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A Pg Mg Rg Mas Mg Ia Pia RE ay TR AR Ig IGT GI cI GO GPO GE BG GP GO GG DOCG GG LOGO Ba Reg Rig Ris Mg es Re Pg Rig ep Re oy ye eg ge ee Dag aa gg Pg gy BE a Ag Rg Rg Dg OG Pg Ig PG tg ag cag ig eh Pag GO OG OG mm ne ns Re Ry thig Bag yy Mg Rg Rao Ry Pa aa a sae EOS a ae ep PO GG gg LO GG Go GG AOA A” ie a aR ge at a a NS AN Nt eae PO Mig Pag GIGI GPCI BIO LEGA OO GGA AO AO GO OF THE Tb BRAC RES | | Theological Seminary, | PRINCETON, N. J. BT 1101 .F67 2862 Case ice tare The formation of Christian tee §6belief Book es hes, pat, re rl mt iy an >. eee OS ” al ae 2 Z ‘ ‘7 Leal Peres - @ won ‘it oh toe Pr “i p24 Vv «A ae iis The Hormution of Christian Belief, THE FORMATION or CHRISTIAN BELIEF. W/V In all estates I know of no heart’s ease but to believe. If thou art not clear on that point, yet depend and resolve to stay by God, yea, to stay on him till he show himself unto thee. Press this upon thy soul, for there is not such another charm for all its fears and disquiet.—Luiauroy. PHILADELPHIA: GEORGE W. CHILDS, PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER, Nos. 628 AND 630 CHESTNUT STREET. 1862, Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by GHORGE W. CHILDS, tn the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. HENRY B. ASHMEAD, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER, Nos. 1102 and 1104 Sansom Street. CONTENTS. CHAPTER. I. GENERAL VIEW OF RELIGIOUS DOUBT AND STATEMENT OF THE NEED OF CERTAINTY AS TO A RULE OF ACTION, . ‘ CHAPTER II. THE RECEIVED SYSTEM OF MORALS BASED ON THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM; AND REMARKS ON AN INCAUTIOUS APPLICATION OP MENTAL SCIENCE TO THEOLOGY, ° ° : . CHAPTER III. DOUBTERS OF CHRISTIANITY DIVIDED INTO THREE CLASSES AND DESCRIBED, . : < * : : ; : CHAPTER IV. CONSIDERATIONS PERTINENT TO THE SUBJECT AND IMPORTANT TO THE INQUIRER INTO CHRISTIAN TRUTH, . . . 21 42 52 eee Vill CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. SHE DOUBTER DIRECTED FOR THE RESOLUTION OF HIS DOUBTS TO A CLOSE ADHERENCE TO SCRIPTURE PRECEPT AS THE RULE OF LIFE, e . ‘ . a . . CHAPTER, .V 1: SCRIPTURE ENCOURAGEMENT AND CONSOLATION FOR INVOLUN- TARY DOUBTERS, . : ; : : d : : CHAPTER VII. GRADUAL FORMATION OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER AND BELIEF TO BE EXPECTED FROM OBEDIENCE TO SCRIPTURE PRECEPT, 61 81 CHAP eT Exe al: GENERAL VIEW OF RELIGIOUS DOUBT AND STATEMENT OF THE NEED OF CERTAINTY AS TO A RULE OF ACTION. Dovst is uncertainty as to truth or fact. In the sense in which the word is used in the following pages, and simplifying the meaning given by a standard authority, it may be more particularly defined, a suspense of judgment respecting truth, arising from defect of knowledge. With reference to most subjects of investigation, we rest with a degree of steadiness and assurance on discover- ed truth. The progress to it may have been slow. One erroneous supposition after another has been made and its fallacy detected, ingenious hypotheses and probable but untenable theories have been repeatedly rejected for others scarcely 9 _ 10 THE FORMATION OF less defective, until each struggling, forward movement has at length brought us to a solid and elevated platform. Thus having once planted our foot on the heights of conviction, it is for us to look back on the steep and winding way by which we have reached them,—on the dark and tangled wilderness of ignorance, or the attractive but indirect path of speculation, which had often conducted us, baffled and wearied, to the point whence we had set out. But, having passed through this process, we have no desire, as we lack the ability, to retrace it. We have gained the summit, and truth lies at once and forever outspread and illumined to our view. The application of the discoveries of natural science can be lost only by circumstances inde- pendent of their own influence and operation. These discoveries become permanently embodied in the practical arts, and are traced in the in- creased skill and facilitated labour of the artisan, CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 11 and the more general diffusion of the conveniences and luxuries of life. In moral science, the case is not widely different. Though there is not here the certainty of demonstration, and axioms must give place to suppositions, still, probabilities be- come generally admitted and adopted, and, for the most part, are little questioned or discussed. But, in the science of Theology, the influence of perceived and conceded truth is on many minds much more imperfect and limited. Those who admit Revelation to be true, as those who receive only natural religion, return, to a certain extent, to the truths which had formed their starting point, glance uneasily at them, and hold to them with a somewhat loose and failing grasp. Though these truths are adapted to affect materially both modes of thought and principles of action, over neither, in the mass of mankind, do we discern any marked or abiding influence. The deist . assures you of his belief in the existence of a 12 THE FORMATION OF God, and will usually concede that God is wise, powerful, benevolent, and just. Butin how many deists do you see the development of their volun- tary admissions? How many of them, acknow- ledging their relation to God and their resulting obligations, are reverent, truthful, temperate, cha- ritable? Can you find among them one who bears the “aspect serene” of that calm and hum- ble confidence which may well mark the man who believes himself in the presence and at the dispo- sal of a great and good Being? In those who admit that God not only exists, but that he has given a revelation to man, is often even more dis- tinctly perceived the inoperativeness of belief. We should stand amazed, but for the commonness of the sight, that millions in Christian or what are called Christian lands, who avow a belief in a revelation from the Creator of the universe, an- nouncing a future state of reward and punishment, and the way of securing the one and avoiding the CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 1:3 other, should live with so prevailing an uncon- cern on this subject, with a disregard so entire of the rules of conduct laid down in the Bible, that it might be supposed that there was in them nei- ther adaptation to their condition, nor obligation to their obedience. “There is not any,” says the author of Religio Medici, “ of such a fugitive faith and unstable belief as a Christian.” We think we can correctly refer this singular inconclusiveness of religious belief to a natural and moral cause. To the latter we shall have occasion to advert in another portion of our dis- cussion. The former is the difficulty of holding fully and continuously to the mind a subject which pertains to another sphere of existence, and to agencies of which we have imperfect cognizance, and which are as much removed from the percep- tion of our physical, as they are from the com- prehension of our intellectual nature. It has been said that the evidence of facts natural and 2% 14 THE FORMATION OF miraculous related in the Bible is as readily re- ceived as that conveyed by our senses, or afforded by eredible witnesses of our own times. But a careful observation of the workings of men’s minds in regard to this subject, tends to disprove the assertion. We may decide that any statement of the Bible is to be received as credible; we may acknowledge ourselves convinced by prepondera- ting testimony ; but still the kind of belief and con- viction differs from the easy, confident, unques- tioning credence given to facts, which, however singular, regard natural events and do not violate the order which we have observed. It is true we may again and again represent to ourselves that this order of nature, viewed in relation to Him who established it, cannot, as we conceive it, mean a permanent, unchangeable arrangement,— that the system adopted by the Omniscient for the good of man, may by the Omnipotent be in- terrupted or destroyed. Still, there remains a CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 15 doubt which the evidence we have seems insuffi- a doubt that the order has been at any time interrupted, and that the Creator still upholds and directs the work of his hands. The proof of the miraculous is contained in the Bible cient to remove alone, and the nature of the proof is twofold—ex- ternal and internal. An acute thinker, as well as Christian philosopher, remarks that “ the evidence derived from the internal character of a religion, whatever may be its value within its proper limits, is, as regards the divine origin of the religion, purely negative. It may prove in certain cases that a religion has not come from God; but it is in no case sufficient to prove that it has come from him.” At least, it seems to us incontrovertible, that however much collateral support Christianity may receive from the internal evidence of its truth, it must rely for the main body of its proof on the external or historical alone. But in this department the sources of perplexity 16 THE FORMATION OF are the most numerous. We pass by with only the mention, the changes and errors that, in a period of more than two thousand years, have crept in by the hand of the copyist alone; and the questioned genuineness of some of the books of Scripture. Much more serious difficulties arise from the more recent historical investigations and discoveries of science. Ancient and modern as- tronomy, geology, the records of China, India and Egypt, have furnished the most forcible argu- ments against the truth of- Scripture. We be- lieve that they have been, for the most part, fully and forever disposed of. Still the habit of mind remains which the discussion induced; and scepticism, expelled from one stronghold, returns with other weapons to attack some more unguard- ed point. In the interpretation of Scripture, the clearest and most candid minds have come to quite opposite conclusions. Soame Jenyns, Locke, and others CHRISTIAN BELIEF. A affirmed that if miracles once attested the truth of Christianity, Christianity in its turn now proves the miracles; and lately we observed that Albert Gallatin, alluding to the teachers of certain opi- nions, remarked, “‘ They say, we believe i spite of the miracles; but I say, I believe Jdecause of the miracles.”* Where do allegory, parable, and poetry end, and how shall we decide where fact begins,—that simple statement, that unadorned truth, upon which our all of peace and hope de- pends? How shall we understand the inspiration of the Scriptures, and distinguish aright miracu- lous from natural agencies? The miracles of the New Testament become “a galling perplexity,” viewed in certain aspects, and disconnected from “those undefined moral congruities,” which, it has been remarked, sustain our belief far better than any proofs in line. “ We can neither rid ourselves of the attesting evidence, nor are prepared to yield * See Sermon on “ Believers and Witnesses,” by Dr. J. W. Alexander. 18 THE FORMATION OF ourselves to it; and at this moment the Christian argument is an intolerable torment to hundreds of cultivated minds around us.” It is true that many questions, and among them some to which we have referred, have little prac- tical influence, and are not worth, save in one particular, the argument they have occasioned. But that is the vital one. It is not the intrinsic value of the question, but its position, its relation to what claims to be a Divine revelation. It is truth we want; not solely the truth that applies to our own conduct,—the utilitarian truth, so to speak, that rounds and perfects the formula of our faith, but the truth that God declares, the truth which we are to hold eternally, and which is to uplift us forever into holiness and peace. Dr. Ar- nold well states the fact as to these abounding per- plexities. “There are,” he remarks, “difficulties in the way of all religion which can never be fully solved by human powers. All that can be done in- tellectually,” he fearlessly, as is his wont, adds, CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 19 “is to point out the equal or greater difficulties of atheism or scepticism, and this is enough to justify a good man’s understanding in being a believer.” And yet on this all important topic we seem scarcely able to pause here. We want a proof unattainable, perhaps, from the nature of the sub- ject. This great, this terrible mystery of the universe; this unsolved riddle of existence; this ever propounded inquiry into the past; this never ended searching into the dim, distant future,— what are they, and whereunto will they tend? Shall we by searching find out God? If we feel after him, shall we find him? This system full of unexplained and wonderful fact; these traces of some ruling and guiding power, and yet these other instances of an orphan, a forsaken world! The soul of man, spiritual, progressive, and yet apparently in its lowest form removed much farther from the image of Him after whom it was created, than it is from the higher instinct of the brute, or than this in turn is from the more re- 2() THE FORMATION OF CHRISTIAN BELIEF. markable phenomena of vegetable life! If we discover one beautiful and recognizable truth, its application will apparently fail in seemingly analo- gical cases. We wander blindfold, discouraged, weary and heart-sick. Where shall be our resting- place? “Thus,” says a before quoted writer, “a man may be perfectly unable to acquire a firm and undoubting belief of the great truths of religion, whether natural or revealed. He may be perplex- ed with doubts all his days, nay, his fears that the Gospel should not be true may be stronger than his hopes that it will.” | But whatever may be a man’s uncertainty re- specting his future condition, he has present and pressing need of a standard of conduct which will secure to him the greatest amount of happiness, which, if the Christian religion be true, will at least not be in conflict with its principles, and which the approval of the majority of honest and enlightened thinkers presents as the best and most universally applicable rule of life. CLEDALP Tike Re acl. THE RECEIVED SYSTEM OF MORALS BASED ON THE CHRIS- TIAN SYSTEM; AND REMARKS ON AN INCAUTIOUS APPLI- CATION OF MENTAL SCIENCE TO THEOLOGY. Iv is relative to the main object of our discus- sion to review here briefly the history of the in- quiry into what shall constitute a universal rule of life; and to state the answer, so conformable, or, rather, so identical with the teachings of Chris- tianity, which, after ages of patient seeking, the mind of man has at length obtained. We desire, also, to consider, in connection with this subject, the bearing of the study of Mental Science in its application to Theology, or, as it is usually termed, Metaphysical Theoloey—on the condition of dowks which we have endeavoured to describe. It may 3 pays THE FORMATION OF savour of presumption in the writer, who has only that superficial knowledge which some general at- tention to a few of the more popular philosophical works, lectures, and reviews can supply, to offer individual impressions on this subject. But it is a kind of investigation which is often resorted to by earnest and cautious inquirers into the truth of the Christian religion,and seems, therefore, to claim from us a special attention. One of the more mod- ern systems of speculative theology places the truth in the assent of human consciousness; another, ap- plying in its peculiar mode reason to the support of Scripture, brings the statements of revelation to rest on rational grounds; and a recently enunciated theory asserts that “the primary and proper ob- ject of criticism is not Religion, natural or reveal- ed, but the human mind in its relation to Reli- gion.” These views differing widely, indeed almost conflicting in their development, have still a common point of attraction to the seeker after CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 23 religious truth. They seem to hold out the pros- pect of at least a transfer of perplexity from the mystery of the Divine to that of the human na- ture. If, as affirmed, we can have no knowledge of things as they are in themselves, but only as they appear to us, an end is at once put to much questioning into unseen and eternal things. If the mind is not instructed as to its higher inves- tigations by these views, they yet have the ap- pearance of furnishing to it the full scope of possi- ble knowledge, and of thereby reconciling it to its essential and connate incapacity to apprehend in ordinary mode any spiritual truth. To ascertain and state clearly the laws which govern mind, and to define the limits of their operation, has seemed, and justly, a most needful process to pass through, before we listen to argu- ment and accept evidence on which that mind is to sit in judgment. Accordingly, as if called forth by the magnitude of the interests involved 24 THE FORMATION OF in the subject, in no department of science do we find displayed more vigour and acumen of intellect and more untiring industry. As we review the history of mental philosophy, especially of that portion of it which treats of the action of mind upon the principles of right and wrong, we gaze in wonder on the vast field, stretching back into the dim vista of far antiquity, and every where marked by giant foot-prints. We approach it with a timid and faltering step, and yet must essay to find for ourselves and point to the in- quiring the one path, which, of so many cut with wondrous skill and _ toil, alone conducts to the highway of truth, and affords the clearest view of the far distant temple of Faith and Peace. The study in Greece of the theory of morals, is placed by a modern writer at the rise of the Stoic and Epicurean schools. He considers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle to have been teachers of vir- tue rather than searchers after truth. They CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 25 were subtile reasoners and eloquent writers; pur- sued the truth with an honest eagerness which might well put to shame many a self-seeking and vain-glorious philosopher of modern times; and fervently loved the beautiful and good. But no debate as to moral questions appears to have arisen in their time. When controversies arose at a later period, the earnest and simple character of moral belief seemed to dwindle into a system of fine drawn distinctions and fantastic notions of an impossible perfection. In time, and especially by the Romans of the Augustan period, philoso- phy came to be cultivated as a recreation from the severer labours of state or camp, or as an elegant addition to historic research and the creations of poetry and art. To a still honoured few, the old question of duty stood forth with undiminished prominence, and caring only for truth, they sought with admirable, and to us, in these Christian 3* 2.6 THE FORMATION OF times, melancholy persistence, “a solid foundation for the Rule of Life.” That solid foundation was laid and disclosed forever to man; but the schoolmen of the twelfth century, with some marked exceptions, may be said to have ignored it altogether in the formation of their systems. The Christianity of the age was corrupt, and the cloistered divines who taught it were, for the most part, deprived of the ordinary means of mental enlightenment. They had not a healthful intercourse with mankind, nor a stimu- lating and developing acquaintance with other countries and the business of active life. Their, in some cases, beautifully constructed mental ma- chinery lacked the oil of human sympathy, and those checks and balance wheels which competi- tion and comparison with other minds, and the varied study of general literature and art would have supplied. Their meditations were of a purely intellectual, but morbid and unpractical cast. a CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 27 Acute and ingenious reasoning upon profitless topics, or a mystic, imaginative, enthusiastic ad- vocacy of a strictly unselfish and unrewarded virtue, characterize the ethical remains of that period. Leaving the discussions of the Materialists concerning the relation of the soul to space, and its division into a rational and animal soul, we come to the long continued controversies between the Nominalists and the Realists, originating in fact with Greek philosophers, and carried on in various forms and with more or less vigour, until a recent period, when, passing from England to Germany, they there became political questions, and aggravated the bitterness of secular and eccle- siastical animosity. for any valuable moral re- sult, these controversies were only a waste of in- tellectual strength. They trained, by a somewhat harsh and excessive discipline, the reasoning faculty, but could not furnish the full and ade- quate sphere for its exercise. 28 THE FORMATION OF The period of modern moral philosophy is, we believe, generally considered to begin with the system of Hobbes. His theory, making judgment concerning right and wrong, merit and demerit, the decision of human law and the regulation of a majority ; the compensation theory of Mandeville; the fitness of Clarke; the conformity to the true nature of things of Wollaston; the utility of Hume; the selfish theory of Paley; the almost denial of the moral faculty by Adam Smith, gave way, as we approach our time, to juster views of the nature of mind, and to sounder and simpler depending theories. It came to be understood, that to philosophize was, according to the beauti- ful definition of Sir James Mackintosh, zo simplify securely. It was at length recognized as an ultimate truth, that the moral faculty—conscience —the law of God written on the heart, conveys to every man the sentiment of right and wrong, the approval of the one and the disapproval of the other. The moral faculty is, therefore, the basis —— = rc el! TC eee CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 29 of moral science; and the rule or standard of the moral faculty is, the revealed will of God. “If there be a Deity, he must rule, and if he rule, his will must be law.” Thus religion and morality have the same obligation, and the latter is sepa- rable from the former, only as a part from the whole. Itis conceded that “it is absolutely essen- tial to ethical science that it should contain prin- ciples, the authority of which must be recognized by men of every conceivable variety of religious opinion.” And these principles are precisely the ereat general ones which are admitted in every form of Christian belief. If pure deism or atheism have a morality, it must be, and never has been other than the morality of the Bible. There is no tenable theory of morals but that which is based on the intuitive perceptions of conscience. There is none which does not assent to the scripture state- ment of the originally accurate knowledge of the Divine will, conferred on our first parents; the 30 THE FORMATION OF subsequent corruption of the nature and moral perceptiveness of man; and the new revelation, or, as it has been termed, republication of that will as the rule of life, the law, standard, or cri- terion of all moral judgments. Those who have never come into possession of that law, have still the original faculty, and are “a law unto them- selves.” The more important principles of this law do not vary with climate and time. It isa law, which, in the case of many unchristianized nations, is strengthened by some traditionary and partial knowledge of God’s will, by all that they can gather from the analogies of nature and the course of human experience, and by the seemingly inextinguishable hope of a holier and happier future. The Scripture settles the question of their obligation. Their responsibility is coincident with their moral perceptions; or, perhaps, more strictly, with the use of the means of improvement which are at their disposal. “He that knew not his Lord’s CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 31 will”—knew it not in its fullest revealed extent, but had still intuitive perceptions of right and wrong— “and did commit things worthy of stripes”—things fairly in contradiction to those perceptions—“ shall be beaten with few stripes’—shall receive a re- compense proportioned to his offence. Some of the changes which we have observed in the theory of morals, may be noted in the history of the progress of Theology, in addition to its own separate and peculiar phases. After the ereat Protestant reaction had had time to settle and spread itself, and disturbed and contend- ing principles had begun to assume the shape and dimensions of a Bible faith, there was observ- able a wonderful simplicity, a sound and logical thinking on all subjects of possible investigation, and a humble and reverent, at the same time deliberate and intelligent withdrawal from all dis- cussion of matters lying outside of the recognized limits of the human understanding. Faith be- Be 4s THE FORMATION OF van to stand less in the wisdom of men, and more in the power of God. In later times, many of our reasoners have, we fear, lost some- what of this characteristic of sound philosophy, and have stepped aside from their hardly won vantage ground. Involving themselves in the metaphysical discussions of Germany, they have gone back in no small degree into the darkness whence their predecessors, after so long and tedious a groping, had fully emerged. The lan- guage and mode of thought of the German phi- losophy have affected much of our religious literature. We have an undue multiplication of terms, which designate not substance nor reality, but modes of reasoning. We have definitions, which are an assemblage of words rather than of thoughts or facts, which vary language indeed, but do little towards conveying a tangible signifi- cation. Such language as really bears a meaning is so often vaguely and inappropriately used, that CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 33 to the ordinary reader, untrained in dialectic exer- cise, it becomes unintelligible and vapid. “ What is Scripture,” exclaims a writer in a late number of the North British Review, “when opposed to an unanswerable syllogism! Volumes of absurd cer- tainties,—of nonsense demonstrations, have sprung from the unlucky usage of applying terms proper only to mathematical reasoning, to moral and theological problems. What meaning can cleave to the word finite, in many of its usual applica- tions?” We weary in speculative theology of perpetual definitions and hair-splitting differences. In pursuing a truth beyond comprehension, it sometimes happens, says Pierre Bernard, that definitions and principles are changed and falsified at every stage of the process. Most writers on undemonstrable science are “tempted and lost” by definitions. To define is to limit, to circumseribe, to reduce a fact, an idea, to the limit of individual intelligence. How momentous a thing it then 4 84 THE FORMATION OF becomes thus to handle truth, to present our own conceptions of the phenomena of our spiritual existence and relations! That man is mad, says a Latin writer, who would break the weight of ereat things by the littleness of words.* That which is absolutely invisible will not be seen, though you strain after it through the most powerful telescope. That which is absolutely in- accessible will not be reached, though you cut with infinite pains your way up the steepest and loftiest mountain in hope to attain to it. The limits to our investigations are imposed as well by the subject as by our own powers; or, stated in another form, there is in every mind, even the most untutored, a consciousness to some limit of a limit set by God, where the material and immaterial, the sensible and spiritual, those powers, meet. ‘ Reason does not deceive us, if we will a . . ff . . ee . * Hominem ay gs qui Verborum minutiis rerum frangit pondera.—Gellius, quoted in Bacon’s Essays. CHRISTIAN BELIEF. 35 only read her witness aright, and Reason herself gives us warning when we are in danger of read- ing it wrong. The light that is within us is not darkness, only it cannot illuminate that which is beyond the sphere of its rays.” Hence the profitless character of discussions concerning many divine and eternal truths. It is reasoning ever in a circle rather than the progres- sive movement towards conviction and belief. I infer a God from “the works that are seen.” I infer also from the general aspect and contrivance of things that he is wise, powerful, and good; and from these characteristics it must ensue that he is just. In his message to man he confirms what I had supposed, and declaring the incomprehensi- bility of his being, he yet reveals those qualities of his nature which form the basis of my reve- rence for his will, and of my obligation to obe- dience. It is in relation to my apprehension of God of comparatively little moment whether, with 36 THE FORMATION OF Aquinas and Archbishop King, I consider these as only attributes in the sense of denoting the effects of God’s dealing, not as qualities or modes of his own being;—or whether, with the quoter of this view, I believe that “these partial represen- tations of the Divine consciousness, though they cannot convey the absolute nature of God, have each of them a regulative purpose to fulfil in the training of the mind of man, and dimly indicate some corresponding reality in the Divine nature.” “‘ God is a spirit ;” and here, so far as his essential or personal nature is concerned, I must stop. But I crave to learn how I may interpret the appearances of nature and the declarations of Scripture, so as to obtain, if possible, some defi- nite conception, some governing view of the Being who is the first object of my thought, and may be the first of my adoration and love.