BT 
 
 HOI 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
. 
 

MODERN INFIDELITY 
 
 AND THE 
 
 BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 
 
 A PAPER READ AT THE 
 
 Yorfc (Conference of the ^Evangelical JWiance, 
 
 THEODORE LCHRISTLIEB, D.D., PH.D., 
 
 Professor of Theology, and Chaplain to the University of Bonn, Pi 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 HERBERT U. WEITBRECHT, PH.D. 
 
 REVISED EDITION, WITH A PREFACE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 VERY REV. R. PAYNE SMITH, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Canterbury. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1874. 
 
I?*?*/ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE following essay on Modern Infidelity, by Professor 
 Theodore Christlieb, of the University of Bonn, when 
 read at one of the meetings of the Evangelical Alliance 
 at New York, in the autumn of 1873, made so profound 
 an impression upon the audience, that he was requested 
 to read it again, inserting those passages which, on the 
 first occasion, he had omitted on account of the essay 
 exceeding the usual time allotted for delivery. Upon 
 this second occasion, the large church offered to Dr. 
 Christlieb for the evening, was crowded in every part 
 by a highly intelligent mass of people, who, for two 
 hours and a half, listened with the most intense interest, 
 elicited not by any rhetorical display on the part of the 
 speaker for nothing could be more quiet and simple 
 than Dr. Christlieb's manner but by the ability dis- 
 played throughout the paper. The writer of this short 
 notice was himself present, and was much impressed by 
 what he heard, and he now ventures to call the attention 
 of the Christian public of England to Dr. ChristlieVs 
 work. It has already commanded a large sale in 
 America, where it has been published in a separate 
 form, distinct from the collection of papers read at the 
 meetings of the Alliance, and which, when collected 
 
V PKEFACE. 
 
 together, will fill one or two large volumes; and its 
 author has now been prevailed upon to publish it in 
 a similar manner in England, in the hope that it may 
 help to confirm many here in the faith. The reader 
 will find the argument calm, clear, and convincing, 
 moderate in manner, but strong in thought ; and if it 
 gives as much pleasure in the perusal as it did in the 
 delivery, and carries to the mind the same entire con- 
 viction of the firm basis upon which our Christianity 
 stands, as was the general feeling impressed upon those 
 who had the happiness to be present in person when 
 Dr. Christlieb read this essay, the Church will have 
 reason to congratulate herself upon so able a reasoner 
 taking up the argument in her defence. It is a work 
 well worthy the attentive study of all who are anxious 
 to attain unto the truth. 
 
 R PAYNE SMITH. 
 
 DEANERY, CANTERBURY, 
 
 Feb. 2, 1874. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE - - - . .... . . iii 
 
 THESES - - - - - '- - - 5 
 
 INTRODUCTION - - -- - : > - 9 
 
 I. INFIDELITY IN ISOLATED INDIVIDUALS - 13 
 
 II. THE SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM OF UNBELIEF - - 19 
 
 III. UNBELIEF AS A LOCAL POWER - - - - 49 
 
THESES. 
 
 I. To be true to her essential spirit and character, the 
 Evangelical Church must eschew all methods of defend- 
 ing her faith which do not rest upon a spiritual and 
 moral basis, and do not aim at bringing opponents to 
 accept the truth as it is in Christ by means of free per- 
 sonal persuasion and conviction. 
 
 II. The most effectual method of combating unbeliej 
 in individuals is the moral isagogic, i.e., that by which 
 the conscience is touched, the religious need awakened, 
 and salvation in Christ heartily and lovingly testified, 
 from personal experience, to be the truth, which alone 
 can satisfy the inward cravings of the soul. 
 
 III. In combating the systems of unbelief, success is 
 only to be hoped for from a really scientific method of 
 defence. This consists, on the one hand, in a constant 
 employment of the ever-improving apparatus of modern 
 investigation ; on the other hand, in that quiet objective 
 spirit, the only aim of which is to attain to the truth ; 
 both these being combined with the joyous certainty 
 that the scientific struggle has, in all ages, contributed 
 not a little toward grounding the Church in her holy 
 faith, and showing how firm are its foundations. 
 
 IV. The chief systematic tendencies of modern infi- 
 delity may be comprised under these three heads : un- 
 christian philosophy, destructive historical criticism, 
 and anti-miraculous natural science. The first step in 
 an effectual scientific defence against these must be to 
 define clearly the extent of those doctrines which con- 
 stitute the specific, and therefore inalienable nucleus of 
 the Christian faith, and thus to distinguish plainly be- 
 tween the fundamental and central truths necessary to 
 
6 THESES. 
 
 salvation, and those less central ones, which allow of 
 various shades of subjective opinion ; in a word, to 
 recognise the difference between the Biblical substance 
 of our religious belief and its dogmatic formulation. 
 
 V. Against Anticliristian speculative philosophy, our 
 scientific apology should especially defend the Christian 
 idea of God, as that which alone corresponds to the con- 
 ception of the Absolute, and the Christian view of the 
 world in general, as a compact and organic unity, in all 
 its beauty and grandeur. The central truth of this 
 system we take to be the help vouchsafed by God in 
 Christ to a sinful world, which approves itself to our 
 conscience as an inward necessity for the true satisfac- 
 tion of our religious and moral needs, in view of the 
 impotence of all human self-help in overcoming evil. 
 The uncertainty and untenableness of all, even modern 
 philosophy, should be proved from the constant fluctua- 
 tion and change of its principles, the undemonstrated 
 character of its assumptions, the inner contradictions in its 
 construction of the relations between God and the world, 
 and its failure to yield any positive and lasting results. 
 
 VI. The duty of our scientific apology, as against 
 destructive historical criticism, is to show that the 
 Scriptures become unintelligible if their inspiration be 
 denied, while at the same time we should uphold their 
 human and Divine (not solely Divine) character, and 
 distinguish between a justifiable and reverent criticism, 
 and one which shows a false aversion to the miraculous. 
 The latter must be combated by exposing its false 
 philosophical principles, which apply merely human 
 standards to incommensurable Divine magnitudes, its 
 subjective caprice and coups deforce in the treatment of 
 details ; by pointing to the growing testimony of modern 
 archaeological research in favour of Scripture ; but 
 especially by demonstrating the impossibility of in- 
 venting the picture which the Gospels give of Christ, or 
 of any sufficient explanation of the original Christian 
 

 THESES* 7 
 
 belief, or the existence of the Christian Church, without 
 accepting the Gospel narrative as historical fact. 
 
 VII. Against the attacks of anti-miraculous natural 
 science, we must first of all draw a sharp line between 
 the aim and object of the Scriptures and that of natural 
 science ; showing that the former, as a record of Divine 
 Revelation, only touches upon the region of physics in 
 a fragmentary manner, and with a few general outlines, 
 for the purpose of laying a foundation for its moral and 
 spiritual teachings ; while the latter is confined to an 
 empirical observation of things as they are, and can 
 therefore only make conjectures as to the processes by 
 which the world originated, but cannot possibly render 
 the existence of a spiritual and invisible world a doubtful 
 matter by any results of microscopic or telescopic in- 
 vestigations. After having rejected the anti-miraculous 
 axioms of modern science by resting on the Christian, as 
 the only reasonable idea of God and his relation to the 
 world, we should proceed to take our stand upon the 
 harmony which has already been established in general 
 outlines between the Biblical cosmogony and the results 
 of natural science, as a fact which justifies the hope of 
 a future solution of all differences which yet remain. 
 Further, we have to expose the uncertainty and rash- 
 ness of many conclusions, which, though supposed to 
 be strictly scientific, yet rest upon mere hypotheses, and 
 are constantly being modified by stricter investigations. 
 Finally, we must repulse the hypothesis as to the 
 generation of man from mere natural forces, as being 
 an attack on his true dignity, by arguments drawn from 
 our moral and spiritual self-consciousness, confirming 
 the Scriptural doctrine of the divinity of human nature, 
 and by pointing to the physiological, but still more to 
 the historical, arguments for the unity of our race. 
 
 VIII. Our defence against the inroads of infidelity 
 as a social power must, in order to be effectual, be con- 
 ducted according to the rule, ' 6 By their fruits ye shall 
 
O THESES. 
 
 9 
 
 know them." To this end we must furnish practical 
 historical proofs of the destructiveness of infidelity far 
 more extensively than has hitherto been done, by a fear- 
 less exposure of its evil fruits in spreading an unlimited 
 pride, confusing all moral and religious ideas, and 
 founding a despotism of hollow phrases : in exhausting 
 all vigorous and independent congregational life, as re- 
 gards both worship, discipline, and Church government ; 
 and in paralysing all energetic and self-sacrificing work 
 for the extension of God's kingdom. Especially we 
 should point out the utter inability of unbelief to minister 
 to the wants of souls, or to supply any practical religious 
 need, particularly in times of trouble, and its destructive 
 effects in undermining and ruining education and family, 
 civil and political society, and all national or social . 
 prosperity. 
 
 IX. The most irresistible method of defence against 
 the last-named, and all other forms of infidelity, is the 
 actual proof of a Christian life. The duty of furnish- 
 ing this proof falls partly to the lot of the Church, by 
 the removal of all unnecessary quarrels and jealousies at 
 home and abroad, and by cherishing a wide-hearted 
 brotherly love and union among all evangelical denomi- 
 nations : partly it falls to the lot of the congregation, by 
 openly and joyfully witnessing, in word and deed, for 
 Christ before the world, by developing a vigorous 
 Christian associational life, by exercising a Christian 
 influence on the press and popular literature : partly, 
 also, it falls to the lot of individuals, by arming them- 
 selves more fully with spiritual weapons through prayer, 
 by moral and religious personal conduct which shall 
 outshine that of the opponents ; by faithfulness in work, 
 patience in suffering, and peace in death. 
 
MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE BEST 
 METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT, 
 
 THE question as to the best methods of counteracting 
 modern infidelity is so wide a one whether we consider 
 it in a scientific, a historical, or a practical and moral 
 light that it is imperatively necessary for us to confine 
 ourselves in its treatment to two points of view. First, 
 then, we would indicate the chief scientific positions in 
 which attack and defence can be most successfully main- 
 tained especially drawing attention to those points in 
 the great struggle which have hitherto been overlooked ; 
 and second, we shall endeavour to sketch out the prac- 
 tical tasks imposed upon us as members or teachers of a 
 Christian community, as well as on the Church of Christ 
 at large, in the great battle against the unbelief of our 
 day. All questions of detail we will leave to free dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 We Germans are notorious for making long introduc- 
 tions, but to-day notwithstanding all that might with 
 advantage be said I prefer to omit preliminaries alto- 
 gether. I will not, therefore, stop to give an exact limi- 
 tation or definition of the term ' ' modern infidelity, ' ' 
 although this notion has not everywhere quite the same 
 extent; as, e.g., in England, some opinions are called 
 rationalistic, which in Germany would hardly be so 
 designated. I hope, however, to express the view com- 
 mon to us all, when I say that we comprise under the 
 name of " infidel 77 all those tendencies and systems 
 which militate against the Biblical and Christian view 
 
10 MODEKN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 of God and of the universe, which do not consider Holy 
 Scripture as an authentic record of Divine Bevelation, 
 and which in theory or in practice refuse to acknowledge 
 the central doctrine of our faith, viz., the salvation that 
 has appeared in Christ. The term modern infidelity, 
 then, would designate the same tendencies and schools 
 of thought as they appear at the present day, i.e., armed 
 with weapons furnished them by the philosophy, the 
 historical criticisms, and the natural science of our 
 times. 
 
 Finally, we pass by the various schools of unbelief with 
 their specific principles, such as Pantheism, nationalism, 
 &c., since the more important of them will be separately 
 treated of to-day ; and we merely glance at the different 
 forms practically assumed by modern unbelief. Among 
 these forms we see every possible gradation of departure 
 from Christian truth, ranging from the indifierentism 
 which still admits of a nominal connection with the 
 Church, to a fanatical and aggressive hatred to all that 
 belongs to it ; from a Pilate's tone of haughty despite, 
 to blasphemous mockery ; or from the learned investi- 
 gator and critic, who with immense diligence and acute- 
 ness endeavours to reduce all the Divine elements in 
 Scripture to mere natural phenomena produced by human 
 historical agencies, down to the shallow journalist, who 
 is fain to widen his circle of readers by piquant mockery 
 of all "orthodoxy" and "methodism." Essentially 
 the same tendency of thought is represented by that 
 critic who, as the result of the long conflict, would have 
 us substitute the "new faith" (by Messrs. Lessing and 
 Darwin) for the "old faith," but who, forsooth, ardently 
 desires to see the old order of society preserved at 
 least until his eyes are closed, as by those fanatical 
 enemies of the present social order, who already antici- 
 pate the logical results of the " new belief," viz., a chaos 
 formed by the destruction of society's present frame- 
 work, of all the ideal elements of life, even of the 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 11 
 
 worship of art-heroes still left to us by Strauss, and the 
 proclamation of a gospel of the flesh which shall teach 
 man to cultivate naught but the palpable and sensuous. 
 
 If, in view of these increasingly radical and threaten- 
 ing attacks, we inquire after the test methods of repulse, 
 we thereby indicate that there are various methods of 
 differing value. The defence must, of course, vary in 
 its method, on the one hand, according to the nature 
 and extent of the unbelief, the causes of its origin, and 
 in the manner in which it conducts its assaults against 
 our faith ; on the other hand, according to the position 
 which we desire to maintain. But we may safely say 
 that there are, and always have been, certain recognised 
 and well-defined lines and maxims of defence, though 
 differing much from one another in value. 
 
 A thoroughly wrong method one which is diametri- 
 cally opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, and has not, 
 sad to say, always been used by the Eoman Church only 
 is the suppression of opposition against certain dogmas 
 by physical force, or by merely appealing to the outward 
 authority of the Church. In the same way we reject 
 and I think you will agree with me in this as unevan- 
 gelical, unfruitful, and productive of confusion, the 
 cognate tendency shown by the extreme ecclesiastical 
 party in the Protestant Church, who would oppose the 
 unbridled independence and subjective arbitrariness 
 of the criticism of our day by an overstrained assertion 
 of the rights of the priestly office, and would endeavour 
 to raise a barrier against the prevalence of free investi- 
 gation and spontaneous appropriation of truth by 
 laying an exaggerated stress upon the sacramental actions 
 of the Church, which the most advanced of them are 
 already beginning to make into sacrificial rites. These 
 theories and tendencies we reject ; for a knowledge or 
 appropriation of saving grace communicated otherwise 
 than by moral (not magical) means is opposed no less to 
 Scripture than to the spirit of our age ! 
 
12 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 The trust that sustains us in this tremendous struggle, 
 waged not with men alone, but with all the powers of 
 darkness, must not be founded on ourselves, nor on other 
 weak men ; not on any outward assistance from the State, 
 nor on forms and ceremonies, (for " cursed is the man 
 that maketh flesh his arm," Jer. xvii. 5) ; but on the 
 Lord Himself who sits exalted at His Father's right 
 hand, as Ruler over all, even the raging of His enemies. 
 His presence is not bound to outward forms or traditions. 
 He is the Spirit (2 Cor. iii. 17), and from Him proceeds 
 the Spirit of truth. To this His Spirit we must in the 
 last resort leave the work of convincing men's hearts 
 and minds of the truth of Christian Revelation, without 
 sparing them the trouble of free investigation or of a 
 conscientious decision and self-resolve. In accordance 
 with these principles, our human task in the battle against 
 unbelief can be no other than to overcome the opponent 
 by moral and spiritual means. First of all, that is, by 
 an earnest, spiritually vigorous testimony for Christ ; 
 next, by a truly scientific delineation of Christian belief, 
 as a view of the world and of God, which is strictly 
 coherent and corroborated by history and conscience, 
 while at the same time openly^acknowledging all its diffi- 
 culties and obscurities ; and last, by a practical demon- 
 stration of its truth in Christian living and suffering. 
 
 Keeping this fundamental rule in view, we observe 
 that unbelief presents itself to us socially in different 
 shapes, either isolated in individuals, or systematically 
 formulated in scientific schools, or practically carried 
 out by the press, clubs, unions, &c., and forming a 
 threatening power in our social life. Thus our subject 
 naturally divides into three heads : How may we best 
 counteract Infidelity I. In individuals ? II. In scientific 
 systems ? III. As a social power, practically extending 
 its influence throughout wide circles ? 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 13 
 
 I. INFIDELITY IN ISOLATED INDIVIDUALS. 
 
 Under this head we will only give a few suggestions, 
 in order to have more room for the other parts. 
 
 The following treatment seems to me the wisest : First, 
 we must endeavour to obtain for ourselves (and mostly 
 for the individuals in question, too) a clear idea of the 
 special causes from which their unbelief has originated. 
 These may be of very varied character. They may 
 consist in received tradition, in discoveries of modern 
 science, in political or social phenomena. Often unbelief 
 results almost as a natural necessity from the whole 
 spiritual and moral atmosphere of a man's surroundings. 
 Let us put ourselves in the place of such individuals, 
 and not forget (as is, alas ! too often done) the share of 
 blame which frequently attaches to the Church herself, by 
 reason of her neglect to care for souls, her inward naked- 
 ness, her fruitless bickerings about trifles, her narrow- 
 minded party spirit, all of which constantly do an 
 infinity of mischief by alienating from her the hearts of 
 thousands. Such thoughts will produce in us true 
 humility and hearty sympathy with the inward misery 
 of those who are far from God feelings without which 
 we shall never be able to gain their confidence, nor lead 
 them to see the innermost causes of their unbelief in 
 certain moral failings. 
 
 It is not for nothing that our Lord classes unbelief with 
 hardness of heart ("He upbraided them with their 
 unbelief and hardness of heart," Mark xvi. 14 ; cf. Luke 
 xxiv. 25). In the first and last resort, all unbelief 
 springs, not from the hardness and incomprehensibility 
 which the faith possesses for the understanding, but from 
 hardness and perverseness of the natural heart of man, 
 which will not bow to the mighty and solemn truth of 
 Divine Revelation. This perverseness is a strange 
 mixture on the one hand, of cowardice, when a man 
 
14 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 has not the courage to let his inward failings be un- 
 covered in all their nakedness, nor dares to enlarge his 
 own narrow views according to the great ways and deeds 
 of God, but would fain make those fit to the measure 
 of his own small ideas ;* and -thus, on the other hand, 
 of overweening self-confidence, when the same man 
 thinks far too highly of human knowledge and accomplish- 
 ments, and far too little of God's mighty and holy 
 government when he would attain to every thing by 
 means of his own knowledge and power in a word, 
 when man would far rather help himself than let him- 
 self be helped by God, and thankfully accept the re- 
 demption brought by Jesus Christ. In truth, this is the 
 material principle which divides all unbelief and false 
 belief toto ccelo from true belief : on the one hand, there 
 is self-help ; on the other, God's help. The pride' of 
 the philosophical critic, just as much as that of 
 the natural scientist, is always striving to substitute 
 human activity and spontaneity for human receptive- 
 ness before God. Instead of Soli Deo, its motto is Soli 
 homini gloria ! 
 
 Last, but not least, among these general inward causes 
 of unbelief come the positively earthy inclinations of the 
 human heart, its proneness to satisfaction in this world, 
 a tendency which is seductively encouraged by the pre- 
 sent materialistic denial of another life ; or, to put it 
 plainly in a word, the power of the dollar. This is 
 a far greater hindrance to true belief than all the writ- 
 ings of philosophers and critics put together : this wor- 
 ship of Mammon it is that causes a deep and wide-spread 
 disaffection against all ethical and spiritual truth, and 
 a perversion of the moral judgment, against which all 
 mere logical reasoning is of no avail. The causes of 
 unbelief really lie in the heart and will. However 
 
 * " Animus ad amplitudinem mysteriorum pro modulo suo dilatetur, 
 non mysteria ad angustias animi constringantur." FRANCIS BACON, De 
 Augment. Scient.j x. 1. 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 15 
 
 strong outward influences may be, in divine things no 
 one errs entirely without his own fault. 
 
 If such be the case, then the most effectual method 
 of opposing unbelief m individuals is that which we may 
 term the ethico-psychological or isagogic method ; that 
 is, the method which leads inward to the heart and con- 
 science of those addressed. Let me explain myself. 
 
 First of all, we should endeavour to lead our brother 
 to a clear and sober recognition of the inward causes 
 and the effects of his unbelief on his own moral develop- 
 ment ; this, however, not as inquisitors, but with hearty 
 and humble sympathy. "Reflect," let us say to him, 
 "on the first beginning of your doubts. From what 
 region did they come ? Is not, perhaps, your present 
 creed merely the theology of the natural heart ? And 
 can you say that this unbelief has been a real blessing 
 for your inner life ? Does its increase denote a true 
 moral progress, moderation in happiness, comfort and 
 support in misfortune ? Oh, give a true and upright 
 account of all this, not to me, but to yourself and 
 God!" 
 
 Later on we should show in how false a manner the 
 doubter usually examines the Divine origin and the 
 truth of the Christian faith. As a rule, he makes the 
 convenient demand first to be convinced by scientifically 
 exact arguments of the truth of Christian revelation 
 before he will accept it. He would first know, and then 
 believe. But this way cannot bring him to his goal. 
 We must show the fundamental error of this demand, 
 which consists in a confusion between the region of 
 morals and religion and that of mathematical science. 
 Spiritual truths should not and cannot be mathematically 
 demonstrated. First they must be apprehended by the 
 heart and conscience, and they will then prove them- 
 selves to the understanding as divinely true and neces- 
 sary. Were faith a mere matter of demonstration, it 
 would cease to be faith, i.e., a moral act consisting 
 
16 MODEEN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 in a trustful yielding up of self to that which as yet 
 we see not (Heb. xi. 1). 
 
 Further, we should go on to show that faith and 
 knowledge, far from being opposed, naturally supple- 
 ment each other, and that true faith is the source of 
 the deepest and highest knowledge. All learning [is 
 necessarily preceded by a submission to the authority 
 of the teacher ; and this preliminary submission of the 
 intellectual and critical faculties to the truth of Reve- 
 lation brings light into the soul, and lays the foundation 
 for healthy, sober, and clear views as to God, our own 
 being and condition, sin and its cure, and our final 
 destiny. Thus faith, i.e., the intrusting ourselves to 
 the light of Divine Revelation, leads to the knowledge 
 of the most exalted truth ; indeed, it is the beginning 
 of it. 
 
 If this way to knowledge seem hard to you, ask your- 
 self whether the Christian faith does not correspond to 
 and supply the deepest needs of the human heart. And 
 this is another important point in the treatment of un- 
 believers. The question turns upon the recognition of 
 evil in ourselves. For the whole struggle between belief 
 and unbelief, as has truly been said, * is but the conflict 
 between those who treat sin as a. light matter and those 
 who are heavily oppressed by it until they come to Him 
 who takes their burden away and lays His light yoke 
 upon them. Do you glory in your upright moral life ? 
 Have you, then, ever turned the whole energy of your 
 moral consciousness inward in a strict self-examina- 
 tion ? Even a great thinker like Kant once thoughtfully 
 paused before the universal and unquestionable fact of 
 a " radical evil" within us. And no upright man can 
 help doing the same. But the depth of this conviction 
 depends upon the standard which a man applies to him- 
 self, upon the idea which he has formed of his aim and 
 
 * Cf. A. Peip, Das Credo der Kirche und die Intelligenz des Zeit- 
 geistes, 1872. 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTEBACTING IT. 17 
 
 destiny. Are you not, perchance, in the habit of com- 
 paring yourselves with other men, who are at best but 
 imperfect ? In so doing, you degrade your own dignity 
 as one created in the image of God ! Your destiny is 
 the highest imaginable higher than ever philosopher 
 or poet placed it. "Be ye holy, for I also am holy." 
 " Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." 
 Does not a presentiment of this immeasurable destiny 
 live in your soul too ? and have you not the irrepressible 
 feeling, that to be truly free, happy, acceptable to God, 
 and like Him, you must be free from all sin ? 
 
 Now we have seen that the strictest moralists, such 
 as Kant, confess that no natural power can suffice for 
 this ; that even with the greatest moral energy in 
 wrestling with evil your morality remains full of defects, 
 and therefore your own exertions cannot satisfy the 
 wants of your heart. And, on the other hand, in the 
 person of Christ you see a moral grandeur, in which 
 healthy eyes, at least, have been able to discover no 
 blemish ; an ideal of perfection respecting which even 
 rationalistic critics have confessed that all human 
 standards vanish before it. What, in view of this, is 
 more reasonable than to conclude that you, poor, fet- 
 tered, but struggling spirit unable to free yourself, yet 
 destined to the highest good must, to attain your 
 destiny, enter into a personal and living communion 
 with the only perfect One who has appeared in the 
 history of our race with Jesus Christ, the Son of God 
 and Man, the Sin-destroyer and Redeemer of the world ? 
 And this is the sum and substance of our Christian faith 
 and Christian life ! We believe that the free grace and 
 mercy of God has come to the help of poor man, vainly 
 struggling to free himself from sin and evil; 'and this 
 great and all-sufficient Divine Help is Christ Jesus. 
 
 If you still wish to be your own saviour, beware lest 
 you fall into a delusion as to the fatal power of the evil 
 which is in you and its conquest. Such delusions may 
 
 B 
 
18 MODEEN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 flatter our hnman pride, but are belied by the actual 
 experience of all straightforward men. But the hand 
 of the Divine Redeemer has long been knocking at the 
 door of your heart, in answer to all its anxious question- 
 ings and complaints, and if you now grasp this hand 
 and intrust yourself to the guidance of the highest and 
 purest Light that ever shone in this world, to the God 
 of holiness and His saving grace in Christ, then this act 
 of faith will be your greatest moral achievement : it will 
 be in you a root of all the goodness and greatness attain- 
 able by man ; you will receive with this act the Christian 
 assurance of the Divine truth and immutability of your 
 faith, because it substantially approves itself to your 
 conscience in the ' ' demonstration of the Spirit and of 
 power." 
 
 These, in short, are the chief features of the 
 "isagogic" method of treating unbelief in individuals. 
 I consider it to be the best and most effective, because 
 the most trenchant and impressive. Of course, however, 
 it must be varied according to the measure of education 
 which the individual has enjoyed, and especially accord- 
 ing to his moral condition. The surest way to awaken 
 a response in the other's breast is the personal testimony 
 of grace received, which can throw itself and its spiritual 
 experience into the scale, and stand surety for the truth 
 of Christ's salvation. Another very important point, 
 especially with scientifically directed minds, is to show 
 them that, with their transposition of the relation be- 
 tween faith and knowledge, they will never escape riddles, 
 and must, nolens volens, accept many things which are 
 utterly without proof, or even absolutely inexplicable. 
 Ay, we may go so far as to say that, without the facts of 
 Biblical revelation, the enigmas of our existence, the 
 world, the Church, and history, are increased tenfold. 
 This indicates to us the weak point of 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 19 
 
 II. THE SCIENTIFIC SYSTEMS OF UNBELIEF. 
 
 These, now-a-days, conduct themselves more than ever 
 as if they represented science par excellence. They will 
 hear of none but scientific arguments, and so against 
 them none but a strictly scientific procedure can avail. 
 From the very beginning the Church did not shrink from 
 this struggle, and by means of it she constantly attained 
 a clearer consciousness of the substantial elements of her 
 own belief. Apology was the mother of dogmatical 
 science. However great the harm may be which is done 
 to whole generations by the systems of unbelief, yet it 
 should be borne in mind that every earnest and honour- 
 able contest with scientific opponents has, in the end, 
 always enriched the Church's store of truth, brought to 
 light new weapons from her inexhaustible arsenal, and 
 demonstrated afresh the steadfastness of the foundations 
 of our faith. "Forward ! " then, must be our motto, as 
 against modern unbelieving science too. The hotter the 
 battle, the more gainful its issue ! 
 
 In answer to the question as to the best scientific 
 methods of defence, I pass by all matters of detail (which 
 will be separately treated of in our conferences), and will 
 now endeavour to delineate the fundamental positions 
 which we must take up, in order successfully to defend 
 our faith, and at the same time to expose clearly the 
 scientific and practical weakness of the opposing- systems. 
 
 The first question is : How far does the ground extend 
 which must under all circumstances be defended ? Which 
 are the absolutely indispensable articles of our Protestant 
 Christian faith ? This brings us to a point that is most 
 important for our subject, and which it should be, espe- 
 cially in our days, the chief business of dogmatic theology 
 to settle : I mean, the clear definition and limitation of 
 the essential and fundamental articles of our faith, in 
 contradistinction to those which are less important and 
 may be left to the free judgment of each individual 
 
 -D 9 
 
20 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 
 
 Christian. In order to carry out its task, our science 
 of defence must learn to treat minor points as such. He 
 who defends too much, and represents doubtful things 
 as absolutely necessary to be believed, will no more 
 succeed than he who defends too little, i.e., mere rational 
 truths, instead of the heart of Christian belief. What 
 is, then, the chief object of our defence as distinguished 
 from others ? Let me explain myself by means of an 
 illustration. 
 
 In every considerable fortress there is a central bul- 
 wark or citadel, with various bastions, trenches, &c., 
 the close connection of which forms the strength of this 
 centre. Further out there is the enceinte, enclosing 
 town and fortress with its moat ; but the largest circle 
 of all is formed by the outside forts, which hinder the 
 enemy from approaching too near the walls. Our Chris- 
 tian faith is a fortress, strong as a rock, with just such 
 defences. The central position, or citadel, is as all 
 believing theologians have long agreed the redemption 
 and atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ. Union of 
 man with God through this Mediator is the end and aim 
 of all Revelation. This central dogma of the atonement 
 requires certain presuppositions and certain consequences 
 in respect both of God and man which are absolutely 
 indispensable if it is to stand firm. 
 
 The presuppositions are these : our naturally lost con- 
 dition by reason of sin, notwithstanding the image of 
 God originally implanted in man;] and the saving will 
 of God, caused by His merciful love, which carried out 
 the atonement by means of the God-man, Jesus Christ, 
 the Crucified and Risen, and thus crowned His revelation 
 to the world by manifesting Himself as Father, Son, and 
 Holy Ghost. The consequences are : the appropriation 
 of this work by the individual, objectively, through the 
 Divinely appointed means furnished by the work of the 
 Holy Spirit in the Church, i.e., the Word and the visible 
 signs and seals of grace ; subjectively, through repent- 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 21 
 
 ance and justifying faith ; and, finally, the perfection of 
 our salvation in the resurrection, last judgment, and 
 eternal life, when the new creation of grace, or the 
 ravages of sin in the heart, shall be made outwardly 
 manifest. 
 
 These are, as it were, the bastions of the centre in 
 back and front, the properly so-called fundamental truths, 
 a strong chain, in which no link can be dispensed with, 
 and hence the chief object to be defended. The enceinte 
 with its moat is the doctrine of Holy Scripture, as the 
 record of Divine Revelation, inexplicable if assumed to 
 be the product of merely human authors, and hence both 
 human and Divine, surrounding with the benignant 
 influence of its living waters the citadel and town of our 
 faith i.e., our Protestant Church and making it a 
 united fortress. 
 
 The remaining points such as the various confes- 
 sional details respecting the two natures in Christ, the 
 action of the sacraments, the relation of Divine grace 
 to human freedom, and a hundred other things 
 may be left for decision to a truly Christian exe- 
 gesis, historical investigation, and philosophical specu- 
 lation, as long as the central truth of the God-man and 
 His work, or the soli Deo gloria, is left untouched. 
 These form, as it were, the outer forts, which should 
 not, indeed, be given up prematurely, but from which 
 a wise combatant will, in case of need, withdraw to the 
 centre, in order not to exhaust his strength, but to defend 
 this more securely. The fortress is not conquered, though 
 one of the outposts should fall into the enemy's hands ; 
 nor, indeed, should even one of his missiles injure a stone 
 of the enceinte. 
 
 Do not misunderstand me. I do not say that it may 
 not be in a man's power, nor his duty, to defend many 
 outworks. I do so myself; and merely insist on this, that 
 successful defence must remain conscious of the difference 
 between what belongs to the circumference and to the 
 
22 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 centre, and may not make a non-essential article of faith 
 a condition of salvation. The true method is that which 
 will not allow a grain of saving truth to escape its grasp, 
 which gives to faith what belongs to it, but also does not 
 withhold from freedom its due. 
 
 We now proceed to consider the chief groups of our 
 innumerable adversaries, and t ask after the best and 
 most effectual line of scientific defence as against each 
 one of them. We immediately see that our citadel, the 
 Christian idea of God and of the redemption, is undermined 
 and attacked chiefly by philosophy, the enceinte by his- 
 torical critieism, and the outworks but, in fact, the 
 whole as well by our modern natural science. 
 
 The chief maxim for our scientific defence to be drawn 
 from the above is without in the least timidly avoiding 
 matters of detail at once to reduce all isolated contro- 
 versies to a difference in first principles, and to compare 
 the views of the opponents, in all their consequences, 
 with those of a Biblical Christianity. This will invariably 
 result in an idea of God, and a conception of evil differing 
 from that of the Bible. A distorted conception of God 
 lies at the root, not only of the pantheistic and naturalistic 
 systems, but also the attacks on the truth of the Gospel 
 history, the Godhead of Christ, and the Divine origin of 
 Christianity. And an unbiblical conception of sin and 
 its consequences it is which forms the fundamental 
 assumption of the attacks on the Christian doctrine of 
 redemption and atonement, as well as on the Biblical 
 anthropology. 
 
 These turning-points must decide the fate of the 
 battle, and here we should take our stand. And first we 
 should use ^ the broad shield of the united and entire 
 Christian view of the world ; then with the sword attack 
 the opponent's position, and fearlessly expose his weak 
 and vulnerable points. 
 
 Thus we take our stand against 
 
 1 . Unchristian philosophy, by demonstrating the inner 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 28 
 
 logical consistency and unity, the harmony and sym- 
 metrical beauty of the Christian doctrinal system ; the 
 wisely planned and holy progress of the Divine Revela- 
 tion, from the first creation to the restoration of all 
 things. How sublime and yet how simply compre- 
 hensible, how suited to the deepest needs of pur hearts, 
 are the teachings of the Bible as to the Divine nature, 
 as compared with the abstract, artificially twisted, incom- 
 prehensible, modern philosophical conceptions of God, 
 which leave the heart entirely cold ! At the same time, 
 it should be shown and this I would urgently recom- 
 mend to the notice of apologists how the isolated ele- 
 ments of truth contained in the non-Biblical, conceptions 
 of God converge in the Biblical doctrine, as in a focus, 
 and how in the latter alone God appears as the All- 
 perfect, in whom the idea of the Absolute is realised, 
 while in the former there is always an important element 
 wanting, either spirituality (as in Materialism), or self- 
 consciousness (as in Pantheism), or the living, omni- 
 present activity (as in Deism) : all of them elements 
 indispensable to the complete conception of the Absolute. * 
 In all this our position will be a safer one, if we lean 
 more upon the fundamental ideas contained in Scripture 
 than upon terms from the dogmatic schools. This is 
 especially true with reference to the point which philoso- 
 phers delight to attack the Christian doctrine of the 
 Trinity. Let us at once confess that the expression 
 three Persons (which is not Biblical) may cause mis- 
 understandings, since it is so easily confounded with 
 three individuals ; as St. Augustine himself has remarked, 
 "tres Persons, si ita dicendae sunt;" and, moreover, 
 that the expression Trinity is but an attempt at a short 
 designation of a mystery, for the clear conception and 
 designation of which in this life neither intellect nor 
 
 * Cf. the details of this argument in the author's work, Modern 
 Doubt and Christian Belief (Clark, Edinburgh). Lecture III. pp. 
 136-209. 
 
24 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 language will ever be adequate. On the other hand, 
 however, let us show how in the triune personality of 
 God is contained both His true infinity and the possibility 
 of His self-impartment in revelation : the true bridge 
 between God and the world. For in this doctrine the 
 unbending conception of abstract Monotheism has ob- 
 tained vitality through the idea of a Divine Will of love. 
 Hence this doctrine furnishes a preventive against the 
 deification of nature, and is the only perfect bulwark of 
 vital Theism in the idea of God as the highest plenitude 
 of life and love, and it is only philosophical short-sighted- 
 ness which can refuse this key to the great world-enigma, 
 a key often well used by many a great philosopher. 
 Only when this gulf between the Creator and the created 
 is bridged over will the breach between man and man be 
 closed. Here only have we a firm ground for the reali- 
 sation of the idea of humanity, the brotherly unity and 
 equality of all men as regards origin and destiny. This 
 shows the immeasurable importance of the Christian 
 doctrine of the Trinity for the world's culture, * a doctrine 
 which is also remarkably attested by the history of hea- 
 then religions. 
 
 No less firmly and deeply founded should our position 
 in these days be with regard to the defence of miracles. 
 The negation of the miraculous proceeds partly from a 
 false idea of God, partly from an incorrect, mechanical 
 conception of the world ; and, we may add, for the most 
 part from the arbitrary assumption that, because no 
 miracles happen nowadays, none have ever happened. 
 If God be, as we Christians believe, a free, personal, 
 extra-mundane Will, whose influence, nevertheless, is 
 omnipresent throughout the whole creation, then the 
 approach to every point of this creation must be always 
 open to Him, and this necessitates the possibility of 
 miracles. Doubtless the created world is relatively in- 
 
 * Cf. Hundeshagen, Die Natur und geschichtliche Entwickduny der 
 Humanitdtsidee. 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 25 
 
 dependent; but can the laws of nature which only 
 act by God's good pleasure form a barrier for Him, 
 when, in pursuance of the highest moral and religious 
 ends, it is His will to use extraordinary means ? You 
 talk of a " breach of the laws of nature. " But first of 
 all tell me, what limit is there to the intensification of 
 natural forces by the power of the Divine Will ? And 
 does not the product of the miracle immediately subject 
 itself to the ordinary course of nature ? You object that 
 miracles would rend the world's economy asunder. Ay, 
 but the first great rent in the original order and har- 
 mony was made not by God, but by the sin of man. The 
 abnormal development of our freedom cannot only bear, 
 but imperatively demands the salutary interference of 
 God as a work of pity and love. Miracles, therefore, do 
 not unnaturally destroy true nature, but supernaturally 
 heal distorted nature. Instead of, as formerly was cus- 
 tomary, using isolated miracles as apologetic arguments, 
 we should assign to each miracle, according to its evident 
 dispensational aim, a place in the great organic plan of 
 salvation, the living heart of which is Christ. 
 
 You object, finally, that no miracles occur at the pre- 
 sent day. But cannot and must not the periods of the 
 Church's birth and of its growth be governed by some- 
 what different laws ? Cast a glance into the history of 
 modern missions, and you will see how, at this very day, 
 in the course of founding new churches, things happen 
 which remind us of the Apostolic times. 
 
 Having thus shielded the Christian belief in God 
 and His personal relation to the world from infidel 
 assaults, let us grasp the sword and attack the weak 
 points of our opponents, by demonstrating the scientific 
 untenableness of their principles. What is Atheism but 
 an arbitrary denial of the universal and immediate cer- 
 tainty of the existence of God, a certainty necessarily 
 following from the conditioned character of our self- 
 consciousness, which we feel to be dependent on an 
 
26 MODEKN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 absolutely Higher Being ? This view is without any 
 deep insight into the nature of the factors which con- 
 stitute our own consciousness, and it is condemned by 
 the fact of the universality of religion. What is Mate- 
 rialism but an audacious hypothesis, an unsuccessful 
 attempt to explain the whole complex of our thought, 
 the origin of our self-consciousness, nay, even our moral 
 ideas, as a product of sensuous perception and the action 
 of matter ? Does it not in doing away with the freedom 
 of the will and individual responsibility practically 
 destroy all the moral elements of our life, and render 
 the idea of a spiritual and moral progress illusory ? And 
 Pantheism, too to say nothing of all its other foibles 
 does it not manifestly move in a logical circle so soon 
 as it endeavours to bring the principle which it pre- 
 supposes (whether it be the "substance" of Spinoza, 
 or the "absolute Idea" of Hegel) into relation with the 
 world-matter as its causa efficient f God is supposed 
 ever to be evolving the world from Himself, and yet He 
 is only realised in its development. Where, in this case, 
 is the ratio sufficiens of the reality of the world, and 
 especially of our self-consciousness ? and where is there 
 an absolute final purpose in this eternal aimless circuit 
 of the universe ? 
 
 And with what unnatural limitations of the concep- 
 tions of God do we meet in the case of Deism and 
 Eationalism ! How do they deprive God of His true 
 vitality and divinity, just as much as they do the world 
 of its dependence as a creature ! And do not these 
 systems by their denial of a special Divine Providence 
 take the innermost nerve out of all moral and religious 
 action, and remove the true key to the understanding of 
 the world's or of individual history ? 
 
 While acknowledging the isolated elements of truth 
 contained in these systems, we draw the general conclu- 
 sion, that by their endeavours naturally to explain the 
 world's enigmas they only multiply them ; and that they 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 27 
 
28 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 attention draw from all that has gone before an awful 
 conclusion, and before the astonished world hoist the 
 banner or rather let me say the distress-signal of the 
 most extreme Pessimism. Schopenhauer sees in all 
 existence nothing but misery and suffering, and can find 
 true happiness only in self-dissolution into an absolutely 
 empty nothing, the Nirvana of the Buddhists. And 
 Edward von Hartmann, who, in his rapidly sold work on 
 the Philosophy of the Unconscious (a book of which I shall 
 certainly not deny that it has some real merits), exhibits 
 to us the workings of this great ' ( Unconscious ' ' in the 
 corporeal and spiritual world ; declares it to be a mistake 
 that a world should ever have sprung into existence at 
 all, and even an inexcusable crime if it had been created 
 by a self-conscious God. All hope of happiness in this 
 or in another stage of the world's history is, according 
 to Hartmann, a pure illusion : before us stands the senile 
 age of mankind, in which, after all hope has died away, 
 our race ' ( finally abandoned all claim to positive happi- 
 ness, and only yearns for absolute painlessness ; for the 
 Nothing, Nirvana." 
 
 Thus far have our most recent philosophers advanced. 
 On the tree of knowledge they now show us, with strange 
 aptitude, the seductively beautiful and variegated tints 
 of autumn, tokens of despair and utter hopelessness, 
 which, with silent eloquence, once more proclaim, 
 "Vanity of vanities ; all is vanity." Are not such 
 views, I boldly ask, the most striking proof that it is 
 only that which Divine Revelation gives and promises 
 to man which makes his life worth living ? Here, again, 
 we clearly see that the faith of the Christian is, in the 
 last resort, the only star of hope amidst the gloom of 
 our existence ; aye, the only protection of our moral 
 dignity. Boldly, my Christian friends, let us attack our 
 opponents on this weak point, which is fitted more than 
 any other to discredit unchristian philosophy in the eyes 
 of all who feel their deeper needs. Let us show the 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 29 
 
 world that it is not Christianity, but the Antichristian 
 philosophy which finally degrades the dignity of man^; 
 that this dignity in its fulness flourishes only on the soil 
 of Divine Eevelation, that it is only possible as a deduc- 
 tion from the Christian conception of God, and only to 
 be realised by the Christian plan of salvation ; and hence 
 that any unbelieving substraction from the fundamental 
 Biblical views of God and the Divine destiny of man 
 must lead to an idea of man and the mundane process 
 which most deeply degrades us in our capacity of spiritual 
 and moral beings. For in all naturalistic and pantheistic 
 systems, what is the world's history but "the Golgotha 
 of the Absolute Spirit ; the fearfully tragic slaughter- 
 house in which all individual life and happiness is sacri- 
 ficed only that the development of the universe may go 
 forward undisturbed, ' ' * and the philosophers who march 
 behind may be able to mark and admire the rhythmic 
 movement of the "Idea" through Thesis, Antithesis, 
 and Synthesis ? 
 
 Vainly do we dream of man's personal and living 
 value, and nourish a living hope ! And inexorable is 
 the dilemna which we see before us : either to receive 
 Him who says, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the 
 Life," or, rejecting Him, to choose our portion with 
 those other spirits, the most honest of whom must needs 
 declare, " I am the Way, the Truth, and Death !" 
 For the scientific defence of our faith against 
 2. Destructive historical criticism, I would recom- 
 mend the following measures to insure a firm position : 
 Above all, do not let us place unnecessary difficulties 
 in our own way, and furnish our adversaries with 
 dangerous weapons, by an exaggerated theory of inspira- 
 tion, which, in its equal application to all the books of 
 our present Canon, can be justified neither by Scripture 
 nor by historical evidence. The very limits of our 
 Canon are not an ordinance of Divine right, inasmuch 
 
 * Hegel. 
 
80 MODEKN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 as no prophet ever declared the list of inspired Old 
 Testament writings closed in the name of God ; and no 
 apostle superintended the collection of the New Testa- 
 ment books. But must not the Spirit, who leadeth into 
 all truth, have guided those who had to decide as to the 
 limits of the canon, in order to insure genuine tradition 
 of saving truth to the later world ? As a proof with what 
 correct judgment they acted, we should adduce the fact 
 of the startling difference in spirituality which exists 
 between canonical and apocryphal, or, indeed, all non- 
 canonical writings, even those of the centuries next after 
 the Apostolic Age. Herein the Canon shows itself to 
 be a unique and compact whole. 
 
 And from this inner spirit of these writings let us 
 draw the chief argument for the inspiration and norma- 
 tive authority of the Scriptures. The Protestant Church 
 considers the testimony of the Holy Ghost to be the 
 chief criterion of canonicity. First of all, then, we 
 defenders should regard the Scriptures as a whole, and 
 proceed to show how they form a compact organism, 
 although the different authors wrote at such long inter- 
 vals ; how they record the progress of Revelation, 
 unfolding, step by step, in history, doctrine, and pro- 
 phecy, the Divine plan of salvation from the world's 
 beginning to its end, and withal, in a simple sententious 
 style, pregnant with meaning ; how they everywhere 
 breathe, in a greater or less measure, the spirit of sacred 
 earnestness, and all tend to one great purpose the 
 honour of God and the welfare of mankind. What a 
 fulness of light and life is contained in them, like a 
 spring flowing throughout all ages-! What wondrous 
 all-sufficiency for every need, eyery age, and every stage 
 of knowledge ! how infinitely above all mere human pro- 
 ducts ! At the same time, attention should be drawn to 
 the regenerating influences of the Bible in the case of 
 individuals, as of entire nations, to the self-manifesta- 
 tion of its Divine truths in the heart and conscience of 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 31 
 
 the reader or hearer. How can all this be explained 
 without the fact of inspiration ? 
 
 This criterion of the inward testimony of the Spirit 
 must be kept free from all subjective arbitrariness by 
 ts objective corroboration, according to the "analogy 
 of faith, ' ' with respect to the several books ; and by a 
 historical criticism (in addition to this inner one) as to 
 ;heir actual origin. The testimony of the Holy Ghost 
 and the Church, the attributes of freedom from error, 
 sufficiency, and perfection, pertain primarily to the Canon 
 as a whole. 
 
 This objective criterion of the analogy of our faith 
 was clearly enunciated by Luther, who says: "The 
 right touchstone whereby a Christian man may try all 
 books (of Scripture) is, that he inquire whether they 
 treat of Christ or not, forasmuch as all Scripture telleth 
 of Him." We must look at and defend Scripture from 
 its central point, Christ, by applying the above-men- 
 tioned central truths, in which all Scripture coincides, 
 as a criterion in judging of the value and authority of 
 the various books and portions. To this kernel of the 
 Scriptures, and this only, does the Holy Spirit bear wit- 
 ness in the hearts of believers, and grants in respect of 
 it an immediate and unmovable certainty. 
 
 In matters of detail we should not forget that the 
 Divine Revelation in Scripture is vouchsafed to us in a 
 form not purely Divine, but at the same time human ; 
 and that even St. Paul distinguishes what he has received 
 from the Lord from that which is merely his own opinion 
 as well-meant counsel coming from one who has the 
 Spirit of the Lord (1 Cor. xi. 23 ; vii. 10, 25, 40), and 
 that there is certainly an important difference between 
 a portion of Scripture, the author of which distinctly 
 describes his utterances to a direct Divine Revelation or 
 command, and one which is entirely silent on this point. 
 Do not let us forget that no theory of inspiration how- 
 ever convenient this might seem to many can dispense 
 
32 MODEKN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 
 us from the duty of a reverent criticism of Scripture, a ! 
 criticism which must extend not only to texts and trans- 
 lations, but also to a searching comparison of the dif- 
 ferent types of doctrine (e.g., Pauline, Johannean, &c.), 
 and of the various ethnographical, historical, and other 
 data, with one another and with profane history. And 
 if this criticism should here and there discover later 
 additions, interpolations, chronological discrepancies, 
 and the like, to such we may well apply the words of 
 Luther : "If there be found a strife in Scripture, and 
 the same cannot be settled, let it alone ; it is of little 
 moment, so as it runneth not counter to the articles of 
 our faith." We must not be too timid in such matters. 
 If we indeed believe Christianity to be the revelation of 
 the absolute truth, then an isolated truth may occur 
 when and how it pleases ; it cannot be dangerous, but, 
 in the end, only helpful to the Christian faith. What 
 cannot be denied need not be feared ! 
 
 But if criticism seeks to cast suspicion on the whole 
 for the sake of a few isolated discrepancies, or it arbi- 
 trarily attempts to measure the substance of Revelation 
 by mere human standards, then it becomes destructive, 
 and then we must draw a hard and sharp line against its 
 false pretensions. 
 
 Above all things, we demand that sancta sancte trac- 
 tentur, with the becoming reverence, with an upright 
 and humble desire for truth. He who will not let him- 
 self be apprehended by the spirit of Scripture, will never 
 comprehend its contents. Spiritual things must be 
 spiritually judged. Scripture, therefore, must be meted 
 with its own measure. To apply the standards of merely 
 natural and human events to the self-reve.aling actions 
 of God is to begin by doing violence to Scripture. This 
 is the fundamental error of all false rationalistic criti- 
 cism. 
 
 Our first step in opposing this practice is, to expose 
 the false principle on which it rests. Since the days of 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 88 
 
 [the Tiibingen School, this criticism has arrogated to 
 itself the title of historical, though it is often only 
 
 I philosophical. It claims to examine with historical im- 
 partiality, and is often from the first biassed by arbitrary 
 philosophical assumptions. These men approach the 
 records of Christianity, imbued with a pantheistic or 
 rationalistic aversion to the miraculous, with the inten- 
 tion of rendering the supernatural facts recorded therein 
 as merely human as possible by means of connecting 
 them with and deriving their origin from contemporary 
 historical phenomena and of acknowledging as histori- 
 cally certain only what is perfectly transparent and 
 intelligible to them, because it does not exceed man's 
 capacity ; just as if God the Lord could not make history 
 with His deeds, which far transcend our comprehension 
 He who is the Cause and Aim of all history ! This, 
 in good sooth, is not impartial historical investigation, 
 but rather the result of looking through highly distorted 
 philosophical spectacles ! 
 
 This criticism cannot, however, compass its ends with- 
 out innumerable coups deforce and unbounded arbitrari- 
 ness. And this is the second quarter to which our 
 scientific defence has to direct its attacks. To say 
 nothing of the way in which the rationalists and Baur 
 have distorted the specific nature of Christianity, we 
 would merely point out how the efforts of the latter and 
 his disciples have been directed towards transferring the 
 origin of Christianity as the universal religion from 
 Christ and the first Apostles to the authorship of St. 
 Paul, just as if the latter had not openly declared that 
 he did not preach himself, but Christ Jesus (2 Cor. iv. 5), 
 and that no man can lay another foundation than that 
 which is laid (1 Cor. iii. 11) as if one who declares even 
 an angel to be accursed if he preach another Gospel than 
 that of Christ (Gal. i. 8), would not indignantly have 
 declined the fame of inventing a new Christianity ! 
 In order to deprive the founder of Christianity of His 
 
84 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 *. 
 
 specific dignity as the Son of God, this false criticism 
 has, as we all know, endeavoured to turn His miracles 
 into natural events or myths, and to give His testimonies 
 and teachings respecting Himself the impress of fabrica- 
 tions and opinions of a later age ; and especially to cast 
 a slur upon His absolute sinlessness. As if it were not 
 impossible witness even the confession of a Eousseau 
 to invent such a picture of Christ as that which the 
 Gospels give us ! As if even supposing all four Gospels 
 to be spurious the four unimpeached Epistles of St. 
 Paul were not enough to prove clearly the God-manhood 
 and the perfectly holy mediatory character of the Cruci- 
 fied and Risen One ! And as if even the most arbitrary 
 criticisms of the Gospels had not left as genuine some 
 self-testimonies of Christ, in which He lays claims to 
 attributes which positively exceed any mere human 
 standard, e.g., in the passages which relate to His second 
 coming as the Judge of the world ! Here we see criti- 
 cism reach the crowning point of arbitrariness, and talk 
 of " fanaticism " and " unjustifiable self-glorification " 
 (Strauss). Be it so ; but let these critics bear the crush- 
 ing burden of bringing evidence which may give us the 
 faintest glimmering of an understanding how such serious 
 moral and intellectual defects could co-exist in the same 
 individual with otherwise perfect sobriety, clearness, and 
 quietness of His words and actions, and with the lofty 
 moral dignity of His whole nature. Is it not wholly 
 absurd, we ask, to suppose that the religion of humility 
 and love could have taken its origin from a fanatic so 
 eaten up by pride ? But if Christ uttered these testi- 
 monies of Himself, like all His other words, with 
 deliberation and truth, then He must be the one for 
 whom the Church has ever taken Him the only -begotten 
 Son of the living God. 
 
 Time would fail us to detail all the futile blows which 
 this criticism has dealt against the New Testament his- 
 tory, the most flagrant of which were the efforts (finally 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTEKACTING IT. 35 
 
 given up by Baur himself) to explain naturally the con- 
 version of St. Paul, at the cost of making him an utterly 
 inexplicable psychological monstrosity, or even an 
 epileptic ! I would only remind you what a firm barrier 
 we have against all such attacks in passages like 2 Cor. 
 xii. 12, where St. Paul, in an Epistle confessedly genuine, 
 appeals to his signs and wonders and mighty deeds 
 before those under whose eyes they had taken place. 
 And, I ask, would not a writer who asserts such things 
 of himself be utterly demented if he were not perfectly 
 certain that they were true ? 
 
 All these attacks based on an aversion to the miracu- 
 lous, and especially the denial of the Kesurrection, may 
 be consigned to a well-merited grave by the one un- 
 answerable argument : You can never explain the enigma 
 of primitive Christian belief, its world-conquering power, 
 and its world-regenerating effects, nor the existence of 
 the Christian Church itself, if Christ was not and did 
 not do what the G-ospels tell of Him. By trying to 
 explain primitive Christian history as a chain of merely 
 natural occurrences, you turn it upside down, and make 
 it an insoluble enigma. By your denial of the super- 
 human element in Christ, and especially of His resur- 
 rection, you are compelled to seek the mainspring of so 
 immense a movement as that of Christianity in persons, 
 circumstances, and relations which cannot bear the 
 weight of such a superstructure ; and in the end you 
 ask us to believe that the kingdom of Truth took its 
 origin from misunderstanding, error, self-deception, and 
 dishonesty ! The logical law of the sufficing cause makes 
 all your efforts vain. 
 
 At this point we may call attention to the inwardly 
 inevitable process, in which this criticism often overleaps 
 itself, and not seldom becomes utterly absurd. Thus, 
 no sooner had Strauss endeavoured to derive the chief 
 motive of the myths ascribed by him to the primitive 
 disciples and churches, from the idea then current among 
 
 c 2 
 
36 MODEKN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 the Jews as to the Messiah, than Bruno Bauer trod on 
 his heels, declaring that the idea of the Messiah, as far 
 as regards its existence before the rise of Christianity, 
 is also a myth ! Again, after many critics have, for 
 years, doubted the truth of the reports of the Resurrec- 
 tion, there comes a writer called Noack, and informs us 
 that Christ was crucified, not in Jerusalem, but on Mount 
 Gerizim ! 
 
 Hence negative criticism has been considerably beaten 
 back upon several points. Just compare the present 
 state of results in the criticism of the Gospels with that 
 of a few decades since. The Synoptics, which had then 
 been pushed onward into the second century, have already 
 step by step, been brought back into the first. Even in 
 the question as to the time when the Gospel of St. John 
 was written, the Critical School has receded from the 
 year 160 (Baur) to the beginning of the second century 
 (Keim 100-117), i.e., a time when St. John may still 
 have been alive. And if Keim, in a recent work, 
 declares that the prevailing theology of the day cannot, 
 without sacrificing the truth, ascribe to this Gospel a 
 direct historical value, he thereby shows that he himself 
 does not object to sacrifice the truth, which is that at the 
 present day more than ever the ascription of its author- 
 ship to St. John is being defended not only by such 
 critics as Ewald, Diisterdieck, Meyer, Riggenbach, Van 
 Oosterzee, Godet, but even by Weizacker, Ritschl, andj 
 others.* 
 
 That favourite instance of our opponents, the inner 
 relation of the Synoptics to the fourth Gospel, has far 
 less weight, since the fact has been generally recognised 
 that a superhuman view of Christ's person cannot pos-; 
 sibly be ignored as contained in the first three Gospels i 
 To say nothing of the account of our Lord's childhoocj 
 
 * And most lately of all against Keim and Scholten, by Leuschnei 
 in his work, Das Evangelium St. Johannis, und seine neuesten Wider 
 sacher. 1873. 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 37 
 
 (the authenticity of which has lately been convincingly- 
 proved by Steinmeyer *), we have passages such as Matt, 
 xi. 27 ("All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: 
 no man knoweth the Son but the Father,'* &c., cf. Luke 
 x. 22), respecting which even a critic like Reuss con- 
 fesses that "the whole of St. John's Gospel is, as it were, 
 but a circumscription of these utterances." And the 
 works of our day on New Testament doctrinal teaching 
 show that all the germs of the Pauline and Johannean 
 doctrines are contained in the words of our Lord.f 
 
 Another help against the caprice of criticism, and 
 the scientific light-mindedness with which it often 
 seizes on mere isolated notices from profane history as 
 proof positive against the Scriptural accounts, is often 
 afforded by the most recent archaeological research. I 
 would remind you, e.g., of the proofs for the truth of 
 many facts recorded respecting Egyptian history in 
 Genesis and Exodus, which have lately been furnished 
 by Ebers, J in the interests not of Christian faith, but of 
 science, and the deciphering of old Chaldaic inscriptions 
 respecting the flood by Mr. G. Smith, of London. But 
 especially I would refer you to E. Schrader's late work, 
 in which a number of the notices scattered throughout 
 the Old Testament, respecting the history of the Assyro- 
 Babylonian Empire and the Assyrian monuments (from 
 the tower in the plain of Shinar, down to the fall of 
 Babylon), are remarkably confirmed, even in their 
 details ; so much so that Egyptologists have been cor- 
 rected by Assyrologists in respect of their chronology 
 where it differs from that of Scripture. Have we not, 
 then, a right to say with Gellius : " Obscuritates non 
 
 * Die Geschichte der Geburt des Herrn, und seiner ersten Schritte im 
 Leben. 1873. 
 
 f Cf. Bernhard Weiss, Lehrbuch der Billischen Theologie des neuen 
 Testaments. 2nd edition. 
 
 t ^Egypten und die Bucher Mosis. I. Bd., 1868. 
 
 Die Keilinschriften und das alte Testament. 1872. 
 
38 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 asslgnemus culpce scribentium, sed inscitice non asse- 
 quentium?" 
 
 In such questions the scientific defence of our faith 
 must not shirk the trouble of going into details, for it is I 
 in these that negative criticism seeks its strength. But 
 the representatives of the latter should be shown how 
 often they make small differences into great contradic- 
 tions ; how they endeavour, by means of uncertain \ 
 hypotheses, to decide questions which it is impossible to 
 settle authoritatively ; how often they give themselves ; 
 the air of being able precisely to characterise the inner \ 
 development of an author or of his age, so as to be] 
 justified, in the case of certain differences between 
 earlier and later writers, to deny the possibility of their 
 originating from the same man. What they announce 
 as a "certain result of theological science," not seldom, 
 in truth, owes its origin to subjective taste and arbitrary 
 choice. They are far too little conscious of the limits 
 to real scientific demonstration ; and often, when they 
 suppose that they have produced the ne plus ultra of 
 scientific acuteness, it is but a flight in the airy regions 
 of imagination. Truly, often "much learning hath 
 made them mad." 
 
 In view of all this, we must protest aloud against the 
 arrogance of this modern theological school, especially 
 against the manner in which they present to the public 
 in popular exegetical works cf., e.g., "Die Protestanten- 
 bibel neuen Testaments, ' ' a work now appearing under 
 the auspices of the Protestantenverein as Gospel truth, 
 "the ascertained results of historical and Biblical in- 
 vestigation ; " while these are accepted only by a minority 
 of theologians, and many of them men of waning credit. 
 And if they go so far as to give themselves credit for 
 being the promoters of greater life in the Church, they 
 should be clearly shown how miserably unpractical and 
 insufficient their stand-point is to attain this end ; how, 
 by their denial of inspiration, they utterly destroy the 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 89 
 
 living interest of the mass of men in the Bible, by 
 changing it into a merely historical and literary interest. 
 Not a few students of theology are, by means of this 
 method of treating, or rather maltreating Scripture, 
 becoming thoroughly disgusted with the study of 
 exegesis. 
 
 Finally, we should seek to deprive this school of 
 criticism of the charm of novelty. What more is it 
 with its resolution of actual facts into mere insipid 
 religious ideas than a new edition of the old Gnosti- 
 cism? And will it not die away just as this did, if it 
 offers for the religious need of the Christian people 
 evaporating ideas or crumbling stones, instead of the 
 living Bread from Heaven ? This school, indeed, seeks 
 to retain Christ as an ideal. But can a mere idea re- 
 deem the world? Sin, unhappily, is a mighty reality, 
 and only Divine realities can overcome it. This is the 
 true reason why, as long as there are sinners in need of 
 salvation, the world cannot give up the Word of Life. 
 
 Our defence against the attacks of 
 
 3. Modern anti-miraculous natural science will have 
 to be conducted in a somewhat similar manner, since its 
 principle of the denial of the miraculous is identical 
 with that of the destructive critical school. Darwin 
 and his followers are working out the same fundamental 
 idea as Baur and his disciples, viz., to bridge over by 
 natural means all the chasms in history and nature, so 
 as to get rid of all supernatural agencies. And both 
 schools, though originally quite independent of one 
 another, have at length happily met in the person of 
 Strauss, as we see in his last work, ' ' The Old and New 
 Belief." 
 
 In order to maintain a firm position against the attacks 
 of natural science, we must first consider the purpose for 
 which the Scriptures, as a whole, were given, and thus 
 draw a sharp line between this aim and that of scientific 
 investigation. 
 
40 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 The aim of Scripture is to show us the way of salva- 
 tion, and this it does by communicating religious and 
 moral truths, which the apprehension of man, darkened 
 as it is by sin, could never have discovered by itself. 
 But in no respect is Scripture intended to play the part 
 of a hand-book of natural history or philosophy, or to 
 give us physical information which is of no essential 
 importance for our faith. The Bible should not, there- 
 fore, be called upon as arbiter in questions of pure 
 natural science, which do not in the least affect morals 
 or faith. Not even the highest inspiration could have 
 been intended to lift the Biblical writers above the view 
 of nature current in their day, or to give them, the clear 
 insight into natural science, which was reserved as a 
 reward for the patient toil of later generations. Its 
 purpose was to enable them to enunciate the truths 
 of Divine Eevelation, as far as they were connected with 
 physical relations, in a form which should not militate 
 against the objective truth of these relations, and should 
 leave room for all future discoveries in that region. For 
 this reason the Bible speaks of natural phenomena simply 
 in the language of every-day life, which gives impressions 
 as they are received. 
 
 Certainly, however, Scripture, in its enunciation of 
 religious truths, cannot altogether avoid touching on 
 physical ground, especially in the history of creation. 
 But where it does enter upon the region of nature, it 
 only does so as far as is absolutely necessary to ground 
 and establish our faith to instruct man as to his true 
 destiny, and to make way for correct notions of the 
 relation of God to the world, while excluding all false 
 ones. Thus Materialism and Naturalism, as well as 
 Pantheism and Emanationism, are equally excluded. 
 Then the physical processes are fragmentarily sketched 
 in a few bold strokes, as far as they are necessary to form 
 the basis of the history of Revelation, to which the record 
 forthwith proceeds. Evidently, then, this record is by 
 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTEBACTING IT. 41 
 
 no means complete from a physical point of view. On 
 the contrary, innumerable questions are left open, to be 
 answered by our investigation. But in no case are phy- 
 sical relations brought in for their own sake.* Entire 
 silence is kept on all points which do not form part of 
 the foundation of religious truth. How few physical 
 details do the first and second chapters of Genesis con- 
 tain in comparison with heathen cosmogonies ! 
 
 It is important to remark the distinction that, while 
 the statement of religious truth is always precise and 
 clear, that of physical facts is so broad and general, that 
 room is left for all later discoveries of details. Indeed, 
 they are given in such a shape as to unfold their hidden 
 truths with the advances of science t and this, I think, 
 is no small proof of their inspiration. Take, e.g., the 
 creation of light on the first, and the sun not until the 
 fourth day for which statement the Bible cosmogony 
 has been ridiculed by innumerable infidels, from Celsus 
 down to Strauss. How brilliantly has this been justified 
 by modern natural science, which has shown that the 
 earth possesses light in itself, and did so, probably, in a 
 far greater degree at the time when the trees now found 
 in the coal-beds were growing ; for these have no annual 
 rings, a fact which points to the conclusion that the earth 
 did not then derive her light from the sun, and conse- 
 quently had no change of seasons. These and other 
 data of modern discovery enable us to appreciate the 
 delicate distinction between light (1iK) Gen. i. 3, and 
 ' ' light bearers, " v. 14 (DHRp) . For our expositors are 
 
 beginning to see that the latter of these verses does 
 apply to the first creation of sun and moon, but only to 
 the completion of their creation when they were placed 
 in their present relative position to the earth as its 
 "light-bearers. 71 And light itself is now attributed to 
 
 * Cf. Reusch, Bibel und Natur, 3te Aufl., p. 34. 
 
 t Cf. S. Garratt, Veins of Silver, chap. I : " Inspired Words and Un- 
 folding Truths." 
 
42 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 the undulations of ether, which would account for its not 
 being created, but merely called forth from the chaos to 
 exist in a separate form. Physical discoveries will often 
 prove to be keys to the understanding of Scriptural data, 
 and show how these could not possibly have been furnished 
 by their authors without Divine enlightenment. But we 
 must not be too quick in the interpretation of such pas- 
 sages, and, above all, not make Scripture say things 
 which it does not distinctly enunciate. " How often," 
 as Whewell truly says, * "has one thought himself to be 
 defending a Scriptural truth, when he was merely fighting 
 for an interpretation of his own, which was presently 
 shown to be false!" 
 
 If we have drawn a limit, beyond which the appeal to 
 Scriptural authority should not go, we must also indicate 
 the bounds of natural science as against religious teach- 
 ing. We must, from the first, take exception to the 
 claims of natural scientists, when they ignore all religious 
 and moral truths, and apply to incommensurable magni- 
 tudes the standard of mathematics ; when they commit 
 the absurdity of making our belief in the supersensuous 
 and spiritual world dependent on the results of micro- 
 scopic or telescopic researches ; when they go beyond the 
 investigation of present phenomena, and pretend to give 
 an authentic account of the processes by which the world 
 originated processes which are entirely out of the reach 
 of exact investigation, and only permit of speculative 
 theories ; and when they will not acknowledge the funda- 
 mental fallacy of all naturalistic theories as to the world's 
 origin, viz., that they make the present order of things 
 the criterion of the process of creation, and will not 
 acknowledge the influence of other forces than those which 
 are still at work. In all this natural science oversteps its 
 limits, and argues from analogies which we cannot allow. 
 
 If, however, both sides keep within the limits of their 
 respective tasks, then they must necessarily be united 
 
 * History of the Inductive Sciences, i., p. 403. 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 48 
 
 at last. If the Bible and Nature both contain a Reve- 
 lation from God, they cannot really contradict one 
 another. Where this would seem to be the case, it is 
 because either God's words or His works have been 
 misinterpreted. In such a case we must not imme- 
 diately cast away the Word, in order not to give offence 
 to the cultivated, but quietly wait for a reconciliation ; 
 again examine the exegesis of the passage in question ; 
 but at the same time see whether natural scientists are 
 not giving us doubtful conjectures, in which they have 
 often been mistaken, instead of really certain results. 
 
 This is all the easier for us, from the fact that there 
 have always been distinguished natural scientists who 
 did not believe in the possibility of a contradiction 
 between the Bible and Nature, from pious patriarchs of 
 science, like Copernicus, Newton, and Kepler, down to 
 men of our own day, like A. von Haller, Euler, 
 Littrow, Von Schubert, W'agner, Roper, in Germany ; 
 or Buckland, Hugh Miller, Sir John Herschel, Brew- 
 ster, Whewell, in England ; or Cuvier, Lavoisier, Mar- 
 cel de Serres, La Faye, &c., in France. 
 
 Indeed, we can answer the contempt with which the 
 science of the day looks down upon Holy Scripture, by 
 pointing to a number of important matters in which 
 a union has been effected, or at least made way for. 
 As far as we know the chief stages of the earth's 
 development, they agree in point of order with the six 
 days' work of Genesis i. The fact that a fluid state of 
 the earth's crust preceded the formation of the moun- 
 tains answers to the description of the second day. The 
 first numerous appearance of the terrene flora in the 
 comparatively early coal-period, and the later appear- 
 ance en masse of the terrene fauna in the tertiary 
 period, corresponds in its chief features to the second, 
 third, fifth, and sixth days. Astronomy, again, has 
 proved in a startling manner, by means of the spectral 
 analysis, the unity of the Cosmos, and the near rela- 
 
44 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 tionship which the elements of the other celestial bodies 
 bear to those of the solar system. We begin to see proof 
 positive for Cuvier's far-seeing utterance : " Moses has 
 left us a cosmogony, the exactitude of which is con- 
 firmed day by day in an admirable manner." With 
 regard, moreover, to the biblical computation of the age 
 of the human race, some geologists and palaeontologists 
 (e.g., Quenstedt) are declaring that, according to the 
 newest data, the period of about six thousand years is 
 in all probability correct. And, finally, modern astro- 
 nomy and physics decidedly support the probability of 
 the cessation in due time of the motion of our solar 
 system, and the destruction of the earth through the 
 exhaustion of the forces hitherto at work. 
 
 No wonder that, as things stand, a considerable 
 number of theologians declare the harmony between 
 Scripture and science to be complete, or at least capable 
 of becoming so. And we may at least gather, as the 
 result of their efforts, the declaration that an ideal 
 harmony in respect of the chief features may be esta- 
 blished without doing violence to either side. 
 
 Meanwhile, truth demands that we should confess that 
 this harmony at present does not extend to all details ; 
 e.g., theologians are not agreed as to whether the days 
 of Genesis i. may be stretched out so as to meet the 
 requirements of the immeasurably long period postulated 
 by geology. The first specimens (not the masses) of the 
 different stages of creation do not, as far as scientific 
 research has extended, follow strictly in the .order of the 
 six days, for the lowest plants and the lowest animals 
 appear almost simultaneously in the geological strata ; 
 and to bring all the data in the Scriptural account of 
 the deluge into accordance with the present results of 
 science would be rather difficult. 
 
 But may we not hope for a future solution of these 
 difficulties, seeing that neither exegesis nor, still less, 
 natural science, are by any means complete ? God does 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 45 
 
 not grant to one generation to solve all enigmas : coming 
 ones will have to work at them, too. But the measure 
 of corroboration hitherto afforded by science to Scripture 
 gives us a right to treat with well-merited contempt the 
 ridicule cast upon Scripture by so many scientists. 
 
 And as against such attacks we may proceed to point 
 out the foibles of natural science, which she has of late 
 often exhibited with the rashness of youth, especially 
 in her younger departments. 
 
 How categorically, e.g., was the volcanic theory in 
 geology pronounced to be the only true one, in oppo- 
 sition to the Neptunian, and how much has it been modi- 
 fied and compelled to adopt elements of the latter, by the 
 chemical investigations of Fuchs, Schafhautl, Bischof, 
 and others ! * What uncertainty is shown in the calcu- 
 lations of geologists e.g., as to the time required for the 
 cooling of the earth's crust ; their estimates differing, not 
 by thousands, but by millions of years-! How much 
 jugglery, in fact, has been carried on by natural scientists, 
 in respect of enormous numbers ! How often have they 
 endeavoured to give their calculations as to the formation 
 of the different strata a learned gloss by mounting to 
 millions of years ! And now sober investigators are, on 
 the ground of careful observations, beating a retreat ; 
 and, instead of the favourite millions of years usually 
 held up to the astonished public, are computing much 
 more moderate periods. The age of the mammoth, the 
 great bear, and the reindeer, which scientists (especially 
 Frenchmen) have been trying to separate by thousands 
 of years, are now by thorough investigations, like that 
 of Fraas, placed quite close together. And the lake 
 dwellings, too; how has their origin been relegated to 
 immemorable antiquity, in order to throw discredit on 
 the Biblical account of man ! And now scientists are 
 beginning to turn up their noses at the idea of -the stone, 
 
 * Proving, amongst other things, that the formation of quartz could 
 only have originated from the action of water. 
 
46 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 bronze, and iron ages being strictly successive epochs; so 
 that we may confidently assert that none of these remains 
 extend back more than a few centuries beyond Caesar, 
 and hence are not even older than historical times. And 
 so, after all, the six thousand years of the Bible are not 
 so utterly insufficient to accommodate all the remains of 
 ancient civilisation. But in what hot haste were scientists 
 at the time to spread these now exploded notions in all 
 kinds of popular publications ! 
 
 Without heeding the outcry of the scientific rabble 
 against our ' ' vulgar belief, " * let us quietly expose 
 before the eyes of our flocks this mode of proceeding, 
 and let us show them how large a portion of scientific 
 " knowledge " is based only upon grounds of likelihood, 
 which may very well some day give way. 
 
 And how has our task been lightened in the chief con- 
 troversy of our day that as to the origin of man by 
 the extravagances which naturalists would have had us 
 believe. Our firm defence of the Biblical doctrine is 
 this : That the derivation of man's existence as a religious 
 and moral being from the creative act of God, who formed 
 him in His own likeness, and destined him to attain to 
 it, agrees so clearly with our whole moral and religious 
 self-consciousness, with the historical development of the 
 human race, and with the personal experience of all true 
 Christians, that it is the only reasonable doctrine, and 
 alone worthy of man's dignity. We need but place it 
 side by side with the scientific fancies of former times on 
 this subject, now often ridiculed by sober naturalists 
 themselves, and the choice will not be a hard one. 
 
 But the controversy has assumed a more serious aspect 
 since Darwin and his school have endeavoured to connect 
 .the genealogy of man with the highest mammals, viz., 
 the anthropoid apes. The counterproof is not our affair, 
 but that of savants by profession. Fortunately, the most 
 
 * " Kohlerglaube," an opprobrious epithet applied by German infidels 
 to the Christian faith. 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTEKACTING IT. 47 
 
 recent discussion of the question seems unfavourable to 
 the relationship. * But, even supposing the outward differ- 
 ences were proved to be ever so small, would not the pre- 
 sent intellectual and moral (to say nothing of the religious) 
 condition of man, notwithstanding the small superiority 
 in his organism, be all the more a riddle ? No repre- 
 sentation of the psychical processes in inferior animals, 
 their instincts, notions, memory, &c., however it may 
 sublimate them, will be able to disprove that in this 
 respect the lower animals have made no progress for the 
 last several thousand years ; that they have never dis- 
 covered the inner laws of these phenomena, nor have 
 been able to distinguish their individual Ego from their 
 momentary condition. 
 
 For such facts and this is our firm position of defence 
 there is no other explanation than this, that in the 
 soul-life of the beast there is no comprehension of the 
 individual Ego ; there is no self-consciousness of the spirit 
 distinguishing itself from its isolated affections, functions, 
 conditions, as well as from all objects without it. And 
 this is the specific distinction, the impassable gulf be- 
 tween man and beast. The same is no less absolute from 
 a moral point of view : on the one hand we see free, 
 personal, self-determining life ; on the other the iron 
 rule of nature's law, by means of sensual affections and 
 instincts. Even millions of years, and the innumerably 
 minute stages of progress which naturalists postulate, 
 can never bridge over the chasm which divides the natural 
 from the moral law. And if these men (and Strauss 
 also) flatter themselves that it is the greatest possible 
 honour for man to have raised himself from the depths 
 of animal life to the present height of moral conscious- 
 ness, we reply : If man is, as you say, a mere creature of 
 nature, then all that he does takes place by virtue of 
 
 * Witness the defeat of Carl Vogt at the Stuttgart Conference of 
 Natural Scientists (autumn, 1872) by Yirchow, Luschka, and others at 
 the head of a large majority. 
 
48 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 absolutely binding natural laws, and it is no merit in 
 him thus to have raised himself, since he could not help 
 it. Unless our moral consciousness proceeds from an 
 absolutely good and holy will of God, all our moral ideas 
 are merely conventional and changeable, and there is no 
 such thing as good and evil per se. Thus all morality 
 is radically destroyed, and it becomes evident that he 
 who believes in a generic difference between the morally 
 good and evil must also believe in the specific pre- 
 eminence and Divine origin of man. 
 
 Similar moral arguments obtain against those who 
 deny the homogeneous descent of the human race from 
 a single pair. He who tears asunder the human race 
 in its origin makes the different branches of it enemies 
 instead of brothers, and destroys with their consanguinity 
 the last bond of mutual love and esteem. 
 
 The physiologists, however, who maintain this * may 
 fight our battle against the Darwinists ; for, if the latter 
 are trying to annihilate every boundary between the 
 species, the former make demarcations where, according 
 to Scripture, none exist. We may quietly allow our 
 opponents to direct their attacks against each other, till 
 the truth which lies in the middle alone remains. Dar- 
 winism may, perhaps, result in the reduction of the pre- 
 sent multitude of species to considerably fewer principal 
 types (which can only be favourable to the Biblical 
 account of the Flood), but the weighty arguments of 
 the polygenists will prevent these types from being 
 annihilated. The latter class of naturalists should, how- 
 ever, remember that the question as to the origin of the 1 
 human race is, in the last resort, a matter of history ; 
 and this science, as applied to languages and religions, 
 is pointing with increasing probability to one original 
 tribe, the cradle of which lay in Western Asia, so that 
 the possibility of the Biblical theory is becoming more 
 
 * As Edwards, Forbes, Agassiz, Burmeister, and others. 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 49 
 
 and more established. Here, too, we may say, what 
 God hath joined, let not man put asunder. 
 
 As things stand, we shall not join in the apprehension 
 expressed by Schleiermacher, that natural science, when 
 fully developed to a complete system of cosmology, 
 might result in an intellectual starvation of theology. 
 Nay if I am not deceived the relations between 
 natural science and theology appear of late to have taken 
 a turn for the better. This is because the stand-point on 
 either side is beginning to become clearly marked. Many 
 prudent and far-seeing natural philosophers have begun 
 to acknowledge that their science has, in many cases, 
 overstepped its boundaries, and therefore warn their 
 younger or more hot-blooded colleagues to abstain from 
 undue interference in other departments. May we, 
 then, not nourish the hope that in due time both these 
 bright stars shall revolve around a common centre, in 
 mutual harmony and friendly rivalry discovering the 
 great deeds of God ? 
 
 But, besides these comparatively detailed methods of 
 defence against the different scientific attacks, there re- 
 mains to be considered the defence of our whole line 
 against infidel theory and practice combined. For these 
 tendencies are now showing themselves in practice and 
 form as 
 
 III. A GROWING SOCIAL POWER IN THE LIFE OF OUR 
 DAY BOTH IN CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 This form of unbelief is, without question, far more 
 dangerous than infidelity in individuals or in philoso- 
 phical systems. I would recommend, in this respect, 
 a double method of defence. First, a more negative 
 one, which has hitherto been carried on only sporadi- 
 cally, but which, in order to take due effect, should be 
 treated as a whole : viz., an exposure of the miserable 
 consequences of infidelity as shown in history, in contra- 
 
50 
 
 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 distinction to the wholesome effects of healthy Christian 
 faith. This may be called the historical method of 
 defence ; it is, however, at the same time a cutting 
 attack. Our Lord Himself pointed it out when He said, 
 " By their fruits ye shall know them " (Matt. vii. 16) ; 
 and the proof of the actual corruptness of these fruits 
 will make impression upon many who are deaf to all 
 other arguments. 
 
 How should we furnish this proof ? Not by setting 
 up ourselves as judges over the persons of our oppon- 
 ents, nor so as to do them injustice, by forgetting how 
 many of them are upright and learned men ; but by 
 showing the influence of their tendency of thought as 
 actually exhibited in the collective life of Church and 
 State since the last century, and comparing its effects in 
 the different spheres of society. 
 
 On an attentive consideration of the spirit which ani- 
 mates our opponents as a body, the first thing which 
 strikes us is the extraordinary overweening pride with 
 which most of them treat all positive believers.* They 
 lay claim to be the only representatives of science, and 
 have repeated this so often to the people, that in Hol- 
 land, Germany, and Switzerland the greater part of the 
 press echoes this opinion as a matter of course, and lays 
 all " orthodoxy," i.e., belief in the Bible, under the re- 
 proach of ignorance and narrow-mindedness. And with 
 this haughty spirit the theologians among them plenti- 
 fully imbue their congregations. By their high-flying 
 critical treatment of the Gospel history they flatter the 
 spirit of the age, and puff up the " educated'* con- 
 sciousness of an age already intoxicated with culture, 
 till its pride reaches an unbearable pitch ; indeed, many 
 of them often go so far as to rouse all the passions of 
 intolerance against the " parsons, " i.e., the represen- 
 tatives of the old faith. When they are in a minority, 
 
 * Cf. Hofstedo do Groot, Die Moderne Thcologie in der Niederlanden, 
 1870, p. 29, et sen. 
 
BEST METHODS OP COUNTERACTING IT. 51 
 
 they cry for tolerance, and preach the doctrine of equal 
 rights for every persuasion. But when they are the 
 ruling party, sovereign reason shows herself to be most 
 intolerant, and denounces those who cling to the old 
 faith as the enemies of progress and of all truly human 
 culture. 
 
 If we go on to consider their method of attack (and 
 except the merely scientific representatives), we cannot 
 help seeing what a despotism of phrases and common- 
 places they have founded, so that thousands blindly 
 applauded the half or not at all understood mottoes of 
 the day ; and what a confusion of ideas must be laid to 
 their charge ! The clear meaning of sharply defined 
 Scriptural ideas accepted by the Church is gradually put 
 aside, and another meaning substituted for it, so that 
 while the shell remains, the true kernel is gone. During 
 one thousand eight hundred years, e.g., the word 
 "resurrection" has been understood in the whole of 
 Christendom to apply to the body of Christ ; now, how- 
 ever, they change the meaning of the word into that 
 of a continued existence of any kind, and declare as 
 irrelevant the question whether our Lord's body was 
 raised to a new life or not. In the Church the old forms 
 are for the most part preserved ; and in this case they 
 continue to pray to Christ as ordered, though otherwise 
 they consider Him to be the only son of Joseph, and 
 prayer itself a subjective outpouring of the heart's emo- 
 tions without objective effect on the course of affairs. Is 
 this perfectly upright and truthful ? Some are soon 
 tired of this incongruence between the rites and liturgy 
 of the Church and their own inward convictions, and 
 enter other more congenial callings ; but the growing 
 generation is by these means (though not exclusively by 
 them) disgusted with the study of theology. $ In many, 
 however (especially during the first half of this century), 
 this incongruence has been overcome by the earnest 
 demands of life and holy office, which, though they left 
 
52 MOPERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 the university as Rationalists, convinced them of their 
 errors, and led them to preach salvation through Christ 
 alone. Does all this bear witness to the healthy character 
 of unbelieving principles ? 
 
 But let us look more closely at their fruits in the inner 
 congregational life of the Church. Infidelity has of old 
 emptied the churches and given an impetus to schismatics, 
 because it cannot satisfy the deeper spiritual needs. 
 What a display has infidelity made of its weakness in the 
 pulpit by reason of its denial of the miraculous element 
 in the great facts of salvation ! Let him who wishes to 
 see instances take but a look at the utilitarian preachers 
 of the times of ' ' illumination " during the last century. 
 It is well-known that these men did not disdain, even on 
 high festivals, to stoop so low as to instruct the people 
 in their sermons about farming, hygiene, vaccination, 
 or cattle-feeding. And now ? There is no scarcity 
 of high-flown words. But does the one thing needful 
 faith in Christ, conversion, and regeneration still form 
 the central object in the modern pulpit ? Alas ! not 
 even for an earnest penitential sermon can one of these 
 men collect his energies. Is not this a serious state 
 of affairs ? 
 
 And what of the liturgical fruits of unbelief ? Just 
 glance into the liturgies current during the zenith of 
 Rationalism in the last century ; read those finely 
 rounded phrases and paraphrases about God, virtue, and 
 immortality, self-ennoblement, and Jesus Christ, the 
 Eastern Sage of olden times, and confess that you would 
 hardly have believed so utter a want of taste to be pos- 
 sible. Or glance over the hymn-books of that time, 
 with their miserably watered old hymns, and their prac- 
 tically, as well as theologically, shallow and pitible 
 humanitarian odes. And how is it in our day ? Why, 
 if formerly there was at least the shadow of a worship, 
 now the attempts made in Haarlem, Groningen, Neuchatel, 
 to establish a truly " modern " Divine service, have, by 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING II. 53 
 
 their miserable failure, gone far to prove the utter futility 
 of all such endeavours. In due time, then, worship 
 would have to cease altogether. 
 
 In the matter of Church constitution and government 
 (in which believing theology, it is true, has made many 
 mistakes also), the chief historical achievement of un- 
 belief (in Germany) is the "Territorial System" a 
 theory which considers the Church and its government 
 to be only a part of the State and its constitution as 
 such, and must lead to the former being entirely emerged 
 in the latter. And at this day unbelief seeks to betray 
 the inalienable rights of the Church to the State, and to 
 prove the omnipotence of the latter, as against any act 
 of Church discipline meant to defend the positive doctrine, 
 hoping that the State may soon pronounce for the equal 
 rights of all parties within the Church. Modern unbelief 
 seeks to efface the specific distinction between Church and 
 State, and thereby robs the former of its vital power. * 
 
 Again, look at the influence of unbelief in the active 
 congregational life of the Church, in the institutions for 
 the extension of God's kingdom, and see the paralysis 
 which follows its ascendency. The German-Danish 
 mission in Tranquebar flourished vigorously during the 
 former part of the last century, till the triumph of 
 nationalism at home dried up its supports and caused it 
 to wither away. And how do these liberal unbelievers 
 seek to hinder and malign the work of missions at the 
 present day by distorted criticisms ! But as to doing 
 better themselves, which would be the best criticism, 
 they have not lifted up a finger. The institutions of our 
 inner missions, too, have almost all of them been founded 
 and supported solely by the love and liberality of be- 
 lievers, while unbelievers have done little else than 
 embitter their existence by repeated attacks, t 
 
 * This paragraph applies more especially to Germany, 
 f Witness the venomous attacks on the " Rauhe Haus " at Hamburg 
 (Dr. Wichern's institution). 
 
54 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 But perchance unbelief has proved itself to be a firm 
 support of the State, and a source of moral strength in 
 public and political life ? The best tests of a principle 
 are furnished by times of public distress and danger. 
 But as soon as a war is imminent, the power of un- 
 belief in a nation immediately sinks in a marked manner, 
 and even unchristian journals at once begin to speak 
 more of God and Divine help. An involuntary instinct 
 fills the churches ; the need of a higher assistance is 
 plainly felt, and the fine phrases of unbelief cannot give 
 this. These facts are questionable enough for the sup- 
 port under trouble which unbelief can afford. And when 
 the thousands upon thousands of wounded need spiritual 
 consolation, how little can unbelief afford this ? In the 
 last war I say it deliberately, for I have witnessed it 
 myself this task devolved almost entirely on believing 
 ministers, often at the request of their free-think- 
 ing colleagues. Here the pastoral bankruptcy of the 
 rationalistic clergy was clearly evident in their total 
 inability to satisfy the spiritual cravings of the suffering 
 and dying. It would be laughable, were it not rather 
 to be wept over, that unbelief should ever attempt to 
 minister to the spiritual needs of man. 
 
 But, putting aside such seasons of distress, what are 
 the political and social fruits of unbelief in a general 
 way ? History very plainly tells us that apostasy from 
 the faith very soon deprives a nation of its power and 
 authority. As in the family, when its life is not based 
 upon the fear of God, all domestic bonds are soon 
 destroyed by the unfettered power of selfishness, so that 
 dangerous laxity or arbitrariness is substituted for 
 earnest discipline in the education of children so, too, 
 in civil and national life. The people that will not bow 
 to Divine authority will eventually break through the 
 bounds of all human order in endless revolutions. The 
 self-love, which would fain be wiser than Divine revela- 
 tion, at last snaps all the bonds of society. The new 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 55 
 
 faith (of Strauss), practically carried out, is the Com- 
 mune, which, during its ascendency, was always talking 
 of philosophy. Unbelief will ruin every nation which 
 does not in time resist its all-poisoning influences. 
 
 The result of historical investigation shows that all 
 these results of unbelief have the same inner ground 
 viz., that it is without the Spirit of God, which alone 
 creates and preserves all true life. But if the fruit be 
 evil, then the tree and its roots are evil also ; and 
 foolish, indeed, is he who would gather grapes of thorns 
 or figs of thistles. 
 
 In our attack on unbelief we must expose these its 
 fruits : It boasts itself of helping progress, and hinders 
 it ; it inscribes "culture" on its banner, and threatens 
 us with a new and a worse barbarism ; it promises 
 to bring in the age of true humanity, and yet it in- 
 jures the dignity of man, so as to deprive him of any 
 specific moral value, because it overlooks the fact that 
 humanity can only be saved and prosper by means of 
 Divinity. 
 
 We must protest, then, against unbelief in the name 
 not only of Scripture, of faith, and of God's honour, 
 which it tramples in the dust ; not only of our spiritual 
 experience, which it does not understand but also of 
 reason, which it leads astray. We must protest against 
 it in the name of a healthy Church life, of fruit-bearing 
 preaching and care of souls ; of the truth and purity 
 ay, even the good taste and aesthetics of our worship ; 
 in the name of a healthy discipline and constitution 
 of our congregational life ; of the independence of the 
 Church, which by it is betrayed to the State ; of the 
 Church's energy and power of increase ; of self-sacri- 
 ficing and self-denying love ; of Home and Foreign 
 Missions, which it tries to paralyze ; in the name of all 
 practical tasks of the Christian life, for which it has 
 neither a deeper understanding nor yet energy to carry 
 them out ; in the name of morals and all true humanity, 
 
56 MODEEN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 which it undermines and destroys, since it separates 
 them from religion, and saps its divine foundations. We 
 must protest against it, not only as Christians, but as 
 citizens and patriots who truly love their country, because 
 the prosperous future of a nation, its freedom and 
 power, its flourishing and healthy development, essen- 
 tially depend upon its honestly holding fast to the Gospel 
 as the Truth and the Life from God. 
 
 But this historical defence will not meet all objections, 
 by reason of its negative nature ; and I would therefore 
 point out to you a more excellent, positive way, which 
 I may call the practical religious method I mean the 
 actual proof of the Christian truth by means of a 
 Christian life. 
 
 When we look at the growing power of unbelief, and 
 the infinite variety of agencies employed in its propaga- 
 tion, from the journals and associations of mere humani- 
 tarianism, down to those of the most radical communism, 
 with its secret societies, and travelling agents and lec- 
 turers, it is evident that such a social power cannot be 
 met merely by scientific and historical arguments. These 
 may suffice to convince individuals ; but against the close 
 columns of unbelief the Church must use her last and 
 most effective weapon, the practical and moral supe- 
 riority of her representatives in an all-embracing love 
 and holy life. This practical religious method is the 
 most convincing of all, and truly irresistible, and must 
 in the end gain over all those who are of the truth. 
 This it was that worked so mightily in the first ages 
 of the Christian Church, and will continue to do so to 
 the end. Without it, infidelity will nowhere be defeated; 
 and the growth of the latter is owing, in a great 
 measure, to the fact, that the Church has too much 
 neglected this branch of testimony. Truth is plentifully 
 witnessed for in words and books, but not enough in 
 life. 
 
 But speaking as I am before those who, I trust, have 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 57 
 
 long since been striving to give practical effect to this 
 testimony, I may confine myself to a few hints as to 
 the way in which it may be rendered most effectual. 
 
 And, first of all, let us remove from theological and eccle- 
 siastical life the stumbling-blocks which have hindered 
 so many from believing the everlasting quarrels about 
 things upon which salvation does not depend ; the jealousy 
 of one another; the narrow-mindedness at home and 
 (alas, too) abroad, which cannot lovingly enjoy the 
 brother's success, because he does not wear quite the 
 same ecclesiastical uniform ; and, instead of all this, let 
 the flame of believing and wide-hearted evangelical love 
 among the various denominations burn more brightly 
 than hitherto. A great, positively believing Ecumenical 
 Evangelical Alliance notwithstanding all variety in 
 matters ecclesiastical, and esteem for the forms of faith 
 delivered to us is in itself a practical apology, which 
 makes an impression upon thousands, a justification of 
 the indestructibility of our fundamental faith, a Christian 
 Evangelical International, which may oppose the atheistic 
 International with superior spiritual weapons. Let us, 
 in order to establish more firmly the unity of our one 
 fundamental position, ever draw more clearly the line 
 between the essential and the non-essential ; and let us 
 protest against the destructive error which maintains 
 that no such line is to be drawn, but that all tendencies 
 have equal rights in the Church. Our German liberalism 
 has not, in this respect, attained to so correct a judg- 
 ment as the same party in England and America. These 
 would say to those in our Evangelical Church, who, e.g., 
 attacked the Apostles' Creed, "Why do you not join 
 the Unitarians ?" while with us they are struggling to 
 prove the admissibility of their continuance in a Trini- 
 tarian Church, by which means we shall eventually 
 legalise Eationalism. You must help us to attain 
 greater precision, even at the cost of a numerical dimi- 
 nution in the Church. Better for a Church to be small, 
 
58 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 but united and decided, than large and broad, but in- 
 wardly torn and divided against itself. 
 
 And when we have drawn the necessary boundary 
 lines, let us, for the sake of the unity, seek to give 
 a more extensive visible representation of it (by means, 
 e.g., of an interchange of pulpits), so that the various 
 churches may be strengthened by the faithful testimony 
 of men of another communion. Let us force the un- 
 believing world to confess, as did the heathen of old, 
 "See how these Christians love one another,' 1 and 
 thereby we shall overcome a hundred prejudices. 
 
 This spirit it is which we should seek to implant in 
 our evangelical congregations and people. Let us seek 
 to bring about a more living communion between the 
 churches, a greater interchange of their special gifts and 
 experiences, and place the single congregation in con- 
 nection with the course of events in the universal king- 
 dom of Christ. We should make them better acquainted 
 with the most important of these events, so that, if one 
 member suffer, all the others may suffer with it ; and if 
 one be glorified, all the others may rejoice, as belonging 
 to one body, whose head is Christ. 
 
 In addition to this, it is our duty at the present day 
 to arm the members of our churches more fully against 
 the specious arguments of infidelity. This should be 
 done by laying a deep foundation in religious instruction, 
 especially in that for Confirmation and preparation for 
 Holy Communion, by weekly Bible classes or lectures, in 
 which the members of our flocks should be taught more 
 of the unity of Scripture, by Sunday-schools, young 
 men's associations, reading-rooms, circulating libraries, 
 associations for missions, the poor, the sick, &c. Thus 
 a vigorous Christian social and congregational life would 
 be put forward in opposition to the infidel associations, 
 and it would act as a firmly forged chain, from which one 
 link could not easily be lost. 
 
 When we have, by all these means, built a powerful 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 59 
 
 dam of Christian life against the swelling floods of un- 
 belief, we should while not forgetting always to keep 
 these our foundations in repair strive to win back lost 
 ground by words and deeds. We must fearlessly witness 
 for the faith, not only in the pulpit, but before our own 
 congregations, but also in public lectures (as is now fre- 
 quently done) before the unbelieving world. The mere 
 fact of a man standing up, in the face of all the scorn 
 of an infidel press, and openly declaring his belief in the 
 Christian faith, notwithstanding his perfect acquaintance 
 with all the arguments of its opponents, is an encourage- 
 ment to many undecided ones. Then, again, let us con- 
 fess what a mistake Christians in many places (especially 
 in Germany) have made, in leaving the development of 
 the public press almost entirely in the hands of infidels 
 or semi-infidels, especially of Jews and their confederates. 
 To meet this need we must found Christian journals, 
 which shall correct the lamentably misguided public 
 opinion ; and, since this is beyond the power of isolated 
 persons, we should form more Evangelical Societies, 
 whose object it must be to spread Christian literature in 
 every form, from the largest to the smallest works. And 
 let us seek to connect all these associations, as much as 
 possible, for the sake of mutual assistance. In this 
 respect, I would recommend to your notice a proposal, 
 emanating from Holland, to form an "International 
 Association for the defence of the Christian faith against 
 its actual aggressors/' 
 
 A most important point in this practical work (espe- 
 cially for Germany) is that laymen should be more in- 
 duced to assist in the work of the Church, and that the 
 latter should not tire in labouring for the better keeping 
 of the Sabbath, and for the release of millions of white 
 slaves kept in bondage by Sunday labour, which can only 
 be accomplished by a legal protection of Sunday rest and 
 freedom. 
 
 But, amidst all this work, never let us forget the per- 
 
60 
 
 MODERN INFIDELITY AND THE 
 
 sonal preparation in secret. If we are to conquer in our 
 struggle against unbelief, it must be less exclusively than 
 hitherto with word and pen, and more on our knees. 
 Often while we fight hard we pray too little. Instead of 
 at once fulminating against unbelievers, let us first 
 wrestle for them with the power of intercessory prayer, 
 that they may be enlightened by the Lord. No word or 
 writing should go forth in this Holy War unaccompanied 
 by prayer. Let no combatant enter the arena without 
 putting on the spiritual as well as the intellectual panoply, 
 that he may not fare as did the seven sons of Sceva. 
 And let none who strive in the right spirit be left alone. 
 Though we may not everywhere be able to succour and 
 defend, yet the arms of our prayer can embrace the 
 whole globe. Thus only can we become so filled with the 
 Spirit that the image of Christ, the great Captain and 
 Conqueror in the battle, shall shine out of every action, 
 and victoriously enlighten our opponents, when they see 
 in our whole walk and conduct greater love and self- 
 denial, greater self-sacrifice, greater quietness and firm- 
 ness in distress and danger. The Christian is the world's 
 Bible, and the only one which it reads. If we take care 
 that in this book be plainly shown the loving spirit, the 
 grandeur, and the winning friendliness of Christ, then we 
 shall see many hearts open to receive this actual testi- 
 mony of Christian life and suffering. For many of our 
 opponents in secret envy us our Christian comfort in mis- 
 fortune and under heavy losses. Their hearts are often 
 stirred by a deep yearning after the support which bears 
 us up, and this superiority of Christian life can often 
 drive the hardest heart to seek help of our Lord. 
 
 In fine, only life can beget life. Where we wish to 
 defend the Word of Life, our own life cannot be separated 
 from the Word. The strongest argument for the truth 
 of Christianity is the true Christian, the man filled with 
 the Spirit of Christ. The best means of bringing back 
 the world to a belief in miracles is to exhibit the miracle 
 
BEST METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. 61 
 
 of regeneration and its power in our own life. The best 
 proof of Christ's resurrection is a living Church, which 
 itself is walking in new life, and drawing life from Him 
 who has overcome death. 
 
 Cyprian writes of Christians in the third century : "In 
 their dress, their food, their manner of life, they follow 
 the customs of the country, and yet they are distinguished 
 by a universally remarkable way of living. They take 
 part in everything as citizens, and they endure everything 
 as strangers. Every country is their native land, and in 
 every country they are foreigners. They live in the 
 flesh, but not after the flesh. They dwell upon earth, 
 but they live in heaven. They love all men, though all 
 men persecute and malign them. When they are cursed, 
 they bless ; and when they are killed, they hail the day 
 of their death as their true birthday. " 
 
 Before such arguments ancient Rome herself the 
 mightiest empire of the world, and the most hostile to 
 Christianity could not stand. Let us live in like man- 
 ner, and then though hell should have a short-lived 
 triumph eventually must be fulfilled what St. Augustine 
 says, "Love is the victory of the truth.' 7 
 
 Already the world is beginning to be divided into the 
 two great camps of the unbelieving and the faithful. In 
 many, unbelief has probably become incurable. Before 
 such we can only confess the truth for a testimony 
 against them. The Antichrist who denies Father and 
 Son can be destroyed, not by men, but only by the Lord 
 in the brightness of His coming. But the holy task that 
 falls to the lot of every Christian is to continue to do 
 battle for the truth after the measure of his strength, in 
 the power of that victory which Christ has already gained 
 for us, and which He has promised one day to complete. 
 May not only individuals, but may every Protestant 
 people recognise that it ought to contribute its special 
 gift toward the great world-apology for Christianity : 
 Germany, her deep and earnest science; England, her 
 
62 MODERN INFIDELITY AND METHODS OF COUNTERACTING IT. ' 
 
 trustful meditation on Scripture, her faithfulness in pas- 
 toral work, her open-handed charity ; America, her ener- 
 getic activity and liberality, her fearlessness in public 
 testimony for the truth, her indelible love of freedom ; 
 and all others, great or small, the talent entrusted to 
 them. If all thus unite in holy zeal for God, the victory 
 cannot be wanting. Forward, then, my brethren, and 
 let us not weary of the strife ! Our field of battle is the 
 wide world; our aim, the honour of God; our support 
 amidst strife and suffering, the certainty that our faith 
 already is the victory which hath overcome the world ! 
 
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