\f-UNIVER?/A /- -N. > # '^0 n^"^ %ii3AiNn3WV^ ^ ^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-^' ''•> 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