{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_60488/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_60488","id":"gutenberg_60488","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60488","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity -- Essence, genius, nature","Philosophy and religion"],"text":"[Transcriber's note: This production is based on\nhttps://archive.org/details/meditationsoness00guiz/page/n6\nAdditional citations indicated by \"USCCB\", are\nbased on the United States Conference of Catholic\nBishops Bible found at\nhttp://usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible. ]\n\n\n\n\n{i}\n               Meditations\n\n{ii}\n\n{iii}\n            Meditations On\n\n    The Essence Of Christianity,\n\n                And On\n\n   The Religious Questions Of The Day.\n\n\n              By M. Guizot.\n\n\n\n    Translated From The French, Under The\n      Superintendence Of The Author.\n\n\n\n                  London:\n\n     John Murray, Albemarle Street.\n                   1864.\n\n\n{iv}\n\n                London:\n\n  Bradbury And Evans, Printers, Whitefriars.\n\n{v}\n\n                Contents.\n\n                                            Page\n\nI.    Natural Problems                          1\n\nII.   Christian Dogmas                         11\n\nIII.  The Supernatural                         84\n\nIV.   The Limits Of Science                   109\n\nV.    Revelation                              132\n\nVI.   The Inspiration Of Holy Scripture       142\n\nVII.  God According To The Bible              157\n\nVIII. Jesus Christ According To The Gospels   230\n\n      Note                                    299\n\n{vi}\n\n{vii}\n\n                Preface.\n\n\nDuring the last nineteen centuries, Christianity has been often\nassailed, and has successfully resisted every attack. Of these\nattacks, some have been more violent, but none more serious than\nthat of which it is, in _these_ days, the object.\n\nFor eighteen hundred years Christians were in turn persecutors\nand persecuted; Christians persecuted as Christians, Christians\npersecutors of every one who was not Christian--Christians\nmutually persecuting each other. This persecution varied, it is\ntrue, in degree of cruelty with the age and the country, as it\nalso did in the degree of inflexibility evinced and success\nattained in the prosecution of its object; but whatever the\ndiversity of state, church, or punishment, whatever the degree of\nseverity or laxity in the application of the principle, this\nprinciple was ever the same.\n{viii}\nAfter having had to endure proscription and martyrdom under the\nimperial government of Paganism, the Christian religion lived, in\nits turn, under the guard of the civil law, defended by the arms\nof secular power.\n\nIn these days it exists in the very presence of Liberty. It has\nto deal with free thought,--with free discussion. It is called\nupon to defend, to guard itself, to prove incessantly and against\nevery comer its moral and historical veracity, to vindicate its\nclaims upon man's intelligence and man's soul. Roman Catholics,\nProtestants, or Jews, Christians or philosophers, all, at least\nin our country, are sheltered from every persecution; for no one\nwithout incurring the risk of ridicule could characterise as\npersecution the sacrifices or the inconveniences to which the\nexpression of his opinion may occasionally subject him. To every\nman such expression of opinion is permitted, and can never lead\nto the forfeiture, on the part of any single individual, of any\nof his political rights or privileges.\n{ix}\nReligious Liberty--that is to say, the liberty of believing; of\nbelieving differently or of disbelieving--may be but imperfectly\naccepted and guaranteed as a principle in certain states; but it\nstill is evident that it is becoming so every day more and more,\nand that it will eventually become the Common Law of the\ncivilised world.\n\nOne of the circumstances that render this fact pregnant with\nimportance is that it does not stand isolated; but holds its\nplace in the great Intellectual and Social Revolution, which,\nafter the fermentation and the preparation of centuries, has\nbroken out and is in course of accomplishment in our own days.\nThe scientific spirit, the preponderance of the democratic\nprinciple, and that of political liberty, are the essential\ncharacteristics and invincible tendencies of this revolution.\nThese new forces may fall into enormous errors and commit\nenormous faults, the penalty for which they will ever dearly pay;\nstill they are definitively installed in modern society; the\nsciences will continue to develop themselves in its bosom in the\nfull independence of their methods and of their results; the\ndemocracy will establish itself in the positions which it has\nconquered, and on the ground which has been opened to it;\npolitical liberty in the midst of its storms and its\ndisappointments will still, sooner or later, cause itself to be\naccepted as the necessary guarantee for all the acquisitions and\nall the progress possible in society.\n{x}\nThese are the grand predominant facts to which all public\ninstitutions will now have to adapt themselves, and with which\nall authority whose action is upon the mind requires to live at\npeace.\n\nChristianity also must submit to the same tests and trials. As it\nhas surmounted all others, so also will it surmount this; its\nessence and origin would not be divine did they not permit it to\nadapt itself to all the different forms of human institutions, to\nserve them now as a guide, now as a support in their vicissitudes\nwhether of adversity or prosperity.\n{xi}\nIt is, however, of the most serious importance for Christians not\nto deceive themselves, either as to the nature of the struggle\nwhich they will have to sustain, or as to its perils and the\nlegitimate arms which they may use to combat them. The attack\ndirected against the Christian religion is one hotly carried on,\nnow with a brutal fanaticism, now with a dexterous learning; at\none time with the appeal to sincere convictions, and at another\ninvoking the worst passions; some contest Christianity as false,\nothers reject it as too exacting and imposing too much restraint;\nthe greater part apprehend it as a tyranny. Injustice and\nsuffering are not so soon forgotten; nor does one readily recover\nfrom the effect of terror. The memory of religious persecutions\nstill lives, and this it is that maintains, in multitudes, whose\nopinions vacillate, aversion, prejudice, and a lively sentiment\nof alarm. Christians on their side are loth to recognise and\naccommodate themselves to the new order of society; every moment\nthey are shocked, irritated, terrified by the ideas and language\nto which that society gives utterance.\n{xii}\nMen do not so readily pass from a state of privilege to one of\ncommunity of rights--from a state of dominion to one of liberty;\nthey do not resign themselves without a struggle to the audacious\nobstinacy of contradiction, to the daily necessity of resisting\nand conquering. Government according to principles of liberty is\nstill more influenced by passion, and entails a necessity of\nstill more exertion in the sphere of religion than of civil\npolitics: believers find it still more difficult to support\nincredulity than governments to bear with oppositions; and,\nnevertheless, these themselves are forced to do so, and can only\nfind in free discussion and in the full exercise of their\npeculiar liberties the force which they require to rise above\ntheir perilous condition, and reduce--not to silence, for that\nis impossible, but to an idle warfare--their inveterate enemies.\n\nTo leave that civil society, in which the different sects of\nreligion are now-a-days compelled to live in peace and side by\nside, and to enter religious society itself, the Christian Church\nof our days:--what is its actual position with respect to these\ngrand questions which it has to discuss with the spirit of human\nliberty and audacity?\n{xiii}\nDoes it comprehend properly, does it suitably carry on the\nwarfare in which it is engaged? Does it tend in its proceedings\nto a re-establishment of a real peace, and active harmonious\nrelations between itself and that general society in the midst of\nwhich it is living?\n\nI say _Christian Church_. It is, in effect, the whole Church\nof Christ, and not such or such a church that is in these days\nattacked, and vitally attacked. When men deny the Supernatural\nWorld, the Inspiration of the Scriptures, and the Divinity of\nJesus Christ, they really assail the whole body of\nChristians--Romanists, Protestants or Greeks: they are virtually\ndestroying the foundations of faith in all the belief of\nChristians, what ever their particular difference of religious\nopinion or forms of ecclesiastical government..\n{xiv}\nIt is by faith that all Christian Churches live; there is no form\nof government, monarchical or republican, concentrated or\ndiffused, that suffices to maintain a church; there is no\nauthority so strong, no liberty so broad, as to be able in a\nreligious society to dispense with the necessity of faith. For\nwhat is it that unites in a church if it is not faith? Faith is\nthe bond of souls. When then the foundations of their common\nfaith are attacked, the differences existing between Christian\nChurches upon special questions, or the diversities of their\norganization or government, become secondary interests; it is\nfrom a common peril that they have to defend themselves; or they\nmust reconcile themselves to see dried up the common source from\nwhich they all derive sustenance and life.\n\nI fear that the sentiment of this common peril is not, in all the\nChristian Churches, as clear and well defined, as deep and\npredominant, as their common safety requires. In presence of\nsimilar questions everywhere varied, of identical attacks\neverywhere directed against the vital facts and dogmas of\nChristianity, I dread Christians of the different communions not\nconcentrating all their forces upon the mighty struggles in which\nthey are, all, to engage.\n{xv}\nMy dread, however, is unattended by astonishment. Although the\ndanger is the same for all, the traditional opinions and habits,\nand consequently the actual dispositions, are very different.\nMany Romanists feel the persuasion that Faith would be saved were\nthey only delivered from liberty of thought. Many Protestants\nbelieve that they are but employing their right of free\nexamination, and do not lose their title to be regarded as\nChristians, when they are in effect abandoning the foundations\nand withdrawing from the source of Faith. Roman Catholicism has\nnot sufficient reliance on its roots, and respects too much its\nbranches; no tree exists that does not need culture and clearing\nin accordance with climate and season, if it is to be expected to\ncontinue to bear always good fruit; but the roots should be\nespecially defended from every attack. Protestantism is too\nforgetful that it also has roots from which it cannot be\nseparated without perishing, and that religion is not what an\nannual is in vegetation: a plant that men cultivate and renew at\ntheir pleasure.\n{xvi}\nWhilst the Romanists dread freedom of thought too much, the\nProtestants on their side have too great a fear of authority.\nSome believe that inasmuch as religious Faith has firm and fixed\npoints, movement and progress are incompatible with religious\nsociety; others affirm that a religious society can never have\nfixed points, and that religion consists in religious sentiment\nand individual belief. What would have become of Christianity,\nhad it from its birth been condemned to the immobility which the\nformer recommend; and what would become of it at the present day,\nwere it surrendered, as the latter would have it, to the caprice\nof every mind, and the wind of every day?\n\nHappily, God permits not that, at this crisis, the true\nprinciples and the true interests of the Christian Religion\nshould remain without sufficient defenders.\n{xvii}\nRomanists there are who understand their age and the new\nconstitution of society, who accept frankly its liberty,\nreligious and politic: it is precisely they who have most boldly\ntestified their attachment to the faith of Rome, who have claimed\nwith most ardor the essential liberties of their church, and\ndefended with most energy the rights of its chief. Nor are\nProtestants wanting who have used with the most untiring zeal all\nthe liberty acquired in our days by Protestantism; they have\nfounded all those associations and originated all those\nundertakings which have manifested the vital energy and extended\nthe action of the Protestant Church; they have demanded and they\ncontinue to demand, for this church, the reestablishment of its\nSynods, that is to say, its religious autonomy. Amongst these\nProtestants, where men have appeared who have not found in the\nProtestant Church as by law established the entire satisfaction\nof their convictions, they have felt no hesitation to separate\nfrom it and to found, with their own means alone, independent\nchurches.\n{xviii}\nIt may be affirmed also of the Protestants that they have most\nlargely put in practice all the rights and all the liberties of\nProtestantism, in the internal ordeal through which Christianity\nis at present passing; it is precisely they who assert most\nloudly the dogmas of the Christian Faith and maintain most\ninflexibly the authoritative rights established by law in the\nbosom of their church. The Liberal Romanists of the present day\nare the most zealous defenders of the fundamental traditions and\ninstitutions of Catholicism. The Protestants who have been the\nmost active during the last half-century in the exercise of the\nliberties of Protestantism are the firmest maintainers of its\ndoctrines and of its vital rules.\n\nHumanly speaking, it is upon the influence exercised and to be\nexercised in their respective churches and on the public, by\nthese two classes of Christians, that depends the peaceable issue\nof the crisis through which Christianity is in these days\npassing.\n{xix}\nOur society is, doubtless, far from meriting the title of a\nChristian one; still it cannot be characterised as\nanti-Christian; considered as one vast whole, it has no hostile\nor general prejudice against the Christian religion: it maintains\nthe habits, the instincts, I would willingly add the longings, of\nChristians; it is conscious that Christian Faith and Ordinance\nserve powerfully its interests with respect to order and peace;\nthe fanatical opponents of Christianity exercise upon it far more\ndisquieting than seductive influences, for it has already had\nexperience of their empire; and where society appears to offer a\nsilent acquiescence or even to pride itself upon them, still at\nbottom it dreads their progress.\n\nSuch being the state of the case, and such the constitution of\nsociety, how are we to draw men away from their apathy and their\nignorance in matters of religion? How lead them back to\nChristianity? They alone can accomplish this object, who, in\ntheir defence and propagation of the religion of Jesus, shall not\nwound society itself in the ideas, sentiments, rights and\ninterests which have at present rooted themselves in its very\nlife and energies.\n{xx}\nLike religion, modern society has also its fixed points and its\ninvincible tendencies: it can never be set on terms of harmony\nwith the former unless by the concurring action of men who have\nwith each of them a genuine and deep sentiment of sympathy. Since\nthe Christian Religion lives in these times confronting civil\nliberty, those alone can be efficient champions of religion who\nat the same time profess fully the Christian Faith and accept\nwith sincerity the tests of Liberty.\n\nBut in pursuing their pious and salutary enterprise, let not\nthese liberal Christians flatter themselves with the probability\nof any prompt or complete success: maintain and propagate the\nChristian faith they may, but they will never be able in the\nbosom of society to get rid either of incredulity or doubt; even\nwhile combating them they must learn to endure their presence; in\ninstitutions of freedom there is essentially an intermixture of\ngood and evil, of truth and error; contrary ideas and\ndispositions produce and develop themselves in it simultaneously.\n{xxi}\n\"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not,\"\nsaid Jesus to his apostles, \"to send peace, but a sword.\"\n[Footnote 1] The sword of Jesus Christ, that is, Christianity, at\nwar with human error and shortcomings; a victory, still a victory\never incomplete in an incessant struggle,--_that_ is the\ncondition to which those must submit with resignation who, in the\nbosom of liberty, defend the truth of Christianity.\n\n    [Footnote 1: Matthew x. 34.]\n\nWere these valiant and intelligent champions of the faith of\nJesus not adopted and accredited as such in the churches to which\nthey belong; did the Church of Rome furnish ground for thinking\nher essentially hostile to the fundamental principles and rights\nof modern society, and that she only tolerates them as Moses\ntolerated divorce amongst the Jews, \"because of the hardness of\ntheir heart\"; and, on the other hand, did the rejectors of the\nSupernatural, of the Inspiration of the Scriptures, and of the\nDivinity of Jesus Christ, predominate in the bosom of\nProtestantism; and finally, did the latter then become nought but\na hesitating system of philosophy;\n{xxii}\nif all these deplorable things were to be realised, I am far from\nthinking that, owing to such faults, such disasters, the religion\nof Christ would vanish from the world and definitively withdraw\nfrom men its light and its support: the destinies of religion are\nfar above human errors; but still, beyond all doubt, for mankind\nto be turned back from them, and for the light to return to their\nsoul and harmony to modern society, there would have again to\nburst out in the human soul and in society one of those immense\ntroubles, one of those revolutionary whirlwinds, whose evils man\nis compelled actually to undergo before he can derive benefit\nfrom its lessons.\n\nOn the point of addressing myself to questions more profound and\nof a less transitory nature, I content myself with having merely\nindicated what I think of the crisis that agitates Christendom at\nthe present day, as also of its main cause, its perils, and the\nchances, good or bad, that it holds out for the future.\n{xxiii}\nIn the work of which the first part is now before the public, I\nomit all the circumstantial facts and details as well as the\ndiscussions that grow out of them, and it is only with the\nChristian Religion as it is in itself, with its fundamental\nbelief and its reasonableness, that I occupy myself; it has been\nmy purpose to illustrate the truth of Christianity by contrasting\nit with the systems and the doubts that men set in array against\nit. It is my intention to avoid all direct and personal polemics;\nexpress reference to individuals embarrasses and envenoms all\nquestions in controversy, and gives rise to ill-judged deference\nor unjust invective, two descriptions of falsity for which alike\nI feel no sympathy: let me have then for adversaries ideas alone;\nand whatever these may be, I admit beforehand the possibility of\nsincerity on the part of those that prefer them. Without this\nadmission all serious discussion is out of the question; and\nneither the intellectual enormity of the error, nor its awful\npractical consequences, positively precludes sincerity on the\npart of him that promulgates it.\n{xxiv}\nThe mind of man is still more easily led astray than his heart,\nand is still more egotistical; after having once conceived and\nexpressed an idea, it attaches itself to it as to its own\noffspring, takes a pride in imprisoning itself in it, as if it\nwere so taking possession of the pure and entire truth.\n\nThese _Meditations_ will be divided into four series. In the\nfirst, which forms this volume, I explain and establish what\nconstitutes, in my opinion, the essence of the Christian\nreligion; that is to say, what those natural problems are, that\ncorrespond with the fundamental dogmas that offer their solution,\nthe supernatural facts upon which these same dogmas\nrepose--Creation, Revelation, the Inspiration of the Scriptures,\nGod according to the Biblical account, and Jesus according to the\nGospel narrative.\n{xxv}\nNext to the Essence of the Christian religion comes its history;\nand this will be the subject of a second series of\n_Meditations_, in which I shall examine the authenticity of\nthe Scriptures, the primary causes of the foundation of\nChristianity, Christian Faith, as it has always existed\nthroughout its different ages and in spite of all its\nvicissitudes; the great religious crisis in the sixteenth century\nwhich divided the Church and Europe between Roman Catholicism and\nProtestantism; finally those different anti-Christian crises,\nwhich at different epochs and in different countries have set in\nquestion and imperilled Christianity itself, but which dangers it\nhas ever surmounted. The third _Meditation_ will be\nconsecrated to the study of the actual state of the Christian\nreligion, its internal and external condition: I shall retrace\nthe regeneration of Christianity which occurred amongst us at the\ncommencement of the nineteenth century, both in the Church of\nRome and in the Protestant churches; the impulse imparted to it\nat the same epoch by the Spiritualistic Philosophy that then\nbegan again to flourish, and the movement in the contrary\ndirection which showed itself very remarkably soon afterwards in\nthe resurrection of Materialism, of Pantheism, of Scepticism, and\nin works of historical criticism.\n{xxvi}\nI shall attempt to determine the idea, and consequently, in my\nopinion, the fundamental error of these different systems, the\navowed and active enemies of Christianity. Finally, in the fourth\nseries of these _Meditations_ I shall endeavour to\ndiscriminate and to characterise the future destiny of the\nChristian religion, and to indicate by what course it is called\nupon to conquer completely and to sway morally this little corner\nof the universe termed by us our earth, in which unfold\nthemselves the designs and power of God, just as, doubtless, they\ndo in an infinity of worlds unknown to us.\n\nI have passed thirty-five years of my life in struggling, on a\nbustling arena, for the establishment of political liberty and\nthe maintenance of order as established by law. I have learnt, in\nthe labours and trials of this struggle, the real worth of\nChristian Faith and of Christian Liberty.\n{xxvii}\nGod permits me, in the repose of my retreat, to consecrate to\ntheir cause what remains to me of life and of strength. It is the\nmost salutary favour and the greatest honour that I can receive\nfrom His goodness.\n\n      Guizot.\n      Val-Richer, _June_, 1864.\n\n{xxviii}\n\n{1}\n\n              Meditations\n\n            On The Essence Of\n\n         The Christian Religion.\n\n\n\n            First Meditation.\n\n            Natural Problems.\n\n\nFrom the very origin of the human race, wherever man has existed,\nor still exists, certain questions have peculiarly and\nirresistibly fixed his attention, and they continue to do so at\nthe present hour.\n{2}\nThis arises not alone from a feeling of natural curiosity, or the\nardent thirst for knowledge, but from a deeper and more powerful\nmotive: the destiny of man is intimately involved in these\nquestions; they contain the secret not only of all that he sees\naround him, but of his own being; and when he aspires to solve\nthem, it is not merely because he desires to understand the\nspectacle of which he is a beholder, but because he feels, and is\nconscious of being himself an actor in the great drama of\nexistence, and because he seeks to ascertain his own part there,\nand comprehend his own destiny. His present conduct and his\nfuture lot are as much at issue as the satisfaction of his\nthought. These great problems are, for man, not questions of\nscience, but questions of life: in considering them he feels\nhimself compelled to say, with Hamlet, \"To be or not to be, that\nis the question.\"\n\nWhence does the world proceed, and whence does man appear in the\nmidst of it? What is the origin of each, and whither does each\ntend? What are their beginning and their end? Laws there are\nwhich govern them;--is there a legislator?\n{3}\nUnder the empire of these laws, man feels and calls himself free:\nis he so in reality? How is his liberty compatible with the laws\nwhich govern him and the world? Is he a passive instrument of\nfate, or a responsible agent? What are the ties and relations\nwhich connect him with the Legislator of the world?\n\nThe world and man himself present a strange and painful\nspectacle. Good and evil, both moral and physical, order and\ndisorder, joy and sorrow, are here intimately blended and yet in\ncontinual antagonism. Whence come this commingling and this\nstrife? Is good or is evil the condition and the law of man and\nof the world? If good, how then has evil found admission?\nWherefore suffering and death? Why this moral disorder?--the\ncalamities which so frequently befall the good, and the\nprosperity, so abhorrent to our feelings, which attends the\nwicked? Is this the normal and definitive state of man and of the\nworld?\n\n{4}\n\nMan is conscious that he is at the same time great and little,\nstrong and feeble, powerful and impotent. He finds in himself\nmatter for admiration and for love, and yet he suffices not to\nhimself in any respect; he seeks an aid, a support, beyond and\nabove himself: he asks, he invokes, he prays. What mean these\ninward disquietudes,--these alternate impulses of pride and\nweakness? Have they, or not, a meaning and an object? Why prayer?\n\nSuch are the natural problems, now dimly felt, now clearly\ndefined, which in all ages and among all nations, in every form\nand in every degree of civilization, by instinct or by reflexion,\nhave arisen, and still arise, in the human mind. I indicate only\nthe greatest, the most apparent: I might recall many others which\nare connected with them.\n\nNot only are these problems natural to man; they appertain to him\nalone; they are his peculiar privilege. Man alone, among all\ncreatures known to us, perceives and states them, and feels\nhimself imperiously called upon to solve them.\n{5}\nI borrow the following admirable observations from M. de\nCh\u00e2teaubriand:--\"Why does not the ox as I do? It can lie down\nupon the grass, raise its head toward heaven, and in its lowings\ncall upon that unknown Being who fills this immensity of space.\nBut no: content with the turf on which it tramples, it\ninterrogates not those suns in the firmament above, which are the\ngrand evidence of the existence of God. Animals are not troubled\nwith those hopes which fill the heart of man; the spot on which\nthey tread yields them all the happiness of which they are\nsusceptible; a little grass satisfies the sheep; a little blood\ngluts the tiger. The only creature that looks beyond himself, and\nis not all in all to himself, is man.\" [Footnote 2]\n\n    [Footnote 2: Genie du Christianisme, vol. i. p. 208, edit, of\n    1831.]\n\nFrom these problems, natural and peculiar to man, all religions\nhave sprung. The object of them all is to satisfy man's thirst\nfor their solution. As these problems are the source of religion,\nthe solutions they receive are its substance and foundation.\n{6}\nThere prevails in our days a very general tendency to regard\nreligion as consisting essentially--I might say wholly--in\nreligious sentiment, in those lofty and vague aspirations which\nare termed the poetry of the soul, beyond and above the realities\nof life. Through the religious sentiment, the soul enters into\nrelation with the Divine order of things; and this relation, of a\nwholly personal and intimate character, independent of all\npositive dogma, of any organized Church, is deemed to be\nall-sufficient for man, the true and needful religion.\n\nUnquestionably the religious sentiment, the intimate and personal\nrelation of the soul with the Divine order, is essential and\nnecessary to religion; but religion is more than this--much more.\nThe human soul is not to be divided and restricted to certain\nfaculties selected and exalted, whilst the rest are condemned to\nslumber. Man is not a mere sensitive and poetic being, aspiring\nto rise above the present and material world by love and\nimagination: he not only feels, but he thinks; he requires to\nknow and believe as well as love; it is not enough that his soul\nshould be capable of emotion and aspiration; he requires that it\nshould be fixed, and rest upon convictions in harmony with his\nemotions.\n{7}\nThis it is that man seeks in religion; he requires something more\nthan a pure and noble rapture; he requires enlightenment, as well\nas sympathy. But if the moral problems that beset his thought are\nnot solved, what he experiences may be poetry,--it is not\nreligion.\n\nI cannot contemplate unmoved the troubles of men of lofty minds,\nseeking in the religious sentiment alone a refuge against doubt\nand impiety. It is well to preserve, in the shipwreck of faith\nand the chaos of thought, the great instincts of our nature, and\nnot to lose sight of the sublime requirements which remain\nunsatisfied. I know not to what extent, men of eminent minds may\nthus compensate, by their sincerity and fervour of sentiment, for\nthe void in their belief; but let them not deceive themselves;\nbarren aspirations and specious doubts satisfy a man as little as\nto his future spiritual interests as with respect to his\ncondition in the present life; the natural problems to which I\nhave alluded will ever be the great weight pressing upon the\nsoul, and religious sentiment will never alone suffice to be the\nreligion of mankind.\n\n{8}\n\nBesides this apotheosis of religious sentiment, some at the\npresent day have essayed a different, a more serious and more\ndaring theory. Far from sounding the natural problems to which\nreligions correspond, schools of philosophy, occupying a\nprominent intellectual position,--the Pantheistic School, and the\nso-called Positive School,--suppress and deny them altogether. In\ntheir view, the world has existed, of itself, from all eternity,\nas have the laws also by which it is sustained and developed. In\ntheir elementary principles, and taken altogether, all things\nhave ever been what they now are, and what they will ever\ncontinue to be. There is no mystery in this universe; there exist\nonly facts and laws, naturally and necessarily linked together;\nand these furnish the field for human science, which, although\nincomplete, is yet indefinitely progressive, in its power as well\nas in its operations.\n\n{9}\n\nAccording to these views, Divine Providence and human liberty,\nthe origin of evil, the commingling and the strife of good and\nevil in the world, and in man, the imperfection of the present\norder of things, and the destiny of man, the prospect of the\nre-establishment of order in the future--these are all mere\ndreams, freaks of man's thought: no such questions indeed exist,\ninasmuch as the world is eternal, it is in its actual state\ncomplete, normal, and definitive, though at the same time\nprogressive. The remedy for the moral and physical evils which\nafflict mankind, must then be sought, not in any power superior\nto the world, but simply in the progress of the sciences and the\nadvance of human enlightenment.\n\n{10}\n\nI shall not here discuss this system; I do not even qualify it by\nits true name; I merely recapitulate its tenets. But, at the\nfirst and simple aspect, what contempt does it manifest of the\nspontaneous and universal instincts of man! What heedlessness of\nthe facts which fill and never cease to characterize the\nuniversal history of the human race!\n\nNevertheless to this we are come: not a solution, but the\nnegation of the natural problems, which irresistibly occupy the\nhuman soul, is presented to man for his full satisfaction and\nrepose. Let him follow the mathematical or physical sciences; let\nhim be a mechanician, chemist, critic, novelist, or poet; but let\nhim not enter upon what is termed the sphere of religious and\ntheological inquiry: here are no real questions to solve, nought\nto investigate, nothing to do,--nothing to expect,--absolutely\nnothing.\n\n{11}\n\n          Second Meditation.\n\n          Christian Dogmas.\n\n\nThe Christian religion knows man better, and treats man better:\nit has other answers to his questions; and it is between the\nabsolute negation of the problems of religion and the Christian\nsolution of these problems that the discussion lies at the\npresent day.\n\nSome words there are which we now regard with distrust and alarm:\nwe suspect their masking illegitimate pretensions and tyranny.\nSuch, in our days, has been the lot of the word _dogma_. To\nmany this word imparts an imperious necessity to believe, at once\noffending and disquieting. Singular contrast! On all sides we\nseek for principles, and we take alarm at dogmas.\n\n{12}\n\nThis sentiment, however absurd in itself, is in no way strange;\nChristian dogmas have served as motive and pretext for so much\niniquity, so many acts of oppression and cruelty, that their very\nname has become tainted and suspected. The word bears the penalty\nof the reminiscences which it awakens: and justly. All attacks\nupon the liberty of conscience, all employment of force to\nextirpate or to impose religious belief, is, and ever has been,\nan iniquitous and tyrannical act. All powers, all parties, all\nchurches, have held such acts to be not only permissible, but\nenjoined by the Divine Law: all have deemed it not merely their\nright, but their duty, to prevent and to punish by law and human\nforce, error in matters of religion. They may all allege in\nexcuse, the sincerity of their belief in the legitimacy of this\nusurpation. The usurpation is not the less enormous and fatal,\nand perhaps indeed it is, of all human usurpations, the one which\nhas inflicted on men the most odious torments and the grossest\nerrors.\n{13}\nIt will constitute the glory of our time to have discarded this\npretension: nevertheless it yet exists, with persistency, in\ncertain states, in certain laws, in certain recesses of the human\nsoul and of Christian society; and there is, and ever will be,\nneed to watch and to combat it, to render its banishment\nunconditional and without appeal. Subdued, however, it is: civil\nfreedom in matters of faith and religious life has become a\nfundamental principle of civilization and of law. These\nquestions, affecting the relations of man to God, are no longer\ndiscussed or adjusted in the arena and by a recourse to the hand\nof political and executive power; but they are transported to the\nsphere of the intellect and left to the uncontrolled working of\nthe mind itself.\n\nBut again, in this sphere of the intellect, these questions still\nstart up and call loudly for their peculiar solution--that is,\nfor the fundamental facts and ideas, the principles in effect\nwhich their nature requires. The Christian religion has its own\nprinciples, which constitute the rational basis of the faith it\ninculcates and the life which it enjoins. These are termed its\ndogmas.\n{14}\nThe\nChristian dogmas are the principles of the Christian religion,\nand the Christian solutions of the problems of natural religion.\n\nLet men of a serious mind, who have not entirely rejected the\nChristian religion, and who still admire it, whilst denying its\nfundamental dogmas, beware of this: the flowers whose perfume\ncaptivates them will quickly fade, the fruits they delight in\nwill soon cease to grow when the axe shall have been applied to\nthe roots of the tree that bears them.\n\nFor myself, arrived at the term of a long life, one of labour, of\nreflection, and of trials,--of trials in thought as well as in\naction,--I am convinced that, the Christian dogmas are the\nlegitimate and satisfactory solutions of those religious problems\nwhich, as I have said, nature suggests and man carries in his own\nbreast, and from which he cannot escape.\n\n{15}\n\nI beg, at the outset, Theologians, whether Catholic or\nProtestant, to pardon me. I have no design to cite or to explain,\nor to maintain, all the various doctrinal points, all the\narticles of faith, which have been included in the term of\nChristian dogmas. During eighteen centuries, Christian theology\nhas very often ventured to advance out of and beyond the limits\nof the Christian religion: man has confounded his own labours\nwith the work of God. It is the natural consequence of the union\nof human activity and human imperfection. This same result may be\ntraced throughout the history of the world, especially in the\nhistory of the society and religion upon which God has grafted\nthe Christian religion.\n\nAt the time when God raised up Jesus Christ among the Jews, the\nfaith and the law of the Jews were no longer solely and purely\nthe faith and law which God had given to them by Moses: the\nPharisees, the Sadducees, and many others, had essentially\nmodified, enlarged, and altered both. Christianity too has had\nits Pharisees and its Sadducees; in its turn it has been made to\nfeel the workings of human thought and the influence of human\npassions on its Divine revelation.\n{16}\nI cannot recognize, in all the uncertain fruits of these labours,\nthe claim to the title of Christian dogmas. Nevertheless I have\nno intention here to specify particularly and to combat such\ntenets in the Church and in Christian theology, as I can neither\naccept nor defend. It is not for me--and I venture to say, it is\nnot for any Christian--to scan critically the interior of the\nEdifice, at a moment when its foundations are ardently attacked.\nFar rather I prefer to rally in a common defence all who abide\nwithin its walls. I shall here allude only to the dogmas common\nto them all, which I sum up in these terms:--The Creation,\nProvidence, Original Sin, the Incarnation, and the Redemption.\nThese constitute the essence of the Christian religion, and all\nwho believe in these dogmas I hold to be Christians.\n\nOne leading and common characteristic in these dogmas strikes me\nat the outset: they deal frankly with the religious problems\nnatural to and inherent in man, and offer at once the solution.\n{17}\nThe dogma of Creation attests the existence of God, as Creator\nand Legislator, and it attests also the link which unites man\nwith God. The dogma of Providence explains and justifies prayer,\nthat instinctive recourse of man to the living God, to that\nsupreme Power which is ever present with him in life, and which\ninfluences his destiny. The dogma of Original Sin accounts for\nthe presence of evil and disorder in mankind and in the world.\nThe dogmas of the Incarnation and of Redemption, rescue man from\nthe consequences of evil, and open to him a prospect in another\nlife of the re-establishment of order. Unquestionably, the system\nis grand, complete, well connected, and forcible: it answers to\nthe requirements of the human soul, removes the burden which\noppresses it, imparts the strength which it needs, and the\nsatisfaction to which it aspires. Has it a rightful claim to all\nthis power? Is its influence legitimate, as well as efficacious?\n\n{18}\n\nIn my own mind I have borne the burthen of the objections to the\nChristian system, and to each of its essential dogmas; I have\nexperienced the anxieties of doubt: I shall state how I have\nescaped from doubt, and the ground upon which my convictions have\nbeen founded.\n\n\n\n            I. Creation.\n\nThe only serious opponents of the dogma of the Creation are those\nwho maintain that the universe, the earth, the man upon the\nearth, have existed from all eternity, and, collectively, in the\nstate in which they now are. No one however can hold this\nlanguage, to which facts are invincibly opposed. How many ages\nman has existed on the earth, is a question that has been largely\ndiscussed, and is still under discussion. The inquiry in no way\naffects the dogma of the Creation itself: it is a certain and\nrecognized fact, that man has not always existed on the earth,\nand that the earth has for long periods undergone different\nchanges incompatible with man's existence. Man therefore had a\nbeginning: man has come upon the earth. How has he come there?\n\n{19}\n\nHere the opponents of the dogma of Creation are divided: some\nuphold the theory of spontaneous generation; others, the\ntransformation of species. According to one party, matter\npossesses, under certain circumstances and by the simple\ndevelopment of its own proper power, the faculty of creating\nanimated beings. According to others, the different species of\nanimated beings which still exist, or have existed at various\nepochs and in the different conditions of the earth, are derived\nfrom a small number of primitive types, which have possessed,\nthrough the lapse of millions and thousands of millions of ages,\nthe power of developing and perfecting themselves, so as to gain\nadmission, through transformation, into higher species. Hence\nthey conclude, with more or less hesitation, that the human race\nis the result of a transformation, or a series of\ntransformations.\n\n{20}\n\nThe attempt to establish the theory of spontaneous production\ndates from a remote period. Science has ever baffled it: the more\nits observations have been exact and profound, the more have they\nrefuted the hypothesis of the innate creative power of matter.\nThis result has been again recently established by the attentive\nexamination of men of eminent scientific attainments, within and\nwithout the walls of the Academy of Sciences. But were it even\notherwise,--could the advocates of the theory of spontaneous\nproduction refer to experiments hitherto irrefutable, these would\nfurnish no better explanation of the first appearance of man upon\nearth, and I should retain my right to repeat here what I have\nadvanced elsewhere on this subject:[Footnote 3]--\n\n    [Footnote 3: L'Eglise et la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Chr\u00e9tienne en 1861,\n    p. 27.]\n\n{21}\n\n\"Such a mode of generation cannot, nor ever could, produce any\nbut infant beings, in the first hour and in the first state of\nincipient life. It has, I believe, never been asserted, nor will\nany person ever affirm, that, by spontaneous generation, man--\nthat is to say, man and woman, the human couple--can have issued,\nor that they have issued at any period, from matter, of full form\nand stature, in possession of all their powers and faculties, as\nGreek paganism represented Minerva issuing from the brain of\nJupiter. Yet it is only upon this supposition, that man,\nappearing for the first time upon earth, could have lived there\nto perpetuate his species and to found the human race. Let any\none picture to himself the first man, born in a state of the\nearliest infancy, alive but inert, devoid of intelligence,\npowerless, incapable of satisfying his own wants even for a\nmoment, trembling, sobbing, with no mother to listen to or feed\nhim! And yet we have in this a picture of the first man, as\npresented by the system of spontaneous generation. It is\nmanifestly not thus that the human race first appeared upon\nearth.\"\n\nThe system of the transformation of species is no less refuted by\nscience than by the instincts of common sense. It rests upon no\ntangible fact, on no principle of scientific observation or\nhistoric tradition.\n{22}\nAll the facts ascertained, all the monuments collected in\ndifferent ages and different places, respecting the existence of\nliving species, disprove the hypothesis of their having undergone\nany transformation, any notable and permanent change: we meet\nwith them a thousand, two thousand, three thousand years ago, the\nsame as they are at the present day. In the same species the\nraces may vary and undergo mutual changes: the species do not\nchange; and all attempts to transform them artificially, by\ncrossings with allied species, have only resulted in\nmodifications, which, after two or three generations, have been\nstruck with barrenness, as if to attest the impotence of man to\neffect, by the progressive transformation of existing species, a\ncreation of new species. Man is not an ape transformed and\nperfected by some dim imperceptible fermentation of the elements\nof nature and by the operation of ages: this assumed explanation\nof the origin of the human species is a mere vague hypothesis,\nthe fruit of an imagination ill comprehending the spectacle that\nnature presents, and therefore easily seduced to form ingenious\nconjectures: these their authors sow in the stream of events\nunknown and of time infinite, and trust to them for the\nrealization of their dreams.\n{23}\nThe principle of the fundamental diversity and the permanence of\nspecies--firmly upheld by M. Cuvier, M. Flourens, M. Coste, M.\nQuatrefages, and by all exact observers of facts--remains\ndominant in science as in reality. [Footnote 4]\n\n    [Footnote 4: Cuvier--Discours sur les R\u00e9volutions du Globe,\n    pp. 117, 120, 124 (edit. 1825); Flourens--Ontologie\n    Naturelle, pp. 10-87 (1861); Journal des Savants (October,\n    November, and December, 1863); three articles on the work of\n    Ch. Darwin, On the Origin of Species and the Laws of Progress\n    among Organised Beings; Coste--Histoire G\u00e9n\u00e9rale et\n    Particuli\u00e8re du D\u00e9veloppement des Corps Organis\u00e9s; Discours\n    Pr\u00e9liminaire, vol. i. p. 23; Quatrefages--Metamorphoses de\n    l'Homme et des Animaux, p. 225 (1862); and his articles On\n    the Unity of the Human Species, published in the \"Revue des\n    Deux Mondes,\" in 1860 and 1861, and collected in one volume\n    (1861).]\n\n{24}\n\nBesides these vain attempts to supersede God the Creator, and to\nexplain by the inherent and progressive power of matter, the\norigin of man and of the world, the Christian dogma of Creation\nhas yet other adversaries. One party, to combat it, seizes its\narms from the Bible itself, alleging the account there given of\nthe successive facts of the creation, of which the world and man\nwere the result; they cite and enumerate the difficulties of\nreconciling this account with the observations and the\nconclusions of science. I shall weigh the force of this class of\nobjections in treating of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures,\nof their real object and true meaning; but I at once raise the\ndogma of Creation above this attack,--placing it at its proper\nheight and isolation: it is the general fact, it is the very\nprinciple of creation which constitutes the dogma; what ever may\nbe the obscurities or the scientific difficulties presented by\nthe biblical narrative, the principle and the general fact of the\nCreation remain unaffected: God the Creator does not the less\nremain in possession of His work. The Christian religion, in its\nessence, asserts and demands nothing more.\n\n{25}\n\nBut lastly, the Christian dogma of Creation is met by the general\nobjection raised against all the facts and all the acts which are\ntermed supernatural: that is to say, against the existence of God\nas well as the dogma of Creation, against all religions in common\nwith Christianity. Such a question requires to be considered, not\nwith reference to any particular dogma, or with a view to defend\none side only of the edifice of Christianity. This point, then, I\nshall presently examine frankly and in all its bearings.\n\n\n            II. Providence.\n\nGod the Creator is also God the Preserver. He lives, and is at\nthe same time the source of life. The union between Him and his\ncreature does not cease when the creature is brought into\nexistence. The dogma of Providence is consequent upon that of\nCreation.\n\n{26}\n\nPrayer is more than the mere outburst of the desires or sorrows\nof the soul, seeking that satisfaction, strength, or consolation\nwhich it does not find within itself; it is the expression of a\nfaith, instinctive or reflective, obscure or clear, wavering or\nsteadfast, in the existence, the presence, the power, and the\nsympathy of the Being to whom prayer is addressed. Without a\ncertain measure of faith and trust in God, prayer would not burst\nforth, or would suddenly be dried up in the soul. If faith\neverywhere resists, and everywhere outlives all the denials, all\nthe doubts, and all the darkness which oppress mankind, it is\nthat man bears within himself an imperishable consciousness of\nthe enduring bond which connects him with God, and God with him.\n\nFar from destroying this sentiment, experience and the spectacle\nof life explain and confirm it. In reflecting on his destiny, man\nrecognises in it three different sources, and divides, so to say,\ninto three classes the facts which make up the whole. He is\nconscious of being subject to events which are the consequence of\nlaws, general, permanent, and independent of his will, but which\nby his intelligence he observes and comprehends.\n{27}\nBy the act of his free will he also himself creates events, of\nwhich he knows himself to be author, and these have their own\nconsequences and enter too into the tissue of his life. Lastly,\nhe passes through events, in his view, neither the result of\nthose general laws from which nothing can withdraw him, nor the\nact of his own liberty,--events of which he perceives neither the\ncause, the reason, nor the author.\n\nMan attributes this last class of events sometimes to a blind\ncause, which he terms chance; at another, to an intelligent and\nsupreme intention which is in God. His mind at times revolts at\nthe inanity of this word _chance_, which explains and\ndefines nothing; and he then pictures to himself a mysterious,\nimpenetrable power, a merely necessary chain of unknown facts, to\nwhich he gives the name of fatality, destiny. To account for this\nobscure and accidental part of human life, which originates\nneither from any general and conceivable laws, nor from the free\nwill of man himself, we must choose between fatality and\nProvidence, chance and God.\n\n{28}\n\nI express my meaning without hesitation. Who ever accepts as a\nsatisfactory explanation the theory of fatality and chance, does\nnot truly believe in God. Whoever believes truly in God, relies\nupon Providence. God is not an expedient, invented to explain the\nfirst link in the chain of causation, an actor called to open by\ncreation the drama of the world, then to relapse into a state of\ninert uselessness. By the very fact of his existence, God is\npresent with his work, and sustains it. Providence is the natural\nand necessary development of God's existence; his constant\npresence and permanent action in creation. The universal and\ninsuperable instinct which leads man to prayer, is in harmony\nwith this great fact; he who believes in God cannot but have\nrecourse to Him and pray to Him.\n\n{29}\n\nObjections are raised to the name itself of God. He acts, it is\nsaid, only by general and permanent laws: how can we implore His\ninterference in favour of our special and exceptional desires? He\nis immutable, ever perfect, and ever the same: how is it\nconceivable that He lends Himself to the fickleness of human\nsentiments and wishes? The prayer which ascends to Him is\nforgetful of his real nature. Men have treated the attributes of\nGod as furnishing an objection to his Providence.\n\nThis objection, so often repeated, never fails to astonish me.\nThe majority of those who urge it, assert at the same time that\nGod is incomprehensible, and that we cannot penetrate the secret\nof his nature. What then is this but to pretend to comprehend\nGod? and by what right do they oppose his nature to his\nprovidence, if his nature is, to us, an impenetrable mystery? I\nrefrain from reproaching them for their ambition; ambition is the\nprivilege and the glory of man; but in retaining it, let them not\noverlook its legitimate limits. There is only this alternative:\neither man must cease to believe in God, because he cannot\ncomprehend Him, or in effect admit his incomprehensibility, and\nstill at the same time believe in Him.\n{30}\nHe cannot pass and repass incessantly from one system to the\nother, now declaring God to be incomprehensible; now speaking of\nHim, of his nature and his attributes, as if He were within the\nprovince of human science. Great as is the question of\nProvidence, the one I have here to consider is still greater, for\nit is the question of the very existence of God; and the\nfundamental inquiry is to know whether He exists, or does not\nexist. God is at once light and mystery: in intimate relation\nwith man, and yet beyond the limits of his knowledge. I shall\npresently endeavour to mark the limit at which human knowledge\nstops, and indicate its proper sphere; but this I at once assume\nas certain: whoever, believing in God and speaking of Him as\nincomprehensible, yet persists in endeavouring to define Him\nscientifically, and seeks to penetrate the mystery, which he has\nyet admitted, is in great risk of destroying his own belief, and\nof setting God aside, which is one way of denying Him.\n\n{31}\n\nBut I leave for a moment these two simultaneous propositions,\nnamely, the impossibility of comprehending God, and the necessity\nof believing in Him; and I proceed at once to that objection to\nthe special providence of God which is drawn from the general\ncharacter of the laws of nature. This objection results from\nconfounding very different things, and overlooking a fundamental\none,--the fact characteristic indeed of human nature. It is true\nthat the providence of God presides over the order of the world\nwhich He governs by general and permanent laws: these laws would\nbe more accurately designated by another name; they are the Will\nof God, continually acting upon the world, for not only the laws\nbut the Lawgiver are there ever present. But when God created\nman, He created him different from the physical world; free, and\na moral agent; and hence there is a fundamental difference\nbetween the action of God on the physical world, and his action\non man.\n{32}\nI shall subsequently state my opinion as to the full meaning of\nthe expression, \"Man is a free being,\" and as to the nature of\nthe consequences to which it leads; for the present, I assume, as\na certain and incontestable fact, this principle of human\nliberty,--of the free determination of man considered as a moral\nagent. Admitting this, it cannot be said that God governs mankind\nat large by general and permanent laws; for what would this be\nbut to ignore or annul the liberty granted to man, that is to\nsay, to misconceive and mutilate the Work of God himself. Man\nexercises a free determination, and in his own life actually\ngives birth to events which are not the result of any general and\nexternal laws. Divine Providence watches the operations of man's\nvolition, and records the manner in which it has been exercised.\nIt does not treat man as it deals with the stars in heaven and\nthe waves of the ocean, which have neither thought nor will; with\nman it has other relations than with nature, and employs a\ndifferent mode of action.\n\n{33}\n\nThere is little wisdom in instituting comparisons between objects\nor facts not essentially analogous; and the idea of God has been\nso often disfigured by representing Him in the image of man, that\nI mistrust the efficacy of any analogies borrowed from humanity\nto convey a conception of God. I cannot, however, overlook the\nfact, that God has created man in his own image, nor can I\nabsolutely refrain from seeking, in nature or the life of man,\nsome type to shadow forth the features of God. Let us consider\nthe human family: the father and mother assist in directing the\nactive development of the child; they watch over it with\nauthority and tenderness; they control its liberty without\nannulling it, and they listen to its little prayers--now granting\nthem, now refusing them, as their reason dictates, and with a\nview to the child's main and future interests.\n{34}\nThe child, without thought or design, by the spontaneous instinct\nof its nature, recognizes the authority and feels the tenderness\nof its parents; as it advances in age, it sometimes obeys and\nsometimes resists their injunctions, using or misusing its\nnatural liberty; but in all the fickleness of its will, it asks,\nit entreats, full of confidence--joyous and thankful when it\nobtains from its parents what it desires; yet, when denied, still\nready again to ask and to entreat with the same confidence as\nbefore.\n\nThis is what takes place in the government of the human family\nwhen ruled according to the dictates of nature and right. An\nimage we have here, imperfect but still true--a shadowing-forth,\nfaint yet faithful--of Divine Providence. Thus it is that the\nChristian religion qualifies and describes the action of God in\nthe life of man. It exhibits God as ever present and accessible\nto man, as a father to his child; it exhorts, encourages, invites\nman to implore, to confide in, to pray to God. It reserves\nabsolutely the answer of God to that prayer; He will grant, or He\nwill refuse: we cannot penetrate his motives--\"The ways of God\nare not our ways.\"\n{35}\nNevertheless, to prayer, ceaseless and ever renewed, the\nChristian dogma associates the firm hope that \"nothing is\nimpossible with God.\" This dogma is thus in full and intimate\nharmony with the nature of man; whilst recognizing his liberty,\nit does homage to his dignity; in tendering to him the resource\nof an appeal to God it provides for his weakness. In science, it\nsuppresses not the mystery which cannot be suppressed; but, in\nman's life, it solves the natural problem which weighs upon the\nsoul.\n\n\n\n\n           III. Original Sin.\n\nThe dogmas of Creation and Providence bring us into the presence\nof God; it is the action of God upon the world and man that they\nproclaim and affirm. The dogma of Original Sin brings us back to\nman; it is the act of man towards God, which stands at the very\nbeginning of the history of mankind.\n\n{36}\n\nIn what does this dogma consist? What are the elements and the\nessential facts which constitute it, and upon which it is\nfounded?\n\nThe dogma of Original Sin implies and affirms these propositions:\n\n1. That God, in creating man, has created him an agent, moral,\nfree, and fallible;\n\n2. That the will of God is the moral law of man, and obedience to\nthe will of God is the duty of man, inasmuch as he is a moral and\nfree agent;\n\n3. That, by an act of his own free will, man has knowingly failed\nin his duty, by disobeying the law of God;\n\n4. That the free man is a responsible being, and that\ndisobedience to the law of God has justly entailed on him\npunishment;\n\n5. That that responsibility and that punishment are hereditary,\nand that the fault of the first man has weighed and does weigh\nupon the human race.\n\n{37}\n\nThe authority of God, the duty of obedience to the law of God,\nthe liberty and responsibility of man, the heritage of human\nresponsibility are, in their moral chronology, the principles and\nthe facts comprised in the dogma of Original Sin.\n\nI turn away my attention for a moment from the dogma itself, its\nsource, its history, the Biblical and Christian tradition of this\nfirst step in evil of the human race. And considering man, his\nnature, and his destiny in their actual and general state, I\ninvestigate and verify the moral facts as they manifest\nthemselves at the present day, to the eyes of good sense, amidst\nthe disputes of the learned.\n\nMan, at his birth, is subjected to the moral authority, as well\nas the physical power of the parents who, humanly speaking,\ncreated him. Obedience is to him a duty, and at the same time a\nnecessity. This physical necessity and this moral obligation,\nhowever ultimately connected with each other, are not one and\nidentical; and the child, in its spontaneous development,\ninstinctively feels the moral obligation long before it is\nconscious of the physical necessity.\n{38}\nThe instinctive feeling of the obligation is united with the\ngrowing sentiment of affection; and the child obeys the look, the\nvoice of its mother, unconscious of its absolute dependence upon\nher. As the sentiment of affection and the instinct of obligatory\nobedience are the first dawn of moral good in the development of\nthe child, so the impulse to disobedience is the first symptom,\nthe first appearance of moral evil. It is with the voluntary\ndisobedience of the child to the will of its mother that the\nmoral infraction commences, and it is in disobedience that it\nresides. It considers neither the motives nor the consequences of\nits act; it is simply conscious that it disobeys, and regards its\nmother with a mingled feeling of restlessness and defiance; it\ntries, with hesitation, the maternal authority; it strives to be,\nand especially to appear, independent of the natural and\nlegitimate power which rules it, and which it recognises at the\nvery moment when it opposes its own will to that higher law.\n\n{39}\n\nAs the child, so is the man. As man is born free, so he lives\nfree; and as he is born subject, so he lives subject. Liberty\nco-exists with authority and resists without annulling it.\nAuthority exists before liberty, and as it does not yield to it,\nso neither does it supersede it. Man, inasmuch as he knows that\nhe disobeys, renders homage to authority by the very fact of his\ndisobedience. Authority, on its side, recognizes the liberty of\nman, by the condemnation which it passes on him for having\nmisused it; for he would not be responsible for his acts were he\nnot free. In the co-existence of these two powers, authority and\nliberty, at one time in accordance, at another in conflict, lies\nthe great secret of nature and of human destiny, the fundamental\nprinciple of man and of the world.\n\nLet it be clearly understood that I speak here of the moral\nworld, of the world of thought and of will. In the physical world\nthere is neither authority nor liberty; there are merely certain\nforces, forces acting inevitably and unequally.\n{40}\nIf the question concerned the material world, could I do better\nthan repeat what Pascal has admirably said: \"Man is but a\nreed--the weakest in nature--but he is a reed which thinks; the\nuniverse need not rise in arms to crush him; a vapour, a drop of\nwater suffices to kill him. But were the universe to crush him,\nman would still be nobler than the power which killed him, for he\nknows that he dies; and of the advantage which the universe has\nover him, the universe knows nothing.\" When man obeys or\ndisobeys, he knows just as well that authority confronts him, as\nthat liberty of action abides with himself. He knows what he\ndoes, and he charges himself with the responsibility. Moral order\nis here complete.\n\nThroughout all times and in all places, in all men, as in the\nfirst man, disobedience to legitimate authority is the principle\nand foundation of moral evil, or, to call it by its religious\nname, of sin.\n\n{41}\n\nDisobedience has various and complicated sources; it may spring\nfrom a thirst for independence, from ambition or presumptuous\ncuriosity, or from giving rein to human inclinations and\ntemptations; but, whatever its origin, disobedience is ever the\nessential characteristic of that free act which constitutes sin,\nas it is also the source of the responsibility which accompanies\nit.\n\nEminent men, eminently pious men, have combated the doctrine of\nhuman liberty; unable to reconcile it with what they term the\ndivine prescience, they have denied the fundamental fact of the\nnature of man, rather than fully acknowledge the mystery of the\nnature of God. Others, equally eminent and sincere, have limited\nthemselves to raising doubts regarding human liberty, and denying\nit the value of an absolute and peremptory fact. In my opinion,\nthey have confounded facts essentially different, although\nintimately blended; they have ignored the special and simple\ncharacter of the very fact of free will. During a course of\nlectures which I delivered thirty-five years ago at the Sorbonne,\non the history of civilization in France, having occasion to\nexamine the controversy of St. Augustine with Pelagius on free\nwill, predestination, and grace, I explained these subjects in\nterms which I repeat here, finding no others which appear to me\nmore exact and more complete:--\n\n{42}\n\n  \"The fact which lies at the foundation of the whole dispute,\" I\n  said in 1829, \"is liberty, free will, the human will. To\n  comprehend this fact exactly, we must divest it of every\n  foreign element, and confine it strictly to itself. It is the\n  want of this precaution that has led to such frequent\n  misconception of the thing itself; men have not looked simply\n  at the fact of liberty, and at that alone. It has been viewed\n  and described, so to speak, _p\u00e9le-m\u00e9le_ with other facts,\n  closely connected to it, it is true, in the moral life of man,\n  but which are no less essentially different. For example, human\n  liberty has been said to consist in the act of deliberating\n  upon and choosing between motives; that deliberation, and that\n  choice and judgment consequent upon it, have been regarded as\n  the essence of free will.\n{43}\n  Not so at all. These are acts of the intellect, not of liberty;\n  it is before the intellect that the various motives of\n  resolution and action, interests, passions, opinions, and such\n  like, present themselves; the intellect considers, compares,\n  estimates, weighs, and judges them. This is a preparatory task,\n  which precedes the act of volition, but which does not in any\n  way constitute it. When, after deliberation, man has taken full\n  cognisance of the motives presented to him, and of their value,\n  there takes place a process entirely new, and wholly different,\n  that of free will; man forms a resolution--that is to say, he\n  commences a series of facts having their source in himself, of\n  which he regards himself as the author; and these are\n  effectuated because he wills them; they would have no existence\n  did he not will it, and would be different if he desired to\n  produce them otherwise. Now, let us imagine all remembrance of\n  this process of intellectual deliberation obliterated, the\n  motives so known and appreciated, forgotten; concentrate your\n  thought, and that of the man who takes a resolution, upon the\n  moment when he says, 'It is my will, therefore I shall do so;\n  and ask yourself, ask too the man, whether he could not will\n  and act otherwise.\n{44}\n  Without doubt, you will reply, as he will do, 'Assuredly,' and\n  this it is that reveals the fact of liberty; it consists wholly\n  in the resolution which man takes after the deliberation is at\n  an end; it is the resolution that is the proper act of man,\n  which is through him and through him alone; a simple act,\n  independent of all the facts which precede or accompany it,\n  identical in the most varied circumstances, always the same,\n  whatever be its motives or its results.\n\n  \"At the same time that man feels himself free, and is conscious\n  of the power of commencing by his own will alone a series of\n  facts, he recognises that his will is subjected to the empire\n  of a certain law, which takes different names, according to the\n  circumstances to which it is applied--moral law, reason, good\n  sense, &c ... Man is free, but according even to man's own way\n  of thinking, his will is not arbitrary; he may use it in an\n  absurd, senseless, unjust, and culpable manner, and whenever he\n  uses it a certain rule must govern it. The observance of this\n  rule is his duty, the task assigned to his liberty.\"\n\n{45}\n\nIt is that act of a will (that is to say of a will strictly\nbrought back to its central and essential limits) acting freely\nin the intimate recesses of his being, which, in the case of\ndisobedience to the law of duty, constitutes in man sin, and\nentails on him its responsibility.\n\nIs this responsibility exclusively personal, and limited to the\nauthor of the act, or communicated, so to say, by contagion, and\ntransmitted in a certain measure to his descendants?\n\nI am still considering only actual appreciable acts, such as they\nproduce and manifest themselves in the moral life of the human\nrace.\n\nWe find the poetry and mythology of nearly all nations expressing\nthe idea of an Utopian state of existence, referred to times\nremote and primitive, to which they assign different names, as\nthe Golden Age, the Age of the Gods, and which they picture as an\nepoch when there existed no moral and physical evil in the\nworld,--an era of peace, bliss, and innocence.\n{46}\nThis is the more remarkable, as it has no foundation, and finds\nno pretext in any tradition of historical times, however remote;\nfor from the commencement of history, from the time that we can\ndiscern any trace of facts at all precise and authentic, it is\nnot the Golden Age, on the contrary, it is the Iron Age which\nappears--an epoch of violence and ignorance and barbarism, in\nwhich war and force are rampant, and which has not in effect the\nleast resemblance to those beautiful dreams of ancient poetry.\nWithout now seeking to establish any relation between these\nmythological dreams and the Biblical traditions; or, for the\nmoment, drawing from the Golden Age any argument in support of\nthe Garden of Eden; I merely point it out as a great fact, as\nevidence of a general instinct, so to say, of the human\nimagination. What is the meaning of this? Whence comes this\nUtopia of innocence and bliss in the cradle of the human race?\n{47}\nTo what does this idea of a primal time, without strife, without\nsin, and without pain, correspond?\n\nBut from this cradle of man and this primitive poetry, to revert\nto the present time, to real life, to the cradle of the infant,\nwhy is it that, apart from all personal affection, we so readily\nterm infancy the age of innocence? How is it that we find it so\ncharming to give it this name, and regard it under this aspect?\nPhysical ill is already present, for it begins with the very\nbeginning of life; but moral ill has not yet appeared; life has\nnot yet brought to the soul its trials, nor called forth its\nfailings, and the idea of the soul without spot or stain has for\nus an inexpressible attraction; we feel a deep joy in witnessing\ninnocence, or at least its image in the child, when we no longer\nsee it around us, nor find it within ourselves.\n\nWhat means this universal instinct, which in the dreams of the\nimagination, as well as in the intimate scenes of domestic life,\nwhether we turn in thought to the cradle of the human race or to\nthat of the infant, leads us to regard innocence as the primitive\nand normal state of man, and makes us place in the spot where\ninnocence resides that which some term Paradise, and others the\nGolden Age?\n\n{48}\n\nManifestly between the soul without spot and the soul tainted\nwith evil, between the creature who is merely fallible and the\ncreature who has sinned, there is a very great change of state, a\ndistance immense, an abyss. We have a secret feeling of this\ndeplorable change, of the fall into this abyss; and it is without\npremeditation, by the mere impulse of our nature, that we suffer\nour thoughts to bear us far--far beyond that abyss, and to pause\non the rapturous contemplation of a state anterior to the fall.\nHence spring, and thus are explained, the power and the charm\nwhich the idea of innocence has for us; absolute innocence we\nhave never seen, but the idea is still vouchsafed to us; and so\nit appears to us in the cradle of the world, and in the cradle of\nthe infant, and the pleasure is infinite which we derive from the\nideal spectacle of purity which they each suggest.\n\n{49}\n\nIs this a pleasure foreign to all personal sentiment, to all\nsecret reference to ourselves, the pleasure, that is to say, of a\nsimple spectator? No: these impressions, which the picture of\ninnocence awakens in us, are connected with and carry us back to\nourselves; this change in the state of man, that mysterious Past\nwhich has thrown him so far from innocence, leaving him,\nnevertheless, the idea and the worship of it--these were not the\nlot of the first man alone: the entire human race was, and\nremains, subject to them. Our present evil does not proceed\nsolely from ourselves; we have received it as a heritage before\nhaving brought it upon us as a penalty: we are not merely\nfallible beings, we are the children of a being who has sinned.\n\n{50}\n\nHow can we feel surprise at this inheritance of woe! Have we not\ndaily the example and the spectacle before our eyes? It is an\nincontestable and undisputed fact, that two elements enter into\nthe moral life of man: on the one side, his innate dispositions,\nhis natural and involuntary inclinations,--on the other, his\ninmost and individual will. The natural inclinations of a man do\nnot destroy his moral liberty nor enslave his will, but they\nrender its exercise more laborious and more difficult to him; it\nis not a chain which he carries, it is a burden that he bears.\nEqually incontestable and undisputed is it that the natural\ndispositions of men are different and unequally distributed; no\none is entirely exempt from evil inclinations; every man is not\nonly fallible, but prone to transgress, and prone not only to\ntransgress, but to transgress in some particular direction or\nother. Nor can the fact be disputed, although appreciable with\nmore difficulty, that the natural and special dispositions of the\nindividual descend to him in a certain measure from his origin,\nand that parents transmit to their children such or such moral\npropensities just as they do such or such physical temperament,\nor such or such features. Hereditary transmission enters into the\nmoral as well as the physical order of the world.\n\n{51}\n\nThis inheritance must take effect, it has done so from the first\ndays of man's existence upon earth, for man has been created\ncomplete in his whole nature. And whilst, at the same time as\ncomplete, he has been created fallible, I ask, who shall measure\nthe distance between man fallible, but still without fault, and\nthe first transgression? Who shall sound the depth of the fall,\nand of the change which it brought into the moral condition of\nits author? Who shall weigh the consequences of this change to\nthe state and the moral dispositions of man's descendants? To\nappreciate the extent and gravity of this awful fact, of this\nfirst appearance and this first heritage of moral evil, we have\nbut one test,--the instinct we still preserve of a state of\ninnocence, and of the immense space which this instinct\nirresistibly compels us to place between native innocence and\nman's first transgression; but this test is unexceptionable; it\ndimly reveals to us, in this fatal transformation, the whole\ninfirmity and responsibility of the human race.\n\n{52}\n\nAn objection is raised to this as an injustice: how, it is said,\ncan each man be responsible for a fault which he has not himself\ncommitted--for the transgression of another man, separated from\nhimself by so many ages? I consider this objection weak and\nfrivolous. Such an objection would attach to all the inequalities\nwhich exist among men, to the inequality of the destinies as well\nas that of the nature of man, to the inequality of his moral\ndisposition as well as to that of his physical powers. The\nobjection would attach to the solidarity of successive\ngenerations, and the controlling influence which the ideas, the\nacts, the destiny of each of them exert on the ideas, the acts,\nthe destiny of those which follow it. The objection would attach\nto the ties which unite the child with its parents, and which are\nthe cause of its sometimes inheriting their evil dispositions,\nand sometimes suffering for their faults. It is in short the\ngeneral order of the world to which such an objection must apply;\nit is the very existence of evil, and its unequal distribution in\na manner wholly independent of individual merit which assumes the\ncharacter of a monstrous iniquity.\n{53}\nAnd when we come to this point, that we no longer refer the\nsource of evil to the fault and the responsibility of man, placed\nhere on earth in a scene and period of transition and of trial,\nsee to what alternative we are brought. We must either regard\nevil as natural, eternal, necessary, in the future as in the\npast, as the normal state of man and of the world; that is to\nsay, we must deny God, the creation, the Divine Providence, human\nmorality, liberty, responsibility and hope; or, on the other\nhand, it is to God Himself that we must impute evil, and whom we\nmust render accountable.\n\nThe dogma of Original Sin alone relieves the human mind from this\nodious and unacceptable alternative: far from being in\ncontradiction either with the history of humanity, or with the\nfacts and instincts which constitute man's moral nature, this\ndogma admits, illustrates, and explains them.\n{54}\nThe fact of original sin presents nothing strange, nothing\nobscure; it consists essentially in disobedience to the will of\nGod, which will is the moral law of man. This disobedience, the\nsin of Adam, is an act committed everywhere and every day,\narising from the same causes, marked by the same characters, and\nattended by the same consequences as the Christian dogma assigns\nto it. At the present day, as in the Garden of Eden, this act is\noccasioned by a thirst for absolute independence, the ambitious\naspirings of curiosity and pride, or weakness in the face of\ntemptation. At the present day, as in the Garden of Eden, it\nproduces an immense change in the inmost state of man, a change,\nthe mere idea of which seizes upon the human soul, and disturbs\nit to its very depths; it transports man from the state of\ninnocence to the state of sin. At the present day, as in the\nGarden of Eden, the act which produces this change involves and\nentails the responsibility not only of its author but of his\ndescendants; sin is contagious in time as in space, it is\ntransmitted, as well as diffused.\n{55}\nThe Christian dogma exhibits the first man created fallible, but\nborn innocent; innocent at the age of man, proud in the plenitude\nof his faculties, not the subject of any evil and fatal heritage.\nAll at once, for the first time, of his own will, man disobeys\nGod. Here lies Original Sin, the same in its nature as sin at the\npresent day, for they both consist in disobedience to the law of\nGod, but it is the first in date in the history of man's liberty,\nand the human source of that evil for which the Christian\nreligion, whilst pointing it out, offers to man the remedy and\nthe cure.\n\n\n\n         IV. The Incarnation.\n\nAll religions have given a prominent place to the problem of\nexistence and the origin of evil; all have attempted its\nsolution.\n{56}\nThe good and the evil genius, Ormuzd and Ahriman among the\nPersians; God the Creator, God the Preserver, and God the\nDestroyer--Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva--in India; the Titans\noverwhelmed by the thunderbolts of Jove while scaling Olympus;\nPrometheus chained to the rock for having snatched fire from\nheaven; all are so many hypotheses to explain the conflict\nbetween good and evil, between order and disorder in the world\nand in man. But all these hypotheses are complicated, confused,\nand encumbered with chimeras and fables; all attribute the\nderivation of evil to incongruous causes, none assign any term to\nthe conflict, nor find a remedy for the evil. The Christian\nreligion alone clearly states and effectually solves the\nquestion; it alone imputes to man himself, and to him alone, the\norigin of evil; it alone represents God as intervening to raise\nman from his fall, and to save him from his peril.\n\n{57}\n\nIn the course of the sixth and fifth centuries before the\nChristian era, a great fact appears in history; a breath of\nreform, religious, moral and social, arises, and spreads from\neast to west, among all the nations then at all progressing in\nthe path of civilization. Notwithstanding the uncertainties of\nchronology, it may be said, according to the most recent and\naccurate researches, that Confucius in China, the Buddha\nC\u00e0kya-Mouni in India, Zoroaster in Persia, Pythagoras and\nSocrates in Greece, are all included in the limits of this epoch;\n[Footnote 5] men as dissimilar as they are celebrated, but who\nhave all, in different ways and in unequal degrees, undertaken a\ngreat work of reforming both the men and the social institutions\nof their times.\n\n    [Footnote 5: These researches give the following dates:--1.\n    Confucius, from 551 to 478 B.C.; 2. Zoroaster, from 564 to\n    487, or from 589 to 512 B.C.; 3. Buddha C\u00e0kya-Mouni, in the\n    seventh and sixth centuries B.C. (he died, according to\n    Burnouf, 543 B.C.); 4. Pythagoras, from 580 to 500 B.C.; 5.\n    Socrates, 470 to 400 or 399 B.C.]\n\n{58}\n\nConfucius was above all a practical moralist, skilled in\nobservation, counsel, and discipline; Buddha C\u00e0kya-Mouni, a\ndreamer, and a mystical and popular preacher; Zoroaster, a\nlegislator, religious and political; Pythagoras and Socrates,\nphilosophers, bent upon instructing the distinguished bands of\ndisciples whom they gathered around them. There is no doubt,\nnotwithstanding the trials of their life, that neither power nor\nglory amongst their contemporaries was wanting to them. Confucius\nand Zoroaster were the favourites and counsellors of kings.\nBuddha C\u00e0kya-Mouni, himself the son of a king, became the idol of\ninnumerable multitudes. Pythagoras and Socrates formed schools\nand pupils who were an honour to the human mind. By their\npersonal genius and by the excellence of some of their ideas and\nactions, these men have ensured themselves the admiration of all\nposterity. Did they act up to their teachings, and accomplish\nwhat they attempted? Did they really change the moral and social\ncondition of nations? Did they cause humanity to make any great\nprogress, and open to it horizons which it had not before known?\n{59}\nBy no means. Whatever fame attaches to the names of these men,\nwhatever influence they may have exerted, what ever trace of\ntheir passage may have remained, they rather appeared to have\npower than really to possess it; they agitated the surface far\nmore than they stirred the depths; they did not draw nations out\nof the beaten tracks in which they had lived. They did not\ntransform souls. In considering the facts at large, and\nnotwithstanding the political and material revolutions which they\nunderwent, China after Confucius, India after Buddha, Persia\nafter Zoroaster, Greece after Pythagoras and Socrates, followed\nin the same ways, retained the same propensities, as before.\nStill more, among these very different nations, stagnation was\nonly be succeeded by decay. Where are these nations at the\npresent day, more than two thousand years after the appearance of\nthese glorious characters in their history? What great progress,\nwhat salutary changes, have been effected? What are they in\ncomparison and in contact with Christian nations?\n{60}\nOutside of Christianity there have been grand spectacles of\nactivity and force, brilliant phenomena of genius and virtue,\ngenerous attempts at reform, learned philosophical systems, and\nbeautiful mythological poems; no real profound or fruitful\nregeneration of humanity and of society.\n\nA few ages only after these barren efforts among the great\nnations of the world, Jesus Christ appears among a small, obscure\npeople, weak and despised. He Himself is weak and despised in the\nmidst of his people; He neither possesses nor seeks any social\npower, any temporal means of action and of success; He collects\naround Him only disciples weak and despised as Himself. Not only\nare they weak and despised, they proclaim it themselves, and, far\nfrom being troubled at this, they glory in it, and derive from it\nconfidence. St. Paul writes to the Corinthians: \"And I, brethren,\nwhen I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of\nwisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined\nnot to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him\ncrucified.\n{61}\nAnd I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much\ntrembling. ... Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in\nreproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for\nChrist's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.\" [Footnote\n6]\n\n    [Footnote 6: 1 Corinthians ii. 13; 2 Corinthians xii. 10.]\n\nAnd in truth, Jesus Christ, the Master of St. Paul, is strong in\nhis sufferings, and imparts his strength to his disciples; from\nhis cross, He accomplishes what erewhile, in Asia and Europe,\nprinces and philosophers, the powerful of the earth, and sages,\nattempted without success; He changes the moral state and the\nsocial state of the world; He pours into the souls of men new\nenlightenment and new powers; for all classes, for all human\nconditions, He prepares destinies before his advent unknown; He\nliberates them at the same time that He lays down rules for their\nguidance; He quickens them and stills them; He places the divine\nlaw and human liberty face to face, and yet still in harmony; He\noffers an effectual remedy for the evil which weighs upon\nhumanity; to sin He opens the path of salvation, to unhappiness\nthe door of hope.\n\n{62}\n\nWhence comes this power? What are its source and its nature? How\ndid those who were its witnesses and instruments think and speak\nof it at the moment when it was manifested?\n\nThey all, unanimously, saw in Jesus Christ, God; most of them,\nfrom the first moment, suddenly moved and enlightened by his\npresence and his words; some, with rather more surprise and\nhesitation, but soon penetrated and convinced in their turn.\n\"When Jesus came into the coasts of C\u00e6sarea Philippi, he asked\nhis disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?\nAnd they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some,\nElias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith\nunto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered\nand said, Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.\n{63}\nAnd Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon\nBarjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but\nmy Father which is in heaven.\" [Footnote 7] Another day, meeting\nwith a similar instance of doubt, Jesus says to Thomas, \"If ye\nhad known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from\nhenceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him,\nLord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto\nhim, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not\nknown me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.\"\n[Footnote 8]\n\n    [Footnote 7: Matthew xvi. 13-17.]\n\n    [Footnote 8: John, xiv. 7-9.]\n\nIt has been remarked, that there are certain variations in the\nlanguage of the Apostles, and certain shades of difference in\ntheir leading impressions; and this is indeed true: they call\nJesus Christ at one time the Son of God, at another the Son of\nMan; they regard Him and represent Him now under his divine\naspect, at another under his human aspect; they do not present\nexactly the same image of Him; they do not all equally dwell upon\nthe same traits of his nature, or the same facts of his earthly\nlife.\n{64}\nSt. Matthew is more a narrator and moralist; it is he who relates\nwith fuller details the birth and childhood of Jesus Christ, and\nwho gives at the greatest length the Sermon on the Mount. St.\nJohn is more in the habit of contemplating and depicting the\ndivine nature of Jesus Christ and his relation to God: \"In the\nbeginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word\nwas God. ... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us,\nand we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the\nFather, full of grace and truth. ... No man hath seen God at any\ntime; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father,\nhe hath declared him.\" [Footnote 9]\n\n    [Footnote 9: John, i. 1, 14, 18.]\n\n{65}\n\nIt is also St. John who relates the testimony of the Forerunner,\nSt. John the Baptist, answering to those who had said to him that\nall men come to Jesus Christ: \"Ye yourselves bear me witness,\nthat I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him.\n... He that cometh from above is above all. ... He whom God hath\nsent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by\nmeasure unto him. ... The Father loveth the Son, and hath given\nall things into his hand\" [Footnote 10] St. Paul is more\nsystematic, and enters more fully into the questions and\nprinciples of the Christian doctrine, and he regards the divinity\nof Jesus Christ as the first of these principles. He writes to\nthe Philippians: \"Let this mind be in you, which was also in\nChrist Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it no\nusurpation to be equal with God: but made himself of no\nreputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made\nin the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he\nhumbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death\nof the cross.\" [Footnote 11]\n\n    [Footnote 10: John iii. 28, 31, 34, and 35.]\n\n    [Footnote 11: Philippians ii. 5-6. I have given this verse in\n    Osterwald's translation, which is also that of the Vulgate;\n    but my son Guillaume, who is following out a careful course\n    of study of Latin and Greek philology in sacred and profane\n    literature, reminds me that the text of this passage presents\n    a difficulty which furnished a field for the labours of\n    Erasmus, Cameron, Grotius, M\u00e9ric Casaubon, in the sixteenth\n    century, as well as many others before and after them. The\n    Greek word [Greek text] admits of two meanings, an active and\n    a passive sense--it may designate the _action of\n    ravishing, of carrying off by force,_ or the _object\n    carried off_--the act of depredation, or the spoil.\n    Substantives derived from verbs frequently waver between\n    these two acceptations, and the word [Greek text], which is\n    merely another form of [Greek text], is unquestionably a case\n    in point. \u00c6schylus, Euripides, Herodotus, have employed it in\n    the first sense; \u00c6schylus, Euripides, Thucydides, and\n    Polybius in the second sense. Now, in the passage of St.\n    Paul, accordingly as one or the other sense is adopted, these\n    words must either be translated thus: \"He did not consider it\n    a usurpation to be equal to God;\" or thus, \"He did not\n    display as a trophy his equality to God;\" that is to say: He\n    did not display His equality with God as the conquerors of\n    the earth display the spoils and booty which they have\n    amassed; He did not make use of His divinity to reign, to\n    triumph, to pride himself in it; He was not the Messiah whom\n    the carnal Jews expected, a visible king and victorious in\n    arms; but, on the contrary, \"he humbled himself, and took\n    upon him the form of a servant,\" etc., etc. This second\n    interpretation seems more probable; the reasoning on which it\n    is founded is thus more connected and flowing; and at the\n    same time, it leaves the doctrine of the Apostle intact; it\n    changes nothing in his conception or his conclusions. In this\n    passage, as in many others, St. Paul likewise affirms the\n    divinity of the Saviour whom he announces to men; and it is\n    from this majesty, subjected to a voluntary humiliation,\n    veiled under the form of a servant, obedient unto the death\n    of the cross, that He presents an august example and an\n    imperative lesson for Christians of humility and mutual\n    support. It is thus that this interpretation has been\n    admitted and defended by two eminent men, a scholar of the\n    sixteenth and a theologian of the nineteenth century, both of\n    whom were strongly attached to the dogma of the divinity of\n    Jesus Christ--I allude to M\u00e9ric Casaubon (De Verborum Usu,\n    pp. 138-146, at the end of the letters of his father), and M.\n    A. Vinet (Homil\u00e9tique, p. 116).]\n\n{66}\n\n.... It is he \"who is the image of the invisible God, the\nfirst-born of every creature: for by him were all things created,\nthat are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,\nwhether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or\npowers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is\nbefore all things, and by him all things consist.\" [Footnote 12]\n\n    [Footnote 12: Colossians i. 15-17.]\n\n{67}\n\nSt. Peter and St. John, in their Epistles, speak in the same\nterms as St. Paul. St. Peter says, \"We have not followed\ncunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power\nand coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his\nmajesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory,\nwhen there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory,\nThis is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.\"\n[Footnote 13]\n\n    [Footnote 13: 2 Peter i. 16, 17.]\n\n{68}\n\nSt. John writes: \"Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not\nthe Father; but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father\nalso.\" [Footnote 14] \"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every\nSpirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is\nof God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is\ncome in the flesh is not of God.\" [Footnote 14]\n\n    [Footnote 13: 1 John ii. 23.]\n\n    [Footnote 14: 1 John iv. 2, 3.]\n\nSuch is the language of the Apostles; such are, at the same time,\nits shades of variance and its harmony. They have all evidently\nthe same conception of Jesus Christ, they have all the same faith\nin Him. St. Matthew, as well as St. John, St. Peter and St. Paul,\nalike regard Jesus Christ as at once God and man, the\nrepresentative of God on earth, and the Mediator between God and\nmen--come from God, and re-ascended unto Him as the source and\ncentre of His being. The dogma of the Incarnation, that is to\nsay, of the divinity of Jesus Christ, pervades the Holy\nScriptures--the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles\nof the Apostles, the writings of the first Fathers. It is the\ncommon and fixed basis, the source and essence of the Christian\nfaith.\n\n{69}\n\nThis was affirmed and declared by Jesus Christ himself. What His\ndisciples believed and related of Him, is what He himself told\nthem of himself, as well as what they themselves witnessed and\nthought of Him: \"All things are delivered unto me of my Father:\nand no man knoweth the Son, but the Father: neither knoweth any\nman the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will\nreveal him.\" [Footnote 15] --\"I and my Father are one.\" [Footnote\n16]\n\n    [Footnote 15: Matthew xi. 27.]\n\n    [Footnote 16: John x. 30.]\n\nAnd when He approaches the term of His mission, when, after\nhaving announced to His disciples that the hour was coming when\nthey would be dispersed, each going his own way, leaving Him\nalone, Jesus Christ raises His thoughts to God and says, \"Father,\nthe hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify\nthee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should\ngive eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.\n{70}\nAnd this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true\nGod, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee\non the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to\ndo. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with\nthe glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have\nmanifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the\nworld: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have\nkept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever\nthou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the\nwords which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have\nknown surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed\nthat thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the\nworld, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.\nAnd all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in\nthem. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the\nworld, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own\nname those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we\nare.\" [Footnote 17]\n\n    [Footnote 17: John xvii. 1-11.]\n\n{71}\n\nI might multiply these texts; but these surely suffice to show\nthat the words of Jesus Christ in relation to himself, and those\nof His Apostles, are in perfect unison; He speaks of himself as\nthey speak of Him; He qualifies himself as they qualify Him; He\ncalls God His \"Father,\" as His disciples call Him \"the Son of\nGod.\" He has the same faith in himself, in His nature, and in His\nmission, as St. Matthew, St. John, St. Peter, and St. Paul had in\nHim.\n\nIt is a great source of error, in the study of facts, not to know\nhow to stop at their general and essential features, and, losing\nsight of these, to give prominence to partial and secondary\nfeatures. On the subject of the divinity of Jesus Christ, that\nfundamental principle of the Christian religion, the precise\nmeaning and import of such or such a word may be disputed; such\nor such an expression may be thought an interpolation, and so\neliminated in any particular Gospel, in any particular Epistle;\nnevertheless there will always remain infinitely more than\nsufficient evidence of the fact that those who at the present day\nbelieve in the divinity of Jesus Christ, believe simply what the\nApostles believed and said, and that the Apostles themselves only\nbelieved and said, nearly nineteen centuries ago, what Jesus\nChrist himself said to them.\n\n{72}\n\nThe opponents of the dogma of the Incarnation and of the divinity\nof Jesus Christ disregard equally man and history, the complex\nelements of human nature, and the meaning of the great facts\nwhich mark the religious life of the human race.\n\nWhat is man himself, but an incomplete and imperfect incarnation\nof God? The materialists who deny the soul, and the naturalists\nwho deny creation, are alone consistent in rejecting the\nChristian dogma. All who believe in the distinction of spirit and\nmatter, who do not believe that man is the result of the\nfermentation of matter, or of the transformation of species, are\nconstrained to admit the presence in human nature of the divine\nelement, and they must necessarily accept these words in Genesis:\n\"God created man in his own image;\" that is to say, they must\nacknowledge the presence of God in frail and fallible humanity.\n\n{73}\n\nI open the histories of all religions, of all mythologies, the\nmost refined as well as the grossest; I find at every step the\nidea and the assertion of the Divine Incarnation. Brahmanism,\nBuddhism, Paganism, all faiths, all religious idolatries, abound\nin incarnations of every kind and date, primitive or successive,\nconnected with this or that historical event, adapted to explain\nthis or that fact, to satisfy this or that human propensity. It\nis the natural and universal instinct of men to picture to\nthemselves the action of God upon the human race under the form\nof the incarnation of God in man.\n\n{74}\n\nLike all religious instincts, that of the belief in the Divine\nIncarnation may engender, and has engendered, the most absurd\nsuperstitions, the most extravagant hypotheses. In the same way\nas the natural faith in God has been the source of all\nidolatries, so the tendency to incarnate God in man has given\nrise to, and admitted, every kind of strange imagining and\nspurious tradition. Are we then to pronounce all divine\nincarnation false, every tradition of it spurious? Rather let us\nsay that it proceeds from the infirmity of the human mind, if we\nsee realities and mere chimeras, truths and errors, in such close\nproximity, if we find them calling one another by the same names\nand unceasingly confounding one another's attributes. The\npretended incarnation of Brahma, or of Buddha, proves no more\nagainst the divinity of Jesus Christ than the adoration of idols\nproves against the existence of God. Jesus Christ, God and Man,\nhas characteristics which appertain to Him alone. These have\nfounded His power and occasioned the success of His works, a\npower and a success which belong to Him alone.\n{75}\nIt is not a human reformer, but God himself, who, through Jesus\nChrist, has accomplished what no human reformer has ever\naccomplished, or even conceived,--the reform of the moral and\nsocial condition of the world, the regeneration of the human\nsoul, and the solution of the problems of human destiny. It is by\nthese signs, by these results, that the divinity of Jesus Christ\nis manifested. How was the Divine Incarnation accomplished in\nman? Here, as in the union of the soul and the body, as in the\ncreation, arises the mystery; but if we cannot fathom the reason\nof it, the fact not the less exists. When this fact has taken the\nform of dogma, theology has sought to explain it. In my opinion,\nthis was a mistake; theology has obscured the fact in developing\nand commenting upon it. It is the fact itself of the Incarnation\nwhich constitutes the Christian faith, and which rises above all\ndefinitions and all theological controversies. To disregard this\nfact--to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ--is to deny, to\noverthrow the Christian religion, which would never have been\nwhat it is, and would never have accomplished what it has, but\nthat the Divine Incarnation was its principle, and Jesus\nChrist--God and Man--its author.\n\n{76}\n\n\n            V. The Redemption.\n\n\nI enter into the sanctuary of the Christian faith.\n\nGod has done more than manifest himself in Jesus Christ. He has\ndone more than place upon the earth and before men His own living\nimage, the type of sanctity and the model of life. The Creator\nhas accomplished, through Jesus Christ, toward man, His creature,\nan act of His beneficence and at the same time of His sovereign\npower. Jesus Christ is not only God made man to spread the divine\nlight upon men; He is God made man to conquer and efface in man\nmoral evil, the fruit of the sin of man. He brings not only light\nand law, but pardon and salvation.\n{77}\nAnd it is at the price of His own suffering, of His own\nsacrifice, that He brings these to them. He is the type of\nself-devotion at the same time as of sanctity. He has submitted\nto be a victim in order to be a saviour. The Incarnation leads to\nthe Cross, and the Cross to the Redemption.\n\nHere are the supreme dogma and mystery. Here are revealed plainly\nthe sense and the import of Christianity. By what ways did Jesus\nChrist penetrate the human soul to accomplish this great work?\nHow did He win the human soul to the Christian faith, in order to\nsnatch it from evil and to save it?\n\nWhen man fails in the duty of which he recognises the law,--when\nhe commits the wrong which he is bound to shun,--when, after sin,\nrepentance arises within him, and a sense of the necessity of\nexpiation is soon joined with this sentiment of repentance, the\nmoral instinct of man teaches that repentance does not suffice to\nefface the fault, and that it requires to be expiated: reparation\nsupposes suffering.\n\n{78}\n\nAnd when the religious sentiment is joined to the moral\nsentiment,--when man believes in God, and sees in Him the author\nand dispenser of the moral law, he regards himself as guilty of\ntransgression toward God whom he has disobeyed, he feels the need\nof being pardoned and of being restored to the favour of the\nSovereign Master whom he has offended.\n\nAmong all nations, in all religions, under all social forms,\nthese two instincts--as to the necessity of expiation to ensue\nupon the fault, and the necessity of pardon to follow the\ntransgression--appear natural and inherent in the human soul.\nThey have been at all times and in all places, the source of a\nmultitude of beliefs and practices; some pure and touching,\nothers foolish and odious: these may all be briefly comprised in\nthe single expression, _sacrifices_. The histories of all\nnations, barbarous or civilized, ancient or modern, teem with\nsacrificial rites of every description, whether they be of a\nnature gross or mystical, of a performance mild or bloody; rites\ninvented and celebrated either to expiate the sins of man, or to\nappease the anger of God and regain His favour.\n\n{79}\n\nNor is this all; we have here to note another moral fact, not\nless real although it seems stranger to the eyes of superficial\nreason. Mankind has believed that a fault might be expiated by\nanother than its author, that innocent victims might be\nefficaciously offered up to influence God, and to save the\nguilty. This belief has led to sacrifices no less absurd than\natrocious: the pretended expiation has become an additional\ncrime: it has at the same time been also the source of heroic\nacts and sublime examples of self-devotion. Both the domestic\nrecords of families and the public histories of nations have\nfurnished us with admirable instances of innocence voluntarily\noffering itself as a sacrifice, taking upon itself the penalty,\nthe suffering, the death, to expiate the sin of others, and to\nwin from Divine Justice--now satisfied--the pardon of the\noffender.\n\n{80}\n\nAnd are we then to regard this merely as a pious, a generous\nillusion, a devotedness as vain as admirable? Yes, such is the\nview that all those must adopt who believe neither in Providence\nnor prayer, nor in the existence of any efficacious relation\nbetween the actions of man and the purposes of God; no solidarity\nbetween men, no connection between the sacrifice of him who\npractises the act of self-devotion, and the destiny of him who is\nits object. But those who have faith in the living God, in His\ncontinued presence, and His never-sleeping providence, those who\nbelieve that nothing in man, whether it be good or whether it be\nevil, is in vain, that every moral act bears its fruit visible or\ninvisible, immediate or remote, such as these cannot fail to\nfeel, to have, as it were, a presentiment, that in such\nself-sacrifice of the innocent for the salvation of the guilty,\nthere exists a mysterious virtue. The secret of this it may not\nbe given them to fathom, but it nevertheless gives life in their\nbosom to the hope that such sublime devotion will not fail of its\nobject.\n\n{81}\n\nAnd now, to pass from this feeling, and from the acts of man,\nwhose reality no one can dispute, to the corresponding dogmas of\nChristianity, let me, by the side of these acts of devotedness\nand self-sacrifice of the human creature in his innocence seeking\nto atone for the sins of the human creature who is guilty, place\nthe self-devotion and the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the\nMan-God, tendered to ransom from sin the race of mankind and to\nopen to it the way of salvation; who is not struck by this\nsublime analogy? What connection and harmony between the purest,\nthe most generous, instincts of the human soul, and the dogma of\nGod's Redemption? I touch upon none of the questions, I enter\ninto none of the controversies which have sprung up with respect\nto this dogma of Redemption; I do not weigh with a view to\ncompare faith and works, nor do I essay to assign the part due to\ndivine grace or to human virtue; I do not define or seek to\nnumber the elect, but I pause upon the fact itself of the\nRedemption by Jesus Christ, the fact upon which the dogma itself\nreposes.\n{82}\nAll that the most renowned heroes, the most glorious saints of\nhumanity have striven to accomplish, in order to expiate the sins\nof any creature or any nation, Jesus Christ the Elect of God, the\nSon of God, the God-Man, came to effect for all mankind, by means\nof incomparable sorrow, humiliation, and sufferings. And, as was\naffirmed by St. Paul in the first century, and by Bossuet in the\nseventeenth, this very suffering, this humiliation, this\nmartyrdom of Jesus Christ, have constituted his victory and his\nempire. And I would ask, what other spectacle than that of God\nmade man to constitute himself victim--made victim to become the\nsaviour--could have excited in the soul of mankind those\noutbursts of admiration, of respect, and of love, that ardent,\ninvincible, and contagious faith, of which the Apostles and the\nprimitive Christians have left us the evidences and the example?\nIt was requisite that the victim and the sacrifice should be\nequal to the work.\n{83}\nThat work was the Christian religion, that incomparable system of\nfacts, dogmas, precepts, promises, which, in the midst of all the\ndoubts and all the controversies of the mind of man, have for\nnineteen centuries afforded satisfaction and solution to those\naspirings of the human race, which nature prompts, whether they\nassume the form of religious instincts or religious problems.\n\n{84}\n\n           Third Meditation.\n\n           The Supernatural.\n\n\nTo a system so grand, and in such profound harmony with man's own\nnature, an objection is made which is thought decisive; that\nsystem proclaims the Supernatural, has the Supernatural for its\nprinciple and foundation. It is objected that the Supernatural\nitself has no existence.\n\nThis objection is not novel, but it has at this moment in\nappearance assumed a more serious and formidable shape than ever.\nIt is in the name of science itself, of all the human sciences,\nof the physical sciences, historical science, philosophical\nscience, that the pretension is made that is to reduce the\nSupernatural to a nonentity, and to banish it from the world and\nfrom man.\n\n{85}\n\nThe reverence that I feel for science is infinite. I would have\nit as free and unshackled as I would desire to see it honoured.\nBut I would at the same time like to see it deal somewhat more\nrigorously and logically with itself. I would like to see it less\nexclusively absorbed by its own peculiar labours and occupations,\nits momentary successes; more careful not to forget or omit any\nof the ideas or any of the facts which bear upon the subject with\nwhich it deals, and for which in its solution it has still to\naccount.\n\nIn whatever quarter, at this day, the wind may be, the abolition\nof the Supernatural is a difficult enterprise, for the belief in\nthe Supernatural is a fact natural, primitive, universal,\nconstant in the life and history of the human race. We may\ninterrogate mankind in all times and places, in all states of\nsociety and degrees of civilization, we find it always and\neverywhere spontaneously believing in facts and causes beyond the\nsphere of this palpable world, of this living piece of mechanism\ntermed nature. In vain do we extend, explain, amplify nature\nitself; the instinct of man, the instinct of human masses, has\nnever suffered that nature to confine it: it has always sought\nand seen something beyond.\n\n{86}\n\nIt is this belief--instinctive, and hitherto\nindestructible--which is qualified as a radical error; this\nuniversal and enduring fact in man's history it is which men seek\nto abolish. They go farther; they affirm that it is already\nabolished--that the _people_ no longer believe in the\nSupernatural, and that any attempt to bring them back to it would\nbe vain. Incredible conceit of man! What, because in a corner of\nthe world in one day among ages brilliant progress may have been\nmade in natural and historical science--because in the name of\nthe sciences, and in brilliant books, the Supernatural has been\ncombated, they proclaim the Supernatural vanquished, abolished;\nand we hear the judgment pronounced, not merely in the name of\nthe learned, but of the people! Have you then completely\nforgotten, or have you never thoroughly comprehended, humanity\nand the history of humanity?\n{87}\nDo you ignore absolutely what the people really is, and what all\nthose nations are that cover the surface of the earth? Have you\nnever then penetrated into those millions of souls in which the\nbelief in the Supernatural is and abides, present and active even\nwhen the words which move their lips disown it? Are you then\nunconscious of the immense distance which there is between the\ndepths and the surface of those souls, between the variable\nbreaths which only ruffle the minds of men, and the immutable\ninstincts which preside over their very being? True, there are,\nin our days, amongst the people, many fathers, mothers, children,\nwho believe themselves incredulous, and mock scorn fully at\nmiracles; but follow them in the intimacy of their homes, amongst\nthe trials of their lives, how do these parents act, when their\nchild is ill, those farmers when their crops are threatened,\nthose sailors when they float upon the waters a prey to the\ntempest? They elevate their eyes to heaven, they burst forth in\nprayer, they invoke that Supernatural power said by you to be\nabolished in their very thought. By their spontaneous and\nirresistible acts they give to your words and to their own a\nstriking disavowal.\n\n{88}\n\nBut to advance a step towards you, admitted that the faith in the\nSupernatural is abolished; let us enter together that society and\nthose classes to whom this moral ruin is a triumph and a vaunt.\nWhat then ensues? In the place of God's miracles, man's miracles\nmake their appearance. They are searched for, they are called\nfor; men are found to invent them, and to contrive them to be\nrecognised by thousands of beholders. It is not necessary to go\neither far in time or wide in space to see the Supernatural of\nSuperstition raising itself in the place of the Supernatural of\nReligion, and Credulity hurrying to meet Falsehood half-way.\n\n{89}\n\nBut away with these unhealthy paroxysms of humanity; and to\nreturn to its sober and enduring history. We will admit that the\ninstinctive belief in the Supernatural has been the source and\nabides the foundation of all religions, of religion in the most\ngeneral sense of the word, and of essential religion. The most\nserious, at the same time the most perplexed, of the thinkers who\nin our days have approached the subject, M. Edmond Scherer, saw\nplainly enough that that was the question at issue, and he has so\nput it in the third of his \"Conversations Th\u00e9ologiques,\" noble\nyet sad imaging forth of the fermentation in his own ideas and\nthe struggles which they occasion in his soul. \"The Supernatural\nis not a something external to religion,\" says one of the two\nspeakers between whom M. Scherer supposes the discussion, \"it is\nreligion itself.\" \"No,\" says the other, \"the Supernatural is not\nthe peculiar element of religion, but rather of superstition: the\nSupernatural fact has no relation with the human soul, for it is\nthe essence of the Supernatural that it goes beyond all those\nconditions which constitute credibility; its essence indeed is\nthe being _anti-human_.\"\n{90}\nThe discussion continues and becomes animated: the contrary\nnature of the perplexities experienced by the two speakers\nbecomes manifest. \"Perhaps,\" says the Rationalist, \"the\nSupernatural was a necessary form of religion for ill cultivated\nminds: but rightly or wrongly, our modern civilization rejects\nmiracles; without positive denial, it remains indifferent to\nthem. Even the preacher knows not how to deal with them; the more\nhe is in earnest, the more his Christian feeling has inwardness\nand vitality, the more does the miracle also disappear from his\nteaching. Miracles formerly constituted the great force of the\nsermon, at the present day what are they but a secret source of\nembarrassment? Everybody feels vaguely when confronted by the\nmarvellous accounts in our sacred volumes, what he feels when\nconfronted by the Legends of the Saints; it is impossible for\nthat to be religion, it is only its superfoetation.\" \"It is\ntrue,\" exclaims with sorrow the hesitating Christian, \"we believe\nno longer in miracles; you might have added that neither do we\nany more believe in God himself; the two things go together.\n{91}\nWe hear much now-a-days of Christian Spiritualism--of the\nreligion of the conscience, and you yourself seem to see that men\nin giving up miracles are making progress in religion. Ah! why is\nit that the intimate experience of my own heart cannot express\nitself in a forcible protest against any such opinion? Whenever I\nfind my faith in miraculous agency vacillating within me, the\nimage of my God seems to be fading away from my eyes: He ceases\nto be for me God the free, the living, the personal; the God with\nwhom the soul converses, as with a master and friend; and this\nholy dialogue once interrupted, what is left us? How does life\nbecome sad? how does it lose its illusions? Reduced to the\nsatisfaction of mere physical wants, to eat, to drink, to sleep,\nto make money, deprived of all horizon, how puerile does our\nmaturity appear, how sorrowful our old age, how meaningless our\nanxieties!\n\n{92}\n\n\"No more mystery, no more innocence, no more infinity, no longer\nany heaven above our heads, no more poesy. Ah! be sure: the\nincredulity which rejects the miracle has a tendency to unpeople\nheaven, and to disenchant the earth. The Supernatural is the\nnatural sphere of the soul. It is the essence of its faith, of\nits hope, of its love. I know how specious criticism is, how\nvictorious its arguments often appear; but I know one thing\nbesides, and perhaps I might here even appeal to your own\ntestimony; in ceasing to believe in what is miraculous, the soul\nfinds that it has lost the secret of divine life; henceforth it\nis urged downwards towards the abyss, soon it lies on the earth,\nand not seldom in the dirt.\"\n\nIn his turn the disbeliever in the Supernatural is troubled and\nsaddened: \"Listen,\" he says: \"the history of humanity seems to be\nsometimes moving in obedience to the following scheme. The world\nbegins with religion, and, referring all phenomena to a first\ncause, it sees God everywhere.\n{93}\nThen comes philosophy, which, having discovered the connection of\nsecondary causes, and the laws of their operation, makes a\ncorresponding deduction from the direct intervention of divinity,\nand then founding itself upon the idea of necessity (for it is\nonly necessity which falls within the domain of science, and\nscience is in fact but the knowledge of what is necessary);\nphilosophy tends in its very fundamental principle to exclude God\nfrom the world. It does more; it finishes by denying human\nliberty as it has denied God. The reason is evident: liberty is a\ncause beyond the sphere of the necessary connection of causes, a\nfirst cause, a cause which serves as cause to itself: and from\nthat moment philosophy, unequal to any explanation, feels itself\ndisposed to deny that first cause. A philosophy true to itself\nwill ever be fatalistic. For from that moment philosophy corrupts\nand destroys itself. When it has no other God than the universe,\nno other man than the chief of the mammalia, what is it but a\nmere system of Zoology?\n{94}\nZoology constitutes the whole science of the epoch, of the\nMaterialists, and to speak plainly, that is our position at the\npresent day. But materialism can never be the be-all and the\nend-all of the human race. Corrupt and enervated, society is\npassing through immense catastrophes, is falling in ruins; the\niron harrow of Revolution is breaking up mankind like the clods\nof the field; in the bloody furrows germinate new races; the soul\nin the agony of its distress believes once more; it resumes its\nfaith in virtue, it finds again the language of prayer. To the\nage of the Renaissance succeeded that of the Reformation; to the\nGermany of Frederick the Great, the Germany of 1812. So faith\nsprings up for ever and ever out of its ashes. Ah, that I must\nadd it, humanity rises again but to resume the march which I have\njust described. But can it be said of it besides, that like this\nGlobe of ours it is making any movement in advance whilst it is\nso turning round itself, and if it does so advance, towards what\nis it gravitating?\n\n{95}\n\n  'Whither, whither, O Lord,\n   marches the earth in the heavens?'\" [Footnote 18]\n\n    [Footnote 18: M\u00e9lange de Critique Religieuse, par Edmond\n    Scherer--Conversations Th\u00e9ologiques, pp. 169-187.]\n\nBut it is not towards heaven that the earth would march if it\nfollowed the path in which the adversaries of the Supernatural\nare impelling it. It is this peculiarity, they say, of the\nSupernatural, that being incredible, it is in its very essence\nanti-human. Now it is precisely to something not anti-human but\nsuperhuman that the human soul aspires, and there seeks to\nrealize these aspirations in the Supernatural. We should be never\nweary of repeating it; the whole finite world in its entirety,\nwith all its facts and all its laws, comprising indeed man\nhimself, suffices not for the soul of man; it requires something\ngrander and more perfect for the subject of its contemplation,\nthe object of its love; it desires to fix its trust in something\nmore stable; to lean upon something less fragile.\n{96}\nThis supreme and sublime ambition it is to which religion, in its\nwidest sense, gives birth and supplies nourishment; and this\nsupreme and sublime ambition it is also that the religion of\nChrist more particularly responds to and satisfies. Let those,\ntherefore, who flatter themselves that although abolishing the\nbelief in the Supernatural, they leave Christians still\nChristians, undeceive themselves; what they are abolishing,\ndestroying, is very religion, for their arguments assail all\nreligion in general, and Christianity in particular. It may be\nthat they do not inflict upon themselves all this evil, and that\nin retaining a sincere religious sentiment they really believe\nthemselves nearly Christians; the soul struggles against the\nerrors of the thought, and a moral suicide is a rare spectacle.\nBut the evil even in spreading unveils more plainly its nature\nand increases in intensity; besides men, in masses, draw from\nerror far more logical conclusions than the man ever did in whom\nthe error had its origin. The people are not the learned, neither\nare they philosophers, and only once succeed in destroying in\nthem all faith in the Supernatural, and you may consider it\ncertain that the faith in Christ must have previously\ndisappeared.\n{97}\nHave you well weighed all this? Have you pictured to yourself\nwhat a man, what mankind, what the soul of man, what human\nsociety itself would become if religion were in effect abolished,\nif religious faith entirely disappeared? I will not give way to\nanguish of soul or sinister presentiments, but I do not hesitate\nto affirm that no imagination can represent with adequate\nfidelity what would take place in us and around us if the place\nat present occupied by Christian belief were on a sudden to\nbecome vacant, and its empire annihilated. No one could pronounce\nto what degree of disorder and degradation humanity would be\nprecipitated. But awful indeed would be the result if all faith\nin the Supernatural were extinct in the soul, and if man had in a\nsupernatural state neither trust nor hope.\n\nIt is not my design, however, to confine myself here to the\nquestion regarded merely in its moral, practical light; I\napproach the Supernatural as viewed with the eyes of free and\nspeculative reason.\n\n{98}\n\nIt is condemned for its very name's sake. Nothing is or can be,\nit is said, beyond and above nature. Nature is one and complete;\neverything is comprised in it; in it, of necessity, all things\ncohere, enchain, and develop themselves.\n\nWe are here in thorough pantheism--that is to say, in absolute\natheism. I do not hesitate to give to pantheism its real name.\nAmongst the men who at the present day declare themselves the\nopponents of the Supernatural, most, certainly, do not believe\nthat they are nor do they desire to be atheists. But let me tell\nthem that they are leading others whither they neither think nor\nwish themselves to go. The negation of the Supernatural, and that\nin the name of the unity and universality of nature, is\npantheism, and pantheism is nothing more nor less than atheism.\n{99}\nIn the sequel of these Meditations, when I come to speak\nparticularly of the actual state of the Christian religion, and\nof the different systems which combat it, I will in this respect\njustify my assertion; at present, I have to repel direct attacks\nupon the Supernatural--attacks less fundamental than those of\npantheism, but not less serious, for in truth, whether men know\nit or not, and whether they mean it or not, all attacks in this\nwarfare reach the same object, and as soon as the Supernatural is\nthe aim it is religion itself that receives the shaft.\n\nThe fixity of the laws of nature is appealed to; that, say they,\nis the palpable and incontestable fact established by the\nexperience of mankind, and upon which rests the conduct of human\nlife. In presence of the permanent order of nature and the\nimmutability of its laws, we cannot admit any partial, any\nmomentary infractions; we cannot believe in the Supernatural, in\nmiracles.\n\nTrue, general and constant laws do govern nature. Are we,\ntherefore, to affirm that those laws are necessary, and that no\ndeviation from them is possible in nature? Who is there that does\nnot discern an essential, an absolute difference between what is\ngeneral and what is necessary?\n{100}\nThe permanence of the actual laws of nature is a fact established\nby experience, but it is not the only fact possible, the only\nfact conceivable by reason; those laws might have been other\nlaws, they may change. Several of them have not always been what\nthey now are, for science itself proves that the condition of the\nuniverse has been different from what it is at present; the\nuniversal and permanent order of which we form part, and in which\nwe confide, has not always been what we now see it; it has had a\nbeginning; the creation of the actual system of nature and of its\nlaws is a fact as certain as the system itself is certain. And\nwhat is creation but a supernatural fact, the act of a Power\nsuperior to the actual laws of nature, and which has power to\nmodify them just as much as it has had power to establish them?\nThe first of miracles is God himself.\n\n{101}\n\nThere is a second miracle--man. I resume what I have already\nsaid; by his title as a moral being and free agent, man lives\nbeyond and above the influence of the general and permanent laws\nof nature; he creates by his will effects which are not at all\nthe necessary consequence of any pre-existent law; and those\neffects take their place in a system absolutely distinct and\nindependent from the visible order which governs the universe.\nThe moral liberty of man is a fact as certain, and natural, as\nthe order of nature, and it is at the same time a supernatural\nfact--that is to say, essentially foreign to the order of nature\nand to its laws.\n\nGod is the being moral and free _par excellence_, that is to\nsay, the being excellently capable of acting as first cause\nbeyond the influence of causation. By his title as a moral being\nand free agent, man is in intimate relation with God. Who shall\ndefine the possible contingencies, or fathom the mysteries of\nthis relation? Who dare to say that God cannot modify, that He\nnever does modify, according to his plans with respect to the\nmoral system and to man, the laws which He has made and which He\nmaintains in the material order of nature?\n\n{102}\n\nSome have hesitated absolutely to deny the possibility of\nsupernatural facts; and so their attack is indirect. If those\nfacts, say they, are not impossible, they are incredible, for no\nparticular testimony of man in favour of a miracle can give a\ncertitude equal to that which, on the opposite side, results from\nthe experience which men have of the fixity of the laws of\nnature.\n\n\"It is experience only,\" says Hume, \"which gives authority to\nhuman testimony; and it is the same experience which assures us\nof the laws of nature. When therefore these two kinds of\nexperience are contrary, we have nothing to do, but subtract the\none from the other, and embrace an opinion, either on one side or\nthe other, with that assurance which arises from the remainder.\nBut according to the principles here explained, this subtraction,\nwith regard to all popular religions, amounts to an entire\nannihilation: and therefore we may establish it as a maxim, that\nno human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and\nmake it a just foundation for any such system of religion.\"\n[Footnote 19]\n\n    [Footnote 19: Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, by\n    David Hume; Essay on Miracles, vol. iii. p. 119-145, B\u00e2le,\n    1793. [Same work, p. 91, London, 16mo, 1860.--TRANSLATOR.]]\n{103}\n\nIt is in this reasoning of Hume that the opponents of miracles\nshut themselves up as in an impregnable fortress to refuse them\nall credence.\n\nWhat confusion of facts and ideas! What a superficial solution of\none of the grandest problems of our nature! What! a simple\noperation of arithmetic, with respect to two experimental\nobservations, estimated in ciphers, is to decide the question\nwhether the universal belief of the race of man in the\nSupernatural is well-founded or simply absurd; whether God only\nacts upon the world and upon man by laws established once for\nall, or whether He still continues to make, in the exercise of\nhis power, use of his liberty!\n{104}\nNot only does the sceptic Hume here show himself unconscious of\nthe grandeur of the problem; he mistakes even in the motives upon\nwhich he founds his shallow conclusion; for it is not from human\nexperience alone that human testimony draws her authority: this\nauthority has sources more profound, and a worth anterior to\nexperience: it is one of the natural bonds, one of the\nspontaneous sympathies which unite with one another men and the\ngenerations of men. Is it by virtue of experience that the child\ntrusts to the words of its mother, that it has faith in all she\ntells it? The mutual trust that men repose in what they say or\ntransmit to each other is an instinct, primitive, spontaneous,\nwhich experience confirms or shakes, sets up again or sets bounds\nto, but which experience does not originate.\n\nI find in the same essay of Hume, [Footnote 20] this other\npassage: \"The passion of surprise and wonder, arising from\nmiracles, being an agreeable emotion, gives a sensible tendency\ntowards the belief of those events from which it is derived.\"\n\n    [Footnote 20: Hume's Essay on Miracles, p. 128,\n    _ubi supra_.]\n\n{105}\n\nThus, if we are to credit Hume, it is merely for his pleasure,\nfor the diversion of the imaginative faculty, that man believes\nin the Supernatural; and beneath this impression--though real,\nstill only of a secondary nature--which does no more than skim\nthe surface of the human soul, the philosopher has no glimpse at\nall of the profound instincts and superior requisitions which\nhave sway over him.\n\nBut why an attack of this character, so indirect and little\ncomplete? Why should Hume limit himself to the proposition that\nmiracles can never be historically proved, instead of at once\naffirming the impossibility of miracles themselves? This is what\nthe opponents of the Supernatural virtually think; and it is\nbecause they commence by regarding miracles as impossible that\nthey apply themselves to destroy the value of the evidences by\nwhich they are supported.\n{106}\nIf the evidence which surrounds the cradle of Christianity, if\nthe fourth, if even the tenth part of it were adduced in support\nof facts of a nature extra-ordinary, unexpected, or unheard of,\nbut still not having a character positively supernatural, the\nproof would be accepted as unexceptionable: the facts for\ncertain. In appearance, it is merely the proof by witnesses of\nthe Supernatural that is contested; whereas, in reality, the very\npossibility of the thing is denied that is sought to be proved.\nThe question ought to be put as it really is, instead of such a\nsolution being offered as is a mere evasion.\n\nLately, however, men of logical minds and daring spirits have not\nhesitated to speak more frankly and plainly. \"The new dogma, they\nsay, the fundamental principle of criticism, is the negation of\nthe Supernatural. ... Those still disposed to reject this\nprinciple have nothing to do with our books, and we, on our side,\nhave no cause to feel disquietude at their opposition and their\ncensure, for we do not write for them. And if this discussion is\naltogether avoided, it is because it is impossible to enter into\nit with out admitting an unacceptable proposition, viz., one\nwhich presumes that the Supernatural can in any given case be\npossible. [Footnote 21]\n\n    [Footnote 21: Conservation, Involution, et Positivisme, par\n    M. Littr\u00e9, Preface, p. xxvi, and following pages--M. Havet,\n    Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 Ao\u00fbt, 1863.]\n\n{107}\n\nI do not reproach the disciples of the school of Hume for having\nevinced greater timidity: if they attacked the Supernatural by a\nside way, not as being impossible in itself, but as being merely\nincapable of proof by human testimony, they did not do so\ndesignedly and with deceitful purpose. Let us render them more\njustice, and do them more honour. A prudent and an honest\ninstinct held them back on the declivity upon which they had\nplaced themselves; they felt that to deny even the possibility of\nthe Supernatural, was to enter at full sail into pantheism and\nfatalism, that is to say, was the same thing as at once\ndispensing with God and doing away with the free agency of man.\nTheir moral sense, their good sense, withheld them from any such\ncourse.\n{108}\nThe fundamental error of the adversaries of the Supernatural is\nthat they contest it in the name of human science, and that they\nclass the Supernatural amongst facts within the domain of\nscience, whereas the Supernatural does not fall within that\ndomain, and the very attempt so to treat it has led, indeed, to\nits being entirely rejected.\n\n{109}\n\n             Fourth Meditation.\n\n           The Limits Of Science.\n\n\nAn eminent moralist, who was at the same time not only a\ntheologian, but a philosopher well versed in the physical\nsciences, I mean Dr. Chalmers, professor at the University of\nEdinburgh, and corresponding member of the Institute of France,\nwrote in his work on _Natural Theology_, a chapter entitled:\n_On man's partial and limited knowledge of divine things._\nThe first pages are as follows:--\n\n  \"The true modern philosophy never makes more characteristic\n  exhibition of itself, than at the limit which separates the\n  known from the unknown. It is there that we behold it in a\n  twofold aspect--that of the utmost deference and respect for\n  all the findings of experience within this limit; that, on the\n  other hand, of the utmost disinclination and distrust for all\n  those fancies of ingenious or plausible speculation which have\n  their place in the ideal region beyond it.\n{110}\n  To call in the aid of a language which far surpasses our own in\n  expressive brevity, its office is '_indagare_' rather than\n  '_divinare_.' The products of this philosophy are copies\n  and not creations. It may discover a system of nature, but not\n  devise one. It proceeds first on the observation of individual\n  facts and if these facts are ever harmonised into a system,\n  this is only in the exercise of a more extended observation. In\n  the work of systematising, it makes no excursion beyond the\n  territory of actual nature--for they are the actual phenomena\n  of nature which form the first materials of this\n  philosophy--and they are the actual resemblances of these\n  phenomena that form, as it were, the cementing principle, to\n  which the goodly fabrics of modern science owe all the solidity\n  and all the endurance that belong to them.\n{111}\n  It is this chiefly which distinguishes the philosophy of the\n  present day from that of by-gone ages. The one was mainly an\n  excogitative, the other mainly a descriptive process--a\n  description however extending to the likenesses as well as to\n  the peculiarities of things; and, by means of these likenesses,\n  these observed likenesses alone, often realising a more\n  glorious and magnificent harmony than was ever pictured forth\n  by all the imaginations of all the theorists.\n\n  \"In the mental characteristics of this philosophy, the strength\n  of a full-grown understanding is blended with the modesty of\n  childhood. The ideal is sacrificed to the actual--and, however\n  splendid or fondly cherished a hypothesis may be, yet if but\n  one phenomenon in the real history of nature stand in the way,\n  it is forthwith and conclusively abandoned. To some the\n  renunciation may be as painful as the cutting off a right hand,\n  or the plucking out a right eye--yet, if true to the great\n  principle of the Baconian school, it must be submitted to.\n{112}\n  With its hardy disciples one valid proof outweighs a thousand\n  plausibilities--and the resolute firmness wherewith they bid\n  away the speculations of fancy is only equalled by the\n  childlike compliance wherewith they submit themselves to the\n  lessons of experience.\n\n  \"It is thus that the same principle which guides to a just and\n  a sound philosophy in all that lies within the circle of human\n  discovery, leads also to a most unpresuming and unpronouncing\n  modesty in reference to all that lies beyond it. And should\n  some new light spring up on this exterior region, should the\n  information of its before hidden mysteries break in upon us\n  from some quarter that was before inaccessible, it will be at\n  once perceived (on the supposition of its being a genuine and\n  not an illusory light) that, of all other men, they are the\n  followers of Bacon and Newton who should pay the most\n  unqualified respect to all its revelations.\n{113}\n  In their case it comes upon minds which are without prejudice,\n  because on that very principle, which is most characteristic of\n  our modern science, upon minds without preoccupation. ... The\n  strength of his confidence in all the ascertained facts of the\n  _terra cognita_ is at one or in perfect harmony with the\n  humility of his diffidence in regard to all the conceived\n  plausibilities of the _terra incognita_.\n\n  \"And let it further be remarked of the self-denial which is\n  laid upon us by Bacon's Philosophy, that, like all other\n  self-denial in the cause of truth or virtue, it hath its\n  reward. In giving ourselves up to its guidance, we have often\n  to quit the fascinations of beautiful theory; but in exchange\n  for them, we are at length regaled by the higher and\n  substantial beauties of actual nature. There is a stubbornness\n  in facts before which the specious imagination is compelled to\n  give way; and perhaps the mind never suffers more painful\n  laceration than when, after having vainly attempted to force\n  nature into a compliance with her own splendid generalizations,\n  she, on the appearance of some rebellious and impracticable\n  phenomenon, has to practise a force upon herself--when she thus\n  finds the goodly speculation superseded by the homely and\n  unwelcome experience.\n{114}\n  It seemed at the outset a cruel sacrifice, when the world of\n  speculation, with all its manageable and engaging simplicities,\n  had to be abandoned; and on becoming the pupils of observation,\n  we, amid the varieties of the actual world around us, felt as\n  if bewildered, if not lost, among the perplexities of a chaos.\n  This was a period of greatest sufferance; but it has had a\n  glorious termination. In return for the assiduity wherewith the\n  study of nature hath been prosecuted, she hath made a more\n  abundant revelation of her charms. Order hath arisen out of\n  confusion, and in the ascertained structure of the universe\n  there are now found to be a state and a sublimity beyond all\n  that was ever pictured by the mind in the days of her\n  adventurous and unfettered imagination.\n{115}\n  Even viewed in the light of a noble and engaging spectacle for\n  the fancy to dwell upon, who would ever think of comparing with\n  the system of Newton, either that celestial machinery of Des\n  Cartes, which was impelled by whirlpools of ether, or that\n  still more cumbrous planetarium of cycles and epicycles which\n  was the progeny of a remoter age? It is thus that at the\n  commencement of the observational process there is the\n  abjuration of beauty. But it soon reappears in another form,\n  and brightens as we advance, and at length there arises on\n  solid foundation, a fairer and goodlier system than ever\n  floated in airy romance before the eye of genius. Nor is it\n  difficult to perceive the reason of this. What we discover by\n  observation is the product of divine imagination bodied forth\n  by creative power into a stable and enduring reality. What we\n  devise by our own ingenuity is but the product of human\n  imagination. The one is the solid archetype of those\n  conceptions which are in the mind of God: the other is the\n  shadowy representation of those conceptions which are in the\n  mind of man. It is just as with the labourer, who, by\n  excavating the rubbish which hides and besets some noble\n  architecture, does more for the gratification of our taste,\n  than if by his unpractised hand he should attempt to regale us\n  with plans and sketches of his own.\n{116}\n  And so the drudgery of experimental science, in exchange for\n  that beauty whose fascinations it withstood at the outset of\n  its career, has evolved a surpassing beauty from among the\n  realities of truth and nature. ...\n\n  \"The views contemplated through the medium of observation, are\n  found not only to have a justness in them, but to have a grace\n  and a grandeur in them far beyond all the visions which are\n  contemplated through the medium of fancy, or which ever regaled\n  the fondest enthusiast in the enchanted walks of speculation\n  and poetry. But neither the grace nor the grandeur alone would,\n  without evidence, have secured acceptance for any opinion. It\n  must first be made to undergo, and without ceremony, the freest\n  treatment from human eyes and human hands. It is at one time\n  stretched on the rack of an experiment, at another it has to\n  pass through fiery trial in the bottom of a crucible.\n{117}\n  In another it undergoes a long questioning process among the\n  fumes and the filtrations and the intense heat of a laboratory;\n  and not till it has been subjected to all this inquisitorial\n  torture and survived it, is it preferred to a place in the\n  temple of Truth, or admitted among the laws and lessons of a\n  sound philosophy.\"\n\nNo one certainly will contest that this is the language of a\nfervent disciple of science. It is impossible to have a keener\napprehension of its beauty, and to accept more completely its\nlaws. What mathematician, natural philosopher, physiologist, or\nchemist, could speak in terms of greater respect and submission\nof the necessity of observation, and of the authority of\nexperience? Dr. Chalmers is not the less for that a true and\nfervent Christian; his religious faith equals his scientific\nexactitude: he receives Christ, and professes Christ's doctrine\nwith as firm a voice as he does Bacon and Bacon's method.\n{118}\nNot that for him religious belief is the mere result of\neducation, of tradition, of habit; but it, on the contrary,\nsprings as much from reflection and learning, as his acquirements\nin natural science themselves; in each sphere he has probed the\nvery sources and weighed the motives of his convictions. How did\nhe, in each instance, reach such a haven of repose? Whence in him\nthis harmony between the philosopher and the Christian?\n\nLet us again allow Dr. Chalmers to speak for himself:--\n\n  \"It is of importance here to remark that the enlargement of our\n  knowledge in all the natural sciences, so far from adding to\n  our presumption, should only give a profounder sense of our\n  natural incapacity and ignorance in reference to the science of\n  theology. It is just as if in studying the policy of some\n  earthly monarch we had made the before unknown discovery of\n  other empires and distant territories whereof we knew nothing\n  but the existence and the name. This might complicate the study\n  without making the object of it at all more comprehensible, and\n  so of every new wonder which philosophy might lay open to the\n  gaze of inquirers.\n{119}\n  It might give us a larger perspective of the creation than\n  before, yet, in _fact_, cast a deeper shade of obscurity\n  over the counsels and ways of the Creator. We might at once\n  obtain a deeper insight into the secrets of the workmanship,\n  and yet feel, and legitimately feel, to be still more deeply\n  out of reach, the secret purposes of Him who worketh all in\n  all. Every discovery of an addition to the greatness of his\n  works may bring with it an addition to the unsearchableness of\n  his ways. ....\n\n  \"That telescope which has opened our way to suns and systems\n  innumerable, leaves the moral administration connected with\n  them in deepest secrecy. It has made known to us the bare\n  existence of other worlds; but it would require another\n  instrument of discovery ere we could understand their relation\n  to ourselves, as products of the same Almighty Hand, as parts\n  or members of a family under the same paternal guardianship.\n  This more extended survey of the Material Universe just tells\n  us how little we know of the Moral or Spiritual Universe.\n{120}\n  It reveals nothing to us of the worlds that roll in space, but\n  the bare elements of Motion, and Magnitude, and Number--and so\n  leaves us at a more hopeless distance from the secret of the\n  Divine administration than when we reasoned of the Earth as the\n  Universe, of our species as the alone rational family of God\n  that He had implicated with body, or placed in the midst of a\n  corporeal system. ...\n\n  \"To know that we cannot know certain things, is in itself\n  positive knowledge, and a knowledge of the most safe and\n  valuable nature. ... There are few services of greater value to\n  the cause of knowledge than the delineation of its boundaries.\"\n  [Footnote 22]\n\n  [Footnote 22: Chalmers's Works: Natural Theology, pp. 249-265;\n  Glasgow.]\n\nIn holding this language, what in effect is Dr. Chalmers doing?\nHe is separating what is finite from what is infinite, the thing\ncreated from the Creator, the world subject to government from\nthe Sovereign that governs it; and in marking this line of\ndemarcation, he says in his modesty to science, what God in his\npower says to the ocean: \"Thus far shalt thou go, and no\nfarther.\"\n\n{121}\n\nDoctor Chalmers was right; the limits of the finite world are\nthose also of human science: how far within these vast limits\nscience may extend her empire, who shall affirm? But what we\ncertainly may assert is, that she never can exceed them. The\nfinite world alone is within her reach, the only world that she\ncan fathom. It is only in the finite world that man's mind can\nfully grasp the facts, observe them in all their extent, and\nunder all their aspects, discriminate their relations and their\nlaws (which constitute also a species of facts), and so verify\nthe system to which they should be referred. This it is that\nmakes what we term scientific processes and labour, and human\nsciences are the results.\n\nWhat need to mention that in speaking of the finite world, I do\nnot mean to speak of the material world alone? Moral facts there\nalso are which fall under observation, and enter into the domain\nof science.\n{122}\nThe study of man in his actual condition, whether considered as\nan individual or as forming a member of a nation, is also a\nscientific study, subject to the same method as that of the\nmaterial world: and it is its legitimate province also to detect\nin the actual order of this world the laws of those particular\nfacts to which it addresses itself.\n\nBut if the limits of the finite world are those of human science,\nthey are not those of the human soul. Man contains in himself\nideas and ambitious aspirations extending far beyond and rising\nfar above the finite world, ideas of and aspirations towards the\nInfinite, the Ideal, the Perfect, the Immutable, the Eternal.\nThese ideas and aspirations are themselves realities admitted by\nthe human mind; but even in admitting them man's mind comes to a\nhalt; they give him a presentiment of, or to speak with more\nprecision, a revelation of, an order of things different from the\nfacts and laws of the finite world which lies under his\nobservation; but whilst man has of this superior order the\ninstinct and the perspective, he can have of it no positive\nknowledge.\n{123}\nIt proceeds from the sublimity of his nature if he has a glimpse\nof Infinity--if he aspires to it; whereas it results from the\ninfirmity of his actual condition if his positive knowledge is\nlimited by the world in which he exists.\n\nI was born in the south, under the very sun. I have yet, for the\nmost part, lived in regions either of the north, or bordering\nupon the north, regions so frequently immersed in mists. When\nunder their pale sky we look towards the horizon, a fog of\ngreater or less density limits the view; the vision itself might\npenetrate much farther, but an external obstacle arrests it; it\ndoes not find there the light it needs. Regard now the horizon\nunder the pure and brilliant sky of the south; the plains,\ndistant as well as near, are bathed in light; the human eye can\npenetrate there as far as its organization permits. If it pierces\nno farther, it is not for want of light, but because its proper\nand natural force has attained its limit: the mind knows that\nthere are spaces beyond that which the eye traverses, but the eye\npenetrates them not.\n{124}\nThis is an image of what happens to the mind itself when\ncontemplating and studying the universe: it reaches a point where\nits clear sight, that is to say its positive appreciation, halts,\nnot that it finds there the end of things themselves, but the\nlimit of man's scientific appreciation of them; other realities\npresent themselves to him; he has a glimpse of them; he believes\nin them spontaneously and naturally; it is not given to him to\ngrasp them and to measure them; but he can neither ignore them,\nnor know them, neither have positive knowledge of them, nor\nrefrain from having faith in them.\n\nI cannot deny myself the pleasure of citing what I wrote thirteen\nyears ago upon the same subject, when philosophically examining\nthe real meaning of the word _faith_. \"The object of every\nreligious belief,\" said I, \"is in a certain, a large measure,\ninaccessible to human science. Human science may establish that\nobject's reality; it may arrive at the boundary of this\nmysterious world; and assure itself of the existence there of\nfacts with which man's destiny is connected; but it is not given\nto it so to attain the facts themselves as to subject them to its\nexamination.\n\n{125}\n\n\"Their incapacity to do so has struck more than one philosopher,\nand has led them to the conclusion that no such reality exists,\nthat every religious belief contemplates subjects simply\nchimerical. Others, shutting their eyes to their own\nincompetency, have dashed daringly forwards towards the sphere of\nthe supernatural; and just as if they had succeeded in\npenetrating into it, they have described its facts, resolved its\nproblems, assigned its laws. It is difficult to say who shows\nmore foolish arrogance, the man who maintains that that of which\nhe cannot have positive knowledge has no real existence, or the\nman who pretends to be able to know everything that actually\nexists. However this may be, mankind has never for a single day\nassented to either assertion: man's instincts and his actions\nhave constantly disavowed both the negation of the disbeliever\nand the confidence of the theologian.\n{126}\nIn spite of the former, he has persisted in believing in the\nexistence of the unknown world, and in the reality of the\nrelations which connect him with it: and notwithstanding the\npowerful influences of the latter, he has refused to admit their\nhaving attained their object--raised the veil; and so man has\ncontinued to agitate the same problems, to pursue the same\ntruths, as ardently and as laboriously as at the first day, just\nas if nothing had been done at all.\" [Footnote 23]\n\n    [Footnote 23: Meditations et \u00catudes Morales,\n    p. 170. Paris, 1851.]\n\nI have just read again the excellent compendium given by M.\nCousin in his _General History of Philosophy from the most\nAncient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century_. He\nestablishes that all the philosophical labours of the human\nunderstanding have terminated in four great systems--sensualism,\nidealism, scepticism, and mysticism--the sole actors in that\nintellectual arena where, in all ages and amongst all nations,\nthey are in turn in the position of combatants and of sovereigns.\n{127}\nAnd, after having clearly characterised in their origin and their\ndevelopment these four systems, M. Cousin adds, \"As for their\nintrinsic merits, habituate yourselves to this principle: they\nhave existed; therefore they had their reason to exist; therefore\nthey are true at least in part. Error is the law of our nature:\nto it we are condemned; and in all our opinions and all our words\nthere is always a large allowance to be made for error, and too\noften for absurdity. But absolute absurdity does not enter into\nthe mind of man; it is the excellence of man's thought, that\nwithout some leaven of truth it admits nothing, and absolute\nerror is impossible. The four systems which have just been\nrapidly laid before you have had each their existence; therefore\nthey contain truth, still without being entirely true. Partially\ntrue, and partially false, these systems reappear at all the\ngreat epochs. Time cannot destroy any one of them, nor can it\nbeget any new one, because time develops and perfects the human\nmind, though without changing its nature and its fundamental\ntendencies.\n{128}\nTime does no more than multiply and vary almost infinitely the\ncombinations of the four simple and elementary systems. Hence\noriginate those countless systems which history collects and\nwhich it is its office to explain.\" [Footnote 24]\n\n    [Footnote 24: Histoire G\u00e9n\u00e9rale de la Philosophic depuis les\n    temps les plus anciens jusqu'\u00e0 la fin du XVIII Si\u00e8cle, par M.\n    Victor Cousin, pp. 4-31. 1863.]\n\nM. Cousin excels in explaining these numberless philosophical\ncombinations, and in tracing them all back to the four great\nsystems which he has defined; but there is a fact still more\nimportant than the variety of these combinations, and which calls\nitself for explanation. Why did these four essential\nsystems--sensualism, idealism, scepticism, and mysticism, appear\nfrom the most ancient times? why have they continued to reproduce\nthemselves always and everywhere, with deductions more or less\nlogical, with greater or less ability, but still fundamentally\nalways and everywhere the same? Why, upon these supreme\nquestions, did the human mind achieve at so early a period, what\nmay be termed, it is true, but essays at a solution, but which\nessays in some sort have exhausted the mind rather than satisfied\nit?\n{129}\nHow is it that these different systems, invented with such\npromptitude, have never been able either to come to an accord,\nnor has any one been able to prevail decidedly against another\nand to cause itself to be received as the truth? Why has\nphilosophy, or, to speak more precisely, why have metaphysics,\nremained essentially stationary; great at their birth, but\ndestined not to grow: whereas the other sciences--those styled\nnatural sciences--have been essentially progressive: at first\nfeeble, and making in succession conquest after conquest; these\nthey have been able to retain, until they have formed a domain\nday by day more extended and less contested?\n\nThe very fact that suggests these questions contains the answer\nto them. Man has, upon the fundamental subject of metaphysics, a\nprimitive light, rather the heritage and dowry of human nature,\nthan the conquest of human science.\n{130}\nThe metaphysician appropriates it as a torch to lighten him on\nhis obscure and ill-defined path. He finds in man himself a point\nof departure at once profound and certain; but his aim is God;\nthat is to say, an aim above his reach.\n\nMust we, then, renounce the study of the great questions which\nform the subject of metaphysics as a vain labour, where the human\nmind is turning indefinitely in the same circle, incapable not\nonly of attaining the object which it is pursuing, but of making\nany advance in its pursuit?\n\nOften, and with more ability than has been evinced by the\nPositive school of the present day, has this judgment been\npronounced against metaphysics. But that judgment man's mind has\nnever accepted, and never will accept; the great problems which\npass beyond the finite world lie propounded before him; never\nwill he renounce the attempt to solve them; he is impelled to it\nby an irresistible instinct, an instinct full of faith and of\nhope, in spite of the repeated failure of his efforts.\n{131}\nAs man is in the sphere of action, so is he also in that of\nthought; he aspires higher than it is possible to achieve: this\nis his nature and his glory; to renounce his aspirations would be\ndeclaring his own forfeiture. But without any such abdication, it\nis still necessary that he should know himself, it is necessary\nthat he should understand that his strength here below is\ninfinitely less than his ambition, and that it is not given him\nto have any positive scientific knowledge of that infinite and\nideal world towards which he dashes. The facts and the problems\nwhich he there encounters are such, that the methods and the laws\nwhich direct the human mind in the study of the finite world are\ninapplicable. The infinite is for us the object not of science\nbut belief, and it is alike impossible for us either to reject or\npenetrate it.\n{132}\nLet man, then, feel a profound sentiment of that double truth:\nlet him, without sacrificing the ambitious aspirations of his\nintelligence, recognise the limits imposed upon his achievements\nin science; he will not then be long in also recognising that, in\nthe relations of the finite with the infinite--of himself with\nGod--he stands in need of superhuman assistance, and that this\ndoes not fail him. God has given to man what man never can\nconquer, and revelation opens to him that world of the infinite\nover which, by its own exertions and of itself alone, man's mind\nnever could spread light. The light man receives from God\nhimself.\n\n{133}\n\n             Fifth Meditation.\n\n                Revelation.\n\n\nWhen it was objected to Leibnitz \"that there is nothing in the\nintelligence that has not first been in the sense,\" Leibnitz\nreplied, \"if not the intelligence itself.\" [Footnote 25]\n\n    [Footnote 25: Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit\n    in sensu.--Nisi intellectus ipse.]\n\nIn the answer of Leibnitz I will change but a single word, and\nsubstitute for _intelligence, soul_. _Soul_ is a term\nmore comprehensive and more complete than _intelligence;_ it\nembraces everything in the human being that is not body and\nmatter; it is not the mere intelligence, a special faculty of\nman; it is all the intellectual and moral man.\n\n{134}\n\nThe soul possesses itself and carries with it into life native\nfaculties and an inborn light: these manifest and develop\nthemselves more and more as they come into relation with the\nexterior world; but they had still an existence prior to those\nrelations, and they exercise an important influence upon what\nresults. The external world does not create nor essentially\nchange the intellectual and moral being that has just come into\nlife, but it opens to it a stage where that being acts in\naccordance at once with its proper nature, and the conditions and\ninfluences in the midst of which the action takes place. The\nhypothesis of a statue endowed with sensibility is a\ncontradiction; in seeking to explain man's first growth, it loses\nsight of the entire intellectual and moral being.\n\nWhen, as I said before, man first entered the world, he did not\nenter it, he could not enter it, as a new-born babe, with the\nmere breath of life; he was created full grown, with instincts\nand faculties complete in their power and capable of immediate\naction.\n{135}\nWe must either deny the creation and be driven to monstrous\nhypotheses, or admit that the human being who now develops\nhimself slowly and laboriously, was at his first appearance\nmature in body and in mind.\n\nThe creation implies then the Revelation, a revelation which\nlighted man at his entrance into the world, and qualified him\nfrom that very moment to use his faculties and his instincts. Do\nwe, can we, picture to ourselves the first man, the first human\ncouple, with a complete physical development, and yet without the\nessential conditions of intellectual activity, physically strong\nand morally a nonentity, the body of twenty years and the soul in\nthe first hour of infancy? Such a fact is self-contradictory, and\nimpossible of conception.\n\nWhat was the positive extent of this primal revelation, the\nnecessary attendant upon creation, which occurred in the first\nrelation of God with man? No man can say. I open the book of\nGenesis and there I read:\n\n{136}\n\n\"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of\nEden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the\nman, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:\nBut of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not\neat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt\nsurely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man\nshould be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of\nthe ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and\nevery fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he\nwould call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living\ncreature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all\ncattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the\nfield; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And\nthe Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:\nand he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead\nthereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made\nhe a woman, and brought her unto the man.\n{137}\nAnd Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my\nflesh. ... Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,\nand shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.\"\n[Footnote 26]\n\n  [Footnote 26: Genesis ii. 15-24.]\n\nAccording, then, to the Bible, the primitive revelation\nessentially bore upon the three points,--marriage, language, and\nthe duty of man's obedience to God his Creator: Adam received at\nthe hand of God the moral law of his liberty, the companion of\nhis life, and the faculty by which he was enabled to name the\ncreatures that were around him: in other words, the three sources\nof religion, of family, and of science were immediately unclosed\nto him. It is not necessary here to enter upon any of the\nquestions which have been raised, as to the human origin of\nlanguage, the primitive language, or the formation of families,\nwith their influence upon the great organisation of society: the\nlimits of the primitive revelation cannot be determined\nscientifically; the fact of the revelation itself is certain.\n{138}\nThis is the light which lighted the first man from his first\nentrance upon life, and without which it is impossible to\nconceive that he could have survived.\n\nThe primitive revelation did not abandon mankind on its\ndevelopment and dispersion; it accompanied it everywhere, as a\ngeneral and permanent revelation. The light which had lighted the\nfirst man spread amongst all nations and throughout all ages,\nassuming the character of ideas, universal and uncontested; of\ninstincts, spontaneous and indestructible. No nation has been\nwithout this light, none left to its own unassisted efforts to\ngrope its way through the darkness of life. Let not the human\nunderstanding pride itself too much upon its works; the glory\ndoes not belong to it alone: what it has accomplished it has\naccomplished by aid of the primitive principles received from\nGod; in all his works and all his progress man has had for point\nof departure and support that primitive revelation.\n{139}\nAll the grand doctrines, all the mighty institutions, which have\ngoverned the world, whatever intermixture of monstrous and fatal\nerrors they may have contained, have preserved a trace of the\nfundamental verities which were the dowry of humanity at its\nbirth. God has forsaken no portion of the human race; and not\nless amidst the errors into which it has fallen, than in the\nnoble developments which constitute its glory, we recognise signs\nof the primitive teaching derived from its Divine Author.\n\nAfter the revelation made to the first man, and in the midst of\nthe general revelation diffused over all mankind, a great event\noccurs in history: a special revelation takes place, and has for\nits seat the bosom of an inconsiderable nation, that had been\nshut in during sixteen centuries in a little corner of the world;\nand it was thence that, nineteen centuries ago, that revelation\nproceeded to enlighten and to subdue, according to the\npredictions of its Author, all the human race.\n\n{140}\n\nA man of an imagination as fertile as his knowledge is profound,\nwho, with an admirable candour has in his works associated\nhypothesis and faith, M. Ewald, professor at the University of\nG\u00f6ttingen, has recently thus characterised this event:--\"The\nhistory of the old Jewish people is fundamentally the history of\nthe true religion, proceeding from step to step to its complete\ndevelopment, rising through all kinds of struggles, until it\nachieves a supreme victory, and finally manifesting itself in all\nits majesty and power, in order to spread irresistibly, by its\nproper virtue, so as to become the eternal possession and\nblessing of all nations.\" [Footnote 27]\n\n    [Footnote 27: H. Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, bis\n    Christus. 2nd ed., vol. i. p. 9. G\u00f6ttingen, 1851. ]\n\nHow is the great event thus characterised by M. Ewald proved? By\nwhat marks can we distinguish the Divine origin of this special\nrevelation that became the Christian religion? What does it\naffirm itself in support of its claim to the moral conquest of\nmankind?\n\n{141}\n\nAt the very outset, in proving her dogmas and precepts to have\ncome from God, the Christian revelation asserts that the\ndocuments in which it is written are themselves of divine origin.\nThe divine inspiration of the sacred volume is the first basis of\nthe Christian Faith, the external title of Christianity to\nauthority over souls. What is the full import of this title? What\nthe signification of the inspiration of the sacred volumes?\n\n{142}\n\n             Sixth Meditation.\n\n    The Inspiration Of The Scriptures.\n\n\nI have read the sacred volumes over and over again, I have\nperused them in very different dispositions of mind, at one time\nstudying them as great historical documents, at another admiring\nthem as sublime works of poetry. I have experienced an\nextraordinary impression, quite different from either curiosity\nor admiration. I have felt myself the listener of a language\nother than that of the chronicler or the poet; and under the\ninfluence of a breath issuing from other sources than human. Not\nthat man does not occupy a great place in the sacred volumes; he\ndisplays himself there, on the contrary, with all his passions,\nhis vices, his weaknesses, his ignorance, his errors; the Hebrew\npeople shows itself rude, barbarous, changeable, superstitious,\naccessible to all the imperfections, to all the failings, of\nother nations.\n{143} But the Hebrew is not the sole actor in his history; he has\nan Ally, a Protector, a Master, who intervenes incessantly to\ncommand, inspire, direct, strike, or save. God is there, always\npresent, acting--\n\n  \"Et ce n'est pas un Dieu comme vos dieux frivoles,\n  Insensibles et sourds, impuissants, mutil\u00e9s,\n  De bois, de marbre, ou d'or, comme vous le voulez.\" [Footnote 28]\n\n  \"Not such a god as are _your_ friv'lous gods,\n  Insensible and deaf, weak, mutilated,\n  Of wood, or stone, or gold, as _you_ will have them.\"\n\n    [Footnote 28: Corneille, Polyeucte, acte iv. sc. 3.]\n\nIt is the God One and Supreme, All Powerful, the Creator, the\nEternal. And even in their forgetfulness and their disobedience,\nthe Hebrews believe still in God: He is still the object at once\nof their fear, of their hope, and of a faith that persists in the\nmidst of the infidelity of their lives. The Bible is no poem in\nwhich man recounts and sings the adventures of his God combined\nwith his own; it is a real drama, a continued dialogue between\nGod and man personified in the Hebrews; it is, on the one side,\nGod's will and God's action, and, on the other, man's liberty and\nman's faith, now in pious association, now at fatal variance.\n\n{144}\n\nThe more I have perused the Scriptures, the more surprised I feel\nthat earnest readers should not have been impressed as I have\nbeen, and that several should have failed to see the\ncharacteristic of divine inspiration, so foreign to every other\nbook, so remarkable in this one. That men who absolutely deny all\nsupernatural action of God in the world, should not be more\ndisposed to admit it in the sources of the Bible than elsewhere,\nis perfectly comprehensible; but the attack upon the divine\ninspiration of the sacred books has another motive, and one more\nlikely to prove contagious. It is not without deep regret that I\nproceed in this place to contradict ancient traditions, at once\nrespected and respectable, and perhaps to offend sober and\nsincere convictions. But my own conviction is stronger than my\nregret, and it is still more so because accompanied by another\nconviction, which is, that the system that it is my intention to\ncontest, has occasioned, continues to occasion, and may still\noccasion, an immense ill to Christianity.\n\n{145}\n\nWhoever reads without prejudice in the Hebrew and Greek the\noriginal texts of the Scriptures, whether of the Old or New\nTestament, meets there often in the midst of their sublime\nbeauties, I do not say merely faults of style, but of grammar, in\nviolation of those logical and natural rules of language common\nto all tongues. Are we to infer that these faults have the same\norigin as the doctrines with which they are intermixed, and that\nthey are both divinely inspired? [Footnote 29]\n\n    [Footnote 29: I indicate, in a note placed at the end of this\n    volume, some instances of these grammatical faults met with\n    in the Scriptures, and to which it is impossible to assign\n    the character of divine inspiration.]\n\nAnd yet this is what is pretended by fervent and learned men, who\nmaintain that all, absolutely all, in the Scriptures is divinely\ninspired--the words as well as the ideas, all the words used\nupon all subjects, the material of language as well as the\ndoctrine which lies at its base.\n\n{146}\n\nIn this assertion I see but deplorable confusion, leading to\nprofound misapprehension both of the meaning and the object of\nthe sacred books. It was not God's purpose to give instruction to\nmen in grammar, and if not in grammar, neither was it, any more\nGod's purpose to give instruction in geology, astronomy,\ngeography, or chronology. It is on their relations with their\nCreator, upon duties of men towards Him and towards each other,\nupon the rule of faith and of conduct in life, that God has\nlighted them by light from heaven. It is to the subject of\nreligion and morals, and to these alone, that the inspiration of\nthe Scriptures is directed.\n\nAmongst the principal arguments alleged to prove that everything\nin the sacred volumes is divinely inspired, particular use has\nbeen made of the Second Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, where in\neffect we find the passage:--\n\n  \"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is\n  profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for\n  instruction in righteousness:\n\n  \"That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto\n  all good works.\" [Footnote 30]\n\n    [Footnote 30: 2 Timothy iii. 16, 17.]\n\n{147}\n\nIs it possible to determine in words of greater precision the\nreligious and moral object of the inspiration?\n\nAppeal is made to a consideration of a different description. If,\nit is said, we at the same time admit, on the one side, the\ninspiration of the sacred books, and on the other, that this\ninspiration is not universal and absolute, who shall make the\nselection between these two parts?--who mark the limit of the\ninspiration?--who say which texts, which passages are inspired,\nand which are not? So to divide the Holy Scriptures is to strip\nthem of their supernatural character, to destroy their\nauthenticity, by surrendering them to all the incertitudes, all\nthe disputes of men: a complete and uninterrupted inspiration\nalone is capable of commanding faith.\n\n{148}\n\nNever-dying pretension of man's weakness! Created intelligent and\nfree, he proposes to use largely his intelligence and his\nfreedom; at the same time, conscious how feeble his means are,\nhow inadequate to his aspirations, he invokes a guide, a support;\nand from the very moment that his hope fixes upon it, he will\nhave it immutable, infallible. He searches a fixed point to which\nto attach himself with absolute and permanent assurance. In\ncreating man, God did not leave him without fixed points; the\nDivine revelation, and the inspiration of the Scriptures, had\nprecisely for object and effect to supply these, but not on all\nsubjects alike and without distinction. I refer here again to\nwhat I lately said respecting the separation of the finite and\nthe infinite, of the world created, and of its Creator. At the\nsame time that the limits of the finite world are those of human\nscience, it is to human study and human science that God has\nsurrendered the finite world; it is not there that God has set up\nhis divine torch; He has dictated to Moses the laws which\nregulate the duties of man towards God, and of man towards man;\nbut He has left to Newton the discovery of the laws which preside\nover the universe.\n{149}\nThe Scriptures speak upon all subjects; circumstances connected\nwith the finite world are there incessantly mixed with\nperspectives of infinity; but it is only to the latter, to that\nfuture of which they permit us to snatch a view, and to the laws\nwhich they impose upon men, that the divine inspiration addresses\nitself; God only pours his light in quarters which man's eye and\nman's labour cannot reach; for all that remains, the sacred books\nspeak the language used and understood by the generations to whom\nthey are addressed. God does not, even when He inspires them,\ntransport into future domains of science the interpreters He\nuses, or the nations to whom He sends them; He takes them both as\nHe finds them, with their traditions, their notions, their degree\nof knowledge or ignorance as respects the finite world, of its\nphenomena and its laws.\n{150}\nIt is not the condition, the scientific progress of the human\nunderstanding; it is the condition and moral progress of the\nhuman soul which are the object of the Divine action, and God\nrequires not for the exercise of his power on the human soul,\nscience either as a precursor or a companion; He addresses\nhimself to instincts and desires the most intimate and most\nsublime as well as the most universal in man's nature, to\ninstincts and desires of which science is neither the object nor\nthe measure, and which require to be satisfied from other\nsources. Whatever true or false science we find in the Scriptures\nupon the subject of the finite world, proceeds from the writers\nthemselves or their contemporaries; they have spoken as they\nbelieved, or as those believed who surrounded them when they\nspoke: on the other hand, the light thrown over the infinite, the\nlaw laid down, and the perspective opened by that same light,\nthese are what proceed from God, and which He has inspired in the\nScriptures. Their object is essentially and exclusively moral and\npractical; they express the ideas, employ the images, and speak\nthe language best calculated to produce a powerful effect upon\nthe soul, to regenerate and to save it. I open the Gospel\naccording to St. Luke, and I there read the admirable parable:--\n\n{151}\n\n  \"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and\n  fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:\n\n  \"And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid\n  at his gate, full of sores,\n\n  \"And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the\n  rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.\n\n  \"And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by\n  the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and\n  was buried;\n\n  \"And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth\n  Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.\n\n  \"And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and\n  send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water,\n  and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.\n\n  \"But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime\n  receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things;\n  but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.\n\n  \"And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf\n  fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot;\n  neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.\n\n  \"Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou\n  wouldest send him to my father's house:\n\n{152}\n\n  \"For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest\n  they also come into this place of torment.\n\n  \"Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let\n  them hear them.\n\n  \"And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them\n  from the dead, they will repent.\n\n  \"And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets,\n  neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.\"\n  [Footnote 31]\n\n    [Footnote 31: Luke xvi. 19-31.]\n\nWas it the intention of Jesus, and of the Evangelist who has\nrepeated his words, to describe, as they really are, the\ncondition of men after their earthly existence, their positive\nlocal position after God's judgment, and their relations either\nwith each other or with the world which they have quitted?\nCertainly not; the material circumstances intermixed with this\ndialogue are only images borrowed from actual common life. But\nwhat images so strike, so penetrate the soul? What more solemn\nwarning addressed to men in this life, to rouse them to a sense\nof their duties towards God and their fellow creatures, in the\nname of the mysterious future that awaits them?\n\n{153}\n\nNothing is further from my thought than to see in the sacred\nbooks mere poetical images and symbols; those books are really,\nwith respect to the religious problems that beset man's thoughts,\nthe Light and the voice of God; still, that Light only lights,\nthat voice only reveals revelations of God with man, duties which\nGod enjoins men in the course of their present life, and\nprospects which He opens to them beyond the imperfect and limited\nworld where this life passes. As for this life itself, it is the\nobject of human study and science, not of the inspiration of the\nsacred Scriptures. In disregarding this limit, in pretending to\nattribute to the language of the Scriptures, used with reference\nto the phenomena of the finite world, the character of divine\ninspiration, men have fallen with respect both to thought and act\ninto deplorable errors. Hence proceeded the trial of Galileo, and\nnumerous other controversies, numerous other condemnations still\nmore absurd, still more to be regretted, in which Christianity\nwas immediately placed in opposition to human science, and\nconstrained to inflict or receive remarkable disavowals.\n{154}\nThe same is the case at the present day with respect to numerous\nobjections made in the name of the natural sciences to\nChristianity, and which from the learned circles where they have\ntheir birth, spread over a world at once curious and frivolous,\nwhere they cause the Christian faith itself to be regarded as\nignorant credulity. Nothing of this kind could ever occur, no\nnecessity of such conflict could await the Christian religion, if\non the one side the limits of human science, and on the other\nthose of divine inspiration, were recognised as they really are,\nand respected according to their rightful claims.\n\nI might cite in aid of the opinion I support numerous and great\nauthorities. I will refer to but three, appealed to by Galileo\nhimself in 1615 in his letters to the Grand Duchess Christina of\nLorraine\" [Footnote 32]--(who could appeal to authorities more\naugust?)--\"Many things,\" says St. Jerome, \"are recounted in the\nScriptures according to the judgment of the times when they\nhappened, and not according to the truth.\" [Footnote 33]\n\n  [Footnote 32: Opere Complete di Galileo-Galilei, t. ii. chap.\n  ii. pp. 26-64. Florence, 1843.]\n\n  [Footnote 33: OEuvres de St. J\u00e9r\u00f4me, Comment, in Jeremiam, ed.\n  Vallars. t. ix. p. 1040.]\n\n{155}\n\n  \"The purpose of the Holy Scriptures,\" says the Cardinal\n  Baronius, \"is to teach us how to go to heaven, and not how the\n  heavens go.\" \"This,\" says Kepler, \"is the counsel I give to the\n  man so ill informed as not to understand the science of\n  astronomy, or so weak as to regard adhesion to Copernicus as\n  proof of want of piety:--Let him at once leave the study of\n  astronomy and the examination of the opinions of philosophers;\n  instead of devoting himself to those arduous researches, let\n  him remain at home, till his fields, and occupy himself with\n  his proper business; and thence, raising towards the admirable\n  vault of heaven his eyes, which constitute for him his sole\n  mode of vision, let him pour forth his heart in thanksgivings\n  and praises to God his Creator. He may rest assured that he is\n  thus rendering to God a worship as perfect as that of the\n  astronomer himself, to whom God has accorded the gift of seeing\n  clearer with the eyes of his intelligence; but who, above all\n  the worlds and all the heavens that he attains, knows and wills\n  to find his God.\" [Footnote 34]\n\n    [Footnote 34: Kepler, Nova Astronomia, Introductio, p. 9.\n    Prague, 1609.]\n\n{156}\n\nI discard, then, as absolutely foreign to the grand question that\noccupies me, all the difficulties suggested to the Scriptures in\nthe name of those sciences whose province is finite nature. I\nseek and consider in these books only what is their sole\nobject,--the relations of God with man, and the solution of those\nproblems which these relations cause to weigh upon the human\nsoul. The deeper we go in the study of the sacred volumes,\nrestored to their real object, the more the divine inspiration\nbecomes manifest and striking. God and man are there ever both\npresent, both actors in the same history. Of this history it is\nmy present object to illustrate the grand features.\n\n{157}\n\n           Seventh Meditation.\n\n       God According To The Bible.\n\n\nIt is far from my intention to evade the questions which concern\nthe authenticity of the Bible, and of the respective books which\ncompose it. I shall enter upon them in the second series of these\n_Meditations_, when I touch upon the history of the\nChristian religion. Those questions, however, have no bearing\nupon the subject which occupies me at the present moment; the\nBible, whatever its antiquity, whatever the comparative antiquity\nof its different parts, has been ever that witness of God in\nwhich the Hebrews believed, and under the law of which they\nlived, the great monument of the religion in the bosom of which\nthe Christian religion took its birth. It is this God of whom in\nthe Bible, and in the Bible alone, it is my purpose to seek the\npeculiar and true character.\n\n{158}\n\nThe nations of Semitic origin have been honoured for their\nprimitive and persistent faith in the unity of God. Under\ndifferent forms, and amidst events very dissimilar, nearly all\nnations have been polytheistic; the Semitic nations alone have\nbelieved firmly in the one God. This great moral fact has been\nattributed to different and to complex causes; but the fact\nitself is generally acknowledged and admitted.\n\nIn two respects in this assertion there is exaggeration. On one\nside, among the nations of Semitic origin, several were\npolytheistic; the descendants of Abraham, the Hebrews, and the\nArab Ishmaelites, alone remained really monotheistic; on the\nother side, the idea of the unity of God was not entirely strange\neven to the polytheistic nations. The greater part, like the\nHindoos and the Greeks, admitted one sole and primordial Power\nanterior and superior to their gods;--idea, vague and searched\nfrom afar, derived from the instinct of man or the reflection of\nthe philosopher, and which amongst those nations became neither\nthe basis of any religion that deserves the name, nor any\nefficacious obstacle to idolatry.\n{159}\nThe God of the Bible is no such sterile abstraction; He is the\none God at the present time as in the origin of all things, the\npersonal God, living, acting, and presiding efficiently over the\ndestinies of the world that He has created.\n\nHe has besides another characteristic, one far more striking,\nwhich belongs to Him more exclusively than that of Unity. The\ngods of the polytheistic nations have histories filled with\nevents, vicissitudes, transformations, adventures. The mythology\nof the Egyptians, of the Hindoos, of the Greeks, of the\nScandinavians, and numerous others, is but the poetical or\nsymbolical recital of the varied and agitated lives of their\ngods. We detect in these recitals sometimes the personification\nof the fancies of nations described in accordance with their\nactual phenomena, some times the reminiscences of human\npersonages who have struck the imagination of the people.\n{160}\nBut whatever their origin, whatever their name, each of those\ngods has his individual history more or less overladen with\nincidents and acts, now heroic, now licentious, now elegantly\nfantastic, now grossly eccentric. All the polytheistic religions\nare collections of biographies, divine or legendary, allegorical\nor completely fabulous, in which the careers and the passions,\nthe actions and the dreams of men, reproduce themselves under the\nforms and names of deities.\n\nThe God of the Bible has no biography, neither has He any\npersonal adventures. Nothing occurs to Him and nothing changes in\nHim; He is always and invariably the same, a Being real and\npersonal, absolutely distinct from the finite world and from\nhumanity, identical and immutable in the bosom of the universal\ndiversity and movement. \"I Am That I Am,\" is the sole definition\nthat He vouchsafes of himself, and the constant expression of\nwhat He is in all the course of the history of the Hebrews, to\nwhich He is present and over which He presides without ever\nreceiving from it any reflex of influence.\n{161}\nSuch is the God of the Bible, in evident and permanent contrast\nwith all the gods of polytheism, still more distinct and more\nsolitary by his nature than by his Unity.\n\nThis is, indeed, so peculiarly the proper and essential character\nof the God of the Bible, that this character has passed into the\nvery language of the Hebrews, and has become there the very name\nof God. Several words are employed in the Bible as appellations\nof God. One of these _El, Eloah,_ in the plural\n_Eloh\u00efm_, expresses force, _creative power_, and is\napplied to the manifold gods of Paganism as well as to the one\nGod of the Hebrews. _El Shadda\u00ef_ is translated by _the\nall-powerful_. _Adonai_ signifies _Lord_. The word\n_Yahwe_ or _Yehwe_, which becomes in Hebrew\npronunciation _Jehovah_, means simply _He is_, and\nmeans self-existence, the Being Absolute and Eternal.\n{162}\nThis name occurs in no other of the Semitic languages, and it is\nat the epoch of Moses that it appears for the first time amongst\nthe Hebrews: \"And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am\nthe Eternal\" (_Yahwe, Jehovah_). \"And I appeared unto\nAbraham, Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of the All-powerful\n(_El Shadda\u00ef_), but by my name Eternal was I not known to\nthem.\" [Footnote 35 ] _Yahwe, Jehovah_, is at once the true\nGod and the national God of Israel.  [Footnote 36]\n\n    [Footnote 35: Exodus vi. 2, 3.]\n\n    [Footnote 36: I have consulted respecting the precise sense\n    and the different shades of meaning of the terms expressing\n    God in Hebrew, my learned _confr\u00e8re_ at the Academy of\n    Inscriptions, M. Munk, who has replied to all my inquiries\n    with as much clearness as courtesy.]\n\nThe history of the Hebrews is neither less significant nor less\nexpressive than their language; it is the history of the\nrelations of the God, One and Immutable with the people chosen by\nHim to be the special representative of the religious principle,\nand the regenerating source of religious life in the human race.\n{163}\nThis people undergoes the destiny and trials common to all\nnations; it demands, and becomes subject to, a variety of\ndifferent governments; it falls into the errors and faults usual\nto nations; it frequently succumbs to the temptations of\nidolatry; like the others, it has its days of virtue and of vice,\nof prosperity and of reverses, of glory and of abasement. Amidst\nall the vicissitudes and errors of the people of the Bible, the\nGod of the Bible remains invariably the same, without any\ntincture of anthropomorphism, without any alteration in the idea\nwhich the Hebrews conceive of his nature, either during their\nfidelity or disobedience to his Commandments. It is always the\nGod who has said, \"I Am That I Am,\" of whom his people demand no\nother explanation of himself, and who, ever present and\nsovereign, pursues the designs of his providence with men, who\neither use or abuse the liberty of action which that God had\naccorded to them at their creation. I wish to retrace, according\nto the Bible, the principal phases and the principal actors in\nthis history.\n{164}\nThe more I study, the more I feel that I am watching, as M. Ewald\nhas expressed it, \"the career of the true religion, advancing\nstep by step to its complete development,\" that is to say, that I\nam there observing the action of God upon the first steps and\nupon the religious progress of the human race.\n\n\n           I. God And Abraham.\n\n\nThe history of the Hebrews, temporal and spiritual, opens with\nAbraham. At his first appearance in the Bible, Abraham is a nomad\nchief, who has quitted Chald\u00e6a and the town of Haran, where his\nfather, Terah, descended from Shem, is still living. He is\nwandering with his family, his servants, and his flocks, at first\non the frontiers and afterwards in the interior of the land of\nCanaan, halting wherever he finds water and pasturage, and\nconducting his tents and his tribe at one time through the\nmountainous districts, at another along the plains below. Why has\nhe left Chald\u00e6a?\n{165}\nAccording to the Bible itself, his father was an idolater: \"Your\nfathers,\" said Joshua to the people of Israel, \"dwelt on the\nother side of the flood\" (the Euphrates) \"in old time, even\nTerah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they\nserved other gods.\" [Footnote 37] The book of Judith contains a\nsimilar assertion; [Footnote 38] and the Jewish and Arabian\ntraditions confirm, at the same time that they amplify, the\nstatement: the father of Abraham, they say, was an idolatrous\nfanatic, and his son Abraham, having set himself against the\npractice of idolatry, was upon his charge thrown into a burning\nfurnace, from which a miracle alone preserved him. The historian\nJosephus speaks of the insurrections which took place amongst the\nChald\u00e6ans on the occasion of their religious dissensions.\n\n    [Footnote 37: Joshua xxiv. 2.]\n\n    [Footnote 38: Judith v. 6-9. ]\n\n    [USCCB: Judith v. 6-9.\n    \"These people are descendants of the Chaldeans. They formerly\n    dwelt in Mesopotamia, for they did not wish to follow the\n    gods of their forefathers who were born in the land of the\n    Chaldeans. Since they abandoned the way of their ancestors,\n    and acknowledged with divine worship the God of heaven, their\n    forefathers expelled them from the presence of their gods. So\n    they fled to Mesopotamia and dwelt there a long time. Their\n    God bade them leave their abode and proceed to the land of\n    Canaan. Here they settled, and grew very rich in gold,\n    silver, and a great abundance of livestock.\"]\n\nThe Bible makes no allusion to these traditions; from the very\nbeginning God intervenes in the history of the father of the\nHebrews.\n{166}\n\"The Eternal had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country,\nand from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land\nthat I will shew thee: I will make thee a great nation, and I\nwill bless thee, and make thy name great; ... and in thee shall\nall families of the earth be blessed. ... So Abram departed, ...\nand Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all\ntheir substance that they had gathered, and the sons that they\nhad gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of\nCanaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.\" [Footnote 39]\n\n    [Footnote 39: Genesis xii. 1-5.]\n\nHow had God spoken to Abraham? By a voice from without or by an\ninternal inspiration? The writer of the Biblical narrative\noccupies himself in no respect with the question. God is for him,\npresent and an actor in the history just as much as Abraham is;\nthe intervention of God has in his eyes nothing but what is\nperfectly simple and natural. The same faith animates Abraham; he\nissues forth from Chald\u00e6a and wanders through Palestine,\naccording to the word and under the direction of the Eternal.\n\n{167}\n\nHe wanders through the midst of populations already established\nupon the land of Canaan, and with these he lives in peace, but\nstill, not uniting with them; bringing them succour when attacked\nby foreign chieftains; fighting in their behalf as a faithful\nally, sometimes, perhaps, in the character of a valiant\n_condottiere_ [mercenary], but remaining isolated in his\ncapacity of nomad Patriarch, with his family and his tribe;\nrepelling even the gifts and favours which might perhaps lower\nhis character or affect his independence. Everywhere that he\nhalts, or that any incident of importance occurs to him, at\nSichem, Bethel, Beersheba, Hebron, he raises an altar to his God.\nIn his wandering uncertain life a famine impels him on one\noccasion even as far as Egypt:--the first perhaps of those\nshepherd chiefs who issued from Asia, and who were so soon to\ninvade that rich country. Abraham passes in Egypt several years,\nwell treated by the reigning Pharaoh; on excellent terms with the\nEgyptian priests, imparting to them and receiving from them such\nknowledge of astronomy or of natural philosophy as they mutually\npossessed; but maintaining ever carefully the isolation of his\nfamily, of his tribe, and of his religion. Of his own accord, or\nat the instance of the Pharaoh, he quits Egypt, carrying with him\nnot only his flocks and his camels, but his Egyptian slaves, and\namongst others Hagar.\n{168}\nHe returns to the country of Canaan, again wanders through\nseveral of its districts, takes part in different\nevents--internal troubles or foreign wars, and finally settles\nwith his family and dependents at Hebron, near the oaks of Mamre,\namongst the tribe of the children of Heth; but still always in\nhis capacity as a foreigner, and always careful as such to\npreserve his character and his independence. When his wife Sarah\ndied, the book of Genesis tells us that,\n\n  \"Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons\n  of Heth, saying,\n\n  \"I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession\n  of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my\n  sight.\n\n  \"And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him,\n\n{169}\n\n  \"Hear us, my lord: thou art a mighty prince among us: in the\n  choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall\n  withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest bury thy\n  dead.\n\n  \"And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the\n  land, even to the children of Heth.\n\n  \"And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I\n  should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and entreat for\n  me to Ephron the son of Zohar,\n\n  \"That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath,\n  which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is\n  worth he shall give it me for a possession of a buryingplace\n  amongst you.\n\n  \"And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth: and Ephron the\n  Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of\n  Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying,\n\n  \"Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave\n  that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of\n  my people give I it thee: bury thy dead.\n\n  \"And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land.\n\n  \"And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the\n  land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I\n  will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will\n  bury my dead there.\n\n  \"And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him,\n\n  \"My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred\n  shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury\n  therefore thy dead.\n\n{170}\n\n  \"And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to\n  Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the\n  sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money\n  with the merchant.\n\n  \"And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was\n  before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and\n  all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the\n  borders round about, were made sure\n\n  \"Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children\n  of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.\n\n  \"And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of\n  the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the\n  land of Canaan.\n\n  \"And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure\n  unto Abraham for a possession of a buryingplace by the sons of\n  Heth.\" [Footnote 40]\n\n    [Footnote 40: Genesis xxiii. 3-20.]\n\nLittle importance does Abraham attach to his precarious condition\nas a wanderer and a stranger; he has faith in God. God commands,\nand Abraham obeys. God promises, and Abraham trusts. One day,\nhowever, with a feeling of anxious humility, Abraham makes the\nfollowing prayer to God:--\n  \"Lord Eternal, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless,\n  and there is Eliezer of Damascus shall be my heir?\n{171}\n  And behold the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This\n  shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of\n  thine own bowels shall be thine heir. I am God, the mighty,\n  all-powerful; walk before my face, be thou perfect. I will\n  establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after\n  thee, in their generation, for an everlasting possession, and I\n  will be their God. But thou shalt keep my covenant therefore,\n  thou and thy seed after thee, in their generations. And Abraham\n  believed in the Lord; and the Eternal counted it to him for\n  righteousness.\" [Footnote 41]\n\n    [Footnote 41: Genesis xv. 1-6. and xvii. 1-9.]\n\nIn these days, in the bosom of Christian civilization, obedience\nto God and confidence in God are the first precepts, the first\nvirtues of Christianity. They were also the virtues of Abraham,\nand the precepts inculcated by Abraham's history in the Bible.\n{172}\nAnd the God of Abraham, the God of the Bible, is the same who is\nthe object of adoration to the Christian of the present day; the\nsame conception as that of those philosophers of the present day\nwho believe in God, and believe in Him as in God Absolute and\nPerfect, Self-dependent, Eternal, without the possibility or\nattempt to define Him otherwise. Thousands of years have changed\nnothing as to the biblical notion of God in the human soul, nor\nas to the essential laws regulating the relation of man with God.\n\nHistorical tradition fully confirms the moral fact here\nmentioned. Abraham has not been the object of any mystical\nconception, or any mythological metamorphosis; nowhere has he\nbeen transformed into demigod or son of God; he has ever remained\nthe model of religious faith and submission, the type of the\npious man in intimate relation with God. Throughout all\nantiquity, and in all the East, as much for the primitive\nChristians as for the Jews and Arabs, as much for the Mussulmans\nas for the Jews and Christians, God is the God of Abraham;\nAbraham is the friend of God, the father and the prince of\nbelievers; these are the very names that the Gospel gives him;\n[Footnote 42] and the Koran, too, celebrates him in these\nwords:--\n\n    [Footnote 42: St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans iv.; Galatians\n    iii.; Epistle of St. James ii. 23.]\n\n{173}\n\n  \"And when the night overshadowed him, he saw a star, and he\n  said, This is my Lord; but when it set, he said, I like not\n  gods which set. And when he saw the moon rising, he said, This\n  is my Lord; but when he saw it set, he said, Verily, if my Lord\n  direct me not, I shall become one of the people who go astray.\n  And when he saw the sun rising, he said, This is my Lord, this\n  is the greatest; but when it set, he said, my people, verily I\n  am clear of that which ye associate with God. I direct my face\n  unto him who hath created the heavens and the earth.\" [Footnote\n  43]\n\n    [Footnote 43: Koran vi.]\n\nThe Eternal, the God One and Immutable, is the God of Abraham;\nAbraham is the servant and adorer of the true God.\n\n{174}\n\n           II. God And Moses.\n\n\nThe true idea of God, and the faith in his effectual and\ncontinued providence, are the two great religious principles\nwhich the name of Abraham suggests. This is the beginning of the\nhistory of the Hebrews, and the origin of that ancient Covenant\nwhich, in passing from the Pentateuch to the Gospel, has become\nthe new Covenant, the Christian Religion.\n\nAbout five centuries later, we find the Hebrews settled in Egypt,\nin the land of Goshen, between the lower Nile, the Red Sea, and\nthe Desert, in a condition very different from that in which they\nhad first been when attracted to the court of Pharaoh by the\nprosperity of Joseph, the great-grandson of Abraham. The new\nPharaoh oppresses them cruelly; they are a prey to the miseries\nof slavery, the contagion of idolatry, to all the evils, all the\nperils, physical and moral, which can afflict a nation\nnumerically weak, fallen under the yoke of one powerful and\ncivilized.\n{175}\nThe Hebrews nevertheless persist in their religious faith, cling\nto their national reminiscences; they do not suffer their\nnationality to be lost in and confounded with that of their\nmasters; they endure without offering any active resistance; they\nwill not deliver themselves, but they have never ceased to\nbelieve in their God, and they await their Deliverer.\n\nMoses has been saved from the waters of the Nile by Pharaoh's own\ndaughter. He has been brought up at Heliopolis, in the midst of\nthe pomp of the court, and instructed in the sciences of the\nEgyptian priests. He has served the sovereign of Egypt; he has\ncommanded his troops and made war for him against the \u00c6thiopians.\nHe has received an Egyptian name, Osarsiph, or Tisithen.\nEverything seems to concur to make him an Egyptian. But he\nremains a faithful Israelite: true to the faith and to the\nfortunes of his brethren. Their oppression rouses his\nindignation; he avenges one of them by killing his oppressor.\n{176}\nThe victims of oppression, alarmed, disavow Moses, instead of\nsupporting him. Moses flees from Egypt and takes refuge in the\nDesert, amongst a tribe of wandering Arabs, the Midianites,\nsprung, like himself, from Abraham. Their chief, the sheick of\nthe tribe, Jethro, called also Hobab, receives him as a son, and\ngives him his daughter Zipporah in marriage. The proud Israelite,\nwho has declined to remain an Egyptian, becomes an Arab, and\nleads, several years, the nomadic life of the hospitable tribe.\nIt is now in the peninsula of Sinai that Moses wanders with the\nservants and flocks of his father-in-law. In the centre of that\npeninsula, of yore a province in the empire of the Pharaohs, but\nwhich had fallen into the possession of the pastoral Arabs, rises\nSinai, a mount with which from time immemorial, among the\nneighbouring tribes, have been connected as many sacred\ntraditions as have ever been assigned to Mount Ararat in Armenia,\nor the Himalayas in India. In this venerable spot, before a\nburning bush, Moses, with a heart full of faith, hears God\ncalling him and commanding him to lead his people, the children\nof Israel, out of Egypt.\n{177}\nMoses is humble, distrustful of himself, just as Abraham before\nhim had been. \"Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that\nI should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? ...\nWhen I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them,\nThe God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say\nto me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them? And God said\nunto Moses I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto\nthe children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.\" [Footnote\n44]\n\n    [Footnote 44: Exodus iii. 11, 13, 14.]\n\nMoses receives his mission from Jehovah, and feels no other\ndisquietude than arises from the desire to accomplish it.\n\nIn presence of such facts, with this association of God and man\nin the same work, the opponents of the Supernatural still\nclamour: \"Why,\" ask they, \"this confusion of divine action and of\nhuman action? Has God need of man's concurrence?\n{178}\nCan He not, if He will, accomplish all his designs by himself,\nand through the fulness of his omnipotence?\" In my turn, I would\nask them if they know why God created man, and if God has put\nthem into the secret of his intentions towards the instrument\nwhom He employs for his designs? There precisely lies the\nprivilege of humanity: man is God's associate, subject to Him,\nyet a free agent independent of Him; he intervenes by his proper\naction in plans of which only an infinitely small part is\nrevealed to his intelligence and reserved for his execution.\nWestern Asia and its history are full of the name of Moses: Jews,\nChristians, and Mahometans style him the First Prophet, the Great\nLawgiver, the Great Theologian; everywhere, in the scene of the\nevents themselves, the places retain a memory of him: the\ntraveller meets there the Well of Moses, the Ravine of Moses, the\nMountain of Moses, the Valley of Moses.\n{179}\nIn other countries and other ages, this name has been given as\nthe most glorious that the saints could receive: St. Peter has\nbeen styled the Moses of the Christian Church; St. Benedict, the\nMoses of the Monastic Orders; Ulphilas, the Moses of the Goths.\nWhat did Moses do to obtain a renown so great and so enduring? He\ngained no battles; he conquered no territory; he founded no\ncities; he governed no state; he was not even a man in whom\neloquence replaced other sources of influence and power: \"And\nMoses said unto the Lord, my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither\nheretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am\nslow of speech, and of a slow tongue.\" [Footnote 45]\n\n    [Footnote 45: Exodus iv. 10.]\n\nThere is not in this whole history a single grand human action, a\nsingle grand event, proceeding from human agency; all, all is the\nwork of God; and Moses is nothing on any occasion but the\ninterpreter and instrument of God: to this mission he has\nconsecrated soul and life; it is only by virtue of this title\nthat he is powerful, and that he shares, as far as his capacity\nas a man permits, a work infinitely grander and more enduring\nthan that accomplished by all the heroes and all the masters that\nthe world ever acknowledged.\n\n{180}\n\nI know no more striking spectacle than that of the unshakeable\nfaith and inexhaustible energy of Moses in the pursuit of a work\nnot his own, in which he executes what he has not conceived, in\nwhich he obeys rather than commands. Obstacles and\ndisappointments meet him at each turn; he has to struggle with\nweaknesses, infidelity, caprices, jealousies, and seditions, and\nthese not merely in his own nation, but in his own family. He has\nhimself his moments of sadness, of disquietude: \"And Moses cried\nunto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be\nalmost ready to stone me.... [Footnote 46] I beseech thee, shew\nme thy glory.\"\n\n    [Footnote 46: Exodus xvii. 4; xxxiii. 18-20.]\n\nAnd God answers him, \"I will make all my goodness pass before\nthee. ... Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see\nme, and live.\" And Moses trusts in God, and continues to triumph\nwhilst he obeys Him.\n\n{181}\n\nThe work of deliverance is consummated; Moses has led the people\nof Israel out of Egypt, has surmounted the first perils and the\nfirst sufferings of the Desert. They advance through the group of\nmountains in the peninsula of Sinai Passing from valley to\nvalley, they arrive \"at the entrance of a large basin surrounded\nby lofty peaks. Of these the one which commands the most\nextensive view is covered with enormous blocks, as if the\nmountain had been overthrown by an earthquake. A deep cleft\ndivides the peak into two.\n\n\"No one who has approached the R\u00e2s Sufs\u00e2feh through that noble\nplain, or who has looked down upon the plain from that majestic\nheight, will willingly part with the belief that these are the\ntwo essential features of the view of the Israelitish camp. That\nsuch a plain should exist at all in front of such a cliff is so\nremarkable a coincidence with the sacred narrative, as to furnish\na strong internal argument, not merely of its identity with the\nscene, but of the scene itself having been described by an\neyewitness.\n{182}\nThe awful and lengthened approach, as to some natural sanctuary,\nwould have been the fittest preparation for the coming scene. The\nlow line of alluvial mounds at the foot of the cliff exactly\nanswers to the 'bounds' which were to keep the people off from\n'touching the Mount.' [Footnote 47]\n\n    [Footnote 47: Exodus xix. 12.]\n\nThe plain itself is not broken and uneven, and narrowly shut in,\nlike almost all others in the range, but presenting a long\nretiring sweep, against which the people could remove and stand\nafar off.' The cliff, rising like a huge altar in front of the\nwhole congregation, and visible against the sky in lonely\ngrandeur from end to end of the whole plain, is the very image of\nthe 'mount that might not be touched,' and from which 'the voice'\nof God might be heard far and wide over the stillness of the\nplain below, widened at that point to its utmost extent by the\nconfluence of all the contiguous valleys.\n{183}\nHere, beyond all other parts of the peninsula, is the adytum,\nwithdrawn, as if in the end of the world,' from all the stir and\nconfusion of earthly things.\" [Footnote 48] Such was three\nthousand five hundred years ago, and such is still, the place\nwhere Moses received from God and gave to the people of Israel\nthat law of the Ten Commandments which resound still through all\nthe Christian Churches as the first foundation of their faith and\nthe first moral rule of Christian nations.\n\n    [Footnote 48: Sinai and Palestine in connection with their\n    History. By Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster, pp. 42, 43.\n    London, 1862.]\n\nThe Hebrews, at the moment when the Decalogue became their\nfundamental law, were in a crisis of social transformation; they\nwere upon the point of passing from the pastoral nomadic\ncondition to that of farmers and settlers. It seems that, at such\nan epoch, the political institutions of a people would, as the\nbasis of their government, be its most natural and most urgent\nbusiness.\n{184}\nThe Decalogue leaves the subject entirely untouched; makes to it\nnot the remotest, the most indirect allusion. It is a law\nexclusively religious and moral, which only busies itself about\nthe duties of man to God and to his fellow-creatures, and admits\nby its very silence all the varying forms of government that the\nexternal or internal state of society may seem to require.\nCharacteristic, grand, and original, not to be met with in the\nprimitive laws of any other nascent state, and an admirable and\nremarkable manifestation of the Divine origin of this one! It is\nto man's natural and his moral destiny that the Decalogue\naddresses itself; it is to guide man's soul and his inmost will\nthat it lays down rules; whereas it surrenders his external, his\ncivil condition to all the varying chances of place and of time.\n\n{185}\n\nAnother characteristic of this law is not less original or less\nurgent: it places God, and man's duties towards God, at the head\nand front of man's life and man's duties; it unites intimately\nreligion and morality, and regards them as inseparable. If\nphilosophers, in studying, discriminate between them; if they\nseek in human nature the special principle or principles of\nmorality; if they consider the latter by itself and apart from\nreligion, it is the right of science to do so. But still the\nresult is but a scientific work--only a partial dissection of\nman's soul, addressed to only one part of its faculties, and\nholding no account of the entirety and the reality of the soul's\nlife. The Human Body, taken as one whole, is by nature at once\nmoral and religious; the moral law that he finds in himself needs\nan author and a judge; and God is to him the source and\nguarantee, the Alpha and Omega of morality.\n\nA metaphysician may, from time to time, affirm the moral law, and\nyet forget its Divine Author. A man may, now and then, admit, may\nrespect the principles of morality, and yet remain estranged from\nreligion; all this is possible, for all this we see.\n{186}\nSo small a portion of Truth sometimes satisfies the human mind!\nMan is so ready and so prone to misconceive and to mutilate\nhimself! His ideas are by nature so incomplete and inconsequent,\nso easily dimmed or perverted by his Passions or the action of\nhis free will! These are but the exceptional conditions of the\nhuman mind, mere scientific abstractions; if men admit them,\ntheir influence is neither general nor durable. In the natural\nand actual life of the human race, Morality and Religion are\nnecessarily united; and it is one of the divine characteristics\nof the Decalogue, as it is also one of the causes of that\nauthority which has remained to it after the lapse of so many\ncenturies, that it has proclaimed and taken as its foundation\ntheir intimate union.\n\nThis is not the place to consider the laws of Moses in civil and\npenal matters, nor to refer to his ordinances respecting the\nworship, or to those that regard the organization of the\npriesthood of the Hebrews. In the former of these two branches of\nthe Mosaic code, numerous dispositions, singularly moral,\nequitable, and humane, are found in connection with circumstances\nindicating a state of manners gross and cruel even to barbarism.\n\n{187}\n\nThe legislator is evidently under the empire of ideas and\nsentiments infinitely superior to those of the people, to whom,\nnevertheless, his strong sympathies attach him. When we consider\nthe Mosaic Legislation, we find that in everything which concerns\nthe external forms and practices of worship, the ideas of Egypt\nhave made great impression upon the mind of the Lawgiver, and the\nfrequent use that he has made of Egyptian customs and ceremonies\nis not less visible. But far above these institutions and these\ntraditions, which seem not seldom out of place and incoherent,\nsoars and predominates constantly the Idea of the God of Abraham\nand of Jacob, of the God One and Eternal, of the True God. The\nLaws of Moses omit no occasion of inculcating the belief in that\nGod, and of recalling Him to the recollection of the Hebrews. And\nthis, not as if they were recalling a principle, an institution,\na system; but as if they propose to place a sovereign, a lawful\nand living sovereign, in the presence of those whom he governs,\nand to whom they owe obedience and fidelity.\n\n{188}\n\nMoses never speaks in his own name, or in the name of any human\npower, or of any portion of the Hebrew nation. God alone speaks\nand commands. God's word and his commands Moses repeats to the\npeople. At his first ascending Mount Sinai, when he had received\nthe first inspiration from the Eternal, \"Moses came and called\nfor the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all\nthese words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people\nanswered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we\nwill do.\" [Footnote 49]\n\n    [Footnote 49: Exodus xix. 7, 8.]\n\nWhen Moses, again ascending Mount Sinai, had received from God\nthe Decalogue, he returned, \"And he took the book of the\ncovenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said,\nAll that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.\"\n[Footnote 50]\n\n    [Footnote 50: Exodus xxiv. 7.]\n\n{189}\n\nAs the events develop themselves, the Hebrews are found far from\nrendering a constant obedience: they forget, they infringe--and\nthat frequently--these laws of God which they have accepted; and\nGod sometimes punishes, sometimes pardons them; still it is\nalways God alone that is acting; it is from Him alone that all\nemanates; neither the priests who preside over the ceremonies of\nhis worship, nor the elders of Israel whom He summons to\nprostrate themselves from afar before Him, nor Moses himself--his\nsole and constant interpreter--do anything by themselves, demand\nanything for themselves. The Pentateuch is the history and the\npicture of the personal government by God of the Israelites. \"Our\nlegislator,\" says the historian Josephus, \"had in his thoughts\nnot monarchies, nor oligarchies, nor democracies, nor any one of\nthose political institutions: he commanded that our government\nshould be (if it is permitted to make use of an expression\nsomewhat exaggerated) what may be styled a Theocracy.\" [Footnote\n51]\n\n    [Footnote 51: Joseph. contra Apionem, ii. c. 17.]\n\n{190}\n\nThe eminent writers who have recently studied most profoundly the\nMosaic system--M. Ewald in Germany,[Footnote 52] Mr. Milman and\nMr. Arthur Stanley in England, M. Nicolas in France--have adopted\nthe expression of Josephus, attaching to it its real and complete\nsense. \"The term Theocracy,\" says Mr. Stanley, \"has been often\nemployed since the time of Moses, but in the sense of a\nsacerdotal government: a sense the very contrary to that in which\nits first author conceived it. The theocracy of Moses was not at\nall a government by priests, or opposed to kings; it was the\ngovernment by God himself, as opposed to a government by priests\nor by kings.\" [Footnote 53]\n\n    [Footnote 52: Geschichte des Volkes Israel, bis Christus, ii.\n    188. G\u00f6ttingen, 1853.]\n\n    [Footnote 53: Lectures on the Jewish Church, p. 157]\n\n{191}\n\n\"Mosaism,\" says M. Nicolas, \"is a theocracy in the proper sense\nof the word. It would be a complete error to understand this word\nin the sense which usage has given to it in our language. There\nis no question here in effect of a government exercised by a\nsacerdotal caste in the name and under the inspiration, real or\npretended, of God. In the Mosaic legislation the priests are not\nthe ministers and instruments of the Divine Will; God reigns and\ngoverns by himself. It is He who has given his laws to the\nHebrews. Moses has been, it is true, the medium between the\nEternal and the people, but the people has taken part in the\ngrand spectacle of the Revelation of the Law; of this the people,\nin the exercise of its freedom, has evinced its acceptance; and\nin the covenant set on foot between the Eternal and the family of\nJacob, Moses has been, if I may be allowed the expression, only\nthe public officer who has propounded the contract. He was\nhimself, besides, not within the pale of the sacerdotal caste;\nand the charge of keeping, amending, and seeing to the carrying\nout of the body of laws was not confided to the priests.\"\n[Footnote 54 ]\n\n    [Footnote 54: \u00c9tudes Critiques sur la Bible--Ancien\n    Testament, p. 172.]\n\n{192}\n\nLet the learned men who thus characterise the Mosaic theocracy\npause here and measure the whole bearing of the fact which they\ncomprehend so well. It is a fact unique in the history of the\nworld. The idea of God is, amongst all nations, the source of\nreligions; but in every case, except that of the Hebrews,\nscarcely has the source appeared before it deviates and becomes\ntroubled; men take the place of God; God's name is made to cover\nevery kind of usurpation and falsehood; sometimes sacerdotal\ncorporations take possession of all government, civil and\nreligious; sometimes secular power overrules and enslaves\nReligious Faith and Religious Life. In the Mosaic Dispensation we\nhave nothing of the kind; its very origin and its fundamental\nprinciples condemn and prohibit even the attempt at any such\ndeviations. No paramount priesthood here; no secular power\nplaying the part of the oppressor. God is constantly present, and\nsole Master. All passes between God and the people; all, I say,\nso passes through the agency of a single man whom God inspires,\nand in whom the people have faith, asking no other authority than\nthat of the revelation which he receives.\n{193}\nNo sign here of a fact of human origin: just as the God of the\nBible is the true God, the religion that descended, by Moses,\nfrom Sinai upon the elect people of God is the true Religion\ndestined to become, when Jesus Christ ascends Calvary, the\nReligion of the Human Race.\n\n\n          III. God And The Kings.\n\nMoses having brought out of Egypt the people of Israel, and\nhaving conducted it through the Desert as far as the eastern bank\nof the Jordan, in sight of Canaan, the Promised Land, his mission\nterminates. \"Get thee up,\" says the Eternal to him; \"get thee up\ninto the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and\nnorthward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine\neyes: for thou shalt not go over this Jordan. But charge Joshua,\nand encourage him, and strengthen him: for he shall go over\nbefore this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land\nwhich thou shalt see.\" [Footnote 55]\n\n    [Footnote 55: Deuteronomy iii. 27, 28.]\n\n{194}\n\nMoses has been, in the name of Jehovah, the liberator and the\nlegislator; Joshua is the conqueror, the rough warrior, of yet\nsignal piety and modesty, the ardent servant of Jehovah, the\nfaithful disciple of Moses. After passing the Jordan, traversing\nthe land of Canaan in every direction, and giving battle in\nsuccession to the greater part of the tribes that inhabit it, he\ndestroys, or expels, or negotiates with them, and divides their\nlands among the twelve tribes of Israel. These exchange their\nwandering life for that settled agricultural life of which Moses\nhas given them the law. The descendants of Abraham settle as\nmasters in the soil in which Abraham had demanded as a favour the\nprivilege of purchasing a tomb.\n\n{195}\n\nThe consequences of this new situation are not long in showing\nthemselves. The conquest is protracted and difficult: the\nviolence and rapine that characterise a state of war--one of\ndispossession and of extermination--replace amongst the Hebrews\nthe adventures and the pious emotions of the Desert. In spite of\ntheir successes, the conquest nevertheless remains incomplete:\nseveral of the Canaanitish tribes defend themselves\nefficaciously, and cling, side by side with the new comers, to\ntheir territory, their laws, their gods. The twelve tribes of\nIsrael disperse and settle, each on its own account, upon\ndifferent and distant points, some being even separated by the\nJordan. The unity of the Hebrew nation, of its faith, of its law,\nof its government, and of its destiny weakens rapidly; the\ntendency to idolatry, which the Hebrews had so often evinced when\nwandering in the Desert, reappears and developes itself, fomented\nby the vicinity of the Polytheistic tribes of Canaan. Not,\nhowever, that we can precisely say that Polytheism prevails\nagainst the One God; but rather that material images of Jehovah\nbecome, in the midst of particular tribes, the object of the\nidolatrous worship so strongly prohibited by the Decalogue. \"And\nthe children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and\nforgat the Lord their God, and served Baalim and the groves.\"\n[Footnote 56]\n\n    [Footnote 56: Judges iii. 7.]\n\n{196}\n\nUnder such influences the moral and social state of the people of\nIsrael undergoes profound changes; the barbarism, which had been\nformerly amongst them fanatical and austere, becomes unruly and\nlicentious; their chiefs, their Judges, during the epoch which\nbears their name, no longer possess, sometimes no longer merit,\ntheir confidence; even the heroic acts of some amongst them--of\nGideon, of Deborah, of Samson,--present rather a strange than an\naugust character. The Mosaic Theocracy veils itself; the Hebrew\nnation becomes disorganized; day by day, the religious and\npolitical anarchy in Israel extends and becomes aggravated.\n\n{197}\n\nBut where the Divine Light has once shone, it is never completely\nextinguished; and when the voice of God has once spoken, the\nsound is never entirely lost, even to ears that no longer listen.\nIt has been affirmed that after Joshua, in the lapse of time that\ntook place between the government of the Judges and the end of\nthe reign of Solomon, the recollection of Moses, of his actions\nand his laws, had almost entirely disappeared--had lost all\nauthority in Israel. Some passages from the biblical narrative\nwill suffice to remove this error. I read in the Book of Judges,\nwith respect to the Canaanitish tribes who resisted and survived\nin their countries the conquest and settlement of the Hebrew\ntribes:--These nations \"were to prove Israel, to know whether\nthey would hearken unto the commandments of the Lord, which he\ncommanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.\" [Footnote 57]\n\n    [Footnote 57: Judges iii. 4.]\n\nAnd again, in the Book of Samuel, it is the Eternal \"that\nadvanced Moses and Aaron .... which brought forth your fathers\nout of the land of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place.\"\n[Footnote 58]\n{198}\nAnd in the Book of Kings,[Footnote 59] David, on the point of\nexpiring, says to his son Solomon, \"Keep the charge of the Lord\nthy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his\ncommandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is\nwritten in the law of Moses.\"\n\n    [Footnote 58: 1 Samuel xii. 6, 8.]\n\n    [Footnote 59: 1 Kings ii. 3.]\n\nAnd when Solomon, after the solemn dedication of his Temple, had\naddressed to God his prayer of thanksgiving, \"he stood, and\nblessed all the congregation of Israel with a loud voice, saying,\nBlessed be the Lord, that hath given rest unto his people Israel,\naccording to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word\nof all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses\nhis servant.\" [Footnote 60]\n\n    [Footnote 60: 1 Kings viii. 55, 56.]\n\nIn the customs and lives of the Israelites these \"good promises\"\nhad not practically, it is true, preserved all their efficacy:\nthe worship of Jehovah and the legislation of Moses had fallen\ninto sad oblivion, and undergone serious changes. But, in the\nnational sentiment, Jehovah the Eternal was ever the One God, the\nTrue God; and Moses his interpreter.\n{199}\nMoral and social disorder had invaded the Hebrew Confederation;\nthe Divine Law and Tradition were incessantly violated, still not\nignored: they ever continued the Divine Law and Tradition, the\nobjects of the faith and veneration of Israel.\n\nWhen the evil of anarchy had brought with it great national\nreverses,--when the Philistines on the south, the Ammonites on\nthe east, and the Mesopotamians on the north, had placed in\njeopardy the Hebrew settlement in Canaan,--a general cry arose;\non all sides, the tribes demanded a strong government, a single\nchief, one capable of maintaining order within, and supporting\nabroad the position and the honour of Israel. A great and\nfaithful servant of Jehovah, the last of the judges, and the\ngreatest of the prophets since Moses,--Samuel,--had recently\ngoverned Israel, and strenuously struggled to arrest the progress\nof popular vice and misfortune; but he had become old, and his\nsons whom he had made \"judges over Israel ... walked not in his\nways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and\nperverted judgment.\n{200}\nThen all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and\ncame to Samuel unto Ramah, and said unto him, Behold, thou art\nold, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to\njudge us like all the nations.\" [Footnote 61 ]\n\n    [Footnote 61: 1 Samuel viii. 1-5.]\n\nThe demand had in it nothing singular; even at the epoch when\nGod, by his servant Moses, was personally governing Israel, the\nchance of the establishment of a human kingdom had been foreseen\nand provided for beforehand by the Divine Law: \"When thou art\ncome unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt\npossess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a\nking over me, like as all the nations that are about me; thou\nshalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God\nshall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king\nover thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not\nthy brother.\" [Footnote 62]\n\n    [Footnote 62: Deuteronomy xvii. 14, 15.]\n\n{201}\n\nAlthough thus provided for by the Divine Law, the demand of a\nking was extremely displeasing to Samuel; \"for the kingly rule\nwas odious to him,\" says the historian Josephus; \"he had an\ninnate love of justice, and was ardently attached to the\naristocratical form of government, as to the form of polity which\nrendered men happy and worthy of God.\" [Footnote 63]\n\n    [Footnote 63: Josephus, Ant. Jud. vol. vi. ch. iii. 3.]\n\nBut the Eternal \"said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the\npeople in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected\nthee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over\nthem ... Now therefore hearken unto their voice; howbeit yet\nprotest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king\nthat shall reign over them.\" [Footnote 64]\n\n    [Footnote 64: 1 Samuel viii. 7-9.]\n\nSamuel predicted to the Hebrews how much the kingly form of\ngovernment would cost them, all that they would have to suffer in\ntheir families, their property, and their liberties:\n\"Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and\nthey said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may\nbe like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go\nout before us, and fight our battles.\n{202}\nAnd Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed\nthem in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel,\nHearken unto their voice, and make them a king.\" [Footnote 65]\n\n    [Footnote 65: 1 Samuel viii. 19-22.]\n\nThe world's history offers no example where the merits and\ndefects of absolute monarchy were so rapidly developed, where\nthey were displayed so strikingly, as in this little Hebrew\nmonarchy, instituted with the view of escaping from anarchy by\nthe express desire of the people itself. Three kings succeed to\nthe throne, in origin, character, conduct, and reign absolutely\ndissimilar. Saul is a warrior, chosen by Samuel for his strength,\nbodily beauty, and courage; ever ready for the combat, but\nwithout foresight, without perseverance in his military\noperations; easily intoxicated with good fortune; hurried away by\nbrutal, capricious, or jealous passions; now engaged in furious\nstruggles, now appearing in a dependent position, with his patron\nSamuel, his son Jonathan, his son-in-law David; a genuine\nbarbarian king, arrogant, changeable of humour, impatient of\ncontrol, prone to superstition, a moment serving Israel against\nher enemies, but incapable of governing Israel in the name of its\nGod.\n\n{203}\n\nDavid, on the contrary, is the faithful and consistent\nrepresentative of religious faith and religious life in Israel;\nthe fervent and submissive adorer of the Eternal; he is so at all\nthe epochs and in the most varying aspects of his career, whether\nof humility or of grandeur; at once warrior, king, prophet, poet;\nas ardent to celebrate his God in his character of poet, as to\nserve Him in the capacity of warrior, or to obey Him in that of\nking; equally sublime in his thanksgiving to the Eternal for his\ntriumphs as in his invocation to Him in his distresses;\naccessible to the most culpable human weaknesses, but prompt to\nrepent the offence once committed; and giving always to impulses\nof joy or pious sadness the first place in his soul; very king of\nthe nation that adores the very God.\n{204}\nDavid accomplishes the work of his time: he obtains the object\nfor which the monarchy had been demanded and instituted: he\nleaves behind him the tribes of Israel reunited at home, and\nreassured against foreign enemies, proceeding too in the path of\ngood order and confidence. Heir to his father's work, his\nfather's success, Solomon comes next, and reigns forty\nyears--years of almost as much repose as splendour: \"God gave\nSolomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of\nheart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore.\" [Footnote 66]\n\"And he had peace on all sides round about him. And Judah and\nIsrael dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig\ntree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.\"\n[Footnote 67]\n\n    [Footnote 66: 1 Kings iv. 29.]\n\n    [USCCB: Footnote 66 should be: 1 Kings iv. 9.]\n\n    [Footnote 67: Ibid. 24, 25.]\n\n    [USCCB: Footnote 67 should be: 1 Kings iv. 4, 5.]\n\nThe kingdom and the kingly authority rose under the government of\nSolomon, and throughout all Western Asia, to a degree of power\nand splendour before unknown to the Hebrews. A prosperity out of\nall proportion with the position of a new king and a small state,\nand which reminds us of the rapid histories and the political\ncomets of the East.\n{205}\nSolomon at this point lost sight of both wisdom and virtue: the\nfirst hereditary prince of the Hebrew monarchy terminated his\nlife like a voluptuous sovereign of Ecbatana or of Nineveh; the\nson of the pious King David became a sceptical moralist; although\na profound observer of the nature and destiny of man, such\nobservation had led but to feelings of disgust. Nor did the\nmonarchy survive the monarch: the nation became effeminate and\ncorrupt, in the effeminacy and corruption of its sovereign.\nScarcely was Solomon dead, when his monarchy was divided into two\nkingdoms, which, at first rivals, became soon openly hostile to\neach other; sometimes a prey to tyranny, sometimes to anarchy,\nand almost always to war. It was not, as formerly, merely a bad\nphase of transition in the history of the Hebrew nation; it was\nthe commencement of national decline--decline irremediable,\nhopeless.\n\n{206}\n\nBut what, in this decline, will become of the law revealed on\nSinai to Moses? Is it destined to fall with the monarchy of\nSolomon, or to languish and die out in the midst of the struggles\nand disasters of Judah and of Israel? Quite the contrary: the\nreligious faith and law of the Hebrews will not only perpetuate\nthemselves, but will again shine forth at this epoch of political\nruin.\n\nAbove the fortune of states are the designs of God, to which\ninstruments are never wanting; the kings continue to perpetrate\nacts of violence, and the people to show marks of weakness; but\namidst all, the prophets of Israel will maintain the ancient\nCovenant, and prepare the coming of that new Covenant which is to\nmake of the God of Israel the God of mankind.\n\n\n         IV. God And The Prophets.\n\n\nA celebrated political writer--a freethinker belonging to the\nRadical school, somewhat also to the school of Positivism--Mr.\nJohn Stuart Mill, has recently said, in his work on Government,\n\"The Egyptian hierarchy, the paternal despotism of China, were\nvery fit instruments for carrying those nations up to the point\nof civilisation which they attained.\n{207}\nBut, having reached that point, they were brought to a permanent\nhalt, for want of mental liberty and individuality; requisites of\nimprovement which the institutions that had carried them thus\nfar, entirely incapacitated them from acquiring; and, as the\ninstitutions did not break down and give place to others, further\nimprovement stopped. In contrast with these nations, let us\nconsider the example of an opposite character afforded by another\nand a comparatively insignificant Oriental people--the Jews.\nThey, too, had an absolute monarchy and a hierarchy, and their\norganised institutions were as obviously of sacerdotal origin as\nthose of the Hindoos. These did for them what was done for other\nOriental races by their institutions--subdued them to industry\nand order, and gave them a national life. But neither their kings\nnor their priests ever obtained, as in those other countries, the\nexclusive moulding of their character.\n{208}\nTheir religion, which enabled persons of genius and a high\nreligious tone to be regarded and to regard themselves as\ninspired from Heaven, gave existence to an inestimably precious\nunorganized institution--the Order (if it may be so termed) of\nProphets. Generally under the protection--it was not always\neffectual--of their sacred character, the prophets were a power\nin the nation, often more than a match for kings and priests, and\nkept up in that little corner of the earth the antagonism of\ninfluence, which is the only real security for continued\nprogress. Religion consequently was not there--what it has been\nin so many other places--a consecration of all that was once\nestablished, and a barrier against further improvement. The\nremark of a distinguished Hebrew, M. Salvador, that the prophets\nwere, in Church and State, the equivalent to the modern liberty\nof the press, gives a just but not an adequate conception of the\npart fulfilled in national and universal histories by this great\nelement of Jewish life; by means of which, the canon of\ninspiration never being complete, the persons most eminent in\ngenius and moral feeling could not only denounce and reprobate,\nwith the direct authority of the Almighty, whatever appeared to\nthem deserving of such treatment, but could give forth better and\nhigher interpretations of the national religion.\n{209}\nConditions more favourable to progress could not easily exist;\naccordingly the Jews, instead of being stationary like other\nAsiatics, were, next to the Greeks, the most progressive people\nof antiquity, and, jointly with them, have been the\nstarting-point and main propelling agency of modern cultivation.\"\n[Footnote 68]\n\n    [Footnote 68: Considerations on Representative Government. By\n    John Stuart Mill, pp. 41-43. London.]\n\nMr. Mill is right, only he does not go far enough. Modern\ncivilization is in effect derived from the Jews and from the\nGreeks. To the latter it is indebted for its human and\nintellectual, to the former for its Divine and moral, element. Of\nthese two sources, we owe to the Jews, if not the more brilliant,\nat all events the more sublime and dearly acquired one.\n{210}\nAfter the development of power and grandeur which took place\namongst the Jews in the reigns of David and Solomon, their\nhistory is but a long series of misfortunes and reverses,--an\neventful, painful decline. The Hebrew state is divided into two\nkingdoms, almost constantly at war with each other. And whilst\nthe kingdom of Israel is a prey to continual usurpations and\nrevolutions, making it the scene of all the violence and all the\nvicissitudes of a tyranny, the kingdom of Judah has a line of\nprinces, in turn good or bad, who keep it unceasingly in a state\nof trouble and of jeopardy. Religion falls beneath the yoke of\nsecular government; idolatry appears in the kingdom of Israel,\nand braves audaciously the ancient national faith. The kingdom of\nJudah, however, remains more faithful to Jehovah and his law, to\nthe traditions of Moses, and to the race of David; but its\nlanguishing faith is no longer strong enough to arrest its march\nin the path of decline.\n{211}\nIn the two kingdoms, internal disorders are aggravated by\nreverses abroad; in the meantime, around them mighty empires\nspring up and succeed to each other. First Israel and then Judah\nare invaded by strangers; they are subjugated in turn by the\nAssyrians, the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Babylonians. The\nHebrews are not only vanquished and reduced to subjection, but\nexiled, transported, led captive far from their country. A new\nconqueror, Cyrus, permits them to return to Jerusalem; but not to\nresume their independence; at first subjects of the Persian\nkings, they soon pass from their empire to that of the Greek\ngenerals, who have divided amongst one another the conquests of\nAlexander; then to the rule of the Greeks succeeds that of the\nRomans. During this succession of servitudes, scarcely are they\nallowed any moments of existence as a free nation, and even this\nfreedom is more apparent than real. Judea, like Greece, is\nsubjugated, but under circumstances of greater humiliation and\ndistress.\n\n{212}\n\nAnd shall, then, the Hebrews oppose no efficacious resistance to\nthese reverses? What is to become, in this absolute ruin of the\nnationality of the Jews, of their God, and their faith? Shall the\nmiracles of Sinai have no more virtue than the mysteries of\nEleusis, and Jehovah languish away and vanish in the routine of\nsacerdotal ceremonies, or in philosophical scepticism?\n\nBy no means: in the midst of his people's decay, the God of\nIsrael maintains interpreters who struggle with indomitable\nfidelity against public calamities and popular errors. The first\nof the prophets, Moses, had spoken in the name and according to\nthe commandment of Jehovah. After him there never were wanting to\nIsrael men who inherited or pretended to the heritage of the same\nDivine mission. \"I will raise them up a Prophet from among their\nbrethren, like unto thee,\" said the Eternal unto Moses, \"and will\nput my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that\nI shall command him. ...\n{213}\nBut the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name,\nwhich I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in\nthe name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.\" [Footnote\n69]\n\n    [Footnote 69: Deuteronomy xviii. 18, 20.]\n\nFrom Moses to Samuel, the series of the prophets is continued;\nsome of them are of renown, like Nathan in the reigns of David\nand Solomon; but the greater number, without name in history, and\nappearing scattered over a long course of years. They are called\nthe _Seers_, [Footnote 70] or the Inspired. [Footnote 71]\n\n    [Footnote 70: Ro\u00eah or Chozeh, in Hebrew.]\n\n    [Footnote 71: Nabi.]\n\nTheir speech gushes forth like a well under the breath of God.\nWhen the government of the Judges gives place to that of the\nKings, the great actor in this drama of transition, Samuel, opens\nfor the prophets a new era; dedicated from his infancy to God's\nservice, he feels beforehand and abides the divine inspiration:\n\"Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.\" [Footnote 72]\n\n    [Footnote 72: 1 Samuel iii. 9, 10.]\n\n{214}\n\nNot long after, his renown spreads amongst the people; he is not\npontiff, he is not even priest. [Footnote 73]\n\n    [Footnote 73: Samuel propheta fuit, judex fuit, levita fuit,\n    non pontifex, ne saoerdos quidem.--St. Jerom adv.\n    Jovinianum.]\n\nBut he is pre-eminently the seer: \"Is not the seer here?\" Such is\nthe question addressed to some young maidens by the men who are\nin search of Samuel. Saul meets him without knowing him, and says\nto him, \"I pray thee tell me where the house of the seer is.\" \"I\nam the seer,\" replied Samuel; and soon after, it is Samuel\nhimself, who, in compliance with the popular vote, approved by\nGod, proclaims Saul king. But at the moment when he thus changes\nthe theocracy in Israel into a monarchy, he foresees the vices\nand perils attendant upon the new government, and opposes to them\nthe element of resistance drawn from their national beliefs and\ntraditions; he transforms the order of prophets into a permanent\ninstitution; he founds schools of prophets, independent servants\nof Jehovah, consecrated to the defence of his law and the\nenunciation of his will;\n{215}\nconstituting a sort of congregation independent of both Church\nand State; leading, in fixed and appointed places,--at Rama,\nBethel, Jericho, Jerusalem,--a life in common, but with out\nexclusive privileges; the sons of the prophets are brought up\nnear their fathers; but still the mission of prophecy is\naccessible to all who have the call from God: \"Go, thou seer,\"\nsaid the priest Amaziah, in his anger, to the prophet Amos, \"flee\nthee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and\nprophesy there: but prophesy not again any more at Bethel: for it\nis the king's chapel, and it is the king's court. Then answered\nAmos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a\nprophet's son: but I was a herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore\nfruit: and the Eternal took me as I followed the flock, and the\nLord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.\" [Footnote\n74]\n\n    [Footnote 74: Amos vii. 12-15.]\n\n{216}\n\nThe prophets are neither priests nor monks: sprung from all the\nclasses of the Jewish nation, their vocation is essentially\nindependent. They belong to God alone, and await divine\ninspiration to oppose, as it may happen, at one time the tyranny\nof the kings, at another the passions of the populace, at another\nthe corruption of the priesthood: their only arms, the commands\nof God and the gift of prophecy. The functions assigned to them\nare as different as the places and circumstances of their life;\nbut they are ready to take any part and to encounter any peril:\nsome of them, like Elijah and Elisha, are men of action and of\ncombat; the others, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, are\nnarrators, moralists, prophets; some devote themselves to attacks\nupon the acts of violence and impiety committed by the kings, the\nothers to the vices and corruption of the people; the same\nspirit, however, animates them all; they are all interpreters and\nlabourers of Jehovah; they defend, all of them, the faith of God\nagainst idolatry, justice and right against tyranny, the national\nindependence against foreign dominion.\n{217}\nIn the name of the God of Abraham and of Jacob, they labour and\nsucceed in maintaining or in reanimating religious and moral life\namidst the decay and servitude of Israel. \"All the time,\" says\nSt. Augustine, \"from the epoch when the holy Samuel began to\nprophesy, to the day when the people of Israel was led captive\ninto Babylonia, is the period of the prophets.\" [Footnote 75]\n\n    [Footnote 75: De Civitate Dei, l. xvii. ch. 1.]\n\nTo accomplish their mission, to ensure their hard-earned\nsuccesses, they had other arms than lamentations and\nexhortations, arising out of what was past and inevitable; other\nexpedients than pious reproaches and expressions of regret. These\ndefenders of the ancient faith of Moses do not shut themselves up\nwithin the external forms and rites of their religion; they\npursue the moral object that it proposes; they insist upon the\nspirit that vivifies it. \"Your new moons and your appointed\nfeasts my soul hateth\" (said the Lord, according to Isaiah):\n\"they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.\n{218}\nAnd when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from\nyou: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands\nare full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of\nyour doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do\nwell; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless,\nplead for the widow.\" [Footnote 76]\n\n    [Footnote 76: Isaiah i. 14-17.]\n\n\"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord\" (said the prophet\nMicah), \"and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before\nhim with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the\nLord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of\nrivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,\nthe fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee,\nO man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but\nto do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy\nGod?\" [Footnote 77]\n\n    [Footnote 77: Micah vi. 6-8.]\n\n{219}\n\nEven whilst calling the people of Israel back to the faith of\ntheir fathers, the prophets open to them new perspectives: whilst\nreproaching them with the errors that have led to their decay and\nservitude, they permit them yet to see the future delivery and\nregeneration. It is their divine character to live at once in the\npast and in the future; to confide alike to the ordinances of the\nEternal and to his promises: they move forward, but they change\nnot; they believe, they hope; they are faithful to Moses whilst\nthey announce the Messiah.\n\n\n     V. Expectation Of The Messiah.\n\n\nControversy has the mischievous power of the Homeric Jupiter: it\ncollects clouds amidst which the light that we seek for\ndisappears.\n\nThe Old and the New Testament, the history of the Jews and the\nhistory of Jesus Christ, lie before us. Do these two monuments\nform but one single edifice? That second history, is it comprised\nand written beforehand in the first?\n{220}\nSuch is the question which has for the last eighteen centuries\noccupied and divided the learned. Some affirm that Jesus Christ\nwas foreseen and predicted among the Jews, and that the series of\nprophecies continued from the very time of Moses until the advent\nof Christ. Others lay stress upon the hiatus--the want of\nconnection and cohesion--the contradictions to be detected here\nbetween the Old and New Testament; and thence they conclude that\nthe text of the Old Testament by no means contains the facts that\nappear in the New Testament, and that the miraculous history of\nJesus Christ was, in the bosom of Israel, neither miraculously\nforeseen nor predicted.\n\nWhy was it, and how was it possible, that two assertions so\ncontradictory came to be both adopted and maintained by men most\nof them as sincere as learned?\n\n{221}\n\nThey have all committed the fault of plunging into the petty\ndetails of facts and texts, searching in all places, without\nexception, for the complete demonstration of their particular\ntheses, and losing sight of the great fact, the general and\ndominant fact to which we should refer as alone capable of\nsolving the question. They descend into the mazy paths which\nperplex the plain below, instead of grasping from the summit of\nthe mountains, the whole comprehensive view, and the grand road\nleading to the goal itself. Believers have insisted upon\ndiscovering, fact by fact, in the biblical prophecies the whole\nmission and all the life of Jesus. The incredulous, on the other\nhand, have minutely adverted to all the discrepancies, all the\ndifficulties, suggested by a comparison of the texts of the Old\nTestament and of the Gospel narrative; they have contrasted the\nglories of the Messiah, the powerful King of Israel, so often\nannounced by the prophets, with the humble life, the cruel death\nof Jesus, and with the ruin of Jerusalem.\n{222}\nIn my opinion, they have on both sides lost sight of the inward\nand essential characteristic of this sublime history; the special\naction of God is revealed therein, but without suppressing the\naction of men; miracles take their place in the midst of the\nnatural course of events; the ambitious aspirations of the Jews\nconnect themselves with the religious perspective opened to them\nby the prophets; the divine and the human, the inspiration from\non high and the impulse of the national imagination, appear\ntogether. These two elements should be disentangled: the mind\nshould be raised above the perplexing influences which they\nexercise, and the attention directed to that heavenly beam which\npierces the vapours of this earthly atmosphere. Thus, all the\nembarrassment that controversy occasioned vanishing, the history\nyields to us its profound meanings, and, in spite of\ncomplications having their origin in the wordy explanations of\nman, the design of God makes itself manifest in all its majestic\nsimplicity.\n\nDiscarding all discussion and commentary, let us merely collect,\nfrom epoch to epoch, the principal texts which speak of the\nadvent of the future Messiah. I might here multiply citations,\nbut I limit myself to those where the allusion is evident. It is\nthe Bible, and the Bible alone, that is speaking.\n\n{223}\n\nThe first act of disobedience to God, the act of original sin,\nhas just been committed. The Eternal God says to the serpent that\nhas seduced Eve: \"Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed\nabove all cattle, and above every beast of the field. ... And I\nwill put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed\nand her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his\nheel.\" [Footnote 78]\n\n    [Footnote 78: Genesis iii. 14, 15.]\n\nHe that shall bruise the head of the serpent shall belong, says\nthe Book of Genesis, to the race of Shem, to the posterity of\nAbraham and Jacob, to the kingdom of Judah. \"But thou, Beth-lehem\nEphratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet\nout of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in\nIsrael.\" [Footnote 79]\n\n    [Footnote 79: Genesis ix. 26; xii. 3; xlix. 10; Micah v. 2.]\n\n{224}\n\nIsrael is at its apogee of splendour: David prophesies alike the\nsufferings and the glory of that Saviour of the world who is to\nbe not merely the King of Zion, but \"the Son and the Anointed of\nthe Eternal:\" \"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?\" is the\nexpression attributed to him by the prophet king. ... \"All they\nthat see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake\nthe head. ... They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my\nthirst they gave me vinegar to drink. ... They part my garments\namong them, and cast lots upon my vesture. ... He trusted on the\nLord that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, seeing he\ndelighted in him. ... Ye that fear the Lord, praise him; all ye\nthe seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of\nIsrael. ... All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn\nunto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship\nbefore thee.\" [Footnote 80]\n\n    [Footnote 80: Psalms ii. 2, 6, 7; xxii. 1, 7; lxix. 21; xxii.\n    18, 8, 23, 27.]\n\n{225}\n\nThe kingdom of David and of Solomon has begun to decay; Judah and\nIsrael are separating; both kingdoms have their prophets, who at\none time struggle against the crimes and evils of their\nrespective ages, and, at another, occupy themselves in disclosing\nprospects of the future.\n\n  \"Hear ye now, O house of David. ...\n\n  \"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a\n  virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name\n  Immanuel. ...\n\n  \"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:\n  they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them\n  hath the light shined. ...\n\n  \"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the\n  government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be\n  called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting\n  Father, The Prince of Peace. ...\n\n  \"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and\n  a Branch shall grow out of his roots:\n\n  \"And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of\n  wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the\n  spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;\n\n  \"... and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes,\n  neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:\n\n  \"But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove\n  with equity, for the meek of the earth. ...\n\n{226}\n\n  \"Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far;\n  The Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my\n  mother hath he made mention of my name. ...\n\n  \"And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I\n  will be glorified.\n\n  \"Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength\n  for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the\n  Lord, and my work with my God.\n\n  \"And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his\n  servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not\n  gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and\n  my God shall be my strength.\n\n  \"And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my\n  servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the\n  preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the\n  Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the\n  earth. ...\n\n  \"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of\n  Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and\n  having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a\n  colt the foal of an ass.\n\n  \"... For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as\n  a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and\n  when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire\n  him.\n\n  \"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and\n  acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from\n  him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.\n\n{227}\n\n  \"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet\n  we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.\n\n  \"But he was wounded for our trangressions, he was bruised for\n  our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and\n  with his stripes we are healed.\n\n  \"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one\n  to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of\n  us all.\n\n  \"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his\n  mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep\n  before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.\n\n  \"He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall\n  declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of\n  the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.\n  ...\n\n  \"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to\n  grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he\n  shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure\n  of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.\n\n  \"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be\n  satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify\n  many; for he shall bear their iniquities.\n\n  \"Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he\n  shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured\n  out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the\n  transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made\n  intercession for the transgressors.\" [Footnote 81]\n\n    [Footnote 81:  Isaiah vii. 13-14; ix. 26; xi. 14; xlix. 1-6;\n    Zechariah ix. 9; Isaiah liii.]\n\n{228}\n\nWhatever controversies may arise out of these texts, and many\nothers which I might cite, one fact subsists and rises above all\nquestion and all controversy. Seventeen centuries passed in the\ninterval between the Decalogue being received by Moses upon Mount\nSinai, and the actual approach of the Messiah announced by the\nprophets; and at the end of these seventeen centuries, the God,\nfrom whom Moses received the Decalogue, He who defined himself to\nbe \"I am that I am.\" Jehovah, still is, has never ceased to be\nthe God, the sole God of Israel. Israel has passed through all\ngovernments, undergone all vicissitudes, fallen into all the\nerrors to which it is possible for a nation to succumb: the Jews\nhave had a hierarchy, and judges, and kings; they have been\nalternately conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves; they\nhave had their days of power and their days of humiliation, their\ntemptation to idolatry and paroxysms of impiety; still they have\never returned to the One God: to the true God; their faith has\nsurvived all their faults and all their misfortunes; and after\nthose seventeen centuries, Israel is waiting at the hand of\nJehovah a Messiah, to be, according to the affirmation of its\ngreatest prophets, the Liberator and the Saviour, not of Israel\nalone, but of all nations.\n{229}\nFact without parallel in history! In vain shall men exhaust\nagainst it all their science, and all their scepticism: there is\nhere more than the work of man; the fact itself is not human. But\nwhat more shall that fact become, and what shall be our belief,\nwhen all shall have received its consummation,--the prophecies\ntheir accomplishment,--when Jehovah shall have given to the\nworld Jesus Christ?\n\n{230}\n\n             Eighth Meditation.\n\n   Jesus Christ According To The Gospel.\n\n\nNeed I say that by the words, \"the Gospel,\" here used, I\nunderstand the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the\nEpistles, all the books, in fact, which compose the Canon of the\nNew Testament as it is received by all Christians?\n\nThese books have been variously studied: now with the design of\ndisproving, now of explaining the life of Jesus Christ; now with\nthe object of a Controversialist, now with that of a Commentator.\nI approach the subject in neither character. I would wish to\nstudy Jesus Christ in the New Testament solely to know Him well,\nand to make Him well known; to place Him before the reader, and\nto depict Him faithfully according to the evidence of his\nhistory.\n{231}\nI propose hereafter, in a second series of these\n_Meditations_, to examine its authenticity, and the degree\nof credit to which it is entitled. For the moment I assume the\ntestimony as good and valid. Beyond all doubt, at the outset, it\nis at least entitled to this respect. The powerful influence of\nthese books, and of the accounts which they contain, such as they\nremain to us, has been put to the test and proved. They have\novercome Paganism. They have conquered Greece, Rome, and\nbarbarous Europe. They are actually overcoming the world. And the\nsincerity of the authors is no less certain than the virtue of\nthe books: however possible it may be to contest the\nenlightenment, the critical sagacity of the original historians\nof Jesus Christ, their good faith is beyond all question: it\nappears in their language; they believed what they said; they\nsealed their assertions with their blood: \"I believe,\" said\nPascal, \"only those histories, the witnesses to which confirm\ntheir attestation by submitting to death.\" Although not always a\nsufficient reason to believe an account, it constitutes a\ndecisive motive to believe in the sincerity of the witness.\n\n{232}\n\nI have before cited from the Old Testament some of the texts\nwhich contain the promises made to Israel of the Messiah. These\npromises had evidently excited lively attention amongst the Jews;\nthe satisfaction felt at their accomplishment expressed itself\nloudly at the birth of Jesus Christ: \"And behold, there was a man\nin Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon ... waiting for the\nconsolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. ... Lord,\nnow lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy\nword: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast\nprepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the\nGentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.\" [Footnote 82]\n\n    [Footnote 82: Luke ii. 25-32.]\n\n{233}\n\nBesides Simeon, a pious woman, Anna, \"of about fourscore and four\nyears, which departed not from the temple, but served God with\nfastings and prayers night and day. And she coming in that\ninstant gave thanks unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them\nthat looked for redemption in Jerusalem.\" [Footnote 83]\n\n    [Footnote 83: Luke ii. 37, 38.]\n\nBut there was far more than merely the demonstrations of Simeon\nand Anna,--than these impulses of joy on the part of the faithful\nfollowers of Jehovah: \"In those days came John the Baptist,\npreaching in the wilderness of Jud\u00e6a. ... And the same John had\nhis raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his\nloins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. ... And saying,\nRepent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he\nthat was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of\none crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord,\nmake his paths straight. ... I indeed baptize you with water unto\nrepentance. ... But there standeth one among you, whom ye know\nnot.\n{234}\nHe it is who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose\nshoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose. ... And I knew him\nnot: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am\nI come baptizing with water. ... And I saw, and bare record that\nthis is the Son of God.\" [Footnote 84]\n\n    [Footnote 84: Matthew iii. 1-5; Mark i. 2-11; Luke iii. 1-18;\n    John i. 26-34.]\n\nAttempts have sometimes been made, although with no very great\nconfidence on the part of the propounders of the theory, to\nrepresent Jesus as the most eminent among several reformers, who,\nabout the same epoch, aspired to the title and character of the\nMessiah predicted by the prophets and expected by Israel.\nReference has been particularly made to one of His predecessors,\nJudas the Gaulonite, who, a few years after the birth of Jesus,\non the occasion of a census ordered by the Imperial Legate\nQuirinius, undertook to raise Jud\u00e6a in insurrection against this\nmeasure--against the tribute that it imposed, and against the\nEmperor himself--proclaiming that to God alone belonged the\nappellation _Master_, and that liberty was worth more than\nlife. [Footnote 85]\n\n    [Footnote 85: Joseph. Antiq. Jud. 1. xvii. ch. 6; 1. xviii.\n    ch. 1. Acts of the Apostles, ch. v. 34-39.]\n\n{235}\n\nThese comparisons--I forbear to use the word assimilations--are\nentirely without foundation. These men, who, as it is pretended,\nanticipated the career of Jesus, were simply men who opposed the\nRoman dominion, and who stood up, like the Maccabees before them,\nin the name of national independence, and in a spirit of reaction\nin favor of the Mosaic government. Jesus was not so anticipated:\nHis mission had no relation with any previous essay; and his sole\nforerunner was John the Baptist, as strange as himself to any\npolitical view or conspiracy, and as humble before Him--before\nthe true, the sole Messiah--as Judas the Gaulonite and his\nadherents were bold and daring towards the Emperor.\n\n{236}\n\nThere is an interval of thirty years between the birth of Jesus\nand the day when He enters actively on the performance of his\ndivine mission. [Footnote 86]\n\n    [Footnote 86: The question as to the precise epoch of the\n    birth of Jesus Christ, as well as of the commencement and the\n    duration of His public career, has been well and concisely\n    considered in the Synopsis Evangelica of M. Constantin\n    Tischendorf (p. 16-19. Leipzig, 1864). The preferable\n    conclusion from these researches is, that Jesus Christ was\n    born in the year of Roma 750, that he commenced his divine\n    mission towards the end of the year of Rome 780, and that his\n    death took place in the fourth month of the year of Rome\n    783.]\n\nThese thirty years, however, were not idly passed, nor were they\nwithout their peculiar testimony to Christ and the future in\nstore for Him:--\n\n  \"And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were\n  spoken of him. ...\n\n  \"And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with\n  wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.\n\n  \"Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of\n  the Passover.\n\n  \"And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem\n  after the custom of the feast.\n\n  \"And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the\n  child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his\n  mother knew not of it.\n\n  \"But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a\n  day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and\n  acquaintance.\n\n{237}\n\n  \"And when they found him not, they turned back again to\n  Jerusalem, seeking him.\n\n  \"And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in\n  the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing\n  them, and asking them questions.\n\n  \"And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding\n  and answers.\n\n  \"And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said\n  unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy\n  father and I have sought thee sorrowing.\n\n  \"And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye\n  not that I must be about my Father's business?\n\n  \"And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.\n\n  \"And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was\n  subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her\n  heart.\n\n  \"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with\n  God and man.\" [Footnote 87]\n\n    [Footnote 87: Luke ii. 33, 40-52.]\n\n{238}\n\nThus begins that manifestation in the person of the child Jesus\nChrist, that mixture of humanity and divinity, of natural life\nand miraculous life, which is his peculiar and sublime\ncharacteristic. In the opinion of the men who, in principle,\nreject the supernatural, this mixed divine-human nature, and\nconsequently Jesus Christ himself, is at once incomprehensible\nand inadmissible. What wonder if Christ has in these days to\nencounter such adversaries? Had He not to do so when invested\nwith the attributes of humanity, among contemporaries, and even\nin his own family? In his first days of human existence, his\nmother, Mary, saw Him and understood Him not. And nevertheless\n\"Mary kept all these sayings in her heart.\" Expression, at once\nprofound and touching; revealing the mysterious complication of\nthe nature of man! Man is not content to resign himself to the\nlimits imposed by the actual laws of the finite world; his\naspirations tend elsewhere. And still, when called upon to rise\nabove the present order of nature--that order which he is able to\nappreciate--he experiences a certain astonishment, a certain\nhesitation; he does not know if he ought to believe in that\nsupernatural that he was recently invoking, and that he never\nceases to invoke; for, like Mary, he preserves the instinct in\nhis heart!\n{239}\nIt is just at the present day as it was nineteen centuries ago.\nJesus has ever to encounter such contradictory moods of human\nnature: He is confronted at once by the hope of, the thirsting\nafter, the supernatural inherent in the human soul, and by all\nthe objections, all the doubts that the supernatural itself\nsuggests to the human mind. He has to satisfy that hope, to\nsurmount those doubts. The Gospel opens the history of this\nsolemn struggle, that gave rise to Christianity, and is the\nsource of all those agitations which afflict Christians at the\npresent day.\n\n\n     I. Jesus Christ And His Apostles.\n\n\nOn entering upon the active purposes of his mission, it is the\nwill of Jesus to have, and He has Disciples--Apostles. He knows\nthe power of an association founded upon faith and love. He knows\nalso that faith and love are virtues as rare as they are\nefficacious. It is not numbers that He seeks. He surrounds\nhimself with a select band of believers, and lives with them in a\ncomplete and enduring intimacy.\n\n{240}\n\nIn the midst of these intimate relations, Jesus declares his\nauthority primitive and supreme:--\"Ye have not chosen me, but I\nhave chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring\nforth fruit.\" [Footnote 88]\n\n    [Footnote 88: John xv. 16.]\n\nBut the authority of the Master does not prevent Him from\nevincing a tenderness full of trust, and from respecting himself\nthe dignity of his disciples:--\"Henceforth I call you not\nservants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I\nhave called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my\nFather I have made known unto you.\" [Footnote 89]\n\n    [Footnote 89: John xv. 15.]\n\n{241}\n\nHe evinces on all occasions towards his apostles the trust that\nHe feels in them, and shows his sense of the superiority of the\nposition to which He has elevated them. His language sometimes\nfills them with astonishment, and they are more peculiarly struck\nby the numerous parables in which, whilst addressing the\nassembled multitude, He clothes his precepts:--\"And the disciples\ncame, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?\nHe answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to\nknow the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is\nnot given. ... But unto those that are without, all these things\nare done in parables.\" [Footnote 90]\n\n    [Footnote 90: Matthew xiii. 10, 11; Mark iv. 10, 11.]\n\nThe confidingness of Jesus, however, never descends to weak\ncompliance; when, in an impulse of vanity and ambition, one of\nhis apostles asks for a particular favour, Jesus rebukes him with\nseverity:--\"James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come unto him,\nsaying, Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever\nwe shall desire. And he said unto them, What would ye that I\nshould do for you? They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may\nsit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in\nthy glory. But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can\nye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the\nbaptism that I am baptized with?\n{242}\nAnd they said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, Ye\nshall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of; and with the\nbaptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: But to\nsit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but\nit shall be given to them for whom it is prepared. ... Ye know\nthat they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise\nlordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon\nthem. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be\ngreat among you, shall be your minister.\" [Footnote 91]\n\n    [Footnote 91: Mark x. 35-43; Matthew xx. 20-26.]\n\nJesus having thus selected and intimately attached to Him his\napostles, commissions them to carry forth his law:--\"Go not into\nthe way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans\nenter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of\nIsrael. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at\nhand.\n{243}\nHeal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out\ndevils: freely ye have received, freely give. Provide neither\ngold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrips for your\njourney, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for\nthe workman is worthy of his meat. ... Behold, I send ye forth as\nsheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents\nand harmless as doves.\" [Footnote 92]\n\n    [Footnote 92: Matthew x. 5-10, 16; Luke x. 1-12.]\n\nIt is, in effect, prudence side by side with absolute\nself-denegation that Jesus, in his first instructions, enjoins\nupon his disciples; at the very commencement of their mission He\nlimits its object; He recommends to them particularly \"the lost\nsheep of the house of Israel;\" He declares his will to be that,\ninstead of a pertinacity with out bounds, \"they should depart,\nshaking off the dust from their feet, out of the city that should\nnot receive them nor hear their words.\" But He adds immediately,\nas if to give to their mission all its grandeur:--\"What I tell\nyou in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the\near, that preach ye upon the house-tops. And fear not them which\nkill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear\nhim which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.\"\n[Footnote 93]\n\n    [Footnote 93: Matthew x. 27, 28.]\n\n{244}\n\nJesus knows that his disciples will need the firmest courage,\nand, far from promising them any of the goods of this world, any\ntemporal successes, He discloses to them unceasingly all the\nperils they will incur, all the invectives they will have to\nendure. \"But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the\ncouncils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; and ye\nshall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a\ntestimony against them and the Gentiles ... And ye shall be\nbetrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks and\nfriends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And\nye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.\" [Footnote 94]\n\n    [Footnote 94: Matthew x. 17-22. Luke xxi. 12-17.]\n\n{245}\n\nWhat Reformer, other than Jesus Christ, ever held to his\nfollowers such language? Who else than God could have imparted to\ntheir language such virtue that they would in obedience to it\nsacrifice with joy not merely all the good things of this life,\nbut life itself? Nevertheless, one of those apostles, and the\nfirst of them all, Peter, evinces some disquietude, if not at\ntheir lot in this world, at least at their destinies in the\nkingdom of heaven. \"Then answered Peter and said unto him,\nBehold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we\nhave therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you,\nThat ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son\nof man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit\nupon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And\nevery one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or\nfather, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's\nsake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting\nlife.\" [Footnote 95]\n\n    [Footnote 95: Matthew xix. 27-29.]\n\n{246}\n\nBut Jesus does not intend that the prospect of their lofty\ninheritance should inspire in the minds of any of his apostles,\nand not more in that of Peter than the rest, any proud\npresumptuousness, and He immediately adds, \"But many that are\nfirst, shall be last; and the last shall be first.\" [Footnote 96]\n\n    [Footnote 96: Matthew xix. 30.]\n\nThe world's history may be perused and reperused; the causes of\nall the revolutions that have taken place in the world, whether\nreligious or political, may be probed and investigated; but we\nshall nowhere be able to trace in the dealings of chiefs and\naccomplices, of originators and fellow-workmen, the divine\ncharacteristics of absolute and uncompromising sincerity that\nreign throughout the actions and language of Jesus Christ in His\nconduct towards His apostles. Them He has chosen and loved; to\nthem He has entrusted His work; but He practises with them no\narts of worldly wisdom; He withholds nothing from them; here is\nno faltering encouragement, no exaggeration in the promises that\nHe makes or in the hope that He holds forth; He speaks to them\nthe language of pure truth, and it is in the name of that truth\nthat He gives them His commands and transfers to them His\nmission. \"Never did man speak like this man,\" [Footnote 97] nor\nso deal with men.\n\n    [Footnote 97: John vii. 46.]\n\n{247}\n\n   II. Jesus Christ And His Precepts.\n\n\nJesus speaks:--and it is at one time with His disciples alone, at\nanother surrounded by eager, astonished multitudes; now from the\nmount, now on the shore of the sea of Gennesareth, from a bark;\nby the road side; in the house of the Pharisee, Simon, and the\ntoll-gatherer, Levi; in the synagogue of Nazareth, in the Temple\nof Jerusalem:--Jesus speaks, \"not like the scribes,\" not like\nthe philosophers; He expounds no system; He discusses no\nquestion; He does not pace up and down like Socrates with his\nlearned friends in the gardens of the Academy, nor lose himself\nin the mazes of the human understanding. Jesus speaks to men, to\nall men without distinction; He speaks to them of man's life,\nman's soul, man's destiny, of matters that touch all alike. And\nHe speaks to them \"as one having authority.\"\n\n{248}\n\nWhat does He say to them? What teach, what command, in that\nspeech full of authority?\n\nHe teaches them, He enjoins them, to have faith, hope, charity:\nthose virtues which have now borne His name nineteen centuries,\nthose virtues which are essentially Christian.\n\nIs it, then, in His own name that Jesus Christ teaches and\ncommands? By no means: \"My doctrine is not mine, but his that\nsent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the\ndoctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.\n\n\"He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that\nseeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no\nunrighteousness is in him. ... Then cried Jesus in the Temple as\nhe taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: I am\nnot come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know\nnot.\n\n{249}\n\n\"But I know him: for I am from him, and he hath sent me.\"\n[Footnote 98]\n\n    [Footnote 98: John vii. 16-18, 28, 29.]\n\nWhilst He refers everything to God, Jesus Christ seeks not to\ndefine or explain Him; He affirms Him and demonstrates Him; God\nis the first cause, the point from which all things spring; faith\nin God is the paramount source of virtue, and of power, as well\nas virtue, of hope and of resignation.\n\nFor Jesus Christ has not only a perfect faith in God, He has also\na profound knowledge of man: He knows that, unaided, man's soul\ncannot, with out despair, without withering, bear the burthen\nimposed by the injustice of the world and of life, of the\nmiseries and erroneous appreciation of mankind. To this injustice\nand this wretchedness Jesus Christ never ceases to oppose God,\nGod's justice, God's benevolence, God's succour: He recommends to\nHim all the forsaken, all the oppressed, all the wretched, all\nthe victims of society. He enjoins to these not resignation\nalone, but Hope as the sister and companion of Faith.\n{250}\nNor does He hold forth to those that suffer the realization of\nearthly expectations, the restoration of worldly prosperity, as\ntheir resource and their consolation. He has nothing to do with\nremedies deceitful like these. He acts with the most perfect\ntruthfulness and sincerity towards mankind in general, as He also\ndoes with His disciples: He only promises them the\nre-establishment of justice, and the reward of virtue, in that\nmysterious future where God alone reigns, and of which He\ndiscloses to them the perspective without unfolding the secrets.\n\nNothing strikes me more in the Gospel than this double character\nof austerity and of love, of severe purity and tender sympathy,\nwhich constantly appears, which reigns in the actions and the\nwords of Jesus Christ in everything that touches the relation of\nGod and mankind.\n{251}\nTo Jesus Christ the law of God is absolute, sacred; the violation\nof the law, and sin, are odious to Him; but the sinner himself\nirresistibly moves him and attracts him: \"What man of you, having\nan hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the\nninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is\nlost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it\non his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth\ntogether his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice\nwith me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto\nyou, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that\nrepenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which\nneed no repentance.\" [Footnote 99]\n\n    [Footnote 99: Luke xv. 4-7.]\n\nJesus said unto them, \"They that are whole need not a physician,\nbut they that are sick. ... For I am not come to call the\nrighteous, but sinners to repentance.\" [Footnote 100]\n\n    [Footnote 100: Matthew ix. 12, 13.]\n\nWhat is the signification of this sublime fact; what the meaning\nin Jesus of this union, this harmony of severity and of love, of\nsaint-like holiness and of human sympathy? It is Heaven's\nrevelation of the nature of Jesus him-self, of the God-man.\n{252}\nGod, he made himself man. God is his father, men are his\nbrethren. He is pure and holy like God: He is accessible and\nsensible to all that man feels. Thus the vital principles of the\nChristian faith, the divine and the human nature united in Jesus,\nstart to evidence, in his sentiments and language respecting the\nrelations between God and man. The dogma is the foundation of the\nprinciples.\n\nAnother fact is not less significant. At the same time that the\ndivine and mysterious character of Jesus Christ appears in the\nGospel, his acts and his words have a character essentially\nsimple and practical. He pursues no learned object, no scientific\nplan; He develops no system; his object is something infinitely\ngrander than the triumph of any logical abstraction: it is to\npervade the human soul, to establish himself in it--to save it.\nHe speaks the language--He appeals to the ideas most calculated\nto ensure Him success.\n{253}\nSometimes He addresses himself to the task of inspiring in men\nthe most poignant disquietude as to their future destiny, if they\nviolate the laws of God; at other times He causes to shine before\ntheir eyes the realisation of the most magnificent hopes, if with\nsincerity they persist in faith. He knows the generation that He\nis addressing; He knows human nature in its universality, and\nwhat it will be in future generations: his object is to produce\nupon it an effect at once positive, general, durable; He chooses\nthe ideas, He employs the images suitable to his design for the\nregeneration and the salvation of all. God's Ambassador is the\nmost penetrating and able of human moralists.\n\nMore than once, the attempt has been made to find Him at fault,\nto detect in his language exaggerations, contradictions,\nincoherencies irreconcilable with his divine authority. Surprise,\nfor instance, has been expressed, that He should have one day\nsaid, according to St. Matthew: \"He that is not with me is\nagainst me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad;\"\n[Footnote 101] and that He should another day, according to St.\nMark, have used the expression, \"For he that is not against us is\non our part.\" [Footnote 102]\n\n    [Footnote 101: Matthew xii. 30.]\n\n    [Footnote 102: Mark ix. 40.]\n\n{254}\n\nThese two passages have been characterised as furnishing \"two\nrules of proselytism entirely opposed to each other, and as\ninvolving a contradiction growing out of some impassioned\nstruggle.\" [Footnote 103]\n\n    [Footnote 103: Vie de Jesus, par M. Renan, p. 229.]\n\nIn my turn I observe that it astonishes me how earnest men can\nfall into any such error. Jesus does not lay down in these two\npassages two contradictory rules of proselytism, He merely\nobserves and refers in turn to two different facts: who has not\nlearnt, in the course of actual life, that, according to the\ndifference of circumstances and persons, the man who abstains\nfrom active concurrence, who keeps himself aloof, by that very\nfact may at one time give support and strength, and at another\ninjure and impede? These two assertions, far from being in\ncontradiction, may be both true, and Jesus Christ, in uttering\nthem, spoke as a sagacious observer, not as a moralist who is\nenunciating precepts.\n{255}\nI have heard other critics reproachfully regard another passage\nas a sort of blasphemy. According to St Luke: \"There was in a\ncity a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: and\nthere was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying,\nAvenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but\nafterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor\nregard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge\nher, lest by her continual coming she weary me.\" [Footnote 104]\n\n    [Footnote 104: Luke xviii. 1-5.]\n\nIs it possible to infer from these words an intention on the part\nof Jesus to liken God to an unjust judge, and to make the mere\nimportunate persistence in praying a claim to God's grace? He\nonly cited an occurrence which made noise in his time, in order\nto instil a lively impression of the utility of perseverance. To\nattain his end, He never makes use of out-of-the-way or impure\nexpedients; but He draws from the ordinary events of human life\nexamples and reasons to illustrate and render intelligible the\ndivine precepts, and to insure their acceptance. All the parables\nhave this meaning and object.\n\n{256}\n\nNext to the precepts which refer to the relations of man with God\ncome those which respect the relations of men with one another.\nWhilst Faith and Hope regard God, Charity has man for its object.\n\nCharity, it has often been repeated, is the great principle of\nJesus Christ, pre-eminently the Christian virtue. I know, not,\nhowever, whether the source whence Christian charity derives its\ncharacter and grandeur has been adequately perceived or remarked.\n\nIn the different pagan religions, whether of character gross or\nlearned, we have deifications of the different forces of nature\nor of men themselves. And even in those religions in which gods\nin their turn are said to assume man's shape, it is man\nparticularly that is predominant, and that lives in the\nincarnation of God.\n{257}\nWhereas in Christianity, it is not a god sprung from nature or of\nhuman origin that becomes man, but the God self-existent,\nanterior, and superior to all beings, the God, One, Eternal. The\nHebrew religion, alone of all religions, shows God essentially\nand eternally distinct from the nature and the mankind that He\nhas created, and that He governs. The Christian Faith alone shows\nGod one and eternal; the God of Abraham and of Moses making\nhimself man, and the divine nature uniting itself to the human\nnature in the person of Jesus. And in this union it is the divine\nnature that shines forth, that speaks, that sets in movement. And\nthis incarnation is unparalleled like the God its author.\n\nAnd why did God make himself man? \"What is the object of this\nunparalleled, this mysterious incarnation? It is God's purpose to\nrescue man from the evil and the peril which have continued to\nweigh upon him since the fault committed by his first progenitor.\nIt is God's purpose to ransom the human race from the sin of\nAdam, the heritage of Adam's children, and to bring it back to\nthe ways of eternal life. These are the designs, loudly\nproclaimed, of the divine incarnation in Jesus, and the price of\nall the sufferings and agonies which He endured in its\naccomplishment.\n\n{258}\n\nNeed I say more? Who does not see how this sublime fact exalts\nman's dignity at the same time that it illustrates the worth of\nman's nature? By the mere fact of God having assumed his form is\nman's nature glorified; and all men, so to say, have their share\nof the honour done by God to humanity in uniting himself with it,\nand in accepting, for a moment of time, all the conditions of\nhumanity. But as far as mankind is here concerned, it is far more\nthan a mere accession of an honour or a glorifying of his nature:\nit is a striking manifestation of the value that all men have in\nthe eyes of God. For it is not for some of them only, for some\nclass or nation, or portion of humanity, it is for all humanity\nthat God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ\nhas submitted to all human sufferings. Every human soul is the\nobject of this divine sacrifice, and called upon to gather the\nfruit.\n\n{259}\n\nThis is the source, this the privilege of Christian charity. The\ndogma makes the force of the precept itself. Jesus crucified is\nGod's charity towards man. Impossible that men should not feel\nthemselves bound to act towards each other as God has done to\nthem; and towards what man is not charity a duty? Without the\ndivinity and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the value of man's soul,\nif I may be pardoned the expression, sinks,--neither his\nsalvation nor the example of his Saviour is any longer the\nquestion,--charity becomes nothing more than human goodness; a\nsentiment, however noble and useful, still limited both in\nimpulsive energy and in efficacy; having its source in man alone,\nit can but incompletely solace the unequally distributed\nsufferings of mortality. It is not suited to inspire any long\neffort or great sacrifice: it is not adequate to convert the\nlonging desire for the moral amendment, the physical relief of\nhumanity, into that inextinguishable sympathy and untiring and\nimpassioned emotion which really constitute charity, and which\nthe Christian Faith, in the history of the world, has alone been\nable to inspire.\n\n{260}\n\nThus the essential precepts of Jesus, the virtues which He\ncommands as the basis and source of all the others, have an\nintimate connection with his doctrine, a doctrine \"which is not,\"\nHe tells us himself, \"_his_, but of him that sent him;\" that\nis to say, they are connected with the fundamental dogmas of the\nChristian religion. No one denies the perfection, the sublimity\nof the Gospel morality; men indeed seem to feel a sort of\nself-complacency, a satisfaction in celebrating it, with a view\nto the conclusion, more or less explicitly stated, that that\nmorality constitutes the whole Gospel. This is, however, not less\nthan absolutely to mistake the bond which unites in man thought\nwith sentiment, and belief with action. Man is grander and less\neasy to satisfy than superficial moralists pretend; the law of\nhis life is for him, in the profound instinct of his soul,\nnecessarily connected with the secret of his destiny; and it is\nonly the Christian dogma that gives to Christian ethics the Royal\nauthority of which they stand in need to govern and to regenerate\nhumanity.\n\n{261}\n\n    III. Jesus And His Miracles.\n\nI have called myself one of those who admit the supernatural; and\nI have stated my reasons. I might stop there and enter into no\nspecial reflection as to the Gospel Miracles. The possibility of\nmiracles once accorded in principle, nothing remains but to weigh\nthe value of the testimony in their support. In the second series\nof these _Meditations_, where I treat of the authenticity of\nthe localities specified in the Holy Scriptures, I shall occupy\nmyself with this examination. It is not, however, my wish to\nelude, upon the subjects that lie at the bottom of this question,\nany of the difficulties that it presents: for here we find the\npoint of attack sought by the adversaries of the Christian faith.\nThe image of Christ as it results from the Gospel would be\nbesides singularly unfaithful, did we not range in it his\nmiracles by the side of his precepts.\n\n{262}\n\nI avow once more my belief in God, in God the Creator, the\nSovereign Master of the Universe, who orders it and governs it by\nthat independent and constant action of his providence and power\nstyled the Laws of Nature. To those who regard nature as having\nexisted from all eternity of itself, and governed by laws\nimmutable and proceeding from fate, I have nothing to say of\nJesus or his miracles; the question at issue between them and me\nis more important than that which respects miracles; it involves\nthe very question of Pantheism or Christianity, of Fatalism or\nLiberty, affecting both God and man. Upon these subjects I have\nalready expressed my general opinion and its grounds. I propose\nto enter further upon it in the third series of these\n_Meditations_, when I come to speak of the different systems\nwhich are now in conflict throughout Christendom. But at this\nmoment I address myself to Deists and to men of wavering minds,\nand to these alone.\n\n{263}\n\nOne thing is beyond all doubt: the perfect sincerity of the\napostles and of the primitive Christians as to their faith in the\nmiracles of Jesus. Sincerity still more striking that it is\nunited to every sort of hesitation in the mind and weakness in\nthe conduct, and that it only triumphs gradually and slowly when\nJesus has quitted his disciples and has left them alone charged\nwith his work. Whilst He was with them, St. Peter has failed, St.\nThomas has doubted; after several miracles have been performed by\nJesus, his disciples are astonished, put questions to Him, yet\nstill doubt of Him and of his power. Upon several occasions Jesus\naddresses them as men \"of little faith,\" and at the moment when\nHe is arrested, they abandon Him, they fly from Him. No\nimpassioned enthusiasm, no exaggeration in their trustfulness and\ntheir devotedness; even with them Jesus sees himself confronted\nby all the vacillations and pusillanimity of humanity; He\npersuades them, He wins them, He preserves them only by great\nexertion, and by dint, so to say, of divine power and divine\nvirtue.\n{264}\nThey only really believe in Him after having witnessed the\naccomplishment of his sacrifice and his last miracle, when they\nhad seen his Crucifixion and his Resurrection. Only then they\nbelieved; but from that moment their faith became absolute,\nsuperior to all perils and all trials: full of the Holy Spirit,\nand associated in a certain measure to their divine Master, they\npursue his work with unshaken confidence and firmness, without\npretending to any merit, without any impulse of personal pride.\nBefore \"the gate of the Temple which is called Beautiful,\" St.\nPeter has healed a lame man and made him to walk. \"And as the\nlame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran\ntogether unto them in the porch that is called Solomon's, greatly\nwondering. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye\nmen of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly\non us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this\nman to walk? ... Ye killed the Prince of life, whom God hath\nraised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.\n{265}\nAnd his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong,\nwhom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given\nhim this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.\" [Footnote\n105]\n\n    [Footnote 105: Acts iii. 1-16.]\n\nIt was not the people only that felt astonishment, but \"the\nrulers and elders; the scribes, the high priest, and all those\nwho were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered\ntogether at Jerusalem, and set in their midst \"Peter and John,\nand after a deliberation full of anxiety, they \"commanded them\nnot to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter\nand John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the\nsight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.\nFor we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard.\"\n[Footnote 106]\n\n     [Footnote 106: Acts iv. 5, 6, 18-20.]\n\nWhat sincerity and what firmness ever showed themselves more\nstrikingly than those that grew out of the faith of St. Paul?\nFrom such faith he had been originally farther removed than the\nother apostles; he had done far more than merely err like Peter\nor doubt like Thomas; he had hotly persecuted the first followers\nof Christ.\n{266}\nIn his turn penetrated and subdued on the road to Damascus by the\nvoice of Jesus, he devotes himself to Him life and soul; he\nrecounts himself his miraculous conversion, [Footnote 107] and as\nlittle doubt can be entertained of the authenticity of his\nEpistles as of the sincerity that dictated them.\n\n    [Footnote 107: 1 Corinthians xv. 8. 2 Corinthians xi. 32, 33;\n    xii. 1-5. Galatians i. 1-4.]\n\nThe history of all religions abounds in miracles; but in all\nreligions except the Christian, the miracles recounted by their\nhistorians are evidently either contrivances of the founder to\ninduce persuasion, or they spring from the play of the human\nimagination, ever disposed to delight in the marvellous, ever\nparticularly prone to give way in the sphere of religion to its\nfantastic suggestions. In the Gospel miracles, on the contrary,\nwe have nothing of the kind; no artifice in their Author; none of\nthe marvellous machinery of poetry, nor any hasty credulity in\nthe historians.\n{267}\nThe miraculous agency of Christ is essentially simple, practical,\nand moral: He does not go in search of miracles; neither does He\nmake any vain display of them: they are wrought when a pressing\nemergency or a natural occasion calls for them; and when they are\ndemanded in faith and in trust, He then works them without\nostentation and in right of his divine mission; whilst at the\nvery moment He makes the doubt and the coldness with which He is\nreceived, the subject of complaint: \"Woe unto thee, Chorazin! wo\nunto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in\nyou, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented\nlong ago in sackcloth and ashes.\" [Footnote 108] Jesus has full\nconfidence in himself, in the miracles that He effects, in the\ndoctrine that He inculcates. He feels no astonishment, but merely\nsorrow, that His work, the work of light and of salvation,\npursued by Him in accordance with the will of God his Father,\nshould not obtain a more rapid, a more general success.\n\n    [Footnote 108: Matthew xi. 21.]\n\n{268}\n\nAs for us, remote spectators, the astonishment must be not the\nslowness or limited nature of that success, but its rapidity and\nits extent. All religions that have taken place in the world's\nhistory, have been established by moral and by material agency;\nall appealed from their very commencement as much to force as to\npersuasion, as much to the arm as to the tongue. Christianity\nalone lived and grew during three centuries by its own single\nnative virtue, without any other appeal than that made to Truth,\nwithout any other aid than that of Faith. During those three\ncenturies the dogmas, the precepts, and the miracles of its\nAuthor constituted its only weapons, and weapons which have\nprevailed against all other arms. Those dogmas, those precepts,\nand those miracles effected the conquest of man's mind and of\nhuman society in spite of the resistance of Greek philosophy,\nRoman power, and all the poetical or mystical mythologies of\nantiquity marshalled against them.\n{269}\nThe victory has not, it is true, put an end to all struggle of\nman's intelligence: neither has the light from Christ dissipated\nall darkness, nor satisfied all minds; the explanation and\ncommentaries of man have obscured the doctrines of Christ; human\nprejudices have mistaken his precepts; and legends have been\ngrafted upon his miracles. But the fact does not the less exist,\nthat the dogmas, the precepts, and the miracles of Christ,\nwithout any aid from human sources, sufficed to found and ensure\nthe triumph of the Christian religion: this is a fact primitive\nand supreme. And from this single result shines forth the divine\ncharacter of the Christian religion, for its triumph without the\nmiraculous agency of God, would be of all miracles the most\nimpossible to receive.\n\n\n\n  IV. Jesus, The Jews, And The Gentiles.\n\n\n\nThink not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I\nam not come to destroy, but to fulfil.\" [Footnote 109]\n\n    [Footnote 109: Matthew v. 17.]\n\n\n{270}\n\n\"Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one\nthat accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye\nbelieved Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.\nBut if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my\nwords?\" [Footnote 110]\n\n    [Footnote 110: John v. 45-47.]\n\nThis was the language that Jesus used to the Jews. It was in the\nname of their history and of their faith, in the name of the God\nof Abraham and of Jacob, that He called them to Him, presenting\nhimself to them in the double capacity of conservative and\nreformer, and appealing to the ancient law against those who,\nwhilst observing it outwardly, really changed its character.\n\"Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of\nJerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition\nof the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.\nBut He answered and said unto them, \"Why do ye also transgress\nthe commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded,\nsaying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father\nor mother, let him die the death.\n{271}\nBut ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It\nis a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; and\nhonour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus ye\nhave made the commandment of God of none effect by your\ntradition![Footnote 111] ... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,\nhypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and\nhave omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy,\nand faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the\nother undone.\" [Footnote 112]\n\n    [Footnote 111: Matthew xv. 1-6.]\n\n    [Footnote 112: Matthew xxiii. 23.]\n\nJesus was incessantly warning, making appeals to the Jews; and\nwhen He saw that they pertinaciously disavowed and rejected Him,\nHe cried, in an impulse of patriotic, affectionate sadness:--\"O\nJerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest\nthem that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy\nchildren together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her\nwings, and ye would not!\" [Footnote 113]\n\n    [Footnote 113: Matthew xxiii. 37. Luke xiii. 34.]\n\n{272}\n\nI know nothing more imposing than the apparition of a grand idea,\na divine idea rising and mounting rapidly upon the human horizon.\nSuch is the spectacle afforded to us in its short duration by the\nhistory of Jesus Christ. In his first instructions to his\napostles, He said to them, \"Go not to the Gentiles and enter not\ninto any city of the Samaritans; but go ye rather to the lost\nsheep of the people of Israel.\" Thus he carefully avoided\noffending the sentiments of the day, and only enjoined upon his\napostles what they might do with success at the very beginning of\ntheir mission. But soon the light increases that issues from the\nwords and the actions of Jesus; as I advance in the books of the\nGospel, I there read: \"And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum,\nthere came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying,\nLord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously\ntormented.\n{273}\nAnd Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion\nanswered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come\nunder my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be\nhealed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me:\nand I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come,\nand he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When\nJesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed,\nVerily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not\nin Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east\nand west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,\nin the kingdom of heaven.\" [Footnote 114]\n\n    [Footnote 114: Matthew viii. 5-11.]\n\nThus a great stride has been made; it is no longer for the sheep\nof the house of Israel that Jesus has come; from the East and\nfrom the West will men come to Him, and He will receive them all.\nTo continue the Gospel narrative: departing from the borders of\nthe lake of Gennesareth, Jesus \"departed into the coasts of Tyre\nand Sidon.\n{274}\nAnd, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and\ncried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of\nDavid; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he\nanswered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him,\nsaying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered\nand said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of\nIsrael. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.\nBut he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's\nbread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the\ndogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then\nJesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be\nit unto thee even as thou wilt.\" [Footnote 115]\n\n    [Footnote 115: Matthew xv. 21-28.]\n\n{275}\n\nAnother day, near the city Sychar and the well of Jacob, Jesus\nconversed with a woman of Samaria, who had come there to draw\nwater:--\"The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art\na prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say,\nthat in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus\nsaith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall\nneither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the\nFather. ... But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true\nworshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for\nthe Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they\nthat worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.\"\n[Footnote 116]\n\n    [Footnote 116: John iv. 5-24.]\n\nThus disappears gradually, in the name of the God of the Jews\nhimself, the exclusive privilege of the Jews to the divine\nrevelation and to divine grace. And thus, too, the restricted\nreligion of Israel gives place to the grand catholicity of the\nreligion of Christ. The benefit of the true faith and of\nsalvation is no longer limited to one people, whether great or\nsmall, ancient or modern; but is imparted to all the races of\nmankind.\n{276}\n\"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the\nname of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.\"\n[Footnote 117] \"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world,\nand preach the gospel to every creature.\"[Footnote 118]\n\n    [Footnote 117: Matthew xxviii. 19.]\n\n    [Footnote 118: Mark xvi. 15.]\n\nThese were the last words which Christ addressed to his apostles,\nand the apostles execute faithfully the instructions of their\ndivine Master; they go forth in effect, preaching in all places\nand to all nations his history, his doctrine, his precepts, and\nhis parables. St. Paul is the special apostle of the Gentiles.\nFrom Jesus, says this apostle, \"We have received grace and\napostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for\nhis name.\" \"Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the\nGentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also.\" \"For there is no difference\nbetween the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich\nunto all that call upon him.\" [Footnote 119]\n\n    [Footnote 119: Romans i. 5.; iii. 29; x. 12.]\n\n{277}\n\nIn spite of his prejudices as a Jew, and of the differences that\ntook place in the infancy of the Church, St. Peter adheres to St.\nPaul; the apostles and the elders assembled at Jerusalem adhere\nto St. Peter and St. Paul. The God of Abraham and of Jacob is now\nnot merely the One God, He is the God of the whole human race; to\nall men alike He prescribes the same faith, the same law, and\npromises the same salvation.\n\nAnother question, more temporal in its nature, still a great, a\ndelicate one, is raised in the presence of Jesus Christ. He\nwithdraws from the Jews their exclusive privilege to the\nknowledge and the grace of the true God; but what does He think\nof that which touches their existence as a nation, and as a great\none? Does He direct them to rebel and to struggle against their\nearthly governor and sovereign?--\"Then went the Pharisees, and\ntook counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. And they\nsent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying,\nMaster, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God\nin truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not\nthe person of men. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou?\n{278}\nIs it lawful to give tribute unto Cesar, or not? But Jesus\nperceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye\nhypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him\na penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and\nsuperscription? They say unto him, Cesar's. Then saith he unto\nthem, Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's;\nand unto God the things that are God's. When they had heard these\nwords, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.\"\n[Footnote 120]\n\n    [Footnote 120: Matthew xxii. 15-22.\n    Mark xii. 12-17. Luke xx. 19-25.]\n\n{279}\n\nIn this reply of Christ there was much more matter for admiration\nthan the Pharisees supposed; it was in effect much more than an\nadroit evasion of the snare that had been extended for Him; it\ndefined in principle the distinction of man's life as it regards\nreligion, and man's life as it concerns society; the bounds, in\nfact, of Church and of State. C\u00e6sar has no right to intervene,\nwith his laws and material force, between the soul of man and his\nGod; and on his side, the faithful worshipper of God is bound to\nfulfil towards C\u00e6sar the duties which the necessity of the\nmaintenance of civil order imposes. The independence of religious\nfaith, and at the same time its subjection to the laws of\nsociety, are alike the sense of Christ's reply to the Pharisees,\nand the divine source of the greatest progress ever made by human\nsociety since it began to feel the troubles and agitations of\nthis earth.\n\nI take again these two grand principles, these two great acts of\nJesus,--the abolition of every privilege in the relations of God\nand man, and the distinction of man's religious and his civil\nlife: I confront with these two principles all the history, and\nevery state of society previous to the advent of Jesus Christ,\nand I am unable to discover in those essentially Christian\nprinciples any kindred, any human origin. Everywhere before\nChrist, religions were national local religions; they were\nreligions which established between nations, classes,\nindividuals, enormous differences and inequalities.\n{280} Everywhere, also, before Christ, man's civil life and his\nreligious life were confounded, and mutually oppressed each\nother; that religion or those religions were institutions\nincorporated in the state, which the state regulated or repressed\nas its interest dictated. But in this catholicity of religious\nfaith, in this independence of religious communities, I am\nconstrained to recognise new and sublime principles, and to see\nin them flashes from the light of heaven. It needed many\ncenturies before mental vision was capable of receiving that\nlight; and no one shall pronounce how many centuries will be\nneeded before it will pervade and penetrate the entire world. But\nwhatever difficulties and shortcomings may be reserved in the\nwomb of the future for the two great truths to which I have just\nreferred, it is clear that God caused them first to beam forth\nfrom the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.\n\n{281}\n\n\n          V. Jesus And Women.\n\n\nAt the very source of all religions, as well as in their\nsubsequent history, women find a place to fill and a part to\nperform. At one time they constitute the material and furnish the\nornament of licentious systems of mythology. At another, on the\ncontrary, they are, for the heroes of those religions, objects\neither of pious horror or of observances at once rigorous and\naustere: women are considered by them as creatures full of evil\nand of peril; and they are accordingly thrust from their lives as\nmen thrust from them what is a temptation and an impurity.\nVoluptuous pictures and adventures on the one hand, and zealous\nimpulses of rigid asceticism on the other, constitute the two\nextremes to which religions in their ages of youth and of vigour\nare alternately prone.\n{282}\nSometimes--and it is more fortunate for women when it is the\ncase--they are described in the narrative of these religions,\nsuch as they really are in human life, charmers and at the same\ntime charmed, seducers and seduced, idols and slaves; at first\nvotaries of the enthusiasm, the victims of the errors and the\npassions which they at once inspire and feel. Whether Asiatic or\nEuropean, rude or refined, such are the striking features with\nwhich all systems of religion, excepting Christianity, have\ncharacterised the women whom they have introduced in their\nnarratives.\n\nNeither of these characteristics, nor anything analogous, is met\nwith in the Gospel and in the relations of Jesus with women. They\nseem irresistibly attracted towards Him, with hearts moved,\nimaginations struck by his manner of life, his precepts, his\nmiracles, his language. He inspires them with feelings of tender\nrespect and confiding admiration. The Canaanitish woman comes and\naddresses to Him a timid prayer for the healing of her daughter.\nThe woman of Samaria listens to Him with eagerness, though she\ndoes not know Him: Mary seats herself at his feet, absorbed in\nreflections suggested by his words; and Martha proffers to Him\nthe frank complaint that her sister assists her not, but leaves\nher unaided in the performance of her domestic duties.\n{283}\nThe sinner draws near to Him in tears, pouring upon his feet a\nrare perfume, and wiping them with her hair. The adulteress,\nhurried into his presence by those who wished to stone her in\naccordance with the precepts of the Mosaic Law, remains\nmotionless in his presence, even after her accusers have\nwithdrawn, waiting in silence what He is about to say. Jesus\nreceives the homage, and listens to the prayers of all these\nwomen, with the gentle gravity and impartial sympathy of a being\nsuperior and strange to earthly passion. Pure and inflexible\ninterpreter of the Divine law, He knows and understands man's\nnature, and judges it with that equitable severity which nothing\nescapes, the excuse as little as the fault. Faith, sincerity,\nhumanity, sorrow, repentance, touch Him without biassing the\ncharity and the justice of his conclusions; and He expresses\nblame or announces pardon with the same calm serenity of\nauthority, certain that his eye has read the depths of the heart\nto which his words will penetrate.\n{284}\nIn his relations with the women who approach Him, there is, in\nshort, not the slightest trace of man; nowhere does the Godhead\nmanifest itself more winningly and with greater purity. And when\nthere is no longer any question of these particular relations and\nconversations, when Jesus has no longer before him women\nsuppliants and sinners, who are invoking his power or imploring\nhis clemency; when it is with the position and the destiny of\nwomen in general that He is occupying himself, He affirms and\ndefends their claims and their dignity with a sympathy at once\npenetrating and severe. He knows that the happiness of mankind,\nas well as the moral position of women, depends essentially upon\nthe married state; He makes of the sanctity of marriage a\nfundamental law of Christian religion and society; He pursues\nadultery even into the recesses of the human heart, the human\nthought; He forbids divorce; He says of men, \"Have ye not read,\nthat he which made them at the beginning made them male and\nfemale? ... For this cause shall a man leave father and mother,\nand shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh.\n{283}\nWherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore\nGod hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto\nhim, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement,\nand to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the\nhardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but\nfrom the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever\nshall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall\nmarry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which\nis put away doth commit adultery.\" [Footnote 121]\n\n    [Footnote 121: Matthew xix. 4-9; v. 27, 28 Mark x. 2-12.\n    Romans vii. 2, 3. 1 Corinthians vi. 16-18; vii. 1-11.]\n\nSignal and striking testimony to the progressive action of God\nupon the human race! Jesus Christ restores to the divine law of\nmarriage the purity and the authority that Moses had not enjoined\nto the Hebrews \"because of the hardness of their hearts.\"\n\n{286}\n\n    VI. Jesus Christ And Children.\n\n\nThe sentiments expressed by Jesus Christ towards children, and\nthe language that He uses towards them, as these appear in the\nGospel narrative, must strike even the most careless reader. Let\nme refer to the passages themselves:--\n\n  \"And they brought young children to him, that he should touch\n  them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But\n  when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them,\n  Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them\n  not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you,\n  Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little\n  child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his\n  arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.\" [Footnote\n  122]\n\n    [Footnote 122: Mark x. 13-16; Matthew xix. 13-15.\n    Luke xviii. 15-17.]\n\n{287}\n\nAnother day, \"came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the\ngreatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little\nchild unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said,\nVerily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as\nlittle children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.\nWhosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child,\nthe same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.\" [Footnote 123]\n\n    [Footnote 123: Matthew xviii. 1-4; Mark ix. 33-37.]\n\nAgain another day, Jesus, deploring the coldness that his\npreaching and his miracles frequently encountered, and that even\nin his closest vicinity, exclaimed, here no longer addressing his\ndisciples, but God himself, \"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of\nheaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the\nwise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.\" [Footnote\n124]\n\n    [Footnote 124: Matthew xi. 25.]\n\nWhat is the full meaning of these words? They are not simply the\nexpression of that impulse of gentle benevolence excited in all\nhearts at the sight of children, and their innocent confidence in\nall who come near them.\n{288}\nJesus Christ no doubt experienced the influence of this feeling,\nfor He was strange to none of man's noble emotions; but his\nthoughts passed far beyond the children whose approach he\npermitted, and they merely furnished Him with the living occasion\nto address to men themselves his solemn warnings.\n\nThe child, I have already mentioned in these\nMeditations,[Footnote 125] is, for us, the image of innocence,\nthe type of the creature fallible, yet who has not yet sinned,\nwho knows not yet either error of understanding, or the seduction\nof passion, or the blinding influence of pride, or the troubles\nof doubt, or the extreme folly of sin, or the anguish of\nrepentance; who follows in the first impulses of infancy only the\nspontaneous instincts of tender confidence in the parent to whom\nhe is indebted for security and for love, for the first joys and\nthe earliest blessings.\n\n    [Footnote 125: Meditation II., Christian Dogmas, p. 48.]\n\n{289}\n\nJesus does not pretend to bring men back to that fair condition,\nto restore to them their primitive innocence: but He comes to\nransom them from sin; He brings them the hope of pardon and\nsalvation. Confidence in God, a confidence sincere, unpretending,\nand loving, is that disposition which opens the soul of man to\nthe divine blessing. This is also the disposition that the child\nevinces towards its parents; he calls upon them, and he hopes in\nthem. Hence those words of Jesus: \"Suffer little children to come\nunto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of\nheaven.\" The way of innocence is a far better way than that of\nscience to lead man up to God.\n\nScience is a splendid thing; it is also a noble privilege of man\nthat God, in creating him an intelligent and a free agent, has\ngiven him a capacity to desire and to pursue through study the\ntruths of science, and even to attain them in a certain measure,\nand in a certain sphere.\n{290}\nBut when science attempts to exceed that measure and to quit that\nsphere; when it ignores and scorns the instincts,--natural,\nuniversal, and permanent instincts, of the human soul; when it\nessays to set up everywhere its own torch in the place of that\nprimitive light that lights mankind: then, and from that cause\nalone, science fills itself with error; and this is the very case\nwhich called forth those words of Jesus: \"I praise thee, Father,\nLord of heaven and of earth, that thou hast hidden these things\nfrom the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.\"\n[Footnote 126]\n\n    [Footnote 126: Matthew xi. 25. The words [Greek text] are\n    better rendered, \"from the learned and the prudent,\" than\n    \"wise and intelligent;\" \"sages et intelligents,\" as in the\n    French version by Osterwald.]\n\n\n     VII. Jesus Christ Himself.\n\nI have sought to gather from the Gospels the scattered facts that\nconstitute the life of Jesus. I have searched for them in his\nacts, his precepts, his words: in his different relations in\nlife. I have added nothing, exaggerated nothing; on the contrary,\nthe life of Jesus is infinitely grander and more sublime than I\nhave made it; his words are infinitely more profound and admiral\nthan I have described them. And I have said nothing of the seal\naffixed to _his work_ and _his mission_ by his Passion;\nnor have I shown Jesus at Gethsemane and upon the Cross.\n\n{291}\n\nAccording to the Bible, God is without parallel--ever the same.\nJesus is also so according to the Gospel. The most perfect, the\nmost constant unity reigns in Him: in his life as in his soul; in\nhis language as in his acts. His action is progressive, and\nproportionate to the circumstances which call it forth and in the\nmidst of which He lives; but his progress never entails any\nchange of character or purpose. As He appears at the age of\ntwelve, in the Temple, already full of the sentiment of his\ndivine nature, in his reply to his mother who was searching for\nHim with disquietude, \"Knowest thou not that I must be about my\nFather's business?\" the same He remains and manifests himself in\nthe whole course of his active mission--in Galilee and at\nJerusalem, with his apostles and with the people, amongst the\nPharisees and the Publicans, whether they be men, or women, or\nchildren who approach Him; alike before Caiaphas and Pilate, and\nunder the eyes of the crowd pressing around to listen to Him.\n{292}\nEverywhere and in every circumstance, the same spirit animates\nHim; He diffuses the same light, proclaims the same law. Perfect\nand immutable, always at once Son of God and Son of Man, He\npursues and consummates amidst all the trials and all the sorrows\nof human existence his divine work for the salvation of mankind.\n\nWhat need to add more? How speak in detail of Jesus himself when\none believes in Him, when one sees in Him God made man, acting as\nGod alone can act, and suffering all that man can suffer to\nransom mankind from sin, and save it by bringing it back to God?\nHow sound closely the mysteries of such a person and such a\npurpose? What passed in that divine soul during that human\nexistence? Who shall explain those cries of agony of Jesus in the\nbosom of the most absolute faith in God his father and in\nhimself, and those moments of horror at the approach of the\nsacrifice without the slightest hesitation in the sacrifice,\nwithout the smallest doubt as to its efficaciousness?\n{293}\nThis sublime fact, this intimate and continual intermixture of\nthe divine and human finds no competent, no adequate expression\nin human speech, and the more we consider it the more difficult\nwe find it to speak of it.\n\nThose who have no faith in Jesus, who admit not the supernatural\ncharacter of his person, of his life, and of his work, do not\nfeel this difficulty. Having beforehand done away with God and\nwith miracles, the history of Jesus is for them nothing more than\nan ordinary history, which they narrate and explain like any\nother biography of man. But such historians fall into a far\ndifferent difficulty, and wreck themselves on a far different\nrock. The supernatural being and power of Jesus may be disputed,\nbut the perfection, the sublimity of his actions and of his\nprecepts, of his life and of his moral law, are incontestable.\n{294}\nAnd in effect, not only are they not contested, but they are\nadmired and celebrated enthusiastically, and complacently, too;\nit would seem as if it were desired to restore to Jesus as man,\nand man alone, the superiority of which men deprive Him in\nrefusing to see in Him the Godhead. But then, what incoherence,\nwhat contradictions, what falsehood, what moral impossibility in\nhis history, such as they make it; what a series of suppositions,\nirreconcilable with fact, nevertheless admitted! The man they\nmake so perfect, so sublime, becomes by turns a dreamer or a\ncharlatan; at once dupe and deceiver: dupe of his own mystical\nenthusiasm in believing in his own miracles; deceiver in\ntampering with evidence in order to accredit himself. The history\nof Jesus Christ is thus but a tissue of fables and falsehood. And\nnevertheless the hero of this history remains perfect, sublime,\nincomparable; the greatest genius, the noblest heart that the\nworld ever saw; the type of virtue and moral beauty, the supreme\nand rightful chief of mankind.\n{295}\nAnd his disciples, in their turn justly admirable, have braved\neverything, suffered everything, in order to abide faithful to\nHim and to accomplish his work. And, in effect, the work has been\naccomplished: the pagan world has become Christian, and the whole\nworld has nothing better to do than to follow the example.\n\nWhat a contradictory and insolvable problem they present to us\ninstead of the one they are so anxious to suppress!\n\nHistory reposes upon two foundations--positive written evidence\nas to facts and persons, and presumptive evidence resulting from\nthe connection of facts and the action of persons. These two\nfoundations are entirely lost sight of in the history of Jesus\nsuch as it is recounted, or rather constructed, in these days; it\nis, on the one hand, in evident and shocking contradiction with\nthe testimony of the men who saw Jesus, or of the men who lived\nnearly in the time of those who had seen Him; on the other side,\nwith the natural laws presiding over the actions of men and the\ncourse of events.\n{296}\nThis does not deserve the name of historical criticism; it is a\nphilosophical system and a romantic narrative substituted for the\nsubstantial proof and the circumstantial evidence; it is a Jesus\nfalse and impossible, made by the hand of man pretending to\ndethrone the real living Jesus--the Son of God.\n\nThe choice lies between the system and the mystery; between the\nromance of man and the purpose of God. Even in revealing himself\nGod still interposes veils, but these veils are no falsehoods.\nThe Gospel history of Jesus shows us God acting in ways which are\nnot his ways of every day. This special action of God\ncharacterises also many other facts in the history of the\nuniverse; amongst others, the great fact of the actual creation,\nwhere man, at his appearance upon earth, received the first\ndivine revelation. The supernatural does not merely date from\nJesus Christ; and if a man from this motive rejects the history\nof Jesus, he will have to deny also a far different thing.\n{297}\nTo escape this fatal necessity, men of learning have recently\nstriven to curtail indefinitely the proportion of the\nsupernatural in the history of Jesus, and to explain by natural\nmeans, most of the acts and circumstances of his life. A puerile\nattempt, which has altogether failed in the details, still\nleaving untouched the substance of the problem. No better success\nwill attend the new attempt that has in these days been made, and\nwhich consists in placing the Ideal in the place of the\nSupernatural, and in elevating religious sentiment upon the ruins\nof the Christian faith. This is doing either too much or too\nlittle. The human soul is not satisfied with these leavings, nor\nhuman pride with such refusals, When one is so hardy as to\npretend, in the name of the science of man in this finite world,\nto determine the limits of the power of God, one must be still\nmore hardy and--dethrone God himself.\n\n{298}\n\n{299}\n\n                 Note.\n\nI said (p. 145) that I would indicate some instances of\ngrammatical faults to be met with in the Scriptures, to which the\ncharacter of divine inspiration cannot be assigned. Upon the\nsubject of the books of the Old Testament I have consulted my\nlearned confr\u00e8re, M. Munk; his reply is in the precise words\nwhich follow:\n\n  \"The biblical authors,\" he writes to me, \"whose style is most\n  incorrect, are Ezekiel and Jeremiah. These authors, and\n  particularly the first, err frequently against grammar and\n  orthography; they are not merely influenced by the Aramean\n  dialect, but they disclose grammatical faults capable of being\n  traced to no source in any of the Semitic dialects. This remark\n  has also been made by Hebrew grammarians of the middle ages,\n  and Isaac Abrabanel (towards the close of the 15th century), in\n  the preface to his commentary upon Ezekiel, does not hesitate\n  to declare that this prophet was but superficially acquainted\n  with Hebrew grammar and orthography.\n{300}\n  Nevertheless, neither Jeremiah nor Ezekiel, of whom both are\n  distinguished by a certain originality of style, unlike that of\n  any of the other Hebrew writers, is wanting in elegance,\n  energy, and boldness in images, and they display in the highest\n  degree their proficiency in the art of composition. The\n  following are some instances of the grave faults against\n  grammar to be met with in their writings:--\n\n  _Examples of Incorrect Expressions in Ezekiel._\n\n  [Transcriber's note: Hebrew text is indicated by \"HHHHHH\".\n  Some Latin characters are not exact. See the html version\n  for the original text.]\n\n  HHHHHH (_mischta' hawithem_), \"and they worshipped\" (viii.\n  16), a barbarism for HHHHHH (_mischta'haw\u00eem_).\n\n  HHHHHH (_we-n\u00e9schaar ani_), \"and I remained\" (xi. 8), for\n  HHHHHH (_wa-\u00ebscha\u00ebr_) or HHHHHH (_we-nischarti_).\n  (There are here faults both of orthography and grammar.)\n\n  HHHHHH (_isch\u00f4th_), \"women\" (xxiii. 44), for HHHHHH\n  (_nesch\u00e9_). HHHHHH (_schib'a_), \"his seven burnt\n  offerings\" (xl. 26), for HHHHHH (_scheba'_). In the number\n  seven the masculine is used instead of the feminine.\n\n  HHHHHH (_bi-ben\u00f4thayikh_), \"in that thou buildest\" (xvi.\n  31), instead of HHHHHH (_bi-benotih\u00e9kh_).\n\n  HHHHHH (_be-schoub\u00e9ni_), \"when I returned\" (xlvi. 7),\n  instead of HHHHHH (_be-schoubi_).\n\n  HHHHHH (_gabeh\u00e2_), \"his height was exalted\" (xxxi. 5),\n  instead of HHHHHH (_gabeh\u00e2_). The last letter is\n  _aleph_, for _h\u00e9_.\n\n{301}\n\nThe Chaldean plural is used in several words, for instance:\n\n  HHHHHH (_'hitt\u00een_), \"wheat\" (iv. 9), for HHHHHH\n  (_'hitt\u00eem_); HHHHHH (_ha-iyy\u00een_), \"the isles,\" or \"the\n  isles in the sea\" (xxvi. 18), instead of HHHHHH\n  _(ha-iyyim_), an error in both orthography and grammar.\n\n\n  _Examples of Incorrect Expressions in Jeremiah._\n\n\n  HHHHHH (_\u00f4b\u00eed\u00e2_), \"I will destroy\" (xlvi. 8), for HHHHHH\n  (_aab\u00eed\u00e2_).\n\n  HHHHHH (_nibbetha_), \"hast thou prophesied\" (xxvi. 9),\n  instead of HHHHHH (_nibbetha_). The syllable _b\u00e9_ has\n  a _yod_ instead of an _aleph_.\n\n  HHHHHH (_athanou_) \"we come\" (iii. 22), instead of HHHHHH\n  (_athinou_.).\n\n  HHHHHH (_att_), \"thee\" in the feminine (terminating with\n  _yod_ mute), for HHHHHH (_att_), a Syriasm very\n  frequent in Jeremiah, who often forms the second person of the\n  perfect fem. in HHHHHH (_t_ followed by _yod_)\n  instead of HHHHHH (_t_). HHHHHH (_l\u00f4_ written with\n  _waw_ quiescent), \"not\" very often for HHHHHH (_l\u00f4_\n  without the _waw_).\n\n  HHHHHH (_hoglath_), \"shall be carried away captive\" (xiii.\n  19), instead of HHHHHH (_hogleth\u00e2_). The latter Chaldaism\n  we meet also in the Pentateuch (Leviticus xxv. 22), HHHHHH\n  (_we'asath_), her fruits (shall) come in.\" for HHHHHH\n  (_we'asetah_), and ibid xxvi. 34; HHHHHH\n  (_we-hirzath_), \"she shall enjoy,\" for HHHHHH\n  (_we-hirceth\u00e2_).\n\n{302}\n\nWith respect to the New Testament, I have required a similar\nnotice from my son William, who has made the Greek language in\ngeneral, and its deviations in the writings of the Gospel, the\nobject of particular and careful study. I insert, also, the note\nwhich he has drawn up upon the subject:--\n\n  \"On first approaching the text of the New Testament, after\n  having learnt the Greek language and grammar in the classical\n  writers, we are struck by numerous irregularities of\n  expression: amongst these, however, we must carefully\n  distinguish those which constitute merely particular and\n  singular modes of expression from those which are real faults.\n  The former are susceptible of explanation and justification by\n  different examples and different arguments; the latter are not\n  capable of being reconciled with the elementary and necessary\n  laws of language. Thus we may justify such or such a strange\n  form of conjugation or of declension, which would be accounted\n  a barbarism by a school boy, but which was nevertheless in\n  actual use in some one or other of the local dialects, written\n  and spoken by the Greeks.\n{303}\n  Again, however it may have been the rule in Greek to set the\n  verb in the singular when used with a neuter substantive in the\n  plural, the rule has not been invariably observed even by the\n  purest classical writers, and we may justify by exceptions\n  collected here and there in their compositions, several\n  passages of the New Testament which, at first sight, might\n  appear amenable to a charge of solecism. Thus, in short, after\n  our attention having, at first sight, been arrested and our\n  minds disconcerted by other passages in which the sacred writer\n  has confounded the sense of two words which resemble each\n  other, as [Greek text], which signifies _summon a\n  witness_, and which St. Peter employs instead of [Greek\n  text] which means, _give testimony_,[Footnote 127] as\n  [Greek text], which signifies _to be incapable_, and which\n  St. Matthew and St. Mark employ in the sense of _being\n  impossible_, [Footnote 128]--as [Greek text], which\n  signifies the _meridian or zenith of a star_, and which,\n  on three occasions in the New Testament, is used in the sense\n  of _in the middle of the air_,--or, even when we meet\n  words, not merely strange to the ear, but formed without\n  attention to the rules and in contradiction to analogy, as\n  [Greek text] for [Greek text][Footnote 129]--we may again,\n  without any departure from logical rules, by judicious or\n  subtle distinctions, escape from the difficulties which the\n  passages suggest, and have a perfect right to do so. But after\n  having made allowances for the irregularities susceptible of\n  explanation in the language of the New Testament, there still\n  remain some which are real faults. The same word cannot be\n  written by the same hand, at an interval of but three pages,\n  both masculine and feminine, as the word [Greek text],\n  _rainbow_, in the _Apocalypse_. [Footnote 130] When\n  the substantive is feminine, the adjective cannot be masculine,\n  as [Greek text]. [Footnote 131]\n\n    [Footnote 127: 1 Peter i. 11.]\n\n    [Footnote 128: Matthew xvii. 20; Luke i. 37.]\n\n    [Footnote 129: 1 Corinthians ii 1.]\n\n    [Footnote 130: Compare iv. 3, and x. 1.]\n\n    [Footnote 131: Apocalypse xiv. 19.]\n\n{304}\n\nWhen the substantive is in the accusative, the adjective cannot\nbe in the nominative. In such an employment of words we are able\nto trace in the sacred writings the hand of man, marks of human\nimperfection and error; and we must not forget that these faults\nbecome more numerous and grosser the greater the antiquity of the\nMS. in which we find them, and the purer the Jewish origin of the\nwriter. Thus the Greek of the Apocalypse is singularly incorrect,\nat the same time that the imaginative turn of the expression is\nremarkably Hebraic. [Footnote 132] In the text, styled the\nreceived text, and which was fixed in the 16th century, many of\nthese faults have disappeared, because it has borrowed from MSS.\nof then recent date. But now that biblical philosophy has mounted\nhigher, we can discern how the copyists, one after the other,\nactuated by pious scruples, or thinking only to correct some\nerror of their predecessors, have little by little effaced what\nappeared to them too great a departure from rules to have been\nwritten by an evangelist or an apostle. At the present day, these\nadmitted irregularities are an element indispensible to every\nserious discussion respecting the nature and extent of the divine\ninspiration to be met with in the sacred volume.\n\n    [Footnote 132: Apocalypse i. 16; iii. 12; iv. 7;\n    ix. 13 & 14; xiv. 12; xvi. 13; xx. 2, &c.]\n\n\n               THE END.\n\n  Bradpury And Evans, Printers, Whitefriars.\n\n{305}\n\n           Albemarle Street,\n          _July_, 1864\n\n\n            Mr. Murray's\n         List Of New Works.\n\n  The Quarterly Review, No. CCXXXI. 8vo. 6s.\n\n  Contents:\n\n    I. Words And Places.\n\n    II. Ludwig Uhland.\n\n    III. Free Thinking; Its History And Tendencies,\n\n    IV. The Circassian Exodus.\n\n    V. Lacordaire.\n\n    VI. Christian Art.\n\n    VII. Public Schools.\n\n    VIII. Travelling In England.\n\n    IX. 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Small\n  8vo. 15s.\n\n---------------------------------------\n\n     John Murray, Albemarle Street.","title":"Meditations on the Essence of Christianity, and on the Religious Questions of the Day.","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":58754}