M , ::^-^.4 \ tihvaxy of t:he t:heolo0icai ^tminary PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY William Hallock Johnson BV 1101 .MA4 1893 Mead, Charles Marsh, 1836- 1911. Supernatural revelation '&'.7/.y^ LECTURES ON THE L. P. STONE FOUNDATION DELIVERED AT PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. f^AUG 23 1956 ^ SUPERNATURAL REVELATIO^TT^^''^ 2ln Cgsap CONCERNING THE BASIS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. C. M. MEAD, D.D., Ph.D., PKOFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY IN HAKTFORD THEOLOGICAL SESIINAKY. SECOND EDITION. NEW YORK: ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND CO. (Incorporated), 182 Fifth Avenue. 'Vi l Copyright, 1889, By C. M. Mead. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. PREFACE. T T is not unfrequently said that no one is convinced by an -'- apologetic treatise, that intidels will remain infidels in spite of all arguments, and that therefore such works as tlie one now given to the public are useless. Christian living and experience, it is said, not argumentation, is what must be depended on as a means of convincing men of the truth and value of Christianity. But it is obvious to reply that Christian apologetics, in its general scope, includes the statement of what is involved in Christian experience. If one cannot give a reason concerning the hope that is in him, it is not unnatural for the doubter to conclude that there is no good reason for the hope. Even though the douljter may not be converted by the Christian's reasons, he should at least not be confirmed by the Christian's silence. It should be considered, however, that there are large num- l>ers of persons who, in their attitude towards Christianity, cannot be reckoned as decidedly on the one side or on the other. Whether through ignorance or through conflict of in- clinations, tliey are in a state of mind which craves a clear, simple, and candid exposition of the truth as it appears to those who are more positive in their convictions. No one mode of presenting Christian truth is fittetl to meet all the manifold phases of skepticism. Now statements, adapted to the new vi PREFACE. and ever-changing forms of the old doubts and questionings, must always be called for ; and every such statement does its part in the contest between truth and error. In the following treatise I have endeavored to discuss, in a plain and intelligible manner, some of the leading questions towards which religious thought is at present most apt to turn, aiming not merely to parry the attacks of outright enemies of Christianity, but also here and there to rectify what seem to me to be infelicitous or erroneous statements on the part of professed Christians. In so doing I am far from presuming to be infallible, and desire the arguments and expositions to rest on their merit, as tested by the ultimate judgment of enlight- ened Christians. In referring to the opinions of others, wdiether by way of approbation or of criticism, T have sought to be fair and appre- ciative, and to aim at such a treatment of views divergent from my own as to promote an eventual accord rather than to intensify the disagreement. It is not necessary to justify the choice I have made of books to be noticed or commented on. I will only say, respecting one work which is frequently referred to (my friend Professor Ladd's Doctrine of Sacred Scripture), that, although I have felt constrained in some in- stances to dissent more or less positively from his conclusions, I desire for that very reason to express my warm admiration, not only of the scholarly thoroughness, ability, and candor, but also of the reverent and Christian spirit, which characterize the w^ork. Our points of agreement are far more numerous and important than those of difference. The quotations from the Bible are generally worded accord- ing to the Eovised Version. These lectures were delivered at Princeton in February and March, 18S9. For thv. sake of accuracy it should be stated PREFACE. vii that on account of tlie prescribed limitations of time, hardly a half of the contents of this volume could be given in the six lectures of the L. P. Stone course. As one contribution to the many testimonies in favor of Christian truth, it is hoped that this volume may not prove to be unserviceable. C. M. MEAD. September, 1889. PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. Foe the second edition of this work I have seen no occasion to make any material change. With the exception of a few unimportant corrections it is a reprint of the first. c. M. :m. May, 1893. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. Page Cliaracter of existing skepticism. Tendency to anti-supernaturalism and atheism. Tlic theistic problem. I. Origin of tlieistit- belief in the indi- vidual. The belief comes from tradition. II. Knowledge in general a social matter, as regards (1) historical and scientific truths; (2) the objects of direct perception; (3) the training of the faculties; (4) the advance in scientific acq^uisitions ; (5) the apprehension of intuitive truths; (6) the adoption of theistic notions. III. Yet individual cog- nition must precede the transmission of knowledge. 1. Testimony of other men cannot be accepted till first the existence of other men is assumed. 2. The material world must be cognized by the individual before there can be a general knowledge of its existence. 3. All that is truly known must be assumed to have been originally an object of direct per(^.eption. 4. Intuitive truths cannot be accepted merely on testimony. 5. Theism, if valid, must depend on something more than testimony. IV. Sure knowledge results from a combination of individual cogni- tions. Individual cognition is the prior thing, but does not liecome free from the suspicion of illusion till confirmed by others 1-19 CHAPTER II. GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. "What is the ultimate ground of theism ? It has a double foundation. I. Theism springs from native impulses of the mind. What leads to the persistent defense of theism jiresumably operative in producing it. Hence, 1. The hypotheses which derive theism from dreams, fear, etc., groundless. They overlook the fact requiring explanation, namely, the persistent tendency to believe in a God. So the Ritschl theory that theism sprung from a sense of weakness and want. 2. Theism not a direct intuition. 3. The jiresumjition is in favor of theism as over against atheism. 4. The argument for theism as seen in the light of the legitimate consequences of adopting atheism. On the atheistic hy- pothesis the universe is aimless and meaningless. Free will and moral character impossible. Truth and error equally authoritative. Se Her- bert Spencer's doctrine. Knowledge being held to be only relative, all so-called knowledge becomes njerely a series of impressions. The fact of X CONTENTS. Page error and ignorance suggests the existence of an Intelligence which is without error or ignorance. The origin of intelligence. Relation of morality to atheistic conceptions. Atheism cannot explain the moral sense either as regards its origin, its present working, or it? ultimate end. Logical issue of atheism is utter indifference to the general welfare. Futility of the notion of moral order on atheistic basis. All life a farce unless there is a God. And the farce must be infinitely repeated. The general result is that the nund of man demands that the univei'se shall have an end, and a good entl. Tlie teleological and the moral arguments not the source of a belief in God, but rest on the belief. The belief springs from a tendency to assume a personal moral Power who directs the affairs of the universe. Agnostic objections futile. II. R(;velation as confirmatory of theistic impulses. Revelation useless without a the- istic tendency. Belief in a God involves a desire for a revelation. Reve- lation, when it is received, a suier ground of knowledge than the theistic arguments. Example of the ordinary Christian. Theism cannot thrive Avithout faith in a revelation. The objection from the multiplicity of alleged revelations 20-64 CHAPTER III. THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. The question not how the first theistic notion arose. Dr. A. M. Fairbairn's argument against the hypothesis of a primeval revelation. Relation of language to revelation. Essential uniqueness of the condition of pri- meval man. Evolutionism does not remove the uniqueness. The problem as it presents itself to the theist. How is the aboriginal conscience to be conceived ? Present analogies favor the theory of a supernatural revela- tion. Dr. Fairbairn's notion of an "atheism of consciousness." Does God desire to be known ? Alleged impossibility of a primeval revelation. Pfleiderer's argument. View of Theodore Parker and F. AV. Newman. Misconceptions of what a revelation is expected to do. Pfleiderer again. Alleged gradnalness of development of theistic ideas 65-86 CHAPTER TV. THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION. GENERAL FEATURES. MIRACLES DEFINED. The argument for Christianity may relate to contents or to form. Three points in the latter case : I. Revelation limited to a particular time. J. S. Mill's objection. Reply. Notion of an absolute religion. Revela- tion no more universal and individual than the communication of knowl- edge in general. Relation of sin to revelation. II. Necessity of putting peculiar confidence in individuals, especially in .Tesus Christ. Objection to this. Reply. Men naturally crave leaders. HI. Revelation involves the assumption of a supernatural agency. Miracles defined. 1. Over- statements. Miracles not violations or transgressions of natural laws. Hume's doctrine considered, "Supernatural Religion." Professed the- CUNTEMTS, xi Page ists' olycctioiis to miracles. C. H. Weisse's. Rothe's reply. Ancient and present conception of natural forces. 2. Under-statenients. iliracles explained as accelerations of natural processes ; or as analogous to mes- meric ellects; or iis wrought with the co-oiieration of natural forces (Pro- fessor Liid(l); or as the result of occult natural causes. 3. The distinc- tion between absolute and relative miracles. Different forms of it. The distinction untenable. Special providences. Answers to prayer . 87-123 CHAPTER V. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. Miracles commonly regarded as attestations of the organs of revelation. Re- actionary view. Tendency to question the use of miracles. I. Is faith in miracles a matter of indifference ? Various shades of view here in- cluded. The objection to the common view stated. Reply : 1. The agnostic view conllicts with faith in Christianity as a special revelation. Pfleiderer's conception of Jesus' inspiration considered. Abuse of the term "revelation." 2. The skeptical view leads to confusion and self- contradiction as regards the uniqueness and authority of Jesus Christ. No explanation of the uniqueness on naturalistic grounds. Jesus' claim of authority not explained by his uni([ue excellence. Ritschl's view. Herrmann's view considered. The Piitschl doctrine of miracles. 3. Skeptical Christians, in attempting to ignore the miraculous, virtually admit tlie greater miracles while they deny the lesser. In admitting the fact of a special revelation, or of the .sinlessness of Christ, they admit the miraculous in the spiritual world. 4. The agnostic attitude tow^ards miracles leads to capiice in the treatment of the New Testament records. Matthew Arnold's attempt to show that Jesus claimed no miraculous power. Denial of the supernatural leads to unfounded conjectures con- cerning the miraculous stories. Mi-. Arnold's theory of the origin of the stories of miracles. What the Jews expected in the Messiah. Mr. Arnold on the resurrection stories. 5. Doubting the miracles leads to an un- tenable distinction between the present and the original Christians in their relation to the evidences of Christianity. How far there is a real difl'erence. The diflerence not material. 6. The agnostic attitude towards miracles leads to the assumption that Christianity rests on a fraud. General admission that the original founding of the Church de- pended on a belief in Christ's resurrection 124-172 CHAPTER VI. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES (Continued). Does faith in Christianity depend on antecedent faith in the alleged miracles of Christ ! Dithculty of overcoming the presumption against miracles. Something needed besides the miracles themselves. Dr. "NY. JI. Taylor's contention against Trent'h. His argument presupposes that the fact of miracles is proved before any faith in the miracle-worker exists. Miracles, as distinct from feats of jugglery, cannot be proved without xii CONTENTS. Page confidence in the professed miracle-worker. Trench on Deut. xiii. 1-5. Dr. Taylor's reply. III. The evidential value of miracles cannot be de- tached from the personal character and teachings of the miracle-worker. But the miracles are nevertheless evidential. Examination of the view that the miracles of Clirist were mere effluxes of his nature, and not as such evidential. On this view miracles are not needed as manifestations of Christ's character, and become not only not evidential, but embar- rassing. Miracles of the apostles. Why are Christ's miracles credited ? Their use in proving Christ's uniqueness and sinlessness. The disciples' coniideiice in Jesus' faultlessness and divinity not fixed till after the resurrection. According to the New Testament the miracles did serve an evidential purpose. Professor Bruce's contention against Mozley. Conclusion : Miracles have an indispensable evidential worth, but not independent of the evidence derived from the personal character and doc- trine of the miracle-worker. Advantages of this view. Relation of this view to the importance of the experimental evidence. Christian morality: its distinctive features. The power of Cliristianity depends on the as- sumption of its supernaturaluess 173-195 CHAPTER VII. PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. Proof of Christ's resurrection. 1. Tlie apostles believed that Christ rose from the dead on the third day after the crucifixion. 2. The Christian Churcli spread rapidly immediately after the crucifixion. 3. These phe- nomena satisfactorily explained only by the assumption that the resurrec- tion was a fact. Opposing theories : ( 1 ) That Jesus did not die, but only swooned, on the cross. (2) That the story of the resurrection was a fic- tion. (3) That the disciples nustakenly thought the resurrection to be real. Tlie latter the most plausible, but purely conjectural. Attempt to establish it by Paul's testimony. Reply : Paul affirms the fact of a bodily appearance of the crucified. The allegation that Paul's sight of Christ was a vision. What is a vision ? A vision may have an objective cause. View of Scheukel, Keim, etc., considered. Paul's testimony as confirmed by that of the Gospels. The alleged discrepancies. Apostolic testimony besides Paul's. II. Proof of the miracles wi-ought by Christ. The miraculous penetrates all the Gospel history, and cannot be removed. Christ's extraordinary claims. Specimen of the efforts to explain away the miracles. The miracles of healing. Why they are more readily be- lieved than others. Untenableness of the notion that Christ healed by a sort of magnetic power naturally growing out of his su^ierior spiritu- ality. III. May the New Testament miracles be critically examined? Tlie character of the alleged miracle as a criterion of its reality. Par- ticular miracles that are off'cnsive to some. Need of caution in applying any criterion. IV. General conclusion. The supernatural an integral part and proof of the Christian religion. Distinction between Jew and Gentile with regard to the evidence of Jesus' Messiahship .... 196-228 CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTER VIII. THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM, PAOr Was Christianity the fulfilment of all religious prophecies and hopes, or only of till! Jewish ? Buruoufs theory of the Aiyan origin of Christianity. Jesu.s himself wjis a Jew, and asserted his religion to be the completion of the Mosaic revelation. Paul affirms the same. The conclusion unavoid- ahle. Connected questions : 1. How far w'as Christ prophesied of by Moses and the prophets ? Distinction between direct and indirect prophe- cies. Marsh and Stuart on the typical theory. Their view criticised. 2. How far does Old Testament prophecy authenticate the divinity of the Mosaic and Christian revelations ? The argument as compared with that from miracles. Apparent weakness of the argument. Reasons why minute exactness in jirophecy should not be expected, (a) The main work of the prophet was preaching, not prediction. Criterion for the in- terpretation of predictions, {h) Minute particularity in prediction would cause (loiibts of the genuineness of the prophecy. (c) Minuteness of prediction would interfere with the free and natural course of things. (d) Prophetic language needed to he intelligible to the immediate hearers. It was colored by the circumstances of the prophet's time. The strength of the argument from prophecy is in the combination of them, and their convergence towards Christ. 3. How far does the New Testament au- thenticate the miracles recorded in the Old ? No radical distinction between the miracles of the two Testaments. But the possibility of the admission of apocryphal stories may be admitted. In general the refer- ences to Old Testament miracles in the New implies that Christ and the others who refer to them regarded them as genuine. 4. How far does the New Testament authenticate the Old Testament history? In general Christ and the apostles treat this history as genuine. The narratives in Gen. i.-iii. considered. Efforts to treat them as poetic or allegoric. Autlientication of authorship. Jewish traditions in the New Testa- ment 229-278 CHAPTER IX. THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. The distinction between revelation and the record of it. 1. Revelation prior and superior to the record. 2. Revelation more important than the in- spiration of the Biblical writers. 3. The fact of revelation not proved by prior assumption of Biblical inspiration. Yet (4) there is substantial gi-ound for holding to the doctrine of the special inspiration of the Bible. Preliminary remarks : (a) Not the Scriptures, but the Scriptural writers, can be called inspired. (0) The Biblical writers were conscious and re- sponsible in the act of writing, (c) The product of the inspiration was human as well as divine, (d) The inspiration of the writere not superior to that of the recipients of the revelation, (c) The recipients of the reve- lation not more inspired wlien writing than when speaking. Was the inspiration specifically dirterent from that of believers in general ? Ob- xiv CONTENTS. Page jectioiis against the doctrine of such difference answered. Arguments for the doctrine, i. Antecedent probability that the authors of books which were to serve so important a purpose woukl be specially aided, ii. The general opinion of Christendom that the Scriptures were pecu- liarly inspired, iii. Testimony of the Bible itself. Christ's authority ultimate. The force of 2 Tim. iii. 16. Other representations kindred to this. Rothe's attempt to distinguish between Christ's testimony and that of the apostles. Some objections considered 279-317 CHAPTER X. THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. The search after Christian assurance. Biblical testimony as a ground of cer- titude. The two methods of arguing Biblical infallibility, the subjective and the objective. General considerations : 1. Christianity not the off- spring either of man's natural consciousness or of the Bible. 2. Neither human opinion nor the Bible has authority over the Christian Church. 3. A normal Christian experience cannot conflict with a correct under- standing of the Bible. 4. As between the Bible and Christian opinion, the Bible is the regulative authority. 5. The Christian's religious in- sight has an important function, — that of interpreting the Scriptures; («) distinguishing between the more and the less important ; {b) harmo- nizing the different parts of the Bible. 6. The general assumption of the infallibility of the Bible does not solve all questions of controversy. 7. No theory of Biblical infallibility can be maintained which is contra- dicted by the Scriptures themselves. 8. The Bible is perfect in the sense that it is perfectly adapted to accomplish its end when used by one who is in sympathy with that end 318-354 CHAPTER XI. THE CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. Biblical criticism is needful and useful. But it has its limitations. 1. Free- dom fi'om prepossessions as a qualification for critical research is neither attainable nor desirable. 2. One's critical judgment of the Scriptures must be modified by one's antecedent judgment respecting Christ and Christianity. 3. Neither critical research nor Christian insight will ever effect a reconstruction of the Biblical Canon. 4. Biblical criticism can never persuade the Christian Church that pious fraud has jilayed an important part in determining the substance or form of the Scriptural Canon. The Tiibingen theory. The Kuenen-Wellhausen theory. Rea- sons why such views cannot be accepted 355-385 CONTENTS. XV APPENDIX. Paob Excursus I. Dr. Maudsley on the Validity of Consciousness . . . 389-39G Excursus II. Tim Cosmic Philosoidiy 397-411 Excursus III. l'i!r.sonality and tlie Absolute 412-422 Excursus IV. Lelaiid and Watson on the Primeval Revelation . 423-425 Excursus V. The Certainties of the Agnostic 426-428 ExcuR.sus VI. I'eyschlag on the Miracle of the Loaves 429-433 Excursus VII. Hitschl on Miracles 434-435 Excursus VIII. The Book of Jonah 436-451 Topical Index 453 Index of Authors nEFKUuKD to 461 Biblical Index 465 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE TIIEISTIC BELIEF. 'T^HE skepticism of the present day, though in general less -*- coarse and violent than that of the last century, is not less radical and dogmatic. It exhibits, as at all times, various phases, now diverging only a little from the current Christian view, now departing still farther and abandoning what is com- monly held to be vital, and now going over into complete negation or ngnosticisni. Uut in general it may be said that the tendency of doubt at the present time is not so much to make attacks on the details of the doctrines of revealed religion as it is to attack the general notion of revelation itself. Anti- supernaturalism, stimulated and strengthened by the discussions and speculations coiniected with Darwinianism, is a potent ele- ment in the thinking of large circles of men. There is indeed no lack of assault upon the details of the Christian belief ; but the underlying tone — that which gives color and force to the assaults — is a disbelief or doubt concernhig the reality or pos- sibility of a supernatural revelation. The critical questions concerning the age, authorship, and composition of the biblical books are of immense importance ; but they themselves take their shape largely from antecedent assumptions respecting the fact and character of a divine revelation.^ ^ Tliis is illustrated by the anonymous work, Supernatural Rrlir/ion, which begins by professing to prove the impossibility of a supernatural revelation, and then elaborately argues against the genuineness and credibility of the New Testament records of such a revelation. If the first general proposition is establisiicd, the second follows as a matter of course, and hardly needs so much 1 2 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. The problem is not quite the same as it was in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, when the principal attack on the doctrine of revelation came from English deism. It is now outright atheism, or pantheism, or semi-pantheism, which wages the battle against the current Christian conception of revealed religion. Christianity can indeed regard these ever-varying attacks with composure. Its complete overthrow has been so often heralded, and the issue has so uniformly failed to come up to the loud-sounding phrase of the manifesto, that no one need be alarmed. Yet the renewed attack must be met with renewed defense, else the stronghold will be regarded, at least by the doubtful and the indifferent, as surrendered. The essentially atheistic cast of modern skepticism creates a special need of reconsidering and restating the reasons for the belief in the existence of a personal God. This belief is pre- suppo.sed in every assumption of the fact of a supernatural reve- lation, and is therefore the first to be asserted and fortified. The question. Why do men believe in a God ? may be resolved into two distinct questions : How do men generally first come to have the notion that there is a God ? and. Why do they persist in cherishing the notion ? This distinction is often overlooked, though it is a very obvious one. The origin of a belief is quite distinct from the ultimate reason, or reasonableness, of it. If we consider the first of these questions, we are at once led to the observation that, — I. Men in general get the notion of a God from tradition. The belief is a communicated belief.^ When parents have any discussion. If we are sure that a miracle cannot take place, or cannot be proved, it is useless to examine minutely the alleged evidences of its occur- rence ; but if we do examine them, the result of the examination is of course a foregone conclusion. ^ " The belief that there is one God, infinite in power, wisdom, and good- ness, has certainly not been wrought out by each one of us for himself, but has been passed on from man to man, from parent to child." — K. Flint, Theism, 5th ed., p. 23. "To the child's mind the parent's word ought to be, as it is, evidence far stronger than the conclusions of his unpractised reason." — E. R. Conder, Basis of Fxilfi, 2d ed., p. 102. Cf. J. L. Diman. The Theistic Anjii- tiienf, p. 7L OKKilN OF rilK THEISTIC BELIKF. 3 religious belief, they do not wait for the children to develop their own religion. The theistic notions held by the adults are communicated to the children as soon as they are able to grasp them. No man can i»ro])ably recall having a distinct concep- tion of God, antedating all instruction on the subject. Even if, in case of neglected religious education, the child should raise queries looking towards theism, yet he does not reach an assured confidence in the fact of a God, except as his vague conjectures are confirmed by others. In point of fact it is not found that in communities where practical or theoretical atheism prevails, the children attain to any e.s.?entially higher belief than their elders. Whether the current belief is monotheism, polytheism, fetich- ism, or atheism, the rule i.s, that what the adults are, such also the children become. As a matter of historic fact this statement can hardly be questioned for a moment. However true it may be that men are natnraWy inclined to theism, — that they have innate ten- dencies to believe in a God, — the question, how each individual first received the definite notion, and the assured conviction, of the existence of a divine being, is not answered by any demon- stration of such tendencies. The more true it is that men are naturally theistic in their tendencies, the more pains will they take to inculcate theistic doctrines in young children ; they will try to preoccupy their minds with the notion of a God as soon as they become capable of taking the notion in. In most cases this traditional belief is in fact the only belief that men have ; the origin of their belief and the ground of it are identical. They believe because, and only because, they have been told. They never undertake either to question or to substantiate the belief in which they have been trained.^ ^ Professoi Caldcrwood {Philoxophi/ of thr hfiniie, p. 47) says : "The great majority of men are believing in God without any reference to the arguments which liave been used to cstabHsh his existence. This is one of tlie very ob- vious facts wliich harmonize only witli the admission of tlic necessity of the conviction." The conchision is hardly to be inferred so necessarily from the premise as is here implied. It is a common belief among young German chil- dren that new-born l)abes are brought by storks ; but it would be hasty to infer that there is any necessity in this conviction. They think so because they have been told so. 4 SUPERNATU]?AL llEVELATION. Now, this is no exceptional relation of things. Religious be- lief is not peculiar in being a matter of tradition. Yov — II. Human knowledge in general is transmitted knowledge. The faculty to understand must of course be presupposed. But the actual cognitions, the knowledges, which men obtain, are, as a whole, dependent on the testimony of others. 1. As regards the larger part of men's knowledge, the propo- sition will command ready assent. The most of what every one knows respecting history, natural science, and indeed respecting the world in general, he obtains from books or oral instruction, and not from direct perception. What we thus learn w^e take on trust. We assume that others have learned the facts, and that we are warranted in believing them. 2. But, more than this, even what is commonly regarded as an object of direct perception becomes in the full sense an ob- ject of knoivlcdgc only through the consentient testimony of men.i Let it be assumed that the external world is directly cognized through the senses. Still there arises the question, How does one know that he perceives corrcdhi ? He seems to see the outward object directly ; but how is he sure that it is not merely a seeming ? Deception is possible, as all admit ; for in some cases it is actual. Optical illusions are numerous. In diseased states of the nervous system a person seems to see what no one else can see. In dreams unrealities have all the seeming of realities. Is it not possible that all our apparent perceptions are equally illusory ? How do we decide that our seeming perceptions are normal ? Our only means of deter- mining this is an appeal to the general consensus of men. If men found themselves in constant disagreement as to the fact or the characteristics of the material things around them, how would it be possible to arrive at any certainty whatever as re- gards the experience of the senses ? No matter how vivid or how permanent might be the impressions of some ; if others equally numerous, equally sane, failed uniformly under like circumstances to experience the same impressions, there would be not merely an insoluble conflict of opinions, but there would ^ "Oar natural beliefs do not belong to llie individual, but lo the race." — J. J. Murjjhy, Scieufijlc Bases of Faith, ]). lUl. ORIGIN OF THE TIIEISTIC BELIEF. 5 necessarily be doubt on both sides respecting tlie trustwortlii- ness of the sensations. Illusions of the senses being possible and often actual, how is one to be assured that in any given case his sensations are not illusions ? The only possible source of assurance is the contirmation which his experience receives from the testimony of his fellow-men. We trust our senses be- cause they agree with the senses of men in general. We are of course naturally inclined to trust our senses. But if a man found himself in perpetual and universal disagreement with the rest of the world respecting the objects of his sense-perceptions, what would be the result? If he were in general of sound mind, he would himself abandon all confidence in the correct- ness of his experiences, and accept the testimony of others rather than his own apparently direct and immediate cogni- tions. In the case of those whose senses are abnormal or de- fective, this trust in the testimony of others is always exercised. The blind and the deaf credit the testimony of others respecting vision and sound, even though they cannot understand it. The color-blind believe that others see real distinctions of color which yet they themselves cannot detect. The victim of de- lirium tremens is glad to be assured that his visions have been delusions, however real they seemed when the delirium was raging. Thus, even as regards the general question of objective re- ality, the individual experience depends for its certainty on the confirmatory experience of mankind m general. But more than this : — 3. The infantile faculties of perception are themselves trained by others. The fact is not merely that children first perceive, and afterwards learn that others perceive the same things, but also that others first teach them how to perceive. The child's first sensations are vague and confused. He needs to be taught to distinguish and to compare. There is no intelligent perception till there is discrimination. Knowledge in the higher sense de- pends on the power of abstraction and classification ; and this requires language, and language is a matter of communication. There is no example of a child's growing up into an intelligent observation of the world without his powers being trained by 6 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. his elders. Without such education, as certain sporadic cases indicate, a child would hardly equal in intelligence the brute creation.^ But further: — 4. This law of dependence on one's fellow-men is not limited to one's incipient years. Even what seems to be knowledge independently acquired by an adult is not real knowledge, ex- cept as it is connected with other knowledge for which he has been more or less dependent on the education he has received from his fellow-men. Thus, for example, a man may discover a new species of flower. He may be the only one who has ever seen it. But why does he call the newly discovered object a jioioer? How does he know that it is a flower? Simply because he has been educated to classify and associate the objects of per- ception, and to distinguish certain groups from certain other groups according to characteristic features. The very word by which he designates his discovery is one that has no meaning except as the meaning has been given to it by the common con- sent of those with whom he has lived. "What he reports about the new flower is made intelligible to others and to himself only as it involves a comparison of the new with that which is already a familiar and common knowledge of his fellows. The case is similar when what one has learned simply from testimony is afterwards supplemented by direct observation. Thus, one reads or hears about Eome. He becomes familiar with its history and its physical features. But his knowledge is wholly a communication from others. He knows nothing about Eome except as he trusts the veracity of those who have told him what the city has been and still is. Afterwards he goes to Eome himself. He sees the things which he has here- tofore only known about through testimony. But has he now become independent of testimony ? By no means. He gets a ' * " In life the cliief clement by far is personal intercourse. This is the true educator of man- Philosophers and preachers are alike powerless in compari- son to the daily teaching of personal communion between man and man, and still more between child and man, . . . Habits of thought and tendencies of aifcction which have grown through our earliest experience, and been inherited from countless ages before, assert themselves in spite of all adopted opinions." — 11. Travers Smith, Han's Knowledge of Man and God, p. 234, ORIGIN (JF TlIK TllEISTJC HKLIKF. 7 clearer and more vivid impression of the place througli direct perception ; but as to the history and meaning of what he sees lie is as dependent as ever. Nay, he cannot even say that he now knows that there is a city of Kome independently of ex- ternal testimony. He sees a city ; but how does he know that it is Rome except as he trusts the assurance of others ? He sees the Coliseum and St. Peter's. But what does that prove ? He does not know that this pile is the Coliseum, and that that one is St. Peter's, except as he implicitly trusts the testimony previously received concerning these buildings. There can be no recognition of the city as being Eome except as the truthful- ness of this testimony is assumed. 5. Even in the perception of the truths of mathematics and logic there is no absolute exception to this law of dependence on the testimony of others. The truths are called self-evident ; but this does not mean that they come to each individual spon- taneously. Even the simplest mathematical propositions are first introduced into the mind by communication. When one is mature enough to study mathematical treatises, one comes to see the intrinsic truthfulness of the propositions ; the testi- mony of others is in a sense replaced by a direct perception of their necessary truth. But even now there is no absolute inde- pendence. When one has attained this direct assurance of the truths in question, he finds that other minds agree with his own. This agreement is a confirmation of his intuitions. Suppose he should find that what seems axiomatic to him is called ab- surd by everybody else, what would he have to conclude ? Just because everybody thinks as he does and has the same inward certainty that he has, he becomes doubly sure of his convic- tions. What seems to be a law of his mind he finds to be a law of all minds, and therefore he trusts the soundness of his own mind. 6. Still less is there an exception to this law of dependence on other minds in the matter of theistic conceptions. If our grasp even of the principles of mathematics and logic becomes clear and firm only as it is aided and ratified by other minds, still more must this be the case as regards our religious notions. For here there is no formula which so sharply defines the 8 SUrEHNATUlJAL IIEVELATION. conception that tlic mind has at once the sense of taking it all in. The deliuition of God is not a simple thing, like the definition of a circle. The conceptions of God vary greatly : some are meagre, some are erroneous. Consequently, the sev- eral conceptions being mutually inconsistent, theism cannot claim the place of an axiomatic truth which compels assent as soon as stated. Moreover, in mathematics and logic that which is called intuitive or self-evident is not an affirmation concerning the existence or qualities of an objective thing, but concerning certain relations of things, whether existent or imagi- nary. And the self-evidence extends only so far as to involve a rejection of that which is self-contradictory or absurd. Thus, when it is said that the sum of two and two cannot be five, that is virtually only saying that a thing cannot be greater than itself ; that is, that it cannot be itself and not itself at once. AVhen it is said that two straight lines cannot enclose a space, the statement is self-evident only in so far as this proposition is involved in the definition of straight lines. If two lines were found to enclose a space, we should simply say that they are for that reason not straight. But an alleged intuition of God as a positively existent being, possessed of superhuman attri- butes, has little analogy with all this. If the alleged intuition is a fact, it is more nearly analogous to the direct perception which we have of the material world. But if it is a fact, it must be a universal fact, at least in all normal minds ; and if so, it is inexplicable that it should ever have been questioned. Even if we could accept the assertion of those ^ who declare that men become aware of God as soon as consciousness begins, we could not believe that each individual adult traces his actual belief in God to any such infantile intuition. If only a single person had such an immediate consciousness springing up in him before he even has the use of language to express it, and if, when he has acquired the power of communicating with others, he should find that he were the only one who had the notion of a God, what would be the fate of that poor infantile conception negatived at once by the parents and friends, to trust whose 1 Tor exaiiiplo, E. Mulford, RepMie of God, p. 1 ; Professor Culdcr wood, PhilosopIiJ/ of the Ii/Jiidlc, p. 42. ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 9 word is as strong an instinct as any other within him ? No ; we know too little about the experiences of the new-born in- fant's mind to be able to affirm that, before it can speak, it yet knows about God ; but we certainly do know that, before the child becomes able to communicate his knowledge, he receives the knowledge communicated from others. And we know that if he did not receive it, if he grew up and found his infantile intuitions repudiated by all his elders, he would probably soon conclude that what he thought before he knew enough to talk was not of much account over against the accumulated wisdom of those whom he instinctively trusts as knowing and telling the truth. Theism is often treated as if all men were monotheists, and as if they all immediately after birth began to make use of the Anselmic or the Cartesian argument, or were struck with the wonderful teleology of the world into which they have been introduced, or began to infer, from the existence of a moral sense within them, the existence of a universal Moral Governor outside of them. Or at least they are supposed to have a pro- found feeling of dependence. But manifestly there can never be any evidence of all this. AVhat the speechless child is think- ing or feeling in the theological line no one can know, unless the child, after he has learned to talk, is able to make a report con- cerning his infantile theologizings. But these reports have never yet been made. On the contrary, what we do know about the matter is that from the very beginning of life the child's mind undergoes an educational process at the hands of others, and that from these others his religious conceptions are derived. But if it should now be inferred that theism is accounted for simply by saying that it is a traditional belief, we should be guilty of a very hasty and shallow conclusion. Testimony is a chain, each link of which is connected with another ; but what does the whole chain depend on ? The hcg inning of a perception or belief cannot come from testimony. The first theist cannot have got his theism from his ancestors ; nor does ancestral tes- timony constitute of itself any proof of the correctness of the doctrine handed down. We are led, therefore, to a line of 10 SUPERNATURAL IlEVELATION. reflection somewhat antithetic to the foregoing, the substance of which may be expressed in the general proposition that — III. Individual cognition must precede the transmission of knowledge. Though one's individual sensations need to be con- firmed by those of others, yet the world consists of individuals ; so that this general testimony can come to have existence only as the individuals each have their individual experience of sen- sation and perception. The primary and fundamental fact, then, must be the individual consciousness ; and there can be no cer- tainty resulting from the sum of the consciousnesses unless there is some sort of validity in the individual one. In particular, it is to be considered that — 1. Before the testimony of other men can be taken in, there must be an apprehension of the fact that there arc other men. I cannot believe another man's statement until I first believe that that other man exists. How do I come to know or to believe that there are other persons than myself ? This cannot come from testimony; for the acceptance of testimony presupposes such belief. There is, therefore, an original act of perception by which one person becomes aware of the existence of another. Manifestly, this is a fact of prime importance ; in reference to the general question of cognition it is fundamental. Whatever may be the infant's first act of consciousness, whether a percep- tion of the material world or not, it is certain that one of the first cognitions of the child is the cognition of other persons. Even though we concede that this cognition comes through the cognition of the material world, yet it is a distinct and vitally important thing. The whole subsequent development of the child depends on his being able to come to this consciousness of fellow- men, and therefore to receive instruction from them. And, be it observed, this cognition is a cognition of r)iind by the mind. The child by means of his eye and touch can directly perceive nothing but the form and color and motion of other men. By his ear he becomes aware of sounds, which somehow he comes to asso- ciate with these persons. But he also gets an impression of form, color, and sound in connection with other external objects which never appear to him in the character of persons. What is it in the movements and in the voice of other men that ORIGIN OF TlIK THEISTIC BELIEF. 11 awakens these peculiar experiences of recognizing them as kin- dred beings ? How is it that there can come to be a mental com- munication between the cliild and the other human beings with whom he comes into contact ? Particularly how is it that vjord.s — arbitrary sounds, having no intrinsic meaning — come to have a definite meaning, and constitute the means by which the mind of the child enters into communication with his fellow-bemss ? How can there be an interchange of thought and feeling by means of language ? Whatever theory of knowledge men may adopt, here is a fact which challenges attention and demands recognition. And true as it is that our perceptive experience is, and needs to be, confirmed by that of other men, it is equally true that there must be an anterior assurance of the fact that there are other perceptive beings than ourselves.^ More primitive and truly natural than speech are gestures and facial expressions as indices of mental states. The infant can cry and scowl before it comes to distinct consciousness ; and its cries and grimaces are expressions of its emotions. But how does the child know that a mother's smile has any meaning ? He cannot come to this knowledge through having discovered that his own pleasure is expressed by a smile, for he has never examined himself in a mirror. The recognition of a smile as the expression of maternal love and pleasure presupposes the recognition of personality in the mother. However indispen- sable the body may be thought to be as the medium of com- munication between minds, it cannot serve as such a medium except as the mind which animates it and uses it is recognized by the other mind which receives the communication. This is an ultimate fact. How early this recognition takes place, and of what sort it is at first, no one can tell. But before one can receive instruction from another, before one's infant impressions can be consciously confirmed by the representations of other persons, those others must be known to he persons. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to fall into the arms of hopeless Pyrrhonism, we must assume that it is the prerogative of the individual mind to know intuitively that there are other minds kindred with itself. * Sec Excursus I. in the Appendix. 12 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. But this cognition of other persons is not a purely spiritual one, independent of a material medium. The child becomes aware of an external personality only through the perception of an external hody. The perception of a material world must, therefore, be prior to the recognition of personal beings in it. Consequently, if the confirmatory testimony of our fellow-men can really come to us only on condition that we first know that there are such personal beings, it is still more obvious that — 2. There must be a direct and immediate cognition of the ma- terial world, anterior to the knowledge derived from testimony. However important that testimony may be as a confirmation of individual impressions, and however true it may be that the total absence of such confirmation might properly lead one to doubt the validity of his own impressions, still there must first be the impressions, and they must precede the confirmation of them. Moreover, trust in the affirmations of others implies that they also have somehow obtained an immediate knowledge of the external world ; otherwise the source of our knowledge would be an endless chain of testimony, — each link depending on a preceding one, but the whole supported by nothing. It is very clear, then, what reply to make to one who tells us how fallacious the testimony of our senses is. It is no doubt easy to prove that we are often deceived by them. It may even be shown that in some respects all men are deceived by the natural and untutored operation of the senses. It may be af- firmed that all knowledge of distance comes from the correction of the original impressions made on the eyes. It may be shown that all men are deceived in imagining that color is something inhering in material objects, whereas science has proved that it is nothing but a subjective affection caused by peculiar undula- tions. All manner of individual delusions may be proved to have existed. And so the physical senses may be convicted of general incapacity to tell the truth, and of being under the necessity of dutifully receiving instruction from the learned. But to all this there is one short answer. Imperfect or erro- neous cognition cannot be corrected unless there is somewhere real hnowledgc. If it is affirmed that all knowledge is only of the ])hcnomenal or relative, — that we know only what appears ()i;i(;i\ OF TllK IIIKISTIC BKl.IKF. llj to be, and cannot get at the " thing in itself," — the question must be asked. How do we come to knov) that knowh^dge is thus im- perfect or misleading? If the senses of touch and of sight in various ways supplement and correct one another ; if certain phenomena, at first supposed to be objectively real, are after- wards proved by observation or by testimony to be subjective impressions merely ; if physiologists and naturalists and chem- ists prove that the whole material world is in motion, even where it seems to be most profoundly at rest, — that heat and light, popularly supposed to be distinct entities, are nothing but subjective sensations caused by invisible motions of particles, — that, in short, things in general " are not what they seem," — what then ? The obvious inference is, either that these scien- tists themselves are trying to delude us, or else that they really do hnoio some things positively and immediately. If all sup- posed knowledge is only phenomenal and therefore deceptive, then there is an end to all possibility of correcting the decep- tions.^ If the scientist knows that heat is a mode of motion, it is because he is sure that in his investigations he has discovered facts, and discovered them by direct 2}crception ; in other words, he must be sure that he has obtained a direct and infallible cog- nition of the external world. Consequently, if the importance of testimony is insisted on, if it is urged that no one can im- plicitly trust his individual impressions, we may admit all that is proved; but in admitting it we must assume that there is such a thing as a direct and trustworthy knowledge of the material world, otherwise neither we ourselves nor any one else would ever be able to correct our mistakes. No number of con- firming witnesses can make anythhig sure, if the testimony of each one depends for its value simply on the testimony of some one else. The direct cognition which the individual has of the external world must, therefore, be the prime factor in the knowledge one acquires. One must trust his senses ; if he can- not trust them as regards the perception of the material world, ^ Cf. Professor Bowne, Studies in Theism, chap. i. ; Prof. S. Harris, Philo- sophical Basis of Theism, § 5. "If agnosticism were proved true, at the same moment it wonld be proved false, for it would be proved that we know the truth of agnosticism." 14 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. then he must distrust them also when through them lie sees and hears the witnesses who profess to rectify his cognitions. 3. Equally clear is it that what one learns solely by way of communication must be assumed to have been originally learned by some one — if true — through direct individual cognition. The most of our knowledge is derived from others ; and it is indispensable as well as instinctive that we should put con- fidence in what others affirm. But when we thus trust them, we must assume that the knowledge was originally obtained otherwise than by testimony. False notions may be, and have been, propagated from one generation to another for ages. These notions sometimes become corrected through more care- ful observation of facts. But whether true or false, our no- tions cannot be tested by mere testimony. All real knowledge must be originally direct knowledge ; and when communicated knowledge is afterwards confirmed by direct observation, this direct cognition, while it confirms, also in a sense supplants, the testimony which first communicated the knowledge, 4. Again, our more abstract and spiritual conceptions are subject to the same law. What are called innate intuitions are in point of fact, as a rule, first communicated. There are many who from lack of instruction never come to a conscious recognition of the fundamental principles of mathematics or of logic or of ethics ; and those who have come to a clear rec- ognition of them have generally first come to it through a communication from others. The truths called axiomatic or innate are presented in their formulated shape to the child. He then reflects on them. He may be too young or too feeble- minded to understand the statements at first, and he may accept them blindly ; or he may understand the statements, and accept them, without seeing their intrinsic and necessary truth, — the apprehension of this intrinsic necessity may come to him afterwards. The explanations which come to him from books or teachers quicken and aid his apprehensions. A short study of a work on geometry will introduce one to an assured conviction of the absolute and incontrovertible truth of certain geometric principles, whereas without that instruction the principles might never have taken definite shape in the mind at all OKIGIN OF THE TIIKISTIC BELIKK 16 What is true of the most fundamental mathematical truths holds also of moral principles. Let them be ever so elementary and necessary, it does not follow that the infant mind unaided picks them up and recognizes them as infallible truths. The recognition of the necessity and intrinsic excellence of the truths must indeed come ; it must come through the exercise of the faculties of moral pereei)tion, which are inborn. Yet his- torically tlie general principles come as communications, in the first instance. And in all cases this instruction has a large intluence in shaping the form which the principles assume in the juvenile mind. But the point now to be emphasized is that here too — and here more almost than anywhere else — there can be no depen- dence placed on mere testimony as the ultimate ground of belief. There may be, and is, much blind adoption even of what are commonly called intuitive principles. But no one who reflects can regard mere testimony in these matters as an ultimate ground of belief. The truths must be self-evidencing ; they must be seen to have an intrinsic validity compelling men to accept them. Ultimately the testimony is replaced by a direct perception ; and this direct perception of the truth is assumed to be the original ground on which it came to be recognized, and to be that alone which gives the testimony itself its worth. 5. In like manner, testimony concerning a Divine Being can- not be taken as an ultimate and adequate proof of the fact that there is such a Being. The faith in God may be, and is, a com- municated faith; but we cannot reasonably rest our faith on testimony alone. There must be some more original and con- clusive evidence of the divine existence than is found in the mere prevalence of the belief. If theism is founded in fact, then somewhere — either now and always, or at certain si)ecial times — there must have been a direct knowledge, an evidence, concerning the Deity, which serves as the foundation of the tes- timony and gives it its value. Whether that knowledge comes from some direct intuition which every one may have, or comes only to a comparatively few, is a question on which men may differ. The point here emphasized is that the transmitted no- 16 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. tion must, if valid, have some other basis than the mere fact of the transmission. There must be or must have been something like an immediate cognition of God somewhere, or else the theistic belief must take its place alongside of other fancies which, after being for generations handed down and believed, have at length been exploded, because found to be without evidence or contrary to evidence. What, then, is to be our conclusion ? What has now been laid down may seem to nullify the force of what was said be- fore about the importance or necessity of common consent as the conclusive evidence of the truth of things. Direct in- dividual perception appears, after all, to be the true source and ground of all knowledge. What is the correct statement of the relation of individual to general experience, with regard to the question of the validity of men's beliefs and cognitions ? IV. The answer to the question is this : Sure knowledge is the product of the combination and comparison of individual cognitions. A common belief is made up of individual beliefs, and therefore the individual belief must be the prior thing. But the individual impression, so long as it is merely a single one, is more or less vague and uncertain. The impressions of one individual need to be explained, corrected, or confirmed by those of other individuals. The general experience is nothing but the sum of individual experiences. There is no generic man whose verdict can be got at, apart from the testimony of the several individuals who make up the community. All that is known must originally have been cognized by individuals by some direct process. But the experience of two individuals is of more value than that of one ; and the experience of a thou- sand, if it is all in one direction, is of more value than that of two. The impression of one is more likely to be correct, if all others under the same circumstances have the same impression, than if they do not. For it is to be remembered that the im- pulse to trust the word of others is as original and innate as the impulse to trust the validity of one's own cognitions ; but the cognitions of all those others must be, for each one, an orif/i)ial cognition, if it is to have any intrinsic value as a confirmation of the co'aiition of the one. ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 17 With regard, for example, to the reality of an outward world, every one seems to have a direct perception of it. J hit this im- pression iiiaij be a mistaken one. One may bo deluded by a purely subjective affection of his own nerves. If, however, he finds that everybody else has a similar impression, he sees that his expe- rience is not to be explained as a delusion. He is confirmed in the conviction that what seemed to be a direct cognition of something external was really such. But the force of this confirmation comes from the assumption that in each individual case there was a direct and independent perception. Each one perceives for himself; but each one is made confident of the acenracy and reality of his perception by learning that others have the same experience. All knowledge is thus seen to be a composite thing. It is made up of two elements : (1) the direct, immediate perception or impression which the individual has; and (2) the ratification and education of that impression by the general community of individuals. Until this confirmation comes, the individual cos- nition remains a mere impression, a possible illusion. It seems to be a valid cognition ; but it may be, and often proves to be, a mere impression, answering to no objective fact. In this respect man is evidently to be sharply distinguished from the brute creation. The human faculties are from the first subjected to an educational process, to which there is no analogy among the brutes.^ Whatever may be our theory of instinct, nothing can be more obvious than that there is a wide difference between the human and the bestial beins, as regards the manner in which they severally attain knowledge. Just in proportion as the human knowledge is of a higher sort than that of which the brute is capable, in just that proportion is the human being dependent for the attainment of his knowledge ^ There is, uo doubt, an educational process involved in the mere accumu- lation of experience. It is a familiar truth to all observers, that the first cognitions of the infant seem to be almost wholly experiences of bodily sensa- tions, accompanied by a very vague and inaccurate im{)rcssion of the outward cause. Dr. McCoj;h {^Liddtioiis of the Mind, part ii. book i. chap, i.) depicts this well, but docs not give sufficient weight to the educating in- fluence of others in developing and shaping the deliverances of the cognitive faculties. 2 18 SUrEKNATUKAL REVELATION. on his elders who have accumulated a store of it before him. Human knowledge is, in an emphatic sense, a common posses- sion. It is a possession in which no one is wholly independent of others. Not only the great mass of information which comes purely as a matter of testimony and is accepted purely on trust, but also the knowledge which comes from direct observation, depends for its full validity on the confirmatory evidence of one's fellow-men. Knowledge, especially knowledge of the higher sort, is not genuine knowledge till it can be expressed in lan- ()^la(JC ; and language is essentially the means whereby thought is communicated. Language is the property of a communitij. Whatever may be the true theory of tlie origin of it, and how- ever important or even indispensable it may be to the indi- vidual in his private reflections, still we know of no language which is not a social thing. No one invents a language of his own ; he«receives it, ready made, from others. He never begins independent meditations in the use of language till he has a language ; and he gets a language only as a communication from others. Though he may afterwards use language in elaborating his own ideas, though he may even contribute some- thing to the modification or enrichment of language, still the mental culture which now enables him to pursue his in- dependent studies was originally dependent on the language of others. The social element is, therefore, a much more vital thing in man's nature than in the brute's. A brute can live and grow and attain the perfections of a brute almost entirely without any connection with other brutes. A human being, on the con- trary, left in infancy without the help and stimulus of human companions, would, even if able to survive, yet never manifest distinctively human traits. Nothing of that which is highest and most characteristic in man comes to him apart from in- struction. Eeason is, in a true sense, a collective possession of the race, — not distinct and independent in each individual. Germinally, it must exist in each one ; it cannot be a collective thing without being first an individual thing. But it nowhere becomes its true self except as it is developed under the shaping infiuence of what other minds contribute. As faintly burning ORIGIN OF THE THEISTIC BELIEF. 19 coals lying separate only tend to die out, but when laid to- gether kindle one another into a glowing flame ; so the spark of human reason left in any one wholly without the kindling influence, of companion minds would grow dull and feeble, while contact with others quickens and brightens it into a burning light. All knowledge, accordingly, is essentially the property of a human community. Even the first acquisition of it by the individual depends on the education previously received from others. The great mass of knowledge possessed by the world is purely a matter of communication ; and the assurance of the correctness of it comes from the confidence that is felt in the trustworthiness of testimony. This holds true of the concep- tions which men cherish concerning God, as well as of every- thing else. Nevertheless, there must be some means of verifying men's theistic notions ; there must be an ultimate ground for the be- liefs underlying the traditional communication of them, or else they are all superstitions blindly cherished and blindly accepted. We come, then, to the second general question. What is the ultimate foundation and justification of the common belief in a Supreme Being ? 20 SUPERNATUKAL REVELATION. CHAPTEE II. GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIG BELIEF. 'T^O explain the original ground of theism, we should need to -*- go back to the first man or men who were led to embrace it, and learn wliy they embraced it. But this it is impossible to do ; our means of investigation are not adequate to the task. But though we cannot recur with certainty to the actual origin of theistic belief, we can do what is closely akin to it, — we can question the consciousness and experience of those who have lived and still live in historic times. We can learn not merely what the traditional notion is, but we can learn also what it is that sustains the hclief after it Jims been assailed. It may be presumed that what now serves to keep it alive and in- fluential, even in the face of doubts and open opposition, must have operated also to produce it originally. Now, when we inquire what it is that feeds and perpetuates the belief in a Divine Being, we find the answer already sug- gested by the foregoing. The belief rests on a double founda- tion. There are, in the first place, primary and direct impulses, tendencies, or intuitions of the individual mind leading to the conception and belief. There is, in the second place, the as- surance of the correctness of the belief which comes from cor- roborative testimony. I. First, then, theism may be considered as a belief springing from the direct operation of the individual mind. In point of fact, what is commonly called natural theology does not de- scribe the process by which the theist comes to his belief; it is rather the defense which is made against real or imaginary attacks on the belief which has been inherited or communi- cated. Education has so far superseded the action of the spon- taneous impulses of the soul that it is impossible to determine how such impulses would work ; indeed, it is certain that they GROUNDS OF THE TIIEISTIC BELIEF. 21 would never develop any clearly conscious belief without the help of others who have already a positive belief. It being im- possible to ascertain the genesis of the original conception of God, and equally impossible iov any one now to come to such a conception independently, all that natural theology can do is to justify theism against assault. In this self-defense tlie theist, though he does not present the historical process of his own or other minds, may yet be presumed to indicate substantially what the instinctive tendencies are which have led to so gen- eral an adoption of theistic beliefs. That which persistently defends these beliefs must most probably be the same as that which created them. 1. This test disposes at once of those hypotheses which derive the notion of a God from dreams,* or animism,^ or personifica- tion,^ or self-deification,'* or fear,^ or deliberate deception. At the best, such hypotheses are merely hypotheses, resting on no basis of ascertained fact. The chief plausibility belonging to * Sir Joliu Lubbock, Ori/jUi of Cicilization, 3d ed., p. 207; Darwin, De- scent of Man, vol. i. p. 66 ; Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, cliap. xi. lie makes the impressions of dreams, swoons, etc, lead to tlic belief in ghosts, and this to ancestor-worship (chap, xx.), and tliis again to idol-worship, fetich- worship, etc. Tiicse various explanations may more or less run into one another. ^ E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, cliaps. xi.-xvii. ^ Hume, Natural History of Religion, p. 317 (ed. Greene and Grose); John Fiske, Idea of God, p. 65. ^ Eeucrbach, Wcsen des Christenthums, \ 2. ^ Lucretius, Be Natura Rerum, vers. 1161-1240; Lange, Gcschichte des Materialismus, p. 774 (4th ed., 1882). An interesting instance of the dogmalic confidence with which some men can discourse about the origin of theism is found in M. J. Savage's Religion of Evolution (Boston, 1876), where the genesis of the notion of divine beings is stated to have been fear. "Whatever moved, he says, was imagined to be alive ; and since men were hurt and killed by wild beasts, inanimate things, such as water, lightning, the sun, moon, etc., came to be feared also. " Thus they turned all these things into gods. . . . This was the original polytheism, or, in its lowest manifestation, fetiehism" (p. 53). Five years later the same author, in his Belief in God (Boston, ISSl), propounds another view ; he rehashes Herbert Spencer's dream-theory, shows how naturally ancestor-worship grew up, and adds, " Out of this belief in ancestor-worship sprung, first, fetiehism" ! (p. 19). In both eases the au- thor discourses as if he had been present and seen the process. 22 SUPEHNATUKAL REVELATION. these theories comes from the characteristics of the religion of certain degraded races. In fact, there lies at the foundation of all such theories the tacit or avowed assumption that theism is a grand illusion. It is a sufficient refutation of them to say, not merely that they are destitute of proof, but that they utterly overlook the main fact that needs to be explained. That dreams or inten- tional efforts to deceive should ever succeed in producing so persistent a notion as that of the existence and agency of su- perhuman beings, implies a pre-existent tendency to entertain such a notion. That any one should associate the conception of deity with certain special objects or activities of Nature pre- supposes a theistic sense, — a tendency to believe in super- natural agents. Without such a sense, that is, without theism already at least germinally existent in the mind, it would be impossible to account for the arbitrary act of associating nat- ural phenomena with supernatural agencies. These theories, therefore, are as shallow, psychologically considered, as they are destitute of basis, historically considered. Aside from all this, however, it is a conclusive refutation of these hypotheses that, if there were any truth in them, theism would fall before the first assault from enlightened reflection and science. That this is not the case is a sufficient evidence that the theistic sense is a deeper thing than the theories in question recognize. The same may be said of another hypothesis — a modi- fication of Schleiermacher's theory of the feeling of absolute dependence — which has considerable vogue, especially in Ger- many. It is thus stated by one of its advocates : ^ " Eeligion 1 Kaftan, TFeaen der christlichen Religion, p. 90. Similarly, Bender (JVescn der Religion, p. 38) : " Religion on its practical side is the exercise of the im- pulse of self-preservation in man, by means of which man seeks to maintain the essential ends of life, amidst the obstacles found in the world and at the Umit of his power, by voluntarily rising up to the power that orders and controls the world." To the same effect is the definition given by Ritschl {Rechtfer- tigung mid Fersbhnung, p. 17, 2d ed., 1883): "All religion is an interpreta- tion of the course of tlie world, to whatever extent it may be apprelicndcd, in this sense : that the lofty spiritual Powers (or the spiritual Power) which hold sway in it or over it maiutain or secure to the personal spirit its claims or its GROUNDS OK IIIK I'llKiSlK ' HKLIEF. 23 takes its rise \vW\i and ljecaus(! nuiii, with his claim to life [Anspruch auf Lehcii] and with liis effort to satisfy it, comes to the limit of his power." This inability of himself to satisfy the cravinjTS which the inborn lov(^ of life involves, leads man, we are told, to seek liclit from higher powers; or, in the case of more degraded races, tlu; religious impulse takes mostly the form of an atti'uipt to pro})itiate the evil spirits that are con- ceived to ol)struct men in their search of the comforts and en- joyments of life. This experience of liniitation, it is said, is that which leads men to religion, " in that it becomes the occasion of seeking /n>wt the deity help for the want which has been experi- enced." ^ This is conceived to be an explanation of the origin of theistic notions which answers to all the varied forms of re- ligion. Prayer for help, sacrifices to propitiate, worship in all its forms, — these are regarded as evoked by the impulse to seek from superhuman sources the help which one needs in order to attain the good which he desires. No doubt a, large part of the religion especially of the less cultivated races does consist in a purely selfish appeal for help to the invisible world. Xo doubt, also, this is an element which is found in all religions. Prayer implies dependence ; and prayer is a characteristic of all religions. But it does not therefore follow that the notion of a divine being first grew out of the sense of impotence and the desire for lielp.^ Given the belief in indepoiidcnice against the obstructions which conic from Nature or the natu- ral workings of human society." Tcichmiillcr {Religiomphilosophie, p. 24), acutely observes concerning it: " llitschl's definition of all religion, whicii, carefully guarded by many precautionary clauses and well equipped with inter- calations and divisions, strides along like a camel loaded with a mouth's provi- sions, astonislics us by presenting to us religion as an interpretation, ... as something purely theoretical. . . . Against this definition religion itself must be delendcd ; for the religious mau surely does not need to be so narrow as to think the course of the world conducted expressly for the ' securing of bis claims ' by the high spiritual Powers, when, say, his house is burned down, his cattle perish, his wife and children are stolen away, and he himself is attacked by the small-pox, or is scourged by a tyrant aiul sent to the quarries." ^ Kaftan, Wesen der christlichen Rrlifjion, p. 90. * " Through the mere sensation of hunger the new-born child bv no means gains the conception of a means of nutrition ; still less through the mere feel- ing of his incapacity and impotence, the notion of the helping hand which is 24 SUrERNATURAL REVELATION. higher beings, it is easily conceivable that human selfishness might be inclined to make use of them for its own benefit. But to hold that human impotence and selfishness created the belief is quite another thing, and is a pure assumption. It cannot, of course, even be pretended that any positive proof of such an origin can be given. An inference only is made from the actual characteristics of the prevailing religions. But the inference is without any inherent plausibility. That men should soon come to feel their impotence — should find that they have desires which they are unable of themselves to satisfy — is easy to see. But it does not follow that this sense of impotence would create the belief in invisible helpers. It might create the dcdre for help. But from this there is a long step to the actual belief that help is to be had, and that the help is to come from an invisible, superhuman source At the most, we may conjecture that rude men might grasp at the hope that help could be secured from some unknown source, and might address petitions to it. But unless ive assume an ante- cedent notion of siqjernaturai power as already existing in the mind, there is absolutely no reason why we should suppose that such men should, through the mere experience of weakness and helplessness, come to the assured conviction that there are divine helpers to whom they can appeal. And this all the le.ss inasmuch as prayer addressed to merely imaginary beings for help out of the physical and material limitations and sufferings of life could not have met with such answers as would have convinced the petitioners that the imaginary beings were real. On the contrary, the petitions must for the most part have failed of a direct and favorable response ; and if the notion of the superhuman power was the mere product of the sense of need, the most natural result must have been the direst atheism. The sense of need must originally have had reference to the dangers arising from conflicts with enemies, the difficulty of making the earth contril)ute to human comfort and sustenance, to care for liini. Just as little, iiiauifcstlj, can tlic mere feeling of pliysical and moral helplessness, even wlien it has come to consciousness in the adult, of itself alone evoke the notion of a divine PIclper," — Ulrici, Gott ntiil die Natiir, p. GIO. (J1{()1;NI)S of TIIK TIIKISTIC hkLief. 25 the impossibility of resisting the destructive and devastating forces uf nature, the sufferings and grief that attend bodily sick- ness and death ; and if the experience of weakness and painful limitation led men to desire superior help, and if nothing but this desire led them to make supplication to the hypothetical deities, then, as soon as they found tliat their supplications or propitiations failed to produce the effect desired, they must have abandoned the hypothesis. If for other reasons the notion of a God had taken strong possession of men's minds, then we can understand why, even in spite of little apparent success in secur- ing direct answers to prayers for help, men should nevertheless persist in their supplications. But unless a theistic belief or at least a strong theistic impulse is presupposed, the mere sense of impotence could never of itself have produced the persistent theism wdiich all religions have maintained. It is further to be objected to all these liypotheses, that they make the lowest forms of relisfion the standard in determininji what the essence of reli^ion is. The avowed object is to find a definition which covers all the forms of religion. But the result is a virtual assumption that those are right who make religion to have originated in the conceits of the lowest races of human- ity. It is assumed that these rude forms of religion are the truly natural, primitive, and purely spontaneous forms. This is an utterly unwarranted assumption. Tn religion, as in other things, that holds true which Principal Caird affirms : ^ "It is not that which is common to barbarism and civilization which is most truly human, but precisely that in which civilization differs from barbarism." It is from the genuine, purest form of religion, not from its lowest corruptions or crudest manifesta- tions, that we must* derive a definition of its essential nature. Aside from this, moreover, it is a pure assumption, when the most degraded races of men are regarded as the true types of primitive man, and not rather as instances of degeneration.^ We come back, then, to tlie ground that the pcrsistoice of ^ Philosophy of Rfli//io/i, p. 82. '^ Fide the controversy between Sir Jolin Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, and Origin of Civil i:af ion, and the Duke of Argyll, Primeval Man. Cf. also Pressense, Studi/ of Origins, pp. 467 sqq. 26 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. theism in the face of doubts and contradictions must furnish the most probable indication of the ultimate ground of it, in so far as it rests on the basis of natural and spontaneous tendencies of the human mind. Now, when theism is assailed, no one ever thinks of defend- ing it on the ground that primitive races, or still existent races, have found themselves hampered by natural forces, and unable by their own power to get all the comfort and pleasure they de- sire. None the more is theism defended on the ground that it originated in dreams or supposed visions of ghosts. Recourse to such an explanation would only confirm the objector in his opposition to theism. r>ut the fact remains that, in spite of the opposition, the belief holds its own, and holds its own among the most intelligent of men. Of course many weak and inconclusive arguments may be resorted to. The impulse to defend what one has always held may lead one to the use of inelfective weapons. But in the course of time the contention of the opposing forces cannot but have eliminated the essen- tially weak and useless defenses. What has maintained itself and continues to be advanced as argument for the theistic be- lief must be presumed to have validity, and to be some index of what that tendency of the human mind is which has led men so generally to cling to the belief in a Divine IJeing. It is not necessary to assume that precisely the same mental process takes place in the defense of theism which originally gave rise to the belief. Nevertheless it is legitimate to assume that whatever there may have been in human nature which origi- nally led to theism must reappear in the arguments by which theism is now defended. That which was at first only ger- minal, not yet analyzed and unfolded, has come by degrees to be scientifically grasped and stated. It matters little or noth- ing whether this original conception of God be called a feeling or a cognition, so long as it is regarded as constituting in some sense a notion that there is a Divine Being disthict from the Imman agent. 2. But, on the other hand, the problem of the origin of the- ism is not solved by asserting that the belief in a God is a direct intuition. GROUNDS OF TIIK TIIKISTIC UKLIKK. "27 There are few iiowadays who would assert this in its strict- est form. The notion of a direct perception or intuition of God has for the most part disappeared, together with tlie gen- eral notion of innate ideas. J hit in a modified form it is still to be found. Schleiermacher's doctrine of the feeling of absolute dependence as being tiie foundation of all religion is an attempt to show that the ndigious sense is an ultimate fact in human consciousness. xVnd when the matter is put in its most general form, the doctrine contains an indisputable truth. But it is a question how far the mere feeling of dependence, the conscious- ness of general im])otence, as over against the forces of nature, can properly be called a religious feeling. Even when it takes the form of a sense of awe before the mystery of man's origin and destiny, the feeling can be called religious only in a very lax and dubious sense. Herbert Spencer may regard this sense of awe in the thought of the Great Unknown Force as an eminently religious feeling, — as being the substance of all re- ligion. But in and of itself it is scarcely more religious than the terror of a hare hi the presence of pursuing hounds ; and it is a consistent carrying out of the Speneiirian doctrine when evolutionists think they detect in dogs and other beasts the germs of a religious sense. Unless the sense of dependence takes the form of a sense of dependence on a Divine Being, it is not a distinctively religious feeling. It may, indeed, be re- garded as one of the features of human nature which lead men towards theistic conceptions ; but it is not the only one, and is not itself religion. Conse(|uently, vv-lien the analogy of sen.se-perception is ap- plied to this case, and the feeling of dependence is said to involve a perception of (lod, just as the perception of the ex- ternal world is involved in the senrntionfi which are experienced in the physical organism,^ we can only say that the analogy is not a real one. If it were real, then the conclusion would have to be that (I<»d is as directly perceived as the material world is perceived; and this is practically etpiivalent to the doctrine that man has an immediate intuition of CJftd. For though .sen- sation and percei)tion may be distinguished, yet they are insep- * So N. Smyth, The Religiojts Feeling, clmp. iv. 28 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. arable and interdependent. The perception of an outward object is not the result of a process of reasoning. One does not say, " I have a sensation ; that sensation must have a cause ; and therefore the cause must be such and such a material ob- ject." The perception is, on the contrary, just as immediate as the sensation. They may differ in intensity ; but neither of them precedes the other, or is an inference from the other. If the religious feeling of dependence is called a sensation analo- gous to physical sensations, then the perception involved in it must be immediate and distinct, the direct consciousness of God ; and no argument can be needed to prove that there is such a consciousness. As soon as one undertakes to conduct such an argument, he has yielded the very position which he professes to maintain. No doubt it would seem to be very desirable to be able to be- lieve that the knowledge of God is as positive and direct as the knowledge of self.^ A special temptation to resort to this view is created by the discredit into which the ordinary proofs of the Divine existence have fallen, especially since Kant's criti- cism of them. Since theists themselves thus confess that the arguments lack a strictly demonstrative character, atheists are fortified in their position ; and the theist, unwilling to concede tliat his fundamental tenet rests on an uncertain basis, is often led to resort to the desperate shift that the belief needs no ar- gument, being a direct intuition. But such an assumption is negatived at once by the obvious objection that a proper intui- tion must needs be universal, necessary, and essentially uni- form, — which cannot be affirmed of the theistic sense and its deliverances ; and by the further consideration that those who assert tliat they themselves are conscious of such an intuition have received the theistic doctrine as a communication from others, and have been so trained up in it that in any case it has become a sort of second nature to hold it. Such persons cannot possibly discriminate between what has come as a traditional ^ So, e. g., Kotlic, Theologische Ethik, \ 6, wlio says tliat tlie rcligiou.s mail's " feeling of self is at the same time immediately a feeling of God; and lie eaiiiiot raise the former to a clear and distinri fhonghl of II10 Ego Mi'thout at the same time havinur the thoua,'lit, of God." GROUNDS OF THE THEISTIC BELIEP\ 29 belief and wliat comes from direct perception. The so-called intuition is nothing more than the current belief. No effort, however intense, will suffice to enucleate the intuition as a dis- tinct thing, and make it satisfactory as an independent proof of the reality of the object of the faith. Tlie temptation to assert the reality (»f a direct intuition of God is all the greater inasmuch as this cognition is not only of peculiar importance, but also of a peculiar kind, without any exact analogies. The external world is perceived through the medium of the senses; CJod cannot be seen or felt. The knowl- edge of mathematical truths or of logical principles is a more purely intellectual cognition ; but it is a cognition of the rela- tion of things or persons, not a cognition of the existence of them. If, therefore, God is directly apprehended, there must be an altogether peculiar, a separate, sense for this cognition. The fact of such a sense can be proved only to those who are already conscious of having it. And inasmuch as most men are not conscious of any such sense, there is an insuperable presumption that those who assert that they have it are laboring under a de- lusion, — that they mistake a belief derived from education and strengthened by reason for an immediate intuition. 3. In the theistic controversy the prcsuniptioii is in favor of theism. The mere fact that it has been the prevalent belief of mankind indicates that it is prohahly well-founded. Though we may not claim that every man intuitively knows that there is a God, it may be presumed, from the general existence of the belief, that there is good ground for it. Atheists, however, usually attempt to fortify their position by throwing the bur- den of proof on the theistic side. They seek to make it ap- pear that the presumption is in favor of atheism, and that nothing but demonstrative proof can suffice to overthrow that presumption. It must, however, in the first place, be remembered that in the last analysis all knowledge is no more than a firm belief, and that there cannot be a demonstration of anything as an objective existence. One can irresistibly demonstrate nothing but the necessity of the mind to think so or so concerning the relations of things whose existence is assumed : the demonstra- 30 SUrEHNA'lTlJAL REVELATION. tiun, liuwever, is nothing but the recognition of the fact that the mind cannot contradict itself, cannot affirm and deny one and the same thing. With regard to everything else so-called demonstrations are nothing but inductions which yield a greater or less degree of probability, and produce more or less firm belief. But, in the second place, it should be remembered that though it may seem more incumbent on the theist to prove his jjositive doctrine than on the atheist to prove his ncyaUvc one, yet in reality the atheist maintains a positive proposition as much as the theist does. He must hold the positive doctrine that the universe is self -existent. He must hold the positive doctrine that the origin and changes of the various forms of existence are to be attributed to a purposeless chance. Whether the atheistic or the theistic doctrine is to be called positive depends simply on the form of statement. In either case the problem is to give a philosophical explanation of acknowledged facts. The atheist is as much bound to explain them as the theist is.^ 4. The argument for theism is felt most forcibly when it is seen in the light of the legitimate and necessary implications of atheism. When the theistic argument is conducted directly, every defect in it, every inconclusive feature in it, is looked on by the atheist as an evidence of the weakness of the general doctrine. Whereas, if atheism is for the moment assumed to be the true theory of the universe, we meet with difficulties in- comparably greater than those which can be alleged against theism. Let us pursue this line of thought. One thing is certain : Either there is a personal, sovereign God, or there is not. Even if the proofs of his existence were ever so inconclusive, the result at the most would be only that we are left in doubt. But the doubt whether the one or the other theory is correct does not make any middle ground possible as to the fact. If one is not satisfied that the universe is governed 1 Vide'B. P. Bowne, Siudies in Theism, p. 5. Also G. Matheson, Can the Old Faith live with the Neio !' 1885, who forcibly shows that the atlieist does not even avoid the supernaturalism which it is his object to expel from thought, but is forced, at certain points, to assume a violation of the laws wliich he declares to be iuviolable (pp. 35 sqq'). GliOLND.S OF THE TllKlSTlC IJKLIKF. oi by a personal God, then, if thorouglily rational, he must adjust his conceptions to the opposite assumption, with all its neces- sary conse(|uences. What are those consequences ? The atheist must hold tiiat the universe, with all its processes and history, is, as a whole, aimless and meaningless. He must hold that the material world is uncreated and eternal, but un- dergoes an endless series of changes. If the cause of these changes is inquired after, it must be answered that the cause inheres in the universe itself. That is, it must be the nature of tltinys to change just as they do change. A rigid necessity must appertain to everything ; and that necessity is a force without thought, will, or feeling. For the world as a whole there can have been, on this theory, no purpose ; for purpose implies a personal agent, and originally there was nothing but impersonal matter. In the process of evolution, it is true, matter in some cases takes on the form of organisms which think, feel, and will ; and these organisms are called persons. But no personal agency was operative in producing these per- sons. It was simply the nature of things to evolve at a certain stage these thinking objects. Nature, itself utterly unconscious, produces beings that know more than nature does. But all the knowledge, all the purposes and choices of men, are only a part of the necessary course of things. Even though the course of thhigs should be called fortuitous, still everything must have been just as it has been, since to say that anything else was possible is to say that there was some other power distinct from the forces of nature, — another power which mifiJit have produced a different lesult. But this is contrary to the atheistic postulate, which does not allow that any such merely possible force can exist. The hypothesis can indeed have no meaning, unless this other power is a person, possessing a free will. But free will, even in the persons produced by the impersonal force of nature, is impossible on the materialistic theor\'. ]\Ien may liavo purposes; but whatever they purpose is determined rigidly by the blind forces back of all. Mind, so-called, is nothing but matter acting in a certain way. Given certain combinations of particles, and the result must be certain thoughts, volitions, and actions, as trulv as under certain conditions water must freeze. 32 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. That which compels men to form purposes has itself no purpose in this compulsory act. The blind, unintelligent, purposeless force which underlies everything is stronger than all conscious purpose, and transforms all apparent purpose ultimately into unmeaning purposelessness. For, the designs which individuals conceive and execute are only links in a great complex of causes and effects, which is itself without thought and design. The greater force must control the lesser. The universe, as a whole, has, on the hypothesis in question, no meaning, — no aim, no pur- pose. There is no reason why anything is as it is, except that it must be so. Free will and moral responsibility are impos- sible. The common notion that there is such a thing is an illusion. But everything being necessary, the illusion also is necessary. When one thinks he has discovered the fact of the illusion, this discovery is also something necessary; and when another thinks he has shown that free will is no illusion, this demonstration is equally necessary. There is nothing in the world that can be called good in the sense that a good intention determined the production of it. That which produces the so- called bad has no less, and no more, of good in it than that which produces the so-called good. Good and evil are, in fact, relative terms, — evil meaning only that which is disagreeable to certain temporary sensations of certain of the beings who have come into existence through no purpose, good or bad. Ill desert and good desert in a moral sense are of course impos- sible. That which must be is not to be blamed for being, and is entitled to no praise for being. When men blame or praise, as they do, they cannot, it is true, do otherwise ; but their praise and blame cannot imply that anything could have been other than it is. If nothing could have been different, then it can- not be said that anything ought to have been different. Moral good and moral evil being only illusory notions, the urging of moral motives upon men, the attempt to excite in them emo- tions of remorse, or to spread before them moral ideals, is a sort of fraud. Yet there being nothing morally praiseworthy or blameworthy, it is as well to practise the fraud as not ; do as we may, we cannot do otherwise. Enthusiasm over moral ex- cellence and indignation over moral depravity are both absurd, GUOUNDS OF Till-: THEISTIC BELIEF. 33 but both are unavoidable. All our emotions and thoughts are only phenomena necessarily produced by the mighty force which in itself has no thought, or emotion, or purpose, or moral character, — nothing good and nothing bad.^ Furthermore, not only are all moral distinctions and judg- ments illusory ; but also, on the basis of atheistic material- ism, truth and untruth become also illusory and meaningless. Thuught being nothing but a secretion of the brain, it is as ab- surd to call one thought true and another untrue, as it would be to call the secretion of saliva true or false. The theist's thoughts being just as unavoidable as the atheist's, the latter cannot, without absurdity, call his own thoughts true and the theist's false. "If thought and all combinations of thought are noth- ing but the result of a simple natural process, which, being as such under the given circumstances and conditions unavoidable, nnist result so and not otherwise, then all thoughts, all concep- tions, judgments, and conclusions have ahsohUdy equal right; to none of them can be ascribed any superiority to the others."^ In short, pure materialism ends in pure absurdity. Essentially the same result is reached if we adopt the specula- tions of Herbert Spencer. Whether the system should be called atheism or pantheism, materialism or idealism, may be disputed; ^ but its doctrine of the relativity of knowledge is lo.;ically the doctrine of despair concerning tlie attainment of truth. "When experience is made the sole criterion of knowledge, and experi- ence is afHrmed to have to do only with phenomena, and phenom- ena are declared to be nothing but modifications of consciousness, it is manifest that, according to this, all experiences are equally valid and equally invalid, and all so-called knowledge is nothing but a series of more or less permnnent impressions. But is not human knowledge imperfect and full of mistakes ? Certainly. Yet this affirmation itself could not be made unless some things were assurcclhj known. Possible or even probable truth does not make the fact of error certain. But nothing is I Cf. Donior, CImstiun Ethics, \ 9. * Uliici, Gott und der Mensch, vol. i. p. 4 (ed. 1). Cf. also Pi-ofessor Fisher, Grounds of T/u'islic and Christian Belief, p. 82. * See Excursus II. iu the Appendix. 3 34 SUPERNATURAL KEVELATIUN. more certain than that errors are real. And it is just because the mind does know that human knowledge is mixed with error, while yet this prerogative of knowledge is seen to be that which marks mind as infinitely superior to the irrational objects of its cognition, — it is just for this reason that there springs up, as by instinct, in the soul the feeling that there must be a Person whose knowledge is free from error and imperfection. The more men come to know, through microscopic, telescopic, and chemical observation, of the marvellous beauty and com- plexity of the universe, the more is there suggested of the immensity of the realms yet unknown ; and the more urgent is the impulse to believe that all things that can be known arc known by an omniscient Being. And another side of the same impulse is the feeling that this faculty of knowledge, so glo- rious in spite of its imperfections, could not have been the chance product of a force which is itself without it.^ ^ Mr. E,oyce, in liis Religious Aspect of Philosophy , argues acutely against the doctrine of the total relativity of truth, and from the indisputable fact of error builds up an argument for the existence of an Infinite Thought. " Either there is no sucli thing as error, which statement is a flat contradiction, or else there is an infaiite unity of conscious thought to which is present all possible truth " (p. 424). This Infinite Thought, however, is conceived to be destitute of Power ; and so his God is the direct opposite of the Speuccrian's. The one is Intelligence without Power ; the other is Power without Intelligence. And in both cases the existence of evil seems to be in part the fact which leads to the assumption adopted. Travelling by a different route, both come to a form of Idealism. But the Speneerian accepts Berkeley's God with the knowledge left out, while Mr. Royce accepts him with the power left out. Both leave out final causes. Mr. Royce is particularly zealous for his theory, because it was the means of leading him out of blank skepticism. It is doubtful, how- ever, whether it will be so successful with others. His argument (pp. 375 sq) that there is an absolute distinction between truth and error, is irresistible. But when he afterwards (chap, xi.) argues from this, not merely that there is absolute truth, but that there must be an Infinite Thought that judges be- tween truth and error, the argument will hardly compel conviction. It is not enough, he urges, to say that " an error is a thought such that, if a critical thought did come and compare it with its object, it would he seen to be false " (p. 420). " No barely possible judge . . . will do for us. He must be tliere, this judge, to constitute the error " (p. 427)- Apart from the absolute knowledge no human judgment, he says, can be called an error, since " we nannot see how a single sincere judgment should pussibly fail to agree with its GROUNDS (»!•■ 'iJlE THEISTIC lilOLlKF. 'dfy Now, it may ])e admitted that this is not a duiiioustrative ar- gument. Truth would be truth, even if it were true that there own cliosoii object" (p. 405). Wlicu two persons judge each other, each one thinks only about his idea ot' the other; " eacli thinks of his phantom of the other. Only a third person, who included tlieni l)uili, . . . only such an inclusive thought could compare the phantom with the real, and only iu him, not in themselves, would John and Thomas have any ideas of each other ai all, true or false" (p. 410). It is hard to see how so acute a mind can ar- gue so absurdly. How, in the name of reason, can the Infinite Thought, either by inclusion or exclusion, constitute my thought cither an error or a truth ? If my thought is contrary to the fact, neither finite iior infinite knowledge (spelled with or without a capital K) can coustitute it truthful ; if it is a truthful tliouglit, no Knowledge or Power can coustitute it a false- hood. This Al)solute Knowledge is called also Absolute Trutii (p. 42."5). What docs this mean unless that it knows absolutely wliat is true ? But this implies that judgments are true or false in themselves. If not, this Knowledge must be supposed to be possessed of power (which it is not allowed to have) to make judgments false or true according to its own caprice. A similar misty pantheism is found in Mr. Royce's doctrine of evil. The fact of evil, physical and moral, he admits. But " partial evil is universal good " (p. 264). "The fundamental postulate of religion [is] that universal goodness is some- how at the heart of things " (p. 331). So far we might go with liim. But (p. 335) we find this interpreted to mean that " the deepest assertion of ideal- ism is, not that above all the evil powers in the world there is at work some good power mightier than they, but rather that through all the i)owci-s, good and evil, and in them all, dwells the higher spirit that docs not so much create as constitute them what they are, and so include them all." "In God the evil will of all who sin is present, a real fact in the Divine Life, no illusion in so far as one sees that it exists in God and nowhere else, but for that very rea- son an element, and a necessary element, in the total goodness of the Universal Will. . . . The good act has its e.\.istenee and life in the transcendinri of ex- perienced present evil. . . . Goodness is the organism of struggling elements. . . . God's life is this infinite rest, not apart from but in the endless strife" (pp. 458 s(]q.). So far as any raeauing can be got out of this, it seems to be cither that evil is a necessary means of good (which the author denies, J). 268), or else that evil is really no evil (which he also denies, p. 260). Principal Caird {Philosophj/ of lieVujion, 1880) propounds a similar argu- ment to the above, so far as the standard of truth is concerned. " The secret or implicit conviction on which all knowledge rests, and to which all individual opinions and beliefs are referred, is that absolute truth is ; or, in other words, that though my thought may err, there is an absolute thought or intelligence which it is impossible to doubt" (p. 12S). "No assertion, no single ex- perience or act of consciousness, is possible, save as prcsup[)osing an ulti- mate intclli2;encc which is the measure and the ground of all linite thousrht " 36 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. were no (!od. It would still be true that the earth revolves around the sun, even if there were no personal Power con- trolling and observing the celestial motions. All we insist on is that there is an almost insuperable impulse in the human soul which tends to make men believe that truth is not only a fact, but a known fact ; that above all the ignorance and error which beset human knowledge there must be an omniscient Being whose knowledge constitutes a perfect standard of truth. Similarly, if the question is concerning the origin of intelli- gence, it is not, strictly speaking, inconceivable that the blind working of atomic forces might in process of time develop a combination of atoms which has the faculty of knowledge. Yet since nothing can be in an effect which is not implicitly in the cause, it must be assumed that in this case the original atoms were germinally endowed with intelligence. What this germi- nal intelligence could have been ; in what sense the ultimate particles of matter may be conceived to be all of a psychical nature (according to the notion of Leibnitz or of Schopenhauer), it might be hard to make clear to one's mind. It is at best a misty notion, and cannot explain the miity and persistence of an individual consciousness.^ Still, if one chooses to hold such a view, there is no means of demonstrating that it is absolutely absurd. But the ordinary mind will not be able to repress the impulse to feel that the phenomena of human intelligence re- cpiire for their production an intelligence at least equal to that of man himself. (p. 129). Such assertions can hardly carry conviction except to a Hegelian mind. Dr. Caird argues thus (p. 131) : " If we try to annul all existence, to think tliat nothing exists, the nothing is still a thinkable nothing, a nothing tliat is for thought, or that implies a thought or consciousness behind it. Thus all our conscious life as individuals rests on or implies a consciousness t liat is universal. We cannot think, save on the presupposition of a tliouglit or consciousness which is tiie unity of thought and being, or on wliicli all indi- vidual thouglit and existence rest." AH which lias no point unless on the idealistic assumption that thought creates the object of thought, though even then it does not appear how an individual's thought necessarily presupposes a universal consciousness which unites thought and being. ^ Vide Lotzc's discussion of this in his Mikrokosmus, vol. i. pp. 176-182 (Kug. traubl., vol. i. pp. 158-163). GROUNDS OF rilK THEISTIC BELIEF. 37 And what holds true respecting Intelligence holds also respect- ing Morality. Numberless as are the theories concerning morals, and various as are the manifestations of the moral sense in men, nothing is more certain than that in the developed man the moral sense is a fact. Men think not only of what l-:, but of what oi((/ht to be. Notions of right and wrong form a class by themselves, and the highest class of notions which spring up in the soul. Even the coarsest forms of hedonism fail to eliminate the uni(pic peculiarity. If the highest good is made to consist simply in the procuring of pleasure for ones self or for others, still the conclusion is that one oitgJU to labor to secure that pleas- ure, — that to do so is rir/ht, and not to do so is wrony. Even the extremest theory of the evolutionary origin of conscience still leaves the conscience an undisputed fact. Though it may be argued that the moral sense is only the final outcome of cosmic forces that have been working for ages upon ages, having its germ in the unconscious efforts of the lower forms of animal life to maintain themselves, and gradually developing into the conscious egoism, ego-altruism, and altruism which are found in the human race, still the fact remains, that in the developed form the notion of duty is the one essential feature, whereas in the germinal form that notion could have had no place. It is in a sense true, no doubt, that the acorn is the germ of the oak ; but the characteristic features of the oak cannot be determined by any amount of microscopic or chemical examination of the acorn. And no more can the essence of morality be analyzed and unfolded by any amount of observation of the phenomena of animal life, from those of the lowest of the invertebrata up to the highest of the non-human species. Even the most un- qualified form of necessitarianism leaves the unique character- istic of the moral nature undisturbed. The moral ideal, the feeling of obligation, the sense of remorse, the condemnation or approval of other men as blameworthy or praiseworthy, — all this remains, and is implicitly admitted, even when explicitly denied. The notion of the freedom of the will, especially in the sense of unreasoning caprice,^ may be triumphantly proved to * A notion held by almost no one, yet the one reasoned against most ener- getically by necessitarians; e.g..,^. S. Mill, Examiiintio)! of Sir JT,,/. ffintii/- tons Philosophy, chap. xxvi. 38 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. be absurd and illusory. It may be argued that no one can create the motives that lead him to action, and that every one must be determined by the strongest motive. It may be in- sisted that the truth of this principle is assumed, when men attempt by legislation or other means to deter others from bad actions or to incite them to good ones. But underneath all this lies the tacit implication that it is riglit to deter men from crime by the threat of punishment, that it would be wrong not to use whatever measures will tend to further the general welfare of men, that it is our duty to use means to promote the operation of good motives.^ A sense of obligation is felt which is not self-imposed, and which cannot be created or annulled by one's self or by the authority of other men, however numerous or powerful they may be. The law of righteousness, whether obeyed or not, is acknowledged to be the supreme standard ac- cording to which conduct should be regulated. Now, what is the bearing of this fact upon the question of the- ism ? From the mere existence of this idea of a moral law we cannot directly and necessarily infer the existence of a Divine Lawgiver, — a being whose power and will created the law. To such an inference the unanswerable objection at once presents ^ An instance of tliorough-going necessitarianism is found in H. G. Atkin- son and Harriet Martineau's Letters on the Laics of MmCs Natttre and De- velopment: "I am what I am, a creature of necessity; I claim neither merit nor demerit" (p. 30.). " I am what I am ; I cannot alter my will, or be other than what I am, and cannot deserve either reward or punishment" (p. 191). "Free will ! the very idea is enough to make a Democritus fall on his back and roar with laugliter, and a more serious thinker almost despair of bringing men to reason " (p. 194). " Of course, as a part of nature, as a creature of necessity, as governed by law, man is neither selfish nor unselfish, neither good nor evil, worthy or unworthy, but simply nature, and what is possible to nature, and could not be otherwise " (p. 232). Yet eveu the one who writes thus can belabor those who disagree with him, and discourses on morality. " Tlie knowledge which mesmerism gives of the influence of body on body, and consequently of mind on mind, will bring about a morality we have not yet dreamed of" (p. 280). So II. Czolbc (iVewe Barstellung des Scnsnalismus, p. 92) says the criminal is " forced by physical necessity " to commit crime, but that society is "justified " in punishing him. "Justified," we suppose, in the same sense in which the ocean is justified in breaking through the dams which are built up to hinder its free flow. But why do we not speak of the ocean s rights or duties ? GROUNDS OF TIIIO THKISTIC RELIEF. 39 itself that, if tliis Divine Being is conceived as a moral being, then he must himself be amenable to the moral law. He can- not have made the law ca})riciously. There must be an eternal and ininiutable reason for its requirements. The law must, therefore, logically precede divine volition, and cannot be the mere product of it.^ Is, then, atheism as consistent with high moral ideals and aims as theism is ? Far from it. No doubt an atheist may cher- ish a lofty ideal of moral character. Certain notions and rules of justice may become prevalent, and be essentially the same, whatever religious instruction accompanies them. But if athe- istic theories of the moral law and the moral sense become gen- erally and practically accepted, they cannot but ultimately react fatally on the moral sense itself; or if they do not, the fact that they do not is itself a proof that the theories are false. Atheism breaks down in its ef!brt to explain the moral sense as regards either its origin, its present ivorking, or its ultimate end. a. As to the origin of the sense of moral obligation, the the- istic theory is simple. It cannot indeed be held that God arbi- trarily created the moral law; but it can be held that God is the personal embodiment of the law, and that he implants in the human soul the moral sense which apprehends the law and recognizes the obligation to conform to it. Atheism, on the contrary, has no better hypothesis than that moral notions and feelings have been gradually evolved from mere animal impulses of self-preservation. Regard for the comforts and pleasure of others is held to be the outgrowth of a discovery that such re- gard will in the long run best promote one's own pleasure and advantage.^ But this is, after all, no explanation of the real ' Ou this vide Noah Porter, Moral Scieiice, § 46 ; I. A. Dorucr, Christian Doctrine, § 6; S. Harris, Philosophical Basis of Theism, § 37. ^ H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, cliaps. xi., xii. The theory that the moral sense and moral conceptions are pnrely matters of heredity, tliongh often propounded as if it were an axiomatic truth, is simply not true to the facts of observation. Whatever there may be (and there is no doubt something) in the notion of the hereditary transmission of moral tendencies, the general Hict is that moral notions are inculcated by training, not infused by physical propagation. A man's cliaracter depends much more on his education than on his parentage. Even physical habits are largely due to the imitativeness of children more tlian to physical inheritance. Much more is this true of moral (ciulencics. 40 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION, phenomenon. For, in the first place, if the moral sense is noth- ing but a development of the mere instinctive love of pleasura- ble life, it does not appear where the sense of dvtij comes from or what it means. It may be very true that men might by gradual experience have come to see that certain lines of con- duct towards other men are most advantageous to themselves ; but it does not appear why men should come to think that they ought to labor for the promotion either of their own happiness or of the happiness of others. If men, like brutes, have in- stincts or impulses leading them to care for their offspring or to be kind to their associates, or if they have made the discovery that their own greatest enjoyment is thus secured, very well, this may explain why they do so and so, but does not explain in the least why they should think that they ought to do so. But, in the next place, if the conscience is supposed somehow to have been evolved, and to be an actual factor in human life, still so long as it is regarded as being ultimately nothing but an impulse urging one to the securing of his own highest enjoy- ment, it does not appear how this impulse could ever assume the form, which it has acquired in fact, of an imperative obli- gation to cherish universal benevolence. So far as the underlying impulse is a craving for personal ease and pleasure, the obliga- tion towards others can dictate only such conduct as is seen to procure this personal comfort. The impulse will prompt one to outwit and deceive and injure others whenever the immediate effect seems likely to be a personal gratification ; and on the theory under consideration such deceit and injury would be duty. But even though it should be urged that experience has ascertained that selfish pleasure is in the end always best se- cured by promoting the pleasure of others, still this would bring us only to the point of pursuing a certain course of conduct towards one's immediate associates; it would not enjoin the love of man for man's own sake. The theory does not account for that sense of the duty of all-embracing and uncompromising benevolence which has in fact been developed. But, finally, the evolutionary theory of conscience does not account for the conception of a law that is one, unircrfial, eter- nal, and immntahh'. A rule of life s])ringing from an egoistic GliUUMDS UF TIIK THEI8T1C BELIEB\ 41 regard to pleasure would be a rule for one's self alone, so that in strictness there would be as many laws as there are persons. So far as conduct relates to one's associates, too, it can on this theory have no unity ; for one man's neighbors are quite difl'er- ent from another's ; and every one's associates are always chang- ing. So far as conduct has relation to a distant future, there is still less occasion to attribute to it the character of unity and uniformity. Now, of course there is in point of fact a want of unity and uniformity in the moral ideals and conduct of men. The differences amount to mutual contradiction, so far as the details of mornl duty are concerned. But in every developed conscience the sense of duty involves the idea of a universal and eternal law. The theist, however, may hold that, just be- cause this moral law is not fulfilled in man as he now is, while yet the conscience insists on its imperativeness, its absolute and universal validity, therefore there must needs be a Being in whom the law is actually realized. The more distinctly moral obligation is acknowledged, and the more elevated one's moral ideal is, the more urgently does one feel the need of a personal God who realizes in himself this ideal, and who presides over the moral universe, able to tell infallibly what the law of recti- tude is, and authorized to punish the bad, reward the good, and in general to promote, by intelligent agency, the interests of the moral world. But to the atheist the phenomena of the moral sense must be a perpetual enigma. For him there is no explanation of their ori- gin, no reconciliation of their divergences, no prospect of the ful- filment of the prophecies which lie wrapped up in the ideals and the imperatives of the human conscience. But more particularly : h. Atheism, whether of tlie materialistic or the pantheistic type, is not only unable to solve the problem of the origin of the moral sense, but is put to confusion by its present working. A universe that has come into being through the operation of purely material and unconscious forces has no room in it for free will or for the notion that anything is ivrong. If everything is as it is by virtue of an iron necessity, then the consistent atheist can recognize no such thing as duty, can cherish no such feeling as blame, and can make no effort to eflect any reform. It is 42 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. true that many men of tins class do lay great stress on moral- ity, and even profess to advocate a purer morality than theists do. But they can do it only by an unconscious denial of their fundamental assumptions. It is indeed almost amusing, after reading treatises whose object it is to set forth how all organ- isms have been developed by a necessary process from inorganic and unconscious matter, to be told at last that this doctrine is going to result in great advantage to the human race. Hackel, for example, predicts that " by its aid we shall at last begin to raise ourselves out of the state of social barbarism in which, notwithstanding the much vaunted civilization of our century, we are still plunged. . . . Tt is above all things necessary to make a complete and honest return to nature and to natural relations." ^ But the fundamental doctrine of materialistic evo- lutionism is that whatever is is necessary. " Barbarism " is a word which it has no right to apply to any stage of the process. When one speaks of the necessity of returning to nature and natural relations, the language, if it means anything, means that a part of nature — to wit, the human race — has somehow got away from nature. But what is nature, in the view of Hackel, but the sum total of what is ? What are natural laws but the actual method of the working of things, inorganic and organic ? If men squander property, health, and life ; if they lie, steal, and murder, — that must be, according to Hackel's philosophy, the natural and necessary course of things. What, then, can be meant by saying that it is ncccssarij for men to do otherwise than they do ? From such a source such talk is an unconscious violation of the very system in whose name it is uttered.^ It involves the notion of duty, and of a duty wrongfully neglected, — of unnature as being a part of nature. The thing proposed is to change the course of things. r)ut if the course of things is all natural, then why should it be changed ? How can it be changed ? Such a change would have to be from the natural to the unnatural, — just the opposite of what Hackel pro- nounces to be the great desideratum. In short, atheistic evolu- ^ E. H. Hackel, Histori/ of Creation, vol. ii. pp. 3G7, 368, London, 1876. Ill the original Naliirliche Sc/wpfinigsrjcschicftle, 7\,\i cd., 1S7*J, p. 680. " Ci". T. II. Grccu, Prolcgomciia to Ethics, p. 9. GROUNDS OK THI-: TIIEISTIC BKLIICF. 43 tionisin can acknowledge the binding obligation of a moral law only by committing suicide. c. E(jually, or still more manifestly, is atheism a failure when the future of the moral world is considered. The notion tliat the mental and moral faculties of men are nothing but the evolution of physical forces necessarily carries with it, as a cor- ollary, tlie belief that physical death puts a final end to tlie existence of the conscious soul. And in fact the two notions are almost always found together.^ Tliat which is held to be nothing but a power or function of a physical organism must be thought to cease when the organism is dissolved. The inference seems to be unavoidable : Either mind is something distinct from the natural forces which are supposed to have been eternally at work, or else it is only one form which those forces assume in the course of evolution. In the latter case mental action must, like all force, be transformable into other forms of force. The whole amount of force being conceived as absolutely fixed and * That Mr. Fiske has avowed liis belief in personal immortality can only be regarded as a happy inconsistency, which he can hardly convince any one but himself that he is not guilty of. lie insists, indeed, that his doctrine is quite opposed to materialism (^Cosmic P/iilosophi/, vol. ii. p. 79 and elsewhere) ; but his reason is that, though physical and mental action ai'e correlated, yet the physical docs not explain the mental. Very true ; and likewise inorganic ac- tion does not explain the organic. Yet the evolutionist would hardly hold that vegetable life is a distinct entity, so that e. g. the life of the mushroom is to be regarded as immortal. So long as life and mind are held to be but an uncon- scious evolution of primeval matter — no force added and none taken away — there is no escape, but an illegitimate one, from the inference that death puts an end to mental action. Mr. Fiske assures us (vol. i. p. 65) that, since the use of the balance has shown experimentally that nothing ever disappears, it is no longer possible to believe in the dcstructibility of matter. The logic of tills is rather remarkable. To most men the fact that experiments have as yet indicated that changes in the form of matter do not involve a disapjiear- aiice of matter could hardly be a demonstration that matter never does disap- pear; at the most one could only infer that we do not know that it ever does. Still less can it be inferred that it has become impossible to believe in the de- struetibility of matter. But if the balance is such an infallible and omniscient test of existence ui.d persistence, and if the soul after the death of the body persists as a distinct entity, then the balance ought to be able to show the fact. For a good treatment of this topic cf. J. Martineau, Modern Materialism, l^p. 137 sqq., New York, 1877- 44 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. incapable of increase or decrease, the supposition that, upon the death of the body, the soul continues forever afterwards as a distinct force detached from the evolutionary process of the great complex of physical forces, is a violation of the funda- mental doctrine of the system. It would imply that mind is something created outright by the physical forces, — a supposi- tion for which atheistic or pantheistic evolutionism has no room. According to this system, human life is only a succession of in- dividual lives, each one of which, after passing through its brief period of conscious pain and pleasure, is irretrievably ended. AMiether the pain or the pleasure is the greater, is itself a mat- ter of dispute. Whether one shall be a pessimist, with Scho- penhauer and Von Hartmann, or an optimist, with Herbert Spencer, depends largely or wholly on training and natural temperament. But the prospect is dismal enough at the best. Hopes may be cherished respecting the distant future of the race ; but there is no sure warrant for the hope. Mr. Spencer's own doctrine recognizes a principle of dissolution as well as one of development. But even if the hope of a gradual elevation of the human race is cherished, still those who cherish it can never see it realized, since their conscious existence is extinguished at death. And even if we could know that ages hence culture and heredity combined would produce generations of men whose lives are to be free from suffering, what of that ? At the best, each individual life is short, and ends in nothing. There may be found a certain beauty in it, but it is the beauty of a torso, the meaning and design of which is an insoluble enigma. Life, even in that imaginary future, would consist only of a series of phenomena most fitly to be compared to the rise and fall of waves on the great ocean. As the several waves emerge from the level surface and sink into it again, so out of the great All, at one point and another, there emerges a conscious life which, after its brief course is run, is destined to be lost again in the great unconscious mass of forces that constitute the ultimate reality. These fitful waves are endowed with the capacity of thought, of pleasure, and of hope. They become inspired witli ideals and with aspirations that reach out into eternity. They are possessed with a longing for the privilege of unceasing ad- CiUOUNDS OF THE TIIEISTIC BELIEF. 45 vance and greater and greater freedom of development in the conscious life with which they have been invested. Ikit all this is a mere phenomenon of the fleeting consciousness. And when each individual life is merged again in the great unthinking, un- knowing, unfeeling, uuhoping ocean of being, one can only say of it, — " Like ilic dew on the mouutain, like llie foam on the river. Like the buijljle on the loimtaiu, thou art gone, and forever." One who adopts tlie materialistic view in earnest will hardly be able to avoid asking himself the questions : Why should 1 vex myself with either hopes or fears respecting the future of the human race, seeing that I can never know anything about it ? Why should I regulate my conduct with reference to men who are not yet born ? Why, in general, should I take pains to work for any particular development of the race ? If men are nothing but brutes in a higher stage of development ; if this development has come about by a natural process which has taken care of itself, — then why not let the future development also take care of itself ? Why trouble ourselves with notions as to what course the evolution oiojlit to take? Why try to take into our own hands the management of the ])rocess which belongs to nature herself I How do we know what di- rection evolution may take in the future ? How can we be sure that, even with the best intentions, we may not be working against, rather than for, the end towards which the cosmic forces are tending ? This is not a merely imaginary state of mind. It is precisely what many materialistic evolutionists openly avow.^ Wlien any one takes this ground, it is hard to see how the disbeliever in a personal God, however altruistic, can well reply to him. For both alike hold that there is no free self-deter- mination, that all things are controlled by a rigid necessity, and that human knowledge is limited to present phenomena, so that what has been in the past, and, still more, what is to be in the future, is utterly beyond the reach of cognition. Both alike ^ Sec illustrations in Professor Harris's Philosophical Baxis of Theimn, pp. 475-iSG. 46 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. must hold that no intelligence determines the process that is taking place. If so, then there can be no design in the process as a whole, no plan according to which it is working ; there is accordingly not only no Moral Governor controlling the system, but it has in itself no known moral end ; there is and can be no fixed and universally binding law ; but rather each individual can only do whatever he is impelled to do by the forces which are operating on him and in him. It is only an impotent and self-contradictory effort to avoid this dismal conclusion, when, after having eliminated a personal Moral (lovernor from the universe, atheists and pantheists per- sonify an abstraction, and talk about a moral order of the uni- verse,^ or about a power outside themselves which makes for righteousness. Such talk implies that there is something fixed in the notion of righteousness or moral order. And this, again, implies a certain authoritativeness in the conceptions of the mind, a certain definiteness and permanency in the deliverances of the moral judgment. But such permanence and authority are impossible on the atheistic or pantheistic basis. The mind which is itself only the incidental product of the play of cosmic forces cannot set itself vip as superior to them or as possess- ing any immutable character whatever. What we seem to know we only seem to know. The present phenomena of the moral sense not only differ among themselves, but are liable to be succeeded by other phenomena different from all the present ones. Righteousness thus becomes a thing of no fixed meaning. The conception of it, even if not soon destined to become ex- tinct, is at the best variable and vague. To say that a power outside of us is making for it is to say nothing intelligible on ^ Ficlite's favorite phrase. Fide his Ueber den Grund uiiseres Glaubeiis aii einc (jottUche Weltregierung, where he says, "This moral ordor is the Divine, which we assume" (vol. v. p. 183 of his Sdmmtliche Werlce, Borhn, 1845). "That living and active moral order is itself God " (p. ISO). Whether Flchte should be called an atheist (against which he vehemently protested) may be doubtful. His doctrine was apparently somewhat variable. In the above- mentioned treatise (p. 187) he seems expressly to deny that God can have personality and consciousness. In his earlier work, Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenharmig (vol. v. pp. 40, 41), he ascribes to God blessedness, holiness, and omniscieucc. GROUNDS OF TllK TllKISTK' IJELIKF. 47 the Iiypotliesis iu (|ue>;tioii. liigliteousness is a word that has 110 ineaiiing except as it relates to personal conduct. To say tliat an impersonal power is making for righteousness, is to say that a power knowing nothing about righteousness, caring noth- ing about it, incapable of exercising it, is constantly working to produce it, that is, is constantly aiming at it. Considering the very partial success of this power, as evinced in the moral con- dition of mankind, it is marvelous how men could have had such faith iu it as Matthew Arnold assures us the ancient He- brews had. riiysical forces may be .said to be working for cer- tain ends — to be "making for" them — when they are seen actually and uniformly to produce them. "We infer what is going to be from what has been. But to assume the existence of a physical power which is unconsciously working to produce a moral effect, while that effect is confessedly not produced, or at best only in a very imperfect way, — this is neither good physics, good philosophy, nor common sense.^ Every assump- tion of a moral goal towards which the world is tending, — of a fixed moral standard by which human conduct is to be regu- lated and judged, — every such assumption implies belief in a personal God of righteousness. Pantheists or atheists may hold such assumptions concerning the tendency and destiny of things, but they can do so only by a happy inconsistency. Con- sistent atheism or pantheism can find in the phenomena of con- sciousness and conscience nothhig but a series of illusions. Human life becomes, on this view of things, a mass of contra- dictions ; the world, as a whole, has no end, no meaning;' human character has no intrinsic value ; human destiny is un- certain ; human history, with its aspirations, its griefs, its struggles, its hopes, and its disappointments, is nothing but a melancholy farce. ^ " Is it possible to imagine a Being wliich, stimulated by the iiiflnonec of every e.xistiiig condition of tlie cosmic course, should, with purposeless and blindly working activity, impart to that course the ameliorating impulses by which the thoroughgoing dominion of what is good is established, — a Being which cannot consciously indicate the place of each individual and appoint bis work, or distinguish what is good in a good action from what is bad in a bad action, or will and realize the good wilh its own living love, but yet acts as fhoHfjh it could do all this ? " — Lotze, Microcosmiis, vol. ii. p. 670. 48 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. But not only is the present process of evolution, on 'the atheistic hypothesis, without any purpose. The same aimless, meaningless process must be infinitely repeated. For if the material world is eternal, its processes of evolution must have been eternally going on. Tlie mind even of an evolutionist can hardly conceive of a material universe as existing for ages in an absolutely motionless, unchanging state, and then suddenly, at some particular moment, beginning to undergo a process of change. At the same time, if, as is commonly assumed, there is such a thing as order and progress in the process of develop- ment ; if there is an advance from the simple to higher and more complex forms of existence, — why, then, a limited time, how- ever long it may be supposed to be, would suffice to bring the development to the stage which has now been reached. If the world has existed eternally a parte ante, then the present point of progress must have been reached ages ago. If there is any stage higher than the present one conceivable and attainable, it too must have been reached ages ago. For go back as far as we may, we have still an unlimited stretch of time in which the process must have l:)een going on. We are therefore irre- sistil^ly driven to the conclusion that if this development did not have a beginning a limited number of years ago, so that it has only just been able to reach the present stage of perfection (and this the atheistic evolutionist must deny), then there must have been an infinite seines of developments, it being a law of the evolution that at a certain stage of the evolution the developed world must enter on a state of regress or pass through a sudden cataclysm, thus returning to a state of chaos out of which it must then start again on its course of development towards order and beauty. This is avowed by some representa- tives of the materialistic doctrine.^ Indeed, there is no escape from it, if we deny a divine creation. The farce of the universe thus becomes doubly, or rather infinitely, multiplied. Not only is there no purpose in any development o^ all ; not only is the present chapter of this process meaningless and aimless ; not 1 E. ff., J. H. Tliomasson, Bibel mul Natiir (Lcijizig, 1SC9), p. 63; Ge- scJiirhfe n»(1 Sj/stem der Natur, p. 70 ; Ilcibort Spencer, First PriiiripleK, chap, xxiii. GROUNDS OF TIIK TIIEISTIC BELIEF. 49 only is it as a whole unconscious of itself; not only do the indi- vidual organisms in it that have the faculty of consciousness find their consciousness and conscience illusive while they last, and destined soon to pass into non-existence ; — not only this; but this aimless development as a whole comes to an end, and then begins again and passes through the same or a similar course ; and so on in an infinite succession. If it is impossible to see the mean- ing or use of a single one of these evolutions, still more impene- trable is the mystery of an endless succession of them. That after the world, through a long process, has attained a certain stage of order and beauty, it sliould be hurled back into chaos again, and then Sisyphus-like work its way up into order again, only to be forced still again to go through the same process, each process being in turn but a repetition, for substance, of the preceding, and all together governed by no conscious power, ^ — that this should be the case is an insoluble puzzle. It is mysterious enougli tliat there should be one such meaningless process ; but to liave it infinitely repeated makes the mystery infinitely dark. The point of all this is not so much in the implication that the mind requires to know what the specific meaning of the several phenomena of the universe is, as ratlier that the mind demands that the universe, as a whole, must have some mean- ing, that there must be some plan, some purpose, some aim, some goal, in it all; — in short, that there should be a reason for the universe of things, even though the reason should be only in part understood. The teleological problem of discover- ing particular adaptations of means to ends may be ever so complicated or difficult ; one may be ever so much in doubt what this or that means ; but none the less does the mind de- mand tluit the univer.se as a whole shall mean something. The teleological argument is often criticised and pronounced incon- clusive, because of these difficulties or weaknesses in the par- ticular application of it. This criticism would have great weiglit, if the notion of a God, or the tendency to believe in a God, first originated in the observation of these particular teleological adap- tations, and if the belief itself depended on finding everywhere indisputable marks of intelligent contrivance. The case is, rather, the reverse of this. The antecedent instinctive feeling 4 50 SUPERNATURAL RE\'KLATION. that there must be a design, and therefore a Designer, for the universe in general, — this it is which prompts the search for particular adaptations. This is the reason why men, when the particular design of a thing cannot be seen, nevertheless are disposed to think that there is some use, some purpose, even when the purpose cannot be detected. Because it is naturally assumed that there must be a reason for the ivkole, therefore it is assumed that there is a reason for each part, however uncertain one may be as to what the particular reason is. Undoubtedly this tendency to find design in nature springs from the fact that in men themselves the formation of plans is an essential part of their rational constitution. This is some- times alleged as an argument against theism. It is said that the theistic impulse is nothing but a childlike tendency to per- sonify inanimate things. Particular objects, or general forces, or the universe as a whole, is in imagination invested with a personal will. But (so it is reasoned) as the maturing child learns, little by little, to recognize these personifications as il- lusions, so the developed reason of man learns to recognize tliat the tendency to assume a supreme Person as underlying the forces of nature is nothing but a child-like fancy having no solid foundation. It is sufticient to say in reply that the point now urged is just the fact of a tendency to assume a personal agency as operative in the natural world. That this tendency may, in particular cases, lead to an inaccurate or extravagant fancy is no disproof of its general soundness. It may easily be proved that many childish personifications are illusions ; but it has never been proved that there is no God. Similar reflections may be made concerning the moral argu- ment for the divine existence. The practical force of it is best brought out when we consider what the consequence is of adopt- ing atheism as the true theory. The argument does not lie in any formal deduction of the fact of a Divine Being made from the phenomena of the physical or moral world. Neither the in- tuitions of the moral sense nor the facts of the world's history furnish any demonstration of the divine existence. But a sound moral sense recoils from the thought of a world witJiout a moral Kuler and Judge. The same impulse which, in general, inclines GROUNDS OF TllK TIIKISTIC BHLIEF, 61 men to think that the world as a whole must have some end inclines them, in particular, to think that the moral world must have some (/ood end. If it is almost impossible to conceive of the cosmos as passing though all its processes for nothing, as not being under the control of an intelligent Power who plans its movements and changes, it is likewise almost impossible for a moral being to conceive of the world of moral beings as having IK) tinal cause, as not controlled by an intelligent and morally upright Kuler. Men arc not led to the positive belief in such a ruler by the evidences, found in nature and liistory, of an all- wise and benevolent j\luker and Governor. Tlic argument is altogether too inconclusive. The enormous evils and sufferings and wrongs with which the world is filled might rather seem to favor the opposite conclusion, that the Supreme Euler, if there is one, is deficient in goodness and wisdom. Accordingly one of the principal arguments for the fact of a future life is found in just this moral disorder and inequality of the world as we see it. l»ut the argument presupposes that there is a Moral Euler who is disposed to rectify all evil. The truth is, that back of all attempts to find in nature evidences of the perfect holiness of (}od tliere is a virtual, even tliough unconscious, assumption, that there must bo a Divine Being who is perfect in moral character. This being the assumption, men search for proof and illustra- tions of the assumed truth. The belief, or the tendency to be- lieve, leads to the argument, rather than the argument to the belief.i In saying this we do not forget, what is frequently insisted on, that religion often appears to be quite independent of morality. In the ruder forms of it it seems to be a selfish and super- stitious fear of unmoral, or even of malevolent, beings, rather than a recognition of a ]\Ioral Tailer. It is argued, therefore, that ethical conceptions have nothing to do with the genesis of religion. But the more doLrradcd races arc not to be taken as illustrating the normal tendencies of humanity. Where religion is of this rude sort, morality is also but rudely developed. And 1 "All arguments [for the divine existence] are merely reasons £^iveu to justify our faif/i and the particular manner in wliicli ^ve deem it necessary to conceice this highest principle." — Lotze, Grundziige der ReJhjioiisphilosophie^ p. 5. 52 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. as truly as the deities of men are apt to be regarded as charac- terized by traits like those of the men themselves, so truly must the deities be conceived as possessing ethical traits at least as distinct and elevated as those of their worshippers. We are, however, not now considering the question of the historical origin and original form, but rather that of the ultimate ground, of theistic conceptions. It matters little, so far as this question is concerned, whether religion first took the gross form of fetichism, which has gradually developed into an ethical monotheism, or whether, on the contrary, the lower forms of religion are de- generations from an original purer form. Wherever the higher forms are seen, there an ethical element is found. And when a reflective analysis contemplates the phenomena of theism, it cannot well avoid recognizing the moral sense as a weighty factor in the theistic conception. The atheistic hypothesis serves, therefore, to shock the mind into a consciousness of its own latent impulses. The clear rec- ognition of the logical and necessary consequences of atheism — the necessity it puts upon us of assuming that a world exists, full of manifold beauties and intelligences, yet existing through no intelligent cause, directed by no purpose, regulated by no moral controller, having in general no reason for existing and issuing in no worthy end, — this, as it forces upon us the sharp alternative which theism versus atheism presents, reveals the strength and validity of the theistic impulse and the real force of the theistic argument. It is easy to make objections to the theistic conception. But let one begin on the opposite side and try to adopt atheism, in its unadulterated form, as his theoreti- cal and practical belief ; and then he finds how much greater and more fundamental difficulties are encountered. Yet one or the other doctrine must be true. And men will not in the long run be content to embrace a doctrine which requires them to hold that the world in general and the human race in particular are the sport of a blind power, all history meaningle'ss, and all life a dismal farce. All this simply proves a natural tendency/ in man to theism. It does not prove a direct perception of God, but only the pos- session of mental and moral impulses which favor a belief in GUOL'NDS OF J'llK I'llElSTIC JiKLll'F. 53 the existence of one. Now, in so far as the question before us is, how men first came to cherish the actual belief, it is not ab- solutely settled by this demonstration of the tendency to the belief. The actual belief is a communicated one. And the reality of an innate tendency to the belief can be inferred, not from the mere fact that children accept it when communicated (for they might with almost equal readiness accept many untrue and even almost absurd tilings, if such were universally taught them), but still more from the persistence with which the the- istic belief maintains itself even after the objections to it have been urged with their greatest force ; and most of all from the repugnance whicli every sound mind and sound moral sense feels towards the atheistic hypothesis when it is seen in all its legiti- mate consequences. Theism is thus seen to have its roots in a tendency to assume the existence of a personal power (or personal powers) akin to human beings in intellectual and moral faculties, but superior to them, and exercising a control over the movements of nature and of human history. God is conceived as like man, but with a more or less complete exemption from the limitations of hu- manity. It is an important truth which Feuerbach distorts, when he says,^ " From what a man's God is you can tell what the man is ; and again, from what the man is you can tell what his God is : the two things are identical." It is indeed not true that God is only the deification of man, — a poetic objecti- tieation of human emotions and thoughts. But it is true that all genuine theism is anthropomorphic ; it does not assume that man makes God in his own image, but it does assume that God made man in His image. Unless God is conceived to be, like man, a being possessed of a rational intelligence and a free moral will,^ — a person forming and executing purposes, — then there is no valid ground for pretending to be a theist. The ontological and cosmological arguments at the most do not bring us any farther than to the assumption or recognition of a Uni- versal Force, or an Unknown Something, which may be identical ^ Das IFesen des Chrisfent/iums, p. 17, licipzig, 1841. 2 See this forcibly elaborated by President J. Basconi, d Philosophy oj Religion., chap, iii., New York, 1876. 54 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. with the essential principle of a soulless material universe. But such a God is no God at all.^ When it is objected, whether by professed theists, like ]\Iansel, or professed agnostics, like Herbert Spencer, that the attributes of infinity and absoluteness cannot in thought be reconciled with a true personality, the reply is short : Who is able to as- sure us that God is absolute and infinite in any such sense as to exclude the attribute of personality ? There is no law of thought, or impulse of the religious nature, which compels us to assume any such absoluteness. Least of all has the agnostic, who professes to know nothing about a Divine Being, any right to know so much as that he is an absolute being in such a sense that he cannot be personal. The religious impulse leads to the assumption of a God who is a morally and intellectually perfect person. If this perfection is inconsistent with absoluteness and infinity, very well ; let these high-sounding abstractions be sac- rificed ; no harm will come to any one. The notion of a Deity precedes that of his absoluteness, and will remain even if the latter is abandoned.^ The old ontological argument of Anselm presented the spectacle of an attempt to prove the existence of God by the very definition of God ; the modern agnostics under- take to find in the definition of God a proof of his non-existence, or at least of his unthinkableness. The one style of argumen- tation is as futile as the other. The gist of the theistic argument, then, in brief is this : The mind of man is instinctively inclined to thnik that the universe must have a purpose ; that, as a whole, it is for something ; further, that it must have a moral end, a good end ; and conse- quently that there must be a moral and intelligent Power pre- siding over it, and governing it in wisdom, righteousness, and love.'' As soon as one reflects on the matter, and whenever one takes in what is involved in any theory of a universe destitute of a personal Euler, one recoils from the proposition that the complicated system of the universe is the result of the opera- tion of fortuitous and unintelligent physical forces. And then 1 See Excursus ITT. iu the Appendix. 2 Cf. Bascoiu, J Thilosophy of UcUgion, p. 91 ; E. R. Condev, Basis of Faith, pp. 62 sqq. ; S. Harris, Phihmphicul Basis of Theism, \ 55. (iKCJUNDS OK rilK IIIEISTIC HHLIKF. 66 when one observes the numberless individual marks of purpose, — of particular adjustments of organ to organ, of things to per- sons, of means to ends/ — this instinctive tendency to look for a conscious design is confirmed. And when the atheistic sug- gestion is made that these apparent evidences of an intelligent plan may be merely accidental, or that the adjustments which we see are only the survival, so to speak, of a chaotic and blundering oiisus of nature, only those productions being per- petuated which hapjjencd to be furnished with the organs and environments favorable to development and reproduction, — the refutation of this does not need to depend on one's ability to prove that this was not, or could not have been, the actual fact, llather one may reply : Why should I make an assumption which requires me to regard the universe and its history as a meaningless farce ? For at the best the atheistic hypothesis is nothing but a conjecture, even though the theistic one should also be pronounced to he the same. If, then, I am obliged to choose between the two conjectural modes of accounting for the fact of adaptations and contrivances, why should I not adopt that conjecture which harmonizes with my feeling that there must have been a reason for the world as a whole ? and consequently that a Being possessed of Reason and moral Purpose has deter- mined the course of things in it ? Why should I not adopt that conjecture which allows me to think that there is a per- sonal God who knows me and cares for me, — a God toward whom I can cherish a filial trust and love ? ^ ^ See especially Paul Janet, Final Causes (Edinburgh, 1883, 2d cd., tr. by W. Affleck) ; J. L. Diman, The T/ieistic Argument ; Win. Jackson, The Phi- losop/ii/ of Natural T/ieolor/i/ (London, IS 74). 2 Pliysicus, in liis Candid Examination of Theism (London, 1878), after arguing that all the positive theistic arguments are fallacious, and that scien- tific thought finds no need of a personal God in order to account for the uni- verse and its phenomena, yet finally, after sketching an imaginary debate be- tween a theist and an atheist on the q\icstion of " metaphysical teleology," in undertaking to adjudicate between them says, "The degree of even rational probability may here legitimately vary with the character of the mind which contemplates it " (p. 95). " The grounds of belief in this case logically vary with the natural disposition and the subsequent training of dilferent unnds " (p. 99). In other words, if one is theistically inclined, he will argue in one wav ; if atlicisticallv inclined, in another. 56 SUPERNATIKAL REVELATION. When, then, it is objected that there are many phenomena in nature which do not suggest a designing cause, that many things appear rather to be the product of a blind and unfeeling power, one does not need to be able to discover the occult purpose in order to parry the atheistic inference ; it is not even necessary to show that more careful research has often disclosed the pur- pose of what had seemed to be without it. It is sufficient to fall back on one's ignorance, and to assume that where there is so strong a presumption that the whole is the result of a plan, and wheie there are so many obvious individual instances of in- genious adjustment and benevolent arrangement, the compara- tively few inexplicable things may well be left for the present unexplained. A parent does many things which to a young child seem strange, unwise, or even cruel. But the child does not therefore argue that he has no parent.^ Finally, if it is objected that this tendency to believe in the existence of a God is, after all, no proof that a God does exist, the reply is very simple. Doubtless it is not a compulsory proof, else no one would ever doubt the conclusion. But if a strong and general tendency to believe in the objective reality of certain principles or existences is no evidence of such reality, then the foundation of all knowledge is undermined. What evidence have we that, whenever a change takes place in the world, there must have been some cause of it ? This demand for a cause is nothing but a strong tendency of the mind. Some men have undertaken to disparage the value of this tendency, too ; but they find it impossible to secure many followers, or even to be self-consistent in their skepticism. Men are so con- stituted as to think that what they are impelled by a strong natural impulse to believe to be objectively true is objectively true. If they can hardly help thinking that there is a material world existing in space, that is practically the convincing reason for their thinking that it does exist. If they find in them an insuperable tendency to conceive of material bodies as having ^ Tlie objections to the teleological argument derived from evolutionism need not be considered at length. Evolutionists themselves admit that evolu- tion does not do away with teleology, but rather relieves it of some of its difficulties. Sec Asa Gray, Darwinianct, GROUNDS OF TIIK TIIEISTIC BELIKF. 57 three dimensions, that is the decisive evidence that these bodies are so constituted. In short, when we reduce any belief, how- ever unavoidalde or indisputabk' it may seem to be, to its ulti- mate grounds, we can get no farther than to say that we cannot help believing so. Now, the impulse to ask, What is it for ? is scarcely less im- perative than the impulse to ask. What is it from ? The various tendencies of the soul which lead to the conception of a su- preme personal IJeing are just as legitimate and trustworthy as any others. If they are discredited as not demonstrating the objective reality of the fJod who is believed in, then a similar treatment applied to all fundamental and intuitive beliefs re- duces us to pure Pyrrhonism or Nihilism. Of course it cannot be contended that the knowledge of God is precisely analogous to that of the external world. The sim- ple fact that men's conceptions and impressions of divinity are and have been so exceedingly diverse and almost contradictory, whereas they are substantially in agreement as to the facts and appearances of the objects of sense, shows that there is not the same kind and degree of force in the two classes of impelling tendencies. The cognition of a purely spiritual being, either because of the limitations of our present mode of existence, or because sin has blinded our spiritual vision, cannot be called direct knowledge in the same sense as the cognition of material objects is. Left to themselves, men might have agreed that there is prohaUy a supreme personal Power. They might have had a common longing and hope for a clear manifestation of the fact of such a God. But there would still have been the pos- sibility that the world was swayed by an unconscious, though all-pervading, force. There would still have been the possibil- ity, however repellent the thought, that the universe both of inanimate and rational beings was existing for no purpose. Persons who had come to the knowledge of other persons only through direct perception and intercourse could not be -^nir of the existence of a Divine person, if he made no palpable and per- sonal manifestatiou of himself. Still less couhl they have come to a certain knowledge of the particular attributes of this l>eing. Of course, in process of time the conjecture concerning a Supreme 58 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. Being might have taken the form of a belief, and the belief again mi.;ht have assumed the aspect of an assured knowledge. Theism thus transmitted would have been implicitly accepted by each new generation on the mere testimony of the preceding. But in this case the ground of certainty in the belief would have been merely the testimony of others. Monotheism, poly- theism, fetichism, would all rest on the same foundation, mono- theism having only the advantage of being most in accordance with enlightened reason. As soon as the belief is questioned, it is seen that the mere fact of a traditional handing down of the belief is of itself no strict proof of its correctness. The testi- mony is found to be valuable only so far as it tallies with and confirms the general impulses and tendencies of men. But in another form testimony plays a very important part in the confirmation of theism. And here we come to the second factor in the basis of theistic belief ; namely, — II. Eevelation as a ground of assured belief in a personal God and of a definite knowledge of him. This is testimony, as it were, at first hand. It is like the personal appearance of a man about whom we have heretofore known only by conjecture or hearsay. It is evidence in addition to that which is found in those innate tendencies which incline men to adopt theistic conceptions. When the Deity is supposed to have manifested himself in some palpable way, even though only for a single time, the fact of this manifestation is handed down and be- comes the ground of the assured confidence with which the the- istic belief is held. Of course, belief in a revelation must presuppose this inclina- tion to belief in the existence of a Divine Being. Absolute, stolid atheism, — a positive disbelief in the existence of any- thing superhuman or supernatural, — if this were the natural and ordinary attitude of the human mind, could hardly be overcome by any special revelation. Such atheism would neces- sarily assume a skeptical attitude towards any apparent or pre- tended manifestation of a God. Even if the disbelief were in a particular instance overcome by some remarkable demonstra- tion, it would afterwards return again, if such disbelief were indeed the natural attitude of the human mind. The alleged GROUNDS OF TllK TIIEISTIC IJELIKF. 59 revelation would soon be repudiated as an illusion. 1'lie origi- nal and natural unbelief would re-assert itself, and continue to be the dominant sentiment of men. But given a general dispo- sition to believe in a Divine l>eing ; given a general desire to be assured of the reality and <>f the character of a God already believed in, or at least conjectured, — then a revelation will be effective and lasting in its tendency to establish men in the sure conviction that there is indeed a God. The revelation, when accepted as such, furnishes a ground of certainty concern- ing the Divine lieing which exceeds, and in a sense supersedes, the belief which may have existed before. All this holds true quite irrespective of the question whether any particular alleged revelation is a genuine one or not. The point here to be insisted on is that an antecedent tendency to believe the world to be under the control of a personal God prepares one to dcairc and c.iypcct a revelation of such a God. If that desire and expectation are or seem to be realized, the revelation is in the very nature of the case a clearer and more positive source of knowledge than the antecedent theistic im- pulse could be. Otherwise there could be no ground for the desire itself. Take the case of the ordinary Christian. He finds himself in a community filled, and even in a sense consti- tuted, by Christian doctrines which have been handed down, and which form the source and substance of the religious thinking of the Christian world. The fact and the character of a per- sonal God, together with the account of what he has done in order to save mankind, are an essential part of the Christian body of doctruie. All this conies to each individual as the con- tents of the Christian system, before he has begun to think inde- pendently, before either doubt springs up or he becomes clearly conscious of any innate tendencies to believe in a Divine Being. The simple fact is that the child in a Christian community is told by his elders about the fact and the character of God as soon as he is able to take in the instruction. If we a.sk how the instructors came by their own impressions and convictions, the same answer must be given ; and so the chain reaches back to the beginning of the Christian Church. The first disciples of Christ received from him positive communications concern- 60 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. ing God, his character, and his purposes respecting men. "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," was their request ; and his life and words gave the answer. Whatever they may have beUeved and hoped before, Christ's revelations were to them more authori- tative and conclusive than any previous instructions or convic- tions. That his teachings were largely in harmony with their previous convictions and opinions must have helped to win their confidence in him as an inspired teacher. But when the confi- dence was created, and they could say with assurance, "We know that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God ; " when especially their confidence was confirmed and made invincible by his resurrection, — they found in him the ultimate and infalli- ble source of religious truth. Though they may before have had no doubts about the fact of a Divine Being, yet now, if doubts had arisen, they would have been at once overcome by this same confidence in the infallible authority of their Master. Because he believed in God, because he claimed to have come from God and to have revealed the gracious purposes of God, therefore they could not but believe in God. They trusted his veracity and his competency so implicitly that all previous tra- ditional beliefs were worthless, as compared with their assurance that he spoke the truth, and that he had made known to them the Father. When they accepted Jesus as a divinely inspired Eevealer of God, they had a new ground of certainty. Their previous beliefs, themselves resting on the tradition of an earlier revelation, were now strengthened. The words of one who pro- fessed to come directly from God, and whose whole character and conduct confirmed his claims, introduced them into a new region of religious assurance. Whatever innate tendencies there may have been to believe in a God, whatever confirmation this tendency may have received from reflection and tradition, yet the ground of calm and firm assurance was now found in the self-evidencing character and claims of the great Prophet who brought to light the things heretofore dimly known or blindly accepted. And what was true of the original disciples holds true, sub- stantially, of Christendom in general. Christians do not, indeed, now have the same immediateness of personal acquaintance GKUUNDS OF TIIK I'll KIS TIC HKLIHK. 61 with J<'sus wliicli those disciples had; but they have wliat in some respects more than compensates for the want of it : they have the evidence of Christian history as a confirmation of Jesus* claims. Christianity now, as then, rests on the per- sonal authority of its Founder. Christians trace to him not only their religious hopes, but also their religious knowledge. AVliat the Christian thinks or knows about Cod he receives through the medium of the Christian revelation. In spite of himself, by virtue i)f a training which began in his earliest years, he has become imlnied witli ( 'hristian principles and Christian beliefs, derived from the revelation brought into the world by Jesus Christ, and accepted because he is regarded as authoritative and true. And so it is not an extravagant thing, — nay, it is a most reasonable and obvious thing, — to say that if a Christian finds himself troubled by atheistic doubts, he may properly dispel them by reflecting that, if such doubts have any validity, then Jesus ought still more to have had them, whereas, on the con- trary, he had none. He professed to know the Father, to come from him, and to be in constant fellowship with him. If athe- ism is true, then Christ was not only no true prophet, but either a gross impostor or at the best a misguided enthusiast. In case, now, a Christian is beset with speculative doubts about God, it is legitimate for him to quell them by the reflection that Christ had no doubts, and that Christ's testimony on this point is sufficient to outweigh all the difficulties which specula- tion can possibly raise. Indeed, so long as one remains a Christian, no other course can be taken. It would be simply absurd to profess to have faith in Christ, if in the very center of his religious life and teaching he was the victim of a delusion, or else was guilty of a base deception. If one has (as every real Christian must have) implicit faith in the absolute trust- worthiness of Christ as a religious guide, then his testimony concerning God is more conclusive than all the arguments of metaphysicians or than all possible reflections of one's own. It is clear, then, that when the question is raised, what it is that gives assu7'ance to a Christian respecting divine things, as over against the uncertainties and doubts which may arise, the answer must be that it is his faith in the Christian revelation its-^if. 62 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. That God is a living reality is made certain to the Christian mind by the fact that God has manifested himself in Christ to the world. And what is true of those who accept the Christian revela- tion as genuine is also true of those who are adherents of other religions. They believe what they believe, not simply on the ground of innate intuitions or independent reflection, but on the ground of a supposed revelation in which the Deity has disclosed himself. It is not necessary to substantiate this statement by a detailed examination of religious history. The fact is admitted by all. Wherever a religious faith is vig- orous and positive, it rests on a real or supposed revelation. When faith in the genuineness of the revelation is undermined, the religion itself loses its vitality. When the Greek and Eoman mythologies began to be recognized as fables, general religious skepticism came in ; theism instead of being a firm faith became a matter of speculation. Cicero found occasion to write a treatise to prove the reality of a Deity. And so generally, when faith in a supernatural revelation is lost, faith in a per- sonal Deity is either lost or becomes doubtful and lifeless. Deism may live for a time on the strength of a theism nursed by faith in the supernatural ; but by degrees it will degenerate into pantheism or pure atheism.^ A God whose existence and character are only inferred from the phenomena of the universe, with its mixture of good and bad, beauty and ugliness, pleasure and suffering, with its doubtful progress towards the better, and with no certain message from its author to tell men whether he cares for them or even has a personal consciousness of their existence, — such a God cannot long retain the clear and strong faith of his creatures Eeligion, in order to have any vitality, must involve a helicf, at least, that the object of worship has made himself definitely known. The speculations and con- jectures which may grow out of the theistic tendency of men's minds are too vague and discordant to produce a common and assured belief. There cannot be a community holding one definite conviction concerning a Divine Being and united in a common worship of him, unless the Deity is supposed somehow ^ Cf. Luthardt, Apologie d^es Christenthums, vol. iv. GROUNDS OF THE TIIEISTIC BELIEF. 63 to have authentically and authoritatively revealed himself. Such a supposition will develop itself, with or without good grounds. If a Ikiddha or Confucius merely by his own in- sight detects the errors of his fellows and teaches a new or a reformed religion, and if his teachings are accepted and become the foundation of a new religious community, he will come to be regarded (whether himself claiming it or not) as specially inspired, and his teachings as therefore having a higher author- ity than tliat of mere human opinion. Of course it may be argued that, inasmuch as there are many pretended revelations, not all of which can be genuine, revela- tions in general are discredited by this multiplicity and iiicon- sistency, and that therefore, although assurance of faith in a divine being may come from assumed revelations, yet such revelations are proved by their very diversity to be spurious ; so that tlie whole superstructure resting on them is deprived of its security. Be that as it may. Our present point is not that the fact or the character of God is disclosed by any or every alleged revelation ; but ratlier that definite and confident hrlicf in such a revelation is essential to a lively, and especially to a common, belief in a God. If there is a natural tendency in men to believe in a Divine Being, none the less certain is it that there is a natural tendency in men to desire an authori- tative communication from the Deity — some special mani- festation which shall make men feel acquainted with him. Whether any such revelation has been made ; which of all the alleged revelations, if any, can substantiate itself as the genu- ine one, — these are entirely different, though very important, questions. But it is of no little account to emphasize this ten- dency to desire an authentic revelation. If the innate tendency to believe in a God is to be accepted as one reason, at least, for the truth of theism, then equally the natural desire to receive a special communication from God may be taken as furnish- ing a presumption, at least, that one has been made. If there are intrinsic reasons for believing that there is a personal f Jod presiding over* the universe, there is also reason for believing that he must desire to make himself clearly known to his personal creatures. If it were certain that no such revelation 64 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. had ever been made, this absence of a revelation would throw doubt on the trustworthiness of the theistic impulse itself. But here there presents itself again the troublesome fact of a multiplicity of alleged revelations, and of revelations so diverse from one another that not all of them can ha\'e been genuine. What shall be said, now, respecting this fact ? Three possible courses can be taken with reference to it : (1) It can be con- cluded that all pretended revelations are spurious, and that all re- ligion is natural religion, or even pure delusion. (2) It may be argued that some one or more of the revelations may be genuine, the others being spurious. (3) It may be argued that all the alleged revelations, though conflicting with one another, are derived, in a more or less corrupt form, from one primeval reve- lation. The first course is excluded by what has already been said. Eespecting the other two it may be said that a theist can consistently adopt either of them. The genuineness of a particular revelation, like the Christian, does not prove or dis- prove the genuineness of another one made at a time so remote that no conclusive evidence concerning it is available. And just because the data for settling the problem concerning a primeval revelation are so scant or wanting altogether, it may seem to be an idle occupation to discuss it at all. But, on the other hand, every discussion about the actuality of a revela- tion inevitably runs into the question about its possibility and probability; and this at once leads to the question whether the race has ever been without it. To many minds the credi- bility of any alleged historical revelation is invalidated, if it is assumed that during the whole previous history of mankind no knowledge of God or of his will was had except what had come from men's unaided conjectures. The feeling is this : A special or supernatural revelation is credible only in case the need of it is obvious ; but if there was a need of one some thousands of years after men began to live on the earth, there must likewise have been a need of it from the outset. Either this presumption in favor of a primitive revelation must be rebutted, or the probability of such a revelation must be assumed. THE QUKSriUM OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 65 CHAPTER III. THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. THE precediiifT discussion has made it clear that whatever may be true as to this question, we cannot assume that a special revelation was the original source of a theistic tendency of mind. A predisposition to believe in a God, and a desire to experience some manifestation of his presence and character, must be assumed as implanted in the primeval man. If it should be held that man, without any native tendency to be- lieve in a God, had the notion of one communicated to him by a special revelation, without which revelation he would neces- sarily have been and remained a pure atheist, such a view would indeed merit little attention ; for against an atheistic bent of mind innate in the human race no special revelation could for any length of time maintain its influence. Indeed, it is not clear how an ingrained atheistic mind could be made to believe in a God at all. Yet some writers seem, in their treatment of this subject, to assume that the theory of a primeval revelation implies just this doctrine of innate atheism as the aboriginal condition of mankind. Thus Dr. A. M. Fairbairn, in his discussion of the matter, apparently considers the theory of a primeval revelation as designed only to explain how the first idea of God arose in the human mind. He says, and says truly, " Revelation may satisfy or rectify, but cannot create, a religious capacity or in- stinct." But Dr. Fairbairn's argument goes further than to de- fend this proposition. A primitive revelation, he says, is "a mere assumption, incapable of proof — capable of most positive disproof."^ "What, now, is the argument? This is it:^ "If ^ Studies in the Philoaophi/ of Religion and History, pp. 21 sq., American edition (pp. 13 sq. in the English). 2 Ibid., p. 22. 5 66 SUPEKNATUKiVL KEVELATION. there was a primitive revelation, it must have been — unless the word is used in an unusual and misleading sense — either written or oral. If written, it could hardly be primitive, for waiting is an art, a not very early acquired art, and one which does not allow documents of exceptional value to be lost. If it was oral, then either the language for it was created, or it was no more primitive than the written. Then an oral revelation becomes a tradition, and a tradition requires either a special caste for its transmission, becomes therefore its property, or must be subjected to multitudinous changes and additions from the popular imagination, — becomes, therefore, a wild commin- gling of broken and bewildering lights. But neither as docu- mentary nor traditional can any traces of a primitive revelation be discovered ; and to assume it is only to burden the question with a thesis which renders a critical and philosophical discus- sion alike impossible." ^ 1 Similarly Emile Bumouf {Science of Religions, p. 47, Loudou, 1888. In the original : La Science cles Religions, Paris, 1872, p. 82. The translation is simply execrable) says, " There is not a scholar to-day who considers this opinion as anything but erroneous. It is contradicted by the knowledge of texts, which disclose no point of contact between the most ancient Hebrew books and the Veda ; also by the comparative study of languages, which sepa- rates in their origins and in their systems the Semitic idioms from the Aryan idioms ; . . . lastly, by this simple reflexion ruling all facts, that, when hu- manity is in possession of a true principle, there is no example of its ever being allowed to perish." This last reason is a curiosity of logic. The propo- sition is of course true, — true, even to the extent of being absurd, if we may venture the paradox, — provided he refers to known examples of the loss of a true principle; for if such an example were known, the principle would not be lost. But if there were really iiistances of such a loss, then of course the fact of the loss must be unknown ; and to try to disprove the fact of the loss by the fact of our ignorance of the loss hardly deserves the dignity of being called a fallacy; it is i-ather an instance of Hibernianism. Max Mi'illcr {Introduction to the Science of Religion, Lect. I. p. 30) says : " The theory that there was a primeval preternatural revelation granted to the fathers of the human race . . . would find but few supporters at pres- ent ; no more, in fact, than the theory that there was in the beginning one complete language, broken up in later times into the numberless languages of the world." This comparison cannot be meant to imply that there was not one primeval language; for in iiis Lectures on the Science of Language (vol. i. pp. 4i7, 448) he says : "We can undorstaiul not only the origin of language, THE yUESTlUM OF A TKIMEVAL REVELATION. 67 This is surely a very summary way of despatching the theory. That the primitive revelation, if there was one, was not a writ- ten one, is of course at once to be granted. But why it could not have been oral, or in some other way palpable to the human senses and apprehension, is not so clear. In that case, we are told, the language for the revelation must have had to be cre- ated. Just how much is meant by this is not obvious. It might mean that human language, as a whole, would have had to be created in and with the divine act of revelation ; or it might mean that, in addition to a language already existent, a new vocabulary would have had to be created as a medium of the new truth to be communicated. But neither supposition is a necessary one. The problem concerning the origin of lan- guage is one which scientific investigation will hardly be able but likewise the necessary breaking up of one language into many ; and \vc per- ceive that no amount of variety in the material or formal elements of speech is inconiputible \\'ith the admission of one conmion source." Unless tiiese two extracts are to be understood as in direct contradiction of each other, the first must be read with an emphasis on the word " complete." The original language may, and indeed must, have been incomplete as compared with later ones. But still it is hard to see how the comparison of the theory of one original language with that of a primeval revelation helps to fortify his denial of such a revelation. If the various languages, now so different from one another, may be modifications of one common language, the great variety of the religions of the world cannot be adduced as a proof that they have not been derived from a common source. The corruption and development, such as Midler describes in his llibbert Lrctures, may have been in a sense natural, the outgrowth of the particular tendencies and circumstances of each particular race ; but no amount of investigation of such development can ever go to the length of dis- proving the hypothesis of a primeval revelation. A similar comment may be made on Professor Briggs's remark (^Messianic Prophecy, p. 4) : " It was once the fashion to explain the good features of other religions as relics of the primitive divine revelations recorded in the Bible, or as derived in some mysterious way from the Hebrews. But tliis fash- ion has passed away with the unscientific age." Yet Professor Briggs himself believes in a primeval revelation; for (p. 71) he says: " Messianic prophecy begins with the dawn of human history." After the fall of man, lie says (p. 73), " God appears in theophany as Judge and as Redeemer." If now tliere was really a primitive revelation, what has become of it ? Considering the tendency of men to hand down important truths and beliefs, which is most ;' scientific," — to suppose that revelation to have been quite lost; or to have been propagated, diversified, and corrupted ? 68 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. ever to solve. Philologists now generally reject, or even ridicule, the theory of a supernatural communication of language to the first man or men. But they are unable to agree among them- selves in what other way language did first have its origin. The truth is, the problem relates to an altogether unique con- dition of things, for which there is now no analogy. Language is now a developed fact ; and every new generation receives it from the preceding generation. There is no instance of the spontaneous invention of a new language on the part of infants who fail to be taught an already existent one. And when we transfer ourselves in imagination to the time when there was as yet no language in use, we are obliged to deal wholly in con- jectures, if we attempt to determine by what process the first language came into being. It certainly cannot be proved that its origin was 7iot supernatural. If the first man was, as he is assumed to have been by the scientists, a mere infant in knowl- edge and thought, then the analogy of present experience would favor the supposition that he received language as a communi- cation from without. The capacity to speak must have been in him. He must have had sensations, perceptions, and thoughts which were capable of being expressed in language. He must, in short, have had the same fitness for being taught the use of language which infants now have. Since he was without any human companions who could teach him, the nearest possible approach to the present condition of things would have been a divine impartation of language. But it is quite immaterial to our present point whether lan- guage was a supernatural gift or a natural growth. Let it be assumed that it was the latter. It is still not obvious wherein the point of Dr. Fairlwirn's reasoning lies. If the language of the revelation was oral, he says, it was (unless specially created) no more primitive than the written. This assertion is simply un- intelligible. Suppose writing to have been invented two thou- sand years after man had existed and used a spoken language. Suppose, further, an oral revelation to have been made as soon as man had mental capacity and language enough to compre- hend it. Wliat can be meant by the statement that such a revelation would not have been more primitive than the written TlIK QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 69 language ? Both parts of Dr. Fairbairn's statement are palpa- bly baseless. Tlie supposed revelation would not require the creation of a language ; and it would be more primitive than writing. Whatever the fact may be as to a primitive revelation, this argument certainly will hardly be sufficient to overthrow the hypothesis.^ Having in this easy way despatched the so-called suiicrnatural theory, together with the so-called natural theories (those which assume religion to have originated from dreams, delusions, etc.), T)r. Fairbairn proceeds to solve the problem by the " historical method." This consists in inferences drawn from a historical examination of Indo-European names of the Deity. The conclu- sion is that to our early ancestors the sky was a deity called Dyaus, or Deva. So much may be true enough. But when Dr. Fairbairn goes further, and undertakes to explain liow men came to deify the heavens, he says that there were two objective and two subjective factors in the genesis of the idea of Deity. The objective were the heaven and its action relative to the earth. The subjective were conscience and imagination. Conscience pointed to a being to whom obligation was due, and imagination discovered that being in the " bright brooding Heaven." And so it is concluded that " the idea of God was thus given in the very same act as the idea of self ; neither could be said to pre- cede the other." And so this " historical method " ends with coming, after all, to the " natural " method. The historical part of the investigation only furnishes us some interesting facts concerning the names of the Deity, and makes it probable that the early Aryan religion was purer and more monotheistic than the later. But when the question is attacked, how men first came to the conception of the Deity, resort is had to pure con- jecture and assumption.^ The human conscience and imagina- tion are alleged to be the determining forces which produced ^ See Excursus IV. * If any coufirniation of this were needed, it, niiglit be found in the fact tliat other men, pursuing llie same course of investigation, come to anentiroly dif- ferent result. Thus Buruouf (^Science of Rflirjion/i, p. 2t;5 ; in tlie French original p. 407) finds the origin I'f rHigion in tlie search after llie causes of the phenomena of every-day life, and m-ik'-s n-) "-count of morality. 70 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. the mighty conception. Here no historical or philological in- quiry leads the way. The inquirer simply falls back on human nature as he finds it now, and guesses that the first thought of God must have come from the operation of conscience and imagination in men who had only tlieir own souls, the brooding heavens, and the surrounding earth, from which to derive their conceptions. This conjecture may be, and doubtless is, much nearer the truth than the one which derives religious ideas from dreams or deceptions ; but it is none the less a conjecture, hav- ing no necessary connection with the historical discussion, — indeed, having no special connection with that at all ; for mani- festly the conjecture must be as applicable to Shemitic as to Aryan races, though the philological investigation applies only to tlie latter. Moreover, Dr. Fairbairn reasons as if the Aryans were a strictly primitive race, and came to their religion absolutely without ancestral help. But surely it cannot be meant that the Aryan language was the language of the primeval man, and that we may infer from its features precisely how the first man got his religious notions. The Aryans, so far as we can trace them, had their ancestors, and those ancestors doubtless had a religion, and doubtless communicated their religion to tlieir descendants. The main question, therefore, is hardly touched by any such historical and philological investigation. It may be said, indeed, that no one can prove the reality of a primeval revelation, since there are no historical documents that reach back far enough to establish such a theory. But equally true is it that no one can disprove the theory, — least of all by an argument that concerns only one branch of the human race and a period later than the origin of the race itself. On any theory, the problem concerning the first origin of religious ideas is a peculiar one, materially different from the question how such ideas now originate or propagate themselves. Whether we regard man as developed out of bestial forms or as suddenly created with angelic capacities fresh from the hand of God ; whether we think that all human acquirements were the result of a long process of experiment, or came directly by mi- raculous impartation, — make whatever suppositions we may, the one certain thing is that the original man, in respect to 'I'llK QrESrioX OF A PRIMEVAL REVELATIUX. 71 intellectual, moral, and leliginus development, existed under unique conditions.^ Present analogies cannot be applied to him. For the present fact is that all the culture of the new-born child is mediated by parents and elders. All knowledge of an abstract or scientific sort is communicated. Even the child's direct perception of the external world is confused and unin- telligent, till it is directed and classified by those whom lie lives with. Language is an existent and universal possession. The child learns it almost as soon as he can learn anything, but lie learns it from others. It is tlie medium through which his teachers communicate knowledge to him, and by which he learns to express his own thoughts and feelings. But all must have been radically different with the first man. ^^'hatcver theory of his origin one may adopt, it mnst belong to the theory that this man could not have got his training from human intelligent parents. It muat be assumed that no lieredi- tary influence could have made him naturally inclined to think about religious things. It mmt, in short, be assumed that what is now most influential and decisive in determining the first thoughts concerning God was then totally wanting. The first man, whether he is looked upon as semi-bestial or as angelic, as an infant or as an adult, had no human help, such as all human beings have now, in coming to his self-consciousness and to his religious ideas. The absence of language as a means of communication and of self-culture in independent reflection, makes the condition of the first man radically peculiar. Let language have been ac- quired however it may, at any rate the first man, without lan- guage, stood in an altogether anomalous position. The most exact analogy would be that of an infant born now and some- how kept alive, but without any intercourse with other human beings. But now, whenever anything like this occurs, the per- son, instead of developing an independent culture, tends more and more to lose the traces of humanity entirely. And this is, after all, not a really analogous case ; for on the one hand an infant now has at least certain hereditary gifts and tendencies ^ See tliis point forcibly presented in the Duke of xVrgyll's Uiiifj/ of Nature, pp. .523 .«77 72 b^lTPERjJATURAL REVELATION. which the first man cannot have liacl, while on the other hand the first man cannot have been a mere infant. The evohitionist may seem to relieve the problem of some of its difficulties, when he assumes a gradual growth of animal in- telligence in some one of the higher brute races, until at last by slow gradations articulate language took the place of inarticulate sounds, and step by step more general and abstract conceptions were developed, and finally the idea of God grew out of the su- perstitious fancies of fetichism, animism, etc. But though this theory makes the notion of a first man somewhat shadowy, inas- much as it obliterates all sharp distinctions between brutes and men, and tliough a slow growth of language and of religious conceptions may not a ^j^'wri be pronounced impossible,^ yet even then we have to assume a condition of things for which there is no present analogy. The first thought of a God, at whatever point wo may fix it, must have been the highest and entirely independent thought of the most advanced adult ; and this is a vastly different thing from the thought of God commu- nicated to the infant mind by elders who have generations of theists behind them from whom their belief has been received. With the origin of the idea of God must have been associated words for the expression of it. And here arises a new anomaly. Now the words are already in existence, possessing a signifi- cance which long usage has stamped upon tliem. But then the words had to be invented. Whether simultaneously with every new conception, or closely following it, the language had to be created. By what law of association, by what peculiar impulse of the soul, we cannot tell. The present change and develop- ment of language always depends on the language already in existence. An absolutely new word cannot be originated ; or if it can be, it can come into use only by mutual agreement on the part of those who can already communicate ideas by means of a common language. But when there was as yet no language, and an entirely new one was to be invented, the whole relation of things was radically different. It does not relieve us of the ^ Yet the transition from spooc'li]cs.sncss to spcccli is still acknowledged by evolulionists themselves to be an unsolv.^d problem. Fide DaBois-Keymond, Die sieben IFeltmthsel, p. 83 (Leipzig, 1882). TIIK (ilKSTlON OP A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 73 anomaly to assume an extremely slow development of intelli- gence and language ; the anomaly would rather be only intensi- fied. For now the most marvellous fact in regard to language is not the slowness, but the rapidity, with which with his un- developed faculties a child can learn a language. Even if Sir John Lubbock's prospective effort to educate dogs into men should be successful, the case would still not be analogous to the original assumed transformation of apes into men. For that original transformation is supposed to have come about of itself without any education from a higher source, whereas the poor dogs, though they have lived for centuries in close association with men, remain dogs still ; and their transformation into men is looked for only as the result of a very specially diligent and patient training. Take whatever view we may, then, there was somethhig al- together unique in the mental history and experience of the being that could first properly be styled a man, when he first had what can properly be styled a conception of God. But we are here more particularly concerned with the problem as it shapes itself to the mind of a strict theist. The atheistic evolutionist, whatever plausibility he may succeed in weaving around his hypothesis, can of course contribute nothing to the solution of the question, what relation tlie living God assumed towards the first being who was able to lift his tlioughts upwards to his Maker. Theists, especially Christian theists, can hardly content themselves with the purely evolutionary view of the ori- gin of man. Even though some concessions may be made as to man's physical structure ; even though the extremest Darwinian theory of his physical connection with the lower animals should be adopted ; still, whoever believes that man, as a religious being, holds vital relations to God, will find it difficult or impossible to believe that the human race, on its intellectual and spiritual side, came into existence by a gradual and imperceptible pro- cess,— the brute growing into a man, and theism being the slow development of blind instinctive cravings and superstitious conceits into a purer and loftier notion of a Divine Being for who.se service he was made, while yet that same Divine Being let the process take its slow course, and never once manifested 74 SUPERNATrUAL REVELATION. iiiinself to the struggling and groping heart, never interfered to help his creatures into clearer views, or to bring to bear upon their development the knowledge that he cherished towards them any conscious regard or paternal love. The inihience of the current drift towards ev^olution may be strong; and many theists may naturally be inclined to concede as much as possi- ble to the theory. But at some point they must break away from the all-embracing circle. The theory in its extreme form has no room for any special interposition. Mere scientific ob- servation and inference cannot find room for any such disturb- ing or accelerating force from without. And shutting out divine interference at one point, it equally shuts it out in all. Supernatural revelation becomes an abnormity, or even an im- possibility. Personal acquaintance with God, even if his exist- ence is assumed, becomes also impossible. Men may speculate about God. They may perhaps be right in believing that some higher Power exists, distinct from the visible universe ; but the speculation is only speculation, and can never amount to knowl- edge, even theoretical knowledge, still less to a practical and personal knowledge, of the Absolute One. But a theist, especially a Christian tlieist, must approach the question about the origin of the theistic belief with a different conception of things. He cannot but hold that the creation of man was a marked event in the history of the universe. He cannot be content to assume that the human race was evolved by imperceptible growth from an unhuman state, and that all the intellectual and spiritual experiences of man are only animal instincts in a higher state of development. To him man must be a very distinctly defined being ; and human history must have had a very definite beginning. To him, therefore, still more than to the atheistic evolutionist, the origin of the notion of a God must have been a unique thing, not to be explained by any present analogy. He must reject the theories which make religion the product of superstitious fears and delusions, not only because these presuppose that theism is without any solid basis, but because they are inadequate to account for the persistence of theistic beliefs. But, if he speculate at all, he must have some theory as to how the notion of a God origi- THE QUESTION' OE A PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 75 iiated. And he iiiiist also recognize, even more than the athe- ist, the essential uniqueness of the conditions under which the theistic idea first arose;. Let us now come back to the above-mentioned theory wliich, under the name of historic method, explains the beginning of theism by asserting that conscience and imagination led man to ascribe deity to the sky above him. The extreme evolutionist would at once say that we need first to define conscience and inquire concerning its origin. He would find it to be only the developed form of bestial instincts, — a development not yet finished : so that the voice of conscience is an ever-chantiinj; one, and never a mirror of any objective imnmtable truth. To him, therefore, conscience in the first man (even if he can determine what degree of animal development to dignify with the name of manhood) would be only another term for the mental fancies and illusions which his own theory posits as the source of the theistic conception. But Dr. Fairbairn, as a Christian theist, who finds in the action of conscience the source of theism, must assume a well-developed and distinctly defined conscience. He must attribute to the conscience of the aboriginal man a certain clearness and authority of utterance. He must have in mind a conscience essentially such as men have now; and he must have some theory as to its origin. Now, unless he explains it, as he hardly will, in the evolutionary way, he must assume either that the conscience, as a full-orbed faculty, was brought suddenly into being by a divine fiat, or else that it was divinely implanted as a germ, which was then gradually developed into a real conscience. But in either case we have an anomalous state of things. There is now no such thing ever known as a complete conscience coming suddenly into existence. Conscience, as we know it, is always a product of training. The new-born child appears to be substantially as devoid of moral sense as the new-born lion. It is only by a gradual pro- cess that a well-defined faculty of moral judgment manifests itself. If, now, the new-created man was at the very outset pos- sessed of a perfectly constituted conscience, it could only have been by virtue of an immediate creation and impartation. If 76 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. without any experience of the rehitions of man to man he was able nevertheless to understand the requirements of the moral law, such a power could have come from nothing less than a supernatural act. It is at the best hard to conceive such an impartation ; but whoever can conceive it ought to find no greater difhculty in conceiving the first man as supernaturally instructed concerning the Divine Being, But let us take the other part of the alternative, and suppose the first conscience to have been 'gradually developed out of a germinal one. We still find ourselves dealing with an entirely anomalous case. For the primeval man had no parental or other human instructors such as all children now have, and without whom the latent faculties of the child are never devel- oped into distinct and normal activity. If the first man's con- science required external personal training to make it a normal conscience, then, since there was no human teacher, we must assume that God in some peculiar way manifested himself and acted the part of instructor. But this again introduces super- naturalism in its sharpest form. Dr. Fairbairn could of course not accept such a view ; for it makes God reveal himself to man heforc the conscience is sufficiently developed to suggest the notion of a God, whereas his theory is that tlie notion can have come only as the suggestion of a developed conscience. How, then, does he conceive this primeval conscience to have got its development ? We are unable to conjecture ; but what- ever his answer may be, the one certain thing is that the devel- opment could not have been like that of which we now have any knowledge. It is very certain, at all events, that the "his- torical method " of investigation is unable to disclose how the primeval conscience became developed. The problem is left untouched. But however great may be the obscurity which rests upon the question, one thing, we repeat, is absolutely certain : The primeval man was in an exceptional state ; the analogies of pres- ent life cannot be applied to him. He had no tradition, no instruction, from his ancestors. If, then, one is disposed to press present analogies in judging respecting the religion of the first man, one is led to favor, rather than to reject, the theory THE QUESTION OF A PRIMEVAL KKVELATION. 77 of a primeval revelation. The revelation would liave supplied to him what now is given by tradition. The force of tradition is now so great in determining men's religious opinions that some even question whether the present religious beliefs of mankind have any other foundation than a blind adoption of what has been held before. The closest possible analogy to the present condition of things would have been secured to the first man, if his religious conceptions had been first called forth by some external communication. And in his case this could have been nothing but a divine revelation. For him, so to speak, the supernatural was the only natural method.^ One need, therefore, not be overawed by the allegation that it is " unphilosophical " to assume a primeval revelation. And when we are told that such an assumption is not only not proved, but capable of positive disproof, we can only say that the disproof is still to be discovered. The ostensible arguments against it consist in mere assertions, or else rest on radical misconceptions of what the theory opposed really is. Thus, Dr. Fairbairn says that the theory of a primeval rev- elation as the source of the idea of God would imply " what Schelling happily termed 'an original atheism of consciousness.'" ^ Of course a theory of primeval revelation may be held in such a form as to assert or imply a total want of theistic sense in the original man. But probably the person is yet to be found who ever really entertained any such a notion as that man was first created with no tendency to believe in a God, and was afterwards forced into the belief b)' a supernatural revelation. And only such total want of tendency to theism can be properly called " atheism of consciousness." It would seem to be little less than absurd to suppose that God would make human beings with no constitutional inclination to believe in him, and then 1 " If tlic law prevailing in the infancy of our race has been at all like the law prevailing in the infancy of the individual, then man's first beliefs were derived from Authority, and not from cither reasoning or observation. I do not myself believe that in the morning of the world Theism arose as the result of philosophical speculations, or as the result of imagination j)crsonifying some abstract idea of the Unity of external Nature." — Duke of Argyll, Unity of Nature, p. 3. * Studies, etc., p. 22, quoting Schelling, Philosophic . 19, 128, cd. G), and by his adoption of Hume's doctrine of causation, exposed himself to sonio of the severe strictures which he received in Supernatural Rdigion. ^ Ttj/'/t., p. 49. T'or a criticism of the author's use of Hume and Mill, cf. T. 1l\. l^ii-ks, Supernatural Revelation, ch. xvii. ^ See Excursus V. * riiilosophisehe Dof/mafik, vol. i. jip. OG. 100, 229. Cf. Rothe, Zur Bog- matik, p. 88, who replies to him. MIKACLIvS DEFINED. 101 iiidepeiideut of natural law. It is not a natural force reversed in its operations, but another, higher, supernatural, force per- forming an effect which is perceptible through the natural use of the senses. Whether or when any force is supernatural rather than natural, one must decide, not by his senses, but by his judgment. The tricks of the juggler, though apparently contrary to all natural laws, are yet assumed to be, thuugh in an unknown way, conformable to them. These displays of skill produce results as startling and apparently as miraculous as those which are regarded as really miraculous. By what right do we call the one miraculous, and the other not? The juggler, indeed, does not pretend to be working a miracle; but may not the professed miracle-worker be after all only a jug- gler, though not so honest as he ? In any case, does it not depend on the mind of the observer whether the act or phe- nomenon is regarded as miraculous or not? To this it must certainly be answered. Yes. In reply to Weisse, who had adopted as his own the language, " I w^ould not believe my eyes, if I should see a supernatural miracle take place before them," Eotlie pertinently observes, "The causal connections and relations of this visible fact no one is ever able to see anything of, hi heaven or on earth ; but that they are super- natural, that is, that the fact is a miracle, is simply con- cluded; and the experience of the fact is, in this conclusion, one of the premises which require it." ^ In other words, a phe- nomenon is regarded as a miracle or not, according as the direct unseen cause is assumed to be supernatural or not. Whether it is supernatural, or only a rare or mysterious action of natural forces, must be inferred, as one best can infer, from the cir- cumstances. In either case, an adequate cause is assumed : it may be a natural cause ; it may be a divine agency, acting aside from natural laws in an exceptional way. Whether one believes the latter to be the fact, depends, first, on whether he believes in a God at all, and next, on whether he is convinced that in this particular instance there is sufficient reason for assuming a special divine intervention. There is no violation of law in one's seeing the objective phenomenon; the only question is, ' Zur Darimatik, p. 92. 102 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. whether the cause of the phenomenon is natural or not. In a given case, therefore, for example, an apparent multiplication of loaves, making what would be enough for only a few suffice for thousands, whoever sees the appearance must judge for him- self whether the extraordinary supply has come in some natural, tliough unknown, way, or whether a supernatural power has directly furnished the supply. In such a case, the judgment must depend chiefly on tlie consideration, what the character and professions of the principal visible agent are ; whether he professes to have wrought a miracle or not; and, if he does, whether he is one who could be supposed to deceive intention- ally, or to be easily deceived himself; also on the consideration, whether the person performing the deed claims to be, and prob- ably is, divinely commissioned to work miracles. The vexed question, what is to be understood by natural forces and laws,^ does not affect the decision of the problem before us. Whether all natural phenomena be regarded as the immediate product of divine agency, or as caused by the opera- tion of natural forces acting in a uniform and regular way, — in either case, a miracle is an exception to the ordinary course of events, and an exception attributable to a special divine or supernatural intervention. It is sometimes said^ that the an- cient Jews could have had no well-defined conception of a miracle, since to them everything was a direct product of divine power, and a miraculous event could have been to them, at the most, nothing but an unusual or startling event ; whereas modern science has now taught us to regard natural forces as the immediate, if not the sole, cause of the phe- nomena which we observe. These forces are now conceived as working uniformly and universally. A merely novel or startling event is assumed to be just as natural as any other. The investigation of such events always tends to show their connection with the established forces of nature. A miracle, ^ The proper distinction between tliese two terms, often used intercliaiigc- ably, is well given by Dr. W. M. Taylor {Go-ipel Miracles, pp. 14, 15), "Force is the energy which produces the effects ; but law is the observed manner in wliicli force works in the production of these effects." ^ £-r/., by llitschl, Jalirhiicher fur deutsche Theulogic, 1861, p. 440. MIRACLES DEFINED. 103 therefore, now appears to be more difficult to establish than at a time when no scientific conception of natural law ex- isted, and when anything and everything might be regarded as a direct and special manifestation of the divine power and will. It is certainly true that the ([ucstiou of miracles has in this way come to have a somewhat dill'erent aspect from what it once had. Jjut the diflcrencc can never radically alter the problem. The advance of science and the prevalence of the doctrine that secondary causes are everywhere at work, and at work in a uniform way, — this may diminish the number of events which are to be classed among the miraculous ; but it does not do away with the notion of the miraculous. On the contrary, the more sharply one may define and emphasize the operation of natural forces as the ordinary cause of visible plieuomena, the more definite and clear becomes the concep- tion of a miracle. So long as God is conceived as directly doing everything, a miracle could at the best be to men's minds only some unusual display of divine power; there could be no sharp line of demarkation drawn between the miraculous and the non-miraculous. Now, however, a miracu- lous event must be regarded as caused by an altogether special intervention of God, over and above the ordinary operation of his natural forces. But the practical problem of miracles re- mains essentially the same that it always was. The ancient Jews, though they may have had no theory of natural force and natural law, like that of modern times, yet certainly had a conception of the regularity of ordinary events. They knew what to expect when they awoke from day to day. They expected to see the sun rise regularly, and to see the seed sprout which they put into the ground. God was to them a God of order. But if any unexpected and wonderful thing occurred, and especially if it occurred in connection with a pro- fessed communication from God, — this was to them a miracle, an exceptional mode of working on the part of God, designed to call special attention to the divine communication. And this is essentially the ]iresent conception of miracles. To use the words of Prebendary Row,i the idea of a miracle " postu- ^ T/ie Supeniidiiral in the jScw Testa ineul, p. 127« 104 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. lates the presence of a force or forces which are adequate to counteract the action of those already in existence and to pro- duce the adequate result." In other words, a miracle is a new and supernatural agency inserted into the complex of forces ordinarily in operation, just as a man, by the exercise of his volition and physical power, diverts the forces of nature from their ordinary course of working. 2. On the other hand, however, we need to guard against understatements in the definition of miracles. Kespect for the sovereignty of law need not carry us so far as to seek to explain miracles in respect to the mode of their occurrence, and to show their essential conformity to, or de- pendence on, natural law. Some Christian writers weaken rather than strengthen the argument from miracles by their dread of anything " magical " in them. Thus the miracle at Cana has been explained as a sort of acceleration of the natural process by which the moisture of the earth and air are trans- formed into the juice of the grape, and this again into fer- mented wine. Such speculations are idle, and really explain nothing.^ Such an acceleration of natural agencies would be in any case equivalent to tlie application of a special force ^ Cf. Westcott, Gospel of the Resurrectmi, p. 37. Olsliauseu, who pro- pounds this view, says indeed that by it " the miracle is neither removed, nor explained naturally ; the essence of the miracle consists in divinely effecting the acceleration of the natural process" {Comm. on John ii. 7-10). This being so, it is not easy to see what is gained by (he hypothesis at all, especially as it is entirely without foundation, if not even without any clear meaning. If the making of the wine were an accelerated process of nature, then since the natural process requires a grape-vine, a growth of grape-clusters, the opera- tion of sun and soil on the vine, etc., an acceleration of this process would be impossible without all these elements. It is indeed conceivable that all this process could be condensed into a few minutes ; but it is very certain that this was not the case ; and since it was not the case, it is impossible to see how the miracle can properly be called an acceleration of the natural process, whatever may be the hypothesis which one chooses to adopt concerning it. It may be imagined, for example, that the elements of which wine consists, being in existence in the soil and in the atmosphere, might have been suddenly and miraculously brought into the water, and so there was no outright crea- tion of anything. But this would not have been the natural process ; and if anything else is meant, probably no one, not even the propounder of the hypothesis, could tell wiuit tiie meaning is, MlliACLKS DEFINED. 105 \vhich is distinct from any natural force ; and so the miracle is in no wise made intelligible by the hypothesis. Still less satisfactory is the theory which tries to mitigate the ditficulty of believing in this miracle by transferring the marvel from the physical to the mental world. It has been suggested that the water found in the water-pots continued to be water, but through the wonderful influence of Jesus' preach- ing was nuide to taste as if it were wine. And the example of mesnierizers who are able to delude tlieir subjects in a similar manner is adduced as a forcible illustration of the great jiroba- bility of this conception of the case ! ^ It is difficult to treat ^ This is substantially tlie view of J. P. Langc {Leboi Jesu, vol. ii. p. 308, English edition, vol. ii. p. 137), and of Beyschlag {Lebeii Jesu, vol. i. pp. 307- 309), following the lead of Neander {Lebcn Jesu, p. 272. The English edition, p. 176, Bohn's Standard Library, makes Neander contradict himself), ^hit- thew Arnold's connnent on this explanation [God and the Bible, Popular edi- tion, pp. 22-23) is well deserved : " This has all the difficulties of the miracle, and only gets rid of the poetry. It is as if we were startled by the extrava- gance of supposing Cinderella's fairy godmotlier to have actually elianged the pumpkin into a coach and six, but sliould suggest that she did really change it into a oue-horse cab." Rev. H. R. Haweis, in his Picture of Jesus, pp. 54 sqq., thinks it "trivial and dishonoring to Christ " to suppose him to have used any such occult power. His own explanation (culled by him a "natural explanation") is that Jesus and liis attendants brought not only wine enough for their own use, "according to custom " (how did Mr. Haweis find out about any such custom ?), but anticipating the probable exhaustion of the supply (why should tiiey ?) brought more thau they needed {i. e., about five hundred quarts ! ) in order to be ready for the emergency. But not wishing to " do a kindness to get praised by others," Jesus told his disciples to leave the wine outside, so that, when needed, the wine could be " served up out of the host's own pots," and thus prevent the host's knowing that the supply had failed. For this reason also the rumor of something miraculous might have been started. Of course the command, " Fill the water-pots with water," has to be amended by strik- ing out the hist two words. Of course also Jesus, according to this " natural explanation," practised deception on the people at the feast. But this seems to Mr. Haweis a small offense compared with what it would liave been to " wound the host's feelings " by letting him know that the wine liad nin short. It is very kind in the author of this remarkable hypothesis to tell his readers, both at the beginning and at the end of his exposition of it, that he does not ask any one to accept it. Most persons will probably avail them- selves thankfully of thi.s kind indulgence. 106 SUPERNATUEAL REVELATION. such a notion seriously. If tlie analogy of mesmeric influence means anything, it must mean that the supposed miracle was after all no miracle. If this is not meant, then we must sup- pose that a real miracle was wrought, only that it was wrought on the minds of the company, not on the water. But this does not relieve us of the " magic " which is so much dreaded, and it does burden us with the assumption that Jesus was guilty of a stupendous deception.^ Others, while refraining from the attempt to explain the modus operandi of particular miracles, seek to propitiate the prejudice against miracles by laying down the general propo- sition that miracles, so far from being violations of natural laws, can be wrought only with the co-operation of the forces of nature. Thus Professor Ladd, whose general view of mira- cles we can assent to, seems to be here needlessly cautious. He criticises Kothe as being unwarrantably unguarded in say- ing that nature has nothing to do with the effect produced in the case of all proper miracles, and affirms, on the contrary, that " no event in history can even be conceived of without the co-operation of all the preceding forces and laws of the physical universe." "Miracles," he says again, "must be conditioned upon the existing course of nature." ^ These are statements which need qualification, or at least explanation, before they can be assented to. When, for example, it is said ^ respecting the wine made at Cana that, " even if we suppose its elements to have been wholly new creations, they were conditioned upon preceding and existing laws and forces of nature," what is- meant ? If it is only meant that the wine made by Jesus was composed of the same elements as other wine, the statement affirms what is so self-evident that it hardly needs to be made at all. That would be only affirming that the wine made was 1 This is virtually admitted by Beyschlag, who says {Leben Jcsu, vol. i. p. 310) : " That the Evangelist did not see through this psychical miracle, but interpreted it as a physical one, a miracle of transubstantiatiou, will be urged by no intelligent man [ !] against this view, which in fact resolves all difficul- ties, and even permits us to assume a dream-like unconsciousness on the part of the company concerning the occurrence." ^ Doctrine of Sacred Hcripture, vol. i. p. 296. ^ Ibid. MIRACLES DEFINED. 107 real wine, and not, say, water somehow made to taste like wine. But we are reminded ^ that, according to the narrative itself (John ii. 9) " the water was, so to speak, the physical basis of the miraculous wine." But how does this help the mat- ter ? Water is indeed a large part of wine ; but that which makes it specifically different from water is not water; and the statement that water was the physical basis of the wine throws no light on the question, how tlie.se additional, wine- producing elements got into the water, or in what sense the water itself was changed into w4ne. The statement seems to be intended as an intimation that there was no creative act iu tlie case ; but what it can mean beyond this it is difficult to conceive. When, however, it is said that the miracle, even though one of outright creation, cannot " even be conceived of without the co-operation of all the preceding forces and laws of the physical universe," we must say that it would be more nearly correct to affirm just the opposite, namely, that such a miracle cannot be conceived as wrought with the co-operation of those forces. To affirm such a co-operation is to affirm that the forces of nature operate with the miracle-worker in producing the miracle. The fact, however, manifestly is that, in so far as physical forces are operative in the case, they do not help to produce the miracle, but rather work against it. In so far as the act is miraculous, natural forces cannot be said to tend to produce it, for that would be equivalent to saying that it is not miraculous. Of course, the product of the miracle becomes amenable to natural law. The wine at Cana, whether an out- right creation, or otherwise miraculously produced, must of course, after it was made, have operated like other wine. It adjusted itself to the natural course of things. And any such miraculous effect must be conceived as subjected to the ordinary laws of nature. But it does not follow that every miraculous cause must be conditioned on natural forces. It is difficult to see what fair exception can be taken to Rothe's proposition,^ * Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 296. ^ Ziir Bogmatik, p. 102. And with this Kostlin entirely agrees {Jahrbiicher fiir deulsche Theologie, ISGl, p. 258) : " God who, being a personal si)irit, is self-determining, whose power do«s not discharge itself, as it were, in an invol- 108 yLTEKNATURiy:. REVELATION. " In its genesis tliis miracle [the kind strictly so called] does not touch the realm of natural laws and their jurisdiction jit all; but as soon as it is once performed by God's absolute act, it too is at once an organic part of ' nature ' and amenable to its law." Professor Ladd says/ " To maintain that the miracle is accomplished in a wholly supernatural fashion, and without the co-operation of second causes, is to separate it from all human experience." Cut every miracle must, in a certain sense, be separated from all human experience, else it would not be a miracle. The ejfect of the miraculous agency must, it is true, be something palpable, and in tliat sense a part of human experience. But that which is distinctively miraculous in a miracle is not the effect, but the cause. The bread given to the multitude on Lake Tiberias was doubtless nothing wonderful ; it was simply bread. The miracle was in the production of it. And to say that the multiplication of the loaves was something separated from all human experience, that is, something utterly unlike ordinary human experience, is simply to say that it ivas a miracle. With liothe we insist that a miracle is no violation of the laws of nature for the very reason that it has notliing to do with them, so far as its causation is concerned. It may have to do with them, and generally speaking must have to do with them, in the sense that nature is the field in which the miraculous agency operates, and that therefore the existing forces of nature must be recognized and dealt with. Those forces may perhaps in the miraculous agency be used, may be diverted into a channel where of themselves they would never operate. In such a case, however, the miraculous agency is not the natural force, but the supernatural force, — something above the natural force, not conditioned upon it, but rather the power which originally conditioned it. But we have no riglit to uutary impulse, and wlio in his love liimself voluntarily created the iiuite world, can and will in like manner, -whenever he directly intervenes in it, so limit liis ])ower, in itself unlimited, that it shall not undo the finite world, but rather (inly introduce into it a product which then itself belongs entirely to the com- plexus of the finite world." So Christlieb {Modern Doubt, etc., p. 307) : " The laws of nature are in no way suspended thereby [by miracles] ; but . . . the products of the miracle . . . take their place in the ordinary coarse of nature." 1 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 296. MIRACLES DEFINED. 109 atlirni that iu miracles natural forces are always or generally used at all. In miraculous healing, for example, where we might be most inclined to look for the operation of natural processes, under the direction of a superior will, it is impossible to deter- mine how far, or whether at all, the ordinary forces of nature operated in ellecting the cure. Still less have we any ground fur assuming that such miracles as the raising of the dead or the feeding of the multitude were wrought by making use of forces of nature.^ If those forces of nature operated in these cases ill a natural luaij, or only as mere human agency could di- rect them, then the acts in question locre not miracles. And the only alternative is to assume that the effects were not pro- duced by natural forces operating in a natural way. But in this case there are two possibilities : Either the ell'ects were produced by natural forces operating in a non-natural (super- natural) way, or they were produced by a supernatural force distinct from natural forces. But a natural force can be made to act in a non-natural way only by a supernatural power, so that these two possibilities are practically identical. The distinct I re thing in the miraculous deed is the exercise of the supernatural poiver. Whether that power uses natural forces as the means of effecting the miraculous result, or effects the result directly, without the use of natural forces, is quite immaterial.^ ^ Mr. Wai-iiig(ou {Gail we believe in Miracles^ pp. 117 •''/.) in arguing tJie point that miracles are not violations of natural law, suggests concerning tliis miracle that, as the essential constituents of bread and fish are derived from air and moisture, the material of the miraculous supply may have been derived from tlie natural source; only "the manner and means of production is vitally differeat." But, he says, wc cannot say that any force was acting in opposition to its natural laws. " On the contrary, we simply do not know what forces were at work ; and to talk of any of their laws being violated is simply impossible." This liypothesis may seem akin to the acceleration theory of Olshausen, but is essentially dilferent. It does not make the process of pro- duction an acceleration of the natural process, but quite the contrary. But it would be equally true tluit no natural law is violated, if, instead of miraculously putting togetlier materials derived from earth and air and so forming bread and lish, Jesus had created the material. Wc do not iiffinn that this was the case ; we only insist tliat in either case no law of nature is violated, because in either case the efficient cause is something distinct from the forces of nature. '^ "The essence of a miracle conbists in the immediate aetiou of a rational 110 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. There is, therefore, no warrant for laying down the prop- osition that a miracle cannot be performed without the co- operation of second causes. Indeed such a proposition, taken in any strict sense, is quite untenable, if we retain any faith in miracles at all, unless we resort to the theory of an outright " violation " of natural laws, against which this very mode of conception is directed. Yor if the natural causes " co-operate " to produce a miracle, they must do so either by operating in the natural and ordinary way, — in which case there is no mir- acle, so far as this operation is concerned ; or else they must operate in a manner contrary to the natural and ordinary one, — in which case there would be a violation of natural law in the strictest sense of that term. Absolutely nothing is gained by any such attempt to connect miracles with natural forces. It is impossible to specify what second causes were used, for example, in the multiplication of the loaves. All that could be known was that the bread made its appearance where it could not be naturally looked for. Where it came from, how it was produced, could of course not be a matter of perception. It was simply inferred that in some supernatural way Jesus had pro- duced the supply. To the spectators and beneficiaries of the miracle it was quite immaterial whether Jesus accomplished the result by some mysterious manipulation of natural forces and substances, or by an immediate exercise of supernatural force. It is impossible to understand how a co-operation of second causes was necessary, as Professor Ladd asserts,^ in order that miracles may render service to faith and realize their final purpose. It is hard to see why any believer in real miracles should not assent to Eothe's language when he says :^ " It has always seemed strange to me when I have seen exposi- free will in nature, directing its physical agencies to the effecting of results which, without tliis supernatural direction, they would not liave effected." — Prof. S. Harris, The Self-revelalioH of God, p. 478. But would the author limit his definition to that supernatural action which works on nature and directs physical agencies? It may be, indeed, that no other miracles have been performed ; but if an absolutely new substance should be created by divine power, M-ould not that be a miracle? 1 Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 296. ^ Ztir Dogmatik, p. 101. MIRACLES DEFINED. Ill tors wlio believed in a revelation, and were avowed defenders of the lUblical miracles, yet in some sort troubled by such miracles as that at the marriage in Caiia, and the miracle of the loaves (the very ones which are especially well attested), and troubled for the reason that in the case of these one cannot picture the process to the mind. I do not understand the ditticulty ; for tliat this cannot be done lies expressly in the very notion of miracles, whenever, as here, they are taken in all their strictness." (See Excursus VI. in the Appendix.) The preceding observations indicate what should be said of another mode of conceiving miracles, which is sometimes re- sorted to in order to remove the objection that God would not interfere with the regular operation of his own laws. It is that miracles are the product of the laws of nature, but of a higher, occult order of nature. A miracle, according to this view, is not only not contrary to nature, but is strictly in accordance with it. Nature is compared to a clock so ingeniously con- structed that certain wheels in it move only once in a century, so that to those living at such times the phenomenon would have all the appearance of a miracle, though really the natural and necessary result of the construction of the clock. So mira- cles, it is thought, may be provided for in the divinely con- stituted order of nature, but wrought only by these rarely operating forces, and therefore occurring so exceptionally as to produce the effect of a special divine interposition. In short, miracles are the necessary effects of a higher law of nature.^ In ^ Cf. Dr. J. F. Clarke's quotation from Ephraim Peabocly {Orthodox//, etc., pp. 64, 65). Dr. A. P. Pcabody seems to favor this view in Boston Lectures, 1S70, on tlie Sorerrifftifi/ of Laic, pp.189 sq., where he compares miracles with the Tneteoric showers. In his Christ iani/y and Srirnre, p. 101, the more ordinary view appears to be arc;ued. In his Christ'unntij the RcUpion of Nature, p. 66. however, lie says, " Miracles may be natural, not only absolutely, as in accord- ance with the Divine attributes, but also relatively, so far as the laws and the order of the universe are concerned." Schleiermacher advances a similar view {J)er christliche Gliinlio, vol. i. § 20, ed. 1). Professor von der Goltz {Die christlichfu Grundinihrhciten, p. 352) says that miracles " have for our liuinau conception the character of tiie surprising and the inexplicable, they are signs of divine power, witnesses of a supersensual order of the world ; but for God they are strictly according to law. . . . The miraculous world of revelation is supernatural, in so far as the notion of nature is liuiited to the sensuous world. 112 SUI'ERNATIJRAL REVELATION. this way it is thought that mirack^s can be made more intelli- gible and credible than when they are conceived as independent of natural law. But this conception makes the essence of a miracle consist, not in the specialness of the divine agency, but in the ignorance of man. The same element of human ignorance may make mir- acles out of inexplicable tricks of jugglers, or out of irregular natural phenomena, such as the occasional appearance of new stars. In both cases we should have to say that, while we do not suppose the occurrence to be independent of natural law, we simply do not know what the law is. Such events may be startling and wonderful, but they are not miraculous, except in the loose sense that everything may be miraculous if one only chooses so to regard it. Many writers, like Augustine,^ speak of all the works of nature as marvels, inasmuch as they all involve inexplicable mysteries. This is very true, but a mira- cle does not consist in the inexplicableness of an event. And no more does it consist in its mere rareness, provided it is yet the product of natural forces acting naturally. If now it is assumed that the so-called miracles are really as much the product of natural forces as any other, only that the forces operate in a more occult way, then, as soon as we have come to take this view of the matter, the miracle loses all special signifi- cance. If the resurrection of Christ was brought about by physical forces acting just as necessarily as gravitation, and was therefore necessary iii the same sense as the irregular appearance of comets, then that resurrection cannot of itself mean more or prove more than any other natural event which It is natural, in so far as one takes into view man's destination to lead a spir- itual life, and the relation of the heavenly nature-world to the earthly nature- world." Bishop Temple {Relations between Religion and Science, p. 195) likewise suggests that the iniraeulous sequence of plienomeua may be " after all that of a higher physical law as yet unknown." Quite similarly Canon G. H. Curteis {Scientific Obstacles to Christian Belief, Lect. iv.). He repre- sents miracles as designed to produce an effect, and as having really produced it, though afterwards they may be recognized as having been quite in accord- ance with physical hw. Against this conception Prof. A. B. Bruce (Miracu- loHs Element in the Gospels, ])p. 48 sqq.) argues forcil^ly and conclusively. ^ Cf. A. Uoi'ucr, Aur/icstinus, sein theologisches System, etc., pp. 71 sqq. MIKACJ.ES IJEFINED. 113 may startle by its strangeness, but nevertheless belongs as much to the machuicry of nature as the most familiar tilings of every day life. This theory of miracles is in fact harder to believe than the ordinary one ; and therefore there is nothing to recommend it. There is something excessively forced in it. It would be next to impossible, for example, to make men believe that God from all eternity decreed that the forces of the universe should operate in such a way that on a single occasion, in a single place, water should suddenly be trans- formed into wine, or a few loaves of bread should suddenly be multiplied into hundreds. It is not enough to say that in such a case the law is occult; we cannot easily conceive that there should be any laio in the case at all.^ But even if the abstract possibility of such a thing were conceded, the question still arises, What is gained by it ? If the miracle is supposed to be designed to produce a special effect, to convey some religious lesson, or to confirm the words of some divinely commissioned messenger, why, then it must be assumed that the whole ma- chinery of the universe was planned so that these peculiar events should take place in a natural but startling way, in order to make the impression of a divine intervention. ]^)ut if the only reason for these peculiar provisions in the world's machinery was to produce this impression on these compara- tively few occasions, there would seem to be no reason why the desired impression should not be produced rather by that which ought to produce it, that is, why there should not be a real divine interposition independent of physical laws. It certainly must be just as easy for God in his eternal plan to determine here and there, in the course of his providential government of the world, to interpose directly to produce effects which his ordi- nary natural forces would not produce, as it is to determine to have the effect brought about l)y a curious, and to human eyes ^ Except in the sense that whatever God does there is a good reason for, and that it is done in accordance with an eternal purpose. The law is, in this case, not a law of nature, but a law of the divine mind. This is apparently all that Bushnell means when {Xaiure and the Supernatural, pp. 201 sqq^ he argues that God's sii|)crnatural agency "is regulated and dispensed by immu- table and fixed laws." 8 114 SLTERNATURAL REVELATION. absolutely untraceable, operation of a physical force. And if just as easy, then of course much better, since surely the better way must be for God to do what he desires to seem to do. As Bishop Alonzo Potter well observes,^ if miracles are only fore- ordained results of physical law, then " not only would the language in which they are described in the Bible be deceptive, but those who wrought them would in one important sense be impostors, and the miracles themselves a fraud." 3. We may here consider the distinction often made between absolute miracles and relative miracles. The distinction is differently made by different writers. Thus Thomas Aquinas defines a miracle as that which is done contrary to the order of all created nature.^ Others would define an absolute miracle as one caused by the suspension of only a particular law or application of a law ; others again, as an effect produced by the intervention of a special divine activity other than that of the forces of nature. Eelative miracles likewise may be variously conceived. One notion is that of an act or event which pro- duces the effect of a miracle, though in strict reality a purely natural occurrence. Another is that which makes all acts of the rational free-will supernatural, and so in a certain sense miraculous. Another is that which makes a relative miracle consist in natural processes modified by divine power.^ Or, again, stress is laid on the distinction between miracles wrought directly by divine agency and miracles wrought through the agency of human beings.^ It is manifest that the whole dis- tinction is a somewhat loose one ; what some would call an absolute miracle would be to others only a relative one. Tlie l)nrden of the foregoing discussion is to the effect that the distinction is more apt to be misleading than helpful. The principal distinction to be defined is that between a real miracle and a pretended or seeming one. Amidst all apparent diversities of conception there need not in fact be any very ^ Religious Philosophy (Lowell Institute Lectures delivered 1845-53, pub- lished 1872), p. 124. "^ Summa Theologica, Pars I. Qu. ex. art. iv. 8 So Professor Ladd, Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 334. * Cf. Donier, Chrislicm Doctrine, § 55, 4. MIRACLES DEFINED. 115 material difference in the definition of a real miracle. The prin- cipal variation is to be found in regard to the question above touched upon, whether in the strict miracle God makes use of existing natural forces, or works immediately without making use of them. But even this difference is often more apparent than real. Thus Gloatz, after an elaborate survey of the ques- tion of the relation of miracles to natural law, concludes that Rothe and Julius Miiller and others are wrong who hold that God works miracles without the mediation of existing natural forces, and states his own view as follows : ^ " An absolute mir- acle would annul the existence of the universe, or transform it into God. God also works miracles, as complicated phenomena, by means of the general forces of nature and out of the possi- bilities and conditions involved in them, from which alone, however, they can be as little explained as the higher orders of nature, and man with his influence on nature. They may . . . be conceived as performed, in accordance with the will of God, Ijy higher spirits, but also immediately by himself, the Creator, the great Geometer and Mechanic, who has in his hands all the threads of the complex of nature, and can connect them in the most varied ways." The working of a miracle is thus made analogous to the act of man, when he avails himself of his knowledge of natural forces and substances for bringing about what nature, left to it- self, would never produce. Similarly Otto Fliigel,^ illustrating his point by reference to the miracle at Cana, says that, in so far as the wine is not conceived as an outright creation, the only manner in which an immediate act of God, without the use of natural agencies, can be conceived, is the pantheistic one, according to which things are only conditions, modi, of the divine substance. His own conception is that the miracle may have been, so to speak, "an improved and apocopated natural process," the ele- ments necessary to transform water into wine being abundant in the atmosphere, and only needing by a manipulation of natural forces to be brought together in order to produce the best wine. But just here we are brought to the question, Hoio are these natural forces manipulated ? When men avail themselves of ^ Wunder und Naturgesetz (in Sludien und Kritiken, 1886), p. 543. ^ Das Wunder und die Erkennbarkeit Gottes, p. 36. Leipzig, 1869. 116 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. their knowledge of nature in order to bring about changes and effects which natural forces of themselves would never pro- duce, they accomplish their purpose by using natural agencies, by directing them into such a channel, and combining them in such a way, as to effect a predetermined result. It is distin- guished from purely natural processes only by the direction which the human purpose gives to the operation of natural forces. Thus, it is natural for water to move downwards, and, when there is a descending channel, to move in a body in that channel. An earthquake, or some other natural convulsion, might change the channel, and in that case it is simply natural for the water to move in the new channel. If, now, men de- termine to change, and do change, the course of a river, the only thing not strictly natural about the process is just this dcUrmination, with the several volitions that are involved in it. It is quite natural that the spades should move to the place of excavation when carried by the workmen ; quite nat- ural that when pressed by the feet they should pierce and loosen the earth ; quite natural that the soil should by the use of the proper instruments be removed ; quite natural that the river, when the new channel is deep enough and is brought into connection with it, should flow in it; — just as natural as if a similar change of channel were produced by some remarkable natural force or combination of forces. But suppose, now, that such a change were to be effected miractdoiLshj by divine power. How are we to conceive the act ? If the alteration of the channel were suddenly produced by an earthquake, or a meteorite, or by some other such agency, we should still say that the phenomenon, however startling or mysterious, is after all a natural, and not a miraculous, event. If God is to produce the effect miraculously by means of any natural force, he must do it by causing this force to operate otherwise than in a natural way. If, for example, an earth- quake is made to take place where or when it would not take place under the normal and natural working of natural forces, why, then the force which intensifies or accelerates the operation of the natural agencies cannot itself be a natural force ; it must be a supernatural force. And so we gain nothing MIRACLES DEFINED. 117 by the hypothesis that in a miracle natural ageucias are made use of. If the elements by which the wine was produced at Cana were miraculously brought together from the surround- ing atmosphere, this bringing of them together is just the thing to be accounted for. If human ingenuity should succeed in inventing a way by which the wine-producing elements of eartli and air could be suddenly brouglit together, the combination would have to be effected by calling into service natural forces. It could not be done by a mere volition. Tlie natural forces could be made to operate in a difierent direction from wliat they would if left to themselves ; but they would still be themselves. Their essential nature would not be changed. If now the same holds true of God ; if in produc- ing a so-called miracle he is absolutely limited to the use and manipulation of substances and forces that already belong to the system of nature ; if the essence of the miracle consists only in a hitherto unobserved combination of forces already operative, — then it becomes a puzzling question, by what right any event is designated a miracle at all. For the combinations of physi- cal forces are constantly varying. Every phenomenon which is not exactly a repetition of some other may be said to be the result of a new combination of natural forces. Nearly every- thing that happens would be miraculous, if the mark of the miraculous is novelty. The weather of no one day is exactly like that of any other day. The play of motion in the water of a cataract is perpetually changing. Every individual tree or animal has features of its own, the result of new combinations of physical forces. But these peculiarities of individuation are by no one called miraculous. Nor are the more rare and start- ling phenomena of nature called miraculous, even though they are unparalleled and inexplicable. The peculiar hue of the western evening sky which began to appear somewhat suddenly in the autumn of 1883, and continued for two or three years, has never been explained, and perhaps never will be ; but it is not pronounced miraculous ; it is assumed that it was the result of natural agencies acting according to natural law, although beyond the reach of human research. The new phenomena which result from the new combinations are supposed to be 118 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. the necessary effect of physical forces whose nature and mode of operation have been eternally prescribed by the Creator. Neither newness, nor strangeness, nor inexplicableness, there- fore, constitutes an event miraculous. What then is it which warrants us in calling any event a miracle ? When we are told that miracles are phenomena wrought " by means of the gen- eral forces of nature," though not to be explained from them alone ; when it is intimated that God, as " the great Geometer and Mechanic," so manipulates " the threads of the complex of nature " as to bring about an occurrence which is to be dis- tinguished from the ordinary ones that can be explained from the general forces of nature alone, — we must ask, WJiat is that force wliich modifies the forces of nature so as to bring about the exceptional, the miraculous result ? And if it is a force of nature not acting according to its own laws, then this deviation from its normal course of action must be ascribed to a supernatural force; and tit is is what constitutes the anoma- lous action a miracle. That which produces the deviation can- not be itself one of the forces of nature acting according to its own laws. Gloatz himself speaks of it as " a neivUj mani- fested causality of God." ^ Plainly it must be such. And if it is a newly manifested causality, then it must be an agency distinct from the natural action of natural forces ; that is, it must be an immediate and supernatural exercise of divine power. But may this divine power produce an effect in nature with- out making use of natural forces ? Why not ? Human agents are indeed obliged to depend on the laws and forces of na- ture when they undertake to modify the course of nature. A man who lifts a stone does not abolish the force of gravitation, nor does he create any new physical force ; but he avails himself of natural forces in order to produce a movement which other- wise would not take place. But is God limited in the same way ? Men can manipulate natural forces ; but they must do it by means of the forces of their own physical system. God has no physical body whose arms and fingers can be thrust in here and there to modify or check the operation of his nat- ural forces. Is he then more limited than man ? Could not ^ JFuiider UikI Natiirgeselz (in Stadien und KrUikcii, ISSfi), p. 543. AUUACLKS DKKINEI). 119 God cause a stone to rise up from the eartli without the use of muscles or any other physical instrument? If it is said tliat he might do this by means of some already existent natural force, then we have this dilemma : If the natural force which raises the stone operates nutiiralhj, say, as when a volcano hurls stones upward, then there is no miracle. If, however, in order to raise a stone miraculously, some natural force is specially diverted from its normal sphere and m(xl» of opera- tion, that is, is made to act umiatitralli/, or sitpcmntiiralli/, then there comes back the question above raised. What is the force which causes tliis exceptional working of the natural force ? It cannT)t be another natural force working naturally ; and if it is another working unnaturally or superuaturally, then the ques- tion recurs. What is the cause of that exceptional effect ? And so we are driven to the absurd assumption of an infinite series in order to substantiate a miracle, unless we simply assume that God, ivithout the use of a physical force, produces excep- tional effects in the physical universe. The distinction between absolute and relative miracles is, therefore, untenable. Whether actual miracles shall be called absolute or relative, is a mere matter of definition. If an ab- solute miracle is one which involves the suspension or tem- porary abolition of all the laws of nature, then all miracles can be only relative ones. But if an absolute miracle is one which i^ produced by a direct exercise of divine power, superadded to tlie forces of nature, then all real miracles are absolute ones. With regard to such things as the plagues of Egypt, which seem to have been only an intensification of ordinary and natural phenomena, if they were miraculous at all, they were such by virtue of a special divine power intensifying the opera- tion of the natural causes. In other words, the natural forces were not left to be controlled by nature. But as soon as we make this supposition, we assume a miracle in the strictest sense of the word. If the swarms of lice or of flies were ordinary as to kind, but only extraordinary as to degree, the question to be answered is simply this : Was the exceptional character of the plagues purely natural, just as we assume the occasional extraordinary prevalence of grasshoppers to be now- 120 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. a-days ? Or was it caused by a special intervention of divine agency for the purpose of producing a special result ? One can take what view he pleases : one may deny the credibility of the narrative ; one may eliminate from it all that seems to attest a supernatural agency ; but one cannot do this and at the same time properly call the occurrences miraculous. The alter- native is sharp and clear: If the forces of nature, operating undisturbetl by special supernatural intervention, produced those plagues, then they were not miracles in any sense. If, on the other handj the peculiar character of the plagues was due to a special interposition of divine agency, then a miracle took place, in as true and emphatic a sense of the term as if the waters of the Nile had suddenly begun to turn back and flow up hill towards the south, or as if an entirely new species of insects had been created and let loose on the Egyptians. In a lax and improper sense the term "miracle" may be applied to certain striking occurrences or coincidences, while yet there may not be reason to assume a special supernatural intervention. If one choose to call such events miracles in a relative sense, no harm is done, provided a careful distinction is maintained be- tween them and miracles proper. It is obvious, however, that the events in question are such as might be called wonderful by some, and not at all by others. What are called providential events — occurrences which have a striking and important bear- ing on the character and life of an individual — become such to the individual by virtue of their peculiar relation to his cir- cumstances or feelings. To others the events may be in no sense remarkable. The peculiarity of the events does not con- sist in themselves, — in their relation to divine causation or to natural laws, — but in their accidental relation to the individ- ual's circumstances. It is manifest that, according to what is called the law of chance, such coincidences must be numerous. It depends, moreover, wholly on the mood of the individual whether the events which he experiences shall be called provi- dential or not. Some men, of a lively and impressible tem- perament, may find special suggestions and lessons in almost everything ; others, of a more stolid make-up, find nothing specially impressive. To make these subjective impressions MIRACLES DEFINED, III constitute the essence of the miraculous (as is done by Ritschl and his school), is a caricature of the doctrine of miracles. If this is all there is in a miracle, then there are no miracles in the genuine sense at all. The question of so-called special providences is one respecting the philosophy of which there will probably always be doubt and diverse opinions. If these providences acquire their special significance solely from their accidental relation to individual circumstances, and are of themselves as purely the normal result of the ordinary forces of nature as anything else that happens, then the specialness consists merely in the chance co- incidence, and there is nothing in any sense miraculous about them. And there is, generally speaking, no just ground for assuming any special divine intervention in the case of so- called special providences. Rut there have been some events in which the providential lesson seems so striking, and the coincidence so improl)able, if regarded as purely the result of the natural working of ordinary forces, tliat tlie hypothesis of some kind of special divine arrangement will always seem plausible. Here belongs also the question of answers to prayer. If specific prayers are answered, does the answer involve a mira- cle ? Or is there some other way of explaining the facts, yet without denying that prayers are veritably answered ? There are at least two admissible suppositions. (1) The universe, with all the working of its natural forces, may from eternity have been adjusted with reference to the foreknown prayers that w^ere to be answered. In this case, the natural operation of things brings about the accomplishment of the thing asked for. The answer to the prayer is as real as if effected by a supernatural and special interruption of the ordinary course of nature. The event which constitutes the answer may be in itself no more marvellous than many others which occur. For example, when Luther prayed for the life of Melanchthon, and IMelanchthon recovered, though he had seemed to be at the point of death, the recovery, though striking, was not more remarkable in itself than many others which have taken place after all hope of recovery had vanished. The remarkableness 122 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. consists, in the case specified, only in the coincidence between the recovery and the fervent prayer. It cannot be proved that any law of nature was disturbed or diverted in its operation; but it may be supposed that nature was eternally constituted with reference to the accomplishment of the thing to be prayed for. Or (2) it may be supposed, as Dr. Chalmers ^ conceived, that the answer is effected by a divine influence wrought on the invisible and untraceable powers of nature, while yet to all visible appearance the uniformity of nature remains undis- turbed. " It may be not by an act of intervention among those near and visible causes where intervention would be a miracle ; it may be by an unseen but not less effectual act of interven- tion among the remote and occult causes, that he adapts him- self to the various wants and meets the various petitions of his children." No one can controvert such a hypothesis; for no one is able to trace out the concatenation of causes that result in the production of any given event. An answer to prayer brought about by such a method would differ from a miracle commonly so called only in its not being palpable to human senses that an intervention had taken place. It would, how- ever, be essentially as miraculous as an intervention occurring in some one of " the wonted successions that are known to take place." This hypothesis differs from the first one in that it represents God as in a sense changeable, constantly modifying his activity in accordance with the contingency of human volitions and desires. Whatever may be thought respecting the method of CJod's providential working with reference to such cases, they differ materially from the palpable miracles wrought in connection with special revelations of the divine will. The latter must be regarded as attributable to a special divine agency distinct from the natural forces of the material universe. In conclusion, we may remark that, notwithstanding the many infelicities and inconsistencies in the definition of miracles, there has been, after all, no great diversity in intention and in fact. A miracle has by Christian thinkers been generally regarded as a 1 111 a scnnou on The Efficacy of Prai/er consistent with the Unifurmity of Nature. MIRACLES DEFINED. 123 work wrouglit by special supernatural intervention, and serving to attest the reality of a divine revelation. But tins starts another ([uestion which requires to be con- sidered : What is the use of miracles ? Have they any evidential value ? 124 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. CHAPTER V. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIEACLES. "VTO tlioughtful man can ever have any interest in trying to ■^ ^ prove the fact of miracles, unless he antecedently assumes that miracles are useful and needful. And the common opinion concerning their use has been that miraculous works have served to attest the divine commission of men (and especially of Jesus Christ) who have professed to be the organs of a revelation from God. The argument, briefly stated, is this : The mere 'profession which a man might make, that he is a special mes- senger of divine truth, would be of itself no sufficient proof that he is such. Men may make false pretensions ; they may aim to deceive others, or may even deceive themselves.^ As a safeguard against such deceptions, and as essential to a full proof of the reality of a special revelation of the divine mind, there is need of ^oimQ palpahle mark of divine attestation .^ An inward inspiration may be sufficient to convince the messenger himself that he has been charged with a special message; but this inward experience cannot of itself serve to others as a proof of one's divine commission ; for they can know of it only as he affirms it ; and knowing the possibility of inten- tional or unintentional deception, and considering the general presumption against the truth of any such affirmation, they must regard his mere assertion as no sufficient proof of the truth of the thing affirmed. If, however, his assertion is ac- companied by the exertion of supernatural power, they have the additional evidence needed that God himself has accredited him as a special messenger. The argument presupposes belief in the existence of a God — a personal God — and a personal God disposed and able to ^ Cf. Donier, Chrhtian Doctrine, \ .5.5. 2 Cf. Pres. J. II. Seclje, ou Miracles (lii Bosloti Lechires, 1870, pp. 207 sqq.). IIIK KVU^ENTIAL VALUE UF MIRACLES. 125 make himself known by means of a special revelation. A miracle cannot demonstrate the existence of God to an atheist. To him any strange or exceptional occurrence can only be what the tricks of the juggler or lusus naturce are to all men, — sim- ply observed facts, which are presumed to be produced by some force of nature, however unknown or rarely operative.^ It is scarcely less clear that miracles can have evidential force only to one who assumes the need and antecedent proba- bility of a divine revelation. Even a theist — especially if pantheistically or deistically inclined — may hold that there is no need of any special self-manifestation of God; that nature and the human intuitions afford a sufficient disclosure of the divine nature and will. Whoever so thinks cannot believe in miracles ; for to believe in them would imply to him that God acts irregularly for no worthy purpose ; that he acts capriciously ; that he acts, as it were, the part of a juggler. To him, as to the pure atheist, strange and inexplicable events would be sim- ply strange and inexplicable, as many things are and must be to all men. They could not prove to him that the man through whom they seem to be wrought is a prophet bearing a revelation. If, nevertlieless, men professing atheistic views have sometimes been led by the evidence of miracles to a belief in God and revelation, it must have been because they were not thorough and radical in their disbelief, but had tendencies and suscep- tibilities of which they may themselves scarcely have been conscious, and which prepared them to welcome the evidence that God had indeed made his existence and his will manifest. Apart, however, from men of this class the evidential value of miracles is denied or questioned by many who are not ^ "Considered by itself, it [a miracle] is at most hut tlio token of a super- human being. Hence, though an additional instance, it is not a distinct species of evidence for a Creator from that contained in the general marks of order and design in the universe. A proof drawn from an interruption in the course of nature is in the same line of argument as one deduced from the existence of that course, and in point of cogency is inferior to it. ... A miracle is no argument to one who is deliberately, and on principle, an atheist." — J. H. Kcwman, Two Esaai/s on Miracles, pp. 10, 11, 2d ed. Cf. Warington, Ca7i we believe in Miracles.'' p. 219. 126 SUrERNATURAL REVELATION. only tlieists, but professed Christians. The doubt takes some- ^vhat this form : At the best a miracle is an event which re- quires peculiarly strong evidence before its own reality can be accepted. lUit even if the fact of one is made probable, still it is nothing in itself but an outward physical phenomenon ; it may, for aught we know, and as seems indeed to be afiirmed in the Bible, be wrought by demoniacal as well as by divine power. The mere fact of a miracle, therefore, at the best proves nothing more than the exercise of an extraordinary or superhuman power; it does not prove that the worker com- municates divine and infallible truth. We must know about the character and doctrines of the miracle-worker, before we can commit ourselves implicitly to him. We must trust him, before we can trust his miracles. It being easy to pro- duce the appearance of something miraculous without the re- ality of it, we may properly doubt the genuineness of the miracles so long as we have no assurance of the trustworthiness of the person. Consequently the miracles, even if proved, do no good ; for they are proved genuine only as we presuppose the trustworthiness of the man who professes to work them ; but if tliis trustworthiness is assumed, then the miracles are not needed. The doctrine proves the miracle, not the miracle the doctrine. Miracles are, therefoi"e, useless if real; but be- ing useless, they are presumptively not real. Many strenuous defenders of the reality of miracles, how- ever, assume, though in a modified form, an attitude of doubt concerning the evidential value of miracles.^ In its least objectionable form it is to be found in such men as Arch- bishop Trench, who says : ^ "A miracle does not prove ^ Vide, e. q., Kostliii, Die Frage iiber das Wuiider, in the Jahrbikher filr deutsche Thcolor/ie, 18G4. "Who would liope," he sa^-s (p. 206), "in dealing \vit,h the unbelief of the present day, which rejects the fundamental truths of the Bible respecting the living God and Christ the Kedeemcr, to be able first to bring the unbeliever to a conviction of the historical reality of the story of the Bible miracles, and thence to lead him on to accept those fundamental truths ? " Cf. James Preenian Clarke, Orthodoxy, lis Truflu^ and Errors, pp. 68 sqq. Bishop Lightfoot {Chrlstianify iti Relation to Skeptlrmn, Report of the 2 Notes on Miracles, p. 27, od. 13. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 127 tlie truth of a doctrine, or the divine mission of him that brings it to pass . . . The doctrine must first commend it- self to the conscience as being good, and only then can the miracle seal it as divine.'' Later, however, when he takes up more particularly the evidential worth of miracles, he says : ^ " Are then, it may be asked, the miracles to occupy no place at all in the array of proofs for the certainty of the things which we have believed ? So far from this, a most important place. Our loss would be irreparable, if they were absent from our sacred history." He then goes on to say of Christ's miracles that they are not, what Lessing would have them, a part of the scaffolding of revelation. " They are rather," he says, " a con- stitutive element of the revelation of God in Christ. We could not conceive of Him as not doing such works." This concep- tion of the miraculous in Christianity is a common one at present among theological and apologetic writers. Thomas Arnold of Rugby, comparing the Biblical miracles with those alleged to have occurred in modern times, says ^ that " miracles were but the natural accompaniments, if I may so speak, of the Christian revelation ; accompaniments, the absence of which would have been far more wonderful than their presence. This, as I may almost call it, this a jJt'iori probability in favor of the miracles of the Gospel cannot be .said to exist in favor of those of later history." And later on he says : ^ " Miracles must not Cliurch Congress held in Nottingham, 1871, p. 78), regards the evidence from miraeles as varying according to the intellectual characteristics of different ages. At first, he says, they were of subordinate use because the miraculous and even the magical were too readily believed. Afterwards when the idea of regular seqnence became current, the evidence from miracles was forcible ; " but as the idea of law still further prevails, and prevailing overpowers the mind, from being a special eviilence they become a special objection, themselves needing extraordinary testimony to establish their truth." ^ Noies on Miracles, pp. 99, 100. ^ Lectures on Modern History, p. 133. Cf. Dorner, Si/stera of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 182 ; G. P. Fisher, Supernatural Orir/in of Christianity, p. 509 ; Alexander Mair, Studies in the Christian Evidences, p. 192. 8 Ibid., p. 137. Similarly, S. T. Coleridge, The Friend, vol. ii. p. 112, II. N. Coleridge's ed. So F. D. Maurice, Kingdom of Christ, vol. ii. p. 209, 3d cd. " Either the strange stories spoken of are in accordance with the Scrip- tural idea of the Founder of a spiritual and universal kingdom, or they are not. 128 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. be allowed to overrule the Gospel ; for it is only through our belief in the Gospel that we accord our belief to them." But Baden Powell goes considerably farther when, after a discus- sion of this question, he concludes : " If miracles were, in the estimation of a former age, among the chief supports of Christi- anity, they are at present among the main dijficulties and hinderances to its acceptance." ^ The question before us may be put in this form : Is the de- cisive evidence for Christianity independent of the alleged mir- acles, so that one may be a good Christian with or without faith in the miracles ? Or, vice versa, does faith in Christian- ity depend on antecedent faith in the reality of the miracles? (3r, finally, shall we adopt a middle course, and say, with Pascal, that the miracles prove the doctrine, and the doctrine proves the miracles ? I. Is then faith in miracles a matter of indifference ? It can- not be questioned that nowadays there is in many, even sin- cerely Christian, minds a strong tendency to take this view. The intrinsic improbability of supernatural occurrences ; the great number of spurious or doubtful miracles ; the problem pre- sented by the swarm of pretended, and often well-attested, ecclesiastical miracles ; ^ the absence of any necessary connec- ir they are not, no evidence whatever could establish the authenticity of the document containing them; for they would be self-contradictory; we should be bound to reject them because we believe in Jesus Christ, the Sou of God. Ou the other hand, if they are, we should require evidence to account for their omission in any record professing to contain the history of such a person." 1 Essa7/s and Reviews, p. 158 (New York, 1874). Cf. Sterling, Essap and Tales, vol. ii. p. 121 ; Eenan, Life of Jesus, p. 189. "If ever the worship of Jesus loses its hold upon mankind, it will be precisely on account of those acts which originally inspired belief in him." 2 Such as Constantine's vision, the Port Royal miracles, and the modern in- stances of alleged miraculous healing in answer to prayer. Vide J. H. Newman's Tico Essays, essay ii., who defends the genuineness of ecclesi- astical miracles (though the book was written before he became a Romanist), and G. P. Fisher, Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, chap, x., who takes tbe opposite ground. Tholuck, JJeber die Wunder der katholischen Kirche (Part I. of his Vermischte Schriften), favors the notion of a gradual disap- pearance of the apostolic charismata. Christlieb, Modern Donht and Christian Belief, pp. 330 sqq., takes the ground that miracles do occur nowadays, THE EVIDKNTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 120 tion between physical marvels and spiritual truth, — all this prepossesses the mind against miracles in general. And if, nevertheless, the fact of their occurrence is admitted on the strength of Biljlical testimony, the admission is a reluctant one. It is this state of mind which has given rise to the judgment frequently expressed, that nowadays Christianity is believed in, not because of, but in spite of, the miracles.^ The spiritual as- pects of Christianity are held to be the thing of chief concern ; and it is felt to be a burden rather than a help to have to ac- cept, along with tlie moral and religious teachings of the lUble, all those stories of marvelous occurrences for which there seems to have been no occasion, and which now expose Chris- tianity to the ridicule of naturalists. We may here distinguish three classes. First, there are those whose disinclination to believe in miracles amounts to virtual, or even avowed, disbelief, while still they profess to hold to all that is essential in Christianity. This class is represented by such men as Pfleiderer and Lipsius in Germany, Matthew Arnold, W. E, Greg, and E. A. Abbott in England.^ Another class may be called agnostics as regards miracles. They would leave it an open question what miracles are, and whether they really occurred in the sense commonly attached to them. The use of them is often declared to have been con- fined to the time of their occurrence, so that to us of the present day it is of no practical importance to believe in them, or to hold any definite theory concerning them. In this class, though by no means all taking precisely the same ground, are to be especially on iiiissiou grouml. So Bushnell, Nature ami the Supernatural^ chap. xiv. ^ A terse forui of expression, perliaps derived ori2;in:dly from J. J. Rous- seau, who ill liis Letters from tlie Moio/fains (letter III., vol. ix. j). 77, of his works, Edinburgh, 1774), says, " I know not well what these our fashionable good Christians think in their hearts ; but if they believe in Christ on account of his miracles, I, for my part, believe in him in spite of his miracles." ^ 0. Pfleiderer, Religionsphilosophie, 2d ed. R. A. Lipsius, Ldirljuch der eoangelisch-protextuntischen Dogmatik. Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma. W. R. Greg, The Creed of Christendom. E. A. Abbott, The Kernel and the Husk, l^hilochristus. (The authorship of these two last mentioned works, though llicy arc published as anonymous, is an open secret.) 9 130 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. reckuiieil such men as Ritsclil and his school in Clermany, Baden rowell and J. K. Seeley in England, Athanase J. Co- querel and F. Pecaut in France,^ and F. H. Hedge in the United States.^ Thirdly, there are those who accept the fact of the miracles unreservedly, but do so simply because their general faith in the Christian religion seems to necessitate it. The modern rationalistic school in Germany (Pfleiderer, Lipsius, Biedermann, etc.) and the Eitschl school are strenu- ously opposed to each other ; but respecting miracles they come by a different process to a similar result. The ration- alists, who believe in the value of metaphysical specula- tion, question or reject miracles because of the philosophical difficulties they involve. The Ritschlites, who repudiate meta- physics, ignore or subordinate the question of miracles because the definition and discussion of them lead to metaphysical sub- tleties. Both agree that they constitute no important part, if in- deed any part, of real Christianity. Both agree in reducing the supernatural either to a minimum or to a nonentity. The two schools, in their several wings, even overlap one another in this respect. Rationalists, like Keim, admit the reality of Christ's resurrection,^ while Eitschlites, like Bender, question or deny it. 1 Baden Powell, The Order of Nature, Study of the Evidences of ChrUtian- ity (ill Essays and Reviews). J. R. Seelej, Natural Religion. In his Ecce Homo lie was less skeptical. A. J. Coquerel, Quelle etait la Religion de Jesus? In the sixth of these discourses, Coquerel says (p. 42) : "Be Christians, and believe in miracles, if you find them real and if they are useful to you. Be Christians without the miracles, if they bring the least obstacle, the least shadow, to your piety and your faith. But be Christians." Felix Pecaut, Le Christ et la Consrience (1859), p. 416, "The question of miracles is very o))scJire ; ... I do not pretend to judge it definitively." In his later work, Le Christianisme Liberal et le Miracle (18G9), he seems to be more pronounced in the rejection of all miracles. 2 F. H. Hedge, The Mythical Element in the New Testament (one of the essays in Christianity and Modern Thought, Boston, 1873), Reason in Religion (Boston, 1867). 3 Geschichte Jesu, 2d ed. pp. 358 sqq., Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, vol. iii. pp. 600 sqq. Keim does not indeed distinctly call the resurrection (or rather the reappearance) of Jesus supernatural, but he rejects emphatically the ordi- nary " natural " explanations. Professor Bi'uder, though disowned by Ritschl THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE UF MIRACLES. 131 There is something plausible and insinuating in the agnostic ground which is taken respecting the supernatural in its rela- tion to Christianity. It professes to exalt the spiritual and vital elements as contrasted with what is simply external, physical, and accidental. Standing on this ground one can say : The origin of Christianity lies so far back that it is impossible to learn with certainty the exact character of the phenomena which accompanied its introduction. The miracles may have been dif- ferent in fact from what they are made to appear in the narra- tives as transmitted to us. At all events, without troubling ourselves to prove or disprove the fact of miracles, or even to define what they are, we do most wisely to leave this whole domain undetined, especially as the essence of Christianity is something entirely different from these outward phenomena. We cannot but recognize Christianity as a beneficent institution ; but whether there was anything supernatural in Jesus or in his disciples, it is immaterial to know. The facts of history prove the superiority of the Christian religion to all others. That which is moral and spiritual in it is impregnalde by virtue of its own intrinsic merit. Why should we weaken our position by making the validity of the claims of the Gospel depend on the validity of the argument for miracles, and thus run the risk of losing the main good in trying to rescile what at the best is a mere accessory ? Wliatever may have been the origi- nal fact, even though we may suppose that the miracles served a useful purpose at the outset, they are too remote and obscure to serve such a purpose any longer.^ now, was one of his disciples, and lias ouly carried out to the extreme the les- sons which he learned. ^ Says Lcssing, Theol. Streilsrhnften {Ueber den Beiceis dcs Geisies uiid der Kraft), " If I had seen him [Jesus] work miracles, and had had no reason to doubt that they \^tf3re true miracles, I should certainly liave felt so much confidence in the miracle- worker that I should willingly have yielded my un- derstanding to his, and should have believed him in everything in so far as experiences just as indubitable were not opposed to him." And Schleier- maclier (Der chrisfliclic Glaiile, vol. ii. p. 125, 5th cd.) says, "Though the true acknowledgment of Christ in individual cases may have been occasioned by miracles, . . . they must be, with refereuce to our faith, wholly super- fluous." Essentially the same view is found in G. H. Curteis's Scientific Obstacles to Christian Belief, pp. 81-88. 132 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. Plausible as tliis may sound, it is not difficult to show its essential inconsistency with a genuine faith in Christianity. Not but that one who takes this position may be a real Chris- tian. But it is a position intrinsically self-contradictory, and logically tends to a positive rejection of the distinctive claims of Christianity. For, 1. This view of miracles conflicts with a sincere faith in Christianity as being a special revelation. The term " revela- tion " is indeed freely used by thinkers of this class. But the meaning which it has always borne in theological use is dis- carded. It has always carried with it the idea of a special, historical, supernatural communication. But writers belong- ing to the first class above mentioned now use the term quite differently. Eeligion is defined as correlative to revelation. As Lipsius puts it, " The divine factor in the religious relation, or God's relation to the human spirit, is revelation ; the human factor, or man's relation to God, is religion."^ In other words, wherever there is religion there is revelation. Of course " rev- elation " here entirely loses its traditional sense of something special, and is made to denote a universal and constant tiling. The right to use old terms in a new or modified sense need not be contested, especially if the deviation is distinctly recog- nized and stated. But where the deviation is great and radical, there should be some urgent reason for using the old term rather than some other whose current meaning would better express the sense intended. Otherwise a suspicion can hardly be suppressed, that the design is to avoid opprobrium by using words which sound orthodox, but which are used in a radically different sense from the ordinary one. These writers profess to discard the older rationalism, and even repudiate the name " rationalist;" and it is one character- istic of their deviation from the older ratioiialism, that they emphasize this divine revelation made to all mankind. But the difference is in words more than in fact. The older ration- alists emphasized the authority of the individual reason as the ultimate source and arbiter of religious truth. The modern rationalists emphasize the reality of a reciprocal relation between ^ Dogmatik, § 52. Tin: i.\ii)i:ni lAL vaj.lk of mikaclks. 1;^} God and man. Tim former, in tluiir fear of supernaturalism, , tended to hold that no individuals ever were the recipients of special divine influences; the latter, in their fear of supernatu- ralism, are 'careful to insist that all individuals are more or less the recipients (;f divine influences. But practically the upshot is the same in the two cases. According to the older rational- ists, what men naturally came to believe by the use of their own reason they came to believe by virtue of the reason wliicli (iod had implanted in them. Indirectly, if not directly, ut the power to sit in judgment on the revelatory character of other men implies that each must regard himself as the ultimate authority, since all are revealers in the same sense. We may admit others to have had more religious genius than ourselves, but how far their impulses were healthy we must each decide for ourselves ; and this decision is a part, and to us an all-important part, of the religious revelation of the world. In short, according to the theory under consideration, there is no really authoritative revelation ; every man is ultimately a law to himself ; and " revelation " is only a name to cover up tlie negation of all revelation in the only honest sense of that term. This is made all the clearer when we observe that just this class of thinkers recognize and emphasize the gradual de- velopment of religious knowledge and sentiment. But this makes their use of the term "revelation" doubly reprehen- sible. They speak of revelation as a universal prerogative of mankind, in so far as men are religious. Yet they also lay stress on the fact that religious beliefs are transmitted from one generation to another. Now liow are these two proposi- tions to be adjusted to each other ? It is an obvious fact that eily only immediate, lie says, that "this distinction served a good purpose, being, as it were, the protecting a'gis, under wliich in modern times rational- ism developed itself, — an innocent-appearing middle term, which concealed the complete divergence of rationalism from snpernatnralism, until the weak eye accustomed itself to the clearer light." It would seem as if history were going to repeat itself, only that now the term "mediate" is less current. 138 SLTEKXATURAL KEVELATION. religion is in reality mostly a matter of tradition. What a man believes is not the product of his own independent think- ing or instincts, but rather of the communications which have come to him from other men. Undoubtedly we may properly speak of the religious impulse ; but it would be a gross misrep- resentation of obvious facts to speak as if each individual were in any important degree the author or source of his own re- ligion. It is true, the individual cannot in the strictest sense make a belief his own without an independent act. But in most cases this independent act is nothing but a mere adoption, on trust, of what others recommend ; there is no intelligent and independent testing of the doctrine. And even when there seems to be independent thought, and a man breaks away from his immediate surroundings, and repudiates the teachings which he has received, still in no case does this take place wholly without the influence of other minds. A certain contingent must indeed be contributed by the individual. The gradual in- crease of knowledge and the widening of human thought would be impossible, if nothing sprang up in any mind which had not, in just the same form, come from some other mind. But the originality itself is developed only through the stimulus given by others, and is an elaboration and modification of the ideas which have been communicated, rather than an origination of new ones. The general fact remains, that the bulk of what is known and believed is a contribution from others and is ac- cepted almost implicitly. It therefore grossly exaggerates the importance of individual reflection to speak of all men as hav- ing, each for himself, a divine revelation. Aside from the inaccu- racy of the word used, as applied to the religious cogitations or feelings of ordinary individuals, an utterly wrong impression is made as to the origin of the religious thoughts themselves. They are not only no revelations from God in the proper sense of that term, but they are not thoughts which the individual has evolved independently out of his own mind. They are simply a commonwealth of sentiments which he inherits and which he shares with his fellows. Now the doctrine in question really admits this, in that it lays stress on the necessity of a progressive development. Even THE KVIDEXTIAL V^ALUE OF MIRACLES. 139 Jesus' religious impressions are declared not to be strictly original ; he received the substance of his doctrines, we are told, from the Hebrew prophets. Much more, then, must it be said of oij.linary men, that the revelation which they receive is after all only the knowledge, or the notions, which they derive from their elders. But in so far as this is admitted, of course the notion of " revelation " even in the loose sense which this school gives to it, fades away into something akin to nonsense. The term can at the best, on this view of things, be applicable only to the new contributions which certain gifted individuals make to the religious knowledge or sentiments of the world. But this cannot be reconciled with that other statement, that wher- ever there is a healthy religious im})ulse there is a revelation, or with the still more sweeping statement, that religion and revela- tion are reciprocal terms, the one being as universal as the other. In short, there is an irreconcilable inconsistency in the use of the term " revelation," clearly betraying the fact that the real thing ordinarily and properly meant by it is not believed in. 2. The negative or agnostic attitude towards miracles leads to self-contradiction and confusion in the views concerninjj the uniqueness and authority of Jesus Christ. The special relation of Christ to revelation is left undetermined. In deference to naturalism it is assumed that he could have been nothing but a man, tliat he must have been begotten like other men, and that in his intellectual and moral life he must have been subject to the same laws of development as other men. But in deference to supernaturalism it is asserted that he was a unique man, that he attained a degree of moral excellence absolutely perfect, or at least so exceptionally exalted as to amount practically to a state of perfection. But how this uniqueness is to be conceived or accounted for is not stated. As being simply a man among the millions of men, he must on this theory be regarded as not having been radically different from others. The most that can be assumed concerning liim is that he had a superior genius in the direction of religion ; that he had a clearer view and a deeper feeling of certain truths than others had ; that he had the disposition and ability to set forth ethical and religious truth with peculiar force ; and that 140 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. ill his life be illustrated perfectly his own doctrines and pre- cepts. But if Jesus Christ is declared to be absolutely unique ; if it is said that he can have no superior and no rival ; if he is recognized as sustaining a permanent relation to all men who seek to hold fellowship with God, — why, then there must be some reason for such affirmations. But the reasons seem to be purely arbitrary on the naturalistic basis under consideration. If it is affirmed that Christ attained absolute perfection, the question at once arises, on what ground this is assumed. Now the rationalistic theory is essentially an evolutionary one. Progress, according to it, must be successive and contin- uous, each new step being an outgrowth of the past and the necessary condition of a further advance in the future. It is a violation of this principle to assume that Jesus in any sense completed the revelation of God or the dev^elopment of religious truth, — to assume that he revealed what can in any proper sense be termed the absolute or final religion. Such an as- sumption strikes the fundamental principle of the anti-super- naturalists directly in the face ; and it is only a subterfuge to attempt to hide the inconsistency under the vague phrase " mysteriousness," as characterizing Jesus' peculiar excellence. The mysteriousness may be ever so truly a fact ; but to say that Jesus' character is mysterious does not account for his ex- ceptional superiority ; it only asserts it. And the question comes back : On what ground is this uniqueness assumed to be a fact ? No metaphysical or physical principles or theories throw any light on the matter. No a 'priori considerations are adequate to make it appear that Jesus of Nazareth must have been worthy to found the universal religion. If one assumes such a uniqueness on Jesus' part, unless he does so without any reasons, in pure caprice, he must depend on historical evi- dence. And this involves, directly or indirectly, a judgment respecting the trustworthiness of the evangelical portraiture of Jesus' character and life. In reality whoever accepts Christ as an authoritative or unique leader does so primarily on the ground of traditional belief. This conception of Christ is handed down to him, and is first adopted on trust. And when he undertakes to examine and justify the belief, he can do no THE EVlDE^iTIAL VALUE OF MIKACLES. 141 more tliau analyze the grounds on which others before him have cherished it. And this leads necessarily to a considera- tion of the grounds on which in the first place this belief gained currency. And such an examination can have no other result than the assurance that the original belief was founded on a conviction that Jesus, in his person and works, was supernatur- alhj endowed. Pileiderer himself goes even su far as to affirm that, on account of the superstitions of those times, Christianity, or any new religion, " could hardly have made its entrance into the world " without the belief that it was accredited by miracu- lous events.^ There could be no more emphatic admission that Christ did in fact gain his unique power through the imjJression he made of being supernaturally endowed and commissioned. This is certainly the testimony of the only original witnesses and confessors. If this impression is pronounced a mistaken one, the unique gre.itness of Chri.st can now be still held only by a purely arbitrary act of faith resting ultimately on no valid ground whatever. But the unique spirituality of Jesus is not the only peculiar feature in him belief in which requires to be justified. Still more striking is the fact that he assumed an altogether unique autJioriti/ over men. And historic Christianity has always recognized this authority. Christ, according to all the records and traditions, appears to have assumed to be, in an altogether unique sense, the Son of God, and divinely commissioned to establish a kingdom of God in the world, of which he was himself to be the Head, entitled to issue commands and to exercise authority as tlie King over the church which was to be gathered together in his name. ' Religioiispliilosopli'u', p. iS?. Similarly ^Fr. Greg, after arguing that the resurrection ot Jesus did not really take place, says : " It seems to us certain that the Apostles believed in the resurrection of Jesus with absolute conviction- Nothing short of such a belief could have sustained them througli what they had to endure, or given lliem enthusiasm for wliat they had to do." Creed of Christendom, vol. ii. p. 154. Matthew Arnold {God and the Bi/jlr, p. 182, popular edition) has to come to the same conclusion: "Only in this way, through profound misapprehension, through itiauy crude hopes, under the stimulus of many illusions, could the method and secret, and something of the temper and sweet reason and balance, of Jesus be carried to the world." 142 .SUPERNATURAL REVELATION, Now tlie attempts made to present these things philosoph- ically may not always have been successfnl. Metaphysical snbtlety may have undertaken more tlian was possible to be accom})lished by way of setting forth the nature of Christ and the mode of the incarnation. But however inadequate these attempts may have been, it is even more certain that it is still less satisfactory to rest on a theory which simply ignores the essential problem to be solved. That problem is found in the question which the Jews themselves put to Jesus, " By what authority doest thou these things, and who gave thee this authority?" Even if one could be satisfied to believe that in some mysterious manner Jesus attained an altogether unex- ampled eminence in moral excellence, still it is unexplained how that alone could give him authority over others. His own doctrine (Luke xvii. 10) concerning obedience to the moral law was stated thus : " When ye shall have done all the things that are commanded you, say. We are unprofitable servants ; we have done that which it was our duty to do." The fact that Jesus was the first to render full obedience to the divine law makes him worthy of our respect and honor; but if he was merely one man among others, it does not appear that liis doing what all are under obligation to do gives him any authority over the rest. If he was a perfect man, it w\as simply because he perfectly fulfilled the law of God. l)Ut his fulfilling the law does not make him the author or executor of the law. If it did, then in case another man should also perfectly fulfil the law, we should have two heads of the kingdom of God. And when it is said that Jesus has a sort of supremacy because he was the first to attain perfec- tion, we can only say that the being first in time does not necessarily make him first in degree. EitschP says, "Jesus being the first to make real, in his personal life, the ultimate end of the kingdom of God, is therefore sui generis, because every one who should do his duty as perfectly as he did would yet be unequal to him, because dependent on him." But this is only one of the many obscurities which result from the at- ^ Vnlerriclit i/i der christlichen Religion, § 22. Quite similarly Lipsius, Dogmatik, p. 541. nil', KVIDKMIAI, \ AIJ K OK M1KA( I^KS. 14o tempt to avoid metaphysics.^ If Jesus, without a previous example of perfect obedience to fullovv, could rise to the height of perfect obedience, why may not some one else do the same, even witliout the knowledge and stimulus of his example? And though one should make this attainment partly under the stimulus of this example, it is still not clear how Christ's fidelity to duty gives him any autliurity or peculiar supremacy over all other men. The man who came at the eleventh hour received tlie same reward as the men wlio came early. If all who obey are on the same level of mere humanity and mere obligation to the divine law, then all who disobey are guilty each for himself, and all who obey obey each for himself; and all are alike responsible to the divine Euler alone. It is utterly impossible, on the mere ground of Jesus' peculiar moral excel- lence, to pronounce him entitled to any authority over other men. And his claim of authority, the assumption of a right to command, the assumption of a personal headship over a com- munity of followers, the requirement of faith in him as the prime prerequi.site of membership in the kingdom of God, — all this is inexplicable on the theory that there was nothing supernatural in Jesus, no superiority of nature, and no special commission more than any one else could have gained by simply doing what he ought to do. It is possible to imaghie ^ III liis Christliche Lehre von der Rechifcrtigung und Versbhiung, vol. iii. § IS, 1st ed., Kitsclil is more extended, but not move clear and satisfactory, ill his treatment of this point. He presents Christ's work under tlie point of view of an etliical vocation. All men liave such a vocation. But other men, even founders of religions, combined the religious vocation with civil aud social ones. Christ, however, combined with his no other one. " This fact is explained by the scope of the vocation to which he gave himself. For the vocation of the royal prophet to bring about tlie ethical dominion of God is the higlicst conceivable one among all vocations" (p. 3S9). Again, "Being the founder of the kingdom of God in the world, or the vehicle of God's moral doiniiiion over men, he is unique in comparison with all who have received from him the like end to live for. Consequently, he is that personage in the world in whose ultimate purpose God makes his own ultimate purpose effectual and manifest. His whole labor in fulfilling his vocation constitutes, therefore, the material of the revelation of God which is present and complete in him ; in otlier words, in hiui the Word of God is a human person." Ibkh, p. 393. 14-1 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. the physical miracles eliminated from the Gospel histories, it is possible to construct an expurgated history with these nar- ratives omitted or made " natural ; " but in that case we should be more than ever perplexed and staggered by these extra- ordinary assumptions of authority on the part of one who had done nothing except what he would have deserved to be pun- ished for not doing. Equal or greater obscurity and confusion appear in the at- tempt whicli Herrmann, Eitschl's disciple, makes to define the relation of Christ to Christians and the Christian Church. He says,^ " The source of religious knowledge is for us neither our morality nor any form of metaphysics, but revelation." The historical facts of Christianity are made to constitute the essence of the revelation. " Jesus Christ," we are told, " must be accounted by us as the final manifestation of the divine will to us."^ And not merely is Jesus declared to be an exception- ally excellent man, who first attained moral perfection and made known the divine love, but it is declared that " the ground of religious assurance is to be found nowhere but in him." ^ In this sense, as being the ground of our religious assurance, "Christ is the revelation. Our trust in God is constantly mediated by the view of him in whom we have discerned the decisive manifestation and illustration of the divine will to save"^ But when Herrmann takes up the question, "by what means Christ becomes to us a revelation or a saving fact," he discusses the evidence of miracles first, only to find in them no conclusive, or even weighty, proof. He says,^ " The discussion of the question, whether the evangelical accounts of miracles are trustworthy or not, is for the present task of theology wholly indifferent " His fundamental principle is that nothing can be really a miracle to us except facts which involve an expression of God's love to us individually. Although, he says, we are obliged to regard every event as " a product of nature the mediating causes of which point us into the endless," yet, ^ Die Religion im Verhdltrms zum Welterkennen und zitr Sittlichkeit, p. 365. 2 JIM., p. 367. "^ Jhicl, p. 380. « Ibid., pp. 382, 383. ^ Ibid., p. 383. TIllO EVIDENTIAL VAIAE OF MIKACLE8. 145 he adds, " it is possible for the Christian thankfully to recog- nize in events that keenly affect him miraculous deeds of God wrought on him, and to believe in the answering of his prayers." ^ This agrees with Eitschl's definition,^ " For us, miracles are those striking natural occurrences with which the experience of God's special help is connected." ^ In the metaphysical sense, of an act not occurring in accordance with natural laws, we can, it is said, not prove the impossibility of miracles, since we cannot know the extent of those laws. But, on the other hand, in so far as alleged or apparent facts have no religious significance, we cannot call them miracles. The wonderful things reported in the New Testament cannot be proved to be impossible ; yet, we are told, " we must demand of the theo- logian that he see that he has no right to call those facts miracles, unless he is conscious that they form a part of his own life, as proofs of the love of God to him." "^ Accordingly the resurrection of Christ, which Herrmann believes in, he accepts only as it verifies itself by its practical effect on the religions life. Faith in Christ, he says, must precede faith in the resurrection; and this event in his life only "exercises on us an undefinable influence wliirh, though it makes itself known in the mood of the believer, yet cannot be further analyzed ; and so a demonstration to others who do not so feel is cut off." 5 The motive underlying this theory, namely, the desire to vindi- cate to miracles a religious significance, is commendable ; but it leads to such a conception of miracles as practically dissolves them into non-miraculous events. Inasmuch as the most triv- ial occurrence may have a marked influence on a man's re- ^ Die Reliffioii im Verhdllniss znm Welterkennen und zur Sittlichkeit, p. 38i. 2 IJnterricht, etc. The idea is probably rlcrivcd from Sclileicrniaclicr. Vide liis Redeti iiber die Religion (Pi'uijcr's ed., 1S79), p. 115: "^liracle is the religious name for occurrence ; every occurrence, even the most natural and common, as soon as it is such that the religious view of it may be the dominant one, is a miracle." ^ See Excursus VII. « Die Relifjion, etc., pp. 386, 387. 5 Ihid., p. 388. 10 146 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. ligions mood, and it depends wholly on the man's own mood and judgment to determine whether the event is remarkable or not, it clearly follows that what is to one man a miracle is not one to another. In other words, an event is not a miracle by virtue of its relation to the divine causation, but by virtue of its rela- tion to the particular condition and conceptions of the individ- ual who considers it. Herrmann says expressly, " The mistake which cannot be sufficiently condemned [in the ordinary ortho- dox view of miracles] is that the essence of miracles is looked for in the causal connections of the event." ^ It is difficult to say whether the naivete or the audacity of this assertion is most to be nstonished at. When one undertakes to define a word, he is ordinarily supposed to undertake to tell what men in general mean by it. But Ritschl and his school calmly in- form us that what men generally mean by a miracle is not the true idea of a miracle at all, — that the true idea, in fact, is not understood except by Ritschl and his followers. The phenome- non thus presented is an extraordinary one. Generally when one undertakes to rectify the popular conception of a word, he is at least expected to retain something of the popular sense in his corrected definition ; otherwise the word itself should be aban- doned. If it is certain that no such objects as centaurs ever existed, then let us plainly say so, and not insist that, properly speaking, the centaur, instead of being the horse-man of ancient mythology, is nothing but the giraffe. Yet to do so would be quite as sensible as tlie manner in which the Ritschlites use the term " miracle." Miracles not only etymologically, but in popu- lar estimation, have always involved an element of the startling, — something to be wondered at, something aside from the natural and ordinary course of things. lUit if now a miracle is to be de- fined merely as an event in which we recognize God as blessing us, the element of wonderfulness, as well as the element of extra- ordinariness, is taken away. For according to the theology now under consideration, love is tlie one attribute of God which swallows up all others ; and that God sliould manifest his love, especially to those that love him, has in it nothing of the sur- prising ; it would be strange if it were otherwise. Moreover, ^ Die BeJif/ion, etc., p. .S8.5. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 147 according to the definition of niiraclt.'.s above given, miracles no longer belong to the category of rare things ; they are, rather, a part of the regular course of nature ; the more men live as they should, the more ought cccnj event to be to them a mu'acle, for God n)akes all things work together for good to them that love him.^ It is sufliciently self-evident that this effort to transfer the nniiu' miracle to something hitherto never meant by it, must share the fate of all similar quixotic undertakings. What it is important to know is how this school of thought stands related to tlie question, whether miracles, in the sense always current hitherto, really occurred. Here Herrmann unequivocally sides with the rationalistic school, assuming, as scarcely needing any argument, that all events are mediated by natural forces. He differs with them only in that he denies that any one is so well acquainted with the whole round of natural law as to be able to atHrni that any alleged event is outside of it. Accordingly the reported miracles of the IJible, improbable as they may seem, may yet be facts, only belonging to a higher order of nature than that with which we are familiar. We have previously (p. Ill) had occasion to treat of this (what may be called) Stras- burg-clock theory of miracles. The Eitschl form of the theory has one advantage over the other form of it, namely, that it does not make tHe essence of the miracle consist simply in the element of human ignorance, but emphasizes more the religious impressiveness of the miracle. But it labors under all the ob- jections which otherwise burden the hypothesis, besides the ^ Teiclimuller (ReliffionspJiilosopJiie, pp. 171 ■'^77., 10^.977.), though an oppo- nent of Ritsclil's theology, defines niiraclos in a very similar way. "The scat of the miracle rests in the religious interpretation, that is, in the un- derstanding of the believer," p. 173. "The believer in real miracles does not feel tiie slightest need of going into the question of natural laws, and pos- sesses, morever, no physical or psychological knowledge of the natural course of events," p. 174. " Miracles will take place as long as there are men in existence for whom they can take place, no matter at what time they may live," p. 192. In general Teichmiiller seems to liold that any so-called mirac- ulous event which wnrks wdl, as, for example, the resurrection of Christ (p. 180), or Paul's conversion, may be properly called miracles, whereas such stories as those of the raising of the young man and Lazarus " cannot be reckoned as miracles in the genuine aud strict sense," p. 224. 148 SUPEKNATURAL REVELATION. additional one, that a much wider door is opened to the work- ing of mere caprice in the definition and recognition of a mir- acle. Anything and everything may, on the Eitschl theory, be called a miracle; we cannot even define a miracle as something intrinsically fitted to produce a good impression ; the only test is the fact that it does produce it. At the same time this theory recognizes the inherent strangeness and improbability of cer- tain events which are called miraculous. It would relegate to scientific investigation all such facts or apparent facts. And if an event should be found to be both improbable in itself and also unedifying in a religious respect, then of course it would have to be pronounced no miracle, and probably also not a fact. In other words, the theory opens the door to unlimited license not only as regards the interpretation, but as regards the credi- bility, of the TUblical narratives of miracles. To be sure, Herr- mann himself admits the fact of Christ's resurrection, and perhaps some of the other reported miracles. But in doing so he involves himself in the greatest confusion. At one moment (pp. 3S4, 385) he assumes that all events are mediated by nat- ural causes ; at another (p. 388) he calls the resurrection of Christ as inexplicable as the creation of the world. But if it is assumed once for all that no event takes place without the medi- ation of physical forces, then every event is practically just as much, and just as little, explicable as every other. Some events may be more familiar than others ; but the causal connection which determines all that happens no one can see in any case. Only antecedents and consequents are seen. Therefore the resur- rection of Christ ought, on this view of things, no more to be singled out and called inexplicable than any other, even the most trivial, occurrences. They are all alike inexplicable in that we cannot detect the secret forces which connect the antecedent with the consequent ; they are all alike explicable in that natural forces are always assumed as in fact at work in producing the effects. The pioblem before us is, how those who assume this negative or agnostic attitude respecting miracles become convinced of the uniqueness and authority of Jesus Christ. His extraordinary works do not constitute the ground of the conviction. It is 11110 EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 149 not known whether any of these works were strictly miracu- lous or not ; but in any case, we are told, the alleged miracles of Christ "cannot be in themselves manifestations of God to us; for they gain for every one a religious significance only by the fact that they stand in connection with the person of Jesus." ^ But though there is unquestionably a certain truth in this, yet the assertion must hold equally of all the acts of Jesus, whether miraculous or not. And the question still remains, How do we come to a conviction of the uniqueness of Christ's person ? Why do wc ascribe to him a peculiar authority ? The mode of proof, if such it may be called, which is resorted to by the class of theologians now under consideration, is, as might be inferred from the foregoing, purely subjective. While despising all met- aphysical arguments, and while emphasizing the importance of the historical element in Christianity, they yet make one's personal experience the ultimate proof. Christ is called, with great emphasis, the Eevelation of God. " But," says the same author above quoted,^ " only that which delivers us from con- flict with evil, that is, lifts us out of our previous lost estate, makes on us the impression of something overwhelmingly new, — of a veritable revelation." " To the Christian," he says again,^ " revelation is the self-revelation of God, that is, the fact that God has overpowered him by an indisputable proof of his almighty love, and has changed him from an unhappy man to a cheerful and confident one." But this revelation comes from " the his- torical appearance of Jesus, which belongs as much to our own reality as the coat which we put on, and the house which we inhabit." * In our experience of trouble and of remorse " we can come to understand what there is wonderful and saving in the person of Jesus. That is, we perceive that he is the only part of the actual world which is not drawn down into this turbid confusion."^ This recognition of Jesus as sinless works, we are told, as a liberating force on us.^ ^ Herrmann, Z>/> Rrl if/ion, etc., p. 387. ^ In an essay entitled I)er Berjr'iff (h'r Offenbarung, read at a theological conference in Giessen, 1887, p. 6. 8 Ibid., p. 13. " Ibid., p. K). 6 Ibid., p. 20. ® Ibid., p. 22. VLDie Religion, etc., p. 391, where a similar line of thought 150 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. There is altogether too much obscurity and confusion of thouoht here for a system which makes large claims to being the only one worthy of adoption in the present day. Eevela- tion used to be regarded as a disclosure made concerning God, — liis character and his purposes. According to the above-given statement, revelation is nothing but a new experience within ourselves, — another name, in fact, for conversion or regenera- tion. The old conception of Christ as having a supernatural nature and commission is abandoned ; and the substitute for it is the obscure oracle, that the historical appearance of Jesus belongs as much to our own reality as the coat which we put on, or the house which we live in. Christ's uniqueness is affirmed. The more the old notion of his Deity is abandoned, the more diligently is the attribute of Deity ascribed to him. But when we ask what is meant by the attribute, we are told that it means that Jesus, in his life and teaching, so perfectly represented the divine character that he may be called divine. But it is added that, in whatever sense the appellation properly belongs to him, it belongs also to all men who, through faith in him, become the children of God.^ But in all this there is no recognition of Christ's aunwrity ; or if there is, there is no explanation of it which can satisfy either the representations of the Bible or the plain common sense of the Christian. Christ's uniqueness is made to consist solely in the fact that he was the first and only one who has realized in his life the principle of the divine love. By virtue of his perfect obedience he came to feel that he was called to found a kingdom, — a community of men who should aim to is found, only still more obscurely expressed. He there says, " The assurance of faith that his [Jesus'] willing and working is the Milling and working of God, is permeated with the moral necessity from which the consciousness of our freedom is born. The moral necessity of recognizing what be willed as of the highest worth, and therefore as the substance of the divine will, makes the faith a free act. . . . Becoming conscious of one's own freedom, and un- derstanding the end of Jesus' activity as the ultimate end to which we must conceive everything to be subject, — these two are one and the same thing." 1 Ritschl, Rec.htferligung, etc., vol. iii. p. 351. He refers to Athanasius's expression {Be inrarnatione verbi Dei, § 54), " He was made man that we might be made God." THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE Ol- MlKACl.h.S. 151 regulate their lives by the same principle. So far as appears, he received from God no clearly attested commission, and had no intrinsic riglit to exercise authority over others. The one peculiarity was his moral superiority over others, on the strength of which he found himself "called" to establish a kingdom of God on eartli. Ihit this leads us to consider more particularly another point. 3. The skeptical Christians, in their attempt to subordinate or eliminate the miraculous features of the Go.spel histories, vir- tually admit the greater miracles, while they deny the lesser ones. In acknowledging the fact of a special revelation, or of the sinlessness of Christ, one must acknowledge the fact of the miraculous. One may indeed ask: Cannot God make himself authoritatively known except by working a miracle ? Can he not reveal himself through chosen prophets who need no cre- dentials but the power and impressiveness of their own words ? Can there not be a real revelation which does not involve such a strain on intelligent minds as comes from the assumption of the disturbance of natural law ? Is the spiritual so dependent on the natural, or so indissolubly connected with it, that a rev- elation of spiritual truth need be accompanied by an interfer- ence with the order of nature ? We reply : The essential question is, whether there are special revelations or not. Let it be supposed that they are purely spir- itual ; yet if they are exceptional, that is, made at a particular time and to particular men as they are not to others, — made so as to be recognized by the recipients as something special to them, — made to be communicated by them as something authorita- tive to other men, — why, then all the difficulty which is urged against the ordinary view of revelation holds against this. If there is any sacredness or fixedness in physical law, the same tendency of mind which leads ns to assume this must lead us also to assume an equal fixedness in the operation of mental and spir- itual forces. If the supposed revelation infringes this fixed regularity of the mental world, then we have as real a miracle as when water is turned into wine by a word. The revelation would not be a sj^ecial revelation without in some way disturb- 152 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. ing the ordinary operation of spiritual forces. It would other- wise sini})ly be a revelation only in the loose sense, that all nature and all mind is a revelation of God. That is, the reve- lation, if such it could be called, would be something continuous and universal, such as every mind can perceive, and every mind may be an organ of. In other words, it would not be a revela- tion in any distinctive sense at all. If, however, the revelation is to be genuinely special, and yet purely spiritual, that is, if it is to consist in an extraordinary operation of the divine spirit on the human spirit, then that is simply to say that there is a miracle of inspiration. It implies an exceptional act of God, vesting in some one man an absolutely unique function. Even apart from the question how such a choice is attested, the selec- tion itself of one man out of the millions around him as the medium of revealing to the rest of men the divine character and will, involves what is inexplicable by any of the known laws of the universe ; it is a greater breach of the continuity of things than any merely physical miracle would be, by as much as the moral is higher than the physical. Whether the ordinary influences of the Holy Spirit on men are called supernatural or not, such extraordinary influences as constitute a special and authoritative revelation of divine truth would be supernatural in the most emphatic sense. Here would be involved all that is difllcult or obnoxious in the ordinary doctrine of miracles. The mere getting rid of physical and visible miracles would be a small gain ; it would be rather a positive loss ; for the addition of the physical and palpable miracle furnishes just the evidence which is needed of the genuineness of the alleged spir- itual revelation. To take pains to ignore or deny the physical miracle, while admitting the spiritual one, would be like admit- ting the genuineness of a royal edict, while yet denying the genuineness or value of the royal seal which vouches for the genuineness of the document. True, the sealing-wax and the stamp on it are intrinsically of little worth, compared with the royal will expressed in the words sealed up. But it is yet of immense importance to have a voucher for the genuineness of the royal edict. Just so a spiritual revelation without any outward mark of it could not be verified as such. THE KVIDENTIAJ. VALUE OF MIRACLES. 153 We should have to di;\mid simply on the word of the professed revealer. However great might be our confidence in him in general, the fact that he claims exceptional illumination would create a demand for exceptional attestation. To make war on the alleged attestations on the ground that they would be in conflict with natural law, and at the same time to defend the reality of the alleged revelation, which must equally have in- volved a departure from the order of nature, — this may be a rationalistic course, but it is not rational. He who can admit that Jesus Christ was chosen of (lod to communicate to men an authoritative revelation has yielded the whole ground as against the supernaturalist. After granting the greater miracle, he cuts but a sorry figure in trying to ignore or disbelieve the smaller ones which are grouped around the greater. He will gain noth- ing in the estimation of the common skeptic, so long as he sin- cerely retains what have always been regarded as the essential features of Christianity. And he will gain little more by using the traditional phraseology of supernatural Christianity, while yet virtually abandoning the supernatural conception of it. The only self-consistent course is either to deny the supernatural absolutely, and consequently to deny to Jesus Christ all au- tlioritative relation to other men ; or else to accept supernatural Christianity frankly according to the only trustworthy sources from which we derive a knowledge of it. Similarly, the assumption of the sinless excellence of Jesus, which is admitted by many who question his alleged miracles, is exposed to all the objections which are urged against mira- cles in general, and to some peculiar difficulties besides. The possihilitji of perfect sinlessness must indeed be admitted. But none the less is the jjossihiliti/ of physical miracles admitted by all theists. But the theistic rationalist regards the improba- bility of miracles as so great as to make it practically impossi- ble to believe in their occurrence. But there is no improliability of miracles in the sphere of nature greater than the improba- bility that any one man has ever yet lived a perfectly blameless life. All experience and observation and testimony discredit any such claim made by any one on his own behalf or on be- half of another. And if any one were perfect, the fact would 154 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. be peculiarly difficult to prove, since moral perfection is not something open to public view, and even apparent faultlessness would not generally be regarded as sufficient to outweigh the immense presumption there is that every man has in his heart thoughts and feelings which cannot meet the approval of the perfectly holy God. Men have sometimes professed to be per- fect ; even good men have made the claim. But the claim has been uniformly disallowed by others, and perhaps often for the very reason that the claim was made. No physical law is more uniform in its working than the recurrence of sin and imper- fection in every human being. That any considerable number of men should have been willing to admit an exception in the case of Jesus is itself almost a miracle. It never could have happened, if he had been regarded as a mere man, possessed of no supernatural powers. He was accounted sinless because the appearance and claim of sinlessness were accompanied hy the appearance and claim of superhuman endowment. The claim of superhuman endowment would have been disallowed but for the moral excellence ; and the moral pre-eminence would have been disallowed but for the claim of supernatural endowment. Had he been a merely ordinary man, so far as his life was con- cerned, occupied with his trade, but laying claim to the distinc- tion of sinlessness, the claim, even if not capable of positive disproof, would yet have made no great impression, and would have gained no wide acceptance, if any at all.^ It was because he assumed the part of a divinely commissioned reformer and Eedeemer, because he claimed not only uniqueness of char- acter, but uniqueness of nature and uniqueness of intrinsic authority over men, that his claim of sinlessness was admitted. The two claims could not but stand or fall together. He who admits the sinlessness of Christ, unless he does so blindly, be- cause others have done it before, can find no justifying reason for his belief, unless he assumes, together with the sinlessness, a uniqueness of nature or of relation which involves all the 1 E. W. Newman, in his What is Christianity without Christ ? in which lio arraigns the moral character of Jesus as extremely defective and faiilty, shows what is the tendency of a thorough abandonment of the belief in the supernatural. rilK EVIDENTIAL VALUE Ob' AUUACLES. lo5 Cisential marks of a miracle. When, therefore, one is troubled l)y the allegations of })articular miracles wrought by Christ, but is ready to admit Christ himself to be the one sinless individual of the race, and the one man specially commissioned by God to communicate the divine counsels to man, we can only call this a conspicuous example of straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. • 4. The skeptical or agnostic attitude towards miracles leads to irrational caprice in the treatment of the historical sources of information respecting the origin of Christianity. The miraculous is in fact so inextricably interwoven with the earliest extant narratives of Christ that it cannot be elimi- nated except by the most arbitrary and unreasonable process. The history of modern criticism of the Gospels has shown that, whatever liberty may have been taken and accorded in discuss- ing the questions relating to the age, genuineness, composi- tion, and authenticity of the New Testament books, the one thing that cannot be got rid of in them is the supernatural.^ Paulus's attempt to explain the miracles as natural events not understood by the narrators to be supernatural, was long ago discarded as ridiculously arbitrary. The mythical theory has met an almost similar fate, though there are still many who cling to some of its assumptions. But the whole inspiration of the effort to expurgate the miraculous from the Gospels comes from the general notion that miracles are incredible, — from the miraculophobia of the present day. By no sifting pro- cess can the miraculous be eliminated from these books, No external or internal evidence goes to show that this element is a later addition. Mark's Gospel, widely reputed to present the most primitive extant form of the evangelic history, is. as full of it as any other, and perhaps even gives it greater promi- nence. John's Gospel, the latest of the four, exhibits no es- sential contrast with the others in its portraiture of the supernatural element in Christ's life. One may conjecture that there are late interpolations, or that all the Gospels ^ Fidi" Prof. J. II. Thayer, Crificism Confirmatory of the Gospels (in Boston h'cturcs for IS71); Prof. G. P. Fisher, Supernatural Origin of Chrixlianiti/; C. A. Row, The Supernatural in the N. T.; The Jesus of the Evangelists. 156 SUrERNATURAL REVELATION. were written in the second century; but this is pure conjec- ture, contrary to all the evidence in the case. But if one choose to adopt such a hypothesis, the only result is to throw the whole history of the incipient church into an impenetrable cloud. The person of Christ, his character, his claims, his peculiar relation to his followers, — all this is left to be thought of as one ^^leases. The " critical feeling " which strikes out the miraculous stories must construct the true story of Jesus as best it can. Early traditions can count for only so much as the critic chooses to let them ; and this is very little, for the early traditions are all saturated with the supernatural. Whoever adopts the principle that the narratives of miracles are somehow to be got over or explained away cannot consist- ently stop short of a similar process with reference to all those passages which ascribe to Jesus a superhuman dignity and au- thority. These representations, however, run all through the Gospel histories. No critical suspicion belongs to the sections which portray Jesus' unique claims ; they belong to the warp and woof of the history. As above shown, the same reasons which can be urged against the authenticity of the stories of miracles bear with equal, if not with greater, weight against everything which pictures Christ as the only begotten Son of God. And tlie actual result is that, according to the degree of logical consist- ency with which the critical canon is applied, we find the miraculophobists now acknowledging almost the highest that has ever been held respecting the personal dignity of Christ ; now recognizing him as unique in sinlessness, though merely human ; now putting him at the head of the world's sages and prophets ; now making him merely a good man who somehow came to be regarded as fulfilling the Old Testament anticipa- tions of the IMessiah ; now regarding him as a gifted enthusiast who made some impression on his contemporaries ; now calling him a man of erratic impulses and of very defective virtue. Any theory of Jesus' character and calling can be derived from the New Testament narratives, provided one exercises his critical feeling in sucll a way as to pronounce mythical or unauthentic what he happens not to like. There is something almost piti- able in the manner in which some critics treat the question of TUE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIKACEE.S. ]."^T Christ's miracles. Those passages ^ in which Jesus is reported to have refused to work miracles to gratify the curiosity of cap- tious or superstitious men, or in which he seems to depreciate the value of supernatural manifestations, are pronounced un- doubtedly authentic. But the more numerous ones,^ in which Jesus is represented as appealing to his own miraculous works as evidence of liis divine commission, are assumed to be the work of a legendary imagination. If there were anything like contradiction between the two classes of passages, there would be at least some plausibility in this method of explanation ; but of contradiction there is not the faintest trace. The two representations are even found virtually combined in one verse (John xiv. 11). That Jesus should refuse to make a thauma- turgic display of his power is precisely what we should expect of him, if he was the sort of miracle- worker that the Gospels picture him to be. That he should not have expected to con- vince the people of his Messiahship by the mere exercise of his miraculous gifts, but rather, and chiefly, by the impressive- ness and authority of his character and teaching, — this, too, is quite in accordance with intrinsic probability and with tlie narrative itself. But ^latthew Arnold says : ^ "It is most re- markable, and the best proof of the simplicity, seriousness, and good faith which intercourse with Jesus Christ had inspired, that witnesses with a fixed prepossession, and having no doubt at all as to the interpretation to be put on Christ's acts and career, should yet admit so much of what makes against them- selves and their own power of interpreting. For them, it was a thin'g beyond all doubt, that by miracles Jesus manifested 1 As Matt. xii. 39 (xvi. -i ; Mark viii. 13 ; Luke xi. 29) ; Luke xvi. 31 ; John iv. 48, vi. 30 sqq. 2 As Matt. ix. 6 (Mark ii. 10; Luke v. 24); xi. 2-5 (Luke vii. 18-22); Mark iii. 20-30 (Luke xi. 20) ; Luke x. 1.3, xiii. 32; John x. 25, 3S, xi. 42, xiv. 11. Yet intlie face of this fact Scheukel (Grundlehren des Christentkums § 263) docs not hesitate dogmatically to affirm that Jesus, "in order decisively to assert himself as Redeemer, never appealed to an external superiority, to miracles, or to the testimony of tradition. This was done by the Evangelists and Apostles after him, not by himself." How convenient it is to be om- niscient ! • Literature and Dogma, p. 15S (llfth edition, 1876). 158 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. forth his glory and induced the faithful to believe in him. Yet what checks to this paramount and all-governing belief of theirs do they report from Jesus himself ! " And then he goes on to quote the passages above referred to, in which Jesus is described as blaming the people who were greedy for signs and wonders. Of course, now, the evangelists, if they had had less " simplicity," would not have stultified themselves by admit- ting such contradictory reports ! If they had been intelligent enough to see that they were guilty of such self-contradiction, they would have omitted those passages in which Jesus is made to disclaim the character of a miracle -worker. We should not have been so fortunate as to have even these few clews to a correct knowledge of the fact. Even the author of the Fourth Gospel, although a man of "philosophical acquire- ments," is afflicted with the same simplicity. " He deals in miracles just as confidingly " as the other historians,^ and, like them, he allows the reported language of Christ to contradict his own conception of Christ. How grateful we ought to be that the evangelists were so " simple " as not to know when they were guilty of the most flagrant self-contradiction ! How fortunate for the world that the writing of the Gospel narra- tive fell into the hands of men who were so unintelligent and honest that they told the truth, as it were, in spite of them- selves ! Inasmuch as they were " men who saw thaumaturgy in all that Jesus did," ^ their intention must have been to rep- resent his whole life as a grand thaumaturgical exhibition, and to represent him as claiming the power to do wonders, and as appealing to the wonders in proof of his extraordinary com- mission. Jesus, to be sure, did nothing of the sort. He was, on the contrary, intensely opposed to the whole miracle mania. " To convey at all to such hearers of him that there was any objection to miracles, his own sense of the objection must have been profound ; and to get them, who neither shared nor under- stood it, to repeat it a few times, he must have repeated it many times." ^ The phenomenon, then, according to Mr. Arnold, was this : Jesus and John the Baptist were contemporary 1 Literature and Dogma, p. 178 (fifth edition, 1870). 2 Ibid., p. 148. 8 Ibid., p. 158. THE KVIDKNTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 16l» prophets.' But neither Jesus nor John wrought any miracles. Of John this is expressly recorded ;^ and in none of the Gospels is there the faintest hint that he exercised or claimed any mi- raculous power. He was the greatest of all the prophets of the Jewish dispensation.^ He was a second Elijah.^ But although the original Elijah was universally esteemed a great miracle- worker ; and although the second Elijah created a most power- ful sensation l)y liis preaching, — yet he never wrought and was never imagined to liavc wrought a single miracle. Not only his contemporaries, but his reporters, show not the slightest tendency to ascribe to him any thaumaturgic power whatever. He had no occasion to refuse to work miracles, for he was never asked to work them. He did not need to protest against the popular tendency to expect miraculous works from great prophets ; for in his case the people seemed to be so wholly in- tent on the sermons which he preached, and to be so convinced by his preaching, that they never thought to ask for miracles as his credentials.^ Jesus, however, though he preached the same sermon of repentance, and also wrought no miracles, somehow found himself continually met by a demand that he sliould perform them. He had to refuse and keep refusing. He had to tell the people over and over, that miracles could not be performed, and would do no good if they could be. He had to din this teaching into the heads of the superstitious people, till at last, through sheer repetition, the words stuck, and were handed down amongst the other things that Jesus said, and even found tlieir way into the records that liave been preserved down to our time ; although the narrators themselves could ^ ^Ir. Arnold, indeed, docs not thus speak of Jolni in comparison ^•ith Jesus ; but lie cannot take exception to this representation of the Biblical de- scription of him. 2 John X. 41. 8 ;^Xatt. xi. 11. * Mark ix. 13. ^ This fact seems to have been overlooked by Strauss also, Mho {Leben Jesii, § 42) accounts for the ascription of miracles to Jesus by the following generations by saying that, as Moses and the principal prophets were reputed to have wrought miracles, " it was natural that miracles were likewise expected of every one who claimed to be a pro])het." Why, then, we must ask, did not the people ascribe miracles to John!' For he certainly claimed to be a prophet, and his claim was admitted. 160 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. not understand how he could have failed to be all the time doing marvels, and were so persuaded of this that they have filled their story of him with accounts of his thaumaturgical doings, and represented him not only as doing miracles, but as appealing to them in attestation of his divine commission ! We owe to nothing but to their incorrigible dullness — or " sim- plicity " — ■ the fortunate chance that, in a few instances, this refusal of Jesus to have anything to do with miracles has crept into the writings of the very men who did not and could not conceive of him otherwise than as a great thaumaturgus. Now, how does Mr. Arnold account for this marked difference between the description of Jesus and that of John the Baptist ? ^ How does he find out that his is the true explanation of the phenomena of the Gospel histories ? How can he be so sure that the whole current of the narrative is false as regards miracles, and only these few straggling passages reveal to us the exact fact ? How does he know, on the one hand, that Jesus did not, as Eenan makes him,^ yield to the popular clamor for a startling sign, and actually pose as a thaumaturgus ? How has he made himself sure that his own father was altogether mistaken, on the other, when he said that the absence of mira- cles in the Gospels would have been far more wonderful than their presence ? The only answer to all this, and other questions that might be raised, is that the "literary and scientific criticism" of the present day has decided that the fact must be as Mr. Matthew Arnold states it. This kind of criticism, he tells us,^ requires " the finest heads and the most sure tact." The theo- logians who have undertaken to interpret the New Testament have all been devoid of these necessary qualifications, and there- fore they have made " a pretty mess of it. ' '^ Men wdio might have done better have devoted themselves to other departments of work. We are left to infer that Mr. Arnold is the critic with a fine head and a sure tact who has had the boldness to assail the popular superstitions, and to tell us what is genuine in the Gospels and what is the product of the legendary mania. ^ Cf. ou this point G. P. Fisher, Gromids of Theistic and Christian Belief, 1). 162. ^ lAfe (f Jesus, p. 193. ^ Literature and Doffina, p. 184. ■* Ibid., p. 185 THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 101 The sum of the matter is that, according to tlie theory in question, the supernatural must be ruled out at the outset; but, inasmuch as the supernatural permeates the whole evangelical history like an indwelling spirit, it becomes a dilHcult problem to discover how to eliminate it, and yet define what shall be allowed to remain as genuine and authentic. No wonder tliat for the task a very fine head and a most sure tact are essential. Mr. Arnold, indeed, himself, though he affirms that the literary and scientific criticism of the Bible is "very hard,"^ yet dis- courses as if it were very easy to him. He pronounces oracu- larly that certain utterances bear unmistakable marks of having been really uttered by Jesus, and that certain others as clearly are spurious, though attributed to him just as positively. His criterion is simply and solely his conception of what Jesus was. What, according to his feeling, Jesus might have said or ought to have said, that he will accept as historic, — that, and nothing else. Having decided tliat miracles never were wrought, and that consequently Jesus did not work any, he must solve the problem how so many narratives of miracles got into the record. The gist of the explanation given is that the Jewish Christians had been led by their training to exi^ect miracles as the mark of their Messiah, and that, having accepted Jesus as the Messiah, they felt, when they looked back, as if he rmist have wrought miracles. Well, no doubt the Jews had had great expectations of what the promised Messiah would do. He was to appear suddenly, and was to deliver Israel by irresistible power from the hand of oppressors. He was to be a great king, immeasurably greater than even David ; and under his reign the Jews were to enjoy prosperity r.nd peace such as they had never known before. These were the prominent and ab- sorbing features of the Jewish Messianic idea. That the Mes- siah was to be a miracle-worker of such a sort as Jesus is represented in the Gospels to have been, is not one of the features of the Messianic idea. Now, if the characteristics of the evangelic records are to be explained as reflections of the Jewish expectations rather than as a simple account of facts, then the question arises, Why do not the (Jospels represent * Literature ainl Doc/ma, p. 1S5. 11 102 SUPEKNATURAL REVELATION. Jesus as a temporal king, and so as fulfilling the Jewish ex- pectations ? If the writers could not help seeing thaumaturgy in all that Jesus did, although neither the Jewish apocalyptic writers ^ nor the Old Testament writers had ever pictured him in that character, still more ought we to infer tliat they must have seen royalty and regal power in his whole life, since this is just what the prophets and apocryphal writers liad emphasized as his leading characteristic. It is easy, of course, to reply that the facts were too manifestly opposed to such a legend. The Jews were not delivered from their oppressors, and were not enjoying the expected Messianic prosperity ; and therefore they could not imagine that Jesus had done what, as was only too obvious, had not been done. Very well; then it appears that the Jewish ideal of the Messiah had not been realized in its most prominent feature ; but nevertheless Jesus was regarded as having been the promised Messiah. What necessity, then, was there for a legendary ascription to him of miracles, which were nut a prominent feature in the Jewish ideal of him ? But more than this : the popular expectation respecting the Messiah must have been abandoned at the outset by all those who believed in Jesus as the Christ. If (as we are asked to believe) he wrought no miracles in fact, then he was accepted as the Mes- siah, although he did not fulfil the expectations either as regards royal power or as regards miraculous power. In short, the carnal Jewish notion had to be entirely given np. If still he was con- ceived as the one prophesied of in the Old Testament, it was by virtue of a different interpretation from that which had hitherto generally prevailed. The Christian conception of the INFessiah (according to the theory of Mr. Arnold) must originally have been entirely defecated of all those Jewish fancies which in- vested the Messiah with political and thaumaturgic power, else Jesus could never have been acknowledged as Messiah at all. If so, how was it that twenty or thirty years later, or even still sooner, within the circle of those same Christians and their im- mediate successors, it became " a thing beyond all doubt that by ^ On the ante-Christian Messianic conceptions, cf. Hilgenfcld, Die judische Apokaljjptik, and Messias Judaeomm. Also Ja)nes Dnunniond, The Jewish Messiah. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIKACLES. 163 miracles Jesus lUiinifested forth his glory and induced the faith- ful to Leliev(j in him ? " ^ Originally, according to Mr. Arnold, it must have heen heyond all douht that Jesus did no miracles at all ; now, only a little while afterwards, and among the people who had received the Christian faith most directly, just the op- posite had come to be beyond all doubt ! The fleshly Jewish conception, which had been finally and definitively overcome before the apostles publicly preached Christ to their country- men, returned and took full possession of their minds as regards that one particular, although in all other respects the carnal Jewish conception was and continued to be eutiiely repudiated ! Take the case of the resurrection of Christ. How plain the whole thing is to Mr. Arnold : " The more the miraculousness of the story deepens, as after the death of Jesus, the more does the texture of the incidents become loose and floating, tlie more does the very air and aspect of things seem to tell us we are in wonderland. Jesus after his resurrection not known to ]\Iary Magdalene, taken by her for the gardener ; appearing in another form, and not known by the two disciples going with him to Emmaus and at supper with him there ; not known by his most intimate apostles on the borders of the Sea of Galilee ; and presently, out of these vague beginnings, the recognitions get- ting asserted, then the ocular demonstrations, the final commis- sions, the ascension ; one hardly knows which of the two to call most evident here, the perfect simplicity and good faith of the narrators, or the plainness with which they themselves really say to us : Behold a legend groioing under your eyes ! "^ What a blessing it is to liave a "fine head" and a "sure tact " ! This legend which grows up under our eyes grew up in three days ! Beyond all contradiction, within less than two months after the crucifixion the apostles were boldly preaching the resurrection as an undeniable fact, and rested their whole case on the truth of this allegation. What now were the apostles alleging at that time ? That Jesus had appeared, but was " not known "? Were they preaching about "Mary ]\Iagdalene's having seen somebody whom she took to be a gardener ? Were they ^ Literature and Dogma, p. 158. ^ Ibid., p. 151. 164 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. telling about some unknown person that had appeared to them on the shore of the Lake of Galilee? Were they urging the Jews to accept Jesus as their Messiah for the reason that two men had had an interesting talk with a mysterious stranger on the way to Emmaus ? Of course not. The "legend" was already full-grown. So far as this story is concerned, it might have been recorded at once. In a few days or weeks after the cruci- fixion the disciples were telling confidently, not of an tinknown Jesus who had appeared to tliem, but of an unmistakable reap- pearance of the Crucified One. In spite of Mr. Arnold's " fine head," it is palpable that there was no slow and gradual growth of a legendary story, but that the story was from the beginning unequivocal, well-defined, in all essential features precisely what the New Testament records present to us. One thing is certain. The supernatural is so inwrought into the very substance of the New Testament, that unbelieving critics can eliminate it only by the most arbitrary and uncriti- cal process, and can never come to any agreement among them- selves as to what is to be accepted and what rejected in the evangelical portraiture of Jesus Christ and his work. ^ 5. The agnostic or skeptical attitude towards the supernatural leads to the assumption of an unwarrantable distinction between the present Christian world and the original Christians in their relation to the evidences of Christianity. Miracles, either as real or as apparent, are often acknowledged to have served a useful purpose in the original introduction of Christianity, but are declared to be now no longer serviceable. Christianity is said to be accepted now, not on account of the historical miracles, but on account of its intrinsic worth. The miracles are so far removed from us, so intrinsically difficult to substantiate, and so obnoxious to the scientific spirit of the times, that they seem to be a burden rather than a help. Even some strenuous defenders of the reality of the Christian mira- cles are ready to make this concession. Thus J. HirzeP says: ^ Tor a good cxliibitiou of llic arbitrariness of miraculopliobists in Ihcii' treatment of tlic Gospels, v/'rk Henry Rogers's critique of Strauss and Reuaii, in Lis Reason and Faith, and otlwr Essays, pp. 137 sqq. 2 Ueber das Wander, p. o. Similarly L. I. Kuckeri {Rationalismiis, p. TIIK EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLKS. 165 '■ AVe grant at the outset . . . that the bare historical narratives of iiiiriicles do not have the evidential force for us which the miracles themselves had for the eye-witnesses of them. We can let it pass as quite orthodox when one says, ' 1 believed at first, not because, but in spite, of miracles.' Yes, we believe now, not in Christ on account of the outward miracles, Ijut in the miracles on account of Christ." Now that there is a difference between us and the first Chris- tians in respect to the acceptance of the gospel may be freely admitted. We receive Christianity as a traditional impartation, whereas the first disciples had to be convinced by the direct evidence. We have not the advantage of an immediate percep- tion of the miraculous signs ; and we have the adv'antage of the history of the practical working of Christianity in the world. But when we narrowly examine the matter, we find that the evidential force of miracles is after all not essentially different now from what it was originally. If it is true that Christianity now is not for the sake of miracles, but miracles for the sake of Christianity, so was it equally true when Christ was living on the earth. If the miracles are by tliemselves now insufficient to convince all men of the truth of Christianity, so they were at the time they were performed ; they w-ere either disbelieved or at least were not accepted as establishing Jesu.s' ]\Iessianic claims. The apostles appealed, it is true, to miracles ; but they laid the chief stress on the message of salvation which Christ had come to bring. The great command was not, " Re- lieve in miracles," but, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." But the two things were not, and could not be, disjoined, as though the one could be accepted and the other doubted or re- jected. The wonderful works were everywhere and always treated as the natural and appropriate badge of the wonderful person. Christ, as an altogether unique man, unique in his re- 136), ■while he admits the genuineness of some of Christ's miracles, yet says of Christ, that, " since in his death his gh)ry lias been made manifest to the \vorkl, faitli needs miracles no longer, but rather may begin and continue in- dependently of them, so that, even if no record of any of his miracles had been preserved, liis nature and the possibility of such a being would suller no detriment." 166 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. lation to God, unique in his relation to other men, was regarded as unique also in his relation to nature. Claiming to be the Son of God, the special messenger of God, the Mediator between God and man, he could not have been fully credited unless he had brought convincing proofs of the trustworthiness of his claims. His extraordinary claims needed to be matched and substantiated by extraordinary works. And how is the case different now ? We cannot, it is true, be eye-witnesses of Christ's miracles; but neither can we be ear- witnesses of his words. And if we had been contemporaries of Christ, and had been witnesses of the physical miracles, yet if we had received no impression of the moral and spiritual mar- vellousness of his person, we should still have been unconvinced, just as the Jews were, who in spite of all they saw and heard remained unbelievers. There is indeed this difference between the present and the past, that the claims of Christianity to be divine have been confirmed by the lapse of time, by the history of its progress and beneficent effects. lUit this history is not sufficient to convince all ; many enemies of Cliristianity contend even that it has done more harm than good. The difference, therefore, between the present and the original relation of men to the claims of Christ, is practically null. Those who are ready to accept him in all his spiritual claims, but stumble at the miracles, simply fail to recognize the fact that the only Christ whom they know about is he who is brought to their knowledge by the Christian Church and the Christian Scriptures, and that this Christ is and always has been in the Christian Church regarded as a person of superhuman nature, and* as pos- sessing supernatural powers. The person and the works have been indissolubly connected. They have supplemented and illustrated each other. The spiritual claims, according to all the evidence before us, never were in the first ]ilace admitted, ex- cept as confirmed by the supernatural manifestations. And from the beginning the two have been handed down together inseparably intertwined. Wli;tt convinced the apostles was used by them as a means of convincing others. It was the resurrection of Christ which overcame their last fears, and be- came the crowninrf evidence to them tliat Jesus was the real THE KVIDKN'I'IAL VAIA'K OF MIRACLES. I(i7 " Messiah. And tliis resurrection was used in their preaching as the argument whicli sliould persuade others than the direct witnesses of it. He, then, wlio accepts the Messianic chiinis. while rejecting or ignoring tlie supernatural proofs of those claims, is simply accepting the apostles' testimony as to Jesus' Messiahsliip, without accepting their testimony as to the facts which convinced them of his Messiahsliip. That is, he admits the truth, l)iit does not admit the validity of that by which the truth has been established. This is obviously an untenable position. One may well believe that the sun is the body around which all the planets revolve, on the strength of astro- nnniifiil tcstiniuny. He may accept that testhnouy without un- derstanding or even knowing the reasons which have convinced astronomers of the truth of this proposition. So far one may well go. And indeed this fairly represents the state of mind of a large part of mankind who accept the Copernican system. But if a man rises up and says that he accepts the Copernican doctrine as to the centrality of the sun in our system, but doubts the validity of the reasons which have led to the adop- tion of this doctrine, we can only say that such a state of mind is irrational. What ground can a man have for adopting the theory, so long as he questions the correctness of the decisive reasons which have led men to propound it ? Or suppose a man should say that he believes in the Copernican doctrine in spite of the reasons which have led astronomers to teach it, what should we think of him ? Yet this is a fair parallel to the atti- tude of those who profess to believe in Christ without believing in his miracles, or to believe in him in spite of the alleged mira- cles. Whoever takes this ground must sooner or later, if hon- est with himself, come to see that it really implies that he does not believe that the supernatural manifestations ever took place at all. If they were facts ; if God broke into the uniformity of the world's order by miraculous deeds, — it could not have Jjeen a matter of indifference whether the interruption was recognized as a reality ; it could not have been done without some extraor- dinary reason.^ And if on the strength of those supernatural ^ It is hard to see into tlie state of mind which can have led Professor Seeley {Nafnral Religion, p. 260), after he has elaborately argued the needless- 168 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. demoustrations Christ became definitely accepted as the Ee- deemer of men and has ever since been preached as such, the reasons which were sufficient to form Vae foundation of the Chris- tian church can never have h)st their validity. If they have lost their validity for us, then they never deserved to have validity for the first believers. " To this complexion it must come at last." To believe in a Christ who wrought or perhaps wrought no miracles is to believe in a Christ whom nobody knows any- thing about. The Christ who has been made known to us is a supernatural and miracle-working being. He is one wdio veri- fied his claims to be the Son of God by his miglity works. If those mighty works ever had evidential force, they have it now. Either Christianity is a delusion, or the supernatural is inseparable fro:ii it. But this h^ads us to another observation. 6. The agnostic or negative attitude towards miracles must necessarily lead to the assumption that Christianity rests on a fraud. The attempt, and the pretense, indeed, may be simply to leave it an open question whether miracles occurred or not. The intention is to take Christianity simply as an operative sys- tem of truths and influences, and let it be its own recommenda- tion, irrespective of the disputed questions aViout the external accessories of its first introduction. But the historical fact is that Christianity has all along professed to stand on a super- natural foundation. Its Founder has all along been regarded as a supernatural being, proving his unique commission by miraculous deeds as well as by prophetic message. When it is said, as is done especially by the Ritschl school,^ that the great- ness and uniqueness of Jesus must be argued from the effect which he has produced, rather than from any supernatural signs that marked his life, it seems to be forgotten that this effect, the power of Christianity over men, has come just from this sup- 2')osed divinity of its origin and authority, — a divinity attested by divine proofs in the form of miraculous works wrought by Christ and his apostles. The unbroken traditions of the church agree with its oldest historical records in insisting that this was ness of a supernatural religion, to admit that, as "su])plementiiiga natural one, it may be precious, nay, ))erlui]is indispensable." ^ Similarly Weisso, PhUowphhche Dogmatik, vol. iii. p. 306. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 109 the fact; and on the ground of this fact a positive autUoritij lias been ascribed to Christianity over against all opposing doctrines and systems. The New Testament shows incontestably that a belief iw Christ's superhuman nature and power pervaded all his early followers, and in connection with his uni(|uc purity and exalteducss of character and prophetic power of utterance was the condition of their accepting him as the Messiah and Saviour. Particularly his miraculous resurrection from the dead is every- where represented as the vital fact without which the Christian Church would not have been planted, and without a belief in which Christianity is not genuine. Critics of the most opposite schools agree in holding that the establishment of Christianity originally depended on the belief in Christ's resurrection. So much seems to be certain. All the New Testament writers lay the greatest stress on it as the turning point in the incipient history of Christianity. The Evangelists are on this point ex- ceptionally minute. The history of the tirst preaching of Chris- tianity represents the resurrection of Christ as the central fact hisisted on as vouching for his divine commission. The apostles in their writings agree in the same. Everything conspires to show that Paul used not too strong an expression, when he declared that, if Christ was not raised, the faith of the Chris- tians was vain. When, therefore, wc are told that men nowadays believe in Christianity, if at all, not on account of miracles, but in spite of them, and when this statement is designed to mean that the reality of the Xew Testament miracles is at least to be seriously doubted, if not llatly denied, it behooves us to consider just what this position implies. Either the alleged miracles were genuine, or they were not. We may be in doubt which horn of the dilemma to seize ; but our doubt does not alter the fact of the dilemma. It is indeed possible for a man to be a good Christian while beset by painful doubts respecting miracles. But an abnormal experience is no rule for men in general. Such a state of mind can, from the nature of the case, in any thinking and logical man, be only a transitional state. For the fact must be either that Jesus rose from the dead, or that he did not. He either did, or did not, work veritable miravles in con- 170 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION firmatioii of his Messianic claims. And tlio necessary conse- quences of admitting either side of the alternative must be accepted. Su^jpose, then, the fact to be that the alleged mira- cles were not real miracles. Be the explanation what it may- be ; let it be imagined that Jesus and the apostles conspired to deceive, or that they were all together fanatics and self-deceived, or that the stories of the miracles were a legendary growth. Suppose what one may, the fact remains, that the founding of the Christian Church depended on the helief in Christ's super- natural power and authority. If, then, the miracles were not genuine, the successful starting of the Christian religion on its career depended on a delusion. And not only the starting of it, but its continued growth has rested on that same delusion. For, though the spiritual elements of Christianity may be dis- tinguished from the physical miracles which Christ is said to have wrought, yet the most vital truths of Christianity involve the ascription of supernaturalness to Christ's person and au- thority, — all that is essential, in short, in the doctrine of mira- cles. But even on the supposition that these conceptions of the uniqueness of Christ's nature and power are exaggerations ; that Jesus' moral teachings constituted the essence of his religion, and that all else may be discarded, — still the same fact confronts us : that the successful establishment of the Christian Church, with whatever of good it has brought to the world, depended on the belief in Christ's supernatural endowments. Such a rela- tion of things does not trouble one who, like Strauss,^ regards Christianity in general as of little worth. But one who calls himself a Christian and really regards Christianity as embody- ing God's revealed will, if he rejects or doubts the reality of the miraculous atte^,tation, has to face the difficulty, that a divine revelation, in order to gain credence and power in the world, had to be introduced by a deception. No matter how innocent the apostles may be imagined to have been ; no matter how ingeniously the origin of the notion of the resurrection and the other miracles may be explained. The blame of deliberate de- ception may, by a violent treatment of the records, possibly be rolled off from the human agents ; but in any case it ^ Lcbcn JcxH fur das deiituche Vol/,-, p. 001. TllK F.VIDKNTIAL VAIJK OV MIHACLKS. 171 cannot be rolled olY froni tlic divine agent. For if ClnisLianity is a real revelatimi ; it' Unit teiiu is nsed, and no jhrsr/it decep- tion is intended in the use of it, — then, on the assunqition that the miracles were not facts, our only conclusion must be that God arranged that they should be tliovf/ht to be facts, in order that he might accomplish what otherwise would have been impossible ; that is, he had to arrange that the kingdom of divine truth should be indebted to a lie for its introduction and firm foundation in the world.' This is the inevitable conclusion, if we adopt the one side of the alternative. If one is not ready to take that, there is no legiti- mate escape from taking the other, and admitting heartily that the miracles were real facts. AVhen one says that he believes in Christianity in spite of the miracles, not on account of them, meaning that he has no opinion about them, but would prefer it if there were no demand made on him to believe in them, ^ " Revelation, then, even if it docs not need the truth of niiraclfs for the benefit of tlieii* proof, still requires it iu order not to be cnislicd under tiie weight of their falsehood." — Mozlev, 0» Miracles, fitli ed., ]). 10. The oidy plausible eseape from this conclusion is to sav that God, iu makiug tlie estab- lishment of Cliristianity depend on the belief in the reality of miracles, was only accommodatiiiy hiuiself to the wcakuess of man. God often overrules evil for good, hut Avilhout thereby ap])roving the evil. If the gospel could not gain a foothold in the world without being supposed to be aceouipanied by miracles, was it, not better that it should gain a foothold through such a delusion than not at all? The reply is obvious. The objection assumes that miracles not only did not, l)ut could not, occur. For if they were possible, and if a belief in tiieui was required in order to the introduction of the true religion, then God would surely have wrought real ones, rather than to have allowed his truth to rest on a delusive l)elief iu unreal ones. But that God could work miracles is not de- nied by any genuine Christian theist. Consequently the dilemuia remains: the miracles were either a fact or a fraud. ^Moreover, the allegation that a delusive belief in miracles was necessary in order to the introduction of Christianity, is«self-destruetive. The notion that the stories of the miracles were a legendary growth (the ordinary form of the skeptical theory at present) presupposes not only that Jesus himself wrought no miracles, but that in his day no one supposed him to have wrought them. Therefore it has to be assumed tiiat Christianity, after all, did get a foolhold without a belief in miracles, and that only its later propagation was promoted by the belief. But if the belief was not neees.sary in order to the establishment of Christianity, then it was not necessary iu order to the propagation of it. 172 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. then we can only say tliat such an attitude towards the miracles differs from a downright denial of them only in so far as it is the offspring of an indolent or illogical mind. Since the fact can- not be equivocal, since the miracles must have been either reali- ties or delusions, an intelligent mind, alert to see the necessary bearings of this alternative, cannot long remain in a state of in- decision. No vague generalities about the difficulty of defining miracles, or of ascertaining the exact facts of the gospel histories, can get rid of this inexorable dilemma, that, so long as one ac- cepts Christianity as a divinely revealed religion, he must hold that the miracles were either a fact or a fraud. But to regard the introduction of Christianity as accomplished by a fraud is of course inconsistent with any honest faith in it as a really divine and special revelation. If one nevertheless rebels against the acceptance of the miraculous history, it only remains for him to treat Christianity as nothing but a purely human growth, and the miracles as the offspring of a more or less unconscious im- agination or exaggeration. In other words, there is no middle ground between the position of such a man as Strauss, and that of him who accepts Christianity as a genuine revelation, and the supernatural as an essentialand indispensable part and proof of the revelation. An agnostic or skeptical attitude towards the Christian mira- cles is, therefore, intrinsically at war with genuine acceptance of Christianity, and can be assumed by a professed Christian only inconsistently, or at the expense of rejecting, with the miracles, fundamental elements of the Christian system. The refutation of this negative attitude towards the supernatural has inciden- tally indicated what the positive attitude must be. Miracles must be regarded as having an important evidential value. If they were really performed, they could not have been without a purpose. To suppose them to have been useless, or to have served even as a hinderance in the way of men's accepting the salutary truths of the gospel, is to accuse God of pure wantonness. THE EVmENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 173 CHAPTER VI. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES (Continued). W/^ come, then, to the second of the above-mentioned views ^ ' respecting the evidential value of miracles, and ask, II. Does faith in Christianity depend on antecedent faith in the alleged miracles of Christ ? The assurance which we have reached, that miracles have a positive evidential worth, does not necessarily imply an affir- mntive answer to this question. On the contrary, there are weighty reasons for answering it in the negative. If we take Christian faith in a wide and loose sense, mean- ing by it merely a general assent to the excellence of Christian morality, it is manifest that men can believe in it, while dis- believing or doubting the genuineness of the miracles. They can, for they do. JUit it may be said, and justly said, that this is not the whole of genuine Christian faith. It is not faith such as Jesus himself required, and such as the Christian Church has always regarded as necessary in order to constitute a man in the proper sense a Christian. We may, however, observe further that even genuine faith in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of sinners may be exercised by those who do not first make a study of the apologetic value of mir- acles, and come to their faith by tliat road. It mat/ be, for it is. The young who receive their knowledge of the way of salvation directly from the instruction of their elders do not need, and are not able, to examine the evidences of the genuineness of the Gospel miracles before they can surrender themselves to Christ in penitent trust. Doubtless they are taught also to believe the stories of the miraculous deeds. But this belief need not precede the other, so as to constitute the indispensable founda- tion of it. Furthermore, if we look at the subject from the more directly apologetic point of view, there is au infelicity in making a con- 174 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. viction of the genuineness of the reported miracles serve as the indispensable antecedent of Christian faith. ^Ye meet at once this serious difficulty : that the argument for the genuine- ness of the miracles, however plausible and cogent it may seem to one favorably inclined to Christianity, cannot, when taken apart from the character and professions of the alleged miracle- worker, be made convincing to one who is predisposed against both Christianity and stories of miraculous events. ]Marvels are not necessarily miracles ; and experience is so full of strange things and of plausible, though deceptive, pretensions to miracu- lous power, that one can frame, if he will, some explanation of any alleged miracle rather than admit its genuineness. The miraculous events alleged to have accompanied the introduction of Christianity are now, moreover, far distant. Even the oldest vouchers for their occurrence cannot be proved to have been eye-witnesses of the events ; or even if they were, how is it to be demonstrated that the alleged miracles were not fraudulent per- formances of impostors ? One may, with Paley,^ show how much better attested the Christian miracles are than the Pagan or ecclesiastical ones. Still, at the best, the difference is only one of degree ; and even if one find himself unable to explain away the apparent miracles and show just what the actual facts were, he can yet frame hypotheses. The immense presumption which all intelligent men admit to lie against the occurrence of all miracles, must be overcome before one can be expected to give a favorable attention to the evidence for the occurrence of any particular miracle. But even if that has been overcome, and one feels the need of a divine revelation and of a super- natural attestation of it, yet the question is not settled, what alleged revelation, and what pretended miraculous accompani- ments of one, are to be accepted as genuine. Not only must the general presumption against miracles be overcome, but a presumption in favor of some particular medium of a revelation must be created, else his pretended miracles will be rejected as a specious delusion, even though they cannot be explained. We cannot, therefore, fully assent to the position taken by Dr. W. M. Taylor in his contention against Archbishop Trench. ^ Evidences of Chrislianity, part i., prop. ii. chap. ii. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 175 In reply to the objection that " power cannot in the nature of things confirm truth," he says, '' That all depends ou whose power it is. Now, in this instance it is the power of (lod; and the moral perfection of Deity gives its own character to the forth-putting of that power in confirmation of the claims of him at whose word the miracle is wrought." ^ But this argu- ment presupposes that the fact of a miracle wrought by di- vine power has been fully demonstraj,ed, and is accepted as fact. If it be assumed that God has commissioned a prophet to work miracles in connection with the prophetic message, why, then of course this peculiar display of power must nat- urally be regarded as a divine confirmation of the spoken word. The difficulty, however, lies further back. How is one to be made iudulntably certain that the alleged miracle is a display of divine power ? When the enemies of Christ ac- cuse him of being an agent of Beelzebub rather than of God, or if some one should affirm that his marvelous deeds were nothing but skilful acts of jugglery, how are such men to be persuaded that they are in the wrong ? If the character of the pretended prophet, and the nature of his utterances, are not such as to create a presumption in his favor ; if the miracles, apparently real, are the work of one whose demeanor is that of a mountebank or of a trifler ; if he makes the impression of not being an honest, earnest, and God-fearing man, — shall this impression go for nothing in one's judgment on the (juestion, whether his extraordinary deeds are the work of supernatural power ? Would it be possible for one not to be influenced in his judgment respecting the apparent miracles by this ante- cedent judgment concerning the man ? If apparent miracles were always real ; if the genuineness of them were always something self-evident and incontrovertible ; and if all men, even the most depraved, were ready to accept, as of divine authority, whatever a miracle- worker says, — the case would be comparatively simple. But the problem is not so simple. It is true, as Dr. Taylor says,^ that the depraved human conscience cannot be made " the standard by which all * The Gospel Miracles, Lecture VI. p. 174. 2 Ibid., p. 192. 176 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. that claims to be truth commg from God is to be tried." But the human conscience, depraved though it is, is able to discern between knavery and honesty. The very argument under con- sideration presupposes, moreover, that the natural man has a belief hi God, that he acknowledges a message from God to be true and authoritative, and that he recognizes a miracle to be a work of God. Unless all this is presupposed, miraculous demonstrations would \^e lost on him. A certain degree of re- ligious and moral sense is essential, in order that a man may believe in a miracle at all, and in its power to authenticate the deliverances of those through or for whom it is wrought. Suppose now, for example, that a man should perform marvels apparently as great as those attributed to Christ, but should undertake on the strength of them to teach that murder, and theft, and malevolence are laudable, or that the true Deity is to be found in the chimpanzee, should we be bound to accept his doctrines because of his miracles ? But, it may be replied, such a man's performances cannot be real miracles, but only a juggler's tricks. Very well ; but why do we presume them to be mere tricks ? These tricks may, as facts show, seem to the ordinary observer to be quite as marvelous, quite as much be- yond human power, as any of the recorded miracles of Christ.^ Why should those who witnessed the latter have been ex- pected to accept them as veritable miracles, and as authenti- cating the word of the miracle-worker, while those of the other are regarded with suspicion, and, even though inexplicable, are yet assumed to be mere tricks of legerdemain ? There is but one answer : The moral character of Jesus, his benevolence and sincerity, his general irustivorthiness, is supposed to have been a guarantee that he would not deceive men by ])retending to be possessed of supernatural power, when he was in reality only practising sleight of hand. This element is essential in any question concerning the genuineness of an apparent miracle. ^ Vide, e. g., an account of Indian Juf/r/linr/ in Oiire a Week, Jan. 18G1, •where it is narrated how a coin was apparently transformed into a snake, and a girl miu'dered and restored to life. Every one who has witnessed the exploits of prestidigitators can testify to tlie reality of things which seem to defy all explanation, except on the supposition of magical power. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE oi' MIUACLES. 177 If the ostensible niiiacle-vvorkcr teaches immorality, and ad- duces Ills miracles as evidence of liis divine commission to teach it, in such a case we conclude at once that the claim of a divine commission is false, and that the miracles are tricks. Here the doctrine certainly is lield to disprove the miracle. We do not deem it even necessary to expose the nature of tlie tricks ; we may be unable to do so. We simply take it for granted that they are tricks. AVhat a man is and what he saijs must, therefore, go very far ill determining our judgment as to the validity of his claim to lie a supernaturally endowed messenger from God. It does not follow that men, especially irreligious men, can determine a 'priori just what doctrines a prophet may or must preach. But they may be very sure concerning certain doctrines, that a prophet of God will not preach them. And equally true is it that the character of a professed prophet's utterances may pre- possess men in his favor before he has ever wrought any mir- acles, and predispose them to believe in the genuineness of the miracles when he does perform them. The " authority " with which Jesus taught (Matt. vii. 29), and " the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth" (Luke iv. 22), prepared the Jews to give credit to his mighty works. Archbishop Trench says,^ that " miracles cannot be appealed to absolutely and finally in proof of the doctrine which the worker of them proclaims ; and God's word expressly declares the same (I)eut. xiii. 1-5)." Dr. Taylor re^jlies^ that the signs or wonders spoken of in the passage referred to are not genuine miracles, and that Trench himself admits ^ that, " while the works of Antichrist and his organs are not mere tricks and jug- gleries, neither are they miracles in the highest sense of the word." Hence it is concluded that the case supposed by IMoses does not affect the position that works " possessing all the essen- tial elements of the miracle do absolutely and simply prove a doctrine." Xow, whatever may be said on the disputed ques- tion whether, according to the Bible, Satan and his minions do perform real miracles, the point of Trench's argument is that, in view of the striking and plausible character of these demon- * Notes on Mi/acle^; p. 27. ^ Gospd Miracles, p. 193. ^ j^/,/^ p_ 20. 12 178 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. stratioiis, the decision of the question whether a pretended miracle docs possess all the essential elements of the miracle depends, in part at least, on the nature of the doctrine which claims to Ije authenticated by it. Otherwise, unless those who witness the pretended miracles are able to detect the secret of the magic or legerdemain by which they are performed, they cannot be blamed for following after every one who seems to be invested with miraculous power. In reference to the case of Deut. xiii. 1-5, Dr. Taylor says ^ that " the appeal here is not to the moral nature of man at all, but to the consistency of God himself. The Hebrews had already received a revelation mirac- ulously attested from God, and the argument is that, as God cannot deny or contradict himself, any wonders or signs wrought in opposition to the precepts of that revelation are to be re- garded as impostures." But this reply proceeds on the sup- position that the false prophet against whom the people are warned is going to represent his sign or wonder as wrought by Jehovah ; otherwise there would be no question of Jehovah's consistency with himself. But this supposition is manifestly wrong. The false prophet who seeks to draw the people away from Jehovah and to " go after other gods " would be little better than a fool, if he should pretend that Jehovah enabled him to per- form the miracles on the ground of which he invites them to for- sake Jehovah ! No ; the false prophet would of course represent the " other gods " as enabling him to work the wonders ; and so the question before the people would be whether to believe the new prophet or the old one. There would be no question of God's consistency, but simply the question whether Jehovah is the God, or whether some other God is to be accepted instead of him. Of course the accepting of the new one would involve the forsaking of the old one ; but the people might be led to think that not the new signs, but the old ones, were deceitful. Just because the pretended miracle was liable to be very spe- cious and dazzling, while the recollection or tradition of the Mosaic miracles was liable to grow dim and unimpressive, there- fore Moses enjoins that the test should not be the mere appar- ent miracles, but the doctrine of those who wrought them. ^ Gospel Miracles, p. 198. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 179 III. We conclude, therefore, tliat the evidential value of miracles cannot be detached from the personal character and the teachings of the miracle-worker, but that the two co-operate. The doctrine proves the miracle, and the miracle proves the doctrine. V>y this is meant that the doctrine — the prophetic commission — is self-evidencing, but not in such a degree that the accom- panying miracles are a superfluous accessory, to be believed in indeed because wrought by one whose word has proved him a prophet, but tlieniselves unnecessary as a proof of the prophet's divine vocation. A useless miracle would be an abnormity. The more clearly it should be recognized as useless, the more doubtful would be the reality of it. God does not trifle with the laws of nature or with us. Scarcely more satisfactory is the view of those who believe indeed in miracles, not, however, as having evidential value, but simply as being just what might have been expected from so wonderful a person as Jesus was. This view is now much in vogue. According to it Jesus wrought miracles, not for the purpose of substantiating his claims, but merely because such work was, as it were, the spontaneous and normal expression of his nature and character.^ There is plausibility and force in this representation. Assum- ing the essentially supernatural character of Jesus' origin and person, we find it comparatively easy to believe that he could do supernatural deeds. We may say truly that in such a be- ing miracles seem quite appropriate and normal, proinded there is occasion for performing them. But this suggests the diffi- culty which besets the view in question. "What is meant, when it is attirmed that " miracles were but the natural accompani- ments of the Christian revelation," that they were "a constitu- 1 Sec above (p. 127) the references to Trcncli, Coleridge, Thomas Arnold, Maurice. Similarly Professor Ladd (Sacred Scrip/ are, vol. i. p. 311), "The supernatural contents, inclusive of the miraculous, belong to the very essence of Chri.stianity, and can no more be separated from it tlian can the principle of life from the living organism." And on p. 316 he speaks of miracles as "the natural result of his superhuman power." Page 315, the power of healing is regarded " as the normal product of his personality." Cf. also J. Stoughton, Nature and Value of the Miraculous Testimony to Christianity , p. 46. 180 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. tive element of the revelation of God in Christ," that their absence " would have been far more wonderful than their pres- ence ? " There seems to be here a want of clearness of concep- tion. Is it meant that Jesus wrought miracles because he could not help it — because he was driven to it by a sort of natural necessity ? Doubtless not. But if not, then the only alternative is that he wrought miracles freely, and for an ethical reason. What, then, was the reason why he wrought them ? Probably the answer would be : For the purpose of doing good. But he could do good, he could give expression to his benevo- lent disposition, without resorting to supernatural power. No doubt he could do many acts of kindness through miraculous agency which he could not have done by ordinary means. But is it meant that he was bound to do, and did do, all that it was possible for supernatural power to do by way of beneficent action ? Hardly this ; for if so, then we should have to assume that God, being possessed of supernatural power, is bound to ex- ercise it miraculously all the time and in all possible ways for the sake of alleviating the evils of the world. If ordinarily and in general God sees fit to manifest his benevolence, and to let men manifest their benevolence, only through the uniformly operating forces of nature, why did he make an exception in the case of Jesus Christ, and in him manifest his benevolence in a supernatural way ? The question has all the more point, inas- much as the miraculous deeds of Christ had to do almost ex- clusively with the relief of physical pain, whereas his mission was primarily and chiefly a purely spiritual one. As a manifestation of benevolence, then, the exercise of miraculous power could not accomplish more than unmiracu- lous beneficence. The doing of the miracles did not prove that Christ had more love than other men ; it only proved that he had more poioer. And so we are brought back to the position that the miracles had primarily an evidential value ; they were an evidence of the superior power, or superior nature, of Christ, or at least of a superior divine commission. For we should bear in mind that ultimately the power to work miracles is as- cribed, even by Christ himself, to God. It was " by the finger of God " (Luke xi. 20) that he professed to cast out demons ; THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OK MIRACLES. 181 the raising of Lazarus he represented as an answer to prayer, and as a manifestation of tlie glory of (.Jod (John xi. •40-42). .Vnd liis resurrection, the crowning miracle of all, is ahnost uniformly declared to be the work of C!od.' Moreover, if the miracles of Jesus are to be regarded as a sort of outtiow or efflorescence of his superhuman nature, what shall we say of the miracles wrought by his apostles ? They are uni- formly declared to have had power to work the same kind of miracles as Jesus wrought himself,^ not excepting the raising of the dead.^ Are tlicnr miracles to be explained as simply the natural outworking of the unique character and endowments of the apostles ? Plainly nnt ; their miraculous power was a power conferred ; they were the commissioned agents of a higher au- thority.* Now, doubtless, Jesus' relation to miraculous works is pictured as somewhat different from that of his apostles. He himself it is who bestows on them the miraculous power. In his own working of miracles he often, perhaps most often, seems to speak as if the power inhered in himself,^ even the power to raise himself from the dead.^ But such representations find a natural explanation in the intimate union with the Father which Jesus always ascribed to himself, and which the apostles always ascribed to him. If he wrought miracles by his oion power, then he did it by virtue of his being possessed of divine power. Mere eminence in intellectual or moral excellence constitutes no sufficient ground for ascribing to any mere man the power mde- pendently to work a miracle. lUit this brings us back to the starting-point. The doctrine under consideration is, that in so wonderful a person wonderful deeds are to be expected and excite no surprise. The answer is : Yes ; in a remarkable man remarkable deeds may be expected, but not necessarily miraculous deeds. Is it a general truth that the more gifted or spiritual a man is, the more nearly he comes to Working miracles ? But even if it were admitted that Jesus 1 Acts ill. 15, 26, ii. 24, v. 30, xiii. 30 ; Rom. i. 4 ; 1 Cor. xv. 15, etc. « Matt. X. 1 ; Mark iii. 15, vi. 7 ; Luke ix. ] , 2 ; Acts ill. 1-8, ix. 33, 34, xlv. 8-10. 8 Acts ix. 36-40. ■* See Note 2 and Acts iii. 16. 6 E. //., Matt. ix. 5 ; Mark v. 30 ; Luke v. 23, 24, vi. 5-10, viii. 46. « Joiinx. IS; of. ii. 19. 182 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. was so unique that veritable miracles might be expected of him, the question must still be asked, How do we know that he was so unique? What does the conviction of this uniqueness rest on? Plainly, tliis cannot be quietly assumed without reason. And the reason can be nothing else than the evidence afforded by tradition and the New Testament. The uniqueness claimed for him has reference especially to two points : (1) his unique moral character, and (2) his unique relation to God and men. Now, one may indeed forcibly argue the sinless excellence of Jesus on grounds which are independent of his supernatural power. -^ Mere power would certainly be an inadequate proof. l>ut, on the other hand, so stupendous an exception to all experience as absolute freedom from sin could hardly be made convincingly certain, if there were only the evidence of an exceptionally good life, and the absence of all self-accusation. He also, it is true, asserted his own perfection.^ But many other even good men have done the same ; and the few utterances of his which seem to affirm his absolute sinlessness might, if necessary, be under- stood to signify only a relative perfection. In like manner, it might be said that the absence, in the record, of all confession of sin and petition for pardon on his part is only a negative argument, and does not prove that in his solitary prayers no such confession was ever made. Undoubtedly Jesus must have been either an enthusiast with remarkable powers of persuasion, or else a man of wonderful purity and exaltedness of character. Undoubtedly the general impression produced by the records, and confirmed by tradition, is that he was no self-deluded fan- atic, but a person of altogether exceptional virtue and moral power. Undoubtedly it seems most reasonable, when we con- sider his rare combination of excellences and the extraordinary claims and professions which he made, to conclude that his dis- ciples were justified in declaring him to have been free from sin.^ But when we reach this conclusion, there meets us at once the ^ As Ullmami, Sinless Character of Jesus ; Dorner, Jesu siindlose Vollkom- menheit ; Schaff, The Person of Christ ; liow, The Jesus of the Evangelists; "Buslmell, Nature and the Supernatural. ■•^ Joliu viii. 29, 46; cf. iv. 34, v. 36, vi. 38. 8 Heb. iv. 15, vii. 26 ; 1 Pet. ii. 22, i. 19 ; 1 John iii. 5 ; 2 Cor. v. 21. THE EVIDENTLVL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 188 objection that there is an overwhehning presumption against the proposition that any mere man, enjoying ordinary privileges and suhjected to ordinary temptations, has ever passed through life absolutely free from sinful emotions, desires, and actions. If any one has ever so deported himself as to make the impression of being such a unique exception to all the experience of the world, then the further impression cannot but force itself on the mind, that such a man is 7iot an ordinary man in his antecedents, environments, and endowments. And, accordingly, this is precisely what the records say of Jesus of Xazareth. He is pictured to us as a man not only unique in moral eminence, but unique also in his origin, endow- ments, and commission. He is called the only-begotten Son of God, miraculously conceived, a person who reflects in himself the divine character and glory, and is specially anointed and set apart by God as the one Eedeemer of men. In other words, the proof of absolute uniqueness in respect of holiness is not com- plete and satisfactory until it is confirmed by the evidence of uni(]^ueness in respect of nature, prerogative, and relation. But how is this uniqueness of nature and office to be itself proved ? Is it enough that Jesus himself declared that he was thus unique ? He having by his irreproachable conduct estab- lished his reputation for uprightness and veracity, would his bare word have sufficed to produce conviction, when he laid claim to be the Son of God in an altogether exclusive sense, and demanded of all men that they should come to him for salvation ? It might, indeed, be plausibly urged that, if Jesus had gained the confidence of men, or at least of his followers, to such an extent that they ascribed to him absolute faultlessness, then any affirmation which he made concerning himself must have been acce[)ted as trustworthy. But we must remember that "confidence is a plant of slow growth." Jesus, in the short time during which he plied his vocation, could hardly have compelled universal and undoubting confidence in liis absolute perfection. We know that the people in general had no such confidence in him. ]\fany who followed him for a time fell away from him.^ There is no evidence that even his most ^ Joliu vi. 66. 184 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. intimate disciples at first, or even up to his death, regarded him as absolutely sinless. A man's moral character is something which can rcNcal itself only by slow degrees. And though transcendent goodness and purity would doubtless anywhere soon make a deep impression, yet the general presumption that every man has faults and imperfections would in any case stub- bornly assert itself against any claim or suggestion of perfect faultlessness. And therefore we are not surprised at finding that the apostles and friends of Christ did not hesitate to re- monstrate with him, and to question the wisdom or propriety of his conduct.^ Such indications are, indeed, not numerous ; those who attached themselves to him undoubtedly felt more and more the peculiar power and sublimity of his character. But it was not until after his resurrection that they unquali- fiedly asserted his perfect freedom from sin. How, then, did the disciples of Jesus become fully convinced of his Messiahship and of his peculiar dignity and unique office ? All the indications of the Gospels are to the effect that the con- viction, however early the intimations and hopes may have been, was of gradual growth, and that it was not a full and unshaka- ble assurance till after the resurrection. He was not such a Messiah as had been commonly expected ; and though at his birth and baptism he was heralded as a Eedeemer, and though some persons seem early to have attached themselves to him in the faith that he was really the expected one, yet the faith ap- pears to have been a wavering one. Jesus' own claim was such as required to be verified by a continued experience of fellow- ship with him and observation of his deportment and work. And prominent among the evidences expected and received were miraculous manifestations. These manifestations could, it is true, not be implicitly trusted as divine, unless confirmed by a previous confidence in the trustworthiness of him in whose be- half they were made ; but in connection with this confidence they served as an emphatic ratification of the Messianic claim. That the Jews generally looked for some miraculous demon- strations as accom[)animents of the appearance of the Christ is evident from the question in John vii. 31, "When the Christ ^ E. f]., Mark iv. 38, viii. 32; Luke x. iO ; John xiii. 6. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. l85 shall come, will he do more signs than those which this man hath done { " and from the narrative of the effect of the raising of Lazarus (xi. 4G-48), and of the miracle of tiie loaves and fishes (vi. 15). And that the disciples of Christ were influenced hy the same expectation is evident from John ii. 11, where, after the miracle of the wine, it is said, " This beginning of his signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory ; and his disciples believed on him." Had they not believed on him before ? In the previous chapter we read that Andrew and another man had followed Jesus, trusting in the assurance of John the Baptist ; that Andrew reported to Peter that he had found the ]\Iessiah (i. 41); and that Philip and Nathanael at once accepted him as such (i. 45, 49). Now it is said of these same disciples that in consequence of Jesus' first miracle they believed on him. Evidently the meaning is that the faith already existing was confirmed by this di.splay of miraculous power. 15ut even this faith, though continually strengthened by personal fellowship and by repeated miracles, was not so strong but that the crucifixion staggered it. The two disciples who walked to Emmaus had " hojml that it was he which should redeem Israel" (Luke xxiv. 21), bvit the hope had evi- dently turned into despair. The apostles were dismayed by the tragical end of their Master's life, and could hardly be persuaded that he had risen from the dead. Once persuaded of this, how- ever, they regained their faith, and never again lost it. Now it should be observed that this shock which had come to the apostles' faith in Jesus' Mcssiahship must have affected also their faith in his absolute trustworthiness. He had declared himself to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Light of the world. If now there had come into their minds a doubt as to the fact of his being the Messiah, then there must necessarily have come a doubt as to his truthfulness in declaring himself to be the Messiah. The two things were indissolubly bound to- gether. Christ's miracles and his life had worked together pre- viously in producing and strengthening the disciples' confidence in his uniqueness both of character and of commission. And now the resurrection fully restores and finally seals their confi- dence in both the.se things. How the evidential function of 186 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. miracles can be questioned by one who credits the New Testa- ment, it is diiiicult to see. The testimony is unanimous that the miracles wrought by Jesus and for him were efficacious and even indispensable in bringing about the final unwavering con- viction tliat Jesus was tlie one sinless man and perfect Re- deemer. John wrote : " These [signs] are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." ^ Paul wrote that Jesus was " declared to be the Son of God with power . . . by the resurrection from the dead."^ To the Athenians he said that God had ordained Jesus to be the one by whom he would judge the world, " whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead."^ Peter on the day of Pentecost declared that Jesus had been "approved of God ... by mighty works, and wonders, and signs," * foremost among which he put Jesus' resurrection.^ Jesus himself is represented as directly appealing to his miraculous power as a proof of his authority to forgive sins.^ Assuming the substantial authenticity of the New Testament we are, therefore, forced to conclude that the miracles, especially the resurrection of Christ, did serve an evidential pui^pose. It is consequently hard to see how such a man as Professor Bruce '^ can argue as he does in opposition to Canon Mozley.^ The disciples of Christ, he says, " seem to have arrived at the con- viction that Jesus was the Holy One through an intimate knowledge of his character made possible by habitual compan- ionship," whereas " the conventional saints and sages of the time, giving heed to the miracles, . . . were not only not convinced thereby, but arrived at the opposite conclusion," namely, that he was in fellowship with Beelzebub. But what a pitfall the Christian apologist is preparing for himself by such a conception ! According to Dr. Bruce the miracles were real, but were not needed in order to the faith of the disciples, and exercised a positively baneful influence on the unbelievers. What good reason was there, then, for the miracles 1 John XX. 31. 2 ]^o,„. i 4 a Acts xvii. 31. " Acts ii. 22. 8 Acts ii. 24-36. Cf. iii. 15, iv. 10, x. 40-43 ; 1 Pet. i. 3. ^ Matt. ix. 6 (Mark ii. 10; Luke v. 24). Cf. also note 2 on p. 157. ' Miraculous Element in the Gospels, pp. 288 sqq. ^ On Miracles, p. 11. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OK MIKACLES. 187 at all ? I)i. l>ruce says, to be sure, that the disciples "saw in all his acts, miraculous or otherwise, the self-manifestation of the Christ, the Son of the living (Jod."' No doubt, if he wrouglit miracles, they were in harmony with his character. No doubt, in working them he followed holy impulses of benevo- lence, and was not impelled merely by a cold calculation as to their evidential effect. But the question is still unanswered, What sufficient reason was there for working them ? Accord- ing to the theory now before us they were not necessary to the full self-manifestation of Jesus; they accompli.shed nothing which could not have been accomplished without them in the way of making obvious his dignity, divine commission, lov(.', and wi.sdom. If this is indeed the fact, then, in case the miracles are held to have been real, they appear to have acconijtlished no substantial end except to furnish a stumbling-block both to the philosopher and to the intelligent Christian, and to justify the aflirmation that miracles are a burden rather than a help to the Christian apologist. And in this case the conclusion can hardly be avoided, that the alleged miracles were after all no miracles at all. What, then, is the correct view as to the use of miracles ? Manifestly this : that miracles have a positive and indispensable evidential worth, but not anterior to, and independent of, the evidence afforded by personal character and testimony. There must be a strong confidence in the general integrity and veracity of the professed messenger of Cod, before his alleged miracles can be accepted as genuine. But the more extraordinary his claims are, the more need is there of extraordinary attestation. Apparent sincerity, simplicity, and purity prepare the way for faith in whatever he may affirm ; but if he professes to have a special divine commission, then he needs to be "aj)proved of (Jod by mighty works and wonders and signs." He who pro- fesses to be the bearer of an authoritative revelation from God needs a divine antlientication. Whatever may l»e true respect- ing the power of prophets in general to work miracles,^ when- * Miraculous Element in the GospelK, p. 289. * John tlic BapH.st wrought, no miracles; and of many of the O. T. pro- phets there is no record that thcj' claimed or exercised this power. Yet they 188 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. ever one undertakes to introduce, as divine and authoritative, something neiv in doctrine, legislation, or redemption, some warrant must be produced over and above the prophet's own assertion that he represents the divine will. Tlie introduction of a new dispensation, the making known of truths concerning God and the future life which neither nature nor past reve- lations have made clear and certain to men, — this requires some objective evidence that the professed prophet has been specially authorized to do this peculiar work. One who pro- fesses to be commissioned to make such disclosures must expect to be challenged to present his credentials. An ambassador of the Great King must bring some other token of a plenipoten- tiary commission than a good personal character. When, therefore, it is said that the doctrine must prove the miracle, the meaning is not that the doctrines are all self -attest- ing, so that the miracles, though attested by the doctrines, have no real use, and become, rather, a burden to the Christian apol- ogist. The meaning is, that the character and teachings of the professed messenger of God must commend themselves to the moral judgment of men, else not even ajiparcnt miracles will be able to secure him recognition as an inspired prophet. The more pure, sincere, unselfish, and elevated he seems to be, the more readily will he be credited, when he lays claim to special authority and professes to prove it by supernatural power. A part of the proof of the genuineness of the miracles lies in the evident trustioortliincss of the one who professes to work them. But another, and an essential, part of the proof is the need of were acknowledged to be true propliets. Ileuce it is sometimes argued that a miraculous attestation can never be pronounced essential. (So, r. g., in the anonymous pamplilet. Positives Christenthum und orthodoxer Pietismus, p. 47, one of the many productions connected with the controversy respecting Pro- fessor Bender of Bonn, 18S3-84). As to this, however, it is to be considered that the prophets in general, in so far as tliey were feared and foUowed, owed their authority to a previous su])ornalnra] revelation, which they were inspired to expound and enforce. They rose up auiongst a people who recognized the genuineness of tliis revelation. Tn so far as they were merely preachers, enfor- cing the obligation of a law already received as divinely given, they needed no niiraeulons power to enable them to make an impression on the consciences of their hearers. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUK Ul' MIKACLES. 189 miiiiclco, which is fult when the prophet makes extraordinary claims. Wu would nut believe in the genuineness of the mira- cles, unless t\\Q (J c Iter a I tenor of the man's life and teachings were good; we would not credit his claims to .s/;t't'iVf/ authority, unless we see evidence that (Jod has given him a special authorization. The advantage of this concep.tion of the evidential character of miracles over the other is obvious. If the belief in the reality of a revelation is made to depend on an antecedent demonstra- tion of the genuineness of the miracles wrought in attestation of it, the faith can only be as strong as the demonstration is irre- fragable. Every defect in the evidence, every possibility of a natural explanation of the alleged miracle, every difficulty of distinguishing the evangelical miracles as more palpably and demonstrably genuine than other apparent ones, — all this would bear against Christianity as a whole. The ground of faith would depend on nice distinctions, and on minute investigations, such as only scientifically trained minds could adequately appreciate. And the result would at the best be dubious. The weight of evidence for the reality of the miracles, taken apart from the character and professions of those alleged to have performed tliom, would be insufficient to overcome in intelligent minds the distrust wliich is felt towards stories of miracles in general. There is a presumption against the truth of all such stories. The speculative presumption may be overcome by the general consideration that, if a revelation is to be made, it needs to be attested by supernatural signs. But the special presumption against the genuineness of particular alleged miracles can be overcome only by evidence that those for or by whom they are alleged to have been wrought are otherwise shown to have been trustworthy men, and the alleged revelation to be not repugnant to men's moral sense. The internal and the external evidence for the revelation can, therefore, not be separated. No apologist would, it is true, discard the internal evidence. But sometimes the two kinds are treated as if they had no vital connection with each other ; they are added together in a mathematical way, as if one of them could be presented in its full force in isolation from the other.^ The fact is, that such a sundering is ^ Dr. W. M. Tavlur, to whose treatniont of (lie subject (in liis Gospel Mira- 190 SUPEliNATUKAL UKVKLATION. impossible. In judging of the reported miracles of Christ we cannot disregard the personal character of the miracle-worker. When we compare his miracles with the marvels wrought by other men, the difference is found largely in the difference be- tween the persons operating. We believe in the one rather than in the other, not simply because the miraculous testimony cles) we liave been constrained to take exception, sometimes recognizes tlie inseparableness of tlie two kinds of evidence, and even seems to go over to the otlier extreme against wliicli elsewhere he contends. In his Second Lecture he says there are two classes of minds, the reflective and the perceptive (p. 32), the former of which is most impressed by that wliich luys iiold on the moral nature. And later (p. 34), he says that "the persoiudlty of Christ" has now become "tlie great solvent of his miracles. It enables us to understand, ex- plain, and defend them." Still later (p. 57), he says that, al'ter we have come to see the uniqueness of Christ's person, " the mii-acles of these narratives fall into their proper places, and are seen to be the natural accompaniments of the •j-reater moral miracle in Christ himself." These statements, however, hardly seem to consist with some others. Thus (p. 32) : " These two methods of arrivino- at virtually the same result are separate and independent processes." And (p 182): "In the line of proof the miracles come first, introdrcing the messenger from heaven; then on the ground of that divine testimony which tliey bore to him we believe his teaching and receive himself; and after tliat, bis teaching having been believed, experience begins to bear its witness." If Christ's personality is the solvent of the miracles, if it is that which enables us to understand and defend tbem, it is liard to see how the two metliods of treating the Christian evidences can be declared to be separate and indejiendent, and especially how it can be declared that in the line of proof the miracles come first. If it is on the ground of the miracles that Christ is believed and received, then the miracles would hardly seem to be in need of explanation and defense ; they must, ex ht/pothesi, be understood before Christ is received ; other- wise they furnish no satisfactory ground for receiving him. There is no way out of tiiis self-contradiction, but to admit, together with the insejiarableness of the two methods, the priority of the moral argument. As President Hop- kins puts it {Eindences of Christianity/, pp. 78 sq.): " Certainly, I think the his- torical evidence conclusive; and it is indispensable, because the Christian religion . . . has its foundation in facts. . . . But if the external evidences are thus indispensable and conclusive, so are also the internal. What would have been the effect and force of Christ's miracles without his spotless and transcendent character? If I am to say which would most deeply impress me with the fact that he was from God, the testimony respecting his miracles, or the exhibition of such a character, I think I should say tlie latter ; and I think myself as well qualified to judge in the one case as in the other; and, as I have said, I think this is the evidence which now presents itself." THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIliACLES. 191 is iiiurci ample ami uiiinistakalilc, but because wo have more confidence in the agent, and discern an occasion for his miracles which we do not discern in i\ui other cases. The advantaij;e of recognizing this organic connection between the iuLiTual and the external evidences appears also when we consider the differences in the minds addressed by them. There are those who have an almost invincible prejudice against all stories of miracles ; till that prejudice is shaken, such stories can have little or no weight with them. On the other hand, there are those who easily believe in almost any alleged miracle; to them, therefore, a miracle really proves nothing. There an?, however, still others, not so credulous, who dis- believe ordinary stories of miracles, but are ready to believe thoroughly well attested ones, and regard them as having evi- dential force. Even for these, however, as we have seen, the evidence of miracles to the truth of Christianity never has been and never can be detached from the impression produced by the person and the doctrines of Christ. Still more obvious is it that to the other two classes — to those who believe too hardly, and to those who believe too easily — the most convincing proof is, in the first instance, an exhibition of the intrinsic spiritual ex- cellence of Christianity, of the unique grandeur of the character of Christ, and of the power of Christian faith to transform and elevate the human soul. This proof once admitted, the mirac- ulous side of Christianity will be acknowledged afterwards, and will be seen to be a confirmation of the internal and the experi- mental evidence. But, it may now be asked, is not just this experimental evidence after all the principal thing? If one has experienced Christian- ity as a reforming, inspiring, comforting, and saving power, what matters it whether the historical evidences of a supernatural revelation are made stringently conclusive to his mind ? If he has got the substantial and ultimate good which the Christian religion professes to bring, has he not the most satisfactory proof of its divine origin ? And is not the most convincing argument that can be addressed to an unbeliever the one which is derived from the manifestly beneficial effects of Christianity on the individual and the world ? Do we not find this intimated 192 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. by Jesus himself, when he prays for his disciples, " that they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that the}' also may be in us : that the world may believe that thou didst send me" (John xvii. 21)? That is, he prays that the world may be led to believe in liis divine commission by tlie unifying spiritual effects of his gospel Now all this may be freely conceded. If Christianity should fail to accomplish what it undertakes and promises, that failure would neutralize all arguments, however forcible, in favor of its supernatural origin. If, on the other hand, that spiritual renova- tion and purification which is professedly its chief aim should be everywhere and perfectly accomplished, this would be the most conclusive, though still not the only, proof that it is indeed of God. In reality, however, neither of these suppositions represents the exact fact. Chr."stianity thus far is neitlier a perfect failure, nor a perfect success. In numberless instances it has effected remarkable transformations of character ; it has elevated whole tribes and nations ; it has counteracted vicious and downward tendencies of men, even when it has not been able wholly to out- root them.^ But on the other hand the Christian church must be held responsible for many evils and wrongs. Large portions of it are found to be more devoted to outward forms than to inward purity. It has often given its sanction to cruelty and even crime. According to one's prepossession stress can be laid on the brighter or the darker side of the history of Christianity. Only, fairness requires that Christianity as such should not be held responsible for all that has been done and said by nominal Christians. Pre- cept or practice which plainly conflicts with the fundamental principles of the Christian religion, as laid down in the New Testament, is not Christian, even though bearing a Christian name. Conduct or feeling that is loveless can only be a perver- sion, not a true product, of a religion whose great and compre- hensive injunction is ui'.iversal love. The failure of Christianity wholly to reuo\ate the world is due simply to its not being true 1 Oil tlie elevatiiiEi: effect of Christianity in general, ride C L. Brace, Ocsla Chrisli ; W. E. H. Lecky, Hisfori/ of European Morals ; Uhlliorn, Christian Chariti/ ill the Ancient Church ; R. S. Storrs, The Dicine Origin of Christian- ity, New York, 18S5. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 193 to itself. If it liad done nothing in the work of mural improve- ment, or if somu ojiposing system had done more, then this might be fairly urged as a reason for discrediting its claim to a divine origin. But no one, unless ignurant or biased, can make either of these assertions. Still it may be contended that what is good and beneficent in Christianity is purely natural and not revealed, that the notion of the duty of general benevolence, though adopted by Chris- tianity, is a product of the process of evolution, and that what is peculiar in Christian morality is a hinderance rather than a help to ethical progress. What are the peculiar features of Christian morality I They concern the viotives and the sanc- tions of the moral life. On the one hand, the oriuinatinii im- pulse to a Christian life is found in the sense of sin as an oli'ense against a righteous God, accompanied by the assurance that God, out of his fatherly love, will freely forgive those who repent of sin and seek to forsake it. This love is revealed and exempli- fied in Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, who passed through the extreme of humiliation, temptation, and suffering, in order that he might become a sympathetic and perfect Kedeemer of men. Faith in him as such a divinely commissioned Redeemer, love to him as a self-sacrificing Friend, imitation of him as a model of all human virtue, -this is made the motive power in the Christian's striving after moral perfection. On the other hand, a future life is ludd out to men, in which unhappiness is to be the consequence of persistence in wickedness, and the re- ward of a holy life is to be eternal fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the spirits of the just made perfect. Over against this a non-Christian, or natural, morality holds that there is and can be no such thing as the forgiveness of sin,^ that the sole motive of a moral life is a sense of obligation to promote the happiness of men, and that the reward of a good life is in the good life itself. Now the question might be raised, how far this so-called natural morality is after all indebted to Christianity for its moral ideal. According to the evolution doctrine, all ideas are the product of heredity ; and men in Chris- ^ Sof \V. K. Clifford, T/ie Ef/ii'-n of Religion (in Lprfm-rs and Essays, vol. ii. p. 211). Cf. J. C. Morison, The Sercice of Man, chap. v. 194 SUPERNATUKAL REVELATION. tian lands who have inherited the lessons of Christian ethics, even though they may abandon the Christian faith in many of its distinctive features, yet cannot claim that they have evolved, independently of Christian traditions, a moral sense and a moral code. But not to insist on this, the Christian position is that Christianity recognizes and enforces all the truth that natural morality contains, and adds to it a revelation w^hicli tends to intensify and accelerate the moral development of men. It deepens the sense of guilt, making sin to be not a mere natural and necessary disposition of the soul, but culpable impiety and disloyalty towards a loving Father and Sovereign. It provides a powerful motive to repentance and radical conversion in that it reveals God as loving the sinner while lie abhors sin, and as urging him to accept a free salvation. It presents in Jesus Christ the love of God incarnate, and makes the ideal of holi- ness not an abstract and vague thing, but an ideal realized in the person of Christ. It gives warmth and stimulus to the cul- tivation of personal holiness by thus identifying, as it were, the motives to virtue with grateful devotion to a personal Friend. This common allegiance to one Head, moreover, leads to an organized union of believers through which, by mutual fellow- ship and aid, the work of sanctification in the Church and in the world is promoted. Now this, in brief outline, is what is pemliar to Christianity as a moral force in the world. And the question now before us is this: If Christianity proves to be successful in regenerating mankind, will not this success be the best and most convincing proot that the Christian scheme is indeed from God ? And will not, therefore, miracles be needless, and belief in them a matter of indifference ? We reply : The Christian religion may be accepted by one man because others have seemed to be the better for it ; hut no one can he the hetter for it without faith in the truth of it; and this faith has always depended on a helief in its stcpernatural attestation. Declarations concerning God's feelings towards men and his willingness to forgive sin ; concerning a plan of redemp- tion and an incarnation of the Son of God ; concernhig the regenerating and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit; TIIK EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF MIRACLES. 195 concerning a futiiro life, a resurrection, and a state of final award, — these, and such like statements, respecting realms of truth and fact beyond the cognizance of men, must forever be regarded as uncertain speculations, unless tliey are ratified and con firmed by something that can be recognized as a divine at- testation. So long as they are regarded as nothing but uncer- tain speculations, they cannot move and mould the inner life. If they have had this effect in the world, it is because they have been believed to rest on the foundation of a testimony sealed and certified by signs from heaven. This faith must be a con- scious or latent one, in every man who adopts these doctrines of Christianity and makes them a controlling power in his life. So far we have considered the relation of miracles to a divine revelation without having undertaken to prove the fact of their occurrence. And the reason for pursuing this course is obvious. The proof of the necessity of supernatural signs as attestations of a divine revelation prepares the way for a proof of their actu- ality. If miracles are useless, this uselessness itself is a valid argument against their reality. If, on the other hand, there is antecedent reason to expect miracles, the proof of their occur- rence is easy. The only difficulty is that of deciding which of the religions professing to be of supernatural origin brings the most satisfactory credentials. And this difficulty is not very great. Even the most radical skeptics hardly question that the Christian miracles are more plausibly attested than any others connected with an alleged revelation. Having considered the definition and the evidential value of miracles, we come now to the question, "What is the proof of the genuineness of the Chris- tian miracles ? 196 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. CHAPTER VII. TEOOF OF THE CHRISTLVN MIEACLES. THIS topic lias been so often and largely treated that only a brief summary will here be attempted. IMoreover, the foregoing discussion has largely anticipated, in an indirect way, many of the positive arguments. I. First and foremost in the line of proof must always be the evidence concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ. On this point the following propositions may be laid down : — 1. The apostles and the other immediate disciples of Christ believed that he rose from the dead on the Sunday after the crucifixion. This is now admitted by scholars and critics of all classes, — by the extreme negative as well as by the extreme positive school, and by all between. The Christian Church was founded, and dev^eloped its first fresh ardent life, on the strength of this belief. So much may be regarded as an established fact. The divergence of opinion begins when this belief of the dis- ciples is to be accounted for. 2. The Christian Church spread rapidly, and was firmly estab- lished in Palestine in a very few years after the crucifixion. The undisputed testimony of Paul, confirmed by the narrative in the book of Acts, shows tliat the Church which he persecuted with so much fury had in that short time become a formidable power.^ There was evidently no time for a myth to grow up respecting the resurrection All the evidence and all the indi- cations show conclusively that the belief in it originated within a few days after the crucifixion, and must have sprung from an actual sight of the risen Christ or from some kind of delusion. 3. This energetic belief in Christ's resurrection is satisfactorily explained only by the hypothesis that the resurrection was a ^ F/rle Rev. K. Twining on the Fviilenrt^ of the Remrrection of Jesus Christ (iu Boston Lectures, 1872). riiOOF OF THE CUKISTIAN MIKACLES. 197 fact. Tliis hypothesis explains everything, — the sudden trans- foruiatiun of tlie depression of the disciples into renewed cheer- fulness und courage ; the unanimity of the historical records and the traditional belief ; the admitted absence of the body of Jesus from the grave. In short, all that we know about the circumstances is intelligible on the supposition of the fact of the resurrection, while every other supposition involves the most arbitrary and improbable conjectures. If the fact of the resurrection is questioned or denied, then there remain only such conjectures as these : (1) That Jesus did not really die on the cross, but only swooned, and afterwards revived. This hypothesis, favored by so eminent a man as Schleiermacher,^ may adduce for itself that Jesus is said to have died sooner than the crucified robbers, and was sooner taken down from the cross. Now, if the death was only apparent, it is supposed that he was after a while revived by the cool air of the sepulchre and by the effect of the spices, and, when able, rose, walked out, and showed himself. Tliis hypothesis, however, hardly needs refutation. Not only does it plainly contradict the whole narrative, as we have it, but, as Strauss observes,^ " it does not solve the problem which needs to be solved, namely, the founding of the Christian Church througli the belief in a miraculous revivification of Jesus the ]\fessiah. A man crawling half-dead out of the grave, steal- ing around infirmly, in need of medical care, of bandages, of strengthening, and of tender care, and after all succumbing to his suffering, could not possibly have made on his disciples the impression of being the Conqueror of death and the grave, the Prince of Life, — the impression which underlies their subse- quent deportment.' (2) That the whole story of the resurrection was a deliberate fiction of the disciples. This is, if possible, still more inconceiv- able than the foregoing, though in part involved in it. For a revival from a swoon could not have been regarded as a resur- ^ Leben Jesii, pp. 449 sqq. ^ Leben Jesufiir dan deidschc folk, § 47. See further C. A. Row, ITistorical Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, pp. 29 sq. (^Present Day Tracts, vol. i.). 198 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. rection from death ; yet it was certainly so rei^resented. The present supposition is tliat, without any reappearance of Jesus in life, the disciples agreed to pretend that they had seen him. This theory breaks down with its own weight. Whatever weak- nesses may he attributed to the apostles, they cannot be sup- posed to have been men capable of such a depth of dishonesty ; and most certainly men never endure privation, suffering, and death in defense of a known falsehood, as the apostles did on this supposition. We need not dwell on this theory, as scarcely any one can be found ready to maintain it. (3) That the disciples mistakenly supposed Jesus really to have risen from the dead. This theory, the only one that with any plausibility can be held as against the common one, may take various forms : as («) that the disciples inferred the resur- rection from the Old Testament, or from intimations made by Jesus before the crucifixion, but did not see him. In this case, the stories of his appearances must be regarded as a later legend- ary growth, (h) Mary Magdalene and the women with her imagined that they saw an angel, or two angels, who said that Jesus was risen, or even saw some one whom they took to be Jesus, and that in the excitement of a full belief they reported to the apostles what they had seen, and these believed the re- port, but still without having any vision themselves, (c) The disciples themselves imagined that they saw Jesus in bodily form alive after the crucifixion. These different views may be to some extent united, as they are by Strauss.^ It is obvious that the hypothesis of honest delusion, however ingeniously it may be defended, is from beginning to end a mere hypothesis, unsupported by a single scrap of positive evidence. It is, moreover, opposed to all the intrinsic probabilities of the case. The whole burden of the nari'ative shows that the dis- ciples were disheartened by the crucifixion, and were not ex- pecting a resurrection. The women who first went to the grave went expecting to embalm Jesus' body, not to see him alive. The apostles, when they were told of his reappearance, were at first skeptical. Moreover, when they did see him, or thought they saw him, he appeared not merely to a single one at a time, ^ Leben Jesu, \ 49. riiUOF OF THE CIlUiSTiAis M1UACLE6. 199 but to groups of persons, — at one time to more than five hun- dred at once. This is not the manner of ecstatic visions, or of subjective fancies which clothe themselves in objective form. The operation of pure imagination in this matter can be cer- tainly proved to have taken place only in the invention of this hypothesis itself. Here imagination runs riot. The testimony of Paul is naturally regarded as of prime im- portance, since it is the earliest that we have, and the only one whose genuineness is as good as absolutely uncontested. What is tlie purport of it? Two things are most certainly made clear by it : lirst, that the fact of Christ's resurrection was commonly assumed by Christians at that time; secondly, that Paul repre- sents his own seeing of the risen Messiah as homogeneous with that of the other witnesses whom he mentions (1 Cor. XV. 1-11). It is not strange that those who will not believe in miracles should try to find in Paul's testimony evidence that all the supposed appearances of the risen Jesus were mere visions, that is, subjective experiences having the vividness of an actual per- ception of outward fact. Paul, they say, not only was given to having such visions (2 Cor. xii. 1, Acts xvi. 9, xviii. 9), but in this case also evidently saAV Jesus only in a vision. In the three accounts of his conversion in Acts, he is not even said to have seen Jesus at all, but only to have heard him. This event took place, moreover, probably at least a year ^ after the other reputed appearances of Jesus, and when a literal bodily manifestation of himself, even if such ever took place, could hardly have been made. Now, if Paul's seeing of the Risen One was only a vision, then by parity of reasoning those ex- periences of the other di-sciples which he makes parallel with his own, must be supposed to have been also purely sub- jective. AVliat shall we say to this ? "We must say that, if Paul's testimony, as being the most direct and unimpeachable, is to be used as the key by which to unlock the mystery of the resurrection stories, we must take his testimony as it stands. And what is it ? He is endeavoring to establish the fact of a ^ Fide Keim, Geschichte Jesu con Xuzara, vol. i. p. 631. 200 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. lodily resurrection. And he argues it from the admitted fact that Jesus is ah^eady risen. Unless this resurrection had been a bodily resurrection, the argument would have no meaning. The argument is preceded by an account of the fact that Jesus rose three days after the crucifixion, and was «een by Peter, the twelve, more than five hundred disciples, James, and finally by himself. His statement furnishes the basis of the following argument. -Such, he says, being the truth that has been preached, " how say some among you that there is no resurrec- tion of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been raised." Now nothing can be plainer than that Paul here makes everything rest on the fact of Jesus' hudili/ resurrection. A mere continued existence of the spirit, apart from the body, cannot possibly be meant when he tells of Jesus rising three days after his crucifixion. x4nd it is no less plain that the appearances to Peter and the others are understood by Paul to be appearances of Jesus' resurrection- body. The language used is not that which describes a mere vision. Nor do visions occur simultaneously to men in groups. Moreover, these appearances are adduced as irroofs of the fact of the 'bodily resurrection having really taken place. If any- thing is certain, it is certain that Paul does not here mean to describe the experience of the disciples as an ecstasy, but as a literal fact. Consequently, in that he makes his own experi- ence parallel with theirs, he is to be understood as not de- scribing Jesus' appearance to him as a visionary, but as a bodily, one. Even if Paul's experience is to be called a vision, it is still an open question what is meant by a vision. Was it a morbid im- pression, a hallucination due to an excited nervous state ? Or was the cause of it something really objective?^ The world, both Christian and heathen, has abounded in alleged visions, the most of which we may presume to have been merely sub- jective, caused by an excited state of the subjects of the vision. But the fact that such experiences are possible does not prove that no other kind of visions is possible. Even if we should concede that the appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion were I Cr. Prufessor Fisher, Bupernatund Origin of Chris(ia>iiti/, p. 46S. riiOOF OF JllK ( llHiSTIAN MIKACLES. 201 visions, we should still have to maintain that according to the narrative the a})i)earances were not subjective fancies simply, but objective revelations. This is the character ascribed in the Bible to the visions of prophets and apostles. When Peter had a trance (Acts x. 9-16), and saw the vision of the beasts, and heard the command to eat, this was, according to the mind of the narrator, clearly not an experience growing out of mental or nervous excitement, causing his own thoughts and feelings to objectify themselves in the form of apparently visible and audi- ble outward objects. Peter took it as a divine C(jnimunication corrrctliii/, not springing out of, his previous notions. Of course a skeptic can still say that the whole thing may have been a diseased fancy ; or that the narrative itself is wholly or in part fictitious. But our point now is that the Biblical representation of these ecstatic experiences is that they are not purely subjec- tive states, but are states produced by divine power for the pur- pose of special illumination and instruction. Consequently it follows that, when Paul speaks of these appearances of the risen Christ, he means to describe a real objective fact, even thouf^h we should still call it a vision. In the light of this reflection it is obvious how much weight is to be attached to such an asser- tion as that of Mr. Greg, when he says,^ " iSTow we know that his appearance to Paul was in a vision, — a vision visible to Paul alone of all the bystanders, and therefore subjective or mental merely." The reply is : If we knoir this, we do not know it because Luke or Paul has told it, but because we are unwilling to believe what they say. The phrase used by Paul [locbdr] K7}(f)n, " he was seen to Cephas," etc.) is the same that is nsed in the account of the appearance of the angel to Zacharias (Luke i. 11), of Moses and Elijah on the mount (Matt. xvii. .S, etc.), of the cloven tongues (Acts ii. 3), of God to .\braham (Acts vii. 2), of the angel in the bush (vii. 30). Once it is used in con- nection with an experience called a "vision" (opa/j.a), namely, in Acts xvi. 9, where it is said that "a vision appeared to Paul in the night." On the other hand it is also used (xVcts vii. 26) of so matter-of-fact a thing as Moses' " appearing" to the quarrel- ing Hebrews in Egypt. Now in each of these cases the writer * Creeds of Christendom., vol. ii. p. 147. 202 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. obviously understands these appearances as not " subjective or mental merely." Mr. Greg's statement, moreover, is not true even on his own ground; for the other bystanders arc repre- sented as sharing, in part at least, in the vision. They saw the light (which is all that Paul is said to have seen); and the only difference relates to the hearing, respecting which two of the accounts (Acts xxii. 9, ix. 7) seem not to give the same representation.^ The theory of Schenkel,^ Keim,^ and others, that the reappear- ance of Jesus was a fact, but not the appearance of a risen body, is nearer the truth than the notion that the appearance was a mere fancy growing out of extraordinary excitement. If not in words, yet in fact, this hypothesis admits the supernatural character of the phenomenon. The glorified Christ is conceived to have really manifested himself in some special manner those few times, in order to impart the needed courage and assurance to the down-cast disciples. But the stories of Jesus as appear- ing in a bodily form, now semi-ghostly and now literal flesh and blood, they discard as unintelligible, self-contradictory, and man- ifestly legendary. Paul is with them, as with the others, the witness whose testimony is depended on. But Paul's language refuses to accommodate itself to this theory, even though the contradiction is less sharp than with the other. As has been above said, he is arguing for a hodily resurrection ; and his use of the facts following tlie crucifixion is without meaning, unless they go to show that Jesus had risen in bodily form. The dis- tinct specification that Jesus rose the third day cannot be tor- tured into harmony with this effort to sublimate the Christo- phanies into merely spiritual manifestations. Keim has no ^ As both tlie accounts are recorded by the same man, it is no more than reasonable to suppose tliat he meant no contradiction, and that the positive statement, that the men did hear, should be made to explain the negative one tliat they did not hear. Moreover, though not in the historical narrative, yet in 1 Cor. ix. 1, and xv. 8, Paul declares himself to liave seen the Lord Jesus himself. 2 Charakterbild Je.vi, pp. 231, 232, 3d ed. * Oeseh. Jesu v. Nazara, vol. iii. pj). fiOO sqq. Similarly Weizsackcr, Utiter- swchungen ilber die evang. Gesclnchte, pp. 573 sq, ; E. A. Abbott, T/ie Kernel and the Husk, Letters 20-23. PROOP^ OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 203 better explanation of this notion about the third day than tliat it was one which grew, not out of any palpable appearance, but out of Jewish notions concerning the length of time intervening between death and entrance into Hades, and out of a misin- terpretation of Hos. vi. 2, and of certain utterances of Jesus himself.' The real reason for rejecting the traditional notion respecting the resurrection is the difficulty of conceiving such a body as that described in the CJospels. Just so the Corinthian doubters asked, " How are the dead raised ? and with what manner of body do they come ? " (1 Cor. xv. 35.) H one is unwilling to accept Paul's reply, and believe that, whatever mystery there may be about it, it is yet a veritable body, he cannot with any plausibility or consistency deny the bodily resurrection of Christ on the ground of Paul's testimony. Paul's testimony respecting the other disciples is of course only testimony at second hand. But it is at any rate that of a trustworthy man who got his account from the original wit- nesses, and got it within a few years,^ at the most, of the time of the alleged resurrection. And it follows from this that a short time after the death of Jesus the apostles and many others all affirmed that Jesus had been seen by them in bodily form after the crucifixion. And the firm assurance of this fact had embold- ened them to preach the gospel. Paul's testimony, then, estab- lishes the fact that the original disciples of Jesus believed that they had seen him alive in bodily form after the crucifixion, and that these appearances had not been to single individuals only, who might possibly have been deluded through mental or ner- vous excitement, but simultaneously to groups of persons. Now it would seem to be difficult to evade the conclusion that the evidence in the case establishes the fact of the resur- rection. And when we add to the testimony of Paul that of the four Gospels and the book of Acts, all of which unite in emphat- ically bearing the same testimony, one might suppose that the assurance would be made doubly sure. But the skeptical critics, having started with the predetermination not to believe in a ^ Gesch. Jenu v. Ndzara. vol. iii., ]ip. 600. ■iqq. He evpii questions the story about the empty grave. ^ Cf. Acts i.\. 26, 27; Gal. i. 18. 204 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. miracle, and having decided (in plain opposition to Paul himself) that Paul at his conversion had only a subjective experience, — a mere illusion growing out of mental excitement and conscienti- ous qualms (of which also the only proof is the skeptic's imagi- nation ^), — it is of course a foregone conclusion that the historical books must somehow be discredited. Now an unbiased reader of these books would naturally be inclined to say that in the matter of Christ's resurrection their testimony is especially strong. Whereas most other incidents in the life of Christ are narrated by only one, two, or three of the Evangelists, this event is narrated by all of them, and with exceptional emphasis. It lies on the surface of the narratives that the resurrection, or supposed resurrection, had made a most profound impression. And it is anything but a mark of candor, when critics dwell on the variations and discrepancies in the details of these several narratives, and then draw the inference that the story as a whole is unworthy of belief. It requires little acumen to see that, if the four stories, instead of disagreeing witb one another in this or that particular, were minutely harmonious, this very exact- ness of harmony would itself be taken as a suspicious circum- stance, indicating collusion among the authors, or else the work of a harmonizing redactor.^ It is a fact that there are disagreements in these several nar- ratives. Some are slight ; many of them may be explained by conjectural suppositions ; others can be removed only by hy- potheses which at the best seem somewhat violent and arbi- trary. When Luke confines the Christophanies to Jerusalem and vicinity, and even reports Jesus as forbidding the apostles to depart from the city till after I'entecost (.\xiv. 49 ; Acts i. 4), while Matthew records no Christophany as occurring in Judea, but only in Galilee, and reports Jesus as directing the apostles to go at once to Galilee (xxviii. 10), the natural im- ^ Vide. "Fislier, Snpernaiural Origin of Christianity , pp. 464 sq. 2 Tills is illustrated by the case of Mark xvi. 9-20, -wliicli, according to both internal and external evidence, seems hardly to be an integral part of the Gospel, but an editorial appendix, giving a compendious account culled I'roni Jolui, Matthew, and especially Luke. And so Strauss (^Leben Jesu, § 97), Keim {Gescli. Jcsk i\ Nazara, vol. iii. pp. 500 sqq), and others, treat it. PROOF OF THE ClllUSTl^VJ^i JMIKACJ.FS. 205 pression made is that Ihe two authors did not have the same con- eeptiou cunceruiiiy; the facts. We need not assume an absohite contradiction. We may suppose ^ that the command to remain in Jerusalem was uttered after the return from Galilee, so that then the cUllerence remaining is only the negative one, that the one Gospel records only the Judean appearances, while the other records only the Galilean ; and the reconciliation consists in assuming that the two narratives give accounts of distinct events, and must be united in order to make a complete his- tory. We find also numerous other apparent discrepancies, — respecting the women who first went to the grave, the angelic ajipearances, etc. There is nothing in the Synoptical Gospels which corresponds naturally with John's story about j\lary Magdalene, John, and IVter visiting the tomb. Luke makes Mary go with several other women ; John makes her go quite alone. So, while Mark (xvi. 8) describes the women as too much afraid to report what they had seen, Matthew and Luke relate that they carried the information to the apostles. Xow, by piling together such variations one can, if he please, make a considerable show of inexplicable disagreement. It is, we must confess, impossible to determine just how this diverseness in the histories is to be explained. But we may say precisely the same respecting the rest of the gospel liistory.^ If, wherever two accounts of the same event vary in their details, or one Evangelist omits what another one records, we are to question the authenticity of the whole, then we shall annihilate almost the whole of the gospel history. No two Evangelists give the same account of Jesus' birth and early life. John's account of the Baptist coincides in almost no point exactly with that of the Synoptists. Luke's narrative of the temptation of Jesus differs from Matthew's, while Mark only mentions it summarily, and John not at all. John also makes ^ With Alford on Luke xxiv. 49, and others. Yet this explauatiou does not remove the diffieulty, that Luke seems to represent the comniaud not to depart from Jci'iisalem as liavinsr been fjiven on the very day of tlic resurrection. * Lcssiui^ (^Ei)i'' D/f/)/i/,), wliile stoutly maiutaining tlie impossibihty of har- monizing the several narratives of the resurrection, was candid enough to affirm tliat in spite of Ihc contradictions the fact of the resurrection might be credited. 206 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 110 mention of the baptism of Jesus. There are noticeable variations in the accounts of the first calling of the apostles. Luke makes the Sermon on the Mount rather a Sermon on the Plain (vi. J 7), and makes it shorter and in many points other than Matthew does. There is disagreement as to the very- names of the apostles. As to the order of events, the three Synoptists diverge from one another ; and John greatly diverges from them all, dwelling on Christ's activity in Jerusalem, about which the others are almost wholly silent. As to Jesus' in- timate friends in Bethany, Matthew and Mark do not seem to know about them ; Luke (x. 38-42) mentions the names of Mary and Martha, but gives no hint of special intimacy, and does not mention the name of the village. And so we might go on. If, in order to the authentication of the evangelical history, we must insist on exact agreement between the four Gospels, we shall end in having as good as no history at all. When, therefore, Strauss and his followers parade the variations in the narratives of the Christophanies, and infer that no credit is to be given to any of them, consistency would require that the same principle should be applied to the history of Jesus all the way from his birth to his death. Mr. Greg ^ says that the different narratives of the resurrection " agree in everything that is natural and probable, and disagree in everything that is supernatural and difficult of credence. All the accounts agree that the women, on their matutinal visit to the Sepulchre, found the body gone, and saw some one in white raiment who spoke to them. Thcij agree in notliing else." And Mr. Greg appears to be much confounded by this fact. He says ^ that, if the case rested only on the testi- mony of Paul and the fact that the resurrection was believed by the whole original Christian Church, " our grounds for accepting the resurrection as an historical fact would be far stronger than they actually are. In truth, they would appear to be nearly un- assailable and irresi.stible." But it is the " vague, various, and self-contradictory " narratives in the Gospels which trouble him. Xow it is manifest that these discrepancies would seriously trouble nobody who is predisposed to believe in supernatural 1 Creeds of Christendom, vol. ii. p. 148. 2 111 his Preface, p. xxviii. PROOF OF THE CH1UST1A.\ MIRACLES. 207 manifestations as the accompaniments of a chosen Revealer of divine truth. Such a one finds the evangelical histories a strong contirniation of Paul's testimony. Such a one would say: "True, the several accounts vary in details, as we might expect. But they agree in the important fact of the resurrection, the visible and tangible reappearance, of Jesus. They agree that he ro.se before the dawn of the first day of the week. They agree that ]\fary Magdalene was the foremost of those who visited the sepulchre. They agree that Jesus appeared to his apostles as- sembled together. They agree in representing his resurrection- body as the same as the crucified one, while yet they agree in ascribing to it a peculiar, semi-spiritual character. They agree in describing the disciples as all fully convinced of the reality of the resurrection, and as confirmed thereby in their faith in him as the Messiah of God. The disagreements concern unimportant details ; and even if some of them could be shown to be irrecon- cilable contradictions, they would not invalidate the main drift of the stories of the resurrection." But this is not the whole of the testimony. The book of Acts records that the apostles made the resurrection of Jesus the central fact of their preaching, and made thousands of converts in the very place where he had just been ignominiously put to death. The Church made such progress within a year that per- secution was resorted to as a means of checking its dangerous growth. But we are not confined to the testimony of Paul, the book of Acts, and the Gospels. Even if we do not insist that John wrote the Fourth Gospel, or that Matthew WTote the First, we still have direct apostolic testimony. We have John's testimony in the Apocalypse, which the skeptical critics generally concede to be a genuine work of the apostle. He there calls Christ " the first-born of the dead " (i. 5}, and repre- sents Christ as saying, "I was dead, and behold 1 am alive for evermore" (i. 18); and again he says, "These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and lived again" (ii. 8).^ ^ While not doubting that John the A|)ost]e is tlic author of the Fourth Gospel (the i)roof of which has been ffivcn bv so many, especially by Dr. Ezra Abbot iu his Atil/iorn/itp of the Fourth Gospe/), we take the evidcuce which the skeptics themselves do not impugn. 208 srPEHNATUKAL REVELATION. These passages are, indeed, not explicit, as from tlie connection we could not expect them to be ; but they manifestly imply the belief in Jesus' bodily resurrection. In what other sense could he be called the "first-born of the dead " ? As Christlieb ^ well remarks, in reply to Strauss, who says that the book of Eevela- tion only affirms in general that Jesus had been killed, and was now alive again, " This certainly cannot mean the first of those who lived immortal after death, for there were enough such before Christ." But we have Peter's testimony in his First Epistle, the genuineness of which is almost as well established as that of Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians. In this epistle Peter mentions Jesus' resurrection at the very opening of it (i. 3) as the event which had begotten the Christians unto , a living hope; and again, in i. 21, he speaks of God "which raised him [Jesus] from the dead;" and still again, in iii, 21, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is spoken of as a means of salvation. But, it may be said, it is conceded that the immediate dis- ciples of Christ thought they had seen him alive after the cruci- fixion. May they not, however, have been mistaken, honestly mistaken ? Well, if it is a question of bare possibility, yes, it is possible that, while in the deepest despondency of grief, the apostles suddenly swung themselves up into the mental atti- tude of assured expectation of seeing the Messiah again in bodily form. It is possible that the nerves of Mary Magdalene and of Peter became suddenly disordered on that Sunday morn- ing, and that they consequently imagined that the risen Saviour appeared to them visibly. It is iiossihlc that a similar disorder seized all the eleven, when they were together, and affected them to such an extent that they not only seemed to see Jesus, but heard him speak and saw him eat. It is possible that five hundred persons might simultaneously be afflicted with such a nervous affection that they should imagine that they had a vision of Jesus in bodily form. "All things are possible to" the critic " that believeth." But ordinary men of plain common sense can hardly be so credulous. The conflict of opinions is very easily explained. It does not ^ Modern Doubt and Christian Bclirf, p. 467' i'KoOF (»!' THE ClliatSTLiN MiUACLES. 209 come from paucity of evidence, but simply from a conflict of prepossessions. Tlie critical doubts respecting the resurrection are primarily dogmatic doubts. They spring from a prideter- mination not to believe in alleged miracles, — a fixed conviction that miracles are incredible or impossible. Those who believe in the resurrection of Christ, on the other hand, not only be- lieve in the general possibility of the miraculous, but in the spe- cial need of a self-manifestation of God, and the need of special attestation of him who professes to be the instrument of such a manifestation. Tliis prepossession makes it comparatively easy to believe in the occurrence of supernatural events which are alleged to have served the purpo.se of such attestation. The scientific presumption against miracles is more than outweighed by the religious presumption in favor of miracles wrought for such a purpose. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead seems intrinsically probable and fit, when he is regarded as a divinely appointed and furnished Alediator between God and men. Consequently to such minds evidence of the fact of the resurrection, such as the New Testament furnishes, is ample and even overwhelming. It is a remarkable fact that the evidence for the resurrection of Christ is so strong as to be almost or quite convincing to many men who refuse to believe in any other recorded miracle of the Gospels. While this illustrates the strength of the argu- ment for the reality of this particular event, it illustrates also the illogicalness of those who occupy this position. For surely if the greater is proved, it must be easy to prove the less. We need therefore to dwell at less length on — 11. The proof of the miracles wrought by Christ. If he was a being of altogether unique character ; if he sustahied an al- together peculiar relation to God and to men ; and if this uniqueness was efTectually authenticated by his miraculous resurrection, — all a 2'>riori and scientific objections to miracles wrought by him are at once swept away. We not only can be- lieve that he performed miracles, but we naturally crpect mir- acles from such a being. Their absence would surprise us more than their presence. At all events, granted the greater miracle, the one by whieli most emphatically God set his seal on the U 210 SUPEllNATURAL REVELATION. ministry of Christ, other miracles can be easily proved, if the evidence is sufhciently ample. What, then, is the evidence ? Speaking generally, we may say that the proof of miraculous events as characteristic of the life of Christ is almost co-exten- sive with the proof that he lived at all. The earliest records of his life are saturated with the supernatural.^ Not only are specific miracles reported in great numbers and often with great minutenesss of detail, but all the incidental features of the Gospel history indicate the presence of an altogether pe- uliar element in his character and works. The tone of au- thority which he assumed ; the fear and deference which he inspired in those who saw and heard him; the general state- ments about him, — all this indicates not only that the writers believed him to be a great miracle-worker, but that he was such. The manner in which the stories of miracles are interwoven with the general sketch of Jesus' character and life harmonizes perfectly with the extraordinary claims which he made for himself. These claims themselves, though they are unparal- leled in their extravagance, unless he was indeed the Son of God and Son of man in an altogether unique sense, yet consti- tute an element in the gospel history tliat cannot by any pos- sibility be eliminated. He announced himself at the outset as the introducer of the kingdom of God (Matt. iv. 17). In the Sermon on the Mount he assumed authority to interpret and modify the Mosaic law (v. 21-48) ; he represented obedience to his words as that on which the destiny of men was to turn (vii. 21-27). He made no confession of sin and challenged his enemies to convict him of sin (John viii. 29, 46). He required an allegiance to himself transcending the closest earthly ties (Matt. X. 34-39). He called himself the Light of the World (John viii. 12). He invited all men to cou)e to him for rest (Matt. xi. 28). He promised his followers eternal life (Luke ' Holtzmann, wlio cerlaiuly cannot be called too credulous a critic, says {Die synoptischen Evangelien, p. 509), "The narratives of miracles constitute so truly the substance of the Synoptical account that, as soon as one tears tliem out, the whole mosaic-work loses all perceptible plan, all intelligible characteristics." PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 211 xviii. 30). He assumed the prerogative of universal and final Judge, before whom all nations are to be gathered (Matt. xxv. 3 1-4(5) . He claimed the power to forgive sin (Matt, ix. 2-6; Luke vii. 48). He bade men pray to the Father in his name (John XV. 16, xvi. 24), and represented himself as the dispenser of spiritual life (John vi, 35, 47-58). These are only speci- mens of the general attitude of extraordinary authority and dignity to which he is said to have laid claim. And that these representations correctly picture the attitude which he really assumed, is confirmed by the conception of Christ which runs all through the Epistles of Paul, who calls Christ the Son of God (Rom. i. 4) ; sinless, yet set forth by God to be a propitia- tion for the sins of men (Rom. iii. 25 ; 2 Cor. v, 21) ; the sole Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. ii. 5) ; the Head of the church, from whom all the members derive their life (Rom. xii. 4, 5 ; 1 Cor. xii. 27 ; Eph. v. 30 ; Col. ii. 19). That such a person, charged with so peculiar a mission, should have been able to authenticate his claims by means of extraordinary works, is so natural that the narratives of the miracles excite no surprise, but everywhere seem to be per- fectly in keeping with the general style of the description. The right of criticism to sift the narratives and eliminate, if possi- ble, unauthentic portions, cannot be denied. But what must be denied is the right to make the presence of the supernatural the invariable touchstone by which narratives are to be pro- nounced " unhistorical." Yet this is substantially the principle of modern negative criticism. That Christ healed many sick people the critics are willing to admit, in so far as the healing can be accounted for as caused by medical skill and the influ- ence of a sympathetic nature on Christ's part, and the infiuence of " faith," that is, strong confidence in Christ's healing power, on the part of the patients. But whenever the disease assumes a serious form, the alleged miracle is at once pronounced incred- ible, and some other explanation of the story is resorted to. Thus.Scholten ^ says of the story of the leprous man (Mark i. 40-45), " This narrative seems not to be historical, since it is in- conceivable that^:>7;//.s/c^r/ leprosy should have yielded to a mere ^ Das lUteste Ecangelium, p. 202. 212 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. command of Jesns." Armed with this sweeping principle, the critics construct elaborate hypotheses to account for the numer- ous stories of miraculous events with which the life of Christ is filled. Disagreement among the critics cannot be fairly adduced as a proof that none of them can be in the right. But the dis- agreement may serve to show how little they can all lay claim to having offered a scientific and historical solution of the prob- lem presented by the miracles. Let us take a single specimen. Tlie miracle of the loaves is the best attested of all the miracles, except the resurrection of Christ. It is the only one narrated by all the four Evangelists.^ No serious objection on the score of discrepancy between the several accounts can be made out. The narrative is full, explicit, unequivocal. Now, how shall the story be explained " critically ? " Strauss ^ finds in it a myth growing out of certain Old Testament passages like Ps. cvii. 4-9 ; 1 Kings xvii. 7 sqq. ; and out of the importance attached by Christ and the early Christians to the breaking of bread in common. Keim ^ finds the explanation of the story in Christ's parable of the sower, which (in Matthew) is given in the preceding chapter. Scholteii * refers to Jesus' language in Mark vi. 34 (" sheep not having a shepherd "), and says that this refers to spiritual want, — a want which was supplied by the sermon mentioned in the same verse. He gave the people the "bread of life," — a phrase which, though it occurs only in the Fourth Gospel, "Jesus may really have used." And " hence arose the symbolic notion of the miraculous feeding of thousands." Paulus^ finds in the story nothing but the simple fact that Jesus persuaded those of the multitude who had food ^ By the exercise of a violent iiiiaginalion two or three otliers also are found in all the four. E-(/., Keim identifies the story of tlie paralytic in Matt. ix. 2 sqq., Mark ii. 3 sqq., Luke v. LS sqq., with the story of the lame man in John V. 5 sqq., though the locality, the disease, the cure, and the accompanying con- versation are totally diiferent ! ^ Leben Jpm, \ 79. ^ Ge»ch. Jem v. Nazara, vol. ii. p. 133. ^ L. c, p. 210. Similarly Ewald, Geschichte Christus' und seiner Zeit, p. 443, but with less positivoncss. Also E. A. Abbott, Philochristus, pp. 214 sq.; The Kernel and the Husk, Letter 19. ^ Leben Jesii, vol. i. pp. 349 sq. PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 213 to itnpiirt it to those who had none. Weisse ' discovers the key to the mysterious narrative in tlie conversation between Christ and his disciples respecting the leaven of the Pharisees (Matt, xvi. 5-12; ^lark viii. 14-:il). There Christ makes direct ref- erence to the two miraculous feedings, and yet explicitly says that he does not refer to bread, but to the doctrine of the Pharisees. Consequently, Weisse infers, that the reference to the miraculous feedings is nothing but an allusion to a discourse in which Jesus had u.sed figurative language respecting bread which the disciples had understood literally. Weis.se is so sure of the correctness of this explanation that he thinks it must be perfectly convincing "to every one who.se eyes are not. as dull, or who.se mind is not as hardened, as were the eyes and mind of those disciples" themselves. Weizsilcker '-^ conjectures that in some way not narrated Jesus had impressed upon his hearers the lesson of the Sermon on the ^Nlount, that they sliould not be anxious about food and clotliing, and had impressed it so powerfully that they somehow got the iuipression of a miracle of feeding, tliough it was in fact only a miracle of faith. Now, without a special examination and refutation of the.se and other such would-be scientific explanations of this miracle, we may be content with simply putting them side by side, re- membering that each author lays down his explanation as the only correct one. If it were certain that the narrative, as it stands, must be regarded as false, and if therefore it follows that it must have originated from some misconception, why, then, of course, we should have to say that, though not all of these explanations can be correct, yet perhaps some one of them is correct. But if we assume that the miracle really hap- pened as related, we are relieved of the necessity of choosing between these various conjectures as to what the underlying fact was. What, then, is the reason why this miracle,^ so strongly at- ^ Din evangclische Geschichte, vol. i. pp. 510 sqq. * Uiitersuchtuigen iiber die etanrj. Gesch., p. 449. * As we do not undertake a minute examination of the several miracles, we refrain from discussing the question, whether the second miracle of feeding, recorded by Matthew (xv. 32-39) and Mark (viii. 1-9), but not by Luke and 214 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. tested, is so reluctantly admitted, as compared with the narra- tives of miraculous healings ? The only explanation is that the latter, though called miraculous, are not really regarded as such. The power of one person over another, both in mental and physical respects, has been so often illustrated in actual life ; the phenomena of remarkable cures wrouglit apparently by direct physical contact, or even by an exertion of will with- out physical contact, are so numerous and well attested,^ that it is easy to believe that Jesus may have been one of those exceptionally gifted persons who possess this magnetic heal- ing power. Moreover, the miracles of healing, according to the Evangelists themselves, far outnumbered all others, and are often mentioned in a general way as continually performed by Jesus; whereas the miracles wrought on irrational nature are more manifestly rare and exceptional. When in addition to this we consider how little accurate scientific knowledge there could have been in those days, and how easily such cures might have been magnified, we can understand the plausibility and fascination of a theory which sharply distinguishes between effects wrought on the human body under the co-operating in- fluence of a lively hope and faith on the part of the invalid, and effects said to have been wrought on inanimate nature. In the former case no real miracle is assumed at all. The effects, though perhaps startling, are yet such as have always had their counterparts. And even if one holds ^ that Jesus' healing power was proportioned to his spiritual pre-eminence, and was Joliu, is not really the same as the first in a somewhat different form. Even if we should assume that it was, the assumption would not invalidate the evi- dence of the reality of the one miracle, but, if ])ossiblo, would strengthen it. 1 Fide Carpenter, Menial Phi/siolor/t/, §§ 500, 509-571; Take, hifliience of the Mind upon the Body, vol ii. pp. 209 f^qq.; Braid, Neun/pnolor/i/, pp. 161 sqq. ^ As Weisse, Die evangelische Geschichle, vol. i. pp. 3GG sqq. Weisse, while strenuously contending against the reality of miracles in the ordinary sense, yet retains the term as appropriately designating the unique works of Jesus. Lange {Leben Jesii, vol. ii. p. 20S) expresses a notion somewhat like this of Weisse's. The miracles, he says, " constitute the twigs of a tall, strong tree, and appear quite simply as its natural expi-ession, its works. . . . Should not the tree of life of this new eron be able to wear this crown which it wears without breaking down, — to put forth these blossoms which deck it out of its own wealth of inward life ? " ]'IU)()F OF THE CIIUISTIAN MIRACLES. 215 a sort of ])liysiciil consequence of his .spiriLual gifts, still one can avoid udiuiLting any miracle in the proper sense. We admit, in .such a case, at the most only a higher degree, not another kind, of power than that possessed by many men in all ages. What shall we say to this ? We must say, in the first place, that the liypothesis, just mentioned, that a physical power of healing is co-ordinate with spiritual eminence, is a pure fiction without the shadow of foundation. Neither eminence in intel- lectual power nor eminence in piety has any special connection witli that peculiar power over disease which some men seem to possess. P^lse we should lind Cloetho, the intellectual giant, and Iiichard Baxter, the eminent saint, each remarkable for his power to heal the sick. But, in the second place, if Christ's healing power was not a sort of natural and necessary product of spiritual pre-eminence, but merely a faculty in which he liappened to surpass the most, or all, of those who have had a like talent, the fact loses absolutely all significance for us, ex- cept as being an interesting phenomenon in the history of medical science. We cannot, from his supereminent success as a healer, infer his supereminence as a teacher, still less his divine appointment to bring salvation. The healing power, on this theory, only happens to be associated with a high degree of moral worth, but in itself serves no religious purpose to the world whatsoever. The fact of it is believed in simply because it is well attested and is not intrinsically difficult to believe. That Jesus by his cures created a great sensation and got the name of a miracle-worker, may also readily be admitted ; for such cures naturally seem to the ignorant and uninitiated to be real miracles ; but the fact still remains, on the hypothesis before us, that the cures were not miraculous, but were really nothing but " mind-cures " on a somewhat grand scale.^ ^ Tliis is substantially the view of Bisliop Temple {Relations between Reli- gion and Science, p. 201) : " It is quite conceivable (hat many of his miracles of healing may have been the result of this power of mind over body. . • . Some can influence other men's bodies more, some less. Possibly he may have possessed this power absolutely where others possessed it conditionally. ... If 216 SUPERNATURAL RP:VELATION. But by taking this view of Jesus as a healer we not only deny to the cures all supernatural character and all religious significance, but we even imperil faith in his superior morality. For the same narratives which record the wonderful cures also give us to understand that the healing power was a divine gift of a supernatural sort.^ Christ appealed to his works as proofs of his divine calling.^ In case now his cures were not miraculous, but were only the result of a fortunate natural endowment, then he can hardly be acquitted of a dishonest use of his power, if he himself appealed to it as proof of his Messiahship, or if he even allowed others to derive such an inference. The wonderful healings thus become a positively embarassing ele- ment in his history. If they did not really authenticate him as a supernaturally endowed messenger of God, but were only tlioiirjht to do so, then their only religious use was a deceptive one. At the best, in this case, we can only ascribe to him the merit of having used his power benevolently. But far better would it have been for him to refrain from exercising the power at all than to gain by it the reputation of having an authority to which it did not really entitle him. Curing diseases is not the only way in which pliilanthropy can mani- fest itself. He could have shown himself to be full of love and compassion, to be a comforter and helper, in many ways besides by a sudden banishment of sickness and physical suffering. If the essential thing was to make himself known as a spiritual benefactor, he could have accomplished the end without making use of a talent which he himself represented, or at least allowed to be understood, as a proof of a super- natural commission. Unless his healing power really was such a proof, unless it was a supernatural power, the physical relief which it rendered to a few hundreds of his contemporaries would but feebly compensate for tlie moral injury done by gaining a reputation under false pretenses. tills were so, these acts of healing would not be miracles in the strictly scien- tific sense." 1 E.g., Luke xi. 20; Mark ii. 9, 10; Matt. xi. 5 ; John ili. 2; Acts ii. 22. 2 Matt. xi. 5. PROOF OF THE CIIRISriAN MIRACLES. 217 Unless, therefore, the would-ljc philosophical critic means to make Jesus a mere mesmerizer, magician, or false prophet, hardly equal to the wonderful Apollonius of Tyana ; ^ if he really means to set him forth as a uuifjue reformer and bene- factor, or even as an inspired Head of tliii Kingdom of God, then no worse means to attain the end could be adopted than to reduce his miracles to nothing but ehects of a peculiar nervous temperament, or of a secret art, such as many another has possessed before and after him. Christ is by such a process degraded to the rank of an impostor, rather than honored as a chosen llevealer of the divine character and counsels. It is, therefore, a suicidal criticism which, while professing to be Christian, yet whittles down the stories of miracles till nothing but the cures is left, and whittles down tlie cures till nothing is left but what can be " comprehended," that is, conceived to be accomplished by natural means. Thus Weizsiicker^ says : " It is not the use of medical means, or treatment according to medical knowledge, by which the wonderful successes of this healing can be brought within the law of nature. It is rather the peculiar phenomenon of a great storm -like excitement of men's minds, which is reflected in these effects wrought on ^ Oil wlioiu cf. F. C. Biiur, Apolloiiius con Tifuiia und Christ us ; J. H. New- man, Life of Apollonius Ti/aneus, in tho Enryclopndia Metropolitana, vol. x. * UiitcrsHchungen i'lher die erniiff. Gesrh., p. .309. The ease witli wliicli a tlieory can be dodiieed is well illustrated liv Weizsaekor Tlie tlieorv is that tlie work of healing was a sort of accidental consequence of the excitement which Jesus' preaching had jjroduced. He refers to the narrative in Mark i. 21 sqq., and finds iu it an indication that a general commotion had been pro- duced by the preaching, and tliat the excitement manifested itself especially ill the demoniac. The thought of acting the part of a healer, Weizsacker thinks, did not occur to Jesus till after the demoniac addressed him. Then "as if himself carried away with the experience, he takes without hesitation the hand of the woman sick of a fever, in order to raise her up; and when the others bring him their sick he cannot do otherwise than heal them " (p. 365). The Evangelist, he further says, has " involuntarily shown," in the following narrative, " how Jesus entered ui)on tliis new career beean.se of an inward and outward compulsion rather than intentionally" (p. 360). We shall next he informed, perhaps, that the whole work of salvation was the result of some fortunate accident, so tliat Jesus will seem to have blundered into it rather than to have had any deliberate and conscious jjlan about it. 218 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. physical life and its diseases. If one will have a natural explanation of these signs, they belong to the realm of what faith — a state of the feelings stirred up to the highest pitch — is able to do in such respects. Even if this effect may have surpassed in intensity and extent everything else known of a similar sort, yet it is not absolutely incomprehensible, but falls into the category of phenomena which repeat themselves in accordance with a law." Now such speculations may seem to the- authors of them very profound and satisfactory ; but in reality they explain nothing, and create greater difficulties than they remove. A wonderful cure is " explained " just as truly when it is said to have been effected by a direct intervention of supernatural power, as when it is said to have been effected by the use of so-called natural means. In neither case can we follow out the connection between causes and effects ; in both cases we assume an adequate cause, — in the one a natural cause, in the other a supernatural. It is true that a phenomenon is said to be scientifically " explained " when it is associated with others which have similar antecedents and consequents, that is, when it is found to have been produced by a force which acts uni- formly and regularly under like circumstances. But just so a miraculous event is " explained," when it is assumed to have been produced by a force which does not act uniformly and regularly, but exceptionally and for an extraordinary reason. As to the modus operandi, we understand, in the last analysis, neither the one nor the other. It is a simple question of fact, to be decided according to the evidence, whether the cures wrought by Jesus belong to the one or to the other of these categories. Those who are determined to make them "com- prehensible " by making them natural can of course do so by a sufficient number of hypotheses and by a sufficient manipu- lation of the records. One can discover the " original " docu- ments by judiciously sifting out all the stories of marvels that cannot be made to square with the " natural " explanation of the events. Not only miracles wrought on inanimate nature, but also the cures which seem too difficult to be effected by any known natural means, — such as the heahng of lepers, the sudden gift I'UOOF OF TlIK CHRISTIAN MIKACLKS. 219 of sight to one l)orii ])lin(l, or of soundiies.s to one lame from birth, and, especially, the raising of the dead to life, — are " scientifically " transferred into the category of later legendary accretions. And so, as genuine history, we have nothing left which may not find its parallel, in kind at least, if not in degree, in events which take place in all ages. r>ut, as we have seen, all this is arbitrary criticism, and plays into the hands of the downright disbeliever in Christianity. It leads almost inevitably to the frivolous Kenan's doctrine, that Jesus became a party to a deception, in that he allowed himself to be urged on, almost in spite of himself, into the assumption of powers whieli lie knew to be natural, Itut which he allowed the people to regard as supernatural and as therefore an attest- ation of his divine calling. But this is as irreconcilable with the lofty simplicity of Christ as it is with the uniform assertions and implications of the Gospel narratives. The works of healing, like the other mighty works, were outward credentials of Jesus' supernatural commission. All alike were included by Peter on the day of Pentecost when he spoke (Acts ii. 22) of Jesus Christ as " a man approved of (lod by mighty works and w^on- ders and signs whicli God did by him." And what Peter claimed for liim, Christ claimed for himself, when, in affirma- tion and proof of his Messiahship, he sent back the messengers of the d(jubting Baptist with tlie reply (Matt. xi. 5.), " The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them." In general, therefore, the miracles ascribed to Christ must be regarded as real miracles. The general presumption that a special revelation must be authenticated by supernatural mani- festations ; the particular fact of Clirist's resurrection ; the impossibility of eliminating the accounts of miracles from the Gospels by any fair principles of criticism, — all this makes the fact of Christ's miraculous works practically as certain as that of his existence. But the question still remains, III. ]\Iay not the miraculous stories of the New Testament be critically examined ? Must we accept every miraculous story just as it is found in the Gospels, without regard to its partic- 220 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION, iilar character, use, and meaning ? Alleged miracles may be, apparently at least, useless or grotesque or even liurtful. If any of the reputed miracles of Christ seem to be of this sort, may we not, for any such reason, question their genuineness? Or if the narrative of the miracle appears, according to internal or external indications, to be of doubtful authenticity, may we not at least hold our judgment in suspense as to the fact of its literal occurrence ? In general our answer must be an affirmative one. For we can as yet make no assumptions respecting any exceptional inspiration and infallibility of the 15iblical records. As Profes- sor Ladd well says,^ " The record cannot of itself give an un- V failing guaranty to the miracle it records without being itself a kind of universal miracle." Our argument simply assumes that the Biblical history shall be treated with the same fairness as other histories. Criticism cannot be denied the right of questioning the origin and authenticity of the New Testament. The results of criticism must be reckoned with, in coming to any legitimate theory of inspiration. We only insist now that, the general fact of the occurrence of miracles and their purpose as signs of a supernatural commission being sufficiently established, all intrinsic objections to the miraculous as such are to be dis- missed. But it does not follow that every alleged miracle is tlierefore a real one. And among the grounds for believing in tlie genuineness of some rather than in that of others are the character and apparent object of the miracle itself. Albert Barnes says : ^ " It is a striking proof of his [Jesus'] benevolence that his miracles tended directly to the comfort of mankind. '^ It was a proof of goodness cddrd to the direct purpose for which his miracles were wrought. That purpose was to confirm his divine mission ; and it might have been as fully done by split- ting rocks, or removing mountains, or causing water to run up steep hills, as by any other display of power. He chose to exhibit the ])roof of his divine power, however, in such a way as to benefit mankind." Pressensd, on the other hand, says : ^ ^ Boctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 328. 2 Conim. on Matt. viii. 33. * Jesus Christ, his Times, Life, and Work, 3d cil. p. 279. PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 221 '• Let us, first uf all, make a distinction between a miracle and a prodigy. A prodigy is only a manifestation of power, an as- touishiiig fact, which arrests the attention, and elicits admiration and ama/emont (juite apart from its moral character. Clearly it has no religious value ; it appeals to the eye, and not to the heart and conscience ; it cannot serve to establisli either a divine mission or a new truth ; for evil itself may have extraordinary manifestations, and we read in Scripture of prodigies aiding and abetting error." Now in judging between these opposing views, each held by a firm believer in the reality and evidential value of the Chris- tian miracles, we cannot do better than to ascertain what were Christ's own claims and representations respecting his miracles. In John X. 32, Jesus says to the Jews, " Many good works have I shewed you from the Father." And in the answer returned to John the Baptist concerning his Messiahship he enumerates nothing but works of mercy, the climax being the preaching of good tidings to the poor. Similarly Peter (Acts x. 38) says of him that he " went aljout doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil ; for God was with him." In other cases (as, for example, Luke x. 13) Christ speaks more generally of his " mighty works " as evidencing his commission. But those works were confessedly almost or quite all benevolent works ; and a general appeal to them would therefore be practi- cally an appeal to " good works." Manifestly, stories of miracles of malevolence or of revenge, such as abound in some of the apocryphal Gospels,^ would be regarded as intrinsically incredi- ble in one who was what Jesus is represented as being. But might not mere prodigies be consistent with his character ? And would they not serve as proofs of his claims :* What we have urged above would indicate a negative answer. Mere prodigies, unless proceeding from one already well authenticated as a messenger from God, might be regarded as works of leger- demain or of the devil. But in tlie case of one whose divine com- mission is already established by miraculous works of benevolence, * Cf. Cowpcr, The Apocryphal Goxjwh ; especially tlie Gospel of Pseudo- Matthew, which describes the child Jesus as killing his playmates by a word when they were naughty. 222 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. worlcs of mere miraculous power, expressive of no character and no important truth, would be needless, and because needless, suspicious. They would seem to be mere ostentatious displays, not in consonance with the character of the alleged miracle- worker. Accordingly in the few instances in which the re- ported miracles of Christ seem to partake of the character of prodigies no one can be content to regard them as being a mere display of power. For example, the miraculous draught of fishes (Luke V. 1-11), or, still more, the finding of a coin in a fish's mouth (Matt. xvii. 24-27), is usually regarded as having some other object than a mere exhibition of miraculous power.^ If no other, no worthy, use or meaning could be found in them, that would of itself lead one to wonder whether the narrative could be fully trusted. If Jesus came in order to reveal the grace and truth of God, it was to be expected that his works, as well as his words, should be full of grace and truth. ^ The miracles, in order to prove the teachings, must be cognate and consistent with the teachings. While, therefore, we deny that it is possible for criticism to do away with the miraculous, and must leave the Gospel narra- tives substantially as they are, we cannot deny one's right to question the accuracy of certain particular narratives of mir- acles, provided there are especial reasons for doubt. If to any one who accepts the general description of Jesus, his character, and his works, as truthful, any particular narrative seems to be irreconcilable with the general account, and seems, besides, to be feebly attested or inconsistent with other certain facts, such a one cannot be charged with inexcusable temerity, if he hesi- tates to give unqualified credence to the narrative. So long as the 79rn'^w'?f/rn' doubts are grounded in the general faith itself, they cannot be called unchristian doubts, even though others may deem them without sufficient warrant. To take a particu- lar instance : may one doubt the miraculous conception of Jesus Christ, and yet retain a belief in the New Testament nar- ratives of miracles in general ? It is certain that many do take ^ Cf. Trench, Notes on the Miracles. ^ Cf. Bruce, Chief End of Revelation, pp. 157 sq. The Miraculous Element in thr Gospels, pp. 301-314. PROOF OF THE CHRISTIAN .MIKACLK.S. 223 this position. The account of the birth is given in two nunu- tives difficult to reconcile with one another. The strict Davidic descent of Jesus, everywhere assumed in the New Testament, seems to be inconsistent with the narratives. John, who ought to have known as well as any one else about the facts, and whose general rei)resentation of Jesus as the divine Logos ninde llesli would incline him to lay stress on such an origin, nowhere asserts or implies it. The same may be said of Paul. The rea- sons which may seem to tell in favor of an incarnation taking place without the agency of a human father may equally be urged against the agency of a human mother. Accordhigly such a scholar as Meyer, who finds no difficulty in accepting the miracles in general, regards the stories found in ^latthew and Luke as legendary.^ Dorner,^ on the other hand, while con- tending that the historic record is presumptively genuine and authentic, yet does not depend simply on the ipse dLcit of the historian for the proof of the miracle, but brings forward rea- sons for thinking it a priori probable that the birth was mirac- ulous. There is a possihilitij of an early admixture of legendary matter in the evangelical narratives. On the other hand, no one can ever prove that these particular narratives are legend- ary. To the most the narrative of the miraculous conception will always appear to be in excellent harmony with the general description of the life, character, and work of the Messiah. It will doubtless continue to be believed by the most of those who hold to supernatural Christianity at all. But there will always be some Christian minds to whom this account of the mi- raculous conception will seem inherently improbable. A still greater number probably will stuml)le at the story of the de- monized swine (Matt. viii. 2S-3o), and of the cursing of the bar- ren fig-tree (Matt. xxi. 18-L'O), and for the reason that they do not seem to be in harmony with the general character and ordinary miracles of Christ. In like manner the story of the rising of the saints after the crucifixion of Christ, told only by Matthew (xxvii. 52, 53), seems to many, who are not anti-supernatural- ists, intrinsically so improbable that they hesitate to believe in ^ Comm. on !Matt. i. IS, and Luke i. 51-56. ^ Sj/stem of Christian Doctrine, § 105. 224 SUPEKNATURAL REVELATION. its literal truth. ^ Now with regard to these and a few other narratives we can only say that they are to be judged like the Biblical history in general, that is, are to be condemned, if con- demned at all, not because they narrate miracles, but because they tell of such miracles, or because for other reasons the nar- ratives appear to be of doubtful authenticity. But it cannot be too carefully borne in mind that one may easily be led to set up a canon which is not warranted by the facts. Thus one may lay it down as a fixed rule that, because the most of the miracles of Christ are acts of kindness to the suffering, therefore no acts of his shall be conceded to be mir- acles which have not that character. What right, however, has one to adopt any such criterion ? Why may not a miracle serve some other purpose than merely to render physical relief ? Why may it not embody a spiritual lesson ? So, when it is as- sumed that the miracles cannot operate directly upon inanimate nature, but must be confined to the realm of rational beings, we must ask, AVhat warrant is there for any such limitation ? There is no ground for such an assumption which would not in the end do away with miracles entirely. It is more plaus- ible when it is declared that no alleged miracle can be credited, if it involves the doing of positive injury rather than benefit. Yet even here great caution is needed. All that we can as- suredly affirm is that Jesus could not have belied himself in doing his mighty works. A miracle which apparently indi- cates malevolence or injustice in the worker of it may really in- dicate no such thing. The same may be said of miracles which seem to have no worthy end, or no recognizable end at all. To be sure, it may be said, with Mr. IJarnes, that splitting rocks or making water run up hill, even if it had no other purpose, would serve the purpose of authenticating the spoken message as divine. But, as we have seen, such prodigies alone would never have answered the end of effectually authenticating his divine commission. While it is true that the miracles of Christ did serve to authenticate his mission, the whole drift and tone of the history, as well as the words of Christ himself, warrant us 1 Cf. on this, Prof. J. H. Thayer, article " Saints " in Am. edition of Smith's Bible Dictionary . PROOF OF THE CUKISTIAN M1KACLE>S. 22;') in asserting that the uiiraeles had alsu a meaning and an end apart from the mere purpose of authenticating a revelation. Gathering from the history itself the general characteristics of his miracles, we may properly be suspicious of a particular al- leged miracle, if it pUdnh/ conflicts with those general character- istics. lUit it may be diliicult or impossible to prove such a conflict in the case of any of the New Testament miracles. IV. General conclusion. The burden of the foregoing pages has been to the effect that the supernatural is an indispensable and irremovable part and proof of the divinity of the Christian religion. It has not been claimed that miracles as such are the most important thing in Christianity. Men are not saved by belief in miracles, but by belief in Christ. The great thing in the Christian life is not a correct view of God's relation to the physical laws of the universe, but a correct moral relation of man towards God. The vital thing is a readiness to welcome the gift of salvation. But whom shall one welcome as the bearer of the gift ? Not every one who comes forward with an offer of help or advice. He who would be accepted as the M'orld's Eedeemer must bring with him credentials which are able to convince men that he is able to do what no one else can do, — that he is sent by God to accomplish the unique work of bringing light and deliverance to a world lying in darkness and bondage. Such an exceptional commission requires excep- tional attestation. It can be established only by the exhibi- tion of extraordinary credentials. Wliat the contemporaries of Jesus chiefly needed was indeed spiritual deliverance and light. But that Jesus was the one appointed of God to bring the needed help required to be demonstrated, as it was demon- strated, by his manifestation of supernatural power and super- natural gifts. And what was true at the outset is true still. Of course there is a certain difference between the impression which Jesus made on those with whom he walked and talked, and the im- pression which those receive who learn about liini through the medium of oral and written tradition. Still the picture whicli we receive in this way is essentially the same as the original. 1.5 226 SUPEKNATUEAL REVELATION. though seen, as it were, in a mirror. The same proofs which persuaded tlie first disciples are valid also for us, though they come mediately. There are, it is true, subjective proofs, coming from the personal experience of Christians, — the witness of the .Spirit ; but these proofs were accorded also to the original be- lievers. Our assurance that these experiences are not subjec- tive illusions comes largely from the confirmatory experience of the apostles and of the succession of Christians from their day to ours. What we lose in the directness and vividness of perception we gain in this accumulation of Christian experience, r.ut still the general fact remains unchanged: What convinces us must be the same as what convinced Jesus' immediate fol- lowers. If they were deceived as to the substance of their belief, then that deception runs necessarily all through the Christian church. If they were rightly convinced, then the grounds of their conviction are of permanent validity. And there is hardly a proposition in the world of moral and his- torical truth more indisputable than that the first Christians became fully convinced of Jesus' Messiahship only as they recognized him as possessed of supernatural qualities and su- pernatural powers, and as supernaturally accredited by miracu- lous works, and especially by his miraculous resurrection from the dead. If, now, the rationalist pleads for the rights of reason, and insists that nothing can be believed which does not stand the test of a rational investigation, the reply is that the Christian's reason is convinced that Jesus Christ was supernaturally com- missioned and accredited, and that faith is therefore in agree- ment with reason and not opposed to it. If, on the other hand, the mystic claims that he has an immediate spiritual intuition of the divinity of Christ and of his work, and therefore needs no argument from miracles, the reply is that a historical reve- lation cannot be detached from the historical evidence of it. If each individual has, or thinks he has, a direct revelation of religious truth, then the local and historical appearance and work of Christ on the earth are dwarfed into insignificance, and revelation becomes practically the private privilege of each individual. I'KUUF OF TllK CIIKISTIAM MIKACLEH. 227 Every attempt — whether of the rationalist or of the mystic — to attain to a state of religious assurance thus ends in a sort of assurance which, just because it rests primarily on a merely individual judgment or impression, is necessarily ail'ected with insecurity. Just so surely as religion is nut merely a matter of individual preference or caprice, but is a matter which produces a social life, and is conditioned by it, so surely must the grounds on vvhicli it rests lie such as can satisfy a community, and not merely an iiidividual. The evidences of Christianity, then, are the evidences which produced the conviction of Jesus' Messiah- slii]) in John, Peter, and Paul, and all the original disciples, — evidences handed down from one generation to another in the Christian church, but confirmed by its self-perpetuating power, and by its salutary influence on the world. But it may be said that there is this important difference between us and the first Christians, that they were Jews, and came to their Christian belief through the medium of their Jewish notions and expectations ; whereas Centiles come to an acceptance of Christianity by an entirely different process. The Jews were looking for a Messiah who should give them national independence. They had a ceremonial law which gave a pe- culiar shape to their religious conceptions. Their minds, there- fore, must have come to the consideration of Jesus' character and claims otherwise than ours do ; they must have been moved by different arguments from those which are decisive with us. Wliat sliall be said to this ? It is certainly true that the ordinary Christian now does not have to go through the process of substituting Christianity for Judaism. It is true that the first Gentile Christians also came into the Christian faith from a different environment from that of the Jews ; they came out from a different group of prepo-ssessions ; they were moved by a somewhat different kind of persuasion. And accordingly the two classes of Christians were at the outset characterized by different phases. The work of amalgamating them into one homogeneous Christian church was a difficult one. Even among the apostles there was at first a diversity of view and feeling. So mucli must be conceded. But what then ? Our main propo- 228 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. sition remains still unaffected. The Gentiles were converted tlirougli the preaching of the Jewish Christians. Great as may have been the difference between Gentile and Jew, the Gentile was somehow persuaded by the Jew. And therefore he must have been persuaded by considerations which were persuasive to the Jew. Moreover, the Jewish Christians did not come to their faith by seeing all their old Jewish prejudices and expec- tations confirmed in Jesus. On the contrary, they had to sur- render many of their hopes and alter many of their conceptions, before they came fully to recognize in him the real Messiah. That which was one-sidedly and narrowly national in their ex- pectations ; that which was crass and outward in their religious notions, — this had to be abandoned. With the acceptance of Jesus as their Redeemer, they were led to revise and spiritualize their views of themselves and of others. That which decisively convinced them of Jesus' Messiahship was not his fulfilment of exactly what they had understood the Old Testament to promise them ; it was rather the extraordinary character of Jesus himself, and the extraordinary attestations that accom- panied his person and work, — attestations which convinced them of his divine commission and authority. Accordingly Peter at Jerusalem, and Paul at Athens, while they adapted their discourses to their respective audiences, yet both preached Jesus' resurrection from the dead as the decisive proof of his being God's messenger of salvation. It remains, then, an evident fact that the Christian world has become Christian through the preaching of the original Jewish converts. But this brings us to a consideration of Judaism as the precursor of Christianity. THE KELATIUN UF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 229 CHAPTER VIII. THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. IF the first di-sciples found it necessary to reconstruct their religious conceptions when they received Jesus as tlieir Eedeemer, does it not follow that Christianity is substantially independent of Judaism, — no more an offshoot from it than it is from the nobler forms of heathenism ? Christianity being designed for all, professing to be the fultilment of all true reli- gious prophecies and hopes, must not all preceding religions be regarded as in their way preparatory to it ? The heathen were not without much true light ; and in their philosophy, morality, and religion, as well as in their civilization, they produced much that is of abiding value.^ Accordingly the early Christians who were converted from among the (Jentiles were fond of finding the \6yo? Propheten, etc., p. 134. 248 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. there is not the slightest intimation that any of these signs had come to pass. The rushing mighty wind and the cloven tongues of fire certainly correspond very imperfectly to the prophet's description. It is manifest that Peter regarded these signs as figuratively meant, and laid all the stress on the essential thing, — the outpouring of the Spirit. Or, if he understood that the prophecy was to be fulfilled also in this more external way, he must have regarded the fulfilment as still to come. So when the prophets portray the destruction of heathen cities, specifying tlie kinds of birds and beasts that shall eventually dwell in their ruins,^ the object is to picture, in this graphic way, the thoroughness of the destruction ; and it would be a petty tri- umph of the skeptic to be able to show that in some of these details, which are only the dress of the description, the event has failed to correspond exactly to the prediction. Accordingly even in instances in which the prophecy seems to have been remarkably fulfilled in just these very non-essential particulars, we cannot regard this outward correspondence as the vital thing. When, for example, Christ's riding into Jerusalem on an ass is declared to be the fulfilment of Zech. ix. 9,^ if one looks merely on this circumstance, one misses the real substance of the prophecy. It is manifest that Zechariah, in this specification of the animal on which the Messianic King would ride, meant to indicate the 'peaceful character of his reign. He is therefore pictured as riding on an ass, the beast used in the peaceful pur- suits of a nation, whereas the horse was then associated with war ; and accordingly in the next verse (ix. 10) we read, " I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jeru- salem, and the battle bow shall be cut off; and he shall speak peace unto the nations." Similarly Micah (v. 2-10) and Isaiah (ix. 1-7) portray the Messiah as the Prince of Peace, whose reign is to be signalized by the destruction of warlike weapons, chariots and horses, fortified cities and strongholds. Now sup- pose that at the time of Christ asses had ceased to be used, and horses had taken their place as the beasts of burden and of labor. Suppose then that Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on 1 E.g., Lsa x>:xiv. 11-16; Zcpli. ii. 14. 2 Sec Matt. xxi. 4, 5 ; Jolui xii. 11, 15. THE KKLA'I'ION OK CHRISTIANITY TO JIDAISM. 241) a liorsc ; would tlic prophecy for that reason have been unful- filled ? Or even if he had not ridden in at all, the essence of the prophecy would still none the less have been accomplished. We cannot limit the fulfilment to that one occasion even. The whole ministry of Christ was a fulfilment of the prophecy ; and the Evanifclist merely calls attention to this one occasion on whicli not merely the prediction in its more vital features, but even the pictorial clothing of it, had been fulfilled. P)at, it may be said, just these prophecies which most directly, and not in a merely typical sense, foretell the coming of a Messiah contain elements which make it certain that the prophets themselves could not have had such a person in mind as Jesus of Nazareth was. The prophets evidently regarded him as one who was to deliver the Jews from the hostile As- syrians (Mic. v. 5), and to conquer the Philistines, Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites (Isa. xi. 14). He was expected to sit on the throne of Uavid and restore the glory of the Davidic reign (Isa. ix. 7 ; Jer. xxiii. 5, xxx. 9, xxxiii. 15, 17 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24 ; Hos. iii. 5 ; Amos ix. 11). It was assumed that Jerusalem and the temple would be the centre of the Messianic king- dom, and that the Mosaic law, with its ritual, would be perpet- ually observed (Jer. xxxiii. 18-22 ; Isa. ii. 2-4, Ixvi. 20-23 ; Zecli. xiv. 16-21). In short, the prophets, even in their loftiest anticipations of the Messianic period, seem to have been unable to divest themselves of their national, local, and religious asso- ciations, and fail to give an accurate description of him who professed to fulfil those prophecies. Now, one might say that all this too belonged to the mere drapery of the prophetic delineation ; that the IMessianic reign was really not conceived by the prophets as a mere continua- tion, on a grander scale, of the Jewish monarchy and law. And other passages in the same prophets may be referred to as evidence that they had a more correct conception of what the real Messiah was to be and to do. Thus Jeremiah (iii. 16) represents it as a feature of the Messianic time that the ark of the covenant would be forgotten, and (xxxi. 31-34) that the old covenant would be replaced by a new and more spiritual one. Still the fact is that the Messianic prophecies have pre- 250 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. dominantly the Jewish cast ; and if one is essaying to convince a doubter that the prophecies have been literally fulfilled, and are therefore proved to be of supernatural origin, he must first jrrove that the prophets did not mean what they seem to mean. The appearance and the presumption are that the Messiah was expected to come sooner and to be another sort of man than Jesus of Nazareth. If, however, one argues from the New Tes- tament itself, that the prophets really conceived the Messiah and his kingdom correctly, and only used the Jewish coloring in a consciously symbolic way, then we must reply that in the same way we can prove with equal cogency that Hosea really had the infant Jesus in mind when he wrote, " Out of Egypt have I called my son ; " or that Jeremiah, when he wrote about the lamentation in Eamah, distinctly and consciously referred to Herod's massacre of the innocents.^ If in the case of the indirect or typical prophecies we assume that the prophet had no double sense in mind, but referred only to what seems to be meant by his language, then equally may we assume that in the case of the direct prophecies he meant what he seems to have meant. At all events, whoever doubts the divinity of Jesus' person and commission cannot be convinced by the argument from prophecy, if its cogency depends upon an exact and literal fulfilment of all the predictions concerning him found in the Old Testament ; for such a literal fulfilment cannot be made out. The same may be said respecting the prophecies concerning the future of the Jewish people. As compared with the pre- dictions respecting other nations, there is this difference : that, whereas in both cases desolation and destruction were denounced as a punishment for national ungodliness, yet in the case of the Jews these denunciations are accompanied with promises of ulti- mate restoration. They were to be scattered among all nations,^ but not to be annihilated as a people.^ But besides this, they were finally to be restored to their own land, and there to enjoy 1 Matt. ii. 15, cf. Hos. xi. ] ; Matt. ii. 17, 18, cf. Jerem. xxxi. 15. 2 Deut. iv. 27, xxviii. 25 ; Jer. ix. 16, xv. 4, xxiv. 9, xxix. 18 ; Ezek. v. 10, xii. 15, XX. 23; Hos. ix. 17. " Ezek. xi. 16 ; Amos ix. 8, 9 ; Zech. xiii. 8, 9. THE RELATION OF CIIIIISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. liol the favor of Jehovah.^ Some of these prophecies may indeed be regarded as fulfilled in the return from the P.abylonish captivity ; but others of them certainly refer to something else, and describe a final and abiding condition of peace and righteousness in the land of Judea. Now this certainly has not yet been fulfilled ; and although, on account of the remarkable fulfilment of the others, many have the confident expectation that the Jews, as a distinct race, are at some time to reoccupy Palestine, yet the expectation of a fulfilment cannot be made to serve as a fulfil- ment, especially to one who doubts the reality of any strictly supernatural prophecy. h. This leads us to a second consideration. Minute particular- ity of detail in a prophecy is liable to excite suspicions concerning its genuineness. A prediction may indeed appear to be most remarkable, when it gives minute particulars of time, place, names, and accidental circumstances. But the Old Testament prophecies do not abound in such details; and when we find them, they do not prove to be the most effective evidence of the prophet's miraculous foreknowledge. For just because the pro- phetic descriptions are usually of an ideal sort, consisting of gen- eral pictures rather than of a delineation of incidental features, such minute features, when they are found, excite suspicion, and are conjectured to be a later interpolation. Thus, when a pro- phet (1 Kings xiii. 2) is said to have predicted the birth of King Josiah, even so conservative scholars as Tholuck "^ regard the name as here interpolated. When Micah (iv. 10) predicts that the Jews shall go to Babylon, this also is thought by many to be an interpolation ; ^ or if not, it is maintained that, as Micah elsewhere threatens an Assyrian, not a Babylonian, captivity, he can here think of Babylon only as a province of Assyria, and not as the capital of the conquering kingdom. So Micah's spe- cification of Bethlehem as the birthplace of the jNIessiah is re- garded as being only another way of indicating that the Messiah » Ezek. xi. 17; Jer. iii. 18, xxxi. 10-14, \\\l 27; Hov xi. 11; Zcch. x 10; Isa. xi. 10-16, xlv. 1-3, xxvii. 12, 13; Mic. iv. 10, v. 2-9; Joel iii. 1-8; Obad. vers. 17-21; Zepb. iii. 8-20; Amos ix. 14., 15. ^ Die Propheten, etc., p. 111. ' Kueneii, The Prophets, etc., p 164. 252 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. was to come from the house of Davicl.^ And the particularity of many of Daniel's prophecies is thought to be one reason for re- oarding them as written after the event. Now whatever judg- ment one may have on these points, it is very certain that the more curiously exact and detailed a prophecy should be, as compared with the event predicted, the more strongly woukl every one be tempted to conjecture that the prophecy, in whole or in part, had been composed after the alleged fulfilment. Suppose a prophecy should be produced, foretelling all the details of J esus' life, — the date and circumstances of his birth, the names of his parents, his going to the temple at the age of twelve, his baptism in the Jordan, his temptation, the number and names of his twelve apostles, the course and order of his journeys, his miracles, his place of abode, etc., — would not every one be instinctively inclined to doubt its genuineness ? Why ? Not because it is impossible for God to inspire a man to write such a prophecy, but because it would be out of harmony with the divine method and wisdom to do such a thing. Since the prophet's vocation is an ethical one, it would be inconsistent with its serious and practical character for him to tickle the cu- riosity of his hearers with such a multitude of minute outward details respecting the future. It is, in great part, the presence of such details in the Sibylline Oracles which has led to the assurance that they are largely spurious.^ Such predictions can 1 Schultz, AUtestamentliche Theologie, vol. ii. p. 250. 2 Tlie Eighth Book of these Oracles (Friedlieb's edition) gives, among other tilings, a prophecy of the incarnation of the Sou of God, and of his works. Such descriptions are found as the following : — " By tis word lie will still the winds, and quiet the billows When they are raging, and walk on their surface, peaceful and trustful. With five loaves and a fish from the Lake of Gennesaret's waters He will appease the hunger of five thousand men in the desert ; And when he takes up all of the fragments that are left over, He will fill twelve baskets therewith, a hope of the nations, (vers. 223-278 ) And at last to the faithless and godless he will be delivered, Who with unhallowed hands will blows inflict on the Godhead, And from polluted mouths will cast on him poisonous spittle. But he will simply yield his sacred back to the scourges, And will be silent when smitten, in order thai none may discover Wbo and whence he is, that he may speak to the dead ones. 'JIIE KKI.Al'lON OF CIIKISI'IAMTV lO JUDAISM. '2o'6 be of no use to the prophet's contemporaries, who have no means of verifying the accuracy of the predictions, and would serve to dissipate, rather than intensify, any moral impression that he might be aiming to produce. But would not such minuteness in the prophecy be of great value to those who livt; when or after the prophecy is fuUillud ? Jhirdly; for such preternatural foreseeing of the accidental details of future history would resemble rather the mysterious l)henomena of clairvoyance than the product of a divine in- spiration, even if proved to be genuine. It would be exposed to the suspicion, however, of not being genuine, for the very reason that it is intrinsically unlikely that God would supernaturally communicate such details. But there is another objection. c. Such minuteness of prediction would interfere with the free and natural course of things. It would tempt some to try to fulfil it, and tempt others to try to frustrate it. As Nitzsch ^ says, such predictions must be " rare and moderate, in order not to destroy all human relation to history." It is sometimes said that predictions often fulfil themselves ; that is, men set them- selves to the work of doing something for the very purpose of making a known prediction come true. If the terms of the prediction are very specific and unambiguous, and if one has any special reason for desiring to have it come to pass, one can often gain this end by directly working to bring about the accomplishment of the thing predicted. Or the opposite may be the case. The Bible furnishes some illustrations of this. ^^'hen Ahijali met Jeroboam and predicted that he would be- come king of Israel (1 Kings xi. 29-35), while he may not have .And he will wear a crown of thorns, . . . (vers. 287-294.) But he will spread out his hands, and the whole world's breadth he will measure. Gall they fravc him to eat, and vinegar when he was thirsty. Such unkindncss shall bring upon thcin merited vengeance. .\ud the veil of the temple was I'eut in twain, and at midday Three hours long will night prevail with terrible darkness." (vers. 302-306.) The translation we have given is as close as adlierence to the meter would uilow Only in one particular is the description made more minute than in tlie orij^iiial Greek: instead of "Lake of Genuesaret's waters" it reads simply " water of the lake." ^ Sj/xtem (ler chrisf lichen Lehre, § 35. 254 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. suggested an altogether new thought to Jeroboam's mind, yet it is natural to assume that the encouragement afforded by the prophecy must have strengthened, if it did not produce, Jero- boam's resolution to make the prediction good, — just as Mac- beth was fired by what the witches foretold him to bring about the fulfilment of his predicted elevation. On the other hand^ Solomon tried to frustrate Ahijah's prophecy by seeking to put Jeroboam to death. So Herod, after he had learned that it had been prophesied that the Messiah should be born in Bethlehem, attempted to frustrate the prophecy by killing all the children in the place. On the other hand, the fact of Messianic prophe- cies in general, although they are wanting in details of time and place and circumstance, undoubtedly furnished a stimulus to Theudas and Bar-cochebas, and the other pretended Messiahs. Unless all prophecies are to be as vague and ambiguous as the Delphic oracles often were, it could hardly be otherwise than that there should be efforts made to fulfil them of set purpose. But if they were all perfectly unambiguous and specific, it is manifest that they would tend to interfere with the natural operation of motives. The prophecies would become something else than prophecies ; they would become a power directly operating to produce the result predicted. Prophets would be, to a great extent, what the more superstitious among the Jews, as well as other peoples, regarded them as being, namely, the efficient causes of the events foretold by them. This was evi- dently Ahab's conception of a prophet's power, when he entreated Micaiah to utter a favorable prophecy respecting his proposed expedition against Eamoth-gilead (1 Kings xxii. 13), and when, after the three years' drought predicted by Elijah, he met the prophet, and said, " Is it thou, thou troubler of Israel ? " (1 Kings xviii. 17). d. But we have not only these reasons for not expecting in prophecies a detailed and exact forecasting of future events. It being the prophet's function to preach to his own contemporaries, his language, and the whole cast of his address, need to be intelligible to his hearers. But this would not be the case, if he dealt with themes entirely unfamiliar to them, and if his pic- ture of the future had a coloring which they could not under- THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 255 stand. Of what use could it have been to the Jews of Isaiah's time to be told in detail about the history of the Eoman Empire, a power as yet hardly in its infancy ? Why should the prophet have been inspired to specify how many years would elapse before the Messiah would be born, and to tell particularly under what kind of government the Jews then would be ? Even if he could himself have had a complete vision of that future, all strange to him in its outward features, it would have been almost impossible for him to make the vision mean anything to his hearers. It was, we may say, practically necessary that ^ the promises of Messianic help should wear the color of the prophet's own time. This may involve an inaccuracy in outward circumstance, but that is nothing else than what we should look for, so long as we regard the prophet's direct aim to have been to produce a religious impression on those around him. The Jews at that time could not have been made to apprehend the idea of a purely spiritual kingdom. Surrounded as they were by mighty heathen nations by which they were in immi- nent danger of being overpowered, their hope of a great King able to give them security and salvation could not well have been dissociated from protection against these threatening powers. Nor do we need to suppose that the prophets them- selves were wholly lifted above these associations. It is there- fore quite what might be expected when the earlier prophets, especially Isaiah and his contemporaries, seem to connect the jNIessianic deliverance with the Assyrian invasions, while the following ones are more occupied with the Babylonian and Medo-Persian empires, and only the latest make mention of Greece,^ and none of them distinctly of Eome. The prophetic ^ The references to Greece (Javan), liowevcr, occur mostly in books the date of which is disputed. They are found in Joel iii. G ; Dan. viii. 21, x. 20, xi. 2; Ezek. xxvii. 13, 19 (where the second is supposed to be au Arabian country, not Greece) ; Isa. Ixvi. 19, and Zccli. ix. 13. Oidy the passages in Daniel and Zechariali speak of Greece as a formidable military power. Our general purpose does not require a discussion of the critical questions here involved. As to Isa. xl.-lxvi., whatever one's judgment may be, there can be no question that the weightiest argument — one may say almost the only weighty argument — for the exilic date is the obvious fact that the writer all through the book writes as if the captivity were present, not future. 256 SUPEKNATUKAL REVELATION. descriptions of the future bear the impress of the time in which they are written. As Fairbairn^ well expresses it, " the prophets necessarily thought and spoke of the future under the condi- tions of their own historical position ; so that it was not the image of the future which threw itself back upon the past, but rather the image of the past which threw itself forward into the future, — the things which were, and had been, gave their form to the things which were yet to be." The foregoing considerations, while they imply that there are in the prophecies what may l)e called inaccuracies, yet indicate that the argument from prophecy is for that very reason of peculiar weight. There is so much prediction of a JMessianic kingdom, and such a wonderful anticipation of many of its features, that the theory of supernatural illumination is the only satisfactory one ; while yet the prophetic conception remains on that plane on which alone it could have been instructive and helpful to the prophet's own contemporaries. The signifi- cance of the Messianic prophecies in particular does not consist so much in the exact correspondence of any one of them with the details of the historic fulfilment, as in the very fact of the existence of so great a variety of Messianic prophecies, differ- ing sometimes almost irreconcilably from one another, yet each suggesting or directly foretelling some one or more of the characteristics of the actual Messiah and his work. It is this convergence of so many different prophecies towards Christ and the Christian Church which constitutes the real strength of the argument from prophecy. The so-called Prot- evangelium (Gen. iii. 15) would, by itself, amount to very little as an evidence of a prophetic anticipation of Jesus Christ. The same may be said of Jacob's oracle (Gen. xlix. 10) respecting Judah, and of Balaam's vision (Num. xxiv. 17) of the star and the sceptre, and indeed of any one of the later more specific predic- tions that are found in the Old Testament. Ikit it is just be- cause there runs all through the Hebrew history this remarkable anticipation, growing more and more definite and decided with the lap.se of time, assuming many forms and pictured in most di- verse ways, and because these various prophecies are so remark- ^ Piopltecj/, p. 155. THE liELATIUN OF CIIKISTIANITY TO JIDAISM. 257 ably fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, that one becomes impressed with the conviction that a more than human intelligence gov- erned the utterances of the prophets when tiiey predicted the Messianic kingdom. The more probable it can be made to ap- pear that the prophets themselves did not expect just such a Messiah as Jesus proved to be, the more indubitable does it be- come that the hand of Jehovah was upon them, and that they were inspired to utter words which foreshadowed more than the prophets were conscious of meaning. When one and the same person is seen to unite in himself, and to fulfil, the diver.se prophecies which have pictured the expected Messiah now as Prophet,^ now as King,^ now as Priest,^ now as a sufferer * in 1 Dent, xviii. 15, 18; Isa. xlii. 1-7, xlix. 1-6, lii. 13-lm. 12. 2 Isa. ix. 1-7, xi. 1-9 ; Micali v. 1-3 ; Zccli. ix. 9, etc. 8 Fs. ex. 4; Zech. iii. 8, vi. 13. * Zcch. xii. 10, xiii. 7; Dan. ix. 2G; Isa. liii. As to this last-nicntioncd cliapter, it is Messianic, whatever theory one may adopt as to its primary moaning. Among the various interpretations tlie most groundless is that which makes tlie " servant " some king, as Hezekiah, Uzziah, or Josiah. There is scarcely anything to favor the liypothesis. But little more plausible is the supposition that the passage refers to some individual prophet, perhaps Jere- niiaii, who has undergone peculiar persecution. It is almost grotesque to think of any ordinary pro])hot described as sustaining such a unique relation to the people. There is nothing whate\'er to suggest it; the "servant of Jehovah " in this section (xl.-lxvi.) is nowhere distinctly applied to an individual prophet. This fact bears equally against the view that the "servant" is here collec- tively used of the prophets in general. The term is doubtless used collec- tively lor the most part, but is applied iu)t to the i)rophets, but to the people as a whole (xli. 8, xlii. 19, xliii. 10, xliv. 1, 21, etc.). Sometimes, however, the serv.int is distinguished from the people (as in xlii. 1-7, xlix. 1-6, 1. 10). Tiie cxegctical question is, whether in this latter case the servant is conceived of as an individual, or as the pious part of the people. Apparently it mmt be one or the other. The prevalent collective sense in other cases favors assum- ing a collective sense in these cases ; but this is not decisive. Where the singular number is used continuously, and the general impression produced is that of an individual rather than of a collection — as in xlix. 1-6, and es- pecially in lii. 13-liii. 12 — there is not the slightest exegetical difficulty in sup- posing that the prophet really had an individual in mind. If he confessedly uses the (enn now in a comprehensive, and now in a restricted, sense, — so restricted that in xlix. 6 it is represented as the mission of the "servant" to " raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel," as well as to be "a light to the Gentiles," — there is no exegetical* objection to 17 258 SUPEKNATUKAL REVELATION. the power of his enemies, now as a victorious and invincible warrior; — when one comes to see this, then the conviction be- comes irresistible that no mere presentiment, no magical arts, no shrewd prognostications, and no cunning deceit could have so constructed the prophecy and so brought about the ful- filment. This is a line of argument which will of course not be strin- gent to one who recognizes in Christ himself no divine illumi- nation and authority. Such a one may speciously urge that the Messianic anticipations of the Jewish prophets have failed of fulfilment in respect to their predominant feature, namely, the kingly character of the Messiah. Jesus, it may be said, was our supposing that the restriction goes so far as to limit the terra sometimes to an individual, who in a unique manner realizes the divine ideal of a servant. And in chap. liii. everything favors this hypothesis. So sharply is the servant individualized and contrasted with the people in general, that some {e. g., Hifzig, following the later Rabbins) conceive verses 2-10 to be the language of the heathen amongst whom the Jews were dispersed, — a view, however, so groundless that it hardly needs refutation. Now it is a simple rhetorical principle that, if the singular noun or pronoun is used collectively, the con- text must make this fact evident. In xli. 8-14, e. g., no one can doubt that the people as a whole are meant, even apart from the phrase " men of Israel " in verse 14. But in lii. 13-liii. the case is reversed. We there have not merely the singular number uniformly used ; but the marks of individuality are so various and pointed that it becomes difficult to adjust the section to the theory of a collective signification. E. g., when the servant is called " a tnan of sorrows," one who " opened not his mouth," was " cut off from the land of the living," etc., it requires a straining of "the exegetical conscience" to understand the prophet as meaning the whole people, or even a collection of persons. The presumption here is that a single person is in the prophet's mind, and that this individual is the expected Messiah. This view, favored by the internal evidence, and adopted by the earlier Jews and the great majority of Christian interpreters, is not likely to be abandoned. It is sur- prising that Professor Ladd should say that "no other answer has greater dif- ficulties than the one which makes the passage . . . directly and solely Messianic " {Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 55). Professor Ladd strongly asserts indeed the Messianic character of the passage, but regards it as only typically Messianic. This is of course possibly correct ; but few will be likely to come to that conclusion on account of such a subtle exegesis of Luke xxii. 37 as he adopts (p. 51), following Meyer, against nearly everybody else. See on this subject, Urwick, The Servant of Jehovah, and V. F, Oehler, Ber Knecht Jchova's. , THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO Jl'DAISM. 259 anything but a king. He expressly refused to be made a kiug. He was simply a wise and good man who tried to get men to follow his precepts. With such objectors we are not disposed to contend. The true force of the argument from prophecy can be felt only by one who recognizes in Jesus something higher than a distinguished moralist or philosopher ; who sees in him the realization of the highest ideal of true Kingship ; who ac- knowledges him to be the Head of the Kingdom of God, the Lord to whom the members of the community of believers owe homage and allegiance. He who sees in him the real Anointed of God has no difficulty in seeing how he fulfils the types and predictions of the Old Testament ; Christ is rather the one fact that gives unity and consistency and signifi- cance to what otherwise is obscure and confused. This faith in Christ, it is true, is not ordinarily the product of a study of the prophecies. The evidences of Christianity which are most con- vincing are doubtless those which are found in the history and inherent character of Christianity itself. But provided the faith exists, it receives an additional support, when it appre- hends the relation of Christ to the law and prophecies of the Old Covenant, and sees in him the focus towards which the various and seemingly scattered rays of previous revelations all converged. 3. Another question is : How far do Christ and his apostles authenticate the miracles of the Old Testament ? Even though on account of their testimony we believe that Moses and the prophets received supernatural revelations, does this require us to give full credence to every story of the Old Testament which reports the occurrence of a miracle ? The miracles of the Old Testament, as compared with those of the New, have always been the first to receive the assaults of skeptics. Being more remote from us, they are not so directly attested, and in many cases they seem to have less intrinsic probabihty and less apparent justification. Some of them are favorite butts of ridicule. Is there reason for any distinction between these and the Christian miracles ? In general, it must be obvious that no radical distinction can be drawn between the two classes. If miracles are needed as 260 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. vouchers for the genuineness of any special revelation of the divine purpose and character, then they were needed when a revelation was made through Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, as well as when one was made through Christ and the apostles. In so far, therefore, as Jesus recognized the Old Testament dis- pensation as of divine origin, he implicitly recognized the mira- cles which served to attest this origin. But if even with regard to the New Testament miracles we adopt certain ci^itcria of genuineness, assuming at least the j5os- sihiliti/ that apocryphal stories may liave got entrance into the canonical books, then of course we may equally, or even to a greater degree, exercise the same right of discrimination with regard to the Old Testament. But the same caution in exercis- ino; the right is needed in the latter case as in the former. The necessity and the fact of miracles as accompaniments of the divine revelation being once assumed, it is not an easy matter to draw the line betv/een those which shall be acknowledged as fit and appropriate, and those which shall be discarded as un- worthy of God, and as legendary. If a reported miracle were palpably at war with the known character of God, that would be sufficient reason for questioning the authenticity of the story. But in applying this criterion different persons will come to dif- ferent conclusions. For example, to some the accounts of the de- struction of the Egyptian first-born, or of the messengers sent to Elijah (2 Kings i. 9-12), will seem to be inconsistent with the character of a God who is represented, even in the Old Testa- ment, as a God of infinite compassion and forbearance (Ex. xxxiv. 6; Jonah iv. 2, etc.); whereas others, who lay more stress on the attribute of righteousness in God, and on the need of its being made impressively manifest, will find no serious difficulty in such narratives. Or again, some may be inclined to object to some miracles as trivial, undignified, or purposeless, as for example, the speaking of Balaam's ass (Num. xxii. 28), the resurrection of the man who was buried in the tomb of Elisha (2 Kings xiii. 21), the story of Samson's exploits, or of Jonah"s preservation ; while others are not scandalized by such things, and are able to discern a meaning worthy of God in them.^ ^ Cliristlieb {Modenie Zweifcl cm christUchen. Glaitben, pp. 8G7-']91) dc- TIIK RKLA'IMON OF ( 11 IMS TIAM TV TO JUDAISM. 2G1 In many cases it may b(> a question whether the event re- corded is, strictly speaking, a miracle at all. The Old Testa- ment writers are so much accustomed to ascribe all events, especially striking and important ones, directly to divine agency, that it is not necessary to call everything miraculous that at first glance may seem to be described as such. For example, when it is said (Josh. x. 11) that Jehovah cast down great stones from heaven upon the Gibeonites, the hail-storm which is reported need not be regarded as a miracle. And likewise in the nu mel- ons instances in which (lod is said to have spoken to individuals, or to have moved them to do this or that, it would be a mis- conception of the lUblieal style and meaning to assume in all such cases a strictly supernatural intervention. r>ut the question immediately before us is. How far the New Testament sanctions the miracles reported in the Old ? "We should not expect a particular and detailed reference to each separate miraculous event. The Old Testament history is re- ferred to in general as one under especial divine direction, and certain of the recorded miracles are alluded to as facts. The fol- lowing are thus referred to : Jonah's preservation (Matt. xii. 40), the deluge (]\Iatt. xxiv. .39 ; Luke xvii. 27 ; Heb. xi. 7 ; 1 Pet. iii. 20), Jehovah in the burning bush (Mark xii. 26; Luke xx. 37 ; Acts vii. 30), Elijah and the widow (Luke iv. 25, 26), Elisha's healing Naaman (iv. 27), Moses' brazen serpent (John iii. 14), the gift of manna (vi. 31, 32, 49). The foregoing are referred to by Jesus himself, as reported in the Gospels. In the following books we find reference to still others, viz. : the call of Abraham (Acts vii. 2, 3, Heb. xi. 8), the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt (Acts vii. 36, xiii. 17 ; Heb. xi. 29), the birth of Isaac (Eom. iv. 19-21 ; Heb. xi. 11), the shining of Moses' face (2 Cor. iii. 7), the offering of Isaac (Heb. xi. 17-19 ; Jas. ii. 21), the destruction of the Egyptian first-born (Heb. xi. 28), the fall of Jericho (xi. 30), the demonstrations on Mount Sinai (xii. 18-21), Elijah's prophecy of drought (James v. 17), Ba- laam's ass speaking (2 Pet. ii. 16). These are only a part of votes a section (omitted in tlic English translation) to a few of the miracles that have been espceiallv assailed, viz. those eonccniing Balaam's ass, Joshna's stopping the sun, Elijah's translation, and Jonah in the lish's belly. '■2{V2 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. the miraculous events narrated in the Old Testament, and in many of these cases the event is merely alluded to incidentally. But this is just what might have been expected. The miracles of the Old Testament are endorsed, or vouched for, by the New- Testament implicitly rather than explicitly. That is, the whole Old Testament history and economy being treated as under divine direction, the several incidents recorded in the Old Testament, whether miraculous or not, are presumptively included in tliis general endorsement. It would therefore be very unreasonable to pronounce the unmentioned miracles less credible than the others simply because they are not mentioned in the New Testament, while on tlie other hand the general en- dorsement which the New Testament gives to the supernatural character of the Mosaic dispensation does not of itself preclude the possibility that certain of the narratives of the Old Testa- ment may be regarded as more or less inaccurate. But the question may be asked, whether even all of the Old Testament narratives of miracles which are referred to in the New Testament are necessarily for that reason to be regarded as authoritatively vouched for. Or, to put the question in another form, Does faith in the divine authority of Christ com- pel us to hold that the Old Testament miracles which he is re- ported to have referred to really occurred as they are described in the Old Testament ? We should be obliged to answer this question with an un- qualified affirmative, were it not possible to take a middle course between this and a disbelief in Christ's trustworthiness. It may be held that, though Christ is to be absolutely trusted, yet the evangelical accounts of him are not to be absolutely trusted. Accordingly one may entertain the opinion that in certain instances in which Jesus is said to have referred to an Old Testament miracle as a fact, he has perhaps been misre- ported by the historian. Such a conjecture may be without any solid foundation ; but it is certainly possible to cherisli it, and yet retain implicit faith in Christ. Or one may hold that Christ, in his references to the stories of the Old Testament, liad no intention of pronouncing them historically true, but used them only as illustrations of the TIIH KKI.A'IMDX OF ClIKISTIAMTV TO JUDAISM. 263 truths which ho liimself wished to impress on liis liearers ; just as the iucidents of uiythological tales are often referred to by Christian speakers and writers as if they were facts, though neither the speaker nor the hearer so regards them. Here, too, it may he argued in reply that there is no good reason for regarding Jesus as making such a use of the Old Testa- ment as the one alleged; but still it is possible for one to hold such a theory without impugning the trustworthiness of Christ himself. How, then, shall we answer the question ? It can be fully answered oidy l)y a complete exegetical and critical examination of the New Testament records. Tf such an examination should result in showing conclusively that Jesus is inaccurately reported when he is said to refer to the miracles of the Old Testament, and that the authentic accounts of him show him to have been no believer in the genuineness of the recorded miracles, or that at least he nowhere plainly avowed or implied a belief in their genuineness, then the case is clear : One can hold what views he pleases concerning the Old Testament miracles, and still remain fully loyal to Jesus Christ. But it requires no elaborate investigation to make it clear that such a conception of the New Testament records cannot be made reasonably plausible. One can arbitrarily maintain it ; one can adopt an a j^riori assumption that Jesus never could have endorsed as genuine the miracles to wliich he is reported to have referred But such a view must always be a pure assumption, unsustained by any candid examination of the records before us. Everywhere Jesus is described as speaking with the utmost reverence of the Old Testament Scriptures ; everywhere he speaks of the Jewish people as the recipient of a divine revelation ; everywhere he treats the events of Jewish history as facts, and as instructive facts. There is not the slightest indication that he represents the reputed miracles as any less authentic or less instructive than the other events of the past. Moreover, he is everywhere represented as himself working miracles and as appealing to them as a divine authenti- cation of his mission. It is, therefore, not a critical exegesis, but dogmatic caprice, which can Hnd in the sources of our 264 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. information any indication that Jesus did not hold to the genu- ineness of the Old Testament miracles. There is, therefore, no ground, except that of subjective caprice, for the notion that Jesus referred to the miracles merely by way of illustration, without meaning to imply whether he regarded them as fact or fiction. His auditors certainly regarded the Old Testament as a record of veritable history, miracles and all. There is no indication that Jesus had any different conception. And if he did, there is as much reason for supposing that he held the wliole of Jewish history to be legendary, as for supposing that he held the miraculous part of it to be legendary. While, therefore, one may resort to eitlier of these methods of invalidating Christ's endorsement of the Old Testament miiracles, one cannot do so reasonably. There remains to the skeptic only to assume that Christ himself, though he believed in the reality of the Old Testament miracles, was mistaken in so believing. But this, as we have before seen, is equivalent to a rejection of the authority of Christ as an inspired bearer of a divine revelation. In general, therefore, the fact of miracles under the Old Testament dispensation must be regarded as affirmed by Christ and the authors of the New Testament. If there still remain any question, it must have reference to matters of detail. It may sometimes be doubted whether the original narrative is to be understood as that of a miracle. It is possible to suppose, for example, in the case of the history of Jonah,^ that what at first blush seems to be an account of miraculous events, was in reality quite otherwise meant. But the presumption will always remain that, when the Old Testament presents narratives of palpably miraculous events, and these are referred to in the New Testament as historical, they are to be regarded as authen- ticated by such reference. It is unnecessary to dwell in detail on the several references in the New Testament to the Old Testament miracles. And as to the unmentioned ones, we can only say that, as the Old Testa- ment, substantially at least in the form in which we still have it, was received by Christ and his followers as a trustworthy 1 See Excursus VIII. THE RELATION OV CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 2G5 history of the earlier revelation, the presumption is that tlie miracles were generally accepted as historic facts. And the same answer is to be made to the question: — 4. How far do Christ and his disciples authenticate the Old Testament history in general? On the one hand, they cannot be appealed to as directly vouching for all the details of that liistory, especially when they are not referred to ; on the other, there is a presumption that, since they certainly accepted the Old Testament in general as a sacred record of God's dealings with men, and particularly with the Jewish race, they regarded the book as trustworthy in its details. The use made of the Old Testament by Christ and his apos- tles is mostly or wholly a practical use. j\Ioral and religious lessons are enforced not only by appeal to psalmists and prophets, but by reference also to historical events. That the reference is made for such a purpose, does not indicate that the events referred to are for that reason any the less historic ; on the contrary, that such a use is made of them is rather a witness to their superior importance as historic facts. But the homiletic or religious use made of Biblical incidents carries with it that the reference is generally to the salient and suggestive features of the events, rather than to the subordinate details. Thus Paul refers to the original sin of Ad;im in order to set forth the scope of the atonement of Christ (llom. v. 12-21); he does not here even mention Adam hj name ; but he docs in 1 Cor. xv. 22, 45, where a similar general reference is made to Adam as bringing death into the world, as contrasted with Christ, the life-giver. Now Paul here does not specifically refer to the Book of Genesis, nor even to the Old Testament Scriptures in general. No one could prove from these passages that he accepted the story of the fall as it is given in detail in Gen. iii. Yet no one can doubt that he really alludes to the familiar history, — an assur- ance which is confirmed when we find him elsewhere (2 Cor. xi. 3) speaking of Eve's being tempted by the serpent, and again (without mention of the serpent) in 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14. A general reference to the creation of man and woman is made in 1 Cor. xi. 8, 9, and in 1 Tim. ii. 13, but without allusion to details. But no one can doubt that he was familiar with the 266 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. Book of Genesis, that he here refers to it, and that lie implicitly attests the history which is there given. The question of special interest, however, is whether Paul's use of the narrative com- mits us to any particular interpretation of it. Must we, on account of his allusions to the story, understand it in the most literal way ? Need we understand it as real history at all ? May it not be a mystical, symbolical, or allegorical representa- tion of man's primeval history, or even of the moral development of the human race in general ? This view of the narrative of Gen. ii -iii., as old at least as Philo,^ has been held by many interpreters in all periods of the Christian Church.^ It cannot be called an inadmissible or heterodox view, provided it can be made clear that the author intended the story to be understood in this manner. Even if it could be plausibly made out that such was the author's intention, it would still be possible that Paul understood it literally. In that case we should have to admit a hermeneutical error on the apostle's part. It seems pretty certain that Paul looked on the history of the first pair as in part at least historical. The comparison of Adam with Christ would be utterly pointless if Adam were not conceived of as an individual, and as a historical individual. So the assertion that Adam was first formed, then Eve, and that the woman, not the man, was deceived (1 Cor. xi. 8, 9 ; 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14), must imply that Paul regarded those two features of the story, at least, as facts. He argues from the facts, and draws practical inferences from them, — all which would be absurd, if he had supposed the story to be a purely allegorical representation of the human race. If we look further in the New Testament for references to this section of Genesis, we find one in Matt. xix. 4-6 (cf. Mark X. 6-9), where Christ distinctly refers to the creation of man, the original distinction of sex, and the institution of marriage, as recorded in Gen. i. 27, ii. 24. We must believe that, so far at least as this point is concerned, he speaks of the narrative as ^ On the Creation of the World, \\ 55-61. He makes the serpent symbolic of pleasure. 2 See Quarry, Genesis and its Authorship, pp. 29 sqq., for illustrations of this statement. THE RELATION OF (MIUISTIANITY TO .Jl DAIS.M. -JtlY historical. When he contrasted the Mosaic law of divorce with what God instituted " from the beginning," there would have been no meaning in his reply to the Jews' question, unless he had assumed it to be a fact, as recorded in (lencsis, that tlicre was one original human pair united together in marriage. Furtlier, we find in liev. ii. 7, xxii. 2, a " tree of life " given as the conspicuous feature of the lieavenly Paradise. Tliis, however, though undoubtedly an allusion to Gen. ii. 9, iii. 22, is not such a reference as necessarily involves any opinion as to the historical character of the original tree of life. Indeed it has been argued that, this heavenly tree of life being evidently allegorical, we may reason back to the conclusion that the first one was no less so.^ But this is manifestly fallacious. As well might it be inferred from Rev. xxi. 2, where the new Jerusalem is described as seen coming down out of heaven, that, tlie language being plainly allegorical, the old Jerusalem of Palestine, to which allusion is made, was allegorical also. On the contrary, since facts furnish the basis of figures, the figurative lani^uage of the Apocalypse would seem to point to a historic fact as its foundation. If we examine the original history itself, the first observa- tion to be made is, that the narrative of Gen. i.-iii. is indi.ssolubly connected with what follows. The same Adam and Eve there described as created and tempted are afterwards described as having children, who in turn also have children. The human race is represented as proceeding from this pair, and human liistory as beginning with them. If Gen. i.-iii. are allegorieiil throughout, we have no right to make the allegory end witli iii. 24. Allegorical characters cannot be transformed into real characters. If Adam and Eve were unreal personages at the outset, they must have remained so to the end. And their children and children's children must have been equally allegorical. A certain historical element must, then, be assumed to lie- long to these chapters, at least in the intention of the writer. A modification of the allegorical hypothesis, however, may be adopted, to the efilect that on a basis of historic fact the autlior * So Quarry, Genesis, itc, p. 113. 268 SUPEKNATURAL RF.VELATION. has constructed a description which largely abounds in alle- goric or symbolic features. This hypothesis may be that these features are mythical, or that they are the inventions of the writer himself ; in either case they are supposed to embody certain moral and religious ideas. In favor of this view it is urged that the narrative abounds in representations whicli are so improbable in themselves, and so unlike anything else in sacred history, that the writer must have intended to be un- derstood as veiling his meaning under a mystical garb. The making of a human body first, and putting life into it after- wards ; a tree whose fruit could confer immortality, and an- other whose fruit bestowed the power of moral distinctions ; the construction of a woman out of a man's rib ; a serpent en- dowed with the faculty of speech, and with intellectual cunning sufficient to tempt the woman to disobedience ; Jehovah walking in the garden, and the guilty pair hiding from him ; the cursing of the serpent and condemning him to go on his belly (as he must have done already before), — all these are certainly traits which do not characterize history in general, whether sacred or profane. They resemble the fabulous or the mythical. Did the writer mean to be understood literally ? The question is not altogether easy to answer. Even though one should find himself unable to believe that the facts ever literally corresponded to the description, it would not follow but that the writer meant it all literally. It is impossible to de- termine at what point a narrative becomes so improbable that we cannot suppose the writer to believe in the truth of what he writes. It is certain that many of the readers of the story — perhaps the larger part of them — have believed in the literal truth of it. If so, it is certainly possible that the writer did the same. Still it is perfectly legitimate to argue, from the internal evidence, that the writer must have meant to be understood allegorically. Can it be that a Hebrew theist could represent Jehovah as jealous of man's advance in knowledge, and as afraid lest he might attain immortality through the eating of a certain fruit (Gen. iii. 22) ? Can it be that he really regarded human sin as first introduced into the world through the cun- ning persuasions of a talking snake ? Can it be that he could TIIK KKLATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 269 have thought the tree of knowledge of good and evil capable of producing such a marvellous physical, mental, and moral effect on human beings ? Can it be that he conceived of a rib as transmogritied into a woman ? Does not the very crowding together of so many singular things argue a very peculiar style of composition ? Is it not warrantable in itself, as well as con- sonant with sound religious sense, to suppose that these feat- ures in the story are figures and symbols of truths which the writer could in no other way so well convey ? A substratum of historic fact may be assumed ; but may not the clothing be deemed allegoric ? This is certainly plausible ; and it will hardly be possible absolutely to disprove the correctness of this hy])otliesis. There are many sporadic specimens of parables, and even of fables, in the I'ible ; may not this be a historico-parabolic tale ? The supposition is all the more plausible, inasmuch as the topics treated of belong to a time and a sphere so entirely strange to human experience. It seems not improbable that a vivid im- pression of the primeval history and its moral significance could be best given in certain graphic pictures and symbolic representations, which may not literally correspond to the ac- tual facts. The common interpretation of the temptation con- firms to some extent this conception. It is usually assumed that the real tempter was not the serpent, but the devil. The devil is called " that old serpent " in Eev. xx. 2. The serpent has generally been made a type of malicious cunning. If Eve was in fact tempted by Satan, may it not be that this intro- duction of the serpent in the narrative is merely a parabolic way of stating the truth ? As soon as we assume Satan to have been at work, merely using the serpent as his tool, we de- part from the literal sense of the account ; for this says ex- plicitly that the servient did the tempting, being more subtile than the other beasts. It would be only departing one step further from the literal sense to assume that there was no literal serpent concerned in the temptation, but that the writer describes the Satanic work under the guise of a temptation effected through a serpent, leaving it undetermined just what the actual process of the temptation was. 270 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. So as regards certain other features of Gen. ii. and iii. To some minds the story of the rib is the most difficult to believe, if taken in all literalness. To represent God as like a surgeon putting Adam into a state of insensibility, cutting out a rib, and then closing up the wound, is certainly not in harmony with ordinary conceptions of the divine working. To other minds the statements about the two trees are especially offen- sive. To others again it seems strange that the effect of dis- obedience should be described as simply shame on account of physical nakedness. In all these things we may find symbolic suggestions of deep spiritual truths ; ^ but if the literal sense is the whole sense, the story seems crass, if not even fantastic and grotesque. On the other hand, however, it is not necessary to assume that the literal sense is the whole sense. If a fictitious repre- sentation can be symbolic of spiritual truth, equally well, or better still, may facts convey such instruction. And when we bear in mind that ordinary human experience can furnish no parallel to the conditions of creation and of man's primeval history, we see reason for not being too positive as to what may or may not have been the exact truth relative to that distant and unique period with which the first chapters of Genesis have to do. It has often been remarked of late years that that narra- tive is much more true to intrinsic probability, in picturing the primitive man, as a being of childlike simplicity and artlessness, than the older theological conceptions of him, according to which he was from the very first of super-angelic capacities and knowledge. The statements about the two trees tire the most characteristic and suggestive in the whole section. To many minds these trees are unmistakably symbolic, — not real trees, but poetic representations of the motives and aims of human action. But to others not only is there nothing incredi- ble in supposing that the trees were real, but. this supposition seems the most in accordance with what must have been the original mental and moral condition of the primeval man. As with young children the first great moral struggle has generally to do with some command concerning an outward palpable 1 Cf. Delitzscli, Commentur ilber die Genesis. THE DELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 271 object, — a coiniiumd not to touch this or that, or to yo here or there, — and not one relating to the general duty of benevolence ; so the question whether the first man, in the incipiency of his moral devebjpnient, was to remain loyal to God could be better tested by a coniniund respecting the enjoyment of certain fruits than 1)y abstract precepts which as yet must have been unin- telligible to him. As to any poisonous properties in the tree of knowledge, such as many commentators have told about, the narrative itself says nothing.^ In what sense it conferred knowledge the sequel of the eating indicates. The disobedience in the eating produced the moral effect of developing an evil conscience ; the guilty pair tied from the presence of Jehovah. There is more appearance of an intention on the part of the writer to ascribe a peculiar physical power to the other tree. Its name, and especially the language which Jehovah is repre- sented as using in iii. 22, seem to imply that its fruit was con- ceived as capable of conferring physical immortality. But it is in accordance with the analogy of the name and function of the other tree, and involves a very slight straining of the apparent literal sense of the description, if we regard the tree of life as symbolizing the reward of obedience. It was the palpable pledge of the divine favor. It represented, but did not confer, the " life " which was the real reward. And as a child, wliose disobedience has caused him to forfeit a promised reward, is made to feel his guilt most keenly by being removed from all sight and reach of the expected gift, especially since by a natural confusion of thought he is apt to imagine that if he can only by any means get hold of the coveted object he in some sense neutralizes the effect of his disobedience ; so it was necessary for Jehovah to drive Adam and Eve away from the tree whose fruit they might look on as somehow able to repair the damage which their sin had wrouiiht. The lanuuatre of iii. 22 admits this construction with certainly less forcing of its strict sense than is used when in the account of the temptation we understand the real tempter to be, not the serpent, but Satan. This illustrates what is most probably the correct exegesis ^ Even Dolitzscli, however {Commciilar iibcr die Genesis on ii. 9), assumes that the tree had in it sucli a quality for one who disobcdicutly ate of it. 272 SUPEKNATUKAL REVELATION. of this unique section. Just liow far the literal meaning must be pressed, it may be difficult to determine. But there is no sufficient ground for thinking that the writer did not mean to be understood as narrating substantial history. And the ref- erence which Paul makes to the story of the temptation cannot naturally be understood otherwise than as implying that he believed in its essential truthfulness. The case is somewhat similar with regard to the narrative of the creation in the first chapter of Genesis. Here, however, the direct references in the New Testament are more scanty, and the chief interest gathers around the relation of the narrative to the results of geological research. If we except general statements about God as Creator, the New Testament nowhere makes reference to this chapter except in Matt. xix. 4 (cf. Mark X. 6), where Christ quotes Gen. i. 27, and in 2 Cor. iv. 6, where Paul alludes to Gen. i. 3. Incidentally the first and the last of the works of the six days are thus referred to, and by implica- tion endorsed as facts. There is not the same temptation to resort to the allegorical interpretation with reference to chapter i. as with reference to chapters ii. and iii. But those who despair of seeing any recon- ciliation effected between the testimony of Genesis and that of geology are often disposed to find relief in the hypothesis that the author of Gen. i. really did not design to narrate his- toric or geologic facts at all, but only to set forth the truth that one personal God is the Sovereign of the universe. There is an important truth in this view ; but it is easy to overwork it. Thus, it is observed that the plan of the chapter is highly artistic, especially in that there is a manifest correspondence between each of the first three days and the corresponding days in the second triad. That is, the first day describes the cre- ation of light, and the fourth, that of the luminaries ; the second, the formation of tlie realms of air and water, and the fifth, that of the fowls and fishes which inhabit those elements ; the third, the preparation of the dry land, and the sixth, that of land animals and man, the inhabitants of the dry land. From this it is inferred that the description is purely ideal, not historical, that the author had no thought of portraying the literal order of TIIK HKLATION OK (CHRISTIANITY TO JUDAISM. 273 geologic events, that his point of view was purely theological, and that therefore it is idle to talk of a real or possible contradiction between this description and the conclusions of geologists.^ This, however, is a somewhat too easy way of getting over a difficulty. No doubt the narrative has a monotheistic and re- ligious aim ; no doubt also the arrangement is ideal and artis- tic. But from this it does not follow that the writer did not mean to l)e understood as narrating facts. Facts may be both real and ideal. If the author wished only to set forth the fact that God is the Maker and Kuler of all things, he could have done so in two or three sentences, summarily stating the grand truth, without going into a detailed account of a creative process. He would thus never have given rise to the vexed questions about the harmony or disharmony between his narrative and the truths of geology. The very fact that, instead of confining himself to such a general statement, he undertook to give a particular history of the process of creation, would seem to indicate that he tliought there really was such a process. Other- wise it is hard to see why he invented it. It was not necessary in order to the enunciation of the theological and religious truth which alone he is supposed to have aimed to impress on his readers. By introducing it he has in fact made the impression that he meant to describe a real process, though the ideality and beauty of the form of his description was long ago recognized. On the whole, then, we can hardly do better than to regard the question as still awaiting a full solution. In general, it is a fixed and remarkable fact that in its grand features the IMosaic account strikingly corresponds with the conclusions of geologists, however difficult or impossible it may be to bring the details into complete harmony. The other references in the New Testament to the historical parts of the Old can be dealt with more briefly. In general, there can be no reasonable question that, when such a reference is made, it implies on the part of the author a belief in the authenticity of the record referred to. For example, when Jesus ^ So, e. g., Prof. W. G. Elnislio on The First C/iapfer of Genesis m Coii- temporan/ Review, December, 1387, where this view is forcibly aud eloquently set forth. 18 274 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. quoted in his own defense tlie conduct of David in eating the shew-Lread (Matt. xii. 3, 4), it is clear that he regarded the incident as a historic fact. And so with all similar cases. There is one class of references, however, respecting which there is more doubt how far their testimony goes ; we mean those references which touch on a question of authorship. When Christ speaks of Moses and the law of Moses, we must distinguish between an allegation that Moses commanded this or that, and an allegation that he vjrote this or that. The ex- plicit statement that Moses wrote anything is made by Christ only twice, viz., in Mark x. 5, and in John v. 45-47.^ But in either case the reference is only to a specific thing, and cannot be adduced as evidence concerning the composition of the Pen- tateuch in general. Where we read about the " law of Moses " (Luke xxiv. 44; John vii. 23), or the "book of Moses" (Mark xii. 26), or about Moses in general as a legislator (Mark i. 44, vii. 10 ; Luke xvi. 29 ; John v. 45, vii. 19), we can infer no more than that Moses was regarded as the promulgator, under divine direction, of the legal part of the Pentateuch; whether he himself wrote down the whole code, or delivered it in part orally, to be re- corded afterwards by others, is left undecided by such references. But even if it should be admitted that in Jesus' time the Pen- tateuch was popularly ascribed to Moses in the sense that he wrote the whole of it, yet a general reference to the book, or a particular quotation from it as the book of Moses, does not necessarily commit Christ or an apostle to a positive endorse- ment of this popular opinion.^ Such quotations and references concern the matter, not the autlior, of the book. The book would most naturally be designated according to the current title of it. If Moses was regarded as the promulgator of the Pentateuchal laws, the Pentateuch would almost of necessity be called the book of Moses, even though parts of it may have been written by other men. Paul, llierefore, in speaking of the reading of ^ Tlie Sadducees speak of the Levirate law as having been written by Moses, Mark xii. 19; Luke xx. 28. 2 So one may quote a passas^c as from " Homer," without meaning to com- mit himself necessarily to the theory of the Homeric authorship of all the so- called Homeric books. THE RKLATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO Jl'DAISM. 275 the Scripture in the synagogues, could say, " Whensoever Moses is read" (2 Cor. iii. 15), without necessarily meaning to be under- stood as affirming that Moses himself wrote all of the books which went by his name. Or when he quotes a particular passage, and prefaces it by saying, " Moses describeth " (Rom. x. 5), or "Moses saith" (x. 19), the stress is laid on the thing said, not on the person saying it, and does not necessarily mean more than that we read in the book of Moses this or that.^ The case is similar as regards references to the Psalter. The phrase " in David," as used in Heb. iv. 7, most naturally means, "in the book commonly called the Psalms of David." The pas- sage referred to (Ps. xcv. 7, 8) is in a psalm not ascribed to David or any one else. It would be unwarrantable to try to find in this reference to the passage authentic information as to the authorship, when in the original Hebrew the psalm is anony- mous. And even when Paul uses the expression, " David saith " (as in Rom. iv. G, xi. 9), inasmuch as the point of the quotation lies in the thing said, not in the person who said it, the formula of quotation is not necessarily to be understood as meaning any- thing more than that the words quoted are found in the book commonly called the Psalms of David. The case is somewhat different with the references to David in Matt. xxii. 43-45 (Mark xii. 35-37 ; Luke xx. 41-44), where the point of the re- ference depends on the Davidic authorship of Ps. ex. ; and also with the use which Peter (Acts ii. 25-33) and Paul (Acts xiii. 35-37) make of Ps. xvi. The general attestation which Christ and his disciples give to the Old Testament history is not impaired by the fact that they also, in some cases, make statements that appear to rest on Jewish tradition, as distinct from the Old Testament writings, unless the tradition is contrary to the Scriptures. And it is very doubtful whether any such contradiction can be found. Where a tradition is followed, we can only say that this is something additional to the Scriptural history. The following are instances : In 2 Tim. iii. 8, Jannes and Jambres are given as the names of the magicians who withstood Moses ; . ^ Vide, on the general subject of the witness of the New Testament to the Old, F. Watson, The Law and the Prophets, Excursus, pp. 25 sqq. 276 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. whereas in Exodus no names are mentioned. A Jewish tra- dition, found in the Talmud, had given these as the names of the magicians, together with other particulars about them.^ Whether the names are genuine or not, is of little account. Paul used them as those familiarly known to his readers ; and nothing depended on the accuracy of the tradition. Even if we had to assume, with 8ch(jttgen, that Paul was divinely inspired to confirm the Jewish tradition as to the names, still his using them in no way brings the passage into any disagreement with the history as given in Exodus. A still more striking instance of Jewish tradition in the New Tes- tament is found in 1 Cor. x. 4. Paul here alludes to a notion current among the Jews, that a rock flowing with water followed the Israelites in their wanderings. It is only an allusion, however. Paul does not endorse the story, but spiritualizes it. He says there was a spiritual rock that followed the Jews ; he does not imply that he adopted the notion that a literal rock followed them. In Jude 9, where reference is made to a contention between Michael and Satan, use is made of a Jewish legend concerning the burial of Moses. And in verses 14, 15, a quotation is made from the apocryphal Book of Enoch. Here the writer appears to accept the tra- ditions. But whatever may be made out of these references (and being in a deutero-canonical book they are of less sig- nificance than otherwise), they do not at all affect the general question of New Testament references to the Old. In some other cases also there are found modifications of Old Testament incidents, or additions to them, which may rest on oral tradition. In the description, given in Heb. xi. 33-38, of the doings and sufferings of the Hebrew saints and heroes, there are features which cannot be traced directly to any record in the Old Testament. Some of them (especially in verses 35- 37) can be illustrated only by the Books of the Maccabees ; and one of them — the being sawn asunder — undoubtedly refers to a current tradition that the prophet Isaiah was thus put to death. In Acts vii. 53, Gal. iii. 19, and Heb. ii. 2, the law is said to have been ordained through angels, — a statement ^ For wliich ct'. Scliottgcu, Horue He/jruicae, hi loc. THE KKLATION OK ClIIvMSIIAM lY TO .IIDAISM. '211 Avhich agrees with one fouiitl in Josephus (Ant. xv. 5, 3j, antl with the IJabbinical notion, but nowhere distinctly intimated hi the Old Testament. The poetic pas.sage in Deut. xxxiii. 2, where Jehovah is said to have come " from the ten thousands of holy ones," especially in the LXX. version, where the last clause of the verse reads, " on his right hand angels with him," is the only one in the Old Testament which could suggest the conception. In Luke iv. 25, and James v. 17, the length of the (Irouglit foretold by Elijah is detinitely given as three years and a half, though in the Old Testament the length is not given. The "third year " of 1 Kings xviii. 1, leaves us un- certain from what point the reckoning was made. The definite period of three year.s and a half may very probably have been adopted from a common tradition. It does not contradict the narrative in tlie Uouk of Kings; it is simply an exact figure which can easily enough be made to harmonize with that narrative, though not directly suggested by it.^ ^ Professor Ladd {Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 0*J) liiids this trmii- tioii " elivt'r^rut " from the Old Testament account, and discovers in the phrase fTTt r.aaav tt]v yfjv "a popular hyperbole which spoke of the drought as cxtcnd- iiiy; over the whole earth." Tliis, however, hardly seems to be pertinent as an instance of Christ's " uncritical attitude " towards details ; for yrj surely means '■ land " as well as "earth" {eide Thayer's Grimm's Loxieoii, x///j roc); and as the same double meaning belongs to '^9?^' ""'' might find the same hyperbole in 1 Kings xviii. 1. Professor Ladd finds also in Luke xvii. 27, and Matt. xxiv. 38, " features added to the narrative of Genesis," viz., the eating, drinking, and marrying, and infers from them that Christ here was following " a tradition of the Flood which differed in some particulars from that of the Hebrew Scriptures." But surely it hardly required a special tradition to suggest to Christ that the antediluvians were in the habit of eating, drinking, and marrying ! Not more reason is there for the opinion that the drinking is " in apparent contradiction of the narrative of Gen. ix. 20." Professor Wright's reply {Diritic Authority of the Bible, p. 185), that it is not implied in this narrative that no wine was made before the Flood, may be sufficient ; but a more obvious one is that Christ says notliing about wine at all. Could not the antediluvians drink water? A German comic song represents Noah as praying for a new kind of beverage after the Flood, on the ground that he has lost his relish for water, " For that therein have drowned been All sinful beasts and sons of men." But Ijefore that calamity what good reason for abstaining from water-drinking could there have been? 278 SUPEKNATURAL REVELATION. Whatever in the New Testament writings may have been derived from tradition, as distinct from the Old Testament history, is, then, at the most very slight, and in no case in conflict with that history. At the same time in their use of the history there is no painful following of minute details. As in quoting from the Old Testament Christ and his apostles are not careful about literal exactness, so in referring to Old Testament history they are more concerned about the substance than about the form. It is manifest that they looked upon that history as in a very peculiar sense the arena on which God had displayed his power and grace. They found intimations, lessons, and types such as no other history contained. It was to them a sacred history. The foregoing has in part anticipated what needs to be more particularly considered under the head of the record of divine revelation. THE RECUKU Ol^' KENKLAI'IUN. — INSPIRATION. liT'J CHAl'TEK IX. THE KECOliD OF KEVELATION. -- INSPIRATION. THPj distinction between revelation and the record of revelation is one which, though often overlooked, is legitimate and important. Jesus left no written record of his work and words ; but he revealed the divine character and will ; and even if no one else had ever prepared a written account of his mission, what he said and did would none the less have been a divine revelation which would have left its impress not only on his associates and contemporaries, but through tradition on succeeding generations. More particularly we may observe : — 1. Eevelation is prior and superior to the record of it. The discovery of America was more important than the history of the discovery ; the invention of the telegraph, of more conse- quence than written descriptions of the invention. It is equally clear that God's original manifestation of himself was a weigh- tier matter than the Scriptural records of it. The records are important only because the revelation was important. In a certain sense it was an accidental circumstance that the revela- tion became a subject of written record. This method of trans- mitting the divine message may be the best available method ; but it is still only the mode of transmission ; it is not the message itself. Oral tradition may serve the same purpose ; in some instances it has been the actual and even the only possible means of communicating the message. The primeval revelation, if there was one, must have been handed down at first without a written record. The gospel itself did its tirst work, and left its ineradicable impress on the world, before the narrative of Christ's work became committed to writing. If the art of writing had never been known, we are not to suppose that a divine revelation would have been impossible or ineffective. 280 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. And ill any case the revelation — the message of salvation — is of more account than the means by which it is recorded. 2. It is likewise obvious that the divine revelation is of more account than the state of mind of those who wrote the record of it. In other words, revelation outranks in importance the inspiration of the sacred writers. If it was in a certain sense non-essential that the revelation should be scripturally recorded at all, still more non-essential must it be that the writers should have been in such and such a state of mind when they wrote. If the revelation was to be put into a written form, the most urgent requisite was that it should be accurately recorded. Provided this could be done without any miraculous or special influence exerted on the penmen, such a special inspiration can- not be pronounced indispensable. In many cases certainly it is conceivable that an accurate and trustworthy account of reve- latory facts might have been written without any other than the ordinary faculties of mind and facilities of obtaining knowledge. In so far as the Biblical writers told the truth, it is quite im- material whether in telling it they were worked on by an extraordinary divine influence or not. Inspiration, as working on the original recipient of the divine message, cannot of course be regarded as unimportant ; it is involved in the very idea of special revelation that the organ of it should be supernaturally inspired to receive it. Cut when it has once been received, there is no obvious and intrinsic reason why others may not learn and communicate the message without such supernatural inspiration. Certainly the masses of those to whom the word of revelation comes receive it and transmit it without such special inspiration. So those who made the written record which has come down to us may possibly have made it with the exercise of only ordinary powers of observation and acquisi- tion. Conscientious and pains-taking effort to tell the truth might have given us all that is essential in the message re- vealed. At the best, special inspiration could have been only a means of securing a more perfect record of what without it might have been recorded with substantial faithfulness.^ ^ See Alex. Mair, Studies hi the Christian, Ecidences, chap. iii. " It is quite certain that we are not shut up by any stern necessity of an a priori kind to THE UECUlll) OF UEVELATIUN. — INSPiUATlON. 281 3. The proof of the fact of a revelation does not depend on the assumption of the special inspiration of the Biblical writers. This is, if pussibk', still more evident than the preceding propo- sitions. We are not convinced that the patriarchs, apostles, and the Redeemer were inspired to receive a revelation, because we are first convinced that some persons, wliose very names may be unknown to us, were specially inspired to write down the account of the supernatural revelation. Tliere would be no occasion for asserting, and no ground for believing, that the Biblical writers were divinely inspired, unless there were ante- cedently an assumption that it was a divine revelation which they were specially commissioned to describe. The writers are believed to have been inspired, because there is believed to have been an all-important revelation which needed to be carefully recorded. If there is no antecedent faith in the fact of a divine revelation, there is no proof of the inspiration of the Scriptures which can carry conviction to any thinking mind. The mere assertions of the writers that they were inspired, even if we had many more of them, would prove nothing, unless their general veracity were on independent grounds very firmly estab- lished; for such peculiar claims would themselves provoke distrust, unless the claimants are shown to be peculiarly trust- worthy. And when the contents of the Bible are appealed to as proof of the sincerity and truthfulness of the claims of in- spiration on the part of the writers, the argument assumes the truth of the things narrated.^ Tliat is to say, a revelation, about which the Scriptures treat, is assumed to be a fact before the inspiration of the writers is regarded as proved ; otherwise the nature of the contents of the Bible would be no proof of one or other of the two extremes : to verbal inspiraiion, or ahsohitc skepticism ; > we may reasonably hold the middle way of practical common-sense certainty." ■ * This is implied also by Dr. Lee {Lispiralion of IJoli/ Scripture, p. 94, 4th ed., 1865), where he argues that it is no pedtio principii to adduce proofs from Scripture of its own inspiration. The credibility, he says, of the sacred writers is rstal)lishccl by independent proofs. " Having convinced ourselves of the authority of the Bible, tliat its doctrines are revealed, that its facts are true, we can feel no scruple in admitting as accurate the character which its own writers ascribe to it." We cannot believe the Biblical writers to be truth- ful, unless we believe what they say about divine revelations. 282 SUPERNiVrUKAL llEVELATION- its inspiration. Manifestly, therefore, we cannot reverse the order of argumentation, and prove the fact of a revelation by the fact of the inspiration of the Biblical writers. What is thus clear as a general proposition is, if possible, clearer still, when the argument for the inspiration of the New Testament in particular is considered. That argument, as ordi- narily conducted, is substantially this : The apostles' claim of special inspiration is to be credited because Christ promised them such inspiration. And Christ's promise is to be credited because he was the Son of God sent to bring salvation to men. Obviously the fact of the divine revelation mediated by Jesus Christ is here assumed in the argument for the inspiration of the New Testament ; and of course, therefore, the genuineness of the revelation cannot conversely be inferred from the inspira- tion. The revelation is first credited on other grounds. The testimony of the apostles concerning Christ is credited, as it was credited before they had written anything, on the ground of their general credibility, and the special evidences of their sincerity. Their particular testimony about Clirist's promise of the Holy Ghost would not be accepted, unless their general testimony concerning Christ's character and mission were first accepted. In other words, the general fact and the general con- tents of the Christian revelation are assumed as the foundation of the argument for a special inspiration of the New Testament writers. Clearly, then, it would be preposterous to make the truth of the alleged revelation rest on the reality of a special apostolic inspiration. The foregoing considerations, while they may seem to degrade the importance of the doctrine of inspiration, or even to make the fact of it questionable, serve to guard what is more import- ant than this doctrine from resting on an insecure foundation. They tend to assure us that the essential facts and truths of supernatural revelation are secure, even though the Scriptural witnesses can adduce for themselves no supernatural attestation of their credibility. They serve to show that doubts or cavils about the alleged inspiration of the recorders of the revelation do not need to nnsettle the foundation of one's faith in the revelation itself. THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — LNSPIUATION. 283 But if the case is as above stated, is not the doctrine of inspiration shown to be without any solid foundation? Shall we not abandon the theory of the special inspiration of the Biblical writers ? By such an abandonment we do not neces- sarily lose any of the truths of revelation; and we gain the advantage of being relieved of the difficulties which encumber the theory of Biblical inspiration. We are relieved of the obligation to determine how this inspiration differed from the inspiration which is enjoyed by all pious men. We are freed from many of the embarrassments which beset the question of canonicity. It certainly does follow from what we have here conceded concerning inspiration, that it is not of the central importance which it has often been made to assume. One may hold to all the essential doctrines of revealed religion; one may exercise the most perfect faith in Jesus Christ ; one may insist on the unique value of the Bible, and yet see no sufficient reason to believe that any exceptional supernatural influence was exerted on its authors when they were writing it. Still it does not follow that the doctrine of Biblical inspiration is unfounded or unimportant. We remark therefore: — 4. That there is substantial ground for holding to the doctrine of the special inspiration of the Bible. But before presenting any positive arguments for this proposition, we need to make certain preliminary observations. a. In the strict and proper sense, not the Scriptures, but only the Scriptural writers, can be said to be inspired, A writ- ing is a merely material thing, having no meaning or use except as it is the product of a mind. A book, as a mere book, can no more be inspired than a rock. The inspiration can have to do only with the lyroduction of the book, and must operate on the conscious author. When we speak, as for convenience every one does, of an inspired book, we make u.se of a trope ([uite similar to that which is found in the phrase " a learned book," in which case of course no one means that the book is learned, but that the author is. Whatever may be one's theory of inspiration, the insj^irntion must be conceived as imparted to the writer, unless one goes so far as to make the writer a 284 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. mere tool, as passive and irresponsible as a pen in the divine hand. But in that case there would, properly speaking, be no inspiration at all. The case would simply be that God had written a book ; we could not say that he had inspired it. But it is hardly necessary to consider this view. For — h. It is now generally conceded that the Biblical writers were conscious and responsible in the act of writing. They did not act as mere machines, the merely passive agents of another power. When Luke speaks of having " traced the course of all things accurately from the first " (i. 3) ; when Paul (1 Cor. i. 16) appeals to his memory in reference to what he writes ; when Biblical writers generally (especially Paul) discourse about their personal history and inward experience, — it is impossible not to assume that such writers were intensely conscious of what they were doing. Even the peculiar ecstasy which was often ex- perienced by the Hebrew prophets, and sometimes by the apostles (Acts x. 10, xxii. 17 ; 2 Cor. xii. 1-4), cannot be shown to have suspended the self-consciousness of the subject of those experiences. But even if the extremest INIontanistic view respecting this matter were to be adopted, this would still prove nothing as to the mental condition of those who wrote the Biblical books. Without explicit testimony to the effect that these men, when writing, were in an ecstatic or even uncon- scious state, the presumption must be that they were in their normal self-conscious state, and used their faculties in the act of writing. c. It follows from the foregoing that the product of the Biblical inspiration, as of that of the ordinary Christian, is not a purely divine product, but is also a human product. The inspired man is not only conscious, but he consciously produces. There is a human element in the product. Even the so-called mechanical theory of inspiration, — the theory which conceives God to use inspired men as the passive vehicles of his communications, — even this cannot wholly dispense with a human side. The language which serves as the medium of communication is a human language, the product of human intercourse, expressive of human conceptions, limited in the range of its expressive- ness by human limitations. So that, even if the Biblical Tin: UKCnin) OF KKVKLATinX— INSI'IUATION. 285 writers are conceived of as ever so pincly iiiuclianical in their agency ; even if the writers were nothing more than mere tools, as passive in the power of the Spirit as a pen in the hand of a scribe, — still ev(3n then the Spirit would bousing an instru- ment alKected with luimun characteristics and human im[" ifec- tions, — an instrument which is often found une([ual to the work of expressing our own human thoughts and feelings, and whieli therefore must be inadequate to the revelation of the wealth of divine truth. But this theory of inspiration is in its strictness not now defended by any school. It was an innovation when first propounded, growing out of antagonism to the Papal doctrine of tradition, and could not perpetuate itself as the general doctrine of the Church. We have hardly more than a sort of antiquarian interest in the doctrines propounded by such men as Quenstedt,^ Baicr,^ C'alovius,^ Hollaz,^and others of the Post- Reformation time. The marks of human individuality are too clearly traceable in the different parts of the sacred record to leave it possible for any reasonable man to regard the inspired writer as a mere tool or amanuensis. The de;5perate shift of the advocates of verbal inspiration, that the Holy Spirit adapted his style to the personal peculiarities of the several amanuenses," even if there were any proof to be adduced for ^ " Omnia ciiini, quae scribcnila eraiit a Spiritn S. sacris Scriptoribus in actu isto iiisciibeiidi siiggesta et intcllcctu eoriini quasi in calaniuui dictitata sunt." Theologia didactico-polemica, Wittenberg, 161)6, vol. i. p. 68. ^ "Prout aniauucusi in calamuin dictatitur, quae is scribere dcbeat." Com- pendium Ihcologiae positicae, cd. Prcuss, Berlin, 1864, p. 46. * " Niliil eorum [quae loquuti sunt] ac ne verbulum quidcni humana vohin- /a^c protulerc." Si/xtema locontm iheohuji eorum, vol. i. p. 563, Wittenberg, 1655. * "S. Soriptura ... est verbuni Dei scriptuni, i. e., sensus divinus Uteris a Spiritu S. ainauucnsibus sacris in calauiuni dictatis expressus." Scruliiiuim veritalis, Wittenberg, 1711, p. 34. * Baier, ibid., p. 51. "Fatendum est Spiritum S. ipsum in suggerendis verboruui conceptibus aecouiniodasse se ad indolem et conditioneni anianu- ensium." In more modern times Gaussen {T/if'op>i''ttsiii/) propounds essen- tially the same doctrine. Tiiough he savs (p. 31, Ediid)urgh cd., 1S54), "Every verse without exeeplion is man's; and every verse without exception is God's," thus apparently recognizing a human as well as a divine element in the Bible, yet he afterwards (p. 50) explains himself after this fashion: " If 286 SUPERNATURAL REVELATIOX. it, would be a Imrdensome doctrine to maintain ; for such an adaptation of himself to human peculiarities on the part of God would be useless in itself, and would involve all the elements of intentional deception. If the Holy Ghost merely wrote in tlie stijlc of Moses and Peter, wliile yet ]\Iuses and I'eter contril)nted absolutely nothing to the final production, it becomes a puzzling question why such an accommodation was made at all, unless it was to make the ivijjrcssio/i that these men really were consciously and actively jn-oductive in what they wrote, when in fact they were not. Nothing is gained in the matter of the communication of truth by such an adaptation of style ; nothing appears to be accomplished by it at all, except that the Divine author studiously conceals himself, while professedly revealing himself, and tries to make the im- pression that forty different men are writing, each in his own way and in accordance with his own mind and will, whereas, in fact, they are mere tools of a compelling power, made to write in spite of themselves just as they would write if they did not write in spite of themselves. Ihit we need not dwell on this practically exploded hypothesis. It is true that in inspiring men God must in a sense adapt him- self to human conditions, and in particular to the individuals he [God] brlioovod on lliis earth to substitute for the syntax of heaven and the vocal) uhiry of the arcliangels the words and the constructions of the He- brews or tlie Greeks, why not equally have borrowed their manners, style, and personality ? " And he repeatedly insists tiiat it is not the man, but the book, that is inspired. God "dictated the whole Scriptures" (p. 47). Beau Bur- gon (Lispiration and Interpretation) scarcely falls short of this, when he says (p. 76), " The Bible, from the Alpha to the Omega of it, is filled to overflow- ing with the Holy Spirit of God: the Books of it, and the sentences of it, and the words of it, and the syllables of it, — aye, and the very letters of it." To be sure, he says (p. 11')^ "Least of all do we overlook the personality of the human writers." But he compares them to musical instruments, each of which gives forth its own music, but all of which were made by one artificer; quoting the illustration from Hooker, who makes the Biblical writers differ from the pipe or harp oidy iu that they "felt the power and strength of their own words." The comparison is as old as the early church- fathers Justin {ad Graecos eohortatio, chap, viii.) and Athenagoras {Jegatis pro ChrMianis, chap. i.\.). Vide Rudelbach {Zeitsc.hriJ'l fur die gesammte Lu- iherische T/icoh/jio, 1840, p. 21). TIIK IJKCOHI) (»!• KKVELATION. — INSPIKATIOX. t>87 wlio record the revelation. But he uses the men, and does not merely imitate them. Not only human language is used, but the human language of those who act as God's agents. And not only their language, but antecedently to this their minds and hearts.^ For language cannot be detached from the mind whose expression it is. Language is the product and repre- sentative of mental states. (Jod, therefore, in using human language uses human minds as the medium of the communi- cation of his messages.^ But if this is so, then in some sense the divine inspiration is .shaped by the human subject of it. The inspired man, thougli inspired, yet speaks out of his own mind and heart, and speaks like himself, and not as, a mere irresponsible reporter of another's words. d. There is no warrant for regarding the inspiration of the Bible as superior to that of the original organs of revelation. If we must compare the two in point of rank, we should rather give the precedence to the immediate recipients of the divine ^ Row (^Nature ami Extent of Divine Inspiration, pp. 152 sq.) forcibly em- phasizes tlie fact that the Apostles call themselves witnesses. But '" recollec- tiou forms the essence of testimony." Even though the memory may be supeniaturally quickened, still it must be the writer's own meujory to which he appeals. He testifies what he himself once saw or heard. A pure dictation under which the writer was passive must have destroyed the value of the words as personal testimony. * Of course it cannot be denied that God could, and possibly in some cases did, suggest particular words to those whom he specially inspired. It must, however, be insisted that this was not the usual method. All the evidence favors the view tliat not only the Biblical writers, but the original recipients of special revelations, retained and used their own powers while moved upon by the Spirit, and expressed each in his own way the thoughts which the in- spiration suggested. But, inasmuch as a divine influence, in order to accom- plish anything, must have affected the thoughts of the inspired men, and inas- much as thoughts cannot be dissociated from words, it might be argued that the inspiration must after all result practically in a suggestion of particular words. And this is true, if we make a distinction between the suggestion of mere words, as such, and the suggestion of thoughts which necessarily result in the use of words which would otherwise not have been used (Philippi's dis- tinction between Wiirterinspiration and Wortmspiration,'\\\\\\% Kirchliche Glau- ienslehre, vol. i. p. 184, 1st ed.). Inspiration would be meaningless and fruitless, if it were not verbal inspiration in the latter sense. Warington {The Inspiru' tion of Scripture, p. 260) has clearly and forcibly set forth this distiuctioa. 288 SUPEKNATUItAL EEVELATIOK messages. These persons are generally described as divinely inspired, whereas the Biblical writers comparatively seldom lay claim to special inspiration as directing them in the act of writing. If the lUblical inspiration were to be regarded as superior to the other, we should have to maintain that the un- known writer who narrates the history of Elijah was more powerfully moved by the Spirit than the prophet himself ; that Luke, in reporting Paul's sermon on Mars' Hill was more thor- oughly inspired than Paul was in framing it ; nay, that each of the Evangelists, in recording the words and deeds of our Lord, was, so far as inspiration is concerned, more favored than He who. received the Spirit without measure. Indeed, if the highest kind and degree of inspiration was accorded to the writers of the Bible, we may even wonder why there need have been any other. The inspired writers would seem in that case to have been the most suitable media of an original re^'elation ; and the antecedent revelation, mediated by an inferior inspira- tion, would become superfluous, or at all events superseded. The Scriptures would become, not so much the record of a revelation, as a new and more perfect revelation itself. It should indeed not be forgotten that, with regard to a large part of the Bible, this distinction between revelation and the record of it is slight. Such writings as the Psalms, the Prophet- ical books, and the Apostolic Epistles, may be regarded as prac- tically the direct utterances of the organs of revelation. The organ of the revelation and the historian of the revelation are one and the same individual. Yet even here the distinction is not annulled. The act of receiving a divine connnunication is not identical with that of committing it to writing. In many cases a considerable time seems to have intervened between the two events. So far as any distinction is to be made in such cases between the receiving and the recording of the revelation, the presumption would seem to be that the former requires the high- est degree of inspiration. The natural powers of memory might suffice for the recording of the communication ; but in order to the reception of it a supernatural inspiration is necessary. e. For like reasons we must assume that there is no ground for thinking that the organs of revelation were more perfectly THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 289 in.spireJ when writing than when speaking under the impulse of the Spirit. On this point the case of Paul is the most in- structive. He often appeals to his apostolic authority, hut not particularly to his letters, as distinguished from his oral utter- ances. Indeed in the only passage (2 Cor. x. 10) in which the two are directly contrasted with each other to the disadvantage of the oral utterances, the comparison is represented as made in an unfriendly spirit; and Paul takes pains to assure the Corinthians that what he is in word l)y letter when absent, he will be also in deed when present. And later (xiii. 10), he speaks of his authority as especially exercised when personally present rather than through his letters. In the Epistle to the Galatians the burden of the apostle's rebuke is that the readers had departed from the gospel which he had orally preached. That to which he ascribes especial divine authority is the gospel which he had preached by word of mouth (i. 8, 11). Nowhere is the written word pronounced of superior authority to the preaching of the inspired apostles. It was through the oral preaching that the Christian Church was planted and nurtured. The written communications were comparatively few. The most of the apostles wrote either nothing, or at least nothing that has come down to us. As in all subsequent periods, so at the first, the gospel became the power of God unto salvation chiefly through the spoken word of life. P>ut notwithstandhig these concessions and qualifications, which seem to be required by a candid weighing of the facts, the doctrine of a special inspiration of the Biblical writers is not discredited, but rests on a strong foundation. The same Spirit who moved the prophets and apostles is indeed said to be im- parted to all Christians (Piom. viii. 9 ; 1 John ii. 20) ; but if in the older times God can be said to have spoken "in divers manners" (Heb. i. 1), and if in apostolic times there were "diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit" (1 Cor. xii. 4), it certainly may be that there is a diversity as between the ordinary Christian and the chosen recorders of the word of salvation. The question, then, is : Was the inspiration of tlie Biblical writers sjjccijically difl'erent from that which all members of 13 290 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. the believing community enjoy ? The answer to the question is encumbered with grave difhculties. In the first place, in- spiration itself is in general difficult of definition ; it is there- fore difficult to distinguish specific kinds of inspiration, — to determine whether the differences are merely of kind or of de- gree. In the next place, the question is complicated with that of canonicity. If it were clear that special inspiration and canonicity had always been synonymous conceptions ; and if there had never been any wavering judgment as to the limits of the Canon, the case would be simpler. But the fact is that for a long time, with regard to both the Old and the New Testa- ment, doubts and divisions prevailed, so that certain books which finally obtained admission into the Canon (as, for ex- ample, Esther and Second Peter), were very extensively, and up to a late period, looked on with suspicion as not worthy of being co-ordinated with the other sacred books ; while, on the other hand, certain books which were finally excluded from the Canon (such as the Old Testament Apocrypha and the Shepherd of Hernias) were very extensively used as of equal authority with the other sacred books.^ And this fact seems to indicate that canonical inspiration was not sharply distinguished from ordinary inspiration. The same writer (for example, Origen) seems at one time to reject, at another to countenance, the canonical standing of certain books. Further- more, the reason why some writings became preserved and col- lected into a Canon, as of peculiar authority, while others were left out, is obscure, — especially as regards the Old Testament. Why, for example, should a book written by the prophet Isaiah ^ have been excluded, while the anonymous Book of Esther was admitted ? "What considerations finally prevailed to secure the admission of the Song of Solomon? As to the New Testa- ment, did the distinction that was made turn upon internal evi- dence of peculiar inspiration, or merely upon the evidence of apostolic authorship or endorsement ? Finally, we must take cognizance of the fact that the Christian Church is to this day 1 See a good summary of tlie history of tlie process iu Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scrijilure, vol. i. part ii. cliap. ix. 2 The "acts of Uzziah," ride 2 Chrou. xxvi. 22. TlIK KKCOin) OK inOVKLATloN. — INSI'lHATION. 291 divided as to the recognition of certain of the Old Testament Apocrypha, the Council of Trent having formally co-ordinated them with llu; canonical books in general, whereas the Protestant Churches agree in givhig them a subordinate position. The final fixing of the limits of the Canon seems, accordingly, to have been determined by a sort of chance. X?'w/'t one. That a peculiar guid- ance was imparted to the sacred writers is made probable by the very fact that it was their part to put into permanent form the record of a di\ine revelation. It would seem to be in- trinsically desirable that Scriptures which were to serve as the authoritative record of the divhie communications should at the outset have been specially secured from errors and follies, from overstatements and understatements, from meagreness and ex- ces.s, — in short, from whatever would tend to give an inadequate or misleading impression of the contents of the divine word. If there was occasion for a supernatural communicati»ui at all, was there not likewise, and for the same reason, occasion fur special precaution against an erroneous report of the commu- nication ? ^ This argument is just the reverse of the one we have above rejected. Not the revelation is inferred from the inspiration, but vice versa, the inspiration is inferred from the revelation. The argument is of course not demonstrative. It does not follow, because one thinks there was need of supernatural guidance, that therefore there was such guidance. But it is ^ Cf. Lee, The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, p. 25 k 20J: SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. a fact of no small moment that there is an instinctive tendency to assume the need and the fact of it. This im- pulse of the mind is itself an argument; it creates at least a strong presumption in favor of the hypothesis that the writers of the Scriptures were favored with more than ordinary illumination. With regard to certain parts of the Scriptures this presumption is peculiarly strong. We refer to those books which were written by the direct recipients of divine revelations. While we have no sufficient reason for assuming that the j^rophets and apostles were more inspired when writing than when officially speaking, we certainly have no good reason to suppose that they were less inspired, or not at all specially inspired, when writing. It is with reference to the historical books only that doubt can plausibly be entertained. As to the most of the Old Testament histories we know nothing about their authors. As to those of the New Testament, we know that three of them, at least, were written by men whom we have no reason to regard as apostolically inspired men. What is the proof that, just in the composition of these books, Mark and Luke received an inspiration which they had at no other time ? The answer is that there was, so far as any one can see, as much need of supernatural guidance in the preparation of the history of Christ's life and of the establishment of the Christian Church as there was in the writing of the Apostolical Epistles. If we were obliged to make a distinction, we should be inclined to decide that the portraiture of the character, words, and works of Jesus Christ was of more vital importance to the succeedinj? generations of Christians than the meditations and exhortations which were the outgrowths of that history. The burden of proof certainly rests on one who would assert that Paul's Epistles are supernaturally inspired, but that Luke's histories are not ; or that Matthew's Gospel is inspired, and Mark's uninspired. Such a conclusion would imply that inspired and uninspired histories became mixed together and made of practically equal authority in the estimation of the Christian Church. The only alternative of one who denies the specific peculiarity of Biblical inspiration must be that the rillO KIX'OKD OF REVELATION. — INSI'JKATIOX. 2'J5 inspiration of the apostles was not specifically different from that of other Christians.' JUit we are now dealing only with a general presumption. It is very certain that, even though the Biblical writers may not have been aware that their writings were to be preserved as the autlioritative record of the divine message for all genera- tions, yet such was to be the fact. And (lod must have known what the fact w,is to be. And if tliere is reason to believe that he vouchsafed special illumination to prophets whose prophecies never went farther than to tlieir contemporaries, there would seem to be at least equal reason why he should have given special aid to those wlio were to write down tlie divhie revela- tions as a guide for all ages. ii. Another consideration of no little weight is the fact that the Scriptures always have been regarded and treated by tlie great majority of the Christian world as inspired in an altogether peculiar sense. It is true that this is not a decisive argument. An error may become general and maintain itself persistently. The general opinion of the Papal Church, that the Pope is in- fallible, can hardly be taken as a proof of the correctness of the opinion. ^Moreover, exaggerated and even fantastic notions con- cerning Biblical inspiration have sometimes had wide and al- most universal currency. The vagaries of the allegorical view of Scripture, and the extravagances of the doctrine of verbal inspiration, though they have sometimes been shared by nearly all Christians, cannot for that reason be regarded as justifial)le. Nevertheless these very extravagances indicate the strength ^ So Professor Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 191. But lie j^ocs on to cinpliasizc the fact that the Apostles were better fitted than others lor the work of writing as well as preaciiing, (I) because called and commis- sioned directly by Jesus, (-2) l)ecause they " had a more abundant endowment of the same revelation and inspiration which belonged to Christians in general" (p. 192). Elsewhere, however, in speaking of apostolic inspiration, he says (p. 85, 80), " The elFcct of this inspiration is a special and supernatural fitness for their work of receiving men and training tlicm in the Church of Christ." This seems to be an affirmation of all that need be claimed for apostolic in- spiration, especially ) It may be said that the promises of special help and illumination made to the apostles are not to be understood as limited to them, but rather as applicable to all believers. Christ in his high-priestly prayer prayed not merely for the apostles, but for all who should believe on him through their word.^ The Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost fell not only on the apostles, but on all the Christians who were assembled with them.^ Eepeatedly the Spirit is said not merely to have filled or directed such leading men as Stephen (Acts vi. 5, vii. 55) and Philip (viii. 29), but to have fallen upon the multitudes of believers (viii. 17, x. 44," xv. S, xix. 6). The Christian life is uniformly described as a life the marked characteristic of which 1 £. (J., Acts iv. 8, xiii. 9, xvi. 6, 7. * Jolin xvii. 20. ^ Acts ii. 1-4 ; cf. verses 14, 15. THE RECORD OF REVELATION. — INSI'IUATION. 307 is the indwelling and influence of the Spirit.^ V>y what right, then, it may be asked, can the inspiration of the apostles be pronounced specifically different from that of the whole com- munity of believers ? This is an objection of decidedly greater weight than tlie one previously mentioned, and requires careful consideration. We observe with regard to it : (1) So far as the Christian life in general is a life controlled by the Holy Spirit, of course it must be granted that both the apostles and ordinary Christians alike shared the gift. This gift, however, is often described accordincr to the ideal Christian life, some Christians being represented as not possessing the Spirit, or at least scarcely deserving to be called spiritual. Especially noteworthy is the manner in which Paul character- izes the Corinthians as not spiritual, but carnal (1 Cor. iii. l-'Jj, though shortly afterwards lie says, " Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? " (iii. 16). So he says to the Galatians, " Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the flesh ? " (Gal. iii. 3) ; and later (vi. 1) he intimates that the church is made up of the " spiritual " and those who are not spiritual. This spirituality was conceived, then, as varying in degree; and though Paul sometimes speaks as though some were already " perfect" (1 Cor. ii. 6 ; Phil. iii. 15), yet he disclaims even for himself having been made perfect (Phil. iii. 12), and the perfection spoken of evidently either is meant in a relative sense, or fas, for example, 1 Cor. xiii. 10; Eph. iv. 13 ; Col. i. 28) is conceived as an unrealized ideal. In this general sense, as Christians, needing the sanctifying power of the Holy ( Jhost (Tit. iii. 5), both apostles and others stood on common ground, though the apostles may be presumed to have excelled most, or all, others in their spiritual attainments. All this, however, does not settle the question whether the apostles may not have had peculiar gifts of the Spirit, whereby they were distinguished from other Christians. We observe, therefore, further : 1 Kff., Rom. V. 5, viii. 1-5,9-U ; 1 Cor. vi. 19, xii. 3-13 ; Gal. iii. 2, v. 16 ; Eph. i. 13, iv. 30, v. 18 ; 1 Thess. iv. 8 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13 ; Tit. iii. 5 ; 1 Pet. i. 2, iv. 14; 1 Johu iii. 24. 308 SUPERNATUEAL REVELATION. (2) The objection, if pressed, proves too much ; for it may be carried to the extreme of obliterating all essential distinction between Christ himself and his followers. There is scarcely any distinction of the Eedeemer which cannot be paralleled by what is predicated in the New Testament of the redeemed. Is he the Son of God ? But so are Christians " sons of God " (1 John iii. 1, 2 ; Gal. iv. 5-7). Is he "the heir of all things " (Heb. i. 2) ? But so are Christians " heirs of God, and joint- heirs with Christ" (Eom. viii. 17; Gal. iv. 7). Is he a King and a Priest ? But so are Christians " a royal priesthood," " kings and priests unto God " (1 Pet. ii. 9 ; Eev. i. 6). Is he to be the Judge of the world ? But so we read that " the saints shall judge the world" (1 Cor. vi. 2). Is he one with God, the possessor of divine glory ? Ikit so it is said to be the destiny of Christians to be " partakers of the divine nature " (2 Pet. i. 4) ; and Christ says of his disciples, " The glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them " (John xvii. 22). Did Christ suffer for the sake of the elect ? But Christians are said to be partakers of his sufferings (2 Cor. i. 5, 7 ; Phil. iii. 10), and even to fill up that which is lacking in his afflictions for the sake of the Church (Col. i. 24). Now it is hardly necessary to enter minutely into an exam- ination of these and other such representations, and show that after all the general impression left by the New Testament teaching is that Christ is unapproachably superior to all other men. That he is thus unique is made very obvious even to a careless reader. And similarly, although the apostles and other Christians are said to share common gifts, it is still obvious that there was a distinction accorded to the apostles. While some of the promises made to them may fairly be made to ex- tend to all of Christ's disciples, others are meant especially for the apostles (for example, John xiv. 26, xx. 23 ; Matt, xviii. 18). He also imparted to them the power to cure diseases (Matt. X. 1). They were to be in an emphatic sense the leaders and pillars in establishing the Church of Christ on earth (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20 ; Luke xxiv. 47-49 ; John xxi. 15-17, xx. 21 ; Acts i. 8). He had left them with no written instructions. They were the sole media of the communication to the world of his THE RECORD OF HEVKLATION. — INSPIRATION. 309 everlasting gospel. They were to speak and act with authority. And so in fact they did. On the day of Pentecost and after- wards they assumed the attitude of commissioned leaders and teachers (Acts ii. 14 sqq., iv. 13). When the disciples made com- mon stock of their possessions, the apostles were made the guar- dians of it (Acts iv. SH). They gave direction concerning the appointment of assistants in the management of the external duties of the cliurcli (vi. 1-4). They assumed authority to settle disputed questions concerning doctrine and practice (xv. 1-29). Paul, who was not one of the original apostles, is especially emphatic in insisting upon the peculiar prerogatives of the apo.stles (Rom. xi. 13; 1 Cor. i.\. 1, xii. 28; 2 Cor. xii. 11, 12; Eph. ii. 20, iv. 11) and upon his co-equality with the others (2 Cor. xi. 5 ; Gal. i. 1, ii. 6). It was to him a distinct and peculiarly responsible office; and in all his letters he speaks as one having authority. The distinction was not merely that the apostles had been eye-witnesses of Jesus' works and hearers of his words. Others besides them had had this privilege, and Paul had not had it. When after the defection of Judas the apostles chose Matthias to take his place, they acted in the consciousness that the apostolic office was one which was invested with a peculiar dignity and responsibility. This being so, that which was common to the apo.stles and their fellow-Christians cannot be adduced as proof that there was nothing peculiar to the apostles. And as their office was peculiar, so their endowments were peculiar also. Though there was but one Spirit, there were diversities of gifts (1 Cor. xii. 4) ; "and he gave some to be apostles" (Eph. iv. 11 ; 1 Cor. xii. 28). There were spiritual powers which could be recognized as " the signs of an apostle" (2 Cor. xii. 12). The principal work of the apostles was to teach and preach authoritatively the gospel of Christ (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20 ; Acts vi. 4, xx. 24; 1 Cor. i. 17, xv. 1 ; Gal. i. 8, 9, 11, 12). And this gospel was set forth not only by oral preaching, but in written histories and homilies. It was committed to the apostles so to set it forth that it might safely serve for all coming ages as a " foundation " on which others might build (Eph. ii. 20; 1 Cor. iii. 10-12). That they might do this, they had a special revelation from the Spirit t»f God 310 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. (1 Cor. ii. 6-13), and were so sure of the authoritativeness of their teaching that they could anathematize any who should dare to preach a different gospel (Gal. i. 8, 9). (c) A furtlier difficulty may be raised on the ground that not all of the Looks of the New Testament were written by apostles. If special inspiration is argued on the ground of apostolical authorship, what shall be said of the Gospels of Mark and Luke, the r)Ook of Acts, the P^^istle to the Hebrews, not to speak of other books of disputed authorship ? As to this we remark : (1) Even if the books above mentioned were to be regarded as uninspired, or less inspired than the apostolical ones, we should still have the larger part of the New Testament vouched for as specially inspired. Tlie other books would even in tliat case not be valueless. As the works of conscientious and painstaking men, having access to the best sources of informa- tion, they would be invaluable. This would be true of the Book of Acts in an especial degree, as there is nothing else that covers the same ground. (2) P)ut it is not necessary to assume such a sharp distinction between the two classes of books. The promise of special in- spii-ation to tlie eleven apostles does not exclude the supposition that certain others might likewise be made subjects of a similar distinction. The case of Paul is here in point. He was not one of those to wliom the promises of Jesus were addressed. Yet no one^ would now esteem him as inferior in spiritual endow- ment and divine inspiration to the other apostles. Though " born out of due time," yet he became an apostle, and was recognized as sucli by the others and by the churches. He was not chosen to fill a vacancy, but was directly commissioned as the thirteenth apostle by Jesus Christ himself (Gal. i. 1, 15, IG; Acts xxvi. Ki). Somewhat similar is the case of Stephen, who is particularly described as a man " full of faith and of the Holy Ghost" (Acts vi. 5, vii. 55), as doing miracles (vi. 8), and as preaching with irresistible power (vi. 10). So Philip the Evangelist became a distinguished preacher and a miracle- worker (viii. 5-7, 13), and received special revelations (viii. 29, 39), while Philip the Apostle is not once mentioned as doing ^ Except S\vc(K'nl)()rgi;ius, and a few others. THE RKCOin) OF KEVKLATIOX— IXSI'IRA'IMOX. 311 apostolic work. Barnabas likewise is said to have been " full of the Holy Ghost " (xi. 24). He secured Paul's recognition on the part of the apostles (ix. 27), and became Paul's companion in labor, and once seems even to be called an apostle himself (xiv. 14). It is a noticeable fact that, while (except in the catalogue of Acts i. 13) none of the apostles are mentioned by namj in the Acts or in the Epistles, besides Peter, John, and the two Jameses, prominence is given to the labors of those just mentioned as well as of Judas Barsabas, Silas, Apollos, Titus, Timothy, Tychi- cus, Epaphroditus, Mark, and Luke. Timothy is associated with Paul, as if joint author of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, and of the Epistles to the Philippians, the Colossians, and the Thessalonians. Silas (Silvanus) appears as joint author of First and Second Thessalonians. While none of these men can be put on a par with Paul in point of apostolic authority, there is evident reason for assuming that they had a peculiar measure of the Spirit. If Paul, though not included among those whom our Lord before his ascension commissioned and to whom he promised special inspiration, afterwards was invested with apos- tolic authority and inspiration, surely ]\Iark and Luke may like- wise have been commissioned and qualified to write the histories which are ascribed to them. The ancient tradition that Mark wrote as a reporter of Peter's preaching and with his approba- tion, and that Luke's Gospel was written under the intiuence and with the sanction of Paul, is intrinsically probable, and only tends to strengthen one's confidence in the trustworthi- ness of the Gospels, and to give to them a quasi-apostolical authority. (3) The very fact that these writings, and no others of the many that appear to have come early into existence, were acknowledged and used by the early Christians as canonical, is itself an evidence that they were regarded as composed under the special direction of the Spirit. The value of this evidence does not depend on any supposed supernatural illumination of those who fixed the limits of the Canon. It simply shows that, since Sacred Scripture in general was conceived as inspired of God, they would not have put these writings into that class 312 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. unless tliey had deemed them to have that character. This judgment may indeed be regarded as a mistaken one ; but there is a presumption in favor of this judgment, as compared with any later one, for the reason that those who formed it stood nearer to the time of the origin of the books, and had therefore better grounds of judgment. (d) But it may be urged, as another difficulty in determining the fact and the nature of the inspiration of the New Testament books, that the authors themselves do not, as a rule, make any claims to being specially inspired. At the most only Paul and John (in the Apocalypse) have anything to say about the special authority of their writings. This is a consideration which may be adduced quite as much for as against the inspiration of the books in question. Any formal announcement made by the writer say, for example, by Luke in his prefaces) that he had received a special commission and inspiration to write a book might be regarded as the mark of one who is tlius endeavoring to secure currency for the book. Frequent and explicit appeals to divine inspiration as vouching for the authenticity and authority of a book would excite sus- picion. The claims which Paul himself makes are all incidental and not formal. He nowhere makes a general statement that his letters are peculiarly inspired. What he says about his inspiration has reference to the general commission of himself and the other apostles ; or, in so far as it relates particularly to himself, it is called out by the partisan opposition of enemies. Particular interest belongs to those passages in which Paul apparently disclaims inspiration with reference to certain of his written utterances.^ In these cases at all events, it is sometimes argued, the apostle gives us to understand that he speaks simply in the character of an uninspired man. The reply sometimes made, that the disclaimers relating to those few passages prove only the more emphatically that Paul claims full inspiration for all the others, may have some force as an argumentum ad hominem, but not otherwise. On the other hand, to argue from them that if here, then in all probability 1 Especially 1 Cor. vii. 6, 10, 12, 25 ; 2 Cor. xi. 17, 23 ; Rom. iii. 5, vi. 19 ; Gal. iii. 15. THE KECORD OF REVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 313 also elsewliere, the apo.stle may be regarded as speaking only as a man without special inspiration,^ is quite beside the mark. The true explanation of the problem raised by these passages in 1 Cor. vii. is that there is not a sharp distinction between them and Paul's other written utterances in point of in.spiration, but rather that they point to a distinction between what Paul says on the ground of express commands given by Christ and what lie says by virtue of his own general apostolic authority.^ It may, indeed, fairly be inferred from these, as well as from many other, utterances, that the apostle's human personality asserted itself in his writings and in his apostolic utterances ; but this is all. To argue the total absence of inspiration from these particular passages is to resort to a theory of inspiration almost as mechanical as the exploded one of the post-Eeformation theologians. It implies that the inspired writer was ordinarily distinctly conscious of a divine suggestion or dictation, but that here and there he suddenly found himself left to his unaided wisdom. There are, it is true, indications of special revelations received by the apostles; for example, 2 Cor. xii. 1-4; Gal. ii. 2. These refer apparently to occasional and ex- ceptional experiences; but there is no good reason for assuming that the ordinary inspiration of the apostles was of an inter- mittent sort. This may with more probability be affirmed of the inspiration of the Old Testament prophets. Under the Old Covenant, when " the Spirit was not yet given " (John vii. 39) as a general possession of the people of God, the contrast between the prophet and ordinary men, as also between the prophet's ordinary state and his state of prophetic inspiration, was doubtless greater than existed under the New Covenant It is also very doubtful whetlier any sharp distinction can be made between the official and the extra-official activity of the apostles.2 It is by this distinction that the difficulty arising from Peter's defection at Antioch * is got over. He was, it is ^ As is done by Row, Revelafioii and Modern Theology Contrasted, pp. 113 sq. ^ Vide Crenier, in Ilerzog and Plitt's Realencjjclopddie^ art. Inspiration ; Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 203 ; Wriglit, Dicine Authority of the Bible, pp. 29 sq. ' As is done by Lee, Inspiration, etc., pp. 237 sqq. * Gal. ii. 11-14. 314 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. said, then acting as a mere man, not as an apostle. But Paul evidently, in his rebuke of Peter, made no such distinction. To his mjnd Peter, by his weakness, was lending all his apostolic, as well as personal influence in favor of a course that was to be condemned. If his conduct tended to force the Gentile con- verts to Judaize (Gal. ii. 14), it was doubtless because it was viewed as the conduct of an apostle. I5arnabas and the others were " carried away " by Peter's example, because it was Peter the Apostle who set the example. If it should be said that, though they may have thought him to be acting officially, yet in reality he was at that moment destitute of apostolic character, it is sufficient to answer that such a distinction between apostolic and unapostolic character is practically an idle one, unless it is meant that all that an apostle did was without authority, but that all he said and wrote was strictly inspired. This, however, is an utterly untenable position. Paul in this same chapter (ii. 2) tells of an action which was done " by revelation," and goes on to speak of his action relative to Titus as having been taken in order "that the truth of the gospel might continue with" the Galatians (ver. 5). On the other hand Paul's words addressed to the high-priest, as recorded in Acts xxiii. 3, can hardly be regarded as according to the mind of the Spirit ; for Paul himself found immediate occasion to apologize for them. Actions speak louder than words ; and apostolic conduct must haye been a very important part of apostolic teaching. Still it may be rightly urged that a man's utterances are more likely to be correct than his conduct. The judgment and the conscience are usually in advance of the will. One may through the force of sudden temptation commit an act which he would condemn when speaking or writing dispassionately and o-ivino: utterance to his conscientious convictions. It has often been remarked that Peter's addresses and epistles give no countenance to the error which was countenanced by his conduct at Antioch. And it may in general be observed that in the act of writing one is least of all in danger of being swept away by external solicitation or by sudden gusts of passion into rash and unguarded utterances.^ An inspired man, writing for the editi- ' Cf. llougemont., C/irist et ses temohis, vol. ii. p. 343. Yet some have argued THE KECnUI) oK HKVKLA TlnX. — INSI'IKA TloN. 315 cation of the cluirchcs, woulil iiiitiiially in this act, when lie could weigh his words and suiniiioii up all his deepest con- victions and most instructive knowledge, give utterance to the purest and truest sentiments of which he is possessed. On this ground, but not on tlie ground of any inspiration peculiar to apostolic writing, as distinguished from apostolic speaking, the writings of the apostles may be said to be of superior value to their oral utterances, or to the lessons of their conduct. {e) But it may still be objected, that little practical advan- tage is gained by the theory that a peculiar inspiration was accorded to the writers of the lUble, so long as no one can define what its nature was, nor tell how much was accomplished by it. If the writers wrote out of the impulse of their own minds ; if there is really a human element in tlie Scriptures; if even we undertake to specify different degrees in the inspiration,^ — then is there not given to us scope for the most unlimited caprice in determining what and how much shall be accepted as strictly divine and authoritative? To this we reply, that, though we may not know precisely how and how far inspiration worked, it is yet not a matter of in- difference whether the Uiblical writers enjoyed a special divine guidance. Their words have for us another force, when re- garded as peculiarly inspired of God, than when regarded as written only under such divine influence as is accorded to all godly men. For though we may and nmst make a distinction between revelation and the record of revelation, yet practically to us now the record is tlie revelation itself. We know accu- in ]ust tlie opposite way, urging tliat, since preaching, not writing, was the main conunission and work of the apostles, and they liad, so far as we know, no expectation that their writings would ever be treated as canonical Scripture, it is probable that they took the most pains with the preparation ot their oral addresses. So Rothe, Ziir Dogmalik, p. 213. ' As, e g . Kahuis, Lnllipnurhp Dogmatik, vol iii. p. IGl, who finds three degrees: (1) that of prophets and apostles; (2) the writers of the poetic and didactic books ; (3) the historians. Among the hdfer, however, he makes dis- tinctions, putting Joshua, Judges, etc., above Ruth, Esther, etc. (the histories in the Ilagiograplia), and in the New Testament Matthew and John above Mark and Luke. 816 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. rately of the things revealed only through the written record. And as the revelation is authoritative to us only by virtue of its being a special communication of God, so the Scriptures, as the record of revelation, and as being practically the real reve- lation, can effectually maintain their authoritative position as tlie norm of Christian life and opinion, only as they are held to have been penned under a divine direction which invests them with an altogether peculiar authority.^ And the objec- tion, that one cannot define how the inspiration of the Biblical writers differed from that of other godly men, is no more con- clusive against the fact of such difference, than the impossi- bility of exactly defining the inspiration of the prophets and other organs of special revelation is a proof that there never has been any special revelation at all. With reference to this and other difficulties that may be raised, the words of Bishop Butler^ are still pertinent: "The only question concerning the truth of Christianity is whether it be a real revelation, not whether it be attended with every circumstance which we should have looked for ; and concerning the authority of Scripture, whether it be what it claims to be, not whether it be a book of such sort, and so promulgated, as weak men are apt to fancy a book containing a divine revelation should. And therefore neither obscurity, nor seeming inaccu- racy of style, nor various readings, nor early disputes about the authors of particular parts, nor any other things of like kind, though they had been much more considerable in degree than they are, could overthrow the authority of the Scripture, unless the prophets, apostles, or our Lord had promised that the book containing the divine revelation should be secure from those things." But how are we to understand this " authority of the Scrip- ture" of which Bishop Butler speaks? Ts it a strict authority. — an ultimate, absolute authority ? Or is it to be supplemented, or even corrected, by something else, — by the liuman reason, or the Christian judgment and experience ? Are the Scriptures ^ Cf. Prof. G. N. Boardniaii ou hispiratiou {BlbUotlieea Surra, 1884, pp. 527 sq.). ^ Analogy, etc., part ii. chap. ill. Till-: IvKCOKI) OF KEVELATION. — INSPIRATION. 317 to be regarded as the supreme authority, or, on the other hand, is the so-called " Christian consciousness " ^ to be regarded as a secondary or co-ordinate authority alongside of the Scriptures ? The consideration of this question is necessary as a supplement to the foregoing discussion. ^ 'J'liis barbarous phrase, imported into our language as a translation from tlie Cicniian, wliere also it is a inodcrnisni dating from ScUleiermacher, is an unfortunate one, tlic use of which ought to be discouraged. In spite of all explanations, it will often, if not generally, be understood as iinplving (what the English word naturally means) a direct perception or intuition of truth analogous to what is commonly meant by " consciousness ; " and so the dispute about the thing is complicated by a misunderstanding about the meaning of the word. If the Christian is really conscious of this or that, why, that should be the end of all debate ; if not, then why use a word which properly meaus thai? Better avoid the phrase entirely rather than foster needless confusion and contention. It is true that tliere is no one word whidi fully expresses the somewhat complex conception meant to be expressed by the phrase "Cliristian (or religious) consciousness." But "experience," "judgment," "feeling," " mind," or "sense," can ijenerally be used, and certainly have the advantage of not being ambiguous and misleading. The term " consciousness " is es- pecially objectionable in composition, as, e. g., " God-consciousness " and '• world-consciousness," — hideous terms which are used as the equivaleuts (jf Gotleshewusstsein and Weltbewusstsein, i. e. consciousness (or sense) of God and of the world. But the terms might as well mean God's consciousness and the world's consciousness ; in fact, Mr. Royce, in liis Religious Aspect of Philosophi/, p. 348, uses the term " world-consciousness" in the sense of " uui- versal consciousness," as contrasted with the individual's consciousness. 318 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION, CHAPTER X. THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCEIPTURES. THE fact of a divine revelation is now taken for granted. Christianity is assumed to be the chief and final disclo- sure of the character and purposes of God. But it is a some- what different question, whether the Bible, as we have it, can lay- claim to be an absolute authority. Much is said nowadays about the matter of religious assur- ance. The need is felt of a firm and impregnable ground to stand on, as over against the assaults of skeptics and materialists from without, or the unsettling effects of inward doubt. Some find it in the Christian experience ;i others in the objective authority of the Bible. Thus, for example, President F. L. Patton says : " A man feels certain, let us suppose, that Christ is his Saviour. . . . How does he know that his certitude rests on a sure basis ? Because, we shall be told, this certitude is the wit- ness of the Spirit of God. But what has led him to interpret his consciousness in this way ? The Bible, of course ; for it is there we learn that the Christian hath the witness in himself. The case, then, seems to be this: The Christian has the present certitude of consciousness. When he reflects upon it, however, he finds that subjective certitude is not necessarily a guaranty of objective fact. He seeks to corroborate his certitude by account- ing for it. He accounts for it by ascribing it to the witness of the Spirit. He is authorized to ascribe it to this cause by the Bible. So that the certitude of consciousness, after all, depends upon the authority of the Bible. But what becomes of the certi- 1 E. f/., Dorner, in the conviction of sin and in the apprehension of Christ as a sufficient Saviour, Christian Doctrine, \ 11 ; Frank, in the consciousness of being regenerate, System der christlichen Gewissheit, § 15 (in Clark's Theo- logical Library, System of Christian Certainty). THE ALTHUKITY OF lllE bCltirTLKES. 31 U tude of consciousness, if this certitude rests ultimately upon the liilde, and the IMble gives us only probability?"^ I'hc implication here is that the IJible is the ultimate source of Christian assurance, and that therefore there can be no real certitude unless the Bible can be depended on as absolutely infallible. Hut this at once suggests the further question : How does one come to know that the Bible is infallible ? If we depend on its testimony for our Christian certitude, then we must be sure that its testimony is absolutely trustworthy. It is not infalliljle to us, unless we believe in the infallibility of the judg- ment which pronounces it to be infallible. How, then, is this judgment reached ? There are two methods by which the authority of the Bible is argued, the subjective and the objective. The first is that em- phasized l)y the early Protestant theologians, who affirmed that the Christian recognizes the divinity of the Scriptures by virtue of the direct testimony of the Holy Spirit within him ; the judgment being a sort of intuitive judgment, perfectly satis- factory, though not capable of being reduced to the form of a logical argument. It is manifest that, if this is the source of our knowledge of the Bible's infallibility, then a most important function is thus assigned to the Christian's private judgment. Inasmuch as the Spirit's testimony cannot be consciously distin- guished from tlie Christian's own mental process, and inasmuch as the CJiristicDi mind is in any case a mind enlightened by the Holy Spirit, this alleged recognition of the divine authority of the Scriptures is practically a simple deliverance of the Chris- tian " consciousness " in the proper sense of that term. It would seem to be an obvious inference from this doctrine, that a judgment or intuition which is able directly and infallibly to pronounce all the books of the Bible — these wholly and these alone — to be the inspired and faultless Word of God, must be infallible with regard to spiritual truth in general ; and so a very wide door is opened for the largest claims which may be made on behalf of the authority of the " Christian conscious- ness." True, the doctrine was not so meant. The design was to postulate for the Christian soul the power unerringly to detect I The Now York Ind^peudetit, Dec. 4, 1S84. 320 SUPERNATUKAL llEVELATION, in the Bible a diviue standard of truth, which being discovered, the Christian's judgment can be absolutely trusted in nothing else; the objective standard, discovered by the subjective method, must be accepted as the only and perfect standard. But this itself suggests tlie weak point in the doctrine. This alleged faculty of the Christian mind, if it really gives us assurance concerning the special inspiration and divine authority of just our canonical Scriptures, must be able, in order to do this, to dis- cern the perfect truth and divinit}^ of each and every part of the Bible. It must be able infallibly to distinguish the apoc- ryphal from the canonical. It must be able to pronounce judg- ment concerning the genuineness, or at least the inspiration, of the disputed books. It must be able to detect all interpolations of uninspired transcribers, and all deviations of the manuscripts from the original record. And all this, before it can pronounce the Bible as a whole to be absolutely infallible. For unless the Chris- tian is su7'e respecting all these critical and historical questions, he cannot be sure that ever)/ part of the Bible as we have it is strictly divine, and therefore he cannot pronounce the whole to be so. Evidently this is attributing altogether too much to the author- ity of the " Christian consciousness." However true it may be that the Bible carries with it a power peculiarly its own, and makes an impression, in its general import and drift, of convey- ing a divine message, probably few can be found who would claim for the Christian judgment the power of intuitively settling all the vexed questions of canonicity and inspiration. The true Christian spirit itself rejects the assumption which has been made on its own behalf. Whatever of truth there is in this doctrine of the testimonium Spiritu Sancti can have relation only to the vital truths of reve- lation,— the saving truths that are capable of being translated into religious experience. A testimony of the Spirit which should go further than this, — which should testify concerning the infallible inspiration of every minutest utterance of the sacred writers, however remote it might be from one's actual religious life, — such a testimony would be itself nothing short of a new revelation. The testimony of the Spirit, unless it is such a supernatural communication, can be nothing but a con- Till': AUillOKirY OK rilK SCKIl'TI KKS. 821 scious cxperieiice of u spiritual sort, — as, for example, of re- generation, of the beatifying and purifying elfect of the sense of pardon, of a growing love to God and men, etc., — such an experience as illustrates and confirms what relates to it in the Scriptures. But no religious experience can ever enable a man to determine whether the nanu' of the great king of Babylon .should be called Nebuchadnezzar or Nebuchadrezzar. A Chris- tian man will find in the Scriptures as a whole a spirit wliich seems to him to be of divine origin. His own spirit, illumined l)y the Divine Spirit, will discern in the Scriptures the marks of a superhuman influence that must have been concerned in the production of them. He will be conscious of a peculiar stimulus and illumination as coming from the contents of the Bible. But no religious experience can go to the length of en- abling a man to recognize the divine inspiration and authority of every part of the Biblical books. And so we come to the second method by which the divine authority of the Bible is argued, — the objective method, which relies on the so-called external evidences. In brief it is this : The apostles were honest, earnest, and intelligent men; they alfirmed the sinlessness and divinity of Jesus Christ ; they re- corded that he promised them the in.spiration of the Holy Ghost ; therefore the books written by them must be infallibly inspired. But plainly this argument is not a logically demon- strative one, however great its force may be. The first premise is denied by some ; but granting its validity we meet at every point a lack of absolute conclusiveness. For example, how does the general promise of inspiration necessarily involve absolute infallibility ? All Christians enjoy the indwelling of the Spirit; where do we find indicated the sharp distinction between apos- tolic infallibility and the general fallibility of all other Chris- tians ? Again, how does the general promise of inspiration imply special and infallible inspiration in the act of writing? And again, even if this were made out, how does the promise of the special inspiration to the eleven apostles involve equal inspiration to all the writers of the New Testament ? Paul, ^fark, and Luke were not among those to whom the promises were addressed. Only a small part of the New Testament pro- 21 322 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. fesses to be, and not even all of this part is universally admitted to be, the work of any of those to whom Christ was speak- ing. But further, even if this flaw in the argument be over- looked, how are we absolutely certain that the books which we have are exactly the same as those which came from the hands of the writers ? Clearly, then, this argument cannot be pro- nounced perfectly conclusive. If the Christian, in order to be certain of salvation through Clirist, depends on the Biblical statement respecting the witness of the Spirit ; and if his as- surance of the truth of this statement depends upon his cer- tainty that all of the Bible (at least all of the New Testament) is infallibly true ; and if his certainty on this point is derived from the argument above given, — then his certitude must be badly affected with uncertainty. The most certain thing about it is that, if the authority of tlie Bible rests for us on the logical cogency of this argument, if it can be no more absolute than the argument is irrefragable, then the Bible does "give us only probability," — a very high degree of probability, no doubt, but still only probability. Each of these methods of proof, then, is by itself defective. Neither of them is adequate to demonstrate the infallible au- thority of the Scriptures. Will, however, both combined accom- plish the desired object ? Undoubtedly, as there is force in each, the two strengthen each other. But two probabilities cannot be added together so as to produce an absolute certainty. And in the present case it is to be noted that each argument is weakest in the same place : in the demonstration of the infalli- bility of those portions of the Scriptures which have the least to do with what is vital to the Christian life. The consciousness of this weakness of the argument has led on both sides to the adoption of the view that Biblical inspira- tion has chiefly or wholly to do with moral and religious truth, and does not necessarily secure to the writer such absolute free- dom from all error as can scarcely be anything but the product of omniscience. The locus classicus on the subject of Biblical inspiration (2 Tim. iii. 15, 16) itself lays all the stress on just this spiritual use of the Scriptures. Accordingly it has become a wide-spread opinion that, while the Bible must be regarded as THE Al I'lKJUlTV OK THE SCUIPTUKES. 323 infallible in its religious teachings, it may be left an open ques- tion, at least, wlietiier its writers may not have erred with regard to historical, philosophical, and scientific matters. In one way this conception of the subject is certainly an improvement on that wliich makes the reality of revelation as a whole stand or fall with the perfect agreement of every minutest pait of the Bible with the results of the latest scientific researches. I>ut the theory has some difficulties of its own. It retains the as- sumption of an absolute infallibility in the Bible, but makes a theoretical distinction between the religious and the scientific which in point of fact it is difticult or impossible to carry out. No man can tell where the religious ends and the scientific begins. And the difficulty becomes all the greater, the more clearly it is recognized that Christianity is essentially not so much a system of revealed doctrines as it is a body of historic facts. To distinguish sharply between the historical and the religious in Christianity is impossible, for the historical is re- ligious.^ If inspiration is supposed to have guided the writers in all their religious communications, and to have been denied them in everything else, the practical result of such a view will be that one will feel himself to be at liberty to draw the line of demarkation between the true and the erroneous wherever he may please. This, then, is obviously not the full solution of the problem. On the other hand, however, it is equally clear that the prob- lem is not solved by ascribing to the Christian judgment the capacity of discerning and testing religious truth independently of Biblical or other external helps. If the individual mind is the absolute criterion, then the individual is to that extent infallible. But individual Christians do not all agree M-ith one another, and of course not all of them are infiillible. Is, then, the common Christian judgment the unerring standard of religious truth ? This is more plausible ; but the common judgment is only the aggregate of the individual judgments ; and unless there is some infallible method of striking an average which will yield us an infallible result, it is idle to hold up the common judgment as the ' See a suggestive discussion of this point by Prof. E. P. Gould on the Extent of Inspiration, in the Bibliotheca Sacra for 1878. 324 SUPERNATURAL RI':VELATION. unfailing standard. Besides, does not the history of the Church seem to show that the majority of Christians may become the vic- tims of error-? As Protestants, how can we think otherwise ? What shall we say then ? Let us attempt to fix upon some of the general principles which must underlie any correct settle- ment of this question. 1. Christianity is not the offspring either of man's natural consciousness or of the Bible. It originated as a revelation from God mediated by Jesus Christ. Although men often loosely speak as if the New Testament were the source of Christianity, yet the truth needs only to be stated to receive immediate assent, that neither originally, nor generally at present, do men become believers in Christ directly and simply on account of what they find in the New Testament.^ Originally Christianity was widely established before there was any New Testament. The apostles preached it as a divine revelation ; their successors handed down their testimony. Parents taught the Christian faith to their children, and churches were planted all over the Eoman Empire before the Gospels and the Epistles were written. And no less true is it now that the Christian religion is propagated from person to person, and not chiefly by the reading of the Bible. Children are taught to believe in Christ before they are able intelligently to read the New Testament. The impenitent are gathered into the Church mostly through the personal influence of Christians, and not by first becoming convinced of the divine authority of the Bible. It is equally manifest that Christianity did not originate, and is not now propagated, as a mere intuition of the human mind. It is not a system of truths wrought out by philosophical medi- tation, and is not now presented to men as sometliing which every one is capable of evolving out of his own consciousness. It comes to men as a divine revelation, communicated from one generation to another. Just as soon as professed Christians discard this view, and pretend that the essence of Christianity is to be found in every man's intuitions, we know that such men have lost, or have never found, the essence of Christianity. 1 Cf. Kalmis, Lidhi'r'm'hc Dogma tik, vol. iii. §§ 6, S. "In fact, the ordinarv way by which the Word brings man to the trutli is that of tradition." THK Airinnniv ok thk scriptukks. 325 2. In the strict sense neither human opiuiuu nor the Bible is invested with Auy a idhoritfj o\'ov tha Christian Church. Clirist is the supreme and (jnly autiiurity. He is the ljm\ and Master. All brandies of Christendom recognize this ; But Papists njake the cler pen to strike us unpleasantly in the apostolic interpretations of Scripture is certainly not sanctioned by Christ's authority, simply because we do not find it beforehand in the CJospels. There is, on the contrary, a general presumption that, as the apostles were in constant communion with him during his ministry and received instruction from him concerning his work and his truth, they must have become indoctrinated with his view of the Old Testament in its relation to him. Nor can an exception be made of Paul. We cannot press his claim that he did not receive the gospel from the apostles to tlie extent of supposing that he got absolutely nothing from them. What was he talking about with Peter during those fifteen days when he visited him at Jerusalem (Gal. i. 18)? Or if we press this claim to the extreme, we must remember that over against it is his claim that he received the gospel directly from Christ ; and how much that revelation contained of specific instruction con- cerning the interpretation of the Old Testament, no one can affirm. On the whole, then, the conclusion must be that, though Christ was radically superior to his disciples, this fact cannot be made use of in order to discredit any part of the New Testa- ^ Dean Burgon {Inspiration, etc., pp. 13i sc/.') refers to Luke xx. 37, 38, Matt. xxii. 41-46, and Joliu x. 34-36, to show that the criticisms made on Paul might with equal justice be made on Christ. 336 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. meiit, unless in equal degree tlie whole is discredited. But if the whole is discredited, that is, if no part of it can be trusted in its representation of Christ, we are left without any certain knowledge of him at all ; and in that case it is idle to hold up his authority as over against the Scriptural account of him. Every attempt to distinguish the pure and original Christianity from the apostolic additions to it or corruptions of it. gives us simply the opinion of the individual critic ; and this opinion is founded on the reports of the very men whose trustworthiness is denied. The ultimate result of the various efforts to discover the genuine Christ and the pure gospel is of course a multitude 1 of gospels all derived from the New Testament writings. Still less can one hope to reach the unadulterated truth of Cliristianity by any arbitrary reconstruction of the Canon, or by deciding in his own mind what books of the New Testament shall be recognized as representing the truth as it is in Jesus. Such a procedure is opposed to all sound principles of historical and critical evidence. The New Testament as a whole must be taken as the source from which is to be derived the true con- ception of what Christianity originally was, and was intended to be. And the more it is insisted that Christianity is essen- tially a new life-force rather than a mere system of propositions or dogmas, the more important does it become to call into requi- sition every part of the oiiginal documentary records of the liistory of Christ's life and of its workings on the primitive Church. Whereas a petty and arbitrary criticism would under- take to say that only one type of conception is to be adopted as regulative of our judgment, a broader and more trutliful view would rather emphasize the need and importance of a variety in the sources of information, in order that the picture of the true gospel may be made as complete as possible. In such a search one will not be alarmed by contrasts or even apparent contra- dictions. He will not be disturbed, but rather helped, when he sees how different in many respects John's portraiture of the Redeemer's life and words is from tliat of Mark or Luke. He will not set Paul against John, or John against Paul, but will put the two together as supplementing one another. He will make use of every detail of both the histories and the Epistles TIIIC AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 337 ill liis effort to obtain an accurate and comprehensive view of what Christian truth really is. But this very fact, that one must put together and compare, suggests another reflection : 5. Tlie religious experience and insiglit of Christians lias an impoitant and decisive function. The regulative authority of the Scriptures does not execute itself. Their authority is no authority till their meaning i.s understood. And what they mean must be determined l)y men in the exercise of their own faculties. Christians, though as Cliristians they cannot freely set aside, correct, or supplement the Sciiptures, must intciyrct them. The new life which was brought into the world by Jesus Christ is an expansive one, propagating itself from generation to generation and from race to race. Tn itself it remains essentially tlie same. And living Christians must have more or less definite opinions respecting the vital features and truths of the Christian religion. These opinions cannot be fornndated and deposited in any verbal statement in such a way as to have a meaning and validity independent of the active juilgment of the living Christian. Statements, creeds, the New Testament itself, mean nothing to him except as he individually, by the exercise of his own Christian powers of apprehension, attaches a meaning to them. Every one, there- fore, is, to a greater or less extent, an interpreter of the Scriptures. And in this interpretation two things in particular nuist be taken into account. («) Christians in their interpretation of the Scriptures must distinguish between what is fundamental and universal, on the one hand, and wliat is incidental or temporary, on the other. They may differ iVom one another on the question, what is essential and what is incidental ; but every one makes dis- tinctions, and attaches greater importance to some portions of TToly Writ than to others. And since no explicit rule can be Ibuntl in the Bible itself, each one must follow the leadings of his own judgment. In many cases, or even the most, this judgment may be little more than a trustful acceptance of the distinction which others have already made ; but still the distinction is one which ha:> been made, and must be made, by Christians, and that, too, with no infallible inspiration to guide 22 338 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. them. lu a general way there is substantial agreement as to what the most vital features of the gospel are. It is agreed that the main purpose of the Christian revelation was a spiritual one : Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. All the })articuhu' features of the evangelical liistory and teachings are to be viewed in relation to this grand central feature of Christ's mission, — tlie regeneration and purification of man's moral nature. But the gospel, while it aims to save all, and is therefore essentially the same to all, must adapt itself to eacli man, and so, in a sense, he a special gospel to every individual. It must be adapted to different nations and different ages. Consequently it cannot be rigidly and mimitely defined and bounded by any one man or group of men, in such a way as to overlook the peculiarities of others. A certain degree of indefiniteness and flexibility must, therefore, be assumed as characterizing it. "What Paul said of himself, as the preaclier of the gospel, may be said of the gospel itself: it becomes all things to all men, that by all means it may save some. Consequently only that which is of universal appli- cation can in the strictest sense be regarded as essential in the gospel. Principles, precepts, promises, and offers of a general sort are to be sought for as the underlying substance of the scheme of redemption, while the particular application and de- velopment of them depends more or less upon the necessities, temperament, and circumstances of the individual. Here, then, the Christian common sense must be acknowledged to have a legitimate function : it must judge how far the Bibli- cal word is to be pressed in its literalness. It must judge, for example, whether literal compliance with the command to give to every one that asks (Matt. v. 42) would best fulfil the real spirit of the command. It must judge whether the injunction to anoint one's self before fasting is not to be interpreted in the light of the customs of the time in which Jesus lived. It must judge whether Paul's advice respecting marriage and the de- meanor of women is to be regarded as determined in its form somewhat by the sentiments of the age and the local circum- stances of those particularly addressed, and therefore not neces- sarily applicable in all its strictness to the churches of the present day. This judgment may err either on the side of exces- TIIIO AUTHORITY OF THE SCKH'TUKES. 339 sive literaliiess, or on the side of excessive freedom ; but when the ([uestioii presents itself to Ijim, the Christian 'imcst form a judgment. In any case, however, even though one judge that a lUblical precept or statement received a shaping and shading from the local and temporary circumstances which called it forth, yet that judgment does not involve a charge of etror, unless it goes so far as to say that the local and tempoi-ary circumstances themselves called for something different. {h) The second task which the interpretation of the Bible imposes on the Christian is tliat of harmonizing the representa- tions of the difl'erent j)arts and authors. Christianity is a unit, — a self-consistent thing. It must be such at least to every sincere Christian. Yet apparent tliffcrences or contradictions in the statement of Cliristian principles, or in the living illustration of tlie Christian spirit, will he found in tlie original records of Christian life and thinking. Particularly this function of recon- ciliation relates to the liarmonizing of tlie utterances of the different writers of the New Testament. The original recipients and transmitters of the Christian reve- lation were men, having each his own peculiarities of mind and character. Consequently each one's conception and representa- tion of the divine revelation must have borne the mark of his own individuality ; and therefore the different men could not but pres(mt ditl'crent phases of the common treasure of revealed truth. Over against the older method of interpretation wliieli by use of the "analogy of faith" tended to obscure or ignore the differences of the several authors of the sacred books, the science of Biblical theology aims to recognize, and perhaps tends to exaggerate, these differences. Now, just where differences pass over into discrepancies, and discrepancies into contradictions, it is difficult to determine; but the abandonment of the older tlieory of verbal and mechanical inspiration requires us to assume that each Ijiblical writer was in a ]n-oper sense an author, writing out of his own religious apprehensions and experience, and that accordingly, not only with regard to incidental matters, but with regard to the truths and facts of revelation, the personal peculiarities of the writers more or less affected their conceptions and representations. 340 SUPERNATUKAI. KEVELATIOX. What attitude now does Christian thought take with reference to this i'eature of the Scriptures ? Here, as in the case of dis- crepancies of a more external character, it is obvious at all events that the distinctively Christian mind does not predispose one to look for and find contradictions and errors in the religious and moral teachings of the Bible. The Christian, while he will not, if truth-loving, shut his eyes to plain facts, is not naturally inclined to emphasize these diflerences, but to reconcile them. It was a normal impulse which led the older theologians to con- struct doctrinal systems whose aim w^as to harmonize and com- bine all parts and statements of the Biblical books, whatever may be thought of their assumption that those books are all absolutely and equally faultless. It is a legitimate desire of the Christian to obtain a comprehensive view of the plan of redemp- tion, and to make all the parts of the sch.eme, and all the utter- ances of the human organs of revelation, work harmoniously together. But it should not be forgotten that this effort to harmonize and systematize is itself a movement and an impulse of the Cliristian spirit. There would be no motive for it and no interest in it, unless there were antecedently a Christian life, sen- timent, type of feeling and thinking, which has continuously flowed forth from the original fountain of the Christian revelation, and which finds in the Scriptures the most original and authentic statement of that on which Christian belief and life are founded. With reference, tlien, to botli the above-mentioned points the Christian must, from tlie nature of the case, exercise a judgment. If there are apparent inconsistencies needing to be harmonized, it is the Christian mind that must do the work. And in order to do it one must adopt some guiding principle of interpretation. If two Biblical writers seem to be at variance with one another, the expositor wlio desires to bring them into harmony must somehow fix upon a standard of truth according to which the two are to be judged. The more strict his theory of inspiration may be, the more urgently is he impelled to search for some canon of judgment that shall regulate the process of reconcilia- tion. And in deciding on this canon he is left to liimself or to the judgment of those Christians in whom, for whatever reasons, he has the most confidence. THE AUTHORITY UF Till': SCUirTUKES. ii-ll The necessity which is put upon Christians of exercising a judgment relative to these matters is most strikingly evinced in the very fact that even as regards questions of the highest doctrinal and jn-actical consequence various views are enter- tained. Respecting the attributes of God, the nature of Christ, the relative importance of divine and human agency in salva- tion, the nature of justifying faith, the relation of this life to the next ; respecting the true idea of the earthly church, its autliority, polity, and sacraments; respecting moral duties, such as forgiveness, veracity, sell-defense, oaths, charitable aid to the poor; — respecting these things conscientious Christians come to different results, all professing too to be following the same Scriptures. The variant views may all be fairly de- fended from the Scriptures. Tims, the divine sovereignty is certainly taught there ; but so is human responsibility. How they are related; which shall be regarded as outrank- ing the other in religious importance ; or whether both are to be somehow reconciled through some third principle, — these are questions on which the Christian world has come to no agreement. Where the Old Testament seems in general to differ from the New, as, for example, respecting the lex talionis, the Christian interpreter must regard the New Testament as being the superior authority. But when the New Testament seems to countenance opposing views, the interpreter must either show that there is no real, though there may be a formal, difierence ; or else he must regard one passage as furnishing the canon by which the other is to be interpreted. In general, it is clear that the different phases of Christian truth do not receive in different parts of the New Testament the same relative prominence ; or they are even made to come into apparent disagreement. There is no doubt that James emphasizes the duty of a strict morality, and seems to depre- ciate the faith which Paul emphasizes as the central thing. Unquestionably John lays stress on the divinity of Jesus Christ, while Matthew lays stress on his descent from David and his Messianic calling. Or the same writer may seem to contradict himself, as, for example, when John at one time (1 Johu i. 8) says that Christians deceive themselves if they 342 SUPEKNATURAL KEVELATION. say they have no sin, whereas at another (iii. 9) he affirms posi- tively that those who are born again do not and even cannot sin. But is there a real contradiction or only an aj)parent one ? Must we adopt the maxim that the Bible is absolutely free from error and self-contradiction ? Or shall we admit that it is more or less imperfect in some of its subordinate features ? These are questions which must be answered by the Christian in the exercise of his own sanctified common sense. They are not answered for him by any authority palpably supreme and beyond appeal. With reference to them we may observe : 6. The general theory that the Bible is absolutely perfect and infallible does not solve the particular questions respecting which tlifferences of opinion exist. From the general proposi- tion, that the Bible is infallible, one may infer that all apparent contradictions and errors may somehow be explained away. Somehow, but how ? Where is the rule of interpretation to be found ? Little or no help is obtained by saying, with the au- thors of the Westminster Confession, that " the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself." ^ If the Bible, like a living Pope, could issue an authoritative and un- mistakable utterance, whenever its meaning is dark or disputed, and thus remove all doubts and differences, there would indeed be an end of all controversy. But so long as this is not the case, the statement that the Bible infallibly interprets itself must be regarded as more rhetorical than serviceable. Doubt- less in an important sense the Bible is self-interpreting ; one part helps us to understand another, — as may be said of any other book. But when it is said that the Bible furnishes an infallible rule of interpretation, we cannot but ask how a rule can be infallible which, in point of fact, when applied by dif- ferent Christian interpreters, yields discordant results. The infallibility of the rule is of no use unless it can be infallibly applied ; and how this is to be done we can never know, until we find another infallible rule by which we can infallibly deter- mine how this first infallible rule is to be infallibly used by fallible Cln-istians. Practically, then, there would seem to be little difference ^ Chap. i. art. ix. THE ALTilUKlTY OF TliK SCKIITURES. 343 between those who hold the strict theory of the absolute infal- lil)ility of every part of the Bible, but cannot agree in their uncler.standing of it, ami those who admit the possibility or even reality of incidental enors, and yet hold that the Scriptures give us an essentially truthful account of what God has revealed con- cerning his character, will, and redeeming work. Both bring to the study of the Scriptures certain preconceptions derived from religious and philosophical training, and both may come to the same general result as to the essential truths of revealed religion. But those who hold the stricter theory of Biblical infalliljility are led liy their preconceptions — their " Christian conscious- ness " — to put a strain upon those parts of Scripture which seem not to harmonize with their system ; while the others are led by their preconceptions to look upon such parts as of subor- dimito importance, and as being affected by the imperfection to which all human productions are liable. The stricter school may accuse the others of unsettling the foundations of faith, if they admit the possibility of any error in Holy Writ; while the latter may urge that the foundations of faith are in danger of being unsettled, if the fiiith is made to rest on a theory of Bibli- cal infallibility of which there is no cogent proof, and which can be maintained only by violent distortions of the obvious mean- ing of Scriptural language. Still it may be contended that, if the strict theory of the in- fallibility of the Bible is relaxed, a flood-gate is opened for the introduction of the wildest vagaries and conceits in iudginir of Biblical history and teaching. If any part of it can be adjudged faulty, what is to hinder every part from being in turn denounced as unworthy of confidence ? The answer is that we are now dealing with Christian judgments of the Bible ; and no real Christian can do otherwise than find the Bible in its general drift a truthful account of a divine revelation. No doubt, it may seem extremely desirable to be able to hold that there is abso- lutely no error in the Scriptures, even though we may not be able to agree as to Mhat is error and what is truth. But at all events the theory of Biblical infallibility cannot accomplish any useful purpose, unless it is itself Mell established. With refer- ence to this point we may at least remark that — 344 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 7, Every theory of the infallibility of tlie Scriptures must be rejected which is contradicted by the Scriptures themselves. We may go further, and maintain that no theory of Biblical in- fallibility is susceptible of proof. The Bible does not affirm its own infallibility. Even if we press to the utmost such language as Ps. xix. 7, " The law of the Lord is perfect/' we cannot make it cover the whole Bible, to say nothing of the somewhat lax manner in which this epithet is used, as, for example, where Noah (Gen. vi. 9), Jacob (Gen. xxv. 27, vide Marg. of E. V.), and Job (Job i. 1) are called '' perfect." The assertion that tlie Old Testament is inspired of God (2 Tim. iii. 16) also falls short of an affirmation of absolute infallibility. But more than this : the Bible not only does not affirm its own perfectness, it afiirms its own imperfectness. Especially is the Old Testament declared to be defective. It is little less than self-evident that, if the Old Testament revelation had been ideally perfect, there would have been no need of another. It lies on the surface of the New Testament that the Mosaic dispensation was in some sense insufficient, temporary, and defective. The New Testament abounds in utterances which imply or assert this. The whole matter is succinctly stated in Heb. viii. 7, " If that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second." In view of so explicit a statement as this it is almost incredible that Christians should ever have undertaken to treat the Old Tes- tament as of equal authority with the New. And yet the motive is obvious. If the Old Testament contains a divine revelation, it seems like an impeachment of the divine power, wisdom, or veracity, to say that the revelation, or the record of it, is faulty. But here in one of the books of the New Covenant itself we find this fiatly affirmed. And what is here thus declared in general terms is implied everywhere else. Jesus' answer to the question respecting divorce (Matt. xix. 8), in which he affirms that Moses permitted easy divorce as a concession to the hardness of the Jews' hearts, gives us a specific example of the general fact. And tliis shows, moreover, that the faultincss is something positive, — that the Mosaic law was in some particulars not merely defective in the sense of Tin; Ai'i'iioKri'v (»K riiK sciuitlkks. 345 being germinal or prophetic, but defective in the sense of requiring amendment or aljolition. There are numerous questions which spring up in tliis con- nection,— (juestions especially concerning the character of the morality of the Old Testament, the accuracy of its prophecies, the truthfulness and symmetry of its theology, to say nothing of the correctness of its representations of historical and scientific matters. If we compare, for example, Ps. Ixix. 21-28 with tlie account of Christ's crucifixion, we find that the Psalmist, after charging his enemies with giving him vinegar to drink, supplicates God to pour out his indignation on them; while Jesus, whose similar experience is regarded as typified by this (John xix. 28), begs God to forgive liis enemies. If we compare this with Christ's own comment on the lex talionis (Matt. v. 38- 46), it is impossible to pronounce the spirit of the psalmist to be a model for ourselves. If, however, on Christ's own warrant we may charge faultiness on one feature of the Old Testament, what shall hinder us from extending the charge over other features ? But in this case, in what sense can we retain faith in the Old Testament economy as a genuine revelation of God ? lie the answer what it may, it should not be made without recognizing the undeniable fact tliat, while tlie Xew Testament in general, and Christ in particular, explicitly assert the faulti- ness of the Old Testament, they also with equal or greater clear- ness assert that the Mosaic economy was a genuine revelation from God. The two affirmations must stand together. Our Saviour tells us that the imperfectness of the Mosaic law was on account of the necessity of accommodating it to the con- dition and needs of the Jewish people. What he says respecting divorce must doubtless be said respecting many other things. No one would now seriously propose to enact all the civil laws of Moses identically as tliey stand in tlie Pentateuch, still less, to insist on the enforcement of the ceremonial law. In the Sermon on the Mount, though Christ begins by declaring that ho does not come to destroy the law, he yet gives to it a higher and more spiritual sense tlian his hearers could ever have had, and such as would not naturally have suggested itself to those who lived under the law. It is manifest that the accommoda- 346 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. tiun spoken of by oiu- Lord consisted largely in leaving existing customs essentially unchanged, even when perfection of char- acter and social condition required a change. The laws concern- ino' slavery and polygamy were given for those to whom these institutions were familiar. The laws aimed to mitigate the evils of the institutions, but did not undertake at once to abolish them. There was an apparent sanction of practices which were •'radually given up by the Jews who lived under these laws, and which are inconsistent with the spirit of many of the other pre- cepts of the same code. Indeed the Mosaic law contains the hiohest rules of conduct and character. The commands to love God with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourselves, which Jesus pronounced to be the greatest of all the commandments, are quoted from the Pentateuch (Deut. vi. 5 ; Lev. xix. 18) ; and we find there, besides, the precept, " Be ye holy, for I am holy " (Lev. xi. 44, xix. 2), — which seems to lift us up to the very summit of spiritual life. Is there not, then, an inconsistency between such precepts and those laws which sanction or tolerate practices which we must regard as marking a low moral, social, and political state ? And can that be a divinely given or di- vinely sanctioned system which contains such an inconsistency ? The feeling which underlies such questions is that whatever comes from God must be absolutely perfect and faultless, — in other words, that an accommodation of the divine law to human weakness is impossible, being inconsistent with the holiness and immutability of God himself. But the same authority which warrants us in believing in the divinity of the Old Testament revelation warrants us also in asserting that there was this ac- commodation. And there need be no difficulty in admitting this principle as a feature of a supernatural revelation. To say that God adapts his communications and legislation to the capacities and circumstances of his creatures is not to impeach either his wisdom or his holiness. It is a universal principle that parents and teachers, in training the young, must, in order to be successful, adapt their method of administering instruction and commands to the capacities and peculiarities of the pupils. Many things may be winked at in one child which need to l)e rebuked in another. Slow and patient use of symbols and THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRII^URES. 347 illustrations are required for some, while others spring readily to the appreliension of abstract truth. In order to make a correct impression on the whole, a representation must often be made which, judged by a strict scientific standard, would be incorrect. Correctness of impression is more important than mere correct- ness of statement. It is universally conceded that in our conceptions of the Divine Ueing and character certain anthropo- morphisms must enter in, even though we may be morally certain that, in a higher state of existence and with different faculties of apprehension, we should form different conceptions. In so far as this inaccuracy of conception is made necessary by the limitation of man's intellectual and moral nature, it must be taken into account also by God himself, if he would make a revelation of himself. The principle of accommodation or concession, in a revelation which is to be adapted to the actual condition and necessities of men, seems, then, to be indispensable.^ Notwithstanding these concessions, however, there is to be recognized a very substantial truth in the common affirmation that the Bible is a perfect and infallible rule of faith and prac- tice. The truth may be stated in the following form : 8. The Bible is perfectly adapted to accomplish the end for which it was made, when used by one who is in sympathy with that end. The sweeping statement that the Bible is perfect requires in any ca.se that one should understand in what sense the term "perfect" is used. If we can say that the Bible is as nearly perfect as under the circumstances it was possible for it to be, tliis ought to satisfy any reasonable demand. Since a revelation had to be given to imperfect men, possessing imper- fect powers of appreliension; since it could be communicated only through human media, and had to be adapted at first to those more inmiediately addressed, — it was neces.sarily deficient in that sort of perfectness which it might have had if these con- ditions had been diff'erent. If the media had been infallible, if men's powers of spiritual apprehension had been perfect, no doubt the revelation might have been more absolutely faultless. ^ Cf. J. L. Mozlcy, Ruling Ideax in Erirli/ Aqes ; Newman Smyth, Moralihf of the Old Testament ; G. F. Wriglit, Dichie Authority of the Bible, pp. 162 sq. 348 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. But ill that case it would not have been needed. It was because men were imperfect and sinful that a special manifestation of divine grace was necessary. But what is meant in any case by saying that a book is per- fect ? Even when a book treats of one of the exact sciences, as of some branch of mathematics, the epithet " perfect " can be applied only in a loose sense. The book may be confidently pronounced free from all false statements, and yet not be per- fect in the sense that it treats the subject in the absolutely best way. It may omit soriie things which it would be well to insert, or it may contain some things which had better have been omitted. If the subject of the book is not one of tlie exact sciences, it is still more difficult to determine when it can be called perfect. No one supposes that a strictly perfect treatise on physiology, or cliemistry, or geology, or even astronomy, has ever yet been produced. And still more impracticable is it to attain a perfect treatment of psychology or ethics. But the Bible is a book which is at almost the furthest remove from a treatise on an exact science. Neither the subjects treated of nor the method of treatment permits the application of any simple objective standard of perfection. It is a heterogeneous work. It treats no subject in a scientific manner. It deals with themes which transcend human comprehension. It ad- dresses the sensibilities and the conscience, rather than the intellect; and the appeal is for the most part indirect rather than direct. In it examples take the place of precept, and history the place of analysis. It embodies the sentiments and conceptions of very different men. It exhibits an advancing development of divine truth, a gradual execution of divine purposes, rather than a consummated system. It gives God's thoughts as reflected in the mirror of his human agents. A book may be perfect in a negative or in a positive sense. To be perfect in the negative sense of being free from erroneous statements would be of itself a very meagre excellence. Such freedom might belong to a book comparatively inane and worthless. Inasmuch as the purpose of a divine revelation is the production of spiritual renovation in men, that record of the revelation might be properly called ])erfect which is ])Ost THK Al'I'llnlill'V (»F TllH SCIJU'TUUKS. 349 fitted to accomplish this purpose. This is perfection in the positive sense. It may indeed be contended that a Bible might have been produced which would do a better work than the one we have. It may, for example, be thought that, if some of the genealogical matter were left out, and some of Paul's lost epistles were put in, the Bible would assuredly be a better book, and better fitted to do its work. But all such speculations prove nothing more than the individual opinions of the pro- mulgators of them. The only certain thing about tlie matter is that in a vast number of instances the Bible has accomplished its purpose : it has made men " wise unto salvation." But, it may be objected, in many other instances this purpose has not been accomplished ; nudtitudes have heard or read the AVord of Cod and been n>ade no better, or have even been offended and injured by it. But the oljvious answer is that, as the Bible cannot act mechanically, and the effect it produces nnist depend on the spiritual attitude of the reader, it can perfectly accomplish its purpose only in so far as its message is addressed to a receptive spirit. He who feels his need of divine mercy and guidance finds in the recorded revelation that wliich perfectly answers to his needs. He who comes to the Scriptures without such a sense of need is not made wise unto salvation by them ; and he would not be, however perfect might be the form of the message. Such a one would find fault with the most faultless book. In short, every doctrine concerning the authority or infalli- bility of the Scriptures must take into account the persons to whom they are addressed and the end which they aim at. To call the Bible perfect, irrespective of its relation to those who use it, is like calling an article of food perfect, apart from its fit- ness to support physical vigor. The same food which is good for one man may be bad for another. In general, certain articles of fo )d have been found to be wholesome and useful. Those which in the greatest number of cases seem to be best adapted to nourish the human system may in a loose sense be called per- fect. But for many persons food which for the most would be called inferior may be better than that which is generally called the best. 350 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. In like manner the Bible is to be judged according to its fit- ness to do its work. Not every part of it is equally adapted to every individual, or to the same individual at different stages of his spiritual life. What to some may seem the most useless or (|uestionable parts of the book often prove to be effective in leading others into the way of life.^ And no one will be led by it into the truth who comes to it in the wrong way. If one is hardened to religious influences, or is filled with captiousness and self-sufficiency, the Bible cannot do its proper work on him. Only one who is seeking life and salvation will find it to be a perfect guide. Only such a one finds and appropriates the deeper religious lessons and stimulus which the book furnishes. The more he is illumined by the Spirit of God, the more does he find of this fulness of spiritual i:istruction. He finds it even in that which to the light-minded and the scoffing furnishes occasion for offense or for ridicule. He finds even in that which shows traces of the human weakness of the sacred writer a religious help, so that the imperfect and the fallible may itself become, in its connection witli the general burden of the divine message, an infallible guide, — a guide which does not mislead, but helps one onward towards that perfection which it is the object of revelation to produce. In short, the Bible is perfect and infallible, for the purpose which revelation aims to accom- plish, to every one wlio in using it is led by the Holy Spirit. It cannot be infallible to those of a different spirit; for in their case it fails of its chief end. An abstract, absolute, ideal infalli- bility, that is to be defined irrespective of the practical end to be attained by the infallibility, would be worthless in itself, and would moreover after all forever be indefinable. One who on a clear summer day looks from the Swiss vil- lage of Beatenberg upon the View there spread before him, — the malachi4ie green waters of Lake Thun two thousand feet sheer below him ; the steep imdulating slopes between, clothed M'ith grass and groves ; the ranges of mountains beyond, overlap- ^ E. g., Joseph Rabinowitz of Kiscliciiev, Russia, who was converted from Judaism to Christianity by reading the New Testament, and has since labored amongst the Jews in that place witli great success, was greatly influenced at Ihe outset by the genealogical tables in Matthew and Luke. THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRirTURES. 351 ping one another, till at the furtliest and highest point the land- scape is terminated hy the snow-clad monarchs of the Bernese Alps, — lio who beholds this scene, with its manifold and con- tinually varying shades of richest color, may well exclaim, "This is a perfect view." But a captious critic might ohject that many a tree is defective or abnormal in shape ; that many a chalet is rude or dilapidated ; that the pure green of the lake is sometimes marred by the turbid waters of the inHow- iiig streams; that here and there a different contour of the mountain outline would be more according to artistic ideas of beauty ; or that a more unbroken snow covering on the lofty summits would enhance the charm of the scene. But he who looks at the scene with an eye sensitive to the power of true beauty and grandeur will be unmoved by such petty carpi ngs. Taking in the grand whole, with its fascinating combinations of light and shade, of height and depth, of form and color, he will still say of it, " This is a perfect view." And so he wlio looks at the Bible, with its manifold pictures from the history of divine revelations, with its matchless por- traitures of character, with its disclosures of the depths of hu- man depravity and human necessities, with its fervid effusions of religious feeling, with its pungent appeals to the conscience, and above all with its disclosures of the holiness and majesty of God and the riches of his redeeming love, — he who looks at the book with feelings alive to the realities and necessities and possibilities of man's spiritual nature, will say of it, " This is a perfect book." It presents a manifoldness of elements which in their combination blend together into one grand, impressive picture, stimulating, elevating, purifying. If a sharp-eyed critic complains of defects and mistakes, and points out wherein the several parts might be improved, he who reads it with a sense of religious need will doubt the power of mere human acumen to reconstruct it for the better, and will say of it that it is a book unique in its power to meet one's deepest wants ; that it alone, among all the books of the world, perfectly fulfds the end of communicating and preserving God's revealed truth, and of impressing it upon men. But the objection may be here raised, that by this mode of S52 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. conceiving the matter tlie real regulative guide is made to be not the Word of God, but the human spirit. As the thoughtful man can find "sermons in stones, books in the running brooks, and good in everytliing," so the religious man may find sugges- tions and lessons in those parts of the Bible which are intrinsi- cally of no special worth. In such a case is it not, after all, the Christian mind which put the significance into those things that in themselves and to the more unrefiective have no higher signifi- cance at all ? Are we not lending countenance to the old objec- tion, that the Bible can be made to teach whatever one chooses to make it teach ? Is not the " Christian consciousness " thus, after all, made thi' supreme source of religious opinion ? The objection is easily removed. The fundamental and essen- tial elements of Christian trutli are of divine communication. Christianity, as we have before observed, is not a product of the natural consciousness, intuition, or reflection of man ; it is a revelation. And if Christianity itself is thus essentially a di- vine, and not a human, product, the record of it cannot be a thing having no intrinsic significance, and be capable of mean- ing whatever any one may choose to make it mean. On the contrary. Christian experience and Christian thought being an outflow from the revelation whose most original and authentic expression is in the Scriptures, it would be absurd to say that the Christian mind can legitimately make those Scriptures mean anything and everything. Tliey not only have a meaning of tlieir own, but they are normative and regulative for Christian experience and thought itself It is the business of the Chris- tian to find out what they do mean, not to say what they shall mean. They are the perennial source from which Christendom must draw its knowledge and conception of what the Christian revelation conveyed and involved.^ When, then, the endless variety of opinions and forms of doctrine which men profess to derive from the same Bible is adduced as proof that its meaning does not control, but is con- trolled by, its readers, it is to be replied that this objection is pertinent only as directed against allegorical and purely fanciful interpretations of Scripture. And even these are governed to a ^ Ct". Dorner, Christian Ethics, p. 45. ill 10 AUTIIOUITY Uh' THE SCKirXUliEb. ^ioS large extent by the distinctively Christian conceptions which are common to all Christians. Nothing, however, is really legiti- mate in the interpretation of the Bible but an honest effort to find out what the written word was intended to mean. That dif- ferent men should come to different results, is not strange. That certain features of the liiblical books should sometimes be made unduly prominent, and certain other more important ones should l)e overlooked , or that different Christians should differ from one another as to what the relative importance and right proportions of Scriptural truth really are, — this, too, can be easily under- stood. That through the inlluence of early education and biasing predilections the obvious mcnning of certain Scriptures should be distorted, is also natural and intelligible. It is clear, too, that there is no rule of interpretation which can lay claim to be the only correct and authoritative one. In their methods and in their results Christians do, and doubtless long will, disagree more or less with one another. If these differences, as we may hope, shall gradually disappear ; if there shall be developed out of the present divergence a universal accord in religious doctrine, — this will not be a general agreement arrived at irrespective of the intrinsic meaning of the Scriptures, but rather it will come as the result of a more accurate understanding of what that intrinsic meaning is. Any other view would rei^uire us to assume that Christian thought and feeling can arrive at religious truth independently of the Christian revelation. If the Chris- tian mind can develop truth which contradicts or sup{)lants that which is contained in the records of divine revelation, then the conclusion must be that Christian thinking is a more author- itative revealer of truth than Christ. But this, of course, is equivalent to the denial of the Christian revelation itself. If there has not been introduced into the world, once for all, an authoritative and ample fountain of religious instruction and religious life, then the alternative conclusion is that all religion is a phenomenon of evolution ; that the so-called inspiration of to-day, though possibly superior to that of yesterday, is des- tined to be supplanted by that of to-morrow ; that all theology is a mere matter of changing opinion, and all religion a shifting mood of feeling, regulated by no standard of truth or of right. 23 354 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. The conclusion of the matter, then, must be that man's reli- gious sense has indeed a part to play, but that it is not tlie part of originating a sure knowledge of God, still less, the part of originating the truths of Christianity. Its part, so far as reve- lation or the record of revelation is concerned, is to apprehend it. This apprehension, as time passes, and Christian experience is enlarged, may grow clearer ; there may be a development and progress in the right understanding of the deeper meaning of the Scriptures ; but there cannot be a development which will supersede the Scriptures or essentially add to them. What that deeper meaning is which lies below the surface, and is gained only through experience and devout meditation, must of course be left indeterminate. Certain fanciful and arbitrary modes of exegesis may indeed be, and for the most part are already, discarded. But there is a possibility, in abandoning capricious interpretations, of pushing a literal interpretation to the extreme. A certain degree of spiritualizing is legitimate ; the Scriptures themselves set us the example, and suggest the general principles which are to be observed in making use of it. The reverent and judicious use of the Bible, which only seeks in a legitimate way to find the spiritual lessons and suggestions that do not disclose themselves to an irreverent or unbelieving reader, is not to be condemned, but rather to be commended. It is self-evident that the spiritualizing interpretation must be one which is fitted to meet a response in the general community of believers. Individual conceits, quixotic manipulations of numbers and letters which aim to bring out some hidden mean- ing or unsuspected revelation, — all this, and everything akin to this, is to be rejected. But he who holds that the Scriptures embody the revealed will and truth of God, and are therefore able to make men wise unto salvation, will more and more learn that every Scripture is " profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction whicli is in righteousness," so that lie who devoutly studies them will be " complete, furnished completely unto every good work." CONDITIONS AJSD LlMITtJ Uk' BIULICAJ. ClilTICilSM. 355 CHAPTER XT. THE CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. IF wc understand by the term " criticism " the careful and dis- criminating- examination of the facts concerninr( the origin and characteristics of a book, according to the best attainable evidence, it is manifest that criticism is not only legitimate Init desirable with reference to the Bible no less than any other book. Learning how a thing came to be is an important part of learning what it is. It would be the mark of a narrow and foolisli spirit to be afraid of the most searching investigation which scholarship can institute into the age, the authorship, the authenticity, and the import of the several books of the Bible. AVhatever can thus be discovered ought to be welcomed by all. lUit not every critical study, however conducted, can be de- pended on to arrive at sure and trustworthy results. There are limitations and difficulties in the nature of the subject, there are imperfections and prepossessions in the critic, which may lead astray or leave the result indecisive. Without attempting an exhaustive discussion of the condi- tions and limits of a sound Biblical criticism, we may lay down a few general propositions. 1. Freedom from prepossessions is, as a qualification for criti- cal research, neither attainable nor desirable. It is easy and plausible to say that one who is seeking to ascertain the truth concerning any matter should care only for the truth, and should allow no antecedent convictions to bias him in his investiga- tions. It is self-evident that a man who is searching for the truth should honestly desire to find it; but it is not evident that a man can in his search divest himself of opinions already lormed. If, whenever one undertakes a new study, he should bi'uin by regarding everything as uncertain, it is clear that noth- ing new would ever be learned. Research would result onl\' in 356 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. an increase of uucertaiuty. The superstructure of a house can- not be built unless there is first a foundation. Whatever sure conclusions and convictions a person has arrived at on any point constitute a body of prepossessions which he must and should carry with him in his further research. Provided the earlier convictions are well grounded, he would be a fool, if at every new step in his progress he should allow himself to unsettle those convictions, and attempt to build up again fiom the very foundations. It is true, the earlier convictions may be erro- neous, and therefore the later studies may receive an injurious bias. Of course the abstract possibility of error must always be conceded. To err is human. But if one should undertake to act on the principle of distrusting conclusions already reached, one's whole time and energy would have to be spent in retracing all the steps previously taken ; and so no real advance could ever be made. The investigations and conclusions of one gen- eration would be of no use to the next. No system of truth could ever be accumulated and made the foundation of further research or of assured faith. All traditional knowledge would have to be denounced as worthless. No one could be an au- thority in any sense to another. No science of any sort could ever be regarded as established ; each one would have to be set up afresh by each individual ; and the diversity of opinions which would inevitably result would be a reason for doubting the correctness of them all. Universal skepticism would be the certain and logical result. There could be not only no advance in knowledge, but no real knowledge at all. Tt may indeed be held that sure knowledge is not only unat- tainable, but not even desirable. This is what is meant — if indeed anything intelligible is meant — by Lessing's famous saying about the search for truth being preferable to the pos- session of it.'' The maxim, doubtless, owes its longevity to its 1 "Not by tlie possession, but by the search, of truth is breadth given to the faculties in wliicli alone man's growing perfection consists. Possession makes one quiet, indolent, proud. If God should hold all truth in his right hand, and in his left hand the single, ever-active impulse to get truth, even though with the coudition that T should forever and eternally fail of it, and should say to me, 'Choose!' I wovdd humbly turn to his left hand and say. CONDI'l'I'»X.S AND LIMITS OK IJIMLFCAL CRITICISM. 357 very extnivii;^fauce ; it sounds brilliant, tliougli in itself it is little else than a bald absurdity. If it really were better to pursue than to find, if tlie ideal state were that of chasing and never catching, and if it were possible to realize that ideal, then the result would have to he that the object of the pursuit must be forever unknown; truth being never attained, one could not even say that he is pursuing trutli ; he would not know what lie is pursuing ; the only tiling he could be sure of would be that he could never be sure of anything but the pursuit. And even that, if one is really sui'e of it, would be a truth, and there- fore to be got rid of as soon as possible. In this case, however it becomes a mystery wherein the joy and zest of the pursuit can consist. If ignorance is the certain goal, one does not need to hunt and chase in order to reach it ; the starling-])oint and the goal are one and the same thing. Uut, it is said, the good of the search is in the search itself; it is in the mental exercise given by the search. " It is not knowledge," says Hamilton, " it is not truth, that" the votary of science " principally seeks; he seeks the exercise of his faculties and feelings." ^ This is simply not true. What the votary of science seeks, if he de- serves the name, is knowledge. The mental gymnastic which comes through the search is doubtless a good ; but it comes as an incidental advantage ; it is not the thing directly and principally aimed at. And moreover an intellectual exertion whose sole and certain end were simply error and ignorance would itself be a more than doubtful good. A cat vainly chasing her own tail gets, perhaps, a usei'ul exercise by the process ; but she is wise enough to give up the pursuit when she finds that the tail cannot be caught. A true type of Les- sing's ideal truth-hunter would be a cat eternally pursuing her tail, though growing more and more doubtful whether the tail is after all anything but an illusive phantom. But there are few who would deliberately go to this (\\treme. ' Father, give me this. The purr truth is for thee alone ' " (Ei/ie Duplik, \ 1). Sir William HamiUon {Mflnpln/xicx, p. \'X) quotes this (a|)pareiitly from memory) and other similar savings with approval. A poor compliment to his own philosophy ! * Metaphysics, p. 10. 358 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. It is generally assumed that truth is attainable, and that the attainment of it is intrinsically desirable. But all hope of an increase of knowledge depends upon the assumption that some knowledge has been already attained. And this previous knowl- edge, or supposed knowledge, constitutes a prepossession. It may indeed be an error, and lead astray, but it cannot be ignored. Different prepossessions may, therefore, lead in dif- ferent dii'ections. Au atheist, to whom a supernatural revelation is simply impossible, must regard the Bible not only as not divinely infallible, but, on the contrary, as lull of falsehood. He will not deem it worth the while to investigate particularly the merits of tlie several parts ; for his prepossession necessarily makes him condemn the whole fabric as a structure of fiction and foolisli fancy. His general opinion as to the origin and value of the book must be totally different from that of him who comes to the study of it with an opposite prepossession. Between the outriu'ht atlieist and the man who has been trained to believe tliat every word of Scripture is in the strictest sense a direct utterance of a personal G-od there are many grades of opinion ; but every o]>inion rests on a prepossession of some sort. It may be only a prepossession in favor of the trustworthiness of one's parents ; it may be, on the contrary, an antipathy to those by wliom one is instructed, leading to a disinclination to accept their o])inions. It may be a prepossession derived from the books wliicli have come in one's way, or from the friends that one has clianced to find. But prepossessions of some kind tliere are and must be in every case. There is nothing more shallow tlian the doctrine so often paraded before the public, that every one should be left to clioose and formulate his own religious opinions, undetermined by parents or by any other outward influence. Even if it were possible for parents to avoid exerting an influence on the de- velopment of their children's minds, an influence would inevi- tably come from some other source. The infant mind reaches out for guidance and instruction as naturally as a plant seeks the sun. But even if this instinct could be suppressed, and each budding mind could be perfectly guarded against being influenced by other minds, how preposterous it would be to CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLIOAL CRITICISM. ii59 attach any iinporlaucu to the conchisions to which sucli a miud might come, deprived of the light which the experieuce and reflection of previous generations might have given.^ Even if under such circumstances the mind ((juhl he developed rationally at all (which is more than doubtl'ul), tlie most that could result woidd be a multitude of notions which could at the best claim to be notliing better than individual conceits. One could not speak of these conceits as truthful; Un- this epithet implies some commonly accepted standard according to which an opinion is judged. Moreover, unless by this inde- pendent metliod of arriving at opinions all should somehow come to exactly the same (which nobody would expect), then certainly not all of them could be correct; and if the opinions should ever come to be compared, the comparison would disclose di.sagreement, the disagreement would lead to discussion, and the discussion would result in influencing some minds to modify or reverse their previous opinions. And so we should have at the last what is deprecated at the first, — opinions formed through outward influence. The independently formed opinions which are given up as the result of discussion with otlier persons would then have to be called prepos.sessions, so that if all prepossessions are to be abolished, we should have to abolish this same independent method of forming opinions. So suicidal and absurd is the doctrine that religious notions, or any other notions, ought to be formed without biasing influences. There is no more arrant quackery in the world than that which is seen in the boasted " freedom," or " free-thinking," of those who have broken away from the traditional views of parents and early associates. Whether their change is for the ^ "It is ueithur the wise nor the good by whom the ])a(rimoiiy of opiuiou is most hghtly regarded. Siieh is tlie condition of our existence that, beyond the precincts of abstract science, we must take much for granted, if we would make any advance in knowledge, or live to any useful end. Our hereditary prepossessions must not only precede our acquired judgments, but must conduct us to them. To begin by questioning everything is to end by an- swering nothing; and a premature revolt from human authority is but an in- cipient rebellion against conscience, reason, and truth." — Sir James Stephen, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography (on Richard Baxter), -ith ed., pp. 337, 338. 360 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. better or for the worse, is a question by itself; but in no case has the change come about independently of outward influences. If it had so come about, if the new opinion were absolutely new, — not suggested to the mind by any other person or any book, — then that would itself be generally regarded as pre- sumptive evidence against it. Or if it were able to vindicate itself, then that would mean that it becomes a force which modifies the opinions of others; the others, after tliat, would not have independent opinions ; only this one could boast that merit. Universal and absolute independence, in short, in the formation of judgments is an impossibility and an absurdity.^ It is only a particular application of this general principle, when we remark that — 2. One's critical judgment of the Christian Scriptures must be largely modified by one's antecedent judgment respecting Christ and Christianity. Christianity is at all events a great fact; and according as it is or is not regarded as a divine reve- lation, men will pronounce it a great boon or a great fraud. And the Christian Scriptures being the product and expression of Christianity, this prejudgment concerning the producer can- not but have a determining influence on one's judgment con- cerning the product. But here the objection may be made: A pre-judgment is a pre-jiidice; and prejudice is an evil, to be avoided or overcome as far as possible. To this the Christian believer may reply: Christianity is not a new thing just beginning to urge its claims on the world. It is nearly two thousand years old. It has passed through storms of opposition. It has not run its course in a dark corner of the earth, but has been exposed to the brightest light. If, then, in spite of the natural human de- pravity which it everywhere meets and denounces, and in spite of the malicious and subtle opposition of learned foes, it has continued to assert and propagate itself; if it has even survived its own corruptions, and has relaxed no whit of its original claims concerning itself, — then it must be said to have conquered 1 Cf. E. C. Bissell, The Fentateuch, pp. 45 sq. " Prepossossions are inevi- table. We can no more get rid of tliom than of our skins. Tlicy are, indeed, an essential part of our mental and moral fiirnisliing." CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 361 .1 right to be; and Christians have a right to treat it as having a presumption in its favor. It is simply impossible for them to regard the truth of the Christian religion as a matter of everlasting doubt. Now this belief in Christianity as a divine revelation is sometliiiig anterior to all critical study of the Christian Scrip- tures. The faith grew up before those Scriptures were written. It rests, primarily, upon the evidence found in tlie character, words, and works of Jesus Clirist. It rests, secondarily, on the liistorical working of Christianity in the world. It has become one of the great forces and facts of the uni\erse. The Christian Scriptures are only the record of the origin, early propagation, and effects of the new faith. They serve, it is true, to pre- serve and regulate that faith. They have characteristics which may be used as arguments for the validity of the claims of Christianity to be a genuine revelation. But, in general, their office is to state what Christianity is, and how it came to be ; they do not constitute the original ground of the Christian faith. Now it is simply impo.ssible for a Christian not to be prejudiced in favor of these Scriptures. Belief in their im- portance and in their essential trutlifulness as an exposition of the history and spirit of the Christian system is a part of his Christian faith itself. He cannot hold to the one, and despise the other. And equally it is impossible for an enemy of Christianity to look with favor and confidence on the primitive records of the Christian Church. If he regards the fundamental claim of the religion to be false ; if he does not trust the pre- tensions of the Founder; if he sees no evidence of its divinity in the history of its effects on the world ; if, rather, he is convinced that Christianity is a cheat and is a damage to the world, — why, then he must be predisposed to find evidence that the alleged records of primitive Christianity are tainted with delusion and fraud. He cannot hate the one, and love the other. The Christian and the infidel, starting with such opposite predilections, cannot but disagree in their critical judgments. The one will be disposed to find evidence for, the other evidence against, the genuineness and authenticity of 362 SUPEENATURAL REVELATION. the New Testament books. Aud what one desires to find he will be likely to find. But, it may now l)e said, all this only goes to show that both the friend and the enemy of Christianity are biased, and there- fore likely to reach a wrong conclusion. Eeal candor, it may seem, can be found only in one who is in a state of absolute indifference, — only in one who has no impression whatever as to the truth or falsity of the claims of Christianity. But ignorance is not tlie chief desideratum in a critic. It would be difficult, in the first place, except in heathen lauds, to find any one who has absolutely no opinion about Christianity. But, in the second place, when such a man is found and put upon his critical examination of the Biblical books, he must needs first of all make himself acquainted with the facts which bear upon the question to be solved. And foremost among these facts is the history of the Christian Church from the beginning on. No intelligent opinion of the character of the New Testament can be formed, till one has learned what it was that gave rise to it, — amid what circumstances and under what impulses it was produced. But by the time this stage of intelligence is reached, some impression will have been formed concerning the merits of Christianity. And so we shall have what we set out to avoid, namely, a prcjtidice in one direction or the other. No doubt, on either side there may be often a lack of candor. Both the believer and the skeptic, under the influence of their prepossessions, may ignore facts or be perverse in their infer- ences from facts. On the contrary, there may be on both sides a painstaking effort to ascertain the truth, aud no conscious desire to reason unfairly. But if the prepossessions, the pre- suppositions, are in the two cases different, the conclusions will most ]-»robably be different. If, for example, one man starts out with the assumption that no miracle is possible or credilde, all his interpretation of the phenomena of the New Testament must be colored by this assumption. He feels bound to explain the reported miracles away. The super- naturalist, on the other hand, to whom the miracles are not offensive, but, on the contrary, probable and welcome, cannot but take an entirely different view of the written record. The CONDITIONS AM) LLMIIS (»K BIBLICAL CRITK'ISM. 3iblical books were prouounced canoniciil on the ground of erroneous notions concerning their authorsliip. Still, it may be said, it is a fact that the limits of the Canon were fixed only after much division, doubt, and hesitation. What was originally doubtful cannot have grown certain through the mere lapse of time. Canonicity is, therefore, a quality of a rather indefinite sort, and no peculiar sanctity can attach to just those writings which happen to have been called canonical. I'he Church is to this day divided as regards the canonicity of the Old Testament A[>ocrypha. What shall we say to this ? Even if a certain degree of doubt may be cherished as to a few of the Biblical books ; even though the line between the canonical and the uncanonical is not per- fectly sharp and definable, — still this indefiniteness does not do away with the distinction. The border line between animals and vegetables is difficult to fix with precision ; but the general distinction between the two kingdoms is marked and unmistak- able. Just so, as regards the Canon, even though it may be considered doubtful whether certain books ought not to have been left out, and certain others let in, the essential distinction between the canonical and the uncanonical is not obliterated. At the most, we can only say that whatever valid ground for hesitation existed originally may be held to exist still. We mfiy derive from the course of the early Church a warrant for receiving somewhat doubtfully, and with a certain qualification, a few of the Biblical books. But as to the larger part the origi- nal decision is practically binding on us. The evidence of their being genuine and authoritative exponents of the facts and truths of revelation is indissolubly connected with the evidence that we have any correct knowledge of the revelation at all.^ The same men who transmitted to us tlie gospel of Christ trans- mitted to us these Scriptures as the inspired memorials of his gospel. The Canon of Scripture, then, especially that of the New Testament, practically stands or falls with Christianity itself, for it was the outgrowth and expression of Christianity. This ^ Cf. Westcott, History of the Canon of the New Testament, 5th ed., 1881, pp. 500 sq. 866 SUPERNATURAL KEVELATION. does not preclude the possibility of casting discredit, throucrh critical research, upon certain portions, larger or smaller, of the Canon. It cannot be laid down as an axiom, that no part even of the New Testament is in the slightest degree untrustworthy, or that through interpolation or errors of transcription some parts may not have been more or less corrupted. But the existence of such incidental defects can be effectively made out, if at all, only in so far as the authenticity and authority of the collection as a whole are admitted. It is as impossible to show tliat the New Testament does not exhibit the genuine religion of Jesus Christ as it is to prove that the writings commonly ascribed to Plato do not correctly represent Plato's philosophy. There is this difference, it is true, between the two cases, that the Pla- tonic writings purport to come from the philosopher himself, whereas the New Testament is the work of various men, and not at all the work of Christ. But this difference only serves to enhance the strength of the Christian case. It is barely con- ceivable that the treatises ascribed to Plato might be proved to have originated from some other man, just as of late years cer- tain literary adventurers have (in imagination at least) proved that the so-called plays of Shakspeare were after all written by Bacon. But in that case, though the philosophy would still be the same, it could no longer properly be called Platonism. The system of Christian doctrine, however, is essentially coimected with the person of Jesus Christ. Even if the books of the New Testament could be shown to have originated at another time and from another source than is commonly supposed, they would still represent the faith of the Christian Church, and the person of Christ would still be the centre of that faith. But though it is conceivable that the Christian world may be sho\\n to have been mistaken in regard to the age and authorship of their Sacred Scriptures, it is practically certain that not even this can ever be proved. They will forever remain, in their general extent and drift, the Canon of Christian faith and practice. Practically, then, the Canon is impregnable. It must remain as it is. No consensus of the Church can ever be expected to revise tlie general results of the early decision. But another and kindred question here meets us: Tliougli tlie collection may COIJJDITIUNS AM) Ll.MlTb OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 367 lie lel't as it is, and bu accepted as conveying to us authentic testimony concerning- divine trutli and the diviiie economy, still may not the spiritual insiglit of the Church detect, as it were, a Canon w ithin the Canon, distinguishing the true Word of God — the kernel — from the enveloping liusk of human forms, concep- tions, and traditions ? Must we not say that the Bible contains tlie Word of God, rather than that it is the Word of God ? In an important sense this must be regarded as a correct con- ception. The term " Word of God " is nowhere used in the Bible as a comprehensive name of the canonical collection ; from the nature of the case it could not have been so used before all the books in question were written. But even in the New Testa- ment the Old Testament, tliough then a finished whole, was never as a whole called the Word of God. Where that phrase occurs with reference to the Old Testament it refers to some particular divine command (Mark vii. 13 ; 2 Pet. iii. 5) or prom- ise (Eom. i.\. 6). In by far the most numerous instances the phrase is used as nearly synonymous with "the gospel," as Acts iv. 31, vi 7, xi. 1, xii. 24, xviii. 11, xix. 20 ; 1 Cor. xiv. 36 ; 1 Thess. ii. 13 ; 2 Tim. ii. 9 ; Tit. ii. 5 ; Heb. iv. 12 ; 1 Bet. i. 23 ; Bev. i. 9, XX. 4. This is undoubtedly the meaning of it also in 2 Cor. iv. 2, though this verse is commonly quoted as if referring to the Scriptures. Nowhere is the term " Word of God " used of the collected books of the Old Testament.^ Too much stress, however, must not be laid on this. Tliough the use of the phrase " Word of God " as synonymous with " Scripture " is comparatively modern, it does not therefore follow that this use of the phrase is out of kee})ing with tlie usage of the Biblical writers. On the contrary, when the Old Testament is as a whole called " inspired of God," we must say that this epithet implies as much as the term " Word of God " would imply with reference to the divine origin of the Ijook, unless this term is taken in its most literal sense, namely, that of words uttered by God and sim[)ly recorded by men. But that there is a human element in the Scriptures we now take for granted. When, however, we speak of them as characterized by both a human and a divine ^ Of. Ladd, Sacred Scripture, vol. ii. p. 503 ; Waiiiigton, Inspiration, p. 273, for a more detailed diseussiou of tliis. 368 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. element, how do we understand the two to be related ? Are they distinguishable, though conjoined ? Can we sift out the human, and leave the divine unadulterated ? Can we separate the chapters, verses, or words that are purely divine from those that are purely human ? Evidently such a conception of the matter is crude. Such a mechanical mixture of the divine and the liuraan is well-nigh inconceivable, and is certainly attested by no evidence. The union of the divine and human must rather be regarded as a blending of the two into one, — an in- terpenetratiou which makes a nice dissection impossible. The ability to enucleate the purely divine, to distinguish it infallibly from the human, can at the best be only a divine prerogative. The same limitations and weaknesses of human nature which occasioned the presence of a human element in the word of revelation cannot but make themselves felt in the interpretation and application of that word. We have the treasure of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, but we have it in earthen vessels (2 Cor. iv. 7). The knowledge will grow more and more perfect as we advance in spirituality ; but now we see in a mirror darkly ; now we know only in part (1 Cor. xiii. 12). What, then, will be the efi'ect of a growing apprehension of divine truth in the individual and in the community ? Will it lead to a sharper distinction between one part of the Bible and anotBer, according as they are discerned to have respectively more or less of the human element ? Will the result be that by degrees certain books of the Bible will be practically detached from the Canon, and no longer recognized as either being or containing the Word of God ? Will other books be analyzed and dissected, certain verses or sections branded as containing nothing but human matter, and the rest as being worthy to be called inspired ? Will the analysis proceed so far that we shall discern several grades of inspiration, and sliall be able to assign each sentence of Scripture to one or to the other, or to relegate it to the class of the wholly uninspired ones ? Such a concep- tion is certainly not the correct one. It cannot be carried out practically. No two men would coincide with each other in their analysis. And it involves a mechanical theory of inspira- tion. To suppose, for example, Paul to have been inspired in CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 369 general wlicn writing to Timothy, but to luive been left without inspiration when he spoke about the cloak and parchments (2 Tim. iv. 13), is to make a distinction for which there is no warrant. No doubt we may, as Lowth says,^ " distinguish the mysteries of faith and the rules of practice from a cloke and parchments, or a journey to Corinth;" and no doubt this and other similar references to purely personal, local, temporary, or physical matters are of less consequence than tliat which relates directly to redemption and sauctification. No doubt, if we were to have a Bible consisting wholly either of 2 Tim. iv. 13 or of John iii. 16, it would be infinitely more important to have the revelation of God's saving love than the information about Paul's transient necessities. No doubt the most extreme sticklers for the plenary inspiration of each and every part of Holy Writ have always practically attached greater weight to some por- tions of it than to others. But what of that ? If inspiration is to be measured and mapped according to the relative importance of the several utterances of inspired men, we shall have to dis- tinguish, not merely two or three grades, but an indefinite num- ber of them ; we shall have to distinguish even in separate sentences the more important from the less important, and argue, for example, that, where a different conjunction or prepo- sition would seemingly have answered just as well or even bet- ter, the writer could not have been inspired in the use of those parts of speech, though he may have been inspired in his use of the nouns and verbs. ^Manifestly this criterion cannot be made to work. Eevela- tion and inspiration have, it is true, moral and spiritual, rather than physical and scientific, ends. But this attempt to analyze inspiration according to the comparative importance of the sev- eral utterances of the subjects of it virtually leads to, even if it does not proceed from, a theory of verbal inspiration of the rankest sort. It can logically be made to accord only with the hypothesis of sheer dictation. If inspiration is dynamic rather than mechanical, if it is a force moving on the whole inner and spiritual man, rather than an intermittent prompter of words, ^ Vindication of the Bituie Authority and Inspiralwn of the Old and New Testaments, London, 1821, p. 54. 24 370 SUPERNATUEAL EEVELATION. then it is present, not only when the inspired man is treating of the loftier themes of redemption, but also when he speaks of subordinate religious or moral matters, or even when he touches on topics of a purely temporal character. As an ordinary Chris- tian may be exerting a religious influence, not only when he preaches the gospel from a pulpit, but also by the manner in which he deports himself in his temporal occupations, so the Biblical writer's inspiration may be as real when he treats of the most trivial matters as when he is enunciating the weightiest doctrines of grace. Nevertheless we may discriminate between the more and the less important. We may find the Old Testament in general inferior to the New. And in each Testament we may find some portions more intimately related to the central truths of revela- tion than others are. We may believe that in every portion there are traces of human imperfection, that even the doctrines of redemption could not be perfectly set forth by those who knew and prophesied only in part. But yet we shall not find any part destitute of the working of the Spirit of inspiration ; and as we make progress towards the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, towards the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, we shall not be led to intensify the distinction between the more inspired and the less inspired parts of the Scriptures, and to find some to be not inspired at all ; we shall rather find everywhere more and more of the breathings of the Spirit of truth and of grace, and discover that every Scripture, being inspired of God, is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction. 4. Criticism can never convince Christendom that pious fraud has played an important part in determining the substance or form of the Scriptures. There are few who would now under- take to maintain that wicked and malicious deception was prac- tised in the composition of the Biblical books. But there are many who are ready to believe that a more innocent or even a useful deception can be shown to have been extensively resorted to by the Biblical writers. The Tubingen theory of the ori- gin of the New Testament — the so-called Tcmdcnz theory — is founded on this notion that a pious fraud was practised in order COMDlTlU.Ny AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CKITICISM. 371 to advance the interests of Catholic Christianity. The kernel of the theory is that at the outset radically opposite tendencies divided the Christian Church, — Pauline Christianity on the one hand, and Ebionitism, or a Judaizing spirit, on the other ; that some of the New Testament books, especially the first four Pauline Epistles (tlie only ones conceded to be genuine), repre- sent the one drift, while on the other hand the Gospel of Mat- thew, the Epistle of James, Second Peter, and the Apocalypse represent the Judaistic paity ; and that finally another group of books (such as Luke, John, Acts, Ephesians, Philippians, Colos- sians, the Pastoral Epistles, and First Peter) were composed for the express purpose of reconciling the opposing parties.^ Tlie Tubingen liypothesis has been met on its own ground, and shown to be full of inherent and insuperable difticulties, even when all prejudices in favor of the traditional notion of the Biblical books is laid aside. It exists now only as a ruin, some of its assumptions and some of its conclusions being still held by a few, wliile the critical structure as a whole has fallen under the attacks of counter-criticism and under the weight of its own extravagance. Apart, however, from the exposure of the intrinsic groundlessness of the fundamental assumption of the school, one thing that has powerfully operated to prevent the theory from gaining any general acceptance in the Christian Church is just this assumption of fraud and forgery which is involved as an essential part of the theory. The whole New Testament, with few exceptions, is made to be the product of Tcndcnz, that is, in plain English, of a conscious falsification of history for a purpose. Stories of Christ's life and teachings and the narrative of early apostolic activity are alleged to have been composed, not for the sake of reporting what actually had hap- pened, but for the sake of making men believe that certain things had liappened. Epistles are said to have been invented at a late period, and ascribed to Paul or Peter, not for the purpose of ^ As might be expected, the critical sense of tlie different representatives of the Tiibingen school varies somewhat. Ptleiderer, e.g., admits the genuineness of Philippians, I'hilemon, and First Thessaloiiiaus, and calls Colnssians and Second Thessalonians spurious somewhat doubtfully (J)er Paulinismus, p. 28). Ranr acknowledged only the first four. 372 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. making known what these apostles really taught, but for the purpose of assuaging the antagonism of the Pauline and Petrine parties by falsely representing that Peter and Paul after all taught substantially the same doctrines.^ The New Testament in general is made by this theory to be, not the trustwc»rthy record and depository of the original Christian liistory and Chris- tian doctrine, but the product of a fierce theological war, in which, as in military contests, each party dealt freely in decep- tion in order to gain its ends, — the only difference being that in the ecclesiastical squabble a third party is supposed to have come in and to have practised its deceptions on the other two, , in order to persuade them that they have really had no good reason for fighting at all ! Now, no matter with how great a display of learning and in- genuity this conception of the origin of the New Testament books may be set forth, no matter in what euphemistic phrase- ology the charges of forgery and falsification may be clothed, the plain blunt common sense of Christians will always rebel at any such hypothesis. What is involved in the acceptance of it? One reads, for example, in Eph. iv. 25, "Wherefore putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor ; for we are members one of another." Then he reads the higher criticism on this Epistle, and is told that it was written by some- body a hundred years after the time of Paul,^ yet falsely ascribed to Paul by the writer. That is, the author who embodies in his epistle this forcible admonition to refrain from all falsehood is guilty of a wholesale falsehood in ascribing this admonition and all the rest of the epistle to a man who did not write it. Now calling this proceeding by the solemn-sounding name " pseud- epigraphy " does not change its essential character, or commend it to tlie simple conscience of a Christian. And the more he finds the tender and lofty Christian sentiments of tlie Epistle awakening a response in his own heart, the less will he be able to believe that one who could so well set forth Christian truth ^ See, e. g., Schwegler, Das nachapostolische Zeitalter, vol. ii. p. 4, and passim. 2 Scliwegler, I. c, finds clear evidence that the Epistle was written by a Mon- taiiibt. CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CKITKISM. 373 and duty could deliberately make himself guilty of the forgery and deception involved in the repeated ascription of the Epistle to Paul.^ Now, if it were a demonstrated fact that such a tiling had been done, we should have to admit it and make the best of it ; and one consequence would be the destruction of the canonical autliority of the Epistle. But so long as the proofs of alleged pseudonymousness are pure conjectures and subjective conceits,^ tliey will never be sufficient to outweigh the conviction of the Christian Church, — against which no historic evidence can be adduced, — that an epistle so full as this is of tlie Pauline spirit, and itself professing to be the work of Paul, cannot have been fraudulently ascribed to him. What has been said of the Tubingen theory of the origin of the New Testament must be said mutatis mutandis of its coun- terpart, the Kuenen-Wellhausen theory of the origin of the Old Testament. The literary and historical arguments on either side must be allowed free course ; and whatever is proved must be accepted as true. But here, as in the other case, mere subjective assumptions, and even plausible inferences, can never be suffi- cient to convince the great body of tlie Christian Church that the Scriptures in question are to a large extent fraudulent documents designed from the outset to deceive the reader respecting their authorship and respecting the course of sacred history. It must ^ Vide i. 1, iii. 1, iv. 1, vi. 20-22. But indeed the whole Epistle is mani- festly constructed with this reference. All the personal appeals and allusions (e.g., i. 15 sq., iii. 2-8, 13-19, iv. 17), are pointless and meaningless, unless they are meant to make the impression that Paul was the real author. "^ Thus Pfloiderer {^Der Paulinismus, pp. 432, 433) finds the question of the relation of Jews and heathen to Christ in this Epistle an entirely different one from what it had been in Paul's own time. At first, he says, it was neces- sary for Paul to contend for the equal rigiits of the heathen against Jewish exclusiveness ; but now, he adds, "it is the unchristian pride and uncharitable- ness of the Gentile Christians against which the author directs himself, reminding them of the greatness of tlie divine act of grace to which they owe their reception into the Messianic kingdom." Just as if Paul must alwfii/s be harping on one string; as if the various circumstaiicos and tendencies of his different readers could not lead him to emphasize tiic different sides of Cliristian truth; and, moreover, as if in the Epistle to the Romans Paul had not done precisely the same thing which Pflcidcrer finds to be a proof that he did not write tlie Epistle to the Ephesians. Fide Rom. xi. 17-25. 374 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. be remembered that any result attained by means of critical in- vestigation is at the best only made probable, however great the degree of probability may seem to be. And it is not mere bigoted "traditionalism " which sets against some of these alleged results the extreme improbability that any important part of the Old Testament became accepted by the Jewish people as authentic history or as divine law through the agency of falsification. True, we must make discriminations. We cannot say that fiction has no place in the Bible. The parables of our Lord are themselves fictions. We cannot say that no pseudonymous book can have place in the Canon, though at the most there is not more than one book (Ecclesiastes) admitted by anything like the general consent of scholars to belong to that class. It is note- worthy that the great mass of works of this sort, of which there were many, never found their way into the recognized Canon. But it has been asked, "Why should there not be some of these in the Old Testament? ... If one pseudoni/mc, for example, Ecclesiastes, be admitted in the Bible, then the question whether Daniel aud Deuteronomy are pseudonymes must be determined by the higher criticism, and it does not touch the question of their inspiration or authority as a part of the Scriptures at all." "The usage of literature," it is added, "ancient and modern, has established its propriety." ^ Stated in this general form, the question seems very simple and innocent. But there are some important distinctions to be made: (1) If the pseudonymous work is known to be such when it is published, there can be no moral objection to the assumption of a false name. No one is deceived, and no harm is done. (2) If the assumed name is that of a well-known person, it is especially important that it should be known that it is fictitiously ascribed to him. The vast preponderance of pseudonymous works bear names that are themselves fictitious. In this case it is of less importance that everybody should know that the name is feigned. When a novel first appeared as written by George Eliot, it might have been imagined by many that this was the real name of the author. But no harm was done so long as no one knew anything about a person of that name. If, however, the novel liad been falsely ' C. A. Briggs, Bi/jlicc// Sludj/. pp. 224, 225. CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CKITICIS.M. 375 ascribed to u wull-known persoua^'e, there would at ouce have been a nioial (luestiiju involved. If that persou had been living, so that he might possibly have l>eeu the author, then, whether the fictitious ascription was made with or without his knowledge and consent, in either case the act would have been morally re- prehensible.^ (o) There is a wide dillerence between a treatise of an ethical or philosophical character fictitiously ascribed to a well-known person, and a treatise of a legislative or historical character similarly ascribed. In either case tlie fiction is inex- cusable, if the design of it is to secure currency for the work by virtue of the fame of the reputed author. But mere gen- eral meditations or disquisitions, since their worth is intrinsic, being the same from whatever source they may have come, are none the less instructive for being attributed to another than the real author. But when the fictitiousness extends so far as to falsify history, and to foist in a new code of laws under the pretext that it is in reality an old code, the case is radically difierent. Take the case of Deuteronomy. If it first came into existence in the reign of Josiah, as the critical school in question holds, we have before us something quite else than a mere instance of pseudonymousness. The fiction respecting the authorship of the hool-, though bad enough, is of less account than the fiction re- specting the authorship and history of the laws contained in it. If the Book of Ecclesiastes was written centuries after the time of Solomon, then even if (as is not very probable) the author could have made the people believe it to be the work of Solo- mon, though never heard of before, still the belief in the Solo- monic authorship did not have, and was not designed to have, the effect of changing tlie popular notions concerning past his- tory, or of introducing a new code of laws. No one attempted on the strength of the deception to impose legal and ceremonial obligations on the peoi)le. Pseudepigraphy may be an innocent ^ Sir James Stephen (AW^.v /;/ Err/, /h'offrap/ii/, p. 290, 4tli ed.) mentions tlie case of Nicole, who wrote De la Perpetuiie de la Foi siir VEucharistie, but put it out under the name of his friend Arnauld, — "on the side of Arnauld," observes Stephen, " a literary and pious fraud which it is impossible to ex- cuse; " — and hardly more e.KCusable, we may add, ou the side of Nicole. 376 SUPERNATURAL RP:VELATR )i\. thing, if all that is done is merely the assumption of a fictitious name ; but if by means of the pseudepigraphy one undertakes to levy a tax, or raise an army, the thing is no longer a harmless freak, but becomes a criminal fraud. This illustrates what the " higher criticism " requires us to believe respecting Deuteron- omy. The ascription of the legislation in it to Moses was not a mere literary fiction ; it was (on the theory under consideration) a fiction whose object was the accomplishment of a practical end, namely, the introduction and enforcement of a new code of laws. Whoever wrote the book must have given it the form of a Mosaic production for tlie purpose of securing for it a sanction and a currency which otherwise it could not have had. If that was not the object, it had no intelligible object. And if the object was accomplished by the device of representing the legis- lation as ancient Mosaic legislation, then the procedure involved the essential elements of forgery and fraud.^ When, therefore, one asks, Why, if one pseudonyme (Ecclesiastes) be admitted in the Bible, may we not admit that Deuteronomy is another ? the answer may be given by asking, Why, if it was a harmless thing for Dickens to ascribe his novels to the fictitious " Boz," would it not also have been proper for him to forge an Act of Parliament and the royal signature ordering the introduction of the decimal system into the English currency ? He might have deemed the reform a desirable one ; and in view of the improba- bility that the government would institute it, he might have thought this the only feasible way of bringing it about. Of course we do not need to inquire whether it would have been possible for Dickens to carry sucli a scheme through, and really make the public and the officials of the Treasury and the Mint believe that such an act had been passed. In the analogous case of the Deuteronomic legislation the critics have decided that the thing was done ; we are now only inquiring into tlie moral character of it. It is true, the critics undertake to soften down, or explain away, the fraudulent character of the proceeding. Eobertson Smith indeed goes so far as to affirm that, though " the new ^ Cf. Dc;ui Perowiie, The Age of the Pentateuch (^Contemporary Recicw, 188S, p. 255). CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 377 laws of the Levitical code are preseuted as ordinances of Moses," yet, when they were first promulgated, " every one knew that they were nut so." ^ It was, he says, simply a case of " legal fiction." " All law was held to be derived from the teaching of Moses." ^ Therefore the new law had to be called Mosaic, though everybody knew that the appellation was a mere form!^ The above-quoted utterance of Professor Smith relates more directly to the Levitical code, which is supposed to have been promul- gated authoritatively by Ezra. He is not so explicit as to the Deuteronomic laws, though, if the principle is correct with reference to the Levitical code, it must be equally true with reference to the other. Is he less explicit for the reason that Deuteronomy is described as not proceeding from the king, or the priests, or any one in authority, but simply as a code of laws discovered ? The " legal fiction " theory, however plausible when applied to a new set of laws issued by an acknowledged ruler or leader, somehow has a different look when applied to this code which is described as unexpectedly " found " by the high-priest Hilkiah (2 Kings xxii. 8). According to the critics, no one knows where the book came from. Eobertson Smith is sure that Hilkiah did not compose it — not, however, because " I have found " evidently means something else than " I have written ; " but because the new law was less favorable to the exclusive privileges of the temple hierarchy than the previous usage had been.* All we can say is that the law turned up. ^ The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 387. 3 Ibid., p. 385. ' Dr. Dwiuell, iu his review of Professor Smith's later work, The Prophets of Israel {BihUotheca Sacra, 1884, p. 34i), seems to be mistaken, when he represents Professor Smith as implying that the Jews were originally deceived by the attribution of the new laws to Moses. — Warington (When was the Pentateuch written. '' ^. 111) makes a good point against the assumption that Moses* name was so great that all legislation must needs have been as- cribed to him : " Was (here, iu the limes when these frauds are said to have been put forth, such a widespread reverence for the name of Moses as would lead to the ready acceptance of any laws bearing his superscription ? If there was, it is certainly strange that Moses' name is so seldom found in the writings of the prophets ; there being iu fact but cue passage (Mai. iv. 4) where he is mentioned as giver of the law which the people are exhorted to obey." * Ihid., p. 36:2. This argument is, however, conclusive ouly on the assump- 378 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. " It was of no cousequeuce to Josiah," says Professor Smith, and " is of equally little consequence to us, to know the exact date and authorship of the book." ^ " Though the hook had no ex- ternal credentials, it bore its evidence within itself, and it was stamped with the approval of the prophetess Huldah." Con- sequently it " smote the hearts of the king and the people." ^ But it produced this effect on the king before it was referred to the prophetess for her opinion ; he "rent his clothes " (verse 11) as soon as he heard the book read, and was in great consterna- tion because the fathers of himself and of his people had " not hearkened unto the words of this book" (verse 13). If " it was of no consequence " to him to know when and by whom the book was written ; if, so far as he knew, it might have been (as some have conjectured) the work of Hilkiah himself, how should he have thought that Jehovah's anger was great because the fathers had not obeyed the book, — a book about which they could have known nothing ? It can hardly be doubted that this " legal fiction " theory is a pure invention, designed to make the doctrine concerning the origin of the Mosaic Code less objectionable to the Christian public. None of the other champions of the newer hypothesis seem to know anything about this '' fiction." Kuenen^ is very plain-spoken : " It is certain that an author of the seventh cen- tury B. c. — following in the footsteps of others, for example, of the writer of the Book of the Covenant — has made Moses him- self proclaim that which, in his opinion, it was expedient in the real interests of the Mosaic party to announce and introduce. . . . Men used to perpetrate such fictions without any qualms of con- science. . . . The author and his party cannot have mnde tlie execution of their programme depend upon a lucky accident. If Hilkiah /o?m^ the book in the temple, it was put there by the adherents of the Mosaic tendency. Or else Hilkiah was of their number, and in that case he pretended that he hnd found the book of the law. ... It is true, this deception is much more tion that anything like disinterestedness in Hilkiah is to be regarded as alto- gether out of the question. ^ The Old Tostamcnt in the Jewish Church, p. 363. 2 Ihid., p. 351. ^ Religion of Israel, vol. ii. pp. 18, 19. CONDITIONS AND LlMllS (JF HIHLICAJ. CIUTICISM. 3V'J iiujustifiable still thuii tlio introduction of Moses as speaking. 15 lit we must reflect here also that the ideas of those days were not the same as ours, but considerably less strict. ' Now or never ' the Mosaic party had to gain their end." Here then it is squarely avowed that the successful introduction of the new code, and the securing of Josiah's adoption of it, were the result of a bold artifice, a " deception," an end gained by " cunning," — a thing not to be wondered at, since " at all times and in all couutries faction and intestine quarrels have stifled delicacy in the choice of means." ^ Inasmuch as we find no trace in the Bible itself that either the Deuteronomic or the Lcvitical legislation was generally known to be ascribed to Moses only by a legal fiction; inasmuch as rulers and kings enacted new regulations without ever suggesting that their laws were Mosaic ; ^ inasmuch as it is certain that the laws in question were generally regarded as really the laws of Moses ; inasmuch as the narrative in '1 Kings xxii. itself plainly implies that the law there spoken of was either a genuine law of Moses or else one supposed to be such, — it is pretty plain that, if the book " found" by Hilkiah was a new book, it must have owed its successful introduction, not to a "legal fiction" which deceived nobody, but to an illegal fiction which deceived every- body, including the king himself, whose co-operation it was of the utmost importance to secure in carrying out the new " programme." '^ * Religion of Israel, vol. ii. p. 19. Riehm {Gesetzgebung Mosis im Lande Moab, pp. 112-111) likewise calls the procedure a " fiction." He excuses it. at first by the citation of the pscuclonyniy in Ecclesiastes ; but he recognizes the diirL-rcncc hptwccn this and a fiction whose object was "to secure autliority and recognition for the new kw-book," and tlierefore adds, "From our moral standpoint we cannot justify the proceeding of the Deuterononiist; in the light of the ' law of perfect liberty ' (James i. 25) it appears after all as somewhat dishonest \_unlauter]." He excuses the act, however, on the ground that the author undoubtedly regarded tne new legislation as in the spirit of Moses, " so t!iat Moses, if he had foreseen the future circumstances, would certainly have said the same tiling, and instituted tne same changes." But Kirhm had not discovered the " legal fiction " which everybody knew to be fiction ! ^ Cf. Prof. W. H. Green. Professor Robertson Smith on the Pentateuch, in Presbi/lerian Reciew, January, 1S82. ^ Deau Perovvne, The Age of the Pentateuch {Contemporary Review, 1888, 380 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. If any further proof of this be needed, it may be found in abundance in the form and setting both of the so-called Priestly Code and of Deuteronomy. They are both made to have all the appearance of laws enacted in the time of Moses himself. Not only are they ascribed to him, but they are interwoven with a history which connects it with that same period. The form of the laws is largely adapted only to the manner of life which Israel led while on the way from Egypt to Canaan.^ And when, as especially in Deuteronomy, the legislation is adapted to the more settled life of Palestine, it is still represented as a future condition.2 j^^ whatever time the books were composed, the intention must have been to give them the ajjpcarance Ctf having originated under Moses. The " legal fiction " of ascribing the laws to him did not require the invention of a historic set- ting which to the later generations could have had no use and no meaning, if it was tmderstood to he fictitious history. Especially pp. 255 sqq.), forcibly exposes the weakness of Professor Smith's assumption that it was " of no consequence " to Josiah or any one else where the new code came from. " Why did the mere fact of its coming as a Code give it a force which no prophetic utterance had ever possessed ? Why should a Book of Law, backed by the prophets, but without any external credentials, work a revolution which centuries of prophetic teaching had failed to work ? " ^ In Leviticus the ceremonial precepts are all connected with " the tent of meeting" and with camp life. Cf. i. 1-5, iii. 2, iv. 4, 12, vi. 11, etc. 2 E. ff., Deut. xii. 21, 29, xiii. 12, xvi. 2, xix. 1, etc. There is no ques- tion that the general coloring of the book is that of the Mosaic times. When Robertson Smith (1. c p. 352) and others lay stress on the language of Deut. xii. 8, " Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes," as proving that the book must have been composed with reference to the times of Manasseh, they are obliged to assume that such an expression (as this in xii. 8) was not applicable to the times of Moses, and therefore must have cre]:)t into the code through an inadvertence, since the evident effort and design was to give the laws the appearance of having been issued by Moses. These same critics all assume the post-exilic date of Isa. xl.-lxvi., and make short work with the argument of those wlio oppose to their tlieory the fact that a few passages (such as xliii. 22-24) seem to imply that the temple worship is not suspended. But if the fact that Isa. xl.-lxvi. in general has the coloring of the time of the exile is made to overbear the force of a few passages which seem to fit an ear- lier period, why should not the same rule be equally valid as proving that Deuteronomy belongs to the Mosaic period? CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OK BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 381 monstrous is the supposition which the Kuenen-Wellhauseu tlieorv stoutly maintains, that the whole detailed description of the tabernacle is a pure invention of the author or authors of the Priestly Code — no such tabernacle having ever been made. That is, we are asked to believe that, after the return from the captivity, a new ritual was introduced, designed for temple worship at Jerusalem, but studiously worded so as to be strictly appropriate only to the nomadic life of the wilderness and to a house of worship which never existed except in tlie laboiiously idle fancy of the authors of the new code. If "every one knew," as Kobertson Smith would have us believe, that all this elaborate description of the tabernacle was only a part of the legal fiction, it is difficult to say who were the greater fools, the men who spent their time, ink, and parchment in describing this never- existent tabernacle, or the men who so readily submitted to the legislation of those who by this display of senseless ingenuity had effectually proved their unfitness to issue laws for national observance. But we have wasted too many words on this fiction of a "legal fiction." It is doubtful whether Eobertson Smith him- self adheres to it any longer. There is no consistent ground for the advocates of the new hypothesis to take but this : that the promulgators of the new codes studiously gave them the /orm of Mosaic laws in order to secure their acceptance and observ- ance on the part of the people ; in other words, that they prac- tised downright fraud in order to gain their " pious " purpose. We will not dwell on the critical difficulties which this theory of the " higher criticism " involves ; they are many and weighty, and have been ably set forth.^ Wiiat we here insist on is that, * See especially W. H. Green, Moses and the Prophets, and The Jewish Feasts; E. C. Bissell, The Pentateuch, its Origin and Structure; G. Vos, The Mosaic Origin of the Pentateuchal Codes; R. P. Smith, Introduction to the Pentateuch, in Coinm. on Genesis (Ellicott's Old Testament Vommenfar;/), and Mosaic Autliorship and CrediljilUi/ of the Pentateuch {Present Bay Tracts, No. 15); F. Watson, The Law and the Prophets; G. Warington, When was the Pentateuch Written I' \ H. A. Strack, art. Pentateuch, in Herzog's Rcalency- clopddie, 2d ed. ; F. Delitzsch, Pentatcuch-kritische Studien in Zeitsch rift fir kirchliche Wissenschaft nnd Virchliches L^tien, 18S0 ; F. E. Konig, Haupt- probleme der altisraelitischen Religionsgeschichte, lS8i ; the same translated : 382 SUPERNATURAL liEVELATION, in any discussion of the question of the age and character of the Old Testament books, the inherent probability or improb- ability of deliberate deception having been resorted to in order to secure the ad(jption of certain books of law and history is one of the elements to be taken account of by the higher criti- cism. This criticism deals very largely in speculations, in prob- abilities, in combinations ; indeed it consists almost wholly in these things. It cannot claim for itself more than that it makes out a high degree of probability for its liypotheses. But if it is legitimate, in defense of their theses, for the critics to indulge in speculations, and to conjecture wl|at under given circum- stances must have been inherently probable ; if, for example, it is legitimate to argue that it is, psychologically and historically considered, unlikely that the Pentateuchal codes in their fuller form could, if of Mosaic origin, have ever become so neglected or even forgotten as the rare and dubious allusions to them in the liistoric books would seem to indicate, then it is equally legitimate to reason that, from a psychological and historical point of view, it is in the highest degree unlikely that a new code could have been introduced and enforced on the strength of a false allegation that it was really an old code. If the former argumen- tation, then surely no less the latter, has a place in the domain of the " higher criticism." It has this place even if we treat Hebrew history as profane history ; it has it all the more, if we hold that that history was sliaped by special supernatural guidance. Let us not be misunderstood. It is perfectly proper for scholars to examine the Scriptures, and to investigate the ques- tion of their composition, with the utmost freedom and thorough- ness. The more of this research there is, the better. Nothing but good can come from whatever facts can be discovered re- specting the origin and characteristics of the Bible. Even though old impressions may be contradicted, no harm can ensue. No truth is intrinsically injurious. If it is true that Genesis is Thf Rr'lif/iouii Million/ 0/ /swe/, Edinburgli, 1885; C. J! Bredenkamp, Gesetz uml PropJieten, 1881 ; J. .7. S. Perowne, Tli^ Age of the Pentateuch (Contempo- rary Review, 188S). The time has certainly not come for assuming the new hypotliesis as estal)Iislie(l, and attempting to popularize it, as is done by Prof. C. H. Toy, in The Hktory of I lie Relit/ion of Israel, Boston, 1883. CONDITIONS AND LIMITS (iF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 383 made up of two or more documents woven together ; if it is true that not all of the Pentateuch, or even that the smaller part of it, was committed to writing by Moses himself, — what reason is there for hesitating to accept these results of critical research ? Nothing of real value is lost by the admission. There is noth- ing in the Bible itself which would be contradicted by such discoveries. Even though tlie new doctrine on these points be only made strongly probable, and by no means certain, there is no reason wliy it may not be adopted. The adoption does not involve any impeachment of tlie divine veracity ; it does not conilict with any statement in the Pentateuch itself. Questions of date and authorship, of editorial arrangement and super- scription, of mistakes in transcription, of intentional or unin- tentional interpolations, and other like questions often can be settled only by critical investigation. Traditional opinions on these matters have at the most only the presumption in tlieir favor ; they have no prescriptive right to hold the field against the force of clear evidence. Christians may honestly differ on the question whether the traditional views have in any particular case been really overthrown ; but the new views which critics advocate can be successfully opposed only by critical weapons. And even when the dispute relates to alleged forgery and deliberate falsification of history, the defenders of the genu- ineness and credibility of the portions of the Bible thus assailed do well to meet critical attack M'itli critical defense. The defense is most satisfactory when it repulses the enemy on his own chosen ground. But it does not follow that if, on that ground, the result of the conflict may at the best appear to be somewhat doubtful, the Christian believer is to yield up his cherished faith. No; there is another weapon which he may and will use, and cannot be made to surrender : he will maintain an unconquerable conviction that God cannot have allowed the record of his revelation to be adulterated and vitiated by fraud and forgery. Christian insiglit and feeling have a validity of their own. He to whom the Gospel of John has been his choicest spiritual food may rejoice to see the fierce assaults that have been made upon its genuineness and authenticity over- come by critical weapons. But even without these that Gospel 384 SUPERNATURAL REVELATION, would doubtless hold its position as a genuine and authentic work, by virtue of that Christian judgment which instinctively rejects the allegation that it is a " cunningly-devised fable," skilfully simulating the appearance of being the work of John, though in fact the work of some unknown man living at least half a century after John was dead. By this it is not meant that there is in the ordinary Christian a "critical feeling" which enables him to settle intuitively all questions of author- ship and authenticity that may be raised. The meaning simply is that, the truth and divine authority of Christianity being to the Christian world an established fact, hypotheses which ex- plicitly or implicitly involve the rejection of this fundamen- tal conviction must be a priori rejected. Cliristians can- not be forever re-examining the foundations of their faith. It may indeed be held that Christianity is not identical vsrith the Biblical books, and that therefore many of these may be acknowledged to be spurious or unauthentic, while yet the essential truths of Christianity are retained. But no one can ever know what the essential truths of Christianity are, if all the records of its origin are liable to be pronounced, one after the otlier, a work of the imagination. If the Christian religion is assumed to be divine, then whatever allegations are made requiring us to believe that the Christian Church and the Chris- tian Scriptures owe the commanding position they have ac- quired to fraud, whether pious or impious, — no matter how ingeniously or plausibly the allegations may be sustained, the Christian may, without bigotry and witli the soundest reason, reply, " I will not believe it." For at the most the attacks on the genuineness of the canonical books never have succeeded, and never will succeed, in establishing anything more than a greater or less degree of prohabilitij tliat fraud and forgery have played a part in determining the contents of the Scriptural Canon. Over against this probability will always stand, in tlie Christian mind, the still greater probability that God would not have allowed his Church to make the work of deceivers a part of its permanent canon of faith and practice, and that Jesus Clirist would not have set i;pon such fraud the stamp of his endorsement. For the ugly fact cannot be winked out of sight, or in any CONDITIONS AND LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 885 way be got rid of, that if the theory is correct which is often boastfully said to have secured the assent of all the scholars ^ whose opinion is worth anything, tlien Christ is made to ratify, as of divine authority, a book which according to the theory is largely a work of forgery and falsification of history. It makes little difference whether his ratification of the divine autliority of the Old Testament is supposed to have been given in ignorance of the facts which the critics think they have brought to light, or whether he endorsed the book as divine, altliougli knowing that it was, to a great extent, fraudulent and fictitious. In either case an assumption is made respecting the Redeemer which the ordinary and healthy instinct of the Christian will unhesitatingly repudiate. The critics themselves may in some cases attempt to combine the holding of their hypothesis with a genuine faith in Christ as the Mediator and Saviour. But they can do so only by a process of mind similar to that of Pomponatius, Cesalpini, and other philosophers of the Italian Renaissance, who are said to have undertaken to dis- tinguish between truths of philosophy and truths of faith in such a way that both could be held, though in direct collision with one another.^ The common mind cannot satisfy itself by any such self-mystification. The course of reasoning it will adopt is short, but conclusive ; If Jesus was either so ignorant as not to know that the Scriptures to which he ascribed divine authority were vitiated by fraud, or so unscrupulous as to endorse them although he knew of the fraud, then he cannot be the Truth, the Way, and the Life. But we are sure that in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge, and that therefore he cannot have been either thus ignorant or thus imscrupulous ; consequently we cannot and will not believe any one who pretends to have discovered that the Bible is full of fictitious history, fraudulent legislation, and supposititious homilies. We have not so learned Christ. ^ All the younger scliolars, it is often remarked, as if that were a special recomnicudatiou of the theory. 2 Cf. Cousin, llifttory of Modern Philoftoph;/, vol. ii. p. 51 (Wight's trans- lation) ; Ritter, Die ehristlicke Philosophie, vol. ii. pp. 35 sqq. Hitter, liowever, questions the justice of the charge that Pomponatius was hypocritical in assenting to the Christian faith. 25 APPENDIX. APPENDIX. • EXCURSUS U DR. MAUDSLEY ON THE VALIDITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. "r\R. MAUDSLEY '' says, " If you would know what is the ■"-^ positive value of the direct deliverances of an individual consciousness, you must compare with it the deliverances of con- sciousness in other persons ; it must be supplemented and corrected by these aids in the social organism, as one sense is supplemented and corrected by another sense in the bodily organism." Again he says : ' "A logical inference, the perception of a general law, a mathematical demonstration, the certainty of an arithmetical calculation, the confidence of each daily action among men and things, the understanding of another's language and the certainty that mine in turn will be understood, — all these appeal, as it were, to some certainty in which is more than myself. It is the common mind of the race in me, which belongs to me as to one of my kind, — the common sense of mankind, if you will. Because the khid is in me and I am a living element of it, I cannot help silently acknowledging its rules and sanctions. There is no rule to distinguish between true and false but the common judgment of mankind, no rule to distinguish between virtue and vice but the common feeling of mankind. Wherefore the truth of one age is the fable of the next, the virtue of one epoch or nation the vice of another epoch or nation, and tlie individual that is deranged has his private truth-standard that is utterly false." Again : ^ "To descant upon the self-sufficiency of an individual's self-consciousness is hardly more reasonable than it would be to descant upon the self-sufficiency of a single sense. The authority of direct personal intuition is the author- ity of the lunatic's direct intuition that he is the Messiah ; the vagaries of whose mad thoughts cannot be rectified until he can 1 See p. 11. 2 jjoofy and Will, p. 40. 8 Ibid., pp. 41, 42. * Ibid., p. 44. 390 APPENDIX. be got to abandon his isolating self-sufficiency and to place confidence in the assurances and acts of others." This is sufficiently emphatic, and seems to coincide substantially with what we have laid down as to the importance and indispen- sableness of the corroborative testimony of other men in order to perfect confidence in our individual experiences. But under- neath these strong affirmations lies the tacit assumption that the individual has somehow become assured that^ there are other persons, and that these other persons are trustivorthy. This conviction must be antecedent to the use which is made of the corroborative testimony of these fellow-beings. The individual must first be sure of the reality of these beings before he can accept their testimony. The question, then, cannot but be raised whether here at least we must not hold to the "self-sufficiency of an individual's self-consciousness." If this self-consciousness which makes known to us our fellow- beings is not self-sufficient, but needs to be confirmed or rectified by the consciousness of others, there is absolutely no escape from the circle ; there will never be any assured knowledge at all. For according to the supposition, in order to get the needed corroborative or corrective testimony, we must first be assured of the reality of the witnesses ; and if we must have the testimony of others in order to assure us of the reality of the witnesses, then we must have what, according to the supposition, we cannot get. There must be somewhere an immediate, in- tuitive, self-sufficient cognition ; if not, the child can never get beyond having an experience of sensations about the correctness or the meaning of which he has no knowledge. This power of coming to the knowledge of other persons — a power implied in all psychological theories — is, when distinctly seen and recognized, fatal both to pure idealism and to pure ma- terialism. Maudsley himself puts vigorously the dilemma of the idealist : ' "If there be a world of consciousness external to me, and if the only reality be in consciousness, then my real exist- ence to another person is in his consciousness, — that is, external to myself ; and his real existence to me in like manner in my consciousness, — that is, external to him. But where does he get his consciousnesss of me, seeing that he can't get at my con- sciousness, which is the only real me ; and where do I get con- sciousness of him, seeing that I can't get at his consciousness ? 1 Body and Will, pp. 53, 54. THE VALIDITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 391 He has got my real existence in him, and I have got his real ex- istence in me, notwithstanding that we have not the least power of getting at one another's consciousnesses, which are the only- realities. All which is a triumph of philosophy, or a reductio ad absurdum, according to the light in which one elects to view it." AH very good, as a refutation of pure idealism. And yet ideal- ism has every way the advantage of pure materialism, and in some relations seems even to have the advantage of every other system. For it rests on the reality of consciousness, as the one absolutely irrefutable fact ; the reality of the outward world can be doubted, whereas the reality of the modifications of conscious- ness cannot be. But idealism rigidly carried out makes it impos- sible for one mind to recognize the reality of another. For such recognition, as men are now constituted, can take place only through the medium of the body. We can become aware of other minds only by becoming aware, first, of bodies external to ourselves. The mind is inferred from the bodily manifestations. If, therefore, these bodies are merely the affections of our minds, their esse being only a jjercijri, then a fortiori the minds which seem to animate those bodies have no objective existence. And so each man, according to strict idealism, must regard his own consciousness as the only real thing. But this reduces the whole theory to pure absurdity.^ 1 Berkeley {Principles of Human Knowledge, sect. 145) touches very lightly on this point, hardly appearing to anticipate that any one could regard it as involving any difficulty. He says : " It is plain that we cannot know the existence of other spirits otherwise than by their operations, or the ideas by them excited in us. I perceive several motions, changes, aud combinations of ideas, that inform me there are certain particular agents, like myself, which accompany them and concur in their production. Hence the knowledge I have of other spirits is not immediate, as is the knowledge of my ideas ; but depending on the intervention of ideas, by me referred to agents or spirits distinct from myself, as effects or concomitant signs." But this is a very inade- quate explanation on Berkeley's own theory. According to him, things are nothing but ideas, that is, sensations. Even the brain " exists only in the mind " (^Second Dialogue between Ili/las and riiilonous. Works, vol. i. p. 301, Frazer's ed.). ^Vhatever we per- ceive exists only as it is perceived. Consequently what one calls the bodies of other men can exist only in one's own mind. At the best, one can only distingtiisii between the vague, irregular im|)rcssions of dreams or arbitrary fancies and the involuntary im- pressions which arc commonly conceived as produced by external nature. This differ- ence leads Berkeley to argue that the involuntary and orderly impressions, since we arc conscious of not producing them, must be produced by another will, namely, God's. So far his argument is valid enough. But it amounts only to this : that the subjective impressions are caused by an external power, or will ; it does not prove that there is any APPENDIX. But, on the other hand, how is materialism affected by this same fact of the mutual recognition of minds ? The strict materialist comes, only by a different process, to substantially the same result reality correspouding to these impressions; still less does it pi-ove that these ideas, or things, exist to the miud of God in the sense of being perceived by him. Yet this is Berkeley's constant assumption: Things exist only as perceptions; esse est percipi. Consequently, he says, these objects of pei-ception must be perceived by God, and in this sense are real. But obviously there is a fallacy here. Our perception is gained by means of the various senses ; Berkeley says that when several ideas accompany one another, they come to be marked by one name, as apple, stone, etc. (sect. 1, Principles). Here is a double assumption : (1) A distinction of senses is assumed — of sight, smell, hearing, etc., as if the organs of these senses were distinct realities. Consistency requires him to say, " My eye exists only in my mind ; also colors exist only in my mind. AU that I know about them is that I have an impression of them. But I have no right to speak as if my eye perceived colors, or even as if my mind through my eye, perceived colors." But (2) it is assumed that, though things exist only as they are perceived, it is not necessary to suppose them to go out of existence every time they are unperceived by any finite mind, since God perceives them constantly. But evidently this is a pure assumption. According to the main hypothesis a thing is only as it is perceived. The persistency and involuntarincss of the perception lead to the assump- tion of an outward, divine power which causes the perception. But that is a very dif- ferent thing from a divine being perceiving the same things, and perceiving them constantly. The fact that I perceive may indicate that I am caused to perceive ; but when one says that therefore the causer perceives the same things, and perceives them when no other being is perceiving them, there is a manifest non sequitur. Moreover, the human perception is inferred not to be a mere illusion only from the fact of its in- voluntarincss. Consistency then would require that the divine perception be also invol- untary. But this would imply the absolute existence of the perceived objects. But to come to the question of other finite spirits. Their existence is inferred, says Berkeley, from certain motions, changes, and combinations of ideas. But how are we to determine which of these are caused by finite spirits, and which by the Divine Spirit? His only solution is simply in the assertion (sect. 146) that "though there be some things which convince us human agents are concerned in producing them, yet it is evident to every one that those things which are called the Works of Nature, that is, the far greater part of the ideas or sensations perceived by us, are not produced by, or dependent on, the wills of men. There is, therefore, some other Spirit that causes them." This is quite astonishing. On his ground there is no warrant for distinguish- ing between different kinds of outward agents. One can only be sure that his own will is not the cause of all his ideas. He can never be sure that other beings like himself, as distinguished from an omnipotent and universal agent, cause those ideas. On his theory no idea, i. e. perceived object, can produce effects. Only the will does this. Consequently one cannot at the best know more than that certain motions, etc., are per- ceived in appai'cnt connection with certain bodies. That a will is connected with the body, as the cause of the motions, cannot be inferred. But even if it could be, the per- ception of other human beings would thus be made a matter of inference of which only a comparatively mature mind is capable ; whereas the perception is in fact one of the very earliest experiences of the infant. THE VALIDITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 393 as the strict idealist. Instead of positing an immaterial mind as the organ of oonsoiousness, he posits a material organism, and assumes that one of its functions is to think — to conceive of a universe of material objects of various forms and characteristics as existing around it. But Dr. Maudsley himself assures us that this individual conception is of no value until it has been supple- mented and corrected by that of other consciousnesses. " My subjective states," he says,^ "are to be appraised by another's objective observation of them in their modes of outward expres- sion, as his subjective states are to be appraised by my objective observation of them." The individual organism, therefore, can only be sure of its own impressions ; whether an objective reality corresponds to those impressions is, in itself, quite a matter of uncertainty, — until this organism has learned, that other organ- isms have the same experience. But here there presents itself again the same dilemma as before : How is the man in question, in the first place, ever to be sure of the fact that there is another organism like his own ? He has certain sensations, certain im- pressions concerning other beings like himself ; but, according to the theory maintained, those are mere impressions, having no authoritative value until confirmed by the impressions of those same other organisms. That is, I cannot be sure that other men really exist, until I know that they tell me that they exist. But how can I ever know that they tell me so, unless I am first con- vinced that they are real beings ? The testimony of a being of doubtful reality must necessarily be testimony of doubtful value. And so on this theory one must be forever precluded from ever coming to a state of assured conviction about anything. But Maudsley calmly assures us,^ that " the worth of the testimony of consciousness as to an external world may well be greater than the worth of its subjective testimony, since it is pretty certain that the consciousnesses of other persons, and the consciousnesses of animals, in so far as they are similarly constituted, give the same kind of evidence." In short, he quietly takes for granted the very thing which his theory makes inadmissible and impossible ; he assumes that, in spite of the utter untrustworthiness of the individual consciousness, it has nevertheless, all by itself, become certain, not only of the reality of other men, but also of the reality of their consciousness, — and not only this, but also of the fact that their consciousnesses coincide with his own! 1 Bodif and Will, pp. 40, 41. 2 /^/aj.^ p. 52. 394 APPENDIX. Here we have precisely the same dilemma into which Maudsley crowds the idealist. In fact, idealism and materialism easily pass into each other. In the one case the individual is con- ceived as thinking mind, in the other as thinking matter, — in both cases as a conscious unit, able to think of itself and to re- ceive sensations. But in either case there is an impassable gulf between the mere fact of sensation or consciousness and the assurance that there is an external world distinct from the con- scious individual. The idealist may be content to infer a material world from his conscious sensations, or he may deny that there is any such thing as a material world ; in either case he denies that we directly k7iow anything about a world of matter. Just so the consistent materialist finds himself debarred from any certain knowledge of anything but his own impressions. It makes no difference with the real problem, when he assumes that the perci- pient or thinking agent is a material organism, and not an imma- terial mind. There is precisely the same difficulty — the same impossibility — which the idealist has in getting over the gulf which separates the conscious individual from the rest of the world. In either case it is only by an illogical leap — a salto mortale — that the philosopher comes to his belief and assurance that he is in the midst of a world of beings like himself. But the materialistic theory has still further difficulties to en- counter. There is not merely the preliminary one, that the in- dividual sentient organism has legitimately no way of learning that there is an external world in general, or in particular that there are other material organisms like his own ; there is the further difficulty, that he can still less assuredly learn that other organisms are sentient and conscious like himself. Let it be assumed that I can somehow become cognizant of the real exist- ence of an outward world, and, in that world, of organic as dis- tinguished from inorganic, bodies ; I am still far from an assured knowledge that any of these organisms think and feel as I do. In order to get such a knowledge, I must be able to communi- cate witli them by means of some sort of languarje} Without this there is an absolutely impassable barrier between the two organisms. Even though they be assumed to be cognizant of one ^ In this argument it is not overlooked that brutes communicate with one another, though they have no language in the ordinary sense of the word. But they do have a sort of language ; by means of sounds and visible signs they make themselves under- stood to cue another. THE VALIDITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 395 another, they cannot compare their cognitions, and thus corrobo- rate one another's impressions of things, unless they can exchange thoughts in mutually intelligible language. But language is essentially and purely a mental product and agent. Whatever our definition of mind may be, even though it be pronounced to be noth- ing but thinking matter, language has no relation to it except as it is a thinking thing. There is no inherent and necessary corre- spondence between words and things. The same thing is desig- nated in different languages by the most diverse terms; and all alike appear to be entirely arbitrary. Always and everywhere lan- guage is the product and expression of conceptions, — of mental states. The language may consist simply in physical gestures ; but the meaning of it concerns that which cannot be discerned by any of the senses. A thought cannot be seen, heard, felt, tasted, or smelt. How does the organism come to recognize the meaning of these apparently arbitrary symbols ? How can the " hemispheri- cal ganglia " of one body, by means of a word or a visible sign, become aware of what is going on in the " motor centres " of another body ? Let it be supposed to have been made ever so clear how a particular organism can come to have mental experi- ences by virtue of " specialization " and " integration ; " let it be conceded that by " the education of the motor centres " the or- ganism becomes able to form mental conceptions ever so refined. Yet the mystery is still unsolved, how these conceptions can be communicated by one organism to another, — how the other organism, which can by no possibility see the "motor nerves'" or " the mind-centres " which do the thinking or the willing, can yet learn what the thinking is about. Dr. Maudsley says : " Few persons, perhaps, consider what a wonderful art speech is, or even remember that it is an art which we acquire. But it actually costs us a great deal of pains to learn to speak ; all the language which an infant has is a cry ; and it is only because we begin to learn to talk when we are very young, and are constantly prac- tising, that we forget how specially we have had to educate our motor centres of speech."^ Very true; and perhaps it may be added that Dr. Maudsley himself has failed to grasp the true wonderfulness of speech. He recognizes indeed that each word has ''no independent vitality," and is even "nothing more than a conventional sign or symbol to mark the particular muscular expression of a particular idea." ^ The real marvel, however, is * Body and Mind, p. 25. ^ Ibid., p. 26. 396 APPENDIX. not in the fact that children have to learn language by a laborious process; the marvel is — especially on the materialistic theory — liow they ever learn at all, or, supposing that they can learn, as parrots can, that they come to understand what these words really represent in the minds of their teachers. They are conventional signs, Maudsley says ; but how did these mechanical organisms, every motion of which is determined by rigid natural forces, ever come to af/)^ee to make these arbitrary signs have certain mean- ings ? Maudsley says that these articulate signs came to be so used simply because they are the most " convenient for the expression of our mental states." This is very true ; but it does not explain how they come to be understood as the expression of mental states. The real mystery, quite overlooked by the ma- terialistic explanation, is in the possibility of the communication between two " mind-centres," — the possibility of agreeing to make certain arbitrary sounds the representatives of mental states. Even though one of the material organisms may be sup- posed to be determined by some occult natural force to connect a certain sound with a certain object ; yet this does not explain how another organism comes to understand what object is repre- sented by that sound. In short, the recognition of -personality in beings other than ourselves must precede our understanding of their language.-^ Otherwise all their words and gestures would have no more meaning to us than the moaning and swaying of trees in the wind or the dashing and babbling of a brook. ^ " It may be questioned whether this [power to recognize personality other than our own] is to be accounted for without postulating the existence of a higher kind of instinctive intelligence than that which is needed for the recognition of an external world." — Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, p. 150. THE COSMIC I'HlLUSUrHY. 397 EXCURSUS lU THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. lY/rODERN evolutionists cannot all be indiscriminately put ^^^ into one category. Many of them are genuine theists and Christians. Others are unmitigated atheists and materialists ; ^ while still others, though radically opposed to the characteristic doctrines of Christian theism, yet repudiate with indignation both these names, and are scarcely more willing to be called pantheists.^ It is easy here to fall into logomachy. The dis- tinction between atheism and pantheism is itself hard to draw. But now we have to deal with those who, while holding views which would commonly be called pantheistic, if not atheistic, strenuously insist that they are the only true theists. . So, for example, Mr. Fiske,* who emphatically denies that the Absolute Being can be personal (an attribute commonly supposed to char- acterize the God of the tlieist), and maintains that every other form of theism than his own is beset with insoluble difficulties. What now is his doctrine ? " Our choice," he says,^ " is no longer between an intelligent Deity and none at all ; it lies be- tween a limited Deity and one that is without limit." The necessary inference from this is that the Deity is not intelligent. An " infinite I'erson " is expressly declared to be as unthinkable as a "circular triangle." "Anthropomorphic Theism" is the name given to the ordinary theism ; but in place of it is put a theism Avhich affirms a Being who, though not a person, is as much higher than Humanity as the heavens are higher than the earth.® Ii> this Mr. Fiske is a faithful follower of Mr. Spencer, who asks us,' "Is it not just possible that there is a mode of being as much transcending Intelligence and Will as these tran- scend mechanical motion ? It is true that we are totally unable to conceive any such higher mode of being. But this is not a 1 See p. 33. ^ Such as Carl Voiit, Moleschott, Biichner. Professor Flint (Anti-t/ieistic Theories, Lect. iv.) calls Mr. Spencer and his followers materialists. ' E. g,, John Fiske, Cosmic Philosoplii/, vol. ii. p. 423. * Ibid., p. 408. 5 Ibid. « Ibid., p. 451. ' First Principles. § 31. 398 APPENDIX. reason for questioning its existence ; it is rather the reverse." But further : Mr. Fiske ^ is very sure that, '' if goodness and intelligence are to be ascribed to the Deity, it must be goodness and intelligence of which we have some rudimentary knowledge as manifested in humanity ; otherwise our hypothesis is unmean- ing verbiage." And then he goes on to affirm that it is impos- sible to ascribe goodness to a Being of infinite power and fore- knowledge who should have created such a world of suffering as our world is. "As soon as we seek to go beyond the process of evolution disclosed by science, and posit an external Agency which is in the slightest degree anthropomorphic, we are obliged to supplement and limit this Agency by a second one that is dia- bolic, or else to include elements of diabolism in the character of the first Agency itself." Plainly all this means that the Abso- lute Being is not intelligent, and is not moral in any sense that would not be "unmeaning verbiage." But in the same book, at a later point,^ he says that the " Inscrutable Power" may "be pos- sibly regarded as quasi-psychical." In another book he leaves sometimes the " quasi " off, and calls the Infinite Power simply " psychical," ^ and moreover affirms that " we know, however the words may stumble in which we try to say it, that God is in the deepest sense a moral being." * Accordingly we are to under- stand that God is not intelligent, but is psychical ; he is not good, but he is moral ! ^ To be sure, the author takes pains to say that God's psychical nature is not, and cannot be, just like ours — in which all Christian philosophers will cordially agree with him. But what then becomes of his assertion that, if we retain the slightest degree of anthropomorphism, we cannot help making God either diabolic or finite ? For he now says expressly that "we can never get entirely rid of all traces of anthropomor- 1 Cosmic Fhilosophy, vol. ii. pp. 406, 407. ^ Ibid., pp. 448, 449. ' Idea of God, Preface, p. xxiv, and p. 155. * Ibid., p. 167- ^ It is to be presumed that, in ascribing psychicalness, and denying intelligence, to the Unknown Force, Spencerians mean something ; but it would be well if they would tell what they mean. If we are to judge from etymology and usage, the term "psychi- cal," if it is to be applied to any unintelligent being, must denote a constitution some- what like that of the lower animals, which have life (a ^vxh) and a sort of unconscious impulse which faintly resembles intelligence. Is then the Deity really conceived as intellectually a sort of magnified polyp ? If not, and if yet the Absolute Power is declared to be without consciousness (z^irf^H. Spencer, Ecclesiastical Institutions, § 658, where this is elaborately argued), then to call that Power "psychical" is to use phrase- ology which has a philosophical sound, but which is absolutely meaningless. THE COSMIC rillLOSOPHY. 390 phism," ' and that " to every form of theism ... an anthropo- niori)hic element is indispensable.'^ Furthermore, while the teleo- logical arguments of Paley are scouted as entirely fallacious, he yet says that the " craving after a final cause " is " an essential ele- ment in man's religious nature," and " that there is a reasonable- ness in the universe, that in the orderly sequence of events there is a meaning which appeals to our human intelligence.^ He avows his belief in the immortality of the soul " as a supreme act of faith in the reasonableness of God's work," and because to deny this persistence of the spiritual element in man " is to rob the whole process [of evolution] of its meaning." * So then God's work has a ^^jneani fir/ which appeals to our intelligence ;" yet God is himself not intelligent ! Now, when we have to judge of the theory of a man who thus states it in contradictory propositions, it is somewhat difficult to be sure of the correctness of our judgment. If, when he calls the Absolute Power " psychical " and " moral," he means what the words seem necessarily to mean, then he holds to the personality of God ; and we have no further controversy with him. But if he means by these terms nothing at all which implies a conscious personality working with a conscious purpose ; if his real mean- ing is that God is not intelligent in any intelligible sense, that he is not good in any human sense of goodness, — why, then we must deny to him the name of theist in any sense that would not be " unmeaning verbiage." But without undertaking to solve these contradictions, let us consider the implications and consequences of the system in general, in so far as it relates to our main purpose. One thing is certain : Evolutionists of the Spencerian type do not believe in a creation, — in an absolute commencement of the material uni- verse. "The Doctrine of Evolution is throughout irreconcilably opposed to the Doctrine of Creation ; " ^ so that, although the ^ Cosmic Philosophij, vol. ii. p. 449. 2 Idea of GofI, p. 135. « Ibid., p. 156. * Destiny of Man, p. 115. It might be, and indeed has been, thought that in these later works Mr. Fiske has made an advance towards belief in a personal God; but he himself, in the preface of the one last i)ublished ^Idea of God), expressly denies that in that respect he has any new view. He only acknowledges that in the Cosmic P/ii/oso- phi/s theistic theory he did not adequately evolve what was involved, namely, the teleo- logieal element indicated by man's place in nature (p. xxii). * Fiske, Cosmic r/iilosoj)/iy, vol. ii. p. 376. 400 APPENDIX. notion of the eternity of matter may be called unthinkable/ yet there is no alternative but to believe that matter never had a beginning. This is the assumption that underlies the system. The persistence of Force, which is assumed as an axiom, is only another expression for the same idea. Matter indestructible, Force persistent, — this means that there never has been, and never will be, any diminution in the amount of the material universe. A sort of distinction may be made between Force and Matter, — Force being called "the ultimate of ultimates," and Matter " the differently conditioned manifestations of Force." ^ That is, Force is the really objective thing ; Matter is the phe- nomenal form which Force assumes to the cognitive individual. Force is the Unknown Cause, Matter the perceived effect. But a distinction is again made, and " Force, as we know it," we are told, " can be regarded only as a certain conditioned effect of the Unconditioned Cause. . . . We are irresistibly compelled by the relativity of our thought vaguely to conceive some unknown force as the correlative of the known force." ^ That is, matter and known force are one and the same thing ; but we are obliged to postulate an unknown force as corresponding to the phe- nomena, or as producing them. Now it makes no essential difference, whether we say, with Spencer, that this unknown Force is the ultimate producer of the visible universe, or, with Tyndall,* that Matter itself is " the promise and potency of every form and quality of life." The upshot is the same : An unintelligent, unconscious agent is made the ultimate cause of all the palpable world of things, events, and persons. So long as the Absolute Force is assumed to be without intelligence and will, the difference between Force and Matter is a mere metaphysical difference ; it is only the differ- ence which divides physicists into the two groups of atomists and dynamists. If, as the latter hold, matter is nothing but force, then to hold that Force is the Ultimate and Absolute Eeality is no less correctly to be called materialism than that doctrine which pronounces Matter to be the Fundamental Reality, provided in both cases this Absolute or Fundamental Reality is declared to be unconscious and impersonal. If the Spencerian sticks consistently to this ground, then, though he may repudiate 1 H. Spencer, First Principles, p. 31. ^ Ibid., p. 169. 3 Idld., p. 170. * Belfast Address on the Advancement of Science, p. 77. TIIK COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 401 the name of materialist, or even declare that materialism is " irre- trievably doomed," ^ he can have no just ground for complaint, if the name is still applied to him. If he holds, with Spencer him- self,^ that mental action is nothing but transformed physical force, the '' result of some physical force expended in producing it," quite analogous to the transformation of physical forces into one another, it avails nothing to deprecate the name of material- ist. He who maizes mind and mental action the simple result of physical forces, and absolutely dependent on a physical organism, makes mind by implication cease with the physical organism itself.* But putting aside questions of personal consistency and mere terminology, let us come down to more vital matters. How does this Evolution theory leave the question of the cognition of truth ? Stated in brief, the theory is that knowledge is rela- tive, which doctrine (correct enough if properly defined) is here made to mean that in strictness " we know nothing directly save modifications of consciousness." The theory is Idealism, with the exception that there is assumed or inferred an Unknown Something which "causes the changes." * But it is also assumed that the Unknown Something " might generate," in a different being from man, ''some state or states wholly different from what we know as the cognition of a material object." ^ Practi- 1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 440. 2 Tirst Principles, § 71. 8 Vide B. P. Bowne, Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, p. IS. Mr. Spencer, in his Principles of Psychology, vol. i. part ii. chap, i., docs indeed seem sharply to distinjruish between Mind and Matter, and even says that it would be easier to translate physical phenomena into mental phenomena than vice versa (p. 159). But the conclusion is that with reference both to the units of external force and to the units of feeling we only know them as presented in their symbols, and " no translation can carry us beyond our symbols" (p. 161). Ultimately "the conditioned form under which Being is pre- sented in the Subject cannot, any more than the conditioned form under which Being is presented in the Object, be the Unconditioned Being common to the two" (p. 102). Thus, after all, mind and matter are finally identified in the Unconditioned Being. They are only phenomenally distinct. Mr. Fiske (Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 444) quotes Spencer (p. 158), as arguing against the possibility of identifying a unit of feeling with a unit of motion. He finds it necessary to change Spencer's " nervous shock " into "psychical shock," adding that Mr. Spencer authorizes him to say that he (Mr. Spencer) "thoroughly approves of the emendation." It is noticeable, however, that in the third edition of the book, published seven years after the Cosmic Philosophy, the passage is left absolutely unchanged. * Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 86, 87. ^ Ibid., p. 81. 26 402 APPENDIX. cally the Cosmic Philosophy has all the strength and all the weakness of Idealism. Mr. Fiske ^ repudiates Berkeley's assump- tion of a divine will as producing in us these various states of consciousness, on the ground that " it is a hypothesis which can be neither proved nor disproved." But in place of God Mr. Fiske puts an Unknown Reality, the existence of which is also a pure hypothesis, which can be neither proved nor disproved, — certainly not on the principles of the Cosmic Philosophy. For, according to those principles, causation is something which we come to believe in simply through experience. Where an experience is absolutely uniform, we are unable not to think that the same conditions will be attended with the same ex- perience. If fire always burns, so far as our experience goes, then we are compelled to believe that it has always burned, and always will burn, simply because we cannot "transcend our experience."^ But how, then, do we come to know any- thing about the Unknowable Something which is at the bottom of all our various states of consciousness ? Certainly, accord- ing to the theory in question, we have no experience of that Unknown Something whose existence is postulated. If the empirical theory of the notion of causation contains the whole truth, then there is no ground whatever for inferring the ex- istence of this Absolute Being, nor even for inferring the uni- versality of a connection of events, simply from the fact that we individually never experienced an exception. But Mr. Fiske does not long stick to his own explanation. When he asks the question, " What is the belief in the necessity and universality of causation?" he answers, "It is the belief that every event must be determined by some preceding event, and must itself determine some succeeding event." ^ Must be deter- mined ? Why must be ? We never have had any experience of such a necessity. But, we are told, an event "is a manifestation of force. The falling of a stone, the union of two gases," and every other event, up to "the thinking of a thought, the excite- ment of an emotion, — all these are manifestations of force." * Of force ? What force ? One force ? or various forces ? And what is meant by force ? It is that which manifests itself in an event, — which is simply another way of saying that the force causes the event. And so the important result of the whole 1 Cosmic Philosophij, vol. i. p. 76. '^ Ibid., pp. 146-149. 8 Ibid., pp. 147, 148. * Ibid., p. 148. THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 403 matter is that our belief in the necessity and universality of causation is the belief that every event must have a cause ! If the author had propounded this as an ultimate dictum of con- sciousness, we might accept it as substantially a correct state- ment of the truth. But when it comes from one who can speak in no terms too contemptuous of those who pursue the " subjec- tive " or a priori method of philosophizing, we are compelled to ask what else this is than an a priori assumption. But Mr. Fiske may reply that he discards the "metaphysical notion of cause as im- l)lying an occulta vis '•' which operates as an invincible nexus be- tween it and the effect." '* Viewed under its subjective aspect," lie tells us, " our knowledge of causation amounts simply to this, — that an experience of certain invariable sequences among phe- nomena has wrought in us a set of corresponding indissolubly coherent sequences among our states of consciousness ; so tliat whenever the state of consciousness answering to the cause arises, the state of consciousness answering to the effect in- evitably follows." And then we are further told that " the proposition that the cause constrains the effect to follow is an unthinkable proposition ; since it requires us to conceive the action of matter upon matter, which ... we can in no wise do." " What we do know is neither more nor less than what is given in consciousness ; namely, that certain coexistences invariably precede or follow certain other coexistences." ^ Now to all this it might be replied that what is here affirmed as the essential element in the notion of causation, namely, the experience of an invariable sequence in consciousness correspoud- ing to an invariable sequence in phenomena, is precisely not the essential thing. The burnt child dreads the fire, and assumes that the fire causes the burning after one experience, and does not go on indefinitely experimenting till it has satisfied itself that the experience is invariable ; moreover, that it is absolutely invariable could never be determined by mere experience.* But letting this pass, how is it that, if we cannot conceive of matter as acting on matter, we not only can, but must, according to this ^ Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 154, 155. ^ "This belief in the uniformity of the order of nature is an ultimate fact of mind. It is not produced by experience ; on the contrary, it anticipates experience." — J.J. Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, p. 96. Cf. J. Buchanan, Faith in God and Modern Alheism Compared, vol. i. p. 224 ; G. H. Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 341 (olh cd., 1880). 404 APPENDIX. same authority, conceive of an Absolute Reality as causing these changes in our consciousness ? Mr. Fiske does not deny the in- trinsic possibility of matter acting on matter, but simply affirms that we have no consciousness of it.^ Very well ; but does he have any consciousness of this Absolute Power as generating within him his changes of consciousness ? The only ground he has for postulating this Unknown Something is that we must assume some such thing as the cause of the changes in us.'-^ And yet this Something, he says, is " beyond consciousness." ^ There is certainly a great lack of luminous self-consistency in all this. But this is not all. What is it, according to this Cosmic Philoso- phy, which produces these changing states of consciousness in us ? At one time * we are told that they are " wrought " by an " experience of certain invariable sequences among phenomena ; " at another time,^ that these changing states of consciousness are " caused " by the " noumenon," the Absolute but Unknown Some- thing. The two representations may indeed be reconciled, if the meaning is that the Something directly produces the phenomena, while the phenomena directly produce the states of conscious- ness. This seems to be implied in the statement elsewhere^ made, that "there is a single Being of which all phenomena, internal and external to consciousness, are manifestations." But what are we to understand by phenomena " external to conscious- ness " ? Inasmuch as all we know is " modifications of our con- sciousness," ^ what ground is there for distinguishing between the internal and external phenomena ? They are all internal ; and we therefore have no right to talk about " an experience of cer- tain invariable sequences among phenomena" working "in us a set of (corresponding indissolubly coherent sequences among our states of consciousness." "What we mean by a tree," we are told, "is merely a congeries of qualities. ... If we were destitute of sight, touch, smell, taste, hearing, and muscular sensibility, all these qualities would cease to exist, and therefore the tree would cease to be a tree." * Here is pure Idealism, but less tenable than that of Berkeley ; for Berkeley consistently held that our intuitive belief in causation necessitates the assumption of an 1 Cosmic PhilosopJii/, vol. i. p. 155. ^ Ibid., p. 87. ^ Ibid., p. 84, quoted approvingly from Spencer's Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 208. 4 Ibid., p. 155. s Ibid., p. 87. ^ Ibid., p. 89. ^ Ibtd., pp. 86, 93. 8 Ibid., pp. 80, 81. THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 405 Intelligent Being who causes our sensations, whereas, when the Cosmic Philosophy assumes an "Unknown lleality which causes in us these groups of sensations," it is in open contradiction with its own theory of the notion of causation ; since, as has been shown, to assume such an Unknown Reality, outside of conscious- ness, as the cause of the subjective phenomena, while at the same time causation is affirmed to be merely an experience of a certain constant correspondence in the phenomena inside of conscious- ness, is a most flagrant inconsistency. If the philosophy is to be made consistent with itself, we must retain what is fundamental in it, namely, the empirical theory of cognition, and abandon the assumption of an Absolute Reality about which we know nothing. But the point to which we are coming is this : What evidence have we that any one of these states of consciousness really ansivers to anything distinct from itself? In other words. Is there any truth in these phenomena of the conscious mind ? When the fundamental postulates of the Development philoso- phy are divested of all illicit accretions, it is found to be an assertion that our states of consciousness are an ultimate fact, and that, strictly speaking, we know nothing else than that we have such and such thoughts and sensations. That they represent, or correspond to, any reality, we have no right to assert. Reality is nothing but " inexpugnable persistence in consciousness." What, then, is the test of truth ? Or, we may perhaps rather ask, what is truth ? The common conception of it is the agree- ment between our conceptions and objective fact. But when it is expressly maintained that we can know nothing about objective facts, how are we ever going to learn whether our conceptions do correspond to the objective facts ? Mr. Fiske says the above definition is a definition of Absolute Truth, whereas " the only truth with which we have any concern is Relative Truth ; " ^ and for relative truth he lays down the criterion : " When any given order among our conceptions is so coherent that it cannot be sundered except by the temporary annihilation of some one of its terms, there must be a corresponding order among phenomena." But why rmist there be ? " Because," it is added, '' the order of our conceptions is the expression of our experience of the order of the phenomena." ^ But inasmuch as, on the theory in question, 1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. p. 70. - Ibid., p. 71. 40G APPENDIX. phenomena are nothing but subjective experiences, this amounts only to saying that the order of our conceptions is what it is. Mr. Fiske illustrates the point by the case of the conception of iron as being that of something which will not float in water. " If the subjective order of my conceptions is such that the con- cept of a solid lump of iron and the concept of a body floating in Avater will destroy each other rather than be joined together, and I therefore say that a solid lump of iron will not float in water, what do I mean by it ? Do I intend any statement con- cerning the unknown external thing, or things, which when acting upon my consciousness causes in me the perception of iron, and water, and floating or sinking ? By no means. I do not even imply that such modes of existence as iron or water, or such modes of activity as floating or sinking, pertain to the unknown external reality at all. ... By my statement I only imply that whenever that same unknown thing, or things, acts upon my consciousness, or upon the consciousness of any being of whom intelligence can be properly predicated, there will always ensue the perception of iron sinking in water, and never the perception of iron floating in water." ^ But if the thing that acts on my con- sciousness is absolutely unknown, how can I legitimately speak about " that same unknown thing," as acting at different times and on different persons ? How can I identify this unknown thing at all ? How do I know, in case I have a repeated experience of the same sensation, that it is the same unknown thing that pro- duces it ? If the thing itself is unknown, then I cannot know enough about it to make any afiirmation about it. I do not know but that different unknown things may make the same impression, or that the same unknown thing may make different impressions. In fact, on the theory under consideration, I really know nothing about the whole matter at all, except that I have such and such impressions, perceptions, conceptions, or whatever else my states of consciousness may be called. The sole test of truth, according to this philosophy, is our inability to " transcend our experience." "We cannot conceive that a lump of iron will float in water. Why ? Because our conception of iron, formed solely by experi- ence, is that of a substance which sinks in water ; and to imagine it otherwise is to suppress the conception, either of iron or of water, and to substitute some other conception in its place." " ^ Cosmic Philosophi/, vol. i. pp. 69, 70. 2 ii^ia,^ p. 57. THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 407 And tins is all that is meant when the general test is laid down, that "a proposition of which the negation is inconceivable is necessarily true in relation to human intelligence." ^ Experience determines, with respect to mathematical as well as physical truths,^ what we can conceive. To the Indian prince who had never seen water frozen it was inconceivable that water should ever become hard. AVhy ? Because his conception of water, formed solely by experience, was that of a substance which al- ways remains liquid. This conception of water was true to him. It was " relative truth," indeed ; but as relative truth is " the only truth with which we have any concern," it was genuine truth, — just as true as the conception of the Laplander, to whom frozen water is very familiar. Neither the one nor the other is capable of "transcending his experience," and each must abide by it. So with regard to iron. Other men than Mr. Fiske have seen solid pieces of iron float on water. An ordinary needle, if carefully dropped on a smooth surface of water, so that it strikes hori- zontally, will remain floating on the surface. But Mr. Fiske has evidently never had an "experience" of this. Until he himself sees it, he will be unable to believe it. To him the proposi- tion that a solid mass of iron will always sink in water is one "the negation of which is inconceivable" — just as incon- ceivable as the proposition that two straight lines cannot in- close a space.^ Now, if this is so, then it follows that one man's conceptions are just as true as another's. Whatever one experiences, or thinks he experiences, is true. The only kind of untruth possible would be that of a man who should report his own experience falsely. If, for example, one should say that to him all objects are of one color, or that the whole of an apple is no greater than a half, we might say that the man is telling lies, that he does not correctly report his own experience and belief. But, after all, even this cannot be made certain. What he aflirms may be unintelligible or incredible to us ; but how do we know but that his mind works differently from ours ? How do we even know what he means ? We only hear certain sounds, which to us have a cer- tain meaning; but even if it is certain that those sounds are the product of his mind, we cannot be sure that they mean to us what they mean to him. Identity of experience in different men * Cosmic Philosophij, vol i. p. 60. 2 Jbid., p. 59. 3 Ibid., pp. 59, 67. 408 APPENDIX. proves nothing with respect to objective fact. It only proves a similarity in the different minds. It is still possible that oysters on the one hand, or Voltaire's Micromegas on the other, may have minds of such a different order from ours, that what is truth to us is falsehood to them. The human race, in the present stage of the general evolution of things, happens to have, in many things at least, a similar or identical mode of thinking ; but in the distant past or distant future an entirely different condition of things from that which now exists may determine mental action. Some curious results follow as regards the main purpose for which such books as those under consideration are written. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Fiske, for example, denounce various theories of physics and metaphysics as being incorrect. They reason as if they thought that these theories were really untrue. They use, in fact, very strong language in their condemnation of them. Who would think that, after all, they really hold that all theories are relatively true, and that none can be called abso- lutely true ? But again : These evolutionists labor hard not only to show what they and others do or must experience now, but more es- pecially to show what has been the history of things in the in- definite past, anterior to all intelligence. But we must ask, if knowledge comes simply from experience, and has to do only with phenomena, what right has one to make affirmations or even hy- potheses respecting the course of things in the inaccessible past? We have been told over and over that the '^ thing-in-itself " is ut- terly unknowable, that nothing can be cognized but plienomena, and that phenomena are non-existent except to a cognizant mind. A tree, we are told, " would cease to be a tree," if we were desti- tute of all our senses.-' Of course, therefore, in the geologic ages of the distant past, before intelligent creatures existed, there were no trees, nor flowers, nor water, nor rocks, nor air, nor earth. These phenomena are real only in a cognitive consciousness ; before the development of such a consciousness, accordingly, these things did not exist. Of course, therefore, it is absurd to undertake to tell about the history of these non-existent things. To argue, for example, that a primeval mist condensed into solid worlds, and that in these, or at least in one of them, various changes took ^ Cosmic Philosophyy vol i. p. 81. THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 409 place, till at last the human race was evolved, — all this implies that there really ivas such a mist, and that there were afterwards various real forms of minerals, that in those distant ages there really were lire and water, and all the chemical substances which men now talk of. Large volumes are written to tell us about the slow processes by which these substances gradually assumed the shapes and qualities which the visible world now presents. What does all this mean ? There could have been no trees nor plants, we are assured, till there were animals able to see them ; but on the other hand there could have been no intelligent ani- mals till there had first been a long history of inorganic and vege- table objects out of which tlie animals were evolved ! This is no caricature. It is simply putting side by side two aspects of the philosophy under consideration. If the two are inconsistent with each other, that is not our fault. The only relief for the philosopher who presents us with this conglomerate as the final science of the world, is to hope for such a further process of evo- lution as will develop beings capable of seeing that these contra- dictions are no contradictions at all.^ But still another interesting corollary may be drawn. We have no knowledge, it is said, of any truth but relative truth. Things are true to us, or false to us, simply according as they agree or disagree with our experiences. We have no right, it is said, to affirm that any proposition is absolutely true. Now, then, what follows ? When it is asserted that no proposition can be pronounced absolutely true, is this assertion itself ahsohitely true, or only relativebj true ? If it is absolutely true, then we get this edifying result : The proposition, that no proposition can be called absolutely true, is an absolutely true proposition ! This of course will not do. It is a worse muddle, if possible, than the old one about all the Cretans being liars. But what is the alternative ? If we cannot say that the proposition in question is absolutely true, then we must say that it is not absolutely true. But if it is not absolutely true, then it is»false. There is no half- way place between truth and falsehood. The euphemism " rela- tive truthfulness" may serve to obscure the confusion of thought of which the author of it is guilty, but it can serve no other pur- pose. If it has any meaning in itself, it can be only another way of expressing doubt : to say that a statement is relatively * Unfortunately, however, for this hope, Mr. Fiske is quite sui-e (in his Destiny of Mail) (hat evolution has reached its acme in the human race. 410 APPENDIX. true may be equivalent to saying that loerliaps it is not true, aftei> all. And if the doctrine of the relativity of truth is made general, it can mean only that nothing is certain, that no proposition can be Inxovm to be either true or false. Consequently the af- firmation that any one is in error can be only relatively true, — relatively, that is to say, to those who for any reason tliink that he is in error. The difference between truth and error is a relative difference only. Anything is true — at least relatively true — to one who believes it to be true. To be sure, Mr. Fiske tells us very positively — so positively that one might think he means it as absolute truth — that men often profess to believe what they cannot conceive. Thus he says that the scholastic Realists, who pretended to be able to conceive a generic horse, as distinct from all particular horses, did not in fact conceive of such a horse at all, but deluded themselves with the conceit that they thought what in reality was unthinkable.^ So he says that those who profess to believe in a creation or annihilation of force do the same thing, since they attempt "the impossible task of establishing in thought an equation between something and nothing." -^ " Until men have become quite freed," he says, " from the inveterate habit of using words without stopping to render them into ideas, they may doubtless go on asserting propositions which conflict with experience ; but it is none the less true [rclativeli/ true, of course] that valid conceptions wholly at variance with the subjective register of experience can at no time be framed. And it is for this reason that we cannot frame a conception of nitrogen which will support combustion, or of a solid lump of iron which will float in water, or of a triangle which is round, or of a space enclosed by two straight lines." ^ In all this he is speaking not merely for himself, but for all men. " So long as human intelligence has been human intelligence," he says, "it can never have been possible to frame in thought an equation between something and nothing."^ Well, we quite as- sent to this proposition,»and even believe it to be ahsolutehj true, though of course we do not for that reason agree that this is a correct statement of the doctrine of creation. But the philoso- pher who maintains that experience is the only test of truth has no right to be so sweeping in his affirmations. The doctrines which he rejects cannot be consistently called by him erroneous ; 1 Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. p. 67. ^ Ibid., p. 148, cf. p. 65. 3 Ibitl., p. 67. * Ibid., p. 65. THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. 411 for he cannot know what the experience of other minds may be. Error and truth are both relative, according .to his philosophy; what is error to one may be truth to another. It being impos- sible to know anything about objective facts, nothing can cer- tainly be affirmed to be erroneous. For if it were certain that any opinion is erroneous, then wo sliould have an absolute truth; but this is sometliing which we are not allowed to postulate. Such is the hopeless absurdity into wliich tliis evolutionary doc- trine of the relativity of knowledge necessarily runs. 412 APPENDIX. EXCURSUS III.i PERSONALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. T)E,OBABLY there will never be a perfect agreement as to the ■^ value of the outologieal and cosmological arguments. The view we have expressed seems to us at least not unfair, and one which the general history of the discussion bears out.^ It is note- worthy that the prevalent tendency of non-Christian thinking at the present time (as seen especially in Herbert Spencer and his school) is to insist on the necessity of assuming the reality of an Absolute Something as the ens reaUsslmum. It is true, as we have shown, that this conclusion is reached at a considerable ex- pense of logical consistency. The Spencerian philosophy agrees substantially with Hume and Mill in making the causal judg- ment nothing but a result of the experience of invariable se- quence.® The notion of cmise is, properly speaking, evacuated of its meaning. The necessity of thinking that every event has a cause is not recognized, — a necessity which is as imperative at the first observation of a certain sequence as at the thousandth repetition of it. In short, causation, in the ordinary sense of the word, is flatly denied. Yet causation, in precisely that ordi- nary sense, is assumed as an explanation of our experience of the phenomenal world. The only evidence of an Absolute Some- thing is the necessity of a cause for the experiences which we have. So Mr. Fiske in fact seems to conceive the matter. " Sup- pose now we grant," he says/ " for the sake of argument, that the only real existence is mind with its conscious modifications. The question at once arises, AVhat is tlie cause of these modifications ? Since consciousness is continually changing its states, what is it that determines the sequence of states? " Again: "There can be no changes in our consciousness unless there exist something 1 See 1). 54. 2 cf. Dorner, Christian Doctrine, §§ 18-22. ' I\Ir. Spencer himself nowhere, so far as we know, takes up this question as a speculative one. There is good reason for assuming, however, that he would substan- tially agree with Mr. Fiskc's exposition of the subject. ^ Cosmic Pliilusopfii/, vol. i. pp. 75, 76. PERSONALITY AND THE ABSOLUTE. 413 which is changed, and something which causes the changes. . . . Abolish the noumenon, and the phenomenon is by the same act annihilated." ^ Here, as frequently elsewhere, the necessity of a cause is assumed, and the cause is regarded as that which '' de- termines " the effect. And it is only from this assumed necessity of a determining cause that the existence of the Absolute Some- thing is inferred. When he discusses causation, however, more formally, he affirms that it is nothing but "the unconditional in- variable sequence of one event, or concurrence of events, upon another."'^ "The hypothesis of an occulta vis . . . straight- way lands us in an impossibility of thought. The proposition, that the cause constrains the effect to follow, is an unthinkable proposition. . . . What we do know is neither more nor less than what is given in consciousness, namely, that certain coexist- ences invariably precede or follow certain other coexistences." ' Now it may be that the author might make some subtle distinc- tion by which it would appear that there is here no contradiction. But to the ordinary mind it would seem to be a matter of com- pai'ative indifference whether a cause is defined as that which " determines " an effect, or as that which " constrains an effect to follow." How the one should be the orthodox conception of cause, and the other " an unthinkable proposition," is itself unthinkable. But the salient point here is that in spite of its theoretic em- piricism this philosophy recognizes and even emphasizes the a priori conception of causality, and thence deduces the reality of a First Cause. In a general way, then, we may say that the Spen- cerian, as well as the Idealist, the Sensationalist, and the Natural Realist, assumes the existence of a Something distinct from the conscious mind. In the definition of this Something they may disagree ; but all agree that there is a Reality — an ultimate Substance, or Force, or Energy, or Person — of which the palpa- ble universe of things is an effect, or outflow, or expression. In the Anselmic form the ontological argument can hardly have much weight, in so far as it gives itself out as a real argument. But it is certainly valid when one argues that, if there is any real exist- ence, there must be an ultimate, eternal, and necessary reality. The alternative is plain : The universe either must have begun to exist, or it must have existed eternally. But it could not have 1 Comic Philosophtf, vol. i. pp. 86, 87- ^ /^/^^ p 3^54^ » Ibid., p. 155. 414 APPENDIX. begun to exist without a cause outside of itself. This cause, then, must itself have been eternal, or in turn the effect of another cause ; and so on. But an infinite series is impossible, and would afford the mind no relief even if it were possible. We must assume an Ultimate Cause, a First Cause, which must be also an eternal, self-existent Cause. This argument, however, only amounts to this : that something has existed eternally, that something is ab- solute and self-existent. This something, so far as the argument goes, may however be a blind and unconscious Force. It cannot even be proved to be absolutely necessary to assume that this eternal something is in any strict sense a unit. The argument does not demonstrate but that a multitude of things may have been eternally existent, although it may easily be made probable that there has been some single or unifying principle underlying all the phenomenal world. It is, therefore, not clear how one can go so far as to affirm, as Professor Harris does,^ that "in the knowledge of rationality we necessarily postulate absolute Eeason." That the phenomena of rational minds suggest a Su- preme Being possessed of reason ; that the existence of a universe of rational beings leads the mind to favor, or even almost irre- sistibly leads it to adopt, the hypothesis of a Supreme Eatioual Being, may be freely admitted and even insisted on. But all this falls short of saying that in the knowledge of rationality we necessarily postulate absolute Reason. There is no self-contradic- tion — nothing strictly inconceivable — in the hypothesis, that human reason is the product of an unreasoning force. Dr. Harris's proof of his proposition seems to be substantially only a mere repetition of it. "The possibility of concluding reasoning in an inference which gives knowledge rests on universal truths regula- tive of all thinking." This, of course, is true. But when there follows the statement, "The validity of these universal truths involves the existence of Reason unconditioned, universal, and supreme, the same everywhere and always," one may ask. How does this appear? In geometrical reasoning certain universal and regulative truths are assumed. But does it necessarily follow that there is a Supreme Being in whom these truths are realized, or by whom they are constituted truths ? Would not mathemati- cal axioms be true even if there were no Supreme Rational Being? Would it not still be true that a thing cannot at once be and not be ? If so, how can one conclude, with Dr. Harris, " If absolute 1 Self-Revelation of God, p. 155. PEKSONALITY AND THE AJiiSULUTE. 415 Reason does not exist, no reason and uo rational knowledge exist" ? By "absolute Reason" is evidently nieant an absolute personal Being endowed with reason ; otherwise the phrase would have no intelligible sense.^ But the argument, however forcible as the analysis of an instinctive theistic impulse, can hardly be urged as a conclusive demonstration. Even though it be made certain that without the assumption of a personal God the universe and linman history become an impenetrable mystery and a wretclied farce, still no one can say that this cannot possibly be the correct description of the actual state of things. One does not like to think that everything has been and ever must be a farce ; but this dislike does not disprove absolutely the proposition that it is one. On the other hand, the agnostic doctrine that the Absolute Being cannot be personal is still less tenable. The Ultimate Substance is first defined in such a way that personality cannot belong to it ; and then a solemn argument is constructed to show that we cannot properly conceive it as personal ! '' The definition of the Absolute," says Mr. Fiske,'^ " is that which exists out of all relations." In like manner Dean Mansel^ says, "The Abso- lute, as such, is independent of all relation." Herbert Spencer quotes this approvingly ; and all three deduce the inference that the Absolute cannot be conceived, though Spencer argues, against Hamilton and Mansel, that the notion of the Infinite and the Absolute is not a pure negation. He speaks of the Absolute as the " Irrelative " * or " Non-relative." ^ He compares the anti- thesis with that between the correlative concepts of Whole and Part, Equal and Unequal, Singular and Plural, and says that, as there can be no idea of equality without one of inequality, so "the Relative is itself conceivable as such, only by opposition to the Irrelative or Absolute."^ Now this is mere word-jugglery. It is true that, to us at least, clear knowledge implies distinction of one thing from another, and especially of things from their opposites. Some conceptions necessarily imply others. Thus 1 This is nioiT distinctly avowed at a later point, where the argument is more expanded, pp. 3fi6 sqq. 2 Cosmic Philoxopfiy, vol. i. p. 9. ' Liniilx of Rrligious Thought, 5th ed., p. 53. On pasre 31 he defines it as " that which exists in and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other being." * First Principles, 2d ed., p. 89. 6 Ibtd., p. 91. 6 /^,^_^ p 89 416 APPENDIX. " husband " has no meaning except as '' wife " is implied. Mr. Spencer, however, would apparently find the true antithesis to be "husband" and '' not-husband." Well, we can, if we choose, so treat every conception: "sweet" may be contrasted with the "not-sweet," "long" with "not-long," "cat" with "not-cat," etc. But this is not the way in which we come to these conceptions. A child learns to distinguish a cat from a dog, or from a hen, or from a horse ; but no one undertakes to help the infantile cog- nitions by contrasting the cat with the non-cat. So with the Relative. The natural antithesis is between the relative and the correlative. A parent is a parent only as related to a child ; a son is a son only as related to a parent. Each term is relative j each is related to the other ; there is an antithesis, not of contra- diction, but of relation. Now, when one speaks of the Relative in the abstract, he is speaking of what has no substantial existence ; and it is mere word-play to set it over against a Non-relative that has as little substantial existence.^ If one speaks of a particular thing, as, say, of the Mediterranean, one may describe it by setting forth its relations, — its length and breadth, as related to a con- ventional standard of measurement ; its constitution, as related to other material substances ; its position, as related to continents and oceans, etc. Any one concept is thus defined by a multitude of relations. But if any one should define the Mediterranean as the Relative, or a Relative, to be conceived and defined as con- trasted with the Absolute, we should have doubts of his sanity. Now, what we know of relations has to do with these mutual rela- tions, — correlations. In a general way, it may be said that every individual object is related to every other more or less intimately. The cosmos is a network of correlated things. But by what right do we lump all these things together and dub them " the Relative " ? There is no ground for doing so, and no meaning in it, unless we know of some object which is to be distinguished from the totality of the cosmos, and which yet sustains a relation to it. But if there is such an object ; if for this purpose the 1 A little child once asked his mother, " Does God know everything ? " " Yes, certainly," she replied. " No," was the retort, " there is one thing he does not know ; he does not know what ' gookie ' means." This " gookie," which the child had invented as meaning nothing, may not inaptly he likened to the philosophers' Relative, being about equally shadowy and unmeaning; and the setting of the Relative and the Non-relative over against each other, with the philosophical subtleties that are connected with the process, is about as instructive as it would be to discourse about the "gookie" and the "non-gookie." PERSONALITY AND THE iVBSOLUTE. 417 cosmos may be conceived as a unit, and the other object as another unit, — then the two objects are related to each other ; they are coii'elatives. If, for example, the universe of animate and inan- imate things is as a whole conceived to have been created by a Divine Being, then this Being and the Universe are related to each other as Creator and Creation. Mr. Spencer himself cannot avoid implying this. He speaks repeatedly of the "relation" between the Relative and the Non-relative.' Now, if one chooses to call the world as a whole the Relative, he can do so ; albeit the expression conveys no clear sense. Also, if he chooses, he can conceive the world as distinguished from and related to the Deity, and can call the Deity the Absolute. But if, after thus naming these correlative objects, he adds that the proper definition of the Absolute is that which is independent of all relations, and goes on to entangle himself in metaphysical snarls growing out of this gratuitous self-contradiction, it is difficult to have patience with the process, or to have much respect for the logical acumen of the reasoner. Yet this is precisely what these writers do. The existence of the Absolute is inferred from the essential relativity of human knowledge. "There can be no impressions unless there exist a something which is impressed and a something which impresses. . . . Abolish the noumenon, and the phenomenon is by the same act annihilated." Consequently, it is said, we must postulate a First Cause. But such a cause " can have no necessary relation to any other form of being ; " for if it had, it would be partially dependent upon that other form of being, and would not be the First Cause. Consequently the First Cause must be complete in itself, independent of all relations ; that is, it must be absolute.* And so the result is that, since the phenomenal workVcaunot be conceived except as related to a cause (which cause must then of course be related to the world), this cause must be one that has no relations, and consequently cannot be the cause of the world ! It needs but a small modicum of clear thought to enable one to say : If (as is affirmed) the Relative and the Absolute imply one an- other, that is, are correlatives, then both the Relative and the Abso- lute are relatives ; consequently, to define the Absolute as the Non-relative is a simple piece of stupidity and superfluous self- contradiction. * First Principles, vol. i. p. 91. 2 This is given almost verbatim from Piske, Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 8, 9, 87. 27 418 APPENDIX. So with regard to the conception of the Infinite. No doubt there are difficulties in framing this conception. From the time when Zeno proved the impossibility of motion, down to the time when Kant and Hamilton set forth their antinomies, the specu- lative mind has amused or vexed itself with metaphysical puzzles growing out of the conceptions of the infinite and the infinitesi- mal.-' If the Infinite is conceived as the sum total of reality — ■ as the All — then there is no Finite that can be contrasted with it, unless we conceive of the Infinite as a whole, made up of finite parts. But such an Infinite would not be truly infinite, unless we assume the finite parts to be infinite in number ; and even then the conception is not pure. The parts may be conceived as smaller or larger. Would an infinite number of large parts make a larger Infinite than an infinite number of small ones? Now, when one simply defines God as the Infinite, and (consciously or un- consciously) cherishes this quantitative conception of infinity, and yet desires to distinguish the material universe and the human race from God, he can involve himself in inextricable tangles. But why, in the name of common sense, should one manufacture a maze to get lost in ? What is the necessity for attaching to the Deity this mathematical notion of quantitative boundlessness ? If he is thought of as Spirit, such a physical conception of him is incongruous. If the term Infinite is applied to him at all, it must be so defined as to be consistent with what is really thought about him. He cannot be thought of as occupy- ing infinite space ; and as to infinite duration, whatever difficulty may inhere in the conception, it is no greater as related to God than as related to any single atom, or the universe of atoms, 1 The puzzles are real ; and it is not a full solution to argue, with Spencer and many other critics of the Hamiltonian doctrine, that we have a positive though inadequate, as distinguished from a negative, conception of the Infinite. All men can have only an inadequate notion of the distance between the earth and Sirius ; but it can be ex- pressed in figures which have a definite relation to distances of which we do have a very positive conception. But when it is said that 100 forms no larger proportion of an infinite number than 10 does, we are introduced into an altogether diflferent order of relations. We can after a sort conceive of half the distance to Sirius ; but when it is said that an infinite distance is not divisible into parts, while we may still retain the positive conception of distance, the infinity, qua infinity, is certainly not positively conceived. But this does not imply that we may not have a positive notion of some- thing of which infinity is predicated. We have a positive notion of space ; and when we say that space is infinite, we still retain the positive notion of space, though we do not have a positive conception of the infinity. rERS02^'ALITY AND TliK ABSOLUTE. 419 provided they are conceived as eternal. When infinity is predi- cated of his knowledge or his power, it can properly mean no more than that he can know all tliat there is to know, and do all that can be done consistently with his other attributes and with the nature of things. When, now, we are loftily told that personality is utterly incon- sistent with infinity and absoluteness, we can receive the dictum with great equanimity. Personality, it is said, involves limitation. Consciousness, we are reminded, is formed of successive states, whereas such a succession is irreconcilable with the unchange- ableness and omniscience ascribed to the Deity. Volition in like manner is declared to be quite inconceivable in an infinite being. "The willing of each end excludes from consciousness for an interval the willing of other ends, and therefore is inconsistent with that omnipresent activity which simultaneously works out an infinity of ends." Likewise, inasmuch as intelligence, as alone conceivable by us, presupposes existences independent of it and objective to it, "to speak of an intelligence which exists in the absence of all such alien activities is to use a meaningless word." The conclusion, then, is that our conception of the First Cause is not pure, till it has sloughed off all these anthropomor- phic limitations, and " becomes a consciousness which transcends the forms of distinct thought, though it forever remains a consciousness." ^ After having established this point, Mr. Spencer proceeds to meet an objection naturally raised against his ghost theory of the origin of religious conceptions. Since the savage's notion of " the material double of a dead man " is baseless, how, it is asked, can a purification of this conception lead to anything better founded ? " If the primitive belief was absolutely false, all de- rived beliefs must be absolutely false." To this it is replied that there is, after all, a germ of truth in the primitive conception, "the truth, namely, that the power which manifests itself in conscious- ness is but a differently conditioned form of the power which manifests itself beyond consciousness." That is, it is explained, every voluntary act yields to the primitive man proof of a source of energy within him. His "sense of effort, being the perceived antecedent of changes produced by him, becomes the conceived antecedent of changes not produced by him." He conceives the ^ H. Spencer, Ecclesiastical bistitutions, 2d cd., pp. 835-837 (Part VI. of Prin- ciples of Sociologtf). 420 APPENDIX. " doubles of the dead " to be the workers of " all but the most familiar changes." In course of time the idea of force "comes to be less and less associated with the idea of a human ghost," and " the dissociation reaches its extreme in the thoughts of the man of science who interprets in terms of force not only the visible changes of sensible bodies, but all physical changes what- ever." Nevertheless even the scientist " is compelled to symbolize objective force in terms of subjective force from lack of any other symbol." And so, "the final outcome of that speculation com- menced by the primitive man, is that the Power manifested through- out the Universe distinguished as material is the same Power which in ourselves wells up under the form of consciousness." ^ It is difficult not to think that Mr. Spencer feels the force of the objection more keenly than he confesses. If not, his compo- sure is not creditable to his perspicacity. Observe the position : Personality, as implying self-consciousness, volition, and intelli- gence, is declared to be quite inconceivable in the Absolute Being. The process of " deanthropomorphization " (to use Mr. Fiske's term) has gone so far as to abolish all the characteristics of per- sonality from the First Cause and leave it nothing but pure Force or Energy as its essential feature. "The last stage reached is recognition of the truth that force as it exists beyond conscious- ness cannot be like what we know as force within consciousness ; and that yet, as either is capable of generating the other, they must be different modes of the same." "^ Here are several strange things: (1) Two forms of force are declared to be "different modes of the same," and yet not "like." Just before we are told that the internal energy of which external changes are the conse- quents "is the same energy which, freed from anthropomorphic accompaniments, is now figured as the cause of all external phe- nomena." The same energy, and yet not like ! But (2) this same- ness is inferred from the fact that the two forms are capable of generating each other. The conscious person generates force. Good ; let this be granted. And the conscious person is led by the principle of causality to infer a power outside of him as the cause of his conscious personality. Good again ; but how does it appear that the two forces are necessarily the same ? All that consciousness testifies to is at best only that there is causation in the two cases. But if they are the same because both are the ^ Ecclesiastical Institutions, 2d ed., pp. 837-839. 2 Ibid., p. 839. I'EKsoNALrry and the absolute. 421 resull of energy, why not conclude that both kinds are conscious energy rather tluin that one is conscious and the other uncon- scious ? All that we are directly conscious of is the exercise of force in ourselves. If this is the primitive source of our notion of power, then how does it come to be so defecated as to lose the one characteristic (volition) which originally marked iti But our perplexity is increased, when we compare all this with what Mr. Spencer elsewhere ^ says. Speaking of the First Cause, he says, "Can it be like in kind to anything of which we have sen- sible experience? Obviously not. Between the creating and the created there must be a distinction transcending any of the distinctions existing between different divisions of the created. That which is uncaused cannot be assimilated to that which is caused, the two being, in the very naming, antithetically opposed. ... It is impossible to put the Absolute in the same category with anything relative." But now we are assured that the two kinds of force generate each other ; each is both creator and created ; instead of arguing that the creating and the created must as such be utterly unlike, he assumes them for that very reason to be only different modes of the same power ! (3) Another difficulty appears when we ask why the distinction between the Absolute and the Relative is so fatal to personality/ in the Absolute, but is not also fatal to power in the Absolute. Consciousness, will, etc. in finite man, we are told, are known only as concerned with suc- cession, with correlated existences, etc. Therefore, it is said, these attributes of personality cannot belong to the Absolute, since they would annul the absoluteness. Well, then, what about the power of which the finite person is conscious? Does not every exertion of power imply an objective something on which it is exerted? Does it not imply succession in time? Each exer- tion can be conceived as real, only as distinguished from others. Finiteness and relativity belong to the exertion of power as much as to the phenomena of consciousness. How then can there be an Absolute Power, but not an Absolute Person ? Every metaphj'-s- ical difficulty which may be brought against the one may be equally well brought against the other ; and the upshot, if one allows himself to be frightened by the bugbear of the Absolute at all, is that it must be pronounced to be without any definable character whatever. It can only be called Something, unless the ^ First Fri>icij)/i's, 2d ed., p. 81. 422 APPENDIX. Hegelian designation, Nothing, may be thought preferable. Mr. Spencer, to be sure, resents the imputation that in making the Absolute unknowable he makes it a mere negation, and takes offense at Mr. Harrison for calling his Absolute the " All-nothing- ness." ^ But he does not satisfactorily meet the charge that his doctrine of the Absolute is self-contradictory. He has no right to call it unknowable, if he knows it to be a power at all. But ac- cording to his premises respecting the absolute, he has no right to predicate power or any other conceivable attribute to it. We can, therefore, afford to listen with great composure to these oracular utterances respecting the impossibility of predicat- ing personality of the Absolute. Even though we may concede that for us conscious personality involves a constant succession and change of conscious states,^ we are not therefore obliged to assume that there can be no form of consciousness, in which there is no such change and succession. But even if it could be proved that consciousness necessarily implies change and suc- cession, what shall the theist say? Why, simply that God, then, is not unchangeable in any such sense as to exclude con- sciousness. If any scholastic notions of the divine attributes lead to a doctrine of God which involves such a limitation of him, there is no law of the Medes and Persians which prohibits us from abandoning such a self-fettering method of conceiving the Deity.^ Absolute and rigid changelessness is neither a more precious, nor a more necessary, element in our conception of the Deity than conscious personality. Least of all need we to be frightened from the current notion of the divine Personality by a philosopher who tries to frighten us from it by a process of argumentation which swarms with self-contradictions. 1 Nineteenth Centunj, 1884, p. 502. 2 As argued by Mr. Spencer, 'Principles of Psychology, chap. xxvi. et passim. * Cf. the New Englander, 1875, my article on the Metaphysical Idea of Eternity. THE PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 423 EXCURSUS IV.^ LELAND AND WATSON ON THE PRIMEVAL REVELATION. PROFESSOR FLINT {Theism, eel. 5, note iv, p. 338) quotes and endorses Dr. Fairbairn on this point. He makes tlie additional argument, that the theory of primeval revelation is in- consistent with the Protestant rejection of tradition, besides be- ing '' wholly untenable in the light of modern science." He does not explain how either of these considerations conflicts with the theory. Such an explanation is especially needed, inasmuch as he has immediately before (p. 21) distinctly emphasized that " we owe our theism in great part to our Christianity, — that natural religion has had no real existence prior to or aj^art from what has claimed to be revealed religion." His view, then, ap- parently is the very defensible one, that religion is both natural and revealed, that man has a natural tendency to believe in a God, and that God also has from the beginning specially revealed himself, thus confirming the natural tendency. It is not obvious what especially new light has been thrown on this problem by the wider study of ethnography which, Dr. Flint intimates, has overthrown the theory of a primitive revelation as a source of religious belief. Whatever difficulties may be found in the mul- tiplicity and diversity of human religions, these do not disprove the theory of a primitive revelation which may have become corrupted or obscured. Professor Flint refers with approval to Professor Cocker's discussion of this question in his Chi-istianitij and Greek Philosophy. Cocker holds that " the universal phe- nomenon of religion has originated in the rt.^«'/r)>'/ apperceptions of reason and the natural instinctive feelings of the heart, which from age to age have been vitalized, unfolded, and perfected by supernatural communications and testamentary revelations" (p. 97). He refers (p. 8G) with condemnation to Leland, Watson, and others as holding that "all our religious knowledge is de- rived from oral revelation alone.^'' The difference between the two views is, however, too much emphasized. Thus Leland (Ad- 1 See p. 69. 424 APPENDIX. vantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation, chap. i. p. 35) starts with the proposition that " man is a religiovis creature." He says (p. 36) that ''men have faculties capable of contem- plating the great Author of their being, and (pp. 38, 39) that God "originally formed and designed him for religion. . . . He put him at his first creation into an immediate capacity of answering this end of his being and entering on a life of religion." He then adds that we must suppose, either that God left man to himself "to acquire the knowledge of religion and his duty by the mere force of his own unassisted reason and experience, or . . . that the wise Author of his being, at his first creation, communicated to him such a knowledge of religion as enabled him immediately to know his Maker and the duty required of him." The argu- ment is that it is not probable that God would leave the first man without adequate religious knowledge. And to the sug- gestion that man "by the force of his own reason might soon acquire a sufficient knowledge of God and of his duty, and con- sequently of true religion," he replies that, "though the main principles of all religion, . . . when clearly propounded to the human mind, . . . are perfectly agreeable to the most improved reason and understanding of man, yet it can hardly be supposed that the first man or men, if left to themselves without any in- struction or information, would have been able to have formed in a short time a right scheme of religion for themselves founded upon those principles. It would probably have been a long time before he raised his thoughts to things spiritual and invisible, and attained to such a knowledge and contemplation of the work of nature as to have inferred from thence the necessary existence of the one only true God and his infinite perfections " (p. 40). It is here clearly implied that man, as originally created, not only had the capacity for understanding a revelation, but also had faculties by which he might in course of time have come to a knowledge of God and duty. There is in reality only the slightest difference between Leland and Cocker. The latter emphasizes that religion must have originated in the apperceptions of reason, that a revela- tion could not have been apprehended or believed without a pre- vious belief in the reality of God. Leland urges that God could not have left man to himself, and must therefore at the very out- set have made himself more particularly known. The one lays stress on the one side, the other on the other ; but both admit both ; and they are substantially at one. THE PRIMEVAL REVELATION. 425 The case is nearly the same with Watson. He concludes in- deed {Theological Institutes, vol. i. p. 303) that " we owe the knowl- edge of the existence of God and of his attributes to revelation alone." But he not only follows this statement with the other, that these being now discovered, " the rational evidence of both is convincing and irresistible," but he also says, when first arguing for the necessity of a revelation : " The whole of this argument is designed to prove that, had we been left, for the regulation of our conduct, to infer the will and purposes of the Supreme Being from his natural works and his administration of the affairs of the world, our knowledge of both would have been essentially defi- cient ; and it establishes a strong presumption in favor of a direct revelation from God to his creatures, that neither his will con- cerning us nor the hope of forgiveness might be left to dark and uncertain inference, but be the subject of an express declaration" (p. 12). Here again it is plainly implied that, left to himself, man might have inferred, by the use of his natural faculties, the existence and the will of God ; it is, however, argued that this inference would have been uncertain, and would have fallen short of positive knowledge. Watson does not deny, but asserts, that one's natural constitution predisposes him to inquire concerning God and his will. He only insists that man's full knowledge of God comes from revelation, whereas without the revelation men would have been able, at the best, only to infer and conjecture the existence and character of a Divine Being. 426 APPENDIX. EXCUKSUS V.^ THE CERTAINTIES OF THE AGNOSTIC. THE demand which is made by the author of Supernatural Religion, that, before any testimony for the occurrence of a miracle can even be listened to, the existence of a personal God must first be demonstratively established, provokes one to a retort the validity of which, on the ground assumed by him, ought not to be questioned. The argument against miracles rests upon the assumption that certain laws of nature are incontestably as- certained to be facts. But suppose one should question the cer- tainty of this assumption. The very existence of a material world has been plausibly denied by many philosophers ; and many others, if not the most, admit that 'the existence of such a world is a mere inference from certain mental phenomena. And even if one adopts the common-sense doctrine of the direct perception of matter, yet he is soon nonplussed by the allegation that what seems to be directly perceived is only seemingly per- ceived, — that matter is made up of invisible atoms probahly ; or, if not of atoms, of forces which answer the same purpose ; and that atoms, in order to unite in the formation of concrete objects, must further be assumed to be supplemented by ether, which is also invisible and still more hypothetical than the atoms. Matter, therefore, being something inferred, but never perceived, of course all propositions concerning the laws of matter must be equally hypothetical, or even more so ; for our notion of laws depends on induction ; the laws must come as a secondary inference. The fact of matter must be more certain than the special qualities of it. Consequently the laws of matter must be more hypothetical than the fact of matter ; there is an un- certainty of the second degree. But this overthrows the whole argument against the reality of miracles. The argument rests on the assumption that the laws of nature are known and are ab- solutely uniform ; but if the very existence of the natural world is philosophically dubious, if it is problematical whether matter itself is a reality, of course no solid conclusion can be founded on the supposed inviolability of the laws of matter. It is true, 1 See p. 100. THE CERTAINTIES OF THE AGNOSTIC. 427 this skeptical couclusion invalidates the argument for miracles as much as the one against them ; it brings us to the point at which all argument and all belief are annulled. But it shows that the boasted argument against the credibility of miracles is a gun which is as destructive at the breech as at the muzzle. He who in so lordly a manner treats theism as a mere hypothesis not deserving any consideration, unless it can be established by a mathematical demonstration, may well be required to consider how deficient his own argument is in the rigid conclusiveness which he demands of others.^ The author's faith in natural law is so great that he sees no need of any special interference on the part of God, even if there be a God. After giving a representation, not to say caricature, of the Christian doctrine of the creation, the fall, and redemp- tion, he remarks that the theoi-y of a depravation, and tlie con- sequent need of a redemption, of man is entirely disproved by " the constitution of nature," which, he says, " bears everywhere the record of systematic upward progression." The Christian theory, he goes on to say, " is contradicted by the whole opera- tion of natural laws, which contain in themselves inexorable penalties against retrogression " (p. 49) ; and he then fortifies this statement by a quotation from Herbert Spencer {Social Statics, p. 64), who gives a demonstration of this proposition, and invites any one who demurs to it to point out the error. The argument is in brief that, all imperfection being " unfitness to the conditions of existence," and this unfitness consisting in a deficiency or excess of faculties, both the deficiency and the ^ An intercstins instance of the advcnturousness of scientists with respect to things unknown is found in an author ( Philipp Spiller, Bie Entslehung der Welt, 1870, and other works), who makes ether the primeval source of all heing and development (p. 508 et passim). Yet the very existence of any such ether is an unproved hypothesis; the conception is one which it is impossil)Ic to caiTy out without self-contradiction. The existence of ether is assumed in order to account for effects apparently produced hy one hody on another at a distance from it (action at a distance being assumed to be impos- sible); but the ether itself heing conceived to be extraordinarily rarefied, its particles must (in proportion to their size) be at a considerable distance from one another; and so we have, after all, action at a distance; and even if we assume a still finer and more gaseous substance to fill up the still empty space between the several ether particles, and so ad iiiji III turn, wc still do not get away from the assumption of action at a distance. Yet the pressure and movements of this ether arc made by Spiller to explain gravitation, electricity, life, and everything else. This is called science — sure knowledge. Herbert Spencer forcibly states the metaphysical difficulty iuvolvud in the hypothesis of an ether (First Principles, § 18). 428 APPENDIX. excess will in time be removed by the very fact that the circum- stances of life always tend to exercise and strengthen those faculties which are most needed, and to weaken those not needed. Consequently " all excess and all deficiency must disappear ; that is, all unfitness must disappear; that is, all imperfection must disappear." One might be the more tempted to have confidence in Mr. Spencer's logical substitute for Redemption, if he himself had not furnished the refutation which he triumphantly chal- lenges the world to produce. In chap, xxiii of his First Principles, he demonstrates with equal cogency that it is the law of things, after evolution has reached a certain point, that a process of dissolution shall take place, — a dissolution which does not even wait for absolute perfection to be reached before it begins, but takes place when an "equilibrium" has been reached (p. 519), whatever that may mean. This social and national dissolution, he says, often takes place ; such dissolutions may be occasioned by " plague or famine at home, or a revolution abroad " (p. 520) ; this is a sort of premature dissolution ; but dissolution must at any rate begin " where a society has developed into the highest form permitted by the characters of its units " (p. 521). Ulti- mately, he concludes, the whole solar system will be dissolved into the primeval nebulosity, and then begin again a new process of evolution, and so on ad i7ifi7iitum (pp. 527-537). Now, Mr. Spencer can hardly mean to say that the nations which have undergone the process of dissolution had previously reached the stage of absolute perfection ; and the question arises. What in this case becomes of this law of his, according to which all imperfection must ultimately disappear ? The puzzle is increased by the very illustration which Mr. Spencer uses in the argument itself which is said to demonstrate that evolution necessarily leads to perfection. He says, we infer that all men will certainly die, because all men have died, and that with the same certainty we must infer that organs and capacities grow by use and diminish by disuse, simply because all observation shows that they have thus grown and diminished in the past. But this example of death is a wondrously unhappy illustration to make use of ; for what is death but the culmination of a weakening process which the organs undergo in spite of exercise ? This is enough to say in reply to the wonderful argument. It might indeed be urged that the whole of it is vitiated by an utter ignoring of the facts of the moral and spiritual world. BEYSCHLAG ON MIRACXES. 429 EXCURSUS VI.* Betschlag on the Miracle of the Loaves. T F Rothe were now living, he would find occasion still to be sur- prised at the efforts of believing critics to explain miracles and make thom intelligible. Among these efforts may be men- tioned the treatment of the question of miracles by Beyschlag in his Leben Jesu (1885, vol. i. pp. 34 sqq.). He says that nature is in a state of disorder caused by sin, as Paul represents it (Rom. viii.), and that the supernatural may be regarded as a restoration of the truly natural. He then asks: "What if this were the law of the Biblical miracles, that the Spirit of God, who fills the bearers of revelation, releases in them (especially in certain moments of their official life) those slumbering higher natural forces, in order, in individual, and as it were prophetical, cases, to produce that abolition of evil [of which Paul speaks] and the restoration of ideal naturalness ? " This view he enforces by the consideration that the best attested miracles are those of healing, which is simply a restoration of the normal and natural conditions. It is not clear what is meant here by the suggestion concerning "slumbering forces." Evidently it is not what would be under- stood by such a phrase in common life. The divine act of " re- leasing" the slumbering forces in the cases of the Biblical miracles is clearly not analogous, say, to that conjunction of natural agencies by which electricity is discharged, and what is ordinarily unper- ceived and appears to be inactive becomes a most effective and terrific agent. Beyschlag in his definition of miracles (p. 30) likens God's miraculous intervention to the act of a man whose will modifies, though it does not violate, the forces of nature. Very well ; but human agency can make use only of the known and ordinary forces ; it is no part of man's province to awaken slumbering (that is, unknown) forces. The hypothesis of such forces is manifestly resorted to in order to explain the rare and exceptional character of miraculous events. It is another way of saying that God intervenes at certain periods, and produces 1 See p. HI. 430 APPENDIX. startling effects which the ordinary forces of nature could not have produced. We must object, however, to this theory of ''slumbering forces," in the first place, that the conception is vague and fanciful. What is a slumbering force ? Xatural science certainly knows nothing of natural forces which in any proper sense can be called slumbering. Beyschlag's notion appears to be tluit these forces are occult and unknown to natural science, liut if so, what right has one to postulate them ? Where is the evidence that there are such forces ? The assumption that they exist is, moreover, not only purely imaginary, but entirely gratuitous and useless, unless it is assumed that God cannot act except through natural forces. These slumbering forces are evidently conceived to be natural forces. But we now meet with a second and still more serious objection to this hypothesis, namely, that, it is self-destructive. For if God cannot act on the world except through natural forces, then he cannot act by way of releasing the slumbering forces except through other natural forces. This act of releasing, then, according to the hypothesis, must be either simply a regular normal action of natural forces — in whicli case of course the result of it (the release) must be normal and regular, and therefore no miracle ; or else the act of releasing must be an irregular, abnormal action of the natural forces — in which case the cause of the irregularity must be looked for in an immediate direct exercise of divine power. But if God may act directly (that is, without the use of a natural force) in releasing the slumbering force, why not just as well act directly in producing a miraculous effect without the use of the slumber- ing force ? There is no escape, after all, from the hypothesis of a direct divine intervention, unless (what no one would dream of doing) we resort to the absurd supposition of an infinite series in the business of releasing slumbering forces. There is, in short, no middle ground between the theory that there are no miracles in the proper sense, and the theory that God acts directly, in the exercise of supernatural power, for the production of miraculous effects. The practical application of this hypothesis is, in case of the more striking miracles, the explaining away of the miraculous element altogether. Beysclilag's elucidation of the miracle of the loaves is an instructive illustration of this remark. He can do no better than to dress up Paulus's explanation {Leben Jesu, vol. i. pp. 349 sqq.). He differs from I'aulus in admitting that the BEYSCMLAC; ON MIRACLES. 431 narrative, as it stands, implies tliat the narrators regarded the loaves as miraculously multiplied. But the substance of the explanation is the same. It makes the miracle to be a miracle of faith on Jesus' part, the outward act consisting in nothing else than in his inducing those who had secretly brought provisions to allow their supplies to be distributed for the general benefit ! (vol. ii. p. 254 sqq.) Yet he would still call the event a miracle. '' We do not see," he says, " why the glory of God and the glory of Christ would in this case be less than if it had continually sup- plied loaves and fishes out of itself " (vol. i. p. 311). Ke refers to Weiss as substantially agreeing with him. The latter {Life of Christ, vol. ii. pp. o85 sq.) does favor a similar explanation, though he does not conceive the food as concealed. He represents the miracle as one of "divine providence." Jesus exercised, as it were, a miracle of faith in being assured that the needed supply would come somehow. But he says that this theory is a hypothe- sis to which no one is committed. '' Simple faith," he adds, '^ is not interdicted from keeping to the idea of a creative miracle." In Beyschlag's case this attempt to explain the miracle is part and parcel of a systematic explaining away of the supernatural in in- stances where a direct exertion of supernatural power on irrational nature seems to be affirmed. Christ's stilling the waves, walking on the water, turning water into wine, etc. are called '•' unnatural," as these events are reported to us, and are consequently all ex- plained away. The real truth he assumes to be that, in some cases, as, for example, the walking on the water, the disciples were mistaken in regard to the fact, and that Jesus, not knowing of their error, had no occasion to correct it. But a more sober criti- cism will be likely to find these explanations more " unnatural " than the miracles themselves would have been. Beyschlag (vol. i. p. 310) says : " It is a contra-natural notion that the baked loaves and the roasted fishes should have grown under his hands. That is not the manner in which God helps or creates. When he vouchsafes to an August Hermann Francke to found an orphan- house Avith five dollars, he does it by causing the remainder of the money to be contributed to the man who in courageous faith has engaged in the enterprise. Why should we not conceive Jesus' act of faith and love in the wilderness as crowned with success in the same way ? " The obvious answer to this q\iestion is : Because the nnrrative gives no hint of any such explanation of the event. The narrative distinctly tells us that there were only 432 APPENDIX. five loaves and two fishes with which to supply the multitude. The critics imagine that in the crowd there is enough, and more than enough, to satisfy the whole five thousand. The narrative tells us that Jesus took these five loaves and two fishes and gave them to the multitude. The critics imagine that he somehow learned about other supplies, and got hold of them and really gave these to the multitude. The narrative tells us that when the people saw this " sign " they called Jesus a prophet and wanted even to make him a king (John vi. 14, 15). The critics tell us that there was no " sign " at all, and that the transaction could have been so regarded only through a delusion. But even if this were so, still the apostles must have known where the supply really came from, and the puzzle is to explain how the event could have been called a miracle by the Evangelists. Beyschlag seems to trace the origin of the notion to the enthusiasm of the people who had been fed, and who imagined that the supply had been miraculously furnished. But this delusion could not have been transfused into the minds of the more immediate disciples ; and it is still unexplained how in the Fourth Gospel (whose genuine- ness Beyschlag defends) the occurrence could have been so un- equivocally described as a miracle. Beyschlag endeavors to find in the Gospels themselves positive intimations that his theory is correct. He quotes Mark vi. 52, where it is said that the dis- ciples " understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened," as evidence that they did not originally take the occurrence as miraculous. Mark writes this, he says, from the standpoint of one who did regard the event as miraculous. But then the question arises, How did the disciples ever come to regard this occurrence as miraculous, if it did not make this impression at the outset ? Beyschlag gives as the reason that they had witnessed miracle upon miracle wrought by Jesus, so that their faith in his miraculous power was unbounded. Very well ; then the most natural thing was that they should regard the occurrence as miraculous at the outset, as the Evangelists all evidently imply. To say that Mark in one breath narrates what he conceives to have been a palpable miracle, and in the next affirms that the disciples did not understand it to be one, is to make him guilty of the strangest confusion. Mark makes the statement in question as an explanation of the disciples' surprise at seeing Jesus walking on the water. That is, he means to intimate that, although they had just witnessed a great miracle, BEYSCIILAG ON MIRACLES. 433 they were not prepared to witness another. Inasmuch as Bey- schlag regards both accounts as legendary, it requires the faith of a critic to detect in this observation of the Evangelist tlie one truthful statement which unlocks the mystery of the whole af- fair, and reveals (what there is not the faintest hint of) that there was food enough " concealed " by the multitude, notwithstanding that Mark himself (in the narrative of the second miraculous feeding) makes Jesus say expressly (viii. 2) of the multitude that " they have nothing to eat." All this straining and discrediting of the narrative in order to avoid the assuui})tion of a miracle — and that on the part of one who strenuously defends the reality of miracles in general ! It is a wonder, however, if the fear of believing in something " magi- cal" must drive one to some method of explaining the miracle away, that our author should not have adopted an explanation similar to the one by which he solves the problem of the miracle at Cana. The hypothesis that by a sort of mesmeric influence the water was made to taste like wine involves only two difficulties, neither of which appears to be any stumbling-block to Beyschlag, namely, that the narrator evidently conceived it otherwise, and that Jesus is virtually accused of practising deception. Other- wise everything is very simple. Now, instead of such large draughts on the imagination in regard to the supply of food, why not suppose that Jesus exerted his mesmeric power here with i*e- gard to food as in the other case he did with regard to drink? Why not suppose that he ordered grass to be plucked and passed around to the multitude, and by his mesmeric power made it taste like bread and fish ? Is there not a hint of this in the express statement made, that there was "much grass" in the place'?! 28 434 APPENDIX. EXCUKSUS VII.i KITSCHL ON MIRACLES. "O ITSCHL'S doctrine of miracles is further expounded in the Jahrbucher fur deutsche IVieologie, 1861, where he propounds the following detinition : " The religious conception of a miracle is, in its most general sense, nothing else than that of an experi- ence of God's special providence " (p. 412). Again {Ibid.), " In this sense to declare miracles impossible is as much as to say that positive religion is an illusion. ... In this sense the reli- gious man is continually and necessarily experiencing miracles, and does not need merely to believe in miracles which others have seen." Furthermore, he says that the early Christians had "no conception of natural laws," and that therefore "historical investigation is utterly unable to make out from the narratives before us what took place objectively" (p. 440). And in Sybel's Historische Zeitschrift (1862, p. 97) he says, " Most certainly natural events which contradict natural laws are for us scientifically in- conceivable," and adds (p. 98), " Since now both Jesus and Paul are not conscious of working in opposition to the laws of nature, it follows that confidence in the truth of their consciousness has nothing to do with the principle that, because a contradiction of the laws of nature is inconceivable, miracles are impossible." All this is found in a discussion in which, in opposition to Zeller (who disbelieves all miracles), he is undertaking the defense of the historic credibility of the evangelical narratives. He says that Jesus, the Evangelists, and Paul are credible witnesses, and that, though there may be doubt about the authenticity of some parts of the history, yet there is no sufficient reason for denying the stories of the miracles in general. But such a defense is worse than open attack. To affirm that the miracles narrated really occurred, and yet to affirm that we do not know what " took place objectively," is to affirm and deny the same thing in the same breath. Everything is referred to a purely subjective standard. A miracle, according to him, is anything remarkable in so far as it has a bearing on one's religious life. He speaks indeed of extra- 1 See p. 145. RITSCHL ON MIRACLES. 436 ordinary events ; but inasmuch as he denies that these events in any way conflicted with natural laws, he practically denies that real miracles occurred. When Zeller retorts {Ibid., p. 110), "If they [thi, violations of natural law] are unthinkable, then they are also impossible ; for thinkableness is for us the only mark of possibility," his reply is conclusive. For Eitschl, in distinguish- ing miracles from violations of natural law, does not define them as events wrouglit by special operation of divine power independ- ently of natural law. His conception of them is apparently as much opposed to the latter as to the former conception. In short, an event is a miracle to him, not because of any opposition to, or independence of, natural law, but it is such simply by virtue of the subjective state of the man who witnesses or experiences it. It is manifest that this is a radically different conception of the miraculous from the ordinary one. It is ouly one instance of the characteristic tendency of liitschl and his school to use the old terms with the old meaning emptied out. Practically this school is, so far as miracles are concerned, at one with the purely natu- ralistic school. And when Professor Ladd associates Kitschl with Nitzsch, Miiller, and Dorner, as a defender of the reality of the evangelical miracles {Sacred Scripture, vol. i. pp. 3, 318), he puts Ritschl into company with which he is far from belonging. 436 APPENDIX. EXCURSUS VIII.^ THE BOOK OF JONAH. HTHE Book of Jonah will doubtless long continue to exercise ■*• the ingenuity and perplex the faith of many good Chris- tians. Let us consider some of the ways in which a Christian may evade the apparent significance of Christ's reference to the history. 1. One may suppose Christ to have been mistaken as to the trustworthiness of the Old Testament records. That is, he may be supposed to have believed the story to be true, though it was not true. Christ's veracity is saved at the expense of his intelligence. This theory is the least admissible of all those which profess to be consistent with faith in Christ. Yet it is possible for one to have a very exalted view of Christ's personal character, to acknowledge him as a divinely commissioned me- diator of spiritual light and salvation, although limited in his knowledge of matters respecting which perfect accuracy requires an acquaintance with scientific and critical questions such as he cannot be supposed to have possessed. If Christ could declare himself to be ignorant of the day of his own second coming (Mark xiii. 32), may it not be allowable to imagine him to have been also ignorant of the exact truth concerning the story of Jonali ? Not to enter in detail on the Christological question thus raised, it is obvious to say that in the case just referred to Christ did not profess to know the thing he was ignorant of. He knew the extent of his own ignorance, and was careful not to commit himself to any assertion beyond the limits of his own knowledge. In the case of Jonah, on the contrary, the hypothesis under consideration requires us to suppose him to have made an assertion on a point beyond the limits of his knowledge, while yet he did not profess any ignorance whatsoever. The declaration in Mark xiii. 32, whatever view one may take of it, is remarkable as the only one in which Christ directly avows his ignorance. It comes in connection with other assertions Avhich imply a very high degree of knowledge. Christ puts himself here not only 1 See p. 264. THE BOOK OF JONAH. 437 above all other men, but above the angels, and makes declarations concerning the future which nothing but supernatural knowledge could warrant. The confession of ignorance, therefore, strikes one with surprise ; and it is no wonder that in various ways commentators have endeavored to explain away the apparent meaning of it. These explanations may be unsatisfactory ; but the more stress one lays upon Christ's declaration of ignorance, the more necessary is it to accept the truth of what he implicitly and explicitly says respecting his altogether unique knowledge. If he is thus trusted, then he must be assumed to have been at least conscious of the limitations of his knowledge. And we cannot easily conceive such a being to have undertaken to make declarations concerning matters of which he knew himself to be ignorant. If he did not know whether the story of Jonah was true or not, it is derogatory to the simplicity and sincerity of his character to suppose him to have intended to vouch for the truthfulness of the story. 2. Again, one may suppose that the passage (Matt. xii. 40) in which Christ is said to have referred to the story of Jonah and the fish is not genuine. This is a view held by many. Stress is laid on the fact that in the parallel passage (Luke xi. 29-32) Christ only speaks of Jonah as preaching to the Ninevites, and makes the " sign " consist only in that. The passage in Matthew's Gospel is therefore supposed not to belong to the original work, but to have crept in as a later interpolation. Textual criticism has shown that interpolations did sometimes take place. It is certainly 2^ossiMe that the verse in question is an unauthentic addition to the genuine Gospel. But it is certain that there is no critical authority for such a conjecture. The passage is not omitted in any of the codices of IMatthew's Gospel. There is no reason for questioning the genuineness and authenticity of the passage except such as would be equally valid in the case of every other reference made by Christ to Old Testament miracles.-' The process of mind which leads to the hypothesis of interpolation is this : First, one doubts the Old Testament story ; next, one dislikes to see Clu-ist apparently endorsing it; and therefore, finally, one searches for evidence that he in fact did not endorse it. If in the search for evidence one should find positive external and internal indications of ^ Sec Mejtr's Commtutary in he. 438 APPENDIX. spuriousness in the passage, such as have weight with those who find no intrinsic objection to it, then the case would be different. But as the case is, it is not a critical investigation, but a critical bias, which finds the evidence of interpolation. 3. Again, it may be supposed that the passage in j\[atthew is genuine, but that the story of Jonah there referred to is not to be understood as authentic history, but rather as a mere alle- gory or parabolic story. This theory may assume different forms. (a) One may conjecture that the story of Jonah is wholly fictitious, and was understood to be fictitious both by Christ and his hearers. In that case the reference to it would be analogous to that which we often make to characters and incidents in well- known works of imagination. But the objections to this view are insuperable. In the first place, there is no reason for sup- posing the story of Jonah to have been regarded by Jesus' contemporaries as a fable or allegory. All the evidence is to the opposite effect.^ In the next place, it is inconceivable that Christ could have spoken as he did about Jonah's preaching at Nineveh, if both he and his hearers had held the whole story to be fictitious. He solemnly declared (Matt. xii. 41 ; Luke xi. 32) that the men of Nineveh had repented at the preaching of Jonah, and would rise up in the judgment and condemn the Jews who had rejected the gospel. If both he and the Jews addressed held the Book of Jonah to be a fictitious work through- out, such a comparison would have been solemn mockery. Fictitious characters will certainly never rise up in the judgment; and the appeal to the Ninevites could have excited in the Jews no other emotion than that of ridicule, if they regarded the story as really fictitious. (b) One may conjecture that the Book of Jonah was regarded both by Christ and his hearers to be in part historical and in part fictitious. In this case the reference to the repentance of the Ninevites may be considered as honestly meant, it being supposed that Jonah really did go and preach to the Ninevites, but that the story of the fish, and other parts of the narrative, belong to the poetic drapery of the book. This hypothesis avoids the second objection to the first form of the allegorical expla- 1 Tobit xiv. 4, 8, and Josephus, Jnt. ix. 10, 2, refer to the story as historic. Davidson [Introduction to the Old 7V*^a!Wi?«^, vol ill. p. 271), while he denies the authenticity of the story, yet says, " It was the current belief of the Jews, however, that the events narrated respecting Jonah were literally true." THE HOOK OF JONAH. 439 nation, but it is still exposed to the other one : There is not the slightest evidence that the Jews held any part of the Book of Jonah to be fictitious. Besides, this hypothesis is exposed to an objection that docs not lie against the other, namely, that it requires us to supi)Ose Jesus to make reference to two incidents in the history of Jonah, — to both in the same way, as if equally authentic,^ — whereas the two are supposed to be as different as fiction and fact. Such a juxtaposition is possible, but exceed- ingly improbable. Furthermore, it ill comports with the general style of Jesus' address to suppose him to call anything a "sign" of his resurrection, which both he and his hearers knew to be a merely fictitious event. (c) It may be thought that Jesus regarded the story of Jonah as fictitious, though his hearers regarded it as true. In this case his reference to the story must be taken as an instance of accommodation, or of argumentuiti ad homineni. So Davidson,'^ who says, "Where he does not assert a thing on his own inde- pendent authority, but merely to confound or confute the Jews of his day, he should not be quoted as a voucher for the his- torical truth of facts or events." That in some cases Jesus may have used this kind of argument may be admitted, though this method of interpretation can be only very sparingl}'- resorted to. In the case before us it is quite unwarrantable. The allu- sion to Jonah was not first made by Jesus' hearers ; his reply, therefore, was not a retort provoked by them. He himself in- troduces the subject, and asserts "on his own independent au- thority " that the prophet preached at Nineveh, and that the 1 Professor Ladd {Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i. p. 67) thinks it "perhaps worth noticing, that the part of the narrative of Jonah which may bclon;; to tlie his- toric basis of his book is assumed in categorical statement (sec Luke xi. 2y-.'?2), while a certain part which plainly [?] belongs to the allegorical and poetic attachment of the book is given by Matthew as alhulcd to merely in a figure of comparison." But surely this is a subtlety that can hardly be expected to carry much weight. So Christ alludes to the brazen serpent (John iii. 14) and to the antediluvians (Matt. xxiv. 37-39) merely in a figure of comparison. But do wc therefore infer that he regarded eitter of the narratives referred to as fictitious ? In a categorical statement one affirms the truth of a thing ; in a comparison one assumes the truth of a thing. 2 Introduction, etc., vol. iii. p. 270. Davidson, however, is disjioscd to admit that some elements of leal history form the basis of the book, though he does not undertake to say what they arc (p. 270). He says [Ihid.) that "Jonah may have preached to the Ninevites," though on the next page he says, " Wc cannot believe that he prophesied against Nineveh ; " and on p.nges 272 sq. he argues that the whole story of Jonah's going to Nineveh is very improbable. 440 APPENDIX. Mnevites repented. If this reference to the story of Jonah does not imply Christ's belief in the historical character of it, then the same can be said, if one will, of every reference which he makes to Old Testament history. When he spoke of the Deluge (Matt. xxiv. 37, 38 ; Luke xvii. 26, 27) ; when he re- ferred to Abraham as the progenitor of the Jewish race (Luke xiii. 16 ; John viii. 37) ; when he called Moses the lawgiver of the Jews (John vii. 19), and replied to the people concerning Moses' law of divorce (Matt. xix. 7, 8) ; when he argued con- cerning the resurrection on the ground of what Moses heard out of the burning bush (Luke xx. 37) ; when he quoted the conduct of David in eating the shew-bread (Matt. xii. 3, 4) ; when he re- ferred to the prophets Isaiah (Matt. xiii. 14, xv. 7) and Daniel (Matt. xxiv. 15) ; when he spoke generally of the prophets (Matt. V. 12 ; Luke xviii. 31, xxiv. 25 ; John vi. 45), or of the law and the prophets (Matt. v. 17, vii. 12, xxii. 40 ; Luke xvi. 16, 29), — in all such cases one may, if he choose, assume that he was only using the argunientiini ad hominem, not meaning to imply that he had any belief in the existence of Abraham, Moses, David, or the prophets, or in the written history of God's dealings with the Jewish race in general. It is obvious that there must be a very strict limit to the ap- plication of this hypothesis of accommodation. If, when Jesus, without direct provocation, introduces a reference to some inci- dent of Old Testament history, speaks of it as if it were a fact, and makes a practical application of it, we may yet assume that he really means only to imply that his hearers thought, though erroneously, that the history was an authentic one, why, then the door is open for unlimited license. If this principle is good for Christ, it must be equally good for his disciples. All Paul's discourse and argumentation about the Mosaic law and Hebrew history may be regarded as not implying that he believed there was anything historically true in what he referred to ; he may have been only using the argumentum ad hominem.. The apos- tles may be supposed to have received esoteric instruction from Jesus in the department of higher criticism, as the result of which they came to hold the Old Testament to be, generally, a collec- tion of myths and fables ; but inasmiich as the common people held the histoi-y in great reverence, they may have been instructed to speak and write as if they themselves shared the popular be- lief. Since the object was to introduce a better religion in the THE BOOK OF JONAH. 441 place of the Jewish superstition, it might have been thought easier to accomplisli the object by treating the current belief as well founded, and the new doctrine as a fulfilment of the okl, than by attacking the okl religion as resting on a false founda- tion. l-5y adopting such a view of the attitude taken by Christ and his disciples towards the Hebrew religion and history, criti- cism gets a very wide field of operation. Any theory of the origin and meaning of the several Old Testament books which the "critical feeling" may select can then be freely promul- gated, and all that, without surrendering faith in the authority of Jesus Christ and his apostles. But this would evidently be going too far. When one has come to look upon the founders of Christianity as such adejjts in simulation, recomiueuding their doctrine as being a new and im- proved edition of the old, when in reality they regarded the old as a fabulous and worthless mass ; in other words, when whole- sale deception is supposed to have been employed in order to secure the adoption of the new religion, one's faith in the immac- ulate truthfulness of this new religion can hardly be very firm. The foregoing may seem to be a caricature of the principle of interpretation in question. Doubtless no one ever carried it to this extreme ; yet, if it can be applied to such a case as Christ's reference to the history of Jonah, it is difficult to see where the limit can be drawn. For, be it remembered, the prime question in this connection is not whether the narrative alluded to is in- trinsically improbable or not ; it is rather a question concerning the manner in which the narrative is alluded to, and the purpose for which the allusion is made. If, whenever one for any reason regards an incident of Old Testament history as legendary or fictitious, he quietly assumes that every reference to it in the New Testament is a case of accommodation to popular prejudice, there is manifestly no method of deciding what the cases of accommodation arc. Each man will have his own standard of application for the convenient hermeneutical rule. But this would be making Christ and the New Testament writers waxen figures capable of being moulded according to the caprice of every critic. What criterion, then, is to be adopted in determining how far the language of Christ or of his apostles is to be explained as an accommodation to prevalent opinions rather than as an expression of their own ? 442 APPENDIX. i. The presumption is against every alleged instance of such accommodation. The burden of proof rests with those who make the allegation. There must be positive evidence adduced that in this case the general rule does not hold. The general rule is that every speaker and writer must be presumed to mean what he seems to mean, and to believe what he seems to affirm. It is only by means of cogent reasons that a particular case can be shown to be an exception to this rule. We are not here dealing with ordinary cases of rhetorical figures. In most instances it lies on the surface whether such a figure is used or not. It is not often difficult to see when a speaker or writer is making use of irony, or paradox, or hyperbole, or metaphor, or metonymy. The connection generally indicates clearly enough whether the language is to be understood in the strictest literalness. The question now before us is whether, when all due allowance has been made for tropes of this sort, the language used expresses the opinions and beliefs of the speaker, or is adopted out of com- pliance with the sentiments of those addressed. This is not one of these figures of speech, whose object is to enliven or intensify an obvious meaning ; it is using language without meaning what the language says. Against interpreting language in this way the presumption is always immensely strong. ii. It is not an instance of accommodation, in the sense here spoken of, when words and phrases are retained in use, after the progress of knowledge has shown that the original use of them rested on a mistake. Thus, when we talk about the sun's rising, or the dew's falling, or about a lunatic or a splenetic person, we do not mean to affirm what the phraseology, literally interpreted, would imply. Though a " lunatic " originally denoted a man struck mad by the moon, we may still use the word in the general sense of " madman," it being understood that the etymological sense of the word has, on account of the progress of scientific knowledge, given place to another. So long as this change of meaning is clearly and generally understood, there is no " accom- modation " in the sense of the word now under consideration. iii. It is a sort of accommodation, when, in cases analogous to the above-mentioned, the original error which gave rise to a cer- tain phraseology still generally or widely prevails, and the few who have attained a more accurate knowledge still use the phraseology, even at the risk of appearing to share the popular error. For example, an astronomer might speak of " fixed stars," THE BOOK OF JONAH. 443 and thus seem to affirm the truth of a common notion that the stars are motionless, though he really believes (^uite otherwise. But this he would do only when the reference to the stars is incidental, and when it would turn him aside from his main point, to correct the vulgar error. Otherwise, if for convenience' sake he still used the current phrase, he would yet take pains to explain that he uses it in a different sense from that which implies that the stars are motionless. It may be an instance of such accommodation, when Christ spoke of demoniacs as if he agreed with the common opinion that the unfortunates so named were really possessed by demons. The mere word ''demoniac" might be used as we now use "luna- tic," to denote a certain well-known disordered state of a person, without committing one's self to any opinion as to the cause of the state. If it were clear, first, that he merely used the term as a current and convenient one, and, next, that he did not unne- cessarily confirm the popular impression by the manner in which he spoke of the persons in question, it might be argued that this was a case in which there was no need of his undertaking to cor- rect an error of the prevalent psychology. There are difficulties in the way of this view, growing out of the fact that, as his lan- guage is reported to us, he appears to endorse the popular opinion by the use of expressions which he would hardly have used, if he had not shared the current notion, and if he was only refraining from a direct attempt to uproot it. If he went out of his way, as it were, to confirm the people in their theory of the cause of the so-called demoniacal possessions, then the only conclusion con- sistent with reverence for his simplicity and veracity is to sup- pose that he agreed with the people in their conception of the cause of the demoniacal phenomena. iv. But it is an essentially different case when Jesus makes reference to historical events and institutions for purposes of illustration or instruction. Here there is no question about mere phraseology which may have originated in a mistaken notion of physical or spiritual causation. It is rather a question of his- torical fact. Any voluntary, unprovoked reference to such facts, or supposed facts, on Jesus' part must have been understood as implying his own belief in their genuineness, unless he in some way guarded or qualified his remarks. When he was accused of casting out demons through Beelzebub (Matt. xii. 24), his reply might not improperly be taken as a case of argumentum ad homi- 444 APPENDIX. nem. The accusation was made by his enemies ; and he takes them on their own ground : " If 1 by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?" (verse 27). This passage by itself might leave us in doubt whether he believed in the existence of Beelzebub or not. But certainly we could not infer from it that he did tiot believe in such a being. We must go to other passages for fuller light. But when Jesus, without being especially challenged, himself introduced references to incidents in Hebrew history, he must be presumed to have referred to them as historic facts. The case is not like that of speakers or writers who illustrate their remarks by reference to characters or inci- dents in classical mythology or in well-known works of fiction. In such cases both the speaker and the hearer understand that the things referred to are fictitious. In referring to Hebrew his- tory, on the contrary, Jesus appealed to what was understood to be real history, and no mythology or fiction. It may, however, be argued that by rhetorical license Christ might have used such a story as that of Jonah by way of illus- tration, even though he himself regarded it as allegorical. The 2oossihillty of this may perhaps be conceded. But against assum- ing it to be a fact must be insisted (1) that, if he did regard the book as allegorical, it would hardly be consistent with his straightforward truthfulness to refer to it as if he thought it to be real history, when he knew that he would be understood to en- dorse it as such; (2) that there is no evidence that he did regard it as allegorical ; and (3) that there is no proof that the author of the book meant it as allegorical. There is, therefore, an im- mense presumption in favor of regarding Christ as implicitly endorsing the truthfulness of the book. Still, it is urged by some that there are clear indications in the Book of Jonah itself that it was not meant to be taken as au- thentic history, but rather as an allegory or parabolic fiction. "A critical examination of the Book of Jonah," it is said,^ " seems to show that it is a composition designed by its author as allegorical and didactic upon a certain basis of historic facts." And this being so, it is asked, " Shall it be claimed that Jesus could not quote from an allegorical book, provided it be proved by criticism that such a book exists 7"^ No, we answer, "pro- vided it be proved." What, then, are the proofs which criticism ^ Ladd, Bocirine of Sacred Scrijdure, vol. i. ji. 67. a Ibid., p. 68. TIIK BOOK OF JONAH. 445 brings, that the book was not intended to be understood as au- thentic history ? They are such as these : The strange character and conduct of Jonah himself, in trying to flee from Jehovah, and in repining at the non-fulfilment of his prophecy; the im- probability of a solitary Hebrew prophet making the long and toilsome journey to Nineveh ; the extraordinary effects attributed to his preaching; the lack of details in the account of Nineveh and its king; the story of the miraculous preservati(!n through the lish.^ The argument, in short, is that the story is intrinsi- cally improbable, that it is therefore not real history, and was not intended to be understood as history. Now the first reflection which this argument suggests is that the author of the book seems to have made a bad failure, if his intention was to be understood as writing allegory. To be sure, Davidson tells us,'^ " The story speaks for itself ; and he who will not see the fabulous in its character and form may remain igno- rant." Yet the fact is that the world generally has failed to see what is here declared to be so patent. Davidson admits ^ that the Jews believed the events narrated respecting Jonah to be lit- erally true. It certainly is unfortunate that the author of the book succeeded so poorly in making his intention clear. A second reflection suggested by the argument is that the same considerations which are urged to prove the book to be unhis- torical bear also against the assumption that its object is didac- tic. Yet these two propositions are usually conjoined. But a fictitious narrative, strictly speaking, teaches nothing at all. The most impressive teaching is the narrative of instructive facts.* Fiction may indeed be designed to convey a moral lesson, but it can do so only in so far as it is true to nature, tliat is, in so far as it is supposed to be like that which really does liappen. A nar- rative may be judged to be fictitious because of the inherent im- probability of the events narrated, as, for example, in the case of the stories of Jules Verne. But in proportion to the extrava- gance and incredibility of the narrative it must necessarily fail to instruct. This self-contradiction of the critics in their judg- 1 These are the points urpcd by Davidson, Introdiictiou, etc., pp. 272 sqq. The argument for an allegorical intciTirctation of the book is presented in greater detail and Willi much force by Dr. C. H. II. AV right, Exegetical Studies, pp. 34 sqq. 2 Ibid., p. 280. 8 Ibid., p. 271. * Cf. V. Watson, T/ie Law and the Prophets (Ilulsean Lectures for 1882), p. 52. 446 APPENDIX. merit of the Book of Jonah is very obvious. The book is conjec- tured, for example, to have been composed in order to justify God for not having fulfilled the prophecies against the heathen,^ or to have been written after the time of Ezra, as a protest against the " particularism " of the priestly party .^ Now, even if this were admitted to be true (though there is not a particle of evidence of it), still the question arises. How did the writer expect to ac- complish his object ? If his contemporaries cherished narrow conceptions concerning God's feelings and purposes towards the heathen, how did he expect to correct such conceptions by 2^, fic- titious story about the prophet Jonah's preaching to the Nine- vites ? His narrow-minded contemporaries might well have re- torted : " If you can furnish no better proof of your proposition than a confessedly false story, then you could not more effect- ually proclaim the weakness of j^our doctrine." And if the writer, in order to prove his pious doctrine, not only invented his facts, but invented especially extravagant and incredible facts, a bad case would have been made only so much the worse. No ; an erroneous conception of the character of God could have been corrected by such a story only in case the story had been supposed to be true.^ This is a proposition whose correctness is especially obvious with reference to attempts to alter mrrent notions. A fictitious work may be able to illustrate and enforce moral notions already prevalent ; but it would be absurd to en- 1 Hitzig, Die zwolf kleinen Propheten, p. 161. 2 Kuenen, Religion of Israel, vol. ii. p. 242 ; Davidson, /. c, p. 277. Numberless other more or less fantastic interpretations have been propounded, which may be found in Maurer's Commentarius. Cf. Delitzsch, Etwas uber das Buck Jona, in Rudclbach und Guerickc's Zeitsrhrift fiir die gesammte Lidherische Theohigie, 1840. ^ Professor Briggs, however {Biblical Study, pp. 238, 239), speaking of the books of Esther and Jonah, says, " The model of patriotic devotion, the lesson of the univer- sality of divine providence and grace, would be still as forcible, and the gain would be at least equal to the loss, if they were to be regarded as inspired ideals rather than in- spired statements of the real." No doubt fictitious narratives may powerfully excite (he moral and religious feelings, when those feelings already exist. But a disbelieved or doubted truth cannot be made an undoubted truth by means of fiction. If, for example, Cfesar Borgia is wrongly held to have been a moral monster, the error may be corrected, and the public opinion altered, by a historical investigation oi facts. But an avowed fiction, which should portray him as a model of virtue, would leave his reputation just where it is. But even with reference to motives and emotions and convictions already existent, the proposition of Professor Briggs cannot be maintained. Would ^fclitious Paul, or Huss, or Wilberforce make the same impression ou the world as the real man ? THE BOOK OF JONAH. 447 deavor to reform the moral or religious sentiments of a peujjlc by a fiction confessed to be fiction. If, for example, the Book of Deuteronomy was composed in the reign of Josiah, and if its object was to secure the enforcement of certain new political and ceremonial regulations, and if, further, the legislative book was fictitiously ascribed to Moses, the object of this fictitious ascrip- tion must have been defeated, if it had been understood to be fictitious. The people might have stood in awe of the real Moses whose law was reported to have been brought to light; but if they had been told that the law did not really emanate from Moses, but only from somebody who thought it would have been well if Moses had promulgated it, and who therefore called it the law of Moses, it is manifest that such a trick would have met with well-merited ridicule ; it would be like nothing else so much as Snug the joiner's careful explanation that, in acting the part of a lion, he was really not a lion at all. The theory of Kuenen, Wellhausen, and their adherents, that religious reforms were brought about by the introduction of supposititious books, is transparently foolish, unless it is meant that by means of these books the people were successfully deceived. And the same must be said respecting the Book of Jonah, If its author had such a didactic purpose as is above spoken of, he must have meant to be understood as writing a true history; else he would have defeated his own purpose. The theory of a didactic purpose, and the theory that the book is a pure and acknowledged fiction, are, therefore, destructive of each other. We must adopt one of the three views : either that the author had a moral aim and accomplished it by an in- tentional deception ; or that he had no moral aim, but was amus- ing himself by a flight of his fancy ; or, finally, that he had a moral aim which he accomplished by telling a narrative which is substantially true. Substantially true, we say. For it may well be that a construc- tive fancy worked up the facts into the foim which they have. As in the prologue of the Book of Job, the incidents are woven together in a poetic way ; there is a crowding together of remark- able things such as in real life seems improbable. There is plausibility in the hypothesis that the author used a certain art in dressing up the story of the prophet's experiences. But, after all, the intrinsically most improbable thing in the book is just that which Christ most directly attests, namely, the mission of a 448 APPENDIX. Hebrew prophet to a great heathen city. It is contrary to all analogy ; yet it is the one leading thought of the book. The book opens with Jehovah's command to Jonah to go to Nineveh ; it is made up of incidents connected with the prophet's attempt to evade the command, and with his final execution of it ; it ends with Jehovah's lesson to the repining prophet founded on his treatment of the repentant city. It is, therefore, consistent when critics like Hitzig^ pronounce this feature of the book purely fictitious. The miraculous incidents in the history are not with- out parallel in other parts of the Old Testament; the really strange and seemingly improbable thing is this sending of a lone man to an immense foreign city with a threatening message. When, therefore, less radical critics admit that Jonah's preach- ing in Nineveh and the effects of his preaching " may belong to the historic basis of his book," ^ the chief intrinsic improbability of the narrative is conceded not to be insuperable. Why, then, should we question the authenticity of the details ? So strange a mission, it might be expected, would have strange accompani- ments. Yet, strictly speaking, there is only one outright miracle reported, namely, that concerning the fish. If this miracle gives offense, it must be either because any miracle is offensive, or else because there is something pecuUarlij offensive in this miracle. But as Prof. R. A. Bedford ^ well remarks, " If Jonah was to be preserved alive, when cast out of the vessel into a raging sea, what more fitting form of the miracle can we imagine than that he should be cast out by a great fish on the neighboring shore ? " At all events, if the story of the fish, as a fiction, could serve any useful purpose, then, as a fact, it must have served that purpose still better. Undoubtedly the author did design to convey cer- tain lessons by the story of Jonah. It teaches that God's pater- nal government is not confined to the Jews, but extends to the Gentiles as well ; that it is futile to try to escape from the divine authority ; that God can deliver one from the extremest peril ; that he can use even unwilling instruments for the accomplish- ment of his great ends ; that the granting of mercy to the peni- tent is better than to gratify the pride of reputation. These truths are taught ; for they lie in the things that are written. They are not taught in the form of didactic propositions ; but they 1 Die zwolf kleinen Prophe(en, p. 158. 2 Ladd, Sacred Scripfiire, p. 67. ^ Studies in the Book of Jonah, p. 24. An excellent monograph. THE BOOK OF JONAH. 449 are implied in the story, especially if the story is true. It is a singular notion of some men, that if a book appears to contain a moral; it must needs be fictitious. This notion is carried so far that the same narrative, when regarded as a fiction, is pronounced more instructive than when regarded as a true history. Thus Kuenen remarks, concerning the Book of Jonah, " The whole of this writing — which, interpreted historically, so justly gives offense — breathes a spirit of benevolence and universal humanity which is very attractive." ^ That is, if God had realli/ by his providence brought about such occurrences as are narrated in the book, it would have been justly offensive ; but if the occurrences are only imagined to have taken place, they convey a most at- tractive lesson ! In the name of common sense and right reason we must protest against this absurd and preposterous conception of things. If Biblical history is to be accounted authentic just in proportion as it conveys no determinable lesson,^ then there is not only an end of the doctrine that God has revealed himself in and through history, but there is an end of all solid foundation of religious truth and Biblical science. We are introduced into a world in which worth and truth have no relation to each other, in which fiction is more instructive than fact, and imagination more to be trusted than experience. No wonder that, with such a principle for a guide, the critics find the Bible abounding in Tendenzschriften, — writings whose aim is to establish a theory of theology or of history rather than to set forth the truth. No wonder that, with such a keen appreciation of the value of the imagination in the production of didactic fiction, they should make diligent use of their own imagination in assigning author- ship, dates, and fictitiousness to the books of the Bible. In the third place, we remark concerning the allegorical inter- pretation of the Book of Jonah, that it is opposed to the healthy tendencies of Biblical exegesis. The drift among scholars of all classes is decidedly against the theory of allegory in the inter- pretation of the Bible. Even the one book (Song of Solomon) ^ ^ Heligion of Israel, vol. ii. p. 244. 2 A view naively expressed by Hitzipr {Geschichte des Folkcs Tsrael, vol. i. p. 47), when, coneeniinji the incident narrated in Gen. xxxv. 22, he observes that it is to be regarded as " an actual event, because not adapted to have reference to the nation as a whole, nor to involve any other far-reaching significance " ! * The allegorical interpretation of this book has much more to say for itself than that of the Book of Jonah. (1) It is poetry, making no pretense to being history. (2) There are suggestions of such an interpretation in the frequent representations of 29 450 APPENDIX. which has longest resisted this tendency is now, even by many, if not by most, orthodox interpreters, regarded as not having been composed as an allegory conveying an occult meaning concern- ing the Divine love, or the relation between the Messiah and his Church. It is remarkable that orthodox men should nowadays be inclined to resort to this method of interpretation in the case of the Book of Jonah, which has usually been accepted as a statement of historic fact. Now the theory of allegory is never plausible unless there is some positive evidence, internal or external, that the author of the work in question designed it to be understood as an allegory. In the case of the Book of Jonah all the positive evidence we have points to its being in- tended and understood as history. The mention of a prophet Jonah the son of Amittai in 2 Kings xiv. 25, the allusions in To- bit and Josephusto Jonah's going to Nineveh, the general belief of the Jews that the story was an account of facts, and Jesus' refer- ence to the repentance of the Ninevites, are the chief items of external evidence ; and they all point to the historical character of the book. And as to internal evidence, if the one or two mi- raculous incidents in it are to be regarded as indicating its allegor- ical character, then by parity of reasoning nearly every historical book of the Bible must come into the same category. If, further, the moral and spiritual suggestions of the story are to be re- garded as evidence that it is allegorical, then for a like reason all of the Bible history which is morally instructive is to be esteemed not really history, but only religious instruction in parabolic form. So long as no more cogent reasons than these can be given for the notion that the book was meant as allegorical, it is a misnomer to speak of the notion as the result of "criticism," unless by this term is meant subjective fancy or unfounded conjecture. The case then is this : The Book of Jonah purports to be a veritable history. It was, according to all the evidence before us, so regarded by the Jews of the time of Christ. There is no proof that it was originally designed, or has generally been understood, to be anything else. Jesus confessedly refers to the central feature of it (Jonah's mission to Nineveh) as a historical fact. In immediate connection with this reference he refers also to the account of the miraculous preservation of the prophet. There is not the slightest internal evidence for thinking that he regarded God as being the husband of his chosen people. (3) The allegorical iuterpretatiou has been the prevalent one amongst both Jewish and Christian scholars. THE BOOK OF JONAH. 451 this as less a fact than the other. The question, then, recurs, Does Christ's reference to the story of Jonah imply that he regarded it as liistorical ? And the answer can no longer be doubtful. If there were evidence (as there is not) that the story was designed by the author to be understood, and generally was understood, as an allegory ; or even if there were evidence (as tliere is not) that Christ regarded the story as allegorical, while his hearers did not, then it might be admitted that his reference to it is no authentication of the miraculous event. But in default of this evidence the conclusion is unavoidable that he spoke of the event as a fact. He, no doubt, "spoke in perfect freedom from the ties of mere criticism." ^ This may mean, however, not only that he refrained in popular discourse from uttering his critical judgment respecting the allegorical character of the Book of Jonah, but that lie was quite indifferent to the opinions which after eighteen centuries certain critics would propound concerning it. If it is true that "the commentator may not help out his dulness by the support of Christ's infallible authority," ^ it is no less true that the critic may not help out his acuteness by the support of Christ's imaginary authority. ^ Ladd, Sacred Scripture, p. 68. ^ Idid. TOPICAL INDEX. Page Absolute aud Relative, the 415 aqq. Absoluteness of God aud persouality 54, 412 aqq. Acceleration theory of miracles 104 nq. Accommodation in revelation 345 sq., 439 sqq. Adam and Eve, the story of 265 Agnostic view of miracles 131 sqq. Agnosticism aud theism 415, 42G sqq. Allegorical interpretations 266 sqq., 438 sqq., 449 sq. Anthropomorphism 53, 397 sqq. Apocrypha, the 290 Apostolic authority 308 sqq., 325 inspiration 305 sqq., 321 Arnold, Matthew, on miracles 157 sqq. Atheism and morality 39 sqq. genei'al consequences of 30 sqq. not a mere negation 30 Authority of the Bible 318 sqq. Authorship of Old Testament Books, Christ's testimony on 274 Berkeley on the cognition of other persons 391 sq. John Fiske on 402 Beyschlag on miracles 105 .si/., 429 59(7. Bible, autliority of 318 sqq., 329 sqq. infallibility of 319, 342, 347 and the "Word of God" 367 Bruce, Prof. A. B., on evidential value of miracles 186 sq. Brutes and men, difference between 17 Canon, the Biblical 290, 336, 363 sqq. Causation, Berkeley on 404 Fiske on 403 sq.., 412 sq. Hume on 98 sq., 412 Christ, authority of 59 sq., 93 sqq., 141 sqq., 210 sq., 333 as a leader 94 sy. his relation to miracles 157, 160, 179 577., 186, 221 his moral perfection 134, 142, 153 sq., 182, 216 his miraculous power 179 sqq. his attitude towards the Old Testament . . 231 sqq., 263, 296, 436 sqq. 454 TOPICAL INDEX. Page Christ, his resurrection 196 sqq. his uuiqueness 140 5^., 168, 183, 210 55. various views of character of 156 Christian experience and the Bible 327 337 Christianity, alleged Aryan origin of 229 sqq. as a moral power 192 sqq. skeptical view of origin of 168 sqq. presumption in favor of 360 a revelation 324,, 352 Church and tlie Canon, tlie 363 sqq. Cognition, individual, precedes instruction 10 sqq. of "liud 10 sq., 391 Common sense, the Christian 337 sqq. Conscience, the aboriginal 75 sqq. and theism 39 evolutionary theory of 40 ,?o. Consciousness, the Christian 3I7 319 the individual and the common 389 sqq. Maudsley on the validity of 389 sqq. and the divine personality 419 Cosmic Philosophy, the 397 sqq. Cosmological argument, the 53 Creation, story of the 265 sqq., 272 sqq. Credulity of critics 208 Criticism, Biblical, right of 330, 355 of miracle stories 220 iq. affected by prepossessions 155 sqq., 360 sqq. the higher 374 sqq. limitations of 363 sqq., 370 sqq. Darwiniauism 73 Deism, weakness of 62 Demoniacs 443 Dependence, feeling of 22, 27 Design, instinctive demand for 49, 56 sq. Deuteronomy, critical views of 375 sqq., 447 Discrepancies in the Bible 331, 339 sqq. Double sense of Scripture 241 Duty, sense of 39 s^. Ecclesiastes, authorship of 374 sq. Education, importance of, in formation of opinion . . . . 5, 39, 358 sq. Empiricism 402 sq. Ephesians, Epistle to the, and the higher criticism 372 sq. Error, significance of the fact of 12, 34, 410 Essential and non-essential in tlie Bible 337 sqq. Evidences of Christianity now and at first 164 sqq. Evil, moral, Mr. Royce on 35 Evolution, eternal series of 48 57. TOPICAL INDEX. 455 Page Evolutiuii pliilosopliy, tlie 399 .v':ii-^j