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REESE riRRAPy 
 j UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. [ 
 
 deceived JUN 14 1893 • '^''■> ■ 
 
 \ Accessions No. ^/ff^ 
 
REPLIES 
 
 ESSAYS AND REVIEWS. 
 
REPLIES 
 
 "ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.' 
 
 BV THE 
 
 I. REV. E. M. GOULBURX, D.D. IV. REV. W. J. IRONS, D.D. 
 II. REV. H. J. ROSE, B.D. j V. REV. G. RORISON, M.A. 
 
 III. REV. C. A. HEURTLEV, D.D. ' VI. REV. A. W. HADDAN, B.D. 
 VII. REV. CHR. WORDSWORTH, D.D. 
 
 ^yITH A PREFACE 
 
 BV THE LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD; 
 
 AND LETTERS 
 
 FROM THE RADCLIFFE OBSERVER AND THE READER IN 
 GEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 ©xforti anU Honbon: 
 
 JOHN HENRY and JAMES PARKER. 
 1862. 
 

 iv-7ff 
 
 |lriut£i) bn ||lcssrs. -jJavlur, (L'onuu'.uhct, (Dvforb. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 TT is necessary to state that the seven Essays con- 
 tained in this vohime have, like those Essays to 
 which they are replies, been "written in entire in- 
 dependence of each other, without concert or com- 
 parison." 
 
 Each Author was, individually, requested by the 
 Publishers to write an Essay on a subject named, 
 with the especial object of replying to a given Essay 
 in the volume of " Essays and Ee views." 
 
 For the selection of writers, and for the choice of 
 subject assigned to each, the Publishers are respon- 
 sible. Beyond this, each writer was free to exercise his 
 own judgment in the mode of treatment of the Essay : 
 nor was he guided in any way by what others had 
 written, or were writing, for the same volume. 
 
 This course of proceeding was not adopted without 
 due consideration. It was thought, firstly, that as 
 the " Essays and Reviews" professed to be written in- 
 dependently of each other and without concert among 
 the Authors, so ought the " Replies" ; otherwise, it 
 might be objected that the latter volume was wi'itten 
 under advantages which did not belong to the former, 
 and therefore be refused the possession of the same 
 weight as that volume. Secondly, that the Authors, 
 unfettered by suggestions from Publishers or Edi- 
 tor, would be enabled to treat their subjects more 
 
11 ADVEETISEMENT. 
 
 thoroughly, to write more freely, and so more con- 
 vincingly. 
 
 In most cases the Publishers are well aware that 
 such a coui'se would be attended with danger, but 
 in this case they have such full confidence in the 
 several writers that they believe a supervision beyond 
 that of the ordinary details attendant in passing works 
 through the press would have been needless. They 
 feel fully assured that all the main arguments are such 
 as would be subscribed by all the writers, while on 
 unimportant and avowedly ojDcn questions any dis- 
 crepancies, if there should be such, might be reason- 
 ably allowed in a volume written on the plan thus 
 adopted. 
 
 The Publishers take this opportunity of tendering 
 their thanks to the several writers who so readily 
 accepted the task imposed on them. 
 
 To the Bishop of Oxford, not only for the Preface, 
 but for advice and assistance also in making the 
 necessary arrangements for producing such a volume. 
 
 To the Eadcliffe Observer, and the Eeader in Geo- 
 logy in the University of Oxford, they are also in- 
 debted for two valuable letters. They insert them 
 in the volume because, although unreasonably, the 
 "Essays and Reviews" obtained the title of "The 
 Oxford Essays." In the volume itself it will be seen 
 that the wi'iters are selected partly from Oxford and 
 partly from Cambridge, as was the case in the volume 
 to which it is hoped the present will be found to be 
 a satisfactory and convincing reply. 
 
 Oxford, 
 Januanj 1, 1862. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface. 
 
 By the Lord Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 I. The Education of the World . . . i 
 
 By the Rev. E. M. Goulburn, D.D., late Head Master 
 of Rugby School ; Prebendary of St. Paul's ; Chaplain 
 in Ordinary to the Queen, &c. 
 
 II. Bnnsoi, the Critical School, and Dr. Williavis . ,55 
 
 By the Rev. H. J. Rose, B.D., Rector of Houghton 
 Conquest, Bedfordshire. 
 
 V. TJic Creative Week .... 
 
 By the Rev. G. Rorison, M.A., Incumbent of Peterhead, 
 Diocese of Aberdeen. 
 
 135 
 
 III. Miracles ...... 
 
 By the Rev. C. A. Heurtley, D.D., Canon of Christ 
 Church, and Margaret Professor of Divinity in the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 IV. Tlie Idea of the National Church . . ■ ^99 
 
 By the Rev. W. J. Irons, D.D., Prebendary of St. Paul's, 
 and Vicar of Brompton, Middlesex. 
 
 277 
 
 VI. Rationalism . . . . -347 
 
 By the Rev. A. W. Haddan, B.D., Rector of Barton-on- 
 the-Heath, Warwickshire. 
 
VII. On the Interpretation of Scriptmr . . 409 
 
 By the Rev. Chr. Wordsworth, D.D., Canon of 
 Westminster ; Proctor in Convocation, &c. 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 I. Letter from the Rev. Robert Main, M.A., Pembroke 
 
 College, Radcliffe Obser\'er . . . -5°! 
 
 II. Letter from John Phillips, M.A., Magdalen College, 
 Reader in Geology in the University of Oxford . -514 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 T^nE A'olumc wliicli is here placed in the reader's 
 hands seems to me to need neither preface nor 
 recommendation. The importance of its subject, the 
 gravity of the occasion which has called it forth, the 
 weighty names in the catalogue of its wi'iters, all 
 combine to demand for it the full attention which 
 preface or recommendation might solicit for an ordi- 
 nary volume. Nevertheless, yielding to the request 
 of those who had combined to produce it, I had pro- 
 mised to contribute a preface to it : and having done 
 so, I desired to enter at some length into the general 
 subject towards which these several essays converge, 
 and to the mode in which it had been dealt with here. 
 
 Diocesan engagements compelled me to postpone my 
 work to an approaching period of comparative leisure. 
 But at this moment my contribution is called for, and 
 rather than delay the publication of the work, I have 
 resolved to furnish it at once, reduced to the narrowest 
 dimensions ; and even before I have been able myself 
 to read any of the following Essays. 
 
 It is then of the general object only of the work 
 that I can speak. As to which let me say, — first, 
 that its object is not so much to reply directly 
 b 2 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 to error, as to establish truth, and so to remove 
 the foundations on ^yhich error rests; secondly, that 
 the publication of this volume is no admission that 
 new or powerful arguments against the truth have 
 rendered necessary new arguments in its defence. 
 Eather, the re-statement of old truths of which it 
 consists is a declaration that the fresh-varnished ob- 
 jections which have called it forth are neither new 
 nor profound. Further, there is no allowance here 
 that the views which have called it forth are open 
 questions or fair subjects for discussion between 
 Christians, still less between Church of England 
 men. Its scope is to shew that the objections to 
 which it refers are old objections, the urging of 
 which must of necessity, with our limited faculties, 
 be possible against all revelation; and that, as such, 
 they have been often put forth, repeatedly answered. 
 Such difficulties are to be set at rest in any mind 
 rather by strengthening the deep foimdations of the 
 faith, than by the laboured refutation of every sepa- 
 rate, captious, and casuistic objection in which re- 
 pugnance to all fixed belief of dogmas, as having 
 been dii'ectly communicated by God to man, is wont 
 to vent itself. 
 
 That such objections to revelation should appear in 
 this day, and should clothe themselves in the fresh 
 garb which they have assumed, will not seem strange 
 to thoughtful minds. K'ot, indeed, that it is other 
 than a very narrow philosophy which would con- 
 ceive of them as a mere reaction from recentl}^ re- 
 
I'REFACE. 
 
 newed assertions of the pre-eminent importance of 
 dogmatic truth and of primitive Christian practice, 
 or even from the excesses and evils which have, 
 as they always do, attended on and disfigured this 
 revival of the truth. To attempt to account for these 
 phenomena by such a solution as this is to fix the eye 
 upon the nearest headland round which the stream 
 of time and thought is sweeping, not daring to look 
 further ; and so to deal with all beyond that nearest 
 prospect as if it were not. 'No ; this movement of the 
 human mind has been far too wide-spread, and con- 
 nects itself with far too general conditions, to be 
 capable of so narrow a solution. Much more true is 
 the explanation, which sees in it the first stealing 
 over the sky of the lurid lights which shall be shed 
 profusely around the great Antichrist. For these dif- 
 ficulties gather their strength from a spirit of lawless 
 rejection of all authority, from a daring claim for the 
 unassisted human intellect to be able to discover, 
 measure, and explain all things. The rejection of the 
 faith, which in the last age assumed the coarse and 
 vulgar features of an open atheism, which soon de- 
 stroyed itself in its own multiplying difficulties, in- 
 tellectual, moral, civil, and political, has robed itself 
 now in more decent garments, and exhibits to the 
 world the old deceit with far more comely features. 
 For the rejection of all fixed faith, all definite revela- 
 tion, and all certain truth, which is intolerable to man 
 as a naked atheism, is endurable, and even seductive, 
 when veiled in the more decent half-concealment of 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 Christianity must be certain and complete. For dis- 
 guise it as you will, it is simple unbelief. Pantheism 
 is but a tricked-out Atheism. The dissolution of Ee- 
 velation is the denial of God. 
 
 With such a wide-spread current of thought, then, 
 the strong foundations of Church-of-England faith came 
 rudely in contact. Her simple retention of the primi- 
 tive forms of the Apostolic Church ; her Ministry, and 
 her Sacraments ; her firm hold of primitive truth ; her 
 Creeds ; her Scriptures ; her Formularies ; her Cate- 
 chism ; and her Articles ; all of these were alike at 
 variance with the new rationalistic unbelief. The 
 struggles and strifes of the last thirty years have been 
 the inevitable consequence. The passionate re-assertion 
 of the old truths, with all the evils which have waited 
 on that passion, as well as all the immeasurable good 
 which has been the fruit of the re-assertion, — all of 
 these have been themselves the consequence of the 
 widely-acting influence to which the human mind has 
 of late been subjected. Short-sighted men have looked 
 at these things with their narrow range, and believed 
 that the scepticism which on the one side has been 
 evolved in the struggle, was the fruit of that energetic 
 assertion of the truth which was itself but one conse- 
 quence of the unbelief with which it was striving. 
 
 As well might they believe that the causes of the 
 existence of some naked promontory which has had its 
 sharp and rocky point defined by the great current it 
 has long breasted, or of that mighty ocean-like flow 
 which sweeps against it, arc to be found in the bois- 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 terous waves which roar down the lower stream, and 
 fleck with foam the agitated waters of its troubled 
 bosom. 
 
 Two distinct courses seem to me to be required by 
 such a state of things. 
 
 First, the distinct, solemn, and if need be, severe, 
 decision of authority that assertions such as these 
 cannot be put forward as possibly trne, or even 
 advanced as admitting of question, by honest men, 
 who are bound by voluntary obligations to teach the 
 Christian revelation as the truth of Grod. 
 
 I put this necessity fii'st, from the full conviction, 
 that if such matters are admitted by us to be open 
 questions amongst men under such obligations, we 
 shall leave to the next generation the fatal legacy of 
 an universal scepticism, amidst an undistinguishable 
 confusion of all possible landmarks between truth and 
 falsehood. 
 
 To say this, be it observed, is to evince no fear of 
 argument against our faith though the freest, or of 
 enquiry into it though the most daring. From these, 
 Christianity has nothing to dread. In their issue 
 these do but manifest the truth. The roughest 
 wind sweeps the sky the most speedily, and shews 
 forth the soonest the unclouded sun in all his splen- 
 doiu'. It is not, therefore, because believers in Eeve- 
 lation fear enquiry, that authority is bound to inter- 
 fere. But it is to prevent the very idea of truth, as 
 truth, dying out amongst us. For so indeed it must 
 do, if once it be permitted to our clergy solemnly to 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 engage to teach as the truth of God a certain set 
 of doctrines, and at the same time freely to discuss 
 "whether they are true or false. First, then, and even 
 before argument, our disorders need the firm, un- 
 flinching action of authority. 
 
 Secondly, we need the calm, comprehensive, scholar- 
 like declaration of positive truth upon all the matters 
 in dispute, by which the shallowness, and the passion, 
 and the ignorance of the new system of unbelief may 
 be thoroughly displayed. 
 
 That this volume may in some measure, at least, 
 fulfil these conditions, is the endeavour of its writers, 
 and the hope of him who ventures now to commend 
 it to the prayers of the Church, and the study of its 
 readers. 
 
 S. 0. 
 
 CuDDESDON Palace, 
 Dec. 1861. 
 
THE education"^? THE WORLD. 
 
 " Tlie Education of the World." By Frederick Temple, D.D., 
 Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen; Head Master of Rugby 
 School ; Ohaplain to the Earl of Denbigh. The Second Edition. 
 {London: John W. Parker and Son, West Strand. 1860.) 
 
 " The Education of the Human Race." From the German of 
 GoTTEOLD Ephbaim Lessixg. (Londou : Smith, Elder, and 
 Co. 1858.) 
 
 W^ 
 
 " How charming is Divine Philosophy ! 
 Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose ; 
 But musical as is ApoUo's lute." 
 
 'E quite echo back these words of our gi-eat bard. 
 Divine philosophy is charming in its every shape ; 
 — not only that discovery of precious moral truth in 
 ancient myths which, judging from the context, Mil- 
 ton seems to have had principally in his thoughts, 
 but any true theory of the dealings of God with man 
 to which the words ' divine philosophy' might be suit- 
 ably appropriated. If we can at all get a glimpse into 
 the significance of the Scheme of Grace, as God has 
 been unfolding it from the primitive prediction of the 
 Seed of the woman until now, this glimpse cannot 
 fail to be attractive and cheering, — as attractive and 
 cheering (though perhaps as much obstructed) as that 
 which the pilgi-im gains, at interstices between tan- 
 gled boughs, of the spires and pinnacles of the city to 
 which his steps are bent. But just as in physical 
 science the true philosopher will never form theories 
 independently of the facts of nature ; just as his crude 
 
2 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 guesses will be originated, modified, enlarged by tliose 
 facts, in some cases retracted and thrown aside in obe- 
 dience to them ; just as all natural pliilosophy consists 
 in being led by the hand of nature into natural truth, 
 — so the divine philosopher will never draw up his 
 scheme independently of the truths of Holy Scripture, 
 (which are in theology what the facts are in nature) ; 
 his theories will not only be started, but corrected, by 
 those truths, and will be safe, and sound, and valu- 
 able, just so far as in forming them he has been led by 
 the hand of God's Word. 
 
 We have before us two essays on the education of 
 the human race, and the slightest glance at either 
 of them shews that the author means the religious 
 or spiritual education which God is conferring upon 
 man. We shall attempt to clear the ground for our 
 criticism by pointing out the senses in which man 
 may be truly said either to have received from God, 
 or to be receiving, a spiritual education. 
 
 I. First, there can be no doubt that man (or rather 
 that portion of the human race which is under the 
 divine economy, and which we think, with Dr. Tem- 
 ple, may not unfairly be regarded as a representa- 
 tive of the whole race''',) is receiving an education in 
 time for eternity. Earth is the school in which God's 
 
 ° "7/" the Christian Church he tal-en as the representative of 
 mankind, it is easy to see that the general law observable iu the de- 
 velopment of the individual may also be found in the development 
 of the Church." — Essays and Bevieios, p. 40. 
 
 We do not see that the hypothesis can be quarrelled with. 
 Though in one important sense the world and the Church are op- 
 posed to one another, yet, under another aspect, regenerate hu- 
 manity is surely a sample of the whole. " Of His own will begat 
 He us with the word of truth, that toe should he a kind of first- 
 fruits of His creatures. ^^ (James i. 18.) 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 3 
 
 people are being trained for heaven. This is clearly 
 implied in the well-kno^Yn passage, 1 Cor. xiii. 9, &c. 
 We are children at present, conceiving darkly, reason- 
 ing uncertainly, and expressing ourselves imperfectly ; 
 but hereafter we shall come to the full maturity of 
 our powers, knowing no longer in the way of dis- 
 covery, but intuitively, "even as also we are known," 
 and no longer needing to express things divine by 
 figures and images drawn from things earthly. Take 
 the dawning intelligence and the limited experience 
 of a little child, not yet emancipated from the re- 
 straints of the nursery, and contrast them with the 
 large research of a Columbus, the sagacious investiga- 
 tions of a Bacon, and the profound discoveries of a 
 Is'ewton, and you have then, if the Scripture ana- 
 logy be correct, some idea of the proportion which 
 our present mental and spiritual faculties will bear 
 to oiu- attainments hereafter. The analogy at once 
 teaches us this, that just as there are many truths, 
 quite on a level with a man's understanding, which 
 cannot be at all explained to a child with its present 
 capacities, and others which can only be explained 
 very imperfectly, by illustrations drawn from its own 
 narrow circle of ideas and associations; so there are 
 some spiritual truths altogether out of our reach in 
 our present condition, and others which can be con- 
 Yeyed to us only through the imperfect medium of 
 earthly relations and human language. All man's in- 
 sight into divine truth is and must be, as its essential 
 condition, "through a glass," and all his knowledge 
 in a riddle, (eV ali^Ly/xari). He can only see, not the 
 object itself, but an image of it reflected in a mirror, 
 whose surface is never quite true or quite smooth ; he 
 can only know heavenly tilings by comparisons with 
 b2 
 
4 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 eartlily, (wliicli comparisons must break down some- 
 where,) not by conversancy with the realities. And 
 the moral lesson to be learnt from this education of 
 the human race would be, that our heavenly Father 
 intends for us, by our present condition of existence, 
 a discipline of humility of mind; and that, there- 
 fore, having once seen our way to faith in God's 
 Word, (and abundant light is supplied to us for this 
 purpose,) we must thenceforth acquiesce devoutly in 
 the difficulties and obscurities which beset some of its 
 statements, remembering that, if we could see through 
 all entanglements, faith would cease to be faith, and 
 become sight. This theory of man's education hum- 
 bles his reason, instead of exalting it, and pours con- 
 tempt upon his utmost mental progress, instead of 
 magnifying it as the maturity of his powers. 
 
 II. But there is another sense in which we may 
 speak of the education of man, — a sense more defi- 
 nitely recognising the race as one creature, and so 
 more nearly approaching Dr. Temple's theory of "a 
 colossal man, whose life reaches from the creation to 
 the day of judgment." 
 
 We are told that God's ancient Church received 
 from Him a preparatory discipline to fit it for the 
 reception of the Gospel: — "The Law," says the Apo- 
 stle, " was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." 
 While the economy of the Law was running its course, 
 God's child (His Church) was under "tutors and go- 
 vernors," "in bondage under the rudiments of the 
 world." But the fulness of the time came, when the 
 One great Master, to whose class-room the pedagogue 
 had but conducted' the learner, appears^ upon earth. 
 
 " Persons acquainted only with the English version of the Holy 
 Scriptures wiU need to be warned that the word translated ' school- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 5 
 
 He taught the truth, which made men free; and, 
 hearing this truth, the heir was emancipated from the 
 restraints of chiklhood, and entered upon his inherit- 
 ance. This education, therefore, was terminated, not 
 by the end of the world, or the day of judgment, but 
 by the fii'st coming of Christ. 
 
 Xow, guiding ourselves by this clue, a most in- 
 teresting theory might be drawn out of the education 
 of the world, the outline of which, at all events, 
 would be correct. Such a theory has been attempted 
 in a little work, which has been many years before 
 the public, but which perhaps is less extensively 
 known than it deserves^. We can here only find 
 space for the most rapid sketch of the argument. 
 Before the Saviour appeared upon earth, it was ne- 
 cessary that men should be prepared to appreciate the 
 blessings and the truth which He would reveal ; other- 
 wise they would never have intelligently received 
 the Gospel. Xo mind could apprehend Christianity, 
 which was not fii'st well grounded in certain elemen- 
 tary religious ideas, which had been corrupted in the 
 Tall, and further depraved in that frightful result of 
 the Fall, the degeneracy of idol worship. In restor- 
 ing these ideas to the mind of man, and forming there 
 certain new ones, which were necessary to the intelli- 
 gent reception of the Gospel, God determined to act 
 on His usual principle (which runs through all His 
 
 dispensations) of using men for the instruction of men. 
 
 One man, however, would not sufiice for so great a 
 
 master' in the passage referred to properly denotes, not the actual 
 instructor, but a domestic employed to take charge of children and 
 see them safe to school. Christ is our rabbi, at whose feet "we sit, 
 to receive the truth which makes us free; and the Law is the 
 domestic who "brought us unto" Him. 
 
 ^ The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation : a Book for the Times. 
 
6 THE EDUCATIOX OF THE WORLD. 
 
 work as the preparatory initiation of the human mind 
 into elementary religious ideas. He would not live 
 long enough ; and, while he did live, could not make 
 his influence felt widely enough. God therefore must 
 raise up a nation of teachers ; must thoroughly imbue 
 them with the elementary ideas, and then finally dis- 
 seminate them, in the order of His Proyidence, and 
 cause them to come in contact with the mind of other 
 nations. This, accordingly, was the plan which He 
 adopted. He first prepares the Israelites for His pur- 
 pose, riveting them together by a common parentage 
 felt to have the sacredness of caste in it, by a com- 
 mon worship, distinct altogether from that of other 
 nations, by the long oppression under which they 
 groaned in a strange country, and by the miraculous 
 deliverance from Egypt, which came to them just as 
 their minds were in a high state of excitement and 
 susceptibility. This is the account which we should 
 be inclined to give of that " extraordinary toughness 
 of nature*"' in the Jew, upon which Dr. Temple com- 
 ments, so far indeed as the result was brought about 
 by natural causes, and not chiefly due to the special 
 interference of God, who for His own purposes has 
 endowed their nationality with extraordinary vital 
 powers. Israel having by these means become a 
 strongly marked and firmly united people, with the 
 most exclusive sympathies and antipathies, then com- 
 menced the throwing into their minds those religious 
 conceptions with which, in long process of time, and 
 by varied discipline, their whole souls were to be 
 
 ® " The people whose extraordinary toughness of nature has 
 enabled it to outlive Egyptian Pharaohs, and Assyrian kings, and 
 Homan CaDsars, and Mussulman caliphs," &c. — Essay on the Edu- 
 cation of the World, p. 14. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 7 
 
 imbued. First was commimicated, as the original 
 ground of all religious thought, the personality, and 
 existence of God, altogether independently of His 
 attributes, which were afterwards to be revealed. If 
 a man does not believe that God exists, or that a per- 
 sonal God exists, there is no basis for religion to stand 
 upon in that man's mind. The first name, therefore, 
 under which God made Himself known to the people 
 whom He was training as the religious teachers of 
 the world, was " I am," — leaving all besides to sub- 
 sequent development, '-'I am that I am." 
 
 Xext followed the covenant relationship in which 
 God condescended to stand to them, (for the idea of 
 absolute God is bleak and dreary, however sublime, — 
 chilling rather than attractive to the heart): "And 
 God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say 
 unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your 
 fathers, the God of Ahraham, the God of Isaac, and 
 the God of Jacoh, hath sent me unto you : this is my 
 name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all gene- 
 rations V This personal God, so related to them, was 
 then shewn by the miracles which preceded and at- 
 tended the Exodus, to be mightier than all the gods 
 of the Egyptians; or, to use the words of Lessing, 
 (Sect. 12,) "Through the miracles, with which He 
 led them out of Egypt and planted them in Canaan, 
 He testified of Himself to them as a God mightier 
 than any other god." Thus the Israelitish mind got 
 as far as these three ideas — personality, covenant re- 
 lationship, Almighty power. The moral attributes had 
 next to be impressed upon it. And this was done by 
 the promulgation of the Law, both moral and cere- 
 monial. The Ten Commandments, revealing, as they 
 
 ' Exod. iii. 15. 
 
8 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 did, the will of God as regards man's conduct, pro- 
 claimed His holiness. But the people being still in 
 the infancy of religious knowledge, the same lesson 
 was taught in another way by external observances 
 and an appeal to the senses. The notion of moral 
 purity was developed in their mind, and connected 
 with the thought of God, by the ceremonial distinc- 
 tions between clean and unclean beasts, and the use 
 of the former class only in sacrifice, — by the separa- 
 tion of the priests from the people, of the holy of 
 holies from the holy place, and of that from the court 
 of the tabernacle, and by the ceremonial washings and 
 sprinklings which both sacrifices and priests and wor- 
 shippers had to undergo. The justice of God, which 
 exacted the forfeiture of life as the desert of sin, and 
 at the same time the possibility of transferring the 
 penalty to an innocent victim, which constitutes the 
 idea of atonement, would be taught by the sin-offer- 
 ings, with which the worshipper was supposed to iden- 
 tify himself by laying his hands on the victim. In 
 short, all the observances of the Mosaic ritual would 
 be to the Jew like so many pictures in a child's 
 primer, by which rough but lively ideas are con- 
 veyed to the child of objects which it never yet saw. 
 
 The unity and spirituality of God, enforced so often 
 by positive precepts and minor punishments, were the 
 truths which the national mind found it most difficult 
 to master. Has the propensity to Pantheism, — to the 
 recognising something divine in every object of the 
 world of nature, — so entirely ceased among Christians 
 of the nineteenth century, who live under the ripest 
 experience of the "colossal man," that we shall be 
 surprised to find a similar propensity somewhat tena- 
 ciously rooted in the minds of a people always stiff- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 9 
 
 necked, and uncircnmciscd in heart and ears ? Is no 
 tendency manifested now-a-days in any part of the 
 Christian Church to lean unduly upon objects of sense 
 and external aids in religious worship ? Well, — ten- 
 dencies similar to these in principle were to be sternly 
 corrected in those who were to be the appointed reli- 
 gious teachers of the human race. When less severe 
 discipline had failed, God smote them with a stroke 
 so heavy, that the smart of it taught them this, the 
 lesson of His unity and spirituality, effectually, and im- 
 printed it in ineffaceable characters upon their minds. 
 The Babylonish captivity cured them altogether of 
 idol worship ; while the dispersion which accompanied 
 it answered another great end, — it brought the Jetvs 
 into contact ivith the Gentile mind^ and thus 'put God^s 
 trained masters into communication loith their scholars. 
 It domesticated many of them in different parts of the 
 heathen world, made them learn Gentile tongues, and 
 enabled them to introduce into those tongues the ideas 
 which they themselves had imbibed. The Septuagint 
 translation of the Old Testament Scriptures enshrined 
 for ever the religious ideas of the Jews in the language 
 which, through the Macedonian conquest, had spread 
 itself over the whole civilized world. 
 
 This design of God's providence in the dispersion of 
 the Jews is implied in the strongest way, if we cannot 
 say that it is expressed, in the Holy Scriptures of the 
 New Testament. The day on which the new dispen- 
 sation was solemnly inaugurated, under the auspices 
 of the Holy Spirit, found Jews at Jerusalem out of 
 every nation under heaven, — " Parthians, and Modes, 
 and Elamitcs, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in 
 Judtea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, 
 and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya 
 
JO THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 about Cyrene, and strangers of Eome, Jews and prose- 
 lytes, Cretes and Arabians." And we know from other 
 parts of the Acts of the Apostles that large bodies of 
 proselytes were found in all the chief cities of the 
 ancient world, — Jews by religion, Gentiles by birth, 
 — who, as having affinities with both, acted as a 
 ready-made bridge by which the truths of the Gospel 
 might pass over from one to the other. Does not the 
 existence of these proselytes ' argue that the Jews had 
 leavened very considerably the religious mind of the 
 Gentiles in the various countries of their dispersion? 
 They had leavened it by the diffusion of those funda- 
 mental religious ideas — such as the personality and 
 unity of God, holiness, the atonement, the inseparable 
 union of morality with religion — which are necessary 
 to the acceptance and appreciation of Christianity. 
 And thus the intellect of the human race may be said 
 to have been matured for the reception of the Gospel. 
 In the fulness of the Time ^ came the great Teacher, 
 to impart the knowledge of the Truth (or, in other 
 words, of Himself,) which should make men free. He 
 
 K Dr. Temple's Essay is said to have grown out of a sermon 
 (preached before the rniversity), on " the fulness of the Time." 
 
 We have attempted (in a humble way) to shew how, when our 
 Lord appeared, tlie Church of God was prepared for His appearance 
 by the gradual discipline of foregone dispensations. The subject, 
 however, may be looked at in another light ; and the " fulness of 
 the times" may be considered in reference to the desperately cor- 
 rupt state of the world at large, which called for some direct Divine 
 interference. See a masterly sermon by Dr. Eobertson the historian, 
 (1759), "On the Situation of the World at the Time of Christ's 
 Appearance," in which it is shewn how "the political, moral, reli- 
 gious, and domestic state of the world at that time", were all 
 eminently suitable to the great event. The sermon is now, un- 
 fortunately, one of those rare pieces which is only to be found in 
 old collections of tracts. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 11 
 
 lifted from off their necks the j^oke of the ceremonial 
 Law, which neither that generation to which He came, 
 nor their fathers, were able to bear. He relieved them 
 sensibly of the burden of unforgiven sin, cancelling in 
 His Blood the records of the accusing conscience, and 
 the handwriting of the moral law, '' which was contrary 
 to us." He relieved them also of the oppressive tyranny 
 of sin by His grace, which communicated a new spring 
 of energy to their wills, and brought into operation 
 motives which, if they existed before, were never be- 
 fore so powerfully elicited. But in speaking of this 
 liberty wherewith Christ made us free, it is observable 
 how carefully both our Lord and His Apostles guard 
 themselves against the notion of its being lawless, or 
 emancipated from moral restraints. He promises to 
 give rest to those who come to Him, but the rest con- 
 sists not in the absence of a yoke and burden, but in 
 its light pressure : " Take My yoke upon you .... 
 and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Foi' My yoJce 
 is easy^ and My liirden is lights The freedom which 
 He bestows is a freedom from the service of sin*". It 
 is an obedience from the heart to a form of doctrine ; 
 it is a service of God \ The Christian has a law, and 
 a law by which he will be judged ; although indeed 
 it is a law of liberty's And St. Paul, when shewing 
 how he adapted his ministry to those whom he ap- 
 proached with it, and how to the Gentiles who were 
 without (revealed) law he became as without law, re- 
 tracts the very word aVo/zoy, ('lawless,') lest it should 
 be misunderstood: "Being not without law to God, 
 but under the law to Christ." He was, even as an 
 apostle, under a law, although indeed it was '' the law 
 
 h See John viii. 32, 34, 36. ' Rom. vi. 17, 22. 
 
 ^ James i. 2.3, ami ii. 12. 
 
12 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of the Spirit of life '." Thus the Bible gives no sanc- 
 tion to the idea that the present state of the Christian 
 is one of emancipation from law, though no doubt we 
 are exempt from olbedience to the ceremonial rules im- 
 posed by the old economy. 
 
 Even to this exemption we do not find that the ori- 
 ginal Jewish converts, or even the original Apostles, 
 easily accommodated themselves. The Jewish mind 
 had yet need of further training, (even after the de- 
 scent of the Holy Ghost,) before it burst the shell of 
 ritual restraints. The liberty of the Church from 
 ceremonial bondage, and its essential Catholicity, are 
 gradually developed in the Acts of the Apostles. St. 
 Peter is reconciled to this part of the Divine plan by 
 a vision, and a voice from heaven, and a providential 
 circumstance, and an intimation of the Holy Ghost; 
 and yet afterwards recalcitrates, and needs to be pub- 
 licly expostulated with by a colleague"". The first 
 Chiistian Council solemnly decides for all time the 
 question that circumcision is not necessary for Gen- 
 tile converts. St. Paul's preaching and influence at 
 length, under the blessing of God, brought about that 
 full and free expansion of religious thought which had 
 been so long unfolding by various agencies. But it 
 was only an expansion which refused to be cramped 
 any longer within the narrow limits of the Mosaic 
 law ; not one, like that afi'ected by moral Eationalists, 
 which feels itself narrowed by creeds and formularies 
 of doctrine. With deference to Dr. Temple, who tells 
 us that " there are no creeds in the 'New Testament, 
 and hardly any laws of Church government," Ave 
 think that 1 Tim. iii. 16 sounds remarkably like a 
 
 ' Ptom. viii. 2. » Acts s. 11, 13, 17, 20; G:il. ii. 11. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 13 
 
 creed, and that " the form of sound words'"' which Ti- 
 mothy is exhorted to hold fast must have been some- 
 thing of the kind ; and we should he at a loss to de- 
 fine the contents of the pastoral Epistles, if we might 
 not say that they contained the laws of primitive 
 Church government. 
 
 In concluding this sketch, we may venture to sup- 
 pose that the signal for the final emancipation of reli- 
 gious thought from the bondage of the Mosaic law 
 ■\?ts given by God's own hand, when Jerusalem and 
 the Temple were demolished, and Judaism had no 
 more a local habitation upon earth. 
 
 And shall we say that after this period all further 
 religious development of the mind of the Church 
 ceased? We think that the intimations of Holy 
 Scripture, if not its express declarations, lead us to 
 an opposite conclusion. We have seen that even 
 after the day of Pentecost an Apostle had something 
 of religious truth yet to learn. We have seen that 
 even the presence of the Holy Spirit, in His mira- 
 culous gifts, did not supersede the necessity for the 
 sentence of a Christian Coimcil. And certain it is 
 that the Apostolic age, when it passed away, left the 
 Church founded in the earth, and nothing more ; that 
 its full organization had yet to be given it, its bat- 
 tlements had yet to be constructed. Accordingly, 
 as Dr. Temple says, '' the Church's whole energy was 
 taken up, in the first six centuries of her existence, in 
 the creation of a theology." Heresies (that is, devia- 
 tions from the faith taught by the Apostles and em- 
 bodied in their writings,) sprang up, and made it ne- 
 cessary that the truth should be, not indeed revealed 
 anew, but re-stated, and cleared by definition and illus- 
 » 2 Tim. i. 13. 
 
14 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 tralion. This was done by CEcumenical Councils ; and 
 we have the results of the process in our Creeds. In 
 the decisions of these Councils, forms of expression 
 and technical terms of theology are of course intro- 
 duced which are not found in the Holy Scriptures, 
 (for if the bare Scriptural exj^ressions had sufficed for 
 the refutation of heresy, where would have been the 
 need of a conciliar determination ?) but it is remarkable 
 how the first four Councils found their conclusions on 
 the uniform and continuous belief of the Church from 
 the beginning, shewing that they did not presume to 
 add anything to primitive truth, but merely to vin- 
 dicate and clear it of those parasitical errors which 
 threatened its existence. In short, divine truth, hav- 
 ing been cast into the seed-plot of human minds, was 
 constantly springing up with certain accretions which 
 came from the vice of soil, which accretions had to be 
 removed as they arose; and thus each of the four 
 great Councils, if in one sense an expositor of the 
 Word of God, was in another sense a reformer, bring- 
 ing things back to the primitive model of belief. They 
 sought the perfection of theology, not in the develop- 
 ments of future ages, but in what had been received 
 in the past °. 
 
 And shall we say that, since the decisions of the 
 (Ecumenical Councils, the science of theology has re- 
 ceived no further accessions ? None, we think, simi- 
 larly authenticated. We should attach the greatest 
 deference now-a-days to the decisions of an OEcumeni- 
 
 ° Mr. Archer Eutler describes the function of the early Councils 
 with admirable terseness as well as clearness, when he says, (Deve- 
 lopment, p. 224,) " The function of the early Councils was ... to 
 define received doctrine, to elucidate ohscnred doctrine, to condemn 
 false doctrine. But it M-as not to reveal new doctrine." 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 15 
 
 cal CWncil, if such could be gathered, which should 
 have a sufficient occasion and object, should be iinpar- 
 tiallj^ constituted, and should found its decisions en- 
 tirely on Holy Writ, as interpreted by primitive anti- 
 quity. But at the same time we fully concede that, 
 in the absence of such Councils, and without the sanc- 
 tion which they would lend, the evolution of divine 
 truth in the human mind is always going on. 
 
 On this head we quote Mr. Archer Butler's letters 
 in reply to Mr. Newman's "Theory of Development." 
 Nowhere else shall we find words at once more suc- 
 cinct and more .exhaustive of the subject : — 
 
 "I have no disposition to conceal or question that theo- 
 logical knowledge is capable of a real movement in time, 
 a true successive history, through the legitimate application 
 of human reason. This movement may probably be regarded 
 as taking place in two principal waj^s : — 
 
 "The first is the process o^ logical derelopment of primitive 
 truth into its consequences, connexions, and applications." 
 [An instance of what the author means by logical develop- 
 ment is thus given in a former part of the work : " When 
 we have learned, on the infalHble authority of inspiration, 
 that the Lord Jesus Christ is Himself very God, and when 
 we have learned from the same authority the tremendous 
 fact of His Atoning Sacrifice, we could collect (even were 
 Scripture silent) the priceless value of the atonement thus 
 made; the wondrous humiliation therein involved; the un- 
 speakable love it exhibited ; the mysteriously awful guilt of 
 sin, which would again reflect a gloomy light upon the 
 equally mysterious eternity oi punishment."] 
 
 " The second is, 2^osiiive discovery. Members of the English 
 Church — which (by a strange dispensation of Providence) 
 has, since its lapse into ' heresy,' done more to benefit Chris- 
 tianity in this way than all others put together — will not 
 find much difiB.culty in concei\dng many classes of these 
 precious gifts of God to His Church, conveyed through the 
 ministration of human sagacity. Such are — 
 
l6 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 "1. Unexpected confirmations or illustrations of revealed 
 doctrine from new sources ; as from unobserved applications 
 or collations of Holy Scriptui-e ; or from profound investi- 
 gations of natural religion, and the philosophy of morals, as 
 in some parts of the researches of Bishop Warburton. 
 
 "2. New proofs in support of the evidences of religion; 
 such as the conception and complete establishment of the 
 analogical argument by Bishop Butler, or the invention and 
 exquisite application of the test of undesigned coincidence 
 by Paley. 
 
 " 3. Discoveries regarding the form and circumstances of 
 the Revelation itself; such as those of Bishops Lowth and 
 Jebb on the remarkable structure of the poetical and sen- 
 tentious parts of Holy Writ. 
 
 "4. Discoveries of divine laws in the government of the 
 Church and world, so far as the same may lawfully be col- 
 lected by observation and theoiy. 
 
 "5. Discoveries, through events disclosing the meaning 
 of prophecy, or correcting erroneous interpretations of 
 Scripture." 
 
 To these we may add what perhaps the learned and 
 highly -gifted writer intended to classify under the 
 thii'd head : — 
 
 Accessions to the stock of knowledge, already pos- 
 sessed by the world, of the languages in which the 
 Holy Scriptures were written. 
 
 While upon this point, we cannot avoid quoting 
 the weighty testimony of one who (great as Mr. Archer 
 Butler was) was greater than he, to "the possibility 
 of a real movement of theological knowledge in time, 
 through the legitimate application of human reason." 
 It is a grand passage, and will well repay perusal : — 
 
 " As it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is not yet 
 understood; so, if it ever comes to be understood, before the 
 restitution of all things, and without miraculous interpositions; 
 it must be in the same wav as natural knowledge is come at : 
 
I 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 17 
 
 b}' tlie contmuance and progress of learning and of liberty ; 
 and by particular persons attending to, comparing and pur- 
 suing, intimations scattered up and down it, which are over- 
 looked and disregarded by the generality of the world. For 
 this is the way, in which all improvements are made ; by 
 thoughtfid men's tracing on obscure hints, as it were, dropped 
 us by nature accidentally, or which seem to come into our 
 minds by chance. Nor is it at all incredible, that a book, 
 ichich has been so long in the ^^ossession of manhincl, should 
 contain many truths as yet undiscovered. For all the same 
 phenomena, and the same faculties of investigation, from, 
 which such great discoveries in natural knowledge have 
 been made in the present and last age, were equally in the 
 possession of mankind, several thousand years before. And 
 possibly it might be intended, that events, as they come to 
 pass, should open and ascertain the meaning of several parts 
 of Scripture." — Butler's Analogy of Natural and Revealed 
 Eeligion, book ii. ch. 3. 
 
 It will be seen that both Mr. Archer Butler and his 
 illustrious namesake quite admit a certain progress 
 of the human mind on theological subjects by " the 
 legitimate application of reason." How can such a 
 progress be questioned ? Would there be any room at 
 all for the science of theology, if the illustration, elu- 
 cidation, interpretation, application, enforcement of 
 the sacred Books had been stereotyped at the time 
 they were given? Does not the Church's ordinance ^ 
 of preaching, which is to endure for all time, assume 
 that the human mind is to be brought in contact with 
 the Word of God, and to deal with it in the way of 
 explanation, enforcement, and so forth. And if a good 
 sermon of a single preacher, composed with the ordi- 
 nary helps of God's Spirit, often throws real light on 
 
 p An ordinance wliich surely must not be narrowed to oral 
 addresses made in a church, but must include also religious instruc- 
 tion by books, &c. 
 
 C 
 
l8 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the "Word of God, can the ministers of the whole 
 Church of Christ from the beginning (thousands of 
 them men of the profoundest erudition as well as the 
 deepest piety) have failed to do a great deal, not in- 
 deed in the way of revealing any new thing, but of 
 unfolding and illustrating what has been revealed? 
 It may be greatly questioned whether any truth in the 
 world can be fully appreciated by the human mind, 
 when it is freshly lodged there. It must first be 
 studied and discussed, — must pass through the various 
 stages of questioning, controversy, advocacy, before it 
 can gain a real and influential hold. In this respect 
 of course later ages of the Church have an advantage 
 over earlier ones. The truth has been more maturely 
 considered, filtered through a larger variety of human 
 minds, devout and indevout ; and if, on the one hand, 
 it has gained certain accretions from the process, on 
 the other its bearings and significance are now more 
 fully understood. 
 
 It is, however, most important to remark that be- 
 tween this progress of the mind of the Church, and 
 the progress, which Dr. Temple brings into comparison 
 with it, of the individual mind, there is one very 
 striking difference, which he has wholly overlooked. 
 The education of the individual is carried on by sub- 
 stantive accessions of knowledge, and the rudiments 
 are swallowed up and lost as the knowledge grows. 
 But the education {if ive arc to call it so) of the Church 
 is all ii}ra]pijcd up in the rudiments; — it is simply 
 an expansion of " the faith once delivered to the 
 saints." Eevelation stands not at the end, but at 
 the beginning, of the Church's career. The highest 
 degree of knowledge is communicated to the Church 
 in the first instance ; all that follows is merely a full 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 19 
 
 development of the import of that knowledge. In 
 
 INDIVIDUAL EDUCATION THE MORE ADVANCED SCIENCE 
 EMBRACES THE RUDIMENT; BUT IN THE EDUCATION OP 
 
 THE Church the rudiment (which is revelation) 
 
 EMBRACES THE MORE ADVANCED KNOWLEDGE. He that 
 
 is perfectly master of a language, so as to speak and 
 WTite fluently in it, forgets his rules of grammar; 
 they remain with him only in the shape of " a perma- 
 nent result." But when the Council of Constantinople 
 condemned the Macedonian heresy, it by no means 
 superseded, but simply unfolded, and brought out 
 more clearly into the general consciousness of Chris- 
 tendom, the import of that gi'eat precept, " Grieve 
 not the Holy Spirit of God," and of that comfortable 
 benediction, " The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 the love of God, and the communion of the Holy 
 Ghost, be with you all." The man who can read 
 Greek has outgro^^Ti his English spelling-book. But 
 the "colossal man" (or, as we should prefer to put 
 it, the Church of the latter days) can never outgrow 
 Scripture; all she can do is to appropriate more 
 thoroughly the nourishment of divine truth contained 
 in it, and to "grow thereby." 
 
 We conceive that the above theory of the education 
 of the world, although not in all its parts explicitly 
 Scriptural, yet holds all along to the clue which Scrip- 
 ture furnishes. For, — 
 
 1. Scripture speaks of the law as psedagogic, — a 
 discipline of childhood, " to bring us unto Christ." 
 
 2. Scripture speaks of a Church synod, after the 
 first promulgation of Christian truth, for the deter- 
 mination of questions vitally affecting the interests of 
 the Church. 
 
 r 9 
 
20 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 3. Scripture provides a ministry of teaching and 
 preaching among uninspired men. 
 
 We shall nov proceed to examine the first of the 
 "Essays and Eeviews " under the light thus gained. 
 
 Yery early one of the fallacies which pervades it is 
 made to appear. The wi'iter having told us (what 
 doubtless may be admitted) that the long lapse of 
 time since the creation of man must have a purpose, 
 and that '' each moment of time, as it passes, is taken 
 up into the time that follows in the shape of perma- 
 nent results," goes on to assert that not only does 
 knowledge receive continually a fresh accession, but 
 also "the discipline of manners, of temper, of thought, 
 of feeling, is transmitted from generation to gene- 
 ration, and at each transmission there is an imper- 
 ceptible but unfailing increase." (p. 4.) ^'hat, pre- 
 cisely, does the learned Essayist mean by this "dis- 
 cipline of manners, temper, thought, and feeling," 
 whfch is always on the increase ? Does he allude 
 to the humanizing influences of civilization, which 
 certainly gild and varnish the surface of society, 
 while they leave the vices of the human heart un- 
 touched ? It may be conceded to him that these in- 
 fluences do secure an improvement in manner, and to 
 a certain extent in temper, round off many a sharp 
 angle, and restrain many an impetuous sally, which 
 might end in provocation and mischief. We are not 
 quite sure, however, that civilization has been regu- 
 larly and steadily progressive among men. In the 
 more prominent nations of the world it has had its 
 day, has run its course, and then has collapsed and 
 become effete. But granted that we could trace in it 
 (as regards mankind in general) any regular progres- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 21 
 
 sion, surely Dr. Temple does not mean to represent 
 this as a divine education, either of the Church or 
 of the world. Yet the thought is constantly obtruded 
 upon us, as we read his Essay, that he is confusing 
 the progress of the species by civilization with the 
 in'ogress of the Church in divine knowledge. 
 
 But will he say that by discipline of manners, tem- 
 per, thought, and feeling, he means a moral advanqe 
 of the human species, or of the professing ChurcK,^ 
 Then surely this is as contrary to all the facts of ex- 
 perience as to the anticipations of man's moral career 
 which Holy Scripture would lead us to form. With 
 Dr. Temple, we suppose that the long succession of 
 time exists for a great purpose. A mighty drama is 
 developing its plot upon the earth, which shall issue, 
 if the Scripture be true, not in the moral improve- 
 ment of the species, but in the glory of God, by the 
 final salvation of His true people from the present evil 
 world. So far from the moral improvement of the 
 species being gradually worked out, as this drama 
 proceeds, the fallen will of man, instigated by external 
 evil agency, is everywhere counterworking God, and 
 continually being overruled by His good Providence 
 to His own greater glory. And what we have to ex- 
 pect, as time goes on, is that both evil and good will 
 draw to a head together ; that if on one side of us the 
 lights will be brighter, on the other the shadows will 
 be darker, until the Eighteous One and the Evil One 
 in personal manifestation confront one another on the 
 stage of the earth. Such is the history of the race 
 which Scripture leads us to expect. But putting out 
 of sight the intimations of Scripture, are any traces of 
 moral progress visible in the history of the world ? To 
 lake only the histories of Eome and Greece, to which 
 
2 2 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Dr. Temple more than once refers, is not the picture 
 which they present one of moral degeneracy rather 
 than of moral improvement. What had become of the 
 stern integrity and primitive simplicity of the ancient 
 Eomans in the last days of the Empire? Did the 
 public virtue and patriotism of Greece stand higher in 
 the days of Aristides or in the days of Philopoemen ? 
 And to turn to the history of the Church of God, 
 were the Jews of Manasseh's day better or worse than 
 those of David's? Was the spirit of true religion 
 more developed among the Pharisees and Sadducees 
 of our Lord's time "■, than among the little band who, 
 in obedience to the edict of Cyrus, sought again their 
 country, and rebuilt, amidst manifold oppositions, their 
 temple? Has even Christianity eradicated the vices 
 of the human species ? We cannot think it, when we 
 remember the monstrosities of the French Eevolution, 
 and the rampant tyranny which the three worst 
 passions of the human heart (vanity, ferocity, and 
 lust, ) then exercised among a people moving in the 
 first rank of civilization, and who had been for cen- 
 turies nominally Christian. Quite as much then, we 
 suspect, as in the antediluvian world, was there to be 
 seen upon earth "brutal violence and a prevailing 
 plague of wickedness." Surely these and similar in- 
 stances prove that whatever development of human 
 resources, and of the natiu'al powers of the mind, may 
 attend the lapse of time, there has not been in the 
 species generally any moral or spiritual progress ; and 
 
 ' Dr. Temple admits further on, that "it is undeniable that, in 
 the time of our Lord, the Sadducees had lost all depth of spiritual 
 feeling, while the Pharisees had succeeded in converting the Mosaic 
 system into so mischievous an idolatry of forms, that St. Paul does 
 not hesitate to call the law the strength of sin." — (p. 10.) 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 23 
 
 that man, if (under certain circumstances) restrained 
 by law and softened by civilization, is still funda- 
 mentally what he became in the moment of his fall, 
 " earthly, sensual, devilish." 
 
 Or again, can it be anyhow made to appear that 
 from the days when man first began to make his own 
 nature, relations, and duties a subject of study, 7noral 
 science has been steadily advancing ? A simple com- 
 parison of the moral philosophy of Cicero with that 
 of Plato will shew that any such theory must be 
 utterly baseless. Plato embodied the Socratic teach- 
 ing on moral subjects ; and never in after ages was 
 there any heathen teacher of moral truth at all ap- 
 proaching to Socrates. 
 
 What then, precisely, is the progress of the species 
 to which our Essayist refers ? Great as his abilities 
 unquestionably are, we cannot but think that his 
 Essay is pervaded by confusion of thought, and that 
 in its most fundamental idea. There is the Scriptural 
 assertion (certain, because Scriptural,) that the ancient 
 Church was disciplined by the Law for the reception 
 of Christ. There is the patent fact that the civiliza- 
 tion of a single people advances (at least up to a cer- 
 tain point) and brings in its train certain humanizing 
 influences. There is the old remark, so beautifully 
 embodied in the first Pensee of Pascal, that in respect 
 of knowledge and research we enter into the posses- 
 sion of the stores which our ancestors have accumu- 
 lated, and have a wider range of prospect than they, 
 because, being mounted higher, we can see further. 
 There is the admitted fact that explanations and il- 
 lustrations of God's Word are multiplied and varied 
 "through the legitimate application of human rea- 
 son," as time goes on. Finally, there is all around 
 
24 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 US ill the present age, when "men run to and Lo 
 and knowledge is increased," a rapid movement of 
 mind, which continually throws up new ideas to the 
 surface ; a jewel here and there, and a great deal of 
 rubbish. The learned Essayist has, as far as we can 
 see, mingled all these sorts of progress together, and 
 elicited from them the idea of a "^discipline of man- 
 ners, of temper, of thought, of feeling, transmitted 
 from generation to generation," which, we are per- 
 suaded, has no existence but in his own mind. This 
 ■we hold to be the Trpwrov \j/€vSo9 of the whole Essay. 
 But to proceed. 
 
 The divine training of mankind, he tells us, has 
 three stages. In the individual, "first come rules, 
 then examples, then principles." In the species, 
 " first comes the Law, then the Son of Man, then the 
 gift of the Spirit." The sins of the antediluvian 
 world (like those of a child before he is sent to 
 school) were those of violent temper and animal 
 appetites : — 
 
 "The education of this early race may strictly be said 
 to begin when it was formed into the various masses 
 out of which the nations of the earth have sprung. The 
 world, as it were, went to school, and was broken up into 
 classes." — (p. 7.) 
 
 The classes, as it appears from a subsequent part of 
 the Essay, were four : — the Eoman class, in which the 
 will was disciplined; the Greek class, which culti- 
 vated the reason and taste of the race ; the Asiatic 
 class, in which was developed the idea of immortality ; 
 and the Hebrew or highest class, in which the con- 
 science was trained. 
 
 Now, independently of the puerility of detail into 
 
THE EDUCATION OF TIIi: WORLD. 25 
 
 wliich tlie illustration is allowed to run, we must here 
 object to Dr. Temple that, letting go of the Scriptural 
 clue which might have guided him to a right theory, 
 he thereby throws the divine agency in the education 
 of man entirely into the background. The great 
 Parent, Master, and Guide of the world's youth is as 
 much as possible hidden away from our eyes. "Where 
 and how does it appear that Eome, Greece, Asia, were 
 in any sense religious educators of the human race? 
 That they contributed much to the education of the 
 human mind, (and in the way which Dr. Temple elo- 
 quently and beautifully states,) no one will be dis- 
 posed to deny. That the mind of the human race 
 has been, and ever will be, applied to religion, some- 
 times with evil and sometimes with good results, must 
 be also universally admitted. But from these pre- 
 mises we can never collect that the discipline bestowed 
 by Eome, and Greece, and Asia was a discipline in 
 divine truth. It gave nothing heijond simple mental 
 development. A soil is formed by the fall and de- 
 composition of decayed leaves, by accidental deposits 
 of manure, or by some alluvial residuum-; and when 
 it is formed, an agriculturist thi'ows a fence round 
 it, and sows seed in it, and rears plants ; but we do 
 not speak of the agencies ivhich acted upon and pre- 
 pared the soil, as either seeds or sotuers. Why could 
 not our Essayist have followed where Scripture points 
 the way, and have told us that, man having proved 
 a disobedient and prodigal son, his heavenly Father 
 for awhile left him to pursue his own devices, (as 
 parents will sometimes allow wilful and truant children 
 to run riot and injure themselves,) that the hope- 
 less disorder into which his nature had fallen might 
 be proved to himself, — and not until this was becom- 
 
26 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ing apparent by the wide-spread and deepening cor- 
 ruption of idolatry, did God take in hand the education 
 of the species, (an education which was of the nature 
 of a recovery,) by founding a nation of teachers, and 
 throwing His revealed truth like seed into that na- 
 tion's mind ? As it is, there is a painful ignoring of 
 any truth di™ely communicated or revealed ; and the 
 impression left is, that the mental culture, for which 
 the race is indebted to Greece and Eome, is a thing 
 the same in kind with the special discipline in truth 
 and holiness which has been the prerogative of the 
 Church of God. 
 
 jMoreover, in describing this gradual discipline, as 
 it took effect upon the ancient Church, while much 
 that he says is true and forcible. Dr. Temple drops 
 altogether the idea that the discipline was preparatory 
 for Christ. The Law, according to him, was a school- 
 master to bring men — not to Christ, but — to that period 
 of the age of humanity when the world was ripe for 
 example. Xot a word of the ceremonial Law, darkly 
 prefiguring Christ. Xot a word of the moral Law, 
 convicting and condemning, and, by doing so, creating 
 a feeling of moral need which only Christ could meet ; 
 but simply an expansion of religious thought, pa^-ing 
 the way for its further expansion under the Gospel, — 
 a weaning fi'om idolatry, and a discipline in chastity 
 of morals and spirituality of conception. All true, no 
 doubt, and important in its place ; but we become (and 
 surely not without reason) impatient of the little pro- 
 minence given to the revealed Object of faith, and of 
 Christ being represented rather as a stage in the hu- 
 man mind^ than as the One Centre of hope, and asjnra- 
 tion^ and devout desire. 
 
 Having conducted his colossal man through the 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 27 
 
 period of cliiklliood, tlie Essayist next notices his 
 youth : — 
 
 "The tutors and governors," he says, (that is, Greece, 
 Rome, Asia, and more especially Israel,) "had done their 
 work. It was time that the second teacher of the human 
 race should begin his labour. The second teacher is Ex- 
 ample. . . . The youth can appreciate a character, though he 
 cannot yet appreciate a principle. . . . He instinctivel,y copies 
 those whom he admires, and in doing so imbibes whatever 
 gives the colour to their character." 
 
 Dr. Temple states very forcibly the power of ex- 
 ample in the youth of the individual, and then goes 
 on to draw out the analogy in this respect between 
 the individual and the species : — 
 
 " The second stage of the education of man was the pre- 
 sence of our Lord upon earth. . . . Our Lord was the Example 
 of mankind, and there can be no other example in the same 
 sense. But the whole period from the closing of the Old 
 Testament to the close of the New was the period of the 
 world's youth — the age of examples." 
 
 Sui'ely it is very questionable whether the gene- 
 rations which lived between the close of the Old Tes- 
 tament and that of the New were peculiarly suscep- 
 tible to example more than men of the present day. 
 Dr. Temple himself, perhaps, would hardly have said 
 so, had not the exigencies of his theory demanded it 
 of him. At all events, what proof can be given that 
 it was so? For our own part, we believe that the 
 influence of example is now as potent with men in 
 general as it ever was. The most profitable and the 
 most popular of all religious works are the biogra- 
 phies of saints and eminent Christians ; nor do we 
 believe that any period of the Church has been left 
 destitute of such testimony to divine truth, and the 
 
28 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 mdTvellmg of the Spirit, as example lurnisnes. As 
 God has illustrated His truth by the varietj of 
 minds brought to bear upon it, so He has also con- 
 fii'med it in the Church's experience by the variety of 
 hearts in which its sanctifying power has been recog- 
 nised. His saints have, no doubt, adapted themselves 
 to the cii'cumstances and manners of their own time ; 
 but in all essential graces they hare been one with 
 the saints of the world's youth, and have all taken up 
 the cross and followed the great Exemplar. In- 
 deed, Dr. Temple recognises this when he says: — 
 " Saints had gone before [our Lord] and saints haye 
 been given since ; . . . there were never, at any time, 
 examples wanting to teach either the chosen people or 
 any other." But his theory demanded that the age 
 of our Lord should be represented as the age of ex- 
 amples ; and accordingly the facts of the case, if ad- 
 mitted, must be glossed over.. 
 
 But there are graver charges which lie against this 
 part of the Essay than that of an analogy which, 
 when examined, will hardly hold water. 
 
 "When we are reviewing, as Dr. Temple professes 
 to be reviewing, the great scheme of God's dealings 
 with man ; and when we remember that Christ is the 
 key and comer-stone of all those dealings ; we must 
 say that the position assigned to oui' Lord in the 
 theory of the Essayist is totally inadequate. For what 
 does this position amount to ? In the course of the 
 world's history there has been an age of examples ; 
 and Christ, as the Example of examples, stands at the 
 head of that age. ISTow it is true, no doubt, that the 
 atoning work of our Blessed Lord, in its objective cha- 
 racter ^ it did not come within the province of the Essay- 
 ist to notice. He is writing upon the sanctification, not 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 2g 
 
 ou the justlficatioii, of mau ; he is treating of tlic work 
 which has to be done upon the human mind, and does 
 not profess to go higher. It is man's education, not 
 God's provision for his salvation, which is in question. 
 But granting this, (and in fairness it ought to be 
 granted,) shouhl the subjective hearings of ChrisV s Atone- 
 ment have been wholly ignored in an Essay tracing 
 the theory of the education of the human race ? Was 
 it not a step in man's education, which at least de- 
 served notice, when God threw into his mind that 
 new and most powerful of all motives, the love of 
 a crucified Saviour, and wholly altered his conceptions 
 of virtue by giving to the passive graces of character, 
 — submission, resignation, humility, meekness, poverty 
 of spirit, — a lustre which they never had before ? But 
 no ; the theory is rigidly to confine itself to an ima- 
 ginary natural progression of the species, analogous to 
 the growth of the individual, and cannot easily make 
 room for supernatural interferences on the part of God. 
 In these omissions of the first Essayist we perceive 
 with sorrow the germs of those frightful errors which, 
 stated positively, disfigure the other parts of this un- 
 happy book. 
 
 But worse remains behind in this section of the 
 Essay. The Essayist is explaining how our Blessed 
 Lord came in the fulness of time, ''just when the 
 world was fitted to feel the power of His presence." 
 And on this point he says, — "Had His revelation 
 been delayed till now, assuredly it would have been 
 hard for us to recognise His divinity ; for the faculty 
 of faith has turned inwards, and cannot now accept 
 any outer manifestations of the truth of Gociy In plain 
 words, the world has now become too wise to accept 
 miracles as the credentials of a message from God. 
 
30 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Surely this statement is both imiDhilosophical and im- 
 scriptiiral. Whatever marvels natural science may- 
 have discovered, the laws of the mind have not altered. 
 And can it be disputed that it is a law of the mind to 
 expect that a divine message will be accredited by 
 miracles, and to demand such credentials from a 
 person claiming to come with a new message to the 
 world? We believe instinctively that the effect will 
 be commensurate with the cause, and that the work 
 will bear some proportion to the nature of the agent. 
 We expect from irrational creatures actions on a 
 level with their capacity, — the display of appetites 
 and passions, and occasionally the sagacities of in- 
 stinct. From men, in like manner, we expect what 
 we know humanity to be competent to. F)-om God, 
 on the same pn'nci'jjlc, tve expect (when the occasion 
 zvorthy of them arises) actions exceeding human poieer. 
 Constituted as we are, we shall never outgrow this 
 expectation, any more than we can outgrow any other 
 law of the mind. It is true indeed that the expec- 
 tation may take degenerate or superstitious shapes^ that 
 it may form its conclusions with undue precipitation, 
 and so mislead us. The tendency to expect from 
 a Divine Being an evidence of supernatural power 
 has often prompted men to credit too hastily the pro- 
 fessed supernatural, or to accept as God's work that 
 which is the devil's. These are perversions of the 
 instinct which shew that it needs regulation. But 
 dispense with the instinct we cannot. It is another 
 instinct of the mind, which may be depraved, but of 
 which we can never rid ourselves, to infer a general 
 truth from particular instances. Hasty inductions are 
 very foolish and very unscientific, and have been the 
 fruitful parents of error. £ut no one on this account 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 31 
 
 throtvs over the ininciple of induction altogether as a 
 means of arriving at truth. A man of well- disciplined 
 mind may say that it wants regulation, and that it 
 must be exercised with discrimination; but he will 
 never say that we can do without it. So with the ten- 
 dency to expect supernatural events as credentials of 
 a divine message. We may rest too much on tlie 
 supernatural events. They may not be the most im- 
 portant credentials, and in the absence of others (such 
 as teaching which approves itself to the moral sense) 
 they may be altogether unsatisfactory and inconclusive. 
 But to reject the supernatural altogether as a cre- 
 dential is to strain the mind awry out of its natural 
 constitution ; to cut ourselves off altogether from one 
 means of access to divine truth ; to shut one door by 
 which God's revelations reach us. 
 
 Nor is the position of the Essayist more Scriptural 
 than it is philosophical. Our Blessed Lord more than 
 once rests His claim on His miracles: "If I do not 
 the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do, 
 though ye believe not Me, believe the works : that ye 
 may know, and believe, that the Father is in Me, and 
 I in Him'." Does our Essayist mean to tell us that 
 Ho rested His claim on a ground which did not really 
 bear it out ? which would not have even seemed to bear 
 it out, had His generation been more enlightened? 
 Could our Lord have expressly sanctioned a view of 
 things which has no foundation in truth ? If " outer 
 manifestations of the truth of God" are to an advanced 
 and disciplined intellect unsatisfactory and inconclu- 
 sive, would Christ (whose province surely it was to 
 raise the tone of the popular mind) have appealed to 
 them ? Would it not have been far worthier of Him in 
 
 s See also John xiv. 10, 11 ; Matt. xi. 4, 5. 
 
32 THE EDUCATIOX OF THE WORLD, 
 
 that case to come with no other credentials than that 
 of a doctrine which went home to man's heart, and to 
 have said, "Believe Me on this ground; for on no 
 other ought a messenger of God to be received and 
 believed ?" To use such language would have been 
 quite in the genius of an ancient philosopher; it is 
 altogether language which might have been held by 
 Socrates, and very nearly approaches to much of the 
 language which Socrates actually did hold : — " If what 
 I say does not carry with it the convictions of your 
 reason, I would not have you believe it, even were it 
 attested by a sign from heaven." But our Lord did 
 not use such language. He referred to the signs from 
 heaven as rendering the people inexcusable for not 
 believing. ("If I had not done among them the 
 works which none other man did, they had not had 
 sin.") And yet our Essayist implies that " the works 
 which none other man did" would not have secured 
 credit for Christ as a divine ambassador from the 
 men of this generation, because forsooth "faith has 
 now turned inwards and cannot accept any outer 
 manifestations of the truth of God." Dr. Temple, 
 we are sui*e, is an earnest and devout Christian, who 
 would shrink sensitively from shaking in any mind 
 the evidences of Christianity. Has he considered what 
 is the real scope and significance of this unfortu- 
 nate sentence of his Essay? It has been admirably 
 shewn by Davison* that "the vindication of our faith 
 rests upon an accumulated and concurrent evidence," 
 derived not from one but from many sources, — "mira- 
 cles, fulfilment of prophecy, the sanctity of our Lord's 
 doctrine, His character as expressed in His life, the 
 triumphant propagation of His religion without arms, 
 
 * Discourses on Prophecy, i. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD, 33 
 
 eloquence, or learning, and its singular adaptation to 
 the nature and condition of man." Our Lord Him- 
 self seems to have rested the evidence on three main 
 supports: — I. Miracles ^ II. Purity of doctrine, re- 
 echoed by the moral sense ; " If I had not come and 
 sjjoken unto them^ they had not had sin." III. Pro- 
 phecy ; '' Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye 
 think ye have eternal life : and they are they which 
 testify of Me." "Had ye believed Moses, ye would 
 have believed Me: for he \^Tote of Me." No. I. 
 perhaps might be called an appeal to the senses ; 
 No. II. to the conscience; Ko. III. to the under- 
 standing. No doubt, one age will attach greater 
 weight to one of these branches of evidence, another 
 to another. No doubt, also, the present generations 
 of men, being to a certain extent familiarized with 
 scientific marvels, and having gained a considerable 
 power over natm-e, would be impressed by miracles in 
 a less lively way than men of former times, when the 
 material laws which govern the universe had not been 
 discovered. But is it wise, or is it reverent, to knock 
 away any one of the fair columns, on which the Lord 
 Himself has rested the truth of His holy religion, on 
 the pretext that the superior enlightenment of the 
 nineteenth century enables us to dispense with it? 
 The argument for Christianity being essentially cumu- 
 lative, is it charitable to weak brethren (to take the 
 lowest ground) to destroy its cumulative force ? Yet 
 this is really what Dr. Temple's argument in the above 
 passage goes to. 
 
 Besides our Lord, (though in a scale far inferior to 
 
 Him,) the Essayist enumerates certain other examples 
 
 vouchsafed to the human creature when in a state 
 
 ^ See the passages just referred to. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of adolescence. Greece and Eome, who were in the 
 former period teachers of classes, ("giving ns the 
 fruits of their discipline,") now appear as associates, 
 and " give us the companionship of their bloom." 
 The early Church was another associate, "an earnest, 
 heavenly-minded friend, whose saintly aspect was a 
 revelation in itself." 
 
 As regards the placing Greece and Eome in the same 
 category with the early Church, (that is, with our Lord's 
 immediate followers,) we find here another instance of 
 that confusion of thought, by which the mental and 
 social development of mankind — his arts, his learning, 
 his civilization — is made part of his religious progress. 
 Dr. Temple writes an exquisite passage (the gem of 
 his Essay, quite worthy of being preserved in a com- 
 monplace-book,) on the distinguishing excellence of 
 classical literature, the freshness of its grace. We 
 thank him for a noble piece of writing ; but how is it 
 ad rem ? What has the mere cultivation of taste (to 
 which, of course, classical literature has very largely 
 contributed,) to do with the very serious subject 
 on which we are engaged, "God's education of the 
 human race?" That the classics have contributed 
 much to the civilization of man will not be denied. 
 But are not civilization and the progress of the Church 
 somewhat sharply distinguished in Scripture, which 
 surely is a sign that the two should be kept asunder 
 as separate subjects of thought? We commend to 
 Dr. Temple's notice the pregnant fact, that in the 
 earliest extant history of mankind it is stated that 
 arts, both ornamental and useful, (and arts are the 
 great medium of civilization,) took their rise in the 
 family of Cain. In the line of Seth we find none 
 of this mental and social development. Is he not 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 35 
 
 mixing up in his theory the mental and material 
 progress of the workl ^Yith the spiritual progress of 
 the Church, two things which God has kept carefully 
 distinct ? 
 
 As regards the early (i.e. the Apostolical) Church, 
 he strives to make out (as his theory requires of him) 
 that it presents to us example chiefly, to the exclusion 
 of doctrine and precept. It has left us, he says, little 
 beyond examples. "The New Testament is almost 
 entirely occupied w^ith two lives, the life of our Lord 
 and the life of the early Church." As for the Epistles, 
 they are only "the fruit of the current history." 
 Doubtless, all the books of the New Testament (and 
 the same might be said of most of those of the Old) 
 were written on special occasions ; but who will deny 
 that principles both of doctrine and duty, which dis- 
 entangle themselves from and rise very much above 
 the occasion, are continually being thrown out by the 
 sacred wi'iters? Who will deny that the mind of 
 the Spirit, though legislating primarily for the occa- 
 sion, contemplates beforehand and provides for the 
 future emergencies of the Church ? Is there no warn- 
 ing against future error in the reproof of the Blessed 
 Virgin by our Lord ? or in His assertion that " he who 
 hears God's word, and keeps it, the same is His 
 mother?" or in His severe censure of St. Peter? or in 
 St. Paul's withstanding St. Peter to the face ? Great 
 part of the Scriptures are no doubt narratives; but 
 the narrative is only the vehicle of doctrine and pre- 
 cept, which are always more readily received in a con- 
 crete than in the abstract form. No writing, however 
 eloquent and ingenious, (and Dr. Temple's is both,) 
 will ever successfully gloss over the fact that the New 
 Testament does contain tlie principles of all Christian 
 D 2 /^' 
 
 I r V 
 
 Y 
 
36 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 doctrine and duty ; nor would any one (el firj Olaiv 
 dLacfyvXarrcou) ignore the usual definition of the Epi- 
 stles as doctrinal books. 
 
 We now come to the last stage of the Essayist's 
 theory : — 
 
 " The susceptibility of youth to the impression of society 
 wears off at last. The age of reflection begins. From the 
 storehouse of his youthful experience the man begins to draw 
 the principles of his life. The spirit or conscience comes to 
 full strength and assumes the throne intended for him in the 
 soul. As an accredited judge, invested with full powers, he 
 sits in the tribunal of our inner kingdom, decides upon the 
 past, and legislates upon the future without appeal except to 
 himself He decides not by what is beautiful, or noble, or 
 soul-inspiring, but by what is right. Gradually he frames 
 his code of laws, revising, adding, abrogating, as a wider and 
 deeper experience gives him clearer light. lie is the third 
 great teacher and the last." — (p. 31.) 
 
 In this last stage of his progress the individual 
 learns, we are told, by "the growth of his inner 
 powers and the accumulation of experience," by 
 "reflection," by "the mistakes both of himself and 
 others," and by "contradiction." Though free from 
 outward restraint, he is still under an internal law, 
 " a voice which speaks within the conscience, and 
 carries the understanding along with it." If his 
 previous education have not given him the control 
 over his will, he must acquii*e it by a self-imposed 
 discipline, which with weak persons assumes the 
 shape of a regular external law. Then passing (as 
 his wont is) from the moral to the intellectual, from 
 the discipline of the will to that of the mind, Dr. 
 Temple tells us that persons of matiu-e age, who really 
 think for themselves, are often obliged to put a tern- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 37 
 
 poraiy restraint on their intellects, and finding their 
 speculations (specially if they turn on practical sub- 
 jects) bewildering and unsatisfactory, "finally take 
 refuge in a refusal to thiuk any more on the particular 
 questions." Some, on the other hand, are always 
 forming theories on insufficient grounds, and are "as 
 little able to be content in having no judgment at all, 
 as those who accept judgments at second hand." Then, 
 finally, even the matured intellect of the full-grown 
 man does not altogether break with the associations 
 of childhood: — 
 
 " He can give no better reason very often for much that 
 he does every day of his hfe than that his father did it before 
 him ; and provided the custom is not a bad one, the reason 
 is valid. And he Hkes to go to the same church. He likes 
 to use the same prayers. He hkes to keep up the same festi- 
 vities. There are limits to all this. But no man is quite 
 free from the influence ; and it is in many cases, perhaps in 
 most, an influence of the highest moral A-alue." — (p. 39.) 
 
 Analogous to this, we are then told, is the last 
 stage in the education of the human race, so far as it 
 has yet gone. Since the Apostles' days, the Chiu'ch 
 has been left to herself to work out, ly her natural 
 faculties^ the principles of her own action. Her doc- 
 trines were evolved, partly by reflection on her past ex- 
 perience, and by formularizing the thoughts embodied 
 in the record of the Church of the Apostles, partly by 
 pei-petual collision with every variety of opinion. (This 
 corresponds to the gi'owth of the individual's inner 
 powers by "reflection," "contradiction," and "the 
 mistakes both of himself and others.") But "before 
 this process was completed, a flood of new and un- 
 disciplined races poured into Europe," and "neces- 
 sitated a return to the dominion of outward law." 
 
38 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The papacy of the midtUe ages was "neither more nor 
 less than the okl schoohnaster (Judaism) come back to 
 bring some new schohirs to Christ." (This corre- 
 sponds to the self-discipline which the grown man, 
 who has imperfectly acquired self-control, is obliged 
 to impose upon himself. ) Then came the Eeformation, 
 when the yoke of mediceval discipline was shaken off. 
 Its great lesson was — not, as one would imagine, the 
 power of God's pure Word over the human heart, and 
 of the simplicity of primitive religion, but — the lesson 
 of toleration. Men then began to see, and have ever 
 since seen more clearly, that " there are insoluble 
 problems upon which even revelation throws no light." 
 "The tendency of toleration is to modify the early 
 dogmatism by substituting the spirit for the letter, 
 and practical religion for precise definitions of truth." 
 (This corresponds to that state of mind of the indivi- 
 dual in which, finding speculations bewildering and 
 unsatisfactory, he refuses to thiok any more on the 
 questions which trouble him, and contents himself 
 with so much of truth as he finds necessary for his 
 spiritual life.) Some definitions of truth, however, 
 seem to be necessary, as a point without the world of 
 religious opinion, from which the lever may be applied 
 to move the world. Accordingly, the post-Ecformation 
 Church looks for these definitions in the volume of 
 Holy Scripture. In this connexion we find the pas- 
 sage to wliich so much objection has been made. "We 
 will not trust ourselves to represent its meaning in our 
 own words. It runs thus : — 
 
 " In learning this new lesson, Christendom needed a firm 
 spot on which she might stand, and has found it in the Bible. 
 Had the Bible been di'awn up in precise statements of faith, 
 or detailed precepts of conduct, we should have had no alter- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 39 
 
 native but either permanent subjection to an outer law, or 
 loss of the highest instrument of self- education. But the 
 Bible, from its very form, is exactly adapted to our present 
 want. It is a historj^ ; even the doctrinal parts of it are cast 
 in a historical form, and are best studied by considering them 
 as records of the time at which they were written, and as 
 conveying to us the highest and greatest religious life at that 
 time. Hence we use the Bible — some consciously, some un- 
 consciously — not to override, but to evoke the voice of con- 
 science. "When conscience and the Bible appear to differ, 
 the pious Cliristian immediately concludes that he has not 
 really understood the Bible. Hence, too, while the inter- 
 pretation of the Bible varies slightly from age to age, it 
 varies always in one direction. The schoolmen found pur- 
 gatory in it. Later students found enough to condemn 
 Galileo. Not long ago it would have been held to condemn 
 geology, and there are still many who so interpret it. The 
 current is all one way — it evidently points to the identifica- 
 tion of the Bible with the voice of conscience. The Bible, 
 in fact, is hindered by its form from exercising a despotism 
 over the human spirit ; if it could do that, it would become 
 an outer law at once ; but its form is so admirably adapted to 
 our need, that it wins from us all the reverence of a supreme 
 authority, and yet imposes on us no yoke of subjection. This 
 it does by virtue of the principle of private judgment, which 
 puts conscience between us and the Bible, making conscience 
 the supreme interpreter, whom it may be a duty to enlighten, 
 but whom it can never be a duty to disobey." — (pp. 44, 45.) 
 
 The advance of toleration, however, is not entirely 
 progressive. It is apt to be retarded by a strong in- 
 clination, in all Protestant countries, to "go back, in 
 every detail of life, to the practices of early times." 
 (This corresponds to the love which grown people 
 often manifest for the customs and associations of their 
 home, — a feeling of great moral value, though accom- 
 panied perhaps with something of narrowness.) Still 
 toleration is progressing in the main, (though, like the 
 
40 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD, 
 
 tide, it has refluent waves,) and gains gradually upon 
 the mind of the race. Then our author (somewhat in- 
 consecutively it appears to us) springs from toleration 
 to the subject of Biblical interpretation. That inter- 
 pretation, he thinks, we must expect to be greatly 
 modified. Nor need we fear such modification. We 
 should welcome all discoveries which really throw 
 light on the Scripture, however rudely they may jar 
 with preconceived notions. This is the age of thought : 
 " clear thought is valuable above everything else, ex- 
 cepting only godliness ;" and to exert it upon Scrip- 
 ture and elicit original results is the great task and 
 vocation of the age. That we should address ourselves 
 to the task candidly and fearlessly is the practical 
 exhortation with which the Essay is wound up. 
 
 Dr. Temple appears to mean by toleration some- 
 thing distinct from what commonly goes by the name. 
 Most people would define toleration as the allowing to 
 others the free exercise of their religion. Dr. Temple 
 seems to identify it, as far as we can catch the thread 
 of his argument, with a free interpretation of doctrines 
 and articles of faith. The two things, however, by 
 no means go together. If we might admit that at the 
 Eeformation toleration, in the ordinary and popular 
 sense, first dawned as an idea upon the mind of the 
 Church, (which yet a person thinking of Servetus 
 and Joan Bocher might be disposed to doubt,) surelfj 
 the Reformation had no conceivalle sympathies ivith 
 laxity or indefiniteness of doctrine. Only let a person 
 read the elaborate Confessions of Faith of the Pro- 
 testant Churches, and we are persuaded he will come 
 to the conclusion that sharp and austere definition of 
 doctrine (and not the reverse) was the genius of the 
 Eeformation. Indeed, the second article of the So- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 4I 
 
 lemn League and Covenant "" alone is enough by itself 
 to raise a question how far, in any sense of the zvordj 
 toleration made its appearance with the Eeformation. 
 Our modern latitudinarians (we do not mean to include 
 Dr. Temple under this designation, though we arc 
 compelled to apply it to some of his coadjutors,) wish 
 to extract from the carcase of religion the hard skeleton 
 of definite doctrine, (upon which the whole structure 
 is built,) and to leave only the pliable and soft parts, 
 ("practical religion," "the spirit instead of the let- 
 ter,") which are constantly in a transition state, like 
 the flesh and blood of the animal frame. But they 
 will not find among the Reformers, either English or 
 foreign, any sympathies with such a design. The 
 post-Eeformation creeds are generally quite as hard 
 in outline as the Athanasian. And we may confi- 
 dently assert that the Reformers were right in build- 
 ing their systems on the framework of creeds. With- 
 out such framework, religion is apt to collapse and 
 corrupt, as a body of flesh from which the bones 
 should be withdrawn. 
 
 We have been accustomed to think that the Chris- 
 tian is under the twofold guidance of the Spirit and 
 Word of God, — distinguished and yet combined in 
 that admii^able collect for St. John's Day : — " Merciful 
 Lord, we beseech Thee to cast Thy bright beams of 
 
 « " That wc shall in like manner, without respect of persons, en- 
 deavour the extirpation of popery, prelacy, (that is, church-govern- 
 ment by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors, and commissaries, 
 deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical 
 officers depending on that hierarchy,) superstition, heresy, schism, 
 profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound 
 doctrine, and the power of godliness, lest we partake in other men's 
 sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues ; and tliat 
 the Lord may be one, and His name one, in the three kingdoms." 
 
42 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 light" (the Spirit) '' upon Thy Church, that it being 
 enlightened by the doctrine of" (the Word) "Thy 
 blessed Apostle and Evangelist St. John, may so walk 
 in the light of Thy truth, that it may at length at- 
 tain to the light of everlasting light ; through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord." But in the education of the indi- 
 vidual, the learner being emancipated from all re- 
 straints when he has reached mature age, it did not 
 suit Dr. Temple's theory to notice these external 
 guides; his "colossal man" must be left to guide 
 himself when he comes to years of discretion. Accord- 
 ingly, in the last section of the Essay, the guidance of 
 the Holy Spirit is entirely ignored, as far as explicit 
 statement goes ; and were it not for the capital letter 
 in the sentence, "The human race was left to itself, 
 to be guided by the teaching of the Spirit within," 
 and for the slight intimation, " Whatever assistance the 
 Church is to receive in working out her own principles 
 of action, is to be through her natural faculties, and 
 not in spite of them," we might say of the author 
 what the Ephesian disciples, who had received only 
 John's baptism, said of themselves, " He hath not so 
 much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." 
 
 Dr. Temple, no doubt, will say that in virtue of His 
 indwelling in the faithful, he regards the Spirit of 
 God as identified with the spirit of man. But we 
 cannot help thinking that a far more explicit recogni- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit's personality, and a far more 
 constant reference to His agency, might have been 
 made without the smallest interference with the plan 
 of the Essay ; nor, indeed, can we think that the office 
 of the blessed Comforter is at all exhausted, or even 
 adequately represented, by saying that the Church is 
 now to guide herself, not by external rule, but by the 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 43 
 
 application of principles to the varying exigencies of 
 her position. 
 
 The guidance of the Word, however, being more 
 extrinsic than that of the Holy Spirit, some attempt 
 must be made to surmount the obstacles which it 
 seems to throw in the way of the theory. And the 
 attempt is made in the passage quoted at length 
 above. We find it exceedingly hard to trace the 
 exact connexion of thought between the sentences of 
 which this passage is composed. We 8uppo8e it to be 
 something of this kind : — "The Bible is indeed external 
 to the mind of man ; but then it is very elastic, and, 
 as the history of its interpretation shews, accommo- 
 dates itself very readily to the mind of man. So 
 that the Bible promises at some future, but not dis- 
 tant, time, to resolve itself into enlightened reason, 
 and leave the spirit of man the sole arbiter of its 
 own duties." We think Dr. Temple is here confound- 
 ing the conscience of man with his understanding, 
 and the preceptive character of the Bible with its 
 aspect as a history of certain mu'aculous events. 
 Had he confined his remarks to the 'preceptive part 
 of the jS"ew Testament, every one would of course ad- 
 mit that it is a book of principles rather than rules, 
 and that the adjustment of those principles is left to 
 the individual conscience, under the dii-ection of the 
 Holy Spirit of God. It is also most true (and most 
 important truth) that this guidance of the Holy Spirit 
 is in the Kew Testament itself thrown very much 
 more into the foreground than any written document ; 
 that, under the present economy, it is "the anointing 
 from the Holy One which teacheth all things," and 
 " the law of the Spirit of life" (not a law graven on 
 tables) which presides in the human spirit. Had 
 
44 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Dr. Temple said this, he would have said what not 
 only does not admit of dispute, but also what appears 
 to us to suit his argument quite as well as the gravely 
 questionable things which he has said. But, as the 
 paragraph stands, he has mixed up the record of mira- 
 culous facts in Scripture, tvhich are in the sphere of man^s 
 understanding^ ^ (not in that of his conscience,) with its 
 precepts, lohich are in the sphere of his conscience and 
 not of his understanding ; thereby producing a sad con- 
 fusion of thought. He alludes to certain narratives of 
 Scripture which, in consequence of modern discoveries 
 in natural science, are now understood in a manner 
 different from that in which people once accepted 
 them. This is a matter for the understanding, sm^ely, 
 and not at all in the sphere of the conscience. Researches 
 into nature shew that the miracle in Joshua and the 
 Mosaic cosmogony have been misunderstood, and that 
 we must correct our apprehensions of the meaning of 
 these passages. Well, what then? Argal, says Dr. 
 Temple, "The current is all one way, — it evidently 
 points to the identification of the Bible with the voice 
 of conscienceP "We confess we cannot catch the con- 
 nexion between the premises and the conclusion. We 
 should have drawn the conclusion somewhat in this 
 fashion: — "The current is all one way, — it evidently 
 points to a general recognition of the truth that the 
 interpretation of Scriptiu-e is one thing, and the true 
 sense another." If there be anij connexion between 
 the premises and the conclusion, we avow ourselves 
 unable to trace it, except in this most offensive form, 
 
 y "We have said above (p. 33) that miracles may be called " an 
 appeal to tlie senses." But of course the understanding must 
 operate upon the notices of the senses, in order that the evidence 
 derived from a mii-acle may be appreciated. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 45 
 
 (wliicli we believe Dr. Temple would repudiate as ear- 
 nestly as ourselves): — "Geological and astronomical 
 discoveries have proved the Bible ivrong on points of 
 natural philosophy. It does not much matter, however ; 
 for the true Word of God is not co-extensive with the 
 Bible, but only contained in it ; that portion only of 
 the Bible is the true Word which is recognised by the 
 moral sense or verifying faculty. So that the current 
 is all one way, — we are gradually knocking away from 
 the framework of our belief those portions of the Bible 
 which the conscience cannot assimilate; histories we 
 may doubt or give up, only retaining their moral; 
 much more may we give up cosmogonies ; the only 
 residuum we need leave is that portion of the sacred 
 volume to which our verifying faculty saith, ' Yea ;' 
 so that at length the Bible resolves itself into the 
 voice of conscience." This gives the passage in ques- 
 tion a certain logical sequence, and also a melancholy 
 coherence with the avowed sentiments of other Essay- 
 ists. If Dr. Temple meant this, why did he not say 
 it explicitly ? But we will not believe he did mean 
 it. Of the two alternatives open to him, illogical 
 writing and the reduction of God's Word to the 
 square and measure of man's conscience, we joyfully 
 accept for him the former. And we take his Essay as 
 a solemn warning of the dreadfully unsafe statements 
 into which a very good and very able man may be 
 driven, who will ride an ingenious and plausible 
 analogy to death, even when at every turn it breaks 
 down under him afresh. 
 
 We turn, with something of a sense of relief, to 
 notice Lessing's treatise on the " Education of the Hu- 
 man Eace," which, perhaps, may have suggested Dr. 
 Temple's. If so, we think that the original concep- 
 
46 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 tion of Lessing (although parts of it are far more ex- 
 travagant than anything to be found in the first Essay) 
 has materially suffered in clearness and power from 
 Dr. Temple's method of treatment. Our readers shall 
 judge. The German author begins with this funda- 
 mental statement : — 
 
 "That which education is to the individual, revelation 
 is to the race. 
 
 "Education is revelation coining to the individual man; 
 and revelation is education which has come, and is yet com- 
 ing, to the human race." — (Sects. 1, 2.) 
 
 Eevelation, it will be observed, and revelation ex- 
 clusively^ is, according to Lessing, the educator of the 
 race. He does not, with Dr. Temple, assign a class 
 to Greece, and a class to Eome, and a class to Asia, 
 recognising them as teachers, and thus putting them 
 on a level with revelation. He supposes, indeed, that 
 when ''in captivity under the wise Persians," the 
 doctrine of the Mosaic Law respecting the unity and 
 spirituality of God, and its hints and allusions in re- 
 gard to the doctrine of immortality, were developed in 
 the consciousness of the Jews by their contact with 
 the Gentile mind. But he knows nothing of any edu- 
 cator save God in revelation, nor of any other persons 
 as educated by Him, save the people of His covenant. 
 The other nations of the earth, he thinks, were left 
 without education by the universal Father, in conse- 
 quence of which, — 
 
 " the most part had remained far behind the chosen people. 
 Only a few had got before them. And this, too, takes place 
 v,-ith children, who are allowed to grow up left to themselves ; 
 many remain quite raw; some educate themselves even to 
 an astonishing degree. 
 
 " But as these more fortunate few prove nothing against the 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 47 
 
 use and the necessity of education, so the few heathen na- 
 tions, who even appear to have made a start in the knowledge 
 of God before the chosen people, prove nothing against a 
 revelation. The child of education begins with slow yet sure 
 footsteps ; it is late in overtaking many a more happily or- 
 ganised child of nature ; but it does overtake it ; and thence- 
 forth can never be distanced by it again." — (Sect. 21.) 
 
 So far we think the German has the advantage of 
 the Englishman, inasmuch as he gives revelation a far 
 more exclusive prerogative. 
 
 At the outset of Lessing's Essay he makes the fol- 
 lowing startling assertion, of which, if we cannot 
 agree with it in its present form, we may at all 
 events say that we wish all the assertions of our seven 
 Essayists were as explicit, and presented as clear an 
 outline to the understanding : — 
 
 *' Education gives to man nothing which he might not 
 educe out of himself ; it gives him that which he might educe 
 out of himself, only quicker and more easily. In the same 
 
 WAY, TOO, REVELATION GIVES NOTHING TO THE HUMAN- SPECIES, 
 WHICH THE HUMAN REASON LEFT TO ITSELF MIGHT NOT AT-r 
 TAIN ; ONLY IT HAS GIVEN, AND STILL GIVES TO IT, THE MOST 
 IMPORTANT OF THESE THINGS EARLIER." (Scct. 4.) 
 
 It immediately rises to the mind of the reader that 
 there are doctrines of revelation (such as those of the 
 Atonement and the Trinity) which never could be at- 
 tained by the human reason, and are plainly altogether 
 out of its reach. The German theologian is prepared 
 for this, and carries his theory through with a bold- 
 ness which, at all events, is perfectly consistent. He 
 thinks the doctrines of the Atonement and the Trinity 
 may he ultimatchj reached hj the human reason ; and he 
 believes the great end of God's training of the human 
 race to be the recognition by reason of all the truths of 
 revelation. But he shall speak for himself: — 
 
40 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 "As we by this time can dispense witli the Old Testament, 
 in reference to the doctrine of the unity of God, and as we 
 are by degrees beginning also to be less dependent on the 
 New Testament, in reference to the immortality of the soid : 
 might there not in this book also be other truths of the same 
 sort prefigured, mirrored as it were, which we are to marvel 
 at, as revelations, exactly so long as until the time shall 
 come when reason shall have learned to educe them out of 
 its other demonstrated truths, and bind them up with them ? 
 
 " For instance, the doctrine of the Trinity. How if this 
 doctrine should at last, after endless errors, right and left, 
 only bring men on the road to recognise that God cannot 
 possibly be One in the sense in which finite things are one, 
 that even His unity must be a transcendental unity, which 
 does not exclude a sort of plurality ? Must not God at least 
 have the most perfect conception of Himself, i. e. a concep- 
 tion in which is foimd everything which is in Him? But 
 would everything be found in it which is in Him, if a mere 
 conception, a mere possibility, were found even of his neces- 
 sary reality, as well as of His other qualities? This possi- 
 bility exhausts the being of His other qualities. Does it that 
 of His necessary reality ? I think not. Consequently God 
 can either have no perfect conception of Himself at all, or 
 this perfect conception is just as necessarity real (i. e. actually 
 existent) as He Himself is. Certainly the image of mj-self 
 in the mirror is nothing but an empty representation of me, 
 because it only has that of me upon the surface of which 
 beams of light fall. But now if this image had everything, 
 everything without exception, which I have myself, would it 
 then still be a mere empty representation, or not rather a 
 true reduplication of myself? When I believe that I recog- 
 nise in God a similar reduplication, I perhaps do not so much 
 err, as that my language is insufiicient for my ideas : and so 
 much at least remains for ever incontrovertible, that they 
 who wish to make the idea thereof popular for comprehen- 
 eion, could scarcely have expressed themselves more intelli- 
 gibly and suitably than by giving the name of a Son through 
 whom God testifies of Himself from eternity. 
 
 "And the doctrine of Original Sin. How, if at last, every- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 49 
 
 fhing were to convince us, that man standing on the highest 
 and lowest step of his humanity, is not so entirely master of 
 his actions as to be able to obey moral laws ? 
 
 " And the doctrine of the Son's satisfaction. How, if at 
 last, all compelled us to assume that God, in spite of that 
 original incapacity of man, chose rather to give him moral 
 laws, and forgive him all transgressions in consideration of 
 His Son, i. e. in consideration of the self-existent total of all 
 His own perfections, compared with which, and in which, all 
 imperfections of the individual disappear, than not to give 
 him those laws, and then to exclude him from all moral 
 blessedness, which cannot be conceived of without moral 
 laws."— (Sects. 72—75.) 
 
 How far this attempt at an explanation of them 
 really clears up the doctrines in question, or even 
 modifies their difficulty to the mind, we leave to 
 metaphysicians to determine. To ourselves, it seems 
 to let in so little light on these abstruse subjects, 
 that we much prefer to fall back upon '' what is 
 written," that is, upon the divine authority ; and we 
 cannot but think that, in respect of such profound 
 verities, our Blessed Lord encourages us to do so, 
 when in answer to one who asked in reference to the 
 doctrine of regeneration, " How can these things be ?" 
 He replied, "Yerily, verily, I say unto thee. We 
 speak that we do know, and testify that we have 
 seen ; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told 
 you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye 
 believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no 
 man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came 
 down from heaven, even the Son of man which is 
 in heaven." At all events, it must strike every 
 reader of Lessing's treatise as an objection to his 
 theory, that if no further advanced towards that end 
 than it is at present, the human reason will take an 
 
 E 
 
50 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 enormous time in fully recognising these abstruse 
 truths of revelation. This objection is anticipated by 
 the writer, and is disposed of, unless we misunder- 
 stand him, by the very extraordinary hypothesis that 
 each individual may perhaps live more than once 
 upon the earth, and come back again to acquire new 
 lights on divine truth by a fi-esh pilgrimage in a 
 more advanced stage of thought. But, again, we 
 wonld not have the reader trust our own representa- 
 tion of the meaniug : — 
 
 " Go tliine inscrutable way, Eternal Providence ! Only 
 let me not despair in Thee because of this inscrutableness. 
 Let me not despair in Thee, even if Thy steps appear to me 
 to be going back. It is not true that the shortest line is 
 always straight. 
 
 " Thou hast on Thine eternal way so much to carry on 
 together, so much to do ! so many side steps to take ! And 
 what if it were as good as proved that the vast slow wheel, 
 which brings mankind nearer to this perfection, is only put 
 in motion by smaller, swifter wheels, each of which contri- 
 butes its own individual unit thereto ? 
 
 " It is so ! The very same way by which the race reaches 
 its perfection, must every individual man — one sooner, an- 
 other later — have travelled over. Have travelled over in one 
 and the same life ? Can he have been, in one and the self- 
 same Ufe, a sensual Jew and a spiritual Christian ? Can he 
 in the self-same life have overtaken both ? 
 
 " Surely not that ! But tchy should not every individual man 
 have existed more than once upon this tcorld ? 
 
 " Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the 
 oldest? Because the human understanding, before the so- 
 phistries of the Schools had dissipated and debihtated it, 
 lighted upon it at once ? 
 
 " Why may not even I have already performed those steps 
 of my perfecting which merely temporal penalties and re- 
 wards can bring man to ? 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD, 51 
 
 "And, once more, why not all those steps, to perform 
 which the views of eternal rewards so powerfully assist us ? 
 
 " AVhy should I not come back as often as I am capable 
 of acquiring fresh knowledge, fresh expertness ? Do I bring 
 away so much from once, that there is nothing to repay the 
 trouble of coming back ? 
 
 " Is this a reason against it ? Or, because I forget that 
 I have been here already ? Happy is it for me that I do 
 forget. The recollection of my former condition would per- 
 mit me to make only a bad use of the present. And that 
 which even I must forget noic, is that necessarily forgotten 
 for ever ? 
 
 " Or is it a reason against the hypothesis that so much 
 time would have been lost to me ? Lost ? — And how much 
 then should I miss ? — Is not a whole eternity mine ?" — 
 (Sects. 91—100.) 
 
 Do these extravagances — this re^^val of the doc- 
 trine of Pythagoras in the nineteenth century of the 
 Christian era — spring (as we believe many modem 
 errors in theology do) from a morbid hankering after 
 the novel and the startling ? Why could not Lessing 
 have been content to say that the full revelation of 
 these subjects to the human reason is probably reserved 
 for a future state of existence ? To be sure, this has 
 been said a thousand times before in sermons and 
 religious books. But because it is a very old idea, 
 is it therefore a false one? For our own part, we 
 do not feel sure that Lessing' s theory, apart from 
 its absurd extravagances, is fundamentally wrong. 
 We should be quite prepared to accept it, if only he 
 would not disfigure it by insisting that the reason of 
 man may become competent in this condition of exist- 
 ence to recognise all the truths of revelation ? Why 
 should we doubt that it will recognise these truths 
 in that other land heijond the grave ? That the Atone- 
 e2 
 
52 THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ment was necessary in the nature of things, and not 
 a mere arbitrary arrangement of the divine will; 
 that the divine natiu'e necessarily embraces a tri- 
 personality, just as the human nature necessarily in- 
 volves a body, soul, and spirit, few thinking persons 
 will be disposed to deny. But whether ive can see 
 into the necessity for the Atonement, or into the 
 essential constitution of the divine nature, ivliile we 
 are in the hody^ we take the liberty (notwithstanding 
 all metaphysical explanations,) to doubt. Humours 
 hang about our reason, and a cloudy atmosphere, 
 which intercepts and refracts the rays of divine truth. 
 But we entirely believe that a better condition of the 
 intellect is in store for us, when we shall see no 
 longer ''in a mirror enigmatically," but face to face, 
 and know no longer partially, but " as we are known." 
 
 We have only to add that Lessing's essay, with 
 all its wild fancies, will well repay the perusal of 
 thoughtful persons, and that side by side with theories 
 flagrantly unsound, the author throws out hints well 
 worthy of being preserved and digested. This we 
 suspect (from our very narrow acquaintance with it) 
 to be the genius of German theology, — three or four 
 diamonds in a heap of rubbish, several beautiful and 
 ^■aluable thoughts lying hid in a mass of writing 
 and a tangle of talk. Of the latter fault, however, 
 the little treatise of Lessing now before us is cer- 
 tainly not guilty. It is (even severely) terse, and 
 may be read through in a quarter of an hour. 
 
 AVe have noticed it here not only for its intrinsic 
 interest, but because we think Dr. Temple's mind 
 must, in the composition of his Essay, have travelled 
 along a similar line of thought. And we much regret 
 that he has confounded with this a line of thought 
 
THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. 53 
 
 wliicli appears to us distinct — that of the merely in- 
 tellectual progress of the human species, thus pro- 
 ducing an entanglement between the Church and the 
 world, between the advance of civilization and the 
 development of religious truth, which exceedingly 
 perplexes those "who desire to follow his argument. 
 
 In conclusion, may the writer of these pages be 
 allowed to express the hope that the controversy 
 which the seven Essays have roused, will be con- 
 ducted by those opposed to them not only calmly 
 and temperately, but with a candid acknowledgment 
 of those truths after which the Essayists are groping, 
 and with which their very serious errors are weighted ? 
 Mere denials and protests do little or nothing ; we must 
 seek to disentangle the truth which they are mis- 
 representing, and to set it forth, if possible, free of 
 their perversions. 
 
 ^ye do not fear the storm with all its bluster, even 
 though it seems that some of the fundamental articles 
 of faith, nay, the principle of theism itself, is perilled. 
 Persuaded as we are that our own Church is the pal- 
 ladium both of Scriptural truth and Apostolic order, 
 we believe that the special providence of God watches 
 over her, and that Christ Himself is in the tempest- 
 tossed bark. He can and will overrule this mass 
 of error and contradiction for good. Indeed, may it 
 not be said that, except through the antagonism of 
 opposing error, truth can never be thoroughly appre- 
 ciated or developed in its full proportions in the 
 human mind? Truth learned by rote, as children 
 learn the Catechism, is 7iot appreciated, nor even 
 under tood. But truth, which has been beset round 
 about by heresies, and perplexed by grave question- 
 ings, and which at length has emerged, with its 
 
54 "THE EDUCATION OF THE ^YORLD. 
 
 ground cleared and its limits well defined, this be- 
 comes a valuable acquisition, in which the mind may- 
 take a just and intelligent delight. 
 
 Only let us never for a moment drop the clue to all 
 religious truth which the Word of God lends to us. 
 Holding fast to it, we shall find our way with safety 
 and ease through every labyrinth, however dark and 
 intricate, and shall emerge into that sunlight of " clear 
 thought" on subjects of religion, which Dr. Tem^Dle 
 tells us is " valuable above all things, excepting only 
 godliness." 
 
BUNSEN. THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, AND 
 DR. WILLIAMS. 
 
 TT will scarcely be denied by any man of pure and 
 elevated mind, that the highest object to which our 
 faculties can be directed is the attainment of religious 
 truth. Our natural longings after immortality, our in- 
 stinctive apprehensions of the mysterious presence of 
 Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being, 
 unite to persuade us that all questions are of inferior 
 moment to the great question, whether He has made 
 any revelation of Himself by which we may be guided 
 in our search after this truth ; and if we are convinced 
 that He has not left Himself without witness in the 
 world, then the true interpretation of that revelation 
 must be, to every pure mind and holy spirit, the 
 greatest problem on which his energies can be em- 
 ployed. I think, however, that it will also be gene- 
 rally conceded, that these questions in the present day 
 are almost limited to the enquiry into the evidence for 
 the truth of the Bible and the true principles on which 
 it ought to be interpreted. If that book is not derived 
 from direct revelation, no other source of revelation 
 will create much discussion among the men of our 
 own age and nation. Of these two great questions, — 
 the truth of the Bible and its interpretation, — it is 
 difficult to say which is the most important. The 
 enquiry into the truth of the document is prior in- 
 deed in order, but when once fairly decided in the 
 mind, its work is done; while the interpretation of 
 
,56 BUXSEX, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 the word that has been revealed will give a deepen- 
 ing interest to our studies to the end of life. Kay, 
 the yery means employed in the investigation of the 
 true meaning of Scripture by those who have had 
 any success in interpreting it, is worthy the atten- 
 tion of all who believe in its di\dne origin. It is, 
 therefore, always a source of gratification to learn 
 any particulars concerning the lives of men who have 
 devoted themselves entii'ely to the study of Scripture, 
 or have attained to distinction by wiitings connected 
 with sacred studies. 
 
 The late Baron Bunsen may be said to have been 
 a person of this class. He has written many works 
 connected with sacred literature, and his name has 
 so long been before the public, that a general in- 
 terest is felt among those, who have not had leisure 
 or an opportunity to study deeply the subjects to 
 which his attention has been dii-ected, to know some- 
 thing definite about the value of his researches and 
 the results to which he has attained. The expecta- 
 tions of this portion of the public must have been 
 highly raised, when they learned that Dr. Williams 
 had undertaken the very task which they desired to 
 see performed. He is a man of reputation as a scholar, 
 who obtained high academical distinctions, and is in 
 a position of eminence as Vice-Principal of a College 
 for the Education of the Clergy. These circumstances 
 would seem to offer a sufiicient guarantee to his readers 
 that the information he would present to them would 
 be of the most trustworthy character, and that matters 
 of such deep and overwhelming importance, as the 
 truth and the interpretation of Scripture, would be 
 treated in a manner suitable to their great value and 
 dignity. But they who opened this Essay with such 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 57 
 
 expectations, would soon be inclined to close it with 
 feelings of sorrow and disappointment. They could 
 not fail, however slight their acquaintance might be 
 with the subject, to perceive that the tone in which 
 these great questions are treated is, for the most part, 
 that of one who plays with them as if they were 
 subjects for the exercise of ingenuity, rather than 
 questions on which it is of vital importance to us 
 to hold truth rather than error. They would find 
 that Baron Bunsen receives almost as high a meed of 
 praise for missing what his reviewer believes to be 
 the true explanation of Scripture as for discovering 
 it, and that although Dr. Williams vaunts the great- 
 ness of the Baron's exploits in sacred literature, he 
 very carefully abstains from committing himself in 
 general to the conclusions of this great authority. In- 
 deed, the Essay is so written, that while Dr. Williams 
 would persuade his readers that Baron Bunsen is im- 
 measurably superior to those English divines who 
 maintain old-fashioned opinions on Scripture truth 
 and prophecy, he generally expresses himself in such 
 a manner that he cannot be charged with holding 
 the opinions he reports. As an instance of this mode 
 of writing, we may cite the passage where Bunsen's 
 opinion on the antiquity of the human race is re- 
 ported. It is said in p. 54 that 
 
 " He coiild not have vindicated tlic unity of mankind if 
 he had not asked for a vast extension of time, whether his 
 petition for twenty thousand years be granted or not." 
 
 Kow certainly it is a matter of deep importance in 
 regard to the foundations of our finth, whether the 
 Bible is to be esteemed a trustworthy history even 
 in its chronology; and it is, to say the least, sur- 
 prising to see it treated as a matter of indifference, 
 
58 BUXSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 whether it is wholly ^Tong in its account of the 
 origin of man or not^ But this is the manner in 
 which great questions appear to be treated in this 
 Essay ; and in the present instance it will be observed 
 that while the twenty thousand years are rather un- 
 ceremoniously disposed of, Baron Bunsen alone is left 
 responsible even for the "large extension of time." 
 If Dr. Williams were charged on the strength of this 
 passage with maintaining that the Hebrew text of 
 the Bible contains a manifestly false account of the 
 origin of man, he might reply that he has only 
 asserted that Bunsen could not maintain the unity 
 of mankind on this hypothesis. He might say that 
 vrith Bunsen's standing point this was impossible, 
 but that he has not asserted that it cannot be main- 
 tained at all. Indeed, after sketching out some argu- 
 ments in favour of this view of Baron Bunsen, through 
 rather more than a page, he ends with the favourite 
 refuge of reviewers in distress, who are desii'ous to 
 praise, but not inclined to follow the author they 
 are reviewing, by assuiiug us that ^^ his theories are at 
 least suggestive.'''' The real question which we desire 
 to investigate is this — are they true ? And when an 
 author is put forth as a great luminary to the world, 
 it may be interesting to speculative students to know 
 that his theories are suggestive, but to the great mass 
 of readers the real question must be theii* truth or 
 falsehood ! In the same manner we find the highest 
 praise bestowed on Bunsen for his masterly exposition 
 of a prophecy, where the reviewer declines to follow 
 
 a It may easily be slie^vn that the Bible chronology is scarcely 
 elastic at all. For a proof of this assertion it wiU be sufiicient to 
 refer to Clinton's Scripture Chronology in the third volume of his 
 Fasti HeUenici. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 59 
 
 his explanation^. Again, Bunscn has exerted all his 
 ingenuity to persuade us that the latter portion of the 
 prophecies of Isaiah were written by Baruch, and his 
 reviewer, in praising the ingenuity of his arguments, 
 assui-es us that '' most readers of the argument for the 
 identity will feel inclined to assent ;" but he takes 
 care to assure us that the argument does not convince 
 him^ for he adds immediately, — 
 
 "But a doubt may occur, whether many an xmnamed 
 disciple of the prophetic school may not have burnt with 
 kindred zeal, and used diction not pecuhar to any one ; while 
 such a doubt may be strengthened by the confidence with 
 which our critic ascribes a recasting of Job, and of parts 
 of other books, to the same favourite Baruch." — (p. To.) 
 
 The fact is, that the rashness of Baron Bunsen, in 
 hazarding conjectures as to the authorship of the books 
 of Scripture, has found little favour with the better 
 class even of rationalist divines in Grermany ; and his 
 English reviewer, though he immediately hazards a 
 conjecture far more rash, has given us a quiet hint 
 that the German author has put more upon Baruch 
 than his evidence will warrant. It certainly surprises 
 one — and if the subject were less sacred it would 
 amuse a reader not a little — to see with what per- 
 tinacity Bunsen is exhibited as a great discoverer 
 and an admirable guide, not for leading us to truth, 
 but for his ingenuity in dressing up error so as 
 almost to persuade men to accept it for truth. We 
 can only remark that, however strange it may ap- 
 pear to us, this seems to be the way of Dr. Williams. 
 Every writer has his o-^ti way, and this appears to 
 be his way. We who differ from him toio coelo^ can 
 
 '" " Still the general analogy of Scripture . . . may pennit us tt» 
 tliink the oldest interpretation the truest."— (p. 73.) 
 
6o BUXSEX, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 have no objection to his removing with one hand the 
 praise he has just bestowed with the other, except 
 that it appears rather likely to mislead the ignorant. 
 They will remember the praise, and forget the dissent, 
 which is so delicately hinted. To those who are able 
 to read Bunsen in his own language, or are well 
 acquainted with the subjects he discusses, such ob- 
 servations are quite supei-fluous. But it is clear that 
 although there is a certain parade of learning in this 
 Essay, it cannot be intended for learned readers, or 
 if it be intended for them, the author is very slenderly 
 acquainted with that which men of learning would 
 requii'e. He can scarcely imagine that any persons 
 capable of investigating the reading and the proper 
 translation of a difficult passage in Scripture, can do 
 anything but smile when he pronounces an opinion 
 upon it ex cathedra, and ventures to attribute im- 
 proper motives to those who take a different view. 
 They will naturally ask how he has acquired a right 
 to pronounce so peremptorily on questions which the 
 greatest Hebrew philologers have considered to in- 
 volve very great difficulties. It is therefore to be 
 presumed, from this and other reasons, that Dr. Wil- 
 liams intends rather to dazzle the minds of those who 
 are called 'general readers,' than to address his ob- 
 servations to those who are capable of discussing these 
 questions. An opinion somewhat similar to this is 
 expressed in a very learned periodical, of which the 
 first number has just appeared, in a German review of 
 the ''Essays and Be views*'," where we find in p. 173 
 the following observation : — 
 
 " For all who know Bunsen's ' Biblical Researches/ Dr. 
 
 '^ Deutsche Vierteljalirsclirift fur Englisch-Theologische Fors- 
 chung und KritiJc ; herausgegehen von Dr. M. Heidenheim, (in 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 6 1 
 
 Williams says nothing new ; and those who do not coincide 
 with Bunsen's notions on certain prophetical portions of 
 Isaiah, will still less be likely to be converted to them by 
 the reasons alleged by his reviewer. If they [these authors] 
 had taken into consideration the history of the Jews, and 
 the history of Jewish intei-pretation of Scripture, they would 
 have seen clearly why Saadias Gaon and the Rabbis who 
 follow him — from whom certain men of our own day, and 
 among them Dr. Williams, derive their dogmatic views — 
 gave up 0)1 paper the original interpretation of the 53rd 
 chapter of Isaiah." 
 
 The wiiter then proceeds to adduce otlier instances 
 of a class of criticism, which could have no weight 
 with persons who are acquainted with the Bible in 
 the original. 
 
 It is clear that the writer views, as I do, the Essay 
 of Dr. Williams as addressed rather ad ^mjmliim than 
 ad clerum ; and it is on this account that I deplore the 
 tone in which it is written. If Dr. Williams believes 
 that it is for the interest of man, and likely to pro- 
 mote the advancement of religious truth, that the 
 everlasting contests which have been carried on in 
 Germany about the genuineness of the Scriptures and 
 the truth of their main facts should be imported into 
 our English literature, and occupy a large share of 
 our attention, he has a right to introduce them to any 
 extent he may desire, by writings addressed to those 
 who are capable of investigating the questions thus 
 brought forward : the fair discussion of Scripture 
 difficulties will not endanger the cause of truth, and 
 we, who believe that the truth is with those who are 
 opposed to Dr. Williams, cannot fear the fullest dis- 
 
 London). Xo. I. March 31, 186L This is a critical journal and 
 review printed at Leipzig, and published at Gotha, by Perthes, 
 but conducted by Germans living in England. 
 
62 BUNSEX, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 cussion of Scripture questions : but if any man ad- 
 dresses to those who have neither the leisure, nor 
 always the acquirements, necessary to the prosecution 
 of such enquiries, the most peremptory decisions on 
 questions which have exercised the greatest philo- 
 logers, and accompanies them with gross insinua- 
 tions against those who differ from him ; if he repre- 
 sents the state of opinion in Germany, and the course 
 of prophetic exegesis in general, with the utmost 
 unfairness, and attempts by such representations to 
 bias the opinions of his readers, we may fear that he 
 is likely to cause many, who are but slightly ac- 
 quainted with these subjects, to make shipwi'eck of 
 their faith. This is the only ground of fear. We 
 have no fear that the truth of Scripture, which has 
 borne for more than a thousand years the battle and 
 the strife of man, will succumb under a puny attack 
 like this. It has survived the assaults of Celsus and 
 Porphyry, of Bayle and Voltaire, of Gibbon and Hume, 
 and it is not very likely that it will fall by the hands 
 of Bunsen and Dr. "Williams. It is the unfair repre- 
 sentations, the partial and the one-sided views of this 
 Essay, announced ex cathedra^ and coupled with con- 
 temptuous insinuations against those who hold the 
 ancient opinions, which render it worth while to 
 spend a moment in answering it. They may deceive 
 the unlearned and the superficial, but there is really 
 nothing in the Essay itself which adds a new argu- 
 ment to the old conditions of the great problem, or 
 would give the smallest uneasiness to those who 
 really know the history of Scripture criticism in 
 Germany and England. These accusations may ap- 
 pear to be expressed in strong language, but if they 
 can be substantiated they will shew that, however 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 63 
 
 learned Dr. Williams may bo, however capable of 
 writing a trustworthy treatise on Scripture, the Essay 
 lie has Yentured to publish in this volume is worthless 
 as a guide to truth, and altogether unworthy of his 
 reputation and his position. It is a very legitimate 
 subject of enquiry to ascertain generally, whether the 
 representations of this Essay, or Eeview, are trust- 
 worthy or not, and to that enquiry I now propose 
 to devote my attention. 
 
 It deals with vast questions and it abounds in very 
 strong assertions concerning them, and in the most 
 peremptory decisions about matters of vital import- 
 ance as to Scripture truth and Scripture interpreta- 
 tion. The question before ns is — AVhat is the value 
 of these assertions and decisions ? Before we enter 
 on the great point, — the truth of Scripture and the 
 true method of interpreting it, — as Baron Bunsen 
 was the peg on which this Essay was suspended, 
 it would be uncourteous not to make a few remarks 
 on his life and labours. 
 
 Entirely opposed, as I have always been, to the 
 opinions of Baron Bunsen, I have no wish to detract 
 from his merit or to diminish his legitimate reputa- 
 tion. I believe that few persons will be disposed to 
 deny his abilities and acquirements, although during 
 the time he was in great favour with the sovereigns 
 of Prussia and of England it is probable that the 
 adulation of his followers may have given exaggerated 
 notions of both. Such leisure as was afforded by 
 a life of high diplomatic employments was eagerly 
 devoted to literature, and I believe that he had a very 
 earnest spirit with regard to religion. But, unhap- 
 pily, these high qualifications were combined with 
 other habits of mind, which neutralized their value, 
 
64 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 and rendered his Biblical researches unsound and 
 mischievous. He appears to have been self-confident 
 in the extreme, and rash in speculation, almost be- 
 yond the examjDle of his countrymen. The adulation 
 of his friends and followers increased his self-confi- 
 dence, gave license to his spirit of speculation, and 
 thus he announced his decisions with a degree of 
 dogmatism which contrasted very strongly with the 
 argumentative support on which they rested. He 
 was born and educated in Germany at a season when 
 the religious faith of the country had been almost 
 overwhelmed by the torrent of unbridled rationalism, 
 and even the lamp of religious feeling burnt very 
 feebly. It seems to me to have been a dreary time, 
 but Dr. Williams appears to consider it a time of 
 glorious light and knowledge. 
 
 After a few incivilities about England, with some 
 remarks on the language of pulpits and platforms, he 
 speaks thus of the close of the last century and the 
 beginning of the present : — 
 
 "But in Germany there has been a pathway streaming 
 with light, from Eichhorn to Ewald, aided by the poetical 
 penetration of Herder and the philological researches of 
 Gesenius, throughout which the value of the moral element 
 in proj)hecy has been progressively raised, and that of the 
 directly predictive, whether secular or Messianic, has been 
 lowered. Even the conservatism of Jahn amongst Eomanists, 
 and of Hengstenberg amongst Protestants, is free and ra- 
 tional compared to what is often in this country required 
 with denunciation, but seldom defended by argument. 
 
 " To this inheritance of opinion Baron Bunsen succeeds." — 
 (pp. 66, 67.) 
 
 This was, unhappily for him, the case. He was 
 trained in sacred philology at a period when the 
 divine authority of Scripture was daily undermined 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 65 
 
 by professors and divines, and we cannot wonder 
 if the seed thus sown should have produced very- 
 bitter fruit. That Baron Bunsen did not give up his 
 devotional feelings and his earnestness in religion is 
 not to be ascribed to the teaching of the period in 
 which he was educated, but to the more religious 
 frame of mind with which it had pleased God to 
 endow him. And in considering this portion of his 
 character we must never forget the difference between 
 the German and the English mind. The paradise of 
 the German appears to consist in unlimited license 
 of speculation, while the practical element is the 
 prevailing characteristic of the English : and thus it 
 often happens that a German will not cast off a cer- 
 tain i)hase of faith when he has demolished every 
 ground which an Englishman would deem a rational 
 and logical foundation for holding it. We ought not, 
 therefore, to be surprised at finding that, after deny- 
 ing the genuineness of half the books in the Bible, 
 and treating a very large portion of its history as 
 mere idle tales or legendary myths. Baron Bunsen, to 
 the very end of his life, had a great love for devotional 
 hymns, framed upon a very different hypothesis, and 
 addressed to a very different state of mind. I have 
 heard, on the authority of private friends, that in his 
 last hours he was cheered and supported by the words 
 of the old German hymn, " Jesu, meine Zuversicht '^j" 
 — " Jesus, my trust." The same explanation will solve 
 the discrepancy which Dr. Williams finds between 
 
 •^ The hjrmn is found in Bunscn's collection of Prayers and 
 Hymns, 1833, among those whose commencement is changed. 
 It is there No. 497, and begins, " Guter Hirte, willst du nicht." 
 B it many of the German hymns have a commencement nearly 
 similar, 
 
 F 
 
66 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 the Gesang unci Gehethuch of Baron Bunsen and Ms 
 criticisms : — " Either reverence or deference may 
 have prevented him from bringing his prayers into 
 entire harmony with his criticisms." (p. 91.) The 
 truth is he was better than his' principles: he was 
 not in flesh and blood what he was upon paper. Dr. 
 Williams, however, evidently rests his claim to ce- 
 lebrity on the brilliancy of his Biblical researches. 
 My own belief is that although some ingenious sug- 
 gestions in the Liturgical portion of Baron Bunsen's 
 "Hippolytus and his Age" may be referred to here- 
 after, his name will be unknown in Biblical criticism 
 twenty years hence. But on this point the opinions 
 of Dr. Williams and myself are wholly unimportant : 
 it is one of those questions which posterity alone can 
 decide, and to which the words of a writer familiar to 
 Dr. Williams exactly apply, — 
 
 'AfiepaL h' eirlXoLTToi, Mdprvpes (TocficoTaTOi, 
 
 And indeed, this Essay on Bunsen has brought 
 forward in the strongest manner other questions, com- 
 pared with which, the reputation of any man, how- 
 ever eminent, is insignificant. The truth and the 
 interpretation of Scripture are discussed in a manner 
 which must leave an impression on the minds of those 
 who have not leisure or opportunity to study deeply 
 such questions, that their faith is founded on igno- 
 rance and misapprehension ; and thus a general spirit 
 of scepticism is likely to be promoted. iNow this im- 
 pression I believe to be promoted by a series of mis- 
 representations of the most unfair and one-sided cha- 
 racter; and I therefore proceed to point out some of 
 the most striking of these misrepresentations. 
 1 It may be convenient briefly to state the nature 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. ^"^ 
 
 of the misrepresentations to which I advert, and the 
 order in which I propose to consider them. 
 
 1. The state of opinion as to the Scriptures among 
 the learned men of Germany. 
 
 If we are to believe Dr. Williams, the researches 
 of the German critical school have disproved the 
 genuineness of a very large portion of the Bible, and 
 entirely deprived the prophecies, except in one or 
 two doubtful cases, of any direct Messianic prediction. 
 And Baron Bunsen, accepting this state of the ques- 
 tion ^, is highly praised by Dr. Williams for endea- 
 voiuing on this hypothesis to shew that the doctrine 
 of the Bible contains divine truths. 
 
 I propose to shew that this is utterly at variance 
 with fact ; that whatever currency such opinions may 
 have had some years ago in Germany, they are re- 
 pelled by the most distinguished men of that nation, 
 and that they are gradually dying away. 
 
 2. The second great misrepresentation with which 
 
 = This is of course a mere general statement of Bunsen's views. 
 In fact, he agrees in details with no wiiter of eminence whatever, 
 but simply considers himself at liberty to assign any date to any 
 book of the Bible, to explain any part of it as legendary or para- 
 bolical, and to correct its authors on all questions in the most 
 arbitrary manner. Thus, the fall of man is not a narrative of 
 a real event, but a history of the fall of man as it appears in the 
 contemplation of the Divine Mind, the serpent being the symbol of 
 man's perverted understanding, his reason separated from his con- 
 science; the Pentateuch is a late book with a few ancient docu- 
 ments; an universal deluge is a simple impossibility; Jonah is 
 a legendary tale ; the song of Hannah was not hers, but the song 
 of the mother of Saul on her son's elevation to the kingdom, &c. 
 It would be easy to multiply these instances to any extent, but it 
 is needless — as needless as to refute such gratuitous assertions and 
 suppositions ra detail. Were every one of them proved impossible, 
 their author would have been ready the next day with another list, 
 just as gratuitous, just as unfounded, and just as absurd. 
 
 f2 
 
68 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 I charge Dr. Williams relates to the interpretation of 
 prophecy in our country. 
 
 Dr. AVilliams asserts that as men have become more 
 learned, each writer on the prophecies has detracted 
 something from the extent of literal prognostication; 
 which means in plain language, that the belief in Mes- 
 sianic predictions has gradually ceased in England. 
 
 I propose, in the second place, to examine this 
 statement. 
 
 3. I then propose to examine in detail the mis- 
 representations of Dr. Williams in regard to particular 
 passages of Scripture. 
 
 The first and greatest misrepresentation on which I 
 would remark occurs in a passage which has just been 
 quoted, but it pervades also the whole Essay. It is 
 the attempt to insinuate, rather than to assert, that 
 the opinion of the genuineness of the Old Testament 
 and a very large paj-t of the New has been universally 
 given up by the scholars of Germany, and that they 
 have proved that it cannot be maintained. The con- 
 temptuous language with which an opposite view is 
 treated may be judged of by the following specimen. 
 
 After an enumeration of all the triumphs of phi- 
 lology over prophecy, by which only a few doubtful 
 passages are left to testify of the Messiah and one of 
 the final fall of Jerusalem, and a declaration that even 
 these few cases are likely to melt, "if not already 
 melted, in the crucible of searching enquiry," the 
 author proceeds thus : — 
 
 " If our German had ignored all that the masters of phi- 
 lology have proved on these subjects, his countrymen would 
 have raised a storm of ridicule, at which he must have 
 drowned himself in the Neckar. 
 
 '* Great then is Baron Bunsen's merit, in accepting frankly 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 69 
 
 the belief of scholars, and yet not despairing of Hebrew pro- 
 phecy as a witness to the kingdom of God." — (p. 70.) 
 
 We may think it a happy thing for Baron Bunsen 
 that the miserable trash which rationalism often sends 
 forth for enlightened philology, did not rob him 
 altogether of his faith in Christ ; but if the principles 
 of these philologers were erroneous, it is no '' merit" 
 that he was led astray by them, nor does it much mend 
 the matter that he has made some awkward attempts 
 to patch up the cause he supposes them to have 
 damaged, by introducing a new source of confusion. 
 But the representation here given of the state of 
 sacred philology is so utterly unlike the reality, that 
 one wonders how any person of the acquirements and 
 knowledge of Dr. Williams could venture to bring it 
 forward. It must be supposed, by those who read it 
 without the means of correcting the statements by 
 an enquiry into German criticism, that the philologists 
 of Germany have made the spuriousness of the books 
 of the Old Testament so apparent, and have so con- 
 futed the older notions about prophecy, that no man, 
 who had any regard for his reputation as a scholar, 
 would venture to maintain the antiquity and genuine- 
 ness of the Pentateuch, or express a belief in the 
 existence of prophecies which in former ages were 
 appealed to in proof of the great truths of Christianity. 
 In short, that if a man maintained that Moses wrote 
 the Pentateuch or Isaiah prophesied of Chi'ist, he 
 would be met by " a storm of ridicule" under which 
 life would be intolerable. I fear, if all who venture, 
 notwithstanding the sneers of Dr. Williams, to main- 
 tain these opinions, were to follow his prescription, 
 the channel of the Neckar would soon be choked up. 
 
70 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 It is perfectly true that for a considerable period these 
 subjects have been debated with the utmost freedom 
 in Germany, and that at the beginning of the present 
 century these opinions were, upon the whole, in the as- 
 cendant,— even then, however, not without opposition, 
 although that opposition was feeble. But the result of 
 the discussion has been of a very different character from 
 that which Dr. Williams would lead his readers to believe. 
 The defenders of the old opinions are now more than 
 maintaining theii' ground against the impugners of the 
 truth of Scripture. Have Keil, and Havernick, Heng- 
 stenberg and Delitzsch, Lange and his coadjutors m 
 his Bihcliverlc^ Tholuck and Lechler, with many others 
 of similar powers, found it necessary to " drown them- 
 selves in the Neckar," or to hide their heads in 
 privacy ? It is easy enough to make such an assertion 
 in the pages of a volume addressed to general readers 
 in England, but if the assertion had been made in 
 Berlin, it would probably have raised so great " a storm 
 of ridicule," that the author would have been glad to 
 find himself at Lampeter again. The tide has tiu-ued, 
 and although some writers of great philological at- 
 tainments, like Ewald and Hupfeld, maintain the 
 rationalist opinions with all the violence which seems 
 a natural inheritance of rationalism, yet the prevailing 
 tone is conservative, and that in a degree which is 
 constantly increasing ^ It would be supposed also, 
 that in what Dr. Williams calls a " destructive" pro- 
 cess, the rationalist authorities were in agreement, 
 or at least, not in direct contradiction to each other, 
 
 ^ It is a significant fact that the clever and eloquent sermons of 
 L. Harms, who assails the rationalists continually, and gives them 
 no quarter, have been eagerly listened to by crowds, and created an 
 unexampled sensation throughout the kingdom of Hanover. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 71 
 
 in regard to the arguments on which they foiind 
 theii" system. But when you examine their opinions, 
 you find that they seem to agree in nothing except 
 a determination to reject the theory of the truth of 
 Scripture. No matter what hypothesis is sot up in 
 its phice, that hypothesis is altogether tabooed. And 
 the consequence is that their theories are often, not 
 only divergent, but contradictory and mutually de- 
 structive. There are among these writers three who 
 have done considerable service in certain departments 
 of Hebrew philology, I mean Gesenius, Ewald, and 
 Hupfeld, and I am very glad to avail myself of the 
 fruit of their labours, but when they begin to reason 
 on the books of Scripture, I find it necessary to watch 
 every assertion with the utmost vigilance, almost every 
 step. When a theory is at stake, assertions are con- 
 stantly made of the occurrence or non-occurrence of 
 words, which the use of a Concordance proves to be 
 groundless. Such accusations are not to be lightly 
 made, and therefore I invite any person who doubts 
 its truth, to examine the list of words brought for- 
 ward by Gesenius and Hartmann^ in order to prove 
 Deuteronomy later than the rest of the Pentateuch : 
 he will find that six of the ten instances do occur 
 where they are said not to be foimd. Or let him 
 examine the phrases said to be peculiar to the Elohist 
 in Genesis^', and he will find them in passages where 
 
 5 See Gesenius, Geschichte der Hehraischen Spraclie und Schriftt 
 p. 32, (1815) ; and Hartmann, Uistorisch-Kritischc Forschungen, 8fc., 
 uber die Funf Biicher Mosis, p. 660, (1831). 
 
 ^ See Gramberg, Lihri Geneseos secundum fontes rite dignos- 
 cendos adumhratio nova. (Leipzig, 1828.) Some of these incorrect 
 statements are repeated in the last Introduction to the Scriptures 
 published in Germany. Sec Dr. Blcck's Einlcitung in das AUe 
 
72 LUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 the name Jehoyah occurs. These are minor points 
 in the great conflict of opinion, but they serve to 
 shew how these opinions are supported. But if we 
 ask in what conclusion do these critics agree, it would 
 be difficult to find any position maintained by one 
 which is not destroyed by the rest. I must anticipate 
 an objection which will at once rise to the mind of a 
 reader of these lines. If these men differ so entirely 
 in these minor matters, is not their agreement in one 
 conclusion, viz. that the old belief in the genuineness 
 of Scripture is untenable, a very strong argument in its 
 favour? It might have some weight in the general 
 argument, if it rested on other and independent grounds, 
 but when that agreement is founded on arguments 
 which each new hypothesis destroys, it appears to me 
 that its value is nothing. Perhaps this may be best 
 illustrated by an example. If a person is enquiring 
 into the age of the Pentateuch, he would natiu-ally 
 read what Gesenius has said concerning the age of the 
 Hebrew language. He has laid it do-^Ti as a rule 
 that the language of the prose writers in the greater 
 part of the Bible is identical with that of the Penta- 
 teuch in its prose, and of the poets with that of the 
 poetical parts of the Pentateuch, such as, e. g. the 
 blessings of Jacob and of Moses. He assures us that 
 with the Captivity a new epoch of the language 
 begins. Gramberg tells us that some of the books of 
 the Pentateuch were written at the conclusion of the 
 Captivity, and Yon Bohlen declares it altogether to be 
 a production of the age of Josiah. It is true, they all 
 agree in rejecting the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch, 
 
 Testament, ^'c., p. 249. (Berlin, 1860.) This is only one of the 
 many instances "which might be given of arguments repeated in. 
 the most careless way by one "vrriter after another. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 73 
 
 but then the enquiry remains, why they reject it. 
 There may be prejudices against its Mosaic origin, as 
 well as prejudices in its favour, and if men are de- 
 termined at all events to reject it, one can understand 
 why they differ when they begin to frame hypotheses 
 to suit the facts. But if they are led by these en- 
 quiries to reject it, any two out of these three base 
 their rejection of it on grounds overthrown by the 
 third. Again, the Song of Solomon is declared by 
 Gesenius to have been written at a time when the 
 Hebrew language had been altered by an admixture 
 of Chaldaic forms and phrases. Suppose, with this 
 decision fresh in our minds, we take up one of the 
 latest publications by a great authority on the Semitic 
 dialects, — I mean Ernest Eenan, — who handles all 
 Scripture matters as freely as our Essayists could 
 wish, we are assured that the Song of Solomon cannot 
 have been written later than towards the end of the 
 tenth century before Christ ! The stream of light, of 
 which Dr. "Williams speaks in such glowing terms as 
 having illuminated Germany from the time of Eichhorn 
 and Gesenius, does not appear to shine with all the 
 brightness which he proclaims, even upon purely philo- 
 logical questions. I am not taking obscure writers 
 of small tracts, but acknowledged leaders and men 
 of eminence. Indeed, Gesenius is the highest name 
 among the philologers of the critical school; and 
 Ernest Eenan stands very high among the Semitic 
 scholars of the present day. But the fact is, that 
 each book of the Pentateuch, and the whole work 
 itself, is hunted up and down the four centuries be- 
 tween the time of David and the Captivity, till the 
 heart and the mind are wearied alike with fruitless 
 enquiries and hypotheses which have no foundation. 
 
74 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 Sometimes it is written about the time of the Cap- 
 tivity, then it cannot be later than David ; sometimes 
 it is written before, sometimes after the division of 
 the kingdoms. And the only conclusion left for the 
 mind is to wonder whether it was ever written at all ! 
 The everlasting differences on these subjects pervading 
 the lectui'e-rooms of Germany, must have wearied 
 many a noble mind and earnest spii'it, that panted 
 after truth and found only husks like these. One 
 such spirit ' has expressed the loathing with which he 
 was at last diiven to regard such enquiries. He found, 
 as he tells us, that "one day St. Matthew and the 
 Gospel of the Hebrews were up, the next day St. Luke, 
 and then an original Gospel ; and the foui'th day St. 
 Mark; one day Deuteronomy was a late book, the 
 next it was an early one," and so forth; and at last 
 he felt that he could gain no nourishment for his soul 
 in a perpetual round of self-destructive hypotheses, 
 and changed his course J. It might be supposed, from 
 the rounded periods and positive statements of Dr. 
 Williams, that this critical school has run a triumpliant 
 course in Germany, but unfortunately for tliis suppo- 
 sition, this school is daily losing its influence. 
 
 There is a spirit of infidelity spread abroad among 
 the middle classes in Germany which the wi-itings of 
 this school have helped to foster, but there is also 
 a large and increasing number of zealous Christians ; 
 and the hold of rationalism on those who acknowledge 
 a revelation is daily relaxing. There is also an altered 
 tone in the rationalist works themselves. The latest 
 Introduction to the Old Testament which I have seen 
 
 ' Yilmar, now Professor of Theology at Marburg. Die Theo- 
 logie der Tkatsachen tcider die Theohgie der Rhetorik is the title 
 of his work. j YiJmar, p. 15. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 75 
 
 is that of Dr. Bleek'', who liaDcUcs all these questions 
 with the utmost freedom, and decides in many cases 
 against the old opinions. He assigns the Pentateuch 
 in its present form to the time of David, and is against 
 the genuineness of Daniel. But his tone is altogether 
 different from that of the critical school in the day of 
 Gesenius and his followers. Ilis admissions are such 
 as would have been treated with scorn in the palmy 
 days of rationalism ; and he speaks with reverence of 
 the prophets, as receiving revelations from. God and 
 being the interpreters between God and man : and 
 when he controverts the positions of Hengstenberg 
 or other writers of orthodox opinions, he does it with 
 courtesy. It is true the gift of evil-speaking, which 
 appeared to be pre-eminently the prerogative of ra- 
 tionalist writers, has not entirely departed, and the 
 mantle of former critics has fallen on Ewald and Hup^- 
 feld. The name of Hengstenberg appears to excite 
 a degree of positive fury in Hupfeld ; and in the pre- 
 face to his Commentary on the Psalms he openly 
 declares that he considers it a duty to di'ag Hengsten- 
 bero^ forward wherever he can accuse him of error. 
 He says of Hengstenberg that he is trj^ng to " in- 
 sinuate his poison into our blood,^^ which is no doubt 
 very becoming language for a great rationalist, but 
 would be thought rude in a Christian divine. But 
 perhaps if Hengstenberg and the anti-critical reac- 
 tionary school, as he calls it, are so displeasing to him, 
 Ewald and the rationalists are quite to his taste. K'ot 
 
 '' This work is posthumous. Its title is Mnleiiung in das Alte 
 Testament von Friedricli Bleeh. Ilerausgegeben von J. F. Bleek 
 undAd. KampTiausen, ^'c. (1860.) A. Kamphausen was a coadjutor 
 of Bunsen in his Bibelwerk. See the Vorerinnerungen to the 
 Biheliverh, p cxxv. 
 
76 BUXSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 at all, I am sorry to say, — for in the same preface he 
 complains that Ewald has pursued him for many years 
 ''with peculiar fury," [niit hesondern tvuth^) simply 
 because in reviewing some of Ewald's critical essays 
 in Hebrew, Hupfeld had hinted that he wanted more 
 knowledge of the language. These two men, Ewald 
 and Hupfeld, are mentioned here, because they appear 
 to be the only two of the rationalist school whose ob- 
 servations on Hebrew philology are really worth con- 
 sidering. And as they seem to be rather discordant, 
 the happy family of rationalism has some chance of 
 breaking up altogether before long. 
 
 Where every man has — not his psalm and his doc- 
 trine — but a theory about every book in Holy Writ, 
 where it happens that every two or three years the 
 order in which these books were written is infallibly 
 discovered and as infallibly refuted, it would, of course, 
 be impossible to specify each opinion even on one 
 book ; but it may be convenient to exhibit to the 
 English public a glimpse or two of that clear stream 
 of light which has been shed on sacred literature by 
 the scholars of Germany. Let us take for example 
 Genesis, as that was < the book on which rationalist 
 criticism for some time bestowed its most particular 
 attention. 
 
 It was very early observed that two names for God 
 in the Book of Genesis were used in a peculiar man- 
 ner ; that passages occuri'ed in which Elohim was the 
 predominant, if not the only word used, while in 
 other passages Jehovah predominated, or appeared to 
 be used exclusively. On tliis foundation it is almost 
 impossible to enumerate the various theories which 
 have been formed. Eichhorn endeavoured to shew 
 that these different portions of the book proceeded from 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. -JJ 
 
 two different and independent writers. But when 
 once this notion was fairly launched, there was no end 
 to the modifications it underwent. Every few months 
 a new theory, which of course superseded all the former 
 ones, made its appearance, and professed to solve all 
 the difficulties, only just to make room for another 
 more pretentious system. Ilgen imagined two Elohists 
 and one JcJwvist. Gramberg modified the hypothesis 
 one way, Hartmann another, Ewald a third, and so forth, 
 till the world was weary of these endless suppositions ^ 
 About this time it was almost assumed as an axiom 
 that it was absurd to imagine that a book could be 
 written in the time of Moses, as the means of writing 
 books were not discovered at that early period, and 
 a number of auxiliary arguments of the same kind 
 were pressed into the service. The result of these 
 discussions has been that the hypothesis of a number 
 of independent fragments is generally looked upon 
 with disfavour, and the prevailing tone is in favour of 
 what is called the Urkunden-hypothese, or theory of 
 one original document receiving additions during the 
 lapse of time in successive editions. The objections 
 raised against the probability of the means of wi'iting 
 being found in the time of Moses are, I suppose, now 
 generally given up. At least so Bleek, a rationalist 
 himself, informs us. These are his words : " That the 
 art of writing [schriftstcllerei) existed among the He- 
 brews in the time of Moses, according to our present 
 indications, cannot be a matter of doubt." 
 
 I suppose that in the palmy days of rationalism any 
 
 » This representation will be found, with circumstantial details, 
 in Keil's edition of Havernick's Spez telle Einleitunj in den Pen- 
 tateuch. It coincides with the results of a more elaborate enquiiy 
 which I made into these theories some years ago. 
 
yS BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 divine who ventured to maintain this proposition would 
 have been met with such '' a storm of ridicule," that 
 he would have been glad "to drown himself in the 
 Neckar;" and therefore, when I hear of the unpopu- 
 larity of opinions which I believe to be true, I am 
 willing to hope that further discussion will only prove 
 their truth. 
 
 I find that it is now acknowledged that some of the 
 most telling arguments against the Mosaic origin of 
 the Pentateuch must be given up : and I find also 
 from ISTitzsch's "Academical Lectures" that it cannot 
 any longer be maintained that the demonology and 
 angelology of the Jews was learned at Babylon. 
 This was another point on which the assertions of 
 the rationalists were most positive. Indeed, this 
 belief of the Babylonian origin of these notions was 
 one of the great arguments on which reliance was 
 placed to prove the late composition of the Penta- 
 teuch. If my readers ask who Mtzsch is, I must 
 refer them to Bunsen's " Signs of the Times," (p. 
 406 in the translation,) where he is said to be "the 
 man who is almost universally throughout Germany 
 considered as the first of Evangelical theologians;" 
 so that we are not quoting an obscure writer, but the 
 man who occupies "the most distinguished post" in 
 the Prussian Church, i. e. Provost of Berlin. 
 
 The examples which have here been given relate 
 for the most part to the Pentateuch, because that is 
 one of the chief battle-grounds of the critical school, 
 and it serves as well as any other portion of Scripture 
 to shew how much darkness is mixed with " the stream 
 of light" from Eichhorn and Gesenius to the present 
 day. In fact, the philological and linguistic collections 
 and criticisms of Gesenius and Hupfeld are highly 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 
 
 79 
 
 Taluable, altliougli their conclusions even on these 
 subjects must be received with caution. But it is 
 self-evident that a man . may be extremely useful in 
 illustrating the language of Scripture who would be 
 a very unsafe guide in unravelling the difficulties of 
 its history, or reasoning upon the genuineness of its 
 books. But it is to be remarked that the contradic- 
 tions I have brought forward are chiefly contradictions 
 on the very subject on which alone these men would 
 be entitled to speak with any authority, — I mean the 
 determination of date and authorship from the language 
 of a book. One more remark shall be made on this 
 subject, and then I leave it to the reader's own judg- 
 ment. If Jerome is to be condemned, as Dr. Williams 
 would lead us to believe, for what he considers an 
 absurd dictum on prophecy, we might quote number- 
 less absurdities from these critics of the most flagrant 
 kind. Did Jerome ever patronize so preposterous 
 a notion as that the name Noah was derived from the 
 Latin wo, or vclv^^ (!) as Yon Bohlen gravely conjec- 
 tures""? or did the best abused of the Fathers ever 
 propose such drivelling absurdities as that the story of 
 iEsop, as a great writer of fables, possibly arose from 
 some report of Solomon's apologues about the Hyssop 
 on the wall, (!) as Hitzig suggests in the preface to 
 his translation of the Book of Proverbs ? 
 
 These circumstances, to which a great deal more 
 of the same kind might be added, will afford a con- 
 siderable soiu'ce of modification, to say the least, to 
 the assertions of Dr. Williams about the state of 
 Biblical criticism in Germany. They shew that the 
 impression which any reader of his Essay would in- 
 evitably derive from it on this subject, is entii'ely 
 «" Yon Bohlen on Genesis, vol. ii. p. lOG, Eng. Tr. 
 
So BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 erroneous. Wliether he has wilfully and intentionally- 
 misled those who cannot check his statements, can 
 only be known by himself and by Him Who searches 
 the heart, and to Whom he stands or falls. 
 
 But if this Essay gives a false impression with 
 regard to the state of Biblical criticism in Germany, 
 its representation of the progress of opinion in Eng- 
 land as to prophecy is still more glaringly unjust, and 
 is calculated to convey a still more false impression 
 of the actual state of prophetic exegesis. The most 
 objectionable passage is the following : — 
 
 " In our country each successive defence of the prophecies, 
 in proportion as its author was able, detracted something from 
 the extent of Kteral prognostication ; and either laid stress on 
 the moral element, or urged a second, as the spiritual sense. 
 Even Butler foresaw the possibility that every prophecy in 
 the Old Testament might have its elucidation in contempo- 
 raneous history ; but literature was not his strong point, 
 and he turned aside, endeavouring to limit it [what ?] from 
 an unwelcome idea. Bishop Chandler is said to have thought 
 twelve passages in the Old Testament directly Messianic; 
 others restricted this character to five. Paley ventures to 
 quote only one." — (p. 65.) 
 
 The impression which this language is calculated 
 to leave on the mind can only be the following, viz., 
 that as prophecy has become more studied and better 
 understood amongst us, the learned have gradually 
 cast aside their belief in the Messianic nature of the 
 prophecies of the Old Testament, till at last there 
 are scarcely any which are considered to be strictly 
 prophecies of Christ. Nay, the author seems to give 
 us a descending scale by which we may measure 
 the gradual diminution of faith in prophecy during 
 the last century. ''Bishop Chandler is said to have 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 
 
 81 
 
 tlionglit," — surely this phrase is strange in regard 
 to a book so well known as Chandler's " Answers to 
 Collins" !" Why should not Dr. Williams have taken 
 the trouble to ascertain what Bishop Chandler does 
 say, before he made so loose a statement ? 
 
 We shall simply place Bishop Chandler's own 
 words in apposition Avith Br. Williams's report of 
 them : — 
 
 Dr. Williams. 
 "Bishop Chandler is said 
 to have thought twelve pas- 
 sages in the Old Testament 
 directly Messianic." 
 
 Bishop Chandler. 
 "But not to rest in gene- 
 rals, let the disquisition of 
 particular texts determine 
 the truth of this author's 
 assertion. To name ihem all 
 would carry me into too 
 great length. I shall there- 
 fore select some of the princi- 
 pal prophecies, vrhich being 
 proved to regard the Messias 
 immediately and solely, in 
 the obvious and Hteral sense 
 according to scholastick rules, 
 may serve as a specimen of 
 what the Scriptures have 
 predicted of a Messias that 
 was to come." 
 
 It seems very clear that Dr. Williams knows even 
 less of Bishop Chandler than he appears to know 
 of Bishop Butler. But before we pass on to Bishop 
 Butler, let me ask those who read this Essay, what 
 
 ■ I refer to the following books : — Bishop Chandler's " Defence 
 of Christianity from the Prophecies of the Old Testament," &c., 
 against the " Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion" of 
 Collins, and his "Vindication of the Defence of Christianity," &c., 
 against "The Scheme of Literal Prophecy Considered" of the same 
 author. 
 
 G 
 
82 BUXSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 faith they can put in any statements it contains 
 after reading these words. The allusion to Paley is 
 even worse. Paley was not writing a book on pro- 
 phecy, but in treating of the evidences of Christianity 
 he contents himself with quoting only one prophecy, 
 and assigns his reason for limiting his quotation to 
 that one, viz., "as well because I think it the clear- 
 est and strongest of all, as because most of the rest, 
 in order that their value might be represented with 
 any tolerable degree of fidelity, require a discussion 
 unsuitable to the limits and nature of this work." 
 He then refers with approbation to Bishop Chandler's 
 dissertations, and asks the infidel to try the experi- 
 ment whether he could find any other eminent per- 
 son to the history of whose life so many cii'cumstances 
 can be made to apply. It is not that he " ventures to 
 quote" only this as if he were afraid to meet the 
 question, but he actually refers to the book where 
 these questions which lie out of his own path are 
 specially treated. And now, what becomes of the list 
 of prophecies, " fine by degrees and beautifully less" 
 as years roll on, which Dr. Williams would persuade 
 his readers have been given up till a grave divine 
 " ventured to quote" only one ! The subject is really 
 too sacred, too solemn to be treated in a manner like 
 this. On any subject such misrepresentation would 
 be very discreditable, but in treating of the evidence 
 for the truth of Holy Scripture it becomes positively 
 criminal. 
 
 But if Paley and Bishop Chandler are thus mis- 
 represented, what shall we say to the insinuation 
 about Bishop Butler ° ? Instead of Bishoj) Butler 
 
 "The assertion that " literature was not his strong point" is 
 really beneath criticism ; though coming in the midst of a sentence 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 83 
 
 having turned aside from a future prospect of pro- 
 bable interpretations, he distinctly grapples with those 
 that have been made on this principle, and denies 
 that they have any weight. So that in the repre- 
 sentation of Bishop Chandler, Dr. Paley, and Bishop 
 Butler, the author of this Essay may be said to have 
 misrepresented every one of them, and to have inter- 
 woven his misrepresentations together into a state- 
 ment Avhich it would be difficult to parallel for its 
 contempt of truth. I have no wish to charge the 
 author with ivilful misrepresentation, and I trust he 
 may not have thought of the impression his words 
 would inevitably leave on the mind, of any reader 
 of his book, but I appeal with confidence to every 
 reader of plain common sense, whether that is not the 
 only impression they are calculated to make ? Bishop 
 Butler's is not a work on prophecy, but in enumerat- 
 ing the sources of evidence for Christianity he can- 
 not well overlook prophecy. He is not attempting 
 to expound prophecy, but shewing how it bears upon 
 the evidence for Christianit}', and answering some 
 objections which are commonly made against its testi- 
 
 ■svhich it is an act of courtesy to designate as English, it may excite 
 Bomething like wonder. It rather resembles another attack upon 
 an eminent prelate of our Church — I mean Bishop Pearson. Dr. 
 ■W^illiams accuses him of making the prose of the Jewish rabbinical 
 writers more prosaic. I never understood that they professed to 
 write poetry, and therefore, if Bishop Pearson has made them in- 
 telligible, he will be excused for not rendering them into poetry. 
 But to say the truth, most persons who read what Dr. AVilliams 
 has printed in the form of stanzas at the conclusion of this Essay 
 will feel that the author's notions of poetry are rather peculiar. 
 These sneers at great and eminent men are so unworthy of a man 
 of learning, that we will pass them by, only hoping that Dr. Wil- 
 liams may one day be entitled to a tithe of the reverence due to 
 those whom he has thus depreciated. ^^ rv. 
 
84 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 mony. He adduces and answers tliree lines of objec- 
 tion: 1. The obscurity of parts of the prophecies; 
 2. The objection that, considering each prophecy dis- 
 tinctly by itself, it does not appear to be intended of 
 the events to which Chiistians apply it: to this he 
 answers, that " a series of prophecy being applicable 
 to such and such events, is in itself a proof that it 
 was intended of them," &c. ; 3. " That the shewing, 
 even to a high degree of probability, if that could be, 
 that the prophets thought of some other event, in 
 such and such predictions, and not those at all which 
 Christians allege to be completions of such predic- 
 tions, — or that such and such prophecies are capable 
 of being applied to other events than those to which 
 Christians apply them, — that this would not destroy 
 the force of the argument from prophecy, even with 
 regard to those very instances." And after he has 
 given his reason for this decision, he says, " Hence 
 may be seen to how little purpose those persons busy 
 themselves who endeavour to prove that the prophetic 
 history is applicable to events of the age in which 
 it was "wiitten, or of ages before it." And he then 
 argues the case in regard to Porphyry, and concludes 
 his remarks. AVhat colour does this course of argu- 
 ment give for insinuating that Bishop Butler foresaw 
 the possibility that every prophecy in the Old Testa- 
 ment might have its elucidation in contemporaneous 
 history, and "turned aside" from the thought? It 
 was an objection which had been often made, it formed 
 a strong point of attack, and Butler quietly points out 
 that it has no force. To those who have a knowledge 
 of the writings of Chandler, Butler, and Paley, or to 
 those who have the patience to examine each assertion 
 of this author, and place it at its true worth, these ob- 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 85 
 
 servations would be wholly unnecessary. I do not 
 address myself to them, but I address myself to those 
 who might be expected to look to a man of the repu- 
 tation and position of Dr. Williams for guidance in 
 such matters, and would receive his statements with 
 trust. Such persons, whatever Dr. Williams may 
 have meant, would be entirely deceived. They would 
 suppose that belief in prophecy in England was well- 
 nigh exploded among the learned, and left only to 
 platform orators ; while the insinuation that upon the 
 Continent only about two or three doubtful passages 
 are now believed to testify of the Messiah, and one 
 of the destruction of Jerusalem, seems completely 
 to banish all faith in prophecy from the world. And 
 thi^ is effected by a series of misrepresentations, which 
 it would not be easy to parallel. Let those therefore 
 who read these pages endeavour to learn from the 
 examination of such assertions as these, what depend- 
 ence they may place on other portions of this Essay 
 where they have less means of testing the justice of 
 the statements. 
 
 As Dr. Williams has the reputation of an expe- 
 rienced controversialist, it may be desirable to point 
 out one subterfuge, to which he has no right to have 
 recourse : I mean by a quibble on the words " directly 
 Messianic." If he professes to mean no more than 
 that the prophecies were in the fii'st place applicable 
 to some other subject, but were intended by the Holy 
 Spirit to testify of the Messiah, he concedes the whole 
 question. His whole Essay is constructed on the 
 principle that there are no real "predictions" in the 
 Bible, with two or three insignificant exceptions. 
 This Essay would take away all belief in such pre- 
 dictions, and utterly banish inspired prophecies as 
 
86 BUXSEX, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 a source of evidence. If lie admits that tliey are 
 inspired predictions, it matters not whether they 
 are so in a primary or a secondary sense. And it 
 is well to suggest to his readers, that although Dr. 
 Williams appears to think it sufficient to deny each 
 prophecy individually to apply to Chi'ist, no attentive 
 reader. of the Bible can fail to see that the image 
 of the Messiah is foreshadowed and pourtrayed in 
 its integrity by the combination of these individual 
 features, each of which may be contained in a single 
 prophecy. They are full of wonder when considered 
 indi^-idually, but united, theii* strength is, or ought 
 to be, irresistible. 
 
 Before we leave the general notion of prophecy as 
 having a real element of prediction, we would ask those 
 persons who have been led astray by the assertions 
 — I cannot call them arguments — of this author to 
 read attentively the prophecies in which the fall of 
 the great powers of the world is predicted, and to 
 compare the predictions with the present state of 
 those powers, e.g. of Egypt, of Tyre, and of Babylon p. 
 These are among the most striking of the secular pre- 
 dictions, if we may so call them, of the Bible. Let 
 the candid enquirer well consider these side by side 
 with the assertions of this Essay, and he will then 
 be enabled to form some judgment of the prejudice 
 and one-sidedness against which the believer in the 
 Bible has to contend. 
 
 There is another subject also to which we may here 
 
 P Babylon— Isa. xiii., xiv., &c. Tyre — ^Isa. xxiii. ; Ezek. xxvi. 
 — xxviii. Egypt — Ezek. xxix. These are not the only pro- 
 phecies, but sufficient as a basis for the enquiry. Bp. Kewton 
 in his " Dissertations on the Prophecies" vnil supply more, as 
 -svell as the prophecies relating to Xineveh and other great powers. 
 
AND DR. ^VILLIAMS. 87 
 
 allude in a few transient remarks : it is the manner 
 in which the Essayist has argued against the inspira- 
 tion of the apostles by a manifest misconception of 
 a very j^lain passage. 
 
 In a note at p. 67 Mr. Mansel is reproved, because 
 in his Barapton Lectures ''recognised mistranslations 
 and misreadings are .alleged as arguments." Mr. 
 Mansel is so abundantly able to make answer for him- 
 self, that it would be superfluous for any friend to 
 answer for him. But these words are quoted to shew 
 how very prone we are to commit the very foult 
 which we attribute to others. Dr. Williams, both 
 in his Essay, and in his " Eational Godliness," p. 309, 
 •uses as an argument against the inspiration of the 
 apostles, the words of St. Paul when he assured the 
 Lycaonians that he and Barnabas were "men of like 
 passions" with themselves. Is there a mistranslation 
 more recognised than this, or can there be an argu- 
 ment more entii'ely alien from the subject into con- 
 nection with which it is dragged, than this quota- 
 tion of Dr. Williams ? What argument can it afford 
 against amj theory of inspiration, that the apostles 
 acknowledged to those who were about to worship 
 them as gods, that they were mortals like themselves, 
 subject to suff'ering, sickness, death ? Had the author 
 taken counsel on the subject with a well-educated 
 fifth-form boy he would, I am willing to believe, have 
 cancelled this argument. 
 
 But Dr. Williams is not content to throw contempt 
 on the great men of modern days, on Bishops Pearson 
 and Butler, and on men of reputation in our own day, 
 like Mr. Mansel, — he wings his shafts against the great 
 men of ancient days also, and has especially selected 
 Jerome for his mark. It does not appear very pro- 
 
88 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 bable, after some fourteen centimes in which the name 
 of Jerome has been hekl in high reverence, even by 
 those who wouki demur to some of his opinions, that 
 this eminent Father woukI sink into contempt even 
 though assaikd by one who was thoroughly conversant 
 with his weakest points. But when the attack is so 
 made as to shew the weak points of the assailant him- 
 self, the effect becomes rather ludicrous than serious. 
 It seems a pity for the reputation of the Essayist that 
 when he selects a few crowning absurdities, as he 
 imagines, from the whole works of this Father, he 
 should flounder at every step in a manner which almost 
 excites our compassion. One feels something like 
 compassion for a man, who with the pages of an 
 eminent expositor of Scripture before him, indulges 
 in the littleness of picking out a single specimen 
 of what appear to him to be absurdities, and then pro- 
 duces it in a manner which evidently shews either 
 that his acquaintance with the author is very slight, 
 or that he is unwilling his readers should know any- 
 thing more than the bare assertion which, quoted by 
 itself, sounds strange to our ears. Dr. Williams, after 
 telling us that to estimate rightly Bunsen's services in 
 exhibiting the Hebrew prophets as witnesses to the 
 divine government would require from most English- 
 men years of study, proceeds thus : — 
 
 " Accustomed to be told [i. e. the English] that modern 
 history is expressed by the Prophets in a riddle, which re- 
 quires only a key to it, they are disappointed to hear of moral 
 lessons, however important. Such notions are the inheritance 
 of days when Justin could argue, in good faith, that by the 
 riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria were intended 
 the Magi and their gifts, and that the King of Assyria sig- 
 nified King Herod ; (!) or when Jerome could say, ' No one 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 89 
 
 doubts that by ClialdiEans are meant Demons,' and the Sliu- 
 nammite Abishag '^ could be no other than heavenly wisdom, 
 for the honour of David's old age ; not to mention such 
 things as Lot's daughters symbolizing the Jewish and Gen- 
 tile Churches."— (pp. 63, 64,) 
 
 For this attack upon Jerome we have the authority 
 quoted in a note. The authority is thus stated, p. 
 64:— 
 
 " On Isaiah xliii. 14, 15, and again on ch. xlviii. 12 — 16. 
 He also shews on xlviii. 22 that the Jews of that day had not 
 lost the historical sense of their prophecies, though mystical 
 renderings had already shewn themselves." 
 
 In another note, p. 65^ we have the following re- 
 mark : — 
 
 " "When Jerome Origenises he is worse than Origen, be- 
 cause he does not, like that great genius, distinguish the 
 historical from the mystical sense." 
 
 These are very hard words ; but the Fathers have 
 had the vials of wrath showered down upon them 
 so often that an ounce or two, more or less, of the 
 virtuous indignation of the nineteenth century at their 
 shortcomings, can make but little difference. But 
 when the nineteenth century begins to depreciate the 
 fourth and fifth centuries in theology, it would be well 
 that the matter should be stated C[uite fau'ly. It will 
 be of no avail for Dr. Williams to state, as he did in 
 reply to an anonymous critic, that he speaks " in 
 a style abundantly clear, though with rapid conden- 
 sation," &c., for in the present instance he selects his 
 own point of attack, and if he quotes any statement of 
 an author, he is bound to quote it with sufficient detail 
 to place his reader in possession of the whole case. 
 
 1 This is not worth answering. It occurs in a private letter to 
 Nepotianus, and is simply a case of etymological trifling. 
 
90 BUXSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 I have no means of testing the familiarity of Dr. 
 Williams with the works of Jerome ; and as he bears 
 the reputation of a learned and candid man, I should 
 wish to belieye that he is not quoting from a random 
 plunge or two into the depths of that Father's Com- 
 mentary, although I can scarcely imagine that any 
 candid man would endeavour from such a passage to 
 create so unfavourable an impression of this eminent 
 commentator, if he really knew much about him ! 
 Throughout these valuable remains of ancient exegesis, 
 Jerome compares the Hebrew text and that of the 
 LXX, and points out the difference of the inter- 
 pretations to which they naturally lead. He occa- 
 sionally gives his opinion on other interpretations, 
 and gives his reasons for rejecting or accepting them. 
 Often two different interpretations are found in the 
 commentary on the same passage, and the sagacity of 
 the reader must be exercised in judging between 
 them. "While he gives one of these interpretations, 
 he uses the language which fits that interpretation, 
 whether it expresses his own sentiments or not. What 
 are we therefore to think of the fairness of a person 
 who picks out and isolates a single sentence from the 
 middle of a mystical interpretation, and then presents 
 it to his readers as a specimen of the exegesis of 
 Jerome ? If he only meant that the simple fact that 
 such a statement could ever enter into any mystical 
 interpretation at all, is a proof that exegesis was at 
 a very low ebb, and that Jerome was not much above 
 his contemporaries, then his proof would be worth 
 nothing, and he would only exhibit ^ro tanto his o^ti 
 incompetence to measui'e the intellectual power of the 
 age. If he meant to exhibit this as an average speci- 
 men of Jerome's powers, then such a proceeding needs 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 91 
 
 only the simple detail wliich I have given to shew its 
 unfairness. It would be unfair to take it as a specimen 
 if it were shewn to be Jerome's own opinion and 
 enounced generally. But when it is shewn to be 
 a part of a great interpretation, which is immediately 
 followed by the words "But the sense according to 
 the LXX is entirely different," what shall we say of 
 such a quotation? And that too on the supposition 
 that Dr. Williams has given a true interpretation of 
 the words he has quoted? Any competent Hebrew 
 and Latin scholar, on reading these words, '' De Chal- 
 dseis nullus ambigit quin Diiemones sonent," would be 
 directed by the words Chaldcei and sonent to a 2^aro- 
 nomasia or play on words between the Hebrew name 
 for the ChaldcEans and the word for Demons". If he 
 looked for Jerome's own interpretation of the word 
 among his Hebrew words, there he would find that 
 the Hebrew word for Chaldees is rendered by Jerome, 
 "Chasdim, quasi Daemonia, vel quasi ubera, vel fe- 
 roces." So that after all this contempt of Jerome, it 
 appears that he is only enouncing, in connection with 
 a particular interpretation of a certain passage, an 
 etymological fact, not an exegetical principle. The 
 unlearned would understand from the account in 
 the Essay that Jerome meant to lay down as a rule 
 of interpretation, that wherever Chaldeans are men- 
 tioned. Demons are intended, whereas all that Jerome 
 does say is this, viz., that the Hebrew text lends 
 itself to a mystical interpretation, by which Babylon 
 is represented as the world, and there is no doubt that 
 the word Chasdim may be interpreted ' Dcemones,' cty- 
 
 ' C''12'3, Cliasdim, or CJiashdim. Xow this is, otherwise pointed, 
 equivalent to "like Demons," the word D^m? occurring for Demons 
 in the Pentateuch. 
 
92 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 mologically speaking. He immediately adds tliat the 
 sense is entirely different according to the LXX. I 
 invite all those who have the requisite acquirements 
 to study this portion of Jerome, and to test the ac- 
 count which I have given of his meaning with the 
 utmost severity. I now ask, if this account be true, 
 can any reader trust the author of this Essay for 
 a faithful portrait of one of the Fathers ' ? But this 
 is by no means all the retribution due from the author 
 of the Essay to the memory of this eminent Father. 
 So far from being anxious to interpret Scripture thus 
 mystically, and to make out the Chaldeans to be 
 Demons, Jerome actually reproves Origen for this 
 very fault on more occasion than one. 
 
 Any person who desires to judge more fairly of 
 Jerome, after this paltry attack of Dr. Williams, may 
 consult, among other passages, his commentary on 
 Isaiah xiii., with its preface*. He will there see 
 how carefully he rejects the spiritual interpretation of 
 Eusebius, who was not a person commonly run away 
 with by his imagination, and cleaves to the simple 
 historical view of the passage, and how he repudiates 
 the allegorizing spirit of Origen. Or, again, let him 
 turn to Jer. xxv., where he will find the judgment 
 of Jerome on the allegorical interpretation of Ori- 
 gen : " The allegorical interpreter" (i.e. Origen) '' here 
 
 ' I must not be misunderstood, however. I quite acknowledge 
 that this etymology is farfetched, and that this is an unsound 
 mode of interpretation. But to charge Jerome with flagrant ab- 
 surdity for a single expression like this is simply ridiculous and 
 unworthy. 
 
 ' There can be no doubt that Jerome's translation is faulty here. 
 □>^>^^ cannot be in the nominative, but is in the genitive after 
 " the doors," " the doors of the princes," but this makes no difference 
 as to the general sobriety of his interpretation of this passage. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 
 
 93 
 
 talks nonsense, and puts force upon the historical 
 interpretation." Indeed, he seems to think the mere 
 statement of such an opinion here a sufficient re- 
 futation. Let him turn again to Jeremiah xxvii., 
 where he finds these words : '' The allegorical inter- 
 preter" (i.e. Origen) "interprets this passage about 
 the heavenly Jerusalem, because the inhabitants of 
 that city are to descend into Babylon, that is, the 
 confusion of this world, which is in the wicked one, 
 and to serve the king of Babylon, that is without 
 doubt the devil." This is his account of Origen's 
 interpretation, and the reader will remark that he 
 makes here the king of Babylon the devil; but he 
 immediately adds, " But tve follow the simple and 
 true history, that we may not be involved in clouds 
 and delusions." 
 
 Surely no reader will require further proof that, if 
 he desires to estimate the character of Jerome fairly, 
 he must go to some other source than Dr. Williams. 
 If Dr. Williams really knows much about Jerome, — 
 a question I do not presume to answer, although I 
 may have formed an opinion upon it, — it is quite 
 clear that he does not intend his readers to benefit 
 by his knowledge. He 7naij be capable of giving 
 them a just notion of this Father, but he is quite 
 determined to thrust upon them an unjust view, and 
 depreciate Jerome in order to libel modern writers 
 who differ from the rationalists. 
 
 The specimens already adduced of the method of 
 this author in dealing with general questions, such as 
 the interpretation of prophecy and the character of 
 great patristic authorities, are sufiicient to shew that 
 no confidence whatever can be placed in his state- 
 ments. But perhaps it may be thought that he is 
 
94 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 more happy in his exegesis or explanation of particu- 
 lar passages of Scripture. Dr. Williams has ventured, 
 fortunately for us, and as we deem unfortunately for 
 himself, to give us his opinion on certain difficult 
 passages of Holy Writ. If he had not ventured on 
 this experiment he might have maintained the repu- 
 tation of being a very competent Hebrew scholar; 
 but if in the opinions he delivers he shews a thorough 
 want of appreciation of the nature of the passages 
 he brings forward, he must be content to sink down 
 into the common herd of authors, who write on what 
 they do not take pains enough to understand. 
 
 Whether this is the case with Dr. Williams will 
 appear from the following statement. 
 
 All Hebrew scholars are well aware that some diver- 
 sity of opinion has existed, especially in Germany, as 
 to the interpretation of that portion of the prophecy of 
 Jacob in Gen. xlix. which relates to Judah and Shiloh. 
 The English reader who is not acquainted with Hebrew 
 and German is, of course, unable to refute any mis- 
 representation of the state of the question, and if 
 Dr. Williams writes for them, he is bound to state it 
 fairly. If he writes for the learned I need scarcely 
 say that they will only smile at the presumption of 
 a scholar who, in regard to a passage on which there 
 has been a division of opinion, considers himself qua- 
 lified to overturn the decision of the best authorities 
 and the tradition of more than two thousand years, 
 and to declare that except for doctrinal perversions 
 this view would never be maintained. Let us now 
 examine the passage and the authorities for the two 
 divergent views. 
 
 The words as translated in our version are, " The 
 sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 95 
 
 from between his feet, until Shiloli come." And such 
 has been the translation from the earliest days till 
 within a comparatively modern period, when the last 
 clause has been translated by some Hebrew scholars, 
 " until he come to Shiloh." 
 
 If we enquire into the support on which these two 
 translations respectively rest, we shall find that there 
 was till within the last two centuries an almost ^ ima- 
 nimous concurrence in the translation given by our 
 version, as far as the subject of the verb " to come" 
 is concerned. It was almost universally translated 
 "until Shiloh come," although some understood by 
 Shiloh "He to whom it belongs," and others under- 
 stood ' rest' or ' peace' as a name of the Messiah. It 
 is one of those prophecies which might seem to press 
 hardly upon the Jews after the utter dispersion of 
 theii- nation; but all their writers, as quoted in the 
 Pugio Fidei, maintain the old interpretation which 
 their Targums put upon the passage, " until Messias 
 comes." A few modern commentators, as well as 
 Gesenius and other rationalists, have however trans- 
 lated the passage "until he comes to Shiloh," and 
 this translation Baron Bunsen has accepted. And of 
 this his reviewer remarks : — 
 
 " The famous Shiloh (Gen. xHx. 10) is taken in its local 
 sense, as the sanctuary where the young Samuel was trained ; 
 
 ° I find a statement in Eeinke's Die Weissagiing Jacobs, Sfc, 
 p. 124, which leads me to suppose that Eabbi Lipmann supported 
 this view, but I am unable to ascertain that he understood the town 
 Shiloh under this word. His view is given in his poem as pub- 
 lished in Wagenseil's Tela Ignea Satance, pp. 113, 114, and an- 
 swered pp. 264—328. In the NizzacJion Vetus, in the same 
 volume, there is another attack on the Christian interpretation, 
 p. 27. 
 
96 EUXSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 which, if doctrinal perversions did not interfere, hardly any 
 one would doubt to be the true sense," — (p. 62.) 
 
 The Jews, against whom our interpretation presses 
 Tery severely, have had every motive for adopting the 
 new view, yet we see they adhere to the old. Let 
 us then look at the teacher of Gesenius, I. S. Vater, 
 a man entirely free fi'om any bigoted prepossessions 
 in favour of theological tenets. After enumerating the 
 different views, and giving that in which Shiloh is 
 taken for the sanctuary a very complete examination, 
 he adds, — 
 
 "All this would be very suitable under the supposition 
 that this song was sung at a time in which Shiloh was the 
 centre of the theocracy The possibility of such a sup- 
 position cannot be denied. Nor can the possibility also that 
 it was sung under the influence of a deep feeling of the pre- 
 eminence of the tribe of Judah in David and his race of 
 kings," &c. — [Commentary, vol. i. p. 321.) 
 
 Such is the language of a very calm rationalist com- 
 mentator, and yet Dr. Williams quietly tells us that 
 nobody would maintain our translation except from 
 " doctrinal perversions." But in fact, the new trans- 
 lation, though patronized by Dr. Williams, really en- 
 tails a series of difficulties, which nothing but very 
 strong '' perversions," whether doctrinal or not, could 
 enable a competent scholar to overlook. What era 
 did the fixing of the tabernacle at Shiloh commence ? 
 What historical importance, except in the religious 
 histoiy of the people, does it possess ? And could 
 the tribe of Judah be said then to exercise any pre- 
 eminence when the leader of the people of Israel 
 was Joshua of the tribe of Ephraim ^ ? If this song, 
 
 ^ It has been well observed that in the time of the Judges, 0th- 
 niel alone was certainly of the tribe of Judah. Ebzon is doubtful. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 97 
 
 as Yater disrespectfully calls it, was forged in the 
 time of Samuel, what a very clumsy forger its au- 
 thor must have been ! The man who swallows this 
 camel may well strain out the few gnats which he 
 finds in the Authorized Version. If Dr. Williams 
 desires to maintain his reputation as a Biblical scholar, 
 he will avoid assertions by which nothing can be 
 proved, except that he has a very arrogant mode of 
 attributing bad motives to those who differ from him, 
 even when it is almost demonstrable that he is in the 
 wrong. All that can be said is, that in a passage of 
 some difficulty. Dr. Williams has taken the side which 
 has not only an overwhelming weight of authority 
 against it, but has very little in its favour, and, not 
 content with this, he denounces all who differ from 
 him, very much in the style of a person who is wholly 
 ignorant of the strength of the case of his opponents ^, 
 
 Such is the impression which this first essay of Dr. 
 ■Williams in Ilebrew criticism in the present Eeview 
 is calculated to make on those who have any compe- 
 tent knowledge of the original passage. 
 
 But we have several other passages despatched in 
 almost as summary a manner, and with about as 
 much regard to the real circumstances of the case. 
 Take for example his view of the second Psalm, or 
 rather one expression in it. Dr. Williams in describing 
 the opinions of Bunsen on various prophetic announce- 
 ments of Scripture, seems to take the position of one 
 leading a poor English neophyte through these dan- 
 gerous mazes in order to familiarize his mind with the 
 
 y Those who read German will find a good account of the different 
 
 opinions on this passage in Die Weissagung Jacohs, Sj-c, by Dr. L. 
 
 Reinke, (Munster, 1849,) pp. 58 — 129. The English reader will 
 
 also find much information in Ilcngstenberg s " Christology," vol. i. 
 
 II 
 
98 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 notion that all Messianic interpretations have been 
 given up and are untenable. He speaks thus of Bun- 
 sen's views of Psalm ii. : — 
 
 " If he would follow our version in rendering the second 
 Psalm, 'Kiss the Son,' he knows that Hebrew idiom con- 
 vinced even Jerome the true meaning was 'worship purely.'" 
 
 In a note he quotes as much of Jerome as suits his 
 purpose, thus : — "Cavillatur . , . quod posuerim, . . . 
 Adorate pure . . . . ne violentus viderer interpres, et 
 Jud. locum dar6m." IS'ow so far from Jerome's being 
 convinced by the Hebrew idiom that this is the real 
 meaning of the passage, he states clearly that one 
 word is ambiguous, and although, to avoid calumnies 
 from the Jews in regard to such an ambiguous word, 
 he translates in the text Adorate pure^ he appears in 
 his notes clearly to prefer the other translation, ' Kiss 
 the Son.' Now could any unlearned reader dream that 
 this was the state of Jerome's mind as to this passage 
 from the bold assertion of the text of Dr. Williams 
 and the very cautious dotted extract which he gives 
 in his note ? 
 
 I here subjoin an exact translation of the whole 
 passage : — 
 
 " He is also said to blame me, because in interpreting the 
 second Psalm, instead of that which is read in the Latin, 
 Apprehendite disciplinam, ' Learn instruction,' and which is 
 written in the Hebrew, -13 pti73, nascu bar, 1 have said Adorate 
 fiUum, ' "Worship the Son,' and then, again, in turning the 
 whole Psalter into the Roman tongue, as if I had forgotten 
 the former interpretation, I have put Adorate pure, which it 
 would seem is a contradiction evident to all. And, indeed, 
 we may pardon him for not being accurately acquainted 
 with Hebrew, when he sometimes is in difficulty in Latin. 
 \W1, nascu, — if we are to translate word for word — is equi- 
 valent to Kara(j)L\y]a-aT€ = deosciilaminl, 'Kiss ye,' and being 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 99 
 
 unwilling to translate it baldly, I followed the sense rather 
 [than the words] so as to translate it adorute, ' AVorship 3-e,' 
 because they who worship are wont to kiss the hand and 
 bow the head, which blessed Job declares that he had not 
 done to the elements and to idols, saying, * If I have seen 
 the sun when it shone, and the moon walking in brightness, 
 and my heart in secret rejoiced, and I kissed my hand, which 
 is a great sin, and a denial of the most high God ;' and the 
 Hebrews, according to the idiom of their language, put 
 deosculatio, ' kissing,' for vcneratio, ' worship.' I have trans- 
 lated that which they, to whose language the word belongs, 
 understand. But -!2, bar, with them has different meanings, 
 for it means ' son,' as in Barjona, ' son of a dove ;' Bar- 
 ptolomseus, 'son of Ptolomseus;' Barthimseus, &c. It means 
 also ' wheat,' and a ' bundle of ears of wheat,' and ' elect ' 
 and 'pure.' "What fault have I committed if I have trans- 
 lated an ambiguous word in different ways ? In my Com- 
 mentary, where there is an opportunity of discussing the 
 matter, I had said Adorate filium, ' Worship the Son,' [but] 
 in the text itseK, not to seem a violent interpreter and not 
 to give occasion to Jewish calumny, I said Adorate pure sice 
 electe, 'Worship purely or in a choice manner,' as Aquila 
 and Symmachus had translated it." — Eieron. adv. Ruffinum, 
 Hb. i. 
 
 The reader will observe how entirely Dr. Williams 
 omits all reference to Jerome's views, as expressed in 
 his notes ^ and how cunningly he cuts out the word 
 calumny^ as applied to the Jewish objectors. Can the 
 unlearned English reader trust such a guide as this ? 
 I must also add that, although Ewald and Hupfeld, 
 as one might expect, reject the Messianic view, De- 
 litzsch, the last learned commentator on the Psalms, 
 maintains it very strongly. 
 
 There is an amount of misrepresentation in these 
 statements which entirely precludes any confidence 
 in an account given by Dr. Williams, either of the 
 
lOO BUXSEX, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 yiews of any wi'iter on a given passage or of the real 
 state of the case in regard to that passage. In one 
 of these instances he has not only pronounced ex ca- 
 thedra^ as it -vrere, an opinion on the meaning of a 
 prophecy against the weight of authority and the 
 general bearing of the passage, but he has coupled 
 the expression of his opinion with the attribution of 
 bad motives to those who do not agree with him. In 
 the other, he has told half the truth as to Jerome's 
 opinion, but only half the truth, and he has shaped 
 his quotation from that Father in such a manner as 
 to conceal the fact that the rest of it altogether makes 
 against him. 
 
 The same spirit of rash assertion marks his treat- 
 ment of the Messianic passage in the 22nd Psalm, 
 where it is very difficult to ascertain the genuine 
 reading; but Dr. Williams would persuade the un- 
 learned reader that the cause has been entirely 
 settled, and that the evidence is all in his favour. 
 So far is this from being the case, that it is one of 
 those passages where learned men find it difficult to 
 make up their mind what the true reading and inter- 
 pretation are. My own belief is, that upon the whole 
 the evidence preponderates for our rendering; but it 
 is a point on which, from the evidence of the Old 
 Testament MSS. alone, there are some difficulties, 
 though the certainty, from the quotations in the 
 New Testament, that other portions of this Psalm 
 are Messianic, is a great argument in favour of the 
 Messianic nature of this verse ^ 
 
 ' To examine this passage properly ^vould require several pages : 
 it is a question both of reading and interpretation. Bp. Pearson 
 considered this one of the passages confessedly altered by the Jews : 
 but later researches have rather altered the conditions of the ques- 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 
 
 These are specimens of the manner in which the 
 evidence for the Messianic interpretation of particular 
 passages of Scripture is dealt with ; it will hardly 
 be expected that an answer should be given to every- 
 one, for this would need a volume. A single sen- 
 tence conveys an objection the answer to which must, 
 if complete, extend to several pages. 
 
 But we will now enter upon a larger field of inter- 
 pretation. The Essayist has given us one interpreta- 
 tion of a prophetic chapter. It is a chapter in the 
 interpretation of which all our deeper feelings of 
 Christianity are so intimately interwoven that a re- 
 ligious man might be expected to approach it with 
 reverence, and if the force of evidence compelled him 
 to give up the old and Christian interpretation of that 
 chapter, he would announce his change of view, if not 
 with sadness, at least with gravity and sobriety. The 
 last thing which a religious man would be expected 
 to do with the 53rd chapter of Isaiah would be to 
 play with its interpretation— as if it were a matter of 
 utter indifference whether a vital prophecy were en- 
 tirely irrelevant or not to the mission of the Ee- 
 deemer of the world. We are not to be led by our 
 preconceived notions, but at all events a religious 
 heart might be expected to part with some of the 
 most striking evidences of our faith with some regret. 
 And truly, when the question concerns a prophecy 
 
 tion. I shall now only refer to De Rossi's " Collations," vol. iv. 
 pp. 14—20 ; Pfeiffer, Buhia Vexata, pp. 305—309 ; Delitzsch and 
 Hupfeld on the passage; Davidson's "Hebrew Text llevised," 
 and Eeinke's MessianUche Psalmen, vol. i. p. 266, &c. Of these, 
 all but Hupleld and Davidson either adopt the sense of ' piercing,' 
 or consider the evidcuce nearly balauced. Eeinkc, as usual, is very 
 full and valuable. 
 
102 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 wliich has almost invariably been held to be one of 
 the most striking in the Bible, to which the New 
 Testament sometimes in sublime silence gives a won- 
 derful testimony "", the last thing we should expect 
 would be very high praise of an ingenious interpre- 
 tation, nay an elaborate exposition of it, where the 
 author after all acknowledges that it does not per- 
 suade him. Why then so elaborately display it ? and 
 why add, that if any individual can be thought to 
 fulfil the prophecy that individual would be judged 
 to be Jeremiah, unless by a kind of insane crusade 
 against the ordinary view of the passage the author 
 wished to deprive the humble Christian of any possi- 
 bility of using this passage as a prophecy of the 
 Messiah? K'ow if either of these interpretations, — 
 that which makes collective Israel the subject of the 
 prophecy, as Dr. Williams appears to believe, or that 
 which makes Jeremiah, as Bunsen maintains, — were 
 proved to fulfil the prophecy in some sense, it would 
 be no proof that it was not intended in a fuller and 
 higher sense to describe the Messiah. But the truth 
 is that if the prophecy be taken as a whole, there are 
 insuperable objections to both these interpretations, 
 which it suits Dr. Williams to ignore, that he may 
 throw a little dust in the eyes of those who are un- 
 fortunate enough to lean on him as an interpreter of 
 Scripture. Great humiliation, and that voluntary, 
 and undergone by an innocent man for the benefit 
 of others, and the most lofty exaltation, these are the 
 characteristics of the subject of that prophecy. It 
 is quite true that once Jeremiah was taken from a 
 
 * When our Lord was silent before Pilate "insomucli that the 
 governor marvelled," no specific reference is made to the passage, 
 hut the prophecy flashes ou our minds at once. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. I03 
 
 dungeon, and so (if this were not a " recognised 
 mistranslation") "he was taken from prison^," but 
 where was his lofty exaltation ? The interpretation 
 fails in a cardinal point, and the Jews themselves 
 have given it up. The German periodical before 
 referred to, says they gave up the Messianic inter- 
 pretation "on paper," that is, in controversy with 
 the Christians ; but if Dr. Williams will ,read their 
 liturgies he will see that they still retain it in reality. 
 Any person well acquainted with Eabbinical writings 
 knows that frequently they used in their commentaries 
 to say " This passage applies to the Messiah, but to 
 answer the Christians we must apply it to some other 
 person;" but when their books began to be published, 
 in many instances they withdrew these words as 
 being discreditable to them. 
 
 The language of Dr. "Williams is somewhat un- 
 guarded. After sketching out Bunsen's reasons for 
 applying the prophecy to Jeremiah, he adds : — 
 
 " This is an imperfect sketch, but may lead readers to con- 
 sider the arguments for applying Isaiah lii. and liii. to Jere- 
 miah. Their weight (in the master's hand) is so great, that 
 if any single person should be selected, they prove Jeremiah 
 sJtoukl be the one.'' 
 
 They may prove it to the Essayist, though what 
 the cogency of a proof may be which fails to produce 
 conviction, I must leave him to explain ; but I doubt 
 whether he will find many to agree with him. Let 
 
 •^ This translation is generally discarded now, so that even this 
 trifling coincidcuce is nullified. See Gescnius, M'Caul, Drechsler, 
 and Henderson. There is a diff"orence of opinion still as to the 
 exact oneaning of the passage ; but none of these interpreters dream 
 of " prison." 
 
104 BUXSEX, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 US examine one or two of his quotations. It is true 
 that Jeremiah appears to have wished to intercede 
 for the Jews, and the Essayist refers to Jer. xviii. 20, 
 xiv. 11, XV. 1, in proof of this ; fi'om which passages 
 (xiv. 11 and xv. 1) we learn that God forbade Jere- 
 miah to intercede for them as he had done, for the 
 judgments must come upon them ; and in xviii. 20 he 
 says, "Eemember that I stood before Thee to speak 
 good for them, and to turn away Thy wrath from 
 them." It is a pity that the Essayist omitted to 
 give the sequel of this intercession found in xviii. 21, 
 the very next verse, which runs thus: — "Therefore 
 deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out 
 their blood by the force of the sword ; and let their 
 wives be bereaved of their children, and be widows ; 
 and let their men be put to death ; let their young 
 men be slain with the sword in battle. Let a cry 
 be heard from their houses, when Thou shalt bring 
 a troop suddenly upon them : for they have digged 
 a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet. Yet, 
 Lord, Thou knowest all their counsel against me to 
 slay me : forgive not their iniquity^ neither blot out their 
 sin from Thj sight, but let them be overthi'own be- 
 fore Thee ; deal thus with them in the time of Thine 
 
 *= And ret in the very face of these denunciations of his perse- 
 cutors. Baron Bunsen ventures to use the following language, Avhich 
 I translate literaUy from the German original : — " Jeremiah says 
 in speaking of the cruel persecutions of the citizens of his native 
 town, xi. 18, &c., 'The Lord has given me knowledge of it, and 
 I know it : then Thou shewedst me their doings. But I was like 
 a lamb or an ox that is brought to the slaughter.' And afterwards 
 kings and nobles wrought all in their power to realize this antici- 
 pation of the prophet. And if Jeremiah when Pashur cast him into 
 ihc dungeon, broke out into loud lamentations on his misfortune, 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. I05 
 
 It may suit the Essayist to ignore this sequel to 
 the declaration of Jeremiah that he had formerly 
 interceded for the people, in whose prosperity, should 
 it come, he himself would have shared, and he may 
 consider this a striking fulfilment of the prophecy ; 
 but who will follow him in this perversion ? I speak 
 not of the Christian sentiment only, but I simply ask 
 what shall we think of an exegesis which can refer 
 to passages like Jer. xviii. 20, followed as it is by 
 
 and prayed God to ennoble his reputation by the punishment of these 
 men who denied his truth ; yet we find in the last most bitter trial 
 to which he was subjected in Judnea, no word of impatience escape 
 him, still less a word of desire that God should revenge him on his 
 enemies. But on the contranj, there runs through his whole life 
 the very inmost {die innigste) intercession for the transgressors! 
 to which allusion is made in the end of the celebrated chapter of 
 Isaiah."— 6^o« in der Geschichfe, vol. i. pp. 205, 206. 
 
 It is true that one half of a verse of Isaiah appears to be fulfilled 
 by the declaration of Jeremiah that he is " led as a lamb or an ox 
 to the slaughter," but the slightest amount of attention, one would 
 think, would have sufficed to shew that such a fulfilment utterly 
 contradicted the rest of the verse ! The sheep of Isaiah is dumb and 
 opens not its mouth, but Jeremiah utters loud complaints not un- 
 mixed with denunciations ! We are now entitled to ask where the 
 prejudiced view lies ? With Baron Bunsen who is determined that 
 the prophecy shall he no prophecy, or with us who believe the pro- 
 phecy, and find its fulfilment where the Church of Christ has found 
 it for 1800 years ? But above all, how can Bunsen dare to say that 
 throughout the life of Jeremiah he was constantly interceding for 
 the transgressors ? 
 
 And again, though not a word is said of Jeremiah's death, Baron 
 Bunsen assumes that he perished by " a cruel murder," because 
 the great proiihct of truth could " scarcely" be expected to escape 
 martyrdom. And this fact (I) for which he appeals to his own con- 
 jecture, rather than the tradition preserved in Jerome, and these con- 
 tradictions to the prophet's own words, form the basis of Bunsen's 
 application of this prophecy to Jeremiah. And this absurd spe- 
 culation, which scarcely deserves a refutation, gains for the author 
 from Dr. Williams the high praise of being from the hand of a master ! 
 
lo6 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 these denunciations, as a fulfilment of the prophecy 
 of " interceding for transgressors;" and dare to pre- 
 fer it to that most thrilling, most awful prayer of 
 mercy, which rose from the lips of One in the very 
 agony of a painful death, when He who even then 
 spake as never man spake, made that sublime inter- 
 cession for His persecutors, " Father, forgive them, for 
 they know not what they do." 
 
 It cannot be needful to go through the weary 
 task of examining each, quotation in detail, here ; I 
 would only recommend those who have any desire to 
 investigate the question, to do as I have done — ex- 
 amine them carefully ; and I believe that the conclu- 
 sion of such persons will be the same as mine, that 
 no more unfounded assertion was ever made than that, 
 if any single person should be selected, tliey 'prove Jere- 
 miah to he the one ! The English and the argument of 
 this sentence are nearly on a par, but it is useless to 
 cavil about trifles when such momentous questions are 
 at issue. The discrepancies between the history of 
 Jeremiah and the words of the prophecy are so manifest, 
 that Saadias Gaon has found few followers till Bunsen 
 revived this palpable controversial device. Even Abar- 
 banel himself, one of the most bitter opponents of 
 Christianity among the Jews, says, " In truth I do not 
 see even one verse that can prove the truth of its 
 application to him." And yet Bunsen is spoken of 
 as a " master" in exegesis here, not for proving the 
 truth, but for his ingenious defence of a theory which 
 the Essayist himself rejects. His notions of a masterly 
 exposition and a ''proof" are so manifestly peculiar, 
 that we must conceive these words to belong to a 
 private vocabulary of the English language in use at 
 Lampeter, but not current elsewhere. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. I07 
 
 Abarbauel proposed both Josiah and the Jewish 
 nation. Josiah is scarcely worth considering. But 
 what particidar interpretation Dr. Williams does 
 adopt, it would be difficult to say. His words are 
 these : — 
 
 " Still the general analogy of the Old Testament which 
 makes collective Israel, or the prophetic remnant ^ especially 
 the servant of Jehovah, and the comparison of chaps, xlii. 
 xlix. may permit us to think the oldest interpretation the 
 truest ; with only this admission, that the figure of Jeremiah 
 stood forth among the Prophets, and tinged the delineation 
 of the true Israel, that is, the faithful remnant who had been 
 disbelieved — ^just as the figure of Laud or Hammond might 
 represent the Caroline Church in the eyes of her poet. 
 
 " If this seems but a compromise, it may be justified by 
 Ewald's phrase, ' Die wenigen Treuen im Exile, Jeremjah und 
 Andre,' (the few faithful in the captivity, Jeremiah and 
 others,) though he makes the servant ideahzed Israel." 
 
 It would be convenient in considering this author's 
 views, to be able to ascertain exactly what they are, 
 but as he does not seem to be quite fixed in any one 
 view, it is a hopeless task. Collective Israel^ or the 
 faithful remnant^ or the p'ophetic remnant^ — though 
 I suppose by " the faithful remnant" he means the 
 faithful prophetic remnant, — appear to prefer almost 
 equal claims to acceptance ; and the author seems to 
 oscillate between them with a beautiful impartiality, 
 throwing in only a word in favour of Jeremiah, which 
 leaves us as much in the dark as we were before. 
 Can Dr. Williams believe that these interpretations 
 are synonymous, or that an amalgamation of all of 
 
 "* The italics are mine, not the author's. The reader will observe 
 that Dr. Wilhams leaves it open wliicli of these interpretations we 
 ai-e to choose, as if either would do. 
 
lo8 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 them can possibly stand ? If he does, his character 
 for critical acumen will scarcely survive such palpable 
 incongruities ! And this, it is to be observed, is the 
 criticism of a man who thinks he is not interpreting 
 a ])ropliecij^ but an historical narrative^ where a writer 
 would describe events without ambiguity. 
 
 But these vacillations are trifles compared with the 
 assertion that the interpretation now in favour with 
 the Jews is the ^^ oldest interpretation." Our own 
 interpretation is at least coeval with the ISTew Testa- 
 ment, (see 1 Pet. ii. 24, &c.) a clear proof that it rests 
 upon an older basis still. And though Origen informs 
 us that in a dispute with learned Jews one of them 
 attempted to evade the force of this prophecy by such 
 an interpretation, this is very slender evidence that 
 they generally accepted it, even then. And, if we 
 enquii'e of the Jewish authorities themselves, we find 
 them acknowledging that the ancient Jews interpreted 
 this prophecy of the IMessiah. The Targum distinctly 
 recognises it, the most ancient Jewish interpreters 
 acknowledge it : even in the present day, the litur- 
 gies of the Jews testify their adherence to the ancient 
 view in a manner which is far more convincing than 
 a controversial statement would be. 
 
 Before however I pass on to another subject, it 
 will be right to mark the treatment Bishop Pearson 
 receives at the hands of Dr. Williams. His vast at- 
 tainments and his great power have obtained for him 
 an homage which has scarcely ever been refused by 
 those who are competent to test his learning. But, 
 as the late Archdeacon Hare used to say, " Many an 
 empty head is shaken at Plato and Ai'istotle ;" and in 
 a similar manner we find occasionally a perverse dis- 
 position which seems to rejoice in throAving a stone 
 
AND DR. WILLTAAIS. IO9 
 
 at departed greatness. Thus the Essayist remarks 
 '' It is idle tvith Pearson to quote Jonathan as a wit- 
 ness to the Christian interpretation, unless his con- 
 ception of the Messiah were ours." The transparent 
 absurdity of this remark strikes the mind so forcibly, 
 that it would be a matter of surprise that the author 
 did not reject it himself, if we did not find many 
 other illogical remarks throughout the Essay. So 
 then, it is really the opinion of Dr. Williams that we 
 do nothing, even if we shew that all the ancient Jews 
 considered this prophecy as clearly relating to the 
 Messiah, unless they will acknowledge that Jesus is the 
 Messiah ! I fear that even the first class at Lampeter 
 will hardly be contented with husks like these ; and 
 men of plain sense will consider it of rather more im- 
 portance that the whole of the ancient Jewish Church 
 accepted this view, than that Bunsen applies it to 
 Jeremiah, and Dr. Williams to the collective Israel ! 
 Bishop Pearson was probably almost as good a judge 
 of the cogency of arguments — if we may presume to 
 compare any one to Dr. Williams — as the Essayist 
 himself. And I do not very much fear that the repu- 
 tation of Bishop Pearson will suffer much damage 
 from so puerile an attack. 
 
 But before I leave this part of the subject, it is 
 only justice to Dr. Williams to remark that he only 
 denies that these great declarations of Scripture are 
 predictions; he professes to acknowledge that their 
 moral teaching has its highest fulfilment in Christ. 
 His words are : "A little reflection will shew how the 
 historical reitresentation in Isaiah liii. is of some 
 suffering prophet or remnant," (which ?) " yet the 
 truth and patience, the grief and triumph, have their 
 highest fulfilment in Him who said ' Father, not My 
 
110 BUXSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 will but Thine.' But we must not distort the pro- 
 phets to prove the Divine AYord incarnate, and then 
 from the incarnation reason back to the sense of 
 prophecy'." 
 
 I was not aware of the intention with which the 
 remark in the latter part of this paragraph was made, 
 till I happened to find an allusion in Mr. Hansel's 
 Bampton Lectui'es to the views of Dr. Williams on 
 the oord of Isaiah, as developed in his " Eational 
 Godliness." 
 
 Mr. Mansel (p. 418) argues that if we believe one 
 such miracle as the incarnation of our Lord, we have 
 no reason to disbelieve another, such as the prediction 
 of future events under the inspii'ation of God. And 
 this Dr. WiUiams calls reasoning back from the incar- 
 nation to the sense of prophecy. It seems strange that 
 a man of any acuteness could fail to see that Mr. 
 iMansel did not reason back to the sense of the pro- 
 phecy ; the sense of the prophecy must be determined 
 by just principles of interpretation ; but Mr. Mansel 
 argues that if it must be interpreted of Christ, we 
 have no reason to reject it from a priori and general 
 objections to miracles. The only possible efi'ect this 
 can have on the interpretation of this special prophecy 
 or any other is this, that it leaves us at liberty 
 to take the irredictive sense, if other considerations 
 
 ^ A little more of the same sort follows. Israel would be acknow- 
 ledged as in some sense a Messiah, &c., but the Saviour, who ful- 
 filled in His own person the highest aspirations of Hebrew seers and 
 of mankind, thereby lifting the words, so to speak, into a new and 
 higher power, would be recognised as having eminently the unction 
 of a prophet whose words die not, of a priest in a temple not 
 made with hands, and of a king in the realm of thought, delivering 
 His people from a bondage of moral evil, worse than Egyj^t or 
 Babylon, &c. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. Ill 
 
 lead us to it^ As we do not therefore reason back 
 from the incarnation "to the sense of prophecy," 
 I feel no inclination to enter on the defence of a 
 course which we do not adopt. 
 
 We shall simply remark that Christ and His apo- 
 stles tell us that the Hebrew Scriptures testify of 
 Him, and they expressly ascribe a predictive sense 
 to the prophecies. We have therefore, on the one 
 hand, Christ and His apostles, who assui-e us that the 
 prophecies are predictions ; on the other, we have 
 Dr. ^Villiams "and the critical school, who assure us 
 that they are not. The question is therefore simply 
 this, — Will you believe Christ and His apostles, or will 
 you believe the critical school? The pretence of 
 a moral fulfilment is only a device to cover the bare- 
 faced impudence of denying the very words of the 
 Saviour and His apostles, but it is too flimsy to de- 
 ceive even the most ignorant. I will not accuse Dr. 
 Williams of placing it there intentionally to deceive 
 the ignorant : I suppose that he himself considers 
 this moral fulfilment as more than equivalent to the 
 real fulfilment of a ho7id fide prediction. But as this 
 is a peculiar view, and as those who think with me 
 believe that it cannot be maintained without falsifying 
 the words of our Saviour and contradicting His own 
 account of the Scriptures, Dr. Williams must excuse 
 his opponents if they speak very plainly as to the 
 worthlessness of his admissions. 
 
 ' Mr. Mansel says indeed, " Once concede the possibility of the 
 supernatural at all, and the :Messiamc interpretation is the only one 
 reconcileable with the facts of history and the plain meaning of 
 ■words." He finds out the plain meaning of the words from a true 
 exegesis ; and he only argues from the Incarnation that you have 
 no right to reject this sense because it implies a miracle. 
 
112 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 The observations which have been made may serve 
 to shew with how little justice the Essayist has at- 
 tempted to exhibit this wonderful prophecy as a piece 
 of historical writing of a date posterior to the time of 
 Isaiah. This is all which I am here concerned to 
 shew, but if a commentary on this most astounding 
 prophecy be required, I may state that great assist- 
 ance may be derived towards its exegesis from the 
 Essay of Hengstenberg, either in its early form as 
 translated in Clark's "Biblical Cabinet," or in its more 
 developed condition as found in the " Christ ology of 
 the Old Testament," (published also by Messrs. Clark,) 
 and from the pamphlet of Dr. M'Caul, or Dr. Hen- 
 derson's " Translation of Isaiah." From all these 
 sources together, the mere English reader will obtain 
 a very sufficient refutation of the non-Messianic inter- 
 pretations, and he will be able also to elicit from 
 a comparison of the various views of each verse, an 
 interpretation of the whole which will give him much 
 satisfaction. The works of Bishops Chandler and 
 Lowth, as well as that of Prebendary Lowth, may be 
 consulted with advantage. 
 
 In the indiscriminate onslaught upon prophets 
 and prophecy it could not be expected that Daniel, 
 whose predictions are the most definite of all included 
 in the sacred volume, should escape proscription. We 
 have however, in Bunsen and Dr. Williams, very little 
 which is new. It seems sometimes to be imagined 
 that the attacks upon Daniel are due to some new 
 discoveries, and that the Germans have brought a 
 host of new arguments against the genuineness of 
 this portion of Scripture ; but if we look at the selec- 
 tion of topics made by Dr. Williams to overwhelm 
 this prophet, we shall find that even down to the very 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. II3 
 
 words selected as proviug that the language is later 
 than his time, they are all the old cramhc repetita. 
 The simple fact is, that the Germans and Dr. WilKams 
 follow Porphyry and Collins, while others consider that 
 their arguments are insufficient to warrant their con- 
 clusions. It is true that Bunsen and Ewald have 
 added each his own particular theory to the general 
 medley of speculation upon this prophet, but they 
 have met with little favour, even in Germany. The 
 extraordinary facility with which a prophet or two is 
 extemporized in Germany, would surprise those who 
 are not aware of the strength of the theorizing faculty 
 in the German mind. ' If one Isaiah or one Daniel 
 will not solve the question satisfactorily, take two,' ap- 
 pears to be the rule, and accordingly an earlier Daniel 
 is supposed by Baron Bunsen to have lived, not at 
 Babylon, but at the Assyrian court, about twenty- 
 two years before Sargina (the Sargon of Scripture 
 and the father of Sennacherib) overturned the ancient 
 dynasty of Assyria. The history of Daniel is partly 
 derived, according to this view, from traditional tales 
 about the older Daniel, and some of the prophecies 
 are a traditional reconstruction of these, with sundry 
 confusions between Assyria and Babylon. It is hardly 
 worth while to spend our time in considering so gra- 
 tuitous an hypothesis, for even the German rational- 
 ists assure us that Baron Bunsen has done for Daniel 
 very little except to add to the perplexity in which his 
 history is involved. Bleek, who also supposes another 
 Daniel of a more ancient date than ours, entirely re- 
 pudiates the suppositions of Ewald and Bunsen, and 
 closes his remarks upon them with these words : 
 *' By such assumptions the explanation of the exist- 
 ence of our Book of Daniel in its present condition is 
 I 
 
114 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 by no means rendered more easy, but on the contrary, 
 more difficult." 
 
 It must be clear to every man of plain common 
 sense, that if the license quidlihet auclendi which was 
 conceded to poets and painters is assumed by German 
 critics, the theological world cannot be expected to 
 disprove each hypothesis separately. The question 
 must be argued in a different manner. If the objectors 
 to the genuineness of Daniel are content to rake up 
 again and endorse all the miserable mistakes and 
 perversions of Porphyry and Collins, we are surely 
 entitled to assert that they have entirely failed to 
 make out theii* case, without writing a volume to 
 confute a sentence. I shall merely remark with re- 
 gard to the arguments, that they chiefly rest on two 
 assertions : — 
 
 1. That the prophecies of Daniel are so clear as to 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, and so manifestly end with him, 
 that it is to be inferred that they were written shortly 
 after his time. 
 
 2. That the language is not that of the time of 
 Daniel, and that Greek words occur in Daniel, espe- 
 cially in the names of the musical instruments^, which 
 proves that its author lived long after the time in 
 which Daniel is placed according to the Bible. 
 
 These are the two main grounds, and neither of them 
 is capable of any satisfactory proof. The first pro- 
 
 s With, regard to the names of the musical instruments, the ob- 
 jectors fail in two primary points. They entirely fail in proving 
 that they are derived from the Greek ; and, if they did, they cannot 
 prove that this would necessarily bring down the date to a later 
 period than 536 B.C. They might almost as well deduce the AkJca- 
 dimi mentioned ia Rawlinson's Memoir on Nineveh fi'om Academus. 
 See also Dr. Mill's " Historical Character of St. Luke's First Chapter 
 Yindicated," pp. 65 — 69. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. II5 
 
 position is also manifestly false in one of its asser- 
 tions, for the prophecies extend to far later times 
 than those of Antiochus. Indeed, the supposition that 
 Antiochus Epiphancs is intended in some parts of those 
 prophecies of Daniel which are so confidently applied 
 to him, is attended with insuperable difficulties, as 
 any one who is disposed to enquire into this matter 
 may learn from Bishop Chandler, especially pp. 140 
 — 157, and Bishop Newton on the prophecies. In 
 chapter vii. (see Chandler, pp. 206—282,) the little 
 horn cannot be Antiochus Epiphanes, although in an- 
 other chapter (the eighth) some things may be attri- 
 buted to him which belong to the little horn. But if 
 the fourth kingdom be the Eoman, (and what other 
 will answer to its description ?) then the fifth kingdom 
 can be no other than the kingdom of Christ. We 
 may not be able to explain every part of these pro- 
 phecies, but we know enough to shew that Antiochus 
 Epiphanes could really fulfil only a very small part 
 of them, and that those who attempt to apply the rest 
 to him, involve themselves in inextricable contradic- 
 tions. It is manifestly impossible to answer a general 
 statement like that of Dr. Williams, because we do not 
 know how many of the prophecies he applies to Antio- 
 chus Epiphanes, nor how he explains them. 
 
 Again, with regard to the suspicious words, if the 
 enquirer will consult either llavernick's " Daniel," or 
 Hengstenberg's Die Authentie des Daniel unci die Inte- 
 gritdt des Sacharijah^ he will see with how little reason 
 this argument has been alleged. Modern philology, 
 upon the whole, has rather tended to remove this ob- 
 jection than to confii-m it '\ 
 
 ^ I may direct those who do not read German, and cannot there- 
 fore make use of Hiivernick and Ilengstcnberg, to an Essay in the 
 
 I 2 
 
Il6 EUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 The same remark must apply to the statements 
 regarding Zechariah. I have now before me two 
 volumes in German, in one of which the author ap- 
 pends a defence of the integrity of Zechariah to that 
 of the genuineness of Daniel, viz., the volume of 
 Hengstenberg to which I have just referred; the 
 other is a Commentary on Zechariah, by "W. Neu- 
 mann, published at Stuttgart in the course of last 
 year, which does not seem to think the hypothesis 
 of the authorship of the book being divided between 
 Zechariah and Uriah worth mentioning. These hy- 
 potheses being endless, it is of course impossible to 
 refute them. If objections are raised against one, 
 another is ready to take its place. And with regard 
 to Daniel, it must be observed that while these hypo- 
 theses are as plentiful as blackberries, no one seems 
 to advert to the utter improbability that a spurious 
 book should be inserted into the canon of the Jewish 
 Scriptures between the time of Antiochus Epiphanes 
 and our Savioui-, and that no suspicion of this ill 
 dealing should ever arise till Porphyry denied the 
 prophecies because they were clear, and declared that 
 they must be historical narrative and not prediction. 
 The camel is swallowed, and the gnat very carefully 
 strained out. The German rationalists find no diffi- 
 culty in believing in the genuineness of Ossian, while 
 they repudiate that of the Pentateuch \ 
 
 "Journal of Sacred Literature" for January last, on the Chaldee of 
 Daniel and Ezra, for a great deal of information- on this subject. 
 
 • We must not altogether omit aU notice of Bunsen's views on 
 Jonah, because they have been made in the pages of this Essay the 
 occasion of a sneer at the English. Baron Bunsen in his Gott in 
 der GeschicJite defends the genuineness of Jonah's prayer, but treats 
 the history of Jonah, though warranted by our Saviour's own words, 
 as a mere myth. On this, Dr. Williams, with his usual courtesy 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. II7 
 
 "W^e have now examined a very considerable portion 
 of the statements, if they deserve the name, of Dr. 
 Williams, and we have not found one which has the 
 common merit of fairly representing the truth. An 
 examination such as this must necessarily be imper- 
 fect, but if it is shewn that the representations of 
 the author are such, that no person who is unable 
 to investigate thoroughly the questions of which he 
 treats, can gain any just notion of the state of those 
 questions, but, on the contrary, is certain to imbibe 
 a most prejudiced and untrue view of them, the mis- 
 chief which his statements can do will be diminished. 
 To those who are competent to discuss these questions, 
 I do not think that a single word of reply would bo 
 needed. There is not an objection brought forward 
 with which they are not familiar, and the only thing 
 which they can deem novel is the positive and aiTo- 
 gant tone in which our acceptance is challenged for 
 what most of them will believe to be by far the least 
 probable interpretation of the passages to which allu- 
 sion is made. / ^ ~ 
 
 towards Englisli believers, remarks, " One can imagine tlie cheers 
 which the opening of such an essay might evoke in some of o^ wn 
 circles, changing into indignation as the distinguished forei^r 
 developed his views." My belief is that no weU-informed En- 
 glishman would feel any exultation at finding that Bunsen accepted 
 his views, because, if he knew much of Bimsen, he would feel 
 his judgment to be so fallible and weak, that his opinion on a point 
 of genuineness would be of little value. And in the very chapter 
 in Gott in der Geschichte which treats of Jonah he would find a re- 
 markable confirmation of his distrust of Bunsen's judgment on 
 a question of genuineness, for the author there declai-es his belief 
 that a very trumpery poem found in JElian, which professes to b9 
 the song of Arion, is really the production of this individual. To 
 account for the inferiority of the style he tells us that we must 
 remember that Arion was not a poet, but a baUet-master. 
 
1 ! 8 EUXSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 It may perhaps be expected that a few words should 
 be said about the remarks on the Trinity and the doc- 
 trines of St. Paul, but they appear so harmless from 
 the superficial and sketchy manner in which they are 
 delivered, and from their extreme weakness, that it 
 would be unwise to give them importance by raising 
 up serious objections to them. If any person believes 
 that the language of Scripture can be explained in 
 regard to the relation of Father, Son, and Spirit, by 
 considering these terms as equivalent to will, wisdom, 
 and love ; as light, radiance, and warmth ; as foun- 
 tain, stream, and united flow, &c., he is beyond the 
 reach of argument. Let a person take any one of 
 these triads, and read the first chapter of St. John, 
 substituting the middle term of this triad for the 
 Word, and the first for God, and he will soon perceive 
 the vanity of this mode of explanation ; or let him 
 attempt to explain the epistles of St. Paul on the 
 principles enounced in p. 80 of this Essay, and he will 
 very soon leave the guidance of Bunsen, if he desii'cs 
 either to understand or explain St, Paul. There is 
 nothing in this portion of the Essay to overthrow the 
 truth of Scripture facts, and the view of the doctrines 
 is not profound enough for the learned nor attractive 
 enough for the simple reader. It may, therefore, 
 safely be left to its native weakness. No attempt 
 will be made to expose its imbecile weakness unless 
 it is supported by fresh developments and new ar- 
 guments. It will be left to take its place with 
 other rather ambiguous endeavours to explain the 
 Epistles of St. Paul in a non-natural sense, such as 
 that of Taylor on the Epistle to the Eomans. If there 
 is any truth in the statements which have here been 
 made against Dr. Williams, they are sufficient to ruin 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. I19 
 
 tie credit of his Essay, and to shew that it is full, 
 even to overflowing, of misrepresentations, which are 
 highly discreditable even if they proceed from igno- 
 rance and carelessness, but if they are made with 
 a consciousness of their nature, deserve a still deeper 
 reprobation. 
 
 A large portion of this Essay havmg now been sub- 
 jected to examination, it may be desirable, before we 
 conclude our remarks, to recapitulate the results to 
 which we have attained. We believe that it has been 
 shewn, — 
 
 1. That the author in his account of the present 
 state of theological literature in Germany has entirely 
 misrepresented its condition ; that he has greatly ex- 
 aggerated the achievements of the critical school, and 
 appears utterly to ignore its miserable failures, blun- 
 ders, and extravagances; and that either from his 
 ignorance of the fact, or from a wilful suppression of 
 the truth, he gives the impression that there is an 
 almost unanimous acceptance of these views among 
 the learned in Germany, while the real truth is that 
 the rationalist cause is daily losing ground in that 
 country. 
 
 2. That in describing the course of prophetical 
 interpretation in England, the author has entirely mis- 
 represented the whole case. That he has specified 
 three persons in particular as giving indkect testimony 
 to his views, viz.. Bishop Chandler, Bishop Butler, and 
 Dr. Paley, and that in every case he has utterly mis- 
 represented their testimony. Of Bishop Chandler's 
 views he appears wholly ignorant; Bishop Butler's 
 argument he has entirely misunderstood; and with 
 regard to Dr. Paley, he has misrepresented his selec- 
 tion of one case only as a virtual abandonment of the 
 
120 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 rest, while the author himself expressly obviates in 
 the strongest possible terms any such inference from 
 this selection. 
 
 3. That in the exegesis of particular passages^ the 
 author has shewn by the arrogance with which he 
 treats those who differ from him, even in the most 
 difficult passages, that he is either wholly ignorant of 
 the weight of argument and authority against him, or 
 unable to appreciate it ; and that in order to favour 
 his views he has in one case misrepresented the views 
 of Jerome, and garbled his text so as to favour his 
 misrepresentation; that he has attributed to Jerome 
 exegetical absurdities on a very partial examination 
 of his words, to which a further acquaintance with 
 Jerome would give a very different colouring; and 
 that no person desiring to know the truth on any of 
 these questions would derive any assistance from the 
 remarks of the Essayist, but, on the contrary, would 
 necessarily derive a very false impression from them. 
 
 4. That in regard to the interpretation of Isaiah 
 lii., liii., the Essayist has given the highest praise to 
 Bunsen for an interpretation which has very little to 
 recommend it, and what he has exhibited in some par- 
 ticulars is flatly contradicted by the very passages 
 adduced to prove it; that notwithstanding his high 
 praise of this interpretation, he rejects it himself, and 
 yet most strangely endeavours to amalgamate it with 
 two, if not three, other interpretations with which it is 
 wholly incompatible ; and that he has thus given to 
 the world a specimen of utter incompetence in the 
 interpretation of Scripture, which must take away all 
 
 '' The assertions and interpretations which are not examined here 
 are not one whit more trustworthy, but those which. have been 
 selected offer the most definite tests of their inaccuracies. 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 121 
 
 confidence in his opinions, until he shews that he has 
 better grounds for them than any which he has hitherto 
 put forth. 
 
 5. That in regard to Daniel, the Essayist has done 
 nothing except to assert a few of the oldest and the 
 most commonplace objections to the genuineness of 
 this part of Scripture ; that he takes no notice of 
 the fact that they have frequently been refuted, but 
 brings them forward as if they were irresistible, only 
 because he yields assent to them himself. 
 
 If these charges against the Essayist are founded 
 in truth, the least which can be claimed for them is 
 this, that the Essayist is entirely disqualified as a guide 
 of those who are unable to pursue such enquiries for 
 themselves. They prove, if they are established, that 
 no person who desires to have a true view of the evi- 
 dence for Scripture or for the interpretation of pro- 
 phecy can possibly attain it from the statements of 
 this writer, and consequently that his Essay, instead 
 of assisting the well-informed and able enquirer in his 
 search after truth, is only calculated to mislead the 
 ignorant, and to induce him to embrace falsehood 
 rather than truth. 
 
 These are heavy charges, but the author can have 
 no reason to complain, because the reason for each 
 assertion is given. They are not simple assertions, 
 as his are, without proof. Each charge is supported 
 by evidence, and if the evidence is insufficient, the 
 author has an opportunity of answering it. The as- 
 sertions of the rationalists are dangerous only when 
 they are made without the arguments on which they 
 are founded, because it is usually impossible really 
 to refute an assertion unless the grounds on which 
 it is made are alleged, except in regard to matters 
 
122 EUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 of positive fact or of mathematical or scientific tmtli. 
 If a person asserted that the three angles of a triangle 
 are greater than two right angles, the falsehood of 
 such an assertion might be demonstrated, but if we are 
 told that the contents of Daniel prove that it is later 
 than the period to which it is assigned, we cannot 
 answer the statement until the specific manner in 
 which the anachronism occurs is indicated. 
 
 In answering Dr. Williams, we are obliged to con- 
 fine ourselves to a destructive process, without at- 
 tempting a constructive argument. It is necessary to 
 shew those whom he misleads that they cannot trust 
 him. Had this Essay been addressed to men capable 
 of discussing the questions to which they relate, no 
 answer would have been required, but as it is cal- 
 culated to mislead the uninformed, the truth de- 
 mands a defence. I know not with what feelings 
 these authors may regard the circumstance, that 
 infidel societies have assisted in promoting the read- 
 ing of these Essays in cities and large toAvns, by 
 buying copies to cut them up and lend them out 
 at a penny per Essay ! and clubs were formed that 
 those who could not afford to purchase this expensive 
 luxury might at least have the satisfaction of learning 
 that the Church of which all the Essayists, except 
 one, are ministers, is teaching them doctrines founded 
 on a book full of the grossest untruths and the most 
 extravagant myths, and based upon miracles which 
 are unworthy of any belief. But this is the fact. 
 
 Such is the practical result of this " free handling" 
 of sacred subjects. If the conclusions to which the 
 Essayists would lead us were true, it would be our 
 duty to accept them, with all their awful consequences, 
 with all the confusion they would bring into our 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 123 
 
 knowledge, all the uncertainty tlicy tlirow on the 
 prospects of a life beyond tlie grave. But as these 
 views, instead of being an advance on our present 
 knowledge, are really a miserable return towards 
 ignorance and heathenism, every Christian man, 
 who can examine and expose them, is bound to 
 the utmost of his power to oppose them. Neither 
 the knowledge nor the judgment she^vn in any of 
 the Essays appear to me to warrant the tone in 
 which the volume is written, for the knowledge of 
 the subject shewn in the Essay of Dr. Williams ap- 
 pears to be of the most superficial kind, and the judg- 
 ment for the most part seems to lead the author 
 almost invariably to embrace the weakest side, and 
 where I have given any time to the examination of 
 the rest I have found that they have no superiority 
 in these respects. For instance, in the Essay on 
 the "^Religious Tendencies of England from 1G88 — 
 1750," the whole weight of the argument, such as 
 it is, is produced by ignoring the literature of 
 that period which was not devoted to evidences, 
 and a great deal of its infidel literature. No notice 
 is taken of the " Oracles of Eeason," a book con- 
 stantly referred to in the earlier part of the last 
 century, and very little is said of the various works 
 of Collins. The author attributes to the age a sort 
 of monomania for manufacturing evidences, and of 
 coui'se with such a theory it is very convenient to 
 ignore almost all the infidel literature which called forth 
 these replies. Indeed, I cannot think that any person 
 can be very much misled by a writer who makes 
 Humphrey Pridoaux, who died in 1724, a voucher 
 for the state of public opinion in 1748, and who, in 
 talking very confidently about the controversies as to 
 
124 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 the oiigin of the Gospels, blunders irretrievably be- 
 tween Marsh's Michaelis and his Lectures at Cambridge! 
 These may be slips of the pen, but there is too much 
 besides in the Essay which indicates a very hasty and 
 superficial view, to permit the author to escape censure 
 under this plea. When we behold defects like these, 
 and can discover nothing that contributes in any 
 degree to advance our knowledge of sacred things, 
 the arrogant tone and the assumption of superiority 
 which characterize this volume would provoke a 
 smile, if they did not stir up deeper feelings in the 
 heart, — feelings of sorrow for the ignorant who have 
 been misled, and the certain infidelity and immorality 
 which must result from principles like these being 
 disseminated among the half-educated and the igno- 
 rant. For, after all, it is to these classes that the 
 mischief is done. So far from deprecating the fullest 
 discussion of Scripture difficulties among the learned, 
 I am rejoiced when any question is thoroughly dis- 
 cussed, because I am sure the truth will prevail ; and 
 I firmly believe that the truth is with those who be- 
 lieve in Scripture as the inspired word of God, and 
 bow before its authority. For myself, I am haj^py to 
 have been obliged to examine very carefully some 
 portions of the evidences for the truth and the inspira- 
 tion of Scripture, because I bring from that examina- 
 tion the most profound contempt for arrogant asser- 
 tions, and the most convincing proofs to my own 
 mind that they alone who build on Scripture as the 
 only solid foundation of religious truth, are like the 
 wise man who laid the foundations of his house in the 
 solid rock. Every attempt of Dr. Williams to dis- 
 parage Scripture as an inspired book which I have 
 been obliged to examine, has only impressed on my 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. 125 
 
 mind more deeply the wonderful nature of that reve- 
 lation which God has been pleased to make to man, 
 and the unassailable strength of the evidence by 
 which He has recommended it to our acceptance. The 
 endeavour to reduce it to a mere moral phenomenon, 
 and to reject, as Bunsen professes to do, all external 
 revelation as a fable, appears to me to rest on nothing 
 but the determination to resist all evidence, and to 
 discard all the rules of soimd criticism in interpreting 
 a volume which is still in some unaccountable way sup- 
 posed to represent the will of God. We have no right 
 to attribute the opinions of Bunsen to Dr. Williams, for 
 he carefully abstains from making himself directly an- 
 swerable for them, however strongly he may indirectly 
 recommend them to the unwary. But we have a full 
 right to bring him fiice to face with the consequences 
 of that system which he thus indirectly and by inference 
 supports, and to those whom he is misleading we are 
 bound to present the contradictions and absurdities in 
 which they involve themselves by following such prin- 
 ciples. And in concluding this review I will endeavour 
 to bring the matter to a fair conclusion. Whenever 
 Dr. Williams officiates in the devotional services of 
 the Church, he repeats an old — perhaps he may think 
 an obsolete — form of words, I mean the Apostles' Creed. 
 Kow this Creed asserts that our Saviour was crucified, 
 dead, and buried, and that after three days lie rose again 
 from the dead and afterwards ascended into heaven. 
 I give Dr. Williams credit for a belief in that which 
 his lips thus utter, and I ask him whether he believes 
 that lie who thus died and rose again, and who 
 claimed to be Son of God, is to be supposed less 
 acquainted with the truth and the meaning of the 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament than Baron Bunsen 
 
126 BUNSEN, THE CRITICAL SCHOOL, 
 
 and tliG critical school of Germany, with, the addi- 
 tional authority of Dr. Williams himself. He de- 
 clared that the Scriptures did testify of Him, and 
 that they did predict His sufferings and His death ; 
 Baron Bunsen and the critical school tell us that 
 they did not. He instructed His apostles also in 
 the meaning of those Scriptures, and they declare 
 that holy men of old prophesied as they were in- 
 spired by the Holy Spirit of God, and that they 
 did predict the great facts of the Gospel, and that 
 God intended by this means to give testimony to the 
 truth of that Gospel ; Baron Bunsen tells us, and ap- 
 parently with the approbation of Dr. Williams, though 
 he will not make himself answerable for it, that they 
 did not. The personal faith of Baron Bunsen, of Dr. 
 Williams, and the critical school of Germany is of 
 very small importance to the world at large ; but for 
 every living man who feels that he has an everlasting 
 soul, "What shall I believe that I may be saved?" 
 is a vital question, and where the broad facts of reve- 
 lation are admitted, I believe that there will not be 
 many who will be content to take their doctrines from 
 the critical school of the present day in preference to 
 Christ and His apostles. If the facts of revelation, 
 the central facts brought together in the apostles' 
 Creed, are denied, then we have to deal with simple, 
 open infidelity, and our arguments must be addressed 
 to that condition of the mind. But let us not have 
 an insidious foe, let us have no ambiguity in so vital 
 a question. Let us stedfastly refuse to hear men who 
 acknowledge Christ as the Son of God in words, but 
 deny Him in reality. They acknowledge that He was 
 the Son of God, and that He is ascended into heaven, 
 and sits at the right hand of God, and yet they be- 
 
AND DR. WILLIAMS. I27 
 
 lieve that tlicy know more of tlie Word of God than 
 He did ! He declared that the prophets predicted His 
 coming, and they declare that they did not ! This 
 brings the question to the true issue. We must make 
 our choice between these two authorities, and I trust 
 when this issue is fairly tried that there will be very 
 fcAs^, who know and understand the state of the ques- 
 tion, who will not exclaim with a holy man of old, 
 "Let God be true and every man a liar !" who will 
 not prefer to believe that man's criticism may be 
 erroneous, to accepting the monstrous dogma that the 
 Son of God could either deceive or be deceived in the 
 interpretation of the Word of God I 
 
NOTE ON THE '' EDINBURGH REVIEW," 
 
 No. 230. 
 
 Since the publication of the "Essays and 'Reviews/' a 
 defence of them has been attempted in the " Edinburgh Re- 
 ■view," No. 230. It would be unnecessary to offer a single 
 remark on so feeble a performance, if it were not desirable to 
 correct one or two misrepresentations which occur in it. 
 
 The first passage on which we shall offer a few remarks is 
 the following : — 
 
 " The relative importance of the moral and predictive elements in 
 prophecy, and again of the historical circumstances to which, in the 
 first instance, the predictions were applied, have been discussed by 
 Davison and Ai-nold in a style hardly less repugnant to the literal 
 views of Dr. M'Caul or Dr. Keith, than anything in Professor 
 Jowett or Dr. Williams. One of the passages deemed most fatal to 
 the orthodoxy of the Essayist just named, [Dr. Williams,] ('only 
 two texts in the Prophets directly Messianic,') was anticipated almost 
 verbally even by Bishop Pearson : ' Wherever He is spoken of as the 
 Anointed One (or the Messiah) it may well be first understood of 
 some other person, except it be in one place in Daniel.' (Pearson on 
 the Creed, Art. 2.) ' The typical ideas of patience and glory in the 
 Old Testament,' says Dr. Williams, 'find their culminating fulfil- 
 ment in the New.' This is the positive side of his view of pro- 
 phecy, and it is, in fact, coincident with all that the best interpreters 
 of Scripture have said since the Reformation." 
 
 It would seem from this passage that the study of " Essays 
 and Reviews" has so familiarized the mind of the Reviewer 
 with dishonest misrepresentation, that he has lost the faculty 
 of distinguishing truth from falsehood. Bishop Pearson ac- 
 knowledges that prophecies ivliich are real predictions of the 
 Messiah may be applicable, in the first instance, to some 
 other person, although intended to testify of the Messiah 
 
NOTE ON THE "EDINBURGH REVIEW." 129 
 
 and to predict tlie manner of His coming. Dr. TTilliaras 
 maintains that, except in two cases, there is no such thing 
 as a prediction of the Messiah at all in the Old Testament ; 
 and the Reviewer holds these views to be equivalent. He 
 also seems to consider an assertion that the moral excellence 
 and beauty of the New Testament are the fulfilment of the 
 prophetical ideas of the Old, to be equivalent to a belief that 
 these prophecies were inspired predictions which were lite- 
 rally fulfilled in the facts of the New Testament. Until 
 he asserts this, he leaves a world-wide diflference between 
 the learned, the reverent, the holy Bishop Pearson, and the 
 Essayist ; and if he does assert it, we must decline to cha- 
 racterize his assertion. The complaint against Dr. Williams 
 is, not that he maintains that the prophecies may prim an! >/ 
 be applied to some other person, but that he denies that they 
 are intended in any way to be predictions of Christ. Until 
 the Reviewer can see the difierence between these two pro- 
 positions, he will do well to abstain from theological discus- 
 sions, for which he is evidently unfitted. But if Dr. Williams 
 is compelled to acknowledge that, although spoken in the 
 first instance of other persons, these prophecies were still 
 intended as predictions of the Messiah, we shall have gained 
 something by the controversy. Such a statement would be 
 a contradiction, if not to the words, to the spirit of his whole 
 Essay, and we should imderstand for the future how to esti- 
 mate his assertions. 
 
 Having considered the case of Bishop Pearson, we come 
 to those of Arnold and Davison. Of Dr. Arnold little need 
 be said, as he was comparatively little known in theological 
 literature. His biographer published his opinions on Daniel, 
 but unhappily without the arguments on which they were 
 founded. Thus the prestige of his name — and he was highly 
 popular and much beloved — is brought to bear on a ques- 
 tion which depends entirely on argument and historical 
 fact. This is the only mischief we have to fear. "Where 
 reasons are given and arguments adduced, they can be 
 answered, and we have no fear of the result, for in nearly 
 two thousand years the faith of Christ has never yet been 
 trampled in the dust, nor the heel of the foeman planted 
 
13© NOTE ON THE "EDINBURGH REVIEW." 
 
 on the neck of the Christian warrior. Arguments can be 
 answered, but no answer can be given to the mere influence 
 of a name. 
 
 With Mr. Davison the case is very different. There may 
 be positions in his excellent book on " Prophecy" on which 
 theologians might difier, but to identify his clear decisive 
 testimony to the predidke element in Scripture prophecies 
 with the denial of Dr. Williams that they contain any such 
 element at all, is to confound truth and falsehood. The 
 writer who can do this is scarcely worthy of an answer. 
 Mr. Davison sees in the Psalms " the most considerable attri- 
 butes of the reign and the religion of the Messiah foreshown. 
 There is a king set on the holy hill of Sion," &c. He sees 
 there " His unchangeable priesthood ; His divine Sonship ; 
 His exalted nature and early resurrection outrunning the 
 corruption of the grave," &c. Again, he admits the twofold 
 sense of prophecy by which the establishment of the kingdom 
 of David is a type of that of Christ, and many "memorable 
 events and objects of the first, the older dispensation," fore- 
 shadowing "the corresponding events and objects in the 
 New." He expressly states in a note on this passage that it 
 is highly probable that " the profanation of the temple by 
 Antiochus, and the corresponding profanation of the Chris- 
 tian Church by the great Apostacy, the tyrannic corruption 
 of Antichrist, are rightly joined together as correlative terms 
 of a joint prophecy." (p. 206.) Mr. Davison declares that in 
 " the abyss of the Babylonian bondage Daniel iceighed and 
 numbered the kingdoms of the earth. There also he mea- 
 sured the years to the death of the Messiah," &c. Indeed, 
 his whole volume teems with declarations such as these. 
 We will add only one extract on the prophecies of Daniel, 
 which may serve as an antidote to part of the mischief of 
 the Essay. Bunsen makes the fourth empire of Daniel " the 
 sway of Alexander," to which the Essayist adds the remark, 
 " as is not imcommonly held." Any moderately well-informed 
 reader knows that the Eoman empire is commonly held to be 
 the fourth ; but that would imply more prescience in Daniel 
 than the followers of Bunsen are willing to concede, and 
 accordingly they deny it. But we hasten to give Davison's 
 
NOTE ON THE "EDINBURGH REVIEW. 131 
 
 own words. After repudiating the notion that the pro- 
 phecies of Daniel could possibly have been written in the 
 age of Antiochus Epiphanes, and stating what he thinks 
 " may amount to a refutation of this hypothe-^is," (p. 497,) 
 Mr. Davison explains in part the prophecy of the four em- 
 pires. In the course of the lecture the following passage 
 occurs : — 
 
 "Once more the termination of the Fourth Empire by its sub- 
 division into a multitude of separate kingdoms is a further in- 
 gredient in the information of the prophecy, and a new test of its 
 prescience. Those separate kingdoms are indicated to be ten. The 
 definite number may or may not be a strict postulate of the pro- 
 phecy; a multifarious division unquestionably is denoted. That 
 multifarious division took place in the cluster of petty contemporary 
 kingdoms which replaced the Roman empire upon Hs dissolution. 
 In that cluster of kingdoms the ten horns of the fourth beast, 
 diverse from aU the rest, find their interpretations, and theh cor- 
 respondent realities. 
 
 "So long, therefore, as the civil history of the ancient world 
 shall last, under the scheme of its four successive empires ; so long 
 as the introduction of Christianity, in the place and order previously 
 assigned to it, shall remain upon record, and its visible reign exist ; 
 so long as the conclusion of the Iron Empire of ILome shall bo 
 known in the promiscuous partition made of it by the host of 
 Northern and Eastern invaders ; so long there will be a just and 
 rational proof of the inspu-ation of these illustrious prophecies of 
 Daniel. If we try to refer such discoveries to any ingenuity of 
 human reason, they have too much extent and system for the sub- 
 stituted solution. In that attempt of solution we are cramped by 
 improbabilities on every side. One adequate origin of them there 
 is, and that alone can render them inteUigible in their manifest 
 character, if we consent to read them as oracles of God, communi- 
 cated by Him to His prophets, and by them to others, for the 
 manifestation of His foreknowledge and over-ruling pro^-idence in 
 the kingdoms of the earth ; and next for the confirmation of the 
 whole truth of revealed religion. In that light tbey fall mto order. 
 In that same light, too, their origin and their use explain each 
 the other." 
 
 These passages sufficiently indicate the views of Davison 
 on prophecy. He believed that while these prophecies some- 
 
132 NOTE ON THE "EDINBURGH REVIEW. 
 
 times shadowed out the events of the first dispensation, it 
 was chiefly when those events were the counterpart of the 
 Gospel history that these prophecies were strictly intended 
 by the Holy Spirit of God to predict what actually took 
 place in the life of our Saviour and the events of the 
 Gospel, and that they were litemlhj fulfilled. He believed 
 the prophecies of Daniel to be genuine, scouted the absurd 
 notion that they were written in the time of Antiochus 
 Epiphanes, and in the partition of the Roman empire he 
 acknowledges the fulfilment of the prophecy of the ten 
 horns. The fourth empire, in his opinion, was undoubtedly 
 the Roman. 
 
 There is only one point more in this article that de- 
 serves remark here. It is the statement about truth and 
 falsehood. It is contained in the following passage of the 
 
 " The truth or falsehood of the views maintained is treated as 
 a matter of indifference. The lay contributor, however offensive 
 his statements, is dismissed as * comparatively blameless.' But the 
 Christian minister it is said ' has parted with his natural liberty.' 
 It is almost openly avowed (and we are sorry to see this tendency 
 as much among free-thinking laymen as among fanatical clergymen) 
 that truth was made for the laity, and falsehood for the clergy; 
 that truth is tolerable everywhere except in the mouths of ministers 
 of the God of truth ; that falsehood driven from every other quarter 
 of the educated world, may find an honoured refuge behind the con- 
 secrated bulwarks of the sanctuary." 
 
 It is needless to spend much time in answering so manifest 
 a mistake in the apprehensions of the Reviewer. He really 
 requires a course of logic before he ventures to write on 
 theology. The simple question before us is this. Whether 
 it is reputable for men to profess one set of principles and 
 teach another ? Does the Reviewer think that it is for the 
 interest of truth that men who have ceased to believe in 
 the resurrection of our Saviour, or any other great fact of the 
 Creed, should remain ministers of a Church which requires 
 them publicly to profess their belief in that fact? What 
 difference can the abstract truth or falsehood of the fact or 
 
NOTE ON THE "EDINBURGH REVIEW. 133 
 
 dogma make to the character of the man who professes to 
 believe it with his lips, when ho secretly believes it to be 
 false ? 
 
 I have instanced the resurrection of our Saviour because 
 allusion is made to that great central fact of our religion in 
 another passage in the review, but the argument is equally- 
 applicable to any other doctrine or fact. 
 
 It surely cannot be needful to add another word in refer- 
 ence to this argument of the Reviewer. The plain good 
 sense of the English mind is incapable of admitting such 
 a view for a moment, and the E-eviewer must seek some 
 other ground, if he desires to vindicate his friends^. 
 
 I will only, in concluding these remarks, express my hope 
 that the discussion which has been caused by these " Essays 
 and Reviews/' may not only result in the firmer establish- 
 ment of the great doctrines of our faith, but may induce the 
 writers themselves to reconsider the questions they have 
 treated so inadequately, and bring them to a frame of mind 
 in which they may seek the glory of God, not by denying 
 His miracles or explaining away His word, but in the ear- 
 nest belief and the practical enforcement of those great 
 truths which the Church of Christ has received for nearly 
 two thousand years, and which have been the stay and 
 the hope of countless millions from the first formation of 
 that Church. 
 
 * It must be acknowledged that the Reviewer is candid enough to say that 
 considering the ability with which the Essays are written, it is strange that 
 they should have added little or nothing to our knowledge of the subjects on 
 which they treat. 
 
MIRACLES. 
 
 " On the S/i((Ji/ of flie Evidences of ChristianUij. By Baden- 
 Powell, M.A., F.B.S., Savilian Professor of Geometry in tie 
 University of Oxford.'' 
 
 Y 
 
 >EOFESSOR POWELL," says the author of an 
 apology for the "Essays and Reviews," "has 
 passed beyond the reach not only of literary criticism, 
 but of ecclesiastical censlU'e^" He has indeed passed 
 beyond the reach of ecclesiastical censiu'e; but un- 
 happily his work survives him : and while it does so, 
 it cannot claim exemption fi'om criticism. 
 
 Its subject, as set forth in its title, is "The Study 
 of the E\ddencos of Christianity." It would have been 
 designated more accmately had its title been nar- 
 rowed into more exact keeping with its real object, 
 which is to shew that Mii*acles have no place among 
 those e\"idences. 
 
 The Essay may be considered as divided into two 
 parts : After an Introduction (pp. 94—100), in which 
 the author deprecates the want of candom- and im- 
 partiality with which, as he affiims, the subject of 
 mii-acles is often approached, and intreats a fair hear- 
 ing, he endeavours to shew (pp. 100—115) that the 
 antecedent incredibility of mii-acles is such that no 
 amount of evidence is sufficient to establish the proof 
 of one : this is the first part. The second (pp. 115 — 
 129) is occupied with the consideration of the evi- 
 dential force of miracles— a labour, by the way, which 
 he might have spared himself, as needless, if he had 
 proved his point in the preceding paii:. The remainder 
 
 ^^ Eiiiubursh lleviow, April, 1861, p. 175. 
 
136 MIRACLES. 
 
 of the Essay (pp. 129 — 144) is of a more discursiye 
 character, and is occupied chiefly in gathering up 
 fi*agments, which might seem to have been di'opped 
 fi'om parts I. and II., and which the author was either 
 unable to an-ange in their proper places, or which he 
 thought would serve his pui^pose more eff'ectually if 
 reserved for the end. 
 
 It is a hard matter at the outset to know how to 
 deal with a writer who occupied the position of Pro- 
 fessor Powell. As a Chi'istian, and a clergyman of 
 the English Chui'ch, we should natiu'ally expect that 
 on the subject of which he ti'eats we should have 
 much common ground with him, — that, in fact, almost 
 the only question between us would be, not whether 
 the Christian miracles are to be acknowledged as 
 mii'acles, or whether they are to be appealed to at all 
 among the evidences of Clmstianity, but to what 
 extent they are evidential. But on examination we 
 find the case to be widely different. 
 
 The reality of the Xew Testament mii-acles is denied, 
 or, if granted in any wise, is granted, — to use Professor 
 Powell's own words in another work, of certain writers 
 whom he censures, — merely as " a nominal homage to 
 the prejudices of a religious party, a profession in 
 name, covering a denial in substance, as transparent 
 as that of the Jesuit commentators on Kewton, in 
 their professions of unlimited deference to the Eccle- 
 siastical dogmas, — ' Caeterum latis a summis pontifi- 
 cibus conti'a tellmis motum decretis nos obsequi pro- 
 fit emm-,' — while they deliberately contravened them 
 in promulgating, illustrating, and demonsti'ating the 
 prohibited doctrines^." 
 
 ^ B. Powell, "Order of Xature," p. 222. See "Essays and 
 Eeviews," pp. 140, 142, 143; and compare Bp. Yan Milderfs 
 
MIRACLES. 
 
 »37 
 
 Fui'tlier, — the Scriptui-al account of the Creation is 
 ignored, and Mr. Darwin's ''masterly volume," which 
 establishes "the grand principle of the self-evolving 
 powers of nature," is accepted as an authority which 
 summarily overrides the Mosaic record". And thus, 
 such is the credulity of unbelief, this writer, who can- 
 not bring himself to believe a mii-acle except imder 
 a protest, is ready, without hesitation, to acquiesce in 
 a theory which would deduce the descent of all the 
 animals that live or have ever lived on this earth, 
 man included, fi-om one or at most four or five com- 
 mon progenitors ^. There are others, it seems, than the 
 "ignorant," of whom it may be said with truth, that 
 
 account of some of the promoters of infidelity in the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries : — " Some, with strange inconsistency, called 
 themselves Christians, and even contended for the necessity of 
 faith in the doctrines of the Gospel, while they acknowledged 
 that faith to be altogether at variance with the philosophical 
 opinions which they espoused." — £o>/Ie Lectures, Serm. ix., vol. i. 
 p. 322. 
 
 " Essays and Reviews, p. 1 39. See also, in the same page, the 
 nonchalance with which the author sets aside the Scriptural record 
 of the origin of mankind : — " Xever, in all that enormous length of 
 time which modem discovery has now indispidahhj assigned to the 
 existence of the human race!" Again, p. 129: — "More recently 
 the antiquity of the human race, and the development of species, 
 and the rejection of the idea of ' Creation' have caused new advances 
 in thd same direction," (towards the " dissociation of the spiritual 
 from the physical.") Of a piece with this is the following from 
 another work by omi author : — " I can only add an expression of 
 surprise that so leading and liberal a journal as the ' Edinburgh 
 Eeview' should have so far lost sight of all sound philosophy, and 
 shewn itself so far behind the advance of enlightenment, as to intro- 
 duce in a recent article a new attempt to revive the credit of Bible 
 geology. The ichole argument proceeds on the assumption — as if 
 uncontroverted — of the authority of the Judaical Scriptures in the 
 matter." — Order of Nature, p. 219. 
 
 ^ Darwin on the " Origin of Species," p. 518. 
 
138 MIRACLES. 
 
 they are "as obstinate in their contemptuous incre- 
 dulity, as they are unreasonably credulous *"." 
 
 The existence of a God is indeed acknowledged, 
 but it is of a God very different from the God whom 
 the Bible sets before us; of a God subjected to the 
 laws which govern the material universe; laws pos- 
 sibly of His own framing, but which, once framed, 
 like the laws of the Medes and Persians, may not be 
 altered even by Himself. The world, it would seem, 
 is a piece of clock-work, which having been wound up 
 in the beginning, — if indeed it ever had a beginning, 
 — was then set a-going, and left to go, in a perpetual 
 motion, without further interference on the part of its 
 Maker. Strange that it should be thought more 
 agreeable to sound reason to believe of Him who has 
 given to the creatures which He has made both the 
 will and the power to control the operation of the 
 laws of matter to an almost indefinite extent, that He 
 has divested Himself of the same, than that He has 
 both retained them, and exercises them according to 
 the dictates of His infinite wisdom ! 
 
 What the author's view of revelation is, it is not 
 easy to understand. He seems expressly to acknow- 
 ledge a revelation of some sort ^ ; but it is a revelation, 
 which, however it may differ in degree, does not ap- 
 pear to be different in kind from that accorded to 
 ''poets, legislators, pliilosophers, and others gifted 
 with high genius^;" and yet it is a revelation of 
 
 " Mill's "Logic," vol. ii. p. 165. ^ Essay, pp. 142—144. 
 
 s p. 140. " If the use of fire, the cultivation of the soil, and the 
 like, were divine revelations, the most obvious inference would be 
 that so likewise are printing and steam. If the boomerang was 
 divinely communicated to savages ignorant of its principle, then 
 surely the disclosure of that principle in our time by the gyro- 
 
MIRACLES. 139 
 
 truths, some of which at least transcend the utmost 
 reach of reason ; nay, according to the author's prin- 
 ciples, requii-e a sacrifice of reason upon the altar of 
 faith ''. Moreover it is, as this account of it might 
 lead one to expect, an internal revelation, not an 
 external one. But by what means its claims, in those 
 points which transcend the reach of human reason, 
 and which form, as miracles are said to do, "the main 
 difficulties and hindrances to its acceptance '," are to 
 be enforced on those to whom it has not been directly 
 communicated, does not appear. One would be sti'ongly 
 tempted to suppose that none but those to whom it 
 has been directly communicated are under an obliga- 
 tion to receive it. This, at least, was Lord Herbert 
 of Cherbui'y's conclusion (and a just one), from pre- 
 mises very similar to those of Professor Powell ^. 
 
 These will serve as specimens of the author's teach- 
 ing. But I have no intention of following him into 
 every particular in which his questionable opinions 
 come out to view. My object is simj)ly to deal with 
 the subject of Miracles, which is the subject of his 
 Essay. If I touch upon other subjects, it will only 
 be as they stand related to this. 
 
 Before proceeding to the main question, Professor 
 Powell "premises a brief reflection upon the spirit 
 and temper in which it should be discussed V He 
 
 scope was equally so. But no one denies revehtion in this sense ; 
 the philosophy of the age does not discredit the inspiration of 
 prophets and apostles, though it may sometimes believe it in poets, 
 legislators, philosophers, and others gifted icith high genius.''^ 
 
 •> Essay, pp. 140—142. ' p. 140. 
 
 '" See Van Mildert's Boyle Lectures, Serm. ix. vol. i. pp. 326, 327. 
 
 1 Essay, p. 95. 
 
140 MIRACLES. 
 
 would have it approached with the candour and im- 
 partiality which befit a judge, not with the bias of an 
 advocate. And though those who deal with it may 
 have no doubts or difiiculties of their own, he would 
 have them appreciate those of others, and make allow- 
 ance for them. 
 
 This is all very just. Especially it behoves that 
 there should be no want of sympathy with minds 
 perplexed with difficulties, which they are hon- 
 estly seeking to have resolved. Harshness is not 
 the treatment proper for such cases, — not to mention 
 that he who exhibits it is, by that token, wanting 
 himself in a very important qualification necessary 
 for the attainment of truth, and may well doubt 
 whether that which he holds, and would enforce so 
 imperiously, is truth ; or if it is, at the least whether 
 he holds it practically and to any salutary purpose. 
 But sympathy with those who are perplexed and 
 troubled with difficulties, and are conscientiously seek- 
 ing their way out of them, must not be suffered to 
 run on into a countenancing of those who have turned 
 aside from the way of truth themselves, and are avail- 
 ing themselves of their position, and of the infiuence 
 which their position gives them, to turn others aside 
 from it. 
 
 That we should approach the question with candour, 
 and with an honest desu^e to arrive at the truth, is 
 a caution very necessary to be borne in mind in other 
 matters as well as in the one before us. But it is to 
 be remembered that there may be an undue bias 
 against as well as for. Dr. Whewell, in his Bridge- 
 water Treatise, has assigned reasons for believing that 
 what he calls deductive habits as opposed to inductive, 
 — habits formed by following out the discoveries of 
 
MIRACLES. 141 
 
 others, as opposed to those formed by prosecuting the 
 work of discovery ourselves, — " may sometimes exer- 
 cise an unfavourable effect on the mind of the student, 
 and may make him less fitted and ready to apprehend 
 and accept truths different from those with which his 
 reasonings are concerned""." And a critic, certainly 
 not hostile to our author, said of him in a review of 
 a pre\4ous work, some time before the appearance of 
 the present, as though finding in him an exemplifi- 
 cation of the truth of Dr. Whewell's remark, " It 
 would not be a harsh criticism to say that Professor 
 Powell shews a marked fondness for what is new and 
 arduous in philosophy; and takes pleasure in stig- 
 
 " Chap vi., " On Deductive Habits ; or, On the Impression pro- 
 duced on Men's Minds by tracing the Consequences of Ascertained 
 Laws." Bridgcwater Treat., p. 329. See also p. 334 :— " We have 
 no reason whatever to expect any help from the speculations (of 
 the mechanical philosophers and mathematicians of recent times), 
 when we attempt to ascend to the First Cause and Supreme Eulcr of 
 the universe. But we might perhaps go further, and assert that 
 they are less likely than men employed in other pursuits to make 
 any clear advance towards such a subject of speculation'. Persons 
 whose thoughts are thus entirely occupied in deduction, are apt to 
 forget that this is, after all, only one employment of the reason 
 among more ; only one mode of arriving at truth, needing to have 
 its deficiencies completed by another. Deductive reasoners, those 
 who cultivate science of whatever kind, by means of mathematical 
 and logical processes alone, may acquire an exaggerated feeling of 
 the amount and value of their labours. Such employments, from 
 the clearness of the notions involved in them, the irresistible con- 
 catenation of truths which they unfold, the subtlety which they 
 require, and their entire success in that which they attempt, possess 
 a peculiar fascination for the intellect. Those who pursue such 
 studies have generally a contempt and impatience of the pretensions 
 of all those other portions of our knowledge, where, from the nature 
 of the case or the small progress hitherto made in their cultivation, 
 a more vague and loose kind of reasoning seems to be adopted." 
 See Burgon on "Inspiration and Interpretation," p. 241. 
 
142 MIRACLES. 
 
 matking as hindrances to truth in physical science all 
 such opinions as are fostered by ancient and popular 
 belief, including those which assume Scriptural autho- 
 rity for their foundation." And presently afterwards, 
 referring to certain views, which are reproduced here, 
 relating to the "transmutation of species," and the 
 asserted "creation of animalcule life" in the experi- 
 ments of Messrs. Crosse and Weekes, he adds°, " We 
 have the constant feeling that the leaning is too much 
 to one and the same side in these questions ^ — we might 
 fairly call it the paradoxical side; while admitting 
 at the same time, that paradoxes are often raised into 
 the class of recognised truths"." 
 
 So much for candour and dispassionateness in the 
 conduct of discussions of this kind. At the same time, 
 it is to be confessed, that they who believe our Lord 
 to have been what He claimed to be, and acknowledge 
 the ^N'ew Testament to contain an authentic record of 
 His teaching and that of His apostles, cannot approach 
 the subject but with a foregone conclusion in favour of 
 the reality of the Christian mu-acles. With them the 
 question is abeady settled, upon authority which ad- 
 mits of no dispute. For it is impossible to deny that 
 the reality of those mii-acles is pei-petually implied 
 thi'oughout the !Xew Testament. Xot the shadow of 
 a doubt is ever cast upon it. If the Christian mii'acles 
 were not real mu'acles, what becomes of our Lord's 
 
 ° See Essays and Eeviews, pp. 138, 139. 
 
 " Edinb. Revie-sv, July, 1858. Campbell makes a like observation 
 respecting Hume : — "No man was ever fonder of paradox, and, in 
 theoretical subjects, of every notion that is remote from sentiments 
 universally received. This love of paradoxes, be owns himself, that 
 both his enemies and his friends reproach him with." — On Miracles, 
 Pari I. S 4. 
 
MIRACLES. 143 
 
 truthfulness ? Whatever may be thought of His apo- 
 stles, He at least, on such a supposition, must stand 
 before us in the character of a deceiver. It is not too 
 much to say, therefore, that the question is vital as re- 
 gards Chi'istianity. And it cannot be matter of sm-- 
 prise, that they who have embraced the Gospel, on 
 whatever groiuids, and have staked their dearest hopes 
 upon its promises, should look upon the denial of the 
 reality of the Clmstian mii'acles as a sacrilege of the 
 worst description. 
 
 All this Professor Powell seems to have felt; and 
 therefore, while asserting, in the most positive man- 
 ner, that "in natiu'e and from natiu-e, by science and 
 by reason, we neither have nor can possibly have any 
 evidence of a Deity working mii-acles," he adds, as 
 though pro^iding a loophole by which he might es- 
 cape from the necessity which seemed to lie upon him 
 of denying mii'acles altogether, "for that, we must 
 go out of natui-e and beyond science ^ ;" and he adds 
 presently, — 
 
 " In the popular acceptation, it is clear the Gospel mira- 
 cles are always objects, not evidences of faith ;" {objects of faith 
 they must certainly be to Christians, as we have seen — evi- 
 dences they are also, as I shall hope to shew;) "and when 
 they are connected specially with doctrines, as in several of 
 the higher mysteries of the Christian faith, the sanctity which 
 invests the point of faith itself, is extended to the external 
 narrative in which it is embodied ; the reverence due to the 
 mvstery renders the external events sacred from examination, 
 and shields them also within the pale of the sanctuary ; the 
 miracles are merged in the doctrines with which they are con- 
 nected, and associated with the declarations of spiritual thiiij^s 
 which are, as such, exempt from those criticisms to wliich 
 physical statements would be necessarily amenable "J." 
 p Essay, p. 1-12. " V- 1-13. 
 
44 
 
 MIRACLES. 
 
 What have we here but the hateful principle by 
 means of which, in so many instances, infidelity has 
 eaten out the heart of religion, while it has left the 
 outward form of it imtouched, — that opinions may be 
 philosophically true yet theologically false, or, con- 
 versely, philosophically false yet theologically true "^ ? 
 "Woe be to the individual by whom such a principle is 
 accepted ! woe be to the Chiu'ch in which- it gains 
 cmTency ! 
 
 The mii'acles to which Professor Powell's concession 
 refers are obviously those which cii-cle more immedi- 
 ately round our Lord's Person, — His Incarnation, Ee- 
 suiTection, Ascension '. But, it is clear, fi'om what has 
 been abeady urged, that the concession, if made at all, 
 must be extended to the Gospel miracles generally, see- 
 ing that the truth of our Lord's word is bound up with 
 them. And at the same time, it is to be considered 
 that if the reality of but one single mii-acle be granted, 
 of whatsoever kind, — say, for example, the EesuiTCC- 
 tion, — the objection on which the whole stress of our 
 author's argument rests is done away. What has been 
 in one instance may have been in another, in ten 
 others, in a thousand others. The principle is con- 
 ceded. There is no longer any antecedent incredibility 
 to be overcome \ 
 
 "■ " To such lengths did some of these Schoolmen proceed, that, 
 when accused of advancing tenets repugnant to the Scriptures, in- 
 stead of repelling the accusation, they had recourse to the danger- 
 ous position, that opinions might he philosophicalli/ true yet theologi- 
 c all ij false ; a position obviously mischievous in its principle, and 
 opening a door for the admission of infidelity into the very bosom of 
 the Church." — Van Mildert, Boyle Led., vol. i. p. 250. 
 
 ' See " Order of ISTature," p. 69. 
 
 * "In one respect, this semi-rationalism, which admits the au- 
 thority of revelation up to a certain point and no farther, rests on 
 
THE ARGUMENT FOR MIRACLES. 145 
 
 But, in truth, Professor Powell's concession, as will 
 be seen in the sequel, is but verbal after all. And 
 I take this opportunity of remarking, that repeatedly, 
 in the coui'sc of his Essay, one has the conviction 
 forced upon one, either that he had a difficulty in ex- 
 pressing himself clearly, or else that, on occasion, he 
 designedly involved his meaning in a mist of words 
 because he feared that, if seen in clear simshine, it 
 would be too much for the prejudices of his readers. 
 
 At all events, as to the point in question, it is plain 
 tliat the whole di-ift and tendency of the Essay is to 
 den}^ the reality of mii'acles altogether. The argu- 
 ment lies within the smallest possible compass, — The 
 
 a far less reasonable basis than the firm belief which accepts the 
 whole, or tlie complete unbelief which accepts nothing. For what- 
 ever may be the antecedent improbability which attaches to a mi- 
 raculous narrative, as compared with one of ordinary events, it 
 can affect only the narrative taken as a whole, and the entire 
 sedi s of miracles from ihe greatest to the least. If a single miracle 
 is admitted as supported by competent evidence, the entire history is 
 at once removed from the ordinarij calculations of more or less 2>rola- 
 hilitij. One miracle is sufficient to shew that the series of events 
 wilh which it is connected is one which the Almighty has seen fit 
 to mark by exceptions to the ordinary course of His providence : and 
 this being once granted, we have no a priori grounds to warrant us 
 in asserting that the number of such exceptions ought to be larger 
 or smaller. If any one miracle recorded in the Gospels,— the Resur- 
 rection of Christ, for example, — be once admitted as true, the 
 remainder cease to have any antecedent improbability at all, and 
 require no greater evidence to prove them than is needed for the 
 most ordinary events of any other history. For the improbability, 
 such as it is, reaches no further tlian to sliew that it is unlikely that 
 God should work miracles at all ; not that it is unlikely that He 
 should work more than a certain nuaiber." — Hansel's Hampton 
 Lectures, p. 252. 
 
 L 
 
146 MIRACLES 
 
 antecedent incredibility of a mii*aele is such as abso- 
 lutely to preclude all a posteriori reasoning on the 
 subject. 
 
 And that antecedent incredibility rests on " the 
 grand ti'uth of the imi^'ersal order and constancy of 
 natural causes, as a ^n'imary law of belief," a belief 
 " so strongly entertained in the mind of every ti'uly 
 inductive inquii-er, that he cannot even conceive the 
 possibihty of its failm^e"." ^Tierever we turn our 
 eyes we see the operation of fixed laws. The world, 
 in all its parts, is ordered and governed upon an es- 
 tablished plan. As science extends her domain and 
 pushes her discoveries into new regions, cases which 
 once seemed exceptional are found to confoim to the 
 general rule. If in any instance the conformity can- 
 not be ti'aced, yet the instances in which it can are 
 so innumerable, that there can be no reasonable doubt 
 that in this also the rule holds. 
 
 " The very essence of the whole argument," as the author 
 expresses himself in another vrork of a similar tendency 
 with the one under consideration, " is the invariable preser- 
 vation of the principle of order : not necessarily such as we 
 can directly recognise, but the imiversal conviction of the 
 unfaihng subordination of everything to some grand prin- 
 ciples of law, however imperfectly apprehended or realized 
 in our partial conceptions, and the successive subordination 
 of such laws to others of still higher generality to an extent 
 transcending our conceptions, and constituting the true chain 
 of universal causation which cidminates in the subhme con- 
 ception of the Cosmos^." 
 
 Professor PowelFs A^iew, it will be observed, differs 
 from Spinoza's and fi'om Hume's, to both of which at 
 fii'st sight it bears some resemblance. 
 
 " Essay, p. 109. » Order of Xature, p. 228. 
 
NOT ANTECEDENTLY INCREDIBLE. 147 
 
 Spiiioza held that a mii-acle is absohitcly impossible, 
 because it would be derogatory to the Deity to depart 
 from the established laAvs of the universe^, an argu- 
 ment which appears to be identical with that of Weg- 
 scheider refeiTcd to by Professor Powell, "that the 
 belief in mii-acles is inconsistent with the idea of an 
 eternal God consistent with himself ^" 
 
 Hume did not absolutely deny the possibility of 
 a mii-acle, but he denied its capability of being proved 
 from testimony. With him the matter is simply a 
 balancing of probabilities, and in his judgment it is 
 always more probable that the testimony to a miracle 
 is false, than that the ordinary coiu'se of natui'e has 
 been deviated from^ 
 
 Professor Powell does not, with Spinoza, presume 
 to determine what it heJwved God to do ; nor, with 
 Hume, does he trouble himself nicely to adjust the 
 balance of probabilities. His reasoning is built upon 
 analogy. He concludes peremptorily from the analogy 
 of God's dealings in the material world in every in- 
 stance in which His operations can be traced, from 
 the Cosmos, the order wliich pervades the universe, 
 that a mii-acle which, according to his notion, is "a 
 violation of the laws of matter, or an interruption of 
 the course of physical causes Y' is simply incredible. 
 
 ^ " Hinc clarissime sequitxir, leges naturse universal es mora esse 
 decreta Dei, quae ex necessitate et perfectionc naturae divina) sc- 
 quuntur. Si quid igitur in natura contingeret, quod ejus univer- 
 Balibus legibus repugnaret, id decreto et intellectui et naturae divinaj 
 necessario etiam repugnaret; aut si quis statueret Deum aliquid 
 contra leges naturae agere, is simul etiam cogeretur statuere, Deum 
 contra suam naturam agere, quo nihil absurdius." — Spinoza, Tract. 
 Theol. Polit., c. 6. 
 
 ' E^?ay, p. 114. * Hume's Essay, "Of Miracles." 
 
 »> Essay, p. 132. 
 
 l2 
 
148 MIRACLES 
 
 But it is this very notion of a miracle, unguardedly 
 countenanced, it is true, in some instances, by writers 
 of eminence, which makes his w^hole argument wide 
 of its mark, as it does also that of Spinoza, which in 
 this respect agrees with it ^ 
 
 A miracle, in the Scriptiu-al notion of the word, is 
 a violation neither of the laws of matter, nor of any 
 other of the laws of natui'e. It is simply the inter- 
 vention of a Being possessing, or endued with, suijer- 
 human power, — an intervention, which, though it tem- 
 porarily modifies, or suspends the operation of, the 
 laws ordinarily in operation in the world, is yet itself 
 exercised in strict accordance with the law of that 
 Being's nature, or siqjerindued nature, by whom it is 
 exercised. 
 
 It is true that Professor Powell distinctly acknow- 
 ledges that lower laws are continually held in re- 
 straint by higher, and quotes Dean Trench with ap- 
 proval as affirming such to be the case ^. But there 
 is one clause in his quotation, the meaning of which, 
 he confesses, is not clear to him, that, namely, in 
 which "moral laws" are spoken of as "controlling 
 physical." 
 
 And this is precisely the point to which Professor 
 Powell's philosophy seems to have been incapable of 
 reaching. Ilis mind appears to have been so en- 
 grossed with the study of what is called natural 
 science, his eye so exclusively fijsed upon the mate- 
 rial world around him, that he overlooked the foct, 
 that the world contains other elements besides material, 
 that it has other forces besides physical, and that as 
 matter is perpetually acted upon in all imaginable 
 
 ^ See Dean Trench, "Notes on the Miracles," p. 13. 
 '' Essay, p. 134. 
 
NOT ANTECEDENTLY INCREDIBLE. 149 
 
 ways by those other forces, so the laws of matter 
 arc perpetually, not ''violated," but interfered with, 
 moulded, controlled, kept in check, as to their opera- 
 tion, by those forces. 
 
 The human will is the element, the action of whose 
 distiu'bing force upon the material system around us 
 comes most frequently or most strikingly under our 
 notice. Man, in the exercise of his ordinary faculties, 
 is perpetually interfering with, or moidding, or con- 
 trolling the operation of those ordinary laws of matter 
 which are in exercise around him. He does so if he 
 does but distm-b one pebble in its state of rest, or stay 
 the fall of another before it reaches the ground. He 
 does so to a vastly greater extent when, by means of 
 the appliances with which art, instructed by science, 
 has fm-nished him, he projects a ball to the distance of 
 four or five miles, or constrains steam, or light, or 
 electricity, or chloroform to do his bidding. Still his 
 doings are not miracles, because they do not extend 
 beyond the range of his unassisted powers. But are 
 we sm-e that God may not, on special occasions and 
 for special ends, have endued some men with super- 
 human powers, by which the laws of the material 
 world may be controlled to an extent beyond what 
 could have been done by unassisted nature? or that 
 He may not have directed or permitted beings superior 
 in might to man to exercise such powers^? That He 
 
 e '' What degrees of power God may reasonably be supposed to 
 have communicated to created beings, to subordinate intelligences, 
 to good or evil angels, is by no means easy for us to determine. 
 Some things absolutely impossible for men to effect, it is e\-idcnt 
 may easily be within the natural powers of angels, and some things 
 beyond the power of inferior angels, may as easily be supposed to 
 be within the natural power of others that are superior to them, 
 
IJO MIRACLES 
 
 has done so, in simcby instances, Scriptiu'e aifirms. 
 Wliat is there in the reason of things to make the 
 affirmation incredible or even improbable? To say- 
 that it is contrary to experience is to beg the whole 
 question at issue. 
 
 The fact is, once admit that there is a God, and 
 even beings who have to do with this earth, inferior 
 to God but superior in might to man, or admit that 
 man himself may, for special reasons, be endued with 
 superhuman power, and you grant that there are 
 agents who have it in their power to interfere with 
 or control the laws ordinarily in operation in the 
 material world, so as to work miracles. 
 
 Admit, further, that there may be an occasion calling 
 for superhuman interference, — and such surely is the 
 authentication of a revelation containing truths which 
 it was of the utmost consequence for man to know, 
 but of which, except by revelation, he could know 
 nothing, — and the possibility is advanced to proba- 
 bility. "We have, if we may without irreverence use 
 the heathen poet's words in such connection, both a 
 vindex^ and a nodus dignus vindicc. 
 
 Such a revelation Christianity professes to be. It 
 professes to direct man towards the attainment of the 
 true end of his being, to instruct him in the know- 
 ledge of God, and to teach him how to serve God 
 acceptably, and it assures him (an assurance which 
 he could not otherwise have had) of the continu- 
 
 and so on. So that excepting the original po'U'er of creating, Tvhich 
 we cannot indeed conceive communicated to things which were 
 themselves created, we can hardly affirm with any certainty that 
 any particular effect, how great or miraculous soever it may seem 
 to us, is beyond the power of all created beings ia the universe to 
 have produced." — S. Clarice, Evidences, p. 298. 
 
NOT ANTECEDENTLY INCREDIBLE. 151 
 
 ance of his existence in a future state of happiness 
 or misery after death, that happiness or misery de- 
 pending upon his conduct here. Underlying the 
 information thus described are such truths as the 
 incarnation, the death and passion, the resurrection, 
 the ascension of the Son of God, and the descent of 
 the Holy Spirit, together with an account of the re- 
 spective offices of both of these divine Persons in the 
 economy of man's salvation. These are subjects to 
 the knowledge of which imassisted human reason 
 could by no possibility have attained, and yet that 
 knowledge, seeing that sundry most important duties 
 grow out of the relationships involved ^, cannot but be 
 of the utmost consequence to us. 
 
 If then it was not to have been expected Ante- 
 cedently (as who could have ventured to predict 
 beforehand how God would deal with us in such a 
 case ?) that Christianity, if true, would be attested by 
 miracles, yet now that it does claim to have been so 
 attested, there is sufficient reason apparent why it 
 should have been so. Indeed, it seems inconceivable, 
 how, without miracles, — including prophecy in the 
 notion of a miracle, — it could sufficiently have com- 
 mended itself to men's belief? Who would believe, 
 or would be justified in believing, the great facts which 
 constitute its substance, on the ipse dixit of an un- 
 accredited teacher? And how, except by miracles, 
 could the first teacher be accredited ? Paley, then, was 
 fully warranted in the assertion whicli our author 
 censures, that "we cannot conceive a revelation" — 
 such a revelation of course as Christianity professes to 
 be, a revelation of truths which transcend man's 
 ability to discover, — "to be substantiated without 
 
 ' Sec Butler's " Analogy," Pt. 11. ch. i. p. 216, Oxford, 1820. 
 
152 IMIRACLES 
 
 miracles^." Other credentials, it is true, might be 
 exhibited in addition to nm-acles, — and such it woukl 
 be natm-al to look for, — ^but it seems impossible that 
 mii'acles could be dispensed with. 
 
 And in this respect Christianity is entirely con- 
 sistent with itself. Had it made no appeal to miracles, 
 its teaching, considering what the substance of its 
 teaching is, could scarcely have gained credit. Had 
 its teaching been such as men might have attained 
 to by their unassisted powers, suspicion might fairly 
 hare rested on its appeal to miracles. 
 
 Assuming, then, that it has pleased God to make 
 a revelation, such as Christianity ckiims to be, to man, 
 what have we in the ordinary coiu'se of the world's 
 affaii's analogous to it, on which to raise the conclusion 
 that mii'acles are incredible, or even improbable ? The 
 case is one entirely sui generis^ except in so far as it 
 has associated with it other revelations, intimately 
 connected with it, belonging to a former dispensation. 
 As Bp. Butler remarks, — " Before we can have ground 
 for raising what can with propriety be called an argu- 
 ment from analogy, for or against revelation, considered 
 as sometvhat miraculous,'''' — or, as it might be added with 
 equal truth, for or against miracles, as authenticating 
 a revelation, — " we must be acquainted with a similar 
 or parallel case. But the history of some other world 
 seemingly in like circumstances with our own is no 
 more than a parallel case, and therefore nothing short 
 of this can be so^." It follows, then, that the analogy 
 of the ordinary course of natiu-e affords no sufheient 
 ground for doubting the reality of niu*acles, said to 
 have been wrought in attestation of a revelation which 
 has nothing analogous to it in nature. The gencral- 
 
 • 8 Essay, p. 119. ^ Analo-y, Pt. ir. ch. ii p. 237. 
 
NOT ANTKCEDEXTLV INXREDIBLE. 153 
 
 ization which woiihl coiichulo from thence that there 
 can be no such thing as a miracle is an over-hasty 
 one, large as is the induction on which it rests. 
 
 If it be iu*ged that the reasoning which has been 
 employed hithei-to does but remove the question of 
 probability or improbability, of credibility or incredi- 
 bility, a step forther back, — viz. fi'om the case of 
 miracles to that of revelation in general, — this is 
 granted ; but at the same time, he who thus compels 
 us to go back with him one step, must be content to 
 go with us one step more. For before we can venture 
 to affirm the improbability or incredibility of revela- 
 tion generally, we ought to be sure that there are no 
 truths essential to man to know, of which yet man 
 cannot attain the knowledge without supernatural 
 instruction \ 
 
 Professor Powell, indeed, is not indisposed to ac- 
 knowledge a revelation, provided it be not an external 
 one^. And no doubt a revelation by internal illumi- 
 
 ' That a revelation is not antecedently improbable would appear 
 from the circumstance that Socrates is represented by Plato as 
 intimating not only his belief in a future life, but his belief that 
 some divine communication tcoiild one day he made concerning it. — 
 Lean Lyall, Propccdia Prophetica, p. 155. 
 
 J Compare "Order of Xature," p. 282 : — " Those who have felt 
 the greatest difficulty in admitting physical miracles, have no hesi- 
 tation in accepting the assertion of any amount o£ purely moral and 
 spiritual influence, even to the extent of those exalted conditions of 
 soul in which the favoured and gifted disciple was enlightened by 
 immediate disclosures of divine truth, or endowed with internal 
 energies and spiritual powers, beyond the attainment or conception 
 of the ordinary human faculties : and theistic reasoners have lield 
 it more consonant with the Divine perfections to influence mind than 
 to disarrange matter." — But man's moral and spiritual nature, hy all 
 analogy, must have its laus as icell as his physical nature. And a 
 departure from the former is as truly a miracle, — as truly indicates 
 supernatural interference, — as a departure from the latter. 
 
154 "T^^E ARGUMENT FOR MIRACLES. 
 
 nation is perfectly conceivable. Indeed Scriptiu'e re- 
 -cognises such a revelation repeatedly. But it is to 
 he observed that if that revelation be a revelation of 
 truths of which man could not by the exercise of his 
 natural faculties have attained the knowledge, we 
 have at once something which transcends nature, that 
 is, in other words, a miracle, — not indeed a physical 
 mii-acle, but a moral one. 
 
 Let thus much suffice for the question of antecedent 
 credibility or probability. But indeed, we are but 
 feeling about in the dark while we are discussing such 
 questions in a matter where we are, after all, so little 
 competent to determine antecedently what is credible 
 or probable, or are following out analogies where we 
 are so little competent to determine to what extent 
 the analogies hold, or whether indeed they hold at all. 
 The really important question is, as to the facts re- 
 futed to be miraculous. And it is surely inconsistent 
 in those who lay so much stress, and justly so, on the 
 necessity of weighing every fact which bears upon 
 their theories in matters of science, summarily to 
 override facts, when they do not accord with their 
 theories in matters of religion. 
 
 That the facts of the Christian history which are 
 reputed miraculous really did take place, rests, as has 
 been often urged, upon such testimony as would be 
 accepted as sufficient, and much more than sufficient, 
 in all ordinary matters. 
 
 We are told, indeed, that testimony ''is, after all, 
 but a second-hand assurance, a blind guide; that it 
 can avail nothing against reason ;" nay, that even our 
 own senses may deceive us ^. And it is very true that 
 both testimony mai/ mislead, and our senses ma^ de~ 
 
 ^ Essay, pp. 141, 142. 
 
THE ARGUIMEXT FOR MIRACLES. 155 
 
 ceive. But these results depcud upon the cliaractcr 
 of the testimony, and upon the condition in which 
 our senses are, or the opportunities which they have 
 for taking cognizance of that which comes under their 
 notice. Testimony may he sufficiently established ; 
 our senses maij have sufficient certainty in their ob- 
 servations : and it is as much a law of our moral 
 nature that we should place reliance upon testimony 
 when sufficiently established, and upon our senses 
 when they are not disordered and at the same time 
 have sufficient opportunities of obser\ang, as it is 
 a law of our physical natiu-e that we should feel pain 
 if wounded, or that we should fall if not supported. 
 
 But then it is to be observed to what extent the 
 report of testimony and the observation of our senses 
 are claimed. There are two elements to be considered 
 in an alleged miracle — \h.Q fact^ and the author of the 
 fact; all that is claimed for testimony, all that is 
 claimed for the senses is, that they are competent to 
 establish the fact ; as to the author, this point is to 
 be arrived at on other considerations. 
 
 The reality, then^ of the Christian miracles, so 
 far as the fact is concerned, rests, as has been said, 
 on the most ample testimony. They were wrought 
 openly ; in many instances before enemies. They were 
 asserted in the most public manner by those who pro- 
 fessed to have been eye-witnesses of them, and that 
 in the country in which they were said to have been 
 wrought, and while there were numbers still living 
 who could have contradicted the assertion if false; 
 numbers, too, who had every disposition to contradict 
 it, if they could have done so with success : yet no 
 contradiction that we know of was ever made. The 
 enemies of Christianity, — though they refused to 
 
l^o THE ARGUMENT FOR MIRACLES. 
 
 acknowledge the finger of God in tliem, and so denied 
 them to be miracles, or rather divine miracles, — never 
 denied the facts. They endeavoured, indeed, to ac- 
 count for them; but the very circumstance of their 
 doing so afforded the strongest testimony which 
 they had it in their power to yield to their reality, 
 as facts. 
 
 It is true the prevalent belief in magic, and in the 
 power of evil spirits and their sensible interference in 
 the world, made men more ready to believe reports 
 of supernatural or superhuman occiu-rences than they 
 might have been otherwise. Still, when every allow- 
 ance has been made on this account, it is inconceiv- 
 able that facts, such as the Christian miracles were 
 affirmed to be, could have been accepted, as facts, by 
 enemies, who had every opportunity of testing them, 
 and actually did test them in some instances most 
 rigorously, unless they had really taken place. 
 
 And it is much to be observed that many of them 
 were of a kind respecting which, as far as the fact is 
 concerned, it is incredible that deception could have 
 been practised, or mistake or delusion have occurred. 
 The walking upon the water, the instantaneous hush- 
 ing of a storm, the healing of a paralytic, the cleans- 
 ing of a leper, the giving of sight to the blind, the 
 making whole of the maimed, the feeding of great 
 multitudes with a few loaves and fishes, the restora- 
 tion of the dead to life in the presence of many wit- 
 nesses, in one instance four days after death was said 
 to have occurred, and when the grave had to be 
 opened in which the body lay ; these are facts, which, 
 however it may be pretended to account for them, 
 could not have gained credit unless they had actually 
 taken place. 
 
THE ARGUMENT FOR MIRACLES. 157 
 
 And what is also especially worthy of note, they, 
 together with the other Christian mii-acles, are not 
 a feiVj and those isolated facts ; but a multitude 
 which cohere together, and, like the several stones 
 of an arch, mutually support and strengthen one 
 another. 
 
 Of these facts the central one, — the key-stone, so to 
 speak, of the arch, — is our Lord's Eesurrection. This 
 rests independenibj on the strongest evidence, our Lord 
 having been seen alive after His death many times 
 and by many different persons, — in one instance " by 
 above five hundred brethren at once," of whom, says 
 St. Paul, referring to the circumstance, " the gi'eater 
 part remain unto this present, but some are fallen 
 asleep." But besides the independent evidence on 
 Avhich it rests, it is sustained on the one side, by the 
 manifold signs and wonders, such as those above 
 referred to, which out Lord did antecedently to His 
 death; on the other, by His ascension, and by the 
 descent of the Holy Spii'it, — the former witnessed and 
 attested by the eleven apostles, the latter manifested, 
 not only by the marvellous \^'orks wrought by the 
 apostles, and the gifts of power bestowed largely 
 thi'ough the laying on of their hands upon the first 
 disciples, but also — which is very much to be observed 
 — by the moral change effected both in their own cha- 
 racters, and in the lives and conversations of those 
 who received their testimony ; for this, though not 
 a miracle physicallj^, was at least a fact, and as such, 
 a witness to the reality of that gift of the Holy Spirit, 
 which is represented as consequent upon our Lord's 
 ascension, and by which miracles are said to have 
 been wrought. 
 
 And to all these must be added another irreat and 
 
1^8 THE ARGUMENT FOR MIRACLES. 
 
 most important fact, — that Christianity made its way 
 in a ^Y0^1(i whose interests and prejudices were arrayed 
 against it, avowedly from the very beginning appeal- 
 ing to the miracles of its Founder, and to the mi- 
 raculous powers possessed and exercised by its fii'st 
 preachers, as well as by others to whom they imparted 
 the gift. For however men may now, while profess- 
 ing to accept Christianity as of divine origin, attempt 
 to eliminate the miraculous element from its system, 
 nothing could be farther from the thoughts of its 
 first preachers. Mistakenly or not, they both believed 
 and taught that mii'acles, especially that chief mi- 
 racle, the EesuiTection of its Founder, were part and 
 parcel of Christianity. And as they believed and 
 taught, so their converts believed and confessed. 
 And both preachers and converts, in repeated in- 
 stances, laid down theii* lives in proof of the sincerity 
 of their convictions. 
 
 It is of no avail to refer to the countless pretences 
 to miraculous powers which have since been made, 
 whether by heathens or Christians, as though these, 
 as a matter of course, invalidated the Gospel miracles. 
 Both the Gospel miracles and other alleged miracles 
 are to be tried severally upon their own merits ; and 
 if the facts alleged are established upon sufficient 
 evidence, they are to be received as fads : whether as 
 miraculous facts or as divinely miraculous facts, is 
 a subject for further consideration. At the same 
 time, if there should bo ground for believing, as 
 doubtless there is, that many of the later mii-acles 
 are spurious, this is no more than was to have been 
 expected in the reason of things ; no more than our 
 Lord and His apostles had prepared the Church to 
 expect. And indeed, to a certain extent, such spuri- 
 
THE ARGUMENT FOR MIRACLES. I59 
 
 ous miracles are even witnesses to the reality of some 
 miracles. For, as one has remarked ayIio will not be 
 .suspected of an undue bias in this direction, "The 
 innumerable forgeries of this sort which have been 
 imposed upon mankind in all ages are so far from 
 weakening the credibility of the Jewish and Christian 
 miracles, that they strengthen it. For how could we 
 account for a practice so universal of forging miracles 
 for the support of false religions, if on some occasions 
 they had not actually been wrought for the confir- 
 mation of a true one ? Or how is it possible that so 
 many sj)urious copies should pass upon the world, 
 without some genuine original from whence they were 
 drawn, whose known existence and tried success might 
 give an appearance of probability to the counterfeit^?" 
 
 There can be no reasonable pretext, therefore, for 
 denying the facts supposed to be miraculous in the 
 Gospel history. Xor, truly, does Professor Powell 
 absolutely and in every instance deny the facts. It 
 is only when no reasonable prospect of a solution 
 upon his own principles offers itself that he denies 
 them. And even then his denial is couched in such 
 ambiguous terms, that, if we had not a more explicit 
 statement of his views elsewhere to guide us, it might 
 be somewhat difficult to ascertain his precise meaning. 
 
 But let us hear his own account of the way in 
 which he would deal with the Christian miracles. lie 
 is speaking, indeed, of alleged miracles in general, 
 but of course with his eye specially directed to those 
 of the Gospel : — 
 
 "An alleged miracle can only be regarded in one of two 
 ways ; — either (1) abstractedly as a physical event, and there- 
 
 1 Middleton, quoted by Bp. Douglas, "Ciitorion," pp. 245, 246. 
 
j6o the argument for miracles. 
 
 fore to be investigated Ijy reason and physical evidence, and 
 referred to physical causes, possibly to known causes, .but at all 
 events to some higher cause or law, if at present unknown; 
 it then ceases to be supernatural, yet still might be appealed 
 to in support of religious truth, especially as referring to the 
 state of knowledge and apprehensions of the parties addressed 
 in past ages ; or ( 2 ) as connected with religious doctrine, 
 regarded in a sacred light, asserted on the authority of inspi- 
 ration. In this case it ceases to be capable of investigation 
 by reason, or to own its dominion ; it is accepted on religious 
 groimds, and can appeal only to the principle and influence 
 of faith. Thus miraculous narratives become invested with 
 the character of articles of faith, if they be accepted in a less 
 positive and certain light, as requiring some suspension of 
 judgment as to their nature and circumstances, or perhaps as 
 involving more or less of the parabolic or mythic character ; 
 or at any rate as received in connexion with, and for the sake 
 of the doctrine inculcated °^." 
 
 It appears then, that in the first place the fact of 
 the alleged miracle is to be subjected to a rigid scru- 
 tiny, and if there be no apparent ground for rejecting 
 it, we are then to consider whether it is not capable of 
 being referred to some Jcnoivn physical cause. 
 
 If there is no such cause to which it can be referred, 
 still, — as no one can pretend to set bounds to nature, 
 — it may reasonably be supposed that, if our know- 
 ledge were sufficiently enlarged, we should be able to 
 assign a cause, in accordance with the laws of nature, 
 — a natural cause as distinguished from a supernatural 
 one ; and we may rest in that supposition. 
 
 If, however, the character of the miracle, or possibly 
 the constitution of our own minds, be such, that we 
 cannot bring ourselves to acquiesce in such a suppo- 
 sition, — then, as a last resource, we must accept the 
 
 ^ Essay, p. 142. 
 
THE ARGUMENT FOR MIRACLES. l6l 
 
 narrative wliich contains the account of it, — suppo.-5ing 
 it to be one of the Scriptural narratives, — "as an 
 article of faith," "on the authority of inspiration." 
 
 In doing this, however, we must be content to re- 
 gard the narrative " in a less positive and certain light, 
 as requiring some suspension of judgment as to its 
 nature and cii'cum stances :" in other words, we must 
 presume that we have been mistaken in looking upon 
 it as literally and historically true. And we must 
 either leave it to " await its solution," without ven- 
 turing to offer a solution of our own, receiving it "in 
 connexion with, and for the sake of the doctrine 
 inculcated," or we must have recourse to " ideology," 
 and suppose that the narrative has "more or less of 
 the parabolic or mythic character," or, as our author 
 expresses himself elsewhere, is " of a designedly fic- 
 titious or poetical nature"." 
 
 ° Compare '-'Order of Xaturc," pp.274, 275: — ""We have ad- 
 verted to the kind of examination vre should mike of a marvellous 
 event occurring before our eyes. The same critical scrutiny could 
 not be applied to a marvellous event recorded in history. But in 
 general, if such an event be narrated, especially as occurring in 
 remote times, it Tvould still become a fair object of the critical 
 historian to endeavour to obtain, if possible, some rational clue to 
 the interpretation of the alleged wonderful narrative. And in this 
 point of view, it is sometimes possible, that, under the supernatural 
 language of a rude age, -we may find some real natural phenomenon 
 truly described according to the existing state of knowledge. 
 
 " But marvels and prodigies, as such, are beyond the province of 
 critical history and scientific knowledge ; they can only be brought 
 within it, when, either certainly or probably, brought within the 
 domain of na* lire. It is almost needless to add, in reference to any 
 such historical narrative, that it is of course presumed, as pre- 
 liminary to all philosophical speculation, that we have carefully 
 scrutinized the whole question of testimony and documentar)- au- 
 thenticity, on purely archaeological and critical grounds. 
 
 "But in other cases, where such marvels may seem still more to 
 M 
 
l62 THE ARGUMENT FOR MIRACLES. 
 
 Professor Powell is ingenious in the method which 
 he has devised for maintaining his theory. Other 
 opponents of miracles have been content to rest their 
 opposition each on a single principle ; Professor Powell 
 has a second and a third in reserve, if the one which 
 he had first put forward fails. It is a matter of no 
 little difficulty in dealing with him to know, in the 
 case of any particular miracle, the precise ground on 
 which he is entrenching himself. At the same time, 
 however, it is to be observed, that, as regards the 
 Christian miracles, it is a matter of necessity that he 
 who calls them in question must choose the principle 
 on which he proposes to deny them, and adhere to it 
 throughout. If, for instance, it be granted in any case 
 that the narrative is a narrative of fact, though possibly 
 of a fact which happened according to the ordinary 
 course of nature, it is impossible to believe that others of 
 the narratives are "of a designedly fictitious or poetical" 
 character ; and vice versa, if it be granted that any of 
 them are designedly fictitious or poetical, it is im- 
 possible to understand others as narratives of facts. 
 They are all so obviously of one and the same cha- 
 racter that they must stand or fall together. 
 
 militate against all historical probability, and where attempts at 
 explanation seem irrational, we may be led to prefer the supposition 
 that the narrative itself icas of a designedhj fictitious or poetical 
 nature. And this alternative opens a wide and material field of 
 inquiry, which can only be adequately entered upon by those who 
 unite in an eminent degree the spirit of philosophic investigation 
 with accui'ate critical, philological, and literary attainments; and 
 which embraces the entire question of the origin and propagation of 
 those various forms of popular /c^/o;? which are, and have been in 
 all ages, so largely the expression of religious ideas, and often 
 convey, under a poetical or dramatised form, the exposition of an 
 important moral or religious doctrin^, and exemplify the remark, 
 that parable and myth often include more truth than history." 
 
NATURALISTIC SENSE. 163 
 
 1. With regard to the theory which would attribute 
 the Christian miracles to natural causes : 
 
 It is not denied that some few of them, stripped of 
 ihe circumstances connected 2vith t/iem, might admit of 
 being explained without the supposition of special 
 divine interference. But take those circumstances into 
 account, and the natural at once "lifts itself up into 
 the miraculous"." That a piece of money, for ex- 
 ample, should be found in a fish's mouth, is an occur- 
 rence which might possibly happen in a natural way : 
 but add the coincidence that our Lord directed Peter 
 to go to the sea and cast in a hook and take the fish 
 that should first come up, and told him that he should 
 find in its mouth the very sum of money which he 
 was in want of for the particular occasion, and it seems 
 impossible to deny that "the finger of God" was in 
 the whole transaction. In like manner, that a sudden 
 storm upon the sea of Galilee should speedily be al- 
 layed, is perhaps not extraordinary ; but that when it 
 was at its height, and the sailors were alarmed at the 
 prospect of instant destruction, our Lord should rise 
 up, and speak the words "Peace, be still," and it 
 should forthwith die down, and be succeeded by a 
 great calm, — here was a coincidence which cannot be 
 believed to be fortuitous. Those who witnessed it, at 
 least, were deeply impressed with the conviction that 
 there was an exercise of other than human agency : 
 " What manner of man," they exclaimed, " is this, that 
 even the winds and the sea obey Him ^ ?" 
 
 But though some few of the miracles, apart from 
 the circumstances connected with them, might pos- 
 sibly be accounted for in a natural way, the great 
 
 " Trench, " Xotcs on the Miracles," p. 13. 
 P Matt. viii. 27. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 RELATIVE MIRACLES. 
 
 majority refuse to be so dealt with. It is true that 
 a naturalistic construction has been devised systemati- 
 cally for the whole of them''; but that I may here 
 use Professor Powell's own words'", — "the immense 
 multitude of coincidences and combinations of circum- 
 stances and extraordinary occurrences, which it thus 
 becomes necessary to suppose concentrated in one 
 short period, presents too complex a mass of hypo- 
 theses to furnish a real and satisfactory theory of the 
 ivhole series of evangelical miracles." 
 
 If the theory will not answer for the whole series, 
 it can be of little service in the case of the very fcAV 
 to which it might seem to admit of application, nor, 
 when the abatement necessary to be made for the con- 
 comitant circumstances is taken into consideration, 
 can it be of any service even for them. 
 
 Professor Powell, while implying that some of 
 the facts of the Gospel narrative commonly described 
 as miracles are in reality to be ascribed to natural 
 causes, goes on to say that such "might still be ap- 
 pealed to in support of religious truth, especially as 
 referring to the state of knowledge and apprehension 
 of the parties addressed in past ages :" in other words, 
 they might be dealt with on Schleiermacher's prin- 
 ciple, as relative miracles. 
 
 But the boon thus offered is one which, even if the 
 solution suggested were acquiesced in, the whole tone 
 of the Gospel narrative would forbid ns to accept. 
 Our Lord constantly appealed to His miracles as real 
 miracles^ as superhuman works, as testimonies borne 
 to Him by His Father. Whatever therefore might have 
 been the effect of such marvels upon those who deemed 
 ythem to be of heaven, when indeed they were but of 
 
 1 By Paulus. ' Order of Nature, p. 333. 
 
RELATIVE MIRACLES. 165 
 
 the earth, on us, to whom a deeper insight into nature 
 had revealed their true character, it woukl only bo to 
 excite indignation and disgust. 
 
 If it he urged, that the deeper insight into nature 
 possessed by our Lord and communicated by Him to 
 Ilis apostles, by which He and they wrought marvel- 
 lous works, might fitly be ''appealed to in support of 
 religious truth," without impeachment of His or their 
 sincerity, inasmuch as the very possession of it, in the 
 age in which it was exercised, implied superhuman 
 knowledge, this truly is to grant the principle which 
 we contend for. Here is a miracle in the strictest 
 sense of the word : not indeed a 'physical miracle, 
 though it produced physical efi'ects, but something 
 which was ahove humanity and above nature. 
 
 But indeed we do but trifle while we speculate on 
 such matters. With all the insight into nature to 
 which modern science has introduced us, we are as 
 far removed at this day as were the contemporaries 
 of oiu' Lord and His apostles from comprehending the 
 means by which such works as those recorded in the 
 I^ew Testament are to be wrought. Wc can travel 
 with such speed as almost to outstrip an arrow in its 
 flight, we can send a message over hundreds of miles 
 in a few seconds, we can transfer an instantaneous 
 likeness of ourselves or of the scene around us to 
 paper with an exactness which no pencil could equal, 
 we can cheat pain of its victims, we can weigh the 
 earth, we can foretell the eclipses of the sun and 
 moon, and even of the satellites of other planets, — but 
 we are as incapable of communicating instantaneous 
 sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the 
 dumb, health to the sick, life to the dead, or of doing 
 any other of the mighty works ascribed to our Lord 
 
l66 ALLEGORIC AJ. SENSE. 
 
 or His apostles, as was the simplest and most un- 
 learned of those who witnessed them. 
 
 2. The second theory which Professor Powell calls 
 in to his aid is one, which, like the preceding, he is 
 far from adopting universally. It is only when other 
 methods fail, or when this has some special advantage 
 to recommend it, that he has recourse to it. And 
 even so he appears to do so with some hesitation. 
 The narrative, it is suggested, may " perhaps involve 
 more or less of the parabolic or mythic character." 
 It doubtless contains important instruction as sym- 
 bolizing certain truths, but it is not literally and his- 
 torically true. We must read it as we read the 
 parable of Dives and Lazarus, or that of the unjust 
 steward. We must apply it as St. Paul has taught 
 us to apply the history of Sarah and Hagar, only, it 
 should be added, with this difference, that whereas 
 St. Paul's application was built upon the literal truth 
 of the history, the theory under consideration rejects 
 the literal truth and substitutes the mythic in its 
 stead. 
 
 To unfold on system the mythic or allegorical appli- 
 cation of which the Scripture narratives may be thought 
 capable, may serve as an exercise for ingenuity ; and 
 this, in his coarse, ribald style, was the method pur- 
 sued by Woolston in his assault upon the miracles. 
 But that such application should be accepted, in such- 
 wise as to exclude the literal and historical sense, by 
 any sincere lover of truth, I do not say in all, but 
 even in one of the narratives, is impossible. Those 
 narratives bear every appearance of reality on their 
 surface, and no skill or ingenuity can discover any- 
 thing of a different character underneath the surface. 
 The actors are real, the actions are real, the conver- 
 
ALLEGORICAL SENSE. 167 
 
 sations, the discussions, which accompany or ai-ise out 
 of the actions, and the proceedings which result from 
 them are real. Let any one read over, for instance, 
 the account of the raising of Lazarus and of the mea- 
 sures taken by the Jews in consequence of it, or of 
 the giving of sight to the man who had been born 
 blind and of the investigation instituted by our Lord's 
 enemies into the reality of the miracle ''j and he will 
 rise from the perusal with the conviction that it is an 
 insult to his understanding to ask him to allow a so- 
 called ideological application to supplant the natural 
 and obvious meaning. And if this would be his feel- 
 ing on reading one or two of the Gospel narratives, it 
 w^ould be so in a much greater and more intense de- 
 gree on reading the whole of the historical books of 
 the Kew Testament with the subject specially kept 
 in view. 
 
 Woolston made large and confident appeals to the 
 Fathers in support of his system : and it cannot be 
 denied either that allegorizing was in much use in the 
 early Church, or that it was carried to excess in some 
 instances by individual Fathers. But of that excess, 
 reaching so far as occasionally to exclude the literal 
 sense and to substitute an allegorical in its stead, we 
 have no instance till towards the middle of the third 
 century. Origen set the example*; and he was fol- 
 
 " John ix. 
 
 ' " Strong as the appetite of the Fathers certainly was on all 
 these accounts for figures, I do not think any instance can be pro- 
 duced from those before Origen of the literal meaning of a passage 
 of Scripture being evaporated in the figurative. . . . He is the first of 
 the Fathers of whom it can be said, that he refines the fact away in 
 the allegory : and even of him it can only be said under great re- 
 striction. Origen's general notions upon this question seem to be 
 most fairly represented in his work against Celsus, — the soberest of 
 
l68 ALLEGORICAL SENSE. 
 
 lowed occasionally by men whose names carry greater 
 weight than his ". Yet even Origen, in his work 
 against Celsus, uniformly argues, as does Celsus also, 
 on the principle that the narratives of the Christian 
 miracles are to be understood Kterally, however they 
 may admit or solicit an allegorical sense besides. He 
 repeatedly appeals to the miracles as real, not only in 
 a general way, but with the specification of particular 
 instances ; such as the feeding of the multitudes with 
 a few loaves and fishes, the three several cases of the 
 dead raised to life, the healing of the sick, the giving 
 of sight to the blind, and the enabling of the lame to 
 walk"" . And in so doing he is but acting in confor- 
 
 his woiks, — viz. that we are to consider the narrative of Scripture 
 as having an obvious sense, but that we are not to rest in the ob- 
 vious ; nor, in interpreting the law, are we to begin and end with 
 the letter : and in like manner, in contemplating the incidents re- 
 lated of Jesus, we shall not arrive at the spectacle of the truth in 
 full, unless we are guided by the same rule." — Professor Blunt, 
 " On the right use of the Early Fathers,'' pp. 213 — 215. 
 
 " " Sed etiam Hieronymum video tantum insaniisse, ut scriberet ad 
 Nepotianum, in Epistola de Yita Clericorum, Historiam Davidis et 
 Abisae Sunamitis figmentum esse de mimo vel Atellanarum ludicro, 
 si sequeris literam. Apage vero has allegoristarum nugas, quibus, 
 propter nonnulla vere typica in Sacra Scriptura, et alia quaedam vel 
 tropic'j prolata, vel ambiguse interpretationis, magni alioqui viri, 
 dum uliis prodesse volebant, suam ipsorum famam laeserunt."— 
 Routh, ReJiquice SacrcB, torn. iii. p. 434. 
 
 ^' Thus, e.g. (lib. i. p. 5, ed. Spenc.) he appeals to prophecy 
 and nnracles as evidences of Chi'istianity, in accordance with the 
 
 Apost j's words, 1 Cor. ii. 4, eV d7ro8fi|et irvivfiaTos Ka\ bwdfj-eas, as 
 he explains them : — HveimaTos fiiv, 8ia ras TzpoiprjTeias, 'iKavas ttktto- 
 iroirjcrai tov fVTvyxdvovra, jidXicrTa tls ra nepl tov Xpiarov- 8vvdn(a>i Se, 
 8ia rds Tepaariovs 8vvdp.ets as Karaa-KevaaTeov yeyovevai Ka\ tK TroWatv 
 [xev aWcov, Kal €K tov 'i}(i/r] Be airau ert a-w^eadai ■ Trapa toIs Kara to 
 
 povXrjpLa TOV Xoyov ^lovai. See also pp. 30, 34, 53, and lib. 2. pp. 70, 
 87, 88. 
 
SPIRITUALIZED SENSE. 169 
 
 mity with the principles of the earlier Fathers as well as 
 of the sounder part of the later. To whatever extent 
 they might employ allegory, — and no doubt they did 
 in many instances to a great extent, — their rule was 
 to make the literal and historical truth the basis of 
 the allegory which they built upon it ^. 
 
 3. One other principle of solution is put forward by 
 Professor Powell. He is willing, in certain cases, to 
 accei^t the miracle "on religious grounds," "in con- 
 nexion with and for the sake of the doctrine incul- 
 cated," — as " an article of faith," not as a matter re- 
 specting which our senses can have any cognizance. 
 
 If by this be meant that there are certain mira- 
 culous factSj which transcend our reason, but which 
 nevertheless we believe as facts ^ on the authority of 
 revelation, — such, for instance, as the incarnation 
 
 ' ''Tunc namque allegorise fructus suaviter carpitur, cum prius 
 per historiam in veritatis radice solidatur." — Gregory the Great, 
 Horn. 40 in Evang., quoted by Dean Trench, " Notes on the Mira- 
 cles," p. 82, See also St. Augustine, Be Civ.Bci, lib. xiii. c. 21, where, 
 animadverting upon those who would put an allegorical interpreta- 
 tion on Gen. ii. to the exclusion of the literal sense, he says : — " Tan- 
 quam visibilia et corporalia ilia non fuerint, sed intelligibilium sig- 
 nificandorum causa eo modo dicta vel scripta sint. Quasi propterea 
 non potuerit esse paradisus corporalis, quia potest etiam spiritualis 
 intclligi: tanquam ideo non fuerint duse mulieres, Ag:;r et Sara, et 
 ex illis duo filii Abraha;, unus de ancilla, unus de libera, quia duo 
 Tcstamenta in eis figurata dicit apostolus ; aut ideo de nulla petra 
 Moyse pcrcuticnte aqua dcfluxerit, quia potest illic figurata signi- 
 ficatione etiam Chi'istus intelligi, eodem apostolo dicente, ' Petra 
 autem erat Christus.' " Then, after giving two different allegorical 
 expositions of the description of Paradise, he adds : — " Hsec, et si 
 qua alia commodius dici possunt de intelligendo spiritual iter Para- 
 dise, nemine prohibente dicantur, dum tamen et illius historiiG 
 Veritas fidelissima rerum gestarum narratione commendata creda- 
 tur." — See also De Genesi ad Liter am, lib. viii. c. 1. 
 
170 SPIRITUALIZED SENSE. 
 
 of om* Blessed Lord, — the principle is most sound, 
 and every Christian will acquiesce in it cordially. 
 Only it follows immediately, as has been already in- 
 timated, that if it be conceded but in a single in- 
 stance that a miracle has been wrought, the ground 
 on which Professor Powell's gi-and objection to mira- 
 cles rests is cut away from under him. What has been 
 in one instance may have been in others. There is no 
 longer, even on his own principles, any shadow of 
 reason for maintaining that a miracle is antecedently 
 and absolutely incredible. 
 
 Whether the sense above refeiTed to is that which 
 Professor Powell really intends, is not easily to be 
 collected fi'om the work before us. He speaks more 
 plainly however in his book " On the Order of jSTature." 
 And there it appears that while he professes to accept 
 such miracles as the incarnation, the resurrection, and 
 the ascension, in what he calls a '' spiritualized sense," 
 " in connexion with and for the sake of the doctrine 
 inculcated," he has the utmost repugnance to receive 
 them as physical facts. The truth is, he has abeady 
 become convinced, on antecedent considerations, that 
 there can be no such thing as a mii-acle ; and not even 
 the authority of the inspiration which he professes 
 to accept is of avail to shake his conviction. Even 
 while acknowledging the name^ he is at pains to 
 deny the thing. 
 
 But let us hear his own words : — 
 
 " If we turn to the New Testament, and acknowledge in 
 its later writings, especially those of St. Paul, the fullest de- 
 velopment of apostohc Christianity, we there find, in a very 
 remarkable manner, that no reference is made to any of the 
 Gospel miracles, except only those specially connected with 
 the personal office and nature of Christ : and even these are 
 
SPIRITUALIZED SENSE. 171 
 
 never insisted on in their p/iysical details, hut solely in their 
 spiritual and doctrinal application. 
 
 " Thus the Resurrection of Christ is emphatically dwelt 
 upon, not in its physical letter, but in its doctrinal spirit ; not 
 as a physiological phenomoion, hwi as the corner-stone of Chris- 
 tian faith and hope, — the type of spiritual life here, and the 
 assurance of eternal life hereafter. . . . 
 
 " So in like manner the transcendent mysteries of the 
 incarnation and ascension are never alluded to at all by the 
 apostles in a historical or material sense, but onh' as they are 
 involved in points of spiritual doctrine, and as objects of 
 faith 
 
 " And in this spiritualized sense has the Christian Church 
 in all ages acknowledged these divine mysteries and miracles, 
 'not of sight but of faith;* not expounded by science, but de- 
 livered in traditional formularies, celebrated in festivals and 
 solemnities by sacred rites and symbols, embodied in the 
 creations of art, and proclaimed by choral harmonies ; through 
 all which the spirit of faith adores the great mystery of god- 
 liness, — ^manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of 
 angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, 
 received up into glory." — Order of Nature, pp. 458 — 460. 
 
 The whole drift of these remarks obviously is to 
 deny, if not in express words yet by implication, the 
 reality of our Lord's incarnation, resurrection, and 
 ascension in any physical sense ^. 
 
 y In confirmation of the construction which I have put upon Pro- 
 fessor Powell's words, I may refer to an article on the " Essays 
 and Reviews," in the "Edinburgh Review," for April, 1861, in 
 which the apologist, (for this is really the character which the 
 writer sustains,) after asserting that, though many parts of the Bible 
 are confessedly figurative and parabolic, there still remain events, 
 such as, above all others, our Lord's Resurrection, where the historic 
 reality must be admitted, proceeds, — " But our own assurance of 
 this and of like occurrences far less important ought not to blind us 
 to the fact, that the very events and wonders, which to us are 
 helps, to others are stumbHng-blocks. And though we shrink from 
 abandoning any thing which to us seems necessary or true, yet 
 
172 SPIRITUALIZED SENSE. 
 
 The other miracles of the Gospel, it seems, are not 
 even referred to in the later writings of the l^ew 
 Testament. Had then the apostles, in "the fuller 
 development of Christianity" to which they had at- 
 tained, learnt to regard their earlier belief on this 
 point as a delusion ? 
 
 Even if it were true, however, that there is no re- 
 ference in the Apostolic Epistles to the miracles of the 
 Gospel, this would be no matter of surprise, unless 
 (which requires to be shewn) the subject in any par- 
 ticular instance required, or at all events suggested, 
 the reference. The fact is, however, that there are 
 occasional, though not frequent, references by the 
 writers to their own miracles, and these distinctly as 
 literal facts ^. And if they spoke of their own miracles 
 as such, we may be sure they would have had no 
 hesitation, had the occasion required, in speaking of 
 their Lord's mu-acles as such. 
 
 The mii-acles, however, which are connected with 
 our Lord's Person and office are " never," we are told, 
 "insisted on in their physical details, but solely in 
 their spiritual and doctrinal application." The resui-- 
 rection, for instance, is " emphatically dwelt upon, not 
 in its physical letter, but in its doctrinal spirit." 
 
 One is at a loss to conceive how any one could make 
 such an assertion as this, unless he thought by its bold 
 
 we are bound to treat those who prefer to lean on other, and, as 
 they think, more secure foundations, with the tenderness with 
 which we cannot doubt they would have been treated by Him, 
 to whom the craving for signs and wonders was a mark, not of 
 love and faith, but of perverseuess and unbelief." 
 
 ^ See Gal. iii. 5; Rom. xv. 18, 19; 2 Cor. xii. 12; Heb. ii. 3, 4. 
 The transfiguration and the voice from heaven are expressly ap- 
 pealed to, and that as strictly literal and historical facts, 2 Pet. i. 
 16, 17. 
 
SPIRITUALIZED SENSE. 173 
 
 confidence to impose upon himself and overbear the 
 reclamations of others. Most persons would rise from 
 the perusal of the 15th Chapter of the First Epistle 
 to the Corinthians with the thorough conviction that 
 how much use soever the Apostle maj^ make of our 
 Lord's resurrection doctrinally, he does most empha- 
 tically dwell upon it in its physical letter. Its literal 
 truth as a '■'■ phj biological phenomenon^'' is the very basis 
 and substratum of all that is said on the subject. 
 It is implied throughout the whole of the Apostle's 
 argument: "I delivered unto you first of all," says 
 the Apostle, reminding the Corinthians of the doctrine 
 which he had taught at Corinth, "that which I also 
 received, how that Christ died for our sins according 
 to the Scriptures ; and that He was buried, and that 
 He rose again the third day, according to the Scrip- 
 tures : and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the 
 twelve. After that, He was seen of above five hundred 
 brethren at once. . . . After that, He was seen of James ; 
 then of all the Apostles ; and last of all, He was seen 
 of me also. . . . iS^ow if Christ be preached that He 
 rose from the dead, how say some among you that 
 there is no resurrection of the dead ? But if there be 
 no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen : 
 and if Christ le not risen, then is our j^reaching vain, 
 and your faith is also vain. Yea, and ?ve are found 
 false tvitnesses of God ; because we have testified of God 
 that He raised up Christ: tvhom He raised not up, if so 
 he that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, 
 then is not Christ raised : and if Christ be not raised, 
 your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they 
 also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. . . . 
 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the 
 firsffruils of them that slcpt?^ 
 
174 SUMMARY OF PROPOSED SOLUTIONS. 
 
 "Will any one venture, after such a passage as this, 
 to talk of a merely '' spiritualized sense," as though 
 the resurrection of the "fullest development of apo- 
 stolic Christianity" Tvere of a different kind from that 
 which was recognised on the very day on which the 
 history relates that it occurred, when our Lord shewed 
 the assembled disciples His hands and His feet, and 
 bade them handle Him and see that His body was 
 a real body, and by consequence His resurrection 
 a real resurrection, literally and physically true ? 
 
 It would be a waste of time to adduce further 
 proofs, whether as regards the resurrection, or the 
 incarnation, or the ascension, that whatever doctrinal 
 instructions the apostles might graft upon these great 
 and cardinal truths, they neither held nor taught any 
 other faith respecting them than that which pervades 
 the whole volume of the New Testament. They regarded 
 them as facts, — ^'- physiological 'phenomena,^'' to use Pro- 
 fessor Powell's phrase, — and they denounced those 
 who denied their literal truth, — whether by explain- 
 ing them, as Hymenseus and Philetus did the resur- 
 rection, in a " spiritualized sense," or as the Docetce^ 
 by attributing to our Lord a phantom body and de- 
 nying that He was really "come in the flesh," — as 
 heretics and antichrists \ 
 
 So much, then, for the several solutions which 
 Professor Powell offers in explanation of the Christian 
 miracles. I have endeavoured to shew of each in 
 turn that it is wholly unsatisfactory. But, indeed, 
 there is no need of a laboured refutation. The sim- 
 plest and the most convincing exposure of their iin- 
 satisfactoriness is that which each one may derive for 
 
 ■^ 2 Tim ii. 17: 1 Jolin iv. 3. 
 
SUMMARY OF TROrOSED SOLUTIONS. 175 
 
 himself from an attentive perusal of the New Testa- 
 ment narratiyes. Let any candid person read the 
 accounts there given, and, as he reads, ask himself 
 from time to time, whether it is possible that there 
 could be room for illusion^ and that in so many and 
 such various instances, so that what he has been 
 accustomed to regard as facts were not facts; or 
 whether it is conceivable that what was done or 
 happened can be accounted for, all the concomitant 
 circumstances being considered, hj a reference to natu- 
 ral causes; or whether it can be believed that the 
 wi-iters of the Christian books could have intended 
 their narratives to be understood, not as literally and 
 historically true, but only ideologically^ or in a " spiri- 
 tualized sense ;" — if any one, on reading these accoimts, 
 should affirm that one or the other of these suppo- 
 sitious is credible, is conceivable, is possible, he must 
 be beyond the reach of argument; I know of no 
 further consideration which would be likely to have 
 weight with him. The difficulty, however, is to pre- 
 vail upon those who have already determined with 
 themselves on antecedent grounds to reject the Chris- 
 tian miracles, to read the narratives of those miracles 
 with any measure of candour. Hume owned that he 
 had never read the New Testament with attention ^ ; 
 and there is reason to fear that not a few of those who 
 have arrived at conclusions similar to those of Hume, 
 strengthen themselves in the same by a like disregard 
 of that sacred Book and the witness which it bears. 
 
 To gather up, then, what has been said thus far : — 
 We have seen, 1st, that they who, on the ground of 
 antecedent incredibility, are for rejecting miracles 
 
 '' Eoswell's Life of Johnson, vol. ii. p. 19, cd. 1823. 
 
176 THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 
 
 summarily and without even entering into the ques- 
 tion of evidence, have no wan-ant for such a course ; 
 2ndly, that the real question at issue is, What are the 
 facts of the case ? and that, as regards the Christian 
 miracles, there is the strongest reason for believing 
 the facts, — while at the same time the solutions offered 
 by our author, when he would dispose of their claim 
 to be recognised as miracles^ are wholly unsatisfactory. 
 Being facts, it is idle to speak of an allegorical or a 
 " spiritualized" sense, such as shall exclude the literal. 
 And they are facts which it is impossible to account 
 for by a reference to causes ordinarily in operation. 
 ISTo such solution is conceivable. They must be acknow- 
 ledged to be beyond the power of man, and above 
 nature : they must be accepted as Miracles. 
 
 II. 
 
 But it may still be a question. How far are mira- 
 cles to be accepted as e^^dence for a divine reve- 
 lation, — or, to confine the matter within narrower 
 bounds, as evidence for Christianity? This is Pro- 
 fessor Powell's second consideration, though one, as 
 has been already observed, which he might well have 
 spared himself the labour of discussing, supposing that 
 he had proved his point in the preceding part of his 
 Essay. For to what purpose is it to discuss the value 
 of the evidence afforded by miracles, if we are already 
 persuaded that no such thing as a miracle was ever 
 wrought? As it is, indeed, he does not so much 
 discuss the question, as though it were one which 
 admitted of debate, as ring a variety of changes upon 
 the principle, which he conceives he has already made 
 good, of " the universal order and constancy of natural 
 
CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. 177 
 
 causes." This being the case, whatever miglit be the 
 evidential force of miracles, with those whose precon- 
 ceived notions disposed them to acquiesce in them as 
 miracles, to others, whom modern science has en- 
 lightened, it can be of no account. 
 
 But that principle, as we have seen, has not been 
 established. And we may therefore proceed to dis- 
 cuss the question of the evidential force of miracles 
 upon its own merits. 
 
 And this question involves a previous one. By what 
 tokens may miracles, acknowledged such, be proved 
 to be from God ? 
 
 By many, indeed, such an inquiry would be thought 
 superfluous, inasmuch as a miracle having once been 
 granted to be real, there would seem no room for 
 further question. The appeal to miracles, however, is 
 one which has been repeatedly made by rival sects in 
 support of their respective claims : and though pro- 
 bably enough without any foundation of truth to rest 
 upon in the vast majority of cases, yet Scripture, as 
 it distinctly recognises the existence of superhuman 
 beings, evil as well as good, so it not less distinctly 
 warns us that miracles, even real miracles it should 
 seem, may be T^TOught by the agency of such beings, 
 God so permitting, where the workers are evil, whe- 
 ther for the trial of Ilis servants, or, judicially, for 
 the punishment of those who wilfully blind themselves 
 against the truth '. 
 
 Let us see to what extent the same Scripture 
 affords us a test whereby we may try the miracles 
 whether they are of God. 
 
 ' 2 Thess. ii. 9, &c. See Cudworth's " Intellectual System," 
 p. 706; and Clarke's "Evidences of Natural and Ecvoaled Re- 
 ligion," p. 30G. 
 
 N 
 
178 CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. 
 
 " If there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer 
 of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the 
 sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake 
 unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, zvhich thou 
 hast not Mown, and let us serve them ; thou shalt not 
 hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer 
 of dreams : for the Lord your God proveth you, to 
 know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your 
 heart and with all your soul . . . And that prophet, or 
 that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death ; be- 
 cause he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord 
 your God V 
 
 This, then, was the rule under the Old Testament : 
 a mii'acle wrought, or pretended to be wrought, — and 
 it mattered not which, — in support of a system opposed 
 to the revelation already given, was not to be hearkened 
 to for an instant. 
 
 And it is much to be observed that a tacit reference 
 to this rule pervades our Lord's intercourse with those 
 who opposed His claims. That He did many miracles 
 they could not and they did not attempt to deny. 
 But they endeavoured to put Him down summarily on 
 the ground that His teaching was at variance with 
 their law. While He, on the contrary, continually 
 appealed to that law, bidding them search the Scrip- 
 tures, for they testified of Him, and affirming, that had 
 they believed Moses they would have believed Him, 
 for he wrote of Him. 
 
 Precisely similar, it may be added, to the rule 
 under the Old Testament, is the rule under the 
 Kew: — "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try 
 the spiiits whether they are of God: because many 
 
 d Deut. xiii. 1—5. 
 
CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. 179 
 
 false prophets arc gone out into the workl. Ilereby 
 know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that con- 
 fesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God : 
 and every spirit that confcsseth not that Jesus Christ 
 is come in the flesh is not of God "V "Though we or 
 an angel from heaven />/r«c/i any other Gospel unto you 
 than that which ive have preached unto you^ let him be 
 accursed ^" Here is the same test ; and though mira- 
 cles are not specified in connexion with it, yet it is 
 obviously designed to apply to whatsoever credentials 
 might be adduced, mii-acles in the number. Xo one 
 is to be hearkened to, no not for a moment, let him 
 come with what pretensions he may, zvhose teaching 
 contravenes a revelation already given. 
 
 In what has been said thus far, it will be seen that 
 the subject has been regarded from the point of view of 
 those only who are already in possession of a divine 
 revelation. If it be asked, How the case stands with 
 those who have had no previous revelation to guide 
 them ? — It must be confessed that such persons are, so 
 far, comparatively at a disadvantage. Still there are 
 eertain great principles of moral and religious truth 
 written on men's consciences, though in many cases 
 well-nigh obliterated, which, as far as they go^ must 
 serve to them instead of a precedent revelation. No 
 miracle ought to be accepted by a heathen as divine, 
 the object of which is to confirm a system of teaching 
 plainly repugnant to those principles. On the other 
 hand, there being no antecedent presumption on such 
 grounds against the teaching, the appeal to mira- 
 cles would be entitled to a candid and patient con- 
 sideration. 
 
 « IJolmiv. 1—3. ' Gul. i. 8. 
 
 n2 
 
l8o CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. 
 
 If tlie case, instead of being that of a heathen, were 
 that of an unbeliever living in a Christian country, 
 the only difference would be, that such a one would 
 have the advantage of a truer and higher moral 
 standard to judge by, — the standard, namely, which 
 had been furnished by that very revelation on which 
 he was sitting in judgment, and of which he was un- 
 consciously reaping the benefit. 
 
 And now we may see the extent to which the 
 doctrine is a test of the miracle. And it is highly 
 important that we should have a right understanding 
 on this point, seeing that certain dicta, such as that 
 " the miracles prove the doctrines, and the doctrines 
 approve the miracles," have got into current use, which, 
 though they are perfectly true if taken rightly, often 
 have an unsound sense put upon them. 
 
 The doctrine, then, taught by him who appeals to 
 miracles as a proof that he has a commission from 
 God, must itself be tried hy the revelation already given. 
 Under the Old Testament dispensation, that doctrine 
 would have been self-condemned, and the miracles to 
 which it appealed together with it, which taught men 
 to forsake the worship of the one living and true God. 
 Under the New Testament, the case is the same where 
 the doctrine denies that Jesus is the Christ, or contra- 
 venes any other of the fundamental truths of the Gospel. 
 Where neither the Old Testament nor the New can 
 be appealed to, then, and then only, must men be con- 
 tent with that standard of truth and morality, an im- 
 perfect one at best, to which, by whatsoever means, 
 those who know nothing or believe nothing of a pre- 
 cedent revelation have attained. To appeal to any 
 Buch standard, when the benefit of a precedent reve- 
 
CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. l8l 
 
 liitioii is enjoyed, would be as superfluous as to light 
 a caudle in full sunshine. 
 
 Professor Powell, after referring to such passages as 
 those which have been above cited, and inferring most 
 justly, " that the unworthiness of the doctrine will 
 discredit even the most distinctly alleged apparent 
 miracles," adds, that the worthiness or unworthiness 
 of the doctrine "appeals solely to our moral judg- 
 ment ^." It does so, no doubt ; but then it is to our 
 moral judgment, if we are already in possession of a 
 revelation, enlightened hg that revelation. Scripture 
 distinctly recognises the standard of natural conscience, 
 where men have no safer and truer guide ^. But where 
 they have, its language is, " To the law and to the 
 testimong .- if theg speak not according to this toord^ it 
 is because there is no light in thcm'^P 
 
 It will be observed that the test referred to makes 
 proof, not whether the facts in question are miracles 
 or not, of ang sort; — it is no test of that: — but whe- 
 ther they are divine miracles ; whether they are to be 
 referred to God as their author, or to "the working 
 of Satan," and are to be classed with those "signs 
 and lying wonders" [repara xJAevdov^), — not necessa- 
 rily counterfeit miracles, but, in some cases possibly 
 enough, real miracles, wrought for the upholding of 
 a lie, — wherewith the Evil One is permitted to deceive 
 those "who receive not the love of the truth that 
 they may be saved''." 
 
 It must be borne in mind too, that the test re- 
 ferred to is, after all, but a negative test. It disproves 
 in certain cases ; it does 7iot prove in any. If the doc- 
 trine taught contradicts a revelation already given, or, 
 
 s Essay, p. 121. '' Rom. ii. 11, 1-5. ' Isa. viii. 20. 
 
 " Stc Cudwurth, p. 708. 
 
i82 CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. 
 
 where there is no precedent revelation, those great 
 principles of truth and morality which are written on 
 men's consciences, no works of wonder wrought in 
 support of it are even to be admitted to a hearing : 
 they are to be rejected summarily. But if the doctrine 
 be in accordance with a revelation abeady given, or 
 with those principles, it does not necessarily follow 
 that the alleged miracles are divine or even real 
 miracles; these points are to be determined upon 
 other considerations : but at least there is no reason, 
 which there would have been otherwise, why they 
 should not be admitted to be tried. 
 
 To pass, however, from negative criteria to those of 
 2i positive description. 
 
 It may be granted, at the outset, that there is no 
 test which, taken singly^ hy itself^ is absolutely suf- 
 ficient to stamp an alleged miracle with the seal of 
 God. But yet, notwithstanding, there may be pre- 
 sumptions afforded by various considerations, and 
 there may be concurrent circumstances of such weight, 
 that the joint result may be to place the matter beyond 
 question. And it is important to remember that it is 
 ly such joint result^ rather than by any single test, that 
 divine miracles are to be ascertained. Though even 
 so. Scripture warns us that there is need of an honest 
 and truth-loving heart, otherwise the proofs afforded, 
 be they what they may, will be fruitless. 
 
 Of the presumptions referred to, one is supplied by 
 the alleged miracle itself. Its character may be such, 
 that, as it is inconceivable that it should have been 
 wrought but by power more than human, so it is 
 inconceivable but that that power must have been 
 divine. This was K'icodemus's conclusion drawn from 
 the character of our Lord's miracles : "We know that 
 
CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. i»3 
 
 tlioii art a Teacher come from God, because no man 
 can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God 
 be with him." 
 
 Another presumption is afforded by the character of 
 the Person by whom the alleged miracle is wrought : 
 for though it is possible enough for Satan to transform 
 himself into an angel of light, and the world has had 
 too many proofs that the teachers of false doctrine 
 may be men of blameless lives, — (and truly it is this 
 very circumstance which, more than any other, has 
 contributed to the first establishment of heresies) — yet, 
 doubtless, if a man of sound judgment, whose word 
 has never been falsified, Avhose life is eminently holy, 
 claims to work miracles in attestation that he has a 
 commission from God, and if there is nothing in the 
 character of his teaching to invalidate his claim, his 
 integrity and truthfulness do afford a presumption 
 that his claim is well founded. 
 
 And the same may be said of the doctrine taught. 
 It is true, as I have observed above, that the test 
 afi'orded by the doctrine, so fiir as that test is absolute 
 and decisive, is negative, not positive ; — doctrine which 
 is contrary to a revelation already given being at once 
 and summarily conclusive against the claims of any 
 miracles, or alleged miracles, to be regarded as divine ; 
 but doctrine which is not contrary to such revelation 
 being not necessarily conclusive in their favour. Still 
 a proof is one thing, a presumption is another. And 
 if the doctrine, in attestation of whose divine origin 
 miracles are alleged to have' been wrought, be so emi- 
 nently holy, and inculcate truth and righteousness to 
 such a degree, and carry on the face of it such an air 
 of goodness that it is impossible to conceive that it 
 should have proceeded from the Evil One, here also, 
 
184 CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. 
 
 however there may be an absence of absolute proof, 
 there is surely presumptive evidence that the appeal 
 which is made is founded in truth. 
 
 One other presumption is afforded by the object^ for 
 which the miracle is said to have been wrought. If 
 that object be trifling and apparently unworthy of 
 the divine interference, or if the end could have been 
 gained by natural means, then there is at once a pre- 
 sumption against the idea of a divine miracle. But 
 if, on the other hand, the object be of grave import- 
 ance, and especially if there be no way apparent by 
 which other-wise it could so well have been attained, 
 there is here also a presumption that the miracle is 
 from God. 
 
 !N'ow each and all of these presumptions are found 
 in the case of oiu' Lord's mii-acles. Those miracles 
 carried what might well be thought a divine stamp 
 upon their forefront; and that stamp was recognised 
 by those, who, as Nicodemus, brought with them 
 candid and truth -loving hearts. They were com- 
 mended, fiu-ther, by the life and conversation of Him 
 who vtTOUght them, and by His doctrine so entirely 
 in accordance with that life and conversation; and 
 the object for which, as it is alleged, they were 
 wrought was one, if any, eminently worthy of divine 
 interference. 
 
 Still these are but presumptions, — only, be it ob- 
 served, presumptions which mutually strengthen and 
 confirm one another. For let it be considered for 
 a moment how the case would have stood, supposing 
 that one or more of them had been wanting. If, 
 for example, our Lord's miracles had been such as 
 we find attributed to Him in some of the Apocryphal 
 Gospels, trifling, or malevolent, or vindictive, or in 
 
CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. 185 
 
 any otlier way unworthy of Him who professed to 
 have corae forth from God ; or, the character of the 
 miracles affording no ground for remark, if the life 
 and conversation of Him who wrought them, or the 
 tendency of His teaching, had been exceptionable ; 
 or, these also being free from blame, if the object, for 
 which it was professed that the mii-acles were WTOught, 
 had been apparently unworthy of the di\TQe inter- 
 ference, — in any of these cases it is obvious how 
 greatly the force of that presumptive evidence which 
 they yield, now that they are combined, would have 
 been impaired, if not indeed destroyed altogether. 
 
 But, besides these presumptions, there is another 
 circumstance to be taken into the account, of a much 
 more substantive and determinate character . 
 
 Prophecy, in foretelling the advent of the Messiah, 
 had described the circumstances of His coming and 
 the characteristics by which He should be known. 
 Among these characteristics it had intimated that 
 He should shew signs and wonders \ and it had even 
 particularized some of these. It had foretold that 
 '' the eyes of the blind should be opened, and the ears 
 of the deaf should be unstopped, that the lame man 
 should leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb 
 should sing"^." And such works ''were held by the 
 Jews to constitute the distinctive marks of the Mes- 
 siah, according to the prophecies of their Scriptures "." 
 There were intimations also, more or less distinct, 
 of those still greater marvels which should circle 
 round His Person, — the Incarnation, the Piesurrection, 
 the Ascension, — and of the outpouring of the Holy 
 Spirit upon His followers. 
 
 ' See Dcuf. xviii. 15 — 22. '^" Isa. xxxv. 5, 6. 
 
 ° Professor Powell, "Essay," p. 116. 
 
]86 CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. 
 
 Isow the works of Jesus and the other marvellous 
 circumstances connected with Him accurately corre- 
 sponded to these predictions and these intimations. 
 And even where, as in some instances might be the 
 case, the prophecies were obscure or of doubtful ap- 
 plication, the works thi-ew light back upon the pro- 
 phecies, while at the same time the prophecies stamped 
 the works as divine. 
 
 It was with an evident though tacit reference to 
 these prophecies ° that our Lord bade John's disciples, 
 who had been sent to Him with the question, "Art 
 Thou He that should come, or look we for another?" 
 return and tell their master what things they had 
 seen and heard, (He had in their presence, as of set 
 purpose, " cured many of their infirmities and plagues, 
 and of evil spirits ; and unto many that were blind He 
 had given sight,") "How that the blind see, the lame 
 walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead 
 are raised, to the poor the Gospel is preached. And 
 
 " St. Jerome, commenting upon Isa. xxxv. 5, 6, says, " Quod, 
 quanquam signorum magnitudine completum sit, cum Dominus 
 loquebatur discipulis Joannis qui ad eum missi fuerant, Euntes 
 rcnuntiate Joanni quae audislis et vidistis, &c., tamen quotidie ex- 
 pletur in gentibus, quando qui prius caeci erant et in ligna et lapides 
 impingebant, veritatis lumen aspiciunt," &c. ; which is a distinct 
 acknowledgment that, though the passage will bear a spiritual sense, 
 yet primai-ily it is to be understood literally. And Origen deals with 
 the prophecy in a similar manner, interpreting it first literally of 
 bodily cures, and then building upon the literal interpretation, 
 though with something of an apology, a spiritual one: — ^"Eyo* S' 
 eiTTOt/i' av, OTi, Kara rfju 'irjaov eVayyeX/ac, ol fiadrjrai Koi fiei^ova Trenoifj- 
 Kaaiv a)u ^Irjaovs aladrjrav TrenoirjKeu- del yap dpoiyovrai d(pda\iJLol TV(p\u>v 
 Ti]v<\rvxr]v, k.t.\. — Contr. CeZ«., lib. ii. p. 88, To the same pur- 
 pose Tertullian, Be Resurrect. Carnis, c. 20. Justin Mai'tyr, in 
 the passage quoted below, Trt/pJio, § 69, interprets the prophecy 
 literally. 
 
CRITERIA OF DIVIXK MIRACLES. 187 
 
 blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me ^." 
 And in like manner His Eesurrection was constantly- 
 appealed to, both by Himself prospectively, and by 
 His apostles after the event, not only as a sign, — (it 
 was, in fact, the great and crowning sign,) — whereby 
 He might be known as the true Messiah, but as a sign 
 A^hich the Scriptures had foretold. And the Church, 
 taking up the very words of St. Paul '^, and incor- 
 porating them into her Creed, echoes on the same 
 teaching to this hour, declaring her belief, not only 
 that " Christ rose again the third day," but that He 
 so rose ^' according to the Scripfiors.^^ 
 
 This correspondence between the Gospel mu'acles 
 and the prophecies which foretold them was a cri- 
 terion on which the early Christian writers laid espe- 
 cial stress, as proving those miracles to be divine. It 
 has been truly remarked that the prevalent belief in 
 magic, as it afforded a subterfuge to the enemies of 
 Christianity, by which they sought to escape when 
 they were pressed with the argument from the Gospel 
 miracles, so it made those who maintained the Chris- 
 tian cause more slow than they would have been 
 otherwise to avail themselves of that argument. Still 
 they did avail themselves of it without hesitation ; 
 and, when they did so, they were careful for the most 
 part to couple their appeal to the miracles with an 
 appeal to prophecy; not merely to prophecy which 
 described beforehand our Lord's person and character 
 and office, and the establishment of His religion and its 
 
 P Luke ^•ii. 21 — 23. So St. Matthew represents Isa. liii. 4 as 
 fulfilled in our Lord's miracles of healing, Matt. viii. 16, 17. And 
 St, Peter refers to Joel ii. 28, 29 as fulfilled in the outpouring of 
 the Holy Spu'it on the apostles and those who were associated with 
 them, Acts ii. 16, &c. *« 1 Cor. xv. 4. 
 
l88 CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. 
 
 growth and increase, but also specifically to prophecy 
 which foretold that He should work miracles, and 
 described the miracles which He should work \ Such 
 
 ' Thus Justin Martyr : — "Onai de jxf] ns avriTiQih r^jiiv, Tt KoAmi /cat 
 Tov Trap f]fu.v Xeyofj-evov Xptarou, audpanov e'^ avSpaincov ovra, payiKrj 
 Tfx^d "^ Xeyopev dvvdpeis TTfTToirjKevai, Koi 86^ai Bia tovto viov Qeov elvai ; 
 rrjv dnodei^iii tj8i] TroirjcToptda, oi to7s Xeyouo-i TrKTrevovTfs, dWa tols 
 TTpocpijTfvovai Trplv j} yiveadui kut dvdyKrju ntidopevoi, 8ia to koi o\jrfi ws 
 Trpof(})t]Tfvdr] opav ytvopfva km yLv6p,fva- ^nep peyiarrj (cat dXrjdeardTr) 
 dnodeL^is kol vplv, ws vopl^opeu, (pavrjcrerai, , . . 'Ev 8rj rais ru>u 7rpo(pT]TwP 
 )3t'/3\ots evpopev TrpoKijavcraopfvov, Uapayivopfvov, yevvmpevov 8ia irapQivov, 
 Ka\ dvbpuvpeuov, %at dipa-TTSvovra Toiffav voffov xai 'Traffav /iLaXayJav, kqI 
 vfKpovs dveyflpovra, (cat (f)dovovpfvoi/, /cat dyvoovpevov, /cat (jravpovpfvou 
 *Ir]<Tovv TOV i)piT(pov XpiOTTov, /cat dnodvfjo-KovTa, /cat dveyeipi'iptvou, /cat els 
 ovpavovs dvtpxopfvov, /c. t. X. — Apol. \. § 30, 31. 
 
 In his Dialogue with Trypho, § 69, he cites Isa. xxxv, 1 — 7 in 
 proof that our Lord's miracles had been foretold, and then proceeds 
 to shew the fulfilment of the prophecy in Him : — -'Os /cat iv rw yt'i/fi 
 vpwv 7i t(j)avTai, /cat tovs e'/c yevtTrjs /cat koto, ttju (xdpKa Trrjpuvs, /cat Kcocpovs, 
 /cat ;(a)Xouj tacroTO, tov ptv akXtadai, tov 8e /cat a/covetj/, tuv 8e /cat opc.v, 
 T(p Xo'yo) aiiTov Troirjaas' /cat vtKpovs 8e dvaaTrja-as /cat (rjv iroiTjaas, /cat 
 fita Tcov fpya)v eSvcrcoTrei tovs Tore ovTas dfdpanrovs (myvavai avTov, 
 
 And yet the author of the article above referred to on the "Essays 
 and Eeviews," in the " Edinburgh Review," says, "In the early ages 
 of the Church, Justin Martyr in his 'Apology' rarely, if ever, appeals 
 to the miracles of the Gospel in proof of its divinity." It is not ob- 
 vious which of Justin's "Apologies" is meant, nor why one of his 
 works should be singled out when, besides the two "Apologies," 
 there is another equally apologetic in its character, nor why he 
 alone of the writers of " the early ages of the Church" should be 
 appealed to. It must be confessed that Justin's appeals to the mira- 
 cles are not frequent ; but the pr.ssages which have been cited shew 
 that he did not hesitate to appeal to them when the occasion re- 
 quired, and that when he did, he did so in no faltering tone. 
 Other passages to the like effect will be found in 'Trypho,' cc. 11, 
 35, and 39. Bp. Kaye, in his analysis of the contents of the first 
 " Apology," regards Justin's appeal to miracles and prophecy as of 
 sufficient prominence to have a separate head allotted to it, — "III. 
 Direct arguments in proof of the truth of Chi'istianity drawn from 
 miracles and 'prophecy T — Kaje's Justin Martyr, p. 13. 
 
CRITERIA OF DIVINE MIRACLES. 189 
 
 a conciiiTcnee, it was justly urged, placed tliose mira- 
 cles beyond the reach of cavil, and afforded a conclu- 
 sive proof that He whose mission was thus attested 
 must have come from God. 
 
 Our Lord's miracles, then,— and the same holds of 
 the miracles of the apostles, — were, by all the tokens 
 which have been mentioned, plainly proved to have 
 proceeded from God as their Author. Negatively, 
 there was nothing in the teaching of those who 
 wrought them which was contrary either to the great 
 principles of moral and religious truth written on 
 men's consciences, or to the revelation which God had 
 previously given. Positively, there was every pre- 
 sumption in their favour, whether from the nature of 
 
 To the same pm-pose as Justin, St. Irenscus writes, lib. 11. c, 
 xxxii. § 3, 4 : — E» Se koi tou Kvfjiov ^aj/rao-iwS&Jr ra Toiaiira nfiroir^Ktvai 
 (})jj(Tovaiv, fn\ ra npocpi^Tiica. dvayovres airovs, t^ avTuv eTriSei'^o/xf »/, iravra 
 0VT<os TtfpX avTOv Ka\ irpotipr^dOai, Ka\ yeyovfvai /3e,3ai'(0S', Koi avTOV p.6vov 
 (Irai Tov Ylov Toil QfOV. 
 
 Origen, Contr. Ceh., lib ii. p. 87, cd. Spenc., expressly refers to 
 Isa, XXXV. as fulfilled in our Lord's miraculous works :— "Otj ptv ovv 
 XoAovi Ka\ rvcpUvs (6fpdn(v(Te, (as Celsus bad acknowledged, though 
 he had spoken with a ws vpe'is (pare of the miracles of raising the 
 dead,) bionep Xpiarov alrhv Ka\ Y'wv Geov vopl^npev, brj^ov rjy.lv tariv 
 fK Toil Kai (u 7rpo({)T]T flats yfypd(j)6ai, Tore droix^^o-oi/rat 6(f)du'kpo\ Tv(p\u>v, 
 K. r.X. See also Com. in Matth., torn. xii. 2. 
 
 Lact mtius, in like manner, appeals to the correspondence between 
 our Lord's miracles and the prophecies which were fulfilled in 
 them, as a criterion by which they might be known to be divine : 
 — "Fecit mirabilia; magum putassemus, ut et vos nuncupatis, et 
 Judaji tunc putaverunt, si non ilia ipsa facturum Christum prophetae 
 omnes uno spirilu praidicassent." Again, " Exiude maximas vir- 
 tutes coepit operaii, non praistigiis magicis, qutc nihil veri ac solidi 
 ostentant, sed vi ac potestate coelesti, quae jampridem prophetis 
 nuntiantibus canebuntur." — Lib. v. c. 3, and lib. iv. c. 15. In 
 connexion with the latter passage he cites Isa. xxxv. See Dr. 
 Ogilvie's Bampton Lectures, Serm. II., and Appendix, pp. 248—255. 
 
IpO THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 
 
 the miracles themselves, or from the character of those 
 who wrought them, or from the tendency of their 
 teaching, or from the object for which they were 
 professedly wrought; and, what was beyond these 
 presumptions, there was a marked correspondence 
 between them and the prophecies which had foretold 
 the signs by which the Christ should be known. 
 There could be no doubt but that such works were 
 to be ascribed to God. 
 
 And as they were to be ascribed to God, so they 
 bore witness to those by whose instrumentality they 
 were wrought, that they had a commission from God, 
 And as such they were repeatedly appealed to by 
 them ; sometimes, as we have already seen, in con- 
 junction with the prophecies which foretold them, at 
 other times simply and absolutely, and without any 
 such reference ; — "If I do not the works of My 
 Father," said our Lord to the Jews, "believe Me 
 not. But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe 
 the works: that ye may know and believe that the 
 Father is in Me and I in Him'." And the apostles 
 held the same language: — "Jesus of N'azareth, a 
 man approved of God among you, by miracles and 
 wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the 
 midst of you, as ye yourselves also know \" And the 
 miracles of the apostles are appealed to in similar 
 terms, as proving that they also had a like commis- 
 sion: — "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great 
 salvation ; which at the first began to be spoken by the 
 Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard 
 
 ' John X. 37, 38. So Matt. xi. 20—24, xii. 38—40 ; John ii. 
 18—22, V. 33—36, xiv. 11, xv. 24. 
 
 t Acts ii. 22. So St. John xx. 30, 31; Acts v. 30—32; x. 
 37—39. 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 191 
 
 ITim ; God also bearing tlicm witness, both with signs 
 and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of 
 the Holy Ghost, according to His will"?" 
 
 And on this appeal to miracles, both our Lord's and 
 those of the apostles, the Chnrcli of Christ was built 
 up in the beginning. True, miracles were not the 
 only foundation on which the superstructure was 
 raised ; but they were one of the foundations, and a 
 very important one, — so important, that, when we look 
 back upon the Church's earliest history, it is impos- 
 sible to conceive, how, without some foundation of 
 the same or of like description, it could have been 
 raised at all. 
 
 For what are the facts which that history sets 
 before us ? — A few Jewish peasants go forth into the 
 world, and declare everywhere that they have a com- 
 mission from God to teach a religion diametrically 
 opposed to the prejudices, the associations, the ha- 
 bits, the w^orldly interests, of those to whom they 
 address themselves. It is true, that this religion in- 
 culcates a morality so pure and exalted, that it cannot 
 but commend itself to the minds and consciences of 
 such as are really in earnest in seeking to know and 
 do what is right, though even so not without the ad- 
 mixture of some precepts which must seem foolish- 
 ness in their eyes: but together with this, and in- 
 separable from it, it contains assertions of the most im- 
 probable kind, and such as one would imagine the most 
 credulous must revolt from. It affirms that the Son 
 of God had become man ; that lie had been born into 
 the world, not as a mighty prince, surrounded with 
 earthly pomp and splendour, but as an obscure Jewish 
 
 « Heb. ii. 3, 4 ; So St. Mark xvi. 20 ; Acts iv. 29-31 ; xiv. 3, 
 Rom. XV. 18, 19; 2 Cor. xii. 12; Gal. iii. 5. 
 
192 THE ARGUMENT FROM INIIRACLES. 
 
 peasant. It affirms, further, that he had been regarded 
 by those of His countrymen whose learning and au- 
 thority entitled them to the utmost deference, as an 
 impostor ; that as such He had been delivered over by 
 them to the Eoman Procurator and put to an igno- 
 minious death ; that He had come to life again, how- 
 ever, and after shewing Himself sundry times to those 
 who had been His followers, had ascended up to 
 heaven in their presence ; that thence He will come 
 again at some future day to judge the world, and that 
 then all who ever lived will be summoned before Ilim, 
 the dead raised from their graves, the living called 
 from their occupations; and that He will award to 
 every one his final and irreversible destiny according 
 to his works. This was the strange story which the 
 first preachers of the Gospel carried forth with them 
 wherever they went. This was the very heart's core 
 of the rehgion which they taught, and for which they 
 required men to abandon the beliefs of their fore- 
 fathers, without the faintest prospect of worldly ad- 
 vantage, but, on the contrary, with every reason to 
 expect derision and ridicule, the loss of goods, the 
 estrangement of friends, even imprisonment and death. 
 And the expectation was realized. Those who em- 
 braced it "ligabantur, includebantur, csedebantur, 
 torquebantur, urebantur, laniabantur, trucidabantur, 
 et — multiplicabantur ''." The religion in a brief space 
 spread itself over the whole civilized world. Is it 
 conceivable that it should have done so unless it 
 had appealed, and had been able to make good the ap- 
 peal, to superhuman attestations in proof of its divine 
 origin? As St. Augustine forcibly urges, "You have 
 two alternatives to choose between : either you must 
 ^ S. August., De Civ. Dei, xxii. 6. 1. 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. I93 
 
 believe the miracles ; or you must believe, what is itself 
 a miracle, that the world was converted without mira- 
 cles:" "Si miraculis non credatis, saltem huic mira- 
 culo credendum est, mundum sine miraculis fuisse 
 conversum ^." 
 
 Yet we are told that this goodly fabric of the Chris- 
 tian Church, whose existence at this day is none of 
 the least of the proofs of the divine mission of its 
 founder, was built uj) upon an unsound and insecure 
 foundation: — "Miracles which would be incredible 
 noio^ were not so in the age and under the circum- 
 stances in which they are stated to have occurred." 
 And the appeal to them, however cogent with those to 
 whom it was adcbessed in the first century, has lost 
 its force in the nineteenth: nay, "it might not only 
 have no efi'ect, but even an injurious tendency if urged 
 in the present age, and referring to what is at variance 
 with existing scientific conceptions ^" 
 
 It has been my endeavour to shew, in the pre- 
 ceding part of this Essay, how utterly groundless 
 is the insinuation which is here cast upon the Chris- 
 
 y De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8. 1. Origcnhad urged the same argument : — 
 QvK av Xbupis 8vvd^{cov Kal napabo^oov eaivovv rois Kaiva>v Xoycov Koi KoivStv 
 fxadrjfidrccv aKovovras npos to KaraXinelv fiev to. Trdrpia, napabi^a(rdai 8e 
 fiiTo. Kiv^vvav Ta>v p^XP'- 6<i^o.Tov TO. TovTdtv pa6r]paTa. — Contr. Ccls., lib. 
 
 i. p. 34, St. Augustine, on another occasion, has the following strik- 
 ing passage referring to the mii-acle of our Lord's ResuiTcction : — 
 "Jam ergo tria sunt incredibilia, quoe tamen facta sunt. Incredibile 
 est Christum rcsurrexisse in carne, et in coelum ascendisse cum 
 came; incredibile est mundum rem tarn incredibile credidisse; in- 
 credibile est homines, ignobiles, infimos, paucissimos, imperitos, 
 rem tam incredibilem tam efficaciter mundo, et in illo etiam doctis, 
 pcrsuadere potuissc. Horum trium incredibilium primum nolunt 
 isti, cum quibus agimus, credere ; secundum coguntur et cernere ; 
 quod non inveniunt unde sit factum si non crcdunt tertium." — De 
 Civ. Dei, xxii. 5. ' Essay, p. 117. 
 
 
 
194 "mE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 
 
 tian miracles ; that as their reality as facts, and facts 
 not only superhuman but divine, rests upon the most 
 convincing proofs, so they are as surely to be be- 
 lieved now, with the full light of modern science 
 streaming upon them, as they were believed in the 
 age of comparative darkness in which they were 
 wrought. But apart from this, — What, on the sup- 
 position referred to, becomes of the truthfulness of 
 Him who, as we have seen, rested His claim to be 
 heard on the appeal to those miracles? For it is 
 undeniable that when our Lord did appeal to them, 
 it was on the ground that they zvere miracles^ super- 
 human works, works wrought by the power of God, 
 and indicating the finger of God, that the appeal 
 was made. 
 
 No, — if the appeal to miracles is not valid now, it 
 was not valid when it was made by our Lord. And if 
 it was not valid then, there was an insincerity in it, 
 as made by Him, which communicates a taint to the 
 whole of His teaching. It is of little consequence by 
 what other arguments the cause of Christianity is 
 sought to be sustained. We may admire much that 
 we see in it; but we can no longer regard it as a 
 religion on which the seal of God is set. The great 
 articles of its Creed must henceforth take their place 
 among the myths and legends of men's invention. 
 
 We cannot then, as reasonable men, we dare not 
 as Christian men, make light of the argument from 
 miracles, or even give it a subordinate place among 
 the Christian evidences. It may have been dwelt upon 
 too exclusively, and have been pushed into undue 
 prominence in some instances; but that is only a 
 reason why we should be especially on our guard, lest, 
 by a change of fortune natui-ally enough to be ex- 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 1 95 
 
 pected, it should be thrown into the background and 
 unduly depressed in others ''. 
 
 Most true it is indeed, that miracles, though form- 
 ing an important part of the evidence for Christianity, 
 form but a part. But it is a part intimately connected 
 with the other parts, and, together with prophecy, — 
 both prophecy which received its fulfilment in our 
 Lord's life and ministry, and prophecy, in some in- 
 stances uttered by our Lord and His apostles, which 
 has been fulfilled subsequently, and is still being ful- 
 filled, — so essentially underlying those other parts, 
 that without it they have no sufficient foundation to 
 rest upon. 
 
 There is one portion indeed of the Chi-istian evi- 
 dence, and a most important one, which might seem, 
 
 * I am not acquainted witli Coleridge's -works: but, judging 
 from the use which Professor Powell and others hare made of them, 
 I cannot but think that he has in this respect, through dread of 
 one extreme, contributed " to thrust the pendulum back with too 
 violent a swing" towards the opposite. And yet, in the context 
 immediately connected with one of the passages quoted by Professor 
 Powell, (Essay, p. 120,) I find him adding what shews that in reality 
 nothing was farther from his own thoughts than the disparagement 
 of the external evidences : — " But most readily do I admit, and 
 most fervently do I contend, that the miracles worked by Christ, 
 hoth as miracles and as fulfilments of prophecy, both as signs and 
 as wonders, made plain discovery, and gave unquestionable proof 
 of His divine character and authority ; that they were to the whole 
 Jewish nation true and appropriate evidences that He was indeed 
 come who had promised and declared to their forefathers, ' Behold, 
 your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; He 
 will come and save you.' I receive them as proofs, therefore, of the 
 truth of every word which He taught icho was Himself the Word, and 
 as sure evidences of the final victory over death, and of the life to 
 come, in that they were manifestations of Him who said ' I am the 
 Eesurrection and the Life.' " — Aids to Reflexion, Aphorisms on 
 Spiritual Religion, note prefatory to Aphorism xxiii. 
 
 o2 
 
196 THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 
 
 at first sight, to have little connexion with external 
 proofs, — the assurance, namely, which the Christian 
 derives from his inner consciousness of the purifying, 
 sanctifying, and ennobling influence of the Gospel 
 upon his own heart and life. And the conviction 
 produced by this assurance, where the soul is tho- 
 roughly penetrated by the influence of Christ's reli- 
 gion, is such, as no arguments drawn exclusively from 
 external considerations could have effected. The 
 Christian's answer, to those who might interrogate 
 him respecting his belief, would be like that of the 
 man who had been born blind, to whom our Lord had 
 given the gift of sight, when questioned about his 
 Benefactor, — "Whether He be a sinner or no, I 
 know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was 
 blind, now I see ^." 
 
 *" John ix. 25. They are -words deserving to be "well weighed 
 and pondered, which were written, on the review of a long life, by- 
 one who had had large experience in dealing with other men's con- 
 sciences, and had been a close observer of his own : — " I am now 
 more apprehensive than heretofore of the necessity of well grounding 
 men in their religion, and especially of the witness of the indwell- 
 ing Spirit. For I more sensibly perceive that the Spirit is the 
 great witness for Christ and Christianity to the world. And though 
 the folly of fanatics long tempted me to overlook the strength of 
 this testimony while they placed it in certain internal affections or 
 enthusiastic inspiration, yet now I see that the Holy Ghost is in 
 another manner the witness of Christ and His agent in the world. 
 The Spirit in the prophets was His first witness ; and the Spirit by 
 miracles was the second ; and the Spiiit by renovation, sanctifica- 
 tion and illumination, and consolation, assimilating the soul to 
 Christ and heaven, is the continued witness to aU true believers. . . . 
 And therefore ungodly persons have a great disadvantage in their 
 resisting temptations to unbelief; and it is no wonder if Christ be 
 a stumbling-block to the Jews, and to the Gentiles foolishness." — 
 Sichard Baxter, Narrative of Ids Life and Times, in Words wortJis 
 Bed. Biog., 1st ed., vol, v. p. 568. 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 197 
 
 "But it is to be observed that this assurance comes 
 under the head of confii-mation rather than of proof. 
 It does not precede, but follow, the reception of Chris- 
 tianity. T^o one is susceptible of its force but he who 
 is already a believer. It rests therefore eventually 
 on the same basis as that on which Christianity itself 
 rests. And thus, though not directly, yet indii'cctly, 
 it also is inseparably connected with the evidence af- 
 forded by miracles, however unconscious the person 
 who is under its influence maj^ be of the extent to 
 which he is indebted to that evidence. 
 
 There are those whose happy lot it is to have been 
 mu-tured in the knowledge and love of Christ from 
 their infancy, and never to have known a doubt. 
 And there are those who once did doubt, but have 
 been convinced by the force of the Christian evi- 
 dences, and doubt no longer. These, as far as their 
 personal belief is concerned, have no need to resort 
 to the argument from miracles. Eut then it is be- 
 cause they have advanced to a higher stage, and they 
 have no occasion for the steps by which that stage is 
 to be reached. 
 
 It was to such persons that the Apostolic Epistles 
 were addressed; and the appeal, consequently, was 
 no longer, as doubtless it had been before their con- 
 version, " to outward testimony or logical argument, 
 but to spiritual assurances *'." It was of such persons 
 that St. Chrysostom spoke when he said, in words 
 which Professor Powell quotes, "If you are a be- 
 liever as you ought to be, and love Christ as you 
 ought to love Him, you have no- need of miracles ^" 
 
 " Essay, p. 124. 
 
 ^ St. Chrysostom, Horn. 23 (al. 24) in S. Joan., quoted by Pro- 
 fessor PoweU, p. 128. 
 
198 THE ARGUMENT FROM MIRACLES. 
 
 But there are others, who stand on different ground. 
 They, it may be, have never yet believed, or they 
 may have had doubts and difficulties suggested to 
 them, whether from within or from without, which 
 affect the very foundations of the faith ; while, at the 
 same time, they are not sufficiently advanced in reli- 
 gion to be conscious of the force of those internal evi- 
 dences which have been referred to. To such per- 
 sons the evidence afforded by miracles is of pressing 
 urgency; and he who would disparage it and teach 
 them to regard it as of little or no account, is so far 
 a hinderer of their faith and of their salvation. They 
 are like men struggling for life amid the waves, and 
 he is snatching from their grasp that plank on which 
 they might have buoyed themselves up and have es- 
 caped, bidding them meanwhile, as though in cruel 
 mockery, lay hold on another, which, however service- 
 able it might prove to them hereafter, is at present 
 beyond their reach. 
 
THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH: 
 
 (CONSIDERED IX REPLY TO MR. WILSON.) 
 
 Section 1. Theories of "National Eeligion" in England. 
 
 „ 2. Outline of the Essay on ' Broad Christianity.' 
 
 „ 3, Religious Idea of ' Broad Christianity.' 
 
 „ 4. 'Broad Christianity' and the Apostolic Age. 
 
 ,, 5. "Esclusiveness" of Primitive Christianity considered. 
 
 „ 6. Ethical Basis of ' Broad Christianity.' 
 
 „ 7. Appeal to History, as to ' Broad Chi-istianity.' 
 
 „ 8. Adjustment demanded. 
 
 [^Numerous tvritei's have criticized the " Essay on the Na- 
 tionul Church,''' praising the style or blaming the preliminary 
 tone, marking inaccuracies or deprecating tenden- ■^°^^- 
 cies, ivithout examining its subject. It can matter little, how- 
 ever, to the ivorld at large, ivhether the ivriter of that Essay 
 be as eloquent, or rash, or obscure, or heterodox, as his various 
 critics have shewn. But with his subject-matter we must all 
 be concerned; to that therefore the ensuing pages will be given. 
 
 It is not here proposed to offer what has been termed a 
 " counter - essay," which might be regarded as a merely 
 literary prolusion; but to attempt a real discussion of a 
 practical matter ^.~\ 
 
 § 1, Theories of National Religion in England. 
 
 THE Church of England still bears the name which 
 she has borne for a thousand years, "OmnisEcciesia 
 
 •^ ' Anglicana."— 
 
 "the National Church." The Acts of speiman,AD. 
 
 668, Abp. Theo- 
 
 Uniformity now assert for her in the dore. 
 
 a For many minor details, and for the examination of most of 
 Mr. Wilson's incidental statements, the reader may be referred to 
 a work entitled "The Eeviewers Reviewed and the Essayists 
 Criticized," published by J. H. and Jas. Parker, Oxford and 
 London. 
 
200 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 Statute-book, as really as they did in 1662, or 1559, 
 The name of — as rcally as synods had done it ten 
 
 the " ^'ational . "- „ " -v- j.' i •^• 
 
 Church." centuries before, — a ISaLional position; 
 and even in the popular mind the belief of that 
 " IN'ationality" yet lingers, though with growing in- 
 distinctness. It is not now the idea of the Caroline 
 or of the Elizabethan times, still less of the pre- 
 Eeformation period ; it is not the idea of even fifty 
 years ago. The name remains, while the reality has 
 greatly changed, more than once. We are even now 
 in a period of transition. 
 
 Time was when the decisions of our "K'ational 
 Chui'ch" in synod, confii-med at Eome, bound every 
 Pre-Eeformation subjcct of the realm. The theory on which 
 
 forms of " Na- j. j. i i i -r< 
 
 tionaiism." our auccstors then proceeded was Lc- 
 
 WiiiiamiL and clesiastical ; the unity compulsory, and 
 
 Anseim. therefore co-extensive with the nation. — 
 
 Henry II. and 
 
 Bicket. Disputes as to Investiture, the Constitu- 
 
 John & Langton. . o /^^ t n /-^ , ^i i 
 
 Eichard II. tions ol Clarendon, the Great Charter, the 
 Statutes of Provisors, and Praemunire, are the prac- 
 tical witnesses against it from age to age : but, while it 
 lasted, doubtless it had conscientiousness, if not of the 
 
 Tudor form, highcst type. — Again, time was when the 
 king, as head of the State, commanded the Eeligion of 
 the whole people. The theory was Political : to dis- 
 pute the spiritual Supremacy of the Crown was "high 
 35Hen.viiLc.3. trcasou," and the penalty was sternly in- 
 iMarj, c. 1. s. 5. flictcd, whcthor the offender had the grace 
 of a Fisher or the dignity of a [More. Put the theory 
 came to an end ; and that very soon ; for it revolted 
 the conscience of the majority in England, of more 
 than a majority in Scotland, and of the whole of Ireland. 
 Gradually within a hundred years, the resolute Pioyal 
 assumption, that the whole nation must follow the 
 
VARIOUS THEORIES. 201 
 
 conscience of the sovereign, perished, and the clay, 
 the stone, and the iron, of the great image of Tudor 
 Supremacy that had been set up, could no more 
 cohere. 
 
 Henceforth Eeligious Unity seemed hopelessly broken. 
 Between the days of Edward YI. and Charles II. a 
 fundamental change had taken place in Transition form. 
 the sentiments and feelings of those who formed the 
 lower stratum of the British people. They had been 
 Roman, and they had become Puritan. A its occasion ; 
 change scarcely less vital had come over the higher 
 classes of the nation. At the Eeformation, the rich 
 (and they who sought to be rich) were progressive 
 and protestant; at the Restoration they were con- 
 servative, and hierarchical. The sympathies of both 
 classes had been reversed in one century: but an 
 effort was still to be made to gather together once 
 more, if not to unite, the dissolved elements of so- 
 ciety. When the time for this effort arrived, let us 
 mark how it was attempted. 
 
 To do this we must revert to those theories of 
 the past on which, in some form, the Restoration 
 had to fall back. Of course the old pre-Reformation 
 views were not to be thought of. The bare dread of 
 a possible return to Romanism, a few years its later Rerivai; 
 later, overthrew the dynasty which had been restored. 
 Some modification of the old Tudorism seemed to be 
 all that remained practicable. Among her sons, the 
 Church, ( notwithstanding her great names, ) had 
 " none to guide," no great ecclesiastic. Bancroft 
 and his brethren had been taught in the school of 
 Andrewes and Laud, who had strained the Regale to 
 the utmost; the former against Rome, the latter 
 against both Rome and Geneva. The great divines of 
 
202 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 the Eestoration, as if hopeless of ascertaining the 
 limits of lawful State-interference with Eeligion, indis- 
 tinctly acquiesced in political intervention, thankful 
 And character, that it happened on the whole to be ortho- 
 dox. The Tudor theory, in all its transitions, had 
 preserved a vague adherence to the distinction in- 
 herently existing between the " spiritualty " and 
 *' temporalty" of the nation, and recognised alike by 
 the Constitution and by the popular instincts. To this, 
 Churchmen and Statesmen alike recurred ; and though 
 the practical compromise to be attempted might in- 
 volve some theoretical surrenders, it seemed actually 
 inevitable. 
 
 "No doubt indeed the original Tudor spirit urged 
 Eoyal Authority as the ground of the Nation's faith. 
 
 A.D. 1530. The " Act of Submission" of King Henry's 
 Convocation, (under an unjust prtemunii-e,) while 
 Henry VIII. and Tcally glvlug up all to the king, had still 
 
 wareham. feebly intended to assert a principle when 
 the words "quantum per Cheisti legem licet" were 
 added by the Lower House. But the conscience of the 
 people retained, far more faithfully, the high principle 
 so implied; and, as we know, vindicated it severely 
 Elizabethan form, at last. — Elizabeth saw the fatal defect 
 of her father's spiritual claim, declined the title of 
 The "Refer- "Head of the Church" worn by her three 
 
 matio Legum" / o t • i • i -i i 
 
 given up. predeccssors, (of which it had been trea- 
 son to " deprive" her,) and hesitated to proceed as her 
 father had done, by "Eoyal Commission," to reform the 
 
 A.D.1571. Ecclesiastical Constitution. She sought, 
 and yet feared, to supply by Convocation a Spiritual 
 sanction to her religious government; and there she 
 
 A.D. 1604. paused. — So, too, King James I. had his 
 sjTiod and his canons ; and Charles I. had his ; but the 
 
VARIOUS THEORIES. 203 
 
 tlicoiy of " the spiritualty," remained still uncertain. — 
 And such was the modification of " Su- a.d. ig4o. 
 premacy" taken up and revived in 1GC2, to last in. 
 its vigour little more than twenty years. 
 
 It was not (as has been intimated) that the Church- 
 men or the politicians of the Eestoration Restoration form. 
 proceeded on a defined theory. Necessities of state 
 seem often to oblige measures of which men consider 
 not at first the intellectual or moral ground. But it was 
 resolved at all events that the Eeligion of the country 
 should be " jS'ational ;" and, in forgetfulness of the 
 chancred conditions of the whole case, men fell back as 
 far as they could on the ideas of the previous Protes- 
 tant reigns. To the Eoyal Supremacy and the sanction 
 of Convocation they added, more stringently, the au- 
 thority of Parliament; and the ''Act of a.d. 1662. 
 Uniformity" was the result. But "canons" never 
 followed. 
 
 The short-lived hope that the Kation might hence- 
 forth be "of one language and of one speech" in 
 Eeligion, finally perished in 1688. The "Act of 
 Toleration" formally registered the fact, iwnuam and 
 that henceforth, whatever the "National Mary,c.i.s.i8. 
 Church" might mean, it did not imply Eeligious IJnity. 
 The condition of Scotland and Ireland only confirmed 
 the same general conclusion. On what terms the 
 Government and the Church should go on together, 
 remained once more to be seen. 
 
 The Sixth section of the " Toleration Act" preserved 
 the temporalities of the Church from all Revolution form. 
 invasion ; and a Tudor subterfuge was thus uniformity ar- 
 again introduced, that ecclesiastical pro- 
 perty and ecclesiastical duties need not be co-extensive. 
 —In 1717 the action of "the Spiritualty," the Con- 
 
204 '^"^ ^^^^ ^^ "^^^ NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 - The "Spiri- vocation, was suppressed. It was natu- 
 seutS inJ'Tot rally the next step. — Every act of legisla- 
 ^ended°' ^''^" tlon for the ensuing hundred years, which 
 touched on ecclesiastical affairs at all, attenuated the 
 connexion between the Church and the State ; till in 
 9 Geo. IV. c. 17. 1828 it was not deemed necessary even 
 for members of the Church to submit to the " test" of 
 being Communicants. Then came the admission of the 
 Eoman Catholics to Parliament; and the legislation 
 Further restric- of the ucxt thirty ycars formally abolished 
 ''Nationdujv^'' all that remained of the coercive Discipline 
 of Courts Ecclesiastical,— (which on Ash- Wednesday 
 is still deplored !) The " National," or quasi-national, 
 position being gradually restricted, the law still 
 sought to dictate in some instances the Doctrine to be 
 believed within the "Establishment;" and in some, 
 actually impinged on the most sacred convictions of 
 (The Divorce law.) all who had acccptcd the teaching of the 
 Prayer-book as not simply "authorized by statute," 
 but actually true. 
 
 Can it be thought surprising, that the design is 
 Proposal to now at Icugth distinctly avowed, by a con- 
 tianaUsm." sidcrablo party in the State, to .bring to 
 a conclusion what seems to it a struggle for no in- 
 telligible principle on the side of the Church? — and 
 which is thought to involve the progress of liberty 
 for the people ? 
 
 It is easy perhaps to see, as we look back, that 
 when .nonconformity was tolerated by the Act of 
 William and Mary, it was the Church's duty, be- 
 
 Ketrospect. licviug in her old position, to have con- 
 solidated in every parish some Discipline for her body, 
 as a Spiritual Community. The temptation was great, 
 no doubt, to accept all Englishmen as Churchmen 
 
VARIOUS THEORIES. 20J 
 
 still, unless formally joined to some external congre- 
 gation. It swelled the Church's numbers for the time, 
 and seemed to give, that which had been her snare 
 before, political strength ; but it hopelessly broke down 
 the conscience of her laity to the worldliest level, and 
 conduced to all the secularism which followed ; led to 
 the too frequent profanation of the most sacred offices 
 of the Church without enquiry, and at length even 
 without reluctance ; and almost to the loss of the idea 
 (in our times) among the multitude, that the "Na- 
 tional Church" ever had a Creed higher than' human 
 laws could give. 
 
 It is impossible to regret that, at such a crisis as 
 this to which we have now come, atten- Present crisis, 
 tion should be earnestly called to the question, What 
 shall be the future relation between the State and the 
 Church, between Politics and Eeligion, — must we not 
 say, between Civilization and Christianity ? Men who 
 are termed "practical" are in the habit of thinking 
 that they can go on without a theory. Half thinkers 
 perhaps generally do so. They are forgetful, or un- 
 aware, that a course of action always implies a prin- 
 ciple, avowed or unavowed. The many will sometimes 
 bear with action, while unprepared to admit its real 
 basis. But conscience and act refuse to be for ever 
 separate. Men speak out at length, and say that 
 which their conduct has all along been some theory 
 meaning. What is seen to be an hypo- ^^^^^^^^ 
 crisy, perishes at last. It is this wliich the present 
 generation is witnessing, not only in our own country, 
 but in all Europe. 
 
 And now we seem to be met by two classes of 
 thinkers — those who would abolish, and . "Abolition- 
 
 ism and oecular 
 
 those who would fundamentally remodel, Nationalism. 
 
2o6 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 the National profession of Religion. Hitherto it has 
 been roughly assumed by all parties among us, that 
 Eeligion has chiefly to deal with the future world, and 
 policy with the present, and that their mutual action 
 and relation arises from those mixed questions, both 
 ethical and social, which affect in different ways both 
 the "life which now is and that which is to come." 
 This is no longer a common assumption. There are 
 those who would entirely separate the spiritual and 
 the secular ; and others who would identify them, on 
 the pagan principle, that religion, like morals, is, as 
 M. Comte would say, " a phase of humanity." 
 
 The "Abolitionists" have scarcely at present any 
 Aboutionism philosophv I but thcv would be content, 
 
 has no philo- ■•• 11 TO 11 
 
 sophy. apparently, that the State should stumble 
 on, with no hypothesis, practically assuming the non- 
 existence of all questions of a future life. They must 
 know, indeed, that these questions will still be smoul- 
 dering, and often dangerously, in the individual breasts 
 of millions ; but they would risk a total ignoring of 
 them by the politicians. They point to the American 
 Eepublic as a State successfully constituted without 
 a recognised Eeligion ; which is not only a premature 
 boast, but in other respects ill serves their argument. 
 The most recent act, for example, of the American 
 President, Mr. Lincoln, by which he appoints a day 
 of "^National Humiliation, Prayer, and Fasting," is 
 a clear invasion of the principles which demand entire 
 separation of religion and politics ; and it will be re- 
 garded by perhaps a majority of Americans as insult- 
 ing to their convictions and inconsistent with their 
 political professions. — But, indeed, before we can 
 listen to the Abolitionists at all, as teachers of a Civili- 
 zation of the futui'e, we have a right to call on them 
 
VARIOUS THEORIES, 
 
 207 
 
 to give some account of the past. Are all the efforts 
 of fifteen centuries to adapt Christianity to the nations 
 of Europe, for instance, to bo supposed to tend to no- 
 thing? Is there no philosophy of all this history? 
 Does it belong to no law of human progress ? — If they 
 maintain this, very few at present will follow them. 
 
 Our primary concern is, at all events, with those 
 who would make Eeligion a branch of Politics, and 
 leave indeterminate all questions of a possible future. 
 
 The followers of M. Comte in France and America 
 conceive that they have worked out what The latter an 
 
 •' English form of 
 
 they term a "Positive Eeligion," from "Posith-ism." 
 which they have " eliminated Catholicism ;" and they 
 claim adherents in our own country among all those 
 who would in like manner withdraw the Creeds from 
 the religion of Christendom, and criticize the Bible on 
 the same level as all other literature. They speak 
 with confidence of the growth of their principles 
 among the educated classes of our country ; in them 
 they discern, (can it be said untruly?) a daily in- 
 creasing disinclination to every dogma, and a reduc- 
 tion of every doctrine once thought sacred to the level 
 of an opinion. Eeligion (as Christians have thus far 
 received it anywhere) is more and more remitted to 
 the region of speculation ; and it is regarded as the ex- 
 treme of uncharitableness to suspect the future safety 
 of any man, on account of his creed. It is obvious, 
 too, to observe that some theories which have sprung 
 up independently among ourselves of late, — such 
 as "Christian Socialism," and what has '<christianSo- 
 been termed " Essayism,"— so far harmo- i^il^j^J^ptS; 
 nize with the "Positivism" of M. Comte o^P^^i""-'"- 
 as to aim, on principle, to divert attention from the 
 distinctive hope of " salvation" hereafter, and direct it 
 
208 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 to the primary consideration of the affairs and duties 
 of this ^oiid ^ 
 
 It is to this class of theories we have now to addi'ess 
 ourselves. Few Churchmen, and indeed few thought- 
 Aboiitionism ful politicians, can be supposed as yet to 
 mediate danger, havo Sympathy with the plans of those 
 who would abolish all National profession of Chris- 
 tianity. Our immediate attention belongs to others, 
 who would still retain a "National Church" in name, 
 but in truth deliberately set aside all its supernatural 
 claims, and gradually abate every portion of our Bible 
 and Prayer-book, according as the level of popular 
 feeling sinks lower and lower. 
 
 The proposition is formally laid down and defended 
 Secularism, amouoj US, — That a "National Church" is 
 
 or the New Na- • i / i o i 
 
 tionausm,— pro- as simplv, '' as proDeiiy, an organ 01 the 
 
 posed in "the . , l-n ^ ^ -^^^ » ^ 
 
 Essays." Is atioual life, as a magistracy or a legis- 
 
 lative estate T' Leaving "speculative doctrine" to 
 philosophers, a "National Church" has for its one ob- 
 ject, it is said, to " concern itself with the ethical de- 
 velopment of its members'^." To do any justice to 
 this view, to understand how it arises or takes shape 
 in the mind of one who still retains any hold on the 
 Prayer-book and the Scriptures, it will be necessary 
 to take in at a glance the whole outline of the Essay 
 in which it is developed : we shall then be in a posi- 
 tion to compare the " National Eeligion," so suggested, 
 both with the history and the fundamental ethics of 
 Christianity. 
 
 For in truth the questions raised are "fundamen- 
 
 Fundamentai tal," not ouly as involvlug the objec- 
 
 quSLs'^ here tlvc ccrtaiuty of the Christian facts, but 
 
 raised. ^^^ individual recognition of all moral and 
 
 " Essay, p. 196. •= p. 190. "^ p. 195. 
 
VARIOUS THEORIES. 209 
 
 spiritual truth. If "National Eeligion" be nothing 
 but the expression of the general life and public opi- 
 nion of a people, it is very little more than an abstract 
 idea ; and the question then arises, whether the right- 
 ful freedom of each individual conscience (for which 
 the "free-thinkers" declaim at other times so strongly) 
 be not unjustly interfered with, by the proposed au- 
 thoritative promulgation of the so-called "religious 
 truth ?" From this point of view, those who would 
 abolish all national professions of faith, would seem to 
 be the more consistent reasoncrs. For the Essayist, it 
 will be seen, encourages freedom of indi- L^te,,^ ii-ra- 
 vidual thinking, up to a certain point, and Srance'^f this 
 then stops. He would have men free to s^'^-'-^^"^- 
 reason themselves into a denial of their "traditional 
 Christianity," and then acquiesce in the authoritative 
 promulgation of a "generalized system" reflecting the 
 views of the day. 
 
 The term by which these — as they may be called — 
 semi-free-thinkers describe the theory they This secularism 
 
 *' '' called also "Na- 
 
 defend is " Multitudinism," a term of tionaiism," and 
 
 ' abroad known as 
 
 foreign origin, about equivalent to "!Na- "MuititmUnism." 
 tionaiism." The opposite view, (which they reject,) is, 
 that Eeligion makes its appeal to each separate con- 
 science ; (because men's future condition will not be 
 determined in masses, but in accordance with indi- 
 vidual character;) this they call "Individualism." 
 The two views recently came into collision, in a dis- 
 cussion which arose in Switzerland ; and the Essay, an 
 outline of which here follows, formally arises out of 
 that discussion. — Persuaded, as every honest mind 
 must be, that to mis-state any position when about 
 to oppose it, is an offence against the truth itself, 
 the ensuing Outline will, it is hoped, be such as the 
 p 
 
210 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 Essayist himself will acknowledge to be a true re- 
 presentation of his entii-e drift and meaning. 
 
 § 2. Outline of the ^^ Essay on Nationalism^'''' or 
 ^ Broad Christianity.'' 
 
 ' In the city of Geneva, a controversy lately arose, — 
 ' Whether Eeligion is to be regarded as a National or 
 ' an Individual concern ? — M. Bungener defended the 
 ' former, or Multitudinist, idea. His position admits of 
 ' better defence in England perhaps ; as our ' Nation- 
 ' ality' is so strong. The signs of the times, too, 
 ' among us, warn us that a broader basis of Eeligion is 
 ' demanded. Grave doubts have arisen, whether our 
 ' future Civilization is bound to Christianity at all ; and 
 '• these are the doubts of earnest, sincere, and educated 
 ' minds, whom our existing religion has shocked. The 
 ' masses, de facto^ are recoiling from us and our narrow 
 traditions. This scepticism is the result of thought 
 and knowledge, not pride of reason or culpable hos- 
 tility. We shall find it impossible to maintain much 
 longer the necessity of faith in Christ. If Scripture 
 seems to teach it, either Scripture is wrong, or we 
 interpret it wrongly. Our Eevelation has never 
 reached a fourth part of the world we now are ac- 
 ' quainted with. We must not any longer say that 
 ' Christ came just in the fitness and " fulness of time." 
 ' Was not Budhism a Gospel for India GOO years be- 
 ^ fore Christ ? — The solution must be, that men will be 
 'judged according to the law and light they have. If 
 ' we hold this of the heathenism of past ages, so also 
 ' of that of the future.'— (i^ssay, pp. 145—158.) 
 
 'In advocating, then, a broader basis for Chris- 
 ' tianity, we are encouraged by the fact that its 
 ' triumphs thus far have been on the "Multitudinist" 
 
OUTLINE OF MR. WILSOM S ESSAY, 21 1 
 
 ' principle. Primitive Christianity was doctrinally 
 'and ethically hroad. It appears not as a theory of 
 ' personal salvation, biit as a moral and social system ; 
 ' (except in the fourth Gospel). And the relative value 
 ' of doctrine and morals in the Apostolic age ma}^ be 
 ' judged by the compatibility even of a denial of the 
 ' Eesurrection with membership of the Christian body. 
 ' Nor can we suj)pose that even immorality shut men out 
 ' from the Christian brotherhood. — The first Churches 
 'being thus "Multitudinist," tended too, from their 
 ' local character, to Nationality. True, dogma came to 
 ' be more insisted on in the days of Constantino ; yet 
 ' a Multitudinist Church is not nccessarihj either dog- 
 ' matic or hierarchical ; but the reverse. — The ethical 
 ' view, that the "world lieth in wickedness," is St. John's 
 'rather than Christ's.'— (pp. 159— 1G8.) 
 
 ' Nationalism (or Multitudinism) is, in fact, a neces- 
 ' sity of human society. In Heathenism, in Judaism, 
 ' and Christianity, it is alike found ; though the Na- 
 ' tionalism of Judea is miscalled a " Theocracy." Christ 
 ' offered Ilis religion to the Jews nationally ; when they 
 ' rejected it, it aj^pealed (by a kind of temporary neces- 
 'sity) to individuals, and so it "filtered" into society 
 'by "conversions." Com'ersion of nations, en masse^ 
 ' was however the natural tendency, though checked 
 ' by the disruption of the empire and other causes ; and 
 ' by old fetters, such as the assumption of an objective 
 ' "faith once delivered" to us.' — (pp. 169—174.) 
 
 ' The actual basis of our own Nationalism may be 
 ' termed — Sckiptuee, zvUhout defined Inspiration. In 
 ' our sixth Article, the Protestant feeling of our nation 
 ' just satisfies itself, in a blind way, with an anti-Eoman 
 ' view. But extreme Scripturalism cannot be charged 
 ' on Ai't. A^L, for it leaves us free to interpret most 
 p2 
 
212 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH, 
 
 ' things as we will. An Englishman agreeably fancies 
 ' that one portable book makes him indeiDendent of his 
 ' priest ; but the result is disappointing. The circu- 
 ' lation of Scripture, excellent and divine as it is, 
 ' (though with a human element,) has issued in a 
 ' puzzle. A National Church, true to Multitudinism, 
 ' will leave us more and more free to judge the 
 'Bible.'— (pp. 175— 180.) 
 
 ' At present the ex animo subscription to the Thirty- 
 
 * nine Articles seems a restraint on the clergy ; but it 
 ' is very vague. What the legal restraint amounts to, 
 
 * when all the Canons are considered, is hard to ima- 
 
 * gine. We acknowledge the Articles to be " agreeable 
 
 * to the Word of God;" but not of equal authority 
 
 * with it. There may be certain erroneous statements 
 
 * in the Articles ; and if so, we fall back on Scripture. 
 
 * True indeed an old Statute (13 Eliz., cap. 12) requires 
 
 * "assent" to the Articles; but that could not be en- 
 
 * forced now. The Ai'ticles are flexible, and there is 
 'latitude of interpretation, — with many open ques- 
 ' tions. IN'ot that this state of things ought to last, in 
 
 * a Multitudinist Church. Obsolete tests should be 
 
 * repealed ; and it may easily be done by withdrawing 
 
 * the old statute, and the subscription which hampers 
 
 * us. Subscription being abolished, the Articles them- 
 
 * selves might remain, (to gratify anti-Eoman feeling). 
 ' At present it enervates us, to oblige us to prove the 
 
 * Articles " agreeable to Scripture or to antiquity ;" or 
 ' become Dissenters.' — (pp. 181 — 190.) 
 
 ' Then as to the Endowment of the " National 
 ' Church ;" it is National Property; and so, in one sense, 
 ' is all property. But a ministry supported by endow- 
 
 * ments may perfectly reflect the National mind; and be 
 ' quite suitable to a Multitudinist Church. And the Na- 
 
OUTLINE OF MR. WILSON S ESSAY. 213 
 
 * tional interest lies in preserving such endowment, as it 
 ' tends to unite all classes in the community. Each one 
 ' of us when born into a T^ation is born into a Spiritual 
 ' Society. The Xation has one spiritual life ; and its 
 ' Church is the expression of its social and ethical 
 ' development. The Gospel would be narrow and one- 
 ' sided, if it did not quicken ^Nationality, but only pro- 
 ' vided isolated "salvation," — a notion which unfits men 
 ' for this life. At least there should be no needless ob- 
 ' stacles to National Unity, even if it cannot be perfectly 
 ' secured. Without aiming unreasonably at " compre- 
 ' hension," all barriers should, if possible, be thrown 
 ' down. Intellectual differences should be allowed for ; 
 ' they are inevitable. All may verbally accept Scrip- 
 ' ture, in some sense. Ideal methods of interpretation 
 ' may go far at last to unite all. — The accounts, e.g. of 
 ' our Descent from Adam, or of the Flood, or the destruc- 
 ' tion of Sodom, and other catastrophes and marvels, 
 ' maybe "ideologically" viewed. Our Lord's Transfigura- 
 ' tion or His " miracles" may be put in a light to satisfy 
 'various minds. The "ideologian" is not disturbed by 
 ' difficulties, or defects in evidence, or by gross notions 
 ' of Apostolic descent of the ministry, or by the Mille- 
 'nium: Christianity (to his view) is not a theology 
 ' of the intellect, nor an historical faith ; but may be 
 'received gcncralhj. This ideology may be but the 
 ' philosophy of the few ; but it denounces none, — be- 
 ' lieving that all udll at last he received to the hosom of 
 ' 6^od'— (pp. 191—206.) 
 
 All verbiage apart, we have here, at one view, the 
 entii-e course of the thought of the Essayist, simply 
 disengaged from the incidental and ornamental ad- 
 ditions. "VYhat the speculation means as a whole, is 
 
214 
 
 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 here faithfully exhibited; and it may be confessed, 
 that there lies before us a real theory corresponding 
 with the facts of our Eeligious life as a Nation, to a 
 serious extent. If that theory were accepted by us, 
 and further acted out, it must involve (as will be 
 seen) the rejection of the entire Christianity of the 
 Bible, or the Church, ancient or modem. This is the 
 point to be made clear, and not, of course, barely as- 
 serted, by those who differ from "the Essayist." 
 The tone here adopted towards Christianity by the 
 rne general advocatc of this " ncw !N'ationalism," is 
 
 Challenge given . . ' t-! t oaa 
 
 to Christianity, ccrtainly uot a flattering onc. ±or i,bUU 
 years our Eeligion has been in the position of an in- 
 tellectual and moral superior, and could generally 
 make terms, as such, with a decaying or uncouth 
 civilization wherever it came. But the nineteenth 
 century, it is said now, professes to be intellectually 
 and morally in advance of us, — an alienation between 
 the Church of the past, and the times we live in, is 
 even boasted of. True, indeed, society cannot go on 
 without Eeligion, but the world is at present on most 
 unsatisfactory terms with Christianity everywhere ; 
 nor does there appear to be much probability of an 
 early concordat between the " spirit of the age" and 
 the spirit of the Christian Eevelation : but the pro- 
 fessors of the present forms of Christianity, Eoman, 
 Anglican, and Puritan, are all now warned that a 
 broader system than theirs is demanded, to which the 
 name of "Christianity" shall yet be given. We are 
 bidden to " set oui' house in order." Intellectually, 
 of course, we may "hold our own" if we can; poli- 
 tically, we may content ourselves awhile with any po- 
 sition that may be offered by the accidents of the hour. 
 But the supernatural character hitherto attributed to 
 
OF BROAD, OR GENERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 213 
 
 tlie Eeligion of Christ is not only denied, but declared 
 to bo a subsequent development, and no necessary part 
 of the teaching of our Divine Master. 
 
 § 3. Beligioiis idea of a Broad National Christianity. 
 It is supposed, then, — for the question must be put 
 in some tangible form,— That Christianity The scheme of 
 may be received in a generalized imij, mth- Snft^lihdiengid 
 out men's being bound to acknowledge all ^^ ^'~ 
 the details of any existing part of the Christian body, 
 or all the various books of the Old and Xew Testa- 
 ment, as true. This, of course, opens every religious 
 question among us, de novo; and we are bound to 
 ascertain what this Generalized Christianity, — which 
 is the "idea" of Multitudinism, its ap^ and re'Aoy, — 
 really means. For to say, you will accept ^s the ideal of 
 the Bible, and hold yourself at liberty ^^^titudinism. 
 afterwards to reject it piece-meal, seems simply, to 
 most persons, unintelligible, if not absurd. We can- 
 not permit the assertors of the rights of reason to 
 stultify their subject and their argument, without 
 challenge. We are not asking too much if, in the 
 name of reason, we do our best to ascertain what 
 educated men mcan^ when, with an air of superiority, 
 they profess to believe in Christ, not only apart from 
 the history and tradition of His followers, but apart 
 from the record of His life and teaching in the four 
 Gospels. To this we must first of all address our- 
 selves. Let us have the theory clearly expressed and 
 logically worked out, to some extent, of a generalized 
 Christianity, independent of historical creeds, his- 
 torical Scriptures, and historical continuity. It is 
 hard to ask us to commit ourselves to such a scheme, 
 without knowing something about it. 
 
2i6 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 The course taken by our eclectic opponents seems to 
 Christianity to "be tliis. AcceptinGT in a literary way the 
 
 be reduced to a . . i p o • ii 
 
 merely " Docu- existiuoj volume Oi Scnpturc, as usually 
 
 mentary Revela- , . ^ 
 
 tion." admitted, and separating it as a purely 
 
 Documentary Revelation^ from " all the work of the 
 Spirit of God, from the day of Pentecost till now," 
 they proceed to examine it part by part, as they 
 would "any other book^" How far, or in what 
 sense, they think any part of Scriptui'e sacred, or 
 even true, they abstain at first from saying. They 
 receive, and even praise it, as a whole. 
 
 Thus they may secure the hasty suffrages of the 
 Popular aspect of ignorant and the toleration of the pious, 
 meaning'' of 'the who faucy that all is simplified if they 
 one Book." havo Only to ascertain the one "plain 
 meaning" of one well-known Volume ; forgetting that 
 all are not critics. The Protestantism of the age is 
 pleased, too, by such appeal to a purely Documentary 
 Eevelation, is soothed by the deference to " private 
 judgment," and hoodwinked by the rejection of "an- 
 tiquity." The new theorists have been thriving on 
 the delusion. — Yet is there not something thoroughly 
 unworthy of men engaged in a great intellectual and 
 moral work, in ad cajytandiim appeals as if to the 
 "Bible onlyy addressed to the reverent sentiment 
 of the untheological masses, whose whole faith they 
 are about to sweep away ? 
 
 For the very next step to this general reception of 
 the Bible, is to separate the Old Testament from the 
 Kew; and in the latter, to distinguish the Gospels 
 from the Epistles. Then, the Gospels are reduced to 
 the lowest point by separating the supernatural from 
 the "natural" portions of the narrative; and the 
 
 ' Essa^ p. 377. ^ Essays, p. 426, &c. 
 
OF BROAD, OR GENERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 217 
 
 words of Christ Iliraself from the incidents recorded 
 by the Evangelists ; and again, lEis ethics from Ilis 
 doctrine! Not that the process of "criticism" stops 
 here, though by this time the unlearned allies of the 
 critics must take alarm; and before long the whole 
 cause of Scripture investigation even by scholars is 
 discredited. 
 
 This way of proceeding is to be indignantly de- 
 precated by honest thinkers. ^ The di- insidious pro- 
 
 l J ^ ^ gress of this at- 
 
 rection of the spiritual course of our time tempt. 
 (if the truth is to be owned) has not, with all men's 
 pretensions, been intellectual. The progress of edu- 
 cation and taste a few years ago led to the partial 
 revival of old theological learning and ritualism ; and 
 it was not a further progress of education tliat checked 
 it. It was arrested by political and social causes, 
 and, more than all, by panic ; instead of being met by 
 any counteracting efforts of a thoughtful kind. There 
 followed indeed a temporary religious re-action of a 
 Puritan spirit, — but with no intellectual life. And 
 now, "Essayism" (if the term be allowable) has not 
 been unwilling to pretend to espouse the Chillingworth 
 doctrine, which ever pleases the crowd; and unwor- 
 thily has thought to blind the unthinking many with 
 the offer of a "/r<?e/y-handled Bible." 
 
 The alarm which has followed, however, now that 
 the insidious nature of the proposal has ^^J^^fu^i^^^j^p^f. 
 boon understood, has occasioned a recoil, tionaiism at the 
 which was not unnatural. The generality, of the Bibio. 
 so painfully appealed to, doubtless lean on Scripture, 
 (for they feel that they must have something:) they 
 cannot themselves examine much of it, and they see 
 not what is to become of them, if they are to be given 
 over to the authority of "critics;" for that seems as 
 
2l8 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH, 
 
 great an invasion of the '^ rights of Englishmen " as 
 the "yoice of the Church" had ever been. They 
 thought the Bible had been criticized enough before 
 their time; and that "private judgment" now had 
 only to "interpret" it. To submit to scholars, — • 
 might it not at once lead to a narrower and more 
 stringent tyranny than that of ecclesiastics? — and 
 equally interfere with the absolute right and assumed 
 competency of every man of average powers to in- 
 terpret the vernacular Scriptures as he pleased, for 
 himself? — They did not see, at first, that to reduce 
 Revelation to the rank of mere literature, was to hand 
 it over to the literati. 
 
 Among those who now shrink the most from the 
 The concessions Critical destructiou of Scripture as the 
 semi-critics. substauco of OUT Ecligion, tlicro are some 
 who are ready to concede its partial mutilation. 
 There is an attempt here and there, of a crude and 
 hasty kind, to make "concessions" to the enemy. 
 Like mariners in a storm, certain religionists have 
 been looking about to see what they can part with, 
 to make their vessel "more safe;" or like besieged 
 men who have to consider how much they had better 
 abandon, before they retire to make desperate resist- 
 ance, perhaps at the citadel. — The philosophers are 
 not unpleased at the commotion; and the irreligious 
 are beginning to suspect that they may soon get rid 
 of many a terror, which thus far has held their con- 
 science in bondage. 
 
 For those who share none of these fears, the course 
 to be pursued with the defenders of this " Generalized 
 Christianity," is (as we shall repeat) to insist on their 
 producing it for the examination of all men. Let them 
 tell us, in no misty or evasive sentences, what their 
 
OF BROAD, OR GENERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 219 
 
 "Christianity" is ; and where they will get it, after 
 they shall have reduced the Eeligion of Christendom 
 to a "Document," and ascertained the uncertainty, 
 if not the doubtfulness, of every part of it ? 
 
 To have any anxiety as to the ultimate results of 
 the most searching investigation of Scrip- -^,3 position 
 ture would betray, in any case, a feeble- ofcimrchmcn. 
 ness of faith, which the well-taught Christian would 
 but pity. They who know that their " house cannot 
 fall," for it is "founded upon a rock^," must not be 
 supposed to be fearful for themselves because they 
 are willing to help others who are tossing on the 
 waves. All that the most patient and penetrating 
 learning, or the most advanced science, shall ever 
 teach, the truth-loving Christian will welcome. They, 
 on the other hand, who have surrendered the an- 
 cient Creeds, (and with them so much of the living 
 grace of the Gospel,) must make the best defence 
 they can of all that remains to them of the " deposit 
 of faith." — It is their concern, pre-eminently, to deal 
 with this portentous scheme of a "Gen- ,. ^^^"^'J'j;^^^ °^ 
 eralized Christianity," the residuum that Christianity"— 
 
 "^ > . . the ideal ot Mul- 
 
 is to remain to them after the latest cnti- titudimsm. 
 cal sifting of the text of the Christian Scriptures. The 
 Churchman refuses the postulate, (without which the 
 generalizers cannot proceed one step in their argu- 
 ment); he denies that the Sacred Eecord was de- 
 signed to be cut off, as a mere " document," from the 
 cle facto Christianity of all ages. The Churchman's 
 defence will not avail the merely literary believer. 
 
 But, accepting for a moment the assumption with 
 which the f]jeneralizcrs of our religion Example of tho 
 
 o _ o Process ot Gen- 
 
 would begin, it is not difficult to see craiizing. 
 how, step by step, the whole order of the "new ere- 
 K St. Matt. Yii. 25. 
 
2 20 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 ation in Christ Jesus" may be undone, and a chaos 
 arrived at. Let us follow for a moment one of the 
 lines of thought which the writer of the '' Essay on 
 the National Church" suggests to us, and see what 
 it comes to : — 
 
 ' The Descent of mankind from Adam and Eve, — 
 the destruction of the world by the Elood, — the over- 
 throw of Sodom and Gomorrah, — are all thought ob- 
 jectionable by a growing class of " critics ^." But they 
 are only parts (it must be urged) of the Hebrew Scrip- 
 tures ; and, on examining them, many great scholars 
 have rejected them as of doubtful credibility ! As 
 (Baden Powell's Christians, are we bound to accept as true 
 wSoit' ju-^ the entire Scriptures of Judaism ? The 
 daism.") three points objected to are not essential 
 
 then to Christianity ! "We find ourselves in the diffi- 
 culty, no doubt, that Christ and His apostles accepted 
 all these "errors" as truths; or at least the New 
 Testament represents them as so doing. Christ says, 
 that "from the beginning God made them male and 
 female ' ;" and He refers, in proof, to this " erroneous" 
 Jewish record as Divine. He equally mentions the 
 catastrophe of "the days of Noah^," the destruction 
 of the world by the Deluge, and the overthrow of 
 the cities of the plain ^ ; and this not once, but seve- 
 ral times. But may we not conclude that Christ thus 
 deferred to the national prejudices of His country- 
 men? — or perhaps, that His biographers have re- 
 ported untruly His words on all these subjects ? — This 
 obliges us, indeed, at once to give up as much as 
 several important passages of the Evangelists ; and to 
 doubt the author itij of those writers on other points. For 
 
 ^ Eppay, p. 200, &c. ^ St. Matt. xix. 4—8. 
 
 " ibid. xix. 38. ' St. Luke xvii. 29. 
 
OF BROAD, OR GENERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 22 1 
 
 if they have not truly reported Christ's words, how 
 can we trust them as to His deeds?— say e.g. the 
 *' Transfiguration," mentioned by St. Luke. Is it pos- 
 sible to accept the words of that Evangelist, who tells 
 lis " that Moses and Elias came from the invisible world 
 to hold a supernatm-al conversation with Christ on the 
 Mount",— when we have been compelled to reject, or 
 suspect, what he says about Sodom and Gomorrha ? 
 
 'It becomes imperative, then, to advance a step 
 further ; and ascertain rather tlie spirit of the teaching 
 of Christ, to be learned from the Evangelist ; without 
 binding ourselves to my facts which seem to a "just 
 criticism" to be improbable. The difficulty, however, 
 of accepting the spirit of a book which we have been 
 obliged to think untrustworthy as to its facts ; or of 
 ascertaining the spirit of Christ's teaching when we 
 can no longer be certain of one of His words, — is en- 
 hanced at every step. The inherent beauty of many 
 passages of the so-called " Discourses of Christ" might 
 well save them from being consigned to neglect ; but 
 the Miracles can hardly be admitted now, without bet- 
 ter evidence than that of such " biographers." The 
 "supernatural element," too, of His Birth, (as well as 
 His Eesurrection,) would need other vouchers !' 
 
 But enough of this. — A similar course of thought 
 might arise from any of the miserable suspicions 
 thrown out by these "critics," till nothing of the 
 Gospel remained but this :— That a person, or per- 
 sons, of the name of Jesus, appeared in Judaea 1800 
 years ago, who greatly influenced many minds at the 
 time ; and whose alleged history was recorded some 
 thirty or forty years after the events ! — All beyond 
 
 » St. Luke ix. 30. « Essay, p. 202. 
 
22 2 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 this "being a "human accretion" on the divine teach- 
 ing which 'produced so remarkable an effect at the 
 time !' 
 
 Such, then, is Generalized Christianity. And 
 Conclusion let it Hot bc Said that the specimen is 
 
 against General- 
 ized Christianity, extravagant, or beyond what any one has 
 
 the Ideal of Mul- _ ° ' . \ , _ , /. 
 
 titudinism. dreamed, it is strictly deduced from the 
 
 principles of "Essayism." Much more might be said 
 without overstepping logical propriety. A Christianity 
 without certainty of a single fact of the Gospel^ from the 
 Incarnation to the Eesurrection of Christ, — that is the 
 sliadow of religion to which these eclectics and critics 
 would lead our nation. Or, if all this be denied, and 
 they mislike this plain language, once more, in the 
 name of all reason and fairness, we repeat our chal- 
 lenge, and call on our new teachers to tell us openly, 
 in their own words, what their " Generalized Chris- 
 tianity" is to be ? and where we are to find it ? 
 
 It is not said, or implied for a moment, that the 
 Reserving au schcmc of vaguc rcHgion here delineated 
 
 charity. j^^g U^Qji definite form in the minds of 
 all those now living among us, who are teaching its 
 first principles. What we must rather say is, that 
 these writers accost us, not as hard, bold, English 
 reasoners, but as half- German, half-fanatical, credu- 
 lous, imaginative, illogical ; quite capable of going on 
 holding premises and denying conclusions. 
 
 Let these halting and feeble-minded thinkers be 
 made to take any part of the New Testament, in which 
 there is any reference to the Old, and reason from it. 
 — Suppose the advocate of " Generalized Christianity" 
 to decide on receiving as " genuine " the reported 
 words of Christ in any one of the Gospels; he will 
 
BROAD CHRISTIANITY AND THE APOSTLES'. 
 
 223 
 
 see our Lord tliere referring to '' all the prophets °," 
 
 Isaiah, Jonah, Daniel, and the rest ; and making quota- 
 tions from the Psalms, or the Pentateuch, FurtberEx- 
 mystically, typically, spiritually, hardly '"'"i''^^- 
 ever " literally," or in the way any secular book would 
 be understood. And he will then stand in this di- 
 lemma : — Either he must reject those words of Christ 
 which fix llis imprimatur on the old prophets, and on 
 a special way of interpreting them ; or he must accept 
 them, with all their consequences. If the latter, then 
 he is committed to the Old Testament as divine Scrip- 
 ture, " which cannot be broken ^ ;" if the former, he is 
 bound to shew ivJiat rule he has to determine, AVhich 
 of Christ's words are to be accepted ? And which not ? 
 In the one case his Christianity will be no abstrac- 
 tion, it will be special doctrine ; in the other, doubt- 
 less his view will be a very generalized one ; but he 
 must say how he will prevent it from folding down 
 to the thinnest indisputable truisms, which may be 
 gleaned from the fewest sentences, of the least mys- 
 tical discourse, reported in the briefest Gospel. 
 
 §. 4. Broad Christianiti/ comjMrcd ivith the 
 Apostolic Age. 
 
 But the generalizers of our religion are not con- 
 sistent. They cannot, or do not, reason. Another enquiry. 
 For, after using the language of utter scepticism, we 
 find them, perhaps in the next page, referring (with- 
 out hint of "criticism") to the documents of the ISTew 
 Testament as in some sense trustworthy evidence 
 still, for some of the facts of Primitive Christianity, 
 
 ° St. Matt. XV. 7 ; St. Luke iv. 17 ; St. John xii. 38 ; St. Matt, 
 xii. 40, xxiv. 15, iv. 4, 7, 10 j St. Luke xxiv. 27, 44. 
 P St. John X. 35, V. 38, 39. 
 
2 24 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 which are incomprehensibly declared to accord with 
 " Multitudinism !" It is urged (as will be seen by 
 Whether, in foct, tho Outline) that their broad and general 
 £LTtywrs'£oad?' idea of Christianity may be vindicated, 
 -or exclusive? " ^^^ ^f^^j, ^^l, morc '' apostolical " than the 
 
 exclusive views, prevalent since the first age, as to 
 definite faith in Chiist, or as to the idea of "salva- 
 tion" in a future state. Let this then be examined 
 in the next place, — "Whether, from the first, it was 
 the intention of Christianity (as afiirmed) to provide 
 a " generalized religion" for the multitude, of an in- 
 elusive kind ? And whether this can be fairly learned 
 from the Christian Scriptures, which are here happily, 
 though inconsistently, called to give evidence, by those 
 who regard them as so very uncertain, if not also 
 frequently false ? 
 
 It will not avail to say, in reply to what will be 
 alleged, that the authority of the texts quoted is dis- 
 allowed ; that is not the question. It has been dis- 
 tinctly assumed, that the Christian Scriptures may be 
 appealed to in support of this "Multitudinism," or 
 "IS'ew Nationalism," which is recommended to uis. 
 We deny this; and it therefore becomes a question 
 of fact. For whether the inclusiveness, argued for 
 by these writers, — or the exclusive claims, urged by 
 us for our Eeligion, — be to be preferred^ is not the 
 enquiry ; but which is in fact borne out by the Xew 
 Testament? — and there must be no mystification as 
 to this precise issue. 
 
 Of course a Christian cannot consent, that the theory 
 
 The theory, of his Eeligiou should be lowered to the 
 
 uh'ristiauftjnobl IgvcI of tlic facts ; but the one will un- 
 
 distinguished. tloubtedly scrvc at all times to throw 
 
 light on the other, though the attempt must be made 
 
BROAD CHRISTIANITY AND THE APOSTLES. 223 
 
 to distingiiisli them ; since it would be unreasonable 
 to suppose, either that the high spiritual aim of Chris- 
 tianity was always attained, or that the practical dere- 
 lictions of moral agency should be chargeable on the 
 Gospel as its design. 
 
 Eeligion, we affirm, has two aspects, — one towards 
 this world, and one towards the futui'e. its ackno;^- 
 
 ' ledged aspect to- 
 
 ll raises and ennobles the present, and wards "the life 
 
 •^ , . that now is, and 
 
 that all the more because it points to im- that which is to 
 
 -»^ .,, , , . . come." (1 Tim. 
 
 mortality. jSone will deny that its action ^•i 6.) 
 on the present is frequently generic : the many are 
 affected by it, and affected in masses. Hence we 
 speak of Christianity as ''influencing civilization" 
 in all its great developments. There is not so much 
 dispute as to this; but rather, as to which is the 
 primary object of religion, this world, or the next? 
 for, upon the determination of this, the merits of 
 Multitudinism and Individualism will easily be ascer- 
 tained by any one. If Eoman Christianity — itself 
 often a corrupt form of Multitudinism — have helped 
 to confuse men's thoughts, in some degree, as to this 
 distinction, let it not be thought tedious if it be 
 somewhat enlarged on, since so much depends on it. 
 
 Hitherto, so universal has been the belief among 
 religious people of all kinds, with the rarest ex- 
 ceptions, that earthly duties, however sacred, are 
 but preliminary to an eternal "life to come," that 
 some, (as the Pelagians,) even conceive the present 
 to be the means of meriting the future reward; and 
 though this is heretical, it is but a dogmatic exagger- 
 ation of what Scripture says, and all persons feel, 
 that we shall hereafter be "judged according to our 
 works ^" While faith sees, and lives for, "the In- 
 q Heb. xi. 27. 
 Q 
 
2 2.6 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 visible," (as witnessed by all the men of faith since 
 Idea of the the world began,) the "fruits of faith," 
 pSrayf"iffe l^elng good works, have been acknow- 
 of Faith." ledged by all to have their temporary use 
 
 and salutary action in this world. But Christianity 
 distinctively proposes a "life of Faith;" while Mul- 
 titudinism declines the consideration of the future''. 
 Whether, indeed, even for this life, "individualism" 
 be not more ethically true, shall also be considered ; 
 but at present the question of fact is to be looked to, 
 — whether primitive Christianity, as learned from its 
 only records, was " multitudinistic," and broad, and 
 directed to the present? or whether it was "ex- 
 clusive," and sought access to the individual con- 
 science of the few, (indirectly approaching the many,) 
 and chiefly contemplated the eternal world ? 
 
 The Ten following grounds have been suggested for 
 Alleged Scrip- tho posltiou, that " Multitudiuism " has 
 Muititudinism. the support of tho Now Testament. 
 
 1st. That "though the consequences of what the 
 1st Ground. Grospcl docs will bc Carried out into other 
 Essay, p. 159. ^orlds, its work is to be done here." 
 
 The reply to this it is needless to repeat, as it is 
 contained in what has been just said as to the primary 
 and secondary objects of Eeligion. 
 
 2nd Ground. That " neither in doctrine nor in morals 
 2nd Ground, ^id the primitive Christian communities 
 Essay, p. 160. ^-^ judged by the Apostolic Epistles) ap- 
 proach the idea formed of them ;" but are much more 
 like communities of general professors of Christianity, 
 than societies requiring individual strictness. 
 
 The reply is a plain one. The same Epistles which in- 
 form us of the moral failures of the primitive Churches 
 
 '■ Essay, pp. 159—161. 
 
BROAD CHRISTIANITY, AND THE APOSTLES. 227 
 
 warn and rebuke individuals; and in no case complain 
 of their moral state as a result of organic defect, or 
 of corporate false action. Special duties of Christians, 
 man by man, woman by woman, child by child, form 
 the subject-matter of apostolic exhortation. A generic 
 remedy, singularly enough, is not perhaps glanced at 
 as much as once by St. Paul (as it might have been) 
 in his thirteen Epistles. He had "not so learned 
 Christ;" but his preaching, he says, was "warning 
 evevfj man and teaching every man .... that we may 
 present every man perfect in Christ '." 
 
 3rd Ground. "That the doctrinal features of the 
 early Church are more undetermined 3rd Ground, 
 (and inclusive of many opinions) than ^^^=*>''P-^ 
 Avould be thought by those who read them only 
 through ecclesiastical Creeds." 
 
 But here the reply naturally is, that the Multi- 
 tudinist is bound to shew, if he would establish his 
 conclusion, that there were no essential "doctrinal 
 features" at all. — Perhaps, indeed, the earliest pro- 
 fession of faith may have been little more than " he- 
 lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
 saved ;^^ but such a profession, in the simplest ima- 
 ginable form, still required individual reception, and 
 supposed the need of " salvation ;" and the very form 
 of Baptism (taking every person singly) was indivi- 
 dualistic; nor could sacramental administration well be 
 otherwise. Baptism, the foundation of every Chui-ch, 
 early or late, carries with it the doctrine of "the Fa- 
 ther, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," from the begin- 
 ning. Men, e.g., who " had not heard whether there 
 were any Holy Gho.sty and had been baptized only 
 by John the Baptist; and one who was already an 
 ' Coloss. i. 28. * Acts xix. 2. 
 
 q2 
 
228 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 "eloquent" expounder of Scripture, had to receive, 
 somewhat later, more perfect baptism, or (as the 
 case might be) more exact instruction in the Chris- 
 tian dogma '\ 
 
 4th Ground. "That the doctrine taught by the 
 4th Ground. Luthcrans of lustification by subjective 
 
 Essay, pp. 159, \^ i ^ ■ x? ' 
 
 160. faith was never the doctrine ol any con- 
 siderable portion of the Church till the time of the 
 Eeformation. It is not met with in the apo- 
 stolic writings, except those of St. PmilP 
 
 I^eply: — Whether the "Lutheran'-' expression of 
 the doctrine of "justification by faith" be Scriptural, 
 is not our concern ; but Whether faith as a subjec- 
 tive grace in the soul, — whether faith as chvelUng 
 in a man^ (and not simply as the general opinion of 
 a "multitude,") — be truly exhibited to us in Scrip- 
 ture ? For, as to making the writings of St. Paul 
 "exceptions," when examining what the Kew Testa- 
 ment evidence is, it appears most unreasonable and 
 tortuous ; unless it be at once avowed that St. Paul's 
 Epistles (constituting nearly half the Kew Testament) 
 are 'untrustworthy.' It is forgotten, (when this 
 doubt is thrown in about St. Paul's inspiration,) that 
 the point under examination is, whether his record of 
 a "fact" is to be admitted? For undoubtedly, he says^ 
 that faith was an indwelling and individual gift, in 
 the opinion of Chiistians then. In proof, the ex- 
 amples of Timothy, his mother, and his grandmother, 
 may be taken: the Apostle thanking God "for the 
 unfeigned faith that was in him, which dwelt first in 
 his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice ^." — But 
 we are not obliged to refer to the Epistles of St. Paul 
 only. Our Lord Himself, in the Gospels, (if we are 
 
 " Acts xviii. 26. ' 2 Tim. i. 5. 
 
BROAD CHRISTIANITY AND THE APOSTLKS . 229 
 
 to credit thcm^) assigns mercy to individuals ''accord- 
 ing to the faith that was in them ^ ;" and His apostles, 
 in the Acts, imitating their Master, blessed the cripple 
 at Lystra, " perceiving that Jie had faith to be healed ^" 
 And the expressions, '■^ imrifijing the heart by faith," 
 ^^ sanctified by faith''," and others which we meet 
 with, describe an effective work of individual ele- 
 vation and conversion. St. Peter and St. James speak 
 of the "trial of faith" in the soul; the former as 
 "precious and praiseworthy in the day of the Lord^," 
 the latter as "working patience °." And St. James 
 in almost all instances refers to faith as indtvelling in 
 the individual^ even when warning Christians against 
 attributing to it a false value. St. Peter classes " fliith 
 with /wj»e^," as indwelling graces directed towards 
 God as their outward object, as subjectively as St. 
 Paul had done; and he, too, speaks of "salvation of 
 souls" as the end of that inward "believing." And, 
 finally, St. John in the Apocalypse makes no difference 
 between "faith," "charity," and "patience*," so far 
 as their indwelling character is concerned. Tlie word 
 "faith" is used sixteen times by St. James, and five 
 times by St. John ; but in only one instance does 
 St. James, and only twice St. John, use "faith" to 
 describe the Eeligion of Christ as a system ; and in 
 every other to exhibit its internal character as a Grace 
 in the believer's soul. 
 
 5th Ground. ' That the doctrine of the Niccne and 
 Athanasian Creed is less definitely, or in 5th Ground. 
 other words more broadly, stated in Scrip- ^''''"^' ^'- •^^*^- 
 ture than in the symbols of the later Church.' 
 
 y St. Matt. ix. 22, xv. 28; St. Mark x. 52 ; St. Luke xvii. 19. 
 ^ Acts xiv. 9. " Acts iii. 16, vi. 5 — 7, xi. 24, xv. 9, xxvi. 18. 
 
 '^ 1 St. Tc-t. i. 7. ' St. James i. 3. M St. Pet. i. 9, 21. 
 
 <: Rev. ii. 19; xiii. 10. 
 
230 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 This has been answered, by anticipation, in what 
 has been said in reply to the " Third Ground." 
 
 6th Ground. ' That the Gospels of St. Matthew, 
 
 6th Ground. St. Mark, and St. Luke, afford evidence 
 Essay, pp. 161-2. ^^ Qhrist's owu words ; and these words, 
 taken in connection with the Epistle of St. James and 
 the 1st of St. Peter, leave no doubt that the general 
 character of Christianity was chiefly moral.'' 
 
 Eeply: — Supposing this were admitted, it would 
 not lead to the conclusion desired by the advocate of 
 ''Multitudinism." For morality is only sound when 
 it has its hold on individual conviction. A general 
 conformity to the public opinion, in matters of duty, 
 may often lead to good average results ; but we could 
 not praise the morality of any man who had no con- 
 science as to the rectitude of the rules to which he 
 socially conformed. And indeed the whole of the at- 
 tempted reasoning connected with this subject, in the 
 place referred to \ is rather opposed to " Multitudin- 
 ism ;" inasmuch as it represents Christ's moral de- 
 sign to be, to "penetrate to the root of Conscience," 
 — which, of course, is to address the individual, rather 
 than the corporate life of man. 
 
 7 th Ground. Three facts are referred to as implying 
 
 7th Ground. Multitudiulsm. Pirst, our Lord's lament 
 
 Essav, pp 146, i n i • 
 
 153, 171. over Jerusalem for their national rejection 
 of Him, which proved " that He had ofi'ered it to them 
 Lationally, in a broad and general way." Secondly, 
 the conversion of 3,000 on the day of Pentecost; for, 
 " that they cannot be supposed to have been indi- 
 vidual converts ; but only a mass of persons brought 
 in as a body;" and, thirdly, the alleged existence 
 " among the Christian converts in the early Church of 
 
 ^ Essay, p. 102. 
 
BROAD CHRISTIANITY, AND THE APOSTLES. 231 
 
 those, for example, who hud no belief in a corporeal 
 " resurrection ^' ;" and therefore, ' that even a denial of 
 doctrine, such as the Resurrection of the body, ought 
 to be permitted in a Broad National Church intended 
 for all.' 
 
 I^epl}^ : — The first alleged fact is contrary to all that 
 we read in the Gospels. For it does not appear that 
 our Lord, ou any one occasion, laid His claims before 
 the authorities, tor an official investigation; but in 
 every instance called out individuals, and appealed to 
 consciences. — The second supposition is even more 
 distinctly contrary to the record, in which the " prick- 
 ing of the heart," " repentance," and " baptism" are at- 
 tributed to every one ; and it is added, that " fear came 
 upon EVERY soul^.^^ The whole narrative is as strongly 
 individiialistic, as if written for our argument. — The 
 third supposition^ is founded on St. Paul's remonstrance 
 in the Epistle to the Corinthians, "How say some 
 among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ?" 
 Why, (it is asked,) did not St. PauP excommunicate 
 such Sadducees if he thought their opinion ought to 
 exclude them ? Now let the same argument be urged 
 a verse or two further on, in the same chapter, and it 
 might plausibly enlarge the boundaries of this "broad 
 Christianity" to include even those who had no true 
 ^^ knowledge of God'''' at all; for, among these Corin- 
 thians it is said, that there were even " some who had 
 not the knowledge of GodV and the Apostle adds, 
 "I speak this to your shame." Let our "Multi- 
 tudinist," who uses this surely preposterous argument, 
 decide whether open idolaters, sceptics, or atheists, 
 
 e Essay, pp. 146, 163. •' Acts ii. 37, 38,43. ' Essay, p. 164. 
 >' 1 Cor. XV. 12. ' Ibid., vtr. 34. 
 
232 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 are to be admissible, with " Sadducees," to his compre- 
 hensive Church? Of the one class as much as of 
 the other the Apostle said there were rii^h, '' some," 
 among the Corinthians. To those who are not Multi- 
 tudinists it will seem plain enough that there would, 
 in that unformed and unfixed condition of things at 
 Corinth, be many half -persuaded, many ignorant, 
 many only preparing for baptism; and there is no 
 reason whatever to think that these rebuked Sad- 
 ducees, and unbelievers in God, had been yet bap- 
 tized. So far indeed from a denial of God or of the 
 Eesurrection being compatible with membership of 
 the primitive Church, the Apostle shews how '' Jesus 
 and the Eesurrection" ?m(st stand together, when he 
 declares that the whole structure of Christianity must 
 fall if the Eesurrection be denied "^ ; and that for " some 
 to be without the knowledge of God''" was utterly 
 "shameful" to a Christian community". 
 
 8th Ground. ' That the relative value of doctrine 
 
 8th Ground. ^'^<^^ uiorals in the primitive Church may 
 
 Essay, p. 162. -^^ judged by the preference given in the 
 
 Apostolic Epistles to the latter beyond the former; 
 
 and that latitude as to doctrine may be fairly inferred 
 
 from this.' 
 
 Eeply: — We are not left to mere inference in esti- 
 mating the vital importance of sound doctrine as well 
 as morals. St. Paul says, " A man that is an heretic 
 after the first and second admonition reject'^P He 
 left Timothy in Ephesus, to " charge some to teach 
 no other doctrine;'''' and to urge "charity, out of a 
 pure heart, a good conscience, and /«/M unfcUjned'^ :''"' 
 he warns him to " take heed to himself and to the 
 
 "" 1 Cor. XV. 17, 18. "1 Cor. xv. 34. ° Acts xvii. 18, 32. 
 P Titus iii. 10. 11 Tim. i. 3, 5 : \ii] (Tepodidaa-KaXelv. 
 
BROAD CITRTSTIANITY, AND THE APOSTLES'. 233 
 
 doctrine\''^ BiSacrKaXla, and tbat 'Hlio time would 
 come when men would not endure sound doctrine.'''' 
 St. John uses our Lord's own word, SiSaxv, and de- 
 scribes apostasy as a not " abiding in the doctrine of 
 Christy and forbids Christians to receive those who 
 do not ''come with this doctrine;^'' — (and the special 
 doctrine there alluded to is the Divine Sonship of our 
 Lord.) In fact, two-thirds at least, if not four-fifths, 
 of the Apostolic Epistles are Doctrinal ; and if their 
 evidence is to be taken, it seems scarcely possible to 
 have a point more conclusively settled against the 
 Comprehensionists and Anti-doctrinists. 
 
 But the preference given to morals above dogma 
 in this argument proves to be but short-lived; and 
 it is soon seen that, in arguing his case, it was not 
 that the Multitudinist loved Morals more, but Doc- 
 trine less. Observe the 
 
 9th Ground. "That if any called a brother were a 
 notoriously immoral person, the rest were g^,, Ground. 
 to be enjoined, ' no, not to eat with him,' ^'^^^' p- ^^^• 
 but he was not to be refused the name of a brother or 
 Christian." 
 
 Eeply: — The injunction "not to eat" with a gross 
 ill-liver applies also to religious eating, at " Commu- 
 nion :" the participation in a common meal cannot be 
 supposed to be the whole of the Apostle's meaning, 
 since he forbids all "keeping company" with such an 
 immoral person. And if this be so, excommunication 
 (in the Scripture sense *) is implied in this very passage. 
 Even if, indeed, it were granted that the Christian 
 Church was at first unable to exclude profligate mem- 
 
 ' 1 Tim. iv. 16. " St. John ii. 9, 10. ' 1 Cor. v. 11, &c. ; 
 
 2 Thess. iii. 14, compared with Acts x. 28, \_(Tvvavaixlyvv}j.i and 
 KoXXaw]; 1 Cor. vi. 16, 17. 
 
234 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 bers, tliat would not shew the desirableness of now re- 
 vertmg to such a state of things, and deliberately, as 
 a theory, adopting its "comprehensiveness." But the 
 very instance referred to evidences beyond a doubt 
 the individualistic aim of the Church, and indeed 
 the personal inspection of every member. 
 
 10th Ground. "That the Apostolic Churches took 
 loth Ground, collcctive uamcs from the localities where 
 Essay, p. 165. ^^^^ ^^^^ sltuatc," aud SO 'tended from 
 the first to be Multitudinistic' And thus ' National- 
 ism' is to be regarded, not merely as a provicjential 
 fact in the history of our religion, and so dealt with ; 
 but as the theory of Christianity from the first. 
 
 Eeply : — It is difiicult to conceive of anything more 
 natural, or inevitable, than the designation of any 
 institute from the name of the place where it is fixed. 
 Until it can be gravely shewn that to call any other 
 institution by the name of the place where it stands 
 is a proof that it comprehends the whole neighbour- 
 hood in its plan, we shall not be able to see any argu- 
 ment in this hypothesis — (for it is nothing more) — as 
 to the tendency of the Apostolic Churches to Multi- 
 tudinism, shewn by their names. To argue a theory 
 of our Eeligion from this, is somewhat weak. 
 
 The entire " Scripture evidence" alleged in behalf 
 of the supposition, that this new "Nationalism" was 
 the original intention or tendency of Christianity, 
 has now been reviewed ; and it is difiicult to repress 
 astonishment at the state of mind which could explore 
 the New Testament, aud then produce these " proofs" 
 that it meant to teach a Eeligion with no exclusive 
 Doctrines or exclusive Morals ! 
 
 We proceed to a difi'erent thesis. 
 
THE "EXCLUSIVENESS" OF CHRIST. 235 
 
 § 5. The Exdusiveness of Primitive Christianitij 
 Examined. 
 If we produce the unambiguous testimony of oui- 
 Divine Master, Christ Himself, and of His ^he scnpturo 
 chosen Apostles, as to the fact^ that in aS^^aii^'J"; 
 Christianity we are a2:)pealed to, singly, *« Reheard, 
 conscience by conscience, let those who are not 
 ashamed to be " Christians" take heed how they turn 
 from it. H the New Testament witness to '' Indi- 
 vidualism" (as it is termed) make it appear indeed 
 what men call "narrow and exclusive," be it re- 
 membered that we are not now examining the philo- 
 sophy of our religion, nor its ethical vindication. That 
 may be done elsewhere. Neither will the criticism 
 of a few phrases help the objector. It is to the matter 
 of fact we are pointing, (whether it be pleasing or 
 not,) — the broad fact which is patent to every eye, 
 that Christianity, according to the Scriptures, has a 
 Doctrine^ — has a strict Moral system, — asks to include 
 none who will not rise towards its standard of truth 
 and purity, anticipates frequently narrow results^ aims 
 always at the individual conscience, and points, pri- 
 marily, to an " eternal life''^ beyond the grave. 
 
 And first let us hear the words of Him i. Oiu- Saviour 
 
 Christ's own 
 who is "the Truth." warnings. 
 
 "AYhat is a man profited, if he shall gain the 
 whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall 
 a man give in exchange for his soul "■ ?" 
 
 "It is profitable for thee that one of thy members 
 perish, and not that thy whole body be cast into 
 hell." And "Fear Him who is able to cast both 
 body and soul into hell '." 
 
 ' St. Matt. xvi. 26 ; St. Mark viii. 36. 
 • St. Matt. V. 29, 30, and St. Luke xii. 5. 
 
236 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 '' Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for 
 that meat which endureth unto everlasting life *." 
 
 "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where 
 neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves 
 do not break through nor steal : for where your trea- 
 sure is, there will your heart be also"/' 
 
 "Provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a 
 treasure in the heavens that faileth nof." 
 
 " When the fruit is brought forth, He putteth in 
 the sickle, because the harvest is come-'." 
 
 "The harvest is the end of the world; and the 
 reapers are the angels ^." 
 
 " Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which 
 leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it^" 
 
 "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die m 
 your sins: .... and whither I go ye cannot come^." 
 
 No ingenuity can possibly extract from such words 
 a theory of " Multitudinism ;" a Eeligion for this 
 world ia iwcfevence to the next; a broad and "com- 
 prehensive" scheme lowered to the feelings of the 
 crowd, the '-'•manij^ whose love shall wax cold''" in 
 the latter days. — It is not to the point to say here, 
 " if Scripture teaches exclusiveness. Scripture is 
 wrong''." We are only examining the question of 
 fact^ AYhat does Scripture teach ? Is it a " little 
 flock®," or a great flock, to whom "the kingdom will 
 be given ?" 
 
 One more sentence from Christ Himself shall con- 
 clude His warning witness to us all. The question 
 was formally raised for His decision : — 
 
 * St. John vi. 27. " St. Matt. vi. 20, 21. * St. Luke xii. 33. 
 y St. Mark iv. 29. ' St. Matt. xiii. 39. '^ Ibid., vii. 14. 
 
 '• St. John viii. 24 and 21. -= St. Matt. xxiv. 12. '^ Essay, 
 
 1>. 154. ^ St. Lnkc xii. 32. 
 
"EXCLUSTVEXESS" OF THE APOSTLES' TEACHING. 237 
 
 '' Lord, are there few that be saved ? And lie 
 said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait 
 gate : for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter 
 in, and shall not be able. When once the master 
 of the house hath risen up, and hath shut to the 
 door V 
 
 If we pass on to the witness of those who came 
 afterwards, and enquire how they under- JJ-^^J,'g\|g^^'^^f^ 
 stood the Lord's apparently unworldly others.' 
 and exclusive teaching, we now cannot be surprised 
 to read thus : — 
 
 St. Peter. "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou 
 hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and 
 are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the 
 living God"." 
 
 St. John and St. Peter. " Neither is there salvation 
 in any other: for there is none other Name imder 
 heaven given among men, whereby we must be 
 saved ^" 
 
 St. Pant. ''I am not ashamed of the Gospel of 
 Christ: for it is the power of God unto satvation 
 to every one that believethV 
 
 The Apostle to the Hebrews. " Without holiness no 
 man shall see the Lord''." 
 
 >S'^. Jiide. '' Contend earnestly for the faith once 
 delivered to the saints V 
 
 St. Philip the Deacon. " If thou believest with all 
 th) hearty thou mayest be baptized. And he said, 
 I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God"\" 
 
 The Angel at Joppa. "Call for Simon, who shall 
 
 f St. Luke xiii. 23, &c. « St. John vi. 68, 69. '' Acts iv. 12. 
 » Rom. i. 16. '' Heb. xii. 14. ' St. Jude, 3, 4, &c., 17, &c. 
 
 " Acts yiii. 37. 
 
238 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH, 
 
 tell thee words wliereby tliou and all thy house shall 
 he saved "".^^ 
 
 If the idea of ' exclusive salvation for those who 
 believe and obey the Gospel' be not here placed before 
 the individual conscience, it seems impossible to say 
 in what form it could have been naturally expressed 
 at aU. 
 
 Xor is it any ''abstract Christianity" which is thus 
 put forward. The greatest of the writers of the IN'ew 
 Testament leaves on record this authoritative sentence, 
 twice uttered, and conclusive against all other versions 
 of our Eeligion than the original message : — " Though 
 we, or an angel from heaven, preach ati^ other Gospel 
 unto 3'ou than that which we have preached unto you, 
 let him be accursed ! As we said before, so say I now 
 again, If any man preach any other Gospel imto you 
 than that ye have received, let him be accursed" P^ 
 
 It is not as though "eliminating" two or three 
 obstinate texts would relieve the case. The facts 
 which lie on the surfoce, or those most deeply im- 
 bedded in the structure of the whole record of our 
 Eeligion, equally attest the sense which primitive be- 
 lievers had of the everlasting importance of a right 
 faith in "Him whom not ha\'ing seen they loved p," 
 and for whom they would " suifer the loss of all 
 things," and "count them as dross," if they might 
 but " win Christ, and be found in Him ^ " at last. 
 
 And see how urgent they became, therefore, " heark- 
 m.Thetesti- eninsr to God's voice '." — In "adding to 
 
 mony of Aposto- ^ ■,•,■-,• 
 
 lie Deeds. the ChuTch*" the newly bapti2;ed, it was 
 
 for ^^ salvation.''^ Whether to the alarmed jailor of 
 
 " Acts xi. 14. ° Gal. i. 8, 9. ^ 1 St. Pet. i. 8. 
 
 ■J Philipp. iii. 8. ' Acts iv. 19, 20. ^ Ibid. ii. 47. 
 
"EXCLUSIVENESS" OF THE APOSTLES' CONDUCT. 239 
 
 Philippi, or to the quiet Chiu'ch settled at Eome, or 
 to the scattered Jews who had believed, the message 
 was the same, " Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou 
 shalt be saved.'''' ''TVe shall be saved from wrath 
 through Him*." ''We are not of them who draw 
 back unto perdition ; but of them that believe to the 
 saving of ihe soiW.^^ — Let men risk their puny view 
 that all this was bigotry, if they will ; but was it not 
 a characteristic of original Christianity, such as no im- 
 partial reader (believer or not) can dispute? — If not, 
 then the heathen who complained of the heat and zeal 
 of Paul and Barnabas^ were right. Unless Christianity 
 were essential to each soul to whom it came, why 
 should the sincere adherents of old religions have 
 been so roughly and needlessly disturbed? Why 
 should even Jews be told, that in rejecting Christ 
 they were '' counting themselves unworthy of ever- 
 lasting life''?" Why should "father be set against 
 son and son against father, mother against daugh- 
 ter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law 
 against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against 
 mother-in-law''?" — Why see we that life-long eager- 
 ness to ''spend and be spent*" for souls; — to move 
 about among willing moral agents, and pass the rest ; 
 — to listen to a vision, if it beckoned to Macedonia 
 as a field of success ; — or to hasten to bear the " good 
 tidings," when informed of "much people" in a cer- 
 tain city willing to hear it; — or to be reluctantly 
 turned away from another ' unwilling ' region as hope- 
 less, being "forbidden of the Holy Ghost '^?"— If in 
 foregoing all that the world holds dear, eucounter- 
 
 * Acts xvi. ;30, 31 ; Rom. v. 9. " Hcb. x. 39. * Acts xiv. 5 ; 
 xix; 28. y Ibid. xiii. 4G. ' St. Matt. x. 35—37. 
 
 ^ 2 Cor. xii. 15. '^ Acts xvi. 9, xviii. 10, xvi. 6. 
 
40 
 
 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 ing all perils and hardships, and facing a daily mar- 
 tyrdom ", those first missionaries were under the belief 
 that the issues of Eternity were at stake, and trusted 
 that by their toil they might "by any means save 
 someV' — bring even "one of a city, or two of a fa- 
 mily^," to "Him whom to know was life etemaiy — ■ 
 the?i their conduct was reasonable, their self-devotion 
 most noble. But if they only meant that they desired 
 for Him whom they preached one niche in the Pan- 
 theon of the nations ; if they " turned the world upside 
 down^" in order that the Gospel might be accepted 
 as one Bcligion among many, it is impossible not to 
 deplore what must then be considered the cruel and 
 terrifying language of their addresses, — in a word, 
 impossible perhaps to overrate the actual mischievous- 
 ness of such unmeasured enthusiasm. 
 
 It may be conchided, then, unless a common- sense 
 view of the whole subject is to be refused, that enough 
 has now been adduced to justify the conviction that 
 apostolic Christianity, as learned from the Xew Testa- 
 ment, required Individual Conscientiousness, Indivi- 
 dual Paith. 
 
 In whatever form this " exclusive Christianity " be 
 objected to hereafter, let us not in the face of all facts 
 be told, that Scripture does not teach this "necessity 
 of faith in Christ;" or that the Primitive Churches 
 designed to include nominal professors of the Gospel, 
 and did not primarily contemplate the salvation of in- 
 dividual souls. — We now pass on. 
 
 Xo question appears to have gravely been raised, 
 
 ■= Acts XV. 26 ; 2 Cor. ri. 4—10, xi. 23—28. ^ Eom. xi. 14 ; 
 
 1 Cor. ix. 22 ; 1 Tim. iv. 16 ; Jude 23. " Jer. iii. 14. 
 
 ' St. John xvii. 3. « Acts xrii. 6. 
 
"EXCLUSIVEXESS" OF AXTE-XICEXE TIMES. 241 
 
 as to the " oxclusiveuess" of eyery form iv- The tcsti- 
 
 •^ mon3-oftUe Apo- 
 
 of Christianity iu the next age after the stoiicai Canons ; 
 apostles. Of some dim Gnostic semi -heathenism it 
 were vain to speak ; and it may be supposed that the 
 system of the " Apostolical Canons " (as, for brevity, 
 it may be termed) was too indisputable, to invite criti- 
 cism of a fact perhaps more indisputable than any other 
 in the Christianity of the second and third centuries, 
 — its rigid demarcation, alike from Judaism and from 
 the world ^. The Creeds, the Eitual, the Discipline of 
 the whole Christian body of those ages, may be de- 
 precated by enemies, or repudiated by false friends ; 
 but their "growing exclusiveness " is a fact of which 
 even our critics will remind us : and and the First 
 while we accept their testimony, we will Three centuries, 
 add that no one in those days seems to have ques- 
 tioned that such exclusiveness was a true " following 
 of the apostles," up to the days of Constantine ; — of 
 which hereafter. 
 
 Perhaps no greater service could be done at this 
 time to the cause of practical Christianity, than to 
 gather together all the incidental records \ and to ex- 
 hibit the actual relation of the Church and the world 
 m detail, in the times between St. John and St.Atha- 
 nasius. It would need a more minute knowledge of 
 the social and domestic life in the great cities and 
 villages of the Eoman world than is often found among 
 scholars, (even such as Albert de Broglic, " Pressense," 
 or Keander,) to convey the true magnitude of the 
 Church's spiritual and separating influences on her 
 individual members. But it needs to be done : for 
 under God's Providence, and led by His promised 
 
 ^ St. Justin 31., Dial, 'with Trypho. 
 
 i See Gibbon, and Lis authorities, ch. xv., xvi., xvii. 
 
 B 
 
24- 
 
 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 Spirit, by no mere accident did it come to pass that 
 the Church had to work out the Divine plan at first, 
 unaided by the powers of the world. — Our generation 
 certainly needs to see, how Christ's Church aimed to 
 found the "city of the living God^;" to raise the 
 "building fitly framed together to grow to an holy 
 temple in the Lord''," and anticipate "the kingdom 
 that cannot be moved V 
 
 § 6, Ethical B mis of Broad Christianity. 
 The assertion now disproved, — That Christianity ex- 
 Etwcai view prossed itseK at first in " Multitudinism," 
 dinism!"'' — was intended apparently to lead to the 
 position, that what the Multitude shall in future be 
 pleased to hold, shall be the " Christianity" of the age 
 to come. It appears to have been conceived that the 
 course of the Gospel, and the course of the human 
 mind, had hitherto diverged. Eevelation, and the gen- 
 eral Conscience of mankind, had thus far moved in 
 distinct orbits ; but they had at length arrived at the 
 point where they would coincide, and might, (by some 
 happy neutralizing of the original forces,) continue to 
 take one and the same direction in future. This dream, 
 it may be hoped, is somewhat dissipated : but let us 
 glance at the theory of this " general Conscience" — 
 (this "public opinion," or opinion of the majority, 
 which was to be the Eule of Eeligion, the " Gospel" 
 of the future ""j) — before we wholly lose sight of it. 
 
 We have seen that a " Generalized Christianity'''' is 
 impossible, if we accept the New Testament at all. A 
 Eeligion without a Doctrine, or "dogma," must be 
 so transcendental as to lie beyond even the region of 
 
 J Heb. xii. 22. '' Ephes. ii. 21. > Heb. xii. 28. 
 
 ■" Essay, p. 195. 
 
ETHICAL EXAMINATION OF THE SUBJECT. 243 
 
 metaphysics. Dogma, we fiud, insists on definition ; 
 and ''vague thinking" is a misnomer, commonly be- 
 traying only incapacity. But the idea of a '' gene- 
 ralization of Conscience'' or abstract "ethical develop- 
 ment," is still to be considered. 
 
 Ko one will question, that in matters of feeling 
 and sentiment there actually is an average vague Thinb- 
 
 , , . . .,. , •■ X4- inff and vague 
 
 standard, m any civilized community, it Feeling con- 
 rises and falls, with many circumstances ; ^'''"^^ ' 
 but it is specially elevated by the elevation of indi- 
 vidual hearts and aims ; and a single hero will some- 
 times raise the standard of the age, as a single saint 
 has often thrilled the hearts of millions in the Church. 
 Such an admission, therefore, of "average conscien- 
 tiousness" will not assist " Multitudiuism," inasmuch 
 as it depends for its very existence on the action, 
 inward and outward, of each man for himself. 
 
 It has been said that Kationalisra, based thus upon 
 the general sentiments of an age or country, has ex- 
 isted even in Ileathenism '^ ; and this will not be 
 denied; yet even so, in every instance, ^v^^j^^^fj^^?-^ 
 it has had some individual origin,^ and ^-^j.a^%^^f] 
 lives on by the inward life of individual on "conscience." 
 souls, far more than by any formal enactments or 
 corporate acts. But, without pausing upon this,— (for 
 we have here no concern in constructing a moral de- 
 fence for the old religions of the world before or 
 apart from Christ,)— it has been recognized among 
 Christians, and we depend on it as one glorious dis- 
 tinction of our Eevelation, that we have been taught 
 in a special way the grandeur of Individual Eespon- 
 sibility. The absence of this, the Christian feels is 
 the fatal defect of every philosophical scheme of polity 
 
 » Essay, p. 1 69. 
 
 e2 
 
244 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 — from Plato **, down to Hobbes. The value of each, 
 immortal soul of man, suspected before, is the open 
 announcement of the Gospel °; and it will be seen 
 that the theory of a " Multitudinism " crushing all 
 men into one general mould of thought, is prepared 
 to undo, as far as in it lies, that elevating work which 
 the Eeligion of Christ would accomplish for each of us. 
 
 In thus urging, we do not attribute to the "Multi- 
 tudinist" a conscious denial of Individual Eesponsi- 
 bility, but the maintenance of a position which vir- 
 tually destroys it. He subordinates the sense of right 
 to the existing average of propriety, when he limits 
 the sphere of Conscientiousness, practically, to this 
 world. 
 
 At the risk of seeming to elaborate — what many will 
 The real issue of courso admit at once — the priority of 
 
 befoi-e the en- , . . 
 
 quh-er. the claims of conscience, it will be ne- 
 
 cessary to explain with care what is so fundamental. 
 Let men see what the " Broad Christianity" to which 
 they are invited implies morally. Intellectually, it 
 would aim destruction at all Creeds and Doctrines, — 
 reckless of the fact that to deny Christianity as a 
 "theology of the intellect p" is to banish it from the 
 realm of truth. It would also, as we have seen, reject 
 its " Historical character 'i," and so consign it, after due 
 "criticism," to the region of fable. But there was 
 a step further in disparagement which it seemed pos- 
 sible to take; and the "Broad Eeligionists " are, we 
 find, prepared for it. They would remove our Chris- 
 tianity from its lofty Moral eminence also. The Soul, 
 and its future, they set aside : and, reversing the in- 
 junction alike of Moses and St. Paul, bid men "follow 
 
 Ji In the "Kcpublic" — where the Individual is utterly crushed. 
 " St. Matt. xvi. 26. P Essay, p. 205. « Ibid. 
 
ETHICAL EXAMINATION OF THE SUBJECT. 245 
 
 the multitude''," and '' conform to this worhl, and not 
 be transformed for another '." 
 
 It is easy, no doubt, to hamper any investigation of 
 the rio-hts of Individual Conscience, with irrelevant qucs- 
 
 ^ . . ^ tions to be here 
 
 collateral considerations. It might be omitted. 
 urged, and truly, that Society is bound to protect 
 itself against the aberrations of some, and the moral 
 obliquity of others. Again, it may be said, the equity 
 and benevolence of the Divine government may be 
 believed to provide some alleviation of the heavy 
 weight of Individual Eesponsibility, in the widely 
 varying circumstances of mankind ; and that this 
 alleviation may be found in the just influences of a 
 well-ordered Society. This, and much more, may be 
 admitted, beyond question; but must not interfere 
 with what is now before us. 
 
 For there still remains, all the more firmly esta- 
 blished by these very considerations, what may bo 
 termed the substratum of Will to be dealt with, in 
 every man. Take away the solemn enquiries, or sub- 
 lime anxieties, of each Individual, and Morality as 
 well as Eeligion must cease to have real meaning; 
 there must remain, even confessedly, no more than a 
 nominal adherence to that which can only by courtesy 
 be called " Faith," — an acquiescence so morally base, 
 as to amount to a repudiation of the first conditions 
 of all possible Duty. 
 
 Xo thoughtful believer could doubt that Chris- 
 tianity really stands in all its parts on a ^^,g[!f^^°g[,^^ 
 true foundation of philosophy ; however «;!f^j^^^|"^^jf^f 
 imperfectly that may have been ascertained dual recognition. 
 by us. The proof, indeed, that it makes its appeal to 
 our Moral nature is accessible to every man who will 
 ' Exod. xxiii. 2. ° Kom. xii. 2. 
 
246 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 "but examine his own Moral Eesponsibility, as man, in 
 any transaction of his life. There is no sentence of 
 praise or hlame, social or religions, pronounced by us 
 on the conduct of others, or by them on us, which 
 does not imply such Eesponsibility as results from Self- 
 government; which is commonly known as " j\Ioral." 
 — The error which lies at the root of " Multitudinism'' 
 will be found to be a misconception of the whole cha- 
 racter of !Moral Eesponsibility in man, and a confusion 
 of that idea with a very different one, viz. his Political, 
 or his Social, Eesponsibility, as member of a Com- 
 munity. — Let this be examined. 
 
 Man is so far intended by nature to be a /'Self- 
 OfManasa governiufic" beinsr, that his hi^rhest Moral 
 being. perfcctiou uos lu his most perlect oeii- 
 control. If all men usually attained this, the func- 
 tions of external government would be limited to a 
 guarding of the (still possible) errors of individuals ; 
 and the progress of political knowledge is teaching 
 men, more and more, the wisdom of non-intervention 
 with personal liberty of will and action ; so that it has 
 become almost a kind of axiom in politics, that that is 
 the best government for men which is able to inter- 
 fere the least with each individual, and simply restrains 
 the wi'ongful interference of one man with another. 
 All external governments are no doubt inherently im- 
 perfect, (except that of the Divine Being,) when thus 
 considered as restraints on Individual "Will and Power, 
 in the manifestation of which Moral Agency consists. 
 How deep a Moral confusion, then, must enter into 
 the speculation of theorists who transfer the great 
 Moral work of human life, formally, from the Indi- 
 vidual to the Government ! And this is what these 
 "Kew Nationalists" would do. 
 
ETHICAL EXAMINATION OF THE SUBJECT. 2^j 
 
 Let it not be hastily imagined that any doubt is here 
 to be thrown on men's ?-ccd Eesponsibility or man's po- 
 to the State; or to any Community in Sj^-rcSu"ted 
 which theii' sphere of moral agency lies, ^^y ^'^tabie law. 
 But the ideas must be distinguished. Our Eespon- 
 sibility as men is prior to our Eesponsibility as citizens ; 
 and it is founded in our very constitution. Man is 
 not only capable of originating action, but he is so con- 
 stituted as to know that he oiiz/ht to originate it, in 
 accordance with some anterior and unchangeable prin- 
 ciples of truth and righteousness. But his Eespon- 
 sibility as a citizen is at present regulated by ever- 
 mutable law. 
 
 It is a distinction of all Law, that it carries con- 
 sequences to the law-breaker ; and that is what distin- 
 
 ,,T^,. .,-r^ giiishes Moral 
 
 what may be termed " Political Eespon- Kesponsibiiity. 
 sibility." But there is this fiu'ther distinction of 
 Moral law, — that our inward Consciousness more or 
 less accompanies the princij)le, and its results. We 
 have a knowledge, in the case of other laws, that they 
 are vindicated by such and such sanctions, and will 
 be attended by certain consequences ; but in the case 
 of ]\Ioral laws, we have a fiu'ther conviction that thus 
 it ought to be. 
 
 A man, for instance, is truly enough said to be 
 "obliged" by the laws of the country or illustrations: 
 society to which he belongs. He is in such wise 
 " responsible " to the laws, that if he violates them 
 he incurs punishment. This kind of responsibility 
 has nothing certainly Moral in it. The law may be 
 good, or it may be bad ; yet this responsibility of the 
 person is real, while the law remains : i. e. if he vio- 
 lates the law, he abides the penalty. This Political 
 Eesponsibility no doubt ought to be Moral i. Political. 
 
248 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 also, — (because States ought to conform their laws to 
 the essential rules of right); — but Eesponsibility to 
 the State is a distinct idea from Moral Eesponsibility, 
 even when the one happens to coincide with the other. 
 
 Again; Communities within a State, (and more 
 2. Social, liuiited in their nature in every respect, ) 
 may have customs, habits, and rules, which infer more 
 or less of obligation on the members. The individual 
 perhaps may withdraw, if his Conscience disapprove ; 
 but while his membership continues, he has a Social 
 Eesponsibility ; which may be described, however, as 
 a mere ''liability to consequences." 
 
 What is thus said of Political and Social laws may, 
 
 3. Physical, in somo sense, be also affirmed of the Phy- 
 sical. A " law of Xature " cannot be broken with 
 impunity. If we violate -it, we incur the penalty. We 
 are Eesponsible. Yet in this case also the consequence 
 follows absolutely, whether our inward Consciousness 
 accompanies it or not. 
 
 But the idea of a true 2Ioral Eesponsibility is far 
 
 4. Moral more than this ; it is no less, indeed, 
 
 than Chalmers vindicates as a '■^ Supremaci) of Con- 
 
 (Chaimers' scieuce." It implies, not only that we 
 
 Bridgewater ^ ' *' 
 
 Treatise.) are, but ouglit to he^ — accountable for our 
 own doings. For, we can well conceive that one who 
 had come under the extremest censures of some de 
 facto political or social law ; or had become the victim 
 of some difficult or imperfectly known physical law ; 
 might be regarded with the deepest sympathy and com- 
 passion. The martyr for liberty wins our approbation, 
 though he perish beneath some legal tyranny. The 
 philanthropist, who unsuccessfully withstands some 
 evil social custom, obtains eventually the applause of 
 the human Conscieuce. The votary of knowledge, whose 
 
DISTINXTION OF RESPONSIBILITY AND PROBATION. 249 
 
 struggle for science has inYolved him in accidental 
 suffering, has the good-will of his fellow-men to attend 
 him in his disaster. But, on the other hand, let us 
 be told of a man who has done a deed of injustice 
 and cruelty, yet (miscarrying in his object) has been 
 overtaken by apparent Rdrihution ; there is no senti- 
 ment of approbation for him. We do not feel that his 
 disaster ought not to be ; but just the reverse, — that 
 it oi!(/ht. Our Conscience records its approval. 
 
 There may be a thousand theoretical difficulties in 
 connexion with this high truth ; but there is a divinity 
 in it that will surmount them all. 
 
 But the subject must not further be pursued here, 
 though most important and attractive. A distinction 
 should, however, be pointed out between ^^^^j,°^^*^°bUHy 
 the idea of the Eesponsibility, and that of and^robatiou. 
 the Probation, of moral agents ; and it is by con- 
 sidering moral agency in its Social position that we 
 shall best ascertain the distinction 'between the two. 
 —The formation of the character of the Individual 
 through the action of his own will, amidst the habits 
 and influence of Society, is not an " end,"— not a final 
 object, or reAoy. The man is intended to act on the 
 community of his fellow men, for their well-being ; and, 
 60 far, perhaps, as Society is concerned, Moral Eespon- 
 sibility might be conceived to terminate in this. It is 
 a result which satisfies the phenomena of Social Moral 
 agency. But, viewed relatively to the Individual him- 
 self, this certainly is not enough. And it is How far the 
 the Individual that we must consider, un- fn^Sf "may 
 less we imagine eveiy man to exist for the ^® ^ ^^°'- 
 sake of some other man, and no man for his own sake, 
 — (so that the well-being of a thousand men is worth 
 obtaining, but the well-being of one is not to be con- 
 
2^0 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 sidered !) — which is absurd. We must conceive, then, 
 that the forming and perfecting of the character of 
 each Moral Agent, for his attainment of the Highest 
 Good, is the end of present Probation. — Whether, in- 
 deed, this perfecting of the individual be not the de- 
 termining of certain ultimate relations of the creature 
 to the Creator— the finite to the Infinite,— is an en- 
 quiry which would now lead us too far. 
 
 But it may be well to add that, prone as we are 
 Eelationofthe to cravc for somcthiug less changeable 
 
 Individual to the ,■,-,•• o '^^ t T 
 
 Highest Good, than the decision oi our own will as indi- 
 viduals, — (and tempted therefore to rely on the greater 
 seeming stability of the laws and habits of Society,) 
 we may find our best corrective in the thoughts here 
 suggested. We shall not be in danger of lower- 
 ing our moral tone to the fascinating level of the 
 Multitude, if we throw ourselves on the noble belief 
 that our Individual Conscience is in direct communi- 
 cation with the Moral Governor of the world, the 
 Supreme Eeason, the Highest Good; and that our 
 Individual struggle for good, and against evil — (con- 
 ducted under His eye, who will not let the Moral 
 World become chaos at last,) — will ultimately be 
 vindicated by Him, whether its present issue appear 
 with us successful or not. 
 
 It cannot be necessary to point out to any one who 
 has followed the course of thought here pursued, that 
 a ''Broad Nationalism," without definite Truth and 
 without the individual approval of Conscience, — (for 
 such is its intended "breadth,") — has no ground of 
 philosophy ; but involves an entire disbelief of all Per- 
 sonal Yirtue, as well as Faith. Knowing, as the Chris- 
 tian does, the need which Conscience has of illumination 
 
RELATIONS OF CONSCIENCE AND SOCIETY. 25 1 
 
 and guidance, still he must insist on its real action. 
 If Mr. Mill * can afford to risk entire freedom for the 
 intellect, we may at least maintain that Conscience 
 may be equally trusted. 
 
 But there is one further aspect of the subject, and 
 bearing directly on Political Eesponsibility, which must 
 not in'^this place be omitted. Many who ^.^^JS" mi 
 may have acquiesced in what has been Society. 
 said as to the Supremacy of Conscience, and the Indi- 
 viduality of responsible action, may still enquire, — 
 Has the State, as a State, no duties towards Eeligion ? 
 And nothing which has been said ought to cast doubt 
 on the solemn fact, that the State has such duties. 
 To put the question in more philosophical terms, — it 
 amounts to an enquiry into the Mutual Eolations of 
 the Individual Conscience, and the Society of which 
 it is a member. 
 
 It is evident that these relations are subject to 
 change, as civilization advances. In earlier stages, 
 Society, or the State, might have almost paternal 
 duties towards the individual. It must be remem- 
 bered too, that the human individual is intended at all 
 times to develope in Society, — a fact which of itself 
 implies duties of the whole to the parts, as well as of 
 the parts to the whole. But the laws of the Society 
 and the convictions of the Individual having thus, 
 alike, an ethical basis, must be judged ethically. In 
 the best conceivable polity a law would always bo 
 moral,— i.e. not only politically, but ethically good. 
 We cannot even conceive of the permanent existence 
 of a system of law condemned by every individual 
 conscience. The dc jure relation of law and morals is 
 therefore assumed in such passages as St. Paul's, — 
 
 ' Mill on Liberty. 
 
2J2 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 "the law is not made for the righteous man," and 
 "it is not a terror to the good but to the evil"." 
 
 It is the duty then of the State always to aim to 
 Duty of the expross in Law the highest ethical convic- 
 state. tions of tlio Consciences of individuals. 
 
 A large class of Mixed questions, connected with per- 
 sonal and domestic rights, — such as Education, Mar- 
 riage, Inheritance, Service, — may long need for their 
 settlement the exercise of political patience. In the 
 meantime, if the Church be free to inculcate her 
 divine principles, — which bear on all social subjects 
 directly or indirectly, — the majority of individual con- 
 sciences will be so elevated to the Christian standard, 
 that the Law and Morality of the State will become 
 necessarily Christian. 
 
 § 7. Appeal to History in hehalf of ^ Broad Christianity.'' 
 
 Having traced the character and pretensions of this 
 The Appeal to Projected " Multitudinism " thus far, and 
 
 History. shcwu that it has no Scriptural and no 
 Ethical vindication, but is afraid of the fair operation 
 of all Conscience''; it might seem superfluous to go 
 further, and shew that the references made to History, 
 in support of this hypothesis of comprehension, are 
 worthless. 
 
 But as History has been very confidently invoked"^, 
 we have no option. They who make the appeal must 
 take the consequences. 
 
 Christianity appeared on earth when the old Mytho- 
 logies of Greece and Eome had lost their hold on man. 
 The Individual Conscience had parted from them ; 
 they had become " Multitudinistic," — and therefore 
 
 ™ 1 Tim. i. 9; Eom, xiii. 3. " Essay, p. 189. " Ibid., p. 37. 
 
ArrEAL TO HISTORY, 
 
 233 
 
 must perish. The new Eeligioii made the appeal that 
 was needed to Conscience. In Apostolic and post- 
 Apostolic times there was uniformly an effort to create 
 a Personal Religion in connexion with a Baptismal 
 Creed, as has been already shewn. The age of Constan- 
 tino stands next, and has been referred to for a kind 
 of formal " inauguration^" of the principles of ' Broad 
 Cln-istianity.' Up to that time it is allowed, that 
 there was a " gradual hardening and systematizing ;" 
 in other words, fixed principle was always desired. 
 
 Constantino, by the Edict of Milan and succeeding 
 acts, restored to Christians thcii' lost pro- constantine. 
 perty, and gave them (notwithstanding all ^'^' 
 professions of general toleration) an ascendency in 
 the Empire which they did not possess before ^. But 
 great as was his interference with Christianity, both 
 for good and for ill, no disposition was shewn, either 
 by him or by • any party in the Church, to dispense 
 with a definite Creed. This is acknowledged by 
 those who supposed '' ]\Iultitudinism" to have been 
 set up by him \ The Christianity patronized by the 
 Imperial favour was also hierarchical and sacerdotal, 
 as well as dogmatic. It was therefore vitally different 
 from that which the " Broad-Nationalists" Muititudimsm 
 would seek; and no arguments deduced of the ^\ est. 
 from it can, in any fairness or justice, be available by 
 them. There was one point, however, in which the 
 Imperial encouragement of Christianity may be re- 
 garded as " Multitudinistic ;" viz., its employment 
 of Secular influences to spread the name of the Chris- 
 
 ' Essay, p. 166. 
 
 y See in Fabricius (the Imperial Edicts for and against the 
 Christians) — Lux Salutaris, c. xii. 
 ' Essay, pp. 155—167. 
 
254 
 
 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 tian Eeligion beyond the limits of its Spiritual system. 
 The attempt to make the whole framework of the Church 
 coincident with that of the Empii^e was broad enough, 
 no doubt, though not so broad as the "New Nationalists" 
 of our day would ask. It was natural (may we not add, 
 Some effects of noblc ?) for a Eomau Emperor to desire to 
 
 the Imperial . - - pxt-i i» i* 
 
 edicts. use Eeligion as a bond oi Unity lor nis 
 dominions ; but the effect was unhappy. It was 
 " the new cloth and old garment." The whole body 
 of the Church resisted. Bishops in their councils, and 
 missionaries in their remoter spheres, remonstrated, 
 Hosiusand ^ud rccallcd with affection the memory 
 
 others. Q^ ^i^g Ante-Nicene freedom. The whole 
 body of the laws, framed by the Church from age to 
 age, for the Spiritual Discipline of all her members, 
 were one protest against it ^ The spread of an Im- 
 perial Christianity beyond the Church's real influence 
 was a primary cause of the withdrawal of tens of 
 thousands of stricter Christians to the deserts of 
 Africa and the mountains of Asia; and what then 
 remained ? — The Church of the Empire, exhausted of 
 so much of its active spirituality, soon ceased to be 
 the " salt of the earth." The energy of heathenism 
 had died out; the energy of Christianity (which is 
 Sanctity) was driven out; and the half-Christian, 
 half-heathen " a>Iultitudiiiism," which had spread with- 
 Faiiofthe out the Individual Conscience, utterly 
 
 A.D. 476. ' enervated the whole Empii-e; and in a 
 hundred and fifty years Western Eome was an easy 
 prey to the barbarians. 
 
 Nothing would be easier than to trace the progress 
 
 a See Mr. Briglit's "History of the period from Mcaea to Chal- 
 cedon;" also, my Lectures on "Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction;" and 
 Montalembert's Moines D' Occident. 
 
APPEAL TO HISTORY. 255 
 
 of the secularization of Christianity, and the ruin of 
 Nations, side by side, — from the fifth century to our 
 own, — alike in the East and the West. But the task 
 is superfluous to those not wholly unacquainted with 
 the history of Europe, and useless to all others. From 
 the time when patriarchs corresponded in rank with 
 ''prefects," and when each "diocese" of the Empire 
 had its primate, each province its metropolitan, and 
 each metropolitan of necessity his suffi-agans, a nominal 
 Christianity sprung up faster than the Church could 
 sanctify it. Being unconscientious, it could but ruin 
 the nations. — The attempts of Theodosius, and after- 
 wards of Justinian, to digest the laws of the Church 
 and the Empire, were resolute efforts of Justinian's 
 great minds to find some theory to com- institutes. 
 bine the facts existing around them ; but they were 
 vain. The fall of the exarchate of Eavenna a.d. 753. 
 to the barbarians, in the year 753, is commonly as- 
 signed as the era of the extinction of the Eoman law 
 in Italy ; and of the failure with it of the great im- 
 perial schemes for "comprehending" the world in 
 the Church, or rather, for amalgamating the two. 
 
 Each nation of the West, from Charlemagne on- 
 wards, in its turn aimed at the same im- Charlemagne, 
 possible end, — impossible while man is a moral agent, 
 — coercive National Unity in Eeligion and Policy. 
 
 The great systems of Feudal Law which prevailed 
 among the tribes which overwhelmed the feudal law. 
 Eoman civilization, — the Salic law, the Eipuarian, the 
 Burgundian, the Lombard, and others, — were all im- 
 pregnated with the Eoman spirit, and equally desired 
 a National Unity, partly secular and partly spiritual. 
 Here for the first time we find the Eeligious element 
 predominating, and not unfrequently preserving the 
 
256 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 See the Trea- social system froiTL extiiiction. Imperial- 
 to Ae jStn ism had sought to mould the Church to 
 collection. 'i.^ g^^^r^^ earthly purposes ; Feudalism as- 
 
 sisted the Church in moulding, for some higher end, the 
 character of nations. But under the influence of Feudal- 
 ism, all Europe tended to become one great Hierarchy, 
 fi'om the days of Charlemagne to those of Ilildebrand. 
 I^ow it has been said, that Christianity, in fact, 
 made its great triumphs by means of the medieval 
 Multitudinism ''. K'ations were " born in a day." The 
 assertion involves a petitio of the whole question ; for 
 those who believe Eeligion to be an imposture, apart 
 from individual Conscience, will demur altogether to 
 these alleged " triumphs." If France became Chris- 
 tian in a multitude, Spain became Arian in a multi- 
 tude, and had an obstinate >S'/«fe-Arianism for some 
 hundred years. The leaven of " Multitudinism " is so 
 defiling that it may soon degrade any Church to a mere 
 estahlishmcnt^ in half its elements; an Establishment 
 as debased as that of Louis XIV. supported only by 
 Dragonnades. — (Anywhere, indeed, where Savonarolas 
 are burnt and Kens are driven out, Establishments 
 instead of "triumphing" preside over a wide Moral 
 Euin.) — Or, to look in another direction. — The masses 
 who were baptized by St. Vitus in the I^orth returned in 
 masses to heathenism, and adored, in their favourite 
 idol, " Santo vitch''," the saint who had once preached 
 to them of Christ. Was that a "triumph?" The 
 crowds, — received as crowds, — by the illustrious Xa- 
 vier in India, faded away in crowds once more into 
 their original Hinduism. Undisciplined for Christ, 
 the nominal Christianity came to nought. — " Multi- 
 tudinism " failed everywhere. 
 
 ^ Essay, pp. 146, 159. « See Hoffman. 
 
APPEAL TO HISTORY. 2^7 
 
 How was it in the Byzantine Empire? There 
 surely, if anywhere, the principle of " Mul- «MuUitudinism" 
 titudinism " had a sphere for eleven hun- ^''^'^^ ^•'^^'• 
 dred years, so far as it could have it in connexion 
 with a definite Creed and an authorized Hierarchy. 
 The great work which Trebonius and his nine co- 
 adjutors, under Justinian's auspices, so ably achieved ; 
 those fifty books which digested with such care the 
 codes of Theodosius, of Gregory, and Hermogenes, 
 and the Constitutions of succeeding Emperors; ex- 
 hibit the rule of the Eastern civilization, from the 
 rise of Constantinople in the fourth century to its 
 fall to the Mahometans in the fifteenth. Can any one 
 refer with pride to that course of " Multitudinism" 
 in those long ages of growing decrepitude ? Is there 
 much in the spectacle to encourage the attempt, poli- 
 tical or religious, to force into existence an Ecclesias- 
 tical and Civil Unity ? 
 
 If from the fourth to the ninth century the Eastern 
 Church made some struggle to act on the xomo-caron of 
 ancient Discipline of Christ, as an inde- p^^^^i^s. 
 pendent reality, it is evident that from the time of Pho- 
 tius the struggle was practically over. The Xomo- canon 
 fixes the character of the Byzantine Church and State 
 henceforth. A " discipline," degenerated to a dead for- 
 malism, consummated doubtless a " Unity," but it was 
 at the cost of Moral life. It was put to shame by the 
 new-born vigour of Islamism, — a success- Mahometanism. 
 ful, because a confessedly sensual, " Multitudinism," 
 defying the Christian name. As the Feudalism of the 
 AVest ended in Papacy, so the "Photianism" of the East 
 was, at length, what we now terra '^Erastianism," of the 
 most unreserved type that the civilized world has known. 
 It has received its retribution since 1453, a.d. U53. 
 
2^8 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 Oriental Multi- 
 
 beneatli the Ottoman rule ! Its whole 
 Sample /(aSin"^ lessoD. to US is a wamhig. There is some- 
 sSey'i'' ^ell ^'^'^^'i indeed, sublime in the continued 
 tm-es,p.60.) existeuce of Oriental Christianity at all, 
 "amidst the fires, unconsumed" so long! — If, in the 
 fature Providence of God, it may be permitted to 
 emerge from the ordeal of lengthened degradation 
 and suffering, may it have unlearned its unhappy 
 traditions of Secular policy, and abandon at last a 
 " Multitudinism " which wrought out the chains of 
 a miserable Captivity, though it paralyzed the tyrant 
 hand that forged them ! 
 
 But our own concern is with the Western, rather 
 than the Eastern civilization; and to this the dis- 
 cussion (as has been intimated ^) rightly must return ; 
 and the more so, that we may have a summary view 
 of our own position now. 
 
 England inherited the Western form of the pro- 
 Engiand foUows blcm which the present age, or the fu- 
 
 the West. \^YQ^ must solvc, as to the position of the 
 State and the Church; the relations, of Society and 
 the Individual Conscience. Speaking generally, our 
 institutions were, under God's Providence, of Feudal 
 origin; and the feeling of Nationality was strong 
 in us, as in all the !N'orthern races. This was shewn, 
 without question, in the Anglo-Saxon period, — 
 (at least from the time of Theodore, himself an 
 Oriental); but it was modified by many influences 
 ab extra. Separated by the sea from the continent of 
 Europe, our National life had a distinctive develop- 
 ment. We became Eoman, but remained National. 
 We had lost that union with the civilization of Europe 
 
 '' Essay, p. 147. 
 
APPEAL TO III^^'YORY. 
 
 239 
 
 which in some degree was ours till the old Eomans 
 left us to that IS'ational self-government which in the 
 fifth century began to be a reality ; but The Hepurchy. 
 the union of the Heptarchy, and still more The Conquest 
 the Xorman Conquest, re-established our relations with 
 the Continent and with Kome, on a footing which 
 Augustine's mission could not attain. Nevertheless, 
 from the Conquest to the Eeformation there was a 
 struggle of the "two powers," the spiritual and the 
 temporal, conducted without a definite appreciation 
 of the exact issue. The Church would not have deli- 
 berately said that prelates, with the pope at their 
 head, ought really to supersede kings, parliaments, 
 and magistrates ; the State would not have said that 
 it could give validity to sacraments, and salvation to 
 souls, and could therefore afford to do without bishops 
 and priests. Each party stood in need of the other ; 
 and each felt it. Vacillating, irritated, and just con- 
 scious that the right settlement of Church and State 
 had not been attained, our Nation remained till the 
 sixteenth century; when the strong will of Uenry YIII. 
 interfered. — AYe in England have certainly tried fairly 
 to fight out the battle between these " two powers ;" 
 so have some Eoman Catholic nations abroad : the 
 Lutherans smothered the struggle. 
 
 But in the pre-Eeformation times there was this ad- 
 vantage on the Ecclesiastical side, — it was The pre-Refor- 
 
 o ^ ' mation Unity of 
 
 not subject to the same organic changes England. 
 as the State. The people, as a whole, might be di- 
 vided as to the "succession of their Kings; but not 
 as to the Creeds and Sacraments. Had the temporal 
 been as one, as the ecclesiastical power, the theory of 
 " Multitudinism" would for the time have seemed to 
 have a triumph. The National Oneness was arrested 
 s2 
 
26o THE IDEA OF "THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 by a divided allegiance in the pre-Eeformation days ; 
 as truly as by divided oiDinions in religion in the times 
 which followed. — (And this is the inherent weak- 
 ness of all " Multitudinism," that it must follow the 
 fortunes of two masters.) — But the Eeligious unanimity 
 of England in the mediaeval age, though great, was 
 not distinctively local; and the same causes which 
 broke up the unity of the Church elsewhere, operated 
 here with equal power. Then came the Tudor and 
 Stuart transitions; and the great change of 1688, as 
 delineated at the outset of this enquiry; to which 
 we revert. 
 
 The Eevolution was a political necessity, which for 
 
 Revolution, the time bewildered the consciences of the 
 
 people. The relations of Church and State settled 
 
 themselves very greatly, to human eyes, by hap-hazard. 
 
 ^^of Prin?e?^^^ Attcmpts wcrc made by such writers as 
 
 Wake on Con- Bumct aud Wakc on the one hand, and 
 
 vocation. . ^ ' 
 
 c. Leslie.) Lcslic ou the other, to adjust the claims 
 of the t' Eegale and the Pontificate ;" — but, after this, 
 all parties among us took up that position which, with 
 some variations, they have since maintained. The Act 
 of Uniformity had, in some sort, closed up enquiry 
 into such fundamental questions ; and the suspension 
 of Convocation, and the extradition of the Nonjurors, 
 completed the de facto settlement. Conscience, through 
 every historical change, secretly clung to the truth 
 that Eeligion is a spiritual concern of each Individual. 
 " Practical men" despaired, however, of a solution of 
 the old difficulty of imperium in i7npeno^ on paper ; and 
 a compromise was the resort of all sides, with some 
 surrender of truthfulness, perhaps with all. 
 
 The old " Church and State" party had triumphed 
 
ADJUSTMENT DEMANDED. 261 
 
 in 1688, b}^ abating their Churchmanship, and hence- 
 forth they could only maintain their ground against 
 different classes of opponents by permitting, and 
 using, different ''schools of thought," (as we have 
 since expressed it,) and by adopting different, and 
 scarcely consistent, methods of defence. Against Eomc 
 the controversy was still carried on, on the principles 
 of Andrewes and Laud ; against Eationalism and Non- 
 conformity on those of "Warburton. But eventually 
 the Nation grew to doubt the grounds of the actual 
 religious compromise; and wearied of attempts to 
 modernize ecclesiastical machinery, as antiquated as 
 the costume of the middle ages. A Church only too 
 willing to become " Multitudinistic" was gradually 
 losing its life. Its better members " endured," — as 
 if tacitly reserving to themselves the right to schism, 
 when things might become intolerable. The Conscience 
 of the Nation made some gallant efforts to right itself; 
 but in vain. Outside the Church, the Tolerated Non- 
 conformity, — while denying priesthood, sacraments, and 
 rites, — vindicated the "distinction of spiritual and tem- 
 poral," and so intrenched itself in the consciences of 
 the uneducated and sincere. — From Owen From owea 
 and Patrick, down to Seeker, that dis- '°^"'''''- 
 tinction had been fought for. Then came an ominous 
 silence of nearly a hundred years; — and. Where are 
 we now ? 
 
 § 8. Adjustment Demanded, 
 
 It has seemed to some, that we are rapidly drift- 
 ing towards the entire Separation of the Apparent position. 
 Church, as a Church, from its union with the State, 
 and the adoption of that position, as Christians, which 
 our Eeligion held 1,G00 years ago. — Are we then to 
 
262 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 retrace our way through all the •wilderness of so many 
 
 ages, as though Providence had misled us all along ? 
 
 — The question is a grave one ; let it be well 
 
 Need of some weighed boforo our futui-e become hope- 
 
 adjustment. Jessly Complicated. 
 
 Doubtless in those first ages of the Church and the 
 Empire, when the old religions were decaying or de- 
 caved, there was entire independence on both sides ; 
 but there followed not only jealousy, discord, and per- 
 secution, but even a disruption of society, rendering 
 some adjustment absolutely necessary; and in that 
 adjustment the Church, and not the sects, naturally 
 took the lead. — The nature of Man has not changed ; 
 he needs Government. The nature of Eeligion is not 
 changed ; it needs freedom of Conscience. May it not 
 be for our own Xation, leading so prominently the van 
 of civilization, at length to teach the truth in this 
 also, — that, while learning to do the work which is 
 proper to them, all wise States must leave to the Chiis- 
 tian Church, in all its parts, the task of doing its own 
 work, more and more unimpeded? Our ";^^ational- 
 ism " in Eeligion can only be real, when it is con- 
 scientious. And Conscientiousness, as we have seen, 
 is individual. But why may not the " Toleration" of 
 the nineteenth century, and the Individualism of the 
 first, or second, or third, here at length coincide? — 
 Some sectarian jealousies may yet be hard to deal 
 with ; but let the Christianity of the age to come be 
 free among us, and it will have no need to fear the 
 intellectual and moral struggle which lies before us. 
 But at this point the question is naturally raised 
 
 The Anglican ^y somo,— How has tho Church of Eng- 
 Sr^to"±? land, "the Church of the XXXIX 
 deration. Articlcs," any more right, in virtue of 
 
ADJUSTMENT DEMANDED. , 263 
 
 this demanded "freedom," to assume the Eeligious 
 direction of the people, than any other Christian com- 
 munity among us ? Granting that some form of Chris- 
 tianity must take the lead, in the settlement of those 
 mixed questions where social interests and moral truth 
 are likely to touch ; or in the general instruction of the 
 people ;— What right has the " Church of the Prayer- 
 book" to claim this position beyond all others ? 
 
 It will not be expected that, in reply to this en- 
 quiry, a discussion as to the truth of the Hereditary claim. 
 
 Anglican doctrines should be opened. It would not 
 only be out of place, but interminable. The answer 
 is a practical one. The Anglican Church has not 
 claimed for herself a position, she has inherited it; 
 and there is no sect which could with any probability 
 compete for it with her. She has it by historical con- 
 tinuity and descent. The Chiu'ch of the Monks of 
 Bangor, the Church of Augustin, the Church of Theo- 
 dore, of Dunstan, of Stigand, of Becket, of Warham, 
 of Parker, of Andrewes, of Laud, of Pearson, Wilson, 
 Butler, has gone through all the :Kational phases of 
 all our generations, and has preserved, through aU, 
 the same Creeds of the Ecumenical Councils, the same 
 Canonical Scriptures, the one Baptismal Rite, the one 
 Eucliaristic Consecration in the ancient words of the 
 first Liturgies, and an unbroken Hierarchy. A multi- 
 tude of questions may be ingeniously raised as to all 
 these, but they are irrelevant here. There is no dis- 
 puting the broad fact. No one can pretend that the 
 de facto Church of England is, or ever has been, in 
 the position of a sect forcing itself, ah extra, on the 
 Kation. It has come down with the Nation, through 
 all its varied fortune, and shared its destiny. Of course 
 this does not prove that she ought to have perpetuity 
 
264 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 among ns ; but it accounts for llie position acl ually 
 occupied. The theory of some might be, that if there 
 is to be ''an alliance," the State should be free to 
 choose her own Church ; but history is stronger than 
 theory ; and history, recording the mutual action of 
 Church and State on each other, assigns no such sub- 
 lime function of religion-choosing in the abstract to 
 either Parliament or Monarch; on the contrary, any 
 assumption which has ever looked like this, for a 
 moment, has always been a failure. 
 
 Whether that form of our Church which it received 
 when the XXXIX Articles were imposed shall for ever 
 continue without change, is a question which cannot 
 be answered on principles of the past ; the future will 
 deal with it on its own principles. The idea of a 
 " Parliamentary Ee vision" belongs to the past. It is 
 more than 200 years old. The idea of "relaxation 
 of subscription" by the authority of the Crown, is of 
 the past. It is Tudor. The adjustment of the future 
 must be based on higher principles, or it ^^•ill be re- 
 jected as no fit religious settlement for a people which 
 has outgrown the folly which could recognise the Se- 
 cular as Divine. 
 
 The present position of the Anglican Church is 
 Present ^hls i Shc is bcHeved by her own sons to 
 position. i^^YQ possession of that Divine Eevelation, 
 with its vital gifts of Grace, bestowed by Christ on 
 our world 1,800 years ago. She has certain local 
 peculiarities also, some of them restraining her use of 
 that Eevelation, and among them this, — that she is 
 not free to act as a corporate body, as all other reli- 
 gious bodies around her are. She is hampered by 
 accidents of hor historical position from which she 
 ought, as a spiritual body, to be free as the first 
 
ADJUSTMENT DEMANDED, 265 
 
 Cliristians at the Pentecost. The advance of educa- 
 tion, civilization, science, social economy, and law, all 
 ■warn her that " old things are passing away." She 
 will need all the energy, power, and grace which 
 Christ has bestowed, if she is to fulfil her mission 
 now. The sooner the State learns, that to treat the 
 Church as an umpiritiial body is to make her worth- 
 less as an instrument even of Civilization, — the better 
 it will be for the Nation. The Church pretends to be 
 more ; she must le what she pretends, or abandon the 
 pretence^ — and be abandoned by the conscience of the 
 people. The Spiritual Freedom of the Church is her 
 right, and it can neither honestly nor safely be with- 
 held. Let her be put to the fair trial of her sacred 
 powers ; if she cannot grapple with a free and intel- 
 lectual age, then let her, in the Name of Him who is 
 True, take the consequences, whatever they be. But 
 let not the unjust and ignominious course be adopted, 
 of emplopng and overstraining her ^' s^Diritual" cha- 
 racter ^ for some purposes, and denying it for others ; 
 using and yet half - outlawing her higher intellects. 
 That can only end in the most hopeless National Infi- 
 delity. And let her not be bound to the cowardly 
 political traditions of the least spiritual era of our 
 history. Let her be free to reform her Convocation, 
 reform her spiritual laws, and regulate her internal 
 Discipline ; and if then she cannot deal with the age 
 in which her lot is cast, her place may be taken by 
 some loftier and better teacher. 
 
 The State may faii-ly be enquired of by us, ' Why 
 
 * As, for instance, in the licences issued to non-conformists by 
 archidiaconal and other courts — which confuse the consciences of 
 those who receive, as well as of those who give them. 
 
266 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 Unreasonable- are jou afraid of US ? You can trust all 
 ness of distrust. tliG SGcts to do thclr owu will, "wlthin 
 fair legal restrictions for mutual protection ; and wliy 
 not us ? You upbraid us warmly for our deficiencies 
 at times ; and then refuse to allow us to act on our 
 own highest principles ! What means this subtle sort 
 of homage to our spiritual character ? If your clergy 
 be, as they are sometimes told, a 'learned clergy,' 
 (at least in comparison of others,) if, considering their 
 numbers, they are (not untruly) thought in some re- 
 spects exemplary, — on what reasonable ground shall 
 a nation which proclaims itself educated and free, 
 insist on shackling the intellectual and spiritual ac- 
 tivity of its teachers ? ' 
 
 The extent, truly preposterous, to which the un- 
 derminers of our whole Christianity claim for them- 
 selves a monopoly of intellect and fearless "pursuit 
 of truth," forces upon us this great subject. Divine 
 Eevelation being true^ must deal with the intellects no 
 less than with the passions and interests of mankind. 
 But this means not the mere action of isolated in- 
 tellect, apart from all the corporate and social con- 
 ditions of the mind^ We can take no narrow view 
 
 ^ The mutual relation of our corporate diities, and our Individual 
 Moral life, can only be rightly adjusted — perhaps only rightly 
 apprehended, when the greatest freedom of action has been con- 
 ceded. Professor Goldwin Smith, in his Lectures (p. 65), has sug- 
 gested some difficulties in connexion with the occasional sacrifice 
 of the Individual — as in acts of heroism for the benefit of com- 
 munities, or of human nature ; or as in the toil of the present 
 generation for the future. In addition to what I have already said 
 on this subject [infra) in the latter part of the section on "the 
 Ethical View," (pp. 51 — 54,) it is obvious to mark that the Virtue 
 of Action, in each case supposed by the Professor, first pertains 
 to the Individual — though certain advantage flows to others. The 
 
ADJUSTMENT DEMANDED. 267 
 
 of the field of human thought. It is we who are for 
 freedom, and the courageous following up of every 
 ascertained truth, and this will yet be seen ; but we 
 shall be certainly put to work at a fearful disadvantage, 
 through the intrusions of many a pedantic half-scholar, 
 half-recluse, (for whom the Church is little answer- 
 able,) unless we may be free as a Body to do all our 
 great Master's will among men. 
 
 Too often the term " intellectual freedom" seems as 
 if identified with a departure from all the our intellectual 
 foundations of the faith ; which is as rea- freedom. 
 sonable as if the demand for moral freedom were sup- 
 posed to imply a surrender of all the grounds of 
 morals, thus far admitted among mankind. But let 
 lis be reasonably understood, and we can recognize 
 no danger in claiming for the Church of Christ all 
 the freedom which He bequeathed, and we believe 
 that that alone will secure the harmonious develop- 
 ment of all the spiritual nature of man. 
 
 IS'ot that the satisfaction of those who are deemed 
 the intellectual classes is the principal end om- sphere and 
 to be aimed at by a Church which has to ^'' '^^<^^^^^^^^- 
 care for all. Perhaps the hardest fact to be encountered, 
 and the most humiliating, is that the lowest forms of 
 Puritanism are still popular with the ignorant multi- 
 tude and therefore with their politicians, and by them 
 even identified with Spirituality. But while the temp- 
 
 relation to the individual probation may, and indeed must, be very- 
 intricate; because we know so little of the whole moral condition 
 of any individual. But this does not throw the least doubt on the 
 reality of Personal Responsibility, in any case ; any more than all 
 the other incidents of life in which the influence of others so con- 
 stantly touches us. Indeed many an act of heroism would cease 
 to be noble, were it not for the Pei'sonal responsibility of the hero. 
 
268 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 tation to pander to this must be withstood, it implies 
 also a condition of things to be wisely ministered to. — 
 A fact, however, scarcely less hard and less degrading, 
 is the prevalence of a quasi-scientific spirit, which is 
 1. Popular. afraid to look into its own conclusions, 
 and has a greedy faith in the latest uncouth imagining 
 of some " fi'ee-thinker," who never escaped in his life 
 from the trammels of sham-x^hilosophy, but just has 
 a scepticism as to the Bible, and a horror of a close 
 thinker, if he happens to be a theologian. Bishop 
 Berkeley in his day chastised some such — ^. 
 
 But in becoming equal to the requirements of the 
 2. Ecclesiastical age to como, the Anglican Church will 
 have to conform her Ecclesiastical System to new posi- 
 tions. Only, if she be a Church, — really and spiii- 
 tually so, — she must be free to do it. — It may not un- 
 justly be thought a providential cu'cumstance that so 
 many organic questions, connected with the Church, 
 have thus far been staved ofi*. K'ot "Church Bates" 
 only, but (and far more) the " comprehensive mea- 
 sure" which has been threatened as to our Eccle- 
 siastical Courts, has been postponed time after time. 
 May it not seem as if designed to give us space 
 for reflection ? 
 
 At present, if any question be referred to Ecclesias- 
 tical Courts, sympathy is evoked for the persons con- 
 cerned, as if they were victims of antiquated oppres- 
 sion. Yet how loud is the outcry raised if scandals, 
 either religious or moral, are unchecked by authority ! 
 — If the purely spiritual or religious questions which 
 are stirred in the Anglican Church were settled with no 
 more intervention of legal authority than if they were 
 
 g In "The Analyst" and "Alciphronj" and his replies to the 
 Cambrid;;e Mathematician, &c. 
 
ADJUSTMENT DEMANDED. 269 
 
 litigations among Baptists, tlic world wonld soon learn 
 whether this learned and extensive Anglican Church 
 had a life of its own. Then let purely spiritual be 
 separated from mixed questions, before any measui*e 
 is adopted as to Courts Ecclesiastical. 
 . The Church, confident in her Faith, and able, with- 
 out jealousy, without fear, to act on every How the church 
 Conscience, will not fail to be " iN'ational :" l^ ^^1100, *be 
 for she will possess (she knows) the high "^'"^^"^'°^^- 
 intellects and best hearts of the time. Since the con- 
 flict, to which Christianity is to be called in these 
 days, must be a more vital one than it has yet known, 
 is it too much for the Church to ask to be allowed to 
 meet it with her own weapons, and in her own way ? 
 And if then she carries with her, as she will, the 
 individual convictions of the great mass of the thought- 
 ful laity of England, the idea of even ruling "by a 
 majority" for a while, is not so unfamiliar, as to forbid 
 the expectation that even on that ground the Church 
 will yet receive a "National" homage and support. 
 Of course, if men regard Eeligion only, or chiefly, 
 
 as it tells on this world, they must soon u>eiessriess of 
 , '^ , . political hypo- 
 
 arrive at practical conclusions widely dif- cnsr. 
 
 ferent from all those of Churchmen, with whom the 
 engrossing thought is, as to the destiny of each soul in 
 the world beyond the grave. With the all-important 
 enquii'ies arising out of the question ^ "What shall I 
 do to be saved?" it is impossible here to deal. The 
 great doctrines of our future happiness or ruin, re- 
 ward or retribution, belong to the foundations of all 
 Moral responsibility. But even to the mere politicians 
 of the present hour it may not be useless to point out 
 the inqyossihility of their dealing much longer with 
 
 h Essay, pp. 153, 161, 196. 
 
2/0 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 Christianity on their hypothesis. Things cannot con- 
 tinue as they are. Some may of course be quite 
 willing to go on, on the tacit assumption that the 
 Christian Scriptures, and generally the Christian 
 System, may be used as far as convenient, and then 
 di-opped; but the advancing education and under- 
 standing of mankind will demand intelligible Prin- 
 ciples, and put it beyond the power of politicians to 
 deal thus immorally with religion. As to the as- 
 sumption of the Eclectics, that the Moral argument 
 is against an "exclusive" Chi'istianity ; we meet it, 
 at present, by urging, that the alternative now is an 
 Exclusive Christianity, or none. 
 
 The people will certainly require statesmen to speak 
 out their real meaning : for the people's conscience is 
 more with us than the statesmen. Once let it be 
 understood that there is nothing supernatural in 
 the "Eeligion of the nation," and, as Eomanists well 
 know, its days are numbered. A sacred book (dis- 
 obeyed in more than half its rules) will not save it. 
 To take out of the Bible a few "leading principles," 
 and leave the rest, satisfies no honest conscience. 
 If this were lawful, why complain of the "free- 
 handling" critics? — what do they more than this? 
 — Then, again, let men well consider what it means 
 to submit spiritual questions to the arbitration of a 
 Parliament consisting of four or five different reli- 
 gions. None can fail to see that it must hopelessly 
 widen the growing distance, between men of thought 
 and cultivation, and all popular Chi'istianity. The 
 whole English people will certainly perceive that 
 it implies a denial of all Objective Religious Truth. 
 They will feel how impossible it must be for a real 
 Church to go on, with its principles and its practices 
 
ADJUSTMENT DEMANDED. 27 1 
 
 more and more at yariance. This must lead to in- 
 fidelity, social dospaii', convulsion. Roman Catho- 
 lics have a system and theory to which some of their 
 people at least conform, and others attempt it, and all 
 abstain from denying it; the same may be said of 
 all classes of Nonconformists; but a great mass of 
 population, nominally left to the Church, are taught 
 to consider themselves Christians, without as much as 
 an attempt on their part to follow any distinct Chris- 
 tianity at all, — such, for example, as the system im- 
 plied in any one of St. Paul's Epistles. To the Bible 
 they do not conform, nor to the Prayer-book; and 
 with a half-traditional modification of Natural Reli- 
 gion, they frequently are more like " Positivists" than 
 Christians; that is, they are vague believers in one 
 another^ and what is called "public opinion." 
 
 "Well will it be if the present controversy bring back 
 honest minds to the principle impressed Real member- 
 on the history of all Christendom from the S^her SCai 
 Pentecost onwards, — that the Communi- <»■ ^°t^ ^^^-t it is. 
 cants of a Church, with their baptized dependents, are 
 the Church. " We being many are one Body : for we 
 are all partakers of that one Bread'." A departure 
 from this point, towards any other "comprehension," 
 is a departure in the direction of ultimate infidelity, — 
 which only a lack of the logical faculty fails at once 
 to detect. For the ivorWs sake, no less than the 
 Church's, the sacred rites of our religion must^ before 
 long, be more discriminatingly used. The Church 
 cannot for ever go on lamenting her " lack comminatiou 
 of Discipline." The State cannot continue ^^'^''^■ 
 nominally to acknowledge our Christianity as Divine, 
 and then brow-beat it — (as capriciously as Indians 
 
 ' 1 Cor. X. 17. 
 
272 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 their idol when deaf to their prayers). This will 
 never be tolerable, to a people who, whatever they 
 become, will not be Indian in superstition. 
 
 Let men ponder well the theory, whether it be 
 called "Positivism," or " Multitudinism," or this 
 ideal "Nationalism," which "philosophers" have pro- 
 pounded for them, as thinking the world is now ripe 
 
 The theory for it. " Bpoad Christianity," as if to 
 
 broiight to 11111 
 
 shame us. put US to shamo, has been held up as 
 a glass before the mind of this generation ; it is repre- 
 sented as demanded by the character and needs of 
 the age. And yes,— this " Multitudinism" is truly 
 the only idea which will fairly account for the treat- 
 ment which our Eeligion has submitted to receive, — a 
 Unprincipie. theory of uxPRiNCiPLE. The Conscience of 
 the Church has been so frequently crushed, the free ex- 
 pression of her mind so restrained, that bolder thinkers 
 than our statesmen have not hesitated at last (as has 
 been seen) to put out as a theory for future action 
 that which has, however unconsciously, been almost 
 a theory of the past, — a " Multitudinist " Is^ational 
 Church, of which "public opinion" is to be the mle, 
 and fi'om which eYerj creed and article may be with- 
 di-awn, and only such portion of the New Testament 
 be admitted as each individual may approve as gen- 
 uine, and "interpret" to his own mind ! 
 
 Neither for the Nation, nor for the Individual, can 
 
 Its impossibility, it be safc to go ou witliout Principle. — 
 
 (Gladstone's Couscious of this, a modcm statesman, 
 
 " State in its Re- , . n ^ > t-it^ 
 
 lation with the at the beginning ot his political me, gave 
 '^^ ' himself with steady devotion to the care- 
 ful examination of the theories of law and philosophy 
 and government, by which in past generations the 
 facts of our relisrious and social life had been in- 
 
ADJUSTMENT DEMANDED. 273 
 
 terpretcd; and he ended by abandoning theorizing. 
 Soh'ifiir amhulamh ! There was eyerything that was 
 noble in the effort ; but may it not have been nobler 
 in its cessation than in its action, (needful as that 
 may certainly have been,)—//" it he clearly seen^ that 
 there are first truths of Political as well as of Moral 
 science, which are anterior to definition and proof. 
 Gamaliel's lesson, to " let these men alone," if their 
 work may be of God '', is no mean result to gain. — 
 To have missed a theory, and to have arrived at a 
 Principle of action^ is worth all the intellectual toil. 
 
 And this is the Principle, that Christianity aims 
 at each Conscience^ — and must be left to The principle 
 do its own work. Fearless for the Truth, and patient, 
 it welcomes every honest effort of the human mind. 
 It bears a message from the Eternal, to each undying 
 soul; and "whoso hath ears to hear, let him hear V 
 Thus it has the courage to win even a minority from 
 the ranks of the world to the "knowledge of the 
 Truth;" and yet claim for them to be the "salt of 
 the whole earth." If for a time "not many wise, 
 not many mighty, not many noble "'," be her promised 
 adherents, she still would refuse to reckon a merely 
 nominal adherence to her faith; for that would be 
 morally base, a falsehood, a denial of Duty and Con- 
 science. And if despair of theorizing has taught states- 
 men this at last, it shall indeed be well ! And this 
 great and glorious England of ours, with a Church 
 "National," not in name only, but in Conscience, 
 may have a moral future such as the world has 
 not yet seen. 
 
 There have been speculators before now who have 
 determined that the soul of man is equally illustrated, 
 k Acts V. 38. ' St. Matt. xi. 15. "1 Cor. i. 26. 
 
 T 
 
274 THE IDEA OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 
 
 diffased throughout his body ; there have been others, 
 who have located it personally in the brain, or even 
 in one special gland : but that our Personality is truly 
 one, however difficult its definition, none have ques- 
 tioned. And if a Church by its spiritual and moral 
 energy shew itself to be the Soul of any people, there 
 will be no dispute as to the law of its diffusion, or as 
 to its being '' National." It will be the free utterance, 
 for the body of that Nation, of its highest aspirations 
 after Truth and Goodness; and it will remain the 
 reverenced Minister of "hopes full of immortality." 
 Let no one imagine so vain a thing as that a prac- 
 its opposite, tical people will tolerate a generalized 
 " ideal of Christianity" as Divine. As little also will 
 a fi'ee people bear any form of compulsory Eeligion. 
 Yet will " the public" ultimately demand something 
 more spiritual than its own "opinion." It will have 
 an "historical Christianity." A narrow few may 
 have already persuaded themselves to "give up the 
 Church, and fall back on the Bible ;" but what will 
 they do with the " critics ?" — Certainly they will need 
 a learned clergy ; and what then shall become of the 
 fanatics ? Will they do as they have done before, — 
 avail themselves of the scholarship which shields them, 
 and then go on awhile, until they need a fresh de- 
 liverance ? 
 
 But let us hope for better things. A noble specta- 
 The prospect, clc it may be for the world, if this free 
 land, with its illustrious Monarch and free Parliament, 
 should teach observant Europe, that a highly educated 
 Church may be trusted to fiilfil her spiritual mission. 
 A statesman really worthy of the name, seeing among 
 our twenty thousand clergy some, and not a few, fore- 
 most in science, and all eager for the spread of real 
 
ADJUSTMENT DEMANDED. 275 
 
 knowledge; seeing others (and they too not a few) 
 giving their high gifts and hard lives to difficult enter- 
 prise for Christ's cause in the whole habitable globe ; 
 seeing, once more, the vast multitude of them engaged 
 in the ten thousand villages of our nation, in life-long 
 work for the Gospel, — such an one might believe that 
 such a Church, freely and generously trusted, might 
 make Christianity Catholic in our land. Our Church's 
 character is marvellously '' iN'ational " now ; it is one 
 with the people, even in its faults no less than its ef- 
 forts ; and it doubts not that its future, in the truest 
 sense, shall be "National." !N'or would it be less 
 speedily so, but far more, if the Church were even as 
 free as the judges in their proper sphere, — that sphere 
 being entirehj Spiritual. 
 
 It will not detract from the National character of 
 the Church, if her inner and spiritual Real 
 
 affairs be untouched by the State.— Look "Nationality." 
 at the ten thousands of English homes of which, in 
 uncounted examples, it may be said in the touch- 
 ing words of an apostle, there is a " Church in that 
 house"!" Are they not the glory of the "Nation?" 
 Have they no inner life beyond that which statesmen 
 can regulate ? Are they not " National ?" 
 
 And so, in a far higher measure, and with yet 
 fuller authority and grace, the " Nationality " of our 
 Church of England, if she may do her own work, 
 shall yet abide, — founded on the "hidden life" 
 which Christ has given her, and sanctifying the 
 souls of the people, for Him who "purchased" them 
 for His own °. 
 
 - Col. iv. 15. ° Acts XX. 28. 
 
 t2. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 rpHEEE is no attaining a satisfactory view of the 
 mutual relations of Science and Scripture till men 
 make up their minds to do violence to neither, and 
 to deal faithfully with both. On the very threshold, 
 therefore, of such discussions as the present, we are 
 encountered by the necessity for a candid, truthful, 
 and impartial exegesis of the sacred text. This can 
 never be honoured by being put to the torture. We 
 ought to harbour no hankering after so-called "recon- 
 ciliations," or allow these to warp in the very least 
 our rendering of the record. It is our business to 
 deciiDher, not to prompt; to keep our ears open to 
 what the Scripture says, not exercise our ingenuity 
 on what it can be made to say. "We must purge our 
 minds at once of that order of prepossessions which 
 is incident to an over- timid faith, and, not less scru- 
 pulously, of those counter-prejudices which beset a 
 jaundiced and captious scepticism. For there may 
 be an eagerness to magnify, and even to invent diffi- 
 culties, as well as an anxiety to muffle them up and 
 smooth them over, — of which last, the least pleasing 
 shape is an affectation of contempt disguising obvious 
 perplexity and trepidation. Those who seek the re- 
 pose of truth had best banish from the quest of it, 
 in whatever field, the spirit and the methods of so- 
 phistry. The geologist, for example, if loyal to his 
 science, will marshal his facts as if there were no 
 
278 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 book of Genesis. Even so is it the duty of the inter- 
 preter of the Mosaic text to fix its sense and investi- 
 gate its structure as though it were susceptible of nei- 
 ther collation nor collision with any science of geology. 
 If we cancel the disturbing divisions of chapter 
 and verse, which are certainly one mask on the face 
 of the record, and liberate the parallelism, — the sup- 
 pression of which, if parallelism there be, must needs 
 constitute another, — the Scripture account of creation, 
 with slight though not gratuitous deviations from the 
 Authorized Yersion, will stand as follows : — 
 
 In tlie beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
 
 And the earth was desolate and void : 
 
 And darkness was upon the face of the deep : 
 
 And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 
 
 And God said, Let there be light : 
 
 And there was light : 
 
 And God saw the light that it was good : 
 
 And God divided the light from the darkness : 
 
 And God called the light Day : 
 
 And the darkness He called Night : 
 
 And the evening and the morning were the first day. 
 
 2. 
 
 And God said, Let there be a canopy in the midst of the waters : 
 
 And let it divide the waters from the waters : 
 
 And God made the canopy : 
 
 And divided the waters which were under the canopy from the 
 
 waters which were above the canopy : 
 And it was so. 
 And God c died the canopy Heaven : 
 
 Aiid the evening and the morning were the second day. 
 
 3. 
 
 And God said. Let the waters under the heaven be gathered 
 together unto one place : 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 279 
 
 And let the dry land appear : 
 
 And it was so. 
 
 And God called the dry land Earth : 
 
 And the gathering together of the waters called He Seas : 
 
 And God saw that it was good. 
 
 And God said, Let the earth bring forth shoots : 
 
 The herb yielding seed, the fiuit-tree yielding seed-enclosing fruit, 
 after his kind, upon the earth : 
 
 And it was so. 
 
 And the earth brought forth shoots : 
 
 The herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding seed- 
 enclosing fruit, after his kind : 
 
 And God saw that it was good : 
 
 And the eyening and the morning were the third day. 
 
 4. 
 
 And God said, Let there be lights in the canopy of heaven to 
 
 divide the day from the night : 
 And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years : 
 And let them be for lights in the canopy of heaven to give light 
 
 upon the earth : 
 And it was so. 
 
 And God made two great lights : 
 The greater light to ride the day : 
 And the lesser light to rule the night : 
 He made the stars also. 
 And God set them in the canopy of heaven to give light upon 
 
 the earth : 
 And to rule over the day and over the night : 
 And to divide the light from the darkness : 
 And God saw that it was good : 
 
 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 
 
 5. 
 
 And God said. Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving 
 
 creature that hath life : 
 And let fowl fly above the earth in the open canopy of heaven : 
 And God created great leviathans : 
 And every moving creature, which the waters brought forth 
 
 abundantly, after their kind : 
 
2 8o THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 And every "winged fowl after his kind : 
 
 And God saw that it was good : 
 
 And God blessed them, saying : 
 
 Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas : 
 
 And let fowl multiply in the earth : 
 
 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 
 
 6. 
 
 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after 
 
 his kind : 
 Cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind : 
 And it was so, W^ 
 
 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind : V ^ 
 
 And cattle after their kind : 
 
 And everything that creepeth on the earth after his kind : 
 And God saw that it was good. 
 
 And God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness : 
 And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea : 
 And over the fowl of the air : 
 And over the cattle : 
 And over all the earth : 
 
 And over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 
 So God created man in His own image : 
 In the image of God created He him : 
 Male and female created He them : 
 And God blessed them, and God said unto them : 
 Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it : 
 And have dominion over the fish of the sea : 
 And over the fowl of the air : 
 
 And over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 
 And God said. Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, 
 
 on the face of all the earth : 
 And everj' tree which has seed-enclosing fruit : 
 To you it shall be for meat : 
 And to every beast of the earth : 
 And to every fowl of the air : 
 
 And to everything that creepeth on the earth, wherein is life : 
 I have given every green herb for meat : 
 And it was so. 
 
 And God saw everything He had made, and behold it was very good : 
 And the evening and the moming were the sixth day. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 201 
 
 7. 
 
 Thus the heavens and the earth -were finished : 
 
 And all the host of them : 
 
 And on the seventh day God put period to the work which He 
 
 had made : 
 And He rested on the seventh day from all His work which 
 
 He had made. 
 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : 
 Because that in it He rested from all His work which God 
 
 created and made, 
 
 Xow every reader looking with a fresh eye on this 
 sublime composition, must be struck, first of all, with 
 its indubitable iinitij. All its parts cohere in the 
 strictest symmetry, and bind up into an integral and 
 indissoluble whole. There is here the same organic 
 unity which marks the Decalogue, or the Lord's 
 Prayer, or the parable of the labourers in the vine- 
 yard : or, if we go out of the Bible for comparisons, 
 it combines with Ipic breadth of treatment and state- 
 liness of tread, all the compactness of some solemn 
 sonnet freighted with a single thought from begin- 
 ning to end, — severe and yet exhaustive, — in which 
 abridgement would be mutilation, and addition ex- 
 crescence. It therefore occasions no surprise to find 
 at Gen. ii. 4 the clearest marks of a break and a tran- 
 sition "" ; one sti-ain of composition closed, a fresh strain 
 
 * " Post enumcrationem et expositionem dierum scptem inter- 
 posita est quasi qua?dam conclusio, et appellatus est Liber crea- 
 tujse, &c., Gen. ii. 4." — St. Augustine, Be Genesi contra 2fanich., 
 ii. 1. 
 
 "Even a cursory perusal will convince us that they consist of 
 two distinct sections." — Kurtz, Bible and Astronomy, Edinburgh, 
 1859, ch. i. ; also Wiseman, "Connection between Science and 
 Revealed Religion," vol. i. p. 150. 
 
282 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 begun. Yerse 4 is a bridge, or rather stepping-stone, 
 from the one monograph to the other. How this is 
 to be critically accounted for is no part of the present 
 enquiry. Whether, as has been thought probable 
 from the change of the divine name^, and for other 
 reasons, certain sections of the book of Genesis are 
 to be viewed as recensions of more ancient materials, 
 and, if so, what those sections are, does not here con- 
 cern us. Adoption, in such case, is equivalent to 
 authorship. Some parts of the Pentateuch, indeed, 
 are certainly more recent, if others are perhaps more 
 ancient, than Moses ; just as one at least of the 
 Psalms is held to be of earlier, and many are known 
 to be of later, date than the age of Da^Td°. Who- 
 ever believes that the Spirit of prophecy spoke be- 
 fore the Hebrew lawgiver'^, as It spoke after him, 
 will not deem the fi-eest of free criticism, in this pro- 
 vince of research, inimical to the authority of Scrip- 
 ture. Be the explanation what it may, — variety 
 in a pre-existing basis or a deliberate change of 
 strain, — the record of the creative week is one re- 
 cord, what follows is another. Sceptical criticism 
 may deny that the two monographs are harmonious : 
 this must not provoke refusal to recognise them 
 as distinct. 
 
 ^ From Elohim to Jehovah-Elohim. The latter the plural of 
 Majesty, Intensity, or Fulness of Divine Perfection, the consistency 
 of which with pure Monotheism is proved by Deut. vi. 4, "Jehovah 
 our Elohim is one Jehovah." Adam Clarke connects Elohim with 
 the Arabic Allah = the Adorable, Most critics interpret it as " the 
 Mighty One." On the plural see Kalisch, " Historical and Critical 
 Commentary on the Old Testament," p. 80. 
 
 " Deut. xxxiv. ; Ps. xc, cxxxvii. "^ Jude, ver. 14. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 283 
 
 The Mosaic lieptameron is thus a whole in itself: 
 it is further manifest that it shuts in a whole. "VMiat- 
 ever the work-peopled week be, it is meant absolutely 
 to include and enclasp the creation of the All at the 
 will of the One. Ere this week opened, in the con- 
 ception of the sacred penman, God had not begun 
 to create : ere this week closed. He had done with 
 creating. Of work prior to tlie fii'st day the sacred 
 writer knows no more than of work posterior to the 
 sixth. With the first day the series of creatiye fiats 
 begins; by the seventh they have ceased. "Fore«," 
 that is, ivifkin, '' six days the Lord made heaven and 
 earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the 
 seventh day," — rested from all His work. Accord- 
 ingly, the record articulates into seven strophes or 
 segments. Of which five are container/, and two are 
 terminal or contain//?^. The five are defined in the 
 clearest manner by theii* opening and close : — '^ God 
 
 said Evening and morning were the second, 
 
 thii'd, fourth, fifth, sixth, day." The initial and final 
 sections are necessarily modified, the one as supply- 
 ing an exordium, the other as forming a peroration 
 or climax. Still the only question that can naturally 
 rise is whether the exordium belongs strictly to the 
 first day, or to the six days in common. Within 
 those six days, on either ^dew, all is made that has 
 been made. During six days God works. On the 
 seventh day that rest is resumed which before the 
 first day had not been broken. 
 
 Pursuing our analysis, the exordium in abeyance, 
 it is fui'ther evident, not only that six days arc 
 broadly homogeneous, and the seventh unique, — a 
 sisterhood of work-days in contrast to a solitary rest- 
 day, — but also that the six work-days part spon- 
 
284 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 taneously into tivo groups^ each bearing a very re- 
 markable relation to the other : — 
 
 God said, Let there be light : God said, Let there be lights : 
 
 And there was light. And God made two great lights. 
 
 God said. Let there be a canopy God said. Let the waters bring 
 
 in the midst of the waters : forth abundantly : 
 
 And God called the canopy And let fowl fly above the earth 
 
 Heaven. in the open canopy of heaven. 
 
 God said. Let the dry land God said. Let the earth bring 
 appear : forth the living creature, &c. 
 
 God said, Let the earth bring God said, Let us make man. 
 forth shoots, &c. Behold I have given you 
 
 every herb, &c. 
 
 It is manifest that we have here a balance and 
 a correlation of parts, an interlocking of the second 
 moiety of creative working with the first, a prelnde 
 and a sequence, a preparation and a development. 
 The story of creation is told at twice. Each day has 
 its double and its consort. In the preliminary triad, 
 light is severed from darkness ; a firmament divides 
 the waters above from the waters below; the dry 
 land is disengaged from the waters, and clad with 
 vegetation. In the complementary triad, light is 
 collected and concentrated in sun, moon, and stars; 
 water and air are peopled with marine animals and 
 birds; lastly, the dry land is replenished with ter- 
 restrial creatures, and with man himself, and pre- 
 existing vegetation is gifted away to them for food. 
 This ground-plan betokens a delicate co- adjustment of 
 group to group — a fulness and finish of parallelism^ 
 which corrects the first impression of simple con- 
 tinuity. The first day pairs with the fourth, the 
 second with the fifth, and the third with the sixth: 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 285 
 
 each, to borrow a term from comparative anatomy, 
 a liomotype to each^. Consequently the structure 
 requires a complex symbol : — 
 
 a. 1 . Light. "I The heavens 
 
 b. 2. Firmament between the "Waters. V and 
 
 c. 3. Dry Land (with plants) above the Waters.; the earth, 
 
 a. 4. Lights: Sun, Moon, and Stars. \ and all the 
 
 b. 5. Water- Animals and Birds. > host of them. 
 
 c. 6. Land- Animals — Man. j (Gen. ii. 1.) 
 
 The mighty mansion is first built, next fm-nished. 
 A triad of "days" is devoted to its architecture, a 
 triad to its occupants. The former describes a series 
 of extrications, — light from darkness, the waters from 
 the air and sky, the diy land from the waters. The 
 latter portrays a series of formations^ — the heavenly 
 bodies in celestial space, the animal population of the 
 waters and the air, lastly, land -animals and man. 
 Thus the fii'st three days are so many finger-posts to 
 the second three ^ In consonance with which bi- 
 partite arrangement, there may be noted a certain 
 expansion and elaboration of details in the third and 
 sixth days respectively. Each has two creative fiats : 
 the earlier days in both groups have but one. 
 
 At this point a sudden light, or what seem^ a light, 
 breaks in ; and the question will suggest itseli' to most 
 
 * Compare Quasfiones Mosaicce, London, 1842, p. 31 ; Dr. 
 Forbes, "Symmetrical Structure of Scripture," p. 162; Kalisch, 
 p. 63. 
 
 ' God said, Let there be light, and there was light : 
 Next parted water from the vault of air : 
 Then bade the land above the ocean rise. 
 
 God said. Sun, rule the day. Moon, rule the night : 
 Next bade fish, bird, the sky and water share : 
 Last gave the earth its various tenantries. 
 
2 86 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 minds at all versant in critical studies, to what oeder 
 of composition the opening section of Genesis belongs. 
 Which, e.g. does it most resemble in the apparent law 
 of its sti-ucture, the 27th of Acts, or the 104th I'salm ? 
 To what shall we parallel its " days," — to the nota- 
 tion of literal week-periods in onr Lord's earlier mi- 
 nistry ^ or in the missionary travels of St. Paul, or 
 to the mystic ''hours" of labour in the vineyard, 
 or the lofty refrains of Psalms xlii.— xliii., and cvii. ? 
 Poetry may be detached from reality, or opposed to 
 reality ; it may also^ and that without ceasing to be 
 itself, or foregoing its appropriate framework, be the 
 highest and most vivid exponent of reality. It is 
 enough for the present to indicate this enquiry. We 
 have still to look somewhat more closely into the 
 details of the record. 
 
 "In the beginning God created the heaven and 
 the earth." This is the Hebrew periphrasis for the 
 universe of things = koct/jlo^, JuiindusK So, in the 
 Creed, "Maker of heaven and earth" is expounded 
 by "all things visible and invisible ;^^ this last pro- 
 bably a development of the meaning present to the 
 mind of the sacred writer, since he only concerns 
 himself with such results of creative power as are 
 palpable to the senses. Whether "created" denotes 
 egress into being from absolute nonentity, or only 
 a moulding and manipulating of self-existent matter, 
 cannot be determined from the word itself. "IS"© 
 
 s St. Luke iv. 16, 31, vi. 1, 6. ^a^^drov devTepoirpuTov is simply 
 the third in this series : compare Acts xiii. 14, 42, 44. 
 
 ^ Pearson on the Creed, Ed. 1840, p. 74; "Creation and the 
 Fall," by the Eev. D. MacDonald, Edinburgh, 1856, p. 81. 
 "TJniversa creatura significata est quam fecit et condidit Deus." 
 — St. August. De Gen. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 287 
 
 language, as the addition out of notldmj sliews, has 
 a single term to express the former idea'." But the 
 intention of the sacred penman may be safely gathered 
 from the tenor of Hebrew belief ''. Whence the open- 
 ing sentence of Genesis may be held as announcing 
 that everything save God had a beginning, and had 
 its beginning fi'om Him. Before the "beginning," 
 only God was ; " in the beginning," He caused all 
 things to be; and He is thus .the unbegun beginner 
 of all that is \ 
 
 Creation being conceived as proper or improper, 
 immediate or mediate, the word "create," however, 
 may be here imderstood either contradistinctively of 
 one or comprehensively of both processes. On the 
 former view the meaning will be, — " In the beginning 
 — in primo puncto temporis "^ — God brought into being 
 the material of all things, the heavens and the earth. 
 And the earth, so brought into being, was not created 
 perfect, but desolate and void," &c. On the other 
 supposition we shall read, — " In the beginning — com- 
 mensurate and conterminous with the creative week 
 — God made all things, immediately or mediately, 
 out of nothing, or out of substances He Himself had 
 made; and He made them in manner following." 
 
 ' Dr. Pusey, note in Buckland's " Bridgewater Treatise," p. 22. 
 So Bishop Pearson, p. 80: — ''We must not weakly collect the 
 nature of creation from the force of any word, which may be 
 thought by some to express so much, but by the testimony of 
 God," &c. 
 
 ■' Ps. xc. 1 ; 2 iSIacc. vii. 28; Hcb. xi. 3; 2 Pet. iii. 5. 
 
 ' " Omnia formata de ista materia facta sunt, hoec ipsa materia 
 tamen de omnino nihilo facta est." — {St. August, de Gen. i. 14.) 
 — " Created, caused existence where, previously to this moment, 
 there was no being." — Adam Clarke, in Joe; Kalisch, p. 53; 
 Barrow on the Creed, Serm. xii. ; Macdonald, p. 65. 
 
 " Piscator, in loc. "In pr." so. temporis. Poli Synops. 
 
2 88 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 According to our estimate of the preferability of either 
 paraphrase, we shall consider the verse as the com- 
 mencement of the first day's work, or as a proleptic 
 epitome of the entire hexameron. Philologically, the 
 latter view has all likelihood on its side °; " Create" 
 and "make" — lara and hasah — are constantly used as 
 synonyms throughout the monograph itself, and else- 
 where in the Old Testament. God's ^'-creating hea- 
 ven and earth in the heginnmg''^ is precisely equivalent 
 to His " making in six days the heavens and the earth." 
 So "the dag in which the Lord God made the earth 
 and the heavens ° " is not the first day, still less any 
 period preceding it, but the entire six days embracing 
 "«// the work which God created and made p." The 
 first verse of Genesis is therefore to be taken as of 
 the same compass and generality with "Maker of 
 heaven and earth" in the Apostles' Creed. It is 
 the condensed summary of succeeding details, the 
 nucleus or embryo of which the sequel is the ex- 
 pansion, the intrada to the strain of creative har- 
 mony. 
 
 The work of the first day follows, the way being 
 paved for its distinctive fiat by a picture of that 
 chaos from which the cosmos sprung. "The earth 
 was without form," &c., — tohu-va-hohu^ — desolate and 
 void*^, uninhabitable and uninhabited'", "and the 
 Spirit of God moved" — or hovered, or brooded^ — 
 " on the face of the waters. And God said, Let there 
 be light And evening was, morning was, one 
 
 " Quasi. Mos., p. 7. ° Gen. ii. 4. 
 
 P Gen. ii. 3. <i Jer. iv. 23. 
 
 ^ "Invisibilis et incomposita," St. Augustine (after the Septua- 
 gint); " Inanis et vacua," Vulgate. 
 ' Deut. xxxii. 11: Ps. civ. 30. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 289 
 
 day*." We have tlius (1.) Day antithetic = light- 
 period, (2.) Day comprehensive = light and night 
 period, vv)(6i]iiepov. 
 
 To the day of partition of the light from the dark- 
 ness succeeds that of severance of the finnament from 
 the waters. "God said, Let there be a firmament 
 in the midst of the waters," &c. " Firmament," 
 rakia ""j is literally expanse or canopy, and the work 
 of the second day is the spreading the zone of air 
 between the zone of cloud and the zone of ocean ; and 
 the constitution in general, so to speak, of the circum- 
 terrestrial sphere, or space. "And God called the 
 canopy Heaven." The Hebrews distinguished a first, 
 a second, and a third heaven. Of these the third was 
 the invisible abode of God and His angels, in the 
 second the heavenly bodies were set, on the first 
 the clouds rested ''. Ea/cia, or expanse, with an elas- 
 
 * Compare St. Matt, xxviii. 1, <V [j.ia tuv aa^^uTutv ; and note, 
 Kalisch, p. 67 : — "It is futile to assign to this use any mysterious 
 or hidden reason, as Joscphus and others insinuate, or to under- 
 stand it as a peculiar day, a day sui generis, or a period of in- 
 definite duration. MacDonald's 'Creation and Fall,' p. 99." Kalisch 
 translates, " It was morning, it was evening, one day." 
 
 " Septuag. (TTtptana, Tulg. Jtrmamentum. That which gives 
 firmness or Jixity io the "fixed" stars, holding each in its place 
 and binding all into a " shining frame." Compare stereotype. See 
 Dr. M'Caul, " Some Xotes on the First Chapter of Genesis," p. 38. 
 
 * " That second heaven is not so far above the first as beneath 
 the third (2 Cor. xii. 2) into which St. Paul was caught. The 
 brightness of the sun doth not so far surpass the blackness of 
 a wandering cloud, as the glory of that heaven of Presence sur- 
 mounts the fading beauty of the starry firmament." — Pearson, p. 75. 
 "The Jews say there are three heavens; caelum nubiferum, or 
 the firmament ; ccelum astriferum, the starry heavens ; coelum 
 angeliferum, where the angels reside, the third heaven in St. Paul." 
 ^Barrow on the Creed, Scrm. xii. 
 
 U 
 
290 THE CREATIVE WEEK, 
 
 ticity of meaning like that of our own word shj^ is 
 used for either of the two inferior "heavens," the in- 
 terior or the remote : thus in the fifth-day work, as 
 in the second, it is the ethereal floor that props the 
 clouds, and beneath which the birds fly ; whereas in 
 the fourth-day work it is the spangled vault, from 
 which the sun looks forth, and in which the stars are 
 burning. Translated into modern phrase, therefore, 
 the ralda was either the earth's atmosphere or the 
 cosmical space beyond. And "the waters above the 
 fii-mament" are simply those lodged in the clouds y. 
 
 ^ See the noble chapter in " Modern Painters," vol. iv. pp. 83—89 : 
 • — " The account given of the stages of creation in the first chapter 
 of Genesis is in every respect clear and intelligible to the simplest 
 reader, except in the statement of the work of the second day. . . . 
 The English word firmament itself is obscure and useless, because 
 we never employ it but as a synonym of heaven. . . . But the mar- 
 ginal reading, expansion, has definite value, and the statement that 
 * God said. Let there be an expansion in the midst of the waters, 
 and God called the expansion heaven,' has an apprehensible mean- 
 ing. . . .Now with respect to this whole chapter we must remember 
 always that it is intended for the iastruction of all mankind, not 
 for the learned reader only; and that therefore the most simple 
 and natural interpretation is the likeliest, in general, to be the 
 true one. An unscientific reader knows little about the manner 
 in which the volume of the atmosphere suiTounds the earth ; but 
 I imagine that he could hardly glance at the sky when rain was 
 falling in the distance, and see the level line of the bases of the 
 clouds from which the showier descended, without being able to 
 attach an instant and easy meaning to the words ' expansion in the 
 midst of the waters.' And if having once seized this idea he pro- 
 ceeded to examine it more accurately, he w^ould perceive at once, 
 if he had ever noticed «n_?/lhing of the nature of clouds, that the 
 level line of their bases did indeed most severely and stringently 
 divide 'waters from waters,' that is to say, divide water in its col- 
 lective and tangible state from water in its divided and aerial state ; 
 or the waters which fall and fiow from those which rise and float. 
 , , . . I understand the making the firmament to signify that, so 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 29 1 
 
 "lie stretclietli out the north over the empty place, 
 and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth 
 up the waters in His thick clouds, and the cloud 
 is not rent under them \" The conception is mani- 
 festly that of concentric spheres; an inner "firma- 
 ment" on which the clouds are suspended, an outer 
 in which and along with which the orbs of heaven 
 revolve. 
 
 Fii-mament above, a world of waters below; so 
 the second day closes. The third brings the fiat for 
 the rescue and elevation of the dry land. " And God 
 called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together 
 of the waters called He Seas." " Earth," like " day," 
 is thus either inclusively ther whole terraqueous globe, 
 or, contradistmctively, the part uncovered by the ocean. 
 Nor is the surface so rescued left a desert. By a fresh 
 creative mandate, the earth brings forth "grass" or 
 
 far as man is concerned, most magnificent ordinance of the clouds; 
 — the ordinance, that as the great plain of waters was formed on 
 the face of the earth, so also a plain of waters should be stretched 
 along the height of air, and the face of the cloud answer the face 
 of the ocean; and that this upper and heavenly plain should be 
 of waters, a? it were, glorified in their nature, no longer quenching 
 the fire, but now bearing fire in their own bosoms ; no longer mur- 
 muring only when the winds raise them or rocks divide, but an- 
 swering each other with their own voices from pole to pole ; no 
 longer restrained by established shores, and guided through un- 
 changing channels, but going forth at their pleasure Hke the 
 armies of the angels, and choosing their encampments upon the 
 heights of the hills; no longer hurried downwards for ever, 
 moving but to fall, nor lost in the lightless accumulation of the 
 abyss, but covering the east and west with the waving of their 
 wings, and robing the gloom of the farther infinite with a vesture 
 of divers colours, of which the threads are purple and scarlet, and 
 the embroideries flame." 
 • Job xxvi. 7, 8. . 
 
 u2 
 
292 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 "shoots'', the herb yielding seed, and the tree yield- 
 ing fruit enveloping its seed," each "after his kind." 
 This enumeration may remind us of the old classifi- 
 cation based on vegetable magnitudes — herbs, shrubs, 
 and trees. But it is much more likely that " shoots " 
 is the containing term for the two which follow, that 
 is, for food-yielding plants, which may indeed be held 
 as representative of vegetation in general, but with 
 w^hich alone the sacred writer was prospectively con- 
 cerned ^. 
 
 A threefold foundation being now laid, a threefold 
 superstructure is built up. On the fourth day light 
 [Heb. or] is consigned to light-bearers ''j \jna-oroth']] 
 passes from its state of diffusion into celestial recep- 
 tacles ; is located and concentrated in sun, moon, and 
 stars. The text says that these were "made;" and 
 therefore means that they were made, not made to 
 appear. Had this latter been the thing to be ex- 
 pressed, the sacred writer who had just set down, 
 "Let the dry laud appear ^^ had every facility for 
 expressing it. But just as God '"'•made the firma- 
 ment V or '■'■made the beast of the earth®," or '■'■ made 
 man V is it afiirmed that He " made two great lights ^, 
 and also the stars ^." There is an end to all ingenu- 
 ousness in the interpretation of Scripture if we foist, 
 in one of these examples, a meaning on " made" which 
 it bears in none of the others. No honest doubts can 
 be appeased by recourse to transparent make-shifts. 
 
 " " Sacred Scriptures, Hebrew and English," by De Sola, &c. 
 Baxter, 1844. Kalisch renders "vegetation." 
 
 ■^ Gen. i. 29, 30. "^ ^coo-r^pes, luminaria. 
 
 ^ Gen. i. 7. ^ Ibid. 25. ' Ibid. 26. 
 
 e Observe also that they are first made, and then set to give 
 light, &c. ^ Gen. i. 16. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 293 
 
 The Hebrew verb indeed, like facio^ conforms to its 
 accusative ; and may mean, if its regimen so necessi- 
 tate, to prepare, to dress, &c. But the subject must 
 be such as to dictafe these reflex determinations of 
 sense; and it is preposterous to contend that fecit 
 liiminaria can be naturally rendered, 'He made sun 
 and moon become visible,' or, 'He cleared away the 
 clouds.' Such is not the meaning which the text puts 
 into an unbiassed reader, but that which a biassed 
 reader or an embarrassed controversialist for a pur- 
 pose of his own puts into the text. The founda- 
 tions of faith would be indeed precarious if they 
 depended for their solidity on such artifices of mis- 
 translation. 
 
 Sun, moon, and stars, ranked in the ratio of their 
 importance to the earth, as alone consisted with the 
 object of the sacred survey of creation', occupy the 
 fourth day. To this plenishing of the sky succeeds, 
 on the fifth day, the peopling of the air and the waters. 
 "God said. Let the waters teem with shoals of ani- 
 mate creatm-es, and let birds fly above the earth in 
 the open expanse of heaven''," that is, beneath the 
 concave of the lower firmament. "And God created 
 the great animals of the sea, and every living creature 
 that moveth, with which the waters teemed, after 
 their kind, and every winged bird after its kind." 
 The central day of the first triad had prepared a two- 
 fold home : the corresponding day of the second triad 
 stocks that home with two vast groups of inhabitants. 
 The cold-blooded fish-reptile family take possession 
 of the deep; the warm-blooded bird wings its flight 
 through the air. A slight rectification of the Eng- 
 
 ' "2s'os enim polius rcspcxitquam sidera, ut theologura deccbut." 
 — Calvin, in loc. ^ Dc Sola. 
 
•94 
 
 THE CREATIVE WEEK 
 
 lish version, suggested and endorsed by the best He- 
 brew scholars \ restores consistency, as regards the 
 bird-tribe, between Gen. i. 20 and ii. 19. In the other 
 province of life, while the phrase " every living crea- 
 ture that moveth " is doubtless meant to include the 
 humblest forms of vitality, the type-groups denoted 
 by tanninim are clearly those represented by the great 
 water-breathing or water-haunting vertebrates, such as 
 the shark and the crocodile '". These dominating the 
 waters, with the winged fowl careering in the open 
 firmament of heaven, compose the fifth -day aspect 
 of creative power. 
 
 A sixth day peoples the earth with those creatures, 
 higher or lower, for whom, in humble companionship 
 and subordination to man, the earth, on the pioneer 
 third day, had been specially prepared. " God said, 
 Let the earth bring forth the living creature after 
 his kind, cattle, and creeping thing [or reptile\^ and 
 beast of the earth," &c. The sixth day thus intro- 
 duces "behemoth" to the dry land, as the fifth 
 " leviathan" to the waters''. With " cattle and beast 
 of the earth" there can be no difficulty in identifying 
 the mammalia, or milk-givers, herbivorous and carni- 
 vorous, to the latter of whom mediately, as to the 
 former directly, since there can be no fauna without 
 
 * De Sola and Kalisch, p. 7-i. 
 
 "> Tanninim, Exod. vii. 9 ; Isa. li. 9 ; Job vii. 12 ; literally 'long- 
 extended :' comp. Dolichosaurus. ^'Tanninim — c[Uod significat dra- 
 
 cones et omnia ingentia animalia JJ'omen cete commune est 
 
 omnibus magnis et cetaceis piscibus." — Cornelius a Lapide, in loc. 
 "Kon soli coti significantur, sed omnes animantes stupenda vastitate 
 et anguinea specie monstra quse inveniuntur in utroque genere." — 
 Piscator, in loc. See also MacDonald, p. 278. This work docs 
 honour to the theological literature of Scotland. 
 
 " Ps. civ. 26; Job xl. 14. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 295 
 
 a flora, terrestrial vegetation is the basis of subsist- 
 ence". And while "creeping thing" may be a term 
 of sufficient generality to include worms and insects, 
 it seems specially pointed at the ophidian " reptile p," 
 or serpent-tribe, holding place between these and the 
 nobler animals. Thus the dry land also is tenanted. 
 But the master-creature is still wanting. By the sup- 
 plementary fiat of the third day vegetable life had 
 been added to inorganic matter. By the supernu- 
 merary fiat of the sixth day, the eighth and final fiat 
 of all, there is superinduced on all lower forms of 
 life, vegetable or animal, the rational, spiritual, God- 
 resembling life of man'i. After solemn counsel with 
 Himself, shadowing the unique dignity and incom- 
 parable endowments of the creature to be brought into 
 being, — avvbecrfxos airavTcov^ — " God created man in 
 His own image, in the image of God created He him ; 
 male and female created He them. And God blessed 
 them, and said unto them," — unto them as alone of 
 capacity to listen'", — "Be fruitful and multiply, and 
 
 " Gen. i. 31. p De Sola. 
 
 ' " As it is reasonable to imagine that there is more of design, 
 and consequently more of perfection, in the last work, we have 
 God here giving His last stroke and summing up all into man ; 
 the whole into a part, the universe into an individual ; so that 
 whereas in other creatures we have but the trace of His foot- 
 steps, in man we have the draught of His hand. In him were 
 united all the scattered perfections of the creature, all the graces 
 and ornaments; all the airs and features of being were abridged 
 into this small yet fuU system of nature and divinity : as we might 
 well imagine that the great Artificer would be more than ordinarily 
 exact in drawing His o\vn picture." — South, vol. i. Serm. ii. See 
 also the long and admirable note in Kalisch, pp. 74 — 78. 
 
 ■■ God speaks eight times by way of mandate to nature or 
 of deliberation with Himself j twice by way of blessing and bene- 
 faction to man. 
 
296 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have domi- 
 nion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the 
 air, and over every living thing that moveth upon 
 the earth." 
 
 And thus the might}" work is crowned and closed, 
 and the twofold evolution of creative activity — the 
 triad of preparation and the triad of plenishment — 
 subsides in a seventh day of Sabbatic calm. "The 
 heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host 
 of them," — their tenantry [ornatus^ supellex) animate 
 or inanimate^, star-peopled space, life-peopled earth, 
 "the round world and all that dwell therein." His 
 plan complete, in both its aspects, "on the seventh 
 da}", God put period to His work*; wherefore" — 
 whether from the creation or at an after time the 
 text is silent — " God blessed the seventh day, and 
 sanctified it, because that in it He rested from all 
 His work which God created and made." 
 
 Xow, waiving for the present all enquiry into the 
 literal time-limits of the creative week, these lessons, 
 as it seems, emerge unforced fi'om the record. That 
 creation did not create itself. That matter is not 
 God's coeval, but His creature and servant. That 
 God only had no- beginning, and that all things else 
 began to be by His will. That the whole universe 
 is one harmonious system, the work of one God ; the 
 projection of His thought, the transcript of His plan. 
 That such plan bore the stamp of a preconceived pro- 
 gress ; and evolved itself in orderly successions, stage 
 after stage, towards a foreseen terminus or goal. That 
 
 ^ Ps. xxiv. 1. 
 
 * Kalisch suggests ^^ had ended his -svork:" MacDonald, p. 310, 
 with better reason, declines the pluperfect, referring to Exod. xxxiy. 
 33, &c. So Calvin, " Quia novas species creare destitii." 
 
THE CREATIVE WEI:K. 297 
 
 all life, vegetable or animal, came iiitu Leiiig, not by 
 the blind operation of natural law, but by acts of 
 divine volition, never put forth capriciously, though 
 '' a law unto itself." That each fonn or t}-pe of life 
 was made "after its kind," and owes its characteristic 
 cndo^vments to creative ordination, not to fortuitous 
 development. That the lower life, in the main, ante- 
 dated the higher; the water -vertebrates and birds 
 preceding the mammalia, the brute mammalia pre- 
 ceding man. That man is not only the latest-born 
 of creatures, but a creature sui generis^ with the advent 
 of whom, so far as this earth is concerned, the work 
 of creation closed, and a new era of divine govern- 
 ment began. That man has not developed into what 
 he is from some bestial type, but holds his prero- 
 gatives as a gift direct from the Almighty. That we 
 owe no worship to nature, and all worship to God. 
 That "it is He that hath made us, and not we our- 
 selves;" and that "in Him we live, and move, and 
 have our being." — Such are the teachings of the 
 "Mosaic cosmogony." They may or may not har- 
 monize with modeiTL science. But it will be instruc- 
 tive, before turning to that test, to place side by side 
 ^-ith them, though in the merest outline, such rival 
 and partially analogous interpretations of the origin 
 and pui-pose of things as have prevailed in ancient, 
 or been influentially put forth even in recent, times. 
 
 II. 
 
 Man, the species, lives. Has he lived for ever? 
 If not, how came he to live at all? How also the 
 myriads of humbler creatures around him? And 
 whence that ordered whole, of sun and sky, and 
 
298 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 earth and sea, so liberally commissioned to minister 
 to his wants, if inexorably dumb to his questionings ? 
 
 Man, the individual, dies. How to make the most 
 of life while it lasts? How best to propitiate the 
 unseen powers that can prolong or cut it short, that 
 can make it at their pleasure a curse or a blessing ? 
 Moreover, is this life the only life? AVhen a man 
 dies, shall he live again ? If so, what can he do here 
 and now, to ensure that it shall be well with him 
 in that great hereafter ? 
 
 Problems these of perennial and imperishable in- 
 terest. As the mist of primeval history begins to 
 clear away, we see the human mind grappling with 
 them, and speculation siu'ging round them, through- 
 out the family of nations from the Ganges to the Nile. 
 K'ot with one set of these questions only, but with 
 both. For they are so interknit that they cannot be 
 parted. A law of life for the individual present, a 
 hope for the individual future, must each repose on 
 a doctrine of the collective human past. All creeds 
 must cast anchor on some scheme of beginnings. 
 Cosmogonies may be sober and sound, or they may 
 be frivolous and foolish. But it was always seen, as 
 it is evident still, that to forego a cosmogony is to 
 dispense with a religion. 
 
 The Hebrews grew into a nation in Egypt, and 
 their great lawgiver was learned in all the wisdom 
 of the Egyptians. Were these, then, his tutors in 
 cosmogony? The Egyptian chaos, we are told, is 
 denoted in ancient hieroglyphics by a confusion of 
 the limbs and parts of various animals "". The future 
 
 t. 3Ios., p. 8. On the Egyptian and other Oriental cos- 
 mogonies, see Diod. Sic., lib. i. 10, «S:c. ; Euseb., Prcepar. Evangel., 
 lib. i. 6, 10, ii. 1 ; Brucker, Hist. Crif. Fhilosoph., torn. i. lib. ii. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. £99 
 
 heavens and earth are a promiscuous pulp. At last 
 the elements begin to separate of their own accord. 
 Fire, being lightest, springs to the upper region ; 
 and air is set in motion next. By the heat of the 
 sun, the earth, plastic and prolific, brought forth mul- 
 titudes of living creatures, even the largest; though 
 afterwards spontaneous generation became enfeebled 
 in its capabilities, and the larger animals could only 
 be perpetuated by propagating themselves *. Accord- 
 ing as the earthy, watery, or fiery principles pre- 
 ponderated in the composition of each animal, it 
 became quadi-uped, fish, or fowl. The first men were 
 
 passim; Egypt's Place in rnivcrsal History, vol. i. pp. 377, &c. ; 
 Xaliscli, pp. 53—60 ; Lyell's Principles of Geology, book i. ch. ii. ; 
 MacDonald, Part i. sect. iv. ; Gibbon, vol. i. cb. viii. ; Quecst. 
 2I0S., passim. 
 
 * "With this ancient concrption may be compared the follo^ving 
 passage from a modern savant: — " L'effei'vescence qui se manifeste 
 dans cette matiere etant en raison do sa masse, plus celle-ci est 
 considerable, plus il en sort de produits et plus ils sont avances en 
 
 organisation D'apres ces considerations, est-il necessaire de 
 
 dire pourqnoi dans nos experiences toujours faites sur une si petite 
 echclle, on no voit apparaitre que de si infimes Protozoaires ? 
 Kos infusions, nos bocaux ne representent guere qu'un point meta- 
 physique dans I'espace en comparaison de ces masses incalculables 
 de matieres organiques qui purent entrer en fermentation apres les 
 grands cataclysmes du globe. Cette idee, qxie les forces productriccs 
 doivcnt etre en raison directe de la masse du substance en action, 
 se presonte naturellcment a I'esprit. Aussi beaucoup d'hommes 
 d'tme intelligence elevee, ainsi que le fait if. Guepin, se sont de- 
 mande si, au lieu de se produire dans un etroit bocal, I'acte gene- 
 sique avait lieu dans un lac echauffe et renfermant d'abondants 
 materiaux organiques, il n'en resulterait pas des etres infiniment 
 plus eleves." — Pouchet, Heterogenie, p. 494. 
 
 Dugald Ste^vart might well observe, (" Dissertation on Progress 
 of Metaphysics,"') " In reflecting on the repeated reproduction of 
 ancient paradoses by modern authors, one is almost tempted to 
 suppose that human invention is limited, like a barrel-organ, to 
 a specific number of tunfs " 
 
300 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 produced in Egypt from the mud of the Xile. Thus, 
 like the lower creatures, man himself seems to have 
 been considered, by at least one of the Egyptian 
 schools, as a hap-hazard birth of the subsiding chaos. 
 Kneph with his potter's wheel, and the tradition of 
 a divine power bringing light out of darkness, shew 
 indeed that worthier conceptions were not unknoAvn 
 to the higher minds of ancient Egypt ^. Yet these 
 did not rescue their cosmogony from the grossest 
 extravagances of polytheism. The creed bore fruit. 
 Incapable of religion, the inferior animals are also 
 incapable of idolatry. Man, abdicating his place at 
 the head of creation, and stooping to worship a brute, 
 falls lower than the brute he worships. It would 
 strike us with amazement to see a dog or an elephant 
 crouching in awe before a calf or a crocodile. Yet 
 conceptions of the Most High from which the beasts 
 have been shielded are the product of perverted cre- 
 dence in man. The ox did not worship the Egyptian ; 
 the Egyptian worshipped the ox. 
 
 But Moses, though brought up in Egypt, was a 
 son of Abraham. Does his cosmogony, then, shew 
 a family likeness to those of Mesopotamia and Syria ? 
 The Chaldseo- Phoenician belief traced all things to 
 darkness and water, — ''a wind of black air, and a 
 chaos dark as Erebus and without bounds ^" In 
 this moved mis-shapen monsters, ruled by a woman 
 named Homoroka, or the Ocean. Bel, or the supreme 
 being, cut this woman in two parts, which became 
 heaven and earth. Then Bel beheaded himself; and 
 the gods, mixing the blood with earth, from this 
 made man. — In the Phoenician myths, wind and chaos 
 produce mot, or slime, and that all things ; or, other- 
 wise, men and all creatures issue from a gigantic qq^^ 
 
 ^ Lyell, chap. ii. ; AlacDonald, p. 50. ' Qnast. Mos., p. 8. 
 
THE CREATIVE ^YEEK. 301 
 
 in which they arc woke to life by a peal of thunder. 
 "With the amplest allowance for the allegorical ele- 
 ment, what could spring from such grotesque deli- 
 neations of the human origin save idolatries as gro- 
 tesque and grovelling as themselves ? 
 
 When we pass to the cosmogonies of India and 
 Persia, Ave exchange the Semitic for the Aryan cycle 
 of tradition. Of this the first and purest embodi- 
 ment is the very ancient hymn fi-om the Rig-Veda^ 
 certainly not later than 1200 B.C. =" : — 
 
 " i?for Aught nor Nought existed ; yon bright sky 
 "Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above. 
 What covered all ? what sheltered ? what concealed ? 
 Was it the water's fathomless abyss? 
 There was not death — yet was there nought immortal : 
 There was no confine betwixt day and night ; 
 The only One breathed breathless by itself, 
 Other than It there nothing since has been. 
 Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled 
 In gloom profound — an ocean without light ; 
 The germ that stiU lay covered in the husk 
 Burst forth, one nature, fi'om the fervent heat. 
 Then first came love upon it, the new spring 
 Of mind — yea, poets in their hearts discerned, 
 Pondering, this bond between created things 
 And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth. 
 Piercing and all-peiwading, or from heaven ? 
 Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose — 
 INatm-e below, and power and will above — 
 "Who knows the secret ? Who proclaimed it here ? 
 Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang ? 
 The gods themselves came later into being — 
 Who knows from whence this great creation sprang ? 
 He from whom all this great creation came. 
 Whether his will created or was mute ? 
 The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven. 
 He knows it — or perchance even He knows not." 
 
 » Translated by a friend of Mr. Max Miiller for his contributioa 
 to Bunsen's " Philosophy of History," vol. ii. p. 136. 
 
302 
 
 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 In a certain lofty simplicity and meditative gran- 
 deur this could scarcely be surpassed, were we to 
 ransack all ancient literature, out of the Bible. Nor 
 are flashes of kindi'ed sublimity wanting in later effu- 
 sions of the Hindoo mind. But these emerge in de- 
 praving alliance with the most fantastic and brain- 
 sick reveries. The Supreme Unknown thinks within 
 Himself, "I will create worlds." Water is then 
 brought into being. From a germ dropped into this 
 ocean is developed the mundane egg. In this Brahma 
 creates himself; and then, moving upon the waters, 
 becomes ancestral creator of all things besides. The 
 sun springs from his eye, the air from his ear, the fire 
 from his mouth. From his mouth, his arm, his thigh, 
 his foot, proceed the founders of the chief Hindoo 
 castes. Further, Brahma divides himself into male and 
 female, whence issues the divine Yiradj, who, dividing 
 himself in like manner, gives birth to Manu ; who in 
 turn creates gods, saints, giants, the celestial bodies, 
 and mankind^. Brahma, having accomplished his 
 task, '' changes the time of energy for the hour of re- 
 pose." He sleeps during 4,320 millions of years, a 
 day of Brahma, at the end of which period the world 
 is destroyed by fire, and has to be created over 
 again. " For there are creations and destructions of 
 worlds innumerable; the Being, supremely exalted, 
 performs all this with as much ease as if in sport, 
 again and again, for the sake of conferring happi- 
 ness." At the end, however, of a hundred years, 
 each consisting of three hundi-ed and sixty days of 
 Brahma, he himself, and all things with him, will 
 cease to exist. 
 
 Hindoo cosmogony, not satiated with these extra- 
 
 " Kalisch, p. 58 ; Lycll, book i. ch. ii. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 303 
 
 vaganccs, developes in monstrosity as it gathers age. 
 Forbearing to trace its lurid contortions, we may 
 tui-n to tlie creed of Zoroaster. In the Zcndavcsia, 
 or Persian Scriptures, the famous doctrine of the Two 
 Principles, or a divine dualism, is propounded as the 
 key to the mysteries of the universe. A Supreme 
 Abstraction, Infinite Time, or Necessity, gives birth to 
 Ormuzd and Ahriman, the deities respectively of light 
 and darkness. In six successive periods, consisting 
 of unequal numbers of days, all together amounting 
 to one year, Ormuzd creates the light, the waters, 
 the earth, the trees, the inferior animals, and man. 
 This is palpably borrowed, with certain emendations, 
 from the Mosaic record. But what is strictly ori- 
 ginal is very significant. All animals spring from 
 a primeval bull. Ormuzd feasts at each creative 
 interval with his heavenly companions. After the 
 good work has been completed, Ahi'iman's malignity 
 " pierces Ormuzd's egg.^^ Prom this all evil ensues. 
 Ormuzd and Ahriman are still struggling for the 
 mastery. But Ormuzd will conquer in the end. 
 
 The poems of Hesiod may be said to form a link 
 between the Oriental cosmogonies and the kindred 
 speculations of the Greek philosophers. Chaos, in the 
 ancient Hellenic myth, is the first -generated of all 
 things. Earth, sprung from Chaos, begets the sky 
 and the ocean; next a superhuman brood of giants 
 and monsters. There are generations of men, more- 
 over, before the introduction of woman ; and woman 
 is depicted as the baneful residt of the rivalry be- 
 tween Zeus and Prometheus ". In the dawn of the 
 philosophic period, Thales and Anaximenes propound 
 water or air as the principle of all things. Anax- 
 agoras first distinctly disparts the idea of God fi'oni 
 = Thcogony, 116— HG; Works and Days, 59— 68. 
 
304 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 matter ^ Aristotle is but the spokesman of all the 
 ancient philosophers, Plato not excepted, in affiiiuing, 
 not\nthstanding, that matter is eteiTial ^ ; and he has 
 but a feeble grasp on its Divine Controller. Xot so 
 the author of the Tmceus, which is, beyond doubt, 
 the most elaborate and representative effort of Greek 
 speculation on cosmical beginnings, and on the mutual 
 relations of Xature and God. To find out the Framer 
 and Father of the universe, Plato teaches, is difficult ; 
 to reveal Him to all men through the ministry of speech 
 is impossible. The cosmos was framed after an eternal 
 pattern or paradigm in the mind of the 3Iaker ; it the 
 goodliest of works. He the best of causes. "Willing 
 all for good, He educed order from chaos. The world 
 is a living and divine thing, strictly one, since it is 
 the expression of one thought of its Ai'chitect. Air 
 and water are mediatorial elements between fire and 
 earth. The cosmos is a sphere, because this is the 
 most perfect of all figures. Sun, moon, and the other 
 five planets were created as markers of time, and 
 placed in seven orbits. The divine ideal desiderated 
 four natures to people the universe — gods, winged 
 creatures, aquatic and terrestrial animals. Creating 
 the gods Himself, the Supreme Artificer constitutes 
 these deputy-creators of the lower orders of being, 
 and retires into His wonted repose ^. Bad men, after 
 death, in the ratio of theii* un worthiness, become 
 women, birds, beasts, or fishes. — Reverence for the 
 gi'eat name of Plato, and recognition of the marvellous 
 insight displayed in portions of this dialogue, espe- 
 cially in its doctrine of the Archetype, need not blind 
 
 ^ Bnicker, torn. i. p. 504. 
 
 * Physics, lib. i. cap. iv. and viii. 
 
 Kai 6 fjifv br] aTravra ravra bidra^as, t^ivtv iv tco iavTov kutu rpuirov 
 
 Tj6ii. Compare Gen. ii. 2. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 305 
 
 US to the fantastic alloy which renders it so con- 
 spicuous a monument of the " follies of the wise." 
 And yet it embodies the highest reach of Greek 
 thought, in the intellectual noon of the nation. 
 
 The Augustan age of Eome supplies poetical inter- 
 preters of other phases of Hellenic speculation. Pan- 
 theism and polytheism find theu' logical goal in the 
 blank unshrinking atheism re-edited with fierce earn- 
 estness by Lucretius : — 
 
 " I^am eerte neque consilio primordia rerum 
 Ordine se suo quceque sagaci mente locanmt ; 
 Nee qiios qua^que darcnt motus pepigere profecto," &c. 
 
 (Bk. V. 420—422.) 
 
 All is force, nothing forethought. Atoms wander- 
 ing in infinite space enter into an infinity of combi- 
 nations in the lapse of infinite time. Chaos yields to 
 order. The particles of matter combine, like allying 
 itself with like. Ether embraces all things avido com- 
 plexu. San and moon appear. Yegetation succeeds. 
 Earth, justly styled on this account Mother, brings 
 forth all sorts of animals. Birds issue from eggs in 
 the genial season of spring. Next are generated beasts 
 and men. This ought to startle no one. Even now, 
 in her old age, the earth can produce small animals 
 spontaneously : she could yield them of any size in 
 her youthful prime. These were nursed in wombs 
 attached to the soil by fibres, — 
 
 " Cresccbant uteri terrse radlcibus apti," — 
 and supplied thence with milk as they were born. 
 Some were monstrous abortions, but only the perfect 
 suiwived. Exhausted with these efi'orts, like a woman 
 past bearing, the earth, on this scale, produces no more. 
 Out of chaos she has not very long ago come ; to chaos 
 she must inevitably repass. Human language differs 
 
306 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 only in degree from the cries of brutes. And death 
 consigns to a common nothingness a brute and a man. 
 In a work of widely different purport, a poet of far 
 inferior calibre to Lucretius becomes the mouthpiece 
 of a worthier reading of creation. No familiarity 
 ought to blunt the perception of the exceeding beauty 
 with which the best results of the unaided thought of 
 ancient times are gathered up in the exordium to the 
 Metamor piloses °. With this we may consider the cycle 
 
 s To tlie non-classical reader a condensed translation may be not 
 unwelcome : — 
 
 " Ere sea and land, the vaulted sky before, 
 The face of things a common aspect wore : 
 Chaos its name — a rugged mass and rude, 
 Inert, incongruous, unformed, and crude ; 
 A lump where lay, in wild disorder blent, 
 Each undistinguishable element. 
 No sun as yet his fiery beams had flung, 
 Is'o horned moon had in the heaven been hung ; 
 1^0 orbed world, to need the glorious pair. 
 Self-poised, was floating in the ambient air ; 
 Nor Amphitrite had spread her arms, and pressed 
 The lands, far-stretching, to her watery breast. 
 All things were jumbled — sea and soil were mixed ; 
 That was unyielding, this nor firm nor fixed : 
 Confusion reigned ; the air, uncharged with light. 
 Left all things warring in unbroken night : 
 Cold, hot, dense, rare, their various powers would prove, 
 And hard with soft, and dry with humid, strove. 
 
 But God and nature bade them cease to jar. 
 And lulled to peace the elemental war : 
 O'er the terrene the arched heaven He spread. 
 And forced the waters to their ample bed ; 
 Educed the firmament, serene and clear, 
 From forth the thick and loaded atmosphere ; 
 And, while He bade the parts asunder roll, 
 In solid concord bound the gorgeous whole. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 307 
 
 of cosmogony in any sense collateral to the Mosaic as 
 closed. True, the proneness to probe beginnings was 
 not exhausted. Cosmogonies are among the latest as 
 among the earliest efforts of the speculative faculty, 
 and co-exist with every stage of thought and culture. 
 Even when faith is not in quest of a resting-place for 
 the sole of her foot, an impulse of a less legitimate 
 kind takes shape in the attempt speculatively to re- 
 create creation. Despite the tutoring of innumerable 
 failures, the human mind is still found guessing and 
 groping in regions where it can only guess, not know, 
 and only grope, not see. Whether the brood of cre- 
 dulity, or the narcotics of scepticism, these efforts are 
 rife in every age. The same decade which witnessed 
 the publication of the Principla welcomed the solemn 
 puerilities of Burnet^; and the contemporaries of 
 
 No-w burst the stars, and bristle o'er the sky ; 
 The world now teems with various tenantry : 
 The fishes glide throughout their ocean home. 
 O'er hill and plain the beasts begin to roam ; 
 "Wtile new-fledged birds to lighter realms repair, 
 And try their pinions on the liquid air. 
 
 A nobler creature, of capacious breast, 
 As yet was wanting to control the rest : 
 See him at last the infant earth adorn, 
 Man, heaven- allied, creation's lord, is born ! 
 While brutes are fashioned prone, with drooping head, 
 And forced to gaze upon the earth they tread. 
 Him gives his Maker port and brow sublime. 
 Him bids look upward on his native clime ; 
 And lift, unfettered by terrestrial bars, 
 Aloft his visage to the sparkling stars !" 
 '' " In this smooth earth were the first scenes of the world, and 
 the first generations of mankind. It had the beauty and youth of 
 blooming nature, fresh and fruitful, and not a wrinkle, scar, or frac- 
 ture in all its body ; no rocks nor mountains, no hollow caves nor 
 gaping channels, but even and uniform all over. And the smoothness 
 
 x2 
 
3o8 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 Cuvier and Owen have lent an ear to the ''Physio- 
 philosophy" of Oken and the kindred romance of the 
 "Yestiges." Theological delusion in our own time, 
 indeed, addicts itself by preference to the end, and 
 leaves the origin of things to its rival. Each does 
 its appropriate work, — the depraving of religion into 
 myth, and the debasing of science into materialism. 
 
 The spirit of special pleading is as abhorrent as 
 it would be injurious to the cause of revealed truth. 
 Let the question then be asked in all candour and 
 calmness, whether any of the cosmogonies now passed 
 in review can be placed on the same platform with 
 the Mosaic record. To deny or depreciate flashings of 
 the mens divinior in the best of them, would be to 
 stamp primeval man as a castaway from the Paternal 
 Providence, unvisited and unblessed by divine whis- 
 perings to the soul. Yet how dense the darkness 
 amidst which that light was flickering I The psalmist 
 of the Veda doubts whether the universe is not too 
 hard a problem for even God. The Eoman poet be- 
 ti'ays the absence of religious insight and earnestness, 
 not only by the conscious intermixture of legend, 
 but by asking, as if in playful bewilderment, which 
 god it was that made man. Plato himseK postulates 
 a plm-ality of sub-creators. The Hindoo conception 
 of periodic renovation is not the sagacious forecasting 
 for which it has been mistaken; since it is simply 
 ebb and flow, and unmeaning repetition, with sheer 
 
 of the earth made the heavens so too ; the aii- was calm and serene, 
 none of those tumultuary motions and conflicts of vapours which the 
 mountains and the winds cause in ours : 'twas suited to a golden 
 age, and to the first innocence of nature," — " The Theory of the 
 Earth, containing an account of the original of the earth and of 
 all the general changes which it hath already undergone, or is to 
 undergo, till the consummation of all things." Book i. chap. vi. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 309 
 
 exhaustion and oblivion as the goal, not progress in 
 a creative plan. These are blots on what is best. To 
 compare the ^Mosaic record with the residuary fable 
 would be to compare the utterances of right reason 
 and profound devoutness with the incoherent mutter- 
 ings of some distempered dream. 
 
 How reticent is that record ! How free fi'om the 
 grotesque flights of an unchastened imagination ! 
 How abstinent from aught that can be stigmatized 
 as a pandering to a childish curiosity or love of the 
 marvellous ' ! Above all, how uniquely clear in the 
 grand basis of all religion — the truth that creation is 
 not self-created ; and that man, its terrestrial climax, 
 
 ' " How does this picture of creation so singularly distinguish 
 itseK above all the fables and traditions of Upper Asia ? By con- 
 nection, simplicity, and truth, ... I thank the philosopher therefore 
 for this bold amputation of monstrous ancient fables." — Herder, Phi. 
 of Hist, of Man, book x. chap. vi. ; see also chap.v. Qucest. JIos., p. 32. 
 "Compared with these rude efforts of the most civilized people to solve 
 the problem of the world's existence, the narrative of the creation in 
 the book of Genesis is remarkable for its sublimity and truth." — 
 Kenrick, Ess. on Prim. Hist., p. 9. "All other cosmogonies are 
 founded on the non-recognition of the existence and life of God in 
 relation to the existence and life of the creature ; hence the idea of 
 emanation, in various modifications, pervades them all, being found 
 in its most spiritual form in the Indian and Persian cosmogonies, 
 and in one more rude and grotesque in the Phoenician, Babylonian, 
 and Egyptian traditions, which suffer hylotheism to appear more 
 plainly. To the idea of a creation out of nothicg no ancient cosmo- 
 gony has ever risen." — Havernick, Introduct. to Pentateuch, pp. 93, 94. 
 "Both systems [Homer's and Hcsiod's] have the defect of exhibit- 
 ing mind as subordinate to matter in the order of mundane de- 
 velopment. Of creation in the higher sense, or the calling into 
 existence of habitable animated worlds, by the fiat of a Supreme 
 Eternal Spirit, out of chaos or nonentity, as in the Mosaic system, 
 neither Hcsiod nor Homer manifests any conception." — Mitre's 
 Crit. Hist, of Lang, and Lit. of An. Greece, book ii. ch. xx. Comp. 
 Bishop Thirlwall's Hist, of Greece, vol. i. ch. vii. 
 
310 THE CREATIVE WEEK 
 
 is the child and charge, not of an unconscious nature, 
 but of the living God ! 
 
 III. 
 
 The author of the Essay on " Mosaic Cosmogony " 
 is at pains to re-impress his readers with the oft- 
 delivered lesson of the comparative insignificance of 
 the earth, and the contrasting magnitude of the uni- 
 verse. Awe-inspiring, and in a sense appalling as the 
 survey is'', no well-regulated Christian mind need 
 shrink from it. Mr. Goodwin challenores us to look 
 the facts in the face. Be it so. The earth is a planet 
 among planets. An inner group of four comparatively 
 small satellites, an outer group of four enormously 
 larger, and a flock of asteroids between, such, with 
 comets unnumbered, and sub-satellites not a few, the 
 known retinue of the sun. The radius vector of the 
 earth nearly 100 millions of miles in length; that 
 of Neptune, the outpost, marking the frontier of 
 the solar system in space, about 3,000 millions ; the 
 earth's diameter to the sun's as 1 to 100 — such the 
 dimensions with which the mind must grapple at 
 the first and lowest stage of this survey. 
 
 The sun is a star among stars. If the earth's dis- 
 tance from that luminary be taken as unity, a parallax 
 of one second represents over 200,000 ^ But no star 
 yields a parallax so large. The nearest, Alpha of the 
 Centaur, gives nine-tenths of a second, Sirius one- 
 fourth, the pole-star scarcely one-tenth"". Sirius there- 
 fore is about a million times farther off than the sun. 
 
 ^ See Mr. Keble's fine lines in Lyra Innocentium, for All Saints. 
 ' Herschel's " Outlines of Astronomy," 4th edition, p. 540. 
 " "Cosmos," Sabine's translation, vol. iii. pp. 186 — 190. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 311 
 
 Light travels to us from the moon in a second, from 
 the sun in eight minutes, from Sirius in fifteen years. 
 Sirius, moreover, is believed to surpass the sun in 
 bulk and brightness as much as Jupiter, seen from 
 an equal distance, would outshine the earth. On the 
 other hand, certain stars which exceed the sun in 
 volume are his inferiors in mass and density". All, 
 however, in a general sense, are bodies of the same 
 order ; and their varying magnitudes, on a sufficient 
 average, are reasonably ascribed to vista. On this 
 principle the dimensions of the Milky Way have been 
 approximately " gauged." The system to which our 
 sun and Sirius belong is conceived to be a stratum or 
 swarm of about eighteen millions of stars ; its shape 
 that of a flattened Y? the sun being near the centre 
 or point of bifurcation °. If the distance of Sirius be 
 as 1, that of a star at any outskirt of the stratum will 
 be as from 200 to 300. Light traverses the diameter 
 of Xeptune's orbit, or spans the solar system, in eight 
 hours. It passes, by any of the three routes, from the 
 centre to the extremities of the Milky Way, in about 
 3,000 years p. 
 
 If certain -vvTiters on astronomy are to be trusted in 
 their diagnosis of celestial space, we must prepare for 
 a third flight into a third order of distances. The 
 Galaxy itself, they tell us, is but a nebula among 
 nebula. Of these nearly 4,000 are abeady cata- 
 
 " Lardner, " The Stellar Tniverse," chap. i. § 35 ; " Plui'ality of 
 Worlds," chap. viii. § 5. 
 
 ° Herschel, p. 537. 
 
 p "Cosmos," Bohns edition, vol. i. p. 72; Herschel, p. 541; 
 Lardner, chap. iii. § 75. The elder Herschel (quoted by Lardner) 
 computes 20,000, the younger 2,000, for the passage of light from 
 the centre to an extrcuiity of the Galaxy. 
 
312 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 loguecl ; and it is often asserted that they are parted 
 from our stellar cluster and from each other by 
 chasms only expressible by light-joui-neys, not of 
 thousands, but of millions of years. Here at last we 
 pause. 
 
 And not too soon ; for we have by this time ex- 
 changed the sure pinions of science for the waxen 
 wings of imagination '^. It is not only unproved, but 
 it has been unanswerably disproved, that any cluster 
 of stars within the field of the telescope is co-ordinate 
 in dimensions or in contents with the Milky Way. 
 Among the cosmical clusters, the Galaxy is as the 
 Australian continent to Polynesia— the mainland of 
 the celestial archipelago. The nebulae are its outliers 
 and suffragans, not its peers and equivalents'. Of 
 many proofs, one. It is a law of optics that the 
 visibility of a luminous object diminishes with the 
 square of increasing distance : the moon three times 
 farther off would yield only a ninth of the light. Place 
 Sii'ius, then, on an outskirt of the Galaxy,— say 300 
 times his present distance, — and his light is enfeebled 
 ninety thousand-fold ; that is, he will be ninety times 
 less visible to the highest power which can be applied 
 to Lord Eosse's telescope, than he is to the naked 
 eye. Place him, however, at the hypothetical distance 
 claimed by some writers for a nebula, — say 1000 times 
 
 1 A scientific friend favonrs me with the following : — " The state- 
 ments current as to the distance of the nebulae are founded on con- 
 jectural estimates, most difladently advanced, by Sir W. Herschel, 
 rather asjeux d' esprit than as even probable results, but which, by 
 dint of repetition, have come to be regarded as almost of equal 
 authority with the numbers relative to the solar system." 
 
 ' See an admirably reasoned article on the nebular hypothesis in 
 the " Westminster Eeview," Xew Series, No. xxvii. Comp. Herschel, 
 pp. 593, 608, 614; also "Plurality of Worlds," chap. vii. § 11. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 313 
 
 more remote than this, — and he becomes ninety million 
 times less visible ! How in that case can he be "re- 
 solved?" — The imiverse of God is vast and awful: 
 its greatness needs no loose exaggeration, no pander- 
 ing to the vulgar appetite for arithmetical hyperbole. 
 But He alone is infinite. Creation, mighty as it is, 
 has limits. It claims no co-infinity with the Creator. 
 Authentic astronomy, overwhelming us by its mea- 
 surements of magnitude and distance, supplies kindred 
 conceptions of cosmical time. In the universe nothing 
 is at rest. The fixed stars are now set free. Among 
 them and along with them, our sun circulates in a 
 track for one revolution in which Madler ' demands no 
 fewer than eighteen millions of years. How often 
 have he and his attendant worlds described this round ? 
 How often may they be destined to describe it again ? 
 To such questionings the only answer is, that as the 
 universe, however vast, is not infinite, so the universe, 
 however ancient, is not eternal. It may be techni- 
 cally true that "neither astronomical nor geological 
 science affects to state anything concerning the first 
 origin of matter*;" yet chemical analysis most cer- 
 tainly points to an origin, and "effectually destroys 
 the idea of an external self-existent matter, by giving 
 to each of its atoms the essential characters, at once, of 
 a manufactured article and a suhordinate agent ^." Before 
 the gi-eat clock was set a-going, there was an anneal- 
 ino- of its materials, and an adjustment of its minutest 
 parts. Law had its seat in " the bosom of God," be- 
 fore it had its expression in the constitution of matter 
 
 > Quoted by Kurtz, "Bible and Astron.," eh. ii. § 16. 
 * Essays and Reviews, p. 218. 
 
 " Sir John Herscbel's "Discourse on tlic Study of Katural 
 Philosophy," § 28. 
 
3M 
 
 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 and in' the mechanism of the heavens. Motion so 
 regulated presupposes manijndation, and therefore a 
 "beginning." Apart, moreover, fi'om the conviction 
 so iiTCsistibly generated by the contemplation of re- 
 condite numerical symmetry'', astronomical phenomena 
 are utterly inexplicable unless we postulate evolution 
 in cycles, however vast and slow; change, however 
 infinitesimal ; a terminus d quo^ however remote, and 
 a terminus ad quem^ however obscure. If we combine 
 the nebular hypothesis with the doctrine of a resisting 
 medium '^, the solar system is now wending through 
 a stage of isolated parts, from a past of vaporous 
 unity to a future of consolidated reunion. It was 
 once all nebula ; it will yet, if left to physical agen- 
 cies, collapse into an exhausted and extinguished 
 sun. That is, all we know of the earth is an interval 
 between ejection from and re-absorption into the 
 parent mass. Now the doctrine of the primitive 
 continuity of matter, with high physical probability 
 
 " " Illustrations of the law of multiple proportions abound. Let 
 the reader take for example the compounds of nitrogen and oxygen, 
 five in number, containing the proportions of the two elements so 
 described that the quantity of one of them shall remain constant : — 
 
 ^■it^ogen. Oxygen. 
 
 Protoxide .... 14-06 8 
 
 Deutoxide . . . 14-06 16 
 
 Hyponitrous acid . . 14-06 24 
 
 Nita-ous acid . . . 14-06 32 
 
 Nitric acid . . . 14-06 40 
 
 It will be seen at a glance, that while the nitrogen remains the same, 
 the quantities of oxygen increase by multiples of 8," &c., &c. — 
 FoiL-nes, Elementary Chemistry, p. 147. 
 
 - Whewell, " Bridgewater Treatise," bk. ii. chap. viii. ; Herschel, 
 pp. 357, 374 ; Comte, " Positive Philosophy," vol. i. p. 206. Comte 
 feels the above difficulties. With the characteristic credulity of 
 unbelief, he predicts that when all the planets are ensepulchred in 
 the sun, the sun will re-expand into a nebula. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 315 
 
 on its side, is perfectly consistent with the enlightened 
 advocacy of final causes. Without a Divine Pilot, 
 how could a mass of nebulosity have steered itself into 
 a solar system or a habitable earth "" ? And yet He, 
 instead of creating, not only each planet, but each 
 wandering fragment of the system, by a distinct fiat 
 of Omnipotence, may have efi'ected the necessary 
 adaptations in concert with the ministry of His own 
 laws. But the nebular hypothesis means " beginniag." 
 Subtract a day, or a thousand billions of years, it 
 signifies not; eternity is left as eternal as ever. If 
 matter is eternal, why then is its appointed race not 
 run ere now ? With eternity to ripen in, why is the 
 earth so newly ripe ? W^ith a resisting medium, why 
 is planetary and even cometary motion still uncon- 
 quered ? With an evolution eternally necessary, why 
 is it still in progress ? There is no refuge from the 
 gripe of these questions save that which unites science 
 to the fii-st sentence of the Bible. The cosmos ori- 
 ginated, not in physical necessity, but in Divine Will. 
 " In the beginning God created the heaven and the 
 earth.'' 
 
 Supposing, however, thus much conceded, — and the 
 critic of "Mosaic Cosmogony" might perhaps readily 
 concede it, — it will still be urged that science and 
 Scripture dictate very different estimates of the im- 
 portance of the earth, — astronomically, "but one of the 
 lesser pendants of a body which is itself only an in- 
 considerable unit in the vast creation-'." And this 
 would be true were physical magnitude the sole 
 
 ^ "^Nlie-vrcU, "Bridgcwater Treatise," bk. ii. chap, vii., and Sedg- 
 ■wick, "Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge," 
 Appendix D. 
 
 y Essays and Reviews, p. 213. 
 
3l6 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 criterion of importance. There are two bars to this 
 surmise. One such consists in the manifest liability 
 to deceptive extension of the principle of final . causes. 
 It is not astronomical science, but a vivacious imagin- 
 ation — not a IN'ewton, but a Fontenelle — that builds 
 earth-resembling worlds in the air. Than unnum- 
 bered masses of dead matter, be it brilliant or opaque, 
 life is intrinsically nobler. Intelligence is intrinsically 
 nobler, in a single example of it, than a universe of 
 brute life. All the stars that surrender to the tele- 
 scope are in themselves less wonderful than the soli- 
 tary looker through ^ Now no analogy can be more pre- 
 carious than that which postulates the co-extension 
 of matter and life. All the laws of vital development 
 that obtain on this planet must be, not modified, but 
 reversed, if there be any life in the sun. The moon 
 can be inspected as if she were 200 miles off; and is 
 plainly a naked mass of volcanic rock, without water, 
 atmosphere, or trace of vegetation. Comets, compared 
 by Kepler to "fishes in the sea" for multitude, may 
 be peopled by the temerity of the human imagination, 
 but not otherwise. The planets, indeed, are in a dif- 
 ferent case; there is a very high presumption that 
 some of these at least are prepared homes for living 
 beings. But there is an enormous and perilous stride 
 from life to intelligence. If winged creatures cleave 
 our co-planetary atmospheres, and fish replenish co- 
 planetary deeps, does it follow that observatories 
 crown the heights of Jupiter, or that navies sweep the 
 seas of Mars ? And yet, in the absence of reason and 
 its creations elsewhere, — and we have not the shadow 
 of a right to assume that there are libraries in Mercury 
 
 ^ Compare Pascal, — "L'homme n'est qu'im roseau . . . mais c'est 
 un Toseau 2}ensant,'" &c. — Fensees, Art. xviii. x. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 317 
 
 any more than that there is a printing-press in the 
 moon, — this earth mnst needs be the prerogative planet 
 of the system. In this there may be physical congruity. 
 The distribution of animal life athwart the globe ap- 
 pears to yield a law, loJiieh there is no reason for sup- 
 posing peculiar to itself of gradual deterioration and 
 ultimate extinction as we recede from a medium tem- 
 perature towards assignable extremes of either heat or 
 cold. To God nothing is impossible. He might sus- 
 tain life amidst the fires of Etna, or around the chillest 
 pinnacle of the Alps. Life, in like manner, mag be 
 unfolded in other regions of the solar system, under 
 physical conditions which are always noxious or fatal 
 to it on the surface of the earth. But analogy, rightly 
 construed, does not favour the surmise. And he who 
 ponders the incompatibility of all terrestrial life with 
 certain terrestrial locations, will pause before, in idol- 
 atry of mere material vastitude, he imposes on the 
 Deity a speculative task, or disparages the noblest of 
 His works that is known to us — the understanding 
 and the soul of man^ 
 
 The plurality of worlds is a subject on which it is 
 
 * The argument of tliis paragraph coincides with that of the 
 " Plurality of Worlds." Coincides — for these sentences and that 
 which is here subjoined were wiitten years ago, before the writer 
 had the slightest inkling that the same considerations had seemed 
 of weight to a master of thought. — " Our planet has been given by 
 our Maker, so far as we can read His laws, and supposing the laws 
 of life to be uniform, the same advantage in space and in relation 
 to other bodies, which an inhabitant of the temperate zone has in 
 reference to the regions," &c. In the same unpublished MS. geo- 
 logical time was insisted on as a counterpoise to astronomical space. 
 Compare " Plurality of ^Yorlds," p. 196. Similar considerations, 
 I find, suggested themselves to Hugh Miller and to the Kcv. Dr. 
 King : "First Impressions of England," chap. xvii. ; " Geology and 
 Eeligion," p. 49. 
 
3l8 THE CREATIVE WEEK, 
 
 not prudent to dogmatize either way. That the uni- 
 verse is a lifeless desert, would be a doctrine loaded 
 with improbabilities of which no ingenuity could get 
 rid. But it would be quite as extravagant to insist 
 that all space is swarming with duplicates of the globe 
 we inhabit. We have no right to ask, Why, then, 
 were they made ? To what purpose is this waste ? is 
 an objection which will only appear of force to those 
 who overlook the disproportion between life potential 
 and life actual, and forget that Prospective Adjustment, 
 though one law of divine workmanship, has Symme- 
 trical Eepetition for its colleague ^. Who shall assure 
 us that all suns, even double suns, have planets ? Or 
 that all planets are habitable, while it is certain that 
 the only celestial body which can be closely scrutinized 
 is "desolate and void?" Still more, who shall pre- 
 dicate from the probable or possible diffusion of life, 
 across inaccessible areas of the universe, the necessary 
 co-presence of reason and mind ? 
 
 For reason, be it remembered, is but of yesterday 
 on the earth ; and it may be with millions of bodies in 
 space, even supposing them inhabited, as it was with 
 the earth for millions of years in time. Civilization 
 has no monument five thousand years old, the age of 
 some still living trees. For the tertiary strata alone, 
 Mr. Darwin demands three huiidred millions, which 
 implies his belief that ten times the period is far too 
 narrow a reckoning for the entire sedimentary series. 
 But even the least fanciful geologist will concede that 
 not fewer than one million centuries parts the age of 
 granite from the age of man''. So long, at the least, 
 
 '' e.g. the female breast was meant for suckling, but of wbat use 
 the paps in the male ? 
 
 ' Phillips, " Life on the Earth," p. 126. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 319 
 
 was the earth a-ripenmg; who shall say, a-being 
 wasted ? So long, ere she was freighted with a thinker 
 or a worshipper, or had become the domicile of man 
 and his marvels, our planet performed her rounds as 
 punctually and perfectly as she does to-day. In pre- 
 sence of this fact, how precarious the taunt, and how 
 inconsiderate the sneer, which parades physical bulk as 
 the iofallible index whether of created dignity or of 
 creative regards ^ ! As if the earth, when she first re- 
 ceived a rational inhabitant, did not thereby become 
 a value in the universe which would neither have been 
 impaired nor augmented had she shrunk that instant 
 to the dimensions of Mercury, or expanded that in- 
 stant to the girth of Sirius. 
 
 "Were all that has been so eloquently imagined 
 proved; were it to be admitted, not only with due 
 reserve, but with the largest licence claimed by the 
 most fervent and fertile fancy, that the luminaries of 
 midnight were not, even to that reckoning, '' created 
 in vain," or " called into existence for no other pur- 
 pose than to throw a tide of useless splendour over the 
 solitudes of immensity*," — we might with bold front 
 and sure footing remind the sceptic that if the universe 
 was not too great for God to make, no part of it can 
 be too little for God to care for ; and track his faith- 
 lessness to its source in a tacit transference of his own 
 short-sightedness to the All-Seeing, and his own weak- 
 ness to the Almighty. It might be added that any 
 revelation, to be of use to mankind, must treat the sys- 
 tem of things as it is in our perspective, putting in the 
 foreground what is of concernment to us, and leaving 
 
 <• " Shall we rioasure grace by cubic miles, and God's love by tlie 
 size of the fixed stars?" — Kurtz, p. 83. 
 
 « Dr. Chalmers, "Astronomical Discourses." 
 
320 
 
 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 the outer universe among the secrets of Omniscience ; 
 fulfilling its aim if it tell us with sublime brevity 
 that there are not two, or ten, or ten thousand crea- 
 tors, but that He who made our great lights of sun and 
 moon enkindled all lights in the spangled space, and 
 " made the stars also." And such vindication would 
 be' sound, such reassurance sufficient. Yet it is not 
 all. We owe allegiance to science, but none to ro- 
 mance masquerading in scientific costume. Xow if 
 astronomy supplies a survey of space, geology yields 
 an inquest of time. And this latter, by opposing the 
 twin immensity of past duration to the vastness of 
 the starry universe, contributes a salutary and invin- 
 cible check to gratuitous guess-work in the garb of 
 philosophy. Who shall tell us that wherever matter 
 is life must be, with the moon a naked desert ? Who 
 shall tell us that where life is there must also be 
 reason and moral responsibility, with the certainty 
 confronting him that this earth has been ten thou- 
 sand years the abode exclusively of brutes, for one 
 that it has been the home of man ? 
 
 Geology, like astronomy, though with still more 
 peremptory grasp, leads us back to a beginning. Its 
 bulging equator and flattened poles, its pavement of 
 congealed lava, which we name granite, nay, the oldest 
 water-woven carpetinrj of that pavement composed of 
 the detritus of the igneous rocks, all attest the emerg- 
 ence of our planet from a primitive temperature and 
 a crisis of forces in which no life could subsist. At 
 a low estimate, as we have seen, a million centuries 
 intervene between that period and the present. Which 
 interval, whatever its length, forms a chronicle of the 
 genesis of life, the procession of the types of life, and 
 the advent of man. I^ow what, in brief epitome, on 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 321 
 
 these absorbing subjects, has the record of the rocks 
 to tell? 
 
 Eesting on the primitive crust of the globe, and 
 stretching upwards through a thickness of tens of 
 thousands of feet to the old red sandstone, are sedi- 
 mentary strata, — Silurian, Cambrian, Laurentian, — 
 which it may be convenient to group as the suh- 
 Devonian series. In the upper segments of this vast 
 cumulation life abounds ; in the lower it fades away 
 to zero. To reach, save approximately, the absolute 
 life-limit, science can scarcely hope : enough that a 
 region has been reached where life is findahle but not 
 foimdK So soon as it appears at all^, life presents it- 
 self in three of the four familiar types; to whi h, ere 
 the Silurian system closes, the vertebrate is added. 
 Under the lower garb of fish, this takes possession of 
 the waters throughout the old red, carboniferous, and 
 permian systems, on to the end of the palaeozoic pe- 
 riod : throughout the entire mesozoic period, it is do- 
 minant under the higher though continuous garb of 
 gigantic reptiles — as also of birds — both on land 
 and sea. Faintly and feebly represented during these 
 " middle ages," the mammalia start into strength and 
 supremacy with the dawn of tertiary or csenozoic time. 
 The emergence of all new species has ceased ere 
 man, in the latest portion of this latest period, him- 
 self appears. 
 
 Thus the crust of the earth is a chronicle in five 
 zones. The history is that of creative ascent from 
 dead matter to life ; from invertebrate life to that of 
 
 f See Sir Roderick Murchison's great work on " Siluria," p. 20; 
 "Life on the Earth." pp. 68, 214; "Footprints of the Creator," 
 pp. 216—220; and Ansted, " The Ancient World," imssim. 
 
 e " Life on the Earth," p. 71. 
 
 Y 
 
32 2 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 the back-bone ; from the life of the back-bone, in the 
 fish-reptile series, to that of the breast; and lastly, 
 from the life of the breast to that of the plenarily- 
 endowed brain. Between the exterior zones, azoic and 
 anthropozoic, lie three intermediate brute zones, the 
 sub-vertebrate, vertebrate, and mammiferous. That 
 a tincture of vertebrate life is detected in Siluria, or 
 a subdued prophecy of mammalian life in the mesozoic 
 rocks, signifies not. The fades of each period is un- 
 mistakeable. In Siluria, a vertebrate fossil is a strag- 
 gler and a stranger : the Silurian fish is the mere 
 vanguard of that innumerable host which crowds the 
 ocean for ever after from pole to pole. Just so the 
 few and feeble pioneer mammalia do not give charac- 
 ter to the secondary formations : only in the tcrtiaries 
 do they appear in strength. Geology must be, not 
 extended, but revolutionized, before this generalization 
 can be upset. For it checks the less secure though 
 consistent indications of land-life by the cogent and 
 copious criteria of the life of the sea^. 
 
 Can dead matter, of its own accord, become alive ? 
 Can an invertebrate animal improve itself into a fish ? 
 Can a bird, or a reptile, never suckled itself, improvise 
 an apparatus for suckling its offspring ? Finally, can 
 the mere brute burst the bonds of instinct ; struggle 
 into the capacity of abstract thought, and its rational 
 expression, language ; fall down on its knees and 
 pra?j ; and pass either per saltiim or by slow degrees 
 the gulf that parts the simian from the human brain ? 
 If these questions, one and all, must be met by a 
 peremptory negative, the strata of the earth are the 
 register of divine acts strictly creative and super- 
 natural ; each marking a step in an ordered progress 
 ^ Owen, " PalfEontology," pp. 408—410. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 323 
 
 culminating at last in man. Of him all lower crea- 
 tion propliesies ; to him all lower creation tends. The 
 vertebrate structure is the endowment of life with 
 power : the mammalian function superadds love. But 
 the plenary development of neither is possible till 
 wisdom is bestowed through the human brain \ Thus 
 the evolution of ancient nature, thi-ough phases that 
 are perplexing only because they are preliminary and 
 partial, steadily converges towards its sublime pur- 
 pose—the manifesting of God, All- Wise, All-Loving, 
 Almighty. Each act of the long di'ama contributes 
 to the result, though the enigma is not unravelled till 
 the whole is seen. The dynasty of the lower verte- 
 brate, and the dynasty of the mammal, await their 
 explanation in the master- creature who succeeds to 
 both. The rocks, therefore, which are the monument 
 of a "high and ancient order," are also the receptacle 
 of a natural revelation. Palceontology, like the Mosaic 
 cosmogony, lead>s up to its "image of God." It lays 
 its finger on a starting-point of which it perceives man 
 to be the goaP. Till man is made, there are many 
 creatures to make ; the vegetable and animal life that 
 is summoned into being in the latest tertiary ages has 
 evidently a special relation to his wants : but when 
 he is made, God creates no more. 
 
 Xature is a scheme, or it is an accident. It is an 
 evolution foreseen, controlled, and piloted throughout 
 by Divine thought and will, or it is hap-hazard de- 
 velopment of unconscious force. To the latter doc- 
 trine the rocky archives are in changeless antagonism. 
 
 ' "The Three Barriers," (Oxford, J. H. and J. Parker, 1861,) 
 pp. 88—94. 
 
 " See the profound and splendid concluding pages of Owen, " On 
 the Nature of Limbs." 
 
 t2 
 
324 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 Life had its bef^innins;. How ? All life that we 
 know oi presupposes life^ : even were its microscopic 
 forms producible ft-om a " corps putrescible," whence 
 that " corps™?" Again, life has its gradations. A lower 
 animal cannot create itself into a higher animal. 
 Tlu'onghout the geologic seons, there is indeed most 
 clearly an " ascent in the main"" ; " a passing fi'om 
 simpler to more specialized embodiments of the crea- 
 tive archetype. But this is a process effected for the 
 creature, not b^ it. Transmutation of species, un- 
 known to human experience, is equally unknown to 
 geology. Type after type appears and disappears ; 
 but none melts into a something not itself. Each 
 creature, throughout the long succession, comes in as 
 it goes out, and goes out as it came in. When we 
 concentrate attention on the cardinal transitions, the 
 proof becomes overwhelming. If, by the operation of 
 natural law, a sub-vertebrate could produce a ver- 
 tebrate, or a reptile a mammal, in the old periods of 
 the earth, why not now ? Law cannot be supposed 
 
 1 The -^ords of Cuvier are very weighty : — "La vie en general 
 suppose done I'organisation en general, et la vie propre de chaque 
 etre suppose I'organisation propre de cet etre, comme la marche 
 d'une horloge suppose I'horloge ; aussi ne voyons-nous la vie que 
 dans des etres tout organises et faits pour en jouir; et tons les 
 efforts des physiciens n'ont pu encore nous nionti-e la matiere 
 s'organisant, soit d'elle-meme, soit pour une cause exterieure 
 quolconque. En effet, la vie exergant sur les elemens qui font 
 a chaque instant partie du corps vivant, et sur cexix qu' elle y 
 attire, une action contraire a ce que produiraient sans elle les af- 
 finites chimiques ordinaires, il repugne quelle puisse ^tre elle-meme 
 produite par ces affinites, et cependant Ton ne connait dans la nature 
 aucune autre force capable de reunir des molecules auparavaut 
 separees." — Cuvier, Le Begne Animal; Introduction, p. 17. 
 
 m " The Three Barriers," p. 160. 
 
 " Owen, "Palaeontology," p. 411. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 325 
 
 conscious of the superfluity of its own action, or 
 cognizant of the critical moment when to stop. For 
 the facts of geology there is therefore but one solution, 
 — the periodical exertion of supernatural power. 
 
 To such intervention is it specially necessary to 
 refer the origin of the human race. Between man 
 and all lower existence thbre stretches a chasm defined 
 by what may be called the language-generating brain. 
 On a centigrade scale of cerebral development, all 
 values of the human organ shade into each other from 
 one hundred downwards to seventy-five; while all 
 values of the bmte brain, from the fish to the ape, 
 range upwards in close sequence from zero to about 
 thirty. At both ends of the scale, therefore, the two 
 orders of endowment pass through the assigned range 
 by every, or almost eveiy, shade of transition. But 
 there is no hridging hrain letiveen. Bounded by cerebral 
 tropics lies a huge zone vacant, nearly equal to hoth the 
 outlving ranges above and below. Even the most ab- 
 normally low individual human brain and the most 
 abnormally high individual brute brain leave two- 
 thirds of its normal compass unspanned. "SMieuce 
 this prodigious chasm? Connecting it, as we must 
 needs do, with the perfect hand and the erect atti- 
 tude, there could be no more signal monument of the 
 interposal of the Creator °. 
 
 ° "But admitting the foregoing evidence, freely recognising the 
 greatness of its cumulative force, and proceeding to the conclusion 
 to which it leads, we still find ourselves on the shore of a vast and 
 seeming! I) impassable ^m 7/ separating the highest of the quadrumana 
 from the lowest forms of man. ... The wide chasm in cerebral de- 
 velopment still remains; and, considered in conjunction with the 
 fact that, so far as we know, man alone possesses the gift of speech, 
 compels us to confess that the genesis of manTcind is a mystery 
 
326 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 " The holy gift of speech p," as it has been aptly 
 called, is to all men common, to man strictly peculiar. 
 Like the parent prerogative of which it is the sign 
 and the satellite, this endowment secludes mankind 
 as of one blood and one brotherhood, between which 
 and the very highest of the manco-cerebral mammalia 
 '' a great gulf is fixed 1." Moreover, it constitutes an 
 instrument of discovery, and bestows a power of asso- 
 
 w1iich,for tlie 'present at least, science is powerless to penetrate." 
 — Westminster Review, No. xxxiv. Ai't. vi. 
 
 p Wiseman, " Connection between Science and Eevealed Religion." 
 '» " Language is our llnbicon. ... No process of natural selection 
 will ever distil significant words out of the notes of birds or the 
 cries of beasts. In Greek, language is logos ; but logos means also 
 reason, and alogon was chosen as the name, and the most proper 
 name, for brute. No animal thinks, and no animal speaks, except 
 man. ... To think is to speak low ; to speak is to think aloud. . . . 
 That faculty [articulate expression of rational conceptions] was not 
 of his own malcing. . . . The science of language thus leads us up to 
 that highest summit from whence we see into the dawn of man's 
 life on earth ; and where the words which we have heard so often 
 from the days of our childhood, — ' And the whole earth was of one 
 language and of one speech,' — assume a meaning more natiu-al, more 
 intelligible, and more convincing than they ever had before." — 
 Max Miiller, Lect. on Science of Language, pp. 340 — 377. 
 
 Compare the fine passage of St. Ambrose : — " Erigit bucula ad 
 ccelum oculos, sed quid spectet, ignorat. Erigunt ferse, erigunt 
 aves : omnibus est liber aspectus, sed soli inest homini eorum cpace 
 aspicit affectus interpres. . . . Audiunt quoque animantes caeteraB, 
 sed quis praeter hominem audiendo cognoscit ? . . . Hoc est precio- 
 sissimum, quod homo divinse vocis sit organum," &c. — Hexaenieron, 
 lib. vi. cap. ix. Among patristic expositors of the Hexameron, 
 St. Basil must rank far below the great Latin Fathers. Of recent 
 works on the early chapters of Genesis, one of the most valuable is 
 " Discourses on the Fall and its Eesults," by Dr. Hannah, Warden 
 of Trinity College, Glenalmond, Perthshire. See especially as cor- 
 rective of "Essays and RcAriews," p. 221, the discourse on the 
 " Image of God in Man." 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 327 
 
 elation, ancillary to the dominion divinely delegated 
 to the master-tenant of the world. 
 
 Cnrsory as this review has necessarily been, it may 
 in some degree assist the reader in the task of collating 
 with the teachings of modern science the group of 
 ancient cosmogonies, in the first instance, and the 
 Mosaic record in the second. From that fiery ordeal, 
 how much, say of the Timceiis^ escapes unscathed? 
 And what harm has happened to the Scripture ? One 
 point reserved, though not forgotten or evaded, which 
 lesson, of all those our exegesis yielded, have we got 
 to unlearn? Astronomy indeed teaches us that the' 
 universe is inconceivably vast, and geology that the 
 earth is immensely old. But does the majesty of 
 the Scripture collapse under the new burden of signi- 
 ficance it has to bear ? True, modern science expands 
 and educates our apprehension of Almighty power. 
 But does it displace or disturb the conception already 
 imbibed from that ancient and reverend record ? Does 
 it limit the power which spake all things into being ? 
 Does it teach us of any time when God was not, or 
 give us a lower idea of His duration than this, that He 
 '' inhabits eternity ?" When the elder Herschel shut 
 up his telescope after sounding the Galaxy through 
 and through into the starless space beyond, did he find 
 nobler language for the celestial revelation than " God 
 said. Let there be light ! And there was light. ... He 
 made the stars also?" When the inquisitors of the 
 earth's strata return from their perusal of those cham- 
 bers of imagery where the animal dead of uncounted 
 ages lie sealed in stone, have they acquired any know- 
 ledge of the creative archetype, and fore-ordained suc- 
 cession of forms, which does not readily fall into the 
 
328 THE CREATIVE \YEEK. 
 
 mould proyidecl iu the ^^'itten ■\Vord'' ? " Inspiration," 
 indeed, "is not omniscience." Moses did not know 
 the universe as its Maker knew it. But the thing 
 hypothetically required is not the miraculous anti- 
 cipation of scientific range of research, or the reveal- 
 ing of such knowledge before its time, but such an 
 influence of the Divine Spirit on the mind of the 
 writer as should ensure that, when the hiowledge came^ 
 the general dignity, congniity, and religious impres- 
 siveness of the lesson should suffer no harm from the 
 advent of such knowledge. This is all which, on any 
 sober or reasonable theory of inspii-ation, we have 
 a right to expect. And this we have. True insight 
 into the meaning and method of the extant creation is 
 not falsified, though it is extended, by the unveiling 
 of the past. Insight into the geological past it is 
 unnecessary to suppose that the inspired penman 
 either needed or had given him. Enough if the Bible 
 opens with a divinely illuminated survey of creation 
 such as readily assimilates the results of that research 
 it was never meant to supersede or forestall ; perfect, 
 in scientific as in earlier ages, to all spiritual intents 
 and purposes ; so imbued with religious grandeur that 
 it can never be supplanted in its own proper sphere ; 
 so far before its time in this respect that it is of all 
 time, and leads us upward from the limitations of even 
 a prophet's thought to the presiding and over-ruling 
 influence of that AVisdom "known to Whom are all His 
 
 ' " Ejiciant aquje reptilia, et volatilia voJautia," (Gen. i. 20). 
 By comparing " Palaeontology," p. 198, on the " artificiality of the 
 supposed class-distinction between fishes and reptiles," with " Essays 
 and Reviews," p. 239, it will be seen that Professor Owen coincides 
 ■with Moses, though he differs from Mr. Goodwin. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 329 
 
 works from the beginning of the world." In the esti- 
 mate of the most encyclopcedlc scientific mind of this 
 century, one psahn, the 104th, " represents the image 
 of the whole cosmos'." Yet what is the first of Gene- 
 sis but the mother-psalm of which the 104th, sec- 
 tion by section, is the daughter, the antiphone, and 
 the echo ? 
 
 lY. 
 
 Of the old Yedic Hymn (p. 304) 3Ir. Max Miiller 
 remarks, "Prose was at that time unknown, as well 
 as the distinction between prose and poetry*." By 
 what epithet shall we designate the Mosaic hepta- 
 meron ? Sceptics call it a myth ; or else, more mildly, 
 the speculation of an ancient sage. ^lost Christians 
 speak of it as a history or narrative. Hitherto, de- 
 clining either of these terms, we have been styling it 
 somewhat vaguely a "record." The author of an able 
 and learned reply to Mr. Goodwin, written in a most 
 reverential spirit, has come to the conclusion that it 
 is a " parable"." Others suggest that it is a " vision ''." 
 
 ' Humboldt adds, " We are astonished to find in a lyrical poem 
 of sucli limited cumpass the whole universe — the heavens and the 
 earth — sketched with a few hold touches. The contrast of the 
 labour of man with the animal life of nature, and the image of 
 Omnipresent In\ isible Power, renewing the earth at will or sweep- 
 ing it of inhabitants, is a gi-and and solemn poetical creation." — 
 Cosmos, vol. ii. part i. 
 
 * Bunsen, " Philos. of Univ. Hist.," vol. ii. p. 136. Compare 
 that most interesting concluding chapter of Mr. Miillcr's " Hist, uf 
 Ancient Sanskrit Literature." 
 
 •» Mr. Huxtable, "The Sacred Record of Creation Vindicated 
 and Explained." 
 
 * Kurtz, "Bible and Astron.," ch. i., iii. ; Hugh Miller, "Tes- 
 timony of the Bucks;" also " Mosaic Becord in Harmony with the 
 Gcoloirical." 
 
33© THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 One gentleman considers it an account of " plan" as 
 distinguished from fulfilment ^. We venture to think 
 none of these descriptions satisfactory. The Book of 
 Genesis opens with the inspired Psal:m of Creation. 
 
 On so transparent a gloss as the " vision" -scheme, 
 words would only be wasted. Xor will many believe 
 that creation as an idea is the thing intended, so long 
 as the plainest of plain language assures them that the 
 thing intended is creation as a fact. "Parable" has 
 a certain propriety when applied to a single accessory 
 of the record ; but it cannot for one moment be ac- 
 cepted as a feasible designation for the 1st of Genesis 
 as a whole. On the hypothesis that we have to do 
 with an ordinary prose narrative, chronicle, or diary, 
 there immediately emerges the great difficulty of the 
 " days." With this it is not too much to say that no 
 ingenuity has as yet grappled successfully. The choice 
 lies between the Chalmerian interpolation of the geo- 
 logical ages before the first day begins, and the 
 Cuvierian expansion of the six days into geological 
 ages. For these solutions respectively. Dr. Buckland 
 and Hugh Miller have each done their best ; and more 
 skilful and accomplished advocacy could not be found^ 
 
 y Professor Challis, " Creation in Plan and in Progress." 
 ^ Among the followers of Buckland, with, certain modifications, 
 are Dr. Pye Smith, " Eclation between Scripture and Geological 
 Science;" Hitchcock, " Eeliglon of Geology;" Crofton, "Genesis 
 and Geology ;" and, so far as they commit themselves, Archdeacon 
 Pratt, " Scripture and Science not at Yariaace ;" Gloag, " Primeval 
 World." Miller's ablest ally is MacDonald, " Creation and the 
 Fall;" and on the same side are Silliman, " "Wonders of the Earth 
 and Truths of the Bible;" Gaussen, "The World's Birthday;" 
 Sime, "Mosaic Eecord in Harmony with the Geological;" McCaus- 
 land, " Sermons in Stones ;" and McCaul, " Notes on Genesis." The 
 Biu-uet Prize Essay of furty-five years ago, "Eec^rds of Crea- 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 33 1 
 
 Bat the arguments which compelled Ilugh Miller to 
 abandon the older method have not been answered. 
 K'or is his own scheme free from the gravest diffi- 
 culties. AYho can bring himself to believe, for ex- 
 ample, that when the sacred writer speaks of trees 
 laden for human nse with seed-enclosing fruit, he 
 could have had in his mind, or could have so de- 
 scribed, the gymnogenous flora of the coal-measures ? 
 
 Certain writers evade embarrassment by declining 
 to elect among the competing "reconciliations." It 
 is enough, they suggest, that some one of them may 
 be sonnd, although it is inconvenient to become re- 
 sponsible for any of them; or they allege that the 
 record was not intended to do what it expressly nnder- 
 takes and professes to do ; or, otherwise, that the time 
 is not come for a comparison between Scripture and 
 geology, since there are points on which geologists are 
 not agreed among themselves ^ All this is but a mani- 
 
 tion," by the present Archbishop of Canterbury, although one of 
 the four works which compose collectively the most valuable con- 
 tribution to the theistic argument since Paley, (Dr. Whewcll's 
 "Bridgwater Treatise," Hugh Miller's "Footprints of the Creator," 
 and Principal Tulloch's " Theism" being the others,) was written 
 long before the data for a decision had been reached. 
 
 » This multiform fallacy of evasion, brushed away by Hugh 
 Miller both in " First Impressions of England" and in " Testimony 
 of the Rocks," is exemplified in Buckland, pp. 12, 33; Archdeacon 
 Pratt, p. 34; King, " Geology and Religion," p. 44 ; Gloag, p. 1 10 ; 
 and Buchanan, "Essays and Reviews Examined," pp. 128, 131. 
 Dr. Chalmers himself, in his private con-espondence, betrays a similar 
 hesitance, by speaking of " yet another way of saving the credit of 
 the record." It no doulit escaped this givat and good man that his 
 own "way" brought liim into direct collision -vWth the "Shorter 
 Catechism," which asserts that God's work of creation consists in 
 His "making all things out of nothing, in tlie space of six days,'' 
 — not millions of years before ihcjirst day dawned. 
 
332 
 
 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 festation of anxiety to snatch a cherished dogma from 
 a dreaded foe^. Were the panic well-founded, the 
 belief indebted to such expedients would be only 
 screened, not saved. The combat would indeed be 
 averted, but the enemy would remain master of the 
 field. 
 
 Mr. Goodmn cannot be blamed for chastising pal- 
 pable subterfuges. "Without a sun," it has been 
 observed, "morning and evening are inconceivable to 
 all, save commentators, and they have made the matter 
 very clear to us"." If well-meaning harmonizers will 
 lay themselves open to sarcasm, they must take the 
 consequences. Satire will not spare writers who 
 trench, however imwittingly, on the ludicrous, when, 
 under the abused oegis of the "Plurality of Worlds," 
 they identify the planet Jupiter with " the waters that 
 are above the firmament;" or figure Moses as sur- 
 prised into the ejaculation, " The great Tanninim I" 
 as he descries in cosmoramic trance the saurian mon- 
 sters of the Oolite '\ The worst (i/^service to the cause 
 of divine truth is that contributed by contorted science 
 and sophistic exegesis ^ Mr. Goodwin exemplifies, 
 however, the opposite pole of prejudice. Why make 
 
 '• " The doubt and perplexity which they affect do not exist : 
 both the principles of the natural sciences and of Biblical exegesis 
 are certain beyond dispute." — Kalisch, p. 52. 
 
 « QuaBst. Mas., p. 14. 
 
 '' The curious reader may collate " Harmony of Mosaic with 
 Geological Eecord," (Constable, 1854,) p. 98, with the lively and 
 ingenious pictorial restorations in Mr. Page's "Life of the Globe," 
 (Blackwood, 1861,) p. 137, if he wishes to appreciate the "vision." 
 
 « Eor example: — "Before sin entered, there could be no violent 
 deaths, if any death at all. But by the particular structure of the 
 teeth of animals, God prepared them for that kind of aliment which 
 they were to subsist on aflci- the fall ' ! — AJjjii Clarke on Gen. i. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 333 
 
 difficulties Aviiere there are none? Why gratuitously 
 degrade ''Spirit" into "wind," converting the image 
 of divine love and energy into an agitation of the air^ ? 
 Or why try to tear from raUa its true equivalent of 
 expanse^ ? Or why refuse to allow for the essentially 
 figurative character of all words descriptive of celestial 
 space and its aspects, in order to fasten an incredible 
 puerility of conception on the "Ilebrew Descartes or 
 Newton ?" Mr. Goodwin ought to caution the readers 
 of Shelley, in case "build ujd the blue dome of air" 
 should suggest delusive reminiscences of the dome of 
 St. Paul's. Uni-verse ought to be banished from his 
 vocabulary, as implying the diurnal revolution of the 
 fixed stars in a frame or "firmament." And it might 
 obviate disappointment were he to drop a warning that 
 we need not look for milk in the Galaxy. 
 
 Enough, whether of quibbles or of makeshifts. 
 "Wlien we consider the pervading parallelism ; the 
 rhythmic refrain*" — " the evening and the morning ;" 
 
 ' " Quod nonnulli ventum intclligunt, adco frigidum est ut refu- 
 tatione nulla indigeat." — Calvin, in loc. " Spiritus incuhahat : in- 
 star avis, qnse incubando ovis, ilia fovet," &c. — Piscator, in loc. 
 Compare Vedic Hymn, p. 301. 
 
 e Long before the days of "reconciliations" Calvin wi'ote, — 
 " Nescio cm' Grsecis placiierit vertere a-Teptoifxa, quod in fii-mamenti 
 nomine imitati sunt Latini : ad verbum enim est expansio." So 
 Tremellius and Junius, followed by Piscator, render expansum. 
 Compare " spreadest out the heavens like a curtain^'' Ps. civ. 2; 
 and sec previous note, p. 290. 
 
 >> Compare the refrain in the fine Vedic hymns (circa l.c. 1000) 
 translated by Mr. Max MiiUer, " Hist, of Ancient Sanskrit Lite- 
 rature," pp. 540, 569. "Yaruna" is oi^pai/os : — 
 
 " Let me not yet, Varuna, enter into the house of clay : 
 Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! 
 If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind : 
 
 Have mei'cy. Almighty, have mercy ! 
 ****** 
 
334 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 the periodic fiat — " Let there be light, a water-parting 
 firmament, land, plants : lights in the firmament, life 
 in the waters, life on the land, Man ;" the punctual 
 fulfilment — " It was so ;" the retrospect — " God saw 
 that it was good ;" — the chief wonder is how it ever 
 was possible to exact from the oldest and sublimest 
 poem in the world the attributes of narrative prose. 
 Yet our surprise abates, not only when we reflect that 
 the error entailed, till these later times, rather a lite- 
 rary than a religious loss, but also when we call to 
 mind how long a similar mask disguised the architec- 
 ture of entire books of the Old Testament, and ob- 
 scured the plenary significance of large sections even 
 of the New. Bishop Jebb belongs to this century. 
 Bishop Lowth to the last ; yet how much, in this field 
 of hermeneutic, is due to these two names ! If a veil 
 was lifted so recently from the face of David or 
 Isaiah, are we to marvel if a veil has lain on the face 
 of Moses? Even some eighty years ago, however, 
 a striking indication of the true affinities of the com- 
 
 Whenevcr, Yariina, we commit an offence : 
 Whenever we break tliy law through thoughtlessness : 
 Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy ! 
 
 ' In the beginning there arose the Source of golden light : 
 He was the only born lord of all that is : 
 He established the earth and this sky : 
 
 "Wlio is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? 
 He who gives life, He who gives strength : 
 '\\Tiose blessing all the bright gods desire : 
 "WTiose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death : 
 
 '\\"ho is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? 
 « * 4i * « * 
 
 ]\Iay He not destroy us — He the Creator of the earth : 
 He, the righteous, who created the heavens : 
 He who also created the bright and mighty waters : 
 
 "Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ?" 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 335 
 
 position was furnished in a book well known in Scot- 
 land as the "Assembly's Paraphrases." The idea 
 was to provide metrical versions of portions of Scrip- 
 ture most closely akin to the Psalms. Of the thirty- 
 two Old Testament selections, one, " God of Bethel," 
 is a hymn; thirty-one are, in the strict sense, para- 
 phrases. Of these, thirty are based on the poetical 
 books, — Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Prophets. 
 The solitary outsider, linking like with like, has for 
 pedestal the \st of Genesis. 
 
 Xone will dispute the presence of parallelism in the 
 Lord's Prayer, — such parallelism as is proper to prayer, 
 or psalm, or parable, or prophecy, or impassioned dis- 
 course, but is not proper to historical narrative. Yet 
 how closely homologous in structure is the Mosaic 
 hcptameron: — 
 
 Our Father, -wliicli ai't in hea- In the beginning God created 
 
 vcn : the heaven and the earth : 
 
 Hiy Xame be hallo-n-ed : Let there be light : 
 
 Thy kingdom come : Let there be Vi firmament, &c. 
 
 Thy Tvill be done, &c. Let the dry land appeal-, &c. 
 
 Give us OUT bread : Let there be ligltts : 
 
 Forgive us our trespasses : Let the waters . . . and fowl, &c. 
 
 Lead us not into temptation, &c. Let the earth bring forth, &c. 
 
 For TJiine is the kingdom, &c. Thus the heavens and the earth 
 
 •were finished, &c. 
 
 If one of these divine compositions is not ordinary 
 prose, neither is the other. The triads of days are as 
 distinctly defined as the triplets of petitions. Only 
 the parallelism, fi'om the correlative interlacement of 
 the gi'oups, is more intricate and complex in the Hcp- 
 tameron than in the Prayer. 
 
 He who perceives this has the true Jcejj to the concord 
 which he tuill search for elseiohere and otherwise in vain. 
 Eespect the parallelism, cease to ignore the structure, 
 
336 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 allow for the mystic significance of the number seven', 
 and all perplexities vanish. The two groups of days 
 are each perfectly regular, when group, in its integrity^ 
 is collated with group : neither triad, if it is to ex- 
 haust its oimi aspect of creation, can afford to part 
 with, or dislocate, any of its members ; and the second 
 triad, as a whole, is rightly and of necessity second, 
 as the first is rightly and of necessity first. And yet 
 it is self-evident that if, for any reason, we trisect or 
 break up the groups, the true continuation of day 1 is 
 not day 2 but day 4, of day 2 not day 3 but day 5, of 
 day 3 not day 4 but day 6. And thus the "days" 
 themselves are transfigured from registers of time into 
 definitives of strophes or stanzas, — lamps and land- 
 marks of a creative sequence, — a mystic drapery, 
 a parabolic setting, — shadowing by the sacred cycle 
 of seven the truths of an ordered progress, a fore- 
 known finality, an achieved perfection, and a divine 
 repose ^. 
 
 i " If Cain be avenged sevenfold" = completely. " To flee seven 
 -n-ays" = a total rout. " Silver purified seven times" = perfectly, 
 &c., &c. " Fer senarhim mimerum [1 -J- 2 + 3 ::^ 6] est o^Jerum 
 siqnificata 'perfectio. . . . De sepienarii porro numeri perfectione 
 dici quidem plura possunt," &c. — St. Atiffustine, De Civitat. Dei, 
 lib. xi. CO. XXX. and xxxi. On the number seven see also Moses 
 Stuart, "Apocalypse," vol. ii. pp. 425—432, and Forbes, " Symmet. 
 Struct, of Scripture," pp. 159—162. 
 
 ^ Herder was a rationalist, but too candid and clear-sighted to 
 pervert a symbol, of which the meaning was evident to him, into 
 a literal register of time. The following passages are very import- 
 ant, as coming from so acute and unbiassed a witness : — 
 
 "To remove the false notion of days, let me observe what is ob- 
 vious to every one on a bare inspection, that the whole system of 
 this representation rests on a comparison by means of which the 
 separations do not take place physically but symbolically. As our 
 eye is incapable of comprehending at one view the whole creation, 
 it was necessai7 io form classes, and it was most natural to distin- 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 337 
 
 "WTiich symbolism, engrafted by permissioa of the 
 divine wisdom on a division of time astronomically 
 obvious, and embodied in the Psalm of the Almighty's 
 handiwork by 
 
 "That Shepherd who first taught Ihe chosen seed 
 In the beginning how the heavens and earth 
 Rose out of chaos," 
 becomes, in turn, to the Jewish nation at the Exodus, 
 
 guish in the first place the heavens from the earth Thus this 
 
 ancient document is the first simple tahle of a natural order, in 
 which the term ' days,' while it is subservient to another purpose 
 of the author, is employed only as a nominal scale for the division. 
 .... Before we approach this crown [man], let us consider a few 
 more ma-ter-strokes which animate the picture of this ancient sage. 
 .... The sun and stars enter into this picture of nature as soon as 
 they can "With equal truth and acuteness this natural philo- 
 sopher places the creatures of air and water in one class "W"ith 
 
 joy and wonder I approach the rich description Behold the 
 
 most ancient philosophy of the history of man." — Bk. x. ch. v. 
 
 " Our philosopher has uiiravelled this chaos Everything in- 
 comprehensible to man his account excludes, and confines itself to 
 what we can see with our eyes and comprehend with our minds. . . . 
 Men have deemed the Asiatic nations, with their infinite compu- 
 tations of time, infinitely wise ; and the tradition of which we are 
 speaking infinitely childish, because, contrary to all reason they say, 
 nay contrary to the testimony of the structure of the globe, it hurries 
 
 over the creation In my opinion tliis is palpable injustice. 
 
 Had Moses been nothing more than the collector of these traditions, 
 he, a learned Egyptian, could not have been ignorant of those 
 seons, &c. ^Vliy, therefore, did he not interweave them into his 
 account ? "Why, as if in contempt and despite of them, did he sym^ 
 bolically compress the origin of the world into the smallest portion 
 of time ? Evidently because he was desirous of obliterating them 
 
 as fables Moses leaves every one at liberty to frame epochs as 
 
 he pleases To obviate these follies, he represents his picture 
 
 in the readiest cycle of a terrestrial revolution.'^ — Bk. x. ch. vi. 
 
 So Dr. Henry More, Conjectura Cahhnlistica, p. 22, makes Moses 
 explain, " It was for pious purposes that I cast the creation into that 
 order of six days'' Again, " The hebdomad or septenary is a fit 
 symbol of God." — p. 8G. 
 
338 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 the platform of the law of the Sabbath. God's week 
 is mystical, man's week is literal. But the spiritual 
 homology assumed is not disturbed by the inevitable 
 disparity of scale. God did His own perfect work in 
 His own perfect way, and His very rest was but a 
 passing onward to still higher manifestations of His 
 boundless bounty and love. In this, says the Fourth 
 Commandment, quoting^ though without reference, the 
 familiar religious lesson, "Be ye followers of God. 
 Fill your six days as He does His^ in the Psalm of His 
 creative working, with work that shall, like His, be 
 ' good.' Best on your seventh day, as you have heard 
 He rested, not in the torpor of an animal sloth, but 
 in the liberated activities of a devout soul." 
 
 Y. 
 
 For more than half a century the Mosaic record of 
 creation has been invested with a peculiar interest. 
 Like the regiment in a great war which goes first into 
 action, or like the outlying rock in a long ridge which 
 has to sustain the full shock of the yet unbroken 
 billow, this portal of the Scriptures, from its being the 
 portal, and from the presumed facilities of successful 
 attack supplied by the young science of geology, has 
 been pre-eminently exposed to the polemic of modern 
 scepticism. One phase, however, of the " conflict of 
 ages" only dates fi'om the pubKcation of " Essays and 
 Eeviews." The Bible used to be assailed by candid 
 and consistent adversaries : it is now, for the first 
 time in the history of religious controversy, impeached 
 by professed fi'iends. 
 
 Xow we are surely entitled to ask any critic of 
 " Mosaic Cosmogony" in v)hat character he proposes to 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 339 
 
 approach it ; iu plain English, to shew his coloiu'S and 
 to take his side. A man may be a Christian or he 
 may be an nnbeliever, but he cannot be anything 
 between. There are certain problems which cannot 
 be dealt with piecemeal. Divine revelation must be 
 accepted as a whole, or rejected as a whole ; no third 
 course is conceivable. Of the Ilebrew lawgiver, in 
 special, has not the Lord of Christians said, "If ye 
 believe not his ^viitings, how shall ye believe My 
 words^ ?" 
 
 We are not indeed bound to imperil the Christian 
 faith on the credibility of every rash and rhetorical 
 exaggeration of a doctrine the over-statement of which 
 might be natm-al in the ninth, and excusable even in 
 the seventeenth centur}^ ; although in the present age 
 to transgress in like fashion is simply to play into the 
 hands of adversaries. The sacred writers were pen- 
 men and not pens ; the Divine influence under which 
 they wrote was not analogous to the infusion of such 
 an instinct as makes the bee or the ant an " animated 
 tool," but rather to the power of a great human mind 
 over narrower, and lower, and feebler minds. The 
 afflatus was not mesmeric^ but moral and spiritual: 
 it was rather comparable to thermal ciuTents than to 
 the rigid circumscription of mathematically defined 
 zones. But it is one thinsr to make frank and full 
 
 o 
 
 allowance for the human element in the Scriptures, 
 and quite another to forget or explain away the co- 
 presence of the divine. Does a man accept the super- 
 natural, yes or no ? Does he believe, or not believe, 
 in the resui-rection of our Lord from the dead ? These 
 are the plain questions to which, from any censor of 
 the Scriptures, we are entitled, in limine , to exact 
 
 ' St. John V. 47. 
 
 z2 
 
34° 
 
 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 plain and straightforward answers. If the reply be, 
 ''I do not accept the supernatural: I do not believe 
 that Christ is risen," — we know what and whom we 
 have to contend with. But if the response be the 
 other way, — " I do accept the supernatural: I do be- 
 lieve in the Saviour's rising from the dead," — it is 
 surely, in such case, pertinent to remind him that he 
 must in all consistency accept and believe much more. 
 A divine reality in the religion bespeaks and imi)lies 
 a divine element in its records. They stand or fall 
 together. He who professes to hold that the reve- 
 lation is supernatural, yet argues as if the Bible were 
 merely human, confutes himself. Every mind dis- 
 ciplined in the valuation of evidence must see that 
 the choice is, Neither or Both. 
 
 '' If Christ be not risen, your faith is vain." This 
 is one point of apostolic teaching out of which no 
 trick of words can ever juggle us. We cannot pillow 
 our hopes on cloudland; and all is cloudland if we 
 cannot discern in the past the divine Personality of 
 Him who, "when He had overcome the sharpness of 
 death, opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers." 
 Weary human nature lays its head on this Bosom, or 
 it has nowhere to lay its head. Tremblers on tlie 
 verge of the dark and terrible valley which parts the 
 land of the living from the untried hereafter take this 
 Hand of human tenderness yet godlike strength, or 
 they totter into the gloom without prop or stay. They 
 who look their last on the beloved dead listen to this 
 Voice of soothing and peace, else death is no uplifting 
 of everlasting doors and no enfolding in Everlasting 
 Arms, but an enemy as appalling to the reason as to 
 the senses, the usher to a charnel-house Avhere high- 
 est faculties and noblest feelings lie crushed with the 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 34 1 
 
 animd wreck; an infinite traged}', maddening, sonl- 
 sickeninsr; a " blackness of darkness for ever." Christ 
 not risen means that there is absolutely nothing, less 
 than nothing, worse than nothmg, in the Bible and in 
 Christianity. Cluist risen means that His religion is 
 no human device, but a revelation from above ; and 
 therefore that those Scriptures to which He set His 
 seal are " given by inspiration of God." 
 
 Ko such via media^ then, as seems to have floated 
 before the minds of certain "Essayists" can possibly 
 be struck out or maintained. The revelation refuses 
 to be sundered from its records. Between naturalism 
 and supernaturalism we must perforce elect ; accept- 
 ing in full, if we be clear-sighted and consistent, the 
 logical consequences of either decision. In the human 
 past, as in palseontology, there are only two ways of 
 it, the creed of Lucretius or the creed of St. Paul, — 
 the " self-evolving powers" of a blind, improvident, 
 unpitying nature, or the unfolding plan of an All- 
 foreseeing Deity. Suppose, then, as regards the geo- 
 logical ages, we adopt the latter solution with Owen 
 and "^Tiewell, rather than the former ?zo-solution with 
 Powell and Darwin; in such case the question will 
 immediately press, whether supernatural power and 
 purpose, indispensable postulates in the survey of 
 brute being, can be rationally eliminated from the 
 history of man. 
 
 It is God's use, if we may speak it reverently, to 
 repeat Himself; to reproduce His creative ideas with 
 appropriate "variations." Xow it has been argued 
 elsewhere'^ that the ground-plan of ancient nature con- 
 sists in an ascent, by trenchant transitions, from sub- 
 vertebrate life to the backbone, as the basis of jwiocr ; 
 m Tlie Tla-ee Barriers, pp. 87—103. 
 
342 THE CREATIVE WEEK. 
 
 from the backbone to the breast, as the sign and 
 channel of love ; and from the breast to the human or 
 language-generating brain, as the organ of vjkdom 
 or rational thought. What, we ask with entire con- 
 fidence, if this same programme, suitably modified, be 
 reiterated in the upbuilding of each normal human 
 life? What, we ask with due difiidence, assuming 
 human history to be the projection of a divine thought, 
 if an analogous evolution be the key to history ? 
 
 Childhood, youth, manhood, are familiar divisors of 
 human life; yet far more acciu'ate, it may be, than 
 a fanciful trio of " law, example, and spirit." For the 
 former, if we go in quest of an equation for them, are 
 simply the vertebrate, mammalian, and cerebral de- 
 velopments of the perfect man or woman "nobly 
 planned." The rationale of the first period is the 
 building up of physical strength; the affections and 
 the reflective faculties being Izept hacJc^ as it were, and 
 kept low, till that work is done. Animal strength 
 attained, the afi'ections shoot up into supremacy ; and 
 these, as life advances, are not deposed, but crowned 
 by ripe reason and judgment. The later gift does not 
 desti'oy or displace, though it transfigures and elevates 
 what goes before. Each, nevertheless, in its own 
 order". The keen affections of twenty are dormant at 
 two, the mature judgment of fifty is unattainable at 
 fifteen. How different the capacity of grief, which mea- 
 sures that of love, in an ordinary child of five, froai 
 what it is in his brother or sister tkree or four times 
 the age ! Strength pioneer to love, love culminating 
 in wisdom — such therefore the sequence alike in the 
 animal series and in the individual human life. 
 
 A\Tiat if this also be the key to the " biography" of 
 ° Compare the procession of types in the foetal brain. 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 343 
 
 the "colossal man?" Is not the history of our race 
 a chronicle admitting no natural primary division save 
 that into three chapters, — those of childhood and 
 youth, which are closed; that of manliood, which is 
 a-writing still ? The cerebral period, if we may ven- 
 ture so to designate that commencing approximately 
 A.D. 1500°, is sundered from all that preceded it by 
 characters which he who runs may read. Its achieve- 
 ment has been the apocalypse of the universe. What 
 was said of him who, take him all in all, is the repre- 
 sentative man of the era^, is true of the era itself: — 
 
 " Nature and nature's laws lay wrapped in night : 
 God said, Let Newton be ! and all was light." 
 
 For the central, or youth-period, we have the first 
 fifteen centuiies of Christianity. All that while had 
 God been leavening the heart of man with the lesson 
 of that love which remains His supreme gift to the 
 end of time ; passing into the world's manhood, not pass- 
 ing away from it *i. The pre-Christian period, again, 
 was the childhood of our race. It was the merely 
 vertebrate age; differing fi'om those that came after 
 as Kimrod from St. Augustine or from Isaac Newton. 
 Its attribute was ferocious force ; its law despotic will. 
 Neither the power of divine love nor that of disciplined 
 reason, despite the projohecy of each in Greece and 
 
 ° "We may connect with this cradle-date, invention of printing, 
 revival of learning, the Eeformation ; discovery of America j Co- 
 pernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton ; modem physiology, zoology, 
 botany, chemistry, geology ; steam, the electric telegraph ; historical 
 criticism, and the science of language. 
 
 P Herschcl, "Disc, on Nat. Philos.," § 301. 
 
 q "That which distinguishes Christ, that which distinguishes 
 Christ's apostles, that which distinguishes Christ's religion — the 
 love of man." — 3Iihnan, Hist. Lat. Ch'ist., bk. xiv. ch. iii. Compare 
 Frederick Eobertson's Sermon on "The New Commandment." 
 
344 THE CREATIVE ^YEEK. 
 
 Palestine, had as yet entered prevailingly into the 
 temper and doings of mankind. For the last three 
 and a half centuries, history takes its hue from science ; 
 the fifteen centuries before are chiefly memorable for 
 their saints ; till the Advent, history is monopolized 
 by war. These earliest times were very fierce times ; 
 the quality of mercy, the " milk of human kindness," 
 was not infused into them ; they were ages not of gold 
 but of blood. The ''new commandment" was as yet 
 imuttered; the evangel of " Peace on earth, goodwill 
 towards men," as yet unproclaimed. Force unleavened 
 by love is the complexion of history, till the Son of 
 God appears to change it. — May we venture to inter- 
 j)ret all this as a third edition of the thought legible 
 in the rocky archives, and re-emergent in the indi- 
 vidual human life? If so, it is plain that Christian 
 religion, in the historical evolution of humanity, is the 
 analogue and equivalent of the mammalian bond in 
 nature. Those accepting the analogy, and weighing 
 what it imports, will perhaps cease to doubt whence 
 comes this baptism, from heaven or of men. 
 
 Thus much at least is certain, that man is the ripe 
 result, and flower, of an immensely ancient terrestrial 
 time. To the impression so often generated by the 
 survey of sidereal space must be opposed the correc- 
 tive ministered by the quasi-infinitude of past dura- 
 tion. He who built the heavens on such a scale as 
 seemed to preclude the expenditure, even by the 
 Almighty, of minute solicitude on the earth, has gar- 
 nished it throughout the ages with such profusion of 
 living forms as seemed to leave no time, even to the 
 Eternal, for the plenishing and embellishing of the 
 heavens. And yet all these were but God's ivories; 
 we only are His ofsjn-inf/. If one branch of modern 
 
THE CREATIVE WEEK. 345 
 
 scieacc teach, and teach justly, that mau's relation to 
 the universe maij he such as should check his pride, 
 another completes the lesson by shewing that his re- 
 lation is such as yields no fuel to despondency. The 
 buried strata have their burden of meaning as well as 
 the rolling worlds. AVhat is there in a million cen- 
 turies of animal warfare, were all the universe its 
 stage, to take rank in the regards of God with the 
 struggles of His intellectual offspring towards light, 
 towards goodness, towards Himself? Is there no high 
 authentic instinct which whispers to the heart that He 
 with whom we have to do turns willingly away from 
 the shining of His suns and the singing of His morn- 
 ing stars for joy, to listen with a far diviner interest 
 to the prayer of the humble and the cry of the con- 
 trite? However wide His universe, and its varied 
 being, He who made us flesh, be we well assured, is 
 in no danger of forgetting that He made us spirit. 
 "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she 
 should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? 
 Yea, she may forget : yet will I not forget thee." 
 
 Xo weapon that is formed against this trust shall 
 prosper. Modern scepticism indeed advances, minatory 
 and menacing, poising in one hand what seems the 
 spear of Ithuriel, and brandishing in the other the 
 hammer of Thor. But the proof of the encounter tells 
 how egregiously she has over-vaunted alike her de- 
 tective faculty and her destructive strength. In the 
 brunt of collision the weapons exchange attributes; 
 the spear has but the pointlessness of the hammer, 
 the hammer but the levity of the spear. 
 
RATIONALISM. 
 
 Tendencies of Heligious TlwugU in England, 1688—1750. ^ By 
 Mark Fattisox, B.D., Beclor of Lincoln College, Oxford.'' 
 
 TT ^as the remark some years ago of one of the 
 ^ Essayists themselves, that in whatever direction 
 religious thought in this nineteenth century was 
 tending, no distinctive and characteristic fact had 
 yet occiUTed, small in itself but pregnant in the in- 
 ferences to which it should lead, to reveal and to 
 sta\np that tendency. So far as England and the 
 middle of the century are concerned, Mr. Wilson and 
 his colleagues have themselves unintentionally sup- 
 plied the want. Friends and foes, though with dif- 
 ferent motives, have alike contrasted the fragmentary 
 and cursory character of their volume with the im- 
 mensity and unexpectedness of the outcry it has oc- 
 casioned. But the contrast is surely a superficial one. 
 The straw that is cast up by the stream may well be 
 nothing, yet not so the current of religious feeling 
 which it indicates. The book itself, it is true, deals 
 thoroughly with no one subject, puts forward little 
 that is new or original, was written with no idea 
 of producing a panic or a revolution, simply stirs up 
 with an assumption of intellectual and moral supe- 
 riority almost every possible topic of current scepti- 
 cism, while dealing seriously with no one in the list. 
 It was merely a bye-work of able men, published with 
 
348 GREATNESS OF THE PRESENT CRISIS. 
 
 no particular purpose beyond that of accommodating 
 a bookseller with a sequel to an unfinished series. 
 But the crisis of religious thought to which it belongs 
 is of far graver import. And the publication of it 
 will head a notable chapter in any future history of 
 the Tendencies of Eeligious Thought in England. It 
 were unwise indeed to exaggerate. And little hills 
 close to us, no doubt, may easily be made to look 
 like mountains if viewed through the requisite kind 
 of atmosphere. And one has great faith in the mere 
 inertia of religious belief : and still more in the present 
 revived earnestness and life, spiritual and intellectual 
 both, in the Church : and above all, faith in Him who 
 has preserved us hitherto through worse perils. Yet 
 the evil, which the Essayists themselves profess (no 
 doubt honestly) to remedy while they really increase 
 it, is no imaginary one. Infidelity is assailing us 
 afresh, and with a power and under circumstances 
 sufiiciently new to invest its assault with a character 
 of special danger. It is no longer the coarse and 
 shallow and unsatisfying infidelity of last century. It 
 appeals, on the contrary, to the deepest and highest 
 faculties in human nature, and it is equipped for 
 the conflict ^dth an array of profound and extensive 
 historical and philological criticism. It claims, more 
 than ever, to speak in the interests of knowledge, mo- 
 rality, and truth, against a theology iiTeconcileable 
 with them. As the revival of literatui-e in the sixteenth 
 century produced the Eeformation, so the growth of 
 the critical spirit, and the change that has come over 
 mental science, and the mere increase of knowledge of 
 all kinds, thi-eaten now a revolution less external but 
 not less profoimd. And though the Church, in this land 
 at least, is in a position that is strength itself com- 
 
CAUSES OF DANGER. 349 
 
 pared with that which it then occupied, yet there are 
 cii'ciimstances even now which lend to the threatened 
 assault an undue power. Then it was the Church such 
 as it had grown to he without the Bihle. IS'ow it is 
 too much the Bible such as men have made of it for 
 themselves without the Church. Then an external and 
 authoritative dogmatism had sought to crush all minds 
 into unquestioning submission. ISTow we have the op- 
 posite excess of a system of subjective intuitions, and of 
 an individualizing and sentimental faith. And now, 
 as then, morality and divinity are divorced from one 
 another in many men's minds : although then, it was 
 divinity that was in fault through its load of perver- 
 sions and superstitions, while now out of an undue ra- 
 tionalism men are seeking to pervert the Creeds them- 
 selves into a futile conformity to their own supposed 
 moral instincts. And it may well be, then, the crisis 
 of Protestantism among us, as continental spectators 
 of a sceptical tiu-n appear sarcastically to consider 
 it; the sifting, at any rate, of the extreme anti- 
 Church system which abroad usurps the name. It 
 may be the test of the vitality of the Church of Eng- 
 land herself, and of the work that has been done to 
 revive her true strength during the last thirty years ; 
 which is the light in which it seems to have struck 
 the mind of the greatest of those who have unhappily 
 quitted the English Church because they thought she 
 had lost her vitality. It is, at any rate, a time when 
 religious questions are being sifted with an apparatus 
 of knowledge, and with faculties and a temper of mind, 
 seldom, if ever, before brought to bear upon them. 
 The entire creation of new departments of knowledge, 
 such as philology ; the discovery, as of things before 
 absolutely unknown, of the physical history of tho 
 
350 THE SIXTH ESSAY MAINLY A LITERARY ONE. 
 
 globe ; the rising from the grave, as it were, of whole 
 periods of history contemporary with the Bible, through 
 newly found or newly interpreted monuments; the 
 science of manuscripts, and of settling texts, — all 
 these, and many more that might be named, embrace 
 in themselves a whole universe of knowledge bearing 
 upon religion, and specially upon the Bible, to which 
 our fathers were utter strangers. And beyond all 
 these is the change in the very spii'it of thought 
 itself, equally great and equally appropriate to the 
 conditions of the present conflict ; the transformation 
 of history by the critical weighing of evidence, by the 
 separation from it of the subjective and the mythical, 
 by the treatment of it in a living and real way ; the 
 advance in Biblical criticism which has undoubtedly 
 arisen from the more thorough application to the Bible 
 of the laws of human criticism, (the honey out of the 
 lion's carcase); the temper of mind in dealing with 
 the supernatural, which habits of experimental science 
 and enlarged physical knowledge have engendered; 
 and above all, the entire change in the point of view 
 from which men regard all subjects, from the out- 
 ward to the inward, from the historical to the meta- 
 physical, from the sensuous to the transcendental, 
 from the common sense of last century to the theories 
 of the Absolute and the Infinite which occupy the 
 attention of the present. 
 
 Be the crisis however great or small, and whatever 
 share in any recasting of the religious thought of the 
 age, for good or for evil, the '' Essays and Eeviews" as 
 a whole may be destined to take, the particular Essay, 
 at any rate, to which the present paper relates, must 
 in fairness be exonerated from any intentional partici- 
 pation in the furtherance of scepticism. It is a sequel 
 
OBJECTIONS TO ITS TONE. 3^1 
 
 to other valuable papers by tlic same pen on kin- 
 dred subjects. And had it occurred alone, the literary 
 world would have welcomed in it a proof that its 
 writer had not deserted those studies which once pro- 
 mised at his hands a really great and enduring work, 
 — a work of which it may be boldly said that it should 
 have taken rank on its special subject with the larger 
 labours of a Ilallam. It is an Essay open, no doubt, 
 to literary criticism ; searching in its analysis, apt in 
 its quotations, sound in its general view of the age 
 which is its subject, but on the other hand, unfair to 
 some of the writers criticized, fragmentary, and un- 
 developed; but it is one which would not in itself 
 have stirred the waters of theological polemics. And 
 its writer must have woke up with something of a 
 sense of both surprise and injustice, to the indiscri- 
 minate censure which has attached to him the common 
 notoriety of the volume. Without pretending to do 
 otherwise than regret the temper in which it is written, 
 or to underrate the mischievous effect it may pro- 
 bably have, being where it is, upon young and clever 
 students, or to disguise the unsettling impression 
 which it leaves upon the reader, or to deny that its 
 writer has himself to thank for the rashness which 
 originally joined (and let it be added, for the gene- 
 rosity which will not now desert) his colleagues ; it 
 must be obvious, nevertheless,—!, that the Essay was 
 not written with any theological object, good or bad, 
 but mainly with a literary one ; and, 2, that it is a 
 libel to accuse it of containing either wanton or formal 
 unbelief. It is wiitten in a dissatisfied tone of isolation- 
 It knocks down without building up. It ignores or 
 depreciates objective standards of truth, and speaks of 
 the conflict between faith and infidelity without suf- 
 
3o2 DOES NOT INTEXTIOXALLY FURTHER SCEPTICISM. 
 
 ficiently recognising the possibility of any clear grasp 
 of a truth above opinion. It drops here and there 
 harsh- sounding dicta^ unexplained and undeveloped, 
 which will be read by the light of more pronounced 
 passages in the other Essays, and which therefore in the 
 result, in spite of honest disclaimers of " conspiracy," 
 affix a subsequent responsibility to the wi'iter for all 
 parallel passages in the volume — a responsibility which 
 it would surely be both reasonable and desirable to 
 disclaim. But these things apart — and I have no 
 intention to make light of them — the Essay is not 
 open, either in tone or in matter, to the imputations 
 justly made against one or other of its companions. 
 It does not offend good taste, nor violate the common 
 principles of honesty, nor indulge in wanton profanity. 
 It does not formally propound or indii-ectly imply 
 any of the now cui-rent forms of unbelief, which dis- 
 figure the pages of some of the remaining Essays : — 
 the ideology, for instance, which dissolves Scripture 
 into a subjective reflection of the Oriental mind, and 
 exhibits it as the merely human product of a peculiar 
 national literature, — or the metaphysical scepticism, 
 which denies the possibility of revelation or of any 
 dispensation of God to man as inconsistent with the 
 perfection of the Divine attributes, — or that perver- 
 sion, again, of the Baconian spiiit, which is striving 
 to confound both the animate with the inanimate, and 
 the moral with the physical, and having frozen the 
 whole into a like mechanical slavery to law, to crown 
 the absurdity by substituting an abstraction of the 
 human mind for a personal God. Even that which is 
 more akin to the speculations of the Essay, and which 
 forms the staple of those of one of its companions, — 
 the tracing up the battle of human opinion into the sub- 
 
ITS MOST OBJECTIONABLE PASSAGES. 353 
 
 stance of tlic Xew Testament itself, and the assertion 
 of an unauthorized development, not only as between 
 Scriptui'e and the Creeds, but as between oiu' Lord 
 and His Apostles, or as between our Lord in Him- 
 ■ self and the representation of Him and of His words 
 which is described as reflected to us tln-ough the mirror 
 of the minds of early disciples, who were of coiu-se fol- 
 lible men, — these have no place here. Xeither does it 
 tamper with texts of Scripture, or afhi-m the honesty 
 of subscribing theological propositions which the writer 
 does not believe, or assert any special point of false 
 doctrine. The whole field, again, of Biblical criticism 
 is out of its way. One text of Scripture alone claims 
 a mention of its various interpretations, but is not 
 interpreted by the Essay itself. And had its writer 
 only refi-ained from some cursory remarks at the be- 
 giiming of his paper, wliich seem to imbed his special 
 subject in a naturalistic theory of Church history in 
 general, and from a neat and compact formula of suc- 
 cessive " theories of belief" ciuTcnt fi'om time to time 
 in the Church, which seems to land us in the position 
 that the Church has not yet found a trustworthy 
 "theory of belief" at all, little would have been said 
 theologically of his Essay. It would have given offence 
 to the holders of some popular opinions. It woidd have 
 left an uncomfortable impression respecting the extent 
 to which ambiguous phrases were intended to reach. 
 It would not have done, — what the writer might have 
 well done, — aided the good cause by his shi'ewd insight 
 and great analytical powers. But neither would it have 
 di-awn down the severe censure which has now swept 
 over it. The one or two sentences '', singled out to 
 
 ' Two passages are cited in the Eeport of the Committee of the 
 Lower House of Convocation from Mr. Pattiscn's Essay. One, we 
 A a 
 
354 OUGHT NOT TO HAVE BEEN INVOLVED 
 
 justify its inclusion in that censure, would have been 
 interpreted in the better instead of in the worse 
 
 must take leave to affirm, is capable of a better interpretation, 
 -vrhile the other is incapable of the bad one affixed to it. 
 
 1. From pp. 327, 328 of the volume : — " If reason be liable to an 
 influence which wai-ps it, then there is required some force which 
 shall keep this influence under, and reason alone is no longer the 
 all-sufficient judge of truth. In this way we should be forced back 
 to the old orthodox doctrine of the chronic impotence of reason, 
 superinduced upon it by the Fall ; a doctrine which the reigning 
 orthodoxy had tacitly renounced." 
 
 The previous sentence in llr. Pattison's text shews that he is 
 here pointing out the inconsistencies of the evidential school of di- 
 vines upon their own (imputed) principles. It is they, not himself, 
 who would be " forced back" upon the orthodox doctrine of the 
 Fall by the conditions of their own hypothesis : whereas, according 
 to Mr. Pattison, they had implicitly renounced that doctrine by 
 their assumption of the supremacy of reason. It is impossible, he 
 says in effect, at one and the same time to rest the claims of religion 
 upon the paramount authority of reason, and to impute to all who 
 deny those claims, an incapacity in point of reason to apprehend them. 
 Mr. Pattison seems to have exaggerated his case, in point of fact, in 
 both parts of this argument. Divines of those days were neither 
 rationalists, nor deniers of the feebleness produced in the reason by 
 means of the Fall, to the extent to which he alleges they were. 
 iN'either is the tone of the allusion to such a subject such as one is 
 disposed to defend. But assuredly the paragraph implies nothing 
 whatever of Mr. Pattison's own belief or disbelief in the doctrine 
 of Original Sin or its consequences. 
 
 2. From p. 297 : — "In the present day, when a godless ortho- 
 doxy threatens, as in the fifteenth century, to extinguish religious 
 thought altogether, and nothing is allowed in the Church of Eng- 
 land but the formula? of past thinkings, which have long lost all 
 sense of any kind, it may seem out of season to be bringing forward 
 a misapplication of common sense in a bygone age." 
 
 Unhappy words, no doubt, on any shewing; and if they did 
 apply to the Creeds (as the Convocation Committee suppose), then 
 worse than unhappy. But surely the very turn of the language 
 excludes the alleged reference. The common sceptical objection to 
 the Creeds lies, not against the obsoleteness, but against the pre- 
 
IN THE SAME CENSURE WITH THE OTHER ESSAYS. 355 
 
 meaning. And nothing would have involved the 
 writer then, — as indeed there is little now, generosity 
 
 cision, of their meaning. ISTeither was it the Creeds, but tlic 
 overgrowth of theological systems, which did the mischief in 
 the fifteenth century. It is at least far more probable, that the 
 writer was thinking of those relics of the phraseology of medioeval 
 or of still later controversies which have been embalmed, not only 
 in our formularies, but also in the established orthodoxy of predo- 
 minant schools, or of what is commonly acknowledged as standard 
 divinity : to some of which he elsewhere alludes, and upon which 
 a good deal of the Atonement controversy undeniably turns. And 
 the question then must be, 1 . to what extent he intends to carry 
 his censure ? Arc all parties alike, or is the prevailing party really 
 imposing upon us, by the help of bigoted public opinion, unau- 
 thorized terms of communion, which after all will not bear sifting 
 by the light of reason and sound knowledge ? There is something 
 of such a spirit. There are party formulte which very many would 
 enforce, in spite of the reclamations of a sounder divinity, by the 
 silent martyrdom of social persecution. Yet one would be sorry 
 to say of even the fautors of these, that they were " godless." They 
 are only narrow-minded and in earnest, determined to support 
 truth, but not exactly qualified to know what is truth. And arc 
 they the Church of England ? And if the Church as a whole is 
 meant, then, 2. one must ask. What is included under this term 
 of " past thinkings?" Mr. Pattison probably means only that there 
 are many narrow views to which religious people generally cling 
 as to essential truth, although advanced knowledge has shewn 
 them to be untenable. There certainly are such views. But 
 under the circumstances it is not unreasonable to ask a direct 
 disclaimer of including under them more than the mere relics 
 of Evidential, or Puritanical, or other older schools, and not what 
 other Essayists appear to intend, the current unquestioning belief 
 in Scripture and the Creeds, which is undoubtedly cherished with 
 a jealous care by a not godless orthodoxy. That Mr, Pattison 
 means this, I see nothing in his words to shew. I wish there was 
 more in those words to render it impossible. Surely, too, it is the 
 hastiest of historical paradoxes to parallel the present time with that 
 horrible Pharisaism of self-complacent orthodoxy (so called) com- 
 bined with outward pomp and inward corruption which ushered 
 in the lleformation. But it is one thing to protest against the 
 Aa2 
 
3^6 CONDEMNS A MODE OF ARGUING, NOT THE FAITH. 
 
 apart, wliicli need continue to involve him, — in tlie 
 general and deserved condemnation of the volume as 
 a whole. For if rationalism is imputed in the Essay to 
 any, that rationalism, be it remembered, is condemned. 
 If a particular theological school is accused of failure, 
 it is because that school assumed the supremacy of — 
 not the reason only, but — the common reason of man 
 over divine truth. If the transcendental reason, in 
 the judgment of the Essayist, cannot solve clearly, 
 and the common reason cannot solve at all, the popu- 
 lar objections against Scripture morality, it is the 
 rationalist hypothesis which is in fault, for assuming 
 
 exaggeration of the passage historically considered, or against the 
 unsoundness of the principle involved in it, or against the impu- 
 tation it contains upon the Church of the present day: another to 
 condemn a writer of fundamental denial of Christianity, because he 
 demurs to the retention and (alleged) unintelligent and bigoted 
 use of past controversial language. Nor does it follow, that Mr. 
 Pattison denies the truth of these formula?, — rather it seems im- 
 plied that he believes in them, — as referred to their original his- 
 torical place and circumstances. That the present Church of Eng- 
 land is indeed so intolerant of " religious thought," as the passage 
 asserts, is at least not the common opinion. Legally, she is held 
 by most people to be more tolerant than she ought to be, and at 
 least as tolerant as is consistent with holding any dogmas at all. 
 That there are narrow and intolerant men within her, is perhaps 
 rendered more prominent in proportion to her own laxity and 
 theii- consequently louder reclamations. And undoubtedly there 
 are kinds of "free-handling" of religious subjects, against which 
 the faith of Church-people generally rises in protest. But with 
 respect to these the only question is one of degree. The most 
 liberal thinker would allow that some scepticism ought to be met 
 by the moral coercion of an earnest counter-belief in the Church. 
 The point is, whether the line is drawn at present too narrowly, 
 and whether that counter-belief is rea'ly a sound and an earnest one ; 
 and this, not as regards particular coteries or parties, but prevailing 
 public Church opinion. Are people really disabled too much from 
 j)reaching or printing what they please ? 
 
DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT. 357 
 
 as a principle that such objections have a right to 
 a clear solution. If the Deistical and the Christian 
 arguments are represented as almost evenly balanced, 
 the reason lies, not in any denial of the superiority of 
 the latter cause in itself, but in the mistaken prin- 
 ciples upon which both alike are alleged to have pro- 
 ceeded. And although the various theories are found 
 fault with into which men have hitherto analysed the 
 grounds of their belief, yet the '' eternal verities " 
 of the faith itself, and the revelation of them, are 
 throughout assumed. 
 
 The Essay is a chapter, or part of one, in Church 
 history, written with a professedly practical object, and 
 upon certain principles. What lesson, then, does the 
 writer intend us to draw from the facts he analyzes ? 
 And are those facts correctly represented? And, 
 lastly, what principles are implied in the sketch 
 given of them ? 
 
 To "guide us through the maze of religious pre- 
 tence by which we are now surrounded," is the prac- 
 tical use suggested of the picture here drawn of our 
 antecedents. We are to learn our present bearings by 
 tracing the mental route that has actually brought us 
 where we are. Ko doubt the true use, or one of them, 
 of the study of Church history. But the Essay leaves 
 us, nevertheless, to frame our conclusion for ourselves. 
 Now there does indeed appear to be one unmis- 
 takeable lesson impressed upon us by the history 
 of religious thought in England during the last cen- 
 tury; and that is, the untold value of the Church 
 movement of thirty years ago. The obvious remedy 
 for the patent defects of eighteenth -century divinity 
 in England lay in Church principles, to the revival 
 of which indeed these defects did, historically, lead. 
 
35<^ TRUE LESSON FROM THE WRITER'S FACTS. 
 
 A sceptical spirit of toleration, based upon indiffe- 
 rcntism, — and as a reaction fr-om this, an unregu- 
 lated and individualizing Methodism, — and through- 
 out, an attempt to deal with religious truth through 
 the instrumentality of reason in its shallowest form, 
 — are the "agencies" specified in the Essay as mark- 
 ing that period; and they are also the "agencies," 
 against which a deeper reason, and a more chastened 
 spiritualism, and the craving of men's minds for truth 
 out of and above themselves, have in this present 
 century risen in a most righteous rebellion. Other 
 and collateral causes co-operated ; poKtical circum- 
 stances, the revival of learning, a corresponding re- 
 volution in mental philosophy, wider social sym- 
 pathies, improved taste, the wonderfully increased in- 
 tcrcoiu-se between the various portions of the Church 
 throughout the world. But the results of the misuse 
 of private judgment, which Methodism, and after- 
 wards Evangelicalism, had only transferred from the 
 tribunal of the common reason to that of the spiri- 
 tual emotions, underlay the whole. That sincerity is 
 a legitimate substitute for truth, that the inward 
 emotions of the individual believer supply the basis 
 of faith, that belief is to be limited to the boun- 
 daries of the understanding, — these and the like 
 propositions, held under various forms and by diffe- 
 rent schools, indicate the tone of thought, originating 
 in the period which this Essay delineates, and con- 
 tinuing even now, against which a profounder reli- 
 gious movement has in good time protested. 
 
 But the Essay itself may be thought perhaps to sug- 
 gest another conclusion, and to point to a different sort 
 of religious movement. The failure of common sense 
 as an organ of religious inquiry is the main result 
 
APrUCATION SEEMINGLY INTENDED. 359 
 
 ■\yliich it (most truly) signalizes. The merit whicli coun- 
 terbalanced the failure was the practical application of 
 religion, such as common sense had made it, to the 
 real ii^-ants of the time. And the use of reviving 
 the remembrance of that failure is hinted to be the 
 necessity of a similar effort now to render religion 
 truly practical, only with a higher and better instru- 
 ment. The fuller language of other Essays lends to 
 the suggestion a more decided meaning, for which the 
 words of the particular Essay merely leave room. 
 The thoughts and language of a past generation do not 
 meet the religious wants of the present, and religion, it 
 is assumed, is becoming in consequence um-eal. But 
 while the present Essay merely indicates the want, 
 the others claim, as belonging to their own school, 
 the only true and efficient way of meeting it. Kow 
 about the facts, it is to be supposed, the whole world 
 unhappily are agreed. Erom various causes there is 
 an infidelity among us of a new kind, to which older 
 writers supply no answer. To put the apologists or 
 the divines of the last or any preceding generation 
 into the hands of assailants of the truth now, or into 
 those of persons who really desire to believe, is no 
 doubt a mockery. Their mode of reasoning, their 
 very principles, their range of knowledge, however 
 grounded upon substantial truth, are out of date. The 
 PaVeys or the Lardners supply no answer to the 
 Strausses or the Ilcnnclls. And we must needs 
 come to the modern pages of Eogers or of Manscl 
 to find the appropriate reply to Francis Xewman or 
 to Theodore Parker. That there is need, then, of a 
 new "Eationalism," and specially of an application to 
 the altered difiiculties of the time of a profounder and 
 more critical knowlcdcrc and of the higher reason, is 
 
360 FALSE "rationalism" OF THE PRESENT DAY. 
 
 a statement in wliicli all must agree. And tliongh it 
 may be hard to see the sincerity of an attempt which, 
 as a whole, seeks to conquer infidelity by admitting 
 its principles and adopting its conclusions, yet one is 
 bound to give even the extremest of the Essayists credit 
 for at least the intention of making it. But the real 
 thing Avanted is not new Creeds, but to bring the new 
 modes of thought into subjection to the old ones. And 
 which have laboured most successfully at this task, 
 Mr. Maurice and Professor Jowett, or Mr. Eogers and 
 Professor Mansel ? The Church does indeed want a 
 new " Eationalism," that shall employ a higher range 
 of faculties than the common sense of the older ra- 
 tionalists (if they may be truly so called), and shall 
 base itself upon a wider and more intelligent know- 
 ledge than theirs, and shall aim at a higher and more 
 spiritual and disinterested morality than the pruden- 
 tial bargaining with God and with the world which 
 satisfied them. But she must find it, — and what- 
 ever might be feared, there is nothing in the Eector 
 of Lincoln's own pages to prevent his finding it also, 
 — in a school toto coelo opposed to that, which first 
 of all has specially distinguished itself by denouncing 
 the higher reason as no reason at all, and as leading 
 to atheism ; and secondly, has . adopted the unsound 
 history and crude theology of such as Bunsen ^ ; and 
 
 »> The historical critic who can postpone the Bible to Manetho, 
 surely puts himself out of court on purely literary grounds. And 
 if any one wishes the measure of Bunsen's theology, let him read 
 his speculations on the doctrine of the Trinity in bis " Christianity 
 and Mankind," vol. iv. part ii. sect. iii. cc. 2, 3, ed. 1854. Really 
 one ought to speak out about a writer whom persons of such oppo- 
 site schools in England have at different times so strangely com- 
 bined to idolize. ],f any religious and sensible man, no matter 
 what his views so that he be a Chi'istian, can read the passage just 
 
AVIIAT KIND OF " RATIONALISM" IS REALLY NEEDED. 361 
 
 thirdly, wliile shrinkiDg honourably from the ethical 
 fatalism under which the Mills and the Buckles have 
 revived the old " sufficient-cause" quibble of Hobbes, 
 has itself become the apostle of a half-pagan type of 
 physical morality, too self-reliant and too much wrapped 
 up in the world we live in to be wholly Christian, to say 
 nothing of the omission from its leading idea of manli- 
 ness of most of the gentler, and many of the nobler, 
 meanings of " humanity." We do want, indeed, a new 
 " Eationalism," but it must be far other than this. It 
 must be a rationalism that shall not seek to defend the 
 Creeds by giving them up ; shall not mutilate them of 
 obnoxious doctrines in order to purchase from man's 
 reason a hollow and patronizing acquiescence in the re- 
 mainder ; shall not leave us to the alternative of Ro- 
 manism or Socinianism by assuming the Catholic faith 
 of the first centuries to have been a human development 
 of a primitive undoctrinal morality ; shall not, in a 
 word, make a peace with human reason by acknow- 
 ledging its supremacy in order to retain at its mercy the 
 relics of a pseudo-Christianity. It must be one, on the 
 contrary, that shall so use the deeper philosophy and 
 wider knowledge of the day, as to add one more link 
 to the ever-lengthening chain of proof, that the truths 
 of revelation overmaster all phases of human reason, 
 and that each new development in man's mental 
 history has ever found itseK constrained to submit 
 to the conditions of thought laid down once for all 
 in the faith of Christ. ^\^ould that the Eector of 
 
 referred to without an involuntary thi-ill of mingled horror, pity, 
 and contempt, I am sadly mistaktn. It may sound arrogant, but 
 the truth is greater than great men. And I do say advisedly, that 
 such ravings have seldom darkened counsel by words without know- 
 ledge since the days of the Gnostics. 
 
362 A]\^TI-DEISTICAL WRITERS OF 1720— 1750. 
 
 Lincoln may turn his own great powers to the task, 
 of which he so vividly sees the need, and the lines of 
 which he has so truly laid down by contrast in the 
 masterly picture ho has drawn of an unsuccessful 
 rationalism. 
 
 But we tui-n fi-om the object of the Essay to its 
 contents; from the lesson it designs us to draw, to 
 the facts upon which the lesson is based. 
 
 I. Its main subject is the anti-deistical writers of 
 1720 — 1750. It imputes to them rationalism. The 
 acceptance of reason as the supreme judge of the 
 matter as well as the evidence of revelation, is the 
 maiQ feature in the picture drawn of them. Without 
 attempting to settle the true bounds of the functions 
 of reason in religious subjects, or to define differing 
 degrees of excess in the matter, an extreme view of 
 the subject is laid to the charge of the school of wri- 
 ters above named as a whole, including names emi- 
 nent not only then but for all time. Is this charge 
 well grounded ? 
 
 There can be no doubt that the eighteenth century 
 was a rationalistic age. Eeason was its cry. And 
 the tone of the time infected the Church as well as 
 its opponents. But then rationalism appears in Church 
 writers in the form of a concession, under continual 
 protest, and carefully shackled by all possible limita- 
 tions. Of the writers named in the Essay, even Eogers 
 talks of "inevident" propositions in religion. And 
 Tillotson denies that " the finite can comprehend the 
 infinite," or that human similitudes can fully explain 
 divine mysteries. And Prideaux qualifies his own 
 broad principle, in the end of the Tract from which 
 the Essay quotes. And of others we shall see below, 
 that a denial of the supremacy of reason is really more 
 
THEIR METAPHYSICAL SHALLOWNESS. 363 
 
 their object than an assertion of it. Conceding then 
 (as we must) the name, and the fact, so far as they 
 indicate a difference between particular schools of 
 English theology, it is clearly unfair to reckon these 
 divines and their opponents as alike rationalists. And 
 the result of so indiscriminate a statement is simply 
 to leave the impression that the Clmstian reasoners 
 in that controversy did precisely the opposite of what 
 they really did. It is equivalent to saying that their 
 chief occupation was to maintain the supremacy of 
 reason; whereas they rather accept the principle at 
 their opponents' hands as containing a basis of truth, 
 while their own works were mainly written in order to 
 limit and control it. 
 
 Indisputably, however, the school was unduly ra- 
 tionalistic. And every one fiimiliar with their writings 
 must admit the general truth of the masterly analysis 
 given in the Essay, of their line of argument. In many 
 things the age was too much for them. They treated 
 reason, to use Eutler's phrase, with far too much of 
 "consideration." 
 
 1. That religious faith ought to be the issue of a 
 purely intellectual process, is maintained by them in 
 a far too unguarded way. While admitting that in 
 point of fact it can hardly be the actual case with any, 
 their ideal of a Christian belief was yet that of a state 
 of mind which, starting fi'om pure impartiality, had 
 admitted no influences to build it up save those which 
 reach the heart tlu'ough the understanding. So far 
 the Essayist has not done them injustice, and has sup- 
 plied to ourselves a powerful and profound criticism 
 upon a position too common still to render that cri- 
 ticism impractical, and too much mixed up with truth 
 to allow it to be useless. 
 
364 UNDULY NEGLECT CHURCH AUTHORITY. 
 
 2. Again, that the truths of reYelation, on that side 
 of them which relates to the nature and atti'ibutes 
 of God, belong to a different order of truths fi'om 
 those which come ^vithin the range of human expe- 
 rience ; that the causes of our inability to fathom re- 
 ligious mysteries, do not lie simply in the partial and 
 limited extent of our knowledge, but in the necessary 
 texture of that knowledge in itself; that the infinite 
 is not simply an indefinite extension of the finite, but 
 belongs to a different range of intellectual powers, and 
 appeals to faculties which man has not, although he 
 can perceiYC the limitations of those which he has, and 
 can recognise accordingly the existence of truths which 
 he cannot master, — these and the like familiar results 
 of later philosophy were mainly wanting to philoso- 
 phers and divines alike of a century since. And the 
 Essayist has justly noted the defect. It is one 
 prominent in the unmetaphysical pages of Bishop 
 Butler. And though intimations may be found of 
 the deeper view in the writings of eighteenth cen- 
 tury divines, — and the celebrated work of Bishop 
 Browne is a proof that the formal speculations of even 
 theologians tended sometimes, ^-isely or unwisely, in 
 a like direction, — yet the general tone of speculation 
 on the subject tended to the encouragement of undue 
 rationalism, by omitting to mark distinctly the exist- 
 ence of those deeper truths before which reason fails 
 in its own intrinsic powers. 
 
 3. Further still, the Hanoverian divines of the last 
 age, though the Essayist only notes this incidentally, 
 paid little attention to the authority of the Church, 
 in any sense of the phrase. It was no age, so far as 
 they were concerned, for Catenas, except as an argu- 
 mcnium ad homines against Eome. ^or do we find in 
 
IX WHAT SENSE ALL REASOXERS RATIOXALIZE. 365 
 
 them pati'istic quotations, as a rule, and hardly at all. 
 Xor do they make more than passing references, more 
 for completeness' sake than anything else, to the views 
 of the primitive Church or of (Ecumenical Councils 
 upon religious truths. So far from going into any ex- 
 cess in this direction by way of counterbalance to rea- 
 son, the leading divines of that time did not lay even 
 due stress upon that historical and external system 
 of belief which offers an authoritative interpretation 
 of Scripture upon essential doctrinal points. They 
 threw individuals too nakedly upon their own bare 
 reason, and bade them make a creed for themselves 
 with too little of safeguard in respect to the Creeds 
 of the Church. Yet even this must be qualified. For 
 to talk of Church authority to deistical opponents 
 would have been waste of words. And the theory 
 at least of " the use and value of ecclesiastical anti- 
 quity" cannot be said to have been wholly forgotten or 
 denied in the age that produced Cave and AYaterland. 
 4. Again, there is of course a sense in which reason 
 is supreme. Just as the most vacillating will prac- 
 tically decides ; just as it is his eyes with which a man 
 must see, although he may see very badly : so the rea- 
 son of each man necessarily rules the judgments which 
 he forms. It is a common fallacy which shifts the real 
 burden of the private judgment question to an irrele- 
 vant issue. That question is not, by what faculty 
 a man must shape his religious faith, but by what 
 rules and -^'ith what auxiliaries he must govern that 
 faculty in the process ; to what limits and to what 
 conditions reason itself says that reason ought to sub- 
 mit in the matter. Locke's dictum, then, is self- 
 evident — that to extinguish reason in order to exalt 
 faith is the same as to put out our eyes in order to see 
 
366 A PRIORI MORAL JUDGMENTS. 
 
 better with a telescope. The information supplied by- 
 faith must perforce be cast in the mould of the human 
 reason in order to obtain access to the human mind at 
 all. The supremacy of reason in this sense is a truism. 
 The real question is, how far the forms of the reason 
 are discovered by the reason itself, whether upon in- 
 ternal or upon external grounds, to be adequate or 
 inadequate to present truly the truths which they 
 convey; how far it is reasonable to believe that the 
 subjective representation corresponds to the objective 
 truth. We must perforce argue on the assumption of 
 the forms of the reason. And reason itself must settle, 
 for us, how far these forms are to be trusted as sufh- 
 cient equivalents for the ideas represented under them. 
 It must be admitted, then, that large general state- 
 ments about the power of reason in any school of 
 divinity prove little ; but that the gist of the question 
 lies in the explanations and qualifications by which 
 these statements are reduced from bare truisms to 
 a special theological view. 
 
 5. And in particular of the primary axioms of the 
 moral reason. Surely nothing can be made out re- 
 specting the doctrines of a particular school from ad- 
 missions of the independence and supremacy of the 
 simplest moral ideas. The Occham doctrine (if it was 
 Occham's) which resolves morality into the arbitrary 
 Divine will, can be nakedly held by none who under- 
 stand their own words. When Watcrlaud maintains 
 something like it as against the free-thinkers, his 
 argument is perforce a heap of confused self-contra- 
 dictions. I do not mean that human reason can theo- 
 retically combine religion and morality into a single 
 idea, s6 as to obviate all cavil, or even all reason- 
 able difficulty; or that there is not a truth at the 
 
BISHOP BUTLER. 367 
 
 bottom of the perversion which goes by Occham's 
 name, and which must not be got rid of by a simple 
 assertion of the contradictory of it. Morality must not 
 be set up as something oveiTuling God from with- 
 out Him. But if we are to have any real meaning 
 in our words, the proposition that God is good must 
 needs contain something more than that lie is any- 
 thing whatsoever that He has pleased to be. And 
 every one who would argue on moral subjects, must 
 needs have distinct and substantive principles on which 
 to argue. It is no " rationalism," then, in any specific 
 sense, to maintain that elementary moral truth is as 
 axiomatic as the bare forms of the reason themselves. 
 The real questions are, to what extent we know the 
 facts and are capable therefore of applying the axioms ; 
 and how far these elementary truths are adequate re- 
 presentations of absolute morality, and capable there- 
 fore of bearing the inferences which, on the assumption 
 of such adequacy, seem to follow from them. Such 
 statements, then, as those of Butler, of which the Es- 
 sayist, by the way, has not quoted the strongest, prove 
 nothing of Butler's ''rationalism." For they are the 
 common "rationalism" of all reasoners, the essential 
 pre-requisites to any reasoning, or to any reasoning on 
 moral subjects, at all. Every one must say with him, 
 that " reason is indeed the only faculty we have where- 
 with to judge concerning anything, even revelation 
 itself;" and that he must not "be misunderstood to 
 assert that a supposed revelation cannot be proved 
 false from internal characters: for it may contain 
 clear immoralities or contradictions; and either of 
 these may prove it false." Still more, in the words 
 quoted in the Essay, must it be maintained, that there 
 is a " moral fitness and unfitness of actions, prior to 
 
368 PARALLEL WITH COLERIDGE. 
 
 all will whatever:" and further still (what is necessary 
 to make this passage relevant) that this moral fitness 
 or unfitness is discernible to some real extent by human 
 reason, even as weakened by the Fall. 
 
 So far, then, the imputation of rationalism to the 
 eighteenth century is very far fi-om being an untrue 
 imputation. Xot only were the divines of the ruling 
 party of that time rationalists in the sense in which 
 every reasoner and every moral reasoner must be so ; 
 but beyond this, they must be admitted to have laid" 
 too exclusive a stress upon the reason, to have ig- 
 nored too much, if not in many instances altogether, 
 the higher faculties of the reason, and to have un- 
 duly left out the countei^poises provided against un- 
 wise private judgment. But the Essay imputes to 
 them a much more extreme rationalism than this. It 
 represents them as claiming or admitting a " verifying 
 faculty " in the largest sense. Eeason, in their use of it, 
 is described as " proving instead of evolving, arguing 
 upon instead of appropriating, the eternal verities." 
 And the " suxu'cmacy of reason" appears to mean, 
 that although Christian mysteries could not have been 
 discovered by reason, yet when made known they 
 must be capable of rational proof, must harmonize 
 with rational presumptions, must be such that reason 
 distinctly recognises theii' necessary truth upon its own 
 principles. It is a legitimate result of such a view, for 
 instance, that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity could not 
 indeed have been discovered by man uninformed from 
 God ; but that, being thus made known to him, he can 
 perceive by reason, that the case could not have been 
 otherwise ; and that if he could not perceive this, the 
 docti'ine must be false. The comparison of the early 
 anti-deistical writers to Coleridge sufficiently shews 
 
extre:me rationalism imputed to the school. 369 
 
 that this is the meauiug here attributed to the word 
 Eationalism. It is not simply that nothing is to bo 
 allowed which is contradictory to reason, but that 
 " the mysteries of Christianity are reason in its high- 
 est fonn ;" i. e. necessarily, reason as man now pos- 
 sesses that faculty, only, as Coleridge meant it, in 
 respect to its transcendental and not its common-sense 
 powers. " Human reason as strengthened by Chris- 
 tianity" — so his view has been expressed — "can 
 evolve all the Christian doctrines from its own sources." 
 Still more, in the words quoted in the Essay itself, 
 must " the compatibility of a document with the con- 
 clusions of self-evident reason, and with the laws of 
 conscience," be " a condition a ijriori of any evidence 
 adequate to the proof of its having been revealed by 
 God." And so also, in the language of the Essay, the 
 earlier eighteenth-century divines are described to us 
 as holding, that the truths revealed by Christianity, 
 over and above those previously known by the light 
 of natural religion, "could not have been thought out 
 by reason, but when Divinely communicated, approve 
 themselves to the same reason which has abeady put 
 us in possession" of those previous truths. Or in other 
 words, the " supremacy of reason" is alleged to have 
 been maintained by these divines, not simply as judg- 
 ing of evidence, but as judging also, and as by an 
 adequate instrument for the purpose, of the possibility 
 and of the rightness of the thing evidenced; and 
 again, not simply as understanding the meaning of 
 terms so far as to attach a real and precise sense to 
 them, and as deciding upon the compatibility of those 
 terms with one another in a proposition to the extent 
 of rejecting simple contradictions, and as drawing im- 
 mediate inferences, as e.g. from moral or other axioms, 
 
 Bb 
 
370 THEY ARE NOT RATIONALISTIC IN THIS SENSE. 
 
 within the limits of its own experience and of its 
 own comprehension of those terms, but as thoroughly- 
 master of religious ideas, so that no doctrine can be 
 accepted as ti'ue unless its terms in their full meaning, 
 and the entire relations of those terms to one another, 
 and not their compatibility only with self-evident prin- 
 ciples of reason but their dependence upon such prin- 
 ciples, be patent to the human reason itself. !N'ow 
 nothing is easier than to shew that the leading divines 
 of that age were so far from accepting, that they dis- 
 tinctly rejected, the supremacy of reason iu this sense 
 and to this extent. That as a rule they did not appeal 
 simply to authority, whether of the Church or of the 
 Fathers or of primitive tradition, but to reason, and to 
 authority, if at all, only as entii-ely subordinate to rea- 
 son, is perfectly true. Partly it did not harmonise with 
 their own tone of thought or docti'ine to do otherwise. 
 'Partly they were compelled by the necessities of argu- 
 ment to take ground which theii' opponents would ad- 
 mit. It is true, also, that the Hne was by no means 
 sharply drawn, in the philosophy of the time, be- 
 tween the sensuous and the transcendental, between 
 the world of experience and of phenomena, and that 
 of iutuitions and of things as they are in themselves, 
 between the common and the higher reason. And 
 divines did not anticipate the philosophical specula- 
 tions of a later date. The TertuUianistic paradox, 
 ' The harder a doctrine the better for faith,' was the 
 opposite to their line of thought. But assuredly the 
 divines of those days neither asserted the compre- 
 hensibility, still less the capability of being rationally 
 proved, — nor alleged that comprehensibility or capa- 
 bility as conditions of the truth, — of religious mysteries. 
 They did not hold that mysteries must have ceased to 
 
THEIR OBJECT MAINLY IS TO LIMIT REASON. 371 
 
 be such, if tliey are to be reckoned in the list of 
 Gospel doctrines. They seem, on the contrary, to 
 have drawn the line between reason and faith, prac- 
 tically and substantially, although in language of very 
 different aspect and approaching the subject from an 
 entirely different side, pretty much where the philo- 
 sophical defenders of the Christian faith at this very 
 day would draw it. Their main object is to depress 
 reason. They treat it tenderly, but from argumenta- 
 tive considerations. It was their opponents' main 
 theme, and that on which they relied: and contro- 
 versialists must needs make all possible concessions to 
 the main strength of an opponent's argument, in order 
 at once to shield themselves from sound objections, 
 and to obtain the greater vantage-ground for their 
 own assault. But the whole drift of their reasoning 
 is to put limits upon reason, although they certainly 
 di-aw those limits far too laxly. One might almost say, 
 that the Essay, imintentionally and for want of suffi- 
 cient discrimination, but really, represents the greater 
 Christian defenders as yielding the precise points upon 
 which they most insisted. The whole of Butler's 
 " Analogy," for instance, is an elaborate depreciation 
 of the supremacy of reason. It seems to imply, indeed, 
 too strongly, that if we knew all the facts, we could 
 judge, even with our present faculties. But then we 
 cannot know all the facts, or more than the very least 
 portion of them. And its main principle is, that reason 
 must accordingly be content with being irrational, — 
 that it is the height of reason to discern, that reason 
 cannot judge, because it has not the principles on which 
 to judge, but must expect to continue always in this 
 world baffled by difficulties that it cannot solve, and 
 compelled to accept as truths positions that it can 
 
 Bb2 
 
37-2 
 
 BISHOP STILLIXGFLEET. 
 
 neither reconcile nor comprehend, much less prove. 
 And if we turn from Butler to other and inferior writers, 
 who yet were among the leading writers of the Chm-ch 
 side of the controversy, we find generally the same 
 character in their speculations also. With some ex- 
 ceptions certainly, and above others that of Tillotson, 
 (and even he, here and there, largely qualifies his gene- 
 rally over-strong statements), they are truly described 
 in the words which Waterlaud uses of one of them, 
 when he tells us " that the insufficienaj of reason to be 
 a guide in such matters," viz. of religion, " hath been 
 very lately set forth" (viz. in Bishop Gibson's second 
 Pastoral Letter) " in the clearest and strongest manner 
 for the conviction of infidels." 
 
 Take, for instance, the following passages from the 
 writers selected by a Begins Professor of Divinity in 
 the latter part of last century as leading defenders of 
 the faith, those writers themselves belonging to the 
 earlier period with which the Essay is directly con- 
 cerned, and one of them indeed, viz. Gibson, being 
 quoted in the Essay itself. 
 
 1. Bishop Stillingfleet, ^' On Scripture :Mysteries," 
 from the Enchiridion Tlieologicum^ vol. i. p. 383, 3rd 
 edition : — 
 
 " Truly no men (by their own authority) can pretend to 
 a right to impose on others any mysteries of faith, or any 
 such thiags which are above their capacity to understand. 
 But that is not our case ; for we all profess to believe and 
 receive Christianity as a divine revelation ; and God (we 
 say) may require from us the belief of what we may not be 
 able to comprehend, especially if it relates to Himself, or 
 such things as are consequent upon the union of the di- 
 vine and human nature. Therefore our business is to con- 
 sider, whether any such things be contained in -that reve- 
 lation which we all own ; and if they be, we are bound 
 
BISIIOr STILLINGFLEET. 373 
 
 to believe tlicm, althougli vrc are not able to coinprclicnd 
 them." 
 
 2. Id. ibid., pp. 389, sq. :— 
 
 " Although in the language of Scripture it be granted, 
 that the word mystery is most frequently applied to things 
 before hidden but now revealed, yet there is no incongruity 
 in calling that a mystery, which being revealed, hath yet 
 something in it which our understandings cannot reach to. 
 But it is mere cavilling to insist on a word, if the thing 
 itself be granted. The chief thing therefore to be done is, 
 to shew that God may require from us the beKef of such 
 things which are incomprehensible by us. For, God may 
 require anything from us, which it is reasonable for us to 
 do ; if it be thus reasonable for us to give assent where the 
 manner of what God hath revealed is not comprehended, 
 then God may certainly require it from us. Hath not 
 God revealed to us, that *in six days He made heaven 
 and earth and all that is therein ?' But is it not reason- 
 able for us to believe this unless we are able to compre- 
 hend the manner of God's production of things ? Here 
 we have something revealed, and that plainly enough, A-iz. 
 that God ' created all things ;' and yet, here is a mystery 
 remaining as to the manner of doing it. Hath not God 
 plainly revealed that there shall be a resurrection of the 
 dead ? And must we think it unreasonable to believe it, 
 till we are able to comprehend all the changes of the particles 
 of matter from the Creation to the general Resurrection ? 
 But it is said, that there is no contradiction in this, but 
 there is in the mystery of the Trinity and Incarnation. It 
 is strange boldness in men to talk thus of monstrous contra- 
 dictions in things above their reach. The atheists may as 
 well say. Infinite power is a monstrous contradiction, and 
 God's immensity and His other unsearchable perfections are 
 monstrous paradoxes and contradictions. Will men never 
 learn to distinguish between numbers and the nature of 
 things ? For three to be one is a contradiction in numbers ; 
 but whether an infinite Nature can communicate itself to 
 
374 
 
 BISHOP STILLINGFLEET. 
 
 three different Subsistences without such a division as is 
 among created beings, must not be determined by bare 
 numbers, but by the absolute perfections of the Divine 
 Nature ; which must be owned to be above our compre- 
 hension. For let us examine some of those perfections 
 which are most clearly revealed, and we shall find this true. 
 The Scripture plainly reveals, that ' God is from everlasting 
 to everlasting ;' that ' He was and is and is to come ;' but 
 shall we not believe the truth of this till we are able to 
 fathom the abyss of God's eternity? I am apt to think 
 (and I have some thoughtful men concurring with me) that 
 there is no greater difficulty in the conception of the Trinity 
 and Incarnation, than there is of eternity. Not but that 
 there is great reason to believe it ; but from hence it appears 
 that our reason may oblige us to believe some things which 
 it is not possible for us to comprehend. We know that God 
 must have been for ever, or it is impossible He ever should 
 be ; for if He should come into being when He was not. He 
 must have some cause of His being ; and that which was the 
 first cause would be God. But if He were for ever, He must 
 be from Himself; and what notion or conception can we 
 have in our minds concerning it ? And yet, atheistical men 
 can take no advantage from hence ; because their own most 
 absurd hj^othesis hath the very same difficulty in it. For 
 something must have been for ever. And it is far more 
 reasonable to suppose it of an infinite and eternal Mind, 
 which hath power and wisdom and goodness to give being 
 to other things, than of dull, stupid, and senseless matter, 
 which could never move itself, nor give being to anything 
 besides. Here we have therefore a thing which must be 
 owned by all ; and yet such a thing which can be conceived 
 by none ; which shews the narrowness and shortness of our 
 understandings, and how unfit they are to be the measurers 
 of the possibilities of things." 
 
 (Stillingfleet pursues the like argument through 
 others of the divine attributes, such as the spii-itual 
 nature of God, His foreknowledge, His infiniteness; 
 
BISHOP CONYEEARE. 
 
 375 
 
 following out a train of thought in substance identical 
 with that of Mr. Manscl in his sixth Bampton Lec- 
 ture, however differing from that lecture, as of course 
 is the case, in context and immediate purpose, in 
 style of thought and terminology. The same line of 
 reasoning is also followed, to the extent of — not 
 ^'hewing" Athanasianism down to "an intelligible 
 human system," but — maintaining the doctrine of the 
 Trinity as set forth in the Athanasian Creed, in Stil- 
 lingfleet's "Doctrine of the Trinity and Transub- 
 stantiation Compared," ib., pp. 427, sq. ; of which 
 treatise one main object is, to maintain such a differ- 
 ence between the relation of the two doctrines re- 
 spectively to reason as to support a rejection of the 
 latter consistently with an acceptance of the former ; 
 and this is done, not by affirming the former to be 
 comprehensible, still less proveable by reason, but 
 only not contradictory to it, whereas the latter is 
 alleged to be so.) 
 
 Taking Stillingfleet for the beginning of the pe- 
 riod, we may turn now to a writer at the close 
 of it. 
 
 Bishop Conybeare, (Bishop of Bristol 1750 — 1755), 
 " On Mysteries," ib., vol. ii. p. 32 : — 
 
 " The point therefore in which they [the Socinians] differ 
 from usj is this : we affirm that there are several doctrines 
 above our reason ; and which we are still incapable of com- 
 prehending, notwithstanding the revelation which hath been 
 made to us concerning them : they affirm, on the contrar}^, 
 that there is nothing in the Christian religion above our 
 reason ; nothing but what, by a due use of our faculties, we 
 are able to comprehend : and in consequence of this, they 
 reject such interpretations of Scripture as carry with them 
 anything incomprehensible." 
 
376 BISHOP CONYBEARE. 
 
 Ibid., p. 34, sq. : — 
 
 " This account supposes that of these mysterious doctrines 
 we have some ideas ; we have ideas, though such as are 
 either partial or indeterminate. Indeed, where we can frame 
 no ideas we can, strictly speaking, give no assent. For what 
 is assent, but a perception, or at least a firm persuasion, that 
 the extremes in a proposition do agree or disagree? But 
 where we have no manner of ideas of these extremes, we can 
 have no such perception or persuasion. And as no combi- 
 nation of terms really insignificant can make a real pro- 
 position ; so no combination of terms to us perfectly unin- 
 telligible, can, with respect to us, be accounted propositions. 
 "We do maintain, therefore, that we have some ideas even 
 of mysterious doctrines. And thus, I conceive, we are sufii- 
 ciently guarded against an objection sometimes made against 
 us as contending for unintelligible doctrines. There is a vast 
 difierence between unintelligible and incomprehensible. That 
 is, strictly speaking, unintelligible, concerning which we 
 can frame no ideas ; and that only incomprehensible, con- 
 cerning which our ideas are imperfect. It is plain, therefore, 
 that a doctrine may be intelligible, and yet incomprehensible. 
 Nay, I shall adventure to maintain, that there are several 
 propositions of whose extremes we have ideas, but are yet 
 incapable of discerning how far these extremes do agree or 
 disagree. For since this agreement or disagreement is, in 
 most cases, to be proved b}^ the use of several intermediate 
 ideas, we are incapable of discerning whether they do agree 
 or disagree. In all such instances the propositions are in- 
 telligible, and yet incomprehensible. The incomprehensi- 
 bility therefore of certain doctrines in our religion does not 
 arise from our having no ideas of them; but from hence, 
 that otir ideas are either inadequate or indeterminate. I 
 conceive it is very evident, that there may be infinite re- 
 lations of one thing to another, which for want of adequate 
 ideas will be to us undiscernible ; but any propositions with 
 respect to such undiscernible relations will, when proposed, 
 be to us mysterious : and consequently, those who explode 
 
ElSIIOr CONVBEARE. 377 
 
 all mysteries, can maintain their ground onlj^ by asserting 
 that all their ideas are adequate ; a perfection which the 
 sober part of mankind will be very backward in allowing 
 them. Besides this, there are other things concerning which 
 our ideas are indeterminate. The importance of the obser- 
 vation will best appear by considering that in those reve- 
 lations which God is pleased to make, lie deals with us as 
 men, and does not produce in us any new faculties different 
 from what we had before. If the doctrines revealed are 
 made up of such ideas as we are capable of receiving in the 
 ordinary methods of knowledge, then the revelation is either 
 a farther enforcement of such truths as might naturally be 
 known, or a discovery of such truths as (for want of adequate 
 ideas) could not naturally be known. But it hath happened 
 in some instances, that the doctrines revealed are made up 
 of such ideas as we are incapable of receiving in an ordinary 
 way : such as the doctrines concerning the generation of the 
 Son of God, the distinction between the Persons in the ever- 
 blessed Trinity, and the like. In these cases the ideas are 
 themselves revealed ;— revealed, I say, not by producing in 
 us any new faculties of receiving them, but by representing 
 them by some other ideas, with which they have a remote 
 resemblance and analogy." 
 
 Id. ib., p. 39 :— 
 
 " As creatures we must be dependent and finite ; and what- 
 ever is finite in its nature must be finite in its attributes. The 
 consequence will be, that every creature must be bounded m 
 its capacity of knowledge. Or thus ; no being can be endued 
 with absolute knowledge, unless it be endued with absolute 
 perfection ; and no being can be endued with absolute per- 
 fection, but the supreme self-existent Being. From hence 
 it follows, that there must be an infinite number of truths 
 actually comprehended by the sclf-cxistent Being, and yet 
 incomprehensible by the most perfect creature : i. e. there 
 must be an infinite number of truths to us mysterious." 
 
 Again : — 
 
 "I do maintain, that ... we may have in some cases de- 
 monstrative evidence of doctrines mysterious." 
 
378 BISHOP GIBSON. 
 
 Id., " On Scripture Difficulties," ib., p. 108, sq. :— 
 
 "Mysteries are points in which the Supreme Being hath 
 imparted some knowledge to us; — but the revelation stop- 
 ping there, several questions to be raised about them are ob- 
 scure. Difficult, therefore, they must be, unless our notions 
 concerning these things were more full and determinate ; — 
 unless our capacities were greater and the revelation itself 
 more complete. . . . "Words are the immediate representatives 
 of our thoughts ; and consequently can reach no farther than 
 our thoughts themselves. The things, therefore, of which we 
 have hitherto had no manner of notion, cannot be perfectly 
 represented in our words : from whence it follows, that to 
 clear up some things in reference to Divine doctrines, an 
 immediate inspiration to each particular person would be 
 necessary ;— a new language to express such matters, and new 
 ideas to understand the language. And after all that can be 
 supposed this way, as ours is a finite nature, it is impossible 
 but some things must exceed our knowledge." 
 
 Turn from these to a wi'iter of intermediate date. 
 
 Bishop Gibson, "First Pastoral Letter," ib., pp. 
 132, sq.:— 
 
 " When a revelation is sufficiently attested to come from 
 God, let it not weaken your faith if you cannot clearly see 
 the fitness and expedience of every part of it. This would be 
 to make yourselves as knowing as God; whose wisdom is 
 infinite, and the depth of whose dispensations, with the 
 reasons and ends of them, are not to be fathomed by our 
 short and narrow comprehensions. God has given us suffi- 
 cient capacity to know Him and to learn our duty, and to 
 judge when a revelation comes from Him : which is all the 
 knowledge that is needfid to us in our present state. And it 
 is the greatest folly as well as presumption in any man, to 
 enter into the coimsels of God, and to make himself a judge 
 of the wisdom of His dispensations to such a degree, as to 
 conclude that this or that revelation cannot come from God, 
 because he cannot see in every respect the fitness and reason- 
 ableness of it : to say, for instance, that either we had no 
 
BISHOP GIBSON. 
 
 379 
 
 need of a Hodccmcr, or tliat a better metliod might have 
 been contrived for our redemption : and upon the whole, not 
 to give God leave to save us in His own way. In these 
 cases the true inference is, that the revelation is therefore 
 wise, and good, and just, and fit to be received and submitted 
 to by us, because we have sufficient reason to believe that it 
 comes from God. For so far He has made us competent 
 judges, inasmuch as natural reason informs us what are the 
 proper evidences of a Divine revelation ; but He has not let 
 us into the springs of His administration, nor shewn us the 
 whole compass of it, nor the connection of the several parts 
 with one another ; nor, by consequence, can we be capable to 
 judge adequately of the fitness of the means which He makes 
 use of to attain the ends. On the contrary, the attempting 
 to make such a judgment is to set ourselves in the place of 
 God, and to forget that we are frail men ; that is, short- 
 sighted and ignorant creatures, who know very little of 
 Divine matters further than it has pleased God to reveal 
 them to us." 
 
 To whichi let me add the whole of another passage 
 of the same Bishop, where the writer of the Essay, 
 quoting the first sentences, has surely not looked to 
 the next page *= ; and which will also clear two writers 
 at once from the charge — not of rationalism, but of 
 the extreme rationalism we are here considering, viz. 
 Gibson himself, and Locke whom he quotes. It is 
 part, too, of a set of treatises written expressly to 
 confute those who claim to assent or dissent from 
 Scripture, "just as they judge it agrees or disagrees 
 with the light of nature and the reason of things." 
 
 Id., " Second Pastoral Letter," ib., p. 167 :— 
 
 " Those among us who have laboured of late years to set 
 up reason against revelation, would make it pass for an esta- 
 
 •= This is noticed in a pamphlet in reply to the Essay by 
 Mr. Candy. 
 
380 GIBSON AND LOCKE. 
 
 blished truth, that if you will embrace revelation, you must 
 of course quit your reason ; wliich if it were true, would 
 doubtless be a strong prejudice against revelation. But so 
 far is this from being true, that it is universally acknow- 
 ledged that revelation itself is to stand or fall by the test of 
 reason ; or, in other words, according as reason finds the 
 evidences of its coming from God to be or not to be sufficient 
 and conclusive, and the matter of it to contradict, or not con- 
 tradict, the natural notion which reason gives us of the being 
 and attributes of God, and of the essential differences be- 
 tween good and evil." 
 
 So far, save the last clause, tlie quotation in the 
 Essay. But Bishop Gibson adds some most important 
 qualifications of his statement. He continues : — 
 
 "And when reason upon an impartial examination finds 
 the evidences to be full and sufficient, it pronounces that the 
 revelation ought to be received, and as a necessary conse- 
 quence thereof, directs us to give ourselves up to the guidance 
 of it. But here reason stops ; not as set aside by revelation, 
 but as taking revelation for its guide, and not thinking itself 
 at liberty to call in question the wisdom and expedience of 
 any part after it is satisfied that the whole comes from God ; 
 any more than to object against it as containing some things, 
 the manner, end, and design of which it cannot fully com- 
 prehend." 
 
 And then, quoting Locke, he adds further : — 
 
 "These were the wise and pious sentiments of an ino-e-* 
 nious writer of our own time ; ' I gratefully receive and re- 
 joice in the light of revelation, which sets me at rest in many 
 things, the manner whereof my poor reason can by no means 
 make out to me.' And elsewhere, having laid it down for 
 a general maxim, that 'reason must be our last judge and 
 guide in every thing,' he immediately adds, ' I do not mean, 
 that we must consult reason, and examine whether a propo- 
 sition revealed from God can be made out by natural prin- 
 ciples, and if it cannot, that then we may reject it. But 
 
BISHOP BUTLER. 381 
 
 consult it we must, and by it examine whether it be a reve- 
 lation from God or no. And if reason finds it to be revealed 
 from God, reason then declares for it as much as for any 
 other truth, and makes it one of her dictates/ " 
 
 Lastly, lot the following passage of Butler be con- 
 sidered, which is one of the strongest of his statements. 
 And let it be asked whether, after all, it does not 
 qualify as much as it affli*ms the power of reason : 
 and whether it in any degree bears out the extreme 
 imputation hazarded in the Essay. 
 
 Butler, " Analogy," Pt. i. c. 3 :— 
 
 " Reason can, and it ought to judge, not only of the mean- 
 ing, but also of the morahty of the cA-idence of revelation. 
 First, it is the province of reason to judge of the morality of 
 Scripture ; i. e. not whether it contains things different from 
 what we should have expected from a wise, just, and good 
 Being ; for objections from hence have been now obviated : 
 but whether it contains things plainly contradictory to vsds- 
 dom, justice, or goodness ; to what the Hght of nature teaches 
 us of God." 
 
 An admission this, let it be observed : a concession 
 to opponents, made as strong as the temper of the 
 arguer, candid and discreet to a degree, could fairly 
 make it, yet qualified in itself to a sense not only 
 allowable but necessary, if we are to retain any mean- • 
 ing in the names of moral attributes at all, and to be 
 taken also with the fuller qualifications which the 
 work as a whole is expressly intended to supply. 
 
 Of the other points in the Essayist's masterly ana- 
 lysis of the general argument of the anti-deistical 
 divines, I have only to say that they form a contri- 
 bution of no small value to a yet unwritten chapter 
 of English Church history. That analysis as a whole 
 no one can doubt to be a true one : unless so far as 
 
382 CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST THESE DIVINES 
 
 this, that as in the general imputation of rationalism, 
 so in the other lines of the picture, — e. g. in the doc- 
 trinal, ethical, and social aspects of it, — there is some- 
 times a breadth of statement which omits the quali- 
 fications necessary to exactness. The po^rerful mi- 
 croscope has occasionally intensified the lights and 
 shades into lines so marked as to be practically be- 
 yond the truth. It is true, for example, that the 
 doctrine of the fallibility of human reason arising from 
 the Fall, as of any other portion of the results of 
 original sin, was not prominent in the writings of that 
 school. But it is not true that such a doctrine was, 
 even "tacitly, renounced" by them. It occurs in 
 terms even in Eogers. And Bishop Gibson, e.g., ex- 
 pressly cautions us against the " fallacious" method 
 of "arguing from the powers of reason in a state of 
 innocence, in which the understanding is supposed 
 to be clear and strong, and the judgment unbiassed 
 and free from the influences of inordinate appetites 
 and inclinations, to the powers and abilities of reason 
 under the present corrupt state of human nature, in 
 which we find by experience how apt we are to be 
 deceived; . . . and more particularly in the case of 
 religion, how apt our judgment would be to follow 
 the bent of our passions and appetites, and to model 
 our duty according to their motives and desires, if 
 God had left this wholly to every one's reason, and 
 not given us a more plain and express revelation of 
 His will, to check and balance that influence which 
 our passions and appetites are found to have on oiu* 
 reason and judgment." Again, it is quite true that the 
 piTidential view of morality, which subordinated reli- 
 gion to police, the next world to the present, was not 
 only prevalent, but was pushed by some of the divines 
 
REQUIRE QUALIFICATION. 383 
 
 in question to a degree quite as extravagant as that 
 imputed to them by the Essayist in his comparison 
 of their A'iew with the sceptical saying of the deist 
 Collins. Ai'chbishop Tillotson^, whom the Essayist 
 selects, has actually gone so far as to demand, "What 
 religion is good for, but to reform the manners and 
 dispositions of men, to restrain human natiu-e from 
 violence and cruelty, from falsehood and treachery, 
 from sedition and rebellion?" — a doctrine to which 
 its propounder himself would perhaps hardly have 
 stood if drawn out into its consequences, but which 
 fully deserves the extremest of the condemnation 
 which the Essayist bestows upon that writer, though 
 without quoting this emphatic passage. Yet in de- 
 picting the theology of the period it would only have 
 been fail- to add, that Waterland pointedly and at 
 length confutes and censures the statement. Further, 
 although, after making allowances for the style of 
 controversy prevalent in the age, there was still too 
 much of polemical violence, and although it is true 
 also that bishops, writing gravely and calmly, e.g. 
 Gibson and Berkeley, do impute dii-ectly or by im- 
 plication to freethinkers as a body a generally lax 
 morality, yet surely it is unreasonable to accuse di- 
 vines, whose usual tone is that of candour and calm 
 reasoning, of malignantly imputing evil to opponents, 
 on the a priori assumption that fi'eethinking opinions 
 and defect of morals must needs go together, while 
 omitting inquiry into the fact whether or no they 
 actually did so. Bishops would not have ventured on 
 the assertion if it could have been refuted by noto- 
 rious facts, nay, if it had not been supported by them. 
 
 ^ I take the q^uotation from Wateiiaud. 
 
384 ANTI-DEISTICAL SCHOOL A SUCCESSFUL ONE. 
 
 And the Essayist's own account of the period har- 
 monizes but too well with the truth of the accusation. 
 On the whole, agreeing in the main with the Es- 
 sayist's estimate both of evidential schools as such, 
 and of the particular school of internal and a iiriori 
 evidence liere described, — admitting fully, that the 
 common reason of men, if assumed to be capable of 
 measuring divine truth, will inevitably mutilate and 
 attenuate it in order to bring it within its own grasp, 
 and that religious views, if exhausted of all spiritual 
 depth by being reduced to a merely intellectual per- 
 ception of moral obligation, will undoubtedly be de- 
 graded into a worldly and utilitarian code of cold 
 prudential precepts and nothing more, — acknowledg- 
 ing also, that the tone of religious thought in the 
 ruling divines of the eighteenth century certainly was 
 thrown into the line of undue appeal to plain common 
 sense, by the over reaction of a very reasonable dis- 
 gust against the theological excesses of predestinarian 
 controversy®, and into that of a suppression of the 
 spiritual and mystical element through horror of such 
 hideous perversions of truth and morality by the "fa- 
 natics," as may be found recorded at length in, e.g., 
 Edwards's Gangrccna^ or the like books; — I think it 
 must be said, 1. that the present sketch of these di- 
 vines, masterly and in the main true, does nevertheless 
 bring out the dark lines of the picture without suffi- 
 cient qualification from those counter views which still 
 
 ^ Certainly the origin of the Latitudinarian school, and of its legi- 
 timate development in the eighteenth century divines, was, histo- 
 rically, not any reaction from undue authority claimed for the English 
 Church by the Laudian divines or any other, but distinctly a re- 
 action from Puritan excesses, both of theology and of a persecuting 
 spirit. The history of Whichcote and his friends at Cambridge is 
 sufficient proof of this. 
 
PALEY. 385 
 
 held tlielr ground; and 2. that it swamps in parti- 
 cular such men as Butler, too indiscriminately in the 
 general condemnation ; and 3. that it overlooks the 
 decisive evidence to the real ability of the school, af- 
 forded by its undeniable success. Both combatants 
 it is true were fighting, so to say, with their right 
 hand tied and their right eye bandaged. Yet even 
 so, the Christian defenders, as a matter of fact, main- 
 tained their ground, and defeated their opponents. 
 The deistical school, as a fact, died out. And its line 
 of thought and moral tone are as dead and repulsive, 
 even to sceptics of the present day, and its powers of 
 argument and knowledge as contemptible, as the sharp- 
 est satire could ever represent those of the Christian 
 apologists to have been. And though the awakened 
 earnestness and deeper spiritualism of the Methodist 
 movement claims a large share in the victory, yet 
 some portion of the credit is plainly due to the un- 
 answerable, however limited, arguments of a Leslie 
 on the one hand, and a Butler on the other. 
 
 II. The Essay however is, I think, harder upon 
 other schools of divines than upon that which is its 
 main subject. An incidental notice is bestowed by it 
 in passing upon the school of external evidences re- 
 presented by Paley, upon the Laudian divines, upon 
 the religious tone and temper of the present day in 
 England. But the brevity of the notice only aggra- 
 vates the severity of the censure in each case, by 
 leaving it in the form of a sharply expressed general 
 condemnation, unlimited and unapplied. 
 
 A "factitious thesis," for instance, and "unreal 
 matter," and a "conventional case," are the words 
 flung at the head of Paley's great argument for Chris- 
 tianity; or again, that it combines a large breadth 
 c c 
 
386 BISHOP MARSH. 
 
 of assumption with a narrow result of proof. And it 
 is compared disadvantageously with the "only honest 
 critical enquiry into the origin and composition of 
 the canonical writings," in the last century, Bishop 
 Marsh's Germanizing lectures on the document-hypo- 
 thesis of the origin of the Gospels. 
 
 Surely the comparison is hardly fair. It implies 
 that the two lines of enquiry are divergent modes of 
 investigating one and the same subject, — the one 
 honest, and the other not so. They are really dis- 
 tinct and parallel enquiries, proceeding from a like 
 evidence - seeking temper, upon different subjects, 
 and neither of them, so far as I can see, blinliing 
 evidence or facts dishonestly. Each would have wel- 
 comed the other as a fellow-labourer in different com- 
 partments of the same field. Further, while refusing 
 to interpret the unexplained praise of this Essay by 
 the elaborate dissolution of the first three Gospels 
 into an uncertified and inconsistent tradition, which 
 is built upon a like eulogy of Marsh in another part 
 of the volume, it must be said that this whole incli- 
 nation towards such inquiries as Marsh's proceeds 
 very much upon an ignoring of the external testi- 
 mony of the Church from the beginning to the 
 Scriptures. The Gospels claim to be inspired Scrip- 
 ture, primarily, upon the historical evidence which 
 proves them to have been received as such, — as the 
 inspired writings of certain inspired men, — from Apo- 
 stolic times. Into what earlier sources they were re- 
 solvable in the process of composition, is to believers 
 a question of curiosity only, except so far as the an- 
 swer to it may, 1. remove cavils against the alleged 
 account of their inspired origin, and 2. throw light 
 upon their meaning. To unbelievers such a line of 
 
CRITICISM MORE INSTRUCTIVE THAN EVIDENCE. 387 
 
 inquiry can do little more than establish the grornid- 
 lessncss of the cavils in question. I cannot see then 
 how an enquirer is otherwise than honest who accepts 
 external testimony on such a subject. The one ques- 
 tion in the point for such an enquii-er is, whether 
 there be indeed such difficulties in the mutual rela- 
 tions of the language, and of the meaning, of the first 
 three Gospels one to the other, as to overpower the 
 external testimony. And the one value of works like 
 Marsh's seems to be, not the discovery by them of the 
 real account of the materials from which the Evan- 
 gelists wrote, — the building has been raised and the 
 scaffolding knocked down, and no divination can now 
 conjectiu-e whence each particular stone was hewn, — 
 but simply to establish that there is a possible account 
 to be given of the existing phenomena, which shall 
 remove all difficulty from the path of that external 
 evidence into which the arguments for belief must 
 be really resolved. The particular account given 
 by Marsh in the volume in question is indeed futile 
 enough. And like the similar hypotheses respecting 
 the Pentateuch, one serpent of the kind has swallowed 
 up another so rapidly in German speculation on the 
 subject, as to shew that all solid discovery about it is 
 as impossible as it is indeed superfluous. And sm-cly 
 it was fi'om this feeling of the inutility of an enquiry 
 which is to a large extent superseded by evidence 
 of another sort, coupled no doubt with a considerable 
 ignorance of German theology, and with a pre-occu- 
 pation by nobler and more profitable themes, and not 
 from any such dishonest fear of results as the Essayist 
 speaks of, that so few English divines have been found 
 to tread in Dr. Marsh's steps. However, there is a 
 ground of comparison between the historical argument 
 CO 2 
 
388 paley's conclusions narrow; 
 
 of Paley and the critical analysis of Marsh, apart 
 from the merits of the particular ^vriters. Undoubteclly 
 exegetical enquiries, assuming them to be rightly con- 
 ducted, tend to establish a more profound knowledge 
 and a more convincing proof than the external and 
 historical. The light thrown upon Scriptural studies 
 by the complete living reproduction of the actual cir- 
 cumstances under which each book was written, at 
 which modern criticism aims, has its undoubted ad- 
 vantages. It breathes life and motion into what was 
 before like an object seen in the mass under shade. 
 And so far, I fi-eely own, that the laboured result of 
 Paley's lengthy argument is jejune and narrow com- 
 pared with the results of a study of the sacred text 
 itself. The very boast of that writer, — that his book 
 will be serviceable to all denominations of Christians, 
 because the rent between sects does not go down to 
 the foundation, which it is his work to lay, — shews 
 plainly enough how vague that foundation is, which is 
 the extent of his results. Setting aside, then, all ques- 
 tion respecting the exceedingly imperfect historical 
 and patristic knowledge of the time and of the school, 
 (although Lardner, at any rate, cannot be called igno- 
 rant of the latter subject,) it is plain that a living 
 knowledge of the meaning of Scripture, though con- 
 sidered only in its literal and direct sense, will pre- 
 sent to the mind a far more profound and exact con- 
 ception of the Gospel and of its origin, whether for 
 the purpose of evidence or of devout thought, than 
 any amount of bare outward proof of the barren gene- 
 ral proposition that " Christianity," a word connoting 
 many complex and disputed ideas, rests upon the tes- 
 timony of witnesses who could be " neither deceivers 
 nor deceived." Moreover, one cannot but sympathize 
 
BUT SOUND AS FAR AS THEY REACH. 389 
 
 with the general remarks, which stigmatize the di- 
 rect study of merely external evidence, however ne- 
 cessary with respect to the unbeliever, as neverthe- 
 less injui'ious to that temper of belief in the student 
 of which it necessitates the temporary suspension. 
 Apart from the profanity which seems almost inse- 
 parable from the bare argumentative statement of the 
 case, the mind is taken off for the time from religious 
 thinking itself to the mere historical proof of the facts 
 upon which religious thought may be exercised, which 
 is of course, in no sense religious thinking at all. A 
 rational mind must indeed have reasonable ground for 
 believing. There is a legitimate function to be dis- 
 charged by evidential reasoning. There is a strength 
 in such evidence which occasionally may be useful to 
 confirm the faith even of a believing mind. But it is 
 not the task on which a Christian temper would choose 
 habitually to employ itself. 
 
 But allowing all this, — allowing that the study of 
 the text of Scripture is more remunerating than that 
 of external evidences ; and that, even as an evidence- 
 writer, Paley is certainly narrow in the result of his 
 laboured proof; — does he prove nothing because he 
 proves little? A "conventional case," and "unreal 
 matter," and a "factitious thesis," imply that the 
 argument thus stigmatized fulls to the ground alto- 
 gether, unless upon some one or more groundless 
 assumptions. And in Paley's great argument, — to 
 say nothing of Leslie's before, and of Lardner's after 
 Jiinj^ — what are these groundless assumptions ? It is 
 perfectly true that the historical fact of certain mira- 
 cles, which became also the ground of a new religious 
 body among men, is the sum total of Paley's results. 
 The theory of miracles in themselves, the value of 
 
39< 
 
 LAUDIAN DIVINES. 
 
 miracles as eyidence, the exclusion of the possibility 
 of any conversion of subjective belief into supposed 
 objective testimony, the value of historical evidence 
 as set over against a iwiori reasonings on the subject, 
 the application of the argument to the special and 
 cardinal doctrines of the faith, — in a word, the entire 
 subject of the argumentative bearings and value of 
 the naked skeleton of an argument put forward, are 
 not touched. The book is no answer to modern infi- 
 delity, no basis for a complete faith in Christian doc- 
 trine ; only a very small portion of the materials for 
 either. But it is one thing to say that an argument 
 is incomplete, or that it did not anticipate, and so did 
 not notice, modes of thought and reasoning posterior 
 in date to itself; another to stigmatize it as founded 
 on mistakes. And if the Essay, as I believe, means 
 simply the former of the two, then one cannot but feel 
 it unwise to fling out harsh-sounding words upon the 
 sensitive mind of the religious public, all alert as it 
 is at the present moment, and with considerable pro- 
 vocation, to find heresy wherever it can. 
 
 III. But the Laudian divines come off far worse. 
 Two or three hard words, which find in the facts 
 a partial justification, are bestowed, in passing, upon 
 Paley : has not the Dalilah of a neat historical for- 
 mula tempted the Essayist to sacrifice Laud and his 
 school to an antithesis? In a brief sketch of the 
 successive ''theories of belief" which have prevailed 
 among Christians, it was needful so to describe each 
 as to bring out the link of connection which led 
 to its successor. And the Caroline divines are sum- 
 marily characterized as having substituted the autho- 
 rity of the Kational Church for that of the discarded 
 Church Universal of pre-Ecformation times : and this 
 
LAUDIAN "THEORY OF BELIEF." 391 
 
 in snch away as to render it ''impossible to justify 
 tlie Ecformation and the breach with Eome." 
 
 Kow, the only supposition that will justify the first 
 statement is, that those divines resolved the ultimate 
 intellectual ground of religious faith into the decree 
 of the existing and national Church of England. The 
 only supposition that will justify the second is, that 
 they resolved it into the decree of the existing Ca- 
 tholic Church assumed to be represented by the Eope, 
 or at the outside by the Churches in communion with 
 the Pope. And surely the Caroline divines were so 
 far from assuming either of these suppositions, that 
 they unhesitatingly deny both. ^N'ay, did any man 
 ever assert for any national Church as such the attri- 
 bute of infallibility, or the right of concluding the 
 faith of its own members by its own simple testimony, 
 which imjDlies infallibility ? Or did any English di- 
 vine of the Church school ever so give up his own 
 cause, as to allow the identification of the Church 
 Catholic with any of the half-dozen forms under which 
 the Eoman Catholic controversialist claims infallibility 
 for his own part of the Church ? It is absolutely cer- 
 tain that Laud did neither ; nor, I think, any of those 
 divines who are roughly classed together as forming 
 the Laudian school. The Church, according to their 
 view, — no doubt to each individual his own branch 
 of it, — proposes to each the doctrines of the faith as 
 the doctrines of the Church in its entirety and from 
 the beginning, gives him therewith also the Holy 
 Scriptures as God's inspired "Word, refers him to the 
 traditional and historical faith of the Church ETni- 
 versal, reaching up to and including Apostolic times, 
 as presenting an authoritative interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture in fundamentals, and bids him then see for him- 
 
392 DOES NOT SURRENDER THE REFOR^IATION TO ROME, 
 
 self that the doctrines she thus lays before him are 
 in Scripture. If he in a teachable and earnest spirit 
 endeavours with both heart and reason to embrace 
 the truth thus proposed, she tells him that he will 
 be led on by God's grace to recognise the doctrines, 
 thus pointed out to him in Scripture, to be in them- 
 selves divine. An experimental Christian life will 
 give him an internal evidence of that which first comes 
 to him on external and historical grounds. And then 
 according to his measiu-e he will have true faith. He 
 will at length know his Saviour, not because others 
 have told him, but for himself. The case of the 
 Samaritans in the fourth chapter of St. John was the 
 favourite type, taken from older divines, and employed 
 to enforce the view thus laid down. The woman was 
 as the present and national Church. She proclaimed 
 Christ to the people of her village, and announced 
 to them His suj)ernatural knowledge, and His claim 
 to be the Messiah; and she bade them come and 
 see for themselves. Her office was external, intro- 
 ductory, evidential, needing their own act to bring 
 it to a completion. She could only repeat what 
 she had been told, and testify to her own expe- 
 rience. They accept her invitation, invite the Sa- 
 viour to dwell with them, and then declare to the 
 woman that their belief corresponds to, and crowns, 
 her declaration; for that they now believe, not be- 
 cause of her saying, but because they have heard 
 Jesus for themselves, and know that He is indeed 
 the Christ, the Saviour of the world. Here is no- 
 thing surely of a " substitution of the voice of the 
 national Church for that of the Church universal." 
 So far as the Church of the day, national or universal 
 claimed a self-terminated authority to impose doc- 
 
laud's own testimony. 393 
 
 trlncs upon lior members as of herself, so far there is 
 a rejection of all such authority on the part of the 
 Church altogether. So far as the question is of pro- 
 posing the truth with the moral authority of a wit- 
 ness, referring the disciple to the ultimate and divine 
 authority of Scripture, so far there is no substitution 
 but a retaining of both Church universal and Church 
 national ; the latter as necessarily the immediate re- 
 presentative to the individual Christian of the former, 
 but as partaking its authority, and that simply a moral 
 authority, only in the due proportion which the case 
 itself implies. And so stated, there is assuredly no 
 suicidal surrender of the Eeformation to Eome in the 
 adoption of the imnciple. For the Eeformation is to 
 be justified on the very ground that it was an appeal 
 from a corrupt part of the present Church to the col- 
 lective witness of the whole Church yet undivided ; 
 and that corrected by the Scriptures themselves as 
 being the witness of the first and inspired Church, 
 to which Scriptures it is the very office of the present 
 uninspired Church to introduce her members as to the 
 final and conclusive Word of God ^ 
 
 Take Laud's own view, too long to quote, but 
 which any one may find set forth repeatedly in 
 his "Conference with Fisher." We have there, 
 first, as the ultimate objective ground of faith, not 
 the Church in any sense, but the Scriptures: and 
 these subjectively apprehended, through the aid of 
 the Iloly Spirit, not by the understanding merely, 
 
 ' A reference to Laud's '-'Conference with Fisher" would be con- 
 
 . elusive on this subject. And quotations to the point may be found 
 
 ready collected in an " Anglican Catena" (" Tracts for the Times," 
 
 vol. iv.) ; which, by the way, beginning with Jewel, does not end 
 
 with Brett or Watcrland, but with Jebb and Yan Mildert. 
 
394 ARCHBISHOP BRAMHALL. 
 
 but by the entire complex experience of the mature 
 Christian man. And then we have, next, the Chui'ch, 
 the Church Catholic, the Church from the beginning, 
 brought before the believer by the voice of the Church 
 present, but with no claim of formal authority with- 
 out appeal, even for the former. And the office of 
 the Church so understood is introductory, corrective, 
 educational, regulative, interpretative, possessed of a 
 moral authority proportioned to the universality and 
 antiquity, and other corroborative circumstances, of 
 the testimony given, but not claiming to be the formal 
 and ultimate ground of faith. 
 
 And if we look further for express statements of 
 the relative authority of the Church Catholic and the 
 Church national, these are not far to seek; and as- 
 siu'edly negative outright any notion of .a desire to 
 substitute the latter for the former. Jeremy Taylor, 
 perhaps, can scarcely claim rank as a Laudian di- 
 vine, although in his later works he may be mostly 
 so reckoned, and his departures from that school 
 at any time were partial and occasional only, how- 
 ever extravagant. Otherwise, his Ductor Duhitantium 
 would supply us with a precise testimony. But none 
 can doubt the right of Ai-chbishop Bramhall, the 
 Irish Laud, to represent that school. And his decla- 
 ration of faith on the subject (in the Addi-ess to the 
 Christian Eeader, prefixed to his "Eeplication to the 
 Bishop of Chalcedon") is as exact as it is instructive. 
 First the " Catholic oecumenical essential Church," to 
 which he "submits himself implicitly" until its testi- 
 mony be given, and " in the preparation of his heart ;" 
 seeing that his "adherence is firmer to the infallible 
 rule of faith, i. e. the Holy Scriptures interpreted by 
 the Catholic Church, than to his own private judg- 
 
RELIGIOUS TONE OF THE PRESENT DAY. 395 
 
 mcnt and opinions." And next, and in a distinct 
 line from this, a simple " submission " to " the repre- 
 sentative Church, i.e. a free General Council," and 
 ''until then to the Church of England, or to a na- 
 tional English synod, to the determination of all 
 which, and of each of them respectively, according to 
 the distinct degrees of their authority, I yield," he 
 says, "a conformity and compliance, or at the least, 
 and to the lowest of them," (i.e. the English national 
 synod,) "an acquiescence." Assuredly there is no 
 substitution here of the particular for the universal. 
 As well might the Archbishop be called a "rational- 
 ist," because he concludes this very declaration of his 
 "theory of belief," by bidding his opponent in the 
 end to " follow the dictates of right reason." And his 
 more expanded statement of the nature of the autho- 
 rity which he assigns to the national Church, in his 
 " Answer to La Milletiere," shews plainly that the 
 " authoritative " judgment which he there claims for 
 it, the "judgment of jurisdiction," is one to which 
 obedience, and not faith, is the correlative, and which 
 is therefore in no sense a substitute for the formal 
 infallibility claimed by the Eomanist for the Church 
 Universal as in communion with the Pope, or even 
 for the practical infallibility claimed by the Anglican 
 for the Church, as a whole and from the beginning, 
 iiTcspective of the Pope altogether. 
 
 TV. The condition of religious feeling in the pre- 
 sent English Church is a more delicate subject. The 
 religious world in England at present is described, in 
 different parts of the Essay, as being in the unsound 
 and unhealthy state of holding -sdews of which it is 
 afraid to " allow the proofs to be sifted in open 
 coiu't ;" — views which have become mere formula?, 
 
396 IN V>'HAT RESPECTS DEFECTIVE. 
 
 once but no longer the living expression of earnest 
 belief, now a "godless orthodoxy," which "extin- 
 guishes religious thought," and shrinks from honest 
 enquiry lest it should prove fertile " in unpleasant re- 
 sults." That orthodoxy has " ceased to be a social in- 
 fluence," — so it is hinted — and is growing into an arti- 
 ficial system, where theological virtues are no longer 
 moral ones, and theological doctrines have "stiffened 
 into phrases," and "bear no relation to the actual 
 history of man;" while a "factitious phraseology," or 
 the " passwords of the modern pulpit," are " sub- 
 stituted for the simple facts of life." Severe language, 
 sui-ely, to be applied either expressly or by implication 
 to the existing tone of religious thought among us, or 
 to its tendency ; language strangely at variance with 
 the more common and cheering belief, finding both 
 utterance and evidence in ways so numerous, of an 
 unprecedented revival within the past generation of 
 a living and chastened faith. But when we come to 
 interpret and criticise this language, the question must 
 be first answered, to what extent is it intended to 
 reach ? Is it the whole belief of the Church as such 
 that is thus dissevered fi'om the faith and the wants 
 of the age ? Or is it merely that such moral defects 
 exist in a particular party, or extend to only the 
 manner in which the truth is taught? It is quite 
 possible, — and in an age of thought and of discovery 
 must needs be the case, — that a large amount of un- 
 reasoning, unsifted belief in the bulk of mankind will 
 enshi'ine the particular opinions of a previous genera- 
 tion, and its errors among them, in a religious reve- 
 rence, long after the more learned of individual en- 
 quirers have renounced those errors. The various 
 readings of Kennicott's Hebrew text, and the critical 
 
REAL QUESTION AT ISSUE. 397 
 
 emendations of Mill's K'ew Testament, and the very 
 Polyglott of Walton, were each of tliem heresy in 
 their day and for a while to some people. And pro- 
 bably we are as our forefathers were ; not less, yet 
 not more likely to be obstinate in retaining exploded 
 errors. Dean Ellicott, for instance, runs no particular 
 risk of being called hard names for giving up the O9 
 in the 1st of Timothy. Again, it is very possible, 
 that when the life of a religious movement is pretty 
 nigh exhausted, and its existence has become rather 
 one of opposition to more living movements of a later 
 date, — when a theological school has outgrown the 
 conditions which called it into existence and made it 
 the real supply to a true want, — the peculiar forms 
 of speech that once had, but now have lost, a real 
 meaning, shall nevertheless retain a traditional and 
 customary acceptance, and be defended with a bigotry 
 and acrimony proportioned to the loss of a living faith 
 in them and of an honest appreciation of their evi- 
 dence. Something of a " godless orthodoxy" is almost 
 a necessary incident of a declining theological move- 
 ment. It is possible, yet once more, that a true Scrip- 
 tui-al theology may be preached in a conventional and 
 unreal tone, and that men who have confounded their 
 own stiff modes of handling the truth with the truth 
 itself, may be apt to " stifle thought" to the best of 
 their power by condemning those who throw them- 
 selves into a heartier way of teaching it. These sup- 
 positions taken together — and I believe each of them 
 has, or has had, a real application to ourselves — give 
 an innocent, and I believe the actual, meaning of the 
 Essayist's language. Unhappily, however, other Essays, 
 for which the Hector of Lincoln is not responsible, 
 attach a much wider sense to similar censures of the 
 
398 NOT THAT WHICH IS HERE RAISED, 
 
 present time. The factitious phraseology, the posi- 
 tions which will not bear the light of day, the formulae 
 which are unreal, and yet from which an irrational 
 bigotry will tolerate no departure, — are interpreted 
 elsewhere to be questions of Biblical interpretation, 
 of the construction of creeds, of the Church of the 
 future. And the unquestioning belief in an inspired 
 Book, the absolute acceptance of the doctrines of the 
 Creeds, the customary theology to be found in Prayer- 
 book and Catechism, preached in the old letter and 
 not in the new spirit, — these are proclaimed to be in 
 opposition so diametrical to the intellect, and know- 
 ledge, and moral instincts of the age, as to render it 
 impossible for many honest enquirers to continue to 
 accept them. If so, then let the real issue be raised 
 openly: only let it be remembered, that it is not raised 
 by the words of this Essay, but by the piecing out of 
 the indefiniteness of those words through the language 
 of others. Then it is indeed Christianity itself which 
 is assailed. The Christianity of 1,800 years is held to 
 have done its work, and lived its life, and to be now 
 effete. And the difference between Comte, for instance, 
 or any other open assailant of the Gospel, and the ex- 
 tremest of the school that is now rising among us, 
 will be simply the difference between an open substi- 
 tution of a human system for Christianity, and an at- 
 tempt to alter the latter into conformity with a human 
 system — the difference, in a word, between rejecting or 
 retaining the niere name of the Gospel, while equally 
 giving up the thing. Only let it be repeated, while 
 thus in all sadness insisting upon the real issue at the 
 bottom of this conflict, that the deliberate intention of 
 raising that issue is not to be imputed to men who pro- 
 fess, however (we may think) groundlessly, to be only 
 
THAT TONE IMPROVED, NOT DETERIORATED. 399 
 
 recalling the Christianity of the day to a truer, and 
 therefore more effective condition ; and who do beyond 
 a doubt intend, in their own pui'pose, however unhap- 
 pily, to reconcile intellect with revelation. And, at any 
 rate, the words of the present Essay are responsible for 
 no question of the kind. Meanwhile, it certainly does 
 seem to meet the facts of the case more truly, that we 
 should recognise rather an improvement than a deterio- 
 ration in the present tone of English theology. English 
 preaching has surely thrown off the pompous conven- 
 tionalities and rounded Latinisms that sent our fathers 
 to sleep, and has become more of a living and flexible 
 insti-ument, fitting into men's hearts and speaking to 
 their real wants ; while, at the same time, and mt! 
 the very reverse of a diminution of acceptableness' 
 it has learned a deeper theology and preaches more 
 thoroughly and more livingly the " terminology of 
 the Creeds." And English exegesis has been so far 
 from refusing to face the extremest researches of Ger- 
 man criticism, that it has been learning of late to 
 rifle them of their solid and minute learning without 
 being tainted by their generally crude and unpractical 
 spirit. And without denying that there is much among 
 us of narrowness and of bigotry, or that the Church 
 has been well-nigh rent in half by a bitter and un- 
 reasoning party spirit, it is surely plain, that a large 
 part at least of the polemical ferment which has arisen 
 now, means only — what is both right and reasonable 
 — that earnest men are shocked at what they hold to 
 be a tampering with fundamental truth, and a wanton 
 assault upon Scripture ; that they expect that clergy- 
 men shall believe what they subscribe, instead of 
 spending theii' laboiu- in determining the minimum 
 of belief that is unavoidable ; and that Christians shall 
 
400 OBJECTIVE "THEORY OF BELIEF." 
 
 submit their judgments to the faith of Chiist, instead 
 of altering that faith to suit their own narrow concep- 
 tions. This is assuredly the impression under which 
 the whole Chui'ch, so to say, has undoubtedly acted ; 
 and the very sti'ength of which shews, at any rate, no 
 unreality of feeling, while the breadth of the provoca- 
 tion excludes any charge of narrow bigotry. 
 
 It yet remains to notice one further topic, of deeper 
 interest and wider reach than any mere question of 
 matter of fact respecting the doctrines or temper of 
 particular periods of the Church. Having spoken 
 hitherto of facts, let us turn now to j)rinciples. There 
 are two ways of writing the history of religious, as of 
 any other class of opinion. Either an historian may 
 trace the course of that opinion with continual refer- 
 ence to a standard of truth, by which he measures his 
 judgments of each passing phase of belief; or, waiving 
 this, he may trace the successive shades and schools 
 of belief on the hypothesis of a merely natui-al suc- 
 cession of ideas, developed according to ''a law of 
 necessary continuity" by the simple operation of the 
 laws of thought. He may either write, as a Chi'istian, 
 a history of his own religion, discriminating the min- 
 gled truth and falsehood of successive schools of doc- 
 ti'ine; or as a spectator, placed externally, he may 
 analyze the growth and variations of a philosophy, 
 irrespective of truth or falsehood altogether. In the 
 first case, he will run the risk, no doubt, of coloimng 
 his statements, unconsciously if not intentionally, by 
 the particular views of his own school and time. His 
 book, if he is not on his guard, may degenerate into 
 the special pleading of a partizan. In the second, he 
 must of necessity deprive himself of that sympathy 
 with his subject, which alone can enable an historian 
 
NECESSARY TO A SOUND BELIEF. 40 1 
 
 to depict aright a history of religion. He will be- 
 come a mere dry analyzer of facts, to the true life of 
 which he has voluntarily blinded himself^. The phi- 
 losophical spirit, which realizes to the life the entire 
 atmosphere of thought and fact under which any view 
 of doctrine came into existence, seems impossible in 
 matters of religion, unless to a religious thinker. 
 Truth, in such subjects, hides itself from those who 
 deliberately write without any thought of truth at all. 
 So far, however, the question is only one between two 
 opposite extremes ; both of which, indeed, must be 
 blended together, in order to produce a perfect his- 
 tory. A history of truth will be unreal and technical, 
 unless it be also clothed in the flesh and blood of the 
 successive phases of opinion. And a history of opinion, 
 independent of the moral certainty that it Avill in such 
 a case lean towards falsehood, will be destitute of in- 
 sight into the deeper springs of human action, much 
 more into the dispensations of God, unless it be re- 
 ferred throughout to the standard of truth. But the case 
 is materially altered, if the natural connection of suc- 
 cessive theological views be assumed to be inconsistent 
 with any " theory of belief," by which objective truth 
 is held to be attainable. If the value of ecclesiastical 
 history be asserted to be, that it eliminates the sub- 
 jectivity of one age by the neutralizing effect of com- 
 paring also those of other ages, the assertion no doubt 
 is to the point, and true. But if it is also implied, 
 that no more present and immediate instrument exists 
 for ascertaining fundamental religious truth than the. 
 tracing back the opinion of the present day to its 
 antecedents, and that men are in the midst of a kind 
 
 8 There are some good remarks on this subject in the beginning 
 of Neander's " History of the Church." 
 Dd 
 
402 SUBJECTIVE THEORY HERE ADVANCED. 
 
 of mesmeric chain of external influences through 
 which no hand is stretched to lift them up to the 
 truth itself, such a view claims to be otherwise cha- 
 racterized. It seems to ignore the provisions made 
 under the Gospel for perpetuating truth, the external 
 teaching of Church and Bible, and the internal powers 
 of the reason as guided by the Holy Spirit ; and to 
 substitute accordingly, for truth belief, for dogma 
 opinion, for the Creeds a mere philosophy. And the 
 ultimate result of such a view must be a very sad 
 alternative, yet one which the events of the last few 
 years have shewn too plainly to be a real one. For 
 men will not rest content with a faith held to depend 
 upon grounds that are illusory. And they who are 
 so placed, must needs end either in believing no- 
 thing, or in arbitrarily choosing and blindly accept- 
 ing some external and self-constituted standard of 
 belief for themselves. 
 
 Now the undeveloped and cursory remarks at the 
 beginning of the Essay here considered, leave un- 
 deniably the impression of favouring such a view. 
 They seem to exhibit as the grounds of the faith, 
 what are in truth the causes of its corruption, the 
 character and mental condition of each successive age. 
 They appear to speak of " the eternal verities" of the 
 original revelation, as though they were visible to us 
 only through the vista, — the tortuous windings and 
 hazy atmosphere, — of the past world of thought that 
 intervenes between them and ourselves ; and as though 
 they owed their present form, less to the unchangeable 
 Divine informant, than to the minds of the men who 
 teach and the men who are taught. And they do 
 distinctly include within the influence and sphere of 
 variable opinion, all theories of objective standards 
 
WHAT IS THE TRUE "THEORY OF BELIEF." 403 
 
 of religious truth ; ranking, under a trenchant though 
 surely a rather strained alternative, as alike untenable, 
 the outward and the inward, the Eoman Catholic and 
 Anglican, and the Protestant, theories; or, in other 
 words, the assertion of an external and living in- 
 structor, whether single or corporate, immediate or 
 traditional, or of an insiDired book, capable of being 
 interpreted whether by Church or individual, or of 
 both combined, if assumed to be channels of a truth 
 above opinion, and able, therefore, to overrule and 
 inform it. Of course there may be theories, on the 
 one hand, of a continuous external source of Divine 
 teaching, which yet recognise "the laws of human 
 thought ;" and on the other, of individual enquiry, 
 which do "take account of the influences of educa- 
 tion:" either of which, therefore, escape the rather 
 verbal antithesis of the Essayist's dilemma; — a di- 
 lemma, however, professing by its terms to be an 
 exhaustive one. But while, if pressed to then- most 
 precise meaning, room is thus left by the words for 
 the loftier view, it is impossible to help feeling that 
 the tone of the remarks in question does tend to in- 
 clude the whole body of religious truth within the 
 shifting mass of current human opinion, and to deny 
 to ourselves the possession of any competent instru- 
 ment for ascertaining that truth, in its purity, ob- 
 jectively as truth. 
 
 And what, then, is the question, suggested rather 
 than distinctly put, still less formally answered in 
 either direction, by the remarks of the Essay — an 
 old question, that has underlain much of the con- 
 troversy between England and Rome as well as be- 
 tween Christian and Deist, and that has come to 
 the surfticc again now in more places than in the 
 
 Dd2 
 
404 CATHOLIC CONSENT 
 
 volume of Essays? It is the question, whether or 
 no the Church has yet succeeded in propounding 
 a true "theory of belief." Faith is correlative to 
 a Divine informant; yet here is, directly and to 
 ourselves, only man, one man commonly against an- 
 other. Truth must rest upon absolute grounds; 
 yet religious belief, as a matter of fact, is what it 
 is, mainly because men are born in this or that 
 school of theology, in Italy or in England, in a 
 cottage or in a palace. The interpretation, again, 
 of the Bible must needs vary with the opinions, and 
 temper, and knowledge of the age. And the present 
 Church, under whatever form represented, must needs 
 consist of men, who do not by reason of their Church 
 position rise above humanity, and who therefore see 
 with the eyes of their age, and judge according to 
 the idola with which that age surrounds them. Does 
 it not follow, either that there must be, besides these, 
 some visible and continuous present Divine informant, 
 if we are to have a truth in religion at all above 
 opinion, or that we cannot attain to such truth? 
 !N"either a living Pope nor an open Bible are an 
 adequate answer to this question. The former leaves 
 us still to mere moral evidence, even granting that 
 there was such evidence, to establish his right to be 
 the required oracle. Xor does the present Church at 
 large, even omitting the divisions that impair its autho- 
 rity and silence its voice, claim more certainly, although 
 more plausibly, the privilege of formal infallibility. 
 And although, granting the conditions of an accessible 
 Bible, and a belief in its inspiration, and a fair average 
 of education, I do not believe that broad or funda- 
 mental error in religion could in the long run hold 
 its ground ; yet, doubtless, the very text of the Bible, 
 
INTERPRETING SCRIPTURE. 405 
 
 and the canonicity of it, and its inspiration, and the 
 body of doctrine to be deduced from it, depend to 
 us npon human reasoning. But if there be thus no 
 living Divine informant, is there, for that reason, 
 no pliilosophically tenable ground for religious faith 
 at all ? Is the voice of God not brought to our ears, 
 because there are no audible accents of that voice 
 speaking to our physical sense of hearing from a 
 visible Sinai ? Because moral evidence is not in itself 
 formally infallible, is it impossible that some moral 
 evidence shall bring within the reach of men truths 
 Tvhieh are formally infliUible ? And there is abundant 
 moral evidence to a past infallible revelation, and to 
 the embodiment of the words of infallible men in 
 a still existing book; and to the continuous exist- 
 ence of a certain Creed from the beginning, taught 
 by those infallible men, and held by the Chiu'ch at 
 all times, although mixed up with a mass of error 
 at this or that time; and held from the beginning 
 to have been the Creed, upon belief in which that 
 book was founded, and which its text therefore im- 
 plies, and which may be read and re-read, in that 
 text, from time to time. In a word, there is that 
 which does seem, as it has seemed, sui'ely, to the Ee- 
 formed Church of England, to be a philosophically 
 sound "theory of belief," in fundamentals, viz. Scrip- 
 ture interpreted by Catholic consent. Here is the 
 sufficient foundation for a belief, that shall rest upon 
 a truth above opinion, and be correlative to a Creed 
 and not to a mere philosophy. It is unreasonable 
 and presumptuous to refuse to believe unless a pre- 
 sent and living voice speaks to ourselves with a Di- 
 vine power; and if men cannot find such a voice, 
 to declare belief impossible. The evidence of the 
 Christian Chui'ch of all times and places, — omitting 
 
4C6 IS AX ABSOLUTE, NOT A RELATIVE, STANDARD. 
 
 all question of Divine aid or appointment, — con- 
 stitutes a collective witness to the facts of the ori- 
 ginal revelation, — to the written records left behind 
 by its inspired teachers, — to the main lines of their 
 teaching itself, — such as at least rises to a level 
 above the fluctuations of opinion or the subjective 
 conditions of particular periods. Kitual, liturgies, an 
 ordained clergy, a traditional orthodox faith, the coun- 
 tei-poise of opposite influences in different peoples 
 neutralized by combination, the ^dews of one age cor- 
 rected by those of another, in a word, the collec- 
 tive evidence of the Church of all times and ages, 
 — and this corrected, checked, enlightened, gifted 
 as it were with a living and human power, by the 
 volume of Scripture, by the written words in which 
 are embodied the living teachings of prophets and 
 apostles, and of Christ Himself, — and vitalized, again, 
 and applied by the spiritual experience and spiri- 
 tually guided reasons of individual Christians, — con- 
 stitutes together a complex but wonderful machinery 
 for the preservation of truth ; which cannot be got rid 
 of by pointing out that its operation is modified, as no 
 doubt it is, by the nature of the subject on which it is 
 brought to bear. A floating mass of uncertified and 
 confused opinion will, of coui'se, always exist ; and the 
 tone of thought will vary ; and the aspect of the truth, 
 and the stress laid upon particular portions of it, and 
 the inferences di-awn from it, and the amount of error 
 mingled with it, will fluctuate with the knowledge, 
 and the philosophy, and the moral tone of the time. 
 Difficulties again, transformed by the solution of them 
 into evidences, will arise on the side of metaphysics, 
 physics, criticism, morals, history; yet each passing 
 away, as a matter of fact, with the conditions of the 
 time to v.'hich it belonged, and out of which it arose, 
 
TRUTH ACTUALLY PRESERVED EY IT. 
 
 407 
 
 nnd all together dwarfed into insignificance by the 
 side of the counter-difficulty of explaining the his- 
 torical fact of Christianity on any other supposition 
 than that of its truth. But, old-fashioned as the words 
 may sound in the ears of modern intellect, the Bible, 
 as interpreted by Catholic consent, does appear, never- 
 theless, to be the very instrument fitted to the very 
 need with which we are here concerned. Moral evi- 
 dence of course it is, and not demonstrative. But it 
 is moral evidence which, practically, and to a temper 
 not blinded by moral defects, precisely performs the 
 office, of lifting the mind above the conditions of the 
 time, and of bringing it in contact with the uncoloured 
 truth. It is moral evidence which rests upon an ulti- 
 mate Divine informant, and checks itself by a con- 
 tinued reference to recorded Di^dne words. And a 
 large view of Church history will shew, that on the 
 whole, and for its main purpose, it has actually an- 
 swered the end for which God gave it. The funda 
 mental truths of the Gospel have been overlaid, but 
 not forgotten; have been distorted, but not blotted 
 out; have "progressed by the antagonism" of op- 
 posing tendencies, yet have ever oscillated again to 
 their true balance; have been preserved, in a word, 
 as it has pleased God to preserve all truth for man, by 
 the instrumentality of man himself ; not with mathe- 
 matical demonstration or rigorous precision, but with 
 moral certainty and with substantial truth ; not by 
 abolishing the atmosphere of human thought and feel- 
 ing, but by penetrating that atmosphere with the rays 
 of a distant, but uumistakeable and glorious sun. 
 
i 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF 
 SCRIPTURE^ 
 
 TT7IIE]Sr the gallant Percy was smarting under his 
 ^^ wounds on the field of Holmedon, where he 
 had fought nobly for his king and country, he was 
 accosted by a courtier who had taken no part in the 
 fray, and who discoursed to the faint and weary sol- 
 dier on the calamities of war. It was a strange thing, 
 he said, that men should risk their lives in battle : — 
 " .... It was great pity, 
 
 So it was, that villainous saltpetre should be digged 
 
 Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, 
 
 Which many a good taU fellow had destroyed 
 
 So cowardly''." 
 
 He also informed the bleeding man that there was 
 an excellent recipe for the healing of his wounds : — 
 
 "... The sovereign' st thing on earth 
 "Was parmaceti for an inward bruise." 
 
 The temper of the brave soldier was nettled by this 
 impertinent talk, and he answered it in good plain 
 downright English, for he says " it made him mad." 
 
 ' Note. — In the following pages the writer has endeavoured to 
 remove objections, and to shew the result of erroneous principles. 
 This, he is well aware, is only a portion of the work to be done, 
 with regard to the subject before him. It is necessary to build 
 up, as well as to pull down ; to establish the truth, as well as to 
 refute error. He has therefore attempted to deal with that other 
 part of the argument in '* Lectures on the Inspiration, and on the 
 Interpretation, of the Bible, delivered at Westminster Abbey." 
 (llivingtons, 1861. 2 vols., 7s.) 
 
 " Shakespeare, Henry IV., Pt. i. Act i. sc. 3. 
 
410 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Hotspur knew by experience that war was not a 
 pleasant trade, and he felt some of its evils at that 
 time. But, human nature being what it is, it did 
 not seem to him a strange or surprising thing that 
 men should fight. He knew that they have passions 
 and lusts, and if he had read the Epistle of St. James 
 in the Latin Yulgate, or in "Wickliffe's Version, — for 
 he probably did not know Greek, — he had learnt the 
 cause of war, — ''Whence come wars and fightings 
 among you ? Come they not hence, even of your lusts 
 that war in your members *" ?" 
 
 He felt also an instinct within him, prompting him, 
 when called by the voice of his sovereign, to fight 
 valiantly for his king, his country, and his God. 
 
 The author of the Essay before us will not, it is 
 hoped, resent the comparison of the first six pages 
 of his Essay to the discourse of the courtier at 
 Holmedon. 
 
 The Essay opens thus: — ''It is a strange though 
 familiar fact, that great differences of opinion exist 
 respecting the Interpretation of Scripture '^." It is a 
 wonderful thing, that men are not all agreed as to its 
 meaning, and that they should engage in conflicts and 
 controversies upon it. " It is so exh-aordinary a phe- 
 nomenon," he tells us, " that it requu'es an effort of 
 thought to appreciate its true nature^ P What a won- 
 derful prodigy it must be, to demand such a distress- 
 ing strain of our mind that we should absolutely be 
 obliged to think I 
 
 Is not this very like the lack-a-daisical languor of 
 
 the coui'tier in the play ? It required of him an efi'ort 
 
 of courage to look the enemy in the face, and buckle 
 
 on his armour and fight; and "it requires an effort 
 
 ' James iv. 1. ^ Essay, p. 330. ' p. 334. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 411 
 
 of thought to appreciate" the true nature of differences 
 of Interpretation of Scripture. It is a sad thing that 
 such differences should exist. Pity it is, that the 
 saltpetre should be dug out of the earth which has 
 supplied the material for this controversial warfare. 
 
 Yes ; but in sober seriousness, are not all the 
 plaintive notes which compose the dolorous dirge of 
 these first six pages of our Essay like the effeminate 
 effusions of a maudlin sentimentalism ? True, very 
 true it is, that there are differences, and have been 
 differences, and ever will be differences in the Inter- 
 pretation of Holy Scripture. But let us look them 
 honestly and coui'ageously in the face. Is it "a 
 strange thing," is it ''an extraordinary phenomenon," 
 that there should be such differences ? !N'o, certainly 
 not ; at least in the estimate of those who acknow- 
 ledge the divine origin of Scripture, and who con- 
 sider the con-uptions of the human heart and the ope- 
 rations of our spiritual Enemy. It is not more strange 
 and extraordinary that there should be controversies 
 concerning the meaning of Scripture, than that there 
 should be wars and fightings among us. Scripture is 
 God's word. And the Evil Spirit is the enemy of 
 Scripture, and he has been ever eager to take the 
 seed of God's word out of men's hearts^; and our 
 hearts are often bad soil, and do not retain the "Word. 
 He stirs up some men to deny the Inspiration of 
 Scripture ; and to treat the Bible as a common book. 
 He excites others to pervert its meaning and to bend 
 it in various directions, as a mere ^^regula iilumhca^ a 
 leaden mle," to suit their own wayward imaginations, 
 which they call their "verifying faculty;" and to 
 twist it about as a '' cerem 7iasi(s, a nose of wax," to 
 
 ' Luke viii. 12. 
 
412 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 be moulded with easy pliancy so as to accommodate 
 itself to theii' " inner consciousness ;" and to set at 
 naught all the guidance which the Holy Spirit affords 
 for the true Interpretation of Scripture, both in Scrip- 
 ture itself, and in the primitive consent and practice 
 of the Christian Church. 
 
 All these machinations of the Enemy of Scripture 
 are perfectly familiar to every student of Church-his- 
 tory, and will not seem strange to any child who 
 reads Scripture itself. At the Temptation in the wil- 
 derness, the Devil quoted Scripture against the Divine 
 Author of Scripture ^. And St. Peter tells us that 
 even in his own days there were " differences in the 
 interpretation of Scripture," and that "unlearned and 
 unstable men " wi'ested some things in St. Paul's Epi- 
 stles, as they did " the other Scriptures, unto their 
 own destruction^." 
 
 From the times of the Apostles, and after them in 
 the days of St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp and St. Ire- 
 nseus and Tertullian, even to the present age, the 
 same Evil Spirit which stirred up the first false teach- 
 ers to corrupt the sense of Scripture, has been always 
 at work in prosecuting the same design. Therefore no 
 one need be surprised or staggered by the fact, that 
 there are great differences in the interpretation of 
 Scripture. Iso one ought to consider it a "strange 
 and extraordinary phenomenon," but he ought to 
 recognise in it a proof of the divine truth of Scripture 
 warning us that so it would be ; and he ought to see 
 here an evidence of the divine worth of Scripture, 
 which the Evil Spirit desires to destroy ; and he ought 
 also to derive from it a strong motive to hold fast the 
 true sense of Holy Scripture, which the Divine Author 
 
 e :Matt. iv. 6; Luke iv. 10. '' 2 Tct. iii. 16. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 413 
 
 of Scripture declares to ns by the witness of His 
 Church uuiversal, " the Church of the living God, the 
 pillar and ground of the truth V 
 
 The Essayist, having expressed his surprise '41iat 
 differences of opinion should exist respecting the In- 
 terpretation of Scripture," and having said that '' it 
 requires an effort of thought to appreciate the nature 
 of so extraordinary a phenomenon," proceeds to pre- 
 scribe a remedy for the evil. If we will follow his 
 advice, our differences respecting the Interpretation 
 of Scripture may, he says, be abated, and eventnally 
 disappear. He has discovered an excellent medicine 
 which will cure the malady. He has found out a spiri- 
 tual panacea, he has invented a soothing balm more 
 potent than that 
 
 " Nepenthes whicli the wife of Thou 
 In Egj-pt gave to Jove-born Helena^." 
 
 He has compounded a wonderful diallacticon, to re- 
 concile the divided members of Christendom, and 
 assuage their aches and pains, and make them move 
 in harmony and peace. 
 
 It is much to be regretted, that, when we come to 
 examine this marvellous recipe, we do not find that it 
 answers our expectations; we shall see what it is when 
 we proceed a little further. 
 
 In the meantime we must be permitted to say, with- 
 all due respect to the inventor of this new medi- 
 cine, that here also we recognise a resemblance to the 
 courtier at Holmedon. He lamented the differences 
 and strifes of frail humanity ; and he then proceeded 
 to recommend his own remedy. He told Hotspur that 
 "The sovereign' st thing on earth 
 "Was parmaccti for an inward bruise." 
 
 i 1 xim. iii. 15. ^ Milton's Comiis. 
 
414 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 It is much, to be feared that the Essayist's panacea 
 may prove very like the courtier's parmaceti. But 
 we must pass on. 
 
 § 2. The Essayist complains that there is great 
 reluctance among Christians to profit by recent re- 
 searches of Biblical criticism. Hence, in part, he would 
 account for the differences which he deplores in the 
 interpretation of Scripture. He says that the Elzevir 
 edition of the Greek New Testament, published in the 
 year 1624, "has been invested with authority, and is 
 made o. piece de resistance against innovation''." This 
 is a marvellous assertion; and if the writer's name 
 had not been prefixed to this Essay — if the title-page 
 had not told us that it was produced by one who oc- 
 cupies the chair of Regius Professor of Greek in the 
 University of Oxford, which was lately filled by one 
 of the most learned critics in Christendom, the late 
 Dean of Christ Church, we should rather have ima- 
 gined that it was put forth by some of those benighted 
 persons whose blindness he deplores. 
 
 The Essayist of course is speaking of England when 
 he uses this language. Germany, it is certain, does 
 not need his pity. Tischendorf cannot be charged 
 with bigoted adherence to the edition of 1624. Nor 
 can Lachman^ as the Essayist calls him '; nor can Meier ^ 
 as our author writes his name"". And as far as Eng- 
 land is concerned, — enveloped in darkness as she is, in 
 the Essayist's estimation, like a land of critical Cim- 
 merians, — there is scarcely a single Biblical scholar in 
 this country, among those who have put forth anno- 
 tated editions of the whole or portions of the Greek 
 Testament in the last half-century, who has made 
 a stand for the text of 1624, and has regarded it as 
 
 ^ Essay, p. 335. ' p. 352. ■" p. 339. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 415 
 
 a ^^ piece de resistance against innovation." Dean Al- 
 ford, Dean Ellicott, Dr. Bloomfield, Dr. Tregellcs, and 
 otliersj liave shewn themselves free from the trammels 
 of a superstitious reverence for that edition. We had 
 even supposed that Professor Jowett himself had re- 
 sisted the claims of the Textus Reccphis, and had 
 adopted the text. of Lachmann in his edition of four 
 of the Epistles of St. Paul : and, as a learned writer has 
 observed'', he seems to cling with great tenacity to 
 that text, — which in very many instances is less cor- 
 rect than that of the Textus Reccptus, — and to make 
 it a ^^ piece de resistance against innovation." 
 
 It is indeed a '' strange fact," an ''extraordinary phe- 
 nomenon," that a wi'iter who expresses a desire to sec 
 a history of Biblical Interpretation", and who pro- 
 poses to inaugurate a new era in Scriptural criticism, 
 should exhibit so much forgetfulness of what has been 
 done in that department in his own country and in 
 his own age. Did it require "an effort of thought" to 
 appreciate the true nature of the case ? and was that 
 effort too great to be made ? 
 
 § 3. The Essayist next states his opinion on the du- 
 ties of an Interpreter of Scriptui-e. " The office of 
 an Interpreter of Scripture," he says, "is to transfer 
 himself to another age," to "recover the meaning of 
 the words as they struck on the ears or flashed before 
 the eyes of those who first heard and read them p." 
 
 We must here again, with great reluctance, crave 
 leave to dissent. We venture respectfully, but confi- 
 dently, to assert that here is a great mistake ; and it 
 does not seem to be improved by what immediately 
 succeeds it. "The Interpreter," we are told, "is to 
 
 n The EoT. J. B. Lightfoot, in the " Journal of Classical and Sacred 
 Philology," No. YII.^p. 88. ° Essay, p. 338. » Ibid. 
 
4l6 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 disengage himself from all that follows" the age in 
 which the words of Scripture were first spoken. He 
 is '-to know nothing" of all subsequent history, eccle- 
 siastical and civil. Armed cap-a-pie in this panoply 
 of ignorance he is to set forth as knight-errant to do 
 battle against all comers, for the truth of his own in- 
 terpretations of Scripture. Cervantes himself could not 
 have imagined a more portentous form of self-decep- 
 tion than is displayed in this exegetical Quixotism. 
 Let us observe what it involves. It supposes that the 
 fii'st hearers of the words recorded in Scripture were 
 fully conscious of their meaning. Siu-ely a greater 
 delusion than this never entered the mind of the 
 chivabous knight of La Mancha. 
 
 We know that the ancient Hebrews had only dim 
 visions of the meaning of the prophecies which they 
 heard, and even the Prophets themselves did not fully 
 understand the meaning of their own prophecies'^ ; 
 but, as St. Peter tells us, ''they searched diligenthj 
 what the Spirit of Christ that was in them did 
 signify ""." 
 
 We know also from the Apostles and Evangelists, 
 that they themselves did not understand the meaning 
 of many of their Divine Master's words when they 
 •were first uttered. How often do they confess this ! 
 how often do we read in the Gospels that "they un- 
 derstood not this saying, and it was hid from them, 
 and they perceived it not* !" 
 
 Many of our Lord's sayings were hard sayings at 
 first, but were afterwards made easy; many of His 
 sayings were at fii^st dark, but were made clear by 
 His subsequent acts. Xicodemus could have had 
 
 ' See, for instance, Dan. xii. 4—9. ^ 1 Pet. i. 11. 
 
 ' :M:ark ix. 32 : cf. Luke ii. 50, ix. 45, xriii. 34. 
 
ON THE IXTERPRETATIOX OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 •i»7 
 
 little notion of our Lord's meaning when He said, 
 " ExccjDt a man be born of li'atcr and of the Spirit, he 
 cannot enter into the kingdom of God\" But this 
 saying of om- Divine Teacher was afterwards explained, 
 when our Lord gave a general commission to His 
 apostles, "Go, teach all nations, haptkinr/ them":" 
 that saying also itself must in another respect have 
 seemed a hard one to those unlettered Galiloeans, until 
 they received the gift of the Holy Ghost, empowering 
 them to speak in new tongues'". And our Lord's 
 assertion of the general obligation to " eat His Flesh 
 and drink His Blood" was, we know, "a hard saying"^" 
 to those who first heard it. But its meaning was 
 afterwards explained, when the same Divine Speaker 
 said, "Take, eat, this is ]My Body. Drink ye all of 
 this^" 
 
 If the Scriptures of the Old Testament had been 
 clear to those who first heard or read them, or even 
 to those by whose instrumentality they were written^ 
 there would have been little need of the work which 
 GUI' Blessed Lord wrought in the hearts of the two 
 disciples going to Emmaus, and of the assembled 
 apostles at Jerusalem. "Beginning at Moses and 
 all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the 
 Seriptiires the things concerning Himself^." And 
 again we read, "Then opened He their understanding ^ 
 that they might understand the Scriptures'." If the 
 true meaning of the words of our I^ord had " struck 
 on the ears of those who first heard them," there 
 would have been comparatively little reason for the 
 miracle of Pentecost, and for the effusion of the glo- 
 
 t -John iii. 5. " Matt, xxviii. 19. ^ Acts ii. 7, 8. 
 
 " John vi. 60. * Matt. xxvi. 26, 27. ^ Luke xxiv. 27. 
 
 « Luke xxiv. 45. 
 
 E e 
 
4l8 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 rious light of the Holy Ghost then shed on the minds 
 of the apostles and first disciples, and on the words 
 which they had heard from Christ. Then it was, but 
 not till then, that the true meaning "flashed before 
 theii' eyes." 
 
 " Every prophecy," says St. Ireneeus, " is an enigma 
 before its fulfilment*." How different is this language 
 fi'om that of the Essayist ! He would have us place 
 ourselves in the age of those who first heard or read 
 the words of Holy Scripture. He would have us 
 abandon our Christian privileges, and go back from 
 the noonday splendour of the Gospel to the dim twi- 
 light of the Law. How many degrees would the 
 sun go down on our spiritual dial if the Essayist 
 had his will ! When it was rising on our horizon, 
 he would send us to the antipodes. In reading the 
 Old Testament, he would have us see -^ith the eyes 
 and hear with the ears of those who lived before 
 the first Advent of Christ ! 
 
 Consider also the prophecies of Christ. 
 
 His predictions concerning His sufferings and death 
 were like inexplicable riddles to those who first heard 
 them^. The Evangelist declares that "they under- 
 stood none of these things, neither knew they the 
 things which were spoken." Does the Essayist desire 
 that his pupils should relinquish all the helps which 
 were furnished by subsequent events for the interpre- 
 tation of those things ? And to take another example, 
 when our Lord prophesied concerning St. John, " If 
 I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" 
 then the meaning which "flashed before the eyes" of 
 the brethren who first heard those words was, that 
 
 => St. Irenogus, iv. 26, 1. " See Luke ix. 44, 45, xviii. 32—34. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 419 
 
 "that disciple should not die^" ^Yill the Essayist 
 maintain, that, as " the history of Christendom is 
 nothing to him," and that he must take the sense of 
 Scripture as it "first sounded on the cars of those 
 who heard it," therefore the Evangelist St. John is 
 still alive ? 
 
 AVhat also shall we say of our Lord's prophecies 
 concerning the destruction of Jerusalem ? Eusebius^ 
 and other ancient Christian writers were rightly of 
 opinion, that the comparison of those prophecies with 
 the history of the siege of Jerusalem is very con- 
 ducive to the correct interpretation of them, and 
 affords clear evidence of Chi'ist's divine foreknowledge, 
 and supplies a strong argument for the truth of our 
 holy religion. But the Essayist tells us that his ideal 
 interpreter of Scripture shall know "nothing of his- 
 tory." " The greatness of the Eoman empu'c is nothing 
 to him; it is an inner and not an outer world that 
 he is striving to restore. All the after-thoughts of 
 theology are nothing to llim^" 
 
 Happy expositor ! thi-ice happy interpreter ! dwell- 
 ing in the Epicurean ease of his own serene self- 
 sufficiency. He has no need to take down any pon- 
 derous folios from his shelves. He need not have any 
 on his table. He need not invest any of his income in 
 the purchase of a theological library. He may live in 
 a room with four bare walls. He need not pore over 
 the pages of Polyglotts. l^o Chrysostoms or Augus- 
 tines shall dai'ken his doors. Perhaps he will admit 
 
 ' Jolm xxi. 23. 
 
 '' See Eusebius, Eccl. Eist. iii. 6 — 9. Cf. St. Jerome in Isa. Ixiv. 
 and Zcch. i., where lie infers from Josephus the truth of other pro- 
 phecies of Scriptiire concerDing Jerusalem. 
 
 « Essay, p. 338. 
 
 E e 2 
 
420 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 a Lexicon and a Grammar; "a few rules guarding 
 against common errors are enough for himV But 
 "no voluminous literature" shall obscure the cloud- 
 less calm of his solitary speculations. He will dwell 
 a visionary eeon in the pure pleroma of his own 
 imagination, and thence come forth as a spiritual 
 emanation to create a world. He will read the pro- 
 phecies of our Lord concerning the siege of Jerusalem 
 without troubling himself about the evidence of their 
 fulfilment. " All this is nothing to him." 'No ; he is 
 determined to live in the time when these prophecies 
 were first spoken ; he has taken his seat on the Mount 
 of Olives, and looks down on Jerusalem as it then 
 was ; and no power on earth shall disturb him from 
 his place. There he remains firmly seated, like a grey 
 lichen-covered rock upon the mountain, in the first 
 century of the Christian era; ''sedet aeternumque se- 
 debit." From that prophetic tripod on which he has 
 placed himself he will deliver oracular responses to 
 all future generations. 
 
 When the Puritan Divines of the Westminster As- 
 sembly had seated themselves comfortably in their 
 arm-chairs, and held their little gilt-leaved Bibles 
 with metal clasps in their hands, they imagined 
 themselves wiser than all the Fathers who ever 
 wrote, and than all the Councils which ever sat. 
 
 The learned John Selden ventured sometimes to 
 ruffle theii- self-complacent equanimity by a few im- 
 portunate questions ; but it was not easily perturbed. 
 Every one of that august body had more wisdom, in 
 his own conceit, than if he had all the contents of 
 the Bihliothcca Patnim 3Iaxima in his mind. 
 
 The Essayist seems to have earned a place in 
 
 ' Essay, p. 338. 
 
ox THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 421 
 
 that venerable conclaye. " Umis Bihliothcca lihcrP 
 One book is bis library. ''"When the meaning of 
 Greek ivonW^ (of the Bible, why not also of the 
 Hebreiv?) "is once known, the young student has 
 almost all the real materials which are possessed by 
 the greatest biblical scholar — in the Book itself^," 
 And he is determined to live in the age in which it 
 was written. " All the after- thoughts of theology are 
 nothing to him; the history of Christendom is no- 
 thing to him." ISTo ; all these things are nothing to 
 him. Indeed, we might almost say that his stock in 
 trade is " tot urn nilP And having set up himself 
 in the business of interpreter, he proceeds to deal out 
 his wares, and to assure his customers that "he has 
 no connexion with any other house," and that genuine 
 articles, unadulterated viands, are only to be procured 
 at his depot and at that of others v,^ho imitate his 
 example of embarking in the trade of interpreter 
 without any capital for carrying it on. 
 
 Gentle reader, pardon this raillery. The subject 
 is indeed a very serious one. But our Essayist's new 
 mode of forming an Interpreter of Holy Scripture is 
 really — excuse the word — so ludicrous, that it could 
 hardly be treated with gravity. Elijah himself could 
 not refrain from irony when he saw the miserable 
 infatuation to which the worship of Baal reduced its 
 votaries \ And the self- idolizing worship of the 
 Essayist is scarcely less fanatical. Indeed, in read- 
 ing the pages of this Essay, we may be sometimes 
 disposed to doubt whether the author himself is not 
 in jest, and whether he is not amusing himself with 
 speculating on the credulity of his readers, and with 
 
 ' Essay, p. 384. ^ 1 Kings xviii. 27. 
 
42 2 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 trying how large an amount of paradox tliey are 
 ready to receive at his hands. 
 
 But if he is really in earnest, then let us be per- 
 mitted to say, that in the interpretation of Holy 
 Scripture the history of Christendom is not "nothing 
 to" us; the "after-thoughts of theology," as he is 
 pleased to call the workings of the Holy Spirit in the 
 Church, "are" not " nothing to " us. oS'o : they are 
 something ; they are a very great deal to us ; and are 
 designed by Almighty God to be so ; and he who shuts 
 his eyes to their light, and desires that others should 
 listen to the dictatorial dogmatism of his own arbitrary 
 conceit, and fall down and worship the image which 
 he sets up of himself, is not only wilfully blind, but 
 is "a blind leader of the blind; and if the blind lead 
 the blind, both shall fall into the ditch \" 
 
 A diligent study of "the history of Christendom" 
 has ever been regarded by soberminded and pious 
 men as one of the best aids to the right understand- 
 ing of Holy Scripture. 
 
 In reading the history of Chi'istendom we see the 
 record of the successive attempts which have been 
 made by the Evil One, who is the enemy of Scripture, 
 to pervert or obscure the true meaning of Scripture. 
 We see also the means which the Holy Spirit has 
 been pleased to use, by the agency of holy men whom 
 He has raised up from time to time in the Church ; 
 and whom He has enabled to resist those efforts of 
 the Adversary, and to refute error, and to vindicate 
 the true meaning of Holy Scripture'', and to declare 
 that meaning to the world in Creeds and Confessions 
 of faith. 
 
 * Matt. XV. 14. ^ Cf. St. Augustine in Ps. liv., and in 
 
 Ps. Ixvii. ; Hooker, V. xliii. 6. 
 
ox THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 423 
 
 By examining those records^ -^e leaiTi to admire 
 and adore God's goodness in eliciting truth from 
 error, and in overcoming evil with good, and in 
 making heresy itself to be subservient to the clearer 
 manifestation and to the firmer establishment of the 
 faith. Here also we see the fulfilment of Christ's 
 prophecy, that "the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against His Church^;" and we derive from this con- 
 templation the cheering assurance, that He will be 
 ever with her '' even to the end of the world "'." 
 
 Well therefore did Lord Bacon say, that " Church- 
 history thoroughly read and observed" is of great 
 virtue in " making a wise divine ^" Well did he also 
 say that inasmuch as "the Scriptures are written to 
 the ihoughts of men, and to the succession of all agcs^ 
 with 2l foresight of all heresies ^ and of all contradictions 
 and difi'ering estates of the Church, they are not to 
 le interpreted only according to the latitude of the 
 proper sense of the place, and respectively towards 
 the present occasion whereupon the words were ut- 
 tered"." IS'o; but the full explication of them is 
 often to be derived from suhseguent events, which were 
 within the scope and range of the divine eye of Him 
 who uttered them, and to whom all things are present; 
 but which were not visible to those who first heard 
 those words, nor indeed were fully revealed to the 
 eyes of those holy men by whose agency they were 
 written, but were afterwards explained by God's 
 Providence in the government of the world and 
 of His Church. 
 
 ' Matt. xA-i. 18. " ilatt. xxvlii. 20. 
 
 " Lord Bacon, Advancement of Learning, bk. ii. p. 100. 
 
 " Ibid., p. 267. 
 
424 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 In page 361 the Essayist thus speaks : — 
 " To avoid misconception, it may be remarked that .... 
 Infant Baptism, or (qu. and) the Ejmcoixil Form of Church 
 Government, have sufficient grounds ; the wealiness is the 
 attempt to derive them from Scripture." 
 
 Here is a striking example of the character and 
 tendency of his system of Interpretation. If we ar6 
 to treat Scripture as he would have us do, then we 
 must allow that this assertion is true. There is no 
 express command in Scripture that infants should be 
 baptized, or that the Church should be governed by 
 lishops ; but it has been generally maintained by the 
 best divines that Infant Baptism and Episcopaci) can 
 and ought to be derived by logical inference from Holy 
 Scripture. 
 
 With regard to Infant Baptism, even the theologi- 
 ans of the Church of Eome have asserted this : Bel- 
 larmine p, Gregory of Yalentia '^^ and Suarez "■, and even 
 Pope Innocent III., in one of his Decretals '. And the 
 ancient Church with one consent applied to the sa- 
 crament of Baptism * the words of our Blessed Lord, 
 "Except a man be born again" — or, more correctly, 
 "Whosoever is not born again" — "of water and the 
 Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 God ;" and therefore the Church of England begins 
 her office for the Public Baptism of Infants with re- 
 hearsing those words of Ilolg Scripture. She alsc 
 
 P See Bc41armine, De Bapt., lib. i. c. viii. 
 
 4 De Bapt. Parvul., § 2. ^ i^ Tliom. Disput. xxv. p. 3. 
 
 ^ Decret., lib. iii. tit. xlii. c. 3. 
 
 t St. John iii. 5 ; cf. Hooker, Y. lix. 2. See also the testimony of 
 St. Cyprian and the sixty-six bishops of Africa, a.d. 253, Epist. ad 
 Fidurn. 
 
ON THE IXTEra-RETATIOX OF SCRirXURE. .or 
 
 riglitly considers that infants are a part of nations, and 
 she therefore cites in the same office the words of 
 Scripture in which our Lord gave a commission to His 
 disciples to " go and teach all nations, haptizing them "." 
 
 The true sense of Scripture is Scripture, and that 
 sense is to be ascertained by rational inference, and by 
 comparison of one passage of Scripture with another ; 
 and the Church rightly accepts whatever "is read in 
 Scripture or may be proved thereby'';" and' on this 
 principle it may sui-ely be asserted, that it is not 
 a ''^u'cakncss to attempt to derive Infant Baptism fi-oni 
 Scripture y 
 
 Precisely the same reasoning may be applied to 
 Episcopacy. It may be, and ought to be, deduced by 
 logical inference from Scripture^. The best interpre- 
 tation of a law is the practice of those who lived at 
 the time when the law was delivered. And when we 
 find not only a contemporaneous and uniform practice 
 immediately after the delivery of the law, but also 
 a continuous and uninterrupted usage for many cen- 
 turies after the law was given, we ma accept that 
 usage as affording the clearest exposition of the mean- 
 ing of the law. From the time of the Apostles for 
 fifteen hundi'ed years there was no Chui'ch in Chris- 
 tendom without a Bishop ^. 
 
 " ilatt. xxviii. 19. ' Thirty- Xine Articles, Art. YI. 
 
 * The author "will not repeat wh it has been said by him on this 
 subject in an introductory note to the third chapter of St Paul's 
 first Epistle to Timothy, 
 
 ^ Cf. Hooker's Preface, iv. : — "We require you to find out one 
 Church upon the face of the whole earth that hath not been or- 
 dained by episcopal regiment since the time that the blessed apostles 
 were here conversant ;" and sec vu. v. 2 — 8; and cf. Barrow, vol. 
 iii. serni. xxiv. 
 
426 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 The Essayist says that in the Interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture he has nothing to do with "subsequent history." 
 Thus he shuts the windows which let light in upon 
 Scripture, and darkens the house in which he dwells. 
 If he likes to close his own casements, and prefers 
 a dark house to a light one, we need not quarrel with 
 his taste; but let him not induce others to come 
 and live with him under the same roof; let him not 
 censure them as bigots if they do not "love darkness 
 rather than light." 
 
 § 4. The Essayist seems to have felt that his readers 
 would naturally ask, — • 
 
 What have been the fruits of his method of inter- 
 pretation ? Has it been adopted ? Has it produced any 
 results ? What are they ? 
 
 He answers these questions with the following as- 
 sertion : — The science of Biblical Criticism, he informs 
 us, has made some progress in our own day. In Eng- 
 land, it is true, in his opinion, we have not done much. 
 We are too timid and cautious. Among ourselves 
 " the Interpretation of Scripture has assumed an 
 apologetic character, as though making an effort to 
 defend itself against some supposed inroad of science 
 and criticism ''." 
 
 But our continental friends, it seems, are more ad- 
 venturous, and therefore more prosperous. The Essay- 
 ist tells us that " among German commentators there 
 is, fo7' the first time in the history of the world^ an ap- 
 proach to agreement and certainty ^" 
 
 And again, " The diversity among German writers 
 on prophecy is far less than among English ones. That 
 is a new phenomenon which has to be achioioledgedP 
 
 ' E^say, p. 340. - Ibid. 
 
ON THE IXTERI'RETATIOX OF SCRIPTURE. 427 
 
 Acknowledged ! By whom? Certainly not by Ger- 
 mans themselves. They make no such professions of 
 " agreement and certainty," as tha Essayist claims for 
 them. We have already seen, that in his disdain for 
 " the Yoluminous literature which has overgrown the 
 text" of Scripture, he has hazarded some extraordi- 
 nary assertions with regard to that literature ^ ; and we 
 are constrained to say that his statements concerning 
 the condition of Biblical Interpretation in Germany 
 are not more accurate than those which this Essay 
 presents to our notice in reference to the critical la- 
 bours of scholars in our own country. 
 
 Most Biblical critics are aware, that at the close of 
 the last century, and in the earlier part of the present, 
 Eationalism was dominant in the theological schools of 
 Germany. The booksellers' shops were filled with the 
 critical works of Paulus, Wegscheider, Bretschneider, 
 Gabler, and others. " Hie meret sera liber Sosiis," was 
 then the word current concerning the newest rational- 
 istic volume that appeared in the spring at the Leipsic 
 book-fair. But no one now ever reads their wiitings, 
 or cares one jot for their theories. They are ex- 
 ploded". The books which contain them are waste 
 paper, and are wrapping up 
 
 "... thus et odores, 
 Et piper, et quicquid cliartis amicitur ineptis ^ " 
 
 in the gi'ocers' shops. Paulus and "Wegscheider, and 
 Gabler, have shared the fate which, as Burke says, 
 
 ^ See above, p. 414. 
 
 ' See the recent histories of Biblical Inteq)retation in Germany, 
 especially Dr. Kahnis, Ber innere Gang des deutschen Protestantis- 
 tnus, Leipzig. 1860; and Karl Schwartz, Zur Geschichte der neneden 
 Theologie, Leipzig, 1856; and Hagcnbach, Dogmengeschichte, Leip- 
 zig, 1857. ^ Horat, Epist. 11. i. 269. 
 
42{ 
 
 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 liad OYertaken the English free-thinkers of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries, Chubh, Collins, Mor- 
 gan, and Tindal, — '' They are gone to the tomb of all 
 the CapuIets^" The pantheistic speculations of Strauss 
 and others who followed them have fared little better, 
 and a struggle has ensued between more orthodox inter- 
 preters, such as Hengstenberg, Havernick, Delitzsch, 
 Oehler, Stier, on the one side, and a sceptical and de- 
 structive school of expositors on the other. But to 
 say that German exegesis has found a safe mooring 
 and anchorage in the calm and quiet harbour of "agree- 
 ment and certainty," is to venture upon an assertion 
 which any one who has dipped into the first pages of 
 any German Einlcitung^ is able to refute. Any of the 
 Essayist's pupils who may spend a few weeks of a long 
 vacation in Berlin, Heidelberg, or Bonn, will supply 
 him with abundant proofs to the contrary. 
 
 Let us read on: — "The diversity among German wri- 
 ters onprojiheci/ is far less than among English ones." 
 
 Before the publication of the "Essays and Ee- 
 views," it might have been truly affirmed that there 
 was almost an universal consent in England with re- 
 gard to the interpretation of prophecy in the most 
 important respect of all, namely, in its relation to the 
 actions and sufferings of Christ. It was this universal 
 consent which caused an almost universal horror, when 
 we heard from one of the Essayist's fellow-labourers 
 that hardly any of the prophecies which have hitherto 
 been connected with Christ by Christian interpreters 
 in England " are capable of being made directly 
 Messianic V 
 
 The "agreement and certainty" which prevailed in 
 England in this respect has been disturbed by that an- 
 
 " Burke's Vorks, v. 171. ^ Essays and Eeviews, pp. 69, 70. 
 
ON THE IXTERrRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 429 
 
 nounccmcnt ; but that disturbance, it is to be hoped, 
 will only be like a temporary ripple on the surface. 
 The "agreement and certainty" in England have been 
 produced by firm faith in the teaching of Christ and 
 His Apostles, who have instructed us how to interpret 
 those prophecies ^, and we shall not forsake their inter- 
 pretation for those of our Essayist's companions, and, 
 I regret to add, of our Essayist himself^, even though 
 they should be leagued with all the critics of Germany, 
 — which happily is not the case. 
 
 With regard to the prophecies of the New Testa- 
 ment, the claim set up on behalf of German inter- 
 preters is not much more tenable. There is no 
 "certainty and agreement" among them. Let us 
 turn to one of the most recent German expositions 
 of the Apocalypse, that of Diisterdieck, published at 
 Gottingen in 1859, and forming the last volume of 
 Meyer's series of Commentaries on the Xew Testa- 
 ment. If the reader will have the goodness to look 
 at the Introduction to that volume, he will see that 
 not only is there great diversity among German wri- 
 ters with regard to the plan of that prophetical book, 
 — the only prophetical book of the New Testament, — 
 but also with respect to its date, and even the person 
 of its author, and he will be satisfied that " the new 
 phenomenon," of which the Essayist speaks, is in fact, 
 in the proper sense of the word, no phenomenon at all, 
 for it is not yet visible, nor seems likely to appear on 
 the horizon for some time to come. 
 
 e Luke xxlv. 25—27, 44—48, and Acts ii. 25—32, iii. 15—25, 
 yiii. 32 — 35. 
 
 •^ Essay, p. 406. " ITicre are many quotations from the Psalms 
 and Prophets in the Epistles, but hardly any — probably none— 
 which is based on the original sense or context." 
 
430 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 § 5. How can we account for the celebrity of the 
 Tolume entitled "Essays and Eeviews?" 
 
 Kot, certainlj^, fi'om any intrinsic merit, but from 
 the position of its writers. 
 
 The stations which they occupy in the Church, and 
 in one of our Universities, have given to this volume 
 an importance which it would not otherwise have ac- 
 quired. If it had been produced by authors who had 
 no such adscititious advantages, it would long since 
 have slept in oblivion. But when Trojans wear the 
 armour of Greeks they become more dangerous, and 
 make more havoc in the camp, — 
 
 " Mutemus clypeos, Danaumque insignia nobis 
 Aptemus V 
 
 When six persons dressed in academic hoods, cas- 
 socks, and surplices, come forth and preach scepticism, 
 they do more mischief than six hundred sceptics clad 
 in their own clothes. They wear the uniform of the 
 Church, and are mingled in her ranks, and fight 
 against her, and therefore they may well say — 
 
 " Yadimus immixti Danais Tiaud numine nostro, 
 Multaque per caecam congressi proelia noctem 
 Conserimus, multos Danaum demittimus Oreo.'" 
 
 Among many evidences of this, we may refer to 
 one which now meets us. The Essayist is charging 
 the Biblical critics of his own age with disingenuous- 
 ness. They will not allow, he says, that there "is 
 any error in the Word of GodJ. The failure of pro- 
 phecy is never admitted" by them, "in spite of 
 Scripture and of history, (Jer. xxxvi. 30, Isaiah xxiii., 
 Amos vii. 10— 17^") And in a later passage of i\iQ 
 Essay he does not hesitate to say that "the majority 
 
 ' Virgil, .En. ii. 389. J p. 342. '' p. 343. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 431 
 
 of the clergy^" are leagued in a cowardly conspiracy 
 to " Avithliold the truth" on these and similar matters ; 
 and he ventures to insinuate that he and his friends 
 are the only people in England who hold the truth 
 and have the coiu-age to speak it "". 
 
 But to return to the specific charge concerning the 
 supposed failure of prophecy. 
 
 On this, and similar allegations in this Essay, let 
 us offer one general remark. They are not original ; 
 they have no charm of novelty ; they have been already 
 urged in other publications, and they have been ad- 
 vocated there with not less ability, and, we are con- 
 sti-ained to add, with more openness and honesty 
 than in the present Essay ; they have been adduced 
 in sceptical books, and those sceptical books have at- 
 tracted little notice. A few copies of a single edition 
 of them have been sold. But mark the difference ! 
 When these same sceptical objections are urged, with 
 less intellectual vigour and logical acumen, by Pro- 
 fessors and Tutors of a famous University, then these 
 obscui-e and feeble objections assume an importance 
 which they never before possessed ; then the book in 
 which they are contained runs with the rapidity 
 of electric fluid tkrough nine or ten editions. Then 
 the intellierence contained in them is devoured with 
 
 o 
 
 eager appetite by many thousand readers, like the 
 most interesting news in the columns of the daily 
 press. 
 
 The allegation just quoted may serve as a specimen. 
 It is only a repetition of an objection which appeared 
 ten years ago in a sceptical book called "The Creed 
 of Christendom"," which is certainly not inferior in 
 
 y Essay, p. 372. " pp. 374, 375. 
 
 ° I3y W. 11. Grc-. (L'ndon, Chapman. 1851.) 
 
432 OX THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 literary merit to the Essay now before us, and yet 
 attracted little or no observation. Let us place the 
 passages from the two Tolumes side by side : — 
 
 Creed of Christendom, p. 55. Essays and Revieics, 
 
 " It is now clearly ascertained, PP- 342-3. 
 
 and generally admitted among cri- " The failure of a pro- 
 tics, that several of the most re- yhccy is never admitted, 
 markable prophecies were never in spite of Scripture and 
 fulfilled at all, or only very par- history, {Jer. xxx^i. 30 ; 
 tially and loosely fulfilled. Among Isaiah xxiii. ; Amos vii. 
 these may be specified the denun- 10 — 17.") 
 
 ciation of Jeremiah (xxii. 18, 19, 
 xxxyi. 30) against Jehoiakim ; as 
 may be seen by comparing 2 Kings 
 xxiv. 6, and the denimciation of 
 Amos against Jeroboam (vii. 11) ; 
 as may be seen by comparing 2 
 Kings xiv. 23—29." 
 
 I will not affirm that the Essayist copied from the 
 Sceptic, but the coincidence is certainly remarkable. 
 The Essayist says that ''a failure of prophecy is never 
 admitted^'^ i.e. by orthodox critics: the Sceptic says 
 that "it is generally admitted by critics," i.e. those 
 who agree with him in his sceptical opinions. The 
 Sceptic cites two instances of alleged failure: hoth 
 these instances are also cited by the Essayist. And 
 the Essayist must not be surprised to hear that on the 
 score of ingenuousness the balance is in favour of 
 the Sceptic. And v>'hy ? Because the Sceptic tells us 
 honestly in v:liat the alleged failure consists: he cites 
 chapter and verse of the passage of history which he 
 asserts to be at variance with the prophecy. The 
 Essayist does no such thing ; but in a mode of deal- 
 ing which is too common with him, and which cannot 
 
ox THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. ^33 
 
 "be too strongly reprobated, especially when it affects 
 the characters of the writers of Scripture, he wraps 
 up his charge in indefinite terms, which make it 
 appear more formidable. The failure of a prophecy 
 "is never admitted, in spite of Scripture and his- 
 torijP "What! "in spite of Scripture and history" 
 generally ? Is this a specimen of the new school of 
 Eiblical criticism which the Essayist would establish ? 
 Ko : surely this insidious language of insinuation and 
 inuendo can never become current in an English Uni- 
 versity. It is utterly un-English, and, we must needs 
 add, utterly un-Christian. It is not fit for the Eomish 
 Inquisition. Fortunately the Sceptic enables us to 
 fill up the gap left by the Essayist. The prophecy 
 in Jeremiah xxx^d. 30 is alleged to have failed le- 
 cause it is not consistent with the history in 2 Kings 
 xxiv. 6. There the sacred historian relates that " Je- 
 hoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his 
 son reigned in his stead." Therefore^ it is said, the 
 prophecy of Jeremiah concerning Jehoiakim failed : — 
 " He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David, 
 and his dead body shall be cast out, in the day to the 
 heat, and in the night to the frost." 
 
 Here is a seeming discrepancy, and it is of very 
 great service, for it shews the futility of allegations 
 such as meet us in this Essay, and in others of the 
 same volume, that the jyrophecies of the Old Testa- 
 ment have been tampered zviiJi, in order that they may 
 fit the history. And this seeming discrepancy may 
 easily be reconciled. I will not quote any English 
 critic in behalf of this assertion. But an eminent 
 German writer, who has never been supposed to be 
 credulous, thus speaks : — " Jehoiakim is said to have 
 died in peace (2 Kings xxiv. 6), but Jeremiah (xxxvi. 
 
 Ff 
 
434 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 30) speaks of his dead body as cast out in contempt; 
 but this may easily be reconciled with the history by 
 the consideration that this might have happened as a 
 consequence of the capture of Jerusalem under his suc- 
 cessor, Jehoiachin, when his enemies, or even his own 
 subjects, may have vented their rage on the remains 
 of the hated king"." 
 
 Still further : if the Essayist who has written a dis- 
 sertation on the Interpretation of Scripture was really 
 desirous of enlightening his readers on that subject, 
 he might have here taken occasion to remind them of 
 the remarkable fact, that whereas the historical books 
 of the Bible inform us that some of the kings of Israel 
 were not buried at all, or omit to mention their biu'ial, 
 they record in every single case of the kings of Juda\ 
 whose death they relate, that they ivere also hurled^ 
 except only in the one case of Jehoiakim p. This cir- 
 cumstance ought never to be forgotten by those who 
 comment on the prophecy of Jeremiah. 
 
 As for the succession of his son, Jehoiachin, in his 
 father's stead, when it is remembered that the sove- 
 reignty of Jehoiachin was subject to his mother's 
 tutelage 1, and that it only lasted about a quarter of 
 a year, and that he was then taken captive to Babylon, 
 and that his uncle was made king in his stead'", and 
 that the Hebrew term to sit^ signifies permanence, — it 
 may surely be affirmed that the prophecy of Jeremiah 
 
 " "Winer, Bihlisches Real-Worterhuch, i. p. 395, art. JojaMm. 
 p Cf. llev. J. Fendall, "On the Authority of Scripture," p. 39. 
 1 Cf. Winer, art. JojacJiin, referring to Jer. xiii. 18. 
 ^ 2 Kings xxiv. 8; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 9. 
 
 * ^tpv cf. Bp. Pearson on the Creed, Art. vi. p. 279, note, ed. 
 1669. The LXX well render the word by a participle, ovk earai. aiira 
 
 Ka6i]fxevoi tn\ 6p6vov Aa/3iS. 
 
ON THE IXTERrRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 435 
 
 did not fail ; and it is well worthy of remark that 
 Jeremiah predicted that some of Jehoiakim's seed 
 should survive him, for he says, " I will punish him 
 and his seed and his servants for their iniquity, and 
 I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of 
 Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced upon 
 them*." This prophecy was fulfilled by the capture 
 of Jerusalem in the days of the son of Jehoiakim, very 
 soon after his father's death. 
 
 Let us now tiu-n to another prophecy quoted by the 
 Essayist as presenting an instance of failure^ Amos 
 vii. 10—17. 
 
 Two able wi'iters in two periodicals "^ have justly ex- 
 pressed their surprise that the Essayist should have 
 referred to this prophecy ; for when we examine it we 
 find that it is not a prophecy of Amos at all ! It is 
 a message of Amaziah the priest of Bethel, in which 
 he falsely attributes to Amos words he had not spoken. 
 How are we to account for such a blunder as this ? 
 Our answer is, We have seen that the sceptical writer 
 to whom we have referred quotes precisely the same 
 prophecy of Amos, and also asserts that it failed. It 
 seems most probable that our Essayist borrowed his 
 examples of supposed failure from that or some other 
 similar work, but did not stop to examine them. And 
 thus it has come to pass, that he has confounded an 
 idolatrous priest of a golden calf with a true prophet 
 of Jehovah ! Here is another specimen of enlightened 
 Biblical criticism, or rather, let us say with sorrow, 
 
 » Jer. xxxvi. 31. 
 
 » "Quarterly Review," Xo. ccxvii. p. 299, for Jan. 1861, and 
 the " Clu-istian Eemcmbrancer" for the same month. The article 
 in the latter has been reprinted by the author, the llev. J. G. Caze- 
 nove: see there, p. 25. 
 
 Ff2 
 
436 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 here is another evidence of the character of the mate- 
 rials from which this Essay is derived, and here is 
 a proof of the righteous retribution which overtakes 
 those who fight with " fiery darts of the wicked one^," 
 against the Holy Spirit of God. 
 
 With regard to the predictions in Isaiah xxiii., 
 which relate to the destruction of Tyre, any one who 
 has access to such a common book as Bishop Newton's 
 work on the Prophecies'', will need no other reply to 
 the Essayist's objections. 
 
 In the instances recited above, the Essayist alleges 
 that prophecies have not heen fulfilled ; and now mark 
 his inconsistency. He suddenly shifts his ground, and 
 rejects a prophecy lecause it has heen fulfilled! He 
 thus writes^ : — " The mention of a name'* later than the 
 supposed age of the prophet is not allowed, as in other 
 writings, to be taken in evidence of the date, (Isaiah 
 xlv. 1)." Wonderful indeed ! Because God, who sees 
 all things from the beginning, enabled Isaiah the pro- 
 phet to do what uninspired writers cannot do, and to 
 foretel the future, and to name beforehand the deli- 
 verer of His people, therefore the prophecy of Isaiah 
 is to be rejected ! it was composed after the event ! 
 How difficult to please is such a critic as this ! He 
 complains of some prophecies because they have failed, 
 and of others because they have been fulfilled ! Might 
 he not go and take a seat with the Jewish children in 
 the market-place, who in their wayward humour could 
 
 ' Eph. vi. 16. 
 
 y Dissertation xi., On the Prophecies concerning Tyre, pp. 145 — 
 162. 
 
 ^ Essay, p. 343. 
 
 » The name of Cyrus. On the same grounds the Essayist must 
 reject 1 Kings xiii..2, because it mentions the name of Josiah. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. ^37 
 
 neither be pleased with piping nor with mourning^ ? 
 How is this to be expUiincd ? Is not this the true 
 account of the matter, — that he will have no prophecies 
 at all? that the Bible is like any "other writing?" 
 that it is to be treated as " any other book ?" 
 
 § 6. This supposition is confirmed by what follows. 
 We come now to the root of the evil. 
 
 The Essayist does not believe in the Inspiration of 
 Holy Scripture, according to the ordinary accepta- 
 tion of the term. 
 
 He asserts that there is no " foundation in the Gos- 
 pels or Epistles for any of the higher or supernatural 
 views of inspiration." The Evangelists and Apostles 
 do not " anywhere lead us to suppose that they were 
 free from error or infirmitij " .''^ 
 
 Here is an example of that strange confusion of 
 thought and expression which prevails throughout this 
 dissertation. It is perfectly true that the Apostles do 
 not lead us to suppose that " they were free from error 
 or infirmity." Indeed, they plainly declare that they 
 were liable to human frailty. " We are men of like 
 passions with you," they say ^ '' In many things we 
 ofi'end alP." Holy Scripture itself records their fail- 
 ings. It relates that St. Mark faltered for a time,. and 
 that St. Paul and St. Barnabas strove together concern- 
 ing him K It narrates that St. Peter was openly re- 
 buked by St. Paul because he walked not uprightly ^• 
 Put what is all this to the purpose ? Nothing, abso- 
 lutely nothing ; except, as we shall presently see, to 
 afi'ord a more striking proof of what the Essayist gain- 
 says, namely, of the Impiration of Holy Scripture. 
 
 But, fii'st, what are we to say to the Essayist's asser- 
 
 »> Luke vii. 32. *= Essay, p. 345. ^ Acts xiv. 15. 
 
 ^ James iii. 2. ^ Acts xv, 37—39. « Gal. ii. 11—14. 
 
438 ox THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 tion that '41iere is not any foundation in the Gospels 
 for any of the higher or supernatural views of inspira- 
 tion ?'' We flatly deny it. Holy Scripture does assert 
 its own Inspii-ation. The word Scrijoture^ is used in 
 about fifty places of the iN'ew Testament, and though 
 that word in its ordinary sense simply means writing^ 
 yet in the Xew Testament it is limited to those particu- 
 lar writings which the Church calls Scripture; and 
 thus it shews that those writings are distinguished from 
 all other ivritings in the world. Now Scriptui'e itself 
 declares, by St. Paul, that " every Scripture is deoirv^v- 
 aT09, or divinely inspired'," or rather, inbreathed by 
 God, filled with the Divine breath. 
 
 ISTow when we recollect hy v.'honi this assertion was 
 made, namely by St. Paul, a Hebrew of the Hebrews '', 
 and to 2':hom it was addressed, namely to Timothy, the 
 son of a Jewess \ and that he had been familiar with 
 the Hebrew Scriptures from a child "" ; and when we 
 bear in mind also that this sentence occurs in the last 
 of St. Paul's Epistles ; and when we remember also 
 the reli"-ious reverence and awe with which the He- 
 brews treated those writings which they called Scrip- 
 tures ''j and which they regarded as wholly distinct 
 from all other writings in the world, and as no other 
 than the unerring words, the living oracles, of God; 
 and when we also reflect that St. Paul's Divine Master, 
 Jesus Christ, the Everlasting Son of God, sanctioned 
 that belief and awe ; and when we also consider that the 
 books of the Xeio Testament were delivered by the Apo- 
 stles and Evangelists to the Church, and were received 
 by the Church, as of equal authority with the books of 
 the Old Testament, which had been recognised as Di- 
 
 ^ ypa<t>}i. ' 2 Tim. iii. 16. '' PMl. iii. 5. ' Acts xvi. 1. 
 " 2 Tim. iii. 15. ° See Josephus, c. Apion, i. § 8. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 439 
 
 vine writings by Jesus Christ Ilimself, and that they 
 are equally called " Scn'fture,^^ by the Apostles ° and by 
 the Church, we could not have a clearer assertion of 
 the supernatural origin and Divine authority of all 
 those writings which the Christian Church Universal 
 receives as Scripture, than is contained in the declara- 
 tion of St. Paul to Timothy, that " Every Scripture is 
 given by inspiration of God p." 
 
 But to proceed. The Essayist tells us that the 
 Apostles and Evangelists were not free "from error or 
 infirmity." What is this to the purpose ? Who ever 
 supposed that they were ? But how does this affect 
 the question of Inspiration ? Here is another charac- 
 teristic of this Essay, which makes it the more danger- 
 ous. The author begins with asserting a truth, and 
 then he joins an error with it, which, if the reader is 
 not on his guard, he may be tempted to receive to- 
 gether with the truth which introduces it. 
 
 The Essayist confounds two things which ought to 
 be kept separate. But let him distinguish the writings 
 dictated by the Holy Spirit inspiring the Apostles and 
 Evangelists to write Scripture, from the practice of 
 those by whose instrumentality Scripture was written. 
 The men were liable to human infirmities, but the 
 tvritings are divine i. The wi'iters assure us that they 
 do not speak by words "which man's wisdom teach- 
 eth, but words which the Holy Ghost teacheth^" 
 Therefore, w^hen we say that Holy Scriptui*e is iiispii-ed, 
 
 " Cf. 2 Pet. iii. 16. 
 
 p On the claims which Holy Scripture itself makes to Inspiration, 
 the reader may see the additional evidence clearly stated by the 
 Eev. J. "W. Burgon on Inspiration, pp. 53 — 57, and pp. cxcvii. 
 
 ■i See Augustine, Epist. ad Hieron., xxviii,, xl., Ixxii. 
 
 ' 1 Cor. ii. 13. 
 
440 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 we mean that the Holy Ghost is its AutJior '. We mean 
 that it was written by His inspii-ation, " for our learn- 
 ing," and "to make us wise unto salvation," and that 
 it is worthy of its Divine Author, and is the word of 
 the living God. "We mean, that in writing the ScrijD- 
 tures, the Holy Spirit, who cannot err, used the in- 
 strumentality of fallible men, in order that the excel- 
 lency of the power of the Gospel might not be of 
 man, but of God*; and in order that the perfection 
 of the work done by means of imperfect instruments 
 might prove that the work is not due to the instru- 
 ments which were used, but to Him who wrought 
 by them. 
 
 "We have adverted to the confusion of ideas which 
 is observable in the Essayist's allegation against the 
 writers of Scriptiu-e. This confusion of ideas, which 
 is too frequent in the work, has produced a confu- 
 sion of writing. There is an ambiguity of language — 
 may we not call it an amphibiousness of style — in this 
 Essay, which is very embarrassing to the reader. In 
 perusing it we hardly know sometimes whether we 
 are treading on a solid, or floating in a fluid. We 
 cannot tell whether we are on terra fir ma ^ or at sea. 
 For instance, in one place the Essayist expresses a 
 hope that after ^'- sweejnng the house'''' he may have 
 '' foimd the pearl of great price "." To say nothing of the 
 confusion here made in two divine parables, we have 
 in the former part of the sentence the writer compar- 
 ing himself- to a woman sweeping the house, and in 
 the latter he has suddenly become a merchantman, 
 trading for pearls at sea. In another place he speaks 
 of persons who, having chosen "the path of practical 
 
 ' Lectures on Inspiration, p. 14, ^1 Cor, iv. 7. " Essay, p. 414. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 441 
 
 usefulness, should acknowledge that it is a naiTow 
 path; for any but a sti'ong swimmer will be insen- 
 sibly di-awn out of it by the tide of public opiQion^." 
 He proposes to make a new world of harmony and 
 order, but it seems more probable that he may bring 
 back the state of confusion, — 
 
 " Quern dixere chaos, rudis indigcstaque moles," 
 in which 
 
 " Frigida pugnabant calidis, humentia siccis, 
 Mollia cum duris, sine pondere habentia pondus y." 
 
 § 7. The Essayist says that St. Paul " was corrected 
 by the course of events in his expectation of the coming 
 of Christ ^" St. Paul, therefore, was in error when he 
 wrote his first Epistle to the Thessalonians^, — for to 
 that doubtless the Essayist alludes, — in which the 
 Apostle says that ^''tve, who are alive and remain till 
 the Coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them that 
 are asleep." 
 
 This also is no new objection : it has been urged by 
 the same sceptical wi'iter already cited*', and unhap- 
 pily it has derived undue importance from the name 
 of a celebrated person*', who, if his life had been 
 spared, would probably have regretted and retracted 
 some of his rash and unsound assertions on such mat- 
 ters as these. May God in His mercy grant that this 
 may be the case with the author of the present Essay ! 
 
 But what is the fact ? St. Paul is here speaking in 
 
 * Essay, p. 431. ^ Ovid. Met. i. 7, 19, 20. 
 
 • Essay, p. 346. * 1 Thtss. iv. 15, 
 
 ^ Creed of Chi-istendom, p, 18, where it is said that " St. Paul is 
 manifestly and admittedly in error in 1 Thess. iv. 15." And again, 
 ibid., p. 25. 
 
 ' Dr. Arnold, Christian Life and Character, p. 490 : — " Ve may 
 safely and reverently say, that St. Paul, in this instance, entertained 
 and expressed a belief which the event did not justify." 
 
44- 
 
 ON THE INTERrRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 very solemn terms. He declares that he writes by 
 the inspiration of God. " This we say unto you by the 
 Word of the Lord^P If, therefore, he is in error here, 
 the error is a grave one indeed. But what, we repeat, 
 is the fact ? Does St. Paul here assert that he himself 
 will he alive when Christ comes again ? The Essayist 
 says that he does, and that his error in this respect 
 was '' corrected by the course of events." 
 
 No one who is familiar with the chronology of 
 St. Paul's Epistles could have written as the Essayist 
 does here. But he seems to have little respect for 
 such matters as these. '* Discussions respecting the 
 chronology ofSt.PaiWs life^^'' he says, "have gone far 
 beyond the line of utility ^" And he is only applying 
 his own principle of Interpretation; "the history of 
 Christendom is nothing to him ;" his " office is to re- 
 cover the meaning of the words as they struck on the 
 ears of those ivho first read them ^;" and here is a signal 
 proof of the utter worthlessness of such a principle 
 of interpretation. Be it so, that the TJiessalonians 
 imagined^ when the words of that Epistle " first struck 
 on their ears," that the Day of the Lord was close at 
 hand. But our enquiry is, not ivhat they thought, but 
 ivhat St. Paid meant. Most readers of St. Paul's Epi- 
 stles know that the first Epistle of St. Paul to the 
 Thessalonians was the first tvritten of all his Epistles, 
 and that the second Epistle to the Thessalonians was 
 written at the same place as the first ^, and very soon 
 after it. Turn, therefore, to the second Epistle. In 
 that second Epistle we read a solemn caution from 
 St. Paul, guarding them against the notion that the 
 " Day of Christ was at hand \" If St. Paul had be- 
 
 •* 1 Thess. iv. 15. ' Essay, p. 393. ^ p. 338. 
 
 s Corinth. ^ 2 Thess. ii. 2. 
 
ox THE IXTERPRETATIOX OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 443 
 
 lievcd, when he wrote his first Epistle, that he would 
 be alive at Christ's coming, he believed the same thing 
 when he wrote the second. Indeed, he would have 
 had a stronger belief then. No "course of events" 
 had intervened to affect that belief, if he had enter- 
 tained it. But we see that he did not entertain it 
 when he wi'ote the second Epistle. He cautions the 
 Thessalonians against it. l^or had he any such belief 
 when he wrote his fii'st Epistle, and he was not " cor- 
 rected in his expectation by the course of events." 
 
 Few persons who have formed any acquaintance 
 with St. Paul's style can be perplexed by his use of 
 the pronoun we in this passage, — " We which are alive 
 and remain." It is the habit of the great Apostle to 
 put himself in the place of others, and to speak, as it 
 were, from them; and even to do this when they 
 whom he thus identifies with himself are very differ- 
 ent from him, and even opposed to him \ St. Paul's 
 " 26'e" is an universal we, and is applicable to every 
 age. Indeed, this is the genuine language of inspi- 
 ration, and if the Essayist had not been resolved to 
 interpret this passage as one '' in any other book," 
 he would not have missed the sense; but his error 
 is like a judicial retribution for unworthy notions of 
 Holy Scriptui'e. 
 
 The simple truth is, that the Holy Spirit is speaking 
 by St. Paul, who utters ''by the Word of the Lord" 
 what is here revealed. He is writing an Epistle not 
 merely for one Church or one age, but to be read in 
 the Church of Christ in every country in every age, 
 even till the Coming of Christ. By St. Paul the Holy 
 Spirit delivers a solemn warning, which every age must 
 
 ' See, for instance, Eom. iii. 7, and the numerous authorities cited 
 in a note on 1 Thess. iv. 17, and 1 Cor. iv. 6, ri. 12. 
 
444 O^' THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 apply to itself. ISTo age knows when Christ will come, 
 but every age ought to be prepared for Christ's Coming 
 to judgment. Every one ought so to believe and live 
 as if Christ would come in his own day. Therefore 
 with great wisdom has the Holy Spirit spoken by 
 St. Paul on this subject in such a language as that 
 which represents him as contemporaneous with every 
 age. This is genuine Inspiration. It is the language 
 of the Eternal Himself, 
 
 Once more. "We have seen that in the second Epi- 
 stle to the Thessalonians St. Paul warns his readers 
 against the supposition that " the day of Christ was 
 at hand," Therefore when he wrote that Epistle, 
 the Apostle, who was in frequent peril of death"", 
 did not expect that he himself would be alive when 
 Christ came. 
 
 About three years after the date of that second Epi- 
 stle he wrote his first Epistle to the Corinthians, and 
 in that Epistle he uses the pronoun '' zi'e" in the 
 same manner as he had done in the first Epistle to the 
 Thessalonians. He says, " We shall not all sleep," that 
 is, we shaU not all die, " but we shall all be changed V 
 Will the Essayist say, after the emphatic words in 
 which St. Paul himself had disclaimed any such notion 
 in the second Epistle to the Thessalonians, that St. Paul 
 expected to be alive at Christ's coming, and that " he 
 was corrected in that expectation by the course of 
 events?" No; he cannot say it in this case. Xor 
 ought he to do so in the other. And if he would 
 follow St. Paul's rule for interpreting Scripture, by 
 comparing ™ one portion of it with another, he would 
 
 ^ " We stand in jeopardy every hour. I die daily." 1 Cor. xv. 
 30, 31 ; cf. 2 Cor. xi, 26. 
 
 ' 1 Cor. XT. 51. >" Ibid. ii. 13. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 445 
 
 have been saved from the presumption of attributing 
 an error to St. Paul, — or rather to the Holy Spirit, who 
 spake by St. Paul's mouth. 
 
 § 8. Having charged an Apostle with error the 
 Essayist becomes more bold, and brings a similar ac- 
 cusation against two Evangelists at once : — 
 
 " One" Evangelist, he says, " supposes the original dwell- 
 ing-place of our Lord's parents to have been Bethlehem 
 (Matt. ii. 1, 22), another Nazareth (Luke ii. 4), and they 
 trace his Genealogy in different ways ; one mentions the 
 thieves blaspheming, another has preserved to after-ages the 
 record of the penitent thief; they appear to differ about 
 the day and hour of the Crucifixion ^." 
 
 At the same time the Essayist says '^ that there is 
 no appearance of insincerity in them, or want of faiths 
 ISTo appearance of ^'insincerity or want of faitW'' in 
 those holy men whose writings are received by the 
 Christian Church universal as '' given by inspiration 
 of God !" Admirable candour, most Christian con- 
 descension ! But let us see whether there may not 
 be here some appearance of inaccuracy and want of 
 learning and ability, as well as of modesty and humi- 
 lity, on the part of a writer who deals thus freely with 
 the Gospels. The Essayist would quiet our alarms 
 by assuring us that though there are, as he alleges, 
 " discrepancies of fact °" in Scripture, yet that "when 
 we become familiar with them they Tvill seem of 
 little consequence in comparison with the truilis 
 which it unfolds." 
 
 "We cannot accept the proffered consolation. For, 
 
 surely the answer must be, ' If the documents are in 
 
 error, what will become of the doctrines?' It is 
 
 rightly urged, in a recent sceptical publication, against 
 
 " Essay, p. 346. ° p. 425. 
 
446 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 all such low notions of the Bible as this: — "A book 
 cannot be said to carry with it the authority of being 
 God's Word, if the same writer may give us in one 
 verse a roA^elation from the Most High, and in another 
 a blunder of his own. How can we be certain that the 
 very texts upon which we rest our doctrines and our 
 hopes may not be the uninspii-ed portion of it ^ ?" 
 
 In the passage above quoted, the Essayist, as most 
 scholars know, is only reviving the objections which 
 have been often refuted already. 
 
 Schleiermacher, De Wette, Strauss, Bruno Bauer, 
 and others, — especially the English Sceptic already 
 quoted "1, who has anticipated the Essayist in almost all 
 his allegations against the writers of Holy Scripture, 
 — have made the same objections before him. 
 
 If the Essayist had been disposed to treat this im- 
 portant subject aright, he would have reminded his 
 younger readers that St. Matthew and St. Luke wrote 
 theii' Gospels with different designs ; the former for 
 the special benefit of the Jews, and the latter for the 
 Gentile world. This consideration alone would have 
 saved him from two of his errors in this place. The 
 Holy Spii'it writing by St. Matthew dwells therefore 
 particularly on the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem^ the 
 city of David, the city pre- announced by the Hebrew 
 
 p Creed of Christendom, p. 25. 
 
 q Ibid., p. 101 : — "In this place we must notice the marked 
 discrepancy between Matthew and Luke as to the original residence 
 of Jesus. Luke speaks of them as living at jS'azareth before the 
 birth of Jesus, Matthew as having left their former residence to go 
 to Nazareth only after that event, and from peculiar considerations. 
 Critics, however, are disposed to think Matthew right on this occa- 
 sion." And ibid., p. 97 : — " The genealogy of Jesus given by Luke 
 is wholly different from that given by Matthew. They trace the 
 descent through an entirely different line of ancestry." 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 447 
 
 prophet Micah'" as the birth-phice of the Messiah. 
 St. Matthew thus leads the Jews to acknowledge that 
 Jesus is the Chi'ist. He lays stress on the birth at 
 Bdhlehcm^ and with divine wisdom omits what is not 
 relevant to his argument in that Gospel, the previous 
 residence of the parents at Nazareth. The Holy Spirit, 
 writing by St. Matthew, omits that incident, but He does 
 not deny it ; no, with divine foresight He reserves it 
 to be communicated afterwards, in its j)roper ptace^ by 
 a later Evangelist, St. Luke, in his Gospel, the Gospel 
 of the Gentite world, to whom it would be welcome 
 intelligence that the Saviour of mankind was conceived 
 in Nazareth, in Galilee of the Gentiles. Thus the Holy 
 Spirit shews to all who are vrilling to learn, that He 
 knows when to speak and when to be silent. Thus 
 He dispenses suitable food to all in due season '. 
 
 The Evangelists (i.e. St. Matthew and St. Luke) 
 says the Essayist, trace our Lord's " genealogies in 
 different ways." He means to imply that they con- 
 tradict one another. 
 
 They trace " His genealogies in different ways." 
 Certainly they do : and why ? Because they had two 
 different designs. The one, St. Matthew, designed to 
 shew his readers, especially his Hebrew readers, that 
 Jesus of Nazareth was the promised seed of Abraham 
 through Isaac and Jacob, and that He was the King 
 of the Jews, and came of the royal tribe of Judah, and 
 
 ' Mictih V. 2. 
 
 » If the reader desires further information on this point he will 
 find that the objections reproduced by the Essayist had been akeady 
 well refuted by Dr. Davidson, (formerly Professor in the Lancashire 
 Independent CoUege,) " Introduction to the Gospels," pp. 116—118. 
 It may well excite the shame and sorrow of all friends of the Church 
 and Universities that sceptical allegations, exploded in Dissenting 
 CoUeges, should be revived by clergymen of the English Church, 
 rrofessors and Tutors in an English Vuiversity. 
 
448 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 inlierited the royalties of David and Solomon, and of 
 the other kings of Judah in succession; and there- 
 fore he traces His genealogies from Abraham through 
 David, Solomon, and Eehoboam, and others, who 
 either were kings of Judah de facto, or de jure after 
 the captivity, and thus proves that the royal preroga- 
 tives of the house of David were inherited by Him, 
 and that He was the representative of the kings of 
 Judah by right of His birth, as the only-begotten son 
 of Mary the wife of Joseph, the heir of the royal race. 
 This is what the Holy Spirit has done by means of the 
 genealogy in the Gospel of >S'^. MaWmv. 
 
 Are we to murmur against Him because He has 
 been pleased to do something more than this? Are 
 we to complain, because by the genealogy in St. Lake's 
 Gospel He has traced up our Lord's relationship to 
 David by a line of personal connection, and has thus 
 shewn that by natural descent *, as well as by royal 
 succession. He is the Son of David ; and further, has 
 carried up His lineage through Abraham even to Adam 
 and to God, and thus reminds the readers of that 
 Gospel that all men, whether Jews or Gentiles, are one 
 family, children of the same Father, and that as they 
 are all by nature in the first Adam, so by grace they 
 are all joined together in the second Adam, Jesus 
 Christ? 
 
 Ought we not, on the contrary, to be thankful to 
 the Holy Spirit that He has traced our Lord's '' gene- 
 alogy in different ways ?" And what sort of interpre- 
 
 * Jacob in St. Matthew i. 16 was supposed by ancient writers to 
 have been the brother of Heli (Luke iii. 23), and on the death of 
 the one, the other brother married his widow, from whom Joseph 
 the husband of Mary was born. See on Matt. i. 1 ; and thus Joseph 
 was accounted the son of the one brother legally, as well as of th ■! 
 other brother naturally. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. ^49 
 
 tation of Scripture is that, which is blind to those 
 benefits, and would teach us to censure anrl coudcmu 
 the Gospels for the very abundance of the siiiiriial 
 light which Almighty God has been graciously pleased 
 to bestow upon us by their means ? 
 
 The Essayist's next objection is, that one Evangelist 
 " mentions the thieves blaspheming (Matt, xxvii. 44), 
 another has preserved to after ages the record of the 
 penitent thief, (Luke xxiii. 39)." 
 
 The wiiter is hardly bold enough to accuse either 
 Evangelist of inaccuracy here, and yet he seems desi- 
 rous of doing so, for otherwise why does he make this 
 observation, " One Evangelist mentions the thieves 
 blaspheming, another has preserved the record of the 
 penitent thief?" Yes ; and ought we not to be grate- 
 ful to both Evangelists for what they have done? 
 But if he really means that they are not consistent 
 with one another, let him be requested to read what 
 St. Augustine has written on this subject", and he 
 may perhaps change his opinion. 
 
 "They (the Evangelists) appear" also "to differ 
 about the day and hour of the crucifixion." 
 Appear ! to whom ? 
 
 Certainly not to any who have carefully examined 
 the subject. As to the appearance of discrepancy, it 
 rests only on a misinterpretation of John xviii. 28, 
 where it is said that " the Jews went not into Pilate's 
 judgment-hall lest they should be defiled, but that 
 they might eat the Passover." Xow, whatever may 
 be the meaning of the words, "eat the Passover," 
 it is quite certain that Si. John places the crucifixion 
 on the sa7Jie day as the other three Evangelists. 
 
 St. Matthew says that the crucifixion took place 
 " on the dcifj of the preparation^^'' (i. e. for the Sabbath) ; 
 
 » De Consensu Evanorelistaium. iii. 52. ' Matt, xxvii. 62. 
 
450 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 St. Mark says tliat " it was the preparation^ that is, 
 the day before the Sabbath^ ;" St. Luke says, '' that 
 day was ^^^ preparation^ and the Sabbath drew on^" 
 
 What now does St. John say? — " The Jews there- 
 fore, because it was the preparation^ that the bodies 
 should not remain on the Sabbath day, for that Sab- 
 bath was an high day, besought Pilate that their legs 
 might be broken, and that they might be taken 
 away^" And again, St. John says, speaking of our 
 Lord's burial in the garden : — " There laid they Jesus 
 therefore because of the preparation'^ P 
 
 Thus all the four Evangelists place the crucifixion on 
 the same day^ the day of the preparation, or day before 
 the Sabbath. And yet the Essayist tells us that " they 
 appear to differ as to the day of the crucifixion !" 
 
 He asserts also that they differ as to the hoii^r. He 
 does not let us know the grounds of this assertion. 
 This is one of the melancholy characteristics of this 
 book. The writer brings grave charges against holy 
 men, and he does not state the reasons on which those 
 charges rest ; and thus he makes it more difficult to 
 deal with those charges. This is a cruel way of pro- 
 ceeding ; not only as regards those who are assaulted, 
 but cruel also it is with respect to those who see the 
 wounds after their infliction. They know not why 
 they were inflicted, and perhaps when they consider 
 the character and office of the person who inflicts 
 them, they may think that they were deserved. We 
 shall see more of this by and by. 
 
 What was in the Essayist's mind when he wrote 
 these words, " The Evangelists appear to difi'er as to 
 the hour of the crucifixion ?" We are left to conjec- 
 ture on this point. Our surmise is, that as his alle- 
 
 y Mark xv. 42. ' Luke xxiii. 54. 
 
 " Johnxix. 31. " Ibid. 42. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 451 
 
 gations are usually repetitions of what has been al- 
 ready objected and answered, he is referring to the 
 supposed discrepancy between Mark xv. 25 and John 
 xix. 14. In the former Gospel it is said — according 
 to the Eoman mode of reckoning time — that "it was 
 the third hour when they crucified Him ;" that is, He 
 was crucified at nine o'clock in the morning. St. John 
 says, that Pilate took his place upon the judgment- 
 seat when it was " about the sixth hour." 
 
 Now here was an occasion for a writer on the 
 '' Interpretation of Scripture" to remind his younger 
 readers that, in order to understand the Bible, they 
 must know something of the customs of the countries in 
 which its various books were written. The Essayist, 
 however, proceeds on a different principle. He slights 
 such helps as these. " The greater part of his learning 
 is a knowledge of the text itself;" this is his canon of 
 criticism, but he seems quite to forget that a true 
 ''knowledge of the text itself," in such matters as 
 these, can only be derived from a knowledge of a great 
 many other things^ — especially of the cu'cumstances 
 under which the text was written. 
 
 Let us apply this principle to the question before 
 us. St. John's Gospel, as all Christian Antiquity tes- 
 tifies, was written in Asia, and St. John follows the 
 Asiatic mode of reckoning time \ Therefore we learn 
 two things from St. John's and St. Mark's Gospels. 
 We are told by St. John that Pilate took his place on 
 the judgment-seat at six o^ clock in the morning ; and 
 St. Mark informs us, that the sentence of Crucifixion 
 •was pronounced and put in execution at nine o'' clock. 
 
 "Where is the contradiction here ? 
 
 « Perhaps the Author may be permitted to refer to the passages 
 quoted in a note on St. John iv. 6, in support of this assertion. 
 0-2 
 
452 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 § 9. '' What is Inspiration ?" 
 
 The Essayist asks this question, and his answer 
 to it is : — " That idea of Scripture which we gather 
 from the knowledge of it." " It is a fact which we 
 infer from the study of Scripture." 
 
 This assertion, we must take leave to say, is based 
 upon a very erroneous notion of our capacities. It 
 assumes that ive are competent to pronounce an opi- 
 nion on what it befits God to say. This surely is 
 a very presumptuous view of the case. It is a kind 
 of theological Protagoreanism. " Man is the measure 
 of all things," was the bold dogma of the ancient 
 Greek sophist ^ ; and according to the Essayist's asser- 
 tion. Scripture is not to be Scripture unless it pleases 
 us ! or as the similar notion was described of old by 
 TertuUian®, "Except God pleases man, He is not to 
 be any longer God !" We must also be allowed to 
 observe that the Essayist's method of arguing con- 
 cerning the Inspiration of Scripture is totally at vari- 
 ance with the plan which Almighty God has been 
 pleased to pursue — ever since any portion of Scripture 
 was written — to assure us of its Inspiration. 
 
 The divine Author of Scripture did not make the 
 proof of the Inspiration of the Pentateuch to depend " on 
 the idea which men might gather from the knowledge 
 of it." Xo ! this indeed would have been a most pre- 
 carious foundation to build on. Some of the Hebrews 
 took little pains to acquaint themselves with the Pen- 
 tateuch; others openly violated its laws, and set up 
 idols in opposition to its divine Author. But still 
 the Pentateuch was inspired ; and all were bound to 
 acknowledge its Inspiration. And why ? Because 
 Almighty God had visibly distinguished the Pentateuch 
 
 ^ See Plato Cratyl., iii. 234. « Tertullian, Apolog., c. 5. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 453 
 
 from all other hoolcs, and had avouclied it as His own 
 Book, by enshrining it by the side of the Ark in tlic 
 Holy of Holies \ And when the Son of God Himself 
 came down from heaven and proved His divine au- 
 thority by the mighty works recorded in the Gospels, 
 (which in course of time were received as true and 
 divine histories by the Eoman Empire itself, which at 
 first persecuted the Christians,) Jesus Christ openly 
 acknowledged all the books of the Old Testament to 
 be given by Inspiration of God, and He commanded 
 all men, as they desire to be saved, to receive those 
 books as divine. 
 
 This is the method which God has adopted for as- 
 suring mankind that the Old Testament is divinely 
 inspired. Doubtless a tv ell-constituted mind, full of 
 reverence for God, and for His holy Word, and hum- 
 bly seeking for the truth, and praying for the light of 
 the Holy Spirit, will see in the Old Testament clear 
 internal iQ^iimomQ^ of its divine origin; but God has 
 not made the proof of its Inspiration to depend on the 
 idea which tve may gather from the knowledge of it, 
 He has authenticated it by external evidences and in- 
 controvertihle facts, manifest to all; so that no man 
 in a Christian land has any just excuse if he does 
 not believe the Old Testament to be God's holy 
 Word. 
 
 He has followed a similar method with regard to 
 the l^cw Testament. 
 
 Jesus Christ established His Church to remain for 
 ever upon earth ^; He has constituted her to be a 
 "witness and keeper of Holy Wrif^;" He promised 
 to be w^ith her " even to the end of the world V and to 
 
 f Deut. xxxi. 9, 24—26. e Matt. xvi. 18. 
 
 h Thirty-nine Articles, Art. XX. ' Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
454 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 give to her the Holy Sphit to teach her all things, 
 and to guide her into all truth *", and to abide with 
 her for ever. 
 
 We may therefore conclude, that whatever the uni- 
 versal Church of Christ has received as divinely in- 
 spired Scripture, is the unerring "Word of God. Her 
 testimony in this respect is the witness of Christ who 
 is with her; it is the testimony of the Holy Spirit 
 who is in her, and speaks by her. 
 
 Well, therefore, does the Church of England thus 
 speak ^: — "In the name of Holy Scripture we do 
 understand those canonical Books of the Old and 
 New Testament, of whose authority was never any 
 doubt in the Church. . . . All the Books of the New 
 Testament, as they are coinmonly received^ we do re- 
 ceive, and account them Canonical""." 
 
 But the Essayist sets at nought this external testi- 
 mony of Christ and His Church to the inspiration of 
 Holy Scripture. He would have every man take the 
 Bible into his hands as a common book, and test it by 
 his own conscience, or feelings, and then pronounce 
 judgment upon it. 
 
 This is no new theory. It has been put forth in 
 Germany and in other countries of the world. And 
 what has been the consequence? Some receive one 
 part of the Bible, and some another; some reject one 
 part, some another; and if this theory is adopted, 
 there will be as many different Bibles as there are 
 persons, and the end of it must be that there will be 
 no Bible at all, but only a Babel of tongues. 
 
 ^ John xiv. 16, 26; xvi. 13. 
 • In the Thirty-nine Articles, Art. VI. 
 
 ™ The above argument has been stated more in detail in the 
 " Lectures on Inspiration," quoted above, p. 409. 
 
ON THE INTERrRETATION OF SCRTPTURP:. 4^5 
 
 § 10. " The question of inspiration," says the Essayist, 
 " though in one sense important, is to the interpreter as if 
 it were not important ; he is no way called upon to determine 
 a matter uith ichich he has nothing to do." 
 
 In accordance with this proposition, the Essayist 
 lays down the following rules for expounding Scrip- 
 ture : — 
 
 "Scripture has one meaning, to be gathered from itself, 
 without a regard to a priori notions about its nature and 
 origin. It is to be interpreted like other books'^." 
 
 Again he says: — 
 
 " We can only ascertain the meaning of Scripture in the 
 same way as we ascertain that of Sophocles or of P/ato°." 
 " And it Vould be well to carry the theory of interpretation 
 of Scripture no further than in other u'orks p." 
 
 And he does not hesitate to suggest an opinion that 
 differences of Interpretation of Scripture arise from 
 the fact that Scripture is not treated like any other 
 book, and that we should attain to unity and uni- 
 formity in interpreting the Bible, if we would agree to 
 lay aside all questions concerning its inspiration, and 
 if we would consent to interpret it as a common book *5, 
 in the same way as we would interpret a human 
 composition, e. g. the work of some classical author, 
 '' Sophocles or Plato." 
 
 Let us consider these propositions : — 
 
 " The question of inspiration is one with which the inter- 
 preter of Scripture has nothing to do." 
 
 AVhat I nothing to do with the question whether 
 the Bible is the Word of God? Surely this question 
 
 » Essay, p. 404. ° P- 377. ^ P- 378. 
 
 1 pp. 334, 375—377. 
 
4^6 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 is important to the interpreter of Scripture, it is the 
 most important question with which he can have to do. 
 He cannot stir a step in interpreting Scripture with- 
 out having first settled it. 
 
 If Holy Scripture is inspired, then its author is 
 God : and then the Bible must be interpreted as a book 
 written by a Being to whom all thmgs are present, 
 and who contemplates all things at once in the pano- 
 ramic view of His own Omniscience. Lord Bacon 
 says, "The Scriptures beinff given hij inspiration^ and 
 not by human reason, do differ from all other hooks 
 in the Author ; which by consequence doth draw on 
 some difference to be used by the expositor. For the 
 Inditer of them did know four things, which no man 
 attains to know : which are, the mysteries of the king- 
 dom of glory; the perfection of the laws of nature; 
 the secrets of the hearts of man ; and the future suc- 
 cession of ages'"." And again he says, "The Scrip- 
 tures being written to the thoughts of man and to the 
 succession of all agcs^ are not to he interpreted only 
 according to the latitude of the proper sense of the 
 place" (or particular passage of Scripture), "and re- 
 spectively towards that present occasion whereupon 
 the words were uttered ; but have infinite springs and 
 streams of doctrine to water the Church in every part, 
 ... so that I do much condemn the interpretation of 
 the Scripture which is only after the manner as men 
 use to interpret a profane hook.''^ 
 
 In a similar spirit of wise criticism our great philo- 
 sophical divine. Bishop Butler ', thus writes: — "The 
 general design of Scripture may be said to be to give 
 an account of the world in this single point of view, 
 
 ' Bacon, Advancement of Learning, p. 265. « Analogy, ii. vii. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 457 
 
 as GocVs world^ by which it appears essentially distin- 
 guished from all other hooks.''^ 
 
 Consequently an expositor of Scripture must fail in 
 his task if he does not do what the Essayist says that 
 he need not do, and if he does what the Essayist recom- 
 mends him to do. If the expositor has not first settled 
 the question whether Scriptui'e is divinely inspired, 
 and if he handles it as he would " any other book," 
 he -^AW not be disposed to receive with humility such 
 Christian precepts or doctrines, and such supernatural 
 truths, as may be repugnant to his own reason, will, 
 and appetites. But he will measure them, as indeed the 
 Essayist and his fellow- labourers do, by the standard 
 of his own " inner consciousness." He will try them 
 by what they call their " verifying faculty ^" There- 
 fore those very precepts and doctrines which consti- 
 tute the essence of the Gospel may serve as occasions 
 and arguments to him for rejecting it. If, again, he is 
 in doubt as to the Inspii-ation of the Bible, he will set 
 aside every interpretation of its words which would 
 not be applied to those words on the supposition that 
 they were uttered by men unaided by the Holy Spirit, 
 and were not dictated by God. 
 
 With regard to the Essayist's notion that Scripture 
 can have onhj one meaning, this is manifestly contra- 
 dicted by Scripture itself. For example, the words of 
 
 » Essays and Eeviews, pp. 31, 32—36, 45 ; cf. pp. 343, 365. 
 The teaching of " Essays and Keviews" on this point has hcen thus 
 summed up by a French critic, of sceptical opinions, in an article 
 upon that volume in the Revue des deux Mondes for May, 1861, 
 p. 418 :— " La Bible ne pent conserver sa place dans notre vie reli- 
 gieuse qu' a une condition, celle de ne plus exercer comme jadis 
 uno espece de despotisme sur I'esprit humain, mais de s identifier 
 avec la voix de la conscience en nous." 
 
4^8 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Scripture, " He hath home our griefs, and carried 
 our sorrows^," are declared in one passage of Scripture 
 to have heen fulfilled in Christ's miraculous healing 
 of men's hodily infirmities '^ ; and are asserted in an- 
 other place ^ to have been accomplished by His bearing 
 our sins in His own body on the cross. 
 
 Here are two meanings assigned in Scriptm-e to the 
 same text of Scripture. Will not every humble and 
 devout reader of Scripture thankfully receive both ? 
 
 The Essayist himself has displayed some remarkable 
 specimens of the disastrous consequences of his own 
 theory, as we shall see hereafter ^ Indeed, the pre- 
 sent Essay supplies abundant evidence of the un- 
 soundness of that theory, which, while it professes 
 to be conducive to the right understanding of Holy 
 Scripture, would be utterly destructive of its true 
 interpretation. 
 
 The Essayist seems almost to forget, that mond and 
 spiritual qualifications, as well as intellectual endow- 
 ments, are necessary for the right interpretation of Holy 
 Scripture. The Scriptures cannot be understood except 
 through the illumination of the Holy Spirit who wrote 
 them. He must open our eyes, if we are to see the 
 wondrous things of God's law. But the Holy Spirit 
 will not vouchsafe His divine light to those who ven- 
 ture to treat the Scriptures as a common book. No : 
 He will punish them with spiritual blindness. Spiri- 
 tual blindness is the just retribution which they who 
 handle Scripture with familiarity bring upon them- 
 selves. ''Mysteries are revealed unto the meek\" 
 "Those that are meek shall He guide in judgment, 
 
 " Isa. liii. 4. ^ Matt. viii. 17. ^ 1 Pet. ii. 24. 
 
 ' e. g. in his comment on St. Matthew's interpretation of Hosea 
 xi. 1. See below, p. 481. " Ecclus. iii. 19. 
 
ox THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTLRE. 459 
 
 and such as are gentle, them shall lie learn His 
 way\" 
 
 Here is the true explanation of the delusion which 
 seems to have perverted the understanding of the 
 writer of the present Essay. He has acted on his own 
 maxim, " Interpret the Scripture like any other book." 
 He has treated the Bible like a common book. He 
 tells us that it is of no importance to him whether 
 the Bible is inspired or no ; and that he " has nothing 
 to do with that question ^" And he defines Inspi- 
 ration to be "that idea of Scripture which he him- 
 self gathers from a knowledge of it ^" Thus he has 
 blinded his own eyes, and he will also extinguish the 
 light of others who listen to him. Xahash the Ammo- 
 nite said to the people of Jabesh-Gilead, " On this 
 condition will I make a covenant with you, that I may 
 thi'ust out all your right eyes^." The Essayist does the 
 same ; if we are to be scholars of this Biblical Nahash, 
 we must allow him to thrust out our right eyes. 
 
 As he loves his own intellectual and spiritual health 
 and that of others committed to his care, let him be 
 earnestly entreated to retrace his steps. Let him not 
 deem it an unworthy thing to sit down as a scholar 
 at the feet of Jesus Christ, and to hearken to that 
 Divine Teacher, who delivers the Holy Scriptures to 
 the world not as a common book, but as the Word of 
 the living God, who enabled His Apostles and Evan- 
 gelists to see and to expound the meaning of the 
 Old Testament, and who promises to give the Holy 
 Spii'it to those who meekly receive the Scriptures as 
 the lively oracles of divine truth. Then the scales 
 
 " Ps. XXV. 8. <= Essay, pp. 350, 377. '^ p. 347. 
 
 ' 1 Sam. xi. 2. 
 
460 ox THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 will fall from his eyes, and he will see the light — but 
 not till then. 
 
 § 11. The Essayist has no great veneration for the 
 ancient Fathers of the Church, and yet he endeavoui's 
 to enlist them in his service. And how? In a manner 
 which could hardly have been expected, and would 
 have greatly surprised them. The question of the 
 Inspiration of Scripture, he says, ''was not deter- 
 mined b)^ the Fathers of the Church^" 
 
 Here it seems to be silently insinuated that the Fa- 
 thers had no clear views of Inspii-ation. This must 
 be the meaning of this sentence, or else it is wholly 
 irrelevant to the place where it stands. 
 
 Let us grant now — what is quite true — that no 
 ancient Council ever met to determine the question of 
 inspiration, and that no ancient Father has left a trea- 
 tise on inspiration. Why was this ? Was it because 
 that question was not determined ? Will the Essayist 
 venture to say this ? !N'o. It was because the ques- 
 tion was settled^ and because no one in Christendom 
 had any doubt about it. 
 
 We may hope that the Essayist is ignorant of this 
 fact, for if he is not ignorant of it, he has wilfully 
 calumniated the ancient Fathers in a matter of solemn 
 concern ; but if he is ignorant of it, let him be re- 
 quested to read the works of the Fathers, and let him 
 name, if he can, a single Father who had any doubt 
 of the Inspiration of the Bible. Let him mention any 
 ancient Interpreter, who ever said that "the inspiration 
 of Scripture was a matter with which he had nothing 
 to do," or who ever thought of interpreting the Bible 
 " as a common book." He cannot do so. And, as far as 
 positive proof on this subject is concerned, any candid 
 
 ' Essay, p. 351. 
 
ON THE INTERPRET ATION OF SCRIPTURE. 461 
 
 inqiiii-er may satisfy himself upon it by consulting the 
 large collections of testimonies gathered from the works 
 of the ancient Fathers of the Church by the late vener- 
 able President of St. Mary Magdalene College, Oxford, 
 Dr. Eouth^, and after him by Dr.. William Lee, of 
 Trinity College, Dublin^ and by the Eev. B. F. West- 
 cott, of Trinity College, Cambridge, in his excellent vo- 
 lume " An Introduction to the Study of the Gospels'." 
 
 The testimony of Christian Antiquity may be summed 
 up in the words of the three hundred and eighteen 
 Nicene Fathers, which have been received by the uni- 
 versal Church for fifteen hundred years, — "I believe 
 in the Holy Ghost, who spake by the prophets." 
 
 § 12. The Eeformers also are cited by the Essayist 
 as favouring his own opinions. "The word (inspira- 
 tion)," he says, " is but of yesterday, not found in the 
 earlier confessions of the reformed faith." 
 
 The wi'iter lays a heavy tax on the credulity of his 
 readers,—" The word inspii-ation is but of yesterday I" 
 Have we not the word " inspi ration^'' in our own 
 Authorized Yersion of the Bible'', and has it not stood 
 there for two huncbed and fifty years? Is not the 
 word mspiration to be found in that place in the Ge- 
 nevan version of 1557, and in Cranmer's version of 
 1539, and in Tyndale's version of 1531 ? Is it not as 
 old as the age of St. Cyprian, who wi'ote in the third 
 century ? Does he not say that the Apostles teach us 
 ^vhat they learnt from the precepts of the Lord, being 
 
 s Routh, Reliquics Sacr^e, vol. v. 
 
 •^ Dr. ^"illiam Lee on Inspiration, Appendix G, pp. -170 — 501. 
 Lond. 1854. 
 
 ' Westcotfs Introduction, Appendix B, pp. 383—422. Lond. 
 1860. 
 
 ^ 2 Tim. iii. 16, -^-here the Yulgate has "divinitus iuspiratum." 
 
462 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 full of the grace of the inspiration of their Lord^? 
 Does not Origen say that "the Holy Ghost inspired 
 every one of the holy prophets and apostles in the Old 
 and Xew Testament™ ?" ]S"ay, is not the word used by 
 St. Justin Martyr in the second century, who says 
 that the prophets taught us by divine inspiration'^? 
 Does not St. Irenseus, the scholar of Polycarp, the dis- 
 ciple of St. John, say that the Prophets received divine 
 inspii'ation°, and does not all Christian Antiquity tes- 
 tify that the Scriptui-es are OeoiruevaroL, given by 
 inspiration^ of God? And if the ancient Fathers 
 witnessed to the tki?i(/, why should we dispute about 
 the 2vord? 
 
 With regard also to the Reformers^ it is equally cer- 
 tain that they asserted the inspiration of Scriptui-e in 
 the strongest terms in their public confessions of faith. 
 Let the Essayist be requested to look again at the 
 " earlier confessions of the reformed faith." 
 
 The Bohemian Confession of 1535 ^ thus begins: — ■ 
 " Fii'st of all, we all receive with unanimous consent 
 the Holy Scriptures which are contained in the Bible, 
 and were received by our fathers and accounted ca- 
 nonical, as immovably true and most certain, and to 
 be preferred in all things to all other hooks, as sacred 
 
 ' " Dominicse inspirationis pleni." — S.Cyprian, De Oper. et 
 Eleemosyn., § 9. 
 
 •" Origen De Principiis, i. § 4. 
 
 " S. Justin ^. Cohort, ad Graec, § 38 : — 8ta t^j 6eiai eTrn^volas. 
 
 ° S. Irenaeus c. Haer. iv. 34. 
 
 p In addition to the authorities cited above, the reader may find 
 pimilar testimonies in Suicer's Thesaurus on v. ypa<pfi, and on v. 
 
 Xoyos. 
 
 1 Corpus lAhrorum Symholicorwn Ecelesi(B Beformatce, ed. 
 Augusti, Elberfeld, 1827, p. 276; in which volume the other Con- 
 fessions here cited may be found. 
 
ON THE INTERrRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 463 
 
 books ought to be preferred to profane, and divine 
 books to human''; and to be believed with sincerity 
 and simplicity of mind ; and that they were delivered 
 and impired by God Himself, as Peter and Paul and 
 others do affirm." 
 
 The Helvetic Confession, published in 1536, de- 
 clares that they "execrate all who say that the Holy 
 Scriptures are not from the Holy Ghost, or who reject 
 any portion of them;" and that the "Scriptures are 
 the very word of God, who speaks to us by them." 
 
 The Gallican Confession, published in 1561, asserts 
 that the " word contained in the books of Holy Scrip- 
 ture," which it enumerates, "proceeded from one 
 God, and are the sum and substance of truth, and 
 that neither men nor angels may add anything to it, 
 or make any change in it." 
 
 The Scottish Kirk in her Confession affirms that 
 the "Scriptures were committed to writing througli 
 the Holy Spirit of God." 
 
 The Belgic Confession says that the Scriptures con- 
 tain " the holy and divine word, not given by human 
 will, but spoken by men of God, who were inspired 
 by His Spirit," and " that they were written by God's 
 command;" and "we believe," say the framers of the 
 Confession, "all things contained therein." 
 
 The doctrine of the old Lutheran divines, at least 
 fi'om the end of the sixteenth century, — for it is 
 readily allowed that some of the earlier Lutherans 
 were less explicit in their expressions, — is stated in 
 these words": — '•'■ Iminratlon is the act by which God 
 communicated supernaturally to the mind of tho 
 writers of Scripture not only the ideas of the things 
 
 ' Art. XYIIT. 
 
 ' See Hase. Rutterus Bedivivus, 8lh editi^m, Lip?. 1855, p. 102. 
 
464 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 which they were to write, but also the conceptions of 
 the words by which they were to be expressed. The 
 true Author of the Holy Scripture is God." 
 
 Can any language be more explicit ? And yet the 
 Essayist suggests that the Eeformers laid little stress 
 on the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible. "What 
 else is the meaning of his language, "the word" 
 inspiration "is but of yesterday, not found in the 
 earlier Confessions of the reformed faith," taken in 
 connexion ^ith his assertion that Scripture is to be 
 interpreted like "any other book," and that "the 
 question of inspiration is one with which the inter- 
 preter of Scripture has nothing to do ?" Is he ready 
 to adopt the language of those Confessions to which he 
 appeals ? If he is not, why did he refer to them ? If 
 he is, must he not retract almost all that he has said 
 in this Essay on the subject of Inspiration? 
 
 § 13. When a person comes before a magistrate to 
 bring a charge against a neighbour, he is rightly re- 
 quired to state the particulars of his grievance. He is 
 not allowed to say that the man whom he impeaches is 
 a housebreaker, but he is called upon to specify the 
 cii'cumstances of some act of burglary upon which he 
 grounds his charge. And if he cannot do so, he is 
 justly regarded as guilty of calumnj^, for injuring his 
 neighbour's reputation, and he will have damaged his 
 own character in the eyes of the whole neighbour- 
 hood by such a slanderous imputation. 
 
 It is deeply to be regretted that the Essayist is 
 chargeable with this wrong. He brings accusations 
 against others which would not be received by any 
 Justice of the Peace at any Petty Sessions, against 
 the lowest and least respectable of Her Majesty's 
 subjects. And who are the persons against whom 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 465 
 
 he prefers these charges ? The holy Evangelists them- 
 selves. 
 
 The following example of this mode of dealing now 
 meets us. He tells us that there are " discrepancies 
 in the narrative of the Infancy pointed out by Schleier- 
 macher^" Tantamne rem tarn mgllfjenier ! Is so great 
 matter to be dismissed in this loose way? ''Discre- 
 pancies in the narrative of the Infancy !" What do 
 these words mean ? They look very formidable, and 
 may well inspire the reader with alarm. 
 
 Here is the mischief of the Essay, It teems with 
 insinuations. It is a whispering-gallery of indistinct 
 sounds muttering evil. 
 
 A young man — one of the writer's own pupils — or 
 an earnest-minded woman looking to the Essayist as 
 a Tutor of a College and a Eegius Professor at Oxford, 
 for instruction on the important subject of " the inter- 
 pretation of Scripture," would be filled with indefinite 
 dread and panic in reading such a statement as this, 
 — " There are discrepancies in the narrative of the 
 Infancy ;" that is, in the infancy of our Blessed Lord 
 and Saviour; discrepancies in the narrative of the 
 Gospels which have hitherto been received as the 
 words of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 But tvhat and tohere are these discrepancies ? You 
 bring a charge of discrepancy against the Evangelists. 
 You indict them of eiTor. But where are your wit- 
 nesses? Come forward boldly, and state the parti- 
 culars of your charge. Even the heathen populace 
 requii-ed this : — 
 
 " Quis delator? quibus indiciis, quo teste probavit^?" 
 
 But the answer is "Kil horum." Ts^'othiug of the 
 
 kind. The youthful reader is referred to Schleier- 
 
 ' Essay, p. 351. " Juvenal, x. 70. 
 
 Hh 
 
466 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 macher! To Sehleiermacher ! Verily a " verbosa et 
 grandis epistola" is the ground of this terrible accu- 
 sation, involving a question of life and death. " Dis- 
 crepancies pointed out by Sehleiermacher !" These are 
 to be our reasons for distrusting the Evangelists. 
 Pointed out where ? Dr. Frederick Sehleiermacher, as 
 the reader knows, was a German philosopher and 
 divine who published a score of volumes. Is the 
 youthful student to search through them in quest of 
 these " discrepancies in the narrative of the Infancy ?" 
 Is he to hunt for the needle in that bundle of hay ? 
 
 But perhaps he may have heard that one of the 
 learned German's works'' was translated into English 
 thirty-six years ago ; and if he is fortunate enough to 
 meet with a copy of that translation, now very scarce, 
 he may at length discover^ the alleged "discrepan- 
 cies in the narrative of the Infancy pointed out by 
 Sehleiermacher." 
 
 Schleiermacher's work, as I have said, was pub- 
 lished many years ago, and since that time his alle- 
 gations have been often refuted ^ Did the Essayist 
 know this ? We can hardly suppose it. If he did, 
 his appeal to those exploded objections becomes more 
 censurable ; but if he did not know it, is he well qua- 
 lified to write a dissertation "on the Interpretation of 
 Holy Scripture ?" 
 
 Lest, however, the reader should remain in the state 
 
 * Dr. F. Sehleiermacher, Ueber d. Schriften des Lulcas, ein hri- 
 tischer Versuch. Berlin, 1817. 
 
 y A Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke, by Dr. Frederick 
 Sehleiermacher, with an Introduction by the Translator. London, 
 1825. See there in pp. 44—52. 
 
 ^ Particularly, as stated above, by Dr. Davidson, " Introduction to 
 the Gospels," pp. 116—119. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 467 
 
 of embarrassment into which he has been thrown by 
 this vagne charge of discrepancy brought against the 
 holy Evangelists, let us brieflj^ examine what Schleier- 
 macher's objections were, to which the Essayist re- 
 fers us. 
 
 Schleiermacher says that St. Luke's account of the 
 Annunciation cannot be true, because if it were, the 
 Blessed Virgin would certainly have communicated it 
 to Joseph, and then Joseph would not have formed the 
 design of putting her away, as stated by St. Matthew. 
 Schleiermacher, therefore, rejects St. Luke's history of 
 the Annunciation as a poetical embellishment. 
 
 This is a specimen of the kind of Interpretation of 
 Scripture which the Essayist sanctions with his autho- 
 rity when he directs the attention of his youthful 
 readers to the '' discrepancies pointed out by Schleier- 
 macher." 
 
 Surely any one of those readers, when he comes to 
 meet this objection face to face, would hardly fail to 
 perceive that it is as hollow and worthless as it is pre- 
 sumptuous and profane. 
 
 St. Luke himself supplies an answer to it. He de- 
 scribes the Blessed Virgin Mary as ''keeping all" 
 the divine revelations, and " pondering them in her 
 heart ^." A beautiful picture of maiden modesty and 
 delicate reserve, and of patient waiting and reverent 
 faith in God. If such was the case after her marriage 
 with Joseph, as the Evangelist assures us it was, how 
 much more would it be so before she was united to 
 him, and while she dwelt apart in virgin privacy at 
 Nazareth. 
 
 A writer who makes such an objection is not worthy 
 to be recommended to the young. What a poor notion 
 » Luke ii. 19. 
 II h2 
 
468 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 must lie have of that quiet meekness and holy piety 
 which are the best ornaments of womanhood ! 
 
 Let us observe also that St. Matthew does not say 
 that Joseph intimated to Mary any intention of re- 
 nouncing his purpose of a matrimonial alliance with 
 her. No : he was only " mindecV^ to do so ; and while 
 he " thought thereon, the angel of the Lord appeared 
 to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, 
 fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that 
 which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost ''." 
 
 The Blessed Virgin " was highly favoured" by God, 
 and we may be sure that she was under the heavenly 
 guidance of the Holy Ghost. She was taught by Him 
 even in her silence. It was a providential thing that 
 she did not mention to Joseph the angelic communi- 
 cation. If she had done so, the assertion would have 
 rested merely on her authority, and he might have 
 been perplexed, and even have been tempted to doubt 
 the fact. It was a providential thing that she went 
 away from ^N'azareth soon after the Annunciation, and 
 remained with her cousin Elisabeth" three months; 
 and there she received a testimony to the truth of the 
 vision which had appeared to herself, for she found 
 that it was true which was spoken by the angel, viz., 
 that " her cousin Elisabeth had conceived a son in 
 her old age ^ ;" and the fact of the Annunciation had 
 been revealed to Elisabeth ^ 
 
 It was also a providential thing that Joseph did not 
 communicate to Mary his intention of abandoning his 
 design of marriage with her. For thus a fit occasion 
 arose, a dignus vindice nodus, for the appearance of the 
 Angel to Joseph in the dream ; and he acted upon that 
 appearance, and probably he communicated to Mary 
 " Matt. i. 20, 21. " Luke i. 39, 56. '' Ibid. i. 36. ' Luke i. 45. 
 
ox THE IXTERrRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. ^6g 
 
 the vision youclisafed to himself. And this act and 
 communication Avoukl elicit from her an account of 
 the Annunciation, and Avould be an independent testi- 
 mony to it. The dream would confirm the Annun- 
 ciation, and the Annunciation would confirm the dream. 
 The Angel in the dream who says to Joseph in St. 
 Matthew's Gospel " that which is conceived in her is 
 of the Holy Ghost," shewed that he came from the 
 same divine Lord who revealed to Mary by Gabriel, 
 as St. Luke relates, " the Holy Ghost shall come upon 
 thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow 
 thee ; therefore that holy thing which shall be born 
 of thee shall be called the Son of God." And so the 
 faith of both Joseph and Mary would be strengthened 
 by God, and they would both receive from Him in- 
 expressible comfort in their union. 
 
 This jnarinff of visions, vouchsafed to two several 
 parties, and mutually confii-ming one another, is cha- 
 racteristic of God's dealings with His saints on great 
 and worthy occasions. We see it in His dispensations 
 to Saul and to Ananias '^, and also to Cornelius and 
 to St. Peter ^. A writer on the "Interpretation of 
 Scripture" might have done well to bear in mind this 
 characteristic, and to apply it to the illustration of 
 the " narrative of the Infancy." 
 
 The other " discrepancies" which Schleiermacher 
 has supposed to exist in the narratives of St. Matthew 
 and St. Luke are disposed of with equal case. One 
 refers to the two genealogies, and has already been 
 examined ''. 
 
 He alleges also, that n'f the wise men came at all to 
 Bethlehem, they must have come to Bethlehem be/ore 
 
 ' Acts ix 12-17. ^ Acts X. 3—7, 17—19. 
 
 ° Above, p. 447. 
 
470 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 " the presciilaiion in the temple," which was forty days 
 after the birth. Schleiermacher adds, St. Luke makes 
 the parents to have returned to Nazareth immediately 
 after the Presentation. Consequently if Herod, as re- 
 presented by St. Matthew, heard from the wise men 
 the fact of the birth of the King of the Jews, and had 
 issued his savage order against the children at Beth- 
 lehem, Joseph would never have hazarded the life of 
 the Infant by going to Jerusalem for the Presentation. 
 Schleiermacher, therefore, rejects the narrative of St. 
 Matthew as a poetical fiction, designed " to represent 
 Jesus as immediately recognised by the heathen," 
 " and to establish the right of Christianity to extend 
 beyond the limits of Judaism V 
 
 In the former instance St. Luke was the poet and 
 St. Matthew the historian, but now the tables are 
 turned, and at the bidding of this Berlin necromancer 
 waving his magical wand, St. Matthew is transformed 
 into a poet and St. Luke becomes an historian ; St. 
 Matthew has given us a legend which is to be rejected 
 on the authority of St. Luke ! To all this gratuitous 
 assumption it may be replied. How does our critic 
 know that the Magi arrived J)efore the Presentation ? 
 There is no ground in the Gospels for such a suppo- 
 sition, but very much the reverse. The star seems to 
 have appeared at the Nativity. The Magi, led by the 
 star, came from a distance, and would hardly arrive at 
 Bethlehem within forty days after the birth. And if 
 the time between the birth and their arrival had been 
 so short, Herod would have hardly extended his san- 
 guinary order to infants of tivo years oW. And if the 
 
 ' Schleiermacher, Critical Essay on the Gospel of Luke, pp. 
 4G — 50, English translation. London, 1825. 
 J Matt. li. 16. 
 
ox THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 471 
 
 parents had received the gold of the wise men they 
 would probably not have presented the offerings of 
 the poor ^. 
 
 But it may be objected, — St. Luke tells us that the 
 parents quitted Bethlehem after the Presentation, and 
 returned to Xazareth. Yes ; and he also informs us that 
 they were in the habit of coming " to Jerusalem every 
 year for the Passover ^" What more probable than 
 that after the birth at Bethlehem, the city of David., 
 where the Messiah was to be born"', and after the 
 glorious revelations at Bethlehem in the angelic vision 
 to the shepherds, Joseph and Mary should have had 
 a strong yearning for Bethlehem, and that in visiting 
 Jerusalem for the Passover they should come to Beth- 
 lehem, in its neighbourhood, in order to settle there ? 
 Perhaps their return to Nazareth after the Presentation 
 was only for the sake of arranging their affairs there, 
 with a view to a migration to Bethlehem, which had 
 such glorious associations and such gracious attrac- 
 tions for them ; and when they were there, not any 
 longer in the stable of the inn^ as at the Kativity ""^ 
 but, as St. Matthew notes, in a home% they received 
 the visit and homage from the wise men coming from 
 the East. 
 
 This arrangement of incidents is certainly very pro- 
 bableP ; indeed, anything is more probable than that 
 St. Matthew, who ^^Tote his Gospel for the Jews, and 
 published it in Judtea a few years after the Ascension, 
 should have commenced his narrative with a false- 
 
 " Luke ii. 24. ' Ibid. ii. 41. " Micali v. 2. 
 
 ■> Lukeii. 7. ° Matt. ii. 11. 
 
 p It has already been submitted to the consideration of the student 
 of Scripture in a note on Matt. ii. 9, Avith some other reasons not 
 repeated here. 
 
472 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 hood, which any one almost in that conntry would 
 have been able to refute. But so far was this from 
 being the case, that Christians of that age and country 
 not only received his Gospel as true, but died cheer- 
 fully in defence of its truth ; and in course of time 
 the Eoman mistress of the world, which at first perse- 
 cuted the Christians, was convinced that St. Matthew's 
 Gospel is true, and placed it on thrones in her imperial 
 council-chambers, and revered it as the Word of God. 
 
 Let us now be permitted to put the question, — 
 How would the Essayist's friends bear it, if a writer 
 holding a high place in a learned University were to 
 treat his character in the same way as he has treated 
 that of the Evangelists ? How would they brook it, if 
 a Tutor and Professor had charged the Essayist with 
 putting forth fictions as facts ; and if, in support of 
 such imputations, his accusers had appealed to some 
 voluminous writings, without any specification of any 
 particular charge; and if, after much search, the 
 grounds of that accusation had been discovered to bo 
 frivolous and nugatory, and to have been already ex- 
 amined and refuted ? Would not the Essayist's friends 
 and admirers have resented such dealing as disin- 
 genuous and dishonest ? Would they not have pro- 
 tested against it as calumnious, cowardly, and base ? 
 Surely they would, and they would have done rightly. 
 But this is precisely the manner in which the Es- 
 sayist himself has treated St. Matthew and St. Luke. 
 And is it not the duty of the friends and scholars of 
 the Evangelists to vindicate their credit ? Are we to 
 sympathize with tlie Essayist, and to have no sym- 
 pathy with the Evangelists ? The Essayist is alive, 
 and is able to vindicate himself; but the Evangelists 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE, 473 
 
 are dead, and cannot sjDoak for themselves. Therefore 
 every lover of truth and justice ought to become their 
 advocate, and to rise up in their defence against such 
 accusations as these. 
 
 Again : if a medical practitioner had mixed poison 
 with the diet of his patients, and if he had told them 
 that the poison was wholesome nourishment ; if he 
 had put deleterious drugs into a beautiful vessel, and 
 had inscribed upon it the name of some pleasant and 
 healthful potion ; if he had thus disarmed their sus- 
 picions, and attracted them by his own fair name, 
 and by that of some other person commended by 
 his eulogies, would he not be more censurable than 
 if he had openly endangered their lives ? Certainly 
 he would. And what has been done by the writer 
 of this Essay ? He has administered poison to the 
 souls of his youthful readers ; he has inscribed a fair 
 name upon the poison, he has afforded no test for 
 its detection, he has commended it as palatable food, 
 he has dispensed it to thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands as spiritual nourishment, good for their souls' 
 health, 
 
 § 14. The Essayist is ready enough to imagine 
 discrepancies in the Gospels, but he does not seem 
 equally sensitive as to the discrepancies in his own 
 Essay :— 
 
 " Xon videmus manticse quod in tergo esf." 
 
 But let him shift the wallet from his back and place 
 it before his eyes, and he may perhaps find it amply 
 stored with what he imputes to others. 
 
 He has assumed the existence of contradictions in 
 the Gospels; he says that there "is so much disagrce- 
 
 1 Cutull. XX. 21, 
 
474 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 ment in facts in the Gospels'";" and yet, in another 
 part of his dissertation, he assures us that it is " a great 
 facV — as he terms it — that " the Gospels are for the 
 most part of common origin^ ;^^ and insisting on this 
 ^'' great fact,'''' he assumes it as a necessary inference, 
 that ''we can no longer speak of three independent 
 ivitnesses of the Gospel narrative ^" 
 
 Here he has revived the obsolete theory, of which 
 German scholars have long since been ashamed, that 
 the Gospels are from "some common original." A 
 century ago this notion, which was put forth by 
 Semler and others, was rightly discarded as chimerical 
 and ridiculous by J. G. EosenmilUer "". For who had 
 ever seen that original Gospel? Who among the 
 ancients had ever mentioned it? It was a mere 
 legendary fiction of critics eager to find some support 
 for their own baseless hypotheses. And the Essayist, 
 now in the middle of the nineteenth century, has 
 disinterred that theory from its grave, where it has 
 slept quietly for some time ; he would galvanize into 
 new life this crazy skeleton, and set it up for our ad- 
 miration ; and in his afiection for it he would have 
 us relinquish oui' o\^n belief in the living reality of 
 the three synoptical Gospels " as independent wit- 
 nesses" of our Lord's history ! And yet, mark his 
 own discrepancy ! he charges those same witnesses 
 with inconsistencies ! They are all dependent on one 
 common account; and yet they are at variance with 
 one another ! They do not even agree in the " ori- 
 ginal dwelling-place of our Lord's parents'";" they 
 
 ' Essay, p. 370. ' p. 371. ' Ibid. 
 
 " Scholia in MaWieEum, 1787; cf. Meyer's EinJeitung io St. Mat- 
 thew's Gospel, § 4. 
 * E.ssay, p. 346. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATIOX OF SCRll'TURE. 473 
 
 *' trace His genealogy in different ways ;" and besides 
 other differences which he assumes, there are the 
 " discrepancies in the narrative of the Infancy pointed 
 out by Schleiermachcr." 
 
 Observe, also, the modesty with which this super- 
 annuated theory of a common origin of the Gospels is 
 put forth. Ancient writers, from Tapias the disciple 
 of St. John and Irenreus the scholar of Polycarp, have 
 agreed in testifying that there was a connection be- 
 tween St.Mark's Gospel and the holy apostle St. Peter, 
 who calls Mark ''his son^;" and Biblical critics, and 
 readers of the New Testament generally, have recog- 
 nised an internal evidence of the truth of that ancient 
 testimony in the interesting fact that St. Pcfer^s fail- 
 ings are dwelt upon with particular emphasis in the 
 Gospel of St. Mark. But observe the Essayist's dif- 
 fidence. In spite of all that ancient testimony, con- 
 firmed by internal proof, St. Mark is only to be a copyist 
 of an apocryphal original Gospel, which never had any 
 existence except in the Essayist's imagination ! And 
 the testimony of Irenteus, TertuUian, Clement of Alex- 
 andria, Origen, and a host of other ancient writers, 
 who agree in asserting the connection of St. Mark's 
 Gospel with St. Peter, is summarily dismissed by the 
 Essayist with this contemptuous sentence : — 
 
 "It is evident that no weight can be given to traditional 
 statements of facts about the authorship [of the Gospels] ; 
 as, for example, that respecting St. Mark being the inter- 
 preter of St. Peter; because the Fathers who have handed 
 down these statements icere ignorant or unobservant of the 
 great fact, which is proved by internal evidence [qu. of their 
 ' discrejmncics ?'] that they [the Gosi)cls] are for the most 
 part of common origin \" 
 
 ^ 1 Tut. V. 13. ' Essay, p. 371. 
 
476 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Another specimen of our author's modesty and consis- 
 tency may here be noticed. He says in one place very 
 truly, that " Scriptui-e is to be interpreted from itself," 
 — " Non nisi ex Scriptui-a Scriptm^am potes interpre- 
 tari^" But how does he apply his own rule in other 
 parts of his Essay ? As we shall see hereafter, he will 
 not accept the interpretations of the Old Testament 
 which are given by the Holy Spirit in the Ketv. And 
 yet "Scripture is to be interpreted from itself!" He 
 says that there " is hardly any quotation in the Epistles 
 of the Is'ew Testament from the Prophets, in which 
 the meaning is based on the original sense*';" and he 
 earnestly warns his pupils against accepting more than 
 one meaning'' of a prophecy; and he asserts that the 
 only true meaning of Scripture is that which is to be 
 gathered from Scripture interpreted like any other look; 
 and therefore he rejects those meanings which are as- 
 signed by the Evangelists in Scripture themselves to 
 prophecies of the Old Testament ^ ! And yet we are 
 gravely assured by the Essayist that we cannot in- 
 terpret Scripture except from Scripture itself! 
 
 It may perhaps be asked by the reader, ' How does 
 the Essayist reconcile his mode of treating the Xew 
 Testament, with the reverent affection, which is often 
 professed in this Essay, for the person of our lilessed 
 Lord ? Our Blessed Lord Himself is the Author of 
 these interpretations of the prophecies of the Old 
 Testament, either directly in His own Person, or 
 mediately by His Apostles or Evangelists. How can 
 the Essayist's rejection of the teaching accord with 
 veneration for the Teacher?' 
 
 This question has evidently presented itself to his 
 
 a Essay, pp. 382, 384. ^ P- 406. 
 
 «= p. 404; cf. 377, 378. ^ See p. 418. 
 
ON THE IXTERPRETATIOX OE SCRIPTURE. J[-J-J 
 
 mind ; and it is answered by means of one of those 
 unhappy expedients, which the Essayist found already 
 made to his hand in the magazine of German theology 
 fi'om which his materials are derived. 
 
 All who are fomiliar with the history of German 
 Protestantism will at once anticipate the reply. It 
 is supplied by the theory of accommodation. That 
 theory was propounded about a century ago by Seniler'' 
 and others K It is well described by the late revered 
 
 * Compare the account in the "Historical Sketch of German 
 Protestantism," by G. H. Dewar, AT.A., p. 107 :— " Semler, thirty 
 years professor at Halle, was the founder of what is called the 
 historical method of interpretation. The principal feature of this 
 system is, that every passage of Scripture is to be interpreted with 
 reference to the time and circumstances under which it was de- 
 livered. True as this principle in a certain sense may be, it is 
 easy to perceive that in the sense in which it has been used by 
 Semler and his successors, and as a foundation for the so-called 
 doctrine of accommodatioti, it must lead to a total abandonment of 
 the doctrine of the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. If in speak- 
 ing of the expectation of a [Jklessiah, of His own miraculous birth, 
 of the effusion of the Holy Ghost, of a future judgment, of a heaven 
 and a hell, of angels and of evil spirits, Jesus and His Apostles 
 were only accommodating themselves to the preconceived opinions and 
 errors of the Jews, in order to gain an influence over them, and thus 
 induce them to submit to the pure and spiritual requirements of the 
 Gospel, which Semler, educated among the Pietists, considered of 
 more importance than a distinctive belief; — if, I say, on such points 
 as these Jesus and His Apostles were accommodating themselves to 
 Jewish prejudices, surely the volume of Holy Scripture would be of 
 a very similar character with the fables of -3^sop, which, in order to 
 convey to children some useful lesson, endeavour to excite their 
 attention and please their fancy by absurd and unnatural fictions ; 
 and surely then the words of Scripture cannot have emanated from 
 that Holy Spirit with whom is neither falsehood nor deceit ; surely 
 it cannot claim our reverence ; it cannot be unto us a nile of faith, 
 or an instructor in holiness." 
 
 ' Eckermann, Tan Hemert, Kirsten, Yogcl, &o., &c. 
 
478 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Hugh James Eose, in one of his Sermons preached 
 before the University of Cambridge in 1825 ^: — " Sem- 
 ler invented an hypothesis to get rid of What offended 
 him in the New Testament. He contended that we 
 are not to take all the declarations of Scripture as 
 addressed to us, but to consider them as in many 
 points adapted to the feelings and dispositions of the 
 age tvhen they originated. This was the origin of that 
 famous theory of accommodation^ which Semler carried 
 to great lengths, but which, in the hands of his 
 followers, became the most formidable wea])on ever 
 devised against Christianity. "Whatever men were 
 disinclined to receive in the ]S"ew Testament, and 
 could not with decency reject, while they called them- 
 selves Christians and retained the Scripture, they got 
 rid of by this theory." They "maintained that the 
 Apostles, and even Jesus Himself, had adapted Him- 
 self not only in His way of teaching, but in His 
 doctrines, to the prejudices of the Jews." ..." When 
 the prophecies of the Old Testament were cited, then 
 aj^peal was made to the interpreters on the new plan, 
 who asserted constantly that theTe were no prophecies 
 to he found, or (what was perhaps stranger still) that 
 there was nothing in the Old Testament clear enough 
 to argue from, without danger of arbitrary conclu- 
 sions ''." "I cannot," says the same excellent writer', 
 "mention this theory (of accommodation) without 
 adding to it an expression of the strongest abhor- 
 rence. Strange, indeed, must men's notions be of 
 a divine, or even of a sincere human teacher, when 
 they can believe that He would endeavour to recom- 
 
 s On the State of the Protestant Eeligion in Germany, p. 417. 
 ^ Ibid., p. 78. ' Ibid., p. 48. 
 
ON THE IXTERrRETATIOX OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 479 
 
 mend a practical system of the most lofty virtues 
 by a sacrifice of truth." 
 
 Yet this is the idea which the Essayist seems to 
 have formed, or rather reproduced, of our Blessed 
 Lord, and His Apostles and Evangelists. 
 
 Having said that there is scarcely any prophecy of 
 the Old Testament which is interpreted in the New 
 according to its "original sense''," he adds, that we 
 are not to be surprised at this; for we ought to be 
 prepared to see Scripture interpreted according to the 
 '•'• ideas of the age or country in tvJiich it ivas ivritten^^^ 
 and therefore we ought not to insist "on the applica- 
 tions which the New Testanient makes of passages in 
 the Old, as their original meaning';" and he puts a 
 question to which he himself has already suggested 
 the answer, " Is the Interpretation of the Old Tes- 
 tament in the New to be regarded as the meaning 
 of the original text, or an accommodation of it to the 
 thoughts of other times "^ ?" 
 
 The Essayist professes a feeling of reverence for the 
 Divine Saviour of the world ; but how can this ques- 
 tion be reconciled with such a profession ? Christ is 
 " the Way, the Truth, and the Life "^ ;" and " He came 
 to bear witness to the truth '';" and He sternly de- 
 nounced the sins and errors of the Jews and their 
 teachers; and therefore He suffered death at their 
 hands. And yet we are to entertain the question, 
 whether He was not guilty of equivocation, dissimu- 
 lation, and cowardice ! and whether He did not adapt 
 His language to the prejudices of His hearers ; and 
 whether His teaching is any longer to be regarded as 
 
 ^ Essay, p. 406. ' p. 407. ■" p. 370. 
 
 n John xiv. 6. ° Ibid, xviii. 37. 
 
480 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 of universal application, or only to have a temporary 
 and local significance, accommodated with dexterous 
 pliancy to the temper and circumstances of the times 
 in which His language was uttered ! 
 
 This theory of accommodation being once assumed to 
 be true, there is no limit to its application. All the 
 teaching of Christ and His Apostles must eventually 
 disappear under its withering influence. The doc- 
 trines of Christianity will soon be treated as merely 
 ephemeral ideas, or floating fashions adapted to the 
 spirit of the age in which they were first published. 
 Indeed, as is well known, these disastrous results have 
 abeady followed from that theory of accommodation. 
 It brought forth an abundant harvest of unbelief. 
 ''The lessons of Semler," the author of that theory, 
 "have not been lost," says the writer just quoted. 
 '' The evil seed which he committed to the earth pro- 
 duced an hundi-edfold ; and even the sower himself 
 would have contemplated with surprise and horror the 
 evil and poisonous crop which has sprung from the 
 seed he planted. ... In the works of Semler's fol- 
 lowers there is a daringness of disbelief, a wantonness 
 of blasphemy, which in a professed unbeliever we 
 should expect and understand, but when we turn 
 from the ivorTiS inhere it is found to the page which 
 records the name and situation of the writers^ and ivhen 
 tve find that to mani) of them is entrusted the solemn 
 charge of educating the younger brethren^ and to all is 
 committed that still more solemn charge of feeding and 
 VKitching over ChrisVs floch on earthy there would be 
 no consolation for the Christian heart, were it not 
 persuaded that God has some great end in view, 
 some great lesson to teach, in allowing so dreadful 
 a pest to infest this portion of His vineyard, and to 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 481 
 
 threaten the destructioii of all that is dear, sacred, 
 and holy "." 
 
 Such were the fruits of Semler's theory of accommo- 
 dation, in the Universities, schools, and parish churches 
 of Germany. It is now revived in England ; and if it 
 is allowed to take root among us, its consequences will 
 be the same here. 
 
 § 15. Having impeached the historical veracity of 
 the Evangelists, the Essayist does not hesitate also to 
 impugn their authority in interpreting the prophecies 
 of the Old Testament. He discards their interpreta- 
 tions as obsolete. Their expositions might do well 
 enough formerly, but the world is now becoming 
 wiser. Listen to his words 'i: — 
 
 " The time will come, when educated men will be no more 
 able to believe that the words, * Out of Egypt have I called 
 My Son^" were intended hy the Prophet to refer to the return 
 of Joseph and Mary out of Egypt, than they are now able to 
 believe the Roman Catholic exposition of Gen. iii. 15, ' Ipsa 
 conteret caput tuum,' " 
 
 The reader is aware that '' the Eoman Catholic 
 exposition" of that passage in the Book of Genesis is 
 grounded upon a perversion of the Ilebrew original. 
 According to that exposition, the words of God to the 
 serpent are interpreted as if they signified " She shall 
 bruise thy head," and those words are applied by the 
 Church of Eome to the Virgin INIary ; ^\•hereas the 
 words clearly mean "/^ shall bruise thy head," and, 
 
 P Hugh James Hose's Discourses, preached before the rniversity 
 of Cambridge, on the " State of the Trotestaiit llcligion in Ger- 
 many," p- 58. 
 
 -1 Essay, p. 418. 
 
 ' Ilosca xi. 1; Matt. ii. 15. 
 
 I i 
 
482 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 as all Christian antiquity testifies', tliey refer to the 
 Seed of the woman, which is Clirist. 
 
 Here, therefore, is a glaring misrepresentation of a 
 most important text of the Old Testament ; and yet 
 the Essayist tells us that "the time is coming, when 
 educated men" will acknowledge that the interpre- 
 tation which the holy Evangelist St Mattheiv gives 
 of the words of the Prophet, Hosea xi. 2, " Out of 
 Egypt have I called My Son," is not more credible 
 than that glaring misrepresentation ! 
 
 The Essayist has not much respect for the early 
 Fathers; he "has no delight in the voluminous litera- 
 ture which has overgi'own the text * " of the Gospels. 
 If he had been more conversant with it, perhaps he 
 might have been preserved from raising this objection 
 to St. Matthew, by which he has brought himself into 
 the company of Julian the Apostate, who made the 
 same accusation against the Evangelist fifteen cen- 
 tui'ies ago. 
 
 Let us consider the allegation. 
 
 The Essayist says : — 
 
 " The time is coming, when educated men \rill no more be 
 able to beheve that the words, ' Out of Egy|)t have I called 
 My Son,^ were intended by the Prophet (Hosea) to refer to 
 the return of Joseph and Mary from Egypt, than they are 
 now able to beheve the Roman Cathohc exposition of Gen. 
 iil 15.'' 
 
 On the other hand, an Evangelist, St. Matthew, 
 assures us, that those words of Hosea tvere fulfilled in 
 that return. St. Matthew thus writes '', — "When he 
 
 ' See Rom. xv. 20 ; St. Leo :5Iagn. Serm. de Nativ. ii. ; St. Jerome, 
 Quaestion. Hebr. in Gen., torn. ii. p. 110; and the Benedictine note 
 on Gen. iii. 15. ' Essay, p. 338. 
 
 " See St. Jerome on Hosea xi. » Matt. ii. 15. 
 
ox THE INTERPRETATIOX OF SCRIPTURE. 483 
 
 (Joseph) arose, he took the young child aud Ilis 
 mother by night, and departed into Egypt, and was 
 tliere until the death of Herod, that it mi[/ht he ful- 
 filled which was spoken of (or hy) the Lord, by (or 
 through ^) the Prophet (Hosea), Out of Egypt have I 
 called My Son." 
 
 The Essayist intimates that the Evangelist has 
 made a mistake here ; otherwise his remark is wholly 
 unmeaning. The Evangelist is wrong ; and " the time 
 is coming when educated men" will discover his error, 
 and correct it, and discard the interpretation of Hosea 
 which St. Matthew would impose upon them. 
 
 But what is the fact ? Has St. Matthew misinter- 
 preted Hosea ? 
 
 Assuredly not. The truth is, that the Essayist has 
 been caught in the snare which he has laid for others. 
 He had advised us to " interpret Scripture as any 
 other book ^," that is, as a human composition. He 
 also assures us that no passage of Scripture can have 
 any more than one meaning^ ^ and ''''that one meaning 
 is to be gathered from (Scripture) itself" without re- 
 gard to its natui'e and origin; and again, '^Scripture has 
 one meaning, — the meaning which it had to the mind 
 of the Projjhet or Evangelist . . . who fii'st uttered it." 
 And again, " We have no reason to attribute to the 
 Prophet any second or hidden sense, different from that 
 which appears on the surface'^.'''' 
 
 These are his famous canons of Interpretation. Un- 
 fortunately for himself he has applied them here. He 
 tries the prophecy of Hosea by his own critical standard, 
 and finds that Hosea is speaking of Israel coming 
 forth //w/^ Egypt. And Hosea is to have but ^^ one 
 
 y 8m. ' Essay, pp. 350, 377. ' pp. 404, 378. 
 
 *■ p. 380. 
 
 ii2 
 
484 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 meaning ;" and that meaning is " the meaning whicli 
 is on the surface^'' the meaning which may be gathered 
 from Hosea's writings, treated "like any other book." 
 Hosea meant to refer to Israel's coming out of Egypt. 
 His prophecy refers to that coming, and therefore^ 
 argues the Essayist, it cannot refer to anything else. 
 Consequently St. Matthew is wrong in saying that 
 "Joseph took the young child and His mother by 
 night, and departed into Egypt ; and was there until 
 the death of Herod, that it might he fulfilled which 
 was spoken by the Lord through the Prophet, Out of 
 Egypt liaA^e I called My Son;" and " the time is com- 
 ing when educated men" will reject this interpretation. 
 
 In contemplating such reasoning we are lost in 
 astonishment. The vanity and self-conceit of the 
 human heart is indeed great, and scarcely any com- 
 mon exhibition of it ought to cause much surprise. 
 But surely this is a phenomenon almost unparalleled. 
 The Essayist correcting the Evangelist ! The Essayist 
 in the nineteenth century correcting St. Matthew, — a 
 Hebrew by birth, a companion and apostle of Jesus 
 Christ, and wi'iting a Gospel for Hebrew Christians, 
 which was received by them as a divine work ! The 
 Essayist correcting St. Matthew in the interpretation 
 of Hebrew prophecy ! This is something almost be- 
 yond the powers of all human conception. 
 
 Consider also, if haply it be true, that the Scrip- 
 tures are not " like any other book," and if St. Mat- 
 thew wrote under the guidance of the Holy Spirit of 
 God, and if his Gospel is indeed, what all Chris- 
 tendom for eighteen hundred years has believed it to 
 be, a divinely inspired work, then we have this fearful 
 phenomenon— the Essayist correcting the Holy Ghost ! 
 
 When, however, we come to analyze this strange 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 485 
 
 prodigy, it is not altogether inexplicable. Holy Scrip- 
 ture enables us to explain it. The first requisite for 
 "the Interpretation of Scripture" isLhumility. The 
 second is reverence for Scripture. If we rely on our- 
 selves and our own intelligence, and if we disparage 
 Scripture, and treat it "as any other book," then 
 Almighty God, Who is the Author of Scripture, will 
 punish us by our own devices. He will " choose our 
 delusions'." He will "chastise us by our wicked- 
 ness," and "reprove us by our backslidings^," and 
 "give us the reward of our own hands ^" Our 
 presumption and our irreverence will be the instru- 
 ments of oui' punishment ; we shall have provoked 
 God to withdraw His Holy Spirit from us, and to give 
 us over to spiritual blindness, and then we shall dis- 
 play to the world that most wretched spectacle, the 
 spectacle of men professing themselves wise, and 
 vaunting their own intelligence, and setting them- 
 selves up to be censors of the Evangelists, and to 
 enlighten the Holy Spirit Himself! Miserable ig- 
 norance ! pitiful infatuation ! the fruit of arrogance 
 and irreverence. And is not this the spectacle before 
 us ? The Essayist comes forward to instruct the world 
 in his new method to be used for the interpretation 
 of Scripture. He puts forth with oracular authority 
 his own canons of Biblical criticism. We have seen 
 what those canons are, and how he applies them. 
 And yet, after all this show of knowledge, he convicts 
 himself of ignorance concerning the authorship of pro- 
 phecy ; and he deprives himself, and would rob his 
 scholars, of all the beautiful imagery which they may 
 derive from the illumination of the Holy Ghost, teach- 
 ing them to recognise in Israel a type of Jesus Christ. 
 
 •= Isa. Ixvi. 4. " Jcr. ii. 19. * Isa. iii. 11. 
 
486 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 This is a specimen of the glorious gain which the 
 rising generation is to receive from this new method 
 of Interpretation. 
 
 He takes for granted, that because lie himself can- 
 not see the meaning which St. Matthew assigns to 
 Hosea's prophecy, and because that meaning does not 
 "appear on the surface," and because the Prophet 
 Hosea himself may not have had that meaning fully 
 revealed to him, — therefore the prophecy of Hosea has 
 no such meaning ! But let us ask one question. Did 
 any educated man, who has reflected seriously on 
 the prophecies, ever imagine that the Prophets them- 
 selves were the original authors of those prophecies^? 
 Has not the whole Church of Christ always held 
 " that the Holy Ghost spake by the Prophets ?" And 
 let us also ask this. Is not the Holy Ghost, speaking 
 by the Evangelist St. Matthew, to be believed, when 
 He tells us what was in His own divine mind when He 
 spake by the Prophet Hosea ? Is the Essayist to be 
 permitted to come forward and enlighten the Holy 
 Spirit, and to inform Him that He had no such meaning 
 as that which He Himself assures us that He had ? 
 
 Can any arrogance in the world be conceived greater 
 than this ? 
 
 A writer in a celebrated periodical ^ thus speaks : — 
 '' The position of Professor Jowett has a significance 
 
 f On this subject the reader may refer to St. Augustine, De Doct. 
 Christ., iii. 39 ; Bp. Butler, Anal., 11. vii. ; Bp. Sherlock on Prophecy, 
 ii. p. 21 ; Bp. Marsh on the Interpretation of the Bible, Lect. x. 
 p. 443, of. p. 403 ; Dr. W. Lee on Inspii-ation, x. p. 198, 199. The 
 passages may be seen quoted in the present writer's Lectures on 
 Interpretation, pp. 80 — 89. 
 
 s Edinburgh Eeview, No. 230, for April 1861, p. 476, where this 
 Essay is thus characterized : — "Professor Jowett has fui-nished what 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 487 
 
 of its own. Since the termination of the great move- 
 ment of the ' Tracts for the Times,' he is the only man 
 in the University of Oxford who has exercised a moral 
 and spiritual influence at all corresponding to that 
 which was once wielded by John Henry Xewman." 
 
 The parallel here is remarkable, and suggests some 
 ominous forebodings. Dr. i^ewman has unhappily 
 fallen away from the Church of England, and has led 
 many others into the communion of that Church which 
 has devised the monstrous interpretation, rightly cen- 
 sured by the Essayist, of Gen. iii. 15, which refers that 
 text to the Virgin Mary. He has accepted the teach- 
 ing of that Church, which, mainly on the groundwork 
 of that text^, has lately put forth a new dogma of 
 faith, and anathematizes all who do not believe that 
 new dogma, namely, the Immaculate Conception of the 
 Blessed Virgin. This is one of the Romish interpre- 
 tations which Dr. Xewman and his followers have now 
 solemnly bound themselves to receive, in opposition 
 to Scripture, Councils, and Fathers of the Church. 
 
 Whether the Papal mode of Interpretation is not 
 quite as safe as that propounded by the Essayist, 
 may well admit of a doubt ; and whether the conse- 
 quences of the Essayist's method, if adopted in oui* 
 
 may be termed a valuable sujiplement to his work on St. Paid. It 
 is intended to clear away some of the misconceptions which have 
 prevented Biblical students from deriving the full advantages to 
 be reaped from the sacred records, and to point out what those ad- 
 vantages are." These words of the Reviewer suggest sorrowful re- 
 flections ; at the same time they will awaken the energies of those 
 who feel a reverent regard for the sacred records, and will excite 
 them to greater vigilance and zeal in their behalf. 
 
 ^ See the Papal Decree promulgating that new Article of the 
 "Immaculate Conception," Dec. 8, 1854, and appealing to that 
 text in its support. 
 
488 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 schools and colleges, will not be at least as calamitous 
 as those of the Eoman, deserves carefully to be con- 
 sidered: especially if it be indeed true, as the Ee- 
 viewer affirms, that the Essayist exercises so com- 
 manding an influence in the University of Oxford, 
 that, to quote the Eeviewer's words, "he stands 
 confessedly master of the situation in the eyes of the 
 rising generation of English students and theo- 
 logians V 
 
 Is this really the case with the University of Ox- 
 ford, — the University of Jewel, Hooker, Sanderson, 
 and Bull? If it indeed be true, "how are the 
 mighty fallen I" 
 
 Surely "the time is coming, when educated men 
 will be no more able to believe" that such notions as 
 these concerning the Interpretation of Scripture were 
 propounded as valuable discoveries in an Essay pub- 
 lished by a Tutor in a distinguished College, and a 
 Eegius Professor in that University, and that the 
 Author of that Essay exercised the greatest influ- 
 ence among all his contemporaries there, and stood 
 "confessedly master of the situation in the eyes of 
 the rising generation of English students and theolo- 
 gians," — than they are now able to believe the Eoman 
 Catholic exposition of Gen. iii. 15, or any other strange 
 dogma or portentous figment which the Eoman Church 
 would impose on a credulous world. And if it be 
 really true that the Author of this Essay does exercise 
 that dominant influence over the "minds of the rising 
 generation of English students and theologians," then 
 it is high time that all who feel a loyal attachment to 
 the Church of England, and who are animated with 
 a generous zeal for the intellectual reputation and for 
 
 ' Ediuburgh Eeview, No. 230, j). 476. 
 
ON THE INTERrRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 489 
 
 the moral and spiritual cliaractcr of our ancient Uni- 
 versities, should consider well, whether they are con- 
 tent that the teaching of that Church and of those 
 Universities should be abandoned and discarded as 
 obsolete and erroneous, and that the opinions pro- 
 mulgated in this Essay should henceforth be adopted 
 in their place. 
 
 § 16. Let us now proceed to examine the probable 
 consequences of this system of Interpretation. 
 
 In the year ITT-i a celebrated German theologian, 
 J. S. Semler, already mentioned, published at Halle 
 his ''Plan for the Liberal Teaching of Christian Doc- 
 trine^." Semler had been educated among the Pietists, 
 as they were called, who thought that outward forms 
 and confessions of faith were not of much use for the 
 maintenance of spiritual life, and who disparaged 
 human learning and theological science as of little 
 benefit to vital devotion. AVith them religious emo- 
 tions constituted true spirituality. With them fer- 
 vour and enthusiasm were almost everything, but 
 ecclesiastical organization and order were of very little 
 account. Tliey professed a laudable zeal for practi- 
 cal piety and moral virtue, but they did not ground 
 them on the principles of Christian doctrine and on 
 the articles of the Christian faith. They regarded the 
 Bible with reverence; but they had no sound founda- 
 tion of belief in its inspiration, nor any safe guidance 
 for its interpretation. They appealed to their own 
 inner consciousness and spiritual illumination for di- 
 rection in these two questions, — What is the Bible ? 
 and. How is it to be understood? They separated 
 the Scriptures from the Church, to which the Scrip- 
 
 '' Institutio ad Doctrinam Chvlslia)iam Uheralitcr disccndam. 
 
4^0 
 
 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 tures were delivered by God. They did not regard 
 the Bible as a heavenly message, authenticated, deli- 
 vered, and interpreted by a divinely appointed mes- 
 senger, the universal Chui'ch of Christ; but they 
 looked on it as like some wondrous aerolite, which, 
 had fallen down fi'om heaven they knew not how. 
 
 Semler, in course of time, came under the influence 
 of the philosophical divines of the school of Wolff, 
 whose theories developed themselves into Eational- 
 ism. From the Pietists he had brought with him a 
 sanguine confidence in his own opinions, not restrained 
 by the correctives and controls of the public autho- 
 rity and judgment of the universal Church, as de- 
 clared in her formularies and practice. To quote the 
 language of an English divine, who has drawn an ac- 
 curate portrait of his character \ — "He never hesi- 
 tated to desert sober, substantial truth for striking but 
 partial views, subtle error, and ingenious theory. To 
 this quality he added others, which are very frequent 
 ingredients in such a character, — an undoubting esti- 
 mation for all his otvn speculations ^ and a rash boldness 
 in bringing them into public view." And from his 
 neiv rationalistic teachers he derived that adventurous 
 spirit which he applied in the free handling of 
 Holy Scripture, and which he exerted in endeavour- 
 ing to emancipate it, as he said, from traditional modes 
 of treatment, and from that conventional language by 
 which its meaning, as he alleged, had hitherto been 
 obscured. 
 
 What Semler was at Halle in the middle of the 
 
 1 Hugh James Eose, Discourses, p. 47 ; referring to the Life of 
 Semler in Eichhom's Allgem. Bill., vol. v. pai-t i. A biographical 
 account of Semler has also been given by Tholuck, Verm. Schriften, 
 ii. p. 39, &c. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 491 
 
 eigliteentli century, that the Essayist seems to be at 
 Oxford in the nineteenth. If we might venture to 
 form an opinion from his mode of -WTiting, we might 
 suppose him to have been trained, like Semler, among 
 some who have little reverence for the authority of 
 the Christian Chiu'ch, and have paid little attention 
 to her principles, her polity, and her history; and 
 not ha^-ing laid any solid foimdation in this necessary 
 knowledge, he appears to have entered boldly into 
 theological speculations, with little guidance but that 
 of a warm imagination and an unhesitating reliance 
 on himself. 
 
 The resemblance between Semler's " Free-handling 
 of Chi'istian Doctrine " and the Oxford Pr.ofessor's 
 Essay is remarkable. Indeed, there is scarcely a 
 single point in the Oxford Essay which was not anti- 
 cipated by Semler a hundred years ago. 
 
 Semler made his own conscience to be a criterion 
 of Inspii'ation. He tells us that " whatever he found 
 in Scripture to be conducive to his own good, that 
 he held to he divinehj inspired'^.'''' He adds, that "he 
 will not however dispute or contend with any one 
 who maintains the Inspiration of otJiei' books of Scrip- 
 ture which he finds of no use to himself." In fact, 
 the Inspiration of the Bible was with him purely sub- 
 ject ive. His only knowledge of the Inspiration of the 
 Scripture was the " idea which he himself formed 
 of it." 
 
 This notion, as we have seen, is precisely that of 
 the Essayist ''. "Inspiration," he says, "is that idea 
 
 " p. 256. "Quicquid in Scriptiircc illo corporo invcnio mihi 
 ^(piXijjLOV irpos bihacTKoKiav, rrpos eXfyxof, illud CSt dfoirveva-Tw, seu ad 
 ])i.um auctorem a me refercudum est." 
 
 " See Essay, p. 347. 
 
492 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 of Scripture whicli tve gather from the knowledge of it. 
 . . It is a fact which we infer from the study of it." 
 
 As for the Interpretation of Scripture, that, said 
 Semler, must also be left to the private conscious- 
 ness of each individual ; so that every man is at 
 liberty to take the Bible into his hands and to ex- 
 tract the best meaning he can fi'om it, without refer- 
 ence to external aids. 
 
 Similarly the Essayist assures us that any one who 
 has a tolerable knowledge of Greek may set up for an 
 interpreter of the New Testament. " When the mean- 
 ing of Greek words is once known, the young student 
 has almost all the real materials which are possessed 
 by the greatest Biblical scholar in the book itself." 
 
 Semler also alleged that the doctrines now pro- 
 fessed by the Christian Church are, in great measure, 
 of recent formation, and are due to the influence of 
 the Creeds on the Interpretation of Scripture, The 
 doctrines of our Lord's Divinity, of Original Sin^', 
 
 ° Essay, p. 384. 
 
 p See Semler, ibid., pp. 175, 197, 199, and the following account 
 from Dewar, p. 109: — "The formation of the orthodox doctrine 
 Semler attributes to certain hypotheses, which he supposes to have 
 been framed from time to time, and to have given, as it were, 
 a tone to the Interpretation of Scripture. Among these are, at an 
 early period, the hypothesis of the Divinity of Jesus, and, somewhat 
 later, the Augustinian doctiine of Original Sin, that of Grace, of 
 Predestination, and various others. It is deserving of mention, that 
 Semler introduces this whole subject for the purpose of shewing 
 how injuriously pre-existing theories or ideas, or, as he terms them, 
 hypotheses, operate upon the true Interpretation of Scripture. He 
 is indeed a consistent rationalist. He calls himself a Chiustian, 
 and lays great stress upon spirituality of feeling. He admits the 
 authority of the Bible ; but he meets with certain passages in it, 
 which have been siipposed to prove certain doctrines, — doctrines 
 which are not in accordance with the results to which the exercise 
 of las own reasoning foivers ha'=; led him. To these passages he 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. ^93 
 
 and of Grace are, he supposed, tlie results of pre- 
 existing theories and hypotheses applied by exposi- 
 tors to the handling of Scripture. 
 
 Here, too, he is imitated by the Essayist % who 
 speaks of " an attempt to adapt the truths of Scripture 
 to the doctrines of the Creeds;" and asks, " How can 
 the Kicene or Athauasian Creed be a proper instru- 
 ment for the interpretation of Scripture?" and says 
 that great difficulties would be introduced into the 
 Gospels by the attempt to identify them with the 
 Creeds. How different is the language of our Ee- 
 formers in our eighth Article, and in the Ixoformatio 
 Legum\ where they say that, "in interpreting Scrip- 
 ture in sermons, the preacher should ever have the 
 Creeds in his view." 
 
 The Christian Church builds human didij on the 
 
 can readily give another interpretation, so as to make them mean 
 something yeiy different, or nothing at all. But the fact that for 
 many ages, aye, even from the time of the Apostles, the interpre- 
 tation which he rejects had been the one received, he cannot so 
 easily get rid of. He resorts therefore to the ingenious theory 
 of assigning to the opinions or hypotheses of the early Fathers the 
 origin of the articles of our faith, and supposes that in support of 
 the doctrines thus framed, was invented an interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture which is not the true one, and that a new and more liberal 
 method must henceforth be adopted. These hypotheses,— in other 
 words this tradition of the Church,— he, as a rationalist, consistently 
 rejects ; but inasmuch as with them he rejects all that we hold to be 
 the most sacred doctrines of the Christian faith,— doctrines which, 
 by his own shewing, not only are contained in the tradition of the 
 Fathers, but which that tradition, if its authority be admitted, 
 proves to be contained in Scripture, — he makes it manifest that 
 the written Word is not sufficient to protect the pure faith from 
 the attacks of human reason ; he proves to us that the voice of 
 Catholic consent is a testimony with which the Christian Church 
 cannot afford to dispense." 
 
 1 See Essays, pp. 353—355. ' De Suiuma Trinitate, cap. xiii. 
 
494 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 foundation of faith in the doctrines of the Gospel. 
 But Semler laid little stress on the articles of the 
 Christian Creed. He relied on the moral sense of 
 mankind, irrespective of divine revelation of super- 
 natural truths, such as the doctrine of Christ's Divi- 
 nity, the Incarnation, and Atonement. 
 
 The Essayist's system of ethics is framed on the 
 same plan, "In religion," he says*, "are two ojo- 
 posite poles^ of truth and action, of doctrine and 
 practice, of idea and fact ;" as if doctrine were not 
 the basis of duty, but were only revealed to supply 
 materials to feed the imagination. 
 
 It was a favourite hypothesis with Semler, that 
 there were different schools of Christian doctrine in 
 primitive times, even among the Apostles themselves ; 
 and that consequently to maintain any uniform system 
 of teaching, or any fixed formulary of faith, is incon- 
 sistent with the structure of Scripture, and with the 
 facts of primitive history ^ 
 
 In a like spirit the Essayist ventures to assert that 
 " the first teachers had a separate and individual mode 
 of regarding the Gospel " ;" as if the Apostles did not 
 teach that there is "one Faith," and did not exhort 
 all to "speak the same thing." 
 
 Semler depreciates the use of verbal criticism in 
 the interpretation of Scripture''; and in this respect 
 also he has anticipated the Essayist, who says that 
 " there seem to be reasons for doubting whether any 
 considerable light can be thrown on the New Testa- 
 ment from inquiry into the language ^." 
 
 Semler also imagined the Gospels to be not indepen- 
 
 ' Essay, p. 356. * Cf. Hugh. James Rose, p. 51. 
 
 " Essay, p. 426; cf.p. 354. " Semler, p. 222. 
 
 ' Essay, p. 393. See also pp. 392, 405. 
 
ON THE IXTERPRETATIOX OF SCRIPTURE. 495 
 
 dent compositions, but to have been derived from some 
 common document, now lost. So does the Essayists 
 
 Sender also treats as of little account the interpre- 
 tations of the Old Testament which are given in the 
 !N'ew^ As we have already seen*, he explains away 
 those interpretations by his theory of accommodation ; 
 according to which, our Lord is assumed to have adapted 
 His language to the circumstances of the age in which 
 lie taught. Here also he has preceded the Essayist. 
 
 Semler also assures us that there are errors and 
 contradictions in Scripture ^ : here likewise he has 
 been followed by the Essayist ^ 
 
 Semler taught his scholars to treat Holy Scripture 
 as a common book : here likewise we have a parallel 
 in the Essay before us ^. 
 
 Let us now pause, and enquire, "WTiat were the 
 practical results of Semler's teaching ? 
 
 Frederick Eahrdt was a young man of great promise. 
 He was gifted with a lively temper, a quick fancy, and 
 wonderful versatility. He was an ardent admirer of 
 Semler. The effect of Semler's influence on him is thus 
 described by a learned German author^ : — " The study 
 of Semler's critical writings had brought him to the 
 persuasion that Scripture is a mere human book. ' I 
 considered Eevelation,' he says, in his autobiogi'aphy \ 
 'as a common and natural incident of Providence. 
 I regarded Moses, Jesus, as I did Confucius, Luther, 
 
 ^ See above, p. 474. 
 
 ' Semler, p. 223. " Anceps atque incerta regula Yeteris Testa- 
 ment! libros explicandos esse ex Novi Tcstamenti libris." 
 
 » See above, pp. 477, 478. ^ Semler, pp. 249, 251. 
 
 ' See above, pp. 445, 465. ^ See Essay, pp. 350, 377, 378, 404, 
 
 * Dr. Kabnis, Der innere Gang des Protestantismus ; (Leipzig, 
 I860,) p. 100. ' iv. 119. 
 
496 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Semler, and myself, as instruments in the hand of 
 Providence. I was convinced that these, and similar 
 men, had drawn only from the source of Eeason.' It 
 was in this sense that he treated the Gospel history 
 in his writings. The Gos^dcI narrative was changed 
 by him into a sentimental romance. He had become 
 a disciple of JN'aturalism." 
 
 He taught these doctrines as a Professor at Halle, 
 the University of Semler. Strange to say, Semler 
 himself, who had nurtured Balirdt by his own teach- 
 ing, and who was then at the head of the theological 
 faculty at Halle, was constrained to deliver an offi- 
 cial protest against the scholar whom he himself had 
 trained ! 
 
 Semler censured Bahrdt. But, exclaims the Ger- 
 man writer from whom I am quoting ^ : — 
 
 " Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes ?" 
 
 Who could endure Semler protesting against Ea- 
 tionalism ? "Bahrdt," says he, "had right on his 
 side when he wrote against Semler, whose works had 
 contributed to destroy in him the last vestige of the 
 Church's faith." Semler, whose teaching had made 
 Bahrdt what he was, in vain attempted to restrain the 
 effects of his own teaching. The pupil outran the 
 master. Bahrdt carried Semler's principles to their 
 logical results. He became an unbeliever, a preacher 
 of infidelity ; he had married a virtuous woman, but 
 he deserted her for the vicious indulgence of his 
 appetites in riot and debauchery^; he professed to 
 ground his system on Natural Reason and Morality ; 
 he even said that he had a mission from heaven to 
 
 g Kalinis, p. 99 ; cf. Bahi'dt's Lehen, iv. p. 61. 
 ^ C£ Kahnis, p. 92, 93. 
 
ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 497 
 
 emancipate mankind from the thraldom of superstition, 
 and he boasted to be the teacher of spiritual illu- 
 mination; but in practice he was a libertine and a 
 profligate, a victim of sensuality and impurit3\ At 
 length he died at Halle, a miserable death, broken in 
 mind, and wasted in body with a loathsome disease, 
 in the year 1792. 
 
 Such is a specimen of the fruits of Semler's teach- 
 ing in the last century. 
 
 The revival of that teaching in one of our Univer- 
 sities in our own day may well inspire sorrow and 
 alarm. It is probable, that the Essayist himself may 
 soon be constrained to censure the errors and to weep 
 over the miseries of some who have imbibed his 
 opinions, and who may be excited by youthful pas- 
 sions and sanguine self-confidence to develope those 
 opinions in their full dimensions, and to act upon 
 them in their lives : but his efforts will then be 
 in vain. Semler endeavoured to reclaim his pupil 
 Bahrdt ; but it was too late. 
 
 Therefore in the name of God, and in the name 
 of those for whom Christ died, let the Essayist be 
 solemnly entreated to reconsider the opinions put 
 forth in this Essay ; and if he sees reason to believe 
 them to be erroneous, let him be implored to retract 
 them. It will be a noble task, worthy of the high 
 place which he holds in one of the greatest Univer- 
 sities of the world, to set an example of genuine love 
 of truth by a public avowal of error. 
 
 In the meantime, we may cherish a hope, that, 
 under God's gracious dispensation, the discussion of 
 the questions revived in this Essay may be made 
 conducive to great good. We are all now called 
 upon to examine the reasons for which we believe the 
 
 Kk 
 
498 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Scriptures to be the Word of God ; and it behoves us 
 to consider well, whether Almighty God, who has 
 given us the Scriptures, has not also given us ex- 
 ternal as well as internal evidence of their Inspira- 
 tion; and whether He has not also afforded us sure 
 guidance for their right Interpretation, in the con- 
 sentient faith and practice of the Universal Church 
 of Christ. 
 
 If by means of this examination we attain to clearer 
 views on these essential questions, we shall have great 
 cause to thank Him, whose special prerogative it is to 
 elicit good from evil, and who makes the propagation 
 of error to be a great and glorious occasion for the 
 clearer manifestation of Truth. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Eadcliffe Obseevatort, Oxford, 
 
 Bee. 21, 1861. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 In responding to your request tliat I would add my name 
 to the list of those who have taken upon themselves the task 
 of defending the cause of revealed truth from the cavils and 
 doubts that have been unhappily raised against it by the 
 publication of the " Essays and Reviews," I do so with great 
 diffidence, as neither competent by my learning or my leisure 
 to enter minutely into the controversies which have been 
 promoted by the work in question. 
 
 There are, however, one or two points on which both as 
 a Christian man, as a clergyman, and as a cultivator of 
 science, I am glad of the opportunity of expressing my 
 opinion, and I therefore thank you for the honour you have 
 done me, and which I attribute to my office rather than to 
 myself, in requesting it from me. 
 
 In the first place, then, I would say that, in common, I hope, 
 with thousands of my fellow-countrymen, I have been deeply 
 grieved, not only at the nature and spirit of several of the 
 articles of the book in question, but at the circumstances 
 under which it has appeared. That philosophic truth, when 
 it is clearly recognised, should be followed at all hazards and 
 independently of all consequences, I am willing to admit; 
 and I trust I have had too long and severe a training in 
 mathematics and the natural sciences to put me in danger of 
 erring on the side of bigotry in religion, or of the reception 
 of any doctrines on the mere plea of authority or tradition. 
 But when I am introduced to a book, not written by one 
 hand but by many, and containing fragmentary essays, and 
 reviews imcalled for by any particular occasion, whose only 
 unity of purpose seems to be that of a deliberate attack on 
 manj' of the fundamental principles of our most holy faith. 
 
502 
 
 and when I find that, with a single exception, all the writers 
 are men bound by most stringent obligations to defend and 
 to teach religion such as it has been delivered to us by our 
 forefathers in the Liturgy and the Articles of the Church of 
 England, — when I see this, I am grieved, I repeat it, at the 
 scandal of the spectacle presented. 
 
 If, up to this time, we have been mistaken in our faith, 
 and in the objects of our love and reverence ; if at this time 
 it is requisite, for the advancement of abstract truth, that we 
 should sit at the feet of these new Gamaliels and be untaught 
 almost every principle of speculative and of practical religion ; 
 if it is really true that with regard to the inspiration and 
 authority of the Old and New Testament we have been mis- 
 taken ; if prophecy, and miracles, and all the old foundations 
 of our faith, are proved to be the weak props that they are 
 here represented to be, — let us, after deep and mature study, 
 yet with bitter tears of regret and disappointment, — let us, 
 I saj', give them up ; let us, with our new instructors, 
 ransack the sacred pages for disagreements and contra- 
 dictions ; let us use the knowledge of morality which the 
 sacred "Word has given us, to prove that the morality incul- 
 cated in that Word is indefensible ; let us give up every cheer- 
 ing hope which the sure confidence of the truth of that Word 
 has given us, and be henceforth the converts of that new 
 intellectual religion which has refined away all that was 
 tangible, consolatory, and real in the old. But, if we be 
 driven by the necessity of truth and consistency to do this, 
 we may still grieve that it has fallen to the lot of the sworn 
 defenders of orthodox Christianity to be its executioners. 
 Unwelcome it is at any time to a tender heart to be the 
 bearer of intelligence which is painful or grievous, and most 
 unwelcome will we still believe that it has been to the Essay- 
 ists to follow their convictions of the demands of truth to 
 their consequence, and to proclaim, in a volume which has 
 been read by tens of thousands, that the faith of themselves 
 and of their ancestors is a delusion, and that they must now 
 construct for themselves a new, and for the most part a nega- 
 tive, religion. And, that clergymen should feel compelled 
 (by what necessity we know not) to do this, who are bound 
 by most holy vows to defend the ancient faith, defined as it 
 
603 
 
 is and limited by ancient creeds, is of all the gricvons cir- 
 cumstances connected with this book the most unfortunate, 
 and that which has given (almost alone) notoriety to the 
 work, and such scandal to the community at large. 
 
 But surely when men of deep wisdom and learning, most 
 of them occupying responsible situations in society, unite to- 
 gether for so serious a purpose as to convince us that the 
 ordinary grounds on which we hold our faith are no longer 
 tenable, (for there must have been some settled plan of action 
 in the collection of a series of Essays like those in question, 
 having at least one determinate object,) we raiglit at least 
 expect that each subject would be well argued out. To the 
 Christian, whose fundamental article of faith is the resurrec- 
 tion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from the dead, the 
 most stupendous of all miracles, there should have been given, 
 not a fragmentary Essay, controverting the evidence deduci- 
 ble from miracles, (if not, by implication, denying their pos- 
 sibility,) but a clear and convincing statement, proving, be- 
 yond the possibility of mistake, that the Christian miracles 
 are false. Facts should have been discussed first and theory 
 afterwards; and, in a matter so momentous, if regard for 
 truth imposed upon a denjyman the necessity of so painful 
 an ofiice as the disproof of the ordinary belief in the Chris- 
 tian miracles, not only should the writer's convictions be 
 clear, but his facts and his inferences should be incapable of 
 contradiction. 
 
 Again, if, in the casual discussion of the prophecies of the 
 Old Testament, it became necessary to disavow the pertinency 
 of those which ordinary Christians have, ever since the esta- 
 blishment of Christianity, believed to refer to the Messiah, 
 • — if it were necessary to re\'ive in these days, with very little 
 variation, the deistical notions of the last century, for the pur- 
 pose of proving that our faith, as founded on prophecy, is 
 worthless, — we have a right to expect that such an attempt at 
 disproof would be supported by profound wisdom as well as 
 learning, and on grounds totally different from any which 
 have been familiar — too familiar — to English readers. Bishop 
 Chandler's admirable " Defence of Christianity," and Bishop 
 Kidder's " Demonstration of the Messias against the Jews," if 
 the writer of the article to which I refer had read them, (which 
 
504 
 
 seems doubtful from the vague way in which they are quoted 
 to support his own views,) might have taught hira better the 
 connection between the old and the new dispensations, and 
 the indispensable need of prophecy in the scheme of salvation. 
 
 But I need not tell the readers of the " Essaj's and Re- 
 views/' or you, Sir, that there is nothing worked out. Doubts 
 and difficulties respecting numerous points of our faith are 
 suggested, but rarely proved valid ; cruel insinuations against 
 the fundamentals of the Christian faith are sometimes ob- 
 scurely hinted at and sometimes broadly- given, sufficient 
 to shake the faith of the young and the ignorant, but without 
 the solutions which would deprive them of their power to do 
 harm, and without the discussion which would call for an 
 elaborate answer from the learned orthodox divine. "When, 
 too, the barriers and safeguards of ordinary Christianity have 
 been sufficiently battered by our author, a new scheme of 
 Christianity is put before us to rebuild our religion ; a scheme 
 in which everything is mysticised and spiritualized, and in 
 comparison with which the Christianity of the Neo-Platonists 
 was plain common-sense. And, if the subject were not so 
 awfully important, it would be simply amusing to follow the 
 critic in his fondling admiration of the German f)hilosopher. 
 A mild rebuke here, a dash of unqualified admiration 
 there ; here an attempt to render the transcendental lan- 
 guage and ideas of the German mind intelligible to English 
 readers on points where the well-trained English mind can 
 see nothing but baseless speculation and a perverse ingenuity 
 in distorting plain facts, bordering on the ludicrous. 
 
 I did exjDcct, when I read these Essays, to find something 
 which woidd have better repaid the labour of reading such 
 a heav}' and miscellaneous collection of fragmentary papers. 
 I thought that, if I were forced to disagree ■\^'ith the conclu- 
 sions of the writers, I should at least have an intellectual 
 treat; that I should at least see indicated the sources of 
 these new discoveries which are to put the evidences of our 
 faith upon so different a footing ; and that I should have been 
 benefited by the critical disquisitions of some of our best 
 English scholars. I need not tell you, Sir, that I was disap- 
 pointed to a great extent in my expectations ; though it would 
 be unjust to say that there are not in some of the Essays 
 
505 
 
 some tilings both original and instructive, nor that there arc 
 some whose chief fault is that they are in bad company. 
 Still the general impression left on the mind was that of 
 Avcarincss and dissatisfoction, both with the matter and 
 manner of the book as well as with its doctrines. 
 
 But enough of this ; — my province is not to analyse or to 
 criticise the details of the articles in the " Essays and Re- 
 views." This has probably been done, by far abler hands, in 
 the body of the " Replies." It is sufficient for me to express 
 my opinion that as literary productions the Essays cannot be 
 rated very high. Some have evidently been written hastily, 
 and might in an}' other case have put in a plea for indulgence, 
 but certainly not in this. As a whole, they have had a ten- 
 dency to invalidate the evidences of Christianity, and to shake 
 the confidence of Christians ; and though the writers could 
 not have foreseen the notoriety or the excitement which they 
 have, from circumstances quite independent of their own 
 merits, produced in the public mind, they are equally an- 
 swerable for any bad effects which may be produced by them. 
 If they are right in their general statements and deductions, 
 tlien alas for our hol}^ faith, which, till this time, we have 
 cherished as our greatest treasure I If they are wrong, who 
 can properly estimate the mischief which they have done ! 
 
 I fear that I have already written you too long a letter 
 before I have come to the point which especially concerns 
 me as a man of science, and on which you desired my 
 opinion ; namely, the bearings of astronomical research on 
 the arguments of the " Essays and Reviews." 
 
 The only article in which the assumed antagonism of the 
 physical sciences to the Bible record is treated of, is that on 
 the " Mosaic Cosmogony," by Mr. C. W. Goodwin, and the 
 discussion has more to do with geology than with astronomy. 
 This, indeed, might be expected from the nature of the case. 
 The earth is man's dwelling-place, and it concerns him to 
 know its origin and its history, while the hosts of heaven, 
 the Sim and the moon, the planets and the stars, though 
 equally the work of the same divine Creator, and included in 
 the inspired record of His works, are rather the objects of 
 man's study and admiration than of his interested inquiries. 
 
506 
 
 Imagine now for a moment that we were in the condition 
 of the ancient heathen world, without a revelation of God's 
 doings and purposes, and left to our own vague and uncer- 
 tain guesses about our origin and our destin3\ AVhat would 
 be the order of our inquiries and of our cravings after know- 
 ledge of ourselves and of the universe of God ? Assuming, as 
 the later philosophers did, a great First Cause or Author of 
 all things, would not the first yearnings of our souls be to 
 learn what is the relation of this Almighty Being to ourselves, 
 and to the world which we inhabit ? And, imagining all the 
 •wants of the soul longing after some direct manifestation from 
 God, some authenticated record bearing the impress, as far 
 as human words can do so, of His majesty, could we imagine 
 anything more sublime or more worthy of Him than the com- 
 mencement of that record which we believe to have come 
 from Him : " In the beginning God created the heaven and 
 the earth." Criticism finds no place, either on physical or 
 philological grounds, for analysing the sublime simplicitj' of 
 this opening message from the Creator to His creatures. 
 The boasted light of modern science can add nothing to it, 
 and take away nothing from it. 
 
 The record does not limit the time, nor the succession of 
 the intervals of time, when the Almighty Architect com- 
 menced and added to the works of creation ; and the religious 
 necessities of man do not require the knowledge of the in- 
 finite past. Let imagination here revel as she will, and she 
 can scarcely go too far; let her imagine past duration so 
 far back as the powers of numbers will allow ; let her listen 
 to the fiats of the Almighty, at intervals of enormous length, 
 filling up the skies with glittering orbs, and, as a last work, 
 preparing by successive steps the habitable earth for man's 
 dwelling-place, and she cannot go bej^ond or misinterpret 
 the opening of the divine record, "In the beginning God 
 created the heaven and the earth." 
 
 Quite as little can criticism have to do with the second state- 
 ment concerning creation, "And the earth was withoutform and 
 void." The sublime simplicity of this statement of the prime- 
 val state of the earth is worthy of the divine inspiration which 
 we claim for it, and its truth is unquestioned by scientific in- 
 
507 
 
 vestigation. Imagination here may come again into play, 
 and legitimately exercise her functions, for science can do but 
 little either to substantiate or controvert this record of the 
 origin of our globe. A happy scientific guess of a great 
 astronomer (we can scarcely call it a theory) has shewn that, 
 assuming the matter which now constitutes the solar system 
 to have once been a nebulous mass, intenselj" heated and ex- 
 tending beyond the distances of the now existing planets, it 
 is consistent with physical laws to suppose that the exterior 
 of this mass would cool by the radiation of heat into the void 
 spaces beyond, and would contract or become condensed in 
 cooling. As the velocity of rotation (originally assumed) would 
 necessarily increase with the decreasing distance from the 
 centre of motion, an exterior zone of vapour might become 
 detached from the rest, the central attraction being no longer 
 able to balance the increased centrifugal force. In general, 
 if this zone were not of uniform density it might break up 
 into detached masses, and these would ultimately coalesce 
 into one mass, ha^^ng rotation on its axis and revolution 
 round the sun in the same direction and in a nearly circular 
 orbit, and thus the formation of the planetary masses would 
 be accounted for. La Place himself supposes, indeed, that, 
 the sun himself being a solid body originally ^ his heated 
 atmosphere would thus produce planets ; but this would really 
 explain so little, that such a theory is hardly worth framing 
 or contending for, and it is equally valid to suppose the 
 whole mass of which the sun and planets are composed to 
 have been originally nebulous. 
 
 Now we may say of this theory, which has been discussed 
 beyond its merits, that it would probably never have been 
 framed if the constitution of the nebulse which we see in the 
 heavens had been understood as well as it is now. Many of 
 them which appeared, in telescopes of moderate power, to be 
 mere masses of nebulous light, have been resolved into con- 
 geries or aggregations of stars when seen through Lord 
 Rosse's large reflecting telescope ; and even in cases wherein 
 
 » He afcerwards, however, imagines a preceding nebulous condition of the 
 sun, for he says, " Dans cet etat, la planSte resseinblait parfaitement au soleil h 
 Tctat de nebuleuse, oii nous vcnons de le considerer." 
 
508 
 
 this resolution has not taken place, there is obserTed a curd- 
 ling, or unequal distribution, of the nebulous matter, which 
 makes it appear probable that a still greater optical power 
 woiild resolve these masses also. "We may also observe of 
 the theory, that even granting it a high probability as ex- 
 plaining more phenomena of the planetary movements than 
 any other, it after all explains very little. We have still to 
 assume that the nebulous mass out of which the sun and the 
 planets were formed was created at some time or other ; that 
 it was in a state of most violent heat ; that on it were im- 
 pressed those laws of condensation by which solid worlds 
 were formed out of it ; and, finally, that it had an initial 
 velocity roimd an axis. It removes the Creator one step 
 farther from us than if we were to suppose that the sun and 
 each planet were made by His direct personal agency and in- 
 terference ; and this is all. "We have still to account for the 
 innumerable, wonderful, and posterior adaptations by which 
 the earth was accommodated to the physical nature of man 
 — a most complicated set of arrangements being necessary 
 not only with regard to the earth itself, but also with regard 
 to the orbit which it describes in space. 
 
 As bearing, however, on the verse we are discussing, it is 
 important to observe that the earth was once in a fluid state. 
 This is as distinctly proved as any problem in pure mathe- 
 matics, by comparing the ellipticity which we know it to have 
 by direct measurement, or by the law of the increase of gra- 
 vity in going from the equator to the poles, with that which 
 calculation proves it ought to have had (with its known time 
 of rotation) on the supposition that it was once a fluid mass. 
 And this harmonizes admirably with the desolate condition 
 which the Scripture asserts that it had while cooling down 
 and becoming solid. " The earth was without form and 
 void," — or rather, " desolate and void," — " and darkness was 
 upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved 
 upon the face of the waters." Think as you will, favourably 
 or otherwise, of the nebular theory, substitute for it any 
 other which is consistent with knoAvn facts ; — nothing can 
 exceed in truth and grandeur these words of the inspired 
 historian. Like the bold touches of a great artist, they 
 
509 
 
 create a picture which no after addition or refinement can 
 improve. 
 
 The only passage besides these which concerns me as an 
 astronomer is that which describes with equal majesty the 
 works of the Creator beyond the earth : — " And God said, Let 
 there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day 
 from the night ; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, 
 and for days, and years : and let them be for lights in the 
 firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth : and 
 it was so. 
 
 "And God made two great lights; the greater light to 
 rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night : He made 
 the stars also. And God set .them in the firmament of the 
 heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the 
 day and over the night, and to divide the light from the dark- 
 ness : and God saw that it was good." 
 
 The most keen- eyed hypercriticism should see nothing to 
 object to as unworthy of an inspired pen in this grand 
 assertion of God's creation of the sun and moon and stars, 
 and of the provision which He made by them for the neces- 
 sities and convenience of His creatures. But our critic, l[r. 
 Goodwin, thinks otherwise. Their office is a poor and un- 
 worthy one. " They are set in the firmament of heaven to 
 give light to the earth ... to serve as the means of measuring 
 time. . . . This is the most prominent office assigned to them. 
 The formation of the stars is mentioned in the most cursory 
 manner." Rarely has it been my lot to see so much bad reason- 
 ing and petty criticism in so small a compass. As far as man 
 is concerned, and to man is revelation addressed, what more 
 important or more suitable office could these glorious orbs of 
 heaven answer than to minister to his convenience ? It may 
 be that they answer other, but scarcely higher, purposes in 
 the general economy of God's providence. The sun himself, 
 astronomy has already taught us, journeys with wonderful 
 celerity through space, and in an orbit whose dimensions we 
 scarcely can conceive : he carries with him in their orderly 
 march the grand array of the planets his satellites ; all have 
 a mission known only to their Creator, but utterly beyond 
 the sphere of man's destinies or his wants. To us they are 
 
510 
 
 the dividers of our days and nights, and of our summer and 
 winter. They bring to us seed-time and harvest, rain and 
 drought, heat and cold ; and when we look with humble and 
 thankful hearts towards the Author of these benefits, the in- 
 spired record comes to the aid of our religious thankfulness, 
 and tells us that " God made them." 
 
 But " the formation of the stars is mentioned in the most 
 cursory manner.'* I answer, and so is the formation of light : — 
 " And God said. Let there be light, and there was light." And 
 yet one of the greatest of Greek critics considered this as one 
 of the most remarkable instances of the sublime which he 
 could quote ; and critics as well informed as our author 
 may be of the same opinion here. To my own mind the im- 
 pression from childhood has been that of the sublime brevity 
 of the assertion, " He made the stars also." There are men 
 who measure everything by the carpenter's two-foot rule, 
 who would apply the same canons to every possible variety 
 of circumstances, and who would look to the Book of Job for 
 a treatise on natural philosophy. But does not the rule hold in 
 this case which I propounded just now, only with still greater 
 pertinency? The stars are removed still farther from the 
 sphere of man's destiny. Those glittering orbs are placed 
 in general at distances even yet unmeasured. "We have made 
 some good guesses at their number, and at the law of their 
 distribution, and we have measured the distance of one or 
 more from our own globe : but, of the purposes which they 
 answer in the economy of God's creation we know nothing 
 whatever, and quite as little do we know certainly of their 
 physical origin. 
 
 When we look at them on a fine winter's night traversing 
 the blue vault of heaven in calm and glorious majesty, the 
 coldest amongst us feels the message sent us by their Creator, 
 " God made the stars also." 
 
 Of all the writers in the book of " Essays and Reviews" 
 Mr. Goodwin is the most candid. Other writers contradict 
 the revealed Word with at least a semblance of regret. Not 
 thus does our critic contradict the inspired prophet Moses. 
 His mission is to prove him incorrect, and this he attempts 
 to do with the utmost straightforwardness. The old story of 
 
511 
 
 Galileo is revived for our edification, but the lesson to be de- 
 rived from it is very different from that which the great plii- 
 losopher ever dreamt of. The celebrated text, " The world is 
 established, it cannot be moved," implies " the sacred pen- 
 man's ignorance of the fact that the earth does move." Mea- 
 sured by the two-foot rule this is the unanswerable fact. 
 Yet I cannot but think that a little consideration would teach 
 our critic, as it has taught many others, that we need not 
 assume this. The earth undoubtedly to its inhabitants is 
 immoveable ; and if the sacred penman intended, as he mani- 
 festly did, to indicate in poetical language the perfect sta- 
 bility of man's dwelling-place and security of God's people, 
 he could not have used a better term. 
 
 Again, no palliation can be admitted in favour of Moses. 
 Do we meekly suggest that the Bible was not intended to 
 teach science? — we are met with the reply that the first 
 chapter of Genesis " is intended, in part, to teach and convey 
 at least some physical truth." Undoubtedly it is, but not 
 according to the measurement of the two-foot rule. It teaches, 
 contrary to all Oriental and all Grecian and Roman cosmo- 
 gonies, that God is the sole Author of all the things of which 
 our senses are cognizant. He made the earth, and He made 
 the heavens ; the earth for man's use, and the heavens partly 
 for his use, and partly, as far as we are concerned, for the 
 satisfaction of his reasonable facilities. 
 
 But it is not necessary that I shoidd follow Mr. Goodwin 
 through all the instances of his criticism, or shew more clearly 
 than he himself has done, how earnest he is to destroy the 
 credit of the inspired author of the cosmogony. I would 
 rather conclude this too long letter with a few remarks on 
 the general arrangement of the separate acts of creative 
 power, which may help in some measure to a better under- 
 standing of the whole narrative, and which I do not remem- 
 ber to have seen insisted on. The three acts of the great 
 drama are, the formation of the earth ; of the orbs of heaven ; 
 and of living creatures. This is the natural order of events 
 according to that rule which I have insisted upon for the 
 proper interpretation of all Bible history, namely, the near- 
 ness or the remoteness of man's interests in the narrative: 
 
512 
 
 and this rule is adhered to without a single deviation. The 
 first verse having asserted the fact that God is the Creator of 
 all things in heaven and earth, the narrative from the 
 second to the thirteenth verse is occupied exclusively with 
 the preparation of the earth for its inhabitants ; there is not 
 a single passage in it which is not most rigorously confined 
 to this. I have nothing to do with the scientific objections 
 and real difficulties which may be met with in detailed 
 passages ; they may be safely left to the care of our excellent 
 Geological Professor ; but, I repeat, everything has relation 
 to this earth in its various stages of formation : the dreary 
 darkness of the primeval chaos ; the introduction of light, 
 (whether by this is meant the introduction of the property of 
 light in the formation of the luminiferous ether, or the pierc- 
 ing through of the rays of those luminaries afterwards men- 
 tioned) ; the sej^aration of the clouds and vajDours above from 
 the dry land and the water on the surface of the earth ; the 
 fertilization of the ground, and the introduction of all plants 
 and vegetables fit for the use of its future inhabitants. 
 
 Then follows, from the fourteenth to the nineteenth verse, 
 the creation of the heavenly bodies ; and, finally, from the 
 twentieth verse to the end of the chapter, the creation of all 
 the inferior animals, and of man. 
 
 I do not trouble myself, nor you, Sir, with discussing the 
 meaning of the days within which the separate acts of crea- 
 tion are included. Mr. Goodwin is quite right in reminding 
 us that some school-books still teach to the ignorant that the 
 earth is six thousand years old, and that it (he should have 
 said all things) was created in six days. No well-educated 
 person of the present day shares in this delusion ; but, if any 
 there be, Mr. Goodwin's two little rudimentary treatises on 
 astronomy and geology, which increase the bulk of his Essay, 
 will teach them better. We know that we cannot expand 
 our ideas of God's universe too much, both as to space and 
 time. With Him a thousand years are but as one day ; and, 
 if we take a thousand years as the unit of our counting, we 
 shall require still an incalculable number of such units to 
 enumerate the sum of creation-periods, and to fathom the 
 depths of space through which He has scattered the millions 
 
513 
 
 of His stars. AYliatever be the meaning of the six days, end- 
 ing with the seventh day's mystical and symbolical rest, in- 
 disputably we cannot accept them in their literal meaning. 
 They servo apparently as the divisions of the record of creation, 
 lest the mind may bo too mnch burdened and perplexed by all 
 these wonderfid acts ; but they as plainly do not denote the 
 order of succession of all the individual creations. Something 
 is symbolized, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 uses the symbol ; and this, the only mystical fact in the whole 
 narrative, we may surely, in all reverence, leave unexplained, 
 Avithout detracting at all from the credit or the veracity of 
 this wonderful record. 
 
 During the writing of this letter I find my own mind 
 cleared and elevated. I see, by this additional study of the 
 record of creation, more clearly than I ever saw before, its 
 lucid order, its divine simplicity, its internal evidence of 
 bearing the impress of that Divine Spirit that dictated the 
 narrative ; and I wish that I could make others see with me 
 how harmless are the shafts of ordinary criticism Avhen di- 
 rected against this, the most wonderful chapter of God's re- 
 vealed Word. 
 
 I am, my dear Sir, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 EGBERT MAIN. 
 James Parker, Esq. 
 
 l1 
 
IT. 
 
 TJlflV^EESITT MtJSETJM, OxFORD. 
 
 June 11, 1861. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 The question which you have done me the honour to ask, 
 touching the bearing of geological discovery on religious be- 
 lief, as experienced by myself, is the more agreeable for me 
 to answer, because I know how readily your own mind has 
 received the great truths now established regarding the 
 ancient natural history of the earth, and how constantly you 
 have favoured the free and imrestrained teaching of them 
 from the Chair of Geologj^ in this University. 
 
 During these last eight years, in sixteen courses of lec- 
 tui'es, embracing geology in every form, involving questions of 
 force and time, of the succession of life and changes of phy- 
 sical condition, there has never been produced in my own 
 mind, nor, so far as I know, in the minds of my hearers, the 
 slightest impression that we were considering facts and laws 
 in any degree opposed to Christian faith, to the inferences 
 from natural theology, or to the deductions from Scripture. 
 
 How, indeed, could it be otherwise ? Seeing that, in common 
 mth all the most experienced geologists of this age and 
 nation, in agreement with the conclusions of Conybeare, and 
 the lectures of Buckland and Sedgwick, I see in the vast 
 geologic record which we are invited, if not compelled, to read, 
 not an anti-Mosaic history of the creation of man, but pre- 
 Mosaic tables of stone, inscribed by the hand of the Divine 
 Master, and bearing indisputable traces of His earlier works, 
 earlier co-ordinations of the appointed powers of nature, 
 earlier terms of the one creative series, whose latest period 
 includes the history of man. 
 
 Thus viewed,, the two great problems on which we are in- 
 tent, — the physical history of the earlier world, and the moral 
 and religious historj'- of man, — appear in natural sequence 
 and relationship, not in imfriendly contrast, or perplexed 
 and suspicious alliance. The evidence proper to each inquiry 
 
515 
 
 is kept clearly separate : we do not seek oiir Christianity in 
 the rocks, nor our geology in the Bible ; we do not confound 
 two independent records ; but, examining each by the appro- 
 priate means of interpretation, we adopt the conclusions which 
 fairly spring from each, under the guidance of sound criti- 
 cism and with the aid of healthy discussion. 
 
 There are points of contact between the two histories. The 
 great system of physical causes and effects is ever moving 
 onwards, gathering what is present into what is past, and 
 giving us hints, if not measures, of the lapse of time and the 
 changes of nature. The physical events which happen on 
 the earth in our days are but a continuation of its earlier 
 history ; and the ages during which man has existed on 
 the earth, though limited within a few thousand years, are 
 linked with a far longer stretch of earthly time, and serve 
 at least as a unit for computing the vast integral of past 
 duration. 
 
 The conclusions reached by this kind of computation are 
 at present quite indeterminate, whether they relate to the 
 whole or any particular part of the periods which have 
 passed away. Equally indeterminate are those inferences 
 concerning the length of time during which man may have 
 existed on the earth, which are based on the few, and as yet 
 insufficiently examined, cases of the discovery of the remains 
 or works of men, in bone-caves, gravel-beds, and other super- 
 ficial deposits. They belong to the latest period of which 
 geology takes cognizance ; they are comparatively modern ; 
 but we can apply no sure computation to them, founded on 
 the geological evidence. 
 
 If it ever could be a serious question whether a diligent 
 and philosophical study of nature were likely to lead to habits 
 of mind unfitted for dealing with the evidences of the truth 
 and authority of the Gospel, I would venture to reply, — and 
 not for geology only, — that this kind of study is eminently 
 fitted to train the mind in the right methods of estimating 
 the probability of remarkable and unusual occurrences, and 
 to touch the heart with a susceptibility of gratitude for the 
 effects of God's goodness, whether we perceive or not the 
 method and motive of His working. His ways are often past 
 
516 
 
 finding out in the pliysical not less than in the moral world ; 
 our notion of the laws b}^ which He regulates the changes of 
 nature is but a feeble copy of the truly divine idea ; we must 
 not saj'' to Him, as He to the ocean, " Thus far and no farther ;" 
 but rather, — thankful for the knowledge already imparted, 
 and conscious of its imperfection, but hopeful of future pro- 
 gress, — we may look forward, and look higher, even towards 
 the Fountain of life, and thought, and hope, for some further 
 exhibition of His goodness, some clearer manifestation of His 
 designs, than can be had in this stage of our existence. 
 
 On the whole, I believe, and am satisfied, that geology 
 has added to the defences of natural theology, established 
 no results hostile to the evidences of revelation, and en- 
 couraged no disposition of mind -unfavourable to a fair ap- 
 preciation of those evidences. In this faith I cheerfully 
 abide, and remain, ever, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 JOHN PHILLIPS. 
 
 To THE Rev. Dk. Cuttox, 
 Provost of Wokcester College, Oxeord. 
 
 |lriuub bn gUssrs. |^:ulur, Cornmarhft, e^tforb. 
 
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