professes to 
 teach any natural science. The single exception is 
 the short account of the creation of the world and its 
 inhabitants ; and even here the history is related not 
 so much to teach a cosmogony, as to show that the 
 one God was the Maker of all things. Indeed these 
 various books all serve a religious purpose ; histories, 
 poems, speeches, and letters are intended to bear on 
 the relation of God to man, and in so doing they pro- 
 fess to tell what nature cannot teach, and assert that 
 the message was confirmed by supernatural proofs. 
 
 Yet they do not shrink from natural things ; on the 
 contrary, for loving reference to the phenomena of 
 nature we can scarcely turn to anything superior to 
 the book of Job, Moses' Song of the Rock, many of 
 the Psalms of David, the imagery of Amos, Isaiah, 
 
 134
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 and Habakkuk, or the Sermon on the Mount, and its 
 echo in the Epistle of James. Still these are not 
 lessons in natural history or philosophy ; they are 
 used simply as illustrations of moral and spiritual 
 ideas. 
 
 At first sight it would appear difficult, if not im- 
 possible, to conceive of a collision arising between 
 such writers and the expositors of modern science ; 
 yet there are several ways in which collision is 
 possible. Thus it is conceivable that the advance 
 of knowledge may disprove the Mosaic history of 
 creation ; or there may be things which these writir>gs 
 assert to be facts, but which science shows to be im- 
 possible ; or the writers in describing natural objects 
 may exhibit such gross misapprehension of the phe- 
 nomena as would lessen if not destroy our respect for 
 their testimony in other things ; or, finally, there may 
 be an irreconcilable difference between their views 
 of the Divine procedure and the higher deductions of 
 natural philosophy. 
 
 Now it is affirmed in some quarters that in each of 
 these ways there is an actual conflict. I propose, as 
 a student both of the Scriptures and of natural science, 
 to glance rapidly at these points of supposed collision. 
 I intend to treat the matter somewhat historically, 
 and to indicate how in my own judgment the several 
 questions now stand. The most important, indeed 
 the only important question, for us to inquire is 
 whether these apparent collisions take place between 
 
 135
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 the well-established facts of science and the clear 
 teaching of Scripture. If a Scriptural statement is 
 opposed by some crude hypothesis of science, the 
 Christian may quietly await the issue ; if, on the 
 other hand, some established fact should run counter 
 to a portion of that traditionary gloss which has in all 
 ages accumulated round the Scriptures, the Christian 
 may gratefully acknowledge the aid of science in 
 sweeping it away. It may even happen that the 
 strife is on both sides a battle of phantoms, an inter- 
 necine combat between the crude deductions of the 
 theologian and of the philosopher, for it must be 
 remembered that while Holy Writ and nature are 
 both unchangeable, man's interpretation of either is 
 liable to error. 
 
 The attack has come from the side of science. It 
 may be thought that this was necessarily the case, 
 because when the prophets and apostles wrote, science 
 in the modern sense of the term was unborn. There 
 were, however, certain current explanations of natural 
 phenomena, and certain classifications in natural 
 history ; yet no sacred writer ever showed the least 
 mistrust of these. On the contrary, Job is sent to 
 study the phenomena of the heavens and the animate 
 creation ; it is frequently through observing the marvels 
 of nature, or of his own frame, that David is led to 
 praise the Lord ;* and of another of the writers it is on 
 
 * Psalms viii., xxix., Ixv., cxxxix., cxlv., e'ic. 
 136
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 record that " he spake of trees, from the cedar tree 
 that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that 
 springeth out of the wall : he spake also of beasts, 
 and of fowl, and of creeping things,' and of fishes." 
 The only appearance of opposition that I am aware 
 of, is the attitude of Paul towards those views of the 
 universe which were propounded by some who claimed 
 an especial 'yvoxxi'^, and which afterwards developed 
 into perhaps the wildest dreams that the human brain 
 ever excogitated. It was against the rudiments of 
 these Gnostic absurdities, or rather against their 
 theological bearing, that St. Paul wrote an epistle to 
 warn the Church at Colosse ; but it is scarcely neces- 
 sary to add that both the methods and the conclusions 
 of these Gnostic philosophers were the very reverse of 
 those of modern science. 
 
 Astronomy gave the first alarm. The early Chris- 
 tians of course participated in the scientific opinions 
 of the day regarding the movements of the heavenly 
 bodies ; and their views of natural and divine truth 
 were so blended together that when the old notions 
 of the universe were sought to be overthrown, they 
 felt a shock was given to their religious faith. It was 
 stated that the earth was a sphere instead of a plane, 
 and they believed that a wrong was done to Scripture, 
 for did it not speak of the earth as being " stretched 
 out," and of " the ends of the earth " .? Afterwards it 
 was also maintained that there were antipodes — men 
 on the other side of the earth walking upside-down — ' 
 
 •'27
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 an idea not only preposterous in itself, but irreconcil- 
 able with the belief that at the last day all men upon 
 the earth should stand up and behold their Judge. 
 Then the doctrine that the blue vault of heaven was 
 no soHd crystalline arch came into antagonism with 
 the use of the word " firmament " in the Scriptures.* 
 At a later period, when believers in the Bible had 
 become reconciled to these advanced views, a still 
 more serious assault was made : it was contended, not 
 merely that our glo.be rotated on its own axis, but 
 that it also travelled round the sun, instead of the sun 
 round the earth ; yet how could they accept such a 
 flat contradiction to the Psalmist's words, " The world 
 is established that it cannot be moved" .'' or such ex- 
 pressions as " The sun is as a bridegroom coming out 
 of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run 
 a race ; his going forth is from the end of the heaven, 
 and his circuit unto the ends of it " .'' or, again, how 
 could they understand on such principles the com- 
 mand of Joshua, "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ; 
 and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon " ? •}* It mat- 
 tered little, or nothing, that Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, 
 Kepler, and Galileo, like Newton who consummated 
 
 * That the Hebrew word has not the meaning afterwards attached to 
 the Greek arepiuixa or the Latin " fumamcntum " is well argued in the 
 Rev. Dr. M 'Call's essay in " Aids to Faith." 
 
 t Joshua X. 12, 13. The fact that the verses from the lost book of 
 Jasher in which these words occur, are quoted in the book of Joshua, 
 where the battle of Bethhoron is described, has generally been held to 
 commit believers in the Bible to their literal truth. The other quotation 
 from the book of Jasher in 2 Samuel i. is universally tieatcd as a piece 
 
 138
 
 BETWEEN SCRirTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 their work, were religious men : the new hypothesis 
 was preached against, and the Roman Inquisition 
 passed two decrees, — " First : The proposition that 
 the sun is the centre of the world, and immovable 
 from its place, is absurd, philosophically false, and 
 formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to 
 Holy Scripture. Second : The proposition that the 
 earth is not the centre of the world, nor immovable, 
 but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is 
 absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically con- 
 sidered, at least erroneous in faith," and poor Galileo, 
 but for his recantation, had given to science a martyr 
 for the truth. The Reformed Church sided with the 
 Vatican in this matter, and had we been living in the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century, we too should 
 have felt that the difficulty was a serious one. Yet the 
 Ptolemaic system had received its death-blow. The 
 modem astronomy ceased to shock the minds of the 
 devout ; in 1818 the Papal edict was formally repealed, 
 and the Copernican theory is now taught alike in 
 Protestant schools of divinity and in Jesuit colleges. 
 How was this } Simply because as religious men 
 became familiar with the new ideas, they perceived 
 that the Scriptural terms were still true expressions 
 
 of elegiac poetry, and no one feels under an obligation to believe that 
 Saul and Jonathan were both "lovely and pleasant in their lives," or 
 that they were really "swifter than eagles and stronger than lions." 
 For an interesting inquiry into the nature of this miraculous incident, 
 accepting the quotation as an historic statement, see a paper by the Rev. 
 T. P. Dale in Christian Advocate and Review, Nov. 1S71. 
 
 139
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 of the phenomena, indeed the only expressions that 
 could have been employed by the sacred penmen to 
 convey their meaning to their contemporaries. To 
 make this clearer, I have tried to put " The sun 
 knoweth his going down " * into scientific language, 
 avoiding every term that merely describes appear- 
 ances. The best I can make of it is this : " There is a 
 law by which is determined for any particular day the 
 precise time at which a line drawn from the sun to a 
 given point on the globe will be tangential to its surface, 
 and in what azimuth that line will fall." It would, I 
 suspect, be hard to put that into old-world Hebrew ; 
 but supposing it had been somehow achieved, surely 
 it would have sounded sheer nonsense to those who 
 first listened to the Psalm, it would have remained 
 unintelligible for more than two thousand years, while 
 it would seem pedantic now, and perhaps a piece of 
 antiquated folly in another century. 
 
 I do not at all imagine that the prophets of old had 
 any special illumination in regard to the material uni- 
 verse ; that has indeed been contended for, but the 
 array of passages brought forward by Gaussen in his 
 " Theopneustie" appear to me rather to negative than 
 to sustain the idea. Yet supposing the inspired men 
 had been made natural philosophers, they would 
 certainly have done what philosophers do now — 
 speak generally in popular language. Why, modern 
 astronomers talk, not only of sunsets, but of the 
 
 * Psalm civ. 19. 
 140
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 ascension and declination of the heavenly bodies, as 
 though the Ptolemaic system was still believed in at 
 Greenwich. The Nautical Almanac itself gives the 
 age of the moon at six, ten, or perhaps twenty-eight 
 days, but never as much as twenty-nine ; while a 
 well-known observer commences a paper recently 
 communicated to the Royal Society with this startling 
 contradiction in terms, "A careful examination of 
 the proper motions of all the fixed stars ." 
 
 Time, the great reconciler, has made these apparent 
 collisions between astronomy and the Scriptures a 
 thing of the past. It has also reconciled devout 
 minds to the thought of the enormous magnitude of 
 the universe, and the comparative insignificance of 
 our globe ; and while the telescope has given a pro- 
 founder meaning to the cry, " What is man that Thou 
 art mindful of him .''"* the microscope has answered 
 the question by revealing a world of minuteness un- 
 suspected before, but equally the workmanship and 
 the care of the Almighty. 
 
 Among the open questions of astronomy is the 
 " Nebular Theory." My first acquaintance with it 
 was in the pages of a pious astronomer, who held it 
 as a fresh proof of the greatness and wisdom of the 
 Deity; but afterwards I heard it seriously objected 
 to as an infidel hypothesis. Since then, the dis- 
 coveries of the late Lord Rosse have depressed, and 
 
 * See the whole of Psalm viii. The argument is admirably given in 
 Dr. Chalmers' " Astronomical Discourses." 
 
 141
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 those of Dr. Huggins and other spectroscopists, with 
 the analysis of meteorites, have raised its credit among 
 scientific men ; and whether it be looked upon favour- 
 ably or unfavourably by theologians, depends in a 
 great measure upon the attitude of their minds 
 towards modern views of evolution.* 
 
 To the anxious question of the ancient patriarch, 
 " If a man die, shall he live again } " science can 
 return no answer ; but the Christian religion rests 
 its claim to acceptance in no small degree on the 
 resurrection of its Founder, and declares that He is 
 " the first fruits of them that slept." But while this 
 resurrection from the dead was among the elementary 
 principles of Christian doctrine,-)- and an essential part 
 of the Christian hope,j the nature of it was a subject 
 of much dispute in the earliest days of the Church's 
 history. The majority of the fathers, however, coun- 
 tenanced the idea of the resurrection of the flesh, 
 avdaraaL<; t^9 adpKo<;, and it was included in that 
 most ancient of symbols the so-called " Apostle's 
 Creed." § The objection seems to have been urged 
 that portions of the body, such as the nails, were 
 always being removed and entering into new structures, 
 
 * The accordance of Genesis i. i, 2, with the nebular theory has fre- 
 quently been pointed out ; and if any one chooses to translate Hebrews 
 xi. 3, in such a way as to support it, it is fairly open to him to do so. 
 
 t See Hebrews vi. i, 2. 
 
 I See I Thessalonians iv. 13. 
 
 § The English version has "resurrection of the body," which is 
 nearer to the language of Scripture. 
 
 142
 
 BETnEEN .SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 while, on the other hand, it was contended that, in 
 order to preserve our identity, the body must be the 
 same in this and the future state. Gradually, what 
 we may without offence call the carnal view came to 
 be considered the orthodox one ; and Jerome merely 
 expressed the opinion of many other divines when he 
 asserted that every member should be restored from 
 the grave, even the teeth, for in the world of woe there 
 is to be " gnashing of teeth," and the hair, " for the 
 very hairs of your head are all numbered." - 
 
 " Quod credimus, hoc est ; 
 Et totus veniam, nee enim minor aut alius quam 
 Nunc sum restituar. Vultus, \agor, et color idem, 
 Qui mode vivit, erit. Nee me vel dente vel ungue 
 Fraudatum revomet patefacti fossa sepulchri." * 
 
 But the advance of physical and physiological science 
 showed more and more how completely our bodies 
 are constructed with a view to terrestrial conditions, 
 and chemistry demonstrated that the materials which 
 compose a human body at dissolution enter into fresh 
 combinations, and become integral parts of other men, 
 so that at the resurrection the same ultimate particles 
 of matter might be claimed for many bodies ; while 
 on the other hand it was shown that a man does pre- 
 serve his identity notwithstanding a constant change 
 in the elements of his body. Science, therefore, 
 entered into this theological controversy ; man}- 
 minds were distressed, for she sided against the 
 
 • Prudentius, quoted hy Hagenbach. 
 M3'
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 opinion that was reputed orthodox, but now it will 
 be generally if not universally acknowledged that her 
 strong arm only brought back the religious world to 
 a more strict adherence to the Scriptural statements, 
 for the resurrection of the flesh is unknown to the 
 sacred writers, and St. Paul, arguing on this very 
 point, drew the strongest contrast between the natural 
 body that is sown and the spiritual body that is 
 raised, and asserts emphatically that " flesh and blood 
 cannot inherit the kingdom of God." * 
 
 Though man had for ages tilled the soil, dug for 
 precious stones, and split the rocks for metallic ore, 
 he never till of recent times studied the superposition 
 of strata, or the structure of the solid earth, and he 
 seems to have been scarcely aware even of the exist- 
 ence of fossils. At the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century, however, shells in the limestone of Verona 
 drew the attention of the thoughtful, and initiated 
 some of the most important controversies we have to 
 consider. The remains of marine animals, which were 
 now found in almost every mountain range, were 
 naturally enough attributed at first to the Noachian 
 deluge ; and though Fracastoro argued that the ex- 
 planation was insufficient, the flood was long con- 
 sidered to have played the most important part in the 
 moulding of hills, valleys, and plains, fossils' were con- 
 stantly attributed to it, and a petrified salamander 
 was described as " Homo diluvii testis.' ' Voltaire 
 * 1 Corinthians xv.
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 tried to evade the argument by supposing that the 
 shells found on the Alps were those of fresh-water 
 lakes, or had been dropped there by pilgrims, and 
 that the fishes found in Hesse had been thrown away 
 by travellers and become fossilized. This explanation 
 was of course utterly unsatisfactory, and even absurd ; 
 but it was gradually recognized that the generally 
 received view was inadequate to account for all the 
 phenomena, and that the majority of these fossiliferous 
 strata must have been deposited slowly during the 
 lapse of ages. The progress of discovery ran directly 
 counter to a universal deluge. It was believed, for 
 instance, that no diluvial wave could have swept over 
 the volcanoes of Auvergne, or the slopes of Etna, 
 within four thousand years. Again, the improved 
 knowledge of natural history showed that all the 
 species of beasts and birds could not have found room 
 in the ark ; while the fresh-water or salt-water fishes, 
 with the littoral molluscs and zoophytes, and the 
 plants in general, for which no provision was made, 
 must have perished utterly. Besides this, the geo- 
 grapher has helped the geologist and naturalist in 
 showing that different animals, such as the mar- 
 supials in Australia, or the sloths in America, have 
 for ages kept to a limited region, and could scarcely 
 be conceived as travelling across oceans or other 
 obstacles to the ark in Western Asia, and back 
 again. Then the question arose whether the Scrip- 
 ture really affirmed a universal deluge, and it was 
 
 H5 lo
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 found that according to the ordinary use of Semitic 
 terms a partial deluge destroying the whole race 
 of man, or even perhaps only that race to which 
 the survivors belonged, would meet every require- 
 ment. That such a flood was possible, even frorr* 
 natural causes, in those parts of Asia where Noah 
 probably lived, is shown by the fact that the whole 
 of an enormous tract of land is far below the level 
 of the Black Sea, and part of this region of the 
 Caspian exhibits comparatively recent evidences of 
 the action of water. This conclusion has not be^n 
 reached without much controversy ; and it is well said 
 in the new " Speaker's Commentary," — " The peculiar 
 unfairness of the objections urged is to be found, not 
 so much in the objections themselves, as in the in- 
 sisting at the same time on an interpretation of the 
 Scripture narrative on principles which would not be 
 applied to any other history whatever. Not only are 
 we required to expound ancient and eastern phrase- 
 ology with the cold exactness applicable only to the 
 tongues of Northern Europe, but moreover to adhere 
 to all the interpretations of past uncritical ages, to be- 
 lieve that there was but a single window in the ark, 
 that the ark stranded on the top of a mountain within 
 sight of which it very probably never sailed, that the 
 waters of the flood rose three or even five miles above 
 the sea level, and other prodigies, which the sacred 
 text^even in its most natural significance, nowhere 
 cither asserts or implies." 
 
 146
 
 BETWEEM SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 The deluge is not the only point of contact between 
 Genesis and geology. The progress of this science 
 was impeded for a century or two, not only by the 
 attempt to ascribe almost everything to the Noachian 
 deluge, but by the common belief that the world had 
 been created about six thousand years ago, in six 
 natural days ; and still more perhaps by the wild 
 cosmogonies and strange perversions of Scripture 
 which were put forward as sacred theories of the 
 earth by a series of writers whose names we would 
 willingly forget. At length, however, from the crude 
 hypotheses of the young science, two conclusions came 
 forth with such irresistible evidence that all geologists, 
 whatever be their conflicting views on other points, 
 hold them as fundamental truths : ist, that the 
 surface of the earth has been subject to changes that 
 necessitated for their production vastly more than six 
 thousand years ; and 2nd, that the introduction oi 
 fresh genera and species of plants and animals has 
 been very gradual. Many of these pioneers of geology, 
 like the early astronomers, were Christian men, and it 
 needed no small moral courage on their part to 
 oppose tlie religious opinions of the day. And indeed 
 it was manifest that the answer which met the astro- 
 nomical difficulties would scarcely apply here, for the 
 account of the creation was either the teaching of 
 God or the worthless guess of some ancient philosopher. 
 No doubt it was written in the popular language of 
 the time, and allowance might be made for figurative
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 expressions ; still as it came forward with greater 
 pretensions it had to abide a more rigid scrutiny. So 
 when the lessons taught by the strata were held to be 
 authoritative, a number of books were published with 
 the object of reconciling the two records. Many oi 
 these had better never have been written, for, to bring 
 about a premature correspondence, they wrest either 
 the facts of nature or the words of Scripture. Yet 
 some are worthy of all respect as honest endeavours 
 to meet the difficulty.* The more general view of 
 late has been that the six days represent six epochs 
 of indefinite length, or rather six of the days of the 
 Most High ; and the advocates of this view generally 
 contend, and with reason, that there is an agreement 
 — or at any rate a general resemblance — between the 
 order of creation as told in Genesis, and that revealed 
 by the strata of the earth. It matters little in this 
 argument whether the forces that have formed the 
 lands 5nd seas have been pretty uniform in their 
 operation or have acted by cataclysms ; or whether 
 we accept the enormous drafts on the bank of time 
 which some geologists demand, or the one hundred 
 million years to which Sir William Thoaison and 
 other physicists would restrict them. The progress 
 of physical and geological science, and of linguistic 
 
 * Among the better sort may be mentioned the works of the Rev. 
 Dr. Pye Smith, Hugh Miller, the Rev. Dr. King, Professor Hitchcock, 
 Archdeacon Pratt, and Mr. George W'arington. Doubtless there are 
 others with which I am less acquainted. 
 
 148
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 criticism, may be expected to give us in the future 
 a more accurate knowledge of the two records of 
 creation. Should it prove that they are contradictory, 
 we shall have to put aside, not the Bible, nor even 
 Genesis, but that ancient and sublime fragment which 
 forms the first thirty-four verses of that book. Should, 
 however, the substantial agreement between the two 
 which now appears to exist be completely established, 
 geology will furnish a very conclusive proof of the 
 supernatural origin of the Scripture history. 
 
 The facts of geology claim our attention also in 
 other ways. They necessitate the belief that pain and 
 death were in the world long ages before man trod 
 the soil. This also came into collision with the 
 popular belief, such as is enshrined in the opening 
 verses of the " Paradise Lost " : — 
 
 " Of man's first disobedience, and the frait 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world, and all onr woe." 
 
 It is enough to reply, that whatever may be the 
 dreams of the poets, there is not in all the Scriptures 
 a single expression that connects in any way the death 
 of the lower animals with the fall of man. 
 
 It appears also that serpents of the same anatomical 
 structure as those now existing have been found in 
 the early Eocene strata long anterior to the birth of 
 man. Now there is a belief that the serpent's legless 
 condition was part of his curse, and in Scheuchzer's 
 " Physica Sacra " there is a delicious engraving of the 
 
 149
 
 FOINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 serpent in three stages : first, a dragon on four legs 
 ridden by the evil one, next walking in the condition 
 of a biped, and lastly crawling upon the earth. 
 Whether we take the account of the temptation by 
 the serpent literally or figuratively, it seems to me 
 that the expressions " On thy belly shalt thou go," 
 "dust shalt thou eat," "he shall bruise thy head," are 
 common metaphors to denote entire defeat and sub- 
 jection, as we see in the Egyptian drawings of a 
 victor treading on his prostrate foe, or as we read in 
 the later Jewish writers, " They shall be as mighty 
 men which tread down their enemies in the mire of 
 the streets," " His enemies shall lick the dust," " God 
 shall wound the head of His enemies." Such also seems 
 to have been the thought of the apostle : " The God 
 of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." * 
 Some time ago it was frequently contended that 
 the different races of men have not sprung from one 
 common stock. This opinion seems to be in oppo- 
 sition not merely to the general belief, but to the 
 teaching of the earliest records, and to some argu- 
 ments adduced in the New Testament ; for instance, 
 that employed by Paul at Areopagus : " God hath, 
 made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell 
 on all the face of the earth." But the advocates of 
 a plurality of races differed most widely as to their 
 number ; and, what was more perplexing, different 
 
 * Zechaiiah x. 5 ; Psalms l.Kxii. 9; Ixviii. 21 ; Ronians xvi. 20. See 
 also 2 Samuel viii. 2 ; Psalms xviii. 39, 40 ; xliv, 5, 25 ; Isaiah li. 23. 
 
 150
 
 BETWEEN SCR. PTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 criteria for distinguishing the races gave different 
 results. The more recent progress of thought has 
 been rather to refer varieties everywhere to a common 
 origin, than to exalt them into independent species. 
 Besides which, the large amount of attention which has 
 recently been paid to comparative philology, and to 
 the manners, customs, and beliefs both of ancient and 
 modern, civilized and savage nations, has indicated 
 rather a continuous ramification from one original 
 stock. 
 
 While, however, the tendency of the age is decided]}- 
 in favour of the unity of the race, many of the argu- 
 ments just alluded to seem to require a longer period 
 than the four thousand years from the deluge, or even 
 the six thousand years from the creation of man, in 
 order to account for the modifications of bodih- 
 structure, mental habits, and language. A similar 
 deduction has been made from the advanced state of 
 several of the useful arts among the Egyptians and 
 some other nations at the dawn of the historic period. 
 The testimony of geology with reference to the an- 
 tiquity of man has been, first, to show that he is among 
 the latest born of the dw^ellers on earth, thus support- 
 ing the order of creation given in the book of Genesis ; 
 and then to insist, nevertheless, that man's tenancy of 
 our planet must date further back than the commonl}'- 
 received chronology. This conclusion rests on such 
 arguments as the co-existence of man with the mam- 
 moth, rhinoceros tichorinus, cave-bear, and other ex-
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 tinct animals, as seen in the stalagmite of Kent's cavern 
 near Torquay, and in many other old dwelling-places 
 in England and France ; the changes of level in 
 the hieight of Denmark, Sicily, and other countries 
 since they were inhabited by man ; the discovery of 
 human remains in the delta of streams in Switzerland, 
 under circumstances that indicate the lapse of several 
 thousand years ; and the existence of flint implements 
 in the undisturbed gravel of the valley of the Somme 
 at depths compared with which the Roman graves in 
 the same valley .seem but the diggings of yesterday. 
 It may be that not one of the arguments of either 
 the philologist, the ethnologist, the antiquarian, or the 
 geologist is absolutely conclusive, but together they 
 form a strong cumulative proof of the inadequacy of 
 the current chronology which is founded on the genea- 
 logical tables of Genesis, while there seem to be no 
 arguments of weight on the other side Here then 
 there is more than a supposed collision between 
 science and the letter of Scripture, Yet it requires no 
 great scholarship to satisfy ourselves that the compu- 
 tation of the date of Adam, as made from the received 
 Hebrew, or the Septuagint, or Peschito versions, will 
 differ by many centuries ; that the figures in Genesis v. 
 have been tampered with in early days ; that gene- 
 alogies even in the New Testament are purposely 
 curtailed ;* that one man is sometimes said to be the 
 son of another, though elsewhere it appears that many- 
 
 * Matthew i. 17. 
 152
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 generations have intervened between them ; * and that 
 the genealogical lists after the flood refer, partially at 
 least, to the descent, not of individuals, but of nations, 
 one nation being said to have begotten other nations.! 
 As therefore it is evident that these lists of names are 
 intended to indicate only the line of descent, and not 
 every step on the road, as they have suffered in trans- 
 mission, and as we cannot always in the earlier 
 records distinguish between nations and individuals 
 we need not consider ourselves bound to any chro- 
 nology deduced from them. 
 
 I ought to mention, however, that another theory 
 has lately been advanced which even saves the com- 
 mon chronology. It is argued that the first account 
 of the creation relates to the whole genus Homo, but 
 that the second, commencing at the fourth verse of 
 the second chapter of Genesis, refers to the Adamic 
 race, and that this branch of the great family is alone 
 treated of in the subsequent history. Such a hy- 
 pothesis has the merit of removing several difficulties 
 at once; and if it raises others of a theological character, 
 it is possible that these may eventually disappear. 
 
 Here let me pause to point out how valuable to the 
 Biblical student are the cross-lights thrown by natural 
 science. As Bishop Butler well says in his "Analogy " 
 when treating of inspiration, " We are wholly ignorant 
 what degree of new knowledge it were to be expected 
 
 * Matthew i. i, 9 ; Ezra vii. i — 5 ; i Chron. vii. 7 — 11. 
 t Genesis x. 
 
 153
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 God would give mankind by revelation, upon suppo- 
 sition of His affording one ; or how far, or in what 
 way, He would interpose miraculously to qualify them, 
 to whom He should originally make the revelation, for 
 communicating the knowledge given by it; and to se- 
 cure their doing it to the age in which they should 
 live ; and to secure its being transmitted to posterity." 
 The reverential student of the Divine message should 
 therefore welcome every influence from without which 
 affords any clearer insight into the manner in which 
 the Scriptures have been constructed, or in which they 
 ought to be interpreted. 
 
 The correctness of the natural history of the Bible 
 has generally been acknowledged. The only excep- 
 tion of any importance is, I think, that the hare and 
 the coney (hyrax) are said to chew the cud, though 
 they do not divide the hoof. If these are really the 
 two animals meant, anatomical science renders it still 
 more certain that they are rightly included among 
 unclean animals in the Levitical Code, for they are 
 not even ruminants ; but as both the hare and the 
 hyrax do masticate their food in such a way as has 
 led even modern observers to think they were chewing 
 the cud, Moses, in admitting this external appearance, 
 warns the Israelites of the clear reason why these 
 should not be eaten. The identification of the names 
 of plants and animals is not always possible ; but 
 there is an unlucky mistranslation in IMatthew xii. 40, 
 which has added a needless difficulty to the story of 
 
 154
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 Jonah, for a whale's gullet is far too narrow for a man 
 to pass. Ki]To<i means any large fish, and on the 
 shores of the Mediterranean was often applied to the 
 tunny or the shark. 
 
 Yet the science of biology has recently caused no 
 small anxiety to some believers, and afforded no 
 small triumph to some unbelievers. I allude to the 
 doctrine of the evolution of living things. How this 
 question presents itself to my mind will be best ex- 
 plained by putting myself into the confessional. When 
 Darwin's book on " The Origin of Species " made its 
 appearance, I read it with great interest and pleasure. 
 Previous theories of development had appeared very 
 unsatisfactory to me, but the additional arguments in 
 that book, and the exposition of natural selection, 
 made me entertain a different idea of the probabilities 
 of the case. Though Darwin in that work treats only 
 of the lower animals, it was perfectly plain that the 
 argument must also include the genus Homo, as far 
 as his bodily frame and instincts are concerned. 
 Nevertheless I felt no shock to my religious faith : 
 indeed the progressive development of animated nature 
 seemed to harmonize with that gradual unveiling of 
 the Divine plan which I had loved to trace in the 
 Bible, while it offered a satisfactory explanation of 
 those rudimentary or abortive organs which had 
 puzzled me as a student of natural theology. But 
 presently I heard around me many voices opposing 
 the theory, not only as untrue, but as irreligious, while 
 
 155
 
 POLVTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 some of the other voices were loud in its praise because 
 it was reputed anti-Christian. On listening, I seemed 
 to distinguish two principal grounds of supposed 
 antagonism between the development theory and 
 Scriptural theology : — 
 
 1st. It cannot be true that God created all the 
 different plants and animals if they only descended 
 from other pre-existent forms. 
 
 2nd. This view removes God further from His 
 universe, and only allows of His operation in the 
 primitive forms or form at some incalculably remote 
 epoch. 
 
 Now the first of these objections turns on the mean- 
 ing of the Hebrew word Bara. I failed to discover 
 any philological reason for supposing this word means 
 necessarily to make out of nothing, and I examined all 
 the places — about fifty in number — in Avhich it occurs 
 in the Old Testament. In each case it refers to a 
 Divine act, but in not one is there any suggestion 
 that the Divine action was exerted upon nothing. 
 While in Psalms Ixxxix. 47* and cii. 18, the men of 
 the present and of a future generation are said to be 
 created ; in Isaiah liv. 16 we read that God created 
 the smith who forges the weapons of war and the 
 devastator of countries ; and in Ezckiel xxi. 30 the 
 idea of creation by ordinary birth is distinctly ex- 
 pressed, where the Lord says of the nation of the 
 Ammonites, " I will judge thee in the place where thou 
 
 * TraEslated "made" in the authorized version. 
 156
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 wast created, in the land of thy nativity." The 
 Greek word /ct/^&j and its derivatives seem to be used 
 in the New Testament just as Bara in the Old, with 
 only one exception,* in which it bears the more classic 
 meaning of a human institution.! 
 
 As to the second objection, that of banishing the 
 idea of God to an incalculable distance, that objection 
 is strong or weak according to our conceptions of the 
 Most High. If we believe in the God of Epicurus, 
 who set the world a-spinning, and then retired into 
 inactivity, we certainly lessen the little interest we can 
 have in such a Being by widening the distance that 
 separates us from the period when He handed over 
 His creation to the guidance of physical laws. If, how- 
 ever, we believe in the God of St. Paul, in whom " we 
 live and move and have our being," and " by whom all 
 things consist," the sustainer as well as the giver of 
 life, it becomes a matter of no theological importance 
 in what way He created each species, and develop- 
 ment or evolution, if established, becomes merely the 
 gradual carrying out of His mighty scheme of creation. 
 Yet we need hardly wonder at the attitude which 
 religious men have generally assumed towards this 
 
 * I Peter ii. 13. 
 
 t The son of Sirach says that the physician ought to be honoured 
 because the Lord created him : He also created the drugs out of the 
 earth (e/c 'i^)s, Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. i, 4). In another place (Ecclc: 
 siasticus xvii. i) it is said that out of the earth man himself was created. 
 In the so-called Wisdom of Solomon (xi. 17), we read that the Almighty 
 hand created the world out of amc»rphous matter (f| afj.bp(pou VXtj^). 
 
 IS?
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 theory, when we recollect how eagerly it has been 
 caughtat by opponents of Christianity, and how some 
 of its ablest advocates, especially on the Continent, 
 have wrested its teachings in support of materialism. 
 
 There is however another aspect of the argument. 
 Every student of the Bible is familiar with the con- 
 tinuous revelations of religious truth through the 
 patriarchs, IMoses and the prophets, Christ and the 
 apostles, and the dependence of the later on the 
 earlier ; and he may fairly expect to find an analogous 
 continuity and correlation also in nature. Law and 
 order imply design ; sudden transitions might be due 
 to chance. 
 
 When the Darwinian theory of the origin of species 
 is extended to the human race, there arise other objec- 
 tions. It is clearly inconsistent with a literal inter- 
 pretation of Genesis ii. 4 — 24 ; but from time imme- 
 morial many Jews and Christians have taken this 
 second account of the creation of man in a more or 
 less figurative or allegorical sense, and in the present 
 controversy few seem to have felt themselves bound to 
 a literal exegesis. Far more potent against this 
 theory as applied to ourselves are an unwillingness 
 to recognize the monkeys, apes, and gorillas as our 
 poor cousins; a sense of the enormous gulf between 
 them and vs; the impossibility of imagining at what 
 stage a transition could take place from the brute to 
 the "image of God;" and a fear lest the admission of 
 
 development to account for man's bodily frame should 
 
 158
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 open the way to dangerous opinions regarding his moral 
 and spiritual nature. 
 
 However, I must continue my confession. During 
 the early controversies on this theory there came into 
 my mind certain objections to the influence of natural 
 selection of a similar nature to those which have been 
 so ably brought against it by St. George Mivart. 
 That the " survival of the fittest " plays an important 
 part in the economy of nature, seems to me beyond 
 question ; but that it has been the sole or even the 
 principal means of bringing about the wondrous variety 
 of organized beings, is quite another matter. Glancing 
 to the best of my ability over the whole of animated 
 nature, I am disposed to say as the Duke of Argyll 
 says with special reference to the humming-birds: " If 
 I am asked whether I believe that every separate 
 species has been a separate creation — not born, but 
 separately made — I must answer, that I do not believe 
 it. I think the facts do suggest to the mind the idea 
 of the working of some creative law ; almost as cer- 
 tainly as they convince us that we know nothing of 
 its nature, or of the conditions under Avhich it does its 
 glorious work." * The problem of the method of 
 creation is a grand one, and modern science lures us 
 on with the hope of a solution. At present we are in 
 the early stage of crude guesses, or at best of partial 
 glimpses : yet whatever further insight may be gained, 
 we may rest assured that the Christian will continue 
 
 • " Reign of Law, " chapter V. 
 159
 
 POINTS OF SUPFOSED COLLISION 
 
 to exclaim as the Psalmist did when reviewing the 
 animate world, but with an ever-widening intelligence, 
 " O Lord, how manifold are Thy works ; in wisdom 
 hast Thou made them all ! " 
 
 It may perhaps be expected that I should say some- 
 thing about spontaneous generation, the vital force, or 
 the physical basis of life, or that I should consider 
 whether any people has ever raised itself to a civilized 
 condition without influences ah cxira ; but however 
 interesting these questions may be in themselves, 
 I do not know any declaration of Scripture that is 
 affected by their solution one way or the other. 
 
 Far otherwise is it with the use that has been made 
 of the uniformity of natural laws as an argument 
 against miracles, special interpositions, and the efficacy 
 of prayer. The constancy of law is everywhere re- 
 cognized by students of nature, while the doctrines 
 impugned stand on every page of the Bible. It is the 
 connection between the premiss and the conclusion 
 that is doubtful. To discuss it fully would lead us 
 into metaphysical arguments, and in regard to "prayer 
 would necessitate a theological inquiry as to the 
 legitimate objects of supplication. I will simply 
 observe that this permanency of the order of nature 
 is no new doctrine. Common observation has always 
 affirmed it. The Scriptures assume it, else a miracle 
 could have no meaning ; and while they assert that 
 the ordinary sequence has at times been changed, 
 they assign a special cause (generally the accrediting 
 
 i5o
 
 BETWEEN SCRIP! U RE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 of a Divine messenger) to produce the new effect. 
 Nor is the impossibihty of a deviation from the 
 general laws a new doctrine of science ; it is only the 
 modern form of the old question whether Jupiter was 
 subject to Fate, or Fate to Jupiter. Yet the great 
 attention lately paid to physical laws has certainly 
 rendered men less disposed to believe in miracles ; but 
 on the other hand it has rendered the evidence from 
 miracles more conclusive where they are believed. It 
 has also a depressing effect upon religious faith unless 
 we bear in mind that there may be influences which 
 we cannot measure with our galvanometers, or weigh 
 in our most delicate balances ; and that while our wills 
 are constantly modifying the manifestations of force, 
 there may be a Supreme Will more free and more 
 potent to act in a way which no experience of ours can 
 possibly predict. 
 
 It may be said that, independently of these special 
 points of collision, there is an irreconcilable opposition 
 between natural science and the Scriptures in their 
 general view of the operation of God : the one refers 
 everything to His agency, the other is impatient of 
 the supernatural ; thus science, instead of hearing in 
 the thunder " the voice of the Lord," strives to gain a 
 clear conception and a measure of atmospheric elec- 
 tricity ; or, instead of acknowledging life as the gift of 
 the Almighty, she endeavours to show its correlation 
 with the chemical and physical forces. I admit the 
 difference, but not the contradiction. The world is 
 
 i6i II
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 not viewed from the same standpoint by science and 
 by religion, but each view is correct in itself. They 
 may be the opposite poles of thought, but like the 
 two poles of a magnet each is a necessary part of 
 ^he entire system. There are, no doubt, scientific 
 men who, entering the very presence-chamber of the 
 Most High, turn their back upon the throne ; but there 
 are others who in pursuing their studies feel them- 
 selves treading 
 
 " Upon the great world's altar-stairs 
 That slope through darkness up to God ;" 
 
 while others, again, believe that for a full conception 
 of the universe, it is necessary to gain ever a clearer 
 insight into the action of physical laws, and at the 
 same time to trace in them the thought, and to feel 
 the presence, not of a great Unknowable, but of an 
 ever-bountiful Father. 
 
 In this brief and imperfect sketch, I have neces- 
 sarily confined my attention to points of supposed 
 collision, and have said nothing about those points of 
 contact between the Scriptures and natural science 
 in which accordance is beyond question. Yet it must 
 • not be forgotten that such harmonies exist, and are 
 ever increasing in their significance ; for instance, the 
 oneness of God, as taught by modern views of force 
 and by the prophets of Israel. It also deserves notice 
 that some of the scientific ideas which at first appeared 
 as the opponents are now the allies of the Christian 
 
 162
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND 1\ A JURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 religion ; thus the enormous extension of time which 
 we now recognize for the Divine process of creation, 
 reconciles our minds to the apparent slowness both of 
 the Divine manifestation in the kingdom of grace, and 
 of the triumphs of the Gospel.* 
 
 While making this rapid survey we have seen that 
 the progress of scientific knowledge has frequently- 
 come into collision with the traditionary beliefs of 
 Christendom. Some of these may have been im- 
 pressed upon us in our childhood by those we loved 
 most dearly, and may be now intertwined with our 
 holiest feelings and our highest hopes ; but if clearer 
 light has shown us that they are no part of God's 
 revelation, loyalty to the Truth demands that we 
 should dismiss them from our creed. We have seen, 
 too, that the progress of scientific knowledge has 
 compelled theologians to inquire more carefully into 
 the objects and nature of the Divine communications 
 to man — a thing which, as Butler strongly and re- 
 peatedly insists, cannot be determined a priori-\ — and 
 in so doing it has corrected some erroneous impres- 
 sions. What we have not seen is, that the progress 
 of science has rendered incredible, or even improbable, 
 
 * See the Hulsean Lectures for 1867, by the Rev. C. Pritchard, F.R.S. 
 
 t His language sometimes sounds prophetic, as when he says, 
 " Since, upon experience, the acknowledged constitution and course of 
 nature is found to be greatly different from what, before experience, 
 would have been expected ; and such as, men fancy, there lie great 
 objections against ; this renders it beforehand highly credible, that they 
 may find the revealed dispensation likewise, if they judge of it as they 
 do of the constitution of nature, very different from expectations formed 
 beforehand, and liable, in appearance, to great objections."
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 anything which is clearly taught in the sacred writings 
 as the word of God. 
 
 Nor has it been for want of will on the part of op- 
 ponents of Christianity that this continues to be the 
 result. The storehouses of natural science have often 
 been ransacked for weapons against the old book ; the 
 defenders of the faith have sometimes shrieked with 
 alarm, and the assailants have sung their paean in 
 anticipation of victory ; earthworks which formed no 
 part of the original fortress have been easily carried, 
 but the citadel itself has remained unshaken, and the 
 ver>^ vigour of these repeated attacks has proved how 
 impregnable are its venerable walls. 
 
 It may be replied that I can only claim the victory 
 for the Scriptures by showing that they do not profess 
 to teach science, and by requiring full allowance for 
 popular language and Eastern modes of speech. 
 Granted : but this abstinence on the part of the 
 writers is a fact, and it is also unquestionable that they 
 were Easterns making use of the Hebrew of their day. 
 I might look upon my task as accomplished, con- 
 tent if I have succeeded in removing that idea of the 
 antagonism of modern science and the Bible which 
 presses so heavily on the minds of many seekers after 
 truth. But I am not content to leave the matter here. 
 It seems to me a question worthy of consideration, How 
 did it come to pass that these writers did not profess 
 to explain the phenomena of the universe } So com- 
 
 164
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 pletely is this the case, that it is rarely possible to 
 ascertain their own views. Thus I once took the 
 trouble to examine every passage in the Bible relating 
 to light or the process of vision, but I found nothing 
 ijeyond the mere external facts, or such poetic meta- 
 phors as " the eyelids of the morning." If I had 
 turned to the contemporary Greek writers, I might 
 have found observations on the course of direct or 
 reflected rays ; learnt that we see by means of rays 
 proceeding in straight lines, not from the thing seen, 
 but from the eye, just as a blind man feels the form of 
 an object Avith his staff; and made acquaintance with 
 such dark definitions as that light is " the transparent 
 in motion," and colour is something added on to " the 
 absolute visible." 
 
 But in order fairly to understand the significance of 
 the fact that these writers avoid scientific explanations, 
 it is necessary to turn to other professed revelations, 
 or to the commentators on the Bible itself. It is well 
 known that the Phcenicians, Babylonians, Persians, 
 Indians, Greeks, Chinese, and other nations had won- 
 derful cosmogonies in which a mundane %^g generally 
 appears, and that the Puranas give a large amount of 
 such information as that India is surrounded by seven 
 oceans, composed respectively of salt water, sugar-cane 
 juice, wine, clarified butter, curds, milk, and fresh 
 water. 
 
 The books that grew up alongside of the sacred 
 Scriptures are still more to the point. There was 
 
 165
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 an oral tradition, carefully handed down by Jewish 
 doctors, intended to supplement and to " fence 
 the law." This was reduced to writing by several 
 of the later scribes, and the books thus produced 
 abound in fanciful conceits and etymological follies ; 
 for instance, it is said that the Bible begins with 
 the letter Beth, which as a numeral stands for tivo, 
 because God created two worlds, the material and 
 the spiritual : but sometimes their speculations are 
 more capable of being tested ; thus, where the Royal 
 Preacher says, "All the rivers run into the sea; yet 
 the sea is not full : unto the place from whence the 
 rivers come, thither they return again,"* the Targum 
 has the gloss that the rivers flow into the ocean that 
 surrounds the world like a ring, and that they return 
 again through the subterranean channels. Then there 
 are the books that compose the Apocrypha. They 
 are moulded very closely after the model of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, but in reading them they do im- 
 press me as containing a larger amount of human 
 theories of nature. Tobit indeed teaches the efficacy 
 of a magical incantation, and gives a cause and a cure 
 for blindness that are certainly unknown to the medi- 
 cal profession. The author of that barefaced forgery 
 2 Esdras, recapitulates the account of the creation 
 in Genesis with some enlargements,! especially that 
 on the third day the dry land was made to occupy six 
 parts and the waters the seventh part of the earth, 
 
 ♦ Ecclesiastes i. 7, t 2 Esdras vi. 
 
 1C6
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 and on the fifth day, instead of " He created great 
 whales," or " great saurians " as some now render it, 
 we learn that two living creatures were ordained 
 called Enoch (or Behemoth) and Leviathan, and that 
 to the first was given one part of the land, and to the 
 other the seventh part where the water was gathered 
 together. So where 2 Esdras departs from the 
 Scriptural account he falls into manifest error. The 
 pretended book of Enoch treats of " the stone which 
 supports the corners of the earth," and other things 
 unknown to modern physicists, while the seventy-first 
 chapter begins thus : " The book of the revolutions of 
 the luminaries of heaven," which the angel Uriel is 
 said to have fully explained to the prophet ; and then 
 follows an elaborate account of the movements of the 
 sun, whose chariot blown by the winds starts each 
 month from a fresh gate in the east, and travels to a 
 corresponding gate in the west, thus causing the vary- 
 ing length of day and night — " the year is precisely 
 364 days ;" — and in succeeding chapters there is a 
 still more complicated revelation of the movements 
 and phases of the moon. 
 
 In the fourfold memoirs of Jesus Christ we never 
 find Him accrediting His mission by any superior 
 knowledge of nature ; but this was so unlike the 
 thoughts of men, that in the mythical gospels we 
 cease to find this abstinence. Thus, in the Gospel of 
 the Infancy, we read a long conversation of Jesus 
 with the doctors in the temple about astronomy, 
 
 167
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 physiology, and kindred subjects, which savours of 
 the astrological and medical opinions of the period.* 
 
 Let us turn from spurious gospels to genuine but 
 uncanonical epistles. Clement, the companion of St. 
 Paul, wrote also a letter to the Corinthians, in which, 
 like his master, he discoursed, among other things, of 
 the resurrection of the dead, using the old simile of 
 the buried grain of wheat, but adding also that of 
 day and night alternately rising, and the resurrection 
 of the phoenix. He tells the story of the bird rising 
 from its ashes at considerable length, and with evident 
 credence. In the epistle of Barnabas there are 
 ascribed to the hare, hyaena, and weasel, habits which 
 certainly do not belong to them or any other quad- 
 ruped. Space forbids my tracing the scientific errors 
 
 * "When a certain astronomer who was present asked the Lord 
 Jesus 'whether He had studied astronomy,' the Lord Jesus replied, 
 and told him the number of the spheres and heavenly bodies, as also 
 their triangular, square, and sextile aspect ; their progressive and retro- 
 grade motion ; their size and several prognostications ; and other things 
 which the reason of man had never discovered. There was also among 
 them a philosopher well skilled in physic and natural philosophy, who 
 asked the Lord Jesus ' whether He had studied physic' He replied, 
 and explained to him physics and metaphysics, also those things which 
 were above and below the power of nature ; the po\vers also of the 
 body, its humours, and their effects ; also the number of its members, 
 and bones, veins, arteries, and nerves ; the several constitutions of body, 
 hot and dry, cold and moist, and the tendencies of them ; how the soul 
 operated upon the body ; what its various sensations and faculties were : 
 the faculty of speaking, anger, desire ; and lastly the manner of its 
 composition and dissolution ; and other things which the understanding 
 of no creature had ever reached. Then that philosopher arose, and 
 worshipped the Lord Jesus, and said, ' O Lord Jesus, from henceforth 
 I will be Thy disciple and seiTant.'" 
 
 I6S
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 of succeeding fathers of the Church, or of the Gnostics, 
 or of the later Jewish writers. Suffice it to say that 
 Maimonides lays down with the greatest precision, as 
 part of the " foundations of the law," the doctrine of 
 the four elements, and the Ptolemaic system of the 
 universe, with its crystalline orbs each composed of 
 unchangeable matter and form, and animated by a 
 living soul possessed of greater knowledge than the 
 sons of men. The Koran has a special claim to be 
 considered, since it professes to be inspired. I must 
 admit, however, that it lends little support to my 
 argument, for it copies the Jewish Scriptures so closely 
 that it avoids falling into scientific errors. Still, 
 Mohammed would clearly have it understood that 
 men were made of black mud or dried clay, and 
 angels of subtle fire, and that the constellations are 
 only lights set in the lower heavens.* 
 
 I have already had occasion to refer to some of the 
 scientific opinions expressed by modern Christian 
 commentators. If any one should desire to learn more 
 of the difficulty of divesting oneself of mythic science, 
 let him turn to the " Paradise Lost," that great poem 
 of Milton, a man of capacious mind and vast erudi- 
 tion, fully conscious too of the fact that what he was 
 writing would be judged by posterity ;f or let him 
 consult the headings of Cruden's Concordance under 
 such words as Serpent or Ostrich. In a family Bible 
 which I daily use — a handsome volume published in 
 
 * Koran, chapter xv., and elsewhere. 
 See especially Boohs vii., viii., and x. 
 169
 
 POINTS OF SUPPOSED COLLISION 
 
 1846, by a firm well known for its splendid editions of 
 the Scriptures, there are numerous marginal notes, 
 philological and explanatory, of which these are two 
 specimens taken almost at random. Psalm xlii. 7 : 
 " A waterspout is a large tube formed of clouds by 
 means of the electric fluid, the base being uppermost, 
 and the point let down perpendicularly from the 
 clouds. It has a particular kind of circular motion at 
 the point ; and being hollow within, attracts vast quan- 
 tities of water, which it frequently pours down In tor- 
 rents ujDon the earth." Jobxxxviii. 25, 26: " Wa^isris 
 composed of two elastic airs or gases, called oxygen 
 and hydrogen, in the proportion of ^Z\ of the former 
 and I if of the latter in 100 parts ; the electric ipark, 
 or matter of lightning, passing through the atpiosphere, 
 ignites and decomposes those gases, which explode ; 
 and the water falls down in the form of rain. This 
 explosion, as well as the rushing in of the circum- 
 ambient air to restore the equilibrium, will account 
 for the clap and peal." Suppose these explanations 
 had been found in the text instead of the margin ! 
 
 Enough of these illustrations, which might be mul- 
 tipHed ad infinitum. My object in adducing such 
 examples from other professed revelations, from 
 apocryphal books, and from Jewish or Christian com- 
 mentaries, is to bring into greater prominence the 
 remarkable fact that the canonical Scriptures them- 
 selves abstain almost wholly from human theories of 
 nature. But in order to feel the full force of this argu- 
 
 170
 
 BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 ment, it is necessary to bear in mind that the Bible is 
 the work of about forty human authors, extending over 
 a period of at least one thousand and perhaps two 
 thousand years, marked by a wondrous advance of 
 civilization — men living in different countries, speaking 
 different languages ; some illiterate, and others the 
 most learned of their day ; kings, warriors, and legis- 
 lators; priests, poets, and chroniclers; a physician and 
 a gatherer of wild figs; the prime minister of Babylon, 
 and the fishermen of Galilee, When we reflect that 
 none of these ever professed to reveal the mysteries 
 of nature, or claimed the authority of inspiration for 
 anything that later science has shown to be false, we 
 find an additional reason to believe that a higher 
 intelligence than that of man has presided over the 
 composition of this wonderful book. 
 
 171
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 or THE 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 THOMAS POWNALL BOULTBEE, LL.D., 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF THE LONDON DIVINITY COLLEGE, ST. JOHn's HALL, HIGHBURY.
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 TN approaching a subject so grave in all its bearings 
 as the one now before us, it is peculiarly needful 
 to define as closely as may be the matter proposed for 
 debate. These supposed moral difficulties of the Old 
 Testament need to be localised. They might be 
 conceived to be inherent in its general system of 
 morals. Or they may be lurking here or there in iso- 
 lated facts or commands. If the former of these could 
 be demonstrated, it would be absolutely fatal to a 
 reception of the older Scriptures. And if it could be 
 seriously argued, it would be of vital importance to 
 discuss it. But we conceive the idea of a fundament- 
 ally false system of morality in the Old Testament to 
 be simply absurd and unworthy of notice. It remains 
 that the alleged moral difficulties are to be found in 
 certain narratives or precepts of the Old Testament, 
 which are singled out, and objected to, not as parts of 
 
 175
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 a vicious whole, but as being tliought inconsistent with 
 the higher standard of the whole. 
 
 If this be accepted as a true statement, it becomes 
 necessary to draw a further distinction. An objection 
 may be made to the record of an act of the Almighty 
 Himself, or to a command or permission asserted to 
 have been given from Him to men to do certain acts. 
 The first of these is scarcely in any sense open to our 
 criticism. It must be accepted as a fixed point in all 
 human reasoning that we are absolutely incompetent 
 judges of the Divine acts. The ways of Providence, 
 as displayed before us in the pages of history, and the 
 story of human life passing before our own eyes, are 
 in truth less intelligible to us than His ways marked 
 out in Scripture. Scripture uniformly declares that 
 His " ways are not as our ways," and are "past finding 
 out." And this is no more than the bewilderment of 
 all ages has been practically forced to confess. There- 
 fore, acts of Divine severity recorded in Holy Scrip- 
 ture concern us no more, in point of debate of moral 
 fitness, than acts of Divine severity elsewhere recorded, 
 or passing under our own observation. I do not say 
 that the believer in Divine revelation has no more 
 light on the course of Divine judgment than the 
 unbeliever. God forbid ! But for the purpose of a 
 complete defence, as for the purpose of a criticism, of 
 the Divine proceedings, we are absolutely incompetent. 
 We believe them to be a grand whole, symmetrical 
 and complete, and to judge of a few isolated parts ot 
 
 176
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 such a whole, extending through many ages, and 
 possibly worlds, we hold to be simply irrational. We 
 have enough at least of the judicial faculty to decline 
 the office of judge in a case which is scarcely before 
 us even in part, and which, if it were before us, we 
 have not intellect to grasp. 
 
 We decline, therefore, to assume the office of judge 
 involved in the attempt to vindicate the ways of 
 Divine Providence. We decline it from no unworthy 
 cowardice, nor from alarm at supposed consequences, 
 but from a profound consciousness that as yet the 
 ends, aims, purposes of that Providence are to a 
 great extent veiled from us ; and that those ways in 
 Scripture are simply a part of the very same mystery 
 which day by day is being enacted before our eyes. 
 
 But to discuss the Providential acts of the Almighty 
 is one thing ; to examine precepts, injunctions, or per- 
 missions which He has given to man on any specified 
 occasions is quite another. Of these last we are, to a 
 certain extent, competent judges. Human conduct, 
 and the rules which govern it, are of necessity, to 
 some considerable extent, under our cognizance ; and 
 there can be no question that if there are in the Old 
 Testament records of human conduct, and notes of 
 rules for that conduct, which are honestly objected to 
 on definite moral grounds coming within the scope of 
 our knowledge and experience, we are bound to give a 
 careful consideration to them, for they raise the critical 
 question, Can this be the Word of God which either 
 
 177 12
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 directs, orders, or commands things to which it is ob- 
 jected that they are not in strict consonance with high 
 morahty ? 
 
 In further opening our subject it is of primary im- 
 portance that we should state fairly the real issue. 
 There is a vast deal of cavil, and of misrepresentation, 
 which we must resolutely put on one side. The world 
 of the Bible is no Utopia, nor is it in any way an 
 idealized world. It is just the world in which we 
 live ; a strange, mixed condition, abounding in evil. 
 That narratives of iniquity find place in Bible history 
 is just as inevitable as that they find place in the great 
 world of which it is a picture. We may turn away 
 from them, we may dislike them finding a place there ; 
 but it is the sober truth of our evil state which the 
 Bible sets before us, and it will not bate one hard line, 
 or one harsh colour in the often revolting picture. 
 Therefore, that there are narrations of evil things in 
 the Old Testament, I put aside as being no part of our 
 present argument, so long as there is no pretext for 
 saying that there is any expressed or implied note of 
 Divine approval. And .1 take the liberty of saying 
 that an age which admires the licentiousness of French 
 novels — an age which finds itself day by day photo- 
 graphed in the records of its doings, such as they are, 
 in the daily newspapers — has not outgrown the 
 homely plainness with which such things are held up 
 before it by the ancient Scripture, however prudishly 
 it may profess to avert its eyes from it. 
 
 178
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 These then we put aside ; and we turn to the sup- 
 posed case oi Divine difcction or approval of human 
 acts conceived not to be consonant with high morality, 
 which we have asserted to be the real issue now before 
 us. That there must be some, however few, cases ' 
 coming apparently under this description is certain ; 
 they have been the favourite ground of objection these 
 1, 600 years from Porphyry downwards. They have 
 been variously handled by Christian apologists. The 
 old school of exegesis dealt in a very summary, not to 
 say arbitrary, manner with them. All such matters, it 
 said, were to be taken figuratively.* But this mode of 
 disposing of questions will not satisfy the honest 
 inquirer now, even if it will satisfy ourselves. We must 
 grapple with this question more closely than by offer- 
 ing the changeable Proteus of figure and symbol to a 
 searcher after truth. Otherwise he will certainly de- 
 cline the contest on such terms, or persist in holding us 
 fast like the Proteus of Virgil. 
 
 " Donee talis erit mutato corpore, qualem 
 Videris, incepto tegeret quum lumina somno." 
 
 And then, after all, the difficulty in its own form will 
 have to be faced. 
 
 In attempting to offer something tangible to the 
 thoughtful mind on this subject, the very first question 
 
 • " Quidquid in sermone divino neque ad morum honestatem 
 neque ad fidei veritatem proprie referri potest, figuratum esse 
 cognoscas." — Augustine de doct. Christ, iii. 10. 
 
 179
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 which seems to meet me is this. — '^ Moral difficulties" 
 must arise in reference to some moral standard. In 
 the case before us what is it ? What is moral truth .-' 
 Is it that which a man trozvefh to be right .-' We wish 
 •to raise no cavilling question about this. For simply 
 and absolutely we cannot proceed with our argument 
 until we have arrived at some definition on which we 
 may rely. If the rule is to be conscience, we must 
 needs ask whose conscience, for that will make endless 
 variations. If the rule is to be some recognized author- 
 ity, we must run over in dismay a few leading names 
 of those who have exercised sway over men — Socrates, 
 Aristotle, Mahomet, Spinoza, Hegel, Comte. Who is 
 to be our standard .-* Or we put it nationally. Is it 
 England or France, America or Germany, India or 
 China, which shall give the standard for which we 
 seek .-* In this perplexity probably the nearest and 
 closest answer we can receive may be this — the 
 standard shall be the enlightened European judgment. 
 We accept the definition in spite of all its vagueness 
 and imperfections, and we reply, — " Well, in point of 
 fact that has been formed by the Bible, and more par- 
 ticularly by the New Testament." Forsince Jesus lived, 
 whatever men ma}' think of the truth of the record 
 which tells of Him, or of the Divine honour claimed 
 for Him, He must be still and for evermore the ex- 
 ample, type, or ideal (whichever it is that men admit) 
 of man's noblest and best. And if the enlightened 
 European judgment to which appeal is made does pre- 
 
 i8o
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 sent a higher and purer moral tribunal than elsewhere 
 has been known, it is because that judgment has been 
 moulded and swayed and taught for centuries in the 
 school of Divine revelation. 
 
 We hold, therefore, that if any European section, 
 considerable enough to be met in grave argument, 
 alleges that there are moral difficulties in the Old 
 Testament of the kind so far described, it is really a 
 case of the disciples condemning, or at least question- 
 ing, their Master. But we acknowledge, if this be so, 
 it does not absolutely end the contest, though we 
 think it blunts the edge of the weapon which assails us. 
 For it is certainly possible in some things that a dis- 
 ciple may improve on his master's teaching. But it 
 seems to result that the worst now possible in the case 
 before us is that some portions of that which we revere 
 as Divine revelation fall short of the high standard 
 which other portions reach. Nay, more precisely still, 
 for it will indicate the line of argument we are about to 
 follow, some of the earlier revelations are alleged not 
 to reach the same high level as the later unquestionably 
 do. This then is the real point before us, as it seems 
 to me, and this the true nature of the difficulty fairly 
 stated, after all needful process of elimination. 
 
 If this be the case, how shall we meet it .'' Shall we 
 oppose a simple negative to it, and deny that there is 
 any such difference of moral level .-* Shall we attempt 
 to disprove the alleged fact broadly and absolutely, 
 and contend that every detail of the Bible, from first
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICUL TIES 
 
 to last, is precisely, and in every mode of measure- 
 ment, and by every gauge of estimation, on the same 
 moral level ? We think no thoughtful reader of the 
 Bible will say so for a moment. We think no 
 school of Bible interpreters has ever maintained it. 
 The Bible itself denies it. For thus does one of its 
 later portions speak of one of its earlier and 
 principal developments — (Heb. viii. 6, 7, 13) — "He 
 is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was 
 established upon better promises. For if that first 
 covenant had been faultless, then should no place 
 have been sought for the second." " That which is 
 decayed and waxcth old is ready to vanish aAvay." 
 There is, therefore, in Scripture itself the admission, 
 nay, the assertion as a ground of argument and of 
 faith, of the very thing which we need in the further 
 handling of the subject before us. 
 
 If, therefore, there are some matters in the older 
 Scriptures not thought to be precisely on the same 
 height of moral level with the later revelation, this 
 is not of necessity a thing to be denied, or a thing to 
 create alarm in the believer's mind. It is, however, 
 necessary first to examine closely such alleged cases, 
 to sec w]^ ether haply our moral barometer was out of 
 adjustment — the vacuum at the top of its mercurial 
 column imperfect, by the admission of some deceptive 
 air. For then our estimate of moral level will be 
 proportionally defective, and that which seemed to be 
 lower was in reality at the same elevation as the 
 
 182
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 higher. But if after such careful inquiry there still 
 seem to be in parts of the older revelation a lower 
 level of morality, then it is simply a case for a careful 
 inquiry into the plan of revelation and its progressive 
 nature ; it is a case for a wise and cautious study of 
 the plan of God in giving to man successive degrees of 
 light in the knowledge of virtue, just as the Christian 
 believes He has given successive degrees of doctrinal 
 knowledge as the ages passed onward in their course. 
 
 Thus allowing for such differences, accounting for 
 them, showing their place in the plan of revelation, 
 they may even cease to be " DIFFICULTIES," and 
 become almost aids to faith. For the consistency and 
 coherence of the manner of revelation from first to 
 last, its growth and development on one system 
 through many ages, surely betrays the hand of the 
 one Divine Artificer even more marvellously than a 
 rounded completeness of an absolute moral and 
 doctrinal system once for all and for ever given could 
 possibly have done. The heathen might fable a 
 Pallas springing forth fully grown and armed from 
 the head of Zeus ; but we know of nothing in the 
 dealings of the Eternal One with us which suggests 
 any parallel. The mushroom may spring forth in a 
 night, but even that transitory vegetable product counts 
 hours for its development. Growth, accretion, slow- 
 ness, belong to the ways of God with us ; and Time, 
 howsoever little it may influence the Eternal, has place 
 in all that He does with us. 
 
 183
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 But granting that in some sense most of us may 
 admit that morahty, whether revealed or not, may 
 gradually come to perfection, we must at once meet a 
 possible objection. Is morality then a variable thing ? 
 INIay the right of one age be the wrong of another ? 
 We hope to show that we repudiate warmly whatever 
 of this may be inconsistent with the Supreme Good. 
 Principles can never change ; they exist for ever, the 
 Eternal Idea in the Eternal One, Evil is never good. 
 The false is never true. We admit no paltering with 
 the fundamental verities. But in a world of strange 
 disorder and of darkness, athwart which the light 
 dimly falls, and on which it dawns only gradually, it 
 comes glimmeringly and doubtfully at first. In this 
 matter of which we speak, measured by the age of 
 mankind instead of the age of the individual, " the 
 path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth 
 more and more unto the perfect day." 
 
 I do not know that this position needs to be forti- 
 fied any more before we proceed. It seems to me one 
 of the first principles which we discern in inquiring 
 into the dealings of the Creator with His creatures, 
 whenever we search into the actual and ascertained 
 facts of His proceedings. To the fifteenth century 
 He gave printing. To the eighteenth He gave the 
 steam-engine. For the nineteenth He reserved the 
 electric telegraph, and that marvellous boon to His 
 suffering creatures, chloroform. Call it Providence ; 
 call it a result of a law of nature ; call it what you 
 
 184
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 will, — this is the method of His procedure. And what we 
 simply say is, that He, ever self-consistent, gave certain 
 degrees of moral light in times of old ; not the same 
 degree to each age, but progressive light. If anyone 
 question the procedure, it is not for us to reply ; we 
 \va.vQ. facts, not reasons, to guide us in our search. And 
 when we shall know why the shrill cry of anguish rose 
 under the surgeon's knife but a few years since, and is 
 now stilled under the blessed torpor of chloroform, we 
 may begin to try to answer why the light which God 
 by any means gives is not always the same. Nay, 
 observe this, these differences of which we speak be- 
 long not only to the successive ages. In the same age 
 the perception of the bearing and degree of obligation 
 of revealed truth is widely different in different in- 
 dividuals. Yet the truth itself changes not. Its 
 relation to the intellect and the conscience changes, as 
 everything that is relative must change. 
 
 Now let us draw more closely to the subject of our 
 investigation. Only let us note that we are to investi- 
 gate facts, not opinions. We are not to be guided or 
 misguided by preconceived opinions of our own or of 
 others. We have seen enough so far of the analogies 
 of the Divine proceedings — whether again you call them 
 Law or Providence — to repudiate any expression of 
 mere opinion that He will or will not bestow this, that, 
 or the other degree of light on any given century. 
 Our inquiry will be simply into \kiQ. fact of the degree 
 of the moral light He is declared to have sent into 
 
 185
 
 TTIE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 the darkness ; and how far, in certain cases, that de- 
 gree is consistent Avith the development of the age 
 and with what is claimed to be His completed Word. 
 I know not in what other shape the question can be 
 made and issue raised on grounds susceptible of fair 
 argument. 
 
 How, then, does the fact stand about the revelation 
 of moral truth to man .'' Those patriarchal ages of which 
 we have a rapid review in the book of Genesis come 
 first in order. We may have individual opinions, or 
 even convictions, of a moral law revealed objectively or 
 in the con'Gcience which was the guide and the measure 
 of responsibility in those ages. But we have nothing 
 to do with that. As far as the facts of revelation go, 
 we are compelled to affirm that the amount of moral 
 law externally given was small indeed. And accord- 
 ingly of moral difficulties such as we have here de- 
 fined, and understand them, I think in the book of 
 Genesis we have but few. There is the record of 
 certain crimes with which we are sufficiently familiar. 
 But as we are not concerned to approve or defend the 
 morality of all that the patriarchs did, still less of a\ hat 
 we are told of various unrighteous men, I do not see 
 that much remains for our review here, after we shall 
 have said something on the injunction to sacrifice 
 Isaac, and something about the marriage customs of 
 early ages. For, as we have urged, no record what- 
 ever can be found fault with for facts truly reported, 
 
 hoAvever evil, of which it expresses no approval, and 
 
 1 86
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 which for a sufficient reason it may be needful to 
 report. We have required, for the purpose of creating 
 a real moral diffimlty, that the act or injunction, sup- 
 posed to be immoral, shall have the Divine sanction. 
 
 The Books of the Law which follow do, I suppose, 
 raise more of questions of this kind. And as it is 
 impossible in the scope of a lecture to deal textually 
 and closely with many individual particulars, we will 
 at once group together the principal classes of subjects 
 which seem to require treatment. I may enumerate 
 them thus : — i. the marriage law ; 2. the law of 
 slavery ; 3. sanguinary punishments ; 4. the injunc- 
 tion to sacrifice Isaac, together with some matters in 
 the subsequent history inviting notice. 
 
 With regard to all these classes of subjects, I shall 
 thus state the question before us in close accordance 
 with the principles so far laid down. In the age to 
 which these records and these regulations belong, those 
 parts of the world and those races of mankind with 
 which we are for our present purposes concerned, and 
 Israel in particular, had attained to a certain condition 
 of enlightenment and of civilization. They possessed 
 (whether by tradition or otherwise) certain usages ; 
 they had deeply-fixed habits of thought and of reason- 
 ing, and a standard of humanity and of morals, of 
 which I will only now say that it was essentially Ori- 
 ental. In all this they were separated from any known 
 modern European standard by a wider gulf than we, 
 except by study and careful consideration, can well 
 
 1.^7
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 estimate. Now the problem bel'ore us is this :■ — Israel 
 
 being in that particular stage of moral development. 
 
 it was (as we believe) the will of God to commence a 
 
 series of revelations to them, which should at first be 
 
 local and national. But it was also the will of God 
 
 that in a marvellous manner those earlier Israelitic 
 
 revelations should contain the germ of higher and 
 
 world-wide revelations which should ultimately be 
 
 based upon and grow out of the particular and national. 
 
 Just as the original Abrahamic covenant, beginning with 
 
 the national and the local — " I will make of thee a 
 
 great nation ; " " Unto thy seed will I give this land;" 
 
 advanced to the universal — " In thy seed shall all 
 
 families of the earth be blessed." 
 
 Still, with this element of the universal and perfec- 
 
 tional in it, the first draft of that revelation was 
 
 eminently temporal, local, national. Now comes the 
 
 question : — This being so, what was the will of God 
 
 in giving a revelation } Would He aim at bringing 
 
 that race, that chosen race, out of the then existing 
 
 stage of civilization, of science, of morals .'' And if 
 
 so, how far would He be pleased to bring them } And 
 
 would it be by a code which should bring them per 
 
 salt inn into a higher state, or by one which should 
 
 contain germinal principles, rather than rules, which 
 
 might fructify in the minds of the people ; and being 
 
 developed by the thought and studies of successive 
 
 generations, lead the nation gradually, wisely, and 
 
 safely to higher moral levels, from which they might 
 
 the less easily relapse ? 
 
 i88
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 I may illustrate the question before us thus : — If we 
 0' irselves, having made the long ascent, are rejoicing 
 ir. the elastic air and the clear vision of the mountain 
 summit, and are witnesses of the early toils of a party 
 far below us beginning to scale the same heights, we 
 shall by no means despise them. They may seem at that 
 distance scarcely above the plain with its fogs, or the 
 subjacent marsh with its miasma. But our recollection 
 of the severity of the effort required to reach that 
 first range of summits, and evade the first barrier of 
 lower precipice, is too fresh and vivid for us to feel 
 othenvise than interested in their progress, or to doubt 
 that they have attained a very sensible elevation 
 above the valley. But if, habituated to the vast sky- 
 line around us, and the lighter atmosphere of the 
 heights, we never knew or had forgotten the delights 
 and the toils of the lower elevations, we might scorn 
 the position of those who had merely reached them, 
 and say, are they indeed at all above those grovellers 
 in the marsh } 
 
 These judgments from higher points of level — these 
 a priori conclusions of what was fitting to be done in 
 the way of measure and degree of Divine revelation, 
 [ wish entirely to shake off. Those early revelations, 
 in which some think they can see some blots and 
 li)lemishes, I wish to look at in strict relation to thti 
 own times, and in their own fixed and ascertained 
 place in a progressive scheme. I am not listening to 
 John, I am listening to Moses, Does the fact (which 
 
 189
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 we believe) that both John and Moses were taught of 
 God, and sent by God, alter the previous fact of the 
 different chronological place they occupy in the great 
 progression ? Not in the least, unless you assume — the 
 very thing against which I am struggling — the preju- 
 dication that all God's teaching in revelation, contrary 
 to all His other teaching, shall always reach the same 
 level. But if it is found that the moral and spiritual 
 teaching of Moses develops naturally into that of 
 John by a process which the whole Christian world for 
 many centuries has held with certainty of deduction, 
 both of reason and of conscience, then the Christian 
 rests upon their combined teaching without hesitation ; 
 he sees the same Divine Spirit in both, and he almost 
 forgets, until the unbeliever forces him to think of the 
 points of difference, that there is any difference at all. 
 Therefore it is, that to one who is at all filled with the 
 Spirit of the Scripture, these alleged moral difficulties of 
 some parts scarcely bring any difficulty at all. Nor, 
 so far as we can see, has the persistent urging and 
 canvassing them for all these centuries produced any 
 perceptible result upon the general reception of Holy 
 Scripture. 
 
 So, then, in the inquiry now before us we reject the 
 form into which — as we contend — objectors really cast 
 it. How far will God, in commencing a revelation of 
 moral law, be pleased to conduct it .-* What precise 
 line of moral level zvill He lay down in the first, or 
 in the second instance. We repudiate the tense in 
 
 190
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 which the question is put. \Vc thrust aside the future 
 and insert i\\Q perfect. How far has God, in commen- 
 cing a revelation of moral law, been pleased to conduct 
 it ? What precise line of moral level did He lay- 
 down ? If we are told that this begs the question, 
 we reply, No ! The very shape the argument of our 
 opponent takes is this : " I see moral difficulties in 
 these statements, and they make me hesitate, or even 
 refuse, to accept as a revelation from God that which 
 contains them." We are not called upon now to look 
 at other difficulties, but at these. And we, therefore, 
 feel entitled to assert on the contrary : " Well, taking 
 for granted all other matters which are not now in 
 question, and assuming that otherwise this would seem 
 to be a revelation from God, there is no sufficient 
 ground for rejecting or doubting it on the score of 
 difficulties of the class now before us. And in this 
 point of view we have insisted on the right form to 
 give to our inquiry, as one into facts, and not into 
 matters of a priori opinion. 
 
 That this mode of investigation may lead to true 
 results, I think may thus be made clear to any capacity. 
 Supposing that a system declared to be of Divine 
 origin should prove on investigation to produce results 
 on a lower level than that of contemporary civilization, 
 or even a level no higher, or only partially higher in a 
 few excepted parts of no great moment — supposing 
 it to prove a dead, inert system, scarcely serving as a 
 basis, and not proving to be fruitful and germinant of 
 
 191
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 higher and higher principles and practice, even to the 
 very highest — supposing this to be so not only in 
 theory and in the judgment of some who have exa- 
 mined into its probable results, but also practically 
 shown to be so in the history of a nation or even sect 
 who adopted it as their rule, and who have shown in 
 their want of moral and spiritual development that 
 the thing was dead and inert, and therefore not Divine; 
 — such an examination, I say, would lead to a true 
 condemnation. 
 
 On the other hand, suppose the system should on 
 similar investigation prove, indeed, to be in some re- 
 spects kindred to the type of the prevalent civilization 
 of the age, but everywhere elevated above it — suppose 
 it to introduce into what may have been local, temporal, 
 and national usages a remarkable something which 
 differentiates them at once in themselves and in their 
 actual issues from similar existing practices — suppose 
 that most fruitful germs of higher and higher moral 
 and spiritual truth are discovered in the system — and 
 then, lastly, suppose further that the career of the 
 nation to which these laws were given should thencefor- 
 ward have been marvellously distinguished in moral 
 type from all others, and that in course of time and 
 after many and almost fatal defections from those laws, 
 the highest known type of spiritual and moral advance- 
 ment should have been developed from among them, 
 and should thenceforward have been the guide in 
 whatever progress towards moral perfection the most 
 
 192
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 advanced nations of the earth have known ; — then I 
 say such an initial system of asserted revelation, so 
 characterized, cannot be discredited as to its Divine 
 original simply because, in the judgment of some, a 
 few of its incidental particulars may not reach the 
 moral height which those objectors think it ought to 
 have done, and to which the perfected whole ultimately 
 led. This is the position to which we think we have 
 reduced the matter in debate. 
 
 Let us now attempt to illustrate the mode of treat- 
 ment which we think may be applied to some of those 
 portions of the early Scriptures which may appear 
 most defective, judged by the more advanced standard 
 since given to man. That which strikes me, at least, 
 as most defective and most open to grave objection, 
 is the whole subject of the connexion of the sexes. I 
 shall not, and I need not, enter into many particulars ; 
 but I desire, before offering a few remarks on the 
 general question, to fortify my position by the highest 
 authority a Christian can invoke. Our Master said, 
 speaking of one branch only of this subject, " Moses, 
 because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you 
 to put away your wives : but from the beginning it 
 was not so." I hold this to cover the whole of the 
 position I have taken up in this debate. It is there 
 laid down as a fact, that a certain provision of the 
 Mosaic law, bearing on the marriage relation, and, as 
 it seems to me, by no means the most objectionable 
 of regulations affecting the relation of the sexes, was 
 
 193 13
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 not in itself admirable, and was not thenceforward to 
 be continued — that it was simply a concession to those 
 who could not bear a stricter law, and that it was not 
 in harmony with the original intent and institution of 
 God Himself. I do not know that we could well have 
 a case more in point, and more suggestive as to the 
 right view to be taken of various other early regulations 
 which may seem to fall below the higher standard of 
 Christianity. 
 
 If this be so as to the law of divorce, how much 
 more may we affirm it as to some of the other 
 laxities in the marriage tie, which occur in the narra- 
 tive of the Old Testament. For instance, we must 
 remember that polygamy, if it is not inconsistent with 
 the Mosaic law, on which I shall offer no contention, 
 at least receives no sanction there. It stands there in 
 the narrative, but it has no place in the law. It is 
 conspicuous, moreover, in the narrative itself as the 
 hateful thing, which we, looking at it from a higher 
 level, judge it to be ; the fruitful source of hatred, 
 contention, jealousy, and contamination of the race ; 
 the destroyer of the original blessings and purposes 
 of the marriage bond, viz., the godly, pure up-bringing 
 of generation after generation in the fear of God and 
 in undivided family love. In no other light is it ever 
 depicted. Abraham himself broke not the primitive 
 usage without this penalty, though no lust allured him 
 to the infraction. Jacob's history is deeply tragic 
 from no other cause. The kings of Judah adopted the 
 
 194
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 hateful Orientalism, and suffered or exhibited the full 
 
 measure of the curse which has al\va3's followed the 
 
 sin, and which has darkened Eastern history with a 
 
 fearful cloud of crime. I think the lesson of the Old 
 
 Testament is clear as it is terrible, however silent it 
 
 may be as to the precept. When, therefore, we hear 
 
 the last of the prophets (Malachi ii. 15) appealing 
 
 against the corrupt usage of his age, thus, " Did not 
 
 He make one ? Yet had He the residue of the spirit. 
 
 And wherefore one 1 That He might seek a godly 
 
 seed," we have in truth the lesson of the Old 
 
 Testament, set forth in Eden, illustrated by the 
 
 terrible intervening corruptions. If we object 
 
 to this, and say surely a revelation from God will speak 
 
 more clearly than this, and will not permit men to fall 
 
 into such immoralities unwarned, I might deny that 
 
 they were unwarned in many ways. But without 
 
 urging that, you must observe it comes to this, either 
 
 God has left us unwarned, uninstructed, on this matter 
 
 which lies at the very basis of all human society and 
 
 improvement, and has abandoned us merely to the 
 
 uncertain deductions of experience, which never hold 
 
 men when their passions are concerned ; or else He 
 
 has given the instructions of revelation to us in this 
 
 behalf If, therefore, in some of the earlier stages of 
 
 His Word those instuctions seem not to be so distinct 
 
 as some may think they might have been, even then 
 
 our race has been in far better condition than it would 
 
 have been had God in this matter withdrawn Himself 
 
 into Epicurean silence. 
 
 195
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DLFFICULTIES 
 
 Thus I bring this subject to what I hav^e held to be 
 the right ground of investigation — not to the question, 
 Is there now, might tnere have been then (abstractedly 
 considered), a higher, purer standard ? but to the 
 fact how far does it appear that it pleased God to lead 
 men at that time towards that higher and purer ? 
 
 We reserve some general considerations on the state 
 of things thus disclosed for subsequent comment, and 
 we notice next the law of slavery. I observe here, as 
 in nearly all the usages of society in the Old Testa- 
 ment, no violent, revolutionary handling of them. It 
 appears as a fact thit a certain stage of advance in 
 civilization has entailed the condition of slavery and 
 the possession of slaves. I know of no exception to 
 it in the ancient w^orld. Now comes the question, Is 
 that relation in itself so infamous and abhorrent as to 
 demand instant excision in all cases and in all ages .'' 
 Must the Almighty at once denounce it as a thing 
 everywhere and always abominable .^ Such an opinion 
 cuts very deeply. St. Paul did not hold it when he 
 wrote to Philemon about Onesimus. And if it obtains 
 even now, in this absolute shape, any general currency, 
 such prevalence is certainly not yet fifty years old. I 
 am not going to indulge in a pro-slavery argument ; on 
 the contrary, I yield to none in the sincerity of my 
 conviction that slavery stands condemned by the 
 genius of Christianity, and that the destruction of that 
 most abominable form of it which has prevailed in 
 modern times has been one of the brightest trophies of 
 
 196
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 the power of" Christian principles in a case upon which 
 Christian precept spoke only by inference. 
 
 "Well, then, the fact again is this, the law of Moses 
 recognized the possession of slaves ; as I should hold, 
 because it always recognized the universal and inevita- 
 ble in human usages. How did it deal with them .'' 
 It surrounded them as far as possible with tender care. 
 " Tender," I mean, in comparison with that hard age, 
 and those unsympathetic natures. "As far as 
 possible " — I mean, because there was no policeman 
 at hand to watch the hard pressed slave or the churlish 
 master — none of those checks and counter-checks to 
 which we are accustomed. Resolve society into its 
 elements — give us that simple patriarchal form which 
 ]\roses contemplated, and tell me what more you could 
 do. These boons were given to the slave. One day 
 in seven was his, on which his master might exact no 
 labour : the ox was to stand still from the plough and 
 the threshing — " that thy manservant and maidservant 
 may rest as well as thou." Oh ! if we could call up 
 an Israelitish slave purchased from an Egyptian mas- 
 ter, and ask him what he thought of that blessed rest 
 sealed to him by the covenant, enshrined within the 
 very Holy of Holies in that golden ark ! Then there 
 were varied precautious both for life and limb, and for 
 redemption money, and for personal honour. If they 
 seem not all that a higher stage of civilization might 
 require even for the slave, I should be disposed to ask, 
 by way of testing the possibility, Was anything so 
 
 197
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 good and merciful possible in the swamps of Carolina, 
 or the Jamaica hills, among a people calling them- 
 selves Christian ? I fear not ; and the key-note of 
 much of this ancient legislation of which we speak is 
 just this — the possible. What ! shall we thus speak of 
 God, with whom all things are possible ? Yes, for ^\ith 
 man all things are not possible ! And unless it had 
 pleased Him miraculously to change the course of 
 human society, more than this we are bold to say was 
 not possible. 
 
 But before we leave this subject I feel bound to 
 notice one of the laws which has been the cause of 
 much hostile comment. In Exodus xxi. 20, it is laid 
 down that "if a man smite his servant or his maid with 
 a rod, and he die under his hand ; he shall surely be 
 punished." Nevertheless it proceeds — " If he continue 
 a day or two, he shall not be punished : for he is his 
 money." Upon which much indignation has been 
 lavished. And in a certain point of view I am ready 
 to join in it. Am I to look upon one who is made 
 with me in the image of God as so much money, a 
 purchased chattel.'' We shall spurn the idea. But, 
 observe, all this is beside the question. Here is slavery, 
 an existing, recognized institution throughout the whole 
 world — impossible as yet to destroy — nay, not to be 
 destroyed till even Christianity had run its course for 
 1,800 years and more ! Well then it is a simple fact. 
 It may be a hateful one, but it is a fact, the slave was 
 his money. And though it might be an inadequate 
 
 198
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 punishment in many cases, and though human brutaU 
 ity might not meet with all its due meed, it was per- 
 haps in that age all that could be done. If the slave 
 died under harsh treatment, it might be susceptible of 
 proof and the master might be punished. If he died 
 after an interval of some days, who in those days could 
 well prove it } The loss which the master suffered 
 when his slave died was after all probably the best 
 protection to the poor slave. Of this I am sure, that if 
 in our day we are calling out for the lash to protect 
 poor women from brutality which beats even to death's 
 door, we may well hesitate before we pronounce too 
 surely that we could give a practically better security 
 to the slave of Moses' days. 
 
 I pass on to some general observations on sanguin- 
 ary punishments. Some of these belonged to civil, 
 some of them to religious offences. Some of them on 
 a more wholesale scale occurred in the course of deso- 
 lating wars. The same line of thought will lead us in 
 the first place to observe that a very large part of the 
 amelioration in respect of sanguinary laws and usages 
 has only become possible by the appliances and organ- 
 ization of an advanced civilization. We are very lia- 
 ble to forget this. But without defining how far the 
 principle may extend, we may see at a glance that 
 where there is neither policeman to watch over our 
 property and apprehend the marauder, nor gaol in 
 which to lodge him, but society has simply to take care 
 of itself, the defensive proceedings must be, and will be, 
 
 199
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 sharp and decisive. And there would be no difficulty in 
 showing how the Mosaic laws interfered with those 
 early and rude usages, so as to temper as far as was 
 possible in that age, consistently with security for life 
 and property, the wild and irresponsible revenge. This 
 is very conspicuous in the interposition of the city of 
 refuge between the vengeance of the kinsman of the 
 slain man, and the investigation of the actual degree of 
 guilt of the manslayer. This was the first step — a wise 
 step, probably the only possible step, in that semi- 
 patriarchal development of society — towards the extin- 
 guishing of the terrible blood-feud, and the substitution 
 of the calm and neutral hand of justice. 
 
 Similar considerations hold good as to a great deal 
 that is horrible in that Eastern warfare. It requires 
 the severe pressure of the code of honour which has 
 gradually grown up in modern ages. It requires yet 
 more the appliances of modern civilization — the means 
 of transport, the roads, the conveyances, the accumu- 
 lations of large magazines, the great fortresses where 
 prisoners of war may be secured, the system of taxes 
 which raise from large and flourishing populations the 
 resources from which all these things are maintained. 
 It requires, I say, all this complex system to ensure, 
 and barely to ensure, that which we call, in somewhat 
 grim antithesis, the humane method of modern war- 
 fare. How very nearly, this was strained to the very 
 edge of a catastrophe beyond measure horrible, at 
 which the very world would have stood aghast, we 
 
 200
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 cannot but remember. When 100,000 Frenchmen fell 
 suddenly into the hands of the Germans at Sedan, a 
 very little more deficiency in the provisions, and a few 
 degrees of frost, might have left their bones, as of old, 
 whitening the marshes. When Paris surrendered, had 
 it not been for the facilities of modern conveyance, 
 and the residue of her own provision beyond what 
 was expected, she might have been in a week one huge 
 charnel-house. In the Indian Mutiny, when a few 
 small bands of English heroes were traversing at wide 
 intervals the vast plains, it was a terrible strain to 
 know how to dispose of prisoners. If you cannot feed 
 them, if you have no spare soldiers to guard them, if 
 to dismiss them is simply to reinforce an enemy already 
 overwhelming in numbers, and you are fighting for 
 dear life, and the honour of kith and kin and country, 
 I fear there might even now be, and sometimes then 
 was, no word but Death ! If, then, with these thoughts 
 I turn to the contemplation of ancient border warfare, 
 with all the horrors wherewith it was made to feed 
 itself, and with none of the appliances which scarcely 
 even now are able to stave off some of war's most 
 revolting features, I, for one, dare not say what bru- 
 talities were in great measure inevitable when once the 
 war-trumpet was blown. Here, then, again, I shall 
 judge with the greatest caution as to the possible in 
 that ancient warfare ; and I shall apply with care this 
 question of the degree of development the world had 
 reached when I have to decide upon things which are 
 
 201
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 not eternal principles, but things practically done in 
 relation to the existing state of society. 
 
 Passing on to the punishment of religious offences, 
 I am well aware that in the explanation we must 
 offer we can scarcely have with us the assent of those 
 who do not accept the ground on which it is based. 
 But, possibly, we may show that from our point of 
 view at least there is a sufficient account to be given 
 of these things. If so, that reduces the debate between 
 us to another question, viz., this, Can our ground be 
 accepted } Is this the Word of God } If it is, we 
 think our explanation of these things scarcely assail- 
 able. For if it is the Word of God, if the account in 
 the Pentateuch is true, then there subsisted on the 
 part of God towards Israel such a peculiar relation as 
 never before or since has subsisted towards any other 
 people. Under that relation God placed Himself 
 towards them as a lawgiver, and as the immediate 
 foundation of all right and duty. He was the foun- 
 tain of all power, executive or judicial. Hence the 
 peculiarity of the history of the covenant-people. 
 God in it interferes promptly and palpably when 
 either ruler or nation rejects or disobeys Him. This 
 was not a hierarchy, as the Papacy is. It was very 
 partially dependent on the priesthood. Nor was it in 
 their power to modify it. And during a large part of 
 its existence the independent order of prophets vindi- 
 cated its claims against a corrupt priesthood as well 
 as apostatizing princes. 
 
 202
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 We are aware of the danger of fallacious reasoning 
 here. We know that we may be charged with reason- 
 ing in a circle, and with arguing thus : 1st. This is the 
 Word of God ; 2nd. The Mosaic system was a pure 
 theocracy, as above described ; 3rd. Therefore the 
 punishments and bloodshed under it must have been 
 of a perfect moral standard. But this is not at all a 
 true representation of the position we assume. We 
 simply say this. If there was such a theocrac)', then 
 the rightfulness of such punishments and severities at 
 once results. If there was not such a theocracy, I 
 know not that we are much concerned to discuss the 
 morality and rectitude of these things any more than 
 if they had happened at Athens. But if there was 
 (and this believers accept, though probably they may 
 somewhat vary in their mode of expressing their 
 appreciation of the fact), if there was a theocracy, I 
 say, of this nature, then we have the key to what might 
 otherwise perplex us ; and to what does perplex those 
 who reject the key. 
 
 I am aware, again, that even on the admission of 
 the existence of the theocracy much will depend on 
 the idea we shall have formed of the will and nature 
 of God towards man. They who readily assume that 
 He is indulgent, easy, placable, andw^hat in man would 
 be somewhat inert, may think that He would not ad- 
 minister the prompt severity of the Mosaic law. But I 
 confess that I am unable thus to picture the Most High 
 I see Him the Lord of life and death, and I behold
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 Him inexorably taking the forfeit. I sec the world 
 rebellious against His law, and I behold it filled with 
 misery, anguish, and countless fears. And the d)si"rcss 
 and degradation seems to bear no inexact proportion 
 to the departure from Him, if not always in individuals, 
 yet in societies which have cast off His allegiance. 
 There is, indeed, the other side. There is the rich 
 beneficence. There is the longsufifering. But then 
 it is just that — it is longsuffering, not careless indul- 
 gence. Whether, therefore, I look at what I can see 
 of that aspect of God's nature which made the in- 
 spired writer say of Him, " Our God is a consuming 
 fire ; " or whether I think of the special purpose of 
 vindicating His sovereignty and maintaining His 
 obedience under that special system, I think that 
 few believers feel much perplexity about the severi- 
 ties on the score of religious offences which God Him- 
 self enacted. To others it seems to me that the 
 difificulty is rooted in a greater and antecedent one, 
 viz., the reception of the system in which alone these 
 things can find their right place and their due inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 I am conscious that I am to a certain extent only 
 touching some of these great questions. Yet in the 
 scope of a lecture no more is possible ; and I hope it is 
 a touch that to a certain extent adjusts them into their 
 places. I have neither time nor inclination to allow 
 the debate to drop into a mere petty wrangle about 
 individual opinions as to the right and wrong of 
 
 204
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 certain details. The tactics of opponents generally 
 lead them to rend from their context and their position 
 some few facts or words, and then to challenge their 
 morality or rectitude. Very possibly this may be 
 questionable, and very possibly it is open to indignant 
 moral denunciation when thus handled. That which 
 is first needed is quietly to place back the facts or 
 words into their true position, their true chronological 
 place in a great system. Then look at them, and 
 weigh them well, as tested by what we can learn of the 
 facts of God's dealings with this earth, and not simply 
 by the opinion of the nineteenth century, and we are 
 persuaded that no difficulty will usually remain beyond 
 what is inherent in the very nature of the case, when 
 man is attempting to judge the mysterious wa)'s of God. 
 To illustrate this point we may briefly notice an 
 instance which it is impossible, within our limited space, 
 to treat with any approach to its importance — the 
 command to Abraham to offer up Isaac. To Christ- 
 ians generally, I believe that no Old Testament narra- 
 tive is of more unmixed edification. To them it seems 
 to illustrate so clearly and instructively matters of 
 doctrine and practice of the most transcendent impor- 
 tance that the notion of moral difficulty being con- 
 nected with it would come upon many of them with 
 unmixed surprise. Yet it is the favourite difficulty of 
 a large portion of modern sceptics. How does the 
 difficulty arise ? many thoughtful Christians would 
 ask. Precisely as I have just described — by making 
 
 2^5
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFLCULTIES 
 
 a bald statement of a portion of the fact severed from 
 
 all that qualifies it. Thus, for instance, it has chanced 
 
 to come before me recently. " Is it immoral to bind 
 
 one's unoffending son upon an altar, with the view of 
 
 putting him to death } " Could there be a more signal 
 
 instance of misrepresentation under a mask of literal 
 
 truth 1 We replace that fragment back into its place 
 
 in the narrative, and its proportions and relations 
 
 become instantly changed. We first glance at certain 
 
 historical facts. Human sacrifice was one of the 
 
 abominations against which the revealed system of 
 
 Moses struggled, and for which the Canaanites were 
 
 cast out. We can only hurriedly place in a note* a few 
 
 references to all this. How far Abraham himself was 
 
 freef from some misguided persuasion on this head it is 
 
 impossible to say. The narrative is introduced by our 
 
 being told that God by this means tempted or tried 
 
 Abraham. What was the result } That such a deed 
 
 was repudiated by God, who taught His servant, as 
 
 men needed to be taught, the practical lesson how He 
 
 would be approached. Again, the bare act of " slaying 
 
 one's son" is one thing, but that highest devotion which 
 
 withholds nothing from God, not even one's child, is 
 
 another thing. Were it not for that devotion it is an 
 
 open question whether Druids might not have been 
 
 burning human victims in some oak-grove on this spot 
 
 at th is moment. Therefore — if I may say it without 
 
 * Deut. xviii. 9—12; xii. 31. 2 Kings xxi. 2—6. Jer. 
 vii. 31 ; xix. 5, 6. 
 t Josh. xxiv. 2, 14. 
 
 206
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 risk of misrepresentation and misunderstanding — there 
 IS an element of something noble, something lofty, 
 something true, even in that horrible travesty of the 
 grand truth which led the misguided Canaanite to offer 
 his dearest to his terrible God. And that something, 
 that elevation of faith, that self-sacrifice, which lifts 
 man above himself, for his country, for his kind, and 
 — highest of all — for his God, is taught in Scripture, is 
 embodied in Christ, is imparted by the Spirit of God, 
 And the first elementary lesson on this true nobility of 
 man is delicately, exquisitely set forth in the narrative 
 of which we speak, in which some so strangely stumble 
 upon a moral difficulty. I merely touch upon a point 
 or two here. I am not at liberty, even if time allowed, 
 to do more than allude to the doctrinal matters we 
 find illustrated here, and the foreshadowings with 
 which Infinite Wisdom indicated herein the Gospel of 
 the grace of God in man's salvation. " Moral diffi- 
 culty," forsooth ! No morals so high and pure — no 
 light from eternity shining on the spiritual darkness so 
 brightly — nothing that illustrates sinful man's true 
 relation to his God so clearly, can be found in those 
 early centuries as in the conflict, the agony, and the 
 deliverance on Mount Moriah. 
 
 A further distinction I feel it needful to lay down 
 which arises out of our principle of the gradual de- 
 velopment of the moral system, and which may con- 
 duce to a right view of some actions which may appear 
 of dubious or mixed morality. I allude to such trans- 
 
 2C7
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DII-FICULTIES 
 
 actions as those of Jael, Rahab, Jehu, and others. 
 Need I remind you of the fearful admixture of evil 
 which the enlightened conscience recognizes in our 
 own best doings, so far as they are the outcome of 
 human motive and human modes of action ? And of 
 old there must have been yet more of this evil admix- 
 ture more palpably displayed, more visible to human 
 perception, when the standard of morality was less 
 clearly defined, when the perception of truth, honour, 
 and charity was far less marked and distinct than it 
 now is under the Gospel. And so, when certain things 
 had to be done to carry out the providential purposes 
 of God by persons in very obscure states of enlight- 
 enment, some of them (I might instance Jehu) scarcely 
 enlightened at all, are we likely, are we required, to 
 approve altogether of the mode of action } There 
 may be a grand principle of obedience, of faith, or 
 some other Scripture requisite, which receives even 
 the more emphatic approval from the mixture of 
 human defect in the performance. But it is the prin- 
 ciple involved in the transaction, not the possibly 
 erring human element, which the Christian instinct 
 unerringly seizes on, and from which he derives deep 
 instruction. And if the unbeliever selects these things, 
 in order to hold up to scorn the human performance 
 as though that were falsely represented as the Divine 
 example, we can but say. What is to be expected from 
 hostile and unappreciating criticism } 
 
 In conclusion, I would say again, the question 
 208
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 seems to be simply one of historic fact, not at all of 
 human opinion, how many steps towards a perfect 
 
 * moral system it has pleased God to lead mankind at 
 
 cH^erent stages of the world's history. We look at 
 
 thdrearly Scriptures, and we answer, according to our 
 
 pCTception of the distinctness in detail of their moral 
 
 ^/■Jfeaching, — " So far." If objection be raised to this, 
 
 /and the query be suggested : " Why .-' Why no 
 further ? " the ultimate answer is the same as that 
 which must be given, when it is asked why at this 
 present moment the world is not delivered. And that 
 is the same answer which must be given when it is 
 asked how came it that the All- Holy One ever per- 
 mitted evil to come into the world at all ; or that, 
 having come, He did not at once and utterly destroy 
 it. We are simply in these things face to face with 
 the great mystery of evil, and it is but playing with 
 its awfulness to ask. Why not this, or not the other 
 mode of dealing with it by the Divine power and will .-* 
 
 But if we cannot give the tUtiinate answer when 
 challenged with the question, Why this degree rather 
 than any other degree of moral enlightenment in past 
 ages .'' we may answer it sufficiently by asking again. 
 Was anything higher and better possible, consistently 
 with that age of the world and the state of that people } 
 Look at them as they are photographed before us in 
 the Bible story. Mark their relapses into idolatry — 
 their utter failure to escape the polytheism or panthe- 
 ism that reigned around them. Alark well the dirtful 
 
 209 14
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICULTIES 
 
 reign of lust. See the hard Eastern cruelty. Could 
 you in that age and for that people strain the standard 
 higher .'' Why, as it was, it was too high and pure for 
 them, as every indignant word of their ancient prophets- 
 shows. Is it possible to mould a people's morals as 
 you mould clay.-* Let me ask one short question, which 
 will suggest nearly all we need : — Can we here, Avhat- 
 ever our moral standard may be in this nineteenth 
 century, abolish brothels and regulate our public- 
 houses .? Why not } Why not have a higher standard of 
 morality and enforce it } We hang down our heads. 
 We know we cannot. 
 
 So then we look over that mai*vellous history of the 
 Old Testament, and the more we think of the Oneness of 
 the Great King — one in the principles, though manifold 
 inthedetails, of His actings — we learn that we have there 
 the history of His Providence in the world illustrated 
 in a pictured series. Object to it, and you object to 
 the whole course of Providence. Nay, even if the 
 word Providence be disliked, then you object to the 
 course — call it by what name you will — fated, arranged, 
 ordered by law. There it was — there it is. 
 
 If there are in that pictured series some things that 
 are startling and shocking — even so ! But we cannot 
 evade the facts, nor must we call them other than start- 
 ling and shocking. These facts are necessary parts of 
 the development of sin, and misery, and redemption. 
 They belong to that history of mixed Divine in- 
 terposition and human faulty instrumentality, which
 
 OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 when evolved will be the wonder of eternity, and, 
 perhaps, tht^ security of the redeemed. Meanwhile their 
 character, Considered as a model for imitation, must be 
 judged by no lower standard than that of the Gospel. 
 Let our ju igment of some of the details be that they 
 belong to ii lower elevation, and an obscurer light than 
 ours, then the more blessed are we who have been led 
 higher, and into a clearer light. But even for us, do 
 not we who believe feel well assured that we shall one 
 day behold a clearer day and a purer light, which 
 when it glances over what now seems to us bright 
 and good shall show in it manifold imperfections .'' 
 
 Yes, this question is eminently one of adjustment, 
 rather than of debate and dispute. And how grand it 
 becomes thus to contemplate the Eternal One leading 
 on this world which He has made by His own path 
 and at His own measured rate of progress, steadily 
 towards that end which to Him from the first was 
 manifest ! The unbeliever who receives not this 
 together with the marvellous part which Holy Scrip- 
 ture plays in the gradual evolution, may, and must, 
 cavil at parts which to him have no meaning. But 
 that system which led up to Christ, and which has 
 been developed in Christ, and shall find its issue in 
 Christ, is to us a unity of moral and spiritual perfection. 
 Not yet complete, for the mystery is not accomplished, 
 the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ not 
 attained. And if of old time there was even greater 
 immaturity, we know that it could not be othenvise, 
 
 211
 
 THE ALLEGED MORAL DIFFICUlHeS. 
 
 for Christian teaching tells us that " the law was weak 
 through the flesh," and that until Christ ca me to show 
 us the very ideal of human perfection, and until He 
 gave that Holy Spirit which is the only true and 
 effectual source of purity, and until His atonement 
 removed the obstructive sense of guilt, men could not 
 rise nearer to God. Yes, " our life is hid wdth Christ 
 in God " — there is the ideal, there the v ital power, 
 there the ultimate perfection of that moral and spi- 
 ritual life of redeemed man, of which it is written, " It 
 doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know 
 that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him ; for 
 we shall see Him as He is." 
 
 M2
 
 ON THE CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY 
 / 
 
 1 FROM THE 
 
 EX^YPTTAN AND ASSYRIAN MONUMENTS. 
 
 W. R. COOPER, Esq., 
 
 SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL ARCH.'F.OLOGY
 
 ON 
 
 THE CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN MONUMENTS. 
 
 BEFORE directly entering upon the topic with 
 which your Committee have favoured me, the 
 corroborative evidence of the historical truth of the 
 Bible from the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, 
 it will a little simplify the investigation of the subject 
 if it be first considered what class of evidences may 
 be reasonably looked for, and what not. Among 
 general readers, and Bible-quoting people, the most 
 extravagant expectations are awakened, and the 
 strangest kinds of relics are believed to remain some- 
 where or other, beneath the ruins of ages, and th^ 
 tumuli of deserted cities. A bas-relief of the whale 
 ingesting Jonah, or Nebuchadnezzar eating grass, the 
 yoke of Jeremiah, or the reed of Ezekiel, are still 
 with them among the expectanda and desiderata in 
 Assyrian archaeology.
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 Among the antiquities of Egypt, others again have 
 great hope to find the rod of Moses, or the wheels of 
 Pharaoh's chariot — a jar containing the water which 
 was turned into blood, or a mural painting repre- 
 senting Joseph and his brethren before Pharaoh — a 
 la Gustave Dore. Others, not less sanguine, subscribe 
 to the Palestine Exploration Fund, believing that 
 still beneath the Haram-es-Shereef lies the ark of 
 Jehovah, and the Tables of the Law — the Golden 
 Candlestick and the mystic Ephod. Nay, so nearly 
 do the extremes of ignorance and superstition meet, 
 that in the nineteenth century any tolerably crafty 
 impostor who could bring from Mount Ararat a rib 
 of Noah's ark, or from the Moabitis an autograph 
 memorandum of Moses, from the salt moraines of the 
 Bahr Lut (or Dead Sea) a fragment of the skeleton of 
 Lot's wife, or from the deserts of Beer Sheba the pitcher 
 which Hagar carried, with " Agar " in modern Hebrew 
 inscribed upon it, a cast from Solomon's seal, or the 
 necklace of the Queen of Sheba, his success would now 
 be as great, and the credulity of faith as manifest, as 
 when in the twelfth century diseases were cured by 
 scrapings from the cave of Elijah, and the Crusaders 
 defeated an army by the grace of the shift of the 
 Virgin Mary and a less delicate relic attributed to our 
 Lord. 
 
 Now therefore at the outset let this truth be borne 
 
 in mind : such classes of miraculous relics may not 
 
 be reasonably expected ; and further, that the expec- 
 
 216
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 tation of such is an insult to common sense, and an 
 injury to religion. Facts, places, and things, to which 
 time has given an adventitious value, would be deemed 
 of little import when they first originated ; and would 
 therefore be the less likely to be preserved. Thousands 
 of Roman tradesmen paid for garlick in the forum 
 of Antioch with the denarii of Pescennius Niger, yet 
 now such coins are worth triple their weight in gold. 
 The halfpenny ballads of the reign of Queen Eliza- 
 beth have been preserved, not by design, but by 
 accident, and from the very nature of a certain class 
 of evidences anticipated, their preservation would be 
 most unlikely, and if produced, such evidence most 
 suspicious and unreliable. \ 
 
 What, then, is the class, and what are the objects 
 which we may reasonably expect, either in detail cr 
 in degree, to be corroborative of Biblical truth } 
 Few in number, and often apparently contradictory 
 in their testimony, these are, statues, inscriptions, 
 instruments and implements for offence and domestic 
 use, memorial stones, and natural objects. Yet even 
 here difficulties present themselves. Great nations 
 preserve no records of their defeats, and events of 
 vast importance to one people, are but petty incidents 
 in the history of another, lightly referred to when 
 necessarily mentioned, and often from policy, pride, 
 or prejudice, misrepresented. The massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew, which ensanguined the annals of France, 
 and originated our silk manufactories, is indeed com- 
 
 217
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 memorated in the frescoes of the Vatican, but it is as 
 the defeat of the Huguenots. The victory of Waterloo 
 is simply, in French history, the retreat of Napoleon ; 
 and Lord Macartney's embassy to China, intended 
 to display the importance, magnificence, and civiliza- 
 tion of the British Empire, was, and is represented, in 
 the official records of the Flowery Land, as " Bar- 
 barians bringing tribute to the country of China." 
 
 One lesser difficulty remains to be stated, the w:ant 
 of synchronism, and of chronological succession, in the 
 history of the Bible itself. My hearers will, I feel sure 
 pardon me if I assume that they, in common with 
 the best and most orthodox critics and archaeologists 
 of modern times, will admit, that prior to Solomon 
 there is no true chronology, that nearly throughout the 
 genealogies are selective, the succession of events is 
 often inverted; and that the writers, while faithful his- 
 torians, yet are so in the manner of episodic narrators 
 rather than that of systematic annalists. 
 
 This premised, to commence with the corrobora- 
 tions supplied by the monumental remains of the 
 oldest nation first, there is no country which has 
 yet been so abundantly illustrative of Old Testament 
 history, as the country of Egypt, whose ruins, the most 
 ancient and colossal the world contains, are almost 
 vignettes to the text of the Pentateuch, whose litera- 
 ture, rich in Divinity, History, Poetry, Science, and 
 Romance, is yet extant and intelligible before us 
 — whose liturgies preceded by many centuries the 
 
 2lS
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 Hymns of the Vedas, and whose poets wrote epics 
 four hundred years before Homer, and odes and anti- 
 phonal lyrics ages before Hesiod theorized in Greece, 
 or Orpheus civilized the inhabitants of Thrace. 
 
 When it is borne in mind how early commenced 
 and how long continued was the intercourse between 
 Israel and Egypt — when it is recollected that the 
 father of the faithful himself sojourned and dwelt as 
 a nobleman in the court suburbs of Egypt — that the 
 compiler of the Pentateuch was an Egyptian priest, 
 and, according to Josephus, a successful Egyptian 
 commander, offices which the hieroglyphic monu- 
 ments assure us were in that great empire compatible 
 with each other, — when these facts, I repeat, are borne 
 in mind, it will be seen that Egyptological study has 
 become as necessary for the interpretation of the Old 
 Testament as that of Greek philology is to the New, 
 and that so far from having to explain doubtful pas- 
 sages and obscure words by searching for imaginary 
 Hebrew roots, a reference to the language and the 
 theology of the Egyptians, whose influence for many 
 generations pervaded the Israelitish mind, will render 
 the most difficult sentences easy, and will, still more 
 in the future as it has to a great extent done in the 
 past, make the Bible its own expositor, and the word 
 of God consistent with its history, its theology, and 
 itself. 
 
 Perhaps the strongest of all evidences, monumental 
 or historical, are the implied or incidental ones. Let 
 
 219
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 me, therefore, now give an illustration of these as 
 afforded by the most beautiful of all inspired episodes, 
 the History of Joseph. When throughout this his- 
 tory Pharaoh has occasion to speak, it is always in 
 the first person singular, with a most sublime and 
 unconscious egotism, and without any reference to 
 any person except himself, as in such passages as 
 " / am Pharaoh," " / have set thee over the whole 
 land of Egypt," "Who is the Lord?" "/know not 
 the Lord," etc. etc. Now this was quite in accord- 
 ance with a principle of the Egyptian theology, only 
 recently revealed to us. According to the tenets of 
 that faith, the king, from the moment of his accession, 
 became hypostated into the deity, and thenceforth 
 existed, not as a symbol of, or a medium immanated 
 from, but the very essential and eternal deity himself. 
 " I am Ra in the Land of the Living," says the king, 
 in an inscription yet preserved to us. "The king 
 is as God," declares another papyrus, that of Prissc 
 d' Avenues. " Even from thy birth thou hast been as 
 God," attests the inscription of Karnak to Rameses II. 
 Agreeably to this dicta, Pharaoh is represented as 
 worshipping himself on a slab preserved in the British 
 Museum — "Adoring his own name" on another in the 
 Musde de Louvre — " Is the third in the great triad" at 
 Elcphantis — "Stands coadjutorwith Amun Ra" among 
 the divinities in another shrine — " Claims divine wor- 
 ship " on the steles of Rosetta and Canopus, and " is 
 numbered among the gods " in the Hall of Ancestors
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 and the tablet of Thothmoses. These are features 
 in the Egyptian monarcho-theology which, while 
 they existed in full force in the time of the earlier 
 books of the Bible, had lost much of their earlier 
 potentiality and effect in the time in which recent 
 sceptical critics consider those very books to have 
 been written. Let me guard myself ; — I do not assert 
 that in the Ptolemaic period the king, although of 
 Greco-Egyptian origin, was not still a god ; but then 
 he was a god — one of many ; not THE God — " the 
 soul of the world." The Ptolemaic sovereigns were 
 only by legal fictions 0eot ASeXcfioi, (Theoi Adelphoi), 
 but the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty were by 
 the authority of two thousand years sole, supreme, un- 
 conquerable, and illimitable God. True, Rameses II. 
 affirms, when fighting the Hittites, he alone led his 
 disheartened army into the very van of his innumer- 
 able foes : " Aman, my father, helped me, and Mentou 
 gave me strength;" but then, in the very sentences 
 which precede that statement he likens himself in 
 nature and being to God, not profanely either, since 
 with the assumption of the double crown of Egypt 
 came also the insufflation of the divine essence itself 
 
 When Joseph appeared before Pharaoh, the Bible 
 asserts that he was vested in a chain and collar of 
 gold, and garments of fine linen. True in even its 
 smallest details is this wonderful narrative, for the 
 Egyptian monuments have shown us that what we 
 should call the blue ribbon of a military official, or of 
 
 221
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDEXCE OF 
 
 a distinguished civil officer, was a golden collar. This 
 king Amenophis I. is reported to have bestowed on 
 his servant Aahmes ; in whose tomb at Beni Hassan 
 there is a picture, which has been several times en- 
 graved, representing a similar investiture. In the Berlin 
 Museum, the very collars themselves are preserved, 
 and in the upper Egyptian room of the British 
 Museum, there are portions of similar decorations. 
 
 Again in this same history, one of the most affect- 
 ing and the most minutely accurate of all Biblical 
 narratives, which has charmed children by its simpli- 
 city, and delighted the aged by its dramatic unity and 
 consummate knowledge of the human heart, — Joseph 
 swears " By the life of Pharaoh." Let me beg my lady 
 hearers not to be virtuously indignant, nor my reverend 
 friends to declaim against the error of a man who 
 sinned against a precept not promulgated for two 
 hundred years after his time, for Joseph, as an Egyp- 
 tian, swore the official oath, and that very act of his, 
 which has been explained away by some commenta- 
 tors, palliated by others, and been a stumbling-block 
 to all, is in itself an inferential evidence of the truth of 
 the narrative which contains the adjuration. 
 
 M. Chabas has shown in his Hebraeo-^^Egyptiaca, 
 lately read before the Society of which I have the 
 honour to be the Secretary, that among the Egyptians, 
 is among the Greeks and Romans, certain oaths 
 were judicial, others were conversational, and a few 
 official. The common ranks of Egyptian society 
 
 222
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 swore by their namesake or local gods, and I dare say 
 they were quite vulgar enough to avail themselves of 
 the privilege as often as anything interfered with their 
 domestic arrangements. Priests not being in them- 
 selves State functionaries, swore by the deity to 
 whose worship they were devoted ; and all military, 
 lay, or cleric, who filled an official capacity, swore 
 " By the life of Pharaoh," an oath which varied with 
 the name of every sovereign, and after the period of 
 the Psammetichi went out of fashion, and whose very 
 existence has only been known within the last three 
 years. Among the papyri in the Musee de Louvre, 
 there is one which states that the slave Mesu, one of 
 the many labourers employed on the canal executed 
 by Rameses in the Delta, on almost the same route 
 as the present (Suez Canal), being ordered to do some 
 work by his superior officer, refused to work, and 
 swore at that official. The words of his oath were as 
 follows — (the ; hrase in which they occur has not, how- 
 ever, been preserved): "The August, him whom Amun 
 enlarges, the Royal Sovereign, Him whose wishes are 
 stronger than death, the life of the king, the Ra."— So 
 indignant was the official to whom those words were 
 addressed, that, uncertain in what manner to punish 
 a menial who had blasphemously dared to take the 
 king's name in vain, and to sivear like a nobleman, 
 that he wrote to his superior officer, who in his turn 
 copied the indictment upon a slip of papyrus, and 
 sent it to the superintendent of the district, awaiting 
 
 223
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDEXCE OF 
 
 his decision. The words of the report which follow 
 are curious : " I have sent this report of the slave 
 Mesu to my lord, not being willing to, and not know- 
 ing how to, act till I receive his instructions upon it ; for 
 it is no part of my duty to punish him for his oath by 
 ' the life of Pharaoh.'" Hence from a mutilated frag- 
 ment of papyrus is derived a wonderful explanation 
 and a singular attestation of the veracity of an event 
 in Joseph's life, which inutilitates some volumes of 
 commentational divinity. 
 
 Another of these incidental circumstances cannot 
 be altogether passed over. In the Pentateuch, the 
 king of Egypt is the Pharaoh, for none other bore that 
 title, as in the eighteenth century the name "Emperor" 
 was always understood to refer to the Emperor of 
 Germany, and therefore his personal name was not 
 generally used. In the book of Kings (2 Kings vii. 6) 
 the passage occurs "the kings of the Egyptians," 
 implying a plurality of governors ; and this again is 
 strictly consonant to monumental testimony, for at 
 that later time a foreign incursion and its concomitant 
 intestine troubles had severed the empire of Egypt 
 into several petty kingdoms. 
 
 Take we now another example, or class of examples. 
 The Egyptian priests are reported in Exodus vii. 10, to 
 have thrown down their sticks, which instantly became 
 serpents. A painting in the British Museum repi^e- 
 sents certain Egyptian priests carrying serpent-shaped 
 sticks in their hands, for with them the cobra or 
 
 224
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 basilisk was the emblem of eternal life, and hence 
 that reptile was called "the serpent of immortal 
 years." To this day, in India, the serpent-charmers 
 possess the art, by pressure on the nape of the neck, 
 of throwing" the Naja, or spectacle snake, into a rigid 
 cataleptic position. Be it granted, then, that the 
 Egyptian clergy knew of a similar art four thousand 
 years ago, as the Indians have for three thousand, 
 and the whole mystery of the magician's enchant- 
 ments becomes apparent, for the act of flinging the 
 serpent on the ground, would restore it to its original 
 consciousjiess and vivacity. 
 
 Again, we are told in Judges viii. 27, that the 
 Israelites went a-whoring after the ephod of Gideon. 
 The term is one which is used throughout the Bible to 
 imply a kind of spiritual fornication, and has not a 
 little puzzled many expositors, who generally, like most 
 critics, give an inferior sense to the author, (which sense 
 being the product of their own brain, they afterwards 
 praise him for possessing,) and suppose that the intrinsic 
 value of the ornament itself excited the avarice of the 
 people. The monuments of Egypt and Assyria alike 
 afford a very good reason for believing that tJiat was 
 not the case. The ornament in question appears to 
 have been a magnificent collar (or Askh), having, as 
 was usual with all ancient jewellery, many elaborate 
 pendants — all, more or less, representations of idols, 
 or objects used in idolatrous worship. Now many of 
 the Egyptian and Assyrian symbols were afterwards 
 
 2-5 15
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 adopted by the Israelites, but others were absolutely- 
 impure, and were representations of the triads of 
 Egypt. The jewelled objects containing these figures 
 were often wrought with exquisite skill, and of very 
 great value, were sacrasanct, and acted as talismans 
 to preserve the wearer. Proud of his mighty victory, 
 Gideon in his simple-hearted faith wanted commoi 
 sense, and warped by his very integrity of purpose, 
 did not foresee that by wearing these and similar 
 impious figures around his neck, he was in some 
 sense encouraging the naturally strong tendency of 
 the Israelites towards a representative or symbolic 
 idolatry. Hence the thing became a snare to 
 Gideon and all his house, and was the cause of the 
 ultimate destruction of his family, since the command 
 given by God to Moses was " The images of their 
 gods shall ye burn with fire." 
 
 As the political, so the social and religious life of 
 the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and their contem- 
 poraries is recorded upon their monuments. Direct 
 mention of human sacrifice is found in the Assyrian 
 records. The sale of families and children occurs 
 again and again on the tablets in the British Museum, 
 which form a class by themselves. That the bulk 
 of the people were themselves unable to write is 
 proven by these documents being signed by the 
 indentation of the finger nail of the vendor and 
 purchaser, attested by the counter-signature of the 
 scribe. The kings of Egypt, in other respects some 
 
 226
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 of the most enlightened sovereigns the worlJ ever 
 possessed, were but slave-dealers on a larger scale, 
 and many of their wars were undertaken for no 
 less brutal a purpose. The early intercourse which 
 in the book of Genesis is shown to have existed 
 between Egypt and Palestine, was not a little increased 
 by this nefarious traffic, while the corrupt manners 
 of the period, to which so many allusions are found 
 in the Pentateuch, are .fully proven by an Egyptian 
 romance written to entertain king Rameses II., and 
 recently translated by M. Chabas. This novel, pro- 
 bably the oldest in the world's literature, turns entirely 
 upon the affection of two brothers for each other, the 
 wife of the elder of whom, Anepou, endeavours to 
 seduce the younger into an adulterous connection 
 with her. On his resistance, her guilty passion, 
 artifice, and hatred, all the story turns, and the inter- 
 position of the gods is at last necessary to avenge 
 the innocent and to punish the guilty. Drunkenness, 
 incest, — one of the Pharaohs, the same Rameses II. if a 
 doubtful authority is to be credited, marrying his own 
 daughter Bent-anat, — lying, and fraud in all its mani- 
 fold forms, are recorded in the papyri as Egyptian 
 failings. Despite of much that was good in their 
 religion, yet the bulk of its precepts being confined 
 to the royal family, the higher clergy, and the initiated 
 alone, the bulk of the people were left to substitute a 
 ceremonial for a spiritual religion, and to condone by 
 the extravagances of sensation for the errors of sense. 
 
 227
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 Perhaps on no one group of subjects has more in- 
 formation been obtained from the monuments of Egypt 
 than on those terrible calamities which are detailed 
 in the seventh to the eleventh chapters of the book 
 of Exodus, and are popularly called the Ten Plagues. 
 Much trifling criticism has been bestowed by infidel 
 critics upon the trifling character of many of these 
 judgments ; but that very circumstance attests the 
 authenticity of the narrative, for things deemed of little 
 consequence in later times held then no unimportant 
 rank in the book of Egyptian theology. Permit me, 
 therefore, very briefly to notice these events in their 
 succession, bearing in mind that the purport of all 
 those inflictions was to show the Egyptians that " I am 
 God," for "against all the gods of the Egyptians I will 
 execute judgment, saith the Lord." (Exod. xii. 12.) 
 
 The first and most significant of these ominous 
 plagues was the conversion of the waters of Egypt,local 
 or general, into an apparently sanguineous fluid, revolt- 
 ing to the sight, nauseous to the taste, and offensive 
 to the smell. To IMoscs and the Eg\-ptians, the pur- 
 port of this miracle of vengeance was obvious, for the 
 Nile was not only the gift of a deity, but a deity 
 itself venerated under the form of a corpulent }-oung 
 man called Hapimou. The very kingdom of Egypt 
 was considered as the gift of the Nile, .and at the 
 annual festival of the Niloa, Pharaoh, attended by all 
 his court, paid in the name of all his people divine wor- 
 ship to the river, the Father of the Land of Egypt. 
 
 228
 
 OLD TESTAiVENT HISTORY. 
 
 Popular tradition supposed the bounteous Nile to flow 
 from heaven, and a lustral power was attributed to 
 baptism in its waters. Many of its fishes were them- 
 selves venerated, and one species (the Oxyrhynchus) 
 was so extensively adored as to have one of the 
 seven districts of the Heptanomos named after it, 
 the inhabitants of which province wore its figure 
 around their necks as an amulet and an ornament. 
 At the touch of the rod of Moses the water of that 
 river, famous for being the sweetest and purest in the 
 world, was rendered loathsome and impure ; unable 
 to preserve their sacred Jives, the deified fishes died 
 under the shadow of their own temples ; the celestial 
 river attested the hand of a celestial messenger, and 
 in its blood-stained waves was contained an omen of 
 the destruction of the people who stood around its 
 banks, and whose fathers four hundred years before 
 had reddened its stream wath the carcases of the 
 Hebrew children. 
 
 Nor was the second, the plague of frogs, less sig- 
 nificant. Pthah, the creator of animal life, was 
 venerated under the special form of a frog, that 
 :reature being supposed to be spontaneously gene- 
 rated from the mud of the Nile, by the vivific rays 
 Df the sun. From its immense fecundity, the frog and 
 cadpole were used as the hieroglyphics of a million, 
 md the titles "Lord of Life" and "Lord of the Land" 
 were frequently engraved upon the statuettes of this 
 Batrachian. Hence the people of Lower Egypt venc- 
 
 229
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 rated the frog, and hence their animal worship was 
 rebuked, and the very creatures they venerated were 
 made a torture to them, so that even Pharaoh himself 
 was compelled to exclaim, " Take away these (gods 
 though they be) out of the land." 
 
 In the third infliction, the plague of lice, a no 
 less important warning was conve}-ed. The sand of 
 the Nile, (holy as is to the modern Jew the earth 
 of Jerusalem,) scattered by the hand of Moses in 
 the air, brought forward this most offensive plague. 
 According to both monumental and historical testi- 
 mony, the strictest care was taken by the priests 
 to avoid defilement by any unclean insect. For 
 this purpose the whole of the body was scrupu- 
 lously shaved, vestments of woollen were especially 
 forbidden, linen, or linen and cotton united, often 
 washed, and oftener changed, were alone allowed to 
 be used. Stated and repeated ablutions formed a part 
 of the routine life of the sacerdotal orders, and the 
 touch of an unclean insect rendered them ceremonially 
 impure. That plague, therefore, the magicians or 
 clergy did not attempt to copy, for they dared not 
 perform an act which would defile themselves, and 
 thereupon came from their lips the reluctant ex- 
 clamation, " This is the finger of God ! " 
 
 In the fourth plague, that of flics, or as the word im- 
 plies "beetles," the Atcuchis Sacer, or Sacred Scarab 
 of the Egyptians, was selected as the minister of ven- 
 geance. This insect was a beautiful little beetle, very 
 
 230
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 harmless, and very abundant, which from its habit of 
 laying its eggs in a ball of mud, and then rolling it to 
 be hatched by the heat of the sun, was supposed to 
 represent the care of the Creator over the world both 
 in forming and preserving it, and was therefore repre- 
 sentatively worshipped as the emblem of Kheper 
 Ra, the formator of the world. The multiplication of 
 figures of this insect in all sizes and all materials, from 
 the huge specimen in basalt, nearly five feet across, in 
 the British Museum, down to another in crystal, scarce 
 a quarter of an inch in diameter, in the same collection, 
 was something almost incredible. Every one wore it — 
 sometimes not only one, but as many as fifty — in chains 
 around the neck. It was wrought in the cheapest as 
 well as the costliest stones ; from the tender steatite 
 to the stubborn jasper. Figures of the scarabaeus were 
 used interchangeably with rings for currency. The 
 living wore it on their fingers ; the priests upon their 
 breasts; and the dead, protected by the sacred amulet 
 were expressly said by the Egyptian liturgy to " pass 
 through the place of dangers, and to await in safety 
 all their transformations." But now, at the word of 
 Moses, all this was reversed. Willingly or unwillingh', 
 the people in self-defence were compelled to slay their 
 own divinities, and the twenty-fourth verse of the 
 eighth chapter of Exodus shows that Kheper Ra, 
 instead of preserving the land which worshipped the 
 beetle, by the myriads of those very dead insects cor- 
 rupted it. 
 
 231
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OE 
 
 But still the awful signs proceeded, a-nd in the fifth, 
 the plague of murrain. Apis the bull-god suffered, with 
 all his bovine tribe, — that Apis, the first of animal 
 deities, one of the incarnations of Osiris the god of agri- 
 culture, and the most popular deity throughout the land 
 of Egypt, — that Apis "which was stalled in a golden 
 manger, and fed to the sound of music, with perfumed 
 oats, and straw from golden plates, — that bovine deity, 
 who bleated oracles, and whose very excrements were 
 holy — who was supposed to be born of a virgin cow 
 by the direct influence of the rays of the moon, and 
 upon whose life depended the welfare of Lower 
 Egypt, — that same Apis then became hopelessly 
 smitten with the same murrain whereby the less 
 sacred domestic cattle of Egypt were destroyed. 
 So important was the birth of the Apis, that his 
 discovery was a triumphant festival, — his death, a 
 national mourning. Civil and domestic occurrences 
 were dated by the years of its life; and stored away 
 in the vast subterranean catacombs of the Serapeum, 
 near Memphis, in lofty granite sarcophagi, lay all the 
 sacrasa7ici mummies of the Apis gods of Egypt. 
 These sarcophagi have in the last few years rendered 
 a most important service to Biblical chronology, for 
 M, Marriette Bey in his excavations for the Pasha of 
 Egypt discovered the entrance to the catacombs, and 
 was the first European \\\\o for many centuries had 
 read the hieroglyphical epitaphs upon those tombs 
 which had been closed since the rise of Christianity. 
 
 232
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 The sarcophagi, sixty-four in number, when dis- 
 covered, were all dated ; and further, had around them 
 no less than six hundred funeral tablets in honour of the 
 priests of the different Apii, dating from the eighteenth 
 dynasty, 200 B.C., to the very rise of the Christian era. 
 These were not only consecutive, but contained many 
 historical facts, and by the aid of these tablets, or stele, 
 much of the later chronology of the Bible has been 
 synchronized. But time presses. 
 
 The sixth plague converted the ashes of blessing 
 into the instruments of curse. The clergy, by super- 
 natural power the prescriptive doctors of the people, 
 fled from the infliction, and were powerless to cure or 
 to avert it, and hence they and their gods were shown 
 to be inutile. Of the extent of their real knowledge of 
 medical science, students are now themselves enabled 
 to judge more correctly than any former commenta- 
 tors, for three treatises on medicine written in ancient 
 hieroglyphics exist ; of one, an account has lately 
 been published by the learned Dr. Birch, who has 
 shown that it contains prescriptions ascribed to king 
 Cheops, the founder of the first pyramid, 4000 B.C. 
 A second, published by M. Brugsch, and ascribed to 
 the time of Rameses I., treats of the cure of dis- 
 eases by the use of amulets, incantations, and sympa- 
 thetic remedies, — analogous to those used in England 
 two hundred years ago, when a man who was knocked 
 down by a club, or stabbed by a knife, simply bathed 
 the part afflicted and put himself to bed, and sent 
 
 233
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 for the doctor to anoint the stick or knife with which 
 tlie injuiy was inflicted with Fryer's Balsam, tallow 
 from the altar candles, and extracts inspissated from 
 plants gathered when the planets were in trine, or 
 the sun in Jupiter. Of a like class were all the 
 Egyptian remedies — superstitious, empirical, and ab- 
 surd to an extreme degree ; when therefore, in the 
 sixth judgment, both physician and patient were 
 attacked by the plague of boils, neither charm nor 
 prayer availed them, no rank excepted, or amulet 
 protected, — all suffered alike. 
 
 The seventh act of the drama of the Dies Irae com- 
 menced with a fearful storm. Rain, though not un- 
 known in Egypt, was the particular attribute of the 
 feminine deities — of Isis, queen of heaven, of Sate, 
 goddess of the material sky, and of Neith, the spiritual 
 heaven, and goddess of wisdom. The souls of the 
 dead, which were supposed to ascend to the heavens, 
 were by Isis and Neith especially protected, and from 
 them all blessings descended. But in this plague, re- 
 gardless of, and restraintless by, feminine deities, the 
 hail and lightning descended, and, terrified by the awful 
 judgment, the king, disozvning his ozvn divinity, de- 
 clared that he was wicked, a concession of a nature 
 which only those who well understand the Egyptian 
 theology can duly appreciate. 
 
 As the seventh with storm, so the eighth with 
 locusts, devastated the land, and the trees, vhich 
 themselves were sacred, the vegetable gods, despised
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 by Juvenal and ridiculed by Pliny, — the pine, the tree 
 of life ; the tamarisk, that of knowledge ; the lotus, 
 sacred to the dead, the papyrus to the gods, and many 
 lesser vegetables to lesser deities, — all were smitten 
 then, and finally the locust, rarely seen, and scarcely, 
 from its rarity, even dreaded in Egypt, devoured all 
 that the hail had left. 
 
 As the curtain closed upon the awful tragedy, the 
 stage of the theatre became darkened, for when the 
 hands of the prophet were extended towards heaven, a 
 darkness that might be felt covered the land. This, as it 
 was the last directly theological, so it was also, in one 
 sense, the most conclusive; for after all, at the root of 
 all the Egyptian theogony lay the divine truth that 
 there was one unbegotten God, sole, existent, and eter- 
 nal. "The creator of all existences and the unbegotten." 
 He, the great deity, or Amun Ra,was believed to inhabit 
 the heaven of heavens itself — to produce all the other 
 gods by direct emanation; as most of the deities were 
 originated from him, so most of their names were com- 
 pounded with his, and he the invisible and beneficent 
 God was symbolized by eternal light — the sun was his 
 representative, and all living things were but his mani- 
 festations. In the conception of his power and dignity 
 the extremes of materialism and pantheism united. 
 But then at the word of the servant of a greater god, 
 a dark veil passed between him and his creatures. 
 A three-^Tnys curse, because of his three attributes, 
 as Amun Ra, father of divine life, Kheper Ra, the 
 
 235
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 father of animal, and Kneph Ra, of human, then he, 
 the god of the heavens and of the Egyptians, was by 
 the God of the Israehtes blotted out. 
 
 Last of all, descended the horrors of the tenth plague. 
 The Egyptians having felt, and the Israelites having 
 witnessed, the powerlessness of the gods they had been 
 accustomed to venerate, the long-delayed retribution 
 fell upon the Pharaoh and his servants ; and those 
 who had made the Israelites childless, were by an in- 
 visible and irresistible executioner rendered childless 
 themselves. Fancy cannot imagine, artist cannot 
 paint, nor poet describe, the scene which produced the 
 cry which rang throughout all the land of Egypt, when 
 under the very shadow of the gods whom he wor- 
 shipped, with their amulets upon his heart, and their 
 adorations inscribed in the bracelets upon his hands, 
 the first-born of every Egyptian lay agonized, para- 
 lyzed, dead ! To say more, belongs to the province 
 of the theologian, and perhaps I have already said 
 too much; but as this is one of the subjects which 
 has received most light from the researches of Biblical 
 archaeology, I have ventured, despite its necessary 
 length of detail, to bring it before your notice. 
 
 Nor are the corroborations of Old Testament His- 
 tory to be taken from Egypt alone, for, as might be 
 expected from the monuments of Assyria, fresh con- 
 firmations avail us there, and that mighty empire has 
 witnessed for the truth of the Bible in an unexpected 
 
 manner, and with no uncertain voice. From the ruins 
 
 23')
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 of her palaces has her history been disinterred, and 
 from the mutilated walls of her temples has her 
 theology and poetry been restored. 
 
 The conquest of Palestine is recorded on the annals 
 of Sennacherib, and the cylinder of Tiglath Pileser de- 
 scribes his invasion of Palestine. The names of Jehu, 
 of Amaziah, of Hezekiah, of Omri, Ahaz, and Uzziah, 
 have been made out. The very clay which sealed the 
 treaty between the kings of Judah and Assyria, with 
 the impresses of their joint seals upon it, is preserved 
 in the Nineveh gallery. The library of Assurbanipal, 
 in 20,000 fragments, contains, among other scientific 
 treatises, such as astronomical notices, grammatical 
 essays, tables of verbs, genealogies, etc., an historico- 
 geographical account of Babylonia and the sur- 
 rounding countries. As far as these fragments have 
 been translated, the district and tribal names' given 
 in the Bible correspond very closely with them. Here 
 and there occur discrepancies, but they are such as 
 vanity might suggest, or shame originate. Babylon, 
 and not Jerusalem, is the centre spot of the world, 
 and the house of the Assyrian king is the garden of 
 Eden. These variations are trifling ; every nation has 
 its romancers, and without the hand of inspiration the 
 history of every people commences in fable. 
 
 Although so nearly allied, politically and chrono- 
 logically speaking, yet the idiosyncrasies and mytho- 
 logical ideas of the two empires were as widely dif- 
 ferent as were their territories and their peoples. The 
 
 237
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 Egyptian' gods loved their worshippers. In Assyria 
 the worshippers loved their gods. In Egypt the 
 Pharaoh venerated himself, but the Assyrians never 
 lost sight of the two great truths of all primitive 
 theology, the fatherhood of the Supreme Being, and 
 the sinfulness of all, from the highest to the lowest, of 
 the human race. In Egypt the king was in a manner 
 independent of God, but among the Semitic Assyrians 
 even the armipotent Nebuchadnezzar was the servant 
 of his Bel and Assur, " who gave him victory, and set 
 him to rule over nations." 
 
 Agreeably therefore to these national distinctions, 
 stands out in prominent relief to a careful reader, 
 who is willing to suppose that his ignorance may 
 really be not quite equal to the task of ridiculing the 
 collected wisdom of thirty generations, the reserved 
 and almost reverential manner in which the kings 
 of Assyria, Tiglath Pilesser and Nebuchadnezzar, 
 spoke of their personal relation to their God. With 
 them, and their successor Assurbanipal, all victory, all 
 grace, were ascribed on their records to "Nana, the 
 delight of Babylon," to "Ishtar the strong," to " Assur 
 the great," and to " Bel the protector," among the 
 gods of Babylonia. While the proud monarch of the 
 southern kingdom claimed equal deity for himself, 
 and as on the sarcophagus of Oimenepthah I. declares 
 that he is in very nature like unto Osiris, to Ra, to 
 Set, to Horus, and all the other greater deities, the 
 less presumptuous sovereigns of the East personally 
 
 238
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 besought the favour and entreated the forgiveness of 
 their gods. In Egypt, the king, being a god, could 
 not possibly commit sin, but the Assyrian Assurbanipal 
 besought " May the look of pity that shines in thy 
 eternal face dispel my griefs ; may I never feel the 
 anger and the wrath of the God ; may my omissions 
 and sins be wiped out ; may I find reconciliation 
 with him, for I am the servant of his power." The 
 prayers of other Assyrian potentates have also been 
 preserved, and through these runs a spirit of de- 
 pendence, submission, and inferiority, far, very far 
 differing from anything to be found in the liturgies 
 and supplications of any other contemporary nation 
 except the Jews. 
 
 It was while worshipping Nisroch, the eagle-headed 
 deity of Assyria, that the blasphemous Sennacherib 
 was slain, and Nebuchadnezzar set up an image of 
 gold, not to himself, but to Bel, and the proportions 
 of that image agree perfectly well with those of the 
 stele and altar of Assar-nazir-pal at the British 
 Museum. If my hearers will read carefully the thirty- 
 sixth of Isaiah, for I see they are anxious to inter- 
 rupt me, they will find the blasphemy of Sennacherib 
 consisted, not in the assertion that " I have with the 
 soles of my feet dried up all the rivers of besieged 
 places," but in the lie that "the Lo7'd said unto me, 
 Go up against this place and destroy it." There was 
 nothing in the passage itself that claimed divinity for the 
 speaker, while the phrase employed is the Assyrian 
 
 239
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 official one, for in a well-known slab in the national 
 collection, often engraved, but oftener forgotten, 
 Sennacherib sits in his state chair with the arrows 
 of divination in his hand, and the inscription around 
 and before him reads, " I sit before the city of Lachish 
 — I give permission to destroy it." 
 
 One of the most curious of the Assyrian inscriptions 
 lately discovered is that which has been translated by 
 M. Charles Lenormant,' and relates to the construction 
 by Vulnarari(or Bin-narari) of a golden temple to the 
 great god Bel. Erected in seven stages, analogous to 
 the present ruins of Bin Nimrud, the walls, the roof, 
 the columns, and the sanctuary, the vessels, and the 
 statues o/ the gods, were all alike plated, or composed 
 of solid gold. It was founded, so runs the inscription, 
 " To the glory of the great god Bel, my lord and 
 master, whose servant I am, who has placed me on the 
 throne of this people." That such an edifice could be 
 erected of materials so costly and so rare, at a period 
 very near to that of king Solomon, removes at once 
 all dispute as to the credibility of the Biblical nar- 
 rative concerning his temple, and affords a justi- 
 fication of the means employed by the wisest of 
 kings for storing up a metal not then used as an 
 article of currency. Of this magnificent structure, 
 only the indications of its site remain. Voltaire and 
 Tom Paine would have said it never existed, but it 
 did exist ; and it is not probable that the son of 
 
 David, confessedly the richest monarch of his time, who 
 
 240
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 inherited from his parsimonious fatlicr ilie accuniuiciiccl 
 wealth of the conquered Palestinian kings, would have 
 had less resources at his command than an Assyrian 
 monarch whose empire was at that time little superior 
 to his own, and who possessed a far less universal 
 reputation. 
 
 Not the least interesting of the ancient inscriptions 
 before mentioned are those which, dating from 1200 
 B.C. to 600 B.C., are called Boundary Stones. These 
 were set up to mark the angles which circumscribe 
 the limits of fields of various landowners. Upon them 
 were generally inscribed the names of the parties, the 
 value and limits of their properties, and dedications 
 to different deities, whose emblems were inscribed 
 upon the summit of the stone. Thus, as in many 
 instances in the Bible, the same pillar partook of the 
 nature of altar, deed, and milestone, and was rever- 
 enced accordingly. 
 
 A singular discovery has resulted from the trans- 
 lation of these and similar inscriptions, one which a few 
 years ago was but little to be anticipated, namely, the 
 employment of one species of character for the tran- 
 scription of no less than three languages — the Persian, 
 the Accadian, and the Median. Of these three, the 
 second is the most important, for while it contains in 
 itself many root words of Turanian origin, yet as a 
 Semitic tongue it contains elements which enable us 
 the more closely to realize the nature of the earlier 
 Syrian languages, and the idiomatisms of speech with 
 
 2+1 16
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OF 
 
 which the first writers of the Bible were most famihar, 
 and therefrom we are enabled the better to understand 
 certain passages, which if translated purely by Hebrew 
 or Chaldee would prove at best obscure. Thus 
 archaeology has supported philology, and both have 
 rendered important services to the cause of Biblical 
 criticism. The incommunicable name of the Great 
 Jehovah (Yahveh) Himself, has been found as the 
 name of a Syrian deity of extreme antiquity, probably 
 not in its spiritual character far remote from the God 
 of the Hebrews. The names of the cities founded by 
 he early Ethnarchs have been more or less identified, 
 and their sites pointed out. Of these, not a few have 
 names both Turanian and Semitic, in which case both 
 names are purely translations of each other. This 
 custom seems to have prevailed to very recent times, and 
 many of the proper names in the Bible are now shown 
 from contemporaneous inscriptions to be translations 
 or corruptions, in the same way as Naples, Nablus, and 
 Napulia are corruptions of the Greek Neapolis, the 
 new city ; in a manner precisely similar to that in 
 which a French map of London would give Blanc- 
 chapelle, for Whitechapel, Porte-neuf, for Newgate, 
 Chartreuse, for Crutched Friars, and Mont Grenvich 
 for Greenwich Hill. 
 
 Quitting the people of Assyria for their contem- 
 poraries the Jews, let me mention the investigations 
 which have recently been made at a tumulus long 
 known to travellers as Tell el Yehoudeh, or the 
 
 1 12
 
 OLD TESTAMEXT HISTORY. 
 
 Mound of the Jews, which is known to cover the site 
 of the ancient Jewish city of Onion, founded by the 
 high-priest Onias in the reign of Ptolemy Physcon, 
 one of the Greco-Egyptian kings of Egypt, as a place 
 of refuge for his people who were expatriated from 
 Judaea by the armies of Antiochus. There, as we 
 are told in the book of Maccabees, and the historian 
 Josephus, was erected another temple in character and 
 detail analogous to that of Solomon. The Egyptian 
 temple for some long period flourished, and the Jews 
 were received with great favour by the Ptolemaic 
 sovereigns, A college, a library, and various public 
 buildings were founded, and the prophecies of the 
 later prophets were fondly applied by the Jews to that 
 city and its temple. At last, in the continued revo- 
 lutions which ended in the destruction of the Egyp- 
 tian empire by the suicide of the infamous Cleopatra, 
 — the prostitute of her brother, of Caesar, and of 
 Antony, the murderess of her sister, the curse of her 
 country — the city of Onion perished, its buildings 
 w^ere destroyed, and its temples ransacked. The 
 dispersed Jews settled in Alexandria, in Marseilles, 
 and the various colonies of the victorious Roman 
 empire, beneath whose eagle wings all the world was 
 ultimately gathered to prepare for the better and hoUer 
 federation of the nations of the world in the empire 
 of Christianity. Until recently, little attention has 
 been turned to the preservation of Jewish antiquities, 
 and the result naturally was that the temple of the 
 
 ?43
 
 CORROBORATIVE EVIDEXCE OF 
 
 pseudo-Onias became as completely lost to the world 
 as its prototypes of Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod. 
 Upon the restoration of learning, and still more upon 
 the revival of archaeology in the Augustine era of 
 English literature, the reign of Queen Anne, a good 
 deal of very ingenious conjecture was hazarded, and 
 some exceedingly plausible theories were promul- 
 gated to the no little injury of good logic and better 
 paper, as to the dimensions and construction of the 
 temple at Jerusalem. From the almost visionary 
 work of Villalpandus, in three volumes folio, and that 
 of Solomon Bennett in a more modest quarto, down 
 to the later conjectures of Messrs. Fergusson, Lewin, 
 and Sharpe, who have been contented to speculate in 
 octavo, the essays, both scientific and theological, 
 upon the topography of Solomon's temple, have 
 formed a library in themselves. Now, however, at last 
 there seems some probability that the excavations at 
 Tel el Yehoudeh, in Egypt, combined with the enter- 
 prise of Captains Warren and Wilson at Jerusalem, 
 will settle the long-vexed question, for the Egyptian 
 excavations have revealed two classes of antiquities — 
 one, the fragments of a palace of the twenty-third 
 dynasty, in pure Pharaohnic art ; and the other a class 
 of remains comprising the fragments of a column and 
 architrave of a different, and wholly Semitic, type 
 of architecture, such as more or less prevails in 
 Central Syria, the ruins of Capernaum, and the cave 
 tombs in the valley of Jehoshaphat, — a t}-pe, more-
 
 OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 over, wholly unknown in Egypt Proper, having much 
 in common with Ilerodian and Greek, but, except 
 in the materials, very little resembling Egyptian 
 work. This being so, there is every reason to be- 
 lieve, as the Rev. Greville Chester, who has brought 
 some of these relics to England, suggests, that 
 they are portions of the temple of Onias ; and if 
 according to the writings of Josephus, and all con- 
 temporaneous and traditional history, that temple 
 was modelled after the one which was the glory 
 of Jerusalem, it is scarcely too much to conjec- 
 ture that we are on the track of materials which 
 will enable us to construct a model of the costliest, 
 most contested, and most sacred edifice the world ever 
 beheld. But the subject of this paper, and the illus- 
 trations and corroborations of the Bible, often direct, 
 but more frequently indirect, which can be obtained, 
 and are being obtained in abundance, from the 
 monuments of Egypt, Assyria, and Palestine, requires 
 not one, but many evenings to examine it. It would 
 tax the patience of the most diligent scholar, the 
 tongue of the most voluble expositor, the hand of the 
 most laborious amanuensis to dwell upon them. The 
 British Museum, and many public and private collec- 
 tions, may well be visited with no other guide-book 
 than the Bible; and to those who are content to 
 wait and hope, to study and to persevere, the richest 
 and most gratifying results may be predicted. As in 
 nature, so in art, directly or indirectly the works of God, 
 
 245
 
 EVIDENCE OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. 
 
 and of those whom God has made, are in harmony 
 with His word and work. What science and archae- 
 ology are 7iot in harmony with, are hasty premises, 
 predetermined conclusions, and superficial examination. 
 The light of the antiquaiy's torch increases as the 
 darkness of the ruins amongst which he gropes 
 becomes more intense ; and the student of the Bible 
 will often find the strongest confirmation afforded by 
 the patient examination of an apparently incontro- 
 vertible difficulty. The light of revelation, held by 
 the hand of reason, will in due time dispel the ob- 
 scurity of ages, and penetrate the most distant recesses 
 of the past. Be it therefore the province of this So- 
 ciety collectively, and of you its members individually, 
 to uphold that heaven-given light, and to work in 
 harmony, and march in step, through the accumulated 
 debris of time and change. Still in the future, as in 
 all the past, shall the radiance of that torch increase, 
 and the glory of the torch-bearers extend, for it is lit 
 by the effluence of that Deity who, placing it in the 
 hands of His servants, is Himself, as an ancient 
 Christian lamp in the British Museum, in almost the 
 very v/ords of the Nicene Creed, attests, $w9, (jxaro^, 
 " The Light of Light" 
 
 24')
 
 THE ARGUMENT 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF 
 
 CHRISTIANITY, FROM ITS EXISTENCE 
 
 AND ACHIEVEMENTS. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. HENRY ALLON, D.D.
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE SUPERNATURAL 
 CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY, FROM ITS 
 EXISTENCE AND ACHIEVEMENTS. 
 
 THE historical character of Christianity subjects 
 it to pecuHar and crucial tests. The metaphysical 
 tests of theological dogma, the moral and spiritual 
 tests of religious life, are subtle and evasive compared 
 with the exact tests of historic time and circumstance. 
 Their apprehension and power depend more upon 
 mental idiosyncrasies and moral sympathies. Hence 
 these constitute a higher kind of evidence than that of 
 which I am now to speak, and demand a higher 
 nature for its appreciation. To spiritual minds, moral 
 evidence is of all proof the most conclusive. 
 
 The argument from final causes has its place and 
 power in the domain of moral truth. The truth which 
 meets and satisfies the deepest instincts, the greatest 
 necessities, and the strongest yearnings of a man's 
 spiritual nature, is to him the most conclusively 
 attested truth. To truth-loving souls truth is its own 
 
 249
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 light. The soul is made for truth, as the eye is made 
 for light, and the heart for love. Augustine's great 
 saying, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and we 
 cannot rest until we rest in Thee," is but the supreme 
 expression of the soul's relation to all truth. Hence 
 this is the note of the chief appeal of our Lord as a 
 religious teacher, " He that is of the truth heareth my 
 voice." Souls that are true feel the truthfulness of His 
 great spiritual words. Instinctively they test them 
 by the necessities and yearnings of their religious 
 nature — as the artist tests beauty, as the poet tests 
 language, as the musician tests melody. It is "the 
 vision and faculty divine." In every department of 
 life the criterion is held to be valid. As to the poetic 
 soul, the only necessary, the only possible test of 
 poetic beauty is itself, so to the spiritual soul, the 
 supreme evidence of spiritual truth is its own inherent 
 character. 
 
 According to every legitimate principle and analogy 
 of human nature, therefore, w^e claim for moral and 
 spiritual evidence — for the appeal to truth-loving souls 
 of the inherent fitness and beauty of the truth which 
 appeals to them — the supreme place of congruity and 
 power. If there be any validity in the doctrine of 
 final causes, then must the validity be admitted of those 
 teachings which perfectly satisfy the instincts, neces- 
 sities, and yearnings of our spiritual nature. It is a 
 sufficient proof of spiritual truth that it approves itself 
 to the spiritual sense. While he, whose unspiritual,
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 unapprehending soul is incapable of such an appeal — 
 to whom spiritual truths are unintelligible and uncon- 
 vincing just in proportion as they are spiritual — who 
 in the presence of Christ's greatest moral glory asks, 
 " What sign showest Thou ? " thereby proclaims him- 
 self as fundamentally incompetent to judge spiritual 
 truth, as the man physically blind is to judge the light 
 of the sun. Just as he who sees the sun needs no 
 scientific demonstration of its light, so he who sees 
 spiritual truth needs no attestation of external 
 evidence. His experience is his sufficient proof Like 
 the man born blind, he replies to all objectors, "Whether 
 he be a sinner or not, I know not ; one thing I know, 
 that whereas I was blind now I see." 
 
 This evidence of spiritual experience and fitness 
 is, for thousands, their only and sufficient proof of 
 Christianity. In the spiritual teachings of Christ, in 
 the spiiitual life and blessings which as the Redeemer 
 of men He practically gives, they find all that they 
 religiously need or desire, — the sense of the forgive- 
 ness of sins, the moral power of a new and holy life, 
 practical rest in the moral and providential order of 
 God, beatitude and joy in communion with God, and 
 perfect satisfaction for all their instincts and hopes in 
 the promise of immortal life. If these be delusions, 
 they are wonderfully full of practical fitness and power. 
 Those who realize them cannot demonstrate to others 
 their absolute truth ; they can only attest their own 
 wonderful transformation by them, and their satisfac-
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 tion in them. They cannot prove their beliefs, but 
 they can die for them. 
 
 This is the supreme strength of religious faith ; no 
 intellectual arguments can prevail over indubitable 
 experiences. 
 
 You may demonstrate to a man that it is a mere 
 philosophic imagination to believe in a personal God, 
 that it is an unhistoric delusion to put faith in Christ, 
 that it is a scientific absurdity to offer prayer, that it is 
 a gratuitous expectation to dream of a life after this. 
 He may be utterly unable to reply to your arguments, 
 but his own conscious experience neutralizes them all. 
 He knows, and feels, that there is a God who forgives 
 sin, and hears prayer, who gives holy inspirations to 
 his soul, and holds spiritual fellowship with him. If 
 these be delusions, if God be but a philosophical 
 necessity, and man but a highly developed materialism, 
 if religious intercourse with God be a natural impossi- 
 bility, if immortal life be but the " baseless fabric of a 
 vision," then is man the greatest solecism in nature, his 
 nature the greatest failure, his consciousness and ex- 
 perience the greatest delusion. 
 
 So long as the religious nature of man is what it is, 
 and so long as the religion of Jesus Christ so wonder- 
 fully meets and satisfies it, sceptical science has not 
 the ghost of a chance ; the facts are too terribly 
 against it 
 
 But while, as Christian apologists, we thus justify 
 ourselves by asserting the legitimacy and supremacy 
 
 252
 
 SUPERXATUKAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of the moral argument, and the spiritual incompetency 
 of men who cannot appreciate it, we are perfectly 
 willing to abide by the appeal to external evidence, 
 and to rest the case of Christianity upon the demon- 
 stration of its historic and scientific truth. No true 
 spiritual system can be enshrined in mendacious his- 
 tory or imaginative science — in the manner and degree, 
 that is, in which history and science are incorporated 
 with Christianity, It is no accidental contact of meta- 
 physical dogma and historical circumstance. The 
 peculiarity of Christianity among the religious systems 
 of the world is that history enters into it as a vital 
 element. Scarcely any constituent of Christianity is 
 pure dogma. Metaphysical dogma of the very highest 
 kind is of the very essence of it. No scheme of thought 
 soars to such transcendental heights, or penetrates so 
 profoundly to the heart of things ; but the dogma is 
 so inextricably and vitally connected with the historic 
 circumstance, that if the latter be proved fabulous the 
 former is discredited. It is morally impossible to save 
 the dogma of Christianity and sacrifice its history. No 
 theory of fable, legend, or myth that human ingenuity 
 has yet conceived can save either the New Testament 
 writers or Christ himself from the imputation of a 
 purposed and systematic falsehood of statement, which, 
 by its extent, its deliberateness, its grossness, and its 
 deluding effects, must utterly destroy their personal 
 moral integrity, and discredit whatever dogma may 
 rest upon their authority. The incarnation and the
 
 THE ARGUMEXT FOR THE 
 
 resurrection, the miraculous works and the death upon 
 the cross, are much more than the ore of truth in a 
 matrix of circumstance, they are essential historic facts, 
 the significance and explanation of which is dogma; so 
 that we cannot disallow the facts without destroying 
 the dogma. 
 
 This subjects the Christian system to tests which 
 are peculiarly searching. Men who deny its theolo- 
 gical ideas, or who are insensible to its spiritual appeals, 
 may yet question the evidence of its facts. Take, for 
 instance, the resurrection of Christ. Men who can see 
 no force in its theological congruity, and its harmony 
 with human instincts and yearnings, are yet com- 
 petent, on a purely historical basis, to appraise its 
 evidence, and to pronounce upon the truth or falsehood 
 of its assertion. With the incarnation the historic 
 proof is necessarily less complete; but connected even 
 with this there is an array of circumstantial and pre- 
 sumptive evidence which the spirit of history can 
 appreciate, and which is sufficient to enable a historical 
 verdict. 
 
 As Christian apologists, then, we accept this ground 
 of debate; we freely and fully concede that if the 
 Christian history be discredited, both its dogma and 
 its moral authority are invalidated. Whether intrin- 
 sically true or false, it can derive no authority from its 
 source. We can have neither confidence nor joy in 
 teachings so vitally connected with personal menda- 
 ciousness and religious fraud. The ground of its dis- 
 
 2^4
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 tinctive appeal to our respect and acceptance is utterly- 
 destroyed. 
 
 This, however, does not commit us to any theory of 
 the verbal infallibility of the history ; nor does it 
 involve us in untenable positions such as may have 
 been assumed by its defenders. The vindication of 
 the supernatural and authoritative character of the 
 Bible has too often been embarrassed by speculative 
 theories authorized neither by the statements of the 
 Book itself, nor by a consensus of the judgments of 
 its believing disciples. For our present purpose we 
 claim for the Bible only the authority of the ordinary 
 literature of history. But it is no reply to the essen- 
 tial claims of the Book to be a supernatural revelation 
 from God, to show that certain speculative theories 
 concerning the modus and degree of its inspiration 
 are untenable. Apart from all theories of inspiration, 
 or of its orthodox expositors, there are certain broad 
 historical and religious characteristics of the Bible 
 which appeal to the general student, and which must 
 be accounted for before either its historical character 
 or its supernatural claims can be disallowed. For the 
 purposes of our present argument we put it on a level 
 with other books of ancient literature, and submit it 
 to the verdict of ordinary historic, literary, and moral 
 tests. Nay, we will concede that from the extra- 
 ordinary character of its contents it demands the 
 severest and most conclusive historical demonstration. 
 Another admission to be made is, that the mere
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 existence and prevalence of a religious system, is 
 not, per se, a sufficient demonstration of either its super- 
 natural character or its truih. Buddhism exists, Hin- 
 duism exists, Confucianism exists, Mahometanism 
 exists, — the former far more extensively than Chris- 
 tianity. The peculiar character of Christianity, and 
 the peculiar conditions of its success, are essential 
 elements of the argument. 
 
 It is vital to our conclusion that these limits and 
 conditions of our claim should be made clear. 
 
 Some religious system or other, men must have ; the 
 mere existence of such systems proves only the corres- 
 ponding existence in human nature of the religious sen- 
 timent, which is as real, as valid, and as indestructible 
 an element of our nature as any other. So also there 
 are the sentiment of humanity, which is the root of 
 human kindness, and the sentiment of patriotism, 
 which is the inspiration of all service and sacrifice for 
 one's countiy, and the conjugal sentiment, and the 
 parental sentiment, and others the validity of which 
 no one questions, and the actuating power of which 
 all must admit. It is part of the philosophy of 
 human nature to give account of these sentiments, 
 and of their dynamic power. These various senti- 
 ments are fundamental in our human constitution, 
 although they are capable of instruction and develop- 
 ment. Most of the things that we do, as members 
 of the human community, are prompted by them. In 
 obedience to these human sentiments, men serve and 
 
 256
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 sacrifice themselves, as patriots and philanthropists, 
 as parents and children, as merchants and men of 
 science. No one questions their legitimacy and 
 value ; without them, society would dissolve. 
 
 Among these the religious sentiment has the su- 
 preme place ; of all our sentiments it is the deepest 
 and the noblest. That it is a fundamental part of our 
 human constitution is demonstrated by the analogy 
 of other sentiments ; by philosophy ; by experience ; 
 and, not least, by the signal failure of Mr. Mill and 
 Mr. Darwin to prove that it is developed or derived. 
 No scientific fiasco of our day is so complete as Mr. 
 Darwin's recent theory of conscience. 
 
 Apart from all theological dogmas there is nothing 
 in the nature of man that in idea is so grand, and 
 nothing in the social life of man that in practice is so 
 influential, as the religious sentiment. It is essential to 
 the wellbeing of society that men should be pure 
 and truthful, upright and unselfish, honourable and 
 benevolent. Compared with the sentiment that prompts 
 these practical virtues, all other sentiments of our 
 nature are practically unimportant. It is the reli- 
 gious sentiment which makes systems of religious 
 thought and conduct imperative. It prompts too the 
 religious propagandism which is so characteristic of 
 men, and so obligatory upon them. For if men are 
 deemed noble and worthy of praise when in obedience 
 to their philanthropic sentiments they sacrifice them- 
 selves for the good of their country or of their fellow- 
 
 257 17
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 men, to promote commerce, to advance science, to 
 liberate slaves, or to reform prisons, much more when 
 in obedience to their religious sentiment they sacrifice 
 themselves to impart religious knowledge, to develop 
 religious life, to make men moral and holy, devout 
 and spiritual. Of all the superficial cavils at Chris- 
 tian men, of all the blind passionate Avrongs done 
 to human nature, surely that is the most ignorant 
 and insane which reprobates religious missions on 
 the ground of their fanaticism. If, while they obey 
 all other instincts of patriotism and philanthropy, 
 men refuse to obey the instinct of religion, they 
 are simply recreant to the noblest sentiment of their 
 nature, and enthrone selfishness and meanness in 
 the holy place of the soul. And if, in addition to 
 the mere promptings of the religious sentiment, 
 any religious system that men have received teaches 
 them that not only the weal of the present life, but 
 that also of the life hereafter, depends upon their 
 religious character here, they must either seek to apply 
 it to the religious life of their fellow-men, or abjure all 
 generous and gracious feeling. 
 
 If I think that the truth that I possess is higher or 
 more cogent than that possessed by my fellow-man, 
 that it will more powerfully and beneficially affect 
 his present character and his future destiny, I am 
 constrained by every consideration of duty and philan- 
 thropy to put him in possession of it. Religious propa- 
 gandism has its root in the very noblest sentiment of 
 
 2^8
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 human nature ; it is independent of any specific 
 religious system, and has been prosecuted under all. 
 The religious sentiment can no more be disregarded 
 without selfishness and moral degradation than can the 
 patriotic or the philanthropic sentiment. 
 
 A religious system may be a false one. It may, 
 that is, teach false gods, or false notions of the true 
 God, — His character, relations, and claims ; neverthe- 
 less the religious man will seek to propagate it in virtue 
 of the religious sentiment that has received it. It is 
 the highest religious truth that he knows. In every 
 religious system there is something true — in most 
 there is more of truth than of falsehood ; more or less 
 therefore each ministers to the religious sentiment, 
 even though the element of falsehood in it may, 
 like poison, be working deleteriously. It is simply an 
 attestation of the depth and strength of the religious 
 sentiment that even under the falsest religious system 
 it impels men to make converts. It may be mistaken 
 in its methods, its zeal may become a morbid fanati- 
 cism, — religious persecution is simply perverted reli- 
 gious solicitude,^but the underlying sentiment is true 
 and irrepressible. The founder of Buddhism — Sakya- 
 muni, if we may trust the traditions concerning him, re- 
 linquished a throne, and for forty years propagated the 
 religious truth that he had discovered, with an un- 
 wearying zeal and a magnanimous unselfishness that 
 haye scarcely ever been surpassed; Mahomet pro- 
 pagated his monotheistic faith, at first, from high 
 
 259
 
 THE ARGUMENT EOR THE 
 
 religious motives, although his later life shows sad 
 deterioration ; and he effected an amazing and bene- 
 ficial destruction of Arabian idolatry. 
 
 Nothing in men is stronger than the religious 
 sentiment. To realize his own religious beliefs a 
 man will make any sacrifices, submit to any disci- 
 pline, perform any penance, even lay down life 
 itself, — the fakeer of India and the devotees of 
 Mohammedanism equally with the ascetic and martyr 
 of Romanism. And to propagate his beliefs a man 
 w^ill make any sacrifices, and endure any hardships. 
 
 It is not therefore either the prevalence of Chris- 
 tianity, or the fact of its propagandism, that demon- 
 strates its truth. These attest only the fact and the 
 strength of the religious sentiment. 
 
 But then, just in proportion to the truth of a 
 religious system will be the power of its inspirations, 
 the manner and the degree in which it will excite the 
 religious sentiment that receives it. If a religious 
 system be false — a device of the religious imagina- 
 tion, a superstition generated by ignorance or fear, or 
 a growth of priestcraft — it does not make it true that 
 I sincerely believe it. Whatever the intrinsic strength 
 of the religious sentiment, no theological falsehood 
 will minister to it ; or if it do, it will be only as the 
 poison of fever makes men strong, — it will generate 
 violence rather than healthy vigour. Like every other 
 part of our nature, our religious nature is made for 
 truth, not for falsehood ; and only truth can healthily 
 
 260
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTLINITY. 
 
 minister to it. Just as my physical nature can be 
 made healthy and strong only by things really 
 adapted to it, and not by things that I may igno- 
 rantly think so ; just as appetite can be satisfied only 
 by wholesome food, and disease cured only by fitting 
 medicine — so my soul can be made healthy and 
 strong only by true religious ideas. Things deleterious 
 will injure body and soul none the less that I think them 
 beneficial. False religious ideas are always injurious 
 to the individual or to the community that receives 
 them. Hence the perverted religious feelings, the dis- 
 abling superstitions, the moral corruption, the social 
 selfishness and cruelty, that we see where Paganism, 
 Mohammedanism, or corrupt Christianity prevails. 
 The religious and moral contrast of nations as they 
 now exist upon the face of the earth is indeed a 
 sufficient vindication of Christianity. 
 
 How then, it may be asked, may the Christian 
 believer know that his beliefs are true .-' What 
 criteria of the value of his convictions has he that 
 are more certain than those of the Pagan or 
 Mohammedan t A sufficient answer is, precisely the 
 reason that a Newton has for believing that his 
 astronomical theories are truer than those of a Persian 
 astrologer — precisely the reason that a Lyell has 
 for believing that his cosmogony is truer than that 
 of the Hindu Shasters — precisely the reason that an 
 Owen or a Huxley has for believing that his physio- 
 logy is truer than that of Hippocrates. 
 
 261
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 Men cannot help knowing when theirs is an induc- 
 tion from a larger knowledge, the exercise of a 
 higher reason, when their theories are truer than 
 those of less informed men. It is the essential func- 
 tion of reason to appraise comparative evidence, and 
 to know that it is not superstition nor savagery. 
 Philosophers differ among themselves on more ob- 
 scure or subordinate matters, but there is a consensus 
 of opinion which makes them conscious of a truer 
 general system than those of their predecessors. 
 Truth is its own light, and the light of everything 
 that comes within its sphere. So it is in the moral 
 or religious domain, men know when they have at- 
 tained to the highest truth. It commends itself to their 
 reason, meets and satisfies their highest intelligence, 
 their noblest aspirations. It "tells them all that 
 ever they did." In the conscious presence of the truest 
 lights, and in the exercise of the highest intellectual 
 faculties and religious feelings, they judge the com- 
 parative claims of Paganism, Judaism, Mohammed- 
 anism, philosophical scepticism, and Christianity. In 
 the light of our religious consciousness, and according 
 to the highest tests of human rea?jn, we know that 
 in the Christian revelation we have the truth of God. 
 We are as certain of spiritual truth in the moral and 
 religious domain, as the man of science is of physical 
 truth in the material domain. It is, therefore, 
 neither ignorance nor arrogance that affirms the 
 falsehood of other religious systems, and the truth 
 
 262
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of Christianity. It is the conclusion of enlightened 
 reason ; else reason itself were an absurdity. 
 
 We have only to add to this exposition of the 
 proper ground of our argument, that, in the very 
 nature of things, no proof of Christianity, either 
 moral or historical, can have the exactness or carry 
 the necessary conviction of either mathematical or 
 scientific demonstration. Moral truths do not admit 
 of the exact treatment of either numbers or physics : 
 their domain is reason and the moral consciousness ; 
 their proof is strong probability, — intellectual and 
 moral congruity. So far as the element of history 
 enters into them they are amenable to the tests of his- 
 toric science ; but these, again, are less exact than those 
 of physical science. It is part of the moral responsi- 
 bility and education of men to exercise their moral 
 judgment, and to determine truth in the conscientious 
 spirit of truth. 
 
 Our claim is that the history of Christianity shall 
 be subjected to the ordinary tests of historical science ; 
 that the moral truths of Christianity shall be sub- 
 jected to the ordinary tests of moral science ; and that 
 judgment shall be given on the grounds of ordinary 
 
 historic and moral probability. 
 
 I. In estimating the force of the argument from 
 
 the existence and prevalence of Christianity, there is, 
 
 first, an antecedent histojy of Christianity, which must 
 
 be accounted for. 
 
 It is part of the claim of Christianity to be a super- 
 26.1
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 natural rev^elation from God, that from the very 
 beginning of human history it was purposed and pre- 
 pared for ; that it was gradually unfolded to men in 
 successive dispensations and teachings, corresponding 
 to their developing intelligence and character ; and, 
 finally established by Jesus Christ as avowedly the 
 accomplishment and crown of them all. This of course 
 has to be demonstrated by its own proper and detailed 
 evidence, which cannot be attempted in a cursory 
 reference like this. But it is part of our proper argu- 
 ment to note the scope and general coherence of the 
 entire claim. If Christianity be not a supernatural 
 revelation from God, it is difficult to conceive a claim 
 more daring and embarrassing : if it be, it is precisely 
 the arrangement most in accordance with our concep- 
 tions of divine plan and purpose. Nothing is more 
 natural than that, in His dealings with men, God should 
 have proceeded upon the basis of it, and by previous 
 and progressive revelations, prepared men for the full 
 manifestation of his remedial mercy in Jesus Christ. 
 That there is this gradual development in the Old 
 Testament and a singular harmony between it and 
 Christianity will hardly be disputed. The Christian 
 argument, therefore, is entitled to the strong moral 
 presumption which arises out of this. If Christianity be 
 an imposture or a delusion, it is so on a scale of 
 vastness, and of varied and complicated harmony, which 
 has no parallel in the history of human thought. 
 
 The claim of the antecedent history of Christianity 
 
 264
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 is this, that from the earliest records of history a 
 remedial provision for sin was promised and prepared 
 for, and that from the very beginning it met the 
 yearnings and inspired the hopes o^ "^^n. 
 
 It is admitted that in the earliest intimations of 
 this, there are a necessary vagueness and faintness 
 which render it possible for exacting criticism to 
 question any particular instance, and difficult for 
 faith to demonstrate it. But it is contended, first, 
 that on the assumption of the supernatural character 
 of Christianity, its earliest promise would necessarily 
 be the faintest blush of light in the darkness, a 
 nebulous mist gradually condensing into solid and 
 definite prediction ; and, next, that faith is justified 
 in throwing upon these early intimations the after 
 lights of prophetic utterance and historic fulfilment, 
 and of thus explaining the meaning of phenomena 
 otherwise unaccountable, which is precisely the 
 method of all science ; and that the entire harmony 
 of these faint indications with the after history is a 
 presumptive proof which no detailed exceptions to par- 
 ticular instances can set aside. Whatever the intrinsic 
 meaning and evidential value of specific passages : — of 
 the fifst promise of a deliverer to sinning man, of the 
 intimations of a Messiah to the patriarchs, or to 
 Moses — the fact is indubitable that the hope of a 
 redeemer from sin did take possession of man in his 
 early history in a way that the mere optimism of 
 humanity, or mere dreams of a "golden age," are 
 
 26;
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 altogether inadequate to account for. The literature 
 of the Bible, on the very lowest computation, extends 
 over a period of 1,500 years. Its theological, reli- 
 gious, and historic harmony present phenomena which 
 are not only unique, but are in themselves a miracle, 
 and, I am bold to say, on any other than the super- 
 natural theory are utterly inexplicable. 
 
 I. Take first the Book of Genesis. Admitting 
 Ewald's theory of the composition of the Penta- 
 teuch, that its contents were contributed by four 
 or five different narrators, and its present form 
 determined by successive redactcurs, of whom the 
 latest lived in the time of King Josiah, say 620 years 
 before Christ ; or even Spinoza's wild supposition that 
 it was written by Ezra or one of his contemporaries, 
 say 450 years before Christ, we have a composition 
 a century older than Plato, and coeval with yEschylus ; 
 the production of one of the most unscientific and 
 illiterate nations of the old civilised world. But the 
 extravagance of even Plwald's theory has discredited' 
 it among scholars of almost every school, most of 
 whom admit that the Pentateuch must have existed 
 before the division of the kingdom of Solomon, and 
 that much of it, to say the least, was the pro- 
 duction of Moses. It is hardly possible for it to 
 be later than a thousand years before Christ, which is 
 a century older than Homer. Now whatever the exact 
 historic value of the Book of Genesis, there are in 
 it theological and moral characteristics which, in its 
 
 266
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 relation to the New Testament, only the theory of 
 the supernatural can account for. From any point 
 of view it is a most remarkable part of the structure 
 of Biblical theology, presenting precisely the cha- 
 racteristics of diversity in harmony which its assumed 
 place in the development of the Christian system, 
 and in the chronology of the Biblical writings de- 
 mand. Its artistic place in the Bible is fully seen 
 only when the whole is completed ; and its fitness 
 and harmony are unimpeachable. Passing over the 
 numerous and singular individual counterparts be- 
 tween the teachings of this ancient Book and Chris- 
 tianity, such as the first and second Adam, the fall 
 and Christ's redemption, the temptation of Eve and 
 the temptation of Christ, I will limit myself to one or 
 two broad positions, which will admit of ample allow- 
 ance for alleged inconclusiveness of any specific 
 features. 
 
 (^.) Take for instance its conception of God, and its 
 objective presentation of His character and dealings 
 with the sinful race of men. This is in perfect consis- 
 tency with the entire Biblical idea, with the Christian 
 representation of God, and with our present nineteenth 
 century theology. Making due allowance for the 
 anthropomorphism of these early times, and for im- 
 perfect modes of manifestation, there is nothing in the 
 conception of the Jehovah of the Book of Genesis that 
 the highest intellects of this nineteenth Christian 
 century have difficulty in teaching. The spirit of the 
 
 267
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 theology of the Bible, which has its supreme mani- 
 festation in Jesus Christ, undeniably pervades the 
 book of Genesis. 
 
 Its Jehovah has none of the theological incongrui- 
 ties or moral inconsistencies of the Egyptian, Persian, 
 or Greek mythologies. He is neither Osiris, Ormuzd, 
 nor Zeus. 
 
 (3.) In like manner the religious heroes of the book 
 — Adam, Noah, Abraham, Joseph — are none of them 
 demi-gods, like Heracles for instance ; their relations 
 with Jehovah are intimate and peculiar, and yet they 
 always appear as proper men. 
 
 {c). So again the moral ideas of the book of Genesis 
 are homogeneous with those of the Sermon on the 
 Mount. However corrupt the history narrated, how- 
 ever complicate the character delineated, the moral 
 principles maintained, the moral tests implied are never 
 dubious. Who can conceive of Abraham guilty of 
 such an enormity as is attributed to Cato in relation 
 to his friend Hortensius .'' Even in a character 
 so tortuous as that of Jacob, we are never for a 
 moment dubious about what is right. Whence a 
 morality so far in advance of that of all other ancient 
 literature ? 
 
 2. The later books of the Pentateuch describe a 
 peculiar national institution of ritual sacrifice and 
 worship, with provisions so unique and restricted, that it 
 is impossible to explain them as a mere Jewish variety 
 of the general sacrificial cultus of the nations. And 
 
 268
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 associated with this ritual we find a moral code and a 
 religious literature so enlightened, elevated, and phi- 
 losophical that it is impossible to attribute the Leviticus 
 to ignorant superstition. The rite of expiatory sacri- 
 fice practiced by almost all nations is in the Jewish 
 temple service regulated so arbitarily and connected 
 with a ritual so elaborate and minute, that if its typical 
 character be denied, rational explanation of it is 
 inconceivable. If its typical character be admitted, 
 if the expiatory sacrifice of Christ has the vital 
 religious importance which Christian theologians 
 affirm, and the Jewish Leviticus be a supernatural 
 preparation for it, then the correspondences between 
 the two, so minute, so complicate, and so singular, are 
 perfectly accounted for. On any other theory they 
 are an inexplicable puzzle. The argument does not 
 depend upon the ingenuity which discovers resem- 
 blances and types in every minute particular. The 
 broad, general, undeniable characteristics of the 
 Leviticus are amply sufficient to sustain it. 
 
 Here we have an entire national history and economy, 
 maintained for nearly 1,500 years, which is an exact 
 symbolical prophecy of the Messianic work of our Lord, 
 as the New Testament writers expound it. Either 
 therefore the facts of our Lord's life were more or 
 less arranged, and the New Testament doctrine 
 was constructed as an idealization of the Jewish 
 Leviticus, or the accidental coincidence is so wonderful 
 as to be virtually miraculous, or the two are purposed 
 
 269
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 type and antitype. Marvellous are the credulities of 
 rejectors of the supernatural. I must confess myaelf 
 too much of a rationalist to be capable of them. 
 
 3. Further, during the first half of the seven centuries 
 immediately preceding the Christian era, a series of 
 predictions was uttered by a class of great religious 
 teachers who sprang up among the Jewish people, 
 which, if they do not relate to the coming and charac- 
 ter, the atoning work and spiritual kingdom of Jesus 
 Christ, are not only among the most inscrutable 
 utterances of human literature, but are also a fresh 
 miracle of fortuitous coincidence. 
 
 Had no such personage as our Lord appeared, no 
 events, or personages, or tendencies of thought among 
 the Jewish people could have furnished an explanation 
 of these predictions. We can understand the visions 
 of poets, the imaginations of romance writers, the 
 Utopias of philosophers, the metaphors of rhetori- 
 cians. These have their palpable characteristics, for 
 which instinctive allowance is made. But here are, 
 not only one or two, but some twelve or fourteen men 
 springing up at a special period, and under precisely 
 the circumstances which the theory of supernatural 
 development requires, using language of an elevated, 
 mystical, and cosmic character, which it is simply 
 preposterous to refer to any Jewish personage, or 
 event, or hope ; and which, if it be not inspired pre- 
 diction, must subject its authors to the suspicion of 
 insanity. Men, too, most vaiied in character, education,
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 social position, intellectual gifts, and literary form, and 
 yet perfectly homogeneous in the great ideas of their 
 prediction. 
 
 Then, as if to make doubt impossible, an august 
 personage appears, whose character and teaching are 
 described and expounded by eleven different writers 
 in the New Testament, most of them unlettered men, 
 writing biographies, histories, treatises, letters, and 
 visions ; and yet not only are their representations 
 harmonious, but they correspond to these Old 
 Testament predictions with such wonderful fitness 
 and completeness that theologians, subjecting both 
 to constant and crucial criticism, feel no serious 
 difficulties of interpretation, encounter no intractable 
 facts, or ideas, which they are compelled to eliminate 
 from their harmony. Here, then, restricting ourselves 
 as before to broad and unchallenged features, is another 
 and independent set of harmonies to be accounted for 
 and explained away ; if the supernatural theory be 
 rejected. 
 
 Either, again, the history and doctrines of the New 
 Testament were by these eleven writers cunningly 
 framed to fit in to the utterances of these dozen 
 Jewish prophets, and both inexplicably adjusted to the 
 earlier theological ideas of the book of Genesis, and to 
 the singular and elaborate Leviticus of the Pentateuch 
 and the temple, or the supernatural character of the 
 whole must be conceded. 
 
 These various harmonies are not merely indepen- 
 271
 
 THE ARGUMENT EOR THE 
 
 dent additions to the sum total of Christian evidence, 
 they multiply into each other. Apply to them the 
 doctrine of probabilities, and it is difficult to estimate 
 their cumulative power. Here are independent lines 
 of preparation — religious ideas, ritual institutions, pro- 
 phetic utterances — any one of which would be remark- 
 able, but which together are simply overwhelming. 
 If any one of them fail, even if important elements in 
 any one prove intractable, the Christian argument is 
 discredited. 
 
 Assume the theory of Christian theology, there is in 
 these a perfect and wonderful harmony of convergent 
 evidence. Reject it, they are utterly inexplicable, and 
 necessarily involve the historical student and philoso- 
 pher in a chaos of unauthorized and contradictory 
 conjecture. 
 
 II. The Jiisioric occurrence of Christianity has to 
 be accounted for. 
 
 I can indicate only general lines of argument. 
 
 I may, I presume, take for granted the historic 
 character of Jesus of Nazareth. Although almost 
 every detail of the New Testament history of Him 
 has been questioned, few have ventured to deny His 
 existence. But whatever the ground of denial as- 
 sumed, the difficulties of maintaining it are almost 
 equally great. The conception of the person of Christ, 
 and dogmatic and spiritual Christianity exist, and in 
 some way or other both must be accounted for. 
 I venture to affirm that no sceptical theory has yet 
 
 272
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OE CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 been propounded for this purpose that does not 
 involve difficulties of violent assumption and flagrant 
 inconsistency, which if involved in the theory of 
 faith would be regarded as fatal to it. If it be 
 affirmed that Jesus never existed, it then becomes 
 imperative to invent a plausible theory for the con- 
 ception of His New Testament character, and for the 
 origin of Christianity, If it be admitted that He did 
 exist, then all the theories of conscious imposture, 
 of unconscious delusion, or of mythical development, 
 which have been adventured to account for His por- 
 traiture, His system of dogma, and His spiritual king- 
 dom have signally failed. Some, like the theory of 
 Strauss, have been abandoned by their own authors ; 
 others, like the romance of Renan, have expired 
 beneath the moral indignation of some, and the in- 
 extinguishable laughter of others ; frequently they 
 they have refuted one another — as, for example, those 
 of Strauss and Renan. While the theory of faith in 
 the divine Christ has been maintained for eighteen 
 centuries, and from the beginning has never lacked 
 keen-witted and learned assailants, it would be dif- 
 ficult to mention a theory of denial that has survived 
 the generation of its birth. Christianity indeed might 
 well be contented to leave its vindication to its enemies, 
 who like equivalent quantities in an algebraic equation 
 neutralize each other. Such is their mutation and 
 decay, that they " never continue in one stay." They 
 are all " like the grass, and their glory like the flower 
 
 273 r8
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 of the grass; but the word of the Lord endureth for 
 ever." 
 
 Sakya-muni may be a myth — Confucius may be of 
 doubtful historical character ; there is nothing in 
 either Buddhism or Confucianism that may not be 
 otherwise accounted for. Even Moses may be a 
 fabulous personage^ and the integrity of Judaism 
 remain unaffected ; but the historic reality of the 
 Jesus of the Evangelists is inextricably bound up 
 with any rational exposition of Christianity. 
 
 1. On the theory of Chrstian theologians, there is a 
 profound and perfect harmony between the super- 
 natural incarnation of Christ, and the redeeming work 
 which he came to accomplish. Ideas superficially so 
 remote and antagonistic as His sinless birth. His 
 perfect life, and His shameful death upon the cross 
 are philosophically and indissolubly connected by the 
 profound Christian dogma of redemption. The dogma 
 may be denied — its truth is to be vindicated by its own 
 proper evidence — but its philosophical harmony with 
 the incarnation on the one hand, and with the expia- 
 tory death of the cross on the other, cannot be gain- 
 said. The incarnation, in its supernatural and sinless 
 birth is the only conceivable origin of such a person- 
 age, and His perfectly pure life is His only possible 
 character. 
 
 2. There is a perfect and profound harmony between 
 the dogmas of the Christian theory and the admitted 
 necessities of our human consciousness, 
 
 274
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 {a.) There is no feeling of human nature more sin- 
 gular, more profound, or more universal than t/ii: 
 Jeeling of sm : a feeling so far as we know snl generis 
 — radically different from the feeling which calamity 
 or folly occasions — a feeling that has its root in a latent 
 sense of personal responsibility, and is occasioned solely 
 hy moral ideas — a feeling of self-reproach, of regret, 
 of shame. There is no human feeling more mys- 
 terious, more sacred, and more indicative. A man's 
 feeling about sin is the measure of his likeness 
 to God. The most hardened criminal cannot wholly 
 emancipate himself from it ; the most sensuous of 
 religious systems have recognized it. It has inspired 
 Mythology with its sublimest conceptions, Paganism 
 with its most dread immolations, and Christianity 
 with its most passionate experiences. But this ele- 
 ment of man's psychology is utterly anomalous and 
 unaccountable on the theory that there is no God ; 
 or that man is the creature of mere material circum- 
 stance ; or but a development from an ascidian mollusc. 
 Sin being an impossibility, the feeling of it is a uni- 
 versal delusion. It is therefore one of the most flagrant • 
 anomalies in the doctrine of final causes. If man's 
 conscience be the creation of mere experience, as 
 Mr. Mill and Mr. Darwin tell us, no feeling is more 
 inexplicable ; and if God has made us just what we 
 now are, an incongruous mixture of evil and good, of 
 feelings that have no rational cause, of yearnings that 
 have no destined satisfaction, what are we to think 
 
 275
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 of His wisdom, goodness, or power, seeing that He has 
 failed so egregiously in His creation. 
 
 This universal feeling of sin prompts all men to 
 seek atonement for it. Every religious system, there- 
 fore, begins with a theory of forgiveness ; if not, men 
 turn away from it as idle dreaming. 
 
 Only in the redeeming work of Christ does the 
 feeling of sin meet its full recognition and remedy. 
 Whether the Christian dogma of sacrificial atonement 
 be true or not, there is practically no force in Christi- 
 anit)' or in human thought that in its peace-giving, 
 sanctifying, and constraining power is comparable with 
 it. It is the "power of God unto salvation." 
 
 {h}) The sense of sinful disorder and moral disabilit}' 
 in msn is equally strong : " the good that they 
 would they do not ; the evil that they would not, 
 that they do." They " know the better, and pursue 
 the worse;" the best men cry out with the deepest 
 sense of helplessness, " Oh wretched man that I am ! 
 who shall deliver me from the body of this death." 
 It is not teaching that men need, they have always 
 known more than they could realize ; It is help— 
 " a strong son of God," to be their deliverer. How 
 perfectly, again, the Christian dogmas of the perfectly 
 holy Jesus, and of the renewing power of the Holy 
 Spirit, meet and satisfy this feeling. And what 
 amazing power of practical inspiration they have. 
 
 (c'.) The sorroivs of Jaivian life over^\•hclm men. 
 From the days of Job until now, the hardships of toil 
 
 276
 
 SlTERiVATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and struggle, of oppression and pain, of disappointment 
 and bereavement, have been the theme of morahsts 
 and poets, and the burden and prayer of weary men. 
 Nothing has been sought more earnestly than the 
 solution of this problem of human sorrow, nothing 
 has been desired more passionately than consolation 
 and help in its endurance. 
 
 Has any one unfolded the mystery of human sorrow 
 like Jesus Christ, or been its comforter and helper, like 
 Him who was crowned its king ? He is our " faithful 
 and merciful High Priest touched with the feeling 
 of our infirmities," and under the influence of His 
 teaching and sympathy sorrow is transi'ormed into a 
 Gospel, and is borne not only with amazing faith and 
 patience, but often with a feeling of exultation and 
 triumph, like that which Paul expressed when he spake 
 of " glorying in tribulation." 
 
 {d) And then there is tJie great darkness and desolate- 
 ness of death; that wraps up life in mystery; "through 
 fear of which we are all our lifetime subject to bond • 
 age ;" " the shadow feared oi man." What philoso- 
 phy of death can be compared with that of Jesus 
 Christ, who brought "life and immortality to light " ? 
 What comfort and hope in death are comparable to 
 His .'' We think of Stoic and Epicurean ; of the 
 ghastly bravery of the old Alexandrine invitation to 
 "supper and suicide ; " and then we turn to Jesus com- 
 forting the sisters of Bethany ; to Paul comforting the 
 Thessalonians and Corinthians ; himself having a 
 
 277
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 " desire to depart," " ready to be offered up, the time 
 of his departure at hand, and anticipating his crown 
 of righteousness." We think of Stephen looking with 
 angel face up into heaven, and praying for the men 
 who were murdering him. And we think of the myriads 
 of Christian death-beds since — peaceful, joyous, tri- 
 umphant. There is scarcely a minister of religion who 
 could not tell of many such. For myself, if the per- 
 sonal intrusion may be pardoned, I have, during the 
 thirty years of my ministerial life, stood by hundreds 
 of death-beds. In the majority of instances, fiaith 
 has triumphed over all fear of death, over all love of 
 life, even the tenderest affections have been over- 
 powered by its hopes and visions. I have heard songs 
 of triumph from lips faltering through pain, and seen 
 rapture beam from eyes that the films of death were 
 darkening — often a "joy unspeakable and full of glory." 
 Never yet have I met the instance in which Christian 
 faith was not sufficient to inspire perfect peace and 
 comfort. 
 
 Now it may be that all these feelings are delusions ; 
 that there is no forgiveness of sins, no new life of the 
 spirit, no divine comforter for our sorrow, no inspirer 
 of hope in death ; none the less do our human instincts, 
 cur religious consciousness crave them. And if it be 
 so, if Christ be not a real "Saviour, if the dogmas of 
 the New Testament be untrue, then we get this astound- 
 insj anomaly, that the falsehoods of Christianity meet 
 men's conscious necessities and cravings, and minister 
 
 278
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIAXITY. 
 
 to tNem more perfectly than all admitted truth. If 
 Christianity be not true, we are " of all men most 
 miserable." God has "made all men in vain." Kit be 
 true, we possess the greatest comforts, and are inspired 
 with the loftiest hopes that have blessed humanity. 
 
 3. The subtle spiritual harmonies of our Lord's 
 miracles constitute another argument. 
 
 First, speaking only of general characteristics, their 
 utter contrast with the meaningless marvels of mere 
 ^^onder-workers ; next, their exquisitely adjusted rela- 
 tions to the miracles of the Old Testament. They pre- 
 sent exactly that diversity which the development of 
 the supernatural revelation demands, and yet are in 
 such substantial correlation with them, that the unity 
 of divii^e miracle-working is unmistakable. Not only 
 is this adjustment of the miraculous elements of the 
 two dispensations an achievement of singular pre- 
 science, which, the diversity and chronology of the 
 alleged miracle-workers being taken into account, is 
 little short of a miracle itself ; but the exquisite con- 
 ception of our Lord's miracles, in respect of their 
 human benevolence, their parabolic significance, and 
 their spiritual congruity, transcends all rational belief 
 in mere inventive genius. 
 
 I have no wish to exaggerate the individual force 
 of this argument ; it is enough to say that it is the 
 addition of another to the manifold and complicate 
 harmonies of the Christian theory. 
 
 And }-ct, so far from parading His miracle-working, 
 279
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 our Lord rebuked those who demanded it, and up- 
 braided them with the spiritual blindness, that could 
 not recognize the truth of words, and the holiness of 
 His character without it.* 
 
 4. I can hardly touch the argument to be drawn 
 from the peculiar religious teachings of the Christian 
 Scriptures. The profoundly spiritual, ethical, and 
 philosophical teaching, first of our Lord, then of His 
 apostles. The harmony of both with the alleged facts 
 of Christ's history, and with the Christian theories of 
 His person and work. The perfect adjustment of 
 both to the natural development of the assumed 
 revelation. Take first, the teaching of Christ Himself, 
 and the progress of its spiritual thought ; as indicated 
 by the interval which separates the sermon on the 
 mount from the great discourse of the "night on which 
 He was betrayed." And next, the entire theological and 
 ecclesiastical thought of the New Testament, which 
 moves in steadily advancing idea from the first words 
 of Christ to the last words of John : — through the 
 preparatory words that preceded Christ's death ; the 
 unfoldings of the forty days before His ascension ; and 
 the subsequent development of the unapprehended 
 facts of Christ's life into the grand dogmatic theology 
 of Paul and John.f We are bold to affirm that the 
 Christian system of theological thought, whether 
 supernatural or not, is more spiritually true, and 
 
 * See Isaac Taylor's " Restoration of Belief," p. 225, et seq. 
 t See Bernard's "Progi'ess of Doctrine in the New Testament, "/^j-^/;;;. 
 
 280
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 philosophically profound ; and that in its ethical idea 
 and force it is more elevated and influential than 
 any hitherto conceived by human thought. And yet 
 it was developed in this involuntary, complicate, and 
 marvellous way. 
 
 (5) There yet remains the transcendent conception 
 of the character of Christ Himself A conception of 
 which it has been justly said, that if a creation of ima- 
 ginative genius, its inventor is greater than his hero. 
 It isthe greatest miracle of literature. 
 
 I can attempt no analysis of this wondrous character, 
 this has often been done ;* and I will not attempt to 
 paint it by any poor rhetoric of mine. It needs no 
 vindication. The moral and religious instinct of the 
 world has confessed it. Eighteen centuries of the 
 keenest criticism have only exalted it to the very 
 highest place of human admiration and homage. The 
 uniform verdict of friend and foe has been, " I find no 
 fault in Him." Jesus Christ is the one perfect Man of 
 the world's history ; the one hope of a world of sinful 
 men ; so divine that the loftiest and purest do worship 
 to Him — so human that the most polluted and lost 
 can weep at His feet, and little children can smile in 
 His arms while He blesses them. His was a life in 
 which there was no fault to be corrected, no stain to 
 be washed out. Other men become good, by learning, 
 by growth, by suffering ; Jesus was good, as pure 
 when His life began as when it ended ; advancing 
 
 * See especially Bushneirs " Nature and the Supernatural," chapter x. 
 
 281
 
 TIJE ARGUMENl FOR THE 
 
 maturity was His only cliange. All human excel- 
 lences blend in Him in perfect proportion, an ideal of 
 moral symmetry which has neither defect nor excess. 
 His was a wise mature goodness; not as being igno- 
 rant of evil, but as being infinitely above it. His self- 
 consciousness is altogether unlike that of other 
 men. Moses and Isaiah may tremble before God, and 
 acknowledge their sin ; Jesus never confesses defect, 
 never indicates any feeling of unworthiness ; no tear 
 of penitence rolls down His cheek, no prayer for for- 
 giveness escapes His lips. When He speaks con- 
 cerning Himself, it is to assert His own faultlessness, 
 and to avow Himself the divine source of other men's 
 spiritual life. So transcendent was He, that from the 
 very beginning men revered His goodness as perfect, 
 and bowed before it as divine. Virtues almost incon- 
 gruous wonderfully blend in Him — greatness and 
 gentleness, holiness and pity, strength and sympathy. 
 He is nobler than the greatest man, more tender than 
 the gentlest woman. 
 
 Earnest and absorbed in His work, with a passion 
 that made Him a martyr. He never even suggests the 
 impulsive enthusiast, the self-deluded zealot ; He is 
 always calm, clear, and wise. He verges towards no 
 extreme. He is equally remote from asceticism and 
 laxity ; He repudiates no lawful enjoyment ; He 
 sanctions no single excess. He always preserves the 
 golden mean. He wondrously holds the balance of 
 life. He plants His spiritual kingdom, neither in 
 
 2S2
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER 01- CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 convent nor cell, neither in church, nor in ritual 
 observance, but in the market and the house, in the 
 secret place of a man's solitude, in the inmost recesses 
 of his soul. He does not call the world into His pre- 
 sence; He comes into the world, and sanctifies all things 
 in it by accepting them as service to Himself. The 
 very conception of His kingdom is a marvel. Making 
 Himself its centre. He founds everything in it upon 
 His own person and work. In His lofty self-conscious- 
 ness He speaks as none of the world's instructors have 
 dared to speak, prefers claims of which none of them 
 have ever thought. Even Nebuchadnezzar, when he 
 set up his golden image on the plain of Dura, never 
 conceived of such a claim as this lowliest and calmest 
 of men prefers. The kingdom that He conceives is 
 so holy that the purest church ever falls short of it ; 
 it is so catholic that it includes men of every age, 
 and race and character, " every nation, and kindred, 
 and people, and tongue." And this conception 
 originated among the mountains of Galilee, in the 
 mind of a village carpenter, who knew little of the 
 world — its books, its politics, its history, its geography, 
 its races — who was brought up amid the notions and 
 prejudices of the most illiterate and exclusive of 
 ancient civilized peoples, and who was put to death at 
 an age when Socrates had not yet become a sage. 
 He put forth His conception moreover at the very 
 beginning of His teaching. It did not shape itself 
 gradually, as His thought was instructed and stinmlated 
 
 283
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 by experience. His first proclamation was of this 
 spiritual, holy, and catholic kingdom of heaven. 
 There is no indication of either growth or modifi- 
 cation. The very first word of this young carpenter 
 of Nazareth was that He was the spiritual King of 
 a spiritual and universal kingdom ; the progress of 
 which He declared should continue through all the 
 world's history ; the consummation of which should 
 be the conversion and the service of all its peoples. 
 
 And this He purposed to achieve — first, by disallow- 
 ing all weapons but spiritual truth ; next, by assailing 
 all the intolerance and fanaticism, all the sin and selfish- 
 ness of men ; and next, by the inherent attractiveness 
 of the cross upon which He died. It was to be a 
 kingdom of pure spiritual truth — a kingdom of the 
 poor and sorrowful — of which the most saintly are 
 the most princely. What are we to think of the in- 
 tellectual and moral grandeur of the nature in which 
 such a conception originated .'' Upon any hypothesis 
 it places its author transcendently above all the 
 statesmen, all the philosophers, all the moralists that 
 have appeared among mankind. 
 
 If our Lord never existed — if these four brief 
 records, which so marvellously and yet so artlessly 
 portray Him be spurious — whence this conception 
 of Him } Was it the conception that created the life, 
 or the life that created the conception } Had He 
 never lived, could He have been imagined } How 
 came it to pass that four obscure Jew*,, one of 
 
 2S4
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 them a tax-gatherer, another a fisherman, should 
 simultaneously conceive such a character, and indi- 
 vidually contribute to it, with such diverse gifts and 
 motives, and yet in such marvellous harmony?* If 
 four, why not more ? Scepticism has had its genius, 
 why has it never produced a fifth gospel ? The entire 
 question of Christianity may safely be staked upon 
 the mere conception of Christ's character. 
 
 III. There remains the subsequent history oj 
 Christianity to be accounted for. But my theme has 
 proved too vast for me ; I cannot traverse a field so 
 boundless. What has been said already will however 
 suffice to indicate the argument. 
 
 (i) There is the persistent discipleship of the 
 twelve to be accounted for ; their testimony to the 
 miracles, and the resurrection of Christ, and their en- 
 durance of persecution and martyrdon in attestation 
 thereof. Men have often died for false opinions, 
 never in simple attestation of imaginary facts. 
 
 (2) The conversion of Saul of Tarsus must be 
 accounted for. The rigid Pharisee ; the fierce perse- 
 cutor ; the man of vast learning, of regal intellect, 
 suddenly becoming a Christian convert, " counting all 
 things that were gain to him but loss for Christ ;" 
 growing to be the chiefest Christian apostle ; spending 
 a long life as a missionary ; and dying a martyr to 
 his faith in Jesus Christ. 
 
 * See Bishop Alexander's "Leading Ideas of the Gospels.'' 1872. 
 
 2S5
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 {3) The New Testament itself must be accounted 
 for ; — its historical records ; its incidental origin, its 
 peculiar authorship, its diversified literary forms, and 
 its marvellous unity. 
 
 (4) The rapid progress of Christianity in the first 
 three centuries must be accounted for ; then the 
 subsequent conversion, first, of the northern nations, 
 afterwards of various pagan peoples, by modern 
 Christian missions. This, as I said at the beginning, 
 is to be estimated in connexion with its peculiar 
 conditions ; — the lofty demands of Christianity, its 
 utter intolerance of all forms of sin and selfishness, 
 its absolute repudiation of all but moral means, its 
 comparative failure when its own degenerate or 
 mistaken disciples have had recourse to persecution, 
 to secular coercion, or to any forms of worldly 
 inducement ; and the marvellous triumphs of its 
 purely spiritual truths, pre-eminently of the truths 
 represented by the Saviour's cross. The argument 
 from the failures of Christianity is indeed almost as 
 conclusive as that from its successes. The measure 
 of failure has almost uniformly been the measure of 
 departure from pure Christian ideas. 
 
 Putting it in the broadest way ; what nations of the 
 earth can be compared with Christian nations in 
 general moral elevation ? We know what Christianity 
 did when it came into contact with the unutterable 
 depravities of Greece and Rome — what it found its 
 converts, and what it made them ; we know what it 
 
 rS6
 
 SUPFRNATUJ^AL CHARACTER OF CHRIST lANITY. 
 
 has done in Pagan nations since ; we know what just 
 now Europe is in comparison with Asia, America in 
 comparison with Africa. And the latest triumphs ot 
 Christianity have been the most signal. We need 
 instance only what a few years ago the South Sea 
 Islands, and Madagascar were, in comparison with 
 what they are now. Wherever it comes, Christianity 
 works ameliorations in literature and laws, in social 
 institutions, in family and social life. Christian men 
 themselves have often been unfaithful to their faith, 
 they have corrupted its truths and abused its in- 
 fluences ; and on the principle that the best things are 
 capable of the grossest perversions, they have often 
 become worse than the heathen ; but in proportion 
 as they have maintained its principles and realized 
 its spirit, it has been a power that no form of human 
 evil could withstand. 
 
 Nay, the proof is in every church, in every social 
 circle, almost in every family ; the phenomena ot 
 religious conversion are as indisputable, as they are 
 unaccountable, save on the supernatural theory of 
 Christianity. The truths of Christianity read in 
 the Bible, or listened to from a preacher, work the 
 most marvellous transformations ; they put an 
 arrest upon sinful habit and feeling, and often in a 
 single day change the entire life of a man. Conver- 
 sions as sudden and as radical as that of Saul of Tar- 
 sus, are continually occurring. A godless, profligate, 
 hardened man, whose life has been given up to evil.
 
 THE ARGUMENT FOR THE 
 
 and whose mind has scarcely ever been troubled about 
 religion, is suddenly arrested by some truth of 
 Christianity, subdued into thoughtfulness, and peni- 
 tence for sin. Those who yesterday heard him 
 blaspheme, to-day hear him pray. The impure has 
 become chaste, the unprincipled has become upright, 
 the liar speaks the truth, and the hard, grasping, self- 
 ish man becomes pitiful and benevolent ; the sinner 
 has become a saint ; and between his old life and his 
 new there has come to be in a few hours " a great 
 gulf fixed." And the reality and thoroughness of the 
 change are attested by a long subsequent life of hum- 
 ble holiness, consecrated service, patient endurance, 
 and grateful love. 
 
 Writing to the Corinthian Christians, the Apostle 
 Paul speaks of "thieves, and covetous, drunkards, 
 revellers, and extortioners," and says, "Such were some 
 of you : but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but 
 ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by 
 the Spirit of our GoJ." And there is scarcely a Chris- 
 tian pastor who could not speak of similar transforma- 
 tions in some members of his flock. 
 
 How are these to be accounted for } No other 
 truths, no other books produce radical changes of 
 spiritual character. Read to a man Plato, or 
 Shakspeare, or Milton, or Bacon, they affect him but 
 little ; read to him the New Testament, he becomes 
 " a new creature in Christ Jesus." 
 
 The argument does not admit of a formal sum- 
 
 2SS
 
 SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ming up, it is a congeries of independent lines of 
 evidence, wonderfully harmonious, and all conducing 
 to one great demonstration. Scepticism has not done 
 its work when its ingenuity has embarrassed any one 
 of these — the harmonious correlation, and concurrent 
 tendency of the whole must be accounted for. If 
 Christianity be not of God, then is it historically and 
 structurally a series of marvels unique in the world's 
 history ; a miracle greater than its assumed super- 
 naturalism itself In the light of these phenomena 
 are we not justified in applying to its assailants the 
 wise words of a calm observer of its earlier phenomena, 
 " Refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if 
 this counsel or this work be of men, It will come to 
 nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it ; 
 lest haply ye be found even to fight against God." 
 
 2c 9 19
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO ALL FORMS 
 OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR BARTLE FRERE, G.C,S.L, K.C.B., D.C.L.
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO ALL FORMS 
 OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 T HAVE been requested by the managers of this 
 series of lectures to state to you the results ol 
 observation and experience in other countries as 
 to the adequacy of Christianity to meet the require- 
 ments of the varying forms of civilization. 
 
 It will be my object to tell you what is — what I have 
 seen myself — rather than what I imagine ought to be. 
 I wish to meet the theory which, in one shape or 
 another, is not uncommonly propounded in this 
 country, that Christianity is a Semitic variety of re- 
 ligion, suited to Syria and to a people of Jewish or 
 Arab origin, but little adapted to men of other races 
 and other climates. I wish to show you, as far as the 
 brief limits of a lecture allow, that experience proves 
 Christianity to be a religion perfectly adapted to 
 mankind of the most various races, and in every stage 
 of civilization, from the lowest to the highest. 
 
 We must first define the meaning we intend to 
 attach to some of the words which we shall 
 
 293
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 have to use. For instance, the word " Christianity " 
 itself has a signification widely different as used 
 by different Christians, and still more different as 
 used by writers who can in no sense be classed as 
 Christian writers. I shall speak of it in this lecture 
 as the religion which is a rule of life to the majority 
 of religious people in England calling themselves 
 Christians. We may take the Apostles' Creed, as 
 generally received and interpreted among us here in 
 England, as the symbol of the belief whose adequacy 
 to meet the requirements of all forms of civilization I 
 hope to illustrate. 
 
 Further let us bear in mind, that however much we 
 Christians may differ as to particular articles of doctrinal 
 belief, or of discipline, we all regard our Christian 
 religion as depending on a revelation of some kind — 
 as being something told us from without, in contradis- 
 tinction to the modern theory, ''that people have their 
 religion as part of their growth, and that a man is not 
 more responsible for his religion, than he is for the 
 colour of his hair, or the length of his arrri ; that, in 
 fact, it grows as a part of himself" This is a conve- 
 nient doctrine as getting rid of all personal respon- 
 sibility in matters of belief, and is rather commonly met 
 with in these days among many classes of professed 
 Christians. We have not time at present to discuss 
 it, or to show how fundamentally it is opposed to the 
 idea of aiiy religion as a rule of life. I will only there- 
 fore remark that we cannot recognize this description 
 
 294
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 as applying to Christianity, which we regard as em- 
 bodying truths and rules of conduct revealed to the 
 intelligence of man from an external power — it may 
 be through the senses, it may be through the con- 
 science or the intellect, it may be recorded in books 
 or handed down in traditions ; but in whatever form, 
 it is an external something, which is able powefull}' 
 to modify the very nature of man, and all functions oi 
 his intellect and spirit, as well as his physical being. 
 
 As a further preliminary we must consider what we 
 require a religion to do ? 
 
 Let us leave out for a moment the consideration of 
 all that relates to the world to come. Nor let us for the 
 present even stop to discuss the question whether man- 
 kind might or might not be better off without any 
 religion at all. IMuch ingenuity has been expended on 
 proving such a position, just as it might be in proving 
 that mankind would be better off without salt, or bread, 
 or meat. But the general sense of mankind is all the 
 other way, and our present purpose is comparative. 
 Let us look on religion as one of the things which men 
 generally think they require to aid moral and social 
 laws in making men better and happier, more prosper- 
 ous in life, and more able to promote the well-being 
 both of believ^ers themselves and of all in contact with 
 and affected by them. To what extent is Christianity, 
 as compared with other religions, adapted in these 
 respects to the wants of mankind under various forms 
 of civilization } This is the question which we pro- 
 
 295
 
 CHRISTIAM2Y SUITED 'lO 
 
 pose to discuss, not by a priori arguments, but by 
 examples and experience. 
 
 I. Let us first consider the case of wild tribes, 
 who are, as nearly as we can judge, in what is called a 
 state of nature. We have whole families, and e\'en 
 races, in Europe in a condition very little removed 
 from that of the wild beasts ; but they are general!}' a 
 degraded and neglected form of mankind who have 
 lapsed from a better state of civilization, and are 
 hardly such good subjects for illustrating our argu- 
 ment as the wild tribes of India, who, so far as 
 historical records show, have been from very early 
 ages in a state at least as barbarous as that in 
 which we have found them of late years. What I 
 am now about to tell you applies to nearly one- 
 fifth of the people of India. Some of them are not 
 much removed above the condition of the abo- 
 riginal tribes in Australia. In the Andaman Islands 
 there are remnants of a Negrillo race, who, though 
 far better formed and well developed physically 
 and mentally than the Australian race, have quite as 
 little of artificial civilization about them. In the 
 jungles of Central and Southern India are to be 
 found tribes whose habits seem to approach much 
 more nearly to those of apes than of men. A 
 few of them are said to be absolutely without 
 clothing, and to live habitually in trees ; others 
 have no better substitute for clothing than bunches 
 of leaves, v/hile with all of them the use of clothing 
 
 29O
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 is limited to the slightest imaginable amount of 
 covering. A little more civilized than these are the 
 jungle tribes, Bhils and Katkurees, and other races who 
 live mainly by the chase. The great body of the tribes 
 on our eastern frontier, the Sontalls and Koles, and 
 many of the clans of Goandwana in Central India, and 
 the Koolies and Thakoors of the west, are one step 
 higher in civilization, l^hey have huts and fowls and 
 cattle, and some of them, especially on the eastern 
 frontier, have slaves : all have some rude cultivation on 
 spots cleared by burning the jungle. Again, one 
 step higher, are tribes known as the Pariah or outcast 
 tribes of Western and Southern India, apparently the 
 remnants of aboriginal tribes conquered by the earlier 
 invaders of Hindostan, and reduced to the condition 
 of serfs or helots. The term " outcasts " hardly de- 
 scribes their condition, because they have never formed 
 any integral part of the purely Hindoo communities ; 
 but they are " outsiders " in every sense of the word 
 — forced to live outside the village walls — for- 
 bidden to touch or draw water from the wells of the 
 Hindoo community; and though often — in the Mahar- 
 atta Country always — occupying recognized positions 
 in the village economy as settled cultivators and 
 artizans, they are strictly confined to those ser- 
 vices which, however necessary, are associated in all 
 countries with a certain sense of pollution ; they are 
 scavengers, skinners of dead animals, and the like. 
 The more settled tribes frequently approach very 
 
 297
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 nearly in civilization to the simpler classes of Hindoo 
 agriculturists and artizans. But they have this in 
 common with their wilder neighbours, that they are 
 all more or less Fetish or devil-worshippers — a fact 
 which distinguishes them broadly from the great body 
 of genuine Hindoos. Altogether of these races I 
 have been describing there are, according to the 
 latest estimates, not fewer than forty millions of 
 souls within the British Empire in India and Ceylon, 
 a population almost as great as that of France or 
 Germany. 
 
 Their physical qualities resemble those of savages 
 in every part of the world. All are great observers ; 
 they have that peculiar quickness of eye and ear, and 
 of all physical senses, which characterizes wild men, 
 and which you see in any civilized man who, like the 
 backwoodsman or remote colonist, has liv^ed much 
 among the solitudes of nature. . But it is not only 
 their external senses of sight and hearing and smell- 
 ing which are wonderfully quickened by the neces- 
 sities of the life they lead. Any one who lives much 
 among them will be often astonished at the minute 
 accuracy of observation evinced by them when they 
 come first among the distracting sights and sounds of 
 civilization. In the English official's tent or cutcherry 
 they may appear perfectly dazed and confounded, 
 watching every novelty of the scene around them, 
 and with difficulty made to understand the business 
 which brought them there — though it may be a capital 
 
 298
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZA TION. 
 
 charge, perhaps, of robbery and murder ; and yet these 
 same savages, when by themselves afterwards, will 
 imitate with the most unmistakable fidelity — and with 
 infinite humour — every peculiarity of voice and man- 
 ner in the foreigners with whom for perhaps the first 
 time in their lives they had been brought in contact. 
 Their only wisdom is that of experience in all 
 matters of daily life ; they have, of course, no book- 
 learning, no philosophical systems — nothing of what 
 some of our modern philosophers w'ould call the 
 shams or trammels of civilization. Careless of hu- 
 man life, they suffer little from the physical evils 
 attendant on civilization. Their diseases are gene- 
 rally such as are the consequences of deficient or 
 unwholesome food, or of want, or of malaria. Such of 
 them as have fixed habitations, when they begin to 
 find the spot where they live becoming unhealthy — 
 when their fowls or their children die, or their grown 
 folk suffer from fever — generally conclude that some 
 evil spirits have entered the village, which they forth- 
 with abandon, and move to a spot a short distance 
 off. Every evil in life is attributed to some demoniacal 
 or malicious agency. Their priests are generally little 
 more than witch-finders or exorcists of evil spirits. 
 The marriage-tie is lax among the ruder, tribes, 
 but invariably becomes stronger as the tribes 
 become more civilized. They are generally far more 
 truthful than their civilized neighbours, sometimes 
 apparently from innate honesty, at other times from 
 
 299
 
 CHRISTIANITY sun ED TO 
 
 simplicity ; but few of them appear to have that 
 abstract regard for truth which we associate with the 
 highest form of civiHzation. They are all, as a rule, 
 kind and indulgent to their children ; but the death 
 of a child is not generally a matter which affects them 
 more than the death of their young cattle, and when 
 hard pressed for means of subsistence there is little 
 trace among the men of that self-sacrifice for the sake 
 of children which is so common in many more civilized 
 communities. There is, as a general rule, little vene- 
 ration for age, when the old people become burden- 
 some through inability to provide for themselves. A 
 few tribes are still clearly addicted to human sacrifices 
 as the most potent form of propitiating the powers of 
 evil ; and most tribes have traditions which indicate 
 that such practices were formerly more common. 
 
 One universal feature of all savage life is that every- 
 thing goes to the strongest. It is not easy to convey 
 to civilized men any definite notion of all that this 
 peculiarity implies ; still less to show how prone we 
 are to relapse into — 
 
 " The good old rule, the simple plan, 
 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 And they should keep who can " — 
 
 when the checks imposed by a civilized organization 
 of society are removed. 
 
 I will endeavour to illustrate both the tendency 
 and its results by an instance which was related 
 to me by an old friend, and which struck me as 
 
 300
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZA TION. 
 
 showing how this natural tendency comes out when- 
 ever there is a real struggle for existence. My 
 ffiend was a very intellectual, shrewd ScoK:hman, 
 who Avas cured of his youthful fancies in favour of 
 savage life by being shipwrecked half-a-century ago 
 in one of the great old East Indiamen upon the 
 island called Inaccessible, in the Southern Ocean. 
 It so happened that the whole of the crew — with the 
 exception of the captain — and all the passengers, in- 
 cluding a large detachment of troops, and numbering 
 several hundred souls of various ages and professions, 
 got safely to the rocky shores of the island, where they 
 lived for some months, supported by the provisions 
 they saved from the ship, and by the vast quantities 
 of eggs of wild-fowl which were found on the rocky 
 ledges of the island. One of the most prominent 
 characters on board the ship previous to the shipwreck 
 had been the surgeon — a man of weak physical powers, 
 but of great and varied intellectual attainments, and 
 of most popular manners and charming disposition. He 
 had possessed during the voyage an unbounded influ- 
 ence over both officers and men — was invaluable to the 
 captain as a supporter of discipline, and to the chaplain 
 as aiding his moral teaching. He had induced all the 
 young men on board to prosecute their studies regularly 
 under his direction, and was a leading authority with 
 regard to all the amusements by which the monotony 
 of the voyage was relieved. He was, in fact, a type of 
 what high intelligence in a civilized community can 
 
 301
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 achieve in the way of legitimate and useful influence. 
 For some days after the shipwreck his old power 
 continued, and was always exercised for the public 
 benefit ; but after a while the pressing necessity felt 
 by every soul of the shipwrecked community was the 
 provision of water, which had to be procured from 
 distant scanty springs, and the collection of a 
 sufficient supply of birds' eggs to satisfy the calls of 
 hunger. They had got, in fact, down to that stage 
 of civilization at which the satisfaction of the first 
 wants of nature in the way of food was of pressing 
 daily importance. From that moment all the author- 
 ity of the man of intellect vanished. He had not the 
 physical strength to carry water or climb for birds' 
 eggs, and the boatswain's mate — an illiterate man, of 
 great physical power and energy, with other qualities 
 fitted to shine in savage life — took the lead and kept it; 
 exercising despotic sway over the whole community 
 as long as they remained on the island. 
 
 Possibly some of us might say, "this is all perfectly 
 natural and proper ; the result must be a process ot 
 natural selection by which the most powerful physical 
 natures will take the lead, and the consequence a 
 gradual improvement of the race." But Indian 
 experience of savage life does not at all confirm 
 this view. The savage races are invariably smaller, 
 weaker, and worse developed than the civilized. 
 Many of the half-civilized are fine men, because 
 they retain their habits of eating animal food, 
 
 302
 
 ALL FORMS OF CLVILLZATLON. 
 
 and thrive better than those neighbouring civiUzed 
 races whose diet is exclusively vegetable ; but in such 
 cases their mode of living and kind of diet combines 
 many of the advantages of both civilized and uncivil- 
 ized life. The results of purely uncivilized existence, 
 so far as I have seen them, are invariably a decreasing 
 population, decreasing size and health, a general ten- 
 dency to degenerate and to assimilate more nearly to 
 the habits of beasts of the forest. I should doubt if 
 mankind would ever become extinct in the jungles of 
 India, because the smallest remnant of human intelli- 
 gence gives them such an advantage over the 
 other creatures of the forest, that the extinction of 
 the race seems a very remote contingency. But a 
 gradual dwindling of mind, body, and soul is universally 
 apparent wherever civilization does not intervene to 
 counteract the tendency. 
 
 Our experience of the races I have been describing 
 does not agree with the theories of philosophers who 
 maintain that the perfect condition of human nature 
 is to be found among people who live a purely mate- 
 rial life, thinking only of matter and its properties, and 
 obeying with unquestioning fidelity all the instincts 
 of their material nature. Such a life is led by the 
 most uncivilized and savage of the tribes I have been 
 describing. If the theories of modern materialist 
 philosophers were true, it seems to me these tribes 
 ought to swallow up civilization and all its shams ; but 
 practice and experience prove that civilization swallow 
 
 303
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 Up them and their materialistic mode of life, and unless 
 they become civilized they are invariably extinguished 
 when they come in contact with civilized communities 
 — notnecessarily by war or violence, but by the certain 
 operation of civilization. 
 
 This brings us to the question of their religion. 
 What is it, and how is it modified by contact with 
 Christianity ? 
 
 First, let us observe that not one of them, as far 
 as I am aware, is destitute of some form of religion. 
 As to what may be the case in other parts of the 
 world I cannot tell, but as regards the wild 
 tribes of India — and some of them are probably quite 
 as wild as any in the world — I know of none who do 
 not possess a religion of some kind. It is true, I 
 have been told by some of them in so many words, 
 that "gods are for English gentlemen, respectable 
 Brahmans, and Muhammedans, and that the poor 
 children of the jungle do not pretend to or venture 
 to possess any such luxuries as the gods of the people 
 around them." But in so speaking they thought 
 only of the gods whose shrines they saw whenever 
 they visited the haunts of civilized men; and I 
 never could hear of any tribe, however wild, the 
 members of which did not possess a religion of some 
 kind — a belief in the existence of beings of super- 
 human power, whose active agency modifies the 
 conditions and objects of life of all mankind. The 
 relisrion of all the various tribes and classes I am
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZA TION. 
 
 speaking of is more or less Fetish worship ; that is 
 they have some form of reHgion, which consists not 
 ahvays in the worship of evil, but in a practice of 
 deprecatory sacrifice, and petition to malevolent 
 beings with a view to avert evil results to the 
 worshipper or his friends. It is also an invariable 
 feature of Fetish worship that the worshipper is 
 able, by influencing the powers of evil, to effect 
 mischief to his enemies, as well as to obtain good for 
 himself Time does not admit of more than a brief 
 reference to a few of the commonest forms of Indian 
 Fetish worship. Among the jungle tribes, beasts 
 of prey, and notably the tiger, a common symbol 
 of the spirit of evil, " Wagia," (the tiger-god,) is wor- 
 shipped by widely distant and unconnected commu- 
 nities. Next in popularity and universal acceptance 
 is the worship of such epidemic diseases as are known 
 among savages. " Matajee," the goddess of small- 
 pox, " Mahamurree," the great death, or cholera, take 
 a prominent place whenever these scourges of savage 
 as of civilized life make their appearance. The sac- 
 rifice of a fowl, or even a goat, which is a suitable 
 propitiation of the tiger-god, is rarely efficacious when 
 the goddess of epidemic disease makes her appearance. 
 A rude procession is then organized ; a figure dressed 
 up in female garments, and ornamented as well as the 
 means of the community allow, is worshipped and 
 propitiated with sacrifices, conveyed to the limits of 
 the village, or tribe, and there handed over to a 
 
 305 20
 
 CHRISTTANn Y SUITED TO 
 
 neighbouring community, to be carried on or left in 
 the jungle, in the hope that the figure has conveyed 
 with it the seeds of disease, which will thus be passed 
 on to the place of her new residence. I have known 
 this system very efficacious in propagating instead 
 of allaying the disease, in consequence of the terror 
 inspired in the untutored inhabitants of the jungle 
 at finding within their boundary the hideous figure 
 which had been deposited there by their neighbours. 
 If the community which has expelled the figure con- 
 tinues to suffer from the disease, they have no remedy 
 but to disperse and fly. 
 
 For such people, I have heard it said in this Hall, 
 " you must have a Fetish of some sort, and a stock 
 or a stone is a better help to devotion than a priest or 
 his sermon." * Let us consider how far this assertion 
 is true — how far it accords with the facts we know. 
 
 Let us suppose for a moment the possibility of such 
 a thing as a " Christian Fetish." I am using the 
 words of those from whose opinions I entirely differ, 
 
 * " Fetishism is a natural concomitant of this stage of our 
 "mental development"(/.^.,astageof crass, savage ignorance); 
 " * * * The only religion possible at this stage is the religion of 
 "sense. • ♦ * Christianity * * has far less chance of success 
 "here than a religion which is purely Fetishistic. * • * if sen- 
 "suous accessories are at all requisite, stocks and stones, idols 
 "and oracles, are far better helps to devotion than the pulpit or 
 ' the priest — the surplice or the sermon." — Lecfic?-e of Jairam 
 S>^jzv, in St. George's Hall, November 12th, 1871.
 
 ALL F0R2fS OF CIVILIZA TION. 
 
 simply for the sake of argument. I would ask any 
 candid opponent who chooses to describe the objects of 
 worship which we place before our poorer and more 
 ignorant brethren as " Fetishes," whether he really 
 thinks such " Fetishes " as are habitually placed 
 before their hearers, as objects of worship, by St. 
 Peter, St. Paul, St. John, or by the priests of our 
 own Church, have anything in common with such 
 Fetishes as form the objects worshipped by the 
 people I have been describing } All Christians agree 
 at least in this, that the religion they profess is ap- 
 plicable alike to learned and unlearned men, to the 
 untutored savage and to the civilized philosopher. 
 Hence the Christian Fetish, if such a Fetish there can 
 be, must be alike the Fetish of the poorest and most 
 ignorant peasant or savage, and of Newton, Bacon, or 
 Locke, of Wilberforce, Las Casas, or Henry Marten. 
 
 But can such a thing as a " Christian Fetish" exist .^ 
 or be preached from any Christian pulpit } As I 
 understand a Fetish, it is a being of evil, worshipped 
 with a view to deprecate its wrath, rather than to 
 propitiate its justice or mercy. Such a worship is op- 
 posed to the very fundamental notions of Christianity. 
 Whatever nicknames may be given to partial or dis- 
 torted statements of our doctrines, this, at least, is 
 certain — that nothing like Fetish worship is consistent 
 AV'ith the plainest teaching of any single book of the New 
 Testament. There is scarcely a discourse or a parable 
 of our Lord, or an epistle of His apostles, which does 
 
 307
 
 CHRISTIANTIY SUITED TO 
 
 not teach that God is a God of love and mercy, and 
 inculcate love towards all mankind as the foundation 
 of Christian morality. This is the very opposite of 
 Fetish worship, and it is simple misuse of language 
 to talk of a Fetish as a possible part of any real 
 Christian teaching. 
 
 But how does Christianity fare when it is brought 
 in contact with Fetishism pure and real, such as is the 
 religion of the wild tribes we have been speaking of .-' 
 Is it found inoperative t ill-adapted to and ineffica- 
 cious with an uncivilized and uneducated people } 
 unimpressive upon those whose whole life is a 
 struggle for material existence } or is it found to be 
 mischievous in its effects, and inferior, either in power 
 to affect at all, or to affect for good, in comparison 
 with Fetishism } 
 
 To all these questions Indian experience during 
 the last half-century must answer in the nega- 
 tive. Christianity has now been preached to Fetish- 
 worshipping tribes in every stage of civilization, from 
 naked savages of the wildest forests to the semi- 
 civilized Fetish worshippers who are mixed up with 
 the settled inhabitants of the cultivated country ; 
 and the invariable result has been to show that 
 Christianity has power to prevail against Fetish 
 worship, and that the results of the acceptance of 
 Christianity by the Fetish worshipper are invariably 
 to raise him in the moral and social scale, and to make 
 him a civilized being. I believe there is i.io pari of 
 
 308
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZA TION. 
 
 India in which the power of Christian preaching to 
 attract the attention of Fetish worshippers, to win 
 them from the worship of evil and impure deities to 
 the pure reHgion of Christ, and to raise them in the 
 scale of humanity, has not been thus abundantly 
 manifested. Most prominently are these results visi- 
 ble amongst the Shanars and other devil-worshipping 
 races of Southern India ; the Kols and Goands of 
 Central India ; the Bhils and Koolies, Mhars, Mangs, 
 and Chumars of Western and Central India. Of all 
 these races it may be truly said that Christianity, as 
 far as its effects have been tried, has proved its pos- 
 session of the promises of this life as well as of the next. 
 In some parts of the country, as in Tinnevelly and 
 Chota Nagpore, the number of actual baptized converts 
 may be reckoned by tens of thousands, and all exhibit 
 a marked improvement in the habits of social life. 
 They are, as a rule, more temperate and chaste, 
 more cleanly, more honest, and more industrious than 
 they were before conversion. 
 
 In other parts of India, as in the Deccan, though 
 actual conversions have not been numerous, the 
 effect upon the w^hole community of outcasts has been 
 marked and general. Scattered as they are, a few in 
 every village in the country, there is no part of 
 the province which has not more or less felt the 
 influence of Christian teaching, and the result is not 
 only a general inclination to turn from the gods of terror 
 and uncleanness to the God of love, purity, and truth, 
 
 309
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 but a remarkable social change which may hereafter 
 bear political fruit, of which time does not now permit 
 me to speak more in detail. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that these results are not 
 confined to Christianity as taught in India by any 
 single Church or sect of Christians. I have seen them 
 abundantly follow the teaching of missionaries of our 
 own Church, and of the Churches of Rome and Scot- 
 land — both Free and Established, of various Noncon- 
 tormist bodies, and, in the most remarkable degree, of 
 missionaries from various Churches of Germany, 
 Switzerland, and America. There is comparatively 
 little difference in the power and extent of the result, 
 except what is obviously due to the number and ear- 
 nestness of Christian missionaries employed, to their 
 more or less perfect organization, and to the period 
 during which their efforts have been directed to the 
 conversion of Fetish-worshipping races and commu- 
 nities. Nor can it be said that the most learned, the 
 wisest, the most accomplished or best endowed of the 
 missionaries are always the most successful. On the 
 contrary, the most wonderful results are sometimes 
 effected by simple and unlearned men. From 
 all these things we are led to the conclusion that 
 such efforts owe their success to something which all 
 the preachers of Christianity hold in common — the 
 great, simple doctrines of Christianity which all be- 
 lieve — the plain, broad precepts of Christian morality 
 which all teach. 
 
 310
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 What, then, generally speaking, may be summed up 
 as the results of Christian teaching when brought to 
 bear on the low form of civilization exemplified 
 in the classes of which I have been speaking ? It is 
 everywhere a rising in the social scale — a civilizing and 
 humanizing influence, tending to make the believer in 
 Christianity a better man and a better subject. I 
 would ask whether the same evidence of the power 
 and effect of Christianity is not to be found in all we 
 read regarding other parts of Asia, of America, of 
 Africa, and of Polynesia — aye, in all we see around us 
 of the effects of simple, earnest Christian teaching on 
 London Arab life ? 
 
 I have endeavoured thus briefly to describe the 
 effects of Christianity acting on the wild Fetish-wor- 
 shipping tribes of India as their own religion. But 
 we have also to consider its effects as acting on them 
 externally — as the religion of those in contact with 
 them as neighbours or rulers. How, as compared 
 with other religions, does Christianity suit them, when 
 it is the religion of their more civilized neighbours or 
 conquerors .-' 
 
 NoAV in India we can in this aspect compare the 
 action of Christianity with that of various forms of 
 Brahmanism, of Buddhism, and of Muhammed- 
 anism. Neither of the former in theory make any 
 call on their votaries to propagate their own faith. 
 The devout Brahman and Buddhist are both separa- 
 tists in theory — seeking perfection through works and 
 
 3"
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 aspirations, among which the conversion of the igno- 
 rant and the civilization of the brutal find no place. 
 It is true that both religions are more apt to spread 
 among neighbouring communities of a different 
 creed than is generally supposed, especially when 
 those communities happen to be inferior in the 
 scale of civilization ; but the process is one rather of 
 annexation and imitation than of assimilation or 
 conversion ; and the result is never more than the 
 production of very spurious forms of Hindooism or 
 Buddhism, the professors of which are never, even after 
 the lapse of generations, accepted as true brethren 
 by the genuine Brahman or Buddhist. Texts might 
 doubtless be quoted from the dogmas of either, 
 which would favour the work of the missionary 
 or civilizer ; but personal purification and salvation 
 is the main object of both, and any effort to save 
 the souls or bodies of the savage tribes of the 
 forest from death or disease, whether temporal or 
 spiritual, is attended with a risk of pollution 
 which would prevent almost any zealous Brahman 
 or Buddhist from making the attempt. 
 
 Nor is the practice of the professors of these religions 
 much better than their theory — coercion, expulsion, 
 and destruction are the only modes of dealing with 
 savages which find much favour with Hindu statesmen. 
 When effectually coerced, a certain degree of toleration 
 may be .extended to them, and they may be protected 
 as useful hewers of wood and drawers of water ; bu^
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 that they have any inherent rights as members of the 
 great human family, or that any obh'gation rests on the 
 Government to protect or improve them, is a doctrine 
 which never could reach the Hindu administrator 
 through the teaching of his own religion. 
 
 The same may be said of the Muhammedan — 
 though his religion, like our own, is essentially one of 
 propagandism. If the savage is willing to be con- 
 verted, he may, as a member of the great family ot 
 Islam, rise in the scale of civilization ; but there is 
 little hope for the unconverted savage from any 
 Muhammedan ruler, save in the most abject and 
 unconditional submission ; and if Muhammedan 
 practice is sometimes better than its theory in treat- 
 ment of subject races of another faith, it is often far 
 worse. As a general rule, unpersecuting neglect is the 
 utmost the heathen savage or Fetish worshipper can 
 hope for from his Muhammedan lord. 
 
 Vigorous government, in any native state in India, 
 before the overshadowing advent of the great Christian 
 power, generally meant more or less severity towards 
 the jungle tribes. I will give you one of many instances 
 I could quote. In my early life in the Deccan of India, 
 I was engaged one day in trying one of these wild 
 men for some depredation on the property of his 
 civilized neighbours, when a Brahman, who had been 
 high in office under the former Maharatta Government, 
 came in to draw his pension. After listening atten- 
 tively to the trial, he fell into talk on the subject of 
 
 313
 
 CHRISTTANITY SUITED TO 
 
 how Government should deal with such classes, and 
 expressed as the result of his own large experience 
 that nothing but the most severe modes of coercive 
 treatment were of any real avail. He illustrated his 
 argument by an anecdote of one of the great Soubadars 
 of the Maharatta Peishwa, with whom he had served, 
 and in whose province tribes of wild Bhils had been 
 numerous and troublesome. Coercion and bribery 
 had been tried, with equally little effect in mitigating 
 their depredations. At last the Soubadar got wearied, 
 and having invited all the principal chiefs to a feast, 
 under pretence of largely increasing their subsidies, 
 he set upon and slew them, whilst most of them were 
 helplessly intoxicated, and "then the country," my 
 visitor said, " had rest." He related the details of the 
 tragedy not only without any symptom of horror or 
 reprobation, but much as we might speak of the 
 destruction of a family of wolves or tigers ; with a 
 strongly expressed opinion that this mode of — what 
 it is now the fashion to call " stamping out " — was 
 the only sensible way of dealing with such vermin. 
 
 This, as I have said, was not a solitary instance of 
 the spirit in which Hindu administrators of the old 
 school would have dealt and did deal with the wild 
 tribes. The case is far different now ; and I have no 
 doubt all my young Indian friends would indig- 
 nantly repudiate any such doctrines of extermination. 
 But I would ask them where they learnt the principles 
 on which they would now act } Was it from their 
 
 314
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 own Shasters, or from the writings and teachings of 
 Christian priests, economists, and moralists ? And 
 whence did these latter derive their principles, if not 
 from the storehouse of the Christian Scriptures ? 
 
 From the days when Warren Hastings encouraged 
 Cleveland to civilize the wild tribes of Eastern 
 Bengal, as so graphically described by Heber, down 
 to our own time, the administration of India has, as a 
 rule, acted towards the less civilized of our subjects and 
 neighbours on principles which the Christian religion 
 a\one inculcates, and the result has in every way justified 
 the system, as not only the most humane, but the 
 most efficacious from a political and social point of 
 view. I know in fact of no other system which can 
 pretend to have reclaimed and raised to the position 
 of useful members of civilized society whole tribes and 
 communities of wild and uncivilized men ; and the 
 most successful measures adopted for this purpose have 
 been distinctly founded on the precepts of Christianity ; 
 sometimes adopted knowingly and avowedly — more 
 frequently, perhaps, unwittingly borrowed — through 
 the medium of that code of Christian chivalry, which 
 however adversely affected, at times, by ambition or 
 cupidity, has never wholly ceased to actuate those 
 Englishmen who, for centuries past, have been most 
 energetic in extending British domination to every 
 region of the habitable earth. 
 
 If any one requires proof of the literal truth of what 
 I have said, let him consult the works in which it is 
 
 315
 
 CHRTSTIAXITY SUITED 10 
 
 recorded how Captain Hall and Colonel Dixon civilized 
 the Mairs of Mairwarra in Rajpotana, or how General 
 John Jacob and his lieutenants reclaimed the wild 
 tribes of Northern Sind. A remarkable instance will 
 be found in the records of Bhil civilization, 
 from the first efforts directed by Mr. Mountstewart 
 Elphinstone and Sir John Malcolm, in which Sir 
 James Outram, Colonels Ovans and French, Keatinge, 
 Douglas Graham, and Morris took part ; and in- 
 stances more or less striking might be quoted from 
 every province in India. The agents in these and 
 similar civilizing proceedings have been frequently, 
 but not always, men of deep and earnest religious 
 convictions. But even in the case of those who made 
 least pretension to a consistent profession of Chris- 
 tianity, it may be fairly asked whence did the actors 
 get the principles on which they acted .-' Not from the 
 precepts of Greek or Roman, of Brahman, Buddhist, or 
 Muhammedan. Still less from the social or economical 
 theories of modern materialists or positivists. The 
 principles on which the wild tribes of India have been, 
 and are being, civilized, are identical with those which 
 guide the teachers of our ragged and Sunday schools 
 for the poor neglected children of this great metropolis. 
 They are Christian principles, and are, as far as I know, 
 to be found formulated nowhere save in the Christian 
 Scriptures, wherein they are laid down as imperative 
 rules of action in our dealings with our weaker and 
 less civilized fellow men. 
 
 -.16
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 II. But let us now briefly consider the case of a 
 second great class consisting of civilized men, broadly 
 distinguished from the semi-savages of whom we have 
 hitherto been speaking — men in the stage of civilization 
 which has been reached by the great mass of the 
 populations which we see around us here in Europe. 
 They are living in organized communities, as artizans, 
 traders, agriculturalists, professional men, following all 
 the callings known to modern civilization. How does 
 Christianity affect them } How far is it suited to 
 them .'' 
 
 - We shall find it next to impossible to answer this 
 question conclusively, if we confine our attention 
 to Europe and America, because the great majority 
 of our people are, and have been for ages, pro- 
 fessed Christians. We may, indeed, compare the 
 Europe of Augustus' time with the Europe of our 
 own, and draw our own deductions as to the effect of 
 Christianity on our civilization. But we shall hardly 
 escape debatable ground, as to how much is due to 
 Christianity, and how much to other causes ; or as to 
 whether we might not have been better or worse, had 
 the prevailing religion of modern Europe been other 
 than it is. 
 
 Here, again, India may help us. You have there a 
 great civilized population, four times as numerous as 
 that of Christian America, as numerous as all the 
 populations of Europe, excluding Russia. They are 
 quite as advanced in all the arts of social life— I may 
 
 317
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 say they are more advanced — than were the populations 
 of Europe in the time of our grandfathers, before the 
 great French Revolution and the outburst of modern 
 mechanical invention. They have practically had 
 nothing to do with Christianity till within the last 
 half century. But every other religion in the world is 
 there and has been long represented on the grandest 
 scale — idolatries more varied than the popular super- 
 stitions of Greece or Rome ; a full third of all the 
 Muhammedans in the world, and every form of esoteric 
 religion, philosophies, mysterious and secret creeds 
 without end. 
 
 How does Christianity fare in the face of all 
 these powers of the air } Is it forced to give way .'' 
 Is it silent.'' inoperative.^ Is it powerless, or put to 
 shame .'' 
 
 I speak simply as to matters of experience and 
 observation, and not of opinion ; just as a Roman 
 prefect might have reported to Trajan or the Anto- 
 nines ; and I assure you that, whatever you may be 
 told to the contrary, the teaching of Christianity among 
 1 60 millions of civilized, industrious Hindoos and 
 Muhammedans in India is effecting changes, moral, 
 social, and political, which for extent and rapidity of 
 effect are far more extraordinary than anything you 
 or your fathers have witnessed in modern Europe. 
 Presented for the first time to most of the teeming 
 Indian communities, within the memory of men yet 
 alive, — preached by only a few scores of Europeans,
 
 ALL FORMS OF cIVILIZA TLON. 
 
 who, with rare exceptions, had not previously been 
 remarkable among their own people in Europe for 
 intellectual power or cultivation, who had little 
 of worldly power or sagacity, and none of the worldly 
 motives which usually carry men onward to success, 
 — Christianity has nevertheless, in the course of fifty 
 years, made its way to every part of the vast mass of 
 Indian civilized humanity, and is now an active, 
 operative, aggressive power in every branch of social 
 and political life on that continent. 
 
 Of the external action of Christianity, as the reli- 
 gion of the conquering race, I will say but little ; other 
 races, who were not Christians, in other ages, could 
 and did conquer and civilize ; and if a mere handful of 
 Christianized Europeans have succeeded in subduing 
 scores of potentates, and people counted by scores of 
 millions, they have only done on a very large and 
 successful scale, what Greeks and Romans, Phoenicians 
 and Assyrians, Egyptians, Teutons, Arabs, and other 
 non-Christian races, have done before them, in all 
 time past. 
 
 But let me note, as very noteworthy in itself, and 
 as bearing especially on our subject, the spirit and the 
 motives in which the conquerors of our own nation 
 and time have acted ; because they are very diiTerent 
 from anything you will find in the spirit or motives of 
 action of any non-Christian race of conquerors I ever 
 heard of. We have had, it is true, in our Indian con- 
 quests, enough of ambition, lust of conquest, cupidity, 
 
 319
 
 CHRISTIANITY sun ED TO 
 
 and all the meaner motives which actuate mankind in 
 aggressive wars on their neighbours ; but I would ask 
 you what has been the general national sentiment in 
 approving each successive acquisition ? I do not speak 
 of the motives of individual actors, but of the English 
 nation at large, in ratifying and retaining the conquests 
 from time to time achieved. 
 
 I answer, without hesitation, that it has been c. 
 feeling of duty towards the conquered — a conviction 
 that we could not recede without abdicating the power 
 of doing good to great masses of mankind, and thus 
 permitting the existence of much preventable evil. No 
 lower motive would, I feel sure, have sufficed to make 
 the English nation at large approve the action of her 
 children in India in time past, or would now induce 
 Englishmen at large to continue to sustain the burdens 
 and responsibilities of such a charge. It may be a mis- 
 taken view — that is matter of argument ; but it exists 
 — that is matter of fact, and it is distinctly traceable 
 to the system of morality founded on Christianity — 
 the duty of doing good to your neighbour — which the 
 nation at large recognizes as its rule of action, and 
 it has a very important bearing on the value of 
 Christianity as a civilizing agent. You will find 
 nothing of the kind in the motives, as far as 
 we know them, of any non-Christian nation. But it 
 is singular that you do find them most distinctly 
 marked among the most potent moving causes which 
 have impelled other Christian nations to the conquest
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 of non-Christians. I do not speak now of crusaders, or 
 of the rehgious element which was traceable among 
 the motives of the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors 
 of past ages, though you know how potent and how 
 elevating, as far as it went, that element was ; and how, 
 as the religious motive became fainter, all that gave 
 force as well as dignity to the action of the conquering 
 nation seemed to disappear ; — but I would ask you to 
 note how largely the desire to use power for the good 
 of subject races actuates another nation which isperhaps 
 even more than ourselves a conquering power in Asia. 
 
 We hear continually of the ambition and rapacity of 
 Russia ; but we are apt to forget that there is a power 
 urging Russia on to subjugate and civilize her bar- 
 barous neighbours, which is more potent and more 
 persistent than worldly ambition or cupidity, and that 
 is, the religious duty of Christianizing and civilizing : 
 any one who, in estimating the forces of Russian 
 aggressive movement, left out of view the impulse 
 derived from religious convictions among the leaders 
 of national thought — that it was a national religious 
 duty to extend to all barbarians around them the 
 blessings of being within the pale of the Russian 
 Church — would leave out of calculation the most 
 energetic element of the motive power. 
 
 This notion of doing good to the conquered is, 
 moreover, an element not traceable among the motives 
 of Assyrians, Romans, Saracans, or other conquering 
 non-Christian nations.
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 We are not now arguing an abstract question of 
 right or wrong. The desire of conquest is probably 
 one of the most powerful and universal of human 
 instincts. What we are now considering is how this 
 universal instinct is modified by peculiarities of 
 religion ; and what I wish you to note is, that in the 
 case of our own nation and of the Russian — two of 
 the great conquering Christian nations of modern days 
 — considerations of which we can distinctly trace the 
 origin to Christian morality add greatly to the effective 
 force of the natural instinct, whilst they elevate and 
 ^iiumanize it in a manner of which no trace is to be 
 found in the action of the great conquering nations of 
 other ages and creeds. 
 
 We have spoken hitherto of the external action o' 
 Christianity on non-Christian communities, such as we 
 find in India. But what are its internal effects when 
 it is received as their religion by the members of 
 those communities who are at about the same level 
 of general civilization as the mass of Europeans in the 
 middle of the last century .-' Does Christianity act at 
 all on them } and how .■* 
 
 Let us look first at their social life — and here 
 alone the subject is so vast, that one can, in the com- 
 pass of such a lecture as this, barely touch on one or 
 two characteristic points. Let us, for instance, consider 
 the action of Christian teaching on Indian caste. 
 
 I need hardly remind you that all Indian civilized 
 communities have one general characteristic which dis- 
 
 Z22
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 tinguishes them from similar communities in other parts 
 of the world and in other ages — they are all bound by 
 the traditions and practices of Hindoo caste. Volumes 
 would not suffice to describe Hindoo caste and its 
 effects, social, religious, and political. But there is an 
 aspect in which it may be presented which may give 
 you some faint idea of its nature and power, though it 
 represents only one of the peculiarities of the great 
 caste system. The peculiarity to which I allude is that 
 it is a great system of trades' unions, more universal 
 and better organized than any of the unions with 
 which we are acquainted in Europe. Their origin in 
 India is lost in antiquity. The earliest histories we 
 possess recognize the system as one which had already 
 grown up, and it appears more or less to have swal- 
 lowed up and assimilated the foreign elements and na- 
 tionalities which at different times have been imported 
 into India. As far as experience goes, Christianity 
 alone appears to have the power of resisting the 
 absorbing influences of Hindoo caste. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the results of caste 
 are altogether evil How much mischief caste does 
 I have not time to describe, but I will briefly refer to 
 some of its good effects. It maintains a high stan- 
 dard of skill in all the arts of life. Even in a country 
 which for the great part of a century has been the 
 theatre of incessant desolating war, artizans, and even 
 artists of the highest skill, are still to be found, owing 
 their existence, or the possession of their arts, mainly 
 
 323
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 to the system of caste, which binds every man to the 
 profession of his forefathers. More than this : caste 
 has a great immediate effect in maintaining a 
 moral standard. I do not say that in the long, run, 
 and in remoter results, the institution of caste is 
 not one of very immoral tendency. It is, I believe, 
 infinitely inferior in point of morality to the system of 
 Christian morals ; but speaking with regard to imme- 
 diate results, there can be no doubt that one of the 
 primary effects of a strict system of caste is to main- 
 tain a very considerable strictness of morals. 
 
 Of its evils I will only select two. It prevents any- 
 thing like national union, and it ensures a more or less 
 rigid form of social slavery. 
 
 It is, I need hardly tell you, diametrically opposed 
 to all the principles of Christianity. A religion which 
 teaches, as fundamental doctrines, the essential unity 
 of the human race — the brotherhood of every member 
 of that race — and the potential possession by every 
 such member of every blessing of this world, and of 
 a boundless future ; — such a religion can have nothing 
 in common with a great system whose essence is 
 divisions innumerable, impassable here and hereafter, 
 and practically annihilating the brotherhood of man. 
 Christianity is, as you all know, perfectly compatible 
 wdth a strict observance of gradations in social life, but 
 of anything approaching the Hindoo system of caste 
 it is the declared enemy. What then, as matter of 
 experience, is its effect on the great mass of the 
 
 •324
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 civilized Hindoo communities, which are, with such 
 rare exceptions, devoted adherents of caste ? 
 
 I answer shortly that intimate contact with Chris- 
 tianized Europe and a general diffusion of some slight 
 knowledge of Christianity have been the death-knell of 
 caste as the social bond of Hindoos. Such a system — 
 the growth of thousands of years, among hundreds of 
 millions of people — does not die in a day. It may be 
 that only the first blow has been struck, but that blow 
 has been a fatal one. It may take ages to work out 
 the result, but the result can no longer be doubtful. 
 It is not I alone who think so. You cannot gain the 
 confidence of any thoughtful, honest, educated Hindoo, 
 without finding out that this is his conviction. He 
 may put many subsidiary causes in the foreground. 
 Our superior military strength, and our freedom of 
 political and social thought and action — our railways 
 and other means of rapid intercommunication — our 
 free press — our all-embracing literature and open 
 education — our uniform laws, — these and many other 
 agencies will occur to him as the most efficient solvents 
 of his ancient social system. But he instinctively 
 feels, what we ourselves are sometimes slow to perceive, 
 that all these institutions and agencies are somehow 
 the products and offshoo'^j; of our religion — that 
 Christianity is logically and legitimately the founda- 
 tion, the wellspring of influences, under a hundred 
 shapes, moral and material, which, wiiile they con- 
 stitute our national life and strength, are destructive 
 
 325
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 of things as they have hitherto been in Hindoo social 
 h"fe. He feels that the system of caste is doomed, 
 and can never more reign, as it reigned but one 
 generation ago, over the millions of Hindostan. 
 Moreover, most thoughtful Hindoos are ready to 
 confess that caste would have little chance of a re- 
 prieve even if we were turned out of India to-morrow. 
 The strange truths which sink so deep into the 
 hearts of people, and influence all their thoughts 
 and actions, have not been taught by any State 
 agency, and form no part of the apparatus which 
 the English rulers have consciously employed. In- 
 deed, it is apt to be charged as a reproach against 
 our Government, that it has been too indifferent to 
 missionary work, — and the charge is well founded, 
 as far as general abstinence from all active co-ope- 
 ration can make it ; but I believe such abstinence 
 to have been necessary and right, and in the result 
 conducive to the spread of Christianity. Experience 
 shows that a temporary withdrawal of the protection 
 of the English Government, such as occurred in 
 some parts during the Mutiny years of 1857-8, so far 
 from extinguishing Christianity, helps to spread it ; 
 and candid and thouglitful Hindoos arc not slow to 
 perceive that even if the English were now to leave 
 India and were not succeeded by any other 
 Christian power, it would still be impossible to 
 counteract the dcstructiv^e influences already at work, 
 and that caste, as a system of impassable social 
 
 326
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 divisions, must, ultimately, give way before the ideas 
 which have taken root during a few generations of 
 close contact with Christian Europe. 
 
 It would be impossible to contemplate without a 
 shudder such results as the solution of all the ancient 
 bonds of society, among so many myriads of people, 
 were it not that the new influences have shown 
 themselves at least as potent in binding mankind 
 into new social combinations as in dissolving old 
 social ties. 
 
 It is a curious fact that Christianity — whilst, as one 
 of its fundamental principles, abjuring all claim to 
 interfere authoritatively in matters of social or political 
 organization, whilst inculcating the paramount duty of 
 acquiescence and obedience to all lawful social arrange- 
 ments and political institutions — has proved capable, 
 beyond all othersystems, of inspiring successful attempts 
 at political and at social organization. Since the Roman 
 society and polity began to decay, men enthusiastically 
 imbued with the spirit of Christianity have ever been 
 foremost in the task of building up that great fabric 
 of European civilization which now dominates over 
 the world. Whether in the wilds of Scandinavia, or 
 among idolatrous Teuton hordes, in the cloister, in 
 the camp, in the parliament, or in the guild of mediaeval 
 Europe — or, in later ages, asserting by speech, by pen, 
 or by sword, the rights and obligations of mankind — 
 the strongest and most successful organizers and con- 
 structors, social as well as political, have ever been 
 
 327
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 men of the strongest, deepest, most earnest religious 
 Christian convictions ; differing, it may be, most 
 widely as to particular doctrines of their common faith 
 or particular practical applications of their theories, 
 but all deriving their inspiration from one common 
 source, and referring, as the ultimate authority for all 
 they do, to one book, briefer than the scriptures of any 
 other faith, and which inculcates all its moral precepts 
 with a clearness and simplicity which an intelligent 
 child can comprehend as perfectly as the most 
 advanced philosopher. 
 
 We may learn something of the comparative power 
 of Christianity, as a civilizing and constructive agency, 
 by comparing the great ecclesiastics who advised 
 Charlemagne, and Alfred, the Conqueror, Edward the 
 First, and our Tudor sovereigns, or the religious men 
 who in later days have worked out our present politi- 
 cal system, with the Roman philosopher, the Hindoo 
 recluse, or the Muhammedan fakeer, to whom the 
 conquerors of other nations might have had recourse 
 for advice in organizing their dominions. We shall 
 \o well to remember that the great organizers of our 
 jwn nation were generally typical examples of 
 iihe Christianity of their own day ; when they were 
 issured that mankind needed the devotion of their 
 lives and labours, the argument was all-powerful to 
 -Iraw them to the service of the State. Is there any 
 3ther religious system which thus makes public duty 
 I religious obligation .-' I cannot find it in Greek 
 
 328
 
 ALL FORMS OF CLVLLIZA TlOy. 
 
 or Roman philosophy, absorbed in the search for 
 truth ; still less in the Hindoo or Muhammedan sys- 
 tems, where the highest merit is attributed to ascetic 
 observances which are utterly incompatible with 
 attention to worldly affairs. 
 
 I mentioned as two prominent evils of the Hindoo 
 system of caste, that it prevents anything like national 
 union, and reduces the bulk of mankind to social 
 slavery. 
 
 How effectual a cure Christianity supplies to the 
 latter tendency needs no argument or illustration from 
 me ; but a word on its civilizing effect as a bond of 
 national union. I can speak from experience, that 
 the want of such a bond is most keenly felt by 
 educated natives of India, of every class and creed, 
 who desire to see their own countrymen rising in the 
 scale of civilized nations. It is possible that at one 
 time, under native sovereigns, caste, after a fashion, 
 supplied such a bond. Its iron rules bound together 
 all ranks and classes, and the political edifice was stable 
 as long as all external influences were excluded ; but 
 all depended on the strictness of such exclusion, and 
 it is possible, that even without the foreign invasion 
 to which Hindoo caste owes its destruction, the 
 edifice must in time have been sapped by influeix:es 
 which, like Christianity, do not necessarily require 
 foreign agency for their introduction. However that 
 may be, many educated Indians are convinced that 
 the bond of caste can no longer be relied on ; and 
 
 329
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 even those who have no leaning to Christianity feel 
 that whatever else may be proposed in the shape of 
 new philosophies or systems of education, all lack the 
 essential element of including the lowest as well as 
 the highest classes in its grasp. Caste did this by 
 including all in one bondage — Christianity does it by 
 embracing all in one brotherhood. What else can be 
 relied on, in these days of vast nationalities, which 
 render feudal subordination so impotent, I know not. 
 
 For the present, patriotic Indians are generally 
 content to acquiesce in foreign dominion, as the sole 
 alternative to internecine civil discord. The time, I 
 believe, must come when they will see that the 
 influences which form the real bond of union between 
 their foreign rulers are equally capable of uniting 
 the scattered elements of their own social and national 
 existence, and they will accept Christianity as that 
 civilizing element which alone can render their own 
 independent national existence possible. 
 
 But the time when this truth can obtain general 
 acceptance is probably still distant, and educated 
 Indians generally hold that some reform of their own 
 system is still possible, and far superior to anything 
 which Christianity can offer them. Their arguments 
 are naturally powerful with <:hose who are living 
 entirely for the present — for the enjoyment of the 
 things of this world, and who have no object but to 
 make the most of this present life. For all such it 
 must be confessed that the attractions of Christianity 
 
 330
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 are less marked, when it is compared with any great 
 worldly system, which, hke the Hindooism or Mu- 
 hammedanism of the trading, mercantile, and agricul- 
 tural classes, places its siimmum bomivi in a well 
 regulated enjoyment of the things of this life. The 
 lofty aims and self-denying precepts of Christianity 
 have comparatively small attractions to those who 
 are devoted to the pleasures of sense, to the accumula- 
 tion of wealth, or even to many forms of intellectual 
 luxury. For all such, the worship of Aphrodite or 
 Mammon, whether in an abstract form, or in the form 
 so commonly seen in India — the actual material worship 
 of the creature — presents superior attractions. It is 
 when the world and the things of the world, its 
 pleasures and ambitions, cease to be the first objects 
 of desire, that Christianity offers, to those who have 
 been absorbed in the pursuits of the world, that which 
 is not to be found in any other religion. To the 
 prosperous trader, artizan, or agriculturalist, thriving 
 in his own business, and wishing only to enjoy the 
 good things it obtains for him, almost any religion, 
 or no religion except the worship of himself, may 
 suffice. He cannot be capable of the happiness which 
 a Christian philanthropist, or a devoted Christian, 
 can attain even in this life ; but he can at least 
 enjoy things as they are, and, if he can keep out 
 of sight the future, and his obligations to those 
 around him, he may live in great enjoyment. But 
 it is otherwise when suffering or adversity overtake 
 
 331
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 him, when he becomes anxious regarding the world 
 beyond the grave, or seeks to know his duty to his 
 fellow-men. In all these respects there is no com- 
 parison between the teachings of Christianity and 
 those of any other form of religion. In adversity 
 or in suffering, or when the conscience is aroused 
 to ask what is our duty with regard to our fellow- 
 men — no religion can give a perfectly satisfactory 
 answer except Christianity; and the results of 
 experience in India do not in any respect contradict 
 what we should a priori expect in this respect. 
 Missionaries tell us that they make small way among 
 the prosperous traders or farmers, except when griet 
 has softened the heart, or adversity has shown a 
 necessity of some support other than that which can 
 be derived from worldly enjoyments. 
 
 III. But we have still to consider the action of 
 Christianity as a civilizing element on a third class 
 of men, — infinitely smaller in number than either of 
 the great classes we have been considering, — but most 
 important as directors of the opinions of the world. 
 I allude, of course, to those who are raised above the 
 sordid material wants of the first class we have 
 described, whose main object is not, like the great 
 majority of the second class, how to exist, or enjoy life, 
 but rather to teach mankind the end and objects of life 
 and the best mode of living. These are the educated 
 few who are the great teachers of mankind. How 
 does Christianity affect or act on them ? 
 
 332
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 I might dwell on habits of mind which are most 
 congenial to Christianity, and which are distinctly fos- 
 tered by it, and which are also peculiarly characteristic 
 of some of the greatest teachers of mankind ; such are 
 love of truth, and teachableness of disposition. It might, 
 however, be truly said that such habits of mind are 
 not peculiar to Christianity, and that they are to be 
 found in the greatest teachers of all ages and creeds. 
 
 It is difficult in Europe to imagine what would be 
 the condition of things apart from that Christianity 
 in the midst of which every member of every class 
 has been brought up, and which must unconsciously, 
 by its influence or traditions, have more or less modified 
 every opinion he holds. 
 
 But in India we have, in their unaltered original 
 form, the prototypes of every system of philosophy 
 which has ever existed in Europe, and we may learn 
 something of the relations between those systems 
 and Christianity, as a civilizing element, by observing 
 the attitude of Oriental teachers of philosophy in all 
 its branches towards our religion when it is presented 
 to them. 
 
 Time, of course, does not admit.of even the barest 
 enumeration of the various schools of philosophy, 
 still less of an examination of their tenets. But 
 there are a few broad characteristics of the grander 
 divisions of Oriental teaching which it may be well to 
 notice, however briefly, with reference to their general 
 bearing on civilization. 
 
 . 333
 
 CHRISTIANIIY SUITED TO 
 
 There is this common to them all — their philoso- 
 phies are all' for philosophers. They aim to teach the . 
 teachers of mankind, and so indirectly act on mankind 
 at large ; but the notion of a teaching which, like that 
 of our Lord and His apostles, was to be received, 
 wholly and completely, by all the body of disciples, 
 and which, as far as it is necessary to happiness in this 
 world or the next, was to be learned as perfectly by 
 the poor and needy as by the rich — this notion, which 
 pervades all Christianity, is utterly opposed to all 
 Oriental philosophies. It is to be found more or less 
 perfectly expressed, and not unfrequently obviously 
 borrowed from Christianity, in several of the eclectic 
 religions, which, from time to time, spring up in the 
 east, and have, from this cause mainly, acquired great, 
 and often permanent, popularity ; Sikhism and its 
 derivatives, like the Kuka schism, owe much of their 
 popular acceptance to this feature in their teaching; so 
 do the precepts of Kubeer Punt, and of Tukaram, the 
 popular Maharatta poet ; but to the higher Oriental 
 philosophies it is unknown, and its absence gives to 
 Christianity, which possesses it in the fullest degree, an 
 immense practical advantage over them, as a civilizing 
 element. 
 
 Something of the kind may be found in the brief 
 formula of the Muhammcdan Creed, the repetition of 
 which constitutes almost the sole intellectual passport 
 for admission to Islam ; but the whole genius of the 
 philosophies which have received any bias from 
 
 334
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Muhammedanism is exclusion of the vulgar. Poverty 
 is inculcated as almost necessary to a high tone of 
 sanctity, but the ruling idea is the exaltation of self — 
 the exact opposite to that denial of self, which is the 
 first step in Christian practice, and which makes 
 Christianity essentially a religion for all mankind, and 
 not for any one sect or nation. 
 
 This is the most important element in what, for want 
 of a better word, I would term the " aggressiveness " 
 of Christianity. The earnest Christian is irresistibly 
 impelled by the spirit of his religion to communicate 
 its benefits to others. He may not rest whilst any 
 remain in misery or darkness. This aggressive spirit 
 is of wonderful power as a civilizing agency. There 
 is nothing like it in the spirit of Brahmanism or of 
 Buddhism; and the aggressiveness of Muhammedanism 
 is as infinitely inferior, in power and in endurance, as 
 fear is inferior to love, as a motive of human action. 
 
 And this suggests a word on Christian toleration, 
 which seems to me an equally distinctive feature of 
 Christianity, and a most potent element of civilizing 
 energy. There is nothing of it in pure Muhammedanism. 
 It is not to be found in the Koran, with its more than 
 Mosaic exclusiveness, and its energy in exterminating 
 alldifferenceof opinion. Great civilizing Muhammedan 
 sovereigns like Akbar were compelled to import from 
 Christianity, or its derivatives, that toleration which 
 was their glory, and the secret of their success as 
 benefactors of mankind. It seems to me that it is the
 
 CHRISTIANTIY SUITED TO 
 
 absence of this element which causes the sterility ol 
 Muhamrhedanism, and its want of power as a civilizing 
 agency ; and as this feature is the essence of Mu- 
 hammedanism, we cannot hope for anything of a 
 real permanent civilizing influence from any modifi- 
 tion of that creed. 
 
 This is of more importance to us here in Europe 
 than we might at first suppose, because, if there can 
 be such a thing as Muhammedanism without a 
 genuine faith in Muhammed, we have amongst us very 
 popular creeds which have strong affinities to that 
 religion. Next to self-worship, which is common in 
 many other creeds, the most striking and usual 
 aberration of Muhammedanism is towards the worship 
 of the God of forces, or of success ; towards a belief 
 that all the enjoyments of sense are the rightful heritage 
 of the faithful who dare to seize them, and towards 
 uncompromising and unarguing hostility to all who 
 differ from the true believer's creed. The same spirit 
 is manifest in all these respects in many of the anti- 
 Christian schools of modern European philosophy 
 and literature. Many grave treatises, and many more 
 romances, of the present generation among ourselves 
 have more of the inspiration of the Koran than of the 
 New Testament, and if the rules and proceedings of 
 the Fenian organization or the Parisian Commune 
 were studied without a knowledge of the time and 
 place where they were enacted, they would be more 
 likely to be attributed to the camps of Omar or 
 
 336
 
 ALL FORMS OF CLVLLLZATLON. 
 
 Tamerlane than to the heart of Christian society in 
 this century. 
 
 But to turn to the spirit of toleration to be found in 
 other creeds. The toleration of the Brahman or 
 Buddhist philosopher, striking as it appears at first 
 sight, proves when examined to be simple indifference 
 or neglect. 
 
 The absence of all active spirit of persecution, as 
 long as the opponent is quiescent and submissive, 
 which makes both Brahman and Buddhist practically 
 so tolerant, is the offspring of contempt, and has 
 nothing in common with the toleration which springs' 
 from the desire to do by all men as we would that 
 they should do by us. 
 
 Time is wanting for any detailed comparison of 
 the civilizing tendencies of either class of creeds with 
 those of Christianity. I will mention but one obvious 
 tendency of the teaching of each, which seems to me 
 to place it, as compared with Christianity, in a position 
 of decided inferiority. 
 
 Of the innumerable schools of Brahmanism, none is 
 more popular in India than that of materialists, who 
 teach that we can know nothing, certainly, save of 
 matter and its properties; and that belief inwhatwe call 
 life or spirit, save as functions and properties of matter, 
 — and by consequence any belief in a spiritual deity, 
 — is a hopeless error and delusion. Something of the 
 same kind is sometimes taught among ourselves, and 
 into its truth or falsehood we will not now enter. But 
 
 337 
 
 22
 
 CHRISTIANITY SUITED TO 
 
 of its value as a civilizing agency we may form some 
 idea, if we consider that there is hardly one of the 
 practices which the English Government has been 
 engaged in putting down, in the interests as we 
 believed of all humanity and civilization, which is not 
 clearly defensible under any moral code which can be 
 deduced from such a creed. 
 
 For instance, infanticide, or at least the slaying of 
 all children for whose nurture ample provision cannot 
 be assured, is clearly defensible upon materialistic 
 principles. So is the practice of Suttee, and the 
 slaughter of all who have an incurable disease, or who 
 from age or infirmity are unable to provide for their 
 own subsistence. The great community of Thugs 
 have excellent materialistic reasons for their mode of 
 possessing themselves of the property of others, nor 
 do I see how any form of rapine or appropriation, 
 which practically enunciates the right of the strongest, 
 can be objected to by any strict materialistic 
 philosopher. Clearly there is no form of vice, so long 
 as it is not directly prejudicial to health, from which a 
 thorough-going materialist need be restrained. He 
 is himself the sole judge of right or wrong, nor need 
 he regard anything except in its relation to his own 
 physical enjoyment. 
 
 Pressed with considerations of this kind, the 
 Brahman materialist generally evades all obligation to 
 construct any theory of moral duty. The only ob- 
 ligation he acknowledges is to find out the true nature 
 
 338
 
 ALL FORMS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 and laws of matter, and how he can best live in 
 accordance with those laws. The search is a long 
 one, and while it is in progress the whole world may- 
 go on its way — unenlightened, unless it will follow 
 the researches of the philosopher. 
 
 Surely there is nothing in such systems which can 
 compare to the work, past or possible, of Christianity 
 as a civilizing agency. 
 
 Nor is the case much better if we turn to Buddhism, 
 the worship of pure reason, of which also one could 
 find examples under other names among ourselves. 
 No doubt it has achieved, in times past, triumphs of 
 civilization of which there is scarcely any parallel in 
 history. But it is equally clear that there is some 
 defect which causes it now to give way, as a practical 
 civilizing element, before Christianity. As a religion 
 for all mankind (apart of course from all question 
 of its truth) Buddhism is proved, by the inexorable 
 logic of facts, to be weaker than Christianity. 
 
 It seems to me, the cause is not far to seek — 
 Buddhism places its simiminn boninn in escape from 
 passion, and from all connection with matter, from life 
 and from existence, as involving passion. Such a 
 system may evolve a high morality, or construct a 
 great fabric of political wisdom; but it has nothing to 
 offer mankind, nothing which comes so home to the 
 instincts of all humanity as the Christian doctrines of 
 the resurrection of the body and life everlasting in 
 union with a glorified body. We may debate for ever 
 
 339
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 over the proof of either doctrine ; but as matter of 
 fact and experience, there can be no doubt that they 
 appeal to the hearts and instincts of mankind in 
 a manner which the atheistic annihilation taught by 
 the Buddhist philosopher never can. 
 
 Something of the feeling which I have endeavoured 
 to express, of the paramount power of Christianity as 
 a civilizing agency, and a bond of political union, is 
 apt to show itself instinctively where it might least be 
 suspected. 
 
 If a despot in Christendom is anxious for his throne, 
 or if politicians find that the people long neglected 
 are getting loose from all social and political ties, they 
 are apt to call in the Christian teacher, as though he 
 possessed some spell, the utterance of which coulc*. 
 calm the wild passions of unrestrained and untaught 
 humanity. Such men forget that Christianity is no 
 charm or magical device, and that its power rests in 
 the hearts of believers. Let them be wise in time, 
 and before they put away from them the teachings of 
 Christianity, and deliberately abjure its obligations as 
 their rule of political and social life, let them remem- 
 ber that such gifts are not often twice offered to men 
 or nations; and that to nations, as to men, it may 
 happen, after once rejecting them, to find no place 
 for repentance, " though they seek it carefully with 
 tears." 
 
 S40
 
 THE CONTRAST 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 THE VERY REV. CHARLES MERIVALE, D.D.
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN PAGAN 
 AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 The use of Sacrifice, it is admitted, has been very 
 general, or we may perhaps say universal, throughout 
 the world. Wherever at least there has been an 
 idea of God, and a belief in His existence as an 
 efficient agent in the world around us, there has 
 been the use of Sacrifice. As far as we can trace, the 
 practice or rite has reached back to the remotest 
 antiquity. It has been enjoined in religious systems 
 which claim to be even more ancient than that of 
 Moses and of the Bible. We find it in the Vedas no less 
 clearly than in the Hebrew Scriptures. In Persia and 
 Phoenicia and Egypt and Arabia, it dates probably as 
 far back in the night of ages as any that can be 
 alleged from the Divine records with regard to the 
 children of Israel, or of the patriarchs before them. 
 We must either ascribe its origin to a primitive, or 
 so-called patriarchal revelation — a Divine command 
 delivered through unknown channels, ages before 
 
 343
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 Tyloses, to a race far earlier than the Jewish, and sup- 
 pose it to have been propagated by this race through- 
 out the nations of the earth, and the Jewish nation 
 among the rest — or we must conceive the idea to have 
 grown up instinctively in the heart of man, and spread 
 by natural diffusion from clime to clime, from religion 
 to religion ; to have been embraced, under the teaching 
 of the Hebrew lawgiver and under the special sanction of 
 the Mosaic revelation, by the children of Israel from 
 this common human original. The belief in a Divine 
 revelation to the Jews and Christians seems to me to 
 be in nowise concerned with the solution of this 
 question. The elder and the later Scriptures are 
 equally silent as to the origin of Sacrifice ; they no- 
 where declare or presume that the idea was Divinely 
 revealed, or the practice authoritatively enjoined by 
 God. In the earliest of our Scriptures Sacrifice is 
 always spoken of as a thing in common use, but no 
 hint is given of its having been originally commanded. 
 And, accordingly, different views have been held upon 
 the subject. The ancient Fathers, it may be observed, 
 generally held that the practice was purely natural in 
 its origin ; and the ancient Fathers, familiar as they 
 were with the heathen world, had a wider sympathy 
 with it, and believed better things, and hoped better 
 things of it, and of the hold it had, however imper- 
 fectly, upon Divine truth, than the theological schools 
 of later and less liberal ages. 
 
 But, setting aside this question as of little practical 
 
 344
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 moment, I would impress upon you the remarkable fact 
 that Sacrifice, after having been so universally used 
 through all previous ages, in all heathen countries, so 
 far as we know, the most civilized as well as the 
 rudest, and not in heathen countries only, but in all 
 non-Christian countries, including the Jewish, has, in 
 fact, entirely ceased throughout Christendom ever since 
 the first promulgation of the Christian doctrine. The 
 practice has ceased ; the idea is abandoned ; its reli- 
 gious significance is utterly repudiated. The Gospel 
 has abolished Sacrifice. The Sacrifice, as a Christian 
 believer would say, of Christ has been accepted by 
 the Christian world as the consummation of the idea, 
 which has been from that moment superseded in the 
 minds of all Christian believers, and can never be 
 revived among them. The fact, I suppose, is undoubted. 
 It seems to me a very remarkable one. I have been 
 invited to set forth in some sort the Contrast between 
 Christian and Pagan society. The moral, social, and 
 political contrast is indeed manifold and intricate. The 
 more I think of it the more I feel my inability to do 
 justice to it, to represent to you its history or its philo- 
 sophy, in the compass of a lecture. All I can do is to 
 lay before you in this one great fact a fundamental 
 ground of contrast between the Pagan world and the 
 Christian, and thence proceed to indicate, rather than 
 to sketch, much less to develop, its moral and spiritual 
 result. Even so I may hope to suggest important con- 
 clusions as to the claim which the Christian religion 
 makes on our intelligent and earnest belief. 
 
 345
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 Now if we supposed the idea of Sacrifice to have 
 originated in a special revelation, we might easily in- 
 vent a theory to account for its extinction by a special 
 revelation also. The notion, it might be said, of the 
 religious efficacy of Sacrifice was first suggested to 
 man by Divine grace, and afterwards kept alive super- 
 naturally, for the express purpose of fixing men's 
 minds upon the Great Sacrifice that was to be per- 
 formed in the fulness of time, in the person of the 
 Divine Saviour. The whole subject would then be a 
 mystery, referred to God and His dealings with man- 
 kind, and removed altogether from the category of 
 natural causes and developments. 
 
 But if we take the other alternative, that which is 
 more likely to approve itself to the theological views 
 of the present age, and suppose that Sacrifice sprang 
 in the first instance from some natural instinct of man, 
 some universal sentiment, some want or aspiration of 
 the human race, how extraordinary must it appear, 
 that this natural and universal instinct should be 
 suddenly, universally, and for ever extinguished by 
 the final Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, wherever that 
 Sacrifice is accepted as an historical and theological 
 truth ! 
 
 If we look for the source of religious emotion, we 
 seem to find it in the sense, so common, so universal 
 among us, of the existence of some superior Being, 
 some higher life, some greater power, with whom we 
 are inexplicably connected, on whom we are mysteri- 
 
 346
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 ously dependent. The child first acquires this idea 
 from its experience, perhaps, of its own natural depen- 
 dence on the superior strength of its elders — the savage 
 from his consciousness of the great powers of Nature, by 
 which he lives and has his being, while he is controlled 
 at the same time and educated by them. This, it would 
 seem, whencesoever derived, is the first idea of God, as 
 a Being of power, mysterious and undefined, but ever 
 real and present with us. The idea of Divine power 
 in the abstract soon passes into its special manifesta- 
 tions. Hence the idea of God as Creator of the world 
 and all that is therein — the Creator of the world as it 
 first sprang into existence, then of the world continuing 
 and advancing, ever varying yet ever the same ; of life 
 and the laws of life ; of body and the laws of body ; 
 of mind and the laws of mind. Hence the idea of God 
 as a moral Being with a moral design — a Providence 
 adapting means to ends through an infinite series of 
 purposes, constantly attracting and as constantly elud- 
 ing our investigation. Hence, once more, the idea of 
 God as a Being of infinite goodness as well as of infi- 
 nite power, of infinite holiness as well as of goodness ; 
 as a Being, therefore, of infinite justice as well as of 
 love — as the awful abstraction of eternal and immutable 
 Right. If man began, then, with a mere blind awe of 
 God, such as has been compared to that of a dog for 
 his master, he advances, step by step, to amazement, 
 fear, and reverence ; if he began with a sense of his 
 own littleness, he grows to a feeling of humiliation and 
 
 347
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 self-abandonment. He must be utterly abased and 
 overwhelmed at the conception of the infinite distance 
 between himself and all that he can call his own, and 
 the great God, the Creator, the Sustaincr, the Ruler, 
 and the Avenger. Surely he must sink in despair 
 unless he can discover some means of putting himself 
 in communion, in sympathy, with this infinite Being, 
 of securing a share in His regard and interest, of 
 obtaining the assurance of His grace and favour. 
 
 A modern poet has asked us why we should shrink 
 from living alone, reminding us in solemn tones that 
 we are all born alone into the world, and must all die 
 alone, and leave it, and that even while we are per- 
 forming our pilgrimage on earth, in the company of 
 our fellow millions, yet we are for the most part soli- 
 tary in our thoughts and conscience, and that 
 
 "Not even the dearest heart and next our own 
 Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh." 
 But it is this very consciousness of spiritual solitude 
 that enforces the higher and deeper conviction that we 
 are never left actually and entirely to ourselves. We 
 must acknowledge that our existence is, after all, bound 
 up with another existence, our soul with another soul, 
 our personality with another personality. There is, we 
 are assured, a Being ever near us, ever about our path 
 and about our bed, and that spieth out all our ways, 
 with whom we enjoy spiritual relations even beyond 
 the scope of our limited imaginations. The religious 
 sentiment of man declares that there is such a Being; 
 
 348
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 that we do hold communion with Him ; nay, more, 
 that this communion or sympathy may be indefinitely 
 enhanced by efforts of our own. We call Him God ; 
 we confess His presence within us, though we cannot 
 see or feel Him ; we recognise the fact of our spiritual 
 relation to Him, after the analogy of those electric 
 sympathies of which we have sensible experience, 
 though we cannot trace them to the action of the 
 senses. We feel ourselves not absolutely, not essen- 
 tially, alone in the world, but rather in the presence of 
 a Stranger, whom we are inclined to admire the more for 
 the imperfectness of our knowledge of Him ; and we 
 yearn towards Him from our lone personality as the 
 patriarchs of old towards the stranger who approached 
 their solitary dwellings, and allowed them to open 
 their hearts, and make question and reply about the 
 things of the outer world, and exchange the greetings 
 of human sympathy and interest. 
 
 " Be not forgetful to entertain strangers," says the 
 writer to the Hebrews, " for thereby some have en- 
 tertained angels unawares." The expression is appar- 
 ently proverbial. We might be glad to trace its de- 
 rivation, and learn through how many generations the 
 idea it embodies has been familiar to man. Is it 
 simply a devout reflection of the Jewish mind upon 
 the Scriptural legend of Lot's reception of the angels 
 at Sodom, or of the " three men" under whose likeness 
 God is said to have appeared to Abraham in the plain 
 of Mamre t Or is it a reminiscence of traditions more 
 
 349
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 widely spread throughout the ancient world, and still 
 faintly repeated to us in the records of Pagan mytho- 
 logy* of the descent of the deities on earth to partake 
 of human hospitalities, and leave a blessing or a curse, 
 according to the reception they met with from their 
 creatures ? Undoubtedly the human mind, meditating 
 anxiously and fervently on the mystery of its com- 
 munion with the Divine, has imagined to itself the 
 visible occurrence of such blessed intercourse on many 
 occasions, and gathered strength for its struggle with 
 its own spiritual solitude from the conviction it has 
 then acquired of the actual presence and companion- 
 ship of God. It has been under Divine guidance — it has 
 been, we may well believe, through special revelation — 
 that men have been led to conceive of a time when 
 He was wont to reveal Himself sensibly to His fa- 
 voured creatures, and to converse with them familiarly, 
 even as friend with friend. 
 
 Such is the tradition conveyed to us in the earliest 
 records of the Hebrew Scriptures — that is, in the 
 earliest consistent records of human history and 
 human imagination. Such is the tradition of God 
 visiting the first parents of our race in Eden, when 
 Adam and Eve " heard the voice of the Lord God 
 walking in the garden in the cool of the day :" when "the 
 Lord said unto Cain, Where is thy brother.''" and Cain 
 said unto the Lord, " My punishment is greater than 
 I can bear ;" and Cain " went and hid himself from 
 the presence of the Lord :" and again when " God 
 
 3 so
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before 
 me." However frequent are God's communications 
 with His chosen people through messengers and 
 prophets in the later ages, the manner of His inter- 
 course with them is never again represented as so 
 direct and familiar as in the earliest chapters of the 
 book of Genesis. Whatever men may think of the 
 composition of the first book of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures, the primitive simplicity of its subject-matter 
 reflects beyond all controversy the earliest known 
 condition of the religious sentiment among men. 
 
 But the most ancient of Heathen traditions declare 
 a similar belief in the personal revelation of God to 
 man. The Hindoo mythology represents the Deity 
 as descending periodically to earth in a series of per- 
 sonal incarnations. The legends of Greece may be 
 traced no further than to the date of the Iliad and the 
 Odyssey ; but there can be no doubt that ages before 
 the composition of those most ancient of poems the 
 idea was rife, throughout the Hellenic and Pelasgian 
 world, that the Divine Existences might mingle occa- 
 sionally with human society, and reveal themselves as 
 friends and benefactors to their favourites among 
 mortals. Such intercourse all mankind regarded as 
 the supreme felicity. The stories of such blessed 
 visitations were repeated with awe and gladness from 
 mouth to mouth, and all men rejoiced in the possi- 
 bility of becoming so favoured and blessed themselves. 
 All beHeved, and all imagined how such visits might 
 
 351
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 be solicited and obtained ; how, if obtained, the 
 blessing might be improved to the utmost. Men, it 
 was conceived, might be admitted to banquet with the 
 Immortals ; to sit at meat with them by invitation to 
 their heavenly entertainments ; to receive them as 
 guests under their own humble roofs, and gratify them 
 with the modest repast they tendered with hospitable 
 sincerity. But thus to enjoy the society of the Divine 
 Powers was a special grace reserved for a few only, 
 the tradition of which alone survived in the grosser 
 ages of human corruption. Such marvels could hardly 
 be again experienced until men, corrupt and abomi- 
 nable, should have recovered something of their 
 primeval purity. Meanwhile let them cherish the 
 tradition of the past by a symbolic ritual ; let their 
 pious faith engage the Powers above to actual renewal 
 of the lost communion, at least invisibly and spiritually. 
 The act of Commemoration and the act of Commu- 
 nion would thus become blended together in their 
 minds, and would never, perhaps, be clearly distin- 
 guished the one from the other. 
 
 Such, it would seem, was the first origin of the 
 practice of Sacrifice and Oblation — the offering up to 
 the Deity of such things as man felt to be agreeable 
 to his own carnal appetite — fruits for the taste, 
 flowers for the smell, — whatever was rich and rare 
 and beautiful in his own apprehension ; and therewith 
 the flesh and blood and fat of animals, the noblest 
 and most enlivening banquets among his fellows. In 
 
 352
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 the smoke of the sacrifice which mounted up to 
 heaven men beheld the elemental food ascending to the 
 abode of the Deity, and most neariy corresponding with 
 the lightness and delicacy of the ethereal natures — 
 the nearest approach which material conception could 
 make to a purely spiritual essence. The intimations 
 vouchsafed to us of the state of men by our primitive 
 records give us no other idea of Sacrifice than this — ■ 
 that it is simply the offering of faith and thankfulness 
 in memory of a past communion with God, with the 
 hope of bringing Him again into communion with 
 His worshippers. 
 
 I have thus far described what may be called the 
 eucharistic idea of Sacrifice, the idea of a blessed 
 communion of man with God, set forth under the 
 token of offerings of thanksgiving. It seems tolerably 
 clear that this is the earliest idea of Sacrifice conveyed 
 both by the Hebrew and the Greek records of primi- 
 tive antiquity. But I am not concerned to insist 
 upon it as the true origin of the world-wide practice 
 of which we are speaking. It conceives of the Deity 
 as primarily a God of love ; but it must be determined 
 by the temperament of the individual man, or the 
 genius and character of a nation, whether God shall 
 be regarded primarily as a Being to love, or a Being 
 to fear ; which of these is the first and fundamental , 
 conception it is presumptuous to decide and idle to 
 speculate. We find the two conceptions blending one 
 with the other as far back, perhaps, as history can 
 
 353 23
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 carry us. If the earliest Greek religions were bright- 
 ened with a general hue of cheerfulness and sweetness, 
 it is not less true that they were partly founded upon 
 traditions of gloom and terror also. The primitive rites 
 of Phoenicia and Arabia were orgies of blood and fire, 
 and the Levitical law of Sacrifice — strong and vigorous 
 as a protest against the abominations of Baal and 
 Moloch, as became the first religious reformation in 
 history — ^was fearfully marked with a sense of the 
 wrath of God, and the necessity of appeasing it. If 
 we take the eucharistic as the earliest idea of Sacrifice, 
 it is impossible to say when the idea of propitiation 
 became first blended with it. As far as historical 
 records can trace them, the one was as widely spread 
 and as fully developed as the other. The favour of 
 the Divine Being was to be engaged, and His anger 
 to be averted. Some sacrifice was required on the 
 part of man to prove his sense of subjection to God. 
 He must confess his own nothingness in the sight of 
 God, and prove the sincerity of his confession by 
 submitting to some loss in token of it. Sacrifice 
 became no longer the mere spontaneous ofiering of 
 what was pleasant to man ; it was the surrender of 
 something that involved an actual loss and damage 
 to him. The slaughter of beasts was an actual loss to 
 the worshipper and the sincerity of his religious 
 feeling was tested, and perhaps rudely measured, by 
 the amount of loss he thus incurred. But more 
 subtle ideas soon intervened, if, indeed, we car, 
 
 354
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 pretend that more subtle ideas were ever absent from 
 the imagination, intently busy about the means of 
 bridging over the chasm between the human wor- 
 shipper and the divinity he worshipped. It was not 
 by the loss to the worshipper only that the god 
 was to be propitiated and delighted. The feelings of 
 the victim itself came into consideration. The suffer- 
 ings of the beast seemed to reflect a vicarious merit 
 upon the man who offered him. The worthier the 
 victim, for his size, his strength, his beauty, his 
 innocence, the greater the merit of the offerer, the 
 more effective the propitiation of the inscrutable 
 Power who accepted it. When this fearful conception 
 had once entered into the mind of man there was 
 humanly no limit to be assigned to it. Very early 
 indeed in the career of history did it become accepted ; 
 we can hardly trace the time when it was not so ; and 
 very early indeed — and here again we can hardly 
 limit the antiquity of its introduction — did it culminate 
 in the most fearful of its inevitable results. I refer, 
 as an illustration of my meaning only, to the early 
 chapters of Genesis. The sacrifice of animal hfe is 
 recorded in the same context with the ofit'ering of 
 fruits. The sacrifice of Isaac, proposed, but not 
 accepted, by the God of Abraham, reveals to us, if we 
 needed the revelation, that four thousand years ago 
 the offering of human life in propitiation was a 
 common and recognised form of Divine worship. We 
 Christians shrink with horror from all shedding of 
 
 355
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 blood, even of animals, in the service of God. There 
 may be nothing cruel in it. Beasts must die, and 
 must die by the hands of man. It might be fantastic 
 to denounce the sacrifice of the living animal on the 
 score of cruelty and inhumanity. But we may and 
 must denounce it, as the source from which must 
 logically spring, and from which has sprung, in all 
 countries, in all times, under the sanction of all 
 religions, except those which we claim to come direct 
 from Divine teaching, the sacrifice of the human 
 victim, the shedding of the blood which is the life of 
 man. 
 
 This, then, is the ultima ratio to which the idea of 
 sacrifice tends. I have spoken of the universal accep- 
 tance of this idea among all human creatures who 
 recognise at least the being of a personal God, a 
 Creator, a Ruler, and a Judge. Let us now look more 
 closely into this fact. I do not pretend, indeed, to follow 
 up so wide a subject exhaustively. My object in this 
 lecture is to point out a marked contrast between the 
 actual development of the Christian religion, and of the 
 most illustrious and most refined among the heathens. 
 
 The deltas of the Nile, of the Euphrates, of the 
 Ganges, or the Indus, are the earliest known settle- 
 ments of human civilization. Here are the cradles of 
 the most ancient of heathen religions j here were the 
 sources, the farthest that we can trace of the most 
 common and most widespread sentiments of mankind. 
 In all these nurseries of our race we find the same 
 
 356
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 constant idea taking fast hold of the imagination, and 
 dominating the devout affections of man. The 
 Mosaic records make no reference to the usage of 
 sacrifice among the Pharaohs in Egypt ; but Herod- 
 otus, the father of secular history, affords us ample 
 evidence that in his time, and, as we may infer, for 
 uncounted ages before him, the Egyptians made the 
 sacrifice of animal life a marked feature in their religious 
 ritual. The bull, the swine, and the ram are severally 
 mentioned as the offerings most grateful to Isis, 
 Osiris, and Ammon ; and these were accompanied by 
 many unbloody sacrifices, the offering of milk and 
 fruits, and cakes and spices. Authors of a later date 
 than Herodotus make special reference to the very 
 ancient sacrifice of human victims, for which, it is as- 
 serted, that of animals was only a later substitute. Thus 
 it is particularly declared by Plutarch, that in the town 
 of Ilithyia, Typhonic — that is, red-haired men — used 
 to be burnt to the goddess there inhabiting, and their 
 ashes thrown into the air. But these, it was suggested, 
 were primitive and barbarous rites, and in a more en- 
 lightened age waxen figures were actually substituted 
 for men of flesh and blood, and these again were ul- 
 timately replaced by animals. Sacrifice, however, in 
 some shape or other, was the last resource — the 
 dernier mot — of Egyptian civilization in its most flour- 
 ishing period, when it attained the art and science 
 required for the building of the pyramids ; when it 
 offered a storehouse of ethical wisdom, to which the 
 
 357
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 sages of the Grecian world, at the summit of its in- 
 telligence, might resort. 
 
 The antiquity of civilization on the Euphrates may 
 probably equal that on the Nile ; but both the records 
 and the traces we retain of it are less distinct. Here, 
 too, the idea of Sacrifice seems to have been imme- 
 morially prevalent, and was reported by the Fathers 
 of the Christian Church to have been indigenous in 
 Chaldaea and Babylonia. Nor was the practice less 
 rife throughout the neighbouring regions, the progress 
 of which was not less marked than that of Babylonia, 
 such as Syria, and Persia, and Phoenicia. Our first 
 conception of the religious systems of all these coun- 
 tries bespeaks the prevalence of sacrifices of all 
 kinds, from the offering of the fruits of the earth to 
 the massacre of human beings, to the slaughter of the 
 purest and most innocent victims as the most meri- 
 torious and efficacious, to the passing of children 
 through the fire to Moloch. The Syrians, the Persians, 
 the Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians were each in 
 their time and place the highest exponents of heathen 
 culture. Each in their time, each in their place, ad- 
 vanced mankind to the highest pitch of moral and 
 aesthetic refinement of which it might then and there 
 seem capable. 
 
 Among the worshippers of Brahma, on the Indus and 
 the Ganges, there seems to have been possibly an 
 earlier, certainly a more durable, and we may believe 
 a more polished, phase of culture than any that we have 
 
 358
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 hitherto noticed. We have ampler knowledge of the 
 eligious systems of the Hindoos, through the existing 
 records of the Vedas, than of any other primitive 
 people. Throughout the ritual of the Vedas the use 
 of Sacrifice is paramount. Sacrifice is the one great 
 idea which imbues the whole of their religious teach- 
 ing. " The gods," they declare, " killed a man for 
 their sacrifice. But that part of him which was fit for 
 being made an offering went out, and entered into a 
 horse. Thence the horse became an animal fit to be 
 sacrificed. 
 
 " The gods killed the horse ; but the part fit for 
 being sacrificed went out of it, and entered into the ox : 
 thence the ox became an animal fit for being sacrificed. 
 
 " The gods killed the ox ; the part entered into 
 the sheep, and the sheep became fit. 
 
 " The gods killed the sheep, and the same happened 
 to the goat. 
 
 " The gods killed the goat ; but the part entered 
 into the earth : thence the earth became fit for being 
 offered. 
 
 " The earth turned into rice : hence the simple rice- 
 cake represents the animal sacrifice. The rice-cake 
 is called Purodasa ; he who offers Purod^sa offers the 
 sacrificial part of all animals." 
 
 According to this scientific development of the first 
 principle of sacrifice — the devotion, namely, of man to 
 God — the rice, the simplest and most universal fruit of 
 the earth, becomes a comprehensive representative of 
 
 359
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 all other sacrificial objects. But the offering of rice 
 does not really supersede the other offerings. The 
 sacrifice of man has been from all historical times, and 
 is still, in manifold forms, a general practice of Hin- 
 dooism. The sacrifice of children, of widows, of old 
 men — the drownings in the Ganges — the prostrations 
 under the wheels of Juggernaut — all bespeak the per- 
 petuity as well as the universality of human sacrifice 
 throughout the most polished nations of ancient and 
 modern India. The offering of animals of all kinds, 
 as well as of fruits of all kinds, is still a practical com- 
 mentary on the pretended comprehension of all sacrifice 
 in the offering of the simple rice-cake. 
 
 The world of India is a microcosm in itself, and 
 almost every ethical conception which has presented 
 itself to the imagination of our Western peoples has 
 passed through the mind of these Orientals also. But 
 the intellectual masters of the modern world are emi- 
 nently the Greeks and the Romans. From them we 
 have inherited or learnt the process of intellectual 
 reasoning, which still makes their thoughts as our 
 thoughts. We can follow out their ideas and appre- 
 ciate them in every point. The mass of literary 
 remains which they have left us puts us in actual 
 possession at this day of the storeswhich they have been 
 accumulating so many ages before us. Accordingly 
 their civilization is essentially our own; thereis no chasm 
 of intellectual discontinuity placed between us and them, 
 as there is between us and the Egyptians and tht Assy- 
 
 360
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 rians of old, and the Hindoos both ancient and modern- 
 There is, however, no fact with which we are more 
 familiar from our early studies than that of the universal 
 use of sacrifice among the Greeks and Romans. From 
 Homer to Juvenal every volume of classical antiquity 
 teems with sacrifice. Throughout the Hellenic world 
 its origin is concealed in the deepest obscurity. The 
 eucharistic, the propitiatory, the expiatory, — all these 
 ideas prevail among the Grecian worshippers, and 
 seem to be intimately blended one with another. What 
 were the primitive objects of sacrifice seems to be no 
 less indeterminable. Aristotle, indeed, hazarded the 
 assertion that the first-fruits of the field were the old- 
 est kind of offering, whilst that of animals belonged to 
 a later usage. But high as this sage's authority ought 
 to be on such a subject, there seems reason to believe 
 that he is speaking rather from vague conjecture than 
 from any scientific deduction from the facts of history 
 accessible to him. The earliest records we possess 
 point to much earlier traditions of human sacrifice ; 
 there is said to be no Grecian city or people on whom 
 the guilt of human sacrifices is not fastened ; and a 
 usage so widespread among them may fairly be 
 reckoned to have had some primitive origin handed 
 down from their common progenitors. The Greeks 
 seem, indeed, from the first to have most fully em- 
 braced the common conviction that blood is the seat of 
 the soul and of life, and hence especially acceptable to 
 the Deity, as the highest and best of natural things — 
 
 361
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 the prime and bloom of the whole natural world — 
 fit therefore for a gift to Him, and a token of gratitude 
 for benefits received, if not rather for the propitiation 
 of His favour, or in deprecation of His wrath and 
 judgment. For blood, again, from its close connexion 
 with human passions, might be regarded as the seat 
 and root of sin, and by blood the guilt of sin might 
 seem most naturally to be capable of redemption. 
 Whether the sacrifice of human blood was an enhance- 
 ment of the price paid by the blood of animals, or 
 whether the blood of animals was regarded as a sub- 
 stitute, accepted by the indulgence of the gods for 
 the extreme penalty of human life, is a question which 
 must ever remain historically undetermined. 
 
 What has been here said of the Hellenic use of 
 Sacrifice may be advanced equally of the Roman. 
 The diversities of ritual among these two peoples, 
 whose religious ideas sprang generally from some com- 
 mon origin, can be of little importance on the present 
 occasion. But the point to which I would lead you is 
 the effect of Greek and Roman civilization, at its high- 
 est point of progress, upon the primitive idea which we 
 have had placed before us. The advance of culture 
 and refinement, the progress of the arts, the dissemi- 
 nation of general intelligence, the growth of humanity, 
 seem clearly to have had no effect in weakening this 
 primary idea of the necessity of sacrifice for communion 
 with the Deity, for propitiation, or expiation of sin. 
 
 What these were at the first, obscurely indicated as 
 
 362
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 they are by the earliest dawn of historical light, the 
 same they seem to have remained. Take, for instance, 
 the period of the upper Roman empire, the period 
 when the refinements of the Hellenic world were 
 most widely and most fully developed. We do not 
 find that the practice of sacrifice was in any degree 
 abated. On the contrary : the accumulation of wealth, 
 the profusion of expense, the enhancement of luxury 
 and self-indulgence, all contributed to make sacri- 
 fice more universal and more extravagant than ever. 
 Thus Julius Caesar, on the morning of his assassination, 
 slaughtered one hundred victims — so runs an almost 
 contemporary story — in the desperate endeavour to 
 obtain the genuine tokens of an atonement, which the 
 entrails of the victim were required to present. It was 
 calculated that on the death of Tiberius, when all the 
 world was madly rejoicing at the accession of Caligula, 
 a hundred and sixty thousand victims were offered 
 throughout the empire in token of the universal joy. 
 Augustus and Marcus Aurelius required so great a 
 number of beasts for their fanatical services, that it was 
 said first of the one, and the saying was afterwards 
 applied to the other, that all the calves and oxen 
 prayed that they might never return from their cam- 
 paigns, for if Csesar conquered the cattle must be 
 exterminated. When the Emperor Nerva reduced by 
 a decree thenumberof the sacrifices publicly appointed, 
 it was for the special purpose of relieving the state 
 
 finances, the burden upon which had become intolerable. 
 
 36r
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 Many other such instances might be produced to 
 show that the amount of offering increased with the 
 wealth — increased, that is, with the civihzation of 
 Rome. It was never materially checked by any 
 higher and more philosophic views of the futility, or 
 even the impiety, of the common idea of Sacrifice, as 
 generally embraced by all the heathen peoples. 
 But we must not suppose that even among the 
 heathens the doctrine itself had no intelligent and 
 devoted impugners : the philosophers of the Hellenic 
 world were not untrue to their high calling, and did 
 not scruple to denounce the usage as a sin and an 
 absurdity. We have unfortunately lost the mass of 
 Greek ethical literature between Aristotle and Epicte- 
 tus, which contained probably a more valuable contri- 
 bution to the history of the human mind than any 
 that we have had preserved to us ; but a faint reflection 
 of it at least is preserved in some scattered and desul- 
 tory fragments of the Roman, and from these we learn 
 that a few intelligent thinkers at least, and some intelli- 
 gent schools of thought, maintained a gallant though 
 most unsuccessful battle against the idea which we 
 have seen to have been so generally prevalent. 
 
 Ceremonial religion has its Nemesis ; the human 
 conscience at last rises up and rebels against it ; the 
 doctrine that by ritual observances the favour of the 
 gods may be secured, — that by vows, and lustrations, 
 and sacrifices, of whatsoever kind, this favour, once lost, 
 may be recovered and satisfaction made for all failings 
 
 3H
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 and transgressions, — the fond fancy that the finite 
 may be brought into communion with the Infinite by 
 the mediatory eff'ect of a solemn ceremonial, — this 
 revolts the truly penitent, devout, God-fearing con- 
 science. The reaction against the idea of Sacrifice 
 which we can show to have taken place among the 
 leaders of thought at Rome, — which we may believe, 
 though we have lost the means of tracing it, to have 
 occurred at an earlier period in Greece, — to which I 
 shall presently refer as it manifested itself among the 
 Jews, — was the result and the token of advancing 
 humanity. It was the result of a kindlier culture, a 
 wider observation of man, and a deeper apprehension 
 of the Deity : it was the effect of the later Greek 
 philosophy, of the school of the Academy, and still 
 more of the Porch. But it was quickened and vivi- 
 fied, I believe, by the urgency of public affairs. A 
 period of public affliction is always a season of much 
 personal searching of heart. We can see very plainly 
 how the individual conscience of the Roman was 
 probed to the quick by the trials and sufferings of the 
 civil wars : how his eye was turned inward upon 
 himself by external disaster, and he was driven to the 
 confession of his own weakness and sinfulness in the 
 sight of Heaven. The ethics of Cicero are utterly 
 inconsistent with the idea of the efficacy of Ritual 
 or of Sacrifice. For politic reasons, the philosophic 
 statesman may consent in words to uphold them ; 
 but the inconsistency of his argument, in his book 
 
 365
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 on Laws, for instance, and his book on Moral Duties, is 
 palpable. In the remains of Varro the inconsistency 
 of the position of the political reasoner is even more 
 apparent. Varro does not throw even the decent veil 
 of Cicero over his conclusions, but openly urges his 
 countrymen to maintain the ceremonies and culture 
 of the State religion, while they acknowledge to them- 
 selves that such beliefs are false, and such practices 
 futile. But these were the prophets of the Pagan 
 religion of their day — men far in advance of the 
 popular sentiments — leaders with no doubt a scanty 
 train of followers : men who have left a mark in litera- 
 ture, but failed of any deep recognition from the social 
 history of their age. If their wiser appreciation of the 
 worthlessness of sacrifice was due to the progress of 
 culture in minds of the highest order, we must not fail 
 to notice how superficial and transient was the effect 
 it generally produced. 
 
 While Cicero was elevating morality above dogma, 
 and Varro was upholding the forms of religion as 
 a matter of form only, a more vulgar politician, and a 
 man who was no philosopher at all, the upstart 
 Emperor Augustus, was recalling the people of Rome 
 to the revival of all the ceremonies of their fathers, 
 and rehabilitating the traditions of a blind supersti- 
 tion along with her temples and her sacrifices. All 
 Rome at his instance, and after his example, rushed 
 headlong upon the ancient ways. The philosopher and 
 
 3^6
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 sage reformers were left to their sneers and protests ; 
 the people clutched again at the cherished ideas which 
 an age of unbelief had almost torn from them — and 
 the old world-wide superstition of sacrifice was again 
 diffused with more boundless extravagance than 
 ever. We read the remains of a few enlightened 
 politicians, we compare them with the timid question- 
 ings of popular poets or the fitful declamations of rhe- 
 toricians fresh from the sceptical schools of Athens, 
 and we fancy that light was beginning to dawn 
 at last athwart the thick gloom of the used-up 
 Hellenic religions ; but however these may have 
 become rotten at the core — and in fact they were 
 always rotten — they continued to parade and vaunt 
 themselves in their outward forms and services ; and 
 the use of sacrifice continued to be practised, even 
 more and more, throughout the remaining centuries of 
 heathen Rome. When once and again these outward 
 forms seemed for a moment to be falling, they were 
 revived by fanatical enthusiasts, by a Domftian among 
 tyrants, by an Apollonius, an Aurelius, and a Julian 
 among ideologists. The effect of culture and civi- 
 lization among the Romans — the heirs of the culture 
 and civilization of the Greeks — was, on the whole, to 
 extend rather than to limit the primitive and universal 
 idea of the moral significance of Sacrifice. The history 
 of the later Roman civilization is notably a record of 
 religious revivals, and is in this respect one of the 
 most curious subjects of intellectual study at all times, 
 
 367
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 and perhaps especially so at the present. All these 
 revivals were marked in succession by a more and 
 more vehement recurrence to this great first principle 
 of all heathen religion — the moral significance of 
 Sacrifice. 
 
 There is something painful to contemplate in the 
 mere fact of bloodshed on so large a scale as that 
 which was of not unfrequent recurrence among these 
 polished peoples of antiquity, when hundreds — thou- 
 sands — nay, tens of thousands — of animals of various 
 kinds, the noblest as well as the meanest, were thus 
 done to death on stated and regular occasions. Pos- 
 sibly it is a mere sentiment that is shocked at the 
 death, the painful death, of such multitudes of living 
 creatures ; but it is something more than a sentiment 
 that is outraged by the spectacle of multitudes of 
 human beings brought together to witness these 
 horrors, to rejoice over them, to regard them as a 
 gratification to the all-good and the all-just God, and 
 even a satisfaction to Him for their own sins and 
 transgressions. But this is not all. We must never 
 forget, nor suffer ourselves to put out of sight, the fact 
 that the use of bloody sacrifices has always, with one 
 or two signal exceptions, of which I have presently to 
 speak, been preceded, or accompanied, or followed 
 by its most shocking and terrible outgrowth — the 
 slaying of the human victim. The slaughter of bulls 
 and goats in sacrifice is, of course, innocence itself — 
 innocent in itself, innocent in its consequences and 
 3-3 >
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 effects — compared with the slaughter of men, women, 
 and infants. Yet all heathen religions reek with human 
 blood thus shed ; and the most refined of the nations 
 of antiquity are little more free from it than the rudest. 
 The civilizations of antiquity generally looked back- 
 ward rather than forward. Their golden age was a past, 
 and not a future. They expected no improvement from 
 progressive development, but rather regarded all 
 progress as a decline from a primitive perfection. And 
 accordingly they were always loth to part with any 
 ancient usage, and rather yearned on all occasions for 
 recurrence to the ancient principles. Athens in the 
 age of Pericles or Socrates would hardly have invented 
 or drifted into the sacrifice of human victims ; nor 
 would Rome have done so under Augustus or Hadrian. 
 Even under the commonwealth at Rome there are 
 faint and ambiguous traces of legislation against it; but 
 this was rather a precaution against the use of human 
 blood in magic, than a protest against it as a prin- 
 ciple of religion. Undoubtedly the Grecian mind, even 
 while allowing of the rite, and celebrating it in its most 
 hallowed legends, felt a certain aversion from it, and 
 spoke of it with horror; while the Phoenician peoples 
 seem to have gloated over it with a frantic delight. The 
 Greeks, and particularly the Athenians, devised various 
 means of evading the practice, even while regarding it 
 as a duty, by the substitution for the human victim of 
 animals, or of mere lifeless images. Yet in spite of 
 the disgust thus indicated, we are said to find traces 
 
 369 24
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 of it throughout almost the whole Hellenic world, in 
 the cultus of almost every god, and in all periods of 
 their independent history. There is no nation, we are 
 assured, of which more numerous or more various 
 human sacrifices are recorded ; and it may be 
 inferred, from the language of Plato, that in the highest 
 stage of Hellenic culture such offerings were still in 
 use among many Grecian peoples. 
 
 There is, however, evidence which cannot be re- 
 butted, that the use of human sacrifice was never 
 entirely extinct in Rome during the continuance 
 of the Pagan empire. Deities there were, to 
 whom on certain occasions such sacrifices had been 
 offered from the earliest times ; and we cannot set 
 aside the indications we receive from various quarters, 
 crowned as they are by express assertions as late as 
 the fourth century, that they were still not unfrequently 
 resorted to, and especially in times of public emergency. 
 Both in Greece and Rome such rites were used for 
 the expiation of public rather than of private sins, 
 and the conciliation of the gods to the interests not 
 of the individual, but of the nation. The numerous 
 stories of human sacrifices, some of them of the most 
 wholesale description, by Julius Caesar, and Augustus 
 and Sextus Pompeius, may be exaggerated, but must 
 not be set aside. " The Greek and the Gaul" were 
 buried in the Roman Forum as late as the age of 
 Pliny. The living death of the unchaste Vestal, re- 
 peated for the last time by Domitian, was a religiou> 
 
 370
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 sacrifice rather than a crimnial execution. Hadrian 
 deemed it necessary to legislate against human sacri- 
 fices, as in use in the middle of the second century. 
 Yet this edict did not prevent the sacrifices of Corn- 
 modus, Didius, Caracalla, Valerian, Aurelian, and other 
 later emperors, down to the time of Julian the Apostate. 
 These rites were, indeed, in many cases connected 
 with magical practices rather than the public service 
 of the temples ; but even so they testify not the less 
 to the prevailing and, as it might seem, the ineradi- 
 cable conviction of the human heart, that Divine 
 favour may be obtained, and Divine wrath averted, 
 by the shedding of human blood as the choicest of all 
 offerings. One striking instance of this prev-alent 
 feeling shall be mentioned, as standing distinctly apart 
 from all public ceremonial or political significance. In 
 the time of Alarcus Aurelius, Aristides, the rhetorician, 
 on a transient relief from an incurable malady, believed 
 himself to be divinely informed by the god .^sculapius, 
 whose priest he was, that he owed his amendment to 
 the self-devotion of his brother Hermias ; but he was 
 further assured that the cure could not be complete un- 
 less his sister Philumena laid down her life for him also. 
 This sacrifice was accordingly accomplished, and 
 Aristides lived, it seems, to record it with pious grati- 
 tude to the god of medicine. 
 
 These notices give a very slight and meagre sketch 
 of the well-attested prevalence of sacrifice, and even 
 of human sacrifice, throughout the most polished ages 
 
 371
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 of ancient heathen civilization. I have drawn your 
 attention to ages of civilization only, and passed by the 
 multitudinous records of a similar kind, extending 
 over almost all the heathen countries with which we 
 are acquainted in modern times, as well as in ancient. 
 No doubt there are traces of an awakening of the 
 human conscience to the folly and enormity of these 
 practices, under the growing influence of human- 
 ity and culture ; but we see how ineffectual any 
 such reaction has been to eradicate the profound 
 original instinct, and to fortify the heart and judgment 
 against the stress of extraordinary temptation. There 
 is, however, strong evidence that the prpgress of 
 humanity in the Roman Empire was powerfully 
 assisted by the impulse of Christian feeling, even while 
 Christianity itself was despised and persecuted. The 
 light shed by the true religion upon the idea of 
 Sacrifice could not fail to represent the practices of 
 the heathen world in colours odious and intolerable. 
 To trace the Christian idea of Sacrifice we must go 
 far back into history, and revert to the sacrificial 
 system of the Jews disclosed to us in the Levitical law, 
 and patriarchal usage. I need only point out to you 
 the religious significance of all the Jewish sacrifices, 
 admitted by all Christian interpreters as a prefiguring 
 of the future Sacrifice of the Redeemer. This is what 
 we, as Christians, hold ; to us the ritual of the 
 Levitical law, bloody as it is, painful and even re/olt- 
 ing as it must be to the conscience purified and refined
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 by the softening influences of the Gospel, is explained 
 by the reference we believe it to bear to the one great 
 Sacrifice of Christ, offered once for all for the sins of 
 the world. For us, as Christians, even the offering of 
 Isaac by his father, commanded as a trial of faith, but 
 Divinely averted, is humanized and sanctioned to the 
 conscience by the Divine Antitype in which it is 
 ultimately consummated. And this inchoate human 
 sacrifice, be it observed, is the one single instance 
 throughout the revealed history of God's dealings 
 with His people in which any appearance of a Divine 
 sanction is given to the offering of man by man in 
 thanksgiving, in expiation, or in propitiation. Patri- 
 archal usage and the Mosaic law are both wholly 
 free from the taint of human sacrifices. Whether 
 with the general concurrence of our Christian theolo- 
 gians, we regard the sacrifices of the Jews as a pre- 
 paration for the offering of Christ — a prefiguration of the 
 Divine design conceived from the beginning of the 
 world — or whether we proceed further to give them a 
 more secular interpretation, and admit them as a 
 Divine economy, making use of existing human ideas 
 for Divine purposes, and winking in Divine omni- 
 science at the times of man's ignorance, — ^this great 
 fact, this singular fact remains, that of all the great 
 mass of ancient religions, Judaism seems to stand alone 
 in its entire rejection of the most cruel and odious of 
 human enormities. Derived themselves from the 
 Semitic stock, of which all other off-shoots have been 
 
 373
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 prolific of these bloody horrors — placed in the midst of 
 the man-slaying tribes of Canaan — drawing their 
 luxuries and refinements from the child-burning 
 votaries of Moloch, the flower of the Phoenician 
 civilization — the Jews kept themselves untainted 
 throughout with the slightest trace of devotion to the 
 unhallowed offering of man by man. The Sacrifice of 
 Jesus Christ, in as far as it can be compared with the 
 human sacrifice of which we have been speaking, 
 stands alone in Jewish history. The idea which it 
 represents is the consummation of the idea of Sacrifice 
 as realized in the offerings of fruits and flowers and 
 and the life of animals ; but it does not represent, and 
 no secular interpretation can allege that it w^as 
 developed out of, the practice of human bloodshed- 
 ding. 
 
 One word more about the persistency of the idea 
 of Sacrifice, and the instinctive origin which it seems 
 so strongly to indicate. As with the Greek and Roman 
 civilizations, so with the Jewish. In each case, at a 
 certain corresponding era of culture and refinement, 
 the conscience of the votary was smitten with the sus- 
 picion, ripening into conviction, that the practice of 
 sacrifice could have no real power with God. The 
 prophets among the Jews preached the same doctrine, 
 regarding it as the philosophers among the Greeks and 
 Romans. " For thou desirest not sacrifice," says the 
 Psalmist, " else would I give it Thee : Thou delightest 
 not in burnt-offerings. The sacrifice of God is a 
 
 374
 
 FAG AN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 troubled spirit ; a broken and a contrite heart, O God» 
 shalt Thou not despise." " And Samuel said, Hath 
 the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacri- 
 fices as in obeying the voice of the Lord ?" "To 
 what purpose," says Isaiah, "is the multitude of 
 thy sacrifices unto Me ? saith the Lord. I am full of 
 the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, 
 and I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs." 
 Many more such passages may be cited, but none, 
 perhaps, so strong as that of the prophet Jeremiah, 
 which seems in words actually to deny the Divine 
 institution of sacrifice at all : " For I spake not unto 
 your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I 
 brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning 
 burnt-offerings or sacrifices. But this thing commanded 
 I them, saying. Obey My voice, and I \\'ill be your 
 God, and ye shall be My people." It was on the 
 strength, perhaps, of this stout assertion that Chry- 
 sostom, among the Christian Fathers, declared that' 
 sacrifices Avere not ordained by God ; while Tertullian 
 represents them as an economy whereby the God of 
 Israel withheld His chosen people from the idolatry of 
 the surrounding Heathens ; and Iren^us argues that 
 they served simply as figures of the one Christian 
 sacrifice, and had no force in themselves. 
 
 Even among the devouter Jews these denunciations 
 were held to indicate that the Levitical sacrifices 
 might relieve men from legal impurities and temporal 
 punishments, but had no reference to the future and 
 
 375
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 the spiritual. But, under whatever excuse, the fact 
 remains the same, that the glosses of the prophets con- 
 tinued to be generally a dead letter only. As with 
 the Greeks and Romans, so with the Jews, the ex- 
 posure of the futility of sacrifice had no real effect in 
 checking the practice, or diverting the incurable pro- 
 pensity of mankind towards it. With the stirring lan- 
 guage of Isaiah and Jeremiah and all the rest in their 
 ears, the Jews still brought their bulls and lambs to 
 the altar, year by year continually. Down to the period 
 of our Lord's ministry there was no cessation of the 
 stream of sacrificial blood in the Temple. Our Lord 
 Himself did not scruple to accede to the usage of the 
 people, and allowed His Apostles to prepare for Him 
 the Paschal Supper. As long as the Temple of Jeru- 
 salem remained standing, the sacrifices of the Holy 
 Place bore witness to the solemn observance of the 
 law of Moses, and to the one great predominant idea 
 of Sacrifice, common to the Jews with all the Heathen 
 nations. 
 
 A scholar of deep and various learning, but of more 
 learning than penetration, and more penetration per- 
 haps than candour, — I mean the great historian Gibbon, 
 — has pointedly remarked of the religion of Mahomet, 
 that it demands neither a priesthood nor sacrifice. 
 He aims, of course, a double back-handed blow at the 
 Christian religion and the Jewish, Of the first of 
 these covert sneers it is not my business now to speak, 
 though, sneer though it be, it might not be difficult to 
 
 376
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 refute it. But the other admits of a double reply. In 
 the first place, the religion of Mahomet is in some 
 important features a very ape of the Jewish and the 
 Christian, and embraces no small portion of the tradi- 
 tions and the usages of the earlier systems, on the 
 outskirts of which it was conceived and brought into 
 being. As with the fall of the Temple and the cessa- 
 tion of the cultus of the Temple, the sacrificial 
 ritual of the Jews came to a sudden end, or continued 
 to be but faintly and fitfully observed ; as with the 
 sacrifice of the death of Christ — itself a mere figure of 
 a sacrifice — the use of sacrifice ceased for the Christian 
 Church, except in figures, entirely and for ever ; so we 
 might well expect that the Mahometan religion should 
 form an exception to the rule which we have seen to 
 have been hitherto universal, and that among the 
 Mahometans the idea of Sacrifice should be fully and 
 permanently abolished. But it is not so. The remark 
 of Gibbon is far too sweeping. Mahometanism has 
 its sacrifices, although it may have no regular priest- 
 hood. The Koran itself is said to contain no specific 
 injunction of the rite ; the outward cultus of Islam is 
 limited to prayer and fasting, and ablution and 
 pilgrimage. But the Koran does undoubtedly assume 
 the existence of sacrifice as an ancient and pious 
 usage, and attaches to it a grace and a blessing. And 
 again, though the Prophet may have abstained from 
 distinctly enjoining it, there is no question of the pre- 
 valence and strict obligation, even to this day, of the 
 
 377
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 actual practice. Sacrifice is universally acknowledged 
 by Mussulmans as a duty and a meritorious act, with an 
 expiatory virtue attaching to it. The Grand Caliph 
 sacrifices a camel annually at Ispahan as an act of 
 national expiation. The descendant of the Great Mogul 
 at Delhi has made in our day a similar offering. The 
 popular ceremony of the Buckra Eed takes place at a 
 ^reat Mahometan festival in the autumn of every year, 
 when a goat is sacrificed, like the scapegoat of the 
 Israelites, to bear the sins of the people. We may 
 remember the anxiety with which the recurrence 
 of this festival was regarded during the Mutiny in 
 India, lest it should prove the occasion of a fanatical 
 outbreak among the Mahometan population. Dean 
 Stanley reminds us, in his lectures on the Eastern 
 Church, how the traveller Burkhardt could only enter 
 Petra in Arabia under the pretext of sacrificing on 
 the tomb of Aaron. The railroad from the Danube to 
 the Black Sea was inaugurated within the last few 
 years by the sacrifice- of two sheep. But, finally, " the 
 vast slaughter of victims at Mecca is the only scene now 
 existing in the world " — so Dean Stanley continues — 
 "that recalls the ancient sacrifices of the Jew and the 
 Pagan," that is, I would say in its extent; but the reli- 
 gion of the Hindoos still retains, as we have seen, and 
 devoutly cherishes the principle. I will only add that, 
 faithful as the outcast child of Hagar to its affiliation 
 to the religion of the Hebrews, Islamism has never, 
 I believe, given countenance to the idea, so prevalent 
 as we have found it elsewhere, of Human Sacrifice. 
 
 378
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 It is enough for my present purpose to point out 
 the universality, as I venture to call it, of the idea of 
 Sacrifice among the nations of the heathen world, 
 with whom I must also comprehend the Jewish and 
 the Mahometan; among all nations, I should, perhaps, 
 strictly say, whose religion embraces the idea of 
 thanksgiving, of propitiation, and of expiation ; among 
 all nations actually, with whose blood and lineage 
 Christianity has come in contact. I deal with the 
 bare fact ; I am not concerned now, at least, with the 
 causes or results of this world-wide practice, with the 
 spiritual wants which may be supposed to have sug- 
 gested it, or the effects upon the spiritual life which it 
 may be supposed to have produced. I need not say 
 another word about the horror even of human sacri- 
 fice, which we have seen to have been almost always 
 attendant upon it. I simply point to the historical 
 fact — and I ask the philosophers and the psychologists 
 to account for it — that the idea of Sacrifice has been 
 co-extensive with the heathen religions, and still con- 
 tinues to be spread far and wide among heathen peo- 
 ples; that the progress of civilization and refinement 
 and sensibiUty has had no substantial effect in check- 
 ing it ; that human wit and human wisdom have 
 utterly failed in permanently discrediting it ; so that we 
 seem compelled to regard it as something natural to 
 man — something inherent in his constitution, innate 
 in his very being. Yet from the day that the Gospel 
 of Jesus Christ was preached with power this idea 
 
 379
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 has received a mortal blow. Wherever the religion of 
 Christ has penetrated the sacrificial altars have 
 fallen to the ground — blood has ceased to flow, 
 whether of man or of beast ; even the innocent offer- 
 ings of fruits and flowers have lost all interest and 
 reputed obligation, and no Christian worshipper has 
 ever dreamt of making such offerings in thanksgiving, 
 or in propitiation, or for the expiation of sin. This is 
 a simple historical fact, and, letting alone all its spirit- 
 ual significancy, it may well arrest our attention as 
 such, and demand our reverential admiration. It is 
 evident that a new power has come into the world — a 
 new force has been introduced to contend with the 
 original instincts and impulses of universal manhood. 
 Man has found a new Master ; human nature has come 
 under the influence of the Divine. The Great Being 
 who first placed man upon the earth, Avith certain 
 instincts and aptitudes, and gave him a disposition for 
 the attainment of certain ends by certain means 
 allotted to him, has suddenly, all at once, in a moment's 
 time, refashioned His handiwork, and made this same 
 man amenable to other influences, while he learns to 
 abominate and trample upon the old. 
 
 Strong as such language is, it will not, I feel sure, 
 be found too strong, upon a candid review of the facts 
 which have been alleged. Is there anything parallel 
 in human history to the revolution which has been 
 thus set before you .-• Has any religion or any philo- 
 sophy, has any moral teaching, effected such a 
 
 :.8o
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 victory over human nature ? Has any political training 
 created a new spirit in the heart of man, and relieved 
 it from any one of its innate propensities ? Compare 
 this triumph of Christianity — for such I may surely call 
 it — with the bent which from time to time has been 
 given to human disposition, to thought and practice, 
 by the ethics of Plato or Zeno — by the politics of the 
 Spartans and the Romans — by the religious training 
 of a Mahomet, or, if you please, of a Loyola — by the 
 shrewd logic of a Luther — by the burning fanaticism 
 of a Peter the Hermit. Over and over again have 
 great effects, even some lasting effects, been produced 
 upon the temper of a people, of an age, of a series of 
 generations, by great truths or great falsehoods 
 struck out by the force of human genius. We seem 
 to recognize in them, sometimes, an inspiration from 
 God Himself ; sometimes, perhaps, we interpret them 
 as a delusion of the devil. But in the great moral 
 revolution which has been effected by the Gospel in 
 the suppression of the practice of Sacrifice, in the eradi- 
 cation of the principle of Sacrifice, we discover a work 
 of another type altogether from any of these — an 
 effect reaching far wider — an influence permanent, and, 
 we may well believe, eternal. 
 
 And it is upon the extent and permanence of this 
 revolution that I insist, before I would lead you to the 
 consideration of its intrinsic value — immense as that 
 too may be shown to be — in reply to the question so 
 often advanced by the impugners of Divine revelation, 
 381
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 — the question which, I suppose, all of us, in these 
 days of free discussion and precipitate speculation, 
 have often heard : What great effect has Christianity, 
 after all, produced ? What title does her history give 
 her to the Divine authority and origin which she claims ? 
 Here, I say, is an answer to our hand — one, I think, not 
 the least striking among the many that may be adduced. 
 Here is an effect produced by Christianity, to which I 
 challenge all human history to produce a parallel, in 
 demonstration of her power, and, for the present, of 
 her poiver only. I maintain that there is no evidence 
 of human power elsewhere to be compared with it. It 
 seems to my mind to approach to a new moral creation 
 — a reconstruction of Man's moral nature — which I 
 can account for only by a Divine impulse specially 
 imparted to him. The material Creation, indeed, is 
 now asserted by many to be a mere process of natural 
 evolution — an assertion they have not hitherto substan- 
 tiated. For myself I am bold to deny that even this 
 moral creation, as I have termed it, can be shown to 
 have been naturally evolved — that there is anything in 
 history parallel, anything in moral reasoning analogous, 
 to the sudden and complete extinction of the human 
 idea of Sacrifice from the moment when Jesus Christ, 
 the one real sacrifice for Man, was offered to God upon 
 the cross at Calvary. 
 
 But this evidence of power is not all ; far from it. 
 There remain yet to be traced the evidences of moral 
 effect and moral purpose, in the extinction of this idea, 
 
 382
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 which must combine with it in testimony to a Divine 
 revelation. 
 
 The heading which has been given me for the 
 lecture I have ventured to offer is this :— " What has 
 Christianity done for man individually and socially ? 
 The contrast between Pagan and Christian society." 
 — Now the course I have taken may fairly require 
 some apology, for the license which was accorded to 
 me, of treating my subject in my own way, may seem 
 to have been exceeded by remarks extending only to 
 the abolition of Sacrifice. But I have been really 
 running -^ore nearly within the lines assigned to me 
 than ma, it first sight appear. So wide and manifold 
 a subject can, you will easily see, be treated here in 
 its fundamental principles only. To follow it out in 
 detail would demand a volume, or several volumes. I 
 look, therefore, for some fundamental principle which 
 shall most strikingly mark the external contrast be- 
 tween Paganism and Christianity, and I seem to find 
 none more striking than that which I have now set 
 before you. But I require, further, that this principle 
 shall indicate a moral as well as an outward or social 
 revolution ; and this I find in it also. The Gospel 
 extinguishes the idea of outward Sacrifice — of the 
 offering to God, in thanksgiving, in propitiation, in 
 expiation of sin, the outward objects of man's love 
 and interest, flowers and fruits, and the life of animals, 
 and, above all, the life of man. But the blood of 
 Christ once offered, the Gospel demands self-sacrifice 
 
 383
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 — the sacrifice of patience, resignation, mortification, 
 and even martyrdom. " The Christian esteems it the 
 highest evidence of God's favour that he is counted 
 worthy to suffer for faith, truth, and righteousness." 
 " All sufferings have a general relation to sin, and are 
 so far chastisements, but purifying chastisements, which 
 God sends now as a Father, that He may not inflict 
 them hereafter as a Judge." " Trials are a means of per- 
 fection, and pledge of Divine grace." Such are among 
 the commonplaces of Christian morality ; but I have 
 a pleasure in quoting the words of the illustrious 
 Dollinger, himself an eminent example of patience under 
 trial, himself, if not a martyr, a confessor at least for 
 high and solemn principles of Christian revelation. 
 
 Such, I say, is the fundamental idea substituted for 
 sacrifice by the Gospel. What then, starting from this 
 idea, has Christianity done for man, individually and 
 socially .'' Individually it has taught him the virtue of 
 patience and endurance, enforced by sanctions un- 
 known to the heathen world — sanctions no less strong 
 than those on which the heathen reposed his idea of 
 outward sacrifices. Socially, it has taught him, 
 suffering himself, to sympathise with suffering in 
 others ; it has taught the simple rule, which no force 
 of words can more forcibly express, to do as we 
 would be done by. Mark at a glance the wealth of 
 the new ideas which this simple rule brings, and has 
 brought into operation. Hence the prevailing notion 
 of the unity of mankind — a notion fondly guessed by 
 
 384
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 some sages of antiquity, feebly recommended by poets 
 and rhetoricians — a notion which, under the pressure of 
 circumstances, much more than of conviction, slowly 
 and tentatively introduced itself into the jurispru- 
 dence of a world-welding empire. Hence the aboli- 
 tion — partial even as yet — of deep national distinc- 
 tions : the extinction — incomplete even yet, but 
 marching on inevitably under the banner of Christ- 
 ianity — of the great social crime of slavery. Hence 
 the elevation of woman, and the respect paid uni- 
 versally in words, imperfectly, indeed, but far beyond 
 the highest heathen example, to personal purity, to 
 temperance, soberness, and chastity among Christians. 
 And hence, once more, the progress among us of 
 philanthropy generally, in ever-widening circles — the 
 principle that no man lives for himself, but every man 
 for the benefit of his neighbour — that it is the duty 
 of every Christian, in his sphere, to teach and to 
 preach, to spend and to be spent, as a minister, layman 
 though he be, of one common religion ; — the princi- 
 ple, I repeat, of self-sacrifice, which is the Christian 
 counterpart to sacrifice among the heathen. The sage 
 of early Grecian culture — a Thales, a Pythagoras, a 
 Plato, — went about the world learning, as best he 
 might, truth and wisdom; and therein he recognised a 
 duty. The sage of the later and completer culture of 
 Rome — a Dion Chrysostom, a Musonius, an Apollo- 
 nius — went about teaching and preaching such truth 
 and wisdom as he had acquired ; and he, too, recog- 
 
 385 25
 
 THE CONTRAST BETWEEN 
 
 nized a duty, and acted according to his light. But 
 none of these, if he beHeved in deity at all, was 
 exempt from the degrading influence of superstitions 
 which we Christians have exploded. Socrates, 
 the wisest of the heathen, sacrificed a cock to ^scu- 
 lapius. Aurelius, the most virtuous of the heathen, 
 slaughtered his hecatombs to Jupiter. None of these 
 conceived the example which Jesus Christ first gave, 
 and which I trust a multitude of His followers have 
 humbly tried to follow — the example which forms in 
 itself the one most striking contrast — the one most 
 significant and most fruitful contrast between Pagan 
 and Christian society — of none of these was it said, 
 of no Pagan that I ever heard of has it been said, or 
 could it be said, " He went about doing good." 
 
 I believe, then, that the contrast between Pagan and 
 Christian society lies mainly in the development of the 
 principle of Self-sacrifice. To prove and illustrate this 
 position in vindication of our Christian belief would 
 require, as I have said, the space of a volume rather 
 than of a lecture. Whether I may have an opportu- 
 nity of carrying out the argum.ent, such as I have 
 sketched it, here or elsewhere on future occasions, I 
 will not pretend to anticipate. I have yet to learn 
 whether the foundation we have this day laid is 
 deemed sufficient to bear the noble superstructure, as 
 I venture to call it, which I have indicated only in a 
 feeble outline. I trust at least, that what has been 
 said will not be wholly thrown away, but will have led 
 
 386
 
 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. 
 
 some here present to views and considerations of no 
 little importance towards maintaining the sacred object 
 we have all, I hope, at heart, the defence of the Truths 
 
 Df Christianity. s 
 
 387
 
 THE FORCE IMPARTED 
 
 EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 MANNER IN WHICH A NUMBER OF 
 
 DISTINCT LINES OF PROOF CONVERGE 
 IN A COMMON CENTRE. 
 
 BENJAMIN SHAW, Esq., 
 
 BARRISTER AT-LAW, M.A., LATE FELLOW OF TRINITV COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
 
 THK FORCE IMPARTED TO 
 THE 'EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 FROM THE MANNER IN WHICH 
 
 DISTINCT LINES OF PROOF CONVERGE IN A 
 COMMON CENTRE. 
 
 IF 1 had thought that in comhig here to-day I 
 should appear to assume the office of a teacher, 
 I should have hesitated long before accepting the' 
 invitation of the committee. But I hope I may 
 rather be allowed to consider that we are simply 
 about to spend an hour in inquiring together into the 
 most important subject that can occupy the attention 
 of responsible beings. 
 
 Bishop Butler has said "that the speculative diffi- 
 culties in which the evidence of religion is involved, 
 may make even the principal part of some persons' 
 trial." He explains this by saying that "as the chief 
 temptations of the generality of the world are the 
 ordinary motives to injustice or unrestrained plea- 
 sure ; or to live in the neglect of religion from that 
 frame of mind which renders many persons almost 
 
 391
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 without feeling as to anything distant, or which is not 
 the object of their senses: so there are other persons 
 without this shallowness of temper, persons of a 
 deeper sense as to what is invisible and future, who 
 not only see, but have a general practical feeling, that 
 what is to come will be present, and that things are 
 not less real for their not being the objects of sense, 
 and who from their external condition may have 
 small temptations to behave ill, small difficulty in 
 behaving well, in the common course of life." 
 
 Hence he considers that " what constitutes, what 
 chiefly and peculiarly constitutes the probation in all 
 senses of some persons, may be the difficulties in 
 which the evidence of religion is involved; and the'r 
 principal and distinguished trial may be, hoXv the)' 
 will behave under and with respect to those 
 difficulties." * 
 
 These words seem to me not less true now than 
 when they were first written. It may be they are 
 even more so. As there are individuals, so also there 
 are generations for whom peculiar trials are appointed. 
 Possibly what Butler speaks of may be a special trial 
 of this generation. If so, it may not be useless for us 
 to notice how considerately and gently he speaks in 
 this passage of those who are subject to such diffi- 
 culties. His own experience had, no doubt, taught him 
 the difference between honest perplexity and wilful 
 
 * "Analoi^y," p.irt IT., chap. 6 
 392
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 unbelief. It i.s surely very desirable that Christian 
 apologists in our own day should be equally careful to 
 recog"uizfi this distinction. 
 
 Our subject to-day is, "The force imparted to the 
 evidence of Christianity from the manner in which a 
 number of distinct lines of proof converge in a common 
 centre." 
 
 It has been usual to treat this subject by showing 
 that the final result of various great lines of argument 
 is the same — that by whichever of several great roads 
 we travel we arrive ultimately at the same destina- 
 tion. I shall have something to say presently on this 
 view of the subject, but I desire, in the first place, to 
 draw attention to the fact, that what is true of the 
 grar.d result is true also of the successive minor stages 
 on the road to that result. I shall seek to show that 
 in very many cases the arguments which converge to 
 the same final conclusion are themselves made up of 
 applications of the same principle of convergent proof 
 on a smaller scale. 
 
 To begin at the beginning : the first point may be 
 said to be the trustworthiness of the records on which 
 Christianity is based. 
 
 This trustworthiness obviously depends on two 
 things : — 
 
 1. Were they a trustworthy account of events when 
 first written } 
 
 2. Have they been handed down to us in their 
 original condition without substantial alteration } 
 
 393
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTIFORTI/LVFSS OF 
 
 We will begin with the second, because, though 
 historically later, it is logically prior. If the records 
 as we have them are not in a trustworthy condition, 
 we can derive no benefit from what they may have 
 been in their original state. 
 
 I say, then, that the Christian Records have been 
 handed down under such circumstances as afford a 
 guarantee for the substantial genuineness of the text, 
 greater in some respects than can be produced for 
 any other writings of ancient times. 
 
 The copies of the New Testament (says Mr. 
 Scrivener) "yet existing in manuscript, and dating 
 from the fourth century of our era downwards, are far 
 more numerous than those of the most celebrated 
 writers of Greece or Rome. Such as have been 
 already discovered and set down in catalogues are 
 
 hardly fewer than two thousand On the other 
 
 hand, manuscripts of the most illustrious classic poets 
 and philosophers are far rarer, and comparatively 
 modern. We have no complete copy of Homer him- 
 self prior to the thirteenth century, though some con- 
 siderable fragments have been recently brought to 
 light, which may plausibly be assigned to the fifth 
 century; while more than one work of high and de- 
 served repute has been preserved to our times only 
 in a single copy. 
 
 " Now the experience we gain from a critical ex- 
 amination of the few celebrated MSS. that survive, 
 should make us thankful for the quality and abundance 
 
 3^4
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CnRISTIANITY. 
 
 of those of the New Testament. These last present 
 us with a vast and almost inexhaustible supply of 
 materials for tracing the history, and upholding (at 
 least within certain limits) the purity of the sacred 
 text: every copy, if used diligently and with judgment, 
 will contribute somewhat to these ends. So far is the 
 copiousness of our stores from causing doubt or per- 
 plexity to the genuine student of Holy Scripture, that 
 it leads him to recognize the more fully its general 
 integrity in the midst of partial variation. What 
 would the thoughtful reader of ^schylus give for the 
 like guidance through the obscurities which vex his 
 patience and mar his enjoyment of that sublime 
 poet } " * 
 
 Here then at once we find an illustration of our 
 principle. We have the double advantage both of 
 o/der MSS. and of a greater number of MSS. than in 
 the case of profane authors. You will observe that 
 these two advantages are by no means identical, nor 
 does the one imply the other. We might have pos- 
 sessed a very limited number of MSS. of great 
 antiquity, or a very large number of MSS. of recent 
 date. As a fact, we have both, and our text is the 
 result of careful deductions founded hotJi on the an- 
 tiquity and on the number of our copies. 
 
 Again : in taking the latter point alone, viz., the 
 number of our copies, we have a striking example of 
 
 • Scrivener's " Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament," 
 p. 3. Camb., 1S61. 
 
 395
 
 FEOOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 convergent proof. So far as it is founded on the 
 multiplicity of MSS. which uphold it, our text is 
 clearly the result of a proof derived from a number 
 of witnesses all speaking the same, or nearly the same, 
 thing. 
 
 Again : for the authentication of the correctness of 
 our received text (I am speaking of course of its 
 broad and substantial features) we have another and 
 a wholly independent class of witnesses. 
 
 The Fathers of the Church were in the habit of 
 making frequent quotations from Scripture in their 
 works. These works are in our hands in great num- 
 bers, and it is obvious that had it been possible to 
 falsify the texts of our Bibles, the most industrious 
 corrupter could not have tracked out all the citations 
 that lie scattered up and down in the writings of 
 Christian antiquity. These, therefore, form an ad- 
 ditional security, and a security possessed by the 
 Christian K ecords in a degree far beyond that of other 
 writings. There have never been writings which have 
 been so copiously quoted, by so many persons, and 
 under such different conditions. This line of proof, 
 then, is strictly independent of that afforded by biblical 
 MSS., and the two converge in support of our present 
 Scriptures. 
 
 But it may be said that the Fathers were partisans, 
 and that their citations are not to be relied on. 
 
 This argument is somewhat unreasonable. It really 
 cannot avail to shake the great outlines of Scripture 
 
 396
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 to which the Fathers give their attestation, whatever 
 force may be assigned to it as to smaller points. 
 
 But assuming it to be reasonable, I desire to point 
 out that we have other and completely independent 
 sets of witnesses to check and balance the former. 
 
 We have good evidence that our present Scriptures 
 were referred to not only by the orthodox, but by 
 heretics, and we cannot but see that each party must 
 have acted as a spy on the other, to detect error and 
 fraud. 
 
 Nay, more, we know that not only Christians but 
 heathens dealt with the documents on which Chris- 
 tianity is founded. Celsus Porphyry, and Julian (as 
 may be seen in Paley's Evidences), in their controver- 
 sies with Christians attacked the early records of the 
 religion. And from the nature of those attacks there 
 is room to perceive that the Records in question were 
 substantially the same as those which we now have in 
 our hands.* 
 
 Once more : versions were made in comparatively 
 early times of the Christian Scriptures. Many such 
 are in our possession, and these also show that the 
 originals from which they were translated were iden- 
 tical with our present sacred books in all main points. 
 
 Now you will observe, that it by no means followed 
 that because the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles 
 happen to be extant in MSS. unusually ancient and 
 
 * See the observations of Norton on one doubtful passage of Celsus. 
 "Genuineness of Gospels," vol. i, p. 63. 
 
 397
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 unusually numerous, therefore they would also be the 
 subject of quotation to a remarkable extent by friends, 
 still less by foes. Nor was it a consequence flowing 
 from any or all of these circumstances that they should 
 have been translated at an early period into various 
 languages. 
 
 These then are separate lines of proof, all tending 
 in a greater or less degree to establish the substantial 
 identity of the New Testament, as we have it, with 
 the Books as originally written. And so many, and 
 such forcible lines of proof, do not exist for other 
 writings. 
 
 One more point still demands notice. The style 
 and language of the New Testament are of themselves 
 evidence of its date and authorship. Bishop Marah 
 has not hesitated to state this in the most decided 
 terms. He says, " The language of the New Testa- 
 ment is precisely such as we might expect from the 
 persons to whom the several parts of it are ascribed. 
 But we may go further, and assert, not only that the 
 language of the Greek Testament accords with the 
 situation of the persons to whom it is ascribed, but 
 that it co2ild not have been used by any person or per- 
 sons who were in a different situation from that of the 
 Apostles and Evangelists. It was necessary to have 
 lived in the first century, and to have been educated 
 in Judea, or in Galilee, or in some adjacent country, 
 to be enabled to write such a compound language as 
 that of the Greek Testament. Unless some oriental 
 
 398
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 dialect had been familiar to the persons who wrote 
 the several books of the New Testament, they would 
 not have been able to write that particular kind of 
 Greek by which those books are distinguished from 
 every classic author. Nor would this kind of lan- 
 guage have appeared in the several books of the 
 New Testament even though the writers had lived in 
 Judea, unless tliey had lived also in the same age 
 with the Apostles and Evangelists. Judea itself 
 could not have produced in the second century the 
 compositions which we find in the New Testament. 
 The destruction of Jerusalem, and the total subver- 
 sion of the Jewish state, introduced new forms and 
 new relations, as well in language as in policy. 
 The language, therefore, of a fabrication attempted 
 in the second century would have borne a different 
 character from that of writings composed in the same 
 country before the destruction of Jerusalem."* 
 
 And even if any should doubt the possibility 
 of assigning the date quite so peremptorily as is 
 here done by Bishop Marsh from considerations of 
 language alone, they will certainly not dispute that 
 these considerations do at all events determine the 
 time approximately and within certain unmistakable 
 limits. 
 
 And the result is, that we have an independent 
 species of evidence that the text of the New Testa- 
 ment, as we have it, indicates an origin, both in place 
 
 • Bishop Marsh's Lectures, part v., pp. 88-90. 
 399
 
 PJiOOFS OF THE TRUi^TWORTHINESS OF 
 
 and time, which is quite in harmony with what is 
 ascribed to it on external grounds. 
 
 We come now to the other point — the trustworthi- 
 ness of the records in respect of what they state. 
 
 It has often been observed that in this point of 
 view the force of the argument is weakened by our 
 habit of looking at the Bible as one book. However 
 proper this may be in another aspect, we must for 
 our present purpose look at it as, what it originally 
 was, a collection of pieces by different writers. It is 
 thus alone that we perceive the force imparted to the 
 statements by the fact that they are made by several 
 distinct authorities. 
 
 But before going further it may be expedient that 
 we should devote a few moments to ascertain the 
 opinion of competent judges as to the weight which 
 testimony acquires when the facts of a case are 
 deposed to by several independent witnesses. It will 
 be best for this object to take other than theological 
 writers ; and none can be better than those whose 
 profession requires them continually to sift and try 
 questions of evidence. 
 
 I take then a legal writer of acknowledged autho- 
 rity on the theory of evidence, and I find him 
 putting the force to be derived from coincidence in 
 the testimony of independent witnesses in the strong- 
 est form. 
 
 He even cites with approbation the proposition that 
 " in a number of concurrent testimonies, where there 
 
 400
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 has been no previous concert, there is a probabihty 
 distinct from what may be termed the sum of the 
 probabilities resulting from the testimonies of the 
 witnesses ; a probability which would remain even 
 though the witnesses were of such a character as to 
 merit no faith at all. This probability arises purely 
 from the concurrence itself. That such a concurrence 
 should spring from chance is as one to infinite ; that 
 is, in other words, morally impossible. If therefore 
 concert be excluded, there remains no cause but the 
 reality of the fact." 
 
 And he quotes an observation of Lord Mansfield in 
 respect to an old decision reported by two several 
 reporters, neither of whom merited much confidence. 
 Lord Mansfield said, " It is objected that the books 
 are of no authority ; but if both the reporters were 
 the worst that ever reported, if substantially they 
 report a case in the same way, it is demonstrative of 
 the truth of what they report, or they could not 
 agree."* 
 
 It is needless to remark at any length how much 
 this principle of the weight due to concurrent testimony 
 is intensified when each witness deserves fair credit 
 in himself. In such a case the resulting probability 
 of truth is not the sum of the separate probabilities 
 that the witnesses taken separately are speaking the 
 truth, but the product of these probabilities ; a prin- 
 ciple of calculation which shows how vastly the addi- 
 
 * Taylor on Evidence, vol. i., p. 75 (5th edition). 
 
 401 26
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTirORTHIXESS OF 
 
 tion of each fresh witness increases the credibihty of 
 what is deposed to,* 
 
 And Paley is, no doubt, right in the observation 
 that the corroboration derived from the concurrence 
 of witnesses goes beyond the mere particulars in 
 which they actually coincide. 
 
 " A principal witness in a cause," he says, " delivers 
 his account : his narration, in certain parts of it, is 
 confirmed by witnesses who are called afterwards. 
 The credit derived from their testimony belongs not 
 only to the particular circumstances in which the 
 auxiliary witnesses agree with the principal witness, 
 but in some measure to the whole of his evidence ; 
 because it is improbable that accident or fiction should 
 draw a line which touched upon truth at so many 
 points."t 
 
 But it will be said that in the evidence for the 
 Christian Religion we are dealing, not with legal 
 evidence, such as is treated of by jurists, but to some 
 extent at least with second-hand evidence. % It be- 
 comes therefore necessary to see whether any quali- 
 fications ought in fairness to be introduced on this 
 account. 
 
 The point is of importance, because a person of 
 sceptical mind will often ask you whether you think 
 
 * See Best on "The Principles of the Law of Evidence," p. 405 
 (4th edition). 
 
 + " Horce Paulinre," chap. v. 
 X See, for instance, Luke i. i — 4. 
 402
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 such evidence as you are relying on in support of 
 Christianity would ever prevail in a court of law. 
 
 In legal proceedings (it may be urged) we usually 
 admit only the evidence of eye-witnesses. We cannot 
 restrict ourselves to such evidence in the history of 
 Christianity. 
 
 Again, we apply in trials at law the test of cross- 
 examination, to ascertain whether the witnesses are 
 really independent or are confederates. This also is 
 beyond our power when we deal with witnesses who 
 are no longer living. 
 
 The objection, I may observe, is a very thorough- 
 going one. It tells against history in general, for 
 there are few histories that have not very extensively 
 to rely on evidence at second-hand. But in truth 
 there is something a little misleading in the contrast 
 thus sharply drawn between history and law. The 
 distinction ought rather to be made between inquiries 
 into contemporary matters and inquiries into past 
 ages. On the one hand, there is such a thing as 
 contemporary history ; and such history has in some 
 cases been written by persons who were themselves 
 eye-witnesses of what they narrate. On the other 
 hand, law has frequently to deal with past days, as 
 in cases of pedigrees extending over several genera- 
 tions, or in the trial of ancient customs. And in these 
 cases law, like history, can but take the best evidence 
 in its power. Accordingly entries in Family Bibles, 
 inscriptions on tombstones, the declarations of de- 
 
 403
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 ceased persons, statements found in old deeds and 
 documents, become of necessity (within certain limits) 
 admissible evidence. 
 
 The objection to derivative or second-hand evidence 
 in connection with recent events is not so much that it 
 is necessarily untrustworthy, as that in such cases 
 evidence at first hand is ordinarily procurable. 
 Hence, when a litigant keeps it back, and tenders 
 only what is derivative, he raises a presumption 
 against himself that he is suppressing the testimony 
 of the original witnesses from a fraudulent motive. 
 
 This presumption disappears when the primary 
 evidence is no longer to be obtained. 
 
 History, in fact, when dealing with past ages has 
 securities of its own. 
 
 " The tribunal of posterity " (says a philosophical 
 writer) " differs immensely from all others ; for it is 
 one of unlimited jurisdiction, both judicial and in- 
 quisitorial ; it is ever sitting, ever investigating, ever 
 judging : barred by no prescription, bound by no 
 estoppel, and responsible to no human authority. 
 The securities for the truth of the records and tradi- 
 tions of the past which time has brought down to us, 
 consist in the multitude of sources to which they can 
 be traced, the large number of persons whose interest 
 it has been to preserve them from oblivion and corrup- 
 tion ; above all, ^h^ permanent effects of events, visible 
 in the shape of monuments and other pieces of real 
 evidence, customs, ceremonies, and the like; and 
 
 404
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 finally, the actors in the scene having passed away, 
 there is rarely either opportunity or interest to fabri- 
 cate evidence in furtherance of their views or justifica- 
 tion of their conduct." 
 
 This writer therefore treats it as a fallacy to suppose 
 that historical evidence, because of a derivative or 
 second-hand nature, is necessarily weaker than legal 
 evidence. 
 
 "The fallacy," he says, "consists in treating each 
 generation as one single person, by whom a bare rela- 
 tion of the fact has been handed down to the next, 
 and not as consisting of a number of persons inte- 
 rested in ascertaining its truth ; besides wholly over- 
 looking the corroborative proofs supplied by perma- 
 nent memorials and the acts of men." * 
 
 And he cites the words of Mr. Hallam, who says : 
 "The presumption of history, to whose mirror the 
 scattered rays of moral evidence converge, may be 
 irresistible, when the legal inference from insulated 
 actions is not only technically, but substantially, in- 
 conclusive." + 
 
 It is impossible to state more strongly the principle 
 which we are to-day engaged in discussing. 
 
 But it will still be asked, how shall we ascertain 
 
 * Best's " Principles of the Law of Evidence," pp. 56-58. 
 
 t Hallam's ''Constitutional History of England," vol. ii., p, 106 (7th 
 edition). See further, as to Historical Evidence, chap. vii. of Sir G. C. 
 Lewis's work, "Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics" 
 (London, 1852), and notice his distinction between secondary evidence 
 when contemporary and when non-contemporary. 
 
 405
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 that the witnesses on whom we rely are independent ? 
 For this, as we have seen, is the first requisite, other- 
 wise there is no real concurrence, but mere repetition. 
 Now, in historical evidence we must draw our con- 
 clusions on this point (amongst other things) from 
 a careful analysis of the narratives themselves. This 
 analysis must be so conducted as to ascertain whether 
 one narrative is a mere echo of another, or whether 
 there are those minor variances between them which 
 tend to show that they are derived from different 
 sources, in short, from the reports of different wit- 
 nesses. 
 
 It is at this point that the differences which exist 
 in the accounts of what is manifestly the same event 
 by the respective Evangelists are of so much im- 
 portance. I need not go into them at length, nor 
 does it belong to our special subject to-day to con- 
 sider how they may be reconciled. 
 
 The strange fact is that it apparently escapes the 
 attention of some persons, thai did no such differences 
 exist we should lose our principal means of proving 
 that we have several distinct lines of testimony, and 
 should consequently be disabled from using with 
 effect the argument from their concurrence. 
 
 But it may perhaps be said that, after all, the facts 
 only amount to this, that we have considerable identity 
 in the different Gospels, accompanied by considerable 
 variety; and it may be objected that this does not' 
 nece:;sarily lead to the conclusion that we are dealing 
 
 406
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 with accounts derived from independent witnesses. 
 The facts of the case (it will be urged) may be ex- 
 plained with equal probability by the hypothesis that 
 there was but one original witness, and that the varia- 
 tions are due to the one story having been handed 
 down through different channels, and to its having 
 received legendary corruptions and additions in its 
 course, varying in each case according to the particular 
 channel through which it came down. 
 
 Now there are various observations which may be 
 made in reply to this objection.* 
 
 The early era at which we know the Gospels to 
 have been promulgated and received does not appear 
 to leave time for legendary interpolations to have 
 been made to such an extent as the argument re- 
 quires.f Again, the variations between the Gospels 
 often consist of additions which are wholly contrary 
 to what the legendary spirit would have framed. 
 Thus, for instance, the additional passages given in 
 one Gospel and not in another are frequently found to 
 place the Apostles in a discreditable light in regard to 
 want of faith, or in other respects, and as the object 
 of legends is generally to magnify the leaders of the 
 movement, it is obvious that there could be little 
 temptation to add episodes of such a character to the 
 original story. 
 
 * Besides the observations here offeitd, the arguments in Norton's 
 " Genuineness of the Gospels," part i>, should by all means be studied. 
 
 t See Tischendorfs ' ' When were our Gospels Written ? " English 
 edition. Religious Tract Society, London, 1867. 
 
 407
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 Then, again, they frequently introduce gratuitous 
 difficulties (I mean, gratuitous if they had not actually 
 occurred), which sometimes necessitate explanations 
 in the passage itself. As an example I may refer to 
 the last chapter of St. John (which narrates what is 
 not found elsewhere), where the words, " If I will that 
 he tarry till I come, what is that to thee.^" are stated 
 to have given rise to a tradition, which the writer felt 
 bound to go out of his way to correct. In fictitious 
 writings men are not wont gratuitously to create 
 stumbling-blocks for the sake of afterwards removing 
 them. 
 
 Or again, they contain admissions prima facie un- 
 favourable to the cause, which a legendary spirit 
 would hardly have inserted. As, for instance, the 
 statement that on several occasions after the Resur- 
 rection our Saviour was not at first recognized by 
 His disciples. 
 
 Lastly, there is a remark which seems to me 
 deserving of careful consideration. 
 
 Legendary additions made by different classes of 
 persons in different places, and represented by the 
 variations of the several Gospels respectively, would 
 obviously have no connection with each other. De- 
 rived from different minds, and due to distinct causes, 
 they would stand in no mutual relation ; there would 
 be no clue by which to bring them together, because 
 they would be fictitious, and would rest on no 
 common basis of truth.
 
 THE EVIDENCES OE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 On the other hand, in the case of merely incidental 
 differences in accounts derived from various sources,' 
 each of which sources afforded a veracious but in- 
 dependent narrative, there may be usually found 
 points of reunion, so to speak, indications that there 
 is a common ground of reality. Now let us apply 
 this to some of the statements found in one Gospel 
 and not in another. 
 
 St. John gives the raising of Lazarus, which is not 
 told in the other Gospels, but in the course of the story 
 we find traits in the characters of the actors in the 
 scene which are similar to other traits of these characters 
 as depicted elsewhere. Martha, when she hears that 
 Jesus is come, hastily goes forth to meet Him ; while 
 Mary, the more quiescent character, sits still in the 
 house ; but Mary, when at length she is brought out 
 by her energetic sister, falls reverently at His feet 
 weeping — an action which is not recorded of Martha. 
 Even in the solemn scene at the grave, the busy, 
 managing, and (if we may venture so to say) interfer- 
 ing character of the good Martha breaks forth. When 
 the command is given to remove the stone she inter- 
 poses with the well-meant objection, " Lord, by this 
 time he stinketh, for he hath been dead four days." 
 
 Do we not feel intuitively that these characters are 
 
 drawn from the life .'' and are they not identical with 
 
 the Mary of St. Luke, who sits in reverent stillness at 
 
 Jesus' feet, listening to His words, and the active, 
 
 practical Martha, cumbered about much serving, and 
 
 409
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTiVORTl/IXESS OF 
 
 interrupting the discourse to beg that her sister may 
 be commanded to help her in her work ? 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to observe that the raising 
 of Lazarus has been represented as an event of such 
 importance that it could not have been omitted by 
 other historians had they known of it ; and that as 
 they must have known of it if true, it can only be a 
 subsequent invention. In short, it is treated as a 
 positive discrepancy. Now, it is just in this point of 
 view that the minute evidence of consistency in the 
 delineation of the finer traits of character is valuable, 
 as indicating that the narrative has just those points 
 of relation with what is told us elsewhere of the family 
 of Bethany which a true story would have, but which, 
 from their delicate nature, would probably be beyond 
 the appreciation of the composer of a mere legendary 
 accretion. 
 
 Again, take the converse, viz., a point stated by St. 
 Luke, omitted by St. John, i.e., the Ascension. 
 
 Suspicion, it may be said, is cast on the statement 
 of St. Luke by the circumstance that this cardinal 
 fact is not narrated by St. John, who must have known 
 it had it happened. True, St. John does not narrate 
 it, but he assumes it. He reports our Saviour as 
 saying, " What and if ye shall see the Son of man 
 ascend up where He was before .''" {lav deoyprjre rov vibv 
 Tov avOpoiirov ava^alvovra), words which point to a 
 visible ascent in the presence of spectators, and are 
 quite inapplicable to a mere inference that our Saviour 
 
 410
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 had ascended to heaven, simply because He had dis- 
 appeared from among men. 
 
 Once more, St. John gives the account of our 
 Saviour's washing the Apostles' feet, which is not 
 given elsewhere. But St. Luke, in his account of the 
 Last Supper, makes our Lord say, " I am among you 
 as one that serveth," which is hardly intelligible 
 except in relation to His having laid aside His gar- 
 ments, and girded Himself with a towel, like a menial 
 slave, as described by St. John. Moreover, St. Luke, 
 by telHng us that there was a strife for pre-eminence 
 among the Apostles (which is not mentioned by St. 
 John), probably gives us the circumstance which occa- 
 sioned our Lord's practical lesson in humility. 
 
 We have been dealing with apparent variations, and 
 have been seeking to show that they do not necessa- 
 rily indicate subsequent unauthentic accretions, but 
 that they may rather perhaps point to that very spe- 
 cies of minor diversity which shows the existence of 
 independent original testimony, and thus entitles us 
 to insist on the argument that we have really distinct 
 lines of proof. 
 
 From this we pass almost insensibly to the coinci- 
 dences which show affirmatively that those lines of 
 proof converge, and this not only in the main topics, 
 but in minor points where coincidence seems beyond 
 the reach of fraud, and cannot be due to chance. 
 
 Thus in St. Mark we have the charge brought against 
 Jesus at his trial that he had said, " I will destroy this 
 
 4"
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRL'STIVORI'I/IXESS OF 
 
 temple made \vith hands, and in three days I will 
 build another, made without hands." St. John does 
 not mention this charge, but he does mention (what is 
 not given by Mark) the language which gave rise to it. 
 " What sign shewest thou us, that thou doest these 
 things .'' Jesus answered and said unto them. Destroy 
 this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 
 Neither historian gives the whole of the information 
 required. Each gives a piece, and the pieces dovetail, 
 and that with such exactness as to indicate to us in 
 what the false witness consisted, viz., in turning 
 " Destroy this temple " into " I will destroy." 
 
 Again, in Matthew xxvi. 6"/, we find the soldiers 
 saying to Christ, " Prophesy who is it that smote 
 thee." What wit or meaning was there in this piece 
 of profanity .'' Why should there be any difficulty in 
 fixing on the smiter .'' St. Matthew leaves us without 
 explanation, but we gather the solution from Luke 
 xxii. 64, where it is mentioned that they had blind- 
 folded the Saviour. 
 
 Such coincidences surety belong to truth. On 
 this head I would earnestly recommend the careful 
 study of Paley's " Horae Paulinae," Blunt's " Un- 
 designed Coincidences," and Birks' "Horae Apos- 
 toHcae." 
 
 The object is to show that the coincidences are real 
 and important, while yet they relate to points so subtle 
 that they could hardly have been invented, and so 
 
 remote from the apprehension of any ordinary reader 
 
 412
 
 THE EVIDENCES OE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 that it would never have been worth while to invent 
 what not one in a million would perceive. 
 
 It is of course impossible to display in a single 
 lecture the force of such an argument. It depends 
 wholly on a comparison of many small particulars in 
 a 'argc number of instances. But to show the power 
 A'hich it exerts on practical minds, I may venture to 
 mention an anecdote. I was recently speaking on the 
 subject of perjury in courts of law with a friend who 
 holds a judicial ofifice, and he expressed his conviction 
 that the evidence on which most dependence was 
 often to be placed was not that of hardy and direct 
 assertion, but that which received incidental confirma- 
 tion from the putting together of independent circum- 
 stances; "In short," he -said, "the sort of coincidences 
 in Paley's 'Horae Paulinae.'" It is only necessary to 
 add that he referred to Paley merely frotn its appro- 
 priateness to the subject. Paley had not been men- 
 tioned in the conversation, nor had w^e been speaking 
 in the remotest degree of theology. The book was 
 cited simply as an example of the kind of evidence 
 which my friend's practical experience had led him to 
 consider as the most convincing. And the merttion 
 of Paley's work leads me to observe that the coinci- 
 dences in question exist not merely between the 
 Gospel narratives, but between the Acts and the 
 Epistles, and this in the most recondite and, at the 
 same time, inartificial manner. Such coincidences 
 are very forcible, because the Epistles are not pro- 
 
 413
 
 FA'OOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 fessedly historical. They deal with doctrine ; facts 
 and events only come in incidentally. Yet in many 
 instances the agreement is of the most remarkable 
 kind. 
 
 I can now, however, only deal with some broad 
 features in which the Epistles support the Gospel 
 history. 
 
 It, perhaps, has not occurred to everyone that, 
 chronologically speaking, the earliest record of the 
 appearances of Christ after the Resurrection appears 
 to be that given by St. Paul in i Corinthians xv. The 
 Epistle in question is prior in date to any of the 
 Gospels. And it is in substantial harmony with what 
 the Gospels tell us. Yet it is obviously improbable 
 in the highest degree to suppose that the writer of 
 a Gospel had recourse to an Epistle of St. Paul to a 
 church in Greece, in order either to draw his materials 
 thence, or for the purpose of taking care that his own 
 statements were not at variance with those which 
 St. Paul had previously made. 
 
 In fact, the early date at which the Epistles to the 
 Corinthians must have been written show us that 
 the fact of the Resurrection must have formed the 
 substance of the teaching of the first preachers of 
 the new religion from the very first. 
 
 Supposing for a moment that the Gospels and the 
 Acts could be found to have been written at so late a 
 date that unauthentic miraculous stories might have 
 been inserted in them, still, the Resurrection could 
 
 4M
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 have been one of them ; for we have proof that 
 St. Paul preached it from the first, as the fundamental 
 fact of Christianity, the very kernel of the whole 
 system. It could not have been a fiction, invented 
 to give credit to the Gospel which Ee preached ; for 
 without it there was no Gospel for him to preach. " If 
 Christ be not raised, then is our faith vain." 
 
 So again, the First Epistle of Peter speaks of 
 the Resurrection in a way quite in harmony with 
 that apostle's sermons as reported in the Acts. 
 And of the facts of the Resurrection he, if any 
 man, must have been an original witness. Supposing 
 therefore, for the sake of argument, that certain 
 apparent diversities (whether real or not) in the nar- 
 rative of the Resurrection, as given in the respective 
 Gospels, could be shown to detract from the confidence 
 to be placed in these narratives, there would still 
 remain the direct statements of St. Paul and St. Peter, 
 not to mention the clear implications to be found in 
 the Epistle of James. 
 
 Nor must I omit here to mention the support 
 which the statements of miraculous works contained 
 in the Gospel, receive from the testimony of the 
 Acts and Epistles in relation to the performance of 
 such works. Not only do the Acts and Epistles 
 everywhere assume the miracles of our Saviour, but 
 they show by their own testimony that miracles were 
 still wrought. Take for example the remarkable 
 collection of miracles of healing stated to have been 
 
 415
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 wrought by Paul at Melita. These miracles are said 
 to have been performed by a man, of whom all that 
 was known by the population of the island probably 
 was that he was a prisoner being conveyed in legal 
 custody to Rome on some criminal charge, and the 
 fact of the miracles is deposed to by the writer, 
 himself evidently an eye-witness. The unexception- 
 able nature of the evidence, and the absence of 
 predisposing causes for credulity or enthusiasm on 
 the part of the persons healed, are extremely notice- 
 able, and render this case worthy of much 
 attention. 
 
 Again, in St. Paul's letters we have his own state- 
 ment that he wrought miracles. This statement 
 seems to render nugatory the attempt to explain 
 away the narratives, and tends to resolve the ques- 
 tion into the single issue of St. Paul's own veracity, 
 or conscious fraud. The words are found in an 
 Epistle which the most sceptical of modern critics 
 admit to be genuine, viz. 2 Cor. xii. 12, and they 
 seem to be sufficiently explicit. " Truly the signs of 
 an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, 
 in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds." Similar 
 language occurs in another letter of undoubted 
 genuinenesss. In Romans xv. 18, St. Paul says, 
 " I will not dare to speak of any of those things 
 which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make 
 the Gentiles obedient by word and deed, through 
 
 mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit 
 
 416
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of God, SO that from Jerusalem and round about unto 
 Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ." 
 
 The importance of these statements may be seen 
 from the observation of Gibbon as to later miraculous 
 narratives, 
 
 "It may seem somewhat remarkable" (he says) 
 " that Bernard of Clairvaux, who records so many 
 miracles of his friend St. Malachi, never takes any 
 notice of his own, which in their trrn however are 
 carefully related by his companions and disciples. 
 In the long series of ecclesiastical history, does there 
 exist a single instance of a saint asserting that he 
 himself possessed the gift of miracles.'' " * 
 
 If "ecclesiastical history" is here meant to be 
 distinguished from apostolic history, this challenge 
 may possibly be unanswerable; but if it includes the 
 earliest age of Christianity, it seems expressly met 
 by the passages just quoted. 
 
 These passages then we are entitled to rely on 
 as affording a confirmation of the statement of the 
 Gospels that the religion was founded under miracu- 
 lous agency. It is a confirmation found in the letters 
 of a man, who in these letters pours out his whole 
 heart to the persons to whom he writes, and in so 
 doing exhibits a character which the discerning 
 reader will scarcely judge capable of conscious fraud. 
 It is a confirmation afforded, not of set purpose, but 
 Incidentally, and is therefore the more free from sus- 
 
 * "Decline and Fall," chap. xv. 
 
 417 "7
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 picion ; and the nature of the confirmation is this, 
 that if St. Paul wrought miracles, there can be little 
 reason to doubt the accounts of those who say that 
 his Great Master did so. His evidence converges to 
 the same point with that of the Evangelists to this 
 extent, that Christianity had a miraculous origin. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of Testimony it may be 
 well to advert to a remarkable letter from a wholly 
 distinct quarter, that of the heathen Pliny, a witness 
 not to be suspected of partiality. His evidence is 
 confirmatory, at all events, to this extent, that it 
 proves the early faith and habits of the Christians 
 to have been precisely such as would be accounted 
 for on the supposition that the story in the Gospels is 
 true. Pliny, in his famous letter to Trajan, says that 
 the Christians were wont to meet together on a stated 
 day, before it was light, and sing among themselves, 
 alternately, a hymn to Christ as a God. 
 
 This letter introduces another point of convergent 
 evidence. It indicates that acts were done and 
 ceremonies observed in honour of the Author of 
 Christianity ; and this too within a very limited 
 space of time after the events narrated in the 
 Gospels are said to have taken place. And I think 
 it difficult for a candid mind to doubt that what 
 Pliny refers to is the same as that worship of the 
 Christians described by Justin in his Apology, a few 
 years later, as taking place on the first day of the 
 week, and that it to some extent confirms Justin's 
 
 418
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 account. At all events, Justin himself bears witness 
 to the fact that the first day was observed, and that 
 its observation was in memory of the Resurrection. 
 This being so, it falls within the principle laid down 
 in the passage which I quoted just now as to histori- 
 cal evidence. It comes within " the permanent effects 
 of events visible in the shape of monuments and other 
 pieces of real evidence, customs, ceremonies, and the 
 like," which were there spoken of, as you no doubt 
 remember, as a peculiar security for the truth of the 
 records of the past.* 
 
 Thus far we have been travelling along the great 
 highway of historical evidence. In so doing we have 
 found that from time to time along the route junc- 
 tions took place with other paths, which, starting 
 from distant and unconnected points, were found after 
 awhile to fall into the same line. 
 
 We are now to leave the main road, which we have 
 been hitherto pursuing, and to trace the course of 
 other main roads, which, though never coinciding with 
 the one we have just followed, during their course 
 lead ultimately to the same great goal. 
 
 Instead of considering the coincidence of testimony, 
 we shall deal with the consilience of inductions. As 
 before, I shall venture to premise a few words on the 
 recognized force and value in secular investigations of 
 the principle of which we are to speak. It is thus 
 
 * See further on this point Leslie's " Short and Easy Method wita 
 the Deists." 
 
 4^9
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 described by Dr. Whewell, in reference to the induc- 
 tive reasonings of physical science. 
 
 " The evidence in favour of our induction is of a 
 much higher and more forcible character when it 
 enables us to explain and determine cases of a kind 
 different from those which were contemplated in the 
 formation of our hypothesis. The instances in which 
 this has occurred, indeed, impress us with a conviction 
 that the truth of our hypothesis is certain. No acci- 
 dent could give rise to such an extraordinary coin- 
 cidence. No false supposition could, after being 
 adjusted to one class of phenomena, so exactly 
 represent a different class when the agreement was 
 unforeseen and uncontemplated. That rules springing 
 from remote and unconnected quarters should thus 
 leap to the same point* can only arise from tJiat 
 being the point where truth resides." "f- 
 
 He gives as an instance the fact that the force of 
 universal gravitation, which had been inferred from 
 the perturbations of the moon and planets by the sun 
 and by each other, also accounted for the fact, appar- 
 ently altogether dissimilar and remote, of the proces- 
 sion of the equinoxes. 
 
 " Here," he says, "was a most striking and surpris- 
 ing coincidence, which gave to the theory a stamp of 
 truth beyond the power of ingenuity to counterfeit." 
 
 In other words, if a theory which we are led to 
 
 • Hence he applies the name " consilience of inductions." 
 t " rhilos. of Induct. Sciences," vol. ii., p. 230 (edit. 1840). 
 420
 
 THE EVIDEXCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 adopt as the only satisfactory solution of an import- 
 ant class of phenomena, turns out subsequently to be 
 also the only adequate interpretation of another im- 
 portant but wholly distinct class of phenomena, we 
 gain one of the strongest possible proofs that our 
 explanation is tJic trice one. 
 
 It need scarcely be added that if our hypothesis, 
 instead of being found to explain two distinct series 
 of phenomena, should turn out to be the means of re- 
 ducing under the same great principle three, four, five, 
 or more such independent series, the conviction of its 
 truth would rise indefinitely, till it gained a height 
 which would be practically infinite, that is to say, 
 which no longer admitted of the slightest doubt. 
 
 So much, then, for the principle as applied to 
 physical philosophy. Applying it to the question 
 now before us, we find it to stand thus : — 
 
 The historical facts connected with the origin o' 
 Christianity, as brought before us on the faith of 
 testimony, are of such a character as apparently to 
 require for their explanation the theory that the 
 Religion so originated is a Divine Revelation. 
 
 Our next step is to examine other classes of phe- 
 nomena distinct from those we have just considered, 
 though lying within the same great sphere of investi- 
 gation. 
 
 Let us take, for instance, the leading phenomena 
 
 presented by the system of Judaism, out of which, 
 
 historically speaking, Christianity arose. 
 
 421
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 And here it might, no doubt, be appropriate to 
 enter on the great subject of prophecy. But time 
 does not admit, nor do I feel myself competent for so 
 vast a task. It can be treated in detail only by 
 means of a separate lecture. All that I can do is to 
 present a brief outline of general facts. Well, then, 
 we must start with the fact that the Old Testament 
 system was probably the only ancient religion which 
 developed a conscious personal relation to God in 
 the mind of the worshipper, and brought about a 
 sense of communion between the creature and his 
 Creator. 
 
 Other systems may have inculcated with more or 
 less force the maxim, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
 as thyself ; " * but can we find any that pretended 
 practically, and as a duty of general application, to 
 proclaim, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 might." t For the relationship inculcated in the Old 
 Testament was not of a mere mercenary, but of a 
 moral kind. It was not merely one of fear, but of 
 gratitude and affection. 
 
 Again, was there any other religion which effectually 
 impressed its adherents with a deep or practical sense 
 of the holiness of God, and of the evil of their own 
 sinfulness.'' If this must be answered in the negative 
 we must admit that this religion had moral and spirit- 
 ual elements which, as compared with other ancient 
 
 • Levit. xix. i8. t Deut. vi. $. 
 
 422
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 religious systems, rendered it something not only- 
 superior in degree, but distinct in kind. 
 
 But this religion, thus entitled to our deepest 
 attention from the lofty moral and spiritual princi- 
 ples contained in it, involved also a complex sacrificial 
 system, avowedly intended to tea(;li the doctrine of 
 atonement for sin. Such a system, when standing 
 in connection with such principles, deserves a re- 
 spectful consideration which it might not otherwise 
 receive. It is, to say the least, a remarkable fact, 
 not to be overlooked. 
 
 Now, this system continues with partial interrup- 
 tions down to the coming of Christ, and Christ adopts 
 and applies it to Himself in a remarkable way. 
 He claims to give His life as a ransom for many, 
 to shed His blood as the blood of the new covenant 
 shed for many for the remission of sins. These words 
 can hardly be divested of sacrificial allusion. He is 
 the victim of the new covenant; the word new 
 indicating that the old covenant is passing away. 
 
 It is scarcely straining the words to infer that it is 
 implied in them that the old system is drawing to an 
 end because it has accomplished its object, because 
 a greater sacrifice is at hand. But how do events 
 correspond with this language? Christ is put to 
 death, and that (contrary as we learn to the original 
 intention of His enemies) at the very time of the 
 great passover sacrifice. Forgiveness through His 
 atonement is offered to the Jewish people in the 
 
 423
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 preaching of His Apostles for a few years — ^just time 
 sufficient for that people to hear and reject the 
 proffered terms. And then by the fall of Jerusalem^ 
 and the annihilation of the Holy Place, their sacrifices 
 are for ever made impossible. 
 
 If we add to this that our records declare that 
 Jesus Christ expressly predicted this event, have 
 we not on the whole a series of facts, pointing in 
 no ordinary manner to one hypothesis for their 
 solution, viz., that the relations of the Mosaic system 
 with Christianity are such as to indicate that Christ 
 was really the antitype of a divinely appointed 
 system of typical ordinances, and to confirm the 
 position that He was sent of God as the Saviour 
 of the world } 
 
 Will it be said that this is not in reality an inde- 
 pendent line of proof, because Christ and His followers 
 were Jews, and of course adopted and fell into Jewish 
 habits of thought ? The answer is that the thoughts 
 we have been expressing were not Jewish thoughts at 
 the time of Christ's appearing. Though it is true that 
 they were then expecting their Messiah, and thus 
 confessing that the time for His coming had arrived, 
 yet their thoughts were of triumph and conquest, and 
 they rejected Christ because He went contrary to 
 them. 
 
 I submit therefore that we have here a really inde- 
 pendent series of phenomena, calling for the same 
 
 explanation as is demanded by the historical facts of 
 
 424
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the Gospels, and therefore confirming the truth of that 
 explanation. And I would add that we are bound to 
 carry on the series of phenomena one step further, 
 and to include the remarkable position which this 
 Jewish nation has held ever since their rejection of 
 Christianity. They have been a people without a 
 country, a race which never falls into and fuses with 
 the other races of the world, yet which is a homeless 
 wanderer among them. To this must be added that 
 a doom of this very nature was laid down for them in 
 the original records of their law, in case they persisted 
 in disobedience.* 
 
 We have next to consider what became of this 
 religion of Jesus, what have been its fortunes in 
 succeeding ages, and what position it occupies at this 
 day. On this head I shall avail myself of the eloquent 
 words of a modern writer : *' What Jesus did, what He 
 taught, and what He suffered, during those three brief 
 years, became instantly a spring of spiritual life to the 
 world. Dreamy, distorted, grotesque views of God 
 and His purposes, of man and his destiny, give place to 
 clearer, nobler, more consistent, more exalted views. 
 Conscience recovers its sensitiveness, and exerts its 
 all-conquering power. Society feels its heart throb 
 with new life. There has evidently been infused into 
 it an element of nervous vitality, to which it has long 
 been a stranger. The spiritual in man's nature, 
 obedient to some invisible law, struggles with the 
 
 • See Deut. xxviii. 62 — 65. 
 425
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 material, and proves its title to supremacy and its 
 competence to maintain it. Life gains upon death. 
 Sensibility, power, enjoyment, in respect to Divine 
 things, to truth, to righteousness, to communion with 
 the Highest, widen their domain, and the limits within 
 which healthy action goes on are rapidly enlarged. 
 There is resistance — but to no purpose. A religious 
 life has been evoked, and cannot be stifled by coarse 
 and violent methods. Nor scoffs, nor threats, nor sword, 
 nor fire, nor philosophy, can put out that which, but a 
 few years before, it seemed impossible to kindle. Rome 
 smiles incredulously at first, then feels in its own 
 veins the tingle of spiritual vitality, strives to expel 
 the strange invasion, and is itself subdued. Much 
 perhaps of what meets the eye is symptomatic only ; 
 but beneath it, and perceptible to unprejudiced 
 observation, there is a substantial reality, a faith that 
 can remove mountains, a full assurance of hope, the 
 hope of immortality, a constraining and victorious 
 love."* 
 
 I need not trace at length the subsequent progress 
 of Christianity. It is as well known as it is remark- 
 able as a fact of history. But it must always be borne 
 in mind that it is not the simple progress of a religion 
 that is insisted on as an argument in its favour. It 
 is the progress of tJds partiailar religion, being, what 
 it is, a religion inculcating maxims of purity and self- 
 denial, opposed to the natural impulses and habits of 
 
 • Miall's "Bases of Belief," p. 52. London, 1S53. 
 426
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 mankind, and demanding the inward as well as out- 
 ward subjection of the whole man. Gibbon attri- 
 butes its success in a great degree to its promises of a 
 speedy and happy immortality. But he should have 
 remembered that the Christian heaven could hardly 
 have been a tempting object to any but Christians. 
 The desire for it, if intelligent and founded on the 
 promises of Scripture, presupposed a moral progress 
 and an identification of happiness with holiness, 
 which, to say the least, was not the characteristic of 
 the Gentile world in the days of the Roman Empire. 
 
 At this point I cannot omit to notice a passage in 
 one of Professor Tyndal's works. He is commenting 
 on an argument of Mr. Mozley's, that the extraor- 
 dinary spread of Christianity indicates a miraculous 
 origin, and he says : " As regards the function of 
 miracles in the founding of a religion, Mr. Mozley 
 institutes a comparison between the religion of Christ 
 and that of Mahomet, and he derides the latter as ' irra- 
 tional,' because it does not profess to adduce miracles 
 in proof of its supernatural origin. But the religion 
 of Mahomet, notwithstanding this drawback, has 
 thriven in the world, and at one time it held sway 
 over larger populations than Christianity itself. The 
 spread and influence of Christianity are, however, 
 brought forward by Mr. Mozley as a 'permanent, 
 enormous, and incalculable practical result ' of 
 Christian miracles, and he actually makes use of this 
 result to strengthen his plea for the miraculous. His 
 
 427
 
 rJ^OOFS OF THE TRUSTIVORTIILYESS OF 
 
 logical warrant for this proceeding is not clear. It is 
 the method of science, when a phenomenon presents 
 itself, to the production of which several elements may 
 contribute, to exclude them one by one, so as to arrive 
 at length at the truly effective cause. Heat, for 
 example, is associated with a phenomenon ; we ex- 
 clude heat, but the phenomenon remains ; hence, heat 
 is not its cause. Magnetism is associated with a 
 phenomenon ; we exclude magnetism, but the phe- 
 nomenon remains ; hence, magnetism is not its cause. 
 Thus, also, when we seek the cause of the diffusion of 
 a religion, whether it be due to miracles or to the 
 spiritual force of its founders, we exclude the 
 miracles, and, finding the result unchanged, we infer 
 that miracles are not the effective cause. This im- 
 portant experiment Mahometanism has made for 
 us. It has lived and spread without miracles ; and to 
 assert, in the face of this, that Christianity has spread 
 because of miracles, is not more opposed to the spirit 
 of science than to the common sense of mankind." * 
 
 It savoursof presumption to utter a criticism uponany 
 reasoning of Professor Tyndal founded, even by ana- 
 logy, upon a physical experiment — aXX.' oii(»i<^ elprjaerai. 
 
 1 venture to submit that in order to the conclu- 
 siveness of an experiment such as is described, it is 
 indispensable that all the other conditions and 
 elements of the phenomenon, with the single excep- 
 tion of the one intentionally excluded, should be 
 
 * " Firgmcnts of Science," p. 5 1. 
 428
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the same in both cases — neither more nor less. 
 If, when we exclude magnetism, in order to ascer- 
 tain whether the phenomenon remains the same in its 
 absence, we have unadvisedly permitted some other 
 potent cause to enter, our experiment is inconclusive. 
 The movement of a needle may be due to magnet- 
 ism, or it may be due to accidental impact or 
 concussion. If when we remove the former element 
 we are not careful to guard against the introduction 
 of the latter, the needle may be equally put in motion, 
 though no magnet be near ; and yet it may be 
 perfectly true that its movement was really due to 
 magnetism in the case when no impact or concussion 
 took place, but when the magnet was present. So in 
 the case before us. It is surely erroneous to speak of 
 Mahometanism as having made the experiment in 
 which alone we have any interest, viz., whether such 
 a religion as Christianity could have been successfully 
 founded without miraculous agency. Mahometanism 
 had no miracles, but it had two potent influences 
 which were absent in early Christianity — the phy- 
 sical power of the sword, and the sensual hopes and 
 promises which it held out to its disciples. These 
 may account for its diffusion. Magnetism then truly 
 may be wanting, but impact has introduced itself 
 instead. The conditions of the question have ceased 
 to be identical, and I respectfully contend that the 
 experiment is inexact and proves nothing. 
 
 It is not therefore the mere progress of Chris- 
 429
 
 rROOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 Inanity that is relied on, but the fact that its pro- 
 gress, marvellous in itself, has been made in opposition 
 to some of the most deeply seated tendencies of 
 human nature. 
 
 To which must be added, that wherever it has been 
 received in its primitive purity it has exercised the 
 most beneficial effects alike upon individual and na- 
 tional character. 
 
 Nor can these phenomena be explained by attri 
 buting them merely to the excellence of Christianity 
 as a code of ethics, and by disjoining its moral system 
 from its historical origin. 
 
 The same author, from whose argument for Chris- 
 tianity I have already quoted, shows with great power 
 that the Christian system is inseparably associated 
 with an individual personal history. 
 
 " So far," he says, " as the world has been moved 
 by Jesus Christ, it has been by faith in, not so much 
 what He said, as what He was, what He did, what 
 He suffered. All the doctrines of this system have, 
 from the beginning, been regarded — whether pro- 
 perly or improperly is not now the question — as 
 springing out of, associated with, and coloured by, 
 the life of the Nazarene, Strictly speaking, He is the 
 spirit of Gospel testimony. His relationship to God, 
 His mi-sion to man. His mediatorial office, the tenour 
 of His life, the purpose of 11 is death, the triumph 
 of His resurrection, the unlimited extent of His 
 authority, these are the ideas, all personal in their 
 
 430
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 reference, which have mainly wrought the revolu- 
 tion we have just glanced at. He, as pictured to 
 us in the Gospel narratives, and illustrated in the 
 apostolic writings, constitutes the one source of 
 this spiritual power, the mainspring of the whole 
 movement. The hopes, the fears, the joys, the 
 sorrows, the sympathies, the resolutions of His fol- 
 lowers cluster round Him as their sole and sufficient 
 object. Their penitence is elicited by His trials 
 and agonies. Their peace is peace in Him. About 
 Him their tenderest and strongest affections twine 
 themselves. His word is their law, His love their 
 motive, His example their stimulus. His sympathy 
 their solace. It was His name which inspired with 
 courage and fortitude "the noble army of martyrs"; 
 it is the story of His life and death which still is 
 most effectual to subdue man's heart." * 
 
 Now it seems indisputable that the original docu- 
 ments of Christianity might have put forth fair claims 
 to be held authentic and genuine, and the Christian 
 system mighthave stood in the connection with Judaism 
 which I have indicated ; and yet the religion might 
 never have become generally diffused, or, if diffused, 
 might never have succeeded in effecting those moral 
 revolutions which we know it has in fact produced for 
 the benefit of mankind. It might have been an un- 
 impeachable code of ethics, but not a living force in 
 human nature. 
 
 . *Hiairs "Bases of Belief," p. 57. 
 431
 
 PJ^OOFS OF THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF 
 
 Or it might have exerted a certain force on man- 
 kind by the mere intrinsic excellence of its morality, 
 but this force might have been quite apart from any 
 special personal regard for Him who promulgated its 
 maxims. 
 
 I would add an observation not to be lost sight of, 
 in relation to the kind of evidence with which we have 
 just been dealing. 
 
 The evidence of miracles may, or may not, be 
 weakened in proportion as the number of ages in- 
 creases through which that evidence has to be handed 
 down. But the evidence derived from the spread of 
 Christianity, from its beneficial effects, is of neces- 
 sity founded upon experience, and is clearer and 
 stronger now than it was for the early Christians. 
 
 Here, then, we have independent phenomena, each 
 of which might exist without the other, but all of 
 which do in fact co-exist together. And if we find that 
 the hypothesis which explains some of them is also 
 applicable to solve the others, can we forbear from 
 drawing a very strong inference that we have got the 
 right solution .'' And is that solution any other than 
 the view that Christianity is Divine .-' 
 
 Before concluding, I would mention one other 
 point. 
 
 Sir John Herschel says that " the surest and best 
 characteristic of a well founded and extensive induc- 
 tion is when verifications of it spring up, as it were, 
 spontaneously into notice, from quarters where they 
 
 432
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 might be least expected, or even among instances of 
 that very kind which were at first considered hostile 
 to them. Evidence of this kind is irresistible, and 
 compels assent with a weight which scarcely any 
 other possesses." 
 
 I do not in the least desire to underrate the existing 
 difficulties of biblical criticism, but I think in relation 
 to the veracity of the Bible narrative there are some 
 cases, at least, which are of a kind analogous to what 
 Herschel here speaks of I mean where apparent 
 difficulties of a formidable kind have on further exa- 
 mination been found actually to yield confirmation to 
 the veracity of the Scriptures. 
 
 Daniel relates that King Belshazzar was slain in the 
 city of Babylon when that city was taken by the 
 Persians. Profane historians say that the capture of 
 Babylon took place in the reign of a Babylonian king 
 called Nabonnedus, or Labynetus, and that this king 
 was absent from the city at the time of its fall. 
 Moreover, instead of being slain he was made prisoner, 
 and kindly treated. 
 
 The discrepancy appeared for many years ex- 
 tremely formidable. But we now find that in an in- 
 scription, discovered only about twenty years ago, 
 Nabonnedus, the last native king of Babylon, is intro- 
 duced as stating that his eldest son bore the name of 
 Belsharezar, and he speaks of him in a way which 
 suggests that he had associated him with himself in 
 
 * "Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy," chap, vi., p. l8o. 
 433 28
 
 PROOFS OF THE TRUST IV ORTHLVESS OF 
 
 the government. tlence there is no difficulty in 
 supposing that while Nabonnedus was absent his son 
 was entrusted with the command of the city. 
 
 But not only is this view probable in itself, it is, in 
 fact, incidentally confirmed by the very text of the 
 Book of Daniel. When Belshazzar promotes Daniel 
 he makes him " the third ruler in the' kingdom." But 
 why the third? In every other case in the Old Testa- 
 ment the favourite is advanced to the second place in 
 the kingdom, the place next to the king.* The answer 
 obviously is that Belshazzar himself occupied the seco)id 
 place, and that in placing Daniel in the ildrd he did 
 as much as under the circumstances was possible.f 
 
 So again, on the authority of Herodotus, who 
 speaks as if the vine did not grow in Egypt, doubts 
 have been cast on the veracity of Genesis, because 
 Pharaoh's butler speaks of pressing the grapes into 
 the king's cup. But it is now clear from representa- 
 tions on the Egyptian monuments that the culti- 
 vation of the grape, the art of making wine, and the 
 practice of drinking it, were well known in Egypt, at 
 least from the time of the Pyramids. It is therefore 
 Herodotus who must either have been imperfectly 
 informed, or must have been speaking of a particular 
 part of Egypt only. J 
 
 • Gen. xli. 40-45 ; Esther x. 3 ; Dan. ii., 48, 49. 
 
 t See Prof. Rawlinson's " Historical Illustrations of the Old Testa- 
 ment," printed for the Society for Promoting Christian Kno\^edge. 
 London, 1S71. p. 170. 
 
 X Ibid., p. 49. 
 
 434
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 My time is exhausted, but my task is still unper- 
 formed. Instead of exploring the whole field, I have 
 but shown you here and there a few spots, where, 
 if you dig patiently for yourselves, you may find 
 hidden treasure. I am very sensible that I have 
 left much untouched. It must not be inferred that 
 I am disposed to neglect or underrate it, because time 
 compelled me to omit it. 
 
 On the whole, I must be satisfied — indeed I shall 
 be more than satisfied, deeply thankful — if, in this 
 day when the tides of modern thought seem to some 
 to be obliterating many of our old landmarks, I shall 
 have succeeded in pointing to some ancient footprints 
 uneffaced by those restless currents — 
 
 Footprints which perchance another 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother 
 Seeing, may take heart agaia. ^ 
 
 435
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 REV. JOSEPH ANGUS, M.A., D.D.
 
 MAN : A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 IT is natural for a lecturer to magnify his office, 
 and to claim special honour for the subject he 
 has undertaken to discuss. What has deepened his 
 own convictions, he cannot but believe will impress 
 others. 
 
 While aware of this tendency, and making full 
 allowance for it, I must still think that the theme I 
 have to present to-day is remarkably weighty and 
 clear. Under both Testaments there were long ages 
 in which the argument from prophecy and miracle, 
 from the authority of a living teacher or the charm 
 of an inspired presence, had small force ; and yet 
 under both Testaments there has never ceased to be 
 intelligent faith. Even in the age of miracles, the 
 preaching of the Gospel produced readier conviction 
 than miracle itself The plain man or the unbeliever, 
 pn entering the Christian assembly and hearing the 
 Divine message, M-as convinced by what he heard, 
 and had to acknowledge that God was among them 
 of a truth. It was always blessed to have seen and 
 
 439
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 to believe. It is still more blessed not to have seen 
 and yet to believe : more blessed — not surely because 
 the evidence is defective and the faith credulous, but 
 because the evidence is more spiritual and the faith 
 more holy. In Richard Baxter's younger days, the 
 evidence that most impressed him, he tells us, was 
 the miraculous ; later, it was the prophetic and the 
 historical ; and, last of all, the internal — the fitness of 
 the Gospel to produce peace and holiness. This is 
 the "self-evidencing power of Christianity," the "port- 
 able evidence," praised by writers of all schools of 
 thought from Hooker and Pascal and Owen to Cole- 
 ridge and Vinet. 
 
 I. Christianity is a theistic system. It teaches 
 that there is a God, a first cause of all things ; a God 
 who combines in Himself whatever we love in a father 
 or revere in a judge. He is, as Plato calls Him, the 
 great cause of all, the ideal of whatever is fair and 
 just. The evidence that supports this view of God — 
 based as it is on human nature and on observation 
 — modern science, with all its discoveries and changes, 
 only confirms. 
 
 That science busies itself, as we know, with dis- 
 tances and forces that are immense. It busies itself 
 also with molecules so small that, when multiplied a 
 hundred thousand times, no eye has seen them or can 
 see.* These molecules have qualities of their own 
 when apart ; and tliey have other qualities when coni- 
 
 * Tyndall, " Fragments of Science, " p. 151, etc. 
 440
 
 ^ MAJV: A WmVESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 bined ; nor is it easy to put any limit to the pro- 
 perties that may be supposed to inhere in them. 
 The telescope and the higher mathematics reveal 
 distances of stellar space which are bewildering in 
 their vastness. The microscope and facts of che- 
 mistry — which compel us to believe in the existence 
 of molecules compared with which the test-objects of 
 the microscope are immense — reveal magnitudes which 
 are equally bewildering in their smallness; while each 
 molecule has properties of its own as undoubted as 
 the properties of the stars. 
 
 To take an illustration — 
 
 Water has long been a favourite theme with natural 
 theologians. Dr. Whewell has treated of its laws as 
 proofs of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. 
 Ancient philosophy deemed it an element ; modern 
 science tells us it is a compound. The hydrogen and 
 oxygen that form it have very different properties — 
 different when they are separate, and different when 
 they combine. At the freezing-point of water, and 
 far below that temperature, their particles rush away 
 from one another with great force. Send through 
 the two a flash of electricity, and they chemically 
 combine. Subject them now to cold, and the result 
 is a hard, brittle solid, whose particles closely cohere, 
 forming geometric figures, facets of crystal, leaflets of 
 hoar-frost, each with a beauty surpassing our most 
 cunning workmanship. Put into this water living 
 vegetable matter, and the water will give up, under 
 
 441
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 chemical action, an equivalent increase of life. Let 
 it now be imbibed by an intelligent living agent, and 
 it will be used, in part at least, in sustaining thought 
 and quickening feeling. That life or thought are 
 themselves qualities of water or of its molecules, no 
 scientific student of nature will affirm. But it may be 
 readily conceded that there is no life or thought on 
 earth without waste or change of the fluid substance 
 which helps to make up the living, thinking being. 
 
 If an inquirer can conceive of these molecules as 
 possessing a tendency to become gases, and in these 
 gases a tendency to become water, and in water a 
 tendency to become a transparent solid — nay, possibly, 
 to become life and thought and feeling — he will have 
 some conception of the theory of evolution : a theory 
 which some are applying to the explanation of the 
 entire system of Nature. 
 
 These discoveries of science in relation to water are 
 typical. They have been repeated in many other 
 substances. Nor is it possible to say what further 
 discoveries of a similar kind are before us. But none 
 of these discoveries affect the doctrine of causation. 
 Every material thing is a force, or a collection of 
 forces, and each has its properties, or property. 
 That what seem simple forces are many, that 
 what seem many properties are possibly one, are 
 conclusions that do not change the questions which 
 science seeks to settle, viz., What is the nature of 
 the force at work, and under what conditions does it 
 
 4+2
 
 MAN: A WITNESS J^'^R CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 act ? Water may be gas, and gas molecules. Life, 
 thought, and volition may be properties of mole- 
 cules as are weight and attraction. The question 
 still arises, whence comes this force, which is at once 
 material, vital, and moral } Either it is God, or it 
 comes from Him. 
 
 Now the one point upon which my theme leads me 
 to insist is, that this argument is based on human 
 nature, on the very laws of thought, and on experience. 
 The only two possible theories of human nature in 
 relation to such questions as we are now considering 
 are (briefly) Platonism and Aristotelianism. From 
 Plato to Hamilton on the one side, from Aristotle to 
 Comte on the other, all philosophy may be grouped, 
 with slight characteristic differences, around one or 
 other of these two. No third centre is possible.* 
 Plato maintains that from the very ideas that are 
 inseparable from the thinking substance, we believe 
 in causation and in a first cause. Aristotle maintains 
 that the search for causes is an attempt of the under- 
 standing to put into a simple form the facts of the 
 senses. There is truth in both theories. There are 
 things we cannot but believe, feeling the opposite to 
 be unthinkable or self-contradictory. So far we are 
 Platonists. And among these things may be reckoned 
 the impossibility of the self-creation of a universe, 
 and the existence of a first cause of all. But besides, 
 the doctrine of a first cause is as complete a generali- 
 
 * Coleridge, "Notes on English Divines," p. 15. 
 443
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 zation as any we can form, and is forced upon us 
 by the understanding, that is, by experience itself. 
 
 Let us mark the argument Phenomena imply a 
 force competent to produce them. When active, that 
 force shows itself in motion ; when quiescent, it still 
 exists, only dynamically or potentially. We believe 
 in force, for we see results that imply it. So in Natural 
 Theology. There are energies in nature ; there is 
 thought, and feeling, and volition in man. If these 
 can be proved to be properties inherent in matter, 
 either matter is God, endowed with all His attributes 
 — self-subsisting life among them, — or there is a God 
 who gives to matter, or to spirit, or to a mysterious 
 combination of the two, the properties which are seen 
 or are implied in the phenomena. Whichever of 
 these generalizations is the sounder, the method of 
 each is as scientific as any generalization in physics. 
 
 But it is said the force we call God is unseen, and 
 perhaps spiritual. So far it differs from the forces of 
 the material world. Can we reason from the visible 
 to the invisible, from the material to the spiritual } 
 Here, again, the answer is plain. Biologists, who make 
 the microscope and the scalpel their teacher, are 
 prone to think that force must exist in a visible 
 shape. But Professor Tyndall warns them that 
 chemistry holds very different language. Between 
 the limit of the microscope and the molecule there 
 are forces, probably numberless, of which no instru- 
 ment can take note. We have not seen them or 
 
 444
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 touched them ; but still we believe in them. And, 
 he adds with his usual frankness, after we have 
 reached, if we ever reach, the primordial atoms, each 
 endowed with its own property, the property itself 
 will probably remain unseen ; and men will still ask 
 whence it came, and how it was produced. 
 
 No doubt the force we are seeking in our science 
 is spiritual. But this creates no new difficulty. Is 
 galvanism, the force which sends a message in a few 
 seconds round the world, material — that is, has it ex- 
 tension and resistance } Is light material, or has 
 any one seen even the fluid medium whose waves are 
 said to produce it ? None can tell what these forces 
 are ; yet we reason about them both as realities 
 without misgiving. Besides, the connexion of pheno- 
 mena with what is unseen and spiritual is one of the 
 widest and commonest of generalizations. Every 
 child becomes aware of himself as a source of 
 action and thought and feeling. The acts that follow 
 from hi-s own volitions are among the most familiar 
 phenomena he has to observe. The acts and looks 
 of others — mother, father, nurse — are all traced by 
 a process of deduction to the volitions of the agents, 
 and the deduction is regularly verified by quco- 
 tionings more or less reverent. As the child grows 
 in years he grows in this wisdom, and at length he 
 observes millions of phenomena which he connects, 
 not with dead force, but with the feelings and 
 thoughts of other beings. The belief therefore in 
 
 445
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 mind and in volition as the oiigin of the changes 
 of force, and (in the common meaning of the word) of 
 force itself, is at once an instinct of human nature, and 
 one of the widest generalizations of human experience. 
 
 This reasoning may seem abstruse ; but it is prac 
 tised every day, and by all classes. To ascribe the 
 phenomena of the world to a force competent to pro 
 duce them is in accordance with common sense and 
 with common observation. To ascribe them ultimately 
 to one who is spiritual, himself endowed with intel- 
 ligence, and capable of acting upon matter, is a 
 generalization, sustained by the nature of many of 
 the phenomena we have to explain, and by the 
 consciousness and the daily life of us all. The exist- 
 ence of God is as clearly proved, even "His eternal 
 power and divineness," as the existence of any force or 
 of any volition or thought or thinking substance. As 
 clearly, I repeat. And if this seem a poor conclusion, 
 let me say that we have none clearer or stronger for 
 the existence of the material world, or for the exist- 
 ence of our own spirit. All we really know of either 
 is that in the one case we have sensations, and in the 
 other feelings and thoughts which we ascribe to a sup- 
 posed cause — a world (a Not-I or Non-Ego) without 
 us, and a Spirit (an I or an Ego) within. 
 
 " Two things," said Kant, " fill me with awe : the 
 starry heavens and the sense of the moral responsibility 
 of man." 
 
 We have all a sense of right and wrong. If any 
 446
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 man whom I have never injured wish me ill, or try to 
 inflict ill, I feel that he treats me unjustly, and I 
 may give expression to my disapprobation. If under 
 like circumstances I wish ill to another, I feel that I 
 do him injustice, and I am not surprised if he express 
 disapprobation of me. My feeling of injustice is my 
 sense of wrong ; my expression of disapprobation is 
 of the nature of punishment. It may not be my 
 business to express disapprobation, or to punish ; but 
 the feeling is as becoming as is the approval of a 
 virtuous act ; and indeed the one is only another form 
 of the other. The hatred of iniquity is inseparable 
 from the love of holiness. And these feelings are 
 found among all nations. There are no doubt very 
 different judgments passed by different nations on the 
 same acts ; but on the mental states which produce acts 
 most agree ; and whether they agree or not, there is 
 what we call a sense of right and wrong among them 
 all. 
 
 Or the fact may be put in another form. Looking 
 at human nature, and adopting Butler's analysis of it: 
 we have each particular affections; we have each a 
 tendency to seek happiness — self-love, as it is called ; 
 and we have besides a conscience, whose office it is to 
 control the whole man. From our very make it may 
 be affirmed that particular propensities are meant to 
 be subject to self-love, and self-love to conscience. 
 In this sense men are made for virtue, and virtue is 
 natural to them. 
 
 447
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIAXITY. 
 
 Or the fact may be put in another form. We are 
 created under law, not only under a law of unvariable 
 sequences, but " a law laid down for the guidance of 
 an intelligent being, by an intelligent being having 
 power over him."* Such is Austin's definition of all 
 law, in the proper sense of the word. That law 
 implies sanctions, and suggests irresistibly the idea 
 of a lawgiver. In all climes, and in every tongue, 
 this recognition of the quality of moral acts, this 
 sense of right and wrong, this feeling of " oughtness " 
 and of moral obligation is found. And though 
 it may be difficult to prove logically in the first in- 
 stance that therefore there must be a Creator whose 
 authority sustains the law and vindicates it, for the 
 conviction of oughtness is at first a sentiment rather 
 than a syllogism; yet when once the truth is surmised 
 or announced we accept it in morals as readily at least 
 as we accept the doctrine of causation in the science 
 of nature. Nothing depends, it will be noted, on the 
 question whether conscience is an inherent or an 
 acquired principle, whether it is a simple property or 
 a compound. If it be inherent, as Plato held, that fact 
 will be with most men a sufficient title to veneration. 
 If it is itself a result of processes like those which pro- 
 duce other acquired sentiments — patriotism or friend- 
 ship, for example — still its universality, its immutability 
 and independence, caring as it does for nothing but the 
 lightness of acts, and its direct action on the will, all 
 * Jurisprudence, i., pp. 88 — 94, 3rd. ed. 
 
 448 y
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 show that it is the result of a tendency in man, a force 
 that bespeaks wisdom and hoHness in the Creator. 
 This reasoning may no doubt be questioned, as the 
 whole doctrine of Causation is questioned ; but it is 
 sustained by the arguments of the ablest inquirers from 
 Plato to Mackintosh, and by the convictions of almost 
 the entire race. The road by which we ascend in 
 reason from conscience to a moral governor is indeed 
 shorter and clearer, and far oftener trod, than the road 
 from phenomena to a first cause. Both processes are 
 strictly scientific. Both are in accordance with facts 
 and with the tendencies of the mind. Both are forced 
 upon us by the understanding, the faculty which 
 generalizes experience ; and by the reason, the faculty 
 which accepts intuitive or essential truth. 
 
 Is it I who say these things, -or saith not the law 
 the same ? " From the creation of the world, the in- 
 visible things of God become distinctly visible, when 
 studied in the things He hath made." " When men 
 who have no law do by nature the things of the law, 
 they show the works of the law to be written on their 
 hearts, their consciences accusing them, or it may be 
 defending them ;" and they recognize in its decisions 
 more than a human authority. 
 
 II. But Christianity is a remedial system. It pre- 
 supposes guilt and ruin. It announces free forgiveness, 
 provides in its own way for the formation of a holy 
 character, and secures for all who believe happiness 
 and eternal life. These announcements I desire 
 
 449 29
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 briefly to examine in the light of reason and expe- 
 rience. I do it under the conviction that, as Fenelon 
 puts it, the best way to defend Christianity is simply 
 to state it. It is largely its own evidence. Really to 
 know the truth is to believe ; as on the other hand to 
 act out belief is the easiest way to profounder know- 
 ledge and assured conviction. 
 
 I. I begin with what Christianity presupposes — our 
 guilt and ruin. 
 
 The fact of man's sinfulness is clear ; the startlinsr 
 thing is what Scripture teaches as to the degree of it 
 and God's feeling towards it. We imagine that sin is 
 in our acts only, and that our hearts are ever better than 
 our lives. Scripture tells us that it is our nature, and 
 that our hearts are ever worse than our lives. We 
 are apt to think that it dishonours God to suppose 
 Him grieved or made angry by our sins. Scripture 
 reserves its ^strongest expressions to denounce them, 
 and to describe the fierceness of the Divine anger, 
 though blended with tenderest pity, in relation to them. 
 
 Theology proceeds to define this sinfulness — as its 
 custom is. It pronounces man to have "fallen very 
 far from his original righteousness." The Latin 
 article of the English Church is even stronger, " quam 
 longissime distet." The Westminster Confession is 
 stronger still, and speaks of man as " altogether de- 
 praved." Popular thought, which delights in clear and 
 
 vivid utterance, describes this depravity as " total." 
 
 450
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CIIRISTIANITY. 
 
 I am not anxious to defend all these expressions, 
 nor do I care to repudiate them. Substantially they 
 vindicate themselves, when once they are explained. 
 Let us take the last, the strongest of all. When we 
 speak of total depravity, it is not meant of course 
 that all men are alike bad, because totally depraved ; 
 for Scripture recognizes all the shades of character 
 that are recognized by common sense. In our Lord's 
 day there were young men whom He loved, as there 
 were scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, whom He 
 strongly denounced. Nor is it meant that all men 
 are as bad as they can be ; for " evil seducers still 
 wax worse and worse." What it means is that sin 
 has tainted every pan of our nature, changing affec- 
 tions into passions, self-love into selfishness, searing 
 darkening and enfeebling the conscience, and making 
 even our intellectual faculties less vigorous and clear. 
 It means that every act and every feeling, even in the 
 best of us, is wanting in holiness, through deficiency 
 in its measure, fault in its motives, or through the 
 absence of that general regard for God's will and 
 claims which is essential to all divine virtue. It means, 
 finally, that there is no hope of salvation for any of 
 us through the merit of our doings or tears. If saved 
 at all, it must be through free mercy. Salvation in 
 any other way is totally, completely beyond us. Is 
 there anything unreasonable in these statements .'' 
 
 Or is it depravity that startles us — the afiirmation, 
 viz., that there is in us all a nature prone to evil ? 
 
 451
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 This depravity is as much a fact of experience as it is 
 of revelation. It is as clearly an induction as any law 
 of science. Gravitation is proved by the fact that all 
 bodies, when free to move, show a tendency to move 
 towards one another; and man's depravity is proved by 
 the fact that when left to himself he always displays a 
 proneness to evil. . . . All our knowledge of the lower 
 animals and of natural objects is gained from their 
 doings in the one case, and from their sensible quali- 
 ties in the other. We speak of the disposition and 
 properties of each. We talk of the faithfulness of 
 the dog, of the ferocity of the tiger, of the poisonous 
 nature of the foxglove, ascribing to each a prior ten- 
 dency that accounts for the peculiarities we see. It 
 is just thus *we verify the doctrine of human sinfulness. 
 The passions and the selfishness which have prevailed 
 in all nations, and which nothing seems able to sub- 
 due, — the nature and the number of the crimes which 
 men commit, in spite of all the restraints put upon 
 them by Providence, by conscience, by law — the fact 
 that every man does commit sin, and the conscious- 
 ness of us all that we are prone to many sins we do 
 not commit — the seeds of vice which are discovered 
 even in children — the opposition of our inclination to 
 all efforts at improvement felt even by the renewed, — 
 all justify the statement that in man's very make as 
 he now is there is something that leads him astray. 
 To assert depravity is simply to assert the quality of 
 a species. It is to reduce what is true of evciy single 
 
 452
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 specimen of our nature to a general expression which 
 is appHcable to the whole nature ; and to ascribe 
 effects to some force adequate to produce them. In 
 short, it is as accurate to talk of human depravity, in- 
 tending thereby to affirm the existence of a prior 
 universal disposition to sin, as it is to affirm the most 
 certain laws or the soundest generalizations in 
 science. Our nature is not more certainly rational 
 than it is sinful. 
 
 And yet there is much in relation to this truth that 
 is matter of faith. That this tendency to sin was not 
 onr primeval condition, that there was once a golden 
 age of innocence and happiness is a matter of reve- 
 lation, though poetry and traditional history have pre- 
 served some fragments of the truth. The degree of 
 our sinfulness, the guilt and the misery of it, are also 
 largely matters of revelation, and are accepted less 
 from experience in the first instance than from faith. 
 
 And this is all natural. The fact of our sinfulness 
 is ascertainable by experience. The degree of it is 
 not. We are not only born with depraved ten- 
 dencies, themselves unconscious of their depravity, 
 but when we begin the process of self-scrutiny, the 
 depravity which is natural to us has been further con- 
 firmed by habit, itself a second nature. The very 
 instruments therefore we use in detecting the quality 
 have lost much of their discriminating power. . . . 
 The whole framework of society, m.oreover, assists this 
 work of deception. Sin loses its odiousness, and 
 
 453
 
 MA!^: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ceases to be felt as sin, when we are surrounded by it ; 
 just as the impure air of a room remains unnoticed 
 till having changed it for fresh air outside we attempt 
 to enter it again, or as the enormous weight of the 
 atmosphere becomes imperceptible by being universal. 
 Nor is the influence of our likes and dislikes to 
 be forgotten. When conscience speaks, men find 
 it more pleasant to silence it than to obey its teaching. 
 The faculty by which men judge of sin is delicate in 
 proportion to the dignity of the office it has to dis- 
 charge. Its structure is as tender as that of the eye : 
 and both are in our own keeping. A diseased organ 
 may be relieved, as we know, by healing the disease or 
 by paralyzing the nerve ; and so there are two ways 
 of escaping an angr^^ conscience. We may cease 
 from the evil that provokes it, or we may resolutely 
 refuse to listen to its voice. In fact, men turn away 
 from what they cannot contemplate without self- 
 censure, till at length the light is put out or the power 
 of vision is y"6'rrt: /me withdrawn. . . . Need I say, how 
 all these hindrances to the formation of an adequate 
 conception of the degree of our sinfulness are 
 strengthened by the mysterious silence which God 
 preserves in his Providence. Among His judgments, 
 as among His mercies, we walk by faith. For His 
 name's sake He defers his anger ; but men fail to un- 
 derstand His forbearance. " Because sentence against 
 an evil work is not speedily executed," men's hearts are 
 
 set in them to do evil. Here we deem justice perfect 
 
 454
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 in proportion as punishment follows close upon crime ; 
 and so under God's government, if the punishment is 
 not seen to follow, we deny or question the guilt. 
 " These things hast thou done, and I kept silence ; 
 wherefore thou thoughtest that I was altogether 
 such a one as thyself." The very immutability of God's 
 laws in nature, proof as it is of God's superintendence, 
 becomes proof to the imagination that God will not 
 punish, and therefore there is no reason why He 
 should. All things, men say, continue as they were 
 from the beginning of the creation. Stricken or per- 
 plexed by the admonitions of conscience, men go 
 forth under the open sky, and all seems peaceful 
 there. There is no handwriting upon the wall of that 
 temple to confirm the voice of terror that had spoken 
 within. The lover of pleasure, the idolator of gain, 
 the wrong-doer, the prosperous despiser of God, is 
 not now struck down in our streets ; and men are 
 thence confirmed in their hope that they are not 
 guilty, or that sin is less of an evil than their fears had 
 supposed. 
 
 And what is the conclusion of all this reasoning } 
 Simply that Scripture teaching on sin is sustained by 
 history and by experience ; and yet, through the 
 corrupting influence of depravity, we have no adequate 
 sense of the completeness of our ruin. These lessons 
 every thoughtful, earnest man finds impressed on his 
 own heart the more deeply as he advances in the 
 divine life. Growth in holiness means growth in 
 
 455
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 humility. And with such growth comes a deeper 
 conviction of the truth .of that record which shows 
 him his true nature ahke in the failings of good men 
 and in solemn dogmatic teachings, which are found 
 in marvellous consistency from the third chapter of 
 Genesis to the last of Revelation. There we behold 
 as in a glass our own image, as certainly as the image 
 of our Lord. Nor is it easy to say which is the more 
 impressive or the more true ! 
 
 2. As a remedial system, the central truth of Chris- 
 tianity is the death and resurrection of Christ. This 
 truth was announced in figurative language to Nico- 
 demus in our Lord's earliest recorded discourse,* 
 It was repeated again and again to His own dis- 
 ciples, with whom He talked " of the decease He was 
 to accomplish at Jerusalem." More than a fourth 
 part of each Gospel is devoted to the story of it. His 
 apostles proclaimed it wherever they went. So 
 mighty did it prove, that the most successful preacher 
 that ever lived resolved to know nothing among men 
 but Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ as crucified. More 
 than fifty times it is appealed to in the Epistles 
 as a ground of consolation, and as a motive to holi- 
 ness ; while the men who profess to be Christians, and 
 still love and practise sin, are denounced, not as 
 the enemies of the precepts of the Gospel, but as 
 emphatically the enemies of the Cross. The glory of 
 
 * John iii. 
 46
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Christianity is Christ, and the glory of Christ, so far 
 as concerns us men and our salvation, is the Cross. 
 Such is Scripture teaching, and such I believe is human 
 experience. 
 
 The most obvious ground that can be taken on this 
 theme is, that the death of Christ is an expression of 
 His own love and of the love of the Father, and a proof 
 of His sincerity ; as His resurrection is a proof of the 
 divineness of His mission, and a pledge of our own. 
 " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay 
 down his life for his friends." " He that spared not His 
 own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall 
 He not with Him freely give us all things .-* " He fore- 
 saw and foretold His approaching sufferings, and 
 steadfastly set his face to fulfil them. This is not the 
 manner of deceivers. The reality of a future life is 
 now proved not by argument, but by fact. He, — not 
 His teaching but Himself, — is to us the Resurrec- 
 tion and the Life ! I have called this the most 
 obvious ground. It is ground defined in the creeds of 
 the early Church, as it is accepted by all classes of 
 Christian people. It may be called low ground. It 
 treats of no mysteries — unless it be of the love that 
 prompted Him to die, and of the mighty power whereby 
 He rose from the dead. It says nothing of the 
 spiritual significance of His dying. And yet what 
 yearnings of human nature are met by these simple 
 announcements — the Divine love, the victory of man 
 
 over the grave. What would the world be without 
 
 457
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 them, and what evidence of their truthfuhiess is 
 suppHed by their adaptations to the needs of the 
 race ! 
 
 But the Cross has deeper significance. All Chris- 
 tians are exhorted to consider it and to be conformed 
 to it — to have in them the same mind that was also 
 in Christ Jesus. 
 
 To consider it and to be conformed to it ! What 
 views it gives of human nature. Men made like you 
 and me have put Him to death. Some have thought 
 that virtue needs but to be seen in order to be 
 worshipped. Here the divinest virtue becomes incar- 
 nate, and on the Cross men are doing what they can 
 to extinguish it for ever. . . What views it gives of the 
 evil of sin ! All the suffering He sought to alleviate, 
 the leprosy and the death ; all the suffering He en- 
 countered, the perverseness and cruelty of His perse- 
 cutors, the desertion and unbelief of His disciples, His 
 tears and agony and cryings, all had their origin in 
 moral causes which it was the work of His life to re- 
 move ! . . What views it gives of duty ! Men murder 
 Him and He prays for them. The Father forsakes 
 Him, and still He trusts Him. Had He been content 
 to blend Sadduceeism and Pharisaism and Heathenism 
 into one religion — to sanction all as meaning the same 
 thing, He need never have suffered. But He assailed 
 them all, and of His faithfulness the Cross was at once 
 the evidence and the result. . . What views it gives of 
 
 a holy, noble life ! How possible it is to conquer the 
 
 458
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 material by the spiritual, to mortify all that is gross 
 and earthly, to be in contact with sin and death and 
 emerge the nobler for suffering. How blessed to 
 deny ourselves, and by self-sacrifice to leave the 
 world holier and happier than we found it. How 
 instructive that even the Son does not His own will, 
 but the will of the Father that sent Him. . . What 
 a strange blending was there in His character, and 
 what a like blending ought there to be in our own, 
 of nobleness and humility, of heroism and patience, 
 of pity for sinners and hatred of sin ! And how many 
 millions have been influenced by such thoughts in 
 every'generation, since these scenes were first witnessed. 
 By the Cross, multitudes have been crucified to the 
 world, and the world to them. Never has there 
 been in the history of the race a mightier power than 
 this moral power of the Cross ! 
 
 But it has still deeper significance. Many passages 
 of Scripture speak, as we have seen, of His sufferings as 
 of something in which we share : many others speak 
 of them as of something in which we have no share. 
 " He died, the Just for the unjust." " He Himself bare 
 our sins in His own body on the tree." His cross 
 touches our hearts, and strengthens our will, teaching 
 self-denial and submission ; it also pacifies our con- 
 science, doing for us what w^e could never have done 
 for ourselves. Some who acquiesce in all that has 
 been said up to this point pause here, and scruple to 
 go further. Let us respect their scruples, only re- 
 
 459
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 membering that what is further to be said on this 
 theme does not weaken in any degree the previous 
 evidence, and has special force of its own. 
 
 The feeHng of guilt is universal. Men have in- 
 stinctively the conviction that Law must be vindicated. 
 Sin means guilt, and guilt means punishment. Nor is 
 it possible, as it seems to me, apart from the Gospel, 
 to free the human mind from the misgivings which 
 "^these terms imply. The provision of the Gospel for 
 meeting these misgivings is in the Cross. "The life" 
 our Lord there gave He gave as a "ransom for 
 many." The "blood" He there shed was shed for 
 "the remission of sins." There God "set Him forth as 
 a propitiation through faith in His blood, that God 
 might be just and the justifier of all that believe." 
 It is in Him therefore that "we have redemption 
 through His blood, even the forgiveness of our sins." 
 I cannot dwell upon this aspect of our Lord's work, or 
 upon the philosophy of it. I can only note the result. 
 Justified by faith, we have peace with God. We 
 believe in the Divine love. We believe no less in the 
 Divine holiness. We accept a free pardon, looking for 
 the mercy of God unto eternal life ; and yet we hold 
 that the sanctity of law and the holiness of God are 
 as completely maintained as if the guilty had been 
 condemned ! Millions have found in these beliefs 
 both peace and holy affection — what meets at once 
 the demands of their conscience and the yearnings of 
 
 their heart ! 
 
 460
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 3. The first effect of the Gospel when men beheve 
 is forgiveness, the cancelment of the guilt of sin. Its 
 chief design, however, as a remedial system is holiness. 
 The " great and precious promises " it reveals are given 
 that Ave may become " partakers of a Divine nature." 
 The New Testament knows nothing of a salvation 
 that consists only in pardon. Men are saved in the 
 fullest and truest sense just in proportion as they are 
 holy. This arrangement is surely reasonable ; and yet 
 it is so rare in religious systems as to be an evidence 
 wherever it is found of an origin higher than human. 
 
 The dependence of forgiveness on faith, and the 
 freeness of forgiveness, coming as it does at the be- 
 ginning of a Christian life, have often been urged as 
 objections to the Gospel. But if the truth be exactly 
 stated, the objections cease. Justification through 
 faith — a free pardon on believing — is no doubt the 
 Scripture teaching ; but the faith which justifies — the 
 belief of the heart — is from its very nature the be- 
 ginning of a holy character. Let a man believe that 
 Christ is the gift of the Father's love, that His self-deny- 
 ing life is the noblest model, that in dying He did 
 homage to law, that we deserve what He suffered, that 
 the chief evil under the government of God is the sin 
 which He dies to remove ; and the belief is inseparable 
 from holiness. The moral quality of the faith is not in- 
 deed the meritorious ground of forgiveness, but still it 
 is an essential element of the faith which is required if 
 
 we are to be forgiven. 
 
 461
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The freeness of forgiveness and its place a.t the 
 beginning of the Christian life is no less striking. To 
 some it may seem as if the arrangement would have 
 been more conducive to holiness had the Gospel 
 bidden men to be holy that they might be forgiven, 
 instead of saying " Be holy, because you are forgiven." 
 But there are grave reasons in human nature against 
 this change ; and the holiest men have recognised the 
 wisdom of the Divine order ; " Ye are risen with Christ, 
 therefore set your affections upon things above :" "Ye 
 are not your own, ye are bought with a price, therefore 
 glorify God in your bodies and in your spirits which 
 are God's." Most religious systems teach the duty of 
 holiness in some sense, and promise forgiveness. It is 
 the order of these blessings that distinguishes the false 
 system from the true. The Gospel proclaims a free 
 pardon, and then supplies motives which influence the 
 will, and impel men to holiness ; the motives owing 
 their force to that faith which is at the outset the germ 
 of a holy life. Thus is it that men are not only for- 
 given — they are sanctified, made holy through the faith 
 which is in Christ. 
 
 On the nature of this evangelical holiness I cannot 
 
 now insist. It is essentially the admiration and the 
 
 practice of whatever is true and righteous and loving ; 
 
 not of the first two only, but of the three combined. 
 
 It is begun in the soul through the force of motives as 
 
 various as the instincts of men, the fear of punishment, 
 
 the desire of happiness, the yearning of the heart after 
 
 462
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 something nobler than anything the world contains ; 
 often by personal attachment to Christ, loving loyalty 
 to Him for what He has done for iis, a feeling not the 
 highest in the Christian life, though leading to the 
 highest, viz., attachment to Him for what He is. It 
 always involves in a world like ours self-denial, — the 
 subjection of the lower principles of our nature to the 
 higher, and of our will to God's. In its highest form 
 it teaches us to use every power and gift in promoting 
 the holiness and the happiness of all around us. This is 
 the exactest definition that can be given of God's 
 glory, the manifestation of His character in the holi- 
 ness and happiness of intelligent creation ; and in 
 proportion as His glory is our end, we are partakers 
 of His nature, perfect as our Father in heaven is per- 
 fect. We tread in the steps and are conformed to the 
 image of His Son. 
 
 It is the design of the Gospel not only to teach this 
 holiness, but to produce it in individual character and 
 in national life. With this view it reveals truths that 
 purify the heart, supplies motives that influence the 
 will, and it adds the promise of that divine help which 
 the most thoughtful heathen writers, philosophers, 
 dramatists, historians, have afifirmed to be essential if 
 man is to attain to Divine virtue. 
 
 If we know these things, and have felt them, we need 
 no further evidence of their truth. We have the wit- 
 ness in ourselves, as clear and as strong as the 
 evidence either of reason or of science. 
 
 463
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Men taunt us sometimes with our divisions. " If we 
 become Christians," they say " which of your sects are 
 we to join, for you seem endlessly divided ?" And I 
 reply, In all that is essential to Christian life true 
 Christians agree. Ask any Christian man what he 
 thinks and feels of the evil and the desert of sin, what of 
 his dependence for forgiveness on the free and righteous 
 mercy of God in Christ, what of his need of renewal 
 and of personal holiness, and I venture to affirm that 
 his answers will commend themselves to the hearts of 
 Christian men of all sects and of every age. No 
 doubt there may be diversities of opinion on the 
 language he employs, and diversities of intensity in 
 the feeling with which particular trutlis are held. But in 
 all that is essential Christian men substantially agree. 
 And the reason is, that wherever there is true faith 
 there is penitence with loving humble trust, and the 
 earnest desire to be holy. There are, no doubt, parts 
 of Christianity not included in this enumeration, and 
 important parts. Everything indeed that God deems 
 to be worth revealing is worth our knowing. But still 
 the fact remains, that the elements of Christian life, 
 our thoughts and feelings in relation to sin, to God in 
 Christ, and to holiness, are alike in all Christian 
 hearts. They share the immutability of Him who is 
 objectively and subjectively the sum and the centre of 
 them all. They are " The same yesterday, and to- 
 day, and for ever." 
 
 464
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 4. But, finally, the remedial system of the .Gospel 
 would be incomplete if it did not make provision for 
 human happiness. The desire of happiness is an in- 
 stinct of our nature, none the less that it is strangely 
 misjudged. Some think it too strong ; whi'e, in fact, 
 it is too feeble. Too strong, indeed, it is, compared 
 with conscience ; too feeble compared with the force 
 of the affections it ought to control. Our propensi- 
 ties — passions — would often be checked if only we 
 had a stronger sense of our real good. Some think 
 it the measure, the motive, the very essence of virtue, 
 and claim to have in it a safer foundation for morals 
 than in conscience itself. They forget that this in- 
 stinct also is blinded and corrupted by sin, and that 
 men are after all better judges of what is right 
 than of what is best for them. Some think that the 
 desire of happiness is selfishness, and that God does 
 not care to gratify it. But clearly our happiness 
 must be as dear to the Divine benevolence, as our 
 holiness is dear to the Divine purity. It is impossible 
 even to conceive of an infinitely benevolent God 
 ceasing to take delight in the happiness of his children. 
 And certainly in Scripture God appeals to this instinct 
 as often as He appeals to conscience itself Our happi- 
 ness is dear to Him ! 
 
 The first provision of the Gospel for the promotion 
 of human happiness, whether in individuals or in nations, 
 is identified with that great spiritual change which 
 begins the religious life. Under the government of 
 
 465 30
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 God sin and misery are indissolubly joined. If men 
 will love sin, if they will be selfish and passionate, 
 they must be miserable. It is probably impossible 
 for the blessed God Himself to make bad men happy. 
 But let their hearts be changed, let them love 
 what God loves, and hate what God hates, and a 
 foundation is laid for happiness that nothing can 
 overthrow. 
 
 And when once this foundation is laid, and men 
 agree w^ith God on all the great principles of His 
 government, His acts — the administrative part of it so 
 to speak — need create no fear. The announcement is 
 as true now as it was in the first age : " To them that 
 love God all things work together for good." The 
 inspired reasoning is as conclusive as when the Apostle 
 first used it — " He that spared not His own Son, will 
 He not with Him freely give us all things." The 
 command is still binding," Be care-full iox nothing ; but 
 in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanks- 
 givings, let your requests be made known unto God." 
 Disappointments and trials will come ; but meanwhile 
 a thousand sources of pleasure are open to us. For 
 everything beside, we commit our way unto God, 
 having no anxiety but to do His will and to bear it, 
 knowing that what He does is ever "wisest and 
 kindest and best." 
 
 Of course these lessons may have a place in our 
 
 creeds and exercise no influence ; but let them be 
 
 believed by the heart, become principles of our indi- 
 
 466
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 vidual and national life, and misery becomes im- 
 possible. We [have " days of heaven even iq)on 
 earth !" 
 
 Here then is in brief the argument. My reason and 
 my understanding — intuition and experience — de- 
 mand a First Cause of all things. My conscience 
 demands a Lawgiver and Judge. My entire nature 
 cries out for forgiveness, for holiness, for happiness. 
 The world " sighs to be renewed." Christianity meets 
 €very one of these instincts in a way peculiarly its 
 own, and yet intelligible and complete. It is so true 
 in the descriptions it gives of things which" are within 
 the domain of my consciousness that I am ready to 
 believe it when it speaks of things which are beyond 
 it I am sure of the " earthly things" it describes, and 
 am disposed to believe in the heavenly. Acting upon 
 the measure of faith I have, I get more light and 
 deeper conviction : till in the end I am prepared to 
 maintain, from inward feeling even more than from 
 external evidence, that there is nothing truer than the 
 Gospel, as there is nothing so holy in its tendency 
 when once it is believed, or so blessed in its results ! 
 
 Perhaps it may be said in reply. This argument 
 
 requires that men love part of the Gospel and act 
 
 upon it, even before they are persuaded of the truth 
 
 of the whole. I concede it : and plead the more 
 
 earnestly for Christianity on that ground. In common 
 
 life, the neglect to act on what we know to be true 
 
 467
 
 ■MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and right in small things makes men incapable of 
 ascertaining what is true and right on a grand scale. 
 So deeply did Grotius feel this consideration, that he 
 regarded the very evidence of Christianity, and the 
 way in which it reveals itself to the loving and 
 obedient, as itself one proof the Divine origin of the 
 Gospel, showing itself herein Divinely adapted to test 
 men's character and hearts. And besides, our own 
 nature vindicates Christianity in this respect. The 
 morbid excitability of one part of our frame is best 
 relieved by the increased activity of another. An 
 irritable faith is a symptom of defective action else- 
 where, and is often best cured by attention to acknow- 
 ledged duty. Doubts, which no arguments can re- 
 move will often melt away amidst the warmth and 
 vigour of active love. Practise what you already be- 
 lieve — do His will as far as you hold it. Whereto 
 you have attained, walk by the rule you admit, and in 
 due time all else will be made plain ! This arrange- 
 ment is itself a reasonable law ; and becomes in turn 
 a fresh evidence in support of our faith. 
 
 I end as I began. I depreciate no evidence, his- 
 torical, prophetic, miraculous, literary. God gives all, 
 and we need all. But the evidence which is at once 
 the strongest to convince and the easiest to under- 
 stand, provided only we are morally disposed to re- 
 ceive it, is the evidence which appeals to our hearts 
 
 408
 
 MAN: A WITNESS FOR CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and to our experience. "Christianity," says Coleridge, 
 "finds me in the lowest depth of my being, as no 
 other system can. It meets there my direst needs." 
 Herein is proof of its Divine origin, and of the love of 
 Him that gives it ! Yes, we are every one of us 
 God's witnesses. If we believe, we can set our seal 
 to it, that this Gospel is true. " He that believeth on 
 the Son of God hath the witness in himself." " We 
 know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us 
 an understanding, that we may know Him that is 
 true ; and we are in Him that is true, even in His 
 Son Jesus Christ This is the true God, and eternal 
 life."* 
 
 • I Julm V. 10, 20. 
 
 THE END,
 
 KINTII EDITION. 
 In Crown %vo, price Js. 6d., cloth. 
 
 MODERN SCEPTICISM. 
 
 A Course of Lectures delivered at the request of 
 THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCE SOCIETY. 
 With an Explanatory Paper by the Right Rev. C. J. ELLICOTT, D.D., 
 Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Design in Nature. By the Most 
 Rev. the Lord Archbishop of York. 
 
 Pantheism. By Rev. J. H. Rigg, 
 D.D. 
 
 Positivism. By Rev. W. Jackson, 
 M.A., F.S.A. 
 
 Science and Revelation. By the 
 Very Rev. the Dean of Canterbury. 
 
 The Nature and Value of the 
 Miraculous Testimony to 
 Christianity. By Rev. John 
 Stoughton, D.D. 
 
 The Gradual Development of 
 Revelation. By the Right Rev. 
 the Lord Bishop of Carlisle. 
 
 The Alleged Historical Diffi- 
 culties OF THE Old and New 
 Testaments. By Prof. George 
 Rawlinson, M.A. 
 
 Mythical Theories of Christi- 
 anity. By Rev. Charles Row, 
 M.A. 
 
 The Evidential Value of St. 
 Paul's Epistles. By Prof. 
 Stanley Leathes, M.A. 
 
 Christ's Influence on History. 
 By the Right Rev. the Bishop of 
 Ely. 
 
 The Completeness and Ade- 
 quacy OF THE Evidences of 
 Christianity. By Rev. F. C. 
 Cook, Canon of Exeter. 
 
 "A very valuable and important work. . . . Regarding the lectures as a whole, 
 they deserve high praise for the abundant learning displayed throughout the entire range ; 
 the breadth, sound logic, and fairness of their argument, especially when dealing with 
 opponents." — Standard. 
 
 " If nothing more had been gained for the cause of Christian truth than the juxtaposi- 
 tion of these essays in one volume, with the assurance thus given to the world that the 
 most distinguished dignitaries of the Church of England hold common ground with 
 learned Congregationalist and Wesleyan divines on the fundamental bases of religious 
 faith, the Christian Evidence Society might be fairly congratulated on the success of its 
 enterprise. . . . Everywhere we discover honesty of purpose, sympathy with the 
 doubter, an endeavour on the part of thoughtful and learned Christian teachers to put 
 themselves into the position of the inquirer. There is comparatively little dogmatism, 
 there is very considerable beauty of illustration, and there breathes throughout the whole 
 volume a healthy, vigorous faith." — British Qtiarterly Review. 
 
 "A scientific, intellectual, and critical scepticism can only be met by weapons of its 
 own kind, and the special value of this volume consists in the circumstances that it 
 represents the highest order of intelligence and learning on the side of Christianity as a 
 Divine revelation, and that it correctly states, and argumentatively answers, the ob ec- 
 lions of opponents. The volume ought to find a place on the shelves of every theological 
 and controversial library." — Churchinan. 
 
 " With singular gratification we welcome this admirable course of apologetic lectures. 
 It is a noble design, very ably and .successfully executed. Though coming from the 
 hands of eleven different writers, they are characterized by a remarkable equality in 
 general ability and literary skill, and a continuous plan and purpose runs through tKe 
 whole, which imparts to the collected series much of the unity and completeness of a con- 
 nected treatise." — Presbyterian. 
 
 The above Lectures, and the Bishop of Gloucester'' s Paper, may be had 
 separately, price Sixpence each. 
 
 LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW,
 
 WORKS BY THE REV. F. JACOX, B.A., 
 
 (St. John's College, Cambridge,) formerly Curate of Wellingborough. 
 
 IN CROWN 8V0, PRICE 6S., CLOTH. 
 
 BIBLE MUSIC: 
 
 ISring "FariattonB in mans tKfBS on fHustral HLfftmts from ScrtpturE. 
 
 " A writer who lias culture and a wide acquaintance with all kinds of literature, and 
 who will bring out of his stores wherewith to illustrate and enliven and support his own 
 remarks about things in general, can hardly fail to make a pleasant bo ok ; and there is 
 certainly no failure in the case of 'Bible Music' Reference is made to seventeen 
 passages of Scripture, in which there is some allusion to something more or less nearly 
 connected with music ; and then a cheerful meandering stream of gossip is poured fprth, 
 and permitted to flow in all conceivable directions, whilst its own original voliune is 
 continually being increased by rivulets of anecdote and quotation, verse and prose." — 
 Illustrated London News. 
 
 IN CROWN 8V0, PRICE 6S., CLOTH. 
 
 FIRST SERIES. SECOND EDITION. 
 
 SECULAR ANNOTATIONS ON 
 SCRIPTURE TEXTS. 
 
 " By ' Secular Annotations ' Mr. Jacox means illustrations from what is commonly 
 called profane history and literature. ... A singularly interesting volume. Here is 
 an admirable 'Sunday Book,' the work of a man of wide reading, whose many books do 
 not, as Robert Hall once said of a learned friend, prevent his brain from moving." — 
 
 Spectator. 
 
 "This volume is the result of very extensive and discursive reading. Choice fragments 
 of poetry, philosophy and history, the analogies of life and thought, with the high themes 
 suggested by the sacred text, are heaped in almost prodigal affluence of illustration, upon 
 the foundation of each text." — British Quarterly Review. 
 
 IN CROWN 8vO, PRICE 6S., CLOTH. 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 SECULAR ANNOTATIONS ON 
 SCRIRT'URE TEXTS. 
 
 " In this, as well u in th^ fori\ijgr series of ' Secular Annotations,' he shows with great 
 success how marvellously (iteralure, in its manifold forms of history, fiction, poetry, and 
 philosophy, yields il!p*f3ati^ns of the teaching of Holy Scripture. Mr. Jacox has pro- 
 duced a work of greit inlei'est and usefulness." — Evangelical Magazine. 
 
 i\ 
 
 \ ' ^ 
 
 IN cRoy*> 8vo, PRICE 7S. 6d., cloth. 
 
 CUES FR)OXl ALL QUARTERS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 LITERARY MUSINGS OF A CLERICAL RECLUSE. 
 
 " ' Cues from all Quarters ' is certainly a remarkable book. We cannot but marvel at 
 the extraordinary powers of memory which it displays, and at the equally remarkable 
 ability of welding materials which to ordinary eyes possess little affinity into one consen- 
 tient and harmonious whole." — Christian Odserver. 
 
 LONDON : HODDER & STO , _„ 
 
 mmr-^O'ir&hi^m^^*' 
 
 M>.^ .4NnHU.RS
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 ffiCOlMW 
 
 Aua 
 
 m 
 
 fEP 
 
 \^' 
 
 
 ,,ji: 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 g? 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 -< 
 
 .OFCALIFO/?^. .-^OFCALIfO% .^\\E•^jNIVERJ//, 
 
 'J- 
 
 'Ta
 
 'Or XJCIUJW">J|-|.CJ^ 
 
 
 3 1158 01028 9444 
 
 '/\U f UUli J" 
 
 
 3%. ^OFCA!!Fn,?ic 
 
 ? 
 
 ^ 
 
 i.# ^^ 
 
 P 
 
 ^<?Ail 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 001 269 702 5 
 
 \INI1-3WV 
 
 mms-K 
 
 //Sa3AINIl-3WV> 
 
 %a3AINlV3WV' 
 
 If 
 
 1^ 
 
 R% 
 
 '%ya3AiNn-3\v^ 
 
 AllFO/?^ 
 
 ^<?Aavaan-# 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 iY/9/r, ^lllBRARY(7^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 '^<!/0JnV3JO>^ 
 
 ^\WMJNIVER5/^ ^10SANCEI% 
 
 <ril33NVSm^'^ '^/Ja3AINa-3UV' 
 
 ^ 
 
 0/?^ ^OFCALIF0% 
 
 .. '-r. 
 
 ^^\\EUNIVER% ^lOSANCElfj^A 
 
 ^