il 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE , ■ 
 
 / 
 
 Theological Seminary, 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 Ca^ BX 9869 .N4 A3 1870 
 
 Newman, Francis William, 
 '^'" 1805-1897. 
 Boc Phases of faith 
 
_7 ^ 
 
PHASES OF FAITH. 
 
PHASES OF FAITH 
 
 PASSAGES 
 
 THE HISTORY OF MY CREED 
 
 FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN, 
 
 FOEMEBLY FELLOW OF BALMOt COLLEGE, OXF«KD. 
 
 LONDOxV: 
 
 TEUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1870. 
 
PKEFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 
 
 This is perhaps an egotistical book ; egotistical certainly in 
 its form, yet not in its purport and essence. 
 
 Personal reasons the writer cannot wholly disown, for desir- 
 ing to explain himself to more than a few, who on religious 
 grounds are unjustly aliensted from him. If by any motive 
 of curiosity or lingering remembrances they may be led to 
 read his straightforward account, he trusts to be able to show 
 them that he has had no choice but to adopt the intellectual 
 conclusions which offend them ; — that the difference between 
 them and him turns on questions of Learning, History, Criti- 
 cism and Abstract Thought; — and that to make their results 
 (if indeed they have ever deeply and honestly investigated the 
 matter) the tests of his spiritual state, is to employ unjust 
 weights and a false balance, which are an abomination to the 
 Lord. To defraud one's neighbour of any tithe of mint and 
 cummin, would seem to them a sin ; is it less to withhold 
 affection, trust and free intercourse, and build up unpassable 
 barriers of coldness and alarm, against one whose sole offence 
 is to diff*er from them intellectually ? 
 
 But the argument before the writer is something immensely 
 greater than a personal one. So it happens, that to vindicate 
 himself is to establish a mighty truth ; a truth which can in 
 no other way so well enter the heart, as when it comes era- 
 bodied in an individual case. If he can show, that to have 
 shrunk from his successive convictions would have been " in- 
 fidelity " to God and Truth and Righteousness ; but that he 
 
Vi PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 
 
 has been "faithful " to the highest and most urgent duty ;— it 
 will be made clear that Belief is one thing and Faith another ; 
 that to believe is intellectual, nay possibly "earthly, devilish ;' 
 and that to set up any fixed creed as a test of spiritual cha- 
 racter is a most unjust, oppressive and mischievous supersti- 
 tion. The historical form has been deliberately selected, as 
 easier and more interesting to the reader ; but it must not be 
 imagined that the author has given his mental history in 
 general, much less an autobiography. The progress of his 
 creed is his sole subject; and other topics are introduced 
 cither to illustrate this or as digressions suggested by it. 
 
 March 22itd, 1850. 
 
PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION. 
 
 I HAD long thought that the elaborate reply made for me 
 in the "Prospective Review" (1854) to Mr. Henry Rogers's 
 Defence of the " Eclipse of Faith," superseded anything more 
 from my pen. But in the course of six years a review is 
 forgotten and buried away, while Mr. Rogers is circulating 
 the ninth edition of his misrepresentations. 
 
 As my publisher announces to me the opportunity, I 
 at length consent to reply myself to the Defence, cancelling 
 what was previously my last chapter, written against the 
 " Eclipse." 
 
 All that follows p. 175 in this edition is new. 
 
 June, 1860. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGH 
 
 I. My Youthful Creed 1 
 
 II. Strivings after a more primitive Christianity . 16 
 
 III. Calvinism abandoned 41 
 
 IV. The Religion of the Letter renounced ... 65 
 V. Faith at Second Hand found to be vain ... 88 
 
 VI. History discovered to be no part of Religion . 124! 
 
 VII. On the Moral Perfection of Jesus 139 
 
 VIII. On Bigotry and Progress , ?64 
 
 IX. Reply TO the "Defence of the Eclipse of Paith" 178 
 
 Appendix 1 210 
 
 Appendix II 212 
 
PHASES OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 
 
 I FIRST began to read religious books at school, and especially 
 the Bible, when I was eleven years old; and almost imme- 
 diately commenced a habit of secret prayer. But it was not 
 until I was fourteen that I gained any definite idea of a 
 " scheme of doctrine," or could have been called a " converted 
 person" by one of the Evangelical School. My religion then 
 certainly exerted a great general influence over my conduct ; 
 for I soon underwent various pei-secution from my schoolfel- 
 lows on account of it : the worst kind consisted in their deli- 
 berate attempts to corrupt me. An Evangelical clergyman at 
 the school gained my affections, and from him I imbibed more 
 and more distinctly the full creed which distinguishes that 
 body of men; a body whose bright side I shall ever appreciate, 
 in spite of my present perception that they have a dark side 
 also. I well remember, that one day when I said to this 
 friend of mine, that I could not understand how the doctrine 
 of Election was reconcilable to God's Justice, but supposed 
 that I should know this in due time, if I waited and believed 
 His word; — he replied with emphatic commendation, tha.t 
 this was the spirit which God always blessed. Such was the 
 beginning and foundation of my faith, — an unhesitating un- 
 conditional acceptance of whatever was found in the Bible. 
 While I am far from saying that my whole moral conduct was 
 subjugated by my creed, I must insist that it was no mere 
 fancy resting in my intellect : it ^va3 really operative on my 
 temper, tastes, pursuits and conduct. 
 
 When I was sixteen, in 1821, I was "confirmed" by Dr. 
 Howley, then Bishop of London, and endeavoured to take on 
 
2 MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 
 
 myself with greater decision and more conscientious con- 
 sistency the whole yoke of Christ. Every thing in the Service 
 was solemn to me, except the bishop: he seemed to me a 
 made-up man and a mere pageant. I also remember that 
 when I was examined by the clergyman for confirmation, 
 it troubled me much that he only put questions which tested 
 lay memory concerning the Catechism and other formulas, 
 instead of trying to find out whether I had any actual faith in 
 that about which I was to be called to profess faith : I was 
 not then aware that his sole duty was to try my knowledge. 
 But I already felt keenly the chasm that separated the High 
 from the Low Church; and that it was impossible for me to 
 sympathize with those who imagined that Forms could com- 
 mand the Spirit. 
 
 Yet so entirely was I enslaved to one Form, — that of ob- 
 serving the Sunday, or, as I had learned falsely to call it, the 
 Sabbath, — that I fell into painful and injurious conflict with a 
 superior kinsman, by refusing to obey his orders on the 
 Sunday. He attempted to deal with me by mere authority, 
 not by instruction ; and to yield my conscience to authority 
 would have been to yield up all spiritual life. 1 erred, but I 
 was faithful to God. 
 
 When I was rather more than seventeen, I subscribed the 
 39 Articles at Oxford in order to be admitted to the Uni- 
 versity. Subscription was " no bondage," but pleasure ; for I 
 well knew and loved the Articles, and looked on them as a 
 great bulwark of the truth ; a bulwark, however, not by being 
 imposed, but by the spiritual and classical beauty which to me 
 shone in them. But it was certain to me before I went to 
 Oxford, and manifest in my first acquaintance with it, that 
 very few academicians could be said to believe them. Of the 
 young men, not one in five seemed to have any religious con- 
 victions at all: the elder residents seldom or never showed 
 sympathy with the doctrines that pervade that formula. I 
 felt from my first day there, that the system of compulsory 
 subscription was hollow, false, and wholly evil. 
 
 Oxford is a pleasant place for making friends, — friends of 
 all sorts that young men wish. One who is above envy and 
 scorns servility, — who can praise and delight in all the good 
 qualities of his equals in age, and does not desire to set him- 
 self above them, or to vie with his superiors in rank, — may 
 have more than enough of friends, for pleasure and for profit. 
 So certainly had I; yet no one of my equals gained any as- 
 
M-t YOUTHFCL CHIMED. 3 
 
 cendancy over me, nor perhaps could I have looked up to any 
 for advice. In some the intellect, in others the religious 
 qualities, were as yet insufficiently developed : in part also I 
 wanted discrimination, and did not well pick out the pro- 
 founder minds of my acquaintance. However, on my very 
 first residence in College, I received a useful lesson from an- 
 other freshman, — a grave and thoughtful person, older (I ima- 
 gine) than most youths in their first term. Some readers may 
 be amused, as well as surprized, when I name the delicate 
 question on which I got into discussion with my fellow fresh- 
 man. I had learned from Evangelical books, that there is a 
 twofold imputation to every saint, — not of the "suff'erings" 
 only, but also of the " righteousness" of Christ. They al- 
 leged that, while the sufferings of Jesus are a compensation 
 for the guilt of the believer and make him innocent, yet this 
 suffices not to give him a title to heavenly glory ; for which 
 he must over and above be invested in active righteousness, 
 by all Christ's good works being made over to him. My new 
 friend contested the latter part of the doctrine. Admitting 
 fully that guilt is atoned for by the sufferings of the Saviour, 
 he yet maintained, there was no farther imputation of Christ's 
 active service as if it had been our service. After a rather 
 sharp controversy, I was sent back to study the matter for myself, 
 especially in the third and fourth chapters of the Epistle to the 
 Romans; and some weeks after, freely avowed to him that I 
 was convinced. Such was my first effort at independent 
 thought against the teaching of my spiritual fathers, and I 
 suppose it had much value for me. This friend might pro- 
 bably have been of service to me, though he was rather cold 
 and lawj^erlike; but he was abruptly withdrawn from Oxford 
 to be employed in active life. 
 
 I first received a temporary discomfort about the 39 Articles 
 from an irreligious young man, who had been my schoolfellow; 
 who one day attacked the article which asserts that Christ 
 carried " his flesh and bones " with him into heaven. I was 
 not moved by the physical absurdity which this youth merci- 
 lessly derided; and I repelled his objections as an impiety. 
 But I afterwards remembered the text, " Flesli and hlood shall 
 not inherit the kingdom of God;" and it seemed to me as if 
 the compilers had really gone a little too far. If I had imme- 
 diately then been called on to subscribe, I sui)pose it would 
 have somewhat discomposed me; but as time went on, I 
 forgot this small point, which was swallowed up by others 
 
4 MY YOUTHFUL CKEED. 
 
 more important. Yet I believe that henceforth a greater dis- 
 position to criticize the Articles grew upon me. 
 
 The first novel opinion of any great importance that I 
 iictually embraced, so as to give roughness to my course, was 
 that which many then called the Oriel heresy about Sunday. 
 Oriel College at this tin e contained many active and several 
 original minds ; and it was rumoured that one of the Fellows 
 rejoiced in seeing his parishioners play at cricket on Sunday: 
 I do not know whether that was true, but so it was said. 
 Another of them j^reached an excellent sermon before the 
 University, clearly showing that Sunday had nothing to do 
 with the Sabbath, nor the Sabbath with us, and inculcating on 
 its own ground a wise and devout use of the Sunday hours. 
 The evidently pious and sincere tone of this discourse im- 
 jjressed me, and I felt that 1 had no right to reject as profane 
 and undeserving of examination the doctrine which it en- 
 forced. Accordingly I entered into a thorough searching of 
 the Scripture without bias, and was amazed to find how base- 
 less was the tenet for which in fact I had endured a sort of 
 martyrdom. This, I believe, had a great effect in showing me 
 how little right we have at any time to count on our opinions 
 as final truth, however necessary they may just then be felt to 
 our spiritual life. I was also scandalized to find how little 
 candour or discernment some Evangelical friends, with whom 
 I communicated, displayed in discussing the subject. 
 
 In fact, this opened to me a large sphere of new thought. 
 In the investigation, I had learned, more distinctly than before, 
 that the preceptive code of the Law was an essentially imper- 
 fect and temporary system, given " for the hardness of men's 
 hearts." I was thus prepared to enter into the Lectures on 
 Prophecy, by another Oriel Fellow, — Mr. Davison, — in which 
 he traces the successive improvements and developments of 
 religious doctrine, from the patriarchal system onward. I in 
 consequence enjoyed with new zest the epistles of St. Paul, 
 which I read as with fresh eyes; and now understood some- 
 what better his whole doctrine of " the Spirit," the coming of 
 which had brought the church out of her childish into a ma- 
 ture condition, and by establishing a higher law had abolished 
 that of the letter. Into this view I entered with so eager an 
 interest, that I felt no bondage of the letter in Paul's own 
 words : his wisdom was too much above me to allow free cri- 
 ticism of his weak points. At the same time, the systematic 
 Ube of the Old Tegument by the PuritunS; as if it were " the 
 
MY YOUTHFUL CREED. O 
 
 rule of life" to Christians, I saw to be a glaring mistake, in- 
 tensely opposed to the Pauline doctrine. This discovery, 
 moreover, soon became important to me, as furnishing a ready 
 evasion of objections against the meagre or puerile views of 
 the Pentateuch ; for without very minute inquiry how far I 
 must go to make the defence adequate, I gave a general reply, 
 that the New Testament confessed the imperfections of the 
 older dispensation. I still presumed the Old to have been 
 perfect for its own objects and in its own place; and had not 
 defined to myselt how far it was correct or absurd, to imagine 
 morality to change with time and circumstances. 
 
 Before long, ground was broken in my mind on a still more 
 critical question, by another Fellow of a College ; who main- 
 tained that nothing but unbelief could arise out of the attempt 
 to understand in ichat I'jay and hy luhat moral right the blood 
 of Christ atoned for sins. He said, that he bowed before the 
 doctrine as one of " Revelation," and accepted it reverentially 
 by an act of faith ; but that he certainly felt unable to under- 
 stand ivhy the sacrifice of Christ, any more than the Mosaic 
 sacrifices, should compensate for the punishment of our sins. 
 Could carnal reason discern that human or divine blood, any 
 more than that of beasts, had efficacy to make the sinner as it 
 were sinless? It appeared to him a necessarily inscrutable 
 mystery, into which we ought not to look. — The matter being 
 thus forced on my attention, I certainly saw that to establish 
 the abstract moral right and justice of vicarious punishment was 
 not easy, and that to make out the fact oi any " compensation" 
 — {i. e. that Jesus really endured on the cross a true equivalent 
 for the eternal sufferings due to the whole human race,) — was 
 harder still. Nevertheless I had difificulty in adopting the 
 conclusions ot this gentleman ; first, because, in a passage of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, the sacred writer, in arguing — 
 " For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats can 
 
 take away sins," <fec., &c — seems to expect his readers 
 
 to see an inherent impropriety in the sacrifices ot the Law, 
 and an inherent moral fitness in the sacrifice of Christ. 
 Secondly" : I had always been accustomed to hear that it was 
 by seeing the moral fitness of the doctrine of the Atonement, 
 that converts to Christianity were chiefly made : so said the 
 Moravians among the Greenlanders, so Brainerd among the 
 North American Indians, so English missionaries among the 
 negroes at Sierra Leone : — and I could not at all renounce this 
 idea. Indeed I seemed to myself to see tkis fitness most em- 
 
6 MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 
 
 phatically; and as for the forensic difficulties, I passed them 
 over with a certain conscious reverence. I was not as yet 
 ripe for deeper inquiry: yet I, about this time, decidedly 
 modified my boyish creed on the subject, on which more will 
 be said below. 
 
 Of more immediate practical importance to me was the 
 controversy concerning Infant Baptism. For several years 
 together I had been more or less conversant with the aro^n- 
 ments adduced for the practice ; and at this time I read Wall's 
 defence of it, which was the book sjiecially recommended at 
 Oxford. The perusal brought to a head the doubts which had 
 at an earlier period flitted over my mind. Wall's historical 
 attempt to trace Infant Baptism up to the apostles seemed to 
 me a clear failure:* and if he failed, tlien who was likely to 
 succeed? The arguments from Scripture had never recom- 
 mended themselves to me. Even allowing that they might 
 confirm, they certainly could not suggest and establish the 
 practice. It now appeared that there was no basis at all; 
 indeed, several of the arguments struck me as cutting the 
 other way. " Suffer little children to come unto me," was 
 urged as decisive: but it occurred to me that the disciples 
 would not have scolded the little children away, if they had 
 ever been accustomed to baptize them. Wall also, if I 
 remember aright, declares that the children of proselytes were 
 baptized by the Jews; and deduces, that unless the contrary 
 were stated, we must assume that also Christ's disciples bap- 
 tized children : but I reflected that the baptism of John was 
 one of " repentance," and therefore could not have been ad- 
 ministered to infants; which (if precedent is to guide us) 
 aflbrded the truer presumption concerning Christian baptism. 
 Prepossessions being thus overthrown, when I read the apo- 
 stolic epistles with a view to this special question, the proof so 
 multiplied against the Church doctrine, that I did not see 
 what was left to be said for it. I talked much and freely of 
 this, as of most other topics, with equals in age, who took 
 interest in religious questions ; but the more the matters were 
 discussed, the more decidedly impossible it seemed to main- 
 tain that the popular Church views were apostolic. 
 
 * It was not until many years later that I became aware, that un- 
 biassed ecclesiastical historians, as Neander and others, while approving 
 of the practice of Infant Baptism, iieely concede that it is not apostoHc. 
 Let this fact be my defence against critics, who snarl at me for having 
 dared, at that age, to come to n)iy conclusion on such a subject. But, 
 in fact, the subscriptions compel young men to it. 
 
MY YOUTHFUL CREED. T 
 
 Here also, as before, the Evangelical clergy whom I con- 
 sulted were found by me a broken reed. The clerical friend 
 whom I had known at school wrote kindly to me, but quite 
 declined attempting to solve my doubts ; and in other quarters 
 I soon saw that no fresh light was to be got. One person 
 there was at Oxford, who might have seemed my natural 
 adviser: his name, character, and religious peculiarities have 
 been so made public property, that I need not shrink to name 
 him : — I mean my elder brother, the Rev. John Henry New- 
 man. As a warm-hearted and generous brother, who exer- 
 cised towards me paternal cares, I esteemed him and felt a 
 deep gratitude; as a man of various culture and peculiar 
 genius, I admired and was proud of him; but my doctrinal 
 religion impeded my loving him as much as he deserved, and 
 even justified my feeling some distrust of him. He never 
 showed any strong attraction towards those whom I regarded 
 as spiritual persons: on the contrary, I thought him stiff and 
 cold towards them. Moreover, soon after his ordination, he 
 had startled and distressed me by adopting the doctrine of 
 Baptismal Regeneration; and in rapid succession worked out 
 views which I regarded as full-blown " Pojiery." I speak of 
 the years 1823-6: it is strange to think that twenty years 
 more had to pass before he learnt the place to which his doc- 
 trines belonged. 
 
 In the earliest period of my Oxford residence I fell into 
 uneasy collision with him concerning Episcopal powers. I 
 had on one occasion dropt something disrespectful against 
 bishops or a bishop, — something which, if it had been said 
 about a clergyman, would have passed unnoticed: but my 
 brother checked and reproved me, — as I thought, very unin- 
 structively — for " wanting reverence towards Bishops." I 
 knew not then, and I know not now, why Bishops, as such, 
 should be more reverenced than common clergymen ; or Cler- 
 gymen, as such, more than common men. In the World I 
 expected pomp and vain show and formality and counterfeits: 
 but of the Church, as Christ's own kingdom, I demanded 
 recility and could not digest legal fictions. I saw round me 
 what sort of young men were preparing to be clergymen : I 
 knew the attractions of family "livings" and fellowships, and 
 of a respectable position and undefinable hopes of preferment. 
 I farther knew, that when youths had become clergymen 
 through a great variety of mixed motives, bishops were selected 
 out of these clergy on avowedly political groauds; it therefore 
 
O MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 
 
 amazed me how a man of ofood sense should be able to set up 
 a duty of reli.oious veneration towards bishops. I was willing 
 to honour a Lord Bishop as a peer of Parliament ; but his 
 office was to me no guarantee of spiritual eminence. — To find 
 my brother thus stop my mouth, was a puzzle ; and impeded 
 all free speech towards him. In fact, I very soon left off the 
 attempt at intimate religious intercourse with him, or asking 
 counsel as of one who could sympathize. We talked, indeed, 
 a great deal on the surface of religious matters ; and on some 
 questions I was overpowered and received a temporary bias 
 from his superior knowledge; but as time went on, and my 
 own intellect ripened, I distinctly felt that his arguments were 
 too fine-drawn and subtle, often elaborately missing the moral 
 points and the main points, to rest on some ecclesiastical fic- 
 tion; and his conclusions were to me so marvelkms and pain- 
 ful, that I constantly thought I had mistaken him. In short, 
 he was my senior by a very few years : nor was there any 
 elder resident at Oxford, accessible to me, who united all the 
 qualities which I wanted in an adviser. Nothing was left for 
 me but to cast myself on Him who is named the Father of 
 Lights, and resohe to follow the light which He might give, 
 however opposed to my own prejudices, and however I might 
 be condemned by men. This solemn engagement I made in 
 early youth, and neither the frowns nor the grief of my brethren 
 can make me ashamed of it in my manhood. 
 
 Among the religious authors whom I read familiarly was 
 the Rev. T. Scott, of Aston Sandford, a rather dull, very un- 
 original, half-educated, but honest, worthy, sensible, strong- 
 minded man, whose works were then much in vogue among 
 the Evangelicals. One day my attention was arrested by a 
 sentence in his defence of the doctrine of the Trinity. He 
 complained that Anti-Trinitarians unjustly charged Trini- 
 tarians with self-contradiction. " If indeed we said" (argued 
 he) " that God is three in the same sefnse as that in which He 
 is one, that would be self-refuting ; but we hold Him to be 
 tlivee in one sense, and one in anotheff" It crossed my mind 
 very forcibly, that, if that was all, the Athanasian Creed had 
 gratuitously invented an enigma. I exchanged thoughts on 
 this with an undergraduate friend, and got no fresh light : in 
 fact, I feared to be profane, if I attempted to understand the 
 subject. Yet it came distinctly home to me, that, whatever 
 the depth of the mystery, if we lay down anything about it 
 at all, we ought to uudcr^jtaud our own words; and I pre- 
 
MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 9 
 
 scntly augured that Tillotsoii bad been right in " wishing our 
 Church well rid" of the Athanasian Creed; which seemed a 
 mere offensive blurting out of intellectual difficulties. I had, 
 however, no doubts, even of a passing kind, for years to come, 
 concerning the substantial truth and certainty of the eccle- 
 siastical Trinity. 
 
 When the period arrived for taking my Bachelor's degree, 
 it was requisite again to sign the 39 Articles, and I now found 
 myself embarrassed by the question of Infant Baptism. One 
 of the articles contains the following words, " The baptism of 
 young children is in any wise to be retained, as most agree- 
 able to the institution of Christ." I was unable to conceal 
 from myself that I did not believe this sentence; and I was 
 on the point of refusing to take my degree. I overcame my 
 scruples by considering, 1. That concerning this doctrine I 
 had no active (its-belief, on which I would take any practical 
 step, as I felt myself too young to make any counterdeclara- 
 tion : 2. That it had no possible practical meaning to me, 
 since I could not be called on to baptize, nor to give a child 
 for baptism. Thus I persuaded myself. Yet I had not an 
 easy conscience, nor can I now defend my compromise; for I 
 believe that my repugnance to Infant Baptism was really 
 intense, and my conviction that it is unapostolic as strong 
 then as now. The topic of my "youth" was irrelevant; for, 
 if I was not too young to subscribe, I was not too young to 
 refuse subscription. The argument that the article was 
 "unpractical" to me, goes to prove, that if I were ordered 
 by a despot to qualify myself for a place in the Church by 
 solemnly renouncing the ffrst book of Euclid as false, I might 
 do so without any loss of moral dignity. Altogether, this 
 humiliating affair showed me what a trap for the conscience 
 these subscriptions are : how comfortably they are passed while 
 the intellect is torpid or immature, or where the conscience is 
 callous, but how they undermine truthfulness in the active 
 thinker, and. torture the sensitiveness of the tenderminded. 
 As long as they are maintained, in Church or University, 
 these institutions exert a positive influence to deprave or eject 
 those who ought to be their most useful and honoured 
 members. 
 
 It was already breaking upon me, that I could not fulfil 
 the dreams of my boyhood as a minister in the Church of 
 England. For, supposing that with increased knowledge I 
 might arrive at the conclusion that Infant Baptism was a 
 
 B 
 
10 MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 
 
 fore- arranged "development," — not indeed practised in the 
 first generation, but expedient, justifiable, and intended for 
 the second, and probably then sanctioned by one still living 
 apostle, — even so, I foresaw the still greater difficulty of Bap- 
 tismal Eegeneration behind. For any one to avow that 
 Eegeneration took place in Baptism, seemed to me little short 
 of a confession that he had never himself experienced what 
 Eegeneration is. If I could then have been convinced that 
 the apostles taught no other regeneration, I almost think that 
 even their authority would have snapt under the strain : but 
 this is idle theory ; for it was as clear as daylight to me that 
 they held a totally different doctrine, and that the High 
 Church and Popish fancy is a superstitious perversion, based 
 upon carnal inability to understand a strong spiritual meta- 
 phor. On the other hand, my brother's arguments that the 
 Baptismal Service of the Church taught " spiritual regene- 
 ration" during the ordinance, were short, simple, and over- 
 whelming. To imagine a twofold "spiritual regeneration" 
 was evidently a hypothesis to serve a turn, nor in any of the 
 Church formulas was such an idea broached. Nor could I 
 hope for relief by searching through the Homilies or by 
 drawing deductions from the Articles : for if I there elicited a 
 truer doctrine, it would never show the Baptismal Service not 
 to teach the Popish tenet; it would merely prove the Church- 
 system to contain contradictions, and not to deserve that 
 absolute declaration of its truth, which is demanded of 
 Church ministers. With little hope of advantage, I yet felt 
 it a duty to consult many of the Evangelical clergymen whom 
 I knew, and to ask how they reconciled the Baptismal Service 
 to their consciences. I found (if I remember) three separate 
 theories among them, — all evidently mere shifts invented to 
 avoid the disagreeable necessity of resigning their functions. 
 Not one of these good people seemed to have the most remote 
 idea that it was their duty to investigate the meaning of the 
 formulary with the same unbiassed simplicity as if it belonged 
 to the Galilean Church. They did not seek to know what it 
 was written to mean, nor what sense it must carry to every 
 simpleminded hearer; but they solely asked, how they could 
 manage to assign to it a sense not wholly irreconcilable with 
 their own doctrines and preaching. This was too obviously 
 hollow. The last gentleman whom I consulted, was the 
 rector of a parish, who from week to week baptized children 
 with the prescribed formula : but to ray amazement, he told 
 
MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 11 
 
 me that he did not like the Service, and did not approve of 
 Infant Baptism ; to both of wliich things he submitted, solely 
 because, as an inferior minister of the Church, it was his duty 
 to obey established authority ! The case was desperate. But 
 I may here add, that this clergyman, within a few years from 
 that time, redeemed his freedom and his conscience by tlie 
 painful ordeal of abandoning his position and his Hock, against 
 the remonstrances of his wife, to the annoyance of his friends, 
 and with a young family about him. 
 
 Let no reader accept the preceding paragraph as my testi- 
 mony that the Evangelical clergy are less simpleminded and 
 less honourable in their subscriptions than the High Church. 
 I do not say, and I do not believe this. All who subscribe, 
 labour under a common difficulty, in having to give an abso- 
 lute assent to formulas that were made by a compromise and 
 are not homogeneous in character. To the High Churchman, 
 the Articles are a difficulty; to the Low Churchman, various 
 parts of the Liturgy. All have to do violence to some j)or- 
 tion of the system; and considering at liov early an age they 
 are entrapped into subscription, they all deserve our sincere 
 sympathy and very ample allowance, as long as they are 
 pleading for the rights of conscience: only when they 
 become overbearing, dictatorial, proud of their chains, and 
 desirous of ejecting others, does it seem right to press them 
 with the topic of inconsistency. There is, besides, in the 
 ministry of the Established Church a sprinkling of original 
 minds, who cannot be included in either of the two great 
 divisions; and from these a prioH one might have hoped 
 much good to the Church. But such persons no sooner speak 
 out, than the two hostile parties hush their strife, in order the 
 more effectually to overwhelm with just and unjust imputa- 
 tions those who dare to utter truth that has not yet been con- 
 secrated by Act of Parliament or by Church Councils. 
 Among those who have subscribed, to attack others is easy, 
 to defend oneself most arduous. Recrimination is the only 
 powerful weapon; and noble minds are ashamed to use this. 
 No hope, therefore, shows itself of Eeform from within. — For 
 myself, I feel that nothing saved me from the infinite dis- 
 tresses which I should have encountered, had I become a 
 minister of the E])isc()pal Church, but the very unusual pre- 
 matureness of my religious development. 
 
 Besides the great subject of Baptismal Regeneration, the 
 entire Episcopal theory and practice offended me. How little 
 
13 MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 
 
 favourably I was impressc<l, when a boy, by the lawn sleeves, 
 wig, artificial voice and manner of the Bishop of London, I 
 have already said : but in six years more, reading and obser- 
 vation had intensely confirmed my first auguries. It was 
 clear beyond denial, that for a century after the death of 
 Edward VI. the bishops were the tools of court- bigotry, and 
 often owed their highest promotions to base subservience. 
 After the Revolution, the Episcopal order (on a rough and 
 general view) might be described as a body of supine persons, 
 known to the public only as a dead weight against all change 
 that was distasteful to the Government.. In the last century 
 and a half, the nation was often afl^icted with sensual royalty, 
 bloody wars, venal statesmen, corrupt constituencies, bribery 
 and violence at elections, flagitious drunkenness pervading all 
 ranks, and insinuating itself into Colleges and Rectories. The 
 prisons of the country had been in a most disgraceful state ; 
 the fairs and waits were scenes of rude debauchery, and the 
 theatres were — still, in this nineteenth century — whispered to 
 be haunts of the most debasing immorality. I could not 
 learn that any bishop had ever taken the lead in denouncing 
 these iniquities : nor that when any man or class of men rose 
 to denounce them, the Episcopal Order failed to throw itself 
 into the breach to defend corruption by at least passive re- 
 sistanee. Neither Howard, Wesley and Whitfield, nor yet 
 Clarkson, Wilberforce, or Romilly, could boast of the epis- 
 copal bench as an ally against inhuman or immoral practices. 
 Our op])ressions in India, and our sanction to the most cruel 
 superstitions of the natives, led to no outcry from the Bishops. 
 Under their patronage the two old Societies of the Church 
 had gone to sleep until aroused by the Church ]\Tissionary and 
 Bible Societies, which were opposed by the Bishops. Their 
 policy seemed to be, to do nothing, until somebody else was 
 likely to do it; upon which they at last joined the movement 
 in order to damp its energy, and get some credit from it. 
 Now what were Bishops for, but to be the originators and 
 energetic organs of all pious and good works? and what were 
 they in the House of Lords for, if not to set a higher tone of 
 purity, justice, and truth? and if they never did this, but 
 weighed down those who attempted it, was not that a con- 
 demnation (not, perhaps, of all possible Episcopacy, but) of 
 Episcopacy as it exists in England? If such a thing as a 
 moral argument /or Christianity was admitted as valid, surely 
 the above was a moral argument agcdnst English Prelacy. 
 
MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 13 
 
 It was, moreover, evident at a glance, that this system of ours 
 neither was, nor could have been, apostolic: for as long as the 
 civil power was hostile to the Church, a Lord bishop nomi- 
 nated hy the civil rider was an impossibility : and this it is, 
 which determines the moral and spiritual character of the 
 English institution, not indeed exclusively, but preeminently. 
 
 I still feel amazement at the only defence which (as far as 
 I know) the pretended followers of Antiquity make for the 
 nomination of bishops by the Crown. In the third and fourth 
 centuries, it is well known that every new bishop was elected 
 by the universal suffrage of the laity of the church ; and it is 
 to these centuries that the High Episcopalians love to appeal, 
 because they can quote thence out of Cyprian* and others in 
 favour of Episcopal authority. When I alleged the dissimi- 
 larity in the mode of election, as fatal to this argument in the 
 mouth of an English High Churchman, I was told that " the 
 Crown now rejwesents the Laity !" Such a fiction may be 
 satisfactory to a pettifogging lawyer, but as the basis of a 
 spiritual system is indeed supremely contemptible. 
 
 With these considerations on my mind, — while quite aware 
 that some of the bishops were good and valuable men, — I 
 could not help feeling that it would be a perfect misery to me 
 to have to address one of them taken at random as my " llight 
 Reverend Father in God," which seemed like a foul hypocrisy; 
 and when I remembered who had said, " Call no man Father 
 on earth; for one is your Father, who is in heaven:" — words, 
 which not merely in the letter, but still more distinctly in the 
 spirit, forbid the state of feeling which suggested this episcopal 
 appellation, — it did appear to me, as if " Prelacy" had been 
 rightly coupled by the Scotch Puritans with "Popery" as 
 antichristian. 
 
 Connected inseparably with this, was the form of Ordina- 
 tion, which, the more I thought of it, seemed the more offen- 
 sively and outrageously Popish, and quite opposed to the 
 Article on the same subject. In the Article I read, that we 
 were to regard such to be legitimate ministers of the word, as 
 had been duly appointed to this work hj those ivho have public 
 authority for the same. It was evident to me that this very 
 
 * I remember reading about that time a sentence in one of his Epistles, 
 in which this same Cyprian, the earhest mouthpiece of "proud prelacy," 
 claims for the populace supreme right of deposing an unworthy bishop. I 
 quote the words from memory, and do not know the reference. " Pleba 
 summam habet potestatem episcopos seu dignos eligendi sen indignos 
 detrudendi." 
 
14 MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 
 
 wide plirase was adapted and intended to comprehend the 
 ''public authorities" of all the Reformed Churches, and could 
 never have been selected by one who wished to narrow the 
 idea of a legitimate minister to Episcopalian Orders; besides 
 that we know Lutheran and Calvinistic ministers to have been 
 actually admitted in the early times of the Reformed English 
 Church, by the force of that very Article. To this, the only 
 genuine Protestant view of a Church, I gave my most cordial 
 adherence: but when I turned to the Ordination Service, I 
 found the Bishop there, by his authoritative voice, absolutely 
 to bestow on the candidate for Priesthood the power to forgive 
 or retain sins ! — " Receive ye the Holy Ghost ! Whose sins 
 ye forgive, they are forgiven : whose sins ye retain, they are 
 retained." If the Bishop really had this power, he of course 
 had it only as Bishop, that is, by his consecration ; thus it was 
 formally transmitted. To allow this, vested in all the Romish 
 bishops a spiritual power of the highest order, and denied the 
 legitimate priesthood in nearly all the Continental Protestant 
 Churches; — a doctrine irreconcilable with the article just re- 
 ferred to and intrinsically to me incredible. That an un spi- 
 ritual — and it may be, a wicked — man, who can have no pure 
 insight into devout and penitent hearts, and no communion 
 with the Source of holy discernment, could never receive by 
 an outward form the divine power to forgive or retain sins, or 
 the power of bestowing this power, was to me then, as now, 
 as clear and certain as any possible first axiom. Yet if the 
 Bishop had not this power, how profane was the pretension ! 
 Thus again I came into rude collision with English Prelacy. 
 
 The year after taking my degree, I made myself fully 
 master of Paley's acute and original treatise, the " Horse Pau- 
 linjE," and realized the whole life of Paul as never before. 
 This book greatly enlarged my mind as to the resources of 
 historical criticism. Previously, my sole idea of criticism was 
 that of the direct discernment of style ; but I now began to 
 understand what powerful argument rose out of combinations: 
 and the very complete establishment which this work gives to 
 the narrative concerning Paul in the latter half of the " Acts,'* 
 appeared to me to reflect critical honour* on the whole New 
 
 * A critic absurdly complains that I do not account for this. Account 
 for what ? I still hold the authenticity of nearly all the Pauline epistles, 
 and that the Pauline Acts are compiled from some valuable source, from 
 cl)ap. xiii. onward ; but it was gratuitous to infer that this could accredit 
 the four gospels. 
 
MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 15 
 
 Testament. In the epistles of this great apostle, notwitli- 
 standing their argumentative difficulties, I found a moral 
 reality and a depth of wisdom perpetually growing upon me 
 with acquaintance : in contrast to which I was conscious that 
 I made no progress in understanding the four gospels. Their 
 first impression had been their strongest : and their difficul- 
 ties remained as fixed blocks in my way. Was this possibly 
 because Paul is a reasoner, (I asked)? hence, with the cultiva- 
 tion of ray understanding, I have entered more easily into the 
 heart of his views: — while Christ enunciates divine truth 
 dogmatically; consequently insight is needed to understand 
 him? On the contrary, however, it seemed to me, that the 
 doctrinal difficulties of the gospels depend chiefly either on 
 obscure metaphor or on apparent incoherence : and I timidly 
 asked a friend, whether the dislocation of the discourses of 
 Christ by the narrators may not be one reason why they are 
 often obscure: for on comparing Luke with Matthew, it 
 appears that we cannot deny occasional dislocation. If at this 
 period a German divinity professor had been lecturing at 
 Oxford, or German books had been accessible to me, it might 
 have saved rae long peregrinations of body and mind. 
 
 About this time I had also begun to think that the old 
 writers called Fathers deserved but a small fraction of the 
 reverence which is awarded to them. I had been strongly 
 urged to read Chrysostom's work on the Priesthood, by one 
 who regarded it as a suitable preparation for Holy Orders; 
 and I did read it. But I not only thought it inflated, and 
 without moral depth, but what was far worse, I encountered 
 in it an elaborate defence of falsehood in the cause of the 
 Church, and generally of deceit in any good cause.* I rose 
 from the treatise in disgust, and for the first time sympa- 
 thized with Gibbon ; and augured that if he had spoken with 
 moral indignation, instead of pompous sarcasm, against the 
 frauds of the ancient " Fathers," his blows would have fallen 
 far more heavily on Christianity itself. 
 
 * He argues from tbe Bible, that a victory gained by deceit is more 
 to be esteemed than one obtained by force ; and that, provided the end 
 aimed at be good, we ouglit not to call it deceit, but a sort of ndiniraOle 
 manaijcmciit. A learned friend informs me that in his 45th Homily on 
 Genesis, this father, in his zeal to vindicate Scriptural characters at any 
 cost, goes further still in immorality. My friend adds, "It is really 
 frightful to reflect to what guidance the moral sentiment of mankind 
 was committed for many ages : Chrysostom is usually considered one of 
 the best of the fathers." 
 
1-6 MY YOUTHFUL CREED. 
 
 I also, with much effort and no profit, read the Apostolic 
 Fathers. Of these,. Clement alone seemed to me respectable, 
 ftnd even he to write only what I could myself have written, 
 with Paul and Peter to serve as a model. But for Barnabas 
 and Hermas I felt a contempt so profound, that I could hardly 
 believe them genuine. On the whole, this reading greatly 
 exalted my sense of the unapproachable greatness* of the New 
 Testament. The moral chasm between it and the very earliest 
 Christian writers seemed to me so vast, as only to be accounted 
 for by the doctrine in which all spiritual men (as I thought) 
 imhcsitatingly agreed, — that the New Testament was dictated 
 by the immediate action of the Holy Spirit. The infatuation 
 of those, who, after this, rested on the Councils, was to me 
 unintelligible. Thus the Bible in its simplicity became only 
 the more all-ruling to my judgment, because I could find no 
 Articles, no Church Decrees, and no apostolic individual, 
 whose rule over my understanding or conscience I could bear. 
 Such may be conveniently regarded as the first period of my 
 Creed. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 STRIVINGS AFTER A MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 My second period is characterized, partly by the great ascen- 
 dancy exercised over me by one powerful mind and still more 
 powerful will, partly by the vehement effort which throughout 
 its duration urged me to long after the establishment of Chris- 
 tian Fellowship in a purely Biblical Church as the first great 
 want of Christendom and of the world. 
 
 I was already uneasy in the sense that I could not enter the 
 ministry of the Church of England, and knew not what course 
 
 * T thought that the latter part of this book would sufficiently show 
 how and why I now need to modify this sentiment. I noiv see the doc- 
 trine of the Atonement, especially as expounded in the Epistle of 
 the Hebrews, to deserve no honour. I see false interpretations of the 
 Old Testament to be dogmatically proposed in the New, I see the moral 
 teaching concerning Patriotism, Property, Slavery, Marriage, Science, 
 and indirectly Fine Art, to be essentially defective, and the threats 
 against unbelief to be a pernicious immorality. See also p. 80. Why 
 will critics use my frankly-stated juvenile opinions as a stone to pelt me 
 with 1 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 17 
 
 of life to clioose. I longed to beco re a missionary for Christ 
 among the heathen, — a notion I had often fostered while 
 reading the lives of missionaries : but again, I saw not how 
 that was to be effected. After taking my degree, I became a 
 Fellow of Balliol College; and the next year I accepted an 
 invitation to Ireland, and there became private tutor for 
 fifteen months in the house of one now deceased, whose name 
 I would gladly mention lor honour and affection ; — but I 
 withhold my ])en. AVhile he repaid me munificently for my 
 services, he behaved towards me as a father, or indeed as an 
 elder brother, and instantly made me feel as a member of his 
 family. His great talents, high professional standing, noble- 
 ness of heart and unfeigned piety, would have made him a 
 most valuable counsellor to me : but he was too gentle, too 
 unassuming, too modest; he looked to be taught by his 
 juniors, and sat at the feet of one whom I proceed to describe. 
 This was a young relative of his, — a most remarkable man, 
 — who rapidly gained an immense sway over me. I shall 
 henceforth call him " the Irish clergyman." His " bodily 
 presence" was indeed "weak!" A fallen cheek, a bloodshot 
 eye, crippled limbs resting on crutches, a seldom shaven beard, 
 a shabby suit of clothes and a generally neglected person, 
 drew at first pity, with wonder to see such a figure in a 
 drawing-room. It was currently reported that a person in 
 Limerick offered him a halfpenny, mistaking him for a beggar; 
 and if not true, the story was yet well invented. This young 
 man had taken high honours in Dublin University and had 
 studied for the bar, where under the auspices of his eminent 
 kinsman he had excellent prospects; but his conscience would 
 not allow him to take a brief, lest he should be selling his 
 talents to defeat justice. With keen logical powers, he had 
 warm sympathies, solid judgment of character, thoughtful 
 tenderness, and total self-abandonment. He before long took 
 Holy Orders, and became an indefatigable curate in the moun- 
 tains of Wicklow. Every evening he sallied forth to teach in 
 the cabins, and roving far and wide over mountain and amid 
 bogs, was seldom home ])efore midnight. By such exertions 
 his strength was undermined, and he so suffered in his limbs 
 that not lameness only, but yet more serious results were 
 leared. He did not fast on purpose, but his long walks 
 through wild country and indigent people inflicted on him 
 much severe dej)rivation : moreover, as he ate whatever food 
 offered itself, — food unpalatable and often indigestible to him, 
 
18 STRIVINGS AFTER A 
 
 his whole frame might have vied in emaciation with a monk 
 of La Trappe. 
 
 Such a phenomenon intensely excited the poor Romanists, 
 who looked on him as a genuine "saint" of the ancient breed. 
 The stamp of heaven seemed to them clear in a frame so 
 wasted by austerity, so superior to worldly pomp, and so par- 
 taking in all their indigence. That a dozen such men would 
 have done more to convert all Ireland to Protestantism, than 
 the whole apparatus of the Church Establishment, was ere long 
 my conviction ; thovigh I was at first offended by his apparent 
 affectation of a mean exterior. But I soon understood, that 
 in no other way could he gain equal access to the lower and 
 lowest orders, and that he was moved not by asceticism, nor 
 by ostentation, but by a self-abandonment fruitful of conse- 
 quences. He had practically given up all reading except that 
 of the Bible; and no small part of his movement towards me 
 soon took the form of dissuasion from all other voluntary 
 study. 
 
 In fact, I had myself more and more concentrated my reli- 
 gious reading on this one book : still, I could not help feeling 
 the value of a cultivated mind. Against this, my new eccen- 
 tric friend, (himself having enjoyed no mean advantages of 
 cultivatioi),) directed his keenest attacks. I remember once 
 saying to him, in defence of worldly station, — " To desire to be 
 rich is unchristian and absurd; but if I were the father of 
 children, I should wish to be rich enough to secure them a 
 good education." He replied : " If I had children, I would 
 as soon see them break stones on the road, as do any thing 
 else, if only I could secure to them the Gospel and the grace 
 of God." I was unable to say Amen, but I admired his 
 unflinching consistency ; — for now, as always, all he said was 
 based on texts aptly quoted and logically enforced. He more 
 and more made me ashamed of Political Economy and Moral 
 Philosophy, and all Science ; all of which ought to be " counted 
 dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our 
 Lord." For the first time in my life I saw a man earnestly 
 turning into reality the principles which others confessed with 
 their lips only. That the words of the New Testament con- 
 tained the highest truth accessible to man, — truth not to be 
 taken from nor added to, — all good men (as I thought) 
 confessed : never before had I seen a man so resolved that no 
 word of it should be a dead letter to him. I once said : " But 
 do you really think that no part of the New Testament may 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 19 
 
 have been temporary in its object ? for instance, what should 
 we have lost, if St. Paul had never written the verse, ' The 
 cloak which I have left at Troas, bring with thee, and the 
 books, but especially the parchments.'" He answered with 
 the greatest promptitude : " / should certainly have lost 
 something; for that is exactly the verse which alone saved 
 me from selling my little library. No ! every word, depend 
 upon it, is from the Spirit, and is for eternal service." 
 
 A political question was just then exceedingly agitating 
 Ireland, in which nearly everybody took a great interest; — 
 it was, the propriety of admitting Romanist members of Par- 
 liament. Those who were favourable to the measure, gene- 
 rally advocated it by trying to undervalue the chasm that 
 separates Ptomish from Protestant doctrine. By such argu- 
 ments they exceedingly exasperated the real Protestants, and, 
 in common with all around me, I totally repudiated that 
 ground of comprehension. But I could not understand why 
 a broader, more generous and every v.'ay safer argument was 
 not dwelt on; viz. the unearthliness of the claims of Chris- 
 tianity. When Paul was preaching the kingdom of God in 
 the Roman empire, if a malicious enemy had declared to n 
 Roman proconsul that the Christians were conspiring to eject 
 all Pagans out of the senate and out of the public administra- 
 tion; who can doubt what Paul would have replied? — The 
 kingdom of God is not of this world : it is within the heart, 
 and consists in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost. These are our "honours" from God: we ask not the 
 honours of empire and title. Our King is in heaven; and 
 will in time return to bring to an end these earthly kingdoms : 
 but until then, we claim no superiority over you on earth. As 
 the riches of this world, so the powers of this world belong to 
 another king : we dare not try to appropriate them in the 
 name of our heavenly King ; nay, we should hold it as great 
 a sin to clutch empire for our churches, as to clutch wealth : 
 God forbid that we covet either ! — But what then if the enemy 
 had had foresight to reply, O proconsul, this Paul talks finely, 
 and perhaps sincerely: but if so, yet cheat not yourself to 
 think that his followers will tie themselves to his mild equity 
 And disinterestedness. Now indeed they are weak : now they 
 profess unworldliness and unambition : they wish only to be 
 recognised as peaceable subjects, as citizens and as equals : 
 but if once they grow strong enough, they will discover that 
 their spears and swords are the symbol of their Lord's return 
 
20 STRIVINGS AFTER A 
 
 from heaven; that he now at length commissions tliem to 
 eject you, as vile infidels, from all seats of power, — to slay 
 you with the sword, if you dure to offer sacrifice to the im- 
 mortal gods, — to degrade you so, that you shall only not enter 
 the senate, or the i^rivy council of the prince, or the judgment 
 seat, but not even the jury-box, or a municipal corporation, or 
 the pettiest edileship of Italy ; nay, you shall not be lieutenants 
 of armies, or tribunes, or anything above the lowest centu- 
 rion. You shall become a plebeian class, — cheap bodies to be 
 exposed in battle or to toil in the field, and pay rent to the 
 lordly Christian, Such shall be the fate of you, the worship- 
 pers of Quirinus and of Jupiter Best and Greatest, if you 
 neglect to crush and extirpate, during the weakness of its 
 infancy, this ambitious and unscrupulous portent of a religion. 
 ■ — Oh, how Avould Paul have groaned in spirit, at accusations 
 such as these, hateful to his soul, aspersing to his churches, but 
 impossible to refute ! Either Paul's doctrine was a fond 
 dream, (felt I,) or it is certain, that he would have protested 
 with all the force of his heart against the principle that Chris- 
 tians as such have any claim to earthly power and place; or 
 that they could, when they gained a numerical majority, with- 
 out sin enact laws to punish, stigmatize, exclude, or otherwise 
 treat with political inferiority the Pagan remnant. To uphold 
 such exclusion, is to lay the axe to the root of the spiritual 
 Church, to stultify the apostolic preaching, and at this moment 
 justify Mohammedans in persecuting Christians. For the 
 Sultan might fairly say, — " I give Christians the choice of 
 exile or death : I will not allow that sect to grow up here ; 
 for it has fully warned me, that it will proscribe my religion 
 in my own land, as soon as it has power." 
 
 On such grounds I looked with amazement and sorrow at 
 spiritual Christians who desired to exclude the Piomanists 
 from full equality; and I was happy to enjoy as to this the 
 passive assent of the Irish clergyman ; who, though " Orange" 
 in his connexions, and opposed to all political action, yet only 
 so much the more deprecated what he called " political Pro- 
 testantism." 
 
 In spite of the strong revulsion which I felt against some 
 of the peculiarities of this remarkable man, I for the first 
 time in my life found myself under the dominion of a supe- 
 rior. When I remember, how even those bowed down before 
 him, who had been to him in the place of j)arcnts, — accom- 
 plished and experienced minds, — I cease to wonder iu the 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 21 
 
 retrospect, that he riveted me in such a bondage. Henceforth 
 I began to ask : what Avill he say to this and that ] In his 
 reply I always expected to find a higher portion of God's 
 Spirit, than in any I could frame for myself. In order to 
 learn divine truth, it became to me a surer process to con- 
 sult him, than to search for myself and wait upon God : and 
 gradually, (as I afterwards discerned,) my religious thought 
 had merged into the mere process of developing fearlessly into 
 results all his principles, without any deeper examining of my 
 foundations. Indeed, but for a few weaknesses which warned 
 me that he might err, I could have accepted him as an 
 apostle commissioned to reveal the mind of God. 
 
 In his after-course (which I may not indicate) this gentle- 
 man has every where displayed a wonderful power of bending 
 other minds to his own, and even stamping upon them the 
 tones of his voice and all sorts of slavish imitation. Over the 
 general results of his action I have long deeply mourned, as 
 blunting his natural tenderness and sacrificing his wisdom 
 to the Letter, dwarfing men's understandings, contracting 
 their hearts, crushing their moral sensibilities, and setting 
 those at variance who ought to love : yet oh ! how specious 
 was it in the beginning! he only wanted men ^'to submit 
 their understandings to God,'' that is, to the Bible, that is, to 
 his interpretation ! From seeing his action and influence I 
 have learnt, that if it be dangerous to a young man (as it 
 assuredly is) to have no superior mind to which he may look 
 up with confiding reverence, it may be even more dangerous 
 to think that he has found such a mind : for he who is most 
 logically consistent, though to a one-sided theory, and most 
 ready to sacrifice self to that theory, seems to ardent youth 
 the most assuredly trustworthy guide. Such was Ignatius 
 Loyola in his day. 
 
 My study of the New Testament at this time had made it 
 impossible for me to overlook that the apostles held it to be a 
 duty of all disciples to expect a near and sudden destruction of 
 the earth by fire, and constantly to be expecting the return of 
 the Lord from heaven. It was easy to reply, that " experience 
 disproved" this expectation; but to this an answer was ready- 
 provided in Peter's 2nd Epistle, ^\hich forewarns us that we sliall 
 be taunted by the unbelieving with this objection, but bids us, 
 nevertheless, continue to look out for the speedy fulfilment of 
 this great event. In short, the case stood thus : — If it was not 
 too soon 1800 years ago to stand in daily expectation of it; it 
 
33 STRIVINGS AFTER A 
 
 is not too soon now: to say that it is too late, is not merely 
 to impute error to the apostles, on a matter which they made 
 of first-rate moral importance, but is to say, that those whom 
 Peter calls " ungodly scoffers, walking after their own lusts" — 
 were right, and he was wrong, on the very point for which he 
 thus vituperated them. 
 
 The importance of this doctrine is, that it totally forbids all 
 working for earthly objects distant in time: and here the Irish 
 clergyman threw into the same scale the entire weight of his 
 character. For instance ; if a youth had a natural aptitude 
 for mathematics, and he asked, ought he to give himself to 
 the study, in hope that he might diffuse a serviceable know- 
 ledge of it, or possibly even enlarge the boundaries of the 
 science? my friend would have replied, that such a purpose 
 was very proper, if entertained by a worldly man. Let the 
 dead bury their dead ; and let the world study the things of 
 the world : they know no better, and they are of use to the 
 Church, who may borrow and use the jewels of the Egyptians. 
 But such studies cannot be eagerly followed by the Christian, 
 except when he yields to unbelief. In fact, what would it 
 avail even to become a second La Place after thirty years' 
 study, if in five and thirty years the Lord descended from 
 heaven, snatched up all his saints to meet him, and burned to 
 ashes all the works of the earth? Then all the mathemati- 
 cian's work would have perished, and he would grieve over 
 his unwisdom, in laying up store which could not stand the 
 fire of the Lord. Clearly ; if we are bound to act as tliough 
 the end of all earthly concerns may come, " at cockcrowing or 
 at midday," then to work for distant earthly objects is the 
 part of a fool or of an unbeliever. 
 
 I found a wonderful dulness in many persons on this im- 
 portant subject. Wholly careless to ask what was the time 
 apostolic doctrine, they insisted that " Death is to us jTracti- 
 cally the coming of the Lord," and were amazed at my seeing 
 so much emphasis in the other view. This comes of the 
 abominable selfishness preached as religion. If I were to 
 labour at some useful work for ten years, — say, at clearing 
 forest land, laying out a farm, and building a house, — and 
 were then to die, I should leave my work to my successors, 
 and it would not be lost. Some men work for higher, some 
 for lower, earthly ends ; (" in a great house there are many 
 vessels, &c. ;") but all the results are valuable, if there is a 
 chance of transmitting them to those who follow us. But if 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 23 
 
 all is to be very, shortly burnt up, it is then folly to exert our- 
 selves for such objects. To the dead man, (it is said,) the 
 cases are but one. This is to the purpose, if self absorbs all 
 our heart; away from the purpose, if we are to work for 
 unselfish ends. 
 
 Nothing can be clearer, than that the New Testament is 
 entirely pervaded by the doctrine, — sometimes explicitly 
 stated, sometimes unceremoniously assumed, — that earthly 
 things are very speedily to come to an end, and therefore 
 are not worthy of our high affections and deep interest. 
 Hence, when thoroughly imbued with this persuasion, I 
 looked with mournful pity on a great mind wasting its 
 energies on any distant aim of this earth. For a states- 
 man to talk about providing for future generations, sounded 
 to me as a melancholy avowal of unbelief. To devote good 
 talents to write history or investigate nature, was simple 
 waste : for at the Lord's coming, history and science would no 
 longer be learned by these feeble appliances of ours. Thus an 
 inevitable deduction from the doctrine of the apostles, was, 
 that " we must work for speedy results only." Vitse summa 
 brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam. I then accepted the 
 doctrine, in profound obedience to the absolutely infallible 
 system of precepts. I now see that the falsity and mischief of 
 the doctrine is one of the very many disproofs of the assumed, 
 but unverified infallibility. However, the hold which the 
 apostolic belief then took of me, subjected my conscience to the 
 exhortations of the Irish clergyman, whenever he inculcated 
 that the highest Christian must necessarily decline the pur- 
 suit of science, knowledge, art, history, — except so far as any 
 of these things might be made useful tools for immediate 
 spiritual results. 
 
 Under the stimulus to my imagination given by this gen- 
 tleman's character, the desire, which from a boy I had more 
 or less nourished, of becoming a teacher of Christianity to tlie 
 Jieathen, took stronger and stronger hold of me. I saw that 
 I was shut out from the ministry of the Church of England, 
 and knew not how to seek connexion with Dissenters. I 
 had met one eminent Quaker, but was offended by the violent 
 and obviously false interpretations by which he tried to get 
 rid of the two Sacraments ; and I thought there was affecta- 
 tion involved in the forms which the doctrine of the Spirit took 
 with him. Besides, I had not been prepossessed by those 
 Dissenters whom I had heard speak at the Bible Society. I 
 
24 STRIVINGS AFTER A 
 
 remember that one of them talked in pompous measured tones 
 of voice, and with much stereotyped phraseology, about " the 
 Bible only, the religion of Protestants :" altogether, it did not 
 seem to me that there was at all so much of nature and 
 simple truth in them as in Church clergymen. I also had a 
 vague, but strong idea, that all Dissenting churches assumed 
 some special, narrow, and sectarian basis. The question 
 indeed arose : " Was I at liberty to preach to the heathen 
 without ordination?" but I with extreme ease answered in the 
 affirmative. To teach a Church, of course needs the sanction 
 of the church: no man can assume pastoral rights without 
 assent from other parties : but to speak to those without, is 
 obviously a natural right, with which the Church can have 
 nothing to do. And herewith all the precedents of the New 
 Testament so obviously agreed, that I had not a moment's 
 disquiet on this head. 
 
 At the same time, when asked by one to whom I communi- 
 cated my feelings, " whether I felt that I had a call to preach 
 to the heathen," I replied : I had not the least consciousness 
 of it, and knew not what was meant by such language. All 
 that I knew was, that I was willing and anxious to do any- 
 thing in my power either to teach, or to help others in 
 teaching, if only I could find out the way. That after eighteen 
 hundred years no farther progress should have been made 
 towards the universal spread of Christianity, appeared a 
 scandalous reproach on Christendom. Is it not, perhaps, 
 because those who are in Church office cannot go, and the 
 mass of the laity think it no business of theirs? If a perse- 
 cution fell on England, and thousands were driven into exile, 
 and, like those who were scattered in Stephen's persecution, 
 " went every where preaching the word," — might not this be 
 the conversion of the world, as indeed that began the con- 
 version of the Gentiles? But the laity leave all to the clergy, 
 and the clergy have more than enough to do. 
 
 About this time I heard of another remarkable man, whose 
 name was already before the public, — Mr. Groves, — who had 
 written a tract called Christian Devotedness, on the duty of 
 devoting all w^orldly property for the cause of Christ, and 
 utterly renouncing the attempt to amass money. In pur- 
 suance of this, he was going to Persia as a teacher of Christi- 
 anity. I read his tract, and was inflamed with the greatest 
 admiration ; judging immediately that this was the man whom 
 I should rejoice to aid or serve. For a scheme of this nature 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 2^» 
 
 alone appeared to combine with the views which I had been 
 gradually consolidating concerning the practical relation of a 
 Christian Cliurch to Christian Evidences. On this very im- 
 portant subject it is requisite to speak in detail. 
 
 The Christian Evidences are an essential part of the course 
 of religious study prescribed at Oxford, and they had en- 
 gaged from an early period a large share of my attention. 
 Each treatise on the subject, taken by itself, appeared to me 
 to have great argumentative force; but when I tried to grasp 
 them all together in a higher act of thought, I was sensible of 
 a certain confusion, and inability to reconcile their funda- 
 mental assumptions. One either formally stated, or virtually 
 assumed, that the deepest basis of all religious knowledge was 
 the testimony of sense to some fact, which is ascertained to be 
 miraculous when examined by the light of Physics or Physio- 
 logy : and that we must, at least in a great degree, distrust 
 and abandon our moral convictions or aug^uries, at the biddimx 
 of sensible miracle. Another treatise assumed that men's 
 moral feelings and beliefs are, on the whole, the most trust- 
 worthy thing to be found; and starting from them as from a 
 known and ascertained foundation, proceeded to glorify 
 Christianity because of its expanding, strengthening, and 
 beautifying all that we know by conscience to be morally 
 right. That the former argument, if ever so valid, was still 
 too learned and scholastic, not for the vulgar only, but for 
 every man in his times of moral trial, I felt instinctively per- 
 suaded : yet my intellect could not wholly dispense with it, 
 and my belief in the depravity of the moral understanding of 
 men inclined me to go some way in defending it. To en- 
 deavour to combine the two arguments by saying that they 
 were adapted to different states of mind, was plausible; yet it 
 conceded, that neither of the two went to the bottom of 
 human thought, or showed what were the real fixed points of 
 man's knowledge; without knowing which, we are in per- 
 petual danger of mere argumentum ad hominem, or, in fact, 
 arguing in a circle ; — as to prove miracles from doctrine, and 
 doctrine from miracles. I however conceived that the most 
 logical minds among Christians would contend that there was 
 another solution; which, in 1827, I committed to paper ia 
 nearly the following words: 
 
26 STRIVINGS AFTER A 
 
 " May it not be doubted whether Lei and sees the real clr- 
 ^'umstance that makes a revelation necessary? 
 
 "No revelation is needed to inform us, — of the invisible 
 pi/wer and deity of God; that we are bound to worship Him; 
 that we are capable of sinning against Ilim and liable to his 
 just judgment; nay, that we have sinned, and that we find in 
 nature marks of his displeasure against sin ; and yet, that He 
 is merciful. St. Paul and our Lord show us that these things 
 are knowable by reason. The ignorance of the heathens is 
 judicial blindness, to punish their obstinate rejection of the 
 true God. 
 
 " But a revelation is needed to convey a special message, 
 such as this : that God has provided an Atonement for our 
 sins, has deputed his own Son to become Head of the re- 
 deemed human family, and intends to raise those who believe 
 in Him to a future and eternal life of bliss. These are ex- 
 ternal truths, (for ' who can believe, unless one be sent to 
 preach them'?') and are not knowable by any reasonings drawn 
 from nature. They transcend natural analogies and moral or 
 sjiiritual experience. To reveal them, a specific communi- 
 cation must be accorded to us : and on this the necessity for 
 miracle turns." 
 
 Thus, in my view, at that time, the materials of the Bible 
 were in theory divisible into two portions : concerning tlie 
 one, (which I called Natural Eeligion,) it not only was not 
 presumptuous, but it was absolutely essential, to form an 
 independent judgment ; for this was the real basis ol all faith : 
 concerning the other, (which I called Revealed Religion,) our 
 business was, not to criticize the message, but to examine the 
 credentials* of the messenger; and, — after themost unbiassed 
 possible examination of these, — then, if they proved sound, 
 to receive his communication reverently and unquestioningly. 
 
 Such was the theory with which I came from Oxford to 
 Ireland; but I was hindered from working out its legitimate 
 results by the overpowering influence of the Irish clergyman ; 
 who, while pressing the authority of every letter of the Scrip- 
 
 * Very unintelligent criticism of my words induces me to add, that 
 *'the crcffenlifih of Revelation," as distinguished from "the contents of 
 Revelation," are here intended. "Whether such a distinction can be pre- 
 served is quite another question. The view here exhibited is essentially 
 that of Paley, and was in my day the prevalent one at Oxford. I do 
 not think that the present Archbishop of Canterbury will disown it, 
 any mure than Lloyd, and Burton, and Hampden, — bishops and Regius 
 Professors of Divinity. 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. £7 
 
 turc with an unsliriiiking vehemence that I never saw sur- 
 passed, yet, with a common inconsistency, showed more than 
 indifference towards learned historical and critical evidence on 
 the side of Christianity; and indeed, unmercifully exposed 
 erudition to scorn, both by caustic reasoning, and by irre- 
 fragable quotation of texts. I constantly had occasion to 
 admire the power with which he laid hold of the moral sido 
 of every controversy; whether he was reasoning against Ro- 
 manism, against the High Church, against learned religion or 
 philosophic scepticism : and in this matter his practical axiom 
 was, that the advocate of truth had to address himself to tho 
 conscience of the other party, and if possible, make him feel 
 that there was a moral and spiritual superiority against him. 
 Such doctrine, when joined with an inculcation of mans 
 Qiatural blindness and total depravity, was anything but 
 clearing to my intellectual perceptions : in fact, I believe that 
 for some years I did not recover from the dimness and con- 
 fusion which he spread over them. But in my entire inability 
 to explain away the texts which spoke with scorn of worldly 
 wisdom, philosophy, and learning, on the one hand; and the 
 obvious certainty, on the other, that no historical evidence for 
 miracle was possible except by the aid of learning; I for the 
 time abandoned this side of Christian Evidence, — not as in- 
 valid, but as too unwieldy a weapon for use, — tind looked to 
 direct moral evidence alone. And now rose the question. 
 How could such moral evidence become appreciable to 
 heathens and Mohammedans'? 
 
 I felt distinctly enough, that mere talk could brhig no con- 
 viction, and would be interpreted by the actions and character 
 of the speaker. While nations called Christian are only 
 known to heathens as great conquerors, powerful avengers, 
 sharp traders, — often lax in morals, and apparently without 
 religion, — the fine theories of a Christian teacher would be as 
 vain to convert a IMohammedan or Hindoo to Christianity, as 
 the soundness of Seneca's moral treatises to convert me to 
 Roman Paganism. Christendom has to earn a new reputation 
 before Christian precepts will be thought to stand in any 
 essential or close rchition with the mystical doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity. I could see no other way to this, but by an entire 
 church being formed of new elements on a heathen soil : — 
 a church, in which by no means all should be preachers, but 
 all should be mlling to do for all whatever occasion required. 
 Such a church had I read of amonsf the Moravians in Creeu' 
 
28 STRIVINGS AFTER A 
 
 land and in South Africa. I imagined a little colony, so 
 animated by primitive faith, love, and disinterestedness, that 
 the collective moral influence of all might interpret and en- 
 force the words of the few who preached. Only in this way 
 did it appear to me that preaching to the heathen could be 
 attended with success. In ftict, whatever success had been 
 attained, seemed to come only after many years, when the 
 natives had gained experience in the characters of the Chris- 
 tian family around them. 
 
 When I had returned to Oxford, I induced the Irish clergy- 
 man to visit the University, and introduced him to many of 
 my equals in age, and juniors. Most striking was it to see 
 how instantaneously he assumed the place of universal father- 
 confessor, as if he had been a known and long- trusted friend. 
 His insight into character, and tenderness pervading his aus- 
 terity, so opened young men's hearts, that day after day there 
 was no end of secret closetings with him. I began to see the 
 prospect of so considerable a movement of mind, as might 
 lead many in the same direction as myself; and if it was by a 
 collective Church that Mohammedans were to be taught, the 
 only way was for each separately to be led to the same place 
 by the same spiritual influence. As Groves was a magnet to 
 draw me, so might I draw others. In no other way could a 
 pure and efficient Church be formed. If we waited, as with 
 worldly policy, to make up a complete colony before leaving 
 England, we should fail of getting the right men : we should 
 pack them together by a mechanical process, instead of leaving 
 them to be united by vital affinities. Thus actuated, and other 
 circumstances conducing, in September 1830, with some Irish 
 friends, I set out to join Mr. Groves at Bagdad. What I 
 might do there, I knew not, I did not go as a minister of 
 religion, and I everywhere pointedly disowned the assumption 
 of this character, even down to the colour of my dress. But 
 T thought I knew many ways in which I might be of service, 
 and I was prepared to act according to circumstances. 
 
 Perhaps the strain of practical life must in any case, before 
 long, have broken the chain by which the Irish clergyman un- 
 intentionally held me; but all possible influence from him 
 was now cut off" by separation. The dear companions of my 
 travels no more aimed to guide my thoughts, tliau I theirs: 
 
MORB t»RlMlTIVE CHRISTIANITY. 29 
 
 neither ambition nor suspicion found place in our hearts ; and 
 my mind was thus able again without disturbance to develop 
 its own tendencies. 
 
 I had become distinctly aware, that the modern Churches 
 in general by no means hold the truth as conceived of by the 
 apostles. In the matter of the Sabbath and of the Mosaic 
 Law, of Infant Baptism, of Episcopacy, of the doctrine of the 
 Lord's return, I had successively found the prevalent Protes- 
 tantism to be unapostolic. Hence arose in me a conscious 
 and continuous effort to read the New Testament with fresh 
 eyes and without bias, and so to take up the real doctrines of 
 the heavenly and everlasting Gospel. 
 
 In studying the narrative of John I was strongly impressed 
 by the fact, that the glory and greatness of the Son of God is 
 constantly ascribed to the will and pleasure of the Father. I 
 had been accustomed to hear this explained of his mediatorial 
 greatness only, but this now looked to me like a make- shift, 
 and to want the simplicity of truth — an impression which 
 grew deeper with closer examination. The emphatic declara- 
 tion of Christ, " My Father is greiter than I," especially 
 arrested my attention. Could I really expound this as mean- 
 ing, " My Father, the Supreme God, is greater than I am, if 
 you look solely to my human nature?'''' Such a truism can 
 scarcely have deserved such emphasis. Did the disciples need 
 to be taught that God was greater than man? Surely, on the 
 contrary, the Saviour must have meant to say : Divine as I 
 am, yet my heavenly Father is greater than I, even token you 
 take cognizance of my divine nature^ I did not then know, 
 that my comment was exactly that of the most orthodox 
 Fathers ; I rather thought they were against me, but for tliem 
 I did not care much. I reverenced the doctrine of the Trinity 
 as something vital to the soul; but felt that to love the 
 Fathers or the Athanasian Creed more than the Gospel of 
 John would be a supremely miserable superstition. However, 
 that Creed states that there is no inequality between the 
 Three Persons : in John it became increasingly clear to me 
 that the divine Son is unequal to the Father. To say that 
 " the Son of God" meant " Jesus as man," was a preposterous 
 evasion : for there is no higher title for the Second Person of 
 the Trinity than this very one — Son of God. Now, in the 
 5th chapter, when the Jews accused Jesus " of making him- 
 self equal to God," by calling himself Sjn of God, Jesus even 
 hastens to protest against the inference as a misrepresentation 
 
so STRIVINGS AFTER A 
 
 — ^beginning with: "The Son can do nothing of himself:'* 
 and proceeds elaborately to ascribe all his greatness to the 
 Father's will. In fact, the Son is emphatically " he who is 
 sent," and the Father is " he M'ho sent him :" and all would 
 feel the deep impropriety of trying to exchange these phrases. 
 The Son who is sent, — sent, not after he was humbled to be- 
 come man, but in order to be so humbled, — was not equal 
 TO, but LESS THAN, the Father who sent him. To this I 
 found the whole Gospel of John to bear witness; and with 
 this conviction, the truth and honour of the Athanasian 
 Creed fell to the ground. One of its main tenets was proved 
 false; and yet it dared to utter anathemas on all who re- 
 jected it ! 
 
 I afterwards remembered my old thought, that we must 
 surely understand our own vjords, when we venture to speak 
 at all about divine mysteries. Having gained boldness to 
 gaze steadily on the topic, I at length saw that the compiler 
 of the Athanasian Creed did not understand his own words. 
 If any one speaks of three men, all that he means is, " three 
 objects of thought, of whom each separately may be called 
 Man." So also, all that could possibly be meant by three 
 gods, is, "three objects of thought, of whom each separately 
 may be called God." To avow the last statement, as the 
 Creed does, and yet repudiate Three Gods, is to object to the 
 phrase, yet confess to the only meaning which the phrase can 
 convey. Thus the Creed really teaches polytheism, but saves 
 orthodoxy by forbidding any one to call it by its true name. 
 Or to put the matter otherwise : it teaches three Divine Per- 
 sons, and denies three Gods; and leaves us to guess what 
 else is a Divine Person but a God, or a God but a Divine 
 Person. Who, then, can deny that this intolerant creed is a 
 malignant riddle? 
 
 That there is nothing in the Scripture about Trinity iu 
 Unity and Unity in Trinity I had long observed ; and the 
 total absence of such phraseology had left on me a general 
 persuasion that the Church had systematized too much. But 
 in my study of John I was now arrested by a text, which 
 showed me how exceedingly far from a Tri-unity was the 
 Trinity of that Gospel, — if trinity it be. Namely, in his last 
 prayer, Jesus addresses to his Father the words : " This is life 
 eternal, that they may know Tliee, the only True God, and 
 Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." I became amazed, as I 
 considered these words more and more attentively, and with- 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 31 
 
 out prejudice; and I began to understand how prejudice, 
 when embahned with reverence, blinds the mind. Why had 
 I never before seen what is here so plain, that the One God of 
 Jesus was not a Trinity, but was tJie First Ferson of the 
 ecclesiastical Trinity? 
 
 But on a fuller search, I found this to be Paul's doctrine 
 also : for in 1 Corinth, viii., when discussing the subject of 
 Polytheism, he says that "though there be to the heathen 
 many that are called Gods, yet to us there is but One God, the 
 Father, of whom are all things ; and One Lord, Jesus Christ, 
 hy whom are all things." Thus he defines Monotheism to 
 consist in holding the person of the Father to be the One 
 God ; although this, if any, should have been the place for a 
 " Trinity in Unity." 
 
 But did I proceed to deny the Divinity of the Son? By no 
 means: I conceived of him as in the highest and fullest sense 
 divine, short of being Father and not Son. I now believed 
 that by the phrase " only begotten Son," John, and indeed 
 Christ himself, meant to teach us that there was an impassable 
 chasm between him and all creatures, in that he had a true, 
 though a derived divine nature; as indeed the Nicene Creed 
 puts the contrast, he was " begotten, not made." Thus all 
 Divine glory dwells in the Son, but it is because the Father 
 has willed it. A year or more afterward, when I had again 
 the means of access to books, and consulted that very common 
 Oxford book, " Pearson on the Creed," (for which I had felt 
 so great a distaste that I never before read it) — I found this 
 to be the undoubted doctrine of the great Nicene and Post 
 Nicene Fathers, who laid much emphasis on two statements, 
 which with the modern Church are idle and dead — viz. that 
 " the Sou was begotten of his Father bejoi^e all luorlds" and 
 that " the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father and the 
 Son." In the view of the old Church, the Father alone was 
 the Fountain of Deity, — (and tlierefore fitly called. The One 
 God,— and, the Only True God,)— while the Deity of the 
 other two persons was real, yet derived and subordinate. 
 Moreover, I found in Gregory Nazianzen and others, that to 
 confess this derivation of the Son and Spirit and the unde- 
 rivedness of the Father alone, was in their view quite essen- 
 tial to save Monotheism; the One God being the uuderived 
 Father. 
 
 Although in my own mind all doubt as to the doctrine of 
 John and Paul on the main question seemed to be quite 
 
o2 STRIVII^GS AFTER A 
 
 cleared away from the time that I dwelt on their explanation 
 of Monotheism, this in no respect agitated me, or even 
 engaged me in any farther search. There was nothing to 
 force me into controversy, or make this one point of truth 
 unduly preponderant. I concealed none of my thoughts 
 from my companions ; and concerning them I will only say, 
 that whether they did or did not feel acquiescence, they be- 
 haved towards me with all the affection and all the equality 
 which I would have wished myself to ni;iintain, had the case 
 been inverted. I was, however, sometimes uneasy, when the 
 thought crossed my mind, — " What if we, like Henry Martyn, 
 were charged with Polytheism by Mohammedans, and were 
 forced to defend ourselves by explaining in detail our doctrine 
 of the Trinity? Perhaps no two of us would explain it alike, 
 and this would expose Christian doctrine to contempt." Then 
 farther it came across me : How very remarkable it is, that 
 the Jews, those strict Monotheists, never seem to have attacked 
 the apostles for polytheism ! It would have been so plausible 
 an imputation, one that the instinct of party would so readily 
 suggest, if there had been any external form of doctrine to 
 countenance it. Surely it is transparent that the Apostles did 
 not teach as Dr. Waterland. I had always felt a great re- 
 pugnance to the argumentations concerning the Personality 
 of the Holy Spirit; no doubt from an inward sense, however 
 dimly confessed, that they were all words without meaning. 
 For the disputant who maintains this dogma, tells us in the 
 very next breath that Person has not in this connexion its 
 common signification; so that he is elaborately enforcing 
 upon us we know not what. That the Spirit of God meant 
 in the New Testament God m the heart, had long been to me 
 a sufficient explanation : and who by logic or metaphysics 
 will carry us beyond this? 
 
 While we were at Aleppo, I one day got into religious dis- 
 course with a Mohammedan carpenter, which left on me a 
 lasting impression. Among other matters, I was peculiarly 
 desirous of disabusing him of the current notion of his people, 
 that our gospels are spurious narratives of late date. I found 
 great difficulty of expression; but the man listened to me 
 with much attention, and I was encouraged to exert myself. 
 He waited patiently till I had done, and then spoke to the 
 following effect : " I will tell you, sir, how the case stands. 
 God has given to you English a great many good gifts. You 
 make fine ships, and sharp penknives, and good cloth and 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 33 
 
 cottons; and you have rich nobles and brave soldiers; and 
 you write and print many learned books: (dictionaries and 
 grammars :) all this is of God. But there is one thing that 
 God has withheld from you, and has revealed to us ; and that 
 is, the knowledge ot the true religion, by which one may be 
 saved." When he thus ignored my argument, (which was 
 probably quite unintelligible to him,) and delivered his simple 
 protest, I was silenced, and at the same time amused. But 
 the more I thought it over, the more instruction I saw in the 
 case. His position towards me was exactly that of a humble 
 Christian towards an unbeHeving philosopher; nay, that of 
 the early Apostles or Jewish prophets towards the proud, cul- 
 tivated, worldly wise and powerful heathen. This not only 
 showed the vanity of any argument to him, except one purely 
 addressed to his moral and spiritual faculties; but it also in- 
 dicated to me that Ignorance has its spiritual self-sufficiency 
 as well as Erudition ; and that if there is a Pride of Reason, 
 so is there a Pride of Unreason. But though this rested in 
 my memory, it was long before I worked out all the results 
 of that thought. 
 
 Another matter brought me some disquiet. An English- 
 man of rather low tastes who came to Aleppo at this time, 
 called upon us; and as he was civilly received, repeated his 
 visit more than once. Being unencumbered with fastidious- 
 ness, this person before long made various rude attacks on 
 the truth and authority of the Christian religion, and drew me 
 on to defend it. What I had heard of the moral life of the 
 speaker made me feel that his was not the mind to have 
 insight into divine truth ; and I desired to divert the argu- 
 ment from external topics, and bring it to a point in which 
 there might be a chance of touching his conscience. But I 
 found this to be impossible. He returned actively to the 
 assault against Christianity, and I could not bear to hear him 
 vent historical falsehoods and misrepresentations damaging to 
 the Christian cause, without contradicting them. He was a 
 half-educated man, and I easily confuted him to my own entire 
 satisfaction : but he was not either abashed or convinced ; and 
 at length withdrew as one victorious. — On reflecting over 
 this, I felt painfully, that if a Moslem had been present and 
 had understood all that had been said, he would have re- 
 mained in total uncertainty which of the two disputants was 
 in the right: for the controversy had turned on points 
 wholly remote from the sphere of his knowledge or thought. 
 
34 STRIVINGS AFTKR A 
 
 Yet to have declined the battle would have seemed like con- 
 scious weakness on my part. Thus the historical side of my 
 religion, though essential to it, and though resting on valid 
 evidence, (as I unhesitatingly believed,) exposed me to 
 attaclvs in which I might incur virtual defeat or disgrace, but 
 in which, from the nature of the case, I could never win an 
 available victory. This was to me very disagreeable, yet I 
 saw not my way out of the entanglement. 
 
 Two years after I left England, a hope was conceived that 
 more friends might be induced to join us; and I returned 
 home from Bagdad with the commission to bring this about, 
 if there were suitable persons disposed for it. On my return, 
 and while yet in quarantine on the coast of England, I re- 
 ceived an uncomfortable letter from a most intimate spiritual 
 friend, to the effect, that painful reports hnd been every 
 where spread abroad against my soundness in the faith. The 
 channel by which they had come was indicated to me ; but 
 my friend expressed a firm hope, that when I had explained 
 myself, it would all prove to be nothing. 
 
 Now began a time of deep and critical trial to me and to 
 my Creed ; a time hard to speak of to the public; yet without 
 a pretty full notice of it, the rest of the account would be 
 quite unintelligible. 
 
 The Tractarian movement was just commencing in 1833. 
 My brother was taking a position, in which he was bound to 
 show that he could sacrifice private love to ecclesiastical 
 dogma; and upon learning that I had spoken at some small 
 meetings of religious people, (which he interpreted, I believe, 
 to be an assuming of the Priest's office,) he separated himself 
 entirely from my private friendship and acquaintance. To the 
 public this may have some interest, as indicating the disturb- 
 ing excitement which animated that cause : but my reason for 
 naming the fact here is solely to exhibit the practical positions 
 into which I myself was thrown. In my brother's conduct 
 there was not a shade of unkindness, and I have not a thought 
 of complaining of it. My distress was naturally great, until 
 I had fully ascertained from him that I had given no personal 
 offence. But the mischief of it went deeper. It practically 
 cut me off from other members of my family, who were living 
 in his house, and whose state of feeling towards mt, through 
 sej^aration and my own agitations of mind, I for some time 
 totally mistook. 
 
 I had, however, myself slighted relationship in comparison 
 
MORE PRIMITIVTiJ CHRISTIAN-IT Y. 35 
 
 with Christian brotherhood; — sectarian brotherhood, some 
 may call it ; — I perhaps had none but myself to blame : but 
 in the far more painful occurrences which were to succeed one 
 another for many months together, I was blameless. Each 
 successive friend who asked explanations of my alleged heresy, 
 was satisfied, — or at least left me with that impression, — after 
 hearing me : not one who met me face to face had a word to 
 reply to the plain Scriptures which I quoted. Yet when I 
 was gone away, one after another was turned against me by 
 somebody else whom I had not yet met or did not know : for 
 in every theological conclave which deliberates on joint action, 
 the most bigoted seems always to prevail. 
 
 I will trust my pen to only one specimen of details. The 
 Irish clergyman was not able to meet me. He wrote a very 
 desultory letter of grave alarm and inquiry, stating that he 
 had heard that I was endeavouring to sound the divine nature 
 by the miserable plummet of human philosophy, — with much 
 beside that I felt to be mere commonplace which every body 
 might address to every body who differed from him. I how- 
 ever replied in the frankest, most cordial and trusting tone, 
 assuring him that I was infinitely far from imagining that I 
 could "by searching understand God;" on the contrary, con- 
 cerning his higher mysteries, I felt I knew absolutely nothing 
 but what he revealed to me in his word ; but in studying this 
 word, I found John and Paul to declare the Father, and not 
 the Trinity, to be the One God. Referring him to John xvii. 3, 
 1 Corinth, viii. 5, G, I fondly beheved that one so " subject 
 to the word" and so resolutely renouncing man's authority in 
 order that he might serve God, would immediately see as I 
 saw. But I assured him, in all the depth of affection, that I 
 felt how much fuller insight he had than I into all divine 
 truth ; and not he only, but others to whom I alluded ; and 
 that if I was in error, I only desired to be taught more truly; 
 and either with him, or at his feet, to learn of God. He 
 replied, to my amazement and distress, in a letter of much 
 tenderness, but which was to the effect, — that if I allowed the 
 Spirit of God to be with him rather than with me, it was 
 wonderful that I set my single judgment against the mind of 
 the Spirit and of the whole Church of God; and that as for 
 admitting into Christian communion one who held my doe- 
 trine, it had this absurdity, that while I was in such a state of 
 belief, it was my duty to anathematize tJtem as idolaters. — 
 Severe as was the shock given me by this letter, I wrote again 
 
36 STRIVII^GS AFTER A 
 
 most lovingly, humbly, and imploringly: for I still adored 
 him, and could have given him my right hand or my right 
 eye, — anything but my conscience. I showed him that if it 
 was a matter of action, I would submit; for I unfeignedly 
 believed that he had more of the Spirit of God than I : but 
 over my secret convictions I had no power. I was shut up 
 to obey and believe God rather than man, and from the nature 
 of the case, the profoundest respect for my brother's judgment 
 could not in itself alter mine. As to the whole Church being 
 against me, I did not know what that meant: I was willing 
 to accept the Nicene Creed, and this I thought ought to be a 
 sufficient defensive argument against the Church. His answer 
 was decisive; — he was exceedingly surprized at my recurring 
 to mere ecclesiastical creeds, as though they could have the 
 slightest weight; and he must insist on my acknowledging, 
 that, in the two texts quoted, the word Father meant the 
 Trinity, if I desired to be in any way recognized as holding the 
 truth. 
 
 The Father meant the Trinity ! ! For the first time I per- 
 ceived, that so vehement a champion of the sufficiency of the 
 Scripture, so staunch an opposer of Creeds and Churches, was 
 wedded to an extra-Scriptural creed of his own, by which he 
 tested the spiritual state of his brethren. I was in despair, 
 and like a man thunderstruck. I had nothing more to say. 
 Two more letters from the same hand I saw, the latter of 
 which was, to threaten some new acquaintances who were kind 
 to me, (persons wholly unknown to him,) that if they did not 
 desist from sheltering me and break off intercourse, they 
 should, as far as his influence went, themselves everywhere 
 be cut off from Christian communion and recognition. This 
 will suffice to indicate the sort of social persecution, through 
 which, after a succession of struggles, I found myself separated 
 from persons whom I had trustingly admired, and on whom I 
 had most counted for union : with whom I fondly believed 
 myself bound up for eternity; of whom some were my pre- 
 viously intimate friends, while for others, even on slight ac- 
 quaintance, I would have performed menial offices and thought 
 myself honoured ; whom I still looked upon as the blessed 
 and excellent of the earth, and the special favourites of 
 heaven ; whose com}>any (though oftentimes they were con- 
 siderably my inferiors either in rank or in knowledge and 
 cultivation) I would have chosen in preference to that of 
 nobles; whom I loved solely because I thought them to love 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 37 
 
 God, and of whom I asked nothing, but that they would admit 
 me as the meanest and most frail of disciples. ISIy heart was 
 ready to break : I wished for a woman's soul, that I might 
 weej) in floods. Oh, Dogma! Dogma! how dost thou trample 
 under foot love, truth, conscience, justice ! Was ever a 
 Moloch worse than thou? Burn me at the stake; then Christ 
 will receive me, and saints beyond the grave will love me, 
 though the saints here know me not. But now I am alone 
 in the world: I can trust no one. The new acquaintances 
 who barely tolerate me, and old friends whom reports have not 
 reached, (if such there be,) may turn against me with animosity 
 to-morrow, as those have done from whom I could least have 
 imagined it. Where is union ? where is the Church, which 
 was to convert the heathen ? 
 
 This was not my only reason, yet it was soon a sufficient 
 and at last an overwhelming reason, against returning to the 
 East. The pertinacity ><■ ^fe attacks made on me, and on all 
 who dared to hold by me m a certain connexion, showed that 
 I could no longer be anything but a thorn in the side of my 
 friends abroad ; nay, I was unable to predict how they them- 
 selves might change towarls me. The idea of a Christian 
 Church propagating Christianity while divided against itself 
 was ridiculous. Never indeed had I had the most remote 
 idea, that my dear fri( n Is there had been united to me by 
 agreement in intellectua p- )positions; nor could I yet believe 
 it. I remembered a s yi \g of the noble-hearted Groves : 
 " Talk of loving me while i agree with them ! Give me men 
 that will love me when I differ from them and contradict 
 them : those will be the men to build up a true Church." I 
 asked myself, — was I then possibly different from all ? With 
 me, — and, as I had thought, with all my spiritual friends, — 
 intellectual dogma was not the test of spirituality. A hundred 
 times over had I heard the Irish clergyman emphatically enun- 
 ciate the contrary. Nothing was clearer in his preaching, talking, 
 and writing, than that salvation was a present real experienced 
 fact ; a saving of the soul from the dominion of baser desires, 
 and an inward union of it in love and homage to Christ, who, 
 as the centre of all perfection, glory, and beauty, was the reve- 
 lation of God to the heart. He who was thus saved, could 
 not help knowing that he was reconciled, pardoned, beloved; 
 and therefore he rejoiced in God his Saviour: indeed, to ima- 
 gine joy without this personal assurance and direct knowledge, 
 was quite preposterous. But. on the other hand, the soul thus 
 
3S STRIVINGS AFTER A 
 
 spiritually minded lias a keen sense of like qualities in otliers. 
 It cannot but discern when another is tender in conscience, 
 disinterested, forbearing, scornful of untruth and baseness, 
 and esteeming nothing so much as the fruits of the Spirit : 
 accordingly, John did not hesitate to say : " We know that we 
 have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." 
 Our doctrine certainly had been, that the Church was the as- 
 sembly of the saved, gathered by the vital attractions of God's 
 Spirit j that in it no one was Lord or Teacher, but one was our 
 Teacher, even Christ : that as long as we had no earthly bribes 
 to tempt men to join us, there was not much cause to fear 
 false brethren; for if we were heavenly minded, and these 
 were earthly, they would soon dislike and shun us. Why 
 should we need to sit in judgment and excommunicate them, 
 except in the case of publicly scandalous conduct ? 
 
 It is true, that I fully believed certain intellectual convic- 
 tions to be essential to genuine spirituality: for instance, if I 
 had heard that a person unknown to me did not believe in the 
 Atonement of Christ, I should have inferred that he had no 
 spiritual life. But if the person had come under my direct 
 knowledge, my theory was, on no account to reject him on a 
 question of Creed, but in any case to receive all those whom 
 Christ had received, all on whom the Spirit of God had come 
 down, just as the Church at Jerusalem did in regard to admit- 
 ting the Gentiles, Acts xi. 18. Nevertheless, was not this 
 perhaps a theory pleasant to talk of, but too good for practice 1 
 I could not tell ; for it had never been so severely tried. I 
 remembered, however, that when I had thought it right to be 
 baptized as an adult, (regarding my baptism as an infant to 
 have been a mischievous fraud,) the sole confession of faith 
 which I made, or would endure, at a time when my " ortho- 
 doxy" was unimpeached, was:* " I believe that Jesus Christ 
 is the Son of God :" to deny which, and claim to be acknow- 
 ledged as within the pale of the Christian Church, seemed to 
 be an absurdity. On the whole, therefore, it did not appear 
 to me that this Church-theory had been hollow-hearted with 
 me uor unscriptural, nor in any way unpractical; but that 
 others were still infected with the leaven of creeds and formal 
 tests, with which they reproached the old Church. 
 
 Were there, then, no other hearts than mine, aching under 
 miserable bigotry, and refreshed only when they tasted in 
 others the true fruits of the Spirit, — " love, joy, peace, long- 
 * Borrowed from Acts viii. 37. 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 39 
 
 suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-cou- 
 trol "?" — To imagine this was to suppose myself a man super- 
 naturally favoured, an angel upon earth. I knew there must 
 be thousands in this very point more true-hearted than I: 
 nay, such still might some be, whose names I went over with 
 myself : but I had no heart for more experiments. When 
 such a man as he, the only mortal to whom I had looked up 
 as to an apostle, had unhesitatingly, unrelentingly, and with- 
 out one mark that his conscience was not on his side, flung 
 away all his own precepts, his own theories, his own magnifi- 
 cent rebukes of Formalism and human Authority, and had 
 made himself the slave and me the victim of these old and 
 ever-living tyrants, — whom henceforth could I trust] The 
 resolution then rose in me, to love all good men from a dis- 
 tance, but never again to count on permanent friendship with 
 any one who was not himself cast out as a heretic. 
 
 Nor, in fact, did the storm of distress which these events 
 inflicted on me, subside, until I willingly received the task of 
 withstanding it, as God's trial whether I was faithful. As 
 soon as I gained strength to say, " O my Lord, I will bear 
 not this only, but Tiwre cdso,* for thy sake, for conscience, and 
 for truth," — my sorrows vanished, until the next blow and 
 the next inevitable pang. At last my heart had died within 
 me ; the bitterness of death was past ; I was satisfied to be 
 hated by the saints, and to reckon that those who had not yet 
 turned against me would not bear me much longer. — Then I 
 conceived the belief, that if we may not make a heaven on 
 earth for ourselves out of the love of saints, it is in order that 
 we may find a truer heaven in God's love. 
 
 The question about this time much vexed me, what to do 
 about receiving the Holy Supper of the Lord, the great em- 
 blem of brotherhood, communion, and church connexion. 
 At one time I argued with myself, that it became an un- 
 meaning form, when not partaken of in mutual love; that I 
 could never again have free intercourse of heart with any 
 one; — why then use the rite of communion, where there is 
 no communion 1 But, on the other hand, I thought it a mode 
 of confessing Christ, and that permanently to disuse it was an 
 unfaithfulness. In the Church of England I could have been 
 easy as far as the communion formulary was concerned; but 
 
 • Virgil (iEneid vi.) gives the Stoical side of the same thought : 
 Tu ne cede malls, sed contra audcntiur ito. 
 
40 STRIVINGS AFTER A 
 
 to the entire system I had contracted an incurable repugnance, 
 as worldly, hypocritical, and an evil counterfeit. I desired, 
 therefore, to creep into some obscure congregation, and there 
 wait till my mind had ripened as to the right path in circum- 
 stances so perplexing. I will only briefly say, that I at last 
 settled among some who had previously been total strangers 
 to me. To their good will and simple kindness I feel myself 
 indebted : peace be to them ! Thus I gained time, and repose 
 of mind, which I greatly needed. 
 
 From the day that I had mentally decided on total inaction 
 as to all ecclesiastical questions, I count the termination of 
 my Second Period. My ideal of a spiritual Church had blown 
 up in the most sudden and heartbreaking way; overpowering 
 me with shame, when the violence of sorrow was past. There 
 was no change whatever in my own judgment, yet a total 
 change of action was inevitable : that I was on the eve of a 
 great transition of mind I did not at all suspect. Hitherto 
 my reverence for the authority of the whole and indivisible 
 Bible was overruling and com2)lete. I never really had dared 
 to criticize it; I did not even exact from it self-consistency. 
 If two passages appeared to be opposed, and I could not 
 evade the difficulty by the doctrine of Development and Pro- 
 gress, I inferred that there was some mode of conciliation 
 unknown to me; and that perhaps the depth of truth in 
 divine things could ill be stated in our imperfect language. 
 But from the man who dared to interpose a liuman comment 
 on the Scripture, I most rigidly demanded a clear, single, self- 
 consistent sense. If he did not know n'hat he meant, why 
 did he not hold his peace ? If he did know, why did he so 
 speak as to puzzle us 1 It was for this uniform refusal to 
 allow of self-contradiction, that it was more than once sadly 
 predicted of me at Oxford that I should become " a Socinian ;" 
 yet I did not apply this logical measure to any compositions 
 but those which were avowedly " uninspired" and human. 
 
 As to moral criticism, my mind was practically prostrate 
 before the Bible. By the end of this period I had persuaded 
 myself that morality so changes with the commands of God, 
 that we can scarcely attach any idea of immutability to it. I 
 am, moreover, ashamed to tell any one how I spoke and acted 
 against my own common sense under this influence, and when 
 I was thought a fool, prayed that I might think it an honour 
 to become a fool for •Christ's sake. Against no doctrine did 
 1 dare to bring moral objections, except that of *' lle2)ro- 
 
MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 41 
 
 bation." To Election, to Preventing Grace, to the Fall and 
 Original Sin of man, to the Atonement, to Eternal Punish- 
 ment, I reverently submitted my understanding; though as 
 to the last, new inquiries had just at this crisis been opening 
 on me. Reprobation, indeed, I always repudiated with great 
 vigour, of which I shall presently speak. That was the full 
 amount of my original thouglit ; and in it I preserved entire 
 reverence for the sacred writers. 
 
 As to miracles, scarcely anything staggered me. I re- 
 ceived the strangest and the meanest prodigies of Scripture, 
 with the same unhesitating ftiith, as if I had never understood 
 a proposition of physical philosophy, nor a chapter of Hum^ 
 and Gibbon. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CALVINISM ABANDONED. 
 
 After the excitement was past, I learned many things 
 from the events which have been named. 
 
 First, I had found that the class of Christians with whom 
 I had been joined had exploded the old Creeds in favour of 
 another of their own, which was never given me upon au- 
 thority, and yet was constantly slipping out, in the words, 
 Jesus is Jehovah. It appeared to me certain that this would 
 have been denounced as the Sabellian heresy by Athanasius 
 and his contemporaries. I did not wish to run down Sa- 
 bellians, much less to excommunicate them, if they would 
 give me equality; but I felt it intensely unjust, when my 
 adherence to the Nicene Creed was my real offence, that I 
 should be treated as setting up some novel wickedness against 
 all Christendom, and slandered by vague imputations which 
 reached far and far beyond my power of answering or ex- 
 plaining. Mysterious aspersions were made even against my 
 moral* character, and were alleged to me as additional reasons 
 
 * I afterwards learned that some of those gentlemen esteemed boldness 
 of thought "a lust of the mind," and as siflch, an immorality. Thi? 
 enables them to persuade themselves that they do not reject a " heretic" 
 for a matter of ojniiiuii, but for that which they have a right to call irn- 
 mnral. What immorality was imputed to me, I was not distiucll}. iu- 
 formed. 
 
 D 
 
42 CALVINISM 
 
 for refusing communion -with me; and when I demanded a 
 tribunal, and that my accuser would meet me face to face, all 
 inquiry was refused, on the plea that it was needless and unde- 
 sirable. I had much reason to believe that a very small 
 number of jDcrsons had constituted themselves my judges, and 
 used against me all the airs of the Universal Church; the 
 many lending themselves easily to swell the cry of heresy, 
 when they have little personal acquaintance with the party 
 attacked. Moreover, when I was being condemned as in 
 error, I in vain asked to be told what was the truth. " I 
 accept the Scripture : that is not enough. I accept the Nicene 
 Creed: that is not enough. Give me then your formula: 
 where, what is it?" But no! those who thought it their duty 
 to conc^emn me, disclaimed the pretensions of " making a 
 Creed" when I asked for one. They reprobated my interpre- 
 tation of Scripture as against that of the whole Church, but 
 would not undertake to expound that of the Church. I felt 
 convinced, that they could not have agreed themselves as to 
 what was right : all that they could agree upon was, that I was 
 wrong. Could I have borne to recriminate, I believed that I 
 could have forced one of them to condemn another; but, oh ! 
 was divine truth sent us for discord and for condemnation? 
 I sickened at the idea of a Church Tribunal, where none has 
 any authority to judge, and yet to my extreme embarrassment 
 I saw that no Church can safely dispense with judicial forms 
 and other worldly apparatus for defending the reputation of 
 individuals. At least none of the national and less spiritual 
 institutions would have been so very unequitable towards me. 
 This idea enlarged itself into another, — that spirituality/ is 
 no adequate security for sound moral disceimment. These 
 alienated friends did not know they were acting unjustly, 
 cruelly, crookedly, or they would have hated themselves for it : 
 they thought they were doing God service. The fervour of 
 their love towards him was probably greater than mine ; yet 
 this did not make them superior to prejudice, or sharpen their 
 logical faculties to see that they were idolizing words to 
 which they attached no ideas. On several occasions I had 
 distinctly perceived how serious alarm I gave by resolutely 
 refusing to admit any shiftings and shufflings of language. I 
 felt convinced, that if I would but have contradicted myself 
 two or three times, and then have added, " That is the mystery 
 o^ it," I could have jiasscd as orthodox with many. I had 
 been charged with a proud and vain determination to pry into 
 
ABANDONED. 4 3 
 
 divine mysteries, barely because I would not confess to pro- 
 positions the meaning of which was to me doubtful, — or say 
 and unsay in consecutive breaths. It was too clear, that a 
 doctrine which muddles the understanding perverts also the 
 power of moral discernment. If I had committed some fla- 
 grant sin, they would have given me a fair and honourable 
 trial ; but where they could not give me a public hearing, nor 
 yet leave me unimpeached, without danger of (what they 
 called) my infecting the Church, there was nothing left but 
 to hunt me out unscrupulously. 
 
 Unscrupulously ! did not this one word characterize all re- 
 ligious persecution'? and then my mind wandered back over 
 the whole melancholy tale of what is called Christian history. 
 When Archbishop Cranmer overpowered the reluctance of 
 young Edward VI. to burn to death the pious and innocent 
 Joan of Kent, who moreover was as mystical and illogical as 
 heart could wish, was Cranmer not actuated by deep religious 
 convictions ? None question his piety, yet it was an awfully 
 wicked deed. What shall I say of Calvin, who burned Ser- 
 vetus % Why have I been so slow to learn, that religion is an 
 impulse which animates us to execute our moral judgments, 
 but an impulse which may be half blind? These brethren 
 believe that I may cause the eternal ruin of others : how hard 
 then is it for them to abide faithfidly by the laws of morality 
 and respect my rights! My rights! They are of course 
 trampled down for the public good, just as a house is blown 
 up to stop a conflagration. Such is evidently the theory of all 
 persecution; — which is essentially founded on Hatred. As 
 Aristotle says, " He who is angry, desires to punish somebody ; 
 but he who hates, desires the hated person not even to exist." 
 Hence they cannot endure to see me face to face. That I may 
 not infect the rest, they desire my non-existence; by fair 
 means, if fair will succeed; if not, then by foul. And whence 
 comes this monstrosity into such bosoms'? Weakness of 
 common sense, dread- of the common understanding, an insuf- 
 ficient faith in common morality, are surely the disease : and 
 e idently, nothing so exasperates this disease as consecrating 
 religious tenets which forbid the exercise of common sense. 
 
 I now began to understand why it was peculiarly for unin- 
 telligible doctrines like Transubstantiation and the Tri-unity, 
 that Christians had committed such execrable wickednesses. 
 Now also for the first time I understood what had seemed 
 not frightful only, but preternatural, — the sensualities and 
 
44- CALVINISM 
 
 cruelties cnacfed as a part of religion in many of the old 
 Paganisms. Religion and fanaticism are in the embryo but 
 one and the same; to purify and elevate them we want a 
 cultivation of the understanding, without which our moral 
 code may be indefinitely de| raved. Natural kindness and 
 strong sense are aids and guides, which the most spiritual 
 man cannot afford to despise. 
 
 I became conscious that I had despised " mere moral men," 
 as they were called in the phraseology of my school. They 
 were merged in the vague appellation of " the world," with 
 sinners of every class; and it was habitually assumed, if not 
 asserted, that they were necessarily Pharisaic, because they 
 had not been born again. For some time after I had mis- 
 givings as to my fairness of judgment towards them, I could 
 not disentangle myself from great bewilderment concerning 
 their state in the sight of God : for it was an essential part of 
 my Calvinistic Creed, that (as one of the 39 Articles states it) 
 the very good works of the unregenerate " undoubtedly have 
 the nature of sin," as indeed the very nature Avith which they 
 were born " deserveth God's wrath and damnation." I began 
 to mourn over the unlovely conduct into which I had been 
 betrayed by this creed, long before I could thoroughly get rid 
 of the creed that justified it : and a considerable time had to 
 elapse, ere my new perceptions shaped themselves distinctly 
 into the propositions : " Morality is the end. Spirituality is 
 the means: Religion is the handmaid to Morals: we must be 
 spiritual, in order that we may be in the highest and truest 
 sense moral." Then at last I saw, that the deficiency of 
 "mere moral men" is, that their morality is apt to be too 
 external or merely negative, and therefore incomplete : that 
 the man who worships a fiend for a God may be in some sense 
 spiritual, but his spirituality will be a devilish fanaticism, 
 having nothing in it to admire or approve: that the moral 
 man deserves approval or love for all the absolute good that 
 he has attained, though there be a higher good to which he 
 aspires not ; and that the truly and rightly spiritual is he who 
 aims at an indefinitely high moral excellence, of which God is 
 the embodiment to his heart and soul. If the absolute excel- 
 lence of morality be denied, there is nothing for spirituality to 
 aspire after, and nothing in God to worship. Years before I 
 saw this as clearly as here stated; the general train of thought 
 was very wholesome, in giving me increased kindliness of 
 judgment towards the common world of men, who do not 
 
ABANDONED. 45 
 
 show any religious development. It wa^ pleasant to me to 
 look on an ordinary face, and see it light up into a smile, and 
 think with myself : "there is one heart that will judge of me 
 by what I am, and not by a Procrustean dogma." ISTor only 
 so, but I saw that the saints, without the world, would make 
 a very bad world of it ; and that as ballast is wanted to a ship, 
 so the common and rather low interests, and the homely prin- 
 ciples, rules, and ways of feeling, keep the church from foun- 
 dering by the intensity of her own gusts. 
 
 Some of the above thoughts took a still more definite shape, 
 as follows. It is clear that A. B, and X. Y. would have be- 
 haved towards me more kindly, more justly, and more wisely, 
 if they had consulted their excellent strong sense and amiable 
 natures, instead of following (what they suppose to be) the 
 commands of the word of God. They have misinterpreted 
 that word : true : but this very thing shows, that one may go 
 wrong by trusting one's power of interpreting the book, rather 
 than trusting one's common sense to judge without the book. 
 It startled me to find, that I had exactly alighted on the 
 Romish objection to Protestants, that an infallible book is 
 useless, unless we have an infallible interpreter. But it was 
 not for some time, that, after twisting the subject in all direc- 
 tions to avoid it, I brought out the conclusion, that " to go 
 against one's common sense in obedience to Scripture is a most 
 hazardous proceeding:" for the "rule of Scripture" means to 
 each of us nothing but his own fallible interpretation; and to 
 sacrifice common sense to this, is to mutilate one side of our 
 mind at the command of another side. In the Nicene age, 
 the Bd)le was in people's hands, and the Spirit of God surely 
 was not withheld : yet I had read, in one of the Councils an 
 insane anathema was passed : " If any one call Jesus God- 
 man, instead of God and man, let him be accursed." Surely 
 want of common sense, and dread of natural reason, will be 
 confessed by our highest orthodoxy to have been the distemper 
 of that day. 
 
 In all this I still remained theoretically convinced, that the 
 contents of the Scriptures, rightly interpreted, were supreme 
 and perfect truth ; indeed, I had for several years accustomed 
 myself to speak and think as if the Bible were our sole source 
 of all moral knowledge : nevertheless, there were practically 
 limits, beyond which I did not, and could not, even attempt 
 
46 CALVINISM 
 
 to blind my moral sentiment at the dictation of the Scripture ; 
 and this had peculiarly frightened (as I afterwards found) the 
 first friend who welcomed me from abroad. I was unable to 
 admit the doctrine of " reprobation," as apparently taught in 
 the 9th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans; — that " God 
 hardens in wickedness whomever He pleases, in order that He 
 may show his long-suffering" in putting off their condemnation 
 to a future dreadful day: and especially, that to all objectors it 
 is a sufficient confutation — "Nay, but man, who art thou, 
 that repliest against God V I told my friend, that I wor- 
 shipped in God three great attributes, all independent, — 
 Power, Goodness, and Wisdom : that in order to worship Him 
 acceptably, I must discern these as realities with my inmost 
 heart, and not merely take them for granted on authority : but 
 that the argument which was here pressed upon me was an 
 effort to supersede the necessity of my discerning Goodness in 
 God : it bade me simply to hifer Goodness from Power, — that 
 is to say, establish the doctrine, " Might makes Eight ;" ac- 
 cording to which, I might unawares worship a devil. Nay, 
 nothing so much distinguished the si:>iritual truth of Judaism 
 and Christianity from abominable heathenism, as this very 
 discernment of God's purity, justice, mercy, truth, goodness; 
 while the Pagan worshipped mere power, and had no discern- 
 ment of moral excellence; but laid down the principle, that 
 cruelty, impurity, or caprice in a God was to be treated reve- 
 rentially, and called by some more decorous name. Hence, I 
 said, it was undermining the very foundation of Christianity 
 itself, to require belief of the validity of Piom. ix, 14 — 24, as 
 my friend understood it. I acknowledged the difficulty of the 
 l)assage, and of the whole argument. I was not prepared 
 with an interpretation ; but I revered St. Paul too much, to 
 believe it possible that he could mean anything so obviously 
 heathenish, as that first-sight meaning. — My friend looked 
 grave and anxious ; but I did not suspect how deeply I had 
 shocked him, until many weeks after. 
 
 At this very time, moreover, ground was broken in my 
 mind on a new subject, by opening in a gentleman's library a 
 presentation-copy of a Unitarian treatise against the doctrine 
 of Eternal Punishment. It was the first Unitarian book of 
 which I had even seen the outside, and I handled it with a 
 timid curiosity, as if by stealth. I had only time to dip into 
 \t here and there, and I should have been ashamed to possess 
 the book; but 1 carried off enough to suggest important 
 
ABANDONED. 47 
 
 inquiry. The writer asserted that the Greek word alujyiot;, 
 (secular, or, belonging to the ages,) which we translate ever- 
 lasting and eternal, is distinctly proved by the Greek transla- 
 tion of the Old Testament often to mean only distant time. 
 Thus in Psalm Ixxvi. 5, " I have considered the years of ancient 
 times:" Isaiah Ixiii. 11, "He remembered the days of old, 
 Moses and his people ;" in which, and in many similar places, 
 the LXX have alojvioQ. One striking passage is Exodus xv. 
 18; ("Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever;") where the 
 Greek has tov cdwva koX ett' alwva kuI ert, which would mean 
 " for eternity and still longer," if the strict rendering eternity 
 were enforced. At the same time a suspicion as to the honesty 
 of our translation presented itself in Micah v. 2, a controversial 
 text, often used to prove the past eternity of the Son of God ; 
 where the translators give us, — " whose goings forth have been 
 from everlasting,'" though tiie Hebrew is the same as they else- 
 where render yrow days of old. 
 
 After I had at leisure searched through this new question, 
 I found that it was impossible to make out any doctrine of a 
 philosophical eternity in the whole Scriptures. The true Greek 
 word for eternal {aihiog) occurs twice only: once in Rom. i. 20, 
 as applied to the divine power, and once in Jude 6, of the fire 
 which has been manifested against Sodom and Gomorrha. 
 The last instance showed that allowance must be made for 
 rhetoric; and that fire is called eternal or unquenchahle, when 
 it so destroys as to leave nothing unburnt. But on the whole, 
 the very vocabulary of the Greek and Hebrew denoted that 
 the idea of absolute eternity was unformed. The hills are 
 called everlasting (secular ?), by those who supposed them to 
 have come into existence two or three thousand years before. 
 — Only in two passages of the Revelations I could not get 
 over the belief that the writer's energy was misplaced, if abso- 
 lute eternity of torment was not intended: yet it seemed to 
 me unsafe and wrong to found an important doctrine on a sym- 
 bolic and confessedly obscure book of prophecy. Setting this 
 aside, I found no proof of any eternal punishment. 
 
 As soon as the load of Scriptural authority was thus taken 
 ofl' from me, I had a vivid discernment of intolerable moral 
 difficulties inseparable from the doctrine. First, that every 
 sin is infinite in ill-desert and in result, hpcause it is committed 
 against an infinite Being. Thus the fretfulness of a child is 
 an infinite evil ! I was aghast that I could have believed it. 
 Now that it was no longer laid upon me as a duty to uphold 
 
48 CALVINISll 
 
 the infinitude of God's retaliation on sin, I saw that it was an 
 iuimorahty to teach that sin was measured by anything else 
 than the heart and will of the agent. That a finite being 
 should deserve infinite punishment, now was manifestly as 
 incredible as that he should deserve infinite reward, — which ] 
 had never dreamed. — Again, I saw that the current orthodoxy; 
 made Satan eternal conqueror over Christ. In vain docs the 
 Son of God come from heaven and take human flesh and die 
 on the cross. In spite of him, the devil carries off* to hell the 
 vast majority of mankind, in whom, not misery only, but Sin 
 is triumphant for ever and ever. Thus Christ not only does 
 not succeed in destroying the works of the devil, but even 
 aggravates them. — Again : what sort of gospel or glad tidings 
 had I been holding? Without this revelation no future state 
 at all (I presumed) could be known. How much better no 
 futurity for any, than that a few should be eternally in bliss, 
 and the great majority* kept alive for eternal sin as well as 
 eternal misery ! My gospel then was bad tidings, nay, the 
 worst of tidings ! In a farther progress of thought, I asked, 
 would it not have been better that the whole race of man had 
 never come into existence % Clearly ! And thus God was 
 made out to be unwise in creating them. No use in the 
 punishment was imaginable, without setting up Fear, instead 
 of Love, as the ruling principle in the blessed. And what 
 was the moral tendency of the doctrine? I had never borne 
 to dwell upon it : but 1 before long suspected that it promoted 
 malignity and selfishness, and was the real clue to the cruelties 
 i;)erpetrated under the name of religion. For he who does 
 dwell on it, must comfort himself under the prospect of his 
 brethren's eternal misery, by the selfish expectation of personal 
 blessedness. When I asked whether I had been guilty of this 
 selfishness, I remembered that I had often mourned, how 
 small a part in my practical religion the future had ever 
 borne. My heaven and my hell had been in the present, 
 where my God was near me to smile or to frown. It had 
 seemed to me a great weakness in my faith, that I never had 
 any vivid imaginations or strong desires of heavenly glory : 
 
 * I really thought it needless to quote proof that but/ei6' will be saved, 
 !Matth. vii. 14. I know there is a class of Christians who believe in 
 Univei'sal salvation, and there are others who disbelieve eternal tor- 
 ment. They must not be angry with me for refuting the doctrine of 
 otlier Christians, which they hold to be false. 
 
ABANDONED. 49 
 
 yet now I was glad to observe, that it had at least saved me 
 from getting so much harm from the wrong side of the doc- 
 trine of a future life. 
 
 Before I had worked out the objections so fully as here 
 stated, I freely disclosed my thoughts to the friend last 
 named, and to his wife, towards whom he encouraged me to 
 exercise the fullest frankness. I confess, I said nothing about 
 the Unitarian book ; for something told me that I had violated 
 Evangelical decorum in opening it, and that I could not cal- 
 culate how it would atfect my friend. Certainly no llomish 
 hierarchy can so successfully exclude heretical books, as social 
 enactment excludes those of Unitarians from our orthodox 
 circles. The bookseller dares not to exhibit their books oa 
 his counter : all i:»resume them to be pestilential : no one 
 knows their contents or dares 'i^o Inform himself. But to re- 
 turn. My friend's wife entered warmly into my new views; 
 I have now no doubt that this exceedingly distressed him, and 
 at length perverted his moral judgment : he himself examined 
 the texts of the Old Testament, and attempted no answer to 
 them. After I had left his neighbourhood, I wrote to him 
 three affectionate letters, and at last got a reply — of vehement 
 accusation. It can now concern no one to know, how many 
 and deep wounds he planted in me. I forgave ; but all was 
 too instructive to forget. 
 
 For some years I rested in the belief that the epithet 
 ^^ secular punishment" either solely denoted punishment in a 
 future age, or else only of long duration. This evades the 
 horrible idea of eternal and triumphant Sin, and of infinite 
 retaliation for finite ofl'ences. But still, I found my new creed 
 uneasy, now that I had established a practice (if not a right) 
 of considering the moral propriety of punishment. I could 
 not so pare away the vehement words of the Scripture, as 
 really to enable me to say that I thought transgressors de- 
 s&rved the fiery infliction. This had been easy, while I 
 measured their guilt by God's greatness ; but when that idea 
 was renounced, how was I to think that a good-humoured 
 voluptuary deserved to be raised from the dead in order to be 
 tormented in fire for 100 years'? and what shorter time could 
 be called secular? Or if he was to be destroyed instan- 
 taneously, and "secular" meant only "in a future age," was 
 be worth the effort of a divine miracle to bring him to life 
 and again annihilate him? I was not willing to refuse belief 
 
f>0 CALVINISM 
 
 to the Scripture on such grounds ; yet I felt disquietude, that 
 my moral sentiment and the Scrij^ture were no longer in full 
 harmony. 
 
 In this period I first d'scerned the extreme difficulty that 
 there must essentially be, in aj^plying to the Christian Evi- 
 dences a principle, which, many years before, I had abstractedly 
 received as sound, though it had been a dead letter with me in 
 practice. The Bible (it seemed) contained two sorts of truth. 
 Concerning one sort, man is bound to judge : the other sort is 
 necessarily beyond his ken, and is received only by informa- 
 tion from without. The first part of the statement cannot be 
 denied. It would be monstrous to say that we know nothing 
 of geography, history, or morals, except by learning them 
 from the Bible. Geography, history, and other worldly 
 sciences, lie beyond question. As to morals, I had been ex- 
 ceedingly inconsistent and wavering in my theory and in its 
 application ; but it now glared upon me, that if man had no 
 independent power of judging, it would have been venial to 
 think Barabbas more virtuous than Jesus. The hearers of 
 Christ or Paul could not draw their knowledge of right and 
 WTong from the New Testament. They had (or needed to 
 have) an inherent power of discerning that his conduct was 
 holy and his doctrine good. To talk alDout the infirmity or 
 depravity of the human conscience is here quite irrelevant. 
 The conscience of Christ's hearers may have been dim or 
 twisted, but it w^as their best guide and only guide, as to the 
 question, whether to regard him as a holy prophet : so like- 
 wise, as to ourselves, it is evident that we have no guide at all 
 whether to accept or reject the Bible, if we distrust that 
 inward power of judging, (whether called common sense, con- 
 science, or the Spirit of God,) — which is independent of our 
 belief in the Bible. To disparage the internally vouchsafed 
 power of discerning truth without the Bible or other authori- 
 tative system, is, to endeavour to set up a universal moral 
 scepticism. He who may not criticize cannot approve. — 
 Well ! Let it be admitted that we discern moral truth by a 
 something within us, and that then, admiring the truth so 
 glorious in the Scriptures, we are farther led to receive them 
 as the word of God, and therefore to believe them absolutely 
 in respect to the matters which are beyond our ken. 
 
ABANDONED, 51 
 
 But two difficulties could no longer be dissembled : 1. How 
 are we to draw the line of separation 1 For instance, Avould 
 the doctrines of Reprobation and of lasting Fiery Torture with 
 no benefit to the sufferers, belong to the moral part, which we 
 freely criticize ; or to the extra-moral part, as to which we pas- 
 sively believe 1 2. What is to be done, if in the parts which 
 indisputably lie open to criticism we meet with apparent 
 error ? — The second question soon became a practical one with 
 me : but for the reader's convenience I defer it until my 
 Fourth Period, to which it more naturally belongs : for in 
 this Third Period I was principally exercised with controver- 
 sies that do not vitally touch the autlwrity of the Scripture. 
 Of these the most important were matters contested between 
 Unitarians and Calvinists. 
 
 When I had found how exactly the Nicene Creed summed 
 up all that I myself gathered from John and Paul concerning 
 the divine nature of Christ, I naturally referred to this creed, 
 as expressing my convictions, when any unpleasant inquiry 
 arose. I had recently gained the acquaintance of the late 
 excellent Dr. Olinthus Gregory, a man of unimpeached ortho- 
 doxy; who met me by the frank avowal, that the Nicene 
 Creed was " a great mistake." He said, that the Arian and 
 the Athanasian difference was not very vital; and that the 
 Scriptural truth lay beyond the Nicene doctrine, which fell 
 short on the same side as Arianism had done. On the con- 
 trary, I had learned of an intermediate tenet, called Seuii- 
 Arianism, which appeared to me more scriptural than the views 
 of either Athanasius or Arius. Let me bespeak my reader's 
 patience for a little. Arius was judged by Athanasius (1 was 
 informed) to be erroneous in two points; 1. in teaching that 
 the Son of God was a creature ; i. e. that " begotten " and 
 "made" were two words for the same idea: 2. in teaching, 
 that he had an origin of existence in time; so that there was 
 a distant period at which he was not. Of these two Arian 
 tenets, the Nicene Creed condemned the former only; namely, 
 in the words, " begotten, not made ; being of one substance 
 with the Father." But on the latter question the Creed is 
 silent. Those who accepted the Creed, and hereby condemned 
 the great error of Arius that the Son was of different substance 
 from the Father, but nevertheless agreed with Arius in 
 
52 CALVINISM 
 
 think in:^ that the Son had a beginning of existence, were 
 called Semi-Arians; and were received into communion by 
 Athanasius, in spite of this disagreement. To me it seemed 
 to be a most unworthy shuffling with words, to say that the 
 Son ivas begotten, hut was never begotten. The very form of 
 our past participle is invented to indicate an event in past 
 time. If the Athanasians alleged that the phrase does not 
 allude to " a coming forth" completed at a definite time, but 
 indicates a process at no time begun and at no time complete, 
 their doctrine could not be expressed by our past-perfect tense 
 begotten. When they compared the derivation of the Son of 
 God from the Father to the rays of light which ever flow from 
 the natural sun, and argued that if that sun had been eternal, 
 its emanations would be co-eternal, they showed that their true 
 doctrine required the formula — " always being begotten, and 
 as instantly perishing, in order to be rebegotten perpetually." 
 They showed a real disbelief in our English statement " be- 
 gotten, not made." I overruled the objection, that in the 
 Greek it was not a participle, but a verbal adjective; for it 
 was manifest to me, that a religion which could not be pro- 
 claimed in English could not be true; and the very idea of a 
 Creed announcing that Christ was " not begotten, yet begettive,^^ 
 roused in me an unspeakable loathing. Yet surely this would 
 have been Athanasius's most legitimate form of denying Semi- 
 Arianism. In short, the Scriptural phrase, So7i of God, con- 
 veyed to us either a literal fact, or a metaphor. If literal, the 
 Semi-Arians were clearly right, in saying that sonship im])lied 
 a beginning of existence. If it was a metaphor, the Atha- 
 nasians forfeited all right to press the literal sense in proof 
 that the Son must be " of the same substance" as the Father. — 
 Seeing that the Athanasians, in zeal to magnify the Son, had 
 so confounded their good sense, I was certainly startled to 
 find a man of Dr. Olinthus Gregory's moral wisdom treat the 
 Nicenists as in obvious error for not having magnified Christ 
 enough. On so many other sides, however, I met with the 
 new and short creed, "Jesus is Jehovah," that I began to 
 discern Sabellianism to be the prevalent view. 
 
 A little later, I fell in with a book of an American Pro- 
 fessor, Moses Stuart of Andover, on the sul)ject of the Trinity. 
 Professor Stuart is a very learned man, and thinks for himself. 
 It Avas a great novelty to me, to find him not only deny the 
 orthodoxy of all the Fathers, (which was little more than Dr. 
 Olinthus Gregory had done,) jjut avow that from the change 
 
ABANDONED. 53- 
 
 in speculafAve philosophy it was simply impossible for any 
 modern to hold the views prevalent in the third and fourth 
 centuries. Nothing (said he) was clearer, than that with us 
 the essential point in Deity is, to be unoriginated, underived; 
 hence with us, a denved God is a self-contradiction, and the 
 very sound of the phrase profane. On the other hand, it is 
 certain that the doctrine of Athanasius, equally as of Arius, 
 was, that the Father is the underived or self-existent God, but 
 the Son is the derived subordinate God. This (argued Stuart) 
 turned upon their belief in the doctrine of Emanations ; but as 
 we hold no such philosophical doctrine, the religious theory 
 founded on it is necessarily inadmissible. Professor Stuart 
 then develops his own creed, which appeared to me simple and 
 undeniable Sabellianism. 
 
 That Stuart correctly represented the Fathers was clear 
 enough to me ; but I nevertheless thought that in this respect 
 the Fathers had honestly made out the doctrine of the Scrip- 
 ture ; and I did not at all approve of setting up a battery of 
 modern speculative philosophy against Scriptural doctrine. 
 " How are we to know that the doctrine of Emanations is 
 false ? (asked I.) If it is legitimately elicited from Scripture, 
 it is true." — I refused to yield up my creed at this summons. 
 Nevertheless, he left a wound upon me : for I now could not 
 help seeing, that we moderns use the word God in a more 
 limited sense than any ancient nations did. Hebrews and 
 Greeks alike said Gods, to mean any superhuman beings; hence 
 derived God did not sound to them absurd : but I could not deny 
 that in good English it is absurd. This was a very disagree- 
 able discovery: for now, if any one were to ask me whether I 
 believed in the divinity of Christ, I saw it would be dishonest 
 to say simply, Yes; for the interrogator means to ask, whether 
 I hold Christ to be the eternal and underived Source of life : 
 yet if I said No, he would care nothing for my professing to 
 hold the Nicene Creed. 
 
 Might not then, after all, Sabellianism be the truth ? No : 
 I discerned too plainly what Gibbon states, that the Sabellian, 
 if consistent, is only a concealed Ebionite, or as we now say, 
 a Unitarian, Socinian. As we cannot admit that the Father 
 was slain on the cross, or prayed to himself in the garden, he 
 who will not allow the Father and the Son to be separate 
 persons, but only two names for one person, must divide the 
 Son of God and Jesus into two persons, and so fall back on the 
 very heresy of Socinus which he is struggling to escape. 
 
54 CALVINISM 
 
 On the whole, I saw, that however people might call them- 
 selves Trinitarians, yet if, like Stuart and all the Evangelicals 
 in Church and Dissent, they turn into a dead letter the gene- 
 ration of the Son of God, and the procession of the Spirit, 
 nothing is possible but Sabellianism or Tritheism : or, indeed, 
 Ditheism, if the Spirit's separate j^ersonality is not held. The 
 modern creed is alternately the one or the other, as occasion 
 requires. Sabellians would find themselves out to be mere 
 Unitarians, if they always remained Sabellians: but in fact, 
 they are half their lives Ditheists. They do not aim at con- 
 sistency; would an upholder of the pseudo-Athanasian creed 
 desire it? Why, that creed teaches, that the height of ortho- 
 doxy is to contradict oneself and protest that one does not. 
 Now, however, rose on me the question : Why do I not take 
 the Irish clergyman at his word, and attack him and others 
 as idolaters and worshippers of three Gods? It was unseemly 
 and absurd in him to try to force me into what he must have 
 judged uncharitableness ; but it was not the less incumbent 
 on me to find a reply. 
 
 I remembered that in past years I had expressly disowned, 
 as obviously unscriptural and absurd, prayers to the Holy Spirit, 
 on the ground that the Spirit is evidently God in the hearts oftlie 
 faithful, and nothing else: and it did not appear to me that 
 any but a few extreme and rather fanatical persons could be 
 charged with making the Spirit a third God or object of dis- 
 tinct worship. On the other hand, I could not deny that 
 the Son and the Father were thus distinguished to the mind. 
 So indeed John expressly avowed — " truly our fellowship is 
 with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." I myself 
 also had prayed sometimes to God and sometimes to Christ, 
 alternately and confusedly. Now, indeed, I was better taught ! 
 now I was more logical and consistent ! I had found a tri- 
 umphant answer to the charge of Ditheism, in that I believed 
 the Son to be derived from the Father, and not to be the 
 Unoriginated. — No doubt! yet, after all, could I seriously 
 think that morally and spiritually I was either better or 
 worse for this discovery? I could not pretend that I was. 
 
 This showed me, that if a man of partially unsound and 
 visionary mind made the angel Gabriel a fourth person in the 
 Godhead, it might cause no difference whatever in the acting-s 
 of his spirit. The great question would be, whether he 
 ascribed the same moral perfection to Gabriel as to the Father. 
 If so, to worship him would be no degradation to the soul ; 
 
ABAJfDONED. 65 
 
 even if absolute omnipotence were not attributed, nay, nor a 
 past eternal existence. It thus became clear to me, that 
 Polytheism as such is not a moral and spiritual, but at most 
 only an intellectual, error ; and that its practical evil consists 
 in worshipping beings whom we represent to our imaginations 
 as morally imperfect. Conversely, one who imputes to God 
 sentiments and conduct which in man he would call capricious 
 or cruel, such a one, even if he be as monotheistic as a Mus- 
 sulman, admits into his soul the whole virus of Idolatry, 
 
 Why then did I at all cling to the doctrine of Christ's 
 superior nature, and not admit it among things indifferent 1 
 In obedience to the Scripture, I did actually affirm, that, as 
 far as creed is concerned, a man should be admissible into the 
 Church on the bare confession that Jesus was the Christ. Still, 
 I regarded a belief in his superhuman origin as of first-rate 
 importance, for many reasons, and among others, owing to 
 its connexion with the doctrine of the Atonement ; on which 
 there is much to be said. 
 
 The doctrine which I used to read as a boy, taught that a 
 vast sum of punishment was due to God for the sins of men. 
 This vast sum was made up of all the woes due through 
 eternity to the whole human race, or, as some said, to the 
 elect. Christ on the cross bore this punishment himself, and 
 thereby took it away : thus God is enabled to forgive without 
 violating justice. — But I early encountered unanswerable 
 difficulty on this theory, as to the question, whether Christ 
 had borne the punishment of all or of some only. If of all, 
 is it not unjust to inflict any of it on any ? If of the elect 
 only, what gospel have you to preach ? for then you cannot 
 tell sinners that God has provided a Saviour for them ; for 
 you do not know whether those whom you address are elect. 
 Finding no way out of this, I abandoned the fundamental 
 idea of compensation in quantity, as untenable ; and rested in 
 the vaguer notion, that God signally showed his abhorrence 
 of sin, by laying tremendous misery on the Saviour who was 
 to bear away sin. 
 
 I have already narrated, how at Oxford I was embarrassed 
 as to the forensic propriety of transferring punishment at all. 
 This however I received as matter of authority, and rested 
 much on the wonderful exhibition made of the evil of sin, 
 
6^ CALVIXISM 
 
 when such a being could be subjected to preternatural suffer- 
 ing as a vicarious sinbearer. To this view, a high sense of the 
 personal dignity of Jesus was quite essential ; and therefore I 
 had always felt a great repugnance for Mr. Belsham, Dr. 
 Priestley, and the Unitarians of that school, though I had not 
 read a line of their writings. 
 
 A more intimate familiarity with St. Paul and an anxious 
 harmonizing of my very words to the Scripture, led me on 
 into a deviation from the popular creed, of the full importance 
 of which I was not for some time aware. I perceived that 
 it is not the ago7iies of mind or body endured by Christ, which 
 in the Scriptures are said to take away sin, but his " death," 
 his " laying down his life," or sometimes even his resurrection. 
 I gradually became convinced, that when his " suffering," 
 or more especially his " blood," is emphatically spoken of, 
 nothing is meant but his violent death. In the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, where the analogy of Sacrifice is so pressed, we see 
 that the pains which Jesus bore were in order that he might 
 " learn obedience ," but our redemption is effected by his 
 dying as a voluntary victim : in which, death by bloodshed, 
 not pain, is the cardinal point. So too the Paschal lamb (to 
 which,, though not properly a sacrifice, the dying Christ is 
 compared by Paul) was not roasted alive, or otherwise put to 
 slow torment, but was simply killed. I therefore saw that 
 the doctrine of " vicarious agonies" was fundamentally un- 
 scriptural. 
 
 This being fully discerned, I at last became bold to criticize 
 the popular tenet. What should we think of a judge, who, when 
 a boy had deserved a stripe which would to him have been a 
 sharp punishment, laid the very same blow on a strong man, 
 to whom it was a slight infliction "? Clearly this would evade, 
 not satisfy justice. To carry out the principle, the blow 
 might be laid as well on a giant, an elephant, or on an inani- 
 mate thing. So, to lay our punishment on the infinite strength 
 of Christ, who (they say) bore in six hours what it would 
 have taken thousands of millions of men all eternity to bear, 
 would be a similar evasion, — I farther asked, if we were to 
 fall in with Pagans, who tortured their victims to death as an 
 atonement, what idea of God should we think them to form ? 
 and what should we reply, if they said, it gave them a whole- 
 some view of his hatred of sin % A second time I shuddered 
 at the notions which I had once imbibed as a part of religion, 
 
ABANDONED. 57 
 
 and then got comfort from the inference, how much better 
 men of this century are than their creed. Their creed was 
 the product of ages of cruelty and creduhty j and it suffi- 
 ciently bears that stamp. 
 
 Thus I rested in the Scriptural doctrine, that the death of 
 Christ is our atonement. To say the same of the death of 
 Paul, was obviously unscriptural : it was, then, essential to 
 believe the physical nature of Christ to be different from that 
 of Paul. If otherwise, death was due to Jesus as the lot of 
 nature : how could such death have anything to do with our 
 salvation % On this ground the Unitarian doctrine was utterly 
 untenable : I could see nothing between my own view and a 
 total renunciation of the authority of the doctrines promulgated 
 by Paul and John. 
 
 Nevertheless, my own view seemed more and more un- 
 meaning the more closely it was interrogated. When I 
 ascribed death to Christ, what did death mean % and what or 
 whom did I suppose to die ? Was it man that died, or God ? 
 If man only, how was that wonderful, or how did it concern 
 us % Besides ; — persons die, not natures : a nature is only a 
 collection of properties : if Christ was one person, all Christ 
 died. Did, then, God die, and man remain alive ! For God 
 to become non-existent is an unimaginable absurdity. But 
 is this death a mere change of state, a renunciation of earthly 
 life % Still it remains unclear how the parting with mere 
 human life could be to one who possesses divine life either 
 an atonement or a humiliation. Was it not rather an escape 
 from humiliation, saving only the mode of death % So severe . 
 was this difficulty, that at length I unawares dropt from 
 Semi-Arianism into pure Arianism, by so distinguishing the 
 Son from the Father, as to admit the idea that the Son of 
 God had actually been non-existent in the interval between 
 death and resurrection : nevertheless, I more and more felt, 
 that to he able to define iny own notions on such questions had 
 exceedingly little to do with my spiritual state. For me it was 
 important and essential to know that God hated sin, and that 
 God had forgiven my sin : but to know one particular mani- 
 festation of his hatred of sin, or the machinery by which He 
 had enabled himself to forgive, was of very secondary import- 
 ance. When He proclaims to me in his word, that He is for- 
 giving to all the penitent, it is not for me to reply, that " I 
 cannot believe that, until I hear how He manages to reconcile 
 
68 CALVINISM 
 
 such conduct with his other attributes." Yet, I remembered, 
 this was Bishop Beveridge's sufficient refutation of Moham- 
 medism, which teaches no atonement. 
 
 At the same time great progress had been made in my 
 mind towards the overthrow of the correlative dogma of the 
 Fall of man and his total corruption. Probably for years I 
 had been unawares anti-Calvinistic on this topic. Even at 
 Oxford, I had held that human depravity is a fact, which it 
 is absurd to argue against ; a fact, attested by Thucydides, 
 Poly bins, Horace, and Tacitus, almost as strongly as by St. 
 Paul. Yet in admitting man's total corruption, I interpreted 
 this of sp'witucd, not of moral, perversion : for that there 
 were kindly and amiable qualities even in the unregenerate, 
 was quite as clear a fact as any other. Hence in result I did 
 not attribute to man any great essential depravity, in the 
 popular and moral sense of the word ; and the doctrine 
 amounted only to this, that " spintually, man is paralyzed, 
 until the grace of God comes freely upon him." How to re- 
 concile this with the condemnation and punishment of man 
 for being unspiritual, I knew not. I saw, and did not dis- 
 semble, the difficulty; but received it as a mystery hereafter 
 to be cleared up. 
 
 But it gradually broke upon me, that when Paul said no- 
 thing stronger than heathen moralists had said about human 
 wickedness, it was absurd to quote his words, any more than 
 theirs, in proof of a Fall, — that is, of a permanent degeneracy 
 induced by the first sin of the first man : and when I studied 
 the 5th chapter of the Romans, I found it was death, not 
 co'iTuption, which Adam was said to have entailed. In short, 
 I could scarcely find the modern doctrine of the " Fall" any 
 where in the Bible. I then remembered that Calvin, in his 
 Institutes, complains that all the Fathers are heterodox on 
 this point; the Greek Fathers being grievously overweening 
 in their estimate of human power ; while of the Latin Fathers 
 even Augustine is not always up to Calvin's mark of orthodoxy. 
 This confirmed my rising conviction that the tenet is of rather 
 recent origin. I afterwards heard, that both it and the doc- 
 trine of compensatory misery were first systematized by 
 Archbishop Anselm, in the reign of our William Bufus : but I 
 never took the paius to verify this. 
 
ABANDONED. 59 
 
 For meanwhile I had been forcibly impressed with the 
 following thought. Suppose a youth to have been carefully 
 brought up at home, and every temptation kept out of his 
 way: suppose him to have been in appearance virtuous, 
 amiable, religious : suppose, farther, that at the age of twenty- 
 one he goes out into the world, and falls into sin by the first 
 temptation : — how will a Calvinistic teacher moralize over 
 such a youth 1 Will he not say : '' Behold a proof of the 
 essential depravity of human nature! See the affinity of man 
 for sin! How fair and deceptive was this young man's 
 virtue, while he was sheltered from temptation ; but oh ! how 
 rotten has it proved itself!" — Undoubtedly, the Calvinist 
 would and must so moralize. But it struck me, that if I 
 substituted the name of Adam for the youth, the argument 
 proved the primitive corruption of Adam's nature. Adam 
 fell by the first temptation : what greater proof of a fallen 
 nature have / ever given ? or what is it i:>ossible for any one 
 to give? — I thus discerned that there was a priori impossi- 
 bility of fixing on myself the imputation of degeneracy, with- 
 out fixing the same on Adam. In short, Adam undeniably 
 proved his primitive nature to be frail ; so do we all : but as 
 lie was nevertheless not primitively corrupt, why should we 
 call ourselves so ? Frailty, then, is not corruption, and does 
 not prove degeneracy. 
 
 " Original sin" (says one of the 39 Articles) " standeth not 
 in the following of Adam, as the Pelagians do vainly tcdk,''' 
 &c. Alas, then ! was I become a Pelagian? certainly I could 
 no longer see that Adam's first sin affected me more than his 
 second or third, or so much as the sins of my immediate 
 parents. A father who, for instance, indulges in furious pas- 
 sions and exciting liquors, may (I suppose) transmit violent 
 passions to his son. In this sense I ccmld not wholly reject 
 the possibility of transmitted corruption ; but it had nothing 
 to do with the theological doctrine of the " Federal Head- 
 ship" of Adam. Not that I could wholly give up this last 
 doctrine; for I still read it in the 5th chapter of Romans. 
 But it was clear to me,, that whatever that meant, I could not 
 combine it with the idea of degeneracy, nor could I find a 
 proof of it in the fact of prevalent wickedness. Thus I re- 
 ceived a shadowy doctrine on mere Scriptural authority ; it 
 Lad no longer any root in my understanding or heart. 
 
 Moreover, it was manifest to me that the Calvinistic view is 
 based in a vain attempt to acquit God of having created a 
 
GO CALVINISM 
 
 " sinfiil" l)oing, while the broad Scriptural fact is, that lie did 
 create a being as truly " liable to sin" as any of us. If that 
 needs no exculpation, how more does our state need itl 
 Does it not suffice to say, that " every creature, because he is 
 a creature and not God, must necessarily be frail?" But 
 (^dvin intensely aggravates whatever there is of difficulty : for 
 lie supposes God to have created the most precious thing on 
 earth in unstable equilibrium, so as to tipple over irrecoverably 
 at the first intinitesimal touch, and with it wreck for ever the 
 S})iritual hopes of all Adam's posterity. Surely all nature 
 proclaims, that if God planted any syjiritual nature at all in 
 man, it was in stable equilibrium, able to right itself when 
 deranged. 
 
 Lastly, I saw that the Calvinistic doctrine of human de- 
 generacy teaches, that God disowns my nature (the only nature 
 I ever had) as not his work, but the devil's work. He hereby 
 tells me that he is not my Creator, and he disclaims his right 
 over me, as a father who disowns a child. To teach this is 
 to teach that I owe him no obedience, no worship, no trust; 
 to sever the cords that bind the creature to the Creator, and 
 to make all religion gratuitous and vain. 
 
 Thus Calvinism was found by me not only not to be Evan- 
 gelical, but not to be logical, in spite of its high logical 
 pretensions, and to be irreconcilable with any intelligent 
 theory of religion. Of " gloomy Calvinism" I had often heard 
 peoj)le speak with an emphasis, that annoyed me as highly 
 unjust ; for mine had not been a gloomy religion : — far, very 
 far from it. On the side of eternal punishment, its theory, no 
 doubt, had been gloomy enough; but human nature has a 
 notable art of not realizing all the articles of a creed ; more- 
 over, this doctrine is equally held by Arminians. But I was 
 conscious, that in dropping Calvinism I had lost nothing 
 Evangelical: on the contrary, the gospel which I retained was 
 as spiritual and deep-hearted as before, only more merciful. 
 
 Before this Third Period of my creed was completed, I 
 made my first acquaintance with a Unitarian. This gentle- 
 man showed much sweetness of mind, largeness of charity, 
 and a timid devoutness which I had not expected in such a 
 quarter. His mixture of credulity and incredulity seemed tu 
 me capricious, and wholly incoherent. First, as to his in- 
 
ABANDONED. 61 
 
 credulity, or rather, boldness of thought. Eternal punishment 
 was a notion, which nothing could make him believe, and for 
 which it would be useless to quote Scripture to him ; for the 
 doctrine (he said) darkened the moral character of God, and 
 produced malignity in man. That Christ had any higher 
 nature than we all have, was a tenet essentially inadmissible; 
 first, because it destroyed all moral benefit from his example 
 and sympathy, and next, because no one has yet succeeded ia 
 even stating the doctrine of the Incarnation without contra- 
 dicting himself. If Christ was but one person, one mind, 
 then that one mind could not be simultaneously finite and 
 infinite, nor therefore simultaneously God and man. But 
 when I came to hear more from this same gentleman, I found 
 him to avow that no Trinitarian could have a higher concep- 
 tion than he of the present power and glory of Christ. He 
 believed that the man Jesus is at the head of the whole moral 
 creation of God ; that all power in heaven and earth is given 
 to him : that he will be Judge of all men, and is himself raised 
 above all judgment. This was to me unimaginable from his 
 point of view. Could he really think Jesus to be a mere man, 
 and yet believe him to be sinless? On what did that belief 
 rest? Two texts were quoted in proof, 1 Pet. ii. 21, and Heb. 
 iv. 15. Of these, the former did not necessarily mean any- 
 thing more than that Jesus was unjustly put to death ; and 
 the la!;ter belonged to an Epistle, which my new friend had 
 already rejected as unapostolic and not of first-rate authority, 
 when speaking of the Atonement. Indeed, that the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews is not from tbe hand of Paul, had very long 
 seemed to me an obvious certainty, — as long as I had had any 
 delicate feeling, of Greek style. 
 
 That a human child, born with the nature of other children, 
 and having to learn wisdom and win virtue through the same 
 process, should grow^ up sinless, appeared to me an event so 
 paradoxical, as to need the most amply decisive proof. Yet wbat 
 kind of proof was possible? Neither Apollos, (if he was the 
 author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,) nor yet Peter, had any 
 power of attesting the sinlessness of Jesus, as a fact known to 
 themselves personally : tbey could only learn it by some pre- 
 ternatural communication, to which, nevertheless, the passages 
 before us implied no pretension whatever. To me it appealed 
 an axiom,* that if Jesus was in physical origin a mere man, 
 
 * In this (second) edition, I have ad ied an entire chapter expressly on 
 the subject. 
 
62 CALVINISM 
 
 he was, like myself, a sinful man, and therefore certainly not 
 my Judge, certainly not an omniscient reader of all hearts; 
 nor on any account to be bowed down to as Lord. To exer- 
 cise hope, faith, trust in him, seemed then an impiety. I did 
 not mean to impute impiety to Unitarians ; still I distinctly 
 believed that English Unitarianism could never afi'ord me a 
 half hour's resting-place. 
 
 Nevertheless, from contact with this excellent person I 
 learned how much tenderness of spirit a Unitarian may have ; 
 and it pleasantly enlarged my charity, although I continued 
 to feel much repugnance for his doctrine, and was anxious and 
 constrained in the presence of Unitarians. From the same 
 collision with him, I gained a fresh insight into a part of my 
 own mind. I had always regarded the Gospels (at least the 
 three first) to be to the Epistles nearly as Law to Gospel ; 
 that is, the three gospels dealt chiefly in yrecept, the epistles 
 in motives which act on the affections. This did not appear to 
 me dishonourable to the teaching of Christ ; for T supposed it 
 to be a pre-determined development. But I now discovered 
 that there was a deeper distaste in me fur the details of the 
 human life of Christ, than I was previously conscious of — a 
 distaste which I found out, by a reaction from the minute in- 
 terest felt in such details by my new friend. For several years 
 more, I did not fully understand how and why this was; viz. 
 that 7)%y religion had always been Pauline. Christ was to me 
 the ideal of glorified human nature : but I needed some dim- 
 ness in the portrait to give play to my imagination : if drawn 
 too sharply historical, it sank into something not superhuman, 
 and caused a revulsion of feeling. As all paintings of the 
 miraculous used to displease and even disgust me from a boy 
 by the unbelief which they inspired ; so if any one dwelt on 
 the special proofs of tenderness and love exhibited in cer- 
 tain words or actions of Jesus, it was apt to Ccill out in me a 
 sense, that from day to day equal kindness might often be 
 met. The imbecility of preachers, who would dwell on such 
 •words as " Weep not," as if nobody else ever uttered such, — 
 had always annoyed me. I felt it impossible to obtain a 
 worthy idea of Christ from studying any of the details reported 
 concerning him. If I dwelt too much on these, I got a finite 
 object ; but I yearned for an infinite one : hence my prefer- 
 ence for John's mysterious Jesus. Thus my Christ was not 
 the figure accurately painted in the narrative, but one kindled 
 in my imagination by the allusions and (as it were) poetry of 
 
ABANDONED. 63 
 
 the "New Testament. I did not wish for vivid historical 
 realization : relics I could never have valued : pilgrimages to 
 Jerusalem had always excited in me more of scorn than of 
 sympathy; — and I make no doubt such was fundamentally 
 Paul's* feeling. On the contrary, it began to appear to me 
 (and I believe not unjustly) that the Unitarian mind revelled 
 peculiarly in " Christ after the flesh," whom Paul resolved not 
 to know. Possibly in this circumstance will be found to lie 
 the strong and the weak points of the Unitarian religious 
 character, as contrasted with that of the Evangelical, far more 
 truly than in the doctrine of the Atonement. I can testify 
 that the Atonement may be dropt out of Pauline religion 
 without affecting its quality; so may Christ be spiritualized 
 into God, and identified with the Father : but I suspect that 
 a Pauline faith could not, without much violence and convul- 
 sion, be changed into devout admiration of a clearly drawn 
 historical character; as though any full and unsurpassable 
 embodiment of God's moral perfections could be exhibited 
 with ink and pen. 
 
 A reviewer, who has since made his name known, has 
 pointed to the preceding remarks, as indicative of ray deficiency 
 in imagination and my tendency to romance. My dear friend 
 is undoubtedly right in the former point ; I am destitute of 
 (creative) poetical imagination : and as to the latter point, his 
 insight into character is so great, that I readily believe him to 
 know me better than I know myself. Nevertheless, I think 
 he has mistaken the nature of the preceding argument. I am, on 
 the contrary, almost d sposed to say, that those have a tendency 
 to romance who can look at a picture with men Hying into the 
 air, or on an angel with a brass trumpet, and dead men rising 
 out of their graves with good stout muscles, and not feel that 
 the picture suggests unbelief. Nor do I confess to romance, 
 in my desire of something more than historical and daily human 
 nature in the character of Jesus ; for all Christendom, between 
 
 * The same may probably be said of all the apostles, a,nd their whole 
 generation. If they had looked on the life of Jesus with the same 
 tender and human atfection as modern Unitarians and pious Romanist-J 
 do, the church would have swarmed with holy coals and other relics 
 in the very first age. The mother of Jesus and her little establishment 
 would at once have swelled into importance. This certainly was not the 
 case ; which may make it doubtful whether the other apostles dwelt at 
 all more on the human persniinlity of Jesus than Paul did. Strikingly 
 different as James is from Paul, he is iu this respect perfectly agreed 
 with him. 
 
64 CALVINISM ABANDONED. 
 
 the dates a.d. 100 to a.d. 1850, with the exception of small 
 eccentric coteries, has held Jesus to be essentially superhuman. 
 Paul and John so taught concerning him. To believe their 
 doctrine (I agree with my friend) is, in some sense, a weakness 
 of understanding; but it is a weakness to which minds of 
 every class have been for ages liable. 
 
 Such had been the progress of my mind, towards the end of 
 what I will call my Third Period. In it the autliority of the 
 Scriptures as to some details (which at length became highly 
 important) had begun to be questioned ; of which I shall 
 proceed to speak : but hitherto this was quite secondary to the 
 momentous revolution which lay Calvinism prostrate in my 
 mind, which opened my heart to Unitarians, and, I may say, 
 to unbelievers ; which enlarged all my sympathies, and soon 
 set me to practise free moral thought, at least as a necessity, 
 if not as a duty. Yet I held fast an unabated reverence for the 
 moral and spiritual teaching of the New Testament, and had 
 not the most remote conception that anything could ever 
 shatter my belief in its great miracles. In fact, during this 
 period, I many times yearned to proceed to India, whither my 
 friend Groves had transferred his labours and his hopes; but 
 I was thwarted by several causes, and was again and again 
 damped by the fear of bigotry from new quarters. Otherwise, 
 I thought I could succeed in merging as needless many con- 
 troversies. In all the workings of my mind about Tri-unity, 
 Incarnation, Atonement, the Fall, Resurrection, Immortality, 
 Eternal Punishment, how little had any of these to do with 
 the inward exercises of my soul towards God ! He Avas still 
 the same, immutably glorious : not one feature of his counte- 
 nance had altered to my gaze, or could alter. This surely was 
 the God whom Christ came to reveal, and bring us into fel- 
 lowshij) with: this is that, about which Christians ought to 
 have no controversy, but which they should unitedly, con- 
 cordantly, themselves enjoy and exhibit to the heathen. But 
 oh, Christendom ! what dost thou believe and teach 1 The 
 heathen cry out to thee, — Physician, heal thyself. 
 
65 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE LETTER RENOUNCED. 
 
 It has been stated that I had already begun to discern that it 
 was impossible with perfect honesty to defend every tittle 
 contained in the Bible, Most of the points which give moral 
 offence in the book of Genesis I had been used to explain 
 away by the doctrine of Progress ; yet every now and then it 
 became hard to deny that God is represented as giving an 
 actual sanction to that which we now call sinful. Indeed, up 
 and down the Scriptures very numerous texts are scattered, 
 which are notorious difficulties with commentators. These I 
 had habitually overruled one by one : but again of late, since I 
 had been forced to act and talk less and think more, they 
 began to encompass me. But I was for a while too full of 
 other inquiries to follow up coherently any of my doubts or 
 perceptions, until my mind became at length nailed down ta 
 the definite study of one well-known passage. 
 
 This passage may be judged of extremely secondary import- 
 ance in itself, yet by its remoteness from all properly spiritual 
 and profound questions, it seemed to afford to me the safest of 
 arguments. The genealogy with which the gospel of Matthew 
 opens, I had long known to be a stumbling-block to divines, 
 and I had never been satisfied with their explanations. On 
 reading it afresh, after long intermission, and comparing it for 
 myself with the Old Testament, I was struck with observing 
 that the corruption of the two names Ahaziah and Uzziah into 
 the same sound (Oziah) has been the cause of merging four 
 generations into one ; as the similarity of Jehoiakim to Je- 
 hoiachin also led to blending them both in the name Jeconiali. 
 In consequence, there ought to be 18 generations where 
 Matthew has given us only 14 : yet we cannot call this 
 an error of a transcriber ; for it is distinctly remarked, that 
 the genealogy consists of 14 three times repeated. Thus 
 there were but 14 names inserted by Matthew: yet it ought 
 to have been 18 : and he was under manifest mistake. This 
 surely belongs to a class of knowledge, of which man has 
 cognizance: it would not be piety, but grovelling superstition, 
 to avow before God that I distrust my powers of counting, 
 
66 THE RELIGION OF 
 
 and, in obedience to the written word, I believe that 18 is 14 
 and 14 is 18. Thus it is impossible to deny, that there is 
 cognizable error in the first chapter of Matthew. Conse- 
 quently, that gospel is not all dictated by the Spirit of God, 
 and (unless we can get rid of the first chapter as no part oi 
 the Bible) the doctrine of the verbal infallibility of the whole 
 Bible, or indeed of the New Testament, is demonstrably false. 
 
 After I had turned the matter over often, and had become 
 accustomed to the thought, this single instance at length had 
 great force to give boldness to my mind within a very narrow 
 range. I asked whether, if the chapter were now proved to 
 be spurious, that would save the infallibility of the Bible. 
 The reply was : not of the Bible as it is ; but only of the Bible 
 when cleared of that and of all other spurious additions. If 
 by independent methods, such as an examination of manu- 
 scripts, the spuriousness of the chapter could now be shown, 
 this would verify the faculty of criticism which has already ob- 
 jected to its contents : thus it would justly urge us to apply 
 similar criticism to other passages. 
 
 I farther remembered, and now brought together under a 
 single point of view, other undeniable mistakes. The genealogy 
 of the nominal father of Jesus in Luke is inconsistent with 
 that in Matthew, in spite of the flagrant dishonesty with which 
 divines seek to deny this ; and neither evangelist gives the 
 genealogy of Mary, which alone is wanted. — In Acts vii. 16, 
 the land which Jacob bought of the children of Hamor,* is 
 confounded with that which Abraham, bought of Ephron the 
 Hittite. In Acts v. 36, 37, Gamaliel is made to say that 
 Theudas was earlier in time than Judas of Galilee. Yet in 
 fact, Judas of Galilee preceded Theudas ; and the revolt of 
 Theudas had not yet taken place when Gamaliel spoke, so the 
 error is not Gamaliel's, but Luke's. Of both the insurgents 
 we have a clear and unimpeached historical account in Jose- 
 phus. — The slaughter of the infants by Herod, if true, must, I 
 thought, needs have been recorded by the same historian. — 
 So again, in regard to the allusion made by Jesus to Zacharias, 
 son of Barachias, as last of the martyrs, it was difficult for 
 ine to shake off the suspicion, that a gross error had been 
 committed, and that the person intended is the " Zacharias 
 son of Baruchus," who, as we know from Josephus, was mar- 
 tyred witldn the courts of the temple during the siege of Jeru- 
 salem by Titus, about 40 years after the crucifixion. The 
 
 * See Gen. xxxiii. 19, and xlix. 29 32, xxiii. 
 
THE LETTER RENOUNCED. 67 
 
 well-known prophet Zechariah was indeed son of Berecliiali ; 
 but he was not last of the martyrs,* if indeed he was martyred 
 at all. On the whole, the persuasion stuck to me, that words 
 had been put into the mouth of Jesus, which he could not 
 possibly have used. — The impossibility of settling the names 
 of the twelve apostles struck me as a notable fact. — I farther 
 remembered the numerous difficulties of harmonizing the four 
 gospels ; how, when a boy at school, I had tried to incorporate 
 all four into one history, and the dismay with which I had 
 found the insoluble character of the problem, — the endless 
 discrepancies and perpetual uncertainties. These now began 
 to seem to me inherent in the materials, and not to be ascrib- 
 able to our want of intelligence. 
 
 I had also discerned in the opening of Genesis things which 
 could not be literally received. The geography of the rivers 
 in Paradise is inexplicable, though it assumes the tone of ex- 
 planation. The curse on the serpent, who is to go on his 
 belly — (how else did he go before?) — and eat dust, is a ca- 
 pricious punishment on a race of brutes, one of whom the. 
 Devil chose to use as his instrument. That the painfulness of 
 childbirth is caused, not by Eve's sin, but by artificial habits 
 and a weakened nervous system, seems to be proved by the 
 twofold fact, that savage women and wild animals suffer but 
 little, and tame cattle often suffer as much as human females. 
 — About this time also, I had perceived (what I afterwards 
 learned the Germans to have more fully investigated) that the 
 two different accounts of the Creation are distinguished by the 
 appellations given to the divine Creator. I did not see how 
 to resist the inference that the book is made up of hetero- 
 geneous documents, and was not put forth by the direct dic- 
 tation of the Spirit to Moses. 
 
 A new stimulus was after this given to my mind by two 
 short conversations with the late excellent Dr. Arnold at 
 Rugby. I had become aware of the difficulties encountered 
 by physiologists in believing the whole human race to have 
 proceeded in about GOOO years from a single Adam and Eve; 
 and that the longevity (not miraculous, but ordinary) attri- 
 buted to the patriarchs was another stumbling-block. The 
 geological difficulties of the Mosaic cosmogony were also at 
 
 * Some say, that Zechariah, son of Jehoaida, named in the Chronicles, 
 is meant ; that he is conjounded with the prophet, the son ox Berechiah, 
 and was supposed to be the last of the martyrs, because the Chronicles 
 are placed last in the Hebrew Bible. This is a plausible view ; but it 
 saves the Scripture only by imputing error to Jesus. 
 
68 THE RELIGION OP 
 
 tliat time exciting attention. It was a novelty to me, that 
 Arnold treated tliese questions as matters of indifference to 
 religion ; and did not hesitate to say, that the account of 
 Noah's deluge was evidently mythical, and the history of 
 Joseph " a beautiful poem." I was staggered at this. If all 
 were not descended from Adam, what became of St. Paul's 
 parallel between the first and second Adam, and the doctrine 
 of Headship and Atonement founded on it? If the world was 
 not made in six. days, how could we defend the Fourth Com- 
 mandment as true, though said to have been written in stone 
 by the very finger of God ? If Noah's deluge was a legend, 
 \ve should at least have to admit that Peter did not know 
 this : what too would be said of Christ's allusion to it ? I was 
 unable to admit Dr. Arnold's views; but to see a vigorous 
 mind, deeply imbued with Cliristian devoutness, so convinced, 
 both reassured me that I need not fear moral mischiefs from 
 free inquiry, and indeed laid that mquiry upon me as a duty. 
 
 Here, liowever, was a new point started. Does the question 
 of the derivation of the human race from two parents belong 
 to things cognizable by the human intellect, or to things 
 about which we must learn submissively? Plainly to the 
 former. It would be monstrous to deny that such inquiries 
 legitimately belong to jjhysiology, or to proscribe a free study 
 of this science. If so, there was an a priori possibility, that 
 what is in the strictest sense called " religious doctrine" might 
 come into direct collision, not merely with my ill-trained con- 
 science, but with legitimate science; and that this would call 
 on me to ask: "Which of the two certainties is stronger? 
 that the religious parts of the Scripture are infallible, or that 
 the science is trustworthy?" and [ then first saw, that while 
 science had (within however limited a range of thought) de- 
 monstration or severe verifications, it was impossible to pre- 
 tend to anything so cogent in favour of the infallibility of any 
 or some part of the Scriptures: a doctrine which I was ?ccu.s- 
 ioined to believe, and felt to be a legitimate presumption; yet 
 one of which it grew harder and harder to assign any proof, 
 the more closely I analyzed it. Nevertheless, I still held it 
 fast, and resolved not to let it go until I was forced. 
 
 A fresh strain fell on the Scriptural infallibility, in contem- 
 plating the origin of Death. Geologists assured us, that 
 death went on in the aninial creation many ages before the 
 existence of man. The rocks formed of the shells of animals 
 testify that death is a phenomenon thousands of thousand 
 
THE LETTER RENOUNCED. 69 
 
 years old : to refer the death of animals to the sin of Adam 
 and Eve is evidently impossible. Yet, if not, the analogies 
 of the human to the brute form make it scarcely credible that 
 man's body can ever have been intended for immortality. 
 Nay, when we consider the conditions of birth and growth to 
 which it is subject, the wear and tear essential to life, the new 
 generations intended to succeed and supplant the old, — so 
 soon as the question is proposed as one of physiology, the 
 reply is inevitable that death is no accident introduced by the 
 perverse will of our first parents, nor any way connected with 
 man's sinfulness; but is purely a result of the conditions of 
 animal life. On the contrary, St. Paul rests most important 
 conclusions on the fact, that one man Adam by personal sin 
 brought death upon all his posterity. If this was a funda- 
 mental error, religious doctrine also is shaken. 
 
 In various attempts at compromise, — such as conceding the 
 Scriptural fallibility in human science, but maintaining its 
 spiritual perfection, — I always found the division impractic- 
 able. At last it pressed on me, that if I admitted morals to 
 rest on an independent basis, it was dishonest to shut my eyes 
 to any apparent collisions of morality with the Scriptures. 
 A very notorious and decisive instance is that of Jael. — 
 Sisera, when beaten in battle, lied to the tent of his friend 
 Heber, and was there warmly welcomed by Jael, Heber's wife. 
 After she had refreshed him with food, and lulled him to sleep, 
 she killed him by driving a nail into his temples ; and for this 
 deed, (which now-a-days would be called a perfidious murder,) 
 the prophetess Deborah, in an inspired psalm, pronounces 
 Jael to be " blessed above women," and glorifies her act by an 
 elaborate description of its atrocity. As soon as I felt that I 
 was bound to pass a moral judgment on this, I saw that as 
 regards the Old Testament the battle was already lost. Many 
 other things, indeed, instantly rose in full power upon me, 
 especially the command to Abraham to slay his son. Paul 
 and James agree in extolling Abraham as the pattern of 
 faith; James and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 specify the sacrifice of Isaac as a firstrate fruit of faith : yet if 
 the voice of morality is allowed to be heard, Abraham was 
 (in heart and intention) not less guilty than those who sacri- 
 ficed their children to Molech. 
 
 Thus at length it appeared, that I must choose between two 
 courses. I must either blind my moral sentiment, my 
 powers of criticism, and my scientific knowledge, (such as they 
 
70 THE RELIGION OP 
 
 were,) in order to accept the Scripture entire ; or I must en 
 counter the problem, however arduous, of adjusting the rela- 
 tive claims of human knowledge and divine revelation. As 
 to the former method, to name it was to condemn it ; for ifc 
 would put every system of Paganism on a par with Christi- 
 anity. If one system of religion may claim that we blind our 
 hearts and eyes in its favour, so may another; and there is 
 precisely the same reason for becoming a Hindoo in religion 
 as a Christian. We cannot be both ; therefore the principle is 
 demonstrably absurd. It is also, of course, morally horrible, 
 and opposed to countless passages of the Scriptures them- 
 selves. Nor can the argument be evaded by talking of ex- 
 ternal evidences; for these also are confessedly moral evi- 
 dences, to be judged of by our moral faculties. Nay, 
 according to all Christian advocates, they are God's test of 
 our moral temper. To allege, therefore, that our moral 
 faculties are not to judge, is to annihilate the evidences for 
 Christianity. — Thus, finally, I was lodged in three inevitable 
 conclusions : 
 
 1. The moral and intellectual powers of man must be 
 acknowledged as having a right and duty to criticize the con- 
 tents of the Scripture : 
 
 2. When so exerted, they condemn portions of the Scrip- 
 ture as erroneous and immoral : 
 
 3. The assumed infallibility of the entire Scripture is a 
 proved falsity, not merely as to physiology, and other scientific 
 matters, but also as to morals: and it remains for farther inquiry 
 how to discriminate the trustworthy from the imtriistwortliy 
 within the limits of the Bible itself. 
 
 When distinctly conscious, after long efforts to evade it, 
 that this was and must henceforth be my position, I ruminated 
 on the many auguries which had been made concerning me by 
 frightened friends. " You will become a Socinian," had been 
 said of me even at Oxford: "You will become an infidel," 
 had since been added. My present results, I was aware, 
 would seem a sadly triumphant confirmation to the clear- 
 sighted instinct of orthodoxy. But the animus of such pro- 
 phecies had always made me indignant, and I could not admit 
 that there was any merit in such clearsightedness. What! 
 (used I to say,) will you shrink from truth, lest it lead to 
 
THE LETTER RENOUNCED. 7X 
 
 error ? If following truth must bring us to Socinianism, let us 
 by all means become Socinians, or anything else. Surely we 
 do not love our doctrines more than the truth, but because 
 they are the truth. Are we not exhorted to "prove all 
 things, and hold fast that which is good ?" — But to my dis- 
 comfort, I generally found that this (to me so convincing) 
 argument for feeling no alarm, only caused more and more 
 alarm, and gloomier omens concerning me. On considering 
 all this in leisurely retrospect, I began painfully to doubt, 
 whether after all there is much love of truth even among those 
 who have an undeniable strength of religious feeling. I 
 questioned with myself, whether love of truth is not a virtue 
 demanding a robust mental cultivation ; whether mathematical 
 or other abstract studies may not be practically needed for it. 
 But no : for how then could it exist in some feminine natures ? 
 how in rude and unphilosophical times? On the whole, I 
 rather concluded, that there is in nearly all English education 
 a positive repressing of a young person's truthfulness ; for I 
 could distinctly see, that in my own case there was always 
 need of defying authority and public opinion, — not to speak 
 of more serious sacrifices, — if I was to follow truth. All 
 society seemed so to hate novelties of thought, as to prefer the 
 chances of error in the old. — Of course ! why, how could it be 
 otherwise, while Test Articles were maintained'? 
 
 Yet surely if God is truth, none sincerely aspire to him, 
 who dread to lose their present opinions in exchange for others 
 truer. — I had not then read a sentence of Coleridge, which is 
 to this effect : " If any one begins by loving Christianity more 
 than the truth, he will proceed to love his Church more than 
 Christianity, and will end by loving his own opinions better 
 than either." A dim conception of this was in my mind; and 
 I saw that the genuine love of God was essentially connected 
 with loving truth as truth, and not truth as our own accustomed 
 thought, truth as our old prejudice ; and that the real saint can 
 never be afraid to let God teach him one lesson more, or un- 
 teach him one more error. Then I rejoiced to feel how right 
 and sound had been our princrj)le, that no creed can possibly be 
 used as the touchstone of spirituality : for man morally excels 
 man, as far as creeds are concerned, not by assenting to true 
 propositions, but by loving them because they are discerned 
 to be true, and by possessing a faculty of discernment sharp- 
 CLiid by the love of truth. Such are God's true apostles, 
 (li^ering enormously in attainment and elevation, but all born 
 
'is THE RELIGION OP 
 
 to ascend. For these to quarrel between themselves because 
 they do not agree in opinions, is monstrous. Sentiment, 
 surely, not opinion, is the bond of the Spirit; and as the love 
 of God, so the love of truth is a high and sacred sentiment, in 
 comparison to which our creeds are mean. 
 
 Well, I had been misjudged; I had been absurdly measured 
 by other men's creed : but might I not have similarly mis- 
 judged others, since I had from early youth been under similar 
 influences'? How many of my seniors at Oxford I had vir- 
 tually despised because they were not evangelical! Had I 
 had opportunity of testing their spirituality? or had I the 
 faculty of so doing'? Had I not really condemned them as 
 unspiritual, barely because of their creed? On trying to 
 reproduce the past to my imagination, I could not condemn 
 myself quite as sweepingly as I wished; but my heart smote 
 me on account of one. I had a brother, with whose name all 
 England was resounding for praise or blame : from his sym- 
 pathies, through pure hatred of Popery, I had long since 
 turned away. What was this but to judge him by his creed ? 
 True, his whole theory was nothing but Eomanism transferred 
 to England : but what then ? I had studied with the deepest 
 interest Mrs. Schimmelpenninck's account of the Portroyalists, 
 and though I was aware that she exhibits only the bright side 
 of her subject, yet the absolute excellencies of her nuns and 
 priests showed that Romanism as such was not fatal to spiri- 
 tuality. They were persecuted : this did them good perhaps, 
 or certainly exhibited their brightness. So too my brother 
 surely was struggling after truth, fighting for freedom to his 
 own heart and mind, against church articles and stagnancy of 
 thought. For this he deserved both sympathy and love : but 
 I, alas! had not known and seen his excellence. But now 
 God had taught me more largeness by bitter sorrow working 
 the peaceable fruit of righteousness ; at last then I might ad- 
 mire my brother. I therefore wrote to him a letter of con- 
 trition. Some change, either in his mind or in his view of 
 my position, had taken place ; and I was happy to find him 
 once more able, not only to feel fraternally, as he had always 
 done, but to act also fraternally. Nevertheless, to this day it 
 is to me a painfully unsolved mystery, how a mind can claim 
 its freedom in order to establish bondage. 
 
 For the peculiarities of Romanism I feel nothing, and I 
 can pretend nothing, but contempt, hatred, disgust, or horror. 
 But this system of falsehood, fraud, unscrupulous and 'inrer 
 
THE LETTER KENOUNCED. 73 
 
 lenting ambition, will never be destroyed, while Protestants 
 kee\) up their insane anathemas against opinion. These are 
 the outworks of the Romish citadel : until they are razed to 
 the ground, the citadel will defy attack. If we are to blind 
 our eyes, in order to accept an article of King Edward VT., 
 or an argument of St. Paul's, why not blind them so far as to 
 accept the Council of Trent 1 If we are to pronounce that a 
 man " without doubt shall perish everlastingly," unless he 
 believes the self-contradictions of the pseudo-Athanasian 
 Creed, why should we shrink from a similar anathema on 
 those who reject the self-contradictions of Transsubstantiation ? 
 If one man is cast out of God's favour for eliciting error while 
 earnestly searching after truth, and another remains in favour 
 by passively receiving the word of a Church, of a Priest, or of 
 an Apostle, then to search for truth is dangerous; apathy is 
 safer; then the soul does not come directly into contact with 
 God and learn of him, but has to learn from, and uncon- 
 vincedly submit to, some external authority. This is the 
 germ of Romanism: its legitimate development makes us 
 Pagans outright. 
 
 But in what position was I now, towards the apostles? 
 Could I admit their inspiration, when I no longer thought 
 them infallible? Undoubtedly. What could be clearer on 
 every hypothesis, than that they were inspired on and after 
 the day of Pentecost, and yet remained ignorant and liable to 
 mistake about the relation of the Gentiles to the Jews 1 The 
 moderns have introduced into the idea of inspiration that of 
 infallibility, to which either omniscience or dictation is essen- 
 tial. That there was no dictation, (said I,) is proved by the 
 variety of style in the Scriptural writers ; that they were not 
 omniscient, is manifest. In truth, if human minds had not 
 been left to them, how could they have argued persuasively ? 
 was not the superior success of their preaching to that of 
 Christ, perhaps due to their sharing in the prejudices of their 
 contemporaries? An orator is most persuasive, when he is 
 lifted above his hearers on those points only on which he is 
 to reform their notions. The apostles were not omniscient : 
 
 f ranted : but it cannot hence be inferred that they did not 
 now the message given them by God. Their knowledge 
 however perfect, must yet in a human mind have coexisted 
 
74 THE RELIGION OP 
 
 M'itli ignorance; and nothing (argued I) but a perpetual 
 miracle could prevent ignorance from now and then exhibiting 
 itself in some error. But hence to infer that they are not 
 inspired, and are not messengers from God, is quite gratuitous. 
 Who indeed imagines that John or Paul understood astronomy 
 so well as Sir William Herschel? Those who believe that the 
 apostles might err in human science, need not the less revere 
 their moral and spiritual wisdom. 
 
 At the same time it became a matter of duty to me, if pos- 
 sible, to discriminate the authoritative from the unauthorita- 
 tive in the Scripture, or at any rate avoid to accept and pro- 
 pagate as true that which is false, even if it be false only as 
 science and not as religion. I unawares, — more perhaps from 
 old habit than from distinct conviction, — started from the 
 assumption that my fixed point of knowledge was to be 
 found in the sensible or scientific, not in the moral. I still 
 retained from my old Calvinistic doctrine a way of proceed- 
 ing, as if purely moral judgment were my weak side, at least 
 in criticizing the Scripture : so that I preferred never to appeal 
 to direct moral and spiritual considerations, except in the 
 most glaringly necessary cases. Thus, while I could not 
 accept the panegyric on Jael, and on Abraham's intended 
 sacrifice of his son, I did not venture unceremoniously to 
 censure the extirj)ation of the Canaanites by Joshua : of which 
 I barely said to myself, that it " certainly needed very strong 
 proof" of the divine command to justify it. I still went so 
 far in timidity as to hesitate to reject on internal evidence the 
 account of heroes or giants begotten by angels, Avho, enticed 
 by the love of women, left heaven for earth. The narrative 
 in Gen. vi. had long appeared to me undoubtedly to bear this 
 sense; and to have been so understood by Jude and Peter 
 (2 Pet. ii.), as, I believe, it also was by the Jews and early 
 Fathers. I did at length set it aside as incredible; not how- 
 ever from moral repugnance to it, (for I feared to trust the 
 soundness of my instinct,) but because I had slid into a new 
 rule of interpretation, — that / must not obtrude miracles on tlie 
 Scriptvj'e narrative. The writers tell their story without 
 showing any consciousness that it involves physiological diffi- 
 culties. To invent a miracle in order to defend this, began to 
 seem to me unwarrantable. 
 
 It had become notorious to the public, that Geologists re- 
 jected the idea of a universal deluge as physically impossible. 
 Whence could the water come, to cover the highest moun- 
 
THE LETTER RENOUNCED. 
 
 75 
 
 tains? Two replies were attempted: 1. The flood of Noah is 
 not described as universal : 2. The flood was indeed universal, 
 but the water was added and removed by miracle. — Neither 
 reply however seemed to me valid. First, the language re- 
 specting the universality of the flood is as strong as any that 
 could be written : moreover it is stated that the tops of the 
 high hills were all covered, and after the water subsides, the 
 ark settles on the mountains of Armenia. Now in Armenia, 
 of necessity numerous peaks would be seen, unless the water 
 covered them, and especially Ararat. But a flood that covered 
 Ararat would overspread all the continents, and leave only a 
 few summits above. If then the account in Genesis is to be 
 received, the flood was universal. Secondly: the narrator 
 represents the surplus water to have come from the clouds 
 and perhaps from the sea, and again to drain back into the 
 sea. Of a miraculous creation and destruction of water, he 
 evidently does not dream. 
 
 Other impossibilities came forward : the insufficient dimen- 
 sions of the ark to take in all the creatures ; the unsuitability 
 of the same climate to arctic and tropical animals for a full 
 year ; the impossibility of feeding them and avoiding pesti- 
 lence; and especially, the total disagreement of the modern 
 facts of the dispersion of animals, with the idea that they 
 spread anew from Armenia as their centre. We have no 
 right to call in a series of miracles to solve difficulties, of 
 which the writer was unconscious. The ark itself was ex- 
 pressly devised to economize miracle, by making a fresh 
 creation of animals needless. 
 
 Different in kind was the objection which I felt to the 
 story, which is told twice concerning Abraham and once con- 
 cerning Isaac, of passing off' a wife as a sister. Allowing that 
 such a thing was barely not impossible, the improbability was 
 so intense, as to demand the strictest and most cogent proof: 
 yet when we asked. Who testifies it ? no proof appeared that 
 it was Moses ; or, supposing it to be he, what his sources of 
 knowledge were. And this led to the far wider remark, that 
 nowhere in the book of Genesis is there a line to indicate who 
 is the writer, or a sentence to imply that the writer believes 
 himself to write by special information from God. Indeed, 
 it is well known that there are numerous small phrases which 
 denote a later hand than that of Moses. The kings of Israel 
 are once alluded to historically. Gen. xxxvi. 31. 
 
 Why then was anything improbable to be believed on the 
 F 2 
 
76 THE RELIGION OP 
 
 writer's word 1 as, for instance, the story of Babel and the 
 confusion of tongues ? One reply only seemed possible ; 
 namely, that we believe the Old Testament in obedience to 
 the authority of the New : and this threw me again to con- 
 sider the references to the Old Testament in the Christian 
 Scriptures. 
 
 But here, the difficulties soon became manifestly more and 
 more formidable. In opening Matthew, we meet with quota- 
 tions from the Old Testament applied in the most startling 
 way. First is the prophecy about the child Immanuel; 
 which in Isaiah no unbiassed interpreter would have dreamed 
 could apply to Jesus. Next ; the words of Hosea, " Out of 
 Egypt have I called my son," which do but record the history 
 of Israel, are imagined by Matthew to be prophetic of the 
 return of Jesus from Egypt. This instance moved me much ; 
 because I thought, that if the text were " spiritualized," so as 
 to make Israel mean Jes2(s, Egypt also ought to be spiri- 
 tualized and mean the world, not retain its geographical 
 sense, which seemed to be carnal and absurd in such a con- 
 nection : for Egypt is no more to Messiah than Syria or 
 Greece. — One of the most decisive testimonies to the Old 
 Testament which the New contains, is in John x. 35, where I 
 hardly knew how to allow myself to characterize the reason- 
 ing. The case stands thus. The 82nd Psalm rebukes unjust 
 governors; and at length says to them: "I have said, Ye 
 are gods, and all of you are children of the most high : but 
 ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." In 
 other words : — " though we are apt to think of rulers as if 
 they were superhuman, yet they shall meet the lot of common 
 men." Well : how is this applied in John 1 — Jesus has been 
 accused of blasphemy, for saying that " He and his Father are 
 one ;" and in reply, he quotes the verse, " I have said, Ye are 
 gods," as his sufficient justification for calling himself Son of 
 God : for " the Scripture cannot be broken." I dreaded to 
 precipitate myself into shocking unbelief, if I followed out the 
 thoughts that this suggested : and (I know not how) for a 
 long time yet put it off. 
 
 The quotations from the Old Testament in St. Paul had 
 always been a mystery to me. Tlie more I now examined 
 Vhem, the clearer it appeared ihsd, they were based on unten- 
 
THE LETTER RENOUNCED. 77 
 
 able Rabbinical principles. Nor are those in the Acts and in 
 the Gospels any better. If we take free leave to canvass 
 them, it may appear that not one quotation in ten is sensible 
 and appropriate. And shall we then accept the decision of 
 the New Testament writers as final, concerning the value and 
 credibility of the Old Testament, when it is so manifest that 
 they most imperfectly understood that book ? 
 
 In fact the appeal to them proved too much. For Jude 
 quotes the book of Enoch as an inspired prophecy, and yet, 
 since Archbishop Laurence has translated it from the Ethio- 
 pian, we know that book to be a fable undeserving of regard, 
 and undoubtedly not written by " Enoch, the seventh from 
 Adam." Besides, it does not appear that any peculiar divine 
 revelation taught them that the Old Testament is perfect 
 truth. In point of fact, they only reproduce the ideas on that 
 subject current in their age. So far as Paul deviates from 
 the common Jewish view, it is in the direction of disparaging 
 the Law as essentially imperfect. May it not seem that his 
 remaining attachment to it was still exaggerated by old senti- 
 ment and patriotism 1 
 
 I farther found that not only do the Evangelists give us no 
 hint that they thought themselves divinely inspired, or that 
 they had any other than human sources of knowledge, but 
 Luke most explicitly shows the contrary. He opens by stating 
 to Theophilus, that since many persons have committed to 
 writing the things handed down from eye-witnesses, it seemed 
 good to him also to do the same, since he had "accurately 
 attended to every thing from its sources (aviodev).'' He could 
 not possibly have written thus, if he had been conscious of 
 superhuman aids. How absurd then of us, to pretend that we 
 know more than Luke knew of his own inspiration ! 
 
 In truth, the arguments of theologians to prove the inspira- 
 tion (^. e. infallibility) of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are some- 
 times almost ludicrous. My lamented friend, John Sterling, 
 has thus summed up Dr. Henderson's arguments about Mark. 
 " Mark was probably inspired, because he was an acquaintance 
 of Peter ; and because Dr. Henderson would be reviled by 
 other Dissenters, if he doubted it." 
 
 About this time, the great phenomenon of these three 
 gospels, — the casting out of devils, — pressed forcibly on my 
 
78 THE RELIGION OP 
 
 attention. I now dared to look full into the facts, and saw 
 that the disorders described were perfectly similar to epilepsy, 
 mania, catalepsy, and other known maladies. Nay, the deaf, 
 the dumb, the hunchbacked, are spoken of as devil- ridden. I 
 farther knew that such diseases are still ascribed to evil genii 
 in Mussulman countries : even a vicious horse is believed by 
 the Arabs to be majnim, possessed by a Jin or Genie. Devils 
 also are cast out in Abyssinia to this day. Having fallen in 
 with Farmer's treatise on the Demoniacs, I carefully studied 
 it ; and found it to prove unanswerably, that a belief in de- 
 moniacal j^ossession is a superstition not more respectable 
 than that of witchcraft. But Farmer did not at all convince 
 me, that the three Evangelists do not share the vulgar error. 
 Indeed, the instant we believe that the imagined possessions 
 were only various forms of disease, we are forced to draw 
 conclusions of the utmost moment, most damaging to the 
 credit of the narrators.* 
 
 Clearly, they are then convicted of misstating facts, under 
 the influence of superstitious credulity. They represent de- 
 m niacs as having a supernatural acquaintance with Jesus, 
 which, it now becomes manifest, they cannot have had. The 
 devils cast out of two demoniacs (or one) are said to have 
 entered into a herd of swine. This must have been a credu- 
 lous fiction. Indeed, the casting out of devils is so very pro- 
 minent a part of the miraculous agency ascribed to Jesus, as 
 at first sight to impair our faith in his miracles altogether. 
 
 I however took refuge in the consideration, that when 
 Jesus wrought one great miracle, popular credulity would 
 inevitably magnify it into ten ; hence the discovery of foolish 
 exaggerations is no disproof of a real miraculous agency : nay, 
 perhaps the contrary. Are they not a sort of false halo round 
 a disc of glory, — a halo so congenial to human nature, that the 
 absence of it might be even wielded as an objection ? More- 
 over, John tells of no demoniacs : does not this show his 
 freedom from popular excitement? Observe the great mi- 
 racles narrated by John, — the blind man, — and Lazarus — 
 
 * My Eclectic Reviewer says (p. 276) : " Thus because the evange- 
 lists held an erroneous medical theory, Mr. ^t•wlnan suffered a breach 
 to be made in the credit of the Bible." No ; but as the next sentence 
 Ktates, "because they are convicted of missltif vg tucts," under the in- 
 fluence of this erroneous medical theory. Even this reviewer — candid 
 for an orthodox critic, and not over-orthodox either — cannot help 
 garbling me. 
 
THE LETTER RENOUNCED. 79 
 
 how different in kind from those on demoniacs ! how incapable 
 of having been mistaken ! how convincing ! His statements 
 cannot be explained away : their whole tone, moreover, is 
 peculiar. On the contrary, the throe first gospels contain 
 much that (after we see the writers to be credulous) must be 
 judged legendary. 
 
 The two first chapters of Matthew abound in dreams. 
 Dreams? Was indeed the "immaculate conception" merely 
 told to Joseph in a dream ? a dream which not he only was to 
 believe, but we also, when reported to us by a person wholly 
 unknown, who wrote 70 or 80 years after the fact, and gives 
 us no clue to his sources of information ! Shall I reply that 
 he received his information by miracle 1 But why more than 
 Luke ? and Luke evidently was conscious only of human 
 information. Besides, inspiration has not saved Matthew 
 from error about demons; and why then about Joseph's dream 
 and its highly important contents ? 
 
 In former days, I had never dared to let my thoughts dwell 
 inquisitively on the star, which the wise men saw in the East, 
 and which accompanied them, and pointed out the house 
 where the young child was. I now thought of it, only to see 
 that it was a legend fit for credulous ages ; and that it must 
 be rejected in common with Herod's massacre of the children, 
 — an atrocity unknown to Josephus. How difficult it was to 
 reconcile the flight into Egypt with the narrative of Luke, I 
 had known from early days: I now saw that it was waste 
 time to try to reconcile them. 
 
 But perhaps I might say: — "That the writers should make 
 errors about the infancy of Jesus was natural; they were 
 distant from the time: but that will not justly impair the 
 credit of events, to which they may possibly have been contem- 
 poraries or even eye-witnesses." — How then would this apply 
 to the Temptation, at which certainly none of them were 
 present ? Is it accident, that the same three, who abound in 
 the demoniacs, tell also the scene of the Devil and Jesus on a 
 pinnacle of the temple ; while the same John who omits the 
 demoniacs, omits also this singular story ? It being granted 
 that the writers are elsewhere mistaken, to criticize the tale 
 was to reject it. 
 
 In near connexion with this followed the discovery, that 
 many other miracles of the Bible are wholly deficient in that 
 moral dignity, which is supposed to place so great a chasm 
 between them and ecclesiastical writings. Why should I look 
 
80 THE RELIGION OF 
 
 with more respect on the napkins taken from Paul's body 
 (Acts xix. 12), than on pocket-handkerchiefs dii)ped in the 
 blood of martyrs 1 How could I believe, on this same writer's 
 hearsay, that " the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip " 
 (viii. 39), transporting him through the air; as oriental genii 
 are supposed to do ? Or what moral dignity was there in the 
 curse on the barren fig-tree, — about which, moreover, we are 
 so perplexingly told, that it was Qiot the time for figs 1 What 
 was to be said of a cure, wrought by touching the hem of 
 Jesus' garment, which drew physical virtue from him without 
 his will ? And how could I distinguish the genius of the 
 miracle of tribute-money in the fish's mouth, from those of the 
 apocryphal gospels ? What was I to say of useless miracles, 
 like that of Peter and Jesus walking on the water, — or that 
 of many saints coming out of the graves to show themselves, 
 or of a poetical sympathy of the elements, such as the earth- 
 quake and rending of the temple-veil when Jesus died ? Al- 
 together, I began to feel that Christian advocates commit the 
 flagrant sophism of treating every objection as an isolated 
 " cavil," and overrule each as obviously insufficient, with the 
 same confidence as if it were the only one. Yet, in fact, the 
 objections collectively are very powerful, and cannot be set 
 aside by supercilious airs, and by calling unbelievers " super- 
 ficial," any more than by harsh denunciations. 
 
 Pursuing the same thought to the Old Testament, I dis- 
 cerned there also no small sprinkling of grotesque or unmoral 
 miracles. A dead man is raised to life, when his body by 
 accident touches the bones of Elislia : as though Elisha had 
 been a Romish saint, and his bones a sacred relic. Uzzah, 
 ■when the ark is in danger of falling, puts out his hand to save 
 it, and is struck dead for his impiety ! Was this the judgment 
 of the Father of mercies and God of all comfort 1 What was 
 I to make of God's anger with Abimelech (Gen. xx.), whose 
 sole offence was, the having believed Abraham's lie ? for which 
 a miraculous barrenness was sent on all the females of Abime- 
 lech's tribe, and was bought off only by splendid presents to 
 the favoured deceiver. — Or was it at all credible that the lying 
 and fraudulent Jacob should have been so specially loved by 
 God, more than the rude animal Esau ? — Or could I any 
 longer overlook the gross imagination of antiquit}^, which 
 made Abraham and Jehovah dine on the same carnal food, like 
 Tantalus with the gods; — w^iich fed Elijah by ravens, and set 
 angels to bake cakes for him 1 Such is a specimen of the 
 
THE LETTER REJfOUNCED. 81 
 
 flood of difficulties which poured in, through the great breach 
 which the demoniacs had made in the credit of Biblical marvels. 
 
 While I was in this stage of progress, I had a second time 
 the advantage of meeting Dr. Arnold, and had satisfaction ia 
 Ending that he rested the main strength of Christianity on 
 the gospel of John. The great similarity of the other three 
 seemed to him enough to mark that they flowed from sources 
 very similar, and that the first gospel had no pretensions to be 
 reo^arded as the actual writing of ^Matthew. This indeed had 
 been for some time clear to me, though I now cared little 
 about the author's name, when he was proved to be credulous. 
 — Arnold regarded John's gospel as abounding with smaller 
 touches which marked the eye-witness, and, altogether, to be 
 the vivid and simple picture of a divine reality, undeformed by 
 credulous legend. In this view I was gratified to repose, in 
 spite of a few partial misgivings, and returned to investigations 
 concerning the Old Testament. 
 
 For some time back I had paid special attention to the 
 book of Genesis ; and I had got aid in the analysis of it from 
 a German volume. That it was based on at least two diff"erent 
 documents, technically called the Elohistic and Jehovistic, 
 soon became clear to me: and an orthodox friend who ac- 
 knowledged the fact, regarded it as a high recommendation of 
 the book, that it was conscientiously made out of pre-existing 
 materials, and was not a fancy that came from the brain of 
 Moses. My good friend's argument was not a happy one : no 
 written record could exist of things and times which preceded 
 the invention of writing. After analyzing this book with 
 great minuteness, I now proceeded to Exodus and Numbers; 
 and was soon assured, that these had not, any more than 
 Genesis, come forth from one primitive witness of the facts. 
 In all these books is found the striking phenomenon of dwpll- 
 cate or even triplicate narratives. The creation of man is 
 three times told. The account of the Flood is made up out 
 of two discrepant originals, marked by the names Elohim and 
 Jehovah; of which one makes Noah take into the ark seven 
 pairs cf clean, and single (or double?) pairs of unclean, beasts; 
 while the other gives him two and two of all kinds, without 
 distinguishing the clean. The two documents may indeed in 
 this narrative be almost re-discovered by mechanical separa- 
 tion. The triple statement of Abraham and Isaac passing 
 off a wife for a sister was next in interest; and here also the 
 two which concern Abraham are contrasted as Jehovistic and 
 
82 THE RELIGION OP 
 
 Elolilstic. A similar double account is given of the origin oi 
 circumcision, of the names Isaac, Israel, Bethel, Beersheba. 
 Still more was I struck by the positive declaration in Exodus 
 (vi. 3) that God was not known to Abraham, Isaac, andJacoh 
 hy the. name Jehovah; while the book of Genesis abounds with 
 the contrary fact. This alone convinced me be^'ond all dis- 
 pute, that these books did not come from one and the same 
 hand, but are conglomerates formed out of older materials, 
 unartistically and mechanically joined. 
 
 Indeed a fuller examination showed in Exodus and Num- 
 bers a twofold miracle of the quails, of which the latter is so 
 told as to indicate entire imacquaintance with the former. 
 There is a double description of the manna, a needless second 
 appointment of Elders of the congregation : water is twice 
 brought out of the rock by the rod of Moses, whose faith is 
 perfect the first time and fails the second time. The name of 
 Meribah is twice bestowed. There is a double promise of a 
 guardian angel, a double consecration of Aaron and his sons : 
 indeed, I seemed to find a double or even threefold* copy of 
 the Decalogue. Comprising Deuteronomy within my view, I 
 met two utterly incompatible accounts of Aaron's death ; for 
 Deuteronomy makes him die hefore reaching Meribah Kadesh, 
 where, according to Numbers, he sinned and incurred the 
 penalty of death (Num. xx. 24, Deut. x. 6 : cf. Num. xxxiii. 
 31, 38). 
 
 That there was error on a great scale in all this, was unde- 
 niable ; and I began to see at least one source of the error. 
 The celebrated miracle of "the sun standing still" has long been 
 felt as too violent a derangement of the whole globe to be 
 used by the most High as a means of discomfiting an army: 
 and I had acquiesced in the idea that the miracle was ocidar 
 only. But in reading the passage, (Josh. x. 12 — 14,) I for 
 the first time observed that the narrative rests on the authority 
 of a poetical book which bears the name of Jasher.t He who 
 composed' — " Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ; and thou, 
 Moon, in the valley of Ajalon!" — like other poets, called on 
 the Sun and Moon to stand and look on Joshua's deeds; but 
 he could not anticipate that his words would be hardened into 
 
 * I have explained this in my " Hebrew Monarchy." 
 •\ This poet celebrated also the deeds of David (2 Sam. i. 18) accord- 
 ing to our translation : if so, he was many centuries later than Joshua : 
 however, the sense of the Hebrew is a little obscure. 
 
THE LETTER RENOUNCED. 
 
 83 
 
 fact by a prosaic interpreter, and appealed to in proof of a 
 stupendous miracle. The commentator could not tell what 
 the Moon had to do with it; yet he has quoted honestly. — 
 This presently led me to observe other marks that the narra- 
 tive has been made up, at least in part, out of old poetry. Of 
 these the most important are in Exodus xv. and Num. xxi., 
 in the latter of which three different poetical fragments are 
 quoted, and one of them is expressly said to be from " the 
 book of the wars of Jehovah," apparently a poem descriptive of 
 the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. As for Exodus xv. 
 it appeared to me (in that stage, and after so abundant proof 
 of error,) almost certain that Moses' song is the primitive au- 
 thority, out of which the prose narrative of the passage of the 
 Red Sea has been worked up. Especially since, after the song, 
 the writer adds: v. 19. "For the horse of Pharaoh went in 
 with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the 
 Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them : but the 
 children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea." 
 This comment scarcely could have been added, if the detailed 
 account of ch. xiv, had been written previously. The song of 
 Moses implies no miracle at all : it is merely high poetry. A 
 later prosaic age took the hyperbolic phrases of v. 8 literally, 
 and so generated the comment of v. 19, and a still later time 
 expanded this into the elaborate 14th chapter. 
 
 Other proofs crowded upon me, that cannot here be enlarged 
 upon. Granting then (for argument) that the four first books 
 of the Pentateuch are a compilation, made long after the event, 
 I tried for a while to support the very arbitrary opinion, that 
 Deuteronomy (all but its last chapter) which seemed to be a 
 more homogeneous composition, was alone and really the pro- 
 duction of Moses, This however needed some definite proof: 
 for if tradition was not sufficient to guarantee the whole Penta- 
 teuch, it could not guarantee to me Deuteronomy alone. I 
 proceeded to investigate the external history of the Penta- 
 teuch, and in so doing, came to the story, how the book of 
 the Law was found in the reign of the young king Josiah, 
 nearly at the end of the Jewish monarchy. As I considered 
 the narrative, my e}'es were opened. If the book had previ- 
 ously been the received sacred law, it could not possibly have 
 been so lost, that its contents were unknown, and the fact of 
 its loss forgotten : it was therefore evidently then first compiled, 
 or at least then first produced and made authoritative to the 
 
84: THE RELIGION OP 
 
 nation.* And with this the general course of the history 
 best agrees, and all the phenomena of the books them- 
 selves. 
 
 Many of the Scriptural facts were old to me : to the im- 
 portance of the history of Josiah I had perhaps even become 
 dim-sighted by familiarity. Why had I not long ago seen 
 that my conclusions ought to have been different from those 
 of prevalent orthodoxy? — I found that I had been cajoled by 
 the primitive assumptions, which though not clearly stated, are 
 unceremoniously used. Dean Graves, for instance, always 
 takes for granted, that, until the contrary shall he demon- 
 strated, it is to be firmly believed that the Pentateuch is from 
 the pen of Moses. He proceeds to set aside, one hy one, as not 
 demonstrative, the indications that it is of later origin : and 
 when other means fail, he says that the particular verses 
 remarked on were added by a later hand ! I considered that 
 if we were debating the antiquity of an Irish book, and in one 
 page of it were found an allusion to the Parliamentary Union 
 with England, we should at once regard the whole book, until 
 the contrary should he froned, as the work of this century; 
 and not endure the reasoner, who, in order to uphold a 
 theory that it is five centuries old, pronounced that sentence 
 " evidently to be from a later hand." Yet in this arbitrary 
 way Dean Graves and all his coadjutors set aside, one by one, 
 the texts which point at the date of the Pentateuch. I was 
 possessed with indignation. Oh sham science! Oh false- 
 named Theology ! 
 
 mihi tam longse maneat pars ultima vitse, 
 Spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta ! 
 
 Yet I waited some eight years longer, lest I should on so 
 grave a subject write anything premature. Especially I felt 
 that it was necessary to learn more of what the erudition of 
 Germany had done on these subjects. Michaelis on the New 
 Testament had fallen into my hands several years before, and 
 I had found the greatest advantage from his learning and 
 candour. About this time I also had begun to get more or 
 less aid from four or five living German divines ; but none 
 produced any strong impression on me but De Wette. The 
 two grand lessons which I learned from him, were, the greater 
 recency of Deuteronomy, and the very untrustworthy character 
 of the book of Chronicles; with which discovery, the true 
 
 * I have fully discussed this in my ** Hebrew Monarchy." 
 
THE LETTER RENOUNCED. 85 
 
 origin of the Pentateuch becomes still clearer.* After this, I 
 heard of Hengstenberg as the most learned writer on tlie 
 opposite side, and furnished myself with his work in defence 
 of the antiquity of the Pentateuch: but it only showed me 
 how hopeless a cause he had undertaken. 
 
 In this period I came to a totally new view of many parts 
 of the Bible ; and not to be tedious, it will suffice here to sum 
 up the results. 
 
 The first books which I looked at as doubtful, were the 
 Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews, From the Greek 
 style I felt assured that the former was not by John,t nor the 
 latter by Paul. In Michaelis I first learnt the interesting 
 fact of Luther having vehemently repudiated the Apocalypse, 
 so that he not only declared its spuriousness in the Preface of 
 his Bible, but solemnly charged his successors not to print his 
 translation of the Apocalypse without annexing this avowal : 
 — a charge which they presently disobeyed. Such is the 
 habitual unfairness of ecclesiastical corporations. I was after- 
 wards confirmed by Neander in the belief that the Apocalypse 
 is a false prophecy. The only chapter of it which is inter- 
 preted, — the 17th, — appears to be a political speculation sug- 
 gested by the civil war of Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian ; and 
 erroneously opines that the eighth emperor of Rome is to be 
 the last, and is to be one of the preceding emperors restored, 
 — probably Nero, who was believed to have escaped to the 
 kings of the East. — As for the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 (which I was disposed to believe Luther had well guessed to 
 be the production of Apollos,) I now saw quite a different 
 genius in it from that of Paul, as more artificial and savouring 
 of rhetorical culture. As to this, the learned Germans are 
 probably unanimous. 
 
 Next to these, the Song of Solomon fell away. I had been 
 accustomed to receive this as a sacred representation of the 
 loves of Christ and the Church : but after I was experimentally 
 
 * The English reader may consult Theodore Parker's translation of 
 De Wette's Introduction to the Canon of Scripture, I have also amply 
 exhibited the vanity of the Chronicles in my " Hebrew Monarchy." De 
 Wette has a separate treatise on the Chronicles. 
 
 t If the date of the Apocalypse is twenty years earlier than that of 
 the fourth Gospel, I now feel no such difficulty in their being the com- 
 position of the same writer. 
 
86 THE RELIGION OP 
 
 acquainted with the playful and extravagant genius of man's 
 love for woman, I saw the Song of Solomon with new eyes, 
 and became entirely convinced that it consists of fragments of 
 love-songs, some of them rather voluptuous. 
 
 After this, it followed that the so-called Canon of the Jews 
 could not guarantee to us the value of the writings. Conse- 
 quently, such books as Ruth and Esther, (the latter indeed not 
 containing one religious sentiment,) stood forth at once in 
 their natural insignificance. Ecclesiastes also seemed to me a 
 meagre and shallow production. Chronicles I now learned to be 
 not credulous only, but unfair, perhaps so far as to be actually 
 dishonest. Not one of the historical books of the Old Testa- 
 ment could approve itself to me as of any high antiquity or of 
 any spiritual authority; and in the New Testament I found 
 the first three books and the Acts to contain many doubtful 
 and some untrue accounts, and many incredible miracles. 
 
 Many persons, after reading thus much concerning me, will 
 be apt to say : " Of course then you gave up Christianity '?" — 
 Far from it. I gave up all that was clearly untenable, and clung 
 the firmer to all that still appeared sound. I had found out 
 that the Bible was not to be my religion, nor its perfection 
 any tenet of mine : but what then % Did Paul go about 
 preaching the Bible % nay, but he preached Christ. The New 
 Testament did not as yet exist: to the Jews he necessarily 
 argued from the Old Testament; but that "faith in the book" 
 was no part of Paul's gospel, is manifest from his giving no 
 list of sacred books to his Gentile converts. Twice indeed in 
 his epistles to Timothy, he recommends the Scriptures of the 
 Old Testament; but even in the more striking passage, (on 
 which such exaggerated stress has been laid,) the spirit of his 
 remark is essentially apologetic. " Despise not, oh Timothy," 
 (is virtually his exhortation) " the Scriptures that you learned 
 as a child. Although now you have the Spirit to teach you, 
 yet that does not make the older writers useless : for " every 
 divinely inspired mritioig is cdso profitable for instruction, &c." 
 In Paul's religion, respect for the Scriptures was a means, not 
 an end. The Bible was made for man, not man for the Bible. 
 
 Thus the question with me was : " May I still receive Christ 
 as a Saviour from sin, a Teacher and Lord sent from heaven, 
 and can I find an adequate account of what He came to do or 
 teach ?" And my reply was. Yes. The gospel of John alone 
 gave an adequate account of him : the other three, though 
 often erroneous, had clear marks of simplicity, and in so far 
 
THE LETTER RENOUNCED. 87 
 
 confirmed the general belief in the supernatural character and 
 works of Jesus. Then the conversion of Paul was a powerful 
 argument. I had Peter's testimony to the resurrection, and 
 to the transfiguration. Many of the prophecies were emi- 
 nently remarkable, and seemed unaccountable except as mi- 
 raculous. The origin of Judaism and spread of Christianity 
 appeared to be beyond common experience, and were perhaps 
 fairly to be called supernatural. Broad views such as these 
 did not seem to be affected by the special conclusions at which 
 I had arrived concerning the books of the Bible. I conceived 
 myself to be resting under an Indian Figtree, which is sup- 
 ported by certain grand stems, but also lets down to the earth 
 many small branches, which seem to the eye to prop the tree, 
 but in fact are supported by it. If they were cut away, the 
 tree would not be less strong. So neither was the tree of 
 Christianity weakened by the loss of its apparent props. I 
 might still enjoy its shade, and eat of its fruits, and bless the 
 hand that planted it. 
 
 In the course of this period I likewise learnt how inadequate 
 allowance I had once made for the repulsion produced by my 
 own dogmatic tendency on the sympathies of the un- 
 evangelical. I now often met persons of Evangelical opinion, 
 but could seldom have any intercliange of religious sentiment 
 with them, because every word they uttered warned me that I 
 could escape controversy only while I kept them at a distance: 
 moreover, if any little difference of opinion led us into ami- 
 cable argument, they uniformly reasoned by quoting texts. 
 This was now inadmissible with me, but I could only have 
 done mischief by going farther than a dry disclaimer ; after 
 which indeed I saw I was generally looked on as " an infidel.'* 
 No doubt the parties who so came into collision with me, ap- 
 proached me often with an earnest desire and hope to find 
 some spiritual good in me, but withdrew disappointed, finding 
 me either cold and defensive, or (perhaps they thought) warm 
 and disputatious. Thus, as long as artificial tests of spiritu- 
 ality are allowed to exist, their erroneousness is not easily 
 exposed by the mere wear and tear of life. When the collision 
 of opinion is very strong, two good men may meet, and only 
 be confirmed in their prejudices against one another : for in 
 order that one may elicit the spiritual sympathies of the other, 
 a certain liberality is prerequisite. Without this, each pre- 
 pares to shield himself from attack, or even holds out weapons 
 of ojffence. Thus "articles of Communion" are essentially 
 
88 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 articles of Disunion. — On the other hand, if all tests of 
 opinion in a church were heartily and truly done away, then 
 the principles of spiritual affinity and repulsion would act 
 quite undisturbed. Surely therefore this was the only right 
 method? — Nevertheless, I saw the necessity of one test, 
 "Jesus is the Son of God," and felt unpleasantly that one 
 article tends infallibly to draw another after it. But I had 
 too much, just then, to think of in other quarters, to care 
 much about Church Systems. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FAITH AT SECOND HAND FOUND TO BE VAIN. 
 
 I RECKON my fifth period to begin from the time when I had 
 totally abandoned the claims of "the Canon" of Scripture, 
 however curtailed, to be received as the object of faith, as free 
 from error, or as something raised above moral criticism ; and 
 looked out for some deeper foundation for my creed than any 
 sacred Letter. But an entirely new inquiry had begun to 
 engage me at intervals, viz., the esserdial logic of these investi- 
 gations. Ought we in any case to receive moral truth in 
 obedience to an apparent miracle of sense? or conversely, 
 ought we ever to believe in sensible miracles because of their 
 recommending some moral truth? I perceived that the 
 endless jangling which goes on in detailed controversy, is 
 inevitable, while the disputants are unawares at variance with 
 one another, or themselves wavering, as to these pervading 
 principles of evidence. — I regard my fifth period to come to 
 an end with the decision of this question. Nevertheless, many 
 other important lines of inquiry were going forward simul- 
 taneously. 
 
 I found in the Bible itself, — and even in the very same 
 book, as in the Gospel of John, — great uncertainty and incon- 
 sistency on this question. In one place, Jesus reproves* the 
 demand of a miracle, and blesses those who believe withoutt 
 miracles ; in another, he requires that they will submit to his 
 doctrine becausej of his miracles. Now, this is intelligible, if 
 
 * Matt. xii. 39, xvi. 4. + John xx. 29. 
 
 % John xiv. 11. In x. 37, 38, the same idea seems to be intended. 
 So XV. 24. 
 
FOUXD TO BE VAIN. 89 
 
 blind external obedience is the end of religion, and not Truth 
 and inward Righteousness. An ambitious and unscrupulous 
 Church, that desires, by fair means or foul, to make men bow 
 down to her, may say, " Only believe; and all is right. The 
 end being gained, — Obedience to us, — we do not care about 
 your reasons." But God cannot speak thus to man ; and to a 
 divine teacher we should peculiarly look for aid in getting 
 clear views of the grounds of faith ; because it is by a know- 
 ledge of these that we shall both be rooted on the true basis, 
 and saved from the danger of false beliefs. 
 
 It, therefore, peculiarly vexed me to find so total a deficiency 
 of clear and sound instruction in the New Testament, and 
 eminently in the gospel of John, on so vital a question. The 
 more I considered it, the more it appeared, as if Jesus were 
 solely anxious to have people believe in Him, without caring 
 on what grounds they believed, although that is obviously the 
 main point. When to this was added the threat of " damna- 
 tion" on those who did not believe, the case became far worse : 
 for I felt that if such a threat were allowed to operate, I 
 might become a Mohammedan or a Roman Catholic. Could 
 I in any case rationally assign this as a ground for believing 
 in Christ, — " because I am frightened by his threats" — 1 
 
 Farther thought showed me that a question of logic, such as 
 I here had before me, was peculiarly one on which the propa- 
 gator of a new religion could not be allowed to dictate ; for if 
 so, every false system could establish itself. Let Hindooism 
 dictate our logic, — let us submit to its tests of a divine reve- 
 lation, and its mode of applying them, — and we may, perhaps, 
 at once find ourselves necessitated to " become little children" 
 in a Brahminical school. Might not then this very thing 
 account for the Bible not enlightening us on the topic? 
 namely, since Logic, like Mathematics, belongs to the common 
 intellect. — Possibly so: but still, it cannot reconcile us to 
 vacillations and contradictions in the Bible on so critical 
 a point. 
 
 Gradually I saw that deeper and deeper difficulties lay at 
 bottom. If Logic cannot be matter of authoritative revelation, 
 so long as the nature of the human mind is what it is, — if it 
 appears, as a fact, that in the writings and speeches of the 
 New Testament the logic is far from lucid, — if we are to 
 compare Logic with Mathematics and other sciences, which 
 grew up with civilization and long time, — we cannot doubt 
 that the apostles imbibed the logic, like the astronomy, of 
 
 G 
 
90 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 their own day, Avitli all its defects. Indeed, the same is other- 
 wise plain. Paul's reasonings are those of a Gamaliel, and 
 often are indefensible by our logical notions. John, also (as 
 I had been recently learning,) has a wonderful similarity to 
 Philo. This being the case, it becomes of deep interest to us 
 to know, — if we are to accept results at second hand from 
 Paul and John, — what ivas the sort of evidence ivhich convinced 
 ihemfi ? The moment this question is put, we seethe essential 
 defect to which we are exposed, in not being able to cross- 
 examine them. Paul says that " Christ apjieared to him :" 
 elsewhere, that he has "received of the Lord" certain facts, 
 concerning the Holy Supper : and that his Gospel was " given 
 to him by revelation." If any modern made such statements 
 to us, and on this ground demanded our credence, it would be 
 allowable, and indeed obligatory, to ask many questions of 
 him. What does he mean, by saying that he has had a 
 " revelation ?" Did he see a sigh\ or hear a sound '? or was it 
 an inward impression? and how does he distinguish it as 
 divine ?* Until these questions are fully answered, Ave have 
 no materials at all before us for deciding to accept his results : 
 to believe him, merely because he is earnest and persuaded, 
 would be judged to indicate the weakness of inexperience. 
 How then can it be pretended that we have, or can possibly 
 get, the means of assuring ourselves that the apostles held 
 correct principles of evidence and applied them justly, when 
 we are not able to interrogate them ? 
 
 Farther, it appears that our experience of delusion forces us 
 to enact a very severe test of supernatural revelation. No 
 doubt, we can conceive that which is equivalent to a new sense 
 opening to us; but then it must have verifications connecting 
 it with the other senses. Thus, a particularly vivid sort of 
 dream recurring with special marks, and communicating at 
 once heavenly and earthly knowledge, of which the latter was 
 otherwise verified, would probably be admitted as a valid sort 
 of evidence : but so intense would be the interest and duty to 
 have all unravelled and probed to the bottom, that we should 
 think it impossible to verify the new sense too anxiously, and 
 
 * A reviewer erroneeusly treats this as inculcating a denial of the pos- 
 sibility of inward revelation. It merely says, that some answer is needed 
 to these questions ; and none is given. We can make out (in my 
 opinion) that dreams and inward impressions were the form of sugges- 
 tion trusted to ; but we do not learn what precautions were used against 
 foolish credulity. 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN. 91 
 
 we should demand the fullest particulars of the divine trans- 
 action. On the contrary, it is undeniable that all such severity 
 of research is rebuked in the Scriptures as unbelief. Thft 
 deeply interesting process of receiving supernatural revelation. 
 — a revelation, not of moral principles, but of outward facts 
 and events, supposed to be communicated in a mode. wholly 
 peculiar and unknown to common men, — this process, Avhich 
 ought to be laid open and analyzed under the fullest light, if 
 we are to believe the results at second hand, is always and 
 avowedly shrouded in impenetrable darkness. There surely is 
 something here, which denotes that it is dangerous to resign 
 ourselves to the conclusions of the apostles, when their logical 
 notions are so different from ours. 
 
 I farther inquired, what sort of miracle I could conceive, 
 that would alter my opinion on a moral question. Hosea was 
 divinely ordered to go and unite himself to an impure w^oman : 
 could I possibly think that God ordered me to do so, if I 
 heard a voice in the air commanding it % Should I not rather 
 disbelieve my hearing, than disown my moral perceptions? 
 If not, where am I to stop ? I may practise all sorts of hea- 
 thenism. A man who, in obedience to a voice in the air, 
 kills his innocent wife or child, will either be called mad, and 
 shut up for safety, or will be hanged as a desperate fanatic: 
 do I dare to condemn this modern judgment of him ? Would 
 any conceivable miracle justify my slaying my wife? God 
 forbid ! It must be morally right, to l)elieve moral rather 
 than sensible perceptions. No outward impressions on the 
 eye or ear can be so valid an assurance to me of God's will, as 
 my inward judgment. How amazing, then, that a Paul or a 
 James could look on Abraham's intention to slay his son, as 
 indicating a praiseworthy faith ! — And yet not amazing : it 
 does but show, that apostles in former days, like ourselves, 
 scrutinized antiquity with different eyes from modern events. 
 If Paul had been ordered by a supernatural voice to slay 
 Peter, he would have attributed the voice to the devil, '" the 
 prince of the power of the air," and would have despised it. He 
 praises the faith of Abraham, but he certainly would never have 
 imitated his conduct. Just so, the modern divines who laud 
 Joseph's piety towards Mary, would be very differently af- 
 fected, if events and persons were transported to the present 
 day. 
 
 But to return. Let it be granted that no sensible miracle 
 would authorize me so to violate my moral perceptions its to 
 
 G 2 
 
92 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 slay (that is, to murder) my innocent wife. May it, never- 
 theless, authorize me to invade a neiglibour country, slaughter 
 the people and possess their cities, although, without such a 
 miracle, the deed would be deeply criminal ] It is impossible 
 to say that here, more than in the former case, miracles* can 
 turn aside the common laws of morality. Neither, therefore, 
 could they justify Joshua's war of extermination on the Ca- 
 naanites, nor that of Samuel on the Amalekites ; nor the 
 murder of misbelievers by Elijah and by Josiah. If we are 
 shocked at the idea of God releasing Mohammed from the 
 vulgar law of marriage, we must as little endure relaxation in 
 the great laws of justice and mercy. Farther, if only a small 
 immorality is concerned, shall we then say that a miracle may 
 justify it li Could it authorise me to plait a whij) of small 
 cords, and flog a preferment-hunter out of the pulpit ? or 
 would it justify me in publicly calling the Queen and her 
 ministers " a brood of vipers, who cannot escape the damnation 
 of hell '"^t Such questions go very deep into the heart of the 
 Christian claims. 
 
 I had been accustomed to overbear objections of this sort 
 by replying^ that to allow of their being heard would amount 
 to refusing leave to God to give commands to his creatures. 
 For, it seems, if he did command, we, instead of obeying, 
 should discuss whether the command was right and reason- 
 able ; and if we thought it otherwise, should conclude that 
 God never gave it. The extirpation of the Canaanites is 
 compared by divines to the execution of a criminal ; and it is 
 insisted, that if the voice of society may justify the execu- 
 tioner, much more may the voice of God. — But I now saw 
 the analogy to be insufficient and unsound. Insufficient, 
 because no executioner is justified in slaying those whom his 
 conscience tells him to be innocent; and it is a barbarous 
 morality alone, which pretends that he may make himself a 
 passive tool of slaughter. But next, the analogy assumes, 
 (what none of my very dictatorial and insolent critics make 
 even the faintest eflfbrt to prove to be a fact,) that God, like 
 
 * If miracles were vouchsafed on the scale of a vew sense, it ia of 
 course conceivable that they would reveal new masses of fact, tending 
 to modify our moi-al judgments of particular actions : but nothing of 
 this can be made out in Judaism or Ciiristianity.. 
 
 f A friendly reviewer derides this passage as a very feeble objection 
 to the doctrine of the Absolute Moral perfections of Jesus. It is here 
 rather feebly stated, because at that period I had not fully worked out 
 the thought. He seems to have forgotten that I am narrating. 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN". 93 
 
 man, speaks from without: that what we call Reason and 
 Conscience is not his mode of commanding and revealing his 
 will, but that words to strike the ear, or symbols displayed 
 before the senses, are emphatically and exclusively " Revela- 
 tion." Besides all this, the command of slaughter to the 
 Jews is not directed against the seven nations of Canaan only, 
 as modern theologians often erroneously assert : it is a uni- 
 versal permission of avaricious massacre and subjugation of 
 " the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not 
 of the cities of these nations," Deut. xx. 15. 
 
 The thoughts which here fill but a few pages, occupied me 
 a long while in working out ; because I consciously, with 
 caution more than with timidity, declined to follow them 
 rapidly. They came as dark suspicions or as flashing possibi- 
 lities ; and were again laid aside for reconsideration, lest I 
 should be carried into antagonism to my old creed. For it is 
 clear that great error arises in religion, by the undue ardour 
 of converts, who become bitter against the faith which they 
 have left, and outrun in zeal their new associates. So also 
 successive centuries oscillate too far on the right and on the 
 left of truth. But so happy was my position, that I needed 
 not to hurry : no practical duty forced me to rapid decision, 
 and a suspense of judgment was not an unwholesome exer- 
 cise. Meanwhile, I sometimes thought Christianity to be to 
 me, like the great river Ganges to a Hindoo. Of its value he 
 has daily experience : he has piously believed that its sources 
 are in heaven, but of late the report has come to him, that it 
 only flows from very high mountains of this earth. What is 
 he to believe 1 He knows not exactly : he cares not much : 
 in any case the river is the gift of God to him : its positive 
 benefits cannot be affected by a theory concerning its source. 
 
 Such a comparison undoubtedly implies that he who uses 
 it discerns for himself a moral excellence in Christianity, and 
 submits to it only so far as this discernment commands. I had 
 practically reached this point, long before I concluded my 
 theoretical inquiries as to Christianity itself : but in the course 
 of- this fifth period numerous other overpowering considera- 
 tions crowded upon me which I must proceed to state in 
 outline. 
 
 All pious Christians feel, and all the New Testament pro- 
 claims, that Faith is a moral act and a test of the moral and 
 
94 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 Spiritual that Is within us ; so tliat he who is without faith, 
 (faithless, unfaithful, " infidel,") is morally wanting and is cut 
 oft' from God. To assent to a religious proposition soldy in 
 obedience to an outward miracle, would be Belief; but would 
 not be Faith, any more than is scientific conviction. Bishop 
 Butler and all his followers can insist with much force on this 
 topic, when it suits them, and can quote most aptly from the 
 New Testament to the same eff'ect. They deduce, that a 
 really overjwwering miraculous proof would have destroyed 
 the moral character of Faith : yet they do not see that the 
 argument supersedes the authoritative force of outward mira- 
 cles entirely. It had always appeared to me very strange in 
 these divines, to insist on the stupendous character and con- 
 vincing power of the Christian miracles, and then, in reply to 
 the objection that they were not quite convincing, to say that 
 the detect was purposely left " to try people's Faith." Faith 
 in what? Not surely in the confessedly ill-proved miracle, 
 but in the truth as discernible by the heart without aid 0/ 
 miracle. 
 
 I conceived of two men, Nathaniel and Demas, encounter- 
 ing a pretender to miracles, a Simon Magus of the scriptures. 
 Nathaniel is guileless, sweet-hearted and of strong moral sense, 
 but in worldly matters rather a simpleton. Demas is a sharp 
 man, who gets on well in the world, quick of eye and shrewd 
 of wit, hard-headed and not to be imposed upon by his fel- 
 lows ; but destitute of any high religious aspirations or deep 
 moral insight. The juggleries of Simon are readily discerned 
 by Demas, but thoroughly deceive poor Nathaniel : what then 
 is the latter to do 1 To say that we are to receive true mira- 
 cles and reject false ones, avails not, unless the mind is pre- 
 sumed to be capable of discriminating the one from the other. 
 The wonders of Simon are as divine as the wonders of Jesus 
 to a man, who, like Nathaniel, can account for neither by 
 natural causes. If we enact the rule, that men are to " submit 
 their understandings" to apparent prodigies, and that " reve- 
 lation" is a thing of the outward senses, we alight on the un- 
 endurable absurdity, that Demas has faculties better fitted 
 than those of Nathaniel for discriminating religious truth and 
 error, and that Nathaniel, in obedience to eye and ear, which 
 he knows to be very deceivable organs, is to abandon his 
 moral perceptions. 
 
 Nor is the case altered, if instead of Simon in person, a 
 huge thing called a Church is presented as a claimant of 
 
FOUND TO CE VAI!T. 95 
 
 authority to Nathaniel. Suppose him to be a poor Spaniard, 
 surrounded by false miracles, false erudition, and all the appa- 
 ratus of reigning and unopposed Romanism. He cannot cope 
 with the priests in cleverness, — detect their juggleries, — 
 refute their historical falsehoods, disentangle their web ot 
 sophistry : but if he is truehearted, he may say : " You bid me 
 not to keep faith with heretics : you defend murder, exile, 
 imprisonment, fines, on men who will not submit their con- 
 sciences to your authority : this I see to be wicked, though 
 you ever so much pretend that God has taught it you." So, 
 also, if he be accosted by learned clergymen, who undertake 
 to prove that Jesus wrought stupendous miracles, or by 
 learned Moolahs who allege the same of Mohammed or of 
 Menu, he is quite unable to deal with them on the grounds of 
 physiology, physics, or history. — In short, nothing can be 
 plainer, than that the Tuoral and spiritual sense is the only reli- 
 gious faculty of the poor man ; and that as Christianity in its 
 origin was preached to the poor, so it was to the inward 
 senses that its first preachers appealed, as the supreme arbiters 
 in the whole religious question. Is it not then a})surd to say 
 that in the act of conversion the convert is to trust his moral 
 perception, and is ever afterwards to distrust it? 
 
 An incident had some years before come to my knowledge, 
 which now seemed instructive. An educated, highly acute and 
 thoughtful person, of very mature age, had become a convert 
 to the Irving miracles, from an inability to distinguish them 
 from those of the Pauline epistles ; or to discern anything of 
 falsity which would justify his rejecting them. But after 
 several yeai-s he totally renounced them as a miserable delu- 
 sion, because he found that a system of false doctrine was 
 growing up and was propped by them. Here was a clear 
 case of a man with all the advantages of modern education 
 and science, who yet found the direct judgment of a professed 
 miracle, that was acted before his senses, too arduous for him ! 
 He was led astray while he trusted his power to judge of 
 miracle: he was brought right by trusting to his moral per- 
 ceptions. 
 
 When we ftirther consider, that a knowledge of Natural 
 Philosoi)hy and Physiology not only does not belong to the 
 poor, but comes later in time to mankind than a knowledge of 
 morals; — that a Miracle can only be judged of by Piiilosoj)hv, 
 — that it is not easy even for philosopliers to define what is a 
 "miracle" — that to discern "a deviation from the course of 
 
96 FAITir AT SECOND HAND 
 
 nature," implies a previous certain knowledge of what the 
 course of nature is, — and that illiterate and early ages cer- 
 tainly have not this knowledge, and often have hardly even 
 the idea, — it becomes quite a monstrosity to imagine that 
 sensible and external miracles constitute the necessary process 
 and guarantee of divine revelation. 
 
 Besides, if an angel appeared to my senses, and wrought 
 miracles, how would that assure me of his moral qualities? 
 Such miracles might prove his power and his knowledge, but 
 whether malignant or benign, would remain doubtful, until 
 by purely moral evidence, which no miracles could give, the 
 doubt should be solved.* This is the old difficulty about 
 diabolical wonders. The moderns cut the knot, by denying 
 that any but God can possibly work real miracles. But to 
 establish their principle, they make their definition and verifi- 
 cation of a miracle so strict, as would have amazed the apo- 
 stles; and after all, the difficulty recurs, that miraculous 
 phenomena will never prove the goodness and veracity of 
 God, if we do not know these qualities in Him without miracle. 
 There is then a deeper and an earlier revelation of God, which 
 sensible miracles can never give. 
 
 We cannot distinctly learn what was Paul's full idea of a 
 divine revelation; but I can feel no doubt that he conceived it 
 to be, in great measure, an inward thing. Dreams and 
 visions were not excluded from influence, and more or less 
 aftected his moral judgment; but he did not, consciously and 
 on principle, beat down his conscience in submission to out- 
 ward impressions. To do so, is indeed to destroy the moral 
 character of Faith, and lay the axe to the root, not of Chris- 
 tian doctrine only, but of every possible spiritual system. 
 
 Meanwhile, new breaches were made in those citadels of my 
 creed which had not yet surrendered. 
 
 One branch of the Christian Evidences concerns itself with 
 the history and historical effects of the faith, and among Pro- 
 
 * An ingenious gentleman, well versed in history, has put forth a. 
 volume call(3d "The Restoration of Faith," in -wliich he teaches that / 
 have no r'n/hf to a cotiscioicc or to a God, until I adopt his historical con- 
 clusions. I leave his co-religionists to confute his portentous heresy; 
 but in fact it is already done more than enough in a splendid article of 
 the " "Westminster Review," July, 1852. 
 
POUND TO BE VAIN. 97 
 
 testants the efficacy of the Bible to enlighten and convert has 
 been very much pressed. The disputant, however, is apt to 
 play " fast and loose." He adduces the theory of Christianity 
 when the history is unfavourable, and appeals to the history 
 if the theory is impugned. In this way, just so much is 
 picked out of the mass of facts as suits his tirgument, and the 
 rest is quietly put aside. 
 
 I. In the theory of my early creed, (which was that of the 
 New Testament, however convenient it may be for my critics 
 to deride it as fanatical and not Christian,) cultivation of mind 
 and erudition were classed with worldly things, which might 
 be used where they pre-existed, (as riches and power may 
 sul)serve higher ends,) but which were quite extraneous and 
 unessential to the spiritual kingdom of Christ. A knowledge 
 of the Bible was assumed to need only an honest heart and 
 God's Spirit, while science, history, and philosophy were re- 
 garded as doubtful and dangerous auxiliaries. But soon after 
 the first reflux of my mind took place towards the Common 
 Understanding, as a guide of life legitimately co-ordinate with 
 Scripture, I was impressed with the consideration that Free 
 Learning had acted on a great scale for the improvement of 
 spiritual religion. I had been accustomed to believe that tlie 
 Bible'*' brought about the Protestant lleformation ; and until 
 my twenty-ninth year probably it had not occurred to me to 
 question this. But I was first struck with the thought, that 
 the Bible did not prevent the absurd iniquities of the Niceue 
 and Post Nicene controversy, and that the Church, with the 
 Bible in her hands, sank down into the gulf of Popery. How 
 then was the Bible a sufficient explanation of her recovering 
 out of Popery? 
 
 Even a superficial survey of the history shows, that the 
 first improvement of spiritual doctrine in the tenth and 
 eleventh centuries, came from a study of the moral works of 
 Cicero and Boethius ; — a fact notorious in the common his- 
 torians. The Latin moralists effected, what (strange to 
 think !) the New Testament alone could not do. 
 
 In the fifteenth century, when Constantinople was taken 
 
 * I seem to have been understood now to say that a knowledge of the 
 Bible was not a pre-requisite of the Protestant Reformation, What I 
 say is, that at this period I learned the study of the Classics to have 
 caused and determined that it should then take place ; moreover, I say, 
 that a free study of I'ther books than sacred outs is essenti.al, and always 
 was, to conquer superstition. 
 
98 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 l)y the Turks, learned Greeks were driven out to Italy and to 
 other parts of the West, and the Roman Catholic world began 
 to read the old Greek literature. All historians agree, that 
 the enlightenment of mind hence arising was a prime mover 
 of religious Reformation; and learned Protestants of Germany 
 have even believed, that the overthrow of Popish error and 
 establishment of purer truth would have been brought about 
 more equably and profoundly, if Luther had never lived, and 
 the passions of the vulgar had never been stimulated against 
 the externals of Romanism. 
 
 At any rate, it gradually opened upon me, that the free 
 cultivation of the understanding, which Latin and Greek 
 literature had imparted to Europe and our freer public life, were 
 chief causes of our religious superiority to Greek, Armenian, 
 and Syrian Christians. As the Greeks in Constantinople under 
 a centralized despotism retained no free intellect, and there- 
 fore the works of their fathers did their souls no good; so in 
 Europe, just in proportion to the freedom of learning, has 
 been the force of the result. In Spain and Italy the study of 
 miscellaneous science and independent thought were nearly 
 extinguished; in Erance and Austria they were crippled; in 
 Protestant countries they have been freest. And then we 
 impute all their effects to the Bible !* 
 
 I at length saw how untenable is the argument drawn from 
 the inward history of Christianity in favour of its superhuman 
 origin. In fact : this religion cannot pretend to self-sustcdmng 
 pov^er. Hardly was it started on its course, when it began 
 to be polluted by the heathenism and false philosophy around 
 it. With the decline of national genius and civil culture it 
 became more and more debased. So far from being able to 
 uphold the existing morality of the best Pagan teachers, it 
 became barbarized itself, and sank into deep superstition and 
 manifold moral corruption. From ferocious men it learnt 
 ferocity. When civil society began to coalesce into order, 
 Christianity also turned for the better, and presently learned 
 to use the wisdom, first of Romans, then of Greeks : such 
 studies opened men's eyes to new apprehensions of the Scrip- 
 
 * I am asked why Italy witnessed no improvement of spiritual doc- 
 trine. The reply is, that she did. The Evangelical movement there was 
 quelled only by the -Imperinl arms and the Inquisition. I am also asked, 
 why Pagan Literature did not save the ancient church from superstition. 
 I have always understood that the vast niajoi-ity of Christian teachers 
 during the decline were unacquainted with Pagan literature, ana that 
 the Church at an early period jorbade it. 
 
POUND TO BE VAIN. 99 
 
 ture and of its doctrine. By gradual and human means, 
 Europe, like ancient Greece, grew up towards better political 
 institutions; and Christianity improved with them, — the 
 Christianity of the more educated. Beyond Europe, where 
 there have been no such institutions, there has been no Pro- 
 testant Reformation: — that is in the Greek, Armenian, 
 Syrian, Coptic churches. Not unreasonably then do Franks 
 in Turkey disown the title Nazarene, as denoting that Chris- 
 tianity which has not been purified by European laws and 
 European learning. Christianity rises and sinks with political 
 and literary influences: in so far,* it does not differ from 
 other religions. 
 
 The same applied to the origin and advance of Judaism. 
 It began in polytheistic and idolatrous barbarism : it cleared 
 into a hard monotheism, with much superstition adhering to 
 it. This was fartlier improved by successive psalmists and 
 prophets, until Judaism culminated. The Jewish faith was 
 eminently grand and pure; but there is nothingt in this 
 history which we can adduce in proof of preternatural and 
 miraculous agency. 
 
 II. The facts concerning the outward spread of Christianity 
 have also been disguised by the party spirit of Christians, as 
 though there were something essentially diffet^ent in kind OiS 
 to the mode in which it began and continued its conquests, 
 from the corresponding history of other religions. But no 
 such distinction can be made out. It is general to all re- 
 ligions to begin by moral means, and proceed farther by more 
 worldly instruments. 
 
 Christianity had a great moral superiority over Roman 
 paganism, in its humane doctrine of universal brotherhood, 
 its unselfishness, its holiness; and thereby it attracted to itself 
 
 * My friend James Martineau, who insists that "a. self-sustaining 
 power " in a rehgion is a thing iiitrinsiailli/ incoHCiivahle, need not have 
 censured me for coming to the conclusion that it does not exist in 
 Christianity. In fact, I entirely agree with him ; but at the time of 
 which I here write, I had only taken the first step in his direction; and 
 I barely drew a negative conclusion, to which he perfectly assents. To 
 my dear friend's capacious and kindling mind, all the thoughts here ex- 
 pounded are prosaic and common ; being to him quite obvious, so far as 
 they are true. He is right in looking down upon them ; and, I trust, 
 by his aid, I have ad<led to my wisdom since the time of which I write. 
 Yet they were to me discoveries once, and he must not be displeased at 
 my making much of them in this connexion. 
 
 + It is the fault of my critics that I am forced to tell the reader this 
 is exhibited in my " Hebrew Monarchy." 
 
100 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 (among other and baser materials) all the purest natures and 
 most enthusiastic temperaments. Its first conquests were 
 noble and admirable. But there is nothing superhuman or 
 unusual in this. ]\Iohammedism in the same way conquers 
 those Pagan creeds which are morally inferior to it. The 
 Seljuk and the Ottoman Turks were Pagans, but adopted the 
 religion of Tartars and Persians whom they subjugated, be- 
 cause it was superior and was blended with a superior civi- 
 lization; exactly as the German conquerors of the Western 
 Empire of Rome adopted some form of Christianity. 
 
 But if it is true that the swoi'd of Mohammed was the in- 
 fluence which subjected Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Persia to 
 the religion ol Islam, it is no less true that the Eoman empire 
 was finally conquered to Christianity by the sword. Before 
 Constantine, Christians were but a small fraction of the em- 
 pire. In the preceding century they had gone on deterio- 
 rating in good sense and most probably therefore in moral 
 worth, and had made no such rapid progress in numbers as to 
 imply that by the mP"e process of conversion they would ever 
 Christianize the empire. That the conversion of Constantine, 
 such as it was, (for he was baptized only just before death,) 
 was dictated by mere worldly considerations, few modern 
 Christians will deny. Yet a great fact is here implied; viz., 
 that Christianity was adopted as a state-religion, because of 
 the great political power accruing from the organization of the 
 churches and the devotion of Christians to their ecclesiastical 
 citizenship. Ptoman statesmen well knew that a hun red 
 thousand Roman citizens devoted to the interests of Rome, 
 could keep in subjection a population of ten millions who 
 were destitute of any intense patriotism and had no central 
 objects of attachment. The Christian church had shown its 
 immense resisting power and its tenacious union, in the perse- 
 cution by Galerius; and Constantine was discerning enough 
 to see the vast political importance of winning over such a 
 body ; which, though but a small fraction ot the whole empire, 
 was the only party which could give coherence to that empire, 
 the only one which had enthusiastic adherents in every pro- 
 vince, the only one on whose resolute devotion it was possible 
 for a partizan to rely securely. The bravery and faithful 
 attachment of Christian regiments was a lesson not lost upon 
 Constantine; and we may say, in some sense, that the Chris- 
 tian soldiers in his armies conquered the empire (diat is, the 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN. 101 
 
 imperial appointments) for Christianity. But Paganism sub- 
 sisted, even in spite of imperial allurements, until at length 
 the sword of Theodosius violently suppressed heathen worship. 
 So also, it was the spear of Charlemagne which drove the 
 Saxons to baptism, and decided the extirpation of Paganism 
 from Teutonic Europe. There is nothing in all this to dis- 
 tinguish the outward history of Christianity from that of 
 Mohammedism. Barbarous tribes, now and then, venerating 
 the superiority of our knowledge, adopt our religion : so have 
 Pagan nations in Africa voluntarily become Mussulmans. 
 But neither we nor they can appeal to any case, where an old 
 State-religion has yielded without warlike compulsion to the 
 force of heavenly truth, — " charm we never so wisely." The 
 tvhole influence which Christianity exerts over the world at 
 large depends on the political history of modern Europe. 
 The Christianity of Asia and Abyssinia is perhaps as pure 
 and as respectable in this nineteenth century as it was in the 
 fourth and fifth, yet no good or great deeds come forth out of 
 it, of such a kind that Christian disputants dare to appeal. to 
 them with triumph. The politico-religious and very peculiar 
 history of European Christendom has alone elevated the 
 modern world; and as Gibbon remarks, this whole history has 
 directly depended on the fate of the great battles of Tours 
 between the Mo.ors and the Franks. The defeat of Mo- 
 hammedism by Christendom certainly has not been effected 
 by spiritual weapons. The soldier and the statesman have 
 done to the full as much as the priest to secure Europe for 
 Christianity, and win a Christendom of which Christians can 
 be proud. As for the Christendom of Asia, the apologists of 
 Christianity simply ignore it. With these facts, how can it 
 be pretended that the external history of Christianity points 
 to an exclusively divine origin ? 
 
 The author of the " Eclipse of Faith" has derided me for 
 despatching in two paragraphs what occupied Gibbon's whole 
 fifteenth chapter; but this author, here as always, misrepre- 
 sents me. Gibbon is exhibiting and developing the deep- 
 seated causes of the spread of Christianity before Constantine, 
 and he by no means exhausts the subject. I am comparing 
 the ostensible and notorious facts concerning the outward 
 conquest of Christianity with those of other religions. To ac- 
 count for the early growth of any religion, Christian, Mussul 
 man, or Mormonite, is always difficult. 
 
102 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 III. The moral advantages which we owe to Christianity 
 have been exaggerated by the same party spirit, as if there 
 were in them anything miraculous. 
 
 1. We are told that Christianity is the decisive influence 
 which has raised womankind: this does not appear to be true. 
 The old Roman matron was, relatively to her husband,^ mo- 
 rally as high as in modern Italy : nor is there any ground 
 for supposing that modern women have advantage over the 
 ancient in Spain and Portugal, where Germanic have been 
 counteracted by Moorish influences. The relative position of 
 the sexes in Homeric Greece exhibits nothing materially 
 different from the present day. In Armenia and Syria per- 
 haps Christianity has done the service of extinguishing poly- 
 gamy : this is creditable, though nowise miraculous. Judaism 
 also unlearnt j)olygamy, and made an unbidden improvement 
 upon Moses. In short, only in countries where Germanic 
 sentiment has taken root, do we see marks of any elevation of 
 the female sex superior to that of Pagan antiquity; and as 
 this elevation of the German woman in her deepest Paganism 
 was already striking to Tacitus and his contemporaries, it is 
 highly unreasonable to claim it as an achievement of Christi- 
 anity. 
 
 In point of fact, Christian doctrine, as propounded by Paul, 
 is not at all so honourable to woman as that which German 
 soundness of heart has established. With Pault the sol-e 
 reason for marriage, is, that a man may gratify instinct with- 
 out sin. He teaches, that hut for this object it would be 
 better not to marry. He Avishes that all were in this respect 
 as free as himself, and calls it a special gift of God. He does 
 not encourage a man to desire a mutual soul intimately to 
 share griefs and joys; one in whom the confiding heart can 
 repose, whose smile shall reward and soften toil, whose voice 
 shall beguile sorrow. He does not seem aware that the fiis- 
 cinations of woman refine and chasten society ; that virtuous 
 attachment has in it an element of respect, which abashes and 
 purifies, and which shields the soul, even when marriage is 
 deferred ; nor yet, that the union of two persons who have 
 uo previous affection can seldom yield the highest fruits of 
 
 * It is not to the purpose to urge the polltlcnl minority of the Roman 
 
 wife. This was a mere inference from the high power of the head of the 
 
 household. The father had right of death over his son, and (as the 
 
 lawyers stated the case) the wife was on the level of one of the children, 
 
 t 1 Cor. vii. 2—9. 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN. 103 
 
 matrimony, but often leads to the severest temptations. How 
 should he have known all this? Courtship before marriage 
 did not exist in the society oi:)en to him : hence he treats the 
 propriety of giving away a maiden, as one in which her con- 
 science, her likes and dislikes, are not concerned: 1 Cor, vii. 
 37, 38. If the law leaves tl^e parent " power over his own 
 will" and imposes no "necessity" to give her away, Paul de- 
 cidedly advises to keep her unmarried. 
 
 The author of the Apocalypse, a writer of the first century, 
 who was received in tlie second as John the apostle, holds up 
 a yet more degrading view of the matrimonial relation. In 
 one of his visions he exhibits 144,000 chosen saints, per- 
 petual attendants of " the Lamb," and places the cardinal 
 point of their sanctity in the fact, that " they were not defiled 
 with women, but were virgins." Marriage, therefore, is de- 
 filement ! Protestant writers struggle in vain against this 
 obvious meaning of the passage. Against all analogy of 
 Scriptural metaphor, they gratuitously pretend that women 
 mean idolatroics religions : namely, because in the Old Testa- 
 ment the Jewish Church is personified as a virgin betrothed 
 to God, and an idol is spoken of as her paramour. 
 
 As a result of the apostolic doctrines, in the second, third, 
 and following centuries, very gross views concerning the rela- 
 tion of the sexes prevailed, and have been everywhere trans- 
 mitted where men's morality is exclusively* formed from the 
 New Testament. The marriage service of the Church of Eng- 
 land, which incorporates the Pauline doctrine, is felt by 
 English brides and bridegrooms to contain what is so offensive 
 and degrading, that many clergymen mercifully make unlawful 
 omissions. Paul had indeed expressly denounced prohibitio7i,s 
 of marriage. In merely dissuading it, he gave advice, which, 
 from his limited horizon and under his expectation of the 
 speedy return of Christ, was sensible and good ; but when this 
 advice, with all its reasons, was made an oracle of eternal 
 wisdom, it generated the monkish notions concerning woman- 
 hood. If the desire of a wife is a \veakness, wdiich the apostle 
 would gladly have forbidden, only that he feared worse conse- 
 quences, an enthusiastic youth cannot but infer that it is a 
 higher state of perfection not to desire a wife, and therefore 
 
 * Namely, in the Armenian, Syrian, and Greek churches, and in the 
 Romish chmrch in exact proportion as Germanic and poetical influences 
 have been repressed ; that is, in proportion as the hereditary Christian 
 doctrine has been kept pure from modern innovations. 
 
A 04 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 aspires to "the crown of virginity." Here at once is full- 
 grown monkery. Hence that debasement of the imagination, 
 which is directed perpetually to the lowest, instead of the 
 highest side of the female nature. Hence the disgusting ad- 
 miration and invocation of Mary's perpetual virginity. Hence 
 the transcendental doctrine of her immaculate conception from 
 Anne, the " grandmother of God." 
 
 In the above my critics have represented me to say that 
 Christianity has done nothing for women. I have not said 
 so, but that what it has done has been exaggerated. I say : 
 If the theo7y of Christianity is to take credit from the history/ 
 of Christendom, it must also receive discredit. Taking in the 
 whole system of nuns and celibates, and the doctrine which 
 sustains it, the root of which is apostolic, I doubt whether 
 any balance of credit remains over from this side of Christian 
 history. I am well aware that the democratic doctrine of 
 " the equality of souls" has a tendency to elevate women, — 
 and the poorer orders too ; but this is not the whole of actual 
 Christianity, which is a very heterogeneous mass. 
 
 2. Again : the modern doctrine, by aid of which West 
 Indian slavery has been exterminated, is often put forward as 
 Christian; but I had always discerned that it was not Biblical, 
 and that, in respect to this great triumph, undue credit has 
 been claimed for the fixed Biblical and authoritative doctrine. 
 As I have been greatly misunderstood in my first edition, I 
 am induced to expand this topic. Sir George Stephen,* after 
 describing the long struggle in England against the West 
 Indian interest and other obstacles, says, that for some time, 
 "worst of all, we found the people, not actually against us, 
 but apathetic, lethargic, incredulous, indifferent. It was then, 
 and not till them, that we sounded the right note, and touched 
 a chord that never ceased to vibrate. To uphold slavery was a 
 crime against God ! It was a novel doctrine, but it was a 
 cry that was heard, for it would be heard. The national con- 
 science was awakened to inquiry, and inquiry soon produced 
 conviction." Sir George justly calls the doctrine novel. As 
 developed in the controversy, it laid down the general pro- 
 position, that men and women are not, and cannot he, 
 chattels; and that all human enactments which decree this, 
 are morally null and void, as sinning against the higher law 
 of nature and of God. And the reason of this lies in the 
 
 * In a tract repubhshed from the Northamptoti Mercury, Longmaa, 
 1853. 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN. 105 
 
 essential contrast of a moral personality and a cliattel. 
 Criminals may deserve to be bound and scourged, but they do 
 not cease to be persons, nor indeed do even the insane. Since 
 every man is a person, he cannot be a piece of property, nor 
 has an " owner" any just and moral claim to his services. 
 Usage, so far from conferring this claim, increases the total 
 amount of injustice ; the longer an innocent man is for- 
 cibly ke])t in slavery, the greater the reparation to which 
 he is entitled for the oppressive immorality. This doctrine I 
 now believe to be irrefutable truth, but I disbelieved it while 
 I thought the Scripture authoritative ; because I found a very 
 different doctrine there — a doctrine which is the argumenta- 
 tive stronghold of the American slaveholder. Paul sent back 
 the fugitive Onesimus to his master Philemon, with kind re- 
 commendations and apologies for the slave, and a tender 
 charge to Philemon, that he would receive Onesimus as a 
 brother in the Lord, since he had been converted by Paul in 
 the interval ; but this very recommendation, full of affection 
 as it is, virtually recognizes the moral rights of Philemon to 
 the services of his slave ; and hinting that if Onesimus stole 
 anything, Philemon should now forgive him, Paul shows per- 
 fect insensibility to the fact that the master who detains a 
 slave in captivity against his will, is guilty himself of a con- 
 tinual theft. AVhat says Mrs. Beecher Stowe's Cassy to this? 
 " Stealing ! — They who steal body and soul need not talk to 
 us. Every one of these bills is stolen — stolen from poor 
 starving, sweating creatures." Now Onesimus, in the very 
 act of taking to flight, showed that he had been submitting to 
 servitude against his will, and that the house of his owner had 
 previously been a prison to him. To suppose that Philemon 
 has a pecuniary interest in the return of Onesimus to work 
 without wages, implies that the master habitually steals the 
 slave's earnings ; but if he loses nothing by the flight, he has 
 not been wronged by it. Such is the modern doctrine, de- 
 veloped out of the fundamental fact that persons are not 
 chattels; but it is to me wonderful that it should be needful 
 to prove to any one, that this is not the doctrine of the New 
 Testament. Paul and Peter deliver excellent charges to 
 masters in regard to the treatment of their slaves, but with- 
 out any hint to them that there is an injustice in claiming 
 them as slaves at all. That slavery, as a system, is essentially 
 immoral, no Christian of those days seems to have suspected. 
 Yet it existed in its worst forms under Pvome. Whole gangs 
 
 H 
 
106 FAITH AT S£COKD HAND 
 
 of slaves were mere tools of capitalists, and were numbered 
 like cattle, with no moral relationship to the (;wner; young 
 women of beautiful person were sold as articles of voluptuous- 
 ness. Of course every such fact was looked upon by Christians 
 as hateful and dreadful; yet, I say, it did not lead them to 
 that moral condemnation of slavery, as such, which has won 
 the most signal victory in modern times, and is destined, I 
 trust, to win one far greater. 
 
 A friendly reviewer replies to this, that the apathy of the 
 early Christians to the intrinsic iniquity of the slave system 
 rose out of "their expectation of an immediate close of this 
 world's aifairs. The only reason why Paul sanctioned con- 
 tentment with his condition in the converted slave, was, that 
 ioY so short a time it was not wortli while for any man to 
 change his state." I agree to this; but it does not alter my 
 fact : on the contrary, it confirms what I say, — that the Bib- 
 lical morality is not final truth. To account for an error 
 surely is not to deny it. 
 
 Another writer has said on the above : " Let me suppose 
 you animated to go as missionary to the East to preach this 
 (Mr. Newman's) spiritual system: would you, in addition to 
 nil this, publicly denounce the social and political evils under 
 which the nations groan 1 If so, your spiritual projects would 
 soon be perfectly understood, and su^nniarily dealt with. — It 
 is vain to say, that, if commissioned by Heaven, and endowed 
 with power of working miracles, you would do so; lor you 
 cannot tell under what limitations your commission would be 
 given : it is pretty certain, that it would leave you to work a 
 on oral and spiritual system by moral and spiritual means, and 
 not allow you to turn the world upside down, and mendaciously 
 tell it that you came only to preach peace, while every syllable 
 vou uttered would be an incentive to sedition." — Eclip)se of 
 Faith, p. 419. 
 
 This writer supposes that he is attacking me, when every 
 line is an attack on Christ and Christianity. Have / pretended 
 power of working miracles 1 Have I imagined or desired that 
 miracle would shield me from persecution 1 Did Jesus not 
 " publicly denounce the social and political evils" of Judaea 1 
 was he not "summarily dealt with"? .Did he not know that 
 his doctrine would send on earth " not peace, but a sword" 1 
 and was he mendacious in saying, " Peace I leave unto you T or 
 were the angels mendacious in proclaiming, " Peace on earth, 
 goodwill among men" ? AVas not " every syllable that Jesus 
 
FOUND TO BE VAI5T. 107 
 
 uttered" in the discourse of Matth. xxiii.,"an incentive to se- 
 ditioa ]" and does this writer judge it to be mendacitij, that 
 Jesus opened by advising to obey the very men, whom he 
 proceeds to viUfy at large as immoral, oppressive, hypocritical, 
 blind, and destined to the damnation of hell '? Or have I 
 anywhere blamed the apostles because they did not exasperate 
 wicked men by direct attacks? It is impossible to ansv/er 
 such a writer as this ; for he elaborately misses to touch what 
 I have said. On the other hand, it is rather too much to re- 
 quire me to defend Jesus from his assault. 
 
 Christian preachers did not escape the imputation ot turning 
 the world upside down, and at length, in some sense, effected 
 what was imputed. It is matter of conjecture, whether any 
 greater convulsion would have happened, if the apostles had 
 done as the Quakers in America. No Quaker holds slaves : 
 why not 1 Because the Quakers teach their members that it 
 is an essential immorality. The slave-holding states are infi- 
 nitely more alive and jealous to keep up their " peculiar insti- 
 tution," than was the Roman government; yet the Quakers 
 have caused no political convulsion. I confess, to me it seems, 
 that if Paul, and John, and Peter, and James, had done as 
 these Quakers, the imperial administration would have looked 
 on it as a harmless eccentricity of the sect, and not as an in- 
 centive* to sedition. But be this as it may, I did not say 
 what else the apostles might have succeeded to enforce; I 
 merely pointed out what it was that they actually taught, and 
 that, as a fact, they did not declare slavery to be an im- 
 morality and the basest of thefts. If any one thinks their 
 course was more wise, he may be right or wrong, but his opinion 
 is in itself a concession of my fact. 
 
 As to the historical progress of Christian practice and doc- 
 trine on this subject, it is, as usual, mixed of good and evil. 
 The humanity of good Pagan emperors softened the harshness 
 of the laws of bondage, and manunwssion had always been 
 extremely common amongst the Romans. Of course, the more 
 humane religion of Christ acted still more powerfully in the 
 same direction, especially in inculcating the propriety of free- 
 ing CJiHstian slaves. This was creditable, but not peculiar, 
 
 * The Romans practised fornication at pleasure, and held it ridiculous 
 to blame them. If Paul had claimed authority to hinder them, they 
 might have been greatly exasperated ; but they had not the least objec- 
 tion to his denouncing fornication as immoral to Christians. Why not 
 slavery also ? .^ 
 
108 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 and is not a fact of such a nature as to add to the exclusive 
 claims of Christianity. To every prosdytirig religion the sen- 
 timent is so natural, that no divine spirit is needed to origi- 
 nate and establish it. Mohammedans also have a conscience 
 against enslaving Mohammedans, and generally bestow freedom 
 on a slave as soon as he adopts their religion. But no zeal 
 for human freedom has ever grown out of the purely biblical 
 and ecclesiastical system, any more than out of the Moham- 
 racdan. In the middle ages, zeal for the liberation of serfs 
 first rose in the breasts of the clergy, after the whole popula- 
 tion had become nominally Christian. It was not men, but 
 Christians, whom the clergy desired to make free : it is hard 
 to say, that they thought Pagans to have any human rights at 
 all, even to life. Nor is it correct to represent ecclesiastical 
 influences as the sole agency which overthrew slavery and 
 serfdom. The desire of the kings to raise up the chartered 
 cities as a bridle to the barons, was that which chiefly made 
 rustic slavery untenable in its coarsest form ; for a " villain " 
 who escaped into the free cities could not be recovered. In 
 later times, the first public act against slavery came from 
 republican France, in the madness of atheistic enthusiasm; 
 when she declared black and white men to be equally free, and 
 liberated the negroes of St. Domingo. In Britain, the battle 
 of social freedom has been fought chiefly by that religious sect 
 which rests least on the letter of Scripture. The bishops, and 
 the more learned clergy, have consistently been apathetic to 
 the duty of overthrowing the slave system. — I was thus led to 
 see, that here also the New Testament precepts must not be 
 received by me as any final and authoritative law of morality. 
 But I meet opposition in a quarter from which I had least 
 expected it; — from one who admits the imperfection of the 
 morality actually attained by the apostles, but avows that 
 Christianity, as a divine system, is not to be identified with 
 apostolic doctrine, but with the doctrine ultimately developed 
 in the Christian Church ; moreover, the ecclesiastical doctrine 
 concerning slavery he alleges to be truer than mine, — I mean, 
 truer than that which I have expounded as held by modern 
 abolitionists. He approves of the principle of claiming free- 
 dom, not for men, but for Christians. He says : " That Chris- 
 tianity opened its arms at all to the servile class was enough ; 
 
 for in its embrace was the sure promise of emancipation 
 
 Is it imputed as a disgrace, that Christianity put conversion 
 before manumission, and hrought them to God, ere it trusted 
 
POUND TO BE VAIN. 109 
 
 them with themselves ? . . . . It created the simultaneous obli- 
 gation to make the Pagan a convert, and the convert free." 
 
 "If our author had made his attack from the oi:)posite 
 
 side, and contended that its doctrines ' proved too much ' 
 against servitude, and assume I luith too little qucdification the 
 capacity of each man for self-rule, we should have felt more 
 hesitation in expressing our dissent." 
 
 I feel unfeigned surprize at these sentiments from one whom 
 ^. so highly esteem and admire; and considering that they 
 were written at first anonymously, and perhaps under pressure 
 of time, for a review, I hope it is not presumptuous in me to 
 think it possible that they are hasty, and do not wholly express 
 a deliberate and final judgment. I must think there is some 
 misunderstanding; for I have made no high claims about 
 capacity for self-rule, as if laws and penalties were to be done 
 away. But the question is, shall human beings, who (as all of 
 us) are imperfect, be controlled by public law, or by individual 
 caprice 1 Was not my reviewer intending to advocate some 
 form of serfdomx which is compatible with legal rights, and 
 recognizes the serf as a man; not slavery which pronounces 
 him a chattel % Serfdom and apprenticeship we may perhaps 
 leave to be reasoned down by economists and administrators ; 
 slavery proper is what I attacked as essentially immoral. 
 
 Returning then to the arguments, I reason against them as 
 if I did not know their author. — I have distinctly avowed, 
 that the effort to liberate Christian slaves was creditable : I 
 merely add, that in this respect Christianity is no better than 
 Mohammedism. But is it really no moral fault, — is it not a 
 moral enormity, — to deny that Pagans have human rights % 
 " That Christianity opened its arms at all to the servile class, 
 was enough^ Indeed ! Then either unconverted men have 
 no natural right to freedom, or Christians may withhold a 
 natural right from them. Under the plea of " bringing them 
 to God," Christians are to deny by law, to every slave who 
 refuses to be converted, the rights of husband and father, 
 rights of persons, rights of property, rights over his own 
 body. Thus manumission is a bribe to make hypocritical 
 converts, and Christian superiority a plea for depriving men 
 of their dearest rights. Is not freedom older than Chris- 
 tianity? Does the Christian recommend his religion to a 
 Pagan by stealing his manhood and all that belongs to it ? 
 Truly, if only Christians have a right to personal freedom, 
 what harm is there in hunting and catching Pagans to make 
 
110 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 slaves of them ? And this Avas exactly the " development" of 
 thought and doctrine in the Christian church. The same 
 priests who taught that Christians have moral rights to their 
 sinews and skin, to their wives and children, and to the fruit 
 of their labour, which Pagans have not, consistently developed 
 the same fundamental idea of Christian superiority into the 
 lawfulness of making war upon the heathen, and reducing 
 them to the state of domestic animals. If Christianity is to 
 have credit from the former, it must also take the credit of 
 the latter. If cumulative evidence of its divine origin is 
 found in the fact, that Christendom has liberated Christian 
 shives, must we forget the cumulative evidence afforded by the 
 assumed right of the Popes to carve out the countries of the 
 heathen, and bestow them Avith their inhabitants on Christian 
 })owers 1 Both results How logically out of the same assump- 
 tion, and were develo})ed by the same school. 
 
 But, I am told, a man must not be freed, until we have as- 
 certained his capacity for self-rule ! This is indeed a tyran- 
 nical assumption : vindicice secundum servituteni. Men are 
 not to have their human rights, until we think they will not 
 abuse them ! Prevention is to be used against the hitherto 
 innocent and injured ! The principle involves all that is arro- 
 gant, violent, and intrusive, in military tyranny and civil 
 espionage. Self-rule 1 But abolitionists have no thought of 
 exempting men from the penalties of common law, if they 
 transgress the law; we only desire that all men shall be 
 equally subjected to the law, and equally protected by it. It 
 is truly a strange inference, that because a man is possibly 
 deficient in virtue, therefore he shall not be subject to public 
 law, but to private caprice : as if this were a school of virtue, 
 and not eminently an occasion of vice. Truer far is Homer's 
 morality, who says, that a man loses half his virtue on the day 
 he is made a slave. As to the pretence that slaves are not fit 
 for freedom, those Englishmen who are old enough to re- 
 member the awful predictions which West Indian planters 
 used to pour forth about the bloodshed and confusion which 
 would ensue, if they were hindered by law from scourging 
 black men and violating black women, might, I think, afford 
 to despise the danger of enacting that men and women shall 
 be treated as men and women, and not made tools of vice and 
 victims of cruelty. If ever sudden emancipation ought to have 
 produced violences and wrong from the emancipated, it was in 
 Jamaica, where the oppression and ill-will was so great; yet 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN. IH 
 
 tlie freed blacks have not in fifteen years inflicted on the 
 whites as much lawless violence as they suffered themselves 
 in six months of apprenticeship. It is the masters of slaves, 
 not the slaves, who are deficient in self-rule ; and slavery is 
 doubly detestable, because it depraves the masters. 
 
 What degree of " worldly moderation and economical fore- 
 thought" is needed by a practical statesman in effecting the 
 liberation of slaves, it is no business of mine to discuss. I 
 however feel assured, that no constitutional statesman, having 
 to contend against the political votes of numerous and powerful 
 slave-ov/ners, who believe their fortunes to be at stake, will 
 ever be found to undertake the task at all, against the enor- 
 mous resistance of avarice and habit, unless religious teachers 
 pierce the conscience of the nation by denouncing slavery as 
 an essential wickedness. Even the petty West Indian interests 
 — a mere fraction of the English empire — were too powerful, 
 until this doctrine was taught. Mr. Canning in parliament 
 spoke emphatically against slavery, but did not dare to bring- 
 in a bill against it. When such is English experience, I 
 cannot but expect the same will prove true in America. 
 
 In replying to objectors, I have been carried beyond my 
 narrative, and have written from my i^eseiit point of view ; I 
 may therefore here complete this part of the argument, 
 though by anticipation. 
 
 The New Testament has beautifully laid down Truth and 
 Love as the culminating virtues of man ; but it has imper- 
 fectly discerned that Love is impossible where Justice does 
 not go first. Eegarding this world as destined to be soon burnt 
 up, it despaired of improving the foundations of society, and 
 laid down the principle of Non-resistance, even to Injurious 
 force, in terms so unlimited, as practically to throw its entire 
 weight into the scale of tyranny. It recognizes individuals 
 who call themselves kings or magistrates (however tyrannical 
 and usurping), as Powers ordained of God : it does not re- 
 cognize nations as Communities ordained of God, or as having 
 any power and authority whatsoever, as against pretentious 
 individuals. To obey a king, is strenuously enforced ; to resist 
 a usurping king, in a patriotic cause, is not contemplated in 
 the New Testament as under any circumstances an imaginable 
 duty. Patriotism has no recognized existence in the Christian 
 records. I am well aware of the cause of this : I do not say 
 that it reflects any dishonour on the Christian apostles ; I 
 merely remark on it as a calamitous fact, and deduce that their 
 
113 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 precepts cannot and must not be made the sufficient rule of 
 life, or they will still be (as they always have hitherto been) 
 a mainstay of tyranny. The rights of Men and of Nations 
 are wholly ignored* in the New Testament, but the authority 
 of Slave-owners and of Kings is very distinctly recorded for 
 solemn religious sanction. If it had been wholly silent, no 
 one could have appealed to its decision : but by consecrating 
 mere Force, it has promoted Injustice, and in so far has made 
 that Love impossible, which it desired to establish. 
 
 It is but one part of this great subject, that the apostles 
 absolutely command a slave to give obedience to his master in 
 all things, " as to the Lord." It is in vain to deny, that the 
 most grasphig of slave-olcners asks nothing more of aboli- 
 tionists than that they would all adopt Paul's creed; viz., 
 acknowledge the full authority of owners of slaves, tell them 
 that they are responsible to God alone, and charge them to 
 use their power righteously and mercifully. 
 
 3. Lastly : it is a lamentable fact, that not only do super- 
 stitions about Witches, Ghosts, Devils, and Diabolical Mira- 
 cles derive a strong support from the Bible, (and in fact have 
 been exploded by nothing but the advance of physical philo- 
 sophy,) — but what is far worse, the Bible alone has nowhere 
 sufficed to establish an enlightened religious toleration. This 
 is at first seemingly unintelligible : for the apostles certainly 
 would have been intensely shocked at the thought of punish- 
 ing men, in body, purse, or station, for not being Christians 
 or not being orthodox. Nevertheless, not only does the Old 
 Testament justify bloody persecution, but the New teaches t 
 that God will visit men with fiery vengeance /br holding an 
 erroneous cn^eed ; — that vengeance indeed is his, not ours ; but 
 
 * I fear it cannot be denied that the zeal for Christianity whicli began 
 to arise in our upper classes sixty years ago, was largely prompted by a 
 feeling that its precepts repress all speculations concerning the rights 
 of man. A similar cause now influences despots all over Europe. The 
 Old Testament contains the elements which they dread, and these gave 
 a political creed to our Puritans. 
 
 + More than one ci'itic flatly denies the fact. It is sufficient for me 
 here to say, that such is the obvious interpretation, and such historicnili) 
 has been the interpretation of various texts, — for instance, 2 Thess. i. 7 : 
 " The Lord Jesus shall be revealed, .... in flaming fire, taking ven- 
 geance on them that knoiv not God, and fhaf. obey not the Gospel ; who 
 shall be punished with everlasting destruction," &c. Such again is the 
 sense which all popular minds receive and must receive from Heb. x. 
 2.5 — 31. — I am willing to change teac/ies into has always been undersloud 
 to leach, if my critics think anything is gained by it. 
 
POITKD TO BE VAIIT. 113 
 
 that still the punishment is deserved. It would appear, that 
 wherever this doctrine is held, possession of power for two or 
 three generations inevitably converts men into persecutors ; 
 and in so far, we must lay the horrible desolations which 
 Europe has suffered from bigotry, at the doors, not indeed of 
 the Ciiristian apostles themselves, but of that Bibliolatry which 
 has converted their earliest records into a perfect and eternal 
 law. 
 
 IV. " Prophecy" is generally regarded as a leading evidence 
 of the divine origin of Christianity. But this also had proved 
 itself to me a more and more mouldering prop, whether I 
 leant on those which concerned Messiah, those of the New 
 Testament, or the miscellaneous predictions of the Old Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 1. As to the Messianic prophecies, I began to be pressed 
 with the difficulty of proving against the Jews that "Messiah 
 was to suffer." The Psalms generally adduced for this pur- 
 pose can in no way be fixed on Messiah. The prophecy in 
 the 9 th chapter of Daniel looks specious in the authorized 
 English version, but has evaporated in the Greek translation 
 and is not acknowledged in the best German renderings. I 
 still rested on the SSrd chapter of Isaiah, as alone fortifying 
 me against the Rabbis : yet with an unpleasantly increasing 
 perception that the system of " double interpretation" in which 
 Christians indulge, is a playing fast and loose with prophecy, 
 and is essentially dishonest. No one dreams of a " second 
 sense iLntil the lormiary sense iwoves false : all false prophecy 
 may be thus screened. The three prophecies quoted (Acts 
 xiii. 33 — 3-3) in proof of the resurrection of Jesus, are simply 
 puerile, and deserve no reply. — I felt there was something 
 unsound in all this. 
 
 2. The prophecies of the New Testament are not many. 
 First, we have that of Jesus in Matt xxiv. concerning the 
 destruction of Jerusalem. It is marvellously exact, down to 
 the capture of the city and miserable enslavement of the 
 population ; but at this point it becomes clearly and hope- 
 lessly false : namely, it declares, that " imniediately after that 
 tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, &c. &c., and then shall 
 appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall 
 all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son 
 of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great 
 glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a 
 trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect/' &c. This 
 
114 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 is a manifest description of the Great Day of Jiidgment : and 
 tlie prophecy goes on to add : "Verily I say unto you, Tliis 
 generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." 
 When we thus find a prediction to break down suddenly in 
 the middle, we have the well-known mark of its earlier part 
 being written after the event : and it becomes unreasonable 
 to doubt that the detailed annunciations of this 24th chapter 
 of Matthew, were first composed very soon after the war of 
 Titus, and never came from the lips of Jesus at all. Next : 
 we have the prophecies of the Apocalypse. Not one of these 
 can be interpreted certainly of any human affairs, except one 
 in the 17th chapter, which the writer himself has explained to 
 apply to the emperors of Eome : and that is proved false by 
 the event. — Farther, we have Paul's prophecies concerning the 
 apostacy of the Christian Church. These are very striking, 
 as they indicate his deep insight into the moral tendencies of 
 the community in which he moved. They are high testimo- 
 nies to the prophetic soul of Paul ; and as such, I cannot have 
 any desire to weaken their force. But there is nothing in 
 them that can establish the theory of supernaturalism, in the 
 face of his great mistake as to the speedy return of Christ 
 from heaven. 
 
 3. As for the Old Testament, if all its prophecies about 
 Babylon and Tyre and Edom and Ishmael and the four 
 Monarchies were both true and supernatural, what would this 
 prove 1 That God had been pleased to reveal something of 
 coming history to certain eminent men of Hebrew antiquity. 
 That is all. We should receive this conclusion with an otiose 
 faith. It could not order or authorize us to submit our souls 
 and consciences to the obviously defective morality of the 
 Mosaic system in which these prophets lived; and with 
 Christianity it has nothing to do. 
 
 At the same time I had reached the conclusion that large 
 deductions must be made from the credit of these old pro- 
 phecies. 
 
 First, as to the Book of Daniel : the 11th chapter is closely 
 historical down to Antiochus Epiphanes, after which it sud- 
 denly becomes false ; and according to different modern 
 expositors, leaps away to Mark Antony, or to Napoleon 
 Buonaparte, or to the Papacy. Hence we have a p?'ma facie 
 presumption that the book was composed in the reign of that 
 Antiochus: nor can it be proved to have existed earlier: nor 
 is there in it one word of prophecy which can be shown to have 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN. 115 
 
 been fulfilled in regard to any later era. Nay, tlie 7th chapter 
 also is confuted by the event; for the great Day of Judgment 
 has not followed upon the fourth* Monarchy. 
 
 Next, as to the prophecies of the Pentateuch. They 
 abound, as to the times which precede the century of Heze- 
 kiah; higher than which we cannot trace the Pentateuch. f 
 No prophecy of the Pentateuch can be proved to have been 
 fulfilled, which had not been already fulfilled before Heze- 
 kiah's day. 
 
 Thirdly, as to the prophecies which concern various nations, 
 — some of them are remarkably verified, as that against Baby- 
 lon; others failed, as those of Ezekiel concerning Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's wars against Tyre and Egypt. The fate predicted 
 against Babylon was delayed for five centuries, so as to lose 
 all moral meaning as a divine infliction on the haughty city. — 
 On the whole, it was clear to me, that it is a vain attempt to 
 forge polemical weapons out of these old prophets, for the 
 service of modern creeds.;]; 
 
 V. My study of John's gospel had not enabled me to sus- 
 tain Dr. Arnold's view, that it was an impregnable fortress of 
 Christianity. 
 
 In discussing the Apocalypse, I had long before felt a 
 doubt whether we ought not rather to assign that book to 
 John the apostle in preference to the Gospel and Epistles : 
 but this remained only as a doubt. The monotony also of 
 the Gospel had often excited my wonder. But I was for the 
 first time offended, on considering with a fresh mind an old 
 fact, — the great simikrity of the style and phraseology in the 
 third chapter, in the testimony of the Baptist, as we 1 as in 
 Christ's address to Nicodemus, that of John's own epistle. As 
 the three first gospels have their family likeness, which enables 
 us on hearino- a text to know that it comes out of one of the 
 three, though we perhaps know not which ; so is it with the 
 Gospel and Epistles of John. When a verse is read, we know 
 that it is either from an epistle of John, or else from the 
 
 * The four monarchies in chapters ii. and vii, are, probably, the 
 Babylonian, the Median, the Persian, the Macedonian. Interpreters 
 however blend the Medes and Persians into one, and then pretend that 
 the Roman empire is still in existence. 
 
 + The first apparent reference is by Micah (vi. 5) a contemporary of 
 Hezekiah ; which proves that an account contained in our Book of Num- 
 bers was already familiar. 
 
 \ I have had occasion to discuss most of the leading prophecies of the 
 Old Testament in my "Hebrew Monarchy." 
 
116 PAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 Jesus of John ; but often we cannot tell which. On contem- 
 plating the marked character of this phenomenon, I saw it 
 infallibly* to indicate that John has made both the Baptist 
 and Jesus speak, as John himself would have spoken; and 
 that we cannot trust the historical reality of the discourses in 
 the fourth gospel. 
 
 That narrative introduces an entirely new phraseology, with 
 a perpetual discoursing about the Father and the Son; of 
 which there is barely the germ in Matthew : — and herewith 
 a new doctrine concerning the heaven-descended personality 
 of Jesus. That the divinity of Christ cannot be proved from 
 the three first gospels, was confessed by the early Church, 
 and is proved by the labouring arguments of the modern 
 Trinitarians. What then can be clearer, than that John has 
 put into the mouth of Jesus the doctrines of half a century 
 later, which he desired to recommend? 
 
 .When this conclusion pressed itself first on my mind, the 
 name of Strauss was only beginning to be known in England, 
 and I did not read his great work until years after I had come 
 to a final opinion on this whole subject. The contemptuous 
 reprobation of Strauss in which it is fashionable for English 
 writers to indulge, makes it a duty to express my high sense 
 of the lucid force with which he unanswerably shows that the 
 fourth gospel (whoever the author was) is no faithful exhi- 
 bition of the discourses of Jesus. Before I had discerned this 
 so vividly in all its parts, it had become quite certain to me 
 that the secret colloquy with Nicodemus, and the splendid 
 testimony of the Baptist to the Father and the Son, were 
 wholly modelled out of John's own imagination. And no 
 sooner had I felt how severe was the shock to John's general 
 veracity, than a new and even graver difficulty rose upon me. 
 
 The stupendous and public event of Lazarus's resurrection, 
 — the circumstantial cross-examination of the man born blind 
 and healed by Jesus, — made those two miracles, in Dr. Arnold's 
 view, grand and unassailable bulwarks of Christianity. The 
 more I considered them, the mightier their superiority seemed 
 
 * A critic is pleased to call this a mere suspicion of my own ; in so 
 writing, people simply evade my argument. I do not ask them to adopt 
 my conviction ; I merely communicate it as mine, and wish them to 
 admit that it is my duty to follow my own conviction. It is with me no 
 mere " suspicion," but a certainty. When they cannot possibly give, 
 or pretend, any ^roo/ that the long discourses of the fourth gospel have 
 been accurately reported, they ought to be less supercilious in their 
 claims of unlimited belief. If it is right for them to follow their judgment 
 on a purely literary question, let them not carp at nie for following mi 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN. 117 
 
 to those of the other gospels. They were wrought at Jeru- 
 salem, under the eyes of the rulers, who did their utmost to 
 detect them, and could not ; but in frenzied despair, plotted to 
 kill Lazarus. How different from the frequently vague and 
 wholesale statements of the other gospels concerning events 
 which happened where no enemy was watching to expose 
 delusion ! many of them in distant and uncertain localities. 
 
 But it became the more needful to ask, How was it that the 
 other writers omitted to tell of such decisive exhibitions ? 
 Were they so dull in logic, as not to discern the superiority of 
 these? Can they possibly have known of such miracles, 
 wrought under the eyes of the Pharisees, and defying all their 
 malice, and yet have told in preference other less convincing 
 marvels ? The question could not be long dwelt on, without 
 eliciting the reply : " It is necessary to believe, at least until the 
 contrary shall be proved, that the three first writers either had 
 never heard of these two miracles, or disbelieved them." Thus 
 the account rests on the unsupported evidence of John, with a 
 weighty presumption against its truth. 
 
 When, where, and in what circumstances did John write? 
 It is agreed, that he wrote half a century after the events ; 
 when the other disciples were all dead; when Jerusalem was 
 destroyed, her priests and learned men dispersed, her nation- 
 ality dissolved, her coherence annihilated: — he wrote in a 
 tongue foreign to the Jews of Palestine, and for a foreign 
 people, in a distant country, and in the bosom of an admir- 
 ing and confiding church, which was likely to venerate him 
 the more, the greater marvels he asserted concerning their 
 Master. He told them miracles of firstrate magnitude, which 
 no one before had recorded. Is it possible for me to receive 
 them on his word, under circumstances so conducive to de- 
 lusion, and without a single check to ensure his accuracy? 
 Quite impossible ; when I have already seen how little to be 
 trusted is his report of the discourses and doctrine of Jesus. 
 
 But was it necessary to impute to John conscious and wilful 
 deception? By no means absolutely necessary; — as appeared 
 by the following train* of thought. John tells us that Jesus 
 promised the Comforter, to bring to their memory things that 
 concerned him: oh that one could have the satisfaction of 
 cross-examining John on this subject ! Let me suppose him 
 put into the witness-box ; and I will speak to him thus : " 
 
 * T am told that this defence of John is fanciful. It satifies me pro- 
 visionally ; but I do not hold myself bound to satisfy others, or to tx- 
 Tplain John's delusiveness. 
 
118 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 aged Sir, we understand that you have two memories, a 
 natural and a miraculous one: with the former you retain 
 events as other men; with the latter you recall what had been 
 totally forgotten. Be pleased to tell us now. Is it from 
 your natural or from your supernatural memory that you de- 
 rive your knowledge of the miracle wrought on Lazarus and the 
 long discourses which you narrate?" If to this question John 
 were frankly to reply, " It is solely from my supernatural 
 memory, — from the special action of the Comforter on my 
 mind:" then should I discern that he was perfectly true- 
 hearted. Yet I should also see, that he was liable to mistake 
 a reverie, a meditation, a day-dream, for a resuscitation of his 
 memory by the Spirit. In short, a writer who believes such 
 a doctrine, and does not think it requisite to warn us how 
 much of his tale comes from his natural, and how much from 
 his supernatural memory, forfeits all claim to be received as an 
 historian, witnessing by the common senses to external fact. 
 His work may have religious value, but it is that of a novel 
 or romance, not of a history. It is therefore superfluous to 
 name the many other difficulties in detail which it contains. 
 
 Thus was I flung back to the three first gospels, as, with all 
 their defects, — their genealogies, dreams, visions, devil-miracles, 
 and prophecies written after the event, — ^yet on the whole, 
 more faithful as a picture of the true Jesus, than that which 
 is exhibited in Joha. 
 
 And now my small root of supernaturalism clung the 
 tighter to Paul, whose conversion still appeared to me a 
 guarantee, that there was at least some nucleus of miracle 
 in Christianity, although it had not pleased God to give us 
 any very definite and trustworthy account. Cleady it wus 
 an error, to make miracles our foundcition ; but might we 
 not hold them as a result? Doctrine must be our founda- 
 tion; but perhaps we might believe the miracles for the 
 sake of it. — And in the epistles of Paul I thought I saw 
 various indications that he took this view. The practical 
 soundness of his eminently sober understanding had appeared 
 to me the more signal, the more I discerned the atmosphere 
 of erroneous philosophy which he necessarily breathed. But 
 he also proved a broken reed, when I tried really to lean upon 
 him as a main support. 
 
 1. The first thing that broke on me concerning Paul, was, 
 that his moral sobriety of mind was no guarantee against his 
 mistaking extravagances for miracle. This was manifest to 
 me in his treatment of the gift of tongues. 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN'. IID 
 
 So long ago as in 1830, when the Irving "miracles" com- 
 menced in Scotland, my particular attention had been turned 
 to this subject, and the Irvingite exposition of the Pauline 
 phenomena appeared to me so correct, that I was vehemently 
 predisposed to believe the miraculous tongues. But my friend 
 " the Irish clergyman" wrote me a full account of what he 
 heard with his own ears ; which was to the effect — that none 
 of the sounds, vowels or consonants, were foreign; — that the 
 strange words were moulded after the Latin grammar, ending 
 in -abus, -obus, -ebat, -avi, &c., so as to denote poverty of 
 invention rather than spiritual agency ; — and that there was 
 no interjyretation. The last point decided me, that any belief 
 which I had in it must be for the present unpractical. Soon 
 after, a friend of mine applied by letter for information as to 
 the facts to a very acute and pious Scotchman, who had be- 
 come a believer in these miracles. The first reply gave us no 
 facts whatever, but was a declamatory exhortation to believe. 
 The second was nothing but a lamentation over my friend's 
 unbelief, because he asked again for the facts. This showed 
 me| that there was excitement and delusion : yet the general 
 phenomena appeared so similar to those of the church of 
 Corinth, that I supposed the persons must unawares have 
 copied the exterior manifestations, if, after all, there was no 
 reality at bottom. 
 
 Three years sufficed to explode these tongues; and from 
 time to time I had an uneasy sense, how muck discredit they 
 cast on the Corinthian miracles. Neander's discussion on the 
 2nd Chapter of the Acts first opened to me the certainty, that 
 Luke (or the authority whom he followed) has exaggerated 
 into a gift of languages Avhat cannot have been essentially 
 different from the Corinthian, and in short from the Irvingite, 
 tongues. Thus Luke's narrative has transformed into a 
 splendid miracle, what in Paul is no miracle at all. It is true 
 that Paul speaks of iivberpretation of tongues as possible, but 
 without a hint that any verification was to be used. Besides, 
 why should a Greek not speak Greek in an assembly of his 
 own countrymen? Is it credible, that the Spirit should in- 
 spire one man to utter unintelligible sounds, and a second to 
 interpret these, and then give the assembly endless trouble to 
 find out whether the interpretation was pretence or reality, 
 when the whole difficulty was gratuitous? We grant that 
 there lyiay be good reasons for what is paradoxical; but we 
 need the stronger proof that it is a reality. Yet what in faot 
 
1^0 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 is there? and why should the gift of tongues in Corinth, as 
 described by Paul, be treated with more respect than in New- 
 man Street, London? I could find no other reply, than that 
 Paul was too sober-minded: yet his own description of the 
 tongues is that of a barbaric jargon, which makes the church 
 appear as if it " were mad," and which is only redeemed from 
 contempt by miraculous interpretation. In the Acts we see 
 that this phenomenon pervaded all the Churches; from the 
 day of Pentecost onward it was looked on as the standard 
 mark of "the descent of the Holy Spirir;" and in the conver- 
 sion of Cornelius it was the justification of Peter for admitting 
 uncircumcised Gentiles: yet not once is "interpretation" 
 alluded to, except in Paul's epistle. Paul could not go against 
 the whole Church. He held a logic too much in common with 
 the rest, to denounce the tongues as mere carnal excitement ; 
 but he does anxiously degrade them as of lowest spiritual 
 value, and wholly prohibits them where there is " no inter- 
 preter." To carry out this rule, would perhaps have sup- 
 pressed them entirely. 
 
 This however showed me, that I could not rest on Paul's 
 practical wisdom, as securing him against speculative hallu- 
 cinations in the matter of miracles ; for indeed he says : " I 
 thank my God, that I speak with tongues more than ye alV 
 
 2. To another broad fact I had been astonishingly blind, 
 though the truth of it flashed upon me as soon as I heard it 
 named; — that Paul shows total unconcern to the human 
 history and earthly teaching of Jesus, never quoting his doc- 
 trine or any detail of his actions. The Christ with whom 
 Paul held communion was a risen, ascended, exalted Lord, a 
 heavenly being, who reigned over arch- angels, and was about 
 to appear as Judge of the world : but of Jesus in the flesh 
 Paul seems to know nothing beyond the bare fact that he did* 
 " humble himself" to become man, and " pleased not himself." 
 Even in the very critical controversy about meat and di-ink, 
 Paul omits to quote Christ's doctrine, " Not that which goeth 
 into the mouth defileth the man," &c. He surely, therefore, 
 nmst have been wholly and contentedly ignorant of the oral 
 teachings of Jesus. 
 
 3. This threw a new light on the independent position of 
 Paul. That he anxiously refused to learn from the other 
 
 * Phil. ii. 5 — 8 ; Rom. xv. 3. The last suggests it was from the Psalms 
 (viz from Ps. Ixix. 9) that Paul learned the /act that Christ pleased not 
 himself. 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN. J 21 
 
 apostles, and "conferred not with flesh and blood," — not 
 having received his gospel of man, but hy the revelation of 
 Jesus Christ" — had seemed to me quite suitable to his high 
 pretensions. Any novelties which might be in his doctrine, 
 I had regarded as mere developments, growing out of the 
 common stem, and guaranteed by the same Spirit. But I 
 now saw that this independence invalidated his testimony- 
 He may be to us a supernatural, but he certainly is not a 
 natural, witness to the truth of Christ's miracles and perso- 
 nality. It avails not to talk of the opportunities which he 
 had of searching into the truth of the resurrection of Christ, 
 for we see that he did not choose to avail himself of the 
 common methods of investigation. He learned his gospel hy 
 cm internal revelation.^ He even recounts the appearance of 
 Christ to him, years after his ascension, as evidence co-ordi- 
 nate to his appearance to Peter and to James, and to 500 
 brethren at once. 1 Cor. xv. Again the thought is forced on 
 us, — how different was his logic from ours ! 
 
 To see the full force of the last remark, we ought to con- 
 ceive how many questions a Paley would have wished to ask 
 of Paul; and how many details Paley himself, if lie had had 
 the sight, would have felt it his duty to impart to his readers. 
 Had Paul ever seen Jesus when alive ? How did he recognize 
 the miraculous apparition to be the person whom Pilate had 
 crucified ? Did he see him as a man in a fleshly body, or as 
 a glorified heavenly form '? Was it in waking, or sleeping ; 
 and if the latter, how did he distinguish his divine vision 
 from a common dream? Did he see only, or did he also 
 handle 1 If it was a palpable man of flesh, how did he assure 
 himself that it was a person risen from the dead, and not an 
 ordinary living man? 
 
 Now as Paul is writing speciallyf to convince the incredu- 
 lous or to confirm the wavering, it is certain that he would 
 have dwelt on these details, if he had thought them of value 
 
 * Here, again, I have been erroneously understood to say that there 
 cannot be amj internal revelation of anything. Internal truth may be 
 internally communicated, though even so it does not become authorita- 
 tive, or justify the receiver in saying to other men, " Believe, yu?- I 
 guarantee it." But a man who, on the strength of an internal revela- 
 tion believes an external event, (past, present, or future,) is not a valid 
 witness of it. Not Paley only, nor Priestley, but James MartiueaM. 
 also, would disown his pretence to authority ; and the more so, the mora 
 imperious his claim that we believe on his word. 
 
 + This appears in v. 2, " by wliich ye are saved, — unless ye have be- 
 lieved in vain," &c. So v. 17-19. 
 
 I 
 
IL'2 FAITH AT SECOND HAND 
 
 to the argument. As he wholly suppresses them, we must 
 infer that he held them to be immaterial ; and therefore that 
 the evidence with which he was satisfied, in proof that a man 
 was risen from the dead, was either totally different in kind 
 from that which we should now exact, or exceedingly inferior 
 in rigour. It appears, that he believed in the resurrection of 
 Christ, first, on the ground of prophecy :* secondly, (I feel it 
 is not harsh or bold to add,) on very loose and wliolly unsifted 
 testimony. For since he does not afford to us the means of 
 sifting and analyzing his testimony, he cannot have judged it 
 our duty so to do ; and therefore is not likely himself to have 
 sifted very narrowly the testimony of others. 
 
 Conceive farther how a Paley would have dealt with so 
 astounding a fact, so crushing an argument, as the appearance 
 of the risen Jesus to 500 brethren at once. How would he 
 have extravagated and revelled in proof! How would he 
 have worked the topic, that " this could have been no dream, 
 no internal impression, no vain fancy, but a solid indubitable 
 fact!" How he would have quoted his authorities, detailed 
 their testimonies, and given their names and characters ! Yet 
 Paul dispatches the affair in one line, gives no details and no 
 special declarations, and seems to see no greater weight in 
 this decisive appearance, than in the vision to his single self. 
 He expects us to take his very vague announcement of the 
 500 brethren as enough, and it does not seem to occur to him 
 that his readers (if they need to be convinced) are entitled to 
 expect fuller information. Thus if Paul does not intention- 
 ally supersede human testimony, he reduces it to its minimum 
 of importance. 
 
 How can I believe at second hand, from the word of one 
 whom I discern to hold so lax notions of evidence ? Yet 
 loho of the Christian teachers was superior to Paul 1 He is 
 regarded as almost the only educated man of the leaders. Of 
 his activity of mind, his moral sobriety, his practical talants, 
 his profound sincerity, his enthusiastic self-devotion, his spiri- 
 tual insight, there is no question : but when his notions of 
 
 * 1 Cor. XV. " He rose again the third day according to the Scrip- 
 tures." This must apparently be a reference to Hosea vi. 2, to whioh 
 the margin of the Bible refers. There is no other place in the existing 
 Old Testament from which we can imagine him to have elicited the 
 rismg on the third day. Some refer to the type of Jonah. Either of 
 the two suggests how marvellously weak a proof satisfied him. 
 
FOUND TO BE VAIN. 123 
 
 evidence are infected with the errors of his fige, what elje ciin 
 we expect of the eleven, and of the multitude 1 
 
 4. Paul's neglect of the earthly teaching of Jesus might in 
 part be imputed to the nonexistence of written documents 
 and the great difficulty of learning with certainty what he 
 really had taught. — This agreed perfectly well w^ith. what I 
 already saw of the untrustworthiness of our gosptls ; but it 
 opened a chasm between the doctrine of Jesus and that of 
 Paul, and showed that Paulinism, however good in itself, is 
 not assuredly to be identified with primitive Christianity. 
 Moreover, it became clear, why James and Paul are so con- 
 trasted. James retains with little change the traditionary 
 doctrine of the Jerusalem Christians ; Paul has superadded or 
 substituted a gospel of his own. This was, I believe, point- 
 edly maintained 25 years ago by the author of " Not Paul, 
 but Jesus ;" a book which I have never read. 
 
 VII. I had now to ask, — Where are the tivdve meii of 
 whom Paley talks, as testifying to the resurrection of Christ? 
 Paul cannot be quoted as a witness, but only as a believer. 
 Of the twelve we do not even know the names, much less 
 have we their testimony. Of James and Jude there are two 
 epistles, but it is doubtful whether either of these is of the 
 twelve apostles ; and neither of them declare themselves eye- 
 witnesses to Christ's resurrection. In short, Peter and John 
 are the only two. Of these however, Peter does not attest 
 the bodily, but only the spiritual, resurrection of Jesus ; for he 
 says that Christ was* " put to death in flesh, but made alive 
 in spirit," 1 Pet. iii. 18: yet if this verse had been lost, his 
 opening address (i. 3) would have seduced me into the belief 
 that Peter taught the bodily resurrection of Jesus. So dan- 
 gerous is it to believe miracles, on the authority of words 
 quoted from a man whom we cannot cross-examine ! Thus, 
 once more, John is left alone in his testimony; and how in- 
 sufficient that is, has been said. 
 
 The question also arose, whether Peter's testimony to the 
 transfiguration (2 Pet. i. 18), was an important support. A 
 first objection might be drawn from the sleep ascribed to tho 
 three disciples in the gospels; if the narrative were at all 
 
 * Such is the most legitimate translation. That in the received version 
 is barely a possible meaning. There is no such distinction of preposi- 
 tions as (II and by in this passage. 
 
 I 2 
 
]24 HISTORY 
 
 trustworthy. But a second and greater difficulty arises in the 
 doubtful authenticity of the second Epistle of Peter. 
 
 Neander positively decides against that epistle. Among 
 many reasons, the similarity of its second chapter to the 
 Ejjistle of Jude is a cardinal fact. Jude is supposed to be 
 original ; yet his allusions show him to be post-apostolic. If 
 so, the second Epistle of Peter is clearly spurious. — Whether 
 this was certain, I could not make up my mind : but it was 
 manifest that where such doubts may be honestly entertained, 
 no basis exists to found a belief of a great and significant 
 miracle. 
 
 On the other hand, both the Transfiguration itself, and the 
 fiery destruction of Heaven and Earth prophesied in the third 
 chapter of this epistle, are open to objections so serious, as 
 mythical imaginations, that the name of Peter will hardly 
 guarantee them to those with whom the general evidence for 
 the miracles in the gospels has thoroughly broken down. 
 
 On the whole, one thing only was clear concerning Peter's 
 faith ; — that he, like Paul, was satisfied with a kind of evi- 
 dence for the resurrection of Jesus which fell exceedingly 
 Bhort of the demands of modern logic : and that it is absurd in 
 us to believe, barely because they believed. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HISTORY DISCOVERED TO BE NO PART OF RELIGION. 
 
 After renouncing any " Canon of Scripture" or Sacred Letter 
 at the end of my fourth period; I had been forced to abandon 
 all " Second-hand Faith" by the end of my fifth. If asked 
 why I believed this or that, I could no longer say, " Because 
 Peter, or Paul, or John believed, and I may thoroughly trust 
 that they cannot mistake." The question now pressed hard, 
 whether this was equivalent to renouncing Christianity. 
 
 Undoubtedly, my positive belief in its miracles had evapo- 
 rated ; but I had not arrived at a positive (disbelief. I still 
 felt the actual benefits and comparative excellencies of this 
 religion too remarkable a phenomenon to be scorned for defect 
 of proof. In Morals likewise it happens, that the ablest 
 practical expounders of truth may make strange blunders as to 
 the foundations and ground o-f belief: why was this impossible 
 
IS NOT RELIGION. 125 
 
 as to the apostles 1 Meanwhile, it did begin to appear to 
 myself remarkable, that I continued to love and have pleasure 
 in so much that I certainly disbelieved. I perused a chapter 
 of Paul or of Luke, or some verses of a hymn, and although 
 they appeared to me to abound with error, I found satisfaction 
 and profit in them. Why was this ? was it all fond prejudice, 
 — an absurd clinging to old associations ? 
 
 A little self-examination enabled me to reply, that it was no 
 ill-grounded feeling or ghost of past opinions; but that my 
 religion always had been, and still was, a state of sentiment 
 toward God, far less dependent on articles of a creed, than 
 once I had unhesitatingly believed. The Bible is pervaded by 
 a sentiment,* which is implied ever ^■ where, — viz. the intimate 
 sympathy of the Pure and Perfect God with tlie heart of each 
 faithful worshipper. This is that which is wanting in Greek 
 philosophers, English Deists, German Pantheists, and all for- 
 malists. This is that which so often edifies me in Christian 
 writers and speakers, when I ever so much disbelieve the 
 letter of their sentences. Accordingly, though I saw more and 
 more of moral and spiritual imperfection in the Bible, I by no 
 means ceased to regard it as a quarry whence I might dig 
 precious metal, though the ore needed a refining analysis : and 
 I regarded this as the truest essence and most vital point in 
 Christianity, — to sympathize with the great souls from whom 
 its spiritual eminence has flowed; — to love, to hope, to rejoice, 
 to trust with them ; — and not, to form the same interpretations 
 of an ancient book and to take the same views of critical 
 argument. 
 
 My historical conception of Jesus had so gradually melted 
 into dimness, that he had receded out of my practical religion, 
 I knew not exactly when. I believe that I must have disused 
 any distinct prayers to him, from a growing opinion that he 
 ought not to be the object of worship, but only the way by 
 whom we approach to the Father ; and as in fact we need no 
 such " way" at all, this was (in the result) a change from 
 practical Ditheism to pure Theism. His "mediation"' was to 
 me always a mere name, and, as I believe, would otherwise 
 
 * A critic presses me with the question, how I can doubt that doc- 
 trine so holy dimes from God. He professes to review my book on the Soul; 
 yet, apparently because he himself rf/sbelieves the doctrme of the Holy 
 Spirit taught alike in the Psalms and Prophets, and in the New Testa- 
 ment, — he cannot help forgetting that I profess to believe it. He is not 
 singular in his dulness. That the sentiment above is necessarily inde- 
 pendent of Biblical aulhorily, see p. 133. 
 
126 HISTORY 
 
 have been misclilevous.* — Simultaneously a great uncertainty 
 had grown on me, how much of the discourses put into the 
 mouth of Jesus was really uttered by him ; so that I had in 
 no small measure to form him anew to my imagination. 
 
 But if religion is addressed to, and must be judged by, our 
 moral faculties, how could I believe in that painful and gra- 
 tuitous personality, — The Devil ? — He also had become a 
 \vaning phantom to me, perhaps from the time that I saw the 
 demoniacal miracles to be fictions, and still more when proofs 
 of manifold mistake in the New Testament rose on me. This 
 however took a solid form of positive dishel'ie?, when I inves- 
 tigated the history of the doctrine, — I forget exactly in what 
 stage. For it is manifest, that the old Hebrews believed only 
 in evil spirits sent by God to do his bidding, and had no idea 
 of a rebellious Spirit that rivalled God. That idea was first 
 imbibed in the Babylonish captivity, and apparently therefore 
 must have been adopted from the Persian Ahriman, or from 
 the ''Melek Taous," the "Sheitan" still honoured by the Yezidi 
 with mysterious fear. That the serpent in the early part of 
 Genesis denoted the same Satan, is probable enough ; but this 
 only goes to show, that that narrative is a legend imported 
 from farther East; since it is certain that the subsequent 
 Hebrew literature has no trace of such an Ahriman. The 
 Book of Tobit and its demon show how wise in these matters 
 the exiles in Nineveh were beuinning' to be. The Book of 
 Daniel manifests, that by the time of Antiochus Epiphanes the 
 Jews had learned each nation to have its guardian spirit, good 
 or evil; and that the fates of nations depend on the invisible 
 conflict of these tutelary powers. In Paul the same idea is 
 strongly brought out. Satan is the prince of the power of the 
 air; with principalities and powers beneath him; over all of 
 whom Christ won the victory on his cross. In the Apocalypse 
 we read the Oriental doctrine of the " seven angels who stand 
 before God." As the Christian tenet thus rose among the 
 Jews from their contact with Eastern superstition, and was 
 propagated and expanded while prophecy was mute, it cannot 
 be ascribed to " divine supernatural revelation" as the source. 
 The ground of it is clearly seen in infant speculations on the 
 cause of moral evil and of national calamities. 
 
 Thus Christ and the Devil, the two poles of Christendom, 
 had faded away out of my spiritual vision ; there were left the 
 
 * I do not here e-nlarge on this, as it is discussed in my treatise on 
 The Sou], 2nd edition, p. 7<3, or 3rd edition, p. 62, 
 
IS NOT RELIGION. 12'^ 
 
 more vividly, God and Man. Yet I had not finally renounced 
 the possibility, that Jesus might have had a divine mission to 
 stimulate all our spiritual faculties, and to guarantee to us a 
 future state of existence. The abstract arguments for the im- 
 mortality of the soul had always appeared to me vain trifling ; 
 and I was deeply convinced that nothing could assure us of a 
 future state but a divine communication. In what mode this 
 might be made, I could not say a 2)non : might not this 
 really be the great purport of Messiahship 1 was not this, if 
 any, a worthy ground for a divine interference 1 On the con- 
 trary, to heal the sick did not seem at all an adequate motive 
 for a miracle ; else, why not the sick of our own day 1 Cre- 
 dulity had exaggerated, and had represented Jesus to have 
 wrought miracles : but that did not wholly disprowe the mircicle 
 of resurrection (whether bodily or of whatever kind), said to 
 have been wrought by God upon him, and of which so very 
 intense a belief so remarkably propagated itself. Paul indeed 
 believed it* from prophecy ; and, as we see this to be a delu- 
 sion, resting on Rabbinical interpretations, we may perhaps 
 account thus for the belief of the early church, without in any 
 way admitting the fact. — Here, however, I found I had the 
 clue to my only remaining discussion, the primitive Jewish 
 controversy. Let us step back to an earlier stage than John's 
 or Paul's or Peter's doctrine. We cannot doubt that Jesus 
 claimed to be Messiah : what then was Messiah to be ? and, 
 did Jesus (though misrepresented by his disciples) truly fulfil 
 his own claims 1 
 
 The really Messianic prophecies appeared to me to be far 
 fewer than Is commonly supposed. I found such in the 9th 
 and Uth of Isaiah, the oth of Micah, the 9th of Zechariah, in 
 the 72nd Psalm, In the 37th of Ezekiel, and, as I supposed, in 
 the 50th and 53rd of Isaiah. To these nothing of moment 
 could be certainly added ; for the passage in Dan. Ix. Is ill- 
 translated In the English version, and I had already concluded 
 that the Book of Daniel Is a spurious fabrication. From 
 ;Micah and Ezekiel It appeared, that Messiah was to come 
 from Bethlehem and either be David himself, or a spiritual 
 David : from Isaiah It Is shown that he Is a rod out of the 
 stem of Jesse. — It Is true, I found no proof that Jesus did 
 come from Bethlehem or from the stock of David ; for the 
 tales in Matthew and Luke refute one another, and have 
 clearly been generated by a desire to verify the prophecy. 
 .* 1 Cor. XV. 3. Compare Acts xiii. 33, Zi, 35 • al'^n kcU ii. 27, 31. 
 
i28 ' HISTORY 
 
 But genealogies for or against Messialisliip seemed to me a 
 mean argument; and the fact of the pro})liets demanding a 
 carnal descent in Messiah struck me as a worse objection than 
 that Jesus had not got it, — if this could be ever proved. The 
 ]\Iessiah of Micah, however, was not Jesus; for he was to 
 deliver Israel from the Assyrians, and his whole description is 
 literally warlike. Micah, writing when the name of Senna- 
 cherib was terrible, conceived of a powerful monarch on the 
 tlirone of David who was to subdue him : but as this prophecy- 
 was not verified, the imaginary object of it was looked for as 
 *' Messiah," even after the disappearance of the formidable 
 Assyrian power. This undeniable vanity of Micah's prophecy 
 extends itself also to that in the 9th chapter of his contem- 
 porary Isaiah, — if indeed that splendid passage did not really 
 point at the child Hezekiah. Waiving this doubt, it is at any 
 rate clear that the marvellous child on the throne of David 
 was to break the yoke of the oppressive Assyrian; and none 
 of the circumstantials are at all appropriate to the historical 
 Jesus. 
 
 In the 37th of Ezekiel the (new) David is to gather Judah 
 and Israel " from the heathen whither they be gone" and to 
 " make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of 
 Israel:''' and Jehovah adds, that they shall " dwell in the land 
 which I gave unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers 
 dwelt: and they shall dwell therein, they and their children 
 and their children's children for ever: and my servant David 
 shall be their prince for ever." It is trifling to pretend that 
 tlte land j^romised to Jacob, and in ivhich the old Jews dwelt, 
 was a spiritual, and not the literal Palestine; and therefore it 
 is impossible to make out that Jesus has fulfdled any part of 
 this representation. The description however that follows 
 (Ezekiel xl. &c.) of the new city and temple, with the sacri- 
 fices offered by " the priests the Levites, of the seed of Zadok," 
 and the gate of the sanctuary for the prince (xliv. 3), and his 
 elaborate account of the borders of the land (xlviii. 13-23), 
 place the earnestness of Ezekiel's literalism in still clearer 
 light. 
 
 The 72nd Psalm, by the splendour of its predictions con- 
 cerning the grandeur of some future king of Judah, earns the 
 title of Messianic, because it was never falfilled by any his- 
 torical king. But it is equally certain, that it has had no 
 appreciable fulfilment in Jesus. 
 
 But what of the 11th of Isaiah? Its portraiture is not so 
 
IS NOT RELIGIO>«"» 129 
 
 much that of a king, as of a prophet endowed with superhu- 
 man power. " lie shall smite the earth with the rod of his 
 mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the 
 wicked." A Paradisiacal state is to follow. — This general 
 description ffiay be verified by Jesus hereaften' ; but we have 
 no manifestation, which enables us to call the fulfilment a fact. 
 Indeed, the latter part of the prophecy is out of place for a 
 time so late as the reign of Augustus ; which forcibly denotes 
 that Isaiah was predicting only that which was his immediate 
 political aspiration : for in this great day of Messiah, Jehovah 
 is to gather back his dispersed people from Assyria, Egypt, 
 and other parts ; he is to reconcile Judah and Ej)hraim, (who 
 had been perfectly reconciled centuries before Jesus was born.) 
 and as a result of this Messianic glory, the people of Israel 
 " shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines towards the 
 west ; they shall spoil them of the east together : they shall 
 lay their hand on Edom and Moah, and the children of -4 m- 
 mon shall obey them." But Philistines, Moab and Amnion, 
 were distinctions entirely lost before the Christian era. — 
 Finally, the Red Sea is to be once more passed miraculously 
 by the Israelites, returning (as would seem) to their fathers' 
 soil. Take all these particulars together, and the prophecy is 
 neither fulfilled in the past nor possible to be fultilled in the 
 future. 
 
 The prophecy which we know as Zechariah ix.-xi. is be- 
 lieved to be really from a prophet of uncertain name, con- 
 temporaneous with Isaiah. It was written while Ephraim 
 was still a people, i. e. before the capture of Samaria by Shal- 
 manezer; and xi. 1-3 appears to howl over the recent devas- 
 tations of Tiglathpilezer. The prophecy is throughout full of 
 the politics of that da}^ No part of it has the most remote 
 or imaginable* similarity to the historical life of Jesus, except 
 that he once rode into Jerusalem on an ass; a deed which 
 cannot have been peculiar to him, and which Jesus moreover 
 appears to have planned with the expresst purpose of assimi- 
 lating himself to the lowly king here described. Yet such an 
 isolated act is surely a carnal and beggarly fulfilment. To 
 
 * I need not except the potter and the thirty pieces of silver (Zech. 
 xi. 13), for the polti;r is a mere absurd error of text or translation. The 
 Septuagint has the /oundry. De Wette has the treasury, with whom 
 Hitzig and Ewald agree. So Winer (Simoni's Lexicon). 
 
 + Some ot my critics are very angry with me for saying this ; but 
 Matthew himseh (xxi. 4) ahnost says it : — "J/l t/iis irns doue, that it 
 tniyht be fuljilleil," &c. Do my critics mean to tell me that Jesus was 
 
l30 HISTORY 
 
 ride on an ass is no mark of humility in those who must 
 ordinarily go on foot. The prophet cl arly means that the 
 righteous king is not to ride on a warhorse and trust in ca- 
 valry, as Solomon and the Egyptians, (see Ps. xx. 7. Is. 
 xxxi. 1-3, XXX. 16,) but is to imitate the lowliness of David 
 and the old judges, who rode on young asses; and is to be a 
 lover of peace. 
 
 Chapters 50 and 53 of the pseudo-Isaiah remained ; which 
 contain many phrases so a])tly descriptive of the sufferings of 
 Christ, and so closely knit up with our earliest devotional 
 associations, that they were the very last link of my chain 
 that snapt. Still, I could not conceal from myself, that no 
 exactness in this prophecy, however singular, could avail to 
 make out that Jesus was the Messiah of Hezekiah's prophets. 
 There must be some explanation ; and if I did not see it, that 
 must probably arise from prejudice and habit. — In order 
 therefore to gain freshness, I resolved to peruse the entire 
 prophecy of the pseudo-Isaiah in Lowth's version, from ch. xl. 
 onward, at a single sitting. 
 
 This prophet writes from Babylon, and has his vision full 
 of the approaching restoration of his people by Cyrus, whom 
 he addresses by name. In ch. xliii. he introduces to us an 
 eminent and " chosen servant of God," whom he invests with 
 all the evangelical virtues, and declares that he is to be a light 
 to the Gentiles. In ch. xliv. (v. 1 — also v. 21) he is named 
 as " Jacob my servant, and Israel whom I have chosen." 
 The appellations recur in xlv. 4 : and in a far more striking 
 passage, xlix. 1-12, which is eminently Messianic to the 
 Christian ear, except that in v. 3, the speaker distinctly declares 
 himself to be (not Messiah, but) Israel. The same speaker 
 continues in ch. 1., which is equally Messianic in sound. 
 In ch. Hi. the prophet speaks of him, (vv. 13-15) but the 
 subject of the chapter is restoration from Babylon; and from 
 this he runs on into the celebrated ch. liii. 
 
 It is essential to understand the same "elect servant" all 
 along. He is many times called Israel, and is often addressed 
 in a tone quite inapplicable to Messiah, viz. as one needing 
 salvation himself; so in ch. xliii. Yet in ch. xlix. this elect 
 Israel is distinguished from Jacob and Israel at large: thus 
 there is an entanglement. Who can be called on to risk his 
 eternal hopes on his skilful unknotting of it 1 It appeared 
 
 not aware of the prophecy ? or if -Jesus did know of the prophecy, will 
 they tell me that he was not designing to fulfil it ? I feel such carping 
 to be little short of hypocrisy. 
 
IS NOT BELTGION. 131 
 
 however to me most probable, that as our high Churchmen 
 distinguish " mother Church" from the individuals who com- 
 pose the Church, so the " Israel" of this prophecy is the ideal- 
 izing of the Jewish Church; which I understood to be a 
 current Jewish interpretation. The figure perhaps embar- 
 rasses us, only because of the male sex attributed to the ideal 
 servant of God; for when " Zion" is spoken of by the same 
 prophet in the same way, no one finds difficulty, or imagines 
 that a female person of superhuman birth and qualities must 
 be intended. 
 
 It still remained strange that in Isaiah liii. and Pss. xxii. 
 and Ixix, there should be coincidences so close with the suf- 
 ferings of Jesus : but I reflected, that I had no proof that the 
 narrative had not been strained by credulity,* to bring it into 
 artificial agreement with these imagined predictions of his death. 
 And herewith my last argument in favour of views for which 
 I once would have laid down my life, seemed to be spent. 
 
 Nor only so: but I now reflected that the falsity of the 
 prophecy in Dan, vii. (where the coming of "a Son of ]\Ian'' 
 to sit in universal judgment follows immediately upon the 
 break-up of the Syrian monarchy,) — to say nothing of the 
 general proof of the spuriousness of the whole Book of Daniel, 
 — ought perhaps long ago to have been seen by me as of 
 more cardinal importance. For if we believe anything at all 
 about the discourses of Christ, we cannot doubt that he se- 
 lected ^^ Son of Mcun'^ as his favourite title; which admits no 
 interpretation so satisfactory, as, that he tacitly refers to the 
 seventh chapter of Daniel, and virtually bases his pretensions 
 upon it. On the whole, it was no longer defect of proof 
 which presented itself, but positive disproof of the primitive 
 and fundamental claim. 
 
 I could not for a moment allow weight to the topic, that 
 " i^ is dangerous to ^/sbelieve wrongly ;" for I felt, and had 
 always felt, that it gave a premium to the most boastful and 
 tyrannizing superstition : — as if it were not equally dangerous 
 to believe wrongly! Nevertheless, I tried to plead for farther 
 delay, by asking : Is not the subject too vast for me to decide 
 upon'? — Think how many wise and good men have fully ex- 
 amined, and have come to a contrary conclusion. What a 
 
 * Apparently on these words of mine, a reviewer builds up the infer- 
 ence that I reijard "the EvangeUcal narrative as a mythical fancy-piece 
 imitated from David and Isaiah." I feel this to be a great caricature. 
 My words are carefully limited to a few petty details of one part of the 
 narrative. 
 
132 HISTORY 
 
 grasp of knowledge and experience of the liuman mind it 
 requires! Perhaps too I have unawares been carried away by 
 a love of novelty, which I have mistaken for a love of truth. 
 
 But the argument recoiled upon me. Have I not been 25 
 years a reader of the Bible? have I not full 18 years been a 
 student of Theology? have I not employed 7 of the best years 
 of my life, with ample leisure, in this very investigation; — 
 without any intelligible earthly bribe to carry me to my pre- 
 sent conclusion, against all my interests, all my prejudices 
 and all my education? There are many far more learned men 
 than I, — many men of greater power of mind; but there are 
 also a hundred times as many who are my inferiors ; and if I 
 have been seven years labouring in vain to solve this vast 
 literary problem, it is an extreme absurdity to imagine that 
 the solving of it is imposed by God on the whole human race. 
 Let me renounce my little learning; let me be as the poor 
 and simple: what then follows? Why, then, still the same 
 thwg follows, that difficult literary problems concerning dis- 
 tant history cannot afford any essential part of my religion. 
 
 It is with hundreds or thousands a favourite idea, that " they 
 have an inward witness of the truth of (the historical and 
 outward facts of) Christianity." Perhaps the statement would 
 bring its own refutation to them, if they would express it 
 clearly. Suppose a biographer of Sir Isaac Newton, after 
 narrating his sublime discoveries and ably stating some of his 
 most remarkable doctrines, to add, that Sir Isaac was a great 
 magician, and had been used to raise spirits by his arts, and 
 finally was himself carried up to heaven one night, while he was 
 gazing at the moon ; and that this event had been foretold by 
 Merlin : — it would surely be the height of absurdity to dilate 
 on the truth of the Newtonian theory as " the moral evidence" 
 of the truth of the miracles and prophecy. Yet this is what 
 those do, who adduce the excellence of the precepts and spi- 
 rituality of the general doctrine of the New Testament, as 
 the "moral evidence" of its miracles and of its fulfilling the 
 Messianic prophecies. But for the ambiguity of the word 
 doctrine, probably such confusion of thought would have been 
 impossible. "Doctrines" are either spiritual truths, or are 
 statements of external history. Of the former we may have 
 an inward witness ; — that is their proper evidence ; — but the 
 latter must depend upon adequate testimony and various 
 kinds of criticism. 
 
IS NOT RELIGION. 133 
 
 How quickly might I have come to my corickision, — how 
 much weary thought and useless labour might I have spared, — 
 if at an earlier time this simple truth had been pressed upon me, 
 that since the religious faculties of the poor and half-educated 
 cannot investigate Historical and Literary questions, therefore 
 these questions cannot constitute an essential part of Religion. 
 — But perhaps I could not have gained this result by any 
 abstract act of thought, from want of freedom to think : and 
 there are advantages also in expanding slowly under great 
 pressure, if one can expand, and is not crushed by it. 
 
 I felt no convulsion of mind, no emptiness of soul, no in- 
 ward practical change : but I knew that it would be said, this 
 was only because the force of the old influence was as yet 
 unspent, and that a gradual declension in the vitality of my 
 religion must ensue. More than eight years have since past, 
 and I feel I have now a right to contradict that statement. 
 To any " Evangelical" I have a right to say, that while he has 
 a single, I have a cJoiible experience; and I know, that the 
 spiritual fruits which he values, have no connection whatever 
 with the complicated and elaborate creed, which his school 
 imagines, and I once imagined, to be the roots out of which 
 they are fed. That they depend directly on the heart's belief 
 in the sympathy of God with individual man,'^ I am well 
 assured : but that doctrine does not rest upon the Bible or 
 upon Christianity; for it is a postulate, from which every 
 Christian advocate is forced to start. If it be denied, he can- 
 not take a step forward in his argument. He talks to men 
 about Sin and Judgment to come, and the need of Salvation, and 
 so proceeds to the Saviour. But his very first step, — the idea 
 of Sin, — assumes that God concerns himself with our actions, 
 words, thoughts; assumes therefore that sympathy of God 
 with every man, which (it seems) can only be known by an 
 infallible Bible. 
 
 I know that many Evangelicals will reply, that I never can 
 have had "the true" faith ; else I could never have lost it : and 
 as for my not being conscious of spiritual change, they will 
 accept this as confirming their assertion. Undoubtedly I can- 
 not prove that I ever felt as they now feel : perhaps they love 
 their present opinions Tnore than truth, and are careless to 
 
 * I did not calculate that any assailant would be so absurd as to 
 lecture me on the topic, that God has no sympathy with our siim and 
 follies. Of course what I mean is, that he has complacency in our moral 
 perfection. See p. 125 above. 
 
134 HISTORY 
 
 exaiTiine and verify tlicm; with that I claim no fellowship. 
 But there are Christians, and Evangelical Christians, of another 
 stamp, who love their creed, only because they believe it to be 
 true, but love truth, as such, and truthfulness, more than any 
 creed : with these I claim fellowship. Their love to God and 
 man, their allegiance to righteousness and true holiness, will 
 not be in suspense and liable to be overturned by new dis- 
 coveries in geology and in ancient inscriptions, or by improved 
 criticism of texts and of history, nor have they any imaginable 
 interest in thwarting the advance of scholarship. It is strange 
 indeed to undervalue that Faith, which alone is purely moral 
 and spiritual, alone rests on a basis that cannot be shaken, 
 alone lifts tlie possessor above the conflicts of erudition, and 
 makes it impossible for him to fear the increase of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 I fully expected that reviewers and oj^ponents from the 
 evangelical school would laboriously insinuate or assert, that 
 I neve)- was a Christian and do not understand anything 
 about diristianity spiritually. My expectations have been 
 more than fulfilled; and the course which my assailants have 
 taken leads me to add some topics to the last paragraph. I 
 say then, that if I had been slain at the age of twenty-seven, 
 when I was chased* by a mob of infuriated Mussulmans for 
 selling New Testaments, they would have trumpeted me as an 
 eminent saint and martyr. I add, that many circumstances 
 \^athin easy possibility might have led to my being engaged as 
 an official teacher of a congregation at the usual age, which 
 would in all probability have arrested my intellectual develop- 
 ment, and have stereotyped my creed for many a long year ; 
 and then also they would have acknowledged me as a Chris- 
 tian. A little more stupidity, a little more worldliness, a 
 little more mental dishonesty in me, or perhaps a little more 
 kindness and management in others, would have kept me in 
 my old state, which was acknowledged and would still be 
 acknowledged as Christian. To try to disown me now, is 
 an impotent superciliousness. 
 
 At the same time, I confess to several moral changes, as the 
 result of this change in my creed, the principal of which are 
 the following. 
 
 * This was at Aintab, in the north of Syria. One of my companions 
 was caught by the mob and beaten (as they probably thought) to death. 
 But he rectjvered very sunilarly to Paul, in Acts xiv. 20, after long Ij.ing 
 
IS NOT RELIGION. 135 
 
 1. I have found that my old belief narrowed my affections. 
 It taught me to bestow peculiar love on "the people of 
 
 God," and it assigned an intellectual creed as one essential 
 mark of this people. That creed may be made more or less 
 stringent; but when driven to its minimum, it includes a re- 
 cognition of the historical proposition, that "the Jewish 
 teacher Jesus fulfilled the conditions requisite to constitute 
 him the Messiah of the ancient Hebrew prophets." This pro- 
 position has been rejected by very many thoughtful and sin- 
 cere men in England, and by tens of thousands in France, 
 Germany, Italy, Spain, To judge rightly about it, is neces 
 sarily a problem of literary criticism ; which has both to inter 
 pret the Old Scriptures and to establish how much of th« 
 biograi^hy of Jesus in the New is credible. To judge wronglj 
 about it, may prove one to be a bad critic, but not a less good 
 and less pious man. Yet my old creed enacted an affirmative 
 result of this historical inquiry, as a test of one's spiritual 
 state, and ordered me to think harshly of men like Marcus 
 Aurelius and Lessing, because they did not adopt the conclu- 
 sion which the professedly uncritical have established. It 
 possessed me with a general gloom concerning Mohamme- 
 dans and Pagans, and involved the whole course of history and 
 prospects of futurity in a painful darkness from which I am 
 relieved. 
 
 2. Its theory was one of selfishness. That is, it inculcated 
 that my first business must be, to save my soul from future 
 punishment, and to attain future happiness; and it bade me 
 to chide myself, when I thought of nothing but about doing 
 present duty and blessing God for present enjoyment. 
 
 In point of fact, I never did look much to futurity, nor even 
 in prospect of death could attain to any vivid anticipations or 
 desires, much less was troubled with fears. The evil which I 
 suffered from my theory, was not (I believe) that it really 
 made me selfish — other influences of it were too powerful : — 
 but it taught me to blame myself for unbelief, because I was 
 not sufficiently absorbed in the contemplation of my vast per- 
 sonal expectations. I certainly here feel myself delivered 
 from the danger of factitious sin. 
 
 The selfish and self-righteous texts come principally from 
 the three first gospels, and are greatly counteracted by the 
 deeper spirituality of the apostolic epistles. I therefore by no 
 means charge this tendency indiscriminately on the New 
 Testament. 
 
I 36 HISTORY 
 
 3. It laid clown that " the time is short ; the LobD is at 
 HAND : the things of this world pass away, and deserve not 
 our affections : the only thing worth spending one's energies 
 on, is, the forwarding of men's salvation." It bade me " watch 
 perpetually, not knowing whether my Lord would return at 
 cockcrowing or at midday." 
 
 Wliile I believed this, (which, however disagreeable to 
 modern Christians, is the clear doctrine of the New Testa- 
 ment.) I acted an eccentric and unprofitable part. From it I 
 was saved against my will, and forced into a course in which 
 the doctrine, having been laid to sleep, awoke only now and 
 then to reproach and harass me for my unfaithfulness to it. 
 This doctrine it is, which makes so many spiritual persons 
 lend active or passive aid to uphold abuses and perpetuate mis- 
 chief in every department of human life. Those who stick 
 closest to the Scripture do not* shrink from saying, that " it is 
 not worth while trying to mend the world," and stigmatize as 
 " political and worldly" such as pursue an opposite course. 
 Undoubtedly, if we are to expect our Master at cockcrowing, 
 we shall not study the permanent improvement of this transi- 
 tory scene. To teach the certain speedy destruction of earthly 
 things, as the New Testament does, is to cut the sinews of all 
 earthly progress ; to declare war against Intellect and Imagi- 
 nation, against Industrial and Social advancement. 
 
 There was a time when I was distressed at being unable to 
 avoid exultation in the worldly greatness of England. My 
 heart would, in spite of me, swell with something of pride, 
 when a Turk or Arab asked what was my country : I then 
 used to confess to God this pride as a sin. I still see that 
 that was a legitimate deduction from the Scripture. " The 
 glory of this world passeth away," and I had professed to be 
 " dead with Christ" to it. The difference is this. I am now 
 as " dead" as then to all of it which my conscience discerns to 
 be sinful, but I have not to torment myself in a (funda- 
 mentally ascetic) struggle against innocent and healthy im- 
 pulses. I now, with deliberate approval, " love the world and 
 the things of the world." I can feel patriotism, and take the 
 deepest interest in the future prospects of nations, and no 
 longer reproach myself. Yet this is quite consistent with 
 feeling the spiritual interests of men to be of all incomparably 
 the highest. 
 
 Modern religionists profess to be disciples of Christ, and 
 talk high of the perfect morality of the New Testament, when 
 
IS NOT RELIGION. 13T 
 
 they certainly do not submit tlieir understanding to it, an I 
 are no more like to the first disciples than bishops are like 
 the pennyless apostles. One critic tells me that / know that 
 the above is not the true interpretation of the apostolic doc- 
 trine. Assuredly I am aware that we may rebuke " the world" 
 and " worldliness," in a legitimate and modified sense, as being 
 the system of selfishness : true, — and I have avowed this in 
 another work; but it does not follow that Jesus and the 
 apostles did not go farther : and manifestly they did. The 
 true disciple, who would be perfect as his Master, was indeed 
 ordered to sell all, give to the poor and follow him ; and when 
 that severity was relaxed by good sense, it was still taught 
 that things which lasted to the other side of the grave alone 
 deserved our aff'ection or our exertion. If any person thinks 
 me ignorant of the Scriptures for being of this judgment, let 
 him so think ; but to deny that I am sincere in my avowal, is 
 a very needless insolence. 
 
 4. I am sensible how heavy a clog on the exercise of my 
 judgment has been taken off from me, since I unlearned that 
 Bibliolatry, which I am disposed to call the greatest religious 
 evil of England. 
 
 Authority has a place in religious teaching, as in education, 
 but it is provisional and transitory. Its chief use is to guide 
 action, and assist the formation of habits, before the judgment 
 is ripe. As applied to mere opinion, its sole function is to 
 guide inquiry. So long as an opinion is received on authority 
 only, it works no inward process upon us : yet the promulga- 
 tion of it by authority, is not therefore always useless, since 
 the prominence thus given to it may be a most important 
 stimulus to thought. While the mind is inactive or weak, it 
 will not wish to throw off the yoke of authority : but as soon 
 as it begins to discern error in the standard proposed to it, 
 we have the mark of incipient original thought, which is the 
 thing so valuable and so difficult to elicit ; and which authority 
 is apt to crush. An intelligent pupil seldom or never gives 
 too little weight to the opinion of his teacher : a wise teacher 
 will never repress the free action of his pupils' minds, even 
 when they begin to question his results. "Forbidding to 
 think" is a still more fatal tyranny than "forbidding to marry :" 
 it paralyzes all the moral powers. 
 
 In former days, if any moral question came before me, I 
 was always apt to turn it into the mere lawyerlike exercise of 
 searching and interpreting my written code. Thus, in readmg 
 
138 HTSTOKY 
 
 liow Henry the EigLth treated his first queen, I thought over 
 Bcriptiire texts in order to judge whether he was right, and if 
 I could so get a sokition, I left my own moral powers unexer- 
 cised. All Protestants see, how mischievous it is to a Romanist 
 lady to have a directing priest, whom she every day consults 
 about everything; so as to lay her own judgment to sleep. 
 "We readily understand, that in the extreme case such women 
 may gradually lose all perception of right and wrong, and 
 "become a mere machine in the hands of her director. But the 
 Protestant principle of accepting the Bible as the absolute law, 
 acts towards the same end; and only fails of doing the same 
 amount of mischief, because a book can never so completely 
 answer all the questions asked of it, as a living priest can. 
 The Protestantism which pities those as " without chart and 
 compass" who acknowledge no infallible written code, can 
 mean nothing else, than that "the less occasion we have to 
 trust our moral powers, the better;" that is, it represents it 
 as of all things most desirable to be able to benumb conscience 
 by disuse, under the guidance of a mind from without. Those 
 who teach this, need not marvel to see their pupils become 
 Bomanists. 
 
 But BibHolatry not only paralyzes the moral sense ; it also 
 corrupts the intellect, and introduces a crooked logic, by 
 setting men to the duty of extracting absolute harmony out 
 of discordant materials. All are familiar with the subtlety 
 of lawyers, whose task it is to elicit a single sense out of a 
 Leap of contradictory statutes. In their case such subtlety 
 may indeed excite in us impatience or contempt ; but we for- 
 bear to condemn them, when it is pleaded that practical con- 
 venience, not truth, is their avowed end. In the case of 
 theological ingenuity, where truth is the professed and sacred 
 oltject, a graver judgment is called for. When the Biblical 
 interpreter struggles to reconcile contradictions, or to prove 
 that wrong is right, merely because he is bound to maintain 
 tlie perfection of the Bible ; when to this end he condescends 
 to sophistry and pettifogging evasions ; it is difficult to avoid 
 ieeling disgust as well as grief. Some good people are secretly 
 conscious that the Bible is not an infallible book ; but they 
 dread the consequences of proclaiming this " to the vulgar." 
 Alas ! and have they measured the evils which the fostering 
 of this lie is producing in the minds, not of the educated only, 
 but emphaticall}' of the ministers of religion ? 
 
 Many who call themselves Christian preachers busily under- 
 
IS NOT RELIGI0J7. 139 
 
 mine moral sentiment, by telling their hearers, that if they 
 do not believe the Bible (or the Church), they can have no 
 firm religion or morality, and will have no reason to give 
 against following brutal appetite. This doctrine it is, that so 
 often makes men atheists in Spain, and profligates in England, 
 as soon as they unlearn the national creed : and the school 
 which have done the mischief, moralize over the wickedness 
 of human nature when it comes to pass, instead of blaming 
 the falsehood which they have themselves inculcated. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ON THE MORAL PERFECTION OP JESUS. 
 
 Let no reader peruse this chapter, who is not willing to enter 
 into a discussion, as free and unshrinking, concerning the per- 
 sonal excellencies and conduct of Jesus, as that of Mr. Grote 
 concerning Socrates. I have hitherto met with most absurd 
 rebuffs for my scrupulosity. One critic names me as a prin- 
 cipal leader in a school which extols and glorifies the character 
 of Jesus ; after which he proceeds to reproach me with in- 
 consistency, and to insinuate dishonesty. Another expresses 
 himself as deeply wounded that, in renouncing the belief that 
 Jesus is more than man, I suggest to compare him to a clergy- 
 man whom I mentioned as eminently holy and perfect in the 
 pcture of a partial biographer ; such a comparison is resented 
 with vivid indignation, as a blurting out of something " un- 
 speakably painful." Many have murmured that I do not come 
 forward to extol the excellencies of Jesus, but appear to pre- 
 fer Paul. More than one taunt me with an inability to justify 
 my insinuations that Jesus, after all, was not really perfect ; 
 one is •' extremely disappointed" that I have not attacked 
 him ; in short, it is manifest that many would much rather 
 have me say out my whole heart, than withhold anything. I 
 therefore give fair warning to all, not to read any further, or 
 else to blame themselves if I inflict on them " unspeakable 
 pain," by diff'ering from their judgment of a historical or un- 
 historical character. As for those who confound my tender- 
 ness with hypocrisy and conscious weakness, if they trust them- 
 selves to read to the end, I think they will abandon that fancy, 
 
 K 2 
 
140 THE MORAL 
 
 But how am I brought into this topic 1 It is because, after 
 my mind had reached the stage narrated in the last chapter, 
 I fell in with a new doctrine among the Unitarians, — that the 
 evidence of Christianity is essentially popular and spiritual, 
 consisting in the Lire of Christ, who is a jDcrfect man and the 
 absolute moral image of God, — therefore fitly called " God 
 manifest in the flesh," and, as such. Moral Head of the human 
 race. Since this view was held in conjunction with those at 
 which I had arrived myself concerning miracles, prophecy, 
 the untrustworthiness of Scripture as to details, and the 
 essential unreasonableness of imposing dogmatic propositions 
 as a creed, I had to consider why I could not adopt such a 
 modification, or (as it appeared to me) reconstruction, of 
 Christianity ; and I gave reasons in the first edition of 
 this book, which, avoiding direct treatment of the character 
 of Jesus, seemed to me adequate on the opposite side. 
 
 My argument was reviewed by a friend, who presently pub- 
 lished the review with his name, replying to my remarks on 
 this scheme. I thus find myself in public and avowed con- 
 troversy with one who is endowed with talents, accomplish- 
 ments, and genius, to which I have no pretensions. The 
 challenge has certainly come from myself. Trusting to the 
 goodness of my cause, I have ventured it into an unequal 
 combat ; and from a consciousness of my admired friend's 
 high superiority, I do feel a little abashed at being brought 
 face to face against him. But possibly the less said to the 
 public on these personal matters, the better. 
 
 I have to give reasons why I cannot adopt that modified 
 scheme of Christianity which is defended and adorned by 
 James Martineau ; according to which it is maintained that 
 though the Gospel Narratives are not to be trusted in detail, 
 there can yet be no reasonable doubt what Jesus was; for 
 this is elicited by a " higher moral criticism," which (it is re- 
 marked) I neglect. In this theory, Jesus is avowed to be a 
 man born like other men; to be liable to error, and (at least 
 in some important respects) mistaken. Perhaps no general 
 proposition is to be accepted merely on the word of Jesus ; 
 in particular, he misinterpreted the Hebrew prophecies. " He 
 was not less than the Hebrew Messiah, but more.'' No moral 
 charge is established against him, until it is shown, that in 
 applying the old prophecies to himself, he was conscious that 
 they did not fit. His error vras one of mere fallibility in 
 matters of intellectual and literary estimate. On the other 
 
PERFECTION OF JESUS. Ill 
 
 hand, Jesus had an infallible moral perception, which reveals 
 itself to the true-hearted reader, and is testified by the com- 
 mon consciousness of Christendom. It has pleased the Creator 
 to give us one sun in the heavens, and one Divine soul in 
 history, in order to correct the aberrations of our individuality, 
 and unite all mankind into one family of God. Jesus is to 
 be presumed to be perfect until he is shown to be imperfect. 
 Faith in Jesus, is not reception of propositions, but reverence 
 for a person ; yet this is not the condition of salvation or 
 essential to the Divine favour. 
 
 Such is the scheme, abridged from the ample discussion 
 of my eloquent friend. In reasoning against it, my argu- 
 ments will, to a certain extent, be those of an orthodox Trini- 
 tarian ;* since we might both maintain that the belief in the 
 absolute divine morality of Jesus is not tenable, when the 
 belief in every other divine and superhuman quality is denied. 
 Should I have any " orthodox" reader, my arguments may 
 shock his feelings less, if he keeps this in view. In fact, the 
 same action or word in Jesus may be consistent or incon- 
 sistent with moral perfection, according to the previous 
 assumptions concerning his person. 
 
 I. My friend has attributed to me a "prosaic and embit- 
 tered view of human nature," apparently because I have a very 
 intense belief of Man's essential imperfection. To me, I 
 confess, it is almost a first principle of thought, that as all 
 sorts of perfection coexist in God, so is no sort of perfection 
 possible to man. I do not know how for a moment to ima- 
 gine an Omniscient Being who is not Almighty, or an Al- 
 mighty who is not All-Righteous. So neither do I know how 
 to conceive of Perfect Holiness anywhere but in the Blessed 
 and only Potentate. 
 
 Man is finite and crippled on all sides; and frailty in one 
 kind causes frailty in another. Defic'ent power causes deficient 
 knowledge, deficient knowledge betrays him into false opinion, 
 and entangles him into false positions. It may be a defect of 
 my imagination, but I do not feel that it implies any bitter- 
 ness, that even in the case of one who abides in primitive 
 lowliness, to attain even negatively an absolutely pure good- 
 
 * I have by accident just taken up the " British Quarterly," and 
 alighted upon the following sentence concerning Madame Roland : — " To 
 i'lii I kill .she was UHthiiiit J'diilt, iroiild be to sat/ tluil site uuis not human." 
 This so entirely expresses and concludes all that I have to say, that I 
 ieel surprize at my needing at all to write such a chapter as the present. 
 
142 THE MORAL 
 
 ness seems to me impossible ; and much more, to exhaust all 
 goodness, and become a single Model- Man, unparalleled, incom- 
 2")arable, a standard for all other moral excellence. Especially I 
 cannot conceive of any human person rising out of obscurity, 
 and influencing the history of the world, unless there be in him 
 forces of great intensity, the harmonizing of which is a vast 
 and painful problem. Every man has to subdue himself first, 
 before he preaches to his fellows; and he encounters many a 
 fall and many a wound in winning his own victory. And as 
 talents are various, so do moral natures vary, each having its 
 own weak and strong side ; and that one man should grasp 
 into his single self the highest perfection of every moral kind, 
 is to me at least as incredible as that one should preoccupy 
 and exhaust all intellectual greatness. I feel the prodigy to 
 be so peculiar, that I must necessarily wait until it is over- 
 whelmingly proved, before I admit it. No one can without 
 unreason urge me to believe, on any but the most irrefutable 
 arguments, that a man, finite in every other respect, is infinite 
 in moral perfection. 
 
 My friend is " at a loss to conceive in what way a super- 
 human physical nature could tend in the least degree to render 
 moral perfection more credible." But 1 think he will see, that 
 it would entirely obviate the argument just stated, which, from 
 the known frailty of human nature in general, deduced the 
 indubitable imperfection of an individual. The reply is then 
 obvious and decisive : " This individual is not a mere man; his 
 origin is wholly exceptional; therefore his moral perfection 
 may be exceptional ; your experience of mans weakness goes 
 for nothing in his case." If I were already convinced that 
 this person was a great Unique, separated from all other men 
 by an impassable chasm in regard to his physical origin, I 
 (for one) should be much readier to believe that he was Unique 
 and Unapproachable in other respects : for all God's works 
 have an internal harmony. It could not be for nothing that 
 this exceptional personage was sent into the world. That he 
 was intended as head of the human race, in one or more 
 senses, would be a plausible opinion ; nor should I feel any 
 incredulous repugnance against believing his morality to be, 
 if not divinely perfect, yet separated from that of common 
 men so far, that he might be a God to us, just as every parent 
 is to a young child. 
 
 This view seems to my friend a weakness ; be it so. I need 
 not press it. "What I do press, is, — whatever miyht or might 
 
PERFECTION OF JESUS. 143 
 
 not be conceded concerning one in human form, but of su])er- 
 human origin, — at any rate, one who is conceded to be, out 
 and out, of the same nature as ourselves, is to be judged of 
 by our experience of that nature, and is therefore to be as- 
 sumed to be variously imperfect, however eminent and ad- 
 mirable in some respects. And no one is to be called au 
 imaginer of deformity, because he takes for granted that one 
 who is Man has imperfections which were not known to 
 those who compiled memorials of him. To impute to a person, 
 without specific evidence, some definite frailty or fault, barely 
 because he is human, would be a want of good sense; but not 
 so, to have a firm belief that every human being is finite in 
 moral as well as in intellectual greatness. 
 
 We have a very imperfect history of the apostle James ; and 
 I do not know that I could adduce any fact specifically recorded 
 concerning him in disproof of his absolute moral perfection, 
 if any of his Jerusalem discij^les had chosen to set up this as a 
 dogma of religion. Yet no one would blame me, as morose, 
 or indisposed to acknowledge genius and greatness, if I in- 
 sisted on believing James to be frail and imperfect, while 
 admitting that I knew almost nothing about him. And why ? 
 — Singly and surely, because we know him to be a iiuiii: that 
 suffices. To set up James or John or Daniel as my Model, 
 and my Lord; to be swallowed up in him and press him upon 
 others for a Universal Standard, would be despised as a self- 
 degrading idolatry and resented as an obtrusive favouritism. 
 Now Avhy does not the same equally apply, if the name Jesus 
 is substituted for these % Why, in defect of all other knowledge 
 than the bare fact of his manhood, are we not unhesitatingly 
 to ttike for granted that he does not exhaust all perfection, and 
 is at 'test only one among many brethren and equals? 
 
 II. .Uy friend, I gather, will reply, " because so many 
 thousands of minds in all Christendom attest the infinite and 
 unapproachable goodness of Jesus." It therefore follows to 
 considt^r, what is the \eight of this attestation. Manifestly it 
 depends, first of all, on the independence of the witnesses : 
 secondly, on the grounds of their belief. If all those, who 
 confess the moral perfection of Jesus, confess it as the result 
 of unbiassed examination of his character; and if, of those 
 acquainted with the narrative, none espouse the opposite side ; 
 this would be a striking testimony, not to be despised. But 
 in fact, few indeed of the "witnesses" add any weight at all to 
 the argument. No Trinitarian can doubt that Jesus is 
 
114 THE MORAL 
 
 morally perfect, without doubting fundamentally every part of 
 his religion. He believes it, because the entire system de- 
 mands it, and because various texts of Scripture avow it : and 
 this very fact makes it morally impossible for him to enter 
 upon an unbiassed inquiry, whether that character which is 
 drawn for Jesus in the four gospels, is, or is not, one of abso- 
 lute perfection, deserving to be made an exclusive model for 
 all times and countries. My friend never was a Trinitarian, 
 and se.^ms not to know how this operates ; but I can testify, 
 that when I believed in the immaculateness of Christ's 
 character, it was not from an unbiassed criticism, but from 
 the pressure of authority; (the autliorityof texts,) and from the 
 necessity of the doctrine to the scheme of Redemption. Not 
 merely strict Trinitarians, but all who believe in the Atone- 
 ment, however modified, — all who believe that Jesus will be 
 the future Judge, — mu^t believe in his absolute perfection: 
 hence the fact of their belief is no indication whatever that 
 they believe on the ground which my friend assumes, — viz. 
 an intelligent and unbiassed study of the character itself, as 
 exhibited in the four narratives. 
 
 I think we may go farther. We have no reason for think- 
 ing that tJds was the sort of evidence which convinced the 
 apostles themselves, and first teachers of the gospel ; — if in- 
 deed in the very first years the doctrine was at all conceived 
 of. It cannot be shown that any one believed in the moral 
 ])erfection of Jesus, who had not already adopted the belief 
 that he was Messiah, and there/ore Judge of the human race. 
 My friend makes the pure immaculateness of Jesus (dis- 
 cernible by him in the gospels) his foundation, and deduces 
 yrom this the quasi-Messiahship : but the opposite order of 
 deduction appears to have been the only one possible in the 
 first age. Take Paul as a specimen. He believed the doc- 
 trine in question; but not from reading the four gospels, — 
 for they did not exist. Did he then believe it by hearing 
 Ananias (Acts ix. 17) enter into details concerning the deeds 
 and words of Jesus 1 I cannot imagine that any wise or 
 thoughtful person would so judge, which after all would be a 
 gratuitous invention. The Acts of the Apostles give us many 
 speeches which set forth the grounds of accepting Jesus as 
 ]\[essiah ; but they never press his absolute moral perfection 
 as a fact and a fundamental fact. " He went about doing 
 good, .and healing all that were oppressed of the devil," is 
 the utmost that is advanced on this side : prophecy is urged, 
 
PERFECTION OF JESUS. 1 i5 
 
 and Ins resurrection is asserted, and the inference is drawn 
 that " Jesus is the Christ." Out of this flowed the farther 
 inferences that he was Supreme Judge, — and moreover, was 
 Paschal Lamb, and Sacrifice, and High Priest, and Mediator; 
 and since every one of these characters demanded a belief in 
 his mural perfections, that doctrine also necessarily followed, 
 and was received before our present gospels existed. My 
 friend therefore cannot abash me by the argwmentum ad vere- 
 cmullam; (which to me seems highly out of place in this con- 
 nexion ;) for the opinion, which is, as to this single point, held 
 by him in common with the first Christians, was held by them 
 on transcendental reasons which he totally discards; and all 
 after generations have been confirmed in the doctrine by 
 Authority, i. e. by the weight of texts or church decisions : 
 both of which he also discards. If I could receive the doc- 
 trine, merely because I dared not to differ from the whole 
 Christian world, I might aid to swell odium against rejectors, 
 but I should not strengthen the cause at the bar of reason. T 
 feel therefore that my friend must not claim Catholicity as on 
 his side. Trinitarians and Arians are alike useless to his 
 argument: nay, nor can he claim more than a small fraction 
 of Unitarians ; for as many of them as believe that Jesus is 
 to be the Judge of living and dead (as the late Dr. Laut Car- 
 penter did) must as necessarily believe his immaculate perfec- 
 tion as if they were Trinitarians. 
 
 The New Testament does not distinctly explain on what 
 grounds this doctrine was believed ; but we may observe that 
 in 1 Peter i. 19 and 2 Cor. v. 21, it is coupled with the Atone- 
 ment, and in 1 Peter ii. 21, Romans xv, 3, it seems to be 
 inferred from prophecy. But let us turn to the original 
 Eleven, who were eye and ear witnesses of Jesus, and consider 
 on what grounds they can have believed (if we assume thai 
 they did all believe) the absolute moral perfection of Jesus. 
 It IS too ridiculous to imagine them studying the writings of 
 Matthew in order to obtain conviction, — if any of that school, 
 whom alone I now address, could admit that written docu- 
 ments were thought of before the Church outstept the limits 
 of Judea. If the Eleven believed the doctrine for some trans- 
 cendental reason, — as by a Supernatural Revelation, or on 
 account of Prophecy, and to complete the Messiah's character, 
 — then their attestation is useless to my friend's argument : 
 will it then gain anything, if we suppose that they believed 
 Jesus to be periect, because they saw him to be perfect? To 
 
143 THE MOEAL 
 
 me this would seem no attestation worth having, bnt rather a 
 piece of impertinent ignorance. If I attest that a person 
 whom I have known was an eminently good man, I. command a 
 certain amount of respect to my opinion, and I do him honour. 
 If I celebrate his good deeds and report his wise words, I 
 extend his honour still farther. But if I proceed to assure 
 people, on the evidence of Jiiiy ijersonal ohse}'vation of Jmn, that 
 he was immaculate and absolutely perfect, was the pure Moral 
 Image of God, that he deserves to be made the Exclusive 
 Model of imitation, and is the standard by which every other 
 man's morality is to be corrected, — I make myself ridiculous ; 
 my panegyrics lose all weight, and I produce far less convic- 
 tion than when I praised within human limitations. I do not 
 know how my friend will look on this point, (for his judgment 
 on the whole question perplexes me, and tlie views which I 
 call sober he names ^j7'osa?c,) but I cannot resist the conviction 
 that universal common-sense would have rejected the teaching* 
 of the Eleven with contempt, if they had presented, as the 
 basis of the gospel, i\\Q\v personal testwiony to the godlike and 
 unapproachable moral absolutism of Jesus. But even if such 
 a basis was possible to the Eleven, it was impossible to Paul 
 and Silvanus and Timothy and Barnabas and Apollos, and the 
 other successful preachers to the Gentiles. High moral good- 
 ness, within human limitations, was undoubtedly announced 
 as a fact of the life of Jesus; but upon this followed the 
 supernatural claims, and the argument of prophecy; tvithout 
 which my friend desires to build up his view. — I have thus 
 developed why I think he has no right to claim Catholicity 
 for his judgment. I have Hsked to be tedious, because I find 
 that when I speak concisely, I am enormously misappre- 
 hended. I close this topic by observing, that the great 
 animosity with which my very mild intimations against the 
 popular view have been met from numerous quarters, show 
 me that Christians do not allow this subject to be calmly 
 debated, and have not come to their own conclusion as the 
 result of a calm debate. And this is amply corroborated by 
 my own consciousness of the past. I never dared, nor could 
 have dared, to criticize coolly and simply the pretensions of 
 Jesus to be an absolute model of morality, until I had been 
 delivered from the weight of authority and miracle, oppressing 
 my critical powers. 
 
 III. I have been asserting, that he who believes Jesus to 
 be a mere man, ought at once to believe his moral excellence 
 
PEP.FECTION OP JESUS. 147 
 
 finite and comparable to that of other men; and, that our 
 judgment to this effect cannot be reasonably overborne by the 
 " universal consent" of Christendom. — Thus far we are dealing 
 d, priori, which here fully satisfies me: in such an argument I 
 need no a j^osteriori evidence to arrive at my own conclusion. 
 Nevertheless, I am met by taunts and clamour, which are not 
 meant to be indecent, but which to my feeling aro such. My 
 critics point triumphantly to the four gospels, and demand 
 that I will make a personal attack on a character which they 
 revere, even when they know that I cannot do so without 
 giving great offence. Now if any one were to call my old 
 schoolmaster, or my old parish priest, a perfect and universal 
 Model, and were to claim that I would entitle him Lord, and 
 think of him as the only true revelation of God ; should I not 
 be at liberty to say, without disrespect, that '• I most emphati- 
 cally deprecate such extravagant claims for him'"? Would 
 this justify an outcry, that I will publicly avow ivhat I judge 
 to be his defects of character, and will prove to all bis ad- 
 mirers that he was a sinner like other men 1 Such a demand 
 would be thought, I believe, highly unbecoming and extremely 
 unreasonable. May not my modesty, or my regard for his 
 memory, or my unwillingness to pain his family, be accepted 
 as suflicient reasons for silence ? or would any one scoflingly 
 attribute my reluctance to attack him, to my conscious inabi- 
 lity to make good my case against his being " God manifest 
 in the flesh" ? Now what, if one of his admirers had written 
 panegyrical memorials of him; and his character, therein de- 
 scribed, was so faultless, that a stranger to him was not able 
 to descry any moral defect whatever in it 'i Is such a stranger 
 bound to believe him to be the Divine Standard of morals, 
 unless he can put his finger on certain passages of the book 
 which imply weaknesses and faults % And is it insulting a 
 man, to refuse to worship him % I utterly protest against 
 every such pretence. As I have an infinitely stronger convic- 
 tion that Shakespeare was not in intellect Divinely and Unap- 
 proachably perfect, than that I can certainly point out in him 
 some defijiite intellectual defect; as, moreover, I am vastly 
 more sure that Socrates was morally imperfecl!, than that I 
 am able to censure him rightly; so also, a disputant who con- 
 cedes to me that Jesus is a mere man, has no right to claim 
 that I will point out some moral flaw in him, or else acknow- 
 ledge him to be a Unique Unparalleled Divine Soul. It is 
 true, I do see defects, and very serious ones, in the character 
 
148 THE MOTIAL 
 
 of Jesns, as drawn by his disciples; but I cannot admit that 
 my right to disown the pretensions made for him turns on 
 my ability to define his frailties. As long as (in common 
 with my friend) I regard Jesus as a man, so long I hold 
 with dogmatic and hitense conviction the inference that he 
 was morally imperfect, and ought not to be held up as un- 
 a])proachable in goodness ; but I have, in comparison, only a 
 modest belief that I am able to show his points of weakness. 
 
 While therefore in obedience to this call, which has risen 
 from many quarters, I think it right not to refuse the odious 
 task pressed upon me, — I yet protest that my conclusion does 
 not depend upon it. I might censure Socrates unjustly, or at 
 least without convincing my readers, if I attempted that task ; 
 but my failure would not throw a feather's weight into the 
 argument that Socrates was a Divine Unique and universal 
 Model. If I write now what is painful to readers, I beg them 
 to remember that I write with much reluctance, and that it is 
 their own fault if they read. 
 
 In approaching this subject, the first difficulty is, to know 
 how much of the four gospels to accept as fact. If we could 
 believe the whole, it would be easier to argue; but my friend 
 Martineau (with me) rejects belief of many parts: for instance, 
 he has but a very feeble conviction that Jesus ever spoke 
 the discourses attributed to him in John's gospel. If there- 
 fore I were to found upon these some imputation of moral 
 weakness, he would reply, that we are agreed in setting these 
 aside, as untrustworthy. Yet he perseveres in asserting that 
 it is beyond all reasonable question what^e^w^ was ; as though 
 proven inaccuracies in all the narratives did not make the 
 results uncertain. He says that even the poor and unedu- 
 cated are fully impressed with " the majesty and sanctity" of 
 Christ's mind; as if this were what I am fundamentally de- 
 n}ing; and not, only so far as would transcend the known 
 limits of human nature: surely "majesty and sanctity" are 
 not inconsistent with many weaknesses. But our judgment 
 concerning a man's motives, his temper, and his full conquest 
 over self, vanity and impulsive passion, depends on the accu- 
 rate knowledge of a vast variety of minor points : even the 
 curl of the lip, or the discord of eye and mouth, may change 
 our moral judgment of a man; while, alike to my friend and 
 me it is certain that much of what is stated is untrue. Much 
 moreover of what he holds to be untrue does not seem so to 
 any but to the highly educated. In spite therefore of his able 
 
PERFECTION OF JESUS. 119 
 
 reply, I abide in my opinion that he is unreasonably endea- 
 vouring to erect what is essentially a piece of doubtful bio- 
 graphy and difficult literary criticism into first-rate religious 
 importance. 
 
 I shall however try tc pick up a few details which seem, as 
 much as any, to deserve credit, concerning the pretensions, 
 doctrine and conduct of Jesus. 
 
 First, I believe that he habitually spoke of himself by the 
 title Son of Man, — a fact which pervades all the accounts, and 
 was likely to rivet itself on his hearers. Nobody but he him- 
 self ever calls him Son of Man. 
 
 Secondly, I believe that in assuming this title he tacitly 
 alluded to the viith chapter of Daniel, and claimed for himself 
 the throne of judgment over all mankind. — I know no reason 
 to doubt that he actually delivered (in substance) the discourse 
 in Matth. xxv. "When the Son of Man shall come in his 
 glory, .... before him shall be gathered all nations, .... 
 and he shall separate them, &c. &c." : and I believe that by 
 tlie Son of Man and tJie King he meant himself. Compare 
 Luke xii. 40, ix. 5Q. 
 
 Thirdly, I believe that he habitually assumed the authori- 
 tative dogmatic tone of one who was a universal Teacher in 
 moral and spiritual matters, and enunciated as a primary duty 
 of men to learn submissively of his wisdom and acknowledge 
 his supremacy. This element in his character, the lyreacldng 
 of himself , is enormously expanded in the fourth gospel, but 
 it distinctly exists m Matthew. Thus in Matth. xxiii 8 : 
 " Be not ye called Rabbi [teacher], for one is your Teacher, 
 even Christ; and all ye are brethren." . , . . Matth. x. 32: 
 " Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will 1 confess 
 
 before my Father which is in heaven He that loveth 
 
 father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, &c." .... 
 Matth. xi. 27 : " All things are delivered unto me of my 
 Father; and no man knovjeth the Son hut the Father ; neither 
 knoweth any man the Father, save the Son ; and he to whom- 
 soever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me, all ye that 
 labour, .... and / will give you rest. Take my yoke upon 
 you, &c.'" 
 
 My friend, I find, rejects Jesus as an authoritative teacher, 
 distinctly denies that the acceptance of Jesus in this character 
 is any condition of salvation and of the divine favour, and 
 treats of my " demand of an oracular Christ," as inconsistent 
 with my own principles. But this is mere misconception of 
 
loO THE MORAL 
 
 what I have said. I find Jesus himself to set up oracular 
 claims. I find an assumption of pre-eminence and unap- 
 proachable moral wisdom to pervade every discourse from end 
 to end of the gospels. If I may not believe that Jesus 
 assumed an oracular manner, I do not know what moral 
 peculiarity in him I am permitted to believe. I do not de- 
 inand (as my friend seems to think) that he shall he oracular, 
 but in common with all Christendom, 1 open my eyes and see 
 that he is; and until I had read my friend's review of my 
 book, I never understood (I suppose through my own pre- 
 possessions) that he holds Jesus not to have assumed the 
 oracular style. 
 
 If I cut out from the four gospels this peculiarity, I must 
 cut out, not only the claim of Messiahship, which my friend 
 admits to have been made, but nearly every moral discourse 
 and every controversy : and vjhy? except in order to make 
 good a predetermined belief that Jesus was morally perfect. 
 What reason can be given me for not believing that Jesus 
 declared : " If any one deny me before men, him will I d&ny 
 before my Father and his angels?" or any of the other texts 
 which couple the favour of God with a submission to such 
 pretensions of Jesus? I can find no reason whatever for doubt- 
 ing that he preached himself to his disciples, though in the 
 three first gospels he is rather timid of doing this to the 
 Pharisees and to the nation at large. I find him uniformly 
 to claim, sometimes in tone, sometimes in distinct words, that 
 we will sit at his feet as little children and learn of him. I 
 find him ready to answer off-hand, all difficult questions, cri- 
 tical and lawyer-like, as well as moral. True, it is no tenet of 
 mine that intellectual and literary attainment is essential in an 
 individual person to high spiritual eminence. True, in another 
 book I have elaborately maintained the contrary. Yet in 
 that book I have described men's spiritual progress a>s often 
 arrested at a certain stage by a want of intellectual develop- 
 ment; which surely would indicate that I believed even 
 intellectual blunders and an infinitely perfect exhaustive mo- 
 rality to be incompatible. But our question here (or at leiist 
 my question) is not, whether Jesus might misinterpret pro- 
 phecy, and yet be morally perfect; but whether, after assum- 
 ing to he an oracvlnr teacher, he can teach some fanatical pre- 
 cepts, and advance dogmatically weak and foolish arguments, 
 wn^hout impairing our sense of his absolute moral perfection. 
 
 I do not think it useless here to repeat (though not for my 
 
PERFECTION OF JESUS. 151 
 
 /iriencl) concise reasons which I gave in my first edition against 
 admitting dictatorial claims for Jesus. First, it is an un- 
 plausible opinion that God would deviate from his ordinary 
 course, in order to give us anything so undesirable as an 
 authoritative Oracle would be; — which would paralyze our 
 moral powers, exactly as an infallible church does, in the very 
 proportion in which we succeeded in eliciting responses from 
 it. It is not needful here to repeat what has been said 
 to that effect in p. 138. Secondly, there is no imaginable 
 criterion, by which we can establish that the wisdom of a 
 teacher is absolute and illimitable. All that we can possibly 
 discover, is the relative fact, that another is wiser than we; 
 and even this is liable to be overturned on special points, as 
 soon as differences of judgment arise. Thirdly, while it is 
 by no means clear what are the new truths, for which we are 
 to lean upon the decisions of JesusS, it is certain that we have 
 no genuine and trustworthy account of his teaching. If God 
 had intended us to receive the authoritative dicta of Jesus, 
 be would have furnished us with an unblemished record of 
 those dicta. To allow that we have not this, and that we 
 must disentangle for ourselves (by a most difficult and un- 
 certain process) the "true" sayings of Jesus, is surely self- 
 refuting. Fourthly, if I must sit in judgment on the claims 
 of Jesus to be the true Messiali and Son of God, how can I 
 concentrate all my free thought into that one act, and thence- 
 forth abandon free thought'? This appears a moral suicide, 
 whether Messiah or the Pope is the object whom we first cri- 
 ticize, in order to instal him over us, and then, for ever after, 
 refuse to criticize. In short, lue cannot huild up a system of 
 Oracles on a basis of Free Criticism. If we are to submit our 
 judgment to the dictation of some other, — whether a church 
 or an individual, — we must be first subjected to that other by 
 some event from without, as by birth; and not by a process 
 of that very judgment which is henceforth to be sacrificed. 
 But from this I proceed to consider more in detail, some 
 points in the teaching and conduct of Jesus, which do not ap- 
 pear to me consistent with absolute perfection. 
 
 The argument of Jesus concerning the tribute to Caesar is 
 so dramatic, as to strike the imagination and rest on the 
 memory ; and I know no reason for doubting that it has been 
 correctly reported. The book of Deuteronomy (xvii. 15) dis- 
 tinctly forbids Israel to set over himself as king any who is 
 not a native Israelite ; which appeared to be a religious con- 
 
352 my. moral 
 
 demnation of submission to Csesar. Accordingly, since Jcsu3 
 assumed the tone of unlimited wisdom, some of Herod's party 
 asked him, whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar. 
 Jesus replied: "Why tempt ye me, hypocrites? Show me 
 the tribute money." When one of the coins was handed to 
 him, he asked: "Whose image and superscription is this?" 
 When they replied : " Caesar's," he gave his authoritative 
 decision : " Render therefore to Caesar the things that are 
 Caesars.'' 
 
 In this reply not only the poor and uneducated, but many 
 likewise of the rich and educated, recognize "majesty and 
 sanctity :" yet I find it hard to think that my strong-minded 
 friend will defend the justness, wisdom and honesty of it. To 
 imagine that because a coin bears Caesar's head, therefore it is 
 Caesars property, and that he may demand to have as many 
 of such coins as he chooses paid over to him, is puerile, and 
 notoriously false. The circulation of foreign coin of every 
 kind was as common in the Mediterranean then as now ; and 
 everybody knew that the coin was the property of the holder, 
 not of him whose head it bore. Thus the reply of Jesus, 
 which pretended to be a moral decision, was unsound and ab- 
 surd : yet it is uttered in a tone of dictatorial wisdom, and 
 ushered in by a grave rebuke, " Why tempt ye me, hypocrites ?" 
 He is generally understood to mean, " Why do you try to 
 implicate me in a political charge?" and it is supposed that 
 he prudently evaded the question. I have indeed heard this 
 interpretation from high Trinitarians; which indicates to me 
 how dead is their moral sense in everything which concerns 
 the conduct of Jesus. No reason appears why he should not 
 have replied, that Moses forbade Israel voluntarily to place 
 himself under a foreig^n kinof, but did not inculcate fanatical 
 and useless rebellion against overwhelming power. But 
 such a reply, which would have satisfied a more commonplace 
 mind, has in it nothing brilliant and striking. I cannot but 
 think that Jesus shows a vain conceit in the cleverness of his 
 ':answer : I do not think it so likely to have been a conscious 
 evasion. But neither does his rebuke of the questioners at all 
 commend itself to me. How can any man assume to be an 
 authoritative teacher, and then claim that men shall not put 
 his wisdom to the proof? Was it not their duty to do so? 
 And when, in result, the trial has proved the defect of his 
 wisdom, did they not perform a useful public service? In 
 truth, I cannot see the Model Man in his rebuke. — Let not 
 
PERFECTION OP JESUS. lo3 
 
 my friend say that the error was merely intellectual ; blunder- 
 ing self-sufficiency is a moral weakness. 
 
 I might go into detail concerning other discourses, where 
 error and arrogance appear to me combined. But, not to be 
 tedious, — in general I must complain that Jesus purposely 
 adopted an enigmatical and pretentious style of teaching, unin- 
 telligible to his hearers, and needing explanation in private. 
 That this was his systematic procedure, I believe, because, in 
 spite of the great contrast of the fourth gospel to the others, 
 it has this peculiarity in common with tliem. Christian 
 divines are used to tell us that this mode was incidiarly in- 
 structive to the vulgar of Judaea; and they insist on the great 
 wisdom displayed in his choice of the lucid parabolical style. 
 But in Matth. xiii. 10-15, Jesus is made confidentially to 
 avow precisely the opposite reason, viz. that he desires the 
 vulgar not to understand him, but only the select few to whom 
 he gives private explanations. I confess I believe the Evan- 
 gelist rather than the modern Divine. I cannot conceive how 
 so strange a notion could ever have possessed the companions 
 of Jesus, if it had not been true. If really this paraboliccil 
 method had been peculiarly intelligible, what could make 
 them imagine the contrary^ Unless they found it very 
 obscure themselves, whence came the idea that it was obscure 
 to the multitude? As a fact, it is very obscure, to this day. 
 There is much that I most imperfectly understand, owing to 
 unexplained metaphor : as : " Agree with thine adversary 
 quickly, &c. &c. :" " Whoso calls his brother* a fool, is in 
 danger of hell fire :" " Every one must be salted with fire, and 
 every sacrifice salted with salt. Have salt in yourselves, and 
 be at peace with one another." Now every man of original 
 and singular genius has his own forms of thought; in so far 
 as they are natural, we must not complain, if to us they are 
 obscure. But the moment affectation comes in, they no 
 longer are reconcilable with the perfect character : they indi- 
 cate vanity, and incipient sacerdotalism. The distinct notice 
 that Jesus avoided to expound his parables to the multitude, 
 and made this a boon to the privileged few; and that without 
 a parable he spake not to the multitude; and the pious ex- 
 j)Ianation, that this was a fulfilment of Prophecy,- " I will open 
 my mouth in parables, I will utter dark sayings on the harp," 
 
 * I am acquainted with the interpretation, that the word More is not 
 here Gresk, i.e., fool, but is Hebrew, and means rebel, which is stronger 
 Aan llaoa, silly Jellow. This give>^ partial, but only partial relief. 
 -^ L 
 
15 i THE jfORAL 
 
 persuatle me that the impression of the disciples was a deep 
 reaHty. And it is in entire keeping with the general narrative, 
 which shows in him so much of mystical assumption. Strip 
 the parables of the imagery, and you find that sometimes one 
 thought has been dished up four or five times, and generally, 
 that an idea is dressed into sacred grandeur. This mystical 
 method made a little wisdom go a great way with the multi- 
 tude; and to such a mode of economizing resources the instinct 
 of the uneducated man betakes itself, Avhen he is claiming to 
 act a part for which he is imperfectly prepared. 
 
 It is common with orthodox Christians to take for granted, 
 that unbelief of Jesus was a «in, and belief a merit, at a time 
 when no rational grounds of belief were as yet public. Cer- 
 tainly, whoever asks questions with a view to ]jrove Jesus, is 
 spoken of vituperatingly in the gospels ; ; nd it does appear to 
 me that the prevalent Christian belief is a true echo of Jesus's 
 own feeling. He disliked being put to the proof. Instead of 
 rejoicing in it, as a true and upright man ought, — instead of 
 blaming those who accept his pretensions on too slight 
 grounds, — instead of encouraging full inquiry and giving frank 
 explanations, he resents doubt, shuns everything that will test 
 Lim, is very obscure as to his own pretensions, (so as to need 
 l^robing and positive questions, whether he does or does not 
 l)rofess to be Messiah,) and yet is delighted at all easy belief. 
 AVhen asked for miracles, he sighs and groans at the unreason- 
 ableness of it; yet does not honestly and plainly renounce pre- 
 tension to miracle, as Mr. Martineau would, but leaves room 
 for credit to himself for as many miracles as the credulous are 
 >\ illing to impute to him. It is possible that here the narra- 
 tive is unjust to his memory. So far from being the picture 
 of perfection, it sometimes seems to me the picture of a 
 conscious and wilful impostor. His general character is too 
 high for this; and I therefore make deductions from the ac- 
 C(;unt. Still, I do not see how the present narrative could 
 have grown up, if he had been really simple and straight- 
 iurward, and not perverted by his essentially false position. 
 Enigma and mist seem to be his element; and when I find 
 liis high satisfaction at all personal recognition and bowing 
 before his individuality, I almost doubt whether, if one 
 wished to draw the character of a vain and vacillating pre- 
 tender, it would be possible to draw anything more to the 
 purpose than this. His general rule (before a certain date) 
 h, to be cautious in public, but bold in private to the favoured 
 
PERFECTION OF JESUS. 155 
 
 few. I cannot think that such a character, appearing now, 
 would seem to my friend a perfect model of a man. 
 
 No precept bears on its face clearer marks of coming from 
 the genuine Jesus, than that of spJling all and following him. 
 This was his onginal call to his disciples. It was enunciated 
 authoritatively on various occasions. It is incorporated with 
 precepts of perpetual obligation, in such a way, that we can- 
 not without the gi-eatest violence pretend that he did not 
 intend it as a precept* to aJl his disciples. In Luke xii. 
 22-40, he addresses the disciples collectively against Avarice; 
 and a part of the discourse is: " Fear not, little flock; for it is 
 your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sdl 
 iliat ye have, and give alms : provide yourselves bags that wax 
 
 not old; a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, &c 
 
 ] iCt your loins be girded about, and your lights burning," ^c. 
 To say that he was not intending to teach a universal mo- 
 rality, t is to admit that his precepts are a trap; for they then 
 mix up and confound mere contingent duties with universal 
 sacred obligations, enunciating all in the same breath, and 
 with the same solemnity. I cannot think that Jesus intended 
 any separation. In fact, when a rich young man asked of 
 him what he should do, that he might inherit eternal life, and 
 pleaded that he had kept the ten commandments, but felt that 
 to be insufhcieut, Jesus said unto him : "If thou ivilt be jye^fect, 
 go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou 
 shalt have treasure in heaven :" so that the duty was not con- 
 tingent upon the peculiarity of a man possessing apostolic 
 gifts, but was with Jesus the normal path for all who desired 
 perfection. When the young man went away sorrowing, 
 Jesus moralized on it, saying : " How hardly shall a rich man 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven :" which again shows, that 
 
 * Indeed we have in Luke vi. 20-24, a version of the Beatitudes so 
 much in harmony with this lower doctrine, as to make it an open ques- 
 tion, whether the version in Matth. v. is not an improvement upon 
 Jesus, introduced by the purer sense of the collective church. In Luke, 
 he does not bless the poor in spirit, and those who hunger a/}er rigliteon;,- 
 ness, but absolutely the " poor " and the " hungry," and all who honour 
 Him ; and in contrast, curses the rich and those who are full. 
 
 + At the close, is the parable about the absent master of a house ; and 
 Peter asks, " Lord ! (Sir !) speakest thou this parable unto us, or also 
 unto rt//j*" Who would not have hoped an ingenuous reply, "To you 
 only," or, **To everybody"? Instead of which, so inveterate is his 
 tendency to muffle up the simplest things in mystery, he replies, "Who 
 then is that faithful and wise steward," &c., t&c, and entirely evadts 
 reply to the very natural question. 
 
 T 9. 
 
156 THE MORAL 
 
 an abrupt renunciation of wealth was to be the general and 
 ordinary method of entering the kingdom. Hereupon, when 
 the disciples asked: " Lo! we have forsaken all, and followed 
 thee : what shall we have therefore V Jesus, instead of re- . 
 bilking their self-righteousness, promised them as a reward, 
 that they should sit upon twelve* thrones, judging the twelve 
 tribes of Israel. A precept thus systematically enforced, is 
 illustrated by the practice, not only of the twelve, but appa- 
 rently of the seventy, and what is stronger still, by the prcic- 
 tice of the five thousand disciples after the celebrated days of 
 the first Pentecost. There was no longer a Jesus on earth to 
 itinerate with, yet the disciples in the fervour of first love 
 obeyed his precept : the rich sold their possessions, and laid 
 the price at the apostles' feet. 
 
 The mischiefs inherent in such a precept rapidly showed 
 themselves, and good sense corrected the error. But this 
 very fact proves most emphatically that the precept was pre- 
 apostolic, and came from the genuine Jesus; otherwise it could 
 never have found its way into the gospels. It is undeniable, 
 that the first disciples, by whose tradition alone we have any 
 record of what Jesus taught, understood him to deliver this 
 precept to all who desired to enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven, — all who desired to be perfect : why then are we to 
 refuse belief, and remould the precepts of Jesus till they please 
 our own morality? This is not the way to learn historical 
 fact. 
 
 That to inculcate religious beggary as the only form and 
 mode of spiritual perfection, is fanatical and mischievous, even 
 the church of Rome will admit. Protestants universally reject 
 it as a deplorable absurdity; — not merely wealthy bishops, 
 squires and merchants, but the poorest curate also. A man 
 could not preach such doctrine in a Protestant pulpit without 
 incurring deep reprobation and contempt; but when preached 
 by Jesus, it is extolled as divine wisdom, — and disobeyed. 
 
 Now I cannot look on this as a pure intellectual error, con- 
 sistent with moral perfection. A deep mistake as to the 
 nature of such perfection seems to me inherent in the precept 
 itself; a mistake which indicates a moral unsoundness. The 
 conduct of Jesus to the rich young man appears to me a 
 melancholy exhibition of perverse doctrine, under an ostenta- 
 tiou of superior wisdom. The young man asked for bread, 
 
 * This implied that Judas, as one of the twelve, had earned the 
 heavenly throne hy the price of earthly goods. 
 
PERFECTION OF JESUS. 157 
 
 and Jesus gave hira a stone. Justly he went away sorrowful, 
 at receiving a reply which his conscience rejected as false 
 and foolish. But this is not all. Jesus was necessarily on 
 trial, when any one, however sincere, came to ask ques- 
 tions so deeply probing the quality of his wisdom as this : 
 "Hov/ may I be perfect?" and to be on trial was always dis- 
 agreeable to him. He first gave the reply, " Keep the com- 
 mandments;" and if the young man had been satisfied, and 
 had gone away, it appears that Jesus would have been glad to 
 be rid of him : for his tone is magis^terial, decisive and final. 
 This, I confess, suggests to me, that the aim of Jesus was not 
 so much to enlighten the young man, as to stop his mouth, 
 and keep up his own ostentation of omniscience. Had he 
 desired to enlighten him, surely no mere dry dogmatic com- 
 mand was needed, but an intelligent guidance of a willing 
 and trusting soul. I do not pretend to certain knowledge in 
 these matters. Even when we hear the tones of voice and 
 watch the features, we often mistake. We have no such 
 means here of checking the narrative. But the best general 
 result which I can draw from the imperfect materials, is what 
 I have said. 
 
 After the merit of "selling all and following Jesus," a 
 second merit, not small, was, to receive those whom he sent. 
 In Matt. X., we read that he sends out his twelve disciples, 
 (also seventy in Luke,) men at that time in a very low state 
 of religious development, — men who did not themselves 
 know what the Kingdom of Heaven meant, — to deliver in 
 every village and town a mere formula of words : " Repent 
 ye: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." They were 
 ordered to go without money, scrip or cloak, but to live on 
 religious alms; and it is added, — that if any house or city 
 does not receive them, it shall be more tolerable/o7' Sodom and 
 Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for it. He adds, v. 40: 
 " He that receiveth you, receiveth me, and he that receiveth 
 me, receiveth Him that sent me." — I quite admit, that in all 
 probability it was (on the whole) the more pious part of Israel 
 which was likely to receive these ignorant missionaries; but 
 inasmuch as they had no claims whatever, intrinsic or ex- 
 trinsic, to reverence, it appears to me a very extravagant and 
 fanatical sentiment thus emi)hatically to couple the favour or 
 ^^ rath of God with their reception or rejection. 
 
 A third, yet greater merit in the eyes of Jesus, was, to ac- 
 knowledge him as the Messiah predicted by the prophets, 
 
158 TnE MORAL 
 
 which he was not, according to my friend. According to 
 Matthew (xvi. 13), Jesus put leading questions to the dis- 
 ciples in order to elicit a confession of his Messiahship, and 
 emphatically blessed Simon for making the avowal which he 
 desired; but instantly forbade them to tell the great secret to 
 any one. Unless this is to be discarded as iiction, Jesus, 
 although to his disciples in secret he confidently assumed 
 Messianic pretensions, had a just inward misgiving, which 
 accounts both for his elation at Simon's avowal, and for his 
 prohibition to publish it. 
 
 In admitting that Jesus was not the Messiah of the prophets, 
 my friend says, that if Jesus were less than Messiah, we can 
 reverence him no longer ; but that he was more than Mes- 
 siah. This is to me unintelligible. The Messiah whom he 
 claimed to be, was not only the son of David, celebrated in the 
 2)rophets, but emphatically the Son of Man of Daniel vii., who 
 shall come in the clouds of heaven, to take dominion, glory and 
 kingdom, that all people, nations and languages shall serve 
 him, — an everlasting kingdom which shall not pass away. 
 How Jesus himself interprets his supremacy, as Son of Man, 
 in Matt, x., xi., xxiii., xxv., and elsewhere, I have already ob- 
 served. To claim such a character, seems to me like plung- 
 ing from a pinnacle of the temple. If miraculous power 
 holds him up and makes good his daring, he is more than 
 man ; but if otherwise, to have failed will break all his bones. 
 I can no longer give the same human reverence as before to 
 one who has been seduced into vanity so egregious ; and I 
 feel assured a 2)nori that such presumption must have en- 
 tangled him into evasions and insincerities, which naturally 
 end in crookedness of conscience and real imposture, however 
 noble a man's commencement, and however unshrinking his 
 gacrifices of goods and ease and life. 
 
 The time arrived at last, when Jesus felt that he must 
 publicly assert Messiahship ; and this was certain to bring 
 things to an issue. I suppose him to have hoped that he was 
 IMessiah, until hope and the encouragement given him by 
 Peter and others grew into a persuasion strong enough to act 
 upon, but not always strong enough to still misgivings. I 
 say, I suppose this ; but I build nothing on my supposition. 
 I however see, that when he had resolved to claim Messiah- 
 ship publicly, one of two results was inevitable, if that claim 
 was ill-founded : — viz., either he must have become an im- 
 postor, in order to screen his weakness; or, he must have 
 
PEIlFECTIO^^ OF JESUS. 159 
 
 retracted his pretensions amid much humiliation, and have 
 retired into privacy to learn sober wisdom. From the.-e 
 alternatives there icas escape only by death, and upon death 
 Jesus purposely rushed. 
 
 All Christendom has always believed that the death of 
 Jesus was t'o?it>i^a>77?/ incurred ; and unless no man. ever be- 
 came a wilful martyr, I cannot conceive why we are to doubt 
 the fact concerning Jesus. When he resolved to go up to 
 Jerusalem, he was warned by his disciples of the danger; but 
 so far was he from being blind to it, that he distinctly an- 
 nounced to them that he knew he should suffer in Jerusalem 
 the shameful death of a malefactor. On his arrival in the 
 suburbs, his first act was, ostentatiously to ride into the city 
 on an ass's colt in the midst of the acclamations of the multi- 
 tude, in order to exhibit himself as having a just right to the 
 throne of David. Thus he gave a handle to imputations of 
 intended treason. — He next entered the temj^le courts, where 
 doves and lambs were sold for sacrifice, and — (I must say it 
 to my friend's amusement, and in defiance of his kind but 
 keen ridicule.) committed a breach of the peace by flogging- 
 with a whip those who trafficked in the area. By such con- 
 duct he undoubtedly made himself liable to legal punishment, 
 and probably might have been publicly scourged for it, had 
 the rulers chosen to moderate their vengeance. But he 
 " meant to be prosecuted for treason, not for felony," to use 
 the words of a modern offender. He therefore commenced the 
 most exasperating attacks on all the powerful, calling them 
 hypocrites and whited sepulchres and vipers' brood; and de- 
 nouncing upon them the " condemnation of hell." He was 
 successful. He had both enraged the rulers up to the point 
 of thirstino- for his life, and o-iven colour to the char<2:e of 
 political rebellion. He resolved to die ; and he died. Had 
 his enemies contemptuously let him live, he would have been 
 forced to act the part of Jewish Messiah, or renounce Mes- 
 siahship. 
 
 If any one holds Jesus to be not amenable to the laws of 
 human morality, I am not now reasoning with such a one. 
 But if any one claims for him a human perfection, then I say 
 that his conduct on this occasion was neither laudable nor 
 justifiable: far otherwise. There are cases in which life may 
 be thrown away for a great cause ; as when a leader in battle 
 rushes upon certain death, in order to animate his own men; 
 but the case before us has no similarity to that. If our 
 
IGO THE MORAL 
 
 accounts are not wliolly false, Jesus knowingly and pur|)osely 
 exasperated the rulers into a great crime, — the crime of taking 
 Lis life from personal resentment. His inflammatory ad- 
 dresses to the multitude have been defended as follows: 
 
 " The prophetic Spirit is sometimes oblivious of the rules 
 of the drawing-room ; and inspired Conscience, like the in- 
 spiring God, seeing a hypocrite, will take the liberty to say 
 so, and act accordingly. Are the superficial amenities, the 
 soothing fictions, the smotherings of the burning heart, .... 
 really paramount in this world, and never to give way? and 
 when a soul osi i:>oweT, unable to refrcdn, rubs off, though it be 
 with rasping words, all the varnish from rottenness and lies, is 
 lie to be tried in our courts of compliment for a misdemeanor? 
 Is there never a higher duty than that of either pitying or 
 converting guilty men, — the duty of publicly exposing them? 
 of awakening the popular conscience, and sweeping away the 
 conventional timidities, for a severe return to truth and re- 
 ality? No rule of morals can be recognized as just, which 
 prohibits conformity of human speech to fact, and insists on 
 terms of civility being kept with all manner of iniquity." 
 
 I certainly have not appealed to any conventional morality of 
 drawing-room compliment, but to the highest and purest prin- 
 ciples which I know ; and I lament to find my judgment so 
 extremely in ojDposition. To me it seems that inability to 
 refrain shows weakness, not j)ow€r, of soul, and that nothing 
 is easier than to give vent to violent invective against bad 
 rulers. The last sentence quoted, seems to say, that the 
 speaking of Truth is never to be condemned : but I cannot 
 agree to this. When Truth will only exasperate, and cannot 
 do good, silence is imperative. A man who reproaches an 
 armed tyrant in words too plain, does but excite him to 
 murder; and the shocking thing is, that this seems to have 
 been the express object of Jesus. No good result could be 
 reasonably expected. Publicly to call men in authority by 
 names of intense insult, the writer of the above distinctly sees 
 will never convert them; but he thinks it was adapted to 
 awaken the popular conscience. Alas! it needs no divine 
 prophet to inflame a multitude against the avarice, hypocrisy, 
 and oppression of rulers, nor any deep inspiration of con- 
 science in the multitude to be wide awake on that point them- 
 selves. A Publius Clodius or a Cleon will do that work as 
 efliciently as a Jesus; nor does it appear that the poor are 
 made better by hearing invectives against the rich and 
 
PEllFECTION OF JESUS. 161 
 
 powerful. If Jesus had been aiming, in a good cause, to 
 excite rebellion, the mode of address which he assumed seema 
 highly appropriate; and in such a calamitous necessity, to 
 risk exciting murderous enmity would be the act ol a hero : 
 but as the account stands, it seems to me the deed of a 
 fanatic. And it is to me manitest that he overdid his attack, 
 and failed to commend it to the conscience of his hearers For 
 up to this point the multitude was in his favour. He was 
 notoriously so acceptable to the many, as to alarm the rulers ; 
 indeed the belief of his popularity had shielded him from pro- 
 secution. But after this fierce addicbs he has no more popular 
 support. At his public trial the vast majority judge him to 
 deserve punishment, and prefer to ask free forgiveness for 
 Barabbas, a bandit who was in prison for murder. We mo- 
 derns, nursed in an arbitrary belief concerning these events, 
 drink in with our first milk the assumption that Jesus alone 
 was guiltless, and all the other actors in this sad aftair inex- 
 cusably guilty. Let no one imagine that I defend for a 
 moment the cruel punishment which raw resentment inflicted 
 on him. But though the rulers felt the rage of Vengeance, 
 the people, who had suffered no personal wrong, were moved 
 only by ill-measured Indignation. The multitude love to hear 
 the powerful exposed and reproached, up to a certain limit; 
 but if reproach go clearly beyond all that they feel to be 
 deserved, a violent sentiment reacts on the head of the reviler: 
 and though popular indignation (even when free from the ele- 
 ment of selfishness) ill fixes the due measure of Punishment, I 
 have a strong belief that it is righteous, when it pronounces 
 the verdict Guilty. 
 
 Does my friend deny that the death of Jesus was wilfully 
 incurred? The " orthodox" not merely admit, but maintain 
 it. Their creed justifies it by the doctrine, that his death was 
 a "sacrifice" so pleasing to God, as to expiate the sins of 
 the world. This honestly meets the objections to self-destruc- 
 tion; for how better could life be used, than by laying it dowa 
 for such a prize? But besides all other difificulties in the very 
 idea of atonement, the orthodox creed startles us by the incre- 
 dible conception, that a voluntary sacrifice of life should be 
 unacceptable to God, unless offered by ferocious and impious 
 hands. If Jesus had "authority from the Father to lay down 
 his life," was he unable to stab himself in the desert, or on the 
 sacred altar of the Temple, witliout involving guilt to any 
 human being? Did He, who is at once "High Priest" and 
 
162 THE MORAL 
 
 Victim, when " offering up himself" and " presenting his own 
 blood unto God/' need any justification for using the sacrifi- 
 cial knife? The orthodox view more clearly and unshrink- 
 ingly avows, that Jesus deliherately goaded the wicked rulers 
 into the deeper wickedness of murdering him; but on my 
 friend's view, that Jesus was no sacrifice, but only a Model 
 man, his death is an unrelieved calamity. Nothing but a long 
 and complete life could possibly test the fact of his perfection; 
 and the longer he lived, the better for the world. 
 
 In entire consistency with his previous determination to die, 
 Jesus, when arraigned, refused to rebut accusation, and behaved 
 as one pleading Guilty. He was accused of saying that if they 
 destroyed the temple, he would rebuild it in three days ; but 
 how this was to the purpose, the evangelists who name it do not 
 make clear. The fourth however (without intending so to do) 
 explains it ; and I therefore am disposed to believe his state- 
 ment, though I put no faith in his long discourses. It ap- 
 pears (John ii. 18 — 20) that Jesus after scourging the people 
 out of the temple-court, was asked for a sign to justify his 
 assuming so very unusual authority : on which he rei)lied : 
 " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," 
 Such a reply was regarded as a manifest evasion ; since he was 
 sure that they would not pull the temple down in order to try 
 whether he could raise it up miraculously. Now if Jesus 
 really meant what the fourth gospel says he meant; — if he 
 " spoke of the temijle of his hodyf' — how was any one to 
 guess that? It cannot be denied, that such a reply, ^9Wm(:i 
 fade, suggested, that he was a wilful impostor : was it not 
 then his obvious duty, wlien this accusation was brought 
 against him, to explain that his words had been mystical and 
 had been misunderstood? The form of the imputation in 
 Mark xiv. 5Sy would make it possible to imagine, — if the 
 three days were left out, and if his words were not said in 
 reply to the demand of a sign, — that Jesus had merely avowed 
 that though the outward Jewish temple were to be destroyed, 
 he would erect a church of worshippers as a spiritual temple. 
 If so, "John" has grossly misrepresented him, and then 
 obtruded a very far-fetched explanation. But whatever was 
 the meaning of Jesus, if it was honest, I think he was 
 bound to explain it; and not leave a suspicion of impos- 
 ture to rankle in men's minds.* Finally, if the whole were 
 
 * If the account in John is not wholly false, I think the reply in every 
 case discreditable. Ifliteial, it all but indicates wilful imposture. If 
 
PERFECTION OP JESUS. 163 
 
 fiction, and he never uttered such words, then it was his 
 duty to deny them, and not remain dumb like a sheep before 
 its shearers. 
 
 After he had confirmed by his silence the belief that he had 
 used a dishonest evasion indicative of consciousness that he 
 was no real Messiah, he suddenly burst out with a full reply 
 to the High Priest's question; and avowed that he ivas the' 
 Messiah, the Son of God ; and that they should hereafter see 
 him sitting on the right-hand of power, and coming in the 
 clouds of heaven, — of course to ent^r into judgment on them 
 all. I am the less surprized that this precipitated his con- 
 demnation, since he himself seems to have designed precisely 
 that result. The exasperation which he had succeeded in 
 kindling led to his cruel death; and when men's minds had 
 cooled, natural horror possessed them for such a retribution on 
 such a man. His loords had been met with deeds : the provo- 
 cation he had given was unfelt to those beyond the limits of 
 Jerusalem ; and to the Jews who assembled from distant parts 
 at the feast of Pentecost he was nothing but the image of a 
 sainted martyr. 
 
 I have given more than enough indications of points in 
 which the conduct of Jesus does not seem to me to have been 
 that of a perfect man : how any one can think him a Universal 
 Model, is to me still less intelligible. I might say much more 
 on this subject. But I will merely add, that when my friend 
 gives the weight of his noble testimony to the Perfection of 
 Jesus, I think it is due to himself and to us that he should 
 make clear what he means by this word " Jesus." He ought 
 to publish — (I say it in deep seriousness, not sarcastically) — 
 an expurgated gospel; for in truth I do not know how much 
 of what I have now adduced from the gospel as fact, he will 
 admit to be fact. I neglect, he tells me, "a higher moral 
 criticism," which, if I rightly understand, would explode, as 
 evidently unworthy of Jesus, many of the representations 
 pervading the gospels : as, that Jesus claimed to be an ora- 
 cular teacher, and attached spiritual life or death to belief or 
 disbelief in this claim. My friend says, it is beyond all serious 
 question wJtat Jesus was: but his disbelief of the narrative 
 
 mystical, it is disingenuously evasive ; and it tended, not to instruct, but 
 to irritate, and to move suspicion and contempt. Is this the course for 
 a religiuus teacher ? — to speak darkly, so as to mislead and prejudice ; 
 and this, when he represents it as a matter of spiritual life and death to 
 accept hia teaching and his supremacy 1 
 
164 BIGOTRY 
 
 seeras to be so much wider than mine, as to leave me more 
 uncertain than ever about it. If he will strike out of the 
 ^•ospels all that he disbelieves, and so enable me to understand 
 ^rJtat is the Jesus whom he reveres, I have so deep a sense of 
 his moral and critical powers, that I am fully prepared to ex- 
 pect that he may remove many of my prejudices and relieve 
 my objections : but I cannot honestly say that I see the least 
 probability of his, altering my conviction, that in consistency of 
 goodness Jesus fell far below vast numbers of his uuhonoured 
 disciples. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ON BIGOTRY AND PROGRESS. 
 
 If any Christian reader has been patient enough to follow me 
 thus far, I now claim that he will judge my argument and 
 me, as before the bar of God, and not by the conventional 
 standards of the Christian churches. 
 
 Morality and Truth are principles in human nature both 
 older and more widespread than Christianity or the Bible : 
 and neither Jesus nor James nor John nor Paul could have 
 addressed or did address men in any other tone, than that 
 of claiming to be themselves judged by some pre-existing 
 standard of moral truth, and by the inward powers of the 
 hearer. Does the reader deny this 1 or, admitting it, does he 
 think it impious to accept their challenge 1 Does he say that 
 we are to love and embrace Christianity, without trying to 
 ascertain whether it be true or false ? If he say. Yes, — such 
 a man has no love or care for Truth, and is but by accident a 
 Cliristian. He would have remained a faithful heathen, had 
 he been born in heathenism, though Moses, Elijah and Christ 
 ])reached a higher truth to him. Such a man is condemned 
 by his own confession, and I here address him no longer. 
 
 But if Faith is a spiritual and personal thinj^, if Belief 
 given at random to mere high pretensions is an i nmorality, 
 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 
 erroneous copy of that in the Old Testament ? and that the 
 
AND PKOGiiESS. 1C5 
 
 writer has not only copied wrong, but also counted wrong, so 
 as to mistake eighteen for fourteen ? Can any man, who 
 glories in the name of Christian, lay his hand on his heart, 
 and say, it was my duty to blind my eyes to the fact, and 
 think of it no further 1 Many, alas, 1 know, would^ have 
 whispered this to me; but if any one were to proclaim it, the 
 universal conscience of mankind would call him impudent. 
 
 If however this first step was right, was a second step 
 wrong 1 AVhen 1 further discerned that the two genealogies 
 in Matthew and Luke were at variance, utterly irreconcilable, 
 —and both moreover nugatory, because they are genealogies 
 of Joseph, who is denied to be the father of Jesus, — on what 
 ground of righteousness, which I could approve to God and 
 my conscience, could I shut my eyes to this second fact ? 
 
 When forced, against all my prepossessions, to admit that 
 the two first chapters of Matthew and the two first chapters 
 of Luke are mutually destructive,* would it have been faith- 
 fulness to the God of Truth, or a self-willed love of my own 
 prejudices, if I had said, " I will not inquire further, for fear 
 it should unsettle my faiths ' The reader's conscience will 
 witness to me, that, on the contrary, I was bound to say, what 
 I did say : " I must inquire farther, in order that I may plant 
 the foundations of my faith more deeply on the rock of 
 Truth." 
 
 Having discovered, that not all that is within the canon of 
 the Scripture is infallibly correct, and that the human under- 
 standing is competent to arraign and convict at least some 
 kinds of error therein contained ;— where was I to stop ? 
 and if I am guilty, where did my guilt begin 'i^ The further 
 I inquired, the more errors crowded upon me, in History, in 
 Chronology, in Geography, in Physiology, in Geology.t Did 
 it then at last become a duty to close my eyes to the painful 
 light 1 and if I had done so, ought I to have flattered mjself 
 that I was one of those, who being of the truth, come to the 
 light, that their deeds may be reproved ? 
 
 * See Strauss on the Infancy of Jesus. 
 f My ** Eclectic" reviewer (who is among the least orthodox and the 
 least uncandid) hence deduces, that I have confounded the two ques- 
 tions, " Does the Bible contain errors in human science 1" and, " Is its 
 purely spiritual teaching true ?" It is quite wonderful to me, how edu- 
 cated men can so totally overlook what I have so plainly and so often 
 written. This very passage might show the contrary, if he had but 
 quoted the whole paragraph, instead of the middle sentence only. Sea 
 also pp. 67, 74, 75, 86, 87, 125. 
 
1C6 BIGOTRY 
 
 [Moreover, when I had clearly perceived, that since all evi- 
 dence for Christianity must involve moral considerations, to 
 undervalue the moral faculties of mankind is to make Chris- 
 tian evidence an impossibility and to propagate universal 
 scepticism ; — was I then so to distrust the common conscience, 
 as to believe that the Spirit of God pronounced Jael l)lessed, 
 for perfidiously murdering her husband's trusting friend ] 
 Does any Protestant reader feel disgust and horror, at the 
 sophistical defences set up for the massacre of St. Bartholomew 
 and other atrocities of the wicked Church of Rome % Let 
 him stop his mouth, and hide his face, if he dares to justify 
 the foul crime of Jael. 
 
 Or when I was thus forced to admit, that the Old Testa- 
 ntent praised immorality, as well as enunciated error; and 
 found nevertheless in the writers of the New Testament no 
 indication that they were aware of either; but that, on the 
 contrary, " the Scripture" (as the book was vaguely called) is 
 habitually identified with the infallible " word of God;" — was 
 it wrong in me to suspect that the writers of the New Testa- 
 ment were themselves open to mistake ? 
 
 When I farther found, that Luke not only claims no in- 
 fallibility and no inspiration, but distinctly assigns human 
 sources as his means of knowledge; — when the same Luke 
 had already been discovered to be in irreconcilable variance 
 with Matthew concerning the infancy of Jesus; — was I sinful 
 in feeling that I had no longer any guarantee against otJier 
 possible error in these writers? or ought I to have persisted 
 in obtruding on the two evangelists an infallibility of which 
 Luke shows himself unconscious, which Matthew nowhere 
 claims, and which I had demonstrative proof that they did 
 not both possess*? A thorough -going Bibliolater will have to 
 impeach me as a sinner on this count. 
 
 After Luke and Matthew stood before me as human writers, 
 liable to and convicted of human error, was there any reason 
 why I should look on Mark as more sacred? And having 
 perceived all three to participate in the common superstition, 
 derived from Babylon and the East, traceable in history to its 
 human source, existing still in Turkey and Abyssinia, — the 
 superstition which mistakes mania, epilepsy, and other forms 
 of disease, for possession by devils; — should I have shown 
 love of truth, or obstinacy in error, had I refused to judge 
 freely of these three writers, as of any others who tell similar 
 marvels? or was it my duty to resolve, at any rate and against 
 
AND PROGRESS. 1G7 
 
 eviflence, to acquit them of the charge of superstition and 
 misrepresentation 1 
 
 I will not trouble the reader with any further queries. If 
 he has justified me in his conscience thus far, he will justify 
 my proceeding to abandon myself to the results of inquiry. 
 He will feel, that the Will cannot, may not, dare not dictate, 
 whereto the inquiries of the Understanding shall lead; and 
 that to allege that it ought, is to plant the root of Insin- 
 cerity, Falsehood, Bigotry, Cruelty, and universal Rottenness 
 of Soul. 
 
 The vice of Bigotry lias been so indiscriminately imputed 
 to the religious, tliat they seem apt to forget that it is a real 
 sin; — a sin which in Christendom has been and is of all sins 
 most fruitful, most poisonous : nay, grief of griefs ! it infects 
 many of the purest and most lovely hearts, which want 
 strength of understanding, or are entangled by a sham the- 
 ology, with its false facts and fraudulent canons. But upon 
 all who mourn for the miseries which Bigotry has perpetrated 
 from the day when Christians first learned to curse; upon all 
 who groan over the persecutions and wars stirred up by 
 Romanism; upon all who blush at the overbearing conduct of 
 Protestants in their successive moments of brief authority, — 
 a sacred duty rests in this nineteenth century of protesting 
 against Bigotry, not from a love of ease, but from a spirit of 
 earnest justice. 
 
 Like the first Christians, they must become confessors of 
 the Truth; not obtrusively, boastfully, dogmatically, or 
 harshly; but, "speaking the truth in love," not be ashamed to 
 avow, if they do not believe all that others profess, and that 
 they abhor the unrighteous principle of judging men by an 
 authoritative creed. The evil of Bigotry which has been most 
 observed, is its untameable injustice, which converted the law 
 of love into licensed murder or gratuitous hatred. But I 
 believe a worse evil still has been, the intense reaction of the 
 human mind against Religion for Bigotry's sake. To the 
 millions of Europe, bigotry has been a confutation of all pious 
 feeling. So unlovely has religion been made by it, 
 
 Horribili super aspectu mortalibua instans, 
 
 that now, as 2000 years ago, men are lapsing into Atheism or 
 Pantheism; and a totally new " dispensation" is wanted to 
 retrieve the lost reputation of Piety. 
 
168 BIGOTRY 
 
 Two opposite errors are committed by those who discern 
 that the pretensions of the national religious systems are over- 
 strained and unjustifiable. One class of persons inveighs 
 \varmly, bitterly, rudely against the bigotry of Christians; and 
 know not how deep and holy affections and principles, in spite 
 of narrowness, are cherished in the bosom of the Christian 
 society. Hence their invective is harsh and unsympathizing ; 
 and appears so essentially unjust and so ignorant, as to ex- 
 asperate and increase the very bigotry which it attacks. An 
 opposite class know well, and value highly, the moral influ- 
 ences of Christianity, and from an intense dread of harming 
 or losing these, do not dare plainly and publicly to avow their 
 own convictions. Great numbers of English laymen are en- 
 tirely assured, that the Old Testament abounds with error, 
 and that the New is not always unimpeachable : yet they only 
 whisper this; and in the hearing of a clergyman, who is 
 bound by Articles and whom it is indecent to refute, keep a 
 respectful silence. As for ministers of religion, these, being 
 called perpetually into a practical ap])lication of the received 
 doctrine of their church, are of all men least able to inquire 
 into any fundamental errors in that doctrine. Eminent 
 persons among them will nevertheless aim after and attain a 
 purer truth than that which they find established : but such a 
 case must always be rare and exceptive. Only by disusing 
 ministerial service can any one give fair play to doubts con- 
 cerning the wisdom and truth of that which he is solemnly 
 ministering : hence that friend of Arnold's was wise in this 
 world, who advised him to take a curacy in order to settle his 
 doubts concerning tlie Trinity. — Nowhere from any body of 
 priests, clergy, or ministers, as an Order, is religious progress 
 to be anticipated, until intellectual creeds are destroyed. A 
 greater responsibility therefore is laid upon laymen, to be 
 faithful and bold in avowing their convictions. 
 
 Yet it is not from the practical ministers of religion, that 
 the great opposition to religious reform proceeds. The 
 " secular clergy" (as the Romanists oddly call them) were 
 seldom so bigoted as the " regulars." So with us, those who 
 minister to men in their moral trials have for the most part a 
 deeper moral spirit, and are less apt to place religion in 
 systems of propositions. The robur legionum of bigotry, I 
 believe, is found, — first, in non-parochial clergy, and next, in 
 the anonymous writers for religious journals and " conserva- 
 
AND PROGRESS. 169 
 
 tive" newspapers ; who too generally* adopt a style of which 
 they would be ashamed, if the names of the writers were at- 
 tached ; who often seem desirous to make it clear that it is 
 their trade to carp, insult, or slander; who assume a tone of 
 omniscience, at the very moment when they show narrowness 
 of heart and judgment. To such writing those who desire 
 to promote earnest Thought and tranquil Progress ought 
 anxiously to testify their deep repugnance. A large part of 
 this slander and insult is prompted by a base pandering to the 
 (real or imagined) taste of the public, and will abate when it 
 visibly ceases to be gainful. 
 
 The law of God's moral universe, as known to us, is that of 
 Progress. We trace it from old barbarism to the methodized 
 Egy])tian idolatry; to the more flexible Polytheism of Syria 
 and Greece ; the poetical Pantheism of philosojjhers, and the 
 moral monotheism of a few sages. So in Palestine and in the 
 Bible itself we see, first of all, the image-worship of Jacob's 
 family, then the incipient elevation of Jehovah above all other 
 Gods by Moses, the practical establishment of the worsliip of 
 Jehovah alone by Samuel, the rise of spiritual sentiment under 
 David and the Psalmists, the more magnificent views of Heze- 
 kiah's prophets, finally in tlie Bab}lonish captivity the new 
 tenderness assumed by that second Isaiah and the later 
 Psalmists. But ceremonialism more and more encrusted the 
 restored nation; and Jesus was needed to spur and stab the 
 conscience of his contemporaries, and recal them to more 
 spiritual perceptions; to proclaim a coming "kingdom of 
 heaven," in which should l)e gathered all the children of God 
 that were scattered abroad; where the law of love should 
 reign, and no one should dictate to another. Alas ! that 
 this great movement had its admixture of human imperfection. 
 After this, Steven the protomartyr, and Paul once his perse- 
 cutor, had to expose the emptiness of all external sanctiH- 
 cations, and free the world from tlie lav/ of Moses. Up to 
 this point all Christians approve of progress; but at this point 
 they want to arrest it. 
 
 The arguments of those who resist Progress are always the 
 
 • Any orthodox periodical wliicli dares to write cLaritubly, is at once 
 subjecleJ to lierce atiiick as u«oniiud<^x. 
 
 M 
 
170 BIGOTRY 
 
 same, whether it be Pagans against Hebrews^ Jews against 
 Christians, Komanists against Protestants, or modern Chris- 
 tians against the advocates of a higher spiritualism. Each 
 estabHshed system assures its votaries, that now at length 
 they have attained a final perfection: that their foundations 
 are irremovable: progress ^tp to that position was a duty, 
 beyond it is a sin. Each displaces its predecessor by superior 
 goodness, but then each fights against his successor by odium, 
 contempt, exclusions and (when possille) by violences. Each 
 advances mankind one step, and forbids them to take a second. 
 Yet if it be admitted that in the earlier movement the party 
 of progress was always right, confidence that the cas*^ is now 
 reversed is not easy to justify. 
 
 Every persecuting church has numbered among its members 
 thousands of pious people, so grateful for its services, or so 
 attached to its truth, as to think those impious who desire 
 something purer and more perfect. Herein we may discern, 
 that every nation and class is liable to the peculiar illusion of 
 overesteeming the sanctity of its ancestral creed. It is as 
 much our duty to beware of this illusion, as of any other. 
 All know how easily our patriotism may degenerate into an 
 unjust repugnance to foreigners, and that the more intense it 
 is, the greater the need of antagonistic i:>rinciples. So also, 
 the real excellencies of our religion may only so much the 
 more rivet us in a wrong aversion to those who do not ac- 
 knowledge its authority or perfection. 
 
 It is probable that Jesus desired a state of things in which 
 all who worship God spiritually should have an acknowledged 
 and conscious union. It is clear that Paul longed above all 
 things to overthrow the " wall of partition" which separated 
 two families of sincere worshi|)pers. Yet we now see stronger 
 and higher walls of partition than ever, between the children 
 of the same God, — wdth a new law of the letter, more en- 
 tangling to the conscience, and more depressing to the mental 
 energies, than any outward service of the Levitical law. The 
 cause of all this is to be found in the claim of Alessialwhip for 
 Jesus. This gave a premium to crooked logic, in order to 
 prove that the prophecies meant what they did not mean and 
 could not mean. This perverted men's notions of right and 
 wrong, by imparting factitious value to a literary and his- 
 torical proposition, " Jesus is the Messiah," as though that 
 Avere or coaid be religion. This gave merit to credulity, and 
 led pious men to extol it as a brave and noble deed, when any 
 
AND PROGRESS. 171 
 
 one overpowered the scruples of good sense, and scolded them 
 down as the wisdom of this world, which is hostile to God. 
 This put the Christian church into an essentially false position, 
 by excluding from it in the first century all the men of most 
 powerful and cultivated understanding among the Greeks and 
 Romans. This taught Christians to boast of the hostility of 
 the wise and prudent, and in every controversy ensured that 
 the party which had the merit of mortifying reason most 
 signally should be victorious. Hence, the downward career 
 of the Church into base superstition was determined and in- 
 evitable from her very birth; nor was any improvement 
 possible, until a reconciliation should be effected between 
 Christianity and the cultivated reason which it had slighted 
 and insulted. 
 
 Such reconciliation commenced, I believe, from the tentli 
 century, when the Latin moralists began to be studied as a 
 part of a theological course. It was continued with still 
 greater results when Greek literature became accessible t) 
 churchmen. Afterwards, the physics of Galileo and of New- 
 ton began not only to undermine numerous superstitions, but 
 to give to men a confidence in the reality of abstract truth, 
 and in our power to attain it in other domains than that of 
 geometrical demonstration. This, together with the phi- 
 losophy of Locke, was taken up into Christian thought, and 
 Political Toleration was the first fruit. Beyond that point, 
 English religion has hardly gone. For in spite of all that has 
 since been done in Germany for the true and accurate expo- 
 sition of the Bible, and for the scientific establishment of tlie 
 history of its component books, we still remain deplorably 
 ignorant here of these subjects. In consequence, English 
 Christians do not kuow that they are unjust and utterly un- 
 reasonable, in expecting thoughtful men to abide by the creed 
 of their ancestors. Nor, indeed, is there any more stereotyped 
 and approved calumny, than the declaration so often emphati- 
 cally enunciated from the pulpit, that unbelief in the Cltrisiiarb 
 iriiracles is the fruit of a vncked heart aiui of a soul enslaved 
 to sin. Thus do estimable and well-meaning men, deceived 
 and deceiving one another, utter base slander in open church, 
 where it is indecorous to reply to them, — and think that they 
 are bravely delivering a religious testimony. 
 
 No difficulty is encountered, so long as the imvard and the 
 outward rule of religion agree, — by wliatever names men call 
 them, — the Spirit and the Word. — or Reason and the Church, 
 
 :5i 2, 
 
172 BIGOTRY 
 
 — or Conscience and Authority. None need settle which of 
 the two rules is the greater, so long as the results coincide: in 
 fact, there is no controversy, no struggle, and also probably 
 no progress. A child cannot guess whether father or mother 
 has the higher authority, until discordant commands are given; 
 but then commences the painful necessity of disobeying one in 
 order to obey the other. So, also, the great and fundamental 
 controversies of religion arise, only when a discrepancy is de- 
 tected between the inward and the outward rule : and then, 
 there are only two possible solutions. If the Spirit within us 
 and the Bible (or Church) without us are at variance, we must 
 either folloiv the inward and disregard the outward law ; else 
 we must renounce the inward law and obey the outward. The 
 Romanist bids us to obey the Church and crush our inward 
 judgment: the Spiritualist, on the contrary, follows his inward 
 law, and, when necessary, defies Church, Bible, or any other 
 authority. The orthodox Protestant is better and truer than 
 the Romanist, because the Protestant is not, like the latter, 
 consistent in error, but often goes right : still he is inconsistent 
 as to this point. Against the Spiritualist he uses Romanist 
 principles, telling him that he ought to submit his " proud 
 reason" and accept the "Word of God" as infallible, even 
 though it appear to him to contain errors. But against the 
 Romanist the same disputant avows Spirituahst principles, 
 declaring that since " the Church" appears to him to be erro- 
 neous, he dares not to accept it as infallible. What with the 
 Romanist he before called " proud reason," he now designates 
 as Conscience, Understanding, and perhaps the Holy Spirit. 
 He refused to allow the right of the Spiritualist to urge, that 
 the Bible contains contradictions and immoralities, and there- 
 fore cannot be received ; but he claims a full right to urge that 
 the Church has justified contradictions and immoralities, and 
 therefore is not to be submitted to. The perception that this 
 position is inconsistent, and, to him who discerns the incon- 
 eistency, dishonest, is every year driving Protestants to Rome. 
 And in 2)rinciple there are only two possible religions : the 
 Personal and the Corporate; the Spiritual and the External. I 
 do not mean to say that in Romanism there is nothing but what 
 is Corporate and' External; for that is impossible to human 
 nature : but that this is what the theory of their argument 
 demands; and their doctrine of Implicit* (or Virtual) Faith 
 
 * Explicit Faith in a doctrine, means, Ihnt we understand what the 
 propositions aie, and accept them. But if through blunder we accept a 
 
AXD PROGRESS. 173 
 
 entirely supersedes intellectual perception as well as intellec- 
 tual conviction. The theory of each church is the force which 
 determines to what centre the whole shall gravitate. However 
 men may talk of spirituality, yet let them once enact that the 
 freedom of individuals shall be absorbed in a corporate con- 
 science, and you find that the narrowest heart and meanest 
 intellect sets the rule of conduct for the whole body. 
 
 It has been often observed how the controversies of the 
 Trinity and Incarnation depended on the niceties of the Greek 
 tongue. I do not know whether it has ever been inquired, 
 what confusion of thought was shed over Gentile Christianity, 
 from its very origin, by the imperfection of the New Testa- 
 ment Greek. The single Greek^'' word ttlo-tis needs probably 
 three translations into our far more accurate tongue, — viz., 
 Belief, Trust, Faith; but especially Belief and Faith have im- 
 portant contrasts. Belief is purely intellectual; Faith is pro- 
 j^erly spiritual. Hence the endless controversy about Justifi- 
 cation by nia-Tis, which has so vexed Christians; hence the 
 slander cast on unbelievers or misbelievers (when they can no 
 longer be burned or exiled), as though they were faithless and 
 iiijidels. 
 
 But nothing of this ought to be allowed to blind us to the 
 truly spiritual and holy developments of historical Christianity, 
 — much less, make us revert to the old Paganism or Pan- 
 theism which it supplanted. — The great doctrine on which all 
 practical religion depends, — the doctrine which nursed the 
 infancy and youth of human nature, — is, " the sympathy 
 of God with the perfection of individual man." Among 
 Pagans this was so marred by the imperfect characters 
 ascribed to the Gods, and the dishonourable fables told con- 
 cerning them, that the philosophers who undertook to prune 
 religion too generally cut away the root, by allegingt that 
 
 wrong set of propositions, so as to believe a false doctrine, we neverthe- 
 less have Implicit (or Virtual) Faith in the true one, if only we say froin 
 the heart: *' Wliatever the Church believes, I believe." Thus a person, 
 who, through bhimlering, believes in Sabellianism or Arianism, which 
 the Church has condemned, is regarded to have virtual faith iu Triiii- 
 tariaiiism, and all the "merit" of that faiih, because of his good will to 
 submit to the Church ; which is ihe really saving virtue. 
 
 * AiKaioirvvi] (righteousness), Aia6>']Kr] (covenant, testament), Xdpis 
 (grace), are all terms pregnant with fallacy. 
 
 t Horace and Cicero speak the mind of their eilncated contemporaries, 
 in saying that "we ought to pray to God onli/ for external blessings, 
 but trisi to our own etlbrts for a pure and tranquil soul," — a singular 
 reversing of spiiilual religion ! 
 
174 BIGOTRY 
 
 God was mere Intellect and wholly destitute of Affections. 
 But happily among the Hebrews the purity of God's character 
 was vindicated; and with the growth of conscience in the 
 highest minds of the nation the ideal image of God shone 
 brighter and brighter. The doctrine of his Sympatliy was 
 never lost, and from the Jews it passed into the Christian 
 church. This doctrine, applied to that part of man Avhich is 
 divine, is the wellspring of Repentance and Humility, of 
 Thankfulness, Love, and Joy. It reproves and it comforts; it 
 stimulates and animates. This it is which led the Psalmist to 
 cry, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? there is none upon 
 earth that I desire beside Thee." This has satisfied prophets, 
 apostles, and martyrs with God as their Portion. This has 
 been passed from heart to heart for full three thousand years, 
 and has produced bands of countless saints. Let us not cut 
 off our sym})athies from those, who have learnt to sympathize 
 with God; nor be blind to that spiritual good which they 
 have; even if it be, more or less sensibly, tinged with intel- 
 lectual error. In fact, none but God knows, how many 
 Christian hearts are really pure from bigotry. I cannot re- 
 fuse to add my testimony, such as it is, to the effect, that tlm 
 majority is ahoays truehearted. As one tyrant, with a small band 
 of unscrupulous tools, manages to use the energies of a whole 
 nation of kind and well-meaning people for cruel purposes, so 
 the bigoted few, who work out an evil theory with consistency, 
 often succeed in using the masses of simpleminded Christians 
 as their tools for o])pression. Let us not think more harshly 
 than is necessary of the anathematizing churches. Those who 
 curse us with their lips, often love us in their hearts. A very 
 deep fountain of tenderness can mingle with their bigotry 
 itself: and with tens of thousands, the evil belief is a dead 
 f>-rm, the spiritual love is a living reality. Whether Christians 
 like it or not, we nmst needs look to Historians, to Linguists, 
 to Physiologists, to Philosophers, and generally, to njcn of 
 cultivated understanding, to gain help in all those subjects 
 which are preposterously called Theology: but for devotional 
 aids, for pious meditations, for inspiring hymns, for ])urifying 
 and glowing thoughts, we have still to wait upon that succes- 
 sion of kindling souls, among whom may be named with spe- 
 cial honour David and Isaiah, Jesus and Paul, Augustine, 
 A Kempis, Fenelon, Leighton, Baxter, Doddridge, Watts, the 
 two Wesleys, and Channing. 
 
 Beligion was created by the inward instincts of the soul : it 
 
AND PKOGRESS. 175 
 
 had afterwards to be pruned and chastened by the sceptical 
 understanding". For its perfection, the co-operation of these 
 two parts of man is essential. While religious persons dread 
 critical and searching thought, and critics despise instinctive 
 religion, each side remains imperfect and curtailed. 
 
 It is a complaint often made by religious historian.s, that no 
 church can sustain its spirituality unimpaired through two 
 generations, and that in the third a total irreligion is apt to 
 supervene. Sometimes indeed the transitions are abrupt, fruni 
 an age of piety to an age of dissoluteness. The liability to 
 such lamentable revulsions is plainly due to some insufficiency 
 in the religion to meet all the wants of human nature. To 
 scold at that nature is puerile, and implies an ignorance of 
 the task which religion undertakes. To lay the fault on the 
 sovereign will of God, who has " withheld his grace" from the 
 grandchildren of the pious, might be called blasphemy, if we 
 were disposed to speak harshly. The fault lies undoubtedly 
 in the fact, that Practical Devoutness and Free Thought stand 
 apart in unnatural schism. But surely the age is ripe for 
 something better; — for a religion which shall combine the 
 tenderness, humility, and disinterestedness, that are the glory 
 of the purest Christianity, with that activity of intellect, un- 
 tiring pursuit of truth, and strict adherence to impartial 
 principle, which the schools of modern science embody. 
 When a spiritual church has its senses exercised to discern 
 good and evil, judges of right and wrong by an inward power, 
 proves all things and holds fast that which is good, fears no 
 truth, but rejoices in being corrected, intellectually as well as 
 morally, — it will not be liable to be " carried to and fro" by 
 shifting winds of doctrine. It will indeed have movement, 
 namely^ a steady onward one, as the schools of science have 
 had, since they left off to dogmatize, and approached God's 
 world as learners; but it will lay aside disputes of words, 
 eternal vacillations, mutual illwill and dread of new light, and 
 will be able without hypocrisy to proclaim "peace on earth and 
 goodwill towards men," even towards those who reject its 
 beliefs and sentiments concerning; " God and his glory." 
 
176 
 
 NOTE ON PAGE 168. 
 
 The author of the " Eclipse of Faith," in his Defence (p. 168), 
 referring to my reply in p. 101 above, says : — " In this very 
 })aragraph Mr. Newman shows that I have not misrepresented 
 him, nor is it true that I overlooked his novel hypothesis. 
 He says that * Gibbon is exhibiting and developing the deep- 
 seated causes of the spread of Christianity before Constan- 
 tine,' — which Mr. Newman says had not spread. On the 
 contrary, he assumes that the Christians were ' a small frac- 
 tion,' and thus does dismiss in two sentences, I might have 
 said three words, what Gibbon had strained every nerve in his 
 celebrated chapter to account for." 
 
 Observe his phrase, " On the contrary." It is impossible 
 to say more plainly, that Gibbon represents the spread of 
 Christianity before Constantine to have been very great, and 
 tlien laboured in vain to account for that spread; and that I, 
 arhilrarily setting aside Gihhon^s fact as to the magnitude of 
 the " spread" cut the knot which he could not untie. 
 
 But the fact, as between Gibbon and me, is flatly the 
 reverse. I advance nothing novel as to the numbers of the 
 Christians, no hypothesis of my own, no assumption. I 
 have merely adopted Gibbon's own historical estimate, that 
 (judging, as he does judge, by the examples of Rome and 
 Antioch), the Christians before the rise of Constantine were 
 but a small fraction of the population. Indeed, he says, not 
 above one-tiventie'Ji part ; on which I laid no stress. 
 
 It may be that Gibbon is here in error. I shall willingly 
 withdraw any historical argument, if shown that I have 
 unawares rested on a false basis. In balancing counter state- 
 ments and reasons from diverse sources, different minds come 
 to different statistical conclusions. Dean Milman (" Hist, 
 of Christianity," vol. ii, p. 341) when deliberately weighing 
 opposite opinions, says cautiously, that "Gibbon is perhaps 
 inclined to underrate" the number of the Christians. He 
 adds : " M. Beugnot agrees much with Gibbon, and I should 
 conceive, with regard to the West, is clearly right." 
 
 I beg the reader to observe, that I have not represented 
 the numerical strength of the Christians in Constantine's 
 army to be great. Why my opponent should ridicule my 
 
NOTE ON PAGE 1G8. 177 
 
 use of the phrase Christian regiments, I am too dull to 
 understand. (" Who would not think," says he, " that it was 
 one of Constantine's aide-de-ccnnj^s that was speakino 1") It 
 may be that I am wrong in using the plural noun, and that 
 there was only one such regiment, — that which carried the 
 Labarum, or standard of the cross (Gibbon, ch. 20), to which 
 so much efficacy was attributed in the war against Licinius. 
 I have no time at present, nor any need, for further inquiries 
 on such matters. It is to the devotion and organization of 
 the Christians, not to their proportionate numbers, that I 
 attributed weight. If (as Milman says) Gibbon and Beugnot 
 are "clearly right" as regards the Wet — i. e., as regards all 
 that vast district which became the area of modern European 
 Christendom, I see nothing in my argument which requires 
 modification. 
 
 But why did Christianity, while opposed by the ruling 
 powers, spread " m the East .?" In the very chapter from 
 which I have quoted, Dean Milman justifies me in saying, 
 that to this question I may simply reply, " I do not know," 
 without impairing my present argument. (I myself find no 
 difficulty in it whatever; but I protest against the assumption, 
 that I am bound to believe a religion preternatural, unless I 
 can account for its origin and difi'usion to the satisfaction of 
 its adherents.) Dean Milman, vol. ii. pp. 322-340, gives 
 a full account of the Manichaean religion, and its ra})id and 
 great spread in spite of violent persecution. Mani, the founder, 
 represented himself as " a man invested with a divine mis- 
 sion." His doctrines are described by Milman as wild and 
 mystical metaphysics, combining elements of thought from 
 Magianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism. " His 
 worship was simple, without altar, temple, images, or any 
 imposing ceremonial. Pure and simple prayer was their only 
 form of adoration." They talked much of "Christ" as a 
 heavenly principle, but " did not believe in his birth or death. 
 Prayers and Hymns addressed to the source of light, exhor- 
 tations to subdue the dark and sensuous element within, and 
 the study ot the marvellous book of Mani, constituted their 
 devotion. Their manners were austere and ascetic ; they 
 tolerated, but only tolerated, marriage, and that only among 
 the inferior orders. The theatre, the banquet, and even the 
 bath, they severely proscribed. Their diet was of fruits and 
 herbs ; they shrank with abhorrence from animal food." 
 Maui met with fierce hostility from West and East alike; and 
 
178 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF 
 
 at last was entrapped by the Persian king Bahiram, and "was 
 flayed alive. His skin, stufFed with straw, was placed over 
 the gate of the city of Shahpoor.'' 
 
 Such a death was as cruel and as ignominious as that of 
 crucifixion; yet his doctrines " expired not with their author. 
 In the East and in the West they spread with the utmost 
 
 rapidity The extent of its success may be calculated 
 
 by the implacable hostility of other religions to the doctrines 
 of Mani ; the causes of that success are more difficult to con- 
 jecture.'' 
 
 Every reason, which, as far as I know, has ever been given, 
 why it should be hard for early Christianity to spread, avail 
 equally as reasons against the spread of Manichseism. The 
 state of the East, which admitted the latter without miracle, 
 admitted the former also. It nevertheless is pertiiunt to 
 add, that the recent history of Mormonism, compared with 
 that of Christianity and of Manichseism, may suggest that the 
 martyr-death of the founder of a religion is a positive aid to 
 its after- success. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF THE " ECLTPSE OF FAITH." 
 
 This small treatise was reviewed, unfavourably of course, in 
 most of the religious periodicals, and among them in the 
 " Prospective Review," by my friend James Martineau. I had 
 been about the same time attacked in a book called the 
 " Eclipse of Faith," written (chiefly against my treatise on 
 the Soul) in the form of a Platonic Dialogue ; in which a 
 sceptic, a certain Harrington, is made to indulge in a great 
 deal of loose and bantering argumentation, with the view of 
 ridiculing my religion, and doing so by ways of which some 
 specimen will be given. 
 
 I made an indignant protest in a new edition of this book, 
 and added also various matter in reply to Mr. Martineau, 
 which will still be found here. He in consequence in a 
 second article* of the " Prospective" reviewed me afresh ; but, 
 
 * The "EclipS3" had previously been noticed in the same review, on 
 the whole favourably, by a writer of evidently a different religious school| 
 aud before I had exposed the evil arts of my assailant. 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 17D 
 
 in tlie opening, lie first pronounced his sentence in words of 
 deep disaj)proval against the " Eclipse of Faith." 
 
 " The method of the work," sa3's he, " its ph\n of appealing 
 from what seems shocking in the Bible to something more 
 shocking in the world, simply doubles every difficulty without 
 relieving any ; and tends to enthrone a devil everywhere, 
 
 and leave a God nowhere The whole force of the 
 
 writer's thought, — his power of exposition, of argument, of 
 sarcasm, is thrown, in spite of himseli, into the irreligious 
 
 scale If the work be really written* in good faith, and 
 
 be not rather a covert attack on all religion, it curiously 
 shows how the temple ol the author's worship stands on the 
 same foundation with the officina of Atheism, and in such 
 close vicinity that the passer-by cannot tell from which of the 
 two the voices stray into the street." 
 
 The author of the " Eclipse," buoyed up by a large sale of 
 his work to a credulous public, put forth a " Defence," in 
 ■which he naturally declined to submit to the judgment oi this 
 reviewer. But my readers will remark, that Mr. jNIartineau, 
 writing against me, and seeking to rebut my replies to him — 
 (nay, 1 fear I must say my attack on him ; for I have con- 
 fessed, almost with compunction, that it was I who first 
 stirred the controversy) — was very favourably situated for 
 maintaining a calmly judicial impartiality. He thought us 
 both wrong, and he administered to us each the medicine 
 which seemed to him needed. He passed his strictures on 
 what he judged to be my errors, and he rebuked my assailant 
 for profane recklessness. 
 
 I had complained, not of this merely, but of monstrous 
 indefensible garbling and misrepresentation, pervading the 
 whole work. The dialogue is so managed, as often to suggest 
 what is fiilse concerning me, yet without asserting it; so as to 
 enable him to disown the slander, while producing its full 
 effect against me. Of the directly false statements and 
 garblings I gave several striking exhibitions. His reply to 
 all this in the first edition of his " Defence" was reviewed in 
 a third ^vt\Q\Q of the "Prospective Review." Its ability and 
 reach of thought are attested by the fact that it has been mis- 
 taken for the writing of Mr. Martineau ; but (as clearly as 
 reviews ever speak on such subjects) it is intimated in the 
 opening that this new article is from a new hand, " at the 
 
 * The authorship is since acknowledged by ]\rr. Henry Rogers, in the 
 title to his article on Bishop Butler in the " Encyclopaedia Brituuuica." 
 
ISO REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF 
 
 risk of reve-illng division of persons and opinions within the 
 limits of the mystic critical We'' Who is the author, I do 
 not know ; nor can I make a likely guess at any one who was 
 in more than distant intercourse with me. 
 
 This third reviewer did not bestow one page, as Mr. 
 Marti neau had done, on the " Eclipse ;" did not summarily 
 pronounce a broad sentence without details, but dedicated 
 thirty-four pages to the examination and proof. He opens 
 with noticing the parallel which the author of the " Eclipse" 
 has instituted between his use of ridicule and that of Pascal; 
 and replies that he signally violates Pascal's two rules, ^?'6'^, 
 to speak with truth against one's opponents and not with 
 calumny; secondly, not to wound them needlessly. "Neglect, 
 ot the first rule (says he) has given to these books [the 
 " Eclipse" and its " Defence"] their apparent controversial 
 success ; disregard of the second their literary point." He 
 adds, " We shall show that their author misstates and mis- 
 represents doctrines ; garbles quotations, interpolating words 
 which give the passage he cites reference to subjects quite 
 foreign from those to which in the original they apply, while 
 retaining the inverted commas, which are the proper sign of 
 faithful transcription; that similarly, he allows himself the 
 licence of omission oi the very words on which the contro- 
 versy hangs, while in appearance citing verhcdim ; . . . . and 
 that he habitually employs a sophistry too artful (we fear) to 
 be undesigned. May he not himself have been deceived, some 
 indulgent reader perhaps asks, by the fallacies which have 
 been so successful v»^ith others 1 It would be as reasonable 
 to suppose that the grapes which deluded the birds must have 
 deluded Zeuxis who painted them." 
 
 So grave an accusation against my assailant's truthfulness, 
 coming not from me, but from a third party, and that, evi- 
 dently a man who knew well what he was saying and why, — 
 could not be passed over unnoticed, although that religious 
 world, which reads one side only, continued to buy the 
 *' Eclipse" and its " Defence" greedily, and not one in a 
 thousand of them was likely to see the " Prospective Review." 
 In the second edition of the " Defence" the writer undertakes 
 to defend himself against my advocate, in an Appendix of 
 19 closely printed pages, the "Defence" itself being 218. 
 The " Eclipse," in its 9th edition of small print, is 393 pages. 
 And how does he set about his reply 1 By trying to identify 
 the third wiiter with the second (who was notoriously 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FATTH. 181 
 
 Mr. Martineau), and to impute to him ill temper, chanfrin, 
 irritation, and wounded self-love, as the explanation of this 
 third article! He says (p. 221) : — 
 
 "The third writer — if, as I have said, he be not the 
 second — sets out on a new voyage of discovery . . . and 
 still humbly following in the wake of Mr. Newman's great 
 critical discoveries,* repeats that gentleman's charges of 
 falsifying passages, garbling and misrepresentation. In doing 
 so, he employs language, and manifests a temper, which I 
 should have thought that respect for himself, if not for his 
 opponent, would have induced him to suppress. It is enough 
 to say, that he quite rivals Mr. Newman in sagacity, and if 
 possible, has more successfully denuded liimself of charity. . . . 
 If he be the same as the second writer, I am afraid that the 
 little Section XV." \i. e., the reply to Mr. Martineau in 1st 
 edition of the " Defence"] " must have offended the amour 
 propre more deeply than it ought to have done, considering 
 the wanton and outrageous assault to which it was a very 
 lenient reply ; and that the critic affords another illustration 
 of the old maxim, that there are none so implacable as those 
 who have done a wrong. 
 
 "As the spectacle of the reeling Helot taught the Spartans 
 sobriety, so his bitterness shall teach me moderation. I know 
 enough of human nature to understand that it is very possible 
 for an angry man — and chagrin and irritation are too legihhj 
 written on every j)^9^ ^f ^f^^^ article — to be betrayed into 
 gross injustice." 
 
 The reader will see from this the difficulty of my position 
 in this controversy. Mr. Martineau, while defending himself, 
 deprecated the profanity of my other opponent, and the 
 atheistic nature of his arguments. He spoke as a bystander, 
 and with the advantage of a judicial position, and it is called 
 "wanton and outrageous." A second writer goes into detail, 
 and exposes some of the garbling arts which have been used 
 against me; it is imputedt to ill temper, and is insinuated 
 to be from a spirit of personal revenge. How much less can 
 / defend myself, and that, airainst untruthfulness, without 
 incurring such imputation 1 My opponent speaks to a public 
 
 * That is, my "discovery" that the writer of the '* Eclipse of Faith" 
 grossly misquotes and misinterprets me. 
 
 t Page 225, he says, that such criticism "is quite worthy of Mr. 
 Newman's /jv'crtcZ, defender and admirer;" assuming a fact, in order to 
 lower my defender's credit with his readers. 
 
182 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OP 
 
 who will not read my replies. He picks out what he pleases 
 of my words, and takes care to divest them of their justifica- 
 tion. I have (as was to be expected) met with much treat- 
 ment from the religious press which I know cannot be jus- 
 tified; but all is slight, compared to that ot which I complain 
 from this Avriter. I will presently give a few detailed instances 
 to illustrate this. While my charge against my assailant is 
 essentially moral, and I cannot make any parade of charity, 
 lie can speak patronizingly of me now and then, and makes 
 his main attacks on my logic and metaphysics. He says, 
 that in writing his first book, he knew no characteristics of 
 me, except that I was '*' a gentleman, a scholar, and a very 
 indifferent metaphysician.''' At the risk of encountering yet 
 more of banter and insult, I shall here quote what the third 
 " Prospective Reviewer" says on this topic. (Vol. x. p. 
 208):— 
 
 " Our readers will be able to judge how well qualified the 
 author is to sneer at Mr. Newman's metaphysics, which are 
 far more accurate than his own, or to ridicule his logic. The 
 tone of contempt which he habitually assumes preposterously 
 reverses the relative intellectual status, so far as sound sys- 
 tematic thought is concerned, of the two men." 
 
 I do not quote this as testimony to myself, but as testimony 
 that others, as well as I, feel the contemptuous tone assimied 
 by my adversary in precisely that subject on which modesty 
 is called for. On metaphysics there is hitherto an unrecon- 
 ciled diversity among men who have spent their lives in the 
 study ; and a large part of the endless religious disputes turns 
 on this very fact. However, the being told, in a multitude of 
 ingenious forms, that I am a wretched logician, is not likely to 
 rufile my tranquillity. What does necessarily wound me, is his 
 misrepresenting my thoughts to the thoughtful, whose respect 
 I honour; and poisoning the atmosphere between me and a 
 thousand religious hearts. That these do not despise me, 
 however much contempt he may vent, I know only too well 
 through their cruel fears of me. 
 
 I have just now learned incidentally, that in the last num- 
 ber (a snpi)lementary number) of the "Prospective Review," 
 there was a short reply to the second edition of Mr. Rogers's 
 " Delence," in which the Editors officially deny that the third 
 writer against Mi*. Rogers is the same as the second ; which, 
 I gather from their statement, the " British Quarterly" had 
 taken on itself to ajfirm. 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 183 
 
 T proceed to show what liberties my critic takes with my 
 arguments, and what he justifies. 
 
 ^ I. In the closing chapter of my third edition of the "Phases," 
 I had complained of his bad faith in regard to my arguments 
 concerning the Authoritative imposition of moral truth from 
 without. I showed that, after telling his reader that I offered 
 no proof of my assertions, he dislocated my sentences, altered 
 their order, omitted an adverb of inference, and isolated three 
 sentences out of a paragraph of forty-six lines : that his omis- 
 sion of the inferential adverb showed his deliberate intention 
 to destroy the reader's clue to the fact, that I had given proof 
 where he suppresses it and says that I have given none ; that 
 the sentences quoted as 1, 2, 3, by him, with me have the order 
 3, 2,1 ; while what he places first, is >\'ith me an immediate and 
 necessary deduction from what has preceded. Now how does 
 he reply 1 He does not deny my facts, but he justifies his 
 process. I must set his words before the reader. {Defence, 
 2nd ed., p. 85.) 
 
 " The strangest thing is to see the way in which, after pa- 
 rading this supposed 'artful dodge,'* which, I assure you, 
 gentle reader, was all a perfect novelty to my consciousness, — 
 Mr. Newman goes on to say, that the author of the 'Eclipse' 
 has altered the order of his sentences to suit a purpose. He 
 says : 'The sentences quoted as 1, 2, 3, b}- him, with me have 
 the order 3, 2, 1.' I answer, that Harrington was simply 
 anxious to set forth at the head of his argument, in the clearest 
 and briefest form, the conclusions^ he believed Mr. Newman 
 to hold, and which he was going to confute. He had no idea 
 of any relation of subordination or dependence in the above 
 sophisms, as I have just proved them to be, whether arranged 
 as 3, 2, 1, or 1, 2, 3, or 2, 3, 1, or in any other order in which 
 the possible pernmtations of tliree things, taken 3 and 3 to- 
 gether, can exhibit them ; ex nihilo, nil Jit; and three nonen- 
 tities can yield just as little. Jangle as many changes as }ou 
 will on these three cracked bells, no logical harmony can ever 
 issue out of them." 
 
 Thus, because he does not see the validity of my argument, 
 
 * As he puts "artful dodge" into quotation marks, his readers wnll 
 almost inevitably believe that this vulgar language is mine. In the same 
 epirit he speaks of me as "making merry" with a Book Revelation; as if I 
 had the slightest sympathy or share in the style and tone which pervades 
 the "Eclipse." But there is no end of such things to be denounced. 
 + Italics iu the original. 
 
1S4 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF 
 
 lie is to pretend that I have offered none : he is not to allnw 
 iiis readers to jndge for themselves as to the validity, but they 
 have to take his word that I am a very " queer" sort of lo- ician, 
 ready " for any feats of logical legerdemain." 
 
 I have now to ask, what is garbling, if the above is not? 
 He admits the facts, but justifies them as having Ijeen con- 
 venient from his point of view ; and then finds my charity to 
 be "very grotesque," when I do not know how, without hy- 
 pocrisy, to avoid calling a spade a spade. 
 
 I si > all here reprint the pith of my argument, somewhat 
 shortened : — 
 
 "No heaven-sent Bible can guarantee the veracity of God to 
 a man who doubts that veracity. Unless we have independent 
 means of knowing that God is truthful and good, his word (if 
 we be ever so certain that it is really his word) has no author- 
 ity to us : hence no bouk revelation can, without sapping its 
 own pedestal, deny the validity of our a priori conviction that 
 God has the virtues of goodness and veracity, and requires 
 like virtues in us. A7id in /act, all Christian apostles and 
 missionaries, like the Hebrew prophets, have always confuted 
 Paganism by direct attacks on its immoral and unspiritual 
 doctrines, and have ai)pealed to the consciences of heathens, 
 as competent to decide in the controversy. Christianity 
 itself has thus practically confessed what is theoretically 
 clear, that an authoritative external revelation of moral 
 and spiritual truth is essentially impossiljle to man. What 
 God reveals to us, he reveals within, through the medium 
 of our moral and spiritual senses. External teaching may 
 be a training of those senses, but affords no foundation for 
 certitude." 
 
 This passage deserved the enmity of my critic. He quoted 
 bits of it, very sparingly, never setting before his readers my 
 continuous thought, but giving his own free versions and de- 
 ductions. His fullest quotation stood thus, given only in an 
 after chapter: — 
 
 " What God reveals to us, he reveals vnthin, through the 
 medium of our moral and spiritual senses." " Christianity 
 itself has practically confessed what is theoretically clear, (yo?6 
 must take Mr. Newman's word for both,)* that an authoritative 
 external revelation of moral and spiritual truth is essentially 
 
 * In the ninth edition, p. 104, I find that to cover the formal falselio-^-d 
 oi" these words, he adds: "what he calls his arguments are assertions 
 only," still withholding that which would confute him. 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 18.5 
 
 impossible to man." " No ])ook -revelation can, without sap- 
 I)ing its own pedestal, &c., &c." 
 
 These three sentences are what Mr. Ro,gers calls the three 
 cracked bells, and thinks by raising a laugh, to hide his fraud. 
 I have carefully looked through the whole of his dialogue con- 
 cerning Book Revelation in his 9th edition of the "Eclipse" 
 (pp. 63-83 of close print). He still excludes from it every 
 part of my argument, only stating in the opening (p. 63) as 
 my conclusions, that a book-revelation is impossible, and 
 that God reveals himself from within, not from without. 
 In his Defence (which circulates far less than the " Eclipse," 
 to judge by the number of editions) he displays his bravery 
 bj' at length printing my argument ; but in the " Eclipse" he 
 continues to suppress it, at least as far as I can discover by 
 turning to the places where it ought to be found. 
 
 In p. 77 (9th ed.) of the " Eclipse," he implies, without 
 absolutely asserting, that I hold the Bible to be an imperti- 
 nence. He repeats this in p. 85 of the " Defence." Such is 
 his mode. I wrote : " Without this a priori belief, the Bible is an 
 impertinence," but I say, man has this a priori belief, on which 
 account the Bible is not an impertinence. My last sentence in 
 the very passage before us, expressly asserts the value of (good) 
 external teaching. This my critic laboriously disguises. 
 
 He carefully avoids allowing his readers to see that I am 
 contending fundamentally for that which the ablest Christian 
 divines have conceded and maintained; that which the common 
 sense of every missionary knows, and every one who is not 
 profoundly ignorant of the Bible and of history ought to 
 know. Mr. Rogers is quite aware, that no apostle ever carried 
 a Bible in his hand and said to the heathen, " Believe that 
 there is a good and just God, because it is written in this 
 book;" but they appealed to the hearts and consciences of the 
 hearers as competent witnesses. He does not even give his 
 reader enough of my paragraph to make intelligible what 
 I meant by saying "Christianity has practically confessed;" 
 and yet insists that I am both unreasonable and uncharitable 
 in my complaints of him. 
 
 I here reprint the summary of my belief concerning our 
 knowledge of morality as fundamental, and not to be tampered 
 with under peetence of religion. " If an angel from heaven 
 bade me to lie, and to steal, and to commit adultery, and 
 to murder, and to scofl' at good men, and usurp dominion over 
 my equals, and do unto others everything that I wish not to 
 
186 EEPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF 
 
 have (lone to me; I ought to reply, Be thou anathema! 
 This, I believe, was Paul's doctrine; this is mine." 
 
 It may be worth while to add how in the " Defence" Mr. 
 Kogers pounces on my phrase "a priori view of the Divine 
 character," as an excuse for burying his readers in meta- 
 physics, in which he thinks he has a natural right to dog- 
 matize against and over me. Ife must certainly be aware 
 of the current logical (not metaphysical) use of the phrase 
 a priori: as when we say, that Le Verrier and Adams demon- 
 strated a priori that a planet must exist exterior to Uranus, 
 before any astronomer communicated information that it does 
 exist. Or again : the French Commissioners proved by actual 
 measurement that the earth is an oblate spheroid, of which 
 Newton had convinced InmseU a priori. 
 
 I always avoid a needless argument of metaphysics. Writing 
 to the generyl public, I cannot presume that they are good 
 judges of anything but a practical and moral argument. The 
 a p7-iori views of God, of which I here speak, involve no subtle 
 questions ; they are simply those views which are attained iii- 
 dependeutly of the aJleyed authoritative information, and, of 
 course, are founded upon considerations earlier than it. 
 
 But it would take too much of space and time, and be far 
 too tedious to my readers, if I were to go in detail through 
 Mr. Rogers's objections and misre])resentations. I have the 
 sad task of attacking ]tis good faith, to which I further 
 l)roceed. 
 
 II. In the preface to my second edition of the " Hebrew 
 Monarchy," I found reason to explain briefly in what sense I 
 use the word inspiration. I said, I found it to be current in 
 three senses ; " first, as an extraordinary influence peculiar to 
 a few persons, as to prophets and apostles ; secondly, as an 
 ordinary influence of tJie Divine Spirit on the hearts of men, 
 ivhich quickens and strengthens their moral and spiritucd 
 ■powers, and is accessible to them all (in a certain stage of 
 development) in some proportion to their own faithfulness. 
 The third view teaches that genius and inspiration are two 
 
 names for one thing Christians for the most jKirt hold 
 
 the ty)o first conceptions, i\\ou<^\i they generally call the second 
 spiritucd hifluence, not inspiration; the third, seems to be 
 common in the Old Testament. It so happens that the 
 s^ond is the oidy inspiration which I hold." [I here super- 
 add the italics.] On tliis passage Mr. Rogers commented as 
 follows (" Defence" p. 156) : — 
 
THE ECLIPSE OP FAITH. 187 
 
 "The latest utterance of ^fr. Newman on the subject [of 
 inspiration] that I have read, occurs in his preface to the 
 second edition of his " Hebrew Monarchy," where he tells us, 
 that he believes it is an influence accessible to all men, in a 
 certain stage of development ! [Italics.] Surely it will be 
 time to consider his theory of inspiration, when he has told 
 us a little more about it. To my mind, if the very genius of 
 mystery had framed the definition, it could not have uttered 
 anything more indefinite." 
 
 Upon this passage the " Prospective" reviewer said his say 
 as follows (vol. X. p. 217) : — 
 
 " The writer will very considerately defer criticism on 
 Mr. Newman's indefinite definition, worthy of the genius 
 of mystery, till its author has told us a little more about it. 
 Will anyone believe that he himself deliberately omits the 
 substance of the definition, and gives in its stead a paren- 
 thetical qualification, which might be left out of the origin nl, 
 without injury either to the grammatical structure, or to the 
 general meaning of the sentence in which it occurs ?" He 
 proceeds to state what I did say, and adds : " Mr. Newman, 
 in the very page in which this statement occurs, expressly 
 identifies his doctrine with the ordinar^y Christian belief of 
 Divine influence. His words are exactly coincident in sense 
 with those employed by the author of the " Eclipse," where 
 he acknowledges the reality of ' the ordinary, though m}s- 
 terious action, by which God aids those who sincerely seek 
 him in every good word and work.' The moral faithfulness 
 of which Mr. Newman speaks, is the equivalent of the 
 sincere search of God in good word and work, which his 
 opponent talks of." 
 
 I must quote the entire reply given to this in the " Defence," 
 second edition, p. 224 :^ 
 
 "And now for a few examples of my opponent's criticisms. 
 1. I said in the "Defence" that I did not understand Mr. 
 Newman's notions of inspiration, and that, as to his very 
 latest utterance — namely, that it was an influence accessible 
 to all men in a certain stage of develojwient [italics], it was 
 utterly unintelligible to me. * Will any one beUeve (says 
 my critic) that he deliberately omits the substance of the 
 definition, and gives in its stead a parenthetical qualification, 
 which might be left out of the original without injury either 
 to the grammatical structure or to the general meaning of 
 the sentence in which it occurs V Was anything ever mord 
 
 N 2 
 
188 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF 
 
 amusing 1 A parentbetical clause whicli iniglit be left out of 
 the original without injury to the grammatical structure or to 
 the general meaning ! Might be left out 'if Ay, to be sure it 
 might, and not only ' without injury,' but with benefit; just 
 as the dead fly which makes the ointment of the apothecary 
 to stink might be left out of that without injury. But it was 
 not left out ; and it is precisely because it was there, and 
 diftused so remarkable an odour over the whole, that I cha- 
 racterized the definition as I did — and most justly. Acces- 
 sible to all men in a certain stage of development ! When 
 and how accessible ? What species of development, I beseech 
 you, is meant? And what is the stage of it? The very 
 thing, which, as I say, and as everybody of common sense 
 must see, renders the definition utterly vague, is the very 
 clause in question." 
 
 Sucli is his entire notice of the topic. From any other 
 writer I should indeed have been amazed at such treatment. 
 T had made the very inoffensive profession of agreeing with 
 the current doctrine of Christians concerning spiritual influ- 
 ence. As I was not starting any new theory, but accepting 
 what is notorious, nothing more than an indication was 
 needed. I gave, what 1 should not call definition, but 
 description of it. My critic conceals that I have avowed 
 agreement with Christians; refers to it as a theory of my 
 own ; complains that it is obscure ; pretends to quote my 
 definition, and leaves out all the cardinal words of it, which [ 
 have above printed in italics. My defender, in the " Pro- 
 spective Review," exposes these mal-practices ; points out 
 that my opponent is omitting the main words, while com- 
 plaining of deficiency ; that I profess to agree with Christians 
 in general ; and that I evidently agree with my critic in ■par- 
 ticular. The critic undertakes to rei)ly to this, and the reader 
 has before him the whole defence. The man who, as it were, 
 puts his hand on his heart to avow that he anxiously sets 
 before his readers, if not what I mean, yet certainly what I 
 have expressed, — still persists in hiding from them the facts 
 of the case ; avoids to quote from the reviewer so much as to 
 let out that I profess to agree* with what is prevalent among 
 Christians and have no peculiar theory; — still withholds the 
 
 * I will here add, that this "stinking fly" — the parenthesis (**ina 
 certain stage of development") — was added merely to avoid dogmatizing ou 
 the question, how early in human history or in human life this mysterioua 
 action of the divine spirit is recognizable as commeacing. 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 189 
 
 cardinal points of what he calls my definition; while he tries 
 to lull his reader into inattention by affecting to be highly 
 amused, and by bantering and bullying in his usual style, 
 while perverting the plainest words in the world. 
 
 I have no religious press to take my part. I am isolated, 
 as my assailant justly remarks. For a wonder, a stray 
 review here and there has run to my aid, while there is a 
 legion on the other skle — newspapers, magazines, and reviews. 
 Kow if any orthodox man, any friend of my assailant, by 
 some chance reads tliese pages, I beg him to compare my 
 quotations, thus fully given, with the originals ; and if he find 
 anything false in them, then let him placard me as a liar in 
 the whole of the religious press. But if he finds that I am 
 right, then let him learn in what sort of man he is trust- 
 ing — what sort of champion of truth this religious press has 
 cheered on. 
 
 III. I had complained that Mr. Rogers falsely represented 
 me to make a fanatical " divorce" between the intellectual 
 and the spiritual, from which he concluded that I ought to be 
 indifferent as to the worship of Jehovah or of the image which 
 fell down from Jupiter. He has pretended that my religion, 
 according to me, has received nothing by traditional and 
 historical agencies; that it owes nothing to men who went 
 before me; that I believe I have (in my single unassisted 
 bosom) " a spiritual faculty so bright as to anticipate all 
 essential* spiritual verities ;" that had it nut been for tradi- 
 tional religion, " we should everywhere have heard the 
 invariable utterance of spiritual religion in the one dialect 
 of the heart," — that " this divinely implanted faculty of 
 spiritual discernment anticipates all external truth," <tc. tfec. 
 I then adduced passages to show that his statement was 
 emphatically and utterly contrary to fact. In his " Defence," 
 he thus replies, p. 15 : — 
 
 " I say with an unfaltering conscience, that no controvertist 
 ever more honestly and sincerely sought to give his opponent's 
 views, than I did Mr, Newman's, after the most diligent 
 study of his rather obscure books ; and that whether I have 
 succeeded or not in giving what he tliought, I have certainly 
 given what he expressed. It is quite true that I sui)posed 
 Mr. Newman intended to "divorce" faith and intellect; and 
 
 * If the word essential is explained away, this sentence may be at* 
 tenuated to a truism. 
 
190 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF 
 
 what else on earth could I suppose, in common even with 
 those who were most leniently disposed towards him, from 
 such sentiments as these? All the grounds of belief 
 
 PROPOSED TO THE MERE UNDERSTANDING HAVE NOTHING TO 
 DO WITH FAITH AT ALL. ThE PROCESSES OF THOUGHT HAVE 
 NOTHING TO QUICKEN THE CONSCIENCE OR AFFECT THE SOUL. 
 
 IIoii^ then can tlie state of the soul he tested hy the conclusion 
 to lohich tlie intellect is led ? I was compelled, I say, to take 
 these passages as everybody else took them, to 7nean what 
 they obviously express.''' 
 
 Here he so isolates three assertions of mine from their con- 
 text, as to suggest for each of them a false meaning, and 
 make it difficult for the reader who has not my book at hand 
 to discover the delusion. The first is taken from a discussion 
 of the arguments concerning the soul's immortality (" Soul," 
 p. 223, 2nd edition), on which I wrote thus, p. 219 : — 
 that to judge of the accuracy of a metaphysical argument 
 concerning mind and matter, requires not a pure conscience 
 and a loving soul, but a clear and calm head; that if the 
 doctrine of immortality be of high religious importance, we 
 cannot believe it to rest on such a basis, that those in whom 
 the religious faculties are most developed may be more liable 
 to err concerning it than those who have no religious faculty 
 in action at all. On the contrary, concerning truths which 
 are really spiritual it is an obvious axiom,* that " he who is 
 spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no 
 niau'." After this I proceeded to allude to the history of the 
 doctrine among the Hebrews, and quoted some texts of the 
 Psalms, the argument of which, I urged, is utterly inap- 
 preciable to the pure logician, " because it is spiritually dis- 
 cerned." I continued as follows : — 
 
 " This is as it should be. Can a mathematician understand 
 physiology, or a physiologist questions of law % A true love 
 of God in the soul itself, an insight into Him depending on 
 that love, and a hope rising out of that insight, are pre- 
 requisite for contemplating this spiritual doctrine, which is a 
 si)ontaneous impression of the gazing soul, powerful (perhaps^ 
 in proportion to its faith ; whereas all the grounds of beliei 
 ])roposed to the mere understanding have nothing to do with 
 laith at all." 
 
 I am expounding the doctrine of the great Paul of Tarsus, 
 
 * Paul to the Corinthians, 1st Ep. ii. 
 
THE L'CLIPSE OF FAITH. 1D1 
 
 who indeed applies it to this very topic, — the future bliss 
 which God has prepared for them that love him. Docs 
 Mr. PtOfifers attack Paul as makin<^ a fanatical divorce between 
 faith and intellect, and say that he is compelled so to under- 
 stand him, when he avows that " the natural man under- 
 standeth not the things of God; for they are foolishness unto 
 him." "When the world by wisdom knew not God, it 
 pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them 
 that believe." Here is a pretended champion of Evangelical 
 truth seeking to exj^tlode as absurdities the sentiments and judg- 
 ments which have ever been at the heart of Christianity, its 
 I)ride and its glory ! 
 
 But I justify my argument as free from fanaticism — and 
 free from obscurity when the whole sentence is read — to a Jew 
 or Mohammedan, quite as much as to a Christian. 
 
 ]\Iy oj)ponent innocently asks, hoio much I desire him to 
 quote of me? But is innocence the right word, when he has 
 quoted but two lines and a half, out of a sentence of seven 
 and a half, and has not even given the clause complete 1 By 
 omitting, in his usual way, the connecting particle ivhereas, 
 he hides from the reader that he has given but half my 
 thought ; and this is done, after my complaint of this very 
 proceeding. A reader who sees the whole sentence, discerns 
 at once that I opj^ose " the mere understanding," to the whole 
 soul ; in short, that by the man who has mere understanding, 
 I mean him whom Paul calls " the natural man." SSuch a 
 man may have metaphysical talents and acquirements, he 
 may be a physiologist or a great lawyer; nay, I will add, (to 
 shock my opponent's tender nerves). eve7i if he he an Atlieiat, 
 he may be highly amiable and deserving of respect and love; 
 but if he has no spiritual development, he cannot have insiglit 
 into spiritual truth. Hence such arguments for immortahty 
 as can be appreciated by him, and cannot be appreciated by 
 religious men as such, " have nothing to do with faith at all." 
 
 The two other passages are found thus, in p. 245 of the 
 "Soul," 2nd edition. After naming local history, criticism 
 of texts, history of philosophy, logic, physiology, demonology, 
 and other important but very difficult studies, I ask : — 
 
 " Is it not extravagant to call inquiries of this sort sjnritual 
 or to expect any spiritual* results from them? When the 
 
 * This clause is too strong. ''Expect direct spiritual results," might 
 have been better. 
 
192 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OP 
 
 spiritual man (as such) cannot judge, the question is removed 
 into a totally different court from that of the soul, the court 
 
 of the critical understanding How then can the state 
 
 of the soul be tested by the conclusion to which the intellect 
 is led 1 What means the anathematizing of those who remain 
 unconvinced 1 And how can it be imagined that the Lord of 
 the soul cares more about a historical than about a geological, 
 metaphysical, or mathematical argument ? The processes of 
 thought have nothing to quicken the conscience or aft'ect the 
 soul." 
 
 From my defender in the " Prospective Review" I learn 
 that in the first edition of the " Deience" the word thought 
 in the last sentence above was placed in italics. He not only 
 protested against this and other italics as misleading, but 
 clearly explained my sense, which, as I think, needs no 
 other interpreter than the context. In the new edition 
 the italics are removed, but the unjust isolation of the sen- 
 tences remains. " The processes of thought," of which I 
 spoke, are not '' all processes," but the processes involved in 
 the abstruse inquiries to which I had referred. To say that 
 710 processes of thought quicken the conscience, or aftect the 
 soul, would be a gross absurdity. This, or nothing else, is 
 what he imputes to me ; and even after the protest made by 
 the " Prospective" reviewer, my assailant not only continues 
 to hide that I speak of certain processes of thought, not all 
 processes, but even has the hardihood to say that he takes 
 the passages as everybody else does, and that he is compelled 
 so to do. 
 
 In my own original reply I appealed to places where I had 
 fully expressed my estimate of intellectual progress, and its 
 ultimate beneficial action. All. that I gain by this, is new 
 garblings and taunts for inconsistency. " Mr. Newman," 
 says he, "is the last man in the world to whom I would deny 
 the benefit of having contradicted himself." But I must 
 confine myself to the garbling. " Defence," p. 95 : — 
 
 " Mr. Newman afiirms that my representations of his views 
 on this subject are the most direct and intense reverse of all 
 that he has most elaborately and carefully written !"' He 
 still says, " what God reveals, he reveals within and not with- 
 out," and " he did say (though, it seems, he says no longer), 
 that ' of God we know everything from within, nothing from 
 witliout;' yet he says I have grossly misrepresented him." 
 
 This pretended quotation is itself garbled. I wrote, 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 133 
 
 C; Piiases,** 1st edition, p. 152)— ^' Of our moral and spi- 
 ritual God we know nothing without, everything within.'* 
 By omitting the adjectives, the critic produces a°statement 
 opposed to my judgment and to my writings; and then goes 
 on to say. "Well, if Mr. Newman will engage to prove 
 contradictions, .... I think it is no wonder that his readers 
 do not understand him." 
 
 ^ I believe it is a received judgment, which I will not posi- 
 tively assert to be true, but I do not think I have anywhere 
 denied, that God is discerned by us in the universe as a 
 designer, creator, and mechanical ruler, through a mere study 
 of the world and its animals and all their adaptations, even 
 without an absolute necessity of meditating consciously on 
 the intelligence of man and turning the eyes within. Thus 
 a creative God may be said to be discerned " from without." 
 But in my conviction, that God is not so discerned to be 
 moral or spiritual or to be our God ; but by moral intellect 
 and moral experience acting "inwardly." If Mr. Eogers 
 chooses to deny the justness of my view, let him deny it ;1bu* 
 by omitting the emphatic adjectives he has falsified my sen- 
 tence, and then has founded upon it a charge of inconsistency. 
 In a previous passage (p. 79) he gave this quotation in full* 
 in order to reproach me for silently withdrawing it in my 
 
 second edition of the " Phases." He says : 
 
 " The two sentences in small capitals are not found in the 
 new edition of the ' Phases.' They are struck out. It is no 
 doubt the right of an author to erase in a new edition any 
 expressions he pleases; but when he is about to charge 
 another with having grossly garbled and steathily misr'e- 
 presented him, it is as well to let the world know ivhat he has 
 erased and ivhy. He says that my representation of his sen- 
 timents is the most direct and intense reverse of all that he 
 has most elaborately and carefully written. It certainly is 
 not the intense reverse of all that he has most elaborately and 
 carefully scratched outy 
 
 I exhibit here the writer's own italics. 
 
 By this attack on my good faith, and by pretending that 
 iny withdrawal of the passage is of serious importance, he 
 distracts the reader's attention from the argument there in 
 hand (p. 79), which is, 7iot what are my sentiments and judg- 
 ments, but whether he had a right to dissolve and distort my 
 chain of reasoning (see I. above) while affecting to (juote me, 
 and pretending that I gave nothing but assertion. As 
 
194 KEPLY TO THE DEFENCE OP 
 
 regards my "elaborately and carefully scratching out^ this 
 was (lone ; 1. Because the passage seemed to me superfluous ; 
 2. Because I had pressed the topic elsewhere; 3. Because I 
 was going to enlarge on it in my reply to him, p. 199 of my 
 second edition.* When the real place comes where my critic 
 is to deal with the substance of the passage (p. 94 of 
 " Defence"), the reader has seen how he mutilates it. 
 
 The other passage of mine which he has adduced, employe 
 the word reveals, in a sense analogous to that of revelatioii^ 
 in avowed relation to things moral and spiritual, which 
 would have been seen, had not my critic reversed the order 
 of my sentences; which he does again in p. 78 of the 
 "Defence," after my protest against his doing so in the 
 "Eclipse." I wrote: (S..ul, p. 59) "Christianity itself has 
 thus practically confessed, what is theoretically cL-ar, that 
 an authoritative external revelation of moral and spiritual 
 truth is essentially impossible to man. What God reveals 
 to us, he reveals within, through the medium of our moral 
 and spiritual senses." The words, "What God reveals," seen 
 in the light of the preceding sentence, means : " That portion 
 of moral and S2nritual truth which God reveals." This can- 
 not be discovered in tlie isolated quotation; and as, both 
 in p. 78 and in p. 95, he chooses to quote my word What 
 in italics, his reader is led on to interj)ret me as saying " every 
 thing tohatsoever which we know of God, we learn from 
 within ;" a statement which is not mine. 
 
 Besides this, the misrepresentation of which I complaiued 
 is not confined to the rather metaphysical words of within 
 and without, as to which the most candid friends may differ, 
 and may misunderstand one another ; — as to which also I may 
 be truly open to correction; — but he assumes the right to 
 tell his readers that my doctrine undervalues Truth, and 
 Intellect, and Traditional teaching, and External suggestion, 
 and Historical influences, and counts the Bible an imperti- 
 
 * The substance of what I wrote was tliis. Socrates and Cicero ask, 
 where did we pich up our intelligence ? It did not come from nothing ; it 
 must reside in the mind of him from whom we and this woidd came ; God 
 must be more intelligent than man, his creature. — But this argument may 
 be applied with equal truth, not to intelligence only, but to all the essen- 
 tial high qualities of man, everything noble and venerable. Whence came 
 the principle of love, which is the noblest of all ? It must reside in God 
 more truly and gloriously than in man. He who made loving hearts must 
 himself be loving. Thus the intelligence and love of God are known 
 through our consciousness of intelligence and love within. 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 195 
 
 nence. When he fancies he can elicit this and that, by 
 Lis own logic, out of sentences and clauses torn from their 
 context, he has no right to disguise what I have said to 
 tiie contrary, and claim to justify his fraud by accusing me 
 of self-contradiction. Against all my protests, and all that 
 I said to the very opposite previous to any controversy, he 
 coolly alludes to it (p. 40 of the " Defence") as though it 
 were my avowed doctrine, that : " Each man, looking exclu- 
 sively within, can at once rise to the conception of God's 
 infinite perfections." 
 
 IV. When I agree with Paul or David (or think I do), 
 I have a right to quote their words reverentially; but when 
 I do so, Mr. Rogers deliberately justifies himself in ridi- 
 culing them, pretending that he only ridicules me. He thus 
 answers my indignant denunciation in the early part of his 
 " Defence," p. 5 : — 
 
 '• Mr. Newman warns me with much solemnity a^^ainst 
 thinking that 'questions pertaining to God are advanced 
 by boisterous glee.' I do not think that the 'Eclipse' is 
 characterised by boisterous glee; and certainly I was not 
 at all aware, that the things which alone* I have ridiculed — 
 some of them advanced by him, and some by others — de- 
 served to be treated with solemnity. For example, that 
 an authoritative external revelation,t which most persons 
 have thought possible enough, is impossible, — that man is 
 most likely born for a dog's life, and 'there an end' — that 
 there are great defects in the morality of the New Testament, 
 and much imperfection in tlie character of its founder, — that 
 the miracles of Christ might be real, because Christ was a 
 clairvoyant and mesmerist, — that God was not a Person, but 
 a Personality; — I say, I was not aware that these things, 
 and such as these, which alone I ridiculed, were questions 
 'pertaining to God,' in any other sense than the wildest 
 hyi>otheses in some sense pertain to science, and the grossest 
 heresies to religion." 
 
 Now first, is his statement true 1 
 
 Are these the only things which he ridiculed 1 
 
 * He puts aZone in italics. A little below he repeats, "which alone 
 I ridiculed." 
 
 + He should add: "external autlioritative revelation of moral and 
 spiritual triUh." No communication from heaven could have moral 
 weight, to a heart previously destitute of moral sentiment, or unbelieving 
 in the morality of (lod. — What is there in this that deserves ridicule ? 
 
196 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OP 
 
 I quoted in my reply to him enough to show what was 
 the class of " things pertaining to God" to which I referred. 
 He forces me to requote some of the passages. " Eclipse," 
 p. 82 [1st ed.] "You shall be permitted to say (wbat I 
 will not contradict), that though Mr. Newman may he in- 
 spired for aught I know .... inspired as much as (say) 
 the inventor of Lucifer raatches — yet that his book is not 
 divine, — that it is purely human." 
 
 Again: p. 126 [ist ed.] "Mr. Newman says to those 
 who say they are unconscious of these facts of spiritual pa- 
 thology, that the consciousness of the spiritual man is not 
 the less true, that [though ?] the unspiritual man is not 
 'priny to it; and this most devout gentleman quotes with 
 unction the words: For the spiritual man judgeth all things, 
 hut himself is judged of no man'' 
 
 P. 41, [1st ed.], "I have rejected creeds, and I have 
 found what the Scripture calls, that peace which passeth all 
 understanding.''^ "I am sure it passes mine, (says Har- 
 rington) if you have really found it, and I should be much 
 obliged to you, if you would let me participate in the dis- 
 covery." " Yes, says Fellowes :....*/ have escaped from 
 the bondage of the letter and have heen introduced into the 
 liberty of the Spirit .... The letter killeth, hut the spirit 
 
 giveth Ufe. The fruit of the Spirit is joy, peace, not ' " 
 
 " Upon my word (said Harrington, laughing), I shall pre- 
 sently begin to fancy that Douce Davie Deans has turned 
 infidel." 
 
 1 have quoted enough to show the nature of my complaints. 
 I charge the satirist with profanity, for ridiculing sentftnenta 
 which he himself avows to be holy, ridiculing them for no 
 other reason but that with me also they are holy and re- 
 vered. He justifies himself in p. 5 of his " Defence," as 
 above, by denying my facts. He afterwards, in Section XII. 
 \). 147, admits and defends them; to which I shall return. 
 
 I beg my reader to observe how cleverly Mr. Rogers 
 slanders me in the quotation already made, from p. 5, by 
 insinuating, first, that it is my doctrine, "that man is 
 Qiiost likely born for a dog's life, and there an end;" next, 
 that I have taken under my patronage the propositions, 
 tliat "the miracles ot Christ might be real, because Christ 
 was a clairvoyant and mesmerist, and that God is not a 
 Person but a Personality." I cannot but be reminded of 
 what the " Prospective" reviewer says of Zeuxis and the grapes, 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 107 
 
 wTien I observe the delicate skill of touch by which the 
 critic puts on just enough colour to aftect the reader's mind, 
 but not so much as to draw him to closer examination. I 
 am at a loss to believe that he supposes me to think that 
 a theory of mesmeric wonders (as the complement of an 
 atheistic creed?) is "a question pertaining to God," or that 
 my rebuke bore the slightest reference to such a matter. 
 As to Person and Personality, it is a subtle distinction 
 which I have often met from Trinitarians; who, when they 
 are pressed with the argument that three divine Persons 
 are nothing but three Gods, reply that Person is not the 
 correct translation of the mystical Hypostasis of the Greeks, 
 and Personality is perhaps a truer rendering. If I were 
 to answer with the jocosity in which my critic indulges, I 
 certainly doubt whether he would justify me. So too, when 
 a Pantheist objects (erringly, as I hold) that a Person 
 is necessarily something finite, so that God cannot be a 
 Person; if, against this, a Theist contend that God is at 
 once a Person and a Principle, and invent a use of the 
 word Personality to overlap both ideas; we may reject his 
 nomenclature as too arbitrary, but what rightful place ridi- 
 cule has here, I do not see. Nevertheless, it had wholly 
 escaped my notice that the satirist had ridiculed it, as I 
 now infer that he did. 
 
 He tells me he was not aware that the holding that there 
 are great defects in the morality of the New Testament, and 
 much imperfection in the character of its Founder, was a 
 question 2?ertaini7ig to God. Nor indeed was / aware of it. 
 
 I regard questions concerning a book and a human being 
 to be purely secular, and desire to discuss them, not indeeil 
 with ridicule but with freedom. When / discuss them, be 
 treats my act as intolerably offensive, as though the subject 
 were sacred; yet he now pretends that / think such topics 
 " pertain to God," and he was not aware 'of it until I told 
 him so! Thus he turns away the eyes of his readers from 
 my true charge of profanity, and fixes them upon a ficti- 
 tious charge so as to win a temporary victory. At the 
 same time, since Christians believe the morality of the Old 
 Testament to have great defects, and that there was much 
 imperfection in the churacter of its eminent saints, prophets, 
 «nd sages; I cannot understand how my holding the very 
 same opinion concerning the New Testament should be a 
 peculiarly appropriate grouud of bauter and merriment ; nor 
 
IDS REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF 
 
 make me more justly offensive to Christians, than the Pauline 
 doctrine is to Jews. 
 
 In more than one place of this " Defence" he misrepresents 
 what I have written on Immortality, in words similar to 
 those here used, though here he does not'^ expressly add 
 my name. In p. 59, he says, that "according to Mr. 
 Newman's theology, it is most probable [in italics] that 
 the successive generations of men, with perfect indifference 
 to their relative moral conditions, their crimes or wrongs, 
 are all knocked on the head togetlier ; and that future ad- 
 justment and retribution is a dream." (So p. 72.) In a 
 note to the next page, he informs his readers that if I 
 say tliat I have left the question of immortality doubtful, 
 it does not aff'ect the argument; for I have admitted "the 
 probability" of there being no future life. 
 
 This topic was specially discussed by me in a short chapter 
 of my treatise on the " Soul," to which alone it is possible 
 for my critic to refer. In that chapter assuredly I do not 
 say what he pretends; what I do say is, (after rejecting, as 
 unsatisfactory to me, the popular arguments from meta- 
 physics, and from the supposed need of a future state to 
 redress the inequalities of this life;) p. 232: "But do I 
 then deny a future life, or seek to undermine a belief of 
 it ? Most assuredly not; but I would put the belief (whether 
 it is to be weaker or firmer) on a spiritual basis, and on 
 none other." 
 
 I am ashamed to quote further from that chapter in this 
 place; the ground on which I there tread is too sacred for 
 controversy. But that a Christian advocate should rise from 
 reading it to tell people that he has a right to ridicide me for 
 holding that " man is most likely born for a dog's life, and 
 there an end;" absorbs my other feelings in melancholy. I 
 am sure that any candid person, reading that chapter, must 
 see that I was hovering between doubt, hope, and faitli, on 
 tliis subject, and that if any one could show me that a Moral 
 Theism and a Future Life were essentially combined, I should 
 joyfully embrace the second, as a fit complement to the first. 
 This writer takes the opposite for granted; that if he can con- 
 vince me that the doctrine of a Future Life is essential to 
 Moral Theism, he will — not add to — but refute my Theism 1 
 Strange as this at first appears, it is explained by his method. 
 
 • He puts it between two other statements which avowedly refer to me. 
 
TUE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 1^0 
 
 He draws a hideous picture of what God's world has been in 
 the past, and indeed is in the present ; witli words so reekinpf 
 of disgust and cruelty, that I cannot bear to quote them ; and 
 ample quotation would be needful. Then he infers, that since 
 I must admit all this, I virtually believe in an immoral 
 Deity. I suppose his instinct rightly tells him, that I shall 
 not be likely to reason, '• Because God can be so very cruel or 
 careless to-day, he is sure to be very merciful and vigilant 
 hereafter." Accepting his facts as a complete enumeration of 
 the phenomena of the present world, I suppose it is better in- 
 ductive logic to say: "He who can be himself so cruel, and 
 endure such monsters of brutality for six or more thousand 
 years, must (by the laws of external induction) be the same, 
 and leave men the same, for all eternity ; and is clearly reckless 
 of moral considerations." If I adopt this alternative, I be- 
 come a Pagan or an Atheist, one or other of which Mr. Rogers 
 seems anxious to make me. If he would urge, that to look at 
 the dark and terrible side of human life is onesided and delu- 
 sive, and that the God who is known to us in Nature has so 
 tempered the world to man and man to the world as to mani- 
 fest his moral intentions; — (arguments, which I think, my 
 critic must have heard from Socrates or Plato, without pouring 
 out on them scalding words, such as I feel and avow to be 
 blasphemous:) — then he might perhaps help my faith where 
 it is weakest, and give me (more or less) aid to maintain a future 
 life dogmatically, instead of hopefully and doubtfully. But now, 
 to use my friend Martineau's words : " His metliod doubles 
 every difficulty without relieving any, and tends to enthrone a 
 "Devil everywhere, and leave a God nowhere." 
 
 Since he wrote his second edition of the " Defence," I have 
 brought out my work called "Theism," in which (without 
 withdrawing my objections to the popular idea of future Retri- 
 hution) I have tried to reason out a doctrine of Future Life 
 from spiritual considerations. I have no doubt that my critic 
 would find them highly absurd, and perhaps would pronounce 
 them inefl'ably ludicrous, and preposterous feats of logic. If I 
 could hide their existence from him, I certainly would, lest he 
 misquote and misinterpret them. But as I cannot keep the 
 book from him, I here refer to it to say, that if I am to main- 
 tain this most profound and mysterious doctrine with any prac- 
 tical intensity, my convictions in the power of the human mind 
 to follow such high inquiries, need to be greatly strengtJienedj 
 not to be undermined by such arguments and such detes- 
 
2 » REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OP 
 
 table pictures of this world, as Mr. Rogers holds up to 
 me. 
 
 He throws at me the imputation of holding, that " man is 
 most likely born for a dog's life, and there an end." And is 
 then the life of a saint for seventy years, or for seven years, no 
 better than a dog's life ? What else but a long dog's life does 
 this make heaven to be? Such an undervaluing of a short but 
 noble life, is consistent with the scheme which blasphemes earth 
 in order to ennoble heaven, and then claims to be preeminently 
 logical. According to the clear evidence of the Bible, the old 
 saints in general were at least as uncertain as I have ever l)een 
 concerning future life; nay, according to the writer to the 
 Hebrews, " through fear of death they were all their lifetime 
 subject to bondage." If I had called that a dog's life, how 
 eloquently would Mr. Rogers have rebuked me ! 
 
 V. But I must recur to his defence of the profanity with 
 which he treats sacred sentiments and subjects. After pre- 
 tending, in p. 5, that he had ridiculed nothing but the things 
 quoted above, he at length, in pp. 147-156, makes formal ad- 
 mission of my charge and justifies himself. The pith of his 
 general reply is^in the following, p. 152: — 
 
 "'Now (says Mr. Newman) I will not here farther insist on 
 the monstrosity of bringing forward St. Paul's words in order 
 to pour contempt upon them ; a monstrosity which no sophistry 
 of Mr. Harrington can justify !' I think the real monstro- 
 sity is, that men should so coolly employ St. Paul's words, — 
 for it is a quotation from the treatise on the " Soul," — to mean 
 something totally different from anything he intended to con- 
 vey by them, and employ the dialect of the Apostles to contra- 
 dict their doctrines; that is the monstrosity .... It is very 
 
 hard to conceive that JMr. Newman did not see this But 
 
 had he gone on only a few lines, the reader would have seen 
 Harrington saying: 'These words you have just quoted were 
 well in St. Paul's mouth, and had a meaning. In yours, 1 sus- 
 pect, they would have none, or a very different one.' " 
 
 According to this doctrine of Mr. Rogers, it would not have 
 been profane in an unbelieving Jew to tnake game of Moses, 
 David, and the Pro))liets, whenever they were quoted by Paul. 
 The Jew most profoundly believed that Paul quoted the old 
 Scriptures in a false, as well as in a new meaning. One 
 Christian divine does not feel free to ridicule the words of 
 Paul when quoted erroneously (as he thinks) by another 
 Christittu divine 1 Why then, when quoted by me ? I hold it 
 
THE ECLTPSE OF FAITH. 201 
 
 to be a great insolence to deny my right to quote Paul or 
 David, as much as Plato or Homer, and adopt their lan^guage 
 whenever I find it to express my sentiment. Mr. Ptogers's 
 claim to deride highly spiritual truth, barely because I revere 
 it, is a union of inhumanity and impiety. He has nowhere 
 shown that Paul meant something "totally different", from the 
 sense which I put on his words. I know that he cannot. 
 I do not pretend always to bind myself to the definite 
 sense of my predecessors ; nor did the writers of the New Tes- 
 tament. They often adopt and apply in an avoiuedly new 
 sense the words of the Old Testament; so does Dr. Watts with 
 the Hebrew Psalms. Such adaptation, in the way of develop- 
 ment and enlargement, when done with sincerely pious in- 
 tention, has never been reproved or forbidden by Christians. 
 Whether I am wise or unwise in my interpretations, the sub- 
 ject is a sacred one, and I treat it solemnly ; and no errors in 
 my " logic" can justify Mr. Rogers in putting on the mask of 
 a profane sceptic, who scofifs (not once or twice, but through 
 a long book) at the most sacred and tender matters, such 
 as one always dreads to bring before a promiscuous public, 
 lest one cast pearls before swine. And yet unless devotional 
 books be written, especially by those who have as yet no 
 church, how are we to aid one another in the uphill struggle 
 to maintain some elements of a heavenly life? Can anything 
 be more heartless, or more like the sneering devil they talk of^ 
 than Mr. Harrington? And here one who professes himself 
 a religious man, and who deliberately, after protest, calls me 
 an INFIDEL, is not satisfied with having scoffed in an hour of 
 folly — (in such an hour, I can well believe, that melancholy 
 record the " Eclipse of Faith," was first penned) — but he per- 
 sists in justifying his claim to jeer and snarl and mutilate, and 
 palm upon me senses which he knows are deliberately dis- 
 avowed by me, all the while pretending that it is my bacl logic 
 which justifies him! We know that very many religious men 
 are bad logicians: if I am as puzzle-headed a fool as Mr. 
 Rogers would make people think me, how does that justify 
 his mocking at my religion? He justifies himself on the 
 ground that I criticize the New Testament as freely as I 
 should Cicero (p. 147). Well, then let him criticize me, as 
 freely (and with as little of suppression) as I criticize it. 
 But I do not laugh at it; God forbid! The reader will see 
 how little reason Mr. Rogers had to imagine that I had 
 not read so far as to see Harrington's defence; which de- 
 
 o 
 
202 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OP 
 
 fence is, either an insolent assumption, or at any rate not to 
 the purpose. 
 
 I will here add, that I have received letters from numerous 
 Christians to thank me for my book on the " Soul," in such 
 terms as put the conduct of Mr. Rogers into the most painlal 
 contrast: paintul, as showing that there are other Christians 
 who know, and he does not know, what is the true heart and 
 strength of Christianity. He trusts in logic and ridicules the 
 Spirit Oi God. 
 
 That leads me to his defence of his suggestion that I might 
 be possibly as much inspired as the inventor of lucifer matches. 
 He says, p. 154: — 
 
 "Mr. Newman tells me, that I have clearly a profound un- 
 belief in the Christian doctrine of divine influence, or I could 
 not thus grossly insult it. I answer .... that which Har- 
 rington ridiculed, as the context would have shown Mr. New- 
 man, if he had had the patience to read on, and the calmness 
 to judge, is the chaotic view of inspiration, formally held by 
 Mr. Parker, who is exiwessly referred to, " Eclipse," p. 81." In 
 9 th edition, p. 71. 
 
 The passage concerning Mr. Parker is in ^\q ^preceding page : 
 I had read it, and I do not see how it at all relieves the disgust 
 Avhich every right-minded man must feel at this passage. My 
 disgust is not personal : though I might surely ask, — If Parker 
 has made a mistake, how does that justify insulting me ? As 
 I protested, I have made no peculiar claim to inspiration. I 
 have simply claimed " that which all* pious Jews and Chris- 
 tians since David have always claimed." Yet he pertinaciously 
 defends this rude and wanton passage, adding, p. 155 : " As to 
 the inventor of lucifer matches, I am thoroughly convinced 
 that he has shed more light upon the world and been abun- 
 dantly more useful to it, than many a cloudy expositor of 
 modern spiritualism." Where to look for the "many" expo- 
 sitors of spiritualism, I do not know. Would they were more 
 numerous. 
 
 Mr. Parker differs from me as to the use of the phrase 
 " Spirit of God." I see practical reasons, which I have not 
 V^ere space to insist on, for adhering to the Christian, as dis- 
 tinguished from the Jewish use of this phrase. Theodore 
 /urker follows the phraseology of the Old Testament, accord- 
 
 * Mr, Rogers asks on this: "Does Mr. Newman mean that he claims 
 fis mn<h as the auos'Ies claimed, ivhetlier they did so rightfully or notV 
 See how acutely a logician can pervert the word allf 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 203 
 
 ing to which Bezaleel and others received the spirit of God 
 to aid them in mere mechanical arts, buikling and tailoring. 
 To ridicule Theodore Parker for this, would seem to me neither 
 witty nor decent in an ?mbeliever ; but wlien one does so, who 
 professes to believe the whole Old Testament to be sacred, and 
 stoops to lucifer matches and the Eureka shirt, as if this were a 
 refutation, I need a far severer epithet. Mr. Rogers implies 
 that the light of a lucifer match is comparable to the light of 
 Theodore Parker; what will be the judgment of mankind a 
 century hence, if the wide dissemination of the " Eclipse of 
 Faith" lead to inscribing the name of Henry Rogei-s perma- 
 nently in biographical dictionaries? Something of this sort 
 may appear : — 
 
 "Theodore Parker, the most eminent moral theologian 
 whom the first half of the nineteenth century produced in the 
 United States. When the churches were so besotted, as to 
 uphold the curse of slavery because they found it justified in 
 the Bible ; when the Statesmen, the Press, the Lawyers, and 
 the Trading Community threw their weight to the same fatal 
 side; Parker stood up to preach the higher law of God against 
 false religion, false statesmanship, crooked law and cruel ava- 
 rice. He enforced three great fundamental truths, God, Holi- 
 ness, and Immortality. He often risked life and fortune to 
 rescue the fugitive slave. After a short and very active life, 
 full of good works, he died in blessed peace, prematurely worn 
 out by his perpetual struggle for the true, the right, and the 
 good. His preaching is the crisis which marked the turn of 
 the tide in America from the material to the moral, which be- 
 gan to enforce the eternal laws of God on trade, on law, on ad- 
 ministration, and on the professors of religion itself." 
 
 And what will be then said of him, who now despises the 
 noble Parker? I hope something more than the following: — 
 
 " Henry PtOGERS, an accomplished gentleman and scholar, 
 author of many books, of which by far the most popular was a 
 smart satirical dialogue, disfigured by unjustifiable garbling and 
 profane language, the aim of which was to sneer down Theo- 
 dore Parker and others who were trying to save spiritual 
 doctrine out of the wreck of historical Christianity." 
 
 Jocose scoffing, and dialogue writing is the easiest of tasks ; 
 and if Mr. Kogers's co-religionists do not take the alarm, 
 and come in strength upon Messrs. Longman, imploring them 
 to suppress these books of Mr. Rogers, persons who despise all 
 religion (with whom Mr. Rogers pertinaciously confounds me 
 
 2 
 
204 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF 
 
 under tlie term infidel), may one of these days imitate his 
 sprightly example against his creed and church. He himself 
 seems to me at present incurable. I do not appeal to him, I 
 appeal to his co-religionists, how they would like the publica- 
 tion of a dialogue, in which his free and easy sceptic " Mr. 
 Harrington" might reason on the opposite side to that pliable 
 and candid man of straw "Mr. Fellowesf I here subjoin for 
 their consideration, an imaginary extract of the sort which, by 
 their eager patronage of the " Eclipse of Faith," they are invit- 
 ing against themselves. 
 
 Extract. 
 
 I say, Fellowes ! (said Harrington), what w^as that, that 
 Parker and Rogers said about the Spirit of God ? 
 
 Excuse me (said Fellowes), Theodore Parker and Henry 
 Rogers hold very different views. Mr. Rogers would be 
 much hurt to hear you class him with Parker. 
 
 I know (replied he), but they both hold that God inspires 
 people ; and that is a great point in common, as I view it. 
 Does not Mr. Rogers believe the Old Testament inspired and 
 all of it true ? 
 
 Certainly (said Fellowes) : at least he was much shocked 
 with Mr. Newman for trying to discriminate its chaff from 
 its wheat. 
 
 Well then, he believes, does not he, that Jehovah filled 
 men with the spirit of wisdom to help them make a suit of 
 clothes for Aaron ? 
 
 Fellowes, after a pause, replied : — That is certainly written 
 in the 28th chapter of Exodus. 
 
 Now, my fine fellow ! (said Harrington), here is a question 
 to rile Mr. Rogers. If Aaron's toggery needed one portion of 
 the spirit of wisdom from Jehovah, how many portions does 
 the Empress Eugenie's best crinoline need? 
 
 Really (said Fellowes, somewhat offended), such ridicule 
 seems to me profane. 
 
 Forgive me, dear friend (replied Harrington, with a sweet 
 Bmile). Your views 1 never will ridicule; for I know you 
 have imbibed somewhat of Francis Newman's fancy, that 
 one ought to feel tenderly towards other men's piety. But 
 Henry Rogers is made of stouter stuff; he manfully avows 
 that a religion, if it is true, ought to stand the test of ridicule, 
 and he deliberately approves this weapon of attack. 
 
 I cannot deny that (said Fellowes, lifting his eyebrows). 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 205 
 
 But I was going to ask (continued Harrington), wlietlier 
 Mr. Rogers does not believe that Jehovah filled Bezaleel with 
 the Spirit of God, for the work of jeweller, coppersmith, 
 and mason? 
 
 Of course he does (answered Fellowes), the text is perfectly 
 clear, in the 31st of Exodus; Bezaleel and Aholiab were buth 
 inspired to become cunning workmen. 
 
 By the Goose (said Harrington) — forgi^'e a Socratic oath 
 — I really do not see that Mr. Rogers differs much from 
 Theodore Parker. If a man cannot hack a bit of stone or timber 
 without the Spirit of God, Mr. Rogers will have hard work to 
 convince me, that any one can make a rifled cannon without 
 the Spirit of God. 
 
 There is something in that (said Fellowes). In fact, I 
 have sometimes wondered how Mr. Rogers could say that 
 which looks so profane, as what he said about the Eureka shirt. 
 
 Pray what is that? (said Harrington;) and where? 
 
 It is in his celebrated "Defence," 2nd edition, p. \o5. 
 "If Minos and Praxiteles are inspired in the same sense as 
 Moses and Christ, then the inventor of lucifer matches, as 
 well as the inventor of the Eureka shirts, must be also ad- 
 mitted" — to be inspired. 
 
 Do you mean that he is trying to save the credit of Moses, 
 by maintaining that the Spirit of God which guides a sculptor 
 is not the same in kind as that which guides a saint? 
 
 No (replied Fellowes, with surprise), he is not defending 
 Moses; he is attacking Parker. 
 
 Bless me (said Harrington, starting up), what is become 
 of the man's logic! Why, Parker and Moses are in the same 
 boat. Mr. Rogers fires at it, in hope to sink Parker ; and does 
 not know that he is sending old Moses to Davy's locker. 
 
 Now this is too bad (said Fellowes), I really cannot bear it. 
 
 Nah ! Nah ! good friend (said Harrington, imploringly), be 
 calm ; and remember, we have agreed that ridicule — ag inst 
 Mr. Rogers, not against you — is fair play. 
 
 That is true (replied Fellowes with more composure). 
 
 Now (said Harrington, with a confidential air), you are 
 my friend, and I will tell you a secret — be sure you tell no 
 one — I think that Henry Rogers, Theodore Parker, and 
 Francis Newman are three ninnies; all wrong; for they all 
 profess to believe in divine insjnration : yet they are not nin- 
 nies of the same class. I admit to Mr. Rogers that thero 
 is a real difference. 
 
206 EEPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF 
 
 How do you mean (said Fellowes, with curiosity aroused)? 
 
 Why (said Harrington, pausing and becoming impressive), 
 Newman is a flimsy mystic ; he has no foundation, but he builds 
 logically enough — at least as far as I sec — on his fancies and 
 other people's fancies. This is to be a simple ninny. But Mr. 
 Ptogers fancies he believes a mystical religion, and doesn't ; and 
 fancies he is very logical, and isn't. This is to be a doubly 
 distilled ninny. 
 
 Really I do not call this ridicule, Mr. Harrington (said 
 Fellowes, rising), I must call it slander. What right have 
 you to say that Mr. Rogers does not believe in the holy truths 
 of the New Testament 1 
 
 Surely (replied Harrington) I have just as much right as 
 Mr. Rogers has to say that Mr. Newman does not believe the 
 holy sentiments of St. Paul, when Mr. Newman says he does. 
 Do you remember how Mr. Rogers told him it was absurd 
 for an infidel like him to think he was in a condition to 
 rebuke any one for being profane, or fancy he had a right to 
 say that he believed this and that mystical text of Paul, which, 
 Mr. Rogers avows, Newman totcUly mistakes and does oiot be- 
 lieve as Paul meant it. Now I may be very wrong ; but / au- 
 gur that Newman does understand Paul, and Rogers does 
 not. For Rogers is of the Paley school, and a wit; and a bril- 
 liant chap he is, like Macaulay. Such men cannot be mystics 
 nor Puritans in Pauline fashion ; they cannot bear to hear of a 
 religion yrom within; but, as I heard a fellow say the other 
 day, Newman has never worked otf the Puritan leaven. 
 
 Well (said Fellowes), but why do you call Mr. Rogers 
 illogical ? 
 
 I think you have seen one instance already, but that is a 
 trifle compared to his fundamental blunder (said Harrington). 
 
 What can you mean ? how fundamental (asked his friend) % 
 
 Why, he says, that / (for instance) who have no faith what- 
 ever in what he calls revelation, cannot have any just belief or 
 sure knowledge of the moral qualities of God; in fact, am lo- 
 gically bound (equally with Mr. Newman) to regard God as 
 i?>Amoral, if I judge by ni}^ own faculties alone. Does he not 
 say that % 
 
 Unquestionably; he has a whole chapter (ch. III.) of his 
 "Defence" to enforce this on Mr. Newman (replied Fellowes). 
 
 Well, next, he tells me, that when the Christian message, as 
 from God, is presented to me, I am to believe it on the word 
 of a God whom I su23i)ose to be, or ouglit to suppose to be, 
 
THE ECLII'SE OP FAITH. 207 
 
 immoral. If I suppose A B a rogue, shall I believe the mes- 
 sage which the rogue sends me? 
 
 Surely, Harrington, you forget that you are speaking of 
 God, not of man : you ought not to reason so (said Fellowes, 
 somewhat agitated). 
 
 Surely, Fellowes, it is you who forget (retorted Harrington) 
 that syllogism depends on form, not on matter. Whether it 
 be God or Man, makes no difference; the logic must be tried 
 by turning the terms into X Y Z. But I have not said all. 
 Mr. Rogers says, I am bound to throw away the moral princi- 
 ples which I already have, at the bidding of a God whom I am 
 bound to believe to be immoral. 
 
 No, you are unfair (said Fellowes), I know he says that re- 
 velation would confirm and imj^rove your moral principles. 
 
 But I am Qiot unfair. It is he who argues in a cii-cle. 
 "What will be improvement, is the very question pending. 
 He says, that if Jehovah called to me from heaven, " O Har- 
 rington ! O Harrington! take thine innocent son, thine only 
 sou, lay him on the altar and kill him," I should be bound to 
 regard obedience to the command an improvement of my mo- 
 rality; and this, though, up to the moment when I heard the 
 voice, I had been bound logically to believe Jehovah to be au 
 IMMORAL God. What think you of that for logic? 
 
 I confess (said Fellowes, with great candour) I must yield 
 up my friend's reputation as a logician; and I begin to think 
 he was unwise in talking so contemptuously of Mr. Newmans 
 reasoning faculties. But in truth, I love my friend for the 
 great spiritual benefits I have derived from him, and cannot 
 admit to you that he is not a very sincere believer iu mystical 
 Christianity. 
 
 What benefits, may I ask? (said Harrington). 
 
 I have found by. his aid the peace which passeth under- 
 standing (replied he). 
 
 It passes my understanding, if you have (answered Har- 
 rington, laughing), and I shall be infinitely obliged by your 
 allowing me to participate in the discovery. In plain truth, I 
 do not trust your mysticism. 
 
 But are you in a condition to form an opinion? (said 
 Fellowes, with a serious air). Mr. Rogers has enforced on 
 me St. Paul's maxim: "The natural man discerneth not the 
 things of the Spirit of God." 
 
 My most devout gentleman ! (replied Harrington), how 
 unctuous you are! Forgive my laughing; but it does t,o 
 
208 REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF 
 
 remind me of Douce Davie Deans. I will make you profes- 
 sor of sjjiritual insight, &c., &c., &q. 
 
 Now is not tliis disgusting? Might I not justly call the 
 man a " profane dog" who approved of it 1 Yet everything 
 that is worst here is closely copied from the Eclijyse of Faith, 
 or justified hy the Defence. How long will it be before English 
 Christians cry out Shame against those two books % 
 
 VI. I must devote a few words to define the direction and 
 justification of my argument in one chapter of this treatise. 
 All good arguments are not rightly addressed to all persons. 
 An argument good in itself may be inappreciable to one in a 
 certain mental state, or may be highly exasperating. If a 
 thoughtful Mohammedan, a searcher after truth, were to 
 confide to a Christian a new basis on which he desired to 
 found the Mohammedan religion — viz., the absolute moral 
 perfection of its prophet, and were to urge on the Christian 
 this argument in order to convert him, I cannot think that 
 any one would blame the Christian for demanding what is 
 the evidence of \\\<d fact. Such an appeal would justify his 
 dissecting the received accounts of Mohammed, pointing out 
 what appeared to be flaws in his moral conduct; nay, if re- 
 quisite, urging some positive vice, such as his excepting him- 
 self from his general law oifour wives only. But a Christian 
 missionary would surely be blamed (at least I should blame 
 him), if, in preaching to a mixed multitude of Mohammedans 
 against the authority of their prophet, he took as his basis 
 of refutation the prophet's personal sensuality. We are able 
 to foresee that the exasperation produced by such an argument 
 must derange the balance of mind in the hearers, even if the 
 argument is to the purpose; at the same time, it may be 
 really away from the purpose to them, if their belief has no 
 closer connexion with the personal virtue of the prophet, than 
 has that of Jews and Christians with the virtue of Balaam or 
 Jonah. I will proceed to imagine, that while a missionary 
 was teaching, talking, and distributing tracts to recommend 
 his own views of religion, a Moolah were to go round and in- 
 form everybody that this Christian believed Mohammed to 
 be an unchaste man, and had used the very argument to such 
 and such a person. I feel assured that we should all pro- 
 nounce this proceeding to be a very cunning act of spiteful 
 bigotry. 
 
THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH. 209 
 
 My own case, as towards certain Unitarian friends of mine, 
 is quite similar to this. They preach to me the absolute 
 moral perfection of a certain man (or rather, of a certain 
 portrait) as a sufficient basis for my faith. Hereby they chal- 
 lenge me, and as it were force me, to inquire into its perfec- 
 tion. I have tried to confine the argument within a narrow 
 circle. It is addressed by me specifically to them and not 
 to others. I would not address it to Trinitarians ; partly, 
 because they are not in a mental state to get anything from 
 it but pain, partly because much of it becomes intrinsically 
 bad as argument when addressed to them. Many acts and 
 words which would be right from an incarnate God, or from 
 an angel, are (in my oDinion) highly unbecoming from a 
 man; consequently I must largely remould the argument 
 before I could myself approve of it, if so addressed. The 
 principle of the argument is such as Mr. Rogers justifies, 
 when he says that Mr. ISIartineau qicite takes away all solid 
 reasons for believing in Christ's absolute perfection. ("Defence," 
 p. 220.) I opened my chapter (chapter VII.) above with a dis- 
 tinct avowal of my wish to confine the perusal of it to a very 
 limited circle. Mr. Rogers (acting, it seems, on the old prin- 
 ciple, that whatever one's enemy dejirecates, is a good) instantly 
 pounces on the chapter, avows that '*if infidelity could he 
 ruined, such imprudencies* would go far to ruin it," p. 22 ; 
 and because he believes that it will be " unspeakablyt pain- 
 ful" to the orthodox for whom I do not intend it, he prints 
 the greater part of it in an Appendix, and expresses his 
 regret^ that he cannot pubHsh "every syllable of it," p. 22. 
 Such is his tender regard for the feeling of his co-religionists. 
 
 My defender in the "Prospective Review" wound up as 
 follows (x. p. 227) :— 
 
 "And now we have concluded our painful task, which 
 nothing but a feeling of what justice — literary, and personal — 
 required, would have induced us to undertake. The tone 
 of intellectual disparagement and moral rebuke which certain 
 critics, — deceived by the shallowest sophisms with which an 
 unscrupulous writer could work on their prepossessions and 
 insult their understandings— have adopted towards Mr. New- 
 There is much meaning in the word imprudence^ on which I need not 
 comment. 
 
 t *' Unspeakably painful" is his phrase for something much smaller, 
 (♦'Eclipse" ninth edition p. 194) which he insists on similarly obtruding, 
 against my will and protest. 
 
210 APPENDIX. 
 
 man, made exposure necessary. The length to which our 
 remarks have extended requires apology. Evidence to cha- 
 racter is necessarily cumulative, and not easily compressible 
 within narrow limits. Enough has been said to show that 
 there is not an art discreditable in controversy, to which re- 
 course is not freely had in the ' Eclipse of Faith' and the 
 Defence of it." 
 
 The reader must judge for himself whether this severe and 
 terrible sentence ot the reviewer proceeds from ill-temper and 
 personal mortification, as the author of the Eclipse and its 
 Defence gratuitously lays down, or whether it was prompted 
 by a sense of justice, as he himself affirms. 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 It is an error not at all peculiar to the author of the " Eclipse 
 of Faith," but is shared with him by many others, and by one 
 who has treated me in a very different spirit, that Christians 
 are able to use atheistic arguments against me without 
 wounding Christianity. As I have written a rather ample 
 book, called "Theism," expressly designed to estabUsh against 
 Atheists and Pantheists that moral Theism which Christians, 
 Jews, and Mohammedans have in common, and which under- 
 lies every attempt of any of the three religions to establish its 
 peculiar and supernatural claims ; I have no need of entering 
 on that argument here. It is not true, that, as a Theist, I 
 evade the objections urged by real atheists or sceptics ; on the 
 contrary, I try to search them to the very bottom. It is 
 only in arguing with Christians that I disown the obligation 
 of rejily ; and that, because they are as much concerned as I 
 to answer; and ought to be able to give me, on the ground of 
 natural theology^ good replies to every fundamer^tal objection 
 from the sceptic, if I have not got them myself. To declare 
 the objections of our common adversaries valid against those 
 first principles of religion which are older than Jesus or 
 Moses, is certainly to surrender the cause of Christianity. 
 
 If this need more elucidation, let it be observed, that no 
 Christian can take a single step in argument with a heathen, 
 much less establish his claim of authority for the Bible, with- 
 out presuming that the heathen will admit, on hearing them, 
 
APPENDIX. 211 
 
 those doctrines of moral Theism, which, it is pretended, I 
 can have no good reason for admitting. If the heathen sin- 
 cerely retorts against the missionary such Pagan scepticism 
 as is flung at me by Christians, the missionary's words are 
 vain ; nor is any success possible, unless (with me) he can lay 
 a prior foundation of moral Theism, independent of any 
 assumption concerning the claims of the Bible. It avails 
 nothing to preach repentance of sin and salvation from judg- 
 ment to come, to minds which are truly empty of the belief 
 that God has any care for morality. I of course do not say, 
 and have never said, that the doctrine of the divine holiness, 
 goodness, truth, must have been previously an active belief 
 of the heathen hearer. To have stated a question clearly is 
 often half the solution ; and the teacher, who so states a high 
 doctrine, gives a great aid to the learner's mind. But unless, 
 after it has been affirmed that there is a Great Eternal Being 
 pervading the universe, who disapproves of human evil and 
 commands us to pursue the good, the conscience and intellect 
 of the hearer gives assent, no argument of moral religion can 
 have weight with him ; therefore neither can any argument 
 about miracles, nor any appeal to the " Bible" as authoritative. 
 Of course the book has not as yet any influence over him, nor 
 will its miracles, any more than its doctrines, be received on 
 the ground of their being in the book. Thus a direct and 
 independent discernment of the great truths of moral Theism 
 is a postulate, to be proved or conceded before the Christian 
 can begin the argument in favour of Biblical preternaturalism. 
 I had thought it would have been avowed and maintained 
 with a generous pride, that eminently in Christian literature 
 we find the noblest, soundest, and fullest advocacy of moral 
 Theism, as having its evidence in the heart of man within and 
 nature without, independently of any postulates concerning 
 the Bible. I certainly grew up for thirty years in that belief. 
 Treatises on Natural Theology, which (with whatever success) 
 endeavoured to trace — not only a constructive God in the 
 outer world, but also a good God when that world is viewed 
 in connexion with man ; were among the text-books of our 
 clergy and of our universities, and were in many ways 
 crowned with honour. Bampton Lectures, Bridgewater Trea- 
 tises, Burnet Prize Essays, have (at least till very recently in 
 one case) been all, I rather think, in the same direction. 
 And surely with excellent reason. To avow that the doc- 
 trines of Moral Theism have no foundation to one who sees 
 
212 APPENDIX. 
 
 nothing preternatural in the Bible, is in a Christian such a 
 suicidal absurdity, that whenever an atheist advances it, it is 
 met with indignant denial and contempt. 
 
 The argumentative strength of this Appendix, as a reply to 
 those who call themselves " orthodox" Christians, is im- 
 mensely increased by analysing their subsidiary doctrines, 
 which pretend to relieve, while they prodigiously aggravate, 
 the previous difficulties of Moral Theism ; I mean the doc- 
 trine of the fall of man by the agency of a devil, and the 
 eternal hell. But every man who dares to think will easily 
 work out such thoughts for himself. 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 I HERE reproduce (merely that it may not be pretended that 
 I silently withdraw it) the substance of an illustration which 
 I offered in my 2nd edition, p. 184. 
 
 When I deny that History can be Religion or a part of Reli- 
 gion, I mean it exactly in the same sense, in which we say 
 that history is not mathematics, though mathematics has a 
 history. Religion undoubtedly comes to us by historical 
 transmission : it has had a slow growth ; but so is it with 
 mathematics, so is it with all other sciences. (I refer to 
 mathematics, not as peculiarly like to religion, but as pecu- 
 liarly unlike : it is therefore an d, fortiori argument. What 
 is true of them as sciences, is true of all science.) No science 
 can flourish, while it is received on authority. Science comes 
 to us hy external transmission, but is not believed because of 
 that transmission. The history of the transmission is gene- 
 rally instructive, but is no proper part of the science itaeli 
 All this is true of Religion. 
 
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