Raa! me halt an ‘i ae Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/lowelllecturesonO2palf LOWELL LECTURES. VOLUME II. 401) ee mo an y. TAG: aa estat sry Hi Oe LOWELL LECTURES ON THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, RY JOHN’ GORHAM PALPREY: WITH A DISCOURSE ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN LOWELL, JR., By EDWARD EVERETT. BOSTON: JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. M DCCC XLIIl. Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1843, By Joun Amory LoweLL, in the Clerk?’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. I. R. BUTTS, PRINTER, No. 2 School Street. CONTENTS OF VOLUME SECOND. COURSE IL. SURVEY OF THE JEWISH, PAGAN, AND DEISTICAL A PRIORI, OBJECTIONS. [conwrINvuED.] LECTURE XI. enOUNDS OF DAGAN UNBETIER wy 3 pele | Ug LECTURE XII. Grounps or Pagan Unpenier [continvep], . . . . 36 LECTURE XIII. Grounbs oF Pagan UnBEier [conrinvep], . . . . 67 LECTURE XIV. RENEWAL OF THE Controversy In MopERN Times, . 99 LECTURE XV. DeisticaL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS, . . . . . . 127 Vill CONTENTS OF VOLUME SECOND. LECTURE (ANe- DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS, FURTHER CONSIDERED.— SKEPTICAL ‘TENDENCY OF CERTAIN PHILOSOPHICAL Waivincs=-CONCHUSION; fi, MRO fe eres! ene eee COURSE III. SURVEY OF THE OPINIONS OF SEVERAL MODERN WRITERS. LECTURE, XVFL Opjsections oF Lorp SHAFTESBURY AND Lorp Bo.in- BROKE el cle ira tach at ou a neces LECTURE XVIII. OpsectIONS oF ANTHONY COLLINS, «© - + + + + . 211 LECTURE XIX. OpsecTIONS oF ToLanp, Wootston, MoreGan, AND Cuups, 245 LECTURE XxX. Opsections oF Hume aND GIBBON, . - » + + + uueee LECTURE XXI. INFIDELITY IN FRANCE IN THE E1GHTEENTH CENTURY, 316 LECTURE XXII. Ossections or Tuomas Pains, . .. . . . + - S49 LECTURE XXIII. ineeciay IN GERMAN te aipaAede so}. Jee LECTURE XXIV. Recent Srate oF Opinion in GERMANY AND France, 416 COURS Het. SURVEY OF THE JEWISH, PAGAN, AND DEISTICAL A PRIORI, OBJECTIONS. [CONTINUED. ] Vot. Il. t . i Se ee ye ec ea he \ 7 7 a r 5 ou fa Ay + a TS G rm MUD: } mi ‘4 srl rH ae ion he iy wae 7 ™ a a - * j a ae ; . ; ah ie t Ait * . i ASAPH au apn f | iy bible oe we rey eae: ah | ee ee, ae uli les i pe pe ' aa) - Bit Be AAS, A: SAL ‘Sia 4a hin pices: br te ui Ct eg MRA Kp H0) Dah pen con's lb bata a He mre, ‘de ‘ahaa ees. ie ps eed. WS ened sigonaons pedi ie Hides - i LE OPORE “xT: GROUNDS OF PAGAN UNBELIEF. My last two Lectures presented a sketch of the argument maintained by Jews in justification of their rejection of our faith. I proceed next to some account of the same controversy with the ancient heathens, and shall confine myself this evening to remarks upon the work of one of their writers on this subject, the Epicurean Celsus. A preliminary observation needs to be made on the limited extent to which our religion gained cre- dence with the idolatrous contemporaries of its first preachers ; in other words, on its rejection by them, to the extent that it was rejected. And on this, I remark, first, that it is a mere fallacious artifice in reasoning, and that a very flimsy one, to say that the evidence could not have been good, since it left such numbers unconverted. ‘The burden of proof is undoubtedly on the other side. The proper inquiry is, If the evidence was not good, how came A GROUNDS OF it to convert such numbers? Quiescence presents no problem to be solved. It is change, that beto- kens some impulse suitable to produce it. It is change that requires to be explamed. Change is an effect demanding the action of some cause. ‘T’o ask why numbers remained where they were, Is to ask no significant question. It answers itself. They remained where they were, because there they had been. But if other numbers did not re- main where they had been, if their quiescence was overcome, then there had been some cause in ac- tion; some force had been applied to move them from their old position. I repeat, that it is not customary nor reasonable to demand an explanation of the continuance of an already existing state of things, nor to insist that an alleged cause could not have operated, because, to a greater or less extent, that state of things remained undisturbed. ‘The material fact is, that to another extent, greater or less, it was disturbed ; and this fact compels the inference, that some ade- quate cause must have been in action. But not to rest in this general statement of an unquestionable principle, [ would recall attention to a course of re- mark in a former lecture,* (which we cannot stop, nor can there be occasion, to reconsider in full,) to the effect that, for the very reason and to the very extent that Christianity was so indispensably need- ful to man, its evidence had to be offered to dis- * See Vol. I. p. 281, et seq. PAGAN UNBELIEF. 5 ordered, reluctant, uncongenial, perverse minds. No fact is more familiar, none more constantly brought to notice in our daily experience, than that different men receive the same evidence differently, according to their respective previously existing states of feeling. The mind refuses to approach what it has no relish for. When approached, the mind practises frauds upon itself, so as to evade its force. Had men all been saints, Christianity, with its ample evidence, would have at once advanced to an unquestioned sway. But had men all been saints, they would not have so needed Christianity ; and the very basis of its proof, which is supplied by its necessity, would have been withdrawn. Because they were not saints, but benighted sinners, they were in absolute want of this agent of reform; and for the same reason its triumphs were impeded. That it won no more conquests, is explained by the principle of repulsion in those whom it addressed ; that it won so many, is explained by the principle of power within itself. But a few words, more particularly, as to Gentile unbelief, though I cannot think that the argument requires any thing beyond these general considerations. ‘To a great extent, there is the best reason to believe that the proper evidence for our religion was unheeded by the Gentiles, particu- larly by the more cultivated portion. ‘The popular Gentile scheme of religious faith regarded every new religious pretension in precisely that light which debarred the evidence for Christianity from 6 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. the benefit of any examination. The tolerance of Greek speculation and Roman politics placed the religions of all countries in some sort on a level. In their Pantheon there was a place for every new pretender, if he would only stand peaceably in his niche. Why be anxious about investigating any new claim, when, if it should prove unfounded, it was but one more fable exposed, if well-founded, one more deity enthroned? ‘He seemeth to be a setter forth of foreign gods,” was the careless comment of the populace of Athens, when Paul ‘preached to them Jesus and the resurrection ” ; these names being apparently taken by them to indicate two divinities, a male and female. When, as it has been expressed, the different religions of the nations “ were held by the vulgar to be equally true, by the philosophers to be equally false, and by the politicians to be equally useful,” at what a dis- advantage did Christianity demand the serious and attentive hearing on which its reasonable reception had to depend. With all classes, and especially the higher, it had further to labor under the prejudice of having originated in Judea, the country, as the polite Roman historian, Tacitus, expresses it, of “a most despicable race of slaves,” a people who were a proverb among the nations for their low cultiva- tion, and illiberal and bitter narrowness. Under such circumstances, is it a question to be asked, why Christianity did not convert the hea- then world? Without a fair examination, at least without some examination, of its claims, of course CELSUS. 7 nothing can command assent, whatever those claims may be; but, under such circumstances, it must needs have been that Christianity, even where it was offered, was constantly rejected without exam- ination, was merely turned away from with disdain. And even when by chance it had obtained some- thing that might be called a hearing, there was still a resource for the invincibly reluctant mind. The belief in magical arts, as competent to the pro- duction of supernatural effects, was a popular opin- ion of the day. ‘That theory was applied to the miracles of Jesus, when some explanation of them, different from that of his divine commission, was found necessary. ‘To the vulgar, who were indis- posed to admit his pretensions, it afforded a plausi- ble and sufficient explanation of his works; and if to the more enlightened it seemed itself a theory of questionable credit, still to many of them, when pressed with the evidence of the wonders which Jesus had wrought, it would be easier to assent to its truth, than to acknowledge him in the character he claimed. Celsus, on whose argument against Christianity fam to remark this evening, was an Epicurean philosopher of the second century. The precise time of his life and writings is not known. Lard- ner places him in the last years of Marcus Antoni- nus, who died in the year 180.* His work against Christianity, entitled, «The True Word,” is lost. “See Testimonies of Ancient Heathen Authors, Chap. 18. §1. Works, Vol. IV. (Edit. 4to.) pp. 118, 114. 8 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. But the answer to it, in the next century, by Ori- gen, the most learned man of Christian antiquity, 1s still extant, and follows its course of argument with such careful detail, from step to step, and that with such large quotations, that, for all essential purposes, there is every appearance of our having the sub- stance of the treatise in our hands. Another reason for this opinion is, that, in not a few instances, the Christian father appears embarrassed in his at- tempts at reply, and could not but have been sensi- ble that his opponent had the advantage. He would not have produced what he was unable to answer, except under the impulse of an honest pur- pose to present the whole of his adversary’s case. Origen also himself says; ‘‘ That I may not appear purposely to pass by any portions because | have no answer, I have thought it best, according to my ability, to refute every thing proposed by Cel- sus, not so much observing the natural order of things, but that order which he has himself pur- sued.” * It is impossible to suppose that he would thus have invited the reader to observe that he took up all his adversary’s objections, and that he would have adopted an inconvenient arrangement in order to facilitate a comparison, and then not have pro- ceeded to fulfil his engagement. And here I will make a passing suggestion, for which no more fit opportunity may occur, upon the fact that so few writings of ancient opponents of * Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 41. (Opp. Tom. I. p. 357.) CELSUS, 9 Christianity survive; the rest having been de- stroyed by the edicts of authority, or been suffered to perish through forgetfulness and neglect. It is exceedingly to be regretted that they do not sur- vive ; and it is impossible not to disapprove, as well as lament, the weak zeal which doomed any of them to destruction. It was a zeal according to any thing rather than knowledge. But there is no pretence whatever for the idea that they were condemned to this fate, because the safety of Chris- tianity was thought to require the suppression of their testimony against it. Some, no doubt, died that natural death which is the destiny of the great majority of books not approved by the prevailing sentiment. Not being esteemed after Christianity was in the ascendant, they were not in demand; not being in demand, they were not copied; not being copied, they, in course of time, disappeared. As far as they were positively proscribed, and their circulation discouraged, it is an altogether gratui- tous supposition that this was occasioned by a dis- trust of the soundness and sufficiency of the Christian evidences. A watchful father of a family in old times would be disinclined to see a copy of Celsus in the hands of his dependents, for the same reason that like displeasure might be occasioned at the present day by seeing a young reader engaged with Paine’s “ Age of Reason.” He would disapprove of the book, and perhaps forbid its use, or even go the length of destroying it, not because he regarded it as containing truth which he wished to bury in Vor. II. 2 10 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. oblivion, but, on the contrary, because in his judg- ment it contained falsehoods which might be mis- chievous to immature and undiscerning minds. And so governments might condemn libraries to the flames. But why? Because they would use vio- lent means for the protection of what they under- stood to be falsehood? Certainly it might be so. The case is abstractly supposable. But the solution, which abstractly is the more natural and probable, is the opposite one; namely, that their act was the dictate of an honest zeal, however misguided. And, as to the works of adversaries of the Christian faith, the supposition, as a general account of what has occurred, is sufficiently refuted by the facts of the case. State power, in league with religious imposture, would have done its work better. Chris- tianity, if it had wanted confidence in its own truth and force, would not have allowed itself to be re- proached, as it has been in the later times, with calumnies of its early foes. It had it in its power to bury such testimony, and it would have done so. That those calumnies have survived, when there was power to obliterate the record of them, is a fact, of itself, going far towards their refutation. And, however much of infidel argument and cavil may have perished in the lapse of time, the amount of them, which has outlived it, condemns the hy- pothesis of any deliberate and strenuous endeavours for their suppression. One more remark, before I proceed to exhibit some of the contents of the work of this, the most CELSUS. 11 famous of the early opponents of Christianity. We should distinctly understand for what it is, that the friend of our religion consults this argument of its enemy. We do not take it up expecting to find in it direct corroboration of our faith, positive testimony in support of what we believe to be true. Of course, we expect nothing of this kind, because it is the work of one who rejected our faith. If this were to be had from Celsus, then Celsus would have been a Christian. As it is, he is not our wit- ness, but a witness on the other side, whom we are cross-examining. Holding the position that he does, we are to expect to’ find him making the most of every doubt and objection that he could raise against our religion. He did not receive it for him- self. He had undertaken, in an elaborate treatise, to bring it into discredit with others. He had talents and culture qualifying him for such a task. He lived in the time of a bitter and protracted perse- cution of the Christians, when no pains were spared to bring to light every thing that might appear to their disadvantage and that of their religion. He had conversed freely with Jews; indeed, in part of his work he personates a Jew; whatever might be contributed from their stock to the success of his argument was at his command. That Celsus, then, should deal largely in hostile surmises and harsh assertions, is not a thing to sur- prise us. It ought to surprise us, if we found that he did not. To do it, belonged to the part he had undertaken ; nor are his mere suspicions and asser- 12 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. tions, however plausible and confident in their show and tone, to have the slightest weight with us, pro- vided we have proof from any other quarter, — even if we cannot obtain it from himself, — showing them to be without foundation. But, on the other hand, his omissions and his admissions are of great value. Whatever he could find to say with a decent pretext against the religion of Jesus, it is safe to presume that he did say; in other words, what he has not said, by way of controverting the alleged facts on which it rested, it is safe to presume that he, with the peculiar advantages for informa- tion belonging to the early age in which he lived, knew that there was no decent pretext for saying. Whatever admission of facts favorable to the claims of Christianity, he could with any face have avoided making, it may be confidently assumed that he would have avoided making; in other words, such admissions as we find must have been wrested from him by the force of notorious truth. The more unwilling his testimony, the more unquestionable. Keeping these considerations in mind, let us pro- ceed toa brief survey of the principal contents of his work commented on by Origen. And I will divide the selection I have made from his remarks relating to the evidence for our religion, into two parts; the first consisting of objections to it, the second of whatever makes in its favor. It is of course only specimens that can be given of matter spread through the Christian father’s large work, divided — into eight books ; but it has been my conscientious CELSUS. 16 purpose not to pass over any material topic of the adverse argument. ‘The order, in which the several topics were presented by Celsus, was very careless and inartificial (a fact of which Origen complains),* and not such as to give them, in combination, any additional force ; and, since to follow it would lead to inconvenient repetition, I will but present them in such succession as admits of their being distinctly viewed, arranging first however those which may be regarded as least material. 1. Celsus objects to Christianity, that it addressed itself to the meaner and less instructed sort of people. “These,” says he, “are their institutions. ‘ Let no learned man, no wise or prudent man come over tous. For these things we esteem evil. But if any one is ignorant, weak, foolish, let him come confidently.’ In declaring that such persons are worthy votaries of their God, they manifest that they are neither desirous nor able to attach to them- selves any others than foolish, low, stupid persons, slaves, weak women, and children.” + There is, of course, no argument in this. Christianity was true to its high pretensions, when it rebuked the false, pompous, and puerile philosophies of the day, and offered to the meanest a participation in the instructions of its own divine wisdom. But if it sought its disciples in the shambles of Athens, and among the purple-dyers of Thyatira, it had sought them and won them too, from the time of Paul’s own * Contra Cels. Lib. i §. 40. Opp. (Edit. Delarue) Tom. I. p. 357. t Ibid. Lib. iii. § 44. (pp. 475, 476.) Conf. §§ 18. 59. (pp. 458, 486.) 14 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. preaching, in the Imperial household, and from the Platonic and Pythagorean schools. Origen’s calm and dignified answer leaves nothing to be added. A period or two from it are enough for our present purpose. “It is untrue,” he says, “ that such per- sons only as Celsus describes, are those whom the heralds of the divine doctrine desire to persuade. Such indeed the word does invite, that it may do them good. But it invites also others altogether unlike ETI Ee eee There is no harm in being truly learned. Nay, learning is a way to virtue, though not even the Greek sages would assign that rank to persons holding perverse doctrines. ..... And what doc- trines can be called good, except such as are true and lead to goodness? To be a wise man, isa good thing ; but to seem so only, is not good.” * 2. Celsus objects to the claims of the Christian doctrine, that it is but a republication of old truths. He says; “It is common to other philosophers, and contains no weighty or novel lesson.” + And again; “The same things had been already bet- ter said among the Greeks, and that without threat or promise from God or his son.” { Chris- tianity might have done good service, though it had been but a republication of old truths, provided it had taught them with a new authority, for want of which they had been hitherto discredited or ineffi- cacious; and if it were so, that the same things * Contra Cels. Lib. iii. § 49. (pp. 479, 480.) t Ibid. Lib. i. § 4. (p. 323.) ft Ibid. Lib. vi. § 1. (p. 629.) Conf. Lib. vii. § 58. (p. 735.) CELSUS. 15 had been said among the Greeks “ without threat or promise from God or his son,” and now were said with those threats and promises, this difference was the most important difference conceivable, provided the alleged origin of such threats and promises was well authenticated. But, as to the existence of the fact affirmed, we can judge as well as Celsus. We have the writings of those philosophers in our hands, who are said to have anticipated the truths of Christianity ; and we know that the assertion was groundless. In the age of Celsus, when so little was known of the system of Christianity, except by those who had embraced it, it might do very well to represent it as but copying the trite systems of old opinion. But we perceive the assertion to be only the resort of a disingenuous controvertist, con- fident in his own boldness, and the ignorance of those whom he addressed. 3. Celsus, in that large part of his work wherein he argues in the character of a Jew, maintains the usual Jewish argument respecting the inconsistency of language of the Old Testament, with facts of the New ‘Testament history, to which by Christian interpreters it was understood to relate. For in- stance, he insists; “The prophets say, that he who is to come will be a very powerful king, and lord of the whole earth, and of all nations and armies ;” * and again, in general, that “the pro- phecies correspond to innumerable others, more fitly * Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 29. (p. 412.) 16 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. than to Jesus ;?? —a remark which Origen tells him, in the first place, that no Jew, who understood the tone and spirit of those prophecies, could have ever ventured to make; and, in the second, that it is of no force, unless fortified by a different kind of specification of prophecies, and of comments on their sense, from what Celsus has undertaken to give.” To pursue this topic would be to go out of our present way, to take up a part of the contro- versy, which I have already intimated my purpose to refer to another place in this series of remarks. Let it suffice to say for the present, that the topic belongs to a course of reasoning quite independent of that which discusses the proper, positive, direct evidence for the divine origin of our religion. Ques- tions respecting the application of Old ‘Testament language to New Testament facts, whether that application have been made correctly or not by Christians, are strictly questions of Biblical exposi- tion; and, whatever their importance may be, no aid towards their solution is to be borrowed from the age of Celsus. Whether, for instance, the lan- euage of Isaiah, “Who is this, that comes in dyed garments from Bozrah?” is a suitable description of Jesus of Nazareth, and, if not, whether the evi- dences of the Jewish or of the Christian religion are weakened by the want of correspondence, — these, without doubt, are proper subjects of inquiry, * Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 28. (p. 411.) Conf. Lib, i. § 50. (p. 366.) t See Vol. I. p. 274. CELSUS. 17 but they are independent of the authority or opinion of the author whose writings are now under consid- eration. 4. Celsus deals largely in the easy artifice of exciting prejudice against the Christian faith and its author by the repetition of such scurrilous fables of Jewish device, as a very feeble cunning knows how to employ when the best of causes is to be deprived of the benefit of a fair hearing. Celsus does not repeat the grossest slanders to which | have before had occasion to refer. They were not obsolete in his time, but it is probable that he not only gave them no credit, but had the good taste to perceive, that to mention them with approbation would but prejudice his own argument. But “he reproaches Jesus,” says Origen, “ with having had his birth in a Jewish village, of a mother in needy circumstances, who earned her living by spinning.” This may well have been, but he adds the de- scription of her being “the wife of a carpenter, by whom she was divorced, being convicted of adul- tery ;”* all which is evidently only such a gloss as enemies would be likely to put on the real facts of the Gospel history, and thus serves for nothing so much as for a confirmation of the general outline of the latter. Again; how ready was the expedient of such a representation as the following, to dis- courage inquiry into the claims of the Christian faith, and repel association with its professors, on * Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 28. (p. 346 ) Yous 3 18 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. the part of timid men. ‘ ‘Those who offer an in- vitation to other mysteries,” says Celsus, ‘ make proclamation of this kind. ‘Whosoever has pure hands and is of wise discourse, whoever is clean from all fault, he whose conscience rebukes him with no evil, whose life has been well and justly passed, let them take part with us.’?..... But now let us hear whom the Christians invite. ‘ Whoever,’ say they, ‘is a sinner, whoever is foolish, whoever is inexperienced, whoever, to say all in one word, is merely a wretch, to him the kingdom of God is open.’ And whom do they mean bya sinner? Do they not mean the cheat, the thief, the burglar, the poisoner, the sacrilegious man?” * Once more, where the calumny referred to, which is not so much that of Celsus as of the Jews, has a peculiar interest, as leading to a remark of Origen, confirm- ing what I have before said, of the object and effect of unfounded representations which were put in circulation; ‘Celsus,” says Origen, “ proceeds in a manner like that of the Jews, who, when the Christian doctrine was first preached, circulated libels against it, pretending that the disciples sacrificed a child, and partook together of his flesh, and that, intent on deeds of darkness, they extin- guished their lights, and practised promiscuous lewdness. Which calumny, however absurd, for- merly prevailed much with many, fortifyng them in their opposition to the faith; and even up to this * Contra Cels. Lib. iii. § 59. (p. 486.) CELSUS. 19 time it continues to deceive some, who, because of their belief in it, have such an antipathy to Chris- tians, that they refuse so much as to have any con- ference with them.” * Who does not own here the traces of a mere blind hatred, unscrupulous as to the means of its indulgence ? t 5. The attempt is made by Celsus, in a variety of instances, to point out incongruities in the con- duct of Jesus, and in other particulars of the Gospel history. Let a few examples under this head con- tentus. Celsus asks, as to the sufferings undergone by Jesus, and said to have been foretold by hin, ‘What god, or demon, or even prudent man, who foresaw such misfortunes impending over him, would not have avoided them, if that were pos- sible ? who would have rushed into them, thus fore- warned?” t a question which to us has no weight, in any other view, so great as in that of an evi- dence that the account of the disciples, from the first, had been, that Jesus foreknew the fate which eventually came upon him. Again says Celsus ; ‘Tf he saw fit to submit to such evils, and met them through obedience to his father, it is plain that, he being a god, and consenting to what he endured, it could have occasioned him no inconvenience or * Contra Cels. Lib. vi. § 27. (p. 651.) t See Vol. I. pp. 287, 288. Athenagoras was contemporary with Celsus. The sole subject of his eloquent Legatio pro Christianis, addressed to the Emperors Antoninus and Commodus, is a defence of the sect against the three charges of atheism, cannibalism, and promiscuous impurity. t Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 17. (p. 403.) 20 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. suffering.” * Again; “They who lived with him, who listened to his voice, who were attached to him as their master, when they saw him tortured and dying, did not die with him, or for him, nor did they show any contempt of suffering. On the contrary, they denied that they were his disciples. But now you offer yourselves to die with him.” + Again; « If he had really wished to display a divine power, he would have shown himself to his adversaries, to his judge, indeed to all men; ..... for he could no longer fear any man, when he had already died, and besides was, according to what you say, a god; nor could he have been sent for the pur- pose of keeping himself hidden.” t Once more; «If God, aroused like Jupiter in the play from a long sleep, wished to rescue the human race from evils, why did he send that spirit, of which you speak, into one corner of the earth? It would have been fit to infuse it alike into many bodies, and send it abroad to the whole world. The dramatist,” he adds, “ to excite a laugh in the theatre, describes Jupiter as awakening, and sending Mercury to the Athenians and Spartans. Do you not think that you do a more ridiculous thing in pretending that God sent his son to the Jews?” § I will not inquire whether there is more or less weight in such considerations ; but only suggest, that, whether more or less impor- tant, they derive no peculiar force from the circum- * Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 23. (p. 408.) + Ibid. § 45. (p. 420.) t Ibid. § 67. (p. 437.) § Ibid. Lib. vi. § 78. (p. 691.) CELSUS. OF stances under which they were proposed ; and that the disputant, who, living in the second century, was disposed to resort to such means of discrediting Christianity, could not have felt very confident of possessing any knowledge with which to confute the alleged facts of its history. 6. Pressed by the direct miraculous evidence pre- sented by Jesus in behalf of the divine origin of his message, Celsus resorts to the easy and popu- Jar solution of his having learned secret arts, or charms, during a residence, in his youth, in Egypt. Thus in one place his words are, ‘“‘ While earning a poor living in Egypt, he there learned certain arts, greatly esteemed by the people of that country, and afterwards, returning home, he set up great preten- sion on account of them, and gave himself out to be a god.”* And again, Origen, reporting part of his argument in a general description, says, ‘“ Cel- sus, unable to look in the face the miracles which Jesus is recorded to have wrought, traduces them as enchantments.” + Whether Celsus was himself a believer in the actual potency of magical arts, or, when speaking of them without reference to this argument, would have represented them as only arts of cheating the senses of the spectator, may well admit of a question; the more so, as Origen suggests that his opponent may have been the same person with one of that name, who had_ before * Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 28. (p. 346.) Conf. § 38. (p. 356.) t Ibid. Lib. ii. § 48. (p. 422.) 99 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. written against the reality of magic.* On this point Origen says; ‘“ Celsus, perceiving that the great things done by Jesus would be adduced by us, pretends to admit the truth of what is written con- cerning his cures, his resurrection, and his dividing a few loaves among a multitude, leaving a quantity of fragments, with other things which he thinks his Apostles have recorded in glowing colors, and then says, ‘Come, let us grant you that these things were really done.’ But he immediately goes on to confound them with the works of sorcerers, and of persons instructed in Egypt, who profess to do a variety of wonders; ..... and then he argues, ‘Because they do such things, must we therefore esteem them sons of God? Shall we not rather Say, that they are the methods} of wicked and wretched men?’ You see then, that Celsus in a manner maintains that there is really such a thing as magic.” t Whether Celsus, however, really did maintain its reality, is, as has been remarked, not entirely clear, though the probability of this derives some confirma- tion from an assertion which Origen represents him to have made in another place, namely, that Christians had their power through the names and invocation of certain demons.§ And, as to his * Contra Cels. Lib. i, § 68. (p. 383.) t I choose here, for my translation, a word as equivocal as the original, émitydyeata, Which is what the rhetoricians call a futon 2ebes, media vox. It neither implies a charge of fraud, nor the contrary. t Ibid. (p. 382.) § Ibid. § 6. (p. 324.) CELSUS. 03 general habits of belief on such subjects, another passage of Origen is in point. ‘ Now,” says he, let us see what Celsus says afterwards, where he alleges certain things from histories, themselves of an extraordinary nature, and near to incredible, but not disbelieved by him, if we may trust his word. First are the stories which he affirms concerning Aristeas of Proconnesus, of whom he thus speaks ; ‘When, by divine power, he had disappeared from the view of men, he was afterwards seen again, and visited many parts of the world.” * Again; « Cel- sus, besides, speaks of Clazomenes, and having re- ferred to his history goes on; ‘ Do they not say that his soul often left his body, and wandered about without it?’” + Again; ‘Celsus speaks too of Cle- omedes of Astypaleea, who,” he says, “ when shut up in a chest, held it fast; but when it was opened he was not there, having escaped by some divine power.” t The truth, on the whole, appears to be that Cel- sus had no very settled opinion on the subject of magical powers, either for or against ; though, from the general skeptical habits of his mind, he would have been disinclined to a belief in them, as well as in any thing else extraordinary, when viewed as a mere abstract question. From all that has come down to us respecting him, he seems to have been one of that class of persons, who have no clear and decided leaning to any opinion, true or false, but who are especially indisposed to believe any thing “ Contra Cels. Lib. iii, § 26. (pp. 462, 463.) t Ibid. § 32. (p. 467.) } Ibid. § 33. (p. 468.) DAs PAGAN OBJECTIONS. unusual, or which would disturb the course of things around them, or invade the habits of their own lives. When the question was only respecting magical arts, he viewed that pretension with in- credulity. But, when the greater question was agitated respecting the miraculous works of Jesus, the admission of the former hypothesis, to serve the turn, was to him preferable to the admission of the latter. Atall events, one thing is clear, that Celsus knew that among the persons for whom he was arguing there were those who were so well con- vinced of the reality of the mighty works of Jesus as actual phenomena, that some other solution besides that of their being actual divine interpositions need- ed to be proposed, in order to prevent their being satisfied by the evidence, and embracing the religion. 7. Celsus in one place makes a suggestion which seemed of grave importance to the adversaries of our faith, till its true import had been properly expounded. ‘After this,” says Origen, ‘“ Celsus says, that ‘some believers, as if under a suicidal impulse of inebriation, change the Gospel from the frst text thrice, four times, yea, many times, and make it over, so as the better to reply to op- ponents.’” * ‘This loose and general charge of an incautious and petulant adversary has no weight, taken in any sense, when opposed to that of the pos- itive argument for the authenticity and integrity of our Gospels, which I have presented in a previous * Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 27. (p. 411.) CELSUS. 25 part of this discussion. * Origen scems to lay no stress upon it, nor to entertain any apprehension of its being seriously urged; but dismisses it, after merely saying, in three periods, that he knows not who can be meant as having changed the Gospel, ex- cept certain unacknowledged sectaries and half-be- levers, for whom Christianity was in no sort respon- sible. It is probable that Celsus had observed the difference of contents between the books of Mat- thew, Mark, Luke and John, and chose to put this construction, evidently false, upon the existence of that difference ; in which case his remark is another corroboration, if more were needed, of the existence of those books, marked by their present character- istics, in his time. It is important also to ob- serve, that, whatever he intended to affirm, he af- fumed at most of “some disciples,”’ which is a vir- tual acquittal of the body. And what is more important yet, is, that in a work, of which the tri- umphant argument, —if such an argument could have been plausibly sustained, — would have been, that the records of the ministry of Jesus and of the first preachers of his religion were then of recent origin, we find throughout no pretence nor insinua- tion of such a charge having been ventured on. We have thus seen what topics of argument it was, that Celsus, a man of distinguished ability and knowledge, found in the second century with which to assail the Christian faith. Let me recapitulate, *See Vol. I. Lectures IV. & V. Vou. II, 4 26 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. in a few words, before proceeding to observe what positive confirmation his writings offer to that faith. His great grounds of objection to it are, that it ad- dressed itself to the meaner and less instructed sort of people; that it is, according to his statement, but a republication of old truths; that it does not exhibit the correspondence, asserted by its adher- ents, with the prophetical writings of the Old Tes- tament; that it is subject, or rather its disciples are subject, to certain opprobrious charges ; that there are incongruities in the conduct of Jesus, and in other circumstances of the Gospel history ; that the wonderful works of Jesus, if actually performed, were performed by magical arts; and, finally, if the passage containing the remark has been understood correctly, that the Gospel had suffered some altera- tion, as it existed in the hands of some disciples. These objections, one or two of them insignificant, and the rest not sustained in point of fact to any significant extent, were the best that an acute and accomplished adversary found to adduce at that early period, when, if the essential facts alleged for the Gospel had not rested on an unassailable basis of truth, the obvious resource of infidelity would have been to collect evidence to disprove them. On the other hand, what do we find in Celsus to corroborate the evidence of our faith In particular, we find ample testimony to two im- portant points; the one, that the facts of the Gos- pel history, which Christians, in the age of Celsus, CELSUS. Dy averred to be true, and which they preached, trav- elled, and endured hardships, indignities, and death in maintenance of, were the same which Christians of the later ages have received as accompanying the introduction and promulgation of their faith; the other, that the records of those facts, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the other books of the New Testament, were, in the days of Celsus, in the hands of Christians, as they are now, and enjoyed among them the same undisputed credit and authority; the latter, a point which every one who has considered its relations sees to be of the very highest importance, and one which, it is scarcely going too far to affirm, might be satisfactorily proved from the writings of Celsus alone. First; as to the facts of the Gospel history, as un- derstood in Celsus’s time, considered independently of the writings which recorded them. And while I name a few of those which this author has speci- fied, I ask that it may be observed what a perfect reply this specification by him, considering the time when he lived, affords to the scheme of the allego- rists ; that is, of those who have pretended that the accounts of Jesus were but allegorical representa- tions, or the embodying, in a fabulous character, of fancies floating in the popular mind ;—a theory, which in order to adopt, it would seem that one must be utterly ignorant, I will not say of the his- tory of Christianity, but of the history of unbelief. It has been said, not at all too strongly, that “we 28 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. have in Celsus, in a manner, the whole history of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels.” * «It is but a few years,” says he, endeavouring to disparage the religion for its recent rise, “since Jesus introduced this doctrine, and came to be esteemed by Chris- tians the Son of God.” + He refers to the reputed miraculous birth of Jesus, his mother being a virgin, espoused to a carpenter, and dwelling in a Jewish village; f to the asserted visit of the Magi, to the plot of Herod against his life, and the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem; § to the appearance of the dove at his baptism; || to his being habitually accompanied, as Celsus phrases it, by ‘ten or eleven mean persons, vile publicans and sailors” ; I to the miracles ascribed to him, such, he says, as curing diseases, raising the dead, feeding multitudes with a few loaves, of which a quantity was left ; ** to his being called on in the temple, for a sign from heaven ; tT to the voice from heaven, on the moun- tain of transfiguration ; {ft to his being betrayed by one disciple, and deserted by the rest;§§ to his being asserted to have foreseen and foretold all that *Lardner. Testimonies of Ancient Heathens. Chap. 18. § 12. (Vol. IV. p. 144.) t Origen. Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 26. (p. 344.) f Ibid. § 28, (p. 346;) Conf. § 32, (p. 349 — 3503) § 39, (p. 356;) § 69, (p. 383, 384.) Lib. vi. § 73. (p. 687.) § Ibid. Lib. i. § 58. (p. 373.) || Ibid. § 41. (p. 357.) I Ibid. § 62. (p. 376;) Conf. Lib. ii. § 46. (p. 421.) ** Ibid. Lib. i. § 68. (p. 382.) tt Ibid. § 67. (p. 382.) {t Ibid. Lib. ii. § 72. (p. 441.) §§ Ibid. § 9, (p. 3925) § 20, (p. 4055) § 21. (p. 407.) CELSUS. 29 befell him;* to his praying, that, if possible, the cup might pass from him; to the denial of him by Peter; { to the reproaches cast upon him while on the cross ; § to his drinking the gall and vinegar ; || to the purple robe, the crown of thorns, and the reed for a sceptre ; 1 to the blood that flowed from his pierced side ; ** to the darkness and earthquake at his death ; tt to his alleged resurrection from the dead, and to some of the circumstances of his re- appearance, even to the showing of his hands and his feet.{{ I am not of course bringing Celsus for- ward as a direct witness to the reality of these facts but as an indirect witness to them, through his direct testimony to the other fact of their con- stituting the established belief of Christians of his day ; of their being identified in the minds of those Christians with the history of their faith; of their making part of that message to the world, the truth of which Christians were every where asserting at the hazard of their lives. But secondly, — what is of still greater impor- tance, — Celsus the heathen is a most express and unsuspicious witness to that cardinal point in the Christian evidences, the genuineness of the New Testament records. As Chrysostom well says, “Origen. Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 13, (p. 898;) § 15, (p. 401;) § 17, (p. 403;) § 18. (p. 404.) t Ibid. § 24. (p. 409.) t Ibid. § 18. (p. 404.) § Ibid. § 35. (p. 415.) || Ibid. § 37. (p. 416.) 1 Ibid. § 34. (p. 415.) ** Ibid. § 36. (p. 416.) tt Ibid. § 55. (p. 429.) ff Ibid. §§ 55, 70. (pp. 429, 440.) 30 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. ‘‘ Celsus, and Porphyry after him, are our sufficient witnesses to the antiquity of our books, for certainly they have not opposed what was written after their time.”* “The Jew in Celsus,” says Origen, ‘proceeds thus; ‘I could say many things, and that truly, concerning the affairs of Jesus, not ac- cording with those written by his disciples. But I purposely abstain.’” + The boast of what he could do, but forbears to do, will pass for what it may be thought worth; but the words show that, in the writer’s time, there were narratives of Jesus’s ministry well known, and understood to be written by disciples of his, a designation of those writers, that must be taken in the strict sense in which we commonly apply it, as the community in general are by Celsus constantly called by the names Christians and believers. Says Origen (who, let it be remembered, makes these suggestions inciden- tally, — he is not urging the argument with which We are now engaged), ‘“ ‘The Jew in Celsus says, ‘These things we allege out of your own writings, in addition to which we need no other testimony.’ ” { There were, then, certain writings, received among Christians, to assail which was to assail what they admitted to be of paramount authority, and coinci- dent with the credit of their faith. Again says Origen; “Celsus quoted many things from the * Chrysost. in Epist. Prior. ad Corinth. Hom. vi. Tom. III. p. 277. (Edit. Eton.) t Origen. Contra Cels. Lib. ii. § 13. (p. 398.) + Ibid. § 74. (p. 442.) CELSUS. be Gospel according to Matthew, as the star that rose at the birth of Jesus, and other wonderful events.” * Again; ‘“Celsus maintains, that the genealogists of Jesus were extravagant, in pretending to trace him to the first man and to the line of Jewish kings.” + Here is a distinct reference to the intro- ductions of both Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s. Celsus speaks of composers of genealogies, and not of one only; and Luke only has carried his up to Adam, the first man. Celsus in many instances uses the very language of the New ‘Testament. ‘The Christians,” he says, ‘‘ have such precepts as this; ..... ‘If one smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other.’”{ He asks, ‘“ why Chris- tians will not worship demons ;” and replies, “‘ Be- cause they are taught, ‘it is impossible to serve more than one master.’”§ He refers to Jesus’s predic- tions concerning false prophets ; || to his prohibitions of worldly anxiety, with the illustrations drawn from the care of Providence for the lilies and the ravens; 1. to his comparison of the difficulty of a rich man’s entering the kingdom of heaven to that of a camel’s going through a needle’s eye.** ‘To the sepulchre of Jesus,” he says, ‘there are said to have come two angels, by some; by others, only * Origen. Contra Cels. Lib. i. § 34. (p. 352.) t Ibid. Lib. ii. § 32. (p. 413.) t Ibid. Lib. vii. § 58. (p. 735.) § Ibid. § 68. (p. 742.) Conf. Lib. viii. §§ 2, 3, 15. (pp. 745. 752.) || Ibid. Lib. ii. § 53. (p. 427.) 1 Ibid. Lib, vii. § 18. (p. 706.) ** Tbid. Lib. vi. § 16. (p. 641.) ae PAGAN OBJECTIONS, one ” ;*— a remarkable exactness, for Matthew and Mark speak of one only, while Luke and John mention two, a fact which Origen immediately adduces, in explanation of his statement. Once more, though this detail might be much farther pursued ; Origen, in replying to Celsus’s remarks on what seemed to him the unbecoming humiliation of Jesus, says, “Whence did you learn these facts, Celsus, but from the Gospels? so that, instead of MOMINO I! 21.45% you ought to admit at once the frankness of the writers, and the magnanimity of him, who voluntarily submitted to such indignities for the good of men.” t In regard, then, to this last division of our survey of the work of Celsus, let the following facts be borne in mind. He speaks of books written by dis- ciples of Jesus, without any intimation of his so much as suspecting them to have had any other ori- gin. He refers to numerous statements concerning the actions and discourses of Jesus, all of which are found in our present Gospels. He makes nu- merous objections to accounts received by Chris- tians respecting the Saviour ; and those accounts are all without exception now read in the same books ; nor does he hint at any received narrative concerning him, but what is therein contained. And he assails their contents, under an evident sense of their pos- sessing such authority with Christians, that an injury * Origen. Contra Cels. Lib. v. § 56. (p. 621.) | Ibid. Lib. ii, § 34, (p. 415.) CELSUS. 33 to their credit was a vital injury to Christianity itself. ‘Than this indirect evidence, derived from that early age, no evidence for the genuineness and original authority of our sacred books could well be stronger. There is good evidence in Celsus of the early, rapid, and wide, though harassed and obstructed, propagation of the faith; but on such collateral points, however interesting, I will not fatigue you with citations. We have seen what sort of argu- ments it was that Celsus was able to collect against Christianity. We ought not to forget with what advantages he undertook a work, in which he was destined so signally to fail. His abilities and learn- ing, as is apparent from the fragments, were such as to make him an effective champion of any cause which had strength of its own. He professes to have used particular diligence to acquaint himself with the affairs of Christians. He had read the books of Moses, and perhaps the whole of the Old Testament; and of the historical books, at least, of the New, we have seen how well he was possessed. He had discoursed at large with Jews, acquaint- ing himself with the points in controversy between them and the new sect, and also with the calum- nies by which they had aimed to obstruct its rise ; and the motives, whatever they were, which induced a person of his consideration to engage in the dis- pute, would influence him also to prosecute it with the best devotion of his powers. Vout. Il. 5 34 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. What | have proposed to say respecting the bear- ing of his work, at this day, on the evidences of our religion, particularly on that all-important point of them, the authenticity of the Gospels, I now conclude with a few sentences of two judicious writers, which I take from the close of Dr. Lardner’s chapter upon Celsus, and which embrace thoughts that could not be better expressed. « Whilst,” says Dr. Doddridge, ‘“ from his quo- tations from, and references to, the books of the New Testament, Celsus argues sometimes in a very perverse and malicious manner, he still takes it for granted, as the foundation of his argument, that whatever absurdity could be fastened upon any words or actions of Christ, recorded in the Evan- gelists, it would be a valid objection against Chris- tianity; thereby in effect assuring us, not only that such a book did really exist, but that it was univer- sally received by Christians in those times as credi- ble and divine. Who can forbear adoring the depths of divine wisdom, in laying such a firm foundation for our faith in the Gospel history, in the writings of one who was so inveterate an enemy to it, and so indefatigable in his attempts to overthrow it?” <“Celsus,” says the anonymous author of “The Evidence of the Resurrection cleared up,” “lived at no great distance from the apostolic age, at a time when all religions were tolerated but the Christian, when no evidence was stifled, no books destroyed, but the Christian. And yet Celsus labored under the same want of evidence as modern CELSUS. 35 unbelievers, and had only the Gospel to search (as Origen more than once observes) for evidence against the Gospel. A strong proof that there never had been any books of any credit in the world, that questioned the Gospel facts, when so spiteful and so artful an adversary as Celsus made no use of them.” In my next Lecture, which will relate to the Pagan controversy in the third century, I shall speak particularly of the writings of Minucius Felix, Porphyry, and Arnobius. LEGTUREVGMs GROUNDS OF PAGAN UNBELIEF. [continvuzED. ] My last Lecture was devoted to an account of the argument against Christianity by Celsus the Epicu- rean, in the second century, as it has descended to us incorporated in the reply of the Christian father, Origen; an argument on the whole more important than any other of the same class which has been be- queathed to us by antiquity, whether we consider the time to which it belongs (seventy or eighty years only after the death of the last survivor of the apos- tles), the extent and variety of its topics, or the emi- nence of its author and his opponent. I am this evening to give a brief account of the state of the controversy at three different later periods, bringing it down to the end of the third century, or two cen- turies from the death of John. Early in the third century, that 1s, contempora- neously with Origen, lived the Christian father Marcus Minucius Felix, an eminent professional DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. 37 pleader at Rome, before, and probably after, his con- version to Christianity. He wrote a defence of the faith, still extant, in the form of a dialogue between Cecilius Natalis, a heathen, and Octavius Janu- arius, a disciple. Cecilius urges his objections ; Octavius replies to them; and at the close Cacilius professes himself convinced, and desirous to enrol himself as a believer. ‘The piece has great merit ; and the candor, with which the Christian argument is urged, creates in the reader a strong persuasion, that under the character of Ceccilius the author has given a fair representation of the current heathen objections of the day; besides that, writing for the conviction of Gentile unbelievers, it is reasonable, independently of any presumption of his honesty, to suppose that he would be at pains to acquaint him- self with the efficient grounds of their unbelief, and state them substantially in their full force. If he should pass over what was mainly relied upon by the other party, it could not but be manifest to him that his work would be but labor lost. But the plea of Cecilius is nothing but an ap- peal to prejudice. There is nothing in it that de- serves the name of reasoning upon the merits of the question ; and as far as it may serve us for a speci- men of the methods in use at that day to prevent the increase of the number of Christians, it shows that these consisted in merely exciting odium against their opinions and their persons. Cecilius, after a long train of general remark upon the diffi- culty of arriving at religious truth, the great variety 38 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. of speculations concerning it, and the arrogance of any who pretend to profess it, especially to the ex- clusion of others, declares it to be the only prudent course to follow the religion of one’s ancestors, and then launches out into a copious panegyric upon the systems of Gentile superstition, and the constancy with which they had been adhered to by their vota- ries.* This leads him to speak of the Christians, whom he introduces by saying, that he ‘cannot endure men of such audacity ..... that they seek to overthrow or to weaken so ancient, so useful, so salutary a faith.” ‘Is it not horrible,” he asks, ‘that men of a miserable, lawless, and desperate faction should thus assail the gods; men who, collecting from the lowest dregs of the people weak and unin- structed persons, and credulous women, who fall into their snares through the facility of their sex, band together a mob in a profane conspiracy, and in nightly assemblies, solemn fasts, and unnatural feasts, sanction their compact with atrocious rites ° A set of people they are, artful, and shunning the light ; in public they are dumb; in corners they are garrulous; they abhor the temples as they would funeral piles ; they despise the gods; they ridicule our sacred solemnities. Wretches that they are, themselves in rags, they pretend to look down on the honors and purple of our priests. With aston- ishing folly and incredible arrogance, they defy present suffermg, but tremble at that which is un- * Minucii Felicis Octavius. §§ 1—7. pp, 1—69. (Edit. Lugd, Bat. 1709.) | DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. 39 certain and future ; and, while they fear to die after death, death itself they do not fear, —a fallacious hope so soothes their dread with the image of after recompenses.”’ * This is but vague railing. What is more specific follows. ‘At last,” says Cecilius, ‘‘as wickedness is always fruitful, the corruption of their manners increasing day by day, the impious brotherhood observe everywhere their shocking orgies. Such a nuisance should be execrated and extirpated. They know each other by secret signs and marks, and love each other almost before a mutual recog- nition; a certain religion of license every where UbMesitheri 4s, a9 I hear that, by force of some stupid opinion, — I know not what,— they adore a consecrated head of that vilest of cattle, the ass; a religion well corresponding to such morals as theirs.” Others, he says, bring against them a charge of an atrocious kind of worship, which he specifies, but which I cannot repeat. ‘1 know not whether this is false,” he goes on, “ but suspicion naturally at- taches to their secret and nocturnal assemblies.” Then comes that fable of his, to which I referred on a former occasion, + of their killing a child with various ceremonies, licking its blood, and tearing it limb from limb, at the initiation of novices; on which he remarks, that ‘it is a story as offensive, as it is well known.” And lastly, in this cool enu- meration of their offences, he adds, “ As to their “ Min. Fel. Octavius. § 8. (pp. 70—89.) + See Vol. I. p. 288. AO PAGAN OBJECTIONS. feasts, the thing is notorious; it is everywhere talked of, ocx On a set day they meet to keep it, with all their children, sisters, matrons, asso- ciates of both sexes and of every age, and then, when the banquet is over, the lights are quenched, and they practise promiscuous impurity.” * Such were his assertions. What kind of proof had he? Common report, he says; but also something else; and what was that? It was such reasoning upon appearances and probabilities as he presents in his closing remark on this topic, immediately following what I have read. “I pass over many things,” he says, ‘“‘on set purpose. For these, which I have already mentioned, are too many, all or most of which are confirmed as to their truth by the affected obscurity which this religion observes. For why do they so strive to conceal their worship, when what is honorable delights in publicity, only vice and crime love the darkness? Why have they no altars, no temples, no images, why do they not speak boldly, and meet openly, unless their worship and doctrine are things to be punished and to be ashamed of?” ‘Thus it was, that the poor Chris- tians, driven by their persecutors into hiding places for the celebration of their worship, had the very resource of their distress and fears turned into a weapon of detraction, and a justification of the injuries which drove them thither. What remains of the plea of Cecilius treats three * Min. Fel. Octavius. § 9. (pp. 90—101.) _ + Ibid. § 10. (p. 101.) DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. A] topics. First, he finds fault with the Christian and Jewish notions of the divine nature and character. “Whence, what, and where,” he asks, “is that single, solitary, forlorn divinity, whom no free race, no state, at least no Roman doctrine, knows any thing about? Only the wretched rout of Jews recognises a sole Deity ; and they adore him with pomp and ceremony, with temples, altars, and vic- tims, —a God so without force and power, that he is himself, with his nation, enslaved to the Romans. But the Christians, what monstrous follies do they fabricate in respect to him! That God of theirs, whom they can neither show to others, nor see themselves, they pretend makes diligent inquisition into the characters of all men, their acts, even their words, nay, their secret thoughts. They will have it that he goes about every where, yet is every where present as if stationary. They will have him to be restless, officious, even impudently inquisi- tive. At all men’s doings, they say, he stands by; in all places he is roaming ; while thus scattered so widely, it is impossible he should benefit indi- viduals, or, occupied with single cares, should take care of the whole.” * The objector next addresses himself to find flaws in the Christian doctrine of the resurrection, and the opinions of disciples concerning the final catastro- phe of human things ; and is at pains to point out cir- cumstantial incongruities in the opinion of a revivi- * Min. Fel. Octavius. § 10. (pp. 104 — 108.) Vou, if: 6 AQ PAGAN OBJECTIONS. fication of the body.* And lastly, with a strange inconsistency with the tenor of his previous com- plaints, he upbraids Christians with their indiffer- ence even to innocent pleasures and festivities, as well as to pain. ‘You have to bear,” he says, “threats, injuries, tortures. You not only adore, but you endure, the cross. You are brought to those flames in this life, which you predict as an object of dread in the next. Where 1s that God of yours, who can help the risen, but has no aid for the living? Do not the Romans, without his assist- ance, conquer, reign, enjoy the wealth of the whole world, and hold dominion over you, while you, living in suspense and anxiety, abstain even from irre- proachable pleasures? You do not frequent the spectacles; you do not take part in the games; no public feast witnesses your presence; ..--. you do not wreathe your heads with garlands; you do not indulge in the luxury of perfumes; ointments you only use at funerals.” He concludes, by saying, that « for such uninstructed, unpolished, and unmannered persons, it is enough to look at what is beneath their feet. When they are not competent to esti- mate the practices of civil life, still less is it theirs to treat of the mysteries of divinity. If they will philosophize, they will do well to adopt the maxim of that prince of sages, Socrates, whose well-known reply, when interrogated respecting heavenly things, was, ‘ Whatever is above us, to us is nothing.’” + * Min. Fel. Octavius. § 11. (pp. 108 — 117.) t Ibid. §§ 12, 13. (pp. 119 — 128.) DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. AS This is the argument against Christianity, or rather against adopting Christianity, which one, who knew of what he was affirming, put into the mouth of a polished heathen at the beginning of the third century. I am greatly tempted to make free extracts from the admirable answer to it which follows ; but that does not belong so much to our subject, and I must forbear, so as not to encroach on the space devoted to other topics. “It is a natural impulse,” says Octavius, the Christian in- terlocutor, in his reply, “to hate whomsoever you fear, to molest, if you can, whomsoever you dread. So the powers of evil, who are hostile to us Christians and our faith, occupy men’s minds, and shut up the accesses to their bosoms, so that men hate us before they know us, and are prevented from coming to that knowledge of us, which would lead them either to imitate us, or at least to with- hold their condemnation. How unjust it is to pass judgment without knowledge or inquiry, as you are doing, learn from my own case, who have occasion to repent of formerly having done the same. For I was once as you are now, and in my blindness and dulness entertained the same persuasions ; as that Christians worshipped monstrous shapes, de- voured the flesh of infants, and took part in inces- tuous debauchery ; nor did J reflect that such stories were constantly circulated without proof or inquiry, nor consider the striking fact, that in so long a time no accomplice in such crimes had come forward to inform against them, when he would thus have AA, PAGAN OBJECTIONS. secured, not only pardon, but reward. ..... And when I had any of those people charged with sacrilege, with incest, even with parricide to defend,” —here the writer refers to his professional practice in the courts, —“ I hardly thought it worth while to hear what account they would give of themselves, but sometimes, through very pity, was harsh and stern with them, insisting that they should confess their crimes, that by that means they might save their lives; thus tormenting them, as I now know, with an examination, directed not to bring out the truth, but to extort a falsehood. And if any weak man, overborne and subdued by misfortune, could be brought to deny that he was a Christian, | showed him all favor, considering that, when he had abjured that name, he had, by the denial, as it were, expiated all his misdeeds. Do you not see, that as I felt and acted then, so you are feeling and acting now hpewonny By a prompting of the powers of evil, I say it is, that that false rumor was origi- nated and is spread. Thence it is, that you say you hear that the head of an ass with us is an object of religious veneration. For who so foolish as to adore such an object? Who so much more foolish as to believe that it is adored, unless he is prepared to adore it himself?” * Further on, he says, “I should like once to see the man, who affirms, or really believes, that we Christians are initiated with the murder and _ blood * Min. Fel, Octavius. §§ 27, 28, (pp. 283 — 290.) DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. A5 of an infant. Do you think it possible, that sucha soft and delicate body could be willingly exposed to mortal wounds?..... No one, when he thinks of it, can credit it, except the man who could do it.’ * And in another place, “As to that festival of im- purity of which you spoke, this again is a demoni- acal fabrication, to rob us of the honor due to our chastity, and expose us instead to the abhorrence that should visit shameless infamy; and this to the end of estranging men from us through disgust at our bad repute, before they can look into the truth. And as to this charge, that very Fronto, to whom you appeal for it,”?— the preceptor of Marcus An- toninus is supposed here to be meant, —“ did by no means affirm its truth as a witness, but only threw it out as a loose aspersion in his character of a declaimer.”’ + Then follows, —in that tone of generous confi- dence in the truth of what is spoken, which can scarcely be counterfeited, —a general vindication and assertion of the character of Christians, t closing with an eloquent passage, which I cannot forbear to quote, though my remarks on this writer have already exceeded the proportion of this Lecture which | had appropriated to them. “Do you pre- tend that we conceal our worship, because we have no temples nor altars? What image should we erect to God, when, rightly considered, man himself * Min. Fel. Octavius. § 30. (pp. 305, 306.) t Ibid. § 31. (p. 322.) } Ibid. (pp. 327 — 336.) A6 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. is his image? What temple need we build to him, when the universe, fashioned by his hand, is not large enough to enclose him? ..... Is he not better set up in our minds, consecrated in the depth of our bosoms’? Shall I present victims to the Lord, which he bestowed for my use, and so throw him back his gift? It were ungrateful. The ac- ceptable offering is, an honest soul, a pure mind, a clear conscience. He who preserves his innocence, worships God; he who observes justice, sacrifices to God; he who abstains from artifice, performs a service of propitiation; he who rescues a fellow man from danger, immolates a costly victim. ‘These are our sacrifices, these our holy ritual; thus he among us is the most religious man, who is the most upright. But, you say, we worship a God, whom we cannot show to others, nor see ourselves. Yes, because we can perceive and feel him, but cannot see him, therefore we believe that he is God. For in his works, and in all the agencies of his world, we trace his ever-present efficacy, in thunder, in lightning, in clear weather. Do not be surprised not to see God. Every thing is agitated and borne on by the wind, yet the wind is no object of sight. By means of the sun it is that we see, but we can- not look into the sun. It repels and disables the vision, and, if you gaze long, the sight is quenched. What? will you look at the maker of the sun, at the fountain of light, when you avert your eye from his lightnings, when you hide away from the rever- beration of his thunder? Will you look upon God DIALOGUE OF MINUCIUS FELIX. AT with the outward eyes, when you cannot so much as see or apprehend that spirit of your own, by which you live and speak? But God, you say, is ignorant of the deeds of men; and, dwelling in heaven, can neither compass the whole, nor take note of indi- viduals. O man, you err and are deceived. For from what place is God far distant, when all the regions of heaven and earth, through the creation’s utmost bounds, are known to God, and full of him, and when he is not only nearer than aught else to us, but pervades our very being? Consider the sun once more. It is fixed in the sky, but is, so to speak, scattered over all lands, and nowhere is its brightness eclipsed. How much more may this be said of God, the maker of all things, the inspector of all. From him nothing can be hidden ;_he 1s pres- ent in darkness, he is present in our thoughts, as much as in other retreats. We not only act under him, but, as I may almost say, we lve with Hii)? * Thus could write one of that much disparaged class of authors, the early Christian fathers, and he certainly not one of the most eminent of their num- ber. Such notions of religion, of the Deity, of duty, shining through the spiritual darkness of that self-bewildered and cheated age, are themselves no less than a token of the divine origin of the faith from which they sprang, though it is not in that light that we are now regarding them. ‘The writer * Min. Fel. Octavius. § 32. (pp. 336 — 343.) Ag PAGAN OBJECTIONS. passes to an exposition, — much of it, in rhetorical force and beauty, worthy of the best Latin age, — of his views of the resurrection, of the future life, of the last catastrophe of human things, and finally, recurring to a topic before treated, of the actual character and becoming course of Christians; of whom he says, “ Your prisons are crowded with your own people, while of ours no one is ever seen there, except as arraigned for his religion, or else some apostate from it.””* With these topics most of the remainder of his treatise is occupied; but I have already presented what is most material to our purpose, and we have not time to accompany him further. Later in the same century with Minucius Felix, lived Porphyry, a professor and teacher of what are called in the histories of philosophy, the New Pla- tomst, or Eclectic, doctrines. ‘The rise of this sect is traced by historians partly to a desire to oppose a philosophical system of paganism to the trium- phant progress of Christianity. Ammonius Sacca, of Alexandria, who lived at the end of the second and beginning of the third century, is commonly re- garded as its founder. Among his disciples, who Were eminent and numerous, two of the most dis- tinguished were Longinus and Plotinus, of the for- mer of whom at Athens, and afterwards of the latter at Rome, Porphyry was a hearer. Porphyry was born in Syria, in the year 233. His name was * Min. Fel. Octavius. § 833 — 35. (pp. 344— 365.) PORPHYRY. 49 Melek, which in the language of that country sig- nifies @ king, and which Longinus translating into Greek, called him I7ogpugioc, Porphyry, that is pur- ple, or purple-wearer. At the time when he lived, Christianity, though still laboring under grievous discouragements, and making progress against a vast opposition, had yet forced its way to such a place among the elements of the social system as to forbid its being treated with mere contumely and outrage. Christians had lived down the gross cal- umnies by which it had been attempted to place them under the ban of the rest of the world, and no trace of the worst of those slanders appears in the re- mains of the writings of Porphyry. He wrote fifteen books ‘“ Against the Christians,” which were doom- ed to destruction in the following century by the weak piety of Theodosius. The works of three fathers, in formal reply to his, have also unhappily perished ;* but the consideration attached to his name caused his treatise, now in question, to be so frequently referred to by the ancient writers of the Church, as to afford us the means of obtaining a substantially adequate idea of the course and topics of its argument. The topics thus ascertained to have been urged in it, I proceed now to particularize, with occasional specimens of the manner of their illustration. There are pieces ascribed to the same author, but of uncertain authenticity, which, could * Methodius, Eusebius of Cesarea, and Apollinarius. Vide Hieron. Catul. Script. Eccles. (Opp. Tom. 1. p. 404) Pref. in Daniel. 120- (Ibid. p. 1045.) Vou. Il. is 50 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. they be relied upon, would furnish highly interest- ing contributions to the Christian evidence ; but from them I do not quote. 1. I observed that Porphyry does not appear to have repeated the most offensive fictions that had been vented to the prejudice of Christians and Christianity. They had become too stale; time had made those whom they injured better known ; and, through the incredulity they would have encoun- tered, there would have been danger that the repe- tition of them might prejudice the assailant’s own cause. But even Porphyry had not learned the language of courtesy in speaking of the long-tra- duced sect. Even he was willing that the vague odium of a bad name should obstruct its credit and progress. He qualifies it as “the barbarian pre- sumption,” and speaks of Origen as having been one of those who “live as Christians, and contrary to the laws,” *— distinguishing Christians from such as pursue a course of life approved by the laws. And he lends himself to the old charge of their being enemies to the public weal, and pro- voking the divine displeasure. People should not wonder, he says, ‘“ that this sickness has distressed the city for so many years, Ausculapius and the other eods no longer giving their aid. For, since Jesus has been honored, no one has enjoyed any public favor of the gods.” + 2. From two passages of Jerome, we learn, that * In Euseb. Hist. Eccl. Lib. vi. cap. 19. t In Euseb. Prepar. Evang. Lib. v. cap. 1. p. 179. (Edit. Paris, 1628.) PORPHYRY. 51 Porphyry, when he spoke of our Lord’s miracles, referred them, as others had done, who could not venture to dispute their occurrence, to demoniacal or magical arts. ‘The words of one of those pas- Sages are the following; “ Perhaps, like the Gen- tiles, and the impious Porphyry and Eunomius, you may pretend that these are but tricks of demons.” * In the other, having spoken of the labors of the apostles, Jerome goes on; “Some one will say, ‘They did all this for gain’; for so Porphyry says ; ‘Poor and uncultivated men, when they had nothing, wrought some signs by magical arts. But it is no great thing to work signs. The magicians wrought them in Egypt against Moses. Apollonius wrought them. So did Apuleius. Innumerable persons have done it.’” + However it may have been with Celsus, it is likely that Porphyry resort- ed to this solution in good faith. He is likely to have been an honest believer in the powers of magic ; for, with all his undeniable abilities and learning, it is certain that a childish credulity was his foible. He wrote a life of Pythagoras, who lived eight hundred years before him, and of whom he was a great admirer. In this work he Says ; “If we may believe those who have written con- * Hieron. advers. Vig. Opp. Tom. I. p. 598. (Edit. Paris, 1609.) t Id. Breviarium in Psalterium. This tract is printed by the Ben- edictine editors, in whose collection of Jerome’s works the passage here quoted may be found in the Appendix to Vol. II, at p. 335. If (which is their opinion) the tract is spurious, and was not written earlier than the sixth century (p. 119). it may still be regarded as good authority respecting a statement in the now lost writings of Porphyry. 52, PAGAN OBJECTIONS. cerning him, ancients and deserving of credit, Py- thagoras imparted his instructions to brute animals. For he seized the Daunian bear, which had much troubled the neighbours, and, having stroked it awhile, and fed it with bread and acorns, he charged it no more to eat flesh, and let it go; after which it lived peaceably in the woods and on the mountains, and never more attacked so much as a brute ani- mal. And, when he saw the Tarentine ox roving at pleasure in the fields, and eating green beans, he accosted the herdsman, and desired him to tell the ox, not to eat beans; and, when he laughed, and said he could not converse with oxen, Pythagoras went up to the ox himself, and whispered in its ear, upon which the ox not only walked out of the field, where the beans were, but never after would eat any.” * Such was the man,—the writer of this narrative,— whose judgment, if he had exercised it on the subject, had rejected the evidences of the Christian faith. How much easier is it to some minds to believe without evidence than with it! How strangely alike are skepticism and credulity ! 3. Porphyry canvassed at much length the plea set up by Christians for the claims of their religion and its author, on the ground of the fulfilment in them of ancient Jewish prophecies ; and I think it must be owned that he had a great advantage in this argument, by reason of the injudicious and extravagant manner in which it was treated by the * Porphyry de Vitéd Pythag. §§ 23, 24. p. 31. (Edit. Amstel.) ee PORPHYRY. 53 Christian writers of his time, who often assumed positions, which it was impossible they should main- tain against a learned and acute antagonist. In particular, he laid out his strength upon their inter- pretations of the book of Daniel, devoting to that discussion one whole book, the twelfth, of his trea- tise. Respecting his views on this subject we are fully informed by Jerome, in the introduction to his commentary on the book of Daniel. Porphyry argues, chiefly from iternal marks, that the book was not written till within about a hundred and fifty years of the time of Jesus, and that it was not designed as a course of prediction of future events, but in great part as a history of the past. It is out of the question here to enter upon an inquiry of such extent, as that of the authenticity of the book of Daniel, or that of the general and_par- ticular correctness of the interpretations of it by early Christian writers. What is chiefly to the purpose here is the remark, that very many of their speculations respecting the sense of Old Testa- ment scripture might be given up as indefensible, — as many in fact ought to be, — and yet the evidence for the divine origin of both the Old and New Tes- tament remain perfectly untouched. Nay, it must be said that they have often embarrassed that evidence, as far as their views have obtained credit, when they have been honestly endeavouring to strengthen it. Nothing is better known, than that, at the present day, equally judicious and competent Chris- tian critics differ in their applications of one or 5A PAGAN OBJECTIONS. another Old ‘Testament passage to narratives and statements of the New, and this without affecting at all the certainty of the evidence of either. That the Christian writers of Porphyry’s time pressed into the service of the prophetical argument more than could be intelligently put to that use, is what probably all well-qualified Christian expositors of the present day would allow. And as far as we know from the remaining fragments of Porphyry what the arguments of this kind were, which he un- dertook to refute, | am not going too far when I say, that every one of them might be safely dismissed from the controversy, and the proper, distinctive, Christian evidence remain unassailed and entire. 4. Porphyry founded an objection to Christianity on the fact of its late publication. ‘If Christ,’ — he said, “declares himself the way of salvation, grace, and truth, and offers a way of return, through himself alone, to believers in him, what was the lot of the many generations of men before him”? * This is a question which Augustine quotes and answers. And the same argument of his is referred to by Jerome, who writes; ‘“ Porphyry is wont to object to us, ‘ How, from Adam to Moses, and from Moses to the advent of Christ, could the kind and merciful God permit all nations to perish through ignorance of the divine law and commandments ? For neither Britain, a country fruitful in tyrants, nor the Scottish races, nor the barbarous tribes all * Augustin. ad Deogratias Epist. 49, Tom. II. p. 74. (Edit. Paris.) PORPHYRY. 55 around to the sea, were acquainted with Moses and the prophets. Why should he appear then in the end of the world, and not before an innumerable multitude of men had perished?’?” * ‘To give a full answer to this question, showing, first, how the statement of fact, on which it is founded, needs to be qualified; secondly, that the time of the actual revelation of Christianity was, as far as we have the means of judging, the most seasonable for the accomplishment of its objects; and thirdly, that, as many of my hearers know to be shown at large in the admirable “ Analogy ” of Bishop Butler, such a prvort objections, whether we may think them good or bad, belong to a class which would be equally valid against innumerable facts in the established course of nature, where unquestionable experience refutes their validity, and therefore resolve them- selves into no objections at all,—to go into this argument would be to allow ourselves to be diverted from our present subject, which is the objections of Porphyry and of his age. Such as the objection is, it has obviously no peculiar force as coming from him or from his time. It is a philosophical objection, and has been repeated by others, who will bring it hereafter before our notice in a more methodical shape. I dismiss it, in its relation to Porphyry, with the same remark which I had occasion to make before respecting a similar argument on the part of Celsus. This is not the kind of objection, which would have * Hieron. ad Ctesiph. advers. Pelagium. (Tom. I. p. 813.) ad 56 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. been resorted to by skilful reasoners, who, in that early time, when the recent facts of Christianity admitted of easy investigation, felt themselves to be in possession of any thing which could be plausibly said in contradiction of those alleged facts. Celsus lived in the century after the first publica- tion of our religion; Porphyry, a century later ; that is, the last of these writers was in mature life as near to Paul in point of time as we are to the settlers of Plymouth, the first was as near to John as we to the beginning of the American Revolution. If there were facts to refute the story of Christians, they were facts accessible to men standing in such a position; had they possessed any such facts, they would have produced them; had they supposed such facts were to be had, they would have sought them. They would not then have been at all dis- posed to have recourse to an objection, which no mind except of a certain degree of reflection would entertain; which a carefully reflecting mind would reject as untenable ; and which with no mind of any description would have any thing like the weight of an exposure of the alleged substantive facts. When I have evidence to produce showing that such and such things did not occur, or rendering it doubtful whether they did occur, I do not perplex the question with arguments (even if I imagine I have good ones) respecting their abstract fitness as parts of the general plan of Providence. Celsus and Porphyry would not have done it, had it been in their power to do better. PORPHYRY. 57 5. Porphyry also imitates Celsus in the en- deavour to point out inconsistencies and contradic- tions in the New Testament books; a kind of un- successful minute criticism, in which, as things have turned out, he has made a material contribution to the evidence of the truth he was assailing, by show- ing that those books were in his hands the same that they are in ours. I give but a few examples. Jerome reports that Porphyry, not counting, as he should have done, the name of Jechoniah, in the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, as both the end of the second class of fourteen, and the beginning of the third, had charged Mat- thew with an erroneous enumeration.* Upon the text in the same book, where it is said, that ‘‘ Jesus saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom, and he said to him ‘ Follow me,’ and he arose and followed him,” Porphyry remarked to the effect of its being incredible, that men should follow any one who merely called them; forget- tig, as Jerome says, ‘what signs and wonders had preceded, which, without doubt, the apostles had witnessed, before they believed.” ¢ “That it might be fulfilled,” says Matthew (referring to the sev- enty-eighth Psalm), “which was spoken by the pro- phet, ‘1 will open my mouth in parables.’”” Some manuscript copies, still extant, exhibit the reading, “That it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by * Hieron. in Daniel. i. 1. (Tom. II. p. 1023.) t Id. in Mat. ix. 9. (Tom. III. p. 616.) Vou. IL, 8 58 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. the prophet [saiah.”’? Such a copy, it appears, was in the hands of Porphyry, which gave him occasion to complain of Matthew, as having ascribed to Isaiah words of which Asaph was the author.* Comparing the introductions to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, he made a similar objection to a verse of the latter, in which is apparently ascribed to Isaiah lan- guage really taken from Malachi.t He finds fault that Jesus is represented to have walked upon the sea, when the lake of Gennesareth was intended, as if the word sea were used by way of increasing the wonder;{ that Jesus is said to have refused to accompany his brethren to Jerusalem to the feast of tabernacles, and afterwards made the journey alone, at which, says Jerome, ‘“‘ Porphyry barks, charging Jesus with inconstancy and caprice ;’’§ and that Jesus threatened the wicked with ever- lasting punishment, and at the same time said, ‘¢ With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again,” as if the execution of the threat in the former words would be a violation of the principle in the latter.|| Once more ; he has much to say of disagreements among the early preachers of the faith, as between Paul and Peter, between Paul, Barnabas, and Mark, and between the par- ties who became excited against one another re- specting the terms of the introduction of Gentiles * Hieron. Breviar. in Psalt. (Ubi supra, p. 316.) t Id. in Mat. iii. 3. (Tom. III. p. 590.) { Id. Que:tion. in Genes. (Tom. I. p. 1311.) § Id. Dialog. advers. Pelag. Lib. ii. (Tom. I. p 864) || Augustin. ad Deogratias. Epist. 49. (Tom. II. p. 77.) PORPHYRY. 59 into the church. He did not observe that these were but the temporary dissensions of honest men, such as were altogether to be expected under the new and extraordinary circumstances in which they were placed, deranging many of their old habits of thought; and especially he did not observe what force the fact which gave him such offence actually lends to an important point in the evidences of our faith, in the way of refuting the supposition of a conspiracy among its early friends. Wicked plots will not endure the trial of sharp feuds among the confederates. ‘ Porphyry argues,” says Jerome, ‘the falsehood of the whole doctrine, ..... be- cause the chiefs of the churches disagreed.” * More cautious reasoners will think that the same fact well sustains the opposite inference. I pass from the consideration of these objections of Porphyry, after merely recalling attention, in a word, to their bearing upon the great question of the genuimeness of the New Testament books. Of course, every instance in which he has subjected those books to criticism, commenting on passages which we now read in them, goes just so far to show that they were in his hands what they are in ours. It appears that he did employ this criticism to a much greater extent than is indicated by the existing remains of his works, and that the books which he understood to be the authoritative books of Christians were the same which were regarded in that light by the Christian fathers. ‘There are * Hieron. Proem. in Epist. ad Gal. (Tom. III. p. $62.) 60 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. in the Holy Scriptures innumerable passages,” says Jerome, —and Jerome was not at all treating our argument, — “ which Porphyry has cavilled at, for want of understanding them.”* If he criticized so many, he had them before him to criticize. I have but a few words to say respecting the state of the controversy at the close of the third cen- tury, as some light is thrown upon it in the work of the Christian father Arnobius. His time is not precisely ascertained, but the best opinion is that he wrote not more than five or six years earlier or later than the year 300. He had been bred an idolater, and, after his conversion, wrote a treatise in seven books, entitled «‘ Against the Gentiles.” He was a man of learning, and wrote in a spirited and nervous, though not generally an attractive or grace- ful style. He argues judiciously in favor of Chris- tianity from various considerations; as, from its intrinsic excellence, as compared with all other systems of religious belief; from what had been already experienced, on a large scale, of its con- vincing, converting, reforming, and spiritualizing power; from the perfection of the character of Jesus, and especially from his miraculous works, establish- ed, as to their actual occurrence, by the unquestiona- ble testimony of men who knew what they had seen, and who had no motive but love of truth and righ- teousness for publishing their doctrine, and every possible worldly motive to suppress it. But what we are concerned rather to notice is, those objec- * Hieron. in Epist. ad Galat. ii. 11. (Tom. II. p. 880.) TIME OF ARNOBIUS. 61 tions of unbelief, which, living when he did, he esteemed it most pertinent to consider. 1. In the first place, though he does not refer to any continued currency of the worst imputations which had been cast upon the company of believers in the earlier ages, —imputations which, it is reasonable to presume, had by this time gone out of credit, (though not out of memory, as we may hereafter see,)—he does allude to the prejudices still attempted to be kept up against the sect, by denouncing them as impious and ireligious men, atheists,* disturbers of the public peace, and authors, through the provocation which their apostasy offered to the gods, of all the disasters that afflicted man- kind. ‘As I have fallen in with some,” he says, in giving an account of the occasion of his work by way of introduction, “‘ who assert that, since the Christian community appeared, the world is ruin- ed, and the human race visited with every kind of calamity, and that the gods themselves, since those rites are deserted through the medium of which they were used to communicate with mortals, are ban- ished from our earthly regions, | have determined, after the poor measure of my power, to endeavour to counteract this scandal, and remove the odium under which we Christians unjustly labor, that they may not flatter themselves with too great suc- cess, while they bandy about these popular slanders, nor think that they have gained their point, because * Adversus Gentes. Lib. iii. § 28. (p. 125. Edit. Orellii.) 62, PAGAN OBJECTIONS. we abstain from such altercations.”* ‘This was what Arnobius felt himself called upon to meet, as champion of the Christian body, — an unreasonable estranging odium, not an argument upon the merits of the case ;—a blind hatred, sedulously instilled, of the persons and the cause of Christians, such as forbade an examination of their pretensions; not a dissatisfaction, subsequent to inquiry, with the suffi- ciency of the evidence which sustained them. Further on he says, ‘‘ We are pronounced stupid, stolid, infatuated, dunces, yea, mere brutes, because we have devoted ourselves to God, by whose will and decree every thing which is, subsists.” + Again ; «Will you still maintain,” he asks, ‘that we be- long to an impious fraternity, because with vener- able forms of worship we address the chief and stay of the universe? Will you say that we therefore deserve to be reproached by you as wretched, god- less men??? Once more, in the introduction to the sixth book; “In this account you have fastened on us the gross charge of impiety, because we do not build temples for the offices of our worship, nor frame material images of any of the gods, ..... nor pour out the blood of animals.” § But it would be superfluous to collect further examples of the appeals to popular prejudice, with which the Chris- tian cause is represented as assailed, at the time when this defence was composed. ‘They are scat- tered over all parts of the treatise. * Advers. Gent. Lib, i. § 1. (p. 3.) t Ibid. § 28. (p. 18.) t Ibid. § 29. (p. 19.) § Ibid. Lib. vi. § 1, (p. 202.) TIME OF ARNOBIUS. 63 2. It was objected to the religion, that it was but of recent origin. For instance, in the second book ; “You are in the habit of objecting to us, that this faith of ours is modern, and originated only a short time ago, and that you cannot forsake for it the ancient faith which came to you from your fathers.””* Arnobius has made some judicious observations, exposing the weakness of this plea. He might advantageously have added another. _ If the religion was of recent origin, so much the greater were the facilities for detecting any thing falsely pretended in its history. If it had been published but a short time before, — “a few days” is the expression,— they who rejected it had the less excuse for taking any other way to justify their unbelief than that of simply showing that there had been an attempt ata bold fraud upon the world. 3. It was asked, in the time of Arnobius, why Christ was sent no earlier, if he were sent at all, and why the revelation through him was not at once made universal, — questions, respecting which all that it would belong to this place to say, has been already said under the corresponding head of the extracts from Porphyry. Arnobius answers in some excellent remarks, which might be well quoted, if this were the time for the discussion. I may add, however, that Arnobius well retorts these ques- tions upon the opponent, in the way of an argu- ment ad hominem. “I will ask you too,” he says, ‘if your god Hercules was to be born, or * Advers. Gent. Lib. ii. § 66. (p. 97.) 64 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. AEsculapius, or Mercury, or Bacchus, or other bene- factors of mankind, why were they sent so late, so that the most ancient ages did not know them? Do you say that there was some good reason? You must own then that there might have been a ood one for the late coming of Jesus the Saviour.” * 4. Exception was taken to the alleged circum- stances of the life and death of Jesus, to the effect, that his humble condition and ignominious fate were inconsistent with the decencies of the sublime office which he was said to have been sent to execute. “The gods are not incensed against you,” Arno- bius represents the opponent as saying, ‘‘ because you adore the omnipotent, but because you insist, that one born a man, and, —a thing infamous for the vilest persons, — put to death on a cross, was a cod, and now lives again.” T 5. The Christian doctrine of the resurrection was a stumbling-block to those for whom Arnobius argued, as we saw that it had been long before to Trypho the Jew. This point is set forth im his work in various particulars. } 6. Once more; Arnobius instructs us, m accor- dance with what we have seen of earlier times, how the argument from miracles was disposed of by unbe- lievers of his day. Having introduced that subject, he says, “ Perhaps some one will meet us with the stale and puerile calumny, ‘Jesus was a magician ; * Advers. Gent. Lib. ii. § 74. (p. 104.) t Ibid. Lib. i. §§ 36, 40. (pp. 23, 27.) t Ibid. Lib. ii. § 13, 14, 15, 26, 34. (pp. 57 — 59, 67, 72, 73.) TIME OF ARNOBIUS. 65 he performed all those works by clandestine arts ; from the recesses of Egypt he stole the names of powerful angels, and the secrets of foreign science.’ ipebsiats Can you pretend, then, that his deeds were the enchantments of demons, were the achieve- ments of magical arts? Can you indicate to us any one, Can you point out one among all the sorcerers that ever lived, who wrought any thing in a thou- sandth part so marvellous as what was done by (bri shohuegoaters Who does not know, that whatever they do, they do in such and such ways [which he specifies], while, as to Christ, all that he did, he did without any instrumentality, without the observance of any rites or ceremonies, and merely by the authority of his own name?”* He then, in a passage of great eloquence, recites a variety of the miracles of Jesus, and contrasts them with works of others which might seem of a like character, concluding with calling attention to the fact, that he not only did such wonders himself, but communicated the power of doing them to others, his disciples. And the reason alleged by Arnobius for his proceeding thus, is what in the present connexion particularly demands our notice. ‘When he foresaw that the true charac- ter of his wonderful works would be disputed, in order to dispel the suspicion of their being done by magical art, he selected to himself from the im- mense body of the people, who followed his steps with wonder, fishermen, laborers, rustics, and other * Advers. Gent. Lib. i. §§ 43, 44, (p. 29.) Vot. Il. 9 66 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. unlearned men of that rank, who, being sent abroad into various countries, should, as he had done, per- form such wonders without recourse to any of the expedients of art. ..... Nor was any thing done by himself to the astonishment of all spectators, which he did not cause to be equally done by the agency of those inconsiderable and uninstructed men. ” * I need not say that we are not here concerned to defend the precise ground which the reasoning of Arnobius occupies. The material thing, rendered apparent by the course of his discussion is, that the argument of unbelief in his day was not aimed against the fact of the miracles of Jesus, but labored to explain them on a different hypothesis from that of their being testimonials of a divine interposition. In short, as far as we have yet proceeded, we have met with nothing, in the ages whence it ought to be furnished, if from any, to discredit the proper, direct, historical evidence for our religion. I proceed, in my next Lecture, to some account of the state of the controversy in the fourth cen- tury, as exhibited in the writings of the philoso- pher Hierocles, and the Emperor Julian. * Advers, Gent. Lib. i. § 50. (p. 34.) LE.C TURE XL. GROUNDS OF PAGAN UNBELIEF. [conrTINUzED.] In the course of two hundred and fifty years’ preaching to the Gentiles, that is, by the beginning of the fourth century, Christianity had made such progress in the polished and learned circles of so- ciety, as not only to forbid its being disposed of any longer by mere calumny, contempt, and out- rage, but also to attract such attention to its proper, direct evidence, that of the miraculous works of its author, that this topic could no longer be passed over with the slight notice hitherto given to it by opponents of the faith. The philosophers of the New Platonic, or Eclec- tic, school, who had become the chief adversaries of Christianity, both estimating the force of this ar- gument, and witnessing its extensive actual effect, addressed themselves to meet it in such a manner as might best promise to influence the popular mind. Porphyry himself had, in the previous cen- 68 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. tury, in his “ Life of Pythagoras,” ascribed miracu- lous works to that ancient, though it does not distinctly appear that he intended his narrative to furnish an argument bearing on the Christian evi- dences. This method of reasoning, however, was expressly brought forward, and mainly relied upon, by Hierocles, the next assailant of our religion, whose writings we are to consider. The principal aim of his work was to present the wonderful things related of Apollonius Tyanus, as affording a parallel to the miracles of Jesus. Apollonius, a native of Tyana, a city of Cappa- docia, lived in the first century; but the precise time of either his birth or his death is not known. The account of him which furnished Hierocles with his materials, and which is still extant, was composed in Greek, by the sophist Philostratus of Lemnos, in eight books. Philostratus died in the year 244, and is believed to have written the work now in question some thirty years before, or some- thing more than a hundred years later than the time of Apollonius. In the introduction to his work, he gives a particular account of the occasion of his composing it, and the nature of his materials. He says, that, being at Rome, the Empress Julia, wife of the Emperor Severus, placed in his hands certain papers relating to the life of Apollonius, and from them directed him to compile a history. ‘The papers proved to consist of memoirs of Apollonius, purporting to have been prepared by a certain Damis, who had accompanied him on his travels ; HIEROCLES. 69 and they were said to have been presented to the Empress by some third person, whom Philostratus does not name.* The work was not so much to the purpose of Hierocles, even supposing it to have been a work of authority, as has seemed to have been commonly understood, made up as it is, not so much of accounts of wonderful things done by Apollonius, as of wonderful things witnessed by him in his peregrinations in distant countries. It can in fact be no more correctly described than as a fabulous book of travels, resembling, for instance, the journeys of Sir John Mandeville, if one should not rather compare it to the voyages of Gulliver. Let a statement of some of its contents show whether there is injustice in this comparison. Apollonius, the son of a family of consideration at Tyana,t and educated under the care of philoso- phers adhering to the different sects of the day, attached himself to the tenets and discipline of the Pythagoreans, { and adopted their ascetic modes of life. He observed a vegetable diet, went bare- foot, suffered his hair to grow, § and for five years continued speechless. || In imitation of Pythagoras, he resolved to travel in remote regions, and, his dis- ciples refusing to accompany him, he set out at- tended by two servants.{1 At Nineveh, he attached to him Damis, a citizen of that place, whom he * De Vité Apollonii. Lib. i. cap. 3. (p. 5.) t Ibid. Lib. i. cap. iv. (p. 6.) { Ibid. cap. vii. (pp. 8, 9.) § Ibid. cap. viii. (p. 10.) || Ibid. cap. xiv. (p. 16.) 1 Ibid. cap. xviii. (pp. 22, 23.) 70 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. assured that he was acquainted with all human lan- cuages, though he had never learned them, and could converse with brute animals.* Proceeding on their way, they came to a region inhabited by men four cubits, and five cubits high. t They told of beasts, resembling lions, with a human head;{ a seal, which, having lost its young, fasted three days tor grief ;§ a city which was impregnable, because de- fended against enemies, not with common arms, but with thunder and lightning ; || a river, in which were fish called peacocks from their resemblance to that bird, having purple crests, party-colored scales, and olden tails which they could turn in all directions. 1 They met with griffins and pygmies.** ‘They came where were dragons, which the inhabitants hunted for the sake of a stone of wonderful virtue in their heads; +t and in the chase they fascinated those animals with music. ‘They told of a city, whose inhabitants understood the language of beasts; {{ and of two precious casks possessed by the Indians, of which if in a time of drought they open- ed one, copious rains immediately followed ; if they closed it, the rain forthwith ceased. If the other was opened, it would raise a hurricane ; if it was closed, the winds would be hushed. §§ ‘They were invited to a feast, at which there was no need of * De Vité Appollonii. Lib. i. cap. 19. (p. 23.) Lib. iv. cap. 3. (p. 142.) t Ibid. Lib. ii. cap. 4. (p. 52.) t Ibid. Lib. iii. cap. 45. (p. 182.) § Ibid. Lib. ii. cap. 14. (p. 66.) || Ibid. cap. 33. (p. 86.) { Ibid. Lib. iii. cap. 1. (p. 95.) ** Ibid. capp. 47, 48. (pp. 188, 134.) tt Ibid. capp. 6,7, 8. (pp. 98—100.) f} Ibid. cap. 9. (p. 101.) §§ Ibid. Lib. iii. cap. 14. (p. 404.) ai HIEROCLES. 71 attendance; but the seats, the dishes, the plates, and drinking vessels, all presented themselves as they were wanted, waiting on the entertainment themselves, and passing from place to place, as the guests required them.* From the first three of the eight books of which the work of Philostratus consists, I have thus given a few specimens of its contents. They are sufficient to show its character. Whoever it was that first brought together its materials, it is clear that it was a mere wild romance. Among the many extraordinary things which Apollonius is related to have seen and heard on his voyages, it might be expected that place would be found for some that he had done. He is said to have pos- sessed the power of foretelling future events; yet at the same time it is related that he carefully com- posed an account of himself to deliver to Domitian, not foreseeing, what proved to be the fact, that Domitian would not suffer him to pronounce it. ¢ He interpreted the chirping of birds, having learned their language, as he said, during a residence in Arabia, from persons who had themselves acquired it by eating dragons’ hearts.t At the tomb of Achilles, he conversed, — without witnesses, how- ever, —with the ghost of that hero.§ He vanished away, in the presence of all the great men of Rome, when brought to trial before Domitian. || In the * De Vitd Appollonii. Lib. iii. cap. 27. (pp. 117, 118.) t Ibid. Lib. viii. cap. 6. (p. 326.) { Ibid. Lib. i. cap. 20. (p. 25.) Lib. iii. cap. 9. (p. 101.) § Ibid. Lib. iv. cap. 15. (p. 151.) || Ibid. Lib. viii. cap. 4, 5. (p. 324.) Fi! PAGAN OBJECTIONS. midst of an harangue at Ephesus, he stopped short and exclaimed “ Down with the tyrant,” at the very instant, as it afterwards proved, when Domitian was slain at Rome.* ‘Ten months after his death, he appeared in a dream to a young man, one of his followers, who had doubted of the immortality of the soul. T It is obvious to remark, that, if the work of Philos- tratus had been of a different character from what I have represented it, —if, instead of relating all sorts of wonders seen and heard of by him in his distant travels, it had confined itself to a relation of wonders which he wrought, —it would have been a work altogether without historical authority, by reason of the circumstances of its composition. When we treat of the evidence of the miraculous works of Jesus, we consider it an all-important pre- liminary to show, that the testimony to them comes on the authority of witnesses so situated as to be able to know the truth of what they undertake to report; in other words, that the Gospels were written by eye and ear witnesses of the deeds and discourses of Jesus, and companions of eye and ear witnesses. Apollonius of T'yana was a follower of the rule of Pythagoras in the first century; but Philostratus, in the third, was the first to make him a considerable man. Celsus, the heathen assailant of our religion in the second century, does not mention his name, though, had the afterwards * De Vitd Apollonii, Lib. viii. cap. 26. (p. 367.) t Ibid, cap. 31. (p. 370.) HIEROCLES. 73 received accounts of him, true or false, had then any circulation, it would have been to the purpose of Celsus, as well as to that of Hierocles, to introduce him into the controversy. By Lucian he is men- tioned about the year 170, but not favorably,* and also by another profane writer of that period. + There is not found any notice of him by any of the Christian fathers before Origen, though in that time lived many distinguished for learning, and well informed of whatever there was’ to influence the popular mind against their faith; as Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Ireneeus, and Tertullian. Origen merely refers to him in a sentence or two, as a magician and philosopher, but without a hint of his having been brought, in any quarter, into comparison with Jesus.{ By and by came Philos- tratus more than a hundred years after his death, and commemorated him in an elaborate biography. And how did Philostratus obtain his facts, so to call them? He is candid enough to inform his readers, being willing, as one is half inclined to think, after doing a piece of task work for an impe- rial patron, to put them on their guard respecting the credit due to his story. In the following passage, beginning the third chapter of his first book, he answers the question, which every reader, inquisitive respecting the authority of his history as a work of credit, sees to be the material one.‘ Damis,” says “ Pseudomantis, § 5. (Tom. V. p. 69. Edit. Bipont.) t L. Apuleii Apologia. (p. 544, Edit. Paris, 1688. ) Contra Cels. Lib. vi. § 41. (p. 662.) Vou. TE 10 74 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. he, ‘was a man not without sense, who once dwelt at old Nineveh. He was an adherent of Apollonius in his philosophy, and wrote an account of his trav- els, in which he says he was his companion, and recorded his opinions, his discourses, and predic- tions. A certain friend of Damis brought these “memoranda, not hitherto publicly known, to the knowledge of the Empress Julia; and, | at that time being entertained at her court (for she was studious of the art of rhetoric), she gave me her commands to transcribe those narratives, and reduce them to a proper shape. For the Ninevite had written them with intelligence, but not with skill. I likewise fell in with the book of a certain Maximus of Augis, con- taining an account of Apollonius’s doings in that city. Apollonius also wrote his will, from which one may learn how devoted he was to philosophy. As to the work of Mceragenes, who wrote four books on Apol- lonius, no stress is to be laid upon it, as he was ignorant of many events in the life of his hero. Thus have I explained how I collected these scat- tered documents, and how I came to dispose them as I have done.” Such is the candid account, which Phuilostrates himself gives of his historical authorities. Is it too bold a conjecture, that, while he could not refuse to gratify a romantic female sovereign, with whose patronage and friendship he was honored, by making up for her a tale of wonders on which her heart was bent, from sketches of which she un- derstood herself to be the sole possessor, he yet HIEROCLES. 75 intended to save his credit with cooler and more impartial readers in after times, by frankly inform- ing them that he did not put forth the tale on his own veracity? He had a will of Apollonius in his hands, he says in the passage which I have quoted. And how did that serve him in his work ? Merely, as appears from his own statement, to show how devoted Apollonius was to philosophy. He had also, he says, fallen in with a book containing an account of the doings of Apollonius at Agis; but this, whatever were its contents or authority, does not appear to have furnished any contribution to his list of wonders. ‘There had been a previous life of Apollonius, by one Moeragenes; and this, it seems, of some pretension, for it was written in four books. But of this, says Philostratus, “no account is to be made.” Why? Because it had too fabulous an air, and was therefore to be regarded with suspi- cion? Not at all, but for a different reason. Because, says Philostratus, “« Mceragenes was unac- quainted with many things concerning Apollonius.” That is,—to put the fair construction upon the words, — Moeragenes lent no authority to such a work as Philostratus was expected to compose. He had written the life of Apollénius, the philoso- pher; not of Apollonius, the wonder-worker or the wonder-seer. The remaining authority was the collection of the notes of Damis, which Philostratus had been desired to copy out and digest. And who was Damis? It does not appear that any thing was 76 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. known of him, except on the statement of a person, who himself does not appear to have been known so much as by name to Philostratus, —a certain friend or relation of Damis, who brought these doc- uments not yet known, and presented them to the Empress Julia. The true account of the matter, could we get at the particulars, would probably prove to be, that some relative or pretended relative of a person who either had or had not been an attendant on Apollo- nius, being acquainted with the dilettanti tastes of the Empress, and knowing that nothing is lost by making presents to sovereigns of what gratifies their fancy or their vanity, composed these (so styled) notes of Damis for the purpose. If the Empress did not suspect, or profess herself to suspect, the fraud, it was not for the courtier Philostratus to do either. It was but for him to take the materials, and execute the work expected of him. Am I making a supposition im the least degree violent? Am I making any but what is the most natural? I submit it to any reasonable mind, whether this is not the construction, which, with the facts before it, independently of all regard to bearings on Christianity or on any thing else, a reasonable mind feels itself impelled to put on the transaction. For our present purpose it would suf- fice to stop far short of this, and simply to say, that in such a case no credit can be given to a history professedly composed more than a century after the events which it records, on no better authority than HIEROCLES. vy that of a person, who had said that the documents in his possession were prepared by an eye-witness ; a person too, who is not so much as named; who was not known, as far as appears, to the writer of the history of which his papers became the basis ; and who also, as far as appears, did not subject himself to any hazard or inconvenience in making a false assertion of their authenticity. Though I have made these remarks on the occa- sion and origin of the life of Apollonius by Philos- tratus, depriving it of all credit as a piece of true history, I cannot but think, that whoever will exam- ine it will be inclined to pronounce them superflu- ous. When I first looked into it, I was surprised to find how little its tenor and contents recommended it for the use to which it was put by Hierocles in the Christian controversy. From his argument, and the remarks which I had seen upon it, | had sup- posed that Philostratus had represented his hero as distinguished by a supernatural knowledge and power above the sons of men, and so far, at least, as presenting a parallel to the master of Christians. But the actual case is far different. Apollonius is indeed represented as having done some marvellous things, but not nearly as many as he is said to have witnessed. On the showing of his own biographer, Apollonius was not nearly so much of a wonder- worker, as of a wonder-seer. Here the parallel with Jesus utterly fails. Nay, more ; granting all related of Apollonius to be true, and the one fact would defeat the other in 78 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. respect to any attempt to ascribe to him a peculiar character. What was averred of Jesus by his dis- ciples was, that he did mighty works which none could do, unless God, after a special manner, were with him. What was averred of Apollonius was, that though he did wonders, they were not so many as were done by other men in distant regions where he travelled; and that the aggregate of those done by him and them both, did not equal that of those witnessed by him in one and another place, which were not of a nature to be traced to any human instrumentality. And this fact, | may remark im passing (though the point does not particularly con- cern us), seems to me to settle a question, which has been discussed, whether Philostratus, as well as Hierocles after him, intended to set up Apollonius as arival to Jesus. Philostratus not only has not made the most distant allusion to Jesus from first to last, —which it would have been by no means unnat- ural to do, had he but regarded the cases as being in any degree similar, — but, had his purpose been what has been supposed, I cannot but think that he would have at least omitted very much of what he has recorded ; in short, that he would have composed a materially different book. It must, on the contrary, I think, be regarded as matter of surprise, that a work so little suited to the use to which it has been applied by Hierocles, should have been selected by that writer for the purpose ; and we are led to con- clude that the necessity of some movement of the HIEROCLES. 79 kind must have been strongly felt, when it prompted a resort to so poor an expedient. To this use, however, the work of Philostratus was in fact put by Hierocles, who lived early in the century after him; and, whatever we may think, after these explanations, of his argument, it seems to have been regarded, by the Chris- tian fathers, as the master-stroke of the New Pla- tonists against Christianity. Hierocles, who, from the account of him by Lactantius, a Christian father of the same time, appears to have been a person high in office, urged his plea in a treatise, now lost, in two books, addressed ‘“ To the Christians.” It was soon answered by Eusebius, (in a short piece, though divided, like that of Philostratus, into eight books), which is still extant among the works of that father; and there is also a strain of remark upon it, at some length, in the fifth book of the “Institutes” of Lactantius. From these two sources we obtain ample information concerning the lost treatise of Hierocles. Eusebius confines himself to an exposure of the absurdity of his comparison of Apollonius to Christ. He says, in the introduction to his work, that Hierocles had used other arguments against Chris- tianity, but the consideration of these he expressly waves, they having been, as he says, merely bor- rowed word for word from Celsus, and so refuted long ago by Origen.* In the passage already re- * In Hieroclem. cap. 1. 80 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. ferred to in the “Institutes” of Lactantius, that father enables us to supply this chasm, or rather to judge of the correctness of the general statement made by Eusebius. ‘The writer,” says Lactan- tius, who does not happen to name Hierocles, though he describes him and his work, in a manner fully indicating who is meant, ‘endeavoured to show the sacred Scriptures to be false by reason of the contradictions with which they abound. He par- ticularly produced several texts as inconsistent with each other; and indeed, so many did he enumerate, and so distinctly, that one might suspect he had at some time professed the religion which he now exposed. ..... And he spoke of the disciples as being rude and unlearned men. ” * After what has been already said upon the char- acter of such objections, it would be useless repe- tition, in this stage of our remarks, to add any thing beyond two brief observations to our notice of this writer. The first is, that, from the very nature of the argument from the case of Apollonius, it appears that the reality of the miracles of Jesus as facts was either admitted, or, at least, not dis- puted by Hierocles ; and this, indeed, is urged by Lactantius, where he says, “‘ When the writer would overthrow the miraculous works of Jesus, yet would not deny their reality, he proposed to show that Apollonius had done as great or ereater.”t ‘The * Lactant. Institutiones, Lib. v. cap. 2. (Tom. I. p. 332. edit. Bipont.) t Ibid. cap. 3. (p. 383.) THE EMPEROR JULIAN. $l second remark is, that Hierocles had the same book, of New Testament scripture in his hands as the Christian fathers of his time, and considered them, as they did, of paramount authority in the Church. Says Lactantius, who could not of course have had any such object in making the remark as we have in quoting it, “So many texts did he enumerate, and that with such exactness, that he might seem to have been at some time a believer.” Every individual criticism of his, of this kind, recognised by his Christian opponent as being made upon a text which Christians owned, was another proof, from the most satisfactory source, that the books which we now receive, and no other, were the books then held in universal reverence by dis- ciples. J am to speak of but one more antagonist of Christianity during the period of its early struggles. In the fourth century its worldly condition and prospects, if such an expression be allowable, were changed. It had forced itself into reception with the unpretending mass of the people of the vast Roman empire, carrying a sensible improvement of manners, and elevation of society, in its train. It had entered the schools of philosophy, and occupied with a new strain of grave and attractive eloquence their high places of instruction. It had seated itself in the chambers of imperial council; and at length, in the person of Constantine, it had ascend- ed the throne of the Cesars. But that place was not to be yielded to it without another conflict. Vor. I. 1 82, PAGAN OBJECTIONS. Paganism was still tenacious of its doomed life. Julian, the nephew of Constantine, and his succes- sor in the purple at the third remove, made another resolute attempt to suppress Christianity by his in- fluence and authority, and to refute it by his argu- ments. As a writer against that religion, to say nothing of his imperial rank, his name is to be mentioned along with those of Celsus, Porphyry, and Hierocles, as one of the most conspicuous of the first four centuries. The character of Julian is one of those, occasion- ally occurring in history, concerning which the most irreconcilable opinions are expressed by different parties of such as from their position might be sup- posed competent to form a trustworthy judgment. The Pagan writers of his own and the following times are lavish of commendations of him, as com- bining all qualities suitable for example and com- mand; while the Christians, under a bias perhaps equally natural, saw little in him but what went to characterize a cunning, obstinate, and active de- votee to the falsehoods of the old religion. He is the hero of the modern historian of the “ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” who, though too skilful to provoke incredulity by representing him as fault- less, takes manifest delight in depicting him as well-nigh the model of a just, valiant, wise, and philosophical patriot prince. The bias under which Gibbon viewed his character is as evident as that of the writers hostile to Christianity near the Em- peror’s own time, but not so consistent and reason- THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 83 able as theirs; for the philosophical enemy to all religion should have been as much offended by the bigoted devotion of Julian to the Pagan fables, as by what he esteemed the bigoted devotion of the opponents of Julian to the equally fabulous Chris- tian faith. But the modern skeptic easily over- looked the superstitions of the ancient Pagan votary, in his sympathy with the objects of the sworn foe of the religion of Jesus; and the imagination of the enthusiastic scholar was taken captive by the ostentations of one, who, through his reign of eighteen months, professed to hold the straiming forces of the Roman empire with a never-slackened rem, while his mind and time were chiefly em- ployed with spiritual contemplations, and the ele- gant pursuits of letters and philosophy. A cool survey of the character of Julian rejects the estimate of his partial historian. The Emperor was one of that not small class of men, who possess extraordinary qualities, without possessing them in that well-proportioned combination, in that union with others equally or more important, or under the control of that sound wisdom and those high motives, which are necessary to justify an ascription to them of the rare character of greatness. Might I be permitted to have recourse, for what may seem, at first view, a singular analogy, to our own New- England history, I would hazard the remark, that Julian seems to me a sort of young Cotton Mather inarmour. He had courage and energy, no doubt ; great love of learning, activity of mind, and 84 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. powers of application and acquisition. On the other hand, he was restlessly ambitious ; childishly vain; superstitious to a madness; pedantic and ostentatious, in his own whimsical way, to a folly. What were called his temperance and aversion to luxury, though unquestionably real as habits, would be better described as a parade of those austerities and mortifications, which, witnessed in men whom luxury solicits, never fail of their reward m the flattering amazement of the undiscerning vulgar. He was stained neither with libertinism nor with blood, at a time when for a prince not to be both a murderer and a debauchee was a singularly reputa- ble thing. He even resembled the extraordinary person, to whom I have ventured to compare him, in a certain grotesque and fantastic humor, — not to call it wit, — of which one hesitates whether most to find fault with the temper or the taste. His life was all an exhibition; and if any thing like the speech related by Gibbon, on the authority of Ammuianus, his friend and biographer, to have been addressed by him to his friends and officers, after his mortal wound, was actually pronounced by him, it was put the last fitting scene of a pompous spectacle. Indeed, the historian suggests, without appearing to be himself struck with the peculiarity of the inti- mation as affording a commentary on the charac- ter which he extols, that the elaborate oration, said to have been pronounced by the Emperor on his death-bed, had been previously composed.* * History of the Decline and Fall, &c. chap. 24, note 95. THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 85 With all its brilliancy and force, the submis- sion of a mind like that of Julian to Christianity, would have been an exceedingly equivocal homage to that religion. Considering his own tenden- cles and the circumstances of his early life, it remains no mystery how he was repelled from it. His family had fallen victims to the jealous cruelty of the house of Constantine; and the inexpiable wrongs which he resented, from the first sovereign disciples to Christianity, naturally led him to hate the religion which they so un- worthily professed. ‘The methods, adopted by an unskilful policy to tame his chafed spirit, did but exasperate, if not strengthen it, the more. He was placed, under a watch of vexatious and mortifying strictness, in the hands of Christian teachers, to be reared as an ecclesiastic; and at twenty years of age he was in orders as a reader in the church of Nicomedia. His studies, pursued with a well- feigned zeal, had at once nourished his antipathy to the faith, which, as he believed, was designed to be used to fetter and degrade and spoil him of his birthright, and given him preparation for such championship against it as mere ignorance of it could never execute. Meanwhile the Pagan so- phists saw their advantage. ‘They watched the dis- content of the youth who might one day sway the destinies of Rome and of the world, and by well- devised addresses to his master-passions, especially by applications to that vanity through which he was so singularly susceptible of influence, they suc- 86 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. ceeded in making him their own. At twenty years of age, Julian was already a fanatical devotee to the Pagan faith; though for ten years longer, and till he was above the fear of consequences, he con- cealed his apostasy, from all but a few favored friends, with a severe dissimulation. Thus long, to use the language of Gibbon, “as soon as he had sat- isfied the obligation of assisting, on solemn festivals, at the assemblies of the Christians, Julian returned, with the impatience of a lover, to burn his free and voluntary incense on the domestic chapels of Jupi- ter and Mercury.”* The kind of flattery with which he had been plied into this state of exalta- tion, and the nature of the exercises of his own erratic mind, prepared for them by his courses of fasts and vigils, may be inferred from the account of his friend, the orator Libanius. “Julian,” says he, “lived in a perpetual intercourse with the gods and goddesses ; they descended upon earth to en- joy the conversation of their favorite hero; they gently interrupted his slumbers by touching his hand or his hair; they warned him of every im- pending danger, and conducted him, by their in- fallible wisdom, in every action of his life; and he had acquired such an intimate knowledge of his heavenly guests, as readily to distinguish the voice of Jupiter from that of Minerva, and the form of Apollo from the figure of Hercules.” + * Mistory of the Decline and Fall, &c. chap. 28. (juxta not, 29.) t Ibid. (juxta not. 26.) THE EMPEROR. JULIAN. 87 It was, of course, a darling object with Julian to restore the ascendency of the lately discredited polytheism of the Roman state. His eulogists extol the moderation of his exercise of the imperial authority to that end. It is not at all necessary to our purpose to question that this clemency, to the degree that it can be made out, was a dictate of the better part of the Emperor’s nature; though it is plain, that mere considerations of policy would have prompted to the same course; for, — not to say that the violent forms of persecution had been fully tried by his predecessors, and that not only without avail, but to the manifest advantage of what they had aimed to oppress, —it was out of the question to attempt a repetition of such cruelties, when Christianity had lately been, and, but for accident in the imperial succession, would now be, in a condition to proscribe the temples; and when the camps, the cities, the senate, and the schools were filled with Christian professors. On the other hand, it could have been no very honest, — at any rate, no very enlarged or consistent, — purpose of toleration, which, while it professed to exempt Christians from any forfeiture, by reason of their profession, of life, limb, or estate, excluded them from civil and military trusts, laid them and their youth under social disabilities (as by excluding them from instruction in the schools of literature and philosophy), and did not scruple to avail itself of opportunities to injure the religion by fixing on plausible pretexts of some other offence in its pro- 88 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. fessors. ‘The sort of address, if so it is to be called, with which this was done, well illustrates the sin- eular character we are considering. ¢T think it absurd,” says Julian in one of his decrees, ‘(for such as explain the works of Homer, Hesiod, De- mosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates, and Lysias, to contemn the gods whom they honored. Still, though I think it to be absurd, | do not com- mand that they should change their sentiments for the sake of their pupils. But I give them their choice ; either not to teach what they do not think correct; or, if they will teach, that they first teach and satisfy their pupils, that neither Homer, nor He- siod, nor any one of those whom they have hitherto condemned for impiety, ignorance, and error con- cerning the gods, is what they have represented. ..... If they think that those writers are in error as to the holy gods, then let them go rather to the churches of the Galileans, and there explain Mat- thew and Luke, whose disciples you are, and ac- cordingly influence others to abstain from the sacred rites. I-wish, as you would say, that your ears and your tongue may be regenerated, as to those things which I wish that I, and all that love me, may always take part in.”* The following is In a strain still more characteristic of the dexterous and facetious prince. “The members of the Arian church,” he says, “being pampered with riches, have assailed the followers of Valentinus, and have ventured on such things at Edessa, as should not * Julian. Imperat. Epist. ad Jamblich. (Opp. Edit. Paris. pp. 303 — 307.) THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 89 take place in a well-regulated city. Therefore, since they are so commanded by their most admi- rable law, that they may the more easily arrive at the kingdom of heaven, we, to help them in this endeavour, have ordered all the money of the church of Edessa to be taken away, and given to the soldiers, and that its estates be annexed to our domain; that, being poor, they may become dis- creet, and may not be deprived of the kingdom of heaven, which they aim at.”* The insult here perhaps gave as much satisfaction to the writer, as the injury. It is not unlikely that to the witty, but not avaricious, Emperor, the irony may have even recommended the confiscation. Whether, however, the treatment which Chris- tianity received from Julian as a magistrate was more or less harsh, he did not confine to this his endeavours for its suppression. ‘ He employed him- self,” says Libanius, “during the long nights of the winter season, [before his fatal expedition for the conquest of Persia, that is, of the winter of 362 — 3,] upon an argument against those books which rep- resent the man of Palestine as God, and the son of God.” + It was written in Greek, the language which Julian, from his Asiatic education, commonly used, and, —as all the numerous references to the work, by friends and foes, agree, (for it has perish- “Julian. Imp, Epistola ad Hecebolum. (pp. 307, 308.) + As cited by Socrates. Hist. Eccles. Lib. iii, cap. 23. (p. 200. Edit. Cantab.) Vou. II, 12 90 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. ed,) — was of considerable elaboration and extent, consisting of seven books, as Jerome says, * or of three, according to Cyril, t those fathers having re- gard respectively, as would appear, to two different methods of dividing its contents. Cyril, who, in his confutation of it in a treatise in ten books written about seventy years later, quotes from it largely, complains of its great want of method, and the frequency of its repetitions. From the form which Cyril has adopted in his reply, it is reasona- ble to suppose that he has given us the substance of Julian’s argument. The reply is m a dialogue, in which Cyril represents Julian as successively stating his objections, though occasionally Cyril says that he states them for him in an abridged form; and after the statement of each follow the comments which the father makes upon it. We naturally turn to it with a peculiar kind of interest. A royal author, if any author, feels him- self above criticism, and will say with freedom whatever he can persuade himself may be said with any degree of justice. A royal controvertist will not consent to be worsted for want of any materi- als, which pains or money can command, to sustain his reasonings. It is supposable, that there might be facts, bearing on the discussion, scarcely within the reach of any means possessed by a private scholar like Porphyry or Celsus, which yet would not escape * Hieron. Epist. 84. (Opp. Tom. I. p. 928.) { Cyril. contra Julian. Imp. Lib. i. (p. 3. Edit. Aubert.) THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 91 the inquiries of one who could apply the resources of the Roman empire to collect the topics for his in- genuity to use. The danger would rather be, that, the Emperor’s purpose to signalize himself as a disputant once known, there would be those who would not hesitate to have recourse to fraud, in order to contribute to the triumphs of his logic. At all events, whatever Julian, in his position, could not find to say by way of discrediting the authority of Christianity, it is fair to presume was not to be found. What he has said to that effect, with his temper, his freedom, his Christian and philo- sophical education, and his means of knowledge of all that could advance his purpose, it is fair to pre- sume was all that was to be said. But, in point of fact, it is clear that the work of Julian owed all the consideration which it enjoyed to the station of its writer. The master of so many legions could not reason feebly. There was force in the conclusions, if there was none in the process. The accounts we have of his treatise show it to have added nothing to the arguments of Celsus and Porphyry, beyond some further illustrations under the same heads, which prevented him from appear- ing as a mere copyist, and which his youthful initia- tion in Christianity prepared him to supply. He abounded, even more than they, in injurious appeals against the faith to popular prejudice, a method of assault for which his sarcastic vein gave him a pe- culiar aptness, and which would be the more effi- cient and wounding, as being dealt from such an 92 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. exalted quarter. He affected to designate the Christians by the contemptuous title of Galileans, and is even said by some of the ecclesiastical writers to have’ issued an edict that they should be so called. * Sometimes his reproaches are serious and vehement, as where he says, “This sect of Galileans ..... esteem nothing to be good and valuable, that is taught by us Greeks, or by the He- brews, disciples of Moses ; but, collecting whatever is bad in both, they have taken atheism from the Jewish absurdity, and a wicked dissolute life from our carelessness and indifference. And this they call a most excellent religion.”t And again; “You miserable people refuse to worship the shield that the great Jupiter, or father Mars sent down, ..... and you worship the wood of the cross, and make signs of it upon your foreheads, and fix it upon your doors. Shall we for this hate the more intelligent, or pity the more simple and ignorant of your sect, who, following you, ..-.-- leave the immortal gods, and betake themselves to a dead Jew?’ T Sometimes, more true to his temperament, his vein is bantering and jocose. Thus, commenting on the words of Paul, “Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, in the name of Jesus Christ,” he says, ss Yousee ....> they had been sanctified, having _ *Gregorii Nazianz. Oratio Tertia. § 73. (Opp. Tom. I. p. 81. Edit. Paris.) t Cyril. contra Julian, Lib. ii. (p. 48.) t Ibid. Lib. vi. (p. 194.) THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 93 been scoured and cleaned with water, which pen- etrates even to the soul. Yes, baptism, which cannot cure ..... the gout, nor the dysentery, iis 2 takes away adulteries, extortions, and all other sins of the soul.””* [tis on the occasion of a similar taunt in a still extant work of Julian, that the im- patient Bentley exclaims, ‘He, Julian, to laugh at expiation by baptism, whose whole life after his apostasy, was a continued course of washings, purga- tions, expiations, with the most absurd ceremonies ; addicted to the whole train of superstitions, omens, presages, prodigies, spectres, dreams, visions, augu- ries, oracles, magic, theurgic, psychomantic ; whose whole court in a manner consisted of haruspices, and sacrificuli, and philosophers as silly as they; ..... who, if he had returned victor out of Persia (as his very friends jested on him,) would have ex- tinguished the whole species of bulls and cows by the number of his sacrifices !”’ + Yet sometimes the hasty Emperor could so far forget himself as. to contradict all this calumnious levity, and do better justice to the good men whom he had thus ventured to revile. ‘Why do we not attend,” he says, in a letter to the high-priest of Galatia, ‘“‘to what has been the chief cause of the spread of impiety, humanity to strangers, care in burying the dead, and that holiness of life, which they so ostentatiously display ; all which things I * Cyril. contra Julian. Lib. vii. (p. 245.) t Phileleutherus Lipsiensis. § 43. (p. 24.) 94, PAGAN OBJECTIONS. desire to have our people observe. It is a shame for the impious Galileans to relieve not only their own people, but ours also, and that our poor should be neglected by us, and be left helpless and desitite.<) 5 It is this greater abundance of his raillery against Christians and their faith, which chiefly distin- guishes the work of Julian from the earlier works with the same design. In the accounts of it, and extracts from it, which remain, is found no topic of argument whatever, new to those who are acquainted with the treatises of Celsus and Porphyry; and none, I think, is urged with greater force than by those wri- ters, except that, as has been remarked, the amount of criticism of the contents of both the Old and the New Testament is greater. It contains a variety of remark relating to the Jewish religion rather than the Christian, though designed to wound the latter through the sides of the former.t It urges that the God of the Jews, and thus of the Christians, was, according to the authorized representations of his character, only a local and national deity ; Tf though elsewhere, with singular inconsistency, it insists, that the Jewish divinity and the Christian were differently represented, the one as subsisting im one person, the other as in three.§ It repeats the question, why, if such a revelation as that of Chris- * In a letter to Arsacius, high-priest of Galatia, preserved by Sozomen. Hist. Eccles. Lib. v. cap. 16. (p. 204. Edit. Cantab.) } Cyril. contra Julian. Lib. v, (pp. 152, 168,176.) Lib. vii. (pp. 218, 224.) } Ibid. Lib. iii. pp. 100, 106. § Ibid. Lib. ix. (p. 291.) THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 95 tianity was ever to be made, it should have been delayed so long.* It professes to expose the impropriety of the application of various Jewish prophecies to the Messiah and his faith.+ And, finally, it undertakes to point out incongruities and discrepancies of statement in single passages of the New Testament. t Compared with the treatment of the same topics by the other writers of the same class whom we have already particularly examined, there is no novelty in any of these forms of argument, as urged by Julian, requiring any thing to be added to the remarks to which they have already led. On the other hand, Julian, like his predecessors in the same walk,—though to less purpose, on account of his later age,—has fulfilled an office the furthest possible from his intentions, in bringing a contribu- tion to our evidence of the universal reception by Christians, in his day, and for an indefinite time before it, of the Gospel history and its records, as Wwe now possess them. Every reference of his, with whatever unfriendly intent, to events con- nected with the first publication of our religion, and to the contents of its sacred books, is a new assur- ance to us of that unanimity of assent to them, by Christians in his time and before, which carries us * Cyril. contra Julian. Lib. iii. (p. 106.) t Ibid. Lib. viii. p. 253. Hieron. in Hoseam, xi. 1 (Tom. III. p. 78.) ¢ Hieron, in Mat. i. 16, (Tom. III. p. 186.) ix. 9. (p. 616.) Cyril. contra Julian. Lib. vi. (p. 213.) 96 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. back to the reality of those events, and the authen- ticity of those writings, for a reasonable explanation of its cause. Julian also expressly specifies the wri- tings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, and this in the peculiar manner of giving a general state- ment of his view of a portion of their contents, * thus showing the acquaintance with them, which he had been at pains to acquire, as with the au- thentic record of the belief of Christians, and dis- tinctly waving any dispute respecting that all-im- portant topic of the controversy. If some things, already said, will be repeated, others, which I have passed over, will be supplied in the words of the concise summary given by the excellent Lardner, of his observations on various parts of the works of Julian. “Julian has borne,” says that writer, ‘a valuable testimony to the his- tory, and to the books, of the New Testament. He allows that Jesus was born in the reign of Augustus, at the time of the taxing made in Judea by Cyre- nius; that the Christian religion had its rise, and began to be propagated, in the times of the emperors Tiberius and Claudius. He bears witness to the genuineness and authenticity of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the Acts of the Apostles ; and he so quotes them as to intimate that they were the only historical books received by Christians as of authority, and the only authentic memoirs of Jesus Christ and his apostles, and of the t Cyri!. contra Julian. Lib. x. (p. 327.) THE EMPEROR JULIAN. 97 doctrine preached by them. He allows their early date, and even argues for it. He also quotes, or plainly refers to, the Acts of the Apostles, and to St. Paul’s Epistles to the Romans, the Corinthians, and the Galatians. He does not deny the miracles of Jesus Christ, but speaks of him as having healed the blind, the lame, and demoniacs, as having rebuked the wind, and walked upon the waves of the sea. He endeavours indeed to diminish these works, but LIN Valiy MP aeahe She So that, upon the whole, he has unde- signedly borne witness to the truth of many things _recorded in the books of the New Testament. He aimed to overthrow the Christian religion, but has confirmed it. His arguments against it are perfectly harmless, and insufficient to unsettle the weakest Christian. He justly excepts to some things intro- duced into the Christian profession by the late pro- fessors of it in his own time, or sooner. But he has not made one objection of moment against the Christian religion, as contained in the genuine and authentic books of the New Testament. ”’* Having thus, in this and the four preceding Lectures, attempted an account of the controversy respecting the divine origin of Christianity, during the first four centuries, while it was forcing its way to the place of the religion of the civilized world, I am in my next Lecture to introduce a survey of the modern controversy on the subject, beginning soon * Testimonies of Ancient Heathens. Chap. 46. § 4. (Vol. LV. pp. 841, 342.) Vo. II, 13 98 PAGAN OBJECTIONS. after the time when the Protestant Reformation both gave a degree of license to such discussions, and turned the minds of men to a re-examination of the grounds of their faith. And the first writings on the subject, which I shall have occasion particu- larly to notice, will be those of the earliest and most respectable of the English Deists, Lord Her- bert of Cherbury. LECTURE "XPV. RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY IN MODERN TIMES. In preceding Lectures I have attempted an ac- count of the course of the controversy respecting the divine origin of the religion of Jesus, down to the time of its secure establishment, in the fourth century, as the religion of the Roman empire, that is, of the civilized world. One or two remarks, by way of retrospect of the ground already passed over, may well be made before we proceed to other stages of the discussion. In the first place, we have seen, that points which have been diligently contested by modern unbe- lievers, as being, what in truth they are, intimately connected with the Christian argument, are not disputed by the unbelievers of ancient times, but on the contrary are fully allowed and argued upon, as if notorious and not admitting of question. The ancient infidels have dealt largely in attempts to foreclose any disposition to inquire into the claims of the religion, by slanders exposing it and its 100 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY professors to extreme prejudice and odium. ‘They have objected to doctrines of Christianity, and otherwise criticized the contents of its authoritative books. ‘They have raised philosophical questions concerning it, as the questions of the fitness of its being revealed in a late age, and, in the first in- stance, toa single people. They have complained of applications, made by its advocates, of prophecies of Old Testament scripture to facts and doctrines of the New. ‘They have pretended such things as that Christianity did but re-publish old truths, and therefore was unnecessary; and that the humble and afflicted circumstances of the life and death of its author were unbecoming the dignity of the office which he claimed. These and other like methods of assault, heretofore specified, they have indus- triously used. But when they have been brought to the question of those miraculous works, to which Jesus appealed, as establishing his mission from the only Omnipotent, the Ruler of the Universe, they never met them with any thing like a distinct and circumstantial denial of their reality; but, from the urgency of the argument which those miracles supplied, they were fain to take refuge, first, in an hypothesis long ago exploded, and having of course now no place in the controversy, — that of their having been wrought by demoniacal or magical arts; and, secondly, in the assertion (attempted by the New Platonists to be sustained in the utterly ineffectual way remarked upon in my last Lecture), that similar works to those of Jesus had been per- IN MODERN TIMES. 101 formed by others, — particularly by another, — to whom however the character of a divine messenger had not been ascribed. Further, and what I would still more insist upon, those writers do not undertake to contradict, but, on the contrary, are, in numerous specifications, our express witnesses to, certain facts so important in the Christian argument, that modern unbelievers, in the mere desperation (must it not be said? ) of their cause, and in mere defiance of history, have ventured to deny them; namely, the facts, first, of Christianity having been first preached by Jesus in Judea at the cost of his life, in the reign of Tiberius Caesar; and, secondly, of the authenticity of the records of his life as being the work of eye and ear witnesses of his deeds and discourses, and companions of such eye and ear witnesses, — per- sons therefore competent, from their position and circumstances, to know the truth of what they un- dertook to relate. These, which I have last specified, every one at all considerate of their bearings perceives to be most pregnant facts. It is easy, in some later time, to make up a story of pretended transactions of old date. But when we are sure that a narrative in our hands is the work of persons, who lived at the period, and in circumstances, to see and hear what they pretend to have seen and heard, provided it was real, then all that remains to be considered is the question of their honesty; and, if that can be made out, the evidence for the truth of what 102 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY they have related is complete. Now the principal early antagonists of our religion have scarcely been surpassed in acuteness by any of their modern suc- cessors. ‘They knew perfectly well where to look for weak points in its proof, of which advantage could be taken to the best effect ; and, if they could have found such an exposed point where they would have first looked for it, thither they would not have failed to direct their efforts. That would have been no unsatisfactory skirmish about the out- posts, but a vigorous onset upon the citadel. Why did not Celsus, like Volney, affirm that Christianity was an allegory, and Jesus a personifi- cation of the Sun? Why did not Porphyry, like Bolingbroke, question whether Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, wrote the books which go by their names? Was it because they overlooked the im- portance of such assertions, if they could be main- tained? Who, for an instant, can entertain such an imagination? No; but because they lived near to the time, and knew better; and they knew that others knew better too, and that it would be worse than labor lost to attempt to discredit such noto- rious facts. And, whatever other ground unbelief may now assume, is it not the very infatuation of skepticism to undertake at this day to dispute (con- cerning the authenticity of the Gospel records, for instance), what the enemies of the faith, living close to the time in question, did not dispute, while they could not but have seen the decisive importance of disputing it, provided they could have done so with IN MODERN TIMES. 103 any prospect of success, —that is, provided they had not been fully assured of its truth ? And, to generalize this view a little, — though to carry it out, as one is tempted to do, would lead to quite too wide a range of remark, and my hearers will easily make new applications of the hint for themselves, — why is it that we no where find the ancient unbelievers fixing upon some one anti- Christian theory as the cause of that marvellous effect, the rise and spread of Christianity, and urging that consistently and vigorously as the true explanation of the phenomenon’ ‘This, with a fair share of facts on their side, — facts attainable, if ever attainable, at the time when they lived, — would have been a far more effective way of con- ducting the argument than any one they have ac- tually used. I] have asked, why they did not dispute the gen- uineness of the record, as being from the sources alleged, if that could with any pretence be done. To do this would have been to fasten a firm hold on the main question. Could the denial have been sustained, the main question would have been laid to rest. Could the denial have been plausibly urged, the main question would have been seriously embarrassed. But I ask again, If it was necessary to admit the authenticity of the books, why was not the historical truth of their contents, — of their narratives concerning Jesus, — distinctly and cir- cumstantially assailed? Something undoubtedly was true relating to the matter. If the books were 104 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY really written by companions of Jesus, then one of two consequences followed. Either their contents were true, and then, as Christians maintained, Jesus had been accredited as a divine messenger ; or else their contents were not true, and this must have been either because the writers were impos- tors, intending a fraud, or mistaken, and themselves the subjects of one. Certainly .proof, either estab- lishing, or creating a reasonable presumption of, either the one or the other of these facts, — had either been a fact,— must have been within the reach of those who lived at the time, and soon after; and a sufficient exigency existed to cause it to be produced. It was, however, not produced. Whatever else we may find in the unbelieving writers near the time, we look in vain for any thing like a con- sistent theory of dissent; any thing like an ex- planation, upon natural grounds, of facts, which, unless they could be explamed on such grounds, were of a description to enforce the reception of Christianity as a supernatural communication. What we do find, on the part of opponents, is just what we might expect in the absence of all just ground of suspicion. One vaguely suspects one thing; another, another. Here is a criticism of the doctrine; there a reproach on its professors. Christianity had had some origin; it had had some history. If the pretended one was false, the true one could be told. Is such a counter story told, or attempted to be told, in those ancient works, to which it would belong? If so, where? If not, IN MODERN TIMES. 105 why not’ ‘The Christian has his answer to this question. ‘The Christian history was not to be gainsaid. Is there any other account to be given of its not having been circumstantially gainsaid near the time? If there is, let unbelief present it. [ cannot pass from this part of the subject with- out another observation. One finds, in the books of Christian evidences, much and not too great stress laid on the rapid propagation of Christianity, and the great numbers, who, in near and distant countries, attested the power, with which, by the lips of its first preachers, it addressed its evidences to their senses and understandings, and its appeals to their hearts. But I know not whether I am so much impressed with the fact, however imposing, of its having so soon converted the masses of the Roman world, as with that of its having so soon converted and pervaded the intellect and cultiva- tion of the Roman world; an impression, I may add, which I have received with entirely new force, while engaged in a course of reading with refer- ence to the present discussion. Nothing can be finer, for all qualities in which they can pretend to merit, than the works of Pagan writers, — philoso- phers, orators, poets, —in the age preceding Jesus, and in his own. ‘They leave nothing to be desired, except the pervading spirit of a credible and effective religion, and of a pure and high morality. But the objects which they regard and exalt are worldly ; even the intellectual appetites which they feed be- long to a secondary class ; and on the highest sub- VoL. II. 14 106 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY jects of contemplation there rests an oppressive doubt and darkness. A century or two passes, and we take up an entirely new set of books, the like of which the world had never before seen. ‘The pomp and polish of the Greek and Roman rhetoric are now found employed on no longer hesitating or distracted discussion of the highest themes of hu- man thought; but uttering the most lofty senti- ments of faith, devotion, fortitude, expansive and comprehensive love. Men, it is clear, —at least, some men, — have reached a loftier eminence of sentiment, speculation, and will. They have differ- ent thoughts of themselves and of their doom. All the superficial graces of their fathers’ days are still around them, but there is a new inspiration to their understandings, and a holier impulse in their hearts. Human nature is something graver, nobler, manlier, more august. It has worthier cares than before ; a more steadfast and indomitable purpose; a ereater extent of view; more stimulating objects of ambition. | And what had so speedily produced so remarka- ble a change in the civilization of a period, in some respects, the most civilized of all time? This had produced it. Between the two epochs to which I have referred, there had been born, in an obscure condition, a native of one of the most obscure provinces subjected to the Roman sway. Far away from the forums and the schools of Rome, where the predecessors of those who were present- ly to count it their highest pride to spread the IN MODERN TIMES. 107 triumphs of his name, were thinking of nothing so little, as of what he or any other Galilean might be doing, he had for a short time preached his doc- trine, and done his works, and instructed a few poor men to whom he designed to bequeath his charge, and then resigned himself to a felon’s death. Never, humanly speaking, was a cause more hopeless; yet never was known so magnificent a triumph. The twelve fishermen went about their work, and they did it after such a sort, as to make the contemptu- ous at first, and then reluctant and persecuting, world attend and listen. ‘They made their meek, but resolute and earnest, words go forth unto all the earth, their sound unto the end of the world. Strangest of all to say, they won over its genius, wisdom, accomplishments, and taste, while they emptied its temples, and alarmed its thrones; so that, in less than one hundred years after the death of Zebedee the boatman’s younger son, the ardent Tertullian, tramed in all the learning of his time, and eminent, indeed, among his Christian associates, but not unrivalled, was contributing the stores of his rich erudition to illustrate the superior worth of the wisdom which makes wise to salvation; and Minucius Felix, the distinguished advocate at the imperial tribunals, was pleading its claims in the forcible and polished periods of an eloquence so Ciceronian, as Cicero’s self would have scarcely desired to disown. Of such profound interest is this view, as to make it no less than an era in the life of the Christian scholar, when he first becomes 108 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY acquainted with the best specimens of this class of authors. Christianity, through the severe examination and conflict of three hundred years, has risen, from its feeble origin, to be the controlling element of hu- man society. We dismiss here the consideration of its early struggles with unbelief, for they are now at an end. Infidelity has urged whatever it had to urge, and now the hardly contested victory is won. No other of those movements, of which we have undertaken a survey, took place for more than a thousand years. Christianity, like other blessings, once bestowed by Providence, was committed for custody and use to human discretion and faithful- ness, which, in this instance, as in so many others, proved not sufficiently true to their trust. ‘The union of spiritual with temporal power, adverse in so many respects to the interests of our religion, suppressed any demonstrations of unbelief, if such demonstrations would otherwise have been made. But this circumstance cannot be supposed to de- prive modern inquirers of any means of arriving at the truth upon the subject, inasmuch as, in respect to adverse facts, four centuries had afforded ample opportunity to produce all which could be found of that description, and what these could not find could scarcely be open to the discovery of any later pe- riod; and, in respect to mere philosophical objec- tions, the speculations of modern times may be sup- posed competent to present all likely to be brought eut in any discussions, however free they might IN MODERN TIMES. 109 have been, of the Middle Ages. The circumstances of the case do not permit us to look for formal demonstrations of unbelief, in modern times, to any period anterior to that of the Protestant Reforma- tion; and, in fact, we find no set argument of this description till nearly a hundred years since the date of that movement, when Edward, Baron Herbert of Cherbury and of Castle Kerry in Ireland, pub- lished in 1624, the last year of James the First, his treatise ‘“* De Veritate,”? On Truth. Before that time, skepticism had either taken counsel of its fears, and been silent, or, if it had appeared, in any way to force itself upon attention, had been immediately quieted by violence. Says Hallam, in his “ Introduction,” “The extreme su- perstition of the popular creed, the conversation of Jews and Mahometans, the unbounded admiration of Pagan genius and virtue, the natural tendency of many minds to doubt, and to perceive difficulties, which the schoolmen were apt to find everywhere, and nowhere to solve, joined to the irreligious spirit of the Aristotelian philosophy, especially as modified by Averroes, could not but engender a se- cret tendency towards infidelity, the course of which may be traced with ease in the writings of those ages. Thus the tale of ‘The Three Rings’ in Boccacio, whether original or not, may be reckoned among the sports of a skeptical philosophy.” * And he goes on to give a list, from another author, of the writers of “Hallam’s Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Cente Vol, 1. pp. 189, 190. 110 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY some defences of Christianity in the same century, which, obscure as they are and apparently were, would not have been produced, had not some exist- ing state of opinion been thought to call for them. Early in the following century, the school of Padua incurred the suspicion of infidelity; and a work on the immortality of the soul by Pompona- tius, its most distinguished professor, who however constantly denied any design to impeach the author- ity of revelation, was publicly burned at Venice.* The same, according to Bayle, in his Dictionary, was, in the year 1574, the fate not of the book but of the author, in the case of one Vallée, who had proclaimed his unbelief in a small pamphlet; about which time also, says the same writer in his article upon Father Viret, the successor of Calvin at Geneva, that reformer spoke of being acquainted with some persons, who called themselves by the peculiar name of Detsts, professing to believe in a God, but denying that he had made a revelation through Jesus Christ. Of Montaigne I am hereaf- ter briefly to speak, and of the sense and restrictions under which he is properly named in this connexion. His imitator and copyist, Charron, had also a certain equivocal standing in the infidel ranks. Vanini, an Italian, in a treatise published at Paris, in 1616, avowed his disbelief in all religion, a boldness which he expiated at the stake. { | The first formal expositions of infidel argument * Hallam’s Introduction, &c. Vol. I. p. 435. +t Ibid. Vol. ILI. p. 338. t mh TRO IN MODERN TIMES. 111 in modern times were, as has been remarked, those of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. But, before pro- ceeding to speak of the contents of his works, we shall do well to pause again, to attend to two gen- eral considerations having reference to the whole modern controversy. In the first place, I observe, that the Christian argument cannot, with any rea- sonable mind, be allowed to labor under any pre- jJudice, arising from the fact, that, after having been so long laid at rest, it has been revived, since the Protestant Reformation, and at intervals ever since has been brought before the public notice. What else could have been expected? How could it have been otherwise, on the supposition that all the claims of our religion were perfectly well-founded ? At the period of the Reformation, the mind of Christendom, awaking from the torpor of a long unquestioning submission to authority, had to ask itself, what was the evidence of all that it had received as truth. Its doubts, as far as doubts came to be entertained, respecting the divine origin of the religion of Jesus, were not tokens of a defi- ciency in the evidence of that fact, but only tokens of its ignorance of the evidence which existed. For ages it had indolently acquiesced in some opin- ions, Which now, under other influences, it had come to abandon or to distrust. How natural, how reasonable, how right, that it should proceed to re-examine the foundations of all the opinions which it had most reverently cherished. The reformer, while he rejected Romanism, 112 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY reasonably asked (if he was a reasonable man), whether he ought not, at the same time, to reject Christianity, with which Romanism had been hith- erto identified. 'The Romanist, while he reviewed the grounds of his own disputed faith, was invited to review those of that religion of Jesus, which his own profession was asserted to represent. ‘The decisions of antiquity, if they were considered, or if they were asserted, to be of uncertain authority in part, were again to be gone into, as a whole. The claims of a religion which assumed to control all the affairs, to mould the whole character, to present the highest objects to the hopes and the fears, of man, were not such as could summarily be disposed of. ‘That they had been admitted, was no good reason, under the altered circumstances, why they should be admitted still. ‘The question which they presented had always been weighty ; the new style of thinking which had come to prevail had given it a new extent and complica- tion. It was necessary now, in order to an intelli- gent and sincere conviction, that the traditional opinion should be surveyed anew in the lights of a reformed philosophy. Was it recommended or sustamed by, or could it be reconciled with, the principles of judgment approved by the re-awak- ened spirit of the age? These were questions, by no means, it is true, answered in the negative as soon as they were asked, but yet questions entitled to, and demand- ing, a reasonable reply. Considering how new, at IN MODERN TIMES. 118 the period of which we speak, to the mass of think- ing men, was the question upon what solid grounds of evidence the divine origin of our religion could be shown to rest, and in what new relations, from the introduction of a different style of thinking, all questions required to be viewed, it is no matter of regret, certainly no matter of wonder, that a dis- position was manifested to look at it on all sides, and see whether it would bear a suspicious scrutiny. More than three hundred years passed, from the era of its first promulgation, before it satisfied and silenced its opponents. It is only two thirds of that period, since its claims have been a second time brought into question, under circumstances requir- ing the whole subject to be reviewed, with careful regard to its new and wide relations. Its claims ought not, under these circumstances, to be in the slightest degree prejudiced in our minds, by the knowledge that questions have been asked, and continue to be asked, concerning it. Those ques- tions ought to be asked, and to be answered. When they are asked, an occasion arises for their being answered. Many of them have been asked, and by the answer which has been given to them have been set at rest. As fast as others are in like manner disposed of, the controversy will be narrowed, till at length, as the process goes on, it may come to be dismissed. We are still in the midst of that process, which no one can reasonably wonder has occupied so much time. Much, that has been objected, has been so discussed that it is Vous it: 15 114 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY no longer repeated ; or, at any rate, not so repeated as to excite attention or unsettle belief. If more remains to be done in the same way, still continually the range of infidel argument is reduced. And at all events, the fact, that, within the short time that this argument has had the opportunity of a hearing, it has not been entirely silenced, is nothing to war- rant any confidence in its soundness, or in the ex- tent of its resources. Whoever thinks, that, in the progress of the modern controversy, unbelief has as yet established any thing, may naturally pre- dict for it future triumphs. Whoever conceives, that, as often as it has specifically put forth its objections, it has been worsted, will be of opin- ion that it is destined to an ultimate total discom- fiture. And whoever does not perceive that it has made progress, since discussion became, as it is at present, entirely free, will not be disposed to re- gard the mere fact of its not having yet relinquish- ed the contest, as any presumption against the security of what it assails. The other remark which I have sie not out of place at this period of the discussion, when we are approaching a notice of some writers of great literary celebrity, is, that we cannot reasonably en- tertain any distrust whatever of the sufficiency of the evidences of Christianity, merely because of their having been rejected as insufficient by a num- ber of eminent men. Genius ,so commands our admiration, that we are very apt to trust it for what it has no particular capacity to do; and it is IN MODERN TIMES. 115 a wrong, which we commonly practise on our own understandings, to allow their conclusions to be brought into a degree of doubt by the knowledge of their not being acquiesced in by one or another individual, of extraordinary merit in his own walk, or of superior general intelligence. It is a ques- tion that ought to be looked at, how far a man of good sense can allow himself to regard the proofs of our religion under any unfavorable bias, by rea- son of its having been rejected, for instance, by famous men like Voltaire or La Place, like Boling- broke or Hume. It might be said, that, if the number and weight of high intellectual authorities is to deter- mine the question, the great preponderance of such authorities is on the side of Christianity. But this, however undeniable in point of fact, | do not care to urge, preferring to invite attention to the inquiry, what degree of justness there is in the so general impression, that, because a man has extraordinary intellectual attributes, therefore his conclusions, — as his, —are entitled to peculiar consideration on the part of other minds. His argu- ments, like those of other persons, are entitled to consideration ; and, because of his uncommon gifts, it is likely that his arguments may be so conceived and stated as to demand for themselves peculiar consideration. But that is not our question. In- fluence through an argument, come from what quarter it may, is of course a reasonable thing. Our present inquiry is, concerning the reasonable- 116 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY ness of influence through the reputation of the arguer. And as to this, the correctness of the following statements will not, I suppose, on reflec- tion, be thought liable to dispute. In the first place, the mere naked fact that an individual is great and famous does not entitle his decision upon this subject to any peculiar au- thority whatever. ‘The quality which comes into exercise in deciding this question is not imagina- tion, not wit, nor any thing else but simply a clear and sound judgment. The reputation, which, if any could, may give some pledge of a correct de- cision, is simply the reputation of a clear and sound judgment ; and this certainly is not an invariable adjunct of qualities that have conferred the highest fame, even if it be not in a degree inconsistent with them. Many, at least, of the most famous men, have won their renown through some idio- syncrasy of mind; and the genius which most dazzles has something of a dreamy, fantastic, ex- travagant, character ; it involves a certain tendency to exaggeration, such as forbids it to be an object of perfect trust. What I am here saying is no more than what is recognised as true in the common intercourse of life. For the very reason that a man is a genius, and commands our admiration, he may be the man to whom we will not give our confidence, nor intrust our business; our confidence, which can only be reposed in that quality which calmly seeks and sagaciously discerns the good and the true; our IN MODERN TIMES. 117 business, which we cannot consent to hazard on the chances of some splendid caprice. Is there a man here, who, in a question that concerned his life or property, would desire to commit his case to a jury of geniuses? Instead of their possible oddities, extravagances, refinements, ingenuities, and _par- adoxes, should we not all prefer to await the judgment of a panel of discreet, unimaginative, straight-forward men? And if it be our opinion, thus evinced in transactions touching our common interests, that clear, sound sense, a quality that does not often win the highest fame, is the quality that does give the highest authority to a decision on a disputed question, there would seem to be no defensible reason why we should be in the least disturbed, as to our persuasion of the truth of Christianity, because of our knowledge of its hav- ing been rejected by this or that individual, distin- guished in the walks of philosophy or poetry, of eloquence or art. He may, it is true, be distinguished not only by his brilliant qualities, but also by the discerning good sense, which so far would entitle his determinations to respect. But that is by no means proved by the mere cir- cumstance, which has attracted us, of his being highly-endowed and famous ; and yet that simply is what we want to know, before we can regard the opinion with any peculiar respect or forbear- ance, on account of its being his. And when we know that the opinion in question is that of a sagacious man, we want still to know 118 RENEWAL OF THE CONTROVERSY more. No man’s judgment, as such, is to be con- fided in, or deferred to, except so far as it is known to have been carefully exercised on the case in hand. Excellent as it may be, it is an excellent capacity, —no more,—till it has inquisitively searched out and deliberately looked at the facts that bear on a correct decision. ‘The truest judg- ment, if it be (as doubtless it may be) so false to itself as to act in ignorance or haste, may err ; and accordingly it is perhaps men of the best judg- ment, that are oftenest known, on further inquiry, to change their minds. ‘They erroneously supposed themselves to be already in sufficient possession of the facts; or their minds had, from circumstances, been occupied with some strong prepossession, which they had not given the proper attention to analyze and define; and further investigation has led or may lead them to an opposite result. When a man then, even of that character, has de- clared himself against our religion, in order for the fact to be of material interest to us, we want to know at what stage of inquiry respecting it he stands. If he has given much of the attention of his ac- knowledged good judgment to other things, to law, to medicine, to mechanism, to statesmanship, it is not likely that he will change his opinions respect- ing them; and those opinions are entitled, as his, to our regard. If he has not given much of the can- did and careful attention of his acknowledged good judgment to the facts of Christianity, then, before we trust him, we will wait till he has. IN MODERN TIMES. 119 When he has, it is likely that he may change his opinions. At any rate, his decisions, made up on such a basis, are meanwhile of no great worth. And, once more, should the strongest case possi- ble occur, should some individual of unquestiona- ble general good sense and impartiality be known to have given studious attention to those facts, should we be unable to point out any important element disregarded by him, or any unfortunate bias in the given case to warp his characteristic rectitude of mind, and yet should he end in re- jecting our faith, — should such a complication of improbabilities occur (as 1 know not that it ever did), still I submit that all it could reasonably do would be to occasion us great surprise ; it could not reasonably shake our own conviction. We should only have to say, that there must have been some sinister influence that we cannot detect, — which certainly might well be, — or that, in short, it was a case which we could not pretend to explain. But to allow the principle, that any diffidence is to be felt respecting the correctness of a conclusion of our own, because, in some high quarter, it is not received, would be to introduce a universal Pyrrhonism into all matters of speculation and of conduct; and it would be alike a course which no considerate man can justify, and no practical man adopts. Thus much I have thought it fit to say respect- ing the rightful weight of the mere authority of famous names, preparatory to a mention of some of 120 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. the distinguished modern names of unbelief. The works of Lord Herbert present the most favora- ble specimen anywhere to be found of composi- tions of that class. He brought to the subject, what so many have not brought, a serious and devout mind. He belonged to the stern, manly, earnest age of England; to the age, in which Bacon was a little earlier, and Milton a little later ; to the time, when the race of triflers and mockers in his great country had not come. He wrote three books in Latin, relating to this controversy ; the first, entitled «On Truth,” which (an extraor- dinary fact, it may be thought) bears the license to print of the Bishop of London’s chaplain, and which did not obstruct the employment of its author in high political trusts, and his elevation to the peerage under Charles the First; the second, entitled ‘The Causes of Error,” to which was ap- pended a treatise “‘On the Religion of a Layman” (this I have never seen, and suppose there is no copy in this country) ; the third, which was posthu- mous, entitled “ ‘The Religion of the Gentiles.” Lord Herbert was not, as Hume and others have been, a disbeliever in the possibility of miraculous divine manifestation. On the contrary, he believed himself to have been the subject of a miracle, de- signed to encourage him to print his first work. He left in manuscript an autobiography, in which he says, that, after writing the treatise “On Truth,” containing views so sure to provoke oppo- sition and hostility, he was much exercised with LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 121] doubts whether he ought to publish it. “ Being thus doubtful in my chamber,” he writes, “ one fair day im the summer, my casement being open towards the south, the sun shining clear, and no wind stirring, I took my book ‘ De Veritate’? in my hands, and, kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words; ‘O thou eternal God, author of this light which now shines upon me, and giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech thee, of thine infinite goodness, to pardon a greater request than a sinner ought to make. I am not satisfied enough, whether I shall publish this book. If it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven. If not, I shall suppress it.’ I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud, though yet gentle noise, came forth from the heavens, — for it was like nothing on earth, — which did so cheer and comfort me, that I took my petition as granted, and that I had the sign I demanded; whereupon also I resolved to print my book. This, how strange soever it may seem, | protest before the eternal God, is true; neither am I any way super- stitiously deceived herein; since I did not only clearly hear the noise, but in the serenest sky that ever | saw, being without all cloud, did, to my thinking, see the place from whence it came.” * There can be no reasonable doubt that he believed the reality of what he thus recorded; though, had there been occasion to make the *Leland’s View of the Principal Deistical Writers, &c. Vol. I. p. 24. Vou. II, 16 12 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. statement public in his life-time, which it does not appear that he did, and had any danger been incurred by so doing, it may be questioned whether he would have felt justified in persisting in such a confident declaration of the certainty and distinct- ness of his memory.” It was a simple case of that not very uncommon phenomenon, a false percep- tion in a moment of high mental excitement; a perception, which there was nothing to enable him to correct, inasmuch as there was no other witness, no opportunity for one sense to review the testi- mony of another, and no sensible effect left behind by the momentary appearance, by which to try its reality. And the prayer preceding for such an object, the vague description of the noise, ‘“ loud and yet gentle, and like nothing on earth,” and the faint addition, that he did, ‘to his thinking,” see the place from whence it came, in a sky of unbroken blue, all betoken a state of physical sensibility and mental exaltation predisposed for the self-delusion which was experienced. It serves to illustrate the character of the man, pure, honest, and generous, but a metaphysical enthusiast and mystic, pampered, by the consciousness of lofty and somewhat original speculations, and by the habits of solitary musing to which they had led (for they were not matter for free conference with others), into the vanity of fan- cying himself the special favorite of that Heaven whose counsels he had succeeded to disclose. Lord Herbert’s work ‘On Truth,” so obscure in two respects that it is extremely difficult to under- LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 123 stand its Latin, and still more so to grasp its meta- physics, does not distinctly introduce the subject of revealed religion till near its close. ‘The body of the book consists of an inquiry, into which it would lead us aside from our purpose to follow him with any minute survey, into the proper means of discern- ing and discovering truth. He starts from a series of seven axioms; 1. There is such a thing as truth ; 2. It is coeternal, or coeval, with the things to which it relates; 3. It is universally diffused ; 4. It is self-evident (an assertion this, which sounds more like a paradox than like an axiom) ; 5. There are as many truths as there are differences in things; 6. The differences in things are made known to us by our inborn powers; 7. ‘There is a truth predicable of these truths (a proposition which so far from being self-evident as to its meaning, as a maxim should be, is not evident as to a meaning in any way).* Taking his departure from these points, the author goes on to distinguish truth mto the truth of the thing or object, the truth of the appearance, the truth of the perception, and the truth of the understanding. + In inquiries after truth, he says, three things are to be regarded; the object itself, the sense or faculty by which investigation respect- ing it is made, and the conditions of its relation to other things. t He then goes on to treat of the conditions of its existence; as, that the object of which it is affirmed should have a relation to our- * De Veritate, etc. pp. 8 — 11. t Ibid, p. 12. t Ibid. p. 18. 124 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. selves; that it should be perceived under proper advantages of time, medium, distance, and situa- tion; that the senses should be sound, and that they should be directed to it.* He distributes human capacities into four divisions, natural in- stinct, internal perception, external sensation, and reason, through the channel of one or another of which every thing knowable must become known. t+ Under the head of instinctive truths he arranges the truths of religion, maintaiming that all we know or can know on that subject consists of certain uni- versally received notions, implanted in our minds by nature; and holding, as others have done, that the distinction of man from other animals consists not in reason, but in his essential capacity for religion. f What these universally received notions are, which make all direct revelation of them superfluous, and to which no direct revelation of other truths can be added, except for the individual himself to whom it is made, he goes on towards the end of the book to specify, as being these five; 1. That there is a supreme divinity; 2. That he ought to be wor- shipped ; 3. That a proper application of the facul- ues is the principal part of divine worship; 4. That sins ought to be expiated by repentance; 5. That there is a retribution of reward and punishment after this life.§ His posthumous work “On the Religion of the Gentiles”? was designed to show, that, overlaid and weakened by whatever errors, “De V eritate. pp..13 — 26. t Ibid. p. 37. t Ibid. p. 37 — 65. § Ibid. pp. 208 — 223, LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 125 these truths were always held by the heathen nations in a competent degree of purity; a hope- less theme, on which however he expended great store of erudition. Of his remaining treatise on the subject, “ The Religion of a Layman,” | am unable, for the reason before mentioned, to speak. From the accounts of it, however, it appears to have been short, and to have added no material feature to the theory. If the account now given of the route by which, in his work on Truth, Lord Herbert would bring the reader to his own anti-Christian opinions, seems obscure, that is precisely one of the con- clusions to which I would conduct my hearers. It is impossible to feel tempted to any degree of con- fidence in the correctness of the views of this wri- ter, so far as depends upon the method of their de- fence, when one is invited to approach them through such a long, dark labyrinth of metaphysics; of metaphysics, too, treated in a language badly writ- ten by the author, and of very imperfect resources, at the best, for such a discussion. But what, in his treatise, is really material, in respect to the Christian controversy, stands so apart from its metaphysical introduction, as to admit perfectly well of a separate consideration, which certainly the theory of an alleged sufficiency of the Religion of Nature well deserves. About a century after Lord Herbert’s time, the same argument of the clearness and adequateness of a universal Natural Religion, and of the consequent needlessness of 126 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. any such revelation as that of Christianity, was treated in a popular form, and with the addition of other related topics, by Tindal, in his work entitled ‘“‘ Christianity as Old as the Creation ;” and, as re- marks on the latter writer would but lead to repeti- tions of what had been said on the former, if they were treated apart, I shall in this instance deviate from the order of time, and reserve what I have further to submit concerning Lord Herbert, in or- der to treat his works and that of Tindal together, as far as their course of argument is the same, in my next Lecture. LEG BUR | xa. DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. Tue writings of Edward Lord Herbert, whose treatise “On Truth” first appeared in 1624, and of Dr. Matthew Tindal, who published his work entitled “« Christianity as Old as the Creation ” in 1730, contain that to which I venture to give the name of “the deistical & priort argument”. It is an argument, fairly entitled to that appellation, and not one of those mere collections of cavils and innuendoes, which, with a large class of readers, avail more in such a case than any course of rea- soning. It is a dezstical argument, as distinguished from general skepticism and from atheism. Both these writers firmly believed in the existence of a God, and in his absolute perfections; they planted themselves upon the ground of natural religion. And it is characteristically an & prior argument. These writers did not, like others, content themselves with the endeavour to show, 128 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. that, in point of fact, a revelation had not been made by God through Jesus, or that there was not sufficient evidence of its having been made. ‘The topics belonging to this part of the discussion, they, particularly Tindal, have incidentally touched. But such was not the substance or main design of their works. The basis of argument with both was, the per- fections of the Deity and the circumstances of his world ; and from these they undertook to show the unreasonableness of the supposition, that such a revelation as that of Christianity had been or would be made. ‘This the one did in bad Latin, and with great show of metaphysical demonstration ; the other in clear and vigorous English, and in a far more popular form of address. The spirit of Lord Herbert was much more calm and devout, the manner of ‘Tindal more familiar and attractive. The latter has given prominence to one or two topics of argument additional to the topics urged by his predecessor in those two, out of his three works, which I have seen; but the course of reasoning of both belongs to an hypothesis so distinctively the same, as to make it altogether convenient to treat them together. As to method, that of Tindal was extremely irregular and discursive, his treatise being cast in the free shape of the dialogue ; that of Lord Herbert, as I have before had occasion to describe, consisted, after the fashion of his day, of a parade of maxims, not all of them certain as to their truth or even their meaning, and of inferences deduced HERBERT AND TINDAL. 129 from them by such circuitous and questionable pro- cesses, that to follow them is rather an exercise in logic than a way to obtain satisfaction respecting the question argued. But the following heads, though not formally stated, will be found by the attentive reader to cover the variety of considera- tions presented in these books, and indeed to ex- haust the hypothesis presented in them, all other matter being merely adventitious to what is em- braced in these four propositions; namely, 1. A special divine communication of religious truth did not need to be made ; 2. It could not be made; 3. It ought not to be made ; 4. Had it been made, it would not have been such as we have in Christianity. These four propositions, I say, will be found to cover, with the exception of some incidental sug- gestions, the various considerations presented in the works of Herbert and Tindal. ‘They compose that to which I have applied the name of the dezst- wcal & priort argument. As I have stated them, it will have been observed that the basis of the theory is, the perfections of God and the circumstances of his world. ‘These being such and such, it is said, it is unreasonable to suppose such a revelation to have been made, as that alleged to have been made in Christianity. In proceeding to examine this doc- trine, I have to bespeak the patient attention of my hearers to a dry discussion, as a discussion of such abstract principles must, I fear, unavoidably be. Vox, I. 17 130 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. But it could not, with any justice to the main sub- ject, be passed over. I remark, at the outset, that, of these four propo- sitions into which [ have resolved the theory, two, —the first and last, — are such, that the unbe- lieving inquirer, provided he found that certain facts implied in them, or bearing upon them, could be established, might be justified in maintaining them with a degree of confidence. With respect to the two others, this is by no means equally true. A consistent believer in the perfections of God, as made known by natural religion, could not avoid feeling great diffidence, except in some extreme case, in deciding that God could not, or ought not, adopt a given course of proceeding ; inasmuch as he could not safely assure himself of being in pos- session of all the elements of the question. Of the propositions which I have represented as virtually constituting the theory of the works now under consideration, the first is, that a special divine communication of religious truth did not need to be made. ‘This I shall not now treat at large, having already done so in the third Lecture of my previous Course, in a manner which would cause any thing | could now say on the subject to be mostly repeti- tion. Whether or not there was a need, and an urgent need, of special divine interposition, at the time when Christianity announced itself, I freely grant to be one of the principal questions on which the decision of the ultimate question respecting the pretensions of Christianity must rest. If there was HERBERT AND TINDAL. 13] no such need, I am prepared to admit that it was not consistent with the perfections of God that he should interpose by miracles. If we, on due inquiry, can see no such need, then I am prepared to admit that the presumption is against its exist- ence, and that the pretence of miracles becomes to us incredible. If we can see such a need, and in proportion as we see it to have existed and to have been urgent, it becomes credible and probable to our minds that God will take the appropriate method to provide for it. Give me his parental character, which natural religion does give, and, as a consistent believer in natural religion, I must be- lieve that he will do, at the fit time, whatever the good of his children may require. These are principles which I see not how the con- siderate professor of natural religion can gainsay. If the principles are so, then, how was the fact ? Was it or was it not true, at the time when Jesus published his religion, that there was needed such a new element in human society? This is a ques- tion which the Deist rightly asks, and concerning which the Christian ought to be resolved. If the need existed, of what nature was it? Of course, it was a want of religious knowledge; of religious motives; of an impulse to religious im- provement. Was there such a want? It is purely a question of fact, and history has a great many voices with which to answer it. At the time of the promulgation of Christianity, I will not ask, — though no less than this, in so many words, is 132 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. asserted in these works,— whether men already had, through the notices of nature, a revelation ‘absolutely perfect.”* I will ask very much less than this. Were men, if I may so speak, on the whole, in a good religious way? Did they in some good degree understand God? Did they love and serve him? With however imperfect obedience, yet were they in possession of such truth, as to afford a prospect, that, at some future time, with nothing done except by themselves for their re- covery, they would come to love and serve him? They who propose, like the writers now under our notice, to answer these questions in the affirmative, speak to the purpose, and have a right to a hearing. But, after all, what is the truth? Can they prove what they affirm ? Not to pause to insist on what would open too vast a subject, that the five points, specified by Lord Herbert as composing his system of an alleged universally received natural religion, would, if they were universally received, make a misera- bly imperfect and unsatisfactory religion compared * Christianity as Old as the Creation, Chap. 1. (p. 3.) ‘ If human reason cannot enable men to discern that God has given them a rule to govern their actions by, and what that rule is, they must be, if not as ignorant as brutes, in an everlasting state of skepticism and uncertainty, in all matters relating to religion; and would indeed be ina worse con- dition than those inferior animals, who have instinct always to direct them to the end for which they were severally made.” JIntrodu:tion to the Second Part of “ Christianity as Old as the Creation,” p. iii, ‘ Rea- son, whenever men consult it, will soon enable them to discover the being and perfections of God; what those duties are, which they owe to him and one another; and all those truths, which as rational creatures, they are capable of knowing.” Ibid. p. xii. HERBERT AND TINDAL. 133 with that of Jesus, is any thing in history more notorious than the contrary of their universal recep- tion, or even (which is an immensely different and smaller thing) their distinct, intelligent, and satis- fied reception by any single mind,— the most cul- tivated and philosophical, — of whose convictions we have any record? Is it, or is it not, true, — as I endeavoured to show in full on the previous occa- sion to which I have referred, and as has been largely shown by various others,— that, except among the Jews, there was scarcely a remnant in the world of so much as a true theology; that no where did there exist an effective persuasion of a retribution beyond the grave; that such religion as there was, was mostly a sentiment wholly apart from morality, or else (which to a shocking ex- tent is apparent) was hostile to it; and that, un- der these circumstances, human opinion and char- acter not only disclosed a deplorable perversion for the present, but revealed no promise of future re- form, no element of eventual recovery ? Are these statements, or is something like them, true? If not, then the alleged need for the inter- vention of Christianity did not exist, and a prelim- inary question in the evidences of that religion is disposed of against it. But if they are true, nothing could be imagined to constitute a more imperative claim upon the compassion of a Father who could pity the self-inflicted ruin of his children. If all men, from the creation till Christ’s time, were sub- stantially in possession of all that Christianity came 134 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. to bring, then Christianity was ‘as old as the crea- tion,” in the sense of the writer who gave that title to his book. But the sages of antiquity did not think that all men, or even that any men, were so enlightened, when they lamented their own igno- rance, and faintly hoped for more light. Socrates did not think so, when he told Alcibiades that he needed the aid of some better instruction to inform him how to conduct himself both toward gods and men; and that it was necessary that some god should scatter the darkness that covered his soul, that he might become able to discern good and evil.* Plato did not think so, when he said how much more easily and safely than upon the mere raft, as he calls it, of the best and firmest human reason, one might sail through life upon some stronger vehicle, or divine word.t Even that Porphyry, whose hostility to our religion has been a subject of our recent notice, did not find any cause to boast of possessing what superseded the need of supernatural religious instruction, when he said, ‘“‘’The importance of this collection, [that is, a collection of aids to a better religious knowledge, ] those can most justly estimate, who, feeling an anxious desire after the truth, have wished that some open vision of the gods might be granted to them, and set them free from their doubts.” {| And this seems to have been even a favorite contempla- * Plato, Alcibiades Secundus, (ad calc.) t Phedo. § 78. Opp. Tom. I. p. 194. (Edit. Bipont.) + As quoted by Eusebius, Prepar. Evang. Lib. iv. cap. 7. HERBERT AND TINDAL. 135 tion of this celebrated Platonist’s school. Says Jam- blichus, his most eminent disciple, in the same strain, “It is manifest that those things are to be done which are pleasing to God; but what they are, it is not easy to know, except a man should hear them from God himself, or from some person that had heard them from God, or obtained the knowledge of them by some divine means.” * But, in the second place, it is part of the theory on which we are commenting, that a special divine communication of religious truth to man could not be made. Lord Herbert is conducted to this conclusion through his peculiar metaphysical doctrine respect- ing the sources and grounds of knowledge and be- lief.‘ We arrive,” he says, ‘at the knowledge of all truth knowable by us, through one or the other of four channels; namely, natural instinct, internal perception, the external senses, and reason; 7” T and, having satisfied himself of this, he understands himself to have excluded revelation as a means of knowledge. But what is revelation? It is_testi- mony of a peculiar sort, being that of a person who professes to have received his instruction directly from God. And what is testimony? It is a kind of evidence, compounded of two of those kinds, which this writer expressly recognises, while he rejects revelation. It is compounded of the * Jamblich. de Vita Pythagore, cap. 28. (p. 116. Edit. Amstel.) t De Veritate, (p. 37.) 136 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. evidence of the external senses, and of that of reason. By the external senses we know what it is that some person declares, and what basis he offers for the conclusion, to which he invites us, that what he is saying is the truth. Thus we are put by the external senses in possession of two sets of facts on which to reason. And then the office of reason begins. Here are certain phenomena; the question is how we shall account for them ; and, if they cannot be accounted for, in any other way, so satisfactorily as by the hypothesis of the thing asserted being true, —if, seen and_ heard, they prove to be such, as to lead in a fair process of ratiocination to that conclusion, —then to us the thing asserted is true ; and it is a perception of the senses, followed by an action of the reasoning faculty, which has brought us to that determination. This I take to be the philosophy of testimony ; so that, even on the showing of the writer whom we are discussing, it is not excluded as a legitimate ground of knowledge and belief. My neighbour tells me that some indifferent fact took place within his knowl- edge an hour ago. I believe him, and the univer- sal sense of mankind declares that there is nothing absurd in my doing so. But why do I believe him ? All that I know in the first instance is, that he has spoken certain words. The knowledge of that fact comes to me by means of what Lord Herbert calls by the common name of external sensation. All the rest is a subject for reasoning. I have then a phenomenon to account for. How came he to HERBERT AND TINDAL. 157 make the assertion he has made? There are only three possible suppositions. First, he did not mean to speak the truth, but to deceive; secondly, he meant to speak it, but was mistaken as to what the truth was; thirdly, he was both honest and well- informed, — he meant to tell the truth, and could not but have been acquainted with it. And, when the circumstances of the case are such as to forbid us to take up with any other supposition than this Jast, then we cannot escape from receiving the matter of the testimony as true, and it is by a pro- cess of reasoning that we have become satisfied of its truth. This, I say, is the rationale of testimony, in all cases. It is by the external senses that we per- ceive what testimony, in a given case, is. It is by an exercise of the reasoning faculty that we decide on its validity ; in other words, that we determine whether we ought to receive or to reject what it vouches for. It might perhaps have been thought sufficient for me to urge that any account of the sources of knowledge, which excludes testimony, would be but a mere contradiction to the common sense of men; but I trust it will not be thought super- fluous to have made these few observations by way of showing, that the author’s enumeration of the avenues between the human mind and _ truth, (whether adequate in other respects or not, it would be here out of place to inquire,) is, as to the question of the worth of testimony, not at all to the purpose. It leaves the whole province of Vor. Il. 18 138 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. testimony uninvaded, with all the ample preroga- tives that a considerate mind ascribes to it. Now supernatural revelation, as has been said, is a kind of testimony. It claims to be precisely that, and nothing else. And the question, as far as concerns the laws of belief now under consider- ation, has just the length and breadth of this, which every one knows how to answer ; — whether testi- mony, provided it answers the proper conditions as to kind and degree, is a reasonable foundation of belief. And thus we come to that saying of the Master, than which nothing can more completely recommend itself to a sound philosophy, that, ‘if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.” Why greater? Because, as to the witness of men, two questions always have to be asked. Can they be inclined to deceive others ? Can they be deceived themselves? It is impossible that God should be either. It is certain that all to which God is witness is true, because, when he makes any communication, he certainly designs to declare the truth, and he certainly knows what the truth is. When, therefore, a testimony produced by man is alleged to be prompted by God, whom we cannot see or hear, all that we need to inquire, is, whether it is really God who is bearing that testimony. Here a different office for the reason occurs. The fact that it is God virtually, who is testifying through one entrusted with his message, is not to be admitted without proof. But it is a fact capable of proof. Our Lord, when he said, “ ‘The HERBERT AND TINDAL. 139 words which I speak are not mine, but the Father’s which sent me,”— “If ye believe not me, believe the works,”— “ The father that dwelleth in me, he doth the works,”— when he said these things, and at the same time exhibited his credentials, in works obviously within the power of the omnipotence of the Universal Ruler alone, then he put together a perfect demonstration of the fact, that the witness which he bore was God’s witness; and so rested its contents securely on that highest evidence of the divine veracity. I had already set down these views, when it eccurred to me to turn to Locke’s chapter “ On the Degrees of Assent” in the ‘Essay concerning Human Understanding ;” and before leaving the topic I cannot do better than to confirm what has been said by a short extract from that chapter. After remarking upon the grounds and conditions of the convincing force of common testimony, that admirable philosopher goes on to say, ‘There is one sort of propositions that challenge the highest degree of assent upon bare testimony, whether the thing proposed agree or disagree with common experience, and the ordinary course of things, or no. ‘The reason whereof is, because the testi- mony is of such a one as cannot deceive, nor be deceived, and that is of God himself. This car- ries with it assurances beyond doubt, evidence be- yond exception. This testimony is called by a peculiar name, revelation.” * * Essay, &c. Book iv, chap, 16, § 14. 140 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. It is on a condition, then, of the alleged recipient of a revelation, that Lord Herbert rests his argu- ment of the impossibility of a revelation being made. Dr. ‘Tindal, on the other hand, draws his conclusion to the same effect from a condition of the alleged giver of the revelation. He deduces the impossibility of special revelation from considera- tions of the immutability of the divine nature. This is some of his language on the subject, and the like is repeated in different parts of his book. “From the time Christianity commenced, you must own God is mutable; and that such additions have been made to the all-perfect laws of infinite wis- dom, as constitute a new religion. The reason why the law of nature is immutable is, because it is founded on the unalterable reason of things. But, if God is an arbitrary being, and can command things merely from will and pleasure, —some things to-day, and others to-morrow, — there is nothing either in the nature of God, or in the things them- selves, to hinder him from perpetually changing his mind.” * | All who are acquainted with the history of reli- gious discussion have had occasion to observe, that there is no other topic which has been more loosely and feebly discoursed upon than this of the divine immutableness. God’s unchangeableness, under- stood as many seem to conceive of it, so far from being his great perfection, from which the most certain conclusions respecting his agency might be “ Christianity as Old as the Creation, chap. 6, (p. 61.) HERBERT AND TINDAL. 14] deduced, would be as far as possible from being any perfection or excellence whatever. Is God un- changeable in his special relations to his creatures and his world? in his manifestations of himself? in his methods of operation, if operation could then be predicated of him? ‘That would be to ascribe to him the position of an Epicurean deity; to deny that he exercises a providence; to preclude him from the happiness of action (for what is action but change, change both in the agent and in the sub- ject?) —to strip him of that paternal character, which does not crush the free agency of the child, but al- lows it to produce its often wayward results, and then interposes with the additional or different protection or aid, which the altered circumstances have made requisite. God could not be unchangeable in his perfections,—unchangeable in the principles and spirit of his government,— unchangeable in his rectitude, wisdom and love,—unless his methods of dealing with his children were changed from time to time, so as to correspond with the altered circumstances, into which, from time to time, they were brought in the exercise of their own free will or by force of some foreign influence. The Judge of all the earth is immutable, because he will always do that which is right. But the right to be done, is itself determined by the occasion for ac- tion; and as long as there is endless mutability in human things, there will be a corresponding variety in the operations of God. Accordingly, in an endeavour to prove that the 142 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. alleged revelation of Christianity conflicts with the doctrine of the divine immutableness, the only rea- sonable medium of proof would be to show, that all the existing need of that religion, and all the advan- tages for its favorable reception and spread,— all the capacity of men to adopt, value, preserve and use it, —all the demands for it, in short, of what- ever kind, — all the sad experience of sin and folly consequent upon the absence of such a guide, —and all the preparation for estimating the desolation that had been and the relief that had come, — which ex- isted at the time of its publication, had existed alike at some earlier period. Nay; it would be necessary to go further, and to show not only that the fulness of time had brought no additional rea- sons cognizable by us for its intervention, but that it could by possibility have brought none cognizable by the Divine Mind. Putting out of the question our being able, at the era of the Christian revelation, to see peculiar reasons for it, he who, from the im- mutableness of the divine Being, should propose to demonstrate the impossibility of that revelation, because his sagacity could not discern any peculiar fitness for it in point of time or occasion, would be well on his way towards the presumption of arguing that it was incredible that the sun shone yesterday, because the rain fell all the day before. It will be no superfluous modesty in us to own, that God knows his own occasions, and may manifest himself differently, — and that, without a change of his prin- HERBERT AND TINDAL. 143 ciples of action, — even though we should be left at a loss respecting the principle of the variation. I observed, near the beginning of this Lecture, that, of the four propositions into which I had re- solved the theory now before us, two, namely the first and fourth, were of that nature, that the unbe- lieving disputant, provided he found that certain facts implied in them, or bearing upon them, could be established, would be authorized to maintain them with a degree of confidence, while with re- spect to the second and third, this would be by no means equally true. It has, I trust, been by this time made to appear, that this remark holds good concerning the second, which is a purely speculative proposition, and, in all respects in which inquiry does not satisfy us of its incorrectness, must be owned to belong to a region of speculation which the modest inquirer treads with extreme caution. The third proposition is, that a special divine communication of religious truth to men ought not to be made. When I apply to this the same obser- vation of the difficulty which a right mind, in any state of its knowledge, will find in advancing it, the justness of the remark will little require any sup- port of argument. Undoubtedly we may state strong cases, as to which we should feel entitled to, say with confidence, that such or such a thing ought not to be done by a divine agency ;—in other words, that the doing of it would be inconsis- tent with the attribute of rectitude in the divine 144 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. agent. But clearly, to justify such a confidence, the cases must be strong; and this for the obvious reasons, that the rightfulness of a course or an action depends upon the relations of the things designed to be affected by it; and that relations of a thing, known to God, but not known to us, may be fit to determine a course or action affecting it to be emi- nently right, which to us, purely through our igno- rance, appears to bear the opposite character. But as to any appearance of truth in the asser- tion now before us, how does the matter stand? “God ought not to make to his children any spe- cial revelation of religious truth.” Why not? Be- cause it would be calling on them to renounce the guidance of their reason, which it would be wrong for him to do. This is the substance of remarks often urged in the work of Dr. Tindal. For in- stance ; ‘¢ Must not that rule, which can annul any other, be not only the supreme, but the sole rule? For, as far as men take any other rule, so far they lose of their perfection, by ceasing to be governed by this rule, in conformity to the nature, and in imitation of the perfect will, of God.” * And else- where; “ The holy ghost can’t deal with men as ra- tional creatures, but by proposing arguments to con- vince their understandings, and influence their wills, in the same manner as if proposed by other agents; for to go beyond this, would be making impressions on man, as a seal does on wax, to the confounding of their reason, and their liberty in choosing ; and the " Christianity as Old as the Creation, chap. 14, (p. 367.) HERBERT AND TINDAL. 145 man would then be merely passive, and the action would be the action of another being, acting upon him, for which he could be no way accountable.” * Merely calling attention briefly to the fact, that this argument implies an absolute contradiction of a suggestion, thrown out in other parts of the book, and awaiting our consideration under the next head, —namely, that the evidence produced for revelation falls short of being strictly undeniable and compulsory, —I ask if it does not betray a mere confusion of ideas. ‘To bring men new in- formation, the evidence of which, (that is, the credibility of the testimony which declares it,) their reason is to weigh, the import of which their reason is to apprehend, the applications of which their reason is to make, what is that, I ask, but to deal with them as rational creatures? How is that, in the nature of a command to them to re- nounce their reason? ‘To go,” it is said, ‘“ be- yond the method of proposing arguments to con- vince men’s understandings and influence their wills, would be making impressions on men, as a seal does on wax, to the confounding of their rea- son, and their liberty in choosing.” If this be true, in any sense requisite to give it pertinency to the argument in which it occurs, then it follows that the witness on the stand, who acquaints those whom it may concern with something known to hin,—something which they must know from " Christianity, &c. chap. 12. (p. 199.) Vot. II. 19 146 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. him, or else not at all,—something which they could never perceive by any intuition, external or internal, nor seize upon by any instinct, nor work out by any demonstration, — that witness is making impressions on others, as a seal does on wax, to the confounding of their reason, and their liberty in choosing. ‘The doctrine lies within the most man- ageable compass, and refuses to be obscured by any verbiage. A man who knows more than another, may convey his better information to that other, and give satisfaction, through an exercise of the re- cipient’s reason, that he is speaking the truth ;— in other words, that it is the truth that is spoken. God knows more than all men. Something which he knows, relating to their duty and prospects, it exceedingly imports them to know too. He in- forms them of it, giving them, at the same time, the proper proof that it is by him that the informa- tion is conveyed. But, while he addresses their reason with that evidence, and enlarges its range of action with new facts, with what suitableness can it be said that he is commanding that their rea- son be renounced ? Again; a special divine communication of reli- gious truth to men ought not to be made, because to impose upon men any obligations, additional to those under which they had always lain, would be a course inconsistent with the divine rectitude. The language of Tindal to this point is of extraor- dinary strength. “I think,” he says, “I have fully proved from the nature of God and man, and the HERBERT AND TINDAL. 147 relations we stand in to him and one another, that the divine precepts can’t vary; and that these re- lations, which are the permanent voice of God, by which he speaks to all mankind, do at all times infallibly point out to us our duty in all the various circumstances of life. Should revelation require less than these relations require, [the expression here is equivocal, but the strain of the argument deter- mines how the author meant the word require to be understood, that is, in the sense of making known the requisition, ] would it not be an imperfect rule ° And if it enjoins more, would it not argue the author of it to be of a tyrannical nature, imposing on his subjects, and under most severe penalties, unnecessary things; and likewise show a design, not of being beloved, but of being hated and dreaded?” * And again; “If any instituted reli- gion varies from the religion of nature and reason in any one particular, nay, in the minutest circum- stance, [and the context shows what is meant here by variation, — that is, not contradiction only, but also a mere difference of less or more, ] that alone is an argument, which makes all things else that can be said for its support totally ineffectual.” + And in yet another place ; ‘Can there be a greater proof of its truth, [that is, of the truth of the system of natural religion recommended, | than that it is, in all its parts, so exactly calculated for the good of man- kind, that either to add to, or take from it, will be to their manifest prejudice ? ” t * Christianity, &c. chap. 3, (p. 31.) t Ibid. chap. 6, (p. 60 ) t Ibid. chap. 14, (p. 422.) 148 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. I conceive it to be always due to the dignity, as well as fairness, of discussion, in an important ques- tion, especially in one belonging to the venerable subject of religion, to avoid all appearance of treat- ing with slight any thing which in good faith is set forth as argument; but I own I find a difficulty in dealing with this, in a manner to give it the con- sideration due to a sincerely intended objection from an eminent source. ‘There are two sorts of argument, which perplex a controvertist ; one, the very strong; the other, the very feeble; the latter, both because of their not offering something sub- stantial and definite to assail, and because the little force which can be allowed to them, and the poor figure which they make in a reply, create the sus- picion that the statement does not do them perfect justice, and that the writer meant something more by them, which is slurred over and evaded by his op- ponent. Nothing more can be done to meet this em- barrassment than to quote the writer’s own words, which I have done in the present instance; and they are words from which, and from the connexion of which, no other meaning can be extracted, than that it would be tyranny in God to lay on men, at any time, any commands additional to com- mands previously received by them. Certainly, this is a principle of a character quite at war with those commonly recognised in the like premises ;—-so much so as to make it difficult to account for its being so confidently advanced, except by understanding that it was caught up HERBERT AND TINDAL. 149 as a mere appendage to a theory, without due at- tention either to its abstract reasonableness or to its practical bearings. Certainly it is no hardship for a parent, with reference to the altered circum- stances, capacities, dispositions, temptations of his child, to address to him new directions, or (for the case will bear a stronger statement) to lay him absolutely under new obligations by means of giving him further instruction concerning his duty. It is not a hardship in governments to make new laws for the benefit of their subjects. They will do it most reasonably and equitably ; and that, not mere- ly because they have themselves become enlight- ened by experience, and know better what laws are needed, (which, of course, is a condition of change not applicable to the divine lawgiver,) but because the subjects have come into a condition, which calls for the new legislation in a way that it had not been called for before. And how is it to be maintained, that a course, which, in its princi- ples, is avowedly right and provident, when adopted by a parent in educating his children, or by rulers in profiting their subjects, should be otherwise than right and provident in the Universal Parent and Ruler in educating and profiting his world F Even in the strongest producible case, and that which the argument we are considering most frequently and confidently puts forward as its main point, — that of positive institutions of external service, or worship, —nothing, I submit, can be more undeniable than the equity of the principles 150 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. involved. ‘That may be made our duty, through the command of a superior, which, independently of his command, would be no duty whatever. And it may be made not only our duty, but our profita- ble duty; profitable not only through the reward which its observance will bring, according to the superior’s good pleasure, but by means of its being an expression, and so a confirmation, of our spirit of obedience ; and, it being thus profitable to us, the injunction of it will be seen to be by no means an oppression on the superior’s part, but, on the con- trary, a bounty. A parent may prescribe some- thing to his child, to be done simply as an expres- sion of the child’s respect and love, without its pretending to any other merit; and, merely by force of its being thus prescribed, it becomes an act of filial duty, acceptable on the one side, and attractive and full of pleasure on the other. Should God prescribe any thing to us, of the nature of mere external or ritual service, and we be unable to see that it had any inherent worth or fitness, that alone would not prove it to be merely indifferent ; — it might be only our ignorance that was in fault. But suppose it was indifferent in itself, and known to be so, still, from the moment that it was com- manded, it would be not wrongfully, but kindly, made our duty, being converted into an expression, and consequently a confirmation, of those devout sentiments and affections, which it is abstractly and independently right for us in all ways to express and cherish. HERBERT AND TINDAL. 151 The remaining doctrine of the system under consideration is, that if, after all, a special divine communication of religious truth was to be made, at would not have been such as is actually offered mm Christiamty. It would have been different, not in respect to its contents ; — objections have indeed been also made to them, but such objections belong not so much to the & priort argument, as to a later part of the discussion ;— but it would have been different in respect to the general conditions of its communication and action. Proceeding from a perfect Being, it is said, it would have partaken of his perfection. It would have had absolute univer- sality and completeness, in particulars in which it is allowed on all hands that Christianity has neither. It would have been universal in its original publica- tion, and not been made known, in the first instance, to one people. It would have been perfect in its evidence, forcing conviction, admitting no possi- bility of unbelief or doubt. It would have been perfect in the execution of its office, working a complete renovation and elevation of the human character, and not allowing men to remain par- tially enlightened and reformed as they are. Wanting these characteristics, it cannot be received as having proceeded from the divine Author to whom it is ascribed. Because God is perfect, therefore his work must be so too. Wanting perfection, it does not bear his mark. It is not worthy of him. “Can laws be imperfect, where a legislator is absolutely perfect?” Such is the question asked 152 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. by ‘Tindal,* as if there were demonstration in its terms, and also with a singular oversight of its bearing on his own doctrine ; for certainly the laws of natural religion, whatever else they were, were not perfectly operative. And again; ‘“ No religion can come from a being of infinite wisdom and per- fection, but what is absolutely perfect.” T This doctrine requires to be considered, with a view to show in what sense it is in its general statement true, and in what false; and especially in regard to its application to the three principal | particulars which have been specified, namely, those of the original limited revelation of Christianity ; its evidence, falling short of a coercion of the mind ; and its hitherto partial reforming effect ; — the first of which, as we have had repeated occa- sion to observe, attracted the attention of the an- cient unbelieving writers. | Some observations upon this topic in these relations, together with some re- marks upon the works of three authors, one of whom in one way, and the two others in another, have ex- erted an important influence on the spirit and tone in which revealed religion has been treated in more recent times, will occupy my next Lecture, and terminate the present Course. “ Christianity, &c. chap. 6. (p. 69.) t Ibid. chap. 1. (p, 3.) { See above, pp. 20, 54, 63, 94. LECTURE XVI. DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS, FURTHER CONSIDERED, — SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF CERTAIN PHILOSOPH- ICAL WRITINGS. — CONCLUSION. | My last Lecture was occupied with a considera- tion of what I had denominated the Devstical a Priort Argument, that is, the argument against Christianity, not drawn from a consideration of its alleged proofs, in order to show that, in point of fact, such a supernatural revelation of religious truth has not been made, but drawn from antecedent considerations of the perfections of God and the circumstances of his world, with a view to show an unreasonableness in the supposition that it would be made. The heads of the argument bearing upon this result, as urged in different parts of the works of Lord Herbert and Matthew Tindal, I said might be concisely stated in these four pro- positions ; Vou. II. 20 154, DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. I. A supernatural revelation to men of religious truth did not need to be made ; 2. It could not be made ; 3. It ought not to be made; 4, If made, it would not have been such, as to its general conditions, as that which we have in Christianity. The first three of these propositions have already been treated, with considerations designed to refute them. ‘The sense of the fourth, when drawn out into particulars, is, that, if God had designed to make a revelation of himself, it would have had a completeness of three sorts, different from what, on all hands, Christianity is allowed to have had. 1. It would not have been given, in the first instance, to a single people, but to all mankind alike; 2. It would have been accompanied with a perfect controlling evidence, so as to compel the conviction of every mind; 3. It would have been such as to produce perfectly its designed effect, and make its disciples vastly better men than it has made them. The general ground for such propositions will be seen, as soon as I state it, to be absolutely indefen- sible. “A religion,” says Tindal, “coming from the author of all perfection, must, as worthy of its divine original, be wholly perfect.” * Nothing can be less true than this assertion, which, with little variety of expression, is repeated in different parts * Christianity as Old as the Creation, &c. chap. 13, (p, 283.) HERBERT AND TINDAL. 155 of the treatise. ‘Though it strikes the ear as having the authority of a maxim, and must in that way have deceived its author as to its force, it owes the ap- _ pearance to nothing but its being a play upon words. Who can pretend to say, that every thing which God has made must be perfect? Where can we get that characteristic of perfect power, that it shall make none but perfect things ; — a character- istic, indeed, which would obviously be a limitation of it, and cause it not to be perfect? ‘The only sense, in which the proposition has any appearance of truth, is this; that whatever God does must be perfect as to its end. But many results, perfect in themselves, may be produced by a combination of imperfect means, and may even require an applica- tion of means, singly considered, imperfect, in order to produce them; and if that were the meaning, — if, in alleging imperfection in Chris- tianity, all that was intended was to impute imper- fection of that kind, — the charge would not be of a nature to create the slightest presumption against its divine origin. . But, not further to theorize, the hasty assertion that whatever is created by a perfect God must be perfect in itself, is refuted by obvious fact. It has its downright contradictions in great part of the manifold appearances of nature. Without imper- fection, indeed, in the parts, it would be impossible that there should be variety, and mutual depend- ence and connexion, in the whole; and variety and mutual dependence are themselves traits of per- 156 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. fection, which God’s universe could not spare with- out ceasing to be as excellent as it is. So much for the general doctrine, which will not bear a moment’s looking at. As to particulars, the first alleged presumption against Christianity, as be- ing what it claims to be, a message from God to men, is found in its having been revealed not to all men, but toa portion of them. “Is it not incum- bent on those,” it is asked by Dr. Tindal, “ who make any external revelation so necessary to the happiness of all mankind, to show how it is consist- ent with the notion of God’s being universally be- nevolent, not to have revealed it to all his children, when all had equal need of it? Was it not as easy for him to have communicated it to all nations as to any one nation, or person? or in all languages, as in any one?”* Again; “If a revelation was ex- tremely desirable, and highly useful to a world over- run with ignorance and superstition, the same rea- son, which obliged God to grant it to some, would have obliged him to grant it to all to whom it was equally useful, and who equally deserved it as well as equally wanted it.” + I remark, first, that this argument imports, that, when God bestows any blessing, greater or less, in * Christianity as Old as the Creation, chap. 12. (p. 196.) t Introduction to the Second Part of Christianity as Old as the Cre- ation, p. xiv. This Second Part was never printed. Of the extremely rare Introduction to it, to which I have referred before, there is an imper- fect copy, extending to thirty-two pages (perhaps all that ever passed through the press) among the books of Harvard College, presented by Thomas Hollis. HERBERT AND TINDAL. 157 any quarter, he is bound to bestow it universally, and that too at the same time ; —a principle which, if good for any thing, would go very much further than even the very broad terms of its statement. Certainly, one man, who has not a thing, is injured, if at all, by that want of his own, and not by an- other’s having it; so that the principle would go to the full extent of showing, that, if God had any blessing capable of being conferred, and not yet conferred in any quarter, he would be bound in justice to bestow it;—in other words, that, at least to all his intelligent creatures (for at present we will not carry the argument to the still more ex- travagant consequences to which it would admit of being pushed), he would be obliged to give every thing that they were individually capable of receiv- ing, and so to abolish all the variety which at pres- ent exists in the endowments and advantages of men, and with it, the occasion for all that large class of virtues, which grow out of their need of, and dependence upon, each other. But whoever else might hold that argument, cer- tainly it would not be the Deist, with whom we now are reasoning; the Deist, who owns that the world has an intelligent Creator and Governor, and who must own it to be on no such principles, that, in point of fact, that intelligent Governor manages his world. If there were that presumption against Christianity, which the Deist alleges, arising from the want of universality in its communication, it would exist also against the same want of universal- 158 DEISTICAL A FRIORI OBJECTIONS. ity in the communication of other blessings, which however, in point of fact, are certainly not communi- cated universally. If the principle of divine opera- tion, which the Deist affirms to be essential and uni- form, (and so finds a presumption against revealed religion, which does not exhibit it,) were what he pretends, it would appear equally in other divine operations, which we perfectly well know do not develope it, but the contrary. The doctrine cannot be good in this case, because, if good in this, it would equally hold in others, where nothing can be more certain, than that it does not hold. This argument is treated in his usual masterly manner by Bishop Butler, in his “ Analogy of Reli- gion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature.” To use his language, which, in treating this class of topics, we must often be content to quote, or else to speak much less to the purpose, the objection is founded on a supposition “that God would not bestow any favor upon any man unless he bestowed the same on all; a suppo- sition which we find contradicted not by a few in- stances in God’s natural government of the world, but by the general analogy of nature together.” * ‘A system, or constitution,” he Says again, ‘in its notion, implies variety, and so complicated a one as this world, very great variety. So that, were revelation universal, yet from men’s different ca- pacities of understanding, from the different lengths of their lives, their different educations and other * Analogy, &c. Part I. chap. 6. (p. 288. Edit. Bost.) HERBERT AND TINDAL. 159 external circumstances, and from their difference of temper and bodily constitution, their religious situa- tions would be widely different, and the disadvan- tages of some in comparison with others, perhaps altogether as much as at present. And the true account, whatever it be, why mankind, or such a part of mankind, are placed in this condition of ig- norance, must be supposed also the true account of our further ignorance, in not knowing the reasons why or whence it is that they are placed in that condition. ” * He goes on to present some thoughts which, he says, ‘“‘may deserve the serious consideration of those persons who think the circumstances of man- kind, or their own, in this respect, a ground of com- plaint.” I will not repeat views which may be found in a work so accessible and well known, and which, from the nervous conciseness of the style, do not admit of being abridged, but rather pre- sent another, which has always struck my mind with great force. It is, I conceive, a pervading principle of the divine economy, as experience makes it known to us, to confer additional value upon the blessings it bestows, by bestowing them not immediately, but through the agency of human benefactors ; thus laying on men a new obligation in respect to the benefit which God means to con- fer on their brethren through their means, and ex- citing in these latter a sentiment of gratitude to the human instrument, as well as to the divine source ; * Analogy, &c. Part II. chap. 6. (p. 294.) 160 DEISTICAL A PRIORI OBJECTIONS. and so carrying out the great system of multiplying the ties which bind God’s children to one another. God might feed and clothe us, he might instruct and govern us, by his own immediate agency. There is something which we want, and which others have. He does not mean that we shall be without it, while they have it; and he might him- self bestow it on us without any help of theirs. But this is not the method he commonly adopts. He means rather, that, when we have it, we shall receive it through them; and this, in order that, in addition to the benefit of the mere possession to be enjoyed by both, they may feel an impulse to profit- able action, and we a sense of dependence on, and obligation for, their action; that they may have the satisfaction of giving, which will not only be a present pleasure, but exercise and educate them in one kind of virtue, and that we, who receive at their hands, may have sentiments called forth, which equally, in another way, belong to moral enjoyment and progress. For such ends, it would seem, God, designing for us the boons of support, instruction, protection, places us in the way of instruments of his, for these blessmes. He feeds and clothes us, not with his own hand and care, but by those of our parents. He instructs us through our teachers; he protects us by human governments. His benefactions are always pouring upon us; but they are poured through hu- man channels. And if so in other particulars, then why not, unless the universal analogy of his opera- HERBERT AND ‘'TINDAL. 161 tions is to be broken, in that of revealed religion ? And, if so it is to be in respect to revealed religion, what is this but to declare, in other words, that the very state of things is to be, which is tortured into the objection we are now considering ; — that is to say, that God, designing eventually to enlighten and convert all men, puts a portion of men in pos- session of the instrument for accomplishing that design ; that he will Christianize the world by Christianizing first a part of it, and bidding them labor to bring about the further result. The ulti- mate object, for which they were. privileged above others in the first instance, may, it is true, be de- layed by their want of proper faithfulness to their trust. But this is but an unavoidable consequence of that moral system, which, proposing to train the human will, refuses in any instance to do it violence. It equally occurs in respect to other benefits, de- signed by God to be conferred by man on man. And, at all events, no presumption against the theory of God’s intervention in a given instance can be fur- nished by its involving an accompaniment, which has equally attended his agency in cases where we know that he has acted. But, to proceed to the second particular of alleged unworthy imperfection im the Christian revelation. ‘¢T can’t help thinking,” says Dr. Tindal, “ that an infmitely wise and good God has adapted the rules and evidences of what he really requires from mankind to their general capacity, and that the certainty of every command must be equal to the Vor. II. 21 162 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. importance of the duty.”* And the argument, that religious instruction from God, in order to be ac- credited as such, ought to carry with it conclusive evidence, so as to leave no room for doubt in any mind upon questions relating to its origin, its trans- mission, or its interpretation, is urged with frequent repetitions, and in a variety of particulars. Certainly, if this were so, that very religion of nature, from which the writers now under consider- ation derive their arguments against revealed reli- gion, could not maintain the pretension of having proceeded from God. Certainly, whatever these writers, in devotion to their theory, may have per- suaded themselves to account true, very few others will be prepared to admit, that the truths of natu- ral religion had this absolutely clear and unques- tionable evidence, which they affirm to be an essen- tial attribute of a religion from God. If it had such evidence, how by possibility came it, that there ever was such a thing as an idolater or an atheist ? , But why should evidence of such absolutely unavoidable and compulsory force be expected ? Because God would not suffer himself to be de- feated in what he undertook. To be sure, he would not. But what did he undertake? To produce infallible conviction on every mind? This is the very question at issue. How can you prove, that this is what he undertook? Will you say, that * Christianity as Old as the Creation, chap. 13. (p. 292.) HERBERT AND TINDAL. 163 nothing short of this was worthy of him? How can that be made to appear? How is it to be shown, that it was unworthy of him to present reasonable grounds of conviction, unless they were also made overpowering? That it would not be unworthy of him, might be asserted from the fact, that, in respect to not a few other parts of knowl- edge, — and knowledge, too, not unimportant, — he does, in the common course of his providence, exhibit to us proof persuasive, and to most minds sufficient, but still not overpowering. And upon what kind of evidence is it, that, day by day, in the common course of life, we decide questions that excite us in the highest degree ? Is it always, generally, frequently, evidence which leaves no room whatever for doubt, in a mind biassed by some cause to a wrong conclusion ? But not to stop in this, are we not able to see, (though, if we could not, it would be nothing which a satisfactory treatment of the argument would demand,) that the true idea of a religion designed for men’s religious culture, would be in some re- spects inconsistent with that of its being accom- panied by a weight of evidence, which should preclude the possibility of hesitation on the part of any mind? Does it not seem abstractly fit, that, in the process of obtaining our conviction of the di- vine origin of a certain offered means of religious improvement, as well as in our use of it when the conviction has been attained, there should be an exercise of our moral powers; which will be, 164 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. provided the evidence presented is such, and will not be, if it is not such, as to do its work upon us more or less effectually, according as we ap- proach it in a spirit of seriousness and candor, with an aptitude for the perception of religious truth, with that desire for religious improvement which welcomes, or, at least, without that dis- taste for it which rejects, its means? And may not the difficulties, which to one man may appear to stand in the way of a religious belief, be re- garded as bearing some analogy to the temptations, which, with another, stand in the way of a reli- gious practice, — both of them making part of his probation, and liable to be disposed of in one way or another, according to his better or worse state of mind. May not thisbe? I ask. And there may be thought to be the more force in the question, when one considers the unquestionable effect exerted by the state of mind, in which we approach evi- dence, on the judgment which we pass upon it; an effect so well known, that in common prudence we avoid entertaining a question of interest, in our common affairs, in a moment of passion, for instance, or under the bias of any prejudice we can escape. I submit these questions; but, if any one does not see cause to give them the answer which they seem to me to deserve, he is to be reminded that the great consideration of the resemblance between the evidence for Christianity and the evidence for most other important truth, in not being such as strictly to coerce the mind, still stands in undimin- HERBERT AND TINDAL. 165 ished force. If the application of the principle in the one case is known to us by experience to be a character of the divine agency, shall we say that there has not been divine agency in another case, because there too that character appears ? Once more ; the question is asked in the work now under consideration, ‘“‘ Must not revelation have had its intended effect, and especially where its instru- ments of conveying extraordinary assistances are in great numbers and in great authority [it is the min- istry, that here is meant]; must it not have made Christians much more perfect, and excellent, than men could possibly be, when under times of una- voidable corruption ? ” * It would be quite safe, I conceive, to reply that it has made them so;—to meet the question on the ground of fact, and say, that, in the instances which have best illustrated its force, Christianity has actually produced a higher type of the human character than was ever the product of any other influence ; and that, on the whole, it has given a superior elevation to society, and actually intro- duced into it new elements of manifest and impor- tant good, which meet all the fair demands of the question thus presented. If it must needs be pro- nounced to be not from God, because it has not made men perfect, that sentence must pass equally on those who bring the charge against it; for what perfect society, or what perfect man, did Natural * Christianity as Old as the Creation, chap. 14. (p. 402.) 166 DEISTICAL A PRIORI ARGUMENT. Religion ever yet form? ‘That it has not made men perfect, is too true; but what ground is there for the pretence, that it should have done so under peril of being set aside as an imposture? ‘To suppose an operative means, of any other kind than that of influence, is to put virtue, as a result, out of the question ; for virtue is, of its nature, something voluntary. And how was any thing of the nature of mere influence to perfect men, or even to im- prove them in any degree, except by an action of their own wills; and in whatsoever degree their wills, under the operation of a beneficial influ- ence, are reluctant or averse, what does that con- demn but their wills, instead of the influence acting upon them? The truth is, there is a double error on this subject; one, in expecting too much from an in- fluence, — which Christianity is, else it would not respect men’s wills, and accordingly could do noth- ing of its proper office, — one, I say, in looking to an influence for what an influence cannot do, since one element of its action lies out of itself, depend- ing on the dispositions of the subject; the other, in seeking for what Christianity has effected in the wrong place. If we mean to learn what this influence has wrought, we must look to those on whom it has wrought; not to those, with whom it has perhaps come as little in contact as if they had lived in Pagan times. When the question is asked, what Christianity has done, presently we have recourse to history for a reply. But history will HERBERT AND TINDAL. 167 not serve us well in the premises. History is in great part the record of the actions of men, whom Christianity has in no degree, or in a very partial degree, affected ; whose intelligent assent it has not won; whose minds it has not occupied ; whose sentiments it has not trained ; whose atten- tion it may have scarcely ‘attracted. There are not wanting indeed monuments of its action, that stand out in history; as the amelioration of the practices of war, the achievements of philanthropic enterprise called forth by various miseries of man, the elevation of the female sex. But the true places to which to look for the triumphs of Chris- tianity are the homes and the hearts of the millions, whom, in successive ages, it has made good and happy, whom it has cheered in life, and sustained and tranquillized in death. If it has done little of this, it must be owned to have fallen short of the services, which were reasonably to be expected of what was sent into the world with such solemn preparation. But that will scarcely be maintained. If it has done much of this, — and further, if it has given intelligible pledges of being destined to do more and more, till the past time of its weakness shall perhaps bear but a small proportion to the du- ration and achievements of its exceeding power, — then it is unsafe to condemn it, as not potent enough to justify its pretension of having come from God. With these remarks, I dismiss the considera- tion of this branch of the argument. If they have detained us long, it was because I knew not how 168 SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF THE to make them more concise ; and, if the discussion cannot be called an attractive one, it however em- braces topics, on which many minds feel a need of obtaining satisfaction. It might be made a question whether the name of the famous Thomas Hobbes is to be properly placed, as it has commonly been, in the ranks of unbelief; and the question is one not admitting of being disposed of by a simple affirmation or denial, but calling for one answer or the other according to the terms of some circumstantial statement of it. Hobbes lived at the time of the Commonwealth, and his high notions of royal prerogative are the key to his opinions upon most of the subjects he has treated. After publishing his religious views the most obnoxious to censure, he continued to attend the worship and receive the sacraments of the Church of England, and in all appropriate ways to manifest his attachment to that communion ; and, if he professed and defended sentiments which other minds would find irreconcileable for themselves with religious faith, this alone would prove no more than that he was an inconsistent believer, which certainly many men are whose belief is sincere. His great work entitled the ‘ Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesias- tical and Civile,” is perhaps, after the writings of Machiavelli, the greatest riddle in all literature. The notions of prerogative which are there asserted with unquestionable seriousness, and with extraor- WRITINGS OF HOBBES. 169 dinary resources of ability and learning, and force of style, are such that, simply announced, they would appear as mere absurdities, and be taken as only ad- vanced inirony. Says Sir James Mackintosh, (who names him with Bacon, Descartes, and Grotius, as one of the four “‘ eminent persons, born in the lat- ter half of the sixteenth century, that gave a new character to European philosophy in the succeeding age,”) ‘“* Hobbes, rejecting the simple truth incul- cated by Hooker, that ‘to live by one man’s will is the cause of many men’s misery,’ embraced instead the daring paradox, that to live by one man’s will is the only means of all men’s happiness. Having thus rendered religion the slave of every human tyrant, it was an unavoidable consequence that he should be disposed to lower her character, and lessen her power over men; that he should regard atheism as the most effectual instrument of preventing rebellion, at least that species of rebellion which prevailed in his time, and excited his alarms. The formidable alliance of religion with lberty haunted his mind, and urged him to the bold attempt of rooting out both these mighty principles.” * But the charge of atheism, or of any kind of infidelity, against Hobbes, cannot, as has been said, be made out by reference to any express avowal of his own to that effect. On the contrary, when, in treating of the sources of religion, and finding * General View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, &c. p. 319. (Edit. Edin.) Vor. if, ey 170 SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF THE them to be three, namely the desire of men to search for causes, the reference of every thing that has a beginning to some creative cause, and the observa- tion of the order and consequence of things, he goes on to say, that the ignorance of causes makes men fear some invisible agent, like the gods of the Gentiles, but the investigation of them leads us to a God eternal, infinite and omnipotent,* the manner in which investigation is opposed by him to igno- rance may seem, in a fair interpretation of his words, to denote that what the writer mentions as the fruit of investigation was also the persuasion of his own mind. ‘This however would bring us to nothing further than his assertion of belief in the fundamental truth of natural religion ; and, when he proceeds to speak of different forms of religion, he says, that “in these four things, opinion of ghosts, | ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear, and taking of things casual for prognos- tics, consisteth the natural seed of religion, which, by reason of the different fancies, judgments, and passions of several men, have grown up into different ceremonies.” T But not to pursue the inquiry into this writer’s own religious or anti-religious creed, which, be- ing a subject for inquiry, cannot of course be a prominent subject for contradiction and argument, I proceed to state, which will be best done in his own words, the peculiar doctrine, with a view to which I have referred to him; namely, that of the * Leviathan, Part I. chap. 12. (pp. 52, 53.) t Ibid. (p. 54.) WRITINGS OF HOBBES. 17] religious profession and practice of every individual being a thing absolutely determinable by the su- preme human authority. ‘The question,” says he, ‘is not what any Chris- tian has made a law, or canon, to himself (which he might again reject, by the same right he received it); but what was so made a canon to them, as without injustice they could not do any thing con- trary thereunto. That the New ‘Testament should in this sense be canonical, that is to say, a law, in any place where the law of the Commonwealth had not made it so, is contrary to the nature of a law. For a law (as hath been already shown) is the commandment of that man, or assembly, to whom we have given sovereign authority, to make such rules for the direction of our actions, as he shall think fit; and to punish us, when we do any thing contrary to the same. When therefore any other man shall offer unto us any other rules, which the sovereign ruler hath not prescribed, they are but counsel and advice; which, whether good or bad, he that is counselled may without injustice refuse to observe ; and, when contrary to the laws already established, without injustice cannot observe, how good soever he conceiveth it to be, — I say he cannot in this case observe the same in his actions, nor in his discourse with other men; though he may with- out blame believe his private teachers, and wish he had the liberty to practise their advice, and that it were publicly received for law. For internal faith is In its own nature invisible, and consequently ex- 172 SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF THE empted from all human jurisdiction; whereas the words and actions, that proceed from it, as breaches of our civil obedience, are injustice both before God and man. Seeing then our Saviour hath denied his kingdom to be in this world, seeing he had said, he came not to judge, but.to save, the world, he hath not subjected us to other laws than those of the Commonwealth; that is, the Jews to the law of Moses, which he saith he came not to de- stroy, but to fulfil, and other nations to the laws of their several sovereigns, and all men to the laws of nature; the observing whereof both he himself and his apostles have in their teaching recommend- ed to us, as a necessary condition of being admitted by him in the last day into his eternal kingdom, wherein shall be protection, and life everlasting. Seeing then our Saviour and his apostles left not new laws to oblige us in this world, but new doc- trine to prepare us for the next; the books of the New Testament, which contain that doctrine, until obedience to them was commanded by them that God had given power to on earth to be legislators, were not obligatory canons, that is, laws, but only good and safe advice, for the direction of sinners in the way to salvation, which every man might take and refuse at his own peril, without injustice. «Again; our Saviour Christ’s commission to his apostles and disciples was to proclaim his king- dom (not present, but) to come; and to teach all nations ; and to baptize them that should believe ; and to enter into the houses of them that should re- WRITINGS OF HOBBES. 173 ceive them; and, where they were not received, to shake off the dust of their feet against them; but not to call for fire from heaven to destroy them, nor to compel them to obedience by the sword. In all which there is nothing of power, but of persuasion. He sent them out as sheep unto wolves, not as kings to their subjects. They had not in commis- sion to make laws; but to obey, and teach obedi- ence to, laws made; and consequently they could not make their writings obligatory canons, without the help of the sovereign civil power. And there- fore the Scripture of the New Testament is there only law, where the lawful civil power hath made itso, At I do not undertake a refutation of this theory, which to any of my hearers, or to any one but a friend to the most arbitrary principles of government, would be wholly a work of supererogation. But I refer to it as having, in my opinion, had much to do with one of the most dangerous forms of unbelief which have appeared in Protestant communities ; a form of it, which prevails extensively in England, and which, by infecting the literature of that country, and ha- bituating those who use parts of that literature to a false tone of thought and feeling, extends itself still more widely. The unbelief, which avows itself, will define itself also, and so will be met and examined, and may come to see its own error, and at least will be checked in its tendency to spread. But that unbelief in Christianity, which still ad- * Leviathan, Part III. chap. 42. (pp. 284, 285.) 174 SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF THE heres to a Christian profession and worship by force of an argument which half satisfies it that it does honestly in so doing, — the unbelief, which half fancies itself belief, — keeps out of the reach of confutation, and with the semblance of conviction protects itself against being convinced. If I mis- take not, this has been the position of a large class, in the parent country, whose writings we read; great champions of the religion, of which however they believe nothing, because they have not inquired into its evidence, and hold that it does not become them to inquire; good Christians in profession, — perhaps intolerant Christians, — because to be so they understand to belong to the character of good subjects ; fast friends to the faith, because to be so is a part of allegiance to the state. If I mistake not, this sort of feeling is in a degree a traditional remnant of the vast influence exerted at the time, on the high prerogative party, by the writings of Hobbes; and though, under other political institu- tions, there would be no opportunity for it to stand on its original and proper basis, still the view of Christianity, as something to be professed, and in some sort received, by reason of its claims as a use- ful engine of government, may be found to recom- mend itself by force of frequent virtual exhibitions of it in that light, independently of any philosoph- ical theory in which it may have been elaborately propounded. I am to make brief mention of two other wri- ters, who have not furnished us with any argument WRITINGS OF MONTAIGNE. 175 against Christianity on which to comment, but who demand notice because of the great influence exerted by their works on the tone of infidel spec- ulation in more recent times. For the first, we have to go back to an earlier period than that of either of the last three authors mentioned. Montaigne, one of the most popular of writers, the first, | suppose, to set the fashion of that popular form of composition, the Essay, and who has never been excelled in it, was born in the year 1533. “As a writer,” says La Harpe, ‘he impressed upon the French language a sort of familiar energy which it did not before possess. ..... As a philoso- pher, he painted man as he is, without embellishing his subject from complaisance, or disfiguring it from misanthropy. His writings have a character of good faith, peculiar to themselves. While engaged with them, one does not read a book, but listen to a conversation. He persuades the more, be- cause he makes no show of instructing. He speaks much of himself, but in such a way as to make you think of yourself. He is neither vain, nor tedious, nor hypocritical, three things extremely hard to avoid when the writer is his own subject. He is never dry and abstract. His own mind and character pervade every thing. And what a mass of thought on every subject; what a treasure of good sense; what a mutual confidence is there, when His Essays are the book of all who read, and even * Cours de Littérature. Tome IV, (pp. 62, 63.) 176 SKEPTICAL TENDENCY OF THE of those who do not read.” * Hallam speaks of these Essays as marking ‘in several respects an epoch in literature, less on account of their real importance, or the novel truths they contain, than of their influence on the taste and the opinions of Europe. They are,” he adds, “ the first provocatio ad populum, the first appeal from the Porch and the Academy to the haunts of busy and of idle man, the first book that taught the unlearned reader to observe and reflect for himself on questions of moral philosophy. ..... No prose writer of the sixteenth century has been so generally read, nor probably given so much delight.* | The connexion of this writer with our subject does not arise from his having defended any form of infidel opinion. He never distinctly defended or avowed any opinion on the subject. Nor do | suppose that it would be even safe to affirm, that he was a doubter respecting the truth of Christianity. It might be nearer to the fact to represent him as never having thought sufficiently on the subject even to doubt about it in good earnest. But he was a doubter about most things, which he did con- sider. That was characteristically the tone of his discussion ; and the skeptical leaning of the under- standing of so popular a writer, and the great indif- ference of his temperament, could not fail to exert a strong influence on crowds of admirers, and prepare them to deal with religion after the manner * Introduction, &c. Vol. II. pp. 169, 170. WRITINGS OF BAYLE. 177 that he had dealt with so many other things. He was the literary model and master of La Mothe le Vayer, one of the first avowed French infidels ; and his writings, being speedily translated into English, became an extremely favorite book in the profligate time of King Charles the Second. And, while the influence of Hobbes’s speculations has, as I conceive, been ever since felt in the circle of those who would uphold religion as a machine of policy, that of the Essays of Montaigne has been equally manifested in the school of the triflers and scoffers, —of that numerous class whose con- demnations of Christianity have amounted simply to an exercise of wit. This latter class of skeptics, whether intention- ally or not on his part, have had, at a later time, another patron in the still more famous Bayle. While he treats with great levity matters relating to revealed religion, and understood by one or another class of believers to be comprised in it, I know not whether in his voluminous writings a sentence can be pointed out, where he speaks of revelation itself except with a respect apparently sincere. No terms can be stronger than those in which he expresses his persuasion of the being of God, and of the immateriality of the thinking prin- ciple, and his astonishment that any can profess to entertain a contrary belief; * and, in his treatment “E. g. Pensées Diverses. §§ 104. 107, (CEuvres, Tome III. pp. 71, 73. Edit. La Haye). Continuation des Pensées Diverses, § 73. (Ibid. p. Vor. li ue 178 | WRITINGS OF BAYLE. of opinions of different Christian sects, one often finds cause to think that he was not so much under- taking to refute any one of them, as amusing himself by showing how many subjects of dispute between them offered difficulties which they had not suspected. But his copious erudition, — accu- rate and profound, too, in some departments, — his extraordinary wit, penetration, and acuteness, his adroit as well as sprightly logic, were all pressed into the service of a general cavilling skepticism. Paradox attracted him more than truth. He had no sincere spirit of inquiry; none of that earnest desire to reason well, which is the necessary condi- tion of good reasoning. This radical weakness of his mind he felt no scruple to avow. ‘ A certain Pyrrhonism,” says he, in one of his letters, “ 1S the most convenient thing in the world. With it, you may with impunity engage in argument with all comers, and set at defiance those reasonings drawn from opinions of your own, which are always so troublesome to deal with. You have never oc- casion to act on the defensive. You do not fear being retorted upon, since, maintaining nothing yourself, you abandon yourself with perfect freedom to all sorts of sophisms.” * No wonder if his ex- ample taught his admirers to doubt and cavil about every thing, whether doubted by him or not; to mistake a happy witticism for an irrefragable proof; 293.) Nouvelles de la République de Lettres. Oct. 1686. Art. 8. (Ibid. Tome I. p. 671.) Réponse aua Questions dun Provincial. Part IIf. chap. 15. (Ibid. Tome III. p. 941.) * Lettre VI. (Euvres, Tome IV. p. 537.) CONCLUSION. 179 and to adopt ridicule as being, what Lord Shaftes- bury would have it to be, the test of truth. The influence of these writers on the character of later assaults on revealed religion, | may here- after have occasion in some instances to trace. Having in the present course of Lectures executed a plan, in which I hope it may be thought that there has been a sort of completeness, by attempt- ing some account, first, of the Jewish objections to Christianity ; secondly, of the Pagan objections ; and, thirdly, of the deistical @ priori objections ; followed by a brief notice of the influence of three writers, whom I conceive to have done much towards giving a tone to later habits of thought ‘upon the subject; my next object would be to take a survey of the principal! topics of mfidel argument in more recent times down to the present. Aut A a OS a aa a : e ee 6 . ‘ i were ¥ ai ; ore ay 7 ; icity | oe |. pig a rr sci a | goriod eis, eokgay, bo se " - east OO perianal spa: thy RCNA Ragan apimin: mh: 0 NERO : sight idiqnods. tli quot 2% jaro ead stators: ch capanonpligmnos, “ha ee: sim i oe. aaMOne rite os ihosh te? nl, ale: ey het, Haesauoniti A eereateda weet eth, hes, tibnose: na maaaltoide., coy ey mh liege ada) slbeiit “gr | mortal he aragncomabtcite aly Ae wei ate, Roba ax gah Lenadadli veer: gaa, tied why OR, Fi, sade: “pent whyynt hy, plided. soni ag. By pitlinige ‘whaminentd eh’, oh 5 *i bheoy hid ie spas Ra wtp . 2 oy att fy nia Ma rey} \ ' Sabi bet is an ae Ati. Pye TiN ie Gane! . : | di ae aad wh, {Beh aia, yy eg iad aa I i poste cvs Pe ve eh ! } : i Mi ae * + ie BY oon dae vm Wy a a ie ay ties ih ni ay ae: MC) Pe Mera area ty eo i al aaa aa ae i ike . : MAG ry Wao wan Chat Na CaaS a ama". Ma ie, - Arey i ie MW a i i i “eo ale re bam * | bE i eee ae Viste “ ory Meanie a Ali ae f COURSE III. SURVEY OF THE OPINIONS OF SEVERAL MODERN WRITERS. PINE CK SEA oy CR ete > i : wud ea) ‘ i ga ARR ds iy allie ee oe ix ena ee ee SPOS) Jer cr cenae , RE Re | Ariat Pagar ath ie ale Maid vag i uM ead i NRE ORT AREA UA y TS tatty ha ey we oer ees re Cth Dsumalh, vitepial: apa eke i ane a: RaonminesshiNe ae : le iid Laird EAC Al foro all bible ate iG Bhieh 1 ip i? Rhygrrewione Pony iwy: hy te ds tid ped iad ve A AR ei all ease yh . ee Bret iN ee A ss, ap en WR et ds ae Henke ; ayer "Tn Gee e ie ee malar a the viqehe ie on Gh toate ef re Hain bevy Aa uti Des aa a sels Ml 4 :, I ‘hk , + i a i, : 1h) Aer ace ’ i 7 A wat ro 4 as Pee a es Oy eT ane d a hae), r Sani ee i BEC TU oer. OBJECTIONS OF LORD SHAFTESBURY AND LORD BOLINGBROKE. In commencing, last winter, a course of remark upon the objections which have been made, from time to time, to Christianity, by disbelievers of that religion, I suggested that the reasons succes- sively produced by that acute and industrious class of writers in justification of their dissent, might safely be presumed to be all the reasons that were to be had, or, at any rate, the best reasons ; so that, should they prove, on examination, to be without cogency, the fair inference would be, that the di- vine origin of Christianity stood unimpeached and unimpeachable. If, as to the facts of that religion, there was any thing falsely alleged by its early dis- ciples, its early adversaries were favorably circum- stanced for an exposure of the fraud; if in its the- _ ory there was any thing indefensible, the progress of intelligence would have aided its later opponents in dragging the error to light. Further, such a sur- 184 OBJECTIONS OF vey as was proposed might correct erroneous impres- sions respecting the extent of the resources of infi- delity, while it would not unfrequently exhibit the champions of unbelief wresting its weapons from each other’s hands, and would, in not a few in- stances, supply facts to the friend of Christianity in the form of admissions of its early foes, which in that form might be thought more valuable, because more unquestionable, than any assertion on the part of its advocates. I must not fatigue my present audience with a recapitulation, — which, however I might endeavour to condense it, would still cover considerable ground, — of the course heretofore pursued towards the fill- ing out of this scheme. I confine myself to the few words necessary to indicate the point, from which we take our new departure. I gave an account of three controversies ; 1. Of the controversy of Chris- tianity with Judaism; 2. Of its controversy with Paganism ; and, 3. Of that, which I called by the name of the deistical & priori controversy. Under the first of these heads, I undertook to explain that state of the Jewish mind, which led to the general rejection of our religion, when first published, by that people, illustrating this subject from the New Testament, the writings of Josephus, and the Jewish ‘Talmuds; and then proceeded to give a full account of the Dialogue of Justin Martyr with Trypho the Jew in the second century, of the contents of certain Jewish tracts of the Middle Ages, and of the modern discussion between the LORD SHAFTESBURY. 185 Jew Orobio and Philip Limborch of Amsterdam. Under the second head, I presented an analysis of the hostile arguments of the Epicurean phi- losopher Celsus in the second century, of Por- phyry, the Eclectic, in the third, and of Hierocles and the Emperor Julian in the fourth, as well as of writings of some of the Christian fathers, show- ing what were the objections of Paganism against Christianity before and at the time when it became the religion of the empire ; and in this review it was my object to point out, on the one hand, the inva- lidity of those objections under their several heads, and, on the other hand, to show how extremely ma- terial were the admissions of facts belonging to the history of Christianity, either distinctly or virtually made, at that early day, in the hostile quarters. Passing hastily over the ages of security against foreign assault, which elapsed between the political establishment of Christianity and the Protestant reformation, three hundred years ago, and making a few remarks on the general character of the modern infidel writings, I invited attention to what was called the deistical & priort argument, as exhibited in the writings of Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Matthew ‘Tindal. And the course closed with a few observations on the writings of Hobbes, Mon- taigne, and Bayle, to the last two of which writers, though they maintained no argument against Chris- tianity, was ascribed a considerable influence over the conduct of that argument in times succeeding their own. Vor. Il. 24 186 OBJECTIONS OF The former survey, to which I refer, exhibited no modern writer, except Lord Herbert, as having appeared in declared opposition to the Christian faith, at any period earlier than a hundred and thirty yearsago.* With this exception, all set treat- ises of that sort, produced in Christian communi- ties, belong in fact to that recent time. We are sometimes perhaps inclined to think, that the pres- ent is a perilous time for our religion; but it would be expressing a wiser judgment to say, that its great battle was fought in the first half of the last cen- tury. England, from its political condition as well as from the philosophical and scrutinizing habits of the national mind, naturally took the lead of other nations, in both the attack and the defence. It was fully to be expected, that, when the Reforma- tion had removed Christianity in Protestant coun- tries from that basis of authority on which it had reposed for ages, the question would speedily come to be asked, whether it had any more stable foun- dation. It was asked and answered, at first, pri- vately, in discourse between man and man; and soon publicly, in able and learned controversial writings. And while Toland, Morgan, Woolston, Bolingbroke, Chubb, Collins, and other learned adversaries of the faith, a hundred years ago, left little unsaid, for disputants of the same character in * Though some of Toland’s writings appeared at an earlier time, he did not take distinct infidel ground, till the publication of his Pantheisticon in 1720. And Charles Blount’s works were only translations from Phi- lostratus and Lord Herbert. LORD SHAFTESBURY. 187 later time to supply, the inquiry to which they invited was pursued on the other hand by minds of such note as those of Addison, Warburton, Clarke, Locke, and Butler. It was then, as future history will record, that the credit of our religion passed through its great crisis. There is not much, in the writings of later infidels, which is not mere repeti- tion of their abler predecessors. That incredulity, which, in some quarters, was the natural consequence of the ignorance of the laity, in times preceding the Reformation, concern- ing the history of Christianity, and which could not fail to manifest itself sooner or later, and so to call for the knowledge which would dispel it, appeared the earlier in Great Britain, as has been hinted, on account of the course of public events in that na- tion. “Skepticism,” says the French writer Ville- main, referring to the time of Cromwell, “ both in respect to religion and to politics, was left as the refuse, as the extinguished cinder, of the recent conflagration which had wrapped all England.” * It was in that period, it will be remembered, that the mind of Lord Herbert was trained ; and doubt- less similar biases were communicated to numerous other leading minds, which have not left their doubts on record. The social system, and with it the world of thought, received a new shock in the period immediately preceding and following the revolution, which brought the house of Orange to the English throne in 1688. The loose and super- * Cours de Littérature Francaise, Tome I. p. 142. 188 OBJECTIONS OF ficial tone of thinking of the licentious time of Charles the Second was further encouraged, as to the skeptical turn which it took in relation to all ereat subjects, by the popularity acquired, in the cultivated circles, by the writings of Montaigne, which were largely circulated in England in a translation. The stern and bitter bigotry of the Duke of York, afterwards James the Second, ex- cited a sort of latitudinarian antagonism ; the friends of political liberty not unnaturally became free- thinkers in religion; and the safe times of William and of Anne, next succeeding, favored the utter- ance of those misgivings and discontents, which, under such influences, not a few vigorous and ac- complished minds had unhappily come to entertain. The spirit and results of the English infidel argu- ments of this period are described by the German historian Staudlin with a good sense and a justness of observation, not common with the writers of his nation. ‘In England,” says he, ‘¢ Christianity was attacked with more calmness, discretion, and digni- ty than in France, since there men might write more freely, on that subject as on all others, as they had not public persecutions and penalties to dread, and might view the subject as one deeply concerning society and man, instead of looking at it through side lights, under an impulse of hatred to an hierar- Oty. art vedsile Yet the more these writings were read, the less on the whole did they injure religion, or weaken the attachment of the nation to the Christian faith. It might even be affirmed that LORD SHAFTESBURY. 189 they injured it more abroad, than in the country of their origin.” * Of the writers, whom I am now to proceed to mention, the first, in point of time, was Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. From _ his erandfather, the many-sided statesman of the time of the Commonwealth and of Charles the Second, he did not inherit that profligacy of political princi- ple, which has made the name of the first Lord Shaftesbury one of the most unfavorably eminent in history ; on the contrary, his dispositions m pub- lic and in private life were magnanimous, and the purity of his morals without stain. But, without doubt, other influences from his distinguished rela- tive had unhappily biassed his mind. The elder Lord Shaftesbury, always immersed in intrigues, and utterly distrustful of those pretensions to vir- tue, which he knew would be for himself so idle, was, by temperament and the influences of the time, an infidel; and something of his style of thought could scarcely fail to be communicated to a youth, on whose education he bestowed a sedu- lous attention. The catastrophe of his life, —a martyrdom, as a partial view might well regard it, to religious and political bigotry combined, —might naturally create, in one interested in his fate, an estrangement from the apparent cause of his mis- fortunes. And another influence, which may be presumed to have acted powerfully on the mind of the noble author of the “ Characteristics,” was the * Geschichte der Theologischen Wissenchaften, Th. II. s. 424. 190 OBJECTIONS OF friendship, which, at an early age, he formed in Hol- land with Peter Bayle, whose writings, as I formerly observed, while they have never directly attacked Christianity, deal with other great subjects in a light and skeptical vein, which it is no wonder that their admirers should catch, and apply to discussions of that religion. It is however not altogether with- out qualification, that Lord Shaftesbury is to be reck- oned among unbelievers in Christianity. There is no evidence that he ever set himself deliberately to form an opinion upon the subject ; and of the learn- ing which would have been necessary to satisfy so Sagacious a mind as his, that he was rejecting that religion on sufficient grounds, he certainly possessed but asmall share. The disaffection towards it which had taken possession of his mind, was a matter of taste and feeling, rather than of conviction. Sir James Mackintosh says of him, “'The enmity of the majority of churchmen to the government estab- lished at the Revolution, was calculated to fill his mind with angry feelings, which overflow too often, if not upon Christianity itself, yet upon representa- tions of it closely intertwined with those religious feelings, to which in other forms, his own philoso- phy ascribes surpassing worth.” * Lord Shaftesbury’s writings, carefully prepared by himself, were published after his death in the year 1713, under the title of ‘Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times,” the greater part of the three volumes having however appeared * View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, p. 333. LORD SHAFTESBURY. 191 in separate treatises during the last five years of his life. He who shall examine their extremely dis- cursive contents with a view to ascertain their wri- ter’s religious sentiments, will have occasion to ob- serve, in the first place, that he has left no room for doubt respecting his belief in a Deity, and in the reverence and worship due to him. ‘ Man,” he says, ‘is not only born to virtue, friendship, hon- esty, and faith, but to religion, piety, adoration, and a generous surrender of his mind to whatever hap- pens from that supreme cause, or order of things, which he acknowledges entirely just and perfect.” * He speaks of the Christian miracles, in a way to show that his own mind has failed to be impressed with their reality, but not in the way of presenting any view suited to shake the conviction of any other mind, or to afford opportunity for any argument in their defence. When, for instance, in that unpleas- ant vein of irony, in which Gibbon appears after- wards to have taken him for a model, he says, that, as to what is recorded of miracles in former ages, ‘he pretends not to frame any certain or positive opinion of his own, notwithstanding his best searches into antiquity, and the nature of religious record and tradition, but on all occasions submits most willing- ly, and with full confidence and trust, to the opin- ions by law established,” {— and more, in other places, to the same effect, — one sees that what he chiefly needed was, to look at the evidence with * Characteristics, &c. Vol. III. p. 224. (Edit. 5th.) t Ibid. p. 71. Compare I. 360; II. 353; III. 316. 192 OBJECTIONS OF greater sobriety of mind, and that, had he so looked at it, he would not have spoken thus, whether con- vinced or still incredulous. The same is true of his expression of doubts respecting the authenticity and integrity of the sacred books, —doubts extremely natural to be en- tertained, in the age when he lived, especially by a person inclined to historical skepticism, but which, had he lived at the present time, since the subject has been examined both by friends and foes, he would, if he had not abandoned them, at least have expressed with a different kind of specification. He approaches nearest to a distinct argument against Christianity in his complaints of it, as an ethical system, for not sufficiently enforcing the importance of friendship, love of kindred, and the virtues which uphold society ;* and in those speculations on the nature of virtue, in which he insists that it must be loved and practised without selfishness, for its own sake, and that any regard to reward consequent on its observance, or punishment on its violation, vitiates its motive, and so destroys its essence. But, as to the latter point, his own no- tion of disinterested goodness is certainly no higher than what the Gospel constantly enjoins; nor does the place which he himself with great zeal assigns, in a theory of morals, to the satisfactions inci- dent to virtue, and the ill results of its opposite, at all differ from that assigned to them in the Chris- tian scheme.t And, as to the other complaint, * Characteristics, &c. Vol. II. p. 68. t Ibid. p. 99. LORD SHAFTESBURY. 193 the aptness to all offices of friendship and patriotism, of a character formed under the Christian discipline, is so manifest, — while such good reasons appear, in the circumstances of the time when Christianity was revealed, why it should lay its chief stress on universal benevolence, or philanthropy, rather than on any such limitations of the sentiment as appear in love of friends or of country, — that such an ob- jection can hardly be supposed to take a prominent place in any mind; nor is the cursory way, in which it is suggested by the writer now under our notice, such as to indicate that his own mind was much impressed with its validity. I have considered it proper to say thus much of Lord Shaftesbury, because of his high traditional reputation, and of the early date of his speculations. But there is no defence of Christianity to be made against his writings, because in truth they do not contain a justification of his unbelief, but, at the most, a profession of it; and | think they might be put into the hands of almost any person of tolera- bée judgement at the present day without the slightest danger of shaking his faith. ‘To say of him what Johnson said of Chesterfield, that he was ‘a wit among lords, and a lord among wits,” would indeed be totally unjust. ‘To distinguished integrity, amia- bleness, and generosity, Lord Shaftesbury added the endowments of a lively, graceful, and accom- plished understanding ; but he had none of the proper preparation of learning for the discussion of that momentous subject of revealed religion, on Vot. II. 25 194, OBJECTIONS OF which he permitted himself to throw out his crude thoughts. In one of his notes, he makes some re- marks on Seneca, which, with alterations for the diverse subjects of their inquiries, might not ill be applied to his own case. ‘ ‘There is great differ- ence,” he says, “‘ between a courtier who takes a fancy for philosophy, and a philosopher who should take a fancy for a court. Now Seneca was born a courtier, being son of a court-rhetor; himself bred in the same manner, and taken into favor for his wit and genius, his admired style and elegance, not for his learning in the books of philosophy and the ancients [applied to Lord Shaftesbury, this should read, ‘‘not for his learning in the history or docu- ments of the Christian faith.”] For this indeed was not very profound in him. In short, he was a man of wonderful wit, fluency of thought and language, an able minister and honest courtier.” * In making large application of his own maxim, that ridicule is the test of truth, t (his, I call it, but he borrowed it from Horace, t who stated it with careful qualification,) Lord Shaftesbury often sup- posed himself to be arguing, when really he was doing nothing less. Indeed, instead of bemg a maxim, as it assumes to be, it is not so much as a truth. There are many things false, which so far from being fit to excite ridicule, cannot possibly be viewed except with grief or horror; while, on the other hand, every thing which wears an antiquated * Characteristics, &c. Vol. III. p. 24. T Ibid. Vol. I. pp. 11, 18, 61, 128. + Sato lew 1s LORD BOLINGBROKE. 195 costume, and is opposed to present conventional- isms, has, to such as look only on the surface, an air of ridicule, though it may enfold truth the most unassailable and momentous. ‘The fallacy, how- ever, to which Lord Shaftesbury gave currency, both by precept and example, has since been effect- ively used by Paine and other infidels of his class. If I should limit myself to proceed strictly in the order of time, I should have to reserve for a some- what later stage of these remarks, my notice of the opinions of Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke. But, as in the case of Tindal, whose writings, from the similarity of their argument, | treated, by an- ticipation, along with those of Lord Herbert, it is convenient now to place together the works of two authors, who not only in the circumstances of their social position, but in some characters of their minds and their speculations, exhibited traits of strong mutual resemblance. The splendid fame of the parliamentary eloquence of Bolingbroke rests wholly on tradition, no specimens of it having been pre- served. It was such as to lead Lord Chatham to say, that, if the question were between recovering the lost books of Livy or of Tacitus, or a Latin Tragedy, or a speech of Bolingbroke, his choice would fall upon the last ; and this judgment is fully borne out by the rich and polished eloquence of his written discourses, which, in the melody, point and vigor of their style, seem as if composed to be spoken. But they furnish nothing whatever to refute the inference, which is enforced by the whole 196 OBJECTIONS OF history both of the public and private life of their author, that he was destitute of that love of truth, which is the indispensable attribute of a really ereat man. It was not only, that, in the prosecu- tion of the objects of his public career, he descended to the most flagitious perfidy, as he was too much warranted in doing by the example of other poli- ticians of the day, but, what is more to our purpose, that there appeared a want of affinity between his mind and speculative truth, remarkable in a mind of such distinguished powers; so that the reader plainly sees, that he did not crave truth as the fruit of his inquiries; that he philosophized without any earnest care to convince, or even so much as to dis- cover and determine ; that he was almost satisfied with the ingenious, or even the superficial, sugges - tion of difficulties and objections, which he left to be solved by whoever might feel interest enough in the result. There are no doubt vigorous statements, in his works, of such objections to our religion, as naturally occur to, and deserve, the notice of one who would pass an intelligent judgment upon its claims. But there are others, which, in the way that they are thrown out, only serve to indicate the uninformed and unsettled state of the writer’s mind, both in respect to their foundation in fact, and to their bearings on the main issue. The writings in which the sentiments of Lord Bolingbroke concerning Christianity are expressed, were published, after his death in 1751, by the poet Mallet, to whom he had bequeathed them in his LORD BOLINGBROKE. 108 will. They consist of a series of ‘“ Letters on the Study and Use of History,” and a number of « Essays”? on metaphysical, moral and religious ~ subjects, addressed to Alexander Pope. ‘The dis- cursive character of this species of composition forbids the reader to look for any thing in the na- ture of compact and elaborate reasoning. Some of this writer’s suggestions respecting Christianity, — for those relating to Natural Religion do not belong to our subject, — are of that vague or otherwise undeterminable character, which admit of no argu- mentative reply. When, for instance, he insists that the time of “the resurrection of letters was a fatal period” for Christianity,* and describes it as only suited to live in a time of ignorance and super- stition, there is nothing for the believer to do but to express his opposite conviction, that advancing knowledge and civilization have brought and will bring it new support, and to appeal to future time for the confirmation of his better view. ‘The main objections of a tangible description, which are found scattered, without method and in various forms of repetition, over these treatises, may, I think, be defi- nitely stated as falling under the following heads. 1. That, the truths of natural religion being clear and sufficient, there was no need of any special divine interposition at the time when Christianity is said to have been revealed, and that accordingly * On the Study and Use of History, Letter V. (Works, Vol. II. p. 2338. Edit. Philad.) 198 OBJECTIONS OF such a revelation at that time is incredible.* This question I treated at large in my third Lecture, showing from ample historical testimonies that the contrary was the fact ; and it would be mere repe- tition now to return to that argument. ~ 2. He has called in question the credibility of the Gospel records of the acts and discourses of Jesus; denying that there is sufficient proof of the authenticity of those documents, or of their uncor- rupt preservation to the present time.t But Lord Bolingbroke has left no proof of acquaintance with the well-established facts relating to this all- important point. It was treated at large in two former Lectures, and the remarks then made cover all the ground which he has opened. 3. Lord Bolingbroke finds objections to the credi- bility of Christianity in the limited extent to which it was originally promulgated, and in the partial effects which it has produced. { These objections had before been urged by Tindal, and have also already received our attention. § 4. He undertakes to account for the rapid early diffusion of Christianity, on the supposition of mere- ly human agency. || In this he was followed, with a very free use of his thoughts, but with additional materials of his own, by the historian Gibbon, whose views on this subject I formerly examined, * See particularly, Fragments of Essays, 23 —28, 33, 34. (Works, Vol. IV. pp. 246. et seq. 283, et seq.) t Letter V. (Vol. II. p. 231, et seg.) Essay IV. §§ 18, 19. (Vol. III. p. 468.) + Fragments of Essays, §§ 33, 38. (Vol. IV. pp. 283, et seg. 307, et seq.) § See above, p. 154, et seq. || Lssay IV. § 23. (Vol. IIT. p. 498, et seq.) LORD BOLINGBROKE. 199 presenting then all that I conceive requires to be said concerning it. * But, among the points raised by Lord Boling- broke, there are others, which have not hitherto fallen particularly under our notice, at least in the form which he has given to them. 5. He has objected to the contents of the New Testament. And his scattered objections under this head may be conveniently arranged under four spe- cifications ; 1. that there are doctrines of the Gospel so unreasonable as to discredit its divine original ; 2. that its ethical system is imperfect and errone- ous; 3. that the sense of the scriptural records is in many instances uncertain; 4. that the religion of Jesus, as taught by himself, is contradicted by it, as taught by Paul. As to the first point, the alleged unreasonableness of doctrines of the Gospel, it is necessary to define precisely the position intended to be taken. The friends of Christianity must concede, and all intelli- gent defenders of it have conceded, that, could it be shown to contain any thing unequivocally opposed to, and irreconcilable with, man’s reason or moral sense, that discovery would be fatal to its credit. It is a conviction of the preliminary fact, that it con- tains nothing of that kind, which makes it worth a reasonable man’s while to proceed to an examina- tion of the positive evidence in its favor; which makes it, in short, provable to a reasonable man. It may also properly be admitted, that, if any system * See Vol. I. p. 248, ef seq. 200 EVANGELICAL DOCTRINES. of doctrine is found to contain particulars, which to any mind appear, on speculative grounds, improba- ble, or highly improbable, that mind will reasonably approach the testimony offered in its behalf under a bias proportionably unfavorable. But, so much al- lowed, it will only amount to this ; — that the ques- tions, which that mind will have to weigh, will be ; first, Is the doctrine, to which, on speculative grounds, I am averse, really contained in the system proposed for my acceptance ? and if so, then, secondly, Which is most likely, that I am in error as to my precon- ceived speculative opinion, or as to the force of that external evidence, which, if yielded to, will compel me to set that opinion aside? It is but the common case of a conflict between opposite proofs. ‘That is all. And it is a case, in the adjustment of which it may not improbably turn out, that the preconceived opinion had been adopted on hght grounds; in other words, that the doctrine which has occa- sioned a repugnance to the system embracing it, is not at all unreasonable, but the contrary. Lord Bolingbroke attempts to sustain his charge against the Christian faith, as presenting a theory so manifestly unreasonable, as to refute its claim to credit, by referring to the doctrine of a satisfaction made to God by the death of Jesus for the sins of men, and to that of the retributions of the future life. As to the first, his language is, ‘‘’The fall of man, the foundation of the fundamental article of the Christian faith, is irreconcilable to every idea we can frame of the wisdom, justice, and goodness, LORD BOLINGBROKE. 201 to say nothing of the dignity, of the Supreme Be- ing ;”* and he represents it as contrary to our ideas of God’s moral attributes, “to believe that he sent his only begotten son, who had not offended him, to be sacrificed for men who had offended him, that he might expiate their sins, and satisfy his own anger.” + As I do not myself allow this doctrine, as described by Lord Bolingbroke, to be any part of Christianity, I have no occasion to defend its reasonableness, in order to protect Christianity from any unfavorable inference because of it. To me it seems unreasonable, as it did to him; but I do not find that Christianity is responsible for it. There are others, however, who think otherwise ; and, for any person who should esteem it unreasonable, and who should also be satisfied of its being a doctrine of Christianity, the only question would be, whether it was so clearly and certainly unreasonable, as to overbalance and invalidate the positive proof ad- duced in support of that system of which it makes part. And the application of the same remark to the other doctrine, of future retribution, — also, I conceive, disingenuously stated by Lord Boling- broke, particularly in respect to its being repre- sented as having no reference to different degrees of good or ill desert, {—Jis so obvious as not to require to be enlarged upon. The second point of objection to the contents of the New Testament on the part of this author, “ Fragments of Essays, § 36. (Works, Vol. IV. p. 301.) t Ibid. § 37. (p. 304.) t Ibid. § 68. (p. 442, et seq.) Vor. il: 26 202 EVANGELICAL ETHICS. which I have specified, is directed against its ethical system, as being imperfect and erroneous. As to its being imperfect,* it has been commonly allowed by unbelievers, and must be allowed by every fair observer, to possess the only desirable practical completeness, in supplying all actually existing defects in the natural law of conscience, particularly those which had been created in the course of time by perversions of custom and opin- ion; while, in respect to the rest, it has been said with unquestionable justness, that the proper design of a revelation was, ‘to supply motives, and not rules, sanctions and not precepts, the former being what mankind stood most in need of.” + Of Lord Bolingbroke’s argument against the correctness of the ethical system of Christianity, I need say no more, than that the instances on which he most relies are, its prohibitions of polygamy and of di- vorce, which in his opinion should have been left free. { It is however certain, that the doctrine of Christianity on these subjects, so far from reflecting discredit on its claims, 1s the same which, indepen- dently of its authority, has been approved by the best writers upon morals; and that those very Christian laws, by force of the authority, as Christian, with which they were pronounced, have been the effect- ive means of raising one half of the human race to a condition of dignified usefulness and enjoyment ; * Essay, IV. § 7. (Works, Vol. III. p. 406.) t Paley, View of the Evidences, Part II. chap. 2. t Fragments of Essays, § 18. (Works, Vol. IV. p. 222, et seq.) LORD BOLINGBROKE. 203 of bringing every son and daughter of Christen- dom under the ineffably purifying and elevating influences of home ; and thus of changing the whole face of society within that range of civilization which is actually conterminous with Christendom. The third point of objection, on Lord Boling- broke’s part, to the contents of the New ‘Testament, is, that their sense is in many instances uncertain.” The objection, in this general statement, 1s ex- ceedingly vague, and for that reason difficult to fasten upon, in a way to meet it with a definite reply. It affords opportunity to say little else than this, that it can by no means be shown to be of obscure or uncertain sense in regard to the main features of the system; and that, as to that degree of uncer- tainty respecting the interpretation of its records, which may be alleged to be proved by the differ- ences of opinion among its disciples, it only shares in this a universal condition of all the great subjects of human thought ; —a condition, too, undoubtedly attended with excellent effects, both in the way of sustaining an energetic action of the mind of believ- ers upon it, and in the way of its moral influence. But this train of thought, also, I had before occasion to follow out in remarking upon the work of Tindal, + who had urged the same objection ; and I should not again have adverted to it, even in these few words, except to say, that, — however vague the objection in a general statement, — in that form, in * On the Study and Use of History, Letter V. (Vol. Il. p. 232.) Es- say 1V. $17, et seg. (Vol. III. p. 464.) t See above, p. 161. 204, DOCTRINE OF JESUS AND OF PAUL. which Lord Bolingbroke has most expressly pre- sented it, it becomes quite definite and manageable. He has taken the bold step of instituting an unfavor- able comparison of revealed religion with natural, in respect to the clearness of its teachings. His lan- guage is, “ The first principles of natural religion are so simple and plain, that casuistry has no apparent pretence to meddle with them; ..... these prin- ciples want neither paraphrase nor commentary to be sufficiently understood, whereas the very first principles of the Christian religion ..... are So veiled in mystery of language, that without a com- ment or with one, they give us no clear and distinct ideas.” * What ambiguity was intended to lark here in the expression “ the first principles of natu- ral religion,” rendering it possible to defend the as- sertion of their clearness, one could not safely un- dertake to say. But as to any thing like a system of natural religion, — which is the only thing that could be spoken of, with pertinency to this argu- ment, — either all the history of ancient opinion is false, or else natural religion, so far from possessing a clearness such as justifies a favorable comparison of it, in that respect, with revealed, has been a subject the most fruitful in an endless diversity of opinion, and pertinacity of debate. The fourth particular of objection by this writer to the contents of the New Testament is found in the alleged inconsistency t between the doctrine of Jesus * Fragments of Essays, § 8. (Works, Vol. IV. p. 173.) t Essay, 1V. § 9. (Works, Vol. III. p. 420.) LORD BOLINGBROKE. 205 and that of Paul. What is material to this argu- ment is, of course, to show the actual existence of such an inconsistency. Could its existence be sub- stantiated, the objection would be valid, at least against the doctrine of Paul, and, under certain supposable conditions, against the doctrine of Jesus also. But the burden of proof is evidently on him who alleges such an inconsistency to exist; and the proof would of necessity consist in a course of exe- getical argument upon the discourses of Jesus, and the epistles of Paul, such as would fix an interpre- tation upon the one irreconcilable with the sense of the other. But Lord Bolingbroke, with all his great accomplishments, had no scholarship of the kind necessary for pursuing that argument ; an argument which needs to be made out, if at all, by learned investigation, for the common reader certainly will not admit its force. Had he possessed and used such learning, it is likely he would have ended, as others have done who have possessed and used it, in discovering that the argument could not be maintained. 6. Once more; a leading topic of objection, on this writer’s part, to Christianity, is furnished in a course of animadversions on the system and scrip- tures of the Jewish faith, which Christianity so re- cognises and adopts as to make itself responsible for them in some sense and degree. He labors this point with such fulness as renders it probable that it was this which first and chiefly affected his own mind. He denies the authenticity and integrity of the Old 206 ADMISSIONS OF Testament scriptures, and charges them with con- taining scarcely any thing that is not repugnant to the wisdom, power, and other attributes of a Supreme, All-perfect Being.* Here is undoubtedly the strong point of his reasoning; strong, not because of any essential cogency, but because, the real connexion of the New Testament with the Old being perhaps not even to the present day properly understood by Christians, he had an advantage in the vague con- ceptions of those whom he addressed. That subject has relations altogether too impor- tant to be discussed at the end of a lecture, nor does Lord Bolingbroke present it with the same definiteness as other writers; for instance, Voltaire and Paine. I reserve it accordingly for future con- sideration, when I shall come presently to speak of their writings ; and I will say no more of the con- tents of those of Lord Bolingbroke, except that he expressly disclaims for himself any reliance upon some objections, which before or since his day have been urged by certain other infidel writers. He condemns, for instance, the notion ‘that miracles are not to be admitted as proofs of a divine original,” and says, “‘ We know now that real miracles can be operated by no power but that of God, nor for any purpose, by consequence, but such as infinite wis- dom and truth direct and sanctify.” + He does not *E. g. On the Study and Use of History. Letter III. chap. 2. (Works, Vol. II. p. 200.) Fragments of Essays, § 71. (Vol. IV. p. 456.) § 76. (Ibid. p. 473.) t Essay IV. § 2. (Works, Vol. III. p. 359.) LORD BOLINGBROKE. 207 pretend, with Tindal, that the positive institutions of Christianity present an objection to its credit as of a divine original, but on the contrary he declares, concerning the ordinances of baptism and_ the Lord’s supper, that “they were not only innocent but profitable ceremonies, because they were ex- tremely proper to keep up the spirit of true natu- ral religion, by keeping up that of Christianity, and to promote the observation of moral duties, by maintaining a respect for the revelation which con- firmed them.” * And, as to the beneficial influence of this faith, he says that “no religion ever appeared in the world, whose natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind.” fT I am sensible that, in the account now attempted of the writings of Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Bo- lingbroke, little has been offered in the way of direct argument in defence of our religion ; but it was impossible to pass over two writers of such dis- tinction, even though, in describing the contents of their works, it appeared, as to a considerable portion, to be the fittest course, merely to refer to a past or future treatment of the same argument, in a differ- ent connexion, in this series of Lectures. ‘The truth is, unless I err, that, great as were the abili- ties of both, there is no single argument stated by either, which has not been more effectively urged in some other quarter. They partly repeated views which had been more fully presented before, and * Essay IV. § 7. (Vol. IIL. p. 410.) t Ibid. § 5. (p. 396.) 208 LORD SHAFTESBURY AND partly they furnished hints which were afterwards more fully followed out, with the help of a learning which they had not to apply. Their writings sug- gest to the considerate reader the reflection, how much effect may unhappily be produced by a confi- dent pretension of reasoning, with little of that honest and cautious production of appreciable evidence, which alone has a right to influence a reasonable mind ; or even by the mere off-hand suggestion of uncertainties, concerning which the writer himself has not been at the pains to learn whether to him- self they would not cease to be uncertainties, on being subjected to a proper investigation. Of the different classes of minds indisposed to Christianity, one is that which may be called by the name of the philosophical wits. This class, to which Gibbon belonged, and of which Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke are perhaps the most eminent examples, are accustomed to enjoy their leisure, and parade their resources, in sporting with, and exercising their ingenuity upon, whatever grave subject of common concern any accident may cause them to select, whether of morals, politics, or reli- gion, — but particularly the latter, because a free treatment of it is on the whole the easiest way to produce a sensation in the common mind; though perhaps the paradoxes of Mandeville and Godwin respecting politics and morals excited, in their day, as much admiration in some quarters as those of Bolingbroke respecting the Christian faith. Such opponents create an impression adverse to our reli- LORD BOLINGBROKE. 209 gion, not so much by what they argue or develope, as by what they hint. Were their hint reduced to the form of an argument, it would often be seen to be divested of its piquancy and force in the process. ‘Their very distrust, however rash, ill- considered, and baseless, is apt to be itself taken for an argument. The reasoning of their blind admirers is, that an opinion approved by such supe- rior intellects, especially when independently adopt- ed in opposition to prevailing sentiment, may be presumed to be entertained for valid cause. And what is true on a large scale of the anti-religious influence of brilliant writers, who indulge them- selves in such a style of thought, every one may have observed to be frequently true, within a more limit- ed sphere, of men whose reputation in a neighbour- hood, as statesmen, for instance, as scholars, as per- sons of genius and wit, commands for them a defer- ential hearing, to which they are no wise entitled when they dogmatize with equal confidence and feebleness on the subject of religion; a subject which they have not studied, and therefore one, upon which, with all their gifts, the judgment of a common mind, which has been at the pains to possess itself of the facts and to observe their bearings, is of incomparably more account than theirs. I am in my next Lecture to speak of a writer of an entirely different class, who has relied on one point, and urged it with learned illustration Vot. IT. 27 210 OBJECTIONS OF LORD BOLINGBROKE. and logical skill; namely, Anthony Collins, au- thor of the ‘ Discourse of the Grounds and Rea- sons of the Christian Religion,” a work which was brought anew to notice among ourselves thirty years ago, by reason of the large use made of it in the publication of our countryman, Mr. English. LECTURE XVIIT-: OBJECTIONS OF ANTHONY COLLINS. THE writer, whose argument I am to treat this evening, revived and amplified an objection, which I formerly mentioned as having been urged by some of the ancient opponents of the faith.* Anthony Collins was bred to the law ; but, being independent in his circumstances, indulged his tastes in devoting himself to literary and philanthropic pursuits. A pupil and friend of Locke, he did not develope his infidel tendencies till long after the death of that excellent philosopher. He was a man of estimable qualities, and a well-furnished and skilful disputant ; nor is there much to find fault with in the manner of his controversial works, except that half-pretence of attachment to Christianity, — not intended to deceive (for the veil was purposely made too thin) but still undignified and unbecoming, — which was * See above, pp. 15, 52, 94. De OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. a poor fashion of the infidel writers of his time. Among his works was “A Vindication of the Di- vine Attributes,” and ‘A Philosophical Inquiry concerning Human Liberty,” which was answered by Dr. Samuel Clarke. In 1713, he published his ‘¢ Discourse of Free Thinking,” a defence of free- dom of speculation upon religious subjects. In its tone and style of illustration, this work indicated suf- ficiently, the purpose for which the writer meant to use the freedom which he rightfully vindicated ; and particularly it laid stress, to the intended preju- dice of the Christian Scriptures, on those verbal differences of the different copies, then recently brought to light by Dr. Mill, which, on their first discovery, were thought to throw a degree of un- certainty on the records, but which, as I formerly took occasion to show, had, on further observation, contributed so admirably to the opposite result.* But the argument, which has made Collins con- spicuous among the assailants of the faith, 1s con- tained in his work, published in 1724, entitled “A Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion,” and in another, published three years afterwards, in reply to the assailants of this, and in particular to Bishop Chandler, entitled “The Scheme of Literal Prophecy con- sidered.” The argument of these books, briefly stated, was as follows, and it was learnedly and ably, though of * See Vol. I. p. 167. ANTHONY COLLINS. FNS course, not being persuaded by it, I conceive, not cogently, urged. Jesus of Nazareth asserted for himself, and his disciples asserted for him, that he was the Messiah predicted in the Old Testament. If he was not that, his claim being such, he was not a supernat- ural divine messenger in any sense. And how did they undertake to prove that the character of Jewish Messiah belonged to him? ‘The evidence, to which they appealed, was that of descriptions of the Messiah in the Old ‘Testament. They produced portions of the ancient prophecies, and said, There is the prediction, and here is the fulfilment. That which was foretold, has now come to pass. The correspondence between the anciently written word and the now existing reality is so complete, as to prove the supernatural character of the event. Had the correspondence been so complete, says Collins, the evidence would have been as satisfac- tory as it was alleged to be. But in fact it was not so; and, not being so, it leaves the whole argu- ment inconclusive. Nor does it merely invalidate that argument, but it at the same time precludes every other; because on that specifically, and on no other, the claim of Christianity was rested. St. Matthew, for in- stance, in connexion with his account of the cir- cumstances of the birth of Jesus, said, that “all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘ A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call 214, OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. his name Immanuel.’ Matthew intended to say that Jesus was to be received as God’s Immanuel, because of the circumstances of his birth being the same as it had been declared that they would be, by the prophet Isaiah, six hundred years before. But, in fact Isaiah did not speak of Jesus at all, but of an infant born in the reign of his own contemporary Ahaz. Again; Matthew spoke of the residence of Jesus with his parents in Egypt, as being a ful- filment of the declaration of Hosea concerning what should befall him, when he represents God as saying, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” But in fact, Hosea did not use those words as a prediction concerning Jesus, or as a prediction of any kind. He was referring not to a foreseen fact of eight cen- turies after his time, but to an historical fact of six centuries before it, the emigration of the Jews from Egypt under Moses; “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt.” This is no evidence for Christianity; and yet it is such evidence as its (so-called) inspired cham- pions produce. If they were what they professed to be, supernaturally empowered teachers of a supernaturally revealed religion, they knew what was the proper evidence on which to assert its claim. But, in fact, what they have produced is worthless, and shows them to have been in error ; and not only therefore can we not in reason yield to the evidence they have offered, but, since their very offer of it so convicts them, we are also pre- ANTHONY COLLINS. Q15 cluded from attending to any other, whether of miracles or any thing else. Such is a summary of the argument, with suffi- cient illustration, I trust, to render it intelligible. Of the defences made against it, I will mention, first, a very peculiar one set up by one of the most accomplished and excellent of Collin’s contempo- raries. William Whiston, the associate, and af- terwards the successor, of Sir Isaac Newton as mathematical professor at Cambridge, and as learn- ed in divinity as in exact science, replied to Collins in his treatises entitled ‘The Literal Accomplish- ment of the Scripture Prophecies,” and, “A Sup- plement to the Literal Accomplishment of the Scripture Prophecies.” He assented to both as- sertions of Collins; namely, first, that the New Testament writers had applied the prophetical pas- sages of the Old Testament in question, to the proof of Christianity; while, secondly, im point of fact, those passages, as they now stand, are inapplicable. But he assumed the singular posi- tion, that the Old Testament had, in those passages, been corrupted by the Jews since the Apostles’ times, for the very purpose of invalidating their argument; that, as those passages originally stood in the Hebrew Bible, and as they stood at the period when the Apostles quoted them, they were exact descriptions of Jesus, his religion, and his times, and received in him their literal fulfilment ; and that it was only by the perfidious labor of the Jews, in the second century, in vitiating the records, 216 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. that this correspondence has been made to vanish. And in an “ Essay towards Restoring the True texts of the Old Testament,” he proceeded to em- ploy much learned labor on the recovery of the original readings, so as to cause the lost correspon- dence to re-appear. This was but the bold error of an able and thoroughly sincere man, at a period when the studies concerned with the literary history of the Bible had been but little cultivated. Had Whiston lived somewhat later, he would have seen, that, to name no other improbabilities in the supposition of the accomplishment of such an extraordinary plot (of whose existence, too, of course there is no histori- cal evidence), it is inconsistent with what is known of the circulation of the Old Testament, both in the original and in the Greek translation, among the ear- ly Christians; and inconsistent too with the unques- tionable facts of the case, as they appear in quota- tions from the Jewish Scriptures in works of the long line of Christian fathers. But there is no reason why my audience should be detained with a discussion of the system of Whiston, which chiefly attracted attention at first as an ingenious and erudite paradox, and has long since sunk out of notice. Its chief effect was, the unhappy one of giving the appearance of a triumph to his more wary oppo- nent. It was natural that Christianity should be exposed to suspicion, when one of its eminent champions felt compelled, in its defence, to have recourse to such wild and unsustained conjecture. ANTHONY COLLINS. QF The reasoning of Collins then, I repeat, was to this effect ; The first preachers of Christianity urged in its behalf certain arguments drawn from parts of the Old ‘Testament, which arguments, on turning to the Old Testament, are seen to be groundless ; the religion, therefore, is undeserving of credit. And Whiston replied to him, by saying, they did indeed use such arguments, and arguments which would have been unsatisfactory and indefensible, had the Old ‘Testament, in respect to the passages referred to, been the same in their day as it is in ours. But such was not the case. It has been corrupted since ; and, upon the basis on which their arguments were made, those arguments were good and cogent. Other opponents of Collins, among whom Chandler, Bishop of Coventry and Litch- field, was conspicuous, took different ground. It was substantially the same, which, with differ- ent modifications by different writers, has been commonly maintained to our day, and among others by Mr. Edward Everett in his “* Defence of Chris- tianity,” and by the authors of other strictures upon the work of Mr. George English, entitled, “The Grounds of Christianity examined by comparing the New Testament with the Old.” These writers, while, some to a greater, some to a less extent, they have been inclined to regard specified quotations in the New Testament from the Old, as having been introduced in the way of mere rhetorical accommodation, and not in the way of proof, have, as to the more important passages, Vor. II. 98 218 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. agreed with Collins, that they were used by the New Testament writers for proof, as well as (in opposition to Whiston) that their original reading, and the reading possessed by the New ‘Testament writers was the same as that which the text of the Old Testament now exhibits to our view. But they have asserted, contrary to Collins, that the proof thus adduced was good proof; and their argument to this effect has, of course, consisted in a criticism upon the several passages, designed to show that their real, original sense was the same in which the New ‘Testament writers understood and applied them. This they have aimed to show, some in one way of interpretation, some in another. Some have held that those Old ‘Testament passages, understood to be appealed to in the New ‘Testament as super- natural predictions of Jesus, really had, in the origi- nal design of their authors, that sense, and that sense alone, notwithstanding the contrary appear- ance presented by the contexts in which they severally stand. ‘This opinion may be considered the prevailing one among this class of expositors at the present day, and reckons among its defenders in this country, our learned neighbour, Professor Stuart of Andover. Others have experienced greater difficulty in ascribing this meaning to the passages in question, as their primitive purport ; and have accordingly resorted to the theory of what is called a double sense, which has had the patron- age of distinguished names, ever since the question ANTHONY COLLINS. 219 has been moved, and has, on the whole, been de- cidedly the favorite scheme. ‘That is to say; a critic reads the passage, in which Isaiah represents himself as having said to Ahaz, ‘A virgin shall be- come a mother,” * and so on, and understands it as relating to the birth of a child within the period of that monarch’s reign. But, turning to Matthew’s Gospel, | he understands that evangelist to declare the allusion to have been to the birth of Jesus, several centuries afterwards. Accordingly, adopting both interpretations, and not understanding either to be set aside by the other, he reconciles them by means of the hypothesis, that Isaiah, in the primary sense of his words, referred to an event of the time of Ahaz; but that, in a secondary sense, he de- signed them to foreshadow the more important event of a distant future time. This is the theory of double senses in prophecy. I shall revert to it, after briefly stating another. Collins said, The early teachers of Christianity produced futile arguments in its defence, and ac- cordingly they propagated, and have bequeathed it to us, destitute of any good defence. Whiston re- plied, No; those arguments would have been futile if they were what they now appear to us; but they only appear so, because the Old Testament docu- ments, which furnished their basis, have since that time been falsified. Bishop Chandler and others, said, No; the arguments, as they stand, are good * Issey 14. t Mat. i, 22, 23. 220 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. ones; the prophecies referred to originally meant, in a primary, or else in a secondary sense, what the New Testament writers understood them to mean, when they produced them as proof. A different view, still, has recently been taken, and has the support of Christian scholars of our own vicinity, whose authority on such a question may be safely said to claim as much deference as that of any living writers ; particularly it has been maintained by the learned translator of the poetical books of the Old ‘Testament, now Professor of Biblical Literature in our University. Their account of the facts, is this; The New Testament writers did sometimes interpret the Old Testament erroneously. For instance, Matthew did suppose the words addressed by Isaiah to Ahaz, to constitute a prophecy pointing to, and fulfilled in, Jesus of Nazareth. And he was in an error in that supposition. ‘The words really had no such meaning. But what then? Nothing follows, except the conclusion that Matthew was not an infallible interpreter of Old Testament scripture. But this in no degree affects the validity of his testimony to other facts, which assure us that Jesus was “a teacher sent from God, because no man could do such works as he did, except God were with him.” Matthew could testify to facts, of which his senses took cogni- zance, without beimg an infallible interpreter of language ; and those facts are all that we want to know, in order to be satisfied of the divine authority ANTHONY COLLINS. yond | of his master. No one supposes, that, because the apostles were inspired, they were omniscient ; and instances of their imperfect knowledge, both before and after their master’s departure, have been placed on record by themselves. We regard their occa- sional erroneous interpretations of the Old Testa- ment, as constituting one instance of their partial knowledge ; and if, in the case in question, they honestly produced as evidence something which in reality was not such, this does not weaken, for those whom they addressed, the force of other evi- dence, in respect to the reality of which it was not in the nature of things possible that they should be liable to any mistake. While 1 look at this last theory with all the respect due to the eminent quarters whence it derives support, I am compelled to say that it does not satisfy my mind. Persuaded, with other Chris- tians, that the apostles, after their master’s depar- ture, were supernaturally endowed with all the knowledge concerning his religion, necessary to qualify them for their work of spreading it, I can- not but regard it as in a high degree improbable, that they were left in error upon so important a point, as that of the nature of the evidence, on which it belonged to them to urge its claims. Un- questionably, with the well-authenticated miracu- lous history of Christianity on the one side, and nothing on the other, but this fact, —if it were a fact, —of an erroneous opinion concerning one feature of its evidence on the part of its primitive yd OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. teachers, I could not, as a reasonable man, but yield credence to its claim of divinity, and own that the difficulty was so far disposed of, by the considerations just produced, as to have no right to stand in the way of a satisfied belief on the main question.* But, before I resort to this expedient, which I cannot regard with favorable presumptions, I would fain know whether any such expedient is called for. Is there any certain instance of a writer *That is, I should regard this instance, if I saw it to exist, of misappre- hension on the part of the apostles, in the same light in which Grotius and others have viewed their supposed erroneous expectation of a speedy per- sonal re-appearance of Christ, and catastrophe of human things. If they entertained that expectation, of course they were in error; an error, how- ever, which, in my opinion, could not be affirmed to invalidate their claim to a divine commission. But I cannot allow that there is proof of their having entertained the expectation. When Paul says, for instance, (1 Thess. iv. 17) “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air,” I under- stand him to be employing the very common form of language, by which one belonging to any community of persons, civil, religious, or the like, identifies himself with it in the use of the pronoun of the first person, while he speaks of things done, or to be done, by that community, or some portion of it, though, individually, he had, or is to have, no share in doing them. Thus we North Americans of the present time may say, We drove out the Indians, and took possession of their country, or We shall be a numerous people, a century hence. For scriptural examples of this use, see Judges ii. 1; Psalm lxvi. 6; Hosea xii. 4. And for proof that Paul did not, in point of fact, labor under the mistake attributed to him, see 2 Cor iv. 14, v.. 6,8; Phik 4, 225 ii. '10, 11; 2 Tim. iv. 6. The text, Phil. iv. 5,6, is nothing to the purpose. The connexion is, “ The Lord is at hand,’”—a watchful providence is always near; therefore, “be anxious about nothing,” &c. The common admission, by scriptural expositors, of mistake, in this instance, on the part of the writers of the New Testament, is, in my view, altogether uncalled for by the facts of the case. Dr. Paley (View of the Evidences of Christianity, Part III. chap. 2,) gives, in a few words, a good vindication of the supposed fact. But I cannot allow that it admits of being reasoned from, since I cannot allow it to be a fact. And so, pre- cisely, I view the question treated above. ANTHONY COLLINS. 299) of the New Testament having referred to a passage in the Old, as containing evidence in the way of supernatural prediction, when it does not appear in fact to bear that character F If the criticisms upon such passages, of the pre- vailing school of Christian expositors, are correct, then there is no such instance. ‘The New ‘Testa- ment writers, when they have used such language as, ‘All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet,” and so on, have intended to produce such an argument; but they have in every instance reasoned legitimately, from a correct apprehension of the fact, and with just inference in its application. I will not say that such critics have not succeeded in their aim. Whoever thinks they have done so, will of course consider the objection to Christianity, which we are now considering, perfectly disposed of. But for myself, | must own that they have not succeeded to my satisfaction. In respect to the texts which have occasioned this discussion, the expositions of those interpreters who have labored to fix on them, as the single original sense, that sense in which they are understood to be produced as proof by the writers of the New Testament, appear to me to be extremely violent; while the theory of a double sense, less esteemed now than formerly in any quarter, appears to me to be justly liable to the charge of violating all the principles of language, and of being in fact the theory of no defi- nite sense whatever. In my view, the true solution DOD A, OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. of the question is different from any of those I have described. I conceive that the opponents of Collins erred, in contradicting the latter assertion, of which his argument is composed, when they should have contradicted the former. He asserted, first, that the New ‘Testament writers had undertaken to prove the divinity of their religion by references to passages of the Old Testament which he specified, and which he asserted, secondly, to be unsuitable to that use. His opponents assented to the former statement, and denied the latter. ‘They maintain- ed that those passages were suitable to that use. They should have owned, I think, that they were not suitable to that use, and should have denied, that, in point of fact, they had been applied to it. This I take to be the true state of the case. ‘The difficulty, made so much of, | hold to be merely an imaginary one. The passages which the evangelists are blamed on the one hand, and defended on the other, for having used as arguments, if I read them correctly, they did not use as arguments at all. To explain the case, as I understand it, a few preliminary observations are necessary. It is an approved and familiar rhetorical device, to enrich a composition with applications, more or less formal, of language of some admired author. It gives a vivacity to style; at all events, it is a natural im- pulse, as every one knows, of the mind which, while it composes, remembers some form of words, applicable really or fancifully to the subject in hand. ~ ANTHONY COLLINS. 295 One of the editors of Homer asserts, that there is scarcely a line of that poet, which has not been thus repeated in a quotation by some ancient.* If the Jews were not exempt, when they wrote, from this law of the mind, (as who can tell why they should be?) from what book should they quote? From what book but the Old Testament ? The Old Testament was their national library. It contained their national literature ; and it was more to them than Homer was to the Greeks, for it con- tained their national religion too. Its language was so familiar to their memories, that it would perpet- ually present itself unbidden, as often as any thing occurred which it would fitly describe ; and it was not only, for their readers, an always ready, but a dignified, a sacred, storehouse of agreeable and exciting allusions. How natural to adorn a narra- tive or description by the remark, This resembles what we read of in such or such a place in Old Tes- tament history ; or, ‘This might be well described by the language used on a different occasion by this or that ancient prophet. But it will be said, The form of expression, intro- ducing a quotation in the passages which occasion this inquiry, 1s very strong; so strong, as not to seem suitable to precede a mere ornament of speech. As I wish to give this argument its fullest force, I will treat it in reference to the strongest form of language which is any where used. “ All this was * Daniel Heinsius. See Michaelis, Introduction to the New Testa- ment. Part I. chap. 5. § 1. (Vol. I. p. 202.) Vou. Il. 29 226 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. done,” says Matthew, in relation to the circum- stances of the Saviour’s birth, ‘that it might be ful- filled,”’? and so on. The first question here of course would arise on the sense of the word fulfil. Does it necessarily intimate the accomplishment of a supernatural pre- diction, so as to show, that, agreeably to what is commonly supposed, it was this which Matthew had in view? I answer, By no means; and, if | were at liberty here to use that kind of argument, I should proceed to show that it does not, by ob- servations on the meaning and comprehensiveness of the Greek word here translated fu/fl. In such connexions it simply means, to verify, to make good ; as we say, ‘“ In such an occurrence the saying was made good,” not intending to declare that the saying foretold the occurrence, but simply convey- ing the same sense in a different phraseology, as is expressed, where persons are spoken of, in whom was fulfilled the old proverb, that the swine, when washed, have returned to their wallowing in the mire.* It certainly was not intended there to say that the proverb, thus fulfilled in those persons, had been originally constructed as a supernatural prediction of their backsliding. But, “ All this was done, that it might be ful- filled;” must not this word that, and the whole construction of the sentence, be understood to de- clare, that the event was brought about on set pur- pose, that so it should answer to the prophetically Oe Per, Mi aoe ANTHONY COLLINS. 927 uttered words? J will not, in reply to this ques- tion, lead my audience through any philological technics, relating to the distinction between ‘the causative that,” and “the eventual that,” but ask them to try it by a few simple examples.* If, in mourning for my ship-wrecked friend, I say, ‘ He only went upon the sea to perish,” or, ‘ He trusted to the ocean only that it might overwhelm him,” would any one so slavishly interpret the words as to under- derstand me to mean that such was his purpose in going on the sea; or not rather as expressing, in an animated manner, that such had been the sad event? Or, to take scriptural examples, — for these are equally at hand, and might be produced in an in- definite number, — “ Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest ;” T does any reader understand the Psalmist as saying that he sinned for the purpose of justifying God, or simply that such was the result of his sin?“ ‘They prophesy a lie in my name, that | might drive you out, and that ye might perish; ” { does this mean, that the false prophets had thus offended for the very end of causing the expulsion of their nation, and their own with the rest? ‘ Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he might be born blind” § (as the literal translation is); was the question in- tended to be asked, whether the unnatural parents * The subject is constantly treated in the philological works. See, for instance, Glass, Philologia Sacra, Lib. iii. tract'7. canon 19. t Psalm, li. 4, t Jeremiah, xxvii. 10. § John, ix. 2. 228 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY had sinned with a view to bringing this calamity on their unborn son ? Again; such forms of reference to their ancient scriptures were, in poimt of fact, undoubtedly in use among the Jews, when they intended to inti- mate nothing of the nature of accomplishment of supernatural prediction. ‘The Talmuds, collections of their ancient comments, which I had formerly occasion to describe,* triflmg and absurd as are most of their contents, and utterly worthless in themselves considered, are our best storehouse of materials for acquaintance with ancient Jewish forms of speech, and often throw important light upon New ‘Testament phraseology ; for which pur- pose collections have been made from them by Lightfoot and Schéttgen, and other Christian scho- lars. As to the purport of such phraseology as that now before us, we read, for example, as fol- lows, in a passage discussing the question how a person who had been guilty of a ritual omission ought to make up his fault. “ Rabbi Eliezer said, ‘ He who does not eat on the night of the first day of the feast, must do it on the night of the last day.’ But the wise men say that there is no com- pensation for the thing. Of [or, concerning] this it is said, ‘'That which is crooked cannot be made strait, nor that which is wanting be numbered.’ t Here a quotation from the book of Ecclesiastes { is pre- sented as applicable to the case in hand. But cer- * See Vol. I. p. 313. t Mischna Surenhusii, Tom. II. p. 266. t Eccles. i. 15. ANTHONY COLLINS. 229 tainly the Jewish casuist did not mean to affirm, that the words he cites were originally written as a solu- tion of the question which he was now discussing. To quote further from the same collection ; ‘¢ What shall I do with thee,” said Simeon, ‘‘ who dost delight thyself before the face of God?..... Thou art like a son that delights himself before his fathersyers<: .00t of [concerning] thee the Scripture saith, ‘Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.’” * ‘The words here quoted with the introduction, of thee the Scrip- ture saith, are from the book of Proverbs,t where no one will pretend that the insignificant person ad- dressed in this Talmudical passage was originally had in view, or that he was supposed to have been originally had in view, by the person who many centuries after applied it to him. Again; “ When Rabbi Abun came in before the King, he turned his neck. ‘They came, seeking to kill him; but they saw two sparks of fire streaming from his neck, and let him go, to fulfil that which is said,t * All people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee.’” § We have nothing to do with the fable; but who will attribute to its author such an imagination, as that the scriptural words, which he represents as being fulfilled in the event related by him, were originally written with reference to that event? Such instances * Mischna Surenhus, Tom. II. p. 375. t Prog xxi, 25: t Deut. xxviii. 10. § Talmud HMierosolymitan. Berachoth, cap. 4, as quoted by Schaaf, Opus Arameum, Selecta Dialecti Talmud. pp. 372, 373. 230 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. prove a Jewish use of speech, similar to that which is the subject of our present inquiry. But, if such was an authorized Jewish phraseology in the sense ex- plained, then it was one to which the New Testa- ment writers, as Jews, were accustomed. Certainly their forms of language are to be interpreted agree- ably to the established usages of their own nation. Were there opportunity to pursue the argument, abundant illustration might be presented of the view which I take of the main question. If that view is correct, the New Testament writers will be seen to be in no degree liable to the charge which has been brought against them, of misconceptions of the sense of the Old, in such quotations as I have par- ticularly dwelt upon. Matthew then is to be un- derstood, after relating the circumstances of his Master’s nativity, to have remarked, as was very natural for him to do, that the event fulfilled, — that is, filled out, conformed to,—the tenor of those well-known glowing words of the ancient prophet, when he was promising to his afflicted sovereign a speedy temporal deliverance for his nation.* So when the same evangelist refers to the words of the prophet Hosea, where he says, ‘‘ When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and | called my son out of Egypt,” t and applies them to the re- turn of Jesus from that country, in the remark, that “this fulfilled what was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, ‘ Out of Egypt I have called my son ;’” ¢ and again, when, having related that Jesus addressed * Mat. i. :22;°23. t Hos. xi. 1. t Mat. i. 15. ANTHONY COLLINS. 98% the multitude in parables, he adds, that this was done, “ that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, ‘I will open my mouth in parables,’ ” *— words which it seems impossible to doubt that the Psalmist used concerning himself, t or to suppose that St. Matthew understood him to use in any other sense ; — on these, and other like occasions, we shall understand this evangelist and his associates not to have had in view the assertion of a supernatural prediction fulfilled, but merely the passing suggestion of analogies between an event, which they were recording, and another which the language used in describing it brought to their minds. The method of explanation, which I have now been developing, is called by the name of the ac- commodation scheme ; and my own view differs from that of others, who have adopted it, only in giving it a wider application. ‘The remarks which have now been made answer to a large class of texts ; and, having particularly illustrated them in reference to one text which is oftenest specified in this con- nexion, I will do the same as to another, of equal interest, which may perhaps be called the most prominent instance of those, in which the stress does not lie on the use of that particular form of quotation which has now been expounded. On the day of the first Pentecost after their Lord’s ascension, the Apostles were qualified for their work by being empowered to address the strangers * Mat. xiii. 35. t Psalm, |xxviii. 2. 239 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. at Jerusalem in the languages of their respective countries. In reply to the astonishment of some of the bystanders, and the mockery of others, at this amazing phenomenon, Peter is related to have stood up with the eleven, and addressed the multi- tude in such a manner, that “ numbers gladly re- ceived his word and were baptized, and the same day there were added unto the disciples’ company about three thousand souls.”* The truth to which these thousands were converted, was that which he announced in saying, ‘“ Let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” + How did they become satisfied of the truth of that declaration? How did Peter seek and succeed to persuade them, on this first essay to fulfil the Master’s parting command to “ go and teach all nations ? ” He persuaded them, some will answer, by the force of certain prophecies which he produced in that discourse ; one at some length from Joel, and two from the Psalms. But, the opponent will say, If the first great company of converts were per- suaded by that evidence, they were persuaded by evidence which was altogether insufficient ; and, if this was what Peter had to maintain his claim with, his claim ought not to have been acknowledged by reasonable men. For, if ancient prediction fulfilled is to be owned for satisfactory proof, it must clearly be because the correspondence between the predic- * Acts, ii. Al. t Ibid. ii. 36. ANTHONY COLLINS. OS tion and its accomplishment is so manifestly circum- stantial and exact, as to forbid any other explana- tion except that of a supernatural divine interfer- ence. But how was it in the present instance ? Look at the words of Joel, which composed Peter’s first and longest quotation in this discourse. What was their tenor ? The language is, ‘It shall come to pass in the last days,’ saith God, ‘I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, and on my servants and on my handmaidens [ will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy; and I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come.’” * This was the prediction, if any, which was first brought to the notice of the multitude, to satisfy them of the character of him whom Peter declared to be a man sent and approved of God. But where was that manifestly circumstantial and exact accomplish- ment of the prediction, which was to convert it into present proof of a supernatural divine interposition ? Why could not those addressed have replied, “ We see no such accomplishment. We see no sun turned into darkness, nor moon into blood. We see no wonders in heaven above, no blood, nor fire, * Joel, ii. 28 —32; Acts, ii. 16 —21. Vox. II. 30 Q34, OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. nor vapor of smoke; and though young men may have seen visions, and old men have dreamed dreams, as these are facts not apparent to us, they cannot be taken by us as the basis of any further conviction.” I see not how, upon that understanding of the passage which I suppose is common, a sufficient answer could be made to an objection of this kind. But I take it to be only through a misinterpretation of Peter’s words, that the validity of his reasoning is subjected to so serious a question. As | under- stand him, he does not rest the claims of his Mas- ter’s religion on the evidence of a prediction, of so vague a character, fulfilled, —a prediction, which, however real, was certainly not suited, in its detail of circumstances, to the present purpose, that of conciliating unbelief; but he rests its claims on the proper evidence of the miraculous works wrought in its behalf. He introduces the subject, it is true, by saying, not simply, “ We are not beside ourselves, as you injuriously charge us with being; we are heralds of the Messiah’s times; the long expected Christ is come.” He does not introduce the grand annunciation, which he was presently to prove, in such simple terms; but, in a style more suitable to the sublime excitement of the occasion, he says, “That which you see is not what you suppose it, the officious frenzy of intemperate men; but the time has come at length, which all the fathers looked for with so confident and intense a longing ; the time which Joel described, with the lavish rich- ANTHONY COLLINS. 235 ness of poetical imagery, due to the enthusiasm with which the great subject filled his soul.” This was Peter’s natural and becoming form of annunciation of the truth, that Jesus of Nazareth was the long expected Messiah. But, when he presently proceeded to the proof of the truth so announced, he then spoke in a different strain. Then he appealed to the miracles of Jesus, and par- ticularly to that great and last miracle of the resur- rection, which his followers, who had had ocular evidence of it, were now addressing themselves to publish to the world. “Ye men of Israel,” he says, ‘“‘ hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and won- ders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know, him, being de- livered by the determinate counsel and foreknowl- edge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death.” “ This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.” * In the miracles done by God through Jesus in the midst of them, as they, or part of them, also knew, though, in their tardy hesitating sluggishness of soul, they had not yielded to the conviction which that sublime testimonial carried with it, and, among those miracles, in the resurrection of Jesus, to which his servants were now about to publish their effec- tive testimony through the world, —in these, and in the present miracle of their own capacity, with- * Acts, ii. 22 — 24, 32. 236 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. out human teaching, to speak to foreigners each in his native tongue, — in these miracles, thus presented (and enlarged upon, it is likely, as to their evidence and purport, in the “many other words” with which Peter is further said to have “testified and exhorted,”) consisted the proof with which three thousand souls were won to the faith on the memo- rable day of the first Pentecost. I could not, I think, have selected from the whole New Testament any other texts more directly bear- ing upon the argument of this evening’s Lecture, than the two which I have brought before your notice for the particular illustration of principles of interpretation, applicable equally to others. ‘The question naturally occurs at the close of the inquiry, How are we then to regard the not unfrequent references in the New Testament to the Old, in con- nexion with the subject of the advent and religion of Jesus Christ? Had the question been put to me, some years ago, after I had resorted to the common sources of information concerning it, | could not have given a reply satisfactory to my own mind; and that I could not, was an occasion to me of inexpressible concern. Different minds view the various points in the evidences differently; mine, since I first gave much attention to the subject, has never labored seriously upon any other point, than that of this connexion between the Old Testament and the New. As I speak only for myself, | may say, without a breach of modesty, that investiga- tions, patiently pursued, and, I would hope, fauly, ANTHONY COLLINS. 934 and with a sincere desire to know the truth, con- ducted me to results which have afforded me not only relief, but the fullest satisfaction. ‘The meth- od, and part of the details, of these have been laid before the public in two volumes, part of a work on the “Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities.” ‘The minute criticism, necessary to exhaust the subject, does not admit of being introduced as part of such a course of Lectures as the present ; but I will state results, bearing upon the particular point of our present inquiry, though conscious, that, unaccom- panied as they must be with the proper explana- tions and defence, they may at first strike many minds as untenable. I am satisfied, then, that no instance can be es- tablished of misrepresentation or misapprehension, on the part of writers of the New ‘Testament, in respect to passages of the Old adduced by them in connexion with the character, mission, and faith of their Master. And I conceive that such passazes are comprehended under four classes. To the first belong those, which really were su- pernatural predictions, and really are referred to, as such. For instance, when our Lord says, that Mo- ses wrote of him,* 1 understand him to refer to the supernaturally conveyed knowledge possessed by Moses of his future advent and character; a knowl- edge naturally incident to Moses’s office as minister of the preparatory dispensation, and expressed by him, for example, in that prophecy appealed to by * John, v. 46, SB OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. Peter in an address to his countrymen, ‘A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things;”* as well as in Moses’s record of the promise made to the first three Hebrew patriarchs, that in their posterity should “all the kingdoms of the earth be blessed.” fT And on this class of references, being to real proof texts, — supernatural predictions fulfilled, — I find occasion for two remarks. The first is, that they present no difficulty whatever in their applica- tion. ‘The use of them in the New Testament does not strike the reader as foreign to their origi- nal sense. On the contrary, it is the sense which he would naturally put upon them as they stand in their original connexion. Secondly, I consider every instance of this class of references to be to the Law ; the Pentateuch; the five books of the super- naturally endowed lawgiver Moses; and not to any other part of Old Testament scripture. Whether, for instance, the famous passage in Isaiah, descrip- tive of some eminent sufferer, { be in reality a proof text, a supernatural prediction of Jesus, or not, — a point which I am not now to discuss, — it is no- where used for that purpose by the New Testament writers. § Peter says, “¢ Who his own self bare our * Acts, iii. 22; Deut. xviii. 18. t Gen. xii. 3 — xviii. 18 — xxii. 18 — xxvi. 4. t Zs. ii. 13 — lili. 12. § I do not forget the conversation of Peter with the Ethiopian officer, recorded in Acts, viii. 30, et seg. But itis only the prepossessions of read- ers, that lead them to the conclusion of Peter’s having applied to Jesus, in the way of a supernatural prediction, the passage there quoted from Isaiah. ANTHONY COLLINS. 239 sins in his own body on the tree, by whose stripes we are healed ;’’* and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that Christ ‘‘ was once offered to bear the sins of many;’’ + and these are understood to be references to the language of Isaiah. But they are, at most, allusions, and not arguments in the nature of appeal to prophecy fulfilled. And Matthew, who much more exactly quotes the passage, employs it with a very different application. Jesus ‘“ cast out,” he says, “the spirits with a word, and cured all those who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, when he said, ‘ Himself took our infirmities, and bare [the sense here must be, bare off; removed] our sick- nesses.’ ” ft The second class of these texts is that, of which I have treated at large in this Lecture, where nothing but a legitimate rhetorical accommodation is de- signed. They are taken, as from their nature they may well be, indifferently from all parts of the Old Testament collection. ‘Ye shall not break a bone The narrative of the interview contains no declaration of that kind. All that is affirmed is, that the Ethiopian was reading the passage, which, whether rightly or wrongly, he appears to have understood as descrip- tive of the expected Messiah of the Jews; and that Peter, taking up the subject thus introduced, ‘“ began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.” For myself, I think that, in the words quoted, their writer did design a reference to the Messiah, whom every Jew of his time expected ; —a reference in what sense, it would lead me here into too extensive a discussion to explain. But, for aught that can be safely inferred from the account of the interview between Peter and the Ethi- opian, Peter may have begun by a denial of any applicability whatever of those words to the Messiah. *'1 Peta ee. t Heb. ix. 28. t Mat. viii. 17. QA0 OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. thereof,” was one of the directions in the law re- specting the Paschal Lamb;* the Jews, in com- memorating, in after ages, ther hasty departure from Egypt, were not to stop at the Paschal table to break the lamb’s bones, to taste the marrow. As the body of Jesus hung upon the cross, the sol- diers, for a reason given, forbore to deal with it, as with those of the malefactors, “that the scripture should be fulfilled,” John adds, «‘A bone of him shall not be broken.” | Jesus ‘came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth,” records Matthew, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the proph- ets, ‘ He shall be called a Nazarene ;’” { where no other text seems so likely to have been in his view, as that where it is said, that Samson should be, or be called, «a Nazarite from his birth.”§ When Herod slew “all the children which were in Beth- lehem, from two years old and under,” “then was fulfilled,” says Matthew, ‘that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, ‘In Ramah was there a voice heard, Rachel weeping for her chil- dren.’”’ || The reference is to a passage of the prophecy of Jeremiah, where, on the occasion of the calamity of Ramah, a city of the tribe of Ben- jamin, Rachel, the mother of that tribe, is beauti- fully represented as deploring their lot.1 But the innocents of Bethlehem were descended from Ju- dah, a son of Leah; and to suppose Matthew to * Exodus, xii. 46. t John, xix. 36. t Matthew, ii 23. § Judges, xiii. 7. || Matthew, ii. 17,18. 1 Jerem. xxxi. 15. ANTHONY COLLINS. QA1 have cited the words as a prediction of their fate, is to lose sight of all the propriety of the allusion. The third class of the texts in question consists of those, which are produced as references to, or proofs of, the opinions entertained in ancient times, concerning the Messiah who was eventually to appear; and, when produced from any other part of the Old Testament except the Pentateuch, they leave it an open question, as far as their mention of such a personage is concerned, whether their au- thors possessed or not any supernatural information concerning him. ‘To Moses the fact that a great prophet was to come after him could be known only through a direct divine communication. There was no other source whence he could derive it. The Jews of later times, however, knew it from his own recorded declaration; and, for a series of ages, every Jew, on Moses’s authority, without any new inspiration of his own on the subject, confi- dently and joyfully recognised the fact. Sometimes this class of texts, indicative of the opinions of times between Moses and Jesus, respecting the coming Messiah, the nature of his office, the extent of his kingdom, and the spirit of his faith, are used by the apostles in argument with the Jews of their own day. But there is no instance of this kind, where the argument used implies an assertion, on the part of the New Testament writers, of super- natural authority possessed by the authors of the Old ‘Testament language which they quote. | The first Christians, for instance, being all of the Voi. II. 31 VAD OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. Jewish stock, and full of their native prejudices, were discontented to think that Gentiles were to be admit- ted to their fraternity. James tells them, however, that it ought so to be, and adds, that ‘to this too agree the words of the prophets,” * who spoke of God’s building again, as every Jew was persuaded that he would do, ‘the tabernacle of David, which had fallen down, and building up the ruins thereof, and setting it up,” and that then “the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom his name was called ;”’ + and Paul pro- duces Hosea to the same purpose { as saying, “It shall come to pass, in the place where it was said to them, ‘Ye are not my people,’ there they shall be called, the sons of the living God.” § It cannot be inferred, that such passages (and they are numer- ous) ascribe to the author of the quoted text any supernatural authority to settle the question on which they are brought to bear. ‘The most that can be safely maintained is, that they enforce upon the Jews of the apostles’ times this argument ; Whatever may be the bigoted notions of your na- tion now, it 1s clear, from the use of such language, that they have no countenance from the illustrious men of the former ages; they did not think about the perpetual exclusion of the Gentiles, as you do. The remaining class of the texts in question, akin to that last mentioned, does not so commonly comprehend particular quotations, but consists * Acts, xv. 15, et seq. t Amos, ix. 11, 12. t Romans, ix. 26. § Hosea, ii. 23. ANTHONY COLLINS. DAS rather of references to the general tenor of the Old Testament, showing to the Jews, that, on their own principles of interpretation, without arguing the question whether those principles were correct or not, Old ‘Testament scripture did not supply them with those objections to the faith of Jesus which they imagined. This class of texts is large, and differs from that just now described in this; that the former adduce from the Old Testament a positive argument, while these contain only a denial that the Old Testament, even in Jewish interpretation, pre- sents any argument, such as was supposed, on the other side ;—in short, a denial that certain preju- dices of the Jews against Christianity, founded on a particular view of their own respecting their sacred writings, had any good foundation, even supposing that view to be in the main correct. For instance, when St. Paul says that Christ ‘died and was buried, and rose again the third day according to the scriptures,” —* that is, of course, the Old Testament scriptures, — I conceive his sense to have been not that Christ’s rising on the third day was expressly predicted in the scrip- tures (since that is a prediction which certainly is not found there ); but it was “according to the scriptures ” in the sense of not being in contradic- tion to them, as the Jews supposed it would be, who, looking, on the ground of their scriptural interpretations, for none other than a triumphant Messiah, regarded any assertion of the claim of a ae UY Te ge ee 2QAA OBJECTION FROM JEWISH PROPHECY. Messiah, who was to die, as essentially, and in its first aspect, undeserving of credit. The perfect logical legitimacy of the four meth- ods of quotation and reference now specified, I take to be unquestionable ; and under one or another of the four I conceive that all the instances in the New Testament very naturally arrange themselves. If it be so, then the famous argument of Collins ought to be dismissed from the controversy. In my next Lecture I am to speak of Toland, Woolston, Morgan, and Chubb, whose writings afford an index to the state of infidel opinion in England, down to the middle of the last century. LEG@T URE kel &. OBJECTIONS OF TOLAND, WOOLSTON, MORGAN, AND CHUBB. Ir was a doctrine of an ancient philosophy, that time, in respect to the course of human affairs, as well as in respect to its natural divisions, was made up of a succession of cycles, so that, when one period was finished, another began, embracing the same events, recurring in the same order, as before. This was but a fable. And yet it does sometimes seem, as if there were really such cycles in the his- tory of opinions. Opinions are proposed, canvassed, refuted, abandoned. ‘They betake themselves for a while to obscurity. But by and by they re-appear, emerging afresh (so complete is the forgetfulness that has involved them) with all the attractions of novelty. Again they are the wonder of a day; again they are examined and rebuked; and again they vanish, to await perhaps some future transient revival. 246 OBJECTIONS OF In reading the history of infidelity during the first half of the last century, one almost seems to be anticipating the relation of what has been taking place under our own eyes. There was an exhi- bition of the same dreamy imaginative devotion, which, aspiring after something in the way of reli- gion, better than what could be defined and proved, spurned all the solid foundations of faith, and lost itself in airy abstractions; the same cultivation of a certain sort of mystical piety, which, until it was quite run away with by self-conceit and the infatua- ting fancy of new discovery, imposed on others, as well as on the individual himself, with the idea, that, in a relinquishment and contempt of plain sense and ascertainable truth, the mind might still continue to contemplate something substantial and nourish- ing. ‘The very phrases, “ historical religion,” ‘the ministry of the letter,” * and the like, which, as terms of obloquy, have just now had a faint re- surrection among ourselves, were the watch-words of Woolston and Morgan a hundred years ago. John Toland, an Irishman by birth, was one of the first writers, who, in the last century, rendered themselves conspicuous in the controversy respect- ing the authority of the Christian faith. His capa- city for such a discussion, as it was estimated by his contemporaries, may be inferred, with proper allowances, from sketches of his character drawn both by friends and foes. Of the latter I find a : “ Woolston’s Defence of his Discourses, &c. p. 49; Morgan’s Moral Philosopher, Vol. I. p. 408. JOHN TOLAND. DAT specimen in a few periods from a journal of the day, extracted in a Memoir of his life prefixed to the collection of his posthumous works. “ ‘The misfortunes of Mr. Toland,” says this writer, ‘ are to be ascribed to his vanity. He affected singularity in all things (an easy way of being distinguished) ; he would reject an opinion merely because an eminent writer embraced it; he had a smattering in many languages, was a critic in none; his style was low, confused, and disagreeable ; he prefixed affected titles to his tracts, in imitation of some ancient philosophers, in which he loved to talk of himself, and that in a most complaisant manner. Dabbling in controversy was his delight, in which he was rude and positive, as well as always in the wrong.” * This is evidently from an unfriendly hand, and I do not quote it as authority; but that there was some truth in the portraiture, may be inferred from the corroboration it received in a letter ad- dressed to Locke by his respectable correspondent Mr. Molyneux, + who, from his attachment to reli- gious liberty, had befriended ‘Toland, but who found occasion to say of him, many years before he pro- fessed infidelity, «I do not think his management, since he came to this city, has been prudent. He has raised against him the clamors of all parties, and this not so much by his difference in opinion, as by his unreasonable way of discoursing, propa- * Collection of Pieces, &c. Vol. I. p. xc. t Ibid. p. xviii. QA8 OBJECTIONS OF gating, and maintaining it. When a tincture of vanity appears in the whole course of a man’s con- versation, it disgusts many, that may otherwise have a due value for his parts and learning.” These representations, taken together, present to us the idea of a combination of qualities, which, whenever it occurs, is very likely to prompt to a championship of unbelief, and at the same time to carry with it a sort of authority such as its real claims by no means justify. The mere appearance of a degree of talent and learning on the side of infidel opinions is apt to pass with unreflecting minds for a voucher of the truth of those opinions ; and with- out doubt they owe some of their triumphs to this cause. But, granting even such partial mental ac- complishments to be real, certainly they are liable to be found in union with a levity of mind incom- patible with the exercise of a serious judgment upon any thing, and with an impatience for notoriety, — a notoriety always easily won in this way, — which proclaims opinions, not only before they are weighed, but before, in a careful way of speaking, they can be said to be formed. 3 Toland had attracted attention by what were thought his latitudinarian views as early as the close of the seventeenth century; but [ think there is no proof that the progress of his speculations had brought him upon infidel ground till some years after the publication of Lord Shaftesbury’s writings. He was bred a Catholic ; but, while yet a youth, renounced that form of faith, and attached himself JOHN TOLAND. QAO to the Presbyterian communion. Of his numerous writings, mostly on religious subjects, I have occa- sion to mention but a few, as coming within the scope of our present investigation. When twenty-five years of age, he published his ‘‘ Christianity not Mysterious, or a Treatise show- ing that there is Nothing in the Gospel contrary to Reason, nor above it, and that no Christian Doc- trine can be properly called a Mystery ;” a work, which, considering the peculiar senses attached by him to his terms, is far from justifying the opinion of his having become an unbeliever in the superna- tural divine origin of Christianity. Nor do I find that there is any thing to prove that he had taken that ground earlier than the year 1720, when he printed his “ Pantheisticon,” which, if rightly described, proclaimed him as an advocate of that Pantheistical system of Spinoza, which, in a former treatise,* he had elaborately opposed. I say, “if rightly described,” which I presume that it is, from the full and circumstantial accounts given of its contents. But there is probably no copy of it in this country; it never was published ; and only a small edition was printed for presents to the author’s friends. The notion which he himself entertained of his merits and those of his Pantheistic associates, I find described as follows, in what pur- ports to be a careful abstract of that treatise, by a German writer who possessed a copy; t+ “He de- * Letters to Serena, p. 131, et seq. t Staudlin, Geschichte, &c., Th. II. s. 114. Vorate. 32 250 APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. scribes the Pantheists as the most tolerant and gentle beings, who persecute no man for opinion’s sake ; who, without regard to honor or disgrace, and content with their lot, strive to live agreeably to their own principles, and not to those of others, to extend their insight, to improve their hearts, to advance the general good, and continually to bring themselves nearer to perfection.” But that book, if it were accessible, would only settle for us, at first hand, the question respecting its author’s unbelief in the fundamental doctrine of all religion, and would not furnish any matter bear- ing specially on the argument of the Evidences of Christianity. In a previous work, however, he had (unwittingly, as he avers) furnished to others an ar- gument, which may here conveniently receive the brief attention it demands. In 1698, he published an edition of the works of Milton, prefixing a Life, in which he took occasion to engage in the controversy respecting the authorship of the work called ‘“ Ikon Basilike,” falsely, as is probable, ascribed to King Charles the First. He argued against its authentic- ity, and having, as he conceived, made out his point, he concluded with this remark; ‘‘When [I seri- ously consider how all this happened among our- selves, within the compass of forty years, in a time of great learning and politeness, ..... I cease to wonder how so many supposititious pieces under the name of Christ, his apostles, and other great per- sons, should be published and approved in those primitive times, when it was of so much importance JOHN TOLAND. 251 to have them believed.” * ‘This was regarded, and publicly animadverted on, as an insinuation against the authenticity of the books of the New ‘Testament. In reply, he asseverated in the strongest terms that such was not his purpose, and I see no reason to doubt his sincerity in so doing. And, to show what was the real subject of his allusion, he pub- lished a Catalogue, accompanied with brief remarks, of apocryphal writings still extant, or known at some time to have been so, relating to the early New Testament times, and thus attracted attention to the points of discrimination between such books and the books composing what is called the Canon of the New Testament. f Thus, however free from any hostility to Chris- tianity his intention may have been, he raised an important question in its Evidences; a question, which speedily received a careful examination, and, as there is no hazard in saying, was definitively settled. I formerly presented the proof of the origin of those histories of the ministry of Jesus which we have in the New Testament, showing it to be such as places their authenticity on a solid basis. But now, suppose an opponent of Christianity should say to us, This all looks well, but it is not the whole of the case. Besides the writings at present includ- ed in the New ‘Testament canon, there were other writings circulated in early times, purporting to be works of apostles and of companions of apostles. Some of them are still extant entire; while of * Life of John Milton, p. 77. t Amyntor, p. 161, e¢ seq. 252, APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS. others only fragments remain; and of some only the titles, made known to us by occasional notices of the fathers. Of these Toland made out a Cata- logue, and twenty years afterwards a collection of such as still survive was published in the three vol- umes of Professor Fabricius of Hamburg. Why are not these, which the Christian world rejects as not authoritative writings, placed upon the same footing as those which it receives ? Should any one ask us this, he would propose a fair question. What should we answer? We should answer, as the indisputable result of the thorough investigations upon the subject, that, whereas the authorship of the New Testament his- tories is satisfactorily traced to contemporaries and disciples of Jesus, no other history whatever, pur- porting to be written by any apostle or companion of apostles, is quoted, as deserving of any respect or confidence, by any writer now extant or known, belonging to the first three centuries. So strong a statement as this is not to be taken upon trust. The particulars of it may be verified by any one in the admirable work of Dr. Lardner, “The Credibility of the Gospel History” (found in most public libraries), as well as in other treatises. After the third century, the aspect of affairs among Christians was changed. They became numerous and opulent; and, desirous as they would be to pos- sess themselves of anything which professed to con- tribute to a knowledge of the establishment of their faith, there arose a motive to attempt to impose on JOHN TOLAND. 253 credulous individuals among them by supposititious writings. It was under this motive, to adopt the very probable conjecture of Paley,*—=in order to make a profit by the sale, — that the spurious books, known to have existed as early as the fourth cen- tury, were produced ; and some of them appear to have obtained a degree of credit within a limited sphere, though none to any considerable extent. On a review of their contents, Lardner, who, as usual, is condensed by Paley, judiciously re- marks, that, so far from overthrowing the Gospel history, they confirm it; for “‘ they are written in the names of such as our authentic Scriptures say, were apostles or companions of apostles. ‘They all suppose the dignity of our Lord’s person, and a power of working miracles, together with a high degree of authority, to have been conveyed by him to his apostles. Every one who observes that these books are called Gospels or Preachings of Peter, Paul, Thomas, Matthias, Bartholomew, or Acts of Paul, Andrew, John, and other apostles, must suppose that the composers did not mean to dis- parage them. No; they had great respect for them, and knew that other Christians had the like. ROR, They therefore, who out of a regard to these books, or the great number of them, attempt to set aside or diminish the authority of the books of the New ‘Testament, now commonly received, a: go beyond the intention even of the authors * View of the Evidences, &c. Part I. chap. 9. § 11. 254, OBJECTIONS OF fof the spurious books] themselves.” And he proceeds further to speak of those writings as being actually, when their contents are contrasted with those of the canonical books, no less than ‘* monu- ments of the care, skill and good judgment of the primitive Christians”, and as affording ‘all the sat- isfaction which can be reasonably desired, that the books received by them were received upon good ground, and that others were as justly rejected.”* Toland had said, in allusion to his starting the con- troversy, “I made no objections then, nor do I make any now, to invalidate or destroy, but in or- der to illustrate and confirm the Canon of the New Testament.” + Whatever hesitation there may be in pronouncing upon his sincerity in this assertion, certain it is that the event has proved to be no other than he professed to have contemplated. Thomas Woolston, a clergyman of the church of England, presented a still more striking exemplifi- cation of the principle of the nearness of religious mysticism to religious unbelief. A principle, I call it. As a fact, it is certainly sometimes manifested. And on a little consideration it may cease to surprise us; for, where the imagination is allowed to have an unresisted sway, there of course the understanding, to which the proper proofs of religion are addressed, is degraded from its place. I suppose there is no doubt, that Woolston, notwithstanding the opposite tenor of his writings, fancied himself devout in a * Recapitulation of the Second Part of the Credibility of the Gospet History, chap. 165. (Works, Vol. III, pp. 131, 132, 134.) t Mazarenus, Pref. p ix. THOMAS WOOLSTON. 255 certain way, and that his reveries of something divine, residing in the mind of man, or else out of it and mystically communicating with it, passed with him for a sort of sublimated faith. His mental idiosyncrasy, inclining him to a con- templative, self-contrived religion, in preference to one of definiteness and authority, was first indicated in the year 1720, in a published letter upon this question, ‘‘ Whether the people called Quakers do not, the nearest of any other sect in religion, resem- ble the primitive Christians in principles and_prac- tice.” After the publications of Collins, of which I spoke in my last Lecture, Woolston wrote in their defence ; and, as Collins had argued that the pro- phecies commonly appealed to in support of the claims of the Christian faith admitted of no such use, except in the way of an allegorical interpretation, Woolston proceeded to apply the same rule to the evangelical record of the miracles of Jesus, which, understood in a literal sense, he assailed with un- bounded ridicule. His ‘‘ Six Discourses,” as he called them, on this theme, attracted attention, and passed through several editions. It could scarcely have been otherwise, even if, instead of a lively and accomplished mind, their author had possessed but a feeble and unfurnished one. ‘The simple fact of the extraordinary position of a clergyman, who scoffs at the Scriptures and abjures the Saviour, must needs attract to him at all times a degree of public curiosity and notice. The argument of Woolston comprises two par- 256 ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. ticulars ; first, that, to use his own language, “the literal history of many of the miracles of Jesus, as recorded by the evangelists, does imply absurdi- ties, improbabilities, and incredibilities, consequent- ly they, either in whole or in part, were never wrought, as they are commonly believed now-a- days, but are only related as prophetical and para- bolical narratives of what would be mysteriously and more wonderfully done by him;”* secondly, that this view of his is no other than a revival of the common one of the first ages of the church, as exhibited in the writings of the fathers. Woolston has sometimes been said to have adopt- ed an allegorical interpretation of the Christian his- tory, in consequence of his diligent study of the writ- ings of Origen. But I think it much more proba- ble, that this study was the effect, than that it was the cause, of the state of his own mind on the main subject. Had he been influenced by the example of Origen, he would have presented indeed some very fantastic expositions of the sense of Scripture ; but he would have proposed them very sincerely ; whereas it is apparent to any reader of his work, and was meant to be so, that, if he could refute the literal sense of the Gospels, he had no idea that Christianity could stand for an hour on the alle- gorical. As to the point of a use of allegorical interpreta- tion by the fathers,—a point, the bearings of * Discourse I, p. 4. THOMAS WOOLSTON, Q57 which, if it were established as to any particular text under discussion, would still be matter of con- troversy, —the argument of Woolston lies justly under the reproach of a constant unfair citation of authorities. [I have compared a sufficient num- ber of them to be satisfied, that no reliance what- ever is to be placed even on the accuracy of his translations. But further; while it must be owned that many of the fathers, — particularly Clement of Alexandria, and his school, — put very fanciful senses upon Scripture, still nothing is more certain, than that, in respect to the New Testa- ment history, they presented them but as secon- dary senses, founded upon the literal, instead of excluding it. This single fact disposes of that part of the argument of Woolston, which is built on a reference to their authority. ‘They recognised the primary sense, and proposed a secondary ; whereas Woolston’s argument, to be good for any thing, re- quired him to prove that they rejected the primary, and substituted a secondary in its place. To show how he has here begged the question, and misrepresented the facts, I will present the quo- tations which he has placed in the very front of his treatise. ‘‘ Let us hear particularly,” says he, in the opening of this part of the subject, ‘ their opinion [the opinion of the fathers] of the actions and miracles of our Saviour. Origen says, that ‘whatsoever Jesus did in the flesh, was but typical and symbolical of what he would do in the spirit.’ ” Adopting Woolston’s own translation, this sentence Vor. II. 33 258 ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION, of Origen would not suit his purpose, for when it is said, ‘‘ whatsoever Jesus did in the flesh was but typical,” and so on, the recognition of the things narrated as being really done, is fatal to the idea that Origen put only an allegorical sense upon the narrative. But a true translation of the words, which is as follows, ‘Some things, which then were done, were types of those things which are perpetu- ally accomplished by the power of Jesus,” still more absolutely forbids such a perversion.* The writer proceeds with another quotation from the same father, whom he represents as saying that ‘‘the several bodily diseases, which he healed, were no other than figures of the spiritual infirmities of the souls that are to be cured by him.” + Here again, even on the translation proposed, the sentence would refute the argument which it is adduced to serve. But it is nota fair one ; rightly rendered, the words read, ‘“‘ Every weakness and malady which the Saviour cured at that time among the people — has a relation to the spiritual maladies of souls.” The next passages, referred to for the same purpose, but not translated, are as follows ; — from St. Hilary; “The deeds of Christ are prophetic of something beside; ” ‘To the events recorded in the Gospels there belongs an interior sense; ”’ ‘¢ Although those things were done at the time, we * « Siquidem symbola quedam erant que tunc gerebantur eorum, que Jesu virtute semper perficiuntur.” On the Miracles of our Saviour, Discourse I. p. 8. t «*Omnis languor, et omnis infirmitas, quam sanavit Salvator tunc in populo, referuntur ad infirmitates spirituales animarum.”’ Ibid. THOMAS WOOLSTON. 959 are yet to regard what they prognosticate for the future ;” ‘The actions now done present an out- line, a shadow, of what is to come ;”’— from St. Augustine; “ The acts, which were done by Jesus, have a significance for any person, [or, of something else] ;”?— from St. John of Jerusalem; ‘“ Every thing which Jesus did, was a sacrament ;’’ which, if we take the classical meaning of the Latin word I thus render, will signify, that every act of Jesus imposed an obligation on his disciples ; if we take the ecclesiastical sense, it will mean that every act of his was a mysterious, or holy, thing. Should I pursue the examples, I should have to continue a similar course of remark. One is led to ask, If such passages (which I have quoted in their order, as they stand where the general argument is pro- pounded,) were thought by Woolston to favor his argument, what kind of authorities would he imagine would be suitable to refute it ? But to pass to the main proposition of Woolston, to which this is but subsidiary. “The literal his- tory,” says he, “of many of Jesus’s miracles, as they are recorded in the evangelists and commonly believed by Christians, does imply improbabilities, and incredibilities, and the grossest absurdities.” * It implies “ incredibilities.” If it does, there is an end of the question. Of course, the human mind not only should not, but cannot, believe what is no subject for belief. But nothing is metaphysically * On the Miracles of Our Saviour, Discourse I. p. 19. 260 OBJECTIONS TO THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. impossible, which is within the power of God ; and this power no one, who believes in a God in any sense, will pretend to have been transcended in the miracles ascribed to Jesus. Nothing is morally im- possible, the occurrence of which is consistent with God’s attributes. Nothing, which is both metaphy- sically and morally possible, can be maintained to be abstractly incredible ; and having, in an early stage of these discussions, exhibited in full the proof, that the miraculous intervention, alleged to have taken place in Christianity, not only was consistent with the divine attributes, but that those attributes, viewed in connexion with the then existing state of the world, authorized a reasonable and strong hope of such an intervention, I will venture now to regard that part of the argument as disposed of, as far as it belonged to me to treat it. But again; the literal history of many of the miracles of Jesus, as recorded by the evangelists, implies “improbabilities.” If it does, let us know what the improbabilities amount to; for the mere fact that an occurrence was antecedently unlikely to happen, is nothing against it, nothing to dis- courage our belief of its reality. Every thing, — the most common, every-day event, — provided it involves any sort of combination, is exceedingly improbable till it has happened; but this does not hinder, that, when it has happened, it can be proved. It was immensely improbable, two hours ago, that we,—Just so many, and neither more nor fewer, ourselves and no others, — should THOMAS WOOLSTON. 261 be sitting here at this moment, dressed just as we are, in such and such attitudes, and arranged in this order. An easy computation, under the doc- trine of chances, would show that there were many thousands of millions to one against it. A denial beforehand that the fact would be just what it turns out to be, would be one of the safest things imag- inable. Nevertheless here we are, under just these circumstances; and if pains enough were taken, it might be proved to-morrow that we were here. I do not mean to say, that events out of the usual course of nature stand on the same ground in this respect as others, but only to point out, in passing, how easily and groundlessly an argument may be framed out of an alleged antecedent improbability. As to the miracles of Jesus and his apostles, any peculiar improbability attributed to them must be judged of with relation to their occasions and cir- cumstances. If, as I have formerly argued, the good- ness of God made it reasonable to expect, that, under the given circumstances, a special communication of religious truth to men would be made,— a commu- nication, which, if made, could only be authenticated by miracles, — then, on a consistent Deist’s own principles, the mere fact, that the acts authenticating such a revelation were miracles, does not invest them with any peculiar character of improbability. All of improbability, that belongs to the act merely as supernatural, must, in this stage of the inquiry, be abandoned, as justification of any prejudice against it. If the opponent chooses to go further and say, 262 OBJECTIONS TO THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. that, looking one by one at the particular miracles recorded, he observes circumstances of incongruity, of unfitness, of incoherence, or the like, in the rela- tions of each or any, creating in his mind a distrust of their reality, he resorts to a perfectly legitimate mode of reasoning. Only let him understand how far his reasoning will bear him out. If he has ob- served in a narrative some perplexity, some obscu- rity, some feature which he cannot account for, — if there is something, which, as he understands it, strikes him as improbable, highly improbable, pecu- harly improbable, — he must go further yet, before, as a reasonable man, he can refuse it credit. He must consider whether the perplexity is capable of being removed or lessened by candid comment; or whether candid comment will show, that ignorance concerning the purpose and bearing of some cir- cumstances might be expected to exist, consistently with the supposition of their reality as facts; or, once more, taking the objections in all their weight, what weight ought to be allowed them in opposi- tion to the positive proof. There is an infinity of things, of which we should have said perhaps all that we can say against those miracles, before we looked at the proof of their reality; but which, being acquainted with that proof, we all of us believe with a perfectly unques- tioning assent. Incredibility stops the mouth of testimony. That shown, the debate is ended. But improbability does nothing of the kind. It only creates a contest between itself and proof. Is the THOMAS WOOLSTON. 263 improbability strongest, or the evidence? ‘That is the question. Or, in other words, which improba- bility is greatest and should prevail, the improba- bility that the events have happened, or that the evidence which maintains them is delusive ? When the question is brought to this point, as I confidently submit that it must be, it will be seen divested of its pretension to practical importance ; for, assuming the related facts, of a sufficient occa- sion for miracles, sufficient power to work them, and strong external evidence to their actual occur- rence, a skilful opponent of Christianity would scarcely be disposed to rest his opposition on any alleged distinctive improbability in the particular miracles ascribed to Jesus and his first ministers. But, says Woolston once more, the literal history of many of the miracles of Jesus, as recorded by the evangelists, “‘does imply absurdities.” This he manifestly intended for his strong point; and, with the aid of a free and coarse wit, he has extensively pursued his illustrations of it. I shall dismiss this part of his case with one remark, which, unless I err, covers the whole ground. A relation of what is wonderful in its nature, and unfounded in fact, is only subject for merriment; a relation of what is wonderful in its nature, and well founded in fact, is sublime. It is the truth or no truth, that makes all the difference ; and to hold up any thing to ridicule because of its being extraordinary, is a mere begging of the only material question, — the question as to its being proved, or provable. 264; OBJECTIONS TO THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. Some of us have read, in a recent book of trav- els, of a city in the untrodden ways of Central America, in which an isolated community preserves the order and magnificence of the high ancient civ- ilization of this western world.* ‘To such as re- garded the account as fabulous, it was a subject for no little diversion; to those who read it under dif- ferent impressions, it was, and well might be, a subject of intense excitement. Had a person come into one of our cities fifty years ago, and given no- tice that he should exhibit the actual preserved re- mains of an animal more ancient than the ever- lasting hills, how abundant would have been the mockery which would have rebuked the absurdity of that pretension. But, since then, geology has become a science, adding a new and vast store of perfectly ascertained facts to the wondering appre- hension of man; and of how opposite a character were our feelings, how full of admiration and of awe, when, a few evenings ago, was presented to us in this place the body of a fish, which, of no more consequence in its time than any one of the countless tribes that swarmed in the chaotic waters, had been disclosed again from the very bowels of one of the most ancient rock formations, to tell to modern man something of the story of (no one has yet computed how many) millions of years ago. T In minds not possessed of the evidence for the * Stephens’s Incidents of Travel, &c. Vol. II. pp. 195, 196. t The allusion is to one of the Lowell Lectures of Professor Lyell. THOMAS MORGAN. 265 Christian miracles, and therefore standing in rela- tion to it as if it did not exist, it was easy for the writer now under our notice, as it has been for others following in his steps, to create, by means of trifling and ludicrous associations, a prejudice against that marvellous character, which, as mira- cles, was inseparable from them. But the logical fallacy is exposed a8 soon as it is looked at. If they were not wrought, then laugh at them who will. But till that conclusion is arrived at, no touch of ridicule can affect them. Certainly their untruth is not capable of being proved by that, which itself has no other foundation than the sup- position of their untruth. The very words, in which Woolston himself admits what would be the rightful impression of a well-sustained miraculous narrative, expose the worthlessness of all such reasoning. «J believe it will be granted on all hands,” he says, at the beginning of that discourse which treats of the three miracles of Jesus’s raising the dead, “ that the restoring a person, indisputably dead, to life again, is a stupendous miracle, and that two or three such miracles, well circumstanced and credibly reported, are enough to conciliate the belief of mankind, that the author of them was a divine agent, and invested with the power of God, or he could not do them.” * Dr. ‘Thomas Morgan was the author of a work, published anonymously, in the year 1738, under the title of « The Moral Philosopher, in a Dialogue * On the Miracles of our Saviour, Discourse V. p. 3. Vor, II. 34 266 OBJECTIONS OF between Philalethes a Christian Deist, and Theo- phanes a Christian Jew,” to which he added, a year after, “The Moral Philosopher, Volume Sec- ond, being a Further Vindication of Moral ‘Truth and Reason.” Dr. Morgan professed himself to be a Chris- tian in his own way, which was this, as de- scribed in his own words. “Jesus Christ, as I think, has given us the best account of the Nature, Attributes, and Will of God, of any other prophet or lawgiver in the world, and therefore I am a Christian, in contradiction to any other historical religion, or a Disciple of Christ in opposition to Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, Mahomet, or any other reformer in religion.” * He speaks in as strong terms as any advocate of Christianity can well do, of the need there was of a new revelation of religious truth at the era of the appearance of Christianity ; of the “state of gross ignorance and darkness, which had overspread the whole world, both Jew and Gentile,” and from which “ we are recovered by the Gospel dispensation to the true knowledge of God and ourselves, and of those moral relations and obligations which we stand in to him and to one another ;” of the “ great uncer- tainty” then existing “ concerning a future state and the concern of divine Providence in the govern- ment of the world,” in the place of which, he says, ‘¢we are furnished with clearer conceptions, and * Moral Philosopher, Vol. I. p. 411. THOMAS MORGAN, 267 brought to a more satisfactory way of reasoning about these matters.” * ‘They who would judge uprightly,” he continues, ‘of the strength of human reason in matters of morality and religion, under the present corrupt and degenerate state of man- kind, ought to take their estimate from those parts of the world which never had the benefit of revela- tion; and this perhaps might make them less con- ceited of themselves, and more thankful to God for the light of the Gospel.” ft But when he comes to indicate more particularly his view of the nature of that revelation which ban- ished this darkness and uncertainty, it is in such terms as these. “The manifest design of the Christian dispensation was to bring men from this gross ignorance and darkness of superstition, to the knowledge of God and themselves, relating to their duty and happiness ; and, as this was brought about by a peculiar and extraordinary Providence, by persons furnished with wisdom and knowledge much superior to the ignorant, stupid world, and armed with courage and resolution enough to ven- ture their lives, and propagate the true religion in opposition to all the civil powers and laws then in being; I say, such a revival and propagation of the true religion, or of truth and reason in matters of religion, may properly enough be called a revelation from God, or manifestation of truth from him, who was certainly the author and director of so great * Moral Philosopher, p. 143. t Ibid. pp. 144, 145. 268 EXTERNAL EVIDENCES. a reformation in the world.* Accordingly all exter- nal evidence for Christianity he rejects. ‘There is one,” he says, ‘‘ and but one certain and infalli- ble mark or criterion of divine truth, or of any doctrine, as coming from God, which we are obliged to comply with as a matter of religion and con- science ; and that is, the moral truth, reason, or fit- ness of the thing itself, whenever it comes to be fairly proposed to, and considered by, the mind or under- standing.” + And again; “I take Christianity to be that most complete and perfect scheme of moral truth and righteousness, which was first preached to the world by Christ and his apostles, and from them conveyed down to us under its own evidence of immutable rectitude, wisdom, and reason.” t Other objections to Christianity, which, as being more formally urged by some other writer, I have referred to some other stage in this discussion, are produced in the course of Morgan’s immethodical treatise ; and, particularly, two thirds of his second volume are occupied with animadversions on con- tents of the Jewish scriptures, and on their baneful connexion, as he considers it, with the Christian scheme. But the characteristic doctrine of his work is that which has just been mentioned. Christianity is to be received, by whosoever re- ceives it at all, because its doctrines and precepts recommend themselves to his mind as essentially true and right, and not because of any supernatural * Moral Philosopher, Vol. II. p. 23. t Ibid. Vol. J. p. 85. { Ibid. pp. 96, 97. THOMAS MORGAN, 269 attestations to the supernatural character of its au- thor. “There can be no connexion between the power of working miracles, and the truth of doc- trines taught by the miracle-workers.” “Miracles, alone considered, can prove nothing at all, and ought to have no weight or influence with any- body.” ‘“ ‘The supernatural power of working mira- cles has no manner of connexion with moral truth and righteousness, and yet moral truth and right- eousness, when it comes to be proposed to, and considered by the mind, is the only sure proof or evidence of any doctrine, as coming from God, and to be received as a matter of divine authority. * ‘“T think it certain, that the being and moral per- fections of God, and the natural relations of man to him, as his reasonable creature and the subject of his moral government, cannot depend upon the truth or falsehood of any historical facts, or upon our forming a right or wrong judgment concerning them.” + ‘This is the doctrine, which, in various forms of repetition, such as I have quoted, makes a thread running through the treatise. It may also have happened to some of us to hear this play upon words put forward as a solid objec- tion to the pertinence and weight of the miraculous testimonials to Christianity, by persons who, without considering whereof they affirm, profess their faith in that religion on the ground of what they call its internal evidences, or its conformity to their views * Moral Philosopher, Vol. 1. pp. 98, 99. t Ibid. pp. 345, 346. 270 EXTERNAL EVIDENCES. of truth and reason. I make three brief observa- tions upon it. First, it is preposterous for any one to pretend to a belief in Christianity, who at the same time pro- fesses to discard belief in its miracles, because, dis- tinctly appealing to those miracles as it did, it was either a gross fraud, or else that appeal was a well- founded one. There is no conceivable medium be- tween those two conclusions. Secondly, to say that Christianity approves itself by force of its internal evidence, meaning by this its conformity to the sense of truth and right in the mind of the individual to whom it addresses itself, is, to be sure, to attribute to it a character which it really possesses, — that is, provided the individual mind be in a favorable state, — but it is to rest it upon evidence, on which it will not stand for a mo- ment. ‘The proof that it will not, is this. Those doctrines, embraced in it, which the most fully com- mend themselves by their intrinsic reasonableness to the judgment of a fair mind, (the moral perfections and parental providence of God, for example,) did not establish themselves in the convictions of the profound thinkers of antiquity, till Jesus came, and, with the sanction of miraculous works, authorita- tively declared their truth. As far as their intrinsic excellence, and, of course, their internal evidence, went, that was the same before his advent, as it was after. But that evidence did not cause them to be received for true. ‘They still remained subjects of denial, or, at best, of doubt. Or, take the car- THOMAS MORGAN. yard dinal doctrine of a future life and retribution; in what sense can any man pretend to say, that any internal evidence, it carries with it, is a sufficient guaranty to him of its truth? Independently of what he has been told on the authority of Jesus of Naza- reth, who proved himself by his miracles to be a messenger from God, who cannot deceive, what more does any man know about immortality and a judg- ment to come, than was known by those sages of old time, who, sagacious as they were, far beyond the common lot of men, lost themselves in endless doubts on these great subjects, and, even when their guesses were the least erroneous, never pretended to any thing like certainty ° Once more ; when it is said, that, strictly speak- ing, neither a miracle nor any other act, will prove an abstract truth, the proposition derives whatever of plausibility it has from an artifice of language. In the only sense in which it is true, no judicious Christian ever thought of maintaining the contrary. What the defender of Christianity main- tains, is not that a miracle will directly prove an abstract truth, but that it proves that he who works it is invested with a divine authority. It is the ambassador’s commission, establishing his claim to credence. Accordingly, what he announces in that capacity must be taken for a divine communication. The message which he delivers is God’s message ; and, being God’s message, it must be true. ‘There are certain problems, profoundly interesting to us, which the best efforts of our reason, employed in in- ya. OBJECTIONS OF vestigation, are not competent to solve. Ample experience has shown that they are not. The con- dition of our future being is one of these problems. If we are to have a solution of it, it must be through a divine communication. The testimony of God, if we can but obtain it, — of God, who cannot but know the truth, and who cannot design to mislead us, — will settle all our doubts. That tes- timony his miraculous interposition assures us that we have ; and, if that miraculous interposition can- not be said, in logical strictness, to prove an abstract truth, it does however prove the presence of a cer- tain testimony to that truth, which testimony is in its nature conclusive. “I think it certain,” says Morgan, “ that the being and moral _perfections of God, and the natural relations of man to him, can- not depend upon the truth or falsehood of any his- torical facts, or upon our forming a right or wrong Judgment concerning them.” Certainly not; but that is not the question. The divine perfections cannot depend upon any historical fact, but our knowledge or ignorance of the divine perfections may. If there be any visible historical fact, as a miracle, which makes out to the satisfaction of our reason another historical fact, namely, that God has sent a message to man, then, unless we will renounce our reason, we shall accept the sub- stance of that message as true. The last of this group of writers, in the former half of the last century, was Thomas Chubb of Salisbury. He was not highly educated, and THOMAS CHUBB. Qe passed his life in a mechanical occupation; but he was a man of an active and ingenious mind, and wrote in a clear and vigorous style which helped to bring his works into large circulation. Notwith- standing a rather original cast of thought, there is little of originality in his topics, the limited range of his reading confining him for the most part to the same classes of objections, which, with illustra- tions less full than his own, or of a different kind, had been urged by other modern writers, and some of which had no better foundation than a miscon- ception of the state of the facts that occasioned him perplexity and distrust. His publications during his life, succeeding each other through a course of years from 1730 to 1747, had chiefly exposed him to the reproach of being a free-thinker in respect to the interpretation of scripture, and an heretical dissenter from the prevailing views of the Christian system. It was not till the appearance of his posthumous works that he became distinctly known as an opponent of the supernatural authority of that religion. The reader of his numerous tracts will, 1 believe, observe only one material topic of argument, ad- ditional to those urged by some other writer, in connexion with whose name it has appeared preferable to discuss them respectively, either heretofore, or in some future Lecture. In _ his ‘¢ Discourse on Miracles, considered as Evidences to prove the Divine Original of a Revelation,” he presents a view, which, considering the advantage Vor. II, 35 QT As MIRACULOUS POWER. afforded by popular apprehensions concerning mi- raculous power, I have been surprised not to see insisted upon by other opponents of the faith. Because of their silence respecting it, (with this single exception, as far as I know,) the point does not appear to have attracted attention on the other side. Objecting to the principle that miraculous evidence will never corroborate any thing but the truth, Chubb writes as follows: ‘Tam to inquire, Whether a man who may be said to work a miracle (as the case is explained above) is at liberty to use such miracle-working power well, or ill, and employ it in serving what purposes he pleases. ‘This inquiry is in some measure answered in the precedent section, in which it is observed, that men will be at liberty, whilst they are agents, to exercise their natural ability in serving what purposes they please ; for take away that liberty, and their agency ceases, or is destroyed. And, as this is the case with respect to the natural abilities of men, so it must be the same with regard to all supernatural power which may be superadded, whether it be that of working miracles, or otherwise. For, as the exercise of such power depends upon a man’s will, or at least he is afore apprized of the exercise of it; so, in the very nature of the thing, it must be at his option to direct it this way, or that way, to make it attend the truth, or a lie. Indeed, God may, if he please, give to, or withhold such miracle-working power from a man, or he may withdraw it when THOMAS CHUBB. 275 given; but then he cannot give it, and restrain a man in the use of it at the same time, that being a ccntradiction, and an impossibility in nature. ‘Tf it should be urged as above, admitting this, then miracles prove nothing with respect to the divinity of a revelation. For, if he who works a miracle is at liberty to annex it to truth or false- hood, of which a by-stander cannot possibly be a judge, whether it be annexed to one or the other of these ; then it will follow, that miracles prove nothing in the present case.” * This argument, which, if the statement involved in it could be sustained, would be a weighty one, is founded on what I understand to be a popular, but an altogether erroneous, notion on the subject. ‘To Jesus, to whom “ was given the spirit without meas- ure,” and who, as he had perfect discretion, might be trusted (if one may so speak) with perpetual, in- herent power, the capacity of working miraculously at his unrestricted pleasure may safely be attributed. But I conceive, that neither the reason of the thing, nor the language of Scripture, leads us to suppose that this was the case with his ministers. Because I read that their master said to them, ‘‘ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead,” and because I believe that they received that com- mission, and acted under it, I do not therefore infer that God gave them a power to control the course of nature in the exercise of their imperfectly in- * Discourse, &c. pp. 29, 30. 276 MIRACULOUS POWER. structed will; to stand for instance, in a grave- yard, and summon its company of re-animated dead around them. I take it, that, though in popular language it may be said with sufficient propriety that Peter cured the lame man at the temple gate, or that Paul inflicted blindness upon Elymas the sorcerer, yet the philosophical and exact state- ment of such transactions is given in those other words of scripture, “‘ God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul; ”* “ God also bearing them witness with signs and wonders and with divers miracles, according to his own will;” + ‘ Barna- bas and Paul declared what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them; ” f{ “‘God gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.” § These men were the chosen instruments, through which a supernatural divine power was from time to time exerted. But it was not committed to their insufficient wisdom to select the occasions. ‘That was the office of a wisdom infmitely superior to theirs. When the occasion came, they were super- naturally empowered to know that it had come, and to announce the mighty work to follow. ‘This was their agency in the miracle, and this was what con- nected that act of God’s power with their persons. Nor is any exception to this view of the nature of miraculous operations presented by the case of Tics; Kix Las t Hebrews, ii. 4. ¢ Acts, xv. 12. § Ibid. xiv. 3. THOMAS CHUBB. WTS those, who, being supernaturally empowered to speak in foreign languages, are known to have indiscreetly used that power.* Was not a mira- cle, | may be asked, performed every time that one of those individuals spoke in a language which he had not learned by the common process? and, sup- posing that he used this gift injudiciously, was not a miracle just so often unfitly performed ° I answer, By no means. He was the subject of one miracle, not the worker of several. ‘There was but one miracle wrought in his case, just as in the case of a leper cleansed. ‘That was, when, by an immediate act of God, he was supernaturally put in possession of his peculiar gift. And _ all the necessary conditions, justifying the wisdom of that act, occurred, if, on the whole, the harmless power thus bestowed would be used by its possessor for the furtherance of the Christian cause; even though, being bestowed on a fallible man, it should not always be used discreetly. ‘That one miracle performed, — the knowledge of the words and con- structions of a foreign language once supernaturally communicated to a man’s mind, —it remained there, subject, as to its exercise, to all the condi- tions of knowledge obtained in any other way. Once acquired, whether miraculously or by natural means, the mind could not again, except by a mira- cle, be dispossessed of it. And though, from the rea- sons of the case, it follows, that the individuals, * 1 Corinthians, xiv. 278 THOMAS CHUBB. chosen to be distinguished by such an extraordi- nary endowment, would be such as, on the whole, would apply it to the advancement of its proper object, yet, with these explanations, it could not be said that a miracle had been inappropriately wrought, should they on some occasion employ their power unprofitably. ‘Their different utter- ances in a foreign language, — indiscreet at times, if it were so, — were not, as has been explained, so many miracles. ‘They were but the result of one, which was God’s own act, and had been wrought under all the securities of his unerring wisdom. If this view of miracles, as always, strictly speak- ing, acts of God, and never trusted to the imperfect discretion of fallible men, is recognised for what I esteem it, the only scriptural one, then it follows that the, infidel argument which introduced it, falls to the ground, the possibility of their being wrought for the furtherance of any other purposes but the divine, being precluded by the conditions of the case. If only God’s power works a miracle, it will be only God’s truth that a miracle will ratify. I shall next proceed to some remarks upon views of the historians, Hume and Gibbon. LECTURE XxX. OBJECTIONS OF HUME AND GIBBON. Tue first Course of these Lectures, in which | undertook to exhibit a demonstration of the truth of Christianity, beginning with considerations of the nature of miraculous interposition, and proceed- ing to the conclusion that the doctrine of Jesus of Nazareth, having in fact been published with miraculous attestations, was to be received as a special message from God to man, brought to view two topics which introduced the names of the his- torians Hume and Gibbon. The first was, the an- tecedent credibility of miraculous operations, and of testimony affirming their actual occurrence, which was defended in opposition to the argument of Hume in the first part of the “ Essay on Miracles ” in his “Inquiry concerning Human Understand- ing,” wherein that distinguished writer maintains, that, miraculous agency being opposed to human 280 EVANGELICAL ETHICS. experience, and false testimony not being opposed to it, it is more reasonable to believe testimony to be groundless, than to believe miracles to be true.* The other topic was, the circumstances of the propagation and establishment of Christian- ity, an undeniable effect which required a cause, and which, it was argued, could only be accounted for on the basis of a divine interposition ; — a con- clusion opposed to the theory of Gibbon, who, in the Fifteenth Chapter of his “ History of the De- cline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” has attempt- ed to explain the effect in question as proceeding from merely natural causes. + To these topics I do not now recur. But other considerations, relating to the main subject, were proposed by the same eminent writers, to which it is proper that our attention should here be given. The first point, which is thus presented, will not detain us long. Hume, of whom it has been per- haps not too indulgently said, that ‘his private character exhibited all the virtues which a man of reputable station, under a mild government, in the quiet times of a civilized country, has often the opportunity to practise,”{ had by constitution no relish for the severe and lofty morals of the Chris- tian code ; and the experience of a remarkably even and prosperous life had not brought him the instruc- tion, by which, presented in personal experience, a * See Volume I. p. 54, e¢ seq. t Ibid. p, 248, et seq. } Mackintosh, View of the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, p. 352. DAVID HUME. 281 mind so sagacious as his could scarcely have failed to profit. But still it remains remarkable, that one who could expatiate so philosophically as he has done on the obligations of benevolence and justice, should have overlooked the absolute and indissoluble de- pendence of both upon certain obscurer virtues in the department of self-control, which he thought he saw reason for excluding from an ethical system. If his scheme of human virtue could in all re- spects be sustained, it must be owned that it would discredit Christianity. In his “ Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,” — a work, which, free as it is, for the most part, from paradox, or even ori- ginality, he had the good judgment to prefer to his other philosophical writings, — in the course of his argument that “ personal merit consists altogether in the possession of mental qualities, useful or agree- able to the person himself or to others,” he insists that, “ as every quality, which is useful or agreeable to ourselves or others, is, in common life, allowed to be a part of personal merit, so no other will ever be received, when men judge of things by their natural, unprejudiced reason, without the delusive glosses of superstition and false religion. Celibacy, fasting, penances, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues, for what reason are they everywhere reject- ed by men of sense, but because they serve to no manner of purpose, neither advance a man’s fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable mem- ber of society, neither qualify him for the enter- Vox, II. 36 | 282 EVANGELICAL ETHICS. tainment of company, nor increase his power of self-enjoyment? We observe, on the contrary, that they cross all these desirable ends;” and so on.* Now, as to what Christianity calls the virtues of self-denial and humility, — for “ silence, solitude,” and the rest, Christianity does not account to be virtues, and they do not belong to this question, — the standard, by which Mr. Hume here assumes to try their pretensions to that character, is certainly a very low and false one. But I do not care to stand upon that point. Assume it for the true standard ; and it remains to be asked, How was it possible for Mr. Hume, judging the habits of mind in question even by that test, to dismiss them from the class of virtues? Humility and self-denial, — such is the doctrine, — ‘‘ are every where rejected by men of sense, because they serve no manner of purpose.” What purpose ought they to serve, in order to escape this sentence of rejection ? A Christian would be prompt to reply, They serve the purpose of pleasing God, since they are habits of mind, growing out of a becoming sense of his perfections and authority. But this answer would not be pertinent in an argument with Mr. Hume. What purposes then does he contemplate, the serving of which would constitute the vin- dication of these qualities? He explains, in the context ;— the advancing of ‘a man’s fortune in the world, rendering him a more valuable mem- * Inquiry, &c. § 9. (Essays, &c. Vol. HH. pp. 305, 306.) DAVID HUME. 283 ber of society, qualifying him for the entertain- ment of company, and increasing his power of self-enjoyment.” These are not the sublimest objects of life; and it is supposable, that a moral quality might serve some purpose, though it did not serve these. But suppose they were, will humility and self-denial bear that test, or not? Is what is so easily assumed concerning them, true in point of fact ? Does humility, for instance, not increase ‘“ the power of self-enjoyment,” but, on the contrary, as it is expressed, “cross that desirable end?” What habits of mind does humility expel? Vanity and pride ;— vanity, which constantly makes demands for approbation and applause, such as from their nature cannot be satisfied, and will be gratified even the less by reason of its own offensiveness ; — pride, which above all things makes a man sensi- tively vulnerable in his social relations ; which gives him the‘least of pleasure and the most of annoy- ance in all his intercourse ; which makes him care less for kindness which every man may have, than for confessions of his superiority which are not so easily extorted ; and which strips him bare to the touch of affronts, which, imagined or real, are noto- riously so much harder to endure than mere injuries. Does self-denial “serve no manner of purpose ?” To self-denial belong purity, contentment, patience, industry, prudence, disinterestedness. These vir- tues cannot exist without it; rather, they are de- partments comprehended in it, or synonyms of it. 284, OBJECTIONS OF Can even so much be truly said to the disparage- ment of these virtues, as that “they neither ad- vance a man’s fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member of society ; neither qualify him for the entertainment of company, nor increase his power of self-enjoyment?” Justice and_ be- nevolence, in their various manifestations, fill out Mr. Hume’s idea of social virtue; but of both, self-denial, evidently, and humility, materially, — though this latter fact does not lie so much on the surface, — are indispensable elements. ‘The highest type of virtue is commonly considered to be the heroic ; but of heroism the very essence is self-denial, self-forgetfulness, self-sacrifice. I leave this subject with a very partial exposition. It should be largely illustrated to do it justice. Could I think it necessary to the main argument, it would be my duty to go into a large illustration, to the sacrifice of other topics. But I have no doubt, that, apart from all question of the divine authority of the Christian rule, a just thinker, who will give attention to the subject, will conclude that it is im- possible to frame so much as a plausible theory of duty, in which humility and self-denial will not have a prominent place; and that it must be owned to be a strong recommendation of Christianity, instead of a prejudice to its claim, that in this instance it has brought ethical doctrines into full view, which, as soon as thus distinguished, an enlightened phi- losophy cordially approves, though, before, it had failed properly to estimate them. One wonders EDWARD GIBBON. 285 the more, that so obvious connexions and influences as have been pointed out, should not have had just consideration, when in another place, in the person of his Stoical philosopher, Mr. Hume is found speaking of the man of virtue as looking ‘“ down with contempt on all the allurements of pleasure, and all the menaces of danger.” * ‘To contemn pleasure and danger is the prerogative of no man, except him who has made close acquaintance with the offices of self-denial. I pass to a brief notice of a topic presented by Mr. Gibbon, distinct from that formerly remarked upon in connexion with his name. The object of the Sixteenth Chapter of his History is to show, that toleration of diversities of religious sentiment was the prevailing spirit of the Roman rule, and that the amount of severity practised upon the early Chris- tians was not so great as has been commonly repre- sented; from which he would have his readers conclude, that the argument drawn in favor of the sincerity of the first publishers of Christianity from the danger to which their profession exposed them, may have been pressed too far. On this point I make three brief remarks. First ; when the advocate of Christianity argues, that the original witnesses to the fact of the mira- culous authentication of that religion were honest witnesses, he does not rest that argument solely on their voluntary self-exposure in its cause to suffer- * Essays, &c. Part I. Essay 16. (Vol. I. p. 140.) 286 PERSECUTIONS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. ings and martyrdom. [ remind those, who listened to my remarks in a former Course, designed to establish the honesty of the witnesses, that the following considerations were also brought to view ; namely, the enormous incongruity of the supposi- tion that a wicked fraud was practised, to the end of establishing a system which teaches the most sincere, generous, and lofty virtue ; the simplicity, artlessness, frankness, fair-dealing, every where ap- parent on the face of the record; the fact that, if there were fraud at all, there was conspiracy, a sup- position refuted by the occasional differences and even dissensions between the confederates, — differ- ences too serious, considering the essential interest of the questions which divided them, not to have been fatal to a plot, in which each party was at the mercy of the rest, and disclosure would have offered So easy an expedient of triumph and revenge; the trouble, inconvenience, labor, to which, independent- ly of any hazard to life, the adventurers in such an enterprise exposed themselves; the extreme impro- bability that, if a fraud had been devised, the servants and successors of Jesus should have presented him as they did, in the character of a religious deliverer merely, and not in that, which their nation was prepared to welcome, of a political redeemer. These, and other like considerations, pursued into due de- tail, go far towards establishing the point of the honesty of the first witnesses for Christianity.* * See Lecture VI. EDWARD GIBBON, 287 But, secondly; it is the testimony of the first witnesses, and not those of later times, that in this argument we have occasion to confirm. We can- not indeed read, without strong emotion, nor with- out a persuasion of the force of the existing evi- dence which could sustain such an energetic faith, of the sufferings and martyrdoms of the believers of the second, third, and fourth centuries. But what we want especially to know is, by what tests the sincerity of the believers of the first century was proved. It is of less consequence to us, how many suffered in the persecutions of the Antonines and Diocletian. We would learn rather to what ill treatment they exposed themselves, who went abroad declaring that they had heard the gracious words of Jesus, and seen with their own eyes his mighty works. And as to this point, it has been shown by evidence produced at length in its place, that those first witnesses devoted themselves, by the part they took, to lives of peril and suffering, and that the extreme penalty of a violent death, which all braved, many were in fact compelled to pay. Of the per- secutions of the apostolic age Gibbon has not spoken. He treats of none earlier than the time of Nero. But, thirdly, with the means of information con- veniently accessible upon the subject, no one will feel hesitation in saying, that the usual accuracy of the industrious historian did not attend him on this occasion, and that his candor was not proof against the influences which beset it. The question has 288 PERSECUTIONS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. received the particular attention of the French philosopher as well as statesman, Guizot, and, more recently, of Professor Milman, in their notes upon Gibbon’s History; and any who would judge respecting it intelligently, will do well to consult the authorities produced by them, as well as to refer to facts, bearing upon it, collected before Gibbon’s time in such store-houses of knowledge as Cave’s “ Lives of the Fathers,” and Lardner’s “Credibility of the Gospel History.” The most plausible ground of Gibbon’s distrust is the uncertainty as to the exactness of the testi- mony of Eusebius, who is a copious authority upon the subject, and who, it must be avowed, is justly chargeable with a proneness to exaggerate. But Eusebius may be owned to have been guilty of gross exaggeration in this instance, and yet the number of martyrdoms, under the succession of emperors down to Constantine, will remain vastly larger than any purposes of the argument will require. Nay, that he could hazard such strong statements is a fact scarcely to be accounted for, except on the supposition that the unexaggerated reality was enough at once to excite the writer’s imagination, and to secure the contem poaneous reader’s assent. Nor is Eusebius by any means the only authority on the point; but others, and among them Pagan writers, go very far to bear out his representations in all their force. Not to recur to the famous letter of Pliny to Trajan, what are we to say of that of EDWARD GIBBON. 289 Tiberianus, Governor of Syria, to the same mild Emperor, within the first century of the preach- ing of the Gospel, wherein he says, I am quite weary of punishing and destroying the Galileans, or people of the sect called Christians, according to your orders. Yet they never cease to profess voluntarily, what they are, and to offer themselves to die. Wherefore I have diligently used advice and threats, to discourage them from daring to confess to me, that they belong to that sect. But, in spite of all persecution, they persist still in doing it.’ * ‘That punishment and destruction of the Galileans, which could weary the practised military and judicial severity of a Roman proconsul, certain- ly could not have been on a small scale. ‘“ His- torical criticism,” says Guizot, “does not consist in rejecting indiscriminately all the facts which do not agree With a particular system, as Gibbon does in this chapter, in which, except at the last extremity, he will not consent to believe a martyrdom.” And he proceeds to give examples of the Pagan histo- rians, who “justify in many places the details which have been transmitted to us by the historians of the church.” | The disingenuous treatment of this subject by Gibbon excited to an unusual degree of severity that most candid of critics, Mackintosh. “The sixteenth chapter of the History of the De- cline and Fall,” said he, “I cannot help considering * Tiberian. Epist. (Cotelerii Patrum Apostolic. Opp. Tom. II. p. 181.) t Milman’s Gibbon, chap. 16, juxta not. 178. Milman gives all the notes of Guizot upon the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters Voi. IL. 37 290 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES, as a very Ingenious and specious, but very disgrace- ful extenuation of the cruelties perpetrated by the Roman magistrates against the Christians. It is written in the most contemptibly factious spirit of prejudice against the sufferers. It is unworthy of a philosopher and of a man of humanity...... Dr. Robertson has been the subject of much blame for his real or supposed lenity towards the Spanish murderers and tyrants in America. ‘That the six- teenth chapter of Mr. Gibbon did not excite the Same or greater disapprobation is a proof of the unphilosophical, and indeed fanatical animosity against Christianity, which was so prevalent during the latter part of the eighteenth century.” * I return to Hume, who, in the second part of his ‘“‘Kissay on Miracles,” presents a course of argu- ment, in some particulars different from what | have yet remarked upon, which also, in one of its branches, and in a different specification, is sug- gested by Gibbon in a passage of the fifteenth chapter of his History. The former of these writers makes an explicit allegation of four particulars of defect in all existing testimony to miraculous oper- ations. First, he says, “‘ There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, educa- tion, and learning, as to secure us against all delu- sion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as * Memoirs of the Life of Sir James Mackintosh, chap. 5. (Vol. I. pp. 245, 246.) DAVID HUME. 29] to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time attesting facts, performed in such a pub- lic manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable; all which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assur- ance in the testimony of men.” * To this statement, as intended to apply to the witnesses for the miracles of Jesus, I except as fol- lows; As to the “sufficient number” of witnesses, Jesus wrought most of his miracles in the presence of nu- merous spectators; among them, his twelve con- stant attendants, while others were only transiently about his person. As to the “unquestioned good sense, education, and learning,” said to be necessary to give security against all delusion on the part of witnesses, there is no proof that the first followers of Jesus were absolutely illiterate men. Too much has been said of their low condition. They proba- bly belonged to the reputable middle class of Jews. One of them, John, was “known to the high- priest.” t One of them, Matthew, we read of as dispensing a liberal hospitality ;{ and the father of two carried on his business with the help of hired servants.§ At any rate, education and learning * Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, § 10. Part 2. (Essays, &e. ‘Vol.IT p. 113.) t John, xviii. 15. ¢ Luke, v. 29. § Mark, i. 20. 292 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. are not requisite for escaping delusion as to matters of fact, cognizable by the senses; nor are men of speculation and erudition thought the best wit- nesses in the courts, as to things obvious to mere sight and hearing. Good sense is necessary to guard against delusion, and this there is no reason- able pretence that the ministers of Jesus were defi- cient in; while no education and learning would have increased their qualifications for judging whe- ther they really saw a storm stilled by a word, or a leper cured by a touch. As to “ undoubted integ- rity,” refuting all suspicion of design to deceive others, what proof of such integrity shall be allowed to avail, if not the proof found in those circum- stances, formerly collected, and some of them this evening recapitulated, under which we receive the apostolic testimony? As to “credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, so as to have a great deal to lose in case of being detected in any falsehood,” it will not do by any means to say that, for a gene- ral rule, it is the great, who are most sensitive to the disgrace of falsehood, or whose falsehood is apt to be visited with the most severe retribution from society; and further, no man,—considerations of character and conscience apart, —can have more to lose than his life, which these men bravely put at hazard. Lastly, as to the facts being “ performed in such a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoida- ble,” the celebrity of the part of the world, which is the scene of an attempt at imposture, has nothing DAVID HUME. 293 to do with the ease or difficulty of its detection. In that respect, provided the inquisition is likely to be equally jealous, the streets of Capernaum present an ordeal as severe as the Roman court or market- place. And as to publicity of manner, what could well be more public than the miraculous feeding of the thousands, or the cure of the blind man in the temple, subjected forthwith to a hostile examina- tion of the most searching nature ° * Secondly, says Mr. Hume; ‘ We may observe in human nature a principle, which if strictly exam- ined, will be found to lessen extremely the assurance which we might, from human testimony, have in any kind of prodigy;” + and he goes on to ex- plain his allusion to be to the disposition of man- kind to lend a credulous ear to tales of wonder. Let that principle be freely allowed. Men are imaginative and credulous, no doubt, and, under proper appliances, are prone to superstition. Still every such principle has its province and its limits. It is not an agent of mere capricious and indefinite energy. And let any one answer, whether he de- tects within himself a love of the marvellous so strong, that, should he be told that a person, other- wise undistinguished, had wrought some wonderful works, he would feel impelled to accept the story, without inquiry and full proof, when the consequence would be, as unquestionably it was with the early Christians, that he must devote himself to a new * John, ix. 18, et seq. t Inquiry, &c. § 10, Part 2. (Essays, &c. Vol. II. p. 114.) 299A, TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. course of life, relinquish old friendships and asso- clations, undertake unaccustomed labors, and face a host of appalling dangers. I can answer that question for myself; and I suppose the answer of others would be the same. Thirdly ; it is said, ‘It forms a very strong pre- sumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations.” * But the nations, in which the miraculous relations of Christianity are now current, are the most cultiva- ted nations of the earth, which suppose themselves justified, on the soundest philosophical grounds, in yielding them full credit. Nor can those relations, in their origin, encounter a reasonable prejudice from this cause. The period in which Christianity made its appearance was a period of high ceiviliza- tion, in which it would be a great mistake to sup- pose that Judea did not in some considerable degree participate. It had been over-run three hundred and fifty years before by Alexander ; and, for three centuries from that time, had been con- stantly in communication with the Greeks of some of the kingdoms into which his empire was dismem- bered; and when, not long before the Saviour’s birth, it passed under another sway, it was the sway of the Romans, in that era of unprecedented refinement, contemporaneous with the downfall of the republic. Some of the Jews were supersti- tious, no doubt ; — there is no time, when, to some * Inquiry, &c. § 10, Part 2. (Essays, &c. Vol. II. p. 116.) DAVID HUME. 295 extent, some portion of a people are not. But another element of prevailing sentiment among them, as among their masters, at the time in ques- tion, was that of a philosophical skepticism.* ‘To discredit the tendencies of opinion in the Christian era, it can by no means be called an ignorant and barbarous age, even in Judea; still less would the remark hold good as to other parts of the empire, to which the new faith was however communicated with an astonishing rapidity. “T may add,” says Mr. Hume, “as a fourth reason which diminishes the authority of prodigies, that there is no testimony for any which have not been expressly detected, that it is not opposed by an infinite number of witnesses; so that not only the miracle destroys the credit of the testimony, but even the testimony destroys itself.” ‘This is not expressed with the author’s usual perspicuity ; and a reader would naturally understand him to mean, that there is no particular miracle appealed to by the friends of any religion, — Christianity, for instance, — which is not discredited by a larger amount of adverse testimony, relating to that iden- tical alleged fact. But his meaning, as he proceeds to explain it, is quite different. ‘To make this the better understood,” he says, ‘let us consider that, in matters of religion, whatever is different, is contrary, and that ’tis impossible the religions of ancient Rome, of Turkey, of Siam, and of China, * Enfield’s History of Philosophy, &c. Book IV. chap. 1. (Vol. I. pp. 153, 155.) t Inquiry, &c. § 10. Part 2. (Essays, &c. Vol. II. p. 119.) 296 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. should all of them be established on any solid foun- dation. Every miracle, therefore, pretended to have been wrought in any of these religions, —and all of them abound in miracles, —as its direct scope is to establish the particular system to which it is attributed, so has it the same force, though indirectly, to overthrow every other system. In destroying a rival system, it likewise destroys the credit of those miracles, on which that system was established, so that all the prodigies of different religions are to be regarded as contrary facts, and the evidences of these prodigies, whether weak or strong, as opposite to each other.”” And he presently goes on to specify certain stories of miraculous occurrences in ancient and modern times, concluding with the remark, ““ What have we to oppose to such a cloud of wit- nesses, but the absolute impossibility, or miraculous nature, of the events, which they relate? And this surely, in the eyes of all reasonable people, will alone be regarded as a sufficient refutation.” In short, Hume would discredit the evidence produced in favor of the miracles which Christians receive, by referring to evidence for other alleged miracles which they reject, and representing the one to be as good as the other. Gibbon also labors, in his wary way, to create the impression that the miracles of Jesus and his Apostles stand upon no better grounds of proof, than do many of those legends of succeeding times which Protestant Christendom rejects; and this was what I had in view, when I remarked just now that the argument DAVID HUME. 297 of Hume, in one of its branches, and with a different specification from his, was also presented by the historian of the Roman Empire. The former found his illustrations in miraculous accounts of profane antiquity and of recent times; the latter, in nar- ratives of the middle ages. ‘An historian,” says Gibbon, ‘ought not to dissemble the difficulty ..... of defining with precision the limits of that happy period, exempt from error and from deceit, to which we might be disposed to extend the gift of super- natural powers. From the first of the fathers to the last of the Popes, a succession of bishops, of saints, of martyrs, and of miracles, is continued without interruption ; and the progress of supersti- tion was so gradual, and almost imperceptible, that we know not in what particular link we should break the chain of tradition.” * The nature of the argument thus proposed is first to be briefly considered, in order that we may distinctly understand by what sort of facts it needs to be sustained, so as to be effective in its appli- cation to a given case; and it so happens that Hume himself provides an illustration, than which none could better serve as a test of its validity. Having described it in the words just now quoted, he adds; “ ‘This argument may appear over subtile and refined ; but is not in reality different from the reasoning of a judge, who supposes that the credit of two witnesses, maintaining a crime against any * History, &c. chap. 15, juxta not. 81. Vot. Il. 38 298 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. one, is destroyed by the testimony of two others, who affirm him to have been two hundred leagues distant at the same instant when the crime is said to have been committed.” * I accept the supposed case, as a fair illustration. But I say, that the judge, if he is at all fit for his place, will suppose no such thing as it is here said he will, from the mere conflict of evidence described. If two men affirm that a third has done an act, and two other men attest, that, at the time when he is charged with having done it, he was elsewhere, it is true that the two testimonies are in substantial opposition ; but it is by no means true that the judge will thereupon decide that the first testimony, or that both, are false. No; he will have to do pre- cisely what the friend of Christianity desires should be done with its evidences and with the evidences of adverse systems ; that is, he will have to examine whether either of the conflicting testimonies has signs of truth, and, if either, which. It is perfectly reasonable for the unbeliever to say, Here are evi- dences produced for different religions ; show me, if you can, the differences between them, evincing the sufficiency of yours and the nugatory charac- ter of the others. But to take the ground, that, be- cause miraculous testimony is pretended in corro- boration of different claims, therefore no heed 1s to be given to it in connexion with any, 1s not reason- able, any more than it would be for a court and jury to say, Behold, here are advocates and wit- * Inquiry, &c. § 10. Part2. (Essays, Vol. Il. p. 120.) DAVID HUME. 299 nesses for both parties ; it is useless to give any at- tention to the matter; the story of both is false. And let us dwell a moment on another thought, which this topic suggests. Pretended miracles, we may be apt to think, have so often been the resort of fraud, that the pretension of miracle may reasonably create a strong suspicion of fraudulent design. ‘The claim, in short, should be regarded as going far towards a refutation of itself. But when, let me ask, has miracle been the resort of fraud ? Of course, when a pretension to divine authority was to be urged. And why has it been then re- sorted to? Precisely because it was declared by the common sense of men, that no other pretension would then serve the purpose. If that pretension could be substantiated, then the alleged revelation accompanying it deserved credit. An alleged re- velation did not deserve credit, and would not ob- tain it, unless that pretension was put forth, and was substantiated to the satisfaction of those whom it addressed. ‘Thus impostors have had recourse to the allegation of miraculous power from the very necessity of their case. They have pretended to be in possession of it, because, to the end in question, the mind of man demands it; the mind of man de- mands it, because it recognises it as the proper signature of truth; and will any one say that he will give no heed to that, which, provided it be well established, is the proper signature of truth, merely because, by reason of its possessing that character, impostors have exerted all their art to counterfeit it ? 300 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. In a court of justice, there is nothing but testimony that will expose the truth. ‘Testimony must per- force be resorted to; no other expedient will serve. Because true testimony will establish a true conclu- sion, and because false testimony, which looks as if it were true, will, by virtue of that appearance, re- commend a false conclusion, therefore designing men contrive to bear plausible false witness. But no sane man would defend the soundness or the safety of the proposition, that, whereas some witnesses are not trust-worthy, therefore the truth of all testi- mony is to be distrusted, and all its benefit foregone. The records of imposture then will teach to an inquirer the useful lesson to be cautious in investi- gation, but from the duty of investigating they will not at all dispense him. The Christian holds to the reality of the miracles wrought in attestation of his faith, in opposition to the reality of those alleged in favor of any other system; and the Protestant Christian asserts that the miracles, related to have been wrought in behalf of Christianity in its primi- tive age, stand upon a much firmer basis of evi- dence than any which find a place in the history of Christendom in any later time. We are to see what can be said in contradiction of their views in these respects. We have attended to the indepen- dent proof of the miracles of the first age of Chris- tianity. The argument we have now undertaken to treat invites us to inquire, whether our conviction of their reality is subject to be shaken by the ex- trinsic consideration of the existence of other proof, DAVID HUME. 301 of the same kind and equal amount, the validity of which we are not accustomed to admit. Because, if it is so, we are at least inconsistent in our rea- soning. And if, further, it can be made to ap- pear, that equally good evidence, in character and amount, may be produced for some adverse reli- gion, as for Christianity, then the application of Hume’s argument will need to be allowed in its full force; the equal conflicting testimonies will nullify one another. As then it will be impossible to trust our convictions in both instances, we shall be precluded from trusting them in either. The reason why I have made this last distinction between being merely shown, in one case, to be inconsistent in our reasoning, and being compelled, in the other, to renounce our Christian faith, will be obvious. If it were true, as Gibbon insinuates, that a succession of miracles down to a recent time, accredited by the Catholic church, stands on sub- stantially the same ground as those of the primitive age, then the Protestant believer, who receives the one and rejects the other, would be justly charge- able with inconsistency ; but it would not therefore follow that the primeval miracles were false, be- cause it might be that the similarly authenticated, more recent, miracles were true. And the belief in them both alike involves no essential incongruity ; indeed every Catholic Christian actually entertains it. And when one considers this, it may well oc- casion some surprise, that Mr. Hume, having care- fully explained his doctrine to be, that pretensions 302 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. to miracles wrought in favor of different religions will silence one another, should then have proceeded to fortify the argument with illustrations mostly drawn from the history of the Romish church. As far as these are concerned, it would be sufficient to reply, If the evidence for the more recent alleged miracles is really as good as for those of the first century, you have, it is true, disarmed the Protes- tant believer, because you have shown that he ought to admit both or neither. But you have left unassailed the foundations of Christianity in the minds of a great majority of those who profess it; nor can you shake it, until you have proceeded so much further as to prove that the equal testi- mony received by them as applicable to both cases, is, as to one, unsound. ‘Then you may insist, that it should also be renounced as to the other. Having remarked this in a word, since it is prob- able that all or most whom I address are incredu- lous as to alleged miracles, of recent times, in the Romish church, I shall shape my further argument accordingly, and attend briefly to the inquiry, whether any miracles whatever (those of the Jew- ish religion manifestly are not embraced in the question, because they come in conflict neither with Christianity in general, nor with Protestant Christ- ianity in particular) present claims to credit, of equal force with those of the primitive age of Christianity ; or whether, on the contrary, there is a wide and marked difference between their re- spective evidences, demanding that the one class EDWARD GIBBON, 303 should be rejected, on the same principles on which the others are received. The specification of Gibbon relates to the mid- dle ages of Christianity. In language meant, of course, to convey more than meets the ear, he says, «¢ We are insensibly led on to accuse our own in- consistency, if, in the eighth or the twelfth cen- tury, we deny to the venerable Bede, or the holy Bernard, the same degree of confidence which in the second century we had so liberally granted to Justin or to Ireneus.” * “The knowledge of for- eign languages was frequently communicated to the contemporaries of Irenzus, [that is, at the end of the second and beginning of the third century, ] though Irenzeus himself was left to struggle with the difficulties of a barbarous dialect while he preached the Gospel to the natives of Gaul; ” + and in proof that this pretension was made in that age, he refers to a passage of Irenzeus, t in which, how- ever, he makes no reference to the gift of tongues, but merely excuses himself for the rudeness of his Greek style, occasioned by his having passed many years in the use of the language of a bar- barous tribe. Nor, since the time of that father, has any pretension of that kind been found to have been set up, with the sole exceptions of the Life of Pachomius, an obscure Egyptian monk of the fourth century, and the later Lives of the * History, &c. chap. 15. juxta not. 81. + Ibid. juxta not. 74. t Contra Hares. Pref. § 3. (p. 4. Edit. Massuet.) 304 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. missionary Xavier, of the period of the Refor- mation.* ‘© The expulsion of demons,” continues Gibbon, ‘“‘was considered as a signal, though ordinary tri- umph of religion.” But if what is called demo- niacal possession be, according to the opinion of some of the best modern expositors, the same with insanity, then it was capable of being sometimes cured by natural means, as Jesus seems to have intimated that it was, when he said, “If I, by the finger of God, cast out demons, by whom do your children cast them out?” The difference between his cures and those wrought by common agency was the same in respect to this malady as to others, those of blindness, for instance, paralysis, or leprosy. Others cured them, when they cured them at all, by natural means, — he without any such instrumen- tality ; and it is very credible that, in the second or third century, cures of this kind might be effected by medical treatment, or addresses to the imagina- tion, which a too easy faith might regard as mani- festations of a supernatural efficiency. He goes on; “In the days of Irenzus, about the end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was very far from being esteemed an uncom- mon event.” But the passage of Ireneeus, referred to by him in corroboration of this extraordinary statement, contains no note of time whatever, attributing such occurrences to his own age. He * Tillemont, Saint Pacome. Art. 18. (Hist. Eccles. Tom. VII. p. 94. Edit, Brux.) Douglas, Criterion, &c. p. 79. (Edit. 1754.) EDWARD GIBBON. 305 speaks of the dead having been raised, but in terms which admit perfectly well of his being understood as referring to the apostolic times.* On the other hand, Dr. Conyers Middleton, who had made a thorough investigation of the whole subject, as- serts, that ‘from the time of the apostles there is not an instance of this miracle to be found, as having occurred in the first three centuries, except a single case, slightly intimated in Eusebius, from the books of Papias, which he seems to rank among the other fabulous stories delivered by that weak man.” + And, as to the whole subject of a pretended succession of miracles, the same writer quotes some remarkable language of St. Chrysostom, in which that father, than whom none of his time (he died at the beginning of the fifth century) was better authorized to speak the sense of the whole Christian community, refers to the long discontinu- ance of miracles as a notorious fact. f The work of Dr. Middleton, to which I have thus referred, entitled “A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church, from the Ear- liest Ages through several successive Centuries,” 1s an elaborate investigation, conducting to the con- clusion, as expressed in his own words, that ‘“ we have no sufficient reason to believe, upon the au- * The passage, no Jonger extant in the original Greek of Ireneus (a fact not mentioned by Gibbon), is preserved by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. v. § 7. Fora judicious comment upon it, see Douglas, Criterion, p. 374. t Works, Vol. I. pp. 58, 59. $ Ibid. p. 105. Vou. IL. 39 306 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. thority of the primitive fathers, that any such pow- ers were continued to the church after the days of the apostles.” * Middleton was a man able and learned enough to be the antagonist of Bentley ; and, liable as his work may be to objection in other respects, I see not how any one can read it, wheth- er Romanist or Protestant, without allowing that later pretensions to miracles in the church, whether or not they be esteemed credible, stand at least on very inferior grounds of evidence to those to which we have formerly attended as establishing the mira- cles of the first age of Christianity. That some of the Christian writers in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, as well as later, professed their belief in miracles of their own times, may readily be granted ; there were men among them of very different char- acters ; — some more cautious and discerning, some more credulous and volatile. But what we want, in order to place them on a level, in point of historical authority, with the writers of the New ‘Testament, is, not the knowledge alone of what was their belief, but assurance also that their belief had a similar foundation. Suppose that Irenzeus had asserted, — which it does not appear that he did, — that dead men had been raised to life in his time; that alone is no reason for confounding the alleged fact, in point of authority, with those related by the evan- gelical historians. We should need to satisfy our- selves, first, that he was honest in so asserting, — that * Works, Vol. I. p. 1. DAVID HUME. 307 he stated his sincere conviction. If we should be- come persuaded of this, we should then be ready for the inquiry, What were the grounds of this con- viction? If we should find that what he related, he believed upon hearsay, — vague, or even circum- stantial, and what he might esteem responsible hearsay, — that would fall far short of justifying a comparison of his statements with those of the evangelical record. Did he, once more, believe on the evidence of his own senses, what he relates; and, from the nature of the case, could his senses have been subject to no delusion; and did he tes- tify not alone, but did other equally competent wit- nesses substantiate his story? ‘Then we ought to believe his story. We ought to believe it for the same reason that we believe that of Matthew and John, concerning whom we have, to our satisfac- tion, ascertained these things. But no such case can be pretended; and, till there can, a Christian cannot be called upon, for his consistency’s sake, either to admit the miraculous relations of later times, or to reject those of the primitive age. Mr. Hume, in treating this argument, chose, un- doubtedly as the instances the most favorable to his object which his great knowledge of history would furnish, those of the report by Tacitus of the cure of a lame and blind man by the Emperor Vespasian at Alexandria, the restoration of the entire limb of the door-keeper of a Spanish cathedral, in conse- quence of the application of holy oil, as related by Cardinal de Retz, in his “Memoirs,” and the 308 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. account of various cures, said to have been wrought, about the year 1730, at the tomb of the Jansenist Abbé Paris. The argument of Hume, thus illus- trated, gave occasion to a work, particularly occu- pied with an examination of the specified cases, though it also included others of the same descrip- tion. I speak of that excellent treatise of Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, entitled “ The Crite- rion; or Miracles examined with a View to expose the Pretensions of Pagans and Papists, to com- pare the Miraculous Powers recorded in the New Testament with those said to subsist in Later Times, and to show the great and material Dif- ference between them in point of Evidence.” Pa- ley, in his “ View of the Evidences,” also took up the subject, and contributed some valuable thoughts ; and the two writers together have so exhausted this branch of the inquiry, as to leave nothing to be added, while the books are so common as to make . it unnecessary for me to do more than refer to them. Dr. Douglas maintains, to use his own lan- guage, that ‘“ those extraordinary facts ascribed to a miraculous interposition among the Pagans of old, and Christians of later times, are all reducible into these two classes 5 First, the accounts are either such as, from the circumstances thereof, appear to be false ; or, Secondly, the facts are such as, from the nature thereof, do not appear to be miraculous ; ” While, concerning the Gospel miracles, the oppo- site propositions are sustained, that, DAVID HUME. 309 ‘‘ First, the facts are such as, from the circum- stances thereof, they cannot be false ; Secondly, from the nature thereof, they must needs be miraculous.” * | The marks of falsehood in such histories he finds to be particularly three. “First,” he says, “we suspect the accounts to be false, when they are not published to the world till long after the time when they are said to have been performed ; Secondly, we suspect them to be false, when they are not published in the place where it is pre- tended the facts were wrought, but are propagated only at a great distance from the supposed scene of action. Thirdly, supposing the accounts to have the two foregoing qualifications, we still may suspect them to be false, if,im the time when, and at the place where, they took their rise, they might be supposed to pass without examination.” T Dr. Paley follows out these principles, and illus- trates and applies the reasoning of the treatise in a course of remark constituting one of those rare argu- ments, which, when once made, are made once for all. It is so concise as to admit of no abridgment, so pertinent that no part can well be spared, and so clear and complete as to require no expansion. There seems therefore nothing to be done but to state its heads; and this it appears proper that I * Criterion, pp. 47, 48. t Ibid. p. 52. 310 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. should do, — common as is the book which contains it, — because it is the only way to avoid passing by entirely an interesting point in the general in- quiry. Dr. Paley divides the evidence produced for alleged miracles into two classes, consisting of proofs relating, first, to their reality as facts, and, secondly, to their character as miraculous facts. As to the first, he says, ‘‘ We may lay out of the case, first, such accounts of supernatural events as are found only in histories by some ages poste- rior to the transaction, and of which it is evident that the historian could know little more than his reader”; secondly, “accounts published im one country of what passed in a distant country, without any proof that such accounts were known or receiv- ed at home;” thirdly, mere ‘transient rumors,” such as attract some attention, and then die out; fourthly, what may be called “naked history,” or what has been followed by no corresponding effect that can be traced; fifthly, what, under certain de- fined conditions, is found ‘“ wanting in particularity, in respect to names, dates, places, circumstances, and the order of events preceding or following the transaction”; sixthly, such stories “as require only an otiose assent, upon which nothing depends, in which no interest is involved, which demand noth- ing to be done or changed in consequence of be- lieving them ” ; seventhly, ‘“ those which come mere- ly in affirmance of opinions already formed.” These tests are applicable to the credit of alleged facts, merely as facts. Proceeding to the tests of DAVID HUME. old alleged miracles in their character of miracles, sup- posing them to be facts, he shows that we are not justified in attributing this character, first, to any thing capable of being “resolved into a false percep- tion,” as, for example, the supposed vision of Lord Herbert of Cherbury ; secondly, to what may be called tentative, or experimental effects, “that is, where, out of a great many trials, some succeed” ; thirdly, to appearances in which, “allowing the phe- nomenon to be real, the fact to be true, it still re- mains doubtful whether a miracle was wrought,” as, for instance, the extinction, by a sudden shower, of the fire into which the Scriptures were thrown in the Diocletian persecution; fourthly, to occurrences, ‘in which the variation of a small circumstance may have transformed some extraordinary appearance, or some critical coincidence of events, into a mir- acle ;’?—in which, in short, there is room for some single exaggeration, such as, if admitted, would change the whole character of the transaction. * These tests are no more strict than is reasonable, and on the other hand they are sufficient. They seem to draw a plain line between real and pre- tended miracles. Whatever will abide them all, remains unassailable. Whatever will not abide them all, cannot be considered as proved. The Gospel miracles will abide them all. Of no others, brought into competition with them, can this be shown. * The above are the heads of Paley’s argument in his View of the Evidences, Part I. Prop. 2. chap. 1. S12 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. And besides, the great distinction remains in reserve, that, in respect to those others, no case can be shown of persons pretending, as the Chris- tian witnesses did, to be original witnesses to their reality, who passed their lives thenceforward in labors, dangers, and sufferings, in attestation of the truth of what they delivered. ‘The Gospel miracles were proclaimed at the time and place of their occurrence ; the report of them was not transient, nor unconnected, but produced sensible effects, which survive to this day; 1t was not want- ing in particularity of statement; the assent which it obtained, if any, could not be one of mere indo- lence and inattention; it did not come in support, but in bold contravention, of opinions already formed ; and lastly, supposing the alleged facts to be facts, they had also all the four specified marks assuring them to be miraculous. On the other hand, as to the miracle of a double cure recorded of Vespasian, and selected by Hume as one of the facts best sustaining his argument, we have the account of it in a passage written by Tacitus at Rome, twenty-seven years after it was said to have taken place at Alexandria.* He re- corded it, not as of his own knowledge, but from report. It does not appear that he had examined, or that he believed it, but rather the contrary. It was not opposed to, but in favor of, received estab- lishments and opinions ; it was calculated to confer * Hist. lib. iv. § 81. (Opp. Tom. II. pp. 390, 391. Edit. Boston, ) DAVID HUME. ole honor on the Emperor at an important crisis of his fortunes, and on the God Serapis. The infirmities said to be cured were capable of being easily coun- terfeited. And in short the whole transaction was such as accords with the supposition of collusion and fraud. As to the extraordinary restoration of a lost part of the body, related by the Cardinal de Retz, his words are, “They showed me there [in a church at Saragossa] a man whose business it was to light the Jam pspsbon. and told me that he had been seen sey- eral years at the gate, with only oneleg. I saw him with two.” * ‘To this case part of the same remarks apply. It appears from the context that the narra- tor did not believe the statement, and it does not appear that he examined the restored limb, or made inquiries of the patient, or of others. The canons showed him a man, who, they said, had for years been seen with but one leg, and he saw the same person with two; but, for any thing that was proved or can now be known, the restored limb, supposing the statement of its previous condition to be true, may have been an artificial one. There existed also the evident encouragement to fraud, afforded by the correspondence of the alleged trans- action with the prepossessions of the people, and the interests of their priests. As to the alleged cures, finally, at the tomb of the Abbé Paris, Paley’s examination of them * Mémoires, Lib. iv. (Tome III. p. 411. Edit. Paris, 1817.) ‘‘ Ce pre- tendu miracle,” the Cardinal calls it. Vou, IT. 40 3j14 TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. shows as follows. ‘They were tentative ; out of many thousand sick, infirm, and diseased persons, who resorted to the tomb, the professed history of the miracles contains only nine cures.” ‘The dis- eases were, for the most part, of that sort which depends upon inaction and obstruction, as dropsies, palsies, and some tumors. ‘The cures were grad- ual, some patients attending many days, some sev- eral weeks, and some several months. ‘The cures were many of them incomplete, and others were temporary.” So that the most that is made out is, that, under the operation of strong moral stimulants applied to the imagination and nerves, — the po- tent effect of which is an acknowledged fact in physiology, — “ out of an almost innumerable multi- tude which resorted to the tomb for the cure of their complaints, and many of whom were there agitated by strong convulsions, a very small pro- portion experienced a beneficial change in their constitution, especially in the action of the nerves and glands ;— while some of the cases alleged do not even require that we should have recourse to this solution,” but are “ scarcely distinguishable from the progress of a natural recovery.” The general result of the investigation into these several cases is as follows ;* “‘'These are the strongest examples, which the history of ages supplies. In none of them was the miracle unequivocal; by none of them were established prejudices and per- * View, &c. Part I. Prop. 2. chap. 2. ad calc. TESTIMONY TO MIRACLES. 315 suasions overthrown; of none of them did the credit make its way, in opposition to authority and power; by none of them were many induced to commit themselves, and that in contradiction to prior opinions, to a life of mortification, danger, and sufferings ;—— none were called upon to attest them, at the expense of their fortunes and safety.” These characteristics those pretended miracles wanted. These remain unparalleled character- istics of the miracles which attended the first pub- lication of Christianity; and, being so, they refute the objection which has this evening come under our notice. My next subject will be Infidelity in France in the Last Century. LECTURE XXII. INFIDELITY IN FRANCE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. “THE eighteenth century has denominated it- self The Age of Philosophy. From the first to the last of its writers, from Voltaire to Mercier, all called themselves philosophers. ..... This name, assumed with so much pretension, proclaimed with so much emphasis, repeated to very satiety, ought, for that reason alone, to encounter the strong suspicion of a reasonable mind. Reason is the foe of quackery ; and certainly there was something of this in the arrogation of a title, which ought to be awaited from posterity. It is posterity which assigns their character to the ages, while it receives the inheri- tance, and passes judgment on the monuments, they bequeath. It is France, it is Europe at large, which with one consent has acknowledged the long reign of Louis the Fourteenth, as an epoch of sig- nal advancement in the arts of imitation, as well as in all that gives stability and grace to the social INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. 317 state. But we do not find, that the writers who adorned it took upon themselves to anticipate the succeeding age, by baptizing their own the age of genius. From ours it is, that it has received those titles of distinction, to which no one contests its MOGI It has been reserved for us to bestow on our own time, — particularly in France, —and by our own sole authority, a kind of distinction such as to separate us from all other times, past and future. It is yet to be seen whether in this we have estimated ourselves correctly ; whether the eigh- teenth century, particularly in its latter half, and regarded as it ought to be in its governing charac- teristics and its general results, has been in truth an eminently philosophical age, in the fair accepta- tion of the word. In order to be proved such, it should undoubtedly be shown to be remarkable for sensible advances of the human mind, applying itself to all objects, which it is capable of advan- cing, connected with the glory and welfare of the human race. But if, on a thorough analysis, it should appear, that, — exceptions apart, as they always should be, —the general character of the eighteenth century (strongly marked as it has been, particularly in its last fifty years) has been that of the most shameful abuse of the mind in all depart- ments, succeeding to the most excellent efforts of intelligence and genius, then should not the infer- ence be, that in our time, and especially as relates to France, posterity will see only the most disastrous period of degradation, and that this grand title of 318 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. philosophical age, will to our posterity be, what it has already become in the view of all sensible men, a sort of very ridiculous nickname, a kind of desig- nation drawn from contraries, like the name of Eumenides, which of itself denotes graciousness and bounty, but which the Greeks, that frivolous and facetious people, adopted to designate the Furies ?” * It is with these words that the elegant and judi- cious La Harpe introduces his treatise on the Philosophy of the Eighteenth Century, a work writ- ten just at the close of the period which it surveys.* It is not, as he goes on to explain, the condition of the exact or of the physical sciences that draws from him these reproachful comments, but the debasement of that higher philosophy, in the depart- ments of morals and religion, which comprehends the problems of the profoundest interest to man. Of this world of thought, Voltaire, born near to the close of the seventeenth century, and_ living down to the last quarter of the eighteenth, was in France the ruling genius. Voltaire and Montes- quieu are in letters the two great French names of that brilliant age; but the riper judgment of the latter corrected crude opinions, if indeed they may be called more than unconsidered prejudices, which, in a still famous youthful work (“The Persian Letters”), he had avowed, and gave the vast weight of his mature fame to the cause of revealed religion ; while the former, an infidel by constitution, * Cours de Littérature, Tom. XV. pp. 1— 3. VOLTAIRE. 319 as far as it is possible that one should be made so by the tendencies of a discontented, vain, and mock- ing mind, —a mind of a sort of diamond hardness, as unimpressible as sparkling,—Jlabored in_ that vocation from youth to extreme age, from the time of the regency of the Duke of Orleans, from which every thing that tended to virtue was alien, nearly down to the time when the great nation of his birth, — the first of which history bears such a record, — proclaimed itself a nation of atheists, while it de- creed a sort of apotheosis to him for conducting it to that position. Voltaire was the friend and pupil of Bolingbroke, with whom he formed an intimacy during the re- tirement of the latter into France, and from whom, if it cannot be said that he derived his spirit of historical skepticism, he received an impulse which permanently quickened the restless activity of his mind in this particular direction. He had just arrived at manhood, when, by the death of Louis the Fourteenth, the licentious period, so well known in history as that of the Orleans Regency, began. The manners of the court emboldened the propen- sities of the young poet, and some verses in his first drama, the “ Edipus,” were a proclamation of the feeling which struck the key-note of his whole literary life.* Voltaire could not properly be called learned. I but repeat the sense of the best and most * « Nos prétres ne sont point ce qu ’un vain peuple pense , Notre crédulité fait toute leur science.” CEdipe, Acte 4, Scéne 1. (Tome I. p. 157. Edit. Paris. 1785.) 320 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. impartial critics of his own nation when I say, that his knowledge, though various, was extremely su- perficial ; that, as to what he did learn, he devoured much more than he digested; and that, — a much more serious fault, and one which has caused, that, at the present day, no one thinks of appealing to him on a matter of erudition, —he was altogether faithless (to say careless merely is not at all to de- scribe the case) in matters of history, of philology, and of philosophy. But this did not hinder the effect of his writings, as it would have done, had they been prepared for the same circle of readers as his predecessors in the same argument had addressed. Infidelity, though first argued in England, was, if I may use the ex- pression, first popularized in France; and this ser- vice was done for it by Voltaire. The English in- fidels, his predecessors and contemporaries, had treated the question as, and for, scholars and phi- losophers. ‘This was true even of Chubb, who, though not a man of scholarly breeding, was a close as well as honest thinker, and preserved in_ his works a precise, unimpassioned, grave, philosophical tone of discussion. Such books were of a structure to present distinctly the points upon which the ar- gument rested, and the statements which must not be taken upon trust; and the class of readers to whom they were addressed had a preparation of logic and of knowledge, qualifying them to pass judgment on the force of the reasoning, and the truth of the alleged matters of fact, or at least VOLTAIRE. 321 warning them to reserve their conclusions upon this or that step until they should have made the need- ful inquiry. By Voltaire the whole style of the argument was changed. He addressed himself to all, who could relish eloquence, poetry, and wit; to all of the French nation who loved to read a satire or listen to a play. The easy, skeptical humor of Montaigne, (which, as I formerly observed, though never distinctly directed against Christian- ity, created in readers a habit of thought leading ultimately to that application,) and the more sys- tematic levity and indifference of the philosophy of Bayle, (to whom the same remark may be applied, and who wrote for the French public, though he did not write in France,) these, among other causes, had prepared the way for a style of discus- sion, or rather of treatment, of the Christian faith, which did only the more execution on account of its want of precision, explicitness, and form. There had begun also in Voltaire’s youth, and there grew through his whole life, a passionate dis- content with existing institutions, in which he, moved by the ambition and the conscious indepen- dence of talent,—and also, | think it must be owned, by a genuine love of freedom, — largely partook. The higher classes of French society, educated to a degree of cultivation that made them distrustful of much that they had been taught, and impatient of any restraints on the profligate indulgences which had become the business of life, were ready to cheer on an assault upon the faith which professed to Vor. II, 41 322, INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. stand as the guardian of pure and honest conduct ; and the people in the middling and lower condi- tions transferred to the church their disgust against the political institutions, whose oppressions, —in league, as it seemed, with ecclesiastical tyranny, — they had found so hard to bear. To an audience thus prepared did Voltaire ad- dress himself, in an indefatigable use of the exuber- ant resources of his extraordinarily versatile genius ; and, as far as sympathy between the parties avails in such a case, never did man represent more per- fectly the idéal of his age, than did this writer the ready, impetuous, graceful, superficial, busy, witty, anti-spwritual Frenchman of the time preceding the Revolution. His assaults on Christianity were made in every variety of form, in poetry and prose, in plays and romances, in works of history and philosophy, in the light pamphlet and the learned encyclopedia, now with ridicule and insult, and now with all the tone of a genuine indignation, founded on a sense of supposed wrong. From its apparent sincerity and generous earnestness, the latter would naturally be contagious, while the former would do the mischievous work of attaching light and degrading associations to what, in order to be fairly, ought to be at least calmly, — not to say, serlously,— viewed. ‘Thus a decisive effect would on the unguarded reader be produced by what were the most palpable of fallacies. Nothing but reasoning has in sucha case a right to convince. It is not necessary that that reasoning should be in VOLTAIRE. 323 one form or another. It may be comprehended in a sentence, and that sentence may be a gay one: it may be but an implication, a question, a reference ; but, except just so far as it contains reasoning, the mind which it influences is deluded. But in fact other things besides reasoning do persuade and decide; and never were these extra- rational expedients of persuasion better understood than by this writer. He answered the most momen- tous problems of humanity witha jest. He worked at the foundations of the best established history with first this, then that, innuendo. Some unmanagea- ble fact or principle lay across his path; he met it with a downright assertion or denial, altogether un- supported, and went on his easy way. Such in- definiteness and confidence at once could not but do something of their intended work. A precise Statement invites the reader to consideration and inquiry; he inquires and considers, and then re- celves or rejects; or at least, if he does neither, he knows that as yet there is no reason why he should be convinced. But the reader who is so warmed and amused, is insensibly led on without perceiving what progress he is making; without perceiving how much has been proved, or even, distinctly, so much as what the writer undertook to prove, or what evidence he has adduced to prove it. He leaves off with only a vague impression, but not the less effective for its vagueness, that the writer un- derstands the whole subject, and has carried his 324 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. point; that what he assailed, lies somehow exposed and overthrown. The particular position of Voltaire in respect to religious belief it is impossible to define. His own testimony is so various as to have no weight whatever in the decision. As late as the year 1746, when he was more than fifty years old, he solemnly professed his faith in Christianity ; while, in his more honest declarations, he appears some- times as a friend of natural religion, sometimes as an atheist, sometimes as a universal skeptic, —a believer, not that there is a God, or that there is not, but that there is no ground, one way or the other, for any belief upon the subject. The best opinion is that he himself entertained none; for opinions, certainly, upon any subject, were not what his mind hungered to obtain. But the question which we have to ask concern- ing him is different. It is, whether he has produced any objection to Christianity which it belongs to its friends to dispose of, in order to the more complete clearing up and establishment of its evidences. And, in reply to this, I have but to say, that | know of nothing original in Voltaire except his manner of managing the argument. His topics of objec- tion are those of the English infidels, whose works I have already treated. Stripped of its ample at- tire of insinuation and merriment, his argument objects to Christianity, with ‘Tindal, as being need- less, unlikely, partial, and insufficient and unsuita- VOLTAIRE. 325 ble for its intended use.* With Bolingbroke, he calls in question the integrity of its records, and the reasonableness of its doctrines and morality. t With Collins, he denies the applicability of Old Testament prophecies.{ He enlarges on the hint of Toland in respect to apocryphal writings of the early Christians. § With Hume, he represents the Christian miracles as incredible, and, with Wool- ston, as absurd; || and with Gibbon, whom, how- ever, he anticipated in this, and who made no little use of his materials, he refers the introduction and establishment of Christianity to merely natural causes. Neither to the philosophy of one portion of these topics, nor to the history of others, can I find that he has contributed any principle or fact, which at all varies the state of the argument, as our former reflections on the same points have represented it. ‘There is, however, one subject of high importance, which he has urged to a greater extent than any preceding writer, and which has not yet received our particular attention. | refer to the connexion of the religion of the New Testa- *E. g. Traité de Metaphysique, chap. 9. Philosophe Ignorant, § 31. (CEuvres, Tome XL. pp. 82, 158. et. seq. Edit. Paris. 1785.) Examen Important, &c. ad calc. (Tome XLI. p. 422, et seq.) t Ibid. chap. 12. (Ibid. p. 300.) Diew et les Hommes, chap. 33. (Tome XLII. p. 156. et seq.) t Examen Important, chap. 14. (Tome XLI. p. 314, et. seq.) § Collection d’Anciens Evangiles. (Tome XLIV. p. 65, et seq.) || Examen Important, chap. 10. (Tome XLI. p. 279, e¢ seq.) Histoire de 1’ Etablissement du Christianisme, chap. 6. (Ibid. p. 327, et seq.) I Dieu et les Hommes, chap. 35-—37. (Tome XLII. pp. 171, ef seq.) Histoire de l’ Etablissement, &c. (Tome XLIV. pp. 372, et seq.) 326 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. ment with that of the Old. Not having space now to enter into the consideration of it, without the omission of other topics, properly embraced within the subject of this evening’s Lecture, I defer it till the next, in which it will be equally in place. How far the spirit in which Voltaire approached that class of questions was favorable to their correct solution, may be partly guessed from the terms in which he presumed to speak of the critical labors of Newton, that sublimest specimen of the human race. “Newton,” says he, ‘“abased himself to a serious consideration of the question,”? Who was the author of the Pentateuch ? * | “The second epoch of the eighteenth century in France,” says Villemain,+ ‘was represented by Diderot, —the epoch of the distinct passage from deism to atheism; ..... from a tenacious but rea- sonable liberty to a hatred of all power; finally, from assertion of the right of free inquiry to a to- tal abandonment of every principle.” The great work, by which Diderot moved the mind of France, and wrought for the accomplish- ment of its awful and not distant destinies, was that vast repository of knowledge, the “ Encyclope- dia, or Universal Dictionary of Sciences, Arts, and Trades.” In this, as I scarcely need say, his prin- cipal coadjutors were D’Alembert and Helvétius, avowed atheists like himself. Helvétius was the * Examen Important, chap. 4. (Tome XLI. p. 254.) + Cours de Littérature Francaise, (18e. Siécle. Part. I. Tome II. p. 259.) THE ENCYCLOPADISTS. at first who systematically attacked the foundations of morality, substituting for them, in his treatise “ On the Mind,” a system of materialism and fatalism, which became one of the fashions of that boasting time. D’Alembert did not parade, though he did not disguise, his disbelief in a superior intelligence ; nor does he appear to have loved his opinion with any thing of the ardor of proselytism. His great abilities were devoted rather to the culture of mathematical and physical science; and, when he sometimes spoke of religion with a warmth alike foreign to the calmness of philosophy and of his own temper- ament, it seemed not to be so much hatred of itself that excited him, as of its institutions and its min- isters. Besides less systematic expressions of his disbelief in all religion, in a variety of connexions, in the Ency- clopeedia, the opinions of Diderot, unformed at first, but settling at length in an uncompromising atheism, are recorded in his translation or rather paraphrase of Lord Shaftesbury’s “ Essay on Merit and Vir- tue”; for to the English writers he owed much, and freely professed his obligations in his short treatise entitled ‘‘ Philosophical ‘Thoughts,” and in his “ Let- ter upon the Blind, for the Use of those who can see”; all three of which compositions appear in the first volume of his collected works. ‘The ‘“ Philosophi- cal Thoughts” would properly come under our sur- vey, since, When that work was written, he was still a believer in natural religion. But, as far as it treats of Christianity, it presents no topic which we have not 328 INFIDELITY IN FRANCE. already considered in connexion with some other name ; and indeed the principal division of it, rela- ting to that subject, and entitled, “On the Sufficien- cy of Natural Religion,” is little else than a brief abstract of the argument of Tindal, though it con- tains no reference to that writer. When he produced the last-named work, the “ Letter upon the Blind,” he had already renounced the belief in a God ; and his argument in it, aimed against that doc- trine and against the reality of moral distinctions, belongs to another controversy. The floating atheism of the Encyclopedia was systematized before long in the once famous book entitled the “System of Nature”, generally attribu- ted, at the time as well as since, to the Baron von Holbach, a German nobleman, resident in Paris, who had before produced a work entitled ‘ Sacred Contagion, or Natural History of Superstition,” and who, from the liberal hospitality extended by him, for forty years, to the circle of infidel wits, acquired the name of “the host of philosophy”, le maztre- @hétel de la philosophie. This work contains a concocted system of atheism and fatalism. It pro- poses natural science as a better substitute for all systems of theology, morals, and metaphysics. It revives the old Pagan dreams of the eternity of atoms and their fortuitous concourse to make a world; and all existing notions of religion and vir- tue it represents as mere chimeras, or devices of imposture and oppression. ‘There was no more progress to be made in that ROUSSEAU. 329 direction. The goal, or rather the bottom, had been reached ; and it was not the least surprising feature of that singular state of public sentiment, that Rousseau, a name identified, in the English and American mind, with opposition to Christianity, was looked upon by great part of France as its blindly superstitious advocate. He did not shrink from the responsibility of the position, according to what he understood its exigencies to be, and took that reli- gion under the protection of his great name in letters. He protested with that passionate eloquence, to which all that read the French language delighted to listen, that the majesty of the Scriptures amazed him, that the sanctity of the Gospel spoke to his heart, that the pompous books of the philosophers were little compared to it, that it was an indignity and wrong to Jesus to compare him with Socra- tes.* He would have Christianity, as a public in- stitution, supported for the benefit of religion and morality, and had found nothing else which would serve so well that end. At the tribunal of feeling and taste, Rousseau, in his own fervent manner, maintained the claims of Jesus; but he added that the Gospel narratives contained much that was in his view incredible, that the history of its miracles did not command his assent, and that he could not rely on them as proofs of the truth and divine au- thority of the religion. + Rousseau was as much a : Emile, ou del’ Education, Livre iv. (GQuwvres, Tome IX. p. 140, Edit. Genéve. 1782.) t Ibid, (p. 142, et seq.) Vous il: 42 330 ALLEGORICAL THEORY. disciple of Christianity as the English Morgan. He approved of much of the doctrine, but denied its sovereign authority. It was a remarkable con- dition of opinion, when such a degree of esteem could attract censure as a superstitious adherence and devotion. But the century was not to close without one more phenomenon in this course of speculation. Atheism was still triumphant, but there was want- ing an historical theory of the origin of belief. In 1781, Charles Francis Dupuis, in his “*‘ Memoir upon the Origin of the Constellations and upon the Expla- nation of Fable by means of Astronomy,’ proposed a system, which, thirteen years after, in the midst of the reign of terror, he presented in its fully elaborated form, in his great work, entitled “On the Origin of All Forms of Worship.” In this treatise he undertook “ to analyse all re- ligions by means of astronomy and_ physics.” * ‘There is nothing,” he says, in the introduction to his work, “ but the universe itself, capable of corres- ponding to the immense idea, which the name of God ought to convey.” And again; ‘It is to the universe collectively taken, and to its several parts, that originally and generally men have attached the idea of the Divinity.” ‘This being so, the first method of explanation of theology, and that most generally to be applied, is to refer the ancient fictions respecting the Divinity to the current of * Origine de tous les Cultes, Tome III. p. iii. CHARLES FRANCIS DUPUIS. oot natural causes. ‘The gods being but another name for nature itself, the history of the gods can be no other than that of nature ; and, since nature has no other history than her phenomena, the history of the gods will be that of the phenomena of nature allegorically expressed. This conclusion, which | regard as true beyond controversy, has naturally conducted me to the true method of exposition, which, notwithstanding the difficulties it presents, is yet the only one which can reasonably be ad- mitted.” * The foundation thus laid, he proceeds to erect his edifice. ‘‘T try my method first,” he says, “upon the great poems, whose fragments compose the con- fused mass of Egyptian and Greek mythology. The principal of these are the legends of the labors of Hercules, Theseus, and Jason, the voyages and travels of Bacchus, Osiris, and Isis, which all are solar or lunar poems, of which the Sun and Moon are the heroes, and heaven the theatre. I then seek to recognise the Sun under other forms and names, such as those of Ammon, Pan, Apis, Om- phis, Mnevis, Mithra, Thor; in general, under all borrowed forms, as of the Ram, the Goat, the Ox. I next detect the same sun under a form of more ele- eance, invested with all the graces of youth, under the names of Apollo, of Adonis, of Horus, of Atys ; next, decrepid through the passage of time, he * Origine, &c. Tom. I. p. x. a02 ALLEGORICAL THEORY. wears the beard of old age, in the characters of Serapis, of Esculapius, of Pluto ; and then he winds himself into the mysterious Serpent, the astrono- mical sign that precedes the winter. I likewise investigate the origin of the worship of animals, of plants and of other sacred symbols, and that of hieroglyphical writing. ‘¢ After this essay, which by its success, warrants the correctness of my method, I penetrate into the sanctuary of the priests, and I withdraw the veil, beneath which they concealed their mysteries. Here I present a thorough treatise upon mysteries in general, and another equally complete upon the Christian religion in particular. ‘“‘’The former of these two treatises exhibits the origin of mysteries, their different classes, and a summary of all which relates to the forms of initia- tion, to their ceremonies, and to the sacerdotal functions. In its second part will be found a phil- osophical investigation of mysteries regarded in their relations to politics and morals. In the third is given a detailed explanation of the representa- tions drawn from astronomy and physics, employed in them, and of that theory of spirit as distinct from matter, which was introduced into the scheme as a necessary consequence of the hyper-cosmic [that is, the supernatural] ideas, which spiritualists attached to these forms. ‘‘'The second treatise, devoted entirely to an ex- amination of the religious system of Christians, is likewise divided into three parts. ‘The first contains CHARLES FRANCIS DUPUIS. by an explanation of the sacred fable of the introduc- tion of evil into the world, by the famous Serpent of the Hesperides, who deluded Eve, and thus rendered necessary the intervention of a Redeemer for the regeneration of ruined nature. ‘This fable is found in the second chapter of the Hebrew cosmogony, known under the name of Genesis. ‘‘'The second part treats of the Redeemer, of his birth, death, and resurrection, and presents a com- bination of all the traits which are common to him with Mithra, Adonis, Horus, Atys, Osiris, &c., and which prove to demonstration, that the Redeemer, designated under the name of Christ by Christians, is no other than the sun, or the divinity adored by all nations, under so many different forms and names. “The third part, much more abstract than the first two, contains an explanation of the famous ‘Trinity of Christians, or of the triple unity known under the name of Father, Son, and Spirit.* This is the outline of a scheme, im announcing which he congratulates himself that he has recov- ered “the clue to religious hnowledge, that had been lost for many ages,” and that he has “ cast the anchor of truth into the midst of the ocean of time.” t Un- der the hand of this laborious devotee of natural science, the dreams of a poetical antiquity are con- verted into problems in physics; the wild creations of fanciful, feeling, and uninstructed minds become * Origine, &c. Tom. IJ, p. xiii. t Ibid. p. xvi. 354 ALLEGORICAL THEORY. observations on the precession of the equinoxes. We hear a great deal said, and perhaps not too much, of the learned and irrelevant verboseness of divines. Is there no word of similar animadver- sion for the author of three thick and closely printed quarto volumes, crowded with the most recondite erudition, expended on the illustration of such a theme as this? Our particular business, however, is with the ap- plication of the theory to Christianity, in approach- ing which the author, while he could not but feel that it was the only practically important, seems also to have felt that, since Christianity appeared in an historical age, it was the peculiarly difficult part of his work. “I own,” he says, “that, if there is a religion, which might be esteemed proof against the analysis we have undertaken to present of the forms of worship by means of astronomy and physics, and to be incapable of being confounded with the others, from which it has always assumed to separate itself, it is the religion of Christians.” * The governing idea in this portion of his work (in which, with the scanty materials that can in any way be pressed into such a service, he labors the argu- ment, as best he may, through only one hundred and fifty pages, of some two thousand composing the whole treatise, ) is announced in its first chapter.t ‘ RING 23 AY hah abs y 82h a AREY PAE ~ Pd nt ne, wire ey : Date Due | I, wy }* a | (Hl ia tal i Hay ea a) \ ie Mi y a | ME ee a Ay ' : Apo Ht erste ye | \ ml il i Sai ia Hi i ll iy ae HA el ~ 8 i n NN a os in) || va i ay | » seis! it i ih Mi G Ni i fi i : | el | ‘ “hy os 7 itl t | | | WS ST OS = = — = Says “ Tankers - SN ae —————— : SS a ass ee =a = aap —— ee = —— = at ae io eo gare eneaiiae = - ots ‘ — * 3 : 2% . is (@ Ci —————— SS a et eS SSS SSS eee a a a ee en ven Sa — a — —e_ rere sects jc a cee acme oe tg Sear e mane te rn n Setie e ttee 2 a Se aes an SS serene ena ge ee Se ee SS — emma 4 Y ‘All i m4 “at ! 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