; AVVWk (<<<< 7V' i I 'f m %/ 7 m m lii- f : i i iiiiiiMiilllfiliiillii l%,^.,c^C ^ « »™..Ji«, ^,^^. PRINCETON, N. J. V. % Presented by~^€,\^ • (^^V-VVav^X^^V^V^^ BL 51 .T37 1856 Taylor, Isaac, 1787-1865. The restoration of belief A 1 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF COMPLETE IN THREE PARTS, y BY ISAAC TAYLOR, ADTnon OF "natural history op enthdsiasm," etc., etc. I. CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO ITS ANCIENT AND MODERN ANTAGONISTS. " Suis Ul(t (religio Christiana) eonfenfa est viribus, et veritntia proprke fundaminibus nititur : nee spoliatur vi sua, etianin nidlam haheai viiidicem: immo si ling^ice omnes contrafaciant, contraque nitantur, et ad fidem illius ahroijandain eonsensionis unitce dniinositate conspirent." Arnobius- PHILADELPHIA: HERMAN HOOKER, S. W. CORNER CHESTNUT & EIGHTH STREETS. 1856. PREFACE. -*•*- When these Tracts were projected it was intended that they should embrace the principal subjects that belong to the modern argument con- cerning the truth of the Christian system; and I then believed that I should be able to carry out my purpose at short and regular intervals. I have not found it possible to do this; and in fact many months have separated the Second of these publications from the Third ; nor ought I now to believe that, at any time to which I could pledge myself, I shall be able to resume my task. Better than an attempt to refute, one by one, tne captious and nuga- tory objections that have lately been urged in justification of Disbeliff, would be — as I think — the establishing an intelligible and defensible principle of Biblical Interpretation, from a misapprehension of which such objections — one and all, derive the semblance of importance which they may possess. Until this be done it would seem to me not merely a waste of time to follow and reply to these futile cavils, but a logical mistake, inasmuch as they should be dealt with comprehensively, by determining a previous question. Effectively to set the Christian argument clear of the entanglements that still impede its progress would be an arduous, but hopeful work, which I should rejoice to see taken up by those competent to the labour : • — that is to say, on the supposition that the Christian community is at present prepared calmly to listen to a course of reasoning which, while it would be in a genuine sense religiotis, and would involve no risk to othodoxy, must fearlessly demolish superstitions that have grown up around Holy Scripture in the course of many centuries. (3) CONTENTS. — <•* — FAQB Christianity in relation to its ancient and modern antagonists . . 5 England the fittest arena for the Christian argument 27 The Religious condition of the Roman world in the times of Alex- ander Severus 40 The Transition-state of the nations around the Mediterranean in the period between the reigns of Trajan and Alexander Severus, not to be understood without assuming the truth of Christianity . . 64 The same subject 60 The Roman necessity for persecuting the Church ; and the Christian necessity for enduring that persecution 67 The Martyr Church wrought out the germinating principle of the modern Civilization 77 The Relation between modern Science and systems of religious opinion — not the same as that between the ancient Philosophy and Christianity 92 The Question of Christianity is determinable 109 Classification of the Books of the New Testament in relation to the present argument 124 General Conclusion as to the Non-Supernatural Epistles , . . . 166 The Seven apostolic Epistles which aflBrm or allude to Miracles . . 173 Conclusion as to the Seven Epistles which affirm Miracles • . . 204 The Force of Congruity in relation to Christianity and its Miracles 213 The alternative — Christianity or Atheism 235 The Three purposes of Christ's mission 252 The First Intention of Christ's Mission, as attested by Miracles . . 269 The Second Intention of Christ's Mission, as attested by Miracles . 305 The Third Intention of Christ's Mission, as attested by Miracles . 336 The Cycles of Christianity 349 (4) THE EESTOEATION OF BELIEF. rj^Q * * * >f; * * Our conversations of late have issued in opening interminable questions, on the right hand and on the left, but hitherto they have not brought us to a conclusion on any one subject. There has always been common ground -whence we might take our start, and we have been able to keep company some way on the road ; but soon the one or the other has gone off, drawing the immediate argument after him toward some wholly new region. You will easily recul instances of this sort of wan- dering, which, while it has seemed to do violence to logic, has obeyed — so we have felt it — the call of a deep moral necessity. The chance of the hour has given us our first impulse ; but a law of thought not to be resisted, has carried us forward from that for- tuitous point towards an unknown centre upon which all thought converges. The Newspaper may have given rise to an earnest discussion, touching the condition of the laboring classes, manufacturing or rural ; thence onward we have gone till we found ourselves encircled by the most abstruse questions, in approaching which the depths of Theology were in front of us. AV^ 1* (5) 6 THE llESTOKATTOX OF I^ELIEF. have debated the principles of Taxation : thence has a path opened itself into the subject of the moral relationship of governments towards the people ; and thence onward again toward the problem of Religious Establishments. We have incidentally mentioned some points of Biblical criticism, and have gone on toward subjects, not unconnected indeed therewith, but of in- finitely greater importance than can belong to any such question. In a word, to approach what one might call surface questions, has always shown us that an interior be- neath it was to be first explored. Or if the interior were brought under discussion, its many results and issues carried us over an unlimited expanse upon the field of practical science. This incessant wandering we must not impute to ourselves altogether as a fault. If in these instances we had been less desultory, and more logical, we should have paid respect to the forms of argumentation, only in proportion as we had disregarded those relationships that are more real, and that now are felt to be so by all men. This circuit-going in all directions, at what point soever serious controversy or incidental conversation takes its start, is the marked feature of the times pre- sent ; and it has, as I think, not only a deep meaning, but a good, or as we say, an auspicious meaning. Conversation among intelligent men, and the literature of the day, show the same characteristic ; and as we cannot fail to notice it, we should not fail to gather its import. Is it not just now as if an invisible tyranny were driving the minds of men onward and onward, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 7 or in perpetual circuits, until they shall have become spent in fruitless coui'ses over the unenclosed fields of speculation ? If you ask -what this discursiveness means, and what "will be its end, — I think it shows that now at length the true step forward toward a more sure agreement and a better understanding, at least among the educated classes of the community, has actually been taken ; and that we and others, including many from whom we most differ, have by this time gone some way forward on a road which it will not be necessary hereafter for ourselves, or for our successors, to retrace. To look abroad upon the world of opinion, in this country, or elsewhere, what one sees might seem to resemble the hurrying hither and thither of the sparks upon a burned paper ; all which sparks, bright as they are, are soon to find their rest in ashes and blackness. Yet not so, I think, in the social sys- tem ; for here the sparks are showing a tendency in one and the same direction ; or, like the falling stai'S and meteors of an autumn sky, they all give notice of their bearing upon the great planetary movements. You will be told by some around us — and they are men whose judgment well deserves to be regarded — that they have seen the end of several movements not less promising than this to which we are linked, and that no notable result in which we could rejoice, has marked the return of men's minds to their custo- mary inaction. I must adhere to my hopefulness so long as I see clearly a ground of expectation that what is bi'ight is at hand. It has come to be felt and seen, and to be 8 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. acknowledged too, on all sides, tliat truth, in relation to any particular subject, touching immediately or re- motely the well-being of men — either the individual man, or the social — can be only one portion of, or one aspect of, UNIVERSAL TRUTH ; and that if we would secure ourselves against mischievous mistakes and illu- sions as to that single subject, whatever It may be, we must know, not merely the whole of itself, but what it borders upon ; and then the bordering of these remoter neighbours, one upon another, and so onward and round about must we advance, until we have fairly made the circuit of all things, or of all things which it is granted to man to measure and compass. This feeling — this acknowledgment — in professing •which all are agreed, runs parallel with the axiom of Natural Philosophy, namely, that there are no insu- lated sciences ; but that all investigations of -nature, and all paths followed in the abstract sciences, tend toward a centre, and are only so many independent contributions toward a consentient system, which will at length present itself as a harmony, and which will then assign its place to every item of that knowledge which we shall have made our own, concerning the Material Universe. The perception we have acquired concerning the in- ter-relation and absolute dependence, one upon another, of moral, religious, and political questions, has not been borrowed from the Physical Sciences ; nor is it an in- ference that has been carried over from one side of philosophy to tlie other : for although, in its rise, it has been nearly contemporaneous, it has had its own and its proper source, springing up from within the intellectual THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 9 world. It is a feeling that has flowed from a far deeper mode of thinking, on all such subjects, than has hither- to prevailed ; and it has shown the presence of a more serious desire, or, one might say, an impatience, an anxiety, almost an agony, impelling men to reach, if it be possible, a solid ground of belief. It is natural and inevitable that this urgent feeling should drive men in from the surface of all subjects, and compel them to dig, and still to dig, until, from all sides, they have come to encounter each other, working in the same shafts, and pursuing the same seams and veins of thought. From these underground encounters, startling as they are when they bring those who beneath the upper sky are declared adversaries, face to face in the mine and so near to the very pith of the world, will lead (so I must profess to think) to a common under- standing, to a belief generally, if not universally as- sented to, and to a conclusion, once for all arrived at, and which thenceforward will, with its inferences, be brought to bear upon every practical question that can be thought to stand related to it in morals, politics, and education, as well as Religion. We have not however, as yet, advanced quite abreast on the two highroads of Philosophy — the physical and the intellectual (or moral and religious) ; for on the for- mer a rule is well understood and is universally obej^ed, which on the latter is but dimly seen, or is perpetually broken. Yv hat I mean is this — that in all departments of the physical sciences, both abstract and applicate, and on all fields of accumulated industry— natural history, for instance — every one, every inquirer, every reasoner. 10 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. every collector of facts, is left to pursue his path in his own mode, and is held to be exempt from all interfe- rence on the part of others ; as if what one had learned or was teaching, could supersede, or might interdict the inquiries of another. Although, in the issue, there will be One Philosophy, and although there should be fellowship among the labourers, none are to put bars across the paths of their companions. This sort of jealousy, as it would be groundless, so must it be fruit- less in the end ; and meantime it would be mischiev- ous. Nothing of this sort is ever thought of, or at- tempted, in the world of physical science. So much as this cannot be alleged in behalf of those branches of philosophy and of learning which touch hu- man nature at the core. On this ground attempts are often made to intercept the progress of inquiry in some one direction, as if it might disturb what has been as- certained on another. Too often — and we are all more or less in fault — we carry inferences over from one field to another ; or, w^e are in too great haste so to do ; for undoubtedly, in the end, all inferences, all deductions, "will interlace and join on one another. Let me state the case in some such way as that in which it often meets us in these times. I am (let us suppose it) addicted to antiquarianism — to historical criticism — to ethnological philology, and to the kindred subjects. You perhaps are conversant with political economy, or the like social interests, and you amuse yourself also with geology. Now I have convinced my- self in my own modes of inquiry, and on my own pro- per ground, that things are so and so ; or that the transactions of remote ages have been truthfully re- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. It ported. You ought not then to come in, and ^N'ith a supercilious air tell me that I may as well spare myself so much learned toil, and that you will be happy to save me the whole of my expenditure in midnight oil ; for that you, in your department, have ascertained, be- yond doubt, that I have been deceiving myself, and am blindly misleading others. This is insufferable : — it is not scientific ; it is an outrage committed upon the com- mons of Philosophy. If you say you do but retaliate ; I reply I will take care to give you in future no cause of offence in this way, and I shall disregard any such interferences on your part. It is easy to foresee what those occasions are in which I am likely to claim protection under the shield of this rule of our modern Philosophy. The rule itself is a main article in the Magna Charta of our intellectual liberties, and whoever infringes these privileges, forfeits his claim to be much listened to, even on his own ground. I do not say that we, on our side — I mean the side of Religious Belief — have not in any instances been blameworthy in this same manner — all parties have been persecutors in their time : but I think I shall show that acts of attempted interference, as well as argu- mentative arrogance and intolerance, have of late shown themselves on the other side in a tenfold proportion. Too much, and too often, we on our side have cowered before the unseemly bearing of those who have assailed us. If there has been any of this giving ground, it is more than enough, it is more than was due ; and it is time that we should repel all such violences. When I say rcinl., I mean — not yield an inch to those who thus 12 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. offend against tlio acknowledged maxims of what may be called the modern philosophical courtesy. Not only on my side would I wholly abstain from the language of intimidation or of interdiction — not only not say, " you must not approach this or that subject, for the ground is sacred;" but rather would invite every one to follow up his own course of inquiry in the mode that best suits himself. If he does so in a man- ner that is unseemly, flippant, inconclusive ; or if he so writes and speaks as to betray an arrogant and captious temper, and a sinister purpose, in doing so he provides against himself a most effective sort of reply, and I need not give myself any trouble on his behalf. As to what is written or spoken ingenuously and sin- cerely, or as we say "in good faith," with the avowed intention to loosen or subvert Religious Belief, I will never call the author of such utterances my enemy. So firm and thorough is my own belief, that I can well af- ford to be thus charitable, — nay more : although in re- gard to the immediate welfare of many I must deeply deplore what I see to be taking place around me, in all circles, I have a perfect confidence in the issue, after a time, of the intellectual movement which is now in pro- gress, so far as it is impelled by honestly intended men. If not every where, yet in this country, such a restora- tion of Religious Belief as could not have resulted from any other conjunction of causes, will be its conse- quence. In what I now propose to do there is included no intention to take in hand any recent book or books, as if to give it or them an answer : this would be to enter upon an endless and unavailing labour. I am not ig- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 13 norant of what has lately been written ; but I shall pursue my own track of thought in my own mode, and leave others to do the like in theirs. If I think or speak of any man as an adversary, I do so in a sense purely logical ; and I do not allow the word to bring with it into my bosom any of those feel- ings with which, in fact, I regard the 'principles he is endeavouring to establish. These principles I utterly condemn, and the influence he has acquired over the minds of others I would gladly destroy ; but toward himself I harbour no unkindly sentiment : how should I do so when I think of him as struggling, without help or hope, in the grasp of perplexities with which every thoughtful and seriously-minded man has had to con- tend, at some stage of his course, or does still contend in times of mental lassitude. Those who have suffered no anguish in their past history, and who have passed through no hours of agony, are men (enviable perhaps ! but) with whom neither my adversary nor myself should have nearly so much sympathy as we should with each other. It is much to be wished that those who at this mo- moment are assailing Religious Belief, would deny them- selves the poor and cheap gratification, in which they almost all of them give themselves free leave to indulge, that of calling the adherents and advocates of Belief — " fanatics." And yet, perhaps, this seemingly arrogant practice should be pardoned in those guilty of it, inasmuch as it does not necessarily spring from an intolerant temper, or personal malignity ; but comes only from the felt necessity of the position in which those, on that side, 2 14 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. have placed themselves : for if indeed those whose be- lief these writers assail are not "fanatics;" if, on the contrary, they, or many of them, are as well informed and as highly cultured and as capable of reasoning as themselves, if they are equally serious and honest, and in a word, are everyway as "good men," and all the while are believers, then is Belief proved to be reasonable ; for reasonable men profess it, and the contrary assumption falls to the ground ; then is Belief that conclusion which will be accepted and rested in, after full inquiry, by the great majority of minds in a sound state. So it will be, those seasons of reaction excepted, like the present, in which a re- vulsion is taking place and which is attributable to obvious causes. Whoever calls me a fanatic, simply because I be- lieve, puts into my hand a lever by means of which I shall upheave his stronghold. Great arguments, we have said, cannot be long held apart, or permanently disjoined. As this is true in natural philosophy, so especially is it true in whatever touches human nature and the social welfare of man, morally or religiously. It is not easy to disconnect even questions of politics with religious principles ; for through the medium either of questions concerning Religious Establishments, or of Religious Liberty, or Public Education, the one set of principles interlocks itself with the other. Take up what subject we may among the many which now engage attention, one must reckon upon the entailed necessity of passing on from that point to its next neighbour, and so forward. Nevertheless a choice may be open to us always as to the starting- point that is taken. Of some of these arguments it may be said that they possess an inherent logical title to precedence: they present themselves as first to be disposed of in the order of dialectic sequence. For other weiglity questions it may be pretended that, if determined in a certain mode, they bring all other argumentation, all balancing of probabilities, all inquiries concerning pos- sible improvements or progress, to a dead stop ; they throw a pall over the world, and its fruitless agitations. Again, there are questions aflfecting the welfare of (15) IG THE RESTORATION OF RELIEF. classes which cry for instant consideration, if, indeed, hearts of flesh beat in our bosomsu. Of what account are dogmas, or principles of any sort, when placed in comparison with practical measures, tending to assuage physical suffering, or to gladden the homes of thou- sands of our fellow-men ? Such pleas are good ; but they need not overrule our present purposes. Let every one take to the path that best suits himself. If a preference is given to subjects not of this lat- ter urgent sort, and which affect the welfare, not of classes of men, but of men universally, we may then make our choice in adopting one of two methods — the first of which may be called the German, and the other the English mode. The German mind inclines to begin at the' begin- ning, rather than to seize the main point midway, or to catch it in its concrete form. Whatever it has to do with, although it be a surface question, it takes a pre- liminary plunge among the most profound abstractions. A metaphysical, more than a scientific, law of thought prevails with it, and the simplest adjustment of things about us must show its reason, as related to a theory of the universe, which, perhaps, has scarcely yet fledged itself, as newly broken forth from chaos. Not so the English mind, which has more inclina- tion toward the concrete than the abstract. At least we must say it seeks the practical, loves whatever is well-defined and certain, and never hesitates to accept and use what is sure and at hand, although much room there may be left for argument on the a j^yiori side. In the present instance, then, I must make my THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 17 choice of a preliminary subject in compliance with the tendency of the English mind. At this time, when all things are brought into doubt, if there be in sight a path that is open and straight before us, — if there be, on any side, ground that feels firm to the foot, — if quite near at hand there are objects that are palpable, — if around us we may see what we have known to be good, and which is- our own , then upon such a path will we set forward, upon such ground will we first essay to tread, such objects will we grasp, and to such possession will we assert our right. Thence, and from such ground, will we adventure forward and outward, toward the dark unknown. I shall here be stopped by an exception taken against any renewal of the endeavour to link Religion to His- tory, or to send us back for our faith and morals to past ages. I must do so from the very necessity of the case. Belief and History God has joined, nor shall man, to the end of time, succeed in effecting a divorce. Re- ligion, disjoined from History, is a flickering candle, held in the hand of one who looks back upon utter darkness behind him, and looks into the blackness of darkness in front of him. But besides this inherent necessity of the case, there meets us an adjunctive necessity for taking the same course, and for travelling back to ages past. Even if Belief and History were not thus wedded. Disbelief has its equally firm hold upon antiquity. In every form of it, it has its ancestry, and it must not ask now to be spoken to as if we had not already, and lang ago, made acquaintance with it. Is it, indeed, to be reckoned as a fault, or is it a 2* 18 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. disqualification for engaging in argument, to have be- come, in some degree, conversant with the fortunes of man in past time ? If not, then this species of ac- complishment brings with it an irresistible feeling, prompting one to recognize in "what is recent, the very counterpart of what is of remote origin. It is not merely this, that the special objections ■which have been of late urged against Christianity, against the Old Testament Books, and the New, are all substantially the same as those which Origen and the early Apologists encountered and refuted. This is not all ; for those speculations, more deep and wide, more sweeping and formidable in aspect, which just now are redressed and presented as the ripened fruits of the human mind, which at length is freeing itself from its thraldom of centuries — these same speculations, fresh complexioned as they are, differ in little, beside their wording, from the profundities of the Oriental and Alexandrine philosophy, as uttered and edited by the several classes of Gnostics, Manichees, and others. If, then. Belief carries us back to antiquity, so does Misbelief; and we cannot refuse to follow a double guidance, that is sure in both instances. As a proper preliminary, therefore, to any inquiries that may touch the philosophy of human nature, or implicate what is abstruse in theology, I must persist in the course I have chosen ; and shall essay to tread upon solid ground as far forward as it offers itself to the foot. History ib solid ground ; or, to exclude ex- ceptions, let us say that, within the region it embraces perfectly solid ground is discoverable in all directions. This is manifestly the case when certain historic po- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 19 sitions are brouglit into comparison, as to their demon- strative value, with any assumed principles of abstract science (not mathematical). It is certain that the Normans brought the Saxons under their sway in the eleventh century ; but it is questionable whether a chivalrous race Avill always succeed in vanquishing an agricultural and a trading people. It is certain that Augustus established and consolidated a despotism upon the ruins of that republic, in the attempt to maintain which Brutus pointed his sword against Coesar, and in despair of restoring which he fell upon it himself. But it may be doubted whether a republi- can government, such as that of ancient Rome, neces- sarily finds its end and issue in the hands of an auto- crat. It is more certain that Socrates swallowed hem- lock by the vote of his fellow-citizens, than it is that a people like the Athenians, of that age must have been taught to listen to and admire Plato, before they could tolerate teaching such as that of Socrates. But now, although matters of history do possess this absolute and this comparative certainty when placed beside abstruse or abstract principles ; and although it be true that no inferences from those principles can ever be admitted to abate a jot of tbe certainty of what is certain in history, this relative value of the two species of evidence will not be seen by all minds alike. On the contrary, some minds from want of cul- ture, some from an irresistible propensity toward paradox, some from a vague and dreamy unfixedness of temper, will always fly ofl* from the better evidence, and betake themselves to the worse. With many, the most misty abstractions which look 20 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. ■well at a distance are eagerly pursued : matters of fact, irresistibly evident, are scouted or forgotten. Culture has much to do with that faculty of the understanding on which history lays a firm hold. Apart from a cer- tain amount of culture, we do not find that history, as a reality past, comes home to the intellectual conscious- ness. Hence springs a disadvantage attaching, in the nature of things, to the labors of those who aim to impart an historic belief to the masses of the people in the way of definite proof. The process finds an indis- pensable quality wanting in those who are the subjects of it : hence too, of course, comes that poor advantage which is snatched at by those whose aim it is to loosen an historic belief from the minds of the same classes. There is nothing of arrogance in what is here al- leged. Every educated man, whether preacher, lecturer, or teacher, in any line, scientific, literary, or profes- sional, well knows, and constantly feels, that, do his ut- most, it is but a fragment of his own vivid perceptions of his subject that he can lodge in the reason and the imagination of his imperfectly instructed hearers. Therefore will it always be an easy task, in dealing with such, to dislodge materials that have no cement, and to strew the ground with the ruins of a structure that has not settled down on its foundations, and has no coher- ence. Because it is so easy to do this, writers who are impatient to win notoriety, and who would fain be fol- lowed by troops of disciples, address themselves, with- out scruple, to those whose consent, when obtained, has no value ; and whose plaudits should make a wise and sincere man blush. In all departments of knowledge it is the results THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 21 thnt are for the many ; Lut the process tlii'ougia Avliich results have been reached are for the few. Especially must it be so in the departments of history and criti- cism. Results may be rendered into the vernacular; and when thus translated they become public property. Processes of inquiry are carried forward in symbol, and these signs always imply that a knowledge is already possessed, ten times outmeasuring that to which the bare symbol gives expression. The imperfectly edu- cated suffer no real damage on this ground, so long as they are not tampered with by sophists. Where the Press, the Pulpit, the Platform, the Class-room, are quite free, popular incompetency, as to matters of sci- ence or of learning, as it cannot be much abused by the privileged, so should it not be wrought upon, flat- tered, and cajoled by ambitious declaimers. There is a ripened condition of the faculties, there is a state of plenary consciousness toward the things, the persons, the events of past time, which is the fruit of high culture and of life-long habits. This consciousness, this mental existence, carried back into the heart of antiquity, supersedes what, in a logical sense, may be required in the way of Evidences and Proofs. A man sits surrounded with the books of all ages : among these he has passed the best years of his life. He has gone in and out among them : through their very substance he has made a path for himself, in the course of methodical study ; and with these he has con- versed, discursively, as accident might lead him. Now we may imagine these his companions to be set out in chronological perspective on his tables and carpet, right and left, each ascending to its date. Thus placed, they 22 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. are so many candles lit, shedding their beams over the expanse of centuries, up to the remotest eras. Many deep shadows still rest upon spots and spaces of this landscape ; nevertheless, wherever thelight does fall, the outlines of things are perfectly defined, and the colours are bright. Besides, as the books are phosphorescent in the view of their possessor, so are the multifarious contents of the cabinets around him : so are the antique busts that occupy the brackets : and, " as face answereth to face in a glass," so do the visages and the legends of me- dallions and of sculptures answer to, interpret, and sus- tain the pages of the historians, poets, and philosophers, of the corresponding times. Taken altogether, or con- sidered in their aggregate efi'ect, these accumulated ma- terials give a familiarity and an assurance to the historic consciousness which does not rate lower than does the feeling as to any class of objects that are not actually present to the senses. Yet how much of this feeling will it be possible for this same man of culture to impart to one whose educa- tion has been elementary only ? Not a thousandth part of it ; and if the recipient of such a communication, along with an ordinary measure of native intelligence, brings with him a smack of conceit ; if, in his case, ig- norance, instead of being simply negative, has gone into the positive form of a shrewd scepticism, then the bring- ing forward of book-evidence and of antiquarian cor- roborations may be found to have produced the very contrary of their proper effect. This man, who is one "not soon imposed upon," had come forward apprehen- sive that he should perhaps be robbed by force of his THE KESTORATION OF BELIEF. 23 disbelief: instead of this, he has seen and heard nothing that he has really understood ; and he departs with his reason confused, and his vanity entire. What then is the inference hence resulting ? It is just this — that, knowing these things, the well-informed, the honestly-intending, the seriously-minded, will scorn the easy triumph of trampling in the dust the Religious Belief of the people — the uneducated and the half- educated. Do I say this because I inwardly mistrust my argu- ment, and shrink from the light, and foresee what must be the issue of an open discussion ? I shall show you that any such surmise as this, on your part, if you en- tertain it, is wholly unfounded. What I shrink from is not light, but darkness ; what I am afraid of is not the brightness of day and the fresh breezes of the upper skies ; — what I am afraid of is that choke-damp of po- pular ignorance, into which the assailants of Religious Belief shall not tempt me to descend in pursuit of them. Besides, to follow severally, those who of late have assailed the Christian Belief of the people, in the way of reply, would be, on our part, to descend from our true position, and implicitly give way to an utterly false idea of Christianity itself. We should thus come to think of it as a something artificial and fragile, which the bringing forward of objections, difficulties, flaws on its surface, this and that, ten, twenty, a hundred doubts, might and must destroy. We should then feel as if Christianity were a casting of that sort (as founders say) in which there is such a condition of internal ten- sion by unequal cooling — such a strain upon the interior 24 THE RESTOllATION OF BELIEF. coherence of particles, that, if you do but scratch the surface with a nail, or break off a corner, the whole flies into atoms. This is very much the feeling with which one rises from the perusal, not merely of books written to im- pugn Christianity, but often of books written to defend it. This idea of the matter in hand is, I say, wholly a mistaken notion. The anxiety that springs from it, and which disturbs so much the minds of those who do be- lieve, or who would fain continue so to do, is quite groundless ; under the influence of it one says, in a desponding tone. What if this or that difiiculty cannot be cleared up? And then there are twenty more in reserve ! How can we hope to cut our way out from among this jungle of thorns ? It is a very commendable labour with which those charge themselves, who sit down to meet and obviate objections, seriatim, to reconcile inconsistencies, real or apparent, to harmonize discrepant narratives, and to draw the line close around a difficulty, reducing it to its minimum of importance. All this should be done ; but it is better done in books devoted to philological and his- torical criticism, and in which questions are treated ac- cording to their abstract merits and their real import, apart from any allusion to what is flippant or disin- genuous in the writing of declared opponents. But as to Christianity itself, those who think that it is to be brought into doubt, or that it will be exposed to pei-il by means of cavils in detail, or even by the allegation of difficulties that defy solution, such persons, whether notions of this sort inspire them with hopes of a tri- umph for infidelity, or depress them with fear as be- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 25 lievers, can never have apprehended what this Gospel is in itself, what it intends, how it stands related to human nature, or the well-being of nations, to the desti- nies of the human family. Such persons, whether they be overweening disbelievers, or timid and mistrusting believers, are burrowing hither and thither under the sward, unconscious of what is seen and felt in the open world. No problem, historical or critical, presenting itself for solution, should be negligently dealt with, or timidly evaded ; much less disingenuously smothered or con- jured out of the way. Difficulties and objections thus disposed of, are so much gunpowder, stowed away by our own hands, beneath the foundations of the house we live in. What I propose to do in the following pages is not to wrestle with gainsayers, sincere or insincere, on low levels, nor to tread anew a ground that has already been trodden hard. Work of this sort has been well done ; and no one who, in a spirit of industry and ho- nesty, would inform himself concerning the " Evidences of Christianity," the "authenticity and genuineness of the Gospels and Epistles," or any kindred subjects, need be at a loss in finding books, learnedly and con- clusively written, where he may meet with more than enough of proof and argument to satisfy every seri- ously-minded and educated reader. Nevertheless it is true that such readers do rise from the perusal of these books, confusedly convinced, and not fairly or finally rid of their misgivings. It is to them as if Infidelity had been mortally wounded, and lay at their feet as dead ; but the carcase has not been 3 26 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF removed or buried out of their sight, and they eye it with dread, as expecting its resurrection. They have concerned themselves Avith negations ; they have car- ried their eye too close to the object before them : they have failed to come into correspondence with what is POSITIVE in the Gospel : they have lost, or not yet ac- quired, sympathy with that in it which, to those who occupy a better position, is seen to be great, is felt to be true, is found to be real. So far as at this time a Restoration of Belief may be looked for as probable, either in single instances, or as to the community, it will be brought about, not by conflict or compromise with negations or exceptions, not by forcing a path through the briars of doubt; but by pushing our Avay straightforward toward the positive, and by apprehending, so far as the finite may do it, the infinite. A RESTORATION of BELIEF, -whether we think of it as an argumentative and logical process, or as a change produced by means that are suasive and moral, demands conditions such as shall be thereto favourable. At this present moment it is in this country, and nowhere else throughout the civilized world, that these requisites are to be found in full measure. It is within the circuit of the British islands that every reasonable exception against the conclusiveness of an argument concerning Christianity is shut out — even to the shadow of a pre- text, as if a fair hearing of the adverse part had not been allowed. Some things touching our condition as a Christian people, which may seem, and which indeed are, anoma- lous, and which, under certain of their aspects, give us much uneasiness, do most decisively favour any endea- vour that may be made to win back to Christianity those among us who may have lapsed into unbelief. It is easy to narrow the area, geographically, within which an argument, such as the one before us, could be carried forward to any good purpose. Might we claim a fifth, or even a seventh part of Christendom as af- fording open ground for our purpose ? I think not. Throughout Christendom, that is to say, wherever there has survived any knowledge of the Gospel, wherever a glimmer of the light of heaven still shines, there, in (27) 28 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. corners and recesses, might be found solitaries, or per- haps sincere men enough, in a cluster, to make up a Church in Tertullian's sense, Ubi tres, ibi Ecclesia. But these exceptive cases, precious as they are in the sight of Heaven, can be of no account as to our im- mediate purpose. Yfe are not attempting to number the Faithful among the living ; but are in search of a field that is adapted to movements on a large scale. In relation to any such purpose, no place can we as- sign, in our geography of Christianity, to nations, called Christian, that, in fact, have no liberty, if they Tvere so inclined, to profess themselves otherwise. Nor any place can we grant in our atlas to a people who have not actually in their hands, generally, and who from habit and feeling have not become, individually, conversant with the BOOK, concerning the authority of which an argument is to be had. Even those who assail this authority must profess to wish that the "public" ihey appeal to may be competent to assent, as from its own knowledge, to the allegations, derogatory to the credit of the Scriptures which they bring forward. Certainly we, on our side, should choose our hearers and readers from among those who " search the Scrip- tures daily," and who, in a manner, know them by heart. Thus it is then that our line must be so drawn in, as that it shall include none but the Teutonic branches of tbe European family. And even as to these, we must still make exceptions : — we must make exceptions until, to say the truth at once, it will amount to this — that, in the fullest sense of the word, it is the English people alone, alone in the old world, that is now Christian. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 29 Let me exempt myself from the imputation of indulg- ing illiberal prejudices when I so broadly speak. One might almost say that, just now, the British people stands among the nations as the surviving Trus- tee of Christianity, or as the Residuary Legatee of its benefits. Let those who reject Chi'istianity make what use they please of this admission, and get from it all the infer- ential aid which it may afford them. The fact, if it can be serviceable on that side, is theirs. But the genuine inference, thence deduceable, I take to be available on my side, with a tenfold weight of meaning. This fact has two aspects ; or we might blend the two in one conclusion. It may be affirmed first, that Christianity, considered as a system of religious and moral principles, is of such a nature that it will be sure to find its way toward that one community, within the circle of civilization, which, by national temperament, is the most energetic, which the most instinctively em- braces doctrines that are seen to be practically good, which makes its elections, in matters of opinion, with the most absolute freedom, a freedom uncontrollably impatient of restraint or interference. Christianity chooses for itself a people preeminently spontaneous in all its doings ; self-governing, and in an equal degree loving order ; abhorrent of despotism ; unknowing in disguises ; and silent or acquiescent, much rather from a sullen consciousness of individual independence, than from servility or fear. Such is the people (as compared with others) to the hearth of which Christ's religion has at length drawn itself, as if retiiing to its own home- Among such a pcoplcj when hunted from all 3* 30 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. other lands, has this religion been ■vyelcomed, and has found its asylum. But looking at the same facts in their other aspect, we should be free to think of Christianity as that plastic power which, in the course of many centuries, and es- pecially during the last three, has itself made the peo- ple what they are. It is the Gospel that has wrought itself into the national temper, and has moulded us so much to its own fashion. It is the Gospel which has planted in our bosoms that sense of individuality, that seriousness of conviction, which despotism dreads, and can never crush. It is this deep belief, and this sense of the authority of truth, which has come to be a na- tional characteristic, and which is the ultimate guaran- tee of our liberties, religious and political. It is this Gospel that has given us our higher tone of domestic virtue, our relish for home, our home-bred feelinjrs, and our true idea of personal delicacy, and our sense of in- dividual importance, consistently with individual mo- desty. It is thence, and from the vernacular diffusion, and the daily usage and hearing of the Scriptures, that we have drawn the power and point, the simplicity and the majesty, the tropical richness, the rhetoric opu- lence, and the fervour of our conversational style, and public oratory. Combine what is proper to each of these aspects of the same facts, and then the result, expressed in a word, is this — that Christianity, in its migrations through eighteen centuries, has betaken itself to the British People, as if these were iU oivn, and that these, under its influence, and at its inspiration, have become such as they are — if not the most highly THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 31 educated among the nations, yet the most effective, the most beneficent, the most humane, and the people to whose purposes and labours the world looks for whatever is good and hopeful. For a reason I shall presently mention, it is not even among our brethren and sons of the United States that a conclusive course of argument, touching Christianity, could be carried forward in a manner exempt from reasonable exceptions. The Christian Argument does indeed demand liberty as its indispensable condition ; but it is not a vague or unemphatic liberty that will suflSce. It is not mere freedom to breathe and to speak, such as you may find on the table lands of central Asia, or in the midst of the Sahara ; but the earnest-minded and force-fraught liberty, the freedom positive which one is conscious of enjoying in the dense centre of a people whose minds (unshackled in every sense of the word) are headed up by solid embankments, by Institutions : it is that liberty which gives a strong pulse to the energies of men, individually and socially : it is the liberty of men who, as individuals, and as bodies, or as classes, differ from each other resolutely, who oppose each other pertinaciously, and who contend for their opinions, as for their prerogatives, with a vehemence stopping short only at the border beyond which the rights and properties of others would bo invaded. What we need for carrying forward an unexcep- tionable argument in defence of Christianity is, the consciousness in every man's feeling, not merely that without rebuke, he may become as wise as he can, and 32 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. may profess and teach what he thinks to be true and good ; but more than this, that he may humour himself among his crotchets, and be as absurd as he pleases; that he may proclaim his whim, whatever it be, and endow it too, and spend upon it his fortune and his children's inheritance. Within a community empha- tically free, every thing may be said, done, and practised, which does not, in an overt manner, inflict damage upon others : and then all such things may be assailed, rebuked, and put to shame with equal freedom. If we are to pursue our course in a promising manner, and if indeed we may hope to reach a con- clusion, not afterwards to be rejected as precipitate, we must not betake ourselves to countries where the people are told that the liberty they enjoy is that of choosing whether they will be reduced to the mummy state, after this fashion or that, when the immortal soul has been pressed out of the animal man by despotism. Nor will it be enough for us to know that, albeit intelligible questions concerning existing institutions are straitly prohibited, the wilds of abstruse speculation are free land ; that the back- woods of philosophy have not been parcelled out, and that "Government" maintains no police in the Sheol of Universal Disbelief. Among the Teutonic nations of Continental Europe, can we think it likely that the Christian argument will be carried forward toward a determinate issue ? We, that is to say the English on this side the Atlantic, hold a decisive advantage, even in comparison with our brethren in the United States. Grant it that THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 33 their liberty is much like our own ; and they may think it more entire than ours ; or at least that it is more theoretically consistent : so it may be ; but on that very account it is of less value than our own ; and it produces a less marked impression upon the national mind : if it shows a wider surface, it embraces less of deep purpose, and it is less resolute. No Code- making, no legislation according to theory, or in re- spect of the principles of " abstract justice," will give a people that which our history has given ourselves : our social condition is the giant-limbed offspring of the many struggles we have passed through. If the American liberties are also the fruits of events, these have gone into theory : with us they have issued in the creation of those beneficial anomalies which no theory would every allow ; but which, in the working of a constitutional system, are far more serviceable to a people than any thing which men sit down to contrive for themselves. Antagonisms come^ they are never called for. Anomalies confront us unbidden; they perplex us ; we quarrel with them ; but against our consent, they secure to us the very highest advan- tages. So is it especially in whatever touches the ecclesiastical framework under which we live and act. One of these benefits, and the one we have just now to make proof of, is this, that the Christianity of the British people stands exempt from all suspicion of combination among its adherents : so planted are we in companies on the flanks of Ebal and Gerizim, that a damage to the one cause which sincerely we all wish to uphold, arising from our dissensions, is an 34 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. event far more probable than the bringing in of any advantage, from our concert, and collusion. As to the Old World, and forgetting the New, the question of Christianity is almost an insular ques- tion — it is a British interest. How far, or •whether in any perceptible manner, the moral or political con- dition of any one of the Continental states would show a change, it is not easy to conjecture, supposing a silent and somewhat gradual dying out of religious belief, that is Christian belief, from the mind of the people, and from the lip of the state. But there can be no room for any such doubt as to ourselves. What those various consequences to ourselves might be, re- sulting from a national abandonment of our present faith in the Divine origin of the Bible, and of our professed submission to its authority, this is not the place to enquire ; yet there is reason to think that such an apostacy would mean — national annihilation. Whether it might be so or not, it is certain that Christianity has always shown itself to be migratory: it abides with a people for a century, or for a thousand years, but it does not chain itself to a soil, as with bands of brass. Hitherto no combinations of adverse forces, — neither persecutions from without, nor perversions from within, — nor deluges of barbarism, have availed to dislodge Christianity from the world. Yet unobtrusive causes have often driven it from countries. Fixing the eye upon any one spot, and thence to watch the waxing and waning of the light of the Gospel, one might think it a terrestrial phosphorescence, rather than a Umnnary of heaven. It shines upon a land to-day; THE RESTORATION OF EELIEF. 35 to-morrow these beams may have drawn themselves up to their source ! This readiness to depart — this word always upon its lip, ^Lcea\iaivu>fi.tv iv-tevdev, which scems to be its law, as to cities and countries — docs it not repeat itself in individual instances every day? The religious his- tory (for example) of the once Christian cities of the East, is a narrative, at large, of what is written, small, in the personal history of many around us — perhaps in our own. In the fresh season of life Christianity lodged itself firmly in a man's affections, and in his reason too ; so far as the reason was then developed. Within the chamber of conscience the ethics of the Scriptures was always listened to as the ultimate authority: never did it seem doubtful that this rule of virtue, listened to and obeyed, would lead in the path of rectitude and of purity, and would issue in the highest good. But the realities of ma- ture life, and its seduction, came upon the neophyte : they came with their struggles, their moral ambiguities, their over-wrought requirements, their blandishments. A hubbub of contending impulses came to fill the chamber wherein, formerly, Conscience and Christianity used to confer in so consentient a tone that the two voices fell upon the ear as one sweet sound. Thenceforward Chi'istianity betook itself to a lodge- ment remote from this place of noise — the mature man's brain. "When so lodged at a distance, it came to be regarded as a Personage whose merits might be weighed, whose claims were open to enquiry, and who might be brought to terms along with other rival authorities: perhaps its demands were scouted 36 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. as excessive and impracticable. Every day the aerial perspective intervening between this departing Power and the busy man, gave him more and more advantage over it, as an Authority. Then came on the detractors of Christianity — a motley crew : these detractors were sinister in look, and, manifestly, they were intent upon rending, and tearing, and treading in the mire, whatever might be abandoned to their will : this was their hour ; and there came up with them one in the garb of a sage, who, in an attempered tone, and as if he governed a secret pur- pose, whispered such things to the prejudice of the Re- ligion of the man's youth, as could not but be listened to : he said, " It is due to myself, it is due even to Christianity, if I am again to admit it to my confidence, to give these reasonable allegations a patient hearing ; I Avill do so when leisure permits." Leisure did not come to this man at his call ; but it came in its own way ; and during its stay the question of Christianity was considered anew, and did obtain a patient hearing ; and in the full exercise of mature reason, aided by the experience of years, it did make good its hitherto un- examined claims. It re-entered the chamber of con- science ; it rekindled the extinct affections ; it became the spring of energies, and the fountain of hope. Such, in this instance, was the actual issue : but how easily might it have been otherwise ! A train of events, seemingly casual, taking their course in another direc- tion, and then this man would have gone on to the end, as his companions in active life have gone. In their company, whatever was not palpable, was as a dream, to the bodings of which it would be inane to pay re- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 37 gard. In the hurry of many interests Christianity, and with it every definite forethought of a future life, may pass out of sight and be lost for ever ; just as a man may quit his hold of the arm of a friend in a Ci'owded street, and see him thenceforward no more. What may happen to the man, and does happen to thousands, may happen to communities — if not with so little observation, or within the brief term of two de- cades, yet within the limits of the years that measure out a generation. Regular habits, a discreet silence, and churchgoing, will carry the individual man ostensi- bly well through a period of religious syncope ; and so its ancient institutions, and its usages, and its con- ventional proprieties, may avail to bear a people on- ward some way beyond the point at which their religious professions cease to be genuine, and are formal simply. Yet such a hollowness as this can have only a limited time allowed it. What a people has indeed become, will declare itself at some moment when an unlooked- for turn in its affairs gives an involuntary utterance to its inner thoughts. Immeasurably far from any such hollow condition as this, is the English Christianity of this present time. If certain classes are less loyal in their religious attachments than lately they were, other classes have become more so. A genuine religious feeling is deep- ening on the one hand, if it be fading away on the other. Yet it is certain that, during the last few years, a progress towards Disbelief has become a marked feature in literature and society. If the Press did not make this certain, every one who listens to the accidental utterances of men's feelings, must well know 4 38 TUB RESTORATION OP BELIEF. it to be the fact. Such a tendency is a gravitation, the property of which is to accelerate itself at a rapid rate. The English people are not disbelievers ; but they may become such soon, unless a better direction be given at once to the mind of the educated classes. No one whose habit of mind it is to pay regard to that which affects the community, can refrain from thus considering the Christian question in its bearing upon our national welfare. So it must be, if one cares for England, and thinks of the position which it occupies among the nations, as the only free and religious country of the Old World ; — the only country in which a renewed profession of adherence to Christianity could be thought to have much argumentative value. And yet although at starting I advert to facts of this general sort, half political as they are, it is not as related to national interests, nor as a secular question, that we are now to enter upon a subject so deep, and which touches the peace and the hopes of each one of us. But do not be alarmed at the hearing of these customary phrases. I am not intending to preach, as if to frighten you into Belief. Several reasons would forbid my attempting so to do ; but this especially — that I have to ask you to hold, at my command, your EEASOisr. To make you a Ciiiiistian, in the deep sense of the term, is not my work ; but I hope to shew you that you ought to be such ; and with this end in view, I shall use no means of suasion against which you can rightfully except. Besides, I shall call upon you to judge between me and those overweening writers of the present time, who alloAV themselves great license in speaking of Christians THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 89 — I mean, of men equal to themselves every way — as besotted, blinded by childish prejudices, wanting in honesty ; or if not, in understanding ; and who deal always in "miserable shifts," " paltry evasions," and " unworthy subterfuges." I think I see at the impulse of what motives these unseemly imputations have been so plentifully strewed over the pages of some recent books. We Christians must be fools or knaves, for the ease and comfort of those who reject Christianity. Be it so. Yet I will say this to yourself. When you find me faulty in any such manner, when you see that I am inwardly trembling in the consciousness of difficulties I dare not name, and cannot dispose of, when you find that I have recourse to any of these alleged " shifts," " evasions," " subterfuges," when I cease to satisfy you as thoroughly ingenuous, straightforward, and up- right in argument, then lay these pages aside. The thirteen years during which Alexander Se- VERUS held the empire of the world, from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, and from the sands of the African desert to the Baltic, afford a good resting place where- upon we may establish ourselves at ease, and look around us. On this platform we may both of us dis- miss all alarms — you as a philosopher, and I as a Christian ; for the young man in whose hand is our life is mild in temper ; and though firm, he is just and reasonable. lie is such, on the Avhole, as one should wish the master of mankind to be. For the philoso- pher, he cares little ; he is not jealous of you, like a Domitian : he is a man of affairs, although also a man of mind ; and he knows that, think what you may, you have not courage either to act or to suffer so as to give him any trouble. Toward me he has some uneasy thoughts ; nevertheless he will not be induced, even by reasonable apprehensions of danger to the Roman State, to do violence to the spirit of Roman law ; al- though its letter might warrant his taking that course : he will not hurt, much less attempt to exterminate, good citizens whose only fault is a strange pertinacity in the matter of their superstition. Alexander Severus was not a mindless despot ; therefore the philosopher is safe while he lives ; and as he was not a Marcus AuRELius, the Christian may freely breathe. Resides, (40) THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 41 this Emperor — no softling himself — is not ashamed to take counsel of his mother ; and she, although indis- creetly frugal, is a wise woman, who, having trained her son for empire, took care to screen him from the vices of the times, and to hold off not merely the corruption that would have enfeebled his youth, but the fanaticism that might have inflamed his ripening manhood. It is even suspected that Mammoea, either in Syria or at Rome, had come to know so much of the now-spread- ing religion, as to forbic' her allowing it to be cruelly trampled on. If it be so, she is not the first imperial lady who has gleaned in the fields of the Church to its advantage and her own. We take our stand then on this resting-place, as a place of observation, whence the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them are visible, and may with advan- tage be contemplated. Hence we may look up the stream of time, through the hundred years that is occu- pied by CoMMODus, M. AuRELius, Antoninus Pius, and Trajan. As related to the purpose which I have now in view, this position has a definite advantage, which we must not lose sight of. Outspread before us is a wide field — the world in fact, so far as history knows much of those times ; and as to the evidence thereto relating, it is voluminous. The folios and the quartos of that period, and those which serve to attest its principal facts, cover a library-table. It cannot therefore be pretended that I am leading the way into a dim region — the land (in a literary sense) of the shadow of death, scarcely shone upon by here and there a glimmering lamp. In the mass of materials under our hand, some things 4* 42 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. arc ■wortlilcss, much is not availaldc for any aro-nmcnta- tivc purpose ; some portions are of doubtful autliority, some tilings arc undoubtedly spurious. Yet all these deductions, or if they "Nverc more than they arc, fall very far short of amounting to what might touch any conclusion I am intending to draw from my evidence. I am driven to no necessity to light a hard battle for a single treatise or book, like Boyle against Bentley ; or to number and weigh ancient manuscripts in support of a doubtful reading. Safe from all reasonable exception, arc the materials on my table, as to any use I am in- tending to make of them. Besides the copiousness of these materials, there is this peculiar circumstance attaching to them, taken just at the moment at which I have chosen to make a stand : it is this, that the mass combines the two unamaljia- mated and adverse elements, on the one side, the poly- theistic and philosophic ; on the other side the Christian. The literature of the gods, and of the philosophy which threw its handful of incense upon their altars in con- tempt, had not yet died away ; nor had it been infringed upon, or curtailed, or put in fear : its own decrepitude was its only disparagement. Then, on the Christian side, no favour which it had not dearly purchased, or did not well deserve, had as yet been shown the new religion : it was not yet a rcU- (jio licita : it drew its breath in suspense from day to day, and it hung upon the personal dispositions of pro- consuls, or the temper and politics of the Cresar for the time. The Christian literature of the era before us al- ternately fires up with the courage of conscious truth, or flickers as in the gust of adversity. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 43 But now what was this Roman worhl, in the forefront of which I am intending to bring in, artist-like, and with every possible advantage, the CniiiSTiANiXY I am pleading for ? It is natural that you should imagine me setting to work with an ample canvass before me, and mixing the colors most proper for my background, with a knowing thought of the effect that is to be produced by the pic- ture. Shall I not have in readiness the lurid reds, the cloudy purples, with store of the deepest blacks ? shall I not spread a Rembrandt palette for the depths of that canvass, the centre of which is destined for saints, for confessors, and for a choir of cherubs ? I am going to work in no such manner. It is not merely for the sake of having at my command abun- dance of evidence, that I take my position at the point of time I have named; but because I wish to have to do with nothing that is not unquestionably real. On my own side I expect to find none but real men ; many of them good and true, whose motives and prin- ciples of conduct I can understand, whose failings need not be cloaked, whose errors give me no alarm ; whose follies, if any, do not put my argument in peril ; whose wisdom and virtue I shall know how to interpret, and assign to its source. I am not in quest either of super- human men, or of angels, walking the earth. I know I shall find a superhuman religion — I know I shall come upon the footsteps of God. On the other side, there can be no motive inclining me to blacken heathenism for the sake of a contrast. On the contrary, I had much rather show Christianity shining bright upon a moderately illumined surface, 44 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. than made to appear artificially resplendent by setting it upon a ground of tlie deepest shades. We are sometimes told — " If you Avould know what heathenism is, and understand what it was which the Gospel had to contend with, and which it vanquished, go to India, and there look about you; — heathenism ia the Devil's religion, and therefore always the same, though it may show a different face in different coun- tries." No, I think not. Whatever polytheism may be, as to its inner nature, as the Devil's religion — and I think it is so — yet among one family of man it may coexist with influences, alien to itself, which may so attemper it, so amend and correct it, so forbid its worst enormities, as that, when compared with its unmixed condition, as developed among other families, the resemblance of the two is partial only; and we shall find ourselves torn with thorns if we rush forward into argument, assuming that the gods are the gods, meet them where we may. Christianity, while as yet it was in its purity, made inroads upon the grounds of Buddhism and Brahminism ; but it failed to overturn either ; it did not even exten- sivelv colonize India ; it did but breathe there. Tliose " idolatries " presented to it no attempered elements, whence its assault upon human nature might draw an initial advantage. As a Christian, had one not rather find it to be a fact that the Gospel sickened and died upon the pesti- lential swamps of India — those plains sodden with human blood, and abominable even still more for the practices of the living ; while it lived and spread in the soil which Greek poetry had planted out as a garden, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 45 upon "which Plato had built his palaces of thought, and Aristotle his logical fortresses ? The Polytheism, or call it the " heathenism," which the Gospel did sup- plant, was that religion, under the shade of which Epic- tetus had fashioned his scheme of virtue ; it Avas the religion under which Plutarch and Seneca had din^ested so well the past, and had mused of better things to come ; it was the religion in conforming to which Ro- man emperors, unresisted despots as they were, had ruled the world Avith justice, mercy, and truth, and had learned to govern, more than the Imperium Romanum, their own passions. Yet for this paganism Christianity proved itself an overmatch : but I must not outrun my argument. From the platform whereon we stand one might be tempted to look around upon the gorgeous spectacle that presents itself on every side. We are used to think of the times of Hadrian and Alexander Severus, as degenerate ; because they stand, toward us of modern times, in optical conjunction with the Augustine age : and again we see them laden with the ruin and disaster, the decay and the barbarism, of an after time, the blame of which we throw upon the men of this middle period. Putting away these illusions of position — these errors in perspective — the prospect before us is such as at no other point of time, either much earlier or much later, this earth of ours has presented. The Roman land- scape, contemplated at any moment during the reigns of the benignant emperors, beginning with Trajan, has not had its parallel — if the West and the East are thought of together — in any other period Certainly ^1-6 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. the same ai'ea of three thousand miles by two thousand, noiv shows a falling off in almost every item of estima- tion — population, material wealth, breadth of fully cul- tivated surface, the number and splendour of cities, and the magnitude and utility of those public works, which at once were the praise of the central government, and the means of sustaining its power. The East, and the West, and Africa, taken into the reckoning togethej', the world that now is, the great field over which our summer tourists are wandering, does not seem to have gained much upon the world, such as it was in the age of the Antonines. What is cer- tain is this — That, in relation to the mighty revolution which in that age was advancing towards its crisis, the human family (so far as it is authentically reported of it by continuous and intelligible history) had never be- fore, and has never since, so presented itself to a plastic hand to be moulded anew, as then it did. That was the epoch which might most fairly have been fixed upon, as proper for making a new experiment upon humanity, which should be decisive upon its issue. The full-developed and educated mind of the human family was then to be found clustering, at bright centres, and thence diffused over surfaces, between and within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. Among the cultured nations of this area, and no where else, THOUGHT took r its Way ward flight; and on no side did it come up to adamantine barriers ; its own power of wing being its only limit. Into all regions of specula- tion a way had been freely opened. The Roman roads, centering at Rome, and running out, as if contemptuous of the rugged surface, right away into and through the THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 47 gloom of primreval forests, did but symbolize tliose beaten ways which Philosophy had opened for herself and for her sons, outward, from the home amenities of Poetry and Rhetoric, toward the dark unknown of abstruse speculation. The human mind in that age had indeed ceased to be creative : the men of earlier times had wrought up the material of the fine arts and of poetry, and had occu- pied the ground on every side. The nations, using the language of Greece and Rome, were living deliciously upon the intellectual products of an age of more en- ergy. The human mind did not any longer seem luminous, as. if from within; but yet its lamp was fed from a store of oil which apparently was inexhaustible. At no one time in the world's history has erudite intelli- gence been spread over so large a surface, geographically, or had come, as one body of philosophy and literature, into the keeping of so large a number of persons, as at the time whereat we have now made a pause. Take an earlier age, and then the West was redeemed from barbarism only at points : or take a much later time, and the clouds of a sky, overcast for a thousand years, were gathering over the West and the East : or, if we come down to more modern times, the vast regions of the East, with Africa and Egypt, are a howling wilderness, and the habitation of dragons. Whence then shall we furnish ourselves with the dark colours, by aid of which we are to recommend the brightness of the Gospel, then making its way towards supremacy ? This darkness which is to give us our intended con- trast, does not spring from barbarism, or from ignorance, 48 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. or from intellectual slumber, but from universal in- certitude, -vvhich -was the characteristic of the times : it is the gloom of that moral dismay which comes upon cultured minds, when they abandon in despair the long cherished hope of seizing upon truth and certainty — of knowing something beside the theorems of Euclid — of grasping in the hand a stay immovable. The soul reels and sickens Avhen it turns hither and thither, vainly endeavouring to learn out of what chaos man had sprung, and into what abyss his destinies would plunge him. To disguise this despair, or to divert it, the levities of literature, and the endless inanities of criticism had been resorted to. For choking it. Stoicism was the means employed. Yet, and notwithstanding the efforts of elaborate frivolity on the one part, and of a death- like doctrine on the other, the comfortless dismay of the human mind, hopeless of Truth, uttered itself in a moan, a low wailing, of which we may catch the echoes at what- ever point we listen to the voice of that age. Let any one whose course has not been altogether sensual, or merely busy, but who has known what are called "exercises of mind," go back to those moments of his life when convictions, beliefs, persuasions of every kind, were passing from his view, and when nothing remained to him but a dread uncertainty, and the feel- ing that never again should he grasp a truth. In the recollection of such a season one would not reject the figure as inappropriate, if it were called the night-time of the soul ; and not less so, although all the splendours of literature and science were then glittering around him. It must be so : for the first necessity of man's TnE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 49 higher nature is truth, and the despair of finding it is indeed — a darkness that may be felt. In this very sense of the word, a thick darkness rested upon the cultured members of the human family (of the Koman empire) at the time which we have chosen for our survey. From the time when the genius of the Greek and Roman literature had departed, that darkness had sensibly gathered blackness ; for in fact, as it is the very property of Genius, and its first characteristic, to speak and behave itself as being in the conscious possession of whatever it touches, and as it is its pre- rogative to give illusions the aspect of reality, therefore, so long as this spontaneous power lives among a people they may believe that Truth is still extant, somewhere, because its tones are still heard. In this definitely explained sense of the term, then, I am warranted in affirming that, thinking of the polythe- istic and philosophic majority of the people, throughout the circuit of Roman civilization, a deep gloom at this time covered the nations, and that the people sat as " in the shadow of Death." It would be easy to make good other allegations, tending to show that this gloom was darkened by the evergrowing corruption of morals, by the utter decay of public spirit, by the dissoluteness which despotism encourages, and by that deprivation of the humane emotions which came from the frequency and the sanguinary atrocity of the exhibitions of the amphitheatre. But from all this we may abstain ; for it does not materially affect the argument. Grant me this, that, as to the Life of the Soul, as to that brightness of assured belief toward which human nature tends with so strong an instinct and so earnest a 5 50 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. craving, it was a season of dimness, and of more than dimness ; it was the most gloomy season in the history of mankind, for all shadows were then lengthening and spreading ; and a chill was in the atmosphere, forebod- ing a wintry night at hand. Throughout all the countries whereupon the once fes- tive polytheism of Greece had built its altars, mockery had supplanted religious awe, a factitious fanaticism had come in the place, both of gay observances and of serious feeling. Philosophy had uttered her last pro- mises, and broken them. On no side did light break forth. From a worldly point of view we have just now looked abroad upon the kingdoms of the Roman earth, and imagined their glory. But now, shutting out that mun- dane glare, what we see is a thick cloud, overshadowing the prospect, even from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same. Yet all is not dark. If we pass down the Mediterra- nean, from the Pillars of Hercules, and look to the right and to the left, and carry the eye inland too, as far as to the furthest barriers of the Empire, the whole of the coast-line on both sides throughout this voyage, and every headland, and every mountain range more remote, and every temple-crowned acropolis, and every lofty front glows as if the sun were rising. A Light has already arisen upon the nations ; a promise of Truth, and an assurance as to the destiny of man, has brightened the gloom. Every where — the exceptions are few — throughout the regions which the Mediterranean divides, in cities and in field?, we meet companies of men, even multi- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 61 tudcs, who have thrown off the listlessness of scepticism, fi-om whose countenance the sullenness of atheism has been dispelled, and who speak to us in the decisive tones that spring from an accepted and undoubted be- lief. These men show, in their animated looks, and by the determination of their behaviour, that there is in them the vitality of a Religious persuasion which they do not distrust. How cordially to be welcomed is such a visitation, as of the morning — if it be the morning ? How good a promise was it for mankind of an escape from the gulph toward which the human family was slowly and surely drifting away ! A sure holding has at length been found. Some, nay thousands of the people, declare that their feet do touch firm ground in the waters of reli- gious opinion, and that they stand where good standing is. Instead of those inarticulate babblings, as from the frivolous miUion, and instead of those doleful murmurs of the desponding, the ear now catches the intelligible utterance of men who say they have come into the pos- session of CERTAINTY, and of hope. Whether the ground of this confident assurance were of that kind which we in this age should think solid and sufficient, does not yet appear. It is probable that many, or even a large portion of those in that age who make this profession, could have given no such reason for "the hope that was in them," as would have com- pelled the assent of the men of these times, or such as could have endured a ten minutes' cross-examination in the modern forensic style. This does not at all concern us now to inquire. The FACT is all we have to do with, which fact, briefly stated, 52 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. is this — That at the time now in prospect, multitudes of men, of all the races that were then subject to the Roman swaj (and of some other races probably) had passed from a condition of frivolous indifference, or of sensual obtuseness, or of sullen hopelessness, and had come, rightfully or not, into the possession of a bright and well-defined belief. If we were to set forth this belief in the most concise terms possible, it would stand in the form of an affirma- tive reply to three questions, which questions are as old as the world, and to which men, from the very begin- ning, have been seeking, but not finding, an answer. "Is there a Supreme Being who cares for man, and in whose wisdom and goodness man may confide?" "Is there an after life and retribution ?" " Is there forgiveness of sins with God ?" It is not that no solutions, more or less intelligible, had been attempted and obtained of these vital prob- lems ; for the moral instincts of men had, in some way, solved them. Every form of worship had assumed a reply to them in the affirmative; and philosophical meditation had done its part — ambiguously enough — to answer them. Yet, all this while the reply, let it come whence it might, carried no peremptory conviction into the hearts of those who heard it. It came with no weight of authority ; it came as a balanced probability — it had no attestation. But now at length it has so come. The reply — the "yea" which Christianity has uttered, takes a thorough hold of men's inmost souls, as well as of their reason. Whether or not this confidence of theirs was strictly warrantable, according to our no- tions of the laws of evidence, the fact that they did so THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 53 believe is beyond all question ; and of the strength of this their persuasion proofs were given, than "which any more conclusive cannot be imagined. This then is the point we have reached — That, in the century which is named from Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, the instructed races bordering upon the Mediterranean were in a transition state, and were passing from darkness to light ; that is, the Light of a confidently held religious Belief, true or false. e* In what next follows, I shall imagine that all we can now know about Christianity, as to its oi'igin and its earlier period, must be gathered from the literary re- mains of the age we have before us. Every thing, every book, treatise, memoir, fragment, that might have come down to us from a date anterior to the acces- sion of Trajan, I will suppose has perished. And even as to the books extant, I draw my pen through all the citations of the Christian writers of a preceding age that appear in them. Besides doing this, I dismiss from my recollection whatever I may have come to know of the after his- tory of Christianity, or of the literature of times sub- sequent. What we have to do with at present, is found between two chronological termini — the accession of Trajan, and the death of Alexander Severus. Then, as to the materials belonging to this so bounded period, various as they are, I handle them with entire freedom. As already said, I have no nervous anxiety about disputed passages, interpolations, or books of doubtful authorship. This only should be said, that, as I undertake to do nothing for persons pre-resolved to believe nothing, and determined to stick to every imaginable paradox that may help them to effect their escape from Christianity, I am supposing so much acquioscenco a.s to the reality of the materials ifyi) THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 55 before us, as the best informed men, warped by no prejudice, will always grant. • The countries, provinces, and cities of the Roman empire, within which Christianity had established itself about the middle period of the second century, are easily named, and may be certainly linown. But to what extent, as to the population, in each province or city, conversion from heathenism had taken place, must be matter of surmise ; or at best of probable inference. We should incline to hold back from the highest esti- mate of this proportion ; and therefore must listen with caution to the bold assertions of those Christian apologists, in following whom we might be led to believe that times of severe suflFering allowed for, a majority of the people of all the principal cities of the empire had become Christians, and that the country folk were forsaking their paganism in large numbers. Pliny's report, made to his master at the commencement of our period, does indeed carry the same meaning, and we mio-ht infer as much from other testimonies. But the statistics of this subject touches no point of our argument. Gibbon supposes that not more than a twentieth part of the entire population of the empire, "at the most, was professedly Christian at the moment pre- ceding the edict of Milan. This population, taken midway in the second century, he estimates at one hundred and twenty millions. We may believe that in the interval of a century and a half, the Christian proportion had gone on increasing, so that in the time of Antoninus Pius we should not be warranted in computing them at more than a thirtieth or perhaps 56 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. a fortieth part of the whole, if we except Gibbon's rule. Yet so low an estimate as this it is not easy to reconcile with the averments of Tertullian, loudly uttered, and addressed to the hostile Roman authori- ties, able and willing enough to give them a flat contra- diction, if they had been glaringly false.— We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every thing that is yours, cities, islands, castles, free towns, council halls, the very camps, all classes of men, the palace, the senate, the forum. We have left you nothing but your temples. We can number (outnumber) your armies : there are more Christians in a single province (than in your legions !) At the time we are speaking of, it is probable that the Roman world included from three to five millions of Christian people. These, as I have said, were spread over an area three thousand miles in length, from east to west, and two thousand in breadth, from north to south. I take no account here of the ultra-Euphratean Christi- anity, which however branched off on the right-hand into southern India, and on the left into Parthia, and went even so far as China. Media, Persia, Bactria, Arabia, had also listened to the Gospel. The machinery of a government so complete and efficient as that of the Roman empire, and the univer- sality of two languages, especially the wide diffu- sion of the better of the two, and the energies of commercial enterprise, and the purer commerce of mind — the interchange of philosophy, literature, and art — all these influences combined, brought the nations then subject to Rome into a condition of relationship THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 57 and communion, ■which perhaps, the boasted fiicilities of modern times do not much, if at all surpass. As to the actual velocity of travel, days now stand for the weeks of an ancient voyage or journey ; or even for months ; but as to the actual intercommunion of nations, the East, and the West, and Africa, it may be questioned whether it be greater now than it was in the age of Hadrian. The spread of the Gospel was favoured by all these means of intercourse ; and it took to itself the wings of every energy which then carried men to ar.d fro be- tween the three continents. It used the roads and the ships of the empire ; it went in the track of caravans. It flowed, as one might say, through the arteries of the Greek language, philosophy, and literature ; it went wherever books had gone before it ; culture was a preparation of the soil for its reception. Forests and wilds it did penetrate by adventurous and pre- carious missions ; but, along with the refinements of a high civilization, to dwell as at home. In each of the great cities of the empire, Antioch, Alexandria^ Rome, and in every second, third, and fourth-rate city, Christianity claimed an appreciable proportion of the citizens as its own ; in some it had the majority. From each of these centres it spread itself over the surface; at some points imperfectly co- lonizing only, in other directions suffusing itself with- out limit. Thus did it lodge, or thus dwell, in Spain and Gaul, even to the shores of the Northern Ocean. Britain, a favored asylum of Roman leisure and re- fined rural enjoyment, had welcomed the Gospel from the first. Italy, Illyricum, Macedonia, Thrace, and 58 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. Greece, it had pervaded, and the provinces of Asia Minor still more fully ; and in some of its provinces and cities the mass of the people were professedly Christian. Throughout Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Syria, churches well organized had meted out the geographical surface, more or less comiDletely. In turning the face again westward, the same divided state of the population meets us ; at some points the Christian and the Polytheistic elements were nearly balanced. Egypt, Lower and Upper, was to a great extent Christian. Cyrene, Carthage, the whole of Proconsular Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, had also thus become obnoxious to the Roman state : for as to these regions, it was asserted that the new religion was rapidly spreading in town and country, among all ranks, not even excepting the highest. Geographically, or as to square miles, numbered on the surface of the globe, the religion of Christ had pervaded the entire area which is distinctly known to history at the time now before us. Statistically it was fast tending toward such a proportion as to render its further increase a subject of well-founded disquietude to the State. As to classes, it had emerged from the servile class : it had spread among the free and the privileged; it had taken its position in the legions, and had seated itself in places of honour and profit. As to mind and learning, it had engaged the zealous aid of the best instructed and the most elo- quent men of the times. The heathen writers, their contemporaries, can claim no superiority over them. The facts thus briefly alluded to may, as every one THE KESTOKATION OF BELIEF. 59 /f'l'f'- /''^Vt^../ knows, be easily substantiated by e+trrcfis, Greek, and Latin, that would fill many pages. But for what purpose do I now, and in this cursory manner, bring forward what is so well known ? Not to repeat, for the hundredth time, what has been affirmed warrantably, and pointedly, often already : That the spread of Christianity — all the conditions attending it considered, the place, and the feebleness of its origin, the severity of its moral code, its un- bendingness, and the furious hostility it encountered; this spread, thus early, is proof of its reality — of its truth. So it is: but I have a more specific purpose in view. Very often of late we have been told, that the human mind has now at length reached so mature a condition as fits it for the task of working out for itself the elements of morality, and the principles of Religion too — so far as Religion may still seem to be serviceable or necessary. This, it is said, we may all do for ourselves, without the aid of a Book. "What need is there noto for sending us to gather lessons from a Book, all which lessons we may find written in our hearts, more legibly, and with fewer admixtures of what is obsolete, mystical, or fabulous ? By those who thus speak it is granted that Chris- tianity did, in its day, effect a good service for the nations of the West, in ridding them of the old poly- theism, and in giving forth a single expression of the truths on which ReHgion and Worship should rest. But having long ago performed this service, we need its aid no more ; it can have nothing further to teach us. AVithout pushing the inquiry, how far these spon- taneous elements of morality have, in fact, been borrowed from the Book, or how far the hold they have of us, as an autliority, is derived from a vague unacknowledged reference to the sanctions upon which that Book insists, I am willing to accept this home- grown morality, with all the sentiments it recognizes, (GO) THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 61 come whence it may, and shall make an appeal to it, and to those sentiments, in a confident and urgent manner. Do not draw back from this appeal, and you are mine — you yield yourself to Christianity ! No movement forward among civilized communities has ever come so insensibly, or as if it merely grew out of abstract principles. In each instance it has been the consequence of a visible and obtrusive course of events ; it has been the result of a crisis, brought on by some violent shifting of the social forces ; and it has gone forward through seasons of suffering, and by means of struggles, and at the cost of life. When the crisis has been passed, it will not suffice to sum up the result in a rounded paragraph of gene- ralities, and thus to run off with the benefit, forgetful of the conditions under which it has been obtained for us. Nor M'ill it be enough, merely to assign the praise which may be due to those by whose labours and sufferings a great achievement has been brought to its issue. Take the case before us, and to which I am about to invite your exact attention. It is granted that Christianity did a service to mankind, in its time, by overthrowing the frivolous and absurd mythology and worship which the Roman world upheld, and to which it so resolutely clung. Through centuries longer these fables and superstitions might have retained their place. Thanks to the Martyrs, the whole congeries of fables was swept away ; a great clearance of the ground was made, and whatever might have been the supervening errors, that ground has been 6 62 THE llESTOKATION OF BELfEF. held open for all those advancements which we rejoice in, as indications of even better tilings to come. You allow that Christianity did carry the nations through the crisis, and did effect a change indispensable to the advancement of mankind ; but you affirm that its function has long ago determined with the occasion. You may so think while you keep the facts at a dis- tance, and refuse to descend from generalities. When the facts come to be strictly regarded, as they should, then it will be seen that conditions of a very peculiar kind were attached to that suffering testimony, and to that resistance, by means of which the Christian body, throughout the Koman world, effected what it did effect in the course of two hundred years. These conditions imply nothing less than the reality of the Christian system, and its consequent perpetuity. I affirm that this revolution implies the reality of what had brought it on, and compels a belief which touches ourselves, and the future. The visible circumstances attending this revolution were such as to consist well with our supposition of its magnitude, and of the importance of its conse- quences. The nations of the three Continents had been drawn together to take their places upon one platform of secular administration : one system of government, ruled by the same political maxims, prevailed over the whole of this diversified surface. To one will all men looked, as the sovereign source of good or ill. All felt every moment their relationship of dependence upon the common centre ; and nations the most remote from each other were continuallly made conscious of a rela- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 63 tionsliip of welfare among themselves. [ The living organic structure was conscious of its structure^ as one body. The period of this structural UNITY was coincident with the period occupied by that conflict with which we are now concerned. The beginning and the end of the Christian crisis, or the time during which the Church, as a body, resisted the strenuous endeavour of the State to maintain and enforce its own maxims of government — this period was synchronous with the structural unity of the Empire. When the conflict had reached and passed its term, which was when the State yielded the main point in dispute, and recog- nized Christianity as one among the religiones licitae, then the Empire split, never again to be one in the same sense. During a sixty years after this crisis had been passed through, the conflict between the two parties continued to be carried on at intervals, but the grounds of it were not the same ; when not attributable to the wanton ferocity of the Emperor, individually, or to his fanaticism, it had a political more than a re- ligious meaning, and expressed the fears of a party which felt itself to be losing ground daily. The fact, which has often been adverted to, demands attention, that at those moments in the course of the struggle between the Church and the Empire which have the most meaning as related to the point in dispute, the Roman world was ruled by princes who have ever since occupied pedestals, as models of sove- reign benignity, of political wisdom, and of personal virtue. Whatever the Christian people, in some pro- vinces, might suiFer at the hands of ferocious magis- z' G4 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. trates or emperors, or from the rabble, when the Church suffered in its proper character^ as the •witness against the polytheism of the State, its enemy was always one of these pattern princes. This was no accident ; for it sprung from the con- ditions of the contest. Whenever — passion and fana- ticism apart, the Roman authorities gave attention to the perplexing problem which Christianity had brought before them, and when they endeavoured to apply to it the only general principle of which they were cogni- zant, and to give effect to the undoubted rules of Roman policy toward the subjugated nations, then they issued edicts, which, cruel and fatal as might be the consequences thence resulting, did truly embody the unchangeable maxims of the government they administered. These endeavours — violent in act, temperate in in- tention, to break up the perplexity which could not be theoretically removed — were of course renewed from time to time. The Master of the World, indulgent as he was toward the rights of the vanquished gods, could not allow the Coerimoniae liommiae to be set at nought, nor the religion of the Empire and of all nations to be denounced as nugatory and vicious. On the part of the Christian body, willing as they were to yield oljcdience to the State, no choice was left them but to protest and to suffer. Thus the contest be- tween the duty of the State and the conscience of tho remonstrants was quite hopeless ; for the struggle could terminate in no way, but either by the extermination of the New Religion and its adherents, or the defeat and dishonour of the government. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 65 But wlience came this peremptory necessity, on tlie side of the Christain body, so to protest and so to suffer ? The point actually in dispute between themselves and the authorities, namely an external compliance with rites, meaning little beyond an homage rendered to the Emperor as patron of all religions, did not touch the main part of the Christian system ; it was an incidental consequence only of the system which threw its adhe- rents into collision with the State. To profess and maintain Monotheism was not the peculiarity of Christi- anity. Sages had professed the same belief, and had taught it ; and so might these Christians, if they would, have been content with the promulgation of an abstract doctrine. If only they had gone about maintaining the purity of Theism, and telling the people, in a good-na- tured manner, that the gods they worshipped were no gods, though they might often have been roughly treated by mobs, yet probably they would have provoked no serious animadversion from the Roman government. Besides, if an abstract truth only had been in question, and if no other obligation had pressed itself upon Christians, beyond that of declaring and teaching it when and where they could gain a hearing, evasions might easily have been resorted to by themselves, and would gladly have been accepted at the tribunals, suffi- cient at least for the immediate purpose of screening themselves from suffering, and of excusing the magis- trate the odious duty of inflicting it. The stress of that compulsion which carried so many men, women, and youths through the endurance of tor- tures, even to death, and which brought so many apos- tates, pallid and trembling, to the tribunals, there to 6* GG THE RESTORATION OP RELIEF. clear themselves, at the cost of their souls, of the fatal suspicion, — this compulsion sprang -wholij from tho perfect conviction they had of tho certainty of that BODY OF FACTS which Constituted, and in which consist- ed, their Religious Belief. The JJelief of Facts, not an opinion of tho truth of principles, was the impulsive cause of that endurance of suflorinf? which Ave have to consider. Now just at this point it has heen usual to state the argument in hehalf of Christianity thus — The constancy of the iNFartyrs gave evidence of the sincerity of their faith. This faith of theirs, considering the nearness of the events to which it related, and the opportunities then at hand for sifting the evidence, and for detecting frauds or illusions, is proof of the historic reality of the system that was so accepted and suftered for. So it may he ; hut this is not precisely the light in which I am looking at the case before ns. Perhaps the suftering Church had not at any time given its mind with sufficient care and intellisrence to the task of sifting that evidence on tho ground of which it had accepted the Gespel. Its own Belief was indeed pronounced in the most unfaltering tone, and on the strength of it life was surrendered, and the rack endured ; but can I take this same Belief as my own, on the grounds of that same confidence? This is not absolutely certain. The witness-bearing of the early Church through seasons of intermittent Buffering, and during the hun- dred and fifty years to whieh wc now confine our atten- tion, is available in argument, either iwhfinitdy or definitely. Indefinitely, and yet conclusively, if we choose to follow our better feelings, showing the excel- lence of the Religion which was so contended for ; its moral power also; and, by legitimate inference, its truth. No fault should be found with this mode of rea- soning; but yet we may have recourse to another. Precisely what I intend will best appear in giving at- tention to two or three of those instances of constancy to whieh imperial edicts gave occasion. The first of these instances possesses the advantage of meeting us in a form that Ls exempt from suspicion of having been dressed up or coloured, to serve a purpose. You will at once know that I have in view the 97th Epistle of Pliny Junior, and the imperial reply to it. In this well-defined instance the perplexity of the Roman magistrate on the one hand, and the necessity he felt himself under to act as he did toward the Dissi- dents, and, on their part, the counter-necessity that compelled them to suffer, present themselves free from all ambiguity. The I'roprifttor found the province to which he had been nppointed in a state to which he could not be in- e^7; 68 THE RESTOKATION OF BELIEF. different. Things, as they were, could not be left to take their course. The mass of the people of all classes — multi enim omnis sctatis, omnis ordinis, utriusque sexus — or, to put the lowest sense we can upon the lan- guage of Pliny, a large proportion of them had become not simply indifferent, to the Religion of the State, but eager to denounce it as false, and they had adopted another. The temples were forsaken, the simulacra of the gods and of the emperor were defrauded of the cus- tomary homage ; and, besides, stated assemblages of the people were having place for purpose unknown, and therefore unlawful, and not to be tolerated. It does not appear through what remissness of the authorities this defection had spread so far. But this new representative of the Majesty of the Empire, by showing himself awake to his duty, and aware of the danger impending, had, by proclamation of imperial edicts, by judicial inquests, and by the infliction of capi- tal punishment upon the refractory, made some progress in restoring law, and in recovering for the Cserimoniae Romanae the lost ground, before he had determined to report the facts to his master, and ask instructions. Multitudes of the people at once renounced their Chris- tianity, and cleared themselves of all suspicion by com- pliance with the sacrificial rites, and by uttering, with the required maledictions, the name which had come to designate the new community. For the purpose of effecting these conversions in a legal manner, the Ro- man magistrate had caused the efl5gies of the gods and of the emperors to be brought into court. Can we fancy that we see them coming forward, dolls, or be they what they might, shouldered by the officers THE RESTORATION 0^ BELIEF. 69 of justice, and nodding, as they came ! In style of art vastly superior are these simulacra to the hideous blocks which now grin in our museums, representatives of the gods of Owyhee and the Sandwich Islands ; and yet, whether more or less sightly, these effigies, and the vast system of worship which they symbolized, were Mocks, standing in the way of the next great movement for- ward which the human mind was to take. This enlightened Roman gentleman, well conversant as he was with whatever had been said and taught by the philosophers of Greece and Rome, was conscious of no humiliation, he did not blush when these stupid sym- bols had been poised near him, and he, prompting the form of appellation — prseeunte me — pointed to them as fit objects of devout regard ! The accused, pale and trembling as they did that which he did not exact, offered the incense and the wine, and departed ! If the Roman State, then in so advanced a condition of intellectual refinement, and when represented by a philosopher and a man of letters, thus showed that it was not then making, and had not made, any progress toward a better Theology, can it be thought probable that any such reform would spontaneously come about ? Whether or not there might yet be a chance of some spontaneous reform, the actual reform which did at length take place — the actual expulsion of the gods, and the riddance then effected for the human mind of this encumbrance, this stop to progress, was otherwise brought about. How then was it effected ? Not by the silent spread- ing of an opinion, or by the gentle diffusion of a better Theologic Idea — platonie or of any other sort ; but in 70 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. this severe manner, namely, that in all the provinces of the Roman empire, as in this of Bithynia, a multi- tude of the people, high and lovr, had accepted, as cer- tain, a belief concerning a Person, which belief did, by an incidental consequence therewith connected, forbid their compliance with polytheistic rites, and compel them to sujQFer. However many, at a time of alarm, might be the fal- tering and the timid, there were never wanting some of firmer moral structure, who, as Pliny here tells ns, " could by no means be induced either to offer sacrifice to the gods, or to speak injuriously of Christ." Rather than do this, they endured torments, and they accepted death. This constancy of the early Christians, so severely tried, might well be admitted as valid proof of the reahty of the belief on which it rested, especially con- nected as it was with a blameless morality. Such an admission will readily be made by every mind that is fraught with moral sensibihty, and which has not been damaged by sophistry. Every natural sympathy car- ries us along with the sufferers, as we stand in the crowd and witness the grave inflexibility of some, the flushed excitement of others, of youths and women, and the tremors and the anguish of many who yet did endure to the end. Thus far, or so far as our truest emotions will carry us, we involuntarily side with the condemned. With them we tliink that " they be no gods which are graven with art and man's device." With them we feel, when we see them led out to die rather than yield their behef, or be false to it. But might not these Christians have excused them- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 71 selves, and by means of some evasion have stood clear of consequences so frightful ? Whether thej might have done so or not, it would now be superfluous to inquire. They did not do so, and it was by a century and a-half of suffering, on the part of the Church, that the gods were thrown from their pedestals. This Avas the obvious part of the revolution which ■was then taking place. But another revolution — not obvious indeed, and yet not less important, and not less indispensable in relation to the progress of the human mind and the development of its higher faculties — was then, and by the same terrible means, brought about. We may just imagine that the philosophic Pliny, if we could have taken him apart in his hours of relaxa- tion, might have been brought on so far as to acknow- ledge that the men whom he had ordered to execu- tion in the morning, were right on the great principle of Monotheism. This abstract doctrine was not new to him, and it had received the adhesion of illustrious ages. There stood, however, in the rear of this purer theology, a principle, then in course of development, which neither Pliny nor any man of his time had thought of, or could have been made to comprehend. Yet. it is the axiom on which hinges the immeasurable moral difference between classical antiquity and the modern mind. Even the suflferers in that early contest were not competent to put forward a clear enunciation of the principle which themselves were so painfully bringing to bear upon human affairs. At present we stand clear of the question as to the truth of the Religion, in behalf of which the early Church gave its suffering testimony. We abstain also 72 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. from "what belongs to those moral and spiritual benefits which Christianity brought with it, and postpone also all inquiry touching its own interior beauty and gran- deur. The one purport of these preliminary pages is to put in a distinct light what it was which the Church of the early age did for mankind in preparation for a new moral era, and under what conditions this neces- sary function was discharged. If the same statement, somewhat varied in terms, seems to recur Avithin the limit of a few pages, pardon the brief trespass on your patience : this repetition may save us time in treating those deeper subjects which I have mainly in view. A final clearance of the gods and goddesses was to be eflfected ; and this, not by the gentle means of philo- sophic suasion, but by bringing thousands of the people, in all provinces of the lloman empire, into a posi- tion of unavoidable resistance toward the government, neither party finding it possible to retreat from its ground: not the government, because the first prin- ciples of the empire were impugned by this opposition ; not the Christian people, because it was not a mere opinion that sustained their position, but a belief toward a Person whose authority they regarded as paramount to every other. To insist on the one side, and to resist on the other, were evenly -balanced necessities, of which frequent martyrdoms were the inevitable consequence. But this violent process, in the course of which an issue in favour of the 8ufi"erers was continually be- coming more certain, gave eifect to a principle unap- prehended by antiquity, and only in an indistinct THE KESTORATION OF BELIEF. 73 manner, and insensibly recognized on the Christian side; yet apart from which there could have been no such development of the human mind in the mass, and no such depth given to the moral faculties indivi- dually, as have in fact come to set the modern, immea- surably in advance of the ancient, civilization. The virtue and duty of truthfulness, as between man and man, had been taught, and well enough understood, among ancient nations, whether more or less advanced in civilization. And so had the religious sanctions of mora- lity. That one lesson which remained to be brought out and to be wronght into the hearts of men, was the RELI- GIOUS OBLIGATION OF BELIEF ; an obligation not resting upon communities as a public or social charge, but pend- ing with the whole of its weight upon the conscience of the individual man; an obligation personal, a privilege unalienable, and when duly discharged, a function giving the individual man a pledge of his immortality. Until this general principle should be worked out as an axiom in morals, nothing could be hoped for as to the destinies of the human family. Now that it has been thus worked out, and has been accepted as an axiom, the aspect of human affairs can never be so lowering, as that we should despond concerning those destinies. But have we sufficiently regarded the fact, that this great problem was solved for us by the martyr Church of the century and half now in prospect ? The sufferers did not know precisely what they were doing in this behalf; and yet, with an observable uni- formity, the professions made before tribunals and on scaffolds took the true directions as related thereto. As it had been with Pliny, so Avith L. Statius Qua- 7 74 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. dratus, proconsul of Asia : his personal dispositions Avere such as were becoming to a Roman magis- trate ; he was neither sanguinary nor fanatical ; but his position in the province was different. The severities to which Pliny had allowed himself to have recourse were prompted entirely by his own sense of public duty : otherwise they were uncalled for. But Qua- dratus found himself pressed upon by the fanaticism of the populace ; the rabble of Smyrna, incited, as it appears by the Jews, was up, and a victim must be thrown out to appease the monster. The martyrdom of Polycarp, whatever else it may show or may prove, brings out distinctly those condi- tions of the struggle between Christianity and the State, to which I have already adverted. The aged bishop so behaved on the occasion as the rule of Chris- tian constancy required him to behave ; nor can there be alleged against him any indication of fanatical ex- citement. He had consented to conceal himself from the Proconsul's officers so long as this course might fairly be taken. He surrendered himself to them Avith dignity, and these officers had, no doubt, been enjoined to treat so venerable a man Avith due respect. He was urged to yield so far to the authorities as might enable them to screen him from the popular fury. Why not invoke the Emperor, and offer sacrifice ? What hai'm can there be in uttering the words KiJpw Kaiooip, and then to sacrifice, and thus to save yourself? xai Ovmc xai 6ia(5w?fo9tte,. This advicc, kindly intended, was importu- nately urged. " Never shall I do Avhat you advise." Then if not, the time of forbearance had passed, and THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. 7^ the aged man was thrust from the chariot Avith violence by those who had charge of him. Yet, notwithstanding the clamour of the mob, when the bishop's name was proclaimed in court, the Procon- sul used all persuasions that might shake his constancy ; and in so doing he shines by the side of the philosopher, who, while surrounded by a trembling crowd, at once sends whoever would not yield, to capital punishment. " Swear by the genius of Caesar. Change your purpose — utter the words, 'Away with the Atheists.' " 'Away with the Atheists,' he could say in his own sense, and he said it with a groan. " Then swear, and I" will release you: revile Christ!" This might not be. Polycarp had been numbered with the ser- vants of Christ from his infancy ; — his martyrdom oc- curred A. D. 167, or a year later ; in his youth, there- fore, he was contemporary with the last survivor of the Apostles, and thus the whole of his religious per- suasion resolved itself into a personal consciousness of facts. These facts, true or false, or partly true and partly illusory, constituted the ground or ultimate reason of his constancy : how could he blaspheme his " Kma AND Saviour?" "I am a Christian," and therefore, while professing the Christian rule to obey magistrates, no way of escape was opened to him, except that of contradicting the consciousness he had of his own history. With Polycarp this consciousness was more imme- diate and more personal than it could be with others, his contemporaries ; nevertheless with them, not less than with himself, the ground of that Christian forti- tude which, in the end, prevailed over the polytheism 76 THE RESTORATION^ OF BELIEF. of the State, was a belief toward a Person ; it was not an opinion as to a doctrine : and here we should take care to distinguish between the various motives that might come in to sustain the courage of a martyr in his extremity of suffering, and the one ground on which his constancy rested. In the instance of the Bishop of Smyrna (as in that of Cyprian, probably,) considerations of personal honour, as the venerated Chief of the Christian people around him, may have had an influence. So might the motive to which he himself alludes : " You threaten me with a fire which does its work in one hour ; but you think not of the fire of eternal punishment that awaits the wicked." These, or other motives, would have shown little in- trinsic force, if they had rested upon an opinion ; their power sprang from their connexion with a definite his- toric belief. It is in the course of things that a Great Prin- ciple of conduct should have been long acted upon, perhaps for a century or more, before it comes to be explicitly recognized, or to be formally defined and registered in treatises. So it was in the present in- stance. The suffering Church had felt the sacred obli- gations of Truth, and Christians, individually, had passed through the fiery trial which these obligations required them to meet, — compelled so to do by a tacit recognition of this principle, that he who fears God must not deny his inward Belief, even although the avowal costs him life. The ACTS of the early martyrdom might be copi- ously cited in illustration of what is here affirmed. But at length, as was natural, the implicit Principle got utteranee for itself, and it did so continually with more and more distinctness : it came to be defined, until that great Law of Conscience, which places the modern mind in so great an advance beyond the ancient mind, was allowed to stand in the very fore- front of ethical axioms. I do not know whether it might not be found in nearly as distinct a form among the earlier Christian writings ; but it is found, well and finely enunciated in that admirable Tract in which Origen deals so strictly with the consciences of his Christian contem- 7* (77) 78 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. porarics, who were then passing through a season of the most severe suffering. The treatise — " urging to martyrdom," is of considerable length. It must suffice to state the drift of it, so far as it bears upon my present purpose. The terrors of torture — more than the fear of death, (for at that time the infliction of torture, rather than of death appears to have been the determinate inten- tion of the Roman authorities) had shaken the con- stancy of many among the Christians ; and so it was that pleas and evasions of every kind had been sought for and had been found, by aid of which the religious obligations attaching to a Christian belief might be made to consist with a retreat from the field of con- flict. Origen meets and refutes these evasions, one by one, and in doing so he gives expression to a principle which we all of this age — believers and unbelievers, profess to think sacred, and which we acknowledge as the basis of personal virtue, in the abandonment of which all self-respect is gone. Well does this confessor labour to animate the courage of his faltering brethren by opening before them the prospect of immortality : but he hastens toward his main purpose, which was to snatch from them those evasive pleas, in search of which too many of them were employing an ill-directed ingenuity. The timid were trying to persuade themselves that a genuine faith, hidden in the heart, might avail for ensuring their salvation ; for " with the heart man believeth for justification" — nay, but salvation has another condition, w^hich is not by us to be severed from the first, for, " with the mouth confession is made THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 79 unto salvation ;" and there might be room to think that a bold confession of the truth, even if the heart is too little animated by love to God, honours Him more than does a heart which withholds this con- fession. . Whether we grant this or not, it must be acknow- ledged that this Father is here laying the foundation- stone of our modern sense of the stern obligation of religious sincerity. Yet the laying the stone at that time, what courage did it demand ? Such courage as he himself displayed in the hour of trial ? The Proconsul Quadratus, as we have seen, had vehemently urged upon Polycarp the friendly advice, to save himself by uttering five words — Only swear by the genius of Ceesar, and I will let you go. It means nothing, or very little. It appears that the Christiana of a later time had begun to suggest this very evasion, one to another, and that they were endeavouring to get it accredited and accepted as valid. Not so, says Origen, it is a hollow excuse, and will not save you. If it be a trans- gression to swear by Heaven, by Earth, by Jerusalem, by one's own head, how much greater a sin must it be to swear by the fortunes of another, oixiwa: tv^r^v tuo.l Can we dare to whisper a faithless purpose in the presence of Him who declares that he is jealous of His right over us ; and to do this at the moment when in- quiry is made concerning our faith, and when torments are in sight ? ' Confess me before men,' says Christ, 'I will confess you : deny me, and I deny you.' To give no place to the Devil, who is ever sug- gesting evasions, to allow no thoughts which tend to a denial of Christ to lodge in our hearts, to put from 80 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. US the very recollection of those most dear to us, children and wife, or earthly possessions, — to do this is to satisfy the requirements of Christ : to do other- wise, or any thing less, is to fall short of them, and we must take the consequence. Let us note the fact that this strenuous mode of dealing with the infirm consciences of his brethren, on the part of Origen, and whence were to result benefits incalculable to mankind, drew the whole of its force from an Jnstoric source, that is to say, from the authority of Christ. When we entered, says Origen, upon the Christian life, we pledged ourselves to observe its conditions, to take up the cross, and to deny ourselves, even for His sake who shed His precious blood for our redemption. As to the common obligations of truthfulness, as between man and man, they had long before been well understood; but now this new and higher obligation, binding man, individually, to God as the object of all worship and duty, came on to be enforced, and Origen urges it upon his brethren with reasons which could not be rebutted ; and he sustains these reasons, not by philosophy (with which however he himself was con- versant,) but by many pertinent citations of Scripture. To give tbis higher obligation its utmost force, he infers it from the tenor of Christ's admonitions to his dis- ciples, that the call to martydom is a divine call ; it is a summons on the part of God, calling upon His ser- vants to bear testimony, on His behalf, before the world. Who shall disobey this summons, when thus it is uttered ? " Ye are my witnesses before all nations ; THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 81 and it shall be given you in tlie hour when it is needed, what ye shall speak." He who thus exhorted his brethren to hold fast their profession steadfast unto the end, did himself hold it fast : for although he did not die m martyrdom he died of it. When a boy he had written to his father, then in prison as a Christian: 'Be steadfast, and do not think of us:' a life of labour, penury, and suffering, for Christ's sake, was his OAvn commentary on this filial and generous admonition. From his master, Clement of Alexandria, Origen had learned the rudiments of that doctrine which he more fully expounds : It is, says Clement, from the love of God that we are to suffer as Christians. Having taken upon ourselves the name of Christ, if we shrink from the confession of Him, we are not called men of little faith, or of weak faith ; but of none. Thus was the Religious Obligation of Truth interpreted to demand suffering for the sake of it, when- ever the Christian was challenged to answer the ques- tion — Art thou a Christian ? From the pages of every Christian writer of the second and third centuries, passages might easily be cited, showing that, though differently expressed, this one principle was working itself forward into notice, until it should become the recognized law of the Chris- tian profession. 'Better for us to die, than to live, and lie to God.' In a condensed form it stood thus : — It is J who now, if I dare not forego my hope of immortality, must endure the scourge, the rack, the fire ! It is T who must meet death, thus armed with aggravated terrors ! The question whether I shall face these ter- rors, or shall turn aside from them, is between God 82 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. and my soul. My Christian brethren may indeed aid me by their plaudits and exhortations while I suffer, but they can neither suffer these torments for me, nor can they take upon themselves the future consequences if I fall away, and deny my Lord : they cannot be con- demned in my place. It was thus, and it was by a process of such extreme severity, and it was by the repetition of it in thousands of instances, through the lapse of more than two hun- dred years, that the most signal of all the revolutions which have marked the moral history of man was effected, and was lastingly established. It was thus that the individual man was lifted up from his obscure place, as a unit in the mass of humanity, and was raised to his true position, and was invested with his proper dignity, as related individually to God. It was thus, and it was amid the unutterable horrors of the pagan persecutions, that the meanest of the species, the slave, the outcast, did at length secure for himself, and for his peers of all times and countries, a formal recognition of his worth and rights, as the equal — in a moral estimation — of the noble and the learned. It was thus, even by the endurance of all imaginable forms of misery on the part of the thousands whose names have perished on earth, that we, of this present time, have learned to regard with rehgious respect, and patiently to listen to, who- ever it is that, in the name of God, comes forward to profess his belief — yes, or his disbelief. The removal of polytheism was a great work ; and yet the recognition and the development of that Princi- ple which assigns to man his true place and dignity, was a greater or more difBcult work. Both were effect- ed by the constancy of the Early Church ; both were effected by means of a long-continued and most severe course of suffering ; and both sprung out of, and were inseparably connected with, a Definite Persuasion, as to the EVENTS of a preceding time, and as to the au- thority of a Person, and as to the authenticity of BOOKS. Yet the modern world has not come into the enjoy- ment of the benefits which were thus won for it by the Ancient Church, without a further conflict ; and this conflict was even more severe than the first, and was of much longer continuance. Perhaps it might be po'ssible to glean from the pages of classical antiquity so many as half-a-dozen sen- tences, bearing an apparent resemblance to those which are found so plentifully in the early Christian writers, and in which the religious obligations of truth are affirmed. Even if it were so, i\\e facts remain precisely as they were ; for whatever philosophers might have said, they had wholly failed to gain a hearing for their doctrine among the people. Nor did the governments of those times ever recognize any such principle ; they (83) 84 THE RESTORATION OE BELIEF. understood nothing of the sort. To the Early Church it was as if the bare idea had never before presented itself to the mind of man. The battle had to be fouii;ht on ground every inch of which must be contended for : it was otherwise as to the assault upon polytheism, for on this ground a better theology had been long before propounded, although not accepted. But wdien at length the Church, by which we mean the Christian Body throughout the Roman world, had achieved this great service, and had given expression to what may be called the Martyr principle, there follow- ed a consequence which was to entail upon the world a new catena of martyrdoms. A consciousness of the sacred obliojations of Relio-ious Truth had given the ancient Martyr his constancy ; but then a spurious counterpart of the same principle followed very quickly, and it served to inflame the fa- naticism of the Persecutor. It was thus argued : If it be a duty we owe to God to profess the Truth, even at the cost of life, must it not be a duty of parallel . obligation, to suppress and exterminate Error ? This inference, illogical as it was, did not wait long to be drawn or to be acted upon. It became an almost univer- sally admitted axiom. Shall we attempt to number its victims ? Doubtless they have been a thousand times as many as those that were immolated by the pagan authorities. This wrong and fatal Inference, accepted so early as it was, came at length to be regarded as an axiom, needing no proof, indeed admitting of none, for it was self-evident. If you would see in how cool and confid- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. . 85 ing a manner it is advanced, read the Epistles of Inno- cent III,, and the sermons of St. Bernard. If the mere exclusion of suffering and trial were the only consideration worth regarding, then one might be tempted to wish the first principle — the Martyr doctrine — true and good as it is, had for ever slept, unthought of, rather than that,, in becoming known, it should have given occasion to the establishment of its spurious counterpart — the Persecutor's doctrine. But we are not at liberty thus to wish ; we may not thus reason ; for every thing about us shows that the ulti- mate destinies of the human family are not otherwise to be reached than through deep blood-sodden ways of suffering, extreme in degree, and drawn out through centuries. It is — it must be, enough for us, that the terrible re- sults of the spurious Inference whence all persecutions have borrowed their apology, have not availed to de- prive us of the inestimable benefits of the previous Truth. This Truth is ours now ; it is ours as an in- heritance, the encumbrances of which have all been dis- charged. Dare we relinquish it ? When we do so, a night that can have no morning will be before us. But at this present moment we, that is, we Christian men are forbidden to entertain the thought of any such treason by those who (so strange sometimes are the shiftings of positions among parties) are vehemently, nay even passionately, taking up the Martyr Principle won for us by the ancient Church, and are pleading it in their own behalf, while they are making their deadly assault upon this same Christianity ! It may be well to listen for a moment to this new utterance of an old, 8 80 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. but not obsolete, doctrine. How is it tbat the apostles of Disbelief screen themselves from rebuke ? It is by taking to themselves the Truth which the " noble army of Martyrs" purchased for the world on the rack and at the stake ! A recent writer professes his confidence that his reader will "judge his argument (in disproof of Christi- anity) and himself, as before the bar of God." Do we not hear in these words the very tones of the Martyr Church ? " * * jf faith be a spiritual and per- sonal thing ; if Belief, given at random to mere high pre- tensions, is an immorality ; if Truth is not to be quite trampled down, nor Conscience to be wholly palsied in us ; then what, I ask, was I to do when I saw that the genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew is an errone- ous copy of that in the Old Testament, and that the writer has not only copied wrong, but also counted ■ft^rong, so as to mistake eighteen for fourteen ?" Then, when a second and a more serious discrepancy presented itself, what course did this "martyr" take ? " On what ground of righteousness, which I could approve to God and my conscience, could I shut my eyes to this second fact?" Again, finding Christianity utterly indefensible ; " Would it have been faithfulness to the God of Truth, or a self-willed love of my own prejudices, if I tad said, I will not inquire further, for fear it should unsettle my faith ?" To have stopped any where in this course of disbelieving would have been in his view, "sinful;" it would have been to " plant the root of insincerity, falsehood, bigotry, cruelty, and uni- versal rottenness of soul." I think I could have shown this writer, or any who THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 87 may take the same ground, what he miglit have done amid these perplexities, which would have been far better, than on account of difficulties such as these, to renounce Christianity ! But this is beside my present purpose. This writer thinks that, to have shrunk from his con- victions, which ended in his entire rejection of the Gos- pel, would have been "infidelity to God, and Truth, and righteousness." If, indeed, the case be thus, then it is certain that this great Principle of the Religious Obligations of Truth must not be abandoned by any of us. But we may listen to another witness, who speaks to the same effect, and he is one whose testimony is equally unex- ceptionable. He professes to admire the Bible, but he protests against its pretensions, as of divine origin, or as possessing any authority more than belongs to the Iliad, or to the Divina Comedia, or to the Paradise Lost, or to Shakspeare's Macbeth : he says, " We may not lie to God. It may be convenient to let things alone ; it may save cowards trouble to shrink from the responsibility of using honestly the faculties which God has given them : but it will not do in the long run ; and the debt of longest date bears the heaviest interest." So thought the martyr bishop of Antioch, and the martyr bishop of Smyrna, and the tens of thousands who, in their day, have trod the same thorny path to a land which none shall reach who have " lied to God." Thus far then Believers and Unbelievers are entirely agreed : yet let another witness be heard ; and in hear- ing him one might think that his words are an echo that has come softly travelling down, through sixteen cen- 88 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. turics, from some field of blood, or some forum, or some amphitheatre, where Christian men were witnessing a good confession in the midst of their mortal agonies ! Tins witness is one who assures us that " he can believe no longer, he can worship no longer : he has discovered that the Creed of his early days is baseless, or falla- cious." Yet he, too, takes up the martyr truth, that we must not lie to God. lie is one to whom " the pui'- suit of Truth is a daily martyrdom — how hard and bitter let the martyr say. Shame to those who make it doubly so ! honour to those who encounter it, saddened, weeping, trembling, but unflinching still !" Thus far then we are all of one mind — we Christians of this present age, and these our contemporaries, who denounce our belief as absurd, and they, the martyrs of the early time, who ascertained the same moral rule, and, for our use, sealed it with their blood. We, be- lievers and unbelievers, hold it as a fixed principle, as did the martyrs of old, that if we lie to God, we consign ourselves to perdition, or to some unknown future woe, we know not what. Yet there is this difference among us, and it has an ominous aspect. We Christian men of this age, along with our venera- ted martyr brethren of the ancient Church, in making this profession — That we may not lie to God, nor deny before men our inward conviction in matters of religion ; we (as they did) affirm that which is consistent within itself, and which, in the whole extent of its meaning, is certain and is reasonable, grant us only our initial pos- tulate, that Christianity is from Heaven. But how is it when this same solemn averment comes THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 89 from the lips of those who deny that postulate, and who scorn to recognize the voice of God in the book ? It is just thus ; and those whom it concerns so to do, owe it to the world and to themselves, to make the ingenious avowal. In the first place, the style, and the very terms em- ployed by these writers, in enouncing the fact of the martyrdom they are undergoing, are all a flagrant plagiarism, and nothing better ! A claim, in behalf of the Gospel, must be made of what is its own, and which these writers, without leave asked, have appro- priated. As to every word and phrase upon which the significance of this their profession turns, it must be given up, leaving them in possession of so much only of the meaning of such phrases as would have been intelligible to Plutarch, to Porphery, and to M. AuRELius. A surrender must be made of the words Conscience, and Truth, and Righteousness, and Sin; and, alas ! modern unbelievers must be challenged to give me back that one awe-fraught Name which they (must I not plainly say so ?) have stolen out of the book: when they have frankly made this large surrender, we may return to them the to Qslov of classical antiquity. Yet this plagiarism, as to terms, is the smaller part of that invasion of rights with which the same persons are chargeable. It is reasonable, and it is what a good man must do, to sufi'er any thing, rather than deny a persua- sion which is such that he could not, if he would, cast it ofi". So it was with the early Christian martyrs : their persuasion of the truth of the Gospel had become part of themselves ; it was faith absolute, in the fullest sense of the word. The same degree of irresistible persuasion 8* ^0 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. attaches to the conclusions of mathematical or physical science; but it never can belong to an opinion, or to an undefined abstract belief. A man may, indeed, choose to die rather than contradict his personal persuasion of the truth of an opinion ; but in doing so he has no right to take to himself the martyr's style. So to speak is to exhibit, not constancy, but opiniativeness, or an over- weening confidence in his own reasoning faculty. Polycarp could not have refused to die when the only alternative was to blaspheme Christ, his Lord : but Plutarch could not have been required to suffer in attes- tation of his oi)inion — good as it was — that the Poets have done ill in attributing the passions and perturba- tions of human nature to the immortal gods ; nor Seneca, in behalf of those astronomical and meteorolo- gical theories with which he entertains himself and his friend Lucilius. When those who, after rejecting Christianity, talk of suffering for the " truth of God," and speak as if they were conscience-bound " toward God," they must know that they not only borrow a language wliich they are not entitled to avail themselves of, but that they invade a ground of religious belief whereon they can establish for themselves no right of standing. They may indeed profess what opinion they please, as to the Divine Attributes ; but they cannot need to be told that which the misgivings of their own hearts so often whisper to them, that all such opinions are, at the very best, open to debate, and must always be indeterminate, and that at this time their own possession of the opinion which just now they happen to cling to, is, in the last degree, precarious. How, then, can martyrdom be transacted THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 91 among those whose treading is upon the fleecy clouds of undemonstrable religious feeling ? Educated men should not wait to be reminded that those who, after abandoning a peremptory historic Belief, endeavor to retain Faith and Piety for their comfort, stand upon a slope that has no ledges : Athe- ism in its simplest form yawns to receive those who there stand ; and they know themselves to be gravita- ting toward it. It would be far more reasonable for a man to die as a martyr for Atheism — a stage beyond which no further progress is possible, than to do so at any point short of that terminus, knowing as he does that every day is bringing him nearer to the gulph. The stronger the mind is, and the more it has of intellectual massiveness, the more rapid will be its descent upon this declivity. Minds of little density, and of much airy sentiment, may stay long where they are, just as gnats and flies walk to and fro upon the honied sides of a china vase ; they do not go down, but never again will they fly. Through a strange misapprehension of the pre- sent tendency of things, within the commonwealth of Philosophy, those who are struggling to save the Pietism of Disbelief have made allusion to the progress of the Sciences, as threatening the imme- diate destruction of Christianity. We are told that our obsolete Creed will be rent from us by the Phy- sical sciences, as they advance. A wonderful miscalculation it is that has led astray those who thus think, and thus speak. The modern Physical sciences. Astronomy, Geology, Physiology, have indeed availed to dispel from Christian Belief this or that superstition, the demolition of which has occasioned pain to minds of a certain class, and has spread alarm among many ; but the issue will be wholly good and confirmatory. I hope hereafter to show you on what ground I think so ; and I do not wish it to be supposed that I am either unmindful of the diffi- culties that have had their origin in this quarter, or that I am intending to evade the consideration of them. But whatever damage science may do to Christianity, its operation (so marvellously forgotten by the writers in question) will be, not to damage, but to put right out of existence every form and phase of those Pietistic notions which it may have been thought possible to retain when Christianity is gone. The fate of all those (92) THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 93 Varieties of sentimental doctrine is already sealed — it is sealed by the hand of our modern Physical sciences ! How and why this should be taking place has not, I think, been understood ; and I invite attention to it. In any case when that which on any ground of proof takes full hold of the understanding, (such, for example, are the most certain of the conclusions of Geology,) stands contiguous to that which, in a logical sense, is of inferior quality, and is indeterminate, and fluctuating, and liable to retrogression, — in any such ease there is always going on a silent encroachment of the more solid mass upon the ground of that which is less solid. What is SURE will be pressing upon what is uncertain, whether or not the two are de- signedly brought into collision or comparison. What is well defined weighs upon, and against, what is ill defined. Nothing stops the continuous involuntary operation of science, in dislodging opinion from the minds of those who are conversant with both. A very small matter that is indeed determinate, will be able to keep a place for itself against this incessantly encroaching movement ; but nothing else can do so. As to any of those theosophic fancies, which we may wish to cling to, after we have thrown away the Bible, we might as well suppose that they will resist the impact of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences, as imagine that the lichens of an Alpine gorge will stay the slow descent of a glacier. It is not that these demonstrable Sciences are likely to be brought designedly into antagonism with the theosophics of Disbelief. But instead of this, these sciences are now coming down in one compact mass, 94 THE RESTORATION OF EELIEF. upon all varieties of mere opinion : without noise are they coming, yet certainly, to raze them from the soil where they grow. Travelling in its might, this solid mass will scrape the surface over which it trav^els quite bare. Nor is it merely the Mathematical and Physical Sciences that in this manner are edging opinion out of the intellectual world ; for in the train of these come the Statistical, the Economic, and the Political sciences, which every day are assuming a more positive tone than heretofore, and are more ar- ticulate than any Religious opinions can be, unless sustained by evidence of the most conclusive sort. Deductions that are indisputable — principles that have a near bearing upon the palpable welfare of the com- munity, not less than the higher truths of philosophy, tend to disengage the mind from whatever does not possess equal or similar recommendations. Men sicken of endless surmises, of guesses, of aspirations, of im- pressions, of vague hopes. Now it is manifest that the Religious Disbelief which is at this time oifered to us in the stead of Christianity, neither does, nor can, in the nature of things, take possession of solid ground whereupon it might establish and fortify itself. At the very best it is only a pleasing possibility, or a probability — a something better than nothing. Itself, from a consciousness of its own slenderness, will be glad to slip away, unnoticed, from the halls of science. This process, sealing the fate of theosophic systems of all sorts, does not indeed bear upon the masses of the religious community. Happily it does not ; but it does bear upon the entire community of well-in- structed men ; and from them the effect which it pro- THE RESTOKATION OF BELIEF. 95 duces spreads itself, outward and downward, until a paralysing of the religious sentiment has gone far and wide ; and this is what is now taking place, and which calls for a fresh recurrence to the very substance of Christianity, as the only means that can be trusted to for brinojino; about a Restoration of Belief. We must not allow ourselves to imagine that the relative position of Natural Philosophy and of Re- ligious Philosophy at all resembles what it was at the time when Christianity prevailed over philosophy and polytheism ; for the theories of that age did not stand liable to any such pressure from without, as that which now weighs upon their modern representatives. The Tlieology of that epoch was not less approvable to reason than was the Physical science of the same time : both were surmises only ; and, on the whole, fewer positive absurdities were comprised in the tlieology than in the scie)ice of the times. The science of antiquity could call scarcely any thing within its compass certain, except its geometry and its applicates ; nor was it itself in a progressive condition : it slept on its ground, and was not more likely to dislodge its neighbour, the Theology of the same time, than one of the pyramids is likely to shove another into the Nile. It is an illusion to imagine that any scheme of religious belief can now maintain itself in the minds of instructed men, under the enormous pressure of the compacted mass of our modern sciences. A most mis- judging course, therefore, have those writers adopted who, of late, have threatened Christianity with ex- tinction, which they say is to be effected by the hand of the Physical sciences ! Do they not see that there 96 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. is a victim that stands first to be immolated — to wit, their own baseless theology ? But why may not Christianity itself share this same fate ? Is it not itself an opinion ? This will be the end of every one of those modifications of Christianity which have been devised for the purpose of escaping from its extreme consequences, or of mitigating its supposed severity, or of winning the favour of those who reject it. These varieties of what we must call an abated Christianity, are opinions only ; and they entirely lack intelligible evidence, as well as substance and motive force : they stir no afi"ections ; they fix no resolves ; they breathe no such energy into the souls of men as should strengthen them in a course of real sufferings for the Truth's sake. What is it then that may, and that will, hold its ground against the ever-increasing momentum of our modern philosophy ? It is that Christianity, whole and entire, which, filling as it did the mind and the heart of the Early Church, carried it through its day of trial. I now therefore reach the point which I have had in view in this preliminary Tract : my piupose being to explain my meaning in professing to think that a Restoration of Belief, at this time, demands that we should make our way direct into the heart of the question, and reclaim for the Gospel its own grandeur, its own beauty, its own boundless compass of Truths eternal. Hitherto we have confined our attention to the Mar- tyr age of Christianity, and have considered how the men of that time, while they so "fought the good THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 97 fight of faith," rendered a service to the world, the benefits of which can never leave it. But can any One persuade himself that this war could have been waged on the strength of any of those abated notions of Christianity which we are now required to accept in- stead of itself? We may be sure it could not have been so : we know it was not so. The faith of the Martyr Church was undoubting in its quality, and ample in its compass. The martyr confronted his tormentor, and welcomed death, in the perfect assu- rance that the Religion he professed was from Heaven, and that it had come into the world attested by Miracles. Such a persuasion, we may think, cost this martyr Ititle ; for it was an age (so it is said) of ready belief. Men believed on slender evidence, or on none. It is of no consequence to dispute this : let it be granted. But if the credulity of the age made it easy for the Chris- tians of that time to accept a religion professing mira- culous attestations, this willingness to believe sprang from a feeling, the vividness of which we, in this ago, can scarcely imagine. The men of the martyr time had found in Christianity that which outmeasured all miracles ; to them the new spiritual existence which they had drawn from the Gospel, was a Miracle with which those of the Evangelic history seemed in perfect accordance. What they felt in themselves, and saw in others, of the power of the Gospel, was to them a re- surrection, equivalent to the miraculous healing of the sick, or raising of the dead. But is it not "reasoning in a circle" thus to believe the miracles because the religion is felt to be from 9 98 THE restohation of belief. Heaven, and to believe the religion, because it has been attested by miracles ? Grant it that this is a reasoning in a circle, wlien formally stated ; but it does not follow that the reasoning is not good in its substance. A misapprehension on this ground has too easily been admitted, as well on the side of those Avho have conducted the Christian argument, as with those who have impugned it. A sophism, boldly ob- truded on the one side, has been timidly dealt with on the other. The very firmest of our convictions come to us in this very same mode, — that is, not in the way of a sequence of evidences, following each other as links in a chain, and carrying with them the conclusion ; but in the way of the conoeuity of evidences, meeting or collapsing in the conclusion. This is not what is called " cumulative proof," nor is it proof derived from the coincidence of facts. Those impressions which com- mand the reason and the feelings in the most impera- tive manner, and which we find it impossible to resist, are the result of the meeting of congruous elements : they are the product of causes which, though indepen- dent, are felt so to fit the one the other, that each, as soon as seen in combination, authenticates the other; and in allowing the two to carry our convictions, we are not yielding to the sophism which consists in alter- nately putting the premises in the place of each other, but are recognizing a principle which is true in human nature. You have to do with one who offers to your eye his credentials — his diploma, duly signed and sealed, and which declare him to be a Personage of the highest THE EESTORATION OF BELIEF. 99 rank. All seems genuine in these evidences. At the same time the style and tone, the air and behaviour, of this Personage, and all that he says, and what he informs you of, and the instructions he gives you, are in every respect consistent with his pretensions, as set forth in the Instrument he brings with him. It is not then that you alternately believe his credentials to be genuine, because his deportment and his language are becoming to his alleged rank ; and then that you yield ^0 the impression which has been made upon your feel- ings by his deportment, because you have admitted the credentials to be true. Your belief is the product of a simultaneous accordance of the two species of proof: it is a combined force that carries conviction, not a succession of proofs in line. It is from the same force of Congruity, not from a catena of proofs, that we receive the most trustworthy of those impressions upon the strength of which we act in the daily occasions of life ; and the same Law of Belief rules us also in the highest of all arguments — that which issues in a devout regard to Him, by and through whom are all things. On this ground, where logic halts, an instinctive reasoning prevails, which takes its force from the confluence of reasons. I have asked it to be supposed that all we can now know of Christianity must be derived from the literary materials of the second and third centuries. We now go back to those materials. They are various, if not of very great absolute bulk : they include contributions from the pens of fifty or sixty writers, some of these being voluminous, some amounting to fragments only, or paragraphs or sentences : but then they are Contri- 100 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. butions gathered from all quarters of the Roman World. These remains bring to our hearing, as we might say, the voices of the dwellers in Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, Gaul, Italy, and Greece ; what we listen to is a testimony coming in from a large surface. These variously derived materials constitute so many segments of a great circle, the centre of which they will enable us to determine, if we rightly bring them to their places: the radii, projected from these segments, meet in a central point. A striking unanimity of feeling pervades the mass ; and yet along with much diversity of style, the temper of the men also being every where conspicuous, as well as the characteristics of country. The subjects treated of are various also. Nevertheless, as to the central OBJECT of which these materials give us our idea, the uniformity — the Identity of Image is such, and it is of such intensity, that it moulds to its own fashion the mind of every ingenuous reader : he cannot refuse to yield his reason and imagination too, to this ONE idea : undoubtedly it is every Avhere the same person Avhom he encouiiters in these scattered memorials of a distant time ! One of the purposes I have had in view in thus bringing forward the persons and events of the Martyr age, and in keeping the eye fixed upon that limited field, was this, to render more easy a mental effort by which we put out of sight the bearing of Christianity upon ourselves, and discharge from our feelings, that which haunts our minds, the thought that it may touch and disturb ourselves. In now summing up, I entreat you to make this THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 101 effort, and to imagine that Christianity has long ago ceased to hold any place of influence in the world ; and that it stands before us only as a singular develop- ment of the religious and moral elements of human nature, which has had its season, and which now stands on record, an insulated object of historic curiosity. If now you will go with me so far, ingenuously grant such things as you would not think of denying, if relieved from all anxiety as to consequences, touching our- selves. I will therefore suppose you to allow these things. — — That the Christian communities did, durincr the period that we have had in view, make and maintain a protest against the idol-worship of the times, which protest, severe as it was in its conditions, at length won a place in the world for a purer Theology, and set the civilized races free from the degrading superstitions of the Greek Mythology. — That in the course of this arduous struggle, and as an unobserved yet inevitable consequence of it, a New Principle came to be recognized, and a New Feel- ing came to govern the minds of men, which principle and feeling conferred upon the individual man, how- ever low his rank, socially or intellectually, a dignity, unknown to classical antiquity ; aud which yet must be the bases of every moral advancement we can desire, or think of as possible. — That the struggle whence resulted these two mo- mentous consequences, affecting the welfare of men for ever, was entered upon and maintained on the ground of a definite persuasion, or Belief, of which a PERSOisr was the object. J* 102 TnE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. — That this belief toward a Person, embracorl attri- butes, not only of superhuman excellence and wisdom, but also of superhuman power and authority. If wo take the materials before us as our guide, it will not be possible to disengage the history from these ideas of superhuman dignity. If in any instance that can be thought parallel, the concentric testimony of many writers conveys the idea of a clearly-defined Individuality, such an idea, such a conception of a Person, real, and unlike others, is con- veyed by the evidence now in our hands ; and this idea indissolubly blends the Jdstoric and the supernatural ; the two elements of character, as combined, possess a FORCE OF CONGRUITY which compels our submission to it. Whence then came this Idea ? We find it on the pages of the early Christian writers in a form so con- sentient, and it is conveyed in language so sedate and so uniform, that we must believe it to have had one source. Much do we meet with in these writers that indicates infirmity of judgment or a false taste ; yet does there pervade them a marked simplicity, a grave sincerity, a quietness of tone, when He is spoken of whom they acknowledge us Lord. If there be one characteristic of these ancient writings that is uniform, it is the calm, affectionate, reverential tone in which the Martyr Church speaks of The Saviour Christ ! I am perfectly sure that, if you could absolutely banish from your mind all thought of the inferences, and the consequences, resulting from your admissions, you would not, after perusing this body of Martyr-lite- rature, full into the enormity of attributing the notions THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 103 entertained of Christ, as invested with Divine attri- butes, to any such source as "exaggeration," or "ex- travagance," or to " orientalism," or "enlarged Pla- tonism." Exaggeration and inflation have their own style : it is not difficult to recognize it. No character- istic of thought or language is more obvious. You will fail in your endeavour to show that this characteristic does attach to the writings in question : and why should you make such an attempt ? There can be no induce- ment to do so, unless it appears to be the only means of escaping from some consequence which we dislike. But how can it be that a resumption of the infcrenco which Christianity brings to bear upon ourselves, should aff"ect the admissions we have made while that inference was held in abeyance ? It can never be logical to say, " I would not have granted you so much, if I had fore- seen what use you would have made of my conces- sions." We must abide by our concessions, if they have been reasonably granted, come what may. That which these concessions involve is this, that unless we at once allow the Supernatural and the Divine to have belonged to Christianity at its rise, our alternative is to fill up the void by aid of some hypothesis which shall give an intelligible account of what we know to have followed, wherever it was pro- claimed throughout the Roman world. As to any such hypothesis (several have been devised) I will not call them inadmissible, or insufficient ; for to me they are wholly unintelligible. Unintelligible are these hypotheses, even when looked at in the coldest manner from the ground of historical criticism. But how revolting do they seem when the 104 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. course of events through the lapse of centuries, is re garded in any manner that might deserve to be called philosophic ! The dark mysteries that attach to the course of human affairs, who shall profess to interpret ? No one undertakes such an office. Nevertheless we may trace single lines of causation with perfect certainty : we may follow a clue up from Effects to Causes, and we may discover causes which, in their quality and their effi- ciency are such as the effect demands. We may safely reject, as by instinct, an hypothesis which assumes to trace great and extensive effects to causes that would be not merely insufficient, but which are utterly incon- gruous and unfit. Remove from Christianity every thing in it which is supernatural and divine, and then the problem which we have to do with is this. — A revolution in human affairs, in the highest degree beneficial in its import, was carried forward upon the arena of the great world, by means of the noble behaviour of men who command our sympathy and admiration, as brave, wise, and good. But this revolution drew the whole of its moral force from a Belief, which — how shall we designate it ? — was in part an inexplicable illusion ; in part a dream, and in large part a fraud ! This, the greatest forward movement which the civilized branches of the human family have ever made, took its rise in bewildered Jewish brains ! Indestructible elements of advance- ment to which even infidel nations confessedly owe whatever is best and most hopeful within them, these elements of good, which were obtained for us at so vast a cost, had their source in a congeries of exaggera- TUB RESTORATION "OF BELIEF. 105 tlons, and In a mindless conspiracy, hatched by chance, nursed by imposture, and winged by fanaticism ! While I must speak of the Theories that have been propounded for solving the problena of Christianity, on natural principles, in no measured terms, I would not be thought disposed to treat slightly the catalogue of difficulties that attach to the Christian argument, at specific points. Real are some of these difficulties ; and some are fatal to certain gratuitous assumptions, held to on the Christian side : not one of them should be inconsiderately dismissed. But not one of them touches the Integrity of our Faith ; nor can the mass entire avail at all to abate the confidence of our per- suasion, that the Gospel of Christ is from Heaven, and carries with it an authority which time does not impair, and which Eternity shall unfold and confirm. When a collection of historic materials, bearing upon a particular series of events, is brought forward, it will follow upon the supposition that those events have, on the whole, been truly reported, that any hypothesis the object of which is to make it seem probable that no such events did take place, must involve absurdities, which will be more or less glaring. But then, after the truth of the history has been established, and when the trustworthiness of the materials has been admitted, as we proceed to apply a rigid criticism to ambiguous passages, we shall undoubtedly encounter a crowd of perplexing disagreements ; and we shall find employ- ment enough for all our acumen, and trial enough of our patience, in clearing our path. And yet no amount of discouragements, such as these, will warrant our falling back upon a supposition which we have already discarded as incKerent f^T^f^ ^ rd. 106 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. This then is the present state of the argument as to Christianity. As to those inroads which of late have been made upon the Belief of well-informed Christians, they have been effected by urging exceptive cases, and by bringing forward instances of historic misplacement, or contradiction, affecting the credit of the Inspired writers, or by inference, bringing into question the Divine authority of the collection of books. On tltis ground the course that should be taken, though it be arduous, is straight before us. To propound difficulties pressing upon a Christian belief, is one thing; but to propose a theory that might be accepted as affording an intelligible solution of the problem which demands to be dealt with, when we disallow the claims of Christianity as from Heaven, is a very different matter. On this ground, I do not see that any advantage has been gained on the side of Disbelief. Our English disbelief can pretend to nothing of originality ; for it is all a copy after the German ; and yet German theories, though they have broken down, in quick succession, at home, have been im- ported, as if still good, and have been done into English without a scruple : is there one of these theories that is not insufferably absurd ? This is as it should be, on the supposition. That Christianity is true: the difficulties which adhere to the mode of its transmission, may still be insoluble ; yet to devote primary attention to these would only have the effect of giving our thoughts, as well as feelings, a wrong direction. A better course is, first to assure ourselves of the substance of our Belief : we may then, with comfort and advantage, meet the ex- ceptive argument in its particulars. II- ON THE SUPERNATURAL ELEMENT CONTAINED IN THE EPISTLES, AND ITS BEARING ON THE ARGUMENT. THE QUESTION OF CHRISTIANITY IS DETERMINABLE. We are told that Christianity must be content to take its place along with many indeterminate questions, ■which are, and which should be spoken of among rea- sonable men as "matters of opinion." I deny this allegation ; and I take my position, with all humility, yet fearlessly, on this opposite ground, namely : that, if those modes of proceeding which have been authenticated as good in other cases, are allowed to take effect in this case, nothing in the entire round of human belief is more infallibly sure than is Christ- ianity, when it claims to be — Religion, given to Man BY God. The same proposition, stated exceptively, may be thus worded. Christianity can be held in question only by aid of violence done to established principles of reasoning, and by contempt of the laws of evidence, which in all cases analogous to this are enforced. I must not be misinterpreted in this instance. Per- sonally, I might take in hand to demonstrate some unquestionable theorem in geometry, or to establish the most certain of the conclusions in the circle of the physical sciences ; and I might so mismanage the pro- cess as to make those things seem doubtful which, in fact, are absolutely certain. The question just now, is 10 (109) 110 THE IIESTOIIATION OF BELIEF. not whether an individual writer succeeds or fails in bringing a demonstrable argument to a true conclusion; which may happen or not ; but whether the argument itself be demonstrable or not. Grant me therefore so much liberty as this, at start- ing, that is to say — allow me to fail in my present honest endeavour, yet without prejudice to my CAUSE. Grant me this, and I will repay your candour with an equivalent. I shall impute no bad motives to you as a cover to my chagrin in finding that I do not bring you over to my side : I shall not tell you that your resistance to my reasoning is nothing but an im- moral obduracy, springing from the corrupt wishes of an " unregenerate heart." It may be so in fact ; but that is your affair, not mine. " Let a man examine himself.'' I am no Inquisitor, nor Father Confessor; nor do I profess to be a spiritual adviser. Besides, I am hot about to deal in persuasives, or to be eloquent and ingenious. I would not lay a hand upon this argument at all if I did not find it hard to the touch, in every part of it. We all perfectly know that the only style proper to the exposition of absolute Truth is that which indicates no consciousness whatever of the surmised dispositions, or adverse feelings, or prejudices, of those who are ad- dressed. Euclid deals with every body alike : he knows nothing of men's tempers. It is thus that, in working our way toward the mere truth of any mass of facts, debated in Court, we listen with breathless attention, as if an inspired person were about to speak, to the evidence of an intelligent and guileless child; for we suppose that this child does not know, or knowing, docs THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. Ill rot care, how his statement will tell upon the suit, or how it may gratify, or irritate, or appal, the plaintiff, or the defendant. This child-testimony is just the normal style of a purely scientific treatise ; and it should serve as sampler to an argument that is pro- fessed to be thoroughly honest. A style much less inartificial than this has prevailed, on both sides, in the argument concerning Christianity. How this has come about on the side of Disbelief, it does not concern me to inquire. On the side of Belief it has had entrance in such ways as these : — Perhaps a writer who himself is sincerely, rather than perfectly persuaded, labours, from page to page, under the weight of a lurking uneasiness or misgiving, as to the goodness of the cause he has taken in hand. Or perhaps his amiable temper and his abhorrence of dog- matism, impel him to employ so many softnesses of language, and to abound so much in uncalled-for con- cessions, that the reader loses hold of an argument of which the writer is continually losing his hold. Per- liaps — and this is -often the fact — the Christian advo- cate, being also a minister of religion, and in that capacity having much to do, from week to week, with the levity of the human mind, and its perversity, its indifference, and its obduracy, and thus forecasting the rejection of his argument — unimpeachable as it may be, draws back from a peremptory statement of it, lest he should risk too much in boldly challenging the reader's submission. He will not pledge Christianity where he foresees that he shall find a contumacious resistance. Expect no such gentle obliquities in these pages. 112 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 1 am not provided with slender conventionalisms of this kind : — " Ought we not to grant ?" — " Is it not reasonable to suppose ?" — " Can we imagine this or that?" — "Every candid mind will allow;" and so forth. But then if I abstain from the use both of lenitives and of irritating stimulants, I protest against every sort of argumentative violence, or polemical outrage. What I mean by this protest is this. We are about to make our way, in company, through a mansion, the doors of which, inner and outer, are locked ; but I carry a master-key in my hand. Every door opens instantly by application of these fair means. You must not then bring with you a crow-bar, or a sledge-hammer ; as if you would be impatient of the use of the key. You must not bring forward, hy 'pre- ference^ a violent supposition to avert an apprehended consequence. Let the key take its course wherever it suffices, and I am content. What then are the conditions of a proposition which should be regarded as a " matter of opinion ?" In connexion with an argument like this, the vague truism will not serve us — That an " opinion is a proposition concerning which even the best informed men may differ without imputation, either of wrong motives, or of incompetency." On this ground, we need to be better guarded against misapplications of the word. A proposition concerning facts may be indetermi- nable in consequence of some hopeless deficiency of the extant evidence which relates to it ; or there may attach to it an ambiguity in consequence of the occult quality of the facts in question. But these indeter- minate propositions, fairly assignable, to the region of THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 113 cpmion, and -wlilch are open therefore to endless dis- cussion, may belong to one, as well as to another of the departments of science, of philosophy, or of criticism. It is a mistake, and a prejudice, fertile in errors, to imagine that Opinion belongs to one department, and Certainty to other departments ; as if the honours and immunities of an exemption from the tolls of con- troversy were the class privilege of this or that aristo- cratic science. Every science, how absolute soever it may be in its methods of proof, has its indeterminate verge — its open territory of opinion, so long as it is in a progressive condition. Until a science pronounces itself to have reached its culminating point, there is always stretch- ing out in front of it a region over which adventurous speculation takes its course, and whereupon no au- thority better than that of opinion has as yet been recognized. Mathematical Science, we are told, is still in progress, and, therefore, over this region, even over this, or rather in front of it, there hovers the "pillar of a cloud" — a cloud of promise, leading the way over the sands of the infinite, toward further conquests. As to the Physical Sciences, if what has been ascertained within their compass would fill twenty folios — the matters next outlying beyond these, and which yet are sufficiently defined to be susceptible of intelligible statement, would fill a hundred folios. As to those branches of science, or of criticism, the bearing of which is upon Individual Facts, and which deal Avith Evidence — no greater error could be fallen into than that of supposing that, in any special sense, 10* 114 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. we are here entering upon the trackless region of opinion. In truth, as to the relative amount of the certain and the uncertain — of the determinate and the indeterminate — of that which is open to discussion, or is closed against it, and sealed for ever, as infallibly sure, those departments upon "which evidence (in the technical sense of the word) bears, show a decisive ad- vantage, as compared with the boundless domains of the phj'sical sciences. It is so on two grounds : — First, as to the nature of the subjects respectively treated of; and secondly, as to the symbols, or medium of conveyance, from mind to mind. The Physical Sciences, as they relate to the powers, properties, functions, of the material world, inorganic and organised, touch the mere surface of an abyss that is unfathomable. The things concerning which they treat are, more or less, occult, and, for a great part, are inscrutable, as well by the human senses, as by human reason. Besides which, these sciences are com- pelled to express themselves in a medium which has been borrowed for their use, and which is very im- perfectly adapted to the purposes it is now made to serve. Mathematical Science has created its own symbols, as fast, and as far, as it has needed them : they are exempt from all ambiguity ; and the truths conveyed by them are not attempted to be expressed any further than they are thoroughly understood. Parallel advantages attach to the various departments over which evidence holds sway ; for the facts, with few exceptions, are thoroughly intelligible, and the medium of conveyance — the language of common life, THE HESTORATION OF BELIEF. 115 has itself grown out of, or is the spontaneous product of this very class of facts. Language is at home when it is framed into propositions, concerning individual facts, sustained by evidence ; but it is doing a work wholly strange to itself when it is giving expression to the gen- eralizations of Physical Science. So long as the Latin language lives, it will always be perfectly known what sort of event was intended to be recorded when an accomplished nephew affirms, concern- ing his learned uncle, that — Innitcns servulis duobus, assurrexit, et statim concidit : but when we turn to tkose of this learned writer's pages in which he tries his hand at the scientific explication of natural pheno- mena, as of thunder storms (ii. 43) or when Seneca gives his theory of earthquakes (Nat. Quest, iv. 5) we feel, first that the things spoken of by these great men were immensely far beyond their cognizance ; and secondly that the terms in which they laboured to convey their own confused notions concerning these things are too indeterminate to have admitted, either then or now, any very certain interpretation. Nor ought we to assume very much more in behalf even of our modern scientific speculations ; for a time may come when a modern lec- ture, upon — the theory of volcanoes — even if the Eng- lish language should live so long as a thousand years, may read like mere jargon ; or it may require many pages of learned exposition to be spent upon it, before it can be known at all what the writer could be think- ing of when he talks about " a disturbance of the equi- librium of Galvanic forces," and the like. The narra- tive — the Idstory is just as intelligible now, as it was eighteen centuries ago ; and it will retain the whole of 116 THE HESTORATION OF BELIEF. its bright vivacity to the end of time ; so that this one entry upon the page of universal history has a better chance for eternity than have the pyramids. But as to a large portion of our modern Physical Science — every century, as it passes, overlays it with a coating of obscurity, inasmuch as the theories of each era are superseded by those of the next ; and inasmuch, too, as the terms conveying it, having no real relation- ship to the things they intend, lose almost all hold of those things in the lapse of time, and cease to be easily intelligible. In respect of the events of the Trojan war — whether the Iliad be history or fable, the Greek lan- guage carries a meaning that is unchangeably certain, for ever ; but in respect of Aristotle's astronomy, or of Plato's scheme of the universe, nothing can keep the very terms in an intelligible condition, but a running commentary — re-issued from age to age. Christianity must not then be set off, to take its place among indeterminate questions — among " matters of opinion," merely because it stands before us as an entry upon the page of history ; for it stands there in company with things as sure as the surest theorems of geometry. What it teaches — some of those things, may be, and are, matters of opinion ; but not itself. You say " Christianity is an exceptive instance, because it comes to us laden with miracles, which no evidence can avail to authenticate ; and in truth we are granting it more indulgence than it can rightfully claim, when we concede to it any footing at all upon the ground of rational argumentation. Let Christianity rid itself of the supernatural, and then we will think about it." THE RESTOKATION OP BELIEF. 117 You cannot take this course ; and my purpose in this present Tract is to close it against you. Authentic history comes into our hands along -with a large mass of adventitious matter, which is not of itself ; and from which it may easily be distinguished without any damage to itself, or much disparagement to the repute of the original writers. Of this sort are those statements of alleged facts for the truth of which the historian does not very explicitly pledge himself; and concerning which we may easily suppose him to have been innocently in error : — also — of this sort are his own opinions, his reasonings, and his surmises, which are worth just what they may be worth : — also the entire mass of indirectly asseverated narratives — mat- ters of tradition, matters of national belief, or of popu- lar contemporaneous parlance. Now, as to the connection of all such extraneous mat- ters with authentic history, I apply to it, for the pur- pose of my present argument, this phrase and say — the tie between the two masses is that merely of adhesion ; for a removal of the adhesive portion may be effected without violence : it may be done without drawing blood; and as to the historian himself, he will scarcely be conscious of the operation. In how pleasant a man- ner have many such removals been effected in the in- stance of the "Father of History," who, in truth, as a veracious collector of facts, enjoys better repute among us now, than he did a century ago. But there is another bond of union, connecting a body of history with what it brings with it, which implies more than mere adhesion, and which must be regarded as implying a connexion of COHESION. Wherever the 118 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. tie is of this kind, an attempted separation of the two masses touches the life, and we should look well to the consequences before we set about it. I affirm that, in the instance of the canonical documents of Christianity, the connection of the historic mass with the superna- tural, is a case of cohesion, and that it is absolutely indissoluble. When an instance of this sort presents itself, one of three courses may be taken : that is to say, the three courses are hypotlieticalhj eligible ; which of them is actually so can be known only upon inquiry. 1st, We may wholly reject the conglomerate — the history and the miracle together, as being manifestly destitute of any intrinsic value. 2d, We may apply force— retaining the simply his- toric mass, and throwing off the mass cohering. But when this is done the patient dies : — that is to say, the credit of the writer, or in other words, his vitality as a writer is gone, even although much that he has recorded may still be quite true : we have slain the man ; but if he carried any thing about him that is valuable, we take it to ourselves. 8d, We may accept at once the simply historic mass, and that which coheres with it, as being both true, and both historic. The course of argument, therefore, in relation to Christianity must be this : —In behalf of it, it should be shown, first — That the alliance of the historical and the supernatural which it offers to our view is not an instance of mere adhesion ; but of indissoluble cohesion. We must then show that, unless violence is to be done to every principle which is applicable to the occasion, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. Il9 the coiifrlomerate cannot be cast aside, as unsubstan- tial, or as destitute of value ; inasmuch as the histori- cal portion is of indisputable validity : — it is sure, if any thing be sure. But no endeavours, fairly made, can avail to disjoin the supernatural, in this case, from the historical. In other terms stated — within the compass of the canoni- cal documents of Christianity the supernatural is one, and the same as the historical. The two can be counted two, by hypothesis only. Moreover the two elements — if they be two — coalesce into one mass, not merely by cohesion, of which just now I am to speak ; for they are still more intimately blended by the force of CON- GRUITY, to which I have already (page 98) made allu- sion, and of which, in another Tract, I shall have much to say. Whether or not the alleged cohesion of the historic and the supernatural should be incontestibly established, the connexion of Congruity, laying hold as it does of the firmest of our convictions, stands entire ; and it is such as has availed, and will always avail, with the mass of unsophisticated minds, to ensure an un- clouded belief. The ground of an argumentation, such as is now in hand, has been gradually narrowing throughout the course of the present half-century. It is mainly the in- dustry of adverse criticism that has thus cleared the way before us ; or more fairly stated, it has been the assiduous antagonism of Christian, and of Anti-christian scholar- ship, wol-king with unwearied zeal at the same problems, that has achieved this service. On the one part, an attenuated ingenuity has spent its last atom of gluten in floating out threads which might perchance catch 120 TEE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. and detain, in behalf of Scepticism, this or that portion of the apostolic remains. On the other part, an over- done scrupulosity, and a superflucms candour, has em- ployed itself in loosening the hold of these films — one by one. The upshot of all this industry is just this, that, after two or three ambiguous cases have been allowed for, the apostolic antiquity of the several portions of the New Testament canon is out of the question ; and that as to the Epistles (with which alone I am at present concerned) the genuineness and authenticity of these writings rests upon evidence one-tenth part of which has been customarily admitted as sufiicient, in any parallel instance, on the field of classical literature. It must be a sickly affectation, or it must indicate a feebleness of the reasoning faculty, to speak in any other tone than this of the result of those critical explorations of which the Canonical Epistles have been the subject, in the course of the last fifty or sixty years. As to any argument with which, just now, I am con- cerned, I should be content if there were handed over to me, only so many as four or five of the Apostolic Epistles — or even fewer, as undoubtedly genuine. Allow me any where good anchor-hold in the roadstead of apostolicity, and it is enough. It is enough, not merely because these fewer authentic documents by themselves carry an inference from which we can never escape ; but because, as I shall show, a spu- rious writing, which is so like the genuine as hardly to be distinguished from it, will bear the weight of my present argument almost as well as if it were genuine. THE RESTOEATION OF BELIEF. 121 * Then, after some such spui-ious or ambiguous docu- ment has yielded its available amount of evidence, in a direct manner, it serves a further purpose in giving support indirectly to the genuine. The genuine shows the " Hall-mark ;" but the spurious, or the doubtful, carries a mark that is less authentic ; and the com- parison of the two " stampings" affords the ground of a new confidence, as to that which already we hold to be infallible. With our English straightforwardness about us, and our dislike of the practice of catching at straws for the purpose of keeping a desperate hypothesis above water, we take in hand a sample of German hypercritical cap- tiousness. It runs in this way: — "throughout our Epistle," says the critic, " we find several words, and some combinations of words, that are not Pauline ; they indicate another mind, and another hand. The forger, it must be confessed, has very nearly hit" — what ? Paul's style ! — but not quite : he has done his work cleverly ; but yet he has betrayed himself in not fewer than half-a-dozen places. This Pauline style is then — AN historic reality — and as such I want nothing more ; it is distinct, and distinguishable, by its individual characteristics, which are of so marked a kind that, while they held out a temptation to the ancient forger, the}'' are of so pecu- liar a sort that modern critics are sure of their scent whenever an imitation is under inquiry. It is just thus that a practised collector of ancient coins applies his tongue to a specious " Cleopatra," or to a false "Ptolemy;" for he knows the taste of the genuine Egyptian mintage too well to be so easily imposed 11 122 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. upon : — the colour of the rust is nothing. The Critic takes a bearing upon that which is genuine (implicitly, if not explicitly,) for the purpose of discarding the spurious. But I take a position even upon the spu- rious, that, from that vantage-ground, I may learn to trust myself with more confidence to the genuine. As to any one particular, of the twenty-one epistles of the Canon, the question of its genuineness and authenticity need not be entered upon until some critic, competent to the task, comes forward, in seriousness, and with copiousness of proofs, to affirm that all of them are forgeries. This will not be attempted ; or if it be at- tempted, those who engage in such an enterprise must first make a clear field by erasing every remains of antiquity — profane and religious, anterior to the Nor- man conquest. " Nor do we now touch any question as to the alleged Inspiration of these epistles, or of any other books of the Canon. We are often told that we timidly h&ld up this " Inspiration" as a screen, lest the documents of our faith should come to be dealt with severely, in the mode that is proper to historic criticism. Only let this Historic Severity take its free course, and Disbelief Avill be driven from its last standing-place. It is my perfect persuasion that, in the now actual position of the Christian argument, the doctrine of the Inspira- tion of the Canonical books is of more importance, in a logical sense, to Disbelief than it is to Belief. If every one of the Canonical books of the New Testament — every one of those in behalf of which Inspiration is alleged, had perished, and if nothing were now before us but the uninspired documents of THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 123 Cliristianlty — (tliose of the second century) I must still be a Christian, although I should often be at a loss as to the single items of my Creed. But now if the Canonical writings— Inspiration not considered, were dealt with in the historic mode, without prejudice or favour, Disbelief would wither like the grass of the tropics. CLASSIFICATION OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTA- MENT, IN RELATION TO THIS ARGUMENT. The historic and the supernatural (the miraculous) are connected in the books of the New Testament in the way of Cohesion, not of adhesion merely ; but then this cohesion takes eifect in a very different manner in different instances. These differences it is important to take account of; and it suggests a clas- sification of the canonical documents accordingly. The Twenty-seven books take their places, when regarded in. this particular aspect, under three heads ; and thus we have — I. Those, throughout the substance of which the historic base blends itself with the supernatural in the way of explicit and circumstantial narrative. These of course are the Four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. II. Those books in which, once or oftener, some explicit affirmation of the supernatural occurs ; but which contain no circumstantial narrative of miracu- lous events. Of this sort are Seven of the Epistles. III. Those in which we find no affirmation of this sort, and throughout Avhich the supernatural makes no other appearance than that which is implicitly (though necessarilv) conveyed in the primary article of the (124) THE RESTOKATION OF BELIEF. 125 Christian profession — namely, the Resurrection of Christ. This necessary implication always under- stood, the writer affirms nothing that is miraculous. As many as Fourteen of the Epistles come under this category. In relation to the present argument the Apocalypse does not take a place in our arrangement. The facts then which, under this aspect, stand before us, in outline, are these — That, out of the six and twenty constituents of the Canon, Fourteen are (as I here presume to call them) non-supernatural, saving only that one constant element, expressed or implied in every Christian writing — the Resurrection of Christ. Of the Twelve remaining books, Seven Epistles, besides this universal implication, distinctly affirm the fact of a miraculous agency of which the writer professes to have personal cognizance. Five, or, if the Gospel of Luke and the Acts be reckoned as one — Four, books not merely allege this agency, but narrate instances of miracles ; and so relate them that the natural and supernatural constitute a continuous tissue, not resolvable into two, except by violence. It is natural to place these three classes in the order here assigned to them ; but the logical order, or that in which they offer themselves most conveniently for a rigid scrutiny, which would end in a peremptory conclusion, is just the contrary. I therefore begin with the Fourteen Epistles which, liable to the con- dition already mentioned, are here designated as the non-supernatural. These are — The Epistles, to thd'^ Ephesians — to the Colossians — to the Philippians — 11* % 126 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. the two to the Thessalonians— the two to Timothy, the Epistles to Titus, and to Philemon, and the five Catholic Epistles of St. James, St. John, and St. Jude. This significant fact, that more than half of the authentic documents of a Religion boldly resting itself upon miraculous attestations, contain no explicit allu- sion to such events, claims our strict attention. At a glance this fact is susceptible of opposite interpreta- tions ; but its true meaning will be seen in attending to the particular instances in which it appears. Manifestly, this tri-partition of the Canonical books is founded upon no intrinsic difference distinguishing them ; but is accidental merely. The difi"erence has no other reality than that which attaches to these compo- sitions in their bearing upon the argument just now in hand. It is to the same writer that we attribute five of the books of the second class, and nine of those belonging to the third ; and between those of the second and those of the third, there is discernible no difference of doctrine, or of tone, or of moral intention. Yet the one circumstance which constitutes the reason of this present classification is itself explicable, and it consists perfectly with our assumption of the historic reality of the Christian documents. That fourteen out of twenty-one epistles, should contain no affirmation con- cerning miracles, does not imply that miracles were not alleged by the teachers of Christianity ; — for they are alleged, boldly and clearly ; but it quite excludes the inference that these teachers were men of heated i minds whose element was the world of wonders, and who would alwnys be labouring to propagate the -same THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 127 feeling, and to keep alive a species of excitement which is found to be peculiarly grateful to the mass of man- kind. This fact, moreover, under the conditions which, as we shall see, attach to it, excludes the supposition that the preachers of the Gospel were accustomed to indulge themselves in the supernatural where it was safe to do so ; but that they cautiously abstained from any allusion to it where there might be a risk of provoking scrutiny and contradiction ; the very contrary of this is that which presents itself. The writers of these Fourteen Epistles — this is con- spicuously evident — were neither striving to bolster up their own confidence, by incessant references to miracles ; nor endeavouring to sustain the constancy of their con- verts, by any such means. Their habit was — we do not infer this, but see it — to allege miracles whenever there was direct occasion so to do — and not otherwise ; and therefore, though they make this allegation in Seven Epistles, they do not make it \\\ fourteen. When an Apostle writes to his intimates — his colleagues, and to those whose belief was a tranquil assurance, like his own — not a syllable of the supernatural meets the eye. When he defies his adversaries, and rebukes a set of faulty converts, he takes his stand upon miracles ; but even then a word of allusion to them is enough. The Fourteen Epistles that do not refer to the super- natural are attributed to four writers, namely, St. Paul, St. John, St. Jude, and St. James. The temperament of these four writers is as diverse as can be imagined, and the style of each has no resemblance to that of the others. This dissimilarity of character being conspicu- ous (and it has often been insisted upon) the fact that 128 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. the four are brought tlius into company on the ground of their abstinence from the supernatural, in these epistles, carries the more meaning ; for it is evident that this abstinence did not draw its reasons from the dispositions of an individual writer, but from an in- fluence belonging to the Religion they professed, and ■which bore alike upon the four whenever the circum- stances under which they WTOte were similar, or similar in this particular respect. It has been customary to say — and we may always say it confidently — that God works no miracles without cause sufficient : and now it appears that these His servants make no mention of miracles — Avithout cause sufficient. As in the Christian dispensation the supernatural was measured out by the necessity of the occasion, so are the allusions to it re- stricted within the limits of a rigid frugality. St. Jude. I TAKE in hand the Epistle of St. Jude as if it were the solitary extant contemporaneous document of that Christianity of which I have seen and heard so much, while traversing the Roman world in the times of Trajan and the Antonines. This Epistle is one of those which, through the caution of the ancient Church, took its place among the avii-Kiyofiivo. — the "controverted." Not that its antiquity was questioned, or its authenticity, in any such sense as is material to my present argument. The writer does not call himself an Apostle ; and the Church hesitated to admit the claims which had been THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 129 advanced in his behalf in this respect. Besides, such was the religious feeling of tht Christian body, and of the critics of the third century, that because Jude, in two places, quotes, as genuine, two books that were held to be spurious, this apparent error was judged to be incompatible with his repute as an Inspired writer. Although an easy supposition, namely, that St. Jude cites, not those spurious writings, but some then extant remains, afterwards incorporated in the spurious books, might have obviated this objection, it so far had in- fluence as to keep this Epistle under a cloud until some time in the fourth century. But with no ambiguities of this kind have I any thing to do at present. That the Epistle is a writing of the Apostolic, or very early times, has not been reasonably questioned. What this means is just this — that if those rules of historical criticism which prevail in this department — the department to which the instance rightfully belongs — are allowed to take effect, then the Epistle of St. Jude is a genuine document of the Christianity of the first century. Yet, even if it were nothing better than a good imitation of such documents, promulgated in the Apostolic age, it would serve my purpose as well. The energy, the simplicity, the gravity, and the moral tone proper to a genuine writing, are manifestly the characteristics of this. It has, too, a graphic force and a rotundity peculiar to it. Look to the Greek of this epistle, and you recognize the style of a writer who has a great command of tropical phraseology, and whose cumulation and condensation together indicate an intensity of feeling, which yet is governed in the manner that is usual with men in places of authority, 1,30 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. who, while they write with power, are careful not to compromise their position by a lax diffuseness. While they show a stern countenance toward offenders, they preserve the calm aspect of paternal love towards the better sort. But the document in hand carries a meaning of a more definite kind. Whether or not we choose to regard an affirmation of the supernatural as a dead weight which must sink any writing in which it occurs, no such weight attaches to the Epistle in hand. Indirectly, as I have said, the reality of the primary miracle of the Christian pro- fession is implied ; but the writer claims no power of working miracles for himself; nor does he allude to any occurrences of this class. There does not present itself, therefore, aiiy hypothetical difficulty which should bar the way of the inference I have in view. Thus far I suppose myself to know absolutely nothing concerning Christianity beyond that which I have gathered, by some industry, from the writers — Christian and Heathen — of the period specified (p. 39.) What I have so learned stands far out of the reach of con- troversy or contradiction. No scholarlike man would dream of attempting to bring the main facts into question. This various and voluminous evidence is, as I have said (pp. 56 and 104) a body of testimonies gathered from a surface geographically more extended than the Roman empire ; and when thus regarded, the broadly expanded mass is seen to take a concentric bearing upon that which must have been the common source of the whole. I^^d^ed nothing belonging to that central point had come down to us, we must have THE EESTORATION OF BELIEF. 131 surmised concerning it as well as we could ; but if only a single fragment belonging to it reacbes us, tben, instead of vague surmises, we look to it in tbe war- rantable expectation of finding tbat this piece, small as it may be, will show a true congruity with the mass which remotely bears upon it. The mason's chiseling upon this key-stone will serve to identify it as belonging to the arch. Take notice then of my purpose, which is this : — in the course of an inductive scrutiny of the various ma- terials in my hand, I am getting together, and bringing to their respective places, the well-squared stones of a firm historic structure, to which structure, as I shall afterward show, the supernatural so coheres that the two elements can never be sundered; or can never be fairly sundered. The community addressed in this Epistle was of some standing, for it had its stated observances, its ^drtat,, and there had been time for it not merely to develop its own proper qualities, but to draw toward itself, as a new and fervent religious body always does, men of cloaked purposes, who had found in it the means of gratifying their ambition, their cupidity, or their licen- tiousness. Yet this mischief, the constant attendant as it is of a remarkable religious movement, was a recent occurrence ; for the writer, a man in authority, upon gaining knowledge of it had ^^ hastened" to throw him- self in the way of its further spread — rcdisav artovbriv These evil-purposed men had snatched at a doctrine which, when it is grossly apprehended by men of a sensual temper, seems to screen all vices. We descry 132 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. in this instance the distinguishing feature of the Christian system (already known to us) that is to say, the free remission of sins, of which even the most pro- fligate are invited to avail themselves. It is not against the immorality of the wide world that the writer in- veighs ; but against that of those who had abused a Christian profession in this very manner. This abuse had become rank in a degree to which seasons of perse- cution supply an effective remedy. The -season of general persecution had not, as it seems, yet com- menced ; for if it had, these vultures would have flown. The Church of the martyr age we found in the atti- tude of a moral force, struggling to maintain a difficult position, closely beleaguered on every side by gross errors of belief, by abounding immoralities, and by virulent animosities. In the course of this strusifflc the Church was unconsciously coming into the possession of that fundamental principle of genuine morality — the sense of individual responsibility toward God. This germ of whatever is good it brought out into act for itself, and then passed it down for the benefit of man- kind in all time following. But we naturally look for the rudiments of so remarkable a revolution in the ori- ginal documents of the religion which gave it to the world, and now it comes under our eye in this Epistle. At a later time it was constancy in the endurance of suflFerings for the truth's sake that had thrown the Christian upon his individual responsibility. In this earlier age it was constancy in resisting the insidious advances of false doctrine, and of specious immoralities that had availed to the same end ; and this constancy, as well in its later as in its earlier forms, had been THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 133 animated by the same prospect of immortal blessedness. Thus are these springs of the moral life mingled in the closing injunctions of the Epistle. Towards delinquents a compassionate discrimination was to be used — the in- dividual demerits of each being considered (verses 22, 23) ; while those who stood firm were reminded of their dependence every moment upon the help of God ; and this caution is conveyed in terms which, within the compass of five lines, concentrate what is most affecting in Theology and in Ethics. As to this majestic dox- ology, we should lose more in losing the truths it con- veys than in consigning to the abyss of oblivion the entire body of classical philosophy. " To Him who is able to guard you unfallen, and to make you stand before the glory (of his presence) unblamable in joy — to the one God, our Saviour, by Jesus Christ our Lord, (be ascribed) glory and majesty, might and authority, as well now as throughout all ages. Amen." Here then we find in this Epistle, exempt from every exception, reasonable, or unreasonable, A CEN- TERIXG-STONE of that structure which, in the age of the Antonines, had arched over the Roman world, from East to West, from North to South. St. James. To WHICH of the persons of this name, mentioned in The Gospels, this Epistle should be attributed, it is of no moment to inquire ; nor is it material to know any thing more concerning it than that it is of very early date ; of which fact, besides the references to it by 12 134 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. Clement, Hermas, and others — the pLace it hokls in the ancient Syriac version is sufficient evidence. Notwithstanding a single passage of ambiguous im- port (v. 14, 15) I do not hesitate to class this epistle along with the non-supernafMral. The writer, among miscellaneous injunctions, gives one which by no means necessitates the supposition of wdiat should be called a miraculous agency : — miracles were incidental and ex- traordinary (in their very import) but in this place a customary occurrence is referred to, and the reason of the course which the writer advises to be taken is drawn from a general truth, namely, the efficacy of prayer. The force and vivacity of this composition, besides the comparative purity of the Greek, give it a very marked character. It resembles, except in a few phrases, none of those with which, in the canon of the New Testa- ment, it is associated. The writer gives us a distinct idea of himself, as -well as a portraiture of the persons with whom he had to do, which is specially graphic. The indications of historic reality stand out, one might say, with a harsh prominence on every paragraph of this Epistle. Nothing here has been smoothed down : there has been no revision of the first draught w^ith a view to secure consistency, or to avoid giving offence. The writer must have known that his official position, and the weight of his personal character, could secure for him a hearing, how unacceptable soever might be the rebukes which it was his duty to administer To no community could these remonstrances, and these reprehensions, and these pungent advices seem flattering. They might be submitted to, but they could THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 135 not be welcomed. The writer uses the tone of a man in authority — in oiEce ; yet he does not labour to vin- dicate that authority; nor does he go about to sustain the pretensions of a sacerdotal class ; he falls in with no prejudices ; he flatters no overweenings of national or sectarian self-love. The epistle bears upon its sur- face the straightforward purpose of a firmly constituted and fearless mind, opposing itself at once to open abuses and to specious pretexts. Nothing that is sinister — nothing deeper than the resolute intention of one who is jealous for truth and virtue, can any where be discerned among the sententious clauses of this com- position. We are free to take it for what it seems : to take it in any other sense we are not free. We are no more at liberty so to do than we should be to put an ill con- struction upon the words or conduct of a neighbour, •against whom we have not a shadow of unfavourable evidence. This writer is not a man of meditative turn : his modes of thinking are fixed ; his views, so far as appears from the epistle, are limited ; his habits and feeling show the practical, not the abstract tendency. In temper he is firm ; or even severe ; but yet he is discriminative; and, toward the well-behaved he is indulgent and loving. He resents subterfuges, he is indignant at wrong. He does not work his way, by reasoning toward a conclusion, but seizes it with viva- city, by a moral instinct. His logic is of this kind — " Talk as you may — profess what you please, I know of only one sort of piety that can be acceptable before God, our Father ; which shows itself in visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and in keeping 136 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. itself unspotted from the (pollutions of the) world. — Whatever your theology may be, the wisdom which I acknowledge to be genuine and heavenly, is pure, peacefully disposed, gentle, easy to be persuaded, abounding in works of mercy, and in fruits of good- ness: — it is impartial, and aborrent of disguises." Such is the writer ; but the episile gives a brightly historic reflexion of the manners, tempers, usages, of the community, or class of persons that is addressed. But now shall not a discreet Christian apologist hesi- tate before he lifts the curtain ? He will do so if what he is in search of, in antiquity, is a factitious image, or a fabulous social condition ; not if he be in quest of hard historic realities : not if it be his ambition to drive off from the Christian precincts the shadows, the myths, the quaint unintelligible hypotheses of German origin, in the mists of which English Disbelief is just now finding a momentary refuge. Even if the writer of this Epistle had not prefixed to it the conventional phrase which designates his nation, " the twelve tribes of the Dispersion," we should have had no difiiculty in recognising our company. It is certain that, on this occasion, we have entered the an- cient Synagogue. The noisy congregation around us has become professedly Christian ; but in behaviour, and in moral costume, they are Jews, more than Chris- tians. They are persons who have not undergone that melting down of the soul which took place in the in- stance of educated Polytheists who, when they " turned from dumb idols to serve the living God," and when they awoke to the hope of immortality, passed under the transformations of a new existence. As to these THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 137 synnagogue converts, they had given up one religious persuasion, and they had taken up another. They had yielded the one point of controversial difference be- tween the Synagogue and the Church ; but they had retained entire, their factious spirit, and their wrang- ling habit of discourse. They were expert in the twists and sophistries of casuistical evasion : they were ever ready to cry " Corban," when appealed to on the ground of mercy and piety. Between the obliquities of their Jewish training, and the simplicity of the Christian system, a perpetual conflict was going on. That char- acteristic of the community of which we get a glimpse in this graphic epistle, is — moral restlessness — a want of equilibrium — a want of repose, an utter want of consistency. One hears the clatter and the jars of a discordant assemblage of men who, as yet, have ad- justed nothing in their own principles or motives. In a word — and it is a word full of historic meaning, we have stepped into the Synagogue ! These Jewish converts were skilled in those perverse reasonings, by means of which men are wont to throw the blame of their many failures upon God (i. 13). They were glib in speech, (i. 19) lagging in conduct ; prompt to dictate, (iv. 1) slow to learn. Ready to cringe before the rich, (ii. 2) backward in administer- ing to the needs of the poor, (ii. 15). Such was the wild license of the Jewish tongue, that the writer ex- hausts all figures that can be applicable to the subject, in labouring to set forth its unbridled excesses : a tongue, the incendiary intensity of which declared its rise in the nether furnace ; a tongue, in one hour, tak- ing its part in a liturgy, in the next pouring forth 12* 138 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. curses ! These apt scholars of the Devil (iii. 15) slan derers, like their teacher, (iv. 2) are dealt with in a way which nothing could sustain but the intrepidity of the most assured virtue and piety. We shall presently find the very same men (the likenesses are not to be mis- taken) treated by another chief of the new religion, in his own style ; but with the same fearlessness. Critics have differed as to the country of the writer. It is of little moment to settle this point ; — of none just now. The people of the synagogue are much the same folk, wherever we find them. They were so, not merely from the prevalence and decisiveness of their national dispositions and habits ; but because the indi- viduals composing these congregations were migratory, carrying with them, of course, their peculiarities. Even now, in this synagogue in which we have taken our stand, there are some who have lately arrived from the ends of the earth ; and there are also some who, at the moment when the sun goes down, will be busy at home, strapping their packages, and preparing to depart, at dusk, or at dawn, having already whispered to them- selves the words reported by this writer — " To-day, or to-morrow, we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell and get gain." The precise date, too, of this epistle is controverted ; yet, apart from reasons of a critical kind, and which favour a very early date, that peculiar moral condition of indeterminate conflict, between Jewish tempers, and Christian principles, which this epistle brings so vividly before us, must, in its nature, have belonged only to a transition period ; and we know, in fact, that while Ju daism speedily collapsed upon itself, Christianity soor THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 139 ceased to wear this party coloured garb ; and every where showed its own mind, as the very contrary of Judaism. This epistle would not comport with any state of things of later date than the Jewish war. There is one point of accordance between the epistle of St. Jude and that of St. James which we should not fail to notice. I have said, (p. 101) that a remarkable uni- formity of tone characterizes those passages in the writ- ings of the martyr age in which the personal attributes of the Saviour Christ are alluded to; consequently, this prime feature of the Christianity of the second and third centuries should show itself in every docu- ment bearing date in the apostolic times. And so it does in these two instances, and the fact is the more observable because, in neither of them, is the theological element distinctly brought forward. The one writer speaks with a calm solemnity of Him whom some, by their immo- ralities, had impiously denied — " our only Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ ;" and the faithful are exhor- ted to " look for" the " mercy " of this Saviour, " unto eternal life." The other writer, in the same tone, and with the same allusive brevity, speaks of the Christian profession, as the faith of the " Lord Jesus Christ — (the Lord) of Glory." And he denounces those who, while persecuting the followers of the Saviour, were accus- tomed to "blaspheme that worthy name." These two epistles, then, the Imtoric reality of which stands out of the reach of legitimate scepticism, and which possess, in themselves, a peculiarly well-defined character, constitute — apart — and togethei' — a mass, in- destructible in itself, and equal to any stress which — to 140 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. revert to my masonic allusion, I may have occasion here- after to throw upon it. But suppose that, on the question of the genuineness and authenticity of these epistles, our critical evidence falls short, by a little, of irresistible demonstration. This imagined faultincss of proof (which in fact cannot be alleged) may indeed touch the question of the place that should be assigned to them in the Canon of In- spired Scripture ; but it scarcely affects at all, if at all, my present argument. I take this Epistle of St. James, marked as it is with the inimitable characteristics of genuineness — as much so as any literary remains of antiquity that might be placed by the side of it. As to its antiquity^ all shadow of doubt is removed, not merely by the quotations of it by the early Fathers, as a then well known writing ; but by its presence in the Syriac version, in which the epistle of St. Jude does not appear. These very early Translators found it already possessed of an accredited repute as an Apostolic work; and as such it had been ordinarily read in the churches using this language. But let us imagine that these ancient Translators, and that the Eastern Churches generally, had misjudged the case ; in fact, that they had been imposed upon — the epistle, although spurious, bearing so much the sem- blance of an apostolic work that they did not detect the fraud. The forger — the imitator — the compiler, by whatever epithet we should designate him, so well under- stood the manner of the apostolic teaching, and he knew so well what would be looked for by Christian readers in any composition purporting to come from an apos- tolic man, that he could expect nothing but instantane- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF.. 141 ous detection if he admitted into his copy so much as one line of ambiguous quality, as to its bearing upon morals. This imagined imitator of the apostolic style, after looking about him for samples, in order to choose the one which should seem the most characteristic, and the least likely to awaken suspicion, makes this sort of selection : — He writes an epistle, in the assumed name of James, for which he hopes to obtain currency among Jewish converts throughout the world, which epistle breathes an uncompromising moral intensity, and abounds in sharp rebukes of that sanctimoniousness which was the prominent characteristic of the Jewish people ? What does this mean but that the well-known apos- tolic style — the style which an imitator would think it the safest to attempt, was that of men who, with the courage of God's own prophets, were wont to risk every thing in behalf of the truth and virtue ? I do not see then that we should gain much on the side of Disbelief by suggesting doubts as to the genuineness of the epis- tles of the Canon : better let them pass at once for gen- uine and authentic. Apostolic Christianity, if looked at through its own crystal, shows the clear brightness of Heaven : — looked at in the copper speculum of spu- rious writings, it carries a resplendence, not sensibly dimmed. St. John. The First Epistle of St. John stands among the ufto%oyov/xsi'a of the anciout Church, the genuineness and authenticity of which are copiously attested. The second 142 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. and the third were questioned ; but these are of no moment in relation to my argument, any further than this — that, if imitations, the absence in them of any allusion to miracles shows that this omission was custo- mary in the Christian writings of the time. There is not a word or a phrase occurring in the first Epistle which could suggest the idea that Christianity had made its way in the world by the aid of miracu- lous attestations — the one foundation miracle always supposed. Yet at several points, throughout it, an allusion to miracles would have seemed fit and natural; especially where an appeal is made, to that assurance, of being in the possession of truth which the writer affirms to be the privilege of Christians. The appeal is to an interior vitality, not to external demonstrations (iii. 14, 19, iv. 16, v. 10). The appeal is to a moral test, not to the supernatural (iv. 20). The witnessing on earth (v. 8) omits the witnessing by " signs and won- ders." The ripened Christianity which this writer spreads out before us, had no intrinsic alliance with any such attestations ; which belonged to the outworks of the New Religion. The writer last cited was seen to be in conflict, right and left, with the first inburst of rancid Judaism ; but at the time when the epistle now before us was given to the Christian community, this source of trouble was just passing off to the distance : the disturbers had dis- covered their mistake in thinking to connect themselves with the rising body ; and they had retired. " They went out from us, but they were not of us ; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us." (ii. 19.) The Christian body had at length become homogeneous; IRE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 143 the leaven having worked itself into the mass. Yet human nature is always the same ; and we find that these Teachers, however far the system they adminis- tered might have shifted its position, and how widely soever they may themselves have differed in tempera- ment, yet tread the same straight path whenever this same human nature, with its frailties, awakens their fears for the honour of the Gospel. This identity of feeling, and even of language, is the more observable, because, in this instance, it forms the one link connecting two writers who, individually, might he taken as extreme samples of the most opposite ten- dencies of the human mind. The one, with knit brow, expanded nostx'il, firm lip, and outstretched hand — like the master of a ship in a storm, is intent upon the be- haviour of his people, and ubservant of the shifting tem- pest : — the other, Avith even front, and open eye, is gazing upon the cloudless vault of heaven, as if uncon- scious of earth, and always ready to leave it. And yet this contemplatist Avhose own converse is with the unseen of the Christian system, so understands this system, and is so alive to its bearing upon the conduct of its adhe- rents, as to know that, if the sordid and factitious reli- gionist slides oif from the path of morality, on the one side, the sincere idealist — the man of meditation, is not unlikely to slide off from it, on the other. Noticeable it is that, while the main drift of the one epistle is practical, and the spirit and tendency of the other is theological, yet, in the course of it, the writer lets go, and again takes up his admonitory strain as often as seven times within the compass of so brief a treatise. He does this as if at the prompting of an un- 144 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. defined moral instinct, which, ever and again, brings him down from Heaven to earth, alarmed lest he should have failed in any point of his duty, as a leader of the people. St. James, with a ruthless hand, rends the mask from the hypocrite. St. John, with a loving solemnity warns the mystically disposed against those illusions — those oblivions of the obligations of life, of which, so easily, such men are the victims. The one Teacher thus rebukes the perversity of the dogmatist — " What good is it, my brethren, for a man to say he hath faith, and have not works ? Can faith [such a faith) save him ?" The other teacher addresses himself to the sincere theopathist — lost in the meditation of in- effable perfections ; but yet the two come into conjunc- tion, as we say of the heavenly bodies, on the very same meridian of Christian charity: — the one says, "if a brother or a sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them — depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled ; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body ; what doth it profit ?" The other says the same thing, in his own manner : " Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shuttcth up his bowels from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ?" Now at this point I decline to accept a customary tribute, rendered to the " sublime purity of the Chris- tian Ethics" — which " all admit." This vapid homage will not satisfy the occasion. I require from a reason- able antagonist, an acknowledgment having more of historic distinctness about it. It is very true, and there can be little merit in not denying it, that a high THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 145 moral tone pervades the books of the New Testament. But beyond this, if we possess any of that instinc- tive faculty which enables a reader to look into the bosom of a writer, through the glass of what he has written, then we must admit that, if any two of these writers whose individual structure of mind was the most dissimilar, are placed side by side, there is seen, working at the depth of the heart of each, alike, a moral intensity — quick, sensitive, and always consistent in its utterance ; for even if we are not always able to discern the coherence of their theological reasonings — we always admit the harmony of their ethical conclu- sions. This fact I shall turn to account in the course of my future argument ; for it can never be made to consist with any of these suppositions under cover of which disbelief takes shelter. St. Paul. Of the fourteen Epistles attributed (and rightly) to St. Paul, as many as Nine take their place along with those already spoken of, as containing no allusion to miraculous occurrences, or to miraculous gifts. Of these Nine, four are addressed to individuals who were the Writer's intimates and colleagues. Five are congrega- tional addresses, sent to those four Societies with the religious condition of which the writer was, in the main, well content. With these there was no serious contro- versy in hand ; nor any personal contest, making it needful for him to sustain his apostolic authority. The o 146 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. faith of tliese his personal friends, and of these attached and obedient converts, was, like his own — it was a "full assurance of faith" — a faith to which miracles could add no steadfastness. So it was that when no motive suggested a reference to supernatural attestations, none appear. ~~ But as to six of the nine, now in view, they sparkle, as one might say, with historic crystallizations ; and every paragraph reflects something of the objects that were then surrounding the writer. St. John knew just so much of that world through which his pilgrimage heavenward lay, as might be forced upon his notice by urgent motives of responsibility toward the church. St. Paul knew the world around him, as those know it who are gifted with perceptions the most intensely vivid. The persons, the transactions, the modes of feeling in the midst of which he was moving, he was as much alive to, as was the most observant of his contemporaries. He has penned no graphic descrip- tions of oriental splendours, or of the Roman greatness, but as often as he needs a figure in illustration of his subject, he shows that he could have done well what he has not attempted. A sheer pedantry, I should think it, to profess hesi- tation in accepting these nine Epistles as genuine. Unless it were to give proof of critical quixotism, no one would have gone about to show reason for any such doubts. But, just now, it is enough if only some of them are genuine, and the remainder are good imita- tions. The reasonings — if they deserve to be so de- signated — of those of the German critics who have laboured to bring the three pastoral epistles into doubt, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 147 are of a sort that might well be adduced in illustration of a copious and not unimportant branch of intellectual philosophy — I mean, nationality in logic. Germans reason after a fashion which a firmly constituted and cultured English mind resents as an insult to common sense. Upon the merest film of possibility the atten- uated intellectuality of Germany soars away through thin air. Between the not-to-be-translated mysteries of its abysses, and the infinite divisibilities of its heights, the mind of England finds no terra firma. A writer who undertakes the task of defending the canon of Holy Scriptures as inspired, must needs meet and refute these refinements, even the last of them ; but no such obligation rests upon one who carries forward an argument such as that which I have now in hand. The pastoral epistles connect themselves by some incidental allusions, with the epistles of St. James, and of St. Jude, for we find in them a portraiture which must at once be recognised. A particular class of men against whom one apostolic writer inveighs — to whom another gives battle, and to whom another transiently alludes, the writer of the three pastoral epistles so depicts as that they may easily be identified. They were every where found hovering about the infant society ; and, being by temper and habit noisy and obtrusive, it would have been an easy error in an observant polytheist of that time, to have spoken of them as true samples of the new religion, and to have drawn an inference accordingly, to its disadvantage. We may just fancy the sarcastic author of the piece — nEPi ths 148 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. nEPErPiNOT TEAETTiis — the Voltaire of his age, if he had lived a century earlier, to have encountered some of these men, and to have given us his pithy descrip- tion of them. We may suppose him to say that he had met them in the streets of Alexandria, and at Ephesus, and at Antioch, and at Corinth, as Avell as at Rome ; and he had found them too in Crete, which seemed to be their head quarters. They are voluble, contentious, acrimonious, virulent in their talk, obtruding every where the mystical dogmas of their religion ; and cloak- ing always their real purposes. Insidious are they, and fertile in expedients for drawing the unwary into their trap ; and all this is to fill their bags with money. I have found one of these huckster preachers, with his box of baubles slung over his shoulder, working his way into the court yard of a great house, where he has contrived to draw the women about him — mistress and maids, whom he entertains with marvellous stories, and with more marvellous dogmas ; Avhile, at frequent pauses, he puffs the contents of his package, where you may find the aromatics of Arabia — the oils of Syria — the silks, the silver rings and chains, the gems (not worth a button) of India, the tear-bottles, the signets, the scarfs, the tiaras of Persia : — and all as worthless as this new philosophy itself — this " marvellous wisdom of the Christians." Even Lucian, if he had written in this manner, must have admitted that those " Palestinian priests and scribes' who were, as he does say, the reputed authors of this " philosophy," had done their utmost to de- nouncB these false adherents, and to expel them from the Society. "A Christian bishop" — writes one of THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 119 these Teaclicrs, " must not merely be a man of blame- less life ; but of such energy also that he may be able to convince and to put to silence those disorderly and noisy persons — Jews chiefly, who, with sordid inten- tions, teach what they ought not. These are they who subvert whole families, and while they profess to know God, in works deny him : — abominable are they and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." The very same persons are they which one finds " creeping into houses, and leading captive silly wo- men, laden with sins, led away with divers lusts." This plain dealing, and more to the same purpose, did not long fail to take effect. The men — as we have just seen — went off — declared themselves open enemies of the new religion, and acted as such thenceforward ; and when they had taken this turn, we find them using the influence they had already acquired in every city with "ladies of rank" to move persecution against the Chi-istian teachers. St. Luke courteously calls these ladies " devout and honourable women;" yet it is not certain that St. Paul, in a letter of pointed advices addressed to his friend, might not be thinking even of these — as the same " silly women," who, at the insti- gation of the Jews, moved the magistrates to make an ill use of their power, driving the Apostles from city to city, or leaving them without redress in the hands of the rabble. It would have been of no avail, probably, to appeal to the candour of one like Lucian, or to his sense of justice, spreading before him these three pastoral epistle, as evidence that he had misapprehended the new religion. This anticynic was too thoroughly cynical 13* 150 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. in soul and temper to have listened to any such chal- lenge, or to have placed himself within range of any generous emotions. But we of this time profess our- selves to be just, candid, and discriminating, and there- fore may be challenged in any case to give a verdict according to the evidence, even although it be in con- travention of our previous opinions and inward wishes. What then are the conclusions which, looking to these three epistles — and to nothing else — are war- rantable and inevitable ? — looking to these three epistles, and not looking away from them, to the right hand or to the left. — Although they now stand in a collection of writings that are stitched in the same cover, this juxta-position is incidental only. They have indeed reached us on the same float, with other writings, but they obtained a lodgement upon it on a showing of their own merits, singly. Individually they have passed the ordeal of the severest criticism. The probability that they are not genuine is infinitely small. Even if one of the three were abjudged, it would still keep its place in argument, as a good imitation of the apostolic manner. The pretext (illogical as it would be to urge it) that these pieces are damaged — historically by an admixture of the supernatural, does not in this case find any sort of lodgement ; for here there is no such admixture — the belief of Christ's resurrection being always allowed for. But although it would be illogical to advance such an exception as this — for the reality of the Christian miracles is the very question in debate — yet a valid reason would present itself for regarding these, or any other writings, suspiciously, if they pictured a fabulous THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 151 condition of the social system; — or if it appeai^ed tliat the writer, surrounded always by the golden haze of his own fictitious emotions, could never see things around Lim as they are. Manifestly it is not so here : human nature is plainly spoken of, such as it is, always ; and it is cared for accordingly : — cautions, provisions, in- junctions, varied and repeated, show that the writer was at once cool in his judgment, and practical in his views, as well as immoveably firm in principle. These epistles are so admonitory in their drift and tone that, as to what might be the virtues of the Chris- tian people of that time, we gather no information from this source. From Pliny's letter to Trajan we should learn more that is favourable to the purity of the Chris- tian body, than we do from Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus. "We do not need the evidence of these three letters to establish the fiict of the existence of Christian societies at the time alleged. But the purpose they do serve is to show that Christianity, as interpreted by the most zealous and intelligent of its first Teachers, held its place in the world as an earnest Remonstrant Force, opposed, not merely to religious errors, but to evasive pretexts, to illusions, to hypocrisies, and to immoralities — Jewish or Gentile. Especially was it a protest against the unintelligible jargon — the interminable wranglings, the sophistry and the impiety which its own energy, simplicity and grandeur had woke up, on every side of it, as its assailants. If the mind of one of these writers seems at any time unhinged, while he is making his protest against these assailants, there is an ingredient mingling itself 152 THE RESTORATION OF LELIEE. with these vivid passages, which has a deep meaning. It is the characteristic of minds that are habitually tranquil and conversant with what is great and pure, when summoned by a sense of duty to join issue, hand to hand, with the lawless and disorderly of this world, to revert, as if with a rebound of the soul, to the loftiest themes ; — as if desiring to escape from a scene of confusion, to the sanctuary of its happy and wonted meditation. Now it is remarkable that the most sublime and beautifully-worded of those doxologies, and of those condensed enunciations of eternal truths which illumine the pages of the New Testament, are found embedded in the very midst of warm remonstrant passages. In fact, within the narrow limits of these three epistles — the drift of which is remonstrant, there occur as many as fourteen mainly of these resplendent parentheses. The very same indication of spontaneous reaction is discoverable in the epistles of St. James, and of St. Jude — both of them reprobative ; — among these are some which stand unmatched in grandeur of idea, and in majestic simplicity of expression. The Epistle to Philemon has often — perhaps often enough, been appealed to by those who have under- taken the Christian argument. Nothing can be more legitimate than such an appeal, if the question be — What was the writer ? was he such a one as Paul must have become, after a thirty years' apprenticeship to illusion and unreality ? To aflSrm this, or even to har- THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. 153 bour such a thought at all, is not so much a wrong done to the individual, as an outrage upon human nature. This letter breathes the tranquil rectitude of a mind that is in perfect equipoise ; and that is used to take its rest among the gentlest and purest emotions. It does not touch the supernatural ; but it is in a genuine sense itself NATURAL in every phase of it. An accord of truth vibrates in every well-attuned mind at the hear- ing of every verse. Even if the writer of this letter had not reminded his friend that he was — "Paul tho aged,'' we might surely have inferred this fact from that peculiarity of it which is its charm ; for it shows the mellowed gentleness of a spirit that, at the end of years of labour and of suffering^ has survived all its vehemence, but none of its sensibility. In what way then does this Epistle avail us for pur- poses of argument ? It peremptorily avails for exclud- ing any of those suppositions touching the character of the writer which must of necessity be resorted to when, the merely historical part of Christianity being granted as real, the supernatural, thereto cohering, is attempted to be set off from it as spurious. The two Epistles to the Christians of Thessalonica are of early date, according to the almost unanimous verdict of modern critics. A phrase occurring in the second pargraph of the first Epistle — tv Bwufin, had at this time acquired a conventional sense, and probably it carried an allusion to those miraculous attestations 154 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. of the Gospel whicli had attended its first promulga- tion in that region. Otherwise, or hejond the insertion of this single word, these two epistles do not contain a reference, direct or indirect, to any such events, as if then occurring, or as having lately occurred, under the eye of the persons addressed. This absence of the supernatural is full of significance in this particular case. Inconsiderately, in relation to their own argument, those writers who have lately assailed Christianity have noised the instance of Paul's apparent error in regard to the near approach of the consummation of all things. It has been said, in a tone of exultation — "You say Paul was an inspired man ; and yet we here find him professing a belief, in regard to which, assuredly, he was utterly mistaken." It would be enough to reply that the second of these Epistles, written for the very purpose of coi'recting the mistake to which the first had given rise, conclusively proves that the writer, notwithstanding his use of the personal pronouns, did not himself entertain any such anticipation. A proper inference also from this same instance has been drawn by Paley, in proof (if proof were needed) of the genuineness of the Epistle. But a sufficient reply, on my part, would be this — that the objection bears wholly upon the question of Inspiration, with which at present, I have nothing to do. I am looking into these remains of apostolic Chris- tianity, in a purely historical light, and not at all as the materials of Theology. Thus then let us handle this matter with all freedom, and see Avhat use we can make of it, on either side. You THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 155 take the language of the Avriter in its apparent meaning, and therefore assume that, when he says " We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord " — and again, when he affirms that "We shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air" — his mind was filled with the glowing idea of a near exchange, for himself and his converts, of pain, want, and humiliation, for eternal blessedness and glory. Let this then be our hypothesis. The writer was himself in a condition so helpless that, while preaching the* Gospel, he w\as compelled to labour night and day for his daily bread, and at the same time he was under- going grievous ill treatment, at the risk of life. Those to whom he wrote, being mostly of humble rank, were also enduring cruel persecution at the hands of their Gentile neighbours, on account of their religion. Such being the present position of the Teacher, and of the people, he holds before them the belief that, midway in the tranquil hours of some day, not very distant — earth itself should tremble at the blast of the archangel, and should echo the notes of the trump of God, and the shouts of celestial myriads : — The Lord himself, with the host that do his pleasure, drawing near to earth, and rescuing thence his faithful followers, carrying them off to immortal joys ! It was no wonder that simple people who thus under- stood (or misunderstood) their Teacher, should be much " shaken in mind," by such a prospect; or that some of them, breaking away from their ordinary occupations, as unnecessary, unbecoming their high expectations, should wander up and down — " working not at all" — but busying themselves in every thing rather than their 156 THE RESTORATION OF RELIEF. proper employments. This was quite according to the course of things, and some recent instances of a similar kind might easily be mentioned. Yet it is certain as to the propagator of this per- turbing belief, that he had not himself in any degree lost the balance of his own mind. A tone of calm affection, and of a subdued feeling — the consequence -of long con- tinued suffering — pervades both epistles, this first espe- cially, which is distinguished also by the earnestness of its admonitions, as to conduct and temper, in purity, rectitude, sobriety, gentleness, and avoidance of every guise or semblance of evil. If in any case we may trust to the universal prin- ciples of human nature, we may confidently affirm that a mind which while it is filled with anticipations of the most animating sort, is yet recollective of all proprieties, and careful on those points of duty which are not of an exciting kind, must be a strong mind, not a weak one— ^ a well regulated mind, not one that is habitually de- ranged by some conscious moral obliquity. According to the hypothesis now before us, Paul was looking, every day, for a triumphant apotheosis of him- self and his associates, amid the exulting shouts of the heavenly hosts ; — and yet he shows himself to be as regardful of the obligations of this present life as if a dull century of its trials and labours had been guaranteed to him. No ingenuity will avail to make this idea of the man consist with any of those suppositions upon which we are thrown if, while we accept the mere facts of Christianity (which it is impossible to deny) we attempt to rid ourselves of the supernatural, therewith connected ; for those suppositions imply that the THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 157 Apostles were men who strangely mingled in their men- tal structure, imbecility, extravagance, and a blunted sense of the obligations of truth. But now I relinquish the advantage put into my hand by an inconsiderate opponent, and assume the contrary supposition, which I take to be manifestly the true one — namely, that, in writing the first of these epistles, St. Paul did not entertain the belief which, at a glance, his language may seem to express. Then I ask, how was it that he did not entertain this belief? Ideas of this order were, as we see, actually present to his mind, and they furnished the grounds on which he took comfort for himself, and imparted it to others. Now with minds imbued with religious concep- tions the tendency has always shown itself to bring down the supernatural, if possible, upon tJte present Jwur. Even highly cultured minds have been seen to surrender themselves to this powerful impulse — "to- morrow, next month — next year, or such a year, named, which we may live to sec — these glories shall brighten the earth on which we tread." Thus, from age to age, have sincere but unstable souls been wont to beguile themselves on the field of prophetical interpretation. Not so St. Paul (on the supposition now before us). Yet why not ? If we say, because his mind Avas pre- eminently vigorous, and was always in the soundest con- dition ; if this be the reply, I am content ; and shall not fail to draw an inference accordingly. If the reply be — The actual course of this world's affairs, involving a slow development of evil principles, had been con- veyed to him superiiaturally , that is to say, by the teaching of IIim who alone looks on through the lapse 14 158 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. of ages ; thcii also I am content ; — for such an answer (the only true and admissible answer) embraces every thing on the side of Belief. It is beyond my pro- vince to advert particularly to that prediction of the second epistle by means of which the Apostle corrects the mistake into which his friends had fallen : never- theless this prediction, by its boldness, its gravity, and the unlikelihood of its fulfilment, bespeaks its own reality. It has been said that this prediction, coupled with another occurring in the Epistle to Timoth}^, are only notable instances of sagacity, forecasting the ten- dencies of human affairs. Wonderful indeed would be such an instance of long-sightedness ! but I should be apt to think that a mind Avhich could thus penetrate the dark unknown of centuries to come, must have seen that a religion pretending to be supernatural, and which yet was not so in fact, would soon exhaust its meagre resources, and disappear. Is it then our supposition, that an intellect of the highest order lent itself to an enterprise Avhich it saw to be baseless and desperate ? The absence of all allusion to miraculous attesta- tions in the Epistle to the Epiiesians, is a fact deserv- ing of particular attention. The captious exceptions of De Wette have at length been overruled, and the genuineness of this Epistle can scarcely be said to stand liable to a shade of reasonable doubt. Following the arbitrary division of the Received Text, we have before us 155 clauses, or separable mem- bers of a continuous flow of thought. Of these verses QQ convey the writer's fervent fc'clings, as in presence THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 159 of the loftiest themes of Christian Theology ; 89 verses are occupied, either immediately with pointed ethical injunctions, or with those reasons and motives that take a bearing upon the ordinary behaviour of Chris- tians; but is not so much as one clause, or phrase, does the writer turn aside to mention miracles, or miraculous endowments. And yet there are two places in this epistle in which such an allusion would have seemed quite natural. The first of these is (iv. 11,) where the functions which were then in exercise in the Church are enumerated, among which the power of working mira- cles does not find a place; although, in a parallel passage of another epistle (1 Cor. xii. 10 — 28) these powers are expressly named. The other place is that occurring toward the close (vi. 10, et seq.) in which the writer sets forth, in vivid figurative language, the ar- duous position which those occupy who, in making pro- fession of the Gospel, oppose themselves to the crafty and to the open violence, not only of men around them, but of invisible adversaries— more to be dreaded. Against these powers— seen and unseen, the Chris- tian soldier is exhorted to hold his ground, armed (the fanatic would have said — with Heaven's own thunder- bolt, and with those " fiery darts " which would bring omnipotence to bear upon the artillery of hell) armed, says the Apostle, with Truth, Rectitude, Peace, Faith, the hope of Salvation, and the Word of God ; for these are the defences and the weapons which a genuine wisdom approves. Quite of a piece with the spirit of this closing advice are the preceding admonitions, in the compass of which each of the principal points of homely morality is 160 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF, touched upon, in the very plainest form of words, and in a tone of earnest solemnity. But I hear you say, sarcastically—" It appears then that the Christian folk of those Apostolic times needed much looking to, as to their morals." I reply — It does so appear ; but then, if they needed it, they had it ; and this fact is enough in relation to my present purpose. What we find is this— That the first Teachers of Christ's religion, though they might forget, for a time, their own wonder-working endowments, never wrote a letter in which they forgot the main import of their religion ; which was to uproot the usurpation of Satan in this world ; — and this usurpation was to be resisted by means that are purely spiritual and moral. This absence of the supernatural, in the instance be- fore us, has however yet another meaning. The QQ verses already referred to, make up a cluster of parentheses, piled one upon another by the writer's fulness of feeling. He has almost forgotten his galling chain (vi. 20) ; he has forgotten the Eoman soldier at his side, and the prison ; — he has forgotten earth and its trials, as well as its pomps. As if with a seraph's wing he has reached the upper heavens, and thence he measures, at a glance, the scheme of human salvation, stretching out far into the eternity past ; and far into a bright eternity to come. On either hand of this shining pathway through the infinite, he sees a bright array of " principalities and powers," observant of this mystery of redemption — long veiled, and now revealed. While thus musing upon objects so vast, was the writer's state of mind such as we must approve, or not ? THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 161 Were his feelings — real or illusory ? If they were of the latter class, and if there be any coherence in human nature, meditations so lofty, indulged by one "who at the same time believed himself to stand near to the Supernatural — as we find he did, would infallibly have gone off upon this high ground ; — here he would have exhibited himself as in correspondence with heaven by means of those supernatural endowments which were at his command. How is it in fact that he descends to resume his ter- restrial standing-place ? He has just sealed his lofty meditations with a doxology; and then a returning consciousness of the sombre things of earth takes this turn — " I therefore a prisoner of the Lord beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called — with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suf- fering, forbearing one another in love." Adhering then to our document the case stands thus — On the one hand bright meditations did not lead the writer of this epistle toward the Supernatural ; — they did not, BECAUSE HE AVAS NO ENTHUSIAST : on the other hand, gloomy meditations did not drive him toward the Supernatural ; — they did not, because he was no Fanatic. He kept close to the course of practical wisdom and virtue — because, in fact, he was in the highest sense, wise, virtuous, and sound-minded. Toward the Christian people at Philtppi, St. Paul's feelings were those of warm affection, gratitude, and ap- proval. The personal allusions in this Epistle, addressed 14* 1G2 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. to this Society, are of the most peculiar kind ; and these, along with the mass of external testimonies, place it far out of the range of captious exceptions. Once again, then, referring to my protest against violence, I affirm that — violence not admitted — this morsel of Greek, now under my eye — this six pages of antiquity, is as much a Reality as is any other remains of past time which this present time conserves, and trusts to. If I may not say so much as this, show me, in accordance with the authentic rules of historical criticism, why not. In this composition the writer, who was then reach- ing the term of his labours — the religion which he had taught having by this time wrought the whole of its proper effect upon his mind — freely opens his heart to our inspection ; and in doing so he incidentally conveys the elements of Christianity itself, and exhibits its bearing upon human nature. Now I wish that we could read this one document of the Apostolic times as if not an atom beside had come down to us : let us take it as if it were our only means of forming an opinion concerning that religion of which we possess copious information as it had come to hold a place in the world, in the age of the Antonines. Whatever that breadth of facts required us to ima- gine, as belonging to the centre fact — the rise of this scheme, we find to be condensed within the limits of this one document. There is first the mysterious dig- nity of the Person to whom, on every page of the later Christian writings, a reference occurs, in terms of grave reverence, and devout affection. Lucian, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 163 and otlier writers of his age and class, assure us that the zeal and assiduity of the Christians of his time in serving or rescuing one another was incredible — afiYixwov 8s 'titb iOLXOi tTiihuiXvvv'ta.ti, irinhav T't totZv-tov yivfj-fai, Srjfjioaiov ol'Kpvgtiavoc avfifoftav Ttoiovjxsvoc ■to rtpay^ua, Ttavta ixivovv, t'laprtaTat }iiipu,iJ.ivoi aviov. To US this need not seem strange, for the motives which prompted such labours of love had a foundation in the Christian theology of surpassing intensity. The .vriter of this epistle says to his friends at Philippi — " Do not, every one of you, be regardful of his personal interests, but let each be mindful of the welfare of others : —in a word, let that disposition be in you which was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it no wrong to be equal to God ; and yet emptied himself (of this dignity) and took the form of a servant ;" and this to accomplish our salvation. It is testified abundantly, by their enemies, concern- ing the Christians of the martyr age, that they cheer- fully submitted to spoliations, and were even prodigal of life. Celsus mocks them on this very ground ; he says, though making much of the body in their doc- trine of the resurrection, they were ready — 7td%cv 6' ai>t6 pUtsiv aij xoxdatii, wj ati-i^ov — when challenged to renounce their hope of immortality. This is as it should be, if they had truly imbibed the spirit of their religion as at first taught them ; for St. Paul had said — " Yea doubt- less I reckon all things as a loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord ; for whom I have suifered the loss of all things, if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead." Pliny assures us that he found the Christians of his 164 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. province to be a harmless folk, binding themselves to do whatever is right, and to abstain from whatever is wrong. So it should be, for, from the first, they had been thus instructed. " As to any thing further my brethren (which I might wish to say, this is enough). "Whatever things (in profession or behaviour) are true, whatever things are seemly, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are loving, whatever things are well-reputed, if there be any thing of manly virtue, if any thing praiseworthy, make such things your study." And thus, in the main, did Christians behave them- selves in those times concerning which our information is ample — their enemies being their witnesses ; and thus — as we now see, had they been taught from the very first. There is here before us an arch — all in one style, one jamb of which has its resting place in the age of Trajan, the other in the time of Nero. In this Epistle we find a lofty theology — a bright immortality, a pure and a finished morality, a loving fervour, and a sharply struck individuality ; but there are no miracles. Nevertheless there seemed room for one, inasmuch as the writer had looked for " sorrow upon sorrow" in the dangerous illness of his attendant friend — Epaphroditus — a calamity he had not thought himself able to avert by supernatural means ; for these were at his command only for a single and clearly-defined purpose — the attestation of his message. Granted for this one purpose, no allusion to them is found in epistles addressed to those who needed no such assurances. The Epistle to the Christians of Colosse presents THE KESTORATION OF BELIEF. 165 the same elements, and sustains the same inferences : there is the same theology, as to the Person (i. 15), the same hope (i. 12, iii. 4) : the same morality (iii. 5, et seq.) : and throughout it, the same fervour and in- dividuality. It presents however this further charac- teristic of the writer's temper and principles — namely, a decisive protest against that specious pietism which so easily enslaves feeble minds by its abstracted mysticism, and its ascetic practices, and its supersti- tious observances. Yet the writer had no contention with this Society ; and the epistle contains no allusion to miracles. GENERAL CONCLUSION AS TO THE NON- SUPERNATURAL EPISTLES. It appears then that these apostolic writers though thej much more often omit the supernatural than advert to it, yet are never found to omit the pre- ceptive element in their addresses to their converts. They well knew that it is not by miracles that men are to be trained to virtue. Now, in this, I see just that which one observes in the instance of a careful and industrious husbandman. He has been looking upon his parched fields ; but in a moment Heaven's flash lights up the landscape : Heaven's voice peals round the skies ; Heaven's copious rain comes down, a life-giving torrent. This seasonable help the hus- bandman could not command ; but when it has come, it is his part to follow it up : he does not talk of the fertilizing thunder shower, but he goes to work upon his field with a new animation. So it is with the apos- tolic writers : they say little of miracles ; but they say much of behaviour : they plant, they sow, they root up every weed : and it is God that giveth the increase. Besides, these New Testament writers had read the Old Testament history ; and they had gathered from (IGG) THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 167 it a lesson of ■wisdom by which thej ruled their own conduct, as teachers of religion. They held that the things which had befallen the Israelitish people had been recorded " for our learning," and from this history they drew the inference that, although mira- cles serve to bring the teacher into his position of authority, as God's minister, the work on account of which he has been so installed has to be carried for- ward irrespectively of miracles. The Apostles were well conversant with those historical odes in which the obduracy of the people is the recurrent theme. They had listened to the verse, " Marvellous things did He in the sight of our forefathers, in the land of Egypt : even in the field of Zoan ;" and they had taken up the response — " Yet for all this they sinned more against him, and provoked the most High in the wil- derness" — " they believed not his wondrous works" — " They forgat God their Saviour, Avho had done so great things in Egypt : wondrous things in the land of Ham ; and fearful things by the Red Sea." That these instructive passages in the history of their nation were present to the minds of the Christian teach- ers we have their own repeated assurance (1 Cor. x., Acts, vii. 51, xiii. xxviii. 25 ; and Hebrews iii. 7, 8, 9) ; and that they had put a true and wise construction upon these instances we have this palpable evidence, that w^hile their writings breathe throughout an intense fer- vour, directed toward the one object of promoting and securing the personal and social virtue of the people committed to their care, they do not in a single instance throw the stress of any ethical argument upon the super- tiatural attestations of their message. Throughout 1G8 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. the epistles morality is made to rest upon the solid basis of universal and permanent religious considerations. I have said that the question of Christianity is strictly determinable. Thus far, it clearly is so. When the massive literary remains of the period already referred to — Christian — non-Christian, and anti- Christian — are taken as evidence of the existence, wide- extension, and general quality of the new religion, in- structed men will not be found to be materially at variance as to the palpable facts that are thus estab- lished. These facts are out of question among edu- cated persons : but they lead us to look back toward that moment when this religion was making its earliest assaults upon the religions around it, and upon the immoralities of the times. The result of this quest for early materials is the production of some ten or twelve compositions, or more, purporting to be addresses or official circulars issued by the first teachers and preach- ers of the Gospel. These letters having come down from the time of their alleged production, amply veri- fied in the modes admitted to be valid in such cases, are submitted to the strictest scrutiny, which modern criti- cism, in its mood of utmost severity, has been able to effect. This process is continued through a period of sixty years ; not because the case is in itself ambigu- ous ; but mainly for this reason, that each rising man aspiring to practice in this court, and ambitious to dis- tinguish himself by taking his share in the conduct of a suit that draws the eyes of the Avorld, has hunted the ground anew for pretexts on which to rest his reputa- tion. I am keeping my eye upon those fourteen epistles to THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 169 which reference has been made in the preceding pages ; and -which I have named the Non-Supeenatural ; and am now about to call your attention to the Seven, in which an affirmation of, or allusion to, miracles, some- where appear. It may be well, however, in stepping across from the one class of writings to the other, to bring under your eye the proportion, as to mass, which the one bears to the other, in a more exact manner than in stating it, as I have done, roundly, as two to one. The Canonical Epistles, which are twenty-one, are broken up, in the Received Text, into 2767 verses. It matters not whether this subdivision has been well or ill effected. Of this number a large proportion, which it is not easy to define, has reference to the circum stances or history of the writers, or of the persons addressed ; and is of a purely historic quality. This mass constitutes, in fact, a sort of substratum, firm in its adhesion, part to part, and available for any of those purposes which, in an argument on Evidence, it is usual to accomplish by such aid. Another portion of the mass, the quantity of which it is not important to ascertain, is occupied with theologi- cal disquisition, or argument, or the enunciation of principles that are purely religious. About one thou- sand of the verses are either directly preceptive, bear- ing especially and pointedly upon the virtues and vices, or they are abstractedly preceptive, and properly ethi- cal. Such are the injunctions — " Be ye holy (saith God) for I am holy" — " Without holiness no man shall see the Lord;" and many of the same sort. I now set oif one chapter entire, which is directive, relating to the exercise of the "gift of tongues;"— this 15 170 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. passage, not included then, of the whole number of canonical verses, namely 2767, not more than Sixteen, or, if we include some contextual portions, let us say T'WENTY verses, contain affirmations or allusions imply- ing miraculous events, as known to the writer, and for the reality of which he must be held to pledge his repu- tation. Presented therefore in the one mode, the pro- portion between the two masses is as two to one. Pre- sented in the other form, which is the most exact, it is as one to 138. Perhaps this state of the facts may not hitherto have occurred to you : but do not misunderstand my inten- tion in thus presenting it. Do not imagine that I am clearing the ground, as far as I can, in preparation for a retreat ; or am intending to creep out of the miracu- lous through a loophole of this sort. In entertaining any such a supposition you would do me a great wrong. What I am preparing the way for is an affirmation of the Miraculous in the boldest, most ample, and uncompromising manner ; but meantime this fact of the vast disproportion of the two masses — for which perhaps you were not prepared, as attaching to the epistolary part of the Canon, I hold to be fraught with argumentative meaning of a very conclusive kind ; for it will consist with no other hypothesis than this, That, conversant as they affirm themselves to have been, with supernatural events, these writers — not one or two of them, but all — were right-minded men, and were exempt, in a most unusual degree, from the ordinary religious tendency to run into, to run after, or to drive forward, those excitements which the Supernatural sup- plies. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 171 I might now, and as thus more accurately computed, bring forward the body of historic materials, using more than ninety-nine parts of it out of a hundred, as standing clear of every pretext of exception, on the ground of the admixture of the miraculous. This ninety- nine per cent, forms a body of vastly greater bulk than is required for beai'ing up, and for giving consistency to, the facts of the widely-based Christianity of the age of the Antonines. This central mass satisfies the con- ditions that are demanded by the facts belonging to the later period. All the phenomena of that period are embraced and satisfied; every thing is explicable. The religion, seen at its rise, is found to be a system of motives, principles, and precepts which we find to have been brought into act in the martyr age, throughout the extent of the Roman world. The documents of the later time are so copious and so heterogeneous that aii exceptive criticism may do its worst without aflfecting any argument dependent upon it. The documents of the inchoative period, though small in bulk, have come forth from a " furnace of earth, heated seven times," and they stand as approved. The later dated and voluminous mass takes its bearing — groining down upon the centre column, and finding there its true support, whether considered as so much masonry, or as so much architecture ; it is all solid, and it is all in keeping. But now to affirm that this one per cent, of the Su- pernatural vitiates the mass in the midst of which it occurs, is just to beg the question upon which we are joining issue. 172 THE KESTORATION OF BELIEF. You say Miracles never have occurred ; if so, those who affirm them must not be listened to. But satisfy me in any "way you please, either of evi- dence, or of abstract reasoning, that they have not, and then we are agreed. As to the evidence, it is immove- able ; and as to your abstract reasoning, it is^ in my view, a transparent sophism. THE SEVEN APOSTOLIC EPISTLES WHICH AFFIRM OR ALLUDE TO MIRACLES. These are five of St. Paul's Epistles — namely, to the Romans, the Corinthians, first and second ; to the Galatians, and to the Hebrews — here assumed to be his, and the two Epistles of St. Peter. These compositions, when compared with the Four- teen, are they of inferior pretensions, as to genuineness and authenticity? One of them excepted, it is not at all so. Do they lock-in less firmly with the historic mass with which they stand connected ? This is far from being the fact. Four of the Pauline Epistles so cohere with the nine of the Non- Supernatural class that no critic would attempt to sever them. Read the two epistles to the Corinthians, and the epistle to the Churches of Galatia ; read them in the Greek, and do your utmost, as you go on, to persuade yourself that they are any thing else than what they profess to be. Even the TUbingen critics have here confessed them- selves foiled. No scholar who is not crazed, or, what is worse, half crazed, and therefore allowed to go in and out among the sane, will risk himself upon the sceptical side, in these instances. The same may be afiirmed of the Epistle to the Romans. Upon this four, with the Epistle to the Philippians (also allowed to be unas- 15* (173) 174 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. sailable by criticism, or by hypercriticism) the entire weight of the Christian argument might very safely be thrown. But I now take in hand that one of the Seven upon which a divided verdict has been pronounced by honest and competent critics. I mean the Second Epistle of St. Peter. For the purposes of the present argument, I regard it as if, on good grounds, supposed to be not what it professes itself; or to be, in some sense not easily defined, a spurious work. That it had become known, and that it was publicly read throughout the East at an early period, is a fact sufficiently attested by the mode in which it is cited, or referred to, by (Clement of Alexandria ?) by Eusebius, and by Jerome. That, not- withstanding its intrinsic excellence, it stood so long waiting for admission into the Canon, is one proof, among many, of the cautious manner in Avhicli the ancient Church exercised its discriminative functions, as guardian of the Sacred Text. The intrinsic excellence of this suspected epistle is such that its exclusion from the Canon, if this could now be effected, would inflict pain upon every devout reader of Holy Scripture : its characteristics are apos- tolic gravity, unction, and purity of aim. In a word, it bears upon its surface that inimitable air of calm majesty, and simplicity, which is peculiarly Bihlicaly and which so broadly distinguishes the books of the Canon from all other compositions — especially from those of the ago next ensuing. THE RESTOr.ATION OF BELIEF. 175 The supposition of the sptiriousness of this Epistle may best be made to consist with its apostolic tone, bj means of some such hypothesis as this — That some genuine fragments of apostolic teaching had been put together by -whoever framed the epistle, as one ; and that the interference of this fabricator went no further than merely to insert, between the fragmentary por- tions, some few connective phrases. The first verse therefore (on this supposition) may be untrue only so far as this — that it was not " Simon Peter" who issued the whole, in its present form. Any such supposition as this manifestly touches the authority of the epistle, in a theological sense ; but in relation to an argument purely historical, it has little or no significance. I will now take it up on the lowest supposition (which however is very far from coinciding with my personal belief) namely — That, from the first verse to the last, this epistle is a forgery, or an attempted imitation of the well-known apostolic style. If so, then the imitation is so good, that, notwith- standing many critical difficulties, and the paucity, or inconclusiveness of the external evidence, it did obtain currency at a very early time : it did at a later time, make its way into the Canon. In modern times its air of truth and reality have secured for it the suff'rages of an evenly balanced array of critics. This fabrication then (if such it be) has been ably executed. Those who have decided against it, whether in ancient times or in our own, have admitted that "it contains nothing unworthy of an Apostle :" — although differing in style from the first epistle, it differs not at all in its tone and tendency. 176 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. Now let US put the facts together. IIow good soever the intentions of a writer may be, or mistaken his prin- ciples of action, it is not possible to attribute any high degree of moral sensitiveness to a man Avho sits down coolly to produce a forgery. There must be a flaw, or something worse, in the understanding of the maker of a lie, as well as a falseness in his conscience, be his aim never so good. A mind that is at once infirm and vitiated, betrays itself somewhere. An involuntary betrayal of itself may be set down as the natural con- sequences of an inward treason : or it will be so, unless a restraining force of extraordinary intensity is present to prevent it. In this instance what was this restraining force, the operation of which has been sufficient — as we see, to exclude from this fabrication every taint of the morbid condition of the writer's own mind ? It can have been nothing else but a very vivid sense of the extreme deli- cacy and diflSculty of his enterprise, in its bearing upon morals. One phrase wrong, in this sense— a single clause savouring of laxity, would be enough to condemn the whole, in the view of the Christian community ; for all would exclaim — " it was not thus that an Apostle of Jesus Christ ever spoke or wrote." I will put this supposition in a more definite form, as thus : — let us imagine that the real, though unconfessed object of the writer was, under favour of an apostolic name, to give currency to the belief of the literal melt- ing down of the material universe — "the heavens and the earth," in the "day of the Lord." This startling averment, which is but slenderly, if at all — corroborated by other Scriptural declarations, the writer reiterates, in THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF 1 1 < phrases a little varied, three times within the compass of the same paragraph. He does this as if he were very intent upon his object, and wishing to secure a due reo-ard to it. Here then was precisely the hinging place of the whole piece ; and at this point especial care was requisite. Now the writer, well aware as he was, of the feeling that pervaded the Christian community, and knowing what it was that would be looked for in a writing pur- porting to be apostolic — skilfully sets his dogma, as to the fiery doom of the creation, in the most authentic style, inserting between his two affirmations of it, this pointed ethical caution— "If then all these things (which now we look upon) are to be melted down (suddenly, and perhaps soon) what sort of persons ought you to show yourselves in pureness of behaviour and in piety?" " But we Christians look for new heavens, and a new earth — which is to be the habitation of righteous- ness. Wherefore beloved, inasmuch as ye are looking out for such things as these, be careful that (the Lord) when he comes, may find you in peace, unspotted, and blameless." It was thus then, and in no other manner, that, in those early times, a spurious writing could be put toge- ther with any chance of its passing among the Churches as an apostolic work. If now this Epistle be genuine, then it is available, Avith its majestic simplicity, and its fervour, in proof of the temper and feeling of " Simon Peter, the servant and apostle of Jesus Christ." But if it be spurious, then it is available, in a sense even more expressive, and more extensive, as indicative of the temper, the feeling, and the moral sensitiveness of 178 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. the community, the suffrages and favour of which it courted. If I thought of, and cared for, nothing but the argu- mentative availableness of this document, I should be equally willing to accept it, as genuine, or as spurious. Whether genuine or spurious, it sustains alike a fur- ther inference. If it be genuine, then, in the near prospect of martyrdom, by crucifixion — Kai mrpoj 5f eni 'Pto;tt5j5 xata xs^axr^i atavpovtai — wliich ho mentions Under the calm euphemy of a "putting off this tabernacle," the writer very pointedly affirms his latest confident profession of the Gospel, as true ; and he pledges him- self on the ground of his personal knowledge of its truth, in recollection of that hour, when, from the midst of the dazzling shekinah, the voice of the Most High proclaimed Jesus the Son of God ! But if this epistle be factitious, and if the writer was, as we see, perfectly aware of the conditions under which he might hope to gain credit for his work, then it is manifest that it had been the Jcnotvn usage of the Apostles to utter such professions of their personal con- cernment with the supernatural events of Christ's life. Or state the case thus ; — the supposition being that this second^epistle is a fabrication. — — The very significant fact has already obtruded itself upon our notice, that, taking the apostolic epistles en masse, allusions to the supernatural are very few ; not being one per cent, as to quantity ; and that these writers, more often than not, addressed the 'churches without making a single averment of this sort, direct or indirect. It is plain therefore that it would have been quite a safe course for the forger of an apostolic THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 17U letter to avoid cvei"j thing of this kind : on the "whole, it would have been the safer course of the two ; and an astute scribe (he was no blunderer who got up this epistle) Avould be very likely to keep himself on this safer side. But now, unless it had been the known practice of the Apostles, and of St. Peter espe- cially, at times, if not often, to affirm their personal implication with the supernatural unless there had been among the churches a consciousness of , this fact, it would have been to incur a risk of the most ex- treme sort to insert, in a letter bearing the name of St. Peter, a formal statement, such as occurs in the first chapter. If the Epistle be genuine, then this aged Teacher of the Gospel, in the last days of his life, affirms Christianity to be a supernatural dispensation. If it be spurious, it indicates the fact that such affir- mations were customary with apostolic men. The First Epistle general of Peter. In this in- stance to advance, as if there might be reasonable ground for it, the supposition of spuriousness, would be a great impertinence. The apostolic antiquity of this Epistle is a fact out of question — I mean among those whose readings in German have not denuded them of their English common-sense. Yet even here, though very unwilling to seem to concede any thing to pedantry and affectation — I should be willing, as to its bearing upon my argument, to take this Epistle as (though not 180 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. genuine) so like to the genuine, as to secure for itself universal acceptance as such. The calm majesty, the fervour, the bright hopeful- ness, and the intense moral import of the Epistle carry it home to every ingenuous mind as an embodiment of whatever is most aifecting in theology, and the most eifective and salutary in ethics. With those — if there are any, who have no consciousness of these qualities in the writing before us, I should not court contro- versy. In any such instance nature must have dealt in a very parsimonious manner Avith the mind and heart, and sophistry must have greatly overdone her part. But how does this Epistle connect itself with the Supernatural ? What does it say of Miracles ? Not one word of allusion does it contain to occurrences of this order, as then attendant upon the ministry of the Apostles. It is addressed to the dispersion (Christians, figuratively, or Jewish converts, literally) sojourning in the provinces of the Lesser Asia. St. Paul in his course through these same countries had established the reality of his mission by "mighty signs and won- ders," wrought in every city on his track. In these provinces — or some of them, Christianity had prevailed over heathenism to an extent — so says Pliny — which must leave a very difficult problem in the hands of those who, in their theory of the spread of the Gospel, deprive its preachers of the aid of the Supernatural : it had spread and triumphed either without the help of miracles ; or with that help. Take Avhich suppo- sition seems to you to involve the lesser difficulty. I must profess to think that in this case it is nothing THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 181 but Miracles that can save us from the Incre- dible. No such occurrences are however alluded to in the instance before us. I draw an inference full of mean- ing from this fact ; coupled as it is with another, which is of still deeper meaning. The writer, in addressing an admonition to the Pres- byters of the Christian societies takes to himself the style which conveys the lowest of his claims so to address them : he is a presbyter, as they are ; and also " a witness of the sufferings of Clmst." To these Bufferings he makes a very distinct allusion as often as seven times in the course of the Epistle. In each instance these allusions are woven into an ethical con- text, in such a manner as to be inseparable from it. Take the instance which occurs in the second chapter. The main purport of this chapter, as indeed of the entire Ej^istle, is hortatory, and bears upon the con- duct and temper of Christians, when suffering for their profession. Whatever in it is theological rather than ethical, comes in as an illustration, or as a subsidiary reason : these adjuncts, therefore, so cohere to the mass as to make an attempted separation of them impracticable. Christians are fortified under the endurance of "Wrongful inflictions, by several considerations — mainly by a reference to the example of Christ, who so suf- fered, wrongfully indeed, for in him was there no sin, no guile, and who, in silent patience, yielded himself to violence, while " his own self he bare our sins in his own body on the tree." It is thus that the Writer, and in other places in the 16 182 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. same incidental manner, affirms and attests the death of Christ, of which he was a witness. This is not all ; for, as if to preclude subterfuge, he follows the released Spirit in its descent into Hades, and affirms what had been the purport of this entrance of the " Shepherd and Bishop of Souls" among the Dead. A little further on, and when resuming the subject of the patient endurance of wrongful inflictions, he affirms that Christ, when "put to death in the flesh," entered — incorporeal — among the disembodied ; visiting the region where they are detained ; and there making a loud and authoritative proclamation ; (on the part of God.) With the theology of this passage I have nothing to do ; nor am I careful to forefend inferences of any sort. I read the verses, in their open and historic sense. A knowledge of this fact, remote as it was from all cognizance of man, without supernatural aid, must have been given to St. Peter, either by Christ himself, orally, after his resurrection, or must have been conveyed to him at a later time, in some mode which lie regarded as supernatural ; and therefore authentic. If I were to describe to you the things which would be found in a particular latitude and longitude, at the lowest depth of the Atlantic, in doing so I must make profession of having at my command some means of information that are unknown alike to common experience and to science. St. Peter affirms, therefore, in this case, that which involves and implies the supernatural, even more necessarily than is done in some narratives of visible miracles. Put he affirms also the resurrection of Christ, in THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 183 varied phrases, five times in this Epistle. These affirm a tions are all of them adjunctive to his proper subject, and inseparable from the context. They include not only the fact of the resurrection, but that also of Christ's assumption to the throne of celestial dominion, (iii. 22.) We have here in hand an instance of the Cohesion of the supernatural and the historic which is of a peculiar kind. In any composition if three, four, or five subjects, of different classes, are brought together, that one among them must be regarded as the one uppermost in the mind of the writer, in illustration of which the other subjects — two, three, or four, are introduced. That one is the leading subject ; the others the adjunc- tive and subdividing. According to this plain rule, the drift of this Epistle is ethical. The main intention of the writer, and his ruling impulse, was so to fortify the minds of the Christian people under his care, as to secure the purity, rectitude, and religious consistency of their conduct. In going about to make good this — his main purpose, he brings in those principal facts on which the Christian profession rested, and in behoof of which Christians were liable to suffer. These facts stand in series, commencing with a merely historic fact — namely, the crucifixion, and the death of Christ — going on to those that were wholly remote from human cognizance, and coming to a close in the visible, yet supernatural fact, of Christ's ascent from earth to heaven. Now this instance of indissoluble Cohesion may be dealt with, and it has often been so dealt with, in a style of extenuation or apology, as thus. " Can we 184 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. imagine, or ouglit we to suppose that a writer who is so careful to enforce moral principles, and who so well understands them, should himself, through life, be the propagator of what he must always have known to be a falsehood?" Reasonably we can imagine no such thing ; but just now I should state the case in other terms, as thus — I bring this document into Court. In doing so I protest against any pleadings that take for granted the very question which is now to be argued, and upon which the plaintiff and defendant have joined issue. That question involves the reality of a series of facts, including those that are miraculous. As to the genuineness of this particular document, it has already passed under revision, in the proper Court ; and it has been duly countersigned there, as authentic. It stands open to no exceptions that could be available for the plaintiff, except this one — that it bears upon the verdict in a sense unfavourable to himself. But this exception, of course, stands for nothing. I read my document from beginning to end, and then ask — " Excluding the plaintiff's nugatory objec- tion, which is grounded upon his apprehension of an adverse verdict, would this Epistle suggest any other idea than this, that the writer's own mind was tranquil and well-ordered ; and that his intention in writing it was of that sort which is becoming to a wise and virtuous man ; especially to one who is in a place of authority?" The answer is manifest. This Epistle, if read apart from any reference to the point now under debate, and THE KESTORATION OF BELIEF. 185 if judged of purely on the ground of its intrinsic merits, carries home to our understandings and best feelings an irresistible impression of the goodness, ■wisdom, and simplicity of the writer. Search the entire compass of ethical writings, ancient and modern, we should not find even one that carries more decisively upon it the characteristics of sincerity, and truth- fulness. Why should it, or why should the writer be otherwise thought of ? For no imaginable reason, only this, that if Ave allow him his due — then the plaintiff is very likely to be non-suited. The genuineness of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the integrity of the Text, are admitted by the highest critical authorities. Its antiquity is vouched for, at once b}'- the usual external evidence, and by several allusions contained in it to the services of the Jewish Temple ; and which indicate its publication before the destruction of Jerusalem. As to the authorship of this Epistle, Origen's judgment may well be assented to — art, •fa ix'iv vorifiata -tov arCoijto'Kov lativ, tj hi ij)patf£,j xal tj CvvOtai; aTiouvYifiovivsaiVtoq tivo^ t'o. aTtodtoTiixa and thlS al- lowed, it will take its place chronologically, in the last year, or two years, of the Apostle's life. This composition is a theological treatise in its sub- stance ; an epistle only in its form. It is just so far personal in its allusions as to give the whole a more dis- tinctly historic character than it Avould derive from its argumentative portions : The writer speaks once and IG* 186 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. again of himself, and of his colleague Timothy ; a^«^ he administers rebukes, freely and mildly, to those whom he addresses, as if personally acquainted with their reli- gious condition, and their attainments. These attainments fell short, it seems, of what might have been exipected, opportunities of improvement con- sidered; nevertheless it is manifest that the writer sup- posed himself to be addressing persons who, as well in their biblical accomplishments, as in the keenness of their intellectual habits, vastly surpassed that average of mental power and learning which is to be found in our Protestant congregations. A verse-by- verse commentary, aided by all the stores of our modern biblical erudition, is not more than is needed to give even a well instructed and intelligent congregation a thorough comprehension of the reasoning of some parts of this Treatise. Those passages in it which, in their tone, rise above the tem- perature proper to biblical expository reasoning, are those in which the calmness of heaven's own atmosphere gives majesty to the language of the writer : of this sort are the opening verses of the treatise, and the middle portion of the twelfth chapter. This treatise — with its incidental allusions, its refer- ences to the then-existing Jewish economy, its tranquil and refined trains of argument, its pointed admonitions, its tone of serious intensity, is, in itself, an IIistorio Mass : it is a Reality of the Apostolic times ; — and as such it is competent to sustain whatever is found to be inseparably attached to it. The persons addressed were thoroughly conversant with Jewish institutions, as also with the conventional sense of those forms of speech which had their source THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 187 in the Old Testament Scriptures, and which had long been familiar to the Jewish ear, through the medium of the Greek version. The writer, in his exordium, affirms the surpassing dignity of HiM to whom the new dispensation owes its origin : and having done so, he draws the natural infer- ence, that a negligent regard to it will involve so much the more guilt and danger. This Gospel message which was first announced, he says, by the Lord, had been con- firmed toward the Christians of that time by those who had heard Christ himself — " God bearing witness (to the truth of their testimony) with signs and wonders ; and divers powers, and bestowments of the Holy Spirit, ac- cording to His pleasure." To Jewish ears these phrases carried a conventional meaning that stood clear of all ambiguity: it is an authentic formula of the Old Testament, bringing recol- lections with it that embraced the staple of the national belief. Think what we may of the articles of that belief, these phrases recalled to the mind of the Jew of the apostolic age, that long series of miracles which had placed the people in a position of the nearest rela- tionship with God. The words and the combinations of them are identical throughout the Old Testament, and the New Kai) 'iSuxi Kijptoj arjfisla xal T'spttt'x iA.syd%a ta arifjula xa,l ■j'a T'Epafa fisydxa txicva : they OCCUr frequently in the Pentateuch, in the Psalms, and in the Prophets. They had come also into current use in the Christian community, in connexion with events admitted to be supernatural, as appears in the Acts of the Apos- tles, throughout. Thus it is then that, in the course of a lengthened 188 THE RESTOKATION OF BELIEF. argumentation which discusses or alludes to a round of religious topics, bringing the ancient and the new economy into comparison in various points of view, there occurs one, and only one, affirmation concerning miracles ; but then this one is perfectly explicit ; and it is so worded that the persons addressed could not misunderstand the writer. He affirms that those who had been the hearers of Christ, and who had reported the Gospel message to the Christian converts of the then present time, had, in delivering this message, received the same sort of attestation from God himself, which had been granted to Moses and the Prophets. And as nothing vague could attach to the wording of this passage, and as it stands boldly prominent in a con- text of peculiar gravity, so did it receive a more than ordinary weight of meaning from the circumstances of the persons addressed. It was to the Jewish con- verts still resident in Palestine, that the treatise was primarily addressed, and through them, no doubt, to the same class of persons throughout the world. These Palestinian Jewish Christians, among whom there were surviving some who themselves had listened to Christ's discourses, and had witnessed his miracles, were in a position materially unlike that of the Gentile converts in distant countries. Not only were they resi- dent on the spot where the Evangelic history took its rise ; but they consorted every where with those of their countrymen who virulently denied the Messiahship of Jesus. The alleged miracles of that history were rife matters of debate — in Jewish families — in synagogues — in the market-places — on the high ways — in the areas of the Temple. THE RESTOKATION OF BELIEF. 189 How then do we purpose to deal with the fourth verse of the second chapter of this Epistle ? There is no pretext for cutting it out of its place : it stands where it stands, unimpeachable on critical grounds. It attests this fact, first, that apostolic men — this writer at least — did not hesitate boldly to affirm the occurrence of miracles among those to whom the idea of such attestations of a message from God was intelligible and familiar. It establishes also this fact, that Jewish con- verts of that time customarily admitted the reality of such occurrences. If they had not done so there could not have been room for an unexplained and categorical affirmation of them, such as this. If the alleged miracles of that time had been very few, and these few of ambiguous quality, and if they had barely been recognized by Palestinian converts, there would either have been no allusion to them (as there are none in fourteen of the apostolic epistles) or something would have been said^ of them in the style, either of apology, or of asseveration. This simply worded pas- sage of three lines would have been introduced or fol- lowed by a verse or two of oblique insinuation, or of evasion, saving a way of escape for the writer. The question I put, in this instance, is this. — Sup- posing the alleged miracles of the apostolic period to be real, then is not this brief, bold, and unambiguous refer- ence to them just what is natural in the case of a writer who himself is conscious of truth, who knows that the phrases he employs carry a determinate biblical mean- ing, and who forecasts no contrcfdiction ? This passage in this Epistle may be thrown out of its place, as to its historic import, by supposing that the 190 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. writer was a man of that class who, devoid alike of sham" and of sensibility, alloAv themselves to use boastful ex pressions, at random, which are well understood to hav* no meaning — vauntings, which are the mere expletives of a rambling rhapsody, forgotten as soon as uttered, and disregarded when heard. Tell me plainly, do you profess this to be your judg ment in this case ? The Epistle to the Romans is also a Treatise rather than an Epistle ; its authenticity and genuineness are out of question ; or if you would fortify your English distaste of the frivolities of German criticism, acquaint yourself with that tissue of surmises on the ground of which the genuineness of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters has been questioned. The continuity of thought, running on from the fourteenth into the fif- teenth chapter, and thence to the end of the Epistle, is irresistibly conspicuous. The thought and the lan- guage are all of a piece, from the first verse to the last of this Treatise. Why then determine otherwise ? Be- cause the gratification of a pedantic ambition, and the craving for paradox may find a momentary opportunity in an instance of this sort. With the theology of this Epistle I have nothing to do at this time ; nor with the ethical portions of it, unless to say, in passing, that, following as they do as inferences from the theology, they present to us an instance most remarkable, of an equipoise of principles, not logically wrouglit out, but springing from a har- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 191 monj that is loftier and deeper than the range of mun- dane speculation. But now find me any where a sample of practical good sense more striking than is that presented in the fourteenth chapter, and running on into the next. These six and twenty verses, if they had been duly regarded on every occasion to which they might right- fully have been, applied, in the course of eighteen centu lies, would have exempted the loaded shelf opposite me, just now, from the weight of at least ten of the folios of the Acta Conciliorum. But great principles, when simply announced, demand cycles of time for getting themselves recognized — cycles as long almost as geolo- gical eras. This Epistle, like the one last named, contains one, and only one affirmation as to the miracles, as events then occurring. But this one averment is, like that last referred to, explicit, and bold, and it is unaccompanied by any expletive or extenuating phrases. It goes fur- ther, however, in relation to my present argument, than the passage cited from the Epistle to the Hebrews. In that, the writer does not affirm for himself the exercise of miraculous gifts : in this he does so very distinctly. In this Epistle, " Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ " stands before us in a clear historic light, connecting him- self with the supernatural. Up to the time of writing it, he had not made proof of his ministry among the Christians of Rome. He had long been wishing to do so, and he now believed that, at no very remote time, this, his Christian wish, might be accomplished ; for after he had fulfilled his immediate intention of visitinsr Jerusalem, he hoped to make his way into Spain, and 192 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. to see Rome in passing. Ilis course of evangelic labour, hitherto, had occupied more time than, perhaps, he had calculated upon ; for he had taken a very wide circuit in adhering to his rule, not to build on another man's foundation. Thus he had gone preaching the Gospel throughout all the countries intervening, landwise, between Jerusa- lem and Italy. Many, in these regions, had listened to him, and had become " obedient to the faith;" yet it had not been by preaching alone that these successes had been won ; for it was by " word and deed '-' that the people had been persuaded to forsake their idols. From " Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum," he had (every where and) in a complete manner, made pro- clamation of the Gospel ; and in doing so he had given proof of the reality of his mission by " mighty signs and wonders," which Christ had wrought by his hands. This noted affirmation has often been adduced by Christian advocates ; yet there may be room for me to bring the facts once again under review ; -as thus. — The resort of Jews to Rome, and the access which they had gained for themselves to persons of all ranks, even the highest, had been the means of introducing many to a knowledge of the Scriptures, in a Greek ver- sion. Among these " devout persons" — Gentiles by birth and habit, Christianity rapidly made converts ; and un- impeachable evidence attests the fact that, in Nero's reign, the number of Christians at Rome was very great. These Gentile converts were all conversant with the Old Testament history, and were accustomed to the recitation of the Psalms, and to the hearing of the Pro- phets. This sort of familiarity Avith biblical history, and THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 193 with the phraseology of the Scriptures, undoubteclly belonged to those to whom were addressed the now extant non-canonical epistles of the first and second centuries. Besides ; the Epistle to the Romans itself furnishes abundant evidence of the diffusion of this amount of biblical knowledge among those to whom it is addressed, Gentiles as wejl as Jews. St. Paul now writes to these converts, announcing his intention to visit them shortly. He tells them that he had lately been employed preach- ing the Gospel in many provinces of the empire. He speaks too of the miracles that had every where given elficacy to his preaching ; and in doing so he uses that one set of phrases to which the ears of the people had been long accustomed, and which, in their minds, stood con- nected with the notable miracles of the Old Testament history. In using this 'particidar form of words, St. Paul perfectly knew in what sense they would be under- stood when the Epistle was read in the Christian con- gregations of Rome. These congregations, numbering hundreds of persons, "if not thousands, were told that they were soon to see and hear this noted preacher of the Gospel who, in his course from city to city of the Roman world, had wrought miracles of such a kind that the phrase " mighty signs and wonders," might with propriety be applied to them. But at length this Preacher, he having appealed to Caesar's tribunal, reaches Rome : he stays there a length of time : in what manner then does he meet and satisfy those expectations which he had himself excited among the people ? This we are not told. But it appears that 17 194 TUE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. he found his countrymen there, or the greater part of them, ill-affected toward the new religion, and more dis- posed to listen to those many reports to its disadvan- tage which had reached them, than to his arguments in its favour. An open breach soon takes place between the gainsaying Jews of Rome, and this Preacher of the Gospel, who denounces, and in fact, defies them. What would next follow may be surmised ; but let us assume that the passage above cited in the Epistle meant nothing — or nothing that would bear inquiry : the words were a mere floui'ish — a rhetorical grace ! Neither did this Preacher show any " signs or wonders" ut Rome, answerable to the kindled expectations of the people ; nor did those who, from time to time, arrived from the provinces he had evangelized, bring with them authentic or credible reports of any such miracles as those which the language of the writer implied. What effect so great a disappointment as this must have pro- duced among the Christian people of Rome, I will not venture to affirm. Let it only be remembered that these newly professed Christians were of three classes, namely — first, Jewish converts having constantly to do ' in their homes, with those of their countrymen who were virulently opposed to the Gospel, and who were now the irritated personal enemies of Paul ; — secondly, Gentile converts, from the populace of Rome, whose natural eagerness to witness " signs and wonders " had been whetted by Paul himself; and — thirdhj, a few persons of rank and education, about the Court, who, in com- promising themselves with the new sect, even in the most cautious manner, had risked every thing — life, as well as fortune. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 195 In what way these several classes of believers Avere affected when, after a three or four years suspense, they found that, in fact, no miracles were to be looked for in attestation of this preacher's mission, or in justification of his own professions, we do not know. But what we do know is this— that, three or four years later, there were Christians enough in Eome to slake the ferocity of Nero — even the — multitudo ingens, of Tacitus. Now this "vast multitude" — or let us take the words in their lowest probable meaning, whatever that may be — had either professed Christianity at the time when the Epistle from Paul reached them, or else there had been a great accession of converts during the interven- ing three or four years. If we take the first-named of these suppositions then one must think it a serious matter (if we know any thing of popular excitability) to disappoint the — multitudo ingens in regard to these promised supernatural attesta- tions. Knowing that he must disappoint the multitude at Rome in this very manner, then the boldness of the language in which, only a few days after his arrival, he defies the Jews, and makes his appeal to the Gentiles is indeed amazing. Acts, xxviii. But we now take up the second of these suppositions, and assume that, though the Christians of Rome had been few when the Epistle before us reached them, the — multitudo ingens had been " added to the Church" after the occurrence of this signal disappointment, and after the time when the gainsaying Jew had been put in a triumphant position, and was warranted in defying this Preacher to make good his written pretensions ! Is lOG THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. this then our supposition ? To me a belief in the Christian miracles is far more easy. One affirmation only, concerning miracles, we have found in the Epistle to the Hebrews ; one in that to the Romans ; oiie in the Epistle to the Galatians ; one in the second Epistle to the Corinthians. In each of these single instances the allusion is cursory ; it arises out of the occasion, and it is firmly agglutinated with the con- text. Moreover to each of these instances there attaches some special circumstance, rendering this sort of cate- gorical averment in a high degree dangerous, if, in fact, it had been liable to any sort of exception. It was so, peculiarly, in the instance now in hand. Throughout the scattered societies of Galatia, and among a people remarkable for the fickleness of their dispositions, and for their proneness to be led and driven by demagogues, the apostolic authority of St. Paul had been set at defiance, or was openly impugned, while the doctrine he had taught was denounced. Up and down throughout this province, and scattered among its obscure towns, where they could not be followed, there were, as the writer of this Epistle knew, those who stood forward as his personal ene- mies, and who were ready to catch an advantage against him. Nevertheless, in the bosom of these distracted socie- ties there were some to whose better feelings he might still appeal — some there were who adhered to the evan- THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. 197 gelic doctrine — some who professed and contended for the "faith once delivered" to them. We must infer also from the expression 6 olv a7tix6pt]y:jv i^dv that there was one Teacher among the Galatian converts who continued to maintain that foremost article of the Christian , system which was its characteristic, as con- trasted with the Pharisaic Judaism of the times, and which, in this epistle, St. Paul expounds anew. The position of this one Teacher, in the midst of the gene- ral defection, must have been that of antagonism ; and it was with him, as^ we may infer from the phrases used, that remained the power of working' miracles. The appeal made to the supernatural endowments of this one Teacher (if our inference from the form of expression he historically right) was in the highest degree fearless. But whether or not an Individual so distinguished, be here intended, or whether the apostle, though using the present tense, means to remind the people of his own ministrations among them, in times past, this brief challenge is in the style of one who feels that he risks no contradiction, as to the matter of fact; he says, Are ye then indeed so unwise? after accepting Christianity as a spiritual system, are ye now going back to a system of bodily observances ? Has it then been to no purpose (as the professors of a spiritual doctrine) that ye have suifered so much (at the hands of Jewish fanatics) if indeed it has been to no purpose! Or answer me now this question— He (the Teacher) who now ministers to you the gifts of the Spirit, and who works miracles among you— xa. b tVjpywi/ hwdfitii — is he a teacher of the legalizing doctrine ? or 17* 198 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. does he not maintain the doctrine of salvation by faith, •which I am now explaining to you anew ? This question followed hard upon a taunt, the pun- gency of which finds no parallel in the other epistles of this writer, affectionate and courteous too, as he is. He calls these Galatians awj^fot ; and he asks who it is that has so far abused their folly as actually to bereave them of their senses ? No inference which I judge to be important is dependant upon what may be a questionable paraphrase of this passage. The fact is enough that St. Paul, to whom the recollection of his miraculous powers does not ever occur when he is addressing his attached friends, boldly affirms them, or affirms the same gifts in his colleagues, when he descends among his adver- saries. This he does when, as in the present instance, he intends to keep no terms of amity with his oppo- nents ; and he does the same whether the tempers he had to do with were more or less virulent. Note this fact, that those of the epistles of St. Paul which contain affirmations of the supernatural, are those in which he encounters his adversaries, and admi- nisters sharp rebukes, even to his attached adherents. It is also to be observed that, when we name those of his fourteen epistles which are the most distinctly marked with the historic characteristics of genuine- ness, we are naming also those in which he affirms the present occurrence of miracles. It is thus that the purely historic and the supernatural are, as one may say, inseparably rivetted together in these writings. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 199 It is SO in the two Epistles to the Christian people of Corinth. If there be any thing at all that has come down to us from antiquity, whole and unques- tionable, these two epistles will take a place among such ofioxoyovixiva, J and if in any instance an ancient writer has spread himself out, and opened the door of his heart to our inspection, St. Paul has done so in these two epistles. I take up first, the second epistle, containing as it does one passuge that is applicable to my immediate purpose. This is the twelfth verse of the twelfth chapter. There might be room to think that the remarkable passage with which this same chapter commences, should also be named as an affirmation of the super- natural. It is so in reality ; but it is not so in a logical sense ; or as bearing out the inference upon which I have to insist. The sort of affirmations I am in quest of are those in support of which the writer mai/ appeal, and does so, to the knowledge of those whom he addresses. St. Paul, in this case, necessarily, affirms only what belonged to his individual expe- rience ; he declares that thus he had been favoured with two extraordinary revelations ; but though the mention of them is proper to the occasion, they are not to be adduced as logically available in the present instance. Compelled as he was by the audacity of his oppo- nents at Corinth to assert, and to vindicate, his apos- tolic authority, he reminds the people there of the circumstances that had attended his ministrations among them ; and he says that, feeble as he might be 200 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. in himself, he had in no respect shown himself inferior to the most noted of the Apostles ; for the wonted attestations of an apostolic commission had been wrought (not simply affirmed) among them, with all submissiveness of manner, iv a-yjfisioii xai ■ttpaoi, xai Swdfisai. Here again we have the customary biblical formula, and in its more expanded expression. We now turn to the first epistle to the Corinthians. In that one passage in the epistle to the Hebrews which links it to the supernatural, the persons ad- dressed are reminded that tJicT/ had witnessed miracles, wrought by those from whose lips they had received the Gospel message. In the epistle to the Romans, the writer affirms of himself that he had wrought miracles in the course of his late missionary journeys. In the epistle to the Churches of Galatia he appeals to the miracles that were then frequently wrought among themselves. In the second epistle to the Corinthians he speaks of the miracles wrought by himself during his stay at Corinth. In this first epistle he speaks, at large and particularly, and with perfect freedom, of the existence and exercise of miraculous gifts among themselves. He tells them generally (i. 7) that they had been wanting in no gift — iv fi^jSivi x^^p^s/j-att. with which other churches had been favoured. These gifts he specifies (xii. 4) mingling those which are ordinary with the supernatural ; and this is so done as if to weave the two elements together in a fabric the materials of which should not be severed. " To one among you is granted, by the same spirit — wisdom — to another knowledge ; — to one faith, to another charisms for THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 201 healing, to another energies for mighty works — to another prophecy, to another the discrimination of spirits (or knowledge of character) to another (the com- mand of) several languages ; — to another the inter- pretation of languages." Further on the writer enumerates — apparently in the order of their relative importance in his view, the functions which were constituted, and which were then in exercise in the Church ; as thus — first, that of apos- tles ; next of prophets (or teachers), then instructors, or masters of classes. After these come the functions of those who wore endowed with miraculous powers, gifts of healing — faculties of administration, and management, and the command of languages. The order which prevails in these enumerations deserves attention. Between this more general declaratory passage, and those injunctions which a disorderly practice had called for, there comes a parenthesis — an entire chapter — luminous with good sense : ought we not to acknow- ledge this, and risk the consequence? If now it be Heaven's wisdom, of which we have such a sample, supernaturalhj granted to this writer, we need hold no further argument concerning Christianity. But if it be the writer's natural wisdom which here shines out, then how shall we make it consist with the supposition of the tumid extravagance of his mind : or of any imagin- able condition of conscious falseness in his professions or conduct ? But we have to mark here that these thirteen verses, teeming as they do with the very sub- stance of ethical truth, and exhibiting so correct a sense of ethical distinctions, come in as a corrective 202 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. of that natural error from which we have found tho apostolic writers to be themselves wholly exempt — I mean the error of thinking more of miracles than of morality — more of " signs and wonders," than of temper and behaviour. If four or five of these gifted Corinthian converts had left us so many as one-and- twenty of their letters and treatises, I think we should not have found fourteen of them destitute of a single affirmation as to their own command of the super- natural ; nor the remaining seven, each with nothing more than a brief and solitary allusion of this kind. But a word more should be said on this occasion. This thirteenth chapter of the epistle before us is a parenthesis, linking the purely historic instructions which precede it, with other insructions, having relation to a misapplication of supernatural endowments. Here then we have the simply historic, or natural, blended and bound up with the supernatural, in such a manner as to defy the endeavour to separate the two. In the instances hitherto adduced I have noticed the iron rivet- ting of these two elements : in the present instance I ask, Is not this tie a bolt of the purest gold ? The rule I adhere to is to lay no stress upon any matter that is controverted among well-informed and reasonable critics and commentators. Now a great cloud of difficulty has been made to settle over the sub- ject treated of in the fourteenth chapter of this Epistle ; so that what might seem quite intelligible when one reads the Greek without assistance, has become an enigma, after erudite criticism has shed its best light upon it ! Just now therefore I will say no more con- cerning the "Gift of Tongues" than tliis — That St. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 203 Paul himself does manifestly regard this power as a miraculous gift ; and as such he explicitly affirms his own participation in it : — rejoicing in the copiousness of the faculty which he exercised, he says — " I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all." What was it then that he thus thought of with devout gratitude ? Was it that knowledge of Hebrew (or the Aramaic) of Greek and of Latin — which he had acquired at Tarsus in his boyhood ? Or was it the power of pouring forth a mindless gibberish, intelligible to no tribe of men on earth ? It is enough that, in this passage, while the apostle exhibits his usual good sense, and his feeling of what is practically best, he speaks without hesitation of that which he regarded as supernatural. CONCLUSION AS TO THE SEVEN EPISTLES WHICH AFFIRM MIRACLES. I HAVE now taken in their order those documents of the Canon which contain an affirmation, of, or allusion to, miracles, as currently taking place under the eye of the writer, or of those whom he addresses. I have especially given attention to those five epistles of St. Paul which are distinguished from the nine of the same writer that are free from any reference to the super- natural. I have pointed out these three circumstances attach- ing to these epistles, namely, first, that they are those which, if there be any difference, stand the clearest of any suspicion of spuriousness ; secondly, that three of these epistles are those of the entire numbei' — four- teen — which are addressed to societies that had har- boured or listened to, the personal enemies of the apostles, and in addressing which the greatest caution was needed ;— and tliirdly, that, if the first Epistle to the Corinthians be excepted — the affirmation of miracles is confined to a single utterance, which is brief, distinct, and peremptory I have also drawn your attention to the fact — that, in each of these instances, that authenticated form of words is employed in relation to which misintcrpreta- (204) THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 205 tion was impossible, and to wliicli a clearly defined historical sense had come to be attached. But I will now imagine that, instead of employing this biblical formula, which none of those who were accustomed to the Greek version of the Old Testament could misunderstand, St, Paul had gone about in quest of a phrase which might be susceptible of a rather less rigid interpretation : let us suppose him to have used a phrase of abstract coinage — bordering upon the philo- sophical, and which the better-educated among his readers might so have interpreted as to leave a margin of indistictness whereupon the writer might, at least in the view of such readers, clear himself of the charge of direct falsification. To me it seems perfectly certain that a religious leader in the position of this writer, if he had been conscious that the " miracles " of which he spoke must, when narrowly looked into by his adversa- ries, melt away into any thing or nothing — into mere exaggerations of natural occurrences, would have bor- rowed or forged a phrase adapted to his purpose ; and that he would most carefully have avoided that par- ticular form of words, which, in the minds of all, carried an indubitable meaning of the largest import. Let us now imagine that St. Paul, who had no nar- row acquaintance Avith the resources of the Greek language, had employed, when speaking of the miracles that were lately wrought by himself, or his colleagues, some one of those very phrases which his erudite countryman and contemporary, Philo, does actually use on analagous occasions. For example, if instead of the tipata. xaX arifina, and the several phrases (all of biblical us'age) which he does apply to his own miracles, 18 206 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. he had given us a form like the following, with an evasive expletive inserted, ttpucnov 6£ ^aao avfj.l37jvai xat' ixeivov to;/ ;^poi'Oj', fifyaT^ovpyrjfict tr^i ^rtTfcoj Or that he had apologised for these miracles, as PiiiLO does elsewhere in his life of Moses. If it had been so, there might have been room for a supposition for which, in fact, there is now no room. The biblical form, used when miracles of the most amazing kind are intended to be spoken of, had, in the apostolic time, come to be applied customarily to the miracles of the evangelic history ; as appears from the Gospels. Moreover the same set of words occurs thirteen times in the Acts of the Apostles, always carrying the same indubitable sense. Once only, in speaking of such events, does the writer employ a different form (xix. 11) where it is — bwdfiai ts ov raj fvzovsai sjtofn 6 ©£05 The form is the same in the Apocryphal books, as in the Epistles (Wisdom, viii. 8, X. 16, EccLES. xlviii. 14) in the Prophets; (Jerem. xxxii. 20, Dan. vi. 27) in the Psalms ; cv. 27, cvi. 7 ; and the Pentateuch, very frequently : — ExoD. iii. 20, — • IV. 9, IV. 21, 2o, Vll. O T'a OTj^ild fiov, xai 'to. tipa-ta, iv yrj AlyvTiTfco — X. 2, Num. xiv. 11, Deut. iv. 34, — xai h Vll. IJ, td a'/jfxnu. xai, •id fiiydxa, ixava XXXIV. 11, Ev Ttaat, I'otj ar^ft'ctoi^ xav 'tepaai'V There are those who, professing to admire the char- acter of Paul, would gladly bring him off clear of the imputation of having compromised himself with the supernatural, if it could be done. Looking to these five epistles this attempt might perhaps have been made if only he had been careful to avoid this biblical formula, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 207 and had taken up in its place, any vague abstraction of the kind of which samples enough may be found in Philo, in Josephus, and in several of the classical writers, when speaking of prodigies. Let us now inquire by what means, if there are any, the supernatural might be severed from the mass of histoi'ic document to which we find it attached. These means must be such as do not in any way violate the authentic rules of philological or historical criticism. An attempted violation of such rules could be prompted by nothing but an ill intention ; and as in this argument I impute no bad motives to an opponent, I am saved the disagreeable necessity of rebutting any supposition of that class. Now we first narrow our ground by putting out of view those fourteen epistles upon which we find no par- ticles of the supernatural adhering. We need not inquire how to exclude miracles from writings in which, in fact, none are affirmed. These fourteen epistles are of a purely historical character : each of them comes into our hands bearing its own credentials, separately from the others. Even if ten of them could be shown to be spurious, the others stand their ground ; but instead of this, a mere shadow of doubt is all that attaches to two or three of the number : and even these avail as much in argument when imagined to be forgeries, as when admitted to be genuine. Here then is foundation ample enough to sustain my Belief, as a Christian : I am willing to take my stand upon it ; and never shall I be driven from this footing. If I have thoroughly informed myself concerning the 208 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. Christianity of the age of the Antonines — reading the entire extant evidence — Christian and Antichristian — then, in these fourteen epistles I find whatever should be there, on the supposition that this great revolution which has placed the civilized portion of the human fam- ily on new ground, was real and true in its origin, and that it was THE WORK OF God. The present question then relates solely to those Seven Epistles which imbed our problem. Now these might be disposed of if, in a critical sense, they were decisively of inferior quality ; but they are not so : on the contrary, they are those (one excepted) concerning which there has been, and is, the least dif- ference of opinion among critics. Or the supernatural paragraphs in these epistles might be excinded if, on any ground that is recognized by legitimate criticism, these sentences stood as inter- polations. It is not so. On the contrary, as to most of them, these verses are woven into the context, before and after, and are one with the body of the epistle. And yet, even admitting the genuineness of these passages, we might incline to attach an abated impor- tance to them if any one of the following suppositions could be entertained. If they occurred in those epistles only which are addressed to the writer's colleagues, or to societies of whose attachment to himself, and to Christianity, he was perfectly assured. But the very contrary of this is the fiict. — If, instead of these few peremptory affirmations, we found a diffuse, turgid, and careless allusion to miracles on almost every page of the twenty-one epistles. The contrary of this, also, is the fact. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 209 — If, instead of employing, in these few instances, the well-understood biblical foi-mula, to which an his- toric sense had come immovably to adhere, the writers had quietly let themselves down through the medium of two or three vague phrases, of which they might soon have found the type in several writers of that age. The contrary of this also is the fact. The only remaining supposition which occurs to me as at all admissible, if our purpose be to set aside theso passages, is this — That, as no miracles are specified, and as no narratives of this kind are given in these epistles, it is not certainly to be inferred that the writers wished themselves to be understood in any very definite sense, when they thus vaguely affirm such to have occurred. So we might perhaps suppose if no other Christian wri- tings of the apostolic age had come into our hands. But an undoubted book — containing many such narra- tives, is before us. I abstain from an examination of this Book — the Acts — at present, and turn to it only for a moment, as it stands related to the supposition just named : and I affirm first — — That the historical relationship of this Book to the Pauline Epistles has been so exhibited, in modern times, as should exclude all question as to the genuineness of either — the history, or the so related, epistles ; secondly : — That, in this book, as I have already said, the for- mula which occurs in the epistles occurs also — and as often as thirteen times, and in connection, each time, with narratives of miraculous events. In what sense these phrases were understood in the apostolic times is thus put out of doubt by this employment of them in such a connection. 18* 210 THE IIESTORATION OF BELIEF. I aflirm therefore, that the apostles do implicate them- selves with the supeniaturul element of Christianity, and that thej do it in the most formal and distinct man- ner possible ; and that therefore it is only by violent means that the supernatural can be severed from the historical, as the two stand connected in the Christian documents. What those means are which, in this case, ought to be regarded as " violent," and should therefore be rejected, may easily be determined. To solve the problem of Christianity hj force is to admit some supposition, or to listen to an imputation to which a cultured and well ordered mind will never reconcile itself; and which would never be advanced, at all, by minds of any class, except at the impulse of some urgent argumentative necessity. I bring this to an issue thus : — Make the eflbrt requisite for putting yourself men- tally into the position of one who, as yet knows nothing of Christianity. I put into your hands, in succession, the fourteen Non-Supernatural Ej)istles — You sponta- neously say of them, " Whatever I may think of this TJu'ology, which is so new and amazing, it is manifest that these writings embody, with great harmony of intention, an elevated and consistent morality; it would be well for the world if it would receive it. It is also manifest that the writers, whether they be right or wrong in their religious belief, are sincere in their pro- fessions of it : — it appears also that they are sober minded, and of good judgment; — it is clear that they arc earnestly afl'ected in relation to whatever is of un- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 211 (loiilitcd iinportaucc, and that tlicy treat slightingly •what wc feel to be indilTcrcnt." Thus far then you will not aflirm tliat any of those sinister imputations which you hold in reserve for solv- ing the problem of Christianity, would spontaneously bo suggested to you in the course of your New Testament reading. But you next peruse the five above mentioned, epistles of St. Paul ; or you take up the Epistle to tho Komans. In reaching the close of it you are startled to find the writer, with whoso inmost thoughts you had become familiar, boldly aflinning that, in a mission- ary circuit of several hundred miles, he had wrought miracles, in each town and city as he passed. Under the perplexity that has thus arisen, I direct your attention to those several conditions attaching to this case which I have just above specified. These, if they aro considered as they should be, and if wo reject unintelligible evasions — myths, and shifts ; — rejecting, in fact, what a well constituted English mind must and will reject as frivolous, impertinent, vapourous, and absurd, then our alternative is just this. — To yiehl our belief to Christianity, as a supernatural dispensation ; — or, To suppose, I do not well know how to put such a supposition into words — that tho apostolic men, not one of them, but all, stand as a class by themselves, of which no other samples havo occurred among the myriad varieties of the species ; for they are wise and mad — they aro always virtu- ous and wicked — they aro prudent and absurd — in an extreme degree, and they are at all times con- sistently inconsistent with themselves, and with hu- man nature. 212 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. Language has been framed for expressing things that are^ or things that maj be intelligibly conceived of. You will therefore find an extreme difficulty in attempt- ing to give me, in any definite shape, your own idea of the apostles, the facts duly taken into the account^ on the supposition that no miracles were wrought in attes- tation of their ministry. In this attempt you will never succeed, to your own satisfaction. I will not tell you that your supposition as to the apostolic character is "uncharitable," is "unwarranta- ble," is "ungenerous," and the like ; for I am content to tell you what is simply the fact, That it is a jumble of incoherencies to which no semblance of moral, or of immoral unity can be given. I do not tell you that your conception is wrong and unfair : — for it is no con- ception at all — it is a naked absurdity ! I will return to this subject at any time if only you will put before me, in a form which I can understand, your idea of the apostles — all the facts allowed for, on the hypothesis of Disbelief. THE FORCE OP CONGRUITY, IN RELATION TO CHRISTI ANITY AND ITS MIRACLES. - It would next come in order to bring under consider ation those Five Books of the New Testament which contain narratives of miracles, blended with ordinary history, and with discourses— showing in detail, that, throughout these books, the supernatural and the his- torical are indissolubly commingled. This might soon be shown ; but I abstain from this open path for two reasons ; first, because the demolition of Rationalism by Strauss, and its abandonment generally, supersedes the necessity for showing that the evangelic miracles cannot be explained away in the manner that was attempted by the German writers of that school. But beside this reason, as I propose to bring before you this same supernatural element, considered in a very differ- ent light, I wish to avoid the irksomeness of going over the same ground twice, although it would be for differ- ent purposes. I must repeat what I have already said, p. 97, just so far as to remind you that those of our convictions upon which we are accustomed to act with the most unhesitating confidence, and to which we commend our- selves without fear, when life itself, or estate, is at risk, are 7iot, or seldom are, those which we may obtain by (213) 214 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. processes of catenary deduction ; or by a course of rea- soning which, in a technical sense, is logical. It is no* so. Man, such as we find him on the beaten road of real life, is no such syllogistic automaton as that he should bring propositions in threes to bear upon the business and conduct of every day. Pedants do this, and break their heads in consequence. It is by the force of con- gruous evidence — it is by help of wind and tide together, that we launch upon the dangerous atlantic of life, and cross it in confidence, and reach port in safety. The vast difference, as to its bearing upon our prin- ciples of action, and our every-day habitudes, between catenary reasoning, and THE force of Congruity is felt in the instance of the argument concerning Chris- tianity more than perhaps in any other case that could be named. Let it be that, with favourable impressions on the side of Christianity, and with a sincere wish to confirm ourselves in our religious belief, we carefully read one or two of the best modern books on the " Evi- dences." We follow the reasoning, from page to page, and we yield our aSsent to it, feeling it to be entirely conclusive. To frame a reply to this chain of proofs in any manner that should be satisfactory to ourselves, we know to be impossible. And yet a few days after closing the book the upshot of the perusal of it has been to leave us — not in a state of logical indecision, but only of discomfort and depression, as to our con- victions ; and we almost wish we had not attempted thus to convince ourselves. We need not go far to find the reason' of such a result. Those who read books on the " Evidences " in the favourable mood which I am now supposing, per- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 215 fectly know that, if Christianity be true it is not an abstract speculation, but a practical concernment for every day, and that among the many claimants upon our attention, this one claim stands foremost. But now the reasoning of the book we have just read is out of harmony with the machinery of real life ; for a man does not act at a prompting of this sort. The argument, although it be irrefragable, comes upon us cross-grained as to all our habitudes as deliberative and spontaneous beings. In fact — after several failures in the endeavour to feel and act as Christian men, on the ground of argu- ment, among the things and persons of the real world, we return the book on the "Evidences" to a high shelf — forget it, except to lend it to a perplexed friend, and for ourselves, resume our Christian consciousness : unconsciously, but really, we go back to those undefined moral congruities which heretofore have sustained our belief; and we abandon proofs in line. Nevertheless as often as we return to the subject as a matter of argument, we find ourselves in a position of disadvantage. At a point far removed from the eye, and at the end of a vista of logical evidences, we get our view of- the miracles of Evangelic history. Eor a length of time we have been fixing the eye upon the supernatural, as it appears when seen in this perspec- tive ; just as one might gaze upon a sunrise, seen through the bare trunks and naked branches of a wintry forest. Yet this aspect of these objects is not merely remote and accidental; but it produces an impression which is substantially untrue. Without any very difiicult effort of the mind, I can imagine myself to occupy a position whence I should 216 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. look upon the miracles of the Evangelic History in their immediate proximity to those things with which, actually, they always stood connected. I should then see the Supernatural in its relationship to the Infi- nite, which is its true relation. AYhen I place myself in this position I at once discern the reason of that which otherwise is unaccountable, I mean the fact already noticed, that the apostolic men, though they declare themselves to be conversant with miracles, yet so seldom, and with such brevity, mention them. From this position, moreover, that perfect simplicity, and that calmness which has been so often remarked as the characteristic of the Gospels, when miracles are nar- rated, appears only natural and proper. There are three mental conditions, easily distinguish- able from each other, in which I can imagine an indubitable miracle to be witnessed. The first is that of medieval credulity — or an incurious, unreasoning, inconsequential passiveness, to M'hich all things, natural and supernatural, come alike, and pass away without leaving an impression. The second state is that of our modern, dry, cold, sophisticated, scientific temper ; — scientific more than philosophical. Witnessed in this mood, a miracle would astound us — it would just curdle the brain, and produce no effect whatever upon the moral nature. But I can form an idea of a mental condition as much unlike the first of these two states, as the second. I can imagine myself to have come into a discernment of those unchanging realities of the spiritual and moral system which indeed affect my welfare, present and future; so that the witnessing of a miracle would pro- THE EESTORATION OF BELIEF. 217 duce a feeling entirely congruous -vvitli such percep- tions ; and would neither astound nor agitate the mind. I can imagine myself to have so profound a sense of primary moral truths as that miracles would be con- fluent with the deep movements of the soul, and would produce no surge. I can imagine myself to have such a prospect of the plains of immortality — a prospect moral, not fanciful, not sensuous, as that the spectacle of the raising of the dead should assort itself with mj feelings. So to see "death swallowed up in victory," would excite no amazement. I read this very quietness in the apostolic epistle ; and it sheds the steady bright- ness of the morning upon St. Paul's discourse concern- ing the resurrection. This great fact, concerning the destiny of man, which he there expounds, I also hold to be a truth, undoubted. But if, beside thus believing it with my modern logical persuasion, if instead of this belief, I had St. Paul's sight and consciousness of it, then, like him, I could speak of miracles briefly, firmly, and without a note of wonder. The miracles of the evangelic history, come to us with the force of Coxgruity, just so far as we can bring ourselves morally within the splendour of those eternal verities which are of the substance of the Gos- pel. While we stand remote from that illuminated field, they are to us only a galling perplexity ; for we can neither rid ourselves of the evidence that attests them ; nor are prepared to yield ourselves to it. At this mo- ment the Christian argument is an intolerable torment to hundreds of cultivated minds around us. In the crowd of those who witnessed the miracles of Christ there were some who mocked ; there were some 218 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. "who gnashed their teeth ; there were many who mar- velled and applauded, and soon forgot what they had seen. But there were some into whose minds the doc- trine — the moral purport — the spiritual reality of his discourses had so entered that, beside being conscious of the fitness of which already I have spoken, they felt, with overwhelming force, a Congruity of another kind ; I mean that of these miracles with the majestic bearing and style of IIiM who wrought them : for he did these " mighty works " with the spontaneous ease of one in whom this power, and much more was inherent. From what sources have I gathered my idea of the personal aspect and demeanour of Christ ? You will say from the groundless traditions of Italian art — from our modern religious poetry — from the pulpit, and so forth. It may be so in part ; but the main rudiments of this idea have come to me — I am sure — from a yeai'- to-year reading of the Gospels— commentaries, transla- tions, and all modern accompaniments out of view. This vivid conception is the genuine product of the Evan- gelic narratives, to which I have added nothing by imaginative effort. It is not that the writers have described to me this Person, or that they have given me a leading hint, here and there, to put me on the right tack. An image has concreted itself in my mind, whether I would or not. So far as I have laboured with it at all, it has been for the purpose of reducing it to its very simplest expression — removing from it the pictorial — the poetic — the dramatic — the medita- tive decorations, and bringing it to consist with the most rigid conception of the plain historic reality, as to the country — the age — the race — the costume. THE RESTOPtATIOX OF BELIEF. 219 This idea of the personal aspect and demeanour — the individual manner and style of Christ, I find to be congruous with the narratives of his " mighty works," ON ONE SUPPOSITION ONLY ; on any other supposition the incongruity is irresistibly revolting. I possess no such power over the intellect, or the moral intuitions, or the ideal faculty, as would be requisite for bringing any such repellant conceptions into combination. You will say that this Ideal is mine not yours ; that you have no such conception ; and therefore that you feel no such difficulty. But now, indulge me while I give you credit for a remainder of those sensibilities which per- haps you would disown. You will not tell me that a consciousness is unreal, merely because I fail in my endeavours to give it intel- ligible expressions, or indeed to put it into words at all. Do not the uncultured minds around us possess a genuine unconsciousness, as to moral principles, in behalf of which — either to explain, or to defend them, they would not have a word to say ? Or take an instance such as this. — I have a consciousness of the vast difference between the Greek sculpture of the purest times, and the Roman style, of the imperial times, which consciousness is to me as much a matter of cer- tainty as is any other thing whatever that has become an inseparable part of my existence. The difference between the one style of chipping marble into the human form, and the other, is so clear in my view, that, to confound the two, or to mistake the one for the other, is impossible ; and yet I should shrink from the attempt to set this same perception foi'th in sentences and paragraphs : I can do no such thing. Meantime 220 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. you might as well tell me that honey and molasses have the same flavour, as try to convince me that this dis- criminative feeling is a mere illusion, or that it is a vulgar prejudice, belonging to my artistic orthodoxy. The sense of congruity -which I have now in view, stands related to that moral regeneration which has placed our modern civilization so far in advance of the ancient civilization. To the ancient civilization — that, to wit, of the Athenian age, there belonged a purity of Taste which we, of this time, must be content to admire, and very poorly to imitate. But then in our modern literature, and in our poetry especially — in our fine arts — sculpture, painting, and music, there is a deep soul-life of which the entire circle of ancient art, and literature barely offers the faintest indications. To the modern mind there has come to belong an awful capacity of feeling, and a liability to intensities, both of suffering and of enjoyment (the one as well as the other intellectual, not sensuous) of which the briirht. gay, surface-loving mind of antiquity seems to have known little or nothing. Then along with this power of feeling, striking, as it does, into the roots of the soul, there are perceptions, and instinctive judgments, of which it must be said that they are altogether modern developments of humanity ; they are true ele- ments of our nature ; but they have newly been brought from the sub-soil. It is to the slow working of Christianity upon human nature that I attribute nearly the whole of this deeper vitality of the modern mind : You think otherwise ; but yet our difference as to the cause cannot affect our acknowledgment of the fact. If you should deny the THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 221 fact, I must think of you not merely as anti- Christian, but as downright pagan. Often and truly it has been said that the writers of the Gospels were men wholly incapable of imagining or of putting together a consistent fiction of any kind. But to say this is to say little in relation to the instance which I have now in view ; for the accordance which comes upon my modern consciousness with so irresistible a force is of a sort to w^hich the ancient world entire, cultured and uncultured — Greek, Roman, or Jewish, was not alive. Not only were there then no writers skilful enough, designedly, to bring together those elements of harmony ; but even if there had been such writers, there were then no readers to whose senses any such harmony would have been cog- nizable. It is allowed that the miracles of the Gospels are, for the most part, narrated in the fewest words, and in the most artless manner. Then abreast of these nar- ratives, and intermingled with them, come the instances of Christ's behaviour, in various positions, and his utterances of those ethical principles which are pecu- liarly Christian. Now between these elements which are here found in juxta-position, there presents itself a congruity which the modern mind vividly perceives, but of which the ancient mind would scarcely have been conscious at all. The ancient mind formed a concep- tion of the Goetes, and of the Thaumaturge, in which conception the sombre, inscrutable element was the leading principle. The man so conceived of, and of whom types enough, in all their varieties, might be seen in Egypt, that seat of jugglery, was the murky or 19* 222 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. the epileptic supernaturalist. Antiquity had not con- ceived of a worker of miracles in whose course of life and behaviour the working of miracles showed itself as a secondary and incidental element, and in whose character Love was of the substance, while the super- natural faculty was the adjunct. Whencesoever the materials of the Gospels may have come, and it is the ofSce of criticism to inquire whence, this is certain, that they do convey an Idea of a Person, possessing, in an extraordinary degree, the charm of Unity, or singleness of intention. This idea may be variously expressed : it includes consistency of purpose, and the coherence of all principles of action ; it includes oneness of aim, from the commence- ment to the close of a course of life : it supposes uni- formity of temper, and a sameness of the impression that is produced by the Person upon other minds. Then this idea excludes all those inconsequential depar- tures from the main purpose of a man's life which, when we witness them, prompt the exclamation — " How unaccountable, and how inconsistent a being is man, at the best !" If I wanted proof that this symmetry, moral and intellectual, does really belong to that idea of the person which the Gospels embody and convey, I should find it in the fact that, amid all the dogmatic distrac- tions that have troubled Christendom, during eighteen centuries, there has prevailed, in all times, and among all Christianized nations, a wonderful uniformity as to the idea that has floated before all minds of the PERSONAL Christ. Wherever the four Gospels are popularly read, this same conception forms itself and THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. 223 prevails. Infancy spontaneously acquires it : man- hood does not revise or reject it : — age holds it to the last. It is not in consequence of the poverty of the elements it embraces, or of any vagueness in the mode of conveyance, that this idea is so perfectly sym- metrical. Now observe that this symmetry, or harmony of the elements, constituting the idea of Christ as a person, embraces the miraculous portions of the evangelic narrative, not less than the ordinary ; and indeed, if there are any parts of this narrative which a reader of correct taste would single out as resplendent instances of moral fitness and unity, they are precisely those that narrate miracles with the most of detail. It is affirmed by those who reject every thing that presents itself as miracles in the Gospels, that these four compilations have become what they now are by the accumulation of heterogeneous fragments, vague traditions, exaggerated early beliefs, and myths. The Four Gospels, it is said, are constituted of a few mor- sels of genuine history, mingled with the illusions of the popular mind, that mind being then in a state like the " troubled ocean, casting up mire and dirt ;" and then it must be believed that, out of a random con- fluence, such as this, there has come a Personal Conception which is not merely morally beautiful, in the highest degree, but which, beyond all com- parison, is symmetrical, and is exempt from dis- cordant adjuncts. Are the chances as a million to one, or in what other proportion are they, that a conglomerate, mingling the true and the false (for you must except against all the miracles as false) should 224 THE RESTORATION OF LELIEF. present an instance of congruity to whicli no equal can be found ? All the world, that is to say, readers of the Gospels, ten thousand to one, are conscious of this congruity, and discern this moral beauty. You say you see little or nothing of the sort ; on the contrary, in the course of a strict criticism of these writings you have detected — how many is it ? — ninety-nine, or a hundred-and-one, discrepancies (these gospel contradictions constituting, just now, the stock entire of Disbelief); or you admit a something of harmony in the merely historic " Jesus of Nazareth ;" but you spurn the miraculous portion of the narrative. Yet you cannot effect this separa- tion ; for the harmony is not divisible. The super- natural cleaves to the individual ; and the two elements constitute together the one person. Among these miracles there are no portents — such as are related by classic writers ; there are no exhibi- tions of things monstrous ; — there are no contrarieties to the order of nature ; there is nothing prodigious, there is nothing grotesque. Nor among them are there any of that kind that might be called theatric. There are no displays of supernatural power, made in the presence of thousands of the people, summoned to wit- ness them. Although claiming to be sent of God into the world, with a sovereign authority, Christ did not, as Elijah had done, convene the people, and then chal- lenge his enemies to dispute with him his mission by help of counter-attestations. Taken singly, and when regarded in relation to the circumstances out of which each of them arose, the evangelic miracles were as spontaneous, and, in this THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. 225 sense, they were as natural, as would be the acts of any one of ourselves who while walking up and down in this world of suifering. should suddenly become conscious of a power to give effect to the promptings and yearn- ings of pity. When I tread the floor of an hospital — what is it that I would do if I could ? It is that which the Saviour of men did at the impulse of the very same sympathies, as often as the " sick, and the maimed, and the blind" were brought in crowds, and laid at his feet — " He healed them all." . What we have before us is not the Thaumaturge, going about to astound the multitude ; but it is the Man, whose human affections are in alliance with Omnipotence. That hand uplifted, while the lips utter an axiom of virtue, symbolizes, at once perfect intelligence, absolute goodness, and irresistible power. If I can imagine myself to stand in that presence, at such a time, I should have felt that the fixedness of the course of nature is only an arbitrary and temporary constitution ; and that it must be less constant than are those energies of love, which are eternal. In the pre- sence of him v/hose volitions flow out into act, without an interval, the difference between the natural and the supernatural, if it has not already vanished, seems to tremble upon the balance ; for nothing can be more natural than that omnipotent compassion should have its way. What is this material universe, in its vast- ness, and its variety, but the product, every moment, of the perpetual will of the Creator ? If we believed ourselves to stand near to HiM in whom the perfections of the Infinite Being dwelt bodily, a sovereign volition 226 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. of one kind would not be accounted more difficult, or strange, than volitions of another kind. Considerations of this sort are thrown out as they suggest themselves, and they may be admitted or re- jected. What I insist upon may be condensed in these four allegations. i. — A distinct Individuality, in the historic sense of the word, presents itself, in the perusal of the Four Gospels : all the world feels this, and has felt it in every age. ii. — By the consent of mankind, or the involuntary suffrage of Christianized nations, ancient and modern, a perfect individual idea, combining the intellectual and moral qualities of One who is wise, and good, and who is possessed of super-human power and authority, is em- bodied in the Four Gospels. iii. — This harmony, or, as we call it, beauty of cha- racter, in which there is no distortion, and with which nothing is mingled that is incohe- rent, is spread over the entire surface of the evangelic narratives, embracing the superna- tural incidents of the life of Christ, not less than the natural. In these narratives no seams, or joints, can be discerned, showing where the spurious portion has been spliced on to the genuine ; but — iv. — If we reject Christianity, as true in its own sense, that is to say, as attested by miracles, then we must solve the problem before us by means of one of two suppositions, or of some other, not essentially differing from the one or THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 227 the other, each of which, as it comes in turn to be considered, is inadmissible, and insuf- ferable. These suppositions are either — That historic reality whatever has formed the sub- stratum of the Gospel history ; in this case a perfect individuality has sprung out of a con- geries of illusions; or — The merely natural portions of the evangelic history being true, the supernatural portions have been imagined, contrived, and fitted to their places, with so profound a skill as to defy all power of criti- cism to trace the joinings. Let Christianity solve its own problem in its own way, and then we stand clear of all endless perplexities — having before us, in perfect symmetry — the Christ of God — the Saviour of the world. Let Christianity solve its OAvn problem, in its own way, and then not only does this perfect congruity ensue connecting the Personal Character of Christ Avith his miraculous acts ; but a congruity connecting also these miracles with the Great Scheme of which they are the adjuncts. At intervals of frequent recurrence during the last two hundred years, Christian writers have carried on an argument, the conditions of which have compelled them to regard the miracles recorded in the Gospels under the one aspect of their present availahleness, for the logical purpose of establishing the truth of Chris- tianity, as a revelation from Heaven. Thus to appeal to these supernatural attestations is, no doubt, a legiti- mate mode of defence against infidelity. And yet it is not while we are placing ourselves in this accidental 228 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. position, or when driven in upon it bj sophistry, that we shall ourselves be conscious of the real meaning of those same events as related to the Scheme of Reli- gion which they serve to attest. This scheme, so far as it is unfolded in the Scriptures, or may be thence gathered, inferentially, grasps the destinies of the human family from the first, and so stretches itself out in pros- pect as to leave nothing connected with those destinies which it does not embrace and provide for. Christianity must be looked at in its own light. So looked at, it is seen to fill all time, and to lay its hand upon the human species, comprehensively, and absolutely. No child of man is born beyond its domain ; none shall ever effect his escape into regions where its authority is not recognized. If the Gospel be thus thought of in the way in which itself claims to be considered, it will follow that the ministry of Christ, as narrated by the Evangelists, must be misunderstood so long as it is regarded as a course of events bounded by the initial and the closing year of his life among men. Whether we number ourselves with believers, or with unbelievers, we shall continue to mis- interpret the facts, or to be perplexed by them, while we keep the eye upon that narrow field of five-and- thirty years. You will tell me I am about to assume the truth of Christianity in order that I may show it to be true. I admit that it is so, in great measure ; and it must be so, in the nature of things. So long as your mood of mind is this, that you will grant nothing which it is possible for you to deny, you will catch only a glimpse of things disadvantageously presented to the eye. But if you THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 229 allow me to exhibit the same objects in their true posi- tion, and in their natural proportions, you will yourself see them to be real. After this you will not ask me to follow you from point to point in so rigid a manner. If I undertook to teach you the modern astronomy, and you would at once grant that my interpretation of the visible heavens is the true one, I should be able to convince you that it is so in much less time, and by a far less painful process, than as if you make it a point of honour to dispute every inch of ground. In this present Tract I am not aware that I have assumed any thing, or any thing material — which a well- informed and ingenuous opponent can show to to be dis- putable. But it is not while following evidences, step by step, that the harmony of truth can be exhibited. In the next Tract I propose to choose my ground with more freedom — to assume the truth of that which I know to be true, and to employ myself in the more hopeful labour of setting forth those great consistencies among the principles and the facts of Christianity in regarding which its truth commands an assent which we yield cordially. In several places, in these pages, and as occasion arose, I have remanded the question of the Inspiration of the Scriptures, as not involved in the course of argu- ment which I am now pursuing. It is manifest that these two subjects — The historic reality of Christi- anity — claiming to be — Religion given by God to man, and the Inspiration of the canonical books, are scpar- 20 230 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. able in a logical sense. And not only are they separa- ble, SO as that they may be considered and discussed irrespectively the one of the other, but they are, in my opinion, best kept apart — especially so when we have to do with those who profess Disbelief; for recent disbe- lief rests itself almost entirely upon allegations that take their force from a mistaken apprehension of the doctrine of Inspiration. But if these two questions are separable, and if they should be kept separate, then it is manifest that the one with which I have concerned myself in these pages must have the precedence of the one which I remand. It must be a very logical course to infer the historic truth of the Gospel from the alleged inspiration of the books which bring it to our knowledge. To say — and to say it to an opponent — Christianity is true because the Gos- pels and Epistles are inspired books, is indeed to make a very unscrupulous use of the petitio principii. This logical sequence of the one subject as related to the other is quite obvious ; and scarcely less so is the necessity at this present time, of establishing our posi- tion immovably as Christians, upon the ground of a belief that is purely historic. That this may be done I have a perfect confidence. When it has been done such inferences will be seen inevitably to follow as must leave nothing worth the contending for on the side of Disbelief. If Christianity be true — historically —its miracles included — and if indeed " Christ rose from the dead according to the Scriptures," then the Avritings which bring facts such as these to our knowledge will take a place of autliority in our mind and conscience whicii. THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. 231 practically, and as to their influence in determining our faith and our conduct, must be very nearly the same whatever may be the theory or the opinion we adopt (among the many that have been advanced) concerning Inspiration. That these theories or opinions, on a subject so ardu- ous, and so important, are all nearly on a level as to their intrinsic merits, Pam far from professing to think ; but I think that among those who have already yielded to the force of the evidence which proves Christianity to be true, the grounds of difference will be continually becoming more narrow, until a substantial agreement shall have taken place, and controversy on the subject die away. If now I may suppose myself to have to do with a reasonable and ingenuous opponent, I would ask such a one to forego the small and transient advantage which he may seize while he fights the doctrine of Inspi- ration. Let him deny himself any such momentary tri- umph, and manfully encounter the historic argument — the alleged inspiration of the books not considered. I might well ask such an opponent to yield this point, simply because it is reasonable so to do ; but further I will ask it because he who makes the request — which is in itself reasonable, does so in a mood which entitles him to be listened to. While earnestly wishing that the reader of these Tracts may forget the Writer and think only of the argument, I have persuaded myself that two inferences concerning him would, in a manner, whisper themselves in the ear of every candid reader. The first of these inferences is this — That the writer is no timid waverer 232 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. between belief and disbelief, looking about for expe- dients whereby to eflfect a compromise of the con- troversy now on foot. The second inference is this, That, how decisive soever may be his own convictions as a Christian, he harbours no ill feeling toward those to whom he opposes himself; and that, as well on the ground of temperament, as of principle, he is as exempt as most men from religious arrogance, and as little addicted to dogmatism. As to the question of Inspiration, second in impor- tance to no article of a religious man's belief — I may perhaps find myself emboldened hereafter to offer to the intelligent and candid reader my thoughts upon that arduous subject. III. THE MIRACLES OF THE GOSPELS IN THEIR RELATION TO THE PRINCIPAL FEATURES OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHEME. The time that has elapsed since I last placed before you my view of the Christian Evidences has allowed me, not merely to reconsider my proposed line of argu- ment in following up what I have written, but to think of it as related to the shifting position of the contrary opinion, or as we say, of Disbelief. It is matter of course, if one would not be beating the air, that one should aim to write what is season- able as well as what is abstractedly and always true. Yet as to that heterogeneous body of opinions to which the term Disbelief may be applied generically, two or three months is a long time within which it may be assumed to have undergone no remarkable change. A year may have seen revolutions and catastrophes take place in the history of a mass so inorganic ; and as to two years, within that compass the " Leaders of the public mind" may have exchanged positions, and several philosophies may in their turn have claimed submission as Positive and have come to be for- gotten. Besides the wish to write seaso7iahhj, I have a great wish to write temperately ; that is to say, with perfect calmness, and as mindful of the dictates of charity towards the adverse party. Now the passage of time does much in calming that eagerness of the polemical mood which impels us at any moment to violate can- (235) 236 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. dour. While holding back from pen and ink for a year or two, one may have come so to generalise one's views as to the meaning of a controversy, and as to its destined issue as must affect one's feelings towards those who, on the opposite side, are urging it forward. Although it is certain that I can never regard with cordial feelings those who are employing con- spicuous talents with unwearied zeal in the work of loosening the hold which salutary truths have upon the minds of men ; nevertheless the first risings of instinctive resentment will have been checked when I have learned to think of them as the agents in a movement which is written in the book of fate, and the beneficial issue of which I see to be near at hand. The recent outburst of antagonism toward Chris- tianity may be contemplated by Christian men from opposite points of view; as for example; I might, with reason, as many Christian men do, look at this modern "Infidelity" and "Impiety" with feelings of dismay, disgust, and indignation, as a wanton outrage upon society; and I might be wrought up to a pitch of zeal, impelling me to make proclamation, " Who is on the Lord's side? — who?" and then to vent my feelings in terms that cover curses. There might be reason in such a mood of mind as this ; albeit it does not suit my individual temperament. When, in so many family circles, one finds young persons of intel- ligence and moral promise, who have thrown away a well-established religious belief, taking in exchange for it a contemptible scntimentalism — a mere dream, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 237 that is recommended neither by logic nor manliness of purport ; — and when one sees that these victims have fallen by arts of licentious sophistry ; when, in min- gling with the artizan class in manufacturing districts, one hears men uttering blasphemies, they know not how impious, which they have picked up, as choice morsels, from out of the Sunday filth with which vile writers are supplying " the demand ;" — when, beyond this, one listens to too authentic information as to the spread of an unenglish disingenuousness among educated men who are persuading themselves to do on Sunday what they would scorn to do on any other day of the week ; — when one meets with persons of cultured taste who give an indulgent ear to any sort of shining ribaldry that may help them to shake off the remains of a troublesome "educational prejudice;" ■when things such as these meet the eye and ear on all sides, those whose own belief is steadfast, and who know what must be the issue of a national lapse into atheism, are apt to fire up, and to make onslaught upon the authors of so much mischief, and to do so in the temper of one who rushes in to seize an incendiary by the shoulder. But these very same facts may be looked at from another and an opposite position. Yet in defining this other position some explanation is needed ; for one may easily be misunderstood on this ground by nervous good folks. A word briefly here, and more onward in this Tract. It is implied in the very theorem of Christianity, if it be regarded as a body of truth sent dovm to work its way in a world out of order, and if it is to offer 238 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. no solution of the dark problems of that world, that, from time to time, it should evolve contrary scheme : of belief, or theoretic antagonisms, which draw their life and meaning, and their intensity, out of itself. Heaven's own truth will not fail at epochs to bring the insoluble problems of this present evil world to press with an intolerable weight upon the minds of men — and usually upon the choicest minds. Those deep principles of mundane regeneration which Chris- tianity has put in movement, and which it keeps in movement by new impulses from age to age, often take effect upon single minds, and upon communities, in a convulsive manner, and almost with a mortal violence. The Gospel scheme, if submitted to analysis, might be shown to carry in its depths the yeast of these periodic fermentations. Pardon me here a jum- ble of figures. If this system were not immortal it > must long ago have been devoured by its own progeny. i A false system either could not concoct such perilous energies ; or if it could, would not have survived the first outburst of them. Christianity, until it has reached its next stage — that of acknowledged supremacy in relation to human affairs — cannot be imagined to live in it on any other possible condition than that of passing through frequently recurrent seasons of deadly conflict with adverse principles, which, though the germs of them are universally diffused, are never quickened except when they come into collision with eternal truth. To this subject, momentous as it is, and too little regarded, I must again, in this Tract, call your attention ; for the present I advert to it only for the purpose of showing THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 239 liow these views affect the feeling I entertain toward those whe now stand forward as leaders of the move- ment which is to issue, as they think, in the over- throw of all Christian Belief. The DiSBLEiEF of these last days, so far as it is a scheme of doctrine, may be shown to be a birth of Christian doctrine. The Atheism, partly, and the Theism, entirely, of the present time is a heresy, full of Christian sap. By calling it Christian, I mean that it has no meaning at all except that which it has wrung from elements of Christian belief, brought into collision one with another. Atheism, in these days, is not, as of old, a metaphysic abstraction, or a cold paradox ; but it is a living creature, speaking with a loud voice, and showing a ruddy cheek, because it has drawn life-blood from that which can spare much, and yet live. If the Gospel, the destruction of which is so eagerly desired by some among us, were actually to breathe its last, not one of the schemes of doctrine which is now offered to us in its stead would thence- forward draw another breath. Universal nonbelief, which is the death of the human soul toward God and immortality, would instantly ensue. But there is no fear of the coming on of an hour of darkness, such as that would be. Impiety, while it has Christian blood in its veins, will henceforward, as now, start up to say its say, and to trouble our love of ease. It will do so because Christianity itself, which is now the only source of moral life in the world, is immortal, and will continue not only, as heretofore, to "satisfy her poor with bread," but to send out broken meat to her enemies, to the end that 240 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. they may not starve. We shall continue, therefore, both to Believe, and to contend with Disbelief; but •we shall not fall into Nonbelief. This course of things is not merely in a logical sense inevitable, but it is highly useful ; it is indispensable if not to the conservation of the Gospel, yet to the restoration of its forces. Do you imagine that I can so think of the good Christian folks of this present time, as to their judgment, as to their intelligence, or as to their conscientious diligence, as that I could be willing to leave Christianity, in their hands, undis- turbed and irresponsible ? far from it. The work that is needed to be done, from time to time, and especially at this time, is of a sort which perfunctory good intentions will never attempt, and which conventional wisdom knows not how to set about. Let me here speak with reverence : — God will perform this work, and will call to it those who, as to their calling, will work at it in the dark. Just in proportion as there comes upon me a deeper sense of the awful reality of the Christian scheme, and of its bearing upon the welfare of the human family, now and hereafter, do I feel distrustful of the easy, over-weening, and egotistic Christianism of Christian people. At the impulse of this uneasiness I am fain to cry out, looking across the road to the ranks of "Infidels and Atheists" — "Friends! come over and help us ; — set the house on fire, and then we shall shake off our illusions, and do our duty." The earliest developed of the beneficial results of an outburst of Infidelity is this, that it compels intelli- gent Christian men to look anew to the ground on THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 241 wliicli they stand, to sift the " Evidences," and thus to regain logical possession of their religious persua- sion. This is well ; and so is the second consequence of such a fermentation — namely, the throwing off from the Christian body, as expressed in the formularies and the conventional style of churches and commu- nions, sundry superstitions and superannuations, which the " Enemy" in the heat of action has snatched hold of and splintered, and which no one thenceforward will attempt to restore to their places : these relics are left to strew the field of battle. But there is a result which is far more important than either of these, consequent upon a time of out- spoken impiety, and of which impiety Christianity, being, as it is, the only truth now extant among men, is necessarily the object. This momentous interaction, partly logical, partly moral and spiritual, is of this kind : In the course of the controversy now in progress a marked approximation is every day made, on both sides, toward the point of intersection whereat the two be- liefs, the Christian and Antichristian, must come to a final issue. In the progress of debate we are drawing on toward that ground — a very limited space, which all men see to be the area whereupon one question only shall remain to be determined, in this way, or in that. In a manner which is perfectly conspicuous, and which no man of clear intellect can misunderstand, the religious controversy of this passing time is bearing us forward toward a single issue. The alternative, the only alternative now in front of the cultured branches of the human family, is tliis — Christianity or Athm- ISM. All lines of thought are visibly tending in to 21 242 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. this point : all men who are well informed, and whose habits of thought are unshackled, have long ago come to see this, or they are coming to see it, or (for we should save a corner for the less robust) are convul- sively struggling to hold themselves off from it. What I mean here by Christianity, is the Gospel, in its plenitude and its amplitude, interpreting itself in its own way, and speaking among men in a tone of authority from which there is no appeal. What I mean by Atheism I do not well know how otherwise to define than by saying that it is the pro- position which stands last in logical order among those which the human reason can put into words, intelligibly, concerning the universe, or the compass of phenomena, external and internal, with which Ave have to do. One feels that this alternative, and nothing short of it, is near in front of us, because, on the one side, those many ill-judged and crazy schemes for effecting a compromise with infidelity, which of late have been propounded by intelligent Christian men, all carry upon them the indications of their origin in faltering belief, in mistaken discretion, and in confusedness of brain. AVe may be sure that no such slender devices as these can have power to check that mighty movement to which we are all of us committed, or can save us from its issue. On the other side — the side of Disbelief — the endeavours that are making by Theists to pack and float a raft a-head of Niagara would be purely matter of ridicule, if the consequences to these schemers were not what they are. We have reached our present position after leaving far in the rear the ignorant ribaldry of the Voltaire THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 243 epoch. We have also now lately left behind us the erudite whim of Strauss. Strauss, by general acknow- ledgment, has failed in his endeavour to solve the his- toric problem of the origin of Christianity, on the assumption that it is false. The same thing stated in other words is this — that the historic and critical argu- ment on the affirmative side, is found to be irresistible. This is the consequence which, by his failure, this able writer has helped us to come to. If there be any means of holding off from the alter- native above stated, it must be sought for among those schemes of antichristian Theism which recommend themselves by a shining exterior of refined spiritualism, but which, rotund as they may seem on the sentimental side, will not bear to be turned over, so that one might look into them on the logical side. There are orders in the animal world that look gay and beautiful — prone ; but are insufferable — supine. Such schemes cannot avail for the purpose intended by their framers, because, as may easily be shown, recent advancements in abstract philosophy have made it impossible that they should any longer fence them- selves off, as toward their border doctrine — Pantheism, or the worship of the universe ; and one need not take much pains to prove that the boundary between pan- theism and atheism is like the margin of twilight be- . tween day and night in the tropics — an ambiguity that is passed in ten minutes. Sometimes one wonders how it can be that educated men should endure the humiliation of putting forth, and of being looked to as the apostles of religious schemes, which can claim no fitter designation than 244 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. this, that they are " Impiety scented and got up for the ladies." When with a rude breath one has blown away the perfumery, and with a ruthless hand has torn off the millinery, what remains to any of these recent theisms but the straw and shavings which the mass of men will never be persuaded to treat as any- thing better than rubbish ? It will be of no avail to tell them that it has been the stuflBng of a god. Truly it is not that "Natural Theology" does not now, as ever, rest upon its own firm foundations ; or that, in ascertaining these foundations, we are driven to the shift of reasoning in a circle, alternately assum- ing our premises in Natural Theology, for establishing Christianity, and anon using Christianity in making good our Natural Theology: no such expedients as these are called for. But the case, as touching us at the present moment, is this. During a lapse of years which need not be pre- cisely dated, as well the abstract as the concrete theistic argument has insensibly moved itself forward far in advance of the position which some of us remem- ber it to have occupied. That line of argument which was accepted as sufficient and conclusive in Paley'a time, and which embraced ten thousand accumulated evidences of power, intelligence, and benevolent inten- tion, drawn from the material universe, and from or- ganisms, vegetable and animal, around us, is hideed as valid now as heretofore, and as unassailable. Yet it fails to meet the enlarged intellectual requirements of these times ; for this argument does not even furnish us with an entire Theology, and it scarcely opens the path towards a Theodicy; much less does it lay the THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 245 foundation for a Worship, or give fixed support to an Ethical Doctrine. It wholly fails too to reveal a Future Life. On all sides, therefore, we now feel and know — and it is strange that our predecessors were so little conscious of the fact — that, for achieving these last- named purposes (and unless they are achieved the ar- gument is barely worth what it costs) we must go much deeper, and must look wider and further : our evidences, to be conclusive against the recent Atheism, must embrace the entire circle of facts presented by the world of Mind, as well as by the world of Matter ; and we must bring the stress of our argument to its bearing upon those intellectual and moral realities of which the reasoners of past times seem to have had but a glimmering consciousness. Our Natural Theology must, as to its hold upon our serious convictions, come home to the instincts of the real life, that is to say, the life of the soul. Now when we have done this — and we are driven to do it by the irresistible current of thought, as setting onward at this time — and when in the process of doing it we have recognised as true, and have reinstated as authentic, the whole of our emotional and moral instincts, its impulses, sympathies, aspirations ; — when we have assigned a place to our irradicable hopes, and also to our equally irradicable misgivings and alarms, and have thus constructed for ourselves a Natural Theology worth the labouring for ; — when, in a word, we have provided ourselves with a Theology, a Theo- pathy, a Theodicy, a Morality ; when we find our feet resting upon a basis of hope as men immortal, and also 21* 240 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. that we are standins; within range of terrors, as men guilty ; when we find that there has reared itself around us an edifice within which men may be invited to congregate, and to pay homage to the Creator, lluler, and Father, we then feel that any longer to re- pel Atheism and at the same time to discard Chris- tianity, is impossible. We have brought ourselves so near touching upon the awful alternative above men- tioned, that to hold off from it, demands an effort like that of one who is clinging by the hands to the pedi- ment of a lofty building. Up to a certain point, Natural Theology runs paral- lel with Christianity. Removing the forms of the argu- ment, and thinking of its substance ; or substituting concrete terms for abstract terms, it is a nice matter to distinguish the one body of belief from the other. When we have trod the Theistic ground as far as it may be trod, Christianity is ready to collapse upon us, and to challenge us to surrender. And this challenge gets a deeper meaning at each step of our progress. The Deists of the time gone by, seem to have been little conscious of difficulties which we of this time are groaning under. It is amazing to see in how dry, cold, and mechanic a style the writers of the past era, Chris- tian as well as antichristian, deal with those grave and painful subjects which touch the modern mind to the quick, and which well-nigh drive sensitive spirits to de- spair. A trim, academic, syllogistic, and rotund para- graph, indicating no genuine sympathy with human suffering, no anguish of soul, no mortal conflict, not even a man-like feeling toward our fellow men, did well enough for the finish-off of an argument attempted for THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 247 "justifying the ways of God toward man." The " tenth head of discourse " in a sermon would afford ample space wherein to propound and to dissipate all reason- able doubts on questions of that order. But the times have changed. A new and better feeling has come, not upon the few only, but upon very many, if not the mass of minds. It is a better feeling (whatever it may lead to) in so far as feeling is better than apathy ; and as there might be a question whether it would not be better for a man to hang himself in de- spair, than that he should live on and die in sottish in- difference to facts which would make hiin wish himself out of the world, if he were but conscious of them. At this moment we may be quite sure that no scheme of religious belief will be able to hold its footing abroad in the world, or beyond the walls of closets and saloons, which does not, in some intelligible and coherent man- ner, make provision for securing our peace of mind in regard to the present lot, and to the prospects of the human family. It is on this arduous ground that the fate of the recent Theisms, one and all of them, is sealed. They will have their day, and then become as the chaff of the threshing-floor. Atheism offers its services by showing us how we may cease to feel, or to trouble our- selves concerning anything that does not touch our individual animal welfare at the passing moment. But it is few that can take to themselves this sort of com- fort, brutish as it is. Our Theistic friends cannot do it ; and, while turning their backs upon the Gospel, they are struggling at desperate odds to keep at bay the last enemy in the 248 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. direction toward which they are looking. They are asking — " Why may not loe, as did our illustrious pre- decessors, stand our ground, and enjoy our philosophic religion, while we spurn your obsolete Christianity?" " You cannot do it, because we and you, and all of us, have moved forward on to new ground. You see that the Tlieologians of this time do not utter, nor can they bring their lips to frame those heartless syllogisms con- cerning the lot of man in this world and the next, which passed glibly over the tongues of their predecessors. This fact might give you a very significant notice that the time is gone forever, when the icy philosophy of a profligate age could be re-edited. The same impossi- bility which presses upon Christian Theologians at this time, must take effect in another manner upon yourselves, and forbid your wrapping yourselves in the fool's coat that fitted the broad shoulders of your grandsires." The Theists of this time might perhaps hold their ground if their near neighbours the Atheists, who laugh at them, would let them alone; but they will not let them alone. They have found a sort of comfort and a present ease in their abyss, which the Theist will never enjoy while he struggles to keep his head above water, and while he continues to look up to the sky. Abstract questions are necessarily the same in sub- stance in every age ; and any attempted solution of the difficulties that attach to such questions can vary but little, except as to the order of the thoughts, and the tone and the style of the language employed by an in- dividual writer. Inasmuch therefore as those standing perplexities with which the best minds, in all times, have THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 249 struggled, to little or no purpose, must continue to press upon every scheme of Philosophic Theism, those who, at this moment, are propounding such schemes ought not to think that they shall be more successful than their predecessors. But unless they are so, unless, in a very signal manner, they are more successful, then it is certain that the human mind is movino; toward a ground where these ancient difficulties will gain a ten- fold force. This should be well understood : but the whole subject will come in its proper place, if con- sidered further on in the course of this argument. I have adverted to it here, simply for the purpose of showing with what feeling I regard those who, as anti- christian men, I must speak of as adversaries, but who are not yet Atheists. In regard to the time that is near at hand, and as a preparation for that one last convulsion which the human mind must pass through, in making its choice between Christianity and Atheism, it is not merely desirable, but it is indispensable to the good issue of the conflict, that Antichristian Theism should fiist have exhausted all its resources, should have shot its best arrow, should have refined itself to the utmost, should have culmi- nated in its own heavens — and, especially, that it should have given utterance, in opposition to Christi- anity, to the most extreme impieties which may any way be made to consist with its holding a position at all against Atheism. It may be thought that this preliminary work has already been accomplished. I do not think so. I can imagine something better to come than what has hitherto been put forth by our hostile friends — the « 250 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. antichristian antiatheists. As yet, what A^e have had before us has borne the manifest indication of being the product either of minds unstable, impulsive, and perturbed, and ill content with their own holdings (which they cannot hold to) or of such as are flippant, self-seeking, ambitious, and coldly vain — minds that to win a clap, would not scruple to sink a continent. I can hardly imagine that Antichristian Theism has in- deed completed its destined work while it is repre- sented by writers who show no such seriousness or honesty of purpose as would lead them fairly to meet the point of the problem as to the origin of Christi- anity, and to scorn transparent sophisms which can serve a turn only among the uninformed and unthink- ing — the consumers of " railway literature." Especially we want to see what can be done in mak- ing a good scheme of antichristian antiatheism, by men who have that modesty and self-respect which inspires respect for an opponent. On this ground the entire class of modern infidel writers is miserably at fault. Christianity, keeping its hold, as it does, of the profound convictions of men who are as highly cultured as any men, and who are as robust in mind as any, and as fearlessly honest as any, it is an ill symptom when a set of writers constantly affects an innocent ignorance of any such fact, and are always showing off their condescension toward the obtuse superstitions that are prevalent in these "middle ages." ■,» I am apt to think that this affection must nearly have worn itself out by this time, and that men who will be ashamed of it are yet to come forward on the THE RESTOllATION OF BELIEF. 251 saiue side — if indeed anything further remains to be advanced on that side. Meantime I harbour no animosity toward the writers, such as they are, Avith whom a Christian writer has to do. I am heartily glad, for myself, that I am not doing their work — although, alas ! it must be done by somebody. Toward some who manifestly have known, as I have known, the pains of saddened meditation, my feelings are those of profound sympathy. As to the flippant and the ambitious, it is easy to forget them. As to one or two who, in a fit of moral hallucination, have uttered revolting blasphemies, I leave them in the hands of Him whom they revile, and who once carried charitable hope to its utmost boundary when He said, " They knv^w not what they do." If it be seriously-minded and sincere men tliat are to be addressed, then it may be demanded of them that the Gospel should be listened to on the supposition that it is true : and then, let it be proved to be false, if that can be done. And yet though I append this last condition, I must not be so misunderstood as if I could imasfine this to be possible. Any such assumption I hold to be mon- strous ; and even to this hypothetic statement we can attach no meaning so long as we respect the laws of evidence, and the principles of human nature. But the Christian argument must be left to follow in that course which is proper to the exposition, to the due conveyance, and to the demonstration of any other, and of every other system of proof in which premises are assumed, legitimate conclusions arrived at, difficulties cleared up, and counter-suppositions shown to be un- tenable or futile. Whoever charges himself with such a task as that of conveying to the intelligence and reason of others a system or body of truth — of whatever kind — must be understood to have come upon his ground in some such manner as this : that is to say — he professes to under- stand the subject of which he is to treat ; and those to "whom he speaks must believe that he does understand it, and that he is familiar with all parts of it, including (252) THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 253 its most difficult problems. They must listen to liim on the belief that what he affirms to be true, he knows to be demonstrable ; and they must believe too that he is prepared, at the last, to meet and remove all reason- able objections. There is nothing in the circle of philosophy, of criti- cism, of history, or of physical science, that can fairly be set forth and established, unless, formally or vir- tually, as much as this is postulated on the one side, and is cheerfully allowed on the other. From this point onward, therefore, dropping a peti- tionary tone, and abstaining from those interlinear circumlocutions which spring from the consciousness of having to encounter a perpetual gainsaying and hostile contradiction, I am to speak in the undisturbed confidence that my position is good ; and that it is impregnable. From the acts and discourses of Christ, and not least, from the occult meaning of several of his para- bles, we gather, with more or less distinctness, that his mission, as toward the human family, had, in his own view of it, three purposes, each of which is, to a great extent, irrespective of the other two, and which, although they are not in fact disjoined, are yet susceptible of interpretation, when taken apart. The supernatural element of the Christian system — or that body of miracles which is recorded by the four Evan- gelists — has a meaning which is peculiar in relation to each of these three purposes, considered indepen- dently of the others ; and in relation to each, and to the entire scheme of which his ministry on earth was 254 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. the visible act, the miracles alleged to have been wrought by him, in the course of it, are neither the beginning, nor the end, nor the substance of that scheme; and although they are inseparable from it, they are adjunctive, and, in a sense, are incidental to it. The supernatural element of this system, although adjunctive, holds its position within it, unchanged by the lapse of ages. If we have come to think of the miracles of the evangelic history — supposing the entire truth of the record — as events which long ago have come to their end, as to their intention, and which are now receding from our view, and are fading away in the haze of a remote antiquity ; — if we thus think, we misapprehend (so I believe) the purport of the Gospel, and lose sight of its perennial vitality. This I shall en- deavour to show. The three purposes embraced in the mission of Christ, as sent of God to bring about the well-being of the human family, or to open a door of hope to all its tribes, are these three : — First we gather from Christ's incidental expressions, and from the purport of some of his parables, this assumption — That he knew himself to have appeared in the world to bring about, by means of principles which be originated, or which he authenticated, a Secular Reformation; that is to say, a purification, a rectification, and an ennobling of man's life, indivi- dually and socially, as related to this present course of things — even that life individual of which death is the termination, and that life social which matures itself in THE KESTORATION OF BELIEF. 255 races — expires with tliem, and renews itself in other and remote regions. Christ, the Reformer and Philanthropist, was to bring about this purpose of his misaion just so far as it could, in its nature, be brought about, by means that are purely suasive ; or, as we say, by moral influences, apart from the auxiliary concomitance of visible and political institutions, and of secular power, or the setting up of an empire. As the SECOND of these three purposes of Christ's mission and ministry, a far more explicit reference is made to it by himself than to either the first or to the third. In truth it so stands out in his discourses, and it so presents itself in his apologues, as might lead us to suppose that it was the ruling purpose of his life, and the reason of his suff"erings and death, and that which, when he had made it sure by his resurrection, became the complement of joy in the forethought of which he had endured the cross and despised its ignominy. This, the second and prominent purpose of Christ's mission, was the rescue of a gathering — call it, if you will, an election — from out of the million millions of the human family, and the conferring upon these — whom he calls "his OAvn" — the life divine, the life immortal — even a new and imperishable existence, of which his own human immortality was to be at once the type and thq pledge. On this ground I am not writing as a theologian, or as a disputant on one side of an antiquated contro- versy. 1 know nothing about systems of divinity, nothing about confessions of faith, nothing about articles of religion. 256 " THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. What I have to do with, and the only things that come within mj field of vision, are these : — on the one hand, Christ's own professions — distinct and unamhig- uous as they are ; and on the other hand, that matter of fact which, conspicuously, has attached to, and has characterized, the course of events in all ages and countries when and where the Gospel has, in any mea- sure, developed its energies. The accomplishment of this second purpose, as of the first, was to involve such means only as are purely suasive — moral and spiritual, that is to say as distin- guished from such as are visible, political, and mun- dane. But then, more than this, it implies the presence of a spiritual energy, going beyond the suasive force of moral principles, or of audible teaching, and which takes effect in each instance in a manner that is inscru- table, that is infallible, and that is analogous to those acts of the Creative will which at the first filled the universe with life, and which is now and always doing the same. As to the THIRD of those purposes which we assume to have been included in the mission of Christ, inas- much as it is more occult than the first, and far more so than the second, and as it touches the circle of human duties and sentiments only in an indirect man- ner, so is it very parsimoniously alluded to in his dis- courses, and if anywhere affirmed didactically, the con- veyance is made in symbolic terms. Brevity and indistinctness, in this instance, are what we should look for, as proper in one who in truth is what he professes himself to be. The enthusiast or pre- tender would cither have made no such challenge, or THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. . 257 if lie bad made it, would have blazoned it in byper- bolic style. Gatbering up witb care from Cbrist's incidental ut- terances, and from bis apologues, tbe less obvious im- port of certain passages, we infer tbat be professes bimself to bave entered upon tbe stage of tbe world, on tbe part of tbe Almigbty — its rigbtful Lord, to deliver the buman family from under tbe band of a lawless Usurper — to restore trutb and order — to over- throw tbe tyranny, and to bind and expel tbe Tyrant ; and having done so — to "lead captivity captive." Tbe accomplishment of this third purpose of Cbrist's advent involves or supposes on bis part, an absolute lordship over all human spirits, (willing and unwilling,) a control of all destinies — present and future; to wit — the weal and tbe woe of tbe Living and of tbe Dead — for Christ is Sovereign and Judge: be is King of Hades, and Master also of every spiritual race, as well the loyal as the rebellious. Tbe accomplishment of this ulterior purpose of Christ's mission, and tbe achievement of this conquest, is to be brought about — so we infer — in such a manner, and by such means only, as shall at once demonstrate, and shall signalize, in the view of all, tbe intrinsic FORCE of Goodness, Truth, Rectitude, when, on even ground, these immortal energies are matched against wickedness, witb its falsities, its subterfuges, its ever- blundering intelligence — its own sophisms — and its own malignant devices. This superiority of Good in its conflict witb Evil is to be exhibited under con- ditions as favourable as may be to tbe party tbat is in the end to be discomfited. 90-X- 258 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. In tlius sketcliing the outline of the argument which I intend to pursue throughout this Tract, I profess it to be my intention to show that the series of miracles recorded by the Evangelists, consummated as they were by the miracle of Christ's resurrection, occupy a place of perpetual efficacy in relation, separately, to each of the three abovenamed purposes of his mission, as Saviour of the world, in a secular sense, as Re- deemer of his people, and as Conqueror in the world of spirits. This series of supernatural events is, as I think, altogether misunderstood as to its purport, when it is imagined to have been an interposition requisite for launching a New Religion in the world — and for giving it an initial impulse ; but which, now that the Gospel has got its footing among the nations, has outlived its purpose, and may, not only safely but conveniently, and with advantage, be suffered to fall out of notice and to be forgotten. Any such supposition as this — entertained as it seems to be by some who profess themselves Chris- tians — is, in my opinion, an error which is the fruit of modes of thinking that are shallow and nugatory. THE FIRST INTENTION OP CHRIST's MISSION, AS AT- TESTED BY MIRACLES. We have said that Christ has entered upon the platform of the human system — even of this secular course of things — embracing the well-being of men singly, and the wellfare and progress of communities, with the purpose of effecting thereupon a gradual, but extensive and deep-working regeneration. As Bene- factor of those whose ordinary term of existence is three score years and ten, and as the Reformer of communities and nations which, although they have longevity, have no after life. He gains a hearing for principles the vitality of which is such that they ger- minate in the most rugged soils, and spring up and bear fruit and scatter their seeds under the most in- clement skies. These principles, contrary as they are to the selfish impulses and to the ingrain desires of human nature, are sought after for the very purpose of expelling, and of utterly putting them out of the way of interference with the better-loved interests of the day and hour. Yet they live ; and from time to time they come forth with a fresh energy, even as at the first : nay, with more energy than at the first ; because in each succes- sive impact upon the human system, they fall upon a (259) 2G0 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. mass which themselves have brought into a condition favourable to the impression that is next to be made upon it. It would seem to be a matter of course, at this point, to specify those ethical principles, or as we might call them, those edicts of the Christian system, which are its characteristics, and which, so far as they take effect upon the course of affairs in this present life, do so, by universal acknowledgment, in the right direction; that is to say, in the giving force to every dictate of justice, hnmanity, self-denial, temperance, and purity. But it is superfluous to introduce any such specifica- tions, for we are saved this labour by those who, wish- ing to disparage Christianity, are wont to say that, as to his ethical principles, Jesus of Nazareth has ad- vanced nothing but what had been already said, and in a better manner, by the great writers of antiquity ; or even by Jewish teachers and Chinese philosophers. If this be so, then, on all hands, it is agreed that the morality of the Gospel is coincident with principles held and professed by the leading minds of the most cultured races. This is enough ; or if anything more were affirmed it would be in such terms as these, it would be said — " We do not need Christianity as a system of morals; for we all know and feel whatever is good — whatever is simply of an ethical quality, in the Gospels and the Epistles." This then is enough; and it hence appears that Christ, as the Reformer of the human system in its secular aspect, takes up and authenticates those well-understood principles which as soon as they are heard approve themselves to the consciences of men, and which the sagos of all tinu-s THE RESTORATION" OF BELIEF. 261 have recognized and taught. This is as it should be, and on this ground, it appears, there is no contro versy. That the teaching of an ethical Reformer should be consentaneous with the better feelings and convictions of men, as embodied in the sayings and teachings of minds of the highest order, is what we should look for as the FIRST requirement in one who comes forward to regenerate a world that has fallen into disorder.^ The SECOND requirement in the qualifications of such a Reformer is this — that, in giving expression to these dictates of universal morality, he shall use categorical forms, and not such as are conditional or logical. His style is this — " I say unto you" — and "this is my commandment." But then the necessary adjunct of an authoritative tone, such as this, is — the affording evidence that it has been rightfully assumed. It has been usual, on the part of Christian advo- cates, to say, that Christ sets a bold foot upon the ground of the world, as if proprietor of the soil, and that he issues laws, as Master, not maxims as a sage. In no case does he ask leave to be listened to, or aim to conciliate attention. Love is in his demeanour and in every act of his life; but stern law is on his lips, and it is at our peril that we turn away the ear from him who speaks as none but the " one Lawgiver" may speak. Christ, as founder of a system of mundane Ethics, revises and overrules all bygone moralities, issuing anew whatever is of unchangeable obligation, and con- signing to non-observance or oblivion whatever luid a temporary force, or a local reason. With a touch — 262 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. with a word — a word full of far-reaching inferences, he rules the ages to come ; and he so sends morality forward — he so launches it into the boundless futurity of the human system on earth, as that it shall need no redressing, no complementing, no retrenchment, even in the most distant era. This is done, not by systematic codification, but by the characteristic practice of instancing at the critical points, and wherever an ambiguity is to be excluded. Beauty of contour, in the human form, is secured by the ligaments at the joints, and by adhesions of the integuments to the bony structure at places. It is so that, in Christ's apothegms, in his apologues, and in his pointed replies to sophistical questions, he imparts a divine symmetry and majesty to his body of laws. — Christ's law wears the grace of heaven, though it be firmly knit together as law must be if it is to hold a place in a world such as this. Is then Christ's morality a good morality as related to the well-being of men in this present life ? You find fault with it — raising objections on this or that ground. But your individual judgment can have little signi- ficance nor carry much weight in this instance ; for an appeal may be made from your frigid and captious criticism to the judgment of mankind. It is true that we all of us kick at Christ's law, and resent it, in our worse moods of mind ; but we all give in to it and approve it, in our better moods. We defend ourselves against its application to ourselves, and we look about for pleas and grounds of exception whenever it stands upon the pathway of our selfish or sensual desires ; but we are prompt to wish that we could arm this THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. 263 same law with thunder when another's selfishness or his passions threaten our peace or property. In the course of those convulsions and upheavings which the civilized western nations have passed through, in the lapse of centuries, Christ's morality has still floated uppermost, and has held its position in the opinion of nations, as being better than any other morality with which it might be compared. In the social condition of communities those things which rend the heart of the philanthropist, and which perplex the statesman, are those in which Christ's law has been set at naught, and in which if it were applied to them, sufferings would be mitigated — oppressions would wear themselves out, or be renounced immediately ; and so the problem which baffles legislation would resolve itself as if by spontaneous sublimation. Christ's law, taking effect as the principle of social well-being, underlays legislation by the substitution of deeper motives for motives that are shallow ; and it overlays legislation by establishing conventional proprieties of behaviour, and by diffusing a refinement and a sensi- tiveness, as to conduct, which have the effect of ban- ishing enactments and penalties from the thoughts of men, in the ordinary routine of domestic and public life. Let Christ's law come into its position, first as a fixed principle, and then as a suffused influence, and thenceforward legislation would retire within its limits as a needful authority in the defining of those recipro- cative interests and functions which are indifferent, as to morality. We are so used to think of Christianity as a Re- ligion, related to the invisible and future life — which 264 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF, doubtless is its essential character, that it demands an effort of" abstraction to think of it merely as a mun- dane, or secular religion, sustaining itself indeed upon beliefs concerning the invisible and the future, yet achieving an end which does not in fact stretch out beyond the present life. If Christianity be not from heaven in the sense in which it claims to have come thence, then its author individually, is entitled to the immeasurable glory of having devised and put upon a course of continuous vitality a mundane religion which, for power, and for the intimate hold it takes upon the deepest prin- ciples of human nature, is, when set beside the ancient theisms, what the summer's sun is as compared with an arctic aurora. Let us then take it so at least as far as a page onward in this Tract, that Christianity is the product of a human mind — a benevolent mind — intending to benefit mankind, and projecting the means of driving off the vicious polytheism of the nations, and aiming to substitute an efficient belief for the inefiicient ab- stractions of Eastern and Grecian sages. This intention supposed, then the author of Chris- tianity did these things following : — First, he brought the Infinite and Supreme Being — the Creator and Ruler of the world, clearly and prominently out from the haze and the ambiguities of abstract or meta- physical speculation. Theism had laboured to do this ■ — it had yeai'ned to do it — it had laboured and had yearned on this ground to give some contentment to the sorrowful longings of the human breast, and to find and furnish a balm for its woes ; and also to screen THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 265 from horrors the terrified imagination of guilty man. Very slender success had attended any of these earnest endeavours. The crowd of men was in fact sent back from the walks of philosophy, and they were told to procure for themselves what help they might, at the hands of priests, and in frequenting altars and in be- sieging shrines. Christ, and we now think of him as the author of a secular religion, effected his purpose by bringing men into immediate contact with a well-defined con- ception of a Personal Being, infinite, incomprehensible, and yet near to each human spirit — to each spirit a Father, "seeing in secret," and accessible by prayer. It was this vivid revelation — call it now a merely human conception, which by its splendour put out the flickering candle of philosophy, and which by its force overthrew altars, and sent gods and goddesses to seek a home in the waste places of the earth ; or, if not so, they were left to shrink back into their own marbles ; or they vanished from the real world, and were to be found only in the books that are now the portion of schoolboys. If Christianity be a religion for this present life, then it takes possession of the human spirit precisely at those points of contact whereat a religion first makes its entrance, and which are the vei-y last hold- ing-places of religious feeling with men who are throwing off their belief. That is to say — the con- sciousness of guilt — the consciousness of weakness, and the experience of suffering, impelling us, whether we will or not, to believe in the speciality of the Pro- vidential government of the world, and to trust in, 23 266 THE RESTORATION OE BELIEF. and to use the instrument of prayer, as a real and present means of obtaining deliverance — relief — solace. It is quite true that there is a class of sophistically constituted, or of sophisticated and debauched minds, that do succeed in reasoning themselves out of these instinctive beliefs : — there are men who, with a suicidal wantonness, having applied logical scissors to the nerves of the moral life, do, and may, with truth, de- clare that they are conscious of no impulse leading them to look to the supreme power or mercy. So it may be with the exceptive few ; but so it is not, nor ever has been, with human nature, taken at large. Man and woman, in this their season of hope and fear, of changeful weal and woe ; — man, while he carries in his bosom a conscience, and while he is liable to a thousand ills, must have a religion. In giving men a religion, Christ, the Saviour of the world, does not recognize, as if they deserved refuta- tion, any of those sophisms that contradict our belief in Providence, and that would silence prayer, as if it could be of no avail : on the contrary, it gives promi- nence, in the most distinct and emphatic manner, to these three principles, which in truth might be regarded as the characteristics of his system, namely — That there is forgiveness of sins with God — That the welfare of the individual man is watched over and provided for by God our heavenly Father, even in relation to the smallest of its elements ; and That " the Father of spirits" hears prayer, and yields JumseJf to it, and that He is accessible to importunity. These are the con- stituents of a Belief such as men have need of in this present life. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 267 When, as now, we are tliinking of Christianity as an earth-born and a secular religion, then, without in- stituting inquiry as to the truth of its doctrine con- cerning a future life, (which inquiry can be pertinent only when we regard it as heaven-descended,) we are bound to take account of those main elements of the scheme — the promise and the threat of a world to come — even a retributive immortality. The way in which this promise and this threat are propounded, and then the mode of balancing both with the instinctive sense of justice, in the human mind, de- mand to be noticed ; for these adjustments have a deep meaning, and have been too little regarded. The future retributive life — the alternative of abso- lute weal or woe, and each of these carrying with it the momentum of a boundless duration — how have these fearful conceptions been employed by the Author of the Christian system ? — an awful Eternity, brought to bear upon a mundane religious institute ! and may we not use this word, awful, as a fit adjunct not merely of the threat, but even of the promise ? In truth can we look onwards to an endless existence as our destiny, under any condition, and not tremble ? — or can this instinctive fear be easily exempted from feelings of dismay ? The word Eternity must here be accepted in its po- pular sense ; for assuredly any terms or phrases that are used in conveying to mankind at large a secular religion, must be understood to bear none other than a popular or ordinary interpretation. Whatever those exceptions may be to which the more mature criti- cism of a future time may give support, or whatever 268 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. the qualifications wliicli a future biblical induction may introduce, there will ever stand before Christianized nations, in the teaching of Christ, an absolute alterna- tive, as awaiting those of the human family that have come within its influence ; that is to say, a state of permanent well-being, or a condition of irretrievable suifering and damage in the future life ; and this as the consequence of our behaviour in this life, or of our moral and spiritual condition when we leave it. Those who have had much practical concernment Avith human nature, such as it is, and who understand the instability of the moral principle in the minds of men and women, such as they are, will be ready to grant that no presentment of the future life which should be ambiguous, or which should be otherwise than absolute, on this side, or on that, would be likely to take any effect at all upon the mass of minds. The supposition of a future state which should have no boundary between a condition absolutely good, and the contrary, would be snatched at as eligible on all those perilous occasions when the imperious commands of the sensuous and selfish life are balancing against the vague and remote good of the life future. To give force to motives acting under this disadvantage, they must carry Avith them this idea oi fixedness, as belonging to the future retributive state. But now it is certain that among those moral intui- tions which are the hopeful distinction of human na- ture, there is a profound sense of fitness, order, and justice, which demands a doctrine of quite another sort, as requisite for securing the equilibrium of the mind; and especially of minds the most sensitive to- THE RESTORATION OB BELIEF. 269 ■ward whatever is good and true. Accordingly provi- sion is made in the Christian scheme for meeting and for satisfying this moral necessity. This is done distinctly and boldly in the teaching of Christ, when, in various modes, he gives expression to the doctrine of an exactly adjusted, and an evenly meted out retribution — premium and penalty — such as shall fall short of nothing in a balance-keeping recom- pense of good deeds, on the one hand, and a punish- ment, or an exacting of pains, on the other ; even such a retribution as shall approve itself to all well-consti- tuted minds ; — only that on this side, considerations of ignorance or disadvantage shall be admitted to miti- gate, or to overrule the reckoning. This doctrine stands before us, on the one hand, quite as sharply defined as does the other doctrine on the other hand ; and it is this last-named principle that meets and satisfies those instinctive notions of even- handed justice — of strict impartiality — of fitness — order — truth, which (except where a debauching so- phistry has paralysed the moral nature) take efi"ect in every human breast, and form a groundwork upon which conscience lodges itself, and on which it rests its leverage. But now do we not discern an Incongruity in these two beliefs ? does not the one doctrine cut across the path of the other, and seem to contradict, or to dislodge it ? Logic-loving theologians have always seen, or have believed that they saw, this contrariety ; and to meet the diflficulty they have rejected, or evaded, or ignored the one or the other of these prime elements of the Christian ethics. Just here has been the reef upon 23* 270 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. the sharp ridges of which systems of Theology have lodged themselves among the breakers. Systems, such as might show themselves with credit in colleges, and might be shaped into symmetry by scientific manipula- tion, must of course profess to be able to steer clear of these rocks, on either hand. Meantime humble- minded, diligent, intelligent, and non-logical readers of Christ's discourses and parables, instead of being troubled by the consciousness of any such incongruity — instead of finding his teaching to be incoherent, find in it the rest of their spirits — find the principle of a genuine harmony, or moral rest. On the one hand the prospect of an absolute and irreversible alternative of happiness or woe takes efiect, with unutterable force, upon the religious instincts, giving power and intensity to the religious life. On the other hand, the counter doctrine, which is not less distinctly set out to view, meets the requirements of a healthy reason, and of a conscience sensitive, well informed, and exercised among and upon the duties and trials of real life. But why does not Christ, the Teacher, himself fill up the chasm in his religious system ? ^\ hy does he not show us how two announcements, so dissimilar in their apparent meaning, may be brought into unison ? Did he not foresee the offence which the logical reason would here stumble at ? As human teacher, or sage, he would no doubt have foreseen the difiiculty, and in some way would have secured his scheme against ob- jection at this point. But he does not do this, even by a word. If we should be willing to think of Christ as more than a sage, then we may readily supply ourselves THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 271 with an explanation of the omission, as thus. We may suppose, either that the mode in which the two princi- ples shall take effect in the future life may be such as could not be intelligibly presented to the human mind in its present stage ; — or that, even if this might be done, such a revelation must embrace more than could now be set before us for our good. So long therefore as Christ the Teacher of morals is listened to by man- kind, the two doctrines, each carrying all the force that belongs to it apart from the other, will continue to bear upon religious minds, and will preserve such in a state of moral acquiescence. We have spoken of Christ's doctrine of a future life, and are now thinking of its threatening aspect, as a constituent of a religion supposed to have sprung from a human mind, and to have been contrived for effecting purposes that relate to this present life only. Thus regarded, I have said, the terms in Avhich this doctrine is conveyed must be accepted in their obvious and popular sense. But yet, when they are taken in this sense, they carry a meaning from the pressure of which we are driven to seek relief — if it may be had, in criticism ; — or if not so, in some mitigating hypothesis ; or if this will not help us, then we are tempted to re- ject Christianity on this very score. There is however another source of help under the intensity of this weight, which it is easy to foresee is likely to unfold itself in the course of an improved biblical method ; and it is of this sort. — — Already biblical criticism has reached a stage immeasurably in advance of the position which it oc- cupied only a few years ago ; and perhaps we ought 272 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. not now to be exacting mucli more of it than it has actually accomplished. Yet there is a movement for- ward which is not merely desirable, nor merely pos- sible, but almost certain to come about. This is a thorough and absolute emancipation of biblical inter- pretation from the trammels that have hitherto been imposed upon it by our polemical theologies. When once this liberation has been effected, the utterances of Sci'ipture will have room to take a new hold of the human mind — accepted as true in their simplest mean- ing ; and then a genuine counterpoising of moral and spiritual principles will freely develope itself in a man- ner that shall give rest to the heart, whether or not a systematic coherence can be secured for scientific theology. Let us apply this supposition to the case before us. Why has not Christ's teaching concerning an impartial and rigorous future retribution, touching all men, hitherto taken the prominent place which of right belongs to it in our theologies ? Why ? because we could not allow it to come into any such position with- out risk to the counter-doctrine of an absolute alterna- tive of good or evil ; or without giving an advantage they would snatch at, to our antagonists, on the right hand, and on the left. But let the time come when all such sinister influ- ences shall be discarded with the contempt they deserve, and when all such dotard fears shall be dis- pelled by a salutary fear lest we personally be found flattering ourselves among fatal delusions ; and then, this potent Christian element, working its way into the inert core of our now relaxed Christianism — touching THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 273 and wounding our fond conceit of individual impunity — breaking in upon the dreams of self-love, and dis- charging its anodynes ; and then a healthful, and a health-giving apprehension, of which our own individual moral condition, and not the fate of other men, will be the object, dissipates, we know not how or why, the morbid moodiness which had so often sent us on a bootless search after some hitherto unthought-of and softened etymology of the atavioi of our Greek Testa- ment. Besides, this same style of faithful dealing with our- selves — an alarmed conscience holding a candle as often as we read our Bibles — will bring before us in distinct outline, the truth that, in its application to the millions around us — even to the unprivileged and the untaught millions of our brethren, a fearless interpre- tation of Christ's doctrine concerning the impartial future retribution, avails immensely more in the clear- ing up of the diflSculties that have saddened our medi- tative hours, than does, or than can, any imaginable novelty of interpretation, even the most lax that should be put upon an obnoxious phrase in the Gospels. It has been usual to think of Christ's announcements of future punishment in relation to their direct bearing upon morals ; and the question is asked how far this may have operated as a restraint upon the passions of men. On this ground appeals have been made to facts, in support of opposite conclusions. With this much- worn question I have nothing now to do, nor am in- clined to advance an uncalled-for opinion upon it. But there is a permanent and a very extensive product of those awful declarations, which, though it be not obvi- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 274 ons, and though it has seldom been adverted to, is of unquestionable reality, and may be traced in its opera- tion upon every page of religious history. As often as we are comparing the ancient mind with the modern mind, and notice the characteristics of the two very dissimilar moods of the same human nature, this influ- ence is recognizable. To this subject I have already adverted more than once in these Tracts, and shall now only bring it to its place in relation to my immediate purpose. The ancient civilization, with all its great and shin- ing qualities — qualities which have secured for it an im- mortal glory, though not a perpetuity in fact, wanted that which places our modern civilization upon a far more solid basis, and which is the reason at once of its perpetuity and of its progression. In the social system of cultured antiquity there was wanting an element of some kind — nor did it appear whence it could be drawn — which should confer upon the individual man, and upon woman also, a ground of self-esteem that should be exempt from arrogance : — there was needed too in every man, a reason for re- specting and promoting the welfare of other men which should stand good irrespectively of any estimate of their individual merits : there was wanting some princi- ple, or impulse of personal courage and fortitude, which should be available for the feeble as well as for the strong, and which should arm the individual man, with- out making him pugnacious, and make him unconquer- able without making him sullen : — there was wanting in the ancient mind, a motive so solid as that the loftiest virtues might rear themselves upon it as a basis, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 275 and yet show no contempt of others : there was want- ing a ground of humility exempt from abjectness, and of grandeur of soul exempt from pride. Christ, the Saviour of men as to this present life, has supplied this want in an effective manner ; — for he has planted in the hearts of those who trust him as a teacher sent from God, a hope and a fear which sur- mounts, and which out-measures every other hope, and which expels every other fear; — a fear too which gives an irresistible prompting to courage, and which sus- tains even the pusillanimous in a course of behaviour which the noblest spirits, without it, can barely emulate. That dozen of men, ignobly boriJ»as they were, which followed Jesus in his circuits through Galilee and Judea, fondly dreamed of palaces and princedoms which soon were to be their own, when in truth, they were about to be sent forth upon a course of suffering intensely severe. It was needful to arm them for this unlooked conflict, and this requisite preparation, as it included powerful motives of the happiest complexion, so did it embrace a dread so deep that it should be proof against the extremest wrench of bodily anguish. On the one hand, this Teacher of men had said — "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom:" — but on the other hand he had said, even to these his "friends" — "Fear not them which can kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear; — fear him which hath power, after he hath killed, to cast into Gehenna ; yea, I say unto you, fear him." And what was this Gehenna? — it was the 276 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. place where, according to the same Teacher, "their fire is not quenched, and where their worm dieth not." Now we of this age may expound as we think fit these appalling words; or may extenuate these phrases; ■ — or if we please, let us cast away the whole doctrine as intolerable and incredible. — Let us do so ; but it is a matter of history, out of question, that the apostolic Church, and the Church of later times, took it, word for word, in the whole of its apparent value. It is true that several attempts were made to substantiate a mitigated sense ; but it is certain that the language of Christ, in regard to the future life, was constantly on the lips of mart^^s, throughout the suffering cen- turies. Often and often was it heard issuing from out of the midst of the fire, and was lisped by the quivering lips of women and children while writhing on the rack. These were the actual fruits of Christ's stern doctrine of the "wrath to come," and by such means as these was it that the world was at length cleansed of the pest of licentious gods and goddesses. But there were other and later fruits of the same belief which have been not of less moment, albeit less direct, and less conspicuous. An unclouded belief concerning the future life, with its awful alternative of endless good or ill — a belief of inheriting a bright immortality by favour, not by merit — a belief of individual relationship to the infinite and Eternal Being — a commingled or aggregate persuasion )f this sort solves the problem that has been stated ibove ; for it supplies to the individual man — and voman too — and child — it supplies a ground of self- isteem that is exempt from arrogance ; — it furnishes a jonstant reason for respecting the welfare of others, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 277 standing good irrespectively of their individual merit ; it conveys to the heart an impulse of personal courage, and of fortitude, available by the feeble as well as by the strong : it arms the individual man without making him pugnacious ; — it renders him proof against des- potism, but it does not make him sullen. This aggre- gate belief — the fruit of Christ's teaching — yields to the mind and to the heart, a basis upon which the loftiest virtues may rear themselves, without showing contempt toward others ; and it supplies a ground of humility free from abjectness, and of greatness exempt from pride. The ancient civilization, compared with the modern, that is to say, the civilization of the people of Western Europe, offers to the eye the prominent difference that results from the position of woman — her personal purity, and dignity, and her consequent influence in society, generally, and in the domestic circle, specially. Now it ought not to be afiirmed — for such an allega- tion could not be put beyond question by an appeal to facts, that this vast difference, with its incalculable consequences, favourable as they are to the stability of modern nations, is wliolhj attributable to Christianity, either in the way of explict injunction, or of moral influence. The social position of woman — her personal qualities and virtues — her place and her power, as wife and as mother, are the characteristics of certain races ; and being so, they mark those races as destined for progress, and as susceptible of refinement ; while fami- lies or nations that want the same inborn distinction, are doomed to be stationary through thousands of 24 278 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. years ; or tbcy are now melting away from the coun- tries they once filled. But in relation to the place which woman occupies, and to her qualifications for filling it, these two afiirma- tions are safe from contradiction, namely, first this, that, as often as Christianity is ofi'ered to the accept- ance of nations which do not possess this mark of no- bility, as there can be no compromise on this ground, such races must either acquire, with the new religion, this redeeming instinct; or not acquiring it, Chris- tianity retires from their borders, and when it does so, it consigns them to hopeless barbarism, or to gradual disappearance from among nations. But secondly, this may be afiirmed — that in any community, (assumed to be noble in this special sense,) in which the Gospel takes a firm hold of many minds, and in which it is publicly recognized as a final au- thority, it makes provision for securing the rights, the influence, and the personal dignity of woman — not in- deed by legislating upon polygamy, adultery, con- cubinage ; but in a far more eff"ective manner — in truth in the only mode that could be eff'ective — namely, by imposing the restraints of personal virtue, purity, and continence upon man. Where men are virtuous, women will be pure, and where women are pure they will hold their place without the help of laws. Now we need look no further than this in search of what should be regarded as the primary conditions of national well-being, and accepting the tAvo above speci- fied as sufficient, might in the manner following put our theorem into form. Given, a community within which many may always be found whose individuality THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 279 is at once marked and secured by their possession of profound religious convictions, and corresponding moral sentiments, which they will adhere to and will openly profess, even at the peril or cost of life itself : thus then we have a guarantee for religious liberty within that community, and through that, of civil and politi- cal liberty ; and by means of these together, there takes place the highest possible developement of human nature, individually and socially. Given also a com- munity within which certain evangelic dicta, such for instance as that comprehensive rule issued by Christ, as recorded by Matthew, (v. 28,) or that one by his minister, (Hebrews xiii. 4,) are held to carry with them the awful sanction of Divine Law ; and then, as the sure consequence, we have a social system which is sound at the core ; not false and putrescent : we have a system within which the brightest and the best felicity which earth can yield to man shall be enjoyed in thousands of homes : — ^we have a social system within which, from thousands of sources — obscure and illus- trious, from cottages and from mansions, from attics and lodgings, from shop parlours, aUd from halls of splendour, there shall spring forth, and spread them- selves abroad perpetually, all the stern virtues, and all the soft, warm, and heavenlike affections ; all the smil- ing bright-eyed graces of innocent youth, and all the tearful and yearning sympathies of matron life ; in a word, all those bosom-heaving joys, and all those soul- healing griefs which render earth such, that men, while in the fruition of so much pure good, feel and know that there must be a Heaven to come, where earth's blossoms shall ripen into undecaying fruits. 280 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. But now as to all tliis Christ-given earthly good, on what terms is it to be had, or in compliance with what conditions is it to be made sure to any people ? Nothing more simple or certain than the reply: — -the one condition is this, that Christ, the "author and finisher" of a faith carrying with it these prin- ciples of earthly well-being, shall be thought of and listened to as God's authenticated minister, so as that we are sure that not one of his words shall fall to the ground, or fail to take effect upon ourselves, here or hereafter. In other words, there must be available, in a form adapted to the reasonable requirements of an instructed people — evidence sufficient, on the ground of which the convictions of such a community may securely rest. Belief is the one condition which we need : grant it ; and the consequences above-named follow. If Christ be trusted in — if Christ be feared as he who shall come to be our judge, and if he be loved as our Deliverer, he becomes at once " the Saviour of all men," and is then the Giver, in this present life, of Liberty, Love, Virtue, and whatever of peace and felicity this life may be made to embrace in its seventy years. Now I come round to my immediate purpose in this section, which is to show the bearing of the super- natural element of the Christian system upon its per- petual influence in the world, as the source, and the impelling reason of secular good and of earthly felicity, or of solace and mitigation, as the case may be, to the human family. Remove the supernatural from the Gospels, or, in other words, reduce the evangelic his- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 281 tories, by aid 'of some unintelligible hypothesis (Ger- man-born) to the level of an inane jumble of credulity, extravagance, and myth-power, (whatever this may be,) and then Christianity will go to its place, as to any efifective value, in relation to humanizing and benevo- lent influences and enterprizes — a place, say, a few de- grees above the level of some passages in Epictetus and M. Aurelius. Whatever may be the present estimated value of the best pages of classical antiquity, considered as a moral force, now in operation for the good of man- kind — then the residual value of the Gospels and Epistles — after the miracles have been driven off in the furnace of " historic criticism" — will be (may you not grant it ?) about twice as much ! In relation to the support of vegetable and animal life, let us ask, what would be the value of twice moonlight ? The Gospel is a force in the world, it is a force available for the good of man, not because it is Wis- dom, but because it is Power. Whence comes its power ? Tell me whence it will come after you have persuaded the world that, henceforward, in the book of history, it must be catalogued along with Frauds ? It is a customary observation, or truism, to say that the power of enjoyment and the power of suffering — ■ necessarily correlatives — are directly as the quantity of the intellectual and moral faculty, and in proportion to the development of both. There may therefore always be room for the question how far, in a world such as this, abounding as it does in sources of suffer- ing, an increase of intellectual and moral faculty, and the developement of them, are truly to be desired. A 2-4* 282 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. question such as this we leave where it stands. But this is certain, that, in the mechanism of human nature a remedial provision is made for the simultaneous and proportionate enlargement of those helpful sympathies which bind us together, in weal or woe, and which widen infinitely the interval between the cultured and morally developed man, and the savage. Am I, and are those around me, capable of enjoying and of suf- fering a thousand times more than is my brother, the troglodite ? — yes, but then I may reckon upon receiv- ing all sorts of aids and solaces — substantial help and tearful love, in my hour of suffering ; while he is left in his den to be eaten alive by wild dogs or vultures. Nevertheless, while it is true that the benevolent affections, and the natural impulses of sympathy do, in a general way, keep pace with the expansion of the intellectual and moral faculties, it is also true that the force actually available in the world, at any time, for the relief of want, and for the assuagement of pain and woe, needs a constant momentum to be supplied to it from some energy that is foreign to itself. It is the presence of this constant force, drawn from a definite religious belief, which makes the diff"erence between the vague philanthropy of the best times of ancient refinement, and the effective benevolence of Christian- ized modern communities. But the momentum sup- plied by the Gospel is a force which disappears — which is utterly gone, gone for ever, when Belief in its au- thority, as attested by miracles, is destroyed. This assertion might seem to need no proving, but it may admit of something to be said in the way of illustration. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 283 Let it be affirmed, on your side, that a miracle is abstractedly impossible, and that no such event has ever occurred in the world's history ; or that if it had occurred, it could not have been so reported to us as should now command our assent. Furthermore, let it be said that the mass of mankind have in all ages ad- mitted such reports greedily, or in the exercise of little discrimination. No such allegations, or the like to them, can affect my present argument. The evan- gelic miracles have in fact been accepted as true, and they are so accepted at this present time ; and the evidence in support of them is of such force that it commands the assent of educated men, who at the same time reject with contempt the entire mass of that spurious stuff which crams Church histories. This being the fact, the supernatural element of Christianity is an extant efficient cause, working itself out now in the movements of every Christianized community. Christian benevolence, expressing itself in a thousand forms of appliance, as related to the ten thousand phases of human suffering and degradation, is not a vapid sentiment with a tear on each cheek ; nor is it an ambulatory wisdom, nor is it a schirrous humanity, grown upon political economy ; but it is a calculable resource, occupying a principal place in the estimate of a people's means of regeneration and progress. Belief in the supernatural lifts this estimate : disbe- lief sinks it below zero. Belief is the spring or rea- son of practical benevolence in a country : Disbelief is the azote of the moral world. Whether it be gladly and cordially, or grudgingly and formally, men on all hands do yield themselves, 284 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. their personal services, or their purses, or both, to the assessments of authoritative Christian benevolcyice. To some extent the purest and most heavenlike impulses, and to a great extent conventional practices, feed Chris- tian charity, public and private, and keep it a-going; but both alike take their rise from a belief which is held to carry with it the weight of Divine law— law that shall be valid in a future life. Instead of thinking of so mixed and ambiguous a mass as the national mind, let us now fix our atten- tion upon the restricted field of a Church-going com- munity, in a country like England. The minds that fill this narrower field may be distributed into three classes, as thus : there is, first, the large class of the inert, comprehending the thousands, young and old, who yield themselves, in various degrees of ductility or malleability, to the forces that are brought to bear upon them. The second class includes the smaller number of the repugnant, or recalcitrant, who are held within the Christian-charity pale by nothing better than secondary or sinister motives. These are those who are restrained from flagitious evil, and who are compelled to take a share in what is good, by motives that are ready to snap at any instant. Then there is the third class — the true, the loving, the heart- whole, the believing; — those whose presence is the life-blood of the body ecclesiastical, spiritual and moral. Now with these three clearly distinguishable classes in view, as filling churches — side by side once a-week in pews — let me imagine that we had the power to try the two experiments following : — First, let it be that, from some hitherto unsuspected THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 285 source, there has come up evidence, palpably contra- dictory of the Gospel history, as to its supernatural element. A flaw in the evidence has been brought forward — a flaw of such a kind as leaves no place for explanation. This discovery so acts upon the Church- going class as that the religious persuasion of the body suddenly collapses. Belief is gone ; that is to say, all feeling toward Christianity as a revelation from God, miraculously attested, and having a valid claim to our reverential regard, has ceased. We have still in our hands the very same Text, with all its excellent maxims, and its elevating sentiments, and its eloquent passages. But the parchment no longer entitles us to an estate — • the parchment no longer alarms us with the threat of future pains. The Church bell goes the next Sunday morning after this fatal discovery has been noised abroad, and, scarcely knowing why, the congregation obeys the call. But at a year's end shall we find these same pews filled with families, taking a part in worship, and listening to a preacher ? T think not. In one such Church there will be enacted a sensuous theatric super- stition ; — in another a lecturer will take his turn ; and there will be a platform, a moderator, and a debate ; and the question Avill be — I should blush to put it in words, for I fancy of what quality that question will be. You will comfort me by the assurance that the pulpits from which fanatics have been driven will hence- forward be occupied by philosophers — that is to say, by men who will set about mending the world, and keeping it in repair by application of abstract truths — pure Theisms. Yes, and so may a man employ himself 286 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. in carving a block of granite with a penknife, or in moulding a mass of clay with a straw. You have lost your standing of unmeasured hope and fear, grounded upon an attested message from God ; and now what has become of the inert multi- tude ? Do you think they will be patient listeners to your Spinoza Gospel ? or will they comprehend your Hegelian nihilism ? I think this mass will have gently subsided into its own native slough of easy, pleasure- loving sensuousness and sensuality. The repugnant and the ungovernable, where are they ? Lately, and so long as religious opinion hemmed them in, they were restrained or abashed to a great extent. But now they are told that all shall be well with them in the end — that the alarms of conscience are nugatory misgivings, which should be treated with sulphate of quinine and a shower-bath. They are assured that philosophers, though they are not agreed upon the question whether " absorption " or "annihi- lation" is to be the next stage of the "I" or the " ME," yet are unanimous- in the opinion that the one or the other of these desirable issues awaits us ; and certainly not the fabled immortality of the Christian superstition. I ask you — and I ask you to give me an outspoken and truthful answer to this question — whether, in the now actual state of abstract Philosophy, as taught among those who reject Christianity, any announce- ment that should be morally better than this can be made when you convoke the Church-going inert mul- titude to listen to their last sermon, and to receive the philosophic benediction ? THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 287 But what has become of the cordial Few — whither has fled the life-blood of the social body ? They have sickened and fainted on the spot where these sounds of dismay first fell upon their hearing. Their hearts broke at the blow. They can no more lift a hand in works of charity ; they can no more set a foot forward upon the flinty path of self-denying love. The wretched and the hungry and the sick call for them ; but they are as the dead that hear not. But I now imagine a contrary course of things, but a sudden and general enhancement of religious feeling, arising we know not whence or why, and after a while subsiding ; but what might fitly be called — a Restora- tion of Belief; that is to say, a confirmed rational confidence in the Divine authority of Christianity as attested by the miracles recorded in the Gospels. In what manner such a renovation of the belief of an instructed people might be spoken of as likely to come about, I need not now stay to inquire. It is suflScient to say that whereas the critical and historic argument in support of this belief stands at this time intact and valid, having of late years passed through the severest process of adverse analysis, almost any incidental occurrence, almost any casual coincidence turning up, unlooked for, on the path of the critic or the antiquarian, which should arrest attention and fix it upon the facts of the evangelic history, would sufiice for bringing on the sort of revolution I am now think- ing of. What is needed just now is not the creation or the evolution of a new body of evidence, but the awaken- ing and riveting of attention upon that which has long 288 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. been in our hands. In a pitchy-dark night a party of travelers has come, they know not where ; but they feel that a pavement is under their feet : it is affirmed among them, and debated, and denied, that they have reached the principal square of a city : — at the instant a flash of lightning reveals the broad fronts of palaces, with a back-ground of domes, spires, castles ; and thus all argument is at an end. I think that at this very moment, when a murky cloud of atheistic darkness has settled itself down upon continental Europe, the skirts of which chill these islands, the incidental coming up of any corroborative facts, within and upon the walks of historical criticism or of science, which should en- gage the attention of educated men, would be enough to dissipate this gloom, as affecting ourselves, and to refresh and restore our confidence in the Truth which, as a nation, we profess. But grant only such a refreshment to be possible, and imagine it actually to have taken place, and then, as if awakening from a troubled dream, as if shaking off a lethargy, we feel that the unseen and the future, as set before us in the Gospel, are near at hand, and that this future is what awaits each of us at every instant. Now the consequences, personal and social, of such a return to a vivid Christian Belief, all go over to the side of those energies which promote and con- firm our individual well-being, and the welfare of the community ; that is to say, Christ becomes, at once, the Saviour of the living, the moment when his claim to be such is assented to in the world. And when this claim is allowed, then the miraculous attestations upon which it rests come into a direct causal connexion with that THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 289 earthly blessedness, of which the Christian system con- tains the elements. Without calling upon the imagination for aid, we may trace this connexion till we come to facts that are now under our eye : we begin to follow the links of this chain in that hour when, as the sun was going down behind the Galilean hills, and the waters of the lake were darkening, a transaction had place which, from that moment to this, has never ceased to yield its results in the form of ponderable and calculable chari- ties, whence the hungry and wretched throughout all time since have drawn supplies. Jesus seeing the multitudes had compassion on them, because they had continued crowding around him, day after day, until their stores were spent. He marshalled them in companies — for He was a lover of order ; He blessed the bread that came to His hand, and. from that hand distribution was made until all were satis- fied. There are two things noticeable in this event. First, there is the authentication which it contains of those better impulses of our nature which prompt us to consider the welfare and comfort of others, and to do whatever may be done to meet the occasion that at any time calls up compassion. This is the doctrine of this history. Next comes its legislative import. To find this we turn over a page in the Gospels, and there are forewarned that in the closing act of Christ's ad- ministration of mundane affairs this should be held to be a valid judicial test of character — " I was an hun- gered and ye fed Me ;" or, on the contrary, " I was an hungered and ye gave Me no meat." If this be the rule of the future judgment, then the feeding of the 25 290 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. four thousand is not merely an exemplification of be- nevolence, which we may do well to imitate;— it is much more. But whence comes this further and deeper meaning of this instance ? It springs directly from the miracle. If this history be true, then are we all yet to be dealt with according to the above-named rule or law, which we find to be in that case made and provided. Now through all the years of these eighteen cen- turies past, this history has been accepted as true — and moreover the judicial inference has been dulj^ ap- pended to the history among Christian nations, and it is so now, and the result now, as always it has been, is seen in ten thousand "works of mercy" as they are called — public and private — stated and occasional ; the charities administered by "committees" — the crust given at the cottage-gate ; the alms, in ways innumerable, through which, at the prompting of natural sympathies, strengthened, deepened, enforced by the Christian rule, and by men's belief in the Christian future, the un- blessed — the luckless, the unhelpful, the feeble, the de- crepit, the diseased, the maimed, the blind, the deaf, the insane, receive such help as their several cases call for, and admit of, and which the hand, heart, and purse of their fellows may afibrd. The Evangelist tells us that, in one of the instances now referred to, the number of the men was about five thousand, beside women and children; say seven thousand altogether: now if we take each unit of that number, and give it a place at the head of hundreds of thousands, we shall still fall short of the truth in computing the hosts of the needy who, in the direct line of moral causation, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 291 have, through the course of time, eaten their bread daily from those Galilean baskets. The doctrines — the precept, the example, alone, would not have taken effect in any such manner as this ; but it has been the DOCTRINE — authenticated by the miracle : it has been, not mere teaching ; — but legislative teaching. Now there is a feeling which is natural, and there- fore not in itself to be reprehended, impelling us to ask that where legislation carries with it the most ex- treme consequences, touching us individually, the au- tlientication should not come to us remotely, or be attainable infer entially onl}'', but that it should come home to every man's consciousness, either through his senses or his understanding, in a mode that shall be unambiguous and categorical. Hence the demand so often repeated — " show us a sign from Heaven." " Give to us — even to the men of this generation, a proof that the things written in the Book are sure, and that we shall find them so hereafter." I need not here reiterate the customary replies to this demand, and which, if fairly weighed, should I think be deemed valid and sufficient. But while, as now, we are thinking of Christianity as a secular re- forming force, intended by its Author to take effect through the lapse of ages, then I see, in the mode that has been chosen for establishing the authority of the system in the minds of men, throughout all time, a proof, not merely of a profound knowledge of the struc- ture and laws of the human mind; but also a fore- knowledge (how wonderful if its author were such only as you suppose him) of those revolutions in the intel- lectual as well as the moral condition of cultured na- 292 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. tions which the flow of centuries was destined to brino" about ! To me it seems as if the special mood or tem- per of this very half century in which our lot is cast, had been in the view of IIim whose name this system carries. It is trite to say that during ages of barbarism and of popular ignorance, and of its attendant credulity, genuine miracles could scarcely, under any conditions, be made to offer themselves as infallibly distinguished from the spurious ; but unless they did so, their legisla- tive autliority would be vitiated. If I go back to the times of the venerable Bede, or of Gregory of Tours, my mood of mind is such that a miracle is congruous with it ; and I can look at it calmly, in its own light ; it does not put me aghast. But then I have no habits of thought, I have no discriminative temper, impelling, or indeed enabling me to deal discretively with the wonders that are daily reported and shown off before me. The genuine miracle, therefore, would retain little or none of its distinctive force. If from that twilight age I come down to these days, even to. the times of Laplace and of Playfair, in which Science bears sway, and when Philosophy is in the wane, or is even scouted — at such a time, the occur- rence of a miracle would be to me a shock or a vio- lence, because there is nothing of homogeneous quality in my present intellectual condition. Whether I will or not, I am now governed, and in truth am overawed, by the dry, rigorous, and exceptive temper of Science, and by the soulless and boastful mood of mechanical achievement. Doing homage, as I cannot help doing, to this spirit of the times, the supernatural has moved THE RESTORATION 01 BELIEF. 293 off far beyond my utmost range of thought. But let me not forget that this now-uppermost mood is the mood of a period only : it is not to be thought of as if it were a normal condition of human nature : far from it ! Aristotle is not a model man ; it were better to take Plato as such. It is indeed a great thing to re- solve nebulae, and to construct steam navies, and to convey thought over land and across oceans, and round the equator upon galvanic wires : — these things are glories if we are comparing our own time with any times that are past : but they are, and they ought to be accounted woeful disgraces, if we hear them boasted of as feats that symbolize the powers of the human mind in its ultimate and highest possible condition ! If, in the next age, Philosophy should dare to breathe again, and should become bold enough to teach humil- ity to Science, then man — spiritual and immortal as he is — might be trusted to witness miracles anew ; and thus might step forward into the place that becomes him, where he would calmly hold correspondence, as at the first, with a stage of the universe higher than this, and would be permitted to look onward toward that eternity, on the threshold of which his foot is even now placed. And yet perhaps it will always be true that, in proportion as men become consistently reasonable, and acquire the habitude of yielding themselves implicitly and almost involuntarily to the conclusions of an au- thenticated practical logic, they will gladly accept, as best for them, the unchanging and the unchangeable certainties of historic evidence ; and being content with these, will cease even to desire recurrent revelations, as from the unseen world. 25* 294 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. At this moment, a very little of the supernatm-al, taking place in the room next to that in which I am sitting, might shake my reason ; for it would not find me in a state to yield my judgment or conscience to its bidding. Or, if it did not make the brain curdle, it would bring me under peril of a far worse kind ; for I might be tempted to resist this sort of appeal as to do a damage, that must be irremediable, to the moral and religious constitution of the mind. Quite of another sort would be an occurrence such as I have already supposed — namely — That, in the course of critical and historical studies, any residue of ambiguity still attaching to portions of the evangelic writings should be dispelled ; while new corroborations, such as in the nature of things spring up whenever a genuine history is subjected to severe scrutiny, are continually presenting themselves : — tlds species of augmenting certainty, coming in upon the reasoning faculty in a mode the most congruous with it, in its present state, invigorates religious belief, and yet gives rise to no excitement ; faith is deepened, and is made to rest upon a basis, co-extensive with the intellectual and moral faculties. If at any time amid the toils and tumultuous striv- ings of the open world, or if, when too long exposed to the factitious excitement of non-christianized intel- lectual society, or if when, well satisfied with earth's choicest delights, I so rest in them as to forget the life future in the flowery paradise of domestic sweet- ness — if at any such time I suddenly awake to the infinite peril of losing my hold of immortality, what I should ask of IIiM who " knoweth our frame," and its THE REvSTORATION OF BELIEF. 295 fraility, would not be a new miracle wrought in my sight, but an hour's readinor of the narrative of the miracles of the apostolic age, with a stringent convic- tion that this record is true, and that in those wonders the hand of the Almighty was indeed stretched out. Just now we are all of us saying it, and we are say- ing it under the impulse of the most diverse and oppo- site anticipations, that the world, or rather, those members of the human family that are progressive, have, within these few years past, come into a position that is new, and that is full of promise. New con- ditions, marvellous indeed, attach to the mere mechan- ism of common life ; but more than this, new views of the ends and purposes of the social structure have come to be entertained, and have possessed themselves of leading minds ; deep sympathies and solicitudes, which we barely present to the consciousness of any in the last century, take eflfect upon thousands of sensitive and benevolent minds in this. The rudest and most ordinary impulses of worldly interest, which heretofore wrought their purposes in their own style, and came to a pause when they had attained their end, have come of late — no one can tell why — to under- work purposes of a higher order, and thus, like peasants trudging along a miry road with royal despatches bound in their girdles, they are diffusing blessings, where heretofore they had been recognized only as what, in guise and speech, they seem. There is nothing moveable, that is not astir ; every social interest is in its crisis : — the sedimentary deposits of past ages are 296 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. heaving up, and are dislocated. History has written out a long chapter of man's past fortunes, and a new leaf is even now rustling between her fingers. Thus far we are agreed ; but not at all agreed either as to the principles under the guidance of which the proximate course of events shall proceed, or as to the issue of the movement. On this ground an extreme disagreement takes its rise. Two roads offering them- selves as the future highway of the nations, diverge at this point. You are straining the eye in looking along one of these ways : my belief, as a Christian, is direct- ing me to look along the other. What the precise grounds of your anticipations are, if warranted hj facts, or if they be better than gay reveries, I do not know, and need not inquire : — whether they are bright or gloomy I do not know ; perhaps they are alternately the one and the other, for this is likely to happen when theories which we would wish to cling to are con- tending in our minds against the uniform testimony of experience. As to my anticipations, though they are steadily bright, they are not unmixedly so, far from it : they much resemble one's prospects for a day's journey when, though the barometer has been slowly rising all night, the morning hour is much overclouded. I occupy two independent grounds of divination : the first is a purely secular calculation of that course of events which seems not improbable — all things now present being taken into the account ; but my second source of conjecture-, as to the future, is a sketch of the world's way onward, which has been put into my hand from above, and which I look into with confi- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 297 dence. What I distrust is, not the sketch, but my own hastiness in reading off the lettering. Yet assuredly I am liable to no such overweening delusion as this — that I should sit down, with the pages of Isaiah, Daniel, and St. John before me, and should attempt to write the newspapers ten years in advance ! This is a folly which has stood in the way, hitherto, of a warrantable use of the prophetic writings. I am no fortune-teller for Czars and kings, and have no wish to peruse the palms of the "great men and the captains;" but, from the general import, or, as we colloquially say, from the drift and upshot of the pro- phetic writings — those of the Hebrew Scriptures espe- cially, I gather such things as these — and in specify- ing them, every diligent reader of the Bible will at once recollect the passages to which I might refer ; and as to others, a foot-note of references would be thrown away. I look forward to a time when national distinctions of race, language, and geographical location shall con- tinually be melting away, at least so far as they may ultimately be obstructive of the brotherhood of the human family. That centralization — apart from uni- versal empire — which a true understanding of the con- ditions of social well-being tends to bring about, and which it is now in course of bringing about, is, I think, embraced or implied throughout the prophetic writings. On the same grounds I look for a future time when Right for the many, or, better expressed, when Right for ALL, shall be the sovereign and irresistible principle in every community. As to Right for the many, it has taken to itself a conventional meaning, which diifers 298 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. little, if at all, from a periodic overthrow of society, such as may give the undermost class their time of plunder. But Right for all, means social stability ; and this one idea of stability, as opposed to anarchy and to periodic convulsions, meets us everywhere on the prophetic pages. Then, as the consequence of this my first anticipation, I look for a time when the material Avelfare, or, as we say, the earthly and daily comfort and enjoyment of the many — or let us rather say of all, so that we may exclude that banditti meaning which radicalism clings to — when this well-doing for all — this secure holding of the most needful things of life, shall be so much thought of as shall in fact realize it in a continually more and more complete manner. Between the two co-operative influences of an iron sense of right and justice on the one hand, and of humanizing and soft-hearted sympathies on the other, an intense feeling shall pervade the social mass, under the operation of which, want — still incident as it must be to man — and squalor, and houseless discomfort, and, what is worse, cellared wretchedness, and disease — the child of filth, shall always be in process of sublimation, and shall be driven off, as one may say, from the social mass, by its high internal temperature. A strong feeling of uneasiness at the sight or thought of privation and bodily misery shall be always ridding the world of these ever-recurrent evils. I look for a time, not fabulous and impossible — not rosy and celestial, but earthlike and sunny, when every man — absolutely secure from violence, and moderately at ease, shall sit, in home style, under, or near to, as he likes best, his vine and fig-tree, none daring, or even THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 299 wisliing, to make him afraid. I do not look for a time, on this earth, when there shall be no surgeon's work — no hospitals, no infirmaries, no police ; but I do be- lieve in an age of individual and domestic bliss, such as is pictured in some sweet odes and stirring paragraphs of my Bible. I bdlieve in a time yet to come, when He who — eternal shame upon Manichees, upon As- cetics, upon Fanatics of all sorts — " manifested His glory" first, by being a willing guest at a wedding, and then and there showing that Creation is His own — when He shall bless the world by bringing at once His iron sceptre of righteousness and His law of love to bear upon the temporal good of all men. I look for a time, when He who is " King of Peace" and " King of Righteousness," shall rule the nations under both titles; and when, as a consequence of the establish- ment of uncontradicted Truth, and of Reason, safe from sophistry, and of right, bowed to and enforced, there shall be abundance of earthly felicity, to last until this planet has wound up its destined story. In the course of those events that have marked the years of this current century — that is to say, those ostensible matters which history takes account of — I scarcely discern any indications of the coming on of such an era of mundane welfare. One may imagine, to-day, that things are taking a turn in this better di- rection ; but to-morrow (as so many past to-morrows have done) will perhaps scatter every supposition of the sort, and break it up as a dream. But though the evolving fortunes of nations do not clearly, if at all, foreshow the golden age at hand, yet it is true that those who have been watching the unrecorded move- 300 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. ments of the human mind — in Europe, throughout these fifty years, and who have been used to let down a line into the under-current, and have noted its shiftings, have come to think that those preparations — intellec- tual, moral, and political — which would be the proper precursors of a new and better era, have no-t only had a commencement, but have been making progress at a rapid rate. I shall risk nothing on ground where it is so easy to fancy this and that, just as may suit one's purpose in an argument. 1 shall put into your hand none of that advantage which you would so soon snatch at, if I were to venture forward a few steps on this path. There is, however, one of these preliminary move- ments which strictly belongs to my present subject, and to which, a second time (p. 249) and in concluding this section, 1 will advert. What I mean is that working off of the anti-christian and atheistic philosophy which is now in such active progress. You and I are just now looking at Christianity from the same level : — you are regarding it as an invention of man, because, as you say, you see in it no marks of a higher origin : — it is, you think, a scheme of belief and of morals which two or three Jews of the times of Tiberius and Nero may easily be thought capable of concocting. This is your belief, and I am so thinking of it (monstrous hypothesis !) to serve a momentary purpose in an argument. Now while forcing myself into this false position, and persuading myself that the Gospel asserts nothing which we shall find to be true in the next stage of our exist- ence, then I am perfectly certain that, on mere grounds THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 301 of secular philanthropy, nothing is so much to be wished for as the spread, the corroboration, the Restoration of this Christian Belief. I am perfectly certain that a nation has an infinitely better prospect of coming into the enjoyment of peaceful good, while holding this be- lief, than it can have in rejecting it, and in taking in its stead — what ? — Tell me, I pray you, what there is to be taken ! At the impulse of this firm persuasion I now there- fore exult in looking on while the process is in progress which shall issue in the final engulphing of the several anti-christian Philosophies which are at present making a noise in the world. Each in its own way, and all to- gether, these schemes are forging themselves down the slimy incline that shall shoot them, one and all, into the bottomless slough of exploded and forgotten absur- dities. You are acquainted, I may presume, with the course of abstract speculation in modern times, from Spinoza down to these days of the Positive Philosophy. Now if we both of us lay aside every lingering feeling of reli- gious anxiety — if we think of Theologic Science just as we think of any one of the physical sciences, then it is impossible that we should differ as to what must be the issue of the present course of reasoning on the road of Disbelief. We see — and do you not see it as I do, and smile to see it ? — we see intelligent and amiable men struggling to keep their footing on some ledge, short of the gulf: — rosy-cheeked, honey-lipped gentlemen, they are, who would gladly keep entire a Theism — patched with bor- rowings from the Gospels. But how do they shift their 26- 302 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. articles of belief, from year to year ? At one time they ' think they should like a " Resurrection of the Dead, and a Future Judgment;" but anon they come to think not so well of these articles as once they did ; or it has been demonstrated to them that any such persuasion involves the "supernatural," and cannot be retained unless they will choose to stand where they would be in hourly peril of becoming Christians. It is well for us that there is always within the pale of intelligence a large class of minds that, by fault of nature, want the analytic force which would enable them to ascertain the inevitable issue of the lines of thought they are pursuing. Without these minds an awful chasm would yawn between Belief and Disbelief; but these gentle spirits bridge it over. You well know that the endeavour to overthrow or to get rid of Christianity on the ground of historical criticism, has utterly failed. The historical problem is still unsolved on your side. You know, moreover, that, if certain positions are abandoned, which, if they are retained, we must in the end surrender ourselves to Christianity ; then the alternative, which is as sure as any conclusion in science, is a choice between Material Atheism, in its most grossly expressed form ; or, Ideal- istic Atheism ; and this latter, if it has any meaning at all, may be summed up in some such manner as this ; — " Whether there be any existence other and be- side the ' Ego,' I do not know ; or if there were any such second being, I could never come to know it. But then I do not hnoiv that I know so much as this : — nav, to speak the whole truth at once — I do not even know THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 303 that I do not know this, because, for ought I know, I may know that I do not know it." Putting out of view a proper religious regard for the individual men, I thoroughly exult in standing on one side as spectator of this rush of our "Leading Minds" " down this steep place" into the gulf. The upshot of Abstract Speculation on the side of those who reject the Intuitive Principles of human reason, and of the moral constitution of man, has now fully shown itself to be a wordy nothing which, though it still clothes itself in sublime verbiage among our Teutonic neigh- bours, will never, in these lands of common sense, fail, after a little time, to be rejected with indignant con- tempt as naked nonsense. THE SECOND INTENTION OF CHRIST'S MISSION, AS AT- TESTED BY MIRACLES. Christ, the Saviour of the world, made no formal profession of His intention to do what He has actually done, and is now doing, for its benefit. He did not plainly say that He had come to civilize rude nations — to humanize savages, to abrogate slavery, to abolish polygamy, to bring into disuse judicial torture, to rid cities of the sanguinary exhibitions of the amphitheatre, to break up caste, and to set men forward on the course of free and hopeful improvement, on terms of brother- hood : — Christ said little of these purposes, great as they are ; but now that we see what it is which His re- ligion does for nations, when it is allowed to take efiect upon them in its own manner, we turn anew to the record of His sermons and parables, and there, without difficulty, we find the efficient principles of all these silent reforms, and can trace each of them separately to its source, in this or that word of power — precept, or instance. It is quite otherwise when the same Person comes to be regarded in His character as the Saviour, not of men, as occupants of seventy years, but of man as im- mortal ; and so as the Redeemer of those who, to the world's end, shall be willing to accept immortality at (304) THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 305 His hands. On this ground there is no doubt or am- biguity as to the purpose to effect -which He came into the world. He came to seek and to rescue those who, in every age and country, shall "hear His voice" — the voice of the "Good Shepherd," and hearing it, shall set forward upon the path which He trod, and which He opened for them, and so shall enter with Him upon the bright fields of immortality. The Christian scheme, looked at on this side, wears an aspect of the most de- terminate simplicity. On this side no mystery attaches to the language or professions of the Saviour ; the mys- tery is that which shrouds the conditions of the rescue, and still more, its li7nits. Saved or lost ! who shall surmise what is the meaning of either of these words, the mere utterance of which, with thoughtfulness, stag- gers the reason, and which, when brought to take a bearing upon those who are now walking side by side upon the smooth path of domestic fondness, rends the heart, and quite bewilders the moral instincts. And yet, if we find ourselves entering upon a scene where thought and meditation fail to guide us, we soon find that there is no way of retreat, and that our only course is onward, following the beckoning of Him whose leading is ever toward the light. And now as the scene is shifted, so does the Person stand revealed in another manner. Let us pause for a moment, and well con- sider what it is that is before us. It is my steadfast conviction that Christianity will not henceforth maintain its ground, as related to the present intellectual condition of instructed communities, so long as " Christian apologists" (so called) take up a position upon the "outworks," or spend their efforts 2G- 306 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. upon the well-meant but fruitless endeavour to put for- ward the " Historic Evidences" apart from that prin- cipal TRUTH, which forms the substance of the Gospel, So long as this Principal Truth does not occupy its due position in the mind and faith of the writer, and so long as it is not boldly presented to the mind of the reader, there is a consciousness, on both sides, of an interior incoherence in the system itself: there is a painful and perplexing feeling of incongruity, which sets these evidences a jarring, as well in a logical as in a moral sense, one against another. If this Principal Truth be A truth, then, to misap- prehend it — to hold it ofi', as if it might be accepted or rejected at our pleasure, while yet the historic evidence is admitted to be conclusive and entire — is an error fatal to the argument, logically, and of the worst ten- dency as to the reader's mind in a religious sense. For my own part I could not attempt, and in fact should fail to have any motive sufficiently impulsive for attempting, to set forth the Christian evidences on any other ground than that of an amply expressed and unexceptive orthodoxy. The use of this term, which carries with it a clear and ascertained historic meaning, saves many circumlocutions ; it excludes ambiguitieSj and it exempts a writer, who wishes to keep clear of what would be a theological or exegetical argument, from the necessity of giving expression, in his own terms, to his own individual faith. No further expla- nation need be asked for by the reader from a writer who ingeniously declares that he professes, as his Be- lief, the several articles of the Nicene Creed. Do we hesitate to commit ourselves to a Belief, grasp- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 307 ing, as this Creed does, conceptions which the finite reason labours in vain to apprehend ? Yet before we draw back, let us look to the alternative : let us inquire whether we will commend ourselves devoutly and joy- fully to a Bright Infinitude, or will wander forever among schemes of Philosophy, or systems of religious belief, to not one of which, hitherto, has this same Rea- son, with all its efforts, succeeded in giving a tolerable degree of coherence or certainty. At this point I challenge those whose pursuits may have qualified them to accept such a challenge, to look back with me upon the field over which the human mind has been travelling these eighteen centuries. There are two roads under the eye in such a retrospect : namely, that of Abstract Thought, on the one hand, and that of Christian Belief, or Theological Science on the other. To the first of these I have just now adverted, and shall not repeat what I have said, otherwise than to express, in a varied form, a profound conviction — and it is a painful conclusion to come to — that, however abundant may be the means available for constructing a Theistic Doctrine, and however irresistibly conclusive the argu- ment may be on this ground, yet, if we rigidly deduct from it, as we ought, all aids and materials that are due, directly or indirectly, to the Hebrew and Chris- tian canonical books, we then find ourselves in an un- defended — an indefensible position as toward the very darkest of those surmises which take their rise from that spectacle of misery and disorder which the human family has everywhere, and has always, presented. On this road, has not the Terminus been reached long ago ? If it were required of us " to report progress" in the 308 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. department of Abstract Philosophy, let me be told whether, as honest men, we could affirm that those who profess to shake off every restraint of theological bias and religious prejudice, have at length reached a scien- tific position, which is so solidly based, and which is so well defined, as that it commands the assent, and may » boast the adherence of all well-constituted and disci- plined minds ? If there be any such Philosophy which is now available as a resting-place for the human mind, it must surely be easy to name it. No such Philosophy can be named ; and in default of it, or until it shall appear, nothing stands in front of us — on the road of Abstract Thought — but an abyss which has become much more terrible in prospect at this time than here- tofore it was, because the lately-developed depth of the human mind, and its enhanced sensitiveness, impel us, irresistibly, to people the dark void with ghastly forms. Psychological Science (or those dim conjectures that are its precursors) is robbing us of the fond illusion that "Death is an eternal sleep." Whether or not the Christian immortality is before us, there is an after stage for man ; and who shall say what may be its con- ditions ? Why may they not be such as the analogy of things around us would suggest ? The intuitions of human nature impel us to seek re- lief from these distracting speculations in a theology of some sort, and which, if only because it is more distinct, shall be less appalling than are the fathomless surmises of a Pantheistic or Atheistic hypothesis. We pass over then to the road of Christian Theology, or that line of dogmatic belief which is professedly derived from the canonical books. But among these THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 309 beliefs, siicli as they stand before us on the pages of Church history, which is it that we shall choose ? I think it will be granted that the tenour of religious history — looking now to the speculative (not the eccle- siastical) side — is of this sort : — There has been going on, throughout these eighteen centuries, an ever-renewed endeavour, on the part (no doubt) of earnestly purposed minds, to make good a position somewhere short of tha^ Belief to which the Nicene Creed gives a formal expres- sion. It could not have happened otherwise than that such endeavours should be perseveringly made, and that the failure of one of them should suggest and prompt to the making of another. The restless curiosity of the human mind, its impatience of restraint, and the diverse structure of individual minds, necessitate these perennial enterprises, the purpose of all of which is to win a resting-place for thought where the things it con- verses with are measurable, apprehensible, and subject to its control. The history of these fruitless enter- prises, if it could be candidly written — if it could be written otherwise than as under the polemic title, " A History of Pleresies, and of Heretics," would supply the best sort of corroborative evidence in support of Orthodoxy ; inasmuch as they would all indicate their rise in the same error of attempting to generalize where the object is unique, and can have no parallel. But now, in looking back upon this road — a battle- field as it is — let us ask which of these heresies (for convenience I so call them) can now be spoken of as a successful solution of the difficulties it professes to deal with? which of them, from the apostolic age to this, is it that has been accepted by Bible-reading 310 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. communities as proven ? which of them is it that, by fair means of interpretation, has put itself in harmony with the Text of the apostolic writings ? If I could divest myself, at this moment, of every residue of reli- gious solicitude, and could, in that mood of indifference, sit down to review the heretical series, I should be com- pelled to grant, concerning each of them in its turn, that its elements are incoherent, that its argumentative style is tortuous and sophistical, that its method of biblical interpretation is a system of shifts, that in sur- rendering oneself to it, as a scheme one might accept and rest in, one is driven to wish that it could fairly divorce itself, either from its philosophy on the one side, or from its professed regard to Scriptural authority on the other ; for as a philosophy it is burdened with the Bible ; and as a biblical theology it is spoiled by its philosophy. Not one of those schemes of biblical belief which, in the lapse of time, has disputed the ground with the Nicene faith, recommends itself by that charm of In- terior Congruity which this latter so conspicuously pos- sesses. It is this alone that is an Entire Belief, and concerning which, it may be affirmed that its elements — abstract, moral, and spiritual, are in unison. In this Belief there is proportion, and symmetry, and that grandeur and simplicity which is the inimitable charac- teristic of a Great Truth in any department. With this Belief at my heart, the logical ground of the his- toric evidences is firm to the foot : without it, while at- tempting to give coherence to the body of proof, I tread a shifting sand-bank. Without it, the supernatural narratives of the Gospels stand out as unsustained, and THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 311 as disproportioned to the doctrine ; and I am fain to rid myself of them, if possible ; with it, the miracles of Christ's public life take their places of fitness as the graceful accompaniments of the ministry of Him who "dwelt among us" for effecting a purpose far greater than all miracles, and more arduous than the uttering the creative fiat. . Although I can grasp no one element of my Creed, either meditatively or scientifically, for each is a pro- perty of the Infinite, yet in the meditative contem- plation of it, I am at rest ; for the object before me contradicts no intuition of my moral nature. The con- tour is that of Majesty — the Person meets and gives contentment to the highest conceptions I can form, both of perfect humanity, and of Divine -benignity and wisdom. Then, as this Catholic Belief is entire in itself, and as it fully realizes whatever is true in human nature, and whatever we may conceive of as proper to the Divine nature, so does it interpret itself into the lan- guage of my own spiritual life with a happy and a health-giving facility. Those emotions which it finds in me dormant, and which it wakes up in me, I cannot but yield myself to, and gladly obey, when once they are thus quickened. In an hour of perplexity and dismay — such as are incident to every human spirit that is not lost in sen- sualities, or occupied with sordid aims — if in such an hour, when the atmosphere of hopeless woe is that in which one can breathe the freest — if at such a time I ask, and ask it as if no bright answer could be returned to such a question, what that eternal life might be of 312 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. which I, such as I ara, could be the recipient, and which it wouhl be possible for me to enjoy, or even to wish for — I find my answer in my Creed. This life of the soul — the life eternal, is not what I am either fit for, or could think of with comfort ; but it is such as it is fitting for IIiM to bestow who is what my Creed declares Him to be. If in seasons of saddened thought, amid inveterate hesitations and perplexities and mis- givings, I take up the several rudiments of my now actual condition, moral and spiritual — if I know my- self to be, as indeed I am, disordered, broken, powerless, faulty and utterly wanting in any quality or talent out of which I might perchance work the price of my re- demption from this state, or might perchance draw toward me the eye of Infinite Compassion — if I feel and know such things as these, and if, while so feeling, I form to myself some notion of immortality, even of an endless consciousness, with all the odds of infinity against me, and thus ill provided for ; — thus thinking in a way which I am forced to admit is according to a true estimate of myself, then do I shrink back from a boundless prospect of golden bliss, and ask rather that there may be assigned to me, as heaven's best boon, the dimmest corner of the universe, wherein to lie forgotten, and wherein to while away the cycles of an obscure eternity. Thus dismayed, thus uncomforted, thus tempted to envy the natures around me that are not immortal, if then, by help given me from above, I look upward, if I look Sun-ward, if I turn to my Belief, and accept it such as it appears— a Truth, heaven-descended, then the darkness of my soul is dispelled by that Light. THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. 313 That immortality which, when regarded from a point of view proper to myself, is inconceivable, or, if con- ceivable, is undesirable, comes now to be contemplated in its own light — it is life-endless in Him, and His royal gift, who is the Light of Light, and the life of immor- tality ; — it is the gift of Him in whom the perfections of the finite, and the attributes of the Infinite are so blended that a boundless and a bright hope comes to its rest upon those unchangeable attributes, brought within our reach by those human perfections. This eternal life, which is offered to me in the Gospel — the Gospel being interpreted as it is in my Creed, and therefore not to be thought of as if it were a superfluous announcement of known moralities, but as a revelation of Truths quite unattainable by reason — is of universal aptitude, in relation to human nature in its actual condition ; and it must be so thought of even although in fact it were but one in millions that should accept it. Christianity is not a religion for the religious, but a religion for man. I do not accept it because my temperament so disposes me, and because it meets my individual mood of mind, or my tastes. I accept it as it is suited to that moral condition in respect of which there is no difference of importance between me and the man I may next encounter on my path. There is a constant tendency in minds of a certain order — which delight in first-glance generalizations — to assume the contrary of what I here afiirm, and to think themselves very wise in professing the shallow hypothesis that the Christian, if he be not a hypocrite, 314 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. if he be a sincere and devout man, is such by individ- ual organization — by temperament. It is not so : those who thus think want discrimination; and they want also an acquaintance with facts of this class. " Philosophers" who so speak are — smart spirits it may be, but such as show that they have little sympathy with that which is profound in human nature ; and as to their own souls, there is not depth enough in them for any affection that roots itself below the sui-face. In afBrming this in the most categorical manner, I shall not be contradicted by those whose large ex- perience among "the religious," through a long course of ministerial labour, qualifies them to give evidence on such a question. Grant it that, if you draw, alphabetically, from out of a religious community, a hundred persons whose habits are devotional, and whose course of life consists with their profession, this selection will include those whom one might in a sense call the " devout born :" by this phrase I intend to designate persons whose temperament, intellectual and emotional, whose sensibilities, and whose tastes, are all of the kind that favours the happiest developc- ment of the religious affections. There may be four or five such in any hundred ; rarely so many as ten or twenty. But within the limits of the same hundred there will be found (and yet they shall be unfeignedly religious persons) more than a ten or twenty whose piety has had no aid whatever from what it has found in them — has met with nothing congenial in the tone of the sentiments, in the imaginative faculty, or in the rational. Yes, have we not seen and well known some of this order, and been near enough to them, for a THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 315 lenstli of time, to look into their common-made souls — to see through their honest but homely hearts ? Have "we not seen, admired, and loved such, and been cor- dially understood with them, and have wished to be like them — who, if you could abstract from them all that a Christian belief and a Christian piety has done for them, in giving them intelligence, in giving them taste, and a sense of propriety, in shedding a healthy warmth through the social affections — yes, and in quick- ening within them a consciousness of the sublime and the beautiful — such that, if stripped of the heavenly enrichment they have received, they would, in most of these aspects, have been as the dead, the deaf, the blind, the idiotic ; so marked were they by nature with the not-to-be-mistaken stamp of inane mediocrity, that an hour in their society would have been an intoler- able weariness. But they have become what now they are, because the " eternal life" has made its commence- ment in their hearts ; and because, in daily and hourly earnest exercises of the soul, they hold com- munion with Him who is — what my Creed declares Him to be. Those whom the Saviour Christ — the Good Shep- herd, gathers about Him from out of each generation of men, as it passes forward in time, and who, at no time, are more than a " little flock," are so chosen as if designedly in contravention of any rule of obvious or natural causation ; and so as at once to illustrate the sovereignty of the choice — to display the omnipo- tence that gives effect to it, and to demonstrate a deep truth — namely — the universal applicability of this sal- vation to human nature. Christ's followers are in- 310 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. deed exceptional, if we reckon them by arithmetic : but they are not exceptional, psychologically. Christ's true followers, in every age, are, we say, not a class of persons who might be pointed out before they become such : they ai-e not believers of the Gos- pel by idiosyncracy ; but they are so because they have come to know the truth of their condition, as toward God, which is the condition of all men alike — whether they know it or not. Need it be shown that they are not the class of Mystics ? Mysticism is the religion of abstraction ; but Christianity is religion in the concrete : the two mental conditions are antago- nistic. Mysticism is intellectual voluptuousness, and must therefore be abhorrent to a system, the first precept of which forbids self-seeking, and every se- clusive personal indulgence. Or need it be shown that Christ's own followers are not the few of any ecclesiastical enclosure, any more than they are the sturdy adherents and warm defenders of sectarian doctrines. Nothing so catholic as is that spiritual life into the composition of which there enters these rudiments — ■ a consciousness of guilt and helplessness, for one part, and a correllative intuition of grace and help in God, for the other part. And if there be these rudiments, the Giver of so much grace will doubtless give more in due season. How comforting is it to meet, on one's path, with one whose spiritual life is just rudimental in this sense ; for if there be one such, there may be thousands whose names appear on no muster-roll of the visible Church. It is not true that doctrine is of little account in the THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 317. spiritual life ; but it is true that souls may live — live on till they wake up in immortality, with less of doc- trine worded in a creed than human language could know how to attenuate. Christ's true disciple is one who — at any moment — at a call — at a beckon, will rise from the couch and table of worldly enjoyment, and follow him through whatever rugged way it is that his Guide is going. In any company of persons who have entered their names in ecclesiastical lists — let the word — the whisper be heard — " The Master is come and calleth for thee," and those among them for whom the summons is in- tended — rise, at the instant — rise, trembling perhaps and doubting, but yet they do rise, and they go "whithersoever He goeth." That such there are, and more than a very few, in each following generation, is a fact forcing itself upon the convictions of every thoughtful and ingenuous reader of the history of Christianity ; — forcing itself upon the convictions of every thoughtful and ingenuous observer of Christian communities as they now are. These facts, which I assume to be patent and un- questionable, will receive a theological interpretation such as may best accord with the doctrinal system which we individually adhere to, and which we allow to overrule, or to dispose of all facts, in its own man- ner. Such an interpretation may be nipped in between imaginary logical necessities ; or it may be ample, ingenuous, unencumbered. Yet either way, not an iota is added to, or is taken away from the simple reality with which we have to do — namely that Christ's true followers are, as He said they should be, a few 27'^ 318 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. » from among those whom visible Christianity embraces, and upon whom it confers temporal blessings. This reality, stripped of what is incidental to a Christian profession, and of what is merely conven- tional also, and of what may be ambiguous, reduces it- self to an elementary moral and religious state of mind, which is variously described by the apostolic writers, but yet always so as to embrace the ruling idea of an intimate conscious relationship between the human spirit and the Divine Nature, and as this Divine Na- ture is brought within the range of human conceptions and of human emotions in the Person of Christ. It is the duty of every one who becomes alive to his welfare in the future life, to ascertain for himself, alone, the fact of this relationship, as subsisting or not. As to others — and as to all around him who take to them- selves the Christian name, it is the part of charity to accept every such profession as valid and genuine which does not receive a glaring contradiction in the life and temper of the individual. As to the limits and the conditions of this " Charity that believeth all things," we have nothing here to do with them. I am now thinking of the Christian scheme as the cause and the source of spiritual life to the in- dividual human spirit. Now if a hundred such in- stances could be laid open, it would, I think, be found that, for one that believes the Gospel on grounds of historical evidence, or believes it because it has been logically proved to be true, ninety-nine accept it, with a perfect assurance, on the strength of that sense of congruity which itself brings home, both to the heart and the reason, whenever it is apprehended by both THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 319 in conjunction. But it is manifest that this species of intuitive conviction is not of a sort that can be brought within the range of language, for the purpose of conveying it, verbally, from one mind to another. This certitude can no more be defined or described, than can any primary element of our consciousness be so treated. Least of all can that one which may be called the very element among the elements of the divine life be verbally set forth, or be brought to submit itself to the process of developement in a string of propositions. This rudiment of the spiritual life is a consciousness of the Absolutely Good, more or less clear, and which, to the human spirit, in its now actual condition, in- volves a correlative consciousness — painful and hum- bling, of moral disorder. How can such an awakening as this be passed through without anguish — without some intensity of suffering ? Any such agony of the soul, endured at the moment of the dispersion of the gay dreams of self-love, must indeed vary, as to its in- tensity, very greatly, according to the structure of the individual mi'nd, arid according also to its history, and to its experiences ; yet may we surely take this as an axiom — That where there has been no agony in the moral nature, there is no spiritual birth. But whence comes this sense of congruity which I have once and again spoken of, and which brings with it a ready assent to the first truth of the Christian scheme — the ineffable union of the Divine and human nature in the Person of Christ ? Certainly I shall not here attempt to spread out in a paragraph, or to put into a string of sentences, that which, as it so soon 320 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. transcends the meditative faculty to grasp it, so much sooner baffles a writer's faculty of embodying his thoughts in forms of speech. Yet if an explanation be sought for of the fact that, with very rare exceptions, Christian people, whose depth and seriousness of feel- ing indicates itself in an unambiguous manner, do cor- dially accept the articles of an Orthodox Creed, the explanation is discoverable at this rudimental point. The leading article in that Creed meets the awakened and wounded human spirit, and so calms the perturba- tions of the soul — it so satisfies its alarms, and so brings it to its resting-place, as that the textual evi- dence, when adduced in detail, is listened to with com- fort, and is assented to with a spontaneous confidence. Let it be argued, as it easily may — very learnedly — on grounds metaphysical, and on grounds ethical, that the Christian doctrine of Propitiation for sin (stated without reserve) is " absurd" — and that it is " impos- sible" — and that it is "immoral" — and that it is every- thing that ought to be reprobated, and to be met with an indignant rejection ; — let all such things be said, and they will be said to the world's end — it will to the world's end also be true that each human spirit, when awakened toward God, as to His moral attributes, finds rest in that same doctrine of the vicarious sufierings of the Divine Person, and finds no rest until it is tltere found. I have just now affii-med that not one of those ear- nest endeavours which have been made in the course of centuries to establish a doctrine of lower import than the Nicene, has had any permanent success ; and the ostensible reason of this failure, in each instance, may THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 321 be found in its want of accordance with the canonical standard. But the more occult meaning of these suc- cessive shipwreckings of heretical enterprises is to be sought for among those laws of the human mind which forbid its resting short of an intimate sense of con- gruity among the principles that are offered to its ac- ceptance. The promulgators of such schemes, them- selves, find no repose in them ; for they are morally incoherent. Souls alive toward God can only pine and languish, and look from side to side, until they find Him, as the object of their trust, whom they thence- forward worship as " God their Saviour." Do you ask me to bring forward irresistible proof that Christianity is from Heaven ? I can do this to such an extent as that you will fail, by any fair means, to overthrow my argument. But there is a shorter course. Come with me now into the presence of the Infinite Rectitude and Purity: — when there, renounce not that true dignity of human nature in virtue of which you are capable of such an introduction ; and which makes you rightfully amenable to this bar ; while standing confronted with Eternal and Inexorable Justice — learn what you are, and frankly acknowledge what is simply true ; and it is then that argumentation will seem to you a superflu- ous labour, and that the " historic evidences" will be superseded by the powerful workings of the soul upon its own troubled consciousness. In every instance in which Christianity comes to be assented to and accepted on this ground — the ground of its meeting the requirements, and assuaging the anguish of a quickened spiritual consciousness, then the miracles of the Evangelic history at once shift their 322 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. position, as toward the reasoning faculty. Heretofore they were thought of as so many proofs (if real) of Christ's mission, as a teacher sent from God ; and the one question, if any question at all were asked, was this — " Can we be su?'e that the record is not falla- cious?" But from the moment when the human spirit has coalesced with the Principal Truth of the Christian system, then this series of miracles takes its subordi- nate place, as alongside of the course of the Divine Deliverer while he trod the earth. IIow can we ima- gine otherwise than that, at any moment while on his •way toward the spot where he was to expiate the sins of the human family, he should show his command of nature, and of life, and should do it with a freedom and a copiousness becoming those attributes that were shrouded in his Person ? It was undoubtedly under this aspect, that the writers of the canonical Epistles were accustomed to think of the supernatural adjuncts of the Religion which they taught. To these attestations of their ministry as from God, they appealed on special occasions only ; but then it was in a manner which forbids the attempt to dis- lodge them from their place in the system, or to treat them as the inexplicable illusions of weak minds. Yet while to these facts they make none but incidental and infrequent references, they were earnestly intent, first, upon the diffusion of the Gospel Message, and then upon its influence in governing the life and temper of those who received it. No moment of their precious time do they consume in the endeavour to show that Christ's miracles, and that their own, were real ; — no solicitude do they betray on that ground. What they THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 323 feared was, on the one hand, lest men should reject this Gospel ; or, on the other, lest, professedly accept- ing it, they should in conduct and temper deny it. To the right-minded Christian of this present time the Evangelic miracles are not the props of a tottering belief; but they are the food of delicious meditation. He peruses so often, and with unsatiated pleasure, these narratives, not that he may, by these means, repair the dilapidations which his faith sustains in the open world; but that, by their aid, he may bring, daily, within the range of his conceptions, the conditions of that future world wherein the distinction between the natural and the supernatural — arbitrary as it is, shall have vanished, and where a perpetual nearness to Om- nipotence shall kindle and shall keep alive the feeling that all things natural are always in truth supernatural. There can be no miracles in a world where the unclouded blaze of Eternal Power fills all space, and is visibly in act every moment. The difference between the natural and the supernatural is relative, not absolute — it is not essential. We so account of events of this kind accord- ing to the position in which at any moment we happen to stand toward them. Grant me so much as this, that the miracles recorded in the Gospels — the feeding the multitudes — the healing the sick — the giving sight to the blind — the raising the dead, were looked at, not only by mortal, but by immortal eyes ; — that while the rude multitude pressed around Jesus of Nazareth, and were filled with wonder, and said "we have seen strange things to-day" — there was a throng supernal, looking on also. But to these the very same acts of benign omnipotence wore the tranquil aspect of familiar ex- 32-4 THE KESTORATION OF BELIEF. perience : with them wonder can have no place, for it is embraced and absorbed in adoration. These mira- cles — so we on earth must call them, and which we are accustomed to speak of as inroads upon the course of nature, are, if truly considered, so many fragmentary instances of the Eternal Order of an upper world. It is often alleged that the miracles (even granting them to have been real) of a remote age can be of no avail to us, at this time, and especially in this our ad- vanced condition as to intellectual culture. Assuredly they are of no avail, and can be of none, to those who regard Christianity as an inexplicable anomaly, attach- ing to the history of that anomalous race — the descend- ants of Abraham. Let us take the centre miracle of the Christian sys- tem — the Resurrection of Christ, and see what is its bearing upon the mind and heart — upon the intellectual and religious well-being of one who accepts the Gospel as the groundwork of his spiritual life — as the reason of every fear, and of every hope, which he allows to sway his conduct. The Resurrection of Christ is the very life of that inner life — of that initial immortality which is bestowed upon those who, in every age, "hear His voice" and "follow Him." These hear Him say, "Because I live, ye shall live also." "I am the resurrection and the life." "If any man hear my voice, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Now we may follow that process which takes place in the instance of one with whom the reasoning faculty is sound, and has received a due culture — who is in- formed in all matters of religious history and criticism ; THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 325 and we suppose that his moral history and present con- dition are not such as to breed an instinctive wish to rid himself of his belief: on the contrary, his best feel- inf^s impel him to wish that he may find indubitable warrant for it. Grant it, that this Christian persua- sion has not been acquired in a strictly logical order; for he has come into the possession of it by education — by devotional habitudes, and by the involuntary intui- tion of his moral nature. But at a certain moment in his course he makes a pause, and in that mood of firm resolve which is characteristic of a strong intellect and a strong: will, he determines to convince himself that his faith is solidly based upon what should be its pro- per evidence ; — or if he cannot do this — he is prepared boldly to renounce it. For the sake of convenience, and to avoid circumlo- cutions, I throw this descriptive analysis of the process of belief into the form of a personal narrative. Thus resolved then, as I have said, I set out on my road, taking with me this unquestionable preliminary — namely — That, if a religious persuasion is to come into its place among those principles of action which, on any supposition, must govern the active and moral life, if it is to sway me, notwithstanding many impulses and motives which might prevail with me in a contrary direction — if my religion (be it what it may) is to work in and along with the established mechanism of the world of mind — such as I find it to be, if so, then the confidence I may feel in its truth must, of necessity, rest upon such ground as that an opposite belief, or an absolute rejection of it, may yet be possible. If I am to become a religious man, in the Christian sense, then 28 326 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. it must be at least conceivable that I might become an irreligious man, in that same sense. If a religious be- lief is with me to be the same thing as are my moral beliefs; if it is to act as an influence countervailing other influences, then it must be possible for me to dis- believe. There could not be a Christian, in a world constituted as this is, if there Avere not always room for a man to be an Infidel. Christianity and Abstract Theism occupy precisely the same ground, considered under this aspect. If in this world of discipline — this world of educational an- tagonism — this world of products wrought out of con- trarieties — if I am to possess a faith in God, as my Creator, Judge, and Father, this faith must be the cor- relate of its logical opposite — Atheism, The Theist, in this present world, will never cease to find himself face to face with the Atheist. Wherein then consists the blameworthiness of the Atheist ? it is this — knowing — and he cannot be ignorant of a truth so obvious — that the system of motives to which he conforms himself every day in the open world, always leaves room for an exception or an evasion, he snatches at that excep- tion, and he uses that evasion when the Theistic evi- dence presents itself before him ; but he does not do so in any other instance, unless he be fool or knave. Tlie virtuous man is one who manfully holds to the rule, and spurns the exception, and who scorns to escape by the evasion : he embraces the principle, and he casts from him the sophism; he adheres to universal intui- tions ; he listens not to the paradox. This premised, I go to work at the beginning of the Christian evidences, and ask, as it concerns my own THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 32T prospect of immortality, whether those things are sure, that are taught and affirmed in the Apostolic writings. It may be that I should have preferred some other me- dium of evidence, touching a point of such incalculable moment. But whether I choose it or not, I find my- self handed over to this peculiar species of proof. Yet in looking into it — on the supposition that God, the Father of my spirit, challenges me to accept it, I find that, as to its completeness, in its hind, and as to its conclusiveness, the body of historical and critical evi- dence very far surpasses any other instance with which it ought to be brought into comparison. That this is the fact has become manifest at this present moment, inasmuch as the strenuous endeavours of accomplished men, inflamed with the ambition to overthrow Christi- anity, have confessedly broken down. After reading what has been written with this view, I find that I can in no way disengage myself from this evidence, except by forcibly dismissing the subject from my thoughts. But I go on to sift this evidence, at intervals, and I do so with all possible care, and in different moods of mind, and I come ever and again to the same result. I read the recent antichristian literature, and in doing so candour is sorely tried if I persist in supposing that educated men are honest when they put forth what is so frivolous, so captious, and so nugatory, as that which they advance in behalf of their disbelief. I converse with those who profess this disbelief, and instead of rigid argumentation — serious in its tone, and ingenu- ous — I am met by a style of reasoning which is unan- swerable only because it is vague, misty, evasive and sentimental. 328 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. It is enough : — I see that before I can stand clear of Christianity, I must let go my hold of those ele- mentary convictions which rule my every-day life. To me, Disbelief must act as a solvent of all logical cohe- rence, and must discharge from my mind every persua- sion which binds me to the social system now, as well as those which connect me with immortality. I return then with assurance to my Belief, and I surrender myself without fear to that train of medita- tion which attends, and surrounds, its centre fact — the resurrection of Christ. At this point the Supernatural, in an instance the most signal and the freest from ambiguity, takes a bearing upon my individual state of mind, and touches my fears, my hopes, and my conscience, and gives a turn to the emotions, excites the imagination, and occu- pies the reason. That Jesus Christ " suifered and died, and that He rose again," is a fact in yielding myself cordially to the belief of which I pass forward from one condition of existence, and come into another ; and this change is so extensive in its consequences, that nothing affecting my happiness can remain unaffected by it. That remote event with which I stand connected throuo-h the medium of historic and critical evidence, concerns me far. more intimately than could any event of to-day which should entirely change my individual or social position. What those changes are, severally, of which a belief in Christ's resurrection is the efficient cause, I shall not here attempt to specify. I will speak only of two of them ; and of these, not in the style of a digested and consecutive discourse, but discursively. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 329 In the first place then, an unhesitating belief of the resurrection of Christ — if I allow the meditative faculty to dwell upon it — leads me forth from a region of in- terminable surmises that are comfortless, appalling, or worse ; and it brings me upon a ground, that is firm to the foot, and where those objects that are already fami- liar to me, stand out distinctly, and are sharply de- fined ; and they show themselves, not in the glimmer or in the blaze of a vague phosphorescence, but in the every-day sober sunlight of this present world. If I carry myself back, as I may easily do, to that Garden under the walls of Jerusalem wherein was a sepulchre, or enter an upper chamber, within the city, or go on to a house a sabbath-day's journey south of it ; or travel so far as to the shore of the lake of Galilee ; if I go thither taking with me no haze of exaggeration, I there find Him who is at once the Representative of the human family, and its Sponsor ; and I find Him such after the sufi"ering of death, as He was before it — save his recent scars. The immortality, therefore, which is held before me in the Christian scheme, is no such thing as a nucleus of conscious mist, floating about in a golden fog, amid millions of the same purposeless, limbless sparks. It is an immortality of organized material energies ; — it is the same welded mind-and- matter human nature — fitted for service — apt to labour, and capable of all those experiences, and furnished for all those enterpi-ises, and armed for those endurances which, seeing that they are thus provided for, and are, as one may say, thus foreshown in the Christian resur- rection, put before me a rational solution — hypothetic indeed, and yet not illusory — of those now imminent 28- 330 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. trials, of those hard experiences, of those frustrated la- bours, and of those fiery sufferings, the passing through which so much perplexes and disheartens me now ; but which at once find their reason when I see them in their intention, as the needed schooling for an immor- tality in the endless fortunes of which this mind-and- matter structure shall have room to show what thinga it can do and bear, and what enterprises of love it shall devise, and shall bring to a happy consummation, it may be, cycles of centuries hence. " The Lord is risen indeed!" said those simple souls, one to another, in that dim morning hour — which was the morning of a Day Eternal to human nature ; and He so rises as to throw forward upon the path of this human nature, to the remotest range of an endless ex- istence, a steady light of reality. Over against this reasonable and conceivable Chris- tian Idea of the future life, as it is set before me in the instance of the Resurrection of Christ, I will put the dreamy Elysium of classical antiquity — I will put the sensualisms of the oriental beliefs — I will put the wearisome and vapid inanities of modern poetical or philosophical surmises : yes, and over against this genuine belief I must put those more consistent suppo- sitions which, at this present time, are presenting themselves, in a whisper, as probable, if we are to follow the guidance of psychological speculation, and if we are looking to such a future existence as the analogy of things around us might suggest. As com- pared with all such anticipations — more or less con- sonant as they may severally be with facts known to us — I find that my Christian Belief is more consistent THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. 831 than any one of them, is more realizable — is more cheering, is more animating, and that is of a tendency (when rightly considered) the most healthful, as to the moral and the intellectual faculties. And '' why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead?" Every pretext for thinking it so, on scientific grounds, has been snatched from us by the modern Geology. But that man, such as he is — his intellect and his moral nature — should cease to exist at death, is indeed an incredible suppo- sition ; and yet, if we feel that it is his destiny to live anew, then, among all the beliefs to which the instincts of our nature have given birth, whether in ancient or in modern times, the Christian belief of the resurrec- tion of the body, by which we must mean — the recon- struction of human nature entire — mind and matter — body and soul, is incomparably the easiest to conceive of; as it is also the best recommended by analogies ; and, I will boldly say, it is the belief to which a genu- ine philosophy would instantly give the preference, if, among the many hypotheses of a future stage of hu- man existence which have been imagined as probable, it must make a choice. Yet it is on no such ground of its abstract credi- bility, that this fundamental fact of the Christian life is accepted by those in whom that life has indeed had its commencement. As to those of them who are in- formed and intelligent, they can at all times fall back upon that body of evidence which secures them against disbelief. But going far beyond any such merely in- tellectual persuasion, Christ's true disciples have a sense of the import of His resurrection which renders 332 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. them — except as towards others, indiflFerent to logical methods of proof. Ask them for a reason of their faith, and they can well meet the challenge ; but hav- ing done so, they retire to a ground of consciousness concerning which no distinct conveyance can be made from mind to mind, through the medium of language. Verbal propositions do not represent those intuitions within the circle of which this conviction takes place. In vain you say that the supernatural, even if you were to grant it to be real, is a remote fact which can have no bearing upon our individual feelings at this time. You will not bring me to think so while I believe that Christ's resurrection, apart from the meaning which it carries as to the futurity of all men, is the proof — as it is the consequence, of the efficacy of His vicarious death in securing for us, individually, the remission of sins, and the blessedness of that future life. It is at this point that we touch the real matter in debate among the various theological controversies of the present time. If this point be determined, then the several articles of religious belief must follow, in their order, with little question. But while this is undetermined, no argumentation avails to bring such controversies to a conclusion. What interpretation is it which we allow ourselves to put upon the admitted fact of the disordered con- dition of human nature ? Is wrong right — seen under another aspect, or from a loftier point of view ? Are crimes misfortunes ? Is sin a mistake ? The answer we give to questions of this kind — and they may be THE RESTOKATION OF BELIEF,- 333 indefinitely varied — involves the whole argument con- cerning the truth of the Christian system. The Chris- tian, leaving the Atheist, the Pantheist, the antichris- tian Theist, and the would-be Christian philosopbist, to make up a reply among themselves — and there is no substantial difi"erence among them — has come to his own conclusion in this matter. He perfectly under- stands, what it might have been supposed all must understand — that, to confer with, and to treat man as a machine, or as a brute, or to condole with him as "unlucky," but not culpable, is to vilify and degrade him still more, and to consign him to a series of hope- less descents, until, in fact, he has become a brute, and might well wish himself a machine. The Chris- tian feels that, cost what it may to the individual, the true method of treatment with human nature — the hopeful course, and that which indeed lifts him up, and does him honour, is to assume that he is in fact amenable to the severest law, and should measure him- self by the highest standard of purity, rectitude, and goodness, which his faculties, intellectual and moral, enable him to conceive of, or to comprehend. In truth, we need no other evidence in support of the principle that man is actually amenable to such a law, than this — That when it is placed before him, he in- voluntarily recognizes it as abstractedly good. The spiritual life then, or the first stage of the life eternal, is a recognition of the immutable Law of purity, rectitude, and love, not merely as abstractedly good, but as good to be applied to man, how disastrous soever may be the consequences of that application to him in his now actual condition. Better were it for 334 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. him to be condemned by such a law, than to find him- self villanously discharged from court on the ground that his nature does not admit of the application of a rule so high. Better that he should be condemned as guilty, than vilified as pitiable. Better for man to en- dure his doom among beings who have fallen from heaven, than that he should take his place as the "most unfortunate" of the mammalia. It is manifest that when the individual man has reached this point, and has unfeignedly given in his adherence to a principle of government to which he is obnoxious, the depth and intensity of the motions that thence take their rise will bear proportion, much rather to the culture, the refinement, and the sensitiveness of his moral constitution, than to the extent or enor- mity of his personal transgressions. So it is (as must seem likely) that those whose course of life has been — in the world's eye, blameless, and whose do- mestic phase is altogether lovely, often far exceed the ostensibly guilty in those feelings of anguish and abasement which attend their entrance upon the Chris- tian life. Shall we say that such feelings — such ago- nies, are misplaced — are groundless — are morbid ? We may say it if we wish to mark and notify our own low place on the scale of spiritual perception. It is then as starting from this point that the seve- ral elements of a Christian belief take their order of sequence. It is as occupying this ground — the ground at once of humiliation and of hope, that the Christian accepts the articles of his Creed — each of them as in- volved in that which precedes it. It is thus that he professes his belief in the mystery of the Trinity — the THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 335 Incarnation, and the propitiatory sufferings and death of Christ ; and it is thus, and it is as standing in hope of life eternal, that he welcomes the assurance of the triumphant resurrection of his Saviour, who " having died for our sins, rose again for our Justification." To many, whose religious feelings are slender, and whose faith is mainly conventional, the resurrection of Jesus is coolly assented to as a " well authenticated fact," carrying with it — of course — the truth of the Christian scheme. To Christ's true disciples his rising from the dead is of infinitely more moment than any such attestation. I afiirm therefore that proposition with which I set out, That the Supernatural, as we find it in the Christian Scriptures, is not merely an attestation of the truth of the system, as a Kevelation from God ; but is the ground and reason of that hope of immor- tality which is the life of the soul. THE THIRD INTENTION OF CHRISt's MISSION, AS ATTESTED BY MIRACLES. In entering upon this ground I must be understood as not attempting to meet all possible objections, or even to satisfy every reasonable doubt : all I ask is, that those with -whom I may suppose myself to be in converse are of serious mood ; and I suppose them to admit that the Christian system, such as we find it in the books of the Ncav Testament, rightfully commands the thoughtful regard of every well-constituted mind ; and also — That, as we find in these memoirs an histori- cal consistency, or Individual Congruity, which is of a very peculiar kind, it must be reasonable to follow it up as a safe guidance, and to pursue this oneness of the Personal Idea as far as it will carry us ; even although it may lead us to carry our thoughts beyond the boundary of this visible mundane scene. I do not hesitate to make this demand, nor to ask the thoughtful to accompany me a few paces forward upon this dim road. What, in fact, is the initial supposition on the ground of which we consent, at all, to listen to Christ as the Teacher of things which can be authentically known by man only through the aid of a Revelation from Heaven ? Plainly it is this, that the things of the " three score years and ten" — (336) THE RESTORATION OE BELIEF. 337 the things "seen and temporal" — the things that "perish in the using," are far from including all that we have to do with while these few years are running out ; or in other words, in surrendering ourselves, in any degree, to the Christian argument, we implicitly grant, that the Human Family stands related, not merely to the Creator and Ruler of all things ; but to a great scheme of Universal Government, which is de- veloping itself slowly — and in part, now and here ; — more fully hereafter, and elsewhere. But if we grant so much as this, it necessarily fol- lows that He who, on entering upon this earthly plat- form, professes that He comes forth from a higher and a wider region of the Universal Government, and declares Himself to be conversant with, and to be perfectly in- formed concerning the transactions and the persons of that higher stage of things, should in His discourses, and still more in His acts and course of conduct, give indications of the same, which can be intelligible only on the supposition here asked for. Such a Visitor from a foreign world may either discourse at large concerning the things, the persons, and the transactions of that world ; or He may observe a rigid reserve on every subject of that class. Christ does not take the first of these courses ; He does not freely and copiously speak concerning a supermundane system ; but neither is His reserve absolute. He utters himself thereupon in a very distinct, and in a peremp- tory manner ; but He goes no further : — He gives no narratives. He relates no incidents; He says nothing that might either tempt conjecture, or stimulate curi- osity. Yet it is quite certain that a recollection, on 20 338 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. our part, of Christ's professed relationship to orders of being not of the human family, is indispensable to our completing our idea of his Person, as interiorly co- herent and consistent. Let me again, and with em- phasis, use that comprehensive word — Congruity, and affirm that, whereas this majestic harmony of the moral ingredients of Christ's individual character — this fitness and symmetry, which — if we make allowance for the inconceivable obliquities of a few minds — has always subdued, as it does now subdue the minds of men, and does win their reverential affection — this perfect con- sistency, intellectual and moral, would be marred if we were to set off from our conception of His character this. His hypothetic relationship to orders of being that are not of this family. Does not that conception of Christ's demeanour and style which we gather from the four Gospels — does it not include the idea that we are in the presence of one who is acting at the impulse of a purpose deep-hidden in his own bosom ? Does it not seem that he has a consciousness of facts, in which the men about him are not sharers ? Does he not move forward as if he were bringing about ends remote from the proximate inten- tion of what he says and does ? Christ's acts are fre- quently, or seem to be so — incidental to his principal purpose : His teachings are fragmentary, because the bearino; of his doctrine is shared between this — the visible world, and another M'orld. His miraculous in- terpositions for the relief of human suffering appear to have been prompted, at the moment, by human impulses of compassion ; but they are done as if he deflected, for the time, from his course in performing them. THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 339 Does not the Saviour of the world walk the earth, and make his way through the crowd, as one whose eye is fixed upon objects beyond its horizon ? If, in an attempted explication of Christ's language in relation to a spiritual system, we adopt the meagre hypothesis of supposing that He adapts himself, by ac- commodation, to the superstitious belief of the Jewish people of that age, what we do is not merely to abate our confidence in his sincerity as a Teacher ; but we remove from the historical conception of his character a set of facts, the reality of which is indispensable to its completeness. It is then chiefly on this ground that I feel it to be unavoidable to understand his language, when concerned with an invisible world, as carrying a meaning that is literally true. Assuming so much as this, then what it comes to, expressed in the fewest words, is this — That the history and destinies of the Human Family have become (if the word may be allowed) entangled with the history and the destinies of tribes or orders, partakers with it of intelligence, and moral consciousness, and liberty of will ; but subject to another administrative economy, and not included in the same remedial dispensation. The consequences of a belief such as this, whether imaginary or real, are nothing to me : it may be of ill-tendency ; and I am sorry if it be so, but my sorrow- ing will not make facts other than they are. Can I walk about this world — can I make my way through the streets of towns — can I enter the dens that consti- tute some of those streets, and then persuade myself that a supposition of this kind^ abstractedly, or that it is theologically incredible ? Alas ! this must not be 340 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. said. The customary pretexts of scepticism in relation to subjects of this class belong to a period now drawing to its close — or passed already ; a period of shallow and frivolous thinking — a period when the actual condition of a large portion of the human race — imperfectly known, and little thought of, and less cared for, had no appreciable influence upon systems of opinion. Theo- ries of human nature were put together in closets to be banded about in saloons. But what correspondence had these scented things with that real world into the core of which our modern philanthropy has carried our feet? I think that a revolution has already made great progress which, in its issue, shall bring about a far more deeply-toned belief, as to the spiritual world, and as to the destinies of man, than has ever yet taken hold of the human mind : and thus if Superstition has tyrannized the ages that are past, a quelling con- sciousness of awful realities shall rule the future. It is Christianity that has given the initiative in this revolution ; and it is the same that shall draw the genu- ine conclusion ; but we shall be carried through the in- termediate stages of the process by the Atheism of the present time, which has the nerve to do what itself only could do. A belief in the bearing of the Chris- tian scheme upon a wider circle than that of the human family must carry with it an admission of its superna- tural attestations ; and toward such an admission we are tending — the modern Atheism giving us just now a propulsive aid. But it may be asked — Are we not receding from the field of modern intelligence, and going back to the THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 341 ground of the "dark and pernicious credulity" — which belong to an age of ignorance ? I do not ask whether the objects before rac are such as an ignorant age will delight in ; or whether a belief concerning them be of bad influence, or otherwise. It is certain that the hu- man mind has universally entertained suppositions of this kind; and therefore there must be a ground for them. I wish there were no ground for them, but there is ; and nothing is gained by refusing to see it. There would, in truth, be a powerful motive for ridding ourselves of the appalling idea of a Personal Satan, and of his hosts, if, in renouncing the "Superstition" wo could also dispel the " darkness." But we cannot do so; on the contrary, if we refuse to admit this article into our pneumatology, as matter of history — then the " darkness" which shrouds the world thickens around us so much the more, and becomes indeed a " thick darkness," for it is then a gloom, without a gleam. So long as we retain an hypothesis which connects the history and destinies of the human race with another history, and with other destinies, we retain also, in some manner, though it be wholly undefined, a sort of hold upon the future : — for we then know that there is a course of events in progress, which may issue, we know not how, for the better. As on the one hand there can scarcely be a greater mistake than that of supposing the ancient problem of the origin of evil to be in any way solved, or the mystery in the least de- gree cleared up, by carrying it back to the epoch of the Satanic rebellion ; yet, on the other hand, the in- road of sin and woe upon the Imman family comes to wear a different aspect when it is thought of in connec- 29* 342 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. tion with this supposition. So thought of, it is at once brought into relationship with that scheme which is seen to be unfokling itself froua the first page to the last of the Canonical Books. Seen from the position into which we are insensibly led by following this series of writers, the evil that is in this world, and its attend- ant misery, fall into perspective, and exhibit, at least, so much of coherence as may result from their relation to a scheme within which truth and order reign supreme, and upon which a light, though it be only a glimmer, does shine. Especially it is as seen from this position that the personal behaviour of Christ, and that the professed in- tention of His mission toward man become intelligible ; for, to think of Him merely as the Teacher of a pure morality, and as the author of beneficial secular max- ims, leaves the greater part of His conduct, and of his teaching, unaccounted for. To think of Him further as the Redeemer of His people, though it supplies much of what is needed to give a meaning to both — His be- haviour and His teaching, still leaves as much unac- counted for, and the clue to this we do not find until we accept, in a literal sense, what is declared concern- ing the Christ of God as He who should drive the Usurper and Tyrant from the world he has invaded. This might seem the point at which a writer — in- tending to propitiate opponents, and to smooth a path from Disbelief to Christian Faith — would introduce some hitherto unthought-of hypothesis concerning the universality of Redemp ion, or the possible modes in which things future, whici. we find to be inconceivable, may yet be conceived of. I am about to attempt THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 343 nothing of this sort. The notorious failure, hitherto, of all such endeavours from the time of Origen to this, mio'ht well be warning enough not to venture a step on ground where there is no footing. One scheme after another has broken down — and necessarily so, because these mitigative theories still include much more than those will allow who, on this very account, reject Chris- tianity ; and they assume much for which a Christian man, who would fain find it, finds no warrant in the written Revelation ; and if not, how shall he dare to add to that word, or to strike off from it the least particle ? The easily recognized characteristics of undigested thinking — of reasonings prompted by a predetermined issue, and which are reckless of evidence, attach as I think, to every one of the hypotheses of universal res- titution which have been advanced by men professing to respect the authority of Scripture. In the regions of Science — reasonings of the same class — the products of the very same order of minds, come under the fami- liar designation of quackery : — a dozen philosophies of this sort are just now courting ephemeral notoriety. The gravity of the subject now in hand should preclude the employment of this colloquial phrase : — otherwise it would very fitly designate these spurious schemes, one and all. In a sound mind the momentary solace which attends a first listening to a scheme of this sort, is quickly followed by a profound dissatisfaction, which leaves us 'in more discomfort than before. If then we reject, as I think we must, the mitigative theories that have been devised for reconciling our no- tions of the Divine Benevolence, as related to the des- -tinies of the family of man, with facts and with articles 344 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. of our faith, what do we bring forward in the place of them for the purpose of assuaging that state of distress and perplexity toward which we are always advancing, just in proportion as we steadily think of what is around us, and look forward to the future in serious mood ? Although it be confessed that there is no hypothesis of this sort in reserve which a Christian man can bring forward ; nevertheless there are considerations to which a belief in the literal — or we may say, the historical meaning of certain narratives in the Gospels gives rise, and which are of high importance for maintaining a religious temper. They are such as these. In the first place, the interpretation which we ought to put upon Christ's language and conduct, wherever He had to do with those who are spoken of as possessed by un- clean spirits or "demons" carries the supposition that the relation in which He stood toward beings of this class was essentially unlike that which He sustained toward the human race. This marked dissimilarity is strongly implied in various ways. The passionate utter- ances of these beings (unlike as they are to the ravings of maniacs) were in no case expressive either of hope or submission : they bespoke a well-understood and an inveterate hostility : — these exclamations, and these sudden recognitions, speak volumes of history — a his- tory that runs far back into the cycles of duration past ; — and it is a history of which there are chapters not yet opened. On the part of Christ there is indi- cated nothing but a corresponding and a settled ad- verse feeling which has no reserves, and no purpose of relenting. If we go so far as this, then the inference is irre- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 845 sistibie, that there may be "within the universal govern- ment of God, and that there is, in fact — open, conscious, and hopeless rebellion. It is true that Abstract Theism might show cause for refusing to admit a supposition so appalling as this ; — but can we indeed walk the streets of this world — and profess to think it incredible ? Alas ! it must be granted to be possible — and more than pos- sible. But if there be, as we now say, open and deter- minate rebellion within the realm of God's government, and if it borders upon us too — and if states of mind which nearly resemble such a desperate perversion, are facts, attaching even to the human system, then must there be ground for a fear — a fear which the ordinary proceedings of human governments show to be reason- able, of this sort : — when rebellion is rife in a country, it is certain that men who are, in many respects, worthy citizens, may easily come to be fatally compromised with it, and may find themselves in the end consorted with the worst of criminals, and sharing the same fate. Again : If facts be as we are now supposing, then we get a means of rightly interpreting a large part of that discipline which we are undergoing in the present state. The ulterior purpose of that severe training through the stages of which some, if not all, are passing, and which constitutes the individual history of some men from the earliest development of reason to the last hour of life, is, as it seems, the formation of a firm principle of religious loyalty — an enduring acquiescence in the procedures of the Divine Government — a prin- ciple so fixedly wrought into the soul as that it may stand trial under conditions the most difficult that can be imagined — not only of the life now present, but of 346 THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. the future life. Why the entire schooling of a seventy years has been, to some men, what it has been, becomes at once intelligible if we admit the supposition that, in the' life future, with its incalculable revolutions, such spirits, thus tried and proved as they have been, shall be challenged to undertake services in relation to which this immoveable loyalty shall find its sphere, and shall be nothing more, as to its iron nerve, than those great occasions shall be found to demand. Suppositions of this kind may very ill comport with the notions of many good people about Heaven — and which notions we may grant to be right in substance though wrong in form; l)ut I think they will seem not unfounded when, in the next age. Scriptural Interpre- tation shall be unshackled, and shall speak out the full meaning of the Inspired Text. Meantime I admit no element into my anticipations of the future life which I do not see to be distinctly symbolized now, in the course of the Divine administration toward individual men. Every Sunday, in professing aloud that " I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come," I understand the "world to come" to be such a world as that the present world shall be a fit preparation for its labours, and for its endurances, and for its trials of religious constancy. Again : If we admit, in their obvious and historic sense, those of the Evangelic narratives which relate to demoniacal possessions, the Supernatural element therein implied supports an inference which, when in the fewest words, and with the utmost caution, we have enounced it, should be left to carry its meaning home into our hearts, without our attempting to follow it out THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 347 into consequences — we know not what, and for which we have not sufficient warrant, or none at all. The entire series of miracles wrought by Christ dur- ing the years of His public ministry had — as toward mankind — as well a benevolent intention, as a benefi- cent issue. This fact is the more to be noted because it forms a point of distinction between Christ's miracles and those of His ministers, as related in the Book of the Acts — several of which were administrative and punitive. But no such use was made of miraculous powers by Him who declares that He came into the world "not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." In striking contrast with this rule of the Supernatural, as it is seen to govern the Saviour's conduct toward men, is the rule which manifests itself as often as He encountered beings of another order, or of another de- rivation. In every such instance, the word of power carried with it Law, not Mercy : — it was not ven- geance ; but it was reprehension and repulse : — the im- plied meaning was ever the same — " Keep your bounds — go back." If it be iisked — What then is your further inference ? I am prepared with no answer ; yet there is before me a conspicuous fact — there is here a difference; there is a distinction ; and this fact, which I know not how to unfold, consists well with the belief which I gather up from many scattered notices, strewn over the cano- nical pages, and the purport of which is that the Mis- sion of Christ — the Son of God, and Saviour of the world — was to overthrow a usurpation, and to drive the Tyrant from the field he has invaded ; and I further gather this truth, that, in carrying forward this pur- 348 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. pose, lie shall not fail, but shall triumph ; for it is said of Ilim, that " He shall lead captivity captive." This is my resting-place ; — it is not indeed a place of sun- shine; but it is as a "covert from the storm." Let it not be said, or imagined, that, in adducing considerations of this sort, the intention is to solve problems, or to clear up mysteries : — we may hold it for certain that no considerations coming within the range of the human mind, can avail for any such pur- pose. But what may be looked for, as the fruit of these trains of thought, is this — namely, a giving co- herence and consistency to many insulated passages of Scripture; and more than this — the rendering an aid to meditation when we are endeavouring to complete our conceptions of the Saviour Christ, as the Deliverer of man. A principal element of that Idea — absolutely unique as it is, is supplied when we duly regard His ministry as it is related, on the one hand to the victims of a usurpation ; and on the other hand, to its Chief and His adherents. THE CYCLES OF CHRISTIANITY. At this moment a lengthened period of social tran- quillity seems to have come to its end ; and as to the western and cultured races, it has been peculiarly favour- able to those reactions of the mind upon itself which are natural to it, and beneficial, in their ultimate re- sults ; but for which no leisure is found in seasons of national or political excitement. We are entering per- haps upon a period of arduous struggles, of great enter- prises, of great trials, and of sufferings as great. A period may be before us — not for amusing ourselves with ingenious paradoxes, not for dressing up philo- sophic schemes of opinion ; but for daring, and for doing, and for enduring, whatever energetic men may devise, achieve, and bear. The ingenious writers, therefore, who, with so much zeal, ability, and vehe- mence, have been labouring, of late years, to rid them- selves and the world of Christianity, may find that their day is gone by — and that it must be their sons, or their grandsons, who shall return to this Crusade, in some future time of repose, like the past. At this time, not only will men of action have no ear for bootless subtilties ; but such men will feel their need, personally, of principles that are already authenticated, and not now to be sought for and elaborated in closets. Men 30 (349) 350 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. of action, who will have much to suffer, as well as to do, will ask for grounds of religious hope and solace which time has consolidated, and on which the good, the wise, the great, of all ages, have been wont to rest in their hour of trial. The Christian Belief shall airain, as heretofore, be found to meet the need of humanity in the years that are before us — years — not of dreams, but of realities. As to the apostles of the modern impiety — Atheistic, and Theistic, and Pantheistic, — although their enter- prise has failed for the present, and although their hopes are dashed, they may console themselves with the thought that — if not to them, to their successors, another opportunity shall arise for labouring on the same stony field. The Christian system will itself evolve principles that necessitate these periodic strug- gles, and that give them force; and at each return with augmented force. At this time what is of more importance, and what would be more fruitful of good than any imaginable triumph over Infidelity — on the field of argument would be a wise preparation, on the part of the Chris- tian community, for that next coming season when the Gospel must anew pass through a crisis of mortal in- tensity. A main part of such a preparation would consist in knowing clearly whence such an intestinal conflict springs, and toward what issue it tends. In affirming the Christian origination of the recent Infidelity and Atheism, it is needful to distinguish be- tween those deep-seated sequences of thought which we have just now in view, and those obvious and inci- dental effects of patent causes which might have been THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 351 other than they are, and which may or may not bear upon a future time. The fact is not to be questioned that much of the Disbelief which floats around us, and which poisons the atmosphere of towns, takes its occa- sion, or derives its power, from what it finds that is wrong, or absurd, or merely conventional, in the Chris- tianity of Christian people. Materials of this sort are rife always, so that men of acrid temper are never at a loss when looking about for occasions of that scorn which they would fain heap upon the Gospel. There is a plenty of Disbelief which springs up, rank, about sacred edifices ; but what we have to do with at this time is — a Spectre that rises from the Adytum. The Atheism of this age has a depth which is its own only because it has sent its line down into that abyss of which Christianity withdraws, in part, the veil. This Atheism displays a grandeur which is not its own, but which it assumes in rearing its head, and looking upward, beneath the vault of that Infinitude to which it has gained admittance by favour of the Gospel. This Atheism shows, and actually possesses, a sensibility, and it has a consciousness of the true, the beautiful, and the good, which it owes, conspicu- ously and entirely, to the books and to the system which it denounces. These tones of tenderness and of purity in which it has learned to utter itself — if we catch them at a distance, so as to lose what in them is articulate, might be mistaken for the silver sounds of God's mercy to man. The Atheism which startles us by our fireside, which sits with us in pews, which flames out in our literature, which is the Apollo of the weekly, monthly, and 352 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. quarterly Press, has not merely learned its rhetoric m the evangelic school, and thence stolen its phrases, but it has there got inspiration from a Theology of which itself is only the necessary antithesis. Evoke now from Hades a genuine Atheist of the classic Pagan Church, and bring him within hearing of a modern Atheistic lecture, and the very terms of the discourse would be unintelligible to him. You must baptize him before you can convince him that you are his disciples, or that he is indeed one of yourselves. The Creed in which he lived and died was a marble paradox, and you have a great work to do in him before he can be made to listen to a breathing sophistry, with its Chris- tianized heart, and its soul of fire. An Atheistic phi- losophy which is indeed earthborn, and which steams up from the dead levels of the Pagan world, is a mias- ma, in breathing which nations are overcome with drowsiness — intellectual and moral, and walk about dreaming, thousands of years, unchanged. But a Christian-born Atheistic philosophy comes over a Christian land, at periods, as a cloud, riding upon the winds — it mutters blasphemies — it smites the earth with its forked scourge, and it moves away. The very same body of facts concerning the woes and disorders — hopeless as they are, and purposeless as they seem, which press upon humanity — these facts, rudely regarded by the sages of pagan antiquity, and which impelled them to reject the hypothesis of a Supreme wisdom, benevolence and power — come before us now, unchanged, or scarcely mitigated, and they not merely perplex the reason — they do more, they distract us, because we have been long trained in the THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 353 meditative converse with an idea of the Supreme "wis- dom, benevolence, and power, immeasurably surpass- ing any conception of these attributes which the ancient mind had ever entertained. That which was an insoluble problem to the ancient classic reason, is also, to the modern mind, a problem insoluble ; — but it is more than an intellectual stumbling-block, for it puts at fault our consciousness of first Truths. Moreover, while Christianity has, to so vast an ex- tent, enlarged our religious conceptions, and has taught us to think so much more profoundly, and more justly in whatever touches our higher nature, the advances of Science, which in a manner expand our conscious- ness over the fields of infinite space and time, help to impart an awful intensity to every subject that has any theologic aspect. Then the same Gospel which pene- trates our souls with warm emotions — dispersive of selfishness, brings in upon the heart a sympathy that tempts us often to wish that itself were not true; or that it had not taught us so to feel. At these points then we come upon an interior antagonism — a deep counteractive energy, whence springs almost with peri- odic regularity — a disbelief of which Christianity is the immediate object, inasmuch as it is its incitative cause. During a period of repose, such as that which we have passed through, the Christian system, its doctrines and its moral energies, working freely upon a people whose mind and speech submit to no censorship, pro- duces effects of two kinds — the one being the antithesis of the other. The first of these is the product of its own proper influence, which is to refine and enhance the humanizing sensibilities of the people, in their re- 30* 354 THE KESTORATION OF BELIEF. Bpectlve classes : — many of the highest will be seen to signalize themselves in courses of self-denying and truly noble philanthropy; while the lowest class, to some ex- tent, are weaned from their rudeness and their ferocity. At the same time the large middle class becomes alive to whatever touches the well-being of mankind, near at home, and afar oJ0F, and tax themselves heavily to give effect to many generous enterprises. In effecting these ameliorations Christianity shines with its own light, and shows its derivation from a world of love and order. Also, and at the same time, and because the minds of men are at leisure, that reflective and meditative sensitiveness of which Christianity is the source, and which it so much cherishes, and favours, evolves ad- verse theories, and gives birth to schemes of Christian- ized philosophy (first within the pale of the Church) and then of antichristian philosophy, beyond those limits. From this same perplexed meditation spring, in their ancient order of sequence. Pantheistic and Atheistic schemes, which might be spoken of as the Congestion of thought in minds, often of fine mould, though not the most robust. Take two men of equally humane temperament, and train both of them under Christian influences, and lead them both, day after day, through scenes of human degradation and wretch- edness : — the one of them whose structure of mind is the most ordinary, and also the most healthy, will ad- dict himself, forthwith, to some instituted labour of Christian benevolence, and he finds himself, though much worn, yet happy in his path of toil. The other, and who is intellectually the choice sample of the two, THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 355 deeply ponders what he sees : — he thinks, till he be- comes miserable ; — he throws up his religious profession, and wildly looks round for some doctrine or a theory that may assuage his anguish : — he finds no such doc- trine, and the collapse of conflicting feelings leaves him — without God, and without hope in the world. Deprive the first of these men of his Christian belief, and of his Christian motives and hopes, and he will presently ''faint and be weary" in his work. But withdraw from the mind of the other those lofty con- ceptions of the Supreme Wisdom and Goodness which he received at first from Christianity, and he would quickly find himself able to turn away from scenes of human miserv with frivolous indifference. We may be sure that whenever Christianity has so far wrought itself into the mind of a people as to give existence among them to many self-denying enterprises of benevolence, and to sustain these labours in vigour from year to year, it will also have produced a reaction, within the same community, uttering itself concerning the evils that abound in the social system in tones, which at first are querulous — then ferocious, and at last blasphemous. If on all sides of us there are peniten- tiaries — reformatory prisons — missions among canni- bals — and those latest eSiorescences of Christian love — ragged schools — then there will also be heard lectu- rers and writers, some of them men of genius, who, beginning their career as humane reformers, end it as murky misanthropic Atheists. Just as the pains and ti'oubles of a man's individual lot may drive him to snatch at the knife or poison of the suicide, so may the anguish and the despair with which a sensitive hcai t 356 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. contemplates the miseries that are in the world impel him to open the veins of the immortal spirit, and let go forth the life-blood of the soul. This is that sifting of spirits — this is that fiery trial which, with a peculiar intensity, is going on at this time, and is putting to the severest proof the loyalty — the religious allegiance, of many minds born and trained within the pale of Christian influence. To each of us, in a more or less pointed manner, the critical question is now put whether we will stand by Heaven — by Truth — by Goodness ; or will range ourselves with primoeval rebellion, and bo compromised with those whose quarrel with God may be older than the mountains ? This trial of constancy is now severe ; but a time is inevitable when it will have become more so. One need not be gifted with a prophet's eye to foresee this : for it is a course of things — it is an issue, that is involved in the present condition and tendencies at once of religious feeling, and of Abstract Thought. Those who, by God's help, have survived (In a re- ligious sense) a conflict of this kind, eagerly turn to the Evangelic records of Christ's discourses, that they may discover if He has made any provision — or if so, what provision, for securing the tranquillity of those who " believe and are sure" that He is the true inter- preter of God's ways toward men. IIow is it that this " Physician of souls " goes about to heal the deep wounds of those whose wounds have touched the im- mortal life ? We cannot open the Gospels without acknowledging that the lips of this Teacher breathe love and peace — health and power, as well as wisdom. May we not therefore confidently look to Him for tlie 357 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. resolution of our perplexities — for the solving of dis- tracting problems ? will He not shed some light upon the dark mysteries of this world ? He does nothing of that sort which we so much desire ! He is fixedly abstinent in relation even to subjects which the Jewish mind of that age had become in some degree alive to. He does not propound the main articles of a Theistic belief, or speak of them as if they needed to be ascertained or defended. Much less does He recoo;- nize, as if they were a burden upon that belief, the staggering difficulties which oppress us, of this age, and with which the thoughtful in all times have so vainly striven. That heavy load of troubled specu- lation which weighs us down, does not seem to have come into His view when He invites the weary to seek their rest in Him. This "Man of sorrows," and "acquainted with griefs," gives no expression to those griefs which, to many of the thoughtful and sensitive among His followers, have outweighed the pressure of the most extreme personal sufferings, so that they have been tempted to say — " I am indeed afflicted — yet would endure all with cheerfulness, if the thick darkness that overspreads these heavens were with- drawn, or if only I could see a verge of the dawn upon the cloud." On one occasion, when a perplexity nearly of this class stood out suddenly in His view, there is heard from His lips a singular outburst of devout exultation — " I thank Thee, Father " — which in no way chimes in with our modern comfortless feeling. When, from the ridge of Olivet, He wept over the doomed city — its palaces and Temple, His sorrow was of that sort 358 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. ■which resembles the spontaneous grief of a parent who foresees the miseries that are in store for a rebelUous child : — the trouble was of the concrete, not of the abstract kind. And yet if we do not find in the teaching of Christ that which we should so gladly find, we find at least the rudiments of peace, and a remedy against distrac- tion, which, if we will accept it and use it, brings with it as much acquiescence as is to be had, in the nature of things, on earth ; — and as much, perhaps, as is to be found even among those that have encircled the Eternal Throne since the morning hours of the Creation. If there presents itself — and such a surmise will present itself, a surmise of this kind — That the terms and phrases which are employed by the Canonical wri- ters when they speak of the Divine attributes of Wis- dom, Goodness, Love, are used, as of necessity, because there are none others ; but that these terms must not be so understood, or so interpreted by us, as would bring them into parallelism with our finite conceptions, or with any human modes of thinking and of feeling,- and which would warrant the free outflow of our sym- pathies in harmony with our religious beliefs ; — if we are thus tempted to think, then a suspicion so disheart- ening is dispelled when we consent to listen to Christ as what He declares himself to be — namely, not merely a Messenger, sent by God to man, but far more than this — the Living Representative of the Divine Nature, so far as the Infinite Mind can become cognizable by the finite mind. Now as Representative of God among men, we hear Ilim say — " He that hath seen me, hath TUE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 359 seen the Father also," and it is certain that -what are called the moral attributes, are, in a much ampler sense cognizable by us than the natural attributes can be. It is not merely that Christ, authenticating His mes- sacre bv miracles, teaches us with authority concerning God ; but He treads the earth as the genuine Image of the Invisible God ; — and, as such. He assures us that the Universe is one. in its moral constitution — that the language of Heaven is literally interpretable among men — word for word ; and that whatever marvels might surprise us in traversing the skies, we should every- where find ourselves at home, as to our moral intuitions. The lanoruacre in which we embody our notions of the True, the Right, the Good, the Loving, is not a dialect of this province ; but it is the universal style of God's kingdom in all places. Precisely therefore as we, if we be humane, are prompted to " do good to all, even to the evil and the unthankful," so, and with a feeling strictly analogous to this, does the Father of all dispense His benefits. In a sense corresponding to our own consciousness— He is righteous in His administration — He is no re- specter of persons — He is merciful — compassionate — slow to anger — ready to forgive — and a Hearer of prayer. But He is firm of purpose, true to His word, and sure to give effect to whatever originates with Him- self. The Saviour Christ does not in words vindicate the wavs of God to men; but better than this. He stands before us as a Living Theodicaea — an intelli- gible expression of those attributes of the Divine Xa- ture which carry with them, if not an implicit solution of the dark mysteries of the moral system, yet an anti- 360 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. dote to tlie fatal effect they might have upon our minds ; and this is certain, that if there be rebellion in any province of the universe, it is a resistance to such wis- dom, such rectitude, and such.love, as are brought down to our apprehension in the Person of Christ — the Chris-t of God. And yet, if by this means a Theology is set before me which commands my approval, something more is needed to afford me the intimate satisfaction which I need ; or at least to convey to my heart a uniform peace — a sentiment, as well as a conclusion of the rea- son. I may make progress as to my conceptions of the Divine Nature ; and yet the further I go in assimi- lating my own state of mind to those conceptions, so much the more does darkness thicken around me when I look abroad, and when I tread the crowded thorough- fares of this world. It is true that there are obvious considerations which, if they be wisely entertained, suffice for convincing me that those troubles and pains that affect myself have been, and are, not more than a needful and beneficial discipline, which finds its suffi- cient reason in the wholesome products by which I am morally the gainer. But where shall I find the shadow of a reason, applicable to the millions of instances in which the miseries of this life are taking effect in no such remedial manner ; but the contrary — are the very source and cause of aggravated vice, and of deeper and deeper wretchedness ? At this point it becomes evident that, as the ground of a settled religious composure in looking abroad upon the human S3^stem, such as it is, and ever has been, I need something more than hitherto I have found. Ab- THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 361 v nay, they mock me at that point. The Theism of the Bible, if it be considered abstractedly, renders me ten- fold more alive to perplexities of this kind than I should have been without it : — it is the very soul of that con- sciousness upon which the evil and the woe around me so powerfully take effect. I see before me but one way of peace ; and yet even this is not rest to the Reason, for it does not bring with 31 3G2 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. it a clearing away of thick clouds ; it is not the opening of a bright azure overhead ; but it is the commencement of a composure which establishes itself in the heart in a spontaneous and gradual manner. Devoutly I believe that there is not in this world (and probably not in any other) more than one position in occupying which the human mind — if it be sensitive, and unselfish, and in every sense alivCj can be exempted from those distract- ing perplexities which are incompatible with moral health, and which abate virtuous energy. Already I have listened to Christ as a Teacher sent into the world on God's part, to make known to me what I could not otherwise have known. I have learned also to regard Him as the Representative of the Moral Attributes of God, so that, in contemplation of Him I acquire a consciousness, as to those attributes, which is genuine and trustworthy, and sufficient too for my guidance and support in the exigencies of this life. It remains then that I think of, and live in communion with the same Christ as the Faultless Man, in whose demeanour, and in whose words and actions, I find an intelligible authentication of every emotion, and of every sensibility which I ought to allow, and to cherish, as good and reasonable, and as truly related, not only to those facts which come within my own range of vision ; but to those also which lie far beyond it. In the demeanour, in the discourses, in the conduct of Christ — the True and Faultless Man, I see reflected, as in a mirror, all things of all worlds that touch, or " that belong to, the moral state and consciousness of the intelligent creation — that is to say — all those facts THE RESTORATION OP BELIEF. 363 which, if I saw and knew them, would aifect me with a corresponding joy or sorrow. It must not be pretended, on the adverse side, that the Evangelic Memoirs, containing as they do the whole that we can now know of Christ, are too frag- mentary — too inartificial, and too brief, to warrant my deriving from them the comprehensive Personal Idea which now I am in search of. Infinitely preferable are these fragmentary Gospels, in relation to the purpose before me, than would be any imaginable biography, framed upon a philosophic principle. In any instance where the Individual Man of a past age is to be thought of, vividly and correctly, give me genuine fragvients of his actual life, and of his familiar con- verse with his chosen friends, and keep far out of my sight the generalizing portraiture which may be offered to me by some writer who is more full of himself, than of his subject. This is, I think, the rule in observance of which the ablest recent writers of history have made so great an advance upon the practice of their prede- cessors. The Gospels, rigidly analyzed on the prin- ciples that are now authenticated within the depart- ment of history, offer to me precisely the materials which are the most to be desired, in such a case. With these materials in my hand — with these sketches — these hints — before me, I come into the pos- sessions of a conception of the Personal Christ as com- plete as I have of any personage of the ancient epochs. And I acquire this distinct conception notwithstanding the fact that this Person is such a one as had never before trod the earth, nor has the like to Him trod it since. And be it observed that this Perfect Idea which 364 THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. has concreted itself in my mind, is not a vague outline of godlike ranjesty; but it has the vivacity and the in- telligible distinctn-ess of a likeness, taken and fixed, at various moments, by some infallible and instantaneous process. All things mundane I must regard as a troubled dream — all history must become as an inco- herent myth, if it be not certain that the Christ of the Gospels is a reality, and the incidents of His life in the strictest sense historical. This being so, and as I have on other grounds con- vinced myself that this Christ of the Gospels unites in His Person the qualities and virtues of human nature with the attributes of the Divine nature, I draw near to Him in the confidence that I shall find indicated in His behaviour, in His words, and in His actions, those views and sentiments regarding the subjects that most perplex me, which, if I could but attain the same, would give me composure, at least. While I approach Him — even " Jesus, Son of David," thronged by the multitude, I see Him as one who is conscious of all con- ditions and states of being — visible and invisible — the past, the present, and the future : — the present and the visible must in His view keep their proportion, as rela- ted to the unseen and the eternal. It is certain that it is not insensibility — it is not insensitiveness of temperament, whence springs the se- renity of that brow, and the governed calm of that countenance. But then may it not be that, in the depths of that unfathomable soul, wherein the weal of all creatures is entertained, no regard is had to those ills and pains of an hour or a day, the witnessing of which moves me to pity, and disturbs my peace ? If I THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 365 might be tempted to think so, then I follow the course of this Saviour of the world, and note what is the quality and the intention of His miracles, from the first of them to the last. Now in this series there occur not more at the most, than two or three exceptions to the rule, that they were interpositions, having for their purpose the relief of bodily suiFerings, or the supply of bodily wants. — They were (with these few exceptions) just such acts of spontaneous sympathy as my own feelings would prompt me to imitate, every day, if I could, when mingling with the concourse of crowded cities. In this sense we may reverse the Scripture, and say, " the mind that is in me, was also in Christ Jesus." There was in Him compassion on a level with the most ordinary of the ills that affect human- ity. It was not that, to Him before whose eye the immortality of the thousands around Him was laid open, their present pains — their lameness and palsy, their blindness and deafness, their hunger and their thirst and weariness, were of small or no account. It was not that a forethought of the boundless future bred in Him a lofty indifference toward pains and ills so ephemeral as those that weigh upon mortality. Viewed on this ground, and in relation to the inference which I have now in view, the series of evangelic mir- acles carries with it a peremptory conclusion. The case before us is one in Avhich the less involves the greater. It is certain that He who knows, and who has in his view all that I see and know, and far more, and whose emotions of pity are like my own — yet far more acute, and uniform — has also in His view, such facts, or such prospects as are more than suflScient for 81* 366 TUE .RESTORATIOISr OF BELIEF. the double purpose, first of securing an habitual com- posure and tranquillity, and the7i for holding entire an unshaken loyalty toward God — the Sovereign Creator and Ruler of the universe. If now the question be put to me, whether my Chris- tian Belief enables me to rid myself of that burden of far-reaching care and trouble which I share with the thoughtful of all ages — my reply is this — In truth I have not found the means of ridding myself of this burden ; but in the Gospels I have found Him in com- munion with whom I am learning how to bear it ; and thus I hope to bear it to the end, still retaining my faith and trust in God as supremely Good and Wise — "a Just God, and a Saviour." THE END. P[:'"ceton Theological Seminary Libraries 1 1012 01247 9731