{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_64503/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_64503","id":"gutenberg_64503","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64503","summary":null,"tags":["Apologetics","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity -- Controversial literature","Free thought","Skepticism"],"text":"Transcribed from the [1873] Austin and Co. edition by David Price.\n\n\n\n\n\n                               CHRISTIANITY\n                              IN RELATION TO\n                       FREETHOUGHT, SCEPTICISM, AND\n                                  FAITH:\n\n\n                             THREE DISCOURSES\n\n                      BY THE BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH.\n\n                                   WITH\n\n                             SPECIAL REPLIES\n\n                        BY MR. CHARLES BRADLAUGH.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                 LONDON:\n          AUSTIN & CO., 17, JOHNSON\u2019S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                           PRICE ONE SHILLING.\n\n\n\n\nADVERTISEMENT.\n\n\nIT will be seen by the following Circular and Correspondence how the\nDiscourses of the Bishop of Peterborough and Mr. Bradlaugh\u2019s Replies\nthereto were brought about.  The Dean\u2019s Circular speaks of four\nDiscourses to be delivered by the Bishop, but in fact only the three here\nreported were given.  This volume, therefore, contains the whole of both\nsides of the question, so far as the discussion has hitherto proceeded in\nNorwich.  The speeches were all taken down by a competent shorthand\nreporter, specially engaged for the _National Reformer_.\n\nThe reader will clearly see by the Correspondence that the Christians\nrefused the proposal of the Secularists that the two parties should\nco-operate in publishing together and circulating as widely as possible\nthe Discourses and Replies.  Mr. Bradlaugh has therefore taken upon\nhimself the responsibility of their joint publication.  The extraordinary\nreasons given by the Dean (in the last paragraph of his letter of Feb.\n15th) for refusing the perfectly fair offer of Mr. Cooper, will not pass\nunnoted.  His claim to certainty _may_ differ from the claim to\ninfallibility made on behalf of the Pope and the Romish Church, and the\nprinciple on which he condemns the dissemination of Sceptical works as\ntreason to human welfare, _may_ differ from that which in Rome has led to\nthe establishment of the _Index Expurgatorius_; but we confess that in\nneither case can we see the difference, and we challenge the Dean to show\nthat there really is any.\n\nWe are confident that Freethinkers generally will appreciate the\ndisinterested zeal of Mr. R. A. Cooper in making all arrangements\nnecessary to ensure that the Bishop\u2019s Discourses should be fitly answered\non the spot and without delay.\n\n                                                           THE PUBLISHERS.\n\n_April_, 1871.\n\n\n\n\nCIRCULAR OF THE DEAN OF NORWICH.\n\n\nSIR,\u2014I am about to ask your kind help in an enterprise undertaken for the\nreligious welfare of our fellow-citizens, to the success of which your\nco-operation may very materially contribute.  It has been thought that in\nlarge cities, where sceptical views are often so much disseminated, and\nspread so widely among all classes, good might be done, under God\u2019s\nblessing, by an annual series of discourses from some competent preacher,\ndirected against modern forms of infidelity, and afterwards published and\ncirculated at so low a price as should put them within the reach of all.\nIt is chiefly with the view of holding such discourses there, that the\nDean and Chapter have recently caused the Nave of the Cathedral Church to\nbe lighted and furnished with chairs, _all of which_ (except, a very few\nreserved for persons engaged in the service, or connected with the\nCathedral) _will be perfectly free_.  With the view of giving the\npreachers a larger discretion as to time, and of making the whole service\nshorter, it is proposed to use before the sermon the Litany only with one\nor two hymns.  I may add that the whole scheme has the thorough sanction\nand concurrence of the Lord Bishop of the Diocese, who has been consulted\non every part of it.\n\n_The Lord Bishop of Peterborough has kindly undertaken to give the first\nseries of discourses on Tuesday_, _the_ 21_st_, _Tuesday_, _the_ 28_th_,\n_Wednesday_, _the_ 29_th_, _and Thursday_, _the_ 30_th_ _of March_, _the\nservice each evening commencing at_ 8 _p.m._\n\nIf you approve of our scheme (and pray observe that _the discourses_,\n_having for their object the vindication and establishment of the\nChristian faith_, _will in all probability hardly notice the points on\nwhich Christians of various Communions differ_), will you kindly help us,\nfirst, by making known among your workpeople or parishioners the days and\nhours of the services, with the name of the preacher, and encouraging\nthem to attend; secondly, by circulating among them the discourses, when\npublished, of which I shall be greatly pleased to send you as large a\nnumber as you think you can dispose of?  On this last point I shall be\nobliged by a communication from you.\n\nThe subject of the first series of discourses will be \u201cFree Thought.\u201d\n\n           I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,\n\n                                                 E. MEYRICK GOULBURN, D.D.\n                                                          Dean of Norwich.\n\nThe Deanery, Norwich, February 7th, 1871.\n\n\n\n\nCORRESPONDENCE.\n\n\n                                                 Norwich, Feb. 13th, 1871.\n\nREV. SIR,\u2014I received with extreme pleasure your circular letter of 7th\ninst., relating to, and defining the objects of the Discourses intended\nto be delivered next month in the Cathedral, by the Bishop of\nPeterborough, and I am induced to reply to it by the conviction that\ngreat good may result from \u201cthe scheme,\u201d if you can be induced to modify\nit in some particulars.\n\nThe circular states that the Discourses are to be \u201cdirected against\nmodern forms of infidelity,\u201d and have for their object the \u201cvindication\nand establishment of the Christian faith,\u201d but I assume your ultimate\nobject is the vindication and establishment of truth\u2014no matter what the\ntruth may be.  If my assumption be correct, I heartily sympathise with\nyour object, and as a Sceptic or Infidel, will co-operate with my\nChristian brethren if permitted.\n\nMay I call your attention to a practical difficulty in the way of the\nscheme, which I fear you have not sufficiently considered?  In the\npresent state of opinion, or rather in the absence of real opinion, on\nthese subjects, Sceptics or Infidels cannot always insure the attention\nof Christian hearers, or of persons indifferent to the subject of their\ndiscourses, but these and not the confirmed Infidels, are the persons the\nzealous Sceptic most desires to reach.  I imagine your difficulty is the\nsame.  You want to get at the mighty mass who know and care nothing about\nthese questions, and also at the Infidel whose opinions you deem so\nmischievous.  The fact is, the great mass and the Infidel are not likely\nto attend unless their attention be in some manner especially drawn to\nthe Discourses, but you will probably have a large congregation of\nbelieving Christians, whose faith may be confirmed, but yet who do not\nhold opinions you wish to change.\n\nI beg to suggest a mode by which I think the difficulty may be removed,\nand an interest created that will be useful to the cause of truth\u2014to\nChristian truth, if Christianity be true\u2014but to truth, whether\nChristianity be true or false.\n\nI intend to invite to Norwich some person who shall be well known as a\nrepresentative exponent \u201cof modern forms of Infidelity,\u201d and request him\nto deliver a course of lectures at about the same time, and on the same\nsubject as that chosen by the Bishop of Peterborough, and if you think it\nwould be useful to give the public the opportunity of reading as well as\nhearing the discourses, both expositions of the subject might be\npublished together, and more extensively circulated and read, in\nconsequence of the greater interest that would be thus created.\n\nI have always scrupulously abstained from doing anything to influence the\npolitics or religion of persons in my employment, but in accordance with\nyour wish, I will take care to inform them all of the Discourses, and\nalso acquaint them with the high reputation which the Bishop of\nPeterborough enjoys as a preacher.\n\nI should be willing to subscribe for 200 copies of the joint publication,\nwhich will enable me to present one to every man and boy in my\nemployment, who is willing to accept it, and the remainder I shall be\nhappy to distribute according to the suggestion of the circular.\n\n                  I am, Rev. Sir, your obedient servant,\n\n                                                         ROBERT A. COOPER.\n\nThe Very Rev. E. M. Goulburn,\n            Dean of Norwich.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                    The Deanery, Norwich, Feb. 15th, 1871.\n\nSIR,\u2014I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 13th inst., and to thank you\nfor the readiness you express to circulate among persons in your\nemployment, the announcement of the Bishop of Peterborough\u2019s Sermons.\n\nI regret that I cannot meet this kindness on your part by assisting in\nany way in the circulation of tracts by a representative exponent \u201cof\nmodern forms of infidelity,\u201d and I will explain in few words the reason\nwhy I must decline the joint publication suggested by your letter.\n\nProfessing yourself (as you do) a \u201cSceptic,\u201d by which I conceive is meant\n(according to the derivation of the word) one who has doubts as to\nreligious truth, and, therefore, is engaged in an inquiry, having for its\nobject the resolution of those doubts and the arrival at a conclusion; it\nis (under your view of the subject) perfectly consistent and reasonable\nthat you should do all in your power to get both sides of the religious\nquestion ably and fairly expounded, in order to give yourself and others\nan opportunity of forming a right conclusion.\n\nBut my conclusion on the momentous question has long since been made up.\nI am as firmly convinced that Christianity is God\u2019s own message to the\nworld, the truth and the only truth, the way, and the only way, of\nhappiness and peace, as that the sun is now shining in the heavens.  I\ncannot, therefore, help regarding any attempt to throw doubt or discredit\non Christianity as a treason against the highest well-being of my\nfellow-creatures.  And you will see, therefore, that (under my view) I\ncould not properly join in disseminating publications, which, at the very\nleast, will insinuate a doubt as to that revealed religion which I hold\nto be the only means of raising and saving our fallen race.\n\n                  I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,\n\n                                                      E. MEYRICK GOULBURN.\n\nMr. Robert A. Cooper.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                                 Norwich, Feb. 25th, 1871.\n\nREV. SIR,\u2014I have to acknowledge the receipt of yours of the 15th inst.\n(which came to hand on the 22nd), and to regret that you can engage in\nthe circulation of only one side of the important question you propose to\nexpound.  And I regret it for these reasons, because by so restricting\nyour action, you, while attacking, prevent the fair expression of that\nform of thought which you seek to destroy, and allow those who hold such\nopinions to shelter themselves, if need be, under the assumption that\nyour exposition of the case is not theirs.  And, also, because your\nexpression of the unqualified certainty of your own conviction of the\ntruth of Christianity (obtained, doubtless, from a consideration of all\nsides of the subject), is open to the objection that you fear to trust\nthe impartial examination of the evidence of that truth to the minds of\nothers, and implies a latent, though unconscious, doubt of the certainty\nof the proof of that truth of which you speak so positively.\n\nI cannot accept your description of my position as a \u201cSceptic or\nInfidel,\u201d but let that pass.\n\nI am still disposed to subscribe for 200 copies of the Bishop\u2019s sermons,\nand if you desire me to distribute more, I have no doubt I can dispose of\na considerable number.\n\n                  I am, Rev. Sir, your obedient servant,\n\n                                                         ROBERT A. COOPER.\n\nThe Very Rev. E. M. Goulburn,\n            Dean of Norwich.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                    The Deanery, Norwich, Feb. 25th, 1871.\n\nSIR,\u2014In reply to your letter of to-day, in which you say, \u201cI cannot\naccept your description of my position as a \u2018Sceptic or Infidel,\u2019\u201d I\nhasten to assure you that I should never have presumed to describe your\nposition as such, had I not imagined I had your own authority for doing\nso.  The words of your letter of the 13th inst., from which I drew this\ninference, are:\u2014\n\n    \u201cIf my assumption be correct, I heartily sympathise with your object,\n    and as a Sceptic or Infidel, will co-operate with my Christian\n    brethren if permitted.\u201d\n\nI am thankful and rejoiced to find that my inference was an incorrect\none; but I trust you will acknowledge that there was some ground in the\nwording of the sentence for my making it.\n\nI shall be happy to request your _acceptance_ of 200 copies of the\nBishop\u2019s Discourses, and am much obliged to you for your offer of\ncirculating them.\n\n                          Yours very faithfully,\n\n                                                           E. M. GOULBURN.\n\nMr. Robert A. Cooper.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                                 Norwich, March 1st, 1871.\n\nREV. SIR,\u2014I am sorry that in the sentence you refer to, I did not express\nmy meaning with sufficient clearness to be understood; though I am unable\nto see that it will bear the construction you put upon it.\n\nIn the circular letter, you speak of the prevalence, in large cities, of\n\u201csceptical views,\u201d and also of \u201cmodern forms of infidelity,\u201d evidently\nusing the words \u201csceptical\u201d and \u201cinfidelity\u201d in their popular and\nordinary, and not in their strict, grammatical sense.\n\nI say evidently, because the phrases \u201csceptical views,\u201d and \u201cmodern\ninfidelity\u201d appear to be intended as equivalent, and I therefore assume\nthat you use them in their popular sense, because if I am to suppose you\nuse the word \u201csceptical\u201d in its strict etymological meaning, I must also\nthat you do the word \u201cinfidelity,\u201d and I am reluctant to think that you\nwould, in speaking of the opinions of people who you must know are as\nsincere and honest as yourself, deliberately and intentionally do that.\n\nBy \u201csceptical views\u201d and \u201cmodern forms of infidelity,\u201d I understood you\nto mean both doubt and disbelief of the truth of religion in general, and\nChristianity in particular, and I therefore accepted in substance your\nown phraseology in the popular sense in which you appeared to use it, and\nI speak of myself as a \u201cSceptic or Infidel,\u201d meaning thereby that I am\nnot merely a doubter, but a disbeliever\u2014a disbeliever not of \u201creligious\ntruth,\u201d but the truth of any religion.  It is so common for religious\npeople to speak of disbelievers in general as \u201csceptics\u201d or \u201cinfidels,\u201d\nwithout regard to the derivation or strict meaning of the words, that I\nthink it would have been pedantic to appear to have understood them in\nany other than their common, and I deem not very correct, meaning.\n\nYou were, therefore, perfectly entitled to say you had my authority for\ndescribing me as a \u201cSceptic:\u201d what I demurred to was your description of\nmy position as a \u201cSceptic\u201d as I had adopted the term in the sense in\nwhich you seem to use it in your circular, but not in the sense of your\nletter.  I think the misconception would have been avoided had you used\nthe whole instead of the half of my expression\u2014viz., \u201cSceptic or\nInfidel,\u201d instead of \u201cSceptic\u201d only; as your description, if correct, of\nthe position of a \u201cSceptic\u201d will clearly not apply to a \u201cSceptic or\nInfidel.\u201d\n\nAnd here I will endeavour to state \u201cmy conclusion on the momentous\nquestion.\u201d  I am quite convinced that the history of Jesus Christ, as\nrecorded in the New Testament, is a fable entirely unworthy of credence,\nand that the Christian and all other systems of religion are but\nmischievous delusions, but the nature of the evidence by which I arrive\nat these conclusions, is so different from that which convinces me that\nthe sun is shining in the heavens (space?) that I could not use that form\nof words as correctly expressing the strength of my convictions.\n\nI regret it is necessary to occupy your time with so long an explanation.\nAlthough I could not agree with what you said, I did not wish to trouble\nyou further on that point, and thought it would be sufficient to indicate\na dissent without going into detail.  Brevity was a failure, and I\napologise.\n\nI am, Rev. Sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,\n\n                                                         ROBERT A. COOPER.\n\nThe Very Rev. E. M. Goulburn,\n            Dean of Norwich.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY\nIN RELATION TO\nFREETHOUGHT, SCEPTICISM, AND FAITH.\nCHRISTIANITY AND FREETHOUGHT.\n\n\n [_First Discourse of the Bishop of Peterborough_, _delivered in Norwich\n                    Cathedral_, _March_ 28_th_, 1871.]\n\nON Tuesday evening, March 28th, the Right Rev. Dr. Magee, Lord Bishop of\nPeterborough, preached the first of a series of Sermons on Christianity\nand Freethought, before a large congregation in the nave of the\nCathedral.  According to the Dean\u2019s previous arrangements, the nave was\noccupied by men, and the south aisle by ladies.  The nave was brilliantly\nlighted, and the Lord Bishop of Norwich and the full chapter took part in\nthe service.\n\nAfter prayers were intoned and a hymn sung, the Right Rev. Prelate\nselected his text from the Gospel according to St. John, viii. 33: \u201cHow\nsayest thou, Ye shall be made free?\u201d  His Lordship said:\n\n    The scene that is described in this chapter makes, I think, a fitting\n    introduction to the series of sermons of which I am here to-night to\n    preach the first.  These sermons are meant to be pleadings for\n    Christ.  Their object is to win back to him those who may have left\n    him, to cause those who have not left him to cling to him more\n    strongly; to win back disciples to Christ, and to confirm disciples\n    in their discipleship.  That is what I and those who are to follow me\n    here have in view.  For this reason I ask you to-night to study this\n    story in the life of Christ, because it is one in which we see how\n    Christ himself, long ago, first won and then lost disciples.\n\n    The scene commences with a large accession of disciples to Christ.\n    We read, that as he spoke these words many believed on him, and the\n    scene ends with many of those very believers taking up stones to cast\n    at him.  First they believed on him, shortly after they seek to take\n    his life; and after this is over, we read how his own disciples came\n    to him again, and said to him, \u201cMaster, tell us.\u201d  Now, brethren, we\n    Christians believe that in this scene was a prophecy of the whole\n    history of Christ\u2019s life upon earth in his Church; the story of those\n    who come and those who go, of those who believe in him at first, and\n    of those who cease to believe in him, and also the inner history of\n    those that never forsake him.  We believe that when the noisy strife\n    of things has passed away, and the execrations of those that hated\n    him have ceased to ring upon the ear, there still will be heard the\n    voice of the Church, saying \u201cMaster, tell us,\u201d that which others will\n    not, or cannot listen to; \u201cMaster, to whom shall we go? thou hast the\n    words of eternal life.\u201d  But it is not on those who thus stay with\n    Christ that I ask you to fix your attention.  I ask you to-night to\n    contemplate with me, not those who remain with him, but those who\n    leave him.  I ask you to understand a little of that mental history\n    that is here shown us, telling us how they passed from belief to\n    doubt, and from doubt to rejection of Christ.\n\n    It will be profitable to us, I think, both to those who believe and\n    to those who unhappily disbelieve in Christ, that we should study a\n    little this early instance of Freethought and disbelief.  It will be\n    good for those who do not believe in Christ to look at this scene,\n    because it will show this fact, that there were those who disbelieved\n    in Christ.  It will show this fact, that this is not a religion whose\n    origin is lost in the dim distance of time; it is not a legendary\n    faith of which no one can say when it began or who first taught it,\n    as it arose in historical times; a faith continuing from the very\n    first, not without question or dispute, but in spite of the question\n    and notwithstanding the dispute.  It will show that Freethought is as\n    old as Christianity itself, and when we read how long it is since men\n    had the same doubts and difficulties, it will occur to us that after\n    all there must be a wonderful power in this faith that struggles into\n    acceptance in spite of those doubts and difficulties, and that there\n    must be some marvellous vitality in the faith that has survived 1800\n    years, something that is worth inquiring into.  This bush that is\n    burning and never burned, is worth turning aside to look at.  It will\n    be good for us to look at those early unbelievers, because it\n    strengthens our faith to be reminded that unbelief is no new thing,\n    and that Christianity has survived more than 1800 years.\n\n    It is good for another reason; it teaches us to try to understand the\n    feelings of those who don\u2019t believe; it teaches us to try to put\n    ourselves in their place, to try to understand how it is they don\u2019t\n    agree with us; to make all allowances for the honesty of their\n    disbelief, to try to enter fairly into their motives and feelings.\n    If we don\u2019t do this, we are in danger of being hard, and bitter, and\n    unjust in contending for him, but not in his spirit; forgetting that\n    there is not one of those who disbelieve in him, for whom he has not\n    died, forgetting that an unbeliever is not an enemy to be driven back\n    from the fortress, but an exile to be won back by earnest reasoning\n    to his Father in Heaven.  Let us learn, above all, that in all our\n    arguments for Christianity we should be filled with the spirit of him\n    for whom we plead, and that we should manifest the truth in love.\n\n    We ask you then to contemplate this scene, in which we find Christ\n    winning and losing disciples, and learn something.  And the first\n    thing we have to remark is this, how very little those that come and\n    go seem to have been influenced by what we call the evidences of\n    Christianity.  They were doubtless drawn to Christ by the fame of his\n    miracles, it does not seem to have been his miracles that converted\n    them.  It was as \u201che said those words many believed on him.\u201d  Then he\n    said something else, and they left him.  It was not that they doubted\n    of his ability to work miracles, but because something he said\n    offended them.  They came to him not altogether in consequence of his\n    miracles, and they left him in spite of his miracles.  It teaches us\n    that the religion of Christ was not received unquestioningly, even in\n    the case of his miracles, for in spite of his miracles they ventured\n    to question his doctrine; so that those who say Christianity was\n    received in an ignorant age are contradicted by the story of\n    Christianity itself, for many of those who saw his miracles rejected\n    him.\n\n    There is another reason for noting this, in order to observe the\n    power of prejudice and passion in influencing men\u2019s belief or\n    disbelief.  There are few men who believe strictly in accordance with\n    their reflecting faculties.  The desires, prejudices, and passions of\n    men largely share in the making of their beliefs; and if this be true\n    of beliefs, it is equally true of men\u2019s unbelief.  If there be those\n    here who do not believe in Christ, I ask them: Are you quite sure\n    that your unbelief is the result of calm, and thoughtful, and careful\n    study of what Christianity has to say for itself?  Are you sure you\n    have not hastily taken up some objections against Christianity\n    without waiting for the answer?  Are you quite sure that you have not\n    misunderstood some words of Christ\u2014some words that, having offended\n    you, you have passed away without waiting for the reason?  Are you\n    sure that there is no unreason in your unbelief, you that say there\n    is so little reason in our belief?  It is because I am deeply\n    convinced of this that I am here.  It is because I believe that\n    misconception, prejudice, and hasty adoption of other men\u2019s opinions\n    upon slender grounds, make a large part of ignorant belief, often a\n    large part of ignorant unbelief.  It is because these\n    misunderstandings may be removed, that I am here to speak of the\n    subjects I have announced.  It is because I believe it is useless to\n    argue against prejudices, that I shall endeavour to remove those\n    prejudices, and mistaken feelings and opinions, that make men\n    unwilling to listen to arguments for Christianity.  Those who follow\n    me will bring many arguments for Christianity, and I am here to-night\n    to prepare the way for them.\n\n    I ask you, then, to turn again to this story, and to see why it was\n    that those new disciples left Christ.  It was for this reason, that\n    they were offended because he appeared to deny them the possession of\n    liberty.  When they became his disciples he said, \u201cYe shall know the\n    truth, and the truth shall make you free.\u201d  Then they answered him,\n    \u201cWe be Abraham\u2019s seed, and were never in bondage to any man; how\n    sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?\u201d  He had offered them liberty,\n    and this implied that they were not free, and this they regarded as\n    the gravest of affronts.  We, the children of Abraham, the\n    aristocracy of humanity, those whom the Lord delivered out of Egypt,\n    whose slaves are we that you venture to offer us freedom?  The offer\n    is an absurdity and an affront, and you are denying us freedom in the\n    very words; and so left him, for they deemed it an insult to their\n    birthright of freedom.  We, who understand the story, can see how\n    much these men were mistaken.  Our Lord was offering them moral\n    freedom, and they supposed that he was offering them political\n    freedom.\n\n    There was a misunderstanding as to the nature of liberty; he offered\n    them a liberty for which they were not desirous.  It was a dispute\n    about liberty between Christ and those first Freethinkers.  Now, may\n    there not be some misunderstanding still?  That is the subject of my\n    sermon to-night.  It is Christianity and Freethought.  What do you\n    understand by Freethought?  Something opposed to Christianity; and by\n    a Freethinker, one who rejects all or a part of Christianity.  Why do\n    such men give themselves that name?  Because it expresses their\n    conviction that Christianity is opposed to freedom of thought, that\n    it puts a restraint on the human intellect.  They say that\n    Christianity shackles the human mind.  \u201cI boast of my freedom,\u201d says\n    the Freethinker; \u201cyou require me to submit the freedom of my\n    intellect to the authority of a book.  My mind resents such an\n    attempt to fetter it, I submit to no authority.  You priests and\n    bigots that come to me with your authority, and threaten me with\n    penalties for daring to think thus and thus, you are convicting\n    yourselves of falsehood before you utter another word, for you are\n    opposed to freedom.  I cannot listen to your evidences of\n    Christianity.  No proof of miracle will make me give up my freedom of\n    thought.\u201d  How often do we hear of the bigotry of the priest, and the\n    enlightened Freethought of the age.  Mark then, we have the issue\n    raised between Christianity and Freethought.  Let us understand it\n    clearly, before we go further.  It is true that Christianity comes\n    with a claim of authority.  It is true that Christianity says,\n    Believe this and that, because Christ has said it.  He is seeking men\n    now, as he did, with authority; and it is true that Christianity does\n    warn men of certain penalties, heavy and grievous penalties, if they\n    don\u2019t believe what Christ says.  Christianity is authoritative\n    teaching, accompanied with threats of penalties.  Now we are told,\n    that is just the point at which Christianity comes into collision\n    with Freethought.  Freedom of thought will not endure to hear of\n    authority, and resents the very idea of penalty.\n\n    Now we have put before us the issue between Christianity and\n    Freethought.  It is necessary that we should define for ourselves\n    what is Freethought.  The word is on men\u2019s lips, and I am not sure\n    that they understand what they mean by it.  Let us try to understand\n    what is Freethought.  It may mean one of three things.  It may mean\n    freedom as opposed to necessity, it may mean freedom as opposed to\n    authority, or it may mean freedom as opposed to responsibility.  As\n    regards the first of these, by freedom as opposed to necessity, we\n    mean that a man is free to think in one way or another, that it is\n    not absolutely necessary for him always to think in one way or\n    another; that is to say, his thought is not the necessary product of\n    physical constitution, that his thoughts do not grow out of him, as\n    the blade grows out of the seed or the flower out of the plant; that\n    it is not mechanical or necessary, but that a man has the power to\n    choose how he will think.  Then as to freedom as opposed to\n    authority, we mean that a man is not bound to think like other\n    men\u2014that is, his thought is not subject to any other man\u2019s, and he\n    has a right to say, \u201cThat is your opinion and not mine.\u201d  Freedom of\n    thought as opposed to responsibility means that a man is not\n    answerable for his belief, and that whatever he thinks on any\n    subject, he is never to suffer for his belief in any way whatever.\n    These three are the only possible meanings.\n\n    Now let us take them in their order.\n\n    First, freedom of thought as opposed to necessity.  Does Christianity\n    deny this freedom?  On the contrary, it asserts and vindicates it.\n    Christianity teaches that man is free, and terribly free, to will his\n    own belief.  It teaches this by the fact that it tells us a man is\n    answerable for his belief, for a man cannot be answerable for that in\n    which he has no choice, any more than he has of the colour of his\n    hair.  If he be answerable, it can only be because he has the power\n    of choosing.  It is remarkable that many people who call themselves\n    Freethinkers, insist on it that man is not answerable for his belief\n    any more than for the colour of his hair.  They thus deny the freedom\n    of thought.  Freedom and responsibility always go together; so you\n    see in this view of Freethought, Christianity, so far from denying\n    it, asserts it against many Freethinkers; and in this respect the\n    Christian is the Freethinker, and maintains the doctrine of\n    Freethought.\n\n    Second, freedom of thought as opposed to the idea of all authority.\n    We are told that thought cannot be free if it submits to any\n    authority, and it is quite true in the abstract.  Attend to this.  It\n    is true that the abstract idea of freedom is opposed to the abstract\n    idea of authority, in thought or religion.  But it is equally true,\n    that these are opposed in everything else.  It is just as true in\n    politics, in which the idea of freedom is opposed to the idea of\n    authority.  Where there is absolute freedom, there cannot be\n    authority.  Where there is absolute authority, we cannot understand\n    logically how there can be any freedom.  Starting from the maxim,\n    \u201cMan is free,\u201d we arrive logically at the conclusion that there can\n    be no authority for that man.  Starting from the axiom, \u201cAuthority is\n    supreme,\u201d is to arrive at the logical conclusion that there is no\n    room for liberty.  The two ideas are logically opposed, the one to\n    the other.  But are they so in practice?  Is it a fact that freedom\n    is found inconsistent with authority?  Is it not true that men\n    reconcile them every day?  Is it not true that thought is free, and\n    yet thought submits itself to authority?  Many cherished opinions are\n    received on authority, not because we have proved them ourselves.  We\n    take the opinion of a lawyer on law, and of a doctor on medicine, as\n    authority.  Morality itself is largely received upon authority.  We\n    are always submitting ourselves to authority.  Logically, freedom and\n    authority are separate, but there never was a society in which the\n    two did not come together.  They are like the chemical elements,\n    which have a strong affinity for each other, and are never apart,\n    except when separated in the laboratory of the chemist, but the\n    moment they are liberated they are together again.  It is just the\n    same with Freethought and authority.  Men are always submitting\n    themselves to authority, and if they did not they would never learn\n    or know anything.  When we speak of the authority of a revelation\n    from God, we mean that we bring to Freethought, to judge of, the\n    reasons for believing that the teacher knows more about the things he\n    teaches than others.  That is a very large part of what is called\n    \u201cthe evidence from miracles.\u201d  Men speak as if the miracles were the\n    evidences of the morals of the Gospel.  That is not what we say.\n    What we say is this, Our Lord coming down from heaven (as we believe)\n    to tell us of another and supernatural world of which he knew and we\n    did not, gave evidence of that knowledge by bringing down the\n    supernatural.\n\n    Let us suppose we were walking through one of the church-yards of\n    this city with another person, and the discourse fell upon the\n    resurrection.  If you said it was impossible for any authority to\n    prove it, and the person said, I know there can be a resurrection of\n    the dead, and I will give you a proof of it; and suppose he bade the\n    dead rise, and they sprang alive out of the earth; do you mean to say\n    that would be no authority from him on the question of the\n    resurrection of the dead?  Would it be a tyranny over Freethought to\n    be told that the dead can rise?  So you see Freethought is not\n    inconsistent with the authority of a revelation, for this reason,\n    that the revelation submits its proof to your Freethought.\n\n    I am not saying that I have proved the miracles, I am only saying\n    that by miracles we are not violating Freethought; but on the\n    contrary we are maintaining it.  I speak as unto wise men, judge ye\n    what I say.\n\n    I now come to the third idea of freedom, that is, freedom as opposed\n    to responsibility; and this is, I really believe, what men mean when\n    they speak of Freethought as opposed to Christianity.  They say, \u201cYou\n    threaten us with penalties for unbelief, and our whole soul revolts\n    against that.  It would be tyrannical to punish a man for his\n    opinions.  We cannot endure men to do this.  Do you mean to say that\n    God will be less just than man and persecute us for our opinions?\u201d\n    Let us see whether we clearly understand this question.  This\n    objection goes to the principle that no man should be punished for\n    his opinions.  I will ask you to consider this question.  Is it true\n    that no man under any circumstances should be punished for his\n    opinions?  And again is it true that men do not suffer for their\n    opinions?  It is true that so long as he keeps his thoughts to\n    himself, he will not be punished for them, for the simple reason that\n    they are not known; but when he utters them, he may be punished.  Is\n    it not true, that a man who utters a seditious, a libellous, or\n    indecent thought is punished and should be punished?  And why?\n    because the law of liberty of the individual comes into collision\n    with the higher law of the general welfare, and must give way to it.\n    There are other penalties; society punishes a man more sharply than\n    the law.  There are offences of thought and speech which the law does\n    not and should not punish, and yet which society visits very heavily.\n    Let a man entertain evil and unkind thoughts of his neighbour, and\n    show it by his looks, and we know how society visits him for his\n    Freethought.  Every man knows that if all the thoughts of his heart\n    were laid bare, before his fellow men, he might pass a miserable and\n    outcast existence, because society defends itself against this\n    injurious exercise of Freethought.\n\n    Then pass a step further, and think of the constitution of nature and\n    of the laws of the world.  Does this world of nature allow of\n    Freethought?  Do these natural laws allow a man to make mistakes with\n    impunity?  Let any man think wrong of the powers of nature, that fire\n    will not burn nor water drown, and he will soon find himself visited\n    with a sharp and merciless punishment, for there are no laws so\n    merciless as those of nature.  He that transgresses them ignorantly\n    or wittingly, is beaten alike with many stripes.  The great revolving\n    machinery of the world will not arrest its revolutions because of the\n    cry of a human creature that by a very innocent error, even by his\n    mistaken action of Freethought, is ground to pieces beneath them.  If\n    the man of science warns us of the consequences of transgressing the\n    laws that he has discovered, we should be at liberty to think\n    differently from him, but it will be at our own proper peril, if we\n    exercise our Freethought.  As sure as you do, so you will suffer from\n    it.  It is not the prophet or his warning that brings down the\n    penalty, it is not the book upon sanitary law that brings diptheria\n    or scarlet fever, it is not the sinking of the mercury in the glass\n    that brings the storm; the written proof in the one case, the mute\n    proof in the other, foretell the evil, but do not create it.  Nature\n    and science, then, have their warnings, and threatenings, and\n    penalties; and nature and science avenge themselves on Freethought.\n\n    And mark this, the more and more you lose sight of personal will, the\n    fainter and fainter seems to grow the chance of forgiveness, less and\n    less room there seems to be for Freethought; there is something in\n    the words, \u201cI believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and\n    earth,\u201d there is something in the loving will that has power to save\n    the Freethought of his erring creatures from the soulless and\n    merciless machinery of law.\n\n    Now we see how little room there is for Freethought in this world of\n    law.  Let us introduce into the world a fact; let us introduce the\n    idea of a God; let us suppose for the sake of argument that there is\n    a God.  Can it be a matter of indifference how he feels toward us,\n    and how we should feel and act toward him?  How can there be a\n    possibility of thought without consequences as regards God, if there\n    be no possibility of thought without consequences as regards the very\n    least of God\u2019s works?  Does it make no difference to us whether he is\n    an Almighty tyrant or a father to us, whether or not he can suspend\n    the terrible laws of nature which we dread?  Can we hear about this\n    God, and not wish to learn all about him?  Can there be anything more\n    absurd than the saying, Let us have religion and no theology?  Is\n    that more sensible than to say, Let us have sun, moon, and stars, and\n    no astronomy; let us have plants and no botany; let us have the earth\n    and no geology?  If God be a fact, there must certainly come theology\n    out of that fact.  As geology grows out of the fact with which it\n    deals, so does theology grow out of a fact.  Of all the errors of the\n    time there cannot be a greater absurdity than a religion without\n    theology, for every religion teaches our obligations to a higher\n    being.  If there be a God, there must be a theology.  I will ask you\n    what is this creed of Christendom?  It is nearly all the assertion of\n    facts:\n\n    \u201cI believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and\n    in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy\n    Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was\n    crucified, dead and buried; he descended into hell, the third day he\n    rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits at the\n    right hand of God the Father Almighty: from thence he shall come to\n    judge the quick and the dead.\u201d\n\n    All these assertions of facts you may say are not facts; but if they\n    be facts, you are bound to think rightly about them.  You are bound\n    to think right about them under penalties, but no more so than as to\n    other facts.  You are as much bound to think right as to the fact of\n    a God as to any other fact.  But men say, These facts are not so\n    certain as the facts of physical science.  We answer, They are more\n    certain to us; they are to us facts as certain as the great lights of\n    heaven.  We cannot conceive the possibility of ourselves doubting\n    them.  We may say, Perhaps there is a God, and we have a right to\n    say, The perhaps may become a certainty.  If we think right, and you\n    think wrong, you must suffer the consequences.  If a man of science\n    puts into your hand a book, and warns you of the danger of infection,\n    and you say you don\u2019t believe it, because you are sceptical about the\n    teaching, he cannot compel you to believe it, but meantime you will\n    suffer; the proof may come in sickness and in death, and you will not\n    escape.  And we say, not in anger and bitterness, not in hard\n    denunciation of the wrath of God\u2014God forbid that we should do it; but\n    we speak in the same tone of warning, and not threatening, and we\n    say, If you doubt, remember time is passing, and if you think wrong,\n    there is danger of the judgment.  We say, Take heed how you grope in\n    the dark and stumble.  We cannot alter the facts if they are facts,\n    and they will affect your happiness.  We say, There is in this\n    nothing uncharitable, no violation of Freethought any more in\n    religion than in science.  We say that the consequences of thinking\n    erroneously in religion may be as perilous as the consequences of\n    thinking erroneously as to physical facts.  It remains to be shown\n    what are the facts of our religion.  All that we say now is, that an\n    error about the facts may be fraught with serious consequences, and\n    we no more violate Freethought than when a physician warns you.\n\n    Now, then, I trust we have disposed of those prejudices that lay upon\n    the threshold of our inquiry, these prejudices against Christianity\n    as being opposed to Freethought; for if Freethought means freedom as\n    opposed to necessity, religion does not deny it; if Freethought means\n    freedom as opposed to authority, religion does not create the\n    distinction, it is just as easy to reconcile it with religion as with\n    the state of society.  If you mean by Freethought, freedom without\n    responsibility as to consequences, there is no such thing either in\n    society or in nature, and you have no right to expect it in religion.\n    All that we say is, that we are not to expect freedom of thought\n    without its responsibility.  Christianity gives us glimpses of the\n    means of escape from the operation of material laws in the mercies of\n    the loving Father of the human family.\n\n\n\nFIRST REPLY\nOF\nMR. C. BRADLAUGH.\nCHRISTIANITY AND FREETHOUGHT.\n\n\n      [_Delivered in the Free Library_, _Norwich_, _April_ 3, 1871.]\n\nWHEN on the 7th of February the Very Reverend the Dean of Norwich issued\nhis circular announcing that a series of discourses would be delivered by\n\u201csome competent preacher,\u201d \u201chaving for their object the vindication and\nestablishment of the Christian faith,\u201d and \u201cdirected against modern forms\nof infidelity,\u201d I felt deep interest, not I presume confined to the ranks\nof the party which has permitted me to be its advocate upon this\noccasion.  The circular was in point of fact an announcement that the\nChurch of England felt it necessary to challenge and give battle to\nmodern infidelity; and that having determined that the struggle should be\na real one, it intended to select its best man, and by his mouth to\nvindicate and establish the faith, which modern infidelity is doing so\nmuch to undermine, not only in the busy North, but even in the quiet and\nchurch-shadowed capital of East Anglia.\n\nWhen on my arrival in Norwich I learned that the influence of the Dean\nand Chapter of this cathedral city had in no sense been exerted to give\nme the sort of opportunity to be heard in reply to their advocate, which\nI had a reasonable right to expect, and when I knew that after our\nfriends making a circuit of the city, in the vain endeavour to hire a\nbuilding meet for such an occasion, it was difficult to ensure the use of\nthe Free Library Hall, I felt that even in Norwich the approved mode of\nencountering modern infidelity seemed to be that of free speech for the\nchurch advocate and gagged mouth for the pleader on behalf of heresy.\nWhen I sat in the fine nave of the old cathedral, and weighed the\naccessories of choir and organ, intoned litany, and prayer responses\ninstrumentally accompanied; when I looked at the large number of clergy\npresent, headed by two bishops, and supported by the wealth and fashion\nof the district, I could not but feel that so far as mere scenic effects\nwent, our side was sadly lacking in such accessories to win adhesion.\nWhen, too, I saw the selected \u201ccompetent preacher,\u201d the Right Rev. Dr.\nMagee, Lord Bishop of Peterborough, whose fame as an eloquent orator, an\nerudite and polished disputant, has long since been widely spread, I knew\nthat our cause laboured under every possible disadvantage save one.  It\nhad but its truth and justice.  Prestige, talent, skill, fashion, were\nallied to serve the Church.  When, moreover, I found that in the local\npress religious men, headed by Church of England clergy, sought to excite\nprejudices against me before even a word had been spoken on my side, I\ncould not help thinking that even if defeated in a struggle so unequal it\nwould leave the Church but little to boast of in its victory.  But I\nplead neither for mercy nor favour; fair encounter has been asked and\ndenied, and I take the risk of battle.  Although we are to-day the\nchallenged, the Church refuses tourney ground to our party, and we must\ncontend as best we can.\n\nIn treating the subject of \u201cChristianity and Freethought,\u201d in reply to\nthe address of the Bishop of Peterborough, I am entitled to narrow, and\nshall narrow, the question covered by this reply, to one merely between\nthe Freethinker and the Church of England Christian only.  The litany,\nhymns, and prayers which formed the preface to the Bishop\u2019s advocacy are\nhere fair weapons to use against him.  I do not stand here to-night to\nplead against Roman Catholic Christianity, or against Wesleyan,\nIndependent, or Baptist nonconforming Christianity, nor do I plead\nagainst Unitarian Christianity.  I am here to reply to the Church and\nState Christianity, the thirty-nine articles Christianity; to the system\nwith which the Lord Bishop of Peterborough has identified his brilliant\ntalents and great powers of speech, and with all the faults and\ncorruptions of which he must rest burdened so far as this controversy is\nconcerned.  Here he must not throw aside any one of the three Creeds,\nhere every line of the Prayer Book affects his teaching.  The\nChristianity he must defend is that which the 9 and 10 William IV., cap.\n32, maintains; the Christianity by law established.\n\nI pass without comment the fact that the text selected by the Lord Bishop\nwas not only from the Gospel whose authenticity is doubted by many\nChristians, but from a chapter specially regarded as an interpolated one.\nOn this head, I leave Dr. Magee to debate with Dr. Davidson.  But I am\nbound to draw attention to the very extraordinary exposition given of the\ncontents of this chapter, which we are invited to study.  Dr. Magee says\nthat the people who were with Jesus, \u201cwere doubtless drawn to Christ by\nthe fame of his miracles,\u201d and that when they left him \u201cit was not that\nthey doubted of his ability to perform miracles.\u201d  Now, so far as this\nchapter is concerned, there is not the smallest particle of reference to\nmiracles at all, and, therefore, Dr. Magee\u2019s words on this head, and even\nadmitting his alleged authority, were only so much foundationless\nverbiage.  And when Dr. Magee says that this chapter teaches that \u201cthe\nreligion of Christ was not received unquestioningly, even in the case of\nhis miracles, for in spite of his miracles they ventured to question his\ndoctrine,\u201d I can only express my deep regret that the many occupations of\nthe Lord Bishop of Peterborough should have left him without the time to\nmaster the actual contents of the chapter on which his sermon was based.\n\nBishop Magee further urges that \u201cthose who say that Christianity was\nreceived in an ignorant age, are contradicted by the story of\nChristianity itself, for many of those who saw his miracles rejected\nthem.\u201d  I fail to see the contradiction; clearly the Jews were an\nignorant people, they had no scientific literature, no philosophy, no\nrecorded oratory, not even a language\u2014for the Hebrew is but that which\nthe captives borrowed from their captors\u2014not a trace of their ancient\ntongue having been preserved.\n\nThe learned Bishop argues that \u201cthe desires, prejudices, and passions of\nmen largely share in the making of their beliefs.\u201d  But surely he might\nhave carried this farther still, and have shown\u2014and this even apart from\nthe case made out by Darwin, Spencer, and Wallace\u2014that race, climate,\nsoil, food, and mode of life, modify and change beliefs, and that such\nbeliefs are transmissible and transmitted from parent to child in\nsimilar\u2014though perhaps not in the same\u2014fashion as are features and\nframes.  And as in the case of the _physique_ the inherited nature is\nmodified, improving or deteriorating with the mode of life of the\nindividual, so also, but in a more varied degree, with his\nthought-abilities and his thoughts.  But if it be true, as was so\npowerfully urged by the Right Reverend Christian Advocate, that men\u2019s\ndesires, passions, and prejudices contribute largely to the making up of\ntheir beliefs, what becomes of his Lordship\u2019s subsequent startling\ndeclaration that a man is free to choose what he will believe, \u201cto will\nhis own belief?\u201d  If there are hereditary predispositions to particular\nlines of thought, hereditary predispositions to regard particular topics\nfrom limited stand-points, hereditary predispositions to ignore or accept\nunquestioningly particular propositions, I ask, Does not the acquiescence\nin such a doctrine fatally impeach the Bishop\u2019s arguments?\n\nOn the reference made to the \u201cbigotry of the priest,\u201d I desire in this\nlecture to say but little, for I would willingly follow the example of my\nRight Reverend antagonist, and entirely avoid those arguments which\nsavour of mere personal denunciation; but it is hard to forget that\nduring the 1800 years which, it was boasted, Christianity has endured it\nwas the policy and practice of priestly bigotry, first in the Church of\nRome, and afterwards, and not less, in the Church of England, to oppose,\nand without mercy to seek to crush out all efforts at Freethought.  If\nto-day the Lord Bishop of Peterborough lifts his powerful and eloquent\nvoice in the Cathedral nave, if to-day we are charmed with his suasive\npleading and well-turned periods, we can scarcely forget that it is only\nsince the Church has been unable to strike with the arm of the law that\nshe has condescended to plead with the tongue.\n\nI must assume to-night that those of you who are present were also\npresent at the Bishop\u2019s discourse; but I speak with more freedom as it is\nmy intention to print this reply together with a _verbatim_ report of the\nLord Bishop\u2019s sermon, so that they may stand side by side.  I regret that\nthe learned and eloquent advocate of Church Christianity did not think it\nright when talking of freedom, necessity, laws of nature, absolute\nfreedom, and so forth, to favour us with some explanation or definition\nto guide us to the sense he intended to convey by their use; as I could\nnot help fancying that he more than once used the same words with quite\ndifferent meanings.  Jonathan Edwards, whom I shall quote to you with\nslight modification, thus in effect states the doctrine of\nnecessity:\u2014\u201cThe whole universe exhibits a fixed, certain, and constant\nsuccession of events, which bear to each other the relation of causes and\neffects.  This series of causes and effects, as they belong to\nunconscious and involuntary subjects, is the physical order of the\nmaterial universe: of which order the phenomena are found by observation\nto take place according to certain principles, which are usually called\nthe laws of nature.  This series, as it applies to intelligent and\nvoluntary agents, consists of the fixed and invariable conjunction of\nvolitions and voluntary actions with antecedent motives.  In every\ninstance that we know by experience, or that we can conceive, there is an\ninvariable and necessary conjunction of motives and volitions.  We cannot\nconceive a change in the volition without an antecedent change in the\nmotive; and the motives remaining the same, the volitions and the\nvoluntary acts will be correspondent.  We are conscious that we never do,\nand never can, perform any voluntary action without a motive.\u201d  While not\nadopting entirely the words of Jonathan Edwards, I have given his view of\nthe doctrine of necessity, a view not contained in the sermon by Bishop\nMagee; but each used the phrase laws of nature.  Now, clearly, in the\nmouth of the Bishop, law meant the expression of personal will.  The Duke\nof Argyll in his \u201cReign of Law,\u201d says:\u2014\u201cIn its primary signification a\n\u2018law\u2019 is the authoritative expression of human will enforced by power;\u201d\nbut he gives five different senses in which the word \u201claw\u201d is used.\nFirst, \u201cWe have law as applied simply to an observed order of facts;\nsecondly, to that order as involving the action of some force or forces\nof which nothing more may be known; thirdly, as applied to individual\nforces, the measure of whose operation has been more or less defined or\nascertained; fourthly, as applied to those combinations of force which\nhave reference to the fulfilment of purpose, or the discharge of\nfunction; fifthly, as applied to abstract conceptions of the mind, not\ncorresponding with any actual phenomena, but deduced therefrom as axioms\nof thought necessary to our understanding of them.  Law, in this sense,\nis a reduction of the phenomena, not merely to an order of facts, but to\nan order of thought.\u201d  I use law only as denoting observed concurrence or\nsequence of events.  When it is said to be a law that water poured from\nthe glass shall fall to the ground, it is not, or should not, be meant\nthat the water falls by command emanating from personal will, but only\nthat this is the recorded experience of all competent observers without\nexception.  Jonathan Edwards, relying on Isaiah xlvi. 9 and 10, xiv. 27,\nActs xv. 18, Psalms xxxiii. 10 and 11, and other texts, declared that the\nabsolute and perfect foreknowledge of God, asserted in the Bible, was\ninconsistent with freedom of volition, as it implied the certainty of the\nhappening of the events foreknown.  The Duke of Argyll says, \u201cThere is\nnothing to object to or deny in the doctrine that if we knew everything\nthat determines the conduct of a man, we should be able to know what the\nconduct will be.  That is to say, if we knew all the motives which are\nbrought by external agencies to bear upon his mind, and if we knew all\nthe other motives which that mind evolves out of its own powers, and out\nof previously acquired materials, to bear upon itself; and if we knew the\ncharacter and disposition of that mind so perfectly as to estimate\nexactly the weight it will allow to all the different motives operating\nupon it, then we should be able to predict with certainty the resulting\ncourse of conduct.\u201d  Sir William Hamilton, for I prefer to quote from\nantagonists, says, \u201cHow the will can possibly be free, must remain to us,\nunder the present limitation of our faculties, wholly incomprehensible.\nWe are unable to conceive an absolute commencement, we cannot, therefore,\nconceive a free volition.  A determination by motives cannot, to our\nunderstanding, escape from necessitation.  Nay, were we even to admit as\ntrue what we cannot think as possible, still the doctrine of a motiveless\nvolition would be only casualism; and the free acts of an indifferent,\nare, morally and rationally, as worthless as the pre-ordered passions of\na determined will.  How, therefore, I repeat, moral liberty is possible\nin man or God, we are utterly unable, speculatively, to understand.\u201d\n\nIn dealing with \u201cFreedom as opposed to Necessity,\u201d Dr. Magee declared\n\u201cthat a man is free to think in one way or another, that it is not\nabsolutely necessary for him always to think in one way or another.\u201d\nThis declaration is so obscure, that I should have had to abandon all\nattempt to solve the Bishop\u2019s meaning but for the added explanation\u2014viz.,\n\u201cthat is to say, his thought is not the necessary product of physical\nconstitution, that his thoughts do not grow out of him, as the blade\ngrows out of the seed or the flower out of the plant, that it is not\nmechanical or necessary, but that a man has the power to choose how he\nwill think.\u201d  I do not imagine that Dr. Magee used the word \u201cthought\u201d as\nlimited by Sir William Hamilton; or that he intended in the loose words\nhe uttered on this head to examine the doctrine as to evolution of\nthought put forward by German thinkers.  I assume that the Lord Bishop\nregarded brilliancy of speech as preferable to profundity of argument,\nand fancied that he would best clear the way for the other Christian\nadvocates who are to follow him, by piling well-sounding but often\nperfectly unmeaning phrases in their pathway.  When the Bishop of\nPeterborough urges that thought is not the necessary product of physical\nconstitution, we answer by opening before him an ethnical map; and\npointing to the Australian as probably the lowest human type, the Bushman\nof the Cape, the Esquimaux, the Negro, the Teuton, we ask whether\nphysical constitution has not something to do with thought-ability?  Nay,\ntaking a mal-formed cranium or a diseased brain from a lunatic asylum, we\ndemand further whether the unhealthy and inaccurate thought is not there\nalleged in precise terms to be the \u201cnecessary product of physical\nconstitution?\u201d  The assertion \u201cthat a man has the power to choose how he\nwill think,\u201d may be met by the query\u2014When?  Has the old man, partly deaf,\npartly blind, with failing memory, the power to choose how he will think?\nHas the drunken man, while intoxicated, the power to choose how he will\nthink?  Has the untaught Norfolk farm labourer with Sir W. Hamilton\u2019s\n\u201cPhilosophy of the Unconditioned\u201d before him, the power to choose how he\nwill think in opposition to or in support of Cousin or Kant?  Has the man\nto whom Church of England Christianity was taught as a child, whose\nintellect was bent and bound while yet pliable and scarce resisting,\nwhose scope of inquiry has always been restrained by that line where\nreason applied becomes blasphemy, has he the power to choose what he will\nthink?  Let the wretched subterfuges with which even thinkers above the\naverage\u2014as your Essayists and Reviewers, your Dunbar Heaths, your Drs.\nGiles and Irons, your Colensos and your Voyseys\u2014try to reconcile\northodoxy and Freethought, be examined, and you will have fuller answer\nthan any I can give.  Has man the power to choose how he will think?  It\nmay be fairly presumed, that under the words \u201cto think,\u201d Dr. Magee\nincluded all phases of mental activity, perception, recollection of\nperception, comparison of perception, judgment, reason, volition.  Any\nword by which any condition of mental activity could be fairly described\nis, I take leave to submit, included by Dr. Magee under the head of\n\u201cthought.\u201d  But is it true that a man can choose his perceptions?  Are\nthey not first limited by his perceptive ability, and, next, by the range\nwithin which that ability can be exercised, and its development in\nexercise?  And if perception be compulsory, if a man cannot refuse to\nperceive that which is within the range of his ability, if he cannot\nelect to perceive that which is not within its range, then how can the\nthought-processes\u2014all related to, and more or less based upon, the\nprimary perceptions, modified or enlarged as these may afterwards be\u2014how\ncan these be free?  And will Dr. Magee contend that a man has the power\nto choose what he will remember, or what he will forget?\n\n\u201cChristianity,\u201d says Dr. Magee, \u201cteaches that man is free, and terribly\nfree, to will his own belief;\u201d but the tenth article of Dr. Magee\u2019s own\nChurch, an article which binds him in this argument, declares that \u201cThe\ncondition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and\nprepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and\ncalling upon God;\u201d nay, the very Litany in which the Lord Bishop took\npart proceeds on the assumption that all are miserable sinners, who may\ndesire to escape, but cannot escape, from sin without God\u2019s help.  And\nthe ninth article of the Church of England positively declares that every\nman \u201cis of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh always\nlusteth contrary to the spirit.\u201d  \u201cWhere there is absolute freedom,\u201d says\nmy Lord Bishop of Peterborough, \u201cthere cannot be authority.\u201d  But man is\nabsolutely, \u201cterribly free\u201d to choose his belief, therefore this is a\nsubject upon which God can have no authority.  This is a point upon which\nthe power of the Omnipotent is limited.  This being monstrously absurd,\nit was natural that the acute advocate for a falling Church should make\nsome effort to retreat with the honours of war, and he, admitting the\ndifficulty in religion, says that you find precisely the same difficulty\nin politics in fact, and in law, medicine, and morality, as to opinion.\nArguments from analogy are dangerous at best, but here there is no\nanalogy.  Dr. Magee should at least read the \u201cContrat Social\u201d of Jean\nJacques Rousseau, and the exhaustive essay on Liberty by John Stuart\nMill.  No one but a madman would contend in politics either for the\nabsolute liberty of the individual, or for the absolute supremacy of\nauthority.  Even Guizot\u2019s views of government might have saved Bishop\nMagee from an illustration so faulty.  And as to the opinions on law and\nmedicine which we receive submissively from lawyer and doctor, their\nauthority is usually the measure of our ignorance.  We swallow the drugs\nof Dr. Pangloss, and bow to the dictum of Justice Shallow, it is true;\nbut the more we know of physiology, the more we learn of jurisprudence,\nthe less is our acquiescence a mere submission to authority.\n\nAs to so much of the Bishop\u2019s sermon as deals with the authority of\nrevelation and miracles, and which in effect declares that, on the\nauthority of a revelation not made to me, I may be required to believe in\nJesus Christ as the \u201conly son\u201d of God, while that very revelation tells\nme that God had more than one son\u2014(Job i. 6, ii. 1)\u2014and which on the\nauthority of miracles disbelieved by the mass of the people who are\nsupposed to have seen them, requires me to believe that Jesus, \u201cvery God\nof very God,\u201d having descended into hell, afterwards ascended into heaven\nwith \u201chis body, flesh, and bones, and all things appertaining to man\u2019s\nnature,\u201d and there sits at the right hand of God\u2014(Article four and Nicene\nCreed)\u2014my answer is a very simple one.  The Bishop\u2019s declaration that\nhere no tyranny is attempted over Freethought is not a fair and honest\ndeclaration.  The revelation does not submit its proof to Freethought,\nbut, on the contrary, my Lord Bishop of Peterborough, as the spokesman of\nhis Church, is bound to tell us in the words of his own horrible creed,\nthat the man who will not submit to acknowledge the dogmas of his Church,\nwithout doubt shall perish everlastingly.\n\nWhen the Bishop says that men are continually submitting to authority,\nand that if they did not they would never learn anything, he is woefully\ninaccurate in his analogy.  It is perfectly true that Humboldt, Lyell,\nHuxley, Darwin, Lewes, Spencer, Mill, and such men\u2019s names are names of\nauthority, and that our experience is supplemented and aided by the\nrecorded experiences of such men.  But our confidence is not an unlimited\none, their authority is not supreme.  It is limited by the measure of our\nown experience in the first place, and by our acquaintance with the\nexperience of other men than these in the next; both of these, too,\nmodified and affected by our general intellectual ability.  But all that\nour scientific teachers say is, We have learned such and such things, we\nlearned them in such a fashion, you may if you have leisure and means\nverify our experiments, we show you the road we have travelled, we have\nmapped and scaled it for you.  But in religion there is no such teaching,\nthe authority of the Church dominates, denies, and annihilates experience\nwith a graveyard resurrection for lack of living verification.  Nothing\ncould more fittingly be denounced as a trick of pulpit advocacy had it\ncome from the mouth of any other man, than the supposition of an\nimpossible event in a graveyard as evidence on some equally impossible\ndoctrine.  It would be far more natural in thought to suppose deception\nin the alleged graveyard conjuring, than to suppose anything else.  For\ndecomposing bodies, fleshless skeletons, forms in which the vital\norganisation had been destroyed, and disappearing for days, weeks,\nmonths, or years, to suddenly break through coffins, which living they\nwould have been unable to burst, to get through a superincumbent mass of\nearth, and to stand out in flesh, alive, the blood circulating through\nnewly manufactured veins\u2014a man who saw this instead of crying \u201cA\nmiracle,\u201d had far better believe himself subject to delirium, and make\nhis straightway to the nearest physician for medicine to cool his\ndisordered brain.  But the Bishop\u2019s case is weaker still; his graveyard\nopened 1800 years ago, the men who saw it have ever rejected it, and we\nwho have not even seen it are required to believe it, and are told, that\nin this there is no tyranny over our thought.  When the Bishop talks of\nthe \u201csoulless and merciless machinery of law,\u201d and declares that \u201cthere\nare no laws so merciless as those of nature,\u201d we must not forget that by\nthe very terms of his sermon, and by the creed of his Church, he asserts\nall law as the expression of the \u201cpersonal will\u201d of Deity; and the\nsoulless and merciless law is, according to the Lord Bishop of\nPeterborough, the manifested will of the merciful God who is infinite\nsoul and love.  Reading to us a portion of the Apostles\u2019 Creed, Dr. Magee\nsaid, All these are assertions of facts, and \u201cyou are bound to think\nright about them under penalties,\u201d but not more so than about other\nalleged matters of fact.  This is untrue.  What other alleged matters of\nfact are men required to believe under Act of Parliament?  What other\nalleged facts are there which if a man deny he may be sent to gaol, lose\ncivil rights, be denied the guardianship of his children, and be made an\noutlaw in the State?  Where of an alleged fact in astronomy or geology is\nyour investigation prefaced with the declaration that if you deny it you\nshall be sent to a bottomless pit filled with brimstone and fire, and\nprepared for the Devil and his angels?\n\n\n\n\nSECOND DISCOURSE\nOF THE\nBISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH.\nCHRISTIANITY AND SCEPTICISM.\n\n\nON Wednesday evening, March 29th, the Bishop of Peterborough preached his\nsecond sermon, on \u201cChristianity and Scepticism,\u201d before a large\ncongregation in the nave of the Cathedral, Norwich.  His text was from\nthe Gospel according to St. John, xx. 25:\u2014\n\n    \u201cThe other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord.\n    But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of\n    the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust\n    my hand into his side, I will not believe.\u201d\n\nHis Lordship said:\n\n    My subject to-night is \u201cChristianity, and Scepticism,\u201d and I have\n    chosen for my text these words of a sceptic, for as such St. Thomas\n    has been regarded.  His name has become proverbial in Church history\n    for unbelief.  Among the different characters that surround our Lord\n    in the Gospel story, he has been regarded as the type of the doubter,\n    and he is known as the doubting or the unbelieving Thomas.  And yet\n    at first sight we hardly see that he should be so called.  It is\n    quite true that he did doubt, and yet his doubt does not at first\n    sight seem to be unreasonable, or so very obstinate that he should be\n    called by way of distinction, the doubter, the unbeliever.  It was\n    not unreasonable.  On the contrary, it was reasonable and natural\n    that he should feel some doubt about the resurrection of Jesus\n    Christ.  Others had doubts as well as he, and they were called fools\n    and slow of heart to believe, and yet they did not inherit the name\n    of the doubters.  Again, his disbelief was not of a very obstinate\n    kind.  It seemed to have yielded almost instantaneously; and almost\n    immediately after he was satisfied, he said more than others of the\n    disciples, for he said \u201cMy Lord and my God.\u201d  He not only\n    acknowledged the resurrection of Jesus, but his divinity, and yet he\n    is called Thomas the doubter, the sceptic, and he is rightly so\n    called.\n\n    The Christian consciousness did not err when it gave the name,\n    because when he uttered the words which I have just read to you,\n    \u201cExcept I see I will not believe,\u201d he uttered that which is the very\n    essence of scepticism.  He suspended his belief upon an absolutely\n    impossible condition.  He declared that he would not give his assent\n    except on this condition, that it should be made absolutely\n    impossible for him to doubt.  What he said to his brother disciples\n    amounts to this:\u2014\u201cYou tell me that you have seen the Lord, but I\n    cannot believe you.  It does not matter to me how strong your\n    testimony may be, or how truthful I believe you to be, I will not be\n    satisfied till I see it for myself.  I will not accept of any\n    testimony but that of my own senses.\u201d  He said his assent was only to\n    be had by absolute demonstration, and its being made impossible for\n    him to have any doubt.  I say the condition makes all belief\n    absolutely impossible.  Belief, in the proper sense of the word, is\n    assent on an amount of trust.  If we have absolute demonstration of\n    anything, the result is not belief at all, it is demonstration.  What\n    we see with the eyes of our body or mind, we don\u2019t properly believe\n    in.  We know it.  We have the certainty, not of faith, but of\n    science, and where doubt is impossible, belief or faith is\n    impossible.  You may have certainty, but it will be the certainty of\n    knowledge, it will not be the certainty of faith.  It is quite clear\n    that if any man makes it a condition of his assent to truth of any\n    kind, that it must first be demonstrated to him as clear as that two\n    and two make four; it is clear that is if there be any class of\n    truths which cannot be so proved as that two and two make four, the\n    man who makes that proof or demonstration a condition of his assent,\n    must always be in doubt about those truths, or that class of truths;\n    he must always in respect of them be a sceptic or doubter.\n\n    Again, one step further, it is clear that religion or Christianity is\n    a truth, or class of truths that cannot be demonstrated\n    scientifically.  We cannot prove that there is a God, in the same way\n    that we can prove that two and two make four.  We cannot do this,\n    because the idea of God is that he is invisible to us.  The first\n    utterance of religion is this: I believe in what I cannot see, I\n    believe in an invisible God.  Clearly he that says, I don\u2019t believe\n    anything I do not see, must be a sceptic or doubter about the truth\n    of religion; and therefore it comes to pass, that though religion is\n    by no means the only subject, or the only collection of truths that\n    cannot be demonstrated, it is the principal one, and it has come to\n    pass that though there are sceptics on other subjects, yet for this\n    reason a sceptic is understood to be a man who doubts about religious\n    subjects; a man who will not believe all the truths of Christianity,\n    because they cannot be demonstrated to him in the way he thinks they\n    should be demonstrated.  You see now what a sceptic is, and what\n    scepticism, is.  By the word sceptic we mean a disbeliever in the\n    truths of religion.  A man may disbelieve some of the truths of\n    religion and not be a sceptic.  A Jew does not believe in\n    Christianity, but he is not a sceptic.  It is because he believes in\n    Moses that he does not believe in Christ.  We don\u2019t call the\n    Pantheists or the Deists sceptics, because they have a fixed belief.\n    Some of their beliefs I think monstrous; they make a greater demand\n    on faith than those do who believe in religion.  I think the man who\n    says there is no God must believe more contradictions than the man\n    who says there is a God.  He has a perfectly monstrous creed, but it\n    is a creed.  He is not so much a disbeliever as a misbeliever, for he\n    believes in something else than God.  Again, we don\u2019t call a doubter\n    a sceptic; a sceptic is a doubter, but the doubter is not necessarily\n    a sceptic.  A man may doubt of the truths of religion, only because\n    he has not had evidence of the proper kind.  A sceptic asks for\n    evidence of an unreasonable kind.  A man may doubt the truth of any\n    assertion in history; he may think that all the historians or\n    witnesses of the facts are untruthful or ill informed, I should not\n    call that man a sceptic; but if a man said, I don\u2019t believe the facts\n    you allege in history, because I deny all human testimony; you cannot\n    deny that these men lived some time since, and that they may have\n    been liars; you cannot give me proof to the contrary: that man I\n    should call a sceptic, because in matters historical he was demanding\n    an unreasonable amount of evidence.  It is not doubt nor unbelief\n    that makes the difference as to the sceptic.  The sceptic is not such\n    because he doubts, but on account of the reason of his doubt.  He\n    seeks for evidence that it is not proper or reasonable that he should\n    have.\n\n    Now I have shown you that there may be doubt without scepticism; and\n    on the other hand, there may be belief, or at least assent, upon\n    sceptical principles.  It is quite possible that a man may be firmly\n    persuaded of some of the truths of religion, and yet be in heart a\n    sceptic.  If a man were to say I cannot believe in the existence of a\n    God till I have it demonstrated to me as clear as that the three\n    angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, then he is in\n    principle a sceptic, because it is clear that if he could not have\n    that sort of proof, he would begin to doubt of the existence of God.\n    All the time his assent to the existence of God would not have rested\n    upon any faith or trust, but upon demonstration.  But when the idea\n    of God ceased to be a scientific certainty, it is clear that he would\n    be in heart a sceptic.  And there is no doubt that the first belief\n    of the apostle Thomas was rendered upon sceptical principles.  He\n    said, I will not believe till I put my finger in the print of the\n    nails, &c., as if he had said, I will believe nothing but the\n    evidence of my own senses.  He believed only because he got this\n    evidence of his senses; and mark this, when our Lord gave him what he\n    asked, he pronounced no praise on his belief; he did not say to him\n    as he said to another, \u201cBlessed art thou, Simon Barjonas, for flesh\n    and blood has not revealed this to thee;\u201d but flesh and blood had\n    revealed the fact to Thomas, and our Lord said, \u201cBlessed are they\n    that have not seen, and yet have believed.\u201d  Thus it is possible to\n    doubt without being sceptical, and it is possible to assent, and to\n    be still sceptical.  I want you to dwell on this point of belief,\n    doubt, and sceptical belief, because there are certain things that I\n    am going to point out in this way.  I ask you to test for yourselves\n    what I am now going to say, and try the effect upon your own\n    feelings.  We cannot demonstrate Christianity.  It is utterly\n    impossible that I can give you a demonstration of Christianity, such\n    as will leave no possible room for doubt or question.  When those who\n    have to follow me have said all they have to say; when they have put\n    before you all the evidences of Christianity in all their fulness and\n    variety; when they have shown how much more reasonable it is to\n    believe than to disbelieve, how many more difficulties there are in\n    the way of disbelief than of belief; when all this is done, there may\n    still be a doubt on your minds; there will be questions that cannot\n    be answered, there will be difficulties that cannot be explained, and\n    which no living man can explain.  We can give the highest degree of\n    evidence, short of demonstration, for belief in Christ, but we cannot\n    demonstrate Christianity.  Now what effect has that announcement on\n    your hearts?  Possibly you have heard it with some disappointment.\n    You may have come to hear these sermons, expecting to have all your\n    doubts removed.  You may say, \u201cI thought you were going to answer all\n    the questions with mathematical certainty.\u201d  Our answer is, If we\n    could prove with as much certainty that there is a God as that two\n    and two make four, or as that this is a book [holding it up], then\n    our religion would do you as much good as the knowledge that two and\n    two make four.  We would not in that case cultivate the quality of\n    faith in your souls, in spite of difficulties and doubts.  We cannot\n    demonstrate Christianity, but we can give sufficient reason for our\n    belief in it, in spite of doubt.\n\n    What we have to say is this, that the evidences of Christianity are\n    weapons to put in the hands of every one of you, with which every man\n    and woman may fight out in his or her innermost soul the desolating\n    and besieging doubt that from time to time will assault it.  This is\n    the real object of evidences of faith, but they are not meant to be\n    the outlying works of the citadel of the soul outside of which the\n    enemy is compelled to keep.  The shield of faith in God you have to\n    carry on your own arm, and with it quench all the fiery darts of the\n    wicked one.  Though your own arm tremble, you must carry it to repel\n    the darts that are aimed at your own heart.\n\n    There is another word of comfort we have to give you the really\n    distressed doubter.  Christianity does not repel the doubter who\n    says, I believe, Lord help my unbelief.  What Christianity is\n    intolerant of is not doubt, but the spirit of doubt, not unbelief,\n    but the demand for unreasonable, impossible conditions of belief.  We\n    don\u2019t tell you to stamp out every doubt before you can become a\n    Christian.  We say if you believe but one point, you may come to\n    believe all the rest, and our message to you is, weary as you may be\n    of the load of doubt, the same as that of the Saviour who said \u201cCome\n    unto me all you that are weary and heavy laden,\u201d and you will find\n    rest to your souls.\n\n    And now I have clearly explained the difference between Christianity\n    and Scepticism.  Let us briefly sum up again and show the points of\n    collision between Scepticism and Christianity.  We saw last night\n    that the question between Christianity and Freethought was a dispute\n    as to the nature of liberty, so the question between Christianity and\n    Scepticism is a dispute as to the nature of certainty.  Christianity\n    offers and gives certainty in the end; Scepticism demands certainty.\n    But the certainty of Christianity is partly the certainty of reason\n    and partly of faith and of experience.  The certainty demanded by\n    Scepticism is the certainty of science only.  The most extreme of\n    unbelievers will admit that there is something to be said for\n    Christianity; and that it is not unworthy of a hearing as regards its\n    evidences.  The men who have believed in Christianity for the last\n    1800 years, have not been the greatest fools in the world.  Liebnitz\n    and Butler were not drivellers, and not those only, but hundreds and\n    thousands of the greatest intellects that humanity has produced.\n    They were not such utter fools that any man is entitled to dismiss\n    Christianity with a wave of his hand.  On the other hand, every\n    reasonable Christian will admit that there is something fair and\n    reasonable in some of the objections to Christianity.  But the\n    Christian says to the sceptic, It is unreasonable in you to ask that\n    every difficulty should be got rid of and every question answered\n    before you believe in Christianity.  The sceptic replies, It is\n    unreasonable in you to ask me to believe in Christianity till you\n    have removed every doubt.  I will ask you which is the reasonable\n    demand\u2014the demand of the Christian for faith upon probable evidence,\n    or the demand of the sceptic for assent only upon scientific\n    demonstration?\n\n    Now in order to argue it fairly and without passion or prejudice, let\n    us pass from the subject of religious doubt and let us consider the\n    case of doubt in other matters than religion; we all know that men\n    have doubted in other subjects.  Try then to recall to your minds the\n    first doubt; it was only a little later than the first belief.  The\n    first instinct of the child is to believe everything, that everything\n    he sees and hears is true.  All appearances to the child are\n    realities.  The sun is to him a ball of fire that climbs up the sky,\n    the stars are little specks of light that shine at night.  The earth\n    is a flat plain.  Very soon the child learns the first great lesson\n    of doubt, learns that things are not what they appear to be, learns\n    to distrust appearances, learns that under the appearances there is a\n    reality.  He gets his first teaching from doubt, and all-important is\n    the instinct of doubt.  Very soon is the awakening of the sceptical\n    part of the mental nature of man, of his understanding.  The nature\n    of the understanding is ever to ask, What and why?  The spirit of\n    doubt leads the man from question to question, from step to step,\n    till he gets answers to his questions; he goes on from doubt to\n    belief, and from belief to doubt, and so on to greater knowledge.\n    Thus doubt is the means of knowledge, the instrument of discovery.\n    Without the instinct of doubt humanity would be stagnant; with it\n    alone humanity progresses.  I do not disparage doubt, I highly value\n    it; but doubt is useful on one condition, and one only, that it\n    starts from a first belief.  What is the cause of all this doubt and\n    pursuit of knowledge?  The supreme instinctive belief, that under all\n    appearances there is a reality, that something underlies and causes\n    all being; and it is the search for this essence of existence that\n    leads the doubter on, the search of this _I am_.  If he had no faith\n    in some underlying reality beneath these phenomena, there would be no\n    progress, and so doubt is ever seeking for that which is below what\n    appears, and yet never reaches it.\n\n    Never yet has science reached to the great reason of all reasons, to\n    the great cause of all causes, that underlies all knowledge; and yet\n    ever as we seek for it we are advancing in knowledge.  We do not\n    reach it, but are ever reaching and passing on, through that which\n    lies between us and it.  Doubt is like the mainspring of a watch, it\n    is ever seeking to uncoil itself and yet never entirely doing so.\n    The result is that the hands of the watch move uniformly because\n    there is an attachment of the mainspring.  Cut the attachment, and\n    the hands will give one wild whirl and all will be still, and the\n    watch useless.  It is just the same with doubt and faith.  Doubt is\n    attached to the primary belief that there is a cause of all things,\n    but it is ever seeking to detach itself from that belief and never\n    succeeds.  The consequence is, that there is a constant and measured\n    progress of the human mind.  But we have to consider how much further\n    the intellect which has thus been the rule and test of our belief\n    might go.  A child not only believes in appearances or facts, but he\n    has an instinctive belief in the truthfulness of humanity.  The child\n    has not learned that it is not wise to believe everything that is\n    said to him.  Was that a happy discovery?  Should we tell a child not\n    to believe the word of any human being until he had demonstration\n    about it?  Is it wisdom always to distrust human nature?  We are\n    always trusting.  Give a logical proof that we are right in any of\n    our trusts.  A wife may be false, a child may hate its parents, and a\n    man may be robbed by a friend or a confidential servant; yet are we\n    to distrust everybody?  If a man were not to trust any one till it\n    was proved by demonstration that he ought to do so, he would be put\n    in a lunatic asylum; and rightly so, as a man one part of whose\n    nature had got diseased and had mastered all the other parts of his\n    nature.  I defy any one to say logically that the man may not be\n    right, or to give a logical demonstration that it is absolutely\n    impossible that his wife, children, and friend were not in a\n    conspiracy to wrong him.  There is thus an absolute necessity for\n    trust in the ordinary affairs of life, I hope you will see that life\n    must be conducted on the principle of faith or trust.\n\n    Let us ask if morality can exist without faith or trust, whether we\n    can get a demonstrative or scientific basis for morality itself?  I\n    ask this, because those who ask for the destruction of our religion\n    talk of the gain to morality.  They say, Sweep away the influences of\n    religion and morality will be stronger.  Let us see how morality will\n    bear the assaults of scepticism.  Morality is that code or rule of\n    action which we follow in questions of right or wrong, or it is that\n    code of right and wrong which every man adopts for himself.  To take\n    the first definition.  Have we got the universal sense of humanity\n    upon any moral question of right or wrong?  If the majority of\n    mankind agree with us, can we prove logically that they must always\n    be right and the minority wrong?  Again, which morality will we\n    have\u2014that of to-day or that of a past generation?  If we cannot\n    settle the question by majority or minority, how are we to settle it?\n    By asking the opinion of the wise and good.  Before we know the wise\n    and good we must know what wisdom and goodness are; and if we know\n    what they are, what need have we to look to the wise and good to tell\n    us?  Who are the wise and good?  Those who gave good opinions.  Is\n    that logical?  Will it stand sceptical inquiry?  If it is not to be\n    settled by the appeal to the universal voice of humanity\u2014which is\n    simply illogical and preposterous, for this reason, that we are part\n    of universal humanity, and if we differ from that verdict it is not\n    the verdict of universal humanity, and if we agree with it, we might\n    as well have taken our own in the first instance\u2014then man must decide\n    for himself what is right and wrong.  What is it decides in a man\n    what is right or wrong?  Conscience.  Why must a man submit to the\n    decision of his own conscience?  We are told that it is part of our\n    moral nature.  What demonstration is there that one part of our\n    nature is to yield to another?  Have we any logical demonstration as\n    to what we are?  I have a scientific demonstration that I am made of\n    carbon, lime, phosphate, and certain other chemicals, but no man of\n    science has ever demonstrated spirit or conscience.  Why is it that a\n    man is to obey the bidding of one convolution of his brain more than\n    another?  It cannot be made as clear as that two and two make four,\n    that a man is to do to another man as he would be done unto.  Duty\n    and right are words of the spirit, of the soul, but science and logic\n    never yet revealed the soul.\n\n    Therefore the man who will believe nothing but what can be\n    demonstrated to him, will deny at last the obligation of duty in\n    obedience to his sceptical intellect, just as he began with denying\n    the existence of God.  How does he get out of this great difficulty?\n    By calling up the instinct of faith.  He wills to believe that he is\n    something more than a bundle of material elements, that the\n    conscience in his soul is something supreme and divine, that the man\n    in him is something above the animal; and by an exercise of faith in\n    his own higher and better self, he silences the eternal _why_ of the\n    sceptical intellect, the serpent more subtile than any other beast of\n    the field, which if it had its way would make man a beast.\n\n    There is only one more question to which I have to call your\n    attention.  Having shown you that the sceptical intellect is not the\n    only judge, having shown you that there are domains of human\n    knowledge and human life into which, if it comes at all, it must come\n    as the servant and not as the master; having shown you that\n    scepticism is really nothing else than the intrusion of the mere\n    understanding into the province of the soul and the spirit, it\n    remains to ask, Is religion, is Christianity, one of those subjects\n    on which the understanding is not to be the only judge, but on which\n    the spirit and soul and heart of man have something to say about his\n    belief?  Surely then if Christianity be what it professes to be, a\n    life, like all human and temporal life, it must be conducted upon a\n    principle of faith or trust.  If we cannot live our ordinary human\n    life without trust, where we cannot have certainty, neither can we\n    live the spiritual life without trust, where we can neither prove nor\n    demonstrate; then if we think of this life in close relationship with\n    the divine and the infinite life, can it possibly be otherwise than\n    that out of the meeting place of those two mysteries there shall grow\n    mystery and difficulty?  All that Christianity requires is, not that\n    man shall not ask for reasonable proof, but that we should not deal\n    with it in a different way from that in which we deal with human life\n    and morality.  We don\u2019t ask you in religion to believe without\n    evidence, but to require large evidence.  Now my friends, still\n    remember when we ask you to believe before you see all, it is that\n    you may experience all.  Christianity has a certainty, but it comes\n    not as the proof, but as the reward of faith.  There is a\n    demonstration of the spirit, an evidence of divine life, in the soul\n    of the Christian, that he cannot demonstrate to others, because it is\n    as invisible as his own soul and spirit, and yet it fills the inner\n    core of the spirit\u2014it is the strengthener of the spirit.\n    Christianity is a great experiment, a probable experiment, a\n    reasonable experiment, but still it is an experiment, and you may try\n    it.  If you have a simple and earnest desire to ascertain its truth,\n    try it, casting aside the trivial interests that the profligate man\n    has in the disproof of it.  Try it and see if there does not come\n    into your soul that conviction not created by science, but springing\n    from the inner life of the soul, that shall be like a well of water\n    springing up to everlasting life.  As in life so in religion,\n    \u201cblessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.\u201d\n\n\n\nSECOND REPLY\nOF\nMR. C. BRADLAUGH.\nCHRISTIANITY AND SCEPTICISM.\n\n\nON Tuesday evening, April 4th, Mr. Bradlaugh delivered his second lecture\non \u201cChristianity and Scepticism,\u201d before a very crowded audience, in the\nFree Library.  He commenced by observing:\n\nIn continuing this course of lectures, I naturally follow the same\nwording of the subjects as that taken by the Bishop of Peterborough; and\nI may say that those who charge me with misquoting the Bishop, will\nprobably think differently when I say that I have taken fair pains to be\naccurate in my representation.  I took careful and almost verbatim notes,\nand I hold in my hand a transcript of the notes of an independent\nshorthand writer, and where these have disagreed, which has been very\nseldom, I have checked them by so much of the lecture as appeared\nsummarised in the _Daily Press_.  It appeared to me to be accurate, and I\nthink there was no ground for saying that I misrepresented the Bishop.\nYou who think so, had better leave that for him to say, if he thinks it\nnecessary.  He took the instance of Thomas as that of a representative\nSceptic.  He was good enough to tell us that the unbelief of Thomas was\nnot unreasonable, that, on the contrary, it was reasonable and natural\nthat he should feel some doubt about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I\npropose to examine that position.  Was it reasonable that Thomas should\ndoubt?  Thomas was a disciple selected by Jesus.  He had been present at\nthe whole of the miracles of Jesus.  If the Bishop\u2019s case be true, he had\nseen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, he had heard Jesus say he came to\ndie, and to rise again; and I ask you, if it was reasonable for Thomas to\ndoubt after he had seen a hundred miracles performed, then how much more\nreasonable for me to doubt?  I have never seen any miracles.  But, said\nthe Bishop, Thomas is a fair example of the Sceptic, for Thomas said, I\nwill not believe unless I see, &c.  This, the Bishop said, is the very\nessence of scepticism.  Now I don\u2019t know where my Lord Bishop got his\nnotion of scepticism; I am sure that there is no writer on the side of\nthe party which permits me to speak for it, who defines scepticism in\nthat manner.  I have here the explanation of Buckle, which I take as that\nof a man occupying a position independent of the prejudices attaching to\nmy extreme heresy.  \u201cBy Scepticism, I merely mean hardness of belief, so\nthat an increased Scepticism is an increased perception of the difficulty\nof proving assertions, or, in other words, it is an increased application\nand an increased diffusion of the laws of evidence.  This feeling of\nhesitation and of suspended judgment, has in every department of thought\nbeen the invariable preliminary to all the intellectual revolutions\nthrough which the human mind has passed, and without it there could be no\nprogress, no change, no civilisation.  In physics it is the necessary\nprecursor of science, in politics of liberty, in theology of toleration.\u201d\nNow I take leave to say that there is no sceptical writer, neither\nHobbes, nor Hume, nor Locke, nor Berkeley, no sceptical writer either\nupon my own side or upon the side of theology, unless you take the\nravings of some wretched madman, who defines Scepticism as my Lord Bishop\ndefined it.  I say it was either a false definition within the knowledge\nof the Bishop, or that Dr. Magee was imperfectly acquainted with the\nviews he proposed to answer.  The definition conveys a false notion of\nScepticism, which is really but a word for investigation.  The Bishop\ndraws a distinction, and a correct distinction, between knowledge and\nbelief, and in that very distinction he annihilated his own definition of\nScepticism.  He said, and rightly, When once the senses have taken\ncognizance of any phenomenon, that is no longer a matter of belief but a\nmatter of knowledge.  If I sensate any condition of existence, I have\npassed the stage of belief and arrived at the stage of knowledge.  I now\ncome to a marvellous position\u2014marvellous as advanced by a bishop\u2014viz.,\nthat religion or Christianity must be taken as incapable of scientific\ndemonstration; because, if that be true, what becomes of the arguments of\nthe Paleys, of the Pye Smiths, and of the Gillespies?  Are the volumes of\nproofs of the existence of Deity all waste paper?  What becomes of the\nhuge mass yearly issued from the press to prove the truth of\nChristianity?  I take it that in the opinion of the Bishop every one of\nthese has hitherto failed, for he says we cannot demonstrate the\nexistence of a Deity or the truth of the Christian religion so as to\nleave no doubt.  A demonstration so complete that it leaves no doubt, is\nadmitted to be impossible; that is an admission for which I thank the\nLord Bishop, because it is a justification to doubters.  We have two\nadmissions, one that the doubt of Thomas is a reasonable doubt, and\nanother, that Christianity under no circumstances can be rendered free\nfrom doubt.  I will thank you to bear those two positions in mind.  The\nBishop says we cannot demonstrate the existence of God, and I am inclined\nto accept his position, but he gives reasons of the strangest description\nto justify his conclusions.  He says we cannot prove the existence of God\nbecause he is invisible.  Does the Bishop mean that only the things\ncognised by sight can be proved?  Is it true that he believes in an\ninvisible God?  What say the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church?  They\nsay that Jesus, with body, flesh, and bones, ascended to heaven.  Were\nthese invisible?  The Bishop believes what is pictured in the Bible.\nDoes the Bible teach an invisible God?  We read in the twenty-fourth\nchapter of Exodus, 9, 10, 11: \u201cThen went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and\nAbihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the God of\nIsrael; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a\nsapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.  And\nupon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand; also they\nsaw God, and did eat and drink.\u201d  I want to know if this God is an\ninvisible God?  I want to know whether the Bishop is on this point an\ninfidel, and whether he here disbelieves the Bible?  The Bible says that\nGod is not invisible.  Which are we to believe?\u2014the Bishop, the Bible, or\nthe Thirty-nine Articles?  We are forbidden to deny either the Bible or\nthe Thirty-nine Articles under penalty of prosecution.  The Bishop said a\nJew is not a sceptic, and the reason given is certainly equally a\nmarvellous one, for he said the Jew believes in Moses, and therefore\ncannot believe in Jesus.  Is it logical that any body who believes in\nMoses cannot believe in Jesus?  Surely the Bishop contradicted himself,\nfor it is to Moses and the prophets he appeals.  It is not true, even\nfrom the Church of England stand-point, that a man disbelieves in Jesus\nbecause he believes in Moses.  It is not true that if I believe in the\nauthenticity of the Pentateuch, it necessarily excludes my belief in the\nGospel, and yet this is the reasoning indulged in by the able and learned\nconfuter of modern infidelity.  The Bishop said that the Deist and the\nPantheist are not sceptics, for they have a belief, nor, he said, are\neven those sceptics who say there is no God.  I never read, except in\ntracts and sermons, and religious essays, of any who say there is no God.\nSome persons talk about the fools who say there is no God, and bishops\npreach against them, but an Atheist does not say there is no God.  The\nAtheist says the term \u201cGod\u201d conveys no idea to his mind.  I have never\nyet heard a definition of God from any living man, nor have I read a\ndefinition by dead or living man that was not self-contradictory.  I\ndon\u2019t deny the word \u201cGod,\u201d because I don\u2019t know anything about its\nmeaning.  Denial like affirmation must refer to some proposition that is\nunderstood.  But the moment you tell me you mean the God of the Bible, or\nthe God of the Koran, or the God of any particular church, I am prepared\nto tell you that I deny that God.  So long as the term means your absence\nof knowledge as to particular phenomena, and represents the undiscovered,\nI am not \u201cfool\u201d enough to say there is no God; and I say the Bishop\nshould have known that no modern Atheist ever propounded such a\nproposition to any one.  It is when you tell me of God distinct from the\nuniverse, creating the universe different from himself, and adding to his\nown existence, that I am compelled to deny that God.  The Bishop said the\nsceptic is not only one who denies, but one who asks for evidence of an\nunreasonable kind.  Suppose myself; am I a sceptic as to the Bible,\naccording to the Bishop\u2019s notion?  When I examine the Bible, I find it is\nadmitted that the common version is so bad that a better is now in hand.\nI find when I refer to the sources of this version there are only three\nsources\u2014the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septuagint.  When I examine\nthe Septuagint I find the Protestant writers such as Fulke and Whittaker,\nwriting against Bellarmine and others, declaring that the Septuagint is\ncorrupt from beginning to end.  Dr. Irons says no one knows where the\nso-called Septuagint version was written, when it was written, nor by\nwhom it was written, and it is clearly the work of different generations.\nWhen I examine the Greek of the Septuagint as against the Hebrew, I find\nwords and verses in the one that are not in the other.  As a sceptic is\nit unreasonable for me to ask the Bishop how he knows that one is better\nthan the other?  When I go to the Hebrew the difficulty is still greater.\nI say that not even the Bishop knows enough of the Hebrew to guide us\nwith reasonable explanation.  It is not enough to say that mere ignorant\ninfidels do not know it.  I find Spinoza, writing 200 years ago,\ndeclaring that Hebrew was a language utterly dead, that its grammars and\nlexicons were lost, that time, the great consumer, had blotted out the\nmeaning of many words from the memory of man.  Suppose that I have\nrecourse to those professing some knowledge of Hebrew.  Gesenius,\nBellamy, Parkhurst, Newman, Eichorn, Bresslau, Ginsburg, give me\ndifferent meanings for many of the same words on important points of\ntheology.  How am I to be satisfied?  What objections will be reasonable?\nSuppose I try to be content with the ordinary Hebrew version, what then?\nI find that it is a version written with points, which points have not\nexisted more than 1250 or 1300 years; and the text itself is of two\ncharacters.  That which is written is not always read, and that which is\nread is not written.  I find a clergyman of the Church like Dr. Irons\nadmitting that the traditional reading of the Hebrew text is often of\nmore value than the text.  I find Christians saying this Hebrew is an\nancient language, and when I try to trace it I find that before 2500\nyears back there is no trace of it at all.  Moses could not have written\nin the Hebrew we have, for what to-day we call the Hebrew did not then\nexist.  Who is to decide on this point as to the reasonableness of my\nscepticism?  Am I to decide or my Lord Bishop?  Let us consider this a\nlittle more.  We have a Samaritan, a Septuagint, and Hebrew Bible, but in\nthe Samaritan we have only the Pentateuch, and I find words and verses in\nthe Samaritan not in the Septuagint, and not in the Hebrew, and I find\nwords and verses in the Hebrew and Septuagint, which are not in the\nSamaritan.  Is it unreasonable for me to ask how so many blunders have\ngot into this book, if it contains a revelation from God?  Then I come to\ntry to get a clue from the Gospels, and I find again that no man knows\nwhen they were written, where they were written, or by whom they were\nwritten.  Clergymen of the Church have invented arguments from the first\ncentury fathers for the existence of the Gospels.  I used to believe that\nsuch testimony existed; I could not suppose that writers like Dr. Paley\nhad invented testimony of the fathers, but when I went to the great\nlibraries to verify authorities, and I found that he manufactured\nevidence, I ask, was I, as a sceptic, a reasonable man in challenging the\nChurch?  The Bishop says a Sceptic is not to be attacked because he\ndoubts, but because of his reason for the doubt.  I doubt because I\ncannot help it.  Is that a good reason or not?  Is the Church entitled to\nsay \u201cIt is not true, you might believe if you like?\u201d  And mark, the\nBishop had the audacity to declare that Christianity is not intolerant of\nthe doubter, but of the spirit of doubt.  The Church used to burn the\ndoubter, and then it burnt his books, and locked him up in prison.  It\nnow gathers 3,000 people into the nave of the Cathedral to hear the\nattack on the doubter, and refuses to grant the use of any place for a\nreply.  It is not intolerant to the doubter, it is only intolerant of the\nspirit of doubt!  I learned from the Bishop that a man might be a\nreligious believer, and at the same time a sceptic, and in explaining\nthis he used language of an astounding character.  He said if a man were\nto say, _I_ cannot believe in the existence of God till I have it\ndemonstrated to me as clearly as that the three angles of a triangle are\nequal to two right angles, then he is in principle a sceptic, because if\nhe had not that sort of proof, he would begin to doubt of the existence\nof God; all this time his assent to the existence of God would have\nrested on a sceptical foundation.  This was one of the most marvellous\npieces of nonsense that any one could talk.  How can any one, while\nassenting to God\u2019s existence, say, I cannot believe in God till it is\nproved to demonstration?  He makes the true believer commence by saying\nhe cannot believe in God till it is proved.  If anyone here had used that\nlanguage, I should have said that he did not understand what he was\ntalking about; but when a Bishop, a learned Bishop, the paragon of\neloquence and logic, brought here as more competent than your own Bishop,\ntalks such nonsense, how am I to reply?  Let us take a startling contrast\nwhich the Bishop thought right to give us.  He contrasted Thomas the\ndoubter with Simon Peter the believer.  I have read the Bible a little,\nand I think that of all the cowardly rascals of whom I ever read, the\ngreatest rascal was Simon Peter.  He was called under great advantages;\nhe had been out fishing, and he caught nothing, and the Lord helped him\nto a good catch of fish; Simon Peter\u2019s wife\u2019s mother was cured of a\nfever; Simon Peter was with Jesus when he fed the people with a few\nloaves and fishes, and he took part in the collection of the fragments.\nHe was present at the transmigration.  It was to him that Jesus said, \u201cTo\nthee I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.\u201d  Simon Peter was with the\nLord all through his life; and when Jesus came to trouble, he was the\nfirst who abandoned him and denied him, even with oaths, \u201cI know not the\nman;\u201d and that Peter is the model of faith whom the Bishop presents to\nyou.  Of the two I rather prefer Thomas to Peter.  Certainly Peter came\nback to the Church when he caught more fish.  When Jesus rose from the\ndead, Peter did not or would not know him, but when Jesus said \u201cThrow in\nyour net,\u201d and he did so, and caught more fish, then he knew Jesus\ndirectly.  I will ask what lesson the Lord Bishop meant to convey by the\ncontrast between those two?  In what sort of way is Peter put in\ncontrast?  Simon Peter was true enough when any profit was to be got by\nit; he ran away when danger came.  This is the model which the Lord\nBishop puts before you to copy.  But Dr. Magee said that Christianity\ncould not be demonstrated.  Christian evidences were of some use as\nweapons when believers were exposed to assaults on their faith.  If I\nthought he had intended to preach a comic sermon instead of a serious\none, I could have heartily laughed at this.  He says that the evidences\nof Christianity are weapons to put in the hands of every man and woman\nwhen his or her innermost soul is assailed by the enemy with desolating\ndoubt.  Is it true that God permits an enemy to reduce man to the level\nof the beast, and to be continually besieging the soul of man?  Is it\ntrue that the subtle devil tempts man from the faith?  If it be true,\nthen the devil exists either because God cannot help it, or will not\nprevent it; and if he exists because God is powerless to prevent, then\nGod is not omnipotent; if God wills it, then God consents to\u2014nay, strives\nto procure man\u2019s damnation.  But, says the Bishop, Christianity does not\nrepel the doubter, and he even admits the utility of doubt, subject only\nto one condition.  Before I deal with the Bishop\u2019s condition, permit me\nto quote what Buckle has said on the effect of doubt, and I quote him\nbecause he stands in a position entitling him to the attention of the\nextreme heterodox, as well as of the extreme orthodox.  He says:\n\n    \u201cAlthough the acquisition of fresh knowledge is the necessary\n    precursor of every step in social progress, such acquisition must\n    itself be preceded by a love of inquiry, and therefore by a spirit of\n    doubt, because without doubt there will be no inquiry, and without\n    inquiry there will be no knowledge, for knowledge is not an inert and\n    passive principle which comes to us whether we will or no; but it\n    must be sought before it can be won; it is the product of great\n    labour, and, therefore, of great sacrifice.  And it is absurd to\n    suppose that men will incur the labour and make the sacrifice for\n    subjects respecting which they are already perfectly content.  They\n    who do not feel the darkness, will never look for the light.  If on\n    any point we have attained to certainty, we make no further inquiry\n    on that point, because inquiry would be useless or perhaps dangerous.\n    The doubt must intervene before the investigation can begin.  Here,\n    then, we have the act of doubting as the originator, or at all events\n    the necessary antecedent of all progress.  Here we have that\n    scepticism, the very name of which is an abomination to the ignorant,\n    because it disturbs their lazy and complacent minds; because it\n    troubles their cherished superstitions; because it imposes on them\n    the fatigue of inquiry; and because it rouses even sluggish\n    understandings to ask if things are as they are commonly supposed,\n    and if all is really true which they from their childhood have been\n    taught to believe.  The more we examine this great principle of\n    scepticism, the more distinctly shall we see the immense part it has\n    played in the progress of European civilisation.  To state in general\n    terms, what in this introduction will be fully proved, it may be said\n    that to scepticism we owe that spirit of inquiry which, during the\n    last two centuries, has gradually encroached on every possible\n    subject, has reformed every department of practical and speculative\n    knowledge; has weakened the authority of the privileged classes, and\n    thus placed liberty on a surer foundation; has chastised the\n    despotism of princes; has restrained the arrogance of the nobles, and\n    has even diminished the prejudices of the clergy.  In a word, it is\n    this which has remedied the three fundamental errors of the olden\n    time, errors which made the people in politics too confiding, in\n    science too credulous, in religion too intolerant.  We have thus seen\n    the rise of that scepticism which in physics must always be the\n    beginning of science, and in religion must always be the beginning of\n    toleration.  There is, indeed, no doubt that in both cases individual\n    thinkers may by a great effort of original genius, emancipate\n    themselves from the operation of this law.  But in the progress of\n    nations no such emancipation is possible.  As long as men refer the\n    movements of the comets to the immediate finger of God, and as long\n    as they believe that an eclipse is one of the modes by which Deity\n    expresses his anger, they will never be guilty of the blasphemous\n    presumption of attempting to predict such supernatural appearances.\n    Before they could dare to investigate the causes of these mysterious\n    phenomena, it was necessary that they should suspect that the\n    phenomena themselves were capable of being explained by the human\n    mind.  In the same way until men are content in some degree to bring\n    their religion before the bar of their own reason, they never can\n    understand how it is that there should be a diversity of creeds, or\n    how any one can differ from themselves without being guilty of the\n    most enormous and unpardonable crime.\u201d\n\nChillingworth says, \u201cReason gives us knowledge, while faith only gives us\nbelief, which is a part of knowledge, and is, therefore, inferior to it.\nIt is by reason, and not by faith, that we must discriminate in religious\nmatters, and it is by reason alone that we can distinguish truth from\nfalsehood.\u201d  He solemnly reminds his readers that in religious matters no\none ought to be expected to draw strong conclusions from imperfect\npremises, or to credit improbable statements upon scanty evidence; still\nless, he says, was it ever intended that men should so prostitute their\nreason as to believe with infallible faith that which they are unable to\nprove with infallible arguments.  The Bishop, agreeing in the utility of\ndoubt, which he expressed in language nearly as strong as that of Buckle,\nsays there is one condition without which doubt cannot be useful, and\nthis condition, being in truth an entire hindrance to doubt, is utterly\nunreasonable and impossible.  He says the condition on which doubt can be\naccepted as useful is that it starts on a certain basis of religious\nbelief.  Now a doubt so based is only a fictitious doubt, a sham doubt, a\nhypocritical pretence of doubt.  When the Bishop said it was possible to\nhave a doubt based on belief in the proposition to be doubted, he said\nwhat he could not defend on any platform where reply was permitted.  I\nfeel that in talking of a man in his absence I may be under the\nimputation of saying harsh things.  The manner in which this debate has\ngone on is not one of my fashioning.  The Church has taken the pains to\ngive lectures in the Cathedral where no reply could be offered; but I\npromise you that I will endeavour to carry the war into Peterborough, and\nsee whether the Bishop will attempt an answer under the shadow of his own\ncathedral.\n\nI have now to complain of something still worse than that the Bishop\nshould have forgotten his Bible, entirely ignored the Thirty-nine\nArticles, and occasionally in the hurry of rapid speech contradicted his\nprevious sentences.  All these are matters at which in even an\nextraordinary man burdened with a bishop\u2019s dignity, we need not wonder at\nall; but when we find him blundering in metaphysics, when we find him\nmaking mistakes which a man versed in the merest student\u2019s rudiments of\nMill or the Scotch and German metaphysicians, would not make, when we\nfind the Bishop so blundering, either wilfully or ignorantly, it puts me\nin a position of extreme difficulty.  He distinguished between the\nSceptic and the Christian, and said the Christian had a faith in\nsomething underlying all phenomena.  The Christian\u2019s faith is nothing of\nthe kind.  I will explain my position, and then that of the Christian.\nThe position of the Naturist is that there is only one existence.  I can\nonly know that existence as conditioned, as phenomenal.  What we call\n\u201cthings\u201d are modes or conditions of existence, known or distinguished\nfrom other conditions by various characteristics or qualities; we only\nknow substance or existence as conditioned.  We only know the phenomenal\nor the conditioned.  We affirm one existence, and that all we know is\ncondition of that one existence.  But that is not the Christian\u2019s\nposition.  The Christian says there are two existences, the one what he\ncalls the material universe, and the other the Deity, distinct and\ndiffering in essence, who is the creator of that universe out of nothing,\nand who can be the destroyer of it.  When the Bishop tried to make these\ntwo opinions into one, he either did not know what he was talking about,\nor he supposed that the people to whom he was talking had not the time to\nstudy.  The Bishop defined faith as trust or assent, and he declared that\nnot only in religion but in all other matters we have faith.  He said,\nfor example, and his illustration appeared to me most unfortunately\nchosen, that we trusted in our wives, and children, and friends, that it\nwas possible that our wives might all the time be unfaithful, our\nchildren unloving, and our friends treacherous.  These are not the words,\nbut they give the exact sense of the words.  Now I will explain the\ndifference between religious faith and the ordinary faith.  Our ordinary\nfaith in one another in every-day life is a confidence founded upon our\nown experience and the experience of others; and it is because we find\nthe unfaithful wives are the fewest in number, and the treacherous\nfriends the fewest in number, that we trust in our wives and our friends.\nBut religious faith is something entirely different, it is not only not\nfounded on experience, but it contradicts experience.  Religious belief\nis the prostration of the intellect; ordinary every-day trust is the\nresult of the exercise of the intellect.  The Bishop spoke of morality.\nHe said morality was based upon faith, and he asked, supposing you did\nnot go to faith, where were you to get your standard of morality?  What\nis morality, the Bishop did not tell you.  With me that is moral which\ntends to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, which inflicts\nthe least injury on any.  What is moral the Bible does not tell you, the\nThirty-nine Articles do not tell you, the Creeds do not tell you, the\nNicene Creed does not tell you, the Apostles\u2019 Creed does not tell you.\nThey say that it is moral not to steal, but you must not say this with\nthe Bible in your hand, where you find a thief protected and rewarded.\nAnd as to adultery, David got to heaven though he committed adultery, and\nplanned the most treacherous murder of the dishonoured husband.  It is\nmoral to speak the truth, but Jacob, who lied, got to heaven, and was\nloved by God, while his brother was hated, though he appears to have been\nthe better man of the two.  What is the morality of the Athanasian Creed?\nYou are to believe in a Father, a Son, and a Holy Ghost, three persons in\none God, and if you do not believe in this, without doubt you are to\nperish everlastingly.  Is that your morality?  He that believes and is\nbaptised, shall be saved.  Is faith in Christ morality?  Here it is moral\nto eat beefsteaks, but on the banks of the Ganges it is immoral.  Where\nwill you get your guide to morality?  No one man, no one book, no one\nchurch, can give it you.  Your guide to morality can only be got by\ngathering from the wisdom, and availing yourself of the experience of the\ngreatest minds of past ages and the present times, and thus you may learn\nto be moral.  I don\u2019t speak to annihilate the Bible.  No man can\nannihilate a book.  If Moses or Isaiah wrote, no man can sweep their work\naway from the page of history, but I say that no book should dominate the\nworld.  I am a sceptic, for I deny the absolute authority of one book to\ndominate all people.  I find among the Brahmins, among the Buddhists,\namong the Chinese and Japanese, phases of human truth which in other\nlands are almost entirely forgotten, which your Jew books do not contain.\n\nIf you want to know how I would make a code of morality, I would make it\nas you would a bouquet of flowers: from one plot in a garden you cull the\nrose, from another other flowers of sweet perfume, from another the\nflowers of brilliant hue, until colour blending with colour and fragrance\naiding, your bouquet presents beauty to the eye and sweet perfume to the\nscent; so I would take from Shakspere the fruit of his wide grasping\nbrains, from Swift his brilliant wit, from Montesquieu his great power of\ngeneralisation, from Voltaire his grand irony, from Rabelais his biting\nthought, from Spinoza his grand logic, from John Locke his wise reason, I\nwould take from Dr. Magee his eloquence, and bring them and the thoughts\nof the world\u2019s poets and philosophers together.  I would make my bouquet\nof thought.  I say the Bible is not a book to cast away, but to place on\nour shelves beside the Koran, the Vedas, and other old-world books, to\nmark how the thought of the world has grown.  We know that religion has a\nhold upon the mass, but I claim for scepticism a higher morality.  The\nbelief in religion is the wearing the old clothes of a former age, the\nswaddling clothes adopted in the childhood of humanity, but scepticism is\nthe bursting out from these old swaddling clothes.  It is the effort of\nburied brain to burst its grave and stand out alive for human\ndeliverance.\n\n\n\n\nTHIRD DISCOURSE\nOF THE\nBISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH.\nCHRISTIANITY AND FAITH.\n\n\nON Thursday evening, March 30th, 1871, the nave of the Cathedral,\nNorwich, was much crowded with the citizens of all classes, to hear the\nthird sermon of the Bishop of Peterborough, on \u201cChristianity and Faith.\u201d\nBefore the sermon the Bishop prayed specially for the conversion of the\ninfidels present.  He selected his text from the Gospel according to St.\nJohn, xx. 29,\n\n    \u201cBlessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.\u201d\n\nHis Lordship said:\n\n    Last night, I endeavoured to show you what scepticism is, and what it\n    leads to.  We saw that scepticism is not simply doubt, but that it is\n    doubt of a particular kind.  It is that state of doubt which arises\n    from insisting on referring every question for solution to one part,\n    and one only, of our nature, to the sceptical understanding.  It is\n    that state of doubt which arises from refusing to believe until it\n    has been made scientifically and mathematically impossible to doubt.\n    And we saw what this leads to; we saw that it necessarily leads to\n    the destruction of all belief properly so-called, to the destruction\n    of every kind of assent, except assent to scientific and demonstrated\n    facts; that it puts an end to all belief which rests upon moral\n    certainty, as distinguished from scientific certainty, and therefore\n    it puts an end to all belief that appeals to any part of our nature\n    except the understanding; all belief with which the heart and spirit\n    of man have anything to do; all belief of the higher and nobler kind;\n    all belief that arises out of the higher and nobler part of our\n    nature; all belief that is in character and essence moral, and all\n    the higher and nobler life which arises out of such belief.  We saw\n    that scepticism was essentially fatal to morality; that there is no\n    scientific demonstration of morality, and that in order to be moral\n    it is necessary to exercise an act of faith; that morality cannot\n    justify itself to the sceptical understanding; as we saw that as\n    religion is not capable of scientific demonstration, as it does\n    appeal to something else than the logical faculty, as it does appeal\n    to man\u2019s heart and spirit, it cannot justify itself to the sceptical\n    intellect; and that scepticism is necessarily as fatal to religion as\n    it is to morality, and to all belief except scientific belief.\n\n    I hope you saw what a waste of time it is to endeavour to satisfy the\n    consistent sceptic; we have absolutely nothing in common.  It is\n    impossible that religion can silence scepticism, unless it ceases to\n    be religion.  It is just as absurd to object to religion that it is\n    not science, as to object to science that it is not religion.  It is\n    the wisest course we can take in dealing with sceptics to begin, and\n    for the most part to end the discussion, by asking this plain\n    question: You tell us that you are sceptical, and you demand all your\n    doubts to be satisfied before you believe; we ask you, Do you believe\n    in anything, and if so, what do you believe in the proper sense of\n    the word?  Do you assent to anything on trust?  Do you believe in\n    anything you cannot demonstrate?  If so, you have no right to say to\n    us that we should not believe a religion.  If you say, I believe in\n    nothing but what can be demonstrated, then we have nothing to answer,\n    we must leave you to be refuted by the common sense of mankind, and\n    by every act of your daily life which is based on trust.  It would\n    save a vast deal of wasted time were we to take this course.  Let me\n    advise all Christians; before you allow a sceptic to put you to the\n    proof, ask, What is it you believe?  Do you believe anything in the\n    matter of religion? and if so, remember you should not bring any\n    objection against our faith which applies equally to yours.  We\n    cannot allow of faith for all the difficulties of your belief, while\n    you ask demonstration for all the difficulties of our belief.  Faith\n    for both, or faith for neither; but not faith for one and\n    demonstration for the other.  We seek not to get a logical victory\n    over our opponents; that is the poorest of all ambitions; but we\n    recommend such a course for this reason, that you may see that the\n    very same objections which are brought against our belief, lie\n    against any belief, and all belief, and so be strengthened in your\n    faith; for after all man must believe something.  There is a\n    necessity of belief in the soul of man.  We ask for the sake of our\n    opponents, if we throw them back upon considering the basis of their\n    own belief, and ask them if they are not unconsciously to themselves\n    in some degree believers while they call themselves sceptics?\n\n    And now, while I have endeavoured thus clearly to show you that\n    religion, like morality, has no answer, properly speaking, to\n    scepticism\u2014but that it rests upon an act of faith in answer to what\n    is ever saying, How, what, and why?\u2014let us come back then to that\n    point at which we left it last night.  That is the point at which we\n    saw, that in order to be moral, and to believe in morality, we must\n    exercise an act of faith, we must trust in ourselves, in our own\n    higher and better nature.  It must be an act of faith which never can\n    justify itself to the understanding.  Submit the understanding to the\n    soul, elevate the conscience above the merely logical and questioning\n    faculty; say by the exercise of a higher faculty, say by the power of\n    that instinct of faith, which is given us for the very purpose that\n    we may rise above the instinct of doubt\u2014say, I know that this is\n    right and this is true, while I have a soul.  There is in the heart\n    of every human being an eternal opposition between the merely\n    sceptical understanding and the spiritual faculty, between that which\n    demonstrates and that which believes, between the mind which we share\n    with the animal, and the soul which we Christians believe we\n    specially derive from God; and these two are opposite the one to the\n    other.  That in us which says, This must be so, this shall be so so,\n    is a higher faculty than that which in us inquires, Why is it so, how\n    can this be so?  And that act of faith in us on which our morality,\n    our religion, and our higher forms of being rest, is that by which we\n    assert the supremacy of the one above the other.  We are not always\n    conscious, nor often conscious, of this contradiction in our\n    innermost nature, of the opposition between the spiritual part of our\n    nature and the mere fleshly man.  There are times, however, when we\n    feel conscious of it.  There are times when to each one of us comes\n    some dire and deadly temptation, when we find ourselves in the\n    presence of some coveted object, when the animal craves for its\n    gratification, and the spirit trembles at the thought of the unlawful\n    thing; and then we find the serpent intellect pleading in an\n    ingenious way that there is no law against it.  I say, there is not\n    in this church a single man or woman who has not felt the eternal\n    opposition between the spirit and the flesh; who has not felt that\n    his deliverance from temptation, the mastery over the evil thing that\n    was leading him on to evil, lies not in any logic or demonstration,\n    but in the submission of the logical faculty to the spiritual, in\n    saying to the animal part of our nature, Be silent, submit, I will be\n    righteous, I will not sin.  I say, in that moment we do become\n    conscious of the opposition that exists between the intellectual and\n    spiritual part of our nature.  It is then that the great billows of\n    our souls are ebbing and flowing in the agony of our temptation.  It\n    is at that time we feel the innermost parts of our being, the\n    fountains of the great deep broken up; and then the spirit says, I\n    will be righteous.  And though we are not conscious of it, though the\n    animal has been accustomed to obey the man, there is this secret\n    opposition between the two.  It is in the nature of what oculists\n    tell us.  They tell us, that the image of an object is inverted on\n    the retina of the eye, and that it is only by constant habit of\n    correction of the impression that we see things truly.  So there is\n    the natural inversion of the nature of the man; the animal gets the\n    upper hand in the man, and it is only by the unconscious training of\n    the man in Christian society that the supremacy of the moral part of\n    the man is strongly established; and we are not conscious of the act\n    of faith, but still that act of faith underlies all morality, and it\n    is true in morality as in religion, \u201cThe just shall live by faith.\u201d\n    There is no righteous deed that any one of us has done that we did\n    not do by virtue of this act of faith; \u201cThe just shall live by\n    faith.\u201d\n\n    Now let us pass on to another question, for if the whole moral and\n    religious life is based upon the act of faith, there doubtless must\n    be a good reason for it.  We Christians believe that God made us so\n    for a good reason.  Can we see any reason why we should live our\n    moral life by faith?  That faith is not a mere assent to\n    propositions, it is trust in a person, in a nature, a belief that we\n    are better, nobler, than our understanding would persuade us we are.\n    Every time this opposition which I have described arises within a\n    man, he is given a choice; he has to pass through a probation, or a\n    test as to whether he will or will not believe in his better self,\n    whether he will rise up to the idea of his spiritual nature, or sink\n    down to the depths of his animal nature.  There is a trial for him,\n    and a discipline in the trial, and a culture and a growth of his\n    moral nature if he stands firm in the trial.  We cannot believe, in\n    such a moment of trial, in our nobler and better selves, without\n    becoming in the very act of believing, nobler and better out of such\n    strife; and the man comes out stronger every time he wrestles with\n    his baser self; his purer and nobler self comes out of the trial\n    nobler and purer.\n\n    There is a deep meaning in the temptation of our Saviour, when he is\n    said to have been with the wild beasts, in that hour when the man is\n    wrestling with the wild beasts, or the brute part of his nature, and\n    his spiritual nature comes strong out of the struggle; just as the\n    waving of the branches of the trees in the wind, makes the sap\n    circulate to the tiniest leaflet, and brings the life-blood of the\n    plant to every part.  This is the use and object of the act of faith;\n    to train, discipline, and elevate the man.  Further, I have said, in\n    every case in which a man believes in his better self, he becomes\n    better; but we have to deal not only with our better selves, we have\n    to come constantly in contact with other natures and other\n    personalities than our own.  Now, what happens when we encounter a\n    higher or more moral nature than our own?  Just the very same trial\n    and discipline; because if a man comes to deal with a higher and\n    better nature than his own, there is always a trial to the lower\n    nature.  If a higher nature could be easily understood by a lower\n    nature, then the two natures would be equal.  It is the very essence\n    of a higher and purer nature to be something of a mystery to a lower\n    nature.  Some of the sayings or the doings of that higher nature,\n    will always appear strange and puzzling to the lower nature, just\n    because it is a lower nature.  There is always the possibility of the\n    lower nature saying of the higher nature, This nature is no better\n    than mine, I do not believe in its higher or greater goodness.  But\n    are these cynical, worldly-wise men who disparage others, generally\n    speaking, the most improving and valuable of our acquaintances?  Do\n    we not generally find these cynical, bitter, disparaging men to be\n    men of low tone?  They have lowered their moral nature in the hour of\n    probation and trial; they have sunk lower than themselves, because\n    they have refused to believe in something higher and better than\n    themselves.  If these men could have risen to the higher natures they\n    had to deal with, then in that very hour, their own nature would have\n    grown purer, nobler, and higher.  So we see again, the act of faith\n    would be an act of probation, an act of discipline, an act of moral\n    culture and growth.  Therefore we say it is true, \u201cBlessed are they\n    that have not seen, and yet have believed.\u201d\n\n    But now let us go one step further.  We have seen that in all\n    morality there is an act of faith, and we believe in our own higher\n    nature and the higher nature of others, and in so doing we ourselves\n    grow better; but is there not something better still?  We that\n    believe in higher natures than our own, is there not in our hearts an\n    instinctive belief that there must be somewhere perfect\n    righteousness, perfect truth, perfect holiness?  We seek for it,\n    believe in it; do we ever find it?  The more we know of men, though\n    we may know more of their excellencies, we are compelled to know\n    something more too of their imperfections.  The result of this\n    discovery is that one of two things happens, according as we listen\n    to our understanding or our will.  The sceptical understanding says,\n    There is no such thing as perfection anywhere.  That answer is\n    unanswerable if we look only to experience.  Is that the answer of\n    the soul and heart of man?  No, the soul and the heart rebel against\n    this cheerless teaching.  The soul has ever been uttering its protest\n    against this despairing creed, ever speaking its belief in the\n    reality of a perfect righteousness, a perfect truth, a perfect\n    holiness; but can never attain to it.  It may be a dream, but it is a\n    dream that has haunted humanity from the first hour of its existence.\n    We thus have faith in humanity, and the value of this faith is that\n    it elevates the soul which believes in it; a faith which cannot\n    justify itself to the understanding, a faith as deep as the human\n    heart, and as old as the hills.\n\n    There is in very deed, in a very true sense, although it may be a low\n    sense comparatively, a religion of humanity; a creed and an act of\n    faith; and that religion has for its creed these articles: man is\n    pure; he is not a bundle of passions merely; man is responsible, he\n    has to answer for his beliefs; man may yet be perfect.  There is no\n    article in this creed that can be justified to the sceptical\n    intellect, and yet there is not a single article in it that the\n    loving heart of man, and that his soul in his highest and best\n    moments, does not cling to as the very life of its life.  The heart\n    of man believes in the perfectibility of humanity, in spite of sin\n    and misery and oppression.  The long litany of man\u2019s [imperfections?]\n    comes down with a wail of despairing denial of the possibility of\n    perfection.  Remedy after remedy has been tried, scheme after scheme\n    has been invented, and have been borne away like the bubbles on the\n    wave; but still the heart of man clings to the belief that there is a\n    perfect goodness somewhere, even when civilisation fails to produce\n    it, even in spite of what we have seen in the last three months when\n    the most civilised nations of Europe have banded themselves together\n    for mutual destruction; in spite of all this disproof of perfection,\n    the heart of man clings to it still.  We do have faith in humanity,\n    and the value of the faith is that it elevates the soul which\n    believes in it.  This belief in the possibility of perfection, in the\n    possibility of delivering men from sin and sorrow, this is not merely\n    the dream of the poet, it is not merely the Utopia of the\n    philosopher, but it is the instinctive might in the heart of the\n    earnest worker, that gives strength to him who does his duty amid the\n    haunts of sin and sorrow; it is this that sends the Christian worker\n    into the back streets and lanes of our great cities; it is this that\n    sends the Christian minister to the bedside of the dying; it is this\n    that makes men toil and suffer for their fellow men, like him whom we\n    worship, who saw in his dying hour of the travail of his soul and was\n    satisfied.\n\n    And now we take one step further.  We have seen that there is a faith\n    which underlies all morality as well as religion, and that this faith\n    is the discipline of the soul, and without it the soul cannot grow in\n    morality or religion.  Let us suppose, for argument\u2019s sake, let us\n    suppose that for this yearning of the soul after an infinite\n    perfection, there is a corresponding reality\u2014an absolutely perfect, a\n    supremely righteous and true and holy Being.  And let us suppose that\n    it pleased him to make a revelation of himself to man; what should we\n    expect beforehand respecting that revelation?  Should we not expect\n    that it would follow the analogy of all other revelations to the\n    higher and better part of man\u2019s nature, and that inasmuch as morality\n    needs faith, so this manifestation of the Perfect One would come in\n    some way or other so as to call out the act of faith?  Should we not\n    expect that if this were the only absolutely perfect nature, it would\n    appear to our lower and inferior nature in some respects\n    unintelligible, in some respects mysterious, in some respects\n    contradictory?  For all mysteries, everything we cannot understand,\n    must come to our understanding in the shape of contradictory\n    propositions.  We must expect that this higher nature, this perfect\n    nature, should try our faith.  If it would be unreasonable to suppose\n    that an inferior man to himself should understand a man, so also it\n    would be unreasonable to suppose that our nature should not find some\n    difficulty in perfectly appreciating and understanding the absolutely\n    perfect nature of a supremely perfect Being.  Should we not expect\n    from analogy that we should have some more difficulty in\n    understanding God, than we have in understanding man?  We must expect\n    the same trial of our faith, the same probation and discipline of our\n    spiritual nature, when it is brought into contemplation of this\n    perfect nature.  Surely we should beforehand expect that this would\n    be the case; surely we might say that the God who was perfectly\n    understood could not be the true God.  When a man says, I want a God\n    that is not a mystery; I ask, Do you know a man who is without a\n    mystery?  Are you not a mystery yourself?  Is there one fellow being\n    whom you understand?  And yet you say, I have not faith in a God whom\n    I cannot understand.  Who can comprehend him who dwells in ineffable\n    light, in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning?  If\n    there be revelation from God at all, it must try the faith of man.\n    In the next place, we should expect that it would be a revelation of\n    a righteous person; because we know that the highest tendencies of\n    our nature at their best moments are ever to find a righteous person,\n    and our faith that has been cultivated in our brother man naturally\n    looks for a person.  Faith has ever been trusting in a person, in a\n    nature, and therefore we should expect beforehand that if there came\n    a revelation of this God, it would not come in the shape of a\n    revelation of doctrines or creeds, but that it would be a revelation\n    of a person.  We Christians say there is made to us a revelation of\n    the working of the Divine Will, and the purpose of the Divine\n    Designer, in the works of his hands.  We say the invisible things of\n    God are revealed by the things that are made.  There is that in the\n    world which testifies to a creator and designer.  This we believe\n    because there is that in us which instinctively, when it finds a work\n    of art, supposes an artist; and finding a work requiring design, has\n    belief in a designer.  We say, \u201cThe heavens declare the glory of God,\n    and the firmament shows his handy work.\u201d\n\n    But this revelation must follow the law of all other manifestations.\n    There must be a possibility of denying it; a discipline here, as in\n    the other case, in which faith is called into play; and therefore,\n    though the world reveals its maker, it does not demonstrate its\n    maker.  \u201cDay unto day is uttering speech, and night unto night\n    showeth forth knowledge;\u201d but the speech is like the speech for\n    things spiritual, the utterance is for all who choose to believe it.\n    If men will, they may put it aside; and some deny it in the face of\n    the world.  God has willed that there shall be nothing in this world\n    to demonstrate his existence; but it is now as of old, inasmuch as\n    men did not choose to retain God in their knowledge, he gave them\n    over to a reprobate mind.  There is a possibility, there is a\n    necessity, in the manifestation of God, that it should try the faith\n    of man.  Once more, we Christians believe not only that God has\n    revealed himself in his works, but also in his word, in his Incarnate\n    Word; that, in answer to the craving desire of the soul of man to\n    look upon human perfection, this earth has once been walked upon by a\n    perfect man; that in the story of the Gospels we possess that which\n    no imperfect souls could ever have imagined, the lineaments of a\n    perfect being.  I am not saying that it is so, but it is our belief.\n    But before we opened the Gospels, we should expect according to the\n    analogy of all other holy and righteous lives that we know of, that\n    it should not demonstrate itself, should not make itself an\n    impossibility to the sceptical mind to find fault with it, and should\n    reveal itself to those whose lives were like it, so that wisdom\n    should justify herself by her children.  We should not expect,\n    judging from analogy of what we see in the world, that this life\n    should in all respects silence all opposition, and be understood by\n    every mind that it came in contact with.  We should expect to hear\n    that he was despised and rejected of men, and some people besought\n    him to depart from their coasts.  If the revelation of a divine and\n    perfect nature is to follow the analogy of all revelations of a lower\n    degree of perfection, and all manifestations of inferior natures,\n    then we must expect the same law will govern this case as all others;\n    there will be a possibility of doubt, and a trial of faith, and to\n    those who conquer the doubt and exercise the faith, will the promise\n    be realised, \u201cBlessed are they that have not seen, and yet have\n    believed.\u201d  Ah, it was not with faith in a series of propositions\n    only, nor in a set of dogmas\u2014though we believe the propositions and\n    hold the dogmas, but in the light of faith in this person\u2014that the\n    disciples of the Perfect One went out to convert the world.  They did\n    not preach Christ\u2019s teaching, but Christ.\n\n    Did it ever occur to you to read the Acts of the Apostles? if so, you\n    will have seen how little of the words of Christ, how little of the\n    teachings of Christ, appears there.  When we read in the Acts, how\n    the Apostles went out to preach Christ, do we read that they gathered\n    the multitude in the forum?  Did they say, Listen to the morality of\n    the Gospels?  You will not find a quotation from the Sermon on the\n    Mount.  What did they do?  They gathered the multitude together, and\n    preached not the words of Christ, but Christ.  They said, Come and\n    believe in this man; it was the personality, it was the life and\n    death, and resurrection and ascension of him, that they preached.  It\n    was a person in whom they asked the people to believe; and the result\n    is this extraordinary and singular fact, that Christ is the only\n    teacher among men whose life is greater than his teaching.  All other\n    teachers have faded into insignificance in comparison with their\n    teaching.  Who cares about the life of Euclid? but everybody believes\n    in his teaching.  Men are fond of comparing Christ with Socrates.\n    Let us take it so.  Did any man ever hear a person say, I am dead\n    with Socrates; I am buried with Socrates; the life that I live is by\n    faith in Socrates?  Were such words ever heard of any heathen\n    teacher?  How comes it that men said this of Christ?  The faith of\n    the soul went out to the nature and work of Christ.  The faith of man\n    triumphed in the discovery of the perfect man.\n\n    Now we have reached the last point to which I have desired to bring\n    you in this series of sermons.  We have reached the historical fact,\n    as to which others will follow me who will take up the subject, and\n    who will show the evidence arising from history and prophecy.  My\n    task ends in removing the stumbling-blocks which would prevent your\n    coming to hear them.  It has been my part to lead you to the steps,\n    to the threshold of the temple.  We have found difficulties that have\n    kept many away from the entrance to the temple.  The first is the\n    belief that Christianity is opposed to Freethought.  And I have\n    endeavoured to show you that Christianity does not deny it, but\n    asserts it; that where Christianity does deny it, law and society\n    deny it.  The second difficulty is that of scepticism.  We have seen\n    that it is fatal to morality, and to all the higher forms of human\n    life, and that the sceptical understanding should submit to the soul.\n    Christianity only requires what morality has done.  I have answered\n    the objection that Christianity must appeal to faith, and must do so\n    because it cannot find demonstration.  Our answer is that it has all\n    the demonstration that is possible for the supernatural or for\n    history.  Christianity does make demands on faith, but it acts in\n    accordance with the analogy of human life; and Christianity in\n    claiming faith justifies its claim to be a religion.\n\n    Now the time comes to close this discourse, in which from my inmost\n    soul I have set the truth before you.  I will ask you in all\n    sincerity, Why do you suppose I am here?  Some may say because we are\n    priests and bigots.  To me, if I must put it so, it makes no\n    difference whether I come here or not.  Why do I come here?  Do you\n    really, honestly believe, that I have come here to deceive you?  Will\n    you not give me credit, that to the best of my ability and in all\n    earnestness and honesty, I have endeavoured to put before you the\n    reasons that seem to me sufficient for my belief?  Hear us, then, for\n    this reason if for no other, that we desire your souls for our Lord\n    and Master, that it is in his name we come among you, and because we\n    believe that Jesus is the Son of God and came down from heaven to\n    save men.  It is for this reason, and this only, that we are here to\n    speak to you, that we may with the help of God deepen your faith or\n    shake your unbelief.  We come with his word, that calls on you to\n    follow the higher and not the lower part of your nature.  \u201cBelieve in\n    the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be saved.\u201d  There are some who\n    don\u2019t believe in the first part of this message, there are few who do\n    not believe that men need to be saved, saved in this world, and saved\n    in the next, saved from some of the sin and misery in this world.  I\n    ask, is there no need of faith, is there no desire for the objects of\n    faith?  Among men have we not some need of faith?  The world is\n    growing old and sick at heart.  All the remedies that have been tried\n    for the evils of society, have been tried in vain.  Idol after idol\n    has been set up, has been rocked on its basis, and shivered.  The\n    gods of mankind have been taken away, and the cry of despondency has\n    been raised, We have no humanity.  Is there any evidence that there\n    shall be a perfection of humanity?  Is it from faith in men of\n    science?  Did science ever comfort the afflicted, or allay human\n    sorrows?  Faith in civilisation?  Can it remedy the evils that are\n    conquering society?  Civilisation now means the gathering of men in\n    great masses, to live the luxurious, the voluptuous life of great\n    towns; it means the weary, toilful, haggard life of others in these\n    same towns; it means the rich growing richer, and the poor growing\n    poorer every day.  Civilisation throws its dark shadows in its track.\n    Civilisation and science, have they arrested war, or softened the\n    heart of humanity, or prevented strife between nations?\n    Civilisation, science and art have invented mitrailleuses, and\n    invented destructive methods of wholesale murder.  Where will you\n    find in all these things a substitute for faith?  Some speak of the\n    millennium, and of the natural state of man being remedied in this\n    world.  We believe in the final perfection of man, but not in this\n    world.  We believe in the reign of righteousness, but it is in the\n    eternal world.  It is in that faith that we gain courage to look on\n    the scenes and sorrows that afflict humanity.  It is in the strength\n    of that faith that we look down on the graves of the departed, and\n    believe all is not dust of the earth; but we take up the song of\n    Christian triumph over death, and thank God for the message \u201cBlessed\n    are they that have not seen and yet have believed.\u201d\n\n\n\nTHIRD REPLY\nOF\nMR. C. BRADLAUGH.\nCHRISTIANITY AND FAITH.\n\n\nON Wednesday evening, April 5th, Mr. Bradlaugh delivered his third\nlecture on \u201cChristianity and Faith,\u201d before an audience which crowded\nevery corner of the Free Library, Norwich.  He said: In delivering the\nlast of this course of lectures, permit me to commence by expressing my\nregret, that those who differ from me consider it necessary to show their\ndisagreement in the manner in which it was expressed last night, on my\nleaving this room.  If it had been the conduct of some ignorant young\npersons only, I should not have deemed it right to waste one moment in\nbringing the matter before you, but there were full-grown and decently\ndressed persons, who were distributing religious tracts, who encouraged\nothers in following me, and using foul language.  I could not help\nfeeling how strong was the cause which I advocate, and how wretchedly\nweak the cause of my opponents, when such weapons were resorted to in\nlieu of fair reply.\n\nI now address myself to the last sermon of the Bishop of Peterborough,\nentitled \u201cChristianity and Faith.\u201d  The first portion of this was a\nrecapitulation of the principal arguments of the two previous sermons,\nand then he made a statement utterly opposed to the whole purpose of his\nsermons.  I will deal with the exact purport, if I do not read to you the\nprecise words he uttered.  He said, It is a waste of time to endeavour to\nsatisfy the consistent sceptic.  He said, We Christians, have absolutely\nnothing in common with the consistent sceptic.  If that be true, why did\nthe Bishop come to preach the course of sermons to win back sceptics to\nthe Church?  Why did the Dean and Chapter inaugurate the course of\nsermons, if it was, in their opinion, impossible to satisfy the sceptic?\nWhy did the Bishop say it was not only to strengthen the faith of those\nin the church, but to win back those who had left it?  If it be not\npossible to win them back, then the whole course of sermons was a mere\npretence, and I put it that the Bishop was, either consciously or\nunconsciously, misleading his hearers as to his real views, or that he\ndid not know what he was talking about.  The Bishop offered some advice\nto Christians for dealing with sceptics.  He said, Before you allow a\nsceptic to put your belief to the proof, ask him what is it that he\nbelieves.  That is what you have no right to do.  The sceptic does not\ncome to you at all to force his opinions on you.  You come to him when he\nis in the cradle, and by aid of early habit and repetition of phrases in\nlieu of thoughts, you put your religion into him, you train him to accept\nyour religion in school, you fashion his brain-power before it has\nstability for resistance.  He has a right to express his disbelief in\nyour religion, and you have no right to pretend to answer him with a mere\nWhat do you believe?  There is no equality in the two positions; religion\nis law-protected, scepticism is law-condemned; and the Bishop has no\nright to take such ground: a sceptic\u2019s ignorance would be no evidence of\na believer\u2019s knowledge.  But give the Bishop the full benefit of the\nground, and what does it amount to except that, after the Dean and\nChapter had made a parade of their desire to answer infidelity, declaring\nthat they would have the most competent man, this most competent man is\nobliged to say, The only way I advise you to meet modern infidelity is by\nadmitting in effect, that you can do no more for your faith than to ask\nthe infidel, What do you believe?  I dismiss this; it is of so trifling a\ncharacter that if it had not formed a prominent part of the Bishop\u2019s\nsermon, it would not have been worth noticing.  The Bishop, in dealing\nwith Christianity and Faith, said that morality is built on faith, and\nthat in order to be moral and have a code of morality, we must exercise\nan act of faith, and believe in our higher and better nature.  What is\nour better nature, judging by the Churchman\u2019s standard?  The Articles of\nthe Church of England declare that our nature is always lusting to do\nevil.  The Litany says that each man is always trying to do wickedly, and\nentreats the Lord to deliver us from the lusts of the flesh.  How then\ncan we be asked to trust in a higher or better nature, which the Church\ndeclares is a nature fallen, depraved, and constantly tending to evil?\nThe doctrine of the Bible is that there is none who does good, that man\u2019s\nthoughts are evil continually.  It is sufficient for me to quote the\nLitany in which the Bishop took part before his sermon, which said that\nwe are all miserable sinners, and prayed God to be merciful to us.  How\ncan we rise to our higher and better nature, if the existence of that\nhigher and better nature be authoritatively denied?  The Bishop says\nthere is an eternal opposition in our nature, between what he calls the\nsceptical understanding and the spiritual faculty, between the mind which\nwe share with the animal and \u201cthe soul, which we Christians believe we\nspecially derive from God.\u201d\n\nLet us clear away a little difficulty here.  By mind I mean the totality\nof cerebral ability and its results in activity, and I deny that we share\nmind with any other animal at all.  Each animal has the mind special and\npeculiar to its own organisation; and diverse races of men have diverse\ncharacters and degrees of mind, limited by, and resulting from, their\norganisation and its development.  But it is the Bible, and not the\nsceptic, that says the mind of man and the minds of all other animals are\non a level.  The Bishop says that the sceptic would degrade man to the\nlevel of the beast.  You have only to take the Bible and you will read:\n\n    \u201cI said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that\n    God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves\n    are beasts.  For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth\n    beasts; even one thing befalleth them . . . so that a man hath no\n    pre-eminence above a beast.\u201d\n\nIf the doctrine is degrading, it is the Bible that teaches the doctrine,\nand not the sceptic.  Freethinkers never contend for anything of the\nkind.  On the contrary, we say that the superiority of the intellect is\ndistinctly marked in its development, that not only are men mentally\nsuperior to all other animals, but that some races of men are vastly\nsuperior to others.  What does the Bishop mean by opposition between mind\nand soul?  He did not trouble to give any evidence of the existence of\nwhat he calls soul as apart from mind.  I challenge any one who may\nfollow me to give me any evidence of any sort of existence apart from\nmind, that we can call soul.  The Bishop said that there is a constant\nopposition between the intellectual faculty, the mind which we share in\ncommon with the beast, and the spiritual soul.  I deny that the Bishop\nadvanced the slightest proof of\u2014or gave any clue to\u2014any such soul.  I\ndeny that it is possible for any man to conceive the existence of two\nseparate existences in man: one, mind; the other, soul.  As to the\nopposition between them, the Bishop says that God created man\u2019s\nintellectual faculties, and that he also endowed man with a soul; and\nthat the soul is hostile to the mind; and that the mind is low and\ngrovelling, always in hostility to the soul.  He thus makes God put into\nman a degrading nature, always hostile to religion, and in a constant\nstruggle with the soul.  No more degrading supposition can be made\nrespecting God, who is thus pictured as a malicious fiend; and if the\nBishop had intended to make infidels, he could not have contrived more\neffectual means than the preaching this doctrine.\n\nThe Bishop, after dealing with the manner in which the spiritual part of\nour nature overcomes what he calls the animal, the intellectual or mental\npart of our nature\u2014for he used all these words to describe the natural\nman at war with the spiritual man\u2014says that the manner in which the\nspiritual conquers the other, is only by the unconscious training of the\nman in Christian society.  The Bishop says that God has made many\nmillions of men, and given them minds in opposition to their souls, that\nthese minds are strong enough to lead men to evil, and they cannot be\nbrought to God, unless in Christian society; so that the Buddhists, the\nBrahmins, the Mohammedans, and men of all other persuasions must\nnecessarily be damned, because, having no Christian society, there is not\namongst them the means of overcoming this natural mind.  This is a pretty\nspecimen of Christian teaching.  But the Bishop is not even content with\nthis.  Having told us that Christianity is founded on an act of faith,\nand that faith is trust, he tells us that he believes that we are better,\nnobler, than our understanding would persuade us we are.  Having told us\nthat we have a wicked nature, a depraved mind in conflict with the\nspirit, he says that our morality is also to be founded on an act of\nfaith, that we are really better and nobler that we suppose.  Where do we\nfind the evidence to justify this act of faith?  We are, according to the\nBishop and his Church, all miserable sinners, nor can we do good without\nthe help of God.  There is that subtle serpent the devil constantly\nworking in us, and our nature is in league against God.  The Bishop says\nthe only way to overcome this horrid nature is by the training of man in\nChristian society, and yet two minutes after, he tries to persuade us\nthat we are better, nobler than he and his church say we are.  He says,\nin fact, we are all very wicked.  Adam ate an apple 6,000 years ago, and\nwe are, in consequence, all degraded and depraved; yet we are really\nnothing of the kind.  The Bishop stated that the effect of belief in our\nnobler, better nature is the improvement of our character, and it is by\nbelieving in what is better and nobler, and in the possibility of being\nbetter and nobler, that we grow better.  _Ergo_, so long as men believe\nthey are born in a state of natural depravity, and that of themselves\nthey cannot do good, so long as the mass of men believe that those are\ndepraved to damnation who cannot get trained in Christian society, so\nlong as they believe that millions of men will be lost because they live\nwithout even hearing of Christ at all, so long they must be degraded by\nthat belief.  They must believe that God made the majority of mankind for\ndamnation and the minority for salvation; their faith must make\nthemselves into the incarnations of vileness and God into an almighty\nfiend.\n\nThe Bishop, not content with such subtle logic, goes on to illustrations\ndrawn from the Bible, and speaks of the temptation of Jesus in the\nwilderness.  He said there is a moral to be drawn from this temptation\nstory, because Jesus is said to have been with the wild beasts, and there\nwas a deep meaning in this saying.  I do read the Gospels sometimes, and\ntherefore puzzled myself about these wild beasts, not having read much of\nthem.  I remembered the Jesus-God being taken up a high mountain and\nshown all the kingdoms of the earth, as a possible bribe if he would\nworship his own creature the devil.  I remembered his being taken up to a\npinnacle of the temple and invited to cast himself down; but I did not\nremember, nor do I now remember, anything about wild beasts, save a few\nwords in the Gospel of Mark, and it is not even there shown that these\nwild beasts had anything to do with the Lord\u2019s temptation.  Whether the\nBishop has a special version of his own I do not know.\n\nAnother point of the Bishop was, that when lower natures have to\ncontemplate higher natures, there is some mystery or contradiction to the\nlower natures.  The man who tries to predetermine your decision on an\nalleged matter of fact, by declaring that it is too mysterious for you to\nunderstand, and that being mysterious, you must accept it as he explains\nit, is a juggler with his intellect, and takes a position to which he has\nno right.  The Bishop was good enough to talk of our degrading creed.\nLet him talk of his own degrading creed.  Our creed has not invented a\nbottomless pit filled to its brink with brimstone for everlasting\ntorture, nor has it manufactured a devil more mighty than God to destroy\nGod\u2019s work.  Our degrading creed, at any rate, does not despair of human\nkind, nor tell us that we should be poor here in order to be rich\nhereafter, and be miserable here that we may be happy bye and bye, when\nthe life-ability for happiness is entirely gone.  We don\u2019t despair of\nhuman kind, we assert the improvability of the human race and we say if\nwe make this life as good as we can, we shall not be affrighted from our\ntask by any declaration that we may be unhappy hereafter.\n\nBut the Bishop went further, and carrying the war into our camp, he\ndeclared that it was in consequence of faith in Christ that men did\nChristian work, and he spoke of men doing good work among the sick, and\npoor, and ignorant, and wretched, day by day because they were\nChristians.  Does he mean to say that Mohammedans, and Buddhists, and\nBrahmins have amongst them no kindly work for one another?  Does he mean\nto say that men cannot be human unless they have the special Christian\u2019s\ncreed?  But this Christian work has been going on for 1800 years, so at\nleast the Bishop says.  Let us turn the pages of its history over and\nread what it has really done.  When Christianity was cradled in the\nworld, Italy and Greece had their poets, painters, sculptors, men of\nliterary fame, orators, comedians, and tragedians.  Wait for a century or\ntwo till your much-vaunted Christianity has, by the aid of forgery,\nfraud, and manufactured miracle, acquired some force.  Wait till the\npriests, crushing out all other learning, have become the sole literary\npower in Europe.  Did they teach the people?  No, they kept the people\nignorant.  (A voice, \u201cNo.\u201d)  If any one says no, I will show century\nafter century what Christianity has been.  Your first century I will not\ntrouble with until you show me its actual pages; your second and third\ncenturies are crowded with the fabrication of forged evidences, the\ncanonisation of pretended saints; your fourth century shows the same\nwork, and marks also the quarrels commencing amongst yourselves for the\nspoils now large enough to excite good Christians against each other; in\nthe fifth century Salvian one of your own presbyters, said the Christian\nChurch had become such a sink of vice, that it was a species of sanctity\nfor any one to be a little less vicious than the others.  He says of his\nfellow Christians that they lie and cheat, are adulterers and murderers;\nthat it is easier to find a Christian guilty of all these crimes than one\nguilty of none.  Take the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth\ncenturies of Christianity, when infidelity was almost powerless, before\nVoltaire lived, before Spinosa wrote, before Bruno trod Europe round, and\nyou have in these centuries, when Christianity was the most powerful, the\ndark ages of this European world, when all literature was stopped, all\nphilosophy was hindered, all science manacled by the Church.  What was\nthe Christian work in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries,\nwhen Christians marched to the Holy Land?  Let the plundered and\nmiserable countries tell; let burned villages and ravished women show the\nway in which the soldiers of the Cross manifested their religion even to\ntheir fellow Christians.  Let these pages of blood and rapine be read for\nChristian work.  Where then was liberty or popular rights?  When the\nking, the barons, and the priests were in power, did Christianity help\nthe people to get liberty?  It is only within the last 300 years, since\nthe rise of heresy in Europe, that the people have gained any freedom.\nThe Church of England may say, This is not our work; but it is a branch\nof the Church of Rome, and ought not to repudiate the trunk it grew from.\nNay, it has not even the same right to plead to us as the Church of Rome.\nThe Church of Rome is consistent, and says to its followers, You on\nreligion are unable to think, we will and we do think for you.  The\nChurch of England says, You have a right to think for yourselves, but\ndamns you if you think differently from the Church.  You say that\nhospitals are the fruits of Christianity.  Where, save in the\nmonasteries, were the hospitals for 1500 years?  You boast of schools.\nWhere were these at all for 1500 years?  There were even in this country\nnone worthy of the name for little children till Robert Owen set his\nexample at New Lanark.  You talk of going into the back streets, but is\nit not true that squalor, misery, and vice, crowd the back streets\nbecause the Bishops and the English Church have taken so much from the\npeople, and have so hindered the populace from self-improvement, that\nthey have only back streets themselves to live in, while they build\npalaces for the king, and magnificent structures for the Church?  I\nattack the Church of England because the Church has challenged me.  I\nattack it as a leech that for centuries has sucked the life-blood out of\nthe people, and which, with the power to aid and help civilisation, has\ndone nothing but retard it.\n\nThe Bishop said, Let us suppose the existence of a supremely righteous,\ntrue, and holy being; let us suppose a revelation from such a being; what\ndo you suppose such a revelation should be like? and he urged that the\nChristian possessed such a revelation as groundwork for his faith.  I\nhold the supposed revelation in my hand.  What does it reveal?  That God\nmade man and woman in the same day, but that he made them separately, the\nman long before the woman.  That God gave them the fruit of every tree\nfor food, but prohibited them from eating the fruit of one tree, and\nnever intended that of another to be eaten by them; that he placed the\nman and woman in a garden within reach of the tree whose fruit they were\nforbidden to eat on pain of death, but the fruit of which was made good\nfor food and pleasant to the eyes; that God made a serpent more subtle\nthan all the beasts of the field; that this serpent tempted Eve, and she\nate the forbidden fruit, and gave to the man who ate also, and thus both\nfell; that God, who had foreseen and predestined all this terrible farce,\ncursed for Adam\u2019s sake all human kind, millions being thus involved in\nAdam\u2019s ruin.  That all this was the work of an all-wise and all-good God,\nwith whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning.  This God, who is not\na man that he can repent, afterwards repented that he had made man, and,\nalthough not subject to passions, it grieved him at his heart, and he\nresolved to destroy all mankind.  That, man\u2019s thoughts being wicked, this\nGod of love and forgiveness, of long suffering and loving kindness,\ndestroyed not only the full-grown man and woman, but also the little\nchild as yet without thought.  Man\u2019s thoughts being wicked, God drowned\nthe whole world, including bird, beast, and creeping thing.  Did you ever\npicture to yourselves this story of the flood?  Just paint in imagination\na mother with her child in her arms, wearily toiling up some hill,\nslippery with the falling waters.  See her fleeing from the waves coming\nswift behind, like ravenous wolves, with gaping mouths greedy for her\nlife.  Imagine her cry to heaven for mercy, not for herself alone, not so\nmuch for herself, but for her child, a child, which sucking at her\nbreast, as yet knows no sin.  Then picture your all-loving and merciful\nGod shutting his ears to her wild shrieks for mercy, and drowning her and\nher babe in the flood.\n\nDid you ever picture to yourselves the scene when, the world being again\npeopled, its inhabitants intended to build a tower that would reach to\nheaven, and God, the all-wise, hearing of it in heaven, where he then\nresided, came down to earth to see whether the rumour was true, and\nfinding that it was, confounded the language of men?  Do you recollect\nhow God chose Abraham\u2014and I don\u2019t deny that he was worth choosing, a man\nwho was just 75 years old when he had lived 135 years\u2014how God, the\ninfinite and omnipresent, came down from heaven and told Abraham that in\nhis seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed; and that\nAbraham, though so old that his body was \u201cas good as dead,\u201d should have a\nson in his old age?  Have you read how God, who cannot lie, with a\ncovenant and an oath promised a certain land to Abraham, and how he never\ngave him \u201cso much as to set his foot on?\u201d  Have you read how Sarah, it\nhaving ceased to be with her after the manner of women, laughed when God\nmade the promise of a son; how God asked why she laughed; and how Sarah,\nwhose faith is praised, denied to God\u2019s very face that she had laughed at\nall?  Have you read that God said, I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and\nof Jacob; that Jacob proved to be a knave and a liar; that Jacob made a\nconditional bargain with the Almighty God, that if the Lord would do\ncertain things for him, then the Lord should be his God?  Have you read\nhow God promised to protect Abraham\u2019s children, and how they became\nslaves in Egypt, and how he left them to be oppressed?  Have you read\nhow, hearing their cries, God took them out of Egypt, amongst a number of\nnations who had committed no crime against the Jews, but were created by\nGod to be destroyed by his chosen people?  Have you traced the track of\nblood and murder from Egypt to Palestine?  Have you read how God gave the\nIsraelites the right to make war on any city, and if the inhabitants made\npeace, then they were tributaries, but if not \u201cI, the Lord God, will\ndeliver them into thy hands; thou shalt smite them utterly, and leave\nalive nothing that breatheth?\u201d\n\nI say that this is not a revelation of love; it is the revelation, the\noutgrowth of the instincts, of a barbarous and brutal people.  My Lord\nBishop, not content with relying on this revelation, after telling us\nthat the existence of a Deity cannot be demonstrated, seeks to supply us\nwith a demonstration by a vague reference to the argument from design.\nHe says that there are in the universe evidences of a designer.  This\nargument from design is a most dangerous one, for the existence of stings\nand fangs may be evidences of a designing malevolence; but permit me to\ndismiss the argument with a quotation from Sir William Hamilton.  He\nsays:\n\n    \u201cWe are utterly unable to conceive that it is possible for the\n    complement of existence to have been either increased or diminished.\n    We cannot, on the one hand, conceive of nothing becoming something,\n    or on the other hand, of something becoming nothing.\u201d\n\nI challenge the Lord Bishop to show that it is possible to imagine any\ntime when the whole of the universe did not exist.  Creation! who is it\nthat really believes in creation?  Do any of you?  Let us fathom the\ndepths of the past as far back as we will, there is still the great\nimpenetrable beyond.  No man, even in thought, can annihilate existence,\nor bring to light a first evolution of nature, and say, Here the universe\nbegan.  There can be no origination of the universe conceivable by the\nhuman mind.  But suppose you could in thought annihilate the universe.\nYou say that God is unchangeable.  Was there a moment when he began to\ncreate?  Then is not that an assumption of an act of change?  I will not\nstop to argue on this point.  The bishop did not on this head condescend\nto argue at all.  His third sermon was only a torrent of ably delivered\nwords, and however fitting it might be for those whose faith was firm, it\nwas useless for drawing to the Church those without faith.  The Bishop\nsays, Our faith in Christ is confirmed by the story of his life as\nrecorded by his disciples.  He says that whether the Gospel of John is\ntrue or untrue, it contains the delineation of a perfect being.  He spoke\nof Christ as being better than any man the world has yet seen, as the\nonly teacher whose life was better than his teaching.  What is the\nhistory of his life?  Jesus was born without a father.  His mother\u2019s\nhusband had two fathers.  Jesus was descended from David, through Joseph,\nwho was not his father.  He was born in the reign of Herod, but was not\nborn till after the death of Herod.  Jesus passed his early life in\nEgypt, but he was during the same time in Jud\u00e6a.  He was baptised by\nJohn, who knew him before the baptism, but who did not know him till he\nhad been baptised.  Jesus was taken into the wilderness, where he fasted\nforty days, but he was during part of the same time at a marriage feast\nin Cana of Galilee.  During the forty days\u2019 fasting, the devil took Jesus\nto the top of a high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the\nworld, and said, All these will I give thee, it thou wilt fall down and\nworship me.  Yet this Jesus was, as the Bishop teaches, very God of very\nGod; and if so, could not be tempted with an offer of his own creation by\nhis own creature; and the temptation must have been a sham.  Jesus is\nsaid to have worked miracles, but the people who had the opportunity of\nseeing them never believed in them or him.  He fed 5,000 persons with\nfive loaves and a few fishes, and yet his own disciples\u2014who, he promised,\nshould sit on twelve thrones, judging the tribes of Israel\u2014when many\npersons had to be fed at another time, wondered how it was to be done.\nJesus was betrayed by Judas with a kiss; but he was not so betrayed, for\nwhen the armed men came to Jesus he asked them, Whom seek ye? and they\nanswered, Jesus of Nazareth; he said, I am he.  Jesus was crucified early\nin the morning, and yet at noon he was still on his trial.  Jesus was\nthree days and three nights in the grave; but he was crucified on Friday,\nhis body was taken down from the cross on Friday evening, and it must\nhave been late on Friday evening when he was put into the sepulchre; the\nfirst people who looked into it on Saturday night, as it began to dawn\ntowards Sunday morning, found that the body was gone; so that from Friday\nnight till Sunday morning, made three days and three nights!  Jesus\nappeared to two of his disciples, and they did not know him; he walked\nwith them till the evening, and then they knew him.  When it was daylight\nthey did not know him, but when it was dark then they knew him.  While\nthey could see him, they did not know him; when they knew him, they could\nnot see him.  Such is the story of Jesus.  It is not true that his life\nwas better than that of any other man.\n\nI will take a noble life, and put it against the life of Jesus, the life\nof the Infidel Bruno against the life of your God Jesus.  Bruno was born\nnear Naples, and trained as a monk.  Leaving his ministry, to teach\npeople in their vulgar tongue, he was driven out of Italy.  Going to\nSwitzerland, bigotry was too strong, and he was driven thence.  At Paris\nhe debated with the doctors of the Sorbonne, until arguments failing\nthem, they drove him away with threats of the faggot.  From Paris he went\nto England, there debating at Oxford and Cambridge; thence to Germany;\nand thence back to Italy, where a prison awaited him, as a full\nrefutation of his heresies, where he was confined in a dungeon for eleven\nyears, where the rack was the answer to his arguments, and where he at\nlast died, a gallant martyr at the stake.  He died fearlessly confronting\nhis enemies, having truly told them that they had more fear in condemning\nhim to be burned alive, than he had in being condemned.\n\nJesus was God, and could not die; but if your Bible be true, his last\nwords were a despairing cry, \u201cMy God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?\u201d\n\nCompare these two men in their lives and their deaths, and see which was\nthe nobler and the braver.  Jesus did not come to save the world.  He\nsaid, I am sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.  Jesus told his\ndisciples not to go to the Gentiles, be forbade them even to visit the\nSamaritans, and it was not till after his resurrection that he said, Go\nye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.  I have\nspoken in language which you may think unfitting for such a theme.  Do\nyou believe the Bishop, that Jesus died to save all mankind?  Do you\nbelieve the doctrine, that only those who have faith in Jesus can be\nsaved?  What is to become of those who have never heard his name?  Do you\nbelieve that all the Chinese will be damned?  If you believe this, what\nmust you think of God?  If you believe that the Chinese will be pardoned,\nbecause they cannot be expected to believe in Jesus of whom they have not\nheard, how can you be so wicked as to send them Bibles and missionaries,\nwhich may bring them to damnation?  I plead here for what some call\ninfidelity, for what some call heresy.  I plead for the rights of\nhumanity.  I plead against a system which, to my mind, has greatly\nhindered the education of the world, and impeded its improvement; and if\nyou tell me that my language is coarse and blasphemous, I will ask you in\nwhat language do your missionaries describe the Mohammedan and his Koran,\nthe Brahmin and his Vedas?  You call me an Infidel; what are you?  You\ndisbelieve all the religions of the world save one, I disbelieve that one\nalso; my disbelief is but one degree greater than yours.\n\nA Bishop comes now in the nave of the Cathedral, to answer modern\nInfidelity.  Why does modern Infidelity exist?  Why has Infidelity grown?\nIt has grown because the Church has grown fat and the people lean.  It\nhas grown because Convocation quibbles over rites and formularies,\ninstead of devising schemes for the redemption of mankind from ignorance;\nbecause the Church said nothing while back streets were built for the\npoor, and grand abbeys and cathedrals for the priest.  The rich grow\nricher and the poor grow poorer, while the Church pretends to regard as a\nblessing the poverty she carefully avoids.  The Church pretends to have\nthe authority to speak in the name of God, and the Bishop, on that last\nevening, prayed for my conversion.  You see the effect of that prayer in\nthese lectures.  Clergymen threw down the gauntlet, and it has been taken\nup.  We have been attacked, and we will compel the Church to afford us a\nhearing.  You have now no right to say that we are too insignificant,\nafter you have yourselves challenged us to the fray.  You must not\npretend that modern Infidelity is too blasphemous; you have undertaken to\nconfute it by competent persons.  I appeal to Christians of every sect\nfor one thing only; I don\u2019t ask you to give me your faith, but to\nremember that amid the hundreds of religions with innumerable\nantagonistic Churches and Chapels, that amid the multiplicity of error,\nyou may be wrong.  We do not pretend to be perfect thinkers, nor thinkers\nfree from error; we claim only to be earnest thinkers, desiring to be set\nright where wrong.  I deny the right of any Church to pretend to be the\nonly true Church.  I take the right to utter my thoughts.  The Church of\nEngland is a rotten Church, a falling Church, a Church divided against\nitself, a Church with Colensos and Voyseys, as against Puseys and\nMackonochies, a Church which by the admission of her own divines is\nillogical, which cannot defend her Thirty-nine Articles, nor her\nAthanasian Creed.\n\nI have finished these lectures, and I ask those who intend to follow me\nto remember that Freethought has done something since the days of\nSpinoza, Carapanella, and Bruno.  It is only since Freethinkers began to\nfight against the Church that there has been any real popular progress\nmade by you Liberals.  The Church has not helped you at all.  It has by\nits bench of bishops hindered your reforms as long as it could, and\nmaintained tithes and exactions and bad laws till humanity rebelled\nagainst the obstruction.  Whether right or wrong, we have at least done\nsomething to make the world better worth living in.  (Applause.)\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n  Printed by Austin & Co., 17 Johnson\u2019s Court, Fleet Street, London E.C.\n\n\n\n\nWORKS PUBLISHED BY AUSTIN & CO.\n17, _Johnson\u2019s Court_, _Fleet Street_.\n\nThe Rights of Man.  By Thomas Paine                                 1      3\nCommon Sense, being an Address to the Inhabitants of America        0      6\non several interesting subjects.  By Thomas Paine\nAn Address to the People of France on the Abolition of              0      2\nRoyalty.  By Thomas Paine.  To which are added several\ninteresting extracts on the subject of the French Revolution\nThe Life of Paine.  By the Editor of the \u201cNational.\u201d                0      6\nA Letter on the Affairs of North America, addressed to the          0      6\nAbbe Raynal.  By Thomas Paine\nThe Age of Reason.  Being an Investigation of True and              1      0\nFabulous Theology.  By Thomas Paine.  With an Essay on his\nCharacter and Services, by G. J. Holyoake.  New and Improved\nEdition, post free\nChristian Mysteries; a Dialogue between a Christian                 0      2\nMissionary and a Chinese Mandarin, wherein the Mysteries of\nthe Christian Religion are set forth: the design of which is,\nto stimulate an Inquiry after Truth, and to promote a\nKnowledge of Christianity\nAn Address on Free Inquiry: on Fear as a Motive of Action.          0      2\nBy Robert Dale Owen\nA Lecture on Consistency.  By Robert Dale Owen                      0      2\nGalileo and the Inquisition.  By Robert Dale Owen                   0      2\nThe Value of Biography in the Formation of Character.  By G.        0      2\nJ. Holyoake\nHume\u2019s Essay on Miracles                                            0      2\nHoly Scriptures Analysed.  By Robert Cooper                         0      8\nThomas Cooper\u2019s Eight Letters to the Young Men of the               0      6\nWorkings Classes\nWat Tyler.  A Dramatic Poem in three Acts.  By Robt. Southey        0      2\nAn Inquiry concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on       5      0\nMorals and Happiness.  By William Godwin.  Two vols in one,\ncloth lettered\nMoral Physiology: a Brief and Plain Treatise on the                 0      6\nPopulation Question.  By Robert Dale Owen\nFruits of Philosophy: or the Private Companion of Young             0      6\nMarried People.  By Charles Knowlton, M.D.\nA Brief Sketch of the Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley                  0      2\nCerebral Physiology and Materialism.  An address delivered to       0      4\nthe Phrenological Association in 1842 by W. C. Engledue, M.D.\nWith a letter from Dr. Elliotson, on Mesmeric Phrenology and\nMaterialism\nThe Vision of Judgment, by Lord Byron (under the title of           0      3\nQuevedo Redivivus), suggested by the composition so entitled\nby the author of \u201cWat Tyler\u201d\nThe Doubts of Infidels; or queries relative to Scriptural           0      3\nInconsistencies and Contradictions.  With all the\nContradictory passages of the Bible carefully given\nThe Speech of Robert Emmett, Esq., as delivered in the              0      1\nSessions House, Dublin, before Lord Norbury, on being found\nguilty of high treason in 1803\nThe Masque of Anarchy, to which are added \u201cQueen Liberty,\u201d          0      3\nand song \u201cTo the Men of England.\u201d  By P. B. Shelley.  With a\npreface by Leigh Hunt\nModern Slavery.  By the Abb\u00e9 de Lamennais.  With a few notes        0      4\nThe Life and Character of Richard Carlile.  By G. J. Holyoake       0      6","title":"Christianity in relation to Freethought, Scepticism, and Faith: Three discourses by the Bishop of Peterborough with special replies by Mr. C. Bradlaugh","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":32509}