CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 J 
 
Cornell Unlverstty Library 
 arW37564 
 
 The permanence of Chrlstianltv : 
 
 3 1924 031 786 670 
 olln.anx 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031786670 
 
The Permanence of Christianity 
 
 His ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono. 
 
The Permanence of 
 Christianity 
 
 CONSIDERED IN EIGHT LECTURES 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN THE 
 
 YEAR MDCCCLXXII 
 
 (Dn ttje iFounliation of tfie late lK,eii, 3ol)n Bampton, 9^,a. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN RICHARD TURNER EATON, M.A. 
 
 LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF MERTON COLLEGE ; RECTOR OF LAPWORTH, WARWICKSHIRE ; 
 HONORARY CANON OF WORCESTER CATHEDRAL. 
 
 POTT, YOUNG, & CO. 
 
 COOPER UNION, FOURTH AVENUE 
 
 MDCCCLXXIII 
 
' ' Etiam quae pro Religione dicimus, cum grandi metu et disciplina 
 dicere debemus." — Hil. de Trin. ccvii. 
 
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND 
 
 HENRY 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER 
 THESE LECTURES ARE 
 
 DcBicateB 
 
 WITH SINCERE RESPECT. 
 
EXTEACT 
 
 FEOM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 
 
 OP THE LATE 
 
 EEV. JOHN BAMPTON, 
 CANON OF SALISBURY. 
 
 " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the 
 
 " Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of 
 " Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the 
 " said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and 
 " purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I vyUl and 
 " appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of 
 " Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all the 
 " rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, repa- 
 " rations, and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the 
 " remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture 
 " Sermons, to be established for ever in the said University, 
 " and to be performed in the manner follovnng : 
 
 " I direct and appoint, that, upon the First Tuesday in 
 "Easter Term, a Lecturer may be yearly chosen by the 
 "Heads of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room 
 " adjoining to the Printing-House, between the hours of 
 " ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach 
 " eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year follovying, at 
 " St. Mary's in Oxford, between the commencement of the 
 " last month in Lent Term, and the end of the third week 
 " in Act Term. 
 
EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTON'S WILL. 
 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture 
 " Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following sub- 
 "jects — to confirm and establish the Christian faith, and to 
 " confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine 
 "authority of the holy Scriptures — upon the authority of 
 "the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and 
 " practice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of oui- 
 " Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the 
 " Holy Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as 
 " comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creed. 
 
 "Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity 
 " Lecture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months 
 " after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the 
 " Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of 
 " every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of 
 " Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ; 
 " and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the 
 " revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the 
 " Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be 
 " paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. 
 " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quah- 
 " fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath 
 " taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two 
 "Universities of Oxford or Cambridge; and that the same 
 "person shall never preach the Divmity Lecture Sermons 
 " twice." 
 
PREFACE 
 
 T am; aware that all advocacy of Revealed Truth, 
 which does not proceed from the pen of a lay- 
 man, will in some quarters, at least, be held to be 
 but prejudiced and valueless. I have accordingly 
 made greater use throughout this work of the state- 
 ments and testimony of adversaries than of friends 
 to the cause of Christianity. To these I have en- 
 deavoured to do justice, " setting down nought in 
 malice ; " but rather striving to make my own the 
 honest professions of an honoured name in our 
 Church ; whose words, and not my own, I desire 
 may linger in the mind of the reader of these 
 pages. " No man may justly blame me for honour- 
 " ing my spiritual mother, the Church of Eng- 
 " land, in whose womb I was conceived, at whose 
 " breasts I was nourished, and in whose bosom I 
 " hope to die. Bees, by the instinct of nature, do 
 " love their hives, and birds their nests. But, 
 " Grod is my witness, that according to my utter- 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 " most talent and poor understanding, I have en- 
 " deavoured to set down the naked Truth impar- 
 " tially, without either favour or prejudice, the 
 " two capital enemies of right judgment. The one 
 " of which, like a false mirrour, doth represent 
 " things fairer and straighter than they are ; the 
 " other, like the tongue infected with choler, makes 
 " the sweetest meats to taste bitter. My desire 
 " hath been to have Truth for my chiefest friend, 
 " and no enemy but error." — Bramhall {yVorhs, 
 II. 21). 
 
 I should be ungrateful, were I not here to ac- 
 knowledge my obligations to the assistance and 
 sympathy of many old and valued friends, more 
 especially to the Rev. William Ince, Sub-Rector 
 and Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford; and to Dr. 
 George RoUeston, Fellow of Merton College, and 
 Linacre Professor of Physiology in the University 
 of Oxford. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION -a 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PERMANENCE A TEST OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS i 
 
 LECTURE IL 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY CON- 
 
 SIDERED 53 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY CON- 
 SIDERED Ill 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY CON- 
 SIDERED 159 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY CON- 
 SIDERED 20s 
 
 LECTURE VL 
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF CHRISTIANITY INFERRED FROM THE 
 CHARACTER OF ITS INFLUENCE 251 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF CHRISTIANITY INFERRED FROM THE 
 
 CHARACTER OF ITS INFLUENCE 295 
 
 LECTURE VIIL 
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF CHRISTIANITY INFERRED FROM ITS 
 MISSIONARY CHARACTER AND PRESENT STANDING. . . 337 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 T N the interval between the delivery of these 
 *- Lectures and their publication a volume has ap- 
 peared from the pen of the veteran, D. F. Strauss, 
 which has already run through four editions/ No 
 work could better illustrate the double line of 
 attack to which Christian belief is at this time 
 exposed. Commencing with the inquiry, — " Are 
 we still Christians ? " and taking the Apostles' 
 Creed as his standard of orthodoxy,^ the writer 
 seeks to show in detail not only the unreality of 
 a belief in the Holy Spirit; not only the unhis- 
 torical character of all that is Divine in the Person 
 and Life of Jesus Christ ; but further, the need- 
 lessness and logical imperfection of the very idea 
 of a Creator of the Universe.* That Universe, he 
 holds, is itself both the term of human inquiry and 
 the basis of all reality. In it and in its manifold 
 developments must be sought the ground of all 
 
 ' Dei^aUe, und der neue GlAule. Vierte Auflage. Bonn, 1873. 
 ^ See §§ 5-13. 
 
 ^ See more particularly §§ 5, 36, 38. It was a saying of Kant, " Give 
 mo Matter ; and I will show you how a world might from it arise." 
 
xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 existence,^ the secret of life, the measure of eter- 
 nity and of infinity, the limitations of immortality. 
 Duty is resolved into resignation to the invariable 
 Laws of Nature, and into the submission of indi- 
 vidual desires to the general good of the race or 
 species.^ Eeligion, if indeed it can be said to exist, 
 is explained to be a sentiment of awe and admiration 
 at the grandeur of that Universe,^ of which the par- 
 ticular soul, if that can be called soul, which is so 
 entirely one with the body, forms a minute fraction. 
 Such are the results of a criticism of forty years, 
 hitherto supposed to be directed to the examina- 
 tion of the historical documents relating to the 
 Life of Christ. It has closed in landing the critic 
 not in the position of the Unitarian ; who denies, 
 indeed, the cardinal doctrine of our Lord's Divinity, 
 
 ' " Im Laufe unsrer weiteren BetrachtuDg bestimmte sich iins das- 
 selbe naher dahin, dass es in's Unendliche bewegter Stoff sei, der duich 
 Scheidung und Mischung sich zu immer hohern Fonnen tind Functionen 
 steigert, wahrend er durch Ausbildung, Eiickbildung, und Neubildun'' 
 einen ewigen Kreis beschreibt."— Strauss, p. 226. See also 228. ° 
 
 2 " Alles sittliche Handeln des Mensohen, moohte ich sagen, ist ein 
 Sichbestimmen des Binzelnen naoh der Idee der Grattung."— i^., 'pp. 241 
 and 243. Strauss of course denies free-will, p. 252. 
 
 'See p. 244. "Das religiose Gebiet in der " menschlichen Seele 
 gleicht dem Gebiete der Eothhaute in Amerika, das, man ma<T es 
 beklagen oder misbiUigen so viel man will, von deren weissbSuticren 
 Naohbarn von Jabr zu Jabr, mehr eingeengt wird;" p. 141. See also 
 145, 147. Similarly M. Littrd on the side of Positivism defines Reli- 
 gion, " La definition de la religion c'est I'ensemble des dogmes et d'in 
 stitutions qui conferment k la conception du Monde I'Mucation et la 
 morale."— Paj-ofe de la, PhOomphie Positive, p. 62. As regards the 
 old theological dogmas he declares himself superior to conviction 
 n., pp. 50, 51. 
 
INTR OB UCTION. xiu 
 
 yet acknowledges " the form," and even, it may be 
 said, "the power of godliness:" but in that of a 
 Pantheistic Materialist,^ indifferent alike to the 
 existence of Grod, or of the soul.^ Professing to 
 write in the interests of a powerful and intellectual 
 minority, Herr Strauss declares his readiness to 
 await the extinction of the popular religion, the 
 doctrines of which, meanwhile, he hardly thinks 
 it necessary to assail.^ 
 
 Now, if such be, indeed, a fair representation of 
 the issues of an union of Biblical Criticism with 
 Natural Philosophy ; it will appear that hencefor- 
 ward there may be expected a new line of attack 
 upon Revealed Truth, the result of a junction of 
 the forces which have hitherto been ranged on 
 
 ' " Wenn man hierin den klaren crassen Materialismus ausgesprochen 
 flndet, so will ich zunaohst gar nichts dag^en sagen," p. 212. Strauss, 
 however, thinks the differences between the Materialist and Idealist of 
 little account. He prefers a system of Monism. This again is the 
 view of the Positivist School. See Littr^, Princijpes, pp. 38, 39. Strictly 
 speaking, however. Pantheism supposes a GrOD immanent in things ; 
 while Positivism sees only Laws. 
 
 ^ " Karl Vogt (er ist sonst nicht mein Mann, aber in diesem Felde 
 stimme ich ihm durchaus bei) hat den Schluss gezogen, dass die 
 Annahme einer besondern Seelensubstanz eine reine Hypothese ist : 
 dass keine einzige Thatsache fiir die Existenz einer solcher Substanz 
 spricht." — Ih., p. 210. Vogt, it is well known, after Cabanis, makes 
 Thought a secretion of the brain. See his Bilder aus dem Thierlehen. 
 
 ' " Fiir vms selbst indessen begehren wir von diesen Bewegungen 
 vorerst mehr nicht als Diogenes von dem grossen Alexander. Namlich 
 nur so viel dass uns der Kirchenschatten fortan nicht mehr im Wege 
 sei." — lb., p. 296. See also pp. 7, 8, 15, 75. In his Nachwort als 
 Vorwort, Strauss quotes a very true observation of Dahlmann : " Wie 
 man eine Kirohe auf bios Christlicher Moral bauen konne, das sehe ich 
 vor der Hand nicht ein : " p. 41. 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 different sides against the cause of Christianity. 
 While, on the one hand, criticism is heing directed, 
 legitimately and not unfairly, upon the original 
 documents of our Faith, the trust-deeds of the 
 Grospel ; on the other, arguments are advanced, 
 presumably the products of scientific research; 
 which are fatal to the Christian scheme, it is true, 
 but also to the very existence of Eeligion gene- 
 rally. 
 
 Hence the twofold character of the line of 
 proof pursued in these Lectures, involving con- 
 siderations which may be said to lie at the roots 
 of all faith in GrOD and Eternal Life, as well as an 
 examination of facts which concern the history 
 and prospects of Christianity. Both, indeed, are 
 connected by the reflection that the Religion of 
 Christ, if it is to be a permanent gift to mankind, 
 must first be found superior to all objections raised 
 by the free-thinking efforts of the age. It must 
 show itself as ready to assimilate with scientific 
 culture as with the barbarism of ruder times. 
 
 The position of the foregoing school of thought, 
 as regards the main tenets of Positivism, is not far 
 to seek. Both equally exclude the Supernatural 
 from History and from the Universe.^ Both alike 
 
 ^ " Dti moment qu'on ne laisse auoune place aux volont& surnatu- 
 relles, ni dans le monde inorganique ni dans le monde organique, ni 
 parmi les ph^nomlnes oosmiques ni parmi oeux de I'histoire, on est 
 necessairement des n6tres." — Littr^, Paroles de la Phil. Positive, p. 58. 
 Comp. Strauss, p. 181. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 find in the Universe only Matter and Force/ neg- 
 lecting the idea of Form.^ Both hold that to seek 
 the reason of things in the thought of Grod is to 
 seek it in a region which is both practically and 
 mentally inaccessible. Thus it is this attempt 
 which has constituted the whole history of Meta- 
 physic and Religion ; a history of failure. Both 
 agree in banishing free agency from human life 
 and conduct.^ Both in the study of things omit 
 the study of man; forgetting the difficulty, if not 
 impossibility, of establishing on material grounds 
 alone the ideas of God, of immortality, of our own 
 individual personality.* Both alike confound the 
 
 ^ " Au deli de oes deux termes, MatiSre et Force, la science positive 
 ne connait rien." — ^Littr^, Principes, p. xi. "La force," says M. Janet 
 (ie MaUrialisme Oontemporain, p. 20), " selon Moleschott n'est pas un 
 Dieu donnant I'impulsion k la matidre ; une force qui plane au dessus 
 de la matifere est une id^e absurde." Moleschott's ground-principle is, 
 "No force without matter; no matter without force ■," = AngewaU des 
 
 ^ " Cette idfe de I'espSce qui serait inh^rente au germe c'est un 
 principe qui ddpasse toutes les donnees du Mat^rialisme." — Janet, 
 p. 115. 
 
 ' Thus the old antithesis between Predestination and Free-will is 
 now represented by Naturalism and Beligion, Laws of Nature and 
 Human Liberty. We may be content to rest in Dr. Mozley's con- 
 clusion (^Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, 1. 29), " While suffi- 
 ciently clear for all purposes of practical religion (for we cannot doubt 
 that they are truths so far as and in that mode in which we apprehend 
 them), these are truths upon which we cannot raise definite and abso- 
 lute systems. All we build upon either must partake of the imperfect 
 nature of the premiss which supports it, and be held under a reserve of 
 consistency with a counter conclusion from the opposite truth." — See 
 also IV., 326. 
 
 * M. Janet well observes : " Le Positivisme c'est le revanche de I'em- 
 pirisme centre la phr&dsie de la speculation rationnelle a priori." 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 indestructibility of Matter and the Conservation of 
 Force with its eternity.^ Both equally ignore the 
 real difficulty of Naturalism ; which is to recon- 
 cile the consciousness of personal identity with the 
 ceaseless permutations of a material world. How 
 can we prove, or even conceive, a community of 
 consciousness between two particles of matter ?^ 
 
 In our own country a school of thought is 
 arising, perhaps more logical and certainly more 
 reverent than that of pure Materialism, which re- 
 cognizes in the Unknowable the ultimate limit of 
 Science, but also the proper object of Religion. 
 Such a view, amid the turmoil of discussion, is the 
 rather welcome to the Christian believer ; as he is 
 himself ready to see and admit Religion to be the 
 Revelation of the Unknowable or Unknown. . It 
 has, however, its dangers and its doubts ; as to 
 which it is well for the younger student of our 
 time to be on his guard. A system, in which the 
 
 • " Jadis la raison humaine le voyant sujet au ohangement, alia 
 cherolier I'^temel, I'immuable par delk rhorizon et dans les archetypes. 
 Maintenant I'^ternel, I'immuable, devenant notion positive, nous apparait 
 sous la forme des lois immanentes qui gouvernent tout." — Littr^ Prin- 
 cipes, p. 57. 
 
 « « He, this person, or self, must either be a substance, or the pro- 
 perty of some substance. If he, if person, be a substance, then con- 
 sciousness that he is the same person is consciousness that he is the 
 same substance. If the person, or he, be the property of a substance, 
 still consciousness that he is the same property is as certain a proof 
 that his substance remains the same, as consciousness that he remains 
 the same substance would be : since the same property cannot be trans- 
 ferred from one, substance to anofher."~Bp. Butler, Dissert. I. on Per- 
 sonal Identity. 
 
o 
 
 INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 Unknowable, as such, is made the essential object- 
 matter of Faith, excludes the possibility of the 
 Unlcnowable becoming known and determined, 
 whether mediately through Eevelation, or ulti- 
 mately in the history of things. In such a view 
 a confusion seems for ever imminent between the 
 physical Unknown in the realm of Nature, and the 
 mentally Unknowable which constitutes the prac- 
 tical principle of Religion. Still more difficult is 
 it to reconcile this doctrine of a Naturalistic Ne- 
 science with the aspect under which it is very 
 frequently presented, as " the Power manifested in 
 the Universe." 
 
 The argument pursued in Lecture II. (as bind- 
 ing in the sphere of physical philosophy *), so far 
 forth as it presumes Motion, as well as Form, to 
 necessitate a First Cause, will be found in Aris- 
 totle's Physics, Lib. VIII. It must, as it seems 
 to me, hold good till it can be shown that Motion 
 is an original, primary quality of Matter, and 
 so immanent in it. But, as far as appears, 
 Inertia is as much a quality of Matter as Motion, 
 and a body at rest must be acted on exter- 
 nally to be set in movement. The Wolfian sup- 
 position of a tendency to motion {in nisu) was 
 demonstrated by Euler to be both unphilosophical 
 
 ' On the necessity or at least desirability of admitting a physical 
 element into Philosophy, comp. Janet, La Crise Philosophique, p. 106, 
 of whose able train of reasoning I have gladly availed myself in the 
 following remarks. — See Le Materidlisme Contemporain, c. iv. 
 
 b 
 
xviii .INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and contrary to experience. In point of fact, all 
 movement is now regarded and computed as a re- 
 sultant ; and whereas the rate of velocity might at 
 ■first sight appear to be in the body, it is found in 
 effect to be otherwise. Attraction and Inertia are 
 equally facts ; but if the former be considered to 
 be a relative property of two atoms of matter, 
 which singly are indifferent to rest or motion, this 
 is a property which has still to be accounted for. 
 Nor can a universe, however immense,^ have pro- 
 perties other than those of its integrant parts. 
 
 One fact, as it seems to me, must ever remain a 
 stumbling-block in the path of infidel speculation. 
 It is the existence, history, and standing of the 
 €hurch of Christ.^ Active, influential, progres- 
 sive ; nurse of the brightest minds that shine in 
 the galaxy of human story, of an Origen, an Au- 
 gustine, a Dante, a Pascal, a Leibnitz, a Milton, a 
 Newton; handmaid to the spirit of man in his 
 moments of loftiest devotion ; mother of modern 
 art ; queen of the realm of benevolence and huma- 
 nity ; her doctrines can never be held akin to 
 
 ' On the acknowledged immensity of the Universe, M. Littr^ finely 
 observes : " C'est un ocean qui vient battre notre rive ; et pour lequel 
 nous n'avons ni barque ni voile ; mais dont la claire vision est aussi 
 salutaire que formidable."— 4. CmnU et la Phil. Pos., p. 529. 
 
 ' Thus it is admitted by Strauss {Nachwort, pp. 37, 38), « dass die 
 von Jesus ausgegangene religiose Bewegung noch machtig in unsre Zeit 
 
 heremwirke, wird Niemand laugnen Christenthum mag in 
 
 der Menschheit gewirkt haben was es will, und fortwlrken wird es in 
 jedem Fall : &c." 
 
INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 Pagan or Oriental superstitions, or be deemed un- 
 worthy of modern intelligence : neither can they 
 be explained away, as the unripe fruit of human 
 evolution, or as the outcome of times of unreason- 
 ing ignorance. If only we apply to Christianity, 
 as a phenomenon of man's history in the world, 
 the same standard of estimation which we use in 
 other things, and judge of its future by the past, 
 there is small reason either to fear as to its per- 
 petuity, or to predict its fall. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 PERMANENCE A TEST OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 
 
 'Ajuepat S'cTTtXoiTTOt fidpTvpcs crotfxiraToi. 
 
 Pindar. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not 
 pass away."—JWiiin. xitb. 34. 
 
 § I. "npEUTH," says S. Augustine, "is the Subject 
 
 -■- daughter of Time."' The weight of 
 
 prescription in the balance of proof rests rather 
 
 with the era in which we live than with antiquity, 
 
 however hoary. For, in comparison with earlier 
 
 ages, it is of our own days only that it is true that 
 
 " the world hath lost his youth and the times begin 
 
 to wax old."^ The argument from authority has 
 
 thus been of little avail in the departments of 
 
 general knowledge either to arrest or to control 
 
 progress.^ In the region of religious truth its com- The argu- 
 
 petence has been more often admitted upon special prescrip- 
 tion now 
 
 ' So Bacon, Nov. Org., I. Aph. Ixxxiv. : " Recte enim Veritas Temporis pliable, 
 filia dicitur, non Authoritatis"; and DeAugm., I. 458 (ed. Spedding) : 
 " QuS, in re Temporis flliae malfe patrissant." 
 
 * 2 Esdras, xiv. 10. 
 
 ' The reason is admirably stated by Pascal : " Les secrets de la nature 
 sont Gaelics : quoiqu'elle agisse toujours, on ne dtouvre pas toujours ses 
 effets : le temps les r^vele d'&ge en &ge, et quoique toujom's ^gale en elle- 
 mSme, elle n'est pas toujours ^galement connue. Les experiences, qui 
 nous en donnent I'intelligence, multipllent continuellement ; et, comma 
 elles sont les seuls principes de la physique, les consequences multiplient 
 ^ proportion. C'est de cette fapon que Ton peut aujourd'hui prendre 
 d'autres sentiments et de nouvelles opinions sans m^priser les anoiens 
 et sans ingratitude ; puisque les premiferes connaissances qu'ils nous ont 
 donnfes, ont servi de degrls aux notres, et que dans ces avantages noiis 
 leur sommes redevables deTascendanl que nous avons sur eux." — Pensees, 
 I. 96 (ed. Faugfere). 
 
 b2 
 
4 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 grounds, into wtich it does not concern me here 
 to enter. It was used at the first, as might be 
 expected, against Christianity and not in favour 
 of it.^ I would rather remind you that, though in 
 the hour of doubt and perplexity we may sigh after 
 that nearness to Apostolic tradition which was the 
 heritage of the first ages of the Church, and cry 
 with Plato, " They of old time dwelt more nigh 
 to Grod " ; ^ yet is there a counter-advantage in oar 
 remoteness from the beginning of the faith which 
 it is the purpose of these Lectures to work out. 
 Religions, it must be admitted, are perishable. 
 
 Age to age succeeds, 
 Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, 
 A dust of systems and of creeds. 
 
 It has been asserted, though no doubt question- 
 ably, that there is no country except India which 
 has the same religion now which it had at the 
 birth of Christ.^ Before the event no one could 
 appeal to experience as an evidence of the power 
 or genius of Christianity. Numberless objections 
 can be imagined which mighfTiave been raised to 
 its success. Apparent impossibilities might very 
 
 ' " Quanto venerabilius ac melius antistitem veritatis majoram exci- 
 pere disoiplinam? religiones traditas colere?" Minucius P., Ocfou., 
 cap. V. ; and Lactantius, Div. Inst, II. vii. : " Tanta est auctorltas 
 vetustatis ut inquirere in eam scelus esse dioatur." 
 
 '^ Ol fiev TTokatol, Kpelrrovts rutav Koi eyyvrepa Gfeiv oiKOvvTfS. 
 Phileb., 16 c. ; of. Cic, Legg., II. xi. : " Antiquitas proxime aocedit ad 
 Decs." 
 
 ^ See Draper, History of Intellectual Development in Europe, i. 63. 
 
Lect. L] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. S 
 
 easily have been alleged. But eighteen hundred 
 years have passed and the faith of Christ is still 
 a power in the world. "After a revolution," says 
 Gribbon,^ " of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that 
 religion is still professed by the nations of Europe, 
 the most distinguished portion of human kind in 
 arts and learning as well as in arms." " Its chief 
 home is still in the bosom of enterprise, wealth, 
 science, and civilization, and it is at this moment 
 most powerful amongst the nations that have most 
 of these." * If on the wane it is still vigorous.^ 
 But is it on the wane ? And in its collision with 
 the " elements of the world," with political power, 
 national temperament, antecedent tradition, philo- 
 sophical antagonism, with moral and physical 
 limitations of whatever kind, has it suffered on the 
 way ? " The fishermen of Grennesaret," it has 
 
 ' Vol. II., p. 151, ed. Milman. 
 
 ^ Eogers, Essays, ii. 343. In this view Christendom represents what 
 Comte {Phil. Pos., v. 7) calls " Velite de I'humanite." This fact must be 
 admitted to carry weight in the argument from development. Ei 
 /xev yap to. avorjTa apey^ro aiirwv, rjv av n ro XcyopevoVy el 6c kol to 
 <^pdw/ja, n-Ss \cyoifv av ti ; Arist., N.Eth.,X. ii. 4. "Christianity, "says 
 Dr. Mozley (Pampton Lectures, p. 27), " is the religion of the civihzed 
 world. . . . This is a great result — the estahlishment and the con- 
 tinuance of a religion in the world — as the religion too of the intelligent 
 as well as of the simpler portion of society." " Christendom includes 
 the entire civilized world, that is to say, all nations whose agreement 
 on a matter of opinion has any real weight or authority." — Sir G. 
 Cornewall Lewis, Influence of Authority, p. 69. 
 
 ^ " What the Church has lost in her appeal to the imagination she 
 has gained in philosophical cogency by the evidence of her persistent 
 vitality. She is as vigorous in her age as in her youth, and has 
 upon her prima facie signs of divinity."— Dr. Newman, Orammar of 
 Assent, 425, 6. 
 
6 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 been picturesquely said, " planted Ohristianitj, and 
 many a winter and many a summer have since 
 rolled over it. More than once it has shed its 
 leaves and seemed to be dying ; and when the 
 buds burst, again, the colour of the foliage was 
 changed." ^ Something it may, perhaps must, 
 have parted with ; something gained : to what 
 extent, and in what directions? Such are some 
 of the thoughts or, it may be said, admissions 
 which crowd upon the mind in approaching the 
 subject of the present Lectures — the steadfastness 
 of Christianity an argument for the truth and 
 ultimate permanence of its doctrines.'' 
 ™rTO/ § ^' ^^"^^ ^^ argument, it may be permitted to 
 inductive point out, is drawu from experience and is an 
 peals to appeal to the logic of facts. In this respect it is 
 perhaps suited to the bias of the English mind, 
 and certainly falls in with the intellectual temper 
 of the time. For what is called the spirit of the 
 
 ' Froude, Short Studies, Series II., p. 32. Thus Pascal, Pensees, II. 200 
 (ed. Faugdre) : " II est veuu enfln en la consommation des temps, et 
 depuis on a vu naitre tant de schismes et d'hdr&ies, tant renverser 
 d'^tats, tant de changements en toutes ohoses ; et cette ifiglise qui adore 
 Celui qui a toujours it6 adorf, a subsists sans interruption. Et ce qui 
 est admiraWe, incomparable, et tout h. fait divin, est que cette religion 
 qui a toujours dur^, a toujours 6t4: combattue. Mille fois elle a 6U a la 
 veille d'une destruction universelle, et toutes les fois qu'elle a ^t^ en cet 
 ^tat, Dieu I'a relev^e par des coups extraordinaires de sa puissance." 
 Mr. Buckle (Hist. Civ., II. 285) assumes, for he does not go into proofs, 
 that Christianity has been affected by foreign events contrary to the 
 original scheme. 
 
 » " NuUe autre religion n'a la perp^tuit^ ; qui est la principale marque 
 de la T&itable." — Pascal, Pensees, II. 368. " Les trois marques de la 
 religion sont la perp^tuite, la bonne vie, les miracles." — Ih, 
 
Lect. L] of religious SYSTEMS. 7 
 
 age is unmistakably iaductive : and by the in- 
 ductive spirit is really intended a mental disposi- 
 tion to rest upon observed facts or repetitions of 
 fact, not upon any inherent necessity of sequence 
 or prior proof. There would seem to be three 
 main roads open to mankind for reaching a know- 
 ledge of Grod, of our duties towards Him, and of 
 His will respecting us. These are our own nature 
 and constitution, the testimony of mankind, and 
 the course of the world's history.* Of these, the 
 last, as being the most matter of fact, would 
 probably in the present day be held to be the 
 least disputable. The results of a religious system 
 furnish at least an indirect proof of its truth. 
 Taken in connection with prophecy, this proof 
 becomes unanswerable ; but it has also a value and 
 importance of its own. Such accordingly, as 
 regards the fortunes of the Roman Empire, an 
 epitome of the history of the world, was the 
 motive of Augustine's masterpiece of Christian 
 Apology, the Civitas Dei.^ There is equal reason 
 
 ' See Dr. Newman, Orammar of Assent, p. 384. 
 
 ^ Dr. Mozley, Bampton Lectures, p. 263, points out that Augustine 
 pushes this argument ahnost to the exclusion of miracles, e. g. Civ. Dei, 
 xxii. 5 : " hoc nobis unum gi-ande miraculum sufBcit, quod earn ter- 
 raram orhis sine ullis miraoulis oredidit." This is no doubt rhetorically 
 expressed. Elsewhere he states the proper relation of miracles to the 
 spread of Christianity. " Ergo Ille afferens medicinam quse corruptis- 
 simos mores sanatura esset, miraculis conciliavit auctoritatem, auoto- 
 ritate meruit fidem, fide contraxit multitudinem, multitudine obtinuit 
 vetustatem, vetustate roboravit religionem." — De Util. Ored., c. xiv., and 
 of. De Ver. Eel., c. iii., xxv. Thus he rests his faith on the traditional 
 
centuries. 
 
 8 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 for its being the ground of Christian defence now. 
 No analysis of modern civiHzation can omit to 
 consider the influences of Christianity. A test is 
 thus suppHed of its tendencies, its character, and 
 its efficacy.' 
 Possible § 3. It is with the field of time as with areas of 
 a lapse of mensurable space. A certain remoteness from the 
 object viewed is necessary to clear and distinct 
 vision. Still more necessary is it for any purpose 
 of determining the relative magnitude and actual 
 proportions of the thing perceived. These can be 
 understood only by the medium of intervening 
 objects. The same holds good in. any mental 
 
 reception of Christianity. " JSTuUis me video credidisse nisi populorum 
 atque gentium confirmatse opinioni ac famse admodum celeberrimse : hos 
 autem populos Eoclesise OatholicEe mysteria usc[uequac|^ue oocup&sse. . . 
 Oredidi, ut dixi, famse celebritate, cohsensione, vetustate roboratse." — lb. 
 Thus antiquity and universality of reception gradually take the place of 
 miracles. Cf. also De Ver. Mel., vii. 13 : " Hujus religionis sectandEe 
 caput est historia et prophetia dispensationis temporalis diviniE provi- 
 dentiee pro salute generis humani in seternam vitam reformahdi atque 
 reparandi." The germs of Augustine's argument in the Civitas Dei 
 will be found in Tertullian, Apol, cap. xl. At that time the power of 
 the Gods was estimated by the condition of the nations who worshipped 
 them. Cf. Gieseler, Ch. Eist., 1. § 16. 
 
 1 " All that we call modem civilization in a sense which deserves 
 the name, is the visible expression of the transforming power of the 
 Gospel."— Froude, Short Studies, II. p. 39. "Christianity," writes 
 Mr. Lecky, " the life of moraUty, the basis of civilization, has regene- 
 rated the world."' Montesquieu (^Esprit des Lois, XXIV.) recognizes 
 this argument. " Comme on peut juger parmi les t&Sbres celles qui 
 sont les moins dpaisses, et parmi les abymes ceux qui sont les moins 
 profonds, ainsi I'on peut chercher entre les religions fausses celles qui 
 sont les plus conformes au bien de la socie'td ; celles qui, quoiqu'elles 
 n'aient pas I'effet de mener les hommes aux f(51icit^s de I'autre vie 
 peuvent le plus contribucr h leur bonheur dans celle-ci." 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 9 
 
 survey of the past, wten we take stock, as it were, 
 of the phenomena of history. Only after the 
 lapse of centuries does it become possible to 
 estimate the association and import of facts, the 
 tendency of principles, their falseness or their 
 truth. 
 
 The thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns. 
 
 Christianity is at this time a fact of long stand- 
 ing. Its relative importance among other ele- 
 ments of civilization may now be measured : its 
 effects eliminated from those of other agencies : the 
 laws of its progress determined : its retardations 
 adjusted : its ultimate movements conjectured. 
 But there was a time when these processes could 
 not have been carried on, when any argument 
 grounded on them would have been preposterous : 
 and the more nearly we return in thought to the 
 beginnings of the Faith of Christ, the less room is 
 found for their admission. 
 
 The religion of Jesus Christ, we may maintain. The pro- 
 has now achieved for itself an actual positive stand- Truth slow 
 point against the assaults of detractors. Those able, 
 who impugn its claims have at least to account in 
 some other way for the successes it has gained and 
 the influence which it wields. Men, it may be 
 allowed, may blunder into truth : perhaps even, 
 they must go wrong before they come out right. 
 It is probable that this is the key to much of the 
 
10 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 history of thought, resembling those arithmetical 
 calculations in which error is checked by error to 
 obtain an approximation to the truth.^ But the 
 mind on looking back can well enough discern its 
 wanderings on the road. It is true that there 
 is much in the career of Christianity to obscure 
 the light of its own progress. The tardiness and 
 partial character of its advance have been often 
 remarked.^ It has not flashed with meteor bril- 
 liancy across the world's story, neither has it 
 shone with steady undimmed effulgence along the 
 track of time ; rather, like the sun in heaven, it 
 has struggled through cloud and mist. At the 
 first it wrought irregularly on individual minds, 
 not by an organized system. The Reformation 
 and all returns to its primitive character have 
 
 ' Thus "error," as Voltaire remarked, "has its merits." "The 
 history of philosophy," says Sir William Hamilton, " is the history of 
 error." We may say with Virgil, 
 
 Pater Ipse colendi 
 Hand facilem esse viam voluit. 
 
 " Encore que les philosophes," says Bossuet, " soient les proteoteura de 
 I'erreur, toutefois ils ont frapp^ \ la porte de la V&it6." 
 
 '' See some good remarks on this subject by the Bishop of Ely in his 
 lecture on Chrisfs Influence on History, p. 28. Thus Neander com- 
 pares the development of Christianity to a process moving steadily 
 onward, though not in a direct line, but through various windings, yet 
 in the end furthered by whatever has attempted to arrest its course. 
 "Eeligion," says Mr. Morley, Grit. Misc., p. 95, " must be accepted as 
 a fact in the history of the human mind, . . . and Christianity is unde- 
 niably entitled to one of the most important places in it, however we 
 may be disposed to strike the balance between the undoubted injuries 
 and the undoubted advantages which it has been the means of dealing 
 to the civilization of the West." 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. ii 
 
 tended to restore this mode of its operation/ and 
 so have ever exhibited degrees of non-conformity. 
 The irony of the lofty author of the ' Variations of Ground- 
 
 •^ _ '' _ less objec- 
 
 Protestantism ' may be and has been turned with tion drawn 
 
 from vari- 
 
 equal force from the disagreements of opposed ations of 
 sects and rival Churches upon the claims of Chris- 
 tianity at large.^ The conclusion drawn, it is true, 
 is no more valid in the one case than in the other, 
 and for the same reasons. Indeed, to a fair mind 
 it would rather furnish a presumption against the 
 truth of Christianity, if it did not or had not in its 
 .progress exhibited that amount of variation which 
 is alone compatible with the course of human 
 reason on all subjects of thought. The pathology 
 of a religious system assumes the reality of a true 
 core of belief. The existence of controversy is to 
 a certain extent a test of the power and vitality of 
 Christianity. " If any country," says Bacon,^ 
 " decline into Atheism, then controversies wax 
 dainty; because men do think religion scarce 
 worth the falling out." The co-existence and com- 
 petition of sects has therefore not unreasonably 
 
 ' Dean Hook, Lives of Archbishops, in his Introduction to the Kew 
 Series, remarks on " the tendency of the Keformation to individualize 
 Christianity." 
 
 " " Si I'argument de M. de Meaxix vaut quelque chose centre la E6- 
 formation, il a la mgme force contre le Christianisme." — Beausobre, 
 Hist, de ManicMe, 1. 526, and see Mr. Buckle's remarks, E. C. K, II. 283. 
 , The objection raised disappears when the nature of the subject-matter 
 of Eevelation, with its difficulties of application and interpretation, is 
 considered. Compare Hallam, Literature of Europe, III. 268. 
 
 » Bacon's Works (ed. Spedding), VIII. 165. 
 
12 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. t 
 
 been held to be the system most in conformity with 
 the nature of society, and most favourable to the 
 solidity and general efficiency of religion.^ Some, 
 however, may be inclined to attribute to the objection, 
 suggested by the argument of Bossuet, an importance 
 disproportioned to its worth. It certainly entails on 
 the Christian advocate the task of showing that the 
 disagreement among Christians has not been vital, 
 nor its degree such as to neutralize the common effect 
 due to the religion of Christ as a whole. In accom- 
 plishing the work whereunto it is sent, the robe of 
 Christ is still " without seam, woven from the top 
 throughout." Moreover, whatever have been its 
 fortunes, its proper tendencies remain ; and these 
 undoubtedly act to " draw men together in spite 
 of their worst differences, proving it to be quite 
 as abhorrent of divisions in itself as Nature ever 
 A warn- was of a vacuum." ^ Still, if union is strength, 
 
 ing, how- . -,, , 
 
 ever, to persistent differences mean permanent weakness. 
 
 study the . . i • (> i 
 
 increase of It IS then surely time tor the great sections of the 
 Christian world ^ to study unity and not division ; 
 
 ' See Guizot's Meditations, Pt. II., pp. 5, 165 (B. T.) ; Paley, Evid., II. 
 c. vii. ; and compare Ffoulkes' Divisions of Christendom, p. 246. " There 
 is even consolation," &c. It is true, however, as Dr. Westcott has re- 
 marked, after Comte, that the tendencies of Protestantism go to obscure 
 the conception of continuity in human progress, reposing too much on 
 logical deduction. " To erect any one age (whether primitive or me- 
 dieval) into an idol is to deny implicitly that the Gospel is life."— Cor*- 
 temp. Review, VI. 420. See also Corner, Hist. Protestant Theology, 
 Vol. I., p. xviii., E. T. 
 
 ^ Ffoulkes, u. s., p. vi. and p. 252. 
 
 ' Compare Guizot, Meditations, Pt. I., Pref., pp. ix.-xvii, " Je dis 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 13 
 
 alliance and not mutual elimination; to give up 
 claims to a several infallibility ; to join at least for 
 the defence of the faith " once delivered to the 
 saints " ; to exhibit the bases of a common belief ; 
 to cherish more strongly than hitherto their under- 
 lying points of agreement ; to drop dissensions, 
 and go forth to conquer. 
 
 § 4. But it may be asked at the outset — is Per- Perma- 
 nence an 
 manence of itself a test of truth ? ' Is that which actual test 
 
 . of truth. 
 
 is true always enduring and error never so? 
 Have not unreal systems held sway and made 
 progress in the history of mankind ? Is there 
 no such thing as a prescription of ignorance ? ^ Is 
 retrogression a thing impossible, and is there no 
 historical proof of it? Are periods of "denuda- 
 
 rillglise Chr^tienne : c'est toute I'^^glise Chr^tienne en effet, et non pas 
 telle ou telle des ^glises chr^tiennes qui est maintenant et radicalement 
 attaqu^e." 
 
 ' It will perhaps be said that truth is strictly an attribute of proposi- 
 tions only ; and in this sense no one will deny that what is true is true 
 for always, though it may not at all times be recognized. But the term 
 seems not improperly used of whatever answers to the definition of a 
 thing. In the case of institutions, some come up to the idea or notion 
 commonly held of their nature and function; some fall short of it. 
 Christianity is sometimes regarded as a set of dogmas or propositions 
 (such as have been termed fundamentals), of which truth is imme- 
 diately predioable. Sometimes it is identified with the Church, which 
 is the witness and keeper of these truths. In this capacity, as liable 
 to the admixture of error, it may be compared with rival religious 
 systems, and may vary at different periods relatively to itself. Perma- 
 nence in the form oi persistence in consciousness seems to lie at the basis 
 of all reality. See Mr. Herbert Spencer, First Principles, p. 226. 
 
 ' " Consuetude sine veritate vetustas erroris est." — Cyprian, Ep. 74. 
 0pp., p. 282. 
 
14 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 tion" unknown in the intellectual eras of our 
 race ? Does truth always emerge from behind the 
 mists of falsehood and make daylight in the world ? 
 Perhaps not ; and yet the answer to such doubts 
 may be in no wise doubtful. The day is really 
 past, notwithstanding some pretentious objections, 
 for questioning the tendencies of Grod's moral 
 Liable to government. Exceptions, which constitute only 
 
 apparent ij-iotlt -i 
 
 exceptions, the disordcr of Nature, yield no argument against 
 its general laws. " Grod," says Bishop Butler, 
 " makes use of a variety of means, what we 
 often think tedious ones, in the natural course of 
 Providence for the accomplishment of all His 
 ends,"^ The analogy of reason as against force, 
 which has been employed by the same author to 
 illustrate the tendency of right to prevail in the 
 economy of the world, affords a similar explanation 
 of the victories of error over truth in the working 
 of religious systems. 
 
 Virtute semper pravalet sapientia. 
 
 The lesson gained from a criticism of the past is 
 this ; that while it is consistent with an overrulino- 
 Providence to allow the existence of falsehood, ex^ 
 travagance, self-delusion in almost every form,' yet 
 there is, on the whole, a constant steady advance 
 towards convictions which are finally recognized 
 
 ^ Analogy, Pt. II. c. iv. Comp. Eurip. Orestes, 420 : 
 MeXXet tA edoc ■ fori Tmovrav 4>vaci. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. IS 
 
 as immutably true. And this progress of truth is 
 not dependent on blind tendencies, but on an 
 intellectual activity which, gradually disposing of 
 error, transforms opinion into knowledge. This 
 which is evident in the experience of the physical 
 sciences holds good equally for the more complex 
 subjects of theology and morals. But the results 
 must naturally be sought not among the least but 
 among the most civilized portions of mankind. 
 Length of time together with reasonable oppor- 
 tunity may be requisite for the extinction of error. 
 Duration and stress of persecution, stamping out 
 conscientious belief, may, in some instances, ac- 
 count for the depression of truth. To some extent 
 they explain and help on its progress.' Degrada- 
 tion, partial or temporary, seems to be an historical 
 condition of the general advance of civilization.^ 
 
 • "Le besoin perfectionne rinstrument," was a maxim of Turgot. 
 " In times of peace," says Archbishop Leighton, " the Church may- 
 dilate more and build as it were into breadth, but in times of trouble it 
 arises more in height. It is then built upwards, as in cities where men 
 are straitened, they build usually higher than in the country." — Op. 
 Coleridge, Aids to £., p. 73. 
 
 ^ "Ages of laborious ascent have been followed by a moment of rapid 
 downfall, and the several climates of the globe have felt the vicissitudes 
 of light and darkness. Yet the experience of four thousand years should 
 enlarge our hopes and diminish our apprehensions."— Gibbon, Vol. IV. 
 409 (ed. Milman). " Humanity accomplishes its necessary destiny but 
 (being composed of free persons) with an element of liberty ; so that 
 error and crime find their place in its course, and we behold centuries 
 which do not advance, but even recede, days of illness, and years of 
 wandering. . . . But mankind never entirely or irremediably errs. The 
 light burns somewhere which is to go to the front of the straying gene- 
 ration and bring it along in its wake. When the Gospel failed in the 
 
1 6 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 But an inversion of the order of the universe, as 
 well as of our inbred convictions, of our experi- 
 ence of things as well as of our inner consciousness, 
 must take place before we can admit indifference 
 or malice, a willingness to deceive or a capacity of 
 deception in the Author and Administrator of the 
 world. And yet this is implied in the assumption 
 
 grounded •' ,....,, 
 
 on area- that the humau race in its most distinguished 
 
 sonable <■ i i • n 
 
 conviction, representatives and on the subjects oi the highest 
 moment lies still in darkness.^ " Grod owes it to 
 mankind not to lead them into error," is the bold 
 language of Pascal.^ " Truth," says Milton, " is 
 strong next to the Almighty." As it is ludicrous 
 
 Bast it dawned on the races of the North. "^-Ozanam, Civilis. Chret., I. 
 pp. 18-20, B. T. Mr. Tylor, Bist. Prim. Cult., I. 421, speaking of 
 natural religion, remarks that " the history of religion displays but too 
 plainly the proneness of mankind to relapse, in spite of reformation, 
 into the lower and darker condition of the past." 
 
 ' There is a tendency in the Positivist system to assume not only that 
 in the constitution of things error is employed as a means to truth, but 
 that this theorem covers the whole of religious belief. Thus theology, 
 which in this system of thought is imaginary, is allowed to have been 
 an important stage in the advance of the human race, yet only as a sort 
 of " pis-aller." See Comte, Pint Pos., IV. 693. The language of the 
 Apostle in Acts xvii. 30 (rovs fiev o5c xp°''°^^ ''^^ dyvoias virepiSav 6 
 Oeos) may in the Bnglish version be liable to be mistaken. But his 
 argument on this deeply momentous subject, " the fulness of times," as 
 expanded in Bom. c. i., ii., and Gral. iii., iv., can hardly be misappre- 
 hended. See Bunsen, Ood in History, Vol. I. 215, E. T. 
 
 " " Dieu doit aux hommes de ne pas les induire en erreur." — Pens^es. 
 " The established order of things in which we find ourselves, if it has a 
 Creator, must surely speak of His will in its broad outlines and main 
 issues." — Newman, Orammar of Assent, p. 391. Comp. Farrar's Wit- 
 ness of History to Christ, p. 92. See Sir W. Hamilton (Peid, 743, 745). 
 Mr. Mill's criticism {Exam., p. 136) is invalid so long as there are truths 
 of consciousness leading up to the recognition of God. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 17 
 
 to go about to prove the reality of those percep- 
 tions which alone exist to us as the means of 
 discovering facts ; so were it futile to suspect the 
 ultimate triumph of truth over falsehood, or to 
 question the tendency of things in the long run 
 to exhibit its progress. The improvement of 
 mankind in successive ages is indisputable, and 
 improvement involves at least approximation to 
 truth. Whatever be the obstacles to their power 
 of self-assertion, the Grrand Justiciary of reason 
 and of fact is Time.^ 
 
 S 5. "What, however, is meant by Time in these Time in 
 
 . . . . what sense 
 
 considerations, and how much may justly be attri- an agency. 
 buted to it ? In what respects is it an element of 
 progress in the history of knowledge ? It is no 
 mere abstraction or Idol of the Tribe. It is a real 
 condition of all human operation, speculative or 
 practical. Its function may be compared to an 
 analytic yet constructive process ; which dividing 
 and disengaging elements before believed to be 
 inseparable, renders re-arrangement and recon- 
 struction possible and simple.^ Such is the work 
 
 ' " Le temps, le grand Justicier dn pass6." — Montaigne. Cicero 
 {Nat. D., II. ii. 5), speaking of the existence of God, says : " Quod nisi 
 cognitum comprehensumque animis haberemus, non tarn stabilis opinio 
 pennaneret, neo confirmaretur diuturnitate temporis nee una cum ss- 
 culis ffitatibusque bominum inveterari potuisset. Et enim videmus 
 caateras opiniones fictas atque vanas diuturnitate extabuisse. . . . Opi- 
 nionum enim commenta delet dies, naturae judicia confirmat." 
 
 2 M. Littr^ {A. Comte et la Phil. Pos., p. 45) well observes : " Le 
 tenips, faisant I'offioe des forts grossissements, montre disjoint ce qui 
 apparalt tooitement conjoint dans I'esprit d'un m§me penseur.'' 
 
 C 
 
1 8 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 of continuous generations toiling unconsciously as 
 one man in the quest of Truth, but with this 
 advantage, that they are uninterrupted by indi- 
 vidual mortality.^ Some thinkers use Time too 
 readily and profusely^ as an agent, whether in 
 physical changes, or in the advance of opinion and 
 the overthrow of superstitions by a sort of natural 
 and spontaneous growth of the human mind — a 
 gradual evolution of conviction, the spirit and 
 tendency of the age, the fruit of time and succes- 
 sion. It should be clearly understood that all 
 such results are, in fact, the work of individual 
 effort, admitting of distinct explanation. The 
 tendencies of an age are the unperceived con- 
 sequences of foregone argument. They are 
 "changes wrought not hy Time, but in Time." 
 In the work of religious "truth," it has been 
 finely said,^ "Time means the blood of many 
 martyrs, the toil of many brains, slow steps made 
 good through infinite research." In this manner 
 
 • " De sorte que toute la suite des hommes, pendant le cours de tant 
 de sifeoles, doit §tre considdree comme un meme homme qui subsiste 
 toujours et qui apprend continuellement." — Pascal (JPensees, I. p. 98). 
 
 ' Thus " the prehistoric archaeologist," says Mr. Tylor, Eist. Prim. 
 Cult., I. p. 50, "shows even too much disposition to revel in calculations 
 of thousands of years, as a financier does in reckonings of thousands of 
 pounds in a liberal and maybe somewhat reckless way." See, however, 
 Lange, Oesch. d. Materialismus, p. 342. In the School of Positive 
 Science, " c'est le temps qui est ici le grand cr&teur," says M. Janet. — 
 Le Materialisme Oontemporain, p. 24. 
 
 ' Greg's Literary and Social Judgments, p. 478. Compare Professor 
 Goldwin Smith, Study of History, p. 34. Human progress " is a pro- 
 gress of effort, not a necessary development," &c. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 19 
 
 it comes about that no great verity once dis- 
 covered is ever afterwards lost to mankind/ but 
 is taken up and carried along by the stream of 
 human effort. In the words of the poet they are 
 
 Truths that wake 
 To perish never. 
 
 § 6. The objections which lie against all posi-Thepre- 
 
 ...,,„ sent argu- 
 
 tive attempts to criticise the plan of a Divinement,» 
 Revelation, do not apply to an inquiry which is 
 relative to a matter of fact. The present argu- 
 ment does not run up into questionable final 
 causes, or depend for its acceptance on dubious 
 interpretations of remote prophecies. It forms no Not de- 
 anticipations of the thoughts of Heaven. But final ^"°" 
 rather it humbly seeks to track upwards through '^'^^^' 
 
 1 " No great truth which has once been found has ever afterwards been 
 lost." — Buckle, Hist. Civ., 1. 215. " What has once become the common 
 property of humanity, i. e. any visible presentation of a principle that 
 has come to be universally recognized and universally operative, cannot 
 perish, but has life in itself. . . . Such ideas foim the pathway of God 
 in history — the light of Heaven amid the darkness of the earth." — 
 Bunsen, Ood in Hist, I. p. 36, 53. Compare Aristotle, Metaph., xi. 7 : 
 Tavras tck do^as fKcivav, oiov Xei'i/^ai/a irepicrccraadai /ifXP^ '"'''' "''''• 
 Bacon's self-contradiction that " Time seemeth to be of the nature of a 
 river or stream which carrieth down to us that which is light and blown 
 up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and solid," has 
 been very properly exposed by Mr. Mill, Logic, II. 428. 
 
 ^ Positive, because, though we may see that many parts of Chris- 
 tianity are worthy of God, we are not hastily to conclude that where 
 we do not see this such parts do not come from Him. See Eogers, 
 Essays, II. 379.. " It is no just consequence that reason is no judge of 
 what is offered to us as being of divine revelation. For this would be 
 to infer that we are unable to judge of anything because we are unable 
 to judge of all things." — Butler, Analogy, Pt. II. c. iii. 
 
 2 
 
20 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 the past the course of " natural revelation," apply- 
 ing to ascertained matters of fact the lamp of 
 inherited experience. So 
 
 By the light His words disclose, 
 Watch Time's full river as it flows : 
 Scanning His gracious Providence, 
 Where not too deep for mortal sense. 
 
 All the irregularity of human affairs arises from 
 our not heing ahle to see the whole at once. But 
 the further we advance along the world's history 
 and in general knowledge, the more we approach 
 an estimate of the reasons of things and of the 
 current of affairs.^ It is not then the existence of 
 final causes in the formation and working of the 
 world which needs he held unsatisfactory by the 
 
 ■" " The moral system of the universe," says a powerful but uncertain 
 writer, " is like a document written in alternate ciphers, which change 
 from line to line. We read a sentence, but at the next the key fails us. 
 We see that there is something written there, but if we guess at it we 
 are guessing in the dark." Tet the same author is not long in supply- 
 ing an antidote to any scepticism which may lurk in such reflections. 
 " If we believe," he adds, " at all that the world is governed by a con- 
 scious and intelligent Being, we must believe also, however we can 
 reconcile it with our own ideas, that these anomalies have not arisen by 
 accident, but have been ordered of purpose and design." — Froude on 
 Calvinism, p. 5. This, Butler points out, is the necessary result of the 
 government of Grod considered as a scheme in progress, and therefore 
 imperfectly comprehended. See also Shaftesbury, Characteristics, II. 
 363, and the fine passage in Plato, Legg., X. 903. Augustine compares 
 the order of the universe to a tessellated floor, of which we hold the 
 part. "At enim," he adds, " hoc ipsum est plenius quaestionum, quod 
 membra puliois disposita mire atque distincta sunt, cum interea hu- 
 mana vita innumerabilium perturbationum inconstantiS, versetur et 
 fiuctuet."^De Ordine, c. i. " La seule question," says M. Eenan, 
 Etudes, p. 404, " int&essante pour le philosophe est de savoir de quel 
 c6t^ va le monde." 
 
Lect. L] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 2i 
 
 physical or positive philosopliy of our time. 
 Teleology, as such, is not destroyed but rather 
 confirmed by any theory of evolution. For such 
 evolution must either be accidental, a purely 
 fortuitous result, which is hardly credible, and 
 certainly will not satisfy science ; or it bears 
 testimony to design; the process, which appa- 
 rently involves waste, proving ultimately economi- 
 caL^ The procedure indicated may be gradual 
 and to appearance precarious, but the result shows 
 an adaptation of means to ends which is all that 
 Paley and other adherents of Natural Theology 
 have maintained. It is the previous assumption 
 of a given design as the basis of argument, to 
 which exception may fairly be taken. The co- 
 incidence of facts with the theory of a Divine Tho"gii 
 
 coincident 
 
 purpose rests, in the mam, on a matter of observa- with them. 
 tion, analogous to the homologies of Natural 
 Science, and open to common apprehension.^ "We 
 
 1 The argument of La Place from chances is well known. Thus, e. g. 
 " two properties necessary to the stability of the planetary system are — 
 (1), that the orbital motions must be all in the same direction ; (2), that 
 the inclinations of the planes of these orbits must not be considerable. 
 Taking the theory of mere chance, it is 2047 to 1 against the first ; 
 10,000,000 to 1 against the second ; more than 20,000,000,000 against 
 the two together," &c. This argument has been much strengthened by 
 more newly discovered planets. The objection sometimes raised to the 
 teleological argument that the Author of Nature, being above Nature, is 
 incapable of analogies drawn from the finite creature, becomes absorbed 
 in a much larger question — the possibility and conditions of a philo- 
 sophy of the Absolute. 
 
 ^ " It has been objected that the doctrine of Final Causes supposes us 
 to be acquainted with the intentions of the Creator, which, it is in- 
 
22 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 cannot but see, if we take room enough for 
 observation, whicb way things have tended in 
 the world. And certainly such a result, gathered 
 from the point of view of comparative history, 
 extending over large areas of countries and times, 
 is of the highest moment to a philosophic survey 
 of aflfairs. " For what," it has been justly asked, 
 "does it avail to praise and draw forth to view the 
 magnificence and wisdom of creation in the irra- 
 tional kingdom of nature, if that part in the great 
 stage of the Supreme Wisdom which contains the 
 object of all this mighty display (I mean the 
 history of the human species), is to remain an 
 eternal objection to it, the bare sight of which 
 obliges us to turn away our eyes in displeasure, 
 and, from the despair which it raises of ever dis- 
 covering in it a perfect and rational purpose, leads 
 
 sinuated, is a most presumptuous and irrational basis for our reasonings. 
 But there can be nothing presumptuous or irrational in reasoning on 
 that basis, which, if we reject, we cannot reason at all." — Whewell, In- 
 dications, p. 93. The sense of wcUr perceptible in the inorganic world 
 of matter is not identical with design, though it may lead up to it. The 
 present relation of physical science to the question of design seems to 
 stand thus : its results point undoubtedly to design, but to desi<m im- 
 perfectly comprehended by our natural faculties. The resource lies in 
 Eevelation ; but it does not follow that Revelation must speak on these 
 points to man. Comp. Lange, OeschicUe v. Materialismus, pp. 402-404. 
 M. Flourens has well observed : " II faut aller non pas des causes finales 
 aux faits, mais des faits aux causes finales." It may be doubted whether 
 the human reason can ever truly separate the notions of cause and effect, 
 antecedent and consequent, ' end and means : all these suggest, and 
 indeed necessitate, a presiding original thought. Whether such thought 
 be regarded as immanent in the universe, or as external to it, must be 
 determined by other considerations. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 23 
 
 us finally to look for such only in another world." ^ 
 Hence the perennial faith through successive 
 generations in a God revealed in history, in a 
 Divine government of the world, in human pro- 
 gress based on a moral order accomplishing an 
 Eternal Idea, in a nature not composed of isolated 
 episodes,^ in an " increasing purpose " running 
 through the ages of the past. Its evidence lies 
 written in the annals of our race, even through 
 periods of stagnancy and devastation, and in no 
 part of it more markedly than in the religious 
 crises of nations. 
 
 § 7. A question may be raised as to the relative Objection 
 character of our ideas of duration and permanence, relative 
 Christianity is an institution which we believe to of the 
 be, as to its future, coeval with the world itself. dMation. 
 In this way our conception of its continuance is 
 indefinitely extended, and this extension reacts 
 upon its past history. Though its first ages may 
 be bounded by the fact of its historical origin, its 
 " last times " are beyond our grasp, and so, too, all 
 
 ' Kant, Idea of a Universal History on a CosmopoUtical Plan, trans- 
 lated by De Quinoey. Works, Vol. XIV. 151. 
 
 " OiiK eoiKe 8' 17 (jiitris inei(ToSi.a>SrjS ovcra 6K tS>v (jjaivofieviov, &<nrfp 
 fioxSripa Tpayi^ia. — Aristotle, Metaph., XIII. c. iii., ix., x. Compare 
 Bunsen, Qod in History, Vol. I. pp. 6, 13, 20, E. T. : " No one looking 
 back over the past can fail to detect a general advance of humanity, as 
 a whole, in certain definite directions corresponding to what we observe 
 in the fuller development of the man. The progress on a large scale 
 exhibits the harmonious elevation of our whole complex being, even 
 though periods of devastation and fiery trial are needed for the prepara- 
 tion of the fuller growth."— Dr. Westcott, Oontemp. Rev., Vol. VIII. 380. 
 
24 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 conception of its relative duration. ^ Though already- 
 long-lived to all appearance, it may yet not have 
 passed its youth ; and the span of its coming years 
 may still far exceed those that are past/ " Cen- 
 turies on centuries," it has been well said, " may 
 be required to discipline fully the human faculties 
 that are to grow into the faith which has been 
 prepared for them."^ But the standard of dura- 
 its answer, ijiiity which we are now applying is external to 
 Christianity itself. We compare it as a mundane 
 institution with all things else that are mundane. 
 In these we find but one and the same law. They 
 tend to decay and subversion. 
 
 Sic omnia fatis 
 In pejus mere ac retro aublapsa referri. 
 
 ' Comp. De Maistre, CEuvres, p. 262, ed. Migne : " On parte beaucoup 
 dcs premiers si^oles dn Ohristianisme ; en vdrit^, je ne voudrais pas 
 assurer qu'ils sont passes. Dans nn sens I'lSglise n'a point d'a.ge. . . . 
 Elle se relfeve avec I'homme, I'acoompagne, et le perfeotionne dans 
 toutes les situations ; diff&ente en oela et d'une mani^re frappante de 
 toutes les institutions et de tous les empires humains qui ont una 
 enfance, une virility, une vieillesse et une fin." 
 
 " Hutton's Essays, Vol. 1. 122 : " It is clear that the Divine govern- 
 ment of the Jewish race was meant to bring out and did bring out more 
 distinctly the personality of God, while the history of other races brings 
 out more clearly the Divine capacities of man. Hence the co-operation 
 of different nations was requisite for the efficiency of the revelation. 
 Centuries were required for the complete evolution even of that special 
 Jewish history that was selected to testify to the righteous will and 
 defined spiritual character of the Creator. Centuries on centuries will 
 be required to discipline fully the human faculties that are to grow into 
 the faith thus prepared for them." So also M. Guizot : " Civilization 
 is as yet very young : the world has as yet by no means measured the 
 whole of its career ; Human thought is at this time very far from being 
 all that it is capable of becoming : we are very far from comprehending 
 the whole future of humanity." — Oivil. in Europe, p. 18, Ed. Bohn. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 25 
 
 It has not been so, however, with the religion 
 of Christ. Its strength is not as its day. Its days 
 are old, if we judge them by man's standard of 
 duration ; yet its powers are unenfeebled. Its 
 youth is renewed as the eagle's, and its years 
 do not fail. The revolutions of the heavenly 
 bodies point to an almost infinite succession of 
 ages, through which they have held on their way. 
 Yet science sketches out the trajectory which is 
 followed by our planetary system.^ So the world 
 may have a long future still before it ; and yet it 
 is permitted us to determine the path of Chris- 
 tianity. The progress indicated, whether in nature 
 or in revelation, is not indefinite, but tends to a 
 limit. But if this observation be deemed pre- 
 sumptuous with the long track behind us of 
 geologic time and prehistoric evolution, it is at 
 least not more so than to proclaim the finality of a 
 positive stage of thought, as the " be all and end 
 all " of man's estate. Christianity, while pro- 
 claiming the ultimate dissolution of things at the 
 last day, leaves its approach indefinite, though its 
 
 ' " Le cycle du dessin de la Nature semble exiger pour se clore un si 
 long temps que la petite portion que ITiumanitd en a d^ji parcourue 
 ne permet pas d'en determiner la forme et de conclure la relation des 
 parties au tout, avec plus de stote que toutes les observations celestes 
 faites jusqu'^ present ne permettent d'assigner la trajectoire que suit 
 dans le ciel etoil6 notre soleil avec toute I'arm^e de ses satellites. Et 
 cependant remarquons qu'avec le principe general de la constitution 
 syst^matique de I'univers et avec le pen qu'on a observd, on est autorisd 
 il conclure qu'il existe en effet une telle trajectoire." — Kaut, u. s. ap. 
 Littr^, A. Comte et la Phil. Pos., p. 63. 
 
26 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 arrival be certain.^ Already it is possible to apply 
 Tests of some tests of its persistent vitality. For in what 
 
 durability , ... 
 
 applicable do the Organic forces of any religion consist, or at 
 gions. the least exhibit themselves ? Surely in their hold 
 upon the consciences, lives, and actions of men ; in 
 their tendency to extend -themselves by conversion 
 of unbelief; and in their power of assimilating 
 healthfully the altered conditions of advancing 
 civilization. This power, if shown to arise from 
 principles contained in the doctrines of the Grospel, 
 furnishes an argument in favour of the truth of 
 Christianity which has the force of prophecy, for 
 they are long prior to the discovery of the general 
 laws of human progress. But the most ancient as 
 well as the most widely-spread religions of the 
 earth, Brahmanism, Buddhism, the faiths of Con- 
 fucius, Zoroaster, if not also of Mahomet,^ show 
 no tendency to propagate themselves. The duty 
 of conversion is no longer felt ; its possibility no 
 longer dreamed. Not so with the Churches of the 
 Christian faith, which acknowledge to the full 
 the obligation of missionary labour, whatever be 
 'the measure of success attending their fulfilment 
 of it. 
 Objection & 8. It is uot, of coursc, denied that ancient 
 
 from the 
 
 ' See the Bishop of Carlisle's lecture on the Gradual Development of 
 Bevelation, p. 30. 
 
 ^ M. Littrd has justly remarked that the immohility of a religious 
 belief is a proof of a want of genuine belief in its doctrines ; citing 
 India and China as proofs to this fact. — Paroles de la Phil. Pos., p. 35. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 2; 
 
 religions, false and pernicious, have flourislied ^"°j™?"^ 
 throuerh immense periods. This has been due to of Eastern 
 
 " ■*■ religions, 
 
 the elements of truth* which they contained, "a 
 soul of goodness in things evil ;" and still more to 
 its adaptation to the order of the development of 
 belief in the history of primitive culture. Quantum 
 sumus, scimus. " Men must think," it has been 
 tersely said, ' ' in such terms of thought as they 
 possess." ^ It is a fact admitting of proof whether Not valid 
 Christianity includes elements answering to truths Christian- 
 but dimly shadowed forth in heathen systems ; is compre- 
 
 ...» 1 T 1 hensive, 
 
 in the Triads or Trmities, for example, roughly 
 touched by Brahmanism or Buddhism ; or in the 
 Monotheism of the creed of Mahomet. It has been 
 fairly said, " Whatever has been foimd necessary 
 in the course of 6000 years' experience, we have a 
 right to ask of that which offers itself as the one 
 faith for mankind." ' The question, then, is not 
 one of simple length of date, any more than of the 
 numbers who accept or profess a religion, as if 
 truth were settled by majorities.* The test of any 
 
 ' " The spiritual self-respect of individuals, the reconcilement of the 
 conscience by means of atonement, the hopes connected with the unseen 
 world, had all once been provided by Paganism : as they must be by 
 every religion which has had a real historical existence." — Mackay, 
 Eise and Progress of Christianity. A remark true, but only partially so : 
 for had Paganism actually fulfilled this work, it had never passed away. 
 
 ' Herbert Spencer, First Principles, p. 116. 
 
 ' Maurice's Kingdoms of the World, p. 162. A profound view of the 
 religious history of mankind will regard these religions rather as testi- 
 monies than as rivals to the truth of Christianity. 
 
 * "Qa-irep Iv rais x"P0T0Viais. — Lucian, Sermotimzis, c. xvi. Compare 
 
sive 
 
 28 . PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 progres- System will lie in the character of its doctrines, 
 combined with its permanence as exhibited in 
 their progressive capacity. If Christianity be an 
 imperfect theory of our relations to God and the 
 universe, it must needs prove transitory. Mere 
 antiquity in a fixed locality decides little ; though 
 even in this aspect it must be remembered that the 
 faith of Christ must be measured by the age of 
 Judaism.^ But where still extant, these world-old 
 theologies lack the criteria of permanence. The 
 wild erratic doctrines of Oriental religions have 
 
 Max Miiller, Chips, I. p. 215. On this point the Reformers jirofesfodl at 
 Spires in 1529. " The number of persons holding an idea is no warrant 
 for its ohjective character, else the many never could be wrong ; for uni- 
 formity of education, or the sympathy kindled by enthusiasm, may carry 
 many minds into one state in which belief in certain ideas and the mis- 
 take of fonnulaj or usages for external truths will be natural or neces- 
 sary." — Newman, Essay on Development, p. 31. 
 
 ^ " Que I'on considdre la perp^tuitd de la religion Chretienne, q^ui a 
 toujours subsists depuis le commencement du monde, soit dans les saints 
 de I'anoien Testament," &c. — Pascal, Pensees, II. p. 367. This is flip- 
 pantly stated by Salvador (Paris, Some et Jerusalem, 1. 243) : "Avance 
 dit-on an Juif, et d^clare-nous quel est ton nom .... ton %e. Mon 
 age ? Deux mille ans de plus que Jesus-Christ." " If it be said " (writes 
 Dr. Newman, Chramm. of Assent) " the Oriental religions are older than 
 Christianity by some centuries, it must be recollected that Christianity 
 is only the continuation and conclusion of what professes to be an earlier 
 revelation, which may be traced back into prehistoric times." "Die 
 G-eschichte dieses alten Volkes (Israel) ist im Grrunde die Greschichte der 
 durch alle Stufenbis zur VoUendung sich ausbildenden wahren Eelio-ion 
 welche auf diesem engen Volksgebiete durch alle Kampfe hindurch sich 
 bis zum hbohsten Siege erhebt und endlich in aller Herrlichkeit und 
 Macht sich offenbart ; um dann von da aus durch ihre eigene Kraft sich 
 unwiderstehlich verbreitend nie wieder verloren zu gehen, sondem 
 ewiger Besitz und Segen aller VoLker zu werden." — Bwald, Gesch. d. V. 
 Israel, I. 9, whose testimony to the eternity of Christianity I could not 
 willingly omit. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 29 
 
 produced neither in respect of moral or spiritual 
 truth results suitable to the facts of human nature, 
 its dignity and its capacities. They have wandered 
 into Polytheism. " Insufficient for time, and re- 
 jecting eternity, their utmost triumph is to live with- 
 out fear and to die without hope." ^ Their power 
 has steadily declined ; and, however Buddhism may 
 with truth boast of its ancient missionary zeal,'' they 
 have long since ceased to extend the area of their and has 
 
 ° survived 
 
 beliefs. They have never yet borne the brunt of the ad- 
 
 vance of 
 
 advancing civilization. These are the questions tnow- 
 of fact with Christianity. The religion of Europe 
 has passed through storms of barbarism, persecu- 
 tion, and doubt ; while over Asia has brooded an 
 immemorial calm, broken only by tides of military 
 conquest.^ Nor is it any way surprising that the 
 
 ' Sir J. E. Tennant, Christianity in Ceylrm, p. 227. On this subject 
 see Hardwiok, Christ and other Masters, II. 69; Tylor On Primi- 
 tive Cidture, II. 89, 96 ; B. St. Hilaire, Le Bouddha. " Unques- 
 tionably," writes Mr. Parrar, Witness of History to Christ, p. 145, 
 "Confucianism and Buddhism are in their social influence gigantic 
 failures ; and in these cases M. Eenan says, ' Success is a decisive crite- 
 rion.' " Mr. Pioton, New Theories and Old Faith, answering a remark 
 of Mr. Armstrong that "the cohesion and endurance of Buddhism 
 mocks and shames Christianity with her many convulsions and her 
 reiterated revolutions," ably replies, " that one might as well say that 
 the cohesion and endurance of China mocks and shames Europe with its 
 convulsions and its reiterated revolutions. The higher the life the more 
 violent often are the crises of growth, and certainly the more extreme is 
 the differentiation of parts." 
 
 " Max Miiller, Chips, I. 269. 
 
 ' "The popular religions of antiquity answered only for a certain 
 stage of culture. When the nations in the course of their progress had 
 passed beyond this, the necessary consequence was a dissevering of the 
 
East. 
 
 30 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 faiths of Brahma or of Buddha should linger in 
 the world. " The extinction of a religion," it has 
 been said with truth, " is not the abrupt move- 
 ment of a day ; it is a secular progress of many- 
 well-marked stages." ^ The success of Buddhism 
 rested on the assertion of the dogma of the absolute 
 equality of all men ; and this in a country which 
 Symptoms for agcs had been oppressed with caste.^ But its 
 
 of decline . n i r- n i • i -i 
 
 in the contmuance, as well as that of Brahmanism, philo- 
 of the sophically considered, is involved in its representa- 
 tion of an inherent polar opposition to the theology 
 of Christian belief. The doctrine of a transmigra- 
 tion of souls, of a simple " continuance-theory " as 
 to a future state, confronts the teaching of the 
 independent existence of a personal spirit, of a 
 permanent " retribution-theory " of after-being. 
 Materialism, as opposed to Theism, must ever pre- 
 sent two alternatives ; a doctrine of absorption, 
 ultimately equivalent to Pantheism ; or of extinc- 
 
 spirit from the religious traditions. In the case of the more quiet and 
 equable development of the Oriental mind — so tenacious of the old — the 
 opposition between the mythic religion of the people and the secret 
 tMowphic doctrines of a priestly caste, who gave direction to the popular 
 conscience, might exist for centuries without change. But among the 
 more excitable nations of the West, intellectual culture, as soon as it 
 attained to a certain degree of independence, must necessarily fall into 
 collision with the mythic religion handed down from the infancy of the 
 people."— Neander, Ghurch Eist, I. 6, B. T. " Le repos est le supplioe 
 de I'Europ^en, et ce caractSre contraste merveilleusement avec I'immo- 
 bilit^ Orientale." — De Maistre, CEuvres, p. 494. " Better," says Tenny- 
 son, " fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Oathay." 
 
 ' Draper, Eist. of Intellectual Development in Europe, I. 37. 
 
 = Ik, I. 62. Max Muller, Chips, I. 220, 246. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 31 
 
 tion, practically undistinguishable from a declared 
 Atheism.' 
 
 § 9. In commencing the argument of these Lee- a practi- 
 tures (which, it will be remembered, is the proof of ard of 
 the truth of Christianity arising from its past con- assumed 
 tinuity and tenacity, and from its indications of argument, 
 ultimate permanence), I assume the existence, from 
 the earliest days of the Church, of a nucleus of belief 
 sufficient to produce practical effects. On the. other 
 hand, no consensus or standing uniformity of doc- 
 trinal opinion is demanded, such as would be in 
 small accordance with the laws of mental progress 
 in other subjects under the varying stages of early 
 and advanced civilization, and national differences 
 of climate and race. While the original of 
 Christianity can only be accepted as divine, it is 
 no part of Christian philosophy to except the 
 historical development of the faith from such move- 
 ments of the human mind as are natural to its 
 exercise on any subiect-matter whatsoever. Be- How far 
 
 '' "' _ _ _ guaranteed 
 
 lievers in the truths of the Christian religion have in the ex- 
 
 1 .. . o 7- istence of 
 
 sometimes been described m terms of disparage- the Holy 
 
 Scriptures, 
 ' See Tylor, Prvm. Gultwre, 11. 69, and compare Dr. Mozley, Bampton 
 Lect, pp. 187, 368 : " The Brahman doctrine of the final state professes 
 some difference from the Buddhist ; but both schools maintain in 
 common the characteristic of impersonality as attaching to the final 
 stat«." See also Pairbairn on Belief in Immortality, pp. 50, 51, 53. 
 Sir H. Maine, Ancient Law, p. 17, observes that " the physical confor- 
 mation of Asiatic countries had the effect of making individual conmiu- 
 nities larger and more mmierous than in the West ; and it is a known 
 social law that the larger the space over which a particular set of institu- 
 tions is diffused, the greater is its tenacity and vitality." 
 
32 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 ment as Bibliolaters/ the worshippers of a book and 
 of a stereotyped revelation. It is not necessary 
 to consider to what portions of the Church, or to 
 what theory of Christian belief this criticism is 
 most applicable. But it is by no means true that 
 the religion of Christ is contained in the New 
 Testament, only in the same manner as the Mosaic 
 system depended on the Pentateuch, or as Mahom- 
 medanism is found in the Koran, or the faith of 
 Vishnu or Buddha in the Yedas or the Sutras. 
 The very power of Christianity lies in this : that 
 preaching the purest morality under the highest 
 sanctions, with the force of a Divine Exemplar, 
 and on the foundation of historic facts, it never 
 sacrifices it to ceremonialism, and is thus superior 
 to the decline of positive forms.^ In written codes 
 
 ' " Bibliolatry has been, and is long likely to be, the bane of Pro- 
 testant Christianity." — Hutton, Essays, I. 142. As with all exaggera- 
 tions, this contains an element of truth. That " the Bible only is the 
 religion of Protestants," was the dictum of Chillingworth. — (C. iv.) 
 " Protestantism," writes Dr. Dorner (Hist. Prot. Theol., I. 2), " seeks, 
 indeed, its ultimate foundation in the nature of Christianity, as it is 
 handed down to us in a documentary form in the Holy Scriptures." See 
 some good remarks on this subject in Rogers' Essays, II. 334, and Dean 
 Meri vale's Lectures on Conversion of the Empire, -p^p. 140, 141. Chris- 
 tians are known to Mahometans as " the people of the Book." But the 
 vivid language of Napoleon at St. Helena (Bertrand's Memoirs ap. 
 Luthardt Apol, p. 355, E. T.) is here applicable, " The Gospel is 
 no mere book, but a living creature with an agency ; a power that 
 conquers all that opposes it." 
 
 ^ This is the real answer to objections such as those of Mr. Buckle, 
 Hist. Civil., II. 51 : " The actions of men are governed not by dogmas, 
 and text-books, and rubrics, but by the opinions and habits of their 
 contemporaries, by the general spirit of their age, and by the character 
 of those classes who are in the ascendant. This seemB to be the origin 
 
Lect. I.] OF EELIGTOUS SYSTEMS, 33 
 
 of ceremonial worship and practice, it is difficult 
 to distinguisb. between principles and details, so 
 overlaid is tbe spirit by the letter of the particular 
 ordinance. There is a constant tendency to 
 crystallize into formalism. In these it is almost 
 impossible to see how tradition could long supply 
 the place of an authorized formula. But the faith 
 of Jesus Christ makes, as it requires, no such claim. 
 " The Grospel," it has been truly said,* "is not a 
 system of theology, nor a syntagma of theoretical 
 propositions and conclusions for the enlargement of 
 speculative knowledge, ethical or metaphysical, 
 but it is a history, a series of facts or events related 
 or announced. These do indeed involve, or rather 
 they at the same time are, most important doctrinal 
 truths, but still facts and declarations of facts." 
 
 of that difference between religious theory and religious practice of which 
 theologians greatly complain as a stumbling-block and an evil." — See 
 Tylor, Eist. Prim. Cult., II. 337. Mr. Mackay, Progress of Intellect, 
 I. 17, remarks : " Forms (i. e. creeds and ceremonies) are in their 
 nature transitory ; for, being destitute of flexibility and power of self- 
 accommodation to altered circumstances, they become in time uncon- 
 formable to realities, and stand only as idle landmarks of the past, or 
 like deserted channels requiring to be filled up." On the growth of 
 sacerdotalism in theVedic religion and in Buddhism, see Mr. Fairbairn's 
 able and learned essay, Gont. Rev., XX. pp. 36-55. 
 
 1 S. T. Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 153. " Eeligions," says Prof. 
 Max MUUer, " have sometimes been divided into national or traditional, 
 as distinguished from individval or statutalle religions. The former are 
 like languages, home-grown, autochthonic, without an historical begin- 
 nino', generally without any recognized founder, or even an authorized 
 code : the latter have been founded by historical persons, generally in 
 antagonism to traditional systems, and they always rest on the authority 
 of a written code." This division Professor Miiller with justice thinks 
 too sharply drawn. — C. R., XIX. 102. 
 
 D 
 
34 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 and in The New Testament (if with one exception) may 
 special be regarded as a compilation of strictly historical 
 
 cri3.r3.ctGr" 
 
 istics. documents, connected together by what might, at 
 first sight, seem a wholly fortuitous conjunction. 
 Not so, however. The narrative and historical 
 mould in which the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles are 
 cast, can only be regarded as a providential feature,^ 
 differencing at once the authoritative instruments 
 of the religion of Christ from those of all other 
 systems. Whatever theory of biblical inspiration 
 be adopted, mechanical or dynamical, it will hardly 
 be maintained that the writings of the New 
 Testament proceeded like the syllables of Mahomet 
 from the pen of an archangel,^ It may be held, for 
 example, without irreverence, that the letters of 
 St. Paul would have been worth much less to us 
 if they had not been called forth by the particular 
 occasions which are evident in each. In them we 
 
 ' " Let us look to the great characteristic of our holy faith ; that 
 unlike all other assumed religions it is not a collection of mystic 
 writings presenting to the view of man the scenes and the events of 
 the invisible world in minute description, such as admits no test from 
 experience and the course of the world ; hut consists in those very 
 events which it narrates, and out of which it is evolved, and may be 
 tracked continuously through more than three thousand years in the 
 successive periods of its delivery to mankind ; thus occupying a large 
 field in the history of God's providence ; and that we have just the 
 same ground for believing its truth as we have for believing any other 
 matter of history equally authenticated by events."— Bp. Hampden, 
 Memorials, p. 221. 
 
 ^ Mi) oh says Afi'icanus finely (ap. Eouth, Eell. Sacr., II. 229) 
 Karlaiiev ds Tocravrqv ecoo-fjSfias tTfUKpoKoyiav, iva 7% ivaKKayrj rmv 
 ovo[idT<i>v TTjv XpitTTOu BatriKelav koX Upa<Tvvr]v (TvvitTTSiuxv, 
 
Lect. I.] OP RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 35 
 
 see the man himself dealing with men whom we can 
 see likewise. It is the difference between a portrait 
 that we recognize and a face which we have never 
 seen, or,' as a map of places familiar to us by the 
 side of a chart of countries yet unknown. Such is 
 our gain in holding in our hands the letters of the 
 living man, and not cold abstract articles of reli- 
 gious profession. And if this be so with the j^fl^g'^^g'^ 
 Epistles, how much more with the life of Him, °^*^<='^- 
 
 ■•^ ' ' ample ol 
 
 " Who spake as never man spake ;" in whose acts ^Yir 
 and words is centred still the faith of Christendom.' Apostles. 
 Those words, " the primal, indefeasible truths of 
 Christianity," we have the promise, " shall never 
 pass away." In the imitation of His life^ and 
 spirit lie perennial springs of endless improvement 
 and advance. " All true moral progress/' it has 
 been well said,^ " is made through admiration, and 
 it is characteristic of our religion that it makes a 
 greater use of example than any other system." 
 " It cannot be too steadily borne in memory," says 
 
 ' It is strange that M. Comte, constantly ignoring Jesus Christ, 
 recognizes Paul as the meeting-point of Jew, Greek, and Roman. See 
 Pol, Pos., III. 409. For some good remarks on the oflSce of the Bible 
 in prolonging the solidarity of the life of Christ, see Mr. Picton, New 
 Theories, &n., pp. 161-5. 
 
 '' See Milman, Latin Christianity, VI. 447. Hence perhaps (with 
 all its shortcomings) the boundless popularity and influence of the 
 ' Imitatio Christ!.' No book has been so often reprinted, so often 
 translated, or into so many languages. — 26., VI. 303. It is a remarkable 
 fact that this volume was a favourite one with A. Comte towards the 
 close of his life. — Littre, p. 586. 
 
 ' By Professor Seeley, Lectures and Essays, p. 262. See also 
 Hutton's Essays, I. 140. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 another living writer,^ " that Christianity is Christ. 
 So He taught ; so His disciples after Him ; not a 
 law, not a theory, not a code of morals, not a system 
 of casuistry, not even an elaborate theology. But 
 they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ." 
 " Jesus," writes Dr. Newman,^ " through His 
 preachers imprinted the imagie or idea of Himself 
 in the minds of His subjects ; it became a principle 
 of association and their moral life. It was the 
 instrument of their conversion." Thus (to quote 
 yet one other author) " the Platonist exhorted men 
 to imitate God ; the Stoic to follow reason. It 
 was reserved for Christianity to present to the 
 world an ideal character which, through all the 
 changes of eighteen centuries, has inspired the 
 hearts of men with an impassioned love, has shown 
 itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, tempera- 
 ments and conditions, which has been not only the 
 highest jpattern of virtue, but the strongest in- 
 centive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an 
 
 1 The Bishop of Ely, Lect. on Christ's Influence on History, p. 17. 
 So also Canon Liddon {Bampton Lect, p. 308). " Christiamty, as a 
 creed and as a life, depends absolutely upon the personal character of 
 its founder." Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 288, writes: "In the 
 strictest sense of essential, this alone is the essential in Christianity, 
 that the same spirit should be growing in us, which was in the fulness 
 of all perfection in Christ Jesus." See also an eloquent passage in 
 Farrar's Witness of History to Christ, p. 79. 
 
 s Grammar of Assent, p. 460. An illustration of this sentiment may 
 be found in the early use of the word Kvpiaxos ; e. g. KvpmKov beiTrvov, 
 KvpiaKT) iyla f/ficpa, KvpioKol ypa^ai, to KvpiaKov, dominica solennia. 
 p,riKen (ra/3^arifoi/Ter, dXKa Kara KvpiaKriv ^airiv ^avTcs, says Ignatius, ad 
 Maghes., c. ix. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 37 
 
 influence, that it may be truly said that the simple 
 record of three short years of active life has done 
 more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the 
 disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations 
 of moralists. This has, indeed, been the well- 
 spring of whatever is best and purest in the Chris- 
 tian life. In the character and example of its 
 Founder, Christianity has an enduring principle of 
 regeneration."^ 
 
 S 10. The form and character of the New Tes- Relation of 
 
 Scripture 
 
 tament records involve, indeed, the consideration of to tiie 
 their relation to the earliest standards of doctrine.'* 
 
 ' Leoky, EH. Eur. Mor., II. 9, and see Hist. Bat, I. 337. Thus also 
 Mr. Carlyle, Saartor Besartus, p. 155. " If thou ask to what height man 
 has carried it in this manner, look on our Divinest Symbol — on Jesus of 
 Nazareth and his life and his biography, and what followed therefrom. 
 Higher has the human thought not yet reached : this is Christianity 
 and Christendom : a symbol of quite perennial, infinite character ; whose 
 significance will ever demand to be anew inquired into and anew made 
 manifest." We need hardly point out the fallacy and evasion which is 
 met with in some quarters, of admitting to the full the perfectness of 
 Christ's moral character while suppressing its supernatural element. 
 
 ^ On Creeds as a peculiarity of Christianity, see Leibnitz, Thiodicee, 
 Pref. sub init. : on their employment in practice, Neander, C. M., I. 420, 
 who connects them with oral traditions. Domer, Hist. Prot. Th., 1. 12, 
 remarks on the tacit growth of dogma. " In order to a development of 
 the system of doctrine, there is no necessity for Councils nor for the 
 formal fixing of the dogma by a positive Canon. The opposite is 
 proved by the three first centuries of the Christian Church, in which, 
 without oecumenical synods, the progress of dogma was as rapid as it 
 was sure and constant. Never, however, was dogma created or con- 
 stituted truth by the sanction of the Church in a juridical, canonical 
 form : but on the contrary, because it had in its substance established 
 itself in the common faith, there followed the declarative sanction." 
 See also Dr. Newman's profound and just observations, Avians, c. I. § ii., 
 and 0. II. § i. ; Waterland, Works, III. 254 ; and Dr. Pusey's note in 
 Library of Fathers, Tertullian, p. 490. 
 
38 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 They nowhere claim for themselves to be regarded 
 as precise authoritative statements of articles of 
 belief. That such existed in very early times, 
 probably in the sub-apostolic age, seems now suffi- 
 ciently established. The want of creeds must have 
 been hardly felt in the lifetime of the Apostles, 
 whether they be viewed as a sacred deposit, or tra- 
 dition of Apostolic teaching, or as agglomerations 
 of doctrinal expressions, the products of the 
 earliest controversies. But the ultimate and co- 
 ordinate authority of the written word remains 
 beyond question ; being proved by the custom of 
 Scriptural citation found even in the Apostolical 
 Fathers, though at first, as was natural, employed 
 much more largely on the Old than upon the New 
 Testament.* From the first there would seem to 
 have existed a body of traditional Apostolic doc- 
 trine, according with the tenor of Holy Scripture 
 and forming the nucleus of later and more ela- 
 borate Creeds. We are concerned, however, only 
 with the recognition by believers from Apostolic 
 times of certain revealed truths, and of historical 
 
 ' Thus Clemens Eomanus quotes profusely from the Old Testament, 
 but rarely from the New (i. e. from the words of Christ). See c. xiii. 
 In the Second Epistle, however, the New Testament quotations are 
 frequent, and apparently from Apocryphal Gospels. One reason for this 
 practice may he found in the fact that the Grentile converts would 
 commonly be ignorant of the Sacred writings, while, at the same time, 
 their antiquity, authority, and testifying power would be strongly felt. 
 Thus the Apostles proved both for Gentile and Jew out of the Old 
 Testament, applying the evidence of prophecy by the side of direct 
 testimony. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 39 
 
 events embodying these truths which contained 
 implicit obligations of a practical kind. In this 
 way a fixed character was impressed on the re- ^^''^^ 
 
 'I J: effective on 
 
 ligion itself, and on its followers, sufficient in the Pf^<=t'':«- 
 aggregate to produce distinct effects. " The growth 
 of Christian faith became a permanent and here- 
 ditary belief by a natural law of transmission." ^ 
 Thus we might argue either from the contents of 
 the New Testament, together with the Creeds, to 
 the lives of believers, as exemplifying and verify- 
 ing the nature of the doctrines believed ; or in- 
 versely from the life and character of believers, we 
 may argue up to the character of the truths be- 
 lieved. In either case it must be admitted that 
 the first ages of a faith are those in which its tenets 
 are most enthusiastically received and vigorously 
 acted on, and which therefore exhibit most plainly 
 the tendencies and characteristics of the system.^ The 
 emotions are stirred rather than the intellect ; and 
 it is with these that religion, as a motive power 
 among men, is principally concerned. But further, 
 by the aid of the Canon of Holy Scripture, cau- 
 tiously framed, gradually accepted and transmitted 
 to after-times,^ the personal influence, which marked 
 
 'Dr. Mozley, Bampton Led., p. 140. 
 
 ' " The life of intense hope," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, with his accus- 
 tomed beauty and strengtli of expression, " that is lived in the morning 
 of all great revolutions, may partly make up for the danger, the distress, 
 the disappointment of their later hour." — Lect., p. 59. 
 
 ' Pascal, speaking of the Old Testament, says : " C'cst le plus ancien 
 
40 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 the primary records of Christian truth, was in- 
 definitely extended and conveyed with individual 
 force to succeeding generations. And here the 
 Permanent importance of the form in which the New Testa- 
 conse- ment was composed, becomes still more apparent, 
 the^form of For it is such as to guarantee permanence. The 
 TettaiMnt. influences of the Gospel in the example and oral 
 teachings of Christ and His Apostles are brought 
 to bear continuously on successive ages in a degree 
 much greater than could have been achieved by the 
 bare institutions of ceremonies, however significant, 
 or the enunciation of abstract doctrines, however 
 pregnant with principles of action. The flexibility 
 and power of self-accommodation essential to a 
 religion destined for perpetuity are thus secured. 
 In this manner, also, fundamental departures from 
 the pure, spirit of pristine Christianity have ever 
 retained their antidote with them. For they have 
 all along held firm to the Canon of Scripture, by 
 which accordingly they may be tested and purged. 
 In this fact, and not in any single doctrine of "jus- 
 tification by faith only" lay the true value of the 
 Reformation as an ecclesiastical movement.^ Print- 
 
 livre du monde, et le plus authentiqwe ; et au lieu que Mahomet, pour 
 faire subsister le sieu, a ddfendu de le lire ; Moise, pour faire subsister le 
 sien, a ordonn^ a tout le monde de le lire." — Pensees, II. 186. 
 
 ' It has hence been called " the resurrection of the Bible." — Compare 
 Hallam, Literature of E., I. iv. § 58 ; Leoky, E. Rat, II. 227 ; Milman, 
 Hist. Latin Chr., VI. 438. Mr. Hutton, Essays, I. 400, takes a different 
 view ; but see also p. 415. Erasmus, De Batione Veroe Theologiw, 
 p. 87, says : " Non pauoos vidimus olim Lutetiw, quibus si quid depro- 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 41 
 
 ing restored the authority and efficacy of the 
 Bible, which in dark ages inevitably succumbed to 
 tradition. Is there any other example, we may 
 ask, of a religion surviving and drawing fresh 
 strength from the resurrection of its original re- 
 cords? I do not desire to deny that some periods 
 or conditions of society may be more receptive of 
 one sort of teaching than another. And the same 
 law may hold good in respect of individual tem- 
 perament. Thus the medieval ages of Christianity 
 were bound together by ceremonial uniformity 
 and a ceremonial faith, perhaps essential to a 
 system of centralization such as alone could evict 
 and control the evils of surrounding barbarism. 
 But with the Eeformation the Church returned 
 at least in part to its early appreciation of moral 
 and spiritual truths, and to a Scriptural Chris- 
 tianity as their best and most permanent expression. 
 
 S 1 1. It should perhaps be considered how far a objection 
 
 "> -"^ -"^ to the per- 
 
 theory of development tends to undermine an manem in- 
 
 •' ■*• _ _ fluence.of 
 
 argument resting on the persistence of Christian christian- 
 
 • 1 1 1 • 1 p ity drawn 
 
 doctrine. It could not, indeed, be viewed as fatal from the 
 
 theory of 
 
 to it, except the identity of the religion itself were doctnnai 
 
 develop- 
 
 mendum fuisset ex Paulo, videbantur sibi prorsus in alium mundum 
 traaslati ;" and Eobert Stephens (op. Oieseler, V. 57, E. T.) wrote in his 
 own defence, "Ante paucos annos qiiidam ex SorbonS, sic loquebatur : 
 miror quid isti juvenes nobis semper allegent novum testamentum. 
 Per Deum ego plus habebam quam quinquaginta annos quod nesoiebam, 
 quod asset novum testamentum." The doctrine of a " depositum fidei " 
 is not necessarily opposed to all attempts to seek out the truth. This, 
 no doubt, may become incrusted, and need to be reburnished. 
 
43 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 compromised ; and this would be contended for 
 but by few. In the case supposed it would not be 
 one Grospel, but many, which has been preached 
 throughout tlie world. The introduction of par- 
 ticular doctrines unknown to the first ages of the 
 Church has certainly exercised an important 
 practical influence on the history of Christianity. 
 But if it should appear that the simplicity of the 
 faith has outlived these and similar importations, 
 and through its native purity still works its own 
 work upon mankind, then the line of proof 
 survives, and an additional evidence is secured for 
 its inherent sanctity, its Divine origin, and its 
 insuffi- imperishable permanence. It would, no doubt, be 
 thistheory. possiblc to maintain upon a theory of doctrinal 
 evolution the progressive unity of Christian truth, 
 together with the continuity of its ideas, and so to 
 lay claim to the effects of the system as flowing 
 from a single source. The difficulty lies in re- 
 conciling the theory with the facts. The coldness 
 with which it has been received in the house of its 
 friends throws a just suspicion upon its demands.' 
 A system of development, however, necessarily 
 
 ' " Home founds herself upon the idea that to Aer by tradition and 
 exchisive privilege was communicated once for all the whole truth from 
 the beginning. Mr. Newman lays his corner-stone in the very opposite 
 idea of a gradual development given to Christianity by the motion of 
 time, by experience, by expanding occasions, and by the progress of 
 civilisation." — De Quincey, Bsmiy on Protestantism. On this subject see 
 Dr, Mill's Five Sermons, Serm. I., and for the view of the Eastern 
 Church, compare Dean Stanley, pp. 42, 173. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 43 
 
 renounces the appeal to antiquity or uniform 
 tradition. This is replaced by a different principle, 
 viz. of authority. It assumes the variation of 
 doctrine for which it would account. It renounces, 
 therefore (a fact of especial importance in the 
 present argument) that element of permanence 
 which, we contend, is a marked characteristic of 
 Christianity. It cannot then lay any claim on 
 behalf of the religion of Christ to effects as the 
 results of its character and doctrines. In other 
 words, the sort of permanence which it affects 
 is fictitious and of an arbitrary kind. But there is ^^ ."".^o™- 
 
 *' _ patibility 
 
 further as little limit in this view of the subject with fixed- 
 
 "' ness of 
 
 as respects steadfastness of doctrine on the side of doctrine, 
 the future as in the past. The Christianity of the 
 future might require another name. Nor can the 
 ultimate aspect or effects of our religion be pre- 
 dicted with any attempt at precision under such 
 a system. 
 
 § 12. But it may be said, while rejecting the 
 theory of development as an adequate explanation 
 of facts, it must still be admitted that the facts re- 
 main ; and it is these which may be held to break off 
 the continuity, as they undoubtedly do, the " sim- 
 plicity of the faith which is in Christ Jesus." In this fou^^^^jjis- 
 
 matter a distinction has been introduced between t°"cai cor- 
 ruptions 
 
 identity of principle and identity of doctrine} with au- 
 
 beliefs. 
 ' Newman, Essay on Development, I. iii. § 4, p. 70 : " Principles are 
 abstract and general, doctrines relate to facts ; doctrines develope, and 
 
44 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 With this, indeed, we are not now concerned, the 
 former being sufficient for our purpose. But 
 the historical development of Christianity is one 
 thing, its doctrinal unity another. This develop- 
 ment may be presumed to be subordinate to a 
 system of law and general evolution, similar to 
 the progress of all philosophical thought. It is 
 the idea of such a development as this, subject, 
 indeed, to a secondary process of degradation, due 
 to the mingled presence of lower and higher ele- 
 ments in man's nature, of corruption and perfecti- 
 bility, which, as has been truly said,^ " gives a 
 continuity to any distinct account of the progress 
 of Christendom, a life to any intelligent analysis 
 
 principles do not ; doctrines grow, and are enlarged, principles are illus- 
 trated ; doctrines are intellectual, and principles are more immediately 
 ethical and practical. Systems live in principles and represent doctrines." 
 See some excellent remarks on this subject in Canon Robertson's Bist. of 
 Chr. Ch., I. pp. 82, 91. Dbllinger, First Age of the Ohurcl, 1. 228-233, 
 leans too far to the side of development, confounding an original tradition 
 of doctrine (which seems necessary and reasonable) with a continuous 
 one, which it was the object of Creeds and of the Canon of Scripture to 
 obviate. Thus Augustine's rule is a positive one : " Nee ego Nicsenum nee 
 tu debes Ariminense tanquam prsejudicaturus proferre concilium : nee 
 ego hujus auctoritate, neo tu illius detineris : Scripturarum auctorita- 
 tibus, non quorumque propriis, sed utriusque communibus testibus, res 
 cum re, causa cum causS,, ratio cum ratione concertet." — e. Maximin. 
 Ar., II. xiv. 3. 
 
 '■ Dean Stanley, Essays, pp. 465, 470. So Ozanam, Civilis. Chret, I. 
 22, E. T.: "Every great era of history takes its departure from ruin 
 and ends in a conquest." On the fact that aipco-ir atpea-iv (pvTeiei,, " post- 
 humi hsresium filii," see Bacon, Works, ed. Spedding, VIII. 83. De 
 Quincey, Bss. on Protest., admits three kinds of development in doc- 
 trine — (1), philological; (2), philosophical, from advance in knowledge; 
 (3), moral and historical ; Christianity awaking new powers in man, and 
 being itself modified by times and climes. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 45 
 
 of Creeds and articles. In this manner the theo- 
 logy, like the architecture of each age, has always 
 built itself upon the ruins of its predecessors." It 
 is like a tree drawing its growth from its own 
 dead leaves. It is this, in fact, which constitutes 
 the solidarity of human history, and of the laws 
 which compose it, which enables it to be treated 
 philosophically, if not scientifically. It has plainly 
 been the will of Grod that in the examination and 
 handling of Divine truth the human element 
 should not remain free from controversial doubt 
 and absolute error. The hand of Grod is manifest 
 here, as in other examples of His superintending 
 providence. It has been finely said, " He never 
 yet sent a gift into the world, which man did not 
 deteriorate in the using." ^ Whatever be the immunity 
 
 TT- r-n 1 from error 
 
 extent of His promise to His Church at large, as nowhere 
 
 . „ , . , . , promised 
 
 regards indemnity from error ; whether this apply to the 
 
 ii f • ^ -x • •■! 1 i- Church. 
 
 to all degrees of it, both m principle and practice ; 
 yet for each individual Church no such immunity 
 can be pleaded, any more than from corruptions 
 in manner of living.'' But unless it can be shown 
 that, of the larger and dominant divisions of the 
 Christian Church any have cut themselves off 
 from the essentials of primitive teaching, from 
 all that is vital to the unity of the faith ; the 
 
 > Archer Butler, Lectures on Eomanism, p. 61. See also pp. 288-9, 
 316-18. 
 " See Field, Of the Church, Book IV. c. v. 
 
46 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 active power of Christ's religion may, though 
 various, be still regarded as uniform in its opera- 
 tion, and definite in its effects, 
 fistic de' § ^3- -^"^ there is another side to a theory of 
 veiopment development which demands consideration. It is 
 
 likewise ■*■ 
 
 fatal to the that which, looking at Christianity on the whole 
 
 perma- ° , _ •' 
 
 nance of as merely a stage of progress in the human mind, 
 belief. and regarding all religious truth as necessarily 
 progressive,^ because man's powers are so, while 
 accounting for its rise, prognosticates its fall. This 
 system of thought strikes, indeed, at the very root 
 of any defence of our holy religion which rests 
 upon the permanent character of its teaching. 
 An eclectic Christianity, making up a cento of 
 doctrines and precepts, would undertake to dis- 
 tinguish between the permanent and the tempo- 
 rary, the universal and the partial elements of the 
 teaching of Christ. Thus particular doctrines are 
 rejected as forming no part of the Christian con- 
 sciousness, and are yielded, as a sacrifice, to the 
 speculative difiiculties of the time.^ We cannot, 
 however, accept, we can only repudiate and 
 challenge all asserted improvements whether by 
 substitution or omission, in the svhject-matter of 
 
 ' Mr. Buckle, H. Civ., 11. 21, fathers this view on Charron. It was 
 carried on by Hume in his Natural History of Meligimi, but has reached 
 its climax in the system of M. Comte. 
 
 ' See Dean Mansel's Sampton Led., pp. 250, 258; Palmer On the 
 Doctrine of Development, pp. 91-100; Dewaron German Protest p 196 • 
 Blanco "White, Life, HI. 77. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 47 
 
 Christianity itself., effected by alleged advances in 
 knowledge and civilization. The progress of 
 science, so far as it extends to religion, touches 
 it on its natural or moral side : not as it is a 
 revelation of spiritual truths. These, simple in 
 their character, are also final, and admit of no 
 rationalizing process of accommodation to a fancied 
 advance in knowledge. Obviously, there can be 
 no progress of this character in regard of truths 
 which human reason is incapable of discovering 
 for itself. In this respect the religion of Christ is 
 really stationary. Civilization and knowledge 
 may be regarded as witnesses to the permanent 
 character of Christian truth, which absorbs, appro- 
 priates, and assimilates them without detriment to 
 its own announcements. In a certain sense they 
 form part of that natural revelation of Himself and 
 His dealings with mankind which is a necessary 
 consequence of a Divine government of the world, 
 and which supplements His more special manifes- This wui 
 
 •^ ^ . '- .be further 
 
 tations. Those improvements, however, m the treated, 
 condition and destinies of man which are due to 
 the particular operation of Christianity, form part 
 of the proper subject-matter of these Lectures, and 
 will be adverted to in the course of them. 
 
 § 14. It may perhaps be thought that as he who ^^^°j"'^ 
 excuses himself and his own cause, in effect ™g°"*« 
 
 ' present 
 
 becomes the accuser ; so there is a certain want argument. 
 of confidence in the credentials of Christianity, 
 
48 PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. L 
 
 when it is consented to weigh the probabilities of 
 its duration. It is enough to reply that the form 
 assumed, and the direction taken by the contro- 
 versies of an age depend, doubtless, upon laws of 
 thought beyond our volition or control. The 
 course of Christian defence must ever follow that 
 of attack ; and arguments which in one age are 
 satisfactory enough, in another fall pointless and 
 beside the mark. There is, then, a duty which 
 belongs to the Church of God in every age and to 
 Duty of \^^ « watchmen " in every generation, which may 
 
 teachers •' d ' -i 
 
 of Chris- be described as the discerning of the signs of the 
 times. Much of the influence, much of the use- 
 fulness of individual ministers of religion, will 
 always depend on their appreciation of the needs 
 and tendencies of the day.^ Much of the narrow- 
 ness of thought and want of practical knowledge 
 which has been falsely, because extravagantly, 
 attributed to the clerical mind, has been due to 
 this; — an absence of clear-sightedness in appre- 
 hending the intellectual posture of the age, its 
 information and particular bent of thought. 
 " Watchman, what of the night ? Watchman, 
 what of the night?" must still be our question, 
 when the clouds of doubt are hanging low, and 
 the darkness of unbelief seems settling on the 
 horizon of faith. It is not always sunshine in the 
 courts of the Lord's house at Jerusalem. Eather 
 
 ' See some interesting remarks of Mr. Lecky, EUt. Bat., I. 123. 
 
Lect, I.] OF RELIGIOUS 'SYSTEMS. 49 
 
 the answer is re-echoed from the towers of observa- 
 tion and the ramparts of defence. " The morning 
 Cometh, but also the night. If ye will inquire, 
 inquire ye ; return, come." ^ It cannot be the 
 part of Christian wisdom to refuse the labour of 
 accommodating its teaching to the requirements of 
 existing knowledge, and of anticipating, so far 
 as it may, the difficulties of present thinkers. It ^^^^^"of'the 
 needs but little insight into the course of specula- pJ'^jj"' 
 tion at this time to estimate the direction of the 
 conflict which must henceforward be considered 
 inevitable, between Science and Faith. The op- 
 position and repugnancy which in former days 
 were more speculative than practical, now show 
 themselves immediate and direct, and are pushed 
 into minute details. The question is fast becom- 
 ing one of mutual compatibility. But there is 
 comfort in the manliness with which the chal- 
 lenge has been accepted on the side of Christian Grounds of 
 belief. Unworthy suspicions of the candour ofness. 
 opponents, unwarrantable confusion of intellectual 
 with moral error ; illogical estimates of the con- 
 sequences of unsound opinions,^ are fast being laid 
 aside. The supreme obligation due to truth is 
 everywhere acknowledged. It is seen that the 
 
 ' Isaiah xxi. 11, 12. 
 
 ' In the treatment of Holy Scripture (it has been well observed), 
 " there is an abatement of that most wild and pernicious line of defence 
 which may be called the 'all-or-nothing principle': because it poises 
 the vast and glorious edifice of Revealed truth upon the point of a single 
 
 E 
 
so PERMANENCE A TEST [Lect. I. 
 
 cause at stake is the cause of all, and not of a 
 class ; and those who make or rather find the 
 difficulties which threaten to divorce Faith from 
 Science, are now credited with a willingness to 
 join in the work of subduing them. On the other 
 hand, there is in many respects a kindlier feeling 
 stirring in the antagonists of dogmatic belief 
 towards their opponents. The services and bene- 
 fits of Christian teaching in the history of mankind 
 are more largely understood. It is acknowledged 
 that there is something, at least, to be said for the 
 claims of Christianity ; nor are its professors 
 merely the ready instruments of credulity and 
 imposture. There is comfort, too, when con- 
 fronted by an intellectual revolution in the scien- 
 tific temper of the age, in the retrospect of past 
 dangers and past escapes. " The centre of gravity 
 of religious questions," it has been eloquently said 
 from this place, " may have become altogether 
 shifted and displaced. Anchors are lifting every- 
 where, and men committing themselves to what 
 they may meet with on the sea. But Christians 
 have had bad days before." ^ " Passi graviora " 
 may then well be for the time to come the watch- 
 word of the Church of Christ. We are not enter- 
 incidental statement of some fact either of histoi;y or science, and then 
 declares, with an audacity which makes one shudder, that if that 
 single statement can be disproved, the whole structure must fall to the 
 ground." — Christian Bememhrancer, Vol. LIV. p. 132. 
 ' Dean Church, Univ. Sermons, Sena. IV. 
 
Lect. I.] OF RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. 51 
 
 ing for the first time on the encounter with 
 Materialism or with Secular modes of thought. 
 At present, certainly, the tone and feeling of 
 society is not anti-Christian : it only needs to be 
 reassured. We are not entering on a conflict 
 unexpected, unforeseen. He who came "not to 
 send peace upon the earth but a sword," has with 
 that sword, " even the Word of Grod," armed His 
 warriors for the fight of Christian truth with 
 human imperfection.^ We are contending for a Elements 
 faith which from the first has been the religion nenceTn- 
 of progress:^ whose cardinal doctrine is the love the re-'" 
 of our kind, the source of all just and enduring c^i°st.° 
 Uberty :^ which has been ever the enemy of social 
 injustice : which in nowise denies the unity of 
 the human race and is confined to no one clime, 
 to no one tribal division of mankind, Aryan 
 or Semitic, to no one form of political constitu- 
 tion :* and which in its deep sense of human 
 
 ' See M. Guizot, Meditations, Vol. I. p. xx. 
 
 ' This is admitted by M. Comte, Phil Pos., IV. 231, and corap. 
 Dean Merivale, Lect. on Conversion of the Empire, p. 210 ; also Guizot, 
 Civ. in Europe, 1. 94, ed. Bohn ; Ozanam, Civil, in Fifth Cent., 1. 4, E. T. ; 
 Lecky, Eist. Rat., II. 234-5. 
 
 ^ Professor Goldwin Smith, Study of History, Pref. 
 
 * Thus Cardinal Wiseman, Lect. on Science and Beligion ; Ffoulkes, 
 J)iv. Christendom, p. 247. " Christianity alone has a definite message 
 addressed to all mankind. The character of the teaching of Mahomet 
 is too exact a reflection of the race, time, place, and climate in which it 
 arose to admit of its being universal. The same objection apphes to 
 the religions of the far East," &c. — Dr. Newman, Oram, of Assent, 
 p. 425. " Christianity is a living truth which never can grow old," &c. 
 —lb., p. 480. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 PERMANENCE A TEST. [Lect. I. 
 
 responsibility has been tbe handmaid of man's 
 perfectibility, leading him up to "the fulness of 
 the stature of Christ." We are contending for a 
 faith which claims to be coeval with the powers, 
 the wants, the destinies of human nature : which 
 alone is potent in virtue of Christ's Mediation 
 to heal the wounds of conscience and dry the tears 
 of sin : which has extended our very conceptions 
 of purity and holiness, as possible to man : and 
 which alone satisfies the boundless yearnings of 
 his spirit by filling it with the promise of the 
 likeness of its God. Why should we not assert 
 for such a religion as this, the living germs of 
 permanence and truth, a vitality surviving modifi- 
 cation, a vigour which can never decay, a life 
 immortal as the soul for which it lives and 
 works ? * 
 
 Meyas hi Tavrr) ®£os, ovSk yyfpaxTKn. 
 
 ' " Nemo dubitat eum qui veram religionem requirit, aut jam credeve 
 
 immortalem esse animam, cm prosit ilia religio, aut etiam id ipsum in 
 
 eS,dem religione velle invenire. Animse igitur causS, omnis religio. 
 
 . . . AnimsB causS, vel solius vel maxim^ vera, si qua est religio, con- 
 
 Btituta est." — ^Augustin. de Utilit. Cred., c. vii. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 CONSIDERED. 
 
 C'est un vieux batiment : si on y touche, il croulera. 
 
 " Je suis done tres-dispos6 \ croire que chez des hommes que ceux qui 
 m'entendent I'instinct secret devinera juste assez souvent meme dans les 
 sciences naturelles. Mais je suis porte & le croire 3. peu prSs infaillible 
 lorsqu'il s'agit de philosophic rationnelle, de morale, de m^taphysique 
 et de th^ologie naturelle." 
 
 De Maistbb, Soirees, 1" Entret. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 " If thou say est, Behold we knew it not : doth not He that pon- 
 der eth the heart, consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul, doth 
 not He know it ? and shall not He render to every man according 
 to his works P — Proi) . y.yX'a. 12. 
 
 § I • ^ A TB have been hitherto occupied with the The past 
 
 VV -J X- i? -^ history- 
 
 * * consideration or permanence as a crite- christi 
 
 rion of truth, and the conditions of its appHcabihty ground for 
 to the Grospel of Jesus Christ. Christianity, we con- in^i'ts™?- 
 tend, is the only religion which has stood its ground, ™^™'^^' 
 which has taken part in the general advance of 
 modern civilization as represented by the nations 
 of Europe, the foremost portion of mankind. 
 There is, then, good reason to believe that it must 
 be true, and will prove to be an accompaniment of 
 human progress to the end. The argument thus 
 afforded to its claims to reception is laid on grounds 
 which are common to any religious system. It 
 does not, then, rest principally, or in the first 
 instance, on the contents of the religion as revealed. 
 These, however cogent to the mind of the believer, 
 can have no binding force in relation to an ob- 
 jector. To all who accept the faith of Christ it tUs argu- 
 must be plain enough, that our holy religion can dependent 
 be no passing phase of thought or sentiment in the ticui^-^^"^' 
 
S6 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 contents of history of the human race, to be succeeded by 
 gion, others equally ephemeral. If true, it is true for 
 eternity. It has closed the roll and completed 
 the career of the religions of mankind.^ Christ, 
 if He be Christ, is "with His Church always, 
 even unto " the end of the world." ^ Incarnation, 
 Redemption, Regeneration, Sanctification, are no 
 catchwords of sect or school. They connote facts 
 touching the destinies of the whole race of man. 
 Nor can Christianity be regarded only as a revela- 
 tion of doctrine.^ It is far more a Divine work of 
 restoration : in this lies its proper characteristic. 
 " There is one Mediator " (and but one) " between 
 Grod and man, the Man Christ Jesus."^ " This 
 faith was once " (and once for all) " delivered to 
 the Saints." ° "No man may deliver his brother, 
 nor make agreement unto God for him. For it 
 
 ' " Le Christianisme a fevm^ la carridre des religions .... paroe qu'elle 
 est la seule parfaitement digue de I'homme, d'oil 11 suit par une conse- 
 quence n&essaire qu'elle est la plus parfaite et la derniire des religions." 
 — Saisset, Ussais, p. 300. 
 
 2 Matt, xxvlii. 20. 
 
 * See some excellent remarks in Corner, ffist. Prat. Thedl., 1. 19, B. T. : 
 " To this intellectual tendency towards objective truth, and the delusion 
 it nourished concerning the magical power of pure doctrine as a means 
 for the protection and blessing of the whole man, there was united a 
 moral security and religious torpidity which were maintained by the 
 kindred delusion that the knowledge of the truth — even its mere recep- 
 tion as a matter of memory — brings with it the Christian salvation — that 
 sin is essentially only a want of knowledge, or error. Christ is thus 
 reduced to a mere reveoder of the true doctrine concerning God and con- 
 cerning the past and future." 
 
 * 1 Tim. ii. 5. 
 
 ' Jude 3 : Tj; aira^ irapadoBelai] tois dyiois niaTci. 
 
Lect. IL] FJiOGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 57 
 
 cost more to redeem their souls : so that he must 
 let that alone for ever."^ As we have seen, there 
 can be no improvements upon the suhject-matter of 
 Christianity, no additions to it, no derogations from 
 it. Christianity, whether true or false, speaks for 
 itself: it lays its own claim to be received as the 
 final announcement on the part of Grod to His calculated 
 
 to satisfy 
 
 creatures. But in regard to those " who are with- objectors, 
 out," we may still seek to prove that the elements 
 in which the vital forces of all religions consist, 
 are to be found unimpaired and vigorous in the 
 constitution of the faith of Christ. 
 
 §2. For in some quarters undoubtedly an im-^preva- 
 
 ' _ ^ _ •' _ lent as- 
 
 pression prevails, or at the least is very Indus- sumptioa 
 triously circulated, that Christianity has been tried failure 
 
 . ... . . ofChris- 
 
 and has failed. We live in times when all insti- tianity. 
 tutions, political, social, religious, the cherished 
 heritage of many generations, are seen to be on 
 their trial. Nor is the religion of Christ, the 
 sacred deposit of the whole history of the Church, 
 in its turn exempt. Sometimes its failure is spoken 
 of as evident in practice, sometimes on speculative 
 grounds. The world, it is hinted, sits loose to 
 faith in Christianity, and is beginning to disregard 
 
 ' Ps. xlix. 7, 8, with the comment of Delitzsch. On the perpetuity 
 of the Church, as a doctrinal tenet, see Field, Of the Church, 1. c. x.. 
 Palmer, Treatise on the Church of Christ, I. i. § 2. It was received 
 alike hy the Romish and Protestant divines, and is maintained equally 
 by the Confession of Augsburg, the Helvetic Confession, and the Insti- 
 tutes of Calvin. 
 
5 8 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 it. " Only a fourth part of mankind," it is said, 
 with whatever truth, "are born Christians. The 
 remainder never hear the name of Christ except as 
 a reproach . . . These are facts which no casuistry 
 can explain away." ^ Again, " Christianity, accord- 
 ing to a well-known saying, has been tried and failed. 
 The religion of Christ remains to be tried , . . To- 
 day that failure is too patent."^ Proudhon hardily 
 proclaimed that Christianity will certainly die out 
 in about three hundred years.^ M. Comte, it is 
 well known, argues speculatively that all Theology, 
 as well as Metaphysic, is unreal; for they deal 
 with the origin and the end of things ; and of 
 Of its tem- those, he thinks, we can know nothing. They 
 
 porary • i i » . . 
 
 character, servc, indeed, a preparatory function m affording 
 a temporary stimulus, an artificial basis to in- 
 tellectual effort. But it is only by laying them 
 aside, and ignoring them, that knowledge has 
 made real progress. Thus Catholicism, ^. e. Chris- 
 tianity, the highest, yet the last type of Mono- 
 
 ' Froude ore Calvinism, p. 4. He adds, " The Chinese and Japanese, 
 we may almost say every weaker race with whom we have come in 
 contact, connect it only with the forced intrusion of strangers whose 
 behaviour among them has served ill to recommend their creed." 
 Again, Short Studies, Ser. II. p. 98, "We wonder at the failure of 
 Christianity; at the small progress which it has made in comparison 
 with the brilliancy of its rise," &c. This part of the subject will be 
 considered in Lecture VIII. On the numerical division of the human 
 race according to religions, see Prof. Max Mliller, Chips, I. 216. Chris- 
 tianity should probably rank highest in the scale. 
 
 ^ Morley's Critical Miscellanies, pp. 190, 191. 
 
 ' See Rogers' Essays, II. 342. 
 
Lect. IL] progress OF CHRISTIANITY. 59 
 
 theism, has now done its work. It lias prepared 
 the way for Positivism, that is, for the belief in 
 Laws ; and soon the present sta,ge of mental and 
 moral anarchy must draw to a close/ It cannot, This view 
 
 ■^ . ' due to the 
 
 I fea;r, be denied that there are many solvents circum- 
 
 ctpLtlCGS of 
 
 of customary belief at work among ns. The ad- the age, 
 vance through improved means of locomotion and 
 mechanical appliances of our knowledge of man- 
 kind, of nature, and the earth which we inhabit ; 
 the tendencies of physical inventions, of political 
 and social concentration, of scientific discovery, 
 and of philosophical criticism, are all acting in one 
 direction. They will strip off, no doubt, the un- 
 essential garb of Christianity. It remains to be 
 seen whether its inward frame can be shaken. I 
 make no excuse for putting the matter thus bluntly 
 before you. It is well even for the youngest of 
 my hearers, who are, thank Grod, least, if at all, 
 familiar with the philosophy of unbelief, to know 
 something of its. language and mode of assault. 
 Let them not be startled. When has the religion 
 
 ' See Phil. Pos., III. 418, V. 299. He holds I'dtat th^ologique to be 
 I'etat flotif. The Church is with Comte a speculative corporate body, 
 destined to give way when the interests of speculation and practice 
 are combined in the advance of knowledge. "La th^ologie et la 
 physique sont profond^ment incompatibles." — Lee. I. No doubt, it is 
 the function of Religion and of Philosophy to offer a general theory of 
 the universe. This theory is slowly verified or improved on by the 
 progress of knowledge contained in particular sciences. In this manner 
 religion is always on its trial ; but it lias not failed yet, nor is there any 
 reason to believe it will. For an eloquent description of the joint aims 
 of Philosophy and Religion, see Saisset, Eisais, pp. xxxiv.-vu. 
 
6b OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 but must of Jesus Christ not been upon its trial ; or when 
 
 be without . 
 
 delay en- has it shrunk back from the test ? But the charge 
 
 countered, e c -^ -k -k 
 
 oi failure whether meant as a gibe,^ or as a serious 
 objection, as a ready weapon of attack, or as an 
 honest stumbling-block, cannot be overlooked ; it 
 must not be postponed. To ignore a doubt, is not 
 only open to the imputation of cowardice : it is 
 unwise. For it cannot but operate to the prejudice 
 of the truth : and when at last it comes up, as 
 come it will, for answer, the fault bears its own 
 punishment. 
 Nature of & ,_ jt cannot indeed be denied that the im- 
 
 the current •■ "-" 
 
 attacks on putations to which I have alluded, are current 
 
 the success \ 
 
 of Chris- in the literature of the day. " The popular re- 
 
 tianity. ,. . „ . "^ ^ ^ 
 
 ligion, it IS said, " has entered on its last phase ; "^ 
 " Christianity has dwindled down to a drivelling, 
 feeble, desultory thing." " It is now obvious that 
 the theology of former ages cannot be maintained. 
 ... A change in religious thought has gradually 
 forced its way through the cultivated classes of the 
 community. The educated man no longer believes 
 what the Evangelist believed and affirmed." ^ ' ' The 
 
 ^ Bishop Praser is reported to have said : " It is a common gibe that 
 Christianity is losing power ; and to a certain extent, I think, we cannot 
 deny that the gihe is true and deserved."— ©Marciiaw, August 16, 
 1871. 
 
 ' No new view. See ap. H. J. Eose, Protestantism in Oermany, 
 p. 163, 2nd ed. Schmidt and other Rationalists held that Christianity 
 is a mere temporary dispensation, and that the world should return to 
 Natural Religion. 
 
 ' Christian Theology cmd Modern Scepticism, by the Duke of 
 Somerset, passim. Fabri {Brief e gegen Materialismus) complains that 
 
Lect. II.] FROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 6i 
 
 theological spirit is too much decayed and too fav 
 neutralized to be any longer really formidable in any 
 part of Western Europe." ^ Such are some of the 
 statements not unfrequently made . It is of moment, 
 therefore, to estimate the grounds on which they 
 rest, and the amount of truth they may contain. 
 Nothing is easier than to repeat a charge when 
 once it is made. Repeated, it soon begins to be Reasons of 
 believed, and held more largely on a tacit principle portance, 
 of authority ; and then a fresh start is made from 
 the assertion as if it were a fact both proved and 
 acknowledged.^ On what grounds, then, we ask, is 
 the career of Christianity believed to have closed ? 
 Is there any present pressing proof of it ? Is it truer 
 now than at any former time ? Is it plainer now 
 
 the majority of Christians now-a-days are pagans as to head ; though 
 accepting the faith with their hearts. 
 
 ^ " L'esprit thfologique est trop dechu ou trop neutralist pour 6tre 
 encore vraiment dangereux dans aucune parti e de notre Occident Euro- 
 p^en. C'est partout l'esprit m^taphysique qui constitue d&ormais le 
 seul antagoniste que le Positivisme doive avoir s&ieusement en vue : 
 lui seul prolonge desormais I'influence; impuissante pour rien fonder, 
 mais trop efficace pom entraver du gfinie religieux qui s'^teindrait 
 spontantoent sans un tel remaniement." Comte to J. S. Mill, ap. 
 Littr6, A. Comte et le Posit., p. 448, written 1843. See also Paroles 
 de Phil. Pas., p. 24. 
 
 ^ "Ideas obtain authority and dominion, not altogether from their 
 intrinsic truth, but rather from their constant asseveration, especially 
 when they fall in with the common hopes and fears, the wants and 
 necessities, of human nature. The mass of mankind have neither 
 leisure nor ability to examine them : they fatigue, and so compel the 
 world into acceptance." — Milman, Latin Christianity, III. 437. " Les 
 fausses opinions ressemblent a la fausse monnaie, qui est frappfe d'abord 
 par de grands coupables et d^pensfe ensuite par d'honnetes gens qui per- 
 p^tuent le crime sans savoir ce qu'ils font." — De Maistre, Soirirs, p. 26. 
 
62 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 than it has ever been before ? Are there no special 
 reasons to indicate that the wish may be father 
 to the thought ? Is Christianity less an object of 
 dislike and suspicion than it has ever been with 
 some prevalent systems of philosophy ? Is it less 
 and of of an obstacle to their reception ? Is there any 
 
 their being ... . 
 
 at present less impatience in the heart and mind of man than 
 
 brought PIT •■ Ti-f 
 
 forward, of oM to anticipate the designs of Providence or 
 to foredate the beginning of the end ? Something 
 may not unreasonably be attributed to the expecta- 
 tion on the part of its detractors that Christianity 
 may be killed or scotched by a policy of indiffer- 
 ence. To pass it by as already foredoomed, to 
 deal with it as a thing of the past, much may 
 perhaps be looked for from this course of treatment. 
 Dogmas ere now have perished of pretermission, 
 if not of controversy, have given way to a modi- 
 fication of opinion, if not to argument, have 
 yielded to insensible decay. Such has been the 
 fate of many an extinct superstition. This in the 
 eyes of some critics is " the great turning-point in 
 the history of civilized nations."^ Why, then, 
 should it be otherwise with the time-worn, cum- 
 
 ' " When in the progress of society its theological element begins to 
 decay, the ardour with which religious disputes were once conducted 
 becomes sensibly weakened. The most advanced intellects are the 
 first to feel the growing indifference, and therefore they are also the first 
 to scrutinize real events with that inquisitive eye which their prede- 
 cessors had reserved for religious speculations. This is a great turning- 
 point in the history of every civilized nation." — Buckle, Bist. Civil., 
 11. 263. Compare Mr. Lccky, Bist. Rat, I. 104. 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 63 
 
 brous fabric of Christian tradition ? The increas- 
 ing secularization of politics, the loss of temporal 
 influence by the Church,^ mark, it is urged, the 
 decline of dogmatic theology as a practical power. 
 Moreover, something of a just retribution clings Grounds 
 about such a change of fortune, which must render sessions on 
 
 1 11 • 1 • • 1 the part of 
 
 it not wholly displeasing to the taste of the physical Natural 
 philosopher. In past days Theology began by phers. 
 monopolizing science, metaphysic, even history 
 itself. In the hands of the Fathers of the Church 
 she early invaded the realm of Natural know- 
 ledge,^ quickly subordinating it to Revelation, and 
 thereby rendering its progress impossible. In this 
 manner Lactantius denied the sphericity of the 
 earth, and Augustine antipodes. " From the fifth 
 to the twelfth centuries," writes Guizot, "it is 
 Theology that possessed and directed the human 
 spirit. All opinions are impressed by Theology : 
 philosophical, political, and historical questions are 
 all considered under a theological point of view. 
 So all-powerful is the Church in the intellectual Former re- 
 order that even the mathematical and physical Theology 
 
 to physical 
 
 sciences are held in submission to its doctrines, science. 
 The theological spirit is in a manner the blood 
 which ran in the veins of the European world 
 
 ^ This view, of course, loses sight of the possibility that such a sever- 
 ance may even advance the ultimate influence of religion. Otherwise 
 Dissent must equally decline with Established religions. 
 
 " Compare Bacon, Nov. Org., Aph. Ixxxix. 
 
64 OBJECTWNS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 Haureau. _down to Bacon and Descartes." ^ Everywhere and 
 on all subjects the maxim was in force, ' Philosophia 
 ancillans theologise.' Few cared to perceive that 
 the true sphere of science lies altogether outside of 
 theological study. The Christian is but implicitly 
 and in a secondary degree called on to inquire into 
 the nature and constitution of things and of Grod. 
 On this side the true defence of his system of 
 belief is to isolate its claims, repelling attack and 
 implied or asserted contradictions.^ History is the 
 proper mode of exhibiting the general character of 
 the faith of Christ, as it is of orthodoxy in detail ; 
 showing the particular dogma to be either a just 
 or false outcome of Scriptural Revelation. Now, 
 however, the tables are turned : and the human 
 intellect, " waxing," it is said, " in strength, learns 
 to rely upon its own resources, and to throw off 
 incumbrances by which the freedom of its move- 
 ments has been long impaired."'' So also the 
 
 ' CivUi'iaUm, in Europe, B. Tr., I. 114, ed. Bohn. See also 
 Comte, mi. Pos., Y. 478. Kepler's bold and plain words (Introd. ad 
 Stell. Martis) are well known. " In Theology we balance authoritieSj 
 in Philosophy we weigh reasons. A holy man was Laotantius, who 
 denied that the earth was round: a holy man was Augustine who 
 granting the rotundity, denied the antipodes: a holy thing to me is 
 the Inquisition, which allows the smallness of the earth, but denies its 
 motion. But more holy to me is Truth," &o. See ap. Whewell, Indi- 
 cations of ike Greater, p. 143, and at length, Hist. Induct. Sc, IV. i. 6, 7. 
 
 " " Tout ce qui nous reste done apres avoir ajout^ foi aux mystdres 
 sur les preuves de la v&it^ de la religion (qu'on appelle motifs de credi- 
 bility) c'est de les pouvoir soulenir centre les objections," &c. — Leibnitz, 
 Theodicde, § 5. 
 
 ' Buckle, Eist. Civ., 11. 263. 
 
Lect. II.] PJiOGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 65 
 
 founder of Positivism looks forward to a Church, 
 Catholic, but not Christian, which shall preside 
 over the regeneration of society, and " the irresis- 
 tible emancipation of human reason."^ 
 
 § 4. Certainly, we have no right to complain inversion 
 that false assumptions should have borne their lation. 
 natural fruit and have yielded to fair attack. 
 " Men," wrote Jeremy Taylor,^ " will call all 
 opinions by the name of religion, and superstruc- 
 tures by the name of fundamental articles, and 
 fancies by the glorious appellative of faith." 
 Those, then, who made Theology the essence of the 
 faith, anji next installed her in the throne of all 
 knowledge, divine and human, natural and super- 
 natural, poising on some solitary statement as to a 
 fact of history or science the whole truth of Holy 
 Scripture itself: such men were perforce sowing to 
 the wind, and were the unwitting pioneers of a 
 whole revolution of belief. " Science," wrote De 
 Maistre * (and his sentiment is far from exploded), 
 
 ' Phil. Pos., V. 490. It is a melancholy satire on the tendencies of 
 Comtism that, forsaking the Materialism which is its proper base, its 
 author should have returned, as M. Littr6 reluctantly admits,^to a 
 Theology, a Petichism (sic), a worship of Humanity, " le Grand Etre." 
 Prof. Huxley's strictures on this subject are as just as they are able. 
 
 ■' Works, v. 348, ed. Eden. 
 
 ^ See Eccamen de Baccm, vol. ii. 46 ; Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg, 
 V. Entret. Works, 1. 198. See, however, also, p. 172, where the me- 
 taphor is borrowed. Leibnitz, TModicde, § 17, speaks of those who 
 held as to philosophy, " qu'elle devoit 6tre trait^e en servante et non pas 
 en maltresse par rapport k la Thdologie. Enfin que c'^toit une Hagar 
 auprds de Sara, qu'il falloit ohasser de la maison avec son Ismael, quand 
 elle faisoit la mutine." It must not be forgotten that Metaphysic, under 
 
 F 
 
66 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 "must be kept in its place; for it resembles fire 
 whicb, when confined in the grates prepared for it, 
 is the most useful and powerful of men's servants ; 
 scattered about anyhow, it is the most terrible ol 
 scourges." For this reason he argues that physi- 
 cal science was not given to men until Christianity 
 was dominant in the earth. What wonder if we 
 now hear the opinion loudly proclaimed that 
 physical knowledge is the proper supplement to 
 theological conceptions ; that " the gradual destruc- 
 tion of the old theology is everywhere preceded 
 by the growth and diffusion of physical truths." * 
 now"tends § 5- The revei'sc excess is now more to be 
 adoption feared. The spirit of the age proves, indeed, that 
 suo^urphi- ^^a^kind is still governed by its prejudices rather 
 losophy. than by reason. As the medieval temper was 
 theologically led to an excessive credulity, so the 
 sceptical tendency of the present day leads men to 
 limit their vision to objects of sense. Now it is 
 asserted that there is no knowledge but of things 
 visible : no truth which is not real : no philosophy 
 which is not " positive." ^ 
 
 We have but faith : we cannot know ; 
 For knowledge is of things we see; 
 
 sings the greatest of our metaphysical poets, con- 
 
 the name of etoXoyiKij, had of old assumed the highest rank in the 
 scale of sciences. See Arist., Metaph., Bk. V. 
 
 ' Buckle, Eist. Civ., III. 478. 
 
 ' Positivism, by Comte identified with Natural Philosophy in its 
 largest sense including Social Physics, through a huge fundamental 
 assumption, has come to be pm-ely negative. The tei-m " positive" was 
 by the grammarians opposed to " natural," and hence transferred to the 
 
Lect. II.] PHOGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 67 
 
 descending to the language of his time.^ Thus the 
 most popular Professor of the day asserts, " there is 
 but one kind of knowledge and but one method of 
 acquiring it, . . . What is the history of every Excluding 
 science but the history of the elimination of the™ the 
 
 ■^ _ Unseen. 
 
 notion of creative or other interferences ? . . . 
 Harmonious order governing eternally continuous 
 progress, the web and woof of Matter and Force 
 interweaving by slow degrees, without a broken 
 thread, that veil which lies between us and the 
 Infinite, that universe which alone we know or can 
 hnow." ^ Here is something very different from 
 
 distinction between legal and moral obligations. " In laws," says 
 Hooker, " that which is natural bindeth universally ; that which is 
 positive not so." — E. P., I. x. 7. Thus also Bishop Butler contrasts moral 
 and positive duties. Analogy, Pt. II. c. i. Its present use seems 
 derived from its logical sense, denoting " rem quasi preesentem." The 
 intermediate notion, however, by which laws of nature are regarded as 
 positive, is thus stated by Leibnitz : — " II y en a d'autres v&it€s qu'on 
 pent appeler positives, parce qu'elles sont les lois qu'il a plu a Dieu de 
 dormer S, la Nature, ou parce qu'elles en dependent." 
 
 ' And truly enough : only it must not be forgotten that faith is to 
 man the very " evidence of things not seen," the fundamental condition 
 of all true human knowledge, intellectual or moral. We may justly 
 ask whether the materialism of the day, resting on physical philosophy, 
 has any new proof or necessity to offer, not open to earlier speculation. 
 
 ' Huxley, Lay Sermons, p. 310. " Notre ame," says Pascal, " est 
 jetde dans le corps oh elle trouve nombre, temps, dimension. EUe 
 raisonne Isl-dessus et appelle cela Nature, n&essit6, et ne pent croire 
 autre chose" Yet he acknowledges fully the modest limits of human 
 apprehension. " Les sciences ont deux extremity qui se touchent : la 
 premilre est la piire ignorance naturelle dh. se trouvent tous les hommes 
 en naissant : I'autre extr^mite est celle oil arrivent les grandes 9,mes, 
 qui ayant parcouru tout oe que les hommes peuvent savoir, trouvent 
 qu'ils ne savent rien, et se rencontrent en cette m§me ignorance d'oti ils 
 ^taient partis. Mais c'est une ignorance savante qui se connait." 
 (Pens&s, II. 163 ; I. 180.) 
 
 F 2 
 
68 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 the doctrine of the relativity of human know- 
 ledge. No alternative is presented between mate- 
 rialism^ and sheer ignorance; either alike incom- 
 petent to satisfy the demand of man's intelligence 
 or spirit. So extremes meet. The ultimate 
 analysis of science, the rudimentary ignorance of 
 barbarism, have kissed each other. Both refuse to 
 travel beyond the avouchments of the senses, Mr, 
 Bailey, long a resident among the Veddahs of 
 Ceylon, says : — " They have no knowledge of a 
 Supreme Being, 'Is He on a rock — on a white 
 ant-hill — on a tree ? I never saw a God,' was the 
 only reply I received to repeated questions."^ 
 
 ' How dangerously near such teaching approaches to materialism may- 
 be seen from the language of Feuerbach. " Personahty, individuality, 
 consciousness, without Nature is nothing ; or, which is the same thing, 
 an empty, unsubstantial abstraction. But Nature is nothing without 
 corporeality. . . . Real sensational existence is that which is not dependent 
 on my own mental spontaneity or activity, but by which I am involun- 
 tarily affected : which is when I cannot, do not think of it or feel it. 
 The existence of God must therefore be in space : in general a quali- 
 tative, sensational existence. But God is not seen, not heard, not per- 
 ceived by the senses. He does not exist for me, if I do not exist for 
 Him." — Essence of Christianity, E. T., pp. 90, 199. Augustine thus 
 characterizes the Positivism of his day : — " Sed res est longg remota a 
 vanorum hominum mentibus qui nimis in hsec corporalia progressi atque 
 lapsi nihil aliud putant esse quJlm quod istis quinque notissimis nuntiis 
 corporis sentiunt : et quas ab his plagas atque imagines acoeperunt eas 
 secum volvunt etiam cum conantur recedere a sensibus et ex earum 
 mortifera et fallacissimS, regul^ inefifabilia penetralia veritatis rectissimi 
 se metiri putant." — Vtil. Ored., c. i. 
 
 ' Quoted by Mr. Farrar on the Universality of a Belief in Ood. 
 (^Anthropological Review, August, 1864.) As to the Veddahs, however, 
 see Tylor, Prim. Cult,, I. 45 ; and on the whole question of savage 
 races being destitute of the elements of religion, id. I. c. xi., pp. 377-83. 
 Also Luthardt, Apdlog., B. T., p. 42. 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 69 
 
 Thus religion, the science of spiritual things, 
 whose subject-matter, passing the sphere of experi- 
 ence, is the soul and spirit of man, and his relations 
 to the Maker of the universe, " dwelling in the 
 light which no man can approach unto ; Whom no 
 man hath seen, nor can see,"^ is in this school of 
 thought dethroned, discrowned, nay, thrust out for 
 final extinction : her occupation gone, the reason 
 of her being disallowed.* 
 
 § 6. The inquiry remains, Why must we believe Assump- 
 that Christianity has failed ? If the charge be necessary 
 
 p'l p ,toa belief 
 
 true, it must be capable 01 prooi, either irom the in the 
 exhibition of a fixed tendency to decline — the re- chns- 
 ligion of Christ must be shown to have already ''™' ^' 
 passed its meridian, and to have yielded only dis- 
 appointing results — or from a present feebleness 
 and prostration, so utter and unquestionable, so 
 chronic and inherent, as to defy dispute ; or, lastly, 
 from the discovery that the tenets of Christianity 
 
 ' 1 Tim. vi. 16. Oomp. Tertullian, Apol., c. xviii. Invisibilis est etsi 
 videatur : incomprohensibilis, etsi per gratiam reptajsentetur ; insesti- 
 maHlis, etsi humanis sensibus asstimetur. It is in tbis sense that 
 Augustine writes: "Summus ille Deus qui soitur melius nesoiendo." 
 Be Ord., II. xvi. 
 
 ^ Lange, Geschichte des MateriaUsmus, p. 60, has some good re- 
 marks on the insensible stages by which the physical philosophy of the 
 day passes into dogmatism. " Unsere Materialisten vergessen nur zu 
 haufig, dass sie ganz einerlei, ob sie von Beruf etwa Professoren der 
 Physiologie sind oder nicht, — sich alsbald auf dem Boden der Philo- 
 sophie und nicht der Natur Wissenschaft befinden, wenn sie sich zu 
 einer Gesammtansohauung des Weltganzen zu erheben versiichen, 
 und dass sie dogmatisohe Philosophen sind, wenn sie die Besultate ihrer 
 Anschauungen kategorisoh als Thatsachen vortragen." 
 
JO OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 are incompatible with truths now very generally 
 acknowledged, and with that marked progress in 
 intellectual effort which is a main ingredient in 
 the present condition of affairs. It is with the 
 last of these alternatives that we shall first, and 
 consti- for some time, be occupied ; for the particular ob- 
 
 tuting a . . -. . . T 1 
 
 denial of jections which it covers are fatal not only to the 
 
 its power . c /-n • • • i n 
 
 toco-exist continuance oi Christianity, but to all systems 
 vancing of religiou acknowledging or implying Theism.' 
 tion. These, then, require to be met before entering on 
 the direct historical proofs which guarantee the 
 prospects of our common faith. With one of these, 
 indeed, the refutation of such objections is imme- 
 diately connected, and practically identical. For 
 the power, which they impugn, of assimilating 
 healthfully the varying conditions, the attendant 
 conceptions of progressive civilization, must ever 
 be a most important ingredient in a religion des- 
 tined for permanence. It is this element which 
 is mainly neutralized or denied in the observations 
 which will now be considered. 
 Particular § 7. The difficulties Still urged against the re- 
 
 ^ It is evident that, thougli a man may be a Theist and not a 
 Christian, a fact ■which has recently been somewhat ostentatiously pro- 
 claimed {Ohristianity and Modern Scepticism, sub fin.), it is impossible 
 for him to be a Christian and not a Theist. Thus, Shaftesbury, 
 WorJcs, II. 209, writes : " Averse as I am to the cause of Theism, or 
 name of Deist, when taken in a sense exclusive of Eevelation, I 
 consider still that in strictness the root of all is Theism; and that 
 to be a settled Christian, it is necessaiy to be first of all a good 
 Theist." 
 
Lect. II.] PJi OGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 71 
 
 ception of Christianity are partly very ancient, "^j^'^^'^^ 
 thouffh now advanced upon new grounds : some sumption 
 
 ° . . ^^ founded, 
 
 are essentially modern in their character and bear- 
 ings, and, as such, are at present most frequently 
 encountered. Though general in their scope, they 
 are brought to bear particularly on the dominant, 
 that is, upon the Christian faith. All progress, it 
 is asserted, in human affairs, of whatever kind, is 
 intellectual. Moral subjects form no exception.' 
 The progress of Nature is towards intellectual, not 
 moral development. Moral dogmas, if they advance 
 at all, which is very questionable, advance only 
 through intellectual processes. The same is true 
 no less of theological and religious beliefs, which 
 owe their virtue to their moral element. Religion 
 has never been a true source of culture, which is 
 really derived from knowledge and not from belief.^ 
 
 • Pascal long ago noted the source of this confusion. " Les inventions 
 des hommes vonfc en avanfant de siecle en sifeole. La bont6 et la 
 malice du monde en gdn&al en est de meme." — Pensees, I. 205. The 
 notions of Mr. Buckle and kindred thinkers on these suhjects are trace- 
 able to Condoroet and Turgot. " Progress," says Mr. Morley, Orit. 
 Misc., p. 91, " in Condorcet's mind is exclusively produced by improve- 
 ment in intelligence. It is the necessary result of man's activity in the 
 face of that disproportion ever existing between what he knows and' 
 what he desires and feels the necessity to know. Hence the most fatal 
 errors of his sketch. He measures only the contributions made by nations 
 and eras to what we know ; leaving out "of sight their failures and suc- 
 cesses in the elevation of moral standards and ideals, and in the purifi- 
 cation of the passions." 
 
 ' See Buckle, Hist. Civ., I. 254. " When religious opinions are 
 deeply rooted, they do, no doubt, influence the conduct of men ; but 
 before they can be deeply rooted, some intellectual change must first 
 have taken place," &c. 
 
72 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 Civilization explains religion, and not religion civi- 
 lization. " The history of the civilization of the 
 earth," it has heen quaintly said, " is the history 
 of the civilization of Olympus also."* Thus Chris- 
 tianity has heen no cause of civilization, hut its 
 eflfect. The consequences very commonly attri- 
 hiited to Christianity in the history of mankind 
 are really due to an advance in civilization. The 
 Church of Christ may seem to have done some 
 good in things where her interest did not happen 
 to clash with the interests of Europe, as in helping 
 to abolish slavery ; but, after all, circumstances 
 and manners would have produced the result ne- 
 current cessarilv and of themselves.^ The essence of all 
 
 in the ,, . . . 
 
 literature religions IS in a moral code, and this is found to 
 
 of the day, . . , • t • i r~i • i 
 
 be nearly everywhere identical. So m the moral 
 part of Christianity there is nothing new. All 
 providential interposition, speculatively or histori- 
 cally considered, is inadmissible, and therefore, 
 also, every religion resting upon such interpo- 
 sition. Such notions belong altogether to the 
 
 ^ Morley, Crit. Misc., p. 153. 
 
 ^ See Condoroet ap. Morley, Crit. Misc., p. 94, and M. Comte, Phil. 
 Pos., V. 397. The case is temperately and honestly stated by Guizot, 
 Civ. in E., I. 110, ed. Bohn. " It has often been repeated that the 
 abolition of slavery among modern people is due entirely to Christians. 
 That, I think, is saying too m\ich : slavery existed for a long period in 
 the heart of Christian society, without its being particularly astonished 
 or irritated. A multitude of causes and a great development in other 
 ideas and principles of civilization were necessary for the abolition of 
 this iniquity of all iniquities. It cannot be doubted, however, that the 
 Church exerted its influence to restrain it." 
 
Lect. II.] FROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 
 
 infancy of knowledge ; its progress is marked by 
 their decay and extinction. Since the discovery 
 of the great laws and agencies of Nature all 
 miraculous tales have been given up. Every 
 advance of science is an extension of the idea 
 of Law, and that into regions of thought and 
 phenomena hitherto held exempt.^ But the theory 
 of universal invariable law is abhorrent from 
 Christian doctrine, and, indeed, from all systems 
 which are not of a pantheistic character, or, at 
 least, go beyond pure theism. Eeligion itself, and 
 so-called revelation, are parts of the order of 
 Nature, and may be explained out of phenomena 
 which leave no room for supernatural considera- 
 tions. Religion is a natural infirmity of the fatal to 
 
 ... . the perma- 
 
 human mind in its immature stages, iust as there nence and 
 
 power of 
 
 are specific disorders in childhood incident to the chnstian- 
 human body. Thus Christianity is a partial andofau 
 evanescent form of anthropomorphism, necessary religion, 
 perhaps to a transitional mode of thought. It is 
 the tendency of knowledge, and so of civilization, 
 to extinguish religion. Advancing culture removes 
 the feelings, or more strictly the occasions of the feel- 
 ings, which are the elements of religious sentiment. 
 By eliminating fear and wonder from the mind, 
 in its gradually increased acquaintance with the 
 
 ' Such as the special Providence of God, the foundation of all reli- 
 gion : the freedom and personality of man : with its consequences on 
 social law and morality. See some good remarks in Christian Iiemem~ 
 hmncer, No. CXXXI., p. 240. 
 
74 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 facts of the external world, the ingredients of 
 veneration are dissolved, and religion itself dis- 
 appears in the analysis. And, lastly, the sense 
 of free agency is more than suspected to be only a 
 trick of consciousness, a product of organic evo- 
 lution, and to be incompatible alike with just 
 theories of a natural causation, and with statistical 
 results. But if moral responsibility be removed, 
 most, it must be admitted, of the groundwork of 
 religious truth, under whatever system, will fall 
 away with it. Prayer, for example, can no longer 
 be regarded as " man's rational prerogative/' but 
 rather as " a transient bewilderment of the social 
 instinct," the " misapplication of a social habit," 
 or "the delusive self-conj&dence of human feeling."^ 
 They are J proceed to enter more or less fully on the 
 reason topics indicated. All are more or less directly 
 
 answered ■■■ _ •' 
 
 in detail, connected with the permanence of the faith of 
 Christ. The world at large is always ready to 
 mistake difficulties which really underlie all human 
 thought for difficulties in the way of Christian 
 
 ' See Coleridge's remarks on tliig subject in Aids to Meflection, p. 55, 
 and on the other side Comte, Phil. Pos., IV. pp. 671-3. I cannot refrain 
 from quoting a noble passage from Mr. Hutton, Essays, I. 368 : — 
 " Prayer is and can only be possible on the assumption that it is a real 
 influence with God : that, whether granted or denied, it is efiScient as 
 an expression of our spiritual want and resolution : that the breath of 
 power which answers it is a living response, and like all living responses 
 the free utterance of the moment, not the pre-ordained consequent 
 waiting for a pre-ordained antecedent : that there is a sphere beyond all 
 necessary law, in which both the Divine and human life are not con- 
 strained by immutable arrangements, but free." 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 75 
 
 belief. So far forth, however, as they affect the 
 permanence of Christianity, being themselves in- 
 volved in the. current philosophy of the age, and 
 representing the spirit of its thought, they will 
 be properly considered here. For certainly of 
 most of them it may be said that, if these views 
 must be accepted, the days of the reception of 
 the faith of Christ by mankind, or at least by 
 its most civilized portion, are undoubtedly num- 
 bered, and perhaps quickly told. "Whatever may 
 have been the benefits it has conferred upon past 
 generations, whatever its connections with fore- 
 gone civilization, its part, if these things be so,' 
 has been indeed played out, its work is done, 
 its glory departed, and "the ark of our Grod is 
 taken." 
 
 § 8. The limits assigned me in these Lectures |r^^^^j^'=*" 
 will be best observed by grouping the objections pel? °^- 
 specified under three general heads. They will be 
 found to involve the relations either (I.), of causa- 
 tion to free agency ; or (II.), of universal law to 
 providential agency; or (III.), of intellectual to 
 moral and religious action. " Every religion," says 
 a distinguished living philosopher,^ " may be de- 
 fined as an a priori theory of the universe." 
 " Every perfect religion," writes another careful 
 and precise thinker,^ " must give account of three 
 
 ' Mr. Herbert Spencer, First Principles, p. 43. 
 
 ' Dr. Westoott, Comte on Christianity, Cont. Bev. VIII. 373. 
 
76 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 elements — the individual, the world, and Grod." 
 Those Our immediate task is to examine whether the 
 
 relating . . . , . 
 
 to the principles on these suhjects, necessary to the exist- 
 
 existence 
 
 of free ence of Christianity, are irreconcilahle with the 
 in man conclusions of existing science.^ No fact is more 
 sidered. suggestive of the intellectual temper of our time 
 than the manner in which the question of man's 
 liberty of action is now discussed, and the grounds 
 on which it is not uncommonly set aside. Rele- 
 gated on its metaphysical side^ to the limbo of un- 
 fruitful disputations, it is approached and decided 
 by physical considerations, as a material rather 
 than a mental fact, or as a mental fact capable 
 The pre- of material explanation. Minds occupied only or 
 
 sent aspect _ ..... . 
 
 of science mainly with physical inquiries readily apply the 
 istic, notion of material causation, the mxus between 
 antecedent and consequent, with which they are 
 familiar, to the phenomena of thought and action.^ 
 Uniformity of result, statistically obtained, is taken 
 to proye identity of origin ; and moral operations 
 
 ' " The questions whiclt belong to natural tieology are in substance 
 the same from age to age; but they change their aspect with every 
 advance or supposed advance in the inductive sciences." — Whewell, 
 India, of the Creator, p. ix. 
 
 ^ Sir H. Maine, Ancient Law, p. 354, has pointed out that the 
 problem of free-will arises when we contemplate a metaphysical con- 
 ception under a legal aspect. Dean Merivale has traced the theological 
 history of the controversy to the expressions of Roman law. 
 
 ' Compare Augustine, Ver. Melig., c. xxxvi. " Quoniam opera magis 
 Artificem atque ipsam artem dilexerunt hoc errore puniuntur ut in 
 operibus artificem artemque conquirant: et cum invenire nequiverint 
 (Deus enim non corporalibus sensibus subjacet sed ipsi menti super- 
 eminet) ipsa opera existiment esse et artem et artificem." 
 
Lect. II.] FROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 77 
 
 are confounded with material processes.' Thus it 
 is asked, as an inquiry decisive of the matter in 
 hand, whether the actions of men, and therefore 
 of societies, are not governed by fixed laws; or 
 whether they are to be regarded as the result of 
 chance or of supernatural interference.^ For on 
 this issue depends the desideratum of the Positive 
 School, the possibility of an exact science of man 
 and history. Now chance, it may at once be ad- 
 mitted, is but another name for ignorance of causa- 
 tion,^ We know nothing in Nature, or, if it may 
 be so said, out of Nature, which is not under the 
 
 ' This is, no doubt, the first effect of the enthusiasm and instinct of 
 symmetry -which are the just results of the surprising triumphs of phy- 
 sical discovery. Mr. Lecky well remarks, Hist. Bat., I. 322, " In the 
 present day, when the study of the laws of matter has assumed an 
 extraordinary development, and when the relations between mind and 
 body are chiefly investigated with a primary view to the fnuotions of the 
 latter, it is neither surprising nor alarming that a strong movement 
 towards materialism should be the consequence." Leibnitz finely ob- 
 serves : " II parolt d'abord que tout ca que nous faisons n'est qu'impul- 
 sion d'autrui : et que tout ce que nous concevons vient de dehors par 
 les sens, et se trace dans le vuide de notre esprit, tanquam in tabula 
 rasd. Mais une mMitation plus profonde nous apprend que tout (meme 
 les perceptions et les passions) nous vient de notre propre fends avec une 
 pleine spontanfit4."— TAeoi., Pt. HI. § 296. 
 
 ' See Buckle, Eist Civil, I. p. 8 ff. 
 
 ' " Ne parlons plus de hasard ni de fortune, ou parlons-Bn seulement 
 comme d'un nom dont nous couvrons notre ignorance." — Bossuet, Disc, 
 sur I'Hist. Univ., III. viii. " Tous les sages," says Leibnitz, " con- 
 viennent que le hasard n'est qu'une chose apparente : c'est I'ignorance 
 des causes qui le fait." Aoxfi juiv alria fj tvx^, aSijXos 8e avBpamivri 
 hiavoia. — Arist., Phys., II. iv. Mr. Tylor, Hist. Prim. CvU., I. 17, 
 furnishes an admirable illustration. " The Great Spirit," say the Sioux 
 Indians, " made all things except the wild rice ; but the wild rice came 
 by chance." Here the ambiguity is apparent, which opposes chance not 
 to causation, but to design. 
 
Nature. 
 
 78 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 and tend- direction of fixed principles and ascertainable ele- 
 
 ing to ^ _ . 
 
 bring mentary causes.^ But when, this correction made, 
 liberty the question IS again stated, does it present a real 
 under the dilemma ? The will of man, it may be reasonably 
 of laws of contended, is itself a cause, subject to conditioned 
 action,^ governed therefore by fixed laws of choice 
 as well as of subsequent operation, yet in its nature 
 motive, and analogous, so far considered, to any 
 simple elementary force or form of force in physics. 
 There is no greater antecedent difiSculty in con- 
 ceiving the agency of the one than of the other.' 
 But then the action of man's will, it may be said, is 
 in this view hypothetically different from that of 
 all natural forces. For while the cause of motion 
 to things external to itself, its own movements are 
 
 ' " The nature of a thing is the answer both of the ignorant and of 
 the philosopher. Search for laws." — Faraday, Life, 11. 86. Law may- 
 be said to. be the first announcement of Holy Scripture ; when God 
 spake, " Let there be light ; " and there was light. 
 
 " Eom. viii. 20. " For the creature was made subject to vanity, not 
 willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope." 
 
 ' The embarrassments attending the notion of Force as a property of 
 Matter are now understood. Thus the terms energy, behaviour, and 
 the like have been -transferred by modern physicists from moral pheno- 
 mena as the best exponents of natural force. See Prof. Tyndall, 
 Fragments of Science, p. 22. Whewell's Indications of the Creator, p. 90. 
 Lange, Oeschichte des Materialismus, pp. 376-7, has some good remarks 
 on the bearing of this fact upon a doctrine of materialism. While recog- 
 nizing to the full the charm of style and language possessed by a 
 Tyndall and a Huxley, I cannot forbear to point out the responsibility 
 attaching to their vast powers in this respect. This has been ably 
 touched by a writer in the ' Quarterly Review,' No. CCXX. p. 370. 
 Leibnitz has well said, " Souvent les expressions entries et pour ainsi 
 dire poetiques, ont plus de force pour toucher et pour persuader que ce 
 qui se dit avec r^gularit^." 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRJSTIANITY. 79 
 
 assumed to be ultimately free, that is, uncaused, 
 however biassed bj the conditions and circum- 
 stances of acting. Now, the bowl will roll indeed 
 according to its bias, but it must first find else- 
 where an origin of movement. This supposition, 
 then, it is urged, is inconsistent with the whole 
 analogy of Nature, and is unsupported by the evi- 
 dence of facts. 
 
 § 9. The question thus stated will be perceived The theo- 
 to have no immediate connection with the theolo- tenet of 
 
 free -will 
 
 gical tenet of free-will.^ By this is properly to be dis- 
 covered the relation of man's will to supernatural from the 
 or Divine interference, the measure, so to speak, of or meta- 
 its subservience, the will being assumed, as to itself, question. 
 to be an instance of causation in Nature. At pre- 
 sent we are concerned only with the scientific fact 
 of the existence of will in man, as being a funda- 
 mental condition of the permanence of our religion. 
 To the mode of its operation the old physical axiom 
 may with reason be applied^" Corpora non agunt 
 nisi soluta." P'or it needs hardly to remark that to 
 speak of free-will is no better than a tautology, not 
 to rank it among the " question-begging appella- 
 tives " of Bentham, a will not free being a con- 
 tradiction in terms, a conception which excludes 
 itself.* There is, indeed, an aspect in which the 
 
 ' Mr. Buckle, Bist. Civ., I. pp. 9, 20, has indeed exhibited this sub- 
 ject very differently ; yet, as it seems to me, with some confusion. 
 
 ^ This, it is found, was the view of Spinoza (Ed. Auerbach). Cole- 
 ridge justly remarks:— "A will, the state of which does in no sense 
 
8o OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 theological dogma is not unconcerned with the 
 Thetheo- Scientific question. Thus, if the assumption of 
 
 logical . . . , „ . « 
 
 dogma universal law as a principle of science, or of na- 
 
 not ncccs- 
 
 sariiyin- tural selcction and gradual evolution as applica- 
 with the tions of it, require in regard of human action the 
 natural rcceptiou of a system of fatalism, whether pure or 
 modified, it would not be difficult, by means of a 
 doctrine of predestination, determinism, or even 
 of eternal reprobation, to institute an apparent alli- 
 ance between some aspects of Christianity and 
 science.,^ This subject it is not within our limits to 
 pursue further, though it has been stirred by some 
 leading writers of the time.^ I would remark only 
 that among defensive arguments such reasoning is 
 at least not inadmissible. 
 Theaigu- § xq. Are, then, the OTOunds ou which the humau 
 
 ment from ^ ^ ' o 
 
 originate in its own act, is an absolute contradiction. It might be an 
 instinct, an impulse, a plastic power, and if accompanied with conscious- 
 ness, a desire ; but a will it could not be." — A. E., p. 104. Scientific 
 and theological determinism may thus practically coincide. A will, 
 which is absorbed in the conditions of its operation, is no will ; and 
 if the actions of men "are merely the product of a collision between 
 internal and external phenomena," responsibility of conduct is evaded. 
 " Voluntas," said even Luther, " quse potest cogi et cogitur, non est 
 voluntas sed noluntas." 
 
 ^ Thus the Leibnitian doctrine of Monads and a Pre-established Har- 
 mony, when assailed as involving Fatalism, was defended by its author 
 as not incompatible with the Christian doctrine of Grace. 
 
 ' It is suggested by Mr. Buckle in his highly interesting comparison 
 of Calvinism with Arminianism, H. Giv., II. 342 ; and by Mr. Froude 
 in his most eloquent, though somewhat vague, lecture on Calvinism. 
 See also Mr. J. S. Mill, Exam, of Sir W. Eamilton, p. 492. Sir 
 William (Appendix to Eeid, p. 977) is careful to point out that the 
 Calvinist theologian holds to the liberty of man by the side of a doc- 
 trine of predestination and foreknowledge of God. 
 
Lect. II.] FROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 8i 
 
 race has ever attributed to itself the possession of paturai 
 
 -■- instincts 
 
 will, of an independent power of acting, and an in favour 
 ultimate freedom of choice, are these indeed real, ^m. 
 or to be accounted imaginary ? Is there anything 
 in the present state of our knowledge which renders 
 such a belief incredible through a diverse, yet 
 adequate, explanation of admitted facts ? Are the 
 sentiments and volitions which have hitherto been 
 presumed to be the properties of our personal 
 activity, to be henceforward referred to general 
 laws ? Do our " thoughts, wills, and actions 
 accord with laws as definite as those which govern 
 the motion of waves, the combination of acids 
 and bases, and the growth of plants and animals ?"^ 
 The observation of religious instincts, of ideals 
 unrealized. 
 
 That type of perfect in his mind 
 In Nature can he nowhere find ; 
 
 of moral intuitions and indestructible beliefs, the 
 very capacity of self-reproach, " the implicit creed 
 of the guilty ;" these facts in our mental constitu- 
 tion have ever been held to presume the existence 
 of will in man as a precedent condition of their 
 reality.^ Nor is the existence of such instinctive Testimony 
 
 of positive 
 thinkers 
 ' Tyler, Eist. Prim. Cult., I. p. 2. to their 
 
 " It has indeed been urged (chiefly hy writers of the school of Kant), validity, 
 that " presentiments cannot be regarded as proofs of external exist- 
 ence." Compare Mr. Hntton, Essays, I. 26. But such an objection is 
 in truth suicidal, striking at the roots of all knowledge. Spinoza said 
 the stone, if it could think, would account its gravitation a volimtary 
 
82 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 beliefs, showing an uniform but independent 
 genesis in different places and times, altogether 
 denied in the school of thought which I have 
 now in view. Mr, Mill, indeed, says with some 
 causticity, " The universal voice of mankind, so 
 often appealed to, is universal only in its dis- 
 cordance."^ Yet M. Comte recognizes "essential 
 inclinations of the intellect," " primordial tenden- 
 cies," an " inherent need of ideality," and the like. 
 " The universality of religious ideas," writes^ Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer, "their independent evolution 
 among different primitive races, and their great 
 vitality, unite in showing that their source must be 
 
 movement ; and Leibnitz (probably with the dictum of Thales (Arist. 
 de Anim., I. 2) in his mind) made the same remark of the magnet. 
 But Hegel replies that with thought would come the perception of an 
 infinite variety of motion, which, if limited, would be felt as compulsion. 
 See Weisse, Vorlesungen, p. 126.- 
 
 ' Dissert, II. 498. See Comte, Phil. Pos., VI. 642, &o. 
 
 " First Principles, pp. 10, 14. And again (p. 4), " Admitting, as 
 we mnst, that life is impossible imless through a certain agreement 
 between internal convictions and external circumstances ; admitting, 
 therefore, that the probabilities are always in favour of the truth, or at 
 least the partial truth of a conviction ; we must admit that the convic- 
 tions entertained by many minds in common are the most likely to 
 have some foundation." Cicero, Nat. D., I. xvii., says indeed the same 
 thing. De quo omnium natura consentit, id verum esse necesse est. 
 "No pre-assuranoe common to a whole species does in any instance 
 prove delusive. All other prophecies of nature have their exact fulfil- 
 ment in every other ingrafted word of promise. Nature is found true 
 to her word ; and is it in her noblest creature that she tells her first lie ? " 
 —Coleridge, A. R., p. 277. Mr. Mill, Logic, II. 466, sees a fallacy of 
 reasoning in a circle in this assertion of natural or instinctive sentiments 
 among mankind. But he has no right to demand these generalizations, 
 any more than others in nature, to be unexceptionable and not ap- 
 proximate. 
 
Lect. II.] PHOGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 83 
 
 deep-seated instead of superficial." " A postulate 
 which is not consciously asserted, but unconsciously 
 involved, and which is unconsciously involved not 
 by one man or body of men, but by numerous 
 bodies of men, who diverge in countless ways and 
 degrees in the rest of their beliefs, has a warrant 
 far transcending any that can be usually shown." 
 " That religious instincts," says Mr. Lecky, " are as 
 truly a part of our nature as are our appetites and 
 our nerves, is a fact which all history establishes, 
 and which forms one of the strongest proofs of the 
 reality of that unseen world to which the soul of 
 man continually tends." ' Is their testimony, then, 
 negatived or overthrown, is the light that is in 
 them darkened by our increasing acquaintance with 
 the regularity of events in nature, with the evolu- 
 tion of animal life, or with the automatic develop- 
 ment of faculties ? Of this class of notions, it may They are 
 suffice to remark that even 11 mstmcts be, as Mr. sistent 
 Darwin believes, " inherited habits," this does not theory of 
 
 evolution, 
 ' nist. European Morals, I. 340. Mr. Mill, Examination, p. 503, flF., 
 contends that we are not conscious of free-will, but of responsibility- 
 implying free-will. We are, he admits, conscious of a feeling that we 
 might have chosen differently had we preferred to do so. By respon- 
 sibility is meant not the fact of future punishment, but the sense that 
 it is right we should be punished. This, argues Mr. Mill, is a natural 
 deterrent, and it enables a man to help acting as he does. If so, it 
 renders him justly liable to punishment. I cannot see how it does on 
 the theory of Necessity, which admits, as Mr. Mill (p. 511) half seems 
 to perceive, no such saving clause. It is of course always open to 
 analyze Conscience into association ; viz. a gradually formed conviction 
 that as we are accountable to man, so we are to the Deity. But such 
 an explanation really decides nothing. 
 
 o 2 
 
84 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 necessarily mar their cogency or plausibility of 
 
 " ' Eeason is often pressed, 
 
 But honest Instinct conies a volunteer.' 
 
 The standard of nature is the perfect and, therefore, 
 the mature instance.^ The highest stage of civiliza- 
 tion is, in the truest sense, a state of nature ; nor are 
 -instincts confined or necessarily correspondent to 
 the primeval beliefs of savages. There may be a 
 rudimentary belief, natural and instinctive to 
 human tribes, which, at any given stage, may not 
 have yet emerged into a condition which can be 
 pronounced as definitely apprehended.^ It must be 
 remembered that results obtained through evolu- 
 tion, being strictly natural, may, in themselves, be 
 regarded as instinctive. And, certainly, the belief 
 in spiritual beings, the conviction of the existence 
 of an all-seeing Deity, controlling the course of 
 
 ' " Les principes se sentent : les propositions se concluent." — Pascal, 
 Pensees, II. 108. Instinct, says De Maistre, is like an Asymptote to 
 Reason, ever approaching but never invading its domain. 
 
 ^ " Num dubitas quin specimen naturaj capi debeat ex optimS, qu4que 
 naturS, ? " — Cic, Tusc. Disp., I. xiv. Ael <rKOjreii» iv rois Kara (j>v(Tiv 
 e^ouo-i fmXKov t6 (j>v<r€i Koi firj h> toXs 8i€(j>6apn4vois. — Arist., Pol., I. 
 V. 5, and N. Eth., IX. ix. 8. That which is the consummation in order 
 of time or development is the original or end respectively in the order 
 of Nature. 
 
 ' Mr. Herbert Spencer indeed holds that " fundamental moral intui- 
 tions have been and still are developing in our race." The abortion of 
 this truth is to hold with Feuerbach that the Deity -Himself is a creation 
 of the human conscience ; that man has made God in the likeness of 
 man. Any way these intuitions must be regarded as facts ; and, being 
 parts of an organization, imply design. They are the "practical 
 proofs" of Bishop Butler. On the whole question, see Oomte, Phil. 
 Pos., IV. 624 Waitz, Anthrop., I. 322 ; Tylor, H. Pr. Cult., I. 384. 
 
Lect. II.] FJiOGJRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 85 
 
 events, of a possible communion with Him as the 
 aim and end of being, of a sense of duty and 
 responsibility, of the existence, present and future, 
 of the soul, and other similarly connected funda- 
 mental truths, are some of these. Even if origi- ^h^^hT-^ 
 nally traceable to social tendencies and social ''^'^'f °^ 
 
 •1 positive 
 
 sympathies, or, which we cannot admit, to inherited '^'='=- 
 experiences of utility^ accumulated and transmitted, 
 and thus not innate but acquired, they are not for 
 that reason less natural. Such instincts may be 
 termed derivative ;^ but they still speak with the ^^^^dr 
 voice of Nature and of Nature's God, and their testimony. 
 utterance is this. They prove that community of 
 feeling and nature with the Divine which is denied 
 or ignored in the philosophy of Nescience, but is of 
 the essence of the faith of Christ {jov yap koL yevos 
 icTfjiev). For Christianity, it must ever be re- 
 membered, is no mere Monotheism ;^ it is rather, as 
 
 ^ Mr. Spencer says, " Moral intuitions are the results of accumulated 
 experiences of utility. Gradually organized and inherited, they have 
 come to be quite independent of conscious experience." See Baiu, 
 Mental and M. 8., p. 722. 
 
 ^ See Darwin, Descent, JI. 395, and J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 45. 
 Exam, of Sir W'. Hamilton, p. 167. The question whether we have, 
 given in consciousness, an immediate intuition of God, is not essential ; 
 we are at least conscious of truths which render the existence of God 
 matter of inference. 
 
 ' As a form of Monotheism, Christianity might be nothing more than 
 the outcome of the development of our race. Thus Mr. Tylor, Hist. 
 Fr. G., II. 302, regards the religion of savages as a polytheism which 
 culminates in the worship of one God. Humboldt in a fine passage 
 shows that Monotheism alone is consistent with a view of the unities of 
 Nature, of the order of the universe. " Es ist ein oharakterisches 
 Kennzeichen der Naturpoesie der Hebraer, dass als Eeflex des Monothe- 
 
86 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 it has been called, Theanthropism, the taking of the 
 manhood into God. 
 Objection § II. It is a difficulty more apparent than real, 
 
 raised by i • • j? "11 
 
 the Evolu- that a being apprehensive and recipient ot will 
 answered, should, if indeed it be so, be descended from pro- 
 genitors without it. It is evident when we take 
 into account the expansive force of mind and the 
 vast differences which sever civilized from barba- 
 rous tribes, that, whatever his origin, man's capacity 
 for improvement, or, as we should prefer to term 
 it, renovation, is practically infinite. Nor is it 
 easy to say where a difference of degree in respect 
 of faculties may merge into one of kind. An illus- 
 tration of this truth may be found in the long- 
 delayed maturity of the more complex and highly 
 endowed embryos, which yet recall, in various 
 stages of growth and infancy, the rudimentary 
 phases of specific evolution. If the sense of per- 
 sonality, of responsibility and moral consciousness 
 be our guarantee of the soul's reality, it may afford 
 some clue to the point of transition from animal 
 to human existence in the higher and truer sense. 
 Doubtless " there is a natural body, and there is a 
 spiritual." Howbeit " that was not first which is 
 
 ismus, sie stets das Ganze des Weltalls in seiner Einheit umfasst 
 sowohl das Erdenleben, alg die leuchtenden Himmelsraume. Sie weilt 
 seltener "bei dem Einzelnen der Brsoheinung, sondern erfreiit sioh der 
 Ansoliauung grosser Massen. Man mbohte sagen, dass in dem einzigen 
 104. Psalm das Bild des. ganzen Kosmos dargelegt ist," &c. On Chris- 
 tianity as wholly depending on the doctrine of the Incarnation, see 
 Dorner, Bod. of Person, of Christ, I. 2, sub init., and Dr. Westqott in his 
 able critique of Comte on Christianity, Cont, Eev., VI. 418. 
 
Lect. IL] PJROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 87 
 
 spiritual." We may have "borne the image of 
 the heavenly." It is probably through the Relation 
 medium of sensation that we learn to distinguish to the 
 our separate personality. Yet it is a knowledge worw. 
 too wonderful and excellent for the mere brute : 
 he cannot attain to it. The moral qualities which 
 he displays "^ are probably derived from his inter- 
 course with man, and admit of very limited culture. 
 So with the sense of immortality, of freedom, and 
 responsible activity. Part of the native generic 
 consciousness of our race, this may yet be de- 
 veloped slowly, partially, precariously.^ Still the 
 fact of such development remains with its atten- 
 dant consequences ; for which the same evidence 
 exists as determines the reality of all our know- 
 ledge. 
 
 & 12. The old familiar generalization that there Admitted 
 
 (V • 1 5 11 p uniformity 
 
 is no effect without a cause has been so far ex- of the 
 
 course of 
 ' " Take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and cou- ^^'"i'^- 
 rage lie will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to 
 him is instead of a God or melior natura ; which courage is manifestly 
 such as that creature without that confidence of a better nature than his 
 own, could never attain." — Bacon, Essay on Atheism. Augustine, Oiv. Dei, 
 XI. xxvii., remarks, " Verumtamon inest sensibus irrationalium animan- 
 tium etsi scientia nullo modo, at certe qujedam soientise similitudo." 
 
 " See Mr. Pioton's able speculations in New Theories and Old Faith, 
 Leot. II., &c. The "survival of the fittest," in spite of Mr. Spencer's 
 answer to Mr. Martineau (Cont. Rev., XX. 147), implies to my mind 
 pre-arrangement and a directive WiU. The benevolence of the origina- 
 ting Mind requires a distinct proof. 
 
 ^ Of this Leibnitz, Theod., I. § 44, remarks : " Sans oe grand principe 
 nous ne pourrions jamais prouver I'existence de Dieu." An illustration 
 of bis method will be found in his Confessio Natures contra Atheistas 
 {Works, pp. 45, 46, ed. Erdmann), and Theodicee, I. § 7. Dieu est la 
 premifere raison des cboses, &c. 
 
88 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 tended in experience as to receive the addition, 
 and one which is itself uniform. Thus if Physical 
 Science should ever ultimately resolve the bulk of 
 natural facts into forces, compounds into sub- 
 stances, organic structures into inorganic, or 
 inorganic into organic, vital into material, or 
 material into vital ; these forces, we may presume, 
 will be found to be qualified ; for else they would 
 be incapable of differentiation. Or if ultimately 
 resoluble into a single force, this must, so far as 
 we can conceive, be itself qualified, to be what 
 it is.^ 
 
 Eternal form must still divide 
 The eternal soul from all beside. 
 
 Leads But as that which is itself the origin of move- 
 
 acknow- mcut to all Other things, must be either self-caused, 
 o} a First that is, Can in no manner be itself an effect;^ or 
 must be in its operation eternal a parte ante ; it is 
 necessary to determine the alternative. It is not 
 enough to say with one of its most distiriguished 
 teachers ^ that " the positive philosophy does not 
 busy itself with the beginnings of the universe, it 
 the universe had a beginning." Or, again, with 
 
 ' " Cette id^e de I'espece qui serait inh&ente au gevme, c'est un prin- 
 cipe qui d^passe toutes les donn&s du mat&ialisme." — Janet, Le Mat. 
 Contemporain, p. 115. 
 
 2 Comp. Arist., Metaph., XI. vi. vii.; PJiys., VIII. ; Tlnto, Phcedrus 
 p. 245. Compare Sir W. Hamilton's argument, Lect. I. 60, to show 
 that philosophy, as the knowledge of effects in their causes, tends not to 
 a plurality of ultimate causes, but towards one. Comte views the resolu- 
 tion of laws or forces into unity as chimerical. 
 
 ' Littr^, Paroles de Phil. Pos., p. 53. 
 
 Cause. 
 
Lect. II.] FROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 89 
 
 one of its most distinguished critics/ tliat " tlie 
 positive mode of thought is not necessarily a denial 
 of the supernatural, since it merely throws back 
 the question to the origin of all things. If the 
 universe had a beginning, its beginning by the 
 very conditions of the case was supernatural ; the 
 laws of Nature cannot account for their own 
 origin," This, we reply, is to renounce a legiti- 
 mate function of man's intelligence,^ the " obstinate 
 questionings of sense and outward things " ; and to 
 quench within him an ever-rising instinct of 
 inquiry into the origin of the world of nature. 
 His understanding and reason, no less than his 
 moral faculties, direct him to its solution. Of the 
 
 ' J. S. Mill, A. Comte and Positivism, p. 15. 
 
 ' Tentat enim dubiam mentem rationis egestas, 
 
 Ecquffinam fuerit mundi genitalis origo. — Lucret., v. 1210. 
 See De Maistee, Soirdes, V™ Entret. " II ne depend nullement de nous 
 de n'y pas regarder. II est M devant nous," &c. M. Comte, Phil. Pos., 
 TV. 669, calls it " an infantine curiosity whicli pretends to know the 
 origin and end of all things." Not so Leibnitz. "Rien ne marque 
 mieux I'imperfection d'une philoaophie que la n&essit^ oil le philosophe 
 se trouve d'avouer qu'il se passe quelque chose suivant son systSme dont 
 11 n'y a aucune raison." — Theod., II. § 340. "Moi, je crois qu'il y faut 
 reconnoitre des marques de la force de I'esprit humain qui le faitpdndtrer 
 dans I'intdrieur des choses. Ce sont des ouvertures nouvelles et pour 
 ainsi dire des rayons de I'auhe du jour qui nous promet une lumiSre 
 plus graude." — lb.. Disc, § 81. Kant, though holding that no theo- 
 logical beliefs can be based on cosraological notions, Prolegg. § 44, yet 
 finds a firm foundation in the ideas which are the offspring of Reason, 
 such as the soul, the world, and God. Whewell, Bridgewater Tr., 
 p. 159, ed. Bohn, observes that " the same reasoning faculty which seeks 
 for the origin of the present state of things, and is capable of assenting 
 to, or dissenting from, the hypothesis propounded, is necessarily led to 
 seek in the same manner for the origin of any previous state of things," 
 &c. See also Indications of the Creator, p. 153. 
 
90 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 The alter- alternatives before him, the eternity of matter is 
 
 native of _ ^ " ^ 
 
 an eternity liable to many obiections,^ one only of wbich needs 
 
 of matter . . . 
 
 here to be noticed. While science nowhere con- 
 tradicts the fact of a beginning, its absence is 
 inconsistent and in the judgment of the highest 
 authorities in physical philosophy incompatible 
 with the state of our knowledge of Nature 
 rejected {Werdevb) as a continuous effect, and of natural 
 
 by natural 
 
 phiio- agents and their mode of operation as causes. 
 
 sophers. . . . 
 
 Thus astronomy, m the opinion of Professor 
 Huxley ^ " leads us to contemplate phenomena, the 
 very nature of which demonstrates that they must 
 have had a beginning, and that they must have 
 an end." "The principle of the dissipation of 
 energy," according to another distinguished pro- 
 fessor,^ " as it alone is able to lead us by sure steps 
 
 ^ As, for example, that it really explains no thing : teternitas qiiippe 
 niillius rei causa intelligi potest. 
 
 " Lay Sermons, p. 17, probably referring to the fact of the earth's 
 retardation in a resisting medium. Comp. Whewell, Bridg. Tr., Bk. II. 
 c. yiii. Sir John Herschel, Disc. Nat. Phil., § 28, says : " If we mis- 
 take not, then, the discoveries alluded to effectually destroy the idea of 
 an eternal, self-existent matter, by giving to each of its atoms the essen- 
 tial characters at once of a manufactured article and a subordinate agent." 
 
 ^ Professor Tait, Beport of British Assoc, 1871. He adds, " Sir William 
 Thomson's splendid suggestion of Vortex Atoms implies the absolute 
 necessity of an intervention of creative power to form or to destroy one 
 atom even ofdead matter." Dr. Whewell, Indications, pp. 14, 17, 115, 
 remarks, "A perpetual motion is impossible in chemistry as it is in 
 mechanics; and a theory of constant change continued throughout 
 infinite time is untenable when asserted upon chemical no less than 
 upon mechanical principles." Liebig, 23 Brief ap. Lange, Oesch. des 
 Mat., p. 342, considers the same to be proved by physiology. Die 
 exakte Natiirforschung hat bewiesen, dass das organische Leben auf 
 Erden einen Anfang hatte. 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 91 
 
 of deductive reasoning to the necessary future ot 
 the universe (necessary, that is, if physical laws 
 for ever remain unchanged) ; so it enables us to 
 say that the present order of things has not been 
 evolved through infinite past time by the agency 
 of laws now at work ; but must have had a dis- 
 tinctive beginning, a state beyond which we are 
 totally unable to penetrate ; a state, in fact, which 
 must have been produced by other than the now 
 acting causes." We may dismiss, then, the theory 
 of the eternity of matter, and with it some ancient 
 fancies which, while admitting a creation, supposed 
 it to be coeval with the Creator as being of His 
 essence/ But if self-caused or altogether motive The First 
 and yet material, the ultimate force in natural creative 
 phenomena turns out to be wholly and inherently 
 different from the effects for which it is required 
 to account. It is contrary to all experience, and 
 all our knowledge of matter, such as it is, is gained 
 from experience.^ Its raison d'etre, therefore, dis- 
 
 ' See Milman, Lat. Christ., VI. 279. "Nature and Time were 
 created together," is the truer thought of Scotus Erigena (ap. Guizot, 
 Civil, en France, Lee. 28). See, however, Milman (lb.. III. 244), after 
 Haureau. Saisset indeed (Essais), while quoting Augustine and Leih- 
 nitz a3 inclining to the opinion of the eternity and infinity of the 
 universe, remarks, " Dieu a toujours 6t6 avant les creatures sans jamais 
 exister sans elles ; parce qu'il ne les pr^cMe point par un intervalle de 
 temps, mais par une ^ternite fixe." 
 
 ' " Laws of Matter " imply a distinction hetween matter and form, 
 and by consequence an oviginal conception of matter which is meta- 
 physical rather than physical, and involves a whole theory. With the 
 admission that we know nothing of physical causes materialism pro- 
 perly disappears. 
 
92 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 appears. It is opposed to that great generaliza- 
 tion of modern science, known as the conservation 
 of energy or persistence of force. "A creation 
 of power," says Faraday,^ " is like no other force 
 in nature. . . . In no case, not even in those of 
 the gymnotus or torpedo, is there a pure creation or 
 a production of power without a corresponding 
 and im- exhaustion of something to supply it." It must 
 
 material, . . ° ri ./ 
 
 then, this ultimate force or centre, or more strictly 
 this origin of force, be other than material in 
 character and essence. No theory of tension or 
 pressure, or of their co-existence, is adequate to the 
 case supposed. All motion with which we are 
 acquainted has its commencement in some pre- 
 existing source of power. If physical, it is itself 
 an effect. For all experience and observation, not 
 to rest upon principles of reason, lead us to con- 
 clude that there is no phenomenon in nature which 
 is uncaused. But if itself a cause and immaterial, 
 a new mode of agency is introduced into the 
 universe. True ; and it is this consideration which 
 answers the objection that if there can be some- 
 thing uncaused, there is no reason to assume a 
 cause for anything. It is one, moreover, the mode 
 of whose operation must always remain inacces- 
 
 ' Life, II. p. 103. " Perpetual motion is deemed impossible, because 
 it demands the creation of force, whereas the principle of conservation 
 is no creation but infinite conversion." — Prof. Tyndall, Fragments 
 p. 35. Sir Isaac Newton in his Letters to Bentley leaves it to his 
 readers to determine whether the agent which produces gravitation is 
 material or immaterial. 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 93 
 
 sible to our present living powers, one wliicli may 
 
 be fitly termed super-essential. It answers, there- answering 
 
 . . . to our 
 
 fore, the criterion laid down by modern thinkers, notions of 
 
 ■^ _ _ spiritual 
 
 of "an omnipresence of something which passes action, 
 comprehension." ^ The action of mind or spirit 
 upon matter (whether properly to be considered 
 supernatural or not) seems incapable of determina- 
 tion, if for no other reason, that it cannot even by 
 reflection see itself.^ This cannot therefore 
 
 Come 
 Into tlie eye and prospect of tlie soul. 
 
 One thing only can we infer respecting it in the 
 case of the Primal Mind or Eternal Spirit. This P"°r to 
 
 ■^ law and 
 
 cannot be subiect to laws in the same sense as the free in 
 
 ■^ operation. 
 
 phenomena of Nature. It must be, as the type of 
 pure action, free in operation ; and, if not in- 
 different but capable of motive (for motives are 
 not necessarily " symptoms of weakness "), it 
 must be self-determined, " a law unto itself." It 
 seems, then, impossible to assert that there can be 
 
 ' Herbert Spencer, First Princ, p. 45. 
 
 ^ "Modus quo corporibiis adhseret spiritus comprehendi ab homi- 
 nibus non potest : et hoc tamen bomo est." — Augustin. de Spir. et Anim. 
 " Ubi igitur aut qualis est ista mens ? Dbi tua aut qualis ? Potesne 
 dicere? . . . Non valet tantum animus ut sese ipse videat. At, ut 
 ooulus, sic animus, se non videns, alia oernit." — Oic, Tvsc. Disp., 
 I. xxvii. " En un mot," says Leibnitz, " que I'^me change la quantity 
 de la force, et qu'elle change la ligne de la direction, ce sont deux 
 choses dgalement inexplicables." Hence bis supposition of a paral- 
 lelismus inter corpus et animam, and the several theories of a physical 
 influx, of a Divine assistance, of occasional causes, due respectively to 
 Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, and Malebranche. 
 
94 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE 
 
 [Lect. II. 
 
 Analogy 
 of the 
 human 
 will. 
 
 This line 
 of proof, 
 being from 
 pheno- 
 mena, 
 suitable 
 to the 
 demands 
 of Posi- 
 tivism. 
 
 nothing homologous or at the least analogous to 
 such a mode of agency' in the case of human voli- 
 tion and moral causation. Why should it be 
 thought a thing incredible that man should exist 
 in the image and likeness of Grod, who made him?^ 
 § 13. In this argument it has been suflScient to 
 view the Divine Being as only a logical postulate 
 in the scale of causation. I have done so, not, of 
 course willingly, (for who, after all, can love or 
 reverence a probable or even a demonstrated Grod ?) 
 
 ' " Sicut ab exemplari, non secundum sequalitatem." — Thorn. Aq., 
 Sum., I. i., p. 93, Art. I., and see Origen, c. Gels., VI. Ixiii. " II est 
 vrai que Dieu est le seul dont I'action est pure et sans melange de 
 ce qu'on appelle ^atir : mais cela a'empSolie pas que la cre'ature n'ait 
 part aux actions aussi, puisque I'action de la creature est une modifi- 
 cation de la substance qui en coule naturellement, et qui renferme 
 une variation non-seulement dans les perfections que Dieu a com- 
 muniqu^es 4 la creature, mais encore dans les limitations qu'elle y 
 apporte d'elle-mSme pour etre ce qu'elle est." — Leibnitz, Tlieod., Pt. I., 
 § 32. " Causa itaque rerum quas faoit nee fit, Deus est. Aliae vero 
 causce et faciunt et fiunt ; sicut sunt omnes creati spiritus et maximS 
 rationales. Corporales autem causae, quse magis fiunt qu8,m faciunt, non 
 sunt inter causas efficientes annumerandfe : quoniam hoc possunt quad 
 ex ipsis faciunt spirituum volimtates." — August., Civ. D., V. ix. 
 
 ^ Thus is it literally true, uli spiritus Domini, ibi Uhertas (tA 
 vo€pov Kol avTe^oia-iov). Of. Delitzsch, Biblical Psych., p. 84, E. T. 
 " Man in perfection of nature being made according to the likeness 
 of his Maker, resembleth Him also in the manner of His working : so 
 that whatsoever we work as men, the same we do wittingly work and 
 freely : neither are we according to the manner of natural agents so 
 tied, but that it is in our power to leave the things we do undone." — 
 Hooker, Eccl: Pol., I. vii. 2. " God created man in His own image: 
 to be the image of His own eternity created He man ! Of eternity and 
 self-existence what other likeness is possible, but immortality and 
 moral self-determination ?" — Coleridge, Friend, I. 146. See the whole 
 passage. Comp. Hazard on The Will, Pt. I. " Well said Saint Chrys- 
 ostom with his lips of gold, ' The true Shekinah is man.' " — Carlyle, 
 S. P., p. 44. 
 
Lect. II.] FROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 95 
 
 but because of some prevailing modes of thought 
 which should, where possible, be encountered on 
 common ground.^ The original sin of Positivism 
 is the refusal to acknowledge the idea of a true 
 efficient cause (also a final one) to the universe, 
 which thus emerges from nothing, and ends in 
 nothing.^ Though philosophy properly denies to 
 the human mind the knowledge of an efficient or 
 physical cause to phenomena, it cannot, as it seems 
 to me, ignore the necessity of a First Cause ; or, as 
 a fact in nature, of the common sense of a Divine 
 original. A double error is committed. Engrossed 
 with the material world, the subjective portion of 
 the universe, with its necessities and claims, is 
 
 ' See Janet's remarks. La Crise PMlosophique, p. 106. " No gene- 
 ralisation," it has been truly said, " of the phenomena of space, of time, 
 of matter, or of force, can become a religious conception." — H. Spencer, 
 First Princ., p. 23. Thus Pascal argued that from number we know 
 there is an Infinite, but not its nature — only it must be different from 
 any aggregation of number. But while admitting with Dean Mansel, 
 Aids to Faith, p. 25, that " mind and not matter is the truer image 
 of God," following Kant, Eritik, Werhe, II. 478-81, I cannot but 
 think Sir W. Hamilton goes too far in his assertion that " the phe- 
 nomena of matter, taken by themselves, do not warrant any inference 
 to the existence of a God." — Lect. on Metaph., I. p. 26. See some good 
 remarks of Mr. Mill, Exam., p. 491, on the danger of sacrificing suc- 
 cessively one kind of evidence to another. 
 
 " See Comte, Phil. Pos., IV. 388. I have already remarked (p. 65) 
 on the inconsistency of Comtism, in that, forsaking its fundamental 
 Materialism, it reverts to a worship of humanity, " le Grand Etre." 
 Comte's own words were in a manner prophetic. Speaking of those 
 who give up Positivism after holding it, and that they pass tem- 
 porarily into Pantheism, " I'esprit," he says, " retombe involontaire- 
 ment dans la tMologie ordinaire, la seule solide et consequente, parce 
 qu'elle a 6t6 construite par des esprits d'une toute autre trempe."— 
 Littrfi, p. 174. 
 
96 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 neglected; while furtlier in the analysis of the 
 object itself one antecedent in causation is omitted. 
 The connection of such a frame of thought with 
 Pantheism is a very close. one. For the essence of 
 The doc- Pantheism lies in insisting on a necessary coalition 
 a creation of the Infinite with the finite.^ Its precursor is 
 
 the remedy 
 
 to Pan- the absorption of the individual in the general, of 
 
 theism. . . , 
 
 the personal m nature. Its antidote is the dogma 
 of a creation, not, indeed, from eternity, but in 
 time ; for eternity is no attribute of the finite. In 
 this sense only is it true to say with Carlyle, 
 (though the expression is not altogether free from 
 objection), that " Nature, which is the time-vesture 
 of Grod, and reveals Him to the wise, hides Him 
 from the foolish."^ Nor can the view be ad- 
 mitted which is held by some leading physicists 
 of our time, who, while rejecting materialism from 
 their creed,^ look upon matter (after Groethe) as 
 
 ' Hence the theories of an " Anima Mundl " — as though the world 
 could he considered as an animal or a suhstance. See Leihnitz, Works, 
 p. 564, ed. Erdmann. " Personality," says Feuerhach with truth, " is 
 the antidote to Pantheism." — Ess. of Christianity, p. 220. 
 
 ^ Sartor Eesartus, p. 183. What Bossuet said of Polytheism, is true 
 of Pantheism, " Tout est Dieu : excepts Dieu m§me." 
 
 * Thus Prof. Huxley (on Yeast, Cont. Bev.,XIX.. 36) states that "one 
 great object of 'Protoplasm' is to show that what is called 'mate- 
 rialism' has no sound philosophical hasis." Lange (Qesch. des Mate- 
 rialismtis, p. 238) most truly remarks, " Dies ist in der That die Stel- 
 lung unserer meisten heutigen ' Materialisten.' Sie sind wesentlich 
 Skeptiker : sie glauhen nicht mehr dass die Materie, wie sie unseren 
 Sinnen ersoheint, die letzte Lbsung aller Eathsel der Natur enthalte : 
 allein sie verfahren grundsatzlich als ob es so sei, und warten, bis 
 ihnen aus den positiven Wissenschaften selbst eine Nbthigimg zu 
 anderen Annahmen entgegentritt." 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 97 
 
 an omnipresent form in winch the unknown cause 
 is manifested to us. They seem to regard it as Faulty 
 noble only because, after all, it is incomprehen- tion of 
 sible ; and are at least as ready to formulate all with the 
 phenomena even of life, mind, and society, in mind by 
 terms of matter, motion, and force, as in any other fhfnkers. 
 terms.^ A latent assumption here lurks under a 
 professed nescience. 
 
 S 14. It is not enouerh to urere that Positivism Defects of 
 
 . . . . ° . Positivism 
 
 does not m its principles negate Deity or render as an ex- 
 
 /-. 1 • -1 1 T 1 . -TT. . planation 
 
 brod impossible. It seeks not to require Him. As of phe- 
 
 . 1 ■ • 1 11 • nomena, 
 
 a system it leaves no mysteries ; it resolves all into 
 laws of physical agents ; it has no Heaven ; ^ it 
 professedly renounces all concern with what 
 happens to living things after their death ; or, as 
 it is saidj " at the consummation of the ages, if the 
 ages have a consummation." It makes the attempt 
 to divide the area of knowledge^ into Sciences 
 
 ' See Prof. Huxley, Lay S., Lecture on Descartes. Tyndall, Fragm. 
 of ThmgU, p. 87. H. Spencer, Princ. of Psych., I. § 63, 272. First 
 Princ, pp. 222, 280, 502. It would seem evident that if the notion of 
 an intelligent First Cause is in abeyance, all progress and morality 
 become at mast facts, and are no longer laws of the universe. 
 
 " Mr. Morley, Crit. Misc., p. 257, speaks of Goethe as the poet of 
 that " new faith which is as yet without any universally recognized 
 label ; but whose Heaven is an ever closer harmony between the con- 
 sciousness of man and all the natural forces of the universe, whose 
 liturgy is culture, and whose Deity is a certain high composure of the 
 human heart." The tendency of Positivism in declining to investigate 
 causes, is to omit the notion of cause altogether. This reduces all forms 
 of existence to modifications of a substance, i. e. to Spinozism. 
 
 » Phil. Pos., Le9on 11. and V., pp. 13, 14. G. H. Lewes, Comte's Phil, 
 of Sciences, p. 41. Littr^, Paroles, p. 33. " La philosophic Positive ne 
 nie rien, n'afBrme rien : car nier ou affirmer ce serait declarer que Ton a 
 
 H 
 
98 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 Concrete, those relative to beings or objects, and 
 Sciences Abstract, those relative to events ; that is, 
 to the general laws and possibilities of operation. 
 But this encyclopsedic purview of the realm of 
 knowledge will be found defective. A fact in 
 and in its nature, the elementary atom of a positive system, 
 
 definition . . i ■ i i i 
 
 of causa- IS not Simply explained by an enumeration of 
 physical agents working uniformly or under fixed 
 laws. The collocation or co-presence of those 
 agents is a necessary condition of the result, and 
 should form part of the definition of causation. 
 But of this co-existence and combination of pheno- 
 mena, or of the part-causes of phenomena, of the 
 organism with its environment, no scientific 
 account can be rendered. It is a fact unique, sui 
 generis, yet undoubtedly a fact; and it is incumbent 
 on a positive philosophy to estimate and include it. 
 Neither atomic particles nor elemental forces can 
 be " the joint artists of their own combinations." 
 
 une connaissance quelconque de I'origine des etres et de leur fin." " Au 
 deU de oes deux termes, Matifere et Force, la Science Positive ne oonnalt 
 rien." — Prmoipes, Pref., II. 
 
 ' This is recognized by Mr. Mill, Logic, I. 417, 549, IL 44. " The ele- 
 ment which is not a law of causation but a collocation of causes, cannot 
 
 itself be reduced to any law The utmost disorder is apparent in 
 
 the combination of the causes, which is consistent with the most perfect 
 order in their effects. For when each agent carries on its own operations 
 according to an uniform law, even the most capricious combination of 
 agencies will generate a regularity of some sort, as we see in the kaleido- 
 scope, where any casual arrangement of coloured bits of glass produces, 
 by the laws of reflection, a beautiful regularity in the effect." This 
 remark, it will be observed, assumes the uniformity of the operation of 
 the agencies in accounting for the order resulting in their effects. 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 99 
 
 In any co-arrangement the principle or operating 'T,'^''^J\ 
 cause of the combination must be taken into include an 
 
 account 
 
 account.' The unity evident in the universe of the 
 
 collocation 
 
 cannot be explained out of its mere component of phe- 
 
 , nomena. 
 
 parts, bo, m the sequence of events, a commence- 
 ment must be sought exterior to the phenomena 
 themselves, suflScient to account, not only for their 
 origination, but for their order of existence. Of 
 such a kind is our notion of Divine agency deter- 
 mining in whatever manner, mediately or imme- itsreiation 
 
 ° . . to Divine 
 
 diately, the arrangement of physical events. But in andhuman 
 the infinite play of consequences dependent on the 
 variation of antecedents in time or space and 
 admitting of endless modification, the consent of 
 the human will may find a place.^ Homogeneous 
 in its ultimate independence with the operation 
 of Divine purpose, it is yet essentially distinct in 
 being conditioned in its exercise, subordinate, 
 
 1 Coleridge, A. JR., pp. 44, 313. 
 
 " " Cionceive," says M. Guizot, Civ. in Europe, 1. 197, ed. Bohn, " a 
 great machine of wliich the idea resides in a single mind, and of which 
 the different pieces are confided to different workmen who are scattered 
 and are strangers to one another ; none of them knowing the work as a 
 whole, or the definitive and general result to which it concurs, yet each 
 executing with intelligence and liberty by rational and voluntary acts, 
 that of which he has the charge. So is the plan of Providence upon the 
 world executed by the hand of mankind," &o. " Dieu fait pr&ent k 
 I'homme d'une image de la Divinite en lui dormant I'intelligence. II le 
 laisse faire en quelque faf on dans son petit d^pai'tement ; c'est U ou le 
 franc arbitre joue son jeu ; I'homme y est comme un petit Dieu dans son 
 propre monde." — Leibnitz, Works, p. 548. Hence the scholastic distinc- 
 tions of the antecedent and consequent Will of God, of Secondary 
 Councils, and of the First and Second Law Eternal. See Hooker, Eccl. 
 Pol., I. iii. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 permissive.^ For, under whatever theory of 
 the freedom of the will, the original grant of 
 such freedom must be assumed in the same 
 manner as the primary underived properties of 
 matter.^ 
 The action § 1 5. But if such be the testimony of reason to 
 
 ofthe , p .,, . 1*1 IT 
 
 will con- the existence of will m man, what is the stumbling- 
 block on the side of experience to its reception ? 
 Not the assumption that its choice is unconditioned, 
 for no such assumption is made. The will may act 
 under fixed laws of choice, or, as it has been 
 happily expressed, " by confluence with the laws of 
 nature " determining in ordinary cases an uniform 
 result, and yet may be free to choose.^ The part 
 ultimately adopted in action, without being an 
 instance of causeless or indifferent spontaneity, may 
 be contrary to all expectation, and yet there may 
 have been ground for expectation. The possession 
 
 ' " Nee tamen ita liberum arbitrium animEe datum est, ut quodlibet eo 
 moliens, ullam partem Divini ordinis legisque perturbet." — ^Augustine, 
 Be Quant. Anim., c. xxxvi. 
 
 ^ " L'ftme a en elle le piincipe de toutes ses actions et mSme de toutes 
 ses passions: le mSme est vrai dans toutes les substances simples 
 r^pandues par toute la nature." — Leibnitz, Worhs, p. 526. 
 
 ^ This is the erreur-mlre of the paradox of Hobbes, that deliberation 
 does not exclude necessity, for the choice itself is a necessary one. 
 " A finite will constitutes a true beginning ; but with regard to the 
 series of motives and changes by which the free act is manifested and 
 made effectual, the finite will gives a beginning only by coincidence 
 with that absolute will which is at the same time Infinite Power." 
 — Coleridge, A. JR., p. 204. See also Dean Mansel, Aids to Faith, 
 pp. 19, 20. Sir W. Hamilton writes, "A motiveless volition is only 
 casualism ; and the free acts of an indifferent are morally and i-ationally 
 as worthless as the pre-ordered passions of a determined will." 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. loi 
 
 of will does not necessitate irregularity of conduct, 
 even if considered absolutely free. A die often 
 comes up several times running, though this does 
 not leave the chances of the next throw other than 
 even. Still less, if it be considered to any extent yet ex- 
 
 '' hibiting an 
 
 limited by laws. Yet, in most men, we find ultimate 
 
 indepen- 
 
 " occasional revolutionary moments," "a turn ofdence. 
 the tide in mind and character," a power of break- 
 ing loose from the continuity of habit, which 
 in theology has received the name of an Effectual 
 Call.' The profligate man (eKwv aiKovTi ye dviiS) 
 may, all at once, cast his slough of immorality ; 
 the irresolute renounce his hesitancy, the virtuous 
 all his old propriety of choice. Such conduct, and 
 it is by no means unfrequent, may admit, when 
 examined, of a so-called natural explanation. Men 
 are always guided, it is said, by the strongest 
 motive. Well, but what is strength when we apply Our igno- 
 the laws, or even the analogies, of matter to that the nature 
 which is, in its nature, spiritual ? ^ It may be thus 
 
 ' Coleridge, u. s., p. 40. It cannot be denied that we have the power 
 of contributing indirectly at least to frame our will at any future time. 
 " On se pent ohercher de nouvelles raisons et se donner avec le temps de 
 nouvelles dispositions ; et par ce moyen on se pent encore procurer uiie 
 volont^ qu'on n'avoit pas, et qu'on ne pouvoit pas se donner sur-le- 
 champ." — Leibnitz, p. 631. This fact is also relied on by Kant in his 
 Metaphysics of Ethics. 
 
 ^ What right have we to presume that motives act on the mind, as 
 bodies upon bodies ? " Every system," says Mr. Hutton, Essays, I. 87, 
 " but distorts and caricatures the moral nature of man which takes the 
 analogies of material science into the region of the spiritual life." See 
 the whole question as discussed by Dean Mansel, Prolegg., p. 302 ; and 
 Mr. Mill, Exam., p. 518, who explains it as the motive strongest in 
 
I02 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 liable to explanation, or it may not. If it be, it 
 will be found to involve the same assumption of 
 moral consciousness which, whether original or 
 derived, the result of organism, inheritance, custom, 
 or association, makes part of the furniture of our 
 being. Nor is it possible to believe the whole 
 human race to be, and to have always been, in error 
 upon such a matter. Our senses, it is true, some- 
 times deceive us,^ and there may be such a thing as 
 colour-blindness in moral perceptions. Yet we 
 lataiism habitually follow their impressions. Fatalism, the 
 tocon-^ antithesis of voluntariness, has ever been the off-. 
 
 sciousness. . n -, i j_i • i m i t • 
 
 spring 01 dogma, whether m philosophy or religion. 
 
 It is the resort of dialectical difficulties, not of 
 
 hearty natural suggestion. It has never yet 
 
 proved itself the outcome of unmixed human 
 
 consciousness. 
 
 Objection § i6. There is, however, undoubtedly, a grow- 
 
 freedom ing tendency to confound law with causation ; and, 
 
 drawn by conscqucnce, physical laws with moral causation. 
 
 from the ., .,., • -, -, 
 
 univer- A law, Considered as an agent, is " like an idol, 
 laws of nothing in the world."^ Yet, while admitted to be 
 
 Nature. 
 
 relation to pain or pleasure. But, though these be, as Locke calls them, 
 " the hinges on which our actions turn," we know nothing as to their 
 acting directly on the will. 
 
 ' A topic which has accordingly formed the constant stock-in-trade _ 
 of scepticism. Of. Montaigne, Essais, II. c. xii. ; Pascal, Pensees, II. 47. 
 But in the end it is sufficiently apparent that we have ourselves ts blame, 
 having through haste and inoonsideration misread the testimony of the 
 senses. Compare Bacon, WorJcs, III. 388, ed. Spedding. 
 
 ^ See some good remarks on this subject by Dr. Rigg in his Lecture 
 on Pantheism," pp. 14, 31 ; and by the Duke of Argyll, Beign of Law, 
 
Lect. II.] FHOGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 103 
 
 only a mental creation, a metaphysical entity 
 abhorred of Positivism, a generalization of relations 
 among phenomena, it is too often made into a theory 
 to explain their mode of existence. An argument 
 is raised from the universality of laws of causation 
 in Nature to the case of human action. But the in what 
 
 respects 
 
 major premiss rests upon a simple enumeration, defective, 
 which is incomplete till the will of man can be 
 shown to be reducible to the general formula. 
 Again, the generality of laws, it is acknowledged, 
 does not imply their necessity. But the fact of 
 such generality existing is held to be enough.' 
 Hence, if statistics prove the uniformity of human 
 action, the question of a will in man is thought 
 practically to be given up. But the law here 
 stands not only for what is ; it becomes a synonyme 
 for what must be. It is no longer a mode only of 
 expressing facts ; it assumes a necessity of operation. 
 
 p. 230. " Ainsi," writes De Maistre with much passion and fire, " noiis 
 laisserons dire les sophistes avec leurs Lois etemelles et immvables qui 
 n'existent que dans leur imagination et qui ne tendent k rien moins qu'a 
 I'extinction de toute morality et k I'ahrutissement absolu de I'esp^oe 
 humain." — Soirees, p. 175. Leihnitz (^Works, pp. 542, 614, &c.) con- 
 stantly distinguishes between what follows naturally and what follows 
 necessarily. , Present physicists profess themselves satisfied with the 
 former, and thus do away with the office of metaphysics. It may some 
 day appear as unreasonable to deny human liberty on physical grounds, 
 as it would now seem to foimd, like Epicurus, man's freedom in acting 
 on the original declination of atoms. Cf. Lucret., II. 251. 
 
 ^ See Mill, Examination, p. 150. " A volition is a moral effect which 
 follows the corresponding moral causes as certainly and invariably as 
 physical effects follow their physical causes. Whether it must do so, I 
 acltnowledge myself to be entirely ignorant ; ... all I know is that it 
 always does." 
 
104 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE 
 
 [Lect. II. 
 
 Man becomes lost in the race ; the individual in the 
 species.' 
 
 Tho' thou werfc scattered to tke wind, 
 Yet is there plenty of the kind. 
 
 Thus, Law is made a Juggernaut riding forth 
 
 and demanding victims on his way. But it may 
 
 be said, — Does it not always find them f Granted : 
 
 I mean the uniformity of the facts which it regu- 
 
 Confusion lates. But is it thus explained why this one or 
 
 formity that shouM be the victims ? This depends, it is 
 
 cessity of replied^, on special laws as distinct from general, 
 
 opera ion. ^-^^^ , '^^^g|j ^^ ^j-g jjq^ ^t present acquainted.^ 
 
 But why, we answer, should necessity of action 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, Dm?, c. Tryph., c. i., notices this view as current in 
 the philosophy of the time, oKka Koi rifias eTrix^ipova-i ■rreidetv a>s rod 
 iiev aviiiravTos Kai avrStv rav yevSiV Kai eiSwv ewtjLteXciTat Qe6s, eiiov oe 
 Koi (Tov ovK en Kai tov Koff CKaara. 
 
 So careful of the type she seems, 
 
 So careless of the single life. 
 
 Peuerhach, Essence of Christianity, p. 150, E. T., catches this vital 
 difference in Christian teaching. " Christianity cared nothing for the 
 species, and had only the individual in its eye and mind." Compare 
 Prof. Huxley, Lay Sermons, p. 158. Epicurus himself struggled hard 
 against the doctrine of a physical necessity. Of. ap. Eiog. Laert. x. 
 133, 134, eTret Kpetrroy ^v ™ Trepi Qe5>v fivda KaTaKoXovOeiu rj t^ rav 
 (pvaiKotv clijAipiicvrj bovkeveiv 6 /lev yap iKiriSa irapavrfiacas ijToypd(j)ci 
 &eSiv Sia Tiji^s, r) 8e airapaiTr)Tov ?x" '"l" o-vdyKriv. 
 
 ' " In a given state of society, a certain number of persons must put 
 an end to their own life. This is the general law ; and the special 
 question as to who shall commit the crime depends of course upon 
 special laws : which, however, in their total action, must ohey the large 
 social law to which they are all subordinate." — Buckle, ff. C, I. 28. 
 Mansel well points out that the uniformity represented by statistical 
 averages is one which is observed in masses only, and not in individuals ; 
 and hence the law, if law it be, indicated is one which offers no bar to 
 the existence of individual freedom exercised, like all human power, 
 within limits. 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 105 
 
 (and a latent necessity is certainly assumed) be 
 any more admissible in respect of special than of 
 general laws ? No man when he has apprehended 
 the conditions of his being thinks of contravening 
 them. He feels that laws, as Butler long ago , 
 pointed out, imply penalties appointed by the 
 Author of Nature for the well-being of mankind. Apparent 
 
 design of 
 
 He turns them, then, to His own purposes through natural 
 
 p 1 • f> 1 -1 uniformity, 
 
 the very circumstance of their fixedness without, 
 however, losing the conviction that he is himself 
 responsible for what he does. But responsibility 
 is incompatible with constraint. The facts, then, 
 seem to be these. A large proportion of mankind, 
 submitted to certain tests, will act in a given way 
 and ,in the same way. But all do not.' And, 
 what is more, in acting they are conscious that 
 they might, and in particular cases ought, to act 
 differently. This consciousness is itself a fact as 
 patent as the uniformities of statistical averages, 
 and points to something further, i. e. to freedom in 
 acting. These, as facts, must first be admitted on 
 positive grounds and then be scientifically ex- 
 
 1 
 
 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Bscalus ; 
 
 Anbther thing to fall. — Measure for Measure, act ii. sc. 1. 
 
 Inclination, that is, is not constraint : it rather implies freedom. See 
 Harless, System of Christian Ethics, pp. 20, 85, E. T. ; Delitzsch, Bib. 
 Psych., p. 194. "Man," said Lnther (Comm. on Gal.), "is not two 
 beings opposed to each other, but is like the dawn of the morning, 
 which is neither night nor day." This is the answer to the dilemma, 
 that motives must either determine a man to act, or influence him to 
 determine himself to act.- See Hamilton's Seid, p. 608. 
 
io6 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 plained.' If subordinated to physical laws and 
 method, they are not thereby rendered inconsistent 
 Objection with every form of Christian theology.^ But it is 
 the nature no such explanation to reply that consciousness is 
 sciousness. ho faculty, Only a state or condition of mind, liable 
 to occasional error f occasional, indeed, for if it be 
 held a permanent delusion, the whole human race 
 must needs have lain in darkness until now. Yet 
 why, it has been justly asked,* are we now to un- 
 clothe our minds of that large outfit of existing 
 thoughts, desires, hopes, and fears, which make us 
 (and have made us) what we are ? Neither, 
 again, can we admit the fact of this inward testi- 
 mony of a soul, naturally Christian, without ac- 
 knowledging further its cogency and truth. It 
 Conscious- would be as easy else to disprove on the same 
 
 ness ana- •' >- 
 
 logous to grounds the existence of an external world, of the 
 
 percep- " 
 
 tion. whole fabric of Nature, and of those very laws the 
 extent of which is the real and sole object of con- 
 tention. Even if an act of consciousness involve 
 an operation of inference, it is one of the same 
 
 ' There are some good remarks on Buckle's interpretation (I. 38) of 
 the views of Kant upon Free Will, in Lange, Qesch. des Materiaiismits, 
 pp. 478-81. 
 
 " Compare Huxley in his essay on Descartes, Lay S., pp. 374, 375. 
 
 * Buckle (m. b'., I. 15), who is really following the guidance of Bayle 
 in his strictures on the Cartesian doctrine. Leibnitz, though unwilling to 
 rest man's independence on a sentiment, justly claims it as the result of 
 a minute investigation of the elements of consciousness. Non enim et 
 sentire intelligere est, et intelligere sentire est ? asks TertuUian (Anim., 
 c. xviii.). 
 
 * J. H. Newman, Grammar of Assent, p. 419. 
 
Lect. II.] FHOGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 107 
 
 kind with perception, and no further liable than it 
 to disproof or mistrust. 
 
 § 17. Nor, lastly, is this view of free agency, ^ condi- 
 that in the practical exercise of it we are always no barren 
 
 . . , proposi- 
 
 guided by motives, consciously or unconsciously, tion. 
 which yet do not necessitate conduct, "a barren 
 proposition," incapable of translation into action/ 
 To regulate the conditions of society in the most 
 favourable manner ; to teach that the individual is 
 no mere slave of circumstances; that the knowledge 
 of the risks of temptation entails the duty of keep- 
 ing clear of unwholesome tendencies to action and 
 of bearina: ourselves firmly and manfully when ?'= rtsuit- 
 
 o ./ ./ ingrespon- 
 
 submitted to them, thus " redeeming the time be- sibmties. 
 cause the days are evil," this is a task worthy alike 
 of the statesman and the philanthropist, and is the 
 proper duty of the clergyman, the tutor, and the 
 schoolmaster. A barren proposition! Then let Moral re- 
 
 ■*■ '■ , suits of the 
 
 Reliffion indeed cease her office and the faith of Materiai- 
 
 , , » , . istic or 
 
 Christ its professions. What need of exhortation Positivist 
 where there is no choice ? ^ Or of atonement where 
 there can be no sin ? Or of promises which have 
 
 ' " If any one says that we have this pow^ of acting without motives, 
 but that in the practical exercise of the power we are always guided by 
 motives, either conscious or unconscious — if any one says this, he 
 asserts a barren proposition."— Buckle, I. 18, n. Holy Scripture, while 
 it nowhere speaks of man as free, says everywhere that he can choose 
 (Of. Is. vii. 15) ; thus making self-determination the property of human 
 nature. See Delitzsch, BM. Psych., p. 192. 
 
 ' It may, perhaps, be contended that in practice the morality of 
 necessity does not enfeeble the claims of duty, because the Predestinarian 
 schools have always been rigorists. This may be explained to some 
 
io8 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. II. 
 
 no real hold in the heart or soul of man ? What 
 need to discuss the permanence of a belief which 
 can be the fruit but of hypocrisy or ignorance? 
 But what, on the other hand, is to be thought of 
 a philosophy, the boasted result of science, which, 
 extinguishing motive,^ abolishes the reasons of 
 action, and filches together with these the very 
 savour of human existence ; which annihilates duty, 
 makes benevolence impossible, the enthusiasm of 
 humanity absurd; which degrades the immortal 
 spirit, the " blessed part " of man, to the level of 
 Protean matter and the dominion of brute forces ;'' 
 
 extent by prudential considerations ; but hardly by any logical con- 
 nection. This is discussed in Merivale's Comi. of N. Nations, pp. 107- 
 171. 
 
 ' The philosophical error of Positivism is to ignore the free play of 
 individual action as beneficial to human progress. Hence, perhaps, 
 Comte's well-known aversion to Protestantism. This is, indeed, but 
 one form of his disinclination to recognize Causation as open to the 
 reach of man's faculties. The result is undoubtedly to measure all 
 knowledge by the Laws of Phenomena. On this subject the reader is 
 referred to Mill's Logic, Book III., v. § 9, and on the materialistic ten- 
 dencies of Positivism to Mr. Lecky, Hist. Rationalism, II. p. 408 
 together with Mill, A. Oomte and Positiv., p. 15, &c. It is, indeed, 
 denied by M. Littrfi, Frincipes, pp. 38, 39. 
 
 ^ " Positivism, allowing spirit no place in its system, denies im- 
 mortality to man, but confers it on humanity." — Mr. A. Fairbairn on 
 Belief in Immortality (Cont. Rev., XX. 28). Compare Mill, Comte and 
 Pos., pp. 135, 152. Prof. Huxley, Lay S., p. 191, quotes a beautiful 
 but melancholy passage from M. Comte, attesting the unsatisfactory 
 results of so baseless a fabric of belief as that of Positivism. " La 
 plulosophie est une tentative incessantedel'esprit humain pour arriver au 
 repos. Mais elle se trouve incessamment aussi d&ang^e par les progr^s 
 continus de la science. De U vient pour le philosophe I'obligation de 
 refaire chaque soir la synthase de ses conceptions ; et un jour viendra 
 ou I'homme raisonnable ne fera plus d'autre prifere du soir." 
 
Lect. II.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 109 
 
 which consecrates selfishness by enthroning it in 
 the struggle for existence above wisdom and virtue ; 
 and which views, alike unmoved and powerless of 
 consolation, the agonies of remorse, the isolation of 
 bereavement, and the yearnings of the saint after 
 communion with Divine holiness ? Only if free to Freedom 
 
 '' of choice 
 
 choose, is man capable of duty in any sense of the necessary 
 word which is not simply nominal but worth practical 
 retaining. But, if capable of duty, he is capable 
 of religion. He is still, though conscious of sin, 
 nobler than the tame creatures of a dull uniformity, 
 the ready vassals of a law they can never break. 
 In those unreasoning creatures, devoid of abstrac- 
 tion, idealization, reflection, yet from which it is 
 now the fashion to derive all the properties of man, 
 the will is absorbed in the law.^ " The law is their 
 nature." In the original purity of a rational being, 
 the uncorrupted will is one with the law of his 
 nature. And so it will be hereafter. 
 
 Mind and soul according well, 
 Shall make one music as before, 
 But vaster. 
 
 If man, it has been finely said, " be no higher in Jf ^"(g^'^g' 
 his destinies than the beast or the blade of grass, it animals in 
 
 *-■ ' his capa- 
 
 miffht be better to be a beast or a blade of grass ''•I'ty ^nd 
 
 conscious- 
 ness of sin. 
 
 ' See Coleridge, A. B., p. 233. The fine lines of Juvenal will be 
 readily remembered : — 
 
 Prinoipio indulsit communis Conditor illis 
 Tantum animas, nobis animum quoque, &6. 
 
I lo OBJECTIONS, &'c. [Lect. II. 
 
 than a man."^ But it is not so, brethren. The 
 stork in the heavens may know her appointed 
 times ; the turtle, the crane, and the swallow may 
 observe the time of their coming ; and when they 
 wing their flight may leave without remorse their 
 unfledged young to die.^ They run their allotted 
 course. But man, even though he perish, though 
 sin becomes the law of his nature, and evil clings 
 about him like a robe, is great in the ruin of his 
 fall. He knows why he perishes,^ and worships, in 
 the bitterness of his soul, the purity, the nobleness, 
 the love which he has forfeited for himself for ever. 
 
 ' Prof. Goldwin Smith, Lectures ore the Study of History, p. 12. 
 
 " See Mr. Darwin, Descent of Man. 
 
 ' " Quando autein melior homo et pecoribus prseponendus ? Quando 
 novit quod facit." — August, de Ord., II. xix. ; and again. Civ. D., xxii. : 
 " Siout csecitas oculi vitium est, et idem ipsnm indicat ad lumen videndum 
 oculum esse creatum, ac per hoc etiam ipso vitio sue excellentius ostendit 
 ut cjeteris membris membrum capax luminis (non enim aha causa esset 
 vitium ejus carere lumine) : ita natura quae fruebatur Deo, optimam se 
 institutam dooet etiam ipso vitio, quo ideo misera est, quia non fruitur 
 Deo." Compare Chateaubriand, Oenie du Christ., I. 208. " Pourquoi le 
 bcEuf ne fait-il pas," &o. Strauss, Leben Jesu, II. 697, admits that 
 ■while animals are but races, men have the knowledge that they are a 
 race. Hence arises the possibility of history with all its consequences. 
 Cf. Dorner, Hist. Prot. Th., 11. 370. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 CONSIDERED. 
 
 KadciXov, ws (^i;^i, 8uo jratriys yevea-cas alrias exo*'<"7^i <•' M^" "-ijiSSpa 
 waKmol 6edK6yoi Koi TroirjToi Tjj Kpevrrovi p^vri rhv vovv jrpocrep^eti' eCkovro, 
 TovTo hri rb Kotvhv eiri<l>6€yy6p.€vot natri TrpdyiiatTi. 
 
 Zeiis apx^? Zfir? iie<r<ra, Ai6s 8' ck travra TreXoiToi. 
 
 Tais S' avayKaiais Kai (j>va-iKa1s ovk m wpoarjea-av alriais. 01 Sc 
 Vfirrepot roirav kjcH (J)v(ti,koi jrpo(rayop€v6p^voi roivavTiov cKelvois Tqs 
 KaKrjS Koi Betas aiT0irKain)6iVT€s ap^ijs, iv aitfiaai Kai iraOeai a-a/idTav, 
 TrXijyais te koi /lerajSoXais Kai Kpda-€(Ti nOevrai to avjiirav. — Pldtaech, 
 Defect. Orac, c. xlviii. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 " Wlierefore should they say among the people, — Wliere is their Godl ' 
 3!o«I it. 17. 
 
 § I. T T would be but futile to build any argu- The truth 
 
 : truth 
 Divine 
 
 ment upon the past or the future of the Provi- 
 
 __ dcnce es- 
 
 Faith of Christ, were the fundamental truth denied sentiai to 
 of the controlling Providence of Grod. As religion and per- 
 itself is a thing not worth contending for, when religion, 
 free-will in man is given up, so Christianity, devoid 
 of a special and personal relation to the Almighty 
 in His work of grace (which may be said to be in 
 respect of all Pagan religions its cardinal and 
 characteristic doctrine), is a shadow without sub- 
 stance.^ It becomes, then, of the first importance 
 to inquire on what grounds the belief in a special 
 Providence is held to be in course of being sur- 
 
 ■ "Si Dei Providentia non praesidet rebus hiimanis,. nihil est de reli- 
 gione satagendum." — August., Util. Ored., cxvi. " Deum nisi et esse et 
 huBianis mentibus opitulari credimus, nee quasrere quidem ipsam veram 
 religionem debenuis." — lb., c. xiii. Comp. Lactant., Instit. T)iv., Vif. 
 c. vi. See Waterland, Discourse of Fundamentals (^Worls, V. 80). 
 " The theory of Providence," writes Mr. Hntton, Essays, I. 88, " is one 
 which, unless harmonized with general moral and physical laws, can 
 assuredlj' stand no longer; and yet it is one which has exerted so pro- 
 found an influence over every Christian mind from the earliest Christian 
 ages to our own, that to part with it would be to give up the very life 
 of religion." " ' Point de religion sans pridre ' a dit ce meme Voltaire. 
 Eicn de jilus Evident ; ct par une consequence necessaive, point de priere, 
 point de religion." — De Maistre, Soir&s, p. 158. 
 
 r 
 
1 14 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 rendered ; how this incredulity has arisen, whether 
 
 it is a necessary consequence of the existing state 
 
 of knowledge, a permanent menace to the progress 
 
 Present of Christ's reliffion. That rude assaults are being 
 
 assaults on " ^ 
 
 this belief, made on this cardinal tenet of the faith can no 
 longer be doubted. M. Comte ^ treats the doctrine 
 of even a general Providence as an antique destiny 
 under a new dress, as a metaphysical artifice, a 
 provisional conception, a concession or compromise 
 made to the theological spirit. " The future of 
 the world," writes a living Positivist,^ " will justify 
 the faith that man can be a providence to himself 
 in a more practical and beneficial sense than any 
 of the various providences he created in his earlier 
 existence." " Science," says another, " is the true 
 providence of man. We lay no faith on a personal 
 God, we use our own faculties." Such dicta, at 
 least, suflSce to mark the present stand-point of 
 opinion and feeling in certain quarters in regard 
 to this fundamental postulate of all practical 
 religion. 
 
 > " La Providence des Monothdistes n'est r&llement autre chose que le 
 destin des Polythdistes." — VUl. Pos., V. 280. Elsewhere he argues that 
 were the conceptions of theology true, prayer would be,the proper means 
 of human progress. Ih., IV. 695, 700. On the views of the so-called 
 " Secularists," cf. Dr. Farrar, Samp. Lect., p. 441. 
 
 " Dr. Gongreve, Prop. 0/ New Religion, ad fin. " Quisquis sibi 
 Deus " is a maxim in tie philosophy of Stirner. " Du moment qu'on 
 ne laisse aucune place aux volontfe surnaturelles, ni dans le monde 
 inorganique, ni dans le monde organique, ni parmi les ph&omdnes 
 cosmiques, ni parmi ceux de I'histoire, on est n&essairement des nStres." 
 — Littrd, Paroles de Philosophie Positive, p. 58. 
 
Lect. III.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 115 
 
 § 2. The Epicureanism of the a^e, not specula- R'se of 
 
 . . , . these 
 
 tive, not anticipatory, but positive and evidential, opinions 
 is the product, doubtless, of a vast and rapid viction of 
 advance in physical knowledge, which, commenc- ability and 
 ing with the sixteenth century, has culminated in saiity'^of 
 our own.' It has, in a manner, carried all before n^re. 
 it. It has reacted on the older metaphysical 
 modes of thought. It has produced a twofold 
 eflFect. First, the conviction of the invariability of 
 laws of nature has been indefinitely strengthened 
 by each freshly-observed uniformity, and explana- 
 tion of related phenomena. Next, the suspicion of 
 the universality of the reign of law is heightened 
 by each new discovery in distinct departments of 
 science, and a method of Comparative Physics, now 
 first rendered possible, is continually furthering 
 this impression. It is thus deemed the central 
 element of intellectual progress. The relation of 
 laws of nature to general laws soon comes into 
 question.^ Now, though law can never be justly 
 held, in any true sense, a medium between God 
 and His works, yet it may, and constantly does, 
 arrest the attention of the creature. This stoppinsr ]omei 
 
 ^'^ ° with an 
 ' " Jadis la raison humaine le voyant sujet au changement alia cher- imperfect 
 cher r^ternel, I'immuable par deist rhorizon et dans les archetypes, explana- 
 Maintenant I'^ternel, rimmuable devenant notion positive, nous ap- ^^^^ 
 paratt sous la fonne des lois immanentes qui gouvement tout." — Littre, 
 Principes de Phil. Pos., p. 57. 
 
 " See Mozley, Bamp. Led., p. 156 : " The only intelligible meaning 
 which we can assign to general laws is, that they are the laws of nature, 
 with the addition of a particular theory of the Divine mode of conduct- 
 ing them ; the theory, viz. of secondary causes." 
 
 I 2 
 
Ii6 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 short in the process of analyzing nature may 
 eventuate in different directions, in Naturalism, in 
 Materialism, in Pantheism, in virtual Atheism.^ 
 For, if the present control of Divine agency be 
 disallowed, what remains but a practical negation 
 of belief, or total incredulity ? 
 PhysicaJ § a. It is uot, of course, intended to imply that 
 
 studies not ' -' ' _ ' . , 
 
 irreligious, physical studies are in themselves atheistic or 
 irreligious. The reverse would be nearer the 
 truth. Religio ascensio mentis in Deum per scalas 
 creatarum rerum should still be the proud motto of 
 Natural Science.^ There is no proper reason why 
 supernaturalism should not do full justice to 
 nature ; none why nature should not do justice to 
 supernaturalism.* Too much, indeed, of what has 
 
 ^ On tlie history of the term Naturalism, and its relation to a system 
 of Eationalism, see H. J. Eose, on Utate of Protestantism in Germany, 
 pp. 19-23. Wegsclieider {Inst. Theol., p. 32) holds it to consist in de- 
 riving all effects in nature from a necessity, as it were, of nature alone 
 without regard to Divine Providence, rejecting, therefore, all efBcacy of 
 God in imparting religious knowledge to men, together with Revelation 
 of all kinds. Dr. Parrar, in his truly learned lectures on the Critical 
 Hist, of Free Thought, pp. 478, 587, notices the twofold employment of 
 the term, and remarks that Positivism only differs from Naturalism in 
 expressing a particular theory concerning the limits and method of 
 science, as well as a disbelief in the supernatural. 
 
 ' Compare Bacon, Works, III. 357, ed. Spedding. The dangers of 
 exclusive physical study are pointed out by Sir W. Hamilton in his 
 Lectures, I. p. 35 S. 
 
 ' Natiue, the world of phenomena, being itself a totality of effects, 
 can determine nothing as to ulterior causes. Yet, as Mr. Button has 
 finely observed, " Men are haunted with the phantom of a power they 
 dare not challenge, which is rumoured to have superseded and exposed 
 natural theology, and to be gradually withdrawing every fold of mystery 
 from the universe without disclosing any trace of God." — Essays, I. 45. 
 
Lect. III.] FROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 117 
 
 been termed Agnosticism or Nescience, and by its 
 detractors Antitheism, has been developed among 
 leading physicists of the day.* A know-nothing 
 system of philosophy is cheap ware, and easily 
 offered for acceptance. It can hardly, however, '^!^^^'^^^ 
 be held to amount to a denial of preternatural =y^'«™ °^ 
 
 ^ nescience. 
 
 facts, and by inference of truths of Revelation. 
 The sphere of our belief may well be more ex- 
 tensive than the sphere of our knowledge. An 
 honest effort is, doubtless, being made by many 
 minds to couple with the operation of general laws 
 a religious sense of the Divine agency. Passages 
 in older and unsuspected writers are eagerly seized 
 which seem to reconcile remote causation with the 
 Being and Providence of Grod.* This is not, of 
 course, the whole, or strictly the real question. 
 Doubtless there is nothing essentially contradictory 
 or mutually exclusive in the notions of Natural 
 law and Divine superintendence. So Spinoza f™"- 
 
 •*• ^ dence not 
 
 arffued that Providence is best elicited, from the mcom- 
 
 ° ' patible 
 
 ' Compare Mr. Hutton, u. s., p. 27; and Prof. Tynda,ll, fragments f^^^^^^j^ 
 of ThxiugU, pp. 93, 105, 442 ; Huxley, L. S., p. 20 : " If the religion of 
 the present differs from that of the past, it is befcause the theology of the 
 present has become more scientific than that of the past, because it has 
 renounced idols of -wood and idols ef stone ; but begins to see the neces- 
 sity of breaking in pieces the idols built up of books and traditions and 
 fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs, and of cherishing the noblest and most 
 human of man's emotions by worship, ' for the most part of the silent 
 sort,' at the altar of the Unknown and Unknowable." 
 
 ^ See Mr. Lecky's remarks, E. Eat., I. 195, on the advancing rap- 
 prochement between writers of the evidential school and the supporters 
 of the inviolability of natural laws. Compare Whewell, B. Tr., 
 p. 312, &c. 
 
Ii8 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 fact of an eternal and changeless order of Nature.^ 
 So, if tlie ideas of individual freedom of action in 
 man, or of casual irregularity in physical events, 
 be gradually thrust out from the cycle of tenable 
 theorems and accepted beliefs, the result, however 
 much to be regretted, might not be inconsistent 
 vsrith the truth of a Divine Creator, and, in a modi- 
 fied sense, of a Divine Providence.^ It might, 
 indeed, seem strange that the vrorld should turn 
 out to be a puppet-show, devoid of real life or 
 originality. But it will be answered that we are 
 concerned only to ascertain the truth of things, 
 and not with the issues involved in them. We are 
 recalled, then, to the prior question, whether it be 
 a fact that the realm of Law is co-extensive, as far 
 as appears, with the universe of matter and of mind. 
 ^Sn ''"^ ^^'^ a necessity, or, at least, an invariable accom- 
 arises as to panimeut of the Divine agency, so far as it 
 
 the real 
 
 IS 
 
 nature of knowu to US ? Is it, indeed, a constant course of 
 
 physical 
 
 laws, procedure, a necessary stage in an unknown order. 
 
 whether ° 
 
 oriubjec- ' Prsterea coeli rationes ordine certo 
 
 live only. Et varia annorum cernebant tempera verti : 
 
 Nee poterant quibus id fieret cognoscere causis. 
 Ergo perfugium sibi habebant, omnia Divia 
 Tradere et illorum nutu facere omnia fiecti. 
 
 Lucret., V. 1182. 
 ' " The natural generation and process of all things receiveth order of 
 proceeding from the settled stability of Divine understanding. This 
 appointeth unto them their kinds of working ; the disposition, whereof 
 in the purity of God's own knowledge and will, is rightly termed by the 
 name of Providence. The same being referred unto the things them- 
 selves here disposed by it, was wont by the ancient to be called natural 
 destiny."— Hooker, E. P., I. iii. 4. 
 
Lect. III.] PHOGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 119 
 
 of the universe ? Or is it, on the other hand, 
 anything more than a mode of human thought,' 
 (for this also has been held respecting it), analo- 
 gous to Time and Space, conditions regulative of 
 all perception of phenomena, yet in a manner un- 
 essential, relative, not absolute, the elimination 
 of which is not beyond conception ? Is law more 
 than an act of the mind,^ a description of its state 
 of expectation in respect of any event? Is it 
 capable of manifestation to aught but the spirit and 
 intelligence of man ? Can the order of the material 
 universe be shown to be other than the comple- 
 ment of the human understanding ? Does not the 
 
 ' " Long, indeed, will man strive to satisfy the inward querist with 
 the phrase, Laws of Nature. But though the individual may rest con- 
 tent with the seemly metaphor, the race cannot." — Coleridge, Friend, 
 IIL 199. " Thought, involving simply the establishment of relations, 
 may be readily conceived to go on, while yet these relations have not 
 been organized into the abstracts we call Space and Time ; and so there 
 is a conceivable liind of consciousness which does not contain the truths 
 commonly called a priori, involved in the organization of these forms of 
 relations." — H. Spencer, First Pr., p. 258. 
 
 ^ The forms in nature which we denominate laws, how do they 
 become ideas in the mind ? Only it would seem by a faculty of generali- 
 zation due to the higher Reason. See Arist., Anal. Post., II. xiv. The 
 facts are objective: "Toute r&lit^," says Leibnitz, "doit etre fondfo 
 dans quelque chose d'existant ; " but it is the mind which invests them 
 with generality. "What we call a general law is, in truth, a form of 
 expression including a number of facts of like kind. The facts are 
 separate ; the unity of view by which we associate them, the character 
 of generality and of law, resides in those relations which are the object 
 of the intellect." -Whewell, B. T., p. 259. See Sir W. Hamilton, 
 Led., III. 78, and Ueberweg's Logic, §§ 38^4, who, however, does not 
 escape from the circle of employing mathematical, i. e. objective, con- 
 ceptions, which are themselves only guaranteed by our inner expe- 
 rience. 
 
In what 
 
 I20 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 course of the revelation of law to tlie mind of roan 
 follow the very law or constitution of his mind ? 
 sense IS Again, the impossibility of all creation might be 
 ofK^e^ argued from the eternity of God, if this attribute 
 operation, -^vere indeed other than the negation of the condi- 
 tions of Time in the case of an Infinite Being/ Is 
 the case different in respect of Law as a mode of 
 Divine operation ? When it gives rise to similar 
 perplexities, is it to be held incompatible with the 
 notion of Providential action ? 
 The uni- S 4. Neither can it be assumed, unless rhetori- 
 
 versality ■" . . . , 
 
 of law not cally ,^ that at present the reign of Law is as wide 
 biished, as the world in which we live. Many an ample 
 demesne of thought and feeling, of social action, 
 nay, of physical processes, is as yet but partially 
 explored, and remains debateable land. M. Comte, 
 in fact, holds that many phenomena will never be 
 brought within the range of definite laws, because 
 each science, as it increases in complexity, admits 
 also of greater variations.^ This is, in effect, to 
 repeat the axiom of Bacon, that " the subtilty of 
 
 ^ raOra Se 'navra [Jieprj xP^^^^t '^^^ '^^ "^ V^ to '"' eorat, ^povov 
 yeyovora eldrj, 5 Srj (pepovres \av6avofixv iiri Trjv dtdLov ovaiav OVK 
 opBas. — Plato, Timaeus, 37, E. Of. August., 8erm. ad Catech., c. -yiii. : 
 " Natus est ante omnia tempora ; natus ante omnia SEeoula. Natus 
 ante ; ante quid, ubi non est ante?" &o. There was an old view (Id., 
 Oiv. D., XI. iv.) that the world was eternal not in time, hut in respect 
 of its creation. This savoured too much of a saving clause. 
 
 " " Nothing is that errs from law." — Tennyson. See on this subject 
 the Duke of Argyll, Beign of Law, p. 53, and Mozley, JB. L., p. 325, 
 and some fine remarks of Dr. Chalmers, Works, VII. 204. 
 
 ' See also Littre, Paroles de la Phil. Pas., p. 17. 
 
Lect. III.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. I2i 
 
 nature far surpasses tlie subtiltj of the mind of 
 man." Let it, however, be conceded that there 
 is good prospect of their yielding sooner or later to 
 the advance of scientific uniformity. Certainly 
 many effects in nature which have seemed irregu- 
 lar, precarious, lawless, have bowed to the force of 
 inductive analysis and suggestive analogies, until 
 generalization has prevailed in these also, and 
 they have taken their place beside the earlier 
 triumphs of scientific inference. Thus has arisen yet is very 
 that habitual recognition of the notion of Law assumed, 
 which, as has been truly said, is a distinguishing 
 characteristic of modern from ancient thought.^ 
 It may also be conceded that the Divine Mind, 
 if conceived as projecting its fiat upon natural 
 agents in the form of universal laws, must likewise 
 be apprehended as adequate to sustain them 
 through any limits of time and space. The hand 
 which has so moulded can, and, indeed, must 
 equally uphold them, and enforce their operation.^ 
 Let us, then, strive to estimate the result of the 
 
 * Herbert Spencer, First Principles, p. 142. Yet an apprehension 
 of laws of nature is undoubtedly very ancient— lying at tbe founda- 
 tions of Greek pbilosopby and poetry. Comp. Soph., (Ed. T., 865. 
 Antig., 455. It had also sunk deep into the Hebrew mind and heart. 
 Of. Ps. 148, 6. Jer. v. 22 ; xiii. 23. Bccles. i. 4r-7. 
 
 " " La conservation de Dieu consiste dans cette influence immMiate, 
 perp^tuelle, que la d^pendanoe des cr&,tures demande. Cette d^pen- 
 dance a lieu h. regard non-seulement de la substance, mais encore de 
 I'aotion ; et on ne sauroit peut-Stre I'expliquer mieux qu'en disant avec 
 le commun des th^ologiens et des philosophes, que c'est une creation 
 continu^e." — Leibnitz, Works, p. 512. 
 
122 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 state of tilings supposed. When the physical 
 antecedents of all events shall have been assigned, 
 the tendencies of human nature mapped out and 
 ascertained, will the sum of man's knowledge have 
 been reached, and with it the limits of his belief? 
 Shall we then " know even as we are known " ? 
 and § 5 . The attainment of a clear conception of law 
 
 viewed as . ^ n i • i 
 
 the term IS bj somc ^ regarded as the highest point attam- 
 ledge. able by the human understanding. " The sum of 
 all education," says Professor Huxley,^ " is the 
 instruction of the intellect in the laws of nature." 
 I do not stay to remark upon the narrowness of 
 such a view of human nature, when we take into 
 account its moral and spiritual capacities ; nor 
 again, on its logical insufficiency "without some 
 postulate as to the origin and nature of things. 
 But does it correspond, so far as it reaches, with 
 the teaching conveyed by the facts of the external 
 world ? Is there no region suggested to us in 
 experience above the level of material causes ? 
 Facts, —no law higher than the subsidiary laws which 
 
 however, _ _ ^ •' 
 
 suggest a bind particular forces ? Is there no element, no 
 
 further ' 
 
 analysis. 
 
 ' Buckle, ffisi. Oiv., II. 343. " La mdthode objective ou exp&ience 
 ne parvient qu'S, des lois, c'est son suprSme efFet, rendant de plus en 
 plus impersonnelle I'id^e de Providence il va se perdre d'une fafon plus 
 ou moins confuse dans I'immanence des lois qui riSgissent les choses." — 
 Littr^, Paroles, p. 18. 
 
 ' Lay Sermons, p. 36. See also the magnificent passage commencing, 
 " That man, I think, has had a liberal education," &c. It altogether 
 omits any spiritual element in man. Compare Dr. Westcott's remarks 
 in Cont. Review, VIII. 378. 
 
Lect. III.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 123 
 
 " law within tlie law," required to account for the 
 co-adjustment of phenomena ? It is such an ele- 
 ment, if any, which, satisfying this unknown yet 
 necessary coefficient, answers to the notion of 
 Providence, to the movement of a Supreme Free 
 Agent,^ of One who is not content to reign and 
 not to govern. The distinction very commonly a distinc- 
 
 , tion made 
 
 made between a general and a special Providence between 
 
 •IT Tp 1 general 
 
 may prove in some respects misleading. If general and special 
 without being special, it is to the individual soul dence. 
 no Providence at all. While from a scientific 
 point of view,^ the intercalation of an adjustment 
 of relations between agent and effect, is as neces- 
 sary for each single event as for any general law 
 of uniform results arising out of the repetition of 
 
 ' " Is there above the level of material causes a region of Providence ? 
 If there is, Nature there is moved by the Supreme Free Agent, and of 
 such a realm a miracle is the natural production." — Mozley, Bamp. 
 Led., p. 164. Compare also Prof. Goldwin Smith {Lect., II. 47) : 
 " This God, Who is to reign over His own world on condition that 
 He does not govern it, what is He — ^the Supreme Law of Nature ? " &c. 
 In his Address at Liverpool, p. 22, Mr. Gladstone writes : " On the 
 ground of what is termed evolution, God is relieved of the labour of 
 creation ; in the name of unchangeable laws. He is discharged from 
 governing the world." 
 
 ^ Leibnitz very justly warns that " il faut consid&er aussi que Paction 
 de Dieu conservant doit avoir du rapport S. ce qui est conserve, tel qu'il 
 est, et selon I'etat oh. il est : ainsi elle ne sauroit §tre g^n&ale ou ind6- 
 terminfe. Ces g^n^ralit^s sont des abstractions qui ne se trouvent 
 point dans la v^iit^ des choses singulieres." — Works, p. 511. "The 
 Laws of Nature are the laws which the Divine Being in His wisdom 
 prescribes to His own acts. His universal presence is the necessary 
 condition of any course of events ; His universal agency the only origin 
 of any efficient force." — Whewell, B. T., p. 311. " Je ne demande ni 
 les al'eules, ni les trisaieules du ph^nomene ; je me contente de sa 
 mere."— De Maistre, Soirees, p. 190. 
 
124 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 insuf- individual instances. That is to say, the notion of 
 
 ficient. •IT* 
 
 general laws does not supersede a particular Pro- 
 vidence. Ridicule has, indeed, been sometimes 
 cast upon what has been contemptuously called 
 " a carpenter theory " of creation, upon the notion 
 of " a clock-making divinity," who is always inter- 
 fering to carry out the plans of his own adminis- 
 tration. Why, it is said, should not all this have 
 been provided for by a single original act through 
 the medium of general laws ? Perhaps this may, 
 Mislead- after all, have been so. But who shall apply 
 
 ing. 
 
 absolutely to the Infinite Mind^ (when we know 
 
 so little of our own), notions drawn solely from 
 
 human experience, and limited by human imper- 
 inappii- fection; or distinguish in such a case to little 
 our notions purpose between an eternal ordinance and the 
 Divine individual application of it? To Him there can 
 
 be no measure of time,^ but as an eternal present ; 
 
 (which, to speak exactly, forms no part of time) ; 
 
 incompatible alike with human modes of thought 
 
 or with secular succession.* 
 
 ' See Comte, Plnl. Pos., IV. 664, witli tlie quotation from Pke Male- 
 branche. 
 
 " " M. Bayle salt fort bien que rentendement Diviii n'a point besoin 
 de temps, pour voir la liaison des cboses. Tons les raisonnements sont 
 (^minemment en Dieu, et ils gardent un ordre entre eux dans son 
 entendement aussi bien que dans le nfitre; mais chez Lui ce n'est 
 qu'un ordre et line priority de nature, an lieu que chez nous il y a une 
 priority de temps." — Leibnitz, Theod., p. 563. 
 
 ' " Mentis quippe aspectu omnem mutabilitatem ab jeternitate sejungo 
 et in ipsi. jeternitate nulla spatia temporis oerno. Quia spatia temporis 
 prjEteritis et futuris rerum motibus constant. Nihil autem praeterit in 
 ffiterno et nihil futurum est, quia et quod prajterit esse desinit, et quod 
 
 Being. 
 
Lect. III.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 125 
 
 § 6. The presence in time and place of surround- The area 
 ing phenomena, their relations accordingly to dentiai 
 man's action as objects of desire, or as conditions 
 in whatever manner of his conduct, and of the 
 consequences of his conduct ; these constitute the 
 field of Providential operation,^ and lie beyond the 
 compass of any known Law. This is the work in . 
 time of the Eternal Spirit. " I have seen," writes 
 the Preacher, " the travail which Grod hath given 
 to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath 
 made everything beautiful in his time : also He 
 hath set the world in their heart, so that no man 
 can find out the work that God maketh from the 
 beginning to the end." ^ What is temptation but 
 the presence or possibility under given circum- 
 stances of a presumed object of desire ? The desire 
 is uniform, the opportunity of its operation contin- 
 gent and variable. What, again, is the lesson of 
 
 futurum est nondum esse coepit ; aternitas autem tantummodo est, neo 
 fuit quasi jam non sit, nee erit quasi adhuc non sit. Quare sola ipsa 
 verissime dicere potuit humanse menti — Ego sum qui sum — et de illS, 
 verissime dioi potuit — Misit me, qui est." — Augustin. de Ver. Bel., 
 c. xlix. o xP^vos ov Soke! a-vyKeia-Bai, eK rSiv vvv. — ^Arist., Phys., IV. x. 
 t6 fie vvv ia-n (Tuv/^fta xpovov. — c. xiv. See Leibnitz, Works, p. 615. 
 Compare Dr. Mozley, S. L., p. 157. 
 
 ' " Conditrix ac moderatrix temporum Divina Providentia." — Au- 
 gustin. " Ainsi le tout revient souvent aux circonstanoes, qui font une 
 partie de I'enoliainement des choses." — Leibnitz, Theod.,-p. 530. Kaipos 
 irdvrav yvajias Xirx"- — Soph., Philoot., 837. Tbere is a singular pas- 
 sage in Legge's Confueius (§ 100) to tbe same effect : " How does 
 Heaven speak? The four seasons have their course. The hundred 
 things, what speaks He ? No ; Heaven speaks not : by the course of 
 events He makes Himself understood ; no more." 
 
 " Bccles. iii. 10, 11. 
 
126 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 human affairs if not the need of energy, genius, 
 obseiv- originality, of thought, of moral force ; in one word, 
 
 able in the ."l ° 
 
 course of oi individual character ; m necessary correspon- 
 dence, however, with the surro unding circumstances, 
 in order to secure large and lasting consequences ? ' 
 
 Such souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age. 
 Dull sullen prisoners in the body's cage. 
 
 For, however superior their powers, they must 
 confessedly be in harmony and relation with their 
 times.^ Their very greatness, some would hold, 
 comes of their temperament, and that temperament 
 is the result of many antecedents. Mental as well 
 as physical attributes may be transmissible by 
 inheritance;^ and a "creational law" may be 
 imagined to explain their commencement.* Some 
 
 ' " The laws," says Bp. Butler, " by which persons born into the 
 world at such a time and place are of such capacities, geniuses, tempers 
 .... are so wholly unknown to us, that we call the events which 
 come to pass by them accidental; thoiigh all reasonable men know 
 certainly that there cannot in reality be any such thing as chance." — 
 Anal., II. c. iv. Comp. Augustin., Giv. D., IV. xxxiii. : " Neque hoc 
 temerd ; . . sed pro rerum ordine ac temporum occulto nobis, notissimo 
 sibi ; cui tamen ordini temporum non subditus servit, sed eum Ipse 
 tanquam dominus regit moderatorque disponit." <^opd yap tIs ttrnv iv 
 Tois y€V€(Ti.v dvdpav, axnrep iv Tois Kara ras x^P^s yiyvop.cvois. — Arist., 
 Bhet., II. XV. ; and Pol., V. xii. 8. 
 
 ^ Gruizot has some just remarks on this subject. Civ. en France, Lee. 
 XX. : " The activity of a gi-eat man is of two kinds. First, he under- 
 stands better than others the wants of his time; its real, present 
 exigencies," &c. 
 
 « See Comte, Phil. Pos., IV. 373, 397. 
 
 * Comp. Dr. Mozley, B. L., p. 319. Mr. Herbert Spencer, First 
 Pr., p. 123. " These superior powers of reason or fancy," says Gibbon, 
 c. xxxviii., " are rare and spontaneous productions." " Est casus 
 aliquis," says Bacon, " non minus in cogitationibus humanis quam in 
 operibus et factis." — N. 0., Aph. cxxii. 
 
Lect. III.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 127 
 
 would persuade us to believe that with all their 
 capacities, and aspirations, and beliefs, they are 
 still no accident indeed, yet a product of their 
 time. But what shall account for the harmony of in the 
 the given antecedents ; for their coincidence and dence of 
 correspondence; for the melody^ which pervades andUnt"- 
 their combination ; for the co-proportions and '^ ^° ' 
 correlations, for the co-existence and co-ordination 
 of these births of Time ? 
 
 Non hsBO sine numine Divdm 
 Eveniunt. 
 
 Do they not of themselves call for the notion of 
 Divine superintendence and of absolute appoint- 
 ment, even if the expression of interposition be 
 objected to? The method of Nature, even in ^^Jj^^'^^ 
 physical matters, is nowhere the predominance of ^'°"*^- 
 any single principle, but the joint-presence and 
 self-correcting union of several.^ We ask not for 
 a world governed by isolated acts of special inter- 
 vention, of perpetual and arbitrary interference, 
 
 ' " Dieu est tout ordre : il garde toujours la justice des proportions : 
 il fait rharmonie universelle." — Leibnitz, Thiod. In Ver. Bel., c. xxii., 
 Augustine works out at length the metaphor of a harmony or strain 
 perva4ing the administration of the world. Cf. Prom. V., 556, oCttote 
 rav Albs dp/ioviav Bvarav napt^iaai jSovXai. 
 
 When these prodigies 
 Do so conjointly meet, let not men say ' 
 
 ' These are their reasons, they are natural.' 
 
 Julius Coesar. 
 This argument is carried out by means of an example very ably in 
 Dialogues on Divine Providence, p. IIL 
 
 ^ " Is not the universe pervaded by an omnipresent antagonism, a 
 fundamental conjunction of contraries, everywhere opposite, nowhere 
 independent ?" — Whewell, Nov, Org, Benov.,-p. 270. 
 
128 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 irreconcilable with general laws, and turning his- 
 tory, as has been aptly said, into an almanac. We 
 acknowledge the results of that power of abstrac- 
 tion in the mind of man, which, growing with 
 education, terminates in annihilating all personifi- 
 cation of phenomena, and closes what has been 
 called " the mythical period of history." ^ But, on 
 the other side, this view of life and being, which 
 sees in all things the present controlling hand of 
 Grod, cannot be charged with being incapable of 
 An eie- proof. It rcsts upon and is an illustration of the 
 tificaiiy Method of Residues, so well known in the Logic of 
 ^' Induction.^ For it represents an element of causa- 
 tion, a surplus of unassigned effect, which survives 
 all analysis or explanation of natural events. But 
 if the element thus indicated enters as a necessary 
 antecedent into a scientific account of things, being 
 one which, though not itself otherwise determin- 
 able, is an uniform condition of phenomena ; who 
 shall set limits to its operation, or regard any the 
 smallest event as beyond the providential arrange- 
 The bor- mcut of the Almighty ? True, the natural here 
 
 der line of _ o J 
 
 the natu- mcrges in the supernatural ; a special providence, 
 
 super- it has been rightly said, is an invisible miracle ; it 
 
 is of the same order as the miracle of creation.^ 
 
 '■ Ses Mr. Lecky, Eist. Eur. Mar., I. 375. 
 
 ^ See Mill's Logio, III. yiii. 5 ; Hersobel's Discourse, § 158 ; and Mr. 
 Fowler's singularly clear treatise on Inductive Logic, p. 163. 
 
 ' The voiy preservation of the universe heing a continued creation. 
 See Leibnitz, TFor/cs, pp. 152, 615. "Dieu n'agit que par des lois g(5n&ales. 
 Je I'accorde ; mais k mon avis cela ne suffit pas pour lever les miracles : 
 
Lect. III.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 129 
 
 But it is not the less real for being miraculous ; 
 nor the less miraculous because through simple 
 repetition we cease to see it to be so. " Circum- 
 stances," it has been profoundly said/ "traced 
 back to their first origins, may be the outcome of 
 strictly miraculous intervention. But the miracu- 
 lous intervention addresses us at this day in the 
 guise of those circumstances. There is no law of 
 their coincidence, though coincidences rise out of a 
 combination of general laws. They have a cha- 
 racter of their own, and seem left by Providence in 
 His own hands, as the channel by which, inscrutable 
 to us. He may make known to us His will." Nor AppHca- 
 must it be forgotten that we are dealing not only general 
 with general laws which may be considered as un- dl^duais" 
 varying in their operation, but with their appli- 
 cation to particular circumstances. These may be 
 so arranged as to effect of themselves the greatest 
 amount of good in each individual case. But 
 among these we are entitled to include the de- 
 cisions of the human will which may or may not 
 co-operate with the arrangements of Eternal 
 "Wisdom. In this manner it is true that " all 
 
 81 Dieu en faisoit continuellement, ils ne laisseroient pas d'etre des 
 miracles, en prenant ce mot non pas populairement ponr una chose rare 
 et merveilleuse, mais philosophiquement pour ce qui passe les foroes 
 des creatures." 
 
 • J. H. Newman, Gramm. of Assent, pp. 422, 424. Comp. Eurip. 
 Hec., 1. 958 : 
 
 (jivpoviTi S' aira 6eo). ircikiv re naX wpoaa, 
 
 Topayfiou evTiBevreSi cos ayvanrla 
 
 fr€^cofi€i/ avTovs. 
 
 K 
 
130 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 things work together for good to those that love 
 Grod," who ponder the direction of His providence, 
 and leave room for the suggestions of His grace.^ 
 Science & 7. On no othor supposition does it seem pos- 
 
 predictive , -in f ■ f i 
 
 only of sible to reconcile the apparent lortuity oi human 
 " aflFairs ^ with their admitted regularity, and with 
 the observed nniformity of Nature. It is the 
 boasted test of Science to be predictive;^ to fore- 
 tell consequences with unerring exactness. Yet, 
 of what is it really predictive ? Of tendencies ; 
 not of positive results, nor of particular events ; 
 but rather that these will take place under given 
 circumstances, i. e. under identical circumstances. 
 Experience, that is, custom, leads us to expect a 
 repetition of the circumstances. Yet, the variety of 
 
 Variety Nature is as wonderful as is her uniformity : and 
 
 andirregu- , _ . . , . 
 
 larity ob- it is a well-kuown principle m physics that no two 
 
 servable in .-,...- , 1 • n 
 
 Nature, individual products agree exactly m all respects. 
 
 No compoiind of this earthly ball 
 Is like another all in all. 
 
 Now, this evident irregularity in the case of 
 
 ' As to the bearings of a doctrine of Providence upon the practice of 
 prayer Leibnitz shrewdly observes, " Dans le fond, les hommes se con- 
 tenteront d'etre exaucfe, sans se mettre en peine si le cours de la Nature 
 est change en leur faveur on non. Et s'ils sont aid& par le secours des 
 bons Anges, il n'y aura point de changement dans I'ordre gen&al des 
 choses." — Bemarques sur le livre de M. Sing {Works, p. 651). 
 
 ' See Isaac Taylor on Enthusiasm, p. 129 : " But there is a higher 
 government of men," &c. He is needlessly criticised by Mr. Greg, 
 Creed of Christendom. See also Mr. Hutton, Essays, I. 42: "And 
 this instinctive conviction," &c. 
 
 * Comp. Whewell,PA47. Ind. Sc, I. xxxix., Nov. Org. Ben., II. v. 10; 
 Comte, Phil Pos., I. 62; II. 28, 401, 426; III. 10, 304, 407-13; and 
 Mr. Fowler's remarks, Ind. Logic, p. 112. 
 
Lect. m.] FROGEESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 131 
 
 human affairs,^ is attributed (not indeed very con- 
 sistently) by thinkers of the Positive school, to 
 special but undiscovered laws, or to the acknow- 
 ledged intricacy of the antecedents masking the 
 essential relations of the phenomena, to the plu- 
 rality and composition of causes, to the intermixture 
 of effects, and the like; which is, in fact, no ex- 
 planation at all. Yet there is surely point in import- 
 
 >■ ^ X ance of 
 
 the sarcasm of Pascal,^ that had the nose of Cleo- personal 
 
 character. 
 
 patra been shorter, the whole face likewise of the 
 world's history might, have been changed. Or, 
 again, that a grain of gravel in the person of a 
 Cromwell, sufficed to give peace to a Continent, 
 restoration to a dynasty, and tranquillity to the 
 alarms of Rome. " Accidents of personal character," 
 writes Hallam,^ " have more to do with the revo- 
 lutions of nations than either philosophical histo- 
 rians or democratic politicians like to admit." No 
 cycle, indeed, in human affairs,* no theory of " social 
 
 ' Mr. Buckle, Eist. Civ., III. 479, observes with some asperity, 
 '' Science has not yet explained the phenomena of history. Conse- 
 quently the theological spirit lays hold of them, and presses them into 
 her own service." 
 
 2 Pensees, xix. 7 : " Le nez de Cl^op^tre, s'il efit 6t6 plus court, toute 
 la face de la terre aurait chang^." xx. 8 : " Cromwell allait ravager toute 
 la Chr^tient^," &c. 
 
 ' Middle Ages, I. 132 : " It is almost appalUng," remarks Dean 
 Church ( Univ. Serm.), " to watch how some vast change in human 
 affairs has hung upon the apparent accident of a stronger or weaker 
 character." 
 
 * Magnus ab integro ssclorum nascitur ordo. iaa-\ kvkKov tivai ra 
 dvBpawiva Trpay/ioTa.— Arist., Phys., IV. xiv. See Mill's Logic, I. 420 
 (1st ed.). The theory of Vico is well known. Compare Augustin., 
 Civ. D., XII. xi. xiii., and Origen, c. Cels., IV. Ixvii. 
 
 K 2 
 
Error of 
 
 assump- 
 tion as to 
 the course 
 
 132 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 rhythm," "equilibration," or "recurring oscillation" 
 will solve this mighty mystery; though history, 
 like a circulating decimal of many figures, " should 
 periodically repeat itself," and things revolve in an 
 eternal round. The problem is one into which too 
 many factors enter.^ There is, indeed, an error 
 which has too often brought contempt on the ac- 
 knowledgment of a special Providence ; which lies 
 de^:™^' in the monopolizing and appropriation of it.'^ In 
 this way 
 
 Men may construe things after their fashion 
 Clean //-om the purpose of the things themselves. 
 
 To leave, however, the existence of a controlling 
 Providence an open question subverts the conditions 
 necessary to constitute a religion. But, if the 
 entrance of a supernatural element into the course 
 of human affairs be, indeed, requisite for any really 
 philosophical explanation of them, the incompati- 
 bility of general Laws with the wants of the reli- 
 gious sentiment can no longer be urged. The 
 
 ' " History," it has been cleverly said, " like the dial of a clock, 
 presents results, but conceals the machinery producing them." 
 
 ' " Historia Nemeseos san^ in calamos nonnuUorum piorum virorum 
 incidit : sed non sine partium studio.'" — Bacon, Augm. Sc , II. xi. " To 
 him," says Montaigne, Ess., I. xxv., " who feels the hailstones patter 
 about his ears, the whole hemisphere appears to be in a storm." There 
 is a French saying, " La providence des chats ii'est pas la merae aveo 
 la providence des souris." On this subject Mr. Buckle, Hist. Civ., III. 
 195, has some canstlo remarks. Elsewhere (I. 19, r..) he gratuitously 
 confounds the doctrine of Providential interference with that of Pre- 
 destination. See some just reflections of Mr. Lecky, Eist. E. M., I. 
 381, and some noble thoughts of ^rof. Qoldwin Smith (Study of Hist 
 Lect. I. 31). 
 
con- 
 clusion 
 
 Lect. III.] FJiOGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 133 
 
 " kingdoms of the world " may still " become the 
 kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ " ; and 
 this in virtue of an operation determined by no 
 such laws of time as to compel the inference 
 that it was not so fixed from eternity, or is not so 
 arranged at any given moment by an immediate 
 and ever-present disposition.* 
 
 § 8. One of the acutest thinkers of our time, This 
 who has passed away not many months since, justly dra™ 
 lamented, has contended for the special interposi- perknce. 
 tion of Grod by the side of general Laws, on the 
 ground that both are alike conditions of human 
 thought, seeing that we cannot think the general 
 without the special.^ At present I would dwell 
 rather on the objective side of experience. The 
 importance of distinguisliing between the causes 
 and the ccoasions of events has often been observed.^ 
 
 ' " Le pr&ent," finely remarks Leibnitz (Works, p. 608), " est gros 
 de I'avenir;" or as Schiller puts it, " Im Heute wandelt schon das 
 Morgen.'' It is an error, however, to assume the determining causes 
 of events to be nectssary in any case where a counter result is con- 
 ceivable. The v?ill of God is not incompatible either with contingency 
 in things or liberty in the creature. The main argument of this work, 
 however, does not proceed on any forced or fanciful application of 
 special acts of Providence. Christianity is the concurrent result of pre- 
 ceding events and precedent conditions. As such it is a fact in man'g 
 history, which goes for much, and implies further consequences in the 
 undoubted pre-arraiigement of God. 
 
 ' Dean Mansel, Bampton Led., p. 193. 
 
 ' Polyb., III. vi. 6, ap)(ri n Suujifpei, Koi iroo'ov hi4(rrr)K€v alrlas Kal 
 irpo(j)d(rca)s. Hence Aristotle's distinction of Poetry from History : 
 TOVTOi bia^epei, ra top p.ev ra yevofieva Xc-yetv, tov 8c* oia Av yevoiYo. 
 Aio Kal <j}i\o(ro(l)ajTfpov Kal (rirovbatorepov ToiTjtrts IfrToptas etrriv. — 
 Foet, c. ix. ; a thought expanded by Bacon m.Avgm. Sc, II. xiii. Hence 
 
134 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 The former, rightly deemed the " eternal lessons of 
 History," are occupied with the tendencies, rather 
 than the occurrences of the time : while occasions, 
 exhibiting principles in the garb of events, con- 
 stitute the web, and not the warp, of human affairs. 
 The laws But thouffh the effect be proportioned to the cause, 
 
 distinct ^ jr j. ^ i 
 
 from the and the motor ideas of an age are relative to its 
 
 occasions . . . , 
 
 of events, position in the course oi human progress,, (thus, 
 it may be admitted, Bacon and Descartes would 
 have been powerless in the seventh or the tenth 
 century) ; yet the circumstances which attend their 
 announcement may be favourable or unfavourable, 
 and admit of no uniform analysis. But they are 
 not therefore to be left out of account. Hence, 
 Mr. Mill/ (no mean authority), holds the author 
 of the - History of Civilization in England' to be in 
 error, when " he attributes all to general causes 
 without imagining that casual circumstances, the 
 acts of governments, the thoughts of men of 
 
 also his conception (7J., II. viii.) of an Universal Histon'. So Johnson 
 remarked that Shakspeare's characters "are mo&tly species, not indi- 
 viduals." See Hallam, M. A., I. 66, and Mr. Buckle, Bist. Civ., II. 
 317, 324, who cites Montesquieu and adds, "the real history of the 
 human race is the history of tendencies, vs-hich are perceived hy the 
 mind, and not of events which are discerned by the senses.'' Mr. 
 Pattison remarks, with his' usual discrimination, that Mr. Buckle, 
 having begun with definin* history as an inquiry into the laws of 
 events, proceeds to a mere narration. Comte, if I remember rightly, 
 somewhere proposes to write a history, without names of individuals, or 
 even of nations. See PUl. Pos., V. 22, 268. He thus delineates the 
 respective destinies of Athens, Eome, Carthage, and even of Christianity 
 itself. 
 
 ' A. Comte and Positivism, p. 114. 
 
Lect. III.] PROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 135 
 
 genius, materially accelerate or retard human pro- 
 gress." Such incredulity gives rise to an oppo- 
 site exaggeration, when it is maintained that " the 
 history of the world is but the biography of 
 great men."^ This is, indeed, not to be able to 
 " see the forest for the trees." Doubtless, there Appeal to 
 have been turning-points in the world's story. '^ °^' 
 At Marathon, at Metaxirus, at Tours, the worship 
 of Ormuzd, of Bel, of Mahomet trembled in the 
 scale. Victory hung upon the standards of the 
 strongest, if not the biggest battalions, or on those 
 which were most ably led, or on both combined. 
 Yet, how is it that it has passed into a proverb that 
 " the race is not always to the swift, the battle 
 to the strong : but time and chance happeneth 
 unto all " ? ^ It is not then " gratuitous " to assert a 
 Providential element in history ; for it has a real 
 ground in experience. Facts suggest it to a serious 
 mind ; and though in ruder times this element has 
 had too large scope assigned it, this only warns us 
 to confine it within due limits. There is at present 
 
 ' Carlyle, Hero Wor&liip ; though Guizot rightly reckons them as a 
 separate element in the history of civilization. Civ. en E., I. 56 : " No one 
 can say why a great man appears at a certain epoch, and what he adds to 
 the development of the world. That is a secret of Providence : but 
 the fact is not therefore less certain." " The riddle of fortune or cir- 
 cumstance,'' says Coleridge, " is but a form or effluence of the riddle of 
 man." 
 
 ' Eccles. ix. 11. It was no immature thinker who observed upon 
 snch facts as these, that 
 
 This should teach us 
 There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Bough-hew them how we will. That is most certain. 
 
136 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 Personifi- an aspect of history much in vogue, in which Gre- 
 generai neral Laws are as much personified as in mythical 
 recent periods of thought. " The Tower of Siloam," says 
 
 writers 
 
 a brilliant writer/ " fell not for any sins of the 
 eighteen who were crushed by it ; but through 
 bad mortar probably, the rotting of a beam, or the 
 uneven settling of the foundations. The persons 
 who should have suffered according to our notion 
 of distributive justice, were the ignorant architects 
 or masons who had done their work amiss. But 
 the guilty, perhaps, had long been turned to dust. 
 And the law of gravitation brought the tower 
 down at its own time, indifferent to the persons who 
 might be under it." Does not such language show 
 that there may be a Fetishism latent in the highest 
 abstractions ? ^ For myself, I do not see that the 
 unphiio- planetary spirits of Origen or Kepler are more 
 
 ^ Mr. Froude on Calvinism, Short Studies, II. Ser. p. 11. Another 
 instance may be cited from a more exact thinker. " The Law of Gravi- 
 tation," writes Professor Tyndall, Fragm. T., p. 45, " crushes the simple 
 worshippers of Ottery St. Mary, while singing their hymns, just as 
 surely as if they were engaged in a midnight brawl." " J'ai lu," says 
 De Maistre, " des millions de plaisanteries sur I'ignorance des anciens 
 qui voyaient des esprits partout. II me semble que nous sommes 
 beaucoup plus sots, nous qui n'en voyons nulla part." — Soirees, V"" 
 Entret., p. 188. 
 
 '' On this subject there is something noble in the indignation of M. 
 Comte, Phil. Pas., V. 42. " De nos jours mSme qu'est-ce r&Uement, pour 
 im esprit positif, que ce t^n^breux Panth^isme dont se glorifient si 
 dtrangement, surtout en AUemagne, taut de profonds m^taphysiciens, 
 si non le Fetichisme g^neralis^ et systematise, enveloppe d'un appareil 
 doctoral propre k douner le change au vulgaire ?" In V. 45) he remarks 
 that an age of metaphor has now succeeded to the Fetishism of an 
 earlier time. Compare Mr. Tylor, Hist. Prim. Cult., I. 264. 
 
Lect. III.] FJiOGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 137 
 
 unreasonable than Glravitation made into an agent. 
 It may be through general and permanent Laws 
 (to call them immutable, involves an assumption 
 incapable, of proof) that the Providence of Grod 
 presides over the order, better perhaps to say, 
 the endless play, of the universe/ But it would 
 be more exact to give them another name. They 
 are the continuously active will of an ever-present 
 God in its exercise upon the world of its creation ; 
 for where the laws are, there is the Lawgiver also.^ 
 
 § 9. We conclude, then, that in the hypothesis Natural 
 of universal Law, and in the fact, if it be a fact, compatible 
 that the history of physical science is one continued Providen- 
 revelation of the reign of Law, there is nothing oTchm- ^ 
 antecedently fatal to Christianity as a religion for "^"'y- 
 mankind. For if otherwise, it must be so in respect 
 either of its special contents, or of the fundamen- 
 tal evidences adduced in its support ; I mean of 
 
 • It is a truer instinct which, with Malebranche, sees all things in 
 God. " Whether a dagger," says De Maistre, " pierces a man's heart 
 or a little blood collects in his brain, he falls dead alike. But in the 
 first case we say he has ended his days by a violent death. For God, 
 however, there is no such thing as violent death. A steel blade fixed 
 in the heart is a malady just like a simple callosity, which we should 
 call a polypus."— jSoirdes, IV""" Entret. 
 
 '^ Guizot, Mdditat., Vol. I. p. 33. Newton's Scholium on the nature 
 of God is thus worded : " Entis summS perfecti idea ut sit substantia 
 una ; omnia in se continens tanquam eorum principium et locus ; 
 omnia per prseaentiam substantialem cernens et regens et cum rebus 
 omnibus secundum leges acouratas ut naturae totius fundamentum et 
 causa, constanter co-operans, nisi ubi aliter agere bonum est." See in 
 Brewster's Memoirs, II. 154. Compare the description of the Koran 
 (Sale, I. c. vi., p. 166). 
 
138 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 iirev^'' Miracles and Prophecy, " that splendid apparatus 
 dences, "with which its mission was introduced and at- 
 tested." ^ Into the nature of these evidences I am 
 not now called to enter. For the subject of 
 Miracles, the magnificent dialectical effort made 
 not very long since from this place, must deter, 
 while rendering unnecessary, all inferior handling 
 ■viz. of the same topic. I would remark only in answer 
 
 miracles, 
 
 to a more recent objection,^ that if it be true that as 
 men advance from an imperfect to a higher civili- 
 zation, they gradually sublimate and refine their 
 creed, exhibiting an indisposition, in place of an 
 earlier proneness, towards the reception of the 
 miraculous : it may still be replied, that Christianity, 
 as it has become better understood, has borne this 
 These ad- tcst. Already in the long history of the Church, 
 
 mit of dis- . 
 
 crimina- we have learned to distinguish between true and 
 false miracles, evangelical and ecclesiastical, evi- 
 dential and doctrinal, intrinsic and spurious imita- 
 tions. The tendency of superstition to multiply 
 miracles does not disprove their probability, much 
 less their possibility : it rather goes to establish 
 the instinctive nature o'f their recognition. A 
 truer estimate of the position of Miracles in relation 
 
 ' Paley, Moral Phil, Bk. IV. sub fin. 
 
 2 See Mr. Lecky, Hist. Bat., I. 160-195. Hist. Eur. Mor., I. 370, 
 385, &o. Jean Paul Eichter acutely remarks, Vorschule der Aesthetik, 
 Works, xix. 163, that the greatest miracle is our tendency to believe in 
 miracles, surrounded as we are by the mechanical kingdom of our 
 senses : that in spite of continual contact with the world of matter we 
 still believe in an invisible world. 
 
 tion. 
 
Lect. Ill] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. I39 
 
 to faith has taken possession of the Christian mind. 
 " The ideaP of the Church's life," it has heen well 
 said, " is not the predominance of the supernatural : 
 but the intimate and complete union of the human 
 and the Divine." The proof from Miracles^ Au- Th^ vary- 
 
 ■*- mg co- 
 
 gustine thought was not suited to every age, or to ^^"^^5°!^ 
 all minds. On the large and important evidence evidences 
 
 ° '■ and pro- 
 
 of Prophecy, which to the mind of Pascal,^ (as phecy. 
 
 previously to that of Augustine and, as it would 
 seem, of the earlier Fathers), superseded Miracles ; 
 it may perhaps be said that it still awaits a treat- 
 ment in unison with the spirit of the time. At 
 present I would only observe that there is nothing 
 in its nature essentially contradictory to experience. 
 On the contrary, it is consistent and according 
 with expectation, so long as there is admitted a 
 Divine superintendence of events passing insen- 
 sibly into a continuous interposition, and acting in 
 conjunction with fixed and general laws. It is aTheirfiu- 
 
 matter of 
 ' Pressens6, Apostles and Martyrs, p. 16. fact. 
 
 '^ Util. Gred., c. xiv. ; Ver. Bel, c. xxv. " Cur, inquis, ista (so. mira- 
 oula) mode nou flunt? Quia non moverent nisi mira essent: at si 
 solita essent, mira non essent."— W. Cred., c. xvi. He also argues that 
 miracles are rather a proof to the ignorant than to the wise. 
 
 * "La plus grande des preuves de J&us-Ohrist, ce sont les pro- 
 pMties." — Pensees, A.rt. X. " Hvijus religionis sectandse caput est historia 
 et prophetia dispensationis temporalis DivinsB Providentias pro salute 
 generis humani inseternam vitam reformandiatque reparaijdi." — August., 
 Ver. Bel., c. vii. 13, xxv. See Pressens^, u. a., torn. ii. Lecky, H. E. M., 
 I. 399. The teleological character of Christianity in relation to the 
 history and prophecies of the Old Testament, as itself a fruit of " the 
 fullness of the time," is a subject wholly in accord with recent phi- 
 losophy. 
 
HO OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 different question which has been sometimes asked,' 
 whether Christianity has in its career answered 
 the expectations of the old prophecies respecting 
 it. Thus, the kingdom of Christ is by no means 
 as yet universal : " we see not yet all things put 
 under Him : " nor hi the history of the Church has 
 Christianity shown itself a religion of peace. But 
 it has been well replied,^ that it has fulfilled Pro- 
 phecy far enough to make the portrait like : and 
 by predicting its own future, answers any such 
 difiSculties by anticipation. If destined to be uni- 
 versal, Christ's kingdom is still in a manner " not 
 of this world." It is created and established, not 
 by force, but by persuasion ; and persuasion must 
 be always gradual and often precarious. It did not 
 engage to abolish sin and irreligion, even within 
 its pale : the tares should still spring among the 
 wheat. Its very progress was to be made through 
 defeat : it was to conquer by sanctity and suffering. 
 Themys- § ^O- Some elements, it must be admitted, when 
 Christian '^'^ ^^^ Considering the progress and permanence 
 nouiable °^ Christianity, within the circle of Christian doc- 
 expiana-*^^^ trine must ever be expected to remain stumbling- 
 tion. blocks to the naked intellect ; more especially when 
 it surrenders itself to the narrow dogmas of a 
 purely physical philosophy. There are beings, 
 as Bishop Butler has suggested,'' to whom the 
 
 ' J. H. Newman, Oramm. of Assent, p. 441. 
 
 ' Analogy, Pt. I. o. i. : " Kor is there any absurdity in supposing," &c. 
 
Lect. III.] FjROGJiESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 141 
 
 scheme of Christianity in all its details may appear 
 strictly natural. But to us it is not so. The 
 coming of the Son of Grod in the flesh, the 
 Absolute thus becoming relative, the Infinite 
 finite, the Creator a creature ; the spiritual import 
 of death a natural phenomenon (]£x non poena 
 mors) ; the relation of sin to its efifects ; the fall 
 and corruption of man ; the necessity of Redemp- 
 tion •, the fact of its taking place in a single tiny 
 world, lost as it were in the infinity of surrounding 
 space crowded with kindred orbs ;* these are and 
 must be accepted as mysteries, "clouds on the 
 mercy-seat," capable perhaps of explanation, yet 
 only of an imperfect one, unpalatable accordingly 
 to a positive school of inquiry. Yet Mysteries are Mysteries 
 the properties of all genuine religions, in regard to party of all 
 which the believer " walks by faith and not by sight." religions. 
 Thus " the consciousness of a mystery," it has been 
 rightly said,^ " is traceable in the rudest Fetishism." 
 The economy of Revelation in respect of them, it 
 may be, differences Christianity favourably from 
 other religions.^ But whatever may be thought as 
 
 ' Chalmers's discourses on this topic are well known. Comp. pp. 54, 98 : 
 " Impossible that the concerns of this puny ball, which floats its little 
 round among an infinity of larger worlds, should be of such mighty 
 account in the plans of the Eternal," &c. 
 
 * See Mr. Herbert Spencer, First Pr., p. 99 : " En articles de foi," 
 it has been beautifully said, " il faut se crever les yeux pour voir clair." 
 " La raison," writes Vinet, " a sa foi ; la foi a sa raison." 
 
 5 Viz. by confining them to truths answering to the deepest wants of 
 our spiritual frame. " Ce qui en nous est contraire aux mystbres, n'est 
 pas la raison, ni la lumi^re naturelle I'enchaineraent des y^rit^s ; c'est 
 
142 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 to this, they are at least no new difficulties, no new- 
 grounds of objection. Nothing about them requires 
 to be given up in the present stage of our know- 
 ledge as the creed of an ignorant and bygone 
 Under- age. We are still far from the axiom that nothing 
 not the can be true but what we can fully understand.^ 
 belief. Rationalism and Mysticism are, indeed, opposite 
 extremes, between which it may well be the human 
 mind will always continue to oscillate, meeting, 
 however, in one common point. Mysteries are not 
 contradictions to reason or to fact. We should 
 else be holding our religious faith on sufferance 
 of ignorance or error. In effect, the old adage, 
 " omnia exeunt in mysterium" is even now the out- 
 come of a philosophy of experience, the justification 
 of a system of nescience. " The world," said Hume, 
 " is a mystery :" and beyond all that science makes 
 Rational- known to US Hcs the mysterious unknown.^ But 
 mysticism SO again the latent error of Mysticism in religion 
 tiveiy^erro- is the aiming at a comprehension of transcen- 
 neous. dental truth, at the fruition of a mental certainty 
 which it is not given us to acquire or possess ; 
 
 coiTuption, c'est erreur ou pr^jug^, c'est tdn^bres." — Leibnitz, Thioi.; 
 p. 496. Paley has some good remarks on this point, Evid. II. ii,, con- 
 trasting the reserve of the Bible with the redundance of the Koran. 
 
 ^ Oomp. Comte, PAi7. Pos., V. 66. It is true that there is an exactly- 
 opposite error in which JRevelation itself is confounded with Mystery. 
 " Times," says Dr. Dorner, Hist. Prot. Th., II. 255, " unfruitful in theolo- 
 gical knowledge, are ever wont to fall back on mystery, and upon the much 
 abused demand of taking the reason prisoner to the obedience of faith." 
 
 ' See Herbert Spencer, First Princ, p. 223. 
 
Lect. III.] PROGJiESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 143 
 
 just as in practice it is realized in the abandon- 
 ment of free-will in its devotion to a pre-assumed 
 will of Grod. It thus really involves the assump- 
 tion of mental independence, and runs up into the 
 Schoolmen's postulate that reason ultimately obliges 
 to believe all that faith receives/ The difficulties 
 occurring in the system of Christianity form part 
 of the Divine administration, the proper subject- 
 matter of Revelation, being confessedly beyond the 
 reach of human investigation. Of these, therefore, 
 we. are no judges; yet the existence of them is 
 recognized in itself to be necessary by the limits 
 of our natural knowledge. 
 
 & 1 1 . Nor is the srrowine: conviction that Reli- ji^a'"™! 
 
 S 00 laws not in- 
 
 gion itself falls within a natural order, and may to compatible 
 a certain extent be treated as a positive phenome- historical 
 
 ^ sequence 
 
 non, determined by the mental faculties and the of reli- 
 gions. 
 history of their development, any real stumbling- 
 block to the acceptance of the Christian faith. 
 The criticism of some modern schools of thought,^ 
 
 ' " It is an eiTor to suppose Mysticism as the perpetual antagonist of 
 Scholasticism ; the Mystics were often severe logicians : the Scholastics 
 had all the passions of Mystics." — Milman, Lat. Christ., VI. 263. See 
 Gieseler, III. 292, and IV. 188, E. T., ed. Clark. Laoordaire speaks of 
 " la certitude mystique et translumineuse." In all Mysticism we must 
 distinguish between an intellectual and an ethical tendency. Comp. 
 Domer, Eist. Prot. Th., I. 52. There is a tendency in Mysticism 
 towards what has been termed Monopsychism, the belief in the mere 
 existence of a single soul. Such a view is the correlative of pure 
 Materialism. 
 
 " See Mr. Farrar, Witness of History to Christ, p. 61, and Dr. Farrar, 
 Critical Hist, of Free Thought, pp. 122, 392. Comp. Hegel, Phil. d. 
 
144 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 commencing with Lessing and culminating in Baur, 
 grows out of this truth pursued into excess. On 
 the Positivist theory Christianity is the necessary 
 result of previous antecedents. It could not but 
 have arisen out of the contact of Jewish Monotheism 
 and Grreek speculation and Roman Empire.^ This 
 When the explanation (even if true of a system of dogmas) 
 allowed^ does not, as we have already seen, account for an 
 historic Gospel, that is, for the series of facts on 
 which Christian dogmas depend. But the still 
 larger fact that the announcement of the religion 
 of Christ was in accordance with the spirit and 
 impor- antecedents of its time, the culmination of an 
 [he'doc- Evangelical Preparation;^ and further, that in its 
 'evang°ei^" history it has followed the course of laws unre- 
 "^aration servedly accepted in other departments of know- 
 ledge and action, this result should be a confirma- 
 tion, not an arraignment, of its truth. It is no 
 tenet of the Christian faith to deny that we are the 
 " heirs of all the ages," or, in the expressive words 
 of Comte, that " we who live are ruled by the 
 dead." The continuity and solidarity of human 
 
 Oesch. 3. Theil, III. ii. Mr. Buckle, Eist. Civ., TI. 21, attributes tbe 
 first notion of a tlieory of religious development to the French writer, 
 Oharron. 
 
 ' See Comte, Phil. Pos., T. 349, and Prof. Westcott's just remarks 
 (^Comte on Oliristianity), Oont. Mev., VI. 404. Dr. Dorner, Hist. Prot. 
 Tk, II. 291, traces this view to Bberhard in his Geist des Ur-Ohris- 
 tenthums, published in 1807. 
 
 ^ On this grand theory of Christian development, the contribution of 
 the School of Alexandria to a history of doctrine, see Neander, Ch. 
 Hist, II. 275^ E. T., ed. Clark. 
 
Lect. III.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 14S 
 
 history are ideas which lie at the root of the 
 doctrines of Christ. Time has been when, through 
 an unconscious lack of faith in the ordinary pro- 
 vidence of Grod, the progress of Christianity has 
 been too largely assigned to miraculous and super- 
 natural causes.' It was narrowed accordingly to 
 false or unimportant issues. The humbler, if safer, This some- 
 road of regular and ordinary causation was deemed sight of. 
 unmeet for it. The presence of the Divine message 
 and its efficacy were hailed more readily in the 
 rending earthquake and the great strong wind, and 
 in the devouring fire, than in the still small voice 
 of moral conviction and spiritual transformation, 
 borne slowly down the stream of time.^ But now Present 
 
 ■^ _ tendency 
 
 men think and see differently, and looking back of the age. 
 we seem to catch the breath of a Divine mystery, 
 mingling ever silently with the voices and tones of 
 men, and tempering with a heavenly calm the 
 fevered spirit of the age.^ It is not now argued 
 that the rise and progress of Christianity are 
 inexplicable : but rather that its results prove 
 
 ' See some good remarks of Dean Merivale, Conversion of Empire, 
 p. 20. " The human mind continued to work by its old accustomed 
 methods; but those method's of thought were themselves of God's 
 original appointment. The Holy Spirit had brooded over their creation, 
 and guided them gently to the end which to Him was present from the 
 beginning." Also Northern Nations, pp. x. 103 ; and Dorner's remarks 
 on Lessing, Hist. Prot. Th., II. 303. 
 
 2 See Mr. Lecky, Hist. Eur. M., I, 412. 
 
 " " Perhaps," says Laud, Conf. p. xxiii., " there may be in voce 
 hominum tuba Dei — in the still voice of men the loud trumjiet of God 
 which sounds many ways, sometimes to the ears and sometimes to the 
 hearts of men, and by means which they think uol of." 
 
 I, 
 / 
 
146 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 its permanent and catholic character ; that it is a 
 religion to take part and co-exist with advancing 
 civilization. 
 Relation S 12. Thus, in an estimate of the value of Ohris- 
 
 of mtel- _ •' _ 
 
 lectuai tianity as a permanent element in human progress, 
 
 progress to . . .... . . 
 
 civiiiza- some preliminary inquiry into the relation of in- 
 tellectual conditions towards advance in morals and 
 religion must come in. So long as it is maintained 
 that all advance is really intellectual,* and that 
 knowledge and civilization tend rather to the 
 extinction than to the promotion of religious senti- 
 ment, the situation of Christianity, equally indeed 
 with all creeds, becomes precarious and doubtful. 
 ?anc™t''o"" What, then, is meant in such discussions by civiliza- 
 JlJgpg'i.'."^ tion ? Not, surely, one thing, but many ; not a 
 of'cw s™P^®j but a highly complex fact. It is, I appre- 
 tianity. hend, the position or degree of education of the 
 human race at any given period, in respect not of 
 Definition knowledge only, but of social and political condi- 
 
 of civiiiza- . . 
 
 tion, tion, dependent on circumstances of race, climate, 
 and other special antecedents ; further, also, in 
 respect of moral and religious beliefs, acting con- 
 jointly with art and ^sthetical development.^ All 
 
 ' See Mr. Buckle, Eist. Civ., I. c. iv. (more especially p. 182). His argu- 
 ment is that civilization is indeed the product of moral and intellectual 
 agencies ; but that as morality is really stationary and without advance, 
 the intellect is the prime mover and is permanent in its results. In 
 11. 89, he seems after Descartes to ground religion itseK on an idea 
 of the intellect. See, on the other hand, Mr. Lecky, Eist. Eur. M., 
 I. 105, 156, &c. 
 
 2 See Mill's Logic, Bk. VI., x. 2. " "What is called a state of society is 
 
Lect. III.] PHOGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. I47 
 
 these elements may be present in a varying relation 
 and in different proportions of force. All may 
 together be acting feebly ; some vigorously, some a complex 
 
 n-n 11 1 result of 
 
 scarcely. Industrial and mtellectual culture by no many fac- 
 means advances uniformly in all its branches. It 
 may, as in Ancient Grreece, be far ahead of other 
 elements of true culture, and be before its time.' 
 Knowledge may be at a low ebb in a community 
 where religious convictions have a strong hold upon 
 the hearts and affections of a people. Morality including 
 may be weakest in respect of the conduct of the ^^ '^'°"' 
 masses, while knowledge flourishes, and a spirit of 
 inquiry is widely diffused. Such a result tends 
 directly against true culture. The conditions of 
 intellectual are not generally favourable to moral 
 growth.^ Meanwhile, the political circumstances 
 may be auspicious or unfavourable, while the social 
 condition of a nation will exhibit the complex result 
 
 the simultaneous state of all the greater social facts or phenomena . . . 
 the common beliefs entertained on all the subjects most important to 
 mankind, and the degree of assurance with which those beliefs are held," 
 &c. So also GuizDt (Oivil. en France, Lee. i., p. 273), "It is not these 
 two principles of themselves, which constitute civilization : to bring it 
 to perfection, their intimate and rapid union, simultaneousness, and 
 reciprocal actiort are absolutely necessary." See the whole of the 
 passage. Comp. also Grant's Samp. Lect, p. 308. Mr. Tylor {Sisf. 
 Prim. Cult, I. p. 1) thus defines : " Culture or civilization taken in its 
 wide ethnographic sense is that complex whole which includes know- 
 ledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and 
 habits acquired by man as a member of society." 
 
 1 See Mr. Tylor, u. s., I. 24. Comp. Comte, Phil. Pos., V. 252,' 257. 
 
 ^ See Guizot, Civ. en Prance, I. 348: "When the social relations 
 have been described, are the facts whose aggregate constitutes the life 
 of an epoch exhausted ? Certainly not ; there remains to be studied the 
 
 L 2 
 
148 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 of the other elements of its civilization. Hence 
 the differences of ancient and modern culture^ 
 They are not only distinct stages of a common 
 progress or development, to which man's nature 
 Ancient points and tends.^ They have proceeded from 
 guished different principles. Ancient civilization started 
 modern from One alone, as in Athens from intellectual cul- 
 tion. ture, in Rome from the principle of public utility, 
 the submission of individual development to com- 
 mon good, the recognition and creation of law. 
 Then, rapidly advancing, it became soon exhausted 
 and monotonous. In modern times, civilization is 
 with more reason held dependent on the due dis- 
 position of all the various powers of human nature 
 under social forms. The soul of man has ac- 
 cordingly been stirred upon a larger number of 
 points and to a greater depth. It has become more 
 Expansion acccssible to the power of new ideas. In this result 
 religious the amelioration of social conditions has, no doubt, 
 reacted on humanity. And it may well be that, 
 as man's nature and knowledge rise with culture, 
 his religious sentiment also alters and expands. 
 But, inversely, Christianity by first changing and 
 regenerating human nature, has developed morally, 
 
 internal, the personal state of men, the state of souls ; that is, on one 
 side the ideas, doctrines, the whole intellectual life of man : on the other, 
 the relations which connect ideas with actions, creeds with the determina- 
 tions of the will, thought with human liberty." In 11. 395 he blames 
 Bossufit for having confined his view of civilization to religious creeds, 
 and Montesquieu to political institutions. 
 ' See Tylor, u. »., I. 25. 
 
 sentiment. 
 
Lect. III.] PHOGJiESS OP CHRISTIANITY. 149 
 
 and even intellectually, the individual man without 
 necessarily varying his external condition. But 
 this change did not come at once ; and under the 
 later Empire the world retrograded in its intellectual 
 stage while in possession of Christian ideas. For 
 " advanced ideas," it has been truly said,^ " when 
 once established, act upon society and aid its further 
 advance. Yet the establishment of such ideas 
 depends on the previous fitness of society for re- 
 ceiving them." There must be a thorough corre- 
 spondence of external and internal relations. The civiliza- 
 tion must 
 religion of our present so-called civilization, if it be be as wide 
 
 1 -1 1 • r. • 11 • . as the 
 
 only or mamly an evolution of intellect, ignoring whole 
 
 !!• p • 1 i-i- -11 "ature of 
 
 the claims 01 conscience, can but exhibit a one-sided, man. 
 imperfect progress ;^ it does not fulfil the idea, and 
 must fail, as it has failed of old. Such, however, 
 is not the character of the religion of Christ, which 
 is, therefore, " established on better promises " of 
 permanence and progress. But on what grounds Religion a 
 is it asserted that all human advance is intellectual, ofpro- 
 thus necessitating the conclusion that Christianity 
 is itself an efiect and not a cause of progress ? 
 Because,^ it is answered, without external inter- 
 ference people will never discover their existing 
 
 ' Mr. Herbert Spencer, Classification of Sciences, p. 37. 
 
 ^ See Dr. J. H. Newman, Oramm. of Assent, p. 391 ; also Essay on 
 Devel., I. § 3; and particularly Dean Church, Univ. Sermons on the 
 relation of Christianity to civilization. "It corrects the narrowing of 
 man's horizon ; which civilization cannot do, perhaps fosters." " Chris- 
 tianity affords the only means of cherishing purity," &o. 
 
 ' Buckle, Hist. Civ., I. 254. 
 
ISO OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 religion to be a bad one ; and tbis implies some 
 previous improvement in reason and knowledge. 
 But bas religion, it may fairly be replied, only an 
 Reason of intellectual side ? Is it not so, as Pascal bas said,* 
 tbat " tbe beart also bas its reasons, wbicb reason 
 cannot apprebend " ? " It is necessary to imbue 
 our faitb with feeling, otherwise it will be for ever 
 vacillating." Has the work of conversion been 
 always among races so far advanced in knowledge 
 and mental resources as to be adequate critics, from 
 the intellectual stand-point, of the merits of a new 
 faith ? It is conceivable that the belief of bar- 
 barous times or tribes may be in some respects 
 simpler and truer ^ than that of periods of culture, 
 just as the moral qualities of savage races some- 
 times suffer at the first impact of civilization. 
 Change of Again, is it, as a matter of fact,* by intellectual 
 not due to convictions chiefly or solely that religions have 
 lectuai made their way in different regions of the world ? 
 
 conviction _- , ... 
 
 solely or Perhaps the simplest mode has been the acceptance 
 
 chiefly. . . ■'■ 
 
 of the faith of the conquering race by the subject 
 peoples. Between different forms of polytheism 
 such an interchange could not have been difficult.* 
 " Civilization," it bas been aptly said, " is a plant 
 much oftener propagated than developed."^ This 
 
 ' Pense'es, II. 176, I. 155, ed. FaugJre. 
 ^ See Newman, Oramm. of Assent, p. 391. 
 
 * See an example in Mr. Tyler, Hist. Prim. Cult., I. 27. 
 
 * See Comte, Phil. Pos., V. 180. Hume, l^at. H. of EeUgion, § 9. 
 » Tylor, Hist. Pr. C, I. 48. 
 
Lect. III.] FROGjRESS of CHRISTIANITY. 151 
 
 has resulted either from direct compulsion, as by 
 the scimitar of Islamism, or from an instinct of 
 inferiority naturally, and not without reason,^ 
 accompanying defeat. Where a new language can 
 be imposed, no doubt through "the spiritual rela- 
 tionship" of races, religion may pass also. Yet 
 this is not always so ; as, for instance, in the 
 Mahometan and British subjugations of Hindostan. 
 Nor is it so generally, where a strong sacerdotal 
 caste exists among the conquered race.^ But 
 neither, if it were, could it be traced to any law of 
 rational superiority alone in the religion of the 
 conqueror. For then the progress of religious 
 truth, it is to be supposed, would have been simple 
 and continuous ; a result which is not borne out 
 by the history of mankind. Other circumstances. Historical 
 
 1 1 • mi proof of 
 
 therefore, must be taken into account. The this fact, 
 guidance, or at any rate the sequence, of events 
 introduces particular religions into the world and 
 into distinct localities. Once received, from what- 
 ever causes, they flourish and endure according to 
 the amount of truth which they contain, combined 
 with the fitness of their doctrines for the special 
 circumstances of region and race, including, it is 
 true, as one condition, a certain stage of intellectual 
 
 ^ Coinp. Arist., Pol., I. vi. : Tpdnov riva aperi] rvyxdvova-a x'>Piy^'^^ 
 ^La^etrdai Sivarai fiaXiora, Koi ecrriv dfi to Kparovv iv iirepoxy ayadov 
 Tivos axTTe SoKflv liTj av€V dperrjs etvai rr/v ^iav. 
 
 ' Compare the remarks of Comte, Phil. Pos., V. 241, and Sir John 
 Luhbock, Orig. of Civilization. 
 
152 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 General- advance. Thus fetishism may be found to precede 
 
 ization of J i. 
 
 these- polytheism, polytheism the belief in one Crod.^ 
 
 quence of ■"■ "^ ' i. ^ 
 
 religious And thus eveu a lare"e admixture of error is loner 
 
 concep- ... . 
 
 tions. able to maintain its ground by appealing to some 
 
 of all the religious instincts of mankind, until, by 
 
 the will of Grod, the hour arrives for its supersession 
 
 by a higher and purer faith. 
 
 Chris § ^3- Were it unquestionable that the benefits 
 
 tianity an attributed to the Relierion of Christ are the results 
 
 agent in _ "^ 
 
 civihza- of social laws alone, or of some foregoing intel- 
 whence an lectual Stage of civilization, or again, that Religion, 
 
 argument i n • i 
 
 arises;for apart from moral teaching, has no proper and 
 manence. Special field of action, it would be plainly futile to 
 argue from the effects of Christianity to its perma- 
 nence and truth as a religious system. It is thus 
 made answerable for all its defects in operation, 
 for those evils, mischiefs, and shortcomings which 
 a narrow philosophy has always too readily set 
 down to its account, while it is allowed no share 
 in the amelioration of man's estate, no force in the 
 influences which have determined the advancement 
 To be of the race. I shall therefore attempt to show that 
 
 shown in .... 
 
 detail. the progress of civilization has been in successive 
 ages largely promoted by the character and distinc- 
 
 ' As held by Hume, Essays, Nat. Hist of Bel. Comte, Phil Pos., 
 V. 40, 46 ; Grote, Hist, of Greece, I. 462, V. 22 ; Buckle, I. 251 ; and, 
 Mr. Tylor, with some modifications. Mr. Mill, Examination, p. 307, 
 remarks profoundly that the psychological rationale of this vast gene- 
 ralization is the historical development of the subjective notion of power. 
 Augustine, Oiv, D., IV. xi., strives to represent polytheism as a thinly 
 dissuised monotheism. 
 
Lect. III.] PROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. IS3 
 
 tive tenets of the Grospel, and these not of an intel- P'eiimi- . 
 
 ■■• nary consi- 
 
 lectual cast. The philosophy of history points de- derations, 
 finitely to an improvement in human affairs, an 
 improvement with which Christianity is in accord, 
 and of which it has formed a part. In the next i- The 
 
 ■"■ _ _ relation of 
 
 Lecture, however, in order to answer certain objec- religion to 
 tions still met with against the originality and moral sys- 
 
 „ T-1 • T p r\-\ • • -n 1 terns. (See 
 
 importance or the Jbaith oi Christ, it wilJ be neces- Lecture 
 
 IV.) 
 
 sary to determine within fixed limits the connec- 
 tion and interdependence of Eeligion with merely 
 moral systems, and to deduce the fair scope of the 
 former as a distinct agent in the formation of 
 human conduct. One further preliminary consi- 
 deration affecting the conditions of progressive 
 civilization will then remain. Is there any such ^- '^•''i. 
 
 •' compati- 
 
 inherent internecine antagonism between Science ^'^''y °f , 
 
 " intellectual 
 
 and Eevelation, the advance of knowledi!:e and the progress 
 
 / _ _ _ ° with the 
 
 spread of Christianity, as on this ground alone to perma- 
 
 . 1 1 n T • nence and 
 
 necessitate or foreshadow the collapse of relisrious advance 
 IP -11 T „of Chris- 
 
 belief ? Are we indeed entered upon an era oftianity. 
 
 scientific attainments in which theological faith, turev.) 
 already in some quarters subordinated to meta- 
 physical abstractions, is to be trodden under foot 
 by a positive philosophy, that is, by a belief in 
 concrete laws ? Is there to be an endless war 
 between our intellectual faculties and our religious 
 obligations ? Are we entitled to predict the de- 
 cline and extinction of all theologies, as a gradual 
 but inevitable consequence of the course of human 
 
1 54 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect.III. 
 
 Religion affairs ? Must we look forward to a time when the 
 unservice- inutility and helplessness of all religious sentiment 
 inefificient. to advauce the well-being of mankind will be uni- 
 versally admitted? And here it may be at once 
 allowed that the sphere of Religion, whatever be its 
 true work and office in respect of the positive 
 benefits which it confers upon mankind, lies wholly 
 outside Science. It was not sent to redress evils 
 which it is the province of knowledge to remove. 
 But is it always kept in mind, when Christianity is 
 thus assailed on the score of. inefficiency, how small 
 a part of those ills which " flesh is heir to," Science 
 Criticism itself has hitherto availed to abolish ? While con- 
 
 of the ser- 
 vices ran- ferring on mankind large benefits and grand op- 
 positive portunities, can it be said of this new divinity that 
 
 knowledge 7 . , . .^ . . ... 
 
 to man- it alouc brmgs no evils m its tram ? The mecha- 
 nical skill which stimulates as it facilitates produc- 
 tion, the mighty powers of locomotion by which 
 the fabrics of commerce are made to traverse the 
 furthest regions of the earth, the progress which is 
 making in the labours of the factory and of the 
 mill — have they hitherto increased the sum of 
 happiness and individual comfort for those vast 
 human masses, the slaves of the mine and of the 
 loom, which have, as it were, leaped into being at 
 the call of science ? When I walk through our vast 
 
 ' Mr. Leoky, Bist. Eur. Mor., 1. 132, has some just and profound 
 reflections on the tendency of industrial progress to sacrifice moral 
 dignity and elevation of character, and on its relation to a utilitarian 
 standard in morals. 
 
Lect. III.] PHOGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 155 
 
 manufacturing capitals, and gaze on the squalid 
 tenements, the swarming alleys, the sordid, care- 
 worn faces which meet the view, I cannot but ask 
 myself if this is indeed the end of all their being — 
 whether the increase of wealth, of population and 
 production, if these be its conditions, can be worth 
 its own accomplishment ; whether the struggle for 
 existence does not outweigh the blessing, or rather 
 the very reasons of life.^ Is the elevation of the 
 many a true consequence of the increase of wealth? 
 Is it not as in the days of' old ? " When e:oods \ increase 
 
 •I <= ofproduc- 
 
 increase they are increased that eat them." ^ " It ''°" o"" 
 
 material 
 
 is a sore travail which God has given to the sons progress 
 
 . tanta- 
 
 of men to exercise them." "All things are full of mount to 
 labour ; that which is crooked cannot be made vation » 
 straight, and that which is wanting cannot be 
 numbered." Surely these words of the Preacher 
 express a profound disappointment at the little 
 effect of wisdom and skilled knowledge on man's 
 physical and moral condition ? Are they inappli- ?^^°"f 
 cable now ? Much, at any rate, remains to be 
 done for these toiling millions which as yet has 
 not been done. Brought into the world to eke 
 out, it would seem, the purposes of labour, they 
 live, they work, they die, uncheered by the lamp 
 of knowledge, which assigns their daily task. What 
 has Political Economy, Ethology, or Social Science^ 
 
 ' " Bt propter vitam vivendi pcrdere causas." — Juv. 
 
 2 Bccles. V. 11 ; i. 13, 15. 
 
 ' Compare Dr. Mozley's just remarks, Bamjp. Led., p. 192. 
 
IS6 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. III. 
 
 as yet done to mend their lot or gild their prospect, 
 amid the gigantic risks and ever-enlarging perils 
 among which they earn their bread ? Then in the 
 moment of writhing pain and impending dissolu- 
 tion, the result of unprevented accident, or in the 
 long hours of wasting, incurable sickness, the effect 
 of some noxious employment, to what shall they 
 turn their dying eyes for consolation, for support ? 
 ofdie mo ^'^ *^® \oTi^ vista of coming generations born 
 tivesand \-^q them to suffer, to struggle, and to die, yet 
 tions of making up the sum of that Humanity,^ that " unity 
 evident, of our racc," that " course of evolution," that " sub- 
 jective immortality" which to some among us seems 
 the very Grod of all their worship — will the con- 
 sciousness of an unknown, unknowable reality 
 underlying the world of matter or of mind — ^will 
 the "infinite nature of duty" — will these close 
 their eyes in peace ? or will they not rather, feeling 
 themselves but denizens of a world that passes, yet 
 heirs of an immortal, immaterial spirit, turn with 
 all their hearts towards a Faith which alone ex- 
 plains the present and guarantees the future ; 
 which alone lends strength now and gives assur- 
 ance and peace for ever ; which teaches, that 
 
 ' See Strauss, Ber Alte und der Neue Olaube, p. 372 ff. ; and 
 Mr. Winwood Eeade, Martyrdom of Man, pp. 535-7. 1 quote but one 
 passage : " We teacli that the soul is immortal ; we teach that there is 
 a future life ; we teach that there is a heaven in the ages far away ; hut 
 not for us single corpuscles, and for us dots of animated jelly ; hut for 
 the One of whom we are the elements, and who, though we perish, never 
 dies." 
 
Lect. III.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. iS7 
 
 though the dust returns to the earth as it was, 
 yet there is hope in man's latter end ? For the 
 spirit shall return unto Grod Who gave it, yea, and 
 Who hath redeemed it from sin unto Himself. For 
 " if in this life only we have hope, what advantageth 
 it ?" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. 
 " But now is Christ risen from the dead, and He is 
 become the first-fruits of them that sleep." 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 CONSIDERED. 
 
 " O'est mal raisonner contre la religion de rassembler dans un grand 
 ouvrage une longue ^num&ation des maux qu'elle a produits, si Ton ne 
 fait de meme celle des biens qu'elle a faits." — Montesquieu, Esprit des 
 Lois, xxiv., ii. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 " Not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the 
 power of an endless life." — i^eib. Sit. i6. 
 
 § I. nr^HE many forms of Religion whicli have Religion 
 
 I 1 1 1 • 1 el viewed as 
 
 -■- played their part on the stage oi the a mode of 
 
 world's history, have sometimes been held to be ing moia- 
 but different modes of proclaiming the same moral ' 
 truths.^ It is these which are regarded as the 
 true salt of society, the ever-resumed heritage of 
 the whole human race. " All religions," said 
 Diderot, " are but the sects of the one Religion 
 of Nature." I do not now stay to inquire what 
 such a religion is; whether altogether reasoned 
 out, or itself the gift of a primary revelation : 
 whether it exists; whether it corresponds to the 
 actual beliefs of the lower races ; whether it could Relation 
 
 of Chris- 
 
 ever become adequate to the moral wants of man- tianity to a 
 
 r^i . - T . Religion 
 
 kind ; whether it be not Christian morality with of Nature, 
 the omission of all that is Christian, with its proofs 
 
 ' SeeComte, Phil. Pos., IV. 77. The teaching of the School of Kant 
 regards ecclesiastical beliefs as the vehicle for conveying truths of ptire, 
 i. e. natural, religion. See Mr. Lecky's remarks, Eist. Mat., I. 329. 
 Compare H. J. Eose, Hist. Prot. in Germany, p. 143. Its effect, as 
 Dr. Farrar, B. L., p. 323, has tersely remarked, is " to destroy Revelation 
 by leaving nothing to be revealed." The Gospel thus only makes 
 legible the eternal Law of Nature written in the heart. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 drawn from reason, and not from Revelation. 
 What hinders, however, that such a religion, 
 acknowledging, as it needs must, from the side 
 of experience a sense of sin, even points to a 
 remedy which is found only in the revelation of 
 a Mediator ? ^ Such a fact, then, and the system of 
 which it is a part, does not supersede or contra- 
 supple- diet the instincts of Natural Religion. It rather 
 contra-' completes and supplements them, and shows the 
 Christian faith to be itself in a manner natural. 
 The objection, however, implied is really this : 
 that Christianity, while no doubt " as old as the 
 Implied creation," is unfortunately also no newer. It is 
 
 objection ,-,.. (•ii->t' 
 
 against the no more than a re-publication of the Religion of 
 
 originality - . . , „ , . . . 
 
 and useful- Nature. For the principles oi morality, it is 
 
 iicss of 
 
 religion, implied, are in effect few and simple, incapable 
 of enlargement or multiplication. Obscured they 
 may have been from time to time in the progress 
 of ages and by the circumstances of mankind. 
 But positive religions, while they have done much 
 to impede the recognition of these principles, have 
 
 ' " The matter of EeTslation is not a mere collection of trutlis, not a 
 pMlosopMcal view, not a religious sentiment or spirit, not a special 
 morality poured out upon mankind as a streatn might pour itself into 
 the sea, mixing with the world's thought, modifying, purifying, invi- 
 gorating it ; hut an authoritative teaching, . . a religion in addition to 
 the religion of nature, not superseding or contradicting it." — I. H. New- 
 man, Q-ramm. of Assent, pp. 382, 479. See Dr. Mozley in Cont. Rev., 
 VII. On the relation of Christianity to natural religion, see Chal- 
 mers, Bridg. Tr., sub finem. He concludes : " Natural theology has 
 been called the basis of Christianity : it were better called the basis of 
 Christianization." 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 163 
 
 succeeded but poorly in exhibiting their truth, 
 or in facilitating their reception. 
 
 § 2. The error in these assumptions seems to Error in 
 lie in the supposition that all the particulars of a^sump- 
 moral truth have been from the first well known 
 and understood : or that they are in their own 
 nature incapable of further development. Some 
 who have justly seen that morality has really 
 been progressive, have preferred to attribute the 
 result to improved knowledge rather than to the 
 influence of religious ideas. Can it, however, be Morality 
 
 . . really pro- 
 
 seriously maintained, with any show of reason, gressive. 
 that the whole aspect of moral truths in the 
 history of our race has been stationary? that 
 there is really nothing to be found in the world 
 which has undergone so little change as those 
 great dogmas of which moral systems are com- 
 posed ; ^ or again, to use the words of a powerful 
 though hasty objector, that " to assert that Chris- 
 tianity communicated to man moral truths pre- 
 viously unknown, argues, on the part of the as- 
 sertor, either gross ignorance or else wilful fraud." 
 " All the great moral systems," he adds,^ " which 
 have exercised much influence have been fundamen- 
 tally the same : all the great intellectual systems 
 have been fundamentally different." So, then^ all 
 
 ' Buckle, Hist. Oiv., 1. 180, who adduces Kant's authority to the 
 same effect. See, however, Lange's counter-criticism, Gesch. des Mater 
 rialismus, pp. 511, 512. 
 
 " Buckle, u. $., p. 181. 
 
 M 2 
 
i64 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 moral systems are substantially the same : ^ and 
 thus far all religions embodying and enshrining a 
 system of morals. Such would, no doubt, be the case, 
 if Eeligion contained nothing beyond morality; 
 or if the number of primary moral truths can be 
 shown to be extremely small, and their applica- 
 tion in the form of duties simple and obvious. 
 Andsys- But, as a matter of fact, is no difference dis- 
 
 tems of re- . 
 
 ligion vaiy cemible lu the moral value of separate religions, 
 
 as to their r r^^ • • • i-i • 
 
 moral 01 Christianity as compared with Paganism, or of 
 Oriental systems as cpmpared with one another? 
 Are we, then, still to be told that the morals of 
 all nations have been the same, if not as a matter 
 of practice, and in the diffusion of effects, yet in 
 principle and substance ; that- no improvements 
 have been made in morality for at least three 
 thousand years; and that it admits of no dis- 
 coveries?^ 
 Twofold § 3. Such objections, containing an implicit 
 the part of criticism of Revelation, allow, so far as we are 
 revelation, coucemed with them, of a double answer. One, 
 that Religion, recognizing and addressing the 
 spiritual part of man, influences and enlarges 
 thereby his stock of moral truth, supplying new 
 motives of action on the utilitarian side, new 
 
 ' Mr. Lecky, Bist. Eur. Mor., I. 103-114, lias ably shown that the 
 unity of morals in different ages is a unity not of standard, but of 
 tendency. In the same work (I. 156, 165) he argues directly against 
 Mr. Buckle's theory on this subject. 
 
 ^ See Sir James Maxikintosh ap. Buckle, I. 181. The title of his 
 work is, ' A Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy.' 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 165 
 
 sanctions and grounds of duty in each fresh revela- f™™ ''= 
 
 D •> contents as 
 
 tion of our relations with Grod and man.' A test influenc- 
 is thus supplied which distinguishes the higher advancing 
 from the lower religions of the earth, and still 
 leaves the Faith of Christ the foremost in the 
 history of civilization. Eeligion further sys- 
 tematizes moral truths already recognized by 
 concentrating them into one focus of new unsus- 
 pected light. Can the doctrine of the brotherhood 
 of mankind, for example, be considered to stand 
 on the same footing now as before the revelation 
 of Jesus Christ ? Does the duty of love to Grod 
 remain the same? True religion, says Pascal, 
 must have for a credential the obligation of loving 
 God. Yet what religion except our own has 
 included this among its ordinances?^ Another 
 answer (on which I shall not dwell at length) 
 is that in the application of the rules of known 
 ethical systems there is an indefinite field of 
 extension, one strictly analogous to the growth of 
 knowledge in other subjects. In this direction 
 
 the history and character of Christian teaching, and from 
 1 „ . . . . ... . . Ill t^^ '^'^' 
 
 not to speak 01 its positive institutions, has had toricaipro- 
 
 a marked and lasting influence. It is unnecessary lurin^the 
 
 Christian 
 ' Compare Butler's Analogy, Pt. II. 0. i., where he argues for the era. 
 
 importance of Christianity as a distinct publication of natural morality, 
 
 containing relations whicli produce new obligations not dependent on 
 
 the method of revelation. 
 
 ^ " La vraie religion doit avoir pour marque d'obliger k aimer son 
 
 Dieu. Cela est bien juste : et cependant aiicune autre que la nfitre ne 
 
 I'a ordonnd. La n6tro I'a fait." — Pensees, Art. III. 
 
1 66 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 to insist on the importance of casuistry as a 
 department of moral science, or on the contribu- 
 tions which have been furnished to it by Christian 
 theologians.^ Still wider is the field thus opened 
 when it is considered that the analysis of the 
 circumstances of acts leads up to a revision and 
 re-arrangement of already-known principles of 
 duty. Man's moral and spiritual experience en- 
 larges with his history. New grounds of practice 
 are brought to light, as the action is referred to 
 different reasons of rightness or wrongness. In 
 Mode of this manner new moral conceptions, new theories 
 
 3.rl V3.I1 CP 
 
 of conduct, fresh central principles of action, new 
 standards of merit, and of the relative value of 
 particular virtues, even new faculties,^ are so far 
 from being impossible of discovery, that they both 
 in fact exist, and are continually recognized in 
 the growth of culture, illustrating the whole 
 
 ' On this subject see De Quincey, Warhs, Vol. XIV. pp. 22, 24, 69 ; 
 also some careful and just remarks by Mr. Morley, Orit. Misc., pp. 351, 
 364. Sir H. Maine, Ancient Law, c. ix., too readily condemns casuistry 
 as a species of moral theology, having its origin in the distinction of 
 mortal and venial sins. If, indeed, we adopt his view, that moral 
 philosophy is but a compound of law and metaphysic, we might fairly 
 doubt of the progressive capacities of ethical science. 
 
 ^ Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer holds that moral intuitions are the 
 results of accumulated experiences of utility. See Bain, Mental and 
 Mar. Sc, p. 722. " Character," says Prof. Goldwin Smith, " does not 
 remain the same : the character of the man is continually advancing 
 through life; and in like manner the character of the race advances 
 through history."— Sittrfy of Hist., p. 37. Mr. Mill, Oomte and JPos., 
 p. 112, looks on Protestantism as specially inculcating i, distinct moral 
 principle, involving the duty of culture ; via. direct individual responsi- 
 bility to God. 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 167 
 
 region of duty. The subject of morals as a 
 practical system reacts upon its own scientific 
 base; and the analysis of complex effects and of 
 compound agents observable in other branches 
 of knowledge, advances here also, and with the 
 same results. 
 
 § 4. But, it may be said, the very progress in- Objection, 
 dicated is an intellectual one, and owes nothing to progress is 
 the influences of Religion. It may be explained tuai, and 
 ijy an invariable law of progress observable in religion, 
 human affairs. Science depends on improved 
 methods of research, on their application to in- 
 stances, on the development of the principles 
 thus suggested. So also with moral truth. Ripened 
 by the circumstances of the time, including new 
 modes and lines of thinking due to physical and 
 intellectual causes, it bears unaccustomed fruits. 
 
 Miratuvque novas frondes et non sua poma. 
 
 The general sentiment of an age, it is said,' is 
 really determined by the intellectual activity, and 
 indirectly by the positive institutions which be- 
 long to it; and moral dogmas,^ as well as the 
 
 * See Mr. Morley's observations on tlie development of morals, u. s. 
 
 ''■ Mr. Wallace (Malay. Archip., sub fin.) holds that " vphile civilized 
 communities have progressed vastly beyond the savage state in intel- 
 lectual achievements, we have not advanced equally in morals ... It 
 is not too much to say that the mass of our populations have not at all 
 advanced beyond the savage code of morals, and have in many cases 
 sunk below it." Sir John Lubbock's researches lead him to the exact 
 reverse of this opinion. The savage, he holds, is destitute of moral 
 feeling, e.g. of remorse. — Orig. Civ., p. 265. 
 
1 68 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 immediate sense of obligation, advance along with 
 it. Where intellect stagnates, moraHty is low. 
 In the unreasoning savage it may be altogether 
 lacking. To reinstate or create the reign of duty, 
 there must take place a revival or awakening of 
 revival^ f k^^owledge. The result is seen in new applica- 
 know- tions, and a simpler interpretation of moral prin- 
 ciples hitherto acknowledged. Thus, the sense of 
 duty, generically the same in different ages, varies 
 in amount, and modifies almost in quantity, the 
 shades of conduct over which it is diffused. 
 Reply. The answer to this view lies in a matter of fact. 
 
 The intei- AmoDg the circumstauces of an age, determining 
 condition the general sentiment of the time, can the power 
 period af- and authority of the prevailing: Faith count for 
 
 fectedby o t^ i • • <• • 
 
 the pre- nothing ? It the opinions of a given period are 
 faith. dependent on its intellectual condition, has this 
 
 also been altogether unaffected by Eeligion ? 
 
 Though intellect and knowledge have their share 
 The sa- in determining the applications of a sense of duty, 
 
 credness of 7j-i 
 
 duty due to the socredness of that sense and the sanctions it 
 imposes are due altogether to Religion, and will 
 vary with its purity and power. It has become 
 fashionable to regard great eras in the history of 
 our belief, the Reformation or the commencement 
 of Christianity itself, as simple moral protests 
 TheRefor- agaiust the corruption of the times. Such a view 
 a moral misunderstauds the character of the phenomena it 
 seeks to explain. The Reformation began, indeed, 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 169 
 
 "writli a moral movement/ exhibited in a mystic 
 pietism opposed in its own nature* to doctrinal 
 limitations. Its subsequent phases are well known ; 
 and the difference in the prevailing moral sentiment, 
 before and after this vast doctrinal revolution, is 
 too marked to be ignored or attributed to any but 
 its true causes. How completely varied were the Nor can 
 moral forces introduced by the doctrines of Chris- o/chn?" 
 tianity is evident from the difficulty and slowness thus ex- ° 
 with which its standard of duty asserted itself, ^^^ ' 
 failing in many parts of the world to become fairly 
 established, even when the recognition of some of 
 its abstract dogmas gave a show of power and pre- 
 dominance to its position.^ It is thus no valid Aougii 
 
 dependent 
 
 objection to urge against the truth or importance ™ ''= p™- 
 of Christianity that in its operation it has been ethical 
 
 ,,..,, I'l !•• ni conditions. 
 
 constantly limited by ethical conditions. So was 
 it in the East with the false, subtle, contentious 
 natures of the Grreek and Asiatic.^ Religion in 
 
 ' For the moral effects of the doctrinal principles of the Reformation, 
 see Ullmann (Vol. I. p. 10, E. T.), Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 
 p. 26, E. T., and on the transition from the moral to the doctrinal 
 movement, Gieseler, V. 216, B. T. On the relation of the Mystics to 
 the Eeformation compare Milman, Latin Christianity, VI. 379, and 
 particularly Domer, Person of Christ, I>iv. II., Vol. I. p. 377, and Vol. II. 
 sub init., and Hist. Prot. Th., Vol. I. p. 51, B. T. 
 
 ^ So M. Comte views the Byzantine Church as an example of the 
 impotence of dogma, as such, to rule mankind. It lent itself, he thinks, 
 too much to the side of reason. Dorner, Hist. Prot. Th., 1. 18, has 
 some excellent remarks on the purely intellectual character of the 
 Christianity of the Oriental Church. 
 
 * Cicero's verdict is well known (Be Drat., I. xi.), '' verbi enim contro- 
 versia jam diu torquet Grjeculos homines contentionis cupidiores quam 
 
170 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 Oriental Christianity was represented mainly by 
 
 theology and the theological spirit ; it formed no 
 
 alliance with true morality, and the morals of the 
 
 iiiustra- \jaaB were utterly debased. It was then shown 
 
 tion from •' 
 
 Eastern that a compouud made up of asceticism and mys- 
 tianity, ticism may produce a faith unaccompanied and 
 untempered by any infusion of really Christian 
 morality. Insufficient, singly, to counterbalance 
 the want of civilization, or to transmute all con- 
 temporary error, had Christianity succeeded in 
 taking full possession of the world with the ele- 
 ments which then constituted it, it would but, to 
 
 veritatis.'' Hooker, S. P., V. iil. 3, holds the chiefest cause of the 
 obrouic state of schism in the Eastern Church " to have lien in the rest- 
 less wits of the Grecians, evermore proud of their own curious and 
 subtile inventions : which, when at any time they had contrived, the 
 great facility of their language served them readily to make all things 
 fair and plausible to men's understanding." Hence, Boileau's caustic 
 comment on the " Martyres d'une diphthongue." " Greek Christianity 
 was insatiably inquisitive, speculative ; confident in the Inexhaustible 
 copiousness and fine precision of its language, it endured no limitation 
 to its curious investigations." — Milman, Lat. Christ., I. 2. Bacon 
 (on the controversies of the Church) remarks on the heretics who 
 moved curious questions and made strange anatomies of the natures and 
 person of Christ. " lUis temporibus ingeniosa res fuit esse Christianum." 
 Mr. Finlay (^Byz. E., p. 262) attributes these controversies to the Greek 
 language rather than to the Hellenic temper. " They had their orioin in 
 the more profound religious ideas of the Oriental nations, Syrians, 
 Armenians, Egyptians, Persians." Mr. Proude {Shmt Stud., p. 98) 
 remarks, " We wonder at the failure of Christianity, at the small pro- 
 gress which it has made in comparison with the brilliancy of its rise. 
 But if men had shown as much fanaticism in caiTying into practice the 
 Sermon on the Mount as in disputing the least of the thousand dogmatic 
 definitions which have superseded the Gospel, we should not now be 
 lamenting with Father Newman that ' God's control over the world is 
 so indirect and His action so obscure.' " See Mr. Buckle, Eist Civ 
 II. 303. 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. I/I 
 
 use the words of Montalembert, have reproduced 
 
 a kind of Christian China.^ So was it in the West from the 
 
 • c T\ • corrup- 
 
 when, alter centuries oi power, Paganism was tions of the 
 found to have corrupted its teacher with the church, 
 taint of an inbred superstition. The fact was no 
 new one ; it had been already observed and com- 
 mented on in the days of Augustine.^ " It was in 
 vain that Christianity had taught a simple doctrine 
 and enjoined a simple worship. The minds of 
 men were too backward for so great a step, and 
 required more complicated forms and a more com- 
 plicated belief." ^ This has been remarked, I am 
 aware, to the disparagement of the efficacy of the 
 faith of Christ. It proves, at least, that Chris- The pro- 
 tianity was not dependent on the existing standard chns- 
 of morals for its advance. How, in such case, tHL 
 were the changes, effected plainly through itsnature^of 
 means in the absence of knowledge and culture, to tionsj^ ^' 
 be accounted for ? Further, its morality however 
 estimated, was its own, and its type of character 
 
 • Monks of the West, I. 275, Bng. Tr. 
 
 ^ August, c. jfaMsiztm, XX. G. iv. " Sacrificia eorum vertistis in agapes : 
 idola in Martyres, quos votis similibus colitis : defunctorum umbras vino 
 plaoatis et dapibus: solemnes Gentium dies cum ipsi celebratis, ut 
 Kalendas et solstitia, de vitS, certe mutSstis nihil." On the reaction of 
 Paganism on Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries, see Beugnofc, 
 Histoire de la destruction du Paganisme, II. 92, and Merivale, N. 
 Nations, pp. 57-74. 
 
 » Buckle, Hist. Oiv., I. 259. Prof. Tyndall writes iCrnit. Bev., XX. 
 766), " Obristianity varies with the nature upon which it falls. The 
 faith that simply adds to the folly and ferocity of one, is turned to 
 enduring sweetness, holiness, abounding charity, and self-sacrifice by 
 another." 
 
172 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 was an advance upon the highest level of 
 
 heathenism. It presents a difference not of de- 
 
 whichwere orres merely, but of kind.^ But Eeligion, if as- 
 
 in advance ° *^ p i • 
 
 of the ex- sumcd to be the product of Eevelation, may very 
 
 civiiiza- \7ell be, and, in fact, must be, in advance of 
 
 existing civilization. It was so when the Hebrews 
 
 accepted monotheism, whether this be or be not a 
 
 Semitic tenet. It was so when the Jews rejected 
 
 the teaching of the Grospel. It has been so in the 
 
 actud development of Grentile Christianity. But the 
 
 practice, fact of the distance between its ideal and the 
 
 actual, between its code of action and existing 
 
 practice, between Christianity in the abstract and 
 
 as displayed in history, " that rich treasury of 
 
 man's dishonour ; " between the lives of men and 
 
 the spirit of the Grospel;^ this difference must 
 
 surely be allowed for under any system. It 
 
 is the consciousness of this anomaly in the in- 
 
 ' " Nothing," says Mr. Leoky, " can, as I conceive, be more erroneous 
 or superficial than the reasonings of those whp maintain that the moral 
 element of Christianity has in it nothing distinctive or peculiar." — Sist. 
 Bat., I. 338. See this suhject continued in II. 110. 
 
 ^ " Quid si tale quiddam est vera religio ? Quid si multitudo imperi- 
 torum frequentat ecclesias, sed nullum argumentum est ideo neminem 
 iliis mysteriis factum esse perfectum ?" — August, de Vtil. Cred., c. vii. 
 M. Guizot, while depicting the moral aspect of the Middle Ages, 
 remarks finally: "A certain moral idea hovers over this rude, tem- 
 pestuous society, and attracts the regard, obtains the respect of men 
 whose life scarcely ever reflects its image. Christianity must doubtless 
 be ranked among the number of the principal causes of this fact. Its 
 precise characteristic is to inspire men with a great moral ambition, to 
 hold constantly before their eyes a type infinitely superior to human 
 reality and to excite them to reproduce it." — Civ. en France, III. 115, 
 ed. Bohn. 
 
Lect. IV.] FHOGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 173 
 
 dividual which forms the stimuhis of all earnest 
 souls, "As a matter of fact, Christianity has 
 probably done more to quicken the affections of 
 mankind, to promote pity, to create a pure and 
 merciful ideal than any other influence that has 
 ever acted on the world." ^ And yet the Inquisi- Hence 
 
 . . apparent 
 
 tion named itself with the name of Christ. Prin- historical 
 
 contradic- 
 
 ciples must ever be of more general account than tions 
 actions. The first value of the Christian, as of 
 any, religion is in the loftiness and purity of its 
 standard ; its secondary worth is in the degree in 
 which this operates.* Hence, the fallacy of an 
 appeal to periods when the apparent zeal in the 
 diffusion of religion is greater and the moral re- and dis- 
 sults less,^ as proof of its general inadequacy to reactions, 
 impart moral truth in any effective degree. If 
 the religion itself be corrupted, its results, in point 
 of moral effect, must needs suffer in proportion, 
 and this in amount corresponding to the power 
 which it wields. Thus, if the Middle Ages be state of 
 cited as an instance of the smalluess of moral und^^r^ 
 results, obtained with a l^rge and prevailing pro- cathX 
 fession of religion,* it may be replied, without"^"' 
 
 > Leoky, Hist. Rat., 1. 358. 
 
 * Condoroet, (Euvres, VI. 234, quoted by Mr. Morley, remarks that 
 the religion of books and that of the people may so differ that the 
 effects absolutely cease to answer to the public and recognized causes. 
 This is not allowing enough for an average practical influence, which 
 may be compared to the tenor of administration in politics. 
 
 » Buckle, Eist. Civ., I. 191. 
 
 * See Dr. Mozley's remarks, Bamp. Lect., p. 115. Mr. Lecky, Hist. 
 Eat; II. 32, does justice to the services of Medieval Catholicism. In 
 
174 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 admitting the fact supposed, that it is, on the 
 other hand, the glory of Protestantism to have 
 effected so large an improvement and so marked 
 an impulse with straitened means and slender 
 resources. For it has certainly reacted on the 
 moral code and average practice of the rival 
 creed. Thus, the tacit moral force of Religion, 
 even in sceptical periods, may be unexpectedly 
 Corrup- large.^ Eeligion, and this is specially true of the 
 ligion cor- Christian religion, ever answers to a personal want 
 
 respondent . , , . 
 
 to moral m the individual man. Its nesrlect and dearrada- 
 
 declen- . t , f 
 
 sions. tion have accordingly constantly accompanied the 
 
 want of culture in the general development of 
 
 the age. 
 
 p^sitiyist § 5. It has, indeed, been argued^ that History does 
 
 that mo- not provc that society owes its moral condition to 
 
 rality has ... . 
 
 improved, its rcligiou. If, indeed, but only if, religion were 
 
 christia- the single moral restraint on a community, would 
 
 declined, the morals of an age, it is insisted, be according to 
 
 its prevalence higher or lower. But the theological 
 
 principle, urges the Positivist, has since the Middle 
 
 Ages been on the decline. It has succumbed to the 
 
 this view he follows Comte {FUl. Pos., Y. 233), Mill, Littr^, and other 
 leading thinkers. Gibhon (VII. 60, ed. Milman) enlarges on the moral 
 progress effected by Protestantism. 
 
 ' Thus Dean Stanley, Essays, p. 465, remarks that " the religious 
 spirit of the time has deeply penetrated those who doubt, misbelieve, 
 and disbelieve. The change is so great that looking at realities, and not 
 at names, we migbt call the present posture of philosophers, of Jews, of 
 sceptics towards Christianity almost a conversion." 
 
 " See M. Littrd {Aug. Comte, p. 217). 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 175 
 
 opposition of science, to the strength of industrial 
 development, and to the secularization of govern- 
 ments, substituting a different principle to the ex- 
 clusion of religious interests. Yet morality has 
 improved. There is more humanity in war, more 
 religious toleration; torture has been abolished, 
 social burdens equalized, poverty relieved and 
 ameliorated. But the facts may be admitted Proceeds 
 Without the inference. Religion now is better inference, 
 understood as to its true work and office. Sur- 
 rendering ill-advised claims, its real influence is 
 strengthened and deepened. And can it be said The power 
 that any point of morality now reached in theory tianity has 
 or practice is counter to the teachings of the come 
 Grospel? That our own is an age of faith or of its^efflcts" 
 scepticism, of operative or inoperative belief, may opinion."^ 
 be matter of opinion ; ^ that its moral qualities are 
 independent of its faith, and public opinion of reli- 
 gious belief, would be certainly difficult of proof. 
 
 § 6. The attempt often made from the days of Objection 
 Origen^ to Tindal and Bolingbroke to prove that tianity "^' 
 Christianity, containing no new moral truth, can new moral 
 
 truth. 
 
 ' It has been said to be " destitute of faith, but terrified at scepticism." 
 See Mr. Mill, Liberty, c. ii. 
 
 2 c. Oelsum, I. iv., VII. xxviii., Iviii., Ixi. Compare Mackay, Rise 
 and Progress of OhristianUy, pp. 21, 22, and Hel. Level., II. 376-7. 
 M. Eenaa, £tvdes, p. 188. Mr. Farrar, Witness of Eistory to Christ, 
 pp. 135, 137, has touched this subject with his usual spirit and ability. 
 Saisset, Essais, details as strictly Christian conceptions the universality 
 of the love of God and universal fraternity. These ideas, though latent 
 in human nature, are evoked by Christian civilization. 
 
176 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 exercise no distinct moral effect, is now again re- 
 vived. And doubtless if the whole moral furniture 
 of our being is contained in a few short precepts, 
 "to do good to others, to sacrifice for their benefit 
 your own wishes, to love your neighbour as your- 
 self, to forgive your enemies, to restrain your pas- 
 sions, to honour your parents, to respect those who 
 are set over you;" if this be all (as Mr. Buckle 
 alleges),^ there might not remain much to be said 
 
 Untrue, as to the originality of Christian morals. Though 
 some even of these duties, it must be allowed, were 
 but imperfectly known and badly understoad before 
 the preaching of the Grospel. Christianity, it might 
 be shown, has added largely to the very vocabulary 
 
 Instances of morals. Its notion of holiness, not to speak of 
 
 of the fact. . . t i 
 
 repentance, is a new and previously unrealized con- 
 ception, the illimitable character of which gua- 
 rantees its permanence. It may not be difficult^ 
 to cull from individual moralists of G-reece and 
 Rome, or of East and West, fragments of Christian 
 
 ^ Sist. Civ., I. 180. Paley, on the other hand, after asserting that 
 " morality, neither in the Gospel nor any other book, can be a subject of 
 discovery, properly so called," proceeds to show bow far the morality of 
 the Gospel is above that of its age and antecedents, and not to be 
 Euxioimted for apart from the pretensions of tbe religion. — Evid., II. ii. 
 
 ^ See M. Denis, Histoire des Theories et Mies morales dans I'anU- 
 quiU, I. 104 ; WoUaston's laborious Religion of Nature, &c. Mr. 
 Lecky, S. E. M., I. 161, complains of the appropriation of beathen 
 ideas by Christian moralists. Augustine, Doct. Christ., II. xl.-xlii., 
 gracefully acknowledges the debt, and fancifully compares it to spoiling 
 the Egyptians. " Nonne adspicimus, quanto auro et argento et veste 
 suffaioinatus exierit de .ffigypto Cyprianus doctor suavissimus, quanto 
 Lactantius," &c. Comp. Lactant., Div. Inst., VII. vii. 
 
Lect. IV.] FROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 177 
 
 duties — to find in Plato the recognition of repent- Eclectic 
 
 ° . ^ . attempt to 
 
 ance and devotion towards Grod, forgiveness of in- compose 
 juries, or the portraiture of a celestial love ; in raiity of 
 Cicero the teaching of universal charity, benevo- 
 lence, and brotherhood. It may even be easy to 
 exhibit under the garb of moral realizations tbe 
 saving truths of faith ; to see in the salvation 
 offered by Jesus the airo^vyr) Ka/c5v,^ the effort to 
 be as wise and good as is possible to man, contem- 
 plated by the heathen Socrates ; to find in his utter- 
 ance that the gods will give such things as are 
 good, for they know what is best for man, the key- 
 note of Christian prayer ; to recognize in the en- 
 durance of the martyr the independence of the 
 Stoic mind, with its larger virtue of patriotism ; in 
 Christian meekness and resignation towards God a 
 true philosophic constancy and courage ; to explain 
 the success of Christ's Religion as " a reaction from 
 effete forms of thought to fresh convictions of con- 
 Bcience," grappling with external calamity by in- 
 dependent resources of soul. This is easy, because, 
 after all, Christianity must have a moral side, and 
 ground itself in human sentiment, and here, accord- 
 ingly, comes into competition with purely moral 
 systems. Such a view, however, omits to re- christian 
 
 •^ ' . morality 
 
 member that Christianity founds moral practice based on 
 
 '' ^ its doc- 
 
 trines. 
 
 ' See Plato, Phmd. 107, c, Xen. Mem. I. iii. 2, &c. On the relation 
 of Platonism to Christianity, comp. Dollinger, Gentile and Jew, I. 328, 
 * who justly thinks it to be negative rather than positive. 
 
178 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV, 
 
 Chris- 
 tianity in- 
 troduced 
 a higher 
 moral 
 type. 
 
 upon doctrinal beliefs,^ tlius procuring new sanc- 
 tions and originating frest ideas within the scope 
 of morals. It thus supplied a pure morality by 
 means of dogma before such was recognized 
 through the medium of ethical science. Nor have 
 its dogmas receded before the advance of scientific 
 morality. The moral progress of modern Europe, 
 while it has found nothing discordant in the type 
 of Evangelical character, has tended to confirm the 
 distinctive tenets of the Grospel.^ 
 
 § 7. A more thorough and searching examina- 
 tion has sufficiently demonstrated the advance 
 towards a purer and higher type of character 
 made under the auspices of Christian doctrine, 
 and as a consequence of it, in the absolute em- 
 bodiment of Divine love which it proposes to all 
 ages for imitation in endless variety. While 
 
 ' Mr. Lecky, H. Rat., I. 335-6, considers that dogmatic systems serve 
 only to supply snitaWe motives of action in tlie absence of a moral 
 philosophy. Its formation, he thinks, is the first step in the decadence 
 of religions. This is true to this extent, that the most elementary forms 
 of religion seem to afford little trace of ethics (compare Tylor, Bist. 
 Prim. OuU., I. 386). On the other hand, ethics may, as in Confucian- 
 ism, overpower and extinguish the religious element. " To give oneself 
 earnestly to the duties due to men, and while respecting spiritual 
 beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom," this was the 
 maxim and practice of its founder. — See Legge, II. 130, 319. But it 
 has been truly said that so-called natural religion, the apotheosis of 
 moral abstractions, exists only in books. Eeligions which have vital 
 force and influence, are positive religions, i. e. they make for themselves 
 a Church and rites and dogmas. 
 
 ' The course of attacks on Christianity from this side has been, first, to 
 separate theology from morals, which, as having a scientific basis, has 
 "had some share of success ; next, to supersede religion by morality, a 
 much less hopeful undertaking. 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 179 
 
 doing justice to pre-Christian ideas,^ to the aims 
 of Stoical and Platonic ethics, and to the practice 
 of an Aiirelius and a Julian " lending a passing 
 dignity to the dishonoured purple," it has yet 
 shown how poor was the substitute they contem- 
 plated for a faith which appealed courageously, 
 but also triumphantly, to the masses, and was the 
 creed alike of the slave and of the sage. It is 
 often thought enough to remark that Paganism 
 was doomed before Christianity appeared. But -^^ ^Y'^ 
 
 •' ■'■■'■ ceeded 
 
 why, if this be so, did Christianity alone succeed, ^™™ ''^ 
 
 '' •' very svi- 
 
 alone survive of all the sects and schools which pei'ori'y- 
 competed for the mastery of mankind? Why 
 not simple monotheism, or some abstract form of 
 thought ? " Christianity grew," it has been said,^ 
 " because it could best make good the blank left 
 by the discredit of the old religions, by the 
 despondency, incredulity, and disgust which made 
 room for it." True ; and these were the first 
 results which convinced the world and converted 
 it. It was found to contain all essential verities.^ 
 The fundamental ideas of Natural Religion con- Causes of 
 
 this supe- 
 
 • See at length Mr. Lecky, H. E. M., 1. 180, 190, 363. " Of the sects "°"'^' 
 of ancient philosophy the Stoic is perhaps the nearest to Christianity. 
 Yet even to this sect Christianity is fundamentally opposite." 
 
 " Maokay, Bise and Progress of Christianity, p. 163. See Neander's 
 reileotions at the opening of his history, I. p. 3, and Dean Merivale's 
 Lectures, p. xi. " Christianity, in fact, was not simply the resource of a 
 dissatisfied philosophy : it was not accepted as the only refuge from the 
 blank negation of a ci'eed. It was the tried and approved of several 
 claimants to the sovereignty of the religious instincts among men." 
 
 ' Compare Saisset, Essais, p. 299. 
 
 N 2 
 
l8o OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 fessedly belong to it. It inherited all that is true 
 in earlier theologies and systems of philosophy;' 
 the unity, the personality, the independence, the 
 energy, the love of the Divine Nature; the 
 grandeur, the littleness, the strength, the weak- 
 ness, the dignity, the responsibility of man. No 
 In what philosophical mind would desire to deny the obli- 
 
 manner a 
 
 result of gations of Christianity to foregoing systems among 
 which it which it assumes its due and ordered rank;^ or 
 that its teaching is in a sense progressive, the 
 outcome and result of time. Jewish prophecy and 
 heathen philosophy had in different ways prepared 
 for its reception, • Christ came to fulfil the Law 
 and the Prophets; the Law of Moses, it is true^ 
 but no less the Law of Nature, and of Gentile 
 morality in its highest and purest conceptions. 
 For these, Jewish Prophecy no less prepared a 
 way, and often antedated their spirit.^ 
 tkn mo- § ^' -^ bold attempt has been sometimes made 
 
 defective. ' Compare Prof. Jowett (S. PauVs Epistles, II. 204). " The pecu-, 
 liarity of the Gospel is not that it teaches what i.s wholly new, but that 
 it draws out of the treasure house of the human heart things new and 
 old, gathering together into one the dispersed fragments of the truth." 
 Of course it is not intended to represent Christianity as a mere system 
 of eclecticism. 
 
 * Compare Comte, Phil. Pos., V. 349. 
 
 ' " Christianity," remarks Neander profoundly, " is the end to 
 which all development of the religious consciousness must tend, and of 
 which, therefore, it cannot do otherwise than offer a prophetic testimony. 
 Thus there dwells an element of prophecy, not merely in revealed 
 religion, unfolding itself beneath the fostering care of the Divine Vin- 
 tager (John XV.) as it struggles onwards from Judaism to its com- 
 plete disclosure in Christianity, but also in religion, as it grows wild 
 on the soil of Paganism, which by nature must strive unconsciously to 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. i8i 
 
 to disparage the truth of Christianity, by charging 
 upon it the inculcation of defective morality, even 
 in the person of its Founder;^ sometimes of im- 
 moral developments, sometimes of ethical rules 
 untrue without requisite limitations, and impos- 
 sible in practice.^ Such accusations may on the 
 whole be left to balance one another, as when it Seif;con- 
 
 ' tiadictory. 
 
 is said by one school that the religion of Christ 
 has never sufficiently encouraged the culture of 
 the intellect, and by another that it gives a 
 ^(factitious and disproportionate influence to what 
 are called " the higher parts " of human nature. 
 If the Altruism of the Positivist be deemed an 
 
 the same end." — CTi. Eist., I. 240, ed. Clark. Comp. Merivale, Led., 
 p. 70. " The law is the teaching of the human conscience generally, 
 whether enlightened by a revelation, or any other less special illumina- 
 tion from above ; by the habits and ideas of human society," &c. 
 
 ' See Strauss, New Life of Jesus Christ, I. 438 ; and Mr. F. Newman 
 on the Defective Morality of the Xcw Test. " The character of Christ," 
 said Paley, finely and truly, " is a part of the morality of the Gospel." 
 
 " Thus M. Comte regards the Lutheran preference of Faith to Works, 
 and the Calvinistio doctrine of Predestination, as strictly immoral in 
 their tendency. Phil. Pos., V. 685. Shaftesbury (WorJes, I. 98) 
 charges on Christianity the omission of the heroic virtues : of patriotism 
 and public spirit, and of private friendship. Yet Christ Himself wept 
 over His country. Cf. also Eom. ix. 3, 4. Mr. Lecky, B. Eat., II. 113 
 (see also H. E. M., 11. 149), observes, " that Christianity triumphed only 
 by transforming itself under the influence of the spirit of sect." This 
 means that it transferred men's allegiance from their country to the 
 Cliurch. I do not think this ia properly chargeable on the principles 
 .of the religion. Yet, if tnie, it would only be substituting a much 
 larger area of patriotism, and one which coincides with a large advance 
 in civilization. The practice of the early Church (" Nee uUa res aliena 
 magis quam publica," Tert. Apdl. c. xxxviii., and see Origeu, c. Cch., 
 VIII. ii.), in this matter furnishes no proper estimate of the intentions 
 of the religion. 
 
1 82 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 Unpracti- improvement on the morality of the Gospel in 
 living for others without the limitation of loving 
 our neighbour only as ourselves, it seems not 
 unreasonable to require that this level should first 
 be reached/ Total annihilation of self, at best an 
 impracticable dream, was far from the thought of 
 Him who "knew what is in man." But Chris- 
 tianity has been charged with other more practical 
 
 Further failures. Indifferent and injurious to secular pro- 
 objections • 1 1 • . • 
 from the gTcss, to material welfare and industrial develop- 
 
 results of , . „ . . .. ,. . «% . n 
 
 Chris- ment ( ' mtructuosi m negotns dicimur ), it has 
 been taxed with the custom of religious wars, of 
 persecution for opinion, with the institution of 
 torture, with doctrines pernicious to sound morals, 
 such as absolution, indulgences, the placing cere- 
 monial observance before natural duty, the repro- 
 bation of good actions wrought without the pale 
 of the Church, and a benevolence, however well- 
 meaning, yet economically mistaken. It has been 
 blamed for errors in practice fraught with social 
 misery and mischief, yet consequent on Scriptural, 
 or at the least ecclesiastical, doctrine.^ So also 
 for shortcomings in the enforcement of moral 
 
 ' There are, indeed, some good remarks on this point in Comte, Phil. 
 Pos., IV. 553, V. 434. Compare Prof. Goldwin Smith, Study of Hist., 
 p. 3, and Mr. Herbert Spencer, Study of Sociology, Cmt. Rev., XXI 
 318-321. 
 
 ^ Compare Condorcet, as quoted by Comte, PhiV. Pes., V. 423. Such 
 are the medieval view of the sinfulness of usury, the treatment of 
 witchcraft, the wager of battle, the institution of Monasticism, &g. See 
 Mr. Fanar's remarks (Witness of IJist. to Christ), Lecture V. 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 183 
 
 laws, witli an inability, for example, to suppress 
 warfare, to prevent or redress social injustice and 
 'economic errors. The importance of such charges Their im- 
 
 ,. ■,.-... . , 1 . portance. 
 
 lies not only m their imputation on the moral esti- 
 mate of Christianity, but still more on its value as 
 an instrument in civilization, and as consequently 
 a permanent agent in human progress. Nor can 
 it be denied that the evils in question are in some Such re- 
 sort the results of the teaching of Christian ideas, notcharge- 
 Unless, however, it can be shown that they are principles^ 
 the logical consequents of such ideas, their natural religion. 
 fruit and reasonable issue, so that each can be 
 referred to the doctrine on which it rests, forming 
 part of the actual message of Christianity, no 
 vital blow has so far been struck on the armour of Case of 
 
 /^i • • If -n T • religious 
 
 Christian defence. Religious wars were certainly wars, 
 not unknown to other times and other systems. 
 All may, perhaps, be more correctly attributed to 
 a political or defensive origin,^ or to a survival 
 of Paganism, wherein " the kingdom of Heaven 
 suffered violence," and " the violent took it by 
 force." The political effect of a common faith is 
 to react hostilely upon foreign creeds. Persecu- Persecu- 
 tion for belief, whatever immediate motive is belief, 
 assigned to it, was practised by Pagan rulers in 
 
 ' The wars of Charlemagne may be cited in this respect: the 
 Crusades were actually defensive. See Comte, Phil. Pos., V. 404. 
 Compare Paley's remarks on some supposed effects of Christianity 
 (Evid., IT. vii.). The religions of Greece and of Eonie, so far forth as 
 State institutions, involved penal consequences and even death. See 
 Dolliuger, Oentile and Jew, I. 243-5. 
 
1 84 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 pre-Christian times. Yet it may be admitted that 
 both the evils complained of, the custom of war- 
 fare on the score of religion, and of persecution 
 for erroneous belief, flow to some extent from the 
 nature of the case, and are due to the action of 
 historical Christianity.^ Partly, indeed, they were 
 based on a false analogy of Christian duty with 
 the Levitical code. But there is probably a 
 necessary tendency in all dogmatic teaching to 
 condemn error in opinion as a duty, and that too 
 more strongly than immorality itself. Toleration 
 even now is not uncommonly held to involve 
 or imply scepticism. Prior to -experience, it is 
 expected that compulsion can procure uniformity ,• ^ 
 and the golden rule is forgotten, " Eeligionis non 
 est religionem cogere." The outward confession 
 of faith is not readily distinguished from a saving 
 implicit belief; and in the confusion compulsion 
 is enlisted on the side of a mistaken humanity, 
 whether for the victim or the survivor ; ^ but, 
 
 ' The judicial murder of Prisoillian dates a.d, S^G. It was con- 
 demned by Ambrose and Martin of Tonrs, though not by Leo. The 
 early Christian apologists naturally express themselves on the side of 
 toleration. Lactantius, but fifty years before the death of Pr.isoillian, 
 and himself a resident at Treves, thus writes : " Eeligio cogi non potest ; 
 verbis potius quam verberibus res agenda est ut sit voluntas. Kihil 
 est tarn voluntarium quam religio." — Bh. Inst, Y. xx. 
 
 ' And so indeed, in fact, it has succeeded in doing : but only after 
 the manner of those who, in the words of Tacitus, " solitudinem faciunt, 
 pacem appellant." 
 
 ' See Mr. Lecky's remarks. Hist. Rat, 11. 11, Hist Eur. Mar., I. 420, 
 on the inevitable tendency, if not the moral compulsion, to prosely tism 
 which underlies an assumed possession of truth. See Dean Hook, Lives 
 o/ArM.,'^.S.,n-9. 
 
Lect. IV.] FJiOGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 185 
 
 however present to the eye of the Founder ofb^^ciirfsf 
 our reh'gion as a result of the leaven wherewith 
 He leavened the Church and the world, can this 
 fact be properly urged against His teaching as a 
 fault or a crime? Rather it is the consequence 
 of its historical development, of the tardy course of 
 human affairs,^ and, philosophically considered, of 
 the imperfection and limitation of the creature. 
 By the union and identification of the Church and Course of 
 
 T-i -111 . events. 
 
 Empire, orthodoxy became an Imperial interest, 
 and persecution for opinion was rendered not only 
 possible, but politi(3ally incumbent. It is not, then, 
 the words of Christ,^ which are answerable for the 
 teaching of a duty of persecution. God forbid. But 
 rather the supremacy, in the State, of the Church. 
 Heresy and schism, as ecclesiastical offences, were 
 put on the same footing with rebellion as a civil 
 
 § 9. But, it may still be said, these evils are The his- 
 chargeable on Christianity as a system, as an his- suits of 
 torical fact ; they have followed in its train. And, tianity, no 
 no doubt, it is not intended to clear the Religion of inixed 
 
 character. 
 
 ' " For fifteen hundred years after the establishment of the Christian 
 religion it was intellectually and morally impossible that any religion 
 that was not material and superstitious could have reigned over Europe." 
 — Lecky, B. B., 11. 227. 
 
 ^ "Compel thera to come in." See Bayle's famous, treatise (CoJ!<;mHs- 
 les cPentrer), and Ffoulkcs' Div. Christ., pp. 91-2. 
 
 ' There is a remarkable. defence in Dr. Draper's Hist, of the IntelUc- 
 tital Devel. in Europe (I. 134) of the medieval jwlicy of lepression, 
 grounded on a supposed foresight of the fearful consequences of the 
 intellect of a people outgrowing their religious formulie. 
 
1 86 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 Christ of all- its attendant effects, as though the 
 brightest light never cnst a shadow. The innocent 
 blood shed by the Churches of East and West is the 
 price paid for the enforcement of dogmas otherwise 
 fraught with good. It is enough to weigh in the 
 balance the acknowledged services of Christianity 
 The evils against its confessed ills ; and more especially to 
 heient in examine whether such evils are properly inherent 
 esys em, .^^ ^^^ frame.^ If not, ihey need not, it is clear, over- 
 cloud its future. As a matter of fact we have 
 already outlived them. The opinions to which" 
 they are due, are now admitted to be elements 
 and foreign to the nature of our Religion, antagonistic 
 
 transient. .. ,.„ ,.. -. . -i- 
 
 to its inner lile and spirit, and inconsistent with its 
 central ideas.^ Thus a real distinction has always 
 Due to to be drawn between faulty inferences or erroneous 
 niisintcr- applications of Scriptural language to the subjects 
 pie a ion. ^^ morals, policy, and science, and the actual and 
 eternal teaching of the Bible. The very tendency 
 manifest in the general history of nations to em- 
 ploy religion, outside of its central scheme, as a 
 political engine in matters of social law and civil 
 government, has led to this result. Of this cha- 
 instances. ractcr^ are the notions of usury being immoral, of 
 
 ^ " Le Christianisme a Hi intolerant : niais Tintolerance n'est pas 
 im fait essentiellement clivetien." — Eenan, Vie de Jdsus- Christ, 
 V. 412. 
 
 ' See some good remarks on this subject in tlie Christian Semem- 
 brancer, Ko. CXXXL, p. 232. 
 
 ' For the political economy of Christianity, as not being incompatible 
 with historical progress, see Goldwin Smith (Lect., p. 39). 
 
Lect. IV.] PJiOGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 187 
 
 the production of wealth being condemned, of a 
 community of goods, of one absolute, universal 
 form of political government, of the unlawfulness 
 of military defence, .Political and economic errors 
 have on these subjects shielded themselves with the 
 authority of Inspiration, and, by rendering scien- 
 tific progress impossible, have risked the perma- 
 nence of Christianity itself. But with the advance 
 of knowledge and free inquiry this confusion has 
 been long on the wane. Salmasius,' for example, 
 wrote successfully to correct the medieval idea that 
 the Bible condemns usury, and Protestantism found 
 no difficulty in receiving the correction. The true 
 embarrassment lay in the claims of Roman Catholic 
 tradition. Some errors might more properly be And to 
 
 ° ... premature 
 
 regarded as anticipations of truth. Thus primitive move- 
 Christianity found in a transient communism^ a 
 natural expression of new-born love and zeal. It 
 never sought to erect a doctrine, inimical to all eco- 
 
 ' See Mr. Lecky, //. Eat., II. 290, who lias pursued the whole 
 inquiry with his iis.ual vigour and in a fair spirit. Mr. Bucltle (I. 283) 
 on the contrary declaims, with heat, against " the ignorant interference 
 of Christian rulers," forgetting that other religions have at least made 
 the same mistakes. Thus the Mahometan law prohibits interest alto- 
 gether, with the natural result. See Wedlth of Nations, Bk. I. c. ix. 
 
 ^ Resting mainly on Luke xil. 33. The rhetorical statement of 
 TertuUian is well known (ApoL, xxxix.) : " Omnia indiscreta sunt apud 
 nos prjBter uxores." Clement of Alexandria, in his treatise Quis dives 
 salvetur, rejects the notion of communism. See also Strom., III. 449, 
 and Augustine, ffcer., c. xl. In Enarr. in Ps. 124, § 2, he rebukes 
 the opinion that " non debuit Deus facere pauperes : sed soli divites 
 esse debucrunt." On the view of Ambrose as to the right of property 
 in Innd {de Off. Minist., I. xxviii., and Serm. 8 in Ps. 118, § 22), see 
 Schmidt, Essai, p. 259 ; also Champagny, Charite Chrctienne. 
 
1 88 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 iiomical progress into a normal condition of society. 
 " Whenever a great religious movement," it has 
 been truly said, " has taken place in history, the 
 spirit of humanity has beaten in this way against 
 its earthly bars, and struggled to realize at once 
 that which cannot be realized within any calculable 
 time, if it is destined ever to be realized here."'' 
 Charges of & jq_ r^^ charge of feebleness and inutility is, 
 
 feebleness •> ° _ . 
 
 and inu- indeed, of a wholly different kind ; and will be 
 
 tillty. ... 
 
 variously estimated by different persons according 
 
 to the measure of their previous expectation of the 
 
 working of Christianity. But it must be borne 
 
 Too in mind that we are no ludgres of its possible 
 
 general. _ . . 
 
 or of its proper operation ; ' of the relations or 
 course of affairs which make up the government 
 of the world. Nor can Christianity be fairly 
 accused of failure in these respects, unless indeed 
 Should be the rcsult has not answered to its own predictions. 
 
 tested by _ , _ ^ 
 
 its own But this it is not attempted to show. Thus the 
 
 predictions . « 
 
 of itself, contmuance of wars among mankind has been 
 deemed in some quarters a strong objection to 
 
 ' Prof. Goldwin Smith, u. s., p. 41. 
 
 " For Bishop Butler's canon is no less true than stern: "Objections 
 against Cliristianity, as distinguished from objections against its 
 evidence, are frivolous." — Anal, II. iii. . For if the natural and moral 
 government of God be a scheme but imperfectly comprehensible, how 
 much more so is the course of revealed religion. " When vpe ar<Tie " 
 says Paley, " concerning Christianity, that it. must necessarily be true 
 because it is beneficial, we go, perhaps, too far on one side ; and we 
 certainly go too far on the other when we conclude that it must bo 
 
 false because it is not so efficacious as we could have supixjsed." 
 
 Evid., II. vi. 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 189 
 
 the usefulness and credit of Christianity.' But 
 such objectors fail to perceive that the continued 
 existence of warfare is a result of man's moral 
 nature remaining unchanged, and this perhaps by 
 an express provision of nature, wars being a main 
 element in the course of rudimentary civilization at 
 the least. No doubt, it is the worlt of the Eeligion These are 
 of Christ to bring about this change. It does sooffuifii- 
 ,by substituting larger and unselfish sympathies ; 
 by reducing the theory of war to a defensive in- 
 stead of an offensive basis.^ But His kingdom upon 
 the earth in the hearts and spirits of men, though 
 universal, was to be created slowly by suasion, 
 not by miracle.^ There is no engagement on its 
 part to abolish selfishness, passion, sin, speedily or 
 throughout. By slow advances in individual sancti- 
 fication a higher level was to be reached of moral 
 type, of peacefulness and love. The present com- increased 
 parative rarity 01 war m respect 01 lormer ages is wars. 
 admitted. Little by little, it may be hoped, this 
 scourge is retreating before the march of civili- 
 zation. Trade, law, diplomacy, literature, political 
 
 1 See Mr. Buckle, Eist. Civ., 1. 191. Mr. Locky, Hist Rat, II. 384, 
 arguing from a general immemorial union between the sacerdotal and 
 the military spirit, infers that no theological agencies are pacific. This 
 is hardly convincing. See also H. E. M., II. 269. 
 
 " See Comte, Phil. Pos., V. 82. Mr. Freeman (Norman Conq., 
 I. 33) otserves, " the evangelical precepts of peace and love did not 
 put an end to war ; they did not put an end to aggressive conquests, but 
 they distinctly humanized the way in which war was carried on." 
 
 " Compare Dr. Mozley, Bamp. Led., p. 17: "We can, indeed, in 
 imagination conceive," &o. 
 
190 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV, 
 
 How far 
 due to 
 Christian 
 influence. 
 
 Relations 
 between 
 science 
 and Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 Whether 
 formidable 
 to the per- 
 manence 
 of our 
 religion. 
 
 science, even the invention of fire-arms and im- 
 proved means of locomotion, have been assigned a 
 share in this momentous change.^ But has the 
 rehgious sentiment been altogether without part 
 in it ; and among other elements is no effect to be 
 attributed to the spread of a purer Christianity ? 
 An under-current of humiliation mixes now with 
 the Te Deums of victory ; and ministers of mercy 
 claim their place in the ranks of contending armies. 
 A growing sense of the folly of war may be due to 
 advancing culture ; a conviction of its wickedness 
 can only spring from a Religion whose mission upon 
 earth is " peace, good will toward men." 
 
 § II. "We have been led more than once in our 
 preceding remarks to the confines of a subject 
 which, in our review of objections to the progress 
 and permanence of Christianity, is the last await- 
 ing examination; I mean, the relations between 
 Science and Religion ; their distinctive position and 
 respective consummation. Is this peace or war ? 
 Is a modus vivendi practicable between them ? 
 Or do they necessarily and eternally conflict ? As 
 darkness flees at the approach of dawn, must one 
 pale before the other's rising beams; and is this 
 the fate reserved for the time-honoured claims 
 
 ' See Buckle, u. s., I. 203, 224. Christian efforts in tHs direction, 
 put fortli in the darkest and most violent ages, even where unsuc- 
 cessful, should not be disparaged. Such were the " Peace of God," the 
 " Truce of God" (the former having the wider scope), and the like. See 
 Gieseler, II. 447. v Eohertson, Church Hist, II. 504-5 ; also Lecky, 
 Eist. Rat, II. 115. 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 191 
 
 of Religion, as hitherto understood ; and in espe- 
 cial for the faith of Jesus Christ, under the full 
 light and fierce heat of a noontide civilization ? 
 Some, it is true, still hold that a real conflict in the view 
 
 . T T-» T • • • ^ of some, 
 
 between bcience and Religion is m the nature of no real 
 
 Ti 1 ■ -IT ik-r 1 1 conflict 
 
 things unlikely or impossible. " Not only are the between 
 two heterogeneous ; * but the results of Science, 
 whether physical or human, are part of the data 
 which it is the function of Religion to co-ordinate." 
 "The time is approaching," says a careful and 
 impartial writer,^ "when it will be generally 
 perceived that, so far from Science being opposed 
 to Religion, true Religion without Science is im- 
 possible. And if we consider the various aspects 
 of Christianity as understood by different nations, 
 we can hardly fail to perceive that the dignity, 
 and therefore the truth, of their religious beliefs 
 is in direct relation to the knowledge of Science 
 and of the great physical laws by which our 
 universe is governed." "The natural works of 
 God," wrote Faraday,^ "can never by any possi- 
 bility come in contradiction with the higher things 
 which belong to our future existence ... I do not 
 think it at all necessary to tie the study of the 
 Natural Sciences and Religion together." 
 
 On the other hand, a multitude of reasons have Opposite 
 
 view, 
 
 been adduced to weaken this position, " Of all anta- 
 
 > Prof. Westcott, Cunt. Rev., VIII. 377. 
 
 ^ Sir J. Lubbock, Orig. Civ., p. 256. ' Life, II. 196. 
 
192 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 gonisms of belief," says Mr. Herbert Spencer,^ "the 
 oldest, the widest, the most profound, and the most 
 important, is that between Eeligion and Science. 
 It commenced when the recognition of the simplest 
 uniformities in surrounding things set a limit to 
 the previously universal fetishism. It shows itself 
 everywhere throughout the domain of human know- 
 ledge, affecting man's interpretations alike of the 
 simplest mechanical accidents and of the most com- 
 plicated events in the histories of nations. It has 
 its roots deep down in the diverse habits of thought 
 Appeals to of different orders of minds." ^ Tben the tests of 
 
 experi- 
 ence, history and experience, it is said, prove the uniform 
 
 undeviating growth of knowledge, and a corre- 
 sponding decline in the power and spread of Ee- 
 ligion. This, indeed, is a matter of fact, and, as 
 such, admits a direct reply. But next, it is added, 
 there are circumstances to explain this alleged re- 
 dounds suit. AH advance is intellectual ; Reliarion is of its 
 
 of this . " 
 
 opinion, own nature stationary, conservative, reactiona;ry. 
 This is the very moral of the history of Persecution 
 
 ^ First Principles, p. 12. 
 
 ^ Prof. Huiley takes up different ground: " The present antagonism 
 between theology and science does not arise from any assumption by 
 the men of science that all theology must necessarily be excluded from 
 science ; but simply because they are unable to allow that reason and 
 morality have two weights and two measures ; and that the belief in a 
 proposition because authority tells you it is true, or because you wish 
 to believe it, which is a high crime and misdemeanor when the 
 subject-matter of reason is of one kind, becomes, under the alias of 
 ' faith,' the greatest of all virtues when the subject-matter of reason is 
 of another kind."— Con*. Rev., XVIII. 457. 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 193 
 
 for belief. Again, Revelation is incompatible not 
 only with the claims of Reason, but with the results 
 of Science. The advance of knowledge undermines 
 the bases of religious beliefs by impairing the states 
 of mind on which they repose, and the needs for 
 which they exist. By explaining phenomena, by 
 reducing them to universal invariable expressions, 
 by substituting continued for free agency, most 
 existing religions, all in fact but a religion of 
 Nature, if such really exists, are merged in the 
 scale of superstitions unworthy of scientific accept- 
 ance. For the sphere of Knowledge is held to be 
 positive ; the real is bounded by the realm of sen- 
 sation ; all beyond is chimerical, is vain. Wonder 
 recedes as the antecedents of all phenomena become 
 known ; and with wonder fear, and with fear rever- 
 ence, and with reverence adoration, and with ado- 
 ration the caput mortuum of religious belief. 
 
 § 1 2. Not to admit a fact is, of course, to disallow The truth 
 the reasons by which it is sought to be explained, view 
 If Religion (I speak more particularly of the Faith 
 of Jesus Christ) exhibits no decline, it may be held 
 unnecessary to dispute the alleged conditions of 
 such a catastrophe. It may be well, notwithstand- 
 ing, to encounter the particular objections against 
 the prospects of Christianity which have been here Reasons 
 brought within view. They affect its past as well ing it in 
 as its future, explaining its successes by other than ^ ^' ' 
 spiritual antecedents, and denying it a career in the 
 
 
 
194 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 ultimate advance of mankind. Let us inquire, then, 
 in the first place, whether it be true that in Eeligion 
 we find the sole branch of human activity which is 
 of a stationary character, ever looking backward, 
 never forward ; bound by the laws of its being to 
 a rigid immobility. What is the conception of its 
 nature which necessitates such inferences respect- 
 ing it ? 
 Concep- All Eeligion, I apprehend, in this view of it, being 
 
 tion of the ^i ii~.i-- 
 
 nature of Dased ou a fundamental Revelation, is assumed to 
 principles aunouuce truths of a final and unique character, 
 this view Capable of extension by nothing unless a further 
 revealment, conveyed through a special illumina- 
 tion. But such a mode of information is not only 
 beyond and beside, it is in opposition to, the ordi- 
 nary means and ways of knowledge. For these are 
 tentative and curious of inquiry ; so that the position 
 of knowledge in respect of an existing standard of 
 belief or duty can never be guaranteed, neither can 
 it even temporarily acquiesce in any foregone con- 
 clusion. It is in this way, then, that while Religion 
 is stationary. Science and Thought inherently pro- 
 How far gress. In reply it may be admitted that a truth of 
 
 admissible, -r-j i • • 
 
 Revelation is not homogeneous witli the conclusions 
 
 of research, experiment, or reason.^ It is accepted 
 
 Distinct on other and particular grounds : accordinfflv its 
 
 sphere of „ , . . • -, -, 
 
 religious Sphere 01 relation is special also. Its kingdom is 
 not of this world. It deals not with that which 
 
 Compare Dr. J. H. Newman, Essay on Devd., o. Hi. § 5. 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 195 
 
 constitutes the real limit of positive knowledge, 
 the present physical condition of the universe ; it 
 carries us on to that region of the unseen or super- 
 naturaP upon which Nature everywhere borders 
 and rests. The phenomena which it explains point 
 to a future stage of being, with which alone it is 
 properly occupied. Its home is in the spirit of man, 
 his -conscience, the higher reason and will. " The 
 natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit 
 of Grod, for they are foolishness unto him ; neither 
 can he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
 cerned."^ The beliefs which these inspire are no 
 affirmations of the intellect only — no products of 
 the logical faculty. Its dry light has here no place 
 or room. They address themselves to the spirit in why 
 
 11 1- • PI . . , called 
 
 man, and by a uvmg act or that spirit they are spiritual, 
 apprehended and appropriated. Psychologically 
 they are instances of that indefinite consciousness 
 which, as has been well said, "cannot be formu- 
 lated." They are thoughts which, " though im- Their psy- 
 possible to complete, are real, being normal afiec- character 
 tions of the mind."^ Nor is there anything on 
 this side of man's nature which is truly reactionary 
 in its relation to mundane knowledge. Industrial 
 development, for example, has been held to be 
 
 ' " In our definitions," says Emerson, " we grope after the spiritual 
 by describing it as invisible. The true meaning of spiritual is real : 
 that law wMch executes itself, whicb works without means, and which 
 cannot be conceived as not existing." 
 
 2 1 Cor. ii. 14. 
 
 * Herbert Spencer, First Trine, p. 88. 
 
 2 
 
196 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 inconsistent with theological beliefs from being in 
 
 its nature secular, and depending on the fixity of 
 
 not truly natural laws. But is the earth, we may ask, to be 
 
 reaction- -, -ti -i-, -, • • -, ■ -, • 
 
 vrj less well tilled, its riches straitened, its secrets less 
 
 amply communicated, because Revelation unfolds 
 the home beyond, where the " wicked cease from 
 troubling and the weary are at rest " ? Surely, as 
 a matter of experience, it is true that " man doth 
 not live by bread alone." The true strength of 
 Religion, then, lies in its allowing all other in- 
 tellectual activity to be progressive and indefinite ; 
 
 oraggres- a Very "infinite of thought." For itself it claims 
 only a just acquiescence in human testimony for its 
 evidence, and the confluence of the higher instincts 
 with its revelations. It " speaks not in words 
 which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy 
 Grhost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with 
 spiritual." " Thus may we know the things which 
 
 At what are freely given to us of Grod." No antagonism, 
 
 point ah- . . 1 r. 
 
 tagonistic then, With the tendencies or results of Science is to 
 
 to science ■< £ -t -^ ■, 11 • 
 
 or natural be icared, but such as renders the existence of a 
 ledge. spiritual element in man unlikely or impossible.* 
 'Around this central fact the battle must be waged 
 of atheism with faith in Grod, of secularism with 
 theology, of materialism with Christianity. For 
 the rest the discoveries of Science constitute no 
 standing menace to the teachings of Revelation : 
 
 " Compare Prof. Goldwin Smith's noble reflections, iec*. on. Study of 
 Hist., p. 46. " Let true science make what discoveries it will, for ex- 
 ample, as to the origin of life," &o. 
 
Lect. IV.] FROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 197 
 
 nor needs Religion peristi because Knowledge 
 strides onward. They occupy, in fact, distinct 
 spheres, moving in different planes ; nor do they 
 touch each other vitally in one point of their cir- 
 cumference. No doubt, this has not been always, 
 if it be now, understood. There have been eras in Foregone 
 human progress when the claims of Theology have 
 been alike extravagant and fatal. There have 
 been martyrs consequently in science no less than 
 for religious beliefs Rested upon false and foreign 
 pretentions the very truth of Christianity as a 
 whole has been put on its trial, and has been staked 
 upon impossible or insignificant issues. Eppur si 
 muove is the answer to all such disputations. But These ai- 
 
 ^ ready on 
 
 have not these already, at least in large measure, the de- 
 
 • f 1 1 • cline. 
 
 passed away ? The strange passion for balancmg 
 the whole structure of Christian truth on isolated 
 and subsidiary questions has well-nigh burnt itself 
 out ; while those which still remain are yielding to 
 the gentler touch of reason and of time.^ In thus Past 
 
 ... T • 1 lessons. 
 
 speaking, I do not say that it is not good in these 
 latter days to re-read, in some of its portions, the 
 
 ' Though, according to Cyirian, "esse martyr non potest qui in 
 EcclesiS, non est." — De Unit. JEccl. Augustine remarked more justly, 
 " Martyrem non faoit poena sed causa." 
 
 ^ Xpovos eviiapris 6f6s. — Soph. It is the more to be regretted that 
 here and there some iU-timed psean of victory on the side of science 
 seeks to fan the decaying embers of theological jealousies. Thus it is 
 proclaimed that " the gradual destruction of the old theology is every- 
 where preceded by the growth and diffusion of physical truths." — 
 Buckle, III. 478. "Extinguished theologians," cries another, "lie 
 about the cradle of every science as the strangled snake beside that of 
 
198 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 history of the Church : and by its tempered light, 
 chequered with the fortunes of the past, re-adjust 
 the relations of doctrine to the demands of Science 
 and the warnings of experience. Much in days 
 gone by has been assailed, which now we should 
 be careful to accept. Much has been maintained 
 which now we do not care to defend. 
 
 Non tali auxilio, non defensoritus istis 
 Tempus eget. 
 
 The letter of inspiration, the questionable text, the 
 unwarranted reading or rendering, the long-drawn 
 dubious inference, the uncertain voice of tradition, 
 the arrogant ill-founded assumption of the supre- 
 macy of authority over reason, of dogma over con- 
 science, the little-heeded intruded fallacy, at best 
 the poor fabric of human ingenuity imported into 
 a heaven-sent mystery {iois Scriptura non fallit, si 
 se homo non fallat) ;^ all these must pass away, and 
 with them the heats and bickerings, the jealousies 
 Spirit of and variance of bygone controversies. For never 
 message. wiU the work of Christ take root, or the message 
 of His salvation go forward among men, till it is 
 known and felt that "that message is peace, and 
 its effect quietness and assurance for ever," Yet it 
 must be admitted that throughout the past history 
 
 Hercules." — Huxley, Lay S., p. 305. As a matter of fact what 
 essential poTtions can be named of Christian orthodoxy which have heen 
 surrendered or destroyed ? Some fancied outwork perchance, some moss- 
 grown battlement: but what vital doctrine of the faith or saving 
 truth? 
 ' Augustin. de Vrhis Excidio, c. ii. 
 
Lect. IV.] FHOGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 199 
 
 of the Christian Church, in proportion to the intri- 
 cacy, doubtfulness, and transcendental character of 
 the dogma involved, the passions of men have risen 
 highest, their feelings have been tbe most deeply 
 stirred,^ till error has been magnified into guilt, 
 and difficulty of conviction into reprobation. In The per- 
 view of the permanence of the Faitb which we in- of chris- 
 herit, it is important to remember that, while in no a religion 
 wise committed to the errors of the past, Chris- fts^ast ex'^ 
 tianity has before it all the promise of the future, p^"^"*^^- 
 A sense of the reality of Christian truth as a 
 spiritual religion, based not so much on logical 
 convictions as on a personal relation of the believer 
 to the " God of the spirits of all flesh," " Who hath 
 spoken unto us by his Son," this it is which is 
 essential to the progress of Christianity among 
 mankind. Hence our safeguard against surrender- vital doc- 
 ing the vital elements of an objective faith in mis- h^nai''^ 
 taken consideration for the doubts and difficulties andTested. 
 of a half belief. " He that is not with us, is against 
 us ; and he that gathereth not with Me, scattereth 
 
 ' " Divisions in matter of religion," says Hooker, •' are hotlier prose- 
 cuted and pursued than other strifes, forasmuch as coldness, which in 
 other contentions may be thought to proceed from moderation, is not in 
 these so favourably construed." — Vol. II., p. 4, ed. Keble. Johnson 
 attributed it to personal uneasiness when our confidence in an opinion 
 whicb we value is diminished. But Coleridge, with more penetration, 
 has observed that deep feeling has a tendency to combine with obscure 
 ideas; a fact not confined to professed theologians, but exhibited by 
 whole nations. — Friend!, 1. 138. Merivale, Conversion of North. Nations, 
 pp. 42, 43, lias well shown that " Arianism was but a slightly disguised 
 Paganism : and so no question of a letter," &c. 
 
200 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV, 
 
 abroad," speaks surely an eternal warning. The 
 victories of Christianity have everywhere been the 
 triumphs of a definite faith. It has ever given 
 forth to the world no uncertain sound in its con- 
 flicts with Rationalism or with the passions and 
 licence of mankind. The residuum of a religion 
 from which there has been carefully filtered off all 
 special truths and objects of belief, retaining only 
 some few moral generalities, can but issue in some- 
 thing very dissimilar to a living historic Chris- 
 tianity. To the last, it is true, some differences as 
 to the larger and more intractable problems of 
 man's nature in relation to God and the external 
 world may be expected to remain among Christians 
 Prospects themselves." There can, however, be no question 
 
 of Chris- -^ 
 
 tianity in as to the disintegrating effects of time and advanc- 
 uitimate ing knowledge on the peculiar prepossessions of in- 
 dividual schools of thought and belief. There is a 
 tendency arising from the historical antecedents of 
 Protestantism to undervalue that catholicity of 
 belief which must undoubtedly be held to be the 
 normal and ultimate condition of Christianity, 
 answering to those larger speculations on the con- 
 tinuity and totality of human history which Science 
 now opens out to view. The corrective to this 
 tendency lies in a truer appreciation of the essential 
 Value of spirit of Protestantism.^ Appealing to reason, 
 cipk of without renouncing an authoritative standard, and 
 
 Protestan- 
 
 ''s™' ' Sec Mr. Ffoulkes' remarks, Divisions of Christendom, p. 195. 
 
Lect. IV;] PJiOGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 20i 
 
 to private judgment fortified by the verdict of 
 historical inquiry, its standing-point fits it expressly 
 for the work of reconcilement between a tradi- 
 tional faith and the rationalizing forces of progress. 
 
 The anarchy of criticism which marks the process its adapta- 
 
 „ I'll • 1 1 ''°° '° ^^ 
 
 01 severance and reunion has been mistaken by wants of 
 
 Comte ^ and others for the ultimate issue of centuries 
 of unreasoning credulity. Protestantism, it is as- 
 serted with much injustice, has made no converts, 
 and nowhere enlarges the area of its conquests,* 
 Since the treaty of Westphalia, it is said, no new 
 territory has been added to its sway. But its work J'^ true 
 
 •^ ... function. 
 
 lies deeper, and must be traced in a re-animation 
 of the spiritual vigour of Christianity, in a general 
 rehabilitation of its beliefs, and in re-arming it to 
 meet the developments of increased knowledge and 
 
 1 See PUl. Pos., v. 354. "L'esprit d'incons^quence," &c. V. 299, 
 327. He is so prejudiced as to see no difference between Primitive 
 Lutheranism and pure Deism. 
 
 " Maoaulay's remarks are well known, Essays, pp. 352, 536 : " During 
 these two hundred and fifty years Protestantism has made no conquests 
 worth speaking of. Nay, we believe that, as far as there has been a 
 change, that change has, on the whole, been in favour of the Chiirch of 
 Eome." So also Mr. Leoky, Bist. Hat., I. 187, who adds, " Whatever is 
 lost by Catholicism is gained by Rationalism." The same writer, how- 
 ever, in another passage makes this important admission, ',' Protestantism 
 as a dogmatic system makes no converts, but it has shown itself capable 
 of blending with and consecrating the prevailing Eationalism." — lb.,!!. 93. 
 Prof. Westcott very justly observes, " However imposing the apparent 
 unity of the religious life of the middle ages may be, it cannot be ques- 
 tioned that socially and individually the principles of Christianity are 
 more powerful now than then. We lose the sense of their general 
 action in the variety of forms through which they work." — Conf. 
 Bev., VI. 416. 
 
202 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. IV. 
 
 advancing civilization. It, at least, has no Syllabus 
 to retract, no Decrees to disannul. Liable, indeed, 
 to an excess of critical bias, its true mean lies in a 
 spirit which, ever ready to give an answer of its 
 faith, still tempers faith with charity, and enlarges 
 to the utmost the bounds of agreement in belief; 
 " made all things to all men," if by any means some 
 may be saved ; seeing it is " the same Spirit of Grod 
 which worketh all in all." Doubtless there must 
 arise out of the limitation of human nature itself an 
 ultimate boundary even to Christian charity. It- 
 seems a duty to "mete the bounds of hate^ and 
 love ;" and yet 
 
 As far as may be to carve out 
 Free space for every human doubt 
 That the whole mind may orb about. 
 
 Practical It seems practically impossible to grasp truth, 
 
 t'oTeration the truth of sacred things, firmly and yet not 
 
 opinion. jgg^^Q^gjy . ^Q 133 3,3 eamcst in the propagation of 
 
 right belief without asserting its confession to be 
 individually necessary to salvation as with such a 
 creed; to hold fast the convictions of personal 
 assurance, and yet to recognize that to all it is not 
 given " to arrive at the knowledge of the truth." 
 
 ' Ps. cxxxix. 21, 22 : " Do not I (should I not) hate them, Lord, 
 that hate Thee ? . . . I hate them with perfect hatred." Dr. Kay in 
 his note on this passage cites Archbishop Trench, "Hatred of evil, 
 purely as evil, is eminently a Christian grace," and Dean Stanley {Led. 
 on J. Oh., p. 253), " The duty of keeping alive in the human heart the 
 sense of burning indignation against moral evil, against selfishness, 
 against injustice, against untruth, in ourselves as well as in others, — 
 that is as much a part of the Christian as of the Jewish dispensation,'' 
 
Lect. IV.] PROGHESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 203 
 
 Yet this weakness sprins:s really from a want of faith . Principle 
 
 i- CI •! of genuine 
 
 Toleration, if it is not to be indifference, must be toleration. 
 grounded on the perception of counter-views as 
 necessarily complementary and tending to establish 
 the ultimate mean of truth. Thus, He who came 
 among men to found "the everlasting Gospel," 
 may be trusted to work with it to its more perfect 
 reception, according to the light and knowledge 
 of the time. Only, let not " the wrath of man " 
 think "to work out the righteousness of God."^™^°'Jf°^ 
 Christianity has survived revolutions of opinion, "^=^- 
 which, beforehand, might not unjustly have been 
 deemed fatal to it. " It is I : be not afraid," is 
 the lesson eternally stamped on the changes 
 through which it has passed,^ and which now, if 
 ever, is applicable in an age saturated with the 
 idea of continuous and universal development, 
 " stirring all science to its very depth, and revolu- 
 tionizing all historical literature."^ Such a pro- 
 spect, in earlier times, may be thought to have 
 offered the only plausible defence of persecution of 
 unbelief. But if so, it is valid no longer. It has ChrU- 
 pleased God, by the teachings of experience, to power. 
 " increase our faith." We have learned to believe 
 in the Religion of Jesus Christ, not as an abstract 
 creed, [vulnerable in every article ; not as " the law 
 of a carnal commandment," which " decayeth and 
 
 ' Lecky, Eiat. Eat, I. 283. "Filiation and development," says 
 M. Littr6, Les Barlares, p. 139, " constitute tlie essence of history." 
 
204 OBJECTIONS, &-€. [Lect. IV. 
 
 waxeth. old ; " but as a power/ regenerative of our 
 race, subtle and continuous as the agencies of 
 nature, " the power of an endless life." Faith is 
 reassured; we are no longer "ashamed of the 
 Gospel of Christ ; " for it is " the power of Grod 
 unto salvation to every one that believeth." 
 
 ^ Compare the opening reflections of Neander, Ch. Hist., I. p. 2. 
 C. Schwarz, Oesch. der neuesten Theologie, p. 43, criticises unduly this 
 view of Neander, who, he says, has given accordingly a history of 
 piety, not of the Church. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY 
 CONSIDERED. 
 
 " Naturam hominis hanc Deus esse voluit, ut duarum rerum cupidus 
 et appetens esset, religionis ot sapientias. Sed homines ideo falluntur, 
 quod aut religionem susoipiunt, omissS sapientiS.; aut sapientiaB soli 
 student, omissS, religione; cum altenun sine altera esse non possit 
 verum." — ^Lactaktius. 
 
 " Meantime it seemed as if mankind in Europe, and especially in 
 England and France, had now for the first time opened its eyes to 
 Nature and to its strict conformity with law : and they who yielded 
 themselves unreservedly to this tendency more and more lost sight of 
 the independence and existence of spirit." — Dobneb, Eist. Prot. Theol., 
 II. 258. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 " There is a spirit in man : and the inspiration of the Almighty 
 giveth them understanding^'' — 31oli Vf.%\.\. 8. 
 
 § 1 . T T is urged by some who look on Christianity Objections 
 -■- as a byffone or a transient creed, that not method of 
 
 .... . Theology 
 
 only are the results of scientific inquiry formidable as being 
 
 .,.,. ,, not indue- 
 
 to the reception oi orthodoxy m detail ; its method tive. 
 
 also is aggressive, incompatible with the stand- 
 point of theological beliefs. Inductive science rests 
 essentially on the basis of individual and specific 
 experience, on methodized observation. Its reason- 
 ing is that of common sense and common life. It 
 appeals only to matters of fact. It is, therefore, 
 from first to last,^ from principle to conclusion, 
 from the first individual instance examined to the 
 latest universal law registered for future inquiry, 
 within reach, so to speak ; patent to sense, and ^°P"^^r 
 liable to verification. " The man of science," says for venfi- 
 
 cation. 
 
 Professor Huxley,'^ " has learned to believe in 
 justification, not by faith but by verification." 
 Such a method has in it nothing transcendental, 
 nothing superstitious, nothing supernatural. More- 
 over, it has on its side, it is said, the results of 
 
 ' Compare Comte, Phil. Pos., IV. 697-9. 
 
 ^ Lay Sermons, p. 22. Mr. Matthew Arnold remai'ks, that " the 
 licence of afBrmation about God and His proceedings in which the reli- 
 gious world indulge, is more and more met by the demand for verifica- 
 tion." — 8. Paul and Protestantism. 
 
3g. 
 
 208 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 Reasons time and experience. Former ages have gone 
 bdngvery wrong in proportion as they have abandoned or 
 commonly £^jjgjj ^^ recognize the truth of the inductive 
 tamed, gpint. It is now on all hands welcomed ; and the 
 era of its triumphs has begun. But Theology, it is 
 urged, alone refuses to be brought within its sway. 
 Its information flows from another source. "In 
 Theology,' certain principles are taken for granted; 
 and, it being deemed impious to question them, all 
 that remains is, to reason from them downward." ^ 
 The general truths which bind up and enwrap its 
 conclusions, are the gift of anterior Revelation. 
 They cannot be substantiated by facts, and are 
 accepted with an unreasoning assent. For Re- 
 ligion, " taking its ground on the first conclusions 
 obtained in the process of human reflection, thence- 
 forth obstinately defends what it holds to be Divine 
 andTheo- rcvclations. But the supposed revelations inevi- 
 sUnM tably come into collision with new ideas and 
 tobedia- experiences to which Science alone can afibrd to 
 ^posed.^ give a hearing." ^ Thus, while Science is the 
 result of inquiry, Theology is bred of faith ; its 
 theory precedes experience and controls it. In 
 
 ' M. Guizot, Civil, en France, II. 385, points out how early this 
 conflict, arose between the scientific spirit and theological deduction, 
 when remarking on the Neo-Platonism of Alexandria, and the kindred 
 Tiews in medieval times of Scotus Erigena. Mr. Mackay, Bise and 
 Progress 0/ Christianity, p. 288, prefers to deduce the existing dualism 
 of Theology and Science from the Nominalism of Occam. 
 
 ^ See Mr. Buckle at length, Eist. Civ., III. 282-3, 464. 
 
 ' See Mr. Mackay, «. s., pp. 270-1. 
 
Lect. v.] PROGHESS of CHRISTIANITY. 209 
 
 the one, doubt, scepticism, originality, aptness to 
 discover, are virtues and the higliest of duties. 
 In the other, originality is the parent of heresy, 
 and therefore a crime. Thus in Christianity it is 
 an accepted principle that "there can be no con- 
 cerning truth vrhich is not ancient ; and whatso- 
 ever is truly new, is certainly false." ^ Or, as it 
 has been said, " That is true which is first, that is 
 false which is after." Faith becomes thus an in- 
 dispensable duty, and credulity an honour. " It is 
 impossible to establish the old theological premisses 
 by a chain of inductive reasoning." ^ 
 
 §2.1 have quoted objections which show pretty Scepticism 
 clearly the current of thought which is at present ™der- 
 
 . stood) not 
 
 setting in on the relations of Theology to Science, incom- 
 In replying to them, I shall not now stay to prove with a 
 that a fitting measure of scientific scepticism (a phiio- 
 term, however, covering very opposite meanings), ^°^ ^' 
 is by no means out of place in the elements of 
 a religious philosophy. It was a theologian' to 
 
 ' Bp. Pearson, Expos, of Creed, dedication. This corresponds to the 
 maxim of Vincentius Lirin., " Dum novd dicitiir, non dicantur nova." 
 
 ' Mr. Buckle, III. 283. 
 
 ' Archbishop Leighton, thus declaring himself a Cartesian. The 
 noble maxims, " Intellectum valdd ama " ; " Fides quaerens intel- 
 leotum," are worthy of the brightest age of culture. For the meanings 
 and history of Scepticism, see Dr. Fanar, Bampt. L., 592-3. " The 
 best Christian in the world," said Shaftesbury, Wwles, III. 72, " who, 
 being destitute of the means of certainty, depends only on history and 
 tradition for his belief, is at best but a sceptic-Christian." " Scep- 
 ticism," writes Bishop Harvey Goodwin, " implies only that n man 
 is determined to look into matters for himself; not to trust every 
 assertion, not to repeat a parrot-creed." Leibnitz's golden rule must be 
 
2IO OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 whom we owe the remark, "that men that know 
 nothing in sciences have no doubts." That during 
 certain periods in the history of the Church belief 
 was held meritorious in proportion to the doubt- 
 fulness of the subject, is perhaps true \^ but it was 
 Distinc- not SO froui the beginning. It will, however, 
 tween pri- probably be admitted that truths of Religion are 
 inferred of two kiuds, primary or inferred, principles or 
 religion, conclusions. The latter have certainly been ob- 
 tained by reasoning, and reasoning not neces- 
 sarily of one kind. The theology of the Reformers, 
 The latter for example, showed that careful inductive exami- 
 
 frequently _ _ -^ 
 
 obtained nation into the sources and history of doctrines, the 
 
 by indue- t ■ 
 
 tion. facts of our religion, and the contents of the Bible, 
 is in no wise alien to the spirit of the Christian 
 faith.^ The same spirit has survived and domi- 
 nated later controversies, and is at this very hour 
 invading the precincts of Catholicism. But not 
 only so. The records of our faith, their genuine- 
 
 bome in mind : " II faut prendre garde de ne jamais abandonner leg 
 v^ritfe necessaires et ^ternelles pom- soutenir les mysteres ; de peur que 
 leg ennemis de la religion ne prennent droit 1^-dessus de d&rier et la 
 religion et les mysteres." " Eeligious disbelief and pkilosophical scep- 
 ticism are not merely not the same, but have no natural connection." — 
 Sir W. Hamilton, L&A., I. 394. 
 
 ■" Compare Milman, Lat. Christ., I. 439. 
 
 " Hence the historical labours of the Magdeburg Oenturiators, and 
 Selden's famous saying, that " the text ' Search the Scriptures ' had set 
 the world in uproar." It would be interesting to inquire how far the 
 impulse was thus given to inductive tendencies which culminated in 
 the Baconian method. On the rule and practice of an " Inductive 
 Exposition," Isaac Taylor, Hist. Enthusiasm, p. 314, grounds his 
 expectation of the reunion of all Protestant bodies. 
 
Lect. v.] FROGHESS of CHRISTIANITY. 2II 
 
 ness, authenticity, and even inspiration, the value 
 of the manuscripts on which they rest, and of the 
 testimonies by which they are supported, all such 
 points lie open to inductive instruments of inquiry ; 
 and these are being more and more largely em- 
 ployed by the ablest theologians of the day. And 
 if this be true in the case of the Sacred Volume, 
 which in whatever measure conveys the "Word of 
 Grod, it is still more true in respect of doctrines^ 
 dependent for their authority on the practice and 
 common tradition of the Church. Here at least 
 the conclusions at issue, affecting the hereditary 
 standing of opinions and usages, are within the 
 range of historical inquiry ; that is, of a science 
 of observation, and are of a tentative character. 
 In its inferential portion, then, Theology nowhere Theology 
 
 a science 
 
 refuses to accept the ascending road of a patient of histori- 
 and rigorous induction. It stands on the same foot cism, 
 with other branches of historical criticism. And 
 to turn to the principles (for Christian dogmas 
 have been properly termed the principles of Theo- 
 logical Science on which, as upon axioms, the 
 cardinal truths of our Religion must finally turn), 
 are these fairly described as the products of un- 
 reasoning acceptance, even if they have some reaching 
 
 . . . . even to its 
 
 analoffv^ with the maxims or conventional ultimata primary 
 
 °-' truths. 
 
 • See Mr. Ffoulkes' remarks, Divisions of Christendom, p. 196. 
 
 " This is the view of Bacon, Augm. Sc, IX. i. " In rebus naturalibus 
 
 ipsa principia examini subjioiuntur aliter fit in religione ; ubi 
 
 et primas propositiones authypostatse sunt atque per se subsistentes ; 
 
 p 2 
 
212 _^^ OBJECTIONS fo THE [Lect. V. 
 
 of legal and political science ? As dependent on 
 facts received upon testimony and observation, 
 they stand on historical evidence open to inductive 
 inquiry. Christianity indeed, as an historic religion, 
 has in this respect specific claims upon a Positive 
 school of thought.^ Miraculous and portentous 
 events, it has never been denied, must be subjected 
 to this test, and stand or fall by its verdict, so 
 that the latest assaults upon these have been 
 directed to the end of discrediting any amount of 
 testimony which may be brought on their behalf. 
 The tendencies of human nature, it is held, in a 
 credulous age are more than sufficient to account 
 for the result.^ Nor when the facts of the Scrip- 
 tural narrative have been adequately attested, are 
 its doctrines altogether exempt from the processes 
 Employ- of a positive method. The analogy of Nature may 
 natural be employed in attacking or in defending them. 
 This line of argument may be applied within some 
 extent even to those conceptions of the Divine 
 
 et nirsus non regtintur ab ill4 ratione quse propositiones consequentes 
 deducit. Neque tamen hoc fit in religione solS,, sed etiam in aliis 
 scientiis, tarn gravioribus qu^m levioribus : ubi scilicet propositiones 
 primarise placita sunt, non posita; siquidem et in illis rationis usus 
 absolutus esse non potest." 
 
 ' Compare Prof. Westoott's remarks in Gont. Reu., VIII. 373. He 
 infers that there is no fundamental antagonism between the Positive 
 method and Christianity ; and that the foiTaer is no lasting rehgious 
 power, but a transitional preparation for a fuller faith. 
 
 ^ Bishop Butler's warning is here of importance :—" The credulity 
 of mankind is acknowledged : and the suspicions of mankind ought to 
 be acknowledged too; and their backwardness even to believe, and 
 greater still to practise what makes against their interest." 
 
Lect. v.] FHOGJiESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 213 
 
 Nature on which the Christian system rests. It 
 is sufficient to overthrow the objection, otherwise 
 a plausible one, that in accepting a scheme of 
 Revelation, we are but hallowing the creations 
 of the human intellect — notions which, being 
 limited, cannot but be inadequate and mislead- 
 ing ; thus, as it were, " sacrificing to our net, and 
 burning incense to our drag." Again the facts in and of 
 regard of human nature and of human history evidence, 
 which the system of Christianity assumes, and to 
 which it addresses itself, are capable of inde- 
 pendent proof or disproof; and this of an experi- 
 mental kind. For the field of experience is not 
 confined to material nature.^ The existence and 
 validity of conscience, the facts of its testimony 
 to spiritual truth, the existence and nature of the 
 spiritual element in man, its inherent instincts, its 
 
 unconscious but indubitable witness to the need of obser- 
 vation 
 
 ' See Dr. Mozley's powerful remarks in Gont. Rev., VII. 484. I 
 cannot refrain from quoting the following fine application of this mode 
 of reasoning : — " When, in reviewing the history of the past, you find 
 certain ideas arising in the first known period of the life of humanity 
 and co-existent with it : undergoing transformation from epoch to 
 epoch : but remaining always and everywhere essentially the same, and 
 inseparable from human society, gathering renewed strength from every 
 social upheaval destructive of the temporary ideas of a single people, or 
 a single epoch : when on interrogating your own conscience in supreme 
 moments of deep affection, sacred sorrow, or devotion to duty, you find 
 within your heaits an echo answering to the ideas transmitted by the 
 ages ; those ideas are true, are inn&te in humanity, and are destined to 
 accompany its onward progress. . . . God, immortality, duty, the 
 moral law sole sovereign . , ■ are ideas of this order." — Mazzini in Gtmt. 
 Rev., XX. 161. 
 
214 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE 
 
 [Lect. V. 
 
 and ex- 
 periment, 
 
 of Eevelation, and to the subject-matter of its 
 announcements; these cannot be characterized as 
 deductions from any a priori system, but rather 
 as matters of fact, and not of probability, of im- 
 mediate experience less remote, indeed, than the 
 proofs of external phenomena.^ Crucial instances 
 and a doctrine of averages are not excluded from 
 the treatment of them. Theology refuses certainly 
 with scientific sternness to admit " that Religion ^ 
 is to each individual according to the inward light 
 wherewith he is endowed," or that " it consists 
 essentially in an adaptation to the characters, ideas, 
 and institutions of those who profess it." Such 
 an assumption would be as fatal to its own validity 
 as the admission of a sophistical psychology has 
 shown itself in the history of philosophy. It 
 and verifi- confesscs, howcver, the constraint of adequate and 
 
 rntinn. ■»■ 
 
 properly unexceptionable generalizations ^ both as 
 regards individual experiences and general results. 
 Thus it yields an experimental explanation of some 
 
 1 So J. P. Eichter observes, Sdina (WorJcs, XXXIII. 223), that the 
 soul or mind is more evident and certain to me than my hody : for only 
 by it can I know and feel the body. A similar idea occurs in Augustin. 
 d. Oenesi ad lift., V. xvi., " God is nearer, more related to ns, and 
 therefore more easily known to us, than sensible, corporeal thinos." 
 
 " Buckle, Eist. Civ., III. 477. 
 
 ' In inductive logic every exception should admit of separate ex- 
 planation, and so " prove the rule." But " the natural-history-sciences," 
 remarks Dr. Eolleston, " do not usually admit of the strictness which 
 says that an exception, so far fr6m proving a rule, proves it to be a bad 
 one." — Address before the British Assoc, 1870, p. 14. The same limit 
 may accordingly be allowed as to generalizations of moral and spiritual 
 facts. 
 
 Of ex- 
 planation 
 
Lect. v.] progress of CHRISTIANITY. 2 1 5 
 
 ultimate questions to which Metaphysic from its 
 speculative character furnishes no abiding solution. 
 
 §3. Theology, as we have seen, has been at- The de- 
 tacked, and its progressive capacities disparaged, method 
 on the score of its being essentially deductive.^ 
 Such a criticism is, however, conceived in a narrow 
 spirit. So far as it is true, it proves nothing against 
 the general credibility of its doctrines, for it would 
 not be contended that there is anything in the 
 nature of demonstration, as such, vicious or erro- 
 neous. Deduction, as a mode of proof, where its 
 premisses are not hastily or arbitrarily assumed, 
 presents a scientific method more perfect, because ^^'JJ^^y^ 
 more truly natural than any other. "In itself *^'"'i'^'=- 
 
 •' _•' _ tive, 
 
 more perfect," says Hume, " it suits less the imper- 
 fection of human nature, and is hence a common 
 source of illusion and mistake."^ Accordingly, it 
 is very generally admitted that the progress of 
 Natural Science trends in this direction.^ But 
 
 ' Thus even Whewell, Bridgew. Tr., III. v. vi., and Indie, of a 
 Creator, p. 45, considers it a matter of fact that inductive philosophers 
 have readily recognized an intelligent Author of Nature, where deductive 
 reasoners have failed to do so. Mr. Lecky, S. E. M., II. 205, holds 
 that " the growth of an inductive and scientific spirit is invariably 
 hostile to theological interests." He afterwards apparently limits this 
 to Catholicism. 
 
 ^ Essays, IV. i. Liebig, in his criticism of Bacon, remarks : " In der 
 Naturwissenschaft ist alle Porschung deduktiv oder apriorisch: das 
 Experiment ist nur Hiilfsinittel fiir den Denkprocess." — ap. Lange, 
 Qesch. des Materialismus, p. 349. 
 
 * "A revolution," writes Mr. J. S. Mill, "is peaceably and pro- 
 gressively effecting itself in philosophy, the reverse of that to which 
 Bacon has attached his name. . . . Deduction is the great scientific 
 work of the present and of future ages." — Logic, I. 579-80. 
 
2i6 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 however this he, in deduction we recognize an in- 
 strument of science, an ideal type of knowledge, of 
 at least co-ordinate authority, sanctioned alike with 
 its rival method hy the constitution of the human 
 and more mind : a type antecedent perhaps in nature and 
 
 suited to ,.,. V -1 . T 1^11 
 
 the uiti- validity, and certainly more suited to thennal rela- 
 dition of tions of Knowledge and Being. Now, the suhject- 
 
 science. 
 
 matter of Revelation cannot but be final in its cha- 
 racter, incapable of subsequent variation or revision. 
 The gift of the "Father of lights," it "knows no 
 Theology variableness, neither shadow of turning." No suc- 
 
 necessanly _ "^ 
 
 final in its cesding announcements can from the nature of the 
 
 character. 
 
 case contradict the principles which it proclaims or 
 implies. Nor can the ultimate posture of things 
 fail to be in agreement with what has been thus 
 previously declared of the Divine administration. 
 The employment, therefore, of deduction in Reli- 
 gion, as a specific department of knowledge, is not 
 properly liable to exception, even were this, which 
 it is not, a solitary example of its application. 
 Now, the test of the deductive stage of a science 
 (and perhaps of all Science in the strict usage of 
 the term) is the capacity of inferring from primary 
 and fundamental conceptions a mediate system of 
 
 Sido^ouT *^^*^^" ^P^^® ^'^^ Numerical magnitude are at 
 to the gift once recognized as ideas of this fruitful character ' 
 
 of pnmary ° ".^^v^^. 
 
 in ui ions 1 g^ ggj^g ^gj,y ^y^ remarks on this subject in the Christian Se- 
 
 mernbrancer, No. CXXXI., p. 230 ; and compare Prof. Westcott, Cont. 
 
 Bev., VriT. 378, on the narrowness of the purely scientific view, 
 
 isolating and excluding Keligion. 
 
Lect. v.] FHOGRESS of CHRISTIANITY. 217 
 
 Such, also, are our notions of GrocJ and the human 
 Soul, when the further conception is added of an 
 accessory revelation. For it needed something 
 more than the mere action of man's mind to " hring 
 life and immortality to light." But the Christian 
 ideas of the character and work of the Divine Being 
 as the Father, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of mankind, 
 once given, (even as the chief links in the colliga- 
 tion of scientific notions have ever flashed into the f."^ ?°^- , 
 
 ligation of 
 
 minds of discoverers by a power confessedly beyond ideas, 
 the teaching of method, 'a vision and a faculty 
 divine'),^ the legitimate inferences are the property 
 of logical reflection, and can be tested by applica- 
 tion to the facts of man's nature and circumstances, 
 as the verifications of Natural Laws already sur- 
 mised are obtained from the inspection of instances.^ 
 This constitutes the appropriate evidence of truths 
 received at the first "neither of man, nor after 
 man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." 
 
 § 4. But Religion, it is said, impedes knowledge Objection 
 
 to tlie truth 
 of theology 
 ^ So Tennyson speaks of — as being 
 
 The fair new forms stationary 
 
 That float about the threshold of an age, actionarv 
 
 Like truths of science waiting to be caught. 
 
 ^ Hence Mr. Fairbairn remarks, Immortality of the Soul, Cant. Itev., 
 XX. 29, that " Religion, or rather its philosophic theology, may now 
 become a science as purely inductive as any of the physical sciences. 
 The now possible analysis of the faiths of the world, if accompanied by 
 a searching analysis of the faculties of the mind, will hand over to 
 thought our primary and necessary religious ideas, which, as ultimate 
 religious truths, constitute in their synthesis the foundation of the 
 universal and ideal Religion of man." 
 
2i8 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 by leading men to be satisfied witb an easy belief, 
 and by making inquiry a crime. All progress is 
 in this manner barred, and there arises a marked 
 and singular exception to the aggressive spirit of 
 all other branches of knowledge. An essential in- 
 compatibility emerges between a stationary faith 
 and a progressive philosophy. No doubt, we 
 reply, it is beyond human power to add to the 
 subject-matter of Revelation, though clearer light 
 may, in the course of ages, be thrown upon its 
 Reveia- obscurcr regions. It may, in this view, be com- 
 what sense pared to all great and organic truths, making up 
 the stock of true human knowledge, and consti- 
 tuting a deposit of belief handed on to succeeding 
 generations. Once discovered, these are not again 
 lost in the history of culture, but become the ina- 
 lienable heritage of the race in its progress to fuller 
 but admit- knowledge.^ But the application of Revealed Truth 
 indefinite to the circumstances of human history, its practical 
 tion developments in living actual results, its inherent 
 and unsuspected activity, its conformity with un- 
 known powers, and, it may be, principles of human 
 nature; these and other considerations supply a 
 field for the enlargement of our acquaintance with 
 the meaning and potential character of Christianity 
 
 * Maoaulay, indeed, Essays, pp. 536, 537, argues at length that we 
 have no security for the future against the prevalence of any theological 
 error that ha^ ever prevailed in time past. Such a view deprives Beligion 
 of all benefit from contemporary light in other subjects of thought, which, 
 if only free access he allowed, cannot fail to affect existing religious 
 opinion. 
 
Lect. v.] progress of CHRISTIANITY. 219 
 
 as a scheme of Revelation, whicli admits of endless 
 advance and indefinite augmentation. " It is not 
 at all incredible," writes Bishop Butler,* speaking 
 of the Holy Scriptures, "that a book which has been 
 so long in the possession of mankind should contain 
 many truths as yet undiscerned. For all the same 
 phenomena and the same faculties of investigation 
 from which such great discoveries in natural 
 knowledge have been made in the present and last 
 age, were equally in the possession of mankind 
 several thousand years before." So too, the ulti- =■"4 '^^"^^- 
 
 •' ' cation, 
 
 mate verification, and even, perhaps, enlargement ^^'^^^^,^ 
 of this scheme by the facts of Science (which also of know- 
 
 . . . . n ledge. 
 
 has its revelations for mankind,) is a contmually 
 growing addition to the bulk of human knowledge. 
 In this view Christianity must not be denied the 
 place even of a progressive science.^ The laws of 
 
 ^ Analogy, II. c. iii. " It is true, indeed," writes Mr. Rogers, Essays, 
 II. 335, " that theology cannot be said to admit of unlimited progress in 
 the same sense as chemistry, which may, for aught we know, treble or 
 quadruple its present accumulations, vast as they are, both in bulk and 
 importance. But even in theology, as deduced from the Scripture, 
 minute fragments of new truth or more exact adjustments of old truth 
 may be perpetually expected." Dean Stanley, Serm. on the Bible, p. 112, 
 writes, "Never before our own age has there been so keen, so dis- 
 criminating a perception of the peculiarities (if I may so speak), the 
 essential, innermost, distinguishing marks of the unapproached and 
 unapproachable Character described to us in the Four Gospels. We 
 have not aiTived at the end of it. Far from it. In the very fact of 
 the large traits of His life and character which still remain imexplored, 
 lies a boundless hope for the future." 
 
 " Compare Butler, Anal., II. iii. "As it is owned the whole scheme of 
 Scripture is not yet understood ; so if it ever comes to be understood, 
 ... it must be in the same way that natural knowledge is come at by 
 the continuance and progress of learning and of liberty," &c. See some 
 remarks by Dorner, Eist. Prat. Th., II. 4. 
 
220 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE 
 
 [Lect. V. 
 
 Chris- natural development apply to its enouncements 
 
 tianity, in /■ pit 
 
 what sense equally With those of other departments of truth. 
 
 I progreS' 
 sive 
 science, 
 
 and a 
 theory of 
 develop- 
 ment ad- 
 missible. 
 
 The realization of " things not seen as yet ;" 
 ulterior applications of acknowledged principles 
 and promises ; the laying aside inherited preposses- 
 sions antagonistic to the genius of our Eeligion, and 
 from which the truth alone, when more and more 
 reflected on and assimilated, can set man's spirit 
 free ;^ these are lands in the realm of Christian 
 thought perhaps yet unexplored, and, certainly, not 
 yet taken into possession. The gradual evolution 
 of fundamental ideas, the discovery of new rela- 
 tions involved in them, and new spheres in which 
 they are valid ; these are elements of progress in- 
 herent and permanent. Such an advance in no 
 way, indeed, impairs the final character of Christian 
 truth as Eevealed.'^ And yet in this manner, side 
 
 ' On admissible developments of doctrine in Christianity, see Archer 
 Butler {Letters, pp. 55-8). Dr. Newman's well-known " Theory " is an 
 attempted solution of an admitted fact. See also De Quincey's Essay on 
 Protestantism, at length. 
 
 ^ In quitting this part of the subject I am anxious once more to insist 
 on the necessity of a fixed and primitive standard of doctrine. It is one 
 thing to hold with Bp. Law (Theory of Eeligion, p. 145) that " though 
 the whole scheme of our redemption was completely delivered, and all 
 its essential parts recorded during the extraordinary assistance and 
 inspection of the Holy Ghost, and in some respects the primitive Chris- 
 tians seem to have the advantage of others ; .... yet it by no means 
 follows that the true genius, import, and extent of this revelation must 
 be as well understood by the generality of them as it could be by any 
 that came after them." It is another to proclaim with Channing 
 {Letter on Greeds) that " the wisest theologians are children who have 
 caught but faint glimpses of the religion ; who have taken but their first 
 lessons, and whose business it is to ' grow in the knowledge of Jesus 
 
Lect. v.] progress of CHRISTIANITY. 221 
 
 by side with physical studies and philosophical 
 deductions, Christian Science may still climb the 
 starry heights of Thought and Being, and draw 
 ever nearer the eternal springs of Intuitive Truth. 
 
 § 5 . When the wondrous fertility of the present Practical 
 era in discovery and information, physical and from the 
 historical, is taken into account, undoubtedly a natural 
 certain alarm lays hold of the religious mind, vritirrevf-^ 
 lest the advance of positive Knowledge, and our 
 familiarity with the facts of Nature, should leave 
 no room for the fears and hopes of a world unseen. 
 The very difficulties for which Religion undertakes 
 to account may, it seems, after all, disappear. 
 Explanations of Laws of Nature may take the place 
 of yearnings of heart and soul after the Ineffable 
 and the Divine. Dim, ambiguous issues may be 
 discounted for present certainty and immediate 
 enjoyment. May it not be wiser to enjoy the 
 pleasures of sense for a season ? Fatalism may be 
 found to extinguish the terrors of wounded con- 
 sciences ; and the utterances of Inspiration may be 
 analyzed into vulgar errors and unmeaning super- 
 Christ.' Need I say how hostile to this growth is 3. fixed creed, heyond 
 which we must never wander ? &c." It needs hardly to be pointed out that 
 the theory (of Hegel, Baur, &c.) which regards Christianity itself as a 
 development in the liistory of Universal Religion, a phase in the evolu- 
 tion of the Universal Oeist, and capable accordingly of a specific perfec- 
 tibility, is wholly beside our present point of view. So M. Comte looks 
 on the present form of Christianity as the last and highest type of 
 Monotheism, including within itself the characteristic elements of all 
 the preparatory developments, and due to them. 
 
222 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 andofma- gtitions. And certainly, if it can be shown that in 
 
 terialistic 
 
 opinions, the univcrse of things all is material,^ and bound 
 by Laws of Matter ; that Life itself is but a trick 
 of force ; that the realm of the Invisible, of Him 
 " Who dwelleth in the light to which no man can 
 approach, Whom no man hath seen, neither can 
 see," is baseless, fictitious, inappreciable; who shall 
 fathom the sadness which should brood over heart 
 and spirit,^ or fill the acbing void whicb nothing 
 
 Their can make good ? To leave this mortal scene, to 
 
 effect upon _ ° _ 
 
 a belief in shift this mortal coil, to "go we know not whither," 
 
 immor- 
 tality. 
 
 To lie in cold obstruction and to rot ; 
 
 this has assuredly been through, all ages the ruling 
 dread, the master-doubt which haunts the mind of 
 man.^ What, then, if the sum of all our knowing be 
 to find that he, also, is but the creature of a day, a 
 modification of undying matter, an emanation, the 
 sport of generative forces, a passing type, a sin- 
 
 ' Materialism really inverts the true order of existence. Compare 
 Plato, Legg., X. 888, 889. " II paratt bien," says Leibnitz of Spinoza, 
 " que I'toe ne lui dtoit qu'une modiflcation passagere : et lorsqu'il fait 
 semblant de la faire durable et mSme perp^tuelle, il y substitue I'idee 
 du corps, qui est une simple notion et non pas une cbose r&lle et 
 actuelle." — TModicee, p. 12, a most pregnant passage. 
 
 2 « PrStendent-ils nous avoir bien r^jouis de nous dire qu'ils tiennent 
 que notre §,me n'est qu'un pen de vent et de fumfe, et encore de nous le 
 dire d'un ton de voix fier et content ? Est-oe done une cbose & dire 
 gaiement ? Et n'est-oe pas une cbose II dire, au contraire, tristement 
 comme la cbose du monde la plus triste?" — Pascal, Pens., Art. I. 
 
 ' It was tbis whicb led Epicurus to say that " if fear of the Gods and 
 fear of death were not, we might well do without Physics : " and compare 
 the effect of the preaching of Paulinus on the Northumbrians in Bede, 
 
Lect. v.] FROGRESS of CHRISTIANITY. 223 
 
 gular variety, linked in the evolution of eternal 
 Nature, or " throned in the arms of an Almighty 
 Necessity " ? One fact, or set of facts, as yet 
 repels this monster generalization, which would 
 otherwise reduce all specific sciences to an absolute 
 uniformity, and confound them in one undistin- 
 guishable identity. One Science holds bravely on 
 through these surgings of opinion, and the buffets ™= ^°<=- 
 of an absolute criticism: the science of God and "»'«<! ""^th 
 
 religion, 
 
 the Soul, existences essentially different from all 
 material forms, and bound each to other by rela- 
 tions which give to Religion a meaning and a 
 name.^ Man, it has been finely said, " is alone in 
 nature, a world within a world ; " (and yet he is not 
 alone, for his Father is with him ;) " he alone of 
 
 H. E., 11. xiii. Hence the profound melancholy of classic Paganism on 
 this topic. 
 
 Soles occidere et redire possnnt. 
 Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux 
 Nox est perpetua una donnienda. — Catullus. 
 Damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunse. 
 
 Nos ubi decidimus 
 Quo pater .^neas, quo dives TuUus et Ancus, 
 Pulvis et umbra sumus. — Horace. 
 
 Such thoughts are but echoes of the old plaint, " One generation passeth 
 away and another generation cometh : hut the earth abideth for ever." 
 — Eccles. i. 4. " Unde enim metuunt mori et malunt in \\\& Krumna 
 vivere qukm earn morte finire nisi quia satis apparet quam natura 
 refugiat non esse?" — August., Civ. D., XI. xxvii. It may be hereafter 
 found to be true that a spiritual substance, by virtue of its essential 
 constitution, is immortal ; but at present our knowledge of the fact 
 must be inferential. See Mill, Examination, p. 211. 
 
 ' " Religet ergo nos religio uni Omnipotenti Deo." — August., Ver. 
 Bel., c. Iv. sub finem. " Si enim divina aut a Deo data est anima, sine 
 dubio datorem suum novit." — Tert., Test. Anim., ii. 
 
224 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 all the creatures communes with a Being out of 
 Nature; and he divides himself from all other 
 physical life by prophesying, in the face of univer- 
 sal visible decay, his own immortality."^ The 
 spirit of man, then, protests that it, too, is a fact, a 
 and satis- distinct consciousness ; it lives, and, living, exists 
 
 fied by the „ , . n i • n • i 
 
 Christian lor that eternity of which it alone is cognisant. 
 But, if the spiritual element in man be admitted, it 
 is, at least, not unreasonable that there should 
 exist a Revelation as the supply to its inevitable 
 questionings. Even on a theory of Evolution, 
 Christianity would have most claims to be heard.^ 
 For it satisfies to the full the native testimony of 
 the soul of man, rising, as it were, by a law of con- 
 tinuity from animalism to rationality, from the rule 
 of the senses to speculative intelligence, and /rom 
 self-seeking passion to self-sacrificing love. 
 
 The only § g, Thus a true vital antagonism between 
 
 vital an- •>_ _ . ° 
 
 tagonism Religion and Science, fatal to the permanence and 
 
 between f ^ i- 
 
 religion progress of the former, alone emerges where, and 
 so long as, the latter recognizing only the validity 
 
 ' Mozley, Bampt. L., p. 89. " Immortality is not a doctrine of the 
 schools, but a faith of humanity; not based on the metaphysic or 
 proved by the logic of a given system ; but the utterance of an instinct 
 common to the race which has made itself heard wherever man has 
 advanced from a religion of nature to a religion of faith. And there is 
 no article of belief he so reluctantly surrenders even to the demands of 
 system." — Fairbairn on Belief in Immortality. This proposition is 
 sustained by the learned author through a large and careful induction 
 of the most ancient religions of the earth. 
 
 ^ " Aux yeux de I'histoire," says a Positivist writer, " il n'y a point 
 de fausse religion : il n'y a que des religions incompletes, qui cheminent 
 dans les temps et so perfectionnent." — Littr^, Paroles, p. 19. 
 
 and science ' 
 
Lect. v.] FHOGRESS of CHRISTIANITY. 225 
 
 oi phenomena, excludes from these all operation of 
 man's spiritual part. In strictness, Science must 
 be held to comprehend the connection of all truths relative to 
 
 the exist- 
 
 certain from the laws and constitution of the ence of a 
 
 spiritual 
 
 human mmd. If, however, it is assumed that m principle 
 
 -T 1 1 • -1 ^ • ■ • • '" man. 
 
 Nature nothing exists but what is given m experi- 
 ence, represented in the forms of time and space 
 and force, under the relation of cause and effect ; 
 then, indeed, a principle which originates its own 
 acts, which prophesies its own responsibility, and 
 which explains, out of its own instinctive habit, its 
 existence and destiny, its relations to God and to 
 the universe in which it finds itself, can only be 
 something beside and beyond Nature, even while 
 related to it. It must, then, stand or fall at the 
 caprice of Nature's worshippers.^ But, happily 
 (apart from any verbal controversy), the existence 
 
 ' Compare Coleridge, A, B., pp. 48, 190. " The ways and pro- 
 ceedings of God with spirits are not included in Nature, that is, in 
 the laws pf heaven and earth." — ^Baoon, Confession of Faith, ( WorJcs, 
 VII. 221). In the magnificent passage in Professor Huxley's Lay 
 Sermons (p. 37), beginning, " That man, I think, has had a liberal 
 education," &c., there is a total omission of any spiritual element in 
 man capable of culture or expansion. On the importance of the spiri- 
 tual element in philosophy at the present time, see Janet, la Crise 
 Philosophigue, p. 7. 
 
 ^ Leibnitz tells a story of a learned chemist, who " avoit fait nne 
 prifere, qui pensa lui faire des affaires. Bile commenfoit: sancta 
 mater Natura, aeteme rerum ordo. Et elle aboutissoit k dii'e que cette 
 Nature lui devoit pardonner ses d^fauts, puisqu'elle en 6toit cause 
 elle-mSme." — Theod., p. 605. He seems to have been of the same mind 
 with Lear : 
 
 Thou, Nature, art my Goddess : to thy law 
 My services are bound. 
 
 Q 
 
226 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 of such a principle in man is capable, as with other 
 psychological facts,^ of experimental and scientific 
 This capa- proof. It is not simplv that, as has been said, if 
 scientific all argument is against it, all belief is for it. The 
 grounds of that belief are patent. It is based, not 
 alone on the precarious testimony of individual 
 consciousness, but on a comparison of such con- 
 sciousness, under many aspects ; on a wide gene- 
 ralization of varying ages and countries, and 
 a collection, practically unlimited, of particular 
 instances. The notion of spiritual action is 
 admitted by Mr. Darwin to be instinctive in man. 
 from testi- « The conception of the human soul," writes the 
 
 mony an- ^ 
 
 cient and historian of Primitive Culture,^ " is, as to its most 
 
 modern, _ . i i -i i <• 
 
 essential nature, continuous from the philosophy of 
 the savage thinker to that of the modern professor 
 of theology. Its definition has remained from the 
 first that of an animating, separable, surviving 
 entity, the vehicle of individual personal exist- 
 
 ' The fallacy met with in the writings of Mr. Buckle, as well as of 
 the more purely Positivist school, is to assume that psychology is a 
 branch of metaphysic; that metaphysic does not study phenomena; 
 and that its object-matter is the individual mind. The impossibility 
 is evident of accounting for the ideas of God and of man's personality on 
 purely materialistic principles. On the Positivist notions of the soul, 
 comp. Janet, La Orise Phil., p. 115. 
 
 ' Tylor, I. 453. " The minimum definition of religion is the belief 
 in spiritual beings."— I. 383. In the shadow, pulse, heart, breath, he 
 finds in the rudest tribes a generally apprehended representation or 
 suggestion of the soul. On the mythology of the Soul (a distinct 
 line of proof), see Max Miiller on the Philosophy of Mythology 
 {Oont. Rev., XIX. 108), On the Hebrew and Indo-Germanio appella- 
 tions of man and spirit, compare Delitzsch, Biblical Psychology, pp. 82, 
 143, E. T. 
 
Lect. v.] progress of CHRISTIANITY. 22/ 
 
 ence." The highest efforts of heathen philosophy 
 in East and West culminated in a recognition of 
 its authority and power, its sole or corporate 
 immortality.' Moreover, the reality of the personal f °™atroii 
 affections in man, which are the groundwork of°fJ^"'"^" 
 
 ' o nature, 
 
 most of his acts, and of all which constitutes his 
 true nobility, has never been denied. Yet, under 
 a pure Naturalism, excluding all recognition of a 
 spiritual life, whatever may be demonstrated as to 
 their origin, these must appear both meaningless 
 and void. Their earnestness and simple trust, 
 their rich store of high and unselfish feeling, 
 become fantastic and absurd.^ The same, also, is 
 
 ' It has teen maintained, I am aware, that a belief in God is com- 
 patible with an ignorance of the soul's immortality ; aud that this was 
 the state of heathen opinion at the time of the coming of Christ (see 
 Dean Merivale, Lectt., p. 24. At p. 54 he writes, " Belief in a future 
 state is the touchstone of all spiritual conceptions of human nature.") 
 I do not think this has yet been proved. Plutarch's treatise, Non 
 posse suave v. sec. Epic, should be consulted on the differences of opi- 
 nion among the Stoics. See Dollinger, Oentile and Jew, I. 353. It is 
 quite possible, however, for ingenious disputants in all ages to argue 
 against the instincts of common sense. Cicero (T^usc. Disp., I. xvi., 
 xviii., xxxi.) writes : " Sed ut Decs esse naturS opinamur, qualesque 
 sint, ratione cognoscimus : sic permanere animos arbitramur consensu 
 nationum omnium ; qua in sede maneant, qualesque sint ratione dis- 
 cendum est." Herodotus (II. 123) makes it an Egyptian discovery : 
 elsewhere he admits it to have been a Teutonic conception (IV. 94). 
 It is no objection that this conviction is a gradual one (see Pairbairn, 
 u. s. C B., XX. 374, ff.), any more than that the belief in a God has 
 found recusants. See Harless, Christian Ethics, p. 42, B. T. 
 
 ^ This line of argument against all systems tending to Atheism is 
 indicated by Shaftesbury in his Enquiry concerning Virtue (^Worhs, 
 II. 69). The same topic is powerfully handled by Mr. Hutton, Essays^ 
 I. 19. " A fully reaUzed Atheism will undermine the worth of per- 
 sonal human affections ; not merely indirectly by losing sight of immor- 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 true of the religious sentiment in man, of which, it 
 cannot be doubted, his nature is capable when 
 developed by culture and improvement. Thus 
 from in- religious biography, exhibiting in various ages of 
 analysis. Christianity and at different eras of civilization 
 the same characteristic features and common results, 
 pointing accordingly to a common origin, furnishes 
 an argument of a strictly inductive kind for the 
 determination of a spiritual element in human 
 nature correspondent to influences of the Divine 
 Spirit. Hence that communion of man with his 
 Its results. Maker, " the Father of Spirits," whereof he alone 
 is capable, an excellency whereby he is distin- 
 guished from the beasts that perish,^ and is crowned 
 with glory and worship. 
 
 Ideo venerabile soli 
 Sortiti ingenium divinormn que capaces. 
 
 From that fountain flow his highest and purest, 
 inspirations ; but no less those contradictions and 
 warrings of counter-impulses, the travail and the 
 toil of yearning souls, conscious of Heaven, yet 
 
 tality, but still more by cutting off the chief spring of their spiritual life. 
 If that fine wide-spreading network, hidden from all human eyes, the 
 •winding crossing blending diverging threads of human affection, which 
 hold together human society, be indeed conceived as issuing every- 
 where out of everlasting night; as spun, snapped asunder, and again 
 repaired by the mere automatic operation of Nature's unconscious and 
 impersonal energy ; the personal affections lose quite the richest and 
 most permanent of the conscious influences at least, which minister to 
 their life and growth." 
 
 ' Compare Laotant. (J)iv. Inst., III. x.). Thus man, created in the 
 likeness of God, must be essentially a spirit (John iv. 24). Gregory 
 
Lect. v.] progress of CHRISTIANITY. 229 
 
 borne down to earth, unresting/ unsatisfied while 
 
 still the slaves of sense. But with the reality of itsconnec- 
 
 tion with 
 
 the spiritual principle in man is inseparably con- the exist- 
 nected the presence of a will which, by its acts, in man, 
 announces its own personality and individual being. 
 As it is impossible to sever in conception the 
 notions of spirit and will, so practically it is by 
 the character of the will developed in act that the 
 spirit itself is differentiated. Thus is it that we 
 know " what manner of spirit we are of." It is 
 for this reason probably that in Holy Scripture^ 
 the term itself, as a power or property seated in the 
 human soul, never stands singly, but is always 
 specified. It is the " spirit of meekness," the "spirit 
 of knowledge," the " spirit of fear," the " spirit of 
 love," and the like. The recognition of this prin- 
 ciple from first to last, in the Old as in the New 
 Testament, gives unity and consistency to Revela- 
 
 of Nyssa (ap. Delitzscli, p. 197) mates use of the image of a piece of 
 glass, which, although in very diminished proportion, reflects the entire 
 form of the snn, to represent how out of the limited nature of man's 
 spirit shine forth the copies of the inexpressible attributes of the 
 Godhead. Thus Goethe : 
 
 War' nioht das Auge sonnenhaft 
 Wie konnten wir das Licht erblicken ? 
 
 Lebt' nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft 
 Wie konnte uns das Gottliches entziicken ? 
 
 See Sir W. Hamilton, Disc, p. 19. 
 
 ' " Quia fecisti nos ad Te, Domine, inquietum est cor nostrum, donee 
 requiescat in Te." — August., Gorif., sub init. 
 
 " This remark is made by Coleridge, A. if., p. 42. Compare the 
 teaching of the Homily for Whitsunday, Pt. I., sub fin. 
 
230 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 tion.^ The proof, then, of our spiritual nature, 
 
 together with the admission of this element in man, 
 
 may be regarded as the one thing vital to all 
 
 and reia- Spiritual religion. It alone suffices to account for 
 
 perma- the existence, the office, and the success of Chris- 
 
 nence of . . r\ • ^• • • i -i A^ 
 
 Chris- tianity. Un its reality as a principle, and on the 
 'anity, unquestionable character of its testimony rest the 
 bases of our religion, as an enduring and undying 
 faith. Yet now we are called on to believe that it 
 is the function of Knowledge (which is, however, 
 the true image^ and mirror of Being) to extinguish 
 the notion of such a spiritual principle in man, and 
 to abolish all faith in the reality and power of its 
 utterances. This, it seems, is to be the latest work 
 of positive Science, its closing service to mankind, 
 the crowning effort of the progress and culture of 
 natural studies. 
 Science s 7. But it is Said that - in the advance of 
 
 asserted to ^ 
 
 be destruc- knowledge we are fast losing the elementary prin- 
 
 reiigion ciples, both of divine worship and of religious 
 
 belief. In surprise, if not in fear, according to the 
 
 old observation of Aristotle^ (or, more strictly, of 
 
 ^ " I stand 'before-myself as before a riddle : whose key is not to be 
 found in the human self-consciousness, but is given to it by God in the 
 word of revelation." — Harless, Olaristian Ethics, p. 50. 
 
 ^ " Soientia essentise imago." — Bacon, N. 0., Aph. cxx. 
 
 ' Aia yap t6 Bavfid^eiv oi av6pamoi Km vvv kol to irparov ^p^avTO 
 <f)L\oa-o<j>e'iv' ... 6 8* airopav kol Qdvp^a^cav o'Urai ayvoeiv' bio Koi 
 <l}iX6fw6os 6 (j)iK6a-o<f)6s iras ia-riu. — Arist., Metaph., I. ii, MaXa <^tXo- 
 a-6(pov TOVTO t6 7rd6os to Bavjia^fiv' ov yap aWrj dp^rj (j}i\oaro(j}ias ^ 
 avrrj. — Plato, Themt., 155. D. Compare Mr. Morell, Phil, of Meligion, 
 p. 202, and Coleridge, A. B., p. 178. Sir W. Hamilton, Lect., I. 37, 
 
Lect. v.] progress of CHRISTIANITY. 231 
 
 Plato), all Philosophy and all Eeligion found their 
 beginning; in the felt need, that is, of a Being 
 to still the alarms and satisfy the curiosity of the 
 human mind. " Physical wonder," says a recent 
 writer,^ " is no doubt an introduction to the belief in as extin- 
 
 1 T 1 • • 1 guishing 
 
 the supernatural. It tends to raise in the mind a the senti- 
 larger idea of possibility ; the notion of the potential awe and 
 as distinguished from what is actual, the sense of tion. 
 the unknown." But, at the present time, the 
 grounds, it is argued, of physical wonder are dis- 
 appearing. Under a rigid, unfailing uniformity, 
 each event can be assigned to its appropriate 
 antecedent. 
 
 The world's young ignorance is o'er, 
 As Science forging day by day 
 Her close-linked chain withdraws 
 The once-felt touches of God's hand 
 For dumb organic laws. 
 
 There is further to be considered the ordinary effect 
 of custom and familiarity upon the mind. Repe- 
 tition, it has been often observed, diminishes 
 wonder, and in matters of a moral and religious 
 kind sensibly reduces the feeling of awe. It is tws 
 
 . doubtful. 
 
 true, it must be admitted, that the fact of not feel- 
 ing surprise at a phenomenon which really remains 
 
 comments on the tendency of physical studies to extinguish religious 
 adoration by mechanical views of Nature. He has, indeed, been 
 powerfully combated by Mr. Mill (^Exajn,., p. 544), who seeks to 
 strengthen himself by the imited testimony of two eminently religious 
 minds, Wordsworth and Faraday. Compare Mr. Darwin (Descent of 
 Man, I. 68). 
 
 ' Dr. Mozlcy, Bamjjt. Led., p. 76. 
 
232 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 unexplained, is no adequate reason for not seeking 
 to assign the ultimate causes of its existence, even 
 though we are thus led to the confines of super- 
 natural agency. It is, however, unfortunately a 
 characteristic of the present era of thought, that an 
 ascertainment of facts or of a law combining or 
 regulating facts is held sufficient without proceed- 
 ing to any further explanation of them. Thus an 
 indifference on the part of mankind at large, or of 
 our own generation, towards a religious view of 
 Nature is assumed ; it is seldom confirmed, and is 
 certainly not justified. But it is urged that now 
 Substitu- admiration of the vastness and simplicity of Natural 
 
 tion of ... 
 
 Laws of Laws may well take the place of childlike surprise 
 
 Nature for '' , , ^ . . ^ 
 
 a personal and immature suppositions, and that it is the only 
 sentiment worthy of the philosophical elevation of 
 our time. No doubt, there is a wonder which is 
 the legitimate offspring of scientific knowledge.^ 
 But there is no admiration in it ; enthusiasm does 
 not spring from any intellectual deductions. Ad- 
 miration cannot really be felt in respect of things, 
 or any arrangement of things. It has regard only 
 of persons ; it is the tribute of mind to mind.** 
 
 Ovhiv ctv 6av^d<r€cev ovrcos dvfjp yeo/ieTptKo?, ms el yivoiro ri 
 Sidiierpos fieTprirq. — Arist., Metaph., I. ii. " Admiration," says Mr. 
 Mill, " is a different thing from wonder, and is often at its greatest 
 height when the strangeness which is a necessary condition of wonder, 
 has died away." 
 
 ^ " Man," says Carlyle, " cannot hnow, unless he can worship in some 
 way." " A man," writes Mr. Pioton, " cannot worship a thing, however 
 hig." — New Theories and Old Faith, p. 45. The same writer elo- 
 
Lect. v.] FHOGRESS of CHRISTIANITY. 233 
 
 And thus if God be excluded from the universe its conse- 
 quences. 
 which He has framed, to make room for Law ; and 
 
 if man, through the negation of will and spirit, be 
 degraded to the scale of a mere chattel, and bonds- 
 man to the order of Nature ; admiration of the 
 wisdom and beauty of creation, together with fear 
 (now denounced as Fetishism) of the power and 
 justice of the Creator, are, it may be admitted, out 
 of place.* Now, in proportion to our increasing 
 knowledge of the Laws of Nature, our old supersti- 
 tions, it is said, in regard to the Author and so- 
 called Administrator of the Universe must totally 
 change. For if all Religion reposes ultimately on Subversive 
 fear,^ and is most marked in those climes and Religion, 
 
 quently remarks (p. 52), " When once man conld so far stand distinct 
 from and over against nature as to feel wonder, the life of contemplation 
 was begun, and at least the germ of God-consoiousness was formed. 
 Per the sense of wonder involves the realization of a disturbed unity 
 which the soul struggles to restore. And here we have the beginnings 
 both of Science and Religion, which like highly differentiated organs in 
 the mature animal may very well have been indistinguishable in their 
 germs. The sense of wonder is closely akin to that of awe, and easily 
 suggests some unknown power." 
 
 ' Mr. Hutton, Essays, I. 16, has some profound remarks on this great 
 moral want in Atheism. " If you do not believe that ' Good ' is living 
 and free — that it is a person — you cannot believe that it will find you 
 out ; and you may be truly as incompetent to find it out as to leave the 
 earth for the sun." 
 
 '^ Mr. Buckle, Hist. Civ., II. 171. "The origin of veneration is 
 wonder and fear. These two passions, either alone or combined, are the 
 ordinary source of veneration; and the way in which they arise is 
 obvious. We wonder because we are ignorant ; and we fear because we 
 are weak." — lb., III. 272. " The whole system of the theologians reposes 
 upon fear, and upon fear of the worst kind," &o. He thus repeats the 
 notions of Hume (Natural Hist, of Eeligion, § vi. &o.). Shaftesbury 
 ( Works, III. 36) more truly observes, " We can admire nothing pro- 
 
234 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 countries where the grandeur of natural pheno- 
 mena and the suddenness of physical calamities 
 overpower the resources of man ; let this fear be 
 taken away, and the pillars of all dogmatic beliefs, 
 the slow and laboured inventions of a cowed and 
 panic-stricken spirit, will crumble into dust. Such 
 but neither jg \)qjq ifng of proof from which it is inferred that 
 
 necessary ■"■ 
 
 as the human race advances in culture ; as we 
 mount the scale of causes which link creation by a 
 golden chain with the throne of God ^ and " climb 
 up into Heaven ;" no godly fear, no inbred sense of 
 nor pro- awc, is to hold the spirit captive when, covered with 
 the shadow of His glory, we draw near the ante- 
 
 foundly without a certain religious veneration, and because this borders 
 so much on fear, and raises a certain tremor or horror of like appear- 
 ance, 'tis easy to give that turn to the affection, and represent all 
 enthusiasm and religious extasy as the product or mere effect of fear. 
 Primus in orbe Deos fecit Timor. But the original passion, as appears 
 plainly, is of another kind," &c. Compare Bacon, Augm. Sc, II. xiii., 
 de panicis terroribus, and Lucretius I. 102-27. Mr. Lecky {H. E. M., 
 I. 149) remarks, "In a few minds the contemplation of the sublime 
 order of Nature produces a reverential feeling ; but to the great majority 
 of mankind it is an incontestable though mournful fact, that the dis- 
 covery of controlling and unchanging Law deprives phenomena of their 
 moral significance, and nearly all the social and political spheres in 
 which reverence was fostered have passed away." The same writer 
 (Hist. Eat., 1. 285) has some exquisite observations on the manner in 
 which " the sense of beauty (and growth of art) has gradually encroached 
 upon and absorbed the feeling of reverence." ..." Religious ideas," he 
 adds, " die like the sun ; their last rays, possessing little heat, are ex- 
 pended in creating beauty." 
 
 ' " Catena ilia Homeri decantata (causarum scilicet naturalium ad 
 pedem solii Jovis fixa memorabatur : neque quisquam Metaphysicam et 
 quae in natura astema et immobilia sunt tractavit atque animum a fluxu 
 rerum paulisper abduxit qui non simul in Theologiam Naturalem 
 inciderit ; adeo paratus et propinquus est transitus a vertice ilia pyra- 
 midis ad Divina." — Bacon, Works, I. 525. 
 
Lect. v.] FROGHESS of CHRISTIANITY. 235 
 
 chambers of Deity, and lift " the transparent veil 
 which dimly hides the shrine of an Eternal Being." 
 Well may we agree with a writer who, on his 
 part, also has left his mark on the thought of the 
 time,' when he holds that " the character of our 
 troublous era lies even in this; that man has for 
 ever cast away fear, which is the lower, but has 
 not yet risen into perennial reverence, which is 
 his higher and highest attribute." To degrade 
 Almighty God to the level of His works by making 
 them the substitute for an unknown, unappreciable 
 principle ; to confound Nature and the laws and 
 powers of Matter with their Author and Preserver, 
 this is rather to be accounted fetishism, however 
 latent, or in whatever manner modified by the Unsuitable 
 
 . , - , to the in- 
 
 temper of the time. For does not any such theory teiiectuai 
 change the truth of Grod into a lie, worshipping of the age. 
 and serving the creature more than the Creator, 
 Who " is blessed for ever " ? ^ Where, however, we 
 may reasonably inquire, is the degradation to the 
 nobility of man, when he lays his hand upon his 
 mouth in the presence of his Maker and Preserver, 
 Who " maketh the winds His angels, and the 
 flaming fire His minister ;" and though he confess 
 
 ' Carlyle, Sartor Sesartus, p. 173, and Miscell. I. 19. We are, in 
 fact, in that state of things described by Shakspeare, where he says, 
 " We have our philosophical persons, to make modem and familiar 
 things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of 
 terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should 
 submit ourselves to an unknown fear." — All's Well, act ii. so. 3. 
 
 » Eom. i. 25. 
 
236 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 Himself but dust and ashes ? Reverence, we may 
 rest assured, will never be analyzed into supersti- 
 tion ; nor devotion, the instinctive tribute of man's 
 spirit, into ignorant alarm.^ 
 Religion § 8. In determining, then, the relative position of 
 dent of Theology and Science, it must not be forgotten that 
 
 advance in , „ i • i -r-i t • • t 
 
 know- the causes tor wnicn Iteligion exists, are not such 
 as to depend on any advance in mere knowledge. 
 The difficulties for which it accounts are such as 
 no perfection of Science can hope to remove. All 
 existing religions have been denominated as " so 
 many modes of manifestation of the unknowable." 
 If so, they must, at least, teach something about 
 Grod and His dealings with mankind. But, in 
 what way shall Science look to satisfy the strivings 
 of man's spirit, or suppress his sense of sin ? 
 When it shall have substituted for conscience and 
 remorse Necessity and Law, will it, indeed, have 
 found the " balm in Grilead " which may " minister 
 to the mind diseased " ? But, if the need of a 
 Religion to tranquillize the throes of human nature 
 be admitted, an argument for its permanence will 
 appear in the very inability of all foregone philo- 
 Attempts sophy to frame one. It is not that the experiment 
 ofphiio- has not been tried, but that it has always failed. 
 
 sophy to T^ „ p, . . ™ , 
 
 usurp its If Stoicism,^ for example, with its grand and lofty 
 
 functions, 
 
 ' This innate feeling of reverence connected with dependence seems 
 admitted even by Dr. Strauss in his MUr und Neuer Glaube, p. 146. 
 
 " Mr. Lecky, in his History of European Morals, I. 186-235, has 
 touched the subject of Stoicism with a masterly, if with a partial, hand. 
 
Lect. v.] FjROGHESS of CHRISTIANITY. 237 
 
 ideal of following Grod and becoming godlike, its 
 unselfish enthusiasm — 
 
 Non sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo, 
 
 its perfect severance of virtue from expediency, its ^- s-_ °^ 
 subjugation of the affections to reason, its recogni- 
 tion of an overruling Providence, and of a system 
 of probation, its high sense of the native capacities 
 of man and the power of his will, of the duty of 
 self-scrutiny and of mental purity ; if a system of 
 morals and thought, thus grandly framed, failed in 
 practice through its want of acquaintance with 
 that nature which it strove to elevate, from its 
 suppression of its emotions, from its repression of 
 its desires, from its own austerity and hardness, 
 from its virtual disbelief in a future life ; what 
 creed of mortal mould may look to take its place ? 
 Neo-Platonism, Eclecticism, tried and failed.^ Are o/Neo- 
 
 Platonism. 
 
 we now to look to the halting atheism of a nega- 
 tive belief, the " Catholicism without Christianity " 
 of a Positivist Church? Inherent diversities ofofPositiv- 
 opinion ; want of practical acquaintance with the 
 needs of man's soul and with its boundless capaci- 
 ties of emotion and idealization ; the impossibility 
 of building faith upon a speculative foundation ; 
 
 It had, doubtless, its darker side, over wliioli he casts a veil, in its 
 paederasty, tendency to suicide, &g. Comp; Dollinger, G. a. Jew, I. 357, 
 and for its later development, II. 124-7. " Never," he admits, " was 
 there a system of morality v?hich found so many and such striking 
 ' echoes in Christianity as does that of Epictetus." 
 
 ' Compare Dean Merivale, Lectt., p. 119 ; and Pressens^ P. II. torn. ii. 
 p. 60. Eclecticism in morals is represented by Plutarch. 
 
238 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 defect of imagination and constructive power to 
 Their frame any acceptable scheme of worship ; these 
 and other hindrances have continually foiled philo- 
 sophers when charged with the task of putting 
 together a new coherent and purely rational re- 
 ligion.^ The prospect thus opened should not be 
 disregarded by those thinkers who, while profess- 
 ing themselves favourable to Christianity as a 
 type of religion, as a moral ideal, or even as an 
 abstract rule of faith ; nevertheless, in handling it, 
 leave no standing-ground between the admission 
 of critical canons fatal to all genuine belief, or a 
 return to medieval dogmatism. It is thus held 
 Unfair not Unfair to attack Christianity at large, or some 
 on the particular article which the Church has undi voce 
 doTtrines declared to be a Christian doctrine, by arguments 
 tianity. which, if valid, are valid against all teaching of 
 Revealed Truth, - Some postulates there must be 
 in all systems of religious belief, as the basis of 
 any argument in support of the faith declared. 
 "Let him," it has been said, not unreasonably, 
 "who is too high-minded to beg his ground, and 
 will take it by a strong hand ; let him fight it out 
 with the Atheist or the Manichean, but not stoop 
 
 ' See Saisset, Essais, pp. 24, 25, and some good remarks by the 
 author of Scce Soma, p. 99 : " If philosophy undertakes to solve the 
 same problem, what is its method ? By what means does it hope to 
 awaken good impulses in hearts that were before enslaved to bad ones ? 
 .... The truth is that philosophy has no instruments that it can 
 use for this purpose." Schleiermacher also (^Ohristlicher Qlaube) insists 
 on this sfime fact. 
 
Lect. v.] progress of CHRISTIANITY. 239 
 
 to pick up their arrows, and then run away to dis- 
 charge them at Christianity or the Church." ^ 
 
 § 9. An age of admitted scepticism has not, as scepticism 
 yet, proved itself either fatal or, perhaps, even of inquiry 
 dangerous to the truth of Christianity: By Gribbon midabie to 
 it was thought to have been really favourable to ^^ '^°"' 
 the progress of religion, that is, of the Christian 
 religion. It is the modern fashion to predict that 
 it will be its bane. But it may be held for certain, 
 looking to past experience, that a sceptical spirit 
 must sooner or later give way to a state of things 
 in which the yearning after religious belief will 
 vastly predominate. For scepticism, though just ^ 
 within just limits, being the natural resort of the 
 intellect when overweighted by authority, and 
 by no means, therefore, a necessary alien from the 
 household of faith ; yet represents, at most, but being 
 the negation of implicit belief or of credulity ; 
 and is, therefore, in itself, no more than a definite 
 stage, a passing phase in the process of intellectual 
 
 > Coleridge, A. B., p. 221. 
 
 ^ Thus scepticism, considered as a means of arriving at truth, may 
 be coeval with belief itself. For " les conditions de la civilisation," 
 says M. Benan, " sont comme celles d'un probleme a donn&s limit^es.'' 
 " Had religion," he justly adds, " been a simple superstition, like astro- 
 logy, science would long since have swept it away." — Questions Con- 
 temporaines. On the limits of scepticism Leibnitz observes, "il ne 
 faut point douter pour douter ; il faut que les doutes nous servent de 
 planche pour parvenir h la v&it6. II ne faut point qu'on puisse re- 
 procher aux vrais philosophes ce que le fameux Casaubon r^pondit sL 
 ceux qui lui montrSrent la Salle de la Sorbonne, et lui dirent qu'on y 
 avoit dispute durant quelques si^cles; 'Qu'y a-t-on conclu'? leur 
 dit-il." 
 
240 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 growth.' True scepticism is often made to do 
 
 service for positive unbelief, and more especially 
 
 and pre- of theological postiilates. But this is to con- 
 
 parative. n , •!/•/> i • i e 
 
 round cause with eiiect, a logical aspect or 
 Thought in general with its application to the 
 results of a particular inquiry. If, however, 
 scepticism can issue only in chronic incredulity, 
 the prospect, blank indeed for Eeligion, whose very 
 soul is faith, might prove equally so for all cer- 
 Negation taiutv whatsoevcr. There is a faith which pre- 
 
 of behef '' _ _ -^ 
 
 entails the ccdes and lies at the root of all scientific proof. 
 
 eclipse of _ _ . -^ _ 
 
 all know- There is a faith which belongs equally to its 
 most cherished triumphs. "We call its discoveries 
 sublime; but the sublimity belongs not to that 
 which they reveal, but to that which they sug- 
 gest." ^ And thus the mind of man, the consum- 
 mate outcome of a practically infinite evolution, 
 would, if deprived of faith, be reduced to the con- 
 dition of an organ destitute of all objective en- 
 vironment or appropriate function. Such a theory 
 of things is simply inconceivable and disastrous. 
 Perilous times may come, as ere now they have 
 
 ' " Though there are many who describe our own time as an un- 
 believing time, it is by no means sure that posterity will accept the 
 verdict. No doubt it is a sceptical and critical age, but then scep- 
 ticism and criticism are the very conditions for the attainment of 
 reasonable belief." — Tyler, Hist. Prim. C, I. 253. 
 
 ^ Prof. Gold-vsnn Smith, Lectt., p. 48. He adds : " and that which 
 they suggest is that through this matei-ial glory and beauty, of which 
 we see a little and imagine more, there speaks to us a Being Whose 
 nature is akin to ours, and Who has made our hearts capable of such 
 converse." 
 
Lect. v.] FROGRESS of CHRISTIANITY. 241 
 
 cast a cold shade upon the enthusiasm of religion 
 and the fortunes of mankind. We may " fear as 
 we enter into the cloud," and " the love of many 
 may wax cold." But dark, indeed, must be the 
 prospect which shuts out altogether and always 
 from the soul of man its faith in Grod, in the 
 reality of its own instincts, in its personal immor- 
 tality. Such a view of human life and of the 
 universe is mournful, from its very hopelessness, 
 beyond recall, beyond redress.^ But sometimes it 
 shows darkest the nearest before dawn ; and there 
 is good cause to ask whether it be not so now.^ 
 
 § 10. For Eeligion in some shape is a neces- Forecast 
 sity, not a weakness, of the heart. Philosophically reconciiia- 
 viewed, it supplies in Revelation a remedy for that revelation 
 confession of Nescience which constitutes the sum science., 
 of Natural Eeligion. In the highest stage of 
 
 ' This has beeu thus exquisitely expressed : — 
 
 Mourn not for them that mourn 
 For sin's keen arrow with its rankling smart. 
 God's hand will bind again what He hath torn. 
 
 He heals the broken heart. 
 
 But weep for him whose eye 
 Sees in the midnight skies a starry dome 
 Thick sown with worlds that whirl and hurry by, 
 
 Yet give the heart no home : 
 
 Who marks through earth and space 
 A strange dumb pageant pass before a vacant shrine. 
 And feels within his inmost soul a place 
 
 Unfilled by the Divine. 
 
 D. Greenwell, Carmina Crucis. 
 
 ' Compare Luther, Ausleg. der Genesis, c. xliv. 17 (ap. Bunsen, 
 Ood in Hist, HI. 240) ; and Ozanam {Civilis., I. 31), who.say3 rheto- 
 rically, " Providence loves such surprises." 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE 
 
 [Lect. V. 
 
 Co-exist- 
 ence of 
 Chris- 
 tianity 
 with ad- 
 vancing 
 civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 civilization the purest form must ultimately prevail. 
 Such we hold, and even by opponents has been 
 admitted, to be the faith of Jesus Christ.^ It is 
 not here contended that the influences of civiliza- 
 tion and of Christianity are, in fact, identical. Each 
 may owe much to the other : and both something 
 to the mutual alliance of their individual force. 
 It may be that each moves in a distinct sphere, 
 with separate action, and to appearance separate 
 interests. But if it be urged that in the admitted 
 advance of human affairs intellectual enlightenment 
 is the cause. Protestantism or any other form of 
 Christian truth but an effect ; it is enough to 
 reply, that thus at least they co-exist ; the religion 
 of Christ in its purest form is the religion of civi- 
 lization. Nor, in saying this, do we undervalue 
 the benefits of Knowledge and Science as true 
 
 ' " Le monde sera ^ternellement religieux ; et le Christianisme dans 
 un sens large est le dernier mot de la religion." — Eenan, u. s. " Deism," 
 he adds, " cannot be the final term of religion ; for it is not truly a 
 religion at all : it is a scientific conclusion." The following sentences, 
 ■written nearly half a century since, are now doubly interesting : — " We 
 confess, the present aspect of spiritual Europe might fill a melancholic 
 observer with doubt and foreboding. It is mournful to see so many 
 minds, noble, tender, and high-aspiring, deserted of that religious 
 light which once guided all such : standing sorrowful on the scene of 
 past convulsions and controversies, as on a scene blackened and burnt 
 up with fire : mourning in the darkness because there is desolation, and 
 no home for the soul ; or, what is worse, pitching tents among the 
 ashes, and kindling weak, «arthly lamps, which we are to take for 
 stars. This darkness is hit transitory obscuration : these ashes are the 
 soil of future herbage and richer harvests. Religion, Poetry is not 
 dead; it will never die. Its dwelling and birth-place is in the soul 
 of man, and it is eternal as the being of man." — Carlyle, Miscell., I. 72. 
 
Lect. v.] progress of CHRISTIANITY. 243 
 
 elements of progress; or seek to stem and turn 
 aside the tide of advancing culture. It is folly 
 even to wish to reverse a movement in human 
 affairs which is definite and uniform in operation. 
 It is a question of fact whether Christianity has 
 not or is not moved, along with it, mingling with 
 its advance, and assimilating its effects. "It is 
 the peculiarity of the religion of the Bible," it 
 has been well said, " that whatever be the aspect of 
 the past, and of the present ; in spite of all glories 
 of what we look back to, and all discouragements 
 in what we see now, it ever claims the future for 
 its own." ^ 
 
 S II. It is the truer, as it is the heartier, faith Meeting- 
 
 3 ' points of 
 
 to hold that, in the golden age which Science now knowledge 
 
 ' ° ° and reli- 
 
 ranks as to come, and not as gone. Knowledge and gion. 
 Religion must ultimately coalesce and coincide. 
 The one is the science of the visible ; the other of 
 that which, though invisible, is no less real, no less 
 truly a phase of Truth and Being. But if both 
 are founded in the reality of things, there must be 
 between them a fundamental harmony. For " it is 
 incredible that there should be two orders of trutli 
 in absolute and everlasting opposition."^ The 
 
 ' Dean Church, Univ. Serm., p. 72. " The tendency," says Sir H. 
 Maine, " to look not to the past, hut to the future, for types of perfection 
 was hrought into the world by Christianity." — Ancient Law, p. 74. 
 " Hopefulness has ever been a note of the Church of Christ. It has been 
 often mistrusted and misapprehended." — Merivale, Northern Nations, 
 p. 116. 
 
 ' Herbert Spencer, First Pfinc, p. 21. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 world, began, we are now told, with Nature- wor- 
 ship ; can we on a theory of evolution believe that 
 at its close it will have developed no higher form ? 
 The dangers at present besetting Christianity are 
 twofold. There is an ideal spiritualism abroad 
 devoid of an objective basis. Where current, it 
 brings Religion into contempt. There is also a 
 secularistic Materialism, co-ordinate with a worship 
 of Nature. 
 
 Jamjam efflcaoi dat manus Scientias. 
 
 Unreal Extremes thus meet. We have not now the cult 
 
 results of 
 
 science, of Ceres or Dionysus ; but under other names the 
 forces of Heat, Light, and Fecundity have taken 
 their place and rank. But all such ultimate, as- 
 sumed entities are to be deprecated, even if them- 
 selves forms of one Universal Force, They are 
 questionable, unscientific resting-places in the ana- 
 lysis of truth, which must, to be complete, lead on 
 to the source and origin of Force. There is surely 
 a far higher boon in store to be conferred by tlie 
 increasing light of Knowledge, when it shall be 
 poured not solely on the simpler problems of the 
 physical world, but upon the mysteries of the two 
 voices in man, the microcosm of the universe, 
 those jarring elements of Duty and Passion, of the 
 
 Ultimate animal and the spiritual, of Nature and Grrace. 
 
 relations y-...m ■% i fi t-t-i 
 
 of know- Originally created to be a part oi the undivided 
 
 will. system of Nature, working in automatic harmony 
 
 with the constitution of the world around him ; 
 
Lect. v.] progress of CHRISTIANITY. 245 
 
 in the exercise of a will independent of Divine 
 Wisdom and of the laws it had imposed, Man fell 
 from his high estate. Only by the reconciliation 
 of his will with perfect reason, by the recognition 
 of foregone perversity, by the confession of the 
 justice and the mercy of his God, and by the sub- 
 mission of mind and spirit to the higher law of 
 Morality and Eeligion ; by these only, as subjective 
 personal conditions of his Redemption, may he hope 
 once more, in " the times of restitution of all 
 things," to find himself in accord with a purified 
 Nature, fulfilling the law of his being, the com- 
 mandment of his God, and made " partaker of the 
 
 Divine Nature." So far, if it be no further, may the Tendency 
 
 ... . of know- 
 plummet of finite Thought, Jed by the indications ledge to 
 
 of Eevelation, sound the depths of the nature and moral evil. 
 
 existence of evil in the world. Potentially real,^ 
 
 a 'secondary development of things, its very being 
 
 and action may be but temporary and relative, 
 
 ^ Cf. Orig. c. Gels., VI. Iv. Thus August., Civ. D., XI. 9. Mall nulla 
 natura est; sed amissio boni mall nomen accepit; followmg the 
 more ancient opinion, to kokov to Swd/iei ayaSov. Arist., Metaph. 
 N. iv. ovK can TO KaKov irapa to. irpdyimTa. Comp. Plato, 
 Theoet, 176, A. So also Basil {Hexam. Horn., ii.). Leibnitz, Th£od., 
 p. 550. " Quant k la cause du mal il est vrai que le diable est I'auteur 
 du p6ch^ ; mais I'origine du pfohfi vient de plus loin, la source est dans 
 I'imperfection originale des creatures," &c. His own explanation of this 
 is well known. " Dieu a permis le mal, parce qu'il est enveloppe dans le 
 meilleur plan qui se trouve dans la region des possibles." — lb., p. 601. 
 " II se pent que tons les maux ne soient aussi qu'un presque n&nt en oom- 
 paraison des biens qui sont dans I'univers." — p. 509» Bishop Butler 
 (following August., Conf., II. v.), " There is nothing in the human mind 
 contradictory, as the logicians speak, to virtue." — Arud., I. iii. " There 
 is no such thing as love of injustice, oppression, treachery, ingratitude,' 
 
246 OBJECTIONS TO THE [I.ect. V. 
 
 conditioned by a finite state of existence and know- 
 ledge, admitting of ultimate explanation. That 
 which is individual is in its own nature imperfect : 
 and imperfection is a transient form of evil. But 
 the will of man is confessedly individual, personal. 
 Requires rpj^g inherent conflict of self-interest with the 
 
 the co- 
 operation common good can only be overcome by the con- 
 
 of religion. o ./ j 
 
 viction that it is through conformity to the uni- 
 versal law, as the expression of the wisdom of the 
 Creator, to the whole constitution of things, that 
 the perfection of the individual is reached.^ This, 
 if any, must be the lesson of ultimate civilization, 
 Comcident and it is a lesson in the accomplishment of which 
 wort of the Faith of Christ may be expected to take a large 
 tion.'^^' share. " Christianity," it has been well said,^ " has 
 been revealed as a social and as a personal power 
 in the richest variety -of circumstances. It remains 
 for us to harmonize the idea of society and self as- 
 they are seen to be harmonized in the teaching of 
 the Apostles. In this lies the highest problem of 
 philosophy and the most worthy aim of life. ' The 
 prize is noble,' as Plato said of the corresponding 
 problem in his age, ' and the hope is great.' " In this 
 
 &c. — Serm., I. Mr. Mackay (^Progress of Intellect, I. 482) has toached 
 this subject with much profundity and learning. Physical evil must of 
 course he distinguished from the moral and metaphysical notions. It 
 may prove to be a necessary tendency of general laws, and to redound 
 in many ways to the formation of moral excellencies. 
 
 ' Compare Mr. Mill, Exam., p. 51Q, who quotes an observation of M. 
 E^ville respecting human freedom. "La liberty complete, r&lle, de 
 rh6mme est la perfection humaine, le but a atteindre," 
 
 ^ Prof. Westcott, Cmt. Bev., VI.'ilT. 
 
Lect. v.] progress of CHRISTIANITY. 247 
 
 law and scale of progress, that -which we call evil 
 must itself have been foreseen, and in a manner fore- 
 ordained and provided for, by the act of Eternal 
 Wisdom. One day "the depth of the riches of 
 that wisdom and knowledge," (now " past finding 
 out,") will be revealed, its ways disclosed ; and 
 the sufferings of " a bondage of corruption" ^ will 
 show all unworthy to be compared with the glory 
 that shall dawn upon the world become the king- 
 dom of the Lord and of His Christ. 
 
 S 12. " The Master of all who have knowledsre." ^ ?°™™ 
 
 •' o insepara- 
 
 Such is the title claimed by Dante for Aristotle, the ]?i5 from 
 
 •^ _ ' faith. 
 
 Prince of ancient thought. Shall it not hereafter 
 be given to One greater than Aristotle, who shall 
 rise up in the judgment with the men of this gene- 
 ration and condemn them, as many as have divorced 
 Science from Faith. For in that day secular philo- 
 sophy, however glorious, will be transmuted into 
 divine. The very course of the integration of Tendency 
 human Knowledge may be expected to lead to the knowledge 
 
 towards 
 perfection. 
 
 * " L'imperfection qui accompagne la solution du corps pourroit donner 
 lieu au sentiment d'une perfection plus grande, qui etoit suspendue ou 
 arrgt^e parla continuity qu'on fait cesser; et k cet 6gard le corps seroit 
 comme une prison." — Leibnitz, WorJcs, p. 603. 
 
 * " II Maestro di color chi sanno." " La plus forte tete de toute 
 I'antiquit^, le grand Aristote," says M. Oomte {Phil. Pos., IV. 38), 
 perhaps from an unconscious predilection j for it was very anciently 
 remarked that Plato referred all to Mind, Aristotle to Law. The 
 medieval reputation of Aristotle, whom the Schoolmen placed almost 
 on a level with the Fathers, was according to Mr. Lecky {Hist. Bat., 
 I. 417), due to the early heretics. See Dean Milman, Lat. Christ, 
 VI. 267. 
 
248 OBJECTIONS TO THE [Lect. V. 
 
 reception of one common, universal Eeligion, when 
 the relations of Matter to a central Force shall he 
 understood. The latest generalization of the in- 
 ductive reason will be comprehended, as alone it 
 can be comprehended, through the intuition of Him 
 (for " we shall see Him as He is "), Who is the 
 Author and Cause of all things, " Who is Alpha 
 and Omega," " the Beginning and the End," the 
 "First and the Last." In that day " whether there 
 be knowledge, it will vanish away," because " we 
 know but in part." What is there in the loftiest 
 human speculation which should exempt it from the 
 Inherent fate of all finite thinars? "Positive knowledsre* 
 
 defects of ° . n 
 
 positive does uot and never can fill the whole region of 
 ledge. possible thought. At the utmost reach of discovery 
 there arises and must ever arise the question 
 — what lies beyond ? Science is a gradually in- 
 creasing sphere, and every addition to its surface 
 does but bring it into wider contact with surround- 
 ing ignorance. But if knowledge cannot mono- 
 polize consciousness ; ^ if it must always continue 
 
 * Mr. Herbert Spencer, First Principles, pp. 16, 17. The same 
 thought that the material world cannot of itself contain a revelation of 
 the Divine, the finite of the Infinite, occurs in Tennyson — 
 
 Forerun thy peers, thy time : and let 
 Thy feet millenniums hence he set 
 In midst of knowledge dreamed not yet. 
 Thou hast not gained a real height ; 
 Nor art thou nearer to the light, 
 Because the scale is infinite. 
 
 " "n n'y a que Dieu qui voie, comment ces deux tei-mes moi et 
 Vexistence sont li^s, o'est-a-dire, pourquoi j'existe." — Leibnitz, Novr- 
 veaux Essais, IV, vii- 7 
 
Lect. V.l PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 249 
 
 possible for the mind to dwell upon that which 
 transcends knowledge, then there can never cease 
 to he a place for that which is of the nature of 
 Religion." For what region can be found in all 
 the realms of Science, which is not relative only to 
 our present living powers and to the world we now 
 inhabit? What necessity^ can be claimed for the Laws of 
 
 nature de- 
 
 Laws of Nature, as they are known to us, still less void of the 
 for the several facts which represent and engender necessity, 
 them, which can resist the sentence of mutability 
 so legibly written upon them ? Knowledge then, 
 as alone we now possess it, is of time, not of 
 eternity ; it is marred by the imbecillities of man's 
 understanding. " Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
 heard, neither have entered into the heart of man 
 the things which Grod hath prepared for them that 
 love Him." But " when that which is perfect is 
 come, then that which is in part shall be done 
 away." 
 
 ^ See Sir W. Hamilton, Appendix to Beid, p. 971, who quotes 
 Spinoza (de InteU. Emend., § 108) ; " ide^ quas claras et distinctas 
 formamus ita ex sola necessitate nostrse naturse sequi videntur, ut 
 absolute a solS nostrfi, potentiS pendere videantur: confusjB autem 
 contra." Chalmers's noble argument for the doctrine of immortality 
 from man's capacities for knowledge is well known. " But for the 
 truth of immortality man would be an anomaly in nature .... The 
 whole labour of this mortal life would not suffice for traversing, in full 
 extent, any one of the sciences. And yet there may lie undeveloped in 
 his bosom a taste smd talent for them all, none of which he can even 
 singly overtake. For each science, though definite in its commence- 
 ment, has its outgoings in the Infinite and the Eternal." — Bridg. 
 Treatise, Pt. I. sub fin. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF CHRISTIANITY INFERRED 
 FROM THE CHARACTER OF ITS INFLUENCE. 
 
 "Ne quisquam nos aliena tantvun redarguisse, non autem nostra 
 aaseruisse reprehenderet ; id agit pars altera opens hujus." — Augustine, 
 Retract., II. 
 
 " Imperium facile his artibua retinetur, quibua initio partum est." — 
 Sallust, Bell. Catil; II. iv. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 " Who is he that evercometh the "World, but he that believeth that 
 jfesus is the Son of God? " — i 3Io1)n a. 5. 
 
 § I . "T^HE direct or positive proof originally pro- stage of 
 
 -■■ posed to be offered in these Lectures in <i™''y- 
 respect of the permanence of the Christian Eeligion 
 led first to the inquiry, what are the vital forces of 
 any Religion ; and next, in what degree are these 
 exhibited in the past history and present condition of 
 Christianity ? These forces, common to all systems vm forces 
 of Religion, may be compared with the powers of g'ons 
 nutrition, reproduction, and growth in organic 
 bodies. Such are the hold exercised by the theory 
 of belief upon the spirit and conscience of its pro- 
 fessors ; the tendency of the system to extend itself 
 by conversion ; and, thirdly, the power of assimi- 
 lating healthfully the varying conditions of progres- 
 sive civilization. With the last of these lines of proof 
 we have been indirectly occupied throughout the 
 four preceding Lectures. For the objections which already 
 have been considered to the progress of Christianity j°"^Jj' 
 have been such as belong to the highest stages of 
 culture and scientific research as yet reached by the 
 most civilized portion of mankind. Lastly, since po"''*^"!- 
 every form of Religion asserts for itself an absolute ™^"' ^°^ 
 
2S4 
 
 THE PERMANENCE 
 
 [Lect. VI. 
 
 the per- 
 manence 
 of Chris- 
 tianity 
 from the 
 character 
 of its doc- 
 trines. 
 
 Present 
 inquiry 
 into the 
 nature and 
 extent of 
 the in- 
 fluence of 
 Chris- 
 tianity as 
 evidenced 
 at different 
 periods. 
 
 possession of Divine Truth, its announcements are 
 to be considered final, or, at least, as preparative ' to 
 one complete scheme. A concluding argument will 
 hence arise in favour of the truth of Christianity 
 from the universality of its tenets and their adapta- 
 tion to the history and circumstances of mankind, 
 warranting in this manner its assumption of 
 doctrinal finality. If its morality is sound and 
 universal ; its type of character perfect and com- 
 plete, not partial, national, local, or generic,^ but 
 correspondent to the unity of our race ; if its reve- 
 lations, replacing earlier creeds and inheriting all 
 they held of truth, reach on to the horizon of 
 humanity, and assure for ever the destinies of man, 
 we need not greatly fear for the future of a Eeli- 
 gion which can only be coeval with our race. 
 "We now proceed to examine, in the first place, the 
 character and extent of the influence exercised by 
 Christianity at various periods on the consciences 
 of its converts. 
 
 § 2. It has been asked by a leading thinker of 
 
 ' Such as the Mosaic system; which cannot therefore be properly- 
 attacked, as it has been by Kant and others (see Bdigion innerhalb, &c., 
 Werhe, VI. 301, ed. Hartenstein), as not Divine, because it did not preach 
 immortality. Warburton's proposition on this subject is well known. 
 
 " " The ceremonial law was succeeded by a pure and spiritual 
 worship, equally adapted to all climates, as well as to every condition 
 of mankind."— Gibbon, c. xv. Compare Palmer {Treatise an, the Chutch, 
 I. vii.) on the catholicity of Christianity. " The New Testament," 
 says Prof. Seeley, Lect. and Essays, p. 276, " is the text-book of uni- 
 versal or natural morality." On the objection that if Christianity be 
 in harmony with human nature, it may be viewed as a human in- 
 vention, see Merivale, Conv. of N. Nations, p. 3. 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 255 
 
 our time,^ " what are the conditions necessary to 
 
 constitute a religion ?" " There must," he replies, 
 
 " be a creed, or conviction, claiming authority over 
 
 the whole of human life; a belief or set of beliefs Prelimi- 
 nary ex- 
 deliberately adopted respecting human destiny and amination 
 
 duty, to which the believer inwardly acknowledges elements 
 that all his actions ought to be subordinate. More- to the sue- 
 over, there must be a sentiment connected with religious 
 this creed, or capable of being evoked by it, suffi- ^^^ ^"' 
 ciently powerful to give it, in fact, the authority 
 over human .conduct to which it lays claim in 
 theory." In other words, the success of a religion 
 may be held to result from the relation of its 
 doctrines to the organ of belief in man, from the 
 convictions which it furnishes to the faculty of Faith. 
 For Faith, the outcome of our spiritual nature in its 
 apprehension of Grod, is the vital spark of all EeH- 
 gion. If Faith be on the wane, there is a canker at ™«- the re- 
 
 . , . . lationofits 
 
 the root 01 the creed, ihe external organization, doctrines 
 the ecclesiastical arrangements, may look vigorous principle 
 enough, but the end draws on. In criticising, then, 
 the claims of a religion to acceptance from the side 
 of experience, i. e. from its past success and present 
 
 ' Mr. J. S. Mill, A. Comte and Positivism, p. 133. He adds : " It is 
 a great advantage, though not absolutely indispensable, that this senti- 
 ment should crystallize, as it were, round a positive object — if possible, 
 a really existing one — though in all the more important cases only 
 ideally present. Such an object Theism and Christianity offer to the 
 believer." Mr. Lecky, E. £,, I. 389, speaking of the first ages of 
 Christianity, remarks that " it was then strictly a religion ; that is to 
 say, it consisted of modes of emotion, and not of intellectual proposi- 
 tions." 
 
256 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VL 
 
 condition, and in inferring from these grounds its 
 ulterior prospects, regard must be had to the work 
 which lies before it, to the end which it proposes 
 to itself for accomplishment. Now, all positive 
 Religions^ lay claim to some measure of- Divine 
 All reU- Eevelation ; i. e. to communications from God to 
 
 gions 
 
 properly man bevond the ordinary modes of information 
 
 vehicles of 
 
 revelation and knowledge. These it is its province to propa- 
 
 to human i - i i t • i i > t 
 
 nature, gate amougst mankind. Any religion, then, which 
 should altogether divest itself of mysteries, the 
 meeting'points between Nature and that which 
 transcends it ; satisfied with the simple proclamation 
 of moral truths, however refined, or with a re- 
 publication of the so-called Eehgion of Nature, 
 which is, in fact, the apotheosis of moral abstrac- 
 tions ; thus carrying no further message io the spirit 
 and higher reason of man ; any such religion may on 
 
 ^ It has been said very truly that so-called Natural Eeligion exists 
 only in books. Religions which have vital force and influence are 
 positive religions ; that is, they make for themselves a Church, and 
 rites, and dogmas. These dogmas are the solutions of the great problems 
 which have ever disquieted the mind of man — the origin of the world, 
 the origin of evil, its expiation, the future of our race. 
 
 Quid sumus et quidnam victuri gignimur. 
 
 Mr. Lecky, H. Mat., I. 182, points out that " Protestant Eationalism 
 regards Christianity as designed to preside over the moral development 
 
 of mankind In its eyes the moral element of Christianity is as 
 
 the sun in heaven, and dogmatic systems are as the clouds that intercept 
 and temper the exceeding brightness of its ray." In p. 335, he seems 
 himself to incline to the view that dogmatic systems are a provisional 
 arrangement for semi-barbarous periods, though ho admits that Chris- 
 tianity is the solitary instance " of a religion not naturally weakened by 
 civilization." Pietism in the hands of Spener, Francke, &c., as also 
 the Eemonstrants, early endeavoured to separate reUgious morals from 
 dogma. The movement has terminated in Strauss. 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 257 
 
 these very accounts be suspected. It falls short of 
 the due operation of Eeligion in itself; which, as a 
 function of human nature, has its own appropriate 
 work by the realization of which it must stand or 
 fall. That work,^ though the contrary is not unfre- are not 
 
 .. . -. .,.,,. , . concerned 
 
 quently asserted, is not identical with the inculcation with the 
 of morality, however high, however pure. The of mo- 
 Science of Ethics falls legitimately within the ken ^^ ' ^" 
 of human knowledge, capable of improvement and 
 advance. But when it has led man to the threshold 
 of Eeligion, a sphere is discovered to him from which 
 he has not borrowed morality.^ Thus the doctrines 
 of a religious system, while properly in accord with 
 morality, transcend by their nature the limits of its 
 teaching.* Morality is present in them, even if as 
 
 ' The most elementary foi-ms of religion seem to afford little trace 
 of ethics. Compare Mr. Tylor, Prim. Cult, I. 386. In Confucianism, 
 on the other hand, ethics overpower and extinguish the religious ele- 
 ment. See DoUiuger, OentUe and Jew, I. 56-8 ; Legge, II. X30, 319. 
 " To give oneself earnestly to the duties due to men, and while respect- 
 ing spiritual beings to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom," 
 was the maxim and practice of its founder. It is not strange to find, 
 from Mr. Cooper (Pioneer of Commfrce), that his temples at the present 
 day are deserted. Lange, Gesch. des Materialismus, p. 537, says, " Die 
 Eeligionen haben urspriinglich gar nicht einmal den Zweck der Sittlich- 
 keit zu dieuen." See Buckle, Hist. Civ., II. 303. " The Church," 
 writes Dean Hook, " was not incorporated to inculcate a code of morals. 
 
 The inculcation of morality is an incident of Christianity, and 
 
 not of its essence." — Idves of Archbishops, N. S., I. 3. 
 
 » Compare Guizot, Civ. in E., I. 87, ed. Bohn. Paley's Evid., Pt. 11. 
 c. ii., on the morality of the Gospel. Christianity, strictly speaking, is 
 no new code of morals, but an appeal to the highest moral experience. 
 
 " " There is a fine line," writes Coleridge, " which, like stripes of 
 light in light, distinguishes, not divides, the summit of religious Morality 
 from spiritual Eeligion."— -4. B., p. 81. 
 
 S 
 
2S8 ' THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 Relation of a vital, jet as a rudimentary element. This fact 
 a system of is evident on a comparison of barbarous with 
 civilized races.^ To condemn a creed on moral 
 grounds is not, therefore, properly conclusive, 
 though it is, no doubt, the case that in proportion 
 to its truth it will encourage a purer and more 
 elevated morality,^ which varies in most men in 
 proportion to their practical belief in €rod and His 
 Proper promises. Its real test on the experimental side 
 
 test of the ^, , . . . 
 
 success of lies in the accomplishment of its true specific end. 
 
 a religion , 
 
 And this would seem to be so to educate, to mould 
 and inform the spirit of man, as to restore it to 
 its divine image, and prepare it for a future con- 
 tinuous existence.^ This work involves, indeed, 
 moral issues. The correlations and interaction be- 
 tween the life that now is and its after-stage very 
 soon become mutually interpenetrated. The spirit, 
 as part at least of the principle of personality in 
 man, is inseparable from those acts or decisions of 
 the will which determine its character, and as 
 moraUn- ^^'^'^l^^ou instructs US, its ultimate destiny. Eeli- 
 ^T^\ gion then, which occupies itself with the spiritual 
 
 secondary i Compare Mr. Tylor, Prim. 0., II. 326. 
 e eme • z ggncg the fine lines of Persius : 
 
 Compositum jus fasque animo sanctosque recessus 
 Mentis, ,et incoctum generoso pectus honesto ; 
 Hsec cedo ut admoveam templis et farre litabo. 
 ' Mr. Lecky well observes, H. E. M., 1. 363-4, " Eeverence and humi- 
 lity, a constant sense of the true majesty of God, and of the weakness 
 and sinfulness of man, and a perpetual reference to another world, were 
 the essential characteristics of Christianity, the source of all its power, the 
 basis of its distinctive type." 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 259 
 
 element in man, cannot be divorced from the 
 morality which it must teach or tolerate.' Its con- 
 verts will act upon the principles of their belief, 
 which supply them with a new series of motives, 
 and these will accordingly become evident in the 
 conduct and disposition of the believer. In this ■*■ moral 
 
 ^ test thus 
 
 manner a moral test may be applied of the character applicable 
 and efficacy of the Revelation, for it may fail on 
 either side. On the one hand, it may be found to 
 put " bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter ;" it may 
 put " darkness for light, and light for darkness ; "* 
 that is, its tenets, as in the case of many heathen 
 idolatries, may corrupt the moral sense ; its positive 
 enactments or promises may confound the natural 
 law of right. On the other hand, its power of 
 moral suasion, though wholesomely directed, may 
 be feeble and inoperative. Its voice may utter no 
 
 ' Mr. Buckle, I. 425 (after Hallam) traces the scUntific separation of 
 theology from morals to Bishop Cumberland. Mr. Pattison (JEss. and 
 Reo., p. 256) remarks very truly that those ages in which morality 
 (done has been most spoken of have ever been those in which it has been 
 least practised. 
 
 ^ Isaiah v. 20. Thus Bishop Butler, Anal.,Tl. c. iii. : " Though objections 
 against the evidence of Christianity are most seriously to be considered, 
 yet objections against Christianity itself are in a great measure frivolous ; 
 almost all objections against it, excepting those which are alleged against 
 the particular proofe of its coming from God. I express myself with 
 caution, lest I should be mistaken to vilify reason ; which is, indeed, 
 the only faculty we have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even 
 Eevelation itself: or be misunderstood to assert that a supposed revelation 
 cannot be proved false from internal characters. For it may contain 
 clear immoraUties or contradictions; and either of these would prove 
 it false. Nor will I take upon me to afBrm, that nothing else can pos- 
 sibly render any supposed revelation incredible." And again : " It is 
 the province of reason to judge of the morahty of tlie Scripture," &c. 
 
 s 2 
 
26o THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 uncertain sound, but yet it may fail to nerve man- 
 ofaprac- ]jind for the battle witb evil. The standard, then, 
 
 tical na- 
 ture, of the truth, and hence of the permanence of a reli- 
 gious system, apart from its particular evidences, 
 will appear first and properly in the character of 
 the hold gained by it on the spirit and conscience 
 of those who profess it ; then, by consequence, but 
 in a secondary degree, in its general moral effects 
 as exhibited in practice. If without marked effect, 
 or if immoral in tendency, a presumption arises 
 against its truth, stronger or weaker in the former 
 case in proportion to the length of date and nature 
 of the circumstances attending its operation. Suc- 
 cess upon certain occasions affords, it is true, but 
 slender guarantee for truth, for the result may be 
 differently explained. But when itself the issue of 
 unfavourable conjunctures and contrary to ordinary 
 expectation, or when steadily continuous, however 
 slow the process,^ it raises in the mind an almost 
 instinctive conviction of its providential character 
 and ultimate triumph. 
 Different § 3- Yery different reasons, as might be expected, 
 as to"the have been assigned to the rise and first successes of 
 sSf of Christianity, according to the varying temperament 
 
 Chris- 
 tianity. 1 " The Christian body," says Dr. Mozley (B. L., p. 140), " is enlarged 
 by growth and stationariness combined : each successive age con- 
 tributing its quota, and the acquisition, once made, remaining 
 
 And the same principle of growth can at last convert the world : how- 
 ever slow the process, the result will come, if Christianity always keeps 
 the ground it gets : for that which always gains and never loses must 
 ultimately win the whole." 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 261 
 
 of particular thinkers. It has been regarded by- 
 some in the light of a moral protest against gene- 
 ral and overwhelming corruption. By others it is 
 viewed as a stage in the history of superstitions, a 
 phase and a necessary phase of mental enthusiasm. 
 By others it is admitted to have embodied a large 
 moral advance. By some, again, its rapid pro- 
 gress is explained through the advantage of an 
 unrivalled organization. But those who attribute 
 its success to its moral excellences, neglect to take 
 into account its qualities as a religion. They ignore Neglect its 
 
 IP,.. T T qualities as 
 
 the tact that it is to these, and not to any mere a religion, 
 ethical superiority, that its real advance is due. 
 But, if it be regarded as but one among the many 
 superstitions which had preceded it in East and 
 West, the fact of its success, and still more of its 
 continuance, remains yet to be explained. To the 
 liberal zeal of Christianity, freed from the fetters of 
 the Mosaic Law, Gibbon assigns much of the success view of 
 
 ... 1 • 1 T-» 1 ■ • • 1 Gibbon 
 
 01 its preaching.^ But other superstitions, m the 
 times of the Empire, were equally yielding, equally 
 
 ' Decline and Fall, c. xv. : " Under these circumstances Christianity 
 oilered itself to the world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic Law, 
 and delivered ■ from the weight of its fetters," &c. If, indeed, the 
 remarks of this great historian be understood of a comparison between 
 the genius of the Christian religion and the class-interests of previous 
 systems as well as of the existing state of Eoman society, they might 
 well be received as a fair tribute to the intrinsic superiority of Chris- 
 tianity. M. Littr6 (^Etudes sur les Barhares et le Moyen-Age, p. 2) has 
 some true and fine remarks on the sterility of the results arrived at by 
 Gibbon, who in recounting the Fall of the Empire, takes no heed of the 
 regeneration of the world by Christianity. 
 
262 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 pliant in receiving proselytes, without being 
 equally rewarded. And the intolerance of the 
 simple-minded followers of Jesus for all other 
 forms of belief; their impolitic vehemence against 
 immoral institutions ; their somewhat narrow im- 
 patience of current philosophical systems ; their 
 jealous secrecy as regards the mysteries of the 
 faith, while little in accord with the liberality to 
 inade- which such great results have been attributed, are 
 
 quate. 
 
 known to have proved stumbling-blocks to a gene- 
 ral reception of the new Eeligion, It does not 
 seem to have occurred to this writer that the 
 secret of the success of Christianity may well have 
 lain in the harmony of its doctrines with the re- 
 ligious needs of the time, the deliverance which it 
 held forth from impending ruin at the end of the 
 True world, by many deemed so near;^ the inward 
 
 causes 
 
 of its calm and satisfaction which it wrought on the 
 
 triumph. . , „ . -, „ . . . 
 
 minds 01 its converts ; the stores of spiritual strength 
 which it instilled under circumstances of much 
 worldly depression. These were its legitimate in- 
 struments of triumph.^ The miracles which it 
 claimed, whatever part they may have had in the 
 
 ' This subject, it is well known, is especially brought forward by 
 Gibbon, «. s. But he treats it in the light of a vulgar superstition, 
 which must have been at least as dangerous through the discoveiy of 
 its fallacious expectation, as powerful in the cogency of the alarm 
 which it created. 
 
 ^ " No other religion ever combined so many forms of attraction as 
 Christianity, both from its intrinsic excellence, and from its manifest 
 adaptation to the special wants of the time." — Lecky, H. E. M., I. 419. 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 263 
 
 persuasion of unbelievers, were shared by it with 
 rival faiths. Its virtues, like its doctrines, were 
 certainly its own. The pen of our great historian, 
 though dipped in gall, does not disallow the moral 
 reformation introduced by Christianity, enforcing, ^^^^''^'^ 
 as it did, repentance for sin and blamelessness of™oraire- 
 
 ■"• fonnation 
 
 life,^ "He that nameth the name of Christ, let effected, 
 him depart from iniquity," was iong the rule and 
 mark of Christian converts. Nor was this a result 
 of which the causes remain unexplained. They 
 are patient in the character of the Religion 
 preached, as well as in the circumstances of the 
 affe which received it. The doctrines of Christ- Character 
 
 '-' _ of its doc- 
 
 ianity contained within them the core of man's tnnes. 
 moral regeneration, a supply to his spiritual desti- 
 tution, motives to repentance laid in the atoning 
 work of Grod for man ; motives to new action, 
 founded evermore on promises of Divine grace.^ 
 Hence the peculiar characteristics of Christian 
 virtue, issuing in a new moral type built upon the 
 
 ' For testimonies to an admitted moral superiority on the part of the 
 first Christians, compare Pliny, E'pp., X. 97 ; Galen (ap. Gieseler, I. 
 126, ed. Clark) ; Justin M., A'pol., II. i. xii. ; Poroera., c. xxxv. ; 
 Athenag., Leg., 0. ii. xi. ; Ep. ad Diogn., c. v. vi. ; TertulL, Apol., 
 c. 45; Origen, c. Cds., III. 30; VII. 48, 49; I. 67: rh Si/o^a tov 
 'li/(roi! . , . iixTTOiel Oaviuuriau riva irpa&nfra, Koi KaraaroKriv tov rj6ovs, 
 Koi <j>ikav6pa)7riav, Kai ;(pi;<rrdT))Ta, koi fifiip&nfra iv toTs jirj Sia to 
 /3ia>riKa, ^ rivas ;^peiaf avSpanriKas viroKpuiapIvoK, SKKa irapa Sc^a- 
 fievois yvijo'tffls tov jrepl Qcov Kai Xpurrov (cai Trjs i(rop.evrjs Kpiirftos 
 "Kayov, 
 
 * " The force which Christianity has applied to the world, and by 
 which it has produced that change in the world which it has, is, in a 
 word, the doctrine of grace." — ^Mozley, B. L., p. 180. 
 
264 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 model of a crucified Saviour ; the humbleness ; the 
 self-sacrifice ; the forgiving spirit ; the obligation 
 of remembering the poor ; the enforced chastity of 
 a redeemed body become the temple of the Spirit 
 of G-od ; the faith in a life to come, showing itself 
 patient of tortures and of death. 
 
 § 4- '-The wider yet far more searching analysis,^ 
 
 instituted since Gribbon wrote, of the causes which 
 
 Analysis prepared the Grreek and Roman civilizations for 
 
 of the state ^ . „, . . . . , 
 
 ofciviiiza- the infiltration of Christianity, has seen in the 
 
 tion at this .. ,., , , ,., , „, 
 
 period, ncw Spirit which stole upon the philosophy 01 the 
 age, in its broader and more eclectic character 
 under the cosmopolitan system of the Empire, in 
 its introspective and subjective tone, a temper of 
 thought not ill-suited to the announcement of 
 Christian morality.^ But the increasing corrup- 
 
 its corrup- tion of the outer world, against which Stoicism 
 
 tion, and . . . . 
 
 need of re- spcnt its strength in vain, despite the wholesome 
 
 storation . f t -i n • i i • • 
 
 mnuences 01 daily duties and domestic intercourse, 
 called for more drastic and intrinsic remedies. 
 The need of a religion which might reconcile and 
 
 ' See Mr. Lecky's powerful, and in many respects adequate, inquiry 
 into the moral causes which preceded the rise of Christianity in the 
 Eoman Empire. — H. E. M., I. c. iii. Compare also Dean Merivale 
 {Hist, of the Empire, VI. 356 ff.) ; and especially Neander's (I. 6-117) 
 masterly review of the religious state of the world at the coming of 
 Christ ; together with DoUinger, Qentile and Jew, I. 347, 370 ; II. 
 284-9. 
 
 ^ See Prof. Lightfoot's learned disquisition on the relations of 
 Stoicism to Christianity (^St. Paul and Seneca), in his Commentary 
 on the Epistle to the Philippians. He shows that Stoicism itself was 
 indehted to Oriental sources, and probably to Christian teaching. 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 26$ 
 
 in practice absorb the highest truths of conflicting 
 philosophical systems was more and more felt. Its 
 sanctions secured to the soul of man what centuries 
 of argument and discussion had failed to effect. 
 No closer relation than this needs to be sought 
 between Pagan morality and Christian influence. 
 The fixed idea of the religion of the time was that as to 
 
 ° religious 
 
 of a national Providence, addressed on the part of ideas, 
 man by ceremonial observances.^ The disintegra- 
 tion of social superstitions was due to their own 
 inability to meet the wants of the period and the 
 tendencies of the age.'' Credulity gave way before 
 a T'eal and growing anxiety to learn and know the 
 truth — truth which would set men free from many 
 a cruel and degrading practice. The same pro- The cir- 
 vidential arrangement which, having first created favourable 
 the Macedonian Empire and ordained the Eoman troduction 
 Conquest, lp,d prepared, against the promulgation tlanity^^" 
 of Christianity, a language common alike to East 
 and West,' had reserved for it an era markedly 
 
 ' It culminated in the Deification of Emperors. For an example of 
 the declining condition of the old state-religion, see Tac, Ann., III. 58. 
 
 ' Thus Chrysostom writes (d, Babyla, 0pp., II. 540) : iw oiSei/os 
 ivoy(Kti6eXiTa iroTc Tr)S 'EXXtjvik^i heitnhaijiovlas 17 irKavrj d<^' eavr^s 
 etr^etrdr], koL jrept cavrrju Sieircae, Kaddwep tS>v trajiartmi to tt/ktjSom 
 TrapaboSivra /lUKpa, Kal ntjSevos aiira ^XawrovTos avrdfiara (j>6ciperai 
 Kot SidKvSfvra Kara p,iKphv ax^avi^fTcu,. See ap. Gieseler, I. 321. Com- 
 pare Plutarch (d. Superstit., c. xxxiii.). It was remarked that there 
 were no martyrs for heathen doctrines. " Quis eonim," says August., 
 in Psalm. 141, § 20, " comprehensus est in sacrificio, cum his legibus 
 ista prohiberentur, et non negavit V " " Paganism," writes Dean Meri- 
 vale, " had no tap-root of moral renovation." 
 
 ' " GrsBca leguntur in omnibus fere gentibus," says Cicero, 2'ro Archia, 
 
266 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 favourable for the introduction of tlie new doc- 
 trines, combining, as tbey did, a basis of historical 
 facts ^ with an appeal to personal religious con- 
 sciousness. " No other religion," it has been truly 
 observed, "had ever united so many distinct ele- 
 ments of power and attraction ; so much ethical 
 reality with a profound sympathy in human trials ; 
 but an- so much feeling with so much truth." ^ This, 
 its distinc- howevcr, must not lead us to forget that it is in 
 
 tlVG tenets 
 
 ' the distinctive tenets of Christianity that we must 
 look for the true causes of this very combination : 
 in the spiritual convictions which it aroused and 
 satisfied ; in the religious emotions which it con- 
 trolled ; in the promises which it alone fulfilled.^ 
 
 c. X. Plutarcli considered it the mission of Alexander, rryu 'E\Xa8a 
 a-nclpai. Compare Neander, I. 67, and some remarks lay Mr. J. S. Mill 
 ' {Positivism, p. 24). See also Droysen {Gesch. des Bellenismus). It 
 must not be forgotten that the tendencies of an age are only the conse- 
 quences of its historical circumstances. 
 
 ' " Up to this time there had never existed among mankind any 
 historical truth on which a religious faith could be based ; nor yet any 
 philosophic faith founded on a personal religious consciousness residing 
 ■within man's own breast, and finding its credentials and interpretation 
 there. ' What is tmth?' asks Pilate. 'What can this barbarian teach 
 us ? ' exclaims the Athenian." — Bunsen, &od in Hist., III. pp. 66, 67, 
 E. T. My line of thought in this Lecture leads me to contrast the 
 permanent change of moral teaching, which accompanied Christianity, 
 with the world as it found it. This was, however, fundamentally due 
 to the miraculous element which was inherent in its enouncements. 
 This course of reflection is most ably worked out by Dr. Mozley 
 {Bamp. Lect., p. 170 fif.). 
 
 ' Leoky, H. E. M., 1. 412-414. 
 
 ' If Christianity had been only or principally an intellectual move- 
 ment consequent on previous phases of thought, it would not have 
 commenced with the poor. Compare Neander, I. 9. Dean Milman, 
 Latin Christ., I. 451, has some good remarks on the strangeness and 
 originality of the fundamental Christian ideas to the Eoman world, and 
 the consequent difiioulty of their reception. 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 267 
 
 In these and not in its moral worth, however 
 highly estimated, lay the talisman of its triumph. 
 The doctrine of salvation by belief, " which, then, 
 for the first time, flashed upon the world," gave 
 the real death-blow to philosophical scepticism.^ 
 It was the new-born consciousness of sin, which, instances. 
 awakening remorse, lit up the sense of responsi- 
 bility and turned it inward on the soul, . that 
 invested human life with a solemnity and import 
 never before felt ; which opened,^ as they had 
 never before been stirred, the lips of prayer. 
 Pliny had deemed it but a pollution to the Infinite 
 Spirit of Grod to concern Himself with the petty 
 affairs of men.^ It was the Christian's privilege of 
 suffering for and with a suffering Redeemer * (thus 
 
 ' " Apud Ciceronem et Platonem aliosque ejusmodi scriptores multa 
 sunt acut^ dicta et leniter calentia ; sed in iis omnibus non invenio, 
 Venite ad Me."— Augustin., in Matt. xi. 28. See Cmf., VII. ix. 13. 
 Carlyle remarks : " The old world knew nothing of conversion. Instead 
 of an Ecce Homo, they had only some Choice of Hercules. It was a 
 new attained progress in the moral development of man ; hereby has 
 the Highest come home to the bosoms of the most limited." — 8. B., 
 p. 136. For individual examples of the manner in which Christianity 
 wrought upon educated minds, see Justin Martyr {Dial. c. Tryph.), 
 Augustine (Con/.), Synesius, and the Recogn. Clement., I. sub init. 
 
 " See M. Denis, Idees Morales, II. 234, and DoUinger, Gentile and 
 Jew, II. 75-7. A true Roman prayer may be found in Cato, lie Rust., 
 c. 41. 
 
 ' Hist. Nat, II. Iv., VII. i. : " Irridendum ver6, agere CMam rerum 
 humanarum illud, quidquid est summum. Anne tam tristi atque 
 multiplici ministerio non poUui credamus dubitemusve ? " Comp. Cic, 
 Nat. D., II. ii. ; Invent., I. xxix. ; and Seneca, Epp., 41, 95. He thinks 
 Providence sometimes cares for men. 
 
 * Compare Clem. Rom., ad Cor. I. xlix., and Ep. ad Diogn., c. x. 
 Prof. Lightfoot (u. s., p. 326) well observes : " The moral teaching and 
 example of cm- Lord will ever have the highest value in their own pro- 
 vince ; but the core of the Gospel does not lie here. Its distinctive 
 
268 
 
 THE PERMANENCE 
 
 [Lect. VI. 
 
 This 
 
 influence 
 wholly a 
 spiritual 
 one. 
 
 no mere ascetic truth that pain is good, and no 
 evil); the requital of love for love, of sympathy 
 for man in return for the sympathy of Grod ; ' 
 which transmuted the dross of universal luxury 
 into the fine gold of the noblest self-sacrifice and 
 heroic self-control. And thus, lastly, it was far 
 more the hope of eternal life than the fear of ever- 
 lasting torment,^ which, to the Christian convert, 
 dignified earthly sorrows and levelled worldly 
 enjoyments. 
 
 § 5. Thus the spiritual character of the hold 
 exercised by primitive Christianity on the lives 
 and consciences of its converts must be considered 
 a fact beyond dispute. It is attested both by the 
 
 character is that in revealing a Person it reveals also a principle of life — 
 the union with God in Christ, apprehended by faith in the present, and 
 assured to us hereafter by the Eesurrection. This Stoicism could not 
 give, and therefore its dogmas and precepts were baiTen." 
 
 ' " The great principle of vica/rvms suffering, which forms the centre 
 of Christianity, spreads itself through the subordinate parts of the 
 system, and is the pervading if not the invariable law of Christian 
 beneficence." — I. Taylor, Nat. Eist. of Enthus., p. 162. " The pre- 
 cepts and examples of the Gospel struck a chord of pathos which the 
 noblest philosophies of antiquity had never reached. For the first 
 time the aureole of sanctity encircled the brow of sorrow, and invested 
 it with a mysterious charm." — Lecky, Eist. Bat., II. 266. 
 
 ' In this matter M. Comte takes a truer view than Gibbon or 
 Mr. Lecky. — See Phil. Pos., Y. 422. Christianity, he thinks, preserved 
 to itself the advantage of leaving the nature of future pains and rewards 
 open. — See also IV. 190. On the influence of immortality as a Christian 
 motive, compare Luoian, Mart. Peregrin., § 13. On the current views 
 of immortality, see DoUinger, Oentile and Jew, II. 143-6. M. Kio 
 remarks that the earliest delineations of Christian art represent ideas 
 6f joy and felicity. Conceptions of Hell and Purgatory come much later, 
 and from heathen sources. There were Roman philosophers who erected 
 to their friends tombs dedicated " Somno aeternali." — Orelli, I. p. 262. 
 
Lect, VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 269 
 
 voice of Christian Apologists, by the unwillirg 
 witness of adversaries,^ and still more convincingly 
 by institutions and social and moral changes which 
 remain as monuments of the influence of nascent 
 Christianity. Testimonies to the active moral force but ex- 
 
 . . . ,. hibiting 
 
 of the new Religion abound, indeed, in the earlier moral 
 Fathers.^ Virtues, hitherto little, if at all, recog- 
 nized, now made rudimentary graces ; passive 
 endurance ; forgiveness of injuries ; resignation 
 under calamity, not as a necessity,^ but as a duty 
 of the human spirit ; humility and meekness ; 
 benevolent unselfish effort replacing a narrow instances. 
 Egoism ;* fortitude under pain and death for the 
 cause of belief; a sense of sin, not as an outward 
 offence, but as an inward stain ; a strengthened 
 
 ' As Epictetus, M. Aurelius, Julian. Of. Lucian, d. Mart. Pereg., XIII. 
 
 ^ E. g. Justin M., Apol., I. xiv. xxv. ; II. xii. Dial. c. Tr., 110, 
 119, 131. TertuUian, Apol., xxxix. Minuc. F., c. ix. Lactant., 
 D. Inst., III. 26 ; V. 18. Origen, c. Cels., I. 67. See the temperate 
 statements of Gieseler, I. 298, and Robertson, C. H., I. 274. Compare 
 some vivid remarks of Mr. Allies, Formation of Christianity, pp. 269, 
 270 : " The Christian faith had laid its hand on the individual man," 
 &c. 
 
 ' In striking contrast, therefore, to the Mahometan virtue of sub- 
 mission, perhaps implied in the name " Islam.'' In Phil. Pos., IV. 190, 
 Comte coldly analyzes this quality, which he thinks only compatible 
 with the acceptance of laws of Nature : " Quant ^ la r&ignation reli- 
 gieuse et surtout Chr^tienne elle n'est, k vrai dire, malgrfi tant d'empha- 
 tiques dloges qu'une prudente temporisation qui fait supporter les 
 malheurs pr&ents en vue d'une ineffable felicite ult&ieure." 
 
 * " Fecerunt itaque civitates duas amoves duo, terrenam scilicet amor 
 sui usque ad contemptum Del, coelestem vero amor Dei usque ad con- 
 temptum sui." — ^August., Civ. D., XXIV. xxviii. " Le principe qui 
 dominait I'antiquit^ 6tait I'egcisme du plus fort, tant6t celui de I'liltat, 
 tant6t celui de I'individu. Xa personnalit^ de I'homme, sa liberte, ses 
 droits naturcls, ^taient m^connus." — Schmidt, Essai, p. 116. 
 
2^Q THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 conviction of the freedom and spirituality of the 
 human will ; conversion from habits of vice, 
 sudden, yet lasting ; the consolations of faith and 
 prayer as the outpouring of the soul to its Ee- 
 deemer ; the renovation of domestic virtues and 
 proprieties, impaired by the vices of Roman society 
 and the evil effects of slavery ; the duty of alms- 
 giving and active charity ; ^ the recognition of' the 
 rights of conscience and of religious freedom ; the 
 severance of spiritual from political obligation ; a 
 higher estimate of the value of human life; the 
 sense of a real brotherhood among mankind, in- 
 volving religious equality with slaves;'^ a moral 
 ideal suited to high and low ; the replacement of 
 hereditary priesthoods by common religious func- 
 tions ; an operative faith in the reality of another 
 world ; these and other kindred ideas, pregnant 
 with fruitful effects, bore witness to the power and 
 originality of the Faith of Christ in regenerating 
 the heart of man, when first it broke, like the light 
 of morning, on the world,^ as upon men awakened 
 
 ' " Ad hanc partem (so. beneficentise) philosopkorum nulla prjecepta 
 sunt." — Laotant., I). Inst., VI. x. 
 
 ^ Comp. Archdeacon Lee's Lectt. on Eccles. Hist., pp. 24-29 ; and on 
 the operation of the Christian doctrines, Merivale, Lectt. pp. 156, 156. On 
 the general services of Christianity at this epoch, Ozanam, Civilis., I. c. i. 
 
 * atrircp ol Tov virvov awocreurdiicvoi evSecos iypt]y6pa(rav. — Clem. 
 Alex., Pond., I. vi. § 28. Mr. Mill on Liberty, p. 22, has ^ome dis- 
 paraging remarks on the ease with which Christian precepts may he 
 acquiesced in without their gaining a practical hold on the believer. 
 Lange, Oesch. des Mat., pp. 530, 531, observes truly, that amidst many 
 analogies between the condition of modern society and that of the 
 Roman Empire, the differences induced by Christian ideas are palpable. 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 271 
 
 out of slumber to renewed and vigorous life. The 
 extinction, gradual but' complete, of gladiatorial Vast moral 
 shows ;^ of exposure of infants, and infanticide;^ 
 the establishment of orphanages, refuges, alms- 
 houses, and hospitals;* the emancipation of 
 slavery;* the sanctification of the marriage tie;^ 
 the foundation (at least after the decay of all 
 Imperial institutions) of primary and public 
 schools f are standing proofs of the tendency and 
 influence of Christianity in apprehending and ad- 
 vancing the true welfare of mankind. These are 
 
 1 Compare here Ozanam, u. s., II. c. ii. ; and Luthardt, Apolog., 
 pp. 243, 244, E. T.; Lecky, Eist. Bat., II. 264. 
 
 " TfKvoyovoiKTiv dXX' oi ptirrovm Tci yevvi>iicva. — Bp, ad Diogn., C. v. 
 See Milman, Lat. Ghr., I. b47. 
 
 ' See Gieseler, II. 60. Xr]paTp6<j>ta and 6p<jiai/oTp6(j)La are known 
 to date from the fourth century; so also m-axorpo^eia, voaoKOjieia, 
 ^ev&ves, and ^svohoxeia. The Bao-tXeiAy was a hospital for lepers. The 
 charitable offices of the Parabolani, Fossani, or Komarcu. (" ultimum illud 
 et maximum pietatis officium peregrinorum et pauperum sepultura," 
 Lactant., VI. xii.), should be added. On the non-existence of hospitals 
 and infirmaries in Pagan times, see Schmidt, u. s., p. 75. 
 
 * Comp. Eobertson, G. E., II. 229. Gregory Naz. and Chrysostom 
 insist largely on the duty; but the first instances are long before : e.g. 
 Hermes, Prefect of Eome under Trajan, freed 1250 ; Chromatius under 
 Diocletian, 1400, &c. Under this head fall all measures for the im- 
 provement of serfs by Gregory the Great, the laws of Constantine and 
 Justinian, &c. Comp. Guizot, CAv. era Fr., II. 125, m. 137, ed. Bohn. 
 Milman, Loi. Ghr., I. 338, 365. Lecky, E. Bat., H. 256-258. The 
 Romans often exposed and put to death sick slaves. — Suet., Glavd., 
 
 C. XXV. 
 
 " Even with the Jews, marriage was only a political institution. 
 Contrast with this the touching treatise of TertuU., ad Uxor., II. ix., 
 &c. Compare Milman, Lat. Ghr., I. 344. 
 
 ^ The first mention of Christian primary schools occurs in the fourth 
 century in Chrysostom and Basil. See in Guizot, u. s., I. 351 ; II. 100. 
 There is a treatise by M. Lalanne on the Influence des Fires dei'Uglise 
 sur Viducation puhlique. 
 
2/2 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 its faller triumphs, the records of a world-wide 
 
 humanity, new in motive and spirit as obligatory 
 
 on the followers of Him "Who died for all men. 
 
 Difficulty Yet it is far more in its action upon individuals, 
 
 of follow- . • 1 1 •! 
 
 ing it into where History leaves no trace ; m calm and silent 
 and per- influences shed upon personal character, as genera- 
 tion after generation has worked its work and 
 passed ; in the purity of domestic life, in souls 
 attuned to the practice of human charities, to the 
 privilege of suffering, to a departure full of im- 
 - mortality ; that the real work of Christianity as 
 compared with other religions must be sought and 
 found/ Biography, more than History, is its true 
 record. Never before was the reflection of a 
 Divine Image mirrored so clearly in the human 
 soul or in the practice of mankind. The summits 
 of Christian heroism in martyr, saint, and con- 
 fessor, first touched with the tints of Heaven, were 
 
 ' See some good remarks in Eotertgon, C. Si's*., I. 363 ; and Lecky, 
 H. E. M., II. 156: — "Christianity Mas suffered peculiarly from this 
 cause. The spheres in which its superiority over other religions is 
 most incontestable, are precisely those which history is least capable 
 of realizing." " The record of the spiritual Church," says Isaac Taylor, 
 JSnthus., p. 191, " is ' on high,' not in the tomes that make our libraries 
 proud." " The influence of religion," writes Paley, JSv., II. c. vii., 
 " must be perceived, if perceived at all, in the silent course of private 
 domestic life . . . The kingdom of heaven is within us. That which 
 is the substance of the religion ; its hopes and consolations ; its inter- 
 mixture with the thoughts by day and by night ; the devotion of the 
 heart ; the control of appetite ; the steady direction of the will to the 
 commands of God, is necessarily invisible. Yet upon these depend the 
 virtue and the happiness of millions." Christianity, as a system of 
 human restoration, works from the individual to the general. See a 
 fine passage in Milman, Lat. Ghr., I. 24. 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 273 
 
 the first to shine out in the full radiance of moral 
 splendour. But the warm rajs were not long in 
 winning their way to valley and to plain, shedding 
 abroad their gifts of fruitfulness and life. 
 
 § 6. Thus the hold of primitive Christianity on Supen- 
 the minds and consciences of men was both of the f^ceofthe 
 strongest and of the highest kind. For it sufficed dement in 
 to effect, through much individual suffering and cms-'^^ 
 sacrifice, a moral revolution in the world ; and ''^"''y" 
 completely changed, by moral force alone, the exist- 
 ing religions. And it must be observed that the 
 changes effected, fraught indeed with very impor- 
 tant moral results, were brought about by strictly 
 spiritual convictions. These are to be assigned as 
 the true causes of the movement. Here lies the 
 real point at issue with much of the critical philor 
 sophy of our time.^ It is evidently possible, in 
 reviewing the career of Christianity, to scan it 
 from more than one point of view, provided only 
 that these be not mutually inconsistent. Charges 
 of failure are necessarily incompatible with admis- 
 sions of success. But the allowed successes may 
 be variously explained. The benefits effected for The ser- 
 
 ^^ vicc^ or 
 
 mankind by the Eeligion of Jesus Christ can hardly chru- 
 now, as facts, be disputed, though they have some- sometimes 
 times been forgotten by too hasty objectors. At us^'^sl- '° 
 
 ' Neander (I. 3) remarks : " Because Christianity enters readily into ^^.^ '' 
 all that is human, striTing to assimilate it to its own nature, and to in- 
 terpenetrate it with its own power, it appears on a superficial view as if 
 it were itself only a product resulting from tiie combination of the dif- 
 ferent spiritual elements it had drawn together." 
 
 T 
 
274 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 present it is more common to attribute them to the 
 influence of consummate positive institutions ; or 
 at least to the operation of natural causes in such 
 a manner as to eviscerate all native force and 
 vigour in the supernatural elements of Chris- 
 tianity. Neither the founder of Positivism,^ nor his 
 most discerning followers, have denied the signal 
 services of Christ's Religion to mankind. They 
 contend, however, that this has been the result of 
 the circumstances of the times, due really to the 
 necessary evolution of ideas in intellectual and 
 This view social advance. It is important, therefore, to 
 
 unfounded. tit rvp t-»t- 
 
 remark how closely the effects of our Religion may 
 be traced to the doctrines of its creed. No philo- 
 sophical improvements, no uprooting of effete 
 institutions,^ no craving after moral reforms, no 
 
 ^ Comte remarks, Fhil. Pos., V. 328, that Oatholicisia (with him the 
 embodiment of Christianity) has never been fairly criticised, having con- 
 stantly been the subject either of unlimited panegyric or boundless de- 
 traction. He admits the earliest ideal of the Christian Church (V. 229) , 
 viz. as an universal spiritual power independent of the temporal, to be the 
 greatest triumph humanity has yet achieved. He regards Catholicism 
 as having done its proper work from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries, 
 placing the acme from the middle of the eleventh to the close of the 
 thirteenth. Of this he writes (V. 326) : " Le systlme oatholique du 
 moyen-Sge forme le chef-d'oeuvre politique de la sagesse humaine." 
 But everywhere he denies (e. g. Y. 418, 419) that the moral excellence 
 of Christianity is due to its doctrines, but only to its social constitution. 
 M. Guizot (I. 85) more truly observes that it is " by moral life, by in- 
 ternal movement as well as by order and discipline, that institutions 
 take possession of society. The Church mooted all the great questions 
 which interest man : busying itself with the problems of his nature 
 and the chances of his destiny. Hence its great influence on modern 
 civilization." 
 
 " Thus M. Littr^ (Barhares, p. 231), " Le Christianisme naquit de 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 275 
 
 agitation for political changes, no mere variation 
 of social conditions, nor all these combined, are 
 STiflScient to account for the conversion to the Faith 
 of the Nazarene of the Roman world. The cha- 
 racter and history of that change are, if dimly, 
 adequately known and understood. A set of facts its true 
 and historical circumstances, making up the life, 
 and death, and thoughts of a G-alilean peasant, 
 won the ear first of peasants like himself, of women 
 and of slaves ;' by-and-by, of the men of thought 
 and action ; and afterwards of nations and govern- 
 ments. It was found little by little to contain the 
 elements of an universal religion, and to proclaim a 
 Revelation congenial to the wants of mankind at 
 large. In it the ends of the earth met. The leaven 
 of an Oriental mode of faith wrought for the 
 first time in harmony with the genius of the Aryan 
 peoples. But its advance was through personal ^'0^°^^^^" 
 
 influences, from heart to heart still more than from personal, 
 
 then pub- 
 mind to mind. Had Christianity been only ori'c, 
 
 principally an intellectual movement, consequent 
 
 I'union du McnotMisme h^breu aveo la philosophic grecque." In pp. 
 65, 68, he draws out admirably the cessatipn of Polytheism through the 
 " malaise religieux " of the time. Christianity, he adds, supervened, and 
 became .for the many what philosophy had been for the few, a religion 
 essentially moral (?) and open to all ; &c. Compare Mr. Lecky, B. E. M., 
 I. 356, " Combining the Stoical doctrine of universal brotherhood, the 
 Greek predilection for the amiable qualities, and the Egyptian spirit of 
 reverence and religious awe, Christianity acquired from the first an 
 intensity and universality of influence which none of the philosophies 
 it had superseded had approached." This species of Eclecticism assumes 
 everything and proves nothing. 
 
 ' See Origen, c. Cels., I. xxvii.. III. ix. Iv. 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 on previous phases of speculation, it could not have 
 commenced with the unlettered and poor. The 
 mine of sympathy, which it opened, with all the 
 deepest wants of man's spiritual nature, never 
 afterward failed in its yield. In the hearts of the 
 multitude it proved a source of moral regeneration. 
 When placed in the crucible of philosophical criti- 
 cism, it transmuted all baser elements of human 
 Thought, and survived the test. The thinkers of 
 Alexandria, Athens, and Rome, gradually allied 
 themselves with its teaching. When subjected to 
 the rough handling of Barbarian hordes, it still 
 called for conqucred. The example of a Divine Life, the 
 fice, sacrifice of a Divine Atonement, meeting the two 
 
 fundamental conceptions of all Religion, ancient as 
 well as modern, the need of Sanctification and of 
 Justification, wrought uniformly and universally. 
 It appealed to latent instincts of spiritual belief.^ 
 Sinful indulgence had, indeed, to be cast aside. 
 Sacrifices, meet to purge the conscience, were de- 
 manded of habits, prepossessions, of the ordinary 
 weaknesses and average endurance of mankind. 
 Women faced the pang of separation more cruel 
 than death, the ruin of their homes, the terrors of 
 martyrdom. Men counted the cost of social degra- 
 
 ' Mr. Leoky, Bist. Bat., I. 389, observes : " Of all systems tlie world 
 ha§' ever seen, the philosopliies of Ancient Greece and Eome appealed 
 most strongly to the sense of virtue : and Christianity to the sense of 
 sin. The ideal of the first was the majesty of self-relying humanity ; 
 the ideal of the other was the absorption of the manhood into God." 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 277 
 
 dation and loss, and set it down for gain. From 
 what motive then, ethical or physical ? No doubt 
 from a sense of duty ; but of what duty ? The 
 instinctive call to love Him, Who " had first loved 
 them," and to imitate His goodness/ A new con- based on 
 
 the imita- 
 
 ception of the gift of life, of the value of man's tion of 
 
 . . . , Christ. 
 
 soulj of its responsibilities, of its capacities, of its 
 dangers, and its hopes, was opened out before them 
 in the Incarnation and Intercession of the Son of 
 God, in the abiding presence of His Spirit among 
 men. Who would not now strive after the Eternal, 
 the Divine? 
 
 § 7. The hour came when Christianity, no longer EstaWish- 
 an oppressed or tolerated faith, was seated on the chns- 
 throne of the Caesars.^ Under Oonstantine it passed 
 from being a set of beliefs into an institution ; from 
 a religion into a church, with revenues, organiza- 
 tion, an independent machinery of its own. As a 
 moral or spiritual influence only, Christianity, it 
 may well be, could not have survived the conflict 
 with barbarism. The doctrines believed are indeed 
 the true core of a religion ; yet there may be times 
 
 ^ Compare Neaader {Memorials of Christian Life, pp. 56, 57, ed. 
 Bohn). Thus Ep. ad Diogn., c. X. iras ayairrjcreis t6v ovras npoayairri- 
 (Tavrd (re ; ayairri(ras 8e, /it/iTjr^r eo-j; avrov ttjs xP'/Tonjror. 
 
 ^ Christianity was first tolerated by Gallienus, a.d. 261. (Euseb., 
 VII. xiii.) Under Constantine Paganism became the tolerated, Chris- 
 tianity the favom-ed religion. (Grieseler, I. 304.) The word " Paganism " 
 first occurs in a law of Valentinian, a.d. 368. Theodosius suppressed 
 Paganism (a.d. 381), which now wrote its apologies by the pen of 
 Libanius. Lastly, the schools of heathen philosophy were closed at 
 Athens by Justinian. See, however, Gieseler, I. 323. 
 
278 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 when it is the organism which preserves the vitality. 
 Its effects. How did the Church of Christ bear this test ? Can 
 we read in its after-fortunes the same traces of a 
 Divine origin and of a Divine Presence ? When we 
 look on the marred visage of a divided and dis- 
 membered empire ; on the warrings of contending 
 sects ; on the victories of a rival yet apostate faith ; 
 on the social miseries and general immorality of the 
 times, amid which " the old order changing " slowly 
 passed^ away ; can we still see in the Religion of 
 Christ the hold upon the hearts and consciences of 
 men, the moral life and inward working, which are 
 Why the seal of its heavenly mission ? * Why, it has been 
 tianitydid sometimes asked, did not Christianity, at a time 
 
 not save . 
 
 theempire. when its power seemed at the greatest and as yet 
 unimpaired, save the Empire ? ^ For our un worthi- 
 ness, answered Salvian f from its own overweight 
 
 ' For the opposite view, see Zeller, Antiquite el Mot/en- Age, p. 205. 
 
 " Compare Montalembert, Monks of the West, I. 256, B. T. Guziot, 
 Giv.'en Pr., Lee. ii™% points out that Christian society is only deve- 
 loped after the invasion of the barharians, and belongs to modern 
 history. M. Littrd gives a different reply ; viz. that Christianity was 
 at first a spiritual, and not yet a temporal power. Mr. Lecty, E. M. M., 
 II. 151, finds an explanation in the fatal indifference of Christians to 
 " the throes of their expiiing country." He quotes the striking words 
 of Chateaubriand : " Orose et Augustin ^toient plus occupfe du schisme 
 de Pflage que de la d&olation de I'Afrique et des Gaules." This view 
 certainly attributes much to the power of Christianity. 
 
 ' See De Qubern. Dei, III. i. ix. ; IV. v. vii. Taking the Gospel 
 precepts he draws a sad but overstrained picture of Christian declension, 
 adding : " Quid enim dignius aut quid justius ? Non audivimus, non 
 audimur : non respeximus, non respicimur." Cresarius Arelat. takes the 
 same view in his Homilies. Prom these rhetorical accounts we may 
 still infer the general corruption of the times, and perceive how fatally, 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 279 
 
 of sins, answered Augustine and Orosius. There 
 was reason in both replies. No doubt, the flame of 
 Christian enthusiasm both rose and fell ; it had its 
 seasons of declension and revival. But the Empire 
 itself was the beginning of the end of Eoman 
 civilization, which was properly founded on the 
 virtues of the Republic. It was impotent of per- 
 manent revivification. Under Theodosius, Justi- 
 nian, and even Heraclius, it showed an appearance 
 of concentration and force which had no true basis 
 of reality. It offered no new conditions of social 
 and political development ; no enduring institutions 
 of liberty or usefulness. The Municipal system, what it 
 with its rules of freedom ; the Imperial idea,s of 
 majesty, order, and subordination, were, indeed, 
 legacies to an after-time. But it was the Church 
 of Christ which entered on and took up the inheri- 
 tance. Meanwhile the leaven of Christian doctrines 
 was working after its proper kind. From the in- 
 dividual outwards to the race, through single 
 personal influences, the restoration of human nature 
 was progressing. Following, we may well believe, 
 a Divine guidance as the enforcement of a Divine 
 
 both in morals and in other respects, Paganism had reacted on Chris- 
 tianity. Compare Schmidt, Esmi, III. c. vi. The conditions of its well- 
 being thus vitiated, it was only by the infusion of a healthier stock in 
 the rude virtues of the Teutonic tribes that it was enabled to put out its 
 native force. It is interesting to observe that Africa, destined to lose 
 for so long the light of Christianity, is described by Salvian as the foulest 
 of all theKoman provinces (VII., xiii.-xv.). Its vices, he says, had bred 
 a second nature in its inhabitants. 
 
 / 
 
28o THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 and why it Law, and as a moral power among: men, it made to 
 
 survived. , _ _ ■■■ . 
 
 itself a spiritual, not a temporal, kingdom, and thus 
 
 survived thecoUision of the Empire with Barbarism. 
 
 Though powerless to avert the shock, it had in a 
 
 It became manner prepared for its arrival. In the free insti- 
 
 the nucleus _ ■*■ '■ 
 
 of social tutions of the Church, based on the spiritual liberty 
 
 regenera- _ ^ _ '' 
 
 tion; of man, there existed a nucleus of social regenera- 
 tion, destined to work out, on favourable soil, a new 
 civilization.^ Its Councils and Synods, provincial, 
 national, and general, offered a standing example 
 of free assemblies, so congenial to the Teutonic 
 temper. Its election of Bishops and clergy,^ as later 
 of Abbots and Popes, recognized, at first substan- 
 tially, the claims of merit. Indeed, the Church has 
 always recruited herself from all ranks, and thus 
 avoided the stagnation incident to hereditary castes.^ 
 
 of new Coming forward as a source of new ideas, Chris- 
 tianity had, at the outset, no fear of progress, 
 intellect, or Science. It re-invigorated Art by 
 endowing it with new motives ;* it encouraged in- 
 dustry ; it worked with the influences which were 
 
 ' See Guizot, Qiv. en Fr., I. 339, E. T. Writers on this period of 
 history will perhaps always remain divided as to the proportion of effect 
 due to Roman civilization, to German independence, and to Christian 
 influence. The fact of the latter agency is all that is here maintained. 
 
 * Guizot, u. s.,1. 331. Gieseler, I. 418. The Bishop was chosen 
 imiTK6vwv awohtf ^"7^9 k'^')P'k»>', ahrjtrei \aSiv. The person elected 
 by the clergy was accepted by the people crying out *A|we, bene 
 meritus ; or aj/a|tor.— See Bingham, IV. ii. 4, 5, and XVII. v. 3, with 
 the authorities. ^ 
 
 ° Guizot, Civ. en Eur., I. 93. 
 ' * Comp. Ozanami Givil. Chretienne au V™^ Siicle, I. c. i. See also 
 M. Littre, Les Barbares et le Moyen-Age. Introduction. 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 281 
 
 changing slavery into serfdom, and serfdom into 
 
 free tenures ; and welcomed, in the new races which 
 
 overran the Empire, the virtues of a rude but un- 
 
 corrupted Barbarism.^ Thus it furnished its con- "^^f ^ary 
 i- to the con- 
 
 querors with the elements requisite to their social ^j^'^^^'" °^ 
 
 development. In the collapse of the Empire, Marians. 
 
 Christianity was left single-handed to contend with 
 
 the intrusion of new forces, and to undertake the 
 
 work of reconstruction. On through the Middle 
 
 Ages (properly so called) intervening between the 
 
 decay of ancient civilization and the revival of a 
 
 new and modern culture under the influences of 
 
 classical philosophy and literature, Christianity, as 
 
 an intellectual as well as a moral power, wrought 
 
 alone.'' The progress made in physical discoveries ; Vast con- 
 
 , . . . sequences 
 
 in art, however rudimentary, culmmatmg, notwith- due to 
 standing, in the sublimest ideals ; in language and influence 
 mental discussion ; ^ was the fruit of Christian influ- times. 
 
 * Compare Salvian, u. s., IV. xiii., VII. vi. "Inter pudicosbaibaros 
 impudici sumus : plus adhuc dice ; offenduntur barbari ipsi impurita- 
 tibus nostris." He excepts among Christians from his rebuke the 
 religiosi. 
 
 ' " All the civil elements of modern society were either in decay or 
 infancy. The Church alone was at the same time young and constituted : 
 it alone had acquired a definite form, and preserved all the vigour of 
 early age : it alone possessed at once movement and order, energy, and 
 regularity ; that is to say, the two great means of influence." — Gruizot, 
 Civ. en Em:, I. 85. Christianity, it must be remembered, preceded the • 
 political re-organization consequent on the fall of the Empire, and may 
 therefore be regarded as the more powerful and necessary element. 
 
 ' See M. Guizot's most interesting comparison of the civil and the 
 Christian literature in the fourth and fifth centuries. Giv. en Fr., Vol. I. 
 Leo. IV. "Intellectual development," he most truly observes, "the 
 labour of mind to obtain truth, will stop unless placed in the train and 
 
282 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 ence on the rough material of the Barbaric stock. In 
 this period were sown the germs of all future social 
 advance. The ubiquity and variety of Christian 
 influence in the period we are rapidly reviewing, 
 from the fifth to the fourteenth centuries, are every- 
 where apparent. It will be sufficient (and in this 
 Lecture only in part practicable) to mark some 
 Method of instanccs of it ; to briefly assign to other sources of 
 
 the present 
 
 inquiry, influence their due share in the work of European 
 civilization ; and lastly, to notice some results and 
 circumstances which have been alleged to make 
 against Christianity as a successful operative ele- 
 ment at this period in the advance of mankind. 
 Efforts of §8. "Never," says M. Gruizot, " has any other 
 tianity socicty made such efforts to influence the surround- 
 fifth to the ing world, and to stamp thereon its own likeness 
 tu^y. as were made by the Christian Church between the 
 fifth and tenth centuries."' It was not, be it re- 
 
 beneatli the shield of some one of the actual, immediate, powerful in- 
 terests of humanity. . . . The Christian religion furnished them with 
 the means : by uniting with it philosophy and literature escaped the 
 ruin which menaced them." Thus the spiritual vigour of Christianity 
 worked by means of education, and enlisted in its cause the highest 
 minds of the time. 
 
 ' M. Sismondi, Hut. d. Franc, II. 50 : " Lors de I'etablissement du 
 Christianisme la religion avait essentiellement consists dans I'enseigne- 
 ment moral : elle avait excerc^ les coeurs et les fi,mes par la recherche de 
 ce qui 6tait vraiment beau, vraiment honnSte. Au cinquiSme siScle on 
 I'avait surtout attach^e k I'orthodoxie, au septi^me on I'avait r^duite k 
 la bienfaisanoe envers les couvents." This summary does not allow 
 sufficiently for the missionary labours of this period. " The triumph," 
 says Dean Merivale, " of the Church over her Northern conquerors was 
 the greatest, I suppose, of all her triumphs, the issue least to be ex- 
 pected beforehand, most to be admired in the retrospect, of any." 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 283 
 
 membered, till after the invasion of the Barbarians 
 that a career was opened to the Church of influ- 
 encing civil society. All institutions hitherto 
 had been laid in Paganism. The government 
 and administration represented only the Imperial 
 system. Slowly, as the Empire fell back in every 
 direction on Rome and Constantinople, these gave 
 way. The mass of the provincial population its new 
 entered the Christian society. New interests and influence, 
 new influence opened before the Bishops and 
 clergy.' Literature, education, the exercise of the 
 learned professions, fell into Christian hands. As 
 a moral instrument to govern the lives of men, 
 endowed with an organization fitted by its fixedness 
 yet pliancy for wide-reaching and varied applica- 
 tion, Christianity at the period of the invasion of 
 the Barbarians stood forth in all its power, ready 
 for the work which lay before it. By a natural 
 transition the Bishops resident in the cities and 
 centres of population, the last protectors of all that 
 remained of Roman society and Roman civilization, political 
 
 and social. 
 
 became the counsellors of the invading leaders ; the 
 equals of counts and nobles ; enjoining humanity 
 towards the vanquished, acting as mediators in 
 
 ■ The clergy were taken cMefly from the subjugated people who thus 
 acquired a powerful influence over their conquerors. See Canon Robert- 
 son {G. H., I. 555). They became the " defensores civitatis,'' or standing 
 advocates of the rights of the provincials. On the effect of the system 
 of Christianity within the Empire on the Germans, see Merivale (Lectt., 
 p. 102) : " Rome abandoned by her Csesars and her legions was left to 
 the counsel and protection of her Bishop and his priest," &c. 
 
284 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 the reconstruction of social relations between two 
 hostile races, and holding out the model of Imperial 
 legislation,^ Their position soon ensured territorial 
 influence^ and hierarchical organization ; a valuable 
 means of permanence in an age when moral con- 
 sideration only or religious reverence might have 
 proved short-lived. From this era, the era of 
 Gregory the Great, may be dated the final Chris- 
 tianization of Europe in its full possession of society 
 Its part in find of the human mind. The religion and laws 
 
 legislation, n ^-\ • i 
 
 of all nations are more or less closely connected : 
 and the Barbaric Codes were framed for the most 
 part after their settlement within the Empire and 
 their submission to Christian teaching. The rise, 
 then, of the Church of Christ on the ruins of the 
 Imperial system ; its assimilation of the new con- 
 ditions under which it was placed ; forming a bond 
 of union among the scattered fragments of the 
 Empire f the facility with which it applied itself 
 to the social regeneration of the time, constitute 
 a palmary example of the power and character of 
 its influence, of its capacity for permanence and 
 
 ' See Eobertson, m. s., and Milman's description of tlie position of 
 bishops and clergy, Lat. Chr., I, 361. " Thus the clergy stood between 
 the two hostile races in the new constitution of society — the reconcilers 
 the pacifiers, the harmonizers of the hostile elements," &c. 
 
 ^ Not indeed to the secular clergy at large. 
 
 ^ Dean Milman, Lat. Chr., VI. 207, makes some just observations on 
 the importance in respect of holding together the great commonwealth of 
 European nations against a Mahommedan confederacy of an ubi(iuitous 
 clergy, speaking a common language, of all countries, under one head, 
 law, discipline, &c. 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 285 
 
 advance. It is true that in secular matters, sucli as its tem- 
 the confirmation of Bishops in their temporalities, ordination, 
 (sometimes even in their election), the Church was 
 subordinated to the royal mandates. But on the 
 side of dogmatic and spiritual authority she re- 
 mained free, supreme : and thus established herself 
 in the most fertile and perennial source of influence, but spin- 
 
 11T p ^ • • -K tual liberty. 
 
 How large a contrast to the decline of ecclesiastical 
 importance in the Eastern Empire! There from Contrast in 
 
 1 • f> 1 -n 11' this respect 
 
 the despotic authority of the Emperors ; their tra- between 
 ditional policy of reducing the Bishops to depend- and Latin 
 ence ; their custom of interference not only with tianity. 
 the government and administration, but even with 
 the creeds of the Church by decrees and edicts of 
 doctrine ; and also from the fact of the laity taking 
 part in matters of theology, and converting them 
 into instruments of policy ; the relations of the 
 ecclesiastical to the civil power were impaired : 
 the influence of the clergy in spiritual affairs dimi- 
 nished ; and the authority of the Christian doctrine, 
 both among the Barbarian immigrants and within 
 the bosom of the Empire, was vitally affected. Its 
 consequences were witnessed alike in the sub- 
 
 ' See Milman, L. Chr., I. 331. " Theodosius and Gratian define or 
 ratify the definition of doctrines, declare and condemn heretics. Jus- 
 tinian is a kind of Caliph of Christianity," &c. Comp. Gieseler, I. 341 , 
 421 ; II. 59, 119, § 116. The words of Constantino (ap. Euseh., Vit. 
 Gonst., IV. xxiv.) are well known. See Robertson, G. S., I. 296, 298 ; 
 III. 137. The Emperor Manuel took part, as an author, in theological 
 controversy. Hence Iconoclasm, which was the Eeformation of the 
 Eastern Church, was abortive. 
 
286 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 servience of Bishops and clergy, during the rival 
 struggles of Constantinople and Alexandria, and 
 in the Iconoclastic controversies, as also in the 
 fanaticism of the monks of the East, alternately 
 encouraged or compelled by court influence. 
 ^ff'"t'"^f § 9* 1''^®^^ i^ ground, then, for asserting the 
 the reii- presence during these centuries of hiffh spiritual 
 
 gion amid \ ^ ox 
 
 moral cor- ideas, notwithstanding the corruption and degene- 
 racy of the times : and that the influence of these 
 ideas produced effects which, with whatever ad- 
 mixture, are characteristic of the Religion of Jesus 
 Christ. One by one the Barbarian Tribes, as they 
 mingled with the Greek or Latin populations of the 
 Empire, were silently subdued.^ Later, indeed, in 
 the case of the Pranks, the compulsion of stern 
 and even sanguinary legislation was brought to 
 bear (partly for political objects) in aid of con- 
 version,^ Heathenism, it might thus be said, 
 
 ' Allusion is here made more particularly to the Moeso-Goths, or, as 
 known later, Ostro and Visigoths, within the Empire ; not to the OotM 
 minores, as they were called, won over to the faith hy Ulphilas, " que 
 les Grecs appel&rent le Moise de son temps." Ozanam, JStudes, II. 22. 
 " No record whatever," says Milman, " not even a legend, remains of 
 the manner in which the two great branches of the Gothic race, the 
 Visigoths in France, the Ostrogoths in Pannonia, and the Suevians in 
 Spain, the Gepidse, the Vandals, the mingled hosts which fonned the 
 army of Odoacer, the first king of Italy, and at length the fierce Lom- 
 bards, were converted to Christianity." — Lat. Chr., I. 255. Niebuhr 
 remarks that the proportion of Christians among the Goths was much 
 greater than among the populations they invaded. Vortrage, III. 316. 
 See Eobertson, G. K, I. 489. From Sozomen, E. IE., II. vi., it would 
 appear that Christianity was first spread by Roman captives in the 
 wars of the third century. 
 
 ^ " Germany," says M. Littr(^, with some scorn, " disputed its con- 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 287 
 
 waned before it, as Christianity in its turn within Examples 
 
 ■^ ofinvolun- 
 
 the realm of Islamism. But the parallel suggested tary con- 
 
 _-, . , ~ _,, . version. 
 
 would be found inexact. For the Faith of Christ, 
 though beaten down, survived in many quarters 
 even under the scourge of Mahommedanism '^ while 
 Paganism in the far North of Europe altogether, 
 however slowly, disappeared. From first to last in 
 the work of the conversion of Europe it is plain to 
 see that it was an infelt sense of the truth and of 
 the blessings of Christ's Eeligion, which captivated 
 and retained the homage of the Barbarian tribes : 
 the combination of its deeper mysteries with the 
 purity of its moral code. The Barbarians were Xme in- 
 open to the influence neither of art nor of know- of Chris- 
 ledge. There remained only the logic of the heart. 
 Here the satisfaction offered by the Faith of Christ 
 to the fears and hopes of our nature with its yearning 
 after the Unseen and Divine ; here too the intrinsic 
 and exquisite goodnessof its teaching, wrought in the 
 ease of the Grerman race on congenial soil.^ Apart 
 
 version for four centuries, and then yielded to the sword of Charle- 
 magne." — Les Barbares, p. 18. Mr. Freeman, Norman Conquest, 
 I. 29, points out that in England Christianity made its way without 
 violence and coercion. He quotes Bede, E. S., 1. 25. 
 
 ' As, e. g., in Armenia. In Persia, Magism, which had resisted the 
 appeal of Christianity, yielded to the scimitar of Mahomet. 
 
 ^ Compare Tacitus ((?er«i., c. ix.)v " Caeterum non cohibere parieti- 
 bus Deos, neque in uUam humani oris speciem adsimilare ex magnitu- 
 dine ccslestium arbitrantur : Deorumque nominibus appellant secretum 
 illud quod sol& reverentift vident." It has been remarked by Grimm 
 (Z). M., pp. 9-11) that certain religious forms and words are common to 
 all the races of Teutonic descent. See Milman, I. 242. Similarly the 
 readiness of the language to frame words for the new doctrinal ideas of 
 
288 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 from any legendary pretensions to miraculous power, 
 adapted to they Were its permanent credentials to reception, 
 
 the charac- , , , 
 
 ter of the Amid the tumult and suffering of an age of violence, 
 
 barbaric . c n /^i • • i t 
 
 tribes. the piety of the Christian believer was the more 
 conspicuous, and took, it may well be, a more 
 vehement and impassioned character " It was the 
 time," it has been finely said,^ "for great Chris- 
 tian virtues as well as for more profound Christian 
 consolations: virtues in some points strikingly 
 congenial to barbaric minds, as giving a sublime 
 patience and serenity in suffering, a calm con- 
 tempt of death. The Pagan admired the martyr 
 whom in wantonness he slew, when that martyr 
 showed true Christian tranquillity in his agony. 
 There was no danger which the better Bishops 
 and clergy would not encounter for their flocks. 
 They would venture to confront unarmed the fierce 
 warrior. All the treasures of the unplundered 
 Churches were willingly surrendered for the 
 
 Christianity points in the same direction. This topic is pursued by the 
 same author (VI. 347). The same remark had been previously made 
 by Gueripke {Kirchengesch., sub init.). On the whole subject, see Guizot, 
 Oiv. era Fr., Lee. VII. Ozanam, Etudes Oermanigues, I. c. iii. Krafft, 
 Anfdnge der Christlichen Kirche hei den Oermanischen VSlkern, and 
 Merivale, Lectt., pp. 88, 130. He remarks on the connection between the 
 Teutonic mythology and the teachings of Christianity, for which it 
 formed a preparation. 
 
 ^ Mihnan, Latin Christianity, I. 250. " Le Christianisme fut anim6 
 d'un ardent prosfilytisme. Le prosflytisme triompha: les barbai-cs 
 furent vainous et pris: s'ils avaient 6t6 inconvertibles, nul ne saurait 
 dire ce qui serait advenu des destinies de I'Occident." — Littre, n. s. In a 
 single generation from their conversion the Normans became remarkable 
 for their devotion. See Hallam, M. A., I. 135. 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 289 
 
 redemption of captives. Even the austerities prac- 
 tised by some of the clergy, and by those who 
 had commenced the monastic life, would arrest the 
 attention, and enthral the admiration of Barbarians, 
 to whom self-command, endurance, strength of 
 will, would appear kindred and noble qualities." 
 Nor must the fact of an elaborate ritual,^ con- SymboU- 
 sidered as a means of impressing by symbolic ter of the 
 forms, or Words, the deep-seated truths of thecwh. 
 Christian Faith on an unlettered people, be omitted 
 from a review of the spiritual influences exercised 
 at this period by Christianity. If not religion in 
 the highest sense, such modes of representation 
 were the preparation for it. 
 
 § 10. The privilege of asylum or sanctuary. Example 
 claimed by the Christian Church in the Middle tian in- 
 Ages, and recognized accordingly in most Barbaric the privi- 
 Codes, though familiar in the history of Grreece,'* sanctuary. 
 
 • ' " Christianity offered itself, and was accepted by the German tribes 
 as a law and as a discipline, as an ineffable, incomprehensible mystery^ 
 Bitual observance is a taming, humiliating process : it is sub- 
 mission to law : it is the acknowledgment of spiritual inferiority : it 
 implies self-subjection, self-conquest, self-sacrifice. It is not religion in 
 its highest sense, but it is the preparation for it." Bitter {Ohrisfliche 
 Philos., I. 40), ap. Milman, I. 376. Domer {Eist. Protest. Th., I. 17) 
 makes the same remark as to canonical law. An all-embracing 
 spiritual kingdom was thus opposed to physical force and warlike 
 ambition. 
 
 ' 0. F. Hermann (Gr. Antiq., II. p. 44) remarks that this privilege 
 belonged mainly to the oldest Temples ; and hence infers that it was 
 a relic of the restraint imposed by religion in the earliest and most 
 savage periods. Similarly the Hebrew Cities of Eefiige are connected 
 with the primeval practices of " blood-money," and a " revenger of 
 blood." 
 
 U 
 
290 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VL 
 
 was confined by Roman legislation to the protec- 
 tion of slaves.^ It may be cited and selected as an 
 example of the intrinsic influence asserted by 
 Christianity over the most savage of its converts. 
 While it appealed to the innate reverence^ for holy 
 places congenial to the Teutonic mind, it exercised 
 a restraint on the most violent and fatal passions, 
 based on a strictly spiritual principle. No crime, 
 it taught, is so heavy that it may not be pardoned 
 by the individual man out of the love and fear of 
 rfmsed'"'^^' God and in imitation of His mercy .^ Nor at first 
 was it abused, when sufficiently controlled by the 
 higher law of the community. It was in the same 
 manner that the Papacy itself,* despite the vices, 
 
 " See Gaius, i. 53. Digest, 48,' Tit. 19, s. 28, § 7. Gibton (c. xx.) 
 speaks roughly of "the anoieit' privilege of , sanctuary as transferred to 
 the Christian Temples." But the laws of Cha,rlemagne, as also of the 
 Anglo-Saxons, required the Church to surrender persons convicted of 
 capital crimes. Of. Robertson (O. H., II. 228). 
 
 2 " How must this right," says Hallam, " have enhanced the venera- 
 tion for religious institutions! How 'gladly must the victims of in- 
 ternal warfare have turned their eyes from the baronial castle, the 
 dread and scourge of the neighbourhood, to those venerable walls, 
 within which not even the clamour of ai-ms could be heard to disturb 
 the chant of holy men and the sacred service of the altar ! The pro- 
 tection of the sanctuary was never withheld." — Middle Ages, III. 302. 
 12th edit. 
 
 ' Being thus reminded that 
 
 All the souls that were, were forfeit once, 
 And He that might the 'vantage best have took 
 Pound out the remedy. 
 
 * " No accessory or fortuitous aids could have raised the Papacy to 
 its commanding height, had it not possessed more sublime and more 
 lawful claims to the reverence of mankind. It was still an assertion 
 of eternal principles. of justice, righteousness, and humanity. However 
 it might trample on all justice, sacrifice righteousness to its own 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY: 291 
 
 ambition, and greed of those who sat in St. Peter's Analogy 
 
 ' o of appeal 
 
 seat, fulfilled, out of the very arrogance of its pre- to the 
 tensions, a function of undoubted spiritual benefit 
 in those rude and turbulent ages. It was a tribu- 
 nal of appeal for the helpless, a refuge from over- 
 whelming tyranny, as the impersonation of the 
 power of the Grospel, before which the crowned 
 monarch and the lawless baron trembled and gave 
 way.^ "Speaking God's testimonies even before 
 kings it was not ashamed." And the same reflec- 
 tion is suffffested when there is taken into account of the 
 
 '-'*-' _ _ ^ system of 
 
 the vast system of spiritual authority exercised peniten- 
 in the practice of confession, absolution, excommu- communi- 
 nication, and interdict, in the recognition of the 
 duty of penance,^ in the existence and usage of Peni- 
 tentials as a part of Christian law. However rude, 
 humiliating, harsh the discipline enjoined, however 
 tending to corrupt itself through pecuniary substi- 
 
 interests, plunge Europe in desolating wars, perpetuate strife in states, 
 set sons in arms against their fathers, fathers against sons : it was still 
 proclaiming a higher ultimate end. It was something that there was 
 a tribunal of appeal, before which the lawless aristocracy trembled. 
 There was a perpetual provocStion, as it wer^ to the Gospel," &c. — 
 Milman, L. Ohr., III. 441. 
 
 1 " The medieval popes almost always belonged to a far higher grade 
 of civilization than their opponents. Whatever may have been their 
 faults, they represented the cause of moral restraint, of intelligence, and 
 of humanity, in an age of physical force, ignorance, and barbarity." — 
 Lecky, S. Mat., II. 155. Christianity, it must be remembered, must be 
 judged by the evils it has prevented as well as by its positive benefits. 
 
 * On the change from public to private confession and penance, with 
 its consequences, see Gieseler, II. pp. 68-70, and p. 318. In the 
 Western Church this important difference was introduced by Leo the 
 Great. Compare Hooker, E. P., VI. iv. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VI. 
 
 tution ; it yet exhibited the power and quality of a 
 Religion which would not be defied or evaded, to 
 restrain, out of no worldly considerations, the licen- 
 tiousness, inhumanity, and lawlessness of men. 
 What no human law could effect, it secured by 
 spiritual constraint and the " terrors of the Lord." 
 Restraint Thous'h Unsafely lodared in the hands of a fallible 
 
 exercised o ./ o 
 
 byspirituai priesthood, in a low condition of culture, and des- 
 
 innuence. J: ' _ ' 
 
 tined later to corruption from their corporate and 
 individual covetousness, it still performed its part; 
 rescuing society from moral anarchy, and bringing 
 home to the ignorant and wanton the direct admi- 
 nistration of God. Where conscience, as a re- 
 straint, would have been powerless, its authority in 
 Distinc- \\^q persoji of the priest was obeyed. The particu- 
 temporai Jar influences of medieval Christianity hitherto 
 
 and spin- _ _ " 
 
 tuai power adduced are instances of its general tendency to 
 detach the spiritual from the temporal power, one 
 of its greatest benefits to mankind ; and to operate 
 within the just limits of Religion, the hopes and 
 fears of a future life. In this manner the authority 
 of conscience, freedom of thought, individual inde- 
 pendence and accountability, were preserved in 
 ways unsuspected, it is true, by the* champions 
 themselves of ecclesiastical privileges.^ Thus the 
 
 ^ " Les sooi^tfe," says M. Littr6 very profoundly, " ne sent pas commo 
 un individii qui en une extr^miti5 peut se dire, que faire? et qui dirige 
 des efforts di^terminiSs vers un but d^termind ; mais elles ont des impul- 
 sions et des instincts produits par les forces intrinslques qu'elles se 
 seutent." 
 
Lect. VI.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 293 
 
 Inquisition itself, amid all its iniquities, by holding observable 
 
 TIP . tlirough- 
 
 the civil power to be incapable of pronouncing on out medie- 
 religious belief, actually became the advocate ofiidsm. 
 toleration. The importance of this element in 
 medieval Catholicism has been honourably ad- 
 mitted by some who in other respects are no partial 
 judges of the working of Christian institutions.^ 
 I shall cite (though not in the present Lecture) but 
 two other examples of the true character and in- 
 tensity of the influence of Christianity during this 
 stage of European progress, which will conclude 
 this portion of our subject. Thus far we have Actual 
 
 services 
 
 seen the services, the triumphs, the potency of our o/Chris- 
 holy Religion in establishing itself upon the ruins the recon- 
 of Paganism, in laying the foundations of our of society, 
 modern civilization. We have seen also that it 
 was destined in the wisdom of an overruling Pro- 
 vidence to survive persecution 'from without, inter- 
 nal heresy and division, the revivals of heathenism, 
 and the flood of barbaric invasion. But not only 
 did it survive : it proved itself indispensable to the 
 advance of mankind, socially, politically, intellec- 
 tually. Under its shadow learning revived; sen- no reason 
 timent softened and became refined; the arts sye^.°"g ns 
 expanded, knowledge and thought progressed.^ 2^^|^'^f 
 
 become 
 
 1 M. Comte and Mr. J. S. Mill, both indeed after M. Guizot, who has '^ ^^^^'^ ' 
 irrefragably established this fact. Sec PUl. Pos., V. 229 ; MiU's Dis- 
 sert, II. 243. 
 
 2 " But still, it will be asked, would not all this result of Christianity 
 have been just the same without the peculiar doctrines?" — Mozlcy, 
 
294 THE PERMANENCE, &'c. [Lect. VI. 
 
 The question tTien remains, is there reason to hold 
 its quality to be changed — has it lost its virtue ? 
 Have its principles proved hollow and unsound ? 
 Has it wrought its work, has it impressed its in- 
 fluence through a falsehood? Such as we have 
 seen it to be, it overcame the world in its fairest 
 and most highly civilized regions. And none but 
 this, we know and are assured, " is the victory that 
 overcometh the world, even our faith." 
 
 B. L., p. 190 ; who replies that besides the matter-of-fact ooincidence 
 between the results and the doctrine, there is the conviction of the 
 agents to the same effect. Would a moral Deism have produced the 
 same consequences ? Would Christianity deprived of its revealed ideas 
 exhibit the same fruits ? 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF CHRISTIANITY INFERRED 
 FROM THE CHARACTER OF ITS INFLUENCE. 
 
 " If we are to calculate the probable extension or extinction of Christian 
 opinions, we must consult the evidence of facts on a large scale; and 
 especially must observe what manifestations of intrinsic power they 
 have given on certain peculiar and critical occasions. This is the only 
 course that can be deemed satisfactory, or that is conformed to the pro- 
 cedures of modern science." — I. Tatlok, ^o*. Hi^. of Enthus., p. 264. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 " Ye are the salt of the earthl" — spatt. 6. 13. 
 
 § I. TT may seem at first sight unjust to cite mo"''^''- 
 -*■ Monasticism as a specific testimony to a tes'ti- 
 
 ■"■ _ mony to 
 
 the power and character of Christian doctrine, the influ- 
 when its prevalence among earlier religions, as chns- 
 that of Buddha, is |aken into account/ No doubt, 
 sacrifices have been made by other faiths to the 
 principle of Asceticism. All such would by some 
 thinkers be equally and unhesitatingly condemned. 
 
 ' Thus M. Littrfi observes: "Le Christianisme, quelques tempera- 
 ments qu'on y ait apportfe, est une religion essentiellement asc^tique : et 
 comme I'asc^tique Buddhisme il avait enfante le monachismo." — Les 
 Barha/res, p. 115. Some have traced the origin of Christian Mona- 
 chism to the Palestinian Essenes, represented at Alexandria by the 
 Therapeuta3;°some, on the other hand, to a doctrine of the Neo- 
 Platonists. — Comp. Gieseler, II. i. ; Neander, I. 84 ; Dollinger, Gentile 
 and Jew, II. 311-316. Philo (de Vit. Contempl., § 3) recognized the 
 tendency as one common to human nature under certain conditions. 
 7t6KKa}(ov /iiv oSu Ttjs oiKovfievrjS tovto t6 ycvos. *E8ei yap a,ya6ov 
 TeKe'iov lieraa-x^^v Kal t^v 'EKKdSa Kat Trjv ^ap^apov. This principle, 
 however, rb jiovov €ii/at npos Gedv, is a different one from the 
 philosophic ascetic spirit which was early remarked in the fii-st 
 Christians, as a reaction oa the immorality of the times. Similarly the 
 doctrine of a higher perfection, which arose out of the asceticism of the 
 monastic life, has no necessarj' connection with its first principles. 
 Oomp. De Wette, Oesch. d. Ghristl. Sitfenhhre, I. 340. Chrysostom (a. 
 oppugn. Vit. Mon., c. iii., ap. Robertson, O. E., I. 332) well says, " All 
 men ought to rise to the same height-; and that which ruins the whole 
 world is that we imagine a greater strictness to be necessary for the 
 monk alone ; but that others may lead careless lives." 
 
. 298 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII, 
 
 Others might be inclined to place them on an eqi^al 
 footing. But, on the other hand, it is not unimpor- 
 tant that the Religion of Christ should not in its 
 past history be without a test of spiritual convic- 
 tion and personal sacrifice which belongs to other 
 faiths. And certainly when the genius of Western 
 Analogy Monasticism is contrasted with that of Oriental 
 
 of Bud- 
 dhism. Monachism ; and this again with the futile itera- 
 tions, external rites, and debasing humiliations of 
 the followers of Grotdma,^ the faith of Christian 
 Europe will not be found to, suffer by the compa- 
 rison. The great work of Monksticism has doubt- 
 morai'^^*'^ less been to exhibit a high, if one-sided. Christian 
 defects, ideal, superior to surrounding secular influences, and 
 surpassing the conception of mere moral or political 
 institutions. I cannot see with some that the pre- 
 sence of such an ideal tends to reduce the average 
 standard of religious duty. M. Renan ^ has not 
 denied to it a savour of originality, the present loss 
 of which to the human mind he views with a cer- 
 
 ' Compare Mr. Hardy's Eastern Mmachism, and for the Buddhist 
 monasteries of Thibet at the present time, Mr. Cooper's Pioneer of 
 Commerce. " Undoubtedly," says Dr. Mozley (B. L., p. 187), " the 
 doctrines of false religions have extracted remarkable action out of 
 human nature ; especially the doctrines of Oriental religions ; e. g. the 
 Hindoo doctrine of Absorption. But of what kind ? Such as is more 
 allied to phrenzy than morals ; gigantic feats of self-torture, and self- 
 stupefaction," &c. Eastern Christianity had indeed its Boo-koi, 'Kkol- 
 firjTOL, Ao/8piT<u, and StuXIt-oi ; but when at the end of the sixth century 
 it was endeavoured to introduce the last-named extravagance in the 
 neighbourhood of Trdves, the Bishops removed the pillar.— See Greg., 
 Turon., VIII. xv. 
 
 " See ap. Montalembert, I. 27. 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 299 
 
 tain regret. Some such charm it must have been 
 which in modern days wrought powerfully on the 
 soul of a Pascal and an Arnauld/ It is not neces- 
 sary here to balance the good against the evil of 
 asceticism, its follies with its wisdom ; or to admit 
 with Mr. Buckle that " it is the prevailing taint of 
 all clerical teaching, the inevitable issue of the whether 
 
 . ... limited to 
 
 theological spirit if that spirit is unchecked."^ It certain 
 
 , , 1 I- ■ stages of 
 
 may or may not belong to a rude stage of society dviuza- 
 in which isolation is easier and more accessible ; 
 and yet its influences might be the more serviceable 
 in an age which measures the interests of society 
 altogether by an utilitarian standard.^ Monasticism, 
 in its best form at least in the West, did not repre- Not neces- 
 sent solely, or even perhaps mainly, the claims of cetic or 
 an ascetic life. It was practical more than specu- piative. 
 lative : it looked more to " the performance of rigid 
 
 » Compare Sainte-Beuve, PoH-Boyal, III. 285-287. 
 
 ^ III. 272. This author seems to confound asceticism with self- 
 restraint : and in this way he attacks Christianity itself, by impugning 
 the morality of the Gospel. What he really proves is the danger of 
 investing the clergy with secular power, or of accepting as the com- 
 mandments of God the inferences of men. 
 
 * Thus Mr. Leoky, E. E. M., I. 136 : " Asceticism — including under 
 this term not merely the monastic system, but also all efforts to with- 
 draw from the world in order to cultivate a high degree of sanctity — 
 belongs naturally to a society which is somewhat rude, and in which 
 isolation is frequent and easy." See also Hist. Bat., II. 399-401. In 
 E. E, M., I. 155, he observes : " The monastic system, however perni- 
 cious when enlarged to excess, has undoubtedly contributed to the 
 happiness of the world by supplying an asylum especially suited to a 
 certain type of character ; and that vindictive and short-sighted revolu- 
 tion which isextii-pating it from Europe is destroying one of the best 
 correctives of the excessive industrialism of our age." 
 
300 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 duty; to the alternation of severe toil with the 
 observance of an austere ritual, than to dreamy 
 indolence or meditative silence, broken only by the 
 discussion of controverted points of theology."' 
 Labour was part of the rule of even the Eastern 
 monks, although too readily abandoned for con- 
 templation,^ But the contemplative life, though 
 fraught with its own perils, was by no means 
 necessarily identical with a course of self-torture, 
 foreign alike to the dignity and true mission of 
 man. It is not possible within our present limits 
 to dwell on the services rendered by the monastic 
 system of the medieval times to the cause of civili- 
 its mixed zation and to the progress of mankind. It has been 
 
 results, 
 
 ' Milman, Lat. Christ., I. 382. So Guizot (II. 65), speaking of the 
 monasteries of Lerins and S. Victor, remarks, " It was by no means with 
 solitude or with mortification, but with discussion and activity, that 
 they concerned themselves." See the fine passage on the agricultural 
 industry of the Monks of the West, in Montalemherfc, I. p. 7. This 
 writer deems, however, the signal service of Monasticism to have lain in 
 its fostering a spirit of prayer, and in the intercessions continually 
 offered -to the Throne of Grace for the sins of mankind, I. p. xlviii. 
 
 ^ Bernardus valles, coUes Benediotus amabat: says an old verse. 
 " The Fathers," writes Mr. Lecky, E. Sat, II. 261, " employed all their 
 eloquence in favour of labour ; but it is to the monks, and especially to 
 the Benedictine monks, that the change is pre-eminently due." See 
 also H. E. M., II. 165, where he quotes the rule of S. Paphnutius, " To 
 love labour more than rest," &c., and p. 218, " Scholars, too, adds the 
 old chronicler, are martyrs if they live in purity and labour with 
 courage." At a time when religious enthusiasm was all directed towards 
 the monastic life as towards the ideal of perfection, they made labour an 
 essential part of their discipline. Schmidt, Essai, p. 228, remai-ks that 
 the motto of Christianity at this period was not the rights of labour, but 
 the duty of laboiu-. It was told of Bocket that ho habitually performed 
 harvest work at the monasteries with the monks. See Hallam, M. A., 
 III. 360, 12th ed. 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 10\ 
 
 called the school whence issued great minds and 
 madmen.^ Certainly, whatever may be thought 
 of the vain attempt to find Christian perfection 
 in ignoring one-half of human nature ; in consti- 
 tuting (as was too often done) one long, unbroken conse- 
 penance for the true Christian life ; in measuring eiToneous 
 holiness by sufifering, and saintly excellence by 
 prayer and pain : whether it be one stage in the 
 history of thought and feeling through which 
 man's mind and soul pass on to other and nobler 
 things ; yet doubtless from the cloistered homes of 
 medieval life went forth the thinkers and workers its un- 
 who should mould the intellectual frame and even services to 
 the political life of coming generations.^ For Mo- chris- ' 
 nasticism led on the one hand through Scholasticism '^'" ^" 
 to a vast expansion of the human understanding ; 
 on the other, though to itself unconsciously, to the 
 overthrow of hierarchical and sacerdotal influence. 
 
 ' " De cette rude 6cole du desert il sortait de gi-ands hommes et des 
 fous." — Villemain, Melanges, p. 356. Comte, Phil. Pos., V. 348, 
 regards the monks as " une milice contemplative." They were called 
 " la Chevalerie de Dieu." He holds that Christian Asceticism tended 
 to abase the passions before the intellectual principle ; and that by its 
 monastic orders and property the Church founded an industrial agricul- 
 tural spirit. 
 
 ^ " Monastic Christianity led to two unexpected but inevitable 
 results ; to the expansion of the human tmderstanding, even tiE it strove 
 to overleap the lofty barriers of the established Catholic doctrine ; 
 and to a sullen and secret mutiny, at length to an open insurrection, 
 against the power of the sacerdotal order." — Milman, L. Ohr., III. 239. 
 " Monastic life in its rise had neither the contemplative nor solitary 
 character ; on the contrary, it was highly social and active ; it kindled 
 a focus of intellectual development ; it served as the instrument of 
 fermentation and propagation of ideas." — Guizot, Civ. en Fr., I. 355. 
 
302 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 Its testi- By^; ^(}Qg|X witli which we are now concerned is the 
 
 niony to 
 
 the spiii- intensity of spiritual control exercised by monastic 
 
 enceof the Christianity, and the loftiness of its type compared 
 with over-developments of the ascetic tendency. 
 No donbt, its weak point, the inherent defect of all 
 asceticism, was its real selfishness. Its avowed end 
 was the individual salvation of its votaries : this 
 their dominant all-absorbing thought. The good 
 done was in a large measure incidental, or at least 
 
 Its moral Secondary. "Even their charities," it has been 
 truly observed, " went to relieve their own souls : 
 to lay up for themselves treasures of good works, 
 rather than from any real sympathy with the 
 people." ^ Their imitation of Christ began in self, 
 terminated in self : it knew not the truer, humbler 
 self-sacrifice of daily life for parent, wife, and 
 
 '^'^^.^1 J child.^ And yet it was in many ways a true self- 
 
 quanned. •' j j 
 
 sacrifice : not the mere maceration of the flesh of a 
 fakir. In the older and nobler forms of monastic 
 life the loftier ideal combining active good with 
 personal craving after holiness was still present. 
 From the cloister came the most zealous Bishops : 
 the most devoted and successful missionaries. In 
 later times this spirit revived in the Mendicant and 
 Preaching, and, in a different direction, in the Mili- 
 
 ' Miltnan, IV. 156. Compare Neander, Oh. B., VII. 325, andLecky, 
 E. E. M., 11. 99, who remarks on the identity of feeling expressed by 
 Sir T. Brown, Bd. Med., II. § 2 : " I give no alms to satisfy the hunger 
 of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my 
 God." 
 
 = Of. Id. VI. 306. 
 
Lect. VII.] OP CHRISTIANITY. 303 
 
 tary Orders. They spent themselves gladly for their 
 brethren. The very capacity which has often been its ten- 
 
 .. , . dency to 
 
 remarked m Monasticism of renewing its youth and seif-rege- 
 reverting to the first principles of its constitution 
 proves the same thing.^ There was the true salt 
 within : and it had not lost its savour. The spirit 
 of self-sacrifice was working still : and on the inten- 
 sity of that spirit, it has been truly said, " depends 
 the moral elevation of an age, and upon its course 
 the religious future of the world." The faith which 
 forged this instrument to its use, was no baseless 
 dream : it struck deep into the roots of human 
 nature, and drew upon its most heroic qualities.^ Its ^'^ ^p'"- 
 
 ' . ^ ^ tual enthu- 
 
 best enthusiasm became its minister : it wrought siasm. 
 its appointed work till " the history of self-sacrifice 
 has become the history of the action of Christianity 
 upon the world." ^ The lofty and unworldly con- 
 ceptions, born of the faith of Jesus Christ, gave it 
 its type and beauty ; and so called it into being. 
 To their influence from first to last, while pure and 
 uncorrupt, it has borne its witness of truth. 
 
 ' Comp. Robertson, C. H., II. 698. See Eanke, Popes, II. i. 3. 
 
 "^ " The Middle Ages," says Mental embert, " were the heroic age of 
 Christianity." Comp. Lecky, E. Bat., II. 267. 
 
 ' Lecky, u. s., p. 405. Milman, I. 234, thus sums up the henefits 
 secured by Western Monasticism : " It compensated for its usurpation 
 of the dignity of a higher and holier Christianity, by becoming the 
 guardian of what was valuable, the books and arts of the old world ; the 
 missionary of what was holy and Christian in the new civilization ; the 
 chief maintainer, if not the restorer, of agriculture in Italy ; the culti- 
 vator of the. forests and morasses of the North ; the apostle of the 
 heathens which dwelt beyond the pale of the Eoman empire." See also 
 Hallam, M. A., III. 301. 
 
304 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 The § 2. In a review, however rapid, of the spirit and 
 
 efficacy of medieval Christianity, some estimate of 
 the Crusades can hardly be omitted. They have been 
 said to " have revealed Europe as Christian," ^ and 
 form, indeed, the turning-point of its history from 
 Different the eleventh to the thirteenth century. Their good 
 of their and ill, their motive and character, have been 
 variously estimated, and will always be diversely 
 apprehended. Unjust, chimerical, unwise ; lavish of 
 blood and treasure, beggaring families and nations : 
 squandering the lives of a Barbarossa and a Saint 
 Louis ; the causes and pretexts of misery, immo- 
 rality, and tyranny at home, of increased ecclesias- 
 tical domination in Pope and clergy ;^ yet no less 
 the source of subsequent heresy and revolution : 
 they have been held up to condemnation as the 
 type-instance of the fatality attaching to religious 
 wars. Yet it is probably a truer view which re- 
 gards them as a defensive and not an aggressive 
 struggle ; ^ as entered upon to raise a bulwark 
 against Mahommedanism in Palestine rather than 
 
 1 See Guizot, I. 149. 
 
 ^ " The Crusades had made the Pope not merely the spiritual but in 
 some sort the military suzerain of Europe." — Milman, III. 439. On 
 the miseries and ill -effects attaching to the Crusades, comp. Hallam 
 U. A., I. 36, III. 307. 
 
 ' See a good summary in Canon Robertson's Gh. Sist., II. 644, 645, 
 and compare Gibbon, c. Ixi. ;0n the defensive character of the Crusades, 
 comp. De Maistre (Dm Pape, Liv. IV., CEuvres, p. 450). Gibbon, indeed, 
 (c. Iviii.) observes, somewhat naiTowly, that " Palestine could add 
 nothing to the strength or safety of the Latins." Milman comments 
 fairly that the whole question of the justice of the Crusades turns on this 
 point (VII. 185, ed'. Smith). 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 305 
 
 in Spain. If fraught with temporary evils, they ultimate 
 yet abounded in ultimate benefits ; knitting the rendered 
 nations of Europe in one common sentiment, in one Euro™ ° 
 common interest : and that by a holy bond draw- 
 ing each knight and baron from petty personal 
 strifes to strike for a hallowed cause : educating 
 them in the spirit of chivalry and generous compe- 
 tition with the stranger races of East and West,^ 
 and borrowing from these their different civiliza- 
 tion ; navigation and commerce were improved : 
 the wealth of the trading classes increased : the 
 number of fiefs lessened, and the anarchy of the 
 times thus reduced. Many of these results, it is Many of 
 true, may be judged to be incidental to the course cidentai. 
 of affairs ; and this, it may be said, cannot be con- 
 sidered to belong to the framework of the Christian 
 system. They show, however, the manner in which 
 under the Providence of Grod the operation of^"™'^'''"l 
 
 J- example of 
 
 Christianity blended with the career of civilization '^« "p?''^- 
 
 '' _ _ _ tion of 
 
 and improvement, till it becomes diflScult to assign christian 
 
 ■"■ . . . " influence 
 
 to either its relative degree of importance. Had on the 
 
 ... p Tt course of 
 
 Christian zeal m the person of a Bernard never civiUza- 
 kindled the spirit of the Crusades ; while it is pos- 
 sible that Christian Europe might have succumbed 
 in detail to the attacks of Islam, it is certain that 
 the progress of material improvement must have 
 been indefinitely delayed. But, whatever estimate 
 
 ' See Guizot, I. 154. Gibbon thinks the advantage wholly on the 
 side of the West. See Mr. Lecky's remarks, H. E. M., II. 266, 267. 
 
 X 
 
3o6 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 be taken of their political or social results, there 
 
 can be but one view of the religious import of the 
 
 In them- Qrusades.^ They stand forth, the proud answer of 
 
 selves a re- •' '■ 
 
 markabie Christendom to the challenare thrown down by the 
 
 witness to . 
 
 the power creed of Mahomet. If its votaries were ready- 
 
 of religious i r- i i • 
 
 influence, minded to seet death on the battle-field m witness 
 of their faith, so too did the followers of Christ. 
 They wended even gladly on a- pilgrimage of mar- 
 tyrdom ; and gave joyfully their lives, as they sup- 
 posed, in the cause of their dear and outraged Lord. 
 
 counter- j^q^ indeed, as the Moslem, to behold the face of 
 
 vailmg ' ' 
 
 Mahome- Allah throuffh the blood of the infidel : but to win 
 
 tan fanati- ° 
 
 'is™. back from pollution the honoured shrine of Beth- 
 lehem and the ever-hallowed Mount of Calvary.^ 
 
 ' Speating of the English Crusaders, Matthew of Paris says, " Indig- 
 num quippe judicabant animarum suarum salutem omittere et obse- 
 quium ooelestis Regis clientelse regis alicujus terreni postponere." — Hist. 
 Maj., p. 671, quoted by Mr. Buckle, B. Civ., II. 6, who adds that the 
 first tax ever imposed in England on personal property was in 1166, for 
 the Crusade. 
 
 ^ To chase these Pagans in those holy fields 
 Over whose acres walked those Blessed Feet, 
 Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed 
 For our advantage on the bitter Cross. 
 
 Gibbon's well-known criticism that " the God of the Christians is not a 
 local Deity, and that the recovery of Bethlem or Calvary, his cradle or 
 his tomb, will not atone for the violation of the moral precepts of the 
 Gospel," will be seen to be beside the mark of the present argument, 
 which turns not on tlie justice or propriety of religious wars, but on 
 their mode of exhibiting the spiritual character of an age and the power 
 of religion as a practical motive. " The Crusades," Dean Milman 
 admits, " are monuments of human folly ; but to which of the more 
 regular wars of civilized Europe, waged for personal ambition or national 
 jealousy, will our calmer reason appeal as monuments either of human 
 justice or human wisdom? " 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 307 
 
 It has been hinted that these were, after all, the 
 superstitious efforts of a dreaming age, inspired by 
 an unreasoning enthusiasm ; which is past never to 
 return, and indicates accordingly the decline of the 
 spirit of religion. " The Crusader's sword," it is 
 said,^ " has long been shattered ; his achievements 
 idolized by the poet and the novelist. Liberty, and 
 not theology, is the enthusiasm of the nineteenth 
 century." Yet the same writer has elsewhere ^nd ex- 
 
 ' , . . hibiting 
 
 frankly admitted,'* that " while ignorance and error the fund of 
 
 Christian 
 
 have, no doubt, often directed the heroic spirit into enthu- 
 wrong channels, and have sometimes even made it 
 a cause of great evil to mankind ; yet the power of 
 Christianity to evoke and sustain the highest, the 
 most enlarged conceptions, can cease only with the 
 annihilation of the moral nature of mankind." "We 
 may be pardoned, then, if we connect these triumphs 
 of the strength of our holy Religion in less enligh- 
 tened ages, not merely with man's moral capacities, 
 but with his spiritual insight : if we see in them 
 not only a possible but an actual union of the 
 heroic with the religious virtues, of the patriot with according 
 the saint,^ after the apprehension of those far-off know- 
 times ; if we read in them an evidence of a Faith tL time. 
 
 ' See Lecky, Hist, of Eationalism, II. 244. 
 
 2 n., p. 405. 
 
 ' " In the Middle Ages the saintly type being the standard of perfec- 
 tion, the heroic type was almost entirely unappreciated. The nearest 
 approach to it was exhibited by the Crusader, whose valour was never- 
 theless all subordinated to superstition, and whose whole career was of the 
 nature of a penance." — Lecky, E. B., II. 222. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 ever progressive, working after the measure of the 
 knowledge of the age, even according to the pro- 
 mise of its Founder " overcoming the world ;" now 
 " suhduing kingdoms ;" now " quenching the vio- 
 lence of fire;" now "waxing valiant in fight;" 
 " turning to flight the armies of the aliens ;" yet 
 always and in all things more than conqueror 
 " through Him that loved us." 
 Want of § 3. Much evil, it must be admitted, has been 
 nation as doue to the cause of Christian Truth by indis- 
 separate Criminate laudation ; ' or, at least, through an 
 m the'con- over-estimate of its effects, by way of answer to 
 of^Vdera censures equally exaggerated. There are some 
 Europe, ^-j^^ \^\Q geeu in Christianity the sole and 
 sufficient agent in the work of civilization, dis- 
 joining it, like a fragmentary episode,^ from the 
 ordinary influences at work upon the face of 
 society. We have seen cause, with stricter and 
 more profound thinkers, to take a different course. 
 Christianity has been, no doubt, a leading and a 
 distinct element in modern civilization ; but it has^ 
 
 ' See some good remarks on this point in Comte, Phil. Pos., Y. 328. 
 
 ^ OvK eoiKi 8' f] (f)va-is iTret<To8ia>SrjS ova-a, aairep (jboxSripa Tpay<fbla. 
 — Arist., Metaph., XIII. iii. 
 
 ^ " C'est Ik le beau r61e de la commimaut^ ciir^tienne sur la terra : 
 elle est comme un ferment de I'humanit^, destine a lui communiquer le 
 prinoipe fecond et indestructible d'une vie nouvellesans toucher violem- 
 ment aux institutions etablies. Ardents pour la conversion des indi- 
 vidus, les Apdtres attendaient sans impatience le renouvellement des 
 formes sociales. lis I'abandonnaient ^ I'action du temps et k la puissance 
 irresistible de I'Esprit de J&us-Ohrist. Toutefois s'ils ont respects les 
 lois existantes, ils ont indique en meme temps les principes destinfe a 
 
 les modifier en les conformant ^ la nature du Eoyaiune de Dieu." 
 
 Schmidt, Essai, p. 175. 
 
Lect. VIL] of CHRISTIANITY. 309 
 
 worked in conjunction with other forces. And it 
 is diflScult accordingly, in some cases, to award 
 duly the proportions of the resultant effect. We 
 have already seen that Roman civilization left its 
 legacy of complex influences in its Municipal 
 system and Imperial traditions. We have seen 
 likewise that in the physical and psychical 
 elements of the Barbarian stock, in their inherited 
 associations and ideas, fresh principles of recon- 
 struction were added to modern society. As what por- 
 Christianity modified the manners and tempera- '^^ action 
 
 /■ n m • ■■ . ofChris- 
 
 ment 01 the Teutonic race, so was there, m some tianity. 
 respects, an inverse action on the form and direc- 
 tion of Christianity itself. No competent thinker 
 will either deny the importance of. Feudalism as an 
 element in the general progress of these ages, or 
 seek to attribute its consequences to the teaching 
 or influence of Christianity.^ It coincided, how- ^'^ ^eia- 
 
 . . •' ' tions to 
 
 ever, with the spirit of the new Eeligion in raising Feudai- 
 the moral tone of society. Feudalism was itself 
 the mingled outcome of German loyalty and 
 German independence. The progress^ of society 
 from villages and manorial residences to towns 
 
 ' Mr. Freeman, Norman Conquest, I. 97, distinguishes between the 
 elements of Feudalism and a Feudal system. In the former, the 
 Church could have no share, however readily she co-operated in de- 
 veloping the latter. Thus, a vast number of the ancient Charters are 
 in favour of the Church. 
 
 ^ " We must distinguish," says Hallam, M. A., I. p. 351, N. xviii., 
 " the corporate towns or communities from the other class called bur- 
 gages, bourgroisies. The Ch^telains encouraged the growth of villages 
 around their castles, from whom they often derived assistance in war, 
 &c." In a former passage, he attributes more to the action of Chris- 
 
operation. 
 
 310 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 and trading borouglis was due, not to any eccle- 
 siastical arrangement of parishes, but to the 
 operation of feudal tenures. They were, in fact^ 
 the molecules of Feudalism. Yet the operation 
 and distribution of religious influence was pro- 
 bably rendered more favourable by this condition 
 Its joint of things. So the extinction of serfdom, though 
 zealously assisted by Christianity, and not un- 
 frequently assigned to its authority, was mainly,^ 
 perhaps, due to secondary causes originating in 
 the state of affairs just named. The altered 
 position of woman in modern society,^ though, 
 
 tianity. " The suhjeotion of a heathen tribe is totally different from 
 that of a Christian province. With the Church came churches, and 
 for churches there must he towns, and for towns a magistracy, and for 
 magistracy law." — lb., I. p. 121. See Adam Sraith, Wealih of Nations, 
 III. iii., on the rise and progress of cities and towns. 
 
 1 See Hallam, M. A., I. 197-202. In 1167, Alexander III. declared 
 all Christians exempt from slavery. See Voltaire, Essais, tom. ii. c. 83. 
 
 ^ Thus, Guizot, Civ. en E., I. 71 : " Was it not within the bosom of 
 the feudal family that the importance of women developed itself?" and 
 especially the picture drawn by him of the wife as Chitelaine, Civ. en Fr., 
 III. 91. " This elevated and almost sovereign position, in the very bosom 
 of domestic life, often gave to the women of the feudal period a dignity, 
 a courage, virtues, a distinction, which they have displayed nowhere else, 
 and has, doubtless, powerfully contributed to their moral development 
 and the general improvement of their condition." Too much import- 
 ance has, no doubt, been assigned to the consideration in which women 
 were held by the German tribes (Tacitus, Oe'i m., xviii. xix.). Mr. Lecky, 
 however, in his elaborate Essay, has pointed out some ingredients in 
 this subject due to the action of Christianity, as the tendency of the 
 religion to the milder virtues, the feminine ideal of the Virgin, the 
 Christian laws of chastity, the part played by feminine inartyrs, &c. 
 See also Dean Merivale, North. Nations, Lect. viii. Had Asceticism 
 been a strictly Christian virtue, it must have been reckoned as tending 
 to debase the position of women (fl. E. M., II. 336, 389 ; H. Bat., I. 
 235). 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 31 1 
 
 to some extent, due to the preceding efforts and 
 to the co-operation of Christianity, as well as to 
 doctrines immediately connected with its system, 
 has been, with reason, traced to circumstances 
 arising simply out of Feudalism. Chivalry itself, ^.\''^[q 
 which also has been claimed for a Christian insti- chivalry, 
 tution,^ may, with better right, be called the 
 daughter of the feudal system. The estimate of 
 its influence in elevating and refining the tone of 
 modern society can hardly be over-charged. Yet 
 the joint efforts of Christianity to lend it all the 
 strength of a hallowing faith, cemented by 
 religious ceremonies and fostered by religious 
 promises, are too well known to need description 
 or comnlent. Thus, then, in all these cases it is 
 not contended that Eeligion has been the only 
 influence at work in eliciting our modern civiliza- 
 tion ; but rather that it has exercised a continuous 
 and independent function. Even its crowning 
 
 ' As by Sismondi, Ilist. d. Fr., IV. 201 : "At an epoch when reli- 
 gious zeal became reanimated, when valour still seemed the most worthy 
 of all offerings that men could present to the Deity, it is not surprising 
 that they should have invented a military ordination, and that chivalry 
 should have appeared a second priesthood, destined in a more active 
 manner to the Divine service." Guizot, however, finds chivalry to be 
 "the spontaneous consequence of Germanic manners and feudal rela- 
 tions ; " and that " religion and imagination, the Church and poetry, 
 took possession of chivalry, making it a powerful means of attaining 
 the ends which they pursued, of fulfilling the moral needs which it was 
 their mission to satisfy." See at length Civ. en Fr., III. Le9. vi. ; and 
 Hailam, M. A., III. 395, 396, who traces it to the age of Charlemagne. 
 Sec the sketch of the relation of chivalry to the Church in Robertson 
 (a. H., II. 507). 
 
312 
 
 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 benefit of distinguishing between the spiritual and 
 
 the temporal power is in a measure due to other 
 
 and to the ^nd secular causes. For while recognized funda- 
 
 Teutonic ^ . 
 
 character, mentally by the Religion of Christ, and enforced in 
 its organization, it was no less congenial to that 
 spirit of personal and individual liberty introduced 
 , in the Teutonic nature into modern society.^ The 
 believer was not absorbed in the Deity whom he 
 worshipped Or in the Church of which he was a 
 member, nor was the individual man sacrificed, as 
 in the Eepublics of old, to the citizen. 
 
 Corrup. & A_ The incontestable fact that the course of 
 
 tions of . . . 
 
 medieval Christianity has been affected in all its institutions 
 
 tianity and many of its doctrines by the infirmities of 
 
 human nature and the historical circumstances of 
 
 its advance,^ has led to unfavourable but ground- 
 
 ■ See M. Guizot's excellent summary, Oiv. en Fr., torn. i. Lef. vii. 
 sub fin. : " The spirit of legality came to us from the Eoman world. To 
 Christianity we owe the spirit of morality, the sentiment and empire of 
 rule, of a moral law, of the mutual duties of men. The Germans' con- 
 ferred upon us the spirit of liberty as we conceive it in the present day, 
 &c." Liberty of thought, indeed, he elsewhere (Lep. xxx.) attributes 
 justly to Greco-Eoman civilization. This was received neither from 
 Christianity nor from Geimany, but is an idea which is essentially the 
 daughter of antiquity. See Mr. Lecky's rtmarks, E. E. M., II. 197, 
 on the relation of feudal organizations to the Church. Dean Merivale, 
 Northern Nations, p. 127, holds that " patriotism was a Pagan virtue, 
 but loyalty is a Christian grace." " To his own Lord the Christian must 
 stand or fall. And as patriotism was the classical, so was loyalty the 
 feudal principle." 
 
 2 Compare the testimony of Jerome (F**.ilfaM., sub init.). "Scribere 
 disposui ab adventu Salvatoris usque ad nostram jetatem, quo modo et 
 per quos Ohristi Eoolesia nata sit ; et adulta, persecutionibus creverit et 
 martyrjis coronata sit; et postquam ad Christianos principos venerit 
 potentia quidem et divitiis major, sed virtutibus minor facta sit." 
 
Lect, VIL] OF CHRISTIANITY. m 
 
 less criticisms of its authority and value. I have 
 already alluded to causes which, in the Eastern 
 Church, debased the genius of Christianity, cor- 
 rupted its practice, and arrested its progress. It 
 is plain that as the Religion enlarged its boundaries 
 and established its predominance, its moral effects 
 would decline, for various reasons. There may inevitable 
 well be a tendency, under a rigid dogmatic system, 
 for morals to assume the form of positive com- 
 mands, and thus to lose their spiritual savour. To 
 speak, however, of no other cause of declension, 
 the inducements of temporal advancement were 
 now on the side of conversion instead of being 
 ae-ainst it. The establishment of a State Chris- f™".''* 
 
 " _ _ political 
 
 tianity led indirectly to the repetition of General position. 
 Councils, as a ready instrument; these to the 
 inevitable enforcement of often transcendental 
 dogmas; these, by a reaction, to political dis- ^[^^j^s^t^^ 
 putes and to theological intrigue and persecu- 
 tion. Orthodoxy now brought its own reward; 
 and sanguinary contests for pre-eminence usurped 
 that rivalry of love, which had once been the 
 honourable badge of the earliest believers in 
 Christ. "The very scenes," we are told, "of 
 the Saviour's mercies ran with blood shed in His 
 name by His ferocious self-called disciples." ^ The 
 growing necessity of conforming a new faith to 
 the apprehensions and habits of barbarous races 
 
 ' Milman, Lat. Chr., I. 213. 
 
314 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 led of itself, in many ways, to a direct variation 
 
 of its standard, both as to morals and religious 
 
 yet neces- belief.^ This, bowevor, it must be remembered is 
 
 sary to its ,. . . . 11- 
 
 persis- no evidence of intrinsic or permanent declension. 
 progress It bas been truly observed tbat " the very offence^ 
 signa-lized are a token of progress, since it is the 
 strongest proof of the firm hold of a party, whether 
 religious or political, upon the public mind, when 
 it may offend with impunity against its own 
 primary principles. That which at one time is 
 a sign of incurable weakness or approaching 
 dissolution, at another seems but the excess of 
 healthful energy and the evidence of unbroken 
 vigour."^ It was not, then, to be expected but 
 that in the West also Christianity should exhibit 
 transitions often foreign to the spirit of its teach- 
 ing. Amidst the barbarian elements among which 
 it had to work, Christianity itself began to bar- 
 in a bar- barize. As the price of its influence on an age 
 
 barous age ...... 
 
 and nation, dark and superstitious, its doctrines were exhibited 
 in a debased, ambiguous form, productive of last- 
 ing consequences on the purity of the faith. As 
 the cost of its power over a warlike aristocracy, 
 and of its establishment by the side of feudal 
 
 itsmiii- institutions, the higher clergy are seen assuming 
 
 racter. i ggg Yi^^-a. Milman's remark, Lat. Ghr., I. 443 : " The historian who 
 
 slioiild presume to condemn this universal popular religion as a vast 
 plan of fraud, or the philosopher who should venture to disdain it as a 
 fabric of folly, would be equally unjust, blind to its real uses, assuredly 
 ignorant of its importance and its significance in the history of man." 
 2 See Eobertson, C. II., I. 143. 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 315 
 
 the character and pursuits of barons and the 
 employments of a warlike profession.^ The 
 growing strength of the Mahometan invasion 
 gave rise to wars which, having the defence of 
 religion for their aim, threw a decent cloak over 
 the martial tendencies of Bishops and Abbots, and 
 gave to the Christianity of the age a military and 
 violent aspect. The Crusades, which had proved 
 so serviceable an instrument for extending eccle- 
 siastical and Papal influence, were not readily 
 allowed to cease. They were continued with ReWg'ois 
 
 '' wars. 
 
 greater success and more barbarity, in the form 
 of religious wars against heretical and unortho- 
 dox sectaries. Nor were these contests confined 
 solely to the aim, however unjustifiable, of esta- 
 Islishing uniformity of belief by force of arms. The 
 claims and encroachments of the Papal and sacer- 
 dotal systems upon the temporal power of the 
 European monarchies involved grievous and con- 
 tinual conflicts. The questions of Investiture and 
 of the particular relations of the Papacy to the 
 personal rights of sovereigns were urged with 
 varying fortunes, but undirpinished persistency, 
 until the close of the thirteenth century. Then Decline of 
 came the ebb in the tide of spiritual domination, power 
 
 from close 
 ' Comp. Grieseler, II. 374, ed. Clark; Hallam, M. A., c. 11. Pt. ii. ofthir- 
 They were used by the German sovereigns as a balance of power against teenth 
 the nobles, thus receiving whole counties as fiefs, but with the obliga- '^^"'"''y- 
 tions of feudal tenure, e. g. military service, the leading troops in person, 
 &c. This custom may be ti'aoed as late as Agincourt. See Lecky, 
 E. E. M., II. 265. 
 
3i6 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 which had overflowed the several kingdoms of 
 the West. "Slowly," says Hallam,^ "like the 
 retreat of waters or the stealthy pace of old age, 
 that extraordinary power over human opinion, 
 the Papal Empire, has for five centuries been 
 subsiding." But how had its tyranny arisen? 
 Where lay the hidden secret of its power ? 
 Where but in the mission it existed to fulfil ? In 
 its hold upon ages of anarchy and ignorance, of 
 brute force and dormant intelligence, such as only 
 a common faith, a rigid ceremonial, a priesthood 
 linked in one vast hierarchical confederacy, could 
 dignity effectively control. The right of excommunicating 
 Papacy. Sovereigns for moral delinquencies showed the 
 supremacy of the Church in at least its noblest 
 aspect; even though the implied claim of the 
 spiritual over the temporal power was as in- 
 defensible as vague. The attitude of a Hilde- 
 brand and an Innocent, and even of an Alexander 
 and a Boniface in rebuking injustice, murder, and 
 lust, is full of moral power; rising, in its appeal 
 to the consciences of men, to the dignity of the 
 Jewish Prophets.^ Men might seem to see again 
 an Ambrose closing the doors of the Church of 
 
 ' Middle Ages, II. 233, 12tli ed. 
 
 ^ Compare Dean ''Stanley, Sermons on the Bihle, pp. 65, 66. " II est 
 vral," says Villemain," que rambition a sou vent abusd de cet exemple." 
 Tableau de vMoq. Chret,, p. 327. De Maistre (JJEuvres, p. 370) argues 
 that the influence of the medieval Popes was in the main a spiritual, 
 moral, and beneficial one ; iind quotes to this effect Voltaire, Essai, 
 torn, ii., c. 60, 65. 
 
Lect. VIL] of CHRISTIANITY. 317 
 
 Milan against tlie blood-stained hands of a Theo- 
 
 dosius ; or a Leo arresting, by his sole -unarmed 
 
 authority, the licentious advance of a GTenseric to 
 
 the sack of Rome. But the assumption of the Causes of 
 
 power of the sword by the Vicegerent of Christ sion, 
 
 was as fatal in its consequences to break this spell, 
 
 as it was without foundation in the doctrine of 
 
 Christ's Religion. "Who could doubt but that 
 
 when men had opportunity to examine such 
 
 monstrous claims there would come that secret 
 
 working of the leaven of truth, which would 
 
 break forth into spiritual rebellion against the 
 
 abuse of a religious despotism? The division of 
 
 interests between laity and clergy ; the price paid 
 
 for the vast access of influence secured to the 
 
 Church in Monasticism and the celibacy of its 
 
 ministers, was destined in its effects to rend the ^°'^°'' sub- 
 sequent 
 institution it had been created to subserve. Theo- changes. 
 
 logy became the privileged domain of the clerical 
 
 order, their instrument of power, which it was not 
 
 in human nature not to turn into a weapon of 
 
 persecution. The secular arm tamely executed 
 
 the censures of the Church ; while Catholicism 
 
 lapsed into a theocracy, siding in all temporal 
 
 matters with the advocates of absolute power. 
 
 § 5. I have already alluded to the subject of Comip- 
 
 tions of 
 
 corruptions of worship and doctrine. The creation doctrine, 
 of Theology, which may be defined to be a scien- 
 tific or orderly statement of Divine Truth, was the 
 
3i8 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 growth of a natural development of reflection upon 
 the revelations to the human mind, contained in 
 Rise of the words of Christ. It was the fruit of the first 
 as a " five centuries of the Faith in East and West. Its 
 substitution for the direct teaching of Scripture 
 was the historical result of circumstances attending 
 the progress and spread of Christianity, The 
 Fathers who had codified, summarized, or expanded 
 the truths of our holy Religion, were to the theo- 
 logians of after-times what the Apostles and the 
 books of Holy Writ had been to themselves.^ But 
 with this difference. It was impossible in those 
 times, and in that stage of culture, to forge again 
 the link which bound the utterances of the earlier 
 Fathers of the Church with the fresh living 
 springs of Christian truth, from which they drew 
 the inspiration of their teaching. A Scholastic 
 Theology was the exposition of the thought of the 
 age upon the mysteries of the Faith. It was a 
 Its in- poor expression, even in the hands of the devouter 
 defects. Mystics, of the mind of a Chrysostom, an Origen, 
 an Augustine. Little by little the ideas of men on 
 the subjects of religious inquiry were riveted to 
 traditional stand-points, and made to run within 
 
 ' See Guizot's remarks in Oiv, en Fr., Lep. xxix. He considers the 
 tteology of the Middle Ages to have commenced in the ninth century. 
 Gibhon, not unjustly, observes, that "for the five hundred years after 
 Christ the disciples were indulged in a freer latitude, both of faith and 
 practice, than has ever been allowed in succeeding ages " Dean Meri- 
 vale, Conv. of N. Nations, p. 40, says, " the fourth century places the 
 Eeligion of Christ definitively on the basis of a Revealed Theohgyj" 
 
Lect. VIL] of CHRISTIANITY. 319 
 
 appointed channels. Side by side with this arti- 
 ficial, though scientific treatment of sacred truths, 
 was working in practice the influence of legendary 
 corruptions,^ constituting a sort of secondary its false 
 Gospel, and ruling with all the force of poetical ments, 
 imagination the heart and belief of the time. 
 Every Christian man, as well as every department 
 of the Church, had his interceding Saint, himself 
 encompassed with miracle, and the vehicle of 
 miraculous intervention, to the worshipper as 
 necessary a medium of spiritual conception and of 
 Divine influence as the ethers and entities of a 
 cori'esponding stage in physical knowledge. The ^"f P""^?''- 
 consequences of such a state of things, in modifying 
 the effects of the simple tenets of the Gospel, were 
 doubtless very large and diflScult of estimate. The 
 compromise thus represented between the essential 
 teachings of Christianity^ and the slow advances 
 of the barbaric mind towards a higher point of 
 spiritual culture, affects other regions of the Faith. 
 The prevailing views of evil Angels, magic, and 
 witchcraft ; of Purgatory, which, at the beginning 
 of the period we have reviewed, was, to the mind 
 of Gregory the Great,^ but a probable truth ; but 
 
 ' Compare Milman, Lat. Chr., VI. 247, wlio styles this the age of 
 " the mythic literature of Christendom." 
 
 ^ I follow the expression of Dean Milman, Lat. Chr., 1. 442, VI. 252. 
 Gregory's words are, " Sed tamen de quihusdam levihus culpis esse ante 
 judicium purgatorius ignis credendus est." — Dial., IV. 39. A stronger 
 passage occurs in Ps. iii , Pcmif. si'b init. Laud (Conference vnth Fisher 
 p. 296) says : " As for St. Augustine he said and unsaid it, and at the 
 
~^,.. 
 
 320 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 was soon fraught with the concomitants in practice 
 of absolution, masses, and indulgences, 
 
 Those massy keys of metal twain. 
 The golden opes, the iron shuts amain, 
 
 borne by " the Pilot of the Galitean lake ; " and 
 no less also the doctrines of mortal and venial 
 sins, of councils of perfection,^ and works of supere- 
 rogation, are instances of similar tendencies. They 
 *i"imafei ^®^*' ^^^®^*^' ^ factitious Superficial authority to 
 to subvert Medieval Christianity^ in its rousrh encounter with 
 
 the autho- ■' _ ° 
 
 rityofthe the temper of the age : an influence, however, more 
 
 Church. ^ 1 • . 
 
 or less unreal, since uncongenial with the true 
 spirit and aims of the Religion itself ; and destined, 
 accordingly, to pass away in the hour of account, 
 when " the fire should try every man's work," and 
 " the day should declare it " of what sort it is. 
 The Refor- § 6. We kuow, Brethren, how that hour came, that 
 day of darkness and gloominess, of " clouds and of 
 thick darkness ;" yet " as the morning spread upon 
 the mountains." For though terrible with "the 
 
 last left it doubtful : which, had it then been received as a point of 
 faith, he durst not have done. Indeed, then, in St. Gregory the Great's 
 time, in the beginning of the sixth age. Purgatory was grown to some 
 perfection. For S. Gregory himself is at Soio, it was but at Futo a 
 little before." See Bp. Browne on the Articles, pp. 500, 501. 
 
 ' ConsiUa Evangelica, as distinguished from Frcecepta. See at 
 length .Jeremy Taylor, Duct. Dub., II. xii. 
 
 " There is a tendency in the Positivist School to exalt the doctrines 
 and institutions of medieval Catholicism, such as Purgatory, Confession, 
 Celibacy, Papal Supremacy ; and from their decline to infer the ulti- 
 mate dissolution of Christianity. Comp. Comte, Phil. Pos., V. 269- 
 348. This criticism, however, does justice to the secondary benefits of 
 the system, flowing, indeed, from the tenets of the Eeligion itself. 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 321 
 
 earthquakes of nations," it still rose fraught with 
 hope. It was a movement which convulsed the 
 frame of Europe ; one of which, it may well be, we 
 have as yet seen but the beginning; for already 
 men's hearts are set upon a second Reformation. 
 At present we are concerned only to estimate the Nature of 
 nature of its testimony to the permanence of Chris- dence to 
 
 . the per- 
 
 tianity. Has it rendered the prospects 01 ourmaneuce 
 Religion more hopeful ? Has it redressed previous tianity. 
 shortcomings ? or has it, as in the view of some,^ 
 opened a vista of religious disorganization leading 
 inevitably to a negative philosophy, and to demo- 
 cracy in Church and State? The Reformation it proved 
 
 . . . , , to be a 
 
 proved, indeed, many things. First, certainly, the searching 
 
 t£st of tlie 
 
 presence of corruptions inherited and traditional in truth and 
 
 i/.i-r-i-T/>/^i' .of the cor- 
 
 the framework of the Faith 01 Christ ; corruptions ruptions of 
 of belief and practice; of the substitution of manlrfnes!" 
 for God ; of the Church for the Grospel ; of sacer- 
 dotalism for the moral sense, as the last religious 
 appeal ; of salvation by positive ordinances and 
 ritual observances, rather than by personal holiness 
 and implicit belief of a Faith fast losing its hold on 
 the morality and true dealing of the time.^ All 
 this it proved. But it proved equally the inherent 
 vigour of a Religion which, thus in the course of 
 
 * This is the view of M. Comte ; developed at length in FUl. Pos., 
 
 Vol. V. 
 
 " Compare Dean Milman's sketch, Lat. Ghr., VI. 379, 380, of the 
 virtual teaching of the German Mystics, the " Reformers hefore the 
 Reformation." 
 
322 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 ages, could purify itself like running ^ater, from 
 the errors and defilements of the past : that it is no 
 system which must lean always on ignorance, 
 re^% despotism, or craft.^ The great hope for Ohris- 
 ^TOptom. *i^^i*yj t^6 standing witness of its perpetuity 
 and truth, must lie always in this possibility of 
 reconstruction, this return upon itself; in this ten- 
 dency and capacity of expelling all foreign and 
 unhealthy matters, not of kin with the true ele- 
 ments of the Faith of Jesus Christ. But the Eefor- 
 mation, impartially examined, proves likewise that 
 the history of the Western Church prepared for 
 itself the test which was then applied, and which 
 portal" ^* ^^^ successfully survived. However dormant, 
 crSs*^rose *^®^® ^ withiu its doctrfnes and institutions that 
 nature 'and ^PP®*^ ^ reasou and to the religious conscience 
 fterdi.°^ which, in fact, produced those effects. In the 
 gion. Monasteries, Schools, and Universities,^ themselves 
 the creations and nurselings of the Faith of Christ, 
 arose slowly, yet surely, that spirit of inquiry ; that 
 love of reality and truth; that consciousness of 
 spiritual wrong, and of a higher law than the con- 
 straint of existing practice ; which, slowly ripening, 
 
 ' Comp. Isaac Taylor (Bisl. of Enfhus., p. 267). 
 
 = See Guizot, Civ. en Fr., Ley. v., vi. Dean Milman {Lat. Chr., V 
 485-8) shows the relations of the Monasteries to the Universities W 
 Lecky (S E. M.) remarks too narrowly that "it was not till the 
 education of Europe passed from the Monasteries to the Universities, 
 not till Mahommedan science and classical free-thought and industrial 
 independence broke the sceptre of the Church, that the intellectual 
 revival of Europe begins." 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 323 
 
 contained the pledge of future amendment and of 
 continuous progress. From knowledge alone, 
 however improved and matured, the Eeformation 
 could never have taken its rise.' But when once 
 spiritual conviction and enthusiasm were enlisted 
 on the side of reflection and inquiry, the result 
 could be no longer doubtful or precarious. 
 
 § 7. It is ever the misfortune of human ejffbrt, shortcom- 
 whether m politics or religion, that the movements Reforma- 
 it originates must needs reflect the passions, weak- 
 nesses, and shortcomings of their authors and their 
 times. The good which a generous enthusiasm pro- 
 mises to itself, is never altogether realized. The evils 
 expected or exaggerated by unfavourable critics 
 remain at least in part to mar the benefits which, 
 on the whole, ensue. I am not concerned to strike a 
 balance between the estimates of those who see in the 
 theological results of the Reformation nothing but 
 good or unmixed evil. It is time that the violent Different 
 
 -IT • 1 /^ 1 T • estimates 
 
 and unintelligent antagonism between Catholicism of its true 
 
 character. 
 
 and Protestantism, unworthy of the enlightenment 
 of our times, and arising simply from traditional 
 
 ' See Gieseler's excellent remarks, V. 202, ed. Clark. This is a truer 
 view than with Mr. Leoky (S Rat., I. 284) to refer the causes of the 
 Beformation to an increased acquaintance with Latin classics and Greek 
 philosophy. Dr. Ullmann well ohserves (^Beformers 'before the Reforma- 
 tion, II. 3, ed. Clark), " On only one side did philosophy contribute to 
 the revival of Christian piety and knowledge. We allude to Platonism, 
 which, being naturally akin to the Gospel, now entered into league with 
 the new and living theology, and rose with fresh vigour against the 
 Aristotelianism of the Schoolmen." Luther and Melancthon were 
 however, on opposite sides in this matter ; at least after 1529. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIL 
 
 causes, should give way before a calmer, a more 
 discerning, a more comprehensive analysis, I 
 desire only to insist on facts now generally ad- 
 mitted by impartial investigators. The services of 
 Medieval Catholicism should, as we have seen, be 
 no longer ignored. Neither must its corruptions be 
 denied.' The state of the Church of Christ in the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was such as to 
 demand renovation both in its theory and in its 
 Undoubt- practice. Let us think only of its immorality, its 
 
 edly in- . . 
 
 evitabie as simouy, its superstitions. We have already seen 
 refonn,' that the evils which then afflicted Religion were in 
 many ways the historical consequences of the cir- 
 cumstances under which Christianity had taken 
 possession of the world ; the treasure of a Divine 
 Faith poured into earthen vessels. These evils had 
 grown with the growth of the Church : in some 
 doctrinal accretions they touched its vitality nearly; 
 yet without being inherent in the essential prin- 
 ciples of the teachings of Christ. Their removal or 
 amendment could be effected only by practical 
 reforms of a nature to eradicate the immorality of 
 .the times, more especially in the case of the clergy, 
 but only But thesc reforms depended ultimately for their 
 
 through a authoritative reception on a reconstitution of Chris- 
 purgation 
 
 of doc- ' Oomp. DoUinger, The OJmrchand Churches, Introd. ; andLectt. ore 
 
 trine. Ee-union of the Ohurches. Theneoessity of the Reformation is sufficiently 
 
 shown by the impotence of the General Councils of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury to abolish abuses. The episcopal system was wholly subject to 
 Papal domination ; a fact which tolii unhappily on the course of the 
 subsiiquent movements. 
 
Lect. VIL] of CHRISTIANITY. 325 
 
 tian doctrine. Had the Reformation been only a 
 moral advance ;' an improvement of life and man- 
 ners ; as some have preferred to regard it, and as at 
 its outset it undoubtedly seemed to its precursors ; 
 practical changes would have sufficed. It was, 
 however, not so ; the causes of the movement lay 
 deeper ; the spiritual element of disturbance was of 
 more account than the moral ; and in this fact and 
 in its gradual superiority over all opposition lies 
 the guarantee of continuous religious regeneration, 
 and so of the permanence itself of Christianity. 
 Had the results of the Reformation been solely of a Hence 
 moral character, the ultimate interests of the Reli- spiritual 
 gion of Christ might indeed have been imperilled. 
 The chief cause of the existing corruption lay in 
 the distortion of doctrine through human additions 
 and human institutions. Where, then, stood the 
 remedy, and what led to its adoption ? It consisted 
 in a re-examination of the Reh'gion itself; of the 
 traditional developments and actually existing 
 system by the moral and by the spiritual sense of 
 "the age. If it survived the test, it was ouce more testing the 
 
 persis- 
 ' The moral movement which, preceded the actual outburst of the the'nriii- 
 Eeformation (which may be considered to have formally commenced ciples of 
 with the Papal BuU, Exswrge Lomine (June 15, 1520), rejecting Chris- 
 Luther's propositions and excommunicating him ;) can hardly be dis- "^"'v- 
 tinguished from the religious revival which accompanied it. This 
 exhibited itself in simple apostolical preaching ; in fraternities for the 
 encouragement of piety and good works, for the circulation of the 
 Scriptures, and the like. Hageubach ( Vorlesungen, I. 18) points out 
 the importance of assigning an historical commencement to the Eeforma- 
 tion. This he identifies with Luther's Thesis at Wittenberg (1517). 
 
326 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 replaced in its native purity and dignity, as the 
 fulfilment and crown of the aspirations of the soul 
 of man. Such, accordingly, was the character of 
 the witness rendered hy this, the most important 
 religious crisis in modern history, to the per- 
 Spirituai petuity of the Christian Faith. The Christianity of 
 
 declension t^,,.. ii-i -i 
 
 of Cathoii- Catholicism had m the mam become, (not of course 
 to all, or indeed to the highest natures,) an objec- 
 tive law, an external ordinance, a compendium of 
 statutes,^ as well in spiritual beliefs as on its moral 
 side. Good and wholesome influences were still 
 abiding in it, but trammelled and overlaid by 
 secular corruptions. There was needed, then, a re- 
 sumption of its first claims on man's intelligence 
 and spiritual apprehension. The Eeligion must be 
 seen again to be what it really is : not a set oifor- 
 mulcB for action or belief ; ^ not a visible Theocracy 
 implicated and involved in political embarrassments 
 by an assumption of temporal power ; but rather 
 a personal instinct of love and gratitude,* based, 
 indeed, on eternal facts of human interest ; the out- 
 
 ' Comp. UUmann, u. s., 11. 617 ; or, as M. Comte has happily ex- 
 pressed it, " too much of an institution, too little of a spirit." It 
 encouraged learning, but sacerdotally ; industry, but through guilds ; 
 chivalry, through military orders, &o. 
 
 ^ " Protestantism, as compared with the other two great Church par- 
 ties of Christendom, rests content neither with a mere intellectual 
 appropriation of Christianity, whether in a speculative form or in a 
 recolleotive form that faces a traditional' doctrine ; nor with a mere 
 subjection of the will to a dogmatic or even practical Church law." — 
 Dorner, Hist, of Prot. Th., I. 5, ed. Clart. - 
 
 • See Ullmann, Reformers, II. 618. 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 32/ 
 
 come of a living faith, acting powerfully to regene- 
 rate and sanctify man's heart, transforming, as a 
 new Divine element of life, the character of indi- 
 viduals and nations. No doubt, this true Christian Real im- 
 spirit manifests itself as a moral law and doctrine in Reforma- 
 agreement with its nature. But its appeal is to a 
 higher consciousness, both as to Reconciliation with 
 Grod and Sanctification, than belongs to the perform- 
 ance of moral duties ; and rests more truly on an 
 assurance of facts which are bound up with the 
 mysteries of the Faith. 
 
 Such was the real import of a struggle which had 
 been maturing through many generations, Its°^':"'J? 
 incidents have often been treated as though they t°"'=ai 
 
 ° y character 
 
 were the simple effects of circumstance. In this 
 view 
 
 Gospel light first streamed from Boleyn's eyes. 
 
 Men fought, as it appeared, for a mere dogma •} 
 and one, too, on which the more moderate thinkers 
 on either side were practically agreed. But the 
 true issues of the conflict lay deep in the constitu- 
 
 ' Luther's language as to Justification by Faith is well known. It 
 is the " articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesije. De hoc articulo cedere, 
 aut aliquid contra ilium largiri nemo piorum potest, etiamsi coBliim et 
 terra et omnia oorruant. Nam in hoc articulo sita sunt omnia, quaj 
 contra diaholum et mundum universum in totS, vita nostrS, testamur et 
 agimus." See Art. Smalc. 305, and Form. Concordim, 683. Yet uo 
 attempt at a definition of this article of faith Lad descended from the 
 Fathers. Melancthon, Bucer, and others, moderated the expressions of 
 Luther. The Tridentine Fathers considered that all Luther's errors 
 were based on his view of Justification.— Sarpi, Eist., II. p. 178. See 
 Bp. Browne on the XXXIX. Articles, p. 285. On the first reception of 
 the doctrine by the Catholics of Italy, see Eanke, Popes, U. 1. 1. 
 
tractable. 
 
 328 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 tion of human nature, and involved the destinies 
 of Christianity itself. A fresh recognition of the 
 work of Christ for man, obscured as to its spiritual 
 efficacy by a blank ceremonial belief, was neces- 
 sary to secure the renewing of a right relation 
 andnar- between Himsclf and His Church, "the blessed 
 company of all faithful souls." A type of such 
 a doctrinal recognition was sought and found in 
 Justification by Faith only ;^ and belief in it was 
 strengthened, if not suggested, by an examination 
 Practical of the wituess of Holy "Writ, Its application in 
 most in- practice involved differences, not indeed in them- 
 selves . insurmountable ; yet which have hitherto 
 proved fruitful of dissension and schism. Such are 
 a denial of sacerdotal mediation ; a low estimate 
 of ecclesiastical authority ; a widely varying inter- 
 pretation of the Sacraments of the Grospel ; a wholly 
 altered relation to the historical Church of Christen- 
 dom. To these must be added, as fresh sources of 
 embarrassment, the admixture of secular interests ; 
 together with imperfections of knowledge and 
 character on the part of the leading Eeformers.^ 
 
 ' More properly. Fides sola justiScat; sed fides non est solitaria; 
 i. e. in the words of Augustine (JDe Fid. et Op., c. xiv.), " sequuntur 
 opera bona justificatum : non prasceduut justificandum." 
 
 ^ " Luther," says Chillingworth {Eel. Prot., VI. 73), " was a man of 
 a vehement spirit, and very often what he took in hand he did not do 
 it, but overdo„it. He that will justify all his speeches, especially such 
 as he wrote in heat of opposition, I believe will have work enough." 
 See Sir W. Hamilton's strictures {Discussions, 491-506). " If there 
 have been any wilful and gross errors, not so much in opinion as in 
 fact (sacrilege too often pretending to reform superstition), that is the 
 crime of the Reformers, not of the Reformation; and they are long 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 329 
 
 § 8. The Reformation, then, can only be con- tws ana- 
 lysis evi- 
 sidered a fresh conception of the faith and doctrine dent from 
 
 tli€ course 
 
 of the Gospel, a regeneration of the Christian life of the 
 and spirit ; the fruit, indeed, of the history of the 
 Church, with its attendant corruptions of letter 
 and spirit, practice and doctrine, yet in effect a 
 return to the primary teaching of Christianity. It 
 contained, accordingly, distinct elements wrought 
 out by different agencies, by the men of thought 
 and the men of purpose. The first furnished, out 
 of an advance in Scriptural knowledge' due in 
 part to the revival of classical learning, those 
 first principles of doctrine which were the grounds 
 of action to the practical reformers of existing 
 abuses. On these last attention has often nearly 
 wholly, but not unnaturally, turned. As the The prac- 
 
 ■" *' tical aspect 
 
 prime agents, the martyrs and confessors of the of the Re- 
 
 formation 
 _ has been 
 
 since gone to God to answer it ; to Whom I leave them." — Laud, the most 
 
 Confer., xxiv. 5. In the words of Leibnitz, " Ce sont les d^fauts des studied, 
 hommes, et non pas ceux des dogmes." The fanaticism of the Anabap- 
 tists belongs, as Donler has shown, not to the principles of the Refonna- 
 tion carried to excess, but rather to the social and religious maladies of 
 the pre-Roformation period. See some good remarks of Hallam, Lit. of 
 E., I. 371, on the passions which were instnimental in the Reformation, 
 and Dean Hook, Lives, New Ser., I. 20. 
 
 ^ Such, e.g., was N'icolaus Lyranus, a Franciscan monk, who as early 
 as 1330 completed his Postillce perjoetuce. It was of this exposition it 
 was said : — 
 
 Si Lyra non lyrasset 
 Lutherus non saltasset. 
 
 See Mosheim, II. 644. On the Biblical factor in the Reformation, 
 noticeable as early as the "Waldenses, and traceable through Wycliffe 
 (1380) and the various vernacular translations of the Bible in the four- 
 teonth and fifteenth centuries, see Dorner, u. s., I. 63, 441. Lastly, the 
 labours of Eeuohlin, Erasmus, &c., must be taken into account. 
 
330 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 movement, they have enlisted sympathy and won 
 admiration. Doubtless at such crises decision and 
 self-sacrifice are of more apparent value than the 
 results of slow and just reflection. Yet, on looking 
 back, it is now sufficiently clear that the doctrines 
 for which men died, the contributions of patient 
 thought and learning,^ form the abiding results of 
 this great epoch in religion, and were the true 
 Its tnie preparation for it. If, then, this view be correct, 
 ance as a the Very cssencB of the Reformation lay, not in 
 belief. auy practical correction of abuses, nor in a moral 
 advance, but in its theology and belief. It has 
 been called the reaction of Christianity, as a teach- 
 ing of the Grospel,^ against Christianity, as a de- 
 claration of Divine Law. It was, indeed, a free 
 doctrine of grace and faith, of love and spirit, 
 leading to the fulfilment of legal and moral righ- 
 teousness, as a prompting of the heart restored 
 to fresh union with the Grod of its salvation, and 
 conscious of its own restoration ; ^ ideas once 
 
 ^ Such were the latours of the Reformers before the Eefonnation, 
 Johann von Gooh, Johann Wessel, who held explicitly the doctrine of 
 justifying faith, Gerhard Groot, Jacob von JUterbock, &c. Of Wessel 
 Luther said : " If I had read Wessel first, mine adversaries might have 
 imagined that Luther had taken everything from Wessel." — Werke, ed. 
 Walch, xiv. 220. He also claimed kindred with the efforts of the 
 earlier Mystics, Tauler, Eokhart, and the Friends of God. 
 
 ^ It was a saying of Luther's, that " the law and the Gospel are 
 as far apart from one another as heaven and earth." 
 
 ' Luther thus distinguishes \ie!c^^-afides,fidwAa,KsAce.rtUudo salutis. 
 Of. Dorner, I. 149, 230, who well remarks on the fruitfulness of this 
 principle from a scientific or philosophic point of view, as regards the' 
 8ubsec[uent history of Protestantism ; while the Greek and Eoman 
 
Lect. VIT.] of CHRISTIANITY. 331 
 
 familiar to the Christian mind,* and at no time 
 excluded from its potential teaching, yet which 
 had long been disused or misapplied. The prin- 
 ciples it has secured to mankind are those of faith, 
 of a true spiritualism, of individual accountability 
 for belief and practice, as inherent elements of our 
 common Eeligion. These are the pledges which it FuU of 
 has supplied to Christianity of its future share in efficacy, 
 the advance of human civilization. What has 
 been called the principle of private judgment is, in 
 truth, an element of indefinite, though not as is 
 often urged, of unrestricted progress. It is true 
 that the Reformation assumed essentially the 
 obligation of a continual purifying and perfecting 
 alike of practice and doctrine,^ of the Church and Not in- 
 
 . . . . definite. 
 
 of the world, of Religion and of Science. And this 
 is a principle of vital progress. But, then, this 
 advance is always to be made upon the foundation 
 
 Churclies in no way insist upon personal assurance. Calvin (Jn&t., III. 
 ii. 6) says : " Cardo fidei in eo vertitur, ut promissiones intus ampleo- 
 teudo nostras faciamus." 
 
 ^ Comp. Ep. ad Diogn. c. xii. *HTa> cot KapSia yvSxris • ^afj 8« \6yos 
 oKjjSijs, xtopou/ievor. Under Catbolicism the personal yearning after salva- 
 tion and closer communion with God, had too often to find refuge in 
 conventual retirement. We have already noticed the intrinsic selfish- 
 ness which lay at the root of this system. 
 
 " " In our own times there is a constant disposition to consider the liberty 
 of the Reformation as an abstract form ; to fancy that any imaginable 
 substance may be put into it ; and hence to conceive Protestantism as 
 implying a principle of progress absolutely unrestricted, and it matters 
 not whether beyond the pale of Christianity, or even in direct opposi- 
 tion to it. No such tenet has any foundation upon the idea of liberty 
 as conceived by the Heformers and their predecessors." — Ullmann, 
 Reformers, I. xviii. 
 
332 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 that is already laid, the testimony of the Grospel, 
 and the rule of strictly primitive tradition,' 
 The Re- & q_ jt jg further evident that the Reformation, 
 
 formation ^ -^ ' 
 
 P'"«?^en^ rightly considered, presents no interruption of the 
 in the con- continuity of human affairs,'^ no founding over 
 Chris- again of the Church of Christ. In its truest and 
 
 tianity as 
 
 a system, best development there was no breaking with the 
 p^st. It called for no belief that the Church had 
 been at any time wholly forsaken by the Spirit of 
 her Lord, or disinherited of His promises. It 
 never renounced the historical basis of Christianity. 
 
 No phase It was no mere phase of negation or of destruction, 
 
 ofnega- i 
 
 tion. but rather a reconstruction ; a transition apparently 
 spontaneous from beliefs, themselves transitional 
 and relative to new modes of religious thought 
 and belief, limited by the canons of Apostolic 
 teaching. The very idea of a Re-formation implies 
 a return to a standard or point of outset already 
 known and fixed.^ It is a spiritual re-edification ; 
 and, as such, a recall to primitive Christianity, 
 to the words and examples of Christ. For Chris- 
 
 ' Comp. the concluding declaration of the Confession of Augsburg ; 
 " Tantum ea recitata sunt qu£6 videbantur necessario dicenda esse, ut 
 intelligi possit in doctrina ac cajremoniis, apud nos nihil esse receptum 
 contra Soripturam aut Ecclesiam Oatholicam." — Syllog. Conf., pp. 158 
 232. 
 
 ^ " Protestantism in all its movements and antitheses preserved the 
 steadiness or continuity of a historical and growing formation." — Domer, 
 Hist. Prot. Th., I. 9, and the excellent remarks in p. 50. " The 
 Reformation would lose its historical basis and connection, if, in order to 
 furnish a triumphant justification of it, we were to see nothing but 
 darkness before it." 
 
 ' Gal. i. 7, 8, 9. For there cannot bo two Gkispels. 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 333 
 
 tianity itself was at the beginning a purely spiritual ?°.^: 
 religion, a strong invincible conviction of renewed reaction. 
 individual fellowship with a merciful Grod and 
 Father, effected by the Incarnation and Sacrifice of 
 His Son, It was no less as the offspring and pro- 
 duct of this conviction in the believer ; or, in other 
 words, of this living faith, a life of love and spon- 
 taneous morality/ Its body is, indeed, the Church 
 animated ever by the vital presence of Christ and 
 of His Spirit, yet liable to admixture and deteriora- 
 tion, subject to the conditions of earthly things, 
 the results of time and succession, of political issues, 
 and historical development. The balance of com- The true 
 plementary doctrines may, in the course of affairs, doctrine 
 
 restored. 
 
 become overthrown, without, however, those doc- 
 trines being severally contradicted or lost; such, 
 for example, as the parallelism of a dogma of 
 Justification with that of Sanctification ; of Christ's 
 Atonement with the need of personal holiness ; of 
 subjective faith with objective righteousness ; of 
 grace with works ; of positive commands with moral 
 obligations ; of external symbolism with a living 
 consciousness of its significance; of ecclesiastical 
 constitution with spiritual worship. This balance its contn- 
 the Reformation sought to restore. It has left the future 
 some truths clearly defined as its contribution to chiis- 
 future ages of the Church, more especially man's ™ 
 need of individual regeneration ; that this cannot 
 
 ' Compare 'Dllmami, Reformers, 1. p. 4. 
 
334 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VII. 
 
 be wrought out by natural means alone ; that by a 
 Divine Revelation, and in a Divine relation with 
 the creature of an abiding and universal character, 
 man's salvation is secured. " Thou wilt keep him 
 in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed upon 
 Thee." 
 
 § lo. Thus, if Christianity be indeed the "salt 
 of the earth," ^ it must needs be purgative, and is 
 ever tending to throw off the accumulations of 
 worldly impurity; an impurity which reaches to 
 the lowering of heavenly doctrines, as well as to 
 the marring of their realization in practice. The 
 \.\s protest- Christian idea, the imitation of Christ, made pos- 
 
 antAe.- ' . . 
 
 ment. sible by the Incarnation of the Word, will always, 
 in a manner, protest against the defects inherent 
 and immanent in its manifestation in the world.^ 
 At varying epochs this antagonism could not but 
 show itself forth. The conflicts to which all 
 human progress seems Hable, its corruptions, its 
 hindrances, must needs attend equally the action 
 of Christianity upon mankind. Yet " a little 
 leaven leaveneth the whole lump," And this self- 
 
 ' " It was necessary that the Gospel, which had once already proved 
 the preserving salt for the world, where putrefaction had begun, should 
 again penetrate in its original purity, power, and leavening influence, 
 into the hearts and lives of the people." — Dorner, I. 40. 
 
 ^ " The Protestants did not get that name by protesting against the 
 Church of Home, but by protesting (and that when nothing else would 
 serve) against her errors and superstitions." — Land, Cmif. with F., 
 xxi. 3: viz. at Speier, April 16, 1529; where it had been decreed 
 by the Papal party, " contra novatores, ut omnia in integrum resti- 
 tuantur." 
 
Lect. VII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 335 
 
 quickening, self-renewing process will not be 
 wanting even to tlie end, while there remains 
 among men the opposition between truth and 
 error, between holiness and sin, between the king- 
 dom of Grod and the kingdoms of the world. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF CHRISTIANITY INFERRED 
 
 FROM ITS MISSIONARY CHARACTER AND 
 
 PRESENT STANDING. 
 
 " Ex quo intelligimus Ecolesiam usque ad finem mundi concuti quidem 
 persecutionibus, sed nequaquam posse subvert! : tenfari, non superari. 
 Et hoc flet, quia Dominua Deus Onmipotens, sive Dominus Deus ejus, 
 id est, Ecclesiae, se facturum esse poUicitus est : Cujus promissio lex 
 naturjB est." — Hibbon., Comment in Amos, sub fin. 
 
 " Is it possible to expect a further and more perfect manifestation of 
 Religion, as we may expect a further and more perfect manifestation of 
 Art, or Science, or Philosophy ? No. Never, either in our days or in 
 the remotest future, can any religious progress hope to rival the gigantic 
 step vfhich humanity made through the revolution effected by Christ." 
 — Stbauss, Life of Christ, Vol. II. p. 49, 3rd ed. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 " Lo .' I am with you alway; even unto the end of the world." — 
 ^att. n^'di. 20. 
 
 § I. '' I ^HEEE is a growing tendency to regard tendency 
 -*• the results of the Reformation in two^**'^"*^ 
 
 the Refor- 
 
 very opposite aspects. It has been assailed as the mation on 
 
 ■' -"^^ ^ . the present 
 
 commencement of an era of unbelief, of unsettle- estimate of 
 
 1 ■ • 1 • 1 the Chris- 
 
 ment of all authoritative teaching; as the cause of tian re- 
 all subsequent fluctuations of opinion on religious 
 subjects.^ Its historical course has been held up as 
 a warning ; as exhibiting the Nemesis of a revolt 
 from traditional doctrine. Strange to say, the 
 Romanist and the disciple of Comte, though from 
 very opposite suggestions, are of one opinion as to 
 the demerits of Protestantism. While the former 
 eyes it with sternness, or, at best, with compassion, 
 as the outcome of human waywardness and re- 
 bellion ; the latter regards it only with philoso- 
 phical contempt." To him it is an interruption, a view of 
 
 ' Gibbon (VII. 61) struck the first chord of this ill-omened pre- tivists 
 diction. " The friends of Christianity are alarmed at the boundless 
 impulse of inquiry and scepticism ;" &c. He here appears in the un- 
 wonted garb of " the candid friend " of the Beligion of Christ. " Le 
 •Protestantisme le grand r^veil chrdtien," says M. Benan more truly. 
 
 " Comte notes as marks- of the religious disorgsmization of the age, 
 the resistance of Catholicism to intellectual emancipation, and the secu- 
 larization of the ruling classes. These are the results of Protestantism, 
 i. e. of the right of private judgment, which leads inevitably to Demo- 
 cracy in Chiu-ch and State, to a negative philosophy, attacking first 
 
 z 2 
 
340 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 stumbling-block, a logical inconsequence, an issue 
 of mental anarchy, a period of transition^ of con- 
 fusion, of necessary evil, fraught with social and 
 political disturbance. As the introduction to after- 
 changes ; the pioneer of Positivism ; a main agency 
 in dissolving the older military and hierarchical 
 organizations; the accompaniment of an era of 
 free, metaphysical discussion ; it might, one would 
 have thought, have been entitled to passing re- 
 ofthe spect. This is not, it seems, to be accorded. But 
 istic there is also anothey view of this great historical 
 movement, one which has affected so largely and 
 so permanently the condition and fortunes of 
 Europe; which is now becoming popular. The 
 Eeformation is looked on as the companion, and 
 as itself the result, if not the precursor, of a spirit 
 
 religious truth, while all other becomes a lesser and included result. 
 He divides Protestantism into a. Lutheranism, which is really an attack 
 on Catholic discipline, the dogmatic differences being sUght : J. Cal- 
 vinism, an assault on Catholic organization or hierarchy, of the most 
 powerful kind: c. Socinianism, a dogmatic revolution of the deepest 
 character, being a protest in favour of Monotheism. See FhU. Pos., Y. 
 680, ff. In v. 353 he speaks of " I'esprit d"inconsequence qui carac- 
 t&ise le Protestantisme," and mourns the intellectual fluctuation, the 
 malady of the age, which has flowed from it. He thinks the recogni- 
 tion of the solidarity of man and the continuity of human life have 
 been lost in the anarchy which has been the work of Protestantism. 
 This era of revolution, of dispersive analysis, began, indeed, from the 
 fourteenth century, continuing to the present time, when it is about to 
 close irrevocably. Fhil. Pos., V. 233, 346 ; Pol. Pes., III. 417, 500. 
 See also Littr^ A Comte, p. 223 ; and Paroles, p. 60. Domer, Sist. 
 Prot. Th., I. 272, points out that the Eeformation principle, which has 
 been so often termed disorganizing, and has even been confoun4ed with 
 the spirit of revolution, gave effect, with a power previously unknown, 
 to the divine right of civil authority. 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. l\t 
 
 of Rationalism;* an inevitable consequence, in- 
 deed, and one not,, therefore, to be (x»ndemned; 
 part of the natural progress of human effort, and 
 of the growth of the human mind. This pro- 
 gression, evident in all other departments of social 
 activity, in industrial and secular advance, in 
 national morality, in philosophy and speculation, 
 could not fail to make itself felt in the region of 
 theological opinion. This estimate of Protestant- its esti- 
 ism will be found (however it may be connected Protes- 
 with it,) not to be identical with that of Positivism ; 
 which regards it either as a pure negation, or as a 
 confused form of theological belief. 
 , I have already given reasons for believing that 
 Religion, as to its own evolution, is not dependent 
 on moral progress, and is only indirectly affected 
 by intellectual culture. It remains only to dis- How it 
 
 •' . . ~ , affects the 
 
 engage the future of Ohnstiamty from the conse- future of 
 
 11- 1T11 .J... T Chris- 
 
 quences to which it must be liable ; if it is to be tianity. 
 regarded, (together, indeed, with all religions,) as 
 a thing of the past ; a lingering, survival of an 
 anterior stage of thought or civilization ; or again, 
 as a mere vehicle, though of an exalted and highly 
 commendable kind, for passing on to future gene- 
 rations the gift of an improved morality.^ 
 
 ^ See Mr. Leoky, E. Bat, I. 181, 288. Rationalism, he thinks, is 
 the totality of the influences of civilization. CJontinental Protestantism 
 has continually developed towards it. 
 
 ^ In this, according to nationalistic theologians, consists the per- 
 fectibility of the Eeligion of Christ ; viz. in expanding the doctrmes 
 of Chi-istianity into those eternal tmths of reason, which constitute the 
 
342 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 Theory of & 2. The former view reffardinsr the prospects 
 
 Positivism, ' i . t - i 
 
 of the Christian Church and more immediately 
 of Protestantism, being that of the Positivist 
 school^ forms part of an elaborate but highly 
 artificial criticism of life and history \ which must, 
 if at all, be accepted as a whole. It must defend 
 itself along its whole line ; if it is to be taken as a 
 true explanation of the world and of the times in 
 whether which we live. At present we are concerned no 
 to facts, further than to inquire whether it offers the only 
 legitimate account of the course of human affairs 
 in respect of Religion, and whether its view is 
 sufficiently confirmed by present facts and actual 
 probabilities. No doubt, as has been already said, 
 the Reformation presents no interruption of the 
 continuity of History.^ It was itself the slow 
 
 universal possession of the race. There is something ominous in Mr. 
 Lecky's language when he says : " Loyalty, patriotism, and attach- 
 ment to a cosmopolitan cause, are three forms of moral enthusiasm 
 respectively appropriate to three successive stages of mental progress : 
 and they have, I think, a certain analogy 'to idolatrous worship, Church 
 feeling, and moral culture, which are the central ideas of three stages of 
 religious history." — B. E. M., 1. 142. 
 
 ^ " The error of Positivism," writes Dr. Westcott, "is in limiting 
 Christianity to the view of Catholicism. Christianity is supremely 
 fitted to mould for itself the organism which is best suited to meet the 
 intellectual, or social, or moral wants of the age. It is manifold in 
 embodiment, though one in essence. It is not a principle of order, but 
 a spirit of life. It is limited not by laws of logical construction, but 
 by laws of free growth. It survives the decay of one organization, to 
 animate another."— Con «. Bev., VI. 415. " II est incontestable en effet 
 d'aprfe I'ensemble de notre pass6 intellectuel pendant les trois derniei-s 
 si^oles, sans avoir besoin de remonter plus haut, que la continuite et la 
 f^condit^ sont les sympt&mes les moins Equivoques de toutes les con- 
 ceptions vraiment soientifiques." — Comte, Phil. Pos., IV. 269.. We 
 claim these also for Christianity. 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 343 
 
 result of time and previous changes. Similarly Results of 
 also it has in turn initiated changes which are still mation 
 going on, and are still the subjects o£ discussion process. 
 and dispute. The real point is the nature of these 
 changes and of their consequences. The Christian 
 world, it is not denied, is endlessly divided, and 
 shows as yet few signs of ultimate reunion. Is 
 this, then, to be held the beginning of the end ? 
 Does it mark a decline in the power and spirit of Division 
 
 of sects 
 
 Religion ? — in its hold upon the life and mind and whether a 
 conscience of its professors?^ — ^in its capacity of of decline, 
 assimilating surrounding conditions of culture and 
 of converting unbelief ? I cannot see that it does. 
 I see in these facts rather the evidence of the 
 working of a leaven ; which, if it ceased to ferment, 
 might be justly suspected of inefficacy and decay. 
 This leaven (if we have learned any lesson from 
 the past history of Christianity, it is this ;) works 
 variously in accordance with the circumstances of 
 the time under review. In Protestantism it has Historical 
 been conditioned by the advance of opinion ment of 
 through intellectual discussion and physical dis-tantism. 
 coveries ; by military history ; by social and poli- 
 tical vicissitudes tending to a multiplicity rather 
 than to unity of form.^ It has been crushed under 
 
 ' " However imposing," remarks Prof. Westcott, " the apparent unity 
 of the religious life of the Middle Ages may be, it cannot be questioned 
 that socially and individually the principles of Christianity are more 
 powerful now than then. We lose the sense of their general action in 
 the variety of formS through which they work." — Gomie on Chris- 
 tianity, Cont. Rev., VI. 416. 
 
344 THE. PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 the burden of successive revolutions. It has been 
 made the pretext for administrative changes, and 
 thus complicated with political interests ; at one 
 time for resisting detiiocratic tendencies ; at another 
 as the enemy of all political absolutism.^ It has 
 alternately been held to be the friend or foe of 
 freedom of thought ; the ally or enemy of philoso- 
 phical opinion ; as fearing or welcoming the vast 
 : and; ever-progressing influences of industrial 
 
 Periods of development. But through all it has worked on ; 
 
 prreac- and worked. after its own kind. There have 
 indeed been times when, exhausted by its struggles 
 for existence and for toleration, its spiritual powers 
 lay dormant, and might seem well-nigh extinct." 
 During long periods the secularism of court 
 intrigues, the heats of metaphysical controversies, 
 the atheistic intolerance of the French Eevolution,* 
 appeared to have expelled all interest in the 
 
 ' See Lecky, Bist. Bat, U. 182-186. The internecine struggles of 
 Catholidism and the Eefprmed Faith in France, Germany, and the 
 Ne1;hevlands,,may justly b^ claimed as testimonies to the power of the 
 Religion which was held to he at stake.^Of. Dorner, II. 3. 
 
 " Mr. Herhert Spencer, Mrst Priric, p. 331, well observes that 
 ".Eeligion, beside its occasional revivals of smaller magnitude, has its 
 long periods of exaltation and depression ; generations of belief and self- 
 
 sacriflce following generations of indifference and laxity When 
 
 from corruptions accumulated ai^ound them, national creeds have fallen 
 into general discredit, ending in indifferentisin or positiTe denial; there 
 has always by-and-by arisen a re-assertion of them, if not the same in 
 form, still the same in essence." See Dorner's remarks on the permanence 
 pf the Christian Faith through all assaults of philosophical Deism in 
 England, France, and Germany.— ffls*. Prot. Th., I. 207 ; II. 45, 392. 
 
 ' See Buckle, E. Civ., II. 254. He admits that its leadei-s com- 
 mitted what M thinka. was an involuntary error : " In attacking the 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 34$ 
 
 message and prospects of Christianity. Yet the 
 instincts of Religion (and, we may fairly add, 
 the virtue of its specific doctrines,) prevailed. 
 Successive revivals of the missionary spirit super- foUowed 
 vened on eras of religious indifference ; and the vais. ^ 
 truth of Christian teaching has been both 
 vigorously defended and confirmed by actual 
 results. 
 
 § 3. The question of the direction and degree in New eie- 
 which. the prospects of Christianity have been progress 
 affected by its history since the Reformation may by the Re- 
 be narrowed to the inquiry as to what fresh 
 elements have been introduced into the circum- 
 stances attending its progress and with what 
 results. These may be briefly summarized as the 
 principle, or rather the fact, of the Renaissance in 
 sentiment, philosophy, and art ; of Positivism in 
 material knowledge; the substitution of inquiry 
 for traditional authority; the doctrines of religious 
 liberty and toleration, including the freedom of 
 the press and the disappearance of religious dis- 
 abilities;' the gradual divorce of religion from 
 politics, with its effects upon the alliance of 
 Churches and States. What is the tendency of These stni 
 
 in move- 
 clergy, they lost their respect for religion. In their determination to ™^"*» 
 weaken ecclesiastical power, they attempted to undermine the founda- 
 tions of Christianity." Isaac Taylor, Bist. Enthus., p. 269, has some 
 fine and just remarks on the triumph of the Christian Religion at this 
 period. 
 
 ' It will be understood that these are, as Gibbon remarks, the con- 
 sequences, not the design, of the Eeformation. 
 
346 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 these changes in opinion and practice, changes 
 which are still ripening into action on every side 
 through the length and breadth of Europe ? If 
 there he contained within them nothing really 
 and essentially unfavourable to the growth and 
 well-being of Christianity, there is no ground on 
 this account at least to augur the decline of the 
 Tdver^rto Religion. If, indeed, they tend in harmony with 
 ^"^- its doctrines towards the spread of a simpler and 
 more tolerant Christianity, there is rather reason 
 to infer a larger and lasting measure of success for 
 its tenets. It becomes necessary, then, to enter, 
 although but briefly, on some consideration of 
 their several characters and operation. 
 The cias- § 4. By some the Reformation has been altogether 
 
 mc3.l or 
 
 human eie- traced to the importation of the classical or purely 
 modern humau element into Western Europe,^ which was 
 tion'^* the result in the first instance of the impact of 
 Mahommedanism upon Christianity, and of the fall 
 of Constantinople. Philosophy and taste were revo- 
 lutionized by contact with the independence of 
 
 1 See Eanke, Eist. of Popes, I. ii. § 3, and Gieseler,- Vol. V., § 154, 
 who assigns to this element its due share of result. Herder almost 
 couples Ulrio v. Hutten with Luther in the work of Reformation. See 
 Hallam, Lit. E., I. 290-7. At first the progress of literature seemed 
 checked : and Erasmus writes (1528), " Ubicunque regnat Lutheranis- 
 mus, ibi literarum est interitus." At an earlier stage he had made 
 similar complaints of the Catholic party. *' Hseresis est polity loqui : 
 haeresis Grace scire." See Sir W. Hamilton, Disc, p. 209. Socinianism 
 may be rightly regarded as the issue of the Reformation in Italy, where 
 philosophic and aesthetic culture gained the ascendency over the ethical 
 and religious elements. See Dorner, Hist. Prot. Th.-, 1 1. 427. 
 
LeCt.. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 347 
 
 ancient modes of thought and feeling : and quickly 
 sought new outlets of expression. Hence the in- 
 fluence of the so-called Humanists on the direction 
 and character of the Keformation, the success of 
 which was in many minds identified with the pro- 
 gress of classical literature. The proof of so wide 
 an assertion must certainly remain douhtful. For 
 our present purpose the admission is sufficient that 
 the presence of " the new learning " was a fact con- 
 temporaneous with the tendencies towards a refor- 
 mation in religion. The relations of an increased recognized 
 
 ° -and em- 
 
 acquaintance with the original tongues to the doctri-i P^°y|^ ''^ 
 
 nal interpretation of the Scriptures are immediately formers 
 apparent; and their value was accordingly sub- 
 stantially acknowledged by some of the leading 
 Reformers : ^ to whom, both in Germany and Eng- 
 land, the improvement, and in some cases the foun- 
 dation, of public schools is due. The wider influence 
 of classical models in framing new standards of 
 literary, philosophical, and moral conceptions, in not 
 loosening the shackles of traditional dogmatism, in to Chris- 
 transforming religious sentiments by the instru- dencies, 
 mentality of art, may be differently estimated, but 
 
 ' In 1525 Luther addressed a Treatise to the Councillors of every 
 town in GeiTQany, " that they ought to institute and maintain Chris- 
 tian schools," i. e. national schools. Melancthon and Camerarius 
 lahoured at the establishment of classical schools, Lycea, and Gymnasia. 
 Melancthon himself kept for many years a schola privata. See Dorner, 
 //. Prot. Th., I. 261-270; Hallam, Lit. of E., 1. 330. For England, 
 comp. Seebohm's Oxford Reformers, so. Colet, Linacre, More, &c. See 
 further Whewoll, Ind. Phil, Bk. XII., ix. 
 
348 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 will hardly be denied. It would, however, be but 
 a narrow view which regards the tendencies of 
 Classicism as essentially irreligious or un-Christian.* 
 Eather may we see in this period of European 
 repre- civilization the introduction to a permanent syn- 
 
 senting an . 
 
 aspect of thesis of two differing sides of human nature and 
 human, history : of the natiiral with the spiritual : 
 of reason with religion : of an sesthetical appre- 
 hension of the Beautiful with the higher aspira- 
 tions of Christian devotion : a synthesis ever in 
 process of completion yet unfulfilled. Christianity 
 which in its origin had successfully contended with 
 heathen Philosophy and Art in their decline, was 
 inevitably destined, at some future stage of human 
 
 necessary culturc, to eucounter the elements of Truth which 
 
 to their ' . 
 
 compie- they enshrined, to adopt them into its own 
 theory of reality, and mould them after its own 
 
 ' A recent historian (Lecky, U. 322) has endeavoured to trace the in- 
 fluences of Rationalism upon Ait, " a chief organ of religious sentiments ;" 
 and shows how in the course of secularization the ideal of piety was ex- 
 changed for that of beauty ; more especially in Painting and Architecture, 
 following the intellectnal condition of the times. Ih., 1. 263-286. There can, 
 be no question as to the immediate and, in some respects, lasting effect 
 of the introduction of classic models, and of the sense of freedom gained 
 at the era of the Reformation. Nothing, however, is proved by it as to 
 the declension of Christian influence. In Architecture, the Gothic style, 
 a conception which, if any, is the creation of the Church of Christ, is 
 once more in the ascendant : and there are indications of a similar 
 tendency ui the Poetry of the time. Of Painting I need hai-dly speak. 
 Schlegel remarks that, of the sister arts. Painting is the most truly 
 spiritual, and, together with Music, has in modern Christendom beea 
 most employed to exhibit or suggest the mysteries of Divine Love. 
 Sculpture, and to some extent Architecture, as its attendant, occupied 
 with the development of organic form, attained even in heathen times 
 their richest cultivation. 
 
Lect. VIIL] of CHRISTIANITY. 349 
 
 tTiought, The result thus far would not appear to 
 have been either the decline or degradation of 
 Religion ; much less the contradiction or empover- 
 ishment of tenets essential to the sum of Christian 
 Faith ; but rather the introduction of a broader yet 
 deeper religious type in the adaptation of Revealed 
 Truth to the abstract conceptions of the mind. No 
 doubt the tendency of a classical revival in Science Apparent 
 and in Art has been, in the iirst instance, towards art from 
 the separate cultivation of distinct principles of sentiment 
 Truth and Beauty. Hence the apparent and tem- 
 porary divorce of Religion from Science; and 
 during the last century, and partly in our own, 
 from Art itself. The medieval intellect may be 
 said to have been entirely and extravagantly reli- 
 gious ; just as in Greece and Rome it showed itself 
 exclusively human.* It still remains to develope a 
 type of thought and conception which shall har- 
 monize, after the fundamental idea of the Religion 
 of Christ, the Human and Divine. There is, then, tempo- 
 little to suggest that the separation of Art and Phi- 
 losophy from Christian influence is other than 
 transient and contingent : or to show that Classi- 
 cism and the entrance of a so-called Rationalistic 
 
 ^ " In tlie East intellect is entirely religious ; in Greek society it is 
 exclusively human ; in the modern world the religious spirit is mixed 
 up with everything, hut excludes nothing.. Modern intellect has at once 
 the stamp of humanity and of divinity. Human sentiments and 
 interests occupy an import;aiit place in our literature ; and yet the 
 religious character of man, that portion of his existence which links 
 him to another world, appears in every step." — Guizot, Giv. en Europe, 
 Lef. vi"*"- 
 
350 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 element have exercised any nlorbific effect upon 
 the powers of Revealed Eeligion. 
 Tme"" § 5" ^^'^ relations to Christianity of an increased 
 Positive knowledge of the material world, and, as its result, 
 of a Positive system of philosophy, have already 
 been considered in various aspects. The notion 
 that the world through the possession of the Posi- 
 tive Sciences has, since the older classical and 
 medieval periods, entered on a new phase of know- 
 ledge and reflection, is plainly not without founda- 
 tion. If we compare the present condition of the 
 Natural Sciences with times in which Mathematics 
 together with the rudiments of Astronomy, Mecha- 
 nics, and Medicine constituted their whole domain •} 
 when Physics, Biology, and Comparative Physio- 
 logy existed only in outline ; and Chemistry and 
 Greology were wholly unknown; the difference is 
 Their large indeed. Yet this was all that antiquity could 
 inmedie- bcqucath to aftcr-ages ; and all that the industry 
 and penetration of the Arabians, having culled 
 from their intercourse with the Greek Empire, 
 brought into the common stock of knowledge. 
 
 ' "La mathdmatique et I'astronomie, seul d^maine que I'antiquite 
 poss^di,t dans la positivit6 (la physique et la biologie n'^taient quM- 
 bauchfe, et la chimie n'existait pas)," &c. — Littr^, Etudes sur ks 
 Barhares, p. xvii. Humboldt pronounces the Arabians the true 
 founders of the Physical Sciences, according to the modern acceptation of 
 them. They added to the old Greek conceptions the use of Experiment 
 and Computation. See Lange, Qesch. des MaterialismiiS, p. 83. Comte 
 considers Physics to have commenced with Galileo's discoveries on the 
 fall of heavy bodies : and that Geometry almost begins with Descartes ; 
 that of the ancients having been of a special and limited character. 
 
Lect. VIIL] OF CHRISTIANITY. "351 
 
 There was an absence, whatever may be said of the 
 inductive processes indicated by Plato or by Aris- 
 totle, not only of real information, but also of the 
 method to seek it and to use it when found.^ Is it, 
 then, to be supposed that with these changes the 
 limits or direction of even abstract speculation 
 could have remained modelled only on ancient 
 practice ? It is further true that, through the sup- Their re- 
 pression by medieval Catholicism of the critical unfavour- 
 spirit, the antagonism between the defenders of Religion, 
 Revealed and the investigators of Natural Truth, 
 more apparent than real, was largely increased. 
 Nor at first was this doctrine of authority much 
 impaired by the interposition of Protestantism. 
 The Reformation, it has been well said by Hallam," '^^^ ^^^^ 
 "was but a change of masters," and those great JJJ^^'l^" 
 men, who had been really, though unconsciously, "'^™- 
 contending for a perpetual freedom of belief, were 
 the first to coerce speculation, and to inhibit diflfer- 
 ences of opinion in matters of faith. But it is for- 
 gotten by the leaders of the school of thought, 
 which would substitute positive knowledge for 
 theological beliefs, that the general emancipation of 
 thought effected by the Reformation was posterior 
 
 ' See at length Whewetl, Risi. of Induct. Sc, Bk. IV. Religion, or 
 rather Theology, being in the Middle Ages the only outlet for human 
 effort and human interests, may seem to have suffered from the very 
 introduction of other fields of inquiry. 
 
 ' Literature of Europe, I. 370. Lecky, Hist. Sat., I. 404, pursues 
 this topic with some vehemence. 
 
352 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 to the religious revolution and dependent upon it.^ 
 Religion also during the same period with Science 
 had entered upon a new phase or stand-point of 
 opinion; of which, however, the Reformation was the 
 true cause and spring. Science and Religion may 
 be long in working out upon a common footing the 
 Prates- details of their respective systems. But it can be 
 friendly to no real argument (although repeatedly urged by 
 M. Comte) against the truth of a Protestant Chris- 
 tianity, that it has revolted from the domination of 
 an unreasoning Catholicism : however imposing in 
 speculation, or even in its historical results, may be 
 the idea of unity. 
 Rational- s g, \i \\, Were true, as has been alleared, that 
 
 ism not the ^ _ _ _ ' _ O ' 
 
 true con- Rationalism is the legitimate result of Scepticism 
 
 sequence , ^ 
 
 of toiera- and Tolcratiou in religious belief ;^ it might next be 
 
 tion of 
 opinion, 
 
 ' Guizot, Giv. en, E., Lef. xn™, points out tliat " while the civil and 
 religious societies have undergone the same vicissitudes and been subject 
 to the Same revolutions, resulting iii the overthrow of absolute power, 
 the religious society has always been foremost in this career." So, in 
 pronouncing on the English Eevolution of 1688, Hallam observes that it 
 "is justly entitled to honour as the era of religious, in a far greater 
 degree than of civil, liberty : the privilege of conscience having had no 
 earlier Magna Charta, and Petition of Eight, whereto they could appeal 
 against encroachment."— (7o»js*. Sist., U. 324. So also Mr. Buckle 
 Eisf. Civ., 11. 138, sees "in the Eefonnation of the sixteenth century the 
 seeds of those great political revolutions which, in the seventeenth 
 century broke out in nearly every part of Europe." 
 
 ' Mr. Lecky, Bist. Bat.,1. 400, 406, regards Eationalism as the issue 
 of the Eefonnation ; and Toleration as the result and measure of 
 Eationalism in Protestant countries. He nowhere, indeed, in his work, 
 defines Eationalism ; but in more than one passage sufficiently describes 
 his notion of it. It is a disbelief in authority (I. 90), a demand for 
 evidence. "The essence of the rationalistic spirit is to interpret the 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 353 
 
 asked whether Scepticism may not be considered 
 to have been the natural result of the Reformation 
 and of the changes which were then inaugurated. 
 And there are writers of a free and philosophic 
 spirit who seem to see nothing mediate between 
 Roman Catholicism and what they denominate 
 Rationalism. But while admitting that toleration 
 of opinion is the legitimate consequence of private involved 
 judgment, and that the principle of private judg- principle 
 ment was the privilege assertied for human thought j°udg"nent. 
 in the act of the Reformation ; it still remains to be 
 shown that private judgment itself is identical with 
 Rationalism in anything like the current accepta- 
 tion of the term, or in a sense to be held perilous Real sense 
 to the claims of Revelation. Faith, it needs hardly aiism. 
 be repeated, is, on the one hand, no unreasoning 
 acceptance of truths, however sacred. Nor again is 
 the admission of Authority in matters of Religion 
 
 articles of special creeds by the principles of universal religion, by the 
 wants, the aspirations and the moral sentiments which seem inherent in 
 human nature. It leads men, in other words, to judge what is ti'ue and 
 what is good, not by the teachings of tradition, but by the light of 
 reason and of conscience." Adopting Dr. Farrar's learned and careful 
 history of the term, " Rationalism, is properly opposed to Super- 
 naturalism, having Reason, and not Eevelation, for its fonnal principle ; 
 and stands for a purely philosophical view of religious truth." — Bamp- 
 ion Lectt., pp. 589-592. It is hence of importance to insist that the 
 right use of reason does not tend to diminish faith in the supernatural ; 
 nor was there any such tendency inherent in the principles of the 
 Eeformation ; which gave the occasion only and imposed the duty of free 
 inquiry. Hegelianism (Panlogism, as it has been termed) is the acme 
 of Rationalism, which supersedes or constitutes reality. " AUes, was 
 wirklich ist, ist vemiinftig." 
 
 2 A 
 
354 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 within limits other than a reasonable principle.' 
 The English Divines, to go no further than our 
 own country, who have fought the battle of reli- 
 gious toleration,^ were neither Sceptics nor, as the 
 word is generally understood, Rationalists. In the 
 Church of Eome Scepticism has indeed at all times 
 shown a direct and dangerous opposition towards 
 Perilous Christianity itself:' because the very truth of 
 
 position of .... 
 
 Roman Christianity is there staked upon the positive msti- 
 
 Catholi- '' • n 
 
 cism, tutions of the Church ; and now, as it would appear, 
 upon the infallibility of its visible head. But it 
 has not been so within the domain of Protestantism ; 
 in England, America, or even in Germany. Here 
 Protestantism, as admitting toleration of religious 
 opinion, shows itself the hope of Christian doctrine, 
 
 Aid afford- and the ground of its ultimate permanence. " There 
 
 ed by the i i . jj • i t i i • -i 
 
 principle is no such thing, it has been truly enough said, 
 
 ofProtes- 1 1 • 1 • • )) T-i -r-» 
 
 tantism. " as a iheological antiseptic. But Protestantism, 
 by blending with ^nd consecrating the prevailing 
 Bationalistic spirit,* affords a standing remedy for 
 traditional and authoritative corruptions of belief. 
 
 ^ See tUs argued by Hooker, E. P., V. viii., who does not exclude 
 " mvincible arguments found out by the light of reason," 
 
 " Hales, Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor : not to speak among laymen 
 of Milton and Looke. 
 
 * Thus, very early in the age of the Reformation, the attempt was 
 made by the Italian Humanists to unite the extremes of sceptical 
 unbelief and passive obedience to the authority of the Church. See 
 Dorner, Sisi. Prof. Th., Vol, II. ; Lecky, H. P., I. 406, and Mr. Buckle's 
 remarks on the causes of the French Revolution, II. 249. 
 
 * Mr. Lecky, Hist. Pat., II. 92, justly observes, " When a country, 
 which is nominally Roman Catholic, is very tolerant, it may be inferred, 
 with almost absolute certainty, that the social and intellectual influence 
 
Lect. VIII.] OP CHRISTIANITY. 355 
 
 § 7. Love of truth may be pronounced to Love of 
 have been the rudimentary virtue of Reformed rudimen- 
 Ohrietianity. This virtue, in the intensity of ^'^^"^"^* 
 its spiritual conviction, lay at the root of the 
 movement; and is still the proper attribute of 
 Protestantism as a system. It is true that fana- 
 ticism may sometimes have done it injustice in 
 this respect ; and, through intolerance in theory 
 and practice,^ have raised the doubt as to its pre- 
 ference of an authorized creed to the results of 
 genuine inquiry. Yet it has rarely, if ever, subor- 
 dinated moral distinctions to positive expediency ; 
 the means to the end ; or sanctioned pious frauds.'' 
 In its love of truth it has ever sympathized with obscured 
 
 1 • • ni'iT 11 i^y preju- 
 
 the instincts of physical discovery, and the employ- dice, 
 ment of a scientific method.' The marked diffusion 
 
 of the Church is comparatively small. But England and America con- 
 clusively prove that a nation may be very tolerant, and at the same 
 time profoundly Protestant. ... It is this fact which is the most pro- 
 pitious omen of the future of Protestantism." 
 
 ' Hallam's verdict (Cons*, ffisi., I. 94) is, "the difference as to 
 tolerance in religion between Catholics and Protestants was only in 
 degree, and in degree there was much less difference than we are apt to 
 believe ; " and see Mr. Lecky's severe strictures, E. Eat., II. 54^61, and 
 Buckle, II. 51. Yet Eallam (u. s., p. 119) seems to admit that the 
 principle of toleration was early and persistently avowed by Protestants. 
 Certainly, it must be allowed to have lain as a germ in the system, 
 however late- in bearing fruit, both in our own and other countries. 
 The principles of Eomanism are unfortunately committed to persecution. 
 
 '■^ On the degree to which the medieval interpolations and forgeries had 
 " blotted out the very sense and love of truth from the minds of men," 
 see Mr. Lecky's just remarks, E. Eat., I. 434-6 ; E. E. M., II. 225. 
 
 ' In England, we may fairly instance Bacon, Boyle, and Newton. 
 Among the founders of the Eoyal Society were Wilkins, Spratt, Glanvil, 
 and other Churchmen. 
 
 2 A 2 
 
356 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 of a truthful spirit,- which has been the characteristic 
 of the era of Protestantism, has been variously 
 ascribed to the revival of ancient independent 
 systems of philosophy, to the influence of modern 
 secular thinkers, and to the general results of 
 Physical advancing civilization.^ It may with equal reason, 
 
 cI i s CO vcrv 
 
 indebted and with pcrhaps more probability, be attributed 
 tantism. to the reaction of religious inquiry upon philoso- 
 phical speculation and active life. But in either 
 case its possession by a religious system, as part of 
 its inherent and fundamental principles, is both an 
 element of real progress, and a guarantee of per- 
 manence to the Faith which it upholds. 
 Uber?y°i'm- § ^' ^^^ doctrine of religious liberty, although 
 Svoived^ it did not immediately bear fruit, is in principle 
 fomati^n ^^^^^J *^*^ incontcstably due to the Reformation ; 
 which did not, however, take its rise in any notions 
 of political freedom.^ Experience shows, it is true, 
 that, under all systems, persecution for opinion is 
 dear to human nature. But it has never been 
 proved to be a consequence of Christian doctrine. 
 Until the establishment of the Church under Con- 
 stantine, the testimony of the Fathers is wholly in 
 favour of toleration of belief. It is in practice 
 though not that the difficulties emerge of working out the 
 
 secured. 
 
 1 Lecky, B. R., I. 440 ; E. E. M., I. 143. 
 
 " " Political liberty," says Hallam, Lit. M., I. 352, " m the sense we 
 xtse the word, cannot be reckoned the aim of those who introduced the 
 Eeformation." See also the section (II. 33) on the Political Philosophy 
 of the sixteenth century. Compare Mr. Mill on Liberty, Introd. 
 
Lect. VIIL] of CHRISTIANITY. 357 
 
 application of the principle of freedom without dis- 
 turbance, yet without injustice. The removal of 
 religious disabilities, and the relations of theolo- 
 gical beliefs to political government, have, since 
 the Reformation, become of necessity the questions 
 of the age; and once more, after an interval of 
 temporary cessation, loom large on the horizon of 
 public opinion in Europe^ But their solution no Practical 
 longer involves the rise or fall of Christianity, its stm ex- 
 success or decline. The usefulness of Establish- p^"^""^^ ' 
 ments' and of National Churches in preserving a 
 just liberty of belief against sectarian or unsec- 
 tarian tyranny ; as also in combating so formidable 
 an opponent as " the close phalanx of Rome ;"" may 
 be too readily forgotten. On the other hand, but no 
 there is good reason to augur, from the intrinsi- dangerous 
 cally spiritual character of our Religion, that it istence of 
 would, under the most voluntary system, be found tianlty, 
 the most readily to flourish.^ But in any case the 
 true interests of Christianity are independent of 
 
 " On this side may be claimed so liberal a thinker as Shaftesbm-y, who 
 quotes Harrington to the effect that " it is necessary people should haye 
 a public leading in religion." " Why," he adds, " should there not be 
 public walks, as well as private gardens? " — Characteristics, I. 17. 
 
 * " It is still very doubtful whether the close phalanx of Borne 
 can be opposed, in ages of strong religious zeal, by anything except 
 established or at least confederate Churches." — Hallam, Hist. Lit., I 
 372. 
 
 " See Sir Gt. 0. Lewis's observations (^Essay on Authority, p. 301) : 
 Mr. Buckle.(fiis<. Giv., II. 53) considers that "a religion, not protected 
 by the Government, usually displays greater energy and greater vitality 
 than one which is so protected." He further gives a rationale of the 
 fact. 
 
358 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 the secularization of politics. They are bound up 
 nor to its with the maintenance of the Scriptures, its sole 
 tSest^" authoritative records, and with the earliest prin- 
 ciples of their interpretation, historically ascer- 
 tained ; and these, it must be admitted, are on the 
 side of religious equality, and a reasonable employ- 
 Question ment of private judgment.* It may, however, be 
 
 of religious i-ii itp-i - p 
 
 establish- remarked, that a behei m the progressive power oi 
 the Religion, and of its capacity and value in 
 civilization, seems a necessary part of a theory of 
 religious establishments; for, as representing a 
 system of abstract truth only, few would care 
 greatly to support them.^ Were the Faith of Jesus 
 Christ confined in its teaching to any one form of 
 political government, absolute or popular; this 
 might, in some quarters, and with some show of 
 fairness, be deemed an evidence of its transient and 
 
 ' On the equality and diversity of particular Churches, it may he 
 remarked that the Primitiye Liturgies and even Creeds bear evidence 
 of the independence of their several forms, while united by a community 
 of doctrine ; see Bingham, E. A., Bk. II. c. vi. Some good remarks on 
 the relation of private judgment to a common standard of authority 
 existing in the Church will be found in Bp. Browne, Ma;pos. of Arts, 
 p. 480 ; in Gladstone, Chwroh and State, c. v. ; and Palmer, Treatise 
 on the Church, II. vi. 
 
 ^ The grave question as to the duty of the State to propsgate truth 
 is, at the present time, practically superseded by a belief that it is not 
 for the interest of the truth to seek the assistance of the State. With- 
 out taking up the high ground of Mr. Gladstone {Church and State, 
 c. iii. viii.), it is enough to observe that even Macaulay (Essays, p. 487) 
 would maintain the duty of religious instruction on the part of the 
 Government as a secondary obligation from its utility as a moral in- 
 strument. If, then, its value as a spiritual agency be taken into 
 account, the obligation is surely enhanced ; as well as the danger of 
 making no provision against false outlets for the enthusiasm un- 
 doubtedly natural to mankind. 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 359 
 
 limited character. Such, however, we know from 
 its own doctrines, as well as from the course of its 
 history, not to be the case. Born under the grow- Relations 
 
 ,. 1 tT ofChris- 
 
 iiig absolutism of the first years of the Eoman tianity as 
 Empire, the Church, though instinctively leaning of religion 
 to the rights of possession, as the best practical 
 proof of its negation of all claims to temporal 
 power ;^ favoured political progress and liberty. 
 True it is, that the original freedom of its prin- 
 ciples has, in the course of human affairs, been 
 limited and arrested by the force of circumstances, 
 and the errors of individual leaders. It has accord- 
 ingly been reproached with its tendencies to Theo- 
 cracy ; with the alliances it has contracted with 
 despotism ; and with the slavishness of its passive 
 obedience.^ Yet no doctrine of Divine Right can 
 be proved in reality to encumber its system ; and 
 
 ' Mr. Buckle treats the distinction of de facto and de jure with much 
 contempt ; and as a quibble invented to save the pockets of the clergy, 
 or to cover Jesuitry. Hist. Civ., I. 413. While acknowledging to the 
 full the high qualities of the Non-jurors, I still regard this view as a 
 narrow one. 
 
 ^ Shaftesbury denounced Christianity as incompatible with freedom ; 
 and even Mr. Buckle seems to agree in the opinion that, " by being a 
 good Churchman, a person may become a bad citizen." No doubt, 
 medieval CathoUcism has neutralized its earlier services of distinguish- 
 ing spiritual from temporal authority by its later attempts to subordi- 
 nate the latter to the former. Montesquieu, E. L., XXIV. iii. v., con- 
 siders the genius of Christianity best suited to a constitutional form 
 of Government; while Mahometanism is the religion of despotism ; and 
 that Catholicism has an affinity for monarchy, but Protestantism for 
 a republic. Guizot, however, admits that, historically, the Church has 
 always presented herself as the interpreter and defender of theocracy or 
 despotism, under a religious or civil form. The origin of this fact he 
 
mocracy. 
 
 360 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 the highest supporters of the Papal power have at 
 times maintained even ultra-democratic opinions, 
 itsinde- Democracy, indeed, in the opinion of many the 
 ultimate form of existing governments ; the neces- 
 sary result, it is maintained, of the conclusions of 
 political economy, of the increase of capital, of the 
 
 Supposed expansion of knowledge,^ and of industrial move- 
 leaning to- . . 
 wards de- meuts ; IS lu some respects the truest aspect of the 
 
 spirit of Christianity as the last and highest expres- 
 sion of the Christian ideal of the brotherhood of 
 mankind.^ " Unam omnium rempublicam agnos- 
 cimus mundum," cries TertuUian in his defence of 
 Christianity ; " Omnium Christianormn respublica 
 est," is the echo of Augustine.* In this freedom, 
 or, it may be, indifference, of the political stand- 
 traces to the natural conflict between religious restraint and human 
 liberty.— CtV. en E., Lee. vi"». " Le Christianisme," says De Maistre,, 
 CEuvres, p. 121, " est monarchique ; comme tout le monde le sait." — 
 -See Bu Fape, I. 249. 
 
 ' " The state of knowledge," says Bacon, "is ever a Democratic ; and 
 that prevaileth which is most agreeable to the senses and conceits of 
 people."— TFbr^s, III. 227. 
 
 2 Lecky, E. Bat., II. 248. Comp. Schmidt, Essai, Bk. 11. c. ii. 
 Dean Milman, Eist. Lat. Chr., VI. 210, has eloquently pointed out the 
 liberal elements in medieval Catholicism, their effects on social rank and 
 in proclaiming the equality of mankind. See also Guizot's remarks. 
 Civ. en E., Lep. v"", on the amount of individual freedom which 
 modified the spiritual tyranny of the pretensions of the Church. 
 
 ^ TertuU., Apol., c. xxxviii. ; Augustine, Le Op. Mmuwh, c. xv., 
 xxxiii. The indifference of Christians to political affairs, not unnatural 
 under the circumstances of the time and at the rise of the new Eeli<non 
 was at first thought a consequence of their doctrines. It was held 
 "doctrinam Christi adversam esse reipublicaj." — August., ^. cxxxviii., 
 ad Marcell. Mr. Lecky, K Sat., II.. '108, regards all patriotism as a 
 pagan, and not a Christian, virtue. Even if this view were coiTcct, it 
 would but show the suitableness of the religion to co-operate in the 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 361 
 
 point, may certainly be discerned no unfavourable 
 augury of tbe probable operation of Obristianity 
 amid future revolutions of public opinion in succeed- 
 inef affes. Strenfftliened from within by its own Secukr- 
 
 . P . n ■ 1 izationnot 
 
 native resources of influence, it may be expected to fatal or un- 
 become gradually independent of all such means of 
 influence as governments are undoubtedly capable 
 of exercising upon religious belief,' whether bene- 
 ficially or not. 
 
 § 9. An argument not infrequently urged for the 
 probable decline of Christianity remains to be con- 
 sidered. The principle of private judgment, it is said, °^J^f^°" 
 in matters of religion, which is more and more assert- principle 
 
 '-' of private 
 
 ing itself in reason and in fact as the law of Chris- judgment 
 tian communities, penetrating even the armour of 
 Roman unity, is a principle of dissidence and divi- 
 sion, making blunt the true instrument for the con- 
 version of the world, — Christian love and oneness 
 of belief. How, it is objected, is mankind to be ^ *eo- 
 
 . , . retically 
 
 brought over to the Faith of Christ, when the prin- and in fact 
 
 1 r> T • T • 1 incompa- 
 
 ciple of religious disagreement is both sanctioned tiwe with 
 
 . . 1 n ■ 1 11 1 . missionary 
 
 and maintained ? Who shall judge whether this success, 
 disagreement does not extend to matters essential to 
 
 largest speculations as to the ultimate federation of mankind. Comte 
 admits that the rise of industrial Eepuhlics in the Middle Ages is a proof 
 that Christianity is not incompatible with this form of government. — 
 PM. Pos., V. 458. 
 
 ^ See on this subject Sir G. C. Lewis, Influence of Authority, p. 291, 
 and Mr. Lecky, Hist. Rat, II. 2-4. 
 
 ^ Comp. Voltaire, Essai sur les Mceurs, I. iv. " Le plus grand obstacle 
 a nos succes religieux dans I'lnde, c'est la diffdrence des opinions qui 
 divisent nos missionnaires ; " &c. 
 
362 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 personal salvation ? ^ And, at any rate, if the 
 missionary efforts of the Church, while still united, 
 failed to procure the full conversion of the heathen 
 to the knowledge of the truth, what hetter pro- 
 spect can attend the labours of isolated bodies ? If 
 it is impossible to secure unity within the Church ; 
 what are the chances of succeeding with those 
 " that are without ; " of winning to the One Fold 
 A power ^^q shccp that are scattered abroad ? It has been 
 
 of conver- '- 
 
 sion an ad- already admitted that, in the tendency of any 
 
 mitted test , . . . . 
 
 ofthevi- religious system to extend itself by conversion of 
 
 talityof . 
 
 any Re- Unbelief, may be found one of the most real tests 
 
 ligion, „ . 1 1 • 1 <• . 
 
 01 its permanence, power, and, ultimately, of its 
 tioned^" *^"*^-^ -^^ objector Can deny to certain periods of 
 to Chris- the history of Christianity the presence of this 
 
 tianity m •' j i. 
 
 its earlier test. Thosc periods have already, in the course of 
 these Lectures, come fully under review. We are 
 now led to form, though very briefly, an estimate 
 of the present condition and ultimate prospects of 
 our Eeligion in respect of its missionary efforts, 
 Thisprin- § iq. But, first, it must not be forgotten, as 
 duty in- bearing upon this portion of our subject, that the 
 the system missionary spirit of Christianity, as compared with 
 
 ' This objection, it is clear, may he carried too far. All eiTors, even 
 in matters of faith, cannot be considered defide and heretical. Roman 
 Catholic divines admit that there may be true Churches without the 
 entire profession of the truth ; nor is actual tinity in all matters of faith 
 a real note of the Church of Christ. See Palmer, Treatise, I. v. § 4. 
 These considerations must largely modify any definition of " Funda- 
 mentals." 
 
 ' See Grant, Bampton Lect., vi., sub init. 
 
 herent in 
 the sya 
 ofChr 
 tianity. 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 363 
 
 other faiths, was marked in its very origin* by the 
 example and action of its Founder. He came, as 
 He expressly records, "#0 seek and to save that 
 which was lost." One of the grandest miracles 
 of this Religion and of its most important announce- 
 ments, the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Day 
 of Pentecost, had direct reference to the work of 
 Evangelization.* In some respects this eagerness 
 to make proselytes might be considered as tradi- 
 tional with the Jews, and was so remarked by 
 heathen writers before the spread of Christianity.^ 
 In some respects, also, it has been shared by other ^°^ '^ 
 Eastern religions, by the faiths of Buddha * and Buddhism, 
 Mahomet. With the worshippers of Islam, how- ^^^^'j^g. 
 ever, the instrument and end of conversion was tan faith, 
 conquest ; not the moral or spiritual elevation of 
 the believer. They massacred ; they did not con- 
 vert,^ It has, indeed, been asserted that even in the 
 
 ' On the real and disinterested character of the first missionary 
 labours of the Christians, see Origen, c. Gels., III. ix., VIII. lii. ; and on 
 the necessary connection between such efforts and a belief in doctrine, 
 comp. Dr. Mozley, B. L., pp. 182-5. " Zeal in missionary enterprise is 
 essentially the child of faith," &c. We may set proselytism to the 
 account of Christianity as against persecution. " Le zdle qui convertit 
 et qui fonde est aussi le zdle qui poursuit et qui ddtruit." — Littr^, 
 Les Ba/rbares, p. 150. See Guizot, MedUatioiw, II. 143. 
 
 ^ Comp. Luke xxiv. 47-49. 
 
 ' Comp. Neander, I. 90-93, ed. Clark : DoUinger, Oentile and Jew, 
 II. 181. 
 
 * See Max Miiller, Chips, I. 257, 293. 
 
 = " Concerning the means of procuring unity, we may not take up 
 the third sword, which is Mahomet's sword or like unto it ; that is, to 
 propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force con- 
 sciences." — Bacon, Essays, WorJcs, VI. 383. It is too true that the 
 
364 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 present day Mahommedanism still makes its con- 
 verts:' a result, however, obtained by secondary 
 agencies, such as the institution of domestic slavery, 
 rather than by any combined or genuine effort to 
 Original eulara-B the area of its beliefs. But with the Faith 
 
 with the ° 
 
 Christian of Jcsus Ghrist conversion of unbelief has been 
 from the first an intrinsic and palpable duty. " Go 
 ye and teach all nations (jLta^i^reucraTe) ; baptizing 
 them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
 and of the Holy Grhost," was the commission of His 
 Apostles. " Out, of all nations and kindreds and 
 tongues and peoples " was His Church to be built 
 up ; and " unto them that dwell in all the earth " 
 was " the everlasting Grospel " to be preached.^ Nor 
 has there ever been any long space in the history 
 
 and per- of the ChuTch, especially when freed from domestic 
 
 sistently \ '- ^•' 
 
 carried struggles^ during which this work has not been 
 carried on by at least some branch of the Christian 
 Communion. No age has been altogether without 
 some fruit of its labours. At the present hour it is 
 being vigorously and honourably maintained : and 
 an important testimony is thus rendered to the life 
 and activity of our Eeligion, and to the prospects of 
 its extension and permanence. A few proofs in 
 
 policy of Ferdinand and Isabella to Jew and Moor was a copy of tbis 
 example. — Milman, Hwt. of Jews, III. xxvi. ; Grieseler, III. v. § 6. 
 
 ' See W. G. Palgrave, Essays on Eastern. Questions, p. 124 ; also 
 DoUinger, Lectures on Reunion of Churches. The Cburch Missionary 
 Society's Report for 1872 says, " In some parts of India Mohamme- 
 danism is extremely strong, if not increasing ; . . . among the African 
 tribes it continues its onward movement." 
 
 ^ Matt, xxviii. 19 ; Rev. xiv. 6. 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 365 
 
 connection with this part of our subject are all that 
 can be given here. 
 
 S II. At the time of the Reformation the e-eo- Sketch of 
 
 •' '-' missionary 
 
 graphical limits of the Faith of Christ were for the efforts 
 
 ° '^ since the 
 
 most part identical with those of Europe. Poland Refomia- 
 and Lapland had at length received the Gospel;^ 
 and although Constantinople had admitted within 
 its walls its Turkish conquerors, its Christian popu- 
 lation still retained one-half of the churches to their 
 use with liberty of worship.^ In Asia missionaries 
 had touched China : and Nestorianism had made 
 advances in Central Tartary. But other worlds 
 now opened before the march of Christianity ; and 
 as if to meet the fresh demand, the nations of the eviIs of 
 
 the con- 
 West rose to a new energy, and became endued with quest of 
 
 . America, 
 
 greater intensity of enterprise and purpose.^ It is 
 true that in America and Western Africa the 
 spread of the Gospel was at first utterly thwarted 
 by the avarice and ferocity of the Spaniards and 
 Portuguese. What else could be looked for from 
 men who had mercilessly expelled from the soil 
 of Spain the Jew and the Moor, with the option of 
 
 ' Begun in the middle and close of the fourteenth century, but it was 
 long before idolatry was extinguished. — Gieseler, C, H., IV. 259 ; 
 Guericke, Kircliengesch., II. 321 ; Maclear, Hist, of Missions in Middle 
 
 » Gibbon, VIII. 180, ed. Smith. 
 
 » Comp. Grant, B. L., p. 281. Dr. Dorner, Hist. Prot. Th., II. 447, 
 remarks generally : " The intensive and eoi^ensive processes alternate 
 with each other in the Church's history. The latter, though naturally 
 arising from the former, brings the Church into a defiling contact with 
 the world, frotn which it can only be delivered by a fresh concentration 
 and a recurrence to the purifying and intensive process. Nevertheless, 
 the work of Christianity upon the human race is progressive," 
 
suits. 
 
 366 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 conversion or exile.' In vain the Dominicans with 
 
 righteous rigour refused absolution to the inhuman 
 
 torturers of the native Indians.^ In vain the 
 
 devoted and venerable, if mistaken, Las Casas lived 
 
 and died among the heathen of Mexico and Cuba. 
 
 of the No one can desire to palliate these enormities any 
 
 trade. more than the miseries of the Slave Trade, that long 
 
 and grievous stain on the fair scutcheon of modern 
 
 Christianity. Yet it must be remembered that then, 
 
 no less than in our own day, the social element, first 
 
 Social brought into contact with savage and aboriginal 
 
 causes of . . , . . 
 
 these re- populations, is that which is, for the most part, 
 least under the control of religious and spiritual 
 ideas. The missionary succeeds the settler, the 
 slaver, and the gold seeker. The reproach cast by 
 Lord Bacon on his contemporaries in the days of 
 Elizabeth would hold good even now. "Surely the 
 merchants themselves shall rise in judgment against 
 the princes and nobles of Europe. For they have 
 made a great path in the seas unto the ends of the 
 world ; and set forth ships and forces of Spanish, 
 English, and Dutch, enough to make China trem- 
 ble ^ and all this for pearl, or stone, or spices ; but 
 for the pearl of the kingdom of Heaven, or the 
 stones of the heavenly Hierusalem, or the spices of 
 the Spouse's Grarden, not a mast hath been setup."* 
 
 ' See the remarkable discussion given in Presoolt {Ferdinand, III. 430) 
 between Sepulveda and Las Casas. " Tlie Spaniard," says the indignant 
 historian, " first persecuted the Jews, and then quoted them as an autho- 
 rity for persecuting all other infidels." See also Helps, Las Oasas, c. xi. 
 
 ' Gieseler, v. 204. Prescott,it. s.. III. 428. Helps, i>8/eq^i(M Casas, c.ix. 
 
 = Bacon, Works, VIE 19, ed. Spedding. 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 367 
 
 § 12, And yet when we compare tlie three Progress 
 hundred years which have elapsed since the era of large and 
 the Eeformation with the fifteen centuries which 
 had preceded, can we say that little has been done 
 or is doing to fulfil the great Christian duty of 
 propagating the Faith ? Little, perhaps, to satisfy 
 the eager expectation which calculates (perchance 
 too fondly) ^ on the universal spread of the kingdom 
 of Christ, ere that kingdom be accomplished ; ever 
 crying, " How long, Lord ? " " Wilt thou at 
 this time restore again the kingdom to Israel ? " 
 Little, it may be, to answer the cavils at the as- 
 sumed failure and unreason of all missionary efforts 
 which proceed from some objectors to Revelation 
 and from half-hearted friends.^ Of the labours of Efforts of 
 the Church of Rome during this period in the field church, 
 of missions, I would speak with all respect.' That 
 Church, which sent forth a Xavier ; which fostered 
 the devotion and noble self-sacrifice of the Jesuit 
 Fathers ; which (with whatever errors of concep- 
 tion and execution) has planted missions through 
 
 ' See Archdeacon Grant's observations, B. L., p. 301. See also some 
 good remarks in Isaac Taylor (^Hist. o/Enthus., p. 183), on the probable 
 evils which would accompany a speedy conversion of mankind. 
 
 ^ Paley, in his Evidences (Works, Y. 239), remarks with truth that 
 the slow progress and ill-success of modern efforts only magnify the 
 miracle of the first conversion of the Eoman world to Christianity. 
 
 ' The Congregatio de fide Oath, propaganda was " erected " by the 
 Bull of Gregory XV. in 1622. The "Seminarium" dates from 1627. 
 As to the Missions here touched on, Charlevoix's Histories for Japan 
 and Paraguay are well known ; H. Coleridge's Life of Xavier may also 
 be consulted ; and for a general account of Catholic Missions, Wittmann, 
 Allgemeine Qeschichte der KathoUschen Mismnen, Vol. III. The most 
 recent account of the Mission in China will be found in Cooper's Pioneer 
 of Commerce. 
 
368 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 the length and breadth of America, from Paraguay 
 to the snows of Canada ; no less than in the far 
 East, in India, Tonkin, China, and Japan, and on 
 the coasts of Western Africa ; and still maintains 
 with unabated vigour in much of these regions, as 
 well as in the English colonies, its centres of opera- 
 tion ; is no sluggard in this work. Xavier alone, 
 xavier. in his hcroic faith and zeal, his quenchless love of 
 souls, his entire spirit of self-sacrifice, his earnest 
 piety, and careful wisdom, offers, it has been well 
 said, " all that we can desire, all that we can 
 conceive in the character of a Christian preacher 
 sent forth among the heathen to teach repentance 
 toward Grod, and faith towards our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." ' Why should it be held that the light of 
 such an example is perished from the earth, never 
 to re^illume the horizon of Christian enterprise? 
 His ex- Surely it cannot any longer be urged with truth 
 capable of against Protestantism that in its hands Christianity 
 
 reproduc- , , . . , • i i 
 
 tion. has lost its expansive power; that neither the 
 spirit of wisdom nor of self-sacrifice animates its 
 efforts for the conversion of the heathen.^ Long, 
 it is true, this note of an Apostolic Church was 
 wanting while a reformed faith was struggling for 
 existence or reviving its shattered energies.^ No 
 
 1 Grant, B. L., p. 145. 
 
 ^ See in Grant, u. s., p. 183. Thus De Maistre, Vu Pope, III. c. i. ; 
 IV. V. He adds, bitterly : " Les 6glises sont st^riles, et rien n'est plus 
 juste ; elles ont rejetfi I'llipoux." 
 
 * "The constructive intelligence of the seventeenth century possessed 
 itself of the materials accumulated during the Reformation era, to 
 
Lect. VIII ] OF CHRISTIANITY. 369 
 
 doubt, the outbreak of the Reformation " isolated 9^ *« , 
 
 Reformed 
 
 the English Church as well as kindred continental Churches. 
 bodies from the vast system with which they had 
 been bound up."^ They were thrown suddenly on 
 their own resources. But little by little, with the 
 return of strength and the opportunity of reflection, 
 the sense of this duty re-awaked among the Pro- 
 testant Churches. Denmark established the first 
 mission in Hindostan,^ and also in Greenland. Gemiany. 
 Holland laboured earnestly in Java, Amboyna, 
 Formosa. Germany, in the missions of the United 
 Brethren, showed an unrivalled pattern of wisdom 
 and . self-devotion over an area extending from 
 South Africa to Labrador. I will not now seek to 
 recount the efforts made through the Missionary 
 Societies of our own country to wipe away ■the°J^|'"s- 
 reproach of past indifference in this the prime of 
 Christian works of mercy. But I would ask you 
 to compare the present state of British India with 
 its aspect a century ago ; to look abroad on the 
 work which has been done during the same period 
 in America, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa, 
 
 fashion theni into means of offence and defence. . . Within the citadel 
 a vigorous spiritual life, which gave evidence of its existence chiefly in 
 sacred song and music, was not lacking. But the notion of winning the 
 world to the Gospel, and of the moral expansion of the Protestant prin- 
 ciple according to its different aspects, had aknost disappeared."— 
 Dorner, E. Prat. Th., H. 99. 
 
 ' Grant, B. L., p. 185. Guericke, Kirchengesck, III. 374. 
 
 ^ Having later among its missionaries (from 1751-1798) that truly 
 excellent man, Christian F. Schwarz. A general history of Protestant 
 Missions was first brought out by Wiggers, Hamburg, 1856, in 2 vols. 
 
 2 B 
 
370 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 and to say whether we can see in it only the 
 expiring embers of a faith all but extinct, in- 
 capable of further effort or enthusiasm. Do we 
 not rather mark in it the signs under Grod's blessing 
 of a revival, pure, and fresh, and heartfelt, of a 
 primitive zeal such as has ever stamped the leading 
 Present eras of Christian advance ? Though much, very 
 
 aspect of . Til 
 
 the work, much remams to be done to consolidate the empire 
 of Christ even in the regions where His name is 
 named, there is still ground in past and present 
 effort for the highest expectations of success. Is it 
 not so that in these latter days the truest seal of 
 missionary devotion has not been withheld in the 
 constancy of an entire Church, as also of individual 
 Christians? Witness the blood-stained cliffs of 
 Madagascar! Witness the island of the South 
 Pacific, which so lately saw our English Bishop 
 Patteson close with a martyr's death the life of an 
 Apostle ! Happier in this his meed than Xavier 
 himself. " If," said that faithful servant of Christ, 
 "I should happen to die by the hands of the 
 heathen, who knows but all of them might receive 
 the faith ? For it is most certain that, since the 
 primitive times of the Church, the seed of the 
 Grospel has made a larger increase in the fields 
 of Paganism by the blood of martyrs than by the 
 sweat of missionaries." ^ Surely Mission work will 
 be found the true Crusade of the nineteenth cen- 
 
 • See Dryden's Life, p. 174, ap. Grant, p. 179. 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 371 
 
 tury. It is not for nought that Christianity, once Favour- 
 the civilizer and creator of modern Europe, now juncture of 
 puts forth its plastic power to re-mould the stances. 
 religions of the world, and summon to one 
 common shrine the aboriginal races of the earth. 
 It is true that many such tribes, the sad survivors 
 of the infancy of our race,^ have perished as by an 
 unseen law, and are perishing at the first touch of 
 civilization. The Church of Christ but plants 
 itself on their forgotten graves. Yet, if indeed 
 we believe in civilization as the vocation of man- 
 kind, and in nations as specifically gifted for this 
 work, how vast is the future now open to Chris- 
 tian enterprise ! For the soul and source of all real 
 civilization we hold to be Religion.* Colonization 
 and conquest, intercourse and trade, are its 
 pioneers, and to each of the dominant sections of 
 the Christian world may perhaps, in the Divine 
 councils, be reserved a separate portion of this 
 common work. Each of the three Families of J'''°J'ai'ie 
 
 field open 
 to each oi^ 
 the lead- ' 
 ' " Quant aux races sauvages, pes tristes survivants d vm monde en ing divi- 
 
 enfance, i qui Ton ne peut souhaiter qu'une douce mort, il y a presque sions of the 
 d&ision ^ leur appliqiier nos formulaires dogmatiques, fruit d'une ^""^'"'■■' 
 reflexion de vingt si^cles." — Eenan, Qaestions Ovntemparaines, p. 361. 
 I have to some extent followed the far-reaching speculations of the same 
 able mind in estimating the future spread of Christianity. Mean- 
 while philosophy, it must not be forgotten, has done nothing in this 
 work. " Oondorcet," writes De Maistre, " nous a promis que les philo- 
 sophes se chargeraient incessamment de la civilisation et du bonheur 
 des nations barbares. Nous attendrons qu'ils veuillent bien com- 
 mencer." — (Euvres, p. 130. 
 * See Luthardt's remarks, Apolog., E. T., ed, Clark, p. 199. 
 
 2 B 2 
 
372 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 Christianity,' the Latin or Celtic, the Teutonic, 
 the G-reco-Slave, (for in accepting this new 
 element the Greek Church also has found its 
 Eenaissance ;) has at least a probable appointed 
 area of labour. Eussia may yet subdue the realms 
 of Buddhism and of Confucianism. For Latin 
 Catholicism may remain the Turkish and Persian 
 Orient. The Moslems of the East, it is true, fix 
 their gaze on Constantinople as the centre of their 
 hopes,^ looking to a restoration of the Caliphate, 
 and with it of their former glory. But surely 
 they lean on a broken reed. For Teutonic 
 Christianity and our own English-speaking race ^ 
 lies in store the vast appanage of Hindostan, the 
 continents of Australia and North America, and, 
 as it would seem, of Central and Southern Africa, 
 
 ' " Througliout the world, wherever the Teutonic is the groundwork 
 of the language, the Eeformation either is or, as in Southern Germany, 
 has been dominant: wherever Latin, Latin Christianity has retained 
 its ascendancy." — ^Mihnan, i. Ohr., I. 8. " Protestantism," says Mr. 
 Froude, Short Studies, p. 131, " is Teutonic ; Catholicism Latin and 
 Celtic." As to the Greek Church, comp. Dean Stanley, Lect. on Eastern 
 Ch., p. ix. pp. 345, 492, and Neale's Holy Eastern Church, I. 14, 15. 
 
 " See Grant, B. L., p. 285. W. G. Palgrave's Essays, p. 131. 
 
 ' " The spread of the English stock, and language, and literature, 
 over the North American continent, has afforded a distinct and very 
 significant indication of the power of Christianity to retain its hold 
 of the human mind, and of its aptness to run hand in hand with 
 civilization, even when unaided hy those secular succours to which 
 its enemies in malice, and some of its friends in over-caution, are prone 
 to attribute too much importance." — ^I. Taylor, Enthus., p. 271. In 
 the East, the opening of Japan, the adoption, as it is stated, of English 
 as the State language, and the large dimensions of Chinese Coolie 
 migration to America, Australia, and India, tend in the same direc- 
 tion. 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. ITh 
 
 " even all the isles of the heathen." As the final ?.°°^J°' 
 term of human religions, susceptible of a pro- 
 gressive application/ the Avatar of Christianity 
 has still before it a future, which in vastness may 
 overshadow the history of the past.^ 
 
 § 13. Let us not, then, the creatures of a day, Conciu- 
 whose term of earthly life but spans the commence- 
 ment of an immortal existence, deem that progress 
 slow, that career uncertain. For what shall be No true 
 
 standard 
 
 our standard of measurement ? " The blindness 01 of the rate 
 
 /. 1 1 • 1 /• • 1 of progress 
 
 the greatest men, 01 the highest races, 01 wideofchns- 
 continents" will not shake our faith, that the*'^"' 
 Divine purpose revealed in the scheme of our holy 
 Eeligion shall surely come to pass. There are not 
 wanting indications that, " both in the case of men 
 and of nations, the longest training and the 
 dreariest periods of abeyance of spiritual life are 
 often preparations for its fullest growth." * Eras of 
 
 ' Comp. Milman, u. s., p. 9 ; VI. 447. 
 
 " Want of space forbids me to dwell on the symptoms, now happily 
 universal, of the intensive progress of Christianity in our own and other 
 countries. These to sdme extent compete and interfere with missionary 
 labour. Such are the vast efforts made in England during the last half 
 c.entury, not only by the Established Chtirch, but also by Nonconformist 
 bodies, to overtake, as to spiritual provision, the large and steady increase 
 of population, a task the more difficult from foregone neglect ; the build- 
 ing and renovation of churches and chapels ; the erection and main- 
 tenance of schools, in which the clergy are admitted to have taken 
 so great a share ; the growing interest in matters of doctrine and prac- 
 tice often involving much personal sacrifice ; not to speak of individual 
 acts of Christian religiousness, the growth of charity answering to the 
 increase of national wealth. In proportion as many of these tasks are 
 remitted to the superintendence of the State, the extensive action of the 
 Church may be expected to fill a larger field. 
 
 ' Button, Essays, p. 122. 
 
374 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 Retrogres- apparent retrogression may be designed to act but 
 diary to as goads to discipline the faith which hopes and 
 
 advance. o j. 
 
 works unshaken to the end. And certainly the 
 new consciousness now dawning on mankind of 
 spaces of duration, hitherto beyond conception, yet 
 now falling into their rank and place in the scheme 
 of evolution of human existence, may teach us to be 
 wary of hastily determining the future of Chris- 
 tianity and of our race by any previous limits of 
 anticipation. It has probably been one cause of 
 the slowness of the spread of the Grospel, now, 
 happily, very generally felt, where over-hasty mis- 
 kf k?ow- ^io^^^y efforts have neglected all consideration of 
 ledge will previous stages of developmentj intellectual and 
 missionary moral ; and have introduced races hardly reclaimed 
 
 success. ■' 
 
 from savagery to theological controversies, or the 
 acceptance of religious practices, which represent 
 the thought of centuries. But the issue of the 
 work of Evangelization can never be doubtful, so 
 long as we reflect upon the characteristics of the 
 truths which Christianity reveals to mankind, and 
 Argument their position in the history of our race. In this 
 
 for the . 
 
 progress rcspcct we may, without undue assumption, appeal 
 mate per- to the internal evidence of truth furnished by the 
 of Chris- character of its doctrines ; their universality,^ their 
 
 tianity, . •' 
 
 ' " There is nothing which to any reflecting mind is more signal a 
 proof of the Bible being really the guiding book of the world's history 
 than its anticipations, predictions, insight into the wants of men far 
 beyond the age in which it was written. That modem element which 
 we find in it — so like our own times, so unlike the ancient framework 
 of its natui-al form— that Gentile, European turn of thought, so 
 
Lect. VIII.] OF CHRISTIANITY. 375 
 
 adaptation to the nature which it is their aim to 
 regenerate ; their very presumption of finality in 
 the promises which they hold out to assure the 
 spirit of man. Other religions have been local, from the 
 
 ,. . -. r, 1 /. -in. cosmopoli- 
 
 temporary, limited, fitted for definite stages oftancharac- 
 culture, partial in their hold upon particular doctrines, 
 truths, in accord with the spiritual standing, so to 
 speak, only of the people or race. They have accord- 
 ingly developed tribes and nations to a fixed line 
 and point of progress, and then their course seems 
 stayed.* They have no further message to the 
 soul of man ; no onward mission to evoke his 
 Divine capacities, or renew his fallen nature. But which find 
 
 „,..., , . . , . , their fulfil- 
 
 Chnstianity has not only, in its history, shown ment in 
 
 til 6 dcve- 
 
 itself adequate to all the circumstances of its de- lopment 
 
 of the 
 human 
 unlike the Asiatic language and scenery -which was its cradle — the race, 
 enforcement of principles and duties which for years and centuries 
 lay almost unperceived, because hardly ever understood in its sacred 
 pages; but which now we see to be in accordance with the utmost 
 requirements of philosophy and civilization ; those principles of tole- 
 ration, chivalry, discrimination, proportion, which even now are not 
 appreciated as they ought to be, and which only can be realized in 
 ages yet to come; these are the unmistakeable predictions of the 
 prophetic spirit of the Bible, the pledges of its inexhaustible re- 
 sources." — Stanley, Sermons on the Bible, p. 80. I shall readily be 
 excused for quoting this fine passage at length. 
 
 '■ " History shows in many ways that Mahometanism has its root 
 only in the past. There is no growth in the faith ; no power of 
 adapting itself to the new ages. Mahomet as he was rules Maho- 
 metans OS they are. His word was petrified and crystallized in 
 Mecca, and can assimilate no new truth. But the history of the 
 Christian Church is a history of constant growth in spite of sacer- 
 dotal resistance ; and I believe that the upward course of that growth 
 has ever been the communion with a living Christ." — Hutton, Essays, 
 I. 277. 
 
376 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 velopment; its definite announcements permit a 
 judgment on its genius and character as a Eeligion 
 framed for permanence and finality.^ If true, it 
 proclaims a scheme for the redemption and im- 
 provement of mankind, which is unique, complete. 
 Its tenets and incapable of repetition. Its overtures to the 
 
 responsive ...... 
 
 to the individual soul, limited to no race, or caste, or 
 convic- class, or iset of faculties, extend from its entrance 
 civiiiza- into life to the hour of departure ; are adapted to its 
 ' real wants and failings;^ and provide for that 
 immortality which strikes an answering chord in 
 the heart of every man. Its type of moral per^ 
 fection, correspondent to the actual phenomena of 
 SciMice^ human nature, is laid in the union of opposed yet 
 not discordant virtues, of impulsive affections and 
 controlled passions, of self-sacrifice identical with 
 the truest self-love, and terminating in the restora- 
 tion of real self-respect. " He who saves his life 
 
 ' Compare H. J. Eose, Fvot. in Germany, pp. 191, 192. 
 
 " On these topics see Miller's Bampton Lect. on the Adaptation of 
 Holy Scripture to the real state of Human Nature ; more particularly 
 Lectures iv. and vii. " There never was any religion as that of Christ ; 
 so congenial to our highest instincts; so persuasive, so ennobling, so 
 universally acceptable to rich and poor ; so worthy of the intellect, so 
 consistent and uncompromising in its rules for advancing moral excel- 
 lence. Men could not, would not turn from it if it was properly 
 brought home to them ; if it was not tendered to them with some 
 admixture of earth about it, exciting their suspicions and robbing it 
 of its heavenly fragrance."— Ffoulkes, Div. of Christendom, p. xiv. 
 " Many, I think, are agreed, that after all the most striking evidence 
 for the Divine origin of our faith lies in the patent fact of its existence ; 
 of its growth and diffusion ; its proved superiority to all other forms 
 of spiritual thought; its proved adaptation to all the spiritual wants 
 of man."— Merivale, Lectt., p. 6 ; and Northern Nations, p. 28. 
 
Lect. VIIL] of CHRISTIANITY. 377 
 
 shall lose it : but whosoever shall lose his life for 
 Jesus' sake and the Grospei, the same shall save 
 it."' The term of man's moral progression is by 
 its means indefinitely extended, and rises into a and to the 
 new and nobler sphere than that of ordinary ethics, needs of 
 It alone assuages the sorrows of existence, (from nature as 
 which ere now philosophy has taken refuge in developed, 
 suicide),^ hallows and explains the mystery of 
 suffering, and takes away the sting of dissolution. 
 Its revelations, while confessedly beyond intellec- - 
 tual comprehension, are guaranteed by their corre- 
 spondence with the spiritual intuitions of our race ; 
 being acknowledged alike by the richest culture 
 and by the lowest barbarism. Man's wants and 
 weaknesses, his hopes and desires, his powers and 
 aspirations, his personal and social capabilities, are 
 together forestalled. Thus the doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, uniting the human and Divine, make the 
 only adequate provision for the claims of the 
 human spirit in its sense of sinfulness and need of 
 reconciliation, in its yearning after Divine com- Scriptural 
 
 provision 
 for the 
 
 ^ Mark viii. 35. Christianity is plainly in accord with that higher ^P'"*"^' 
 aspect of Utilitarian Morality which teaches that a man is bound to live mankind 
 in harmony with the order of the universe, and contribute his part to 
 the common good. Again, each soul of man is " one for whom Christ 
 died " (Rom. xiv. 15). " Magnum opus Dei es. Homo," says Ambrose, 
 Serm. x. in Ps. 118, § 11. 
 
 ^ See Archer Butler, Lect. on Ancient PMl., I. 443, 459 ; (it was prac- 
 tised by Zeno and Cleanthes, the Stoics ;) and Mr. Leeky, H. E. M., 
 11. 46, for the history of Christian influence on this point. Buckle, 
 Hiit. Civ., I. 26, remarks on the fruitlessness of legislation to stay this 
 evil. 
 
378 THE PERMANENCE [Lect. VIII. 
 
 munion.^ For, bj the gift of the Holy Grhost, 
 assured through ordained means of reception, 
 man's spirit is associated with his Maker and 
 Redeemer, and life in time with life in eternity. 
 Thus the Ideal merges in the Actual, the Yisible in 
 a per- the Unseen, and Earth in Heaven. Raised above an 
 system, atmosphere of chill Materialism, the Christian 
 walks and lives in a world where things are no- 
 longer what they seem ; but glow with a new light, 
 and are suffused with a deeper significance. 
 
 Largior Uc campos sether et lumine vestit 
 Purpureo : solemque suum, sua sidera norunt. 
 
 A door is opened in Heaven ; and he hears the 
 Voice which saith, " Come up hither." 
 No real § 1 3- And it is of this Religion that we are 
 
 dccsiv of 
 
 the power bidden to believe, that it is fraught with the fate of 
 lence of bygono superstitions, stricken with palsy, hasten- 
 pei. ing to decay. Although day by day it gives evi- 
 
 dence of the living fruits of faith, and zeal, and 
 charity, of a benevolence well-nigh boundless, of a 
 sympathy universal as our race.'' Surely the love 
 which has done so much for man, is no unreal 
 
 ' " The Gospel, as mere historical truth, would he something past 
 and dead, like a mere doctrinal system of eternal truths, without life 
 and reference to the living person. It is the nature of the Gospel that it 
 is truly known and apprehended only when the historical Christ is at 
 the same time embraced as the present, as well as the eternally abiding, 
 and therefore also future Christ ; as still livingly active to-day, and 
 pointing forward into the depths pf an eternity whose vital energies 
 repose in Him." — Domer, E.ht. Prot. Th„ I. 232. 
 
 ' See Mr. Leoky's eloquent testimony. Hist. Rat,, I. 204, 205 ; and 
 compare Lange, Qesch. des Materialismm, p. 556. 
 
Lect. VIII.l OF CHRISTIANITY. 379 
 
 sentiment : it has its root in the truth of things ; The 
 
 . , „ . Church of 
 
 it is an effluence from Him, Who Himself is chnst, 
 revealed as Love, m the person of Jesus Christ, the the fact 
 express Image of Divine Holiness, the Channel of miseof 
 Divine Grrace, the Author and Example of all true dwelling 
 self-sacrifice. " They who would deprive mankind necessarily 
 of Him, would tear out the corner-stone of the ^™ 
 noblest edifice of humanity."^ But this they can 
 never do. And in the darkest hour of human 
 degradation and depression, the word of promise 
 standeth sure, having this seal : " It is I, be not 
 afraid : " " Lo ! I am with you alway, even unto 
 the end of the world.'"* Amen. 
 
 1 Luthardt, Apdlog., p. 297 : " As little as mankind will ever be 
 without religion, so little will they ever be without Christ — an his- 
 torical, not a mythical Christ — an individual, not a mere symbol. 
 Christ remains to us, as the highest we know and are capable of 
 imagining within the sphere of reUgion — as He without whose presence 
 in the mind perfect piety is impossible." — Strauss, Soliloquies, 67 
 (quoted by Dean Stanley, Sermons, p. 111). See Mr. Hutton, Essays, 
 I. 278. 
 
 ^ Matt. xiv. 27, xxviii. 20. So Luther had good reason to Uken the 
 Church of Christ to the amaranth, which neither withers nor decays. 
 " Sprinkled," he said, " with water, it becomes fresh and green once 
 more, as if raised and wakened from the dead. Even so is the Church 
 by God raised and wakened as out of the grave. For though tem- 
 poral empires, principalities, and kingdoms have their changings — and, 
 like flowers, soon fall and fade away — this Kingdom, so deeply rooted, 
 by no power can be destroyed or wasted, but remains eternally." — 
 Table- Talh, 172, ed. Bohn. "Wherefore, being Christ doth promise 
 His Presence unto the Church even unto the end of the world ; He 
 doth thereby assure us of the existence of the Church until that time, 
 of which His Presence is the cause." — Pearson, on the Creed, Art. ix. 
 
INDEX 
 
 A. 
 
 Administeation, Divine, harmony 
 of, 127. 
 
 Admiration has a personal basis, 
 232. 
 
 Altruism not incompatible with 
 Christianity, 82, 377. 
 
 Anabaptists, their fanaticism not 
 due to the principles of the Re- 
 formation, 329. 
 
 Analogy of Nature, a theological 
 ground of argument, 212. 
 
 Antiquity no actual test of truth, 
 28. 
 
 Arabians, their services to physical 
 science, 350. 
 
 Aristotle, his medieval reputation, 
 247. 
 
 Art, its early relation to Christi- 
 anity, 280; its present position, 
 348. 
 
 Asceticism not essential to the theo- 
 logical spirit, 299. 
 
 Asylum, privilege of, 289. 
 
 Augsburg, Confession of, its con- 
 cluding declaration, 332. 
 
 Augustine, S., his view of miracles 
 as evidential, 139. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bacok, Lord, on religious contro- 
 versy, 11; his view of missions, 
 356. 
 
 Barbarians readily admitted by the 
 Church, 281 ; mode of conversion, 
 286 ; its true causes, 288. 
 
 Barbaric Codes, show the influence 
 of Christianity, 284. 
 
 Becket habitually performed harvest 
 work, 300. 
 
 Belief, Christian, standard of, in 
 Scripture and Creeds, 31. 
 
 Biography, Beligious, importance of, 
 228. 
 
 Bishops, popular election of, 280 ; 
 by royal mandate, 285 ; their 
 beneficial influence, 283, 288. 
 
 Bossuet, his argument against Pro- 
 testantism lies equally against 
 Christianity, 11. 
 
 Brahmanism, stationary, 26, 27, 29 ; 
 its doctrine of Absorption, 30. 
 
 Buckle, Henry T.,his obhgations to 
 Condoroet, 71 ; his views on civi- 
 lization, 146 ; on theology, 208 ; 
 confounds asceticism with self- 
 restraint, 299. 
 
 Buddhism, 26, 27 ; once a mis- 
 sionary religion, 29, 363; extin- 
 guished caste, 30; favours Mon- 
 asticism, 297, 298. 
 
 Butler, Archer, on doctrinal develop- 
 ment, 45. • 
 
 Butler, Bishop, 14, 20, 188, 212, 
 219. 
 
 CALvnr, his doctrine of personal 
 assurance, 331. 
 
 Casuistry, its moral valjie, 166. 
 
 Catholicism, Medieval, its declen- 
 sion, 326. 
 
 Causes distinguished from occasions 
 of events, 134. 
 
 Chance equivalent to ignorance of 
 design, 77. 
 
382 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Chivalry, its relation to Medieval 
 Christianity, 311 ; its origin, i5. 
 
 Christ, Jesus, perennial influence of 
 His example, 35, 334. 
 
 Christianity,- most vigorous in the 
 most civilized regions^ 3 ; a factor 
 in civilization; 8, 152, 308; a 
 fact of long standing, 9t*its dm-a- 
 bility ascertainable, 23; its anti- 
 quity, 28 ; an historical and docu- 
 mentary religion, 34, 64, 212; 
 the religion of progress, 51, 220 ; 
 its perpetuity a doctrinal tenet, 
 52, 56, 57, 264, 379 ; its assumed 
 failure, 58 ; as being a phase of 
 religion, 60; not a necessary 
 result only of antecedents, 144, 
 180 ; its progress, how far super- 
 . natural, 145, 265 ; natural, 162 ; 
 limited, 169, 171 ; in advance of, 
 yet co-existent with, civilization, 
 172, 242 ; importance of its ideal 
 standard, 173 ; did not originate 
 in a moral protest, 169 ; not 
 eclectic, 177 ; is not a new code of 
 morals, 257 ; has not declined in 
 moral effect, 175 ; its part in ad- 
 vancing morals, 170, 176 ; its 
 slow progress not due to feeble- 
 ness, 188, 373 ; has survived 
 changes of opinion, 203 ; theories 
 of its origin, 261, 275 ; true 
 causes of it-s success, 262, 266, 
 268, 273; its moral power, 269, 
 272, 276; its services wrongly 
 attributed to positive institutions, 
 274 ; founded on a sense of sin, 
 276 ; its' early influence on litera- 
 ture, 281 ; intellectual services in 
 Middle Ages, 193; its politi- 
 cal affinities, 359 ; whether demo- 
 cratic, 360; internal evidence of 
 its permanence, .375, 376; its 
 benevolence, 378. 
 
 Christians, moral excellence of the 
 first, 263.- 
 
 Church, The, temporal supremacy 
 of, 185. 
 
 Circumstances, their coincidence ad- 
 mits of no law, 129. 
 
 Civilization, multiform, not a mere 
 intellectual advance, 146, 147 ; 
 
 answers to the whole nature of 
 man, 149 ; difference of Ancient 
 and Modern, 148. 
 
 Classicism, its effects on Christianity, 
 346, 348. 
 
 Communism, early view of, in the 
 Church, 187. 
 
 Confucius, his view of Providence, 
 125; ofreHgion, 178, 257. 
 
 Consciousness, testimony of, analo- 
 gous to perception, 106. 
 
 Constantine established Christianity, 
 277 ; its consequences, 278. 
 
 Controversy a sign of religious acti- 
 vity, 11. 
 
 Conversion, power of, an element 
 in religious vitality, 26, 253, 
 362 ; essential to Christianity, 
 363. 
 
 Creeds, how connected with Scrip- 
 ture, 37, 38; independent form 
 of, 358. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, cause of his death, 
 131. 
 
 Crusades, The, criticisms of, 304; 
 really defensive, ib. ; their services 
 to civilization, 305 ; their spiritual 
 import, 306 ; exhibit the heroic 
 type of Christianity, 307 ; later 
 Crusades, 315. 
 
 Cycles, theory of, in history, 131. 
 
 D. 
 
 Deduction, its character as an in- 
 stmment of proof, 215, 216. 
 
 Design, Argument from, not identical 
 with order, 22. 
 
 Development, Theory of, its influ- 
 ence on the perpetuity of Christian 
 doctrine, 42 ; dubiously admitted, 
 ib. ; rests on authority, 43 ; really 
 an historical process, 44 ; national- 
 istic theory of, 46. 
 
 Discovery in Natural Science a 
 species of Eevelation, 217. 
 
 Distance of time necessary to clear 
 judgment, 9. 
 
 Dominicans, their humane efforts, 
 366. 
 
 Durability, test of, in religions, 26. 
 
 Duration a relative idea, 23. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 383 
 
 E. 
 
 Eastben Ohuech, its failings, 170 ; 
 
 its subordination to the Greek 
 
 Emperors, 285 ; its Monachism, 
 
 298 ; its future, 372. 
 Effectual Call, sense of, in theology, 
 
 101. 
 EpicureaniBm, modem, traceable in 
 
 the view of Laws of Nature, 
 
 115. 
 Erasmus, his complaints, 346. 
 Error, slow extension of, 15. 
 Establishments, Church, usefulness 
 
 of, 357, 358. 
 Evangelical Preparation, truth and 
 
 importance of, 144. 
 Evil, existence of, explained by 
 
 partial knowledge, 20 ; nature 
 
 of moral and physical, 245 ; mode 
 
 of its extinction, 246. 
 
 P. 
 
 Faith the basis of all scientific 
 acquirement, 240. 
 
 Fatalism contradicted by conscious- 
 ness, 102. 
 
 Feudalism, its relation to Medieval 
 Christianity, 309 ; its origin, 310. 
 
 Final Causes, fallacy of assuming, 
 19, 21. 
 
 Free Will, in what resppects a theo- 
 logical tenet, 79 ; compatible with 
 physical uniformity, 80. 
 
 French Kevolution, its intolerance, 
 344. 
 
 Froude, J. A., his view of Calvinism, 
 
 ' 80 ; of General Laws, 136. 
 
 G. 
 
 General Laws, personification of, 
 by recent writers, 136 
 
 Gibbon, his view of the success of 
 Christianity, 261; inadequate, 262. 
 
 Gladiatorial shows, extinguished by 
 Christianity, 271. 
 
 Greek nature controversial, 169. 
 
 p-regory the Great, synchronizes 
 
 ■ with the final Christianization of 
 Europe, 284 ; his view of Purga- 
 tory, 319. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hboelianism, its essence, 353. 
 History sometimes confounded with 
 
 biography, 135. 
 Hospitals, a Christian institution, 
 
 271. 
 Humauj^ts at the Beformation, 347 ; 
 
 their servility, 354. 
 
 L 
 
 Ideas gain credence from repetition, 
 61. 
 
 Induction not excluded by theo- 
 logy, 208 ; unknown to antiquity, 
 351. 
 
 Infanticide, a Pagan custom, 271. 
 
 Inquisition, The, how a means to 
 toleration of opinion, 139. 
 
 Instincts, existence and testimony 
 of, 82, 85 ; imply design, 84. 
 
 Investiture, Eight of, 315. 
 
 Justification by Faith only, Lu- 
 ther's view of, 327; its relation 
 to the Beformation, 328. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kant, on design in Nature, 23. 
 Kepler, his view of planetary spirits, 
 
 136. 
 Knowledge being positive, finite in 
 
 character, 249. 
 
 Las Casas, his devoted life, 366. 
 Laws of Nature, wrongly identified 
 
 with a theory of Existence, 103 ; 
 
 meaning of General Laws, 115 ; 
 
 views as to their nature, 118 ; not 
 
 yet proved to be universal, 120 ; 
 
 by some held to be the term of 
 
 knowledge, 122. 
 Leibnitz, Ms theory of Parallelism, 
 
 93. 
 Love to God, an essentially Christian 
 
 precept, 165. 
 
384 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Luther, his yehemence, 328 ; efforts 
 for education, 347 ; view of the 
 permanence of Christianity, 379. 
 
 Lyranus Nicolaus, his PostillcB per- 
 petuce, 329. 
 
 M. • 
 
 Mahombtanism, 26, 27 ; its present 
 progress, 363, 372, 375. 
 
 Man, how superior to the animals, 
 109. 
 
 Mansel, Dean, his view of Divine 
 interposition, 133. 
 
 Marathon, religious importance of 
 this victory, 135. 
 
 Marriage, Christian view of, 271. 
 
 Martyrs in Science aa in Religion, 
 197. 
 
 Materialism, its connection with 
 Positivism, 68 ; incompatible 
 with ignorance of physical causes, 
 91 ; its gloomy character, 222 ; 
 its present aspect, 244. 
 
 Matter, not eternal, 90 ; wan-ants in- 
 ference of the existence of God, 95. 
 
 Medieval Christianity, its corrup- 
 tions, 313, 355 ; inevitable, 314 ; 
 its military character, 315 ; cor- 
 ruptions of doctrine, 317 ; false 
 supports, 320 ;. extravagance, 349 ; 
 suppression of criticism, 351 ; its 
 liberality, 360. 
 
 Melancthon, 323, 327, 347. 
 
 Method of Residues appHcable to 
 History, 128. 
 
 Middle Ages, their religious charac- 
 ter, 173. 
 
 Miracles, classification of, 138. 
 
 Missions, whether incompatible with 
 Private Judgment, 361 ; prospects 
 of, 362, 370 ; early recognition of, 
 363 ; continuous, 364 ; their pro- 
 gress since the Reformation, 365, 
 366, 368. 
 
 Monasticism, Christian, its origin, 
 297 ; a remedy to excessive indus- 
 trialism, 299 ; involved labour, 
 300; merits of, 301 ; its defects, 
 302 ; self-regenerative power, 303. 
 
 Monotheism, its relation to Christi- 
 anity, 85. 
 
 Morality truly progressive, 163, 164 ; 
 advanced by Christianity, 165; 
 Christian morality the corollary of 
 its doctrines, 178; distinguished 
 from Religion, 258. 
 
 Mysteries, essential to Religion as re- 
 vealed, 141 ; economy of Christi- 
 anity in respect of, 141. 
 
 Mysticism, the correlative of Ration- 
 alism, 142 ; its relation to Mate- 
 rialism, 142. 
 
 Natitbal SoiBNCE,its prepossessions 
 as to Theology, 63 ; these histori- 
 cally justified, 66 ; present Mate- 
 rialistic tendencies of, 67, 76 ; 
 easily passes into dogmatism, 69. 
 
 Nature, uniformity of, tends to a First 
 Cause, 88 ; exhibits also variety , 
 and irregularity, 130. 
 
 Neo-Platonism, its failure, 237. 
 
 Nescience, Philosophy of, often tends, 
 though not necessarily, to Mate- 
 rialism, 97, 117. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, on the Nature of 
 God, 137. 
 
 Numbers no test of truth in Reli- 
 gion, 27. 
 
 0. 
 
 Obigbn, his view of planetai-y spirits, 
 
 136. 
 Orphanages, when first founded, 
 
 271. 
 
 P. 
 
 Paganism, inefficient as a religion, 
 27 ; its reaction upon Christianity, 
 171. 
 
 Pantheism, essence of, 96 ; its anti- 
 dote, ib. 
 
 Papacy, spiritual function of, as a 
 tribunal of appeal, 291 ; decline 
 of, 316 ; its moral dignity, 316. 
 
 Pascal, his view of Prophecy, 139. 
 
 Patriotism recognized by Jesus 
 Christ, 81 ; a Christian virtue, 
 360. 
 
 Patteson, Bishop, his death, 370. 
 
 Penitentials, their influence as part 
 of Christian Law, 291. 
 
 Permanence, a test of reality, 13. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 38s 
 
 Perpetuity, a test of religious truth, 6. 
 
 Persecution for belief, its origin, 
 184, 356. 
 
 Physical Studies not irreligious 
 where not exclusive, 116 ; ancient 
 cultivation of, 350; indebted to 
 Protestantism, 356. 
 
 Platonism, its share in the Reforma- 
 tion, 323. 
 
 Pliny, his view of Prayer, 267. 
 
 Positive, history of the tenn, 67. 
 
 Positivism assumes all religious be- 
 lief to be imj^inary, 16 ; a belief 
 in Laws, 59 ; negative in its ten- 
 dencies, 66 ; defective as an ex- 
 planation of phenomena, 97 ; its 
 relation to Free -Will, 108; its 
 failure as a religion, 237 ; its his- 
 torical criticism of Christianity, 
 320 ; confounds Christianity with 
 Catholicism, 342 ; its view of the 
 Erformation, 340. 
 
 Prayer, its relation to human re- 
 sponsibility, 74. 
 
 Prescription, limits of argument 
 from, 2. 
 
 Priscillian, his execution, 184. 
 
 Progress not limited to advance in 
 knowledge, 168 ; standard of, 373. 
 
 Property Tax, when first imposed in 
 England, 306. 
 
 Prophecy, historical character of, as 
 evidence, 139 ; fulfilled in the 
 progress of Christianity, 140. 
 
 Protestant, origin of name, 334. 
 
 Protestantism, its defect, 200 ; its 
 true function, 200; asserted to 
 have made no converts, 201 ; its 
 duty of toleration, 202; a gua- 
 rantee of permanence, 354. 
 
 Providence, theory of, essential to 
 Christianity, 113 ; general and 
 special, 123 ; sphere of, 125 ; mis- 
 interpretations of, 132. 
 
 E. 
 
 Eationalism views Religion as a 
 phase of morality, 256 ; this error 
 examined, 257 ; not a consequence 
 of the Reformation, 352 ; defined, 
 353. 
 
 Reformation restored the individual 
 influence of Christianity, 11 ; and 
 of the Bible, 41 ; not a mere moral 
 protest, 168,326, 327 ; its theology 
 inductive, 210; in itself a test 
 of the truth of Christianity, 321 ; 
 spontaneous, 322; not a result 
 of improv^ knowledge, 323 ; its 
 defects, 323 ; its practical changes 
 rested on renewed doctrines, 324 ; 
 date of its commencement, 325; 
 not indefinite, 331; or negative, 
 332 ; restored the balance of doc- 
 trines, 333 ; its permanent effects, 
 334 ; how a protest, 334 ; Roman 
 and Positivist views of, 340 ; Ra- 
 tionalistic view of, 341; still in 
 progress, 343; introduced new 
 elements of progress, 345. 
 
 Reformed Churches, their missionary 
 efforts, 369 ; and prospects, 372. 
 
 Religion, an element in civilization, 
 149; its changes not due to in- 
 tellectual progress, 150; its true 
 function, 156 ; not a mode of pro- 
 claiming morality, 161 ; influences 
 the advance of morals, 168; its 
 tacit force, 174; deals with spi- 
 ritual truth, 195; not reaction- 
 ary as to secular knowledge, 196 ; 
 how related to Natural Science, 
 225 ; independent of advances in 
 knowledge, 236; the Science of 
 the Soul, 223; a necessity of 
 human nature, 241 ; its vital 
 forces, 253 ; necessary elements, 
 255 ; a vehicle of Revelation, 256 ; 
 assumes Mysteries, 256 ; test of 
 its success, 258 ; how far a moral 
 one, 259; its periodicity of re- 
 vival, 344 ; foremost in political 
 reforms, 352. 
 
 Religion of Nature, its ambiguities, 
 161. 
 
 Religions perishable, 2 ; historical 
 sequence of, 144. 
 
 Religious Disabilities, removal of, 
 357. 
 
 Religious Wars, true character of, 
 183. 
 
 Revelation, how far a natural pro- 
 cess, 47. 
 
 2c 
 
386 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Eitual, its influence in conversion, 
 289. 
 
 Eoman Empire, its condition at the 
 coming of Christ, 264 ; why not 
 saved by Christianity, 278 ; effect 
 of its extinction on Christianity, 
 283. 
 
 Eoman Catholicism, its present 
 danger, 202, 354 ; its missionary 
 zeal, 367 ; and prospects, 372. 
 
 Eoyal Society founded partly by 
 Churchmen, 355. 
 
 S. 
 
 Saints, Intercession of, general in 
 Middle Ages, 319. 
 
 Salmasius, his defence of usmy, 187. 
 
 Salvian, his estimate of Christian 
 declension, 279. 
 
 Sanctuary, Eight of, its spiritual 
 character, 290. 
 
 Scepticism admissible as to religious 
 evidence, 209; not formidable 
 to Eeligion, 239; whether a re- 
 
 . suit of the Eeformation, 353 ; its 
 peril to the Church of Eome, 
 354. 
 
 Scholasticism, its effects, 301. . 
 
 Schools, how far due to Christianity, 
 271 ; and to the Eeformation, 347. 
 
 Science, how far predictive, 130 ; in 
 what respects ineffectual to human 
 happiness, 154 ; theories as to its 
 relations to Eeligion, 191, 192; 
 their assumed incompatibility, 
 193 ; their meeting-points, 243. 
 
 Scripture, its authority, 38; its power 
 of prolonging personal influence, 
 39 ; this an element in the per- 
 petuity of the religion, 40 ; erro- 
 neous interpretations of, 186 ; its 
 
 , relation to the Eeformation, 41, 
 329. 
 
 Secularization not necessarily un- 
 favourable to Christianity, 357, 
 360. 
 
 Sensation, fallacies of, 102. 
 
 Serfdom, how far extinguished by 
 Christianity, 310. 
 
 Slavery, emancipation of, by Chris- 
 tianity, 72, 271. 
 
 Soul, proof of its existence induc- 
 tive, 226; its immoiiality, whe- 
 ther recognized at the coming of 
 Christ, 227. 
 
 Spinoza, his view of Providence, 
 117. 
 
 Spirit, denial of its existence sub- 
 versive of all Eeligion, 225. 
 
 State, The, duty of, in propagating 
 truth, 358. 
 
 Statistics, defective as a means of 
 showing the operation of the Will, 
 103, 104. 
 
 Stoicism, its incapacity as a system 
 of religion, 237 ; its sources, 264. 
 
 Suicide advocated by heathen philo- 
 sophy, 377; its true remedy in 
 Christianity, ib. 
 
 T. 
 
 Temporal Power clearly distin- 
 guished in medieval Christianity, 
 292. 
 
 Teutonic character, 309, 312 ; Chris- 
 tianity, 372. 
 
 Theism, its relation to Christianity, 
 70. 
 
 Theology a science of historical criti- 
 cism, 211 ; its method how far 
 deductive, 215, 216 ; whether 
 stationary, 218; or progressive, 
 219; rashly assumed to be op- 
 posed to induction and verifica- 
 tion, 207 ; and to science, 208 ; 
 includes both primary and in- 
 ferred truths, 210; commence- 
 ment of, as a science, 318. 
 
 Time, a test of truth, 17 ; in what 
 sense an agent, 18. 
 
 Toleration, its fundamental prin- 
 ciple, 203 ; neglected by the Ee- 
 formers, 351, 355 ; not a cause of 
 Eationalism, 352, 354 ; advocated 
 by the Fathers before Constan- 
 tine, 356. 
 
 Tradition, Christian primitive, its 
 relation to Scripture, 38. 
 
 Truce of God distinguished from 
 " Peace of God," 190. 
 
 Truth progi-esses slowly but inevi- 
 tably, 9 ; how far an attribute of 
 institutions, 13. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 387 
 
 U. 
 
 TlLPniiiAS, the missionary of the 
 Goths, 286. 
 
 Unity, present need of, 12 ; the ulti- 
 mate prospect of Christianity, 
 200. 
 
 V. 
 
 Veddahs destitute of a belief in 
 
 God, 68. 
 Verification admissible in religious 
 
 experience, 214, 219. 
 
 W. 
 
 War, increasing rarity of, due in 
 part to Christianity, 190. 
 
 Wealth, increase of, no guarantee 
 for real advance, 155. 
 
 Will of man essentially motive, 78 ; 
 homogeneous with the Divine, 99 ; 
 conditioned in action, 100 ; spiri- 
 tual character of, 229. 
 
 Women, position of, in medieval so- 
 ciety, 310; how far elevated by 
 Christianity, 310. 
 
 Wonder, how an element in Beligion, 
 321. 
 
 Xavier, his character and death, 
 368, 370. 
 
JX>NDON : 
 
 TRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AKD SONS, STAMFORD STREET 
 AMD CHARING CROSS.