{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_15563/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_15563","id":"gutenberg_15563","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15563","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity -- Philosophy","Faith and reason -- Christianity"],"text":"Produced by Michael Madden\n\n\n\n\n\nREASON AND FAITH; THEIR CLAIMS AND CONFLICTS.\n\n[by Henry Rogers]\n\nTHE EDINBURGH REVIEW,\n\nOCTOBER, 1849.\n\n[Volume 90] No. CLXXXII. [Pages 293-356]\n\n\nArt.I--1. Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte Eighth\nedition, pp. 60. 8vo. London. 2. The Nemesis of Faith. By J. A. Froude,\nM. A., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. 12mo. London: pp. 227. 3.\nPopular Christianity, its Transition State and Probable Development. By\nF. J. Foxton, B. A.; formerly of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Perpetual\nCurate of Stoke Prior and Docklow, Herefordshire. 12mo. London: pp. 226.\n\n'Reason and Faith,' says one of our old divines, with the quaintness\ncharacteristic of his day, 'resemble the two sons of the patriarch;\nReason is the firstborn, but Faith inherits the blessing. The image is\ningenious, and the antithesis striking; but nevertheless the sentiment\nis far from just. It is hardly right to represent Faith as younger\nthan reason: the fact undoubtedly being, that human creatures trust and\nbelieve, long before they reason or know. But the truth is, that both\nreason and Faith are coeval with the nature of man, and were designed to\ndwell in his heart together. In truth they are, and were, and, in such\ncreatures as ourselves, must be, reciprocally complementary--neither\ncan exclude the other. It is as impossible to exercise an acceptable\nfaith without reason for so exercising it,--that is, without exercising\nreason while we exercise faith*,--as it is to apprehend by our reason,\nexclusive of faith, all the truths on which we are daily compelled to\nact, whether in relation to this world or the next. Neither is it right\nto represent either of them as failing of the promised heritage,\nexcept as both may fail alike, by perversion from their true end, and\ndepravation of their genuine nature; for it to the faith of which the\nNew Testament speaks so much, a peculiar blessing is promised, it is\nevident from the same volume that it is not a 'faith without reason' any\nmore than a 'faith without works,' which is approved by the Author of\nChristianity. And this is sufficiently proved by the injunction 'to\nbe ready to give a reason for the hope,'--and therefore for the\nfaith,--'which is in us.'\n\n____\n\n* Let it be said that we are here playing upon an ambiguity in the\nword Reason;--considered in the first clause as an argument; and in the\nsecond, as the characteristic endowment of our species. The distinction\nbetween Reason and Reasoning (though most important) does not affect our\nstatement; for though Reason may be exercised where there is no giving\nof reasons, there can be no giving of reasons without the exercise of\nReason.\n\n____\n\nIf, therefore, we were to imitate the quaintness of the old divine, on\nwhose dictum we have been commenting, we should rather compare Reason\nand Faith to the two trusty spies, 'faithful amongst the 'faithless,'\nwho confirmed each other's report of 'that good land which flowed with\nmilk and honey,' and to both of whom the promise of a rich inheritance\nthere was given,--and, in due time, amply redeemed. Or, rather, if we\nmight be permitted to pursue the same vein a little further, and throw\nover our shoulders for a moment that mantle of allegory which none but\nBunyan could wear long and successfully, we should represent Reason and\nFaith as twin-born beings,--the one, in form and features the image of\nmanly beauty,--the other, of feminine grace and gentleness; but to each\nof whom, alas! was allotted a sad privation. While the bright eyes of\nReason are full of piercing and restless intelligence, his ear is closed\nto sound; and while Faith has an ear of exquisite delicacy, on her\nsightless orbs, as she lifts them towards heaven, the sunbeam plays in\nvain. Hand in hand the brother and sister, in all mutual love, pursue\ntheir way, through a world on which, like ours, day breaks and night\nfalls alternate; by day the eyes of Reason are the guide of Faith, and\nby night the ear of Faith is the guide of Reason. As is wont with those\nwho labour under these privations respectively Reason is apt to be\neager, impetuous, impatient of that instruction which his infirmity will\nnot permit him readily to apprehend; while Faith, gentle and docile, is\never willing to listen to the voice by which alone truth and wisdom can\neffectually reach her.\n\nIt has been shown by Butler in the fourth and fifth chapters (Part I.)\nof his great work, that the entire constitution and condition of man,\nviewed in relation to the present world alone, and consequently all the\nanalogies derived from that fact in relation to a future world, suggest\nthe conclusion that we are here the subjects of a probation discipline,\nor in a course of education for another state of existence. But it\nhas not, perhaps, been sufficiently insisted on, that if in the actual\ncourse of that education, of which enlightened obedience to the 'law\nof virtue,' as Butler expresses it, or, which is the same thing, to the\ndictates of supreme wisdom and goodness, is the great end, we give an\nunchecked ascendency to either Reason or Faith, we vitiate the whole\nprocess. The chief instrument by which that process is carried on is\nnot Reason alone, or Faith alone, but their well-balanced and reciprocal\ninteraction. It is a system of alternate checks and limitations, in\nwhich Reason does not supersede Faith, nor Faith encroach on Reason. But\nour meaning will be more evident when we have made one or two remarks\non what are conceived to be their respective provinces. In the domain\nof Reason men generally include, 1st, what are called 'intuitions,'\n2d, 'necessary deductions' from them; and 3d, deductions from their own\ndirect 'experience; while in the domain of Faith are ranked all truths\nand propositions which are received, not without reasons indeed, but\nfor reasons underived from the intrinsic evidence (whether intuitive or\ndeductive, or from our own experience) of propositions themselves;--for\nreasons (such as credible testimony, for example,) extrinsic to the\nproper meaning and significance of such propositions: although such\nreasons, by accumulation and convergency, may be capable of subduing\nthe force of any difficulties or improbabilities, which cannot be\ndemonstrated to involve absolute contradictions.*\n\n____\n\n* Of the first kind of truths, or those received by intuition, we have\nexamples in what are called 'self-evident axioms,' and 'fundamental\nlaws' or 'conditions of thought,' which no wise man has ever attempted\nto prove. Of the second, we have examples in the whole fabric of\nmathematical science, reared from its basis of axioms and definitions,\nas well as in every other necessary deduction from admitted premises.\nThe third virtually includes any conclusion in science based on direct\nexperiment, or observation; though the belief of the truth even of\nNewton's system of the world, when received as Locke says he received\nand as the generality of men receive it,--without being able to follow\nthe steps by which the great geometer proves his conclusions,--may be\nrepresented rather as an act of faith rather than an act of Reason;\nas much so as a belief in the truth of Christianity, founded on its\nhistoric and other evidences. The greater part of man's knowledge,\nindeed, even of science,--even the greater part of a scientific man's\nknowledge of science, based as it is on testimony alone (and which\nso often compels him to renounce to-day what he thought certain\nyesterday),--may be not unjustly considered as more allied to Faith than\nReason. It may be said, perhaps, that the above classification of the\ntruths received by Reason and Faith respectively is arbitrary; that\neven as to some of their alleged sources, they are not always clearly\ndistinguishable; that the evidence of experience may in some sort\nbe reduced to testimony,--that of sense, and testimony reduced to\nexperience,--that of human veracity under given circumstances; both\nbeing founded upon the observed uniformity of certain phenomena under\nsimilar conditions. We admit the truth of this; and we admit it the more\nwillingly, as it shows that so inextricably intertwined are the roots\nboth of Reason and Faith in our nature, that no definitions that can be\nframed will completely separate them; none that will not involve many\nphenomena which may be said to fall under the dominion of one as much as\nthe other. We have been content, for our practical purpose, without\nany too subtle refinement, to take the line of demarcation which is,\nperhaps, as obvious as any, and as generally recognised. Few would say\nthat a generalised inference from direct experience was not matter of\nreason rather than of faith; though an act of faith is involved in\nthe process; and few would not call confidence in testimony where\nprobabilities were nearly balanced, by the name of faith rather than\nreason, though an act of reason is involved in that process. We are much\nmore anxious to show their general involution with one another than the\npoints of discrimination between them.\n____\n\n\nIn receiving important doctrines on the strength of such evidence, and\nin holding to them against the perplexities they involve, or, what is\nharder still, against the prejudices they oppose, every exercise of\nan intelligent faith will, on analysis, be found to consist; its only\nnecessary limit will be proven contradictions in the propositions\nsubmitted to it; for, then, no evidence can justify belief, or even\nrender it possible. But no other difficulties, however, great, will\njustify unbelief, where man has all that he can justly demand,--evidence\nsuch in its nature as he can deal with, and on which he is accustomed\nto act in his most important affairs in this world (thus admitting\nits validity), and such in amount as to render it more likely that the\ndoctrines it substantiates are true, than, from mere ignorance of the\nmode in which these difficulties can be solved, he can infer them to be\nfalse. 'Probabilities,' says Bishop Bulter, 'are to us the very guide\nto life; and when the probabilities arise out of evidence which we\nare competent to pronounce, and the improbabilities merely from our\nsurmises, where we have no evidence to deal with, and perhaps, from the\nlimitation of our capacities, could not deal with it, if we had it, it\nis not difficult to see what course practical wisdom tells man he ought\nto pursue; and which he always does pursue, whatever difficulties beset\nhim,--in all cases except one!\n\nSuch is the strict union--that mutual dependence of Reason and\nFaith--which would seem to be the great law under which the moral school\nin which we are being educated is conducted. This law is equally, or\nalmost equally, its characteristic, Whether we regard man simply in\nhis present condition, or in his present in relation to his future\ncondition,--as an inhabitant only of this world, or a candidate for\nanother; and to this law, by a series of analogies as striking as any\nof those which Butler has pointed out (and on which we heartily wish his\ncomprehensive genius had expended a chapter or two), Christianity,\nin the demands it makes on both principles conjointly, is evidently\nadapted.\n\nMen often speak, indeed, as if the exercise of faith was excluded from\ntheir condition as inhabitants of the present world. But it requires\nbut a very slight consideration to show that the boasted prerogative of\nreason is here also that of a limited monarch; and that its attempts to\nmake itself absolute can only end in its own dethronement, and, after\nsuccessive revolutions, in all the anarchy of absolute pyrrhonism.\n\nFor in the intellectual and moral education of man, considered merely\nas a citizen of the present world, we see the constant and inseparable\nunion of the two principles, and provision made for their perpetual\nexercise. He cannot advance a step, indeed without both. We see faith\ndemanded not only amidst the dependence and ignorance in which childhood\nand youth are passed; not only in the whole process by which we acquire\nthe imperfect knowledge which is to fit us for being men; but to\nthe very last we may be truly said to believe far more than we know.\n'Indeed,' said Butler, 'the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence with\nwhich we are obliged to take up in the daily course of life, is scarce\nto be expected.' Nay, in an intelligible sense, even the 'primary\ntruths,' or 'first principles,' or 'fundamental laws of thought,' or\n'self-evident maxims,' or 'intuitions,' or by whatever other names\nphilosophers have been pleased to designate them, which, in a special\nsense, are the very province of reason, as contra-distinguished from\n'reasoning' or logical deduction, may be said almost as truly to depend\non faith as on reason for their reception.* For the only ground for\nbelieving them true is that man cannot help so believing them! The same\nmay be said of that great fact, without which the whole world would\nbe at a stand-still--a belief in the uniformity of the phenomena of\nexternal nature; that the same sun, for example, which rose yesterday\nand to-day, will rise again tomorrow. That this cannot be demonstrated,\nis admitted on all hands; and that it is not absolutely proved from\nexperience is evident, both from the fact that the uniformity supposed\nis only accepted as partially and transiently true; the great bulk\nof mankind, even while they so confidently act upon that uniformity,\nrejecting the idea of its being an eternal uniformity. Every theist\nbelieves that the order of the universe once began to be; and every\nChristian and most other men, believe that it will also one day cease to\nbe.\n\n____\n\n* Common language seems to indicate this: Since we call that disposition\nof mind which leads some men to deny the above fundamental truths (or\naffect to deny them), not by a word which indicates the opposite of\nreason, but the opposite of faith,--Scepticism, Unbelief, Incredulity.\n____\n\nBut perhaps the most striking example of the helplessness to which man\nis soon reduced if he relies upon his reason alone, is The spectacle\nof the issue of his investigations into that which one would imagine he\nmust know most intimately, if he knows anything; and that is, his own\nnature--his own mind. There is something, to one who reflects long\nenough upon it, inexpressibly whimsical in the questions which the mind\nis for ever putting to itself respecting itself; and to which the said\nmind returns from its dark caverns only an echo. We are apt, when we\nspeculate about the mind, to forget for the moment, that it is at once\nthe querist and the oracle: and to regard it as something out of itself,\nlike a mineral in the hands of the analytic chemist. We cannot fully\nenter into the absurdities of its condition, except by remembering that\nit is our own wise selves who so grotesquely bewilder us. The mind, on\nsuch occasions, takes itself (if we may so speak) into its own hands,\nturns itself about itself, listens to the echo of its own voice, and\nis obliged, after all, to lay itself down again with a very puzzled\nexpression--and acknowledge that of its very self, itself knows little\nor nothing! 'I am material,' exclaims one of those whimsical beings,\nto whom the heaven-descended 'Know thyself' would seem to have been\nironically addressed. 'No!--immaterial,' says another. 'I am both\nmaterial and immaterial,' exclaims, perhaps, the very same mind at\ndifferent times. 'Thought itself may be matter modified,' says one.\n'Rather,' says another of the same perplexed species, 'matter is\nthought modified; for what you call matter is but a phenomenon.' But are\nindependent and totally distinct substances, mysteriously, inexplicably\nconjoined,' says a third. 'How they are conjoined we know no more than\nthe dead. Not so much, perhaps.' 'Do I ever cease to think,' says the\nmind to itself, 'even in sleep? Is not my essence thought?' 'You\nought to know your own essence best,' all creation will reply. 'I am\nconfident,' says one, 'that I never do cease to think,--not even in the\nsoundest sleep.' 'You do, for a long time, every night of your life,'\nexclaims another, equally confident and equally ignorant. 'Where do I\nexist?' it goes on. 'Am I in the brain? Am I in the whole body? 'Am I\nanywhere? Am I nowhere?' 'I cannot have any local existence, for I know\nI am immaterial,' says one. 'I have a local existence, because I am\nmaterial,' says another. 'I have a local existence, though I am not\nmaterial,' says a third. 'Are my habitual actions voluntary,' it\nexclaims, 'however rapid they become; though I am unconscious of these\nvolitions when they have attained a certain rapidity; or do I become a\nmere automaton as respects such actions? and therefore an automaton nine\ntimes out of ten, when I act at all?' To this query two opposite answers\nare given by different minds; and by others, perhaps wiser, none at all;\nwhile, often, opposite answers are given by the same mind at different\ntimes. In like manner has every action, every operation, every emotion\nof the mind been made the subject of endless doubt and disputation.\nSurely if, as Soame Jenyns imagined, the infirmities of man, and even\ngraver evils, were permitted in order to afford amusement to superior\nintelligences, and make the angels laugh, few things could afford them\nbetter sport than the perplexities of this child of clay engaged in the\nstudy of himself. 'Alas,' exclaims at last the baffled spirit of this\nbabe in intellect, as he surveys his shattered toys--his broken theories\nof metaphysics, 'I know that I am; but what I am--where I am--even how\nI act--not only what is my essence, but what even my mode of\noperation,--of all this I know nothing; and, boast of reason as I may,\nall that I think on these points is matter of opinion--or is matter\nof faith!' He resembles, in fact, nothing so much as a kitten first\nintroduced to its own image in a mirror: she runs to the back of it,\nshe leaps over it, she turns and twists, and jumps and frisks, in all\ndirections, in the vain attempt to reach the fair illusion; and, at\nlength, turns away in weariness from that incomprehensible enigma--the\nimage of herself.\n\nOne would imagine--perhaps not untruly--that the Divine Creator had\nsubjected us to these difficulties--and especially that incomprehensible\ntrilemma,--that there is an union and interaction of two totally\ndistinct substances, or that matter is but thought, or that thought is\nbut matter,--one of which must be true, and all of which approach as\nnear to the mutual contradictions as can well be conceived,--for the\nvery purpose of rebuking the presumption of man, and of teaching him\nhumility; that He had left these obscurities at the very threshold--nay,\nwithin the very mansion of the mind itself,--for the express purpose of\ndeterring man from playing the dogmatising fool when he looked abroad.\nYet, in spite of his raggedness and poverty at home, no sooner does man\nlook out of his dusky dwelling, than, like Goldsmith's little Beau,\nwho, in his garret up five pair of stairs, boasts of his friendship with\nlords, he is apt to assume airs of magnificence, and, glancing at\nthe infinite through his little eye-glass, to affect an intimate\nacquaintance with the most respectable secrets of the universe!\n\nIt is undeniable, then, that the perplexities which uniformly puzzle\nman in the physical world, and even in the little world of his own mind,\nwhen he passes a certain limit, are just as unmanageable as those found\nin the moral constitution and government of the universe, or in the\ndisclosures of the volume Revelation. In both we find abundance of\ninexplicable difficulties sometimes arising from our absolute\nignorance, and perhaps quite as often from our partial knowledge. These\ndifficulties are probably left on the pages of both volumes for some of\nthe same reasons; many of them, it may be, because even the commentary\nof the Creator himself could not render them plain to finite\nunderstanding, though a necessary and salutary exercise of our humility\nmay be involved in their reception; others, if not purely (which seems\nnot probable) yet partly for the sake of exercising and training that\nhumility, as an essential part of the education of a child; others,\nsurmountable, indeed, in the progress of knowledge and by prolonged\neffort of the human intellect, may be designed to stimulate that\nintellect to strenuous action and healthy effort--as well as to supply,\nin their solution, as time rolls on, an ever-accumulating mass of proofs\nof the profundity of the wisdom which has so far anticipated all the\nwisdom of man; and of the divine origin of both the great books which\nhe is privileged to study as a pupil, and even to illustrate as a\ncommentator,--but the text of which he cannot alter.\n\nBut, for submitting to us many profound and insoluble problems, the\nsecond of the above reasons--the training of the intellect and heart of\nman to submission to the Supreme Intelligence alone be sufficient.\nFor it; as is indicated by every thing in human nature, and by the\nrepresentations of Scripture, which are in analogy with both, the\npresent world is but the school of man in this the childhood of his\nbeing, to prepare him for the enjoyment of an immortal manhood in\nanother, everything might be expected to be subordinated to this\ngreat end; and as the end of that education, can be no other than an\nenlightened obedience to God, the harmonious and concurrent exercise\nof reason and faith becomes absolutely necessary--not of reason to the\nexclusion of faith, for otherwise there would be no adequate test of\nman's docility and submission; nor of a faith that would assert itself,\nnot only independent of reason, but in contradiction to it,--which\nwould not be what God requires, and what alone can quadrate with that\nintelligent nature He has impressed on His offspring--a reasonable\nobedience. Implicit obedience, then, to the dictates of an all-perfect\nwisdom, exercised amidst many difficulties and perplexities, as so many\ntests of sincerity, and yet sustained by evidences which justify the\nconclusions which involve them, would seem to be the great object of\nman's moral education here; and to justify both the partial evidence\naddressed to his reason, and the abundant difficulties which it leaves\nto his faith. 'The evidence of religion,' says Butler, 'is fully\nsufficient for all the purposes of probation, how far soever it is from\nbeing satisfactory as to the purposes of curiosity, or any other: and,\nindeed, it answers the purposes of the former in several respects which\nit would not do if it were as over-bearing as is required.'* Or as\nPascal beautifully puts it:--'There is light enough for those whose\nsincere wish is to see,--and darkness enough to confound those of an\nopposite disposition.'+\n\n____\n\n* Analogy, part 2. chap. viii. + Pensees. Faugere's edition, tom. ii. p.\n151. The views here developed will be found an expansion of some brief\nhints at the close of the article on Pascal's 'Life and Genius' (Ed.\nReview, Jan. 1847), though our space then prevented us from more than\ntouching these topics. We may add that we gladly take this opportunity\nof pointing the attention of our readers to a tract of Archbishop\nWhately's, entitled 'The example of children as proposed to Christians,'\nwhich his Grace, having been struck with a coincidence between some of\nthe thoughts in the tract and those expressed in the 'Review,' did us\nthe favour to transmit to us. Had we seen the tract before, we should\nhave been glad to illustrate and confirm our own views by those of this\nhighly gifted prelate. We earnestly recommend the tract in question\n(as well as the whole of the remarkable volume in which it is now\nincorporated, 'Essays on some of the Peculiarities of the Christian\nReligion') to the perusal of our readers, and at the same time venture\nto express our conviction (having been led by the circumstances above\nmentioned to a fuller acquaintance with his Grace's theological writings\nthan we had previously possessed) that, though this lucid and eloquent\nwriter may, for obvious reasons, be most widely known by his 'Logic and\n'Rhetoric,' the time will come when his Theological works will be,\nif not more widely read, still more highly prized. To great powers of\nargument and illustration, and delightful transparency of diction and\nstyle, he adds a higher quality still--and a very rare quality it is--an\nevident and intense honesty of purpose, an absorbing desire to arrive at\nthe exact truth, and to state it with perfect fairness and with the\njust limitations. Without pretending to agree with all that Archbishop\nWhately has written on the subject of theology (though be carries\nhis readers with him as frequently as any writer with whom we are\nacquainted) we may remark that in relation to that whole class of\nsubjects, to which the present essay has reference, we know of no\nwriter of the present day whose contributions are more numerous or more\nvaluable. The highly ingenious ironical brochure, entitled 'Historic\nDoubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte;' the Essays above mentioned, 'On\nsome of the Peculiarities of the Christian Religion;' those 'On some of\nthe Dangers to Christian Faith,' and on the 'Errors of Romanism;' the\nwork on the 'Kingdom of Christ,' not to mention others, are well worthy\nof universal perusal. They abound in views both original and just,\nstated with all the author's aptness of illustration and transparency of\nlanguage. We may remark, too, that in many of his occasional sermons,\nhe has incidentally added many most beautiful fragments to that ever\naccumulating mass of internal evidence which the Scriptures themselves\nsupply in their very structure, and which is evolved by diligent\ninvestigation of the relation and coherence of one part of them with\nanother. We are also rejoiced to see that a small and unpretending, but\nvery powerful, little tract, by the same writer, entitled 'Introductory\nLessons on Christian Evidences.' has passed through many editions, has\nbeen translated into most of the European languages, and, amongst\nthe rest, very recently into German, with an appropriate preface,\nby professor Abeltzhauser, of the University of Dublin. It shows\nto demonstration that as much of the evidence of Christianity as is\nnecessary for conviction may be made perfectly clear to the meanest\ncapacity' and that, in spite of the assertions of Rome and of Oxford to\nthe contrary, the apostolic injunction to every Christian to be ready\nto render a reason 'for the hope that is in him,'--somewhat better than\nthat no reason of the Hindoo or the Hottentot, that he believes what he\nis told, without any reason except that he is told it,--is an injunction\npossible to obey.\n____\n\nAs He 'who spake as never man spake' is pleased often to illustrate\nthe conduct of the Father of Spirits to his intelligent offspring by\na reference to the conduct which flows from the relations of the\nhuman parent to his children, so the present subject admits of similar\nillustration. What God does with us in that process of moral education\nto which we have just adverted, is exactly what every wise parent\nendeavours to do with his children,--though by methods, as we may\nwell judge, proportionably less perfect. Man too instinctively, or by\nreflection, adapts himself to the nature of his children; and seeing\nthat only so far as it is justly trained can they be happy, makes the\nharmonious and concurrent development of their reason and their faith\nhis object; he too endeavours to teach them that without which they\ncannot be happy,--obedience, but a reasonable obedience He gives them,\nin his general procedure and conduct, sufficient proof of his superior\nknowledge, superior wisdom, and unchanging love; and secure in the\ngeneral effect of this, he leaves them to receive by faith many things\nwhich he cannot explain to them if he would, till they get older; many\nthings which he can only partially explain; and others which he might\nmore perfectly explain, but will not, partly as a test of their docility\nand partly to invite and necessitate the healthy and energetic exercise\nof their reason in finding out the explanation for themselves. Confiding\nin the same general effect of his procedure and conduct, he does not\nhesitate, when the foresight of their ultimate welfare justifies it, to\ndraw still more largely on their faith, in acts of apparent harshness\nand severity. Time, he knows, will show, though perhaps not till his\nyearning heart has ceased to beat for their welfare, that all that all\nhe did, he did in love. He knows, too, that if his lessons are taken\naright, and his children become the good and happy men he wishes them to\nbe, they will say, as they visit his sepulchre, and recall with sorrow\nthe once unappreciated love which animated him,--and perhaps with a\nsorrow, deeper still, remember the transient resentments caused by a\nsolitary severity: 'He was indeed a friend; he corrected us not for his\npleasure, but for our profit; and what we once thought was caprice or\npassion, we now know was love.'\n\nThese analogies afford a true, though most imperfect, representation of\nthe moral discipline to which Supreme Wisdom is subjecting us; and as we\nare accustomed to despair of any child with whom parental experience and\nauthority go for nothing, unless he can fully understand the intrinsic\nreasons for every special act of duty which that experience and\nauthority dictate; as we are sure that he who has not learned to obey\nwhen young will never, when of age, know how to govern either himself\nor others: so a singular conduct in all the children of dust towards the\nFather of Spirits justifies a still more gloomy augury; inasmuch as the\ndifference between the knowledge of man and the ignorance of a child,\nabsolutely vanishes, in comparison with that interval which must ever\nsubsist between the knowledge of the Eternal and the ignorance of man.\n\nThe remarks that have been made are not uncalled for in the present day.\nFor unfortunately, it is now easy to detect in many classes of minds\na tendency to divorce Reason from Faith, or Faith from reason; and to\nproclaim that 'what God hath joined together' shall henceforth exist in\nalienation. We see this tendency manifested in relation both to Natural\nTheology, and to Revealed Religion. The old conflict between the claims\nof these two guiding principles of man (in no age wholly suppressed)\nis visibly renewed in our day. In relation to Christianity especially,\nthere are large classes amongst us who press the claims of faith so far,\nthat it would become, if they had their will, an utterly unreasonable\nfaith; some of whom do not scruple to speak slightingly of the evidences\nwhich substantiate Christianity; to decry and depreciate the study of\nthem; to pronounce that study unnecessary; and even in many cases\nto insinuate their insufficiency. They are loud in the mean time in\nextolling a faith which, as Whately truly observes, is no whit better\nthan the faith of a heathen; who has no other or better reason to offer\nfor his religion than that his father told him it was true! But\nthis plainly is not the intelligent faith which, as we have seen, is\neverywhere inculcated and applauded in the Scriptures; it is not 'that\nfaith by which Christianity, appealing In the midst of a multitude of\nsuch traditional religions, to palpable evidence addressed to man's\nsenses and understandings (in a way no other religion ever did)\neverywhere destroyed the systems for which their votaries could only say\nthat their fathers told them they were true. And yet this blind belief\nin such tradition, many advocates of Christianity would now enjoin us to\nimitate! It might have occurred to them, one would think, that, on their\nprinciples, Christianity never could have succeeded; for every mind must\nhave been hopelessly pre-occupied against all examination of its claims.\nIt is, indeed, incomparably better that a man should be a sincere\nChristian even by an utterly unreasoning and passive faith (if that be\npossible), than no Christian at all; but at the best, such a man is a\npossessor of the truth only by accident: he ought to have, and, if he\nbe a sincere disciple of truth, will seek, some more solid grounds for\nholding it. But it is but too obvious, we fear, that the disposition to\nenjoin this obsequious mood of mind is prompted by a strong desire\nto revive the ancient empire of priestcraft and the pretensions of\necclesiastical despotism; to secure readmission to the human mind of\nextravagant and preposterous claims, which their advocates are sadly\nconscious rest on no solid foundation. They feel that reason is not with\nthem, it must be against them: and reason therefore they are determined\nto exclude.\n\nBut the experience of the present 'developments' of Oxford teaching\nmay serve to show us how infinitely perilous is this course; and how\nfearfully, both outraged reason and outraged faith will avenge the\nwrongs done them by their alienation and disjunction. Those results,\nindeed, we predicted in 1843; before a single leader of the Oxford\nschool had gone over to Rome, and before any tendencies to the opposite\nextreme of Scepticism had manifested themselves. We then affirmed that,\non the one hand, those who were contending for the corruptions of\nthe fourth century could not possibly find footing there, but must\ninevitably seek their ultimate resting place in Rome--a prediction which\nhas been too amply fulfilled; and that, on the other, the extravagant\npretensions put forth on behalf of an uninquiring faith, and the\ndesperate assertion that the 'evidence for Christianity' was no stronger\nthan that for 'Church Principles,' must, by reaction, lead on to an\noutbreak of infidelity. That prophecy, too, has been to the letter\naccomplished. We then said,--\n\n\"We have seen it recently asserted by some of the Oxford school that\nthere is as much reason for rejecting the most essential doctrines of\nChristianity--nay Christianity itself--as for rejecting their \"church\nprinciples.\" That, in short, we have as much reason for being infidels\nas for rejecting the doctrine of Apostolical succession! What other\neffect such reasoning can have than that of compelling men to believe\nthat there is nothing between infidelity and popery, and of urging them\nto make a selection between the two, we know not .... Indeed, we fully\nexpect that, as a reaction of the present extravagancies, of the revival\nof obsolete superstition, we shall have ere long to fight over again the\nbattle with a modified form of infidelity, as now with a modified form\nof popery. Thus, probably, for some time to come, will the human\nmind continue to oscillate between the extremes of error; but with a\ndiminished are at each vibration; until truth shall at last prevail, and\ncompel it to repose in the centre.\"*\n\n____\n\n* Oxford Tract School, Ed. Rev., April, 1843. ____\n\n\nThe offensive displays of self-sufficiency and flippancy, of ignorance\nand presumption, found in the productions of the apostles of the\nnew infidelity of Oxford, (of which we shall have a few words to say\nby-and-by) are the natural and instructive, though most painful, result\nof attempting to give predominance to one principle of our nature, where\ntwo or more are designed reciprocally to guard and check each other; and\nsuch results must ever follow such attempts. The excellence of man--so\ncomplexly constituted is his nature--must consist in the harmonious\naction and proper balance of all the constituents of that nature; the\nequilibrium he sighs for must be the result of the combined action of\nforces operating in different directions; of his reason, his faith, his\nappetites, his affections, his emotions; when these operate each in\ndue proportion, then, and then only, can he be at rest. It may, indeed,\ntranscend any calculus of man to estimate exactly the several elements\nin this complicated polygon of forces; but we are at least sure that,\nif any one principle be so developed as to supersede another, no safe\nequipoise will be attained. We all know familiarly enough that this is\nthe case when the affections or the appetites are more powerful than the\nreason and the conscience, instead of being in subjection to them: but\nit is not less the case, though the result is not so palpable, when\nreason and faith either exclude one another, or trench on each other's\ndomain; when one is pampered and the other starved.* Hence the perils\nattendant upon their attempted separation, and the ruin which results\nfrom their actual alienation and hostility. There is no depth of\ndreary superstition into which men may not sink in the one case, and no\nextravagance of ignorant presumption to which they may not soar in the\nother. It is only by the mutual and alternate action of these different\nforces that man can safely navigate his little bark through the narrow\nstraits and by the dangerous rocks which impede his course; and if Faith\nspread not the sail to the breeze, or if Reason desert the helm, we are\nin equal peril.\n____\n\n* It has been our lot to meet with disciples of the Oxford Tract School,\nwho have, by a fatal indulgence of an appetite of belief; brought\nthemselves to believe any mediaeval miracle, nay, any ghost story,\nwithout examination, saying, with a solemn face, 'It is better to\nbelieve that to reason.' They believe as they will to believe; and thus\nis reason avenged. Reason, similarly indulged, believes, with Mr. Foxton\nand Mr. Froude, that a miracle is even an impossibility; and this is the\n'Nemesis' of faith.\n____\n\nIf it be said that this is a disconsolate and dreary doctrine; that man\nseeks and needs a simpler navigation than this troublesome and intricate\ncourse, by star and chart, compass and lead line; and that this\nresponsibility, of ever\n\n'Sounding on his dim and perilous way,'\n\nis too grave for so feeble a nature; we answer that such is his actual\ncondition. This is a plain matter of fact which cannot be denied. The\nvarious principles of his constitution, and his position in relation to\nthe external world, obviously and absolutely subject him to this very\nresponsibility throughout his whole course in this life. It is never\nremitted or abated: resolves are necessitated upon imperfect evidence;\nand action imperatively demanded amidst doubts and difficulties in which\nreason is not satisfied, and faith is required. To argue therefore,\nthat God cannot have left man to such uncertainty, is to argue, as the\npertinacious lawyer did, who, on seeing a man in the stocks, asked him\nwhat he was there for; and on being told, said, 'They cannot put you\nthere for that.' 'But I am here,' was the laconic answer.\n\nThe analogy, then, of man's whole condition in this life might lead us\nto expect the same system of procedure throughout; that the evidence\nwhich substantiates religious truth, and claims religious action, would\ninvolve this responsibility as well as that which substantiates other\nkinds of truth, and demands other kinds of action. And after all, what\nelse, in either case, could answer the purpose, if (as already said)\nthis world be the school of training of man's moral nature? How else\ncould the discipline of his faculties, the exercise of patience,\nhumility, and fortitude, be secured? How, except amidst a state of\nthings less than certainty--whether under the form of that passive faith\nwhich mimics the possession of absolute certainty, or absolute certainty\nitself--could man's nature be trained to combined self-reliance and\nself-distrust, circumspection and resolution, and, above all, to\nconfidence in God? Man cannot be nursed and dandled into the manhood of\nhis nature, by that unthinking faith which leaves no doubts to be felt,\nand no objections to be weighed; Nor can his docility ever be tested,\nif he is never called upon to believe any thing which it would not be\nan absurdity and contradiction to deny. This species of responsibility,\nthen, not only cannot be dispensed with, but is absolutely necessary;\nand, consequently, however desirable it may appear that we should\nhave furnished to us that short path to certainty which a pretended\ninfallibility* promises to man, or that equally short path which leads\nto the same termination, by telling us that we are to believe nothing\nwhich we cannot demonstrate to be true, or which, a priori, we may\npresume to be false, must be a path which leads astray. In the one\ncase, how can the 'reasonable service' which Scripture demands--the\nenlightened love and conscientious investigation of truth--its\nreception, not without doubts, but against doubts--how could all this\nco-exist with a faith which presents the whole sum of religion in\nthe formulary, 'I am to believe without a doubt, and perform without\nhesitation. whatever my guide, Parson A. tells me?' Not that, even in\nthat case (as has often been shown), the man would be relieved form the\nnecessity of absolutely depending on the dreaded exercise of his private\njudgment; for he must at least have exercised it once for all (unless\neach man is to remit his religion wholly to the accident of his birth),\nand that on two of the most arduous of all questions: first, which of\nseveral churches, pretending to infallibility, is truly infallible? And\nnext, whether the man may infallibly regard his worthy Parson A. as\nan infallible expounder of the infallibility. But, supposing this\nstupendous difficulty surmounted, though then, it is true, all may seem\ngenuine faith, in reality there is none: where absolute infallibility\nis supposed to have been attained (even though erroneously), faith, in\nstrict propriety--certainly that faith which is alone of any value as an\ninstrument of man's moral training--which recognises and intelligently\nstruggles with objections and difficulties--is impossible. Men may be\nsaid, in such case, to know, but can hardly be said to believe. Before\nColumbus had seen America, he believed in its existence; but when he\nhad seen it, his faith became knowledge. Equally impossible, and for the\nsame reason, is any place for faith on the opposite hypothesis; for if\nman is to believe nothing but what his reason can comprehend, and to act\nonly upon evidence which amounts to certainly, the same paradox is true;\nfor when there is no reason to doubt, there can be none to believe.\nFaith ever stands between conflicting probabilities; but her position\nis (if we may use the metaphor) the centre of gravity between them, and\nwill be proportionally nearer the greater mass.\n____\n\n* See Archbishop Whately's admirable discourse, entitled 'The Search\nafter Infallibility, considered in reference to the Danger of Religious\nErrors arising within the Church, in the primitive as well as in all\nlater Ages.' He here makes excellent use of the fruitful principle of\nButler's great work, by showing that, however desirable, a priori, an\ninfallible guide would seem to fallible man, God in fact has every where\ndenied it; and that, in denying it in relation to religion, he has acted\nonly as he always acts.\n____\n\nIn the mean time, that arduous responsibility which attaches to man, and\nwhich is obviated neither by an implicit faith in a human infallibility,\nnor an exclusive reference of that faith to cases in which reason is\nsynonymous with demonstration, that is, to cases which leave no room\nfor it, is at once relieved, and effectually relieved, by the maxim--the\nkey-stone of all ethical truth--that only voluntary error condemns\nus;--that all we are really responsible for, is a faithful, honest,\npatient, investigation and weighing of evidence, as far as our abilities\nand opportunities admit, and a conscientious pursuit of what we\nhonestly deem truth, wherever it may lead us. We concede that a really\ndispassionate and patient conduct in this respect is what man is too\nready to assume he has practised,--and this fallacy cannot be too\nsedulously guarded against. But that guilty liability to selfdeception,\ndoes not militate against the truth of the representation now made. It\nis his duty to see that he does not abuse the maxim,--that he does not\nrashly acquiesce in any conclusion that he wishes to be true, or which\nhe is too lazy to examine. If all possible diligence and honesty have\nbeen exerted in the search, the statement of Chillingworth, bold as\nit is, we should not hesitate to adopt, in all the rigour of his own\nlanguage. It is to the effect, that if 'in him alone there were a\nconfluence of all the errors which have befallen the sincere professors\nof Christianity, he should not be so much afraid of them, as to ask\nGod's pardon for them;' absolutely involuntary error being justly\nregarded by him as blameless.\n\nOn the other hand, we firmly believe, from the natural relations of\ntruth with the constitution of the mind of man, that, with the exception\nof a very few cases of obliquity of intellect, which may safely be left\nto the merciful interpretations and apologies of Him who created such\nintellects, those who thus honestly and industriously 'seek' shall\n'find;'--not all truth, indeed, but enough to secure their safety; and\nthat whatever remaining errors may infest and disfigure the truth they\nhave attained, they shall not be imputed to them for sin. According to\nthe image which apostolic eloquence has employed, the Baser materials\nwhich unavoidable haste, prejudice, and ignorance may have incorporated\nwith the gold of the edifice, will be consumed by the fire which 'will\ntry every man's work of what sort it is,' but he himself will be saved\namidst those purifying flames. Like the bark which contained the Apostle\nand the fortunes of the Gospel, the frail vessel may go to pieces on\nthe rocks, 'but by boat or plank' the voyager himself shall 'get safe to\nshore.'\n\nIt is amply sufficient, then, to lighten our responsibility, that we are\nanswerable only for our honest endeavours to discover and to practise\nthe truth; and, in fact, the responsibility is principally felt to be\nirksome, and man is so prompt by devices of his own, to release himself\nfrom it, not on account of any intrinsic difficulty which remains after\nthe above limitations are admitted, but because he wishes to be exempt\nfrom that very necessity of patient and honest investigation. It is not\nso much the difficulty of finding, as the trouble of seeking the truth,\nfrom which he shrinks; a necessity, however, from which, as it is an\nessential instrument of his moral education and discipline, he can never\nbe released.\n\nIf the previous representations be true, the conditions of that\nintelligent faith which God requires from his intelligent offspring,\nmay be fairly inferred to be such as we have already stated;--that the\nevidence for the truths we are to believe shall be, first, such as our\nfaculties are competent to appreciate, and against which, therefore, the\nmere negative argument arising from our ignorance of the true solution\nof such difficulties, as are, perhaps, insoluble because we are finite,\ncan be no reply; and, secondly, such an amount of this evidence as shall\nfairly overbalance all the objections which we can appreciate. This is\nthe condition to which God has obviously subjected us as inhabitants of\nthis world; and it is on such evidence we are here perpetually acting.\nWe now believe a thousand things we cannot fully comprehend. We may not\nsee the intrinsic evidence of their truth, but their extrinsic evidence\nis sufficient to induce us unhesitatingly to believe, and to act\nupon them. When that evidence is sufficient in amount, we allow it to\noverbear all the individual difficulties and perplexities which\nhang round the truths to which it is applied, unless, indeed, such\ndifficulties can be proved to involve absolute contradictions; for\nthese, of course, no evidence can substantiate. For example, in a\nthousand cases, a certain combination of merely circumstantial evidence\nin favour of a certain judicial decision, is familiarly allowed\nto vanquish all apparent discrepancy on particular and subordinate\npoints;--the want of concurrence in the evidence of the witnesses on\nsuch points shall not cause a shadow of a doubt as to the conclusion.\nFor we feel that it is far more improbable that the conclusion should be\nuntrue, than that the difficulty we cannot solve is truly incapable of\na solution; and when the evidence reaches this point the objection no\nlonger troubles us.\n\nIt is the same with historic investigations. There are ten thousand\nfacts in history which no one doubts, though the narrators of them may\nmaterially vary in their version, and though some of the circumstances\nalleged may be in appearance inexplicable, but the last thing a\nman would think of doing, in such cases, would be to neglect the\npreponderant evidence on account of the residuum of insoluble\nobjections. He does not, in short, allow his ignorance to control his\nknowledge, nor the evidence which he has not got to destroy what he has;\nand the less so, that experience has taught him that in many cases such\napparent difficulties have been cleared up, in the course of time,\nand by the progress of knowledge, and proved to be contradictions in\nappearance only.\n\nIt is the same with the conclusions of natural philosophy, when well\nproved by experiment, however unaccountable for awhile may be the\ndiscrepancy with apparently opposing phenomena. No one disbelieves the\nCopernican theory now; though thousands did for awhile, on what they\nbelieved the irrefragable evidence of their senses. Now, let us only\nsuppose the Copernican theory not to have been discovered by human\nreason, but made known by revelation, and its reception enjoined on\nfaith, leaving the apparent inconsistency with the evidence of the\nsenses just as it was. Thousands, no doubt, would have said, that no\nsuch evidence could justify them in disbelieving their own eyes,\nand that such an insoluble objection was sufficient to overturn\nthe evidence. Yet we now see, in point of fact, that it is not only\npossible, but true, that the objection was apparent only, and admits of\na complete solution. Thousands accordingly receive philosophy--this\nvery philosophy--on testimony which apparently contradicts their senses,\nwithout even yet knowing more of it than if it were revealed from\nheaven. This gives too much reason to suspect, that in other and higher\ncases, the will has much to do with human scepticism. Nor do we well\nknow what thousands who neglect religion on account of the alleged\nuncertainty of its evidence could reply, if God were to say to them,\n\n'And yet on such evidence, and that far inferior in degree, you have\nnever hesitated to act, when your own temporal interests were concerned.\nYou never feared to commit the bark of your worldly fortunes to that\nfluctuating element. In many cases you believed on the testimony of\nothers what seemed even to contradict your own senses. Why were you so\nmuch more scrupulous in relation to ME?'\n\nThe above examples are fair illustrations, we venture to think, of the\nconditions under which we are required to believe the far higher truths,\nattended no doubt with great difficulties, which are authenticated in\nthe pages of the two volumes (Nature and Scripture) which God has put\ninto our hands to study; of the conditions to which He subjects us\nin training us for a future state, and developing in us the twofold\nperfection involved in the words 'a reasonable faith.' If the\nconsiderations just urged were duly borne in mind, we cannot help\nthinking that they would afford (where any modesty remained) all answer\nto most of those forms of unbelief which, from time to time, rise up in\nthe world, and not least in our own day. These are usually founded on\none or more supposed insoluble objections, arising out of our ignorance.\nThe probability that they are incapable of solution is rashly assumed,\nand made to overbear the far stronger probability arising from the\npositive and appreciable evidence which substantiates the truths\ninvolved in those difficulties: a course the more unreasonable inasmuch\nas--first, many such difficulties might be expected; and, secondly,\nin analogous cases, we see that many such difficulties have in time\ndisappeared. On the other hand, it is, no doubt much more easy to insist\non individual objections, which no man can effectually answer, than it\nis to appreciate at once the total effect of many lines of argument, and\nmany sources of evidence, all bearing on one point. That difficulty was\nlong ago beautifully stated by Butler*, in a passage well worthy of the\nreader's perusal; and as Pascal had observed before him, not only is it\ndifficult, but impossible, for the human mind to retain the impression\nof a large combination of evidence, even if it could for a moment fully\nrealise the collective effect of the whole. But it cannot do even this,\nany more than the eye can take in at once, in mass and detail, the\nobjects of an extensive landscape.\n____\n\n* 'The truth of our religion, like the truth of common matters, is to\nbe judged of by all the evidence taken together. And, unless the whole\nseries of things which may be alleged in this argument, and every\nparticular thing in it, can reasonably be supposing to have been by\naccident (for here the stress of the argument of Christianity lies),\nthen is the truth of it proved. . . . It is obvious how much advantage\nthe nature of this evidence gives to those persons who attack\nChristianity, especially in conversation. For it is easy to show in\na short and lively manner that such and such things are liable to\nobjection, but impossible to show, in like manner, the united force of\nthe whole argument in one view.'--Analogy, part II. chap. vii.\n____\n\nLet us now be permitted briefly to apply the preceding principles to\ntwo of the greatest controversies which have exercised the minds of men;\nthat which relates to the existence of God, and that which relates to\nthe truth of Christianity; in both of which, if we mistake not, man's\nposition is precisely similar--placed, that is, amidst evidence\nabundantly sufficient to justify his reasonable faith, and yet attended\nwith difficulties abundantly sufficient to baffle an indocile reason.\n\nWithout entering into the many different sources of argument for the\nexistence of a Supreme Intelligence, we shall only refer to that proof\non which all theists, savage and civilised, in some form or other,\nrely--the traces of an 'eternal power and godhead' in the visible\ncreation. The argument depends on a principle which, whatever may be its\nmetaphysical history or origin, is one which man perpetually recognises,\nwhich every act of his own consciousness verifies, which he applies\nfearlessly to every phenomenon, known or unknown; and it is this,--That\nevery effect has a cause (though he knows nothing of their connexion),\nand that effects which bear marks of design have a designing cause. This\nprinciple is so familiar that if he were to affect to doubt it in any\npractical case in human life, he would only be laughed at as a fool, or\npitied as insane. The evidence, then, which substantiates the greatest\nand first of truths mainly depends on a principle perfectly familiar and\nperfectly recognised. Man can estimate the nature of that evidence; and\nthe amount of it, in this instance, he sees to be as vast as the sum of\ncreated objects;--nay, far more, for it is as vast as the sum of their\nrelations. So that if (as is apt to be the case) the difficulties of\nrealising this tremendous truth are in proportion to the extent of\nknowledge and the powers of reflection, the evidence we can perfectly\nappreciate is cumulative in an equal or still higher proportion. Obvious\nas are the marks of design in each individual object, the sum of proof\nis not merely the sum of such indications, but that sum infinitely\nmultiplied by the relations established and preserved amongst all these\nobjects; by the adjustment which harmonises them all into one system,\nand impresses on all the parts of the universe a palpable order and\nsubordination. While even in a single part of an organised being (as a\nhand or an eye) the traces of design are not to be mistaken, these are\nindefinitely multiplied by similar proofs of contrivance in the\nmany individual organs of one such being--as of an entire animal or\nvegetable. These are yet to be multiplied by the harmonious relations\nwhich are established of mutual proportion and subserviency amongst all\nthe organs of any one such being: And as many beings even of that one\nspecies or class as there are, so many multiples are there of the same\nproofs. Similar indications yield similar proofs of design in each\nindividual part, and in the whole individual of all the individuals\nof every other class of beings; and this sum of proof is again to\nbe multiplied by the proofs of design in the adjustment and mutual\ndependence and subordination of each of these classes of organised\nbeings to every other, and to all; of the vegetable to the animal---of\nthe lower animal to the higher. Their magnitudes, numbers, physical\nforce, faculties, functions, duration of life, rates of multiplication\nand development, sources of subsistence, must all have been determined\nin exact ratios, and could not transgress certain limits without\ninvolving the whole universe in confusion. This amazing sum of\nprobabilities is yet to be further augmented by the fact that all these\nclasses of organised substances are intimately related to those great\nelements of the material world in which they live, to which they are\nadapted, and which are adapted to them; that all of them are subject to\nthe influence of certain mighty and subtle agencies which pervade all\nnature,--and which are of such tremendous potency that any chance error\nin their proportions of activity would be sufficient to destroy all, and\nwhich yet axe exquisitely balanced and inscrutably harmonised.\n\nThe proofs of design, arising from the relations thus maintained between\nall the parts, from the most minute to the most vast, of our own world,\nare still to be further multiplied by the inconceivably momentous\nrelations subsisting between our own and other planets and their common\ncentre; amidst whose sublime and solemn phenomena science has most\nclearly discovered that everything is accurately adjusted by geometrical\nprecision of force and movement; where the chances of error are\ninfinite, and the proofs of intelligence, therefore, equal. These proofs\nof design in each fragment of the universe, and in all combined, are\ncontinually further multiplied by every fresh discovery, whether in the\nminute or the vast--by the microscope or the telescope; for every fresh\nlaw that is discovered, being in harmony with all that has previously\nbeen discovered, not only yields its own proof of design, but infinitely\nmore, by all the relations in which it stands to other laws: it yields,\nin fact, as many as there are adjustments which have been effected\nbetween itself and all besides. Each new proof of design, therefore, is\nnot a solitary fact; but one which entering as another element into a\nmost complex machinery, indefinitely multiplies the combinations, in any\none of which chance might have gone astray. From this infinite array\nof proofs of design, it seems to man's reason, in ordinary moods, stark\nmadness to account for the phenomena of the universe upon any other\nsupposition than that which docs account, and can alone account, for\nthem all,--the supposition of a Presiding Intelligence, illimitable\nalike in power and in wisdom.\n\nThe only difficulty is justly to appreciate such an argument to obtain a\nsufficiently vivid impression of such an accumulation of probabilities.\nThis very difficulty, indeed, in some moods, may minister to a temporary\ndoubt. For let us catch man in those moods,--perhaps after long\nmeditation on the metaphysical grounds of human belief,--and he begins\nto doubt, with unusual modesty, whether the child of dust is warranted\nto conclude anything on a subject which loses itself in the infinite,\nand which so far transcends all his powers of apprehension; he begins\nhalf to doubt, with Hume, whether he can reason analogically from the\npetty specimens of human ingenuity to phenomena so vast and so unique;\na misgiving which is strengthened by reflecting on all those to him\nincomprehensible inferences to which the admission of the argument leads\nhim, and which seem almost to involve contradictions. Let him ponder for\nawhile the ideas involved in the notion of Selfsubsistence, Eternity,\nCreation; Power, Wisdom, and Knowledge, so unlimited as to embrace at\nonce all things, and all their relations, actual and possible,--this\n'unlimited' expanding into a dim apprehension of the 'infinite';--of\ninfinitude of attributes, omnipresent in every point of space, and\nyet but one and not many infinitudes;--let him once humbly ponder such\nincomprehensible difficulties as these, and he will soon feel that\nthough in the argument from design, there seemed but one vast scene of\ntriumph for his reason, there is as large a scene of exertion left for\nhis faith. That faith he ordinarily yields; he sees it is justified by\nthose proofs of the great truth he can appreciate, and which he will\nnot allow to be controlled by the difficulties his conscious feebleness\ncannot solve; and the rather, that he sees that if he does not\naccept that evidence, he has equally incomprehensible difficulties to\nencounter, and two or three stark contradictions into the bargain. His\nreason, therefore, triumphs in the proofs, and his faith triumphs over\nthe difficulties.\n\nIt is the same with the doctrine of the Divine government of the world.\nIn ordinary states of mind man counts it an absurdity to suppose\nthat the Deity would have created a world to abandon it; that, having\nemployed wisdom and power so vast in its construction, he would leave\nit to be the sport of chance. He feels that the intuitions of right and\nwrong; the voice of conscience; satisfaction in well-doing; remorse for\ncrime; the present tendency, at least, of the laws of the universe,--all\npoint to the same conclusion, while their imperfect fulfilment equally\npoints to a future and more accurate adjustment. Yet let the man look\nexclusively for awhile on the opposite side of the tapestry; let him\nbrood over any of the facts which seem at war with the above conclusion;\non some signal triumph of baseness and malignity; on oppressed virtue,\non triumphant vice; on 'the wicked spreading himself like a green bay\ntree;' and especially on the mournfull and inscrutable mystery of the\n'Origin of Evil,' and he feels that 'clouds and darkness' envelope the\nadministration of the Moral Governor, though 'justice and judgment are\nthe habitation of his throne.' The evidences above mentioned for the\nlast conclusion are direct and positive, and such as man can appreciate;\nthe difficulties spring from his limited capacity, or imperfect\nglimpses of a very small segment of the universal plan. Nor are those\ndifficulties less upon the opposite hypothesis: and they are there\nfurther burdened with two or three additional absurdities. The\npreponderant evidence, far from removing the difficulties, scarcely\ntouches them,--yet it is felt to be sufficient to justify faith, though\nmost abundant faith is required still.\n\nAre the evidences, then, in behalf of Christianity less of a nature\nwhich man can appreciate? or can the difficulties involved in its\nreception be greater than in the preceding cases? If not, and if,\nmoreover, while the evidence turns as before on principles with which we\nare familiar, the more formidable objections, as before, are such that\nwe are not competent to decide upon their absolute insolubility, we\nsee how man ought to act; that is, not to let his ignorance control his\nknowledge, but to let his reason accept the proofs which justify his\nfaith, in accepting the difficulties. In no case is he, it appears,\nwarranted to look for the certainty which shall exclude (whatever the\ntriumphs of his reason) a gigantic exercise of his faith. Let us briefly\nconsider a few of the evidences. And in order to give the statement a\nlittle novelty, we shall indicate the principal topics of evidence, not\nby enumerating what the advocate of Christianity believes in believing\nit to be true, but what the infidel must believe in believing it to\nbe false. The a priori objection to Miracles we shall briefly touch\nafterwards.\n\nFirst, then, in relation to the Miracles of the New Testament, whether\nthey be supposed masterly frauds on men's senses committed at the time\nand by the parties supposed in the records, or fictions (designed\nor accidental) subsequently fabricated--but still, in either case,\nundeniably successful and triumphant beyond all else in the history\nwhether of fraud or fiction--the infidel must believe as follows: On\nthe first hypothesis, he must believe that a vast number of apparent\nmiracles--involving the most astounding phenomena--such as the instant\nrestoration of the sick, blind, deaf, and lame, and the resurrection\nof the dead--performed in open day, amidst multitudes of malignant\nenemies--imposed alike on all, and triumphed at once over the strongest\nprejudices and the deepest enmity:--those who received them and those\nwho rejected them differing only in the certainly not very trifling\nparticular--as to whether they came from heaven or from hell. He\nmust believe that those who were thus successful in this extraordinary\nconspiracy against men's senses and against common sense, were Galilaean\nJews, such as all history of the period represents them; ignorant,\nobscure, illiterate; and, above all, previously bigoted, like all\ntheir countrymen, to the very system, of which, together with all other\nreligions on the earth, they modestly meditated the abrogation; he must\nbelieve that, appealing to these astounding frauds in the face both of\nJews and Gentiles as an open evidence of the truth of a new revelation,\nand demanding on the strength of them that their countrymen should\nsurrender a religion which they acknowledged to be divine, and that all\nother nations should abandon their scarcely less venerable systems\nof superstition, they rapidly succeeded in both these very probable\nadventures; and in a few years, though without arms, power, wealth,\nor science, were to an enormous extent victorious over all prejudice,\nphilosophy, and persecution; and in three centuries took nearly\nundisputed possession, amongst many nations, of the temples of the\nejected deities. He must farther believe that the original performers,\nin these prodigious frauds on the world, acted not only without\nany assignable motive, but against all assignable motive; that they\nmaintained this uniform constancy in unprofitable falsehoods, not only\ntogether, but separately, in different countries, before different\ntribunals, under all sorts of examinations and cross-examinations, and\nin defiance of the gyves, the scourge, the axe, the cross, the stake;\nthat these whom they persuaded to join their enterprise, persisted like\nthemselves in the same obstinate belief of the same 'cunningly\ndevised' frauds; and though they had many accomplices in their singular\nconspiracy, had the equally singular fortune to free themselves and\ntheir coadjutors flout all transient weakness towards their cause and\ntreachery towards one another; and, lastly, that these men, having,\namidst all their ignorance, originality enough to invent the most pure\nand sublime system of morality which the world has ever listened to,\nhad, amidst all their conscious villany, the effrontery to preach it,\nand, which is more extraordinary, the inconsistency to practise it!*\n____\n\n* So far as we have any knowledge from history, this must have been the\ncase; and Gibbon fully admits and insists upon it. Indeed, no infidel\nhypothesis can afford to do without the virtues of the early Christians\nin accounting for the success of the falsehoods of Christianity. Hard\nalternatives of a wayward hypothesis!\n____\n\nOn the second of the above-mentioned hypothesis, that these miracles\nwere either a congeries of deeply contrived fictions, or accidental\nmyths, subsequently invented, the infidel must believe, on the former\nsupposition, that, though even transient success in literary forgery,\nwhen there are any prejudices to resist, is among the rarest of\noccurrences; yet that these forgeries--the hazardous work of many minds,\nmaking the most outrageous pretensions, and necessarily challenging the\nopposition of Jew and Gentile were successful beyond all imagination,\nover the hearts of mankind; and have continued to impose, by an\nexquisite appearance of artless truth, and a most elaborate mosaic of\nfeigned events artfully cemented into the ground of true history, on\nthe acutest minds of different races and different ages; while, on the\nsecond supposition, he must believe that accident and chance have given\nto these legends their exquisite appearance of historic plausibility;\nand on either supposition, he must believe (what is still more\nwonderful) that the world, while the fictions were being published, and\nin the known absence of the facts they asserted to be true, suffered\nitself to be befooled into the belief of their truth, and out of its\nbelief of all the systems it did previously believe to be true; and\nthat it acted thus notwithstanding persecution from without, as well\nas prejudice front within; that strange to say the strictest historic\ninvestigation bring this compilation of fictions or myths-even by the\nadmission of Strauss himself--within thirty or forty years of the very\ntime in which all the alleged wonders they relate are said to have\noccurred; wonders which the perverse world knew it had not seen, but\nwhich it was determined to believe in spite of evidence, prejudice, and\npersecution! In addition to all this, the infidel must believe that the\nmen who were engaged in the compilation of these monstrous fictions,\nchose them as the vehicle of the purest morality; and, though the most\npernicious deceivers of mankind were yet the most scrupulous preachers\nof veracity and benevolence! Surely of him, who can receive all these\nparadoxes--and they form but a small part of what might be mentioned--we\nmay say, 'O infidel, great is thy Faith!'\n\nOn the supposition that neither of these theories, whether of fraud\nor fiction, will account, if taken by itself, for the whole of the\nsupernatural phenomena, which strew the pages of the New Testament, then\nthe objector, who relies on both, must believe, in turn, both sets of\nthe above paradoxes; and then, with still more reason than before, may\nwe exclaim, 'O infidel, great is thy Faith!'\n\nAgain; he must believe that till those apparent coincidences, which\nseem to connect Prophecy with the facts of the origin and history\nof Christianity,--some, embracing events too vast for hazardous\nspeculations and others, incidents too minute for it,--are purely\nfortuitous; that all the cases in which the event seems to tally with\nthe prediction, are mere chance coincidences: and he must believe\nthis, amongst other events, of two of the most unlikely to which human\nsagacity was likely to pledge itself, and yet which have as undeniably\noccurred, (and after the predictions) as they were a priori improbable\nand anomalous in the world's history; the one is that the Jews should\nexist as a distinct nation in the very bosom of all other nations,\nwithout extinction, and without amalgamation,--other nations and even\nraces having so readily melted away under less than half the\ninfluence which have been at work upon them*; the other, and opposite\nparadox,--that a religion, propagated by ignorant, obscure, and\npenniless vagabonds, should diffuse itself amongst the most diverse\nnations in spite of all opposition,--it being the rarest of phenomena to\nfind any religion which is capable of transcending the limits of race,\nclime, and the scene of its historic origin; a religion which, if\ntransplanted, will not die, a religion which is more than a local or\nnational growth of superstition! That such a religion as Christianity\nshould so easily break these barriers, and though supposed to be cradled\nin ignorance, fanaticism, and fraud, should, without force of arms,\nand in the face of persecution, 'ride forth conquering and to conquer,'\nthrough a long career of victories, defying the power of kings and\nemptying the temples of deities,--who, but an infidel, has faith enough\nto believe?+\n\n____\n\n* The case of the Gipsies, often alleged as a parallel, is a ludicrous\nevasion of the argument. These few and scattered vagabonds, whose very\nsafety has been obscurity and contempt, have never attracted towards\nthem a thousandth part of the attention, or the hundred thousandth part\nof the cruelties, which have been directed against the Jews. Had it been\notherwise, they would long since have melted away from every country in\nEurope. We repeat that the existence of a nation for 1800 years in the\nbosom of all nations, conquered and persecuted, yet never extinguished,\nand the propagation of a religion amongst different races without force,\nand even against it,--are both, so far as known, paradoxes in history.\n+ 'They may say,' says Butler, 'that the conformity between the\nprophecies and the event is by accident; but there are many instances in\nwhich such conformity itself cannot be denied.' His whole remarks on the\nsubject, and especially those on the impression to be derived from the\nmultitude of apparent coincidences, in a long series of prophecies, some\nvast, some minute; and the improbability of their all being accidental\nare worthy of his comprehensive genius. It is on the effect of the\nwhole, not on single coincidences, that the argument depends.\n____\n\nOnce more then; if, from the external evidences of this religion, we\npass to those which the only records by which we know any thing of its\nnature and origin supplies, the infidel must believe, amongst other\nparadoxes, that it is probable that a knot of obscure and despised\nplebeians--regarded as the scum of a nation which was itself regarded as\nthe scum of all other nations--originated the purest, most elevated, and\nmost influential theory of ethics the world has ever seen; that a system\nof sublimest truth, expressed with unparalleled simplicity, sprang\nfrom ignorance; that precepts enjoining the most refined sanctity were\ninculcated by imposture; that the first injunctions to universal love\nbroke from the lips of bigotry! He must further believe that these men\nexemplified the ideal perfection of that beautiful system in the most\nunique, original, and faultless picture of virtue ever conceived--a\npicture which has extorted the admiration even of those who could not\nbelieve it to be a portrait, and who have yet confessed themselves\nunable to account for it except as such.* He must believe, too, that\nthese ignorant and fraudulent Galileans voluntarily aggravated the\ndifficulty of their task, by exhibiting their proposed ideal, not by\nbare enumeration and description of qualities, but by the most arduous\nof all methods of representation--that of dramatic action; and, what is\nmore, that they succeeded; that in that representation they undertook\nto make him act with sublime consistency in scenes of the most\nextraordinary character and the most touching pathos, and utter moral\ntruth in the most exquisite fictions in which such truth was ever\nembodied; and that again they succeeded; that so ineffably rich in\ngenius were these obscure wretches, that no less than four of them were\nfound equal to this intellectual achievement; and while each has told\nmany events, and given many traits which the others have omitted, that\nthey have all performed their task in the same unique style of invention\nand the same unearthly tone of art; that one and all, while preserving\neach his own individuality, has, nevertheless, attained a certain\nmajestic simplicity of style unlike any tiring else (not only in\nany writings of their own nation, their alleged sacred writings,\nand infinitely superior to any thing which their successors, Jews\nor Christians, though with the advantage of these models, could ever\nattain,) but, unlike any acknowledged human writings in the world, and\npossessing the singular property of being capable of ready transfusion,\nwithout the loss of a thought or a grace, into every language spoken by\nman: he must believe that these fabricators of fiction, in common with\nthe many other contributors to the New Testament, most insanely added to\nthe difficulty of their task by delivering the whole in fragments and in\nthe most various kinds of composition,--in biography, history, travels,\nand familiar letters; incorporating and interfusing with the whole\nan amazing number of minute facts, historic allusions, and specific\nreferences to persons, places, and dates, as if for the very purpose of\nsupplying posterity with the easy means of detecting their impositions:\nhe must believe that, in spite of their thus encountering what Paley\ncalls the 'danger of scattering names and circumstances in writings\nwhere nothing but truth can preserve consistency,' they so happy\nsucceeded, that whole volumes have been employed pointing out their\nlatent and often most recondite congruities; many of them lying so deep,\nand coming out after such comparison of various passages and collateral\nlights, that they could never have answered the purposes of fraud,\neven if the most prodigious genius for fraud had been equal to the\nfabrication; congruities which, in fact, were never suspected to exist\ntill they were expressly elicited by the attacks of Infidelity, and were\nevidently never thought of by the writers; he must believe that they\nwere profoundly sagacious enough to construct such a fabric of artful\nharmonies, and yet such simpletons as, by doing infinitely more than\nwas necessary, to encounter infinite risks of detection, to no purpose;\nsagacious enough to out-do all that sagacity has ever done, as shown\nby the effects, and yet not sagacious enough to be merely specious: and\nfinally, he must believe that these illiterate impostors had the art\nin all their various writings, which evidently proceed from different\nminds, to preserve the same inimitable marks of reality, truth, and\nnature in their narrations--the miraculous and the ordinary alike--and\nto assume and preserve, with infinite case, amidst their infinite\nimpostures, the tone and air of undissembled earnestness.+\n____\n\n* To Christ alone, of all the characters ever portrayed to man, belongs\nthat assemblage of qualities which equally attract love and veneration;\nto him alone belong in perfection those rare traits which the Roman\nhistorian, with affectionate flattery, attributes too absolutely to the\nmerely mortal object of his eulogy: 'Nec illi, quod est rarissimum aut\nfacilitas auctoritatem, aut severitas amorem, deminuit.' Still more\nbeautiful is the Apostles description of superiority to all Human\nfailings, with ineffable pity for human sorrows: 'He can be touched with\nthe feelings of our infirmities, though without sin.' + Was there ever\nin truth a man who could read the appeals of Paul to his converts, and\ndoubt either that the letters were real or that the man was in earnest?\nWe scarcely venture to think it.\n____\n\nIf, on the other hand, he supposes that all the congruities of which\nwe have spoken, were the effect not of fraudulent design, but of happy\naccident,--that they arranged themselves in spontaneous harmony--he must\nbelieve that chance has done what even the most prodigious powers of\ninvention could not do. And lastly, he must believe that these same\nilliterate men, who were capable of so much, were also capable of\nprojecting a system of doctrine singularly remote from all ordinary and\nprevious speculation; of discerning the necessity of taking under their\nspecial patronage those passive virtues which man least loved, and found\nit must difficult to cultivate; and of exhibiting, in their preference\nof the spiritual to the ceremonial, and their treatment of many of the\nmost delicate questions of practical ethics and casuistry, a justness\nand elevation of sentiment as alien as possible from the superstition\nand fanaticism of their predecessors who had corrupted the Law--and the\nsuperstition and fanaticism of their followers very soon corrupted the\nGospel; and that they, and they alone, rose above the strong tendencies\nto the extravagances which had been so conspicuous during the past,\nand were soon to be as conspicuous in the future.--These and a thousand\nother paradoxes (arising out of the supposition that Christianity is\nthe fraudulent or fictitious product of such an age, country, and, above\nall, such men as the problem limits us to), must the infidel receive,\nand receive all at once; and of him who can receive them we can but once\nmore declare that so far 'from having no faith', he rather possesses\nthe 'faith' which removes 'mountains!'--only it appears that his faith,\nlike that of Rome or of Oxford, is a faith which excludes reason.\n\nOn the other hand, to him who accepts Christianity, none of these\nparadoxes present themselves. On the supposition of the truth of\nthe miracles and the prophecies, he does not wonder at its origin\nor success: and as little does he wonder at all the literary and\nintellectual achievements of its early chroniclers--if their elevation\nof sentiment was from a divine source, and if the artless harmony, and\nreality of their narratives was the simple effect of the consistency of\ntruth, and of transcription from the life.\n\nNow, on the other hand, what are the chief objections which Reconcile\nthe infidel to his enormous burden of paradoxes, and which appear to the\nChristian far less invincible than the paradoxes themselves? They\nare, especially with all modern infidelity, objections to the a priori\nimprobability of the doctrines revealed, and of the miracles which\nsustain them. Now, here we come to the very distinction on which we\nhave already insisted, and which is so much insisted on by Butler. The\nevidence which sustains Christianity is all such as man is competent to\nconsider; and is precisely of the same nature as that which enters into\nhis every-day calculations of probability; While the objections are\nfounded entirely on our ignorance and presumption. They suppose that we\nknow more of the modes of the divine administration--of what God may\nhave permitted, of what is possible and impossible to the ultimate\ndevelopment of an imperfectly developed system, and its relations to the\nentire universe,--than we do or can know.*\n___\n\n* The possible implications of Christianity with distant regions of the\nuniverse, and the dim hints which hints which Scripture seems to throw\nout as to such implication, are beautifully treated in the 4th, 5th,\nand 6th of Chalmer's 'Astronomical Discourses;' and we need not tell the\nread of Butler how much he insists upon similar considerations.\n____\n\nOf these objections the most widely felt and the most specious,\nespecially in our day, is the assumption that miracles are an\nimpossibility+; and yet we will venture to say that there is none more\ntruly unphilosophical. That miracles are improbable viewed in relation\nto the experience of the individual or of the mass of men, is granted;\nfor if they were not, they would, as Paley says, be no miracles; an\nevery-day miracle is none. But that they are either impossible or so\nimprobable that, if they were wrought, no evidence could establish them,\nis another matter. The first allegation involves a curious limitation of\nomnipotence; and the second affirms in effect, that, if God were to work\na miracle, it would be our duty to disbelieve him!\n___\n\n+ It is, as we shall see, the avowed axiom of Strauss; he even\nacknowledges, that if it be not true, he would not think it worth while\nto discredit the history of the Evangelists; that is, the history\nmust be discredited, because he has resolved that a miracle is an\nimpossibility!\n____\n\nWe repeat our firm conviction that this a priori assumption against\nmiracles is but a vulgar illusion of one of Bacon's idola tribus. So\nfar from being disposed to admit the principle that a 'miracle is an\nimpossibility,' we shall venture on what may seem to some a paradox, but\nwhich we are convinced is a truth,--that time will come, and is coming,\nwhen even those who shall object to the evidence which sustains the\nChristian miracles will acknowledge that philosophy requires them to\nadmit that men have no ground whatever to dogmatise on the antecedent\nimpossibility of miracles in general; and that not merely because if\ntheists at all, they will see the absurdity of the assertion, while\nthey admit that the present order of things had a beginning; and, if\nChristians at all, the equal absurdity of the assertion, while they\nadmit that it will have an end;--not only because the geologist will\nhave familiarised the world with the idea of successive interventions,\nand, in fact, distinct creative acts, having all the nature of\nmiracles;--not only, we say, for these special reasons, but for a\nmore general one. The true philosopher will see that, with his limited\nexperience and that of all his contemporaries, he has no right to\ndogmatise about all that may have been permitted or will be permitted\nin the Divine administration of the universe; he will see that those\nwho with one voice denied, about half a century ago, the existence of\naerolites, and summarily dismissed all the alleged facts as a silly\nfable, because it contradicted their experience,--that those who refused\nto admit the Copernican theory because, as they said, it manifestly\ncontradicted their experience,--that the schoolboy who refuses to admit\nthe first law of motion because, as he says, it gives the lie to all\nhis experience,--that the Oriental prince (whose scepticism Hume vainly\nattempts, on his principle, to meet) who denied the possibility of ice\nbecause it contradicted his experience,--and, in the same manner, that\nthe men who, with Dr. Strauss, lay down the dictum that a miracle\nis impossible and a contradiction because it contradicts their\nexperience,--have all been alike contravening the first principles of\nthe modest philosophy of Bacon, and have fallen into one of the most\nordinary illusions against which he has warned us namely, that that\ncannot be true which seems in contradiction to our own experience. We\nconfidently predict that the day will come when the favourite argument\nof many so called philosopher in this matter will be felt to be the\nphilosophy of the vulgar only; and that though many may, even then, deny\nthat the testimony which supports the Scripture miracles is equal to\nthe task, they will all alike abandon the axiom which supersedes the\nnecessity of at all examining such evidence, by asserting that no\nevidence can establish them.\n\nWhile on this subject, we may notice a certain fantastical tone of\ndepreciation of miracles as an evidence of Christianity, which is\noccasionally adopted even by some who do not deny the possibility or\nprobability, or even the fact, of their occurrence. They affirm them to\nbe of little moment, and represent them--with an exquisite affectation\nof metaphysical propriety--as totally incapable of convincing men of any\nmoral truth; upon the ground that there is no natural relation between\nany displays of physical power and any such truth. Now without denying\nthat the nature of the doctrine is a criterion, and must be taken into\naccount in judging of the reality of any alleged miracle, we have but\ntwo things to reply to this: first, that, as Paley says in relation\nto the question whether any accumulation of testimony can establish a\nmiraculous fact, we are content 'to try the theorem upon a simple case,'\nand affirm that man is so constituted that if he himself sees the blind\nrestored to sight and the dead raised, under such circumstances as\nexclude all doubt of fraud on the part of others and all mistake on\nhis own, he will uniformly associate authority with such displays of\nsuperhuman power; and, secondly, that the notion in question is in\ndirect contravention of the language and spirit of Christ himself, who\nexpressly suspends his claims to men's belief and the authority of\nhis doctrine on the fact of his miracles. 'The works that I do in my\nFather's name, they bear witness of me.' 'If ye believe not me, believe\nmy works.' 'If I had not come among them, and done the works that none\nother man did, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for\ntheir sin.'\n\nWe have enumerated some of the paradoxes which infidelity is required\nto believe; and the old-fashioned, open, intelligible infidelity of the\nlast century accepted them, and rejected Christianity accordingly. That\nwas a self-consistent, simple, Ingenuous thing, compared with those\nmonstrous forms of credulous reason, incredulous faith, metaphysical\nmysticism, even Christian Pantheism--so many varieties of which have\nsprung out of the incubation of German rationalism and German philosophy\nupon the New Testament. The advocates of these systems, after\nadopting the most formidable of the above paradoxes of infidelity, and\n(notwithstanding the frequent boast of originality) depending mainly\non the same objections, and defending them by the very same critical\narguments*, delude themselves with the idea that they have but purified\nand embalmed Christianity; not aware that they have first made a mummy\nof it. They are so greedy of paradox, that they, in fact, aspire to be\nChristians and infidels at the same time. Proclaiming the miracles of\nChristianity to be illusions of imagination or mythical legends,--the\ninspiration of its records no other or greater than that of Homer's\n'Iliad,' or even 'Aesop's Fables;'--rejecting the whole of that\nsupernatural clement with which the only records which can tell us\nany thing about the matter are full; declaring its whole history\nso uncertain that the ratio of truth to error must be a vanishing\nfraction;--the advocates of these systems yet proceed to rant and\nrave--they are really the only words we know which can express our\nsense of their absurdity--in a most edifying vein about the divinity\nof Christianity, and to reveal to us its true glories. 'Christ,' says\nStrauss, 'is not an individual, but an idea; that is to say, humanity.\nIn the human race behold the God-made-man! behold the child of the\nvisible virgin and the invisible Father!--that is, of matter and of\nmind; behold the Saviour, the Redeemer, the Sinless One; behold him who\ndies, who is raised again, who mounts into the heavens I Believe in this\nChrist! In his death, his resurrection, man is justified before God!'+\n\n____\n\n* The main objection, both with the old and the new forms of infidelity,\nis, that against the miracles; the main argument with both, those which\nattempt to show their antecedent impossibility; and criticism directed\nagainst the credulity of the records which contain them. The principal\ndifference is, that modern infidelity shrinks from the coarse imputation\nof fraud and imposture on the founders of Christianity; and prefers the\ntheory of illusion or myth to that of deliberate fraud. But with this\nexception, which touches only the personal character of the founders\nof Christianity, the case remains the same. The same postulates and the\nsame arguments are made to yield substantially the same conclusion.\nFor, all that is supernatural in Christianity and all credibility in\nits records, vanish equally on either assumption. Nor is even the modern\nmode of interpreting many of the miracles (as illusions or legends)\nunknown to the older infidelity; only it more consistently felt that\nneither the one theory nor the other, could be trusted to alone. Velis\net remis was its motto. + Such is Quinet's brief statement of Strauss's\nmystico-mythical Christiantity, founded on the Hegelian philosophy.\nFor a fuller, we dare not say a more intelligible, account of it in\nStrauss's own words, and the metaphysical mysteries on which it depends,\nthe reader may consult Dr. Beard's translation;--pp. 44, 45. of his\nEssay entitled 'Strauss, Hegel, and their Opinions.\n____\n\nWhether it be the Rationalism of Paulus, or the Rationalism of\nStrauss--whether that which declares all that is supernatural in\nChristianity (forming the bulk of its history) to be illusion, or that\nwhich declares it myth,--the conclusions can be made out only by a\nsystem of interpretation which can be compared to nothing but the\nwildest dreams and allegorical systems of some of the early Fathers#;\nwhile the results themselves are either those elementary principles of\nethics for which there was no need to invoke a revelation at all,\nor some mystico-metaphysical philosophy, expressed in language as\nunintelligible as the veriest gibberish of the Alexandrian Platonists.\nIn fact, by such exegesis and by such philosophy, any thing may be made\nout of any thing; and the most fantastical data be compelled to yield\nequally fantastical conclusions.\n____\n\n# Of the mode of accounting for the supernatural occurrences in the\nScriptures by the illusion produced by mistaken natural phenomena,\n(perhaps the most stupidly jejune of all the theories ever projected\nby man), Quinet eloquently says, 'The pen which wrote the Provincial\nLetters would be necessary to lay bare the strange consequences of this\ntheology. According to its conclusion, the tree of good and evil was\nnothing but a venomous plant, probably a manchineal tree, under which\nour first parents fell asleep. The shining face of Moses on the heights\nof Mount Sinai was the natural result of electricity; the vision of\nZachariah was effected by the smoke of the chandeliers in the temple;\nthe Magian kings, with their offerings of myrrh, of gold, and of\nincense, were three wandering merchants, who brought some glittering\ntinsel to the Child of Bethlehem; the star which went before them a\nservant bearing a flambeau; the angels in the scene of the temptation, a\ncaravan traversing the desert, laden with provisions; the two angels in\nthe tomb, clothed in white linen, an illusion caused by a linen garment;\nthe Transfiguration, a storm.' Who would not sooner be an old-fashioned\ninfidel than such a doting and maundering rationalist?\n____\n\nBut the first and most natural question to ask is obviously this: how\nany mortal can pretend to extract any thing certain, much more divine,\nfrom records, the great bulk of which he has reduced to pure frauds,\nillusions, or legends,--and the great bulk of the remainder to an\nabsolute uncertainty of how little is true and how much false?* Surely\nit would need nothing less than a new revelation to reveal this sweeping\nrestriction of the old; and we should then be left in an ecstasy of\nastonishment-first, that the whole significance of it should have\nbeen veiled in frauds, illusions, or fictions; secondly, that its true\nmeaning should have been hidden from the world for eighteen hundred\nyears after its divine promulgation; thirdly, that it should be revealed\nat last, either in results which needed no revelation to reveal them,\nor in the Egyptian darkness of the\nallegorieo-metaphysico-mystico-logico-transendental, 'formulae' of the\nmost obscure and contentious philosophy ever devised by man; and lastly,\nthat all this superfluous trouble is to give us, after all, only the\nmysteries of a most enigmatical philosophy: For of Hegel, in particular,\nwe think it may with truth be said that the reader is seldom fortunate\nenough to know that he knows his meaning, or even to know that Hegel\nknew his own.\n____\n\n* Daub naively enough declares that, if you except all that relates\nto angels, demons, and miracle, there is scarcely any mythology in the\nGospel.' An exception which reminds one of the Irish prelate who, on\nreading 'Gulliver's Travels,' remarked that there were some things in\nthat book which he could not think true.\n____\n\nWhether, then, we regard the original compilers of the evangelic records\nas inventing all that Paulus or Strauss rejects, or sincerely believing\ntheir own delusions, or that their statements have been artfully\ncorrupted or unconsciously disguised, till Christ and his Apostles are\nas effectually transformed and travestied as these dreamers are pleased\nto imagine, with what consistency can we believe any thing certain\namidst so many acknowledged fictions inseparably incorporated with them?\nIf A has told B truth once and falsehood fifty times, (wittingly or\nunwittingly,) what can induce B to believe that he has any reason to\nbelieve A in that only time in which he does believe him, unless he\nknows the same truth by evidence quite independent of A, and for\nwhich he is not indebted to him at all? Should we not, then, at once\nacknowledge the futility of attempting to educe any certain historic\nfact, however meagre, or any doctrine, whether intelligible or obscure,\nfrom documents nine tenths of which are to be rejected as a tissue of\nabsurd fictions? Or why should we not fairly confess that, for aught\nwe can tell, the whole is a fiction? For certainly, as to the amount of\nhistoric fact which these men affect to leave, it is obviously a matter\nof the most trivial importance whether we regard the whole Bible as\nabsolute fiction or not. Whether an obscure Galilean teacher, who taught\na moral system which may have been as good (we can never know from\nsuch corrupt documents that it was as good) as that of Confucius, or\nZoroaster, ever lived or not; and whether we are to add another name to\nthose who have enunciated the elementary truths of ethics, is really of\nvery little moment. Upon their principles we can clearly know nothing\nabout him except that he is the centre of a vast mass of fictions, the\ninvisible nucleus of a huge conglomerate of myths. A thousand times\nmore, therefore, do we respect those, as both more honest and more\nlogical, who, on similar grounds, openly reject Christianity altogether;\nand regard the New Testament, and speak of it, exactly as they would of\nHomer's 'Iliad,' or Virgil's 'Aeneid.' Such men, consistently enough,\ntrouble themselves not at all in ascertaining what residuum of truth,\nhistorical or critical, may remain in a book which certainly gives\nten falsehoods for one truth, and welds both together in inextricable\nconfusion. The German infidels, on the other hand, with infinite labour,\nand amidst infinite uncertainties, extract either truth 'as old as the\ncreation,' and as universal as human reason,--or truth which, after\nbeing hidden from the world for eighteen hundred years in mythical\nobscurity, is unhappily lost again the moment it is discovered, in the\ninfinitely deeper darkness of the philosophy of Hegel and Strauss; who\nin vain endeavour to gasp out, in articulate language, the still\nlatent mystery of the Gospel! Hegel, in his last hours, is said to have\nsaid,--and if he did not say, he ought to have said,--'Alas! there is\nbut one man in all Germany who understands my doctrine,--and he does not\nunderstand it!' And yet, by his account, Hegelianism and Christianity,\n'in their highest results,' [language, as usual, felicitously obscure]\n'are one.' Both, therefore, are, alas! now for ever lost.\n\nThat great problem--to account for the origin and establishment Of\nChristianity in the world, with a denial at the same time of its\nmiraculous pretensions--a problem, the fair solution of which is\nobviously incumbent on infidelity--has necessitated the most gratuitous\nand even contradictory hypotheses, and may safely be said still to\npresent as hard a knot as ever. The favourite hypothesis, recently, has\nbeen that of Strauss--frequently re-modified and re-adjusted indeed by\nhimself--that Christianity is a myth, or collection of myths--that is,\na conglomerate (as geologists would say) of a very slender portion\nof facts and truth, with an enormous accretion of undesigned fiction,\nfable, and superstitions; gradually framed and insensibly received, like\nthe mythologies of Greece and Rome, or the ancient systems of Hindoo\ntheology. It is true, indeed, that the particular critical arguments,\nthe alleged historic discrepancies and so forth, on which this author\nfounds his conclusion--are for the most part, not original; most of\nthem having been insisted on before, both in Germany, and especially\nin our own country during the Deistical controversies of the preceding\ncentury. His idea of myths, however, may be supposed original; and he\nis very welcome to it. For of all the attempted solutions of the\ngreat problem, this will be hereafter regarded as, perhaps, the most\nuntenable. Gibbon, in solving the same problem, and starting in fact\nfrom the same axioms,--for he too endeavoured to account for the\nintractable phenomenon--on natural causes alone,--assigned, as one\ncause, the reputation of working miracles, the reality of which he\ndenied; but he was far too cautious to decide whether the original\nthunders of Christianity had pretended to work miracles, and had been\nenabled to cheat the world into the belief of them, or whether the world\nhad been pleased universally to cheat itself into that belief. He was\nfar too wise to tie himself to the proof that in the most enlightened\nperiod of the world's history--amidst the strongest contrarieties\nof national and religious feeling--amidst the bitterest bigotry of\nmillions in behalf of what was old, and the bitterest contempt of\nmillions of all that was new--amidst the opposing forces of ignorance\nand prejudice on the one hand and philosophy and scepticism on the\nother--amidst all the persecutions which attested and proved those\nhostile feelings on the part of the bulk of mankind--and above all, in\nthe short space of thirty years (which is all that Dr. Stauss allows\nhimself),--Christianity could be thus deposited, like the mythology\nof Greece and Rome! These, he knew, were very gradual and silent\nformations; originating in the midst of a remote antiquity and an\nunhistoric age, during the very infancy and barbarism of the races which\nadopted them, confined, be it remembered, to those races alone;\nand displaying, instead of the exquisite and symmetrical beauty of\nChristianity, those manifest signs of gradual accretion which were\nfairly to be expected; in the varieties of the deposited or irrupted\nsubstances--in the diffracted appearance of various parts--in the very\nweather stains, so to speak, which mark the whole mass.\n\nThat the prodigious aggregate of miracles which the New Testament\nasserts, would, if fabulous, pass unchallenged, elude all detection, and\nbaffle all scepticism.--collect in the course of a few years energetic\nand zealous assertors of their reality, in the heart of every civilised\nand almost every barbarous community, and in the course of three\ncenturies, change the face of the world and destroy every other myth\nwhich fairly came in contact with it,--who but Dr. Strauss can believe?\nWas there no Dr. Strauss in those days? None to question and detect, as\nthe process went on, the utter baselessness of these legends? Was\nall the world doting--was even the persecuting world asleep? Were all\nmankind resolved on befooling themselves? Are men wont thus quietly to\nadmit miraculous pretensions, whether they be prejudiced votaries of\nanother system or sceptics as to all? No: whether we consider the age,\nthe country, the men assigned for the origin of these myths, we see the\nfutility of the theory. It does not account even for their invention,\nmuch less for their success. We see that if any mythology could in such\nan age have germinated at all, it must have been one very different from\nChristianity; whether we consider the sort of Messiah the Jews expected,\nor the hatred of all Jewish Messiahs, which the Gentiles could not but\nhave felt. The Christ offered them so far from being welcome, was to\nthe one a 'stumbling block' and to the other 'foolishness'; and yet he\nconquered the prejudices of both.\n\nLet us suppose a parallel myth--if we may abuse the name. Let us suppose\nthe son of some Canadian carpenter aspiring to be a moral teacher, but\nneither working nor pretending to work miracles; as much hated by\nhis countrymen as Jesus Christ was hated by his, and both he and his\ncountrymen as much hated by all the civilised world beside, as were\nJesus Christ and the Jews: let us further suppose him forbidding his\nfollowers the use of all force in propagating his doctrine's, and then\nlet us calculate the probability of an unnoticed and accidental deposit,\nin thirty short years, of a prodigious accumulation about these simple\nfacts. of supernatural but universally accredited fables, these legends\nescaping detection or suspicion as they accumulated, and suddenly laying\nhold in a few years of myriads of votaries in all parts of both worlds,\nand in three centuries uprooting and destroying Christianity and all\nopposing systems! How long will it be before the Swedenborgian, or the\nMormonite, or any such pretenders, will have similar success? Have there\nnot been a thousand such, and has any one of them had the slightest\nchance against systems in possession,--against the strongly rooted\nprejudices of ignorance and the Argus-eyed investigations of scepticism?\nBut all these were opposed to the pretensions of Christianity; nor can\nany one example of at all similar sudden success be alleged, except in\nthe case of Mahomet; and to that the answer is brief. The history of\nMahomet is the history of a conqueror--and his logic was the logic of\nthe sword.\n\nIn spite of the theory of Strauss, therefore, not less than that of\nGibbon, the old and ever recurring difficulty of giving a rational\naccount of the origin and establishment of Christianity still presents\nitself for solution to the infidel, as it always has done, and, we\nventure to say, always will do. It is an insoluble phenomenon, except by\nthe admission of the facts of the--New Testament. 'The miracles,' says\nButler, 'are a satisfactory account of the events, of which no other\nsatisfactory account can be given; nor any account at all, but what is\nimaginary merely and invented.'\n\nIn the meantime, the different theories of unbelief mutually refute one\nanother; and we may plead the authority of one against the authority of\nanother. Those who believe Strauss believe both the theory of imposture\nand the theory of illusion improbable; and those who believe in the\ntheory of imposture believe the theory of myths improbable. And both\nparties, we are glad to think, are quite right in the judgment they form\nof one another.\n\nBut what must strike every one who reflects as the most surprising thing\nin Dr. Strauss, is, that with the postulatum with which he sets out,\nand which he modestly takes for granted as too evident to need proof, he\nshould have thought it worth while to write two bulky volumes of minute\ncriticism on the subject. A miracle he declares to be an absurdity, an\ncontradiction, an impossibility. If we believed this, we should deem a\nvery concise enthymene (after having proved that postulatum though) all\nthat it was necessary to construct on the subject. A miracle cannot be\ntrue; ergo, Christianity, which in the only records by which we know\nanything about it, avows its absolute dependence upon miracles, must be\nfalse.\n\nIt is a modification of one or other of these monstrous forms of\nunbelieving belief and Christian infidelity, that Mr. Foxton, late of\nOxford, has adopted in his 'Popular Christianity;' as perhaps also Mr.\nFroude in his 'Nemesis.' It is not very easy, indeed, to say what\nMr. Foxton positively believes; having, like his German prototypes, a\ngreater facility of telling what he does believe, and of wrapping up\nwhat he does believe in a most impregnable mysticism. He certainly\nrejects, however, all that which, when rejected a century ago, left,\nin the estimate of every one, an infidel in puris naturalibus. Like his\nGerman acquaintances, he accepts the infidel paradoxes--only, like them,\nhe will still be a Christian. He believes, with Strauss, that a miracle\nis an impossibility and contradiction--'incredible per se.' As to the\ninspiration of Christ--he regards it as, in its nature, the same as that\nof Zoraster, Confucius, Mahomet, Plato, Luther, and Wickliffe--a curious\nassortment of 'heroic souls.'(Pp. 62, 63.) With a happy art of confusing\nthe 'gifts of genius' no matter whether displayed in intellectual or\nmoral power, and of forgetting that other men are not likely to overlook\nthe difference, he complacently declares 'the wisdom of Solomon and the\npoetry of Isaiah the fruit of the same inspiration which is popularly\nattributed to Milton or Shakspeare, or even to the homely wisdom of\nBenjamin Franklin' (P. 72.) in the same pleasant confusion of mind, he\nthinks that the 'pens of Plato, of Paul and of Dante, the pencils of\nRaphael and of Claude, the Chisels of Canova and of Chantrey, no less\nthan the voices of Knox of Wickliffe, and of Luther are ministering\ninstruments, in different degrees, of the same spirit.' (P. 77.) He\nthinks that 'we find, both in the writers and the records of Scripture,\nevery evidence of human infirmity that can possibly be conceived; and\nyet we are to believe that God himself specially inspired them with\nfalse philosophy, vicious logic, and bad grammar.'(P. 74.) He denies\nthe originality both of the Christian ethic (which he says are a gross\nplagiarism from Plato) as also in great part of the system of Christian\ndoctrine.* Nevertheless, it would be quite a mistake, it seems, to\nsuppose that Mr. Foxton is no Christian! He is, on the contrary, of\nthe very few who can tell us what Christianity really is; and who can\nseparate the falsehoods and the myths which have so long disguised it.\nHe even talks most spiritually and with an edifying onction. He tells us\n\"God was,\" indeed, \"in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.\" And\nbut little deduction need be made from the rapturous language of Paul,\nwho tells us that \"in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily\"\n(P. 65); I concede to Christ' (generous admission!) 'the highest\ninspiration hitherto granted to the prophets of God' (P. 143),--Mahomet,\nit appears, and Zoroaster and Confucius, having also statues in his\ntruly Catholic Pantheon. 'The position of Christ,' he tells us in\nanother place, is 'simply that of the foremost man in all the world,'\nthough he 'soars far above \"all principalities and powers\"--above all\nphilosophies hitherto known--above all creeds hitherto propagated in his\nname'--the true Christian doctrine, after having been hid from ages and\ngenerations, being reserved to be disclosed, we presume, by Mr. Foxton.\nHis spiritualism, as usual with the whole school of our new Christian\ninfidels, is, of course, exquisitely refined,--but, unhappily, very\nvague. He is full of talk of 'a deeep insight,'--of a 'faith not in dead\nhistories, but living realities--a revelation to our innermost nature.'\n'The true seer,' he says, 'looking deep into causes, carries in his\nheart the simple wisdom of God. The secret harmonies of Nature vibrate\non his ear, and her fair proportions reveal themselves to his eye. He\nhas a deep faith in the truth of God.' (P. 146.) 'The inspired man is\none whose outward life derives all its radiance from the light within\nhim. He walks through stony places by the light of his own soul, and\nstumbles not. No human motive is present to such a mind in its highest\nexultation--no love of praise--no desire of fame--no affection, no\npassion mingles with the divine afflatus, which passes over without\nruffling the soul.' (P. 44.) And a great many fine phrases of the same\nkind, equally innocent of all meaning.\n____\n\n* (Pp. 51--60.) We are hardly likely to yield to Mr. Foxton in our love\nof Plato, for whom we have expressed, and that very recently, (April,\n1848,) no stinted admiration: and what we have there affirmed we are by\nno means disposed to retract,--that no ancient author has approached, in\nthe expression of ethical truth, so near to the maxims and sometimes the\nvery expressions, of the Gospel. Nevertheless, we as strongly affirm,\nthat he who contrasts (whatever the occasional sublimity of expression)\nthe faltering and often sceptical tone of Plato on religious subjects,\nwith the uniformity and decision of the Evangelical system,--his dark\nnotions in relation to God (candidly confessed) with the glorious\nrecognition of Him in the Gospel as 'our Father,'--his utterly absurd\napplication of his general principles of morals, in his most Utopian of\nall Republics, with the broad, plain social ethics of Christianity,--the\ntone of mournful familiarity (whatever his personal immunity) in\nwhich he too often speaks of the saddest pollutions that ever degraded\nhumanity, with the spotless purity of the Christian rule of life,--the\nhesitating, speculative tone of the Master of the Academy with the\ndecision and majesty of Him who 'spake with authority, and not as\nthe Scribes,' whether Greek or Jewish.--the metaphysical and abstract\ncharacter of Plato's reasonings with the severely practical character of\nChrist's,--the feebleness of the motives supplied by the abstractions\nof the one, and the intensity of those supplied by the other,--the\nadaptation of the one to the intelligent only, and the adaptation of\nthe other to universal humanity,--the very manner of Plato, his\ngorgeous style, with the still more impressive simplicity of the Great\nTeacher,--must surely see in the contrast every indication, to say\nnothing of the utter gratuitousness (historically) of the contrary\nhypothesis, that the sublime ethics of the Gospel, whether we regard\nsubstance, or manner, or, tone, or style, are no plagiarism from Plato.\nAs for the man who can hold such a notion, he must certainly be very\nignorant either of Plate or of Christ. As the best apology for Mr.\nFoxton's offensive folly we may, perhaps, charitably hope that he is\nnearly ignorant of both.--Equally absurd is the attempt to identify the\nmetaphysical dreams of Plato with the doctrinal system of the Gospel,\nthough it is quite true, that long subsequent to Christ the Platonising\nChristians tried to accommodate the speculations of the sage they loved,\nto the doctrines of a still greater master. But Plato never extorted\nfrom his friends stronger eulogies than Christ has often extorted from\nhis enemies.\n\n____\n\nIt is amazing and amusing to see with what case Mr. Foxton decides\npoints which have filled folios of controversy. 'In the teaching of\nChrist himself, there is not the slightest allusion to the modern\nevangelical notion of an atonement.' 'The diversities of \"gifts\" to\nwhich Paul alludes, Cor. i. 12. are nothing more than those different\n\"gifts\" which, in common parlance, we attribute to the various tempers\nand talents of men.' (P. 67.) 'It is, however, after all, absurd to\nsuppose that the miracles of the Scriptures are subjects of actual\nbelief; either to the vulgar or the learned.' (P. 104.) What an easy\ntime of it must such an all-sufficient controvertist have!\n\nHe thinks it possible; too, that Christ, though nothing more than an\nordinary man, may really have 'thought himself Divine,' without being\nliable to the charge of a visionary self-idolatry or of blasphemy,--as\nsupposed by every body, Trinitarian or Unitarian, except Mr. Foxton. He\naccounts for it by the 'wild sublimity of human emotion, when the rapt\nspirit first feels the throbbings of the divine afflatus,' &c. &c. A\nsingular afflatus which teaches a man to usurp the name and prerogatives\nof Deity, and a strange 'inspiration' which inspires him with so\nprofound an ignorance of his own nature! This interpretation, we\nbelieve, is peculiarly Mr. Foxton's owe.\n\nThe way in which he disposes of the miracles, is essentially that of a\nvulgar, undiscriminating, unphilosophic mind. There have been, he tells\nus in effect, so many false miracles, superstitious stories of witches,\nconjurors, ghosts, hobgoblins, of cures by royal touch, and the\nlike,--and therefore the Scripture miracles are false! Why, who denies\nthat there have been plenty of false miracles? And there have been\nas many false religions. Is there, therefore, none true? The proper\nbusiness in every such case is to examine fairly the evidence, and\nnot to generalise after this absurd fashion. Otherwise we shall never\nbelieve any thing; for there is hardly one truth that has not its half\nscore of audacious counterfeits.\n\nStill he is amusingly perplexed, like all the rest of the infidel world,\nhow to get rid of the miracles--whether on the principle of fraud, or\nfiction, or illusion. He thinks there would be 'a great accession to\nthe ranks of reason and common sense by disproving the reality of the\nmiracles, without damaging the veracity or honestly of the simple,\nearnest, and enthusiastic writers by whom they are recorded;' and\ncomplains of the coarse and undiscriminating criticism of most of the\nFrench and English Deists, who explain the miracles 'on the supposition\nof the grossest fraud acting on the grossest credulity.' But he soon\nfinds that the materials for such a compromise are utterly intractable.\nHe thinks that the German Rationalists have depended too much on some\n'single hypothesis, which often proves to be insufficient to meet the\ngreat variety of conditions and circumstances with which the miracles\nhave been handed down to us.' Very true; but what remedy? 'We find one\nGerman writer endeavouring to explain away the miracles on the mystical\n(mythical) theory; and another riding into the arena of controversy\non the miserable hobby-horse of \"clairvoyance\" or \"mesmerism\"; each of\nthese, and a host of others of the same class, rejecting whatever light\nis thrown on the question by all the theories together.' He therefore\nproposes, with great and gratuitous liberality, to heap all these\ntheories together, and to take them as they are wanted; not withholding\nany of the wonders of modern science--even, as would seem, the possible\nknowledge of 'chloroform' (PP. 104.. 86, 87.)--from the propagators of\nChristianity!\n\nBut, alas! the phenomena are still intractable. The stubborn 'Book' will\nstill baffle all such efforts to explain it away; it is willing to be\nrejected, if it so pleases men, but it guards itself from being\nthus made a fool of. For who can fail to see that neither all or any\nconsiderable part of the multifarious miracles of the New Testament can\nbe explained by any such gratuitous extension of ingenious fancies;\nand that if they could be so explained, it would be still impossible\nto exculpate the men who need such explanations from the charge of\nperpetuating the grossest frauds! Yet this logical ostrich, who\nam digest all these stones, presumptuously declares a miracle an\nimpossibility and the very notion of it a contradiction.* But enough of\nMr. Foxton.\n\n____\n\n* Mr. Foxton denies that men, in Paley's 'single case in which he\ntries the general theorem,' would believe the miracle; but he finds\nit convenient to leave out the most significant circumstances on which\nPaley makes the validity of the testimony to depend, instead of stating\nthem fairly in Paley's own words. Yet that the sceptics (if such there\ncould be) must be the merest fraction of the species, Mr. Foxton himself\nimmediately proceeds to prove by showing what is undeniably the case)\nthat almost all mankind readily receive miraculous occurrences on far\nlower evidence than Paley's common sense would require them to demand.\nSurely he must be related to the Irishman who placed his ladder against\nthe bough he was cutting off. I\n\n____\n\n\nThere are no doubt some minds amongst us, whose power we admit, and\nwhose perversion of power we lament, who have bewildered themselves by\nreally deep meditation on inexplicable mysteries; who demand certainty\nwhere certainty is not given to man, or demand for truths which are\nestablished by sufficient evidence, other evidence than those truths\nwill admit. We can even painfully sympathise in that ordeal of doubt\nwhich such powerful minds are peculiarly exposed--with their Titanic\nstruggles against the still mightier power of Him who has said to the\nturbulent intellect of man, as well as to the stormy ocean 'Hitherto\nshalt thou come, but no farther,--and here shall thy proud waves be\nstaid.' We cannot wish better to any such agitated mind than that it may\nlisten to those potent and majestic words: 'Peace--be still!' uttered\nby the voice of Him who so suddenly hushed the billows of the Galilean\nlake.\n\nBut we are at the same time fully convinced that in our day there are\nthousands of youths who are falling into the same errors and perils\nfrom sheer vanity and affectation; who admire most what they least\nunderstand, and adopt all the obscurities and paradoxes they stumble\nupon, as a cheap path to a reputation for profundity; who awkwardly\nimitate the manner and retail the phrases of the writers they\nstudy; and, as usual, exaggerate to caricature their least agreeable\neccentricities. We should think that some of these more powerful\nminds must be by this time ashamed of that ragged regiment of shallow\nthinkers, and obscure writers and talkers who at present infest our\nliterature, and whose parrot-like repetition of their own stereotyped\nphraseology, mingled with some barbarous infusion of half Anglicised\nGerman, threatens to form as odious a cant as ever polluted the stream\nof thought or disfigured the purity of language. Happily it is not\nlikely to be more than a passing fashion; but still it is a very\nunpleasant fashion while it lasts. As in Johnson's day, every\nyoung writer imitated as well as he could the ponderous diction and\neverlasting antitheses of the great dictator as in Byron's day, there\nwere thousands to whom the world 'was a blank' at twenty or thereabouts,\nand of whose dark imaginings,' as Macaulay says, the waste was\nprodigious; so now there are hundreds of dilettanti pantheists', mystics\nand sceptics to whom everything is a 'sham,' an 'unreality'; Who tell\nus that the world stands in need of a great 'prophet,' a seer,' a 'true\nprophet', a large soul,' a god-like soul,'*--who shall dive into 'the\ndepths of the human consciousness,' and whose 'utterances' shall\nrouse the human mind from the 'cheats and frauds' which have hitherto\neverywhere practised on its simplicity. The tell us, in relation to\nphilosophy, religion, and especially in relation to Christianity,\nthat all that has been believed by mankind has been believed only on\n'empirical' grounds; and that the old answers to difficulties will do\nno longer. They shake their sage heads at such men as Clarke, Paley,\nButler, and declare that such arguments as theirs will not satisfy\nthem.,--We are glad to admit that all this vague pretension is now\nbut rarely displayed with the scurrilous spirit of that elder unbelief\nagainst which the long series of British apologists for Christianity\narose between 1700 and 1750; But there is often in it an arrogance\nas real, though not in so offensive a form. Sometimes the spirit\nof unbelief even assumes an air of sentimental regret at its own\ninconvenient profundity. Many a worthy youth tells us he almost wishes\nhe could believe. He admires, of all things, the 'moral grandeur'--the\n'ethical beauty' of many parts of Christianity; he condescends to\npatronize Jesus Christ, though he believes that the great mass of\nwords and actions by which alone we know anything about him, are sheer\nfictions or legends; he believes--gratuitously enough in this instance,\nfor he has no ground for it--that Jesus Christ was a very 'great man'\nworthy of comparison at least with Mahomet, Luther, Napoleon, and 'other\nheroes'; he even admits that happiness of a simple, child-like faith, in\nthe puerilities of Christianity--it produces such content of mind! But\nalas! he cannot believe--his intellect is not satisfied--he has revolved\nthe matter too profoundly to be thus taken in; he must, he supposes,\n(and our beardless philosopher sighs as he says it) bear the penalty of\na too restless intellect, and a too speculative genius; he knows all\nthe usual arguments which satisfied Pascal, Butler, Bacon, Leibnitz; but\nthey will do no longer: more radical, more tremendous difficulties\nhave suggested themselves, 'from the 'depths of philosophy,' and far\ndifferent answers are required now!+\n\n____\n\n* Foxton's last chapter, passim, from some expressions one would almost\nimagine that our author himself aspired to be, if not the Messiah, at\nleast the Elias, of this new dispensation. We fear, however, that this\n'vox clamantis' would reverse the Baptist's proclamation, and would cry,\n'The straight shall be made crooked. and the plain places rough.' +\nWe fear that many young minds in our day are exposed to the danger\nof falling into one or other of the prevailing forms of unbelief, and\nespecially into that of pantheistic mysticism--from rashly meditating\nin the cloudy regions of German philosophy--on difficulties which would\nseem beyond the limits of human reason, but which that philosophy too\noften promises to solve--with what success we may see from the rapid\nsuccession and impenetrable obscurities of its various systems. Alas!\nwhen will men learn that one of the highest achievements of philosophy\nis to know when it is vain to philosophise. When the obscure principles\nof these most uncouth philosophies, expressed, we verily believe, in the\ndarkest language ever used by civilised man, are applied to the solution\nof the problems of theology and ethics, no wonder that the natural\nconsequence, as well as just retribution, of such temerity is a\nplunge into tenfold night. Systems of German philosophy may perhaps be\nadvantageously studied by those who are mature enough to study them; but\nthat they have an incomparable power of intoxicating the intellect of\nthe young aspirant to their mysteries, is, we think, undeniable. They\nare producing the effect just now in a multitude of our juveniles,\nwho are beclouding themselves in the vain attempt to comprehend\nill-translated fragments of ill-understood philosophies, (executed in a\nsort of Anglicised-German, or Germanised-English, we know not which to\ncall it, but certainly neither German nor English,) from the perusal of\nwhich they carry away nothing but some very obscure terms, on which they\nthemselves have superinduced a very vague meaning. These terms you in\nvain implore them to define; or, if they define them, they define\nthem in terms which as much need definition. Heartily do we wish that\nSocrates would reappear amongst us, to exercise his accoucheur's art on\nthese hapless Theaetetuses and Menos of our day! Many such youths might\nno doubt reply at first to the sarcastic Querist, (who might gently\ncomplain of a slight cloudiness in their speculations.) that the truths\nthey uttered were too profound for ordinary reasoners. We may easily\nimagine how Socrates would have dealt with such assumptions. His reply\nwould be rather more severe than that of Mackintosh to Coleridge in a\nsomewhat similar case; namely, that if a notion cannot be made clear to\npersons who have spent the better part of their days in resolving the\ndifficulties of metaphysics and philosophy, and who are conscious\nthat they are not destitute of patience for the effort requisite to\nunderstand them, it may suggest a doubt whether the truth be not in the\nmedium of communication rather than elsewhere; and, indeed, whether the\nphilosopher be not aiming to communicate thoughts on subjects on which\nman can have no thoughts to communicate. Socrates would add, perhaps,\nthat language was given us to express, not to conceal our thoughts; and\nthat, if they cannot be communicated, invaluable as they doubtless are,\nwe had better keep them to ourselves; one thing it is clear he would\ndo,--he would insist on precise defintions. But in truth it may be more\nthan surmised that the obscurities of which all complain, except\nthose (and in our day they are not a few) to whom obscurity is a\nrecommendation, result from suffering the intellect to speculate in\nrealms forbidden to its access; into caverns of tremendous depth and\ndarkness, with nothing better than our own rushlight. Surely we have\nreason to suspect as much when some learned professor, after muttering\nhis logical incantations, and conjuring with his logical formulae,\nsurprises you by saying, that he has disposed of the great mysteries of\nexistence and the universe, and solved to your entire satisfaction, in\nhis own curt way, the problems of the ABSOLUTE and the INFINITE! If the\ncardinal truths of philosophy and religion hitherto received are doomed\nto be imperilled by such speculations, one feels strongly inclined to\npray with the old Homeric hero,--'that if they must perish, it may be\nat least in daylight.' We earnestly counsel the youthful reader to\ndefer the study of German philosophy, at least till he has matured and\ndisciplined his mind, and familiarised himself with the best models of\nwhat used to be our boast--English clearness of thought and expression.\nHe will then learn to ask rigidly for definitions, and not rest\nsatisfied with half-meanings--or no meaning. To the naturally venturous\npertinacity of young metaphysicians, few would be disposed to be more\nindulgent than ourselves. From the time of Plato downwards--who tells\nus that no sooner do they 'taste' of dialectics than they are ready to\ndispute with every body--'sparing neither father nor mother, scarcely\neven the lower animals,' if they had but a voice to reply. They have\nalways expected more from metaphysics than (except as a discipline) they\nwill ever yield. He elsewhere, still more humorously describes the same\ntrait. He compares then, to young dogs who are perpetually snapping\nat every thing about them:--Hoimai gar se ou lelethenai, hoti\nhoi meirakiskoi, hotan to proton logon geuontai, os paidia autois\nkatachrontai, aei eis antilogian chromenoi kai mimoumenoi tous\nexelenchontas autoi allous elenchousi, chairontes osper skulakia te\nkai sparattein tous plesion aei. But we hope we shall not see our\nmetaphysical 'puppies' amusing themselves--as so many 'old dogs' amongst\nneighbours (who ought to have known better) have done,--by tearing into\ntatters the sacred leaves of that volume, which contains what is better\nthan all their philosophy.\n\n____\n\n\nThis is easily said, and we know is often said, and loudly. But the\njustice with which it is said is another matter; for when we can get\nthese cloudy objectors to put down, not their vague assertions of\nprofound difficulties, uttered in the obscure language they love, but a\nprecise statement of their objections, we find them either the very same\nwith those which were quite as powerfully urged in the course of the\ndeistical controversies of the last century (the case with far the\ngreater part), or else such as are of similar character, and\nsusceptible of similar answers. We say not that the answers were always\nsatisfactory, nor are now inquiring whether any of them were so; we\nmerely maintain that the objections in question are not the novelties\nthey affect to be. We say this to obviate an advantage which the very\nvagueness of much modern opposition to Christianity would obtain, from\nthe notion that some prodigious arguments have been discovered which\nthe intellect of a Pascal or a Butler was not comprehensive enough to\nanticipate, and which no Clarke or Paley would have been logician enough\nto refute. We affirm, without hesitation, that when the new advocates of\ninfidelity descend from their airy elevation, and state their objections\nin intelligible terms, they are found, for the most part, what we\nhave represented them. When we read many of the speculations of German\ninfidelity, we seem to be re-perusing many of our own authors of the\nlast century. It is as if our neighbours had imported our manufactures;\nand, after re-packing them, in new forms and with some additions,\nhad re-shipped and sent them back to us as new commodities. Hardly an\ninstance of discrepancy is mentioned in the 'Wolfenbutted Fragments,'\nwhich will not be found in the pages of our own deists a century ago;\nand, as already hinted, of Dr. Strauss's elaborate strictures, the vast\nmajority will be found in the same sources. In fact, though far from\nthinking it to our national credit, none but those who will dive a\nlittle deeper than most do into a happily forgotten portion of our\nliterature, (which made noise enough in its day, and created very\nsuperfluous terrors for the fate of Christianity,) can have any idea of\nthe extent to which the modern forms of unbelief in Germany--so far as\nfounded on any positive grounds, whether of reason or of criticism,--are\nindebted to our English Deists. Tholuck, however, and others of his\ncountrymen, seem thoroughly aware of it.\n\nThe objections to the truth of Christianity are directed either against\nthe evidence itself; or that which it substantiates. Against the latter,\nas Bishop Butler says, unless the objections be truly such as prove\ncontradictions in it, they are 'perfectly frivolous;' since we cannot be\ncompetent judges either as to what it is worthy of the Supreme Mind\nto reveal, or how far a portion of an imperfectly-developed system may\nharmonise with the whole; and, perhaps, on many points, we never can be\ncompetent judges, unless we can cease to be finite. The objections to\nthe evidence itself are, as the same great author observes, 'well worthy\nof the fullest attention.' The a priori objection to miracles we have\nalready briefly touched. If that objection be valid, it is vain to argue\nfurther; but if not, the remaining objections must be powerful enough to\nneutralise the entire mass of the evidence, and, in fact, to mount to a\nproof of contradictions; 'not on this or that minute point of historic\ndetail,--but on such as shake the foundations of the whole edifice of\nevidence. It will not do to say, 'Here is a minute discrepancy in the\nhistory of Matthew or Luke as compared with that of 'Mark or John;'\nfor, first, such discrepancies are often found, in other authors, to be\napparent, and not real,--founded on our taking for granted that there is\nno circumstance unmentioned by two writers which, if known, would\nhave been seen to harmonise their statements. We admit this possible\nreconciliation readily enough in the case of many seeming discrepancies\nof other historians; but it is a benefit which men are slow to admit in\nthe case of the sacred narratives. There the objector is always apt to\ntake it for granted that the discrepancy is real; though it may be easy\nto suppose a case (a possible case is quite sufficient for the purpose)\nwhich would neutralise the objection. Of this perverseness (we can call\nit by no other name) the examples are perpetual in the critical tortures\nwhich Strauss has subjected the sacred historians.*\"--\n\nIt may be objected, perhaps, that the gratuitous supposition of some\nunmentioned fact--which, if mentioned, would harmonise the apparently\ncounter-statements of two historians--cannot be admitted, and is, in\nfact, a surrender of the argument. But to say so, is only to betray an\nutter ignorance of what the argument is. If an objection be founded\non the alleged absolute contradiction of two statements, it is quite\nsufficient to show any (not the real, but only a hypothetical and\npossible) medium of reconciling them; and the objection is, in all\nfairness, dissolved. And this would be felt by the honest logician, even\nif we did not know of any such instances in point of fact. We do know\nhowever, of many. Nothing is more common than to find, in the narration\nof two perfectly honest historians,--referring to the same events from\ndifferent points of view, or for a different purpose,--the omission\na fact which gives a seeming contrariety to their statements; a\ncontrariety which the mention of the omitted fact by a third writer\ninstantly clears up.+\n\n___\n\n* The reader may see some striking instances of his disposition to\ntake the worse sense, in Beard's 'Voices of the Church.' Tholuck truly\nobserves, too, in his strictures on Strauss, 'We know how frequently the\nloss of a few words in one ancient author would be sufficient to cast\nan inexplicable obscurity over another.' The same writer well observes,\nthat there never was a historian who, if treated on the principles of\ncriticism which his countryman has applied to the Evangelists, might\nnot be proved a mere mytholographer ... 'It is plain', he says, 'that\nif absolute among historians'--and still more absolute apparent\nagreement--is necessary to assure us that we possess in their writings\ncredible history, we must renounce all pretence to any such possession.'\nThe translations from Quinet, Coquerel, and Tholuck are all, in\ndifferent ways, well worth reading. The last truly says, 'Strauss came\nto the study of the Evangelical history with the forgone conclusion that\n\"miracles are impossible;\" and where an investigator brings with him an\nabsolute conviction of the guilt of the accused to the examination\nof his case, we know how even the most innocent may be implicated and\ncondemned out of his own mouth.' In fact, so strong and various are the\nproofs of truth and reality in the history of the New Testament, that\nnone would ever have suspected the veracity of the writers, or tried to\ndisprove it, except for the above forgone conclusion--'that miracles\nare impossible.' We also recommend to the reader an ingenious brochure\nincluded in the 'Voices of the Church, in reply to Strauss,' constructed\non the same principle with Whately's admirable 'Historic Doubts,'\nnamely; 'The Fallacy of the Mythical Theory of Dr. Strauss, illustrated\nfrom the History of Martin Luther, and from the actual Mohammedan Myths\nof the Life of Jesus.' What a subject for the same play of ingenuity\nwould be Dean Swift! The date, and place of his birth disputed--whether\nhe was an Englishman or an Irishman--his incomprehensible relations to\nStella and Vanessa, utterly incomprehensible on any hypothesis--his\nalleged seduction of one of one, of both, of neither--his marriage with\nStella affirmed, disputed, and still wholly unsettled--the numberless\nother incidents in his life full of contradiction and mystery--and, not\nleast, the eccentricities and inconsistencies of his whole character and\nconduct! Why, with a thousandth part of Dr. Strauss's assumptions, it\nwould be easy to reduce Swift to as fabulous a personage as his own\nLemuel Gulliver. +Any apparent discrepancy with either themselves or\nprofane historians is usually sufficient to satisfy Dr. Strauss. He\nis ever ready to conclude that the discrepancy is real, and that the\nprofane historians are right. In adducing some striking instances of the\nminute accuracy of Luke, only revealed by obscure collateral evidence\n(historic or numismatic) discovered since, Tholuck remarks, 'What an\noutcry would have been made had not the specious appearance of error\nbeen thus obviated. Luke calls Gallio proconsul of Achaia: we should\nnot have expected it, since though Achaia was originally to senatorial\nprovince. Tiberius had changed it into an imperial one, and the title\nof its governor, therefore, was procurator; now a passage in Suetonius\ninforms us, that Claudius had restored the province to the senate.' The\nsame Evangelist calls Sergius Paulus governor of Cyprus; yet we might\nhave expected to find only a praetor, since Cyprus was an imperial\nprovince. In this case, again: says Tholuck, the correctness of the\nhistorian has been remarkable attested. Coins and later still a passage\nin Dion Cassius, have been found, giving proof that Augustus restored\nthe province to the senate; and thus, as if to vindicate the Evangelist,\nthe Roman historian adds, 'Thus, proconsuls began to be sent into that\nisland also.' Trans. From Tholuck, pp. 21, 22. In the same manner\ncoins have been found proving he is correct in some other once disputed\ninstances. Is it not fair to suppose that many apparent discrepancies of\nthe same order may be eventually removed by similar evidence?\n\n____\n\n\nVery forgetful of this have the advocates of infidelity usually been:\nnay, (as if they would make up in the number of objections what they\nwant in weight,) they have frequently availed themselves not only of\napparent contrarieties, but of mere incompleteness in the statements\nof two different writers, on which to found a charge of contradiction.\nThus, if one writer says that a certain person was present at a given\ntime or place, when another says that he and two more were there; or\nthat one man was cured of blindness, when another says that two were,--\nsuch a thing is often alleged as a contradiction; whereas, in truth, it\nresents not even a difficulty--unless one historian be bound to say\nnot only all that another says but just so much, and no more. Let such\nobjections be what they will, unless they prove absolute contradictions\nin the narrative, they are as mere dust in the balance, compared with\nthe stupendous mass and variety of that evidence which confirms the\nsubstantial truth of Christianity. And even if they establish real\ncontradictions, they still amount, for reasons we are about to state,\nto dust in the balance, unless they establish contradictions not in\nimmaterial but in vital points. The objections must be such as, if\nproved, leave the whole fabric of evidence in ruins. For, secondly, we\nare fully disposed to concede to the objector that there are, in the\nbooks of Scripture, not only apparent but real discrepancies,--a point\nwhich many of the advocates of Christianity are, indeed, reluctant to\nadmit but which we think, no candid advocate will feel to be the less\ntrue. Nevertheless, even such an advocate of the Scriptures may justly\ncontend that the very reasons which necessitate this admission of\ndiscrepancies also reduce them to such a limit that they do not affect,\nin the slightest degree, the substantial credibility of the sacred\nrecords; and, in our judgment, Christians have unwisely damaged their\ncause, and given a needless advantage to the infidel, by denying that\nany discrepancies exist, or by endeavouring to prove that they do not.\nThe discrepancies to which we refer are just those which, in the course\nof the transcription of ancient books, divine or human, through\nmany ages,--their constant transcription by different hands,--their\ntranslation into various languages,--may not only be expected to occur,\nbut which must occur, unless there be a perpetual series of most minute\nand ludicrous miracles--certainly never promised, and as certainly never\nperformed--to counteract all the effects of negligence and inadvertence,\nto guide the pen of every transcriber to infallible accuracy, and\nto prevent his ever deviating into any casual error! Such miraculous\nintervention, we need not say, has never been pleaded for by any\napologist of Christianity; has certainly never been promised; and, if it\nhad,--since we see, as a matter of fact, that the promise has never been\nfulfilled,--the whole of Christianity would fall to the ground. But\nthen, from a large induction, we know that the limits within which\ndiscrepancies and errors from such causes will occur, must be very\nmoderate; we know, from numberless examples of other writings, what the\nmaximum is,--and that it leaves their substantial authenticity untouched\nand unimpeached. No one supposes the writings of Plato and Cicero, of\nThucydides and Tacitus, of Bacon or Shakspeare, fundamentally vitiated\nby the like discrepancies, errors, and absurdities which time and\ninadvertence have occasioned.\n\nThe corruptions in the Scriptures from these causes are likely to\nbe even less than in the case of any other writings; from their very\nstructure,--the varied and reiterated forms in which all the great\ntruths are expressed; from the greater veneration they inspired; the\ngreater care with which they would be transcribed; the greater number\nof copies which would be diffused through the world,--and which, though\nthat very circumstance would multiply the number of variations, would\nalso afford, in their collation, the means of reciprocal correction;--a\ncorrection which we have seen applied in our day, with admirable\nsuccess, to so many ancient writers, under a system of canons which\nhave now raised this species of criticism to the rank of an inductive\nscience. This criticism, applied to the Scriptures, has in many\ninstances restored the true rending, and dissolved the objections which\nmight have been founded on the uncorrected variations; and, as time\nrolls on, may lead, by yet fresh discoveries and more comprehensive\nrecensions, to a yet further clarifying of the stream of Divine truth,\ntill 'the river of the water of life' shall flow nearly in its original\nlimpid purity. Within such limits as these, the most consistent advocate\nof Christianity not only must admit--not only may safely admit--the\nexistence of discrepancies, but may do so even with advantage to his\ncause. he must admit them, since such variations must be the result of\nthe manner in which the records have been transmitted, unless we suppose\na supernatural intervention, neither promised by God nor pleaded for by\nman: he may safely admit them, because--from a general induction from\nthe history of all literature--we see that, where copies of writings\nhave been sufficiently multiplied, and sufficient motives for care have\nexisted in the transcription, the limits of error are very narrow, and\nleave the substantial identity untouched: and he may admit them with\nadvantage; for the admission is a reply to many objections rounded on\nthe assumption that he must contend that there are no variations, when\nhe need only contend that there are none that can be material.\n\nBut it may be said, 'May not we be permitted, while conceding the\nmiraculous and other evidences of Christianity, and the general\nauthority of the records which contain it, to go a step further, and\nto reject some things which seem palpably ill-reasoned, distasteful,\ninconsistent, or immoral?' 'Let every man be fully persuaded in his\nown mind.' For ourselves, we honestly confess we cannot see the logical\nconsistency of such a position; any more than the reasonableness, after\nhaving admitted the preponderant evidence for the great truth of Theism,\nof excepting some phenomena as apparently at variance with the Divine\nperfections; and thus virtually adopting a Manichaean hypothesis. We\nmust recollect that we know nothing of Christianity except from its\nrecords; and as these, once fairly ascertained to be authentic and\ngenuine, are all, as regards their contents, supported precisely by the\nsame miraculous and other evidence; as they bear upon them precisely\nthe same internal marks of artlessness, truth, and sincerity; and,\nhistorically and in other respects, are inextricably interwoven with one\nanother; we see not on what principles we can safely reject portions as\nimprobable, distasteful, not quadrating with the dictates of reason;'\nour 'intuitional consciousness,' and what not. This assumed liberty,\nhowever is, as we apprehend, of the very essence of Rationalism; and\nit may be called the Manichaeism of interpretation. So long as the\ncanonicity of any of the records, or any portion of them, or their true\ninterpretation, is in dispute, we may fairly doubt; but that point once\ndecided by honest criticism, to say we receive such and such portions,\non account of the weight of the general evidence, and yet reject other\nportions, though sustained by the same evidence, because we think there\nis something unreasonable or revolting in their substance, is plainly\nto accept evidence only where it pleases us, and to reject it where it\npleases us not. The only question fairly at issue must ever be whether\nthe general evidence for Christianity will overbear the difficulty which\nwe cannot separate from the truths. If it will not, we must reject it\nwholly; and if it will, we must receive it wholly. There is plainly no\ntenable position between absolute infidelity and absolute belief.\nAnd this is proved by the infinitely various and Protean character of\nRationalism, and the perfectly indeterminate, but always arbitrary,\nlimits it imposes on itself. It exists in all forms and degrees, from a\nmoderation which accepts nearly the entire system of Christianity,\nand which certainly rejects nothing that can be said to constitute its\ndistinctive truth, to an audacity of unbelief, which, professing still\nvaguely to reverence Christianity as 'something divine,' sponges out\nnine tenths of the whole; or, after reducing the mass of it to a caput\nmortuum of lies, fiction, and superstitions, retains only a few drops of\nfact and doctrine,--so few as certainly not to pay for the expenses of\nthe critical distillation.*\n\n____\n\n* It may be as well to remark, that we have frequently observed a\ndisposition to represent the very general abandonment of the theory\nof 'verbal inspiration' as a concession to Rationalism; as if it\nnecessarily followed from admitting that inspiration is not verbal,\nthat therefore an indeterminate portion of the substance or doctrine\nis purely human. It is plain, however, that this is no necessary\nconsequence: an advocate of plenary inspiration may contend, that,\nthough he does not believe that the very words of Scripture were\ndictated, yet that the thoughts were either so suggested, (if the matter\nwas such as could be known only by revelation,) or so controlled, (if\nthe matter were such as was previously known,) that (excluding errors\nintroduced into the text since) the Scriptures as first composed\nwere--what no book of man ever was, or can be, even in the plainest\nnarrative of the simplest events--a perfectly accurate expression of\ntruth. We enter not here, however, into the question whether such a view\nof inspiration is better or worse than another. We are simply anxious\nto correct a fallacy which has, judging from what we have recently read,\noperated rather extensively. Inspiration may be verbal, or the contrary;\nbut, whether one or the other, he who takes the affirmative or negative\nof that question may still consistently contend that it may still be\nplenary. The question of the inspiration of the whole or the inspiration\nof a part, is widely different from that as to the suggestion of the\nwords or the suggestion of the thoughts. But these questions we leave to\nprofessed theologians. We merely enter our protest against a prevailing\nfallacy.\n\n____\n\n\nNor will the theory of what some call the 'intuitional consciousness\navail us here. It is true, as they assert, that the constitution of\nhuman nature is such that, before its actual development, it has a\ncapacity of developing to certain effects only,--just as the flower\nin the germ, as it expands to the sun, will have certain colours and a\ncertain fragrance, and no other;--all which, indeed, though not very new\nor profound, is very important. But it is not so dear that it will give\nus any help on the present occasion. We have an original susceptibility\nof music, of beauty, of religion, it is said. Granted; but as the actual\ndevelopment of this susceptibility exhibits all the diversities between\nHandel's notions of harmony and those of an American Indian--between\nRaphael's notions of beauty and those of a Hottentot--between St. Paul's\nnotions of a God and those of a New Zealander--it would appear that\nthe education of this susceptibility is at least as important as the\nsusceptibility itself, if not more so; for without the susceptibility\nitself, we should simply have no notion of music, beauty, or religion;\nand between such negation and that notion of all these which New\nZealanders and Hottentots possess, not a few of our species would\nprobably prefer the former. It is in vain then to tell us to look into\nthe 'depths of our own nature' (as some vaguely say), and to judge\nthence what, in a professed revelation, is suitable to us, or worthy of\nour acceptance and rejection respectively. This criterion is, as we\nsee by the utterly different judgments formed by different classes of\nRationalists as to the how much they shall receive of the revelation\nthey might generally admit, a very shifting one--a measure which has no\nlinear unit; it is to employ, as mathematicians say, a variable as if it\nwere a constant quantity; or, rather, it is to attempt to find the value\nof an unknown quantity by another equally unknown.\n\nWe cannot but judge, then, the principles of Rationalism to be logically\nuntenable. And we do so, not merely or principally on account of the\nabsurdity it involves,--that God has expressly supplemented human\nreason by a revelation containing an indeterminate but large portion\nof falsities, errors, and absurdities and which we are to commit to our\nlittle alembic, and distil as we may; not only from the absurdity of\nsupposing that God has demanded our faith, for statements which are\nto be received only as they appear perfectly comprehensible by our\nreason;--or, in other words, only for what it is impossible that we\nshould doubt or deny; not merely because the principle inevitably leaves\nman to construct the so-called revelation entirely for himself; so that\nwhat one man receives as genuine communication from heaven, another,\nfrom having a different development of 'his intuitional consciousness,'\nrejects as an absurdity too gross for human belief:--Not wholly, we\nsay, nor even principally, for these reasons; but for the still stronger\nreason, that such a system of objections is an egregious trifling with\nthat great complex mass of evidence which, as we have said, applies to\nthe whole of Christianity or to none of it. As if to baffle the efforts\nof man consistently to disengage these elements of our belief, the whole\nare inextricably blended together. The supernatural element, especially,\nis so diffused through all the records, that it is more and more felt,\nat every step, to be impossible to obliterate it without obliterating\nthe entire system in which it circulates. The stain, if stain it be,\nis far too deep for any scouring fluids of Rationalism to wash it out,\nwithout destroying the whole texture of our creed: and, in our judgment,\nthe only consistent Rationalism is the Rationalism which rejects it all.\n\nAt whatever point the Rationalist we have attempted to describe may take\nhis stand, we do not think it difficult to prove that his conduct is\neminently irrational. If, for example, he be one of those moderate\nRationalists who admit (as thousands do) the miraculous and other\nevidence of the supernatural origin of the Gospel, and therefore also\nadmit such and such doctrines to be true,--what can he reply, if further\nasked what reason he can have for accepting these truths and rejecting\nothers which are supported by the very same evidence? How can he be sure\nthat the truths he receives are established by evidence which, to all\nappearance, equally authenticates the falsehoods he rejects? Surely, as\nalready said, this is to reject and accept evidence as he pleases.\nIf, on the other hand, he says that he receives the miracles only to\nauthenticate what he knows very well without them, and believes true on\nthe information of reason alone, why trouble miracles and revelation\nat all? Is not this, according to the old proverb to 'take a hatchet to\nbreak an egg'?*\n\n____\n\n\n* If such a man says that he rejects certain doctrines, not on\nrationalistic grounds, but because he denies the canonical authority, or\nthe interpretation of portions of the records in which they are\nfound, and is willing to abide by the issue if the evidence on those\npoints--evidence with which the human mind is quite competent to\ndeal,--we answer, that he is not the man with whom we are now arguing.\nThe points in dispute will be determined by the honest use of history,\ncriticism, and philology. But between such a man and one who rejects\nChristianity altogether, we can imagine no consistent position.\n\n____\n\n\nNor can we disguise from ourselves, indeed, that consistency in the\napplication of the essential principle of Rationalism would compel us\nto go a few steps further; for since, as Bishop Butler has shown, no\ngreater difficulties (if so great) attach to the page of Revelation than\nto the volume of Nature itself,--especially those which are involved in\nthat dread enigma, 'the origin of evil,' compared with which all other\nenigmas are trifles,--that abyss into which so many of the\ndifficulties of all theology, natural and revealed, at last disembogue\nthemselves,--we feel that the admission of the principle of Rationalism\nwould ultimately drive us, not only to reject Christianity, but to\nreject Theism in all its forms, whether Monotheism, or Pantheism, and\neven positive or dogmatic Atheism itself. Nor could we stop, indeed,\ntill we had arrived at that absolute pyrrhonism which consists, if such\na thing be possible, in the negation of all belief,--even to the belief\nthat we do not believe!\n\nBut though the objections to the reception of Christianity are numerous,\nand some insoluble, the question always returns, whether they over\nbalance the mass of the evidence in its favour? nor is it to be\nforgotten that they are susceptible of indefinite alleviation as time\nrolls on; and with a few observations on this point we will close the\npresent article.\n\nA refinement of modern philosophy often leads our rationalist to speak\ndepreciatingly, if not contemptuously, of what he calls a stereotyped\nrevelation--revelation in a book. It ties down, he is fond of saying,\nthe spirit to the letter; and limits the 'progress' and 'development' of\nthe human mind in its 'free' pursuit of truth. The answer we should\nbe disposed to make is, first, that if a book does contain truth, the\nsooner that truth is stereotyped the better; secondly, that if such\nbook, like the book of Nature, or, as we deem, the book of Revelation,\nreally contains truth, its study, so far from being incompatible with\nthe spirit of free inquiry, will invite and repay continual efforts more\ncompletely to understand it. Though the great and fundamental truths\ncontained in either volume will be obvious in proportion to their\nimportance and necessity, there is no limit to be placed on the\ndegree of accuracy with which the truths they severally contain may be\ndeciphered, stated, adjusted--or even on the period in which fragments\nof new truth shall cease to be elicited. It is true indeed that theology\ncannot be said to admit of unlimited progress, in the same sense as\nchemistry--which may, for aught we know, treble or quadruple its\npresent accumulations, vast as they are, both in bulk and importance.\nBut, even in theology as deduced from the Scripture, minute fragments\nof new truth, or more exact adjustments of old truth, may be perpetually\nexpected. Lastly, we shall reply, that the objection to a revelation's\nbeing consigned to a 'book' is singularly inapposite, considering that\nby the constitution of the world and of human nature, man, without\nbooks,--without the power of recording, transmitting, and perpetuating\nthought, of rendering it permanent and diffusive, ever is, ever has\nbeen, and ever must be little better than a savage; and therefore, if\nthere was to be a revelation at all, it might fairly be expected that it\nwould be communicated in this form; thus affording us one more analogy,\nin addition to the many which Butler has stated, and which may in\ntime be multiplied without end, between 'Revealed Religion and the\nConstitution and Course of Nature.'\n\nAnd this leads us to notice a saying of that comprehensive genius,\nwhich we do not recollect having seen quoted in connexion with recent\ncontroversies, but which is well worthy of being borne in mind, as\nteaching us to beware of hastily assuming that objections to Revelation,\nwhether suggested by the progress of science, or from the supposed\nincongruity of its own contents, are unanswerable. We are not, he says,\nrashly to suppose that we have arrived at the true meaning of the whole\nof that book. 'It is not at all incredible that a book which has been\nso long in the possession of mankind, should contain many truths as\nyet undiscerned. For all the same phenomena and the same faculties of\ninvestigation, from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge\nhave been made in the present and last age, were equally in the\npossession of mankind several thousand year's before.' These words are\nworthy of Butler: and as many illustrations of their truth have been\nsupplied since his day, so many others may fairly be anticipated in the\ncourse of time. Several distinct species of argument for the truth\nof Christianity from the very structure and contents of the books\ncontaining it have been invented--of which Paley's 'Horae Paulinae' is a\nmemorable example. The diligent collation of the text, too, has removed\nmany difficulties; the diligent study of the original languages of\nancient history, manners and customs, has cleared up many more; and by\nsupplying proof of accuracy where error of falsehood had been charged,\nhas supplied important additions to the evidence which substantiates the\ntruth of Revelation. Against the alleged absurdity of the laws of\nMoses, again, such works as that of Micholis have disclosed much of that\nrelative wisdom which aims not at the abstractedly best, but the best\nwhich a given condition of humanity, a given period of the world's\nhistory, and a given purpose could dictate. In pondering such\ndifficulties as still remain in those laws, we may remember the answer\nof Solon to the question, whether he had given the Athenians the best\nlaws; viz. that he had given them the best of which they were capable:\nor the judgment of the illustrious Montesquieu, who remarks, 'When\nDivine Wisdom said to the Jews, \"I have given you precepts which are not\ngood,\" this signifies that they had only a relative goodness: and this\nis the sponge which wipes out all the difficulties which are to be found\nin the laws of Moses.' This is a truth which we are persuaded a profound\nphilosophy will understand the better the more deeply it is revolved;\nand only those legislative pedants will refuse weight to it, who would\nventurously propose to give New Zealanders and Hottentots, in the\nstarkness of their savage ignorance, the complex forms of the British\nconstitution. In similar manner, many of the old objections of our\ndeistical writers have ceased to be heard of in our day, unless it be\nfrom the lips of the veriest sciolism; the objections, for instance,\nof that truly pedantic philosophy which once argued that ethical and\nreligious truth are not given in the Scripture in a system such as a\nschoolman might have digested it into; as if the brief iteration and\nvaried illustration of pregnant truth, intermingled with narrative,\nparable, and example, were not infinitely better adapted to the\ncondition of the human intellect in general! For similar reasons, the\nold objection, that statements of Christian morality are given without\nthe requisite limitations, and cannot be literally acted upon, has\nbeen long since abandoned as an absurdity. It is granted that a hundred\nfolios could not contain the hundredth part of all the limitations of\nhuman actions, and all the possible cases of a contentious casuistry;\nand it is also granted that human nature is not so inept as to be\nincapable of interpreting and limiting for itself such rules as\n'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'\n\nIn the same manner have many of the objections suggested at different\nperiods by the progress of science been dissolved; and, amongst the\nrest, those alleged from the remote historic antiquity of certain\nnations on which infidels, like Volney and Voltaire, once so confidently\nrelied. And it is worthy of remark, that some of the old objections\nof philosophers have disappeared by the aid of that very\nscience--geology--which has led, as every new branch of science probably\nwill, to new ones. Geology has, however, in our judgment, done at least\nas much already to remove difficulties as to occasion them; and it is\nnot illogical, or perhaps unfair, to surmise that, we will only have\npatience, its own difficulties, as those of so many other branches of\nscience, will be eventually solved. One thing is clear,--that, if the\nBible be true and geology be true, that cannot be geologically true\nwhich is scripturally false, or vice versa; and we may therefore\nlaugh at the polite compromise which is sometimes affected by learned\nprofessors of theology and geology respectively. All we demand of\neither--all that is needed--is, that they refrain from a too hasty\nconclusion of absolute contradictions between their respective sciences,\nand retain quiet remembrance of the imperfection of our present\nknowledge both of geology and, as Butler says, of the Bible. The recent\ninterpretation of the commencement of Genesis--by which the first verse\nis simply supposed to affirm the original creation of all things, while\nthe second immediately refers to the commencement of the human economy;\npassing by those prodigious cycles which geology demands, with a silence\nworthy of a true revelation, which does not pretend to gratify our\ncuriosity as to the previous condition of our globe any more than our\ncuriosity as to the history of other worlds--was first suggested by\ngeology, though suspected and indeed anticipated by some of the\nearly church Fathers. But it is now felt by multitudes to be the more\nreasonable interpretation,--the second verse certainly more naturally\nsuggesting previous revolutions in the history of the earth than its\nthen instant creation: and though we frankly concede that we have\nnot yet seen any account of the whole first chapter of Genesis which\nquadrates with the doctrines of geology, it does not become us hastily\nto conclude that there can be none. If a further adjustment of those\ndoctrines, and a more diligent investigation of the Scripture together,\nshould hereafter suggest any possible harmony,--though not the true\none but one ever so gratuitously assumed,--it will be sufficient to\nneutralise the objection. This, it will be observed, is in accordance\nwith what has been already shown,--that wherever an objection is founded\non an apparent contradiction between two statements, it is sufficient to\nshow any possible way in which the statements may be reconciled, whether\nthe true one or not. The objection, in that case, to the supposition\nthat the facts are gratuitously assumed, though often urged, is, in\nreality, nothing to the purpose.* If it should ever be shown, for\nexample, that supposing as many geological eras as the philosopher\nrequires to have passed in the chasm between the first verse, which\nasserts the original dependence of all things on the fiat of the\nCreator, and the second, which is supposed to commence the human era,\nany imaginable condition of our system--at the close, so to speak, of a\ngiven geological period--would harmonise with a fair interpretation of\nthe first chapter or Genesis, the objection will be neutralised.\n\n____\n\n* Some admirable remarks in relation to the answers we are bound to give\nto objections to revealed religion have been made by Leibnitz (in reply\nto Bayle) in the little tract prefixed to his Theodicee, entitled 'De\nla Conformite de la Foi avec la Raison.' He there shows that the utmost\nthat can fairly be asked is, to prove that the affirmed truths involve\nno necessary contradiction.\n\n____\n\n\nWe have little doubt in our own minds that the ultimately converging\nthough, it may be, transiently discrepant conclusions of the sciences of\nphilology, ethnology, and geology (in all of which we may rest assured\ngreat discoveries are yet to be made) will tend to harmonise with the\nultimate results of a more thorough study of the records of the race as\ncontained in the book of Revelation. Let us be permitted to imagine\none example of such possible harmony. We think that the philologist may\nengage to make out, on the strictest principles of induction, from the\ntenacity with which all communities cling to their language, and the\nslow observed rate of change by which they alter; by which Anglo-Saxon,\nfor example has become English*, Latin Italian, and ancient Greek modern\n(though these languages have been affected by every conceivable cause of\nvariation and depravation); that it would require hundreds of thousands,\nnay millions, of years to account for the production, by known natural\ncauses, of the vast multitude of totally distinct languages, and tens\nof thousands of dialects, which man now utters. On the other hand, the\ngeologist is more and more persuaded of comparatively recent origin\nof the human race. What, then, is to harmonise these conflicting\nstatements? Will it not be curious if it should turn out that nothing\ncan possibly harmonise them but the statement of Genesis, that in order\nto prevent the natural tendency of the race to accumulate on one spot\nand facilitate their dispersion and destined occupancy of the globe, a\npreternatural intervention expedited the operation of the causes\nwhich would gradually have given birth to distinct languages? Of the\nprobability of this intervention, some profound philologist have, on\nscientific grounds alone, expressed their conviction. But in all such\nmatters, what we plead for is only--patience; we wish not to dogmatise;\nall we ask is, a philosophic abstinence from dogmatism. In relation to\nmany difficulties, what is now a reasonable exercise of faith may one\nday be rewarded by a knowledge which on those particular points may\nterminate it. And, in such ways, it is surely conceivable that a great\npart of the objections against Revelation may, in time, disappear; and,\nthough other objections may be the result of the progress of the other\nsciences or the origination of new, the solution of previous objections,\ntogether with the additions to the evidences of Christianity, external\nand internal, which the study of history and of the Scriptures\nmay supply, and the still brighter light cast by the progress of\nChristianity and the fulfilment of its prophecies, may inspire\nincreasing confidence that the new objections are also destined to yield\nto similar solvents. Meanwhile, such new difficulties, and those more\nawful and gigantic shadows which we have no reason to believe will ever\nbe chased from the sacred page,--mysteries which probably could not be\nexplained from the necessary limitation of our faculties, and are,\nat all events, submitted to us as a salutary discipline of our\nhumility,--will continue to form that exercise of faith which is\nprobably nearly equal in every age--and necessary in all ages, if we\nwould be made 'little children,' qualified 'to enter the kingdom of\nGod.'\n\n____\n\n+ It contains, let us recollect, (after all causes of changes, including\na conquest, have been at work upon it,) a vast majority of the Saxon\nwords spoken in the time of Alfred--nearly a thousand years ago!\n\n____\n\n\nIn conclusion we may remark, that while many are proclaiming that\nChristianity is effete, and that, in the language of Mr. Proudhon (who\ncomplacently says it amidst the ignominious failure of a thousand social\npanaceas or his own age and country), it will certainly 'die out in\nabout three hundred years;' and while many more proclaim that, as a\nreligion of supernatural origin and supernatural evidence, it is already\ndying, if not dead; we must beg leave to remind them that, even if\n'Christianity be false, as they allege, they are utterly forgetting the\nmaxims of a cautious induction in saying that it will therefore cease to\nexert dominion over mankind. What proof is there of this? Whether\ntrue or false, it has already survived numberless revolutions of human\nopinions, and all sorts of changes and assaults. It is not confined,\nlike other religions, to any one race--to any one clime--or any one form\nof political constitution. While it transmigrates freely from race to\nrace, and clime to clime, its chief home; too, is still in the bosom of\nenterprise, wealth, science, and civilisation; and it is at this moment\nmost powerful amongst the nations that have most of these. If not true,\nit has such an appearance of truth as to have satisfied many of the\nacutest and most powerful intellects of the species;--a Bacon, a Pascal,\na Leibnitz, a Locke, a Newton, a Butler;--such an appearance of truth as\nto have enlisted in its support an immense army of genius and learning:\ngenius and learning, not only in some sense professional, and often\nwrongfully represented as therefore interested, but much of both,\nstrictly extra-professional; animated to its defence by nothing but\na conviction of the force of the arguments by which its truth is\nsustained, and that 'hope full of immortality' which its promises have\ninspired. Under such circumstances it must appear equally rash and\ngratuitous to suppose, even if it be a delusion, that an institute,\nwhich has thus enlisted the sympathies of so many of the greatest minds\nof all races and of all ages--which is alone stable and progressive\namidst instability and fluctuation,--will soon come to an end. Still\nmore absurdly premature is it to raise a paean over its fall, upon every\nnew attack upon it, when it has already survived so many. This, in fact,\nis a tone which, though every age renews it, should long since have been\nrebuked by the constant falsification of similar prophecies, from\nthe time of Julian to the time of Bolingbroke, and from the time of\nBolingbroke to the time of Strauss. As Addison, we think, humorously\ntells the Atheist, that he is hasty in his logic when he infers that if\nthere be no God, immortality must be a delusion, since, if chance\nhas actually found him a place in this bad world, it may, perchance,\nhereafter find him another place in a worse,---so we say, that if\nChristianity be a delusion, since it is a delusion which has been proof\nagainst so much of bitter opposition, and has imposed upon such hosts\nof mighty intellects, these is nothing to show that it will not do so\nstill, in spite of the efforts either of Proudhon or a Strauss. Such\na tone was, perhaps, never so triumphant as during the heat of the\nDeistical controversy in our own country, and to which Butler alludes\nwith so much characteristic but deeply satirical simplicity, in the\npreface to his great work:--'It is come,' says he, 'I know not how, to\nbe taken for granted by many persons that Christianity is not so much\na subject of inquiry, but that it is now at length discovered to be\nfictitious .... On the contrary, thus much at least will here be found,\nnot taken for granted, but proved, that any reasonable man, who will\nthoroughly consider the matter, may be as much assured as he is of his\nown being, that it is not, however, so clear that there is nothing in\nit.' The Christian, we conceive, may now say the same to the Froudes,\nand Foxtons, and to much more formidable adversaries of the present day.\nChristianity, we doubt not, will still live, when they and their works,\nand the refutations of their works, are alike forgotten; and a new\nseries of attacks and defences shall have occupied for a while (as so\nmany others have done) the attention of the world. Christianity, like\nRome, has had both the Gaul and Hannibal at her gates: But as the\n'Eternal City' in the latter case calmly offered for sale, and sold, at\nan undepreciated price, the very ground on which the Carthaginian had\nfixed his camp, with equal calmness may Christianity imitate her example\nof magnanimity. She may feel assured that, as in so many past instances\nof premature triumph on the part of her enemies, the ground they occupy\nwill one day be its own; that the very discoveries, apparently hostile,\nof science and philosophy, will be a great extent with the discoveries\nin chronology and history; and thus will it be, we are confident, (and\nto a certain extent has been already), with those in geology. That\nscience has done much, not only to render the old theories of Atheism\nuntenable and to familiarise the minds of men to the idea of miracles,\nby that of successive creations, but to confirm the Scriptural statement\nof the comparatively recent origin of our Race. Only the men of science\nand the men of theology must alike Guard against the besetting fallacy\nof their kind,--that of too hastily taking for granted that they already\nknow the whole of their respective sciences, and of forgetting the\ndeclaration of the Apostle, equally true of all man's attainments,\nwhether in one department of science or another,--'We know but in part,\nand we prophesy in part.'\n\nThough Socrates perhaps expressed himself too absolutely when he said\nthat 'he only knew nothing,' yet a tinge of the same spirit,--a deep\nconviction of the profound ignorance of the human mind, even at its\nbest--has ever been a characteristic of the most comprehensive genius.\nIt has been a topic on which it has been fond of mournfully dilating.\nIt is thus with Socrates, with Plato, with Bacon (even amidst all his\nmagnificent aspirations and bold predictions), with Newton, with Pascal,\nand especially with Butler, in whom, if in any, the sentiment is carried\nto excess. We need not say that it is seldom found in the writings of\nthose modern speculators who rush, in the hardihood of their adventurous\nlogic, on a solution of the problems of the Absolute and the Infinite,\nand resolve in delightfully brief demonstrations the mightiest problems\nof the universe--those great enigmas, from which true philosophy\nshrinks, not because it has never ventured to think of them, but because\nit has thought of them enough to know that it is in vain to attempt\ntheir solution. To know the limits of human philosophy is the 'better\npart' of all philosophy; and though the conviction of our ignorance is\nhumiliating, it is, like every true conviction, salutary. Amidst\nthis night of the soul, bright stars--far distant fountains of\nillumination--are wont to steal out, which shine not while the imagined\nSun of reason is above the horizon! and it is in that night, as in the\ndarkness of outward nature, that we gain our only true ideas of the\nillimitable dimensions of the universe, and of our true position in it.\n\nMeanwhile we conclude that God has created 'two great lights,'--the\ngreater light to rule man's busy day--and that is Reason, and the lesser\nto rule his contemplative night--and that is Faith.\n\nBut faith itself shines only so long as she reflects some faint\nIllumination from the brighter orb.","title":"Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts: From The Edinburgh Review, October 1849, Volume 90, No. CLXXXII. (Pages 293-356)","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":29636}